As they approached the new position, they slowed, alert for any wires or booby traps. Ice was on point this time; the trip flare had rattled Mirza’s confidence. The veteran PRIMAL operative checked for trip mines. Nothing says you’re not welcome like having your legs blown off, he thought. Nearing the cliff’s edge, Ice slid forward on his stomach, wedging himself between two rocks. In front of him the slope dropped away sharply, running down towards the area he’d assessed as the probable location of the dig site.
Through his thermal scope he could only make out a number of small hot spots, not as many as he expected. He pressed the backlight on his iPRIMAL, double-checking the grid coordinates Chua had given them. It was definitely the right spot. Ice carefully looked through his night scope again, zooming in closer, then realized the Taliban were using counter-surveillance measures. The entire work site was shrouded in camouflage nets. He had never seen nets like these. They blocked the thermal signatures. There was no way the Pain Train would have been able to precisely locate the mouth of the dig site.
He switched his scope over to night vision mode, looking for any light sources. Scanning back and forth across the dark shapes of the nets, a tiny flash of light at the edge of the camp caught his eye. He focused on the area. A few seconds later he saw a lone figure walking towards the cliff at the side of the camp. There it was again. As the figure disappeared into the cliff, Ice glimpsed an ever so slight exposure of light. It looked as if someone had a lantern behind a curtain and every so often the curtain moved, allowing some light to escape.
Figuring the mouth of the shaft was shrouded with blackout curtains, he used the built-in laser-rangefinder on the scope to get an accurate coordinate, then transmitted it to Mitch.
The Pain Train’s weapons officer was waiting by the radio. He responded immediately. “Job well done, Ice. Now get the hell out of there.”
“OK. We’re going to push north. I’ll report back in a couple of hours. Ice out.”
He switched back to Mirza. “We need to go, buddy.”
“Steady, Ice, we’ve got company,” Mirza replied. “Two hundred meters, top of the cliff, one Talib.”
Mirza rolled on to his side, looking back up the hill. The sky had started to glow, and in the pre-dawn light he could just make out the gray figure standing at the crest of the feature. Without a doubt it was one of the men from the missile site.
“Stay low,” Ice instructed. “We’ll wait it out.”
While Mirza watched the single Afghan, Ice turned his attention back towards the extraction site. The faint glow on the horizon had spread throughout the camp. He unclipped the night vision device from the front of his sniper scope and slid it into a pouch before looking over the camp through the normal optics. There was very little movement and he realized most of the men would be digging deep within the mountain. He moved the scope further up towards the position they had abandoned and saw a line of men in robes spread out across the slope. “Mirza, there’s more of them. Below us.”
“Yes, I can see them.” Mirza sounded strangely calm. “I’ll drop the Talib on the ridgeline and we can withdraw straight over the crest.”
“A good plan. Do it.”
Mirza rose to his knee and aimed his suppressed rifle up the hill. He squeezed the trigger, the rifle hissed, and the target toppled forward. As the corpse hit the ground, his finger jarred the trigger of his weapon. In the still morning air the shot echoed off the cliffs like a thunderclap.
The Taliban moving below them immediately looked up. Their yells filled the air as they moved forward in a line, weapons ready. It would only take them minutes to be on top of the PRIMAL operatives.
Both men knew they could never make the ridgeline before being engaged. At this distance they needed to maintain the element of surprise. They both unslung their packs, calmly removing spare magazines and white phosphorus grenades. Lying side by side, they waited, weapons trained on the approaching fighters.
The line of Taliban climbed swiftly. There were almost thirty of them covering a frontage of a hundred meters. Their left flank would hit the pair first and initially only a handful of the Afghans would be able to engage. They fired when the line was only fifty meters out. At that range they couldn’t miss. The Taliban toppled over like bowling pins. The rest of them reacted quickly, diving to the ground and returning fire.
Rounds cracked above their heads as Mirza and Ice crouched behind the cover of the rocky outcrop. They didn’t speak; both of them knew what needed to be done. They threw four phosphorus grenades when the Taliban were about thirty meters away.
The grenades exploded with a dull thud, bursting into a thick cloud of smoke, spreading incandescent phosphorus across the Taliban fighters. Mirza led as they sprinted up the hill, away from the screams of the burning men and the stench of scorched flesh. Rounds skipped off the rocks around them as the surviving Taliban fired blindly through the billowing white smoke.
As Mirza crested the hill, he glanced back. Ice was right behind him. He pushed on, scrambling over the ridgeline and down into a steep gully. He looked back again, pausing. Ice was falling behind.
“Ice, you OK?” Mirza yelled out.
“Yeah,” the big man grunted, short of breath. The Taliban were still following, moving around the burning smoke screen, firing blindly. It wouldn’t take long for them to crest the ridgeline and get visual on the fleeing PRIMAL operatives. They needed to be well out of range by then.
Ice was still moving slowly, so Mirza knelt, waiting. As the former Marine got closer, reality dawned on him. He caught Ice as he stumbled forward, pulling him in behind a large rock. Mirza’s face was emotionless as he spotted the hole in the other man’s assault vest. He lifted it slightly, sliding his fingers under the clothing. The wound was bleeding heavily. A round had punched through the lower back just to the right of the spine. There was no exit wound.
Guilt swept over Mirza, as it was his mistake that had put them in peril. “Lie still, big man,” he whispered. Pulling a first aid kit from his vest he plugged the bleeding hole with a wound sealant. He hoped it was enough; if the bullet had hit any vital organs, there wasn’t much he could do. Ice didn’t say anything as Mirza worked frantically, wrapping his torso in a bandage.
Mirza glanced back. He could see the Taliban were closing in, moving cautiously over the crest just a few hundred meters away. He took Ice’s assault rifle and placed it on the ground, scraping out the sand from under it. He wedged another grenade under it. Then he slung his own rifle, heaved the bigger man onto his shoulder and started off down the gully, moving as quickly as he could on the steep rocky ground, struggling with Ice’s weight.
“Mitch! Mitch!” he screamed into his throat mike, lungs heaving.
“Mitch here. What’s going on, Mirza. Calm down. Talk to me.”
Mirza was choked up with emotion. “Ice... Ice’s been hit.”
There was silence on the other end of the radio.
“How bad, Mirza? How bad?” Mitch asked calmly.
“He’s gut-shot. I’m carrying him.”
Mitch could hear gunshots through the radio over Mirza’s heavy breathing. “You in contact?”
Mirza didn’t get a chance to reply. He slid on the loose ground, falling heavily and dropping Ice from his shoulder. He realized he wouldn’t be able to outrun the Taliban like this. Lifting his sniper rifle to his shoulder, he looked back up the mountain through the optics. A plume of white phosphorus smoke billowed up from where he had booby-trapped Ice’s rifle, two hundred meters away, but it didn’t stop the Taliban. Mirza knew he had to slow them down. He aimed quickly and fired a shot at the magnified image of one of the Taliban fighters.
“Mirza,” Ice croaked. “Mirza.”
He fired another shot before replying, “Don’t talk. Conserve your energy.”
Ice sat up slowly. “Mirza, you have to go.”
Mirza fired another shot before crouching down next to the veteran PRIMAL operative. “No! No, I’m not leavi
ng you here.”
“Buddy, you have to go.” Ice coughed, blood dribbling from his lips, his chiseled features contorted in pain. “One of us can still get out of here,” he said slowly, “and it’s not going to be me.”
Mirza nodded grimly as he placed a Claymore directional mine on the American’s chest. Tears welled in his eyes as he stripped the last few grenades from their vests, placing them in the empty Claymore satchel. He wrapped the bag’s long strap around the mine and connected the firing device.
“I’ll never forget this, Ice. You’re the bravest man I know.” Mirza choked out his words as he grasped the other man’s hand.
“Just make sure you keep Bishop out of trouble, buddy.” Blood bubbled from Ice’s lips as he gestured urgently. “Go! Get the fuck out of here.”
The Indian hestitated.
“I said get the fuck out of here. Go!” He coughed and blood streamed down his chin.
Mirza turned and left Ice lying there holding the Claymore mine and bag of grenades. He didn’t look back, running wildly down the slope, sliding on the loose dirt, smashing through the dry shrubs. Heavy thorns grabbed at his clothing and flesh, tearing like the claws of a wild animal. Pain lashed his legs but he ran on, unaware of the Taliban bullets cracking around him. He only slowed when an explosion detonated behind him. His chest tightened, despair almost overwhelmed him, and he knew he was alone.
Chapter 52
The Bunker
“Sentinel is down, people,” the female voice announced as the image on the central screen pitched rapidly towards the ground and disappeared. The little unmanned aircraft had finally run out of fuel after an epic twelve hours on target.
“How long until the Pain Train’s on-station?” Vance asked.
“Eighty minutes, sir,” the blonde watchkeeper replied.
“Do we have comms with Ice and Mirza?”
“No, their radio has cut out.”
“Goddamn it. You mean to tell me we have no situational awareness?”
“That’s correct, sir.”
“Fuck!” Vance slammed his fist down on the arm of his chair.
From the moment Mirza had tripped the flare, Sentinel had been watching over the pair, giving PRIMAL headquarters a bird’s eye view of their movements. Ice had already provided the exact coordinates of the tunnel entrance. The plan was to follow their withdrawal, provide close air support, using the Pain Train if required, and extract them.
Vance paced the room. Things were not going to plan. Ice and Mirza were compromised, they had lost communications, and repairs to the Pain Train were taking considerably longer than anticipated.
“Somebody get me a fucking tech,” Vance growled.
A long-haired ELINT technician was on the operations floor within seconds.
“What’s up, sir?” he asked.
“We just lost Sentinel, I’ve got a team doing E and E, I need visual ASAP and the Pain Train is still down. What can you do?” Vance asked.
“Without commandeering a real-time satellite, not much, sir.” The tech pushed his glasses up his nose, shrugging.
“How long will that take?” Vance asked from his command chair.
The man looked at him dumbfounded. “Shit, sir, you telling me you want me to hack a Genesis satellite?”
“Listen, buddy, the name means nothing to me. I want real-time visual over our guys and I want it yesterday. I don’t give a flying fuck how you do it, just make it happen.”
The scowl on Vance’s face was all the confirmation the man needed.
“I’ll see what I can do, boss,” he replied, rushing back into the ELINT room.
Vance slumped back in the command chair; the boys on the ground were in real trouble and he felt helpless. What they needed was air support. He looked up at the Pain Train’s icon on the status board. It was still red.
The door to the Bunker hissed open and Chen Chua burst into the room. “Vance! I’ve worked through the data Bishop sent through,” Chua said, waving a manila folder around like it was a Polaroid picture.
The PRIMAL boss spun in his chair. “Goddamnit, Chua, I’ve got men in contact. I don’t need any more bad news from James fucking Bond,” Vance snapped.
“You’re going to want to see this,” the Intelligence Officer said as he raced across the operations floor into the Bunker’s conference room.
Vance rose out of his chair and followed him in.
Chua started talking immediately. “I just finished going over the information Bishop’s team pulled off Dostiger’s PC. They hit the jackpot, and I mean ‘The Jackpot’.” He opened the manila folder, pulling out a number of printed documents. “I don’t want to bore you with the details but our original assessment was correct. I can confirm that Dostiger is in fact attempting to recover a nerve agent from the site in Afghanistan.”
Vance interrupted, “Slow the fuck down, man. A nerve agent? What, like VX or Sarin?”
Chua caught his breath. “Much, much worse. It’s an experimental weapon called a Novichok agent. This stuff is seriously nasty, eight to ten times more lethal than VX, and doesn’t have any of its shortcomings. It’s persistent, heat resistant, doesn’t dissolve in water, and it eats through protective equipment. In the hands of the Revolutionary Guards this weapon has the potential to kill thousands.” He held up a printed sheet. “This is a report from the Russian testing facility that’s buried in that mountain. They killed every test subject, over a hundred of them—with one hundred percent lethality! If this gets out—Vance, it’s going to kill more people than the plague.”
Vance’s brow furrowed as he ran his eye over one of the printed datasheets. “Chua, if they get this shit above ground and we hit ‘em, ain’t it gonna spread?”
“That’s right. We need to smash the tunnel entrance and bury it deep. If it gets above ground, explosives are only going to disperse it. If even a small amount of this chemical gets into the waterways, you can kiss every village from here to the Helmand river goodbye. The question is will the Pain Train get there in time?”
“We don’t have visual on the site.”
“So we have no idea what stage the excavation’s at?” Chua questioned.
“Nope, we fucking do not. We’re working on a non-air breathing solution but right now we’re blinder than Stevie Wonder.”
“Shit predicament.”
“Right, Chen. They move the package and we are indeed up shit creek.” The PRIMAL commander paused. “If they get this Novochick crap out of the ground, where they gonna take it?”
“Novichok,” Chua corrected.
“Whatever. Where on this goddamned planet are they gonna take it? Iran?”
“No, first it’s going to the Ukraine. That’s the other thing we learnt from Dostiger’s files. The plan is to get the agent to Odessa, weaponize it, and then deliver it to the Guards.”
“So the IRGC want a working device,” Vance stated.
“It sure looks that way. My assessment is Dostiger will deliver the agent in a tactical missile. The Guards can then use their proxies in Hezbollah to launch it at Israel,” Chua added.
“Well, if we don’t bury this shit in the ‘ghan, then we need to get Bishop and his boys down to Odessa ASAP. Our last chance is to grab it there.”
“I agree. I’ve already got Ivan moving south to Odessa.”
“OK. Good.” Vance ran his hands over his bald head, trying to process everything. “But now that Bishop’s shot the shit out of the nightclub, how do we know Dostiger’s not going to change his plans?”
“Bishop has a source that confirmed Dostiger has already gone south,” Chua explained.
“A source? Where the hell from?” Vance queried.
“I’m not sure, Vance. I do know he has the MOIS agent with him.”
“Not that fucking Iranian wench! What, are they working together now?”
“He didn’t make it clear in his email. We’re long due for his next VIDCON, so I’ll clarify that when we speak.”
�
��He’s sending us emails now, is he?” Vance pointed at Chua. “Right, you and I are gonna have a talk with Bishop. Pull him up on the VIDCON. Let’s find out what the fuck he’s up to, see if he can recover from the debacle in Kiev.”
Chua spoke as he used a remote to flick through the menus on the LCD screen. “You should take it easy on Bishop. He’s had a rough run but his team have come through with the goods. You snap at him and he’ll get his back up. So play nice, OK?”
“What, are you mother fucking Teresa all of a sudden? You never stick up for him. You told him not to meet with Dostiger, remember?”
“I know, I know, but we need to keep him on side. The situation is still workable and Bishop’s all we got right now.”
“Yeah, I guess it could be worse. I mean at least Bishop hasn’t managed to nuke Kiev yet.”
Chua laughed as he activated the secure conference call system, entering Bishop’s number. The phone rang twice before establishing a secure link.
“Fischer here, wait up.” Bishop used his cover name, indicating he wasn’t alone. There was a slight pause before he spoke again. “Bishop here, go ahead.”
“Bish, it’s Vance and Chua. What’s happening?” Vance asked.
“Yeah, it’s all good. Had a few hours sleep. I’ve been waiting for your call.”
“All good?” Vance said. “I just read your report and it didn’t look ‘all good’. Before this mission I seem to remember saying something about keeping a low profile?”
Bishop’s image nodded on the big LCD screen. “But we’re in the clear now. No casualties, and we got Dostiger’s files.” He had been expecting Vance to lose his shit and was surprised he was so calm.
“OK. Well, Chua has been working through the data your boys collected.”
“Anything good?”
Chua chimed in. “Gold mine, Aden, absolute gold mine. It confirmed that Dostiger is after a nerve agent and that he’s planning to move it from Afghanistan to Odessa.”
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