Seas of Crisis (23 page)

Before Kurzin could order his men to take cover, the BTRs were gone, around a bend, their engines still roaring as they raced toward the missile complex, leaving trails of sooty, pungent smoke.

“They’re in one hell of a hurry,” Kurzin said.

“At least they didn’t shoot at us,” Nyurba said.

“Of course not. They think we’re friendlies.”

“What do we do?”

“See what happens next. Sniper One, Kurzin, do you copy?”

“Kurzin, Sniper One, affirmative.”

“Situation report.”

“Helicopters behaving as before.”

“Any sign they’ve seen you?” The four snipers were out in the open. Effectively invisible to other men on the ground who weren’t too close, they might still be noticed from the air if their camouflage wasn’t perfect, or they cast eye-catching shadows from the low sun.

“Negative. . . . Wait one. Two BTR-Seventies now arriving.”

“Confirmed. They passed us. What are they doing?”

“Wait one. . . . They’ve pulled up at the gate to the complex. . . . The gate system is opening. . . . One BTR has moved through the gate. It appears to be starting a roving patrol inside the complex. Six troops have dismounted from the other. . . . They’ve walked through the gate, and they appear to be reinforcing the guards.”

“What’s that BTR doing?”

“It’s. . . . Oh crap. It’s starting a roving patrol of the defoliated strip.”

“Sniper One, can all observers withdraw to the treeline?”

“Er, negative. If we move we’ll be seen from the air.”

“If you don’t move you’ll get run over.”

“We could trust to luck that the BTR misses us. The cleared zone is half a kilometer wide. Visibility from within that type of vehicle isn’t terrific.”

“Do you see silo crews being rotated?”

“Negative. No indication that new silo crews have arrived.”

“Wait one. Kurzin out.”

“Maybe they’re prepping the area,” Nyurba said, “and the fresh silo crews will come next. We can still set up our roadblock and waylay the crews and interrogate them.”

“Kurzin, Sniper One!”

“Sniper One, I said wait one.”

“Negative, negative. More troops have dismounted from BTR outside of gates. Troops are walking with vehicle as it proceeds. Troops are prodding underbrush with AK-Seventy-fours with fixed bayonets.”

“Shit.”

“Concur, sir,” Sniper One answered.

Kurzin turned to Nyurba. “Ideas?”

“It depends on what’s going on.”

“They’re searching for us is what’s going on.”

“Maybe not, sir. It could be Commodore Fuller’s trick with his decoy finally made its way through the Strategic Rocket Forces bureaucracy. They might be reacting to
that,
regionwide, not to specific information on
us,
here, now.”

“
Days
later?”

“It’s Russia, sir. Or maybe they just found
Carter
’s ice floe with the scars from spikes and mooring ropes.”

“Or spotted our tracks in the tundra, and all
real
units are accounted for.” Noise from the Hind-Fs emphasized his remark.

Nyurba blanched. “I don’t think new silo crews will come soon.” The on-duty crews, inside the bunkers, had food and water for thirty days. Time was definitely on the Russians’ side.

“All snipers, Kurzin, are any of you likely to be detected within one hour if you hold your present positions?”

“Kurzin, Sniper One, not sure.”

“Kurzin, Two, very risky, Colonel.”

“Kurzin, Three, one hour is touch and go.”

“Kurzin, Four, iffy, sir.”

“What should they do if they’re caught?” Nyurba asked. “Try to claim they’re part of the heightened security?”

Kurzin was fuming. “On their own? Suspicious Russians won’t buy it.
Where
did they come from?
What
unit and where’s the rest of it?
Who’s
their commander?
Why
were they there from well before this alert got sounded? If they’re guarding the complex, why are they all facing
toward
the complex? They
can’t
reveal themselves. And we
need
them to support our assault!”

“Understood, sir.”

“Kurzin, Sniper Three,” came over the headset in a barely audible whisper. “They just passed me. One guy’s bayonet missed my nose by an inch. They’re using a widening-box search pattern. Next go-round, they have me for sure.”

“All snipers, sit tight. We’ll take the pressure off you.” Kurzin shouted for the entire squadron to come out on the road. “Fix bayonets!” He told the men with grenade launchers clipped to their rifles to load dual-purpose high-explosive fragmentation grenades; unlike older AKs, the bayonet lug was to the right side of the Abakan’s muzzle, not underneath, so that bayonets and grenade launchers could be used at the same time.

“Uphill! Route-march formation! To the complex, now,
run
!”

Seventy-six commandos with their heavy packs and weapons began to charge up the road in a column, four abreast.

“Look sharp, for God’s sake,” Kurzin bellowed. “You’re supposed to be an elite! I want to see some
arrogance
!”

“Sir,” Nyurba gasped between heavy breaths at the head of the column, “what are your intentions?”

“We’re more reinforcements. Spetsnaz. For the complex.”

“On foot?”

“Our trucks broke down.”

“What trucks?”

“Let’s pray the Russians don’t ask until it’s too late.”

“What if a helicopter”—pant—“or a BTR”—pant—“goes looking for broken-down trucks?”

“What do
you
think?”

“They won’t know to”—pant—“before we arrive.”

“Therefore?”

“When we arrive”—pant—“we stop them from looking.”

“Good.” Kurzin halted abruptly, but waved for his men to keep going. “Squadron, Kurzin, contingency plan Khah is now in effect as rehearsed.” Khah was the Cyrillic letter X. “We lie and cheat and fight and blast our way in as best we can. Follow my lead and take cues from your officers. Out.” He ran faster than ever, then turned to Nyurba. “Issue your orders!”

Nyurba ran more slowly, to let each platoon pass him by, to address and steady them separately, and also to catch his breath. The men were younger than him, in better shape. Their boots thudded on the pavement; equipment jangled; backpacks bounced.

“Antitank rocketeers,
up
!” Nyurba shouted. “Antiaircraft missileers,
up
!” The preassigned men shouldered their AN-94s by the slings. They pulled long tubes from their packs, with aiming and trigger gear attached. Some had protruding, bulbous shaped-charge rocket warheads—reloadable RPG-27 Tavulgas. Other tubes had protective caps—disposable supersonic SA-16 Gimlets. They held these as their primary weapons, and blended in with the rest of the company rushing up the road.

The headquarters platoon, with the Air Force missile technicians and computer hacker specialists, came next to last for better protection—they were the least expendable men. The last platoon was rear guard. Nyurba double-checked that he could hear no engine sounds from the direction of the support base, and the Hind-Fs weren’t coming.

“Antitank mines across the road, right here, from shoulder to shoulder! Same thing in the cutting for the power lines!”

One squad of ten men broke off from the rear platoon, then split in half. A group darted into the forest, the short distance to the lane cut by the Russians for their high-tension towers. The group on the road emptied their packs of mines—flat, round, menacing things. They lay them in a zigzag across the road, armed them, and carefully armed the antitamper booby traps. Camouflaged a concrete color, and put down just past a bend in the road, they’d be hard to see and easy to hit.

The other group would do this in the weeds by the power lines—that lane through the pines was the only alternate route, for tracked vehicles, up to the silos. It was easier to block off, since the pylons themselves made good obstacles.

Nyurba, satisfied, ran ahead. The miners would reunite as quickly as possible on the road. Their backpacks lightened, they ought to catch up during the three miles to the missile complex. In the meantime, they’d seem to any witnesses like the stragglers inevitable on a military training run.

With the mines emplaced, no more BTRs or troop trucks or tanks would get through for a little while.

Chapter 22

T
he fake Spetsnaz company dashed within sight of the missile complex’s guard towers, with Kurzin in the lead and Nyurba running with the headquarters platoon; Nyurba and the SERT Seabees were among the nonexpendable specialists now. The security troops in the nearest guard towers trained their machine guns. Kurzin waved, then pointed at his shoulder patch and held up his AN-94—a distinctive-looking weapon used almost exclusively by Spetsnaz. Then he ran even faster toward the gate. Nyurba could see the high-voltage wires strung on ceramic insulators along the sides of each chain-link fence; their tops were festooned with razor wire. The mines between them—probably a mix of antipersonnel and antitank—were buried in the earth. The BTR-70 within the complex drove nearer and began to pace Kurzin’s people as they ran along the road. Its turret machine gun, and the rifles sticking through ports in the passenger compartment, aimed their way; the other BTR was on the far side of the complex, continuing to patrol the defoliated strip where Kurzin’s snipers desperately hoped to stay hidden.

One of the Hind-Fs flew overhead and noisily buzzed the commandos. The roving chin-mounted cannon’s muzzle never once left Kurzin’s column. Nyurba waited to see that threatening cannon begin to spit flame, but the helicopter kept circling as if to herd and corner the strangers, from warily inside the minimum arming range of antiaircraft missiles. The other Hind-F examined the site’s outer border, the big square treeline.

The guards inside the gate looked very sharp now. The machine gun in the sandbags trained back and forth along the ragged formation of breathless, sweating commandos.

A sergeant among the guards confronted Kurzin through the three fence gates that sealed the complex from the road. He saw Kurzin’s rank and insignia. Nyurba thought the man was suspicious, surprised, and impressed all at once.

“Kto vy?”
the sergeant shouted above the noise of the helicopters. Who are you?

“Armiya Spetsnaz. Vy slenoy?”
Army Spetsnaz. Are you blind?

“We’re on alert, sir. We can’t let you in.” Relations between the Russian Army and Strategic Rocket Forces varied from jealous to apathetic, but any lieutenant colonel was hard to ignore.

“We know about the alert!” Kurzin barked. “We’re on a field training exercise. We were ordered to come as reinforcements.” The two services’ radios were incompatible, so this claim was safe to make.

“The support base never heard of you.” The man must have already phoned.

Kurzin sputtered in disbelief at such defiance of his authority. “They wouldn’t have, would they? Use your head!”

“I suppose not, Colonel.” The sergeant shrugged.

“Is your alert for real or a drill?”

“They never say it’s a drill before it’s over, sir.”

A lieutenant came out of the guard shack. The sergeant was visibly glad to pass the buck.

“What do you want, sir?” the lieutenant asked.

“I already told your sergeant. We were ordered here as reinforcements.”

“Where’s the rest of your unit?” Eighty men was small for an Army Spetsnaz company. One hundred thirty-five was the official size.

“We’re understrength,” Kurzin said. “Like everybody else.” He pointed around at the site defenses. “Seems to me you’re understrength too.”

The lieutenant looked insulted.

“What’s the scenario for this alert?” Kurzin demanded.

The lieutenant didn’t want to give out free information. “What were
you
told, sir?”

Nyurba knew that Kurzin needed to take a shot in the dark, and take real risk. What he said next had to sound genuine, but it could instead make the guards more cautious and distrusting.

“Raiders or rogues reported in the area. Intentions unknown, but this base is one obvious target.”

“Of course it would be.”

“We double-timed it to get here. If there’s a coup going on, don’t you think they’d start by seizing control of ICBMs?”

“What coup?”

“Look. Your defenses are flimsy. Where’s your antitank and antiaircraft weaponry?”

The lieutenant gestured at the two BTRs and the Hinds. The helicopters carried antiaircraft missiles among their mix of armaments. The men inside the BTRs might have antitank guided missiles—the BTRs’ roofs had launch rails for them, but Nyurba hadn’t seen any missiles on the rails. The Hinds did have their antitank rockets and cannon.

“Like I said, Lieutenant, flimsy. Your armored cars and guard towers need much more infantry support than you’ve got. Two helicopters are trying to do too much at once already. I’ve brought eighty men with all their weapons and tactical expertise. With all due respect, you’re garrison troops. We understand maneuver warfare. So will anyone attacking the base. And I don’t like standing here bunched up in the open.”

The lieutenant knew Kurzin made serious points. “We have our own reinforcements. At the support base.”

“How long before they show up? Our own trucks broke down. How many of theirs will even start?”

“Well . . .”

“We’re here
now.
And we have to assume this alert is real, correct?”

“Correct. So how do I know you aren’t part of this coup? With respect, sir, you Spetsnaz people are capable of anything.”

Everyone jumped at the sound of a sharp detonation. It came from the direction of the support base. Dark smoke began to rise above the trees. A vehicle had hit one of the mines—something coming up from the support base, as Kurzin and Nyurba had expected and intended. Guard troops and fake Spetsnaz stared. Flames shot high, above the treetops. There was another big eruption. The ground shook. A tank turret soared into the air, tumbling end over end, its long gun pointing wildly as the turret—itself belching flame and leaving an arc of smoke along its trajectory—crashed down in the woods.

“An ambush!” Kurzin shouted. “
We
didn’t do that, we’ve been standing right here in front of you wasting time. For the love of Mary, let us in so we can deploy!”

The lieutenant nodded to the sergeant, who told a private to open the gates. Electric motors hummed, gears whined, and the chain-link gates swung inward.

The two Hind-Fs flew off toward the ambush site.

Kurzin ordered his men into the complex. Then the guards closed the gate. The men dressed in Spetsnaz uniforms began to fan out to cover sectors of the perimeter—getting closer to the guard towers and the missile control bunker entrances.

A radio in the guard shack crackled. The lieutenant rushed in to answer it.

Nyurba heard his end of the short conversation. “What?
Mines?
”

The lieutenant turned to Kurzin. “You—”

Kurzin shot him in the face. The report of the AN-94 was loud. The pair of high-velocity bullets made the lieutenant’s head explode.

Kurzin opening fire was the signal for contingency plan Khah to roll into action. Men far enough into the complex for their rockets to cover the minimum arming distance in flight spun around, knelt, and fired RPG-27s at the guard shack and the machine gun nest. Nyurba and the headquarters company with him threw themselves flat. Each warhead had a pair of shaped charges, one behind the other, designed to get through the heaviest tanks equipped with external reactive armor—which blasted outward to break up the Mach-thirty jet of molten metal and superheated gases created by an antitank shaped charge. The first warhead charge sacrificed itself setting off such reactive armor; the second charge then penetrated the main armor underneath.

Shaped charge detonations created explosive force in all directions. The guard shack was blown into tiny pieces. The machine gun nest burst from within—burning fragments of sandbags flew everywhere. Nyurba, still lying flat, for a moment stunned and disembodied, felt himself being pelted with hot sand.

Assault rifles and machine guns fired in every direction with rising intensity.

BTR-70 armor was plain steel less than one inch thick. An RPG-27 rocket warhead roared at the one by the gate, hitting the vehicle’s front dead-on. The double armor-piercing jets burned their way completely through and out the back. Gas tanks ignited instantly. The armored car shuddered as ammo inside cooked off. The triangular side doors blew open. Flames shot out, not troops. Pools of fiery gasoline spread under and around the vehicle. It sagged and threw off gouts of impenetrable black smoke as all eight tires began to burn.

The ringing in Nyurba’s ears cleared. He was dimly aware of Kurzin’s voice on his radio headset, shouting something.

Nyurba looked around and saw killed and wounded, from both sides in the battle, lying everywhere, whole or in pieces.

He was pelted again, by chips of asphalt and concrete. The machine guns in the guard towers, and the heavier gun on the surviving BTR-70, were spraying the area, taking a toll on their friends and Kurzin’s attackers alike.

Their job is to protect the silos at all costs. Their own troops are being sacrificed to pin us down and decimate us.

Nyurba heard Kurzin’s voice again, more clearly. He was using the burning BTR as a smokescreen, leading a platoon to get in RPG-27 range of the other armored car. But that BTR was almost a kilometer away, five times the effective range of the RPG rockets. His men fired smoke grenades to enhance their concealment as they ran across the wide-open asphalt. Each produced a cloud of white smoke, contrasting with the black from the BTR.

The snipers and other commandos were dueling with the machine guns in the four guard towers. Those machine guns fired repetitive short bursts. The squadron, all contained inside the fence line except for the snipers, was caught in enfilade—deadly fire from several directions at once. Suppressive fire from the men’s AN-94s was having little effect. The guard towers held the high ground and their walls were made of solid concrete.

Then one guard tower, overlooking the gate area, shifted its fire, dueling with a sniper. He began to pick off the machine gun crew one by one. Fire from that tower stopped. Men with grenade launchers under their rifles were trying to land grenades inside the other tower near the gate, but their grenades kept hitting the roof or the outside of the tower, or missed and landed on the ground. Each grenade went off with a bright flash, making a dull concussion that Nyurba could feel in his gut. Grenade fumes created a gray haze around the guard tower, but not enough to make its fire ineffective. Two RPG rockets streaked by the tower, one aimed too high and the other too low; both went off in the dead grass and started small fires.

“Antiaircraft missileers,” Kurzin yelled in Nyurba’s headphones. “Watch for the Mi-24s to come back. Expect them to approach from any bearing.”

No sooner had he said that than the two helicopters appeared above the trees. The BTR crew, confused about who was fighting whom, aimed its turret at the helicopters and began to spit tracer rounds.

“Missileers hold fire!” Kurzin ordered.

The Mi-24 crews, equally confused, launched antitank rockets at the BTR. The Mi-24s were armored, very tough targets, hard to shoot down. Green heavy machine gun tracer rounds and bright yellow antitank rocket motors darted in opposite directions, leaving trails of criss-crossing smoke. The BTR, its rounds moving much faster, scored a kill. Pieces flew off an Mi-24’s fuselage. A big chunk of a main rotor came off. The helicopter spun wildly and landed on its side in the defoliated strip, and its fuel exploded. A split second later a salvo of Mi-24 antitank rockets detonated all around and on the BTR. Flames came out of holes in its armor, through its shattered windshield, and from past the edges of the shut passenger doors.

Rockets and missiles on the downed Hind-F began to cook off from the heat of the fuel fire, exploding in place or launching themselves erratically. Some ran along the ground, setting more dead weeds on fire. Some took off skyward and disappeared in the distance.

The other Hind-F crew, enraged, began to pulverize all the men it could see on the ground.

“Missiles free!” Kurzin shouted. “Knock the goddamned thing down!”

Commandos knelt and fired their SA-16s at the helicopter. Each missile went faster than Mach 2, and used a combined infrared and ultraviolet target homing seeker to ignore heat flares the Hind began to launch in self-defense.

Missiles hit the helicopter, their warheads detonating. But the warhead charges weighed only four pounds, not enough to get through its armor. The helicopter zigged and zagged but kept flying; its chin-mounted tank-killer cannon kept
firing.

Soldiers and snipers, on the ground or in guard towers, continued shooting at each other too. Nyurba looked up from where he and the headquarters platoon were still pinned down in the open. The pit of his stomach felt empty. The commando assault had lost its momentum. Russians still controlled the high ground in the remaining guard towers, they had the advantage of air power with that Hind-F, and time had always been on their side. The mission had reached dire straits, and was in imminent danger of failing at the start.

Nyurba saw a figure in the distance stand, with an SA-16 on his shoulder and another in his left hand. It was unmistakably Kurzin.

“Get down, sir!” Nyurba yelled into his lip mike.

Kurzin ignored him. He launched one missile at the helicopter, which did it no damage. He placed the other missile launcher on his shoulder, and just stayed there brazenly amid the drifting smoke and flying debris.

Kurzin achieved his goal. The Mi-24 turned to face him, to present its narrowest target profile, even as the Gatling cannon swiveled to bring him into its sights.

The gunner walked his fire toward the latest threat. Asphalt chunks and concrete dust churned, amid bright flashes and zinging bits of white-hot, razor-sharp fragments from the cannon shells. Kurzin staggered, as if he’d been hit by some of the shrapnel. But he never flinched. Nor did he fire. Cannon shells drew closer.

Missileers near Nyurba seized their chance. The whole right flank of the Mi-24 was exposed to them, and the helicopter’s weapons were all pointing the wrong way—a perfect setup.

Nyurba saw Kurzin disintegrate. His missile never launched.