by John Ringo
It was more like a hundred and fifty, much of it about a grade five if he was capable of judging. It was night, the clouds finally cleared off and the wind howling. It was probably forty below zero in Celsius. And he was splayed across a rock wall, one finger stuck in a crack, his boots barely scrabbling to two more points and slamming in a piton with the biggest grin in the world on his mask-covered face.
This was the fucking shit as the Master Chief would say.
He clipped a carabiner to the piton, ran his safety line through it and looked for the next set of hold points. Frankly, directly up there weren't any. But he'd seen an easy ledge off to the side.
He let go of all three points, holding himself only on the piton and swung sideways. For a moment he was suspended in the air, flying free as a bird. Then one hand slammed into the crack in the rock, the "easy" ledge that was a bare jutting of rock, and thumb and finger clamped to it like a limpet.
For a moment he hung, suspended, then the other hand came up, sliding a pair of fingers into the crack and clamping them in a knuckle hold. There wasn't anywhere to put his feet, but he could see another hold just a half meter or so up. He'd have to leave the fingers in the crack and lift himself on those to get to it.
This was assuredly the shit.
* * *
"How long we gonna be doin' this shit?" Serris asked.
They'd been out on the mountains for only a day and already he was ready to head back to the barracks. First of all, there wasn't a thing moving except them. You got a feel for an area pretty quick and all the animals they'd run across had that "undisturbed" feel. They'd sat on one trail in ambush positions all day and half the night and seen dick all.
Then there was the terrain. The area reminded him of Afghanistan except for the, often thick, underbrush and the trees. The vegetation was more like around Dahlonega, the Rangers' primary mountain training area. But the slopes were one fuck of a lot higher; Dahlonega was in the Appalachians not the fucking Alps. And they seemed steeper. They'd been slithering upwards towards the treeline for the last day, except for the ambush position, and they could quit any time as far as Ma Serris' little boy was concerned.
This was just stupid.
"Til we're done," Staff Sergeant Jordan Lawhon said. "Time to do one of our 'deception operations'."
The Ranger squad had stopped on the east slope of a ridge, looking out over a small valley that had a trail running down the far side. Just to their north and west the valley funneled to a pass through the mountains, the source of the trail. The deciduous trees and choking underbrush of the lower slopes had given way to firs, mostly wide spaced. A careful visual check hadn't spotted anyone in view, though, so it seemed like a good place to do a "notional" ambush.
"This is such shit," Lane replied, flopping down and leaning back on a tree. He opened up the breach on his Squad Automatic Weapon and pouted. "I'm gonna foul the shit out of this, you know that? I'm gonna have to break it right the fuck down, clean it and then maybe I can load live rounds again."
"Quit the bitching," Lawhon said, frowning. "We're all gonna have to clean our pieces. Which is why only Alpha and Bravo team are gonna fire. Charlie's gonna stay hot."
Squads were broken down into two "fire teams". Each of the fire teams was led by a sergeant or corporal and had five men, the team leader, a SAW gunner, a grenadier and two riflemen. At least on paper. Rarely was a TOE, table of organization and equipment, filled.
"Fine," Lane sighed, pulling out his blank adapter and a case of blank ammo. "Let's get this over with. We gotta run and shout or what?"
"I think we just shoot the shit," the squad leader said. "Maybe do some shouting."
"This is fucking nuts," Serris said, readying his weapon. "Say when."
"Everybody ready?" Lawhon asked. "Charlie, do not fire."
"Got it," Corporal John Pitzel, the Charlie team leader, replied. "Team, check fire." Since the team was sprawled out on the ground in the traditional "rucksack flop", that was unlikely.
"Okay, Alpha and Bravo, open fire," Lawhon said and pointed his blank-adapter covered muzzle in the general direction of uphill before pulling the trigger.
The blank-adapter was required because without the back-pressure from the round that normally traveled down the barrel, the weapon would only fire one time and the receiver wouldn't cycle the next round into the breach. With the usually red blank adapter screwed into the barrel the weapon would cycle normally even firing the blank ammunition.
The other problem with blank ammunition was that it was dirty as hell. The propellant was a less refined material than the usual propellant in live rounds and coated the weapon in carbon that was difficult to remove. You could fire thousands of rounds through an M4 before it fouled. You might get a couple of hundred blanks out before the damned thing jammed solid.
Despite those facts the Rangers had as much fun as they could.
"ARRRRHHH!" Lane screamed, triggering expert five round bursts from his SAW despite having the barrel cover laid over his right knee. "TAKE THAT YOU DIRTY RAGHEADS!"
"EAT SHIT AND DIE, ISLAMIC MOTHERFUCKERS!" Serris replied.
"YOUR MOTHER WAS A WHORE AND YOUR FATHER A PIG!" Lane screamed, not to be outdone.
"I WAVE THE BOTTOM OF MY SHOE IN YOUR GENERAL DIRECTION!!!" Serris added then looked up. "SARGE! WE'RE TAKING FIRE!"
"CHECK FIRE!" Lawhon screamed, diving to the ground. He had been firing properly, weapon tucked into his shoulder, leaning into the non-existent recoil and aiming. In this case at a tree over by the trail, but training was training. Now he dove to the ground and looked up. Sure enough, the branches overhead were being cut by fire. "Where the fuck is that coming from?" The rounds were big. Maybe a fifty caliber. And now that the firing had stopped, he could hear the weapon firing, the dull thud-thud-thud of a heavy machine-gun.
"Not in sight," Pitzel replied. "Sounds like it's coming from over the ridge."
"Serris, check it out," Lawhon said, instantly.
"Can I at least put live rounds in?" Serris asked, sarcastically. He already had the blank adapter unscrewed and was seating a mag of hot.
"Just get your ass up there," Lawhon replied.
* * *
"There you are, you fucker," Serris hissed. He'd pulled a ghillie cloak over his head and pulled up his balaclava to reduce the shine on his face then slid up the ridge to the crest. The top was a knife-edge and by laying belly down, half behind one of the firs, he had a pretty good view of the far side. The valley they'd been in hooked around to the west and up at the head of it, right at the opening of the pass, there was a bunker. It was hard to spot, whoever built it had camouflaged the hell out of the damned thing, but Serris had spent enough time in the Stans to get pretty good at spotting shit like that. One of the reasons Lawhon sent him up. He also had "sniper eyes", the ability to pick out something from the background that others missed.
The bunker, though, was damned near two klicks away. They must have been firing at the sound. For that matter, thinking about the approach, the squad had never been in view of the guys, probably Chechens, in the bunker. The stupid fuckers had given their position away for nothing.
"Bunker up in the pass," he hissed over his shoulder to Lane. "Can't see anything in it. Probably a 12.7."
"Got it," Lane replied. "Here comes the Sarge."
"What you got?" Lawhon asked from just down the slope.
"Bunker," Serris repeated. "Probably a 12.7. Maybe a 14.5. Nobody outside." He paused as something, he wasn't sure what. "Damn, make that two...no three bunkers. Any of them could have been firing."
"Could they see us?"
"Negative, wrong angle." Serris turned his head ever so slightly and verified that. Yeah, their whole approach had been out of sight. But if they'd gone another couple of hundred meters up the valley. "They're securing the pass."
"I called in," Lawhon replied. "We're to pull back. Our job is not to get into a pissing contest with them unless they come down from the mountains. Le
t's get the fuck out of here."
"Ay-firmative," Serris said, sliding ever so slightly backwards. "I don't want them taking my head off."
* * *
"Captain Bathlick," Colonel Nielson said. "Another familiarization flight?"
The pilot was just exiting her recently completed, there was still sawdust on the floor, ready room, helmet under her arm.
The first of the pre-fab hangers was in place. The structures were large versions of the venerable "Quonset" huts, large enough that the Hinds could be slid in with their rotors still on. They had come packed on dozens of pallets and the non-militia Keldara men had taken less than a day to get the first one up: the concrete holding up the curved metal skeleton was still drying.
Tacked onto one side was a small utility hut, the pilot "ready room." Kacey was pretty sure it was going to be cold as hell when full winter hit.
"Not plowing one of the birds on the supply drop missions was luck as much as anything," Kacey said. "The more time we get in the birds the better. Especially at night."
"I agree," Nielson replied. "However, you might want to wait up a bit. The first thing you need to know is that we just found out the Guerrmo Pass is secured by heavy weapons."
"Damn," Kacey said, shaking her head. Guerrmo Pass was the lowest pass into the area of the Keldara operation. It was their primary route if they had to go in in support. All the other ways were much higher and, thus, they could carry less equipment in or casualties out. "That's bad news. How secured?"
"At least three bunkers with heavy machine guns at the opening," Nielson said. "Not sure what might be further in."
"The Hinds are tough, but..."
"But, indeed," Nielson admitted. "Not tough enough to take cross-fire from multiple heavy machine-guns. So stay away from the opening to Guerrmo Pass. The second reason you might want to wait up is that we were just informed that there is a shipment from the Georgian military on the way. They said it was left over parts from their Hinds; they recently decommissioned them. You probably want to look it over. Chief D'Allaird as well."
"Great," Kacey said, grumpily. "DXed parts from the Georgians. These should be great."
"Never look a gift horse and all that," Nielson said, smiling.
"Oh, I'm not," the pilot replied. "But D'Allaird is going to have to fully cert them before they go in the bird. What are we going to do about the bunkers?"
"That is under discussion."
* * *
"Well ain't that some shit," Captain Guerrin said.
"I think we can take 'em out," Sergeant Lawhon offered. "They've got the pass covered. But if we swing up on the shoulder of the mountain we can come in on them from behind and above. Either hammer them from up there with Carl Gustavs or get a team down on top. I don't think they can fire at each other or back up the pass."
"And if they have supports further up the pass?" J.P. answered. "No, our mission isn't to take out bunkers. Certainly not yet." Guerrin paused and thought about the situation, both the "known" situation and the potential mission to support the Keldara. "But we need to keep an eye on them. Keep your squad up here. No more patrolling. Put in good security and keep a watch on that trail. Stay defiladed from the machine-guns but if anything comes out of that pass I want to know about it."
"Yes, sir," Lawhon replied.
"I'm going to redirect the company in this general direction," Guerrin added. "So if you get in the shit, holler for help and we'll come a runnin'."
* * *
"So far, so good," Rashid said as the Nissan pickup bounced down the potholed road.
Al-Kariya nodded but didn't answer, continuing to run a string of worry beads through his fingers.
The king-cab pickup was the third truck in a convoy of nine, each of them holding four to five hand-picked mujaheddin. Most of them Al-Kariya had known, off and on, for years.
Although he was now a "senior financier" he had not always had that job. After getting a degree in finance from Princeton he had disappeared for several years in the late 1970s. The first stop of his wide travels had been to the new government of Iran, where the Ayatollah Khomeini had recently overthrown the Shah and instituted shariah law. This was a goal towards which the Prophet, praise be upon him, decreed all good Muslims must strive. And the young Al-Kariya, then using the name Al-Dubiya, had reveled in the triumph of the True Faith over the secularism of that pig the Shah. Yes, Khomeini had been, in many ways, a blasphemer. The Shia branch of Islam was in many ways apostate. But Khomeini had made much of the oil wealth of the nation available to any group that was willing to strive for world-wide jihad and the imposition of shariah.
Managing that wealth, stealthily, was difficult. Moving the money was a pain when the Americans, French, Germans and Israelis were always poking in where they weren't wanted. Al-Kariya had seen his proper place in the world-wide jihad clearly. He knew the theoretical details of international finance back and forward. He knew the gaps, the hidden ways.
But you didn't just get handed a bunch of money no matter what your financial CV. You had to prove you truly supported the jihad. You had to be "made" in the fraternity of the mujaheddin.
Thus, after a brief trip to the Bekaa Valley for training in a PLO camp, his next stop had been Afghanistan where the war against the pig Russians was in high gear. There the Americans, for reasons everyone recognized as cynical, were pouring in material and funds. And there the young man with the soft hands and mind of a calculator had been "made" killing Russian conscripts patrolling in the mountains they feared and hated.
That was a long time ago, though. Now he remembered the smells, the fear, of those missions. It had been a long time since he had had his kidneys jolted out by horrible roads. A long time since he'd been surrounded by unwashed fighters.
Some of them, though, he knew from those long ago days. The fighters in this convoy were the best the jihad had to offer. These weren't human bombs or half-trained zealots that pointed their weapons in the direction of the enemy and sprayed their fire. Every member of this security detail had been on multiple battlefields, fighting the Russians, the Israelis and, especially, the Americans in multiple countries. They had fought, survived and often triumphed. Most were older though few as old as Al-Kariya. Haza Saghedi, though, the team leader riding in the fourth truck, he was an old comrade in arms from Afghanistan. Pashtun, raised in the fiercest of warrior traditions, he had even fought on the side of the Saudis in the war against Iraq. Then, later, he had been in Iraq fighting the Americans. He had taken the path of true jihad, fighting the infidels on every front and surviving. It was he who had picked most of the fighters in the convoy.
Al-Kariya assumed that if the Russians saw an advantage they would try to betray them. Piled next to him in the back seat of the truck was a king's ransom; any king you'd care to name. And the areas they were traveling through could not be considered "safe" by any rational human. Thus he had ensured that the very best were guarding it, and him. Yes, things were going well.
But all he could think as they bounced down the atrocious road was how much he wished he were back in his comfortable office, sitting in his two thousand dollar chair, with a glass of tea by his hand and clicking on his laptop.
Instead of having his kidneys jolted out.
"I'm getting too old for this," was his reply.
* * *
"I'm getting too old for this shit."
Mike looked down the slope and wondered if he should have stopped earlier. He had been in the lead on the last stretch of the ascent so it was all his fault if they had. He unzipped his jacket all the way, feeling a bite of cold sink into his mid-layer of fleece pullover, and pulled out his rangefinders. The range finders, along with all their batteries, had to be carried under their clothes to keep the power from being drained by the cold.
