Black Flagged Redux

by Steven Konkoly

  Daniel made sure they were not exposed to any obvious enemy fire and kneeled down next to Leo.

  “What do we have?”

  “Russians. Standard special forces comm set. Hidden harness with spare magazines, frag grenades, pistol…suppressor. My best guess is regional Spetsnaz. Border response team maybe. Something like our Rangers. Probably assigned to the Western Siberian Military District based out of Novosibirsk a few hundred miles from here. Why would the Russians put a reinforced platoon of special forces guys on our asses?”

  “That’s another million dollar question. Anything else you can tell me?”

  “Not really, though I’d like to know how they got here. By my rough estimate, we’re looking at thirty plus guys…”

  “Hold on, Leo…fuck, do you hear that?”

  Amidst the sharp reports of sporadic rifle fire, Daniel heard a deep rhythmic sound that made him shudder. He grabbed the bloodied pair of binoculars next to the dead Russian and wiped the lenses enough to see through the red smeared glass. Scanning the horizon, east to north, he spotted them almost due north. Three helicopters coming in low.

  “Motherfucker! Grab an RPG if you can find one and take cover,” he said and ran toward Dusty, who sat against the same wall next to Farrington, holding the satellite phone with a grin on his face.

  “What is it?” Leo yelled at him as he ran.

  “Helicopters!” he said, without looking back.

  “Are you fucking kidding me? Shit,” Leo said and started scrambling toward more of the dead bodies.

  Petrovich reached Dusty, whose grin had faded at Daniel’s single word.

  “Is that Berg?”

  “Yeah…they had some technical difficulties. He—”

  Daniel swiped the phone from his hands. “Nice to finally hear your voice.”

  “Look, you have no idea what I’ve gone through to put that drone over your head, and from what I can tell—”

  “I’ll thank you later…right now we have a bigger problem. I have three helicopters headed my way. We were hit by Russians, so I assume this is their ride back over the border.”

  The satellite phone fell silent for several seconds, and Daniel raised the binoculars to examine the three ugly objects growing on the northern horizon, racing toward the village at 150 miles per hour.

  “You still there? Or are we experiencing technical difficulties again?” Daniel said, shifting his gaze to Farrington. “Rich, we need to get across the street and find some RPGs. Mix in a little closer with their ground forces and make it hard for those helicopters to engage. What do we have left over there?” he said, with the satellite phone still jammed to his ear.

  “Five or six guys. Maybe a few more. Dug in pretty well. They’re not going anywhere,” Farrington said and snapped off three shots.

  “Scratch one more,” Farrington added.

  “Berg! You there? Fuck, this guy is killing me.”

  Berg’s voice came back through the phone.

  “Daniel, the Predator drone has no remaining ordnance. They can remain on station to—”

  “Watch us get killed? What do we have coming our way? They’re coming in too low for me to get an ID,” Daniel replied.

  Leo came into view around the corner of one of the houses with an RPG launcher and a backpack containing three shaped charge warheads. Farrington watched the remaining Spetsnaz troops and the open roadway through the village to ensure there would be no surprises from that direction.

  “We’re in business!” Leo yelled, and Daniel gave him a “thumbs up,” anxiously waiting for Berg’s reply.

  “Predator control has two ‘Hip’ Mi-8 transport helicopters…and one Havoc Mi-28 attack helicopter,” Berg continued, his voice trailing off with the sound of dread.

  “Say again, last helicopter type,” returned Daniel, reverting to formal military communications protocol.

  “Mi-28 Havoc. One minute outbound…hold on, Daniel, I still might be able to help you out. I need to work on something…”

  Petrovich threw the phone back at Dusty, who looked despondent, as the deep, ominous pounding sounds of heavy rotor blades grew louder.

  “Stay close to me and put that phone in my ear the second he comes back on the line,” he said, then turned to the rest of the team assembled behind the building.

  “We need to get as close to their perimeter as possible. We have a Havoc inbound…no time for a plan. Move fast, shoot, use grenades. Don’t drop the RPG,” he said and smiled at Leo.

  “Yeah, fuck you too,” Leo responded with a grin, and they sprinted across the street.

  **

  Technical Sergeant Juan Salazar listened to Karl Berg’s voice over the secure communications speaker while shaking his head slowly. He made eye contact with Staff Sergeant Kelly McIntyre and half mouthed-half whispered to her.

  “No. No. This is fucking out of control.”

  McIntyre watched her screens intently, simultaneously zooming in on the three helicopters and the “friendlies” now dashing across the road.

  “Friendlies just repositioned to western side of the village,” she added to the conversation between Major Adler and Berg.

  “Mr. Berg, with all due respect, you better have our asses covered on this,” Hesselman said.

  “Major, no need to hide something that never happened…and let me reiterate for everyone at your station. This never fucking happened. Get this done, Major. They’re running out of time.”

  Major Hesselman moved the joystick left until his camera view showed three helicopters in formation, moving south down the road toward Kaynar. He increased the throttle setting, and the Predator drone accelerated into a dive exceeding the unmanned vehicle’s advertised maximum speed of 135 miles per hour.

  “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Salazar muttered.

  Kelly McIntyre stared at her main screen with utter amazement as the “Havoc” filled the grainy scene on the monitor. No matter how fast she zoomed out, the Russian helicopter continued to grow until the screen went dead.

  “Scratch one Havoc Mi-28 attack helicopter,” she said and glanced at Salazar, who looked at her like a disapproving mother, with folded arms and a slowly shaking head.

  **

  The first salvo of 30mm cannon fire from the Havoc tore through the buildings they had just passed like paper. Unfortunately, their CIA liaison chose to invest in the deceptive safety of the first building that they encountered after crossing the open road. Daniel had reached out to pull him along, but the terrified agent crouched solidly against the concrete wall. Petrovich had no intention of slowing down long enough to try and physically dislodge him. Just as Petrovich cleared the structure, the house exploded from the near simultaneous impact of several dozen high velocity projectiles, and Dusty disappeared in the maelstrom of concrete chunks and wooden splinters.

  Another burst of cannon fire tore into a house ahead of the team, shattering the structure and indicating to him that the Havoc gunner had temporarily lost track of them. They were split between two closely bunched houses, in groups of two. Leo and Farrington were a few houses ahead, loading the RPG. He knew there was little hope of taking this helicopter down. He figured it was a few hundred yards away, well out of reliable RPG range. The Havoc’s targeting system rivaled the U.S. Army’s AH-64 Apaches, and their little game of hide and seek in the village wouldn’t last much longer.

  Even if Leo managed to miraculously land a clean shot with the RPG, Petrovich wasn’t convinced the rocket would have any effect. The Havoc was heavily armored like the Apache, a virtual warhorse in the sky. Their only hope was to hide close to the Spetsnaz and pray the Havoc crew didn’t use rockets. He wasn’t very hopeful. With the 30mm cannon providing suppressive fire, they couldn’t effectively keep the Spetsnaz in place, and without the Spetsnaz nearby…they’d be rocket fodder. He raised his right hand and delivered a potentially suicidal hand signal to Farrington.

  A devastating explosion filled Daniel’s ears, and for a
split second, he thought the Havoc crew had fired a salvo of 127mm rockets. Instinctively, they all flattened against the ground, but when the rockets didn’t instantly tear through any of the structures around them, they executed Daniel’s silent order. All of them burst forward from their cover, sprinting between houses in the direction of the massive detonation.

  When Petrovich rounded the corner, he grinned wickedly as the burning Havoc banked sharply left and plummeted rapidly out of sight. Before he could visually reacquire the mortally damaged attack helicopter, a second, larger explosion sent another shockwave through the village, momentarily heating the cold Siberian air and sending burning metal fragments deep amidst the buildings. No one in Daniel’s team said a word, as they raced to find new firing positions to engage whatever might be left of the Russian force.

  Upon reaching the northernmost house several seconds later, he saw two flaming metal wrecks twisted together on a flat area of land barely fifty meters from the edge of the village. The out of control Havoc apparently veered directly into the Mi-8 transport helicopter that had landed to extract the remaining Russian ground forces, exploding both fuel tanks.

  The second Mi-8 helicopter hovered where the Havoc had been moments ago, fighting the sudden air flow instability caused by the drastic temperature fluctuations radiated from the conflagration of aviation fuel to its immediate right. Leo wasted no time pushing Daniel out of the way and leaned against the house to steady the RPG launcher. He took a few seconds to gauge the distance to the wavering helicopter and fired the rocket without warning. The rocket’s explosive booster charge caused a crunching overpressure among the group, bathing them in a toxic cloud of grayish dust dislodged from the ground.

  Petrovich saw the rocket motor engage and propel the 93mm warhead toward the Mi-8’s cockpit. The helicopter spun at the last moment possible, causing the rocket to miss the cockpit and detonate against the rear cargo hatch area. His team immediately retreated behind the two closest houses and reloaded the RPG, unsure if the Mi-8’s pilot would commence a gun run against them. Though the helicopter didn’t carry anything as sophisticated as the 30mm “chain gun” found on the Havoc, nobody on the team wanted to stick around to test the skills of a Special Operations helicopter pilot.

  He heard the heavy whining sound of turboshaft engines and risked a look at the helicopter. He saw the Mi-8 headed due north at high speed, trailing thick black smoke over the road. When the helicopter passed their own smoking SUV and didn’t alter course, he knew they were safe for the moment.

  “It’s headed north. Nice shot,” he said and something caught his immediate attention.

  Four Spetsnaz soldiers crouched in the open, watching the helicopter abandon them. Daniel raised his rifle and dropped one of them with a headshot. The remaining three commandos raised their hands as the four Black Flag operatives rapidly fanned out to approach them.

  “I want solid intel out of these guys. Kill one if you need to motivate them to talk. I need to see if the satellite phone still works,” he said.

  Daniel sprinted back through the village and found the wrecked mess of concrete chunks and wooden pylons that served as Dusty’s ill-conceived cover from 30mm cannon fire. The repeated bursts had leveled the house, and he struggled to tear the debris clear of a boot that he spotted in the monochromatic heap of shoddy building materials. He lifted a sizable chunk of concrete off the boot, exposing the top of the shin, which was no longer connected to a body. Sheared off below the knee, a jagged piece of bone protruded from the dust caked end of the outer limb. He didn’t look forward to digging through the rest of this pile.

  A single gunshot echoed through the village, and Daniel wondered exactly how long Farrington had tried to get information before blowing one of their heads off. It really didn’t matter, none of those soldiers would leave here alive, and his team needed to be back on the road immediately, though he wasn’t sure what they would use for transportation. He kept digging through the rubble, finding a severed hand and what looked like intestines. The phone suddenly rang, and Daniel realized it sat ten feet away near the road. Dusty’s last act must have been to toss the phone out of the carnage exploding around him.

  He jogged to the phone, and pressed “receive.”

  “Did my little gift arrive?” the familiar voice said.

  “I can’t imagine anyone will be happy about losing that drone,” Daniel replied.

  “A simple thank you would suffice.”

  “I’ll thank you over coffee, once you get us the fuck out of here.”

  “The Predator control team said there were a few vehicles located at the southernmost point of the village. Most, if not all of Kaynar’s inhabitants appear to be herded into an area west of the village, in a depression over a small rise. One hundred plus bodies. They had full thermal signatures, and control saw plenty of movement among the group. It looks like they’re all alive,” Berg said.

  “I don’t think the Russians had enough time to properly dispose of the villagers, and I’m pretty sure they didn’t expect us to survive the IED blast. The helicopters didn’t approach in any sort of attack formation. I think they cruised in low to pick up the Spetsnaz, operating under strict radio silence. It’s the only explanation.”

  “What happened to the helicopters?”

  “The Havoc crashed into one of the transport helicopters thanks to your Kamikaze drone. We hit the other with an RPG, and it hauled ass back to Russia. This is fucked, Karl. Something doesn’t add up here.”

  “The picture is still developing, but we might have another lead and a possible explanation for the Russian response. I need to send your team north of St. Petersburg to investigate some bizarre rumors that our signals intelligence team has processed. Nearly the entire Kola Peninsula has gone dark, and we’ve detected a massive military deployment to the area. Nothing can get through the highway running between Murmansk and Kandalaksha. Russian military has it shut down tight. The only major city along that route is an industrial dump called Monchegorsk, and there might be a link. We have nobody on the ground in the vicinity, and your team has the special talents needed to find a way in.”

  “Sounds like fun. I assume Sanderson has signed off on this one too?”

  “You can give him a call. We’ve already spoken. You need to get the hell out of there before the Russians decide to carpet bomb that town. Based on this new information and the fact that they have a small army dead within Kazakhstan borders, I wouldn’t make any long term investments into the future of Kaynar.”

  “We’ll grab a vehicle and continue to Astana. Can you run any diplomatic interference if we are picked up by Kazakh forces?”

  “Negative. You need to reach the airport terminal as originally planned. A U.S. military transport will start moving you toward your next destination. I need to work on an infiltration plan and equipment drop for your team, so if you don’t mind, I’m going to let you go. Bring Mr. Bremer with you on the plane. He’s compromised in Kazakhstan.”

  “Dusty didn’t make it. Neither did Andrei.”

  “Shit,” he said and paused, “stuff their bodies in the trunk of whatever you find. I’ll have someone take care of it from the airport. How bad are the bodies?”

  “We’ll have to bag up Dusty. He did pretty well under the circumstances,” Daniel said.

  Two more rifle shots filled the air, causing Daniel to look around.

  “We’re on the move. I’ll call once we’re on the road.” The Black Flag operatives appeared between two of the buildings, jogging toward Daniel. Farrington shook his head as they approached.

  “They didn’t know anything useful. They were roused from their barracks and loaded onto the helicopters for an anti-terrorist operation. What happened to Dusty?”

  “Dead. We need to bag up as much of him as possible,” Petrovich said.

  “With what? The truck is gone,” Sergei said, pointing at the burning metal hulk down the road.

  “He looks like the rest of them. We do
n’t have time to fuck around with this,” Farrington said.

  “Fine, but we need to bring Andrei with us or throw his corpse in with the rest of them,” Daniel countered.

  “We toss both of them in one of the fires. Last thing we need on the road is a corpse in the trunk,” Farrington said, and they all nodded in agreement.

  “Ditch the rifles. Pistols only from this point forward. We need to reach Astana and put this as far behind us as possible. Berg says we’ll find vehicles at the southern edge of the village…and since you learned the finer skills of hotwiring cars, the honor is all yours,” he said and slapped Farrington on the back.

  “Does Berg have any idea why the Russians would take this kind of risk to kill us?” Leo asked.

  “He’s sending us up near Murmansk to investigate a possible link and explanation. If he knows, he didn’t feel like sharing. Let’s get moving,” Daniel said.

  He tasked Leo and Sergei to move Andrei’s body to the burning wreckage while he dug around for Dusty’s body parts.

  Chapter 26

  7:25 PM

  CIA Headquarters

  Langley, Virginia

  Karl Berg closed the communications circuit with U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly through his nose. A fairly routine, straightforward operation had just gone sideways on him. He leaned back in the plush black leather chair and stared at the ceiling for a few seconds. He had several phone calls to make, and none of the recipients would be pleased to hear from him. His first call had to be Bauer. He could use the operation center’s phones for that one. The others would have to be made on one or two of his “burner” cell phones. He had no idea what he was going to tell Bauer, but he suspected that Bauer would be prepared for this. He’d called her about four hours ago to let her know that the drone was airborne. She concurred with his decision to launch, especially based on the Monchegorsk information.