Special Purposes: First Strike Weapon

CHAPTER TWO

0452 Afghanistan Time (AFT), 6th November 1987

North-Eastern Badakshan Province, Afghanistan

THE VILLAGE WAS burning, and the Spaniard was dead. The Hind D attack helicopter had dropped incendiaries to soften up the mujahideen before landing Vadim and his people. The helicopter had then circled the area, staying low and using the surrounding mountainous terrain as cover, whilst providing the squad with air support, should they need it. The nap-of-the-earth flying was prudent; after all they were here hunting American Stingers, man-portable surface-to-air missiles. The missiles were the mujahideen’s most effective weapon against the Shaitan-Arba, or ‘Satan’s Chariot’, as they called the fearsome Hind gunships. Vadim and his squad were acting on intelligence provided by the KGB. An American mercenary in the pay of their CIA was rumoured to be bringing the Stingers in from nearby northern Pakistan.

Vadim shifted slightly, his boots crunching the snow underfoot. He was watching a burning tree, foolishly destroying his night vision. Beyond the tree were the snow-covered peaks of the Hindu Kush. The mountains were truly what people meant when they used the word ‘majestic’; ancient and enduring, they couldn’t care less about the petty squabbles of humans that set villages alight and bloodied the crisp new snow.

Nothing was how it was supposed to be. He was supposed to be second-in-command of the company, but the major had been killed more than three months ago. So he had ended up in command, except their operational tempo had been such that he had less than a squad left. Thanks to bullshit like this morning’s mission. They hadn’t been allowed to plan the operation themselves. One squad in one gunship for an entire village of Tajiks. It was a platoon-strength job, for at least two gunships. Vadim hadn’t wanted to drop incendiaries on the village. His company had a rule: don’t kill them unless they’re armed. It had nothing to do with sentiment. They just didn’t feel like providing the various Afghan peoples with any further reason to hate them. That said, he had a moral responsibility to get as many of his people home as possible, and if that meant burning a village, then so be it.

The surviving villagers were mainly frightened children and weeping women, and a few very old, but still steely-eyed men staring at the Spetsnazcommandos with undisguised hatred. All of them were kneeling on the open ground where the village met the high plateau. Against Vadim’s better judgement, Gulag – Private Nikodim Timoshenko – was watching over the prisoners. Like the rest of them, the Muscovite wore a white snow smock over his uniform, but the hood was down and Vadim could see the prison tattoos creeping up over his neckline. The tattoos marked him as one of the Bratva, the ‘Brotherhood,’ Mother Russia’s unacknowledged organised crime network. His gloved hands hid the two fingers he’d lost to frostbite in the Siberian forced labour camp. His face was lean and hungry, and there was something animalistic just under the surface. Calculating eyes always looking for a weakness. Open contempt on his face as he looked down at the villagers.

The sun was little more than a distant glow behind the mountains in the east; most of the illumination came from the fires still burning in the village. He could make out the Fräulein standing a little way from him, watching his back. She was holding Princess’s AKS-74, her own RPKS-74 light machine gun slung across her back. The snipers, Princess and Skull, were above the village in the mountains, hunting for the Spaniard’s killer. The Hind gunship was playing bait for the snipers; recklessly, to Vadim’s mind. He checked his watch; Princess and Skull were due back soon and he hadn’t heard any gunfire. Not that he necessarily would.

He glanced at the Spaniard’s body. Not even he knew where Sergeant Pavel Orlinsky had gotten the nickname, and out of everyone in the squad he had known him the longest. They had met in Angola, and spent time in Cuba, and South and Central America together.

They had been debussing from the helicopter; Vadim had been last out. The squad had taken up positions surrounding the Hind, checking all around them, and Pavel had stood up to move. One second he was there, the next he was on the ground, six feet back from where he’d been standing, his rib cage hollowed out and his head blown clean off. They’d scattered for cover as another round hit the Hind, sparking off the flying tank’s armour as it took off and peeled away from the village. A third round had blown a hole the size of a car wheel in the mud-brick wall of one of the houses. The shots were still echoing over the plateau when Skull and Princess had shouted out that they were dropping their carbines and heading into the mountains. Vadim had told them to be back before 5am. Skull, the Chechen sniper, would want to be back for morning prayer anyway. The two snipers had pulled the hoods of their concealment suits over their heads and run into the rocks above the village. Another shot had echoed out, powdering a boulder behind Princess’s heels. Vadim still had no idea where the sniper was, but judging by the delay between the report and the hit, it was quite some distance. He’d heard the whoosh of rockets being fired from the pods under the Hind’s stubby wings; he guessed the crew of the gunship had seen something. A line of fireballs rolled across a steep, shale-covered slope in the distance. The gunship closed and strafed the impact area with rounds from the 12.7mm four-barrel Yak-B machine gun under its nose. Vadim had no idea if the rockets had hit anything, but no more shots were forthcoming. It was still a while before they emerged from cover.

“Boss,” the Fräulein said quietly. On day one of the brutal Spetsnaz training, every recruit was given a nickname, hence ‘the Fräulein.’ Some stuck, others didn’t. Vadim had never liked his nickname, but Spetsnaz units tended to be informal, so he answered to either Boss or Vadim.

“I can hear it,” he told his newly promoted second-in-command. A lone helicopter – a Mi-8 transport helicopter, at a guess – making its way through the twilight gloom, threading in and out of the high mountain passes at close to its operational ceiling.

“We expecting anyone?” she asked.

Vadim just shook his head.

“This can’t be good.”

Vadim and the Fräulein moved towards where Gulag was standing over the prisoners as the ungainly-looking Mi-8 clattered in to land. A platoon of VDV airborne troops piled out of the transport. Vadim vaguely recognised the lieutenant in charge of them. He didn’t know the man with him, but he wore the rank and uniform of a lieutenant in the KGB border guards. The Fräulein glanced at Vadim as the two officers approached. The KGB officer’s uniform looked crisp and clean. They came to a halt and the KGB officer saluted, earning a withering look from the VDV officer.

“Put your damn hand down,” Vadim snapped. The KGB officer looked as though he’d been slapped.

“Comrade captain, I am Lieutenant Ivack. And I may well just be a lieutenant, but I am a lieutenant in the KGB. My position holds more authority than my rank. I was merely showing courtesy.” Young and keen and rake thin, he would have been handsome but for the familiar fanatic’s gleam in his eyes. Children like this made Vadim feel every one of his fifty-three years. That and the all the pains in his joints, how much he now felt the cold, and how easily he got out of breath these days.

“Your courtesy could get him killed,” the VDV officer muttered.

“We don’t salute out here, lieutenant. It tells any watching snipers who’s in charge,” Vadim explained before turning to the VDV officer. “Lieutenant, I have a squad covering a lot of ground. Could we rotate your men onto security and guarding the villagers while I bring my people in?”

The VDV officer nodded. He looked haggard, like every other soldier serving in this war.

“Thank you, please coordinate with Sergeant Sauer.” Vadim gestured to his second-in-command. The VDV officer nodded curtly and strode over to the Fräulein and began conversing. He didn’t even introduced himself; probably too tired.

Vadim turned back to Ivack, trying not to sigh. “Frankly, lieutenant, I could have done with the extra manpower and another helicopter three hours ago.”

“Did you find the Stingers?” the lieutenant all but demanded. Vadim narrowed his grey eyes. It was clear what Ivack had done: let Vadim and his squad do the dirty work so he could fly in at the last moment, with a platoon of VDV no less, and claim the find as his own.

“I’m afraid not,” Vadim said, through clenched teeth.

“What is the reason for your failure?” Ivack demanded.

“Mostly the absence of any Stingers.”

“The intelligence was good!” Ivack insisted.

“And yet…”

“Did you find any trace of them? Did you take any of the mujahideenprisoner?”

“Anyone fit enough to hold a gun is in the mountains,” Vadim told him. We burned this village for nothing, he decided not to add.

“So you found nothing, but still managed to get one of your men killed. What extraordinary incompetence,” Ivack said, smiling coldly. Vadim knew he was trying to goad him, and frankly, he was doing a good job. Under normal circumstances he would have ignored the young fool, but he’d had little sleep in the last ten days.

“We think we encountered your American, though,” Vadim said. He saw the rest of the squad approaching out of the corner of his eye. They weren’t bunching together, they were sticking close to cover and keeping up their situational awareness. They were, however, close enough to hear Ivack, which probably wasn’t ideal for morale. Vadim nodded towards the Spaniard’s body. They’d laid him on his poncho, used two fence poles to turn it into a stretcher. The Mongol, the squad’s hulking medic, had lodged their dead comrade’s severed head in his ruined chest cavity to stop it from rolling around; he was their friend, but they were all practical people. Ivack blanched when he saw the mess the corpse was in. “Looks like he’s been hit by a Dashka, doesn’t he?” The Dashka was the DShK 12.7mm heavy machine gun. “Except it was fired from a sniper rifle. That’s a big round for a sniper rifle. Is there anything the KGB wants to share?” Vadim stretched his aching back and shifted his slung AK-74 into a slightly more comfortable position.

“Do you have the sniper?” Ivack managed. He looked as though he was about to throw up.

“I have my own snipers hunting him.”

“Then let us hope they can salvage something from your failure,” Ivack snarled, lips pulled back from his teeth. He was trying to brazen his way through his obvious horror at the Spaniard’s ruined body. It was clear Ivack had not been in Afghanistan very long; this sort of thing was positively commonplace. Vadim hadn’t stopped maintaining situational awareness either – it was a good reason not to have to look at Ivack. He was aware, and less than pleased, that Gulag had moved in closer, presumably to better hear what Ivack had to say. Farm Boy had moved in as well. Skull’s AKS-74 looked like a toy in the big Georgian’s hands. At close to six and a half feet tall, blond, blue-eyed, Private First Class Genadi Nikoladze looked like some kind of Aryan ideal. He was by far the fittest member of the squad.

Birdcall. Vadim looked over at the Fräulein. She’d heard it and was speaking urgently to the VDV officer, who ordered his men not to shoot as Skull and Princess grew out of the snow-covered landscape. They pushed the hoods back on their concealment suits as they made their way into the village. Princess made for Farm Boy, pulling the concealment suit off, and Skull headed towards Vadim and the KGB lieutenant.

Princess, at four months, was the newest member of their squad. Private Tasiya Yubenkova was athletic, slender, with crystalline blue eyes, platinum silver hair and the cheekbones of a Romanov. She was quite striking, a trait that tended to cause her nothing but trouble. Vadim tried not to grind his teeth as Ivack leered at her. His weren’t the only eyes following her, however, as she slid her Dragunov sniper rifle into a hard leather back sheath and crouched down to fold the concealment suit back into her pack.

“Report!” Ivack demanded as Skull approached. The Chechen sniper ignored him. After the Spaniard, Skull had been with Vadim the longest. He had been part of the ‘Moslem Battalion’ that had spearheaded the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and assassinated Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin. Junior Sergeant Elimkhan Kulikova’s nickname was well-earned: dark-haired, olive-skinned, and always trying to grow a beard in the field, he had a gaunt face, and the skin on his head looked oddly taut, as if stretched across bone. Some of the more superstitious soldiers in the Soviet 40th Army, those who were frightened of Asians, considered him a spectre of death, a reputation only enhanced by his aptitude as a sniper.

“How’d she do?” Vadim asked. He couldn’t help himself. He knew that Princess was more than capable: she was a world-class shot and had been attached to an anti-assassination squad within the Russian Olympic team, until the war had become such a drain on personnel that she had been transferred to a combat unit. For some reason, however, he couldn’t force himself to stop feeling protective of her, something she knew and resented.

Skull hesitated for a moment as he unscrewed the homemade suppressor from the barrel of his .303 Lee Enfield rifle. He’d taken the old bolt-action rifle from a mujahideen sniper he’d had a two-day-long duel with. It was more accurate than the Dragunov SVD rifle that most Soviet snipers carried. The previous owner had carved designs into the wooden furniture of the rifle, but they were obscured by the white pieces of fabric that Skull had tied to the weapon to camouflage it. The slight smile on the sniper’s thin lips was almost a grimace. It made him look more like a death’s head than ever.

“She did fine,” Skull told him.

“Soldier, I gave you an order!” Ivack shouted. Eyes turned their way, and Vadim saw the squad tense. Princess had shouldered her pack and taken her AKS-74 back from Farm Boy. Her eyes were boring into the back of Ivack’s head like a pair of blue lasers. The two snipers were very close, understandably. Skull ignored the KGB lieutenant.

“Find anything?” Vadim asked.

“He shot from about half a mile out, moved position each time. Whatever he used was big and heavy, much more than even big bore hunting rifles.” Skull removed a magazine of sub-sonic rounds from the .303 and replaced it with a magazine of normal rounds. The brigade armourer had to custom manufacture ammunition for Skull’s rifle, though the sniper took a lot from dead mujahideen as well.

“Soldier, that weapon is clearly not regulation!” Ivack had drool running down his chin now.

“Local footwear,” Skull continued, still ignoring the KGB officer. “But judging by the tracks, length and depth of stride: tall, heavy…”

“Well fed,” Vadim finished. Skull nodded. Their American mercenary.

“Why did you return before you had completed the task set to you!” Ivack was all but screaming now. Vadim felt like backing away from the lieutenant and into the lee of the transport helicopter; he was sure the American sniper would be able to hear the KGB officer no matter where he was.

“Because I told him to,” Vadim snapped, with command in his voice. Ivack’s mouth snapped shut, though he glared at the captain. “Anything else?”

“Present for you,” Skull said and produced a shell casing from one of the pouches on his webbing and handed it to Vadim. “He was careless.” Vadim examined the shell casing. He checked the figures stamped into the metal on the bottom of it. Ivack held out his hand.

“Give me that bullet, captain,” he said.

“It’s not a bullet, lieutenant,” Vadim said mildly, still studying it. “It’s a shell casing. The bullet probably blew a hole in that wall over there, or bounced off the gunship’s armour.” He looked up at Ivack. “Or blew my friend’s head off.” He held up the casing. “This is a fifty-calibre round. NATO use these in their heavy machine guns. Why is it being fired from a sniper rifle?” Ivack still had his hand out.

“I said—” Ivack started.

“Captain, may I?” Skull asked, glancing at his watch.

“Of course,” Vadim told the sniper. “Tell the lieutenant – the other lieutenant – that I said the prisoners can as well.” Vadim watched as Skull walked over to where the Fräulein was looking after his gear. He grabbed a rolled-up mat from his pack and crossed over to the airborne lieutenant and spoke with him. The VDV officer glanced Vadim’s way, but nodded to the sniper.

“What’s he doing?” Ivack demanded. Skull was talking to one of the elderly men with the prisoners. Vadim knew the sniper had only a few words in Dari, which the Tajiks spoke, but the sniper spoke Pashto quite well. It looked as though the sniper was managing to make himself understood, though distrust visibly radiated from the villagers. Skull unrolled his prayer mat and knelt down as the villagers turned to face Mecca and began to pray.

“It’s called the Fajr prayer. Fajr means ‘dawn’ in Arabic,” Vadim told Ivack.

“That man’s a disgrace, and presumably you know the State’s position on Islam! I’ll have you both on a charge. Now give me the shell casing, captain!”

Vadim was worried that if Ivack didn’t stop shouting at him, one of the squad was going to kill him. Vadim tucked the shell casing into a pouch on his webbing and turned to face Ivack. The captain had starved during the siege of Stalingrad as a child, and since then had never managed to put on any weight. His physical fitness belied his gauntness, of course, though age was catching up with him quickly. He was tall, though, much taller than Ivack, who was the sort of person that it was easy to look down on.

“Lieutenant, I think my men are here as bait.” He leaned in close to Ivack, who took a step back. “I think there is a CIA-backed mercenary sniper in these mountains with a new weapon, a heavy sniper rifle, and I think it would be something of a coup for you to capture it.”

The truth of it was written all over the ambitious young fool’s face. Ivack swallowed and then glanced at Skull, praying with the prisoners.

“There’s no man of fighting age here,” Ivack snapped. “This is clearly a mujahideen stronghold. I want these prisoners executed!” And Ivack was probably right. The men would be up in the mountains, waiting until they had gone.

“And what purpose would that serve?” Vadim asked.

“It would teach them the futility of opposing the will of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Red Army!”

Somehow Vadim was still surprised at the nonsense he had just heard. Ivack turned to glare at Gulag, who was openly laughing at the KGB lieutenant.

“No, it wouldn’t. It would just make them angry, more committed to the fight.”

Now Ivack leaned in closer to Vadim, though he had to look up.

“Captain, it is clear that this squad is a hotbed of sedition, possibly treason. Now either follow my orders or I will have no choice but to put you under arrest.”

Vadim gave this some thought.

“Very well,” he said. “But we’ll do it at the very last moment before we take off, as the menfolk are probably watching us right now. The VDV will have to leave first so we can get the Hind down.”

“Do you think I’m a fool, captain?” Ivack asked, and it took everything Vadim had not to answer. “You would watch me leave and then disobey my order. I will stay and see that the executions are carried out.”

Are you sure you have the stomach for it, little man? Vadim wondered.

“Lieutenant, the Hind is only capable of carrying eight men. I’m afraid there is no room for you,” Vadim pointed out.

Ivack pointed at the Spaniard’s body. “You forget, there’s only seven of you now.”

“Comrade lieutenant, you make an excellent point.” Vadim turned away from Ivack and beckoned to the VDV officer.

THE SUN WAS up and Fajr prayer, which Vadim had always found quite beautiful, was over by the time the Mi-8 clawed itself up into the cold, thin mountain air and clattered off between the snow-covered peaks. Vadim was still more than a little surprised that Ivack had decided to remain.

He’d had Farm Boy radio the Hind and tell the crew to get ready to pick them up. The gunship crew had done an exemplary job in supporting the squad, particularly given the potential threat from SAMs.

“Well?” Ivack demanded, nodding towards the prisoners.

“Oh, yes,” Vadim said. “Gulag?” Gulag wandered insouciantly over to both the officers. He pulled a claw hammer from his webbing and a bag of nails from a pouch.

“Gulag used to have another nickname,” Vadim told Ivack. “He was called the Carpenter. Do you know why?”

“Just get on with it, captain!” Ivack demanded. A number of the squad bristled, but Gulag just smiled his predatory smile.

“Do you know how Spetsnaz execute prisoners, comrade lieutenant?” Gulag asked. He held up a nail and the hammer. “Tap, tap, crunch. In the back of the head. Saves bullets. Run out of nails, you can use shell casings.” Gulag dropped the bag of nails and the hammer at Ivack’s feet.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the KGB lieutenant demanded. “Just get on with it!” He hadn’t noticed Skull and the Fräulein moving closer to him.

“You want them dead, then you do it,” Vadim told him. Ivack stared at him, fear and anger warring on his face. Vadim was almost impressed that anger won out.

“I’ll see you all in a gulag. No! I’ll have you all shot! This is treason!”

Vadim spent a moment looking at the prisoners, and then the village. The low buildings were mostly smouldering now. He wondered how many charred bodies were amongst the wreckage. He looked down at the snow at his feet. Even churned up by their boot prints, it was still pristine, white. It looked so pure.

“You’re right, it is,” Vadim said and then looked up at the lieutenant. “But only a small one, and out here, who’ll notice?”

Ivack was staring at him, perhaps only now realising the mistake he’d made. Vadim nodded to Farm Boy, who started calling the gunship in.

The butt of Skull’s .303 caught Ivack in the face, spreading the KGB lieutenant’s nose across it, putting him on his back in the snow. Then the Fräulein was on him, kneeling on his throat as he clawed at her massively muscled leg. She removed his knife and pistol, handing them off to Skull. Then, with a roar, she grabbed him by the neck and lifted him into the air. She had been a power lifter on the East German team during the 1980 Olympics in Moscow; when she’d joined the army, she’d had to wean herself off steroids and reduce her bulk, but she was still powerfully built and heavily muscled. She rammed Ivack into a mud brick wall.

“You never speak to one of us that way, you do not eye-fuck Princess, and you certainly never raise your voice to the captain, do you understand me, you little KGB shit?” she screamed. The Fräulein was properly angry, it seemed. Ivack didn’t answer, because breathing was a significant problem for him. The Fräulein may have quit steroids, but sometimes Vadim wondered if the rage had ever left her. She turned to look at him. Vadim knew he was being asked if he wanted the KGB officer killed.

Gulag was watching, smiling. Skull was wiping blood off the carved butt of his rifle with snow. Farm Boy was watching what was happening as he talked to the approaching gunship over the squad’s radio. He didn’t look happy, he’d never liked this sort of thing. Only the Mongol, the hulking, bullet-headed medic, was keeping an eye on their surroundings. This was sloppy, but they were all so tired.

Private First Class Nergui Tsogt was the only other member of the team comparable in body mass to the Fräulein, though he had more fat on him. The Mongol had grown up hunting in his native Mongolia. Vadim wasn’t sure how he’d ended up in the Spetsnaz, though the USSR had close links with Mongolia, but the cheerful medic had been a very useful addition to the squad.

“Put him down,” Vadim told his second-in-command. Reluctantly the Fräulein let Ivack go and he slid, gasping, down to the snow. “Leave the hammer and the nails!” Vadim shouted over the noise of the Hind-D as it came in to land, whipping the snow up all around them.

THEY LEFT THE hatch to the passenger compartment open, letting in the frigid alpine wind as the gunship banked over the village. Vadim watched as the villagers gathered around Ivack. He was sure he saw one of the children pick something up from the snow.

Vadim laid his hand on his friend’s body. He’d told Ivack there wasn’t room; after all, the Spaniard had been one of them.