Foreign Enemies and Traitors (65 page)

A metallic clang rattled the vehicle, and the small spotlight mounted above the left mirror exploded.  Boone had turned out the white light with his sniper rifle.  Now Carson could see nothing ahead of him through the narrow front windows.  If he couldn’t move the vehicle, Boone and Doug would have to come down to meet him in the open field.  His rucksack was also left back with them, and he didn’t want to lose it.  The ASV was like a car, with a brake and a gas pedal; he just had to get it into reverse.  He didn’t dare drive any farther forward, or this armored vehicle might also become mired in the same muck that had trapped the other one. 

From his limited memory of armored fighting vehicle tactics, he didn’t think that they operated in pairs.  Usually three or four tanks or APCs made up a platoon, providing mutual defense and supporting fire.  Certainly it would have been impossible to attack these two ASVs if a third one had been lurking nearby on overwatch.  Even now, more of them could be racing here.  Maybe they were only moments away.

Unfamiliar with the vehicle, he had to use his own small flashlight to find the controls.  A switch on a panel to his right was marked WINCH—IN and WINCH—OUT.  He toggled it and heard an electric motor’s whine.  He held the button until he felt the hook at the end of the cable rattle home.  He found the transmission lever and dropped it into reverse, pushed down on the gas pedal with his foot and the ASV began to roll backward, then he turned the wheel hard right, trying to swing back toward Boone’s position.  The rubber-padded steering wheel was nearly horizontal, like on a bus.  Ahead of him he saw a red flashlight swinging side to side, and he put the transmission into forward and drove toward it.  The red light was no more than a few hundred feet away, so he kept his left foot on the brake, moving slowly.  When he was close enough to see the flashlight clearly, he stopped, and shoved the transmission lever into park.

Seeing the vehicle commander’s corpse, Boone climbed onto the front of the ASV.  After removing his helmet with its earphones and intercom mike, he pulled the dead Kazak up and out of the hatch and rolled him down onto the ground.  Doug quickly shoved their three rucksacks through the open side door.  Their packs went on the small deck area behind the turret tower, on top of the Cossacks’ ordnance crates and gear.  Once their gear was inside, Doug slid around the turret cage and climbed into the empty commander’s seat, on the right side next to Carson.

****

Boone entered the ASV last,
closed both door sections behind him,
and squeezed up into the turret.  He quickly checked the ammo trays.  The 40mm Mark 19 automatic grenade launcher was to the left, the M2 .50 caliber heavy machine gun was to the right.  There was plenty of .50 caliber ready to go, at least 200 rounds in links snaking over the guide rollers, but on the left side he saw only a short belt of around ten 40 mike-mikes in their locker.  That meant there would be another ten or so out of sight, already fed into the mechanism of the Mark 19.  He yelled down to Carson, “Hey, you two, put on your CVCs!”

“What the hell is a CVC?” Carson yelled back.

“A Combat Vehicle Crewman’s helmet.  That’s the driver’s helmet hanging there; put it on, Phil.  I’ll wear the gunner’s, and we can all talk on the intercom.  Doug, put on the commander’s helmet.”

“But it’s all bloody,” Doug yelled back.

“Hey, deal with it, man!”

The CVC helmets each had a single-tube night scope mounted in a hinged bracket.  Boone called down, “Hey, driver, turn on your NOD!”

“What’s a ‘nod’?”  Carson replied in a loud voice.

“Night observation device; that’s what we call starlight scopes now.  Once you get the helmet on, tighten the chinstrap.  Pull those straps down until it’s snug.  Then flip the NOD down and you’re in business.”

Carson busied himself with the helmet, adjusted it, and pulled the night vision tube down in front of his right eye.  It was already turned on.

“Can you hear me?” asked Boone over the intercom, now speaking at a normal volume.  “There’s a switch on the wire.  Push the button to talk.”

“Loud and clear, Boone,” Carson answered.

“Good, we’re all set.  I’ll navigate: I can see 360 degrees up here, and I have the GPS.  Phil, are you okay with driving?”

“Roger that, I’m good to go.”

“Any questions?” 

“Yeah, I’ve got a question,” Carson said.  “What exactly are we doing in this tin can?  Why aren’t we sticking to your plan and crossing the river?  Those Kazaks are all dead; they can’t stop us from going for the boat now.  What happened to the plan?”

“The Mannville massacre happened, that’s what.  I guess I wanted some payback when I saw these assholes in the open.  Targets of opportunity.  And I always wanted an ASV—they’re way too good for MPs and Cossacks.  And maybe I just had an itchy trigger finger after what I saw in the ravine this morning.  You want more reasons?”

“No, that’s fine, you’re the boss.  I just wanted to know.  But what about Americans?  Won’t they try to blow this thing up?”

“You mean insurgents like us?” replied Boone, laughing.  “Not too much chance of that.  Rifle fire won’t even put a dent in these things, and what else have the insurgents got?  Even with my connections, I could only get a little C-4.  These things can drive right over a ten-pound mine and keep going.  Insurgents can’t touch these things.  Well, not usually,” he chuckled.  “Tonight’s an exception to the rule.”

Carson said, “I always thought Americans would be better at guerrilla warfare than this, if we were ever invaded.”

“So did I, Phil.  I just never thought own government would be on the other side.  But we’re on a roll tonight, so enjoy the moment!  Hey, I’m going to give this thing a quick test fire before we take off: I have to be sure the big guns are ready to rock and roll.  I’ve got about two hundred .50 caliber, and maybe twenty of the 40 mike-mike, but I have to know they’ll shoot.  Make sure your CVC is on snug: this fifty is gonna make a racket.  Oh, wait, give me a minute—I want to look around this machine before we go loud.  Once we go loud, we’re hauling ass.” 

Boone slipped down out of the turret, twisting in the confined space like a contortionist.  In the small clear space behind the turret were the dead crewmembers’ packs, gear bags, ration boxes, ammo cans and ordnance crates.  One was marked “40mm Rifle Grenade HE.”  It was a different round from the linked 40mm used by the automatic M-19 turret gun, and not interchangeable with it.  An old M-79 grenade launcher with a fat, stubby barrel and wooden stock was tied with bungee cords above the side door.  Where the hell did the Cossacks find that relic?  A fabric bandolier of 40mm rounds was draped over the weapon’s ungainly stock.  That ‘blooper’ might come in handy, Boone noted as he squirmed back up into the turret.  There was a reason most tankers and other armored crewmembers were on the small size: these things were just not built to accommodate full-sized Vikings. 

When he was back in position in the turret, Boone said, “Okay, Doug, did you get that thing cleaned up?  Have you got your ears on yet?”  Boone waited, but there was no reply.  “Doug, get your helmet on.  Phil, is his helmet on?”

Phil yelled across, “Doug, are you on the intercom?  Can you hear us?  Push the button on the wire to talk.”  Doug had just finished wiping the blood from the crew helmet with a greasy rag he’d found on the floor of the ASV, and gingerly slid it down over his head.

Doug shook his head no, and yelled back, “No, nothing, I’m just hearing radio chatter.  It’s not in English.”

Phil Carson grabbed Doug’s shoulder to get his attention and put his finger to his lips, indicating that he should shut up.  Then he reached over to the commander’s seat and grabbed the coiled rubber wire hanging from Doug’s left earphone, and turned the switch on its connector.  “Can you hear me now?”

“Yeah.  What happened?” asked Doug.

“You weren’t on the intercom—I think maybe you were on the radio,” replied Carson.

From the turret Boone called, “Doug was on the radio?”

Carson said, “I don’t know.  Maybe.  Maybe it was switched off.”

“There’s three positions: radio, off, and intercom,” said Boone.

“Damn!  Do you think anybody heard me?  Do you think that went out on the air?”

“I don’t know,” replied Boone.  “It was short.  It’s probably set to their tactical channel.  You slide it back toward you for the intercom, the other way for the radio.”

“Man, I’m sorry, Boone…”

“If they heard it, they’re going to be wondering why there was an American on their tac channel.  Then they’ll be doing radio checks, and I don’t think we’re going to pass for Kazaks.  Okay…turn off everything up there that looks like a radio, both of you.  They can probably find this thing just by its passive emissions if the radios are on.  Shut it all down.  That big GPS too—it’s all connected, they’re all networked.  We can’t take the time to figure it out and make sure, just shut it all off.  I can use the handheld GPS up here.”

“Shit…” said Doug over the intercom.  “I’m so sorry, Boone…”

Carson said, “It’s done, get past it.  We don’t even know if it went out.  Hey, Boone, what about the infrared Morse Kilo?  It’s still flashing.”  Carson was also wearing night vision now, they all were, and he could see the reflected dash-dot-dash every ten seconds.

“We’ll leave it on for now,” replied Boone.  “If they see us, they’ll think we’re friendly.  Helicopters and UAVs too.  They have night vision and thermal IR up there, so they’ll see us anyway.  We might as well put on their IR light, and pass for Kazaks.  The friendly-fire thing is really drilled into people now; it’ll take a lot to get them to fire at a Morse Kilo.”

“Why doesn’t the other ASV have the Morse Kilo on?” asked Carson.

“I don’t know.  Maybe their SOP says only one vehicle per tactical element puts it on.  These two were operating by themselves, but you can bet the rest of them aren’t far away.”

“What about the radio?  What if the other Cossacks are trying to get a radio check from these guys?”

“Radios foul up all the time.  The ‘n’ in ‘snafu’ is for normal.  People use the wrong frequencies; it happens.”

“But what if they heard me?” asked Doug, a hint of fear in his voice.  “Or what if somebody got out a radio call before we killed them?  What if somebody is alive inside the other ASV, on the radio?  We never checked inside it.”

Boone reprimanded him.  “Doug!  Stop worrying so much.  Worry about it tomorrow.  Right now we’ve got to haul ass.”

“Maybe we should stick with the original plan, and use the boat to get across the river?”

“Doug…
please
shut the fuck up!  I’m going to give the fifty a quick test fire—make sure your CVCs are on good, and close your hatches.”
 
Boone found the turret hand control and rotated the guns around to forward.  Using the tilting hand controls, not unlike those for a computer game, it took four seconds for the turret to spin him 180 degrees around to the front.  He flipped the night vision tube up on his helmet, and put his right eye to the gun sight; its night vision was already on.  The .50 caliber’s optical sight marks were simple and instinctive to figure out.  He found a solitary pine tree in his gun sight, and used the topmost hash mark as his aiming point.  The turret rotated to make the slight deflection adjustment.  When he was on target he flipped the red plastic safety cover off the trigger on his left hand control, and depressed the button for just a half second.  Two booms erupted from the barrel in rapid succession, jolting the entire ASV like a hammer.  A red tracer streaked out and hit the tree. 

Next, he switched the gun selector to the Mark 19, elevated the barrel to its maximum of nearly 45 degrees, and punched the trigger button again.  He wanted the grenade’s explosion to occur as far from them as possible, as a diversion.  The gun responded with a single loud, chunking thud.  He listened, but didn’t hear the high explosive round’s impact, which was probably more than a mile away.  Maybe it was a dud, or maybe it landed in water or soft ground.  “Okay, guys,” he said on the intercom.  “Now I’m happy: I know they’ll fire when I push the bang button.  We’re good to go.  All right, Phil, let’s get the hell out of here.  Turn right and head up the field close to the tree line.”

Phil Carson pushed the gear shifter into forward and mashed the accelerator pedal.  The diesel’s turbine whined, the ASV lurched into a turn, and they rolled off to the north.

****

Colonel Burgut’s armored command vehicle
rolled inside Eagle Company’s temporary perimeter.  The vehicle was a stretched version of an ASV, but without a turret or the turret’s heavy weaponry, and furnished within as a mobile headquarters.  The two fully armed ASVs accompanying him remained outside the circle of soldiers, humvee jeeps and trucks securing several hectares of woods on the slope of a low hill.  The command vehicle’s side door was opened by his first sergeant.  After giving a quick look through its small armored glass viewing port, he swung the top section back, and then lowered the bottom.  Burgut and his first sergeant put on their fur hats and stepped down from the heated interior into the cold mist.  Darkness was smothering the Tennessee winter day. 

“So, what happened here, Senior Lieutenant Kasim?”

The young Kazak officer did not salute, given the tactical situation.  Saluting in the field only helped snipers to distinguish high-ranking targets.  All of the soldiers around and within the perimeter were carrying their Kalashnikov rifles and RPD light machine guns at the ready.  They were deployed in a broad circle, weapons facing outward, crouching or lying behind what cover they could find.  In the field, his soldiers wore either brown berets or fur hats, depending upon their preference.  Standard Kevlar infantry helmets were forbidden by the International Peacekeeping Forces Agreement as being “too warlike in appearance,” and had not been issued.  Well, the fools and sycophants who wrote and signed that insane document should be here now, to see this “peacekeeping” operation!  All of his men were wearing brown body armor over their uniforms; at least this was not forbidden.