by James Rosone
*******
Three hours later, Ambassador Hicks was sitting across from General Sobolev, the current president of Russia during the transition period. During the past few months, Ava had spent a great deal of time working with the general and had made a point of spending time with him outside of work as well. Sobolev had taken her to a couple of Russian opera and ballet events and shown her some of the better places to eat in the city. Ava knew if she was to be successful in her position, then she’d need to develop deep personal and working relationships with her Russian counterparts.
While this meeting had been scheduled, the tensions between the two parties had been increasing. However, since the meeting was just between her and Sobolev, she hoped she might be able to get a bit more done in such a close personal setting than with a group.
After the usual cursory conversation about family over a cup of tea, she placed her teacup down on the table between the two chairs. “Mr. President,” she began, “there are two important items I want to discuss with you.”
Sobolev put his own cup down and turned slightly so his body was fully facing hers. “You want to discuss the nuclear disarmament,” he said, pulling no punches.
She nodded, knowing this was a touchy issue. “I do. I’ve also come to a decision on your soldiers who are still in hiding in the Allied nations.”
Sobolev raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. These soldiers were the ones that had been under his command and direction during the war. She knew they meant a lot to him.
“There appear to be a lot of accounting irregularities in regard to your nuclear weapons. It could just be an oversight, and perhaps you’ll let General Brice know of a few new locations he should check to find them, but this needs to be addressed.”
Smiling at the obvious opportunity she was giving him to turn them over and save face, he nodded. “This is a sensitive issue, Ms. Hicks. I have been looking into it as well and I believe there are a few places I may be able to direct your general to check. I’m still working through some, how shall I call them—personnel issues with the Ministry of Defense right now. Some generals and senior leaders are not very happy with the surrender terms I agreed to. If our remaining special forces soldiers who are still in hiding in America and Europe were allowed to return home…it would give me more leverage with some of these problems.”
Ava nodded, knowing exactly who Sobolev was talking about. “So General Chayko is still causing problems,” she thought.
“I understand there’s still a lot of distrust and animosity between our nations. Emotions are still raw. You and I though, have to get past them. We have to be the ones to push our people past them, so we can collectively pick up the pieces and move forward.” She paused for a second as she thought of what to say next, and how to say it in Russian. She was fluent in the language, but trying to figure out the specific translation of certain complex phrases sometimes caused her to have to stop and consider her words carefully. “I’m going to take some serious hits politically back home and amongst many of the Allied nations for this, but I’m going to agree that your Special Forces soldiers and operatives will be allowed to return home to Russia and will not face federal criminal prosecution in the United States. I cannot fully guarantee that other Allied nations will not try to prosecute your men, but we will not. However, this is a major concession I am making for you, Mr. President—I need a much stronger show of good faith on your end with the missing nuclear weapons, particularly the two ballistic missile submarines.”
The general sat back in his chair and eyed Ava for a moment. He then turned and looked at one of the paintings on the wall in his office, clearly deep in thought. Without returning his gaze to her, he said, “I may know where your General Brice can find some bunkers that may have been mistakenly missed on our nuclear inventory list.” He twiddled his fingers. “As to those two ballistic missile submarines…I will have a more direct conversation with General Chayko and my fleet admiral about them. I have been told they were lost during the war. That may be true, but I will investigate further. If I am not satisfied with what I find, then you may notice a series of…personnel changes and early retirements. If that happens, I can assure you, those particular individuals will not be a problem. The sooner my nation complies with the terms of surrender and we are able to move past this occupation, the better it will be for all parties involved.”
*******
Within days of Ava’s decision to allow the enemy Special Forces still hiding in the Allied nations to return, the Allies discovered another large trove of “previously unaccounted for” nuclear weapons at nearly a dozen bunkers hidden across the country. While the mystery of what had happened to the two ballistic missile submarines remained, more than a handful of senior military and government officials had suffered some coincidental heart attacks, car crashes and other freak accidents. While the tensions between the Russian people and the occupying force hadn’t gone away, they appeared for the time being to have cooled off as the remaining Russian soldiers returned home to their families.
Chapter 7
Rangers Away
Erenhot, Inner Mongolia, China
The drone of the jet engine on the C-17 Globemaster threatened to lull Sergeant First Class Conrad Price to sleep. He glanced around at the men of Third Platoon, faces painted, parachutes on, weapons and packs ready for their fourth combat jump of the war. He imagined that there were probably some guys from the other battalions who had gotten jealous of the amount of combat his battalion had gotten to see.
“Maybe they’re the lucky ones,” he thought. Then his mind went back to the handful of guys he’d had to pull from the platoon until they could get their minds and emotions back under control.
“Five mikes!” shouted the jumpmaster.
Price looked out the open side door. It was still dark—a good thing for this jump. It would be dawn in an hour. Hopefully, they’d have the objectives secured by then and the cavalry would be on the way to relieve them.
“Sixty seconds!”
“Lord, keep me and my men safe on this jump,” Price prayed silently. It was not uncommon for even the less-than-devout to speak to God before taking a leap into a freefall.
The first Ranger jumped out the door, quickly followed by the man behind him. The line of paratroopers on each side of the plane steadily made their exit to the black abyss below. Seconds later, Price was out the door, his static line yanking him hard as his main chute deployed, stopping his descent with a hard snap.
Looking below him at the city below, he spotted a few lights on, but overall, the dwellers below appeared to be asleep. Then, after a moment of drifting in silence, the sound of an air raid siren sent a shiver down Price’s spine. The defenders would all be awake now and anticipating an imminent attack.
“Come on, only sixty more seconds and I’ll be on the ground,” he said, trying to pump himself up and not expecting anyone else to hear him.
Bang, bang, bang, ratatat, ratatat!
Green tracers reached out into the night sky and a handful of floodlights turned on, illuminating targets for the antiaircraft guns to pick off.
“Thirty seconds and I’ll be on the ground,” Price thought, unconsciously crossing his fingers.
Just as Sergeant Price was starting to have a genuine glimmer of hope at his chances of making it to the ground, a search light suddenly popped on just below him. Without thinking, he immediately reached down, grabbed his Sig Sauer and fired at the light. He shot six times before the fixture suddenly sparked and blew out.
Unfortunately, although the threat of the light had been neutralized, the noise of his gunfire had given him away. A stream of green tracers reached out as if trying to grab him with monster’s fingers, and he heard the bullets from the machine gun whizzing in the air. Using the navigation cords on his chute, Price pulled himself into a tight turn.
A string of rounds tore through his canopy, riddling it with holes. Price got a sick feeling in the pit of his sto
mach; he was still about a hundred feet from the ground. He did his best to recover control of the rapidly failing chute, hoping not to slam into the ground. A second later, he landed hard and rolled to one side, unable to stop until he’d made two full revolutions.
Zip, zap, zip, zap.
Bullets kicked up dirt and rocks all around him. He fought to disconnect his chute and dashed behind a nearby parked car.
“Where the hell am I?” he thought.
Price unzipped his rifle case, which was still strapped to the side of his individual body armor. With his rifle free, he pulled out a fresh magazine and slapped it in place, charging the bolt and placing a round in the chamber.
Bullets suddenly tore into the vehicle that had been shielding him. Shards of glass rained down on him, along with flecks of metal debris. When the deluge paused momentarily, he looked up over the rim of the vehicle’s busted window. With his night vision goggles still on from the jump, he could see three enemy soldiers, one of whom was still pointing in his direction. The other two seemed to have turned their attention to the paratroopers still falling from the sky.
Price switched his selector switch to auto and brought his rifle up to his shoulder. He took aim at the guy manning the machine gun and depressed the trigger just long enough to release a three-round burst. In fractions of a second, his mind had willed his body to move the rifle to the remaining two guys, lighting them both up. Before the enemy even had a chance to realize what was happening, Price had dispensed with them.
Searching his immediate surroundings, he didn’t see anyone else posing an immediate threat, so he moved forward to grab his ruck. He heard other voices nearby but quickly determined they were fellow Rangers and called out to them. Minutes later, three other paratroopers joined him.
“We thought they got you, Sergeant Price,” one of his squad leaders said.
Price shook his head, and then, in a voice that was almost cocky, he answered, “It’s going to take a lot more than that to kill me.”
They chuckled.
“Where’s the rest of the platoon?” he inquired. They needed to start forming up and moving to secure their objectives. There was only so much time left before dawn, and their job would get a lot harder once the sun was up. Night vision still gave them an advantage, and they had every intention of using it.
Boom, BOOM!
An explosion blasted nearby, and they all flinched. More machine-gun fire rattled, and someone shouted over in its vicinity.
“Let’s head in that direction,” Price said, pointing toward a growing fireball.
Price and the handful of soldiers he’d run into thus far made their way toward some of the heavier fighting taking place near the railyard. In minutes, their little group had rounded up another five friendly soldiers. When they reached the outer edge of the train station, they saw a ZBL-08 Snow Leopard firing away on a cluster of Rangers pinned down on the other side of the trainyard. A handful of PLA soldiers were nearby, adding their own volume of fire at the US soldiers as they looked to flank them.
Price turned to one of his squad leaders. “Have your two antitank troopers try to take that vehicle out,” he ordered. “When that’s blown up, we can advance from two different angles and take out the remaining enemy soldiers.”
The squad leader nodded, and the soldiers quickly went to work, getting themselves in position to execute.
One of the soldiers, who had been carrying a Javelin, made the antitank missile ready. Another soldier with a Javelin stood nearby, waiting to engage any other armored vehicles that might appear. The soldiers signaled to each other that they were ready.
Pop, swoosh.
The missile leapt out of its case and flew the three hundred meters in seconds, slamming into the side of the ZBL-08 Snow Leopard.
Boom!
Sparks and flame engulfed the vehicle and one of the enemy soldiers nearby. The rest of the Rangers nearby opened fire on the remaining enemy soldiers, doing their best to force the Chinese soldiers to keep their heads down while one of the fire teams advanced to close the distance.
Four of the Rangers ran thirty meters across two of the rail lines, taking cover behind an empty flatbed car just as a second armored vehicle they hadn’t spotted before pulled around the train station building, firing its 12.7mm machine gun at them. Bullets kicked up dirt, rocks and other fragments around the four soldiers. They did their best to make themselves as small as possible to avoid being hit.
The second soldier with a Javelin popped up from behind his covered position just long enough to get a lock on this new threat. Once he heard the tone indicating a missile lock, he depressed the trigger, and the missile leapt from the tube in a small flash of flame as the rocket motor ignited. In less than two seconds, the second armored vehicle blew up, ending its short shooting spree.
“Now! Everyone forward!” shouted Price.
The remaining Rangers jumped out from their covered positions and advanced in a line with their rifles at the ready, shooting any and all enemy soldiers they spotted as they moved in on the train station itself, clearing the railyard along the way.
“Look out!” shouted a soldier near Price.
He turned just in time to see an enemy soldier poke his head out from behind a cluster of trash cans. Fortunately for Price, he’d turned his rifle with his head. As he saw the eyes of the enemy soldier through his sight, his years of training kicked into autopilot and he reacted without even thinking. He squeezed the trigger just a fraction of a second faster than the PLA soldier did. He watched as his round flew fast and true, hitting the enemy soldier right in the center of his face. It snapped the man’s head back, and his body collapsed into a heap.
Turning to the soldier who’d called out the warning, Sergeant Price said, “Thanks, but next time just shoot the guy.”
The soldier, a new guy to the unit, just nodded. It was a humbling lesson, and fortunately, Price hadn’t had to die for him to learn it.
When their group approached the terminal building, they linked up with another squad from their platoon. The Rangers collectively made their way to one of the entrances. They shot the lock off the door and then proceeded to filter into the cavernous station, moving rapidly through it as they cleared it of any hostile soldiers.
They could still hear gunfire from outside as they continued securing their objective. It seemed to Price that it was starting to move closer to them.
Once they reached the north end of the station, one of the Rangers caught a glimpse through and window and shouted, “Sergeant Price, you need to see this!”
Several of the other Rangers also made their way over, and they all cautiously peered out the window. Through the pane, Price caught sight of three Type 89 armored personnel carriers less than 100 meters away. The back hatches of the vehicles dropped, and out ran nearly forty enemy soldiers.
“Oh, crap, that’s a lot of soldiers,” Sergeant Price thought.
He immediately signaled to get the attention of his two squad leaders. “Second Squad, take the north side of the building. Third Squad, take the south side. We’ll let them walk into our crossfire and wipe `em out,” he ordered.
Sixty seconds went by as the Rangers ran to the opposite ends of the terminal and began to set up their fields of fire. In the meantime, several of the PLA soldiers busted open the front door of the terminal and made their way inside.
Price heard the commotion. “Everyone, hold your fire until you hear me shoot,” he ordered through his headset.
Seconds felt like minutes. More and more enemy soldiers filtered into the building, yelling out their own orders in Chinese. Sensing that the most opportune moment had arrived, Sergeant Price closed his left eye and sighted in on a man who was waving soldiers forward and directing them where to go; he was most likely an officer. Price applied pressure to the trigger until his rifle barked. Then he watched as the enemy soldier clutched at his chest and fell to the ground.
As soon as Sergeant Price fired his weapon,
the two squads’ M240G heavy machine guns and their M27 infantry assault rifles opened fire.
Bang, bang! Ratatat, ratatat, zip, zap, zip, zap!
Red tracer fire crisscrossed from the southeast and northeast corners of the terminal, out toward the main entrance. Their fire completely enveloped the enemy soldiers in a fusillade of bullets that ripped and shredded everything inside the terminal.
Though he couldn’t understand the words, Price could tell the shouts from the Chinese soldiers were panicked. The PLA did their best to return fire and counter the ambush they’d walked into, hurling a few grenades toward the Americans.
Bam, BAM!
Sergeant Price grabbed one of the M67 fragmentation grenades from his pouch, pulled the pin, and lobbed it at a cluster of enemy soldiers that had taken cover behind one of the kiosk counters. The grenade exploded with a dull thud and a cloud of smoke, silencing the enemy attackers.
Just as the fire from the PLA soldiers was dying down, the north side of the building erupted in shards of wood, metal and glass. Green tracers tore through the walls of the building and anything they happened to hit. The three enemy vehicles outside had turned their 12.7mm machine guns on the terminal, lighting the entire building up. Price knew they couldn’t stay in the building much longer if those machine guns were going to continue to rake the structure with their heavy-caliber slugs—they’d tear the whole place apart.
Price looked around for one of his squad leaders and spotted one of the newer soldiers in their unit unslinging the AT4 he had with him. The young man ran toward one of the windows on the north side of the building. When there was a break in enemy fire near him, he jumped up, aimed the AT4 through the window, and fired.
Sergeant Price heard the usual small popping noise and a sudden swoosh of flame as the rocket flew out of the weapon. It landed squarely against the side of the enemy vehicle, thoroughly decimating it. The young Ranger ducked for cover and sprinted back deeper into the building, but the wall where he had just been standing was swiftly torn apart. A heavy-caliber round hit the soldier in the leg, completely ripping it off. Just as the soldier was about to tumble forward from his own momentum, a second round hit him in the back, nearly cutting the man in half. His body landed with a thud, motionless and suddenly devoid of life.
