The attack was a moderate one due to the limited ammunition. It was only a persuader. Sufficient for the squadron’s purpose, which was twofold. The first aim was to give the Taliban the impression that a large and invasive attack from the river was commencing on their position. The second was to drive them out of the front of the buildings onto the plain the other side. The teams weren’t carrying enough ammunition to engage the Taliban, whose numbers were greater than their own, in an extended gunfight. They left that specific task to a huge American gunship. An AC-130 ground-attack aircraft.
Spooky.
Stratton didn’t fire his weapon, content to observe. There were enough guns thumping away at the complex. He saw a dark object in the sky, six or seven hundred metres above ground and on a heading that paralleled the river towards them. It took shape quickly. He couldn’t hear its turboprops above the cacophony of guns and rocket fire.
Spooky came in at around 300 mph, dropping all the time as it approached the impact zone. Spooky’s sensors combined televisual, radar and infrared inputs to provide a broad, high-intensity visual capability at any time of day or night and virtually any poor weather conditions. Its main armaments were on the left side of the fuselage, to allow for a concentration of firepower.
Flying on a line that would take it across the squadron’s front and beyond the complex, the gunship could suddenly be heard. Its 40mm Bofors cannon opened up. The distinct staccato-like sound dominated the contact as the devastating rounds the size of salt cellars spat into targets at the front of the buildings out of view from the river. Stratton couldn’t distinguish the explosions above everything else but before long he saw thick plumes of smoke begin to rise into the sky, coming from, he assumed, the pick-up car park on the other side of the complex.
Spooky’s 105mm howitzer cannon opened up next, the first salvo striking the generator housing. Every light in the complex went out. Stratton knew the plan called for the destruction of all the buildings except the largest one on the east side. The Taliban radio, phone and microwave transmissions had all been concentrated in that structure, identifying it as the operations room. They had been clearly instructed not to touch it with anything other than small arms gunfire. Only targets fleeing the operations room could be targeted, not the structure itself.
Spooky gained height as it made a long turn out across the river and down the side of the mountain, keeping the complex on its left. The pilot was sticking to the same briefing as Stratton. Like the concentration of fire from the riverbank, it was intended to drive the Taliban to break from the buildings in the opposite direction to the river. No one wanted a head-on fight. Spooky was doing its job.
The RAF Raptor reported dozens of men fleeing from the buildings and heading into the valley. From its vantage point, it must have looked like rats deserting a burning barn.
Wheeland watched it all with great interest. ‘When do you want to advance, Stratton?’ he shouted above a rattling machine gun a few metres from him.
Stratton sighed to himself. With a task like this the bottom line was, for Stratton at least, zero casualties. In fact, zero injuries. Nothing about Afghanistan was worth getting hurt for, let alone dying for. In the early days it had been fun. Fresh. A new enemy. New kit to try out. New toys to play with. New terrain. The reasons he, and people like him, joined the military. Now the conflict was old. The equipment was getting old. It was mundane. Bombs and ambushes. That’s all it was now. He wasn’t about to let Wheeland put any of his men at risk.
‘Captain Burns will give the advance,’ he said.
‘The way I understand it, he’ll pretty much do whatever you say,’ Wheeland countered.
Stratton knew the more passes Spooky made the more damage it was doing, the more Taliban it killed and the safer the assault would be for the men. Time was comfortably on their side. He suspected the American was worried that the longer they took to get going, the more time the enemy had to alter or destroy whatever it was he wanted. If that was so, it was the price Wheeland was paying for keeping everything to himself. Another minute wasn’t going to hurt.
‘Here she comes again,’ Jones said.
They all looked towards the gunship as it came in for another run. Its 40mm opened up again and the complex appeared to shudder as dozens of rounds hit it. The howitzer blew something else to bits, out of sight to the teams on the riverbank.
Burns walked over to Stratton at a brisk pace. ‘Raptor reports approximately a hundred and fifty Taliban running into the valley.’
‘This is the bit I like best,’ Jones said. ‘You can see some of the Talibuts on the right there.’
He was right. They looked behind the buildings at a dozen or so men running as fast as they could into the plain.
‘Why don’t we get going and get a better seat?’ Wheeland said.
His comment landed on deaf ears.
‘Spooky’s turning in on them now,’ Burns said.
They all watched as the lumbering whale of an aircraft turned at the bottom of its run, this time further into the valley to come back at the target from the opposite direction. Like an eagle that had spotted its prey caught out in the open, it came in for the kill. Its talons flared, demonstrating for the watching soldiers the other special weapon that it carried. One that until now had remained silent. A weapon designed specifically for engaging widespread targets like this. A 25mm, five-barrelled, electrically powered Gatling gun affectionately known as the Equaliser. Although why it was called that was unclear to most. There was nothing equal about the weapon. On the contrary. It was a very one-sided piece of ordnance.
The gunship appeared to jostle a little as the pilot fought to lose height as quickly as he could while at the same time lining up on the target for optimum efficiency of the weapon. As Spooky passed over the fleeing fighters, Stratton thought he could hear the electric motors of the Gatling gun wind up before the bullets spat from the cannon at a rate of thirty thousand a minute. They all heard the terrifying scream of the weapon’s electric motors when they got up to full speed. It was claimed that on a single pass the Equaliser could place a bullet in every square foot of a piece of ground the width of a football pitch. Each of those rounds was over an inch thick. Just one alone made a terrible mess of anything it struck.
The combination of the roaring engines low in the sky and the screaming electric cannon must have terrified the men on the ground directly beneath it. The Afghans knew of such weapons. Those who hadn’t seen the devastation it caused first-hand had heard the stories. For the men running as hard as they could across the plain, the sight of the soil literally exploding as the rounds struck it in a broad swath a hundred metres wide, and tearing towards them like a steel curtain, would have been simply terrifying. To run, lie down or stand still, the odds of surviving within the storm remained low to none.
When the gunfire ceased, the killing ground was obscured by a huge dust cloud. It quickly settled. When visibility returned, dead bodies lay everywhere.
Spooky rose up a little and banked heavily to one side, its turboprops whining, and then sharply over onto the other side, turning tightly round as it dropped its nose to come in for yet another run. Raptor reported that it had obliterated all the Taliban furthest from the house but there were more. Spooky was hungry to eat up the rest of them. It provided the ultimate illustration of time standing still for some while racing on ahead for others. The Afghans’ only advances in weaponry over the past two hundred years had been gifts from the West. But the West had kept the best for itself.
From the squadron’s perspective in the river, as the aircraft reached the line of houses the thunderous Gatling gun opened up again. The firing lasted barely seconds. In that brief time the gunship had cleaned up the rest of the fighters. It was a massacre.
Raptor reported some minor movement among the prone bodies in the open ground but it was clear enough for the teams to move in.
‘Now can we go?’ Wheeland asked, trying not to sound exasperated and coming
off a little childish.
Stratton looked at Burns for his response.
‘Right,’ Burns said. ‘Let’s go and clean up. Stratton, lead off if you would be so kind.’
Wheeland rolled his eyes at the Britishness of the squadron officer.
‘Cease fire!’ the squadron sergeant major called out. The order went down the line and the machine guns that had been maintaining a minimum strike rate to encourage any lurking Taliban to run from the river went still.
Stratton looked over at Jones, Charlie and the others in his team. They were ready and waiting to go. He looked at Wheeland and Spinter, who had their small packs on and weapons in hand.
‘Do you mind staying in the rear?’ Stratton asked. ‘We work as a team to clear the ground and then the buildings.’
‘Sure,’ Wheeland said. ‘I wouldn’t want to interfere with your routines.’ Stratton wasn’t sure if the man was being sarcastic. Not that he minded. He suddenly realised he was envious of the American’s enthusiasm. He suddenly felt like he was being the dick himself and that he ought to thank Wheeland, if anything.
Stratton stepped up onto the bank to look at the complex. Spooky roared overhead, so close to the ground he could see every detail. One of the howitzer gun crew standing by it on the open tailgate waved. When it had passed, and with it the diminishing roar of its engines, they could hear the sound of sporadic gunfire from beyond the buildings. Perhaps some Taliban had survived the Gatling gun and were taking pot shots at Spooky. If they were, it was of little consequence. The squadron had been outnumbered six or seven to one when they arrived. That had surely been reversed by now.
Stratton, Jones and the others in his team spread out in an extended line and advanced on the complex. The rest of the squadron made its way out of the riverbed and, in another extended line, advanced a dozen or so metres behind them.
The gunfire continued. Raptor reported no sign of life immediately around any of the buildings. A handful of stragglers were making a late dash into the valley but showed no interest in the buildings – as if they knew the enemy was closing in. There were a lot of bodies lying on the plain. Their thermal images would remain warm for several hours. Light bundles on a dark background. A couple of them appeared to move, suggesting they were wounded. All of this information got passed through the communications system to the team commanders. But not even the Raptor could see inside the buildings, where the main caution was required.
The approach to the complex was stony. Stratton did wonder if the ground might be mined – always the biggest concern anywhere in Afghanistan. The concept had been discussed in the operation’s planning stage but had been discounted. The Taliban were not beyond booby-trapping their own facilities. On the contrary, several special forces operatives had died in recent times and many more had been severely injured by such devices in encampments that were detonated while in the middle of an attack. From the information they had received about the complex, Stratton had accepted it would not be the case here. Communications and eye-in-the-sky monitoring had revealed a laxness in the Taliban’s security procedures, suggesting a confidence in the remoteness of the place. It was never something you could predict for sure, so it remained at the back of his mind.
As he walked across the open ground he felt for his pistol in its holster at his hip. Then he checked his chest harness, by feel, making sure the grenades he carried were where they needed to be. Conventional ops usually required a standard shrag grenade. But due to the need to preserve the interiors, Stratton’s entry team also carried stun grenades. It was useful not to get them mixed up. Wheeland for one would be most displeased if Stratton destroyed the Taliban operations room.
Stratton led the approach to the corner of the first building. His team spread further to his flank so that they didn’t bunch at the corner. Wheeland and Spinter were only metres behind.
He turned the corner as Spooky flew past a few hundred metres away and let rip another long burst onto the valley floor to clean up the few individuals crazy enough to be taking pot shots at it.
Smoke drifted along the front of the complex towards Stratton, mostly from the burning trucks destroyed by Spooky. He could see half a dozen Hilux pick-ups among the wreckage, all totalled. Dead bodies lay around. All wore Afghan clothes: long shirts, cotton trousers, heavy wool scarves and shawls. Turbans. Pakuls. Sandals. Boots. AK-47 assault rifles lay scattered among them. He saw charred and burning bodies inside several of the vehicles.
Outside the main building the Taliban had erected a tall pole, topped with an array of antennas. A thick coaxial cable led from its base, along the ground and into the end house through a window. Stratton moved slowly along the front of the building under the windows, which were so high he barely had to duck to pass beneath them without exposing himself to anyone who might be inside.
The large front door was ajar. Jones moved in closer in support and Stratton let his assault rifle hang from its harness as he took hold of his pistol. It didn’t have the same penetration power as the rifle, but in room-clearing, he preferred the speed of engagement a pistol gave him. Jones preferred the rifle for its stopping power.
Charlie and the others came in tightly behind them.
Stratton took a moment to listen. It was hard to hear anything above the sound of the fires burning all around. Nothing was coming from inside. He stepped in through the doorway and moved away from the opening so as not to be silhouetted. Jones did the same a second behind him.
The two of them found themselves standing in a lobby. They saw several toppled chairs. A couple of AK-47 assault rifles on the floor, along with discarded magazines and several bullets. Two doors either side of the lobby led into opposite rooms. A soft noise came from one of them. A hissing sound. Like an out-of-tune television set.
Stratton stepped to the doorway and Jones followed. Charlie and the other operators moved quietly into the lobby. Two of them went to the opposite doorway. Stratton stepped through the half-open door, closely followed by Jones, their guns at the ready while they scanned every inch of the room. It was a mess. All the signs of a hasty evacuation. Totally void of man, dead or alive. Against a wall a long bench covered with communications equipment, several laptop computers, a printer and scanner, and bits and pieces of things Stratton didn’t readily recognise. On a shelf above, DVD players, CD copiers and a couple of digital video cameras.
There was a safe on the floor directly in front of him, its door open. Money spilled out in front of it. A few thousand US dollars and euros. There were some papers inside. Boxes of spilled paperwork were everywhere. A radio scanner was on. The static noise they’d heard from outside was coming from a speaker beside the scanner.
Spooky flew low past the building and the single remaining unbroken window rattled. A moment later the sound of its 40mm cannon stuttered in the distance, followed by explosions. Communications over the network revealed it was still chasing fleeing Taliban.
‘We’ll take it from here,’ Wheeland said, putting his gun down onto the bench. ‘You can leave. Now. If you don’t mind.’ His tone was suddenly far harsher than it had been.
Spinter stepped in behind him. ‘The other room’s clean,’ he said.
‘This is the operations room,’ Wheeland said.
Jones looked at Stratton, waiting for the word from his boss.
Stratton headed for the door, and Jones followed. Spinter moved aside to let them pass.
Stratton paused to look back at the spooks. They were already focused on the room. Spinter glanced back to see Stratton watching him and closed the door in his face.
Stratton stood in the lobby, annoyed with Wheeland’s sudden aggressive attitude, not really listening. But they weren’t trying to hide what they were saying.
‘It has to be in here,’ he heard Spinter say.
‘We know it’s here,’ Wheeland said, correcting. ‘Rohami made a call from this room yesterday. He told the general that he had the codes and would deliver them to Bagram.’
Stratton felt a tad guilty for eavesdropping – Wheeland would be justifiably pissed off if he knew. Stratton walked outside.
Jones and the others were waiting for him. The rest of the squadron were clearing the other buildings. It would appear that none of the Taliban had remained inside the complex. They all knew the consequences of not fleeing. The Taliban showed no pity to Western forces whenever they captured any alive. And they had learned over the years that as a result of their own ruthlessness, some Westerners had grown less inclined to take prisoners themselves, unless they specifically wanted to.
Spooky remained in the far distance. Flying low, following the inside curve of the mountains. It had only one thing left to do and was waiting for the ground forces to move out before completing its mission.
‘That was short and sweet,’ Jones said. ‘Hardly worth it, if you ask me. I thought it was all about wasting a Taliban command structure, but now I reckon that was secondary. These spooks are the real reason we’re here. Isn’t that right?’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Charlie piped up. He never spoke much. Not just because he was junior to Jones and Stratton. He wasn’t much of a talker at the best of times. But when he did talk, he usually had something useful to say. ‘We never lost anyone. Not even a twisted ankle. And we wasted a lot of Talibuts.’
It was a valid enough point that no one could argue with.
‘Aye,’ Jones said. ‘It was a good couple of days out. A nice walk. A bit of fresh air. And a little bit of horse play at the end of it.’
Stratton walked away from the building into the open ground and looked out over the plain. The sun was easing its way over the jagged mountains to his left, the light bathing the valley floor and the dozens of dead bodies spread out in front of him. The hard ground had been chewed up by the gunship.
A gentle wind blew, toying with Stratton’s clothes and those of the dead men around him. Most of them looked like they’d been hit by at least a couple of the rounds from Spooky’s Gatling gun. A bloody mess.
Assassin (John Stratton) Page 3