The Sniper and the Wolf

by Scott McEwen

  Four hundred meters to the west, the flight of three Hinds touched down in the tall grass near a shallow river just long enough to off-load twenty-four heavily armed Spetsnaz operators of the Tenth Independent Spetsnaz Brigade. The great birds of prey then lifted back into the air, resumed formation, and flew off again to begin their attack run on Umarov’s camp.

  Captain Smirnov, piloting the hi-tech Mi-24PN, was the flight leader at the point of the V. His aircraft carried a load-out of four five-hundred-pound iron bombs and a double-barreled 30 mm GSh-30k auto-cannon pod-mounted to the right of the cockpit. His job was to shock and devastate the enemy by dropping the five-hundred-pounders right in their midst. He would then provide support with the 30 mm auto-cannon while his wingmen, flying Mi-24Ds, hammered whatever remained of the encampment. Each 24D was loaded out with a Yak-B minigun and a pair of 80 mm rocket pods of twenty rockets each.

  After the helos had expended the bulk of their ordnance, the Spetsnaz men would move in and mop up any survivors, their chief responsibility being the retrieval of Dokka Umarov’s remains.

  Smirnov spoke to his wingmen over the radio: “Keep it tight on approach. By now, they know we’ve off-loaded ground troops, so we’ll make it look like we’re leaving. No firing until after my bombs have hit. Then break right and left. We’ll stand off at three different points and pound them to dust. Stay alert for RPGs and be ready to take evasive action.”

  LOM CROUCHED LOW on the rocky outcrop that overlooked the encampment below, watching the Hinds rise up from the valley floor to the west and come rumbling back in his direction. The bright sun glinted off their bubbled canopies, each deadly machine bristling with weaponry. His target was obvious: the shiny new Mi-24PN at the point of the formation, its load of four five-hundred-pound bombs evident even at four hundred meters. He would have to knock the machine from the sky before it could overfly the encampment; otherwise his compatriots below would be devastated.

  Though the Hind was already within range, Lom knew it was equipped with improved countermeasures, so he decided to wait until the last possible second. He would be firing from a position about one hundred feet below the flight of helos as they approached from his right, and the missile would home in on the infrared heat signature of the Hind’s twin turboshaft engines. The Mi-24PN had a cooler heat signature than the 24Ds, however, and Lom didn’t want the missile locking onto either of the older aircraft.

  He’d shot down an Mi-24D the year before, killing ten Russian soldiers, but he’d used an older MANPADS to do it—a Strela-3—so he could rely on previous experience only to a point. Living in the mountains and fighting with black-market weaponry made it difficult to stay in step with rapidly emerging technologies.

  THROUGH HIS FLIR (forward-looking infrared) targeting system Smirnov could see the images of the Chechens hurriedly preparing their fighting positions among the trees and the rocks as he swept toward the target area. He chuckled over the net to his copilot, “Like shooting fish in a barrel. Five seconds . . .”

  Then he heard the dreaded warning buzzer, and the instrument panel lit up with red lights flashing in the Cyrillic alphabet: PAKETbl ВОЗДУХ=ЗЕМЛЯ. Surface-to-air missile.

  He cut a startled glance out the left side of his canopy, just managing to glimpse the vapor trail of the missile streaking upward toward him at 1,300 miles per hour.

  Detonating an instant before impact, the warhead’s directed-energy fragmentation blast utterly devastated the engine compartment of the Hind, severing three of five control rods to throw the rotor completely out of balance, causing it to cant backward and slice off the aircraft’s tail. The helo exploded midair, falling out of the sky along with its bomb load nearly a hundred yards shy of the enemy encampment, erupting against the forest floor in a giant secondary explosion that shook the earth for a quarter mile in every direction.

  27

  NORTH OSSETIA,

  Russia

  Major Nikita Yakunin heard and felt the explosion as he and his men were entering the forest. The Spetsnaz men immediately took cover, watching the sky as the two remaining Hinds broke north and south away from the target area just over three hundred meters ahead.

  “Find out what the hell happened!” Yakunin ordered his RTO (radio telephone operator). Then he ordered three men forward to take up point across the line of advance, adding, “Keep your eyes open!”

  The Hinds circled back around to engage the encampment from a safer distance.

  “Where the hell are they?” demanded Yakunin, unable to see either helo. “It sounds like they’re firing from Moscow!”

  “They’re standing off,” reported the RTO. “Smirnov was shot down with a missile.”

  Yakunin’s intel reports had said nothing about Umarov’s men possessing MANPADS.

  “A missile or an RPG?”

  “A missile! The pilots are afraid to get any closer, and their rockets are impacting in the trees. They don’t have a clear shot on the camp.”

  “Tell them to fly higher!” Yakunin ordered.

  The RTO relayed the order. “They say they’ll be vulnerable to missile attack if the enemy has line of sight. Their orders are not to directly engage in the presence of a missile threat.”

  “What fucking use is an attack helicopter if can’t be used to attack?”

  The RTO shrugged. “Do you want me to ask them that?”

  Yakunin glared at him and then ordered his men to form up in three columns of eight.

  “You tell those cowards in the sky to keep the enemy pinned down as we advance!”

  The RTO immediately relayed the command.

  UMAROV TOLD BASAYEV to get on the radio to their friends camped to the east. “Tell them we need reinforcements,” he said calmly, with Russian rockets exploding in the treetops. Debris showered down on the encampment, but so far no one was hit.

  Basayev ducked into the cave to grab the radio, and Umarov rallied five men.

  “See that crocodile?” He pointed south through the treetops at the Hind, where the land sloped gradually away from the encampment. “He’s holding his position—firing sporadically to keep our heads down. That means the Spetsnaz are advancing! The five of you take RPGs and run through the forest to get beneath him. You will fire at the same time: to his left, right, rear, and front!” He pointed his finger, singling out one of the men. “You will fire straight up the middle! He’ll be completely bracketed, with nowhere to maneuver. Now run! Bring him down!”

  The Chechen fighters slung their AK-47s and took off through the trees to the south, each with an RPG-7 over his shoulder.

  Lom appeared at Umarov’s side. “Where do you want me, Uncle?”

  Umarov put a hand on his shoulder and grinned. “Great shot! You saved us.”

  Lom shrugged, knowing the value of humility in combat. “He practically flew right into it. Where do you want me?”

  “I want you to run east as fast as you can,” Umarov said. “Take the old koza trail. Find Prina’s people and lead them back here.”

  “Why don’t we all escape that way?”

  Umarov shook his head. “We can’t fight a running battle against Spetsnaz and crocodiles. We’ll be destroyed. This is a good position. We’ll make our stand here and let them batter themselves bloody. Now, run. Run as fast as you can.”

  Lom darted off through the trees, adrenaline coursing through his veins.

  Umarov called for three more men with RPGs.

  The first five grenadiers scrambled through the trees with their RPGs, the ripping sound of the helo’s Yak minigun cutting through the air, and its red tracers snapping the limbs of the hardwoods high above them as it fired on the camp from an oblique angle. They were arriving at their optimal firing position when the pilot spotted them and canted the aircraft in their direction, letting loose a torrent of machine-gun fire and rockets.

  One of t
he grenadiers was hit in the torso with a burst of 12.7 mm fire and virtually exploded in a splash of blood and guts. Without missing a step, the grenadier behind him snatched the fallen RPG from the ground and continued on. An 80 mm rocket detonated against the ground directly in front of him and blew off his legs.

  The remaining men stopped abruptly to take up firing positions. The leader called out three separate firing points, and they fired simultaneously, bracketing the Hind as best they could from the left, right, and dead-on.

  The pilot saw the rockets streaking toward his aircraft and knew his best chance was to yank back on the stick and show his titanium underbelly. All three rockets missed, and he canted the nose forward again to let loose another hellish torrent of machine-gun fire. With the crew’s attention focused on killing the remaining Chechens, neither man spotted the second team of grenadiers that Umarov had sent southeast to flank the helo once it had engaged the sacrificial first team.

  The three men fired in unison, and all three RPGs detonated against the starboard side of the aircraft, which broke apart in the air, exploding in an orange-black fireball and crashing in pieces to the forest floor.

  YAKUNIN HEARD THE second explosion and swore a blue streak, realizing there would be very little to keep the enemy from escaping eastward once the last remaining Hind ran out of ammo. “That bastard Umarov has more luck than anyone I’ve ever heard of!”

  He ordered his men to double-time it the last two hundred meters, fearing his prey might already be fleeing.

  When they arrived at the perimeter of the Chechen encampment, they were met with a hail of machine-gun fire. The RTO was hit in the face and went down, his mandible and teeth shot completely away, leaving his tongue dangling from the open neck. The wound was survivable, but the man would never speak, eat, or look like a human being again.

  Yakunin shot him through the head with his AK-105 carbine and ordered one of the others to take over the radio.

  Without being told, the Spetsnaz broke into groups of three, leapfrogging aggressively through rocks and trees with AN-94 assault rifles in 5.45 mm. They took hits, and one man went down, but they were heavily armored and determined to kill Umarov before he escaped again. Half the AN-94s were fitted with GP-34 40 mm grenade launchers (similar to the American M203) mounted below the barrel. They fired a veritable hail of 40 mm grenades into the Chechen encampment.

  Dirt and rock and splintered trees flew in every direction as Umarov’s men were forced flat to the ground under the heavy barrage. The Chechens had used their entire supply of RPGs bringing down the second Hind, and seven more men were killed quickly. The remaining helo began to engage from the rear. Rockets exploded near the encampment, and the Yak minigun began finding targets.

  The Russians had the Chechens blocked east and west, and the rocky slope mitigated any hope of fleeing to the north. The only avenue of escape was to the south toward the open country. But there they would surely be caught out and killed by the Hind, even if they managed to outrun the Spetsnaz, which was unlikely.

  Basayev appeared at Umarov’s side with the radio telephone unit. “They’re coming!” he shouted over the din. “Prina’s men are close enough to hear the shooting. Can we hold for ten more minutes?”

  Umarov peered up through the trees, looking for the Hind. He could still hear the machine, but it seemed to have circled south, probably attempting to cover both escape routes.

  “Fall back!” he shouted to his men, hating the order but knowing there was no other hope except to link up with Prina’s men, who would have the RPGs needed to even the odds against the Spetsnaz and keep the aircraft at bay.

  Four men volunteered to stay behind and cover the retreat, knowing it meant their deaths.

  Umarov smiled at them. “Allah be with you!” He then fell back through the forest with the remainder of his force: fifteen men out of the original forty-five.

  THE SECOND THE return fire began to trail off, Yakunin knew that the Chechens were retreating. “Move forward! They’ve broken!”

  The Spetsnaz maneuvered directly into the Chechen encampment, maintaining fire superiority and moving from cover to cover. A light machine gun cut loose from between two boulders, its 7.62 mm fire cutting apart two men from less than fifty feet away. The position was reduced immediately by a barrage of 40 mm grenades, and the Spetsnaz swept past.

  “It’s a defense in depth!” Yakunin called out. “Take care!” He slowed their advance, knowing that a running fight could be twice as dangerous.

  “Grenades!” Everyone hit the dirt as four black orbs landed in their midst.

  The grenades exploded at the same time, each RGD-5 packed with four ounces of TNT. Bodies were lifted into the air, and Yakunin felt hot shrapnel bite into one of his legs.

  Two more grenades rained down from an unseen position, exploding among the Spetsnaz, and Yakunin ordered his people to fall back. “Find that filthy son of a whore!” he screamed.

  As if to oblige, the Chechen jumped from behind a tree eighty feet away with an AK-47, firing and hitting the major on the breastplate of his body armor.

  Yakunin was knocked back by the force of the bullets, which failed to penetrate, though one did tear off most of his left ear.

  The Chechen was gunned down an instant later.

  “Find Umarov’s body!” Yakunin swiped at the side of his head with a gloved hand to see the glove covered in blood.

  The medic arrived at his side. “The ear’s gone, Major. I’ll dress the wound.”

  “Later!” Yakunin shouldered past. “Find Umarov!”

  The Spetsnaz fanned out to examine the bodies, all of them well acquainted with Umarov’s face. Each body was knifed in the throat to make sure it was dead.

  One of bodies leapt to its feet as a Spetsnaz corporal reached to turn it over. The Chechen shot the corporal in the groin with a pistol, and the corporal dropped to his knees, pressing the trigger mechanism on a spring-loaded ballistic knife. The steel blade struck the Chechen in the chest, partially severing the aorta. Both men were on the ground bleeding out when a sergeant bound forward and shot them both.

  “Major!” the sergeant called. “Dokka Umarov is not here!”

  “After him!” The sudden ripping sound of the Yak minigun to the east told them the Hind had reacquired the retreating Chechens. “Now we’ve got his ass!”

  28

  SICILY

  Gil lay prone in the brush on a bluff overlooking the goat farm three hundred yards below. Peering through the scope of the G28 sniper rifle, he could clearly make out the red LaForza and the black Peugeot, both parked behind the house with Kovalenko’s car, where they could not be seen from the country road.

  “It’s them, all right,” Gil said, moving aside for Dragunov to have a look. “Midori got it on the first try.”

  Dragunov watched as one of Kovalenko’s men stepped out the backdoor of the house, smoking a cigarette. “Demetri,” he muttered, recognizing the Chechen Spetsnaz man. “Mudak!” Jacket!

  Gil saw him fingering the trigger. “Ease off, Ivan. We only got twenty rounds. I don’t want you wasting my ammo.”

  Dragunov moved aside with a smirk. “I can shoot as well as you.”

  “I know,” Gil said, getting back behind the rifle and pulling the stock into his shoulder. “You can probably fuck as good as me too, but this ain’t fantasyland.”

  Dragunov chuckled. “Do you think Claudina will still be there with the car when we get back?”

  They had left Claudina with her car a half mile up the road, and she had promised to wait, but Gil didn’t expect to see her ever again. “Not even thinkin’ about it,” he said, dialing in the scope. “Why? You in love?”

  Dragunov chuckled again. “Fuck you, American. I just don’t feel like walking all the way to San Vito to meet your pussy SEAL team friends.”

  Gil smiled, placing the r
eticle on the head of the man Dragunov had referred to as Demetri. “We’ll take Kovalenko’s wheels. How’s that sound?” He squeezed the trigger and blew off most of Demetri’s head from the nose up. The body dropped beside the stone house, and Gil saw a puff of dust as the .308 ricocheted off the wall. “And down went McGinty.”

  Dragunov hunkered in. “Who’s McGinty?”

  “A drowned Irishman. Look sharp now. Those other pricks may have heard the round hit the house.”

  They waited more than five minutes before another Chechen came out. He spotted the body near the far end of the house and turned to duck back inside, but Gil squeezed the trigger again, scoring a second head-shot that blew the Chechen’s brains into the house through the window of the backdoor. The body crashed to the floor half in and half out of the house.

  “That’ll kindly spoil a man’s dinner plans.”

  “You should have let me identify him,” Dragunov said. “If it was Kovalenko, we could have gotten the hell out of here.”

  “It was that bald prick who shot me in the fuckin’ hand back in Messina.”

  “Anton,” Dragunov growled. “Another sukin syn.”

  “Well, he’s a dead sukin syn now.” Gil pulled back a little farther into the brush. “We gotta be real careful from here on. If Kovalenko knows his shit, he’ll roost in that upstairs window.”

  “Can you see inside?”

  “Not as well as I’d like,” Gil admitted.

  “Then he won’t roost there—not if there’s any chance you can see in. He’ll move out the front to hunt us on the ground.”

  “Then you’d better get Midori back on the phone. Tell her to watch if anyone comes out.”

  Dragunov had Midori on the satellite phone a minute later, explaining the situation.

  The bluff was high enough for Gil to see beyond the house but still low enough that the leeward defilade stretched for a hundred feet or more. The best thing Gil and Dragunov had going for them was that there was no way for Kovalenko or his men to reach any of the vehicles without falling under the gun.