Countdown: The Liberators-ARC

by Tom Kratman

Then Reilly got a call from Snyder. "Alpha Six, Scout One. The enemy has reversed turrets and is rolling to your position. How did you do that?"

  "Just good planning," Reilly answered, even while thinking, Luck. Pure fucking luck. I was ready to trade you guys for a little time. Thank God, I didn't have to.

  A stretcher team trotted by, a moaning man bouncing on the stretcher. Reilly sighed. It's never really been about killing the enemy, he reminded himself. It's always been about winning when that requires you to risk your life.

  He stood quietly for several minutes then, both his RTO and the enemy commander looking at him, intently in the one case, warily in the other.

  "What's your name?" Reilly asked of the Ophiri.

  "Maalin, Muktar. Major."

  Reilly inclined his head toward the east, where Coffee had set up an ad hoc aid station that was rapidly filling.

  "Major Maalin, have your men bring their wounded to my chief medic. We'll treat them as best we're able before we have to go."

  "Yes, sir," Maalin answered. "Thank you, sir."

  Reilly took the mike from James and broadcast, "By the way, all platoon leaders, this is Alpha Six. Do we have anybody who knows how to drive a T-55? I need . . . six of 'em."

  "I kin dribe wun o' de pides o' shid," said a voice that sounded a lot like Lana's, but as if she were speaking with a clothespin over her nose.

  Reilly ignored that for the moment, saying, "That's one. I need five more. And, Lana, if that was you, report to me, center of the kill zone. Other people who can drive a T-55 do the same. Infantry platoons and mortar section, I need two people from each of you to stand in a turret and look threatening."

  He handed the mike back to James, who stuck it to his ear, listening intently. Suddenly, James smiled. "Dustoff, two minutes out," he announced. Turning to where Sergeant Coffee and the other two medics, under the lights of the medical Eland, fussed over seven wounded men, next to a line of five of their own dead, James pointed and repeated, "Dustoff, two minutes out!"

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  The bullet is a mad thing;

  only the bayonet knows what it is about.

  -Alexander Vasileyevich Suvarov, Count Rymnik

  D-Day, Yemen

  As hot as the day had been, and it had been nearly life threatening, despite the shade of the nets, the night was bitter. Konstantin shivered despite himself and despite the robes he wore over his battle dress. And the breeze didn't help. Unconsciously he pulled his headdress tighter to him, at the same time pressing on the earpiece cum microphone he wore, as did his men.

  "Browned skin and contacts, fake beards or not, we're going to stand out like sore thumbs, you know," Galkin said, holding up his rifle for emphasis. This close, it was easy enough to see both, despite the dust laden breeze, blowing out of the northeast from Saudi Arabia's Rub al Khali, or Empty Quarter.

  The Romans had called the place, "Arabia Felix," Happy Arabia, this based on the income from harvesting and trading incense, as well as trade generally. Sadly, the bottom had nearly dropped out from the frankincense and myrrh markets many centuries past, while, conversely, the market in oil, which Yemen didn't have much of, had grown enormously in decades recent. Thus, while Saudis may have tooled around the desert in four-wheel drive Mercedes, it was more common to see Yemenis on dirt bikes doing the same. Or hearing them.

  Seeing but not hearing them would have been considered odd. That was one of the little weaknesses to the plan. Konstantin had accepted the weakness as necessary if he were going to be able to get to Yusuf's palace close enough, which meant quietly enough, to do the job in time to get picked up and brought home. His dirtbikes were as silent as the weapons his men carried.

  Still, as long as the viewer was some distance away, then the procession of keffiyeh-covered, dishdasha-clothed men, with their robes hiked up around their waists, probably wouldn't invite much comment or attention.

  And the arms they carried, that couldn't be hidden under robes?

  "Oh, hell, this isn't Europe, or even Russia; everybody in Yemen who isn't a slave carries a rifle," Baluyev answered Galkin's objection. "Besides, it's dark."

  "Even some of the slaves are armed," Konstantin said, "depending on how trusted they are."

  "See? Even the slaves." Baluyev stopped for a moment, a curse on his lips. "Fuck; when did we get so used to using expressions like ‘even the slaves'?"

  Konstantin shrugged. Who knew, after all? It wasn't as if the institution had ever gone out of style completely. Why, in the heyday of the Soviet Union virtually everyone in it or controlled by it had been a slave.

  "Never mind," the major said. "We have this job to do, now. Maybe someday we can do something about some other problems. Maybe."

  The shocks made more noise than the engines, squeaking in outraged protest as the dirtbikes slammed down onto the sand after skipping over the tops of dunes. The breeze had died down, though it left a great deal of dust hanging in the air. And it was still cold.

  We look so much like Arabs, thought Konstantin, who loathed Islamics on general principle and had since Afghanistan, that the only way we could look more Arabic is if I have everyone stop and fuck Galkin.

  I don't think that's necessary, though. Besides, even if it's a fair approximation of Islamics, it's unfair to Galkin.

  That this might not have been fair to the Islamics, either, bothered the major not at all. He really didn't like, rather he utterly loathed, the religion and all its followers. Only solid self-discipline let him work with them at all. And he avoided that where possible. He hadn't, for example, taken the Arabic speaker Stauer had offered him.

  Konstantin took one hand away from the handlebars and checked his wrist-mounted GPS. Yes, the old man had thoughtfully sent them receivers for GLONASS, the Russian system. No, thank you, Chief. I'll use the Americans' system. They seem able to keep more than a dozen satellites operational at any one time, something we have signally failed at doing.

  Putting his hand back on the handlebars, Konstantin slowed, then slowed some more. He spotted the palace-and this was a real palace, large, imposing, and decorated to the point of tackiness and beyond-through the dust, some five kilometers distant. It was brightly lit. If the old man's reports were to be believed, and Konstantin had reasons to trust the old man's reports going back decades, it was quite well guarded.

  Too brightly lit for them to be using night vision, Konstantin thought. Not that they'd be likely to see us at this range, or even quite a bit closer, with the best night vision and no lights around the place. We continue.

  With that, he cut left, followed by the other five men in the team. One by one they entered a wadi that ran generally south, toward the sea, then followed it to where it ran rather close to the palace.

  The Arabs had known for many centuries something that western optical science had only keyed into but recently; at night the human eye had a hell of a time making out pixels of a certain size and the colors didn't make all that much difference. In short, the checked keffiyehs worn by Konstantin and his men made superb camouflage.

  This was all to the good as it was a five-hundred-meter belly crawl from the point of the wadi nearest the wall around Yusuf's palace to that wall. Outside the wall was little but sand and rocks and the very occasional bit of scrub . . . those, and a heavy layer of dust still floating on the air, courtesy of the late northeast wind blowing out of the Rub al Khali.

  Konstantin lifted his head up and swept his gaze along the crenellated walls, both on the palace roof and the surrounding grounds wall, with his NVGs. The old man had provided Dutch manufacture for these, which was both more thoughtful and more practical than the GLONASS receivers that sat unused back with the helicopters. The palace was bright enough that he thought it better to leave the lens caps on, to gather light only through the peep holes in those caps. This worked surprisingly well. They'd already lain there through one changing of the guard. Ideally, they'd have waited through another to establish how long the shifts
were, hence how long they'd have to operate before discovery. But there just wasn't enough time for that.

  Besides, two hour shifts are the universal norm. And where did they go?

  Guards? Guards?. . . Ah, there's one, the major observed, in both senses of the word. That guard, off by the right corner of the curtain wall, as Konstantin faced, held his rifle at the slope and tucked into the crook of one arm. He smoked a cigarette but, otherwise diligent, faced outward. And if there's one there . . . Konstantin looked left. Uh, huh. There at the left corner. That one was not particularly diligent, facing inward with his back against the wall. Of his rifle the Russian could see no sign. Of guards on the roof, likewise there was no sign.

  And so we'll make our entrance where the guard is a slob. Konstantin used two fingers to beckon up Litvinov and Kravchenko. But take care of the diligent one, first.

  "Yes, Comrade Major?" Kravchenko whispered.

  Konstantin pointed at the more alert guard, to the right. "He's your job," he said. "On my signal."

  Without another word, Kravchenko and Litvinov headed on their bellies in that direction. Baluyev was next up.

  "Stay here and watch, Praporschik. Report. On my command, turn on the cellular jammer."

  "Yes, Comrade Major."

  Then, leading the remaining two, the major shifted the direction of his crawl about twenty degrees to the left.

  There are at least nine different ways to kill a sentry, in theory, more or less quietly, and without the use of firearms. It's that "in theory" part, coupled with the "more or less" part, that so often prove problematic. People fight back, gouge, bite, scream . . . even the gushing of blood from a severed artery makes its quotient of sound. Moreover, no army really teaches even its special operations personnel to knife or strangle or bludgeon an enemy standing ten feet above them. It just doesn't work that way.

  For those cases, there are quiet firearms. In this case, those firearms were a brace of PSS pistols, firing silent, subsonic, piston-driven SP-4 ammunition. Galkin, with Konstantin, held one. Kravchenko, with Litvinov, held another. All five men stood now, backs against the wall, waiting for a report from Praporschik Baluyev.

  "Problem, Comrade Major," Baluyev said. All heard it in their earpieces. "I saw someone else walking the parapet. And the one above you is now facing out while the one at the other end is facing in."

  "He's being blown, Comrade Major," Kravchenko whispered in the softest imaginable voice, though he couldn't quite hide the tremor of amusement contained therein. "We can hear him . . . err . . . them."

  The major hadn't quite been expecting this. He thought frantically for a minute. Shit. A third person and one we can't take out the same time as the others. No, this just can't be done. "Can't." Shit, shit, shit.

  I wish I knew more about our contact. But the old man's always been cagey as hell about such things. "What you don't know you can't divulge."

  But it has to be done; the old man wants it. But how? Kill two guards at the same time? Okay; that we could do. Kill a third person, probably a woman-no, wait a minute. This is the Arabian Peninsula; there is no reason to assume the third person is female. In any case, kill someone that we can't see, before she-or he-screams? Not going to happen.

  Kill one and mount the wall, then go for the couple? Oh, God that doesn't exist, that's not going to . . .

  Baluyev interrupted. "Comrade Major, the guard above you is turned away, watching the blow job. The pervert."

  Maybe there is a God. And maybe we have to take a risk.

  Konstantin squatted and pointed a single finger at Timer Musin. Once he was certain he had the sergeant's undivided attention, he made a throat cutting gesture, a quick flick of his index finger in the general direction of his own throat. Then the major directed both thumbs toward his own shoulders, at the same time sticking both index fingers up to indicate the direction of travel.

  Musin raised an eyebrow, momentarily, then took half a step on padded feet to place one foot on the major's shoulder, then both hands against the wall. He briefly took one hand away to loosen the restraining strap on his knife, then replaced it on the wall.

  I am so glad you're not the huge sort, Sergeant Musin, Konstantin thought, because I am frankly too old for this shit.

  Then Konstantin stood up, his back shrieking in protest.

  Tim padded his hands lightly up the wall as the major raised him. As he felt himself nearing the summit of Konstantin's ability to propel him, he took his right hand off the wall and grasped his knife. His eyes cleared the edge of the wall and saw the distracted guard. His chin cleared, then his shoulders. He let his chest fall to the wall as he reached out with both hands.

  Rather than a helmet, the guard was wearing a keffiyeh not dissimilar to the one adorning Musin's head. Strong fingers drove through the cloth to grip hair. An arm stronger still yanked backwards, even while the hand on the other, gripping its knife, took advantage of the exposed neck to drive the blade in to the hilt and then rip it all the way across the throat.

  The guard's body went into a fair simulacrum of the funky chicken, shaking and twitching like a mad thing. Blood gushed; noisily, it seemed to Musin. It sailed upward, then sprinkled down, some of it landing on his keffiyeh. In an instant, Tim's legs and torso, using the late guard's body for balance, were on and over the wall. In the process, he lost his keffiyeh even as part of his false beard, scraping the wall, tore off. Ignoring the loss, still gripping his knife, Tim set his feet on the parapet and began a silent trot for the woman on her knees further down.

  "Kill him, Krav."

  Kravchenko took a quick but deep breath, let it out, then did both over again. Between his first and second breath he gave the ground another careful look to ensure that there were no obstacles. Then, pistol in both hands for a steady hold, he began to walk backwards. As soon as the guard's head came into view he aimed but . . .

  "Shit, Comrade Major, two thirds of the bastard's head is covered by the crenellations. I haven't got a decent shot."

  The girl was milky white, with midnight hair long in the back and cut in bangs across the front. She looked perhaps fourteen. Even her breasts, exposed where she'd opened her shirt, were small and budding like a young teen's. Her eyes were not closed, as Musin had expected. Rather, they were not only open, they saw him. And yet the woman did nothing except continue the business on which she'd been engaged. Then she held up one hand, palm out, stopping Musin in his tracks. He pressed his back against the parapet wall.

  Removing her mouth from the guard, she began to rise from her knees, snake-like, slithering up the guard's body. Once she reached her full height of perhaps five feet, she took both the guard's hands and slid them under her shirt. Then she reached up to pull the guard's head down for a kiss. While they kissed, and while her left hand stroked the back of his neck, under his keffiyeh, she used her right to lift her skirt. Strapped to her thigh, the sergeant saw, was a long, thin stiletto. He watched, fascinated, as she silently drew it, rotated it, and then plunged it through the guard's chin and into his brain, spinning the thing like a mortar's pestle once it was well inside.

  Pulling out the stiletto, she backed up slightly, and began easing her victim's body to the floor. Musin moved in to help. He had a very difficult time keeping his eyes off the breasts that looked so very young and tender.

  Seeing that, she began to button her shirt against his gaze. She said, in good if highly annoyed Russian, and in a fully grown woman's voice, "Those are for business, rarely for pleasure. And, speaking of which, it's about time you assholes showed up. I've had to entertain these two every night for the last three weeks to make sure I would be here when you came, as the old man ordered."

  "You . . . ummm . . . serve the motherland," Musin said, as if by way of acceptance of the woman's . . . job. Besides, she was altogether too pretty to judge.

  She sighed, and at that moment she really did look fourteen. "In my own way," she said. "I'm Lada and, no, I'm not fourteen."

 
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something.

  -Pancho Villa, Last words, 1923

  D Day, Nugaal Highway, Ophir

  Under its thin coat of dust, the limousine was brightly polished. It bounced and jarred over the potholed highway between the airfield and the town of Nugaal.

  "And how many guards?" Welch asked Mr. Dayid, as the two sped up the highway. Terry rescrewed the suppressor onto the muzzle of his submachine gun as they rolled.

  Pigfucker drove the limo. It was followed by the largest truck the parking lot in front of the palace had held, a more or less long-bed five ton. That was driven by Ryan, with Graft and Semmerlin in the back. All the men from Terry on down sported freshly touched up "Black-is-Beautiful." It wouldn't fool anybody for more than a second. That said, given the velocity of a bullet, even a subsonic one, a second was awfully long time to be laboring under an error.

  The accountant shrugged, answering, "It varies sometimes but never more than a dozen. Of those, not more than two or three are actually on duty at any given time."

  "And the rest?" Welch asked.

  "At this time of the morning? Asleep. Probably with one of the slave girls each."

  Fuck. More slaves. I will not, not, NOT take on responsibility for liberating any more slaves.

  "Your slaves?" Terry asked, a note of malice creeping into his voice.

  "No," Jama Dayid said. "I follow the teachings of al-Nabhani, UHBP, that times have changed, that slavery is wrong, and that Allah intended that when times changed slavery would be seen as wrong. But . . . I am probably in the minority."

  Terry just grunted. How did one answer that? He tolerates? Am I as guilty because I've tolerated? I don't feel a twinge of regret about those Afghan men Stauer and his commandos killed; but what about the women and kids they carted off? I tolerated . . . and I have much to make up for.