by Ray Carole
His eyes watering from his broken nose, he was conscious enough to make out the object that was fast approaching his face as he gritted his teeth.
As the butt of the Russian’s rifle struck him in the face, he vaguely heard the blunt thud and sound of broken teeth echo across the ambush area.
He stared up at the Russian, waiting for the second butt stroke to hit that would surely knock him out completely, but the man was staring in the direction of the tent. Mick licked his blood as it ran from his nose into his mouth and tried to focus his eyes. He blinked and saw the man staring right through him convulsing as though a freight train had hit him in the back.
The Russian spun around in an almost perfect pirouette, dropping to his knees. Mick gasped, what the hell was going on? As blood began to pour out of the frayed exit wound in the man’s chest Mick breathed out a sigh of relief, the fucker had been shot. Mick watched silently as the shockwave travelled across his captor’s body.
‘Come on die you fucker,’ he whispered through his broken teeth. The man was clearly shocked that he’d been shot, he remained staring at his hands now covered in his own blood. His eyes started to roll to the back of his head and he spat out some of the blood clogging up his mouth onto the ice before his face hit the deck followed quickly by his body. Dead.
Ivan behind pyramid North had been literally an inch away from getting his head blown off. The burst had miraculously missed him as he was raising his head. He dropped back to the floor and waited for the ice splinters to stop, he knew he was under severe fire.
‘Fuck.’ He knew he had to find out what was happening, all he’d heard was the man he believed to be Gerry yelling ‘Get in the tent, Si.’ The loud clatter created by the bullet smashing his colleague’s slung weapon as it exited his body chilled him to his core and he’d looked East to see his fellow Russian spinning to the ground. Crawling away a few metres so he wouldn’t pop up in the same place he crawled frantically for another 5 metres, still noticing bullets smashing into the ice behind him by the continued onslaught.
Hyperventilating he rose from around the side of an ice ridge, located a man behind the bonnet of the truck and started to fire in sheer panic before composing himself and taking proper aim through his sights.
His bullets struck the bonnet, shattering the windscreen. Obviously startling the man from The Clinic who hit the deck. He squinted, the guy’s head was tucked in behind the thick rubber front tyre.
Ivan continued to harass him with more fire.
With no fire coming back from the man, Ivan briefly took his finger off the trigger watching the undercarriage of the truck. He then quickly looked at the tent. Without warning a zipping sound of a bullet passed the truck and hit his weapon. The sheer velocity and force catapulted his unslung weapon out of his hands.
Sean from over 500 metres away had the satisfaction of seeing the impact of the weapon flying to the ground as the Russian’s body was tumbling straight on top of it. As he witnessed the man hit the deck he quickly transmitted: ‘North is down, East is down.’ Without one command from anyone the fierce firefight had begun.
There was movement near the tent and Decker remained alert. He’d heard the gunshot and was hoping against all hope that it was one of the Russians that had gone down first. As the zip pulled up he threw himself, fully bound onto his knees, ready to headbutt his way out of the tent if needed.
As the gunshots increased in volume, Andrew scrabbled his way inside the tent.
They were immediately face-to-face with each other, Andrew grabbed hold of his shoulders clearly trying to blurt out something but he was obviously in a complete state of panic, knowing bullets were flying around him he couldn’t get the words out. Stuttering then gasping for breath, Decker couldn’t make sense of what he was saying.
‘Andrew, Andrew what the fuck is happening?’ Decker shouted out, trying to snap him into gear as the gunfire continued to erupt outside the tent.
‘Andrew get a grip, get these zip-ties off me now,’ fuck being patient Decker thought, no time for that, he was getting irate as he heard the firefight intensifying outside.
Suspended in shock Andrew managed to open his jacket that was already unzipped and pulled out a pistol. Decker dove straight at him side swiping him with his bound hands, knocking the pistol away then driving his forehead straight into Andrew’s face. ‘Fucker. No chance you’re killing me today.’
As Andrew rolled back clutching his face he started screaming, ‘They know why you didn’t jump off Old Harry that day, we’re here to get you out.’
‘You fucking what?’ delivering a double-handed blow to Andrew’s face.
Momentarily Decker was stunned. Andrew was a civilian who had just pulled a pistol out on him moments ago. How the hell did he know about that day at Old Harry? What the fuck was happening?
Andrew was on his back with his palms facing up in submission, pulled his jacket wide open showing him the hunting knife.
The dots joined instantaneously. Decker didn’t delay by asking questions.
‘Cut me loose, cut me loose Andrew,’ Decker shouted cancelling his second double-handed strike that would have knocked Andrew out cold.
He offered his wrists to Andrew, both lying on the floor to lower their profile and chances of getting caught in the crossfire. Andrew clenched the knife and started hacking and sawing his way through the zip-ties, trying to stabilise his shaking hands.
As the zip-ties broke the momentum of the cutting motion threw the blade deeply into Decker’s hand.
‘Fuck!’
‘Sorry, so sorry…’ Andrew naturally apologising, shook some more.
‘Cut my legs free you idiot,’ Decker winced slightly resisting the urge to swing for Andrew’s jawline as penance. Instead he started shaking his hands out to improve his circulation before pulling back the top slide of the Glock to check if a round was already seated. He knew the magazine was loaded, but he always did a quick confidence check to see that a round was ready to be fired when the trigger was squeezed.
Pulling the top slide back a few millimetres he observed the chamber, glancing momentarily at his hand that was pissing out blood from the cut. That could wait. The pistol was loaded and ready to kill.
‘Come on Andrew, hurry up we need to get away from this tent before it becomes a bullet magnet for the Russians,’ Decker shouted.
With both hands on the knife now, Andrew focused and cut away like a man possessed.
‘Okay you’re free,’ Andrew said, panting away like he had just sprinted 400 metres.
‘Right give me the knife and stay down, we’re going to crawl out of the side of the tent. Who is out there?’ Decker demanded.
‘They know why you didn’t jump off—’
‘You just said that,’ Decker interrupted, he was not interested in remembering that right now.
‘How many with you Andrew?’
‘Only me and two assassins, they killed the rest.’
As WHITEOUT was manically cutting his way through the lining of the tent hopefully out of sight of the Russians, he couldn’t even process that last comment. As he cut through, the sun’s powerful rays shone into the tent temporarily blinding him. He could see the truck in the distance. He looked at Andrew who nodded back, ‘Yes that’s Gerry’s truck.’ No doubt Gerry was somewhere behind it using it as cover. Decker looked at Andrew, ‘That’s where we’ve got to get to.’
Gerry sensed a lull in the firefight, no bullets were flying so he turned to his left instinctively knowing the Russian just west of him must have got the courage to start shooting by now.
Things went into slow-motion for him as he saw a Russian Spetnaz Commando dressed in white camouflage drapes with his weapon up on aim, pointed straight at him.
There was no way that Gerry could get a shot off before him, milliseconds of the
difference between life and death.
Gerry braced himself for impact of a high-velocity round tearing through his body. Knowing how the effects of a gunshot wound would work, his immediate image was the secondary trauma of the bullet tumbling uncontrollably through his organs creating a vacuum before exiting.
However the Russian hesitated as a flicker of movement occurred in the direction of WHITEOUT’s tent. Not waiting to work out why, Gerry got his weapon up pointing roughly at him and let another burst go from the ground. Two or three bullets spat ice up in front of the Russian before another few bullets clipped his legs.
Tripping backwards the Russian let a burst of fire off into the air as he screamed and fell back behind cover.
Gerry jumped straight to his knees closing in tight to the wheel-arch again watching where the Russian had fallen.
Suddenly a huge block of ice was tossed up in the air from where the Russian fell. Sean was on him. Gerry breathed out. Another chunk flew into the air.
Gerry then looked to locate the Russian that was beyond the tent but again saw nothing. Even though Sean’s comment ‘North down’ repeated in his head, his instinct told him that he wasn’t necessarily finished. Out of his periphery he saw WHITEOUT exiting the tent crawling out through the side with Andrew crawling behind him.
‘Move, fucking move Harry!’ Gerry screamed as he got to his feet and began to give covering fire into Ivan’s position just in case his instincts proved to be correct.
Watching him intently, WHITEOUT continued crawling forward with Andrew right behind him, his head almost up WHITEOUT’s arse.
Still looking towards Ivan’s position Gerry knew he was near the end of his first magazine, he had to make a decision to either change it now, which would take 3-4 seconds, or hold on aim until Ivan popped up again.
‘Keep crawling, keep crawling,’ Gerry shouted to the lads as a burst of fire came from behind the tent leaving a trail of spat-up ice only feet away from the two men crawling and in line with Gerry.
Knowing that the guy must be low and behind the tent somewhere Gerry stood up and let rip with a first burst of three to five rounds from his M4.
His second burst was followed by the worst sound and feeling he knew you could have on a two-way range.
Silence. ‘Shit.’ Gerry cursed.
The bolt carrier of his rifle locked to the rear instead of releasing forward and picking up another round to continue firing another shot.
Diagnosis simple.
Empty magazine, no bullets left.
Out of pure habit and to let WHITEOUT know that he needed to change a magazine he yelled: ’Stoppage, stoppage,’ as he pressed the magazine release catch to eject the empty magazine off the weapon.
Out of his periphery he saw WHITEOUT register his call by immediately spinning onto his back, firing back through his legs with five shots intending to pin down whoever was firing from behind the tent. His shots had zero significance as another hail of bullets struck the ground around him and Andrew. As Gerry expertly switched the magazine the seconds seemed like hours as he watched WHITEOUT spin back onto his belly again and continue his crawl to the truck.
Magazine reloaded, Gerry instantly got trigger happy shouting, ‘Move, move Harry, I’m covering.’ Firing to suppress the Russian’s position.
Completely catching Gerry off guard he saw Andrew scramble to his feet, unbeknownst to WHITEOUT, obviously in a stricken panic and started to run towards the truck completely cutting his arc of fire.
‘Get down, get down!’ Gerry screamed desperate for Andrew to move so that he could give cover against the Russian again.
As he watched Andrew look at him with the fear of death in his eyes his arms flayed up and his right leg stumbled as he spun around.
A millisecond later a bullet missed Gerry’s head, clipping the windscreen frame. ‘Andrew, no,’ he looked out to see WHITEOUT shouting at him as Andrew’s body tumbled to the ground.
With his arc free once more, Gerry re-engaged again giving more covering fire as WHITEOUT crawled as fast as he could to Andrew who was groaning on his back. Lying beside him he grabbed Andrew’s right hand and rolled onto his back. With all of his strength WHITEOUT rose to his feet holding Andrew’s arms around his neck so that he could drag him the remaining few metres.
Without looking back he started running to the truck.
Only 5 metres away Gerry remembered the Russian whose legs had been shot up West of him. Panicking and pissed off he had forgotten this in the chaos. Turning just as WHITEOUT dragged Andrew past him obscuring his view he realised that Sean would have stopped firing as all the commotion of Andrew and WHITEOUT moving would have blocked his view. It would have been too risky to keep suppressing the Russian’s position West in case he hit one of the guys.
As they both passed him, the Russian crawled back up over the bank, weapon almost ready to fire.
Gerry instantaneously brought his weapon to bear knowing it was too late and that he wouldn’t make the shot in time.
‘Fuck!’ he screamed in terror watching as the Russian’s head got split in two, replaced with a giant chunk of flesh and bone. A 7.62 bullet from Sean’s sniper rifle had terminated his threat.
‘Get behind the truck into cover,’ Gerry shouted at WHITEOUT.
WHITEOUT obeyed, carrying Andrew to the rear of the truck, dropping him down behind the tailgate.
Gerry quickly moved back to join them when one more shot was fired and he felt his right shoulder explode. He felt the bone shattering into his flesh as he let out a scream, dropping his weapon. Dropping to his knees he huddled in next to WHITEOUT and Andrew.
WHITEOUT looked at Gerry who was in agony clenching his right shoulder.
Decker, who had never forgotten a face, thought to himself: ‘Metal factory, Bosnia, Sept 2000.’
‘Pass me that weapon and have you got any magazines,’ Decker demanded not really bothered about Gerry’s shoulder wound, that could wait he thought.
‘Left pocket,’ Gerry replied.
Quickly digging around in his pockets he found the two magazines. ‘Best you fucking keep him alive,’ WHITEOUT said pointing to Andrew who was now barely conscious. ‘And get that other prick of yours out there in here now to back us up,’ referring to Sean.
With that Decker did a quick confidence check again with the M4 then placed the pistol in his pocket.
Pausing momentarily and looking back at Gerry again, he pulled the pistol back out and handed it over to him knowing that Gerry may need to protect to himself if any Russians on the other side of the rubble were still alive.
His gaze switched to Andrew as his friend’s head moved and he stared at him, the look was short-lived as bullets started to strike the side of the truck again, ricocheting away breaking their gaze.
‘Stay with him,’ he said to Gerry, gesturing at Andrew. ‘This needs fucking ending now. I’m fed up of watching amateurs piss about.’ He said it with such venom and disgust that he could tell Gerry was insulted. Decker didn’t care, he was a big boy he’d get over it.
‘I think two are dead Harry. How many are there?’ Gerry asked.
‘Three, I’m going to sprint out to the West near that Russian over there and work through clockwise to the East side to finish all these wankers off.’
Without waiting for a reply he started shooting multiple bursts North behind the tent before sprinting West over to the position to where the Russian just had his head split in half.
As he moved he kept the weapon upright in the air, his left arm pumping he canted the M4 to check that the bolt was fully forward ready to engage again. These advanced skills were designed to never catch a professional out, it told him instantly his weapon would fire again and not jam.
Approaching the Russian’s last known position he was up on aim, creeping forward rea
dy to finish him if needed however the sight that he was met with caused him to lower his weapon.
He looked at the body slumped over an ice formation, the head completely deformed by an angry 7.62 strike, the surrounding ground was covered in claret with fragments of flesh and brain.
Not hanging around to admire the shooter’s handiwork he quickly started searching the Russian for any other munitions. He found nothing. He looked at the Russian’s radio, to take it could be double-edged, as he didn’t have an earpiece so any static noise could give his position away.
Leaving it where it was he rolled the man over on to his back, the bullet’s small entry hole was just below his right eye, almost invisible, as the skin had closed up again. A total contrast to the exit wound that you could put your fist into and then some.
Decker looked towards where he thought Ivan was and heard in the distance the sound of the second truck closing in and fast with his extra cover, could this other guy be trusted Decker wondered? Better safe to assume the negative and carry on with the utmost of care.
The second truck’s entrance was met with hostility as accurate fire from what could only be Ivan ensued without stopping. Sparks were flying off the engine block of the truck as it was hammered with bullets, Decker saw the driver’s natural survival instinct kick in making him dive below the steering wheel, helpless as another burst of bullets struck the windscreen. Making a sharp left turn the truck headed towards the other guys almost losing control on the ice.
That’s when he clocked something else. To his East, a perfect silhouette of a gun barrel was protruding past a bit of snow cover. Each shot released a puff of cordite fumes exiting the muzzle and heading towards the truck.
Without hesitation Decker took aim at the snow mound two feet back from the muzzle and pulled the trigger of the M4, letting out a barrage of fire that smashed the snow mound to pieces.