The Best Defense

by Todd A. Stone

  “What unit?”

  “Spetsnaz berets, but we’re too far away to see a shoulder patch.”

  “CENTCOM informed?”

  “We’ve been monitoring the frequencies the depot and CENTCOM use. The depot hasn’t sent any traffic since the guards left.”

  Wolfe checked his watch. “We have a few hours before the communications relay satellite’s overhead and we can talk. We’ll know more then.”

  “Doesn’t look good, does it, boss?”

  Wolfe thought about Val. She was down there, somewhere in the buildings below him.

  “We could get through the Spetsnaz boys’ lines and get in there, boss.”

  “You a mind reader now too?” Wolfe said.

  “Just served with you a long time, that’s all. They could probably use three extra guns.”

  “I’m sure they could. But we’ll stand fast for now. We can get commo from up here, and if we have to bring in the cavalry, this is a good place to call the shots from.”

  “Might take those horses a while to saddle up and ride out here. They’re only half a world away.”

  “We’ll see,” said Wolfe, “what kind of time the Russians give us.”

  Inn Castle Infernesk

  Dimonokov decided he needed to lie down for a while, so much did his headache bother him. First came the long ride from Ditchnesk, then the disappointing incident with the Americans in the depot. Then there was Steglyr, telling him he had changed, that he was sick, that he needed to stop—even that he needed to step back and allow someone else to command the regiment! In his rage he had backhanded his oldest and wisest counselor.

  He reached into his bag and found some painkiller, then chased the two tablets with a half-glass of vodka.

  From outside came the sound of another truck pulling in. Six of the aging transports had broken down on the drive. Perhaps he should have used the helicopters—but then the fear struck him, shooting down his spine and knotting his stomach.

  The Americans might have the missiles.

  His hands shook.

  A most tiring day, he thought as he poured a second drink, a most frustrating day. But the bed in the room that he’d chosen for his personal quarters, having commandeered the inn as his command post, was quite comfortable. He lay down and tried to relax, thinking that the innkeeper’s daughter might, later in the evening, be persuaded to help him relieve his tension.

  Chapter Ten

  Infernesk Munitions Depot

  Underground, Sergeant Stoinevy had executed Val’s orders well. The nuclear rounds were now deep in the third level of the hastily renovated subterranean storerooms.

  Almost before Dimonokov’s trucks pulled away, Denight set every available soldier to work finishing the preparations in the underground labyrinth. They rigged booby traps, reinforced their first set of sandbag positions, constructed others of whatever was available, barricaded critical hallways, marked routes, camouflaged “mouseholes” between rooms, and stockpiled food, water, and ammunition.

  Their hope lay in buying time, and Val hoped to do that by letting the Russians seize the outside bunkers while ambushing them in the process.

  On the surface, her soldiers worked in broad daylight. Knowing they were being watched, Val ordered the garrison to emplace a few rolls of concertina wire near the depot’s main entrance. She knew the wire would barely slow the Russians down should they decide to bull their way through, and she also knew that they would be able to tell as much through their binoculars. That, too, was part of the deception plan. Behind the phony wire, nearly invisible against the backdrop of the buildings, lay the real obstacle. And she made a trip deep into the tunnels to verify the location of her special cache of ammunition.

  With the deliberate exceptions of Val’s faux wire obstacle and Denight’s dummy rifle pits, from the outside the depot looked unprepared. Inside the buildings, however, it was a different story. Having analyzed the most dangerous avenues of approach, Val’s garrison concentrated their efforts on those structures. Selected stairways were closed off with concertina and barbed wire. Stout boards were nailed across some doorways. Some rooms were emptied of all furniture; others were strung with tanglefoot barbed wire set at different heights. Spray-painted lines on the floors and along the halls designated “safe” routes, and a code designated paths into traps, should the Russians learn to follow the painted lines.

  To keep from being cut by flying glass, they knocked out most of the windows. To keep out incoming grenades they covered those same windows with chain-link fence. Since the doors and hallways were blocked, the men and women knocked mouseholes to crawl from room to room. On the friendly side of each hole they placed a heavy piece of furniture—a couch or full file cabinet—ready to be dropped to close off entry.

  And they rehearsed. The MILES training had provided all the soldiers with a basic knowledge of clearing rooms and cityfighting, but in the remaining daylight and on into the evening Denight, Val, and Christine drilled the Hornets—twelve hand-picked soldiers who were to act as a mobile “fire brigade” against breakthroughs—and every other soldier again and again.

  At the pace Val, her lieutenant, and her sergeant major pushed the troops in those last hours, the previous few weeks of rehearse, train, prepare, and move munitions seemed like a vacation. A few muttered that fighting the Russians would be easier than what they were going through to get ready to do it.

  Val hoped they would be right.

  Since they stood out as easy targets, Val abandoned the guard towers at dusk. She kept observation from a height by establishing OPs—observation posts—on central area building rooftops. She sent small security patrols roving the shadows between the buildings. Christine’s group would hit the Russians as they tried to take those bunkers, which supposedly held the nuclear rounds.

  It might, Val and Denight agreed, slow the Russians down by a day.

  ~*~

  Outside, dusk mixed with shadows cast by the Infernesk heights. In an open bay in Building 10, Christine’s patrol was formed for their last precombat inspection. Val and Denight stood in the background, scrutinizing the young lieutenant as she worked her way down the line of soldiers. It would be her show tonight, although they would be in the background then, too, just in case. Christine carefully inspected each weapon, checked the soldiers’ camouflage, shook their web gear to insure it didn’t rattle, and quizzed each one as to their part of the mission.

  Access Road #2

  Infernesk Munitions Depot

  Through Christine’s night vision goggles the world seemed painted in soft shades of neon green. Her patrol lay in the foot-high grass beside the access road, the most likely entry route for a force unfamiliar with the depot. The empty bunkers where the nuclear rounds were supposedly stored stood as bright islands in the thick dark, set apart by the sickly yellow glow—much like that of big-city streetlamps—from the sodium-vapor security lights, radiation hazard signs, and a six-foot concertina fence. Christine scanned down the road into the darkness. She had to look away from the light, lest it wash out her night vision goggles and trigger their automatic shutdown feature.

  Nothing moved. The other bunkers in the distance seemed to be slumbering giants, resting peacefully. She only hoped the members of her patrol weren’t doing the same. The adrenaline rush had long since passed, then had come the chill from lying motionless in damp grass and breathing in damp air. Once she got used to the chill, only an act of will kept her from surrendering to the crickets’ hum and the tiredness within.

  Beside her the radio-telephone operator pressed the handset close to his ear, monitoring reports from the RTOs of the other patrols. Around the depot—between the darkened buildings in the central area and along the perimeter fence—in groups of two and three, nervous soldiers moved along carefully planned routes, running what Major Macintyre called “roving patrols”. They needed only to report some incursion and Sergeant Major would launch the reaction force of the Hornets.

  It was
n’t very comfortable to sleep wrapped up in your web gear with your only pillow your helmet, Christine thought as she lay in the damp grass, but at least the Hornets could get some sleep. They had safety in numbers too, unlike Christine and the sixteen other men and women who lay along the access road, fighting shivers and leaden eyelids.

  She jerked as the RTO touched her arm.

  “Watchdog Three’s found a cut in the fence.” Her RTO whispered into her ear. “They think it happened about twenty minutes ago.”

  That’s all the way on the other side of the depot. Maybe, Christine hoped, we won’t have to fight tonight.

  The minutes crawled. Then along the ambush line each member of her patrol jerked their heads to one side, minds riveted on the sound of gunfire behind them. “Watchdog Five’s got contact, about thirty of them. They think it’s the group that came through the hole Watchdog Three found in the wire. Sergeant Major’s launching the reaction force. Wait a minute—here, he wants to talk to you.” He handed her the microphone.

  “Thunderbolt, this is Lightfoot.” She wondered how the major came up with those code names.

  “Lightfoot, this is Thunderbolt. The Leprechaun says hold what you got, we’ll handle this side.”

  “Wilco.” She gave him back the microphone. The Leprechaun, mused Christine. Major Macintyre was anything but a little green person, and she was Scottish, not Irish. Christine shrugged; they get a sick sense of humor when they get that old.

  They could hear the individual pops of M16s and the deeper, guttural bursts of the Russian weapons. Sergeant Major taught them to pick their shots, Christine recalled, to not waste bullets. “Nobody fires bursts except when you clear a room or spring an ambush.” He’d drilled it into them again and again.

  The noise picked up as the reaction force arrived. A parachute flare hissed skyward behind them, and with a soft pop it lit up the sky. The firing increased as soldiers on both sides could see what they were shooting at. Christine strained to try to tell who was winning, but the fire continued to rise and fall as more flares went up, revealing nothing. The radio operator interrupted her worries. “Watchdog Seven reports a cut in the fence, maybe ten minutes old. She says she can hear someone moving toward the road to the bunkers, but she can’t tell how many.”

  Just great, thought Christine. We’re sandwiched. She crawled up and down the line, making sure her people were awake.

  She was barely back in position when her right flank security team called in: about thirty people were paralleling the road in the shadows, headed toward the bunkers. She eased her rifle off safe to full automatic, slipped open the firing device for the Claymore mines they’d set, and waited.

  ~*~

  Behind them the firing on the other side of the depot, like the last flare, died out. Across the access road in front of her, the Russians moved carefully from bunker to bunker, keeping in the shadows. They stopped for a moment, and Christine heard a voice come from their radio. One of them spoke into the microphone, then they again advanced, only quicker, more confidently. Had they overrun the Hornets and Sergeant Major? Christine worried. Would she spring this ambush and find the Russians waiting for them in the central area? She thought about trying to reach Sergeant Major or Major Macintyre for instructions, but realized if she used the radio, the Russians across the road would hear her as she’d heard them. So she waited.

  The two point men on the Russian patrol were apparently alert. From her position Christine saw the lead soldier and his partner glance at the tops and sides of the bunkers, looking for snipers or ambushers hidden in the grass around them.

  Not bad, thought Christine, not bad at all. But not good enough.

  In front of her the access road ran straight, and Christine could see when the point man passed out of the kill zone and the lead man of the main body of the Russians came abreast of the bunker entrance fifty meters away. Now all of the Russians, about thirty of them, were inside the zone where Christine’s patrol had their weapons pointed.

  The point men came abreast of Christine’s left flank security team when the main body was halfway past her. She could see their leader, just in front of his radioman, watching his troops, looking around as his point men had done. Too bad, thought Christine. If I played baseball I’d say you guys were about to strike out. She picked up the firing device, put her head down so the flash wouldn’t blind her, and squeezed.

  The Russians froze when they heard the clack of the firing device and were dropping to one knee when the mines detonated. A Claymore mine has about the same effect as eight shotguns wired together. Most of the Russians died instantly as the steel pellets perforated their bodies. Christine’s security team cut down the two point men as they turned to see what happened. Every third soldier in Christine’s ambush had her rifle on full automatic. Their bullet spray killed those Russians who lived through the mines’ blast. Four soldiers carried M203 grenade launchers, and each pumped four 40mm rounds into their assigned sectors in the kill zone. In thirty seconds it was over. Only the rattle of Christine’s soldiers changing magazines broke the night’s stillness.

  “Illumination!” Christine shouted now that there was no need to be quiet. One of her people popped a flare.

  “Search team, move out!” Six soldiers, crouching low to the ground, made their way toward the mass of Russian bodies. Time to report, Christine thought. She took the handset, half expecting no one to answer.

  “Thunderbolt, this is Lightfoot.”

  It was the longest ten seconds of Christine’s life.

  “Thunderbolt.”

  “This is Lightfoot. Mission complete. No casualties. Estimate thirty enemy KIA.”

  “This is Thunderbolt, roger. Leprechaun says good shooting. Police up their weapons and ammo and come on in.”

  It’s so easy, so impersonal, she thought as she handed the microphone back to the radio operator. She rose and stood there congratulating herself until, from across the road, another sound came to her.

  “Let’s go check it out, Brach,” she said to her RTO. “C’mon, you stay with me.” Exactly one arm’s length apart, she remembered Denight telling her, that’s how far away you get from your RTO and your radio.

  She crossed quickly, and in the fading light of the flares saw the pulped bodies of the Russians, faceless, headless, limbs strung about like unwanted stuffed toys. Christine noticed that the dead enemy weren’t wearing Russian uniforms, but instead what was left of them had on an odd mixture of camouflage and black fatigues. She turned and took a step, but slid on something. She looked down and felt her stomach churn. The slippery ooze on the ground was unrecognizable, but definitely human.

  Nearby, two members of her search team were bent over, vomiting.

  ~*~

  Christine’s quiet celebration ended when her patrol returned to the fortified central area. There she found the true cost of the night. In the corner of one room three bodies lay wrapped in ponchos. Sergeant Major had one arm in a sling, and seven other soldiers lay wounded, one critically.

  Two of the three women who made up the patrol Watchdog Five were missing. What about the third, she asked.

  Sergeant Major pointed to one of the ponchos.

  Vicinity Castle Infernesk

  Wolfe watched as the firing subsided. Too far away to see individuals or get anything other than a feel for the battle, he sensed more than saw the Russian patrols attack and be repulsed. How many Americans were dead? How many wounded? Was Val okay? He couldn’t tell.

  He put down the thermal viewer and turned to his two observers, who were hard at work manhandling a satellite communications antenna into position.

  “You got that thing up yet? The satellite is due over any minute.”

  “Just about. You’ll be able to phone home just like ET any second now.”

  “Good. I’m going to be calling for a helluva lot more than a mothership.”

  Inn Castle Infernesk

  “Prisoners?”

  “Two enlisted women,�
�� Dimonokov’s assistant replied. “One is whole, the other wounded.”

  Dimonokov wrung his hands, partly from his frustration with the botched mission, and partly in black anticipation. He picked up a vodka bottle and, not bothering with a glass, drained it.

  “Bring them to me. And bring a full bottle—this one is empty.”

  Five minutes later, two Special Security sergeants shoved the women—arms tied behind their backs—into the room. He motioned to two chairs. The Americans shook their heads. Dimonokov nodded, and wrenching the women’s shoulders, the guards forced them to sit. He turned, poured himself a drink, then walked confidently to stand in front of them.

  “Most unladylike,” he said smoothly, “to be carrying guns and shooting at those who have come to rescue you. A war is no place for a woman. You should be happy you are now away from the fighting and were only hurt a little. You must spare your friends any further pain, for we must not let their misguided actions prevent us from protecting the munitions. You must tell me the number, disposition, and plan of your forces.”

  One woman, Dimonokov thought she could be no more than twenty, looked up at him with one eye. A blood-soaked bandage covered the other, and a second bandage was wrapped around her left arm. Her blonde hair was matted with sweat and blood and, like her partner, her face was smeared with green and black camouflage paint. The other woman kept her head down. Despite their baggy uniforms and combat make-up, Dimonokov thought both were attractive.

  “You will answer my questions,” he told them harshly. “You will tell me what I need to know.”

  The brunette raised her head. “Sure, I’ll talk. Crawford, Andrea. Specialist Fourth Class. 124-76-3332.”