Echo Six: Black Ops 4 - Chechen Massacre (3 page)

Talley pushed forward across the mud and loose rocks. As he came up to him, Virgil pointed at a shadow, partway up a low hillside and about fifty meters from their position.

"Up there, a weird place to have a cave entrance," he murmured. "So I guess it must be some kind of ventilation shaft. It would also work to catch and funnel rainfall inside. The sentry was close by that dark patch over there, just at the side of a bush."

Virgil had located their way in, although knocking on the enemy’s front door wasn't always the cleverest move. Talley thought for a few moments, moved a few meters back from the entrance, and keyed his mic.

"Rovere, I want you here. We need a blocking force for when the rats desert the ship."

A few seconds later, Lieutenant Domenico Rovere, late of the Italian 4th Alpini Parachutist Regiment 'Monte Cervino', came up to him. Despite his elegant appearance, for the tall, handsome Lieutenant even had his combat uniforms tailored, Rovere was as tough a fighter as any man in the unit. The 4th Alpini Parachutist Regiment didn't carry passengers. The Lieutenant was also the unit comic. Fortunately, he kept his humorous side mostly hidden this close to the enemy's backyard.

"If you to stop them dead, I could use both Minimis. You won't need them inside the caves. You going in through the roof?"

"We are. Take the Minimis and the snipers. We don't want any squirters running around when they take to the hills."

"Copy that."

"And Domenico...keep it quiet until the last moment. No talking."

The Italian, famous for quoting Shakespeare, gave him a sly smile, "Action is eloquence. Shakespeare, Coriolanus."

"Lieutenant, get moving," he sighed.

Talley crept back to where his men waited and ordered Vince DiMosta and Jerry Ostrowski, the two snipers, to join Rovere. Both men carried the long, lethally accurate Arctic Warfare rifles. Firing heavy Lapua Magnum .338 rounds over Schmidt & Bender PM II night vision equipped telescopic sights; they rarely missed.

Two other men, Reynolds and Toussaint, carried the Minimis to join Rovere. Roy Reynolds, the big, black Delta Force Sergeant, built like a blockhouse and just as tough, and Nikki Toussaint, a recent recruit to Echo Six from the French Foreign Legion Paratroop Regiment. Both were experts with the Minimi Squad Automatic Weapons, the SAWs. The 5.56mm light machine guns were equipped with two hundred round box mags and could lay down a withering curtain of fire, enough to pin down any battlefield. Unlike most of the unit weapons, they were unsuppressed, for a reason. When the time came for the Minimis to open fire, the awe-inspiring roar of continuous machine gun fire tended to ruin the enemy's day.

Talley led the rest of the men forward in the scrambling climb up the rock face to reach the ventilation shaft. Guy Welland waited for the last man to begin climbing, and then almost ran up to join Talley. They clung grimly to the rocks, punished by the vicious winds that swirled down from the nearby mountain range. Guy took a line from his pack and fastened it to a rocky outcrop, then glanced at Talley.

"We're ready as we could be, Boss. You want me to go in first?"

"I'll do it."

He cocked his weapon, the Heckler and Koch MP7 he preferred for CQB, close quarters battle. The stubby submachine gun, fitted with an effective suppressor, fired a unique, lightweight armor-piercing round. He favored it for its ability to kill an enemy, no matter where they hid or what they used for cover. He slid down the narrow rope. Seconds later, his canvas boots touched the rocky floor of a tunnel six meters below. He glanced around, wrinkled his nose at the foul stench, and then clicked his mic twice.

Guy hurtled down the rope, his HK 416 leveled ready to fire even before his boots touched bottom. They waited in silence until the rest of the men were down. Talley led the way along the tunnel, heading deeper underground and bumped into a hostile. The man was lounging against the tunnel wall, drinking from a small metal flask and making no noise. The man stared in shock, opened his mouth to shout a warning, and Talley double tapped him in the chest. He catapulted forward to stop the man crying out in his death agonies, but before he reached him, he managed to let out a low gurgling scream. It was the last sound he would ever make. Guy silenced him with a single shot to the throat. Talley kicked the body aside, but already voices were calling out in alarm. The clock had started and was counting down.

"Guy, deploy four men here to guard our six. They'll be coming up behind us pretty soon. The rest of you, let's go before they start killing the prisoners."

He heard the SAS man order Garcia, Weathers, and two other troopers to take up a blocking position. He ran forward, acutely aware he still had no idea of where the prisoners were held.

If they’re here,
he reminded himself.

He could only hope. As he reached a branch in the tunnel, more voices shouted in alarm from the right side. It was unlikely the hostiles would share the same space with their prisoners, so he ran left, detailing two more troopers to deploy out of sight and cover their retreat. He ran on, deeper and deeper into the darkness. The smell, only faint when they first entered the tunnel, became stronger.

"Jesus Christ, what is that?" Guy asked as they dashed forward.

Talley had already worked it out. "It's human excrement. The prisoners. They're up ahead somewhere. Watch out for hostiles."

He picked up the pace, and they sprinted along the rough, uneven passage. An enemy heard the sound of them coming and called out in Pashto.

"
Wadarega yaa dee
!"

Talley knew that one, 'Stop or I shoot'. He had a reply ready, shouted in an urgent and excited voice,

"
Delta raasha, chatak!"
'Come here quickly!'

He didn't wait. The guy wouldn’t be suspicious hearing his own language, but not for long. Talley sprinted around the corner, MP7 ready to fire. The man was wearing the black turban displayed with pride by most of the Taliban insurgents. He was carrying an AK-47, the Taliban badge of office, and looked astonished. Talley gave him two rounds in the chest, and one in the head for good measure. He kept running. It was almost the end of the tunnel. Ahead, a heavy wooden door blocked the way, held shut by four huge iron bolts. That, and the overpowering smell, was the giveaway.

Guy helped him throw off the bolts, and they opened the door. The sight that greeted them was amazing and wonderful. They were staring at five men, wearing the rags and remnants of their uniforms. They were all stick thin, emaciated, and diseased. Like survivors from the concentration camps, their hair and beards had grown long over their faces. He felt his anger grow, and he knew the rest of his men would feel the same. The people who'd done this to them would pay a heavy price, the ultimate price. He heard more firing from back down the tunnel. They were already paying, but in the meantime, these men needed help.

"We've come to get you out of here. Are you able to walk?"

* * *

For long seconds, none of them replied. They were so astonished. Captain Ed Silva watched the man in front of him take off his goggles and helmet, and give them a reassuring smile. He looked tall, but so would any Westerner after they’d been confined with stunted, malnourished Afghans for so long. He was narrow and long-limbed, with curling, dark brown hair, longer than was normal for military men. The man seemed to sense their shock.

“My name’s Talley,” he gestured to his men. “This outfit is Echo Six, NATO. We were sent to bring you home.”

Still Silva couldn’t reply. He was frozen between shock and tears. Echo Six sounded like a Special Forces outfit, had to be. The man in front of him looked hard and angular, and dominated by firm, determined lips, still smiling faintly, and piercing, blue eyes. Good looking, and probably a wow with the ladies, when he wasn’t killing his enemies. A hard, fighting man, he had that serene, self-confidence that is the mark of Special Forces worldwide. A man the Taliban would fear.

Silva at last recovered. “We..."

It was as far as he got. More machine gun fire echoed through the tunnels and reverberated around the stone cell. There was no time for discussion. Talley gave no order, yet two of his men turned and ran back toward the action, almost as if they communicated telepathically. He felt relief, and for the first time it sunk in.

We really are going home. These men will take us out of here, of that I have no doubt. They look like the kind of men who could pluck the devil from hell, if the order came down to them.

* * *

They were in a bad way. Some of them looked barely able to walk.

"Guy, put a man with each of the prisoners. They’ll need help, and get them moving. I'll go first and check out that shooting."

He ran back down the tunnel, leaving them to follow. He dived to the ground as shots whistled past him, inching forward to locate the source. There was no communication underground. The commo was almost useless, so it meant he couldn't contact Rovere to find out about conditions on the surface.

No matter, we have to attend to business here first.

Ahead of him, his men were exchanging shots with a group of Taliban defenders sheltering in a branch tunnel several meters away. Every few seconds, a couple of turbans would appear, loose off a few shots, and then pull back before Talley's men could reply. Buchmann, the big German trooper, called to him as he came up to them.

"Boss, if they bring out something heavy like an RPG7, they could wipe us all out with a single shot. And these people are never far away from an RPG7."

"Why haven't you used grenades? That would finish them."

"I wanted to, but what is the word?"

"It's the shockwave," a trooper leaned across and explained. Drew Jackson, their demolition specialist. "The prisoners could be in a bad way, and the blast may finish them off."

"Ja, and if we don't kill them, they'll finish us all off," Buchmann growled.

It was the old problem. Damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

"Buchmann, you're right. Use the grenades. Jackson, go back to the prisoners and warn them what's about to happen. Tell them to get flat on the ground to try and keep them out of the worst of the blast wave, and shout out when you're done. Buchmann, wait until he calls, and then launch."

Jackson retreated back down the tunnel. Thirty seconds later, they heard him shout they were ready. Buchmann had drawn a huge pistol out of his leg holster. It was no ordinary pistol. The HK69 grenade launcher was a development by the famous German arms company Heckler And Koch. With its stock retracted, the weapon literally was no more than a large pistol, but the similarity ended there. The single shot weapon fired a 40mm grenade, and in the hands of an expert, it was almost a one-man artillery piece, yet able to be drawn and fired in a fraction of a second. Buchmann was one such expert. He carried the spare rounds in his webbing, and as the first low velocity round was in the air, he was already reloading and firing the second before the first exploded.

The result was four explosions in quick succession, and although Talley kept his hands clamped over his ears to prevent damage, he felt himself picked up as if by a series of tidal waves and smashed back down to the hard rock. The huge German seemed to shrug off the blasts, as stinging chips of stone and dust assaulted them with a hail of razor sharp stone. He was already racing forward like a monstrous troll, his grenade pistol holstered and his assault rifle ready for use. Talley shook his head to clear it, sprung to his feet, and raced after him. He could hear the footsteps of the rest of his men right behind. After thirty meters, they came up on the branch tunnel. Before he could shout to Buchmann, the German trooper leapt into the opening and emptied his clip at the hostiles sheltering inside. When Talley arrived and peered into the dark space, there were only bodies left, seven of them, and Buchmann. He calmly reloaded his grenade pistol and slammed a new clip into his assault rifle. He nodded to him.

"Good job. We need to spread out through the cave system and locate the remaining hostiles while we have the chance. Remember, we have to exfil before dawn."

Buchmann nodded. Both of them knew he didn't need to add, 'Before this place is crawling with every Taliban and Al Qaeda fighter within striking distance'.

The German started to race toward the cave entrance. On the way, he reached the right side tunnel at the fork where they'd left the men to cover their retreat. It was now the place of maximum danger, since the enemy was on alert and would soon come pouring down that tunnel. He saw the German snatch out his big pistol and send two lethal grenades soaring toward the enemy.