by Ralph Peters
Good. All right. Just put them down on the far bank, Gordunov thought.
“Eagle, Falcon,” Dukhonin called again. “Tanks further north. Poor visibility, but I count five… maybe six. Heading east. Crossing tactical bridges down in the water.”
“Get the bumblebees working on them,” Gordunov ordered, using the old Afghanistan slang for the dedicated gunships. “Hawk, did you monitor my transmission?”
“Working them now, we’re working them.”
“Falcon, can they range the landing zone?”
“Not mine. Not without maneuvering back. Shit. Beautiful. We’re hitting.”
“Get the troop ships down.”
Even with the headset cups over his ears, Gordunov could hear ordnance cracking, and dull thumps.
“We’re hitting. Got one tank dead in the middle of the river, burning like a campfire. Two on the banks. We’re all right.”
Immediately to the right of his aircraft, Gordunov watched a troop transport fly directly into the side of a high-rise building, as though the pilot had done it on purpose. Another story that will never be told, Gordunov thought. He was used to occurrences that seemed to make no outward sense during air-assault operations. Pilots misjudged, or briefly lost control, and aircraft smashed into mountainsides. The blast wave from this latest crash felt as though it stripped the rain from his face.
Fewer tools to do the job. Seize and hold the northern bridge at all costs. Seize and hold the southern bridge, if possible. Tactical crossing sites to be destroyed if they could not be controlled.
The command gunship pulled to the right, entering its assault approach. “Don’t shoot up the traffic on the main bridges,” Gordunov ordered. “I want them clean.”
“This is Falcon. We’re on the west bank. Lead elements en route to the northern bridge,” Major Dukhonin reported. “I’m going in myself.”
“Let’s go,” Gordunov told his pilot. Moments later, his own aircraft and two others split north, away from the element headed for the landing zone south of town and the southern bridge. The lead element had gone in on the far bank to secure the primary bridge in the north. The plan called for Gordunov, his headquarters element, and two squads from the special assault platoon to jump from a rolling hover onto the roof of a hospital building from which fields of fire commanded the west-bank approaches to the primary bridge, and from where Gordunov could control the initial actions of his battalion. The other special assault troops had been designated to block to the northeast, but they had been lost in flight. Now the main highway from the north on the near bank would be uncovered. And Dukhonin had tanks crossing up there.
The hospital came up fast, emerging from the gaps between other buildings. Gordunov spotted the river. He fixed the bridge. The burning hulk of an infantry fighting vehicle stood at its eastern approach. Last random traffic crowded in an urgent attempt to reach the western bank.
Gordunov felt the press of events now. He had time for one more brief transmission.
“Hawk, have the gunships clear to the north and west. Don’t pull out of here until you’ve cleared those tactical crossing sites in the north, or I’ll kill you myself.”
Gordunov unhooked his safety strap, then glanced over his shoulder. His command party was ready to go. Terrified. Faces all nervous energy and fear in a volatile mixture.
“Slow now. Damn it, slow,” he told the pilot.
He stripped off his headset and threw it forward. He pulled on his helmet and unhitched his assault rifle. The helicopter moved in a slow, hovering forward roll along the flat roof of the designated building, just high enough to clear the assortment of vents and fans.
Always a bad moment. No matter how many times you did it.
Miss the vent, watch the vent.
Gordunov jumped through the door, one foot skidding on the wet lip. As he leapt clear he could already feel the pressure of the next man behind him.
He hit the roof with one foot leading, and the pain toppled him over and jerked him into a curled-up roll. Hell, he thought, furious at his beginner’s clumsiness. Right foot. Or the ankle. He couldn’t isolate the pain yet.
Now. Now of all possible times.
Gordunov hugged his weapon as if he could squeeze the pain into it, while the slow rain teased his neck below the helmet rim. A blast hurt his ears. He climbed out of his preoccupation with his misfortune. An antitank missile slithered off the launch rails of a nearby helicopter, hunting a target off to the north. In a few seconds, Gordunov heard a clang and a roar.
Just don’t be broken, Gordunov told his injury. You can’t be broken, damn you. And he forced himself to roll over and cover his field of fire.
The roof was clear to the south. He heard friendly voices now. Shouted names. Yan. Georgi. Misha.
A hand touched Gordunov’s back. “Are you all right, Comrade Battalion Commander?”
Gordunov grunted and pushed the hand away. Disorganized small-arms fire sounded from several directions.
“First squad reports that the upper floor is clear. No opposition. But the hospital is full.”
It was Levin, the deputy commander for political affairs, a little puppy dog who had learned to quote Lenin and the current Party lords. Gordunov suspected that Levin even believed half of it or more. And he wanted to be a soldier. Well, Captain Levin was about to get his chance.
Gordunov pulled himself up on his knees behind the low wall rimming the roof. The pain was definitely in his ankle now, and it was excruciating. Perhaps it was just a sprain, he thought. Sprains could hurt worse than breaks. He made a deal with his body. He would accept any amount of pain, as long as the ankle was not broken.
“Communications. Bronch,” Gordunov shouted. “Comms, damn it. I need to talk.”
The soldiers of the command section came scrambling along the roof. A rifleman swiftly leaned his weapon over the balustrade and fired a burst down into the street. He had not unfolded the stock of the assault rifle, and he had little control of it. But he crouched lower, almost a cartoon of a warrior, and fired a second burst. Then the boy hunkered behind the protective barrier.
Gordunov could tell that the boy had no idea what he was shooting at. In combat, it made some men feel good just to fire their weapons. And there were others you had to beat with your fists in order to get them to let off a single round.
Sergeant Bronchevitch held a microphone out to him.
“The battalion net is operational, Comrade Commander.”
Gordunov grasped the mike. “Now get the long-range burster up,” he told his communications specialist. A gunship passed overhead, then another, flying off in echelon.
Where were they going? Gordunov knew the helicopters had not finished their area-clearing mission.
“Bronch. Put me on the air frequency. Hurry.”
Sergeant Bronchevitch messed through his papers. His pockets were crammed with cards and printed sheets. Meanwhile, the battalion net came to life. Major Dukhonin’s voice. “Those sons of bitches are clearing off. The gunships are clearing off. Eagle, I’ve got more tanks down here.”
“I know, damn it. I’m trying to get them now. I’ll be off this net.”
Heavy machine-gun fire. Not Soviet. Another pair of gunships pulsed overhead. Gordunov tried to stand up, struggling to wave at them, to communicate somehow.
They were leaving. The bastards were leaving.
At the head of the parched valley, in the rocks, high above the treeline, the transports had set them down. The dushman had waited with superb discipline. Savages with superb discipline. They had waited until the helicopters hurried off. Then they fired into the company position from all directions. The mountains had come to life, monstrous, spitting things. And Gordunov had watched his men fall as though in a film. The helicopters always cleared off too soon. Afraid. And Gordunov had waited to die in a mountain desert pass in a worthless land. They waited all afternoon. All night. When relief forces finally arrived the next day, only eleven men remained from t
he entire company. Gordunov never understood why the dushman had not come in to finish them off. And when they took him back to the base, he left his ten subordinates without a word and went to the pilots’ quarters. He smashed the first aviator he saw in the face, then he attacked the next one, and the one after that, calling them cowards and sons of whores. It took half a dozen men to get him under control. But in the end, he had only received a verbal rebuke. He was already considered one of the crazies then, and they gave him a medal and leave as a reward for losing his company, and the helicopters continued to desert the combat area as soon as possible. But Gordunov had not cared any more. He simply killed what there was to kill and waited to die. Yet foolishly, crazily, he had expected better here.
“Comrade Commander,” Branch spoke in a nervous, embarrassed voice, “I don’t have the flight frequency. They didn’t give it to me.”
Gordunov almost hit the boy. But he caught himself. It would not do any good. Suddenly, he relaxed, as in the presence of an old friend. Even the pain in his ankle seemed to diminish.
So. That was that. They were on their own. The way it was in the mountains. Now there was only the fighting, and nothing else mattered in the world. Gordunov felt the familiar rush of exhilaration.
“Levin.”
The political officer looked at him obediently. Levin was the most annoyingly conscientious officer Gordunov had ever known. He did everything the Party told him to do and more. He didn’t drink. He studied tactics because the political officer was supposed to be able to take over from fallen comrades in battle. He spent more time out on the ranges than the company commanders. And he had an attractive wife who deceived him. Gordunov did not have much regard for political officers, in any case. But he despised any man who let a woman control him or bring him embarrassment. In formulating the plan of operations, Levin had protested against landing atop the hospital building, even though it was the only possibility if they were to control the crossing site from the outset. Gordunov doubted that the enemy would have any scruples about using the structure. But Levin had cited the laws of war and endless paragraphs of rubbish. Gordunov himself had no special desire to use the hospital, but it was a question of practicality. Now he was going to give his cuckold captain the opportunity to apply some of the military knowledge he’d been cramming into his narrow little mind.
“Levin, I want you to take the first squad and get down to the bridge. Clear out anybody who’s still resisting. Leave one machine gunner on the roof where he can cover your movement. I’m staying here with the radios until I find out just what we managed to get on the ground. Just clear the approach to the bridge and hold on until Major Dukhonin comes up. And watch for tanks from the north. We’ll try to cover the approach, but keep your eyes open. Understand?”
The political officer saluted.
Gordunov slapped the hand down. “No more of that shit. This isn’t a November Parade in Red Square.”
“Comrade Commander,” Bronch, the communications specialist, said, “the burst radio is operational.”
Captain Levin moved out along the roofscape, gathering the first squad. Gordunov still did not know what to make of him. He turned to the matter of informing higher headquarters of the unit’s arrival at the objective. He felt in his breast pocket and pulled out a small booklet, then leafed through the pages. It was increasingly hard to see in the rain-darkened evening light.
Bronch waited to copy the message.
Gordunov gave him the code groups for safe arrival, approximate percentage of strength, main bridge intact, and combat action. Then he carefully buttoned the booklet back in his pocket.
The firing on the near side of the river had no logical pattern to it. Probably exchanges with bridge guards and perhaps a few military policemen or support soldiers. But the firing on the western side was much more intense. Dukhonin had a real fight on his hands.
“Falcon, this is Eagle. What’s your status?”
Dukhonin’s voice was clearly that of a man pressed by combat. “I’ve got tanks all around me. They took out the last aircraft on the ground. I’ve got at least a platoon over here, playing hide and seek with us. Older tanks, I think they’re M48s. German. Maybe reservists. But plenty of trouble.”
“Any of your men closing on the bridge?”
“Not yet. Karchenko’s working most of his company down toward it. But we’ve got a mess over here.”
“Listen, I don’t think the bridge is prepped to blow. Just my instinct. But Karchenko needs to get down there, no matter what it takes, before somebody thinks clearly enough to start fixing charges. I’ve got a good view up here, but I can’t cover the entire span. Kick Karchenko in the ass. And let the tanks into town. It’s easier to work them among the buildings. Especially at night.”
“Right. Moving now.”
“Vulture, this is Eagle.”
“This is Vulture,” Captain Anureyev, the ranking officer of the southern landing party, answered. “You’re coming in weak.”
“Just tell me what you have on the ground down there.”
“No combat action. A bit of sniping. I have about a combat company, and half of the mortars. I think they put the antitank platoon down across the river by mistake.”
“Battalion support?”
“They just kicked out cases of ammunition. We’re sorting it out now. Half of them broke open. I think the handlers went down.”
“Leave a detail to sort that out. You get onto the southern bridge as quickly as you can. Be prepared to reinforce the northern bridgehead. And I want an accurate account of who made it in with you. Get everybody under control before it’s too dark.”
“We’re missing at least a company’s worth of troops. And the air defenders.”
“Engineers?”
“I haven’t seen them. They might be over with the antitank platoon.”
“Sort it out. And move fast.”
A tank fired in the distance. Across the river. Dukhonin was probably right. Reservists. There was nothing to fire a tank main gun at. It was the machine guns that did the work in close. Unless they cornered you in a building.
Branch scrambled in close. “Transmission passed and acknowledged. Higher send their congratulations, Comrade Commander.”
“They can save it. Round up your boys and find a good site on the top floor. We can’t all stay up here. And I don’t want to lose the radios.”
Bronch moved out. Gordunov respected the communications specialist. The boy was a radio buff from his school days, when he had been active in DOSAAF, the organization for imparting military skills to the nation’s youth. He could make an antenna out of anything but ground meat. Bronch’s radios worked dependably — something that was not always the case in Gordunov’s career-long experience.
Gordunov undid the clasps and wet laces of his right boot. Then he pulled the laces in so tight that the discomfort of the constriction vied with the pain of the injured ankle. It was time to move. Gordunov sensed things bogging down. And they were so close. It made him furious that his men were not on both bridges already.
Gordunov gave instructions to the sergeant in charge of the remaining assault squad. Cover the approach road and the bridge. Then he started down the steps of the service stairwell, bracing hard on the hand railing as soon as he was out of sight of the soldiers. The pain was an unanticipated, unwelcome enemy.
Inside the hospital, there was another, separate world. A nurse cried hysterically. And, despite the growing darkness, the corridors remained well-lit. The air was warm and dry. A few nurses and doctors stood defensively in the hallways beside litter patients. A glance revealed that the hospital was overflowing with military casualties.
The crying nurse erupted into a scream. Gordunov turned on the oldest of the doctors, assuming he would be in charge. “Shut your little whore up,” he told the man in Russian. “And turn the damned lights out.”
The doctor did not understand. He touched Gordunov’s sleeve, jabbering in incomprehen
sible German. Gordunov pushed past him and, when the doctor persisted, Gordunov shoved the muzzle of his assault rifle into the man’s face. Then he turned the weapon on the overhead lighting panels and let go a burst.
“Understand?” Gordunov asked him. He shot out another sequence of lights. The other doctors and nurses threw themselves down on the floor. Gordunov yelled at one of his soldiers who stood idly by. “You. Get all of these people out of the hallway. And see that they turn out the lights in the entire building.”
A machine gunner and a rifleman covered the main entrance on the ground floor. Gordunov ordered the rifleman to follow him, as much because he did not know how much longer he could manage the pain in his ankle as to have a runner for communications.
Automatic weapons fire chased them between automobiles in the parking lot. The bridge was very close, but there was an open square just off of the main feeder road that had to be crossed to get to it. An enemy fire team positioned on the far side of the main route covered the direct approach. The street itself had cleared of traffic now, except for a few burning or abandoned automobiles and the smoldering wreck of the infantry fighting vehicle that had been destroyed by the gunships.
There was no sign of Levin or the squad he had taken with him. “I’ll kill the bastard,” Gordunov promised himself, wondering where the political officer had gone. Gordunov was sorry now that he had not put more men down on the roof of the hospital. It had seemed too great a risk, and he had not even told his superiors about that small detail of the plan. Too many officers assigned to airborne and air-assault units and formations still had not been to Afghanistan. Too many of them were soft, and weak-willed, like Levin, and they might have objected to even the most limited use of the hospital. Gordunov felt as though he had enemies to overcome in both camps.
“You go back,” Gordunov told his rifleman companion. “Get up on the roof.” Gordunov pointed to the southwest corner of the hospital building. “Up there. Tell Sergeant Dubrov I said to put suppressive fires on the far side of the street.”
Before the rifleman could sprint off, a ripple of grenade blasts dazzled along the far side of the street, shattering the glass in the last intact storefront windows. Hard after the blasts, rushing forms took the enemy position from behind. In a matter of seconds, automatic rifle bursts cut in and out of the buildings, and enemy soldiers stumbled out of the shadows with their hands in the air, calling out in a foreign language.
