Once the platoon was on board, the two helicopters took off, circling Kandahar before heading north. Krijenko noted the absence of the attack helicopter escort that usually accompanied all air movement in Afghanistan. An ominous sign that this was no regular mission. Krijenko kept his concerns to himself as they gained altitude. His men were veterans and he had earned their trust. They would follow him on any mission, no matter how bone-tired and no matter what the odds. He watched them, one by one, dip their heads as the thud of the rotors and vibration of the aircraft lulled them to sleep. Battle-hardened, they had long ago learned to rest whenever the opportunity arose.
Dostiger peered with anticipation through the plastic bubble window, the sun-faded dome morphing the barren rocky ridges and green valleys below into an alien environment. For three years this mountainous terrain had been his home; a harsh and unforgiving place that had claimed the lives of thousands of invaders. It was a land of warriors: Mongol, Persian, British, and now Russian blood had soaked this soil. For the Ukrainian it had become a hunting ground. At last count he had sent one hundred and seventy mujahideen to meet their maker, and now whatever god was watching over him had given him the opportunity to make it an even two hundred.
Dostiger smiled sadistically as he looked back at the platoon dozing in the belly of the helicopter. They wanted to go home, but not him. Something in the depths of his soul told him that this was where he was supposed to be. In these rugged mountains he would find his destiny.
A change in the pitch of the rotors woke the rest of the platoon. The scream of the turbines rose, the helicopter approaching ceiling height.
The loadmaster held up two fingers to indicate two minutes out. All signs of sleep gone, the men checked weapons, tightened equipment, and prepared for potential combat. Their eyes were alert, bodies tensed and ready.
Krijenko’s steely gaze locked onto the window. The rocky crags looked close enough to touch but nothing seemed familiar about this area. His men would not have the advantage of knowing the ground. Nor would they have the reassurance of heavy weapons and air support. He looked back and met Dostiger’s stare. The mad Ukrainian smiled.
The helicopter shuddered as it clawed its way upward to a flat clearing on the side of a barren mountain. With a final lurch it cleared the razor edge and descended onto a roughly constructed landing zone. The clamshell rear doors swung open as it hit the ground and the loadmaster frantically waved them clear. The men fanned out, weapons ready, eyes scanning for any possible threat. They found cover behind boulders and in folds of the earth, encircling the aircraft as its rotors idled.
Krijenko stepped off onto the windswept mountain, crouched, and rapidly assessed the terrain. The landing zone was large, easily accommodating the two helicopters. It was dominated on three sides by jagged ridgelines and rocky outcrops, while at the lower end a rudimentary road snaked away to the south. Parallel to the road, large boulders and deep gullies would allow any enemy a protected approach. Krijenko spat into the dust as he stared at the terrain; experience told him he lacked the manpower to defend this ground.
He gave a nod to let his team leaders know they had positioned their men well, before his eyes were drawn to an open pair of giant blast doors set into the mountainside. The entrance leered at him like a gaping mouth. Around the doors a small team of army engineers was rigging explosive charges. They were preparing to seal the tunnel.
An officer walked around the idling aircraft to Krijenko. Everything about the man screamed military intelligence, from his swagger to the long leather jacket that flapped in the wind, snapping against his black boots. Krijenko rose and stood to meet him face-to-face.
“Captain,” the intelligence major said curtly. “Captain, you will hold this position until the engineers are ready to seal the shaft.”
A question formed on Krijenko’s lips, but the superior officer cut him short.
“No questions. The mission is simple. Keep the Muslim rabble away until our men seal the shaft.” He gestured to the engineers, still busy at work. “This facility must not fall into the hands of the mujahideen. God help you if you fail.”
Without waiting for a reply the man turned on his heel and joined a line of civilians as they scurried out the tunnel into the waiting helicopters. Krijenko noted the fear etched on their pasty white faces. These were noncombatants, men who were supposed to be kept far from the reaches of the enemy.
As the scientists hurried into the rear of the helicopters, the intelligence officer paused in a side door and looked back over his shoulder at the Spetsnaz platoon. Krijenko thought he saw the slightest trace of pity, then the hatch slammed shut and he was gone.
The doors on both helicopters closed and Krijenko turned back to where the engineers were busy moving explosives into the shaft. Brown wooden boxes were stacked ten high. Enough explosives to bring down a mountain.
The scream of turbines snapped his attention back to the helicopters beating their blades as they lifted off. Stones, flung like shrapnel, pelted the soldiers as the rotor wash tore across the landing zone. The thumping cadence of the choppers faded into the wide expanse of the Afghan sky. The mountain fell silent. Krijenko, his platoon, and a team of army engineers were alone.
***
The Soviet High Command had not expected the mujahideen to advance so quickly. Driven by a ruthless commander, they had surged south with a determined focus, moving heavy weapons on the backs of mules and horses. Familiar with the terrain, their scouts located Krijenko’s platoon without being spotted. Mortars and heavy machine guns had been carried up the steep ridgelines in silence, crews siting the weapons with deadly efficiency. As the sun fell below the horizon and darkness set in, they attacked.
The Spetsnaz soldiers defended their positions desperately throughout the night. Mortar and rocket fire was unrelenting, the flashing explosions cutting down five of Krijenko’s best men. Stripped of weapons and ammunition, their bodies lay face down to the rear of the fighting positions, blood soaking into the hard earth. Three furious assaults from separate sides had been repulsed and as dawn approached, the platoon was exhausted and low on ammunition.
Krijenko shrugged off the sense of futility as he crouched in a hastily dug weapons pit scraped from the rocky ground by bare hands and bayonets. His two remaining team leaders and the commander of the engineer detachment were huddled next to him. Their tired eyes nervously scanned the perimeter, vigilant for the next enemy attack.
The young engineer faced Krijenko and spoke rapidly. “Comrade, my men have prepared all the explosives and we’re ready to seal the shaft.”
Dostiger, the Ukrainian team leader, leaned in toward him, his rank breath revolting the engineer. “What the hell is in there?” He gestured toward the shaft, barely visible in the early-morning twilight.
“I don’t know. They didn’t tell us,” the engineer stammered. “My, my orders were simple; bury it so it can’t be found.” The young man refused to look at Dostiger’s pockmarked face; the ugly Ukrainian terrified him. “It’s something they don’t want the Mooj to have. I don’t know.”
Dostiger stared at the open shaft and his brow furrowed. “We should check it out, Captain. It could be worth something.”
Krijenko shook his head. “My orders are to seal it, Dostiger, and seal it I will.” He looked back at the engineer. “Go. Do it!”
The young man hurried back to the opening where his two remaining sappers were laying the final lengths of slow-burn fuse. He was eager to finish the job before the sun rose over the horizon and exposed his men to the mujahideen positioned along the dominant ridgelines. Already the sky was glowing with the approaching dawn.
As the engineers lit the fuse, mortar rounds pounded the landing zone in a fearsome barrage. The lethal bombs slayed another four Spetsnaz soldiers, their bodies shredded by the shrapnel that lashed their fighting positions.
As the engineers sprinted from the shaft across the open ground of the landing zone, a DSHK heavy machine gun opened up from one of
the surrounding ridgelines. 12.7mm high-velocity rounds riddled their bodies, hydrostatic shock destroying flesh and shattering bones, ripping the men to pieces. They were dead before they hit the ground.
The Afghan skirmishers advanced, flitting from cover to cover as their fire-support positions suppressed the Spetsnaz platoon. Krijenko, manning a dead soldier’s machine gun, worked feverishly to hold off the mujahideen, but one by one his men fell silent as they succumbed to the relentless onslaught. He watched a grenade detonate in Dostiger’s position. The mad Ukrainian was thrown clear, one leg torn and bloodied.
The barrel of the machine gun glowed red as Krijenko pumped the trigger, sending short bursts lancing into the advancing fighters. The last belt of ammunition disappeared in a final burst and the gun fell silent, the bolt slamming forward on an empty chamber. Krijenko reached into his chest harness and drew a pistol, leveling it at the Afghan warrior running at him. His first round entered the man’s head below the cheek and blew out the back of his skull. There was no second bullet.
Krijenko never saw the fighter who shot him in the neck. The projectile ripped through the spine, killing him instantly. The pistol fell from his hand and he collapsed. As the first drops of the Russian officer’s blood soaked into the ground, the earth erupted, throwing his body into the air. The explosives detonated along fault lines, causing thousands of tons of rock to collapse into the shaft. A blast wave of dust and rubble blew out from the mountainside, sweeping the forward line of mujahideen fighters from their feet. The engineers had done their job well.
As the dust settled on the bloodied bodies of the slain Spetsnaz, the Afghan warriors regrouped; their heavy-weapons teams filtering down from the high ground to join the assaulting force. They moved out of the shadows and began searching the Russian defensive positions, stripping the corpses of valuables. A tall figure strode through the scavengers, his white robes unmarked by the dust and smoke of the battlefield.
The man’s dark eyes stared intently at the wall of rock that denied him his goal. Frustration momentarily passed over his hard features and he turned away, distracted by the moans of a bloodied and broken body that lay at his feet. One of the Afghan fighters drew a wicked-looking blade and raised it back in a sweeping arc, ready to dispatch the casualty.
“Wait,” the white-robed leader demanded. He knelt down next to the wounded man, his Russian halting but clear. “What was hidden here?”
Dostiger smiled and chuckled. “You and I, we will never know.” The Ukrainian was delirious from loss of blood and the morphine injection he’d stabbed into his thigh.
The Afghan grunted stiffly and leaned closer. “You will die here, Russian.”
Dostiger’s grin widened and blood dribbled from his lips, staining his fatigues. He laughed manically. “We all die, comrade. How many of your fighters will I join in hell?”
The mujahideen commander stared at Dostiger’s face before he rose and turned to the fighter next to him. “Find a stretcher. The fearless one comes with us.”
CHAPTER 1
WESTERN HIGHLANDS, SIERRA LEONE, 2000
A white UN Land Rover and a battered Bedford truck slowly wound their way along a narrow dirt road in the western highlands of Sierra Leone. The vehicles pushed on through the overgrown vines and saplings, the African jungle’s attempts to reclaim the track. The earthy smell of rotting leaves filled the air and sprawling trees blocked the sunlight, spawning growths of moss and fungi.
An Australian officer, Lieutenant Aden Bishop, rode in the front of the Land Rover next to the driver, a young Sierra Leone soldier. Behind him, Colonel Kapur reclined in the backseat. Although the Indian UN officer was technically in command, he was content to let Bishop take charge. Their mission was to inspect the Kilimi refugee camp, a routine undertaking that the colonel would not normally participate in. He had only volunteered for the short-notice tasking to impress the UN military commander. Usually he preferred to remain in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, relaxing in the air-conditioning of the UN headquarters.
Trailing the four-wheel drive, the Bedford truck transported ten Indian UN soldiers perched on its hard wooden benches. Well-armed and enthusiastic, the peacekeepers had excellent discipline, which made up for their limited training. Clad in their heavy khaki uniforms and light-blue berets, they silently endured the stifling heat of the canvas-topped truck, the ancient suspension amplifying every bump.
The diesel engines of the convoy bellowed as the drivers pushed them hard, climbing the slippery track toward Kilimi. Native birds were startled from the trees and larger animals crashed through the heavy undergrowth to escape the noisy intruders. Every few miles the two vehicles passed small villages unmarked on the map.
Bishop squinted as the morning sun streamed through gaps in the thick jungle canopy, raising the humidity to oppressive levels. He removed his UN beret to wipe his brow, and checked the map. The young Australian officer struggled to navigate in the dense jungle; the huge trees that punched up through the shadowy undergrowth filled the sky with a wall of greenery, blocking out the view and making it impossible to identify any useful landmarks.
As they drove past yet another isolated village, Bishop’s driver pointed out a cluster of ramshackle huts. “Sir, my grandfather was born there.” Chickens scratched in the mud around one of the rusted corrugated-iron walls. Looking across at the lieutenant the driver smiled. “I know this area well, sir. I won’t get you lost.”
“I’m not worried about that, Erasto,” Bishop said as he looked up from the map. “I’m more worried about how far the militias are from the camp.” His brow furrowed as his thoughts turned to another refugee camp at Songo. A rogue RUF militia had attacked it only two weeks earlier and a UN patrol had watched helplessly as the refugees were hacked to pieces. The peacekeepers’ orders forbade them to fire except in self-defence.
After the incident Bishop had been sent to Songo to provide a detailed report. Over a hundred refugees had been maimed or slaughtered; the smell of the rotting corpses was still fresh in his mind.
The young driver continued, “Well, usually many RUF in this area but now most have gone.”
“Most?”
“Yes, sir. Some are still here but not many. Most have gone back to their villages. Only some criminals remain, but they will be afraid of us.”
Bishop was skeptical. He knew the drug-fueled militias were not easily deterred. To make matters worse the team was babysitting a ranking UN officer, a tempting target for kidnapping.
Colonel Kapur leaned forward to tap Bishop on the shoulder. “You can tell the young private not to worry; a section of Indian infantry is more than enough to deal with a handful of criminals.”
Bishop clenched his jaw and kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead. The sheer arrogance of the colonel disgusted him; the man wouldn’t directly address the private who was their full-time driver. It was below his status to talk to an enlisted soldier, and a native one at that.
Kapur continued, “This is your first real mission, is it not, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir, that’s correct,” Bishop responded curtly.
“Well, I’ve served with the UN a number of times. I have also led missions against the rebels in Kashmir. Considering your inexperience you are lucky that I chose to accompany this mission.”
“Very lucky, sir.”
The colonel took it as a compliment, sat back, and began studying his own map.
What a cock, thought Bishop. This man clearly has more experience drinking coffee than commanding soldiers. The overweight colonel even had the audacity to wear his dress uniform in the field. The buttons on the sweat-stained shirt strained against his protruding belly. With all his ribbons and braid he looked more like a bandmaster than a soldier.
Despite the presence of the pompous colonel, Bishop was enjoying his first deployment. He appreciated the multinational aspects of working with the UN, and as a junior officer he was gaining valuable experience operating in a high-threat envi
ronment.
The dangers that lurked in the surrounding terrain weren’t obvious as the convoy made their way through the thick green vegetation of Kilimi National Park. As they passed through villages, young men and women spilled out of their huts, happily waving at the passing soldiers. It was only their handless limbs and scarred bodies that hinted at the inhumane crimes that had occurred here and the threat still posed by the roaming militias.
The UN has failed these people, reflected Bishop.
A young boy grinned at him, waving vigorously as the Land Rover crawled past. Leaning against a crude crutch, the boy’s right leg was missing from the knee down. The soldier in Bishop wanted to hunt down and tear out the throats of the animals who had perpetrated the act, but the UN rules of engagement forbade him. In the back of his mind he doubted his ability to follow this directive. What kind of man could stand by and watch these RUF bastards hack the limbs from children, he rationalized.
Bishop checked his map again. They had almost reached the refugee camp and had encountered no sign of recent militia activity. Was it possible the RUF fighters were actually abiding by the guidelines laid down in the cease-fire? Bishop remained wary. Many of the RUF were no more than criminals and a refugee camp was easy pickings for heavily armed thugs.
The road narrowed even further. They inched forward over a simple log bridge and continued up into the highlands. Thick red clay caked the tires, and the drivers struggled to keep from sliding off the crude path and down the steep embankment into the green abyss below.
Bishop looked up as the Land Rover slowed. Spotting something ahead, the driver dropped down a gear. In the distance two armed men were standing in front of a battered white pickup parked across the track. A third was manning a heavy machine gun mounted on the truck.
“Looks like trouble, sir.” The young driver sounded worried.
“It’s OK, Erasto. It’s probably just some of the local militia,” Bishop reassured the nervous youth. “Pull over and we’ll sort this out.” The UN officer was only a few years older than his driver, but his confidence and training gave him a leadership presence that belied his age.
PRIMAL Starter Box Set (PRIMAL Series) Page 35