by John Ringo
Normally, mortars were aimed using poles, called aiming stakes, that looked a bit like surveyor's stakes and were drawn from the same background. The poles were about five feet long and, generally, red and white striped. Two would be put in, aligned so that when the mortar was at a central "rest" position the rear pole was occluded by the front in the sight. When a call for fire came in the angle was dialed in on the sight then the mortar slewed right or left in the direction it needed to point. By keeping aligned on the poles the mortar could be vectored to its direction of fire.
This mortar, though, was dug way into the ground. The bunker was one of the best he'd ever seen, about seven feet deep with sandbag walls and a metal "splinter" cover that could be drawn across the top. There were three tunnels running off of it, one to a separate ammo bunker the other two to the mortar battery command center and a personnel shelter, respectively. The personnel shelter, for that matter, connected to the next bunker in line.
Jessia was in charge of the 2 gun of the battery, the central gun that was used not only for calls for fire but for aligning all three batteries. That was generally a position given only to the best crew and Sivula had to wonder just how good she was.
"You don't need them with these," Jessia said, pointing to the wall of the bunker at some lines drawn on plywood boards. They were numbered in some code he hadn't been able to figure out. "The green one is the primary east aiming line. Lay the sight on the left side of that and you can slew through half the circle. The blue one is primary west."
"And the red ones?" Sivula asked, looking through the sight. Sure enough, it was laid on the left side of the green line. "What are the numbers?" The red vertical lines had numbers by them and Cyrillic notations.
"Those are presets," Jessia replied. "They refer to specific spots that are probable avenues of approach. The numbers are the elevation setting. If something is detected at one of those points, all we have to do is swing the mortar to it, keeping the deflection on base twenty-eight hundred, adjust the elevation to the note and fire. Like this..."
She snapped something in Georgian and the girls doing maintenance dropped what they were doing, literally dropped everything, while the girls who had been in the ammo bunker piled out. Four of them took hold of the legs of the bipod and lifted the heavy mortar into the air, shifting it to point to the right. Another, presumably the AG, caught a tossed round from one of the girls in the bunker and shifted with the mortar.
The team rapidly slewed the mortar and then Jessia fiddled for a second, not much longer, and called out again in Georgian.
One of the girls in the bunker hit a button and a loud siren started to sound. The girls who had slewed the gun stuck fingers in their ears as Jessia backed off the gun and the assistant gunner lifted the round over the opening of the tube.
"Holy shit," Andy snapped, sticking fingers in his ears and ducking to the side. "FIRE IN THE HOLE!"
A mortar does not "crump" at short range, it cracks, it slams, it explodes. It is like a rifle shot but infinitely louder, compressing the lungs for a moment and causing the head to ring even through earplugs or stuffed in fingers. Especially in the confined space of a mortar pit.
The team was already moving the mortar back into place and in another few seconds, fast enough, easily, to pass Mortar Square at Benning, the gun was back in action on its original azimuth.
"We just fired one round at a trail in the mountains, one that the Chechens often use. Our accuracy is generally within ten meters with first round. The round impacted well away from your patrols, I'll add." Jessia smiled at him prettily. "Wouldn't want anyone injured."
"Lady, you are fucking crazy," Andy said, grinning. "I am going to get in so much trouble for asking this, but are you married or engaged?"
Jessia suddenly stopped smiling and her face set. Andrew knew he'd fucked up. Bad. He was going to get fucking killed by Top.
"Actually, no," Jessia replied. "I'm a widow."
It was Andrew's turn to freeze and blink.
"How old are you?" Andy asked.
"Nineteen," Jessia said. "My husband was killed... He was killed in battle. I... We don't talk about all the battles our men participate in but he was killed earlier this year. They didn't, couldn't bring his body home, though." She paused and shrugged. "He is in the Halls but... The women of the Keldara rarely remarry. There are too many girls to marry off as it is."
"So, you're just going to go to your grave without even the chance of getting another husband?" Andy said. "That sucks."
"I had my time," Jessia replied. "He was a good man and a fine warrior. As are you, Sergeant Sivula," she added, smiling.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck... Andrew knew when the fickle finger of fate had fucked again. This was definitely love.
* * *
"You brought an Xbox?" Tammie said. "You love Halo that much?"
The Chief's room was much better outfitted than either hers or Kacey's. Among other things it had a full stereo system, a plasma screen TV and the game console. On a small desk there was a high-end laptop.
"I don't play Halo that much these days," D'Allaird said, slipping a disk into the console. "I found another addiction. And it turned out there were already a couple around."
It took a moment for the game to boot up then he fiddled with the menu. Finally, they were looking at a very familiar view.
"It's a Hind combat simulator," D'Allaird said. "I ran across it a couple of months ago. Face facts, most engineers are guys who couldn't get into pilot training. This is the closest I get."
"Holy shit," Kacey said, sitting down in the floor chair in front of the TV. "But it's one of those controller things."
"Ah, no," D'Allaird said, pulling out a set of controls and sliding them over. "I've got two. You can split screen and both pl...train at the same time. You can even work on coordination."
"These are pretty accurate," Tammie said, sitting down in an adjoining chair. "Why two chairs?"
"Oh, I've been playing with Colonel Nielson," D'Allaird admitted. "He's pretty good at Medal of Honor..."
* * *
"Gun position, left," Tammie yelled. "Fuck, I'm taking fire!"
"Got it," Kacey replied then paused. "Okay, actually I missed it, coming around."
"I've got a hot engine light! See ya! I'm down."
"I got the gun position, at least," Kacey said. "Try to land near the friendlies."
"There aren't any friendlies here," Tammie pointed out. "I'm going back to last checkpoint. I see you, coming in on your seven o'clock, low."
"There's another position on the other side of the ridge," Kacey said, calmly, pulling back on the stick and then leaning sideways with another yank. "Scissor left."
"Got it."
"Directly south of that other position, one hundred yards. They're engaging me..."
"Got it. Smoked."
"Good," Kacey said. "You take lead, I'll take your right. I got dinged on that one..."
"Okay, wingman. You get the chicken."
"Hey!"
"I wonder if everybody on this op is having this much fun?"
"Probably not..."
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Katya sighed and lay down on the bed in her clothes, wrapping the thin blanket around herself and luxuriating in the aloneness. Soon the mission would be done and she could go back to her room in the caravanserai. She realized she had started to think of it as home and blanched. She lived "in the cold" as Jay would put it. There was nowhere in her world that was warm. She refused to allow the possibility.
But the thought of the walls of the caravanserai around her, the Keldara patrolling the mountains, the Kildar with his guns and his training, the lock on the door.
Crap. She was getting soft.
She stuck her hand under the thin, lice infested pillow, felt her fingers touch paper and froze. She rolled over, pulling the blanket up more and slid the slip of paper out in one natural motion. Even if there was a video bug in the room it was unlikely anyone would see the motion
. Unfortunately, there was no way she could read it in this light. She considered that for a moment then stuck it in her bra and got up.
The outhouse was cold as hell but there wasn't anyone around on a rainy and nasty night like this. Once inside, fearful of the results from the stench of the place, she struck a match and read the brief note.
"Switch for Marina tomorrow night."
Stuck to the paper was a small bit of plastic. Pealing it off she saw that it was a fake scar, identical to the one on Marina's chin. Fucking identical down to the slight hook at the base.
The note was signed simply: J.
"Oh. My. Fucking. God."
She realized there was no way she was going to be able to figure out which of the people in town the spymaster was posing as. But just having him nearby gave her that warm feeling again. It was that, as much as the fact that he was here, that had caused the exclamation.
She was not getting soft. Not.
She touched the match to the paper and it flared briefly, with very little light, then disappeared into bare ash. She rubbed her fingers together, waved the match out and dropped it between her legs.
The scar went into her bra. Right by her heart.
* * *
The point paused at the entrance of the defile and looked in cautiously.
The weather, to most people, would fall into the category of "sucks." The clouds had dropped even more, filling the upland valley with fog mixed with rain, sleet and snow as if it couldn't figure out which way it wanted to go.
To Mike it was perfection. It was damned hard to see fifty feet, much less miles, which meant easier for the teams to stay out of sight.
The terrain wasn't bad, either. The clear uplands had been nervous making from the point of view of being spotted. And this side of the mountains was incredibly drier than just sixty miles away. The lowlands were mostly covered in tight, thorny thickets of scrub. Making their way through the tight-packed and dripping scrub had been a nightmare. Mike had figured about twice their movement rate and, with the sun well up, they were late to their rendezvous. But even that wasn't bad; they'd spotted two Chechen patrols before they themselves were spotted and let them waft right by. Tight scrub was pretty scrub in his view.
Now to find out if anybody else was going to make the show. God only knew when Yosif's team would make it. If any of them did. He'd half convinced himself Yosif couldn't find his way across a paddock, much less over the mountains and through this maze.
The designated rendezvous point was a narrow ravine packed with rhododendron. The stuff was normal in upland areas like this but on this side of the mountains it was only found in narrow clefts like this where there was sufficient water.
The area was large enough to hide all three teams, away from noticeable trails and, of course, good concealment given the nature of the vegetation. The only question was whether the Chechens had thought the same thing.
The majority of the team was on the slope of the larger valley the ravine intersected. There was a small stream running down the ravine, it's waters still free of ice, and a larger one, fed by the glacier they'd crossed, running down the valley. To get to the ravine they'd have to cross the river but that wasn't the problem.
The point team, Ivan Shaynav and Mikhail Ferani, were cautiously observing the entrance from about fifty meters away. They apparently didn't like what they were seeing. Mike, peering through the underbrush in the way, wasn't sure what had them spooked.
Finally, Mikhail slithered forward on his belly to the juncture of the two streams and took up a position by a boulder. Back in his ghillie suit, over the heavy arctic wear they were all still encumbered by, he was hard enough for Mike to see. Probably any Chechen sentry wouldn't have noticed him, yet.
Mike saw him start, though and then look around. Finally, clambering to his feet, Mikhail lifted one hand, middle-finger extended in a rude gesture directed across the river.
A figure in an identical ghillie suit stood up, right at the edge of the open area, and threw back the hood of the suit. Then Yosif Devlich waved and tossed a rope across the stream.
Fucking Yosif had beat them to the rendezvous. Mike couldn't figure out why he'd ever been worried.
* * *
"Do we know the status on the Georgian mission?" the president asked. It was seven o'clock in Washington and about time for him to retire. Especially since he was planning on being up early. "And do we have Predators up?"
"We've got four on standby, Mr. President," the National Security Advisor replied. "Two will take off at midnight and two more just before dawn. All four are CIA UCAVs with Hellfire missiles. Just in case they can be useful. We do not have a status on the teams at this time. We caught a glimpse of what was probably one of them on a satellite pass last night. But the next pass we'd lost them. There has been no special movement noted in the Chechen camps on the last two passes."
"B-2 is on the way," the Secretary of Defense added. "Flying light. Two special munitions."
"Two?" the president asked, curiously.
"There is always a possibility that one will be a dud," the SecDef pointed out. "Probably not, but..."
"I don't want to use even one," the president said.
"Naturally," the SecDef agreed. "But you will if you must."
"If I must," the president replied with a sigh. "Early morning, gentlemen. I want you all to get some sleep tonight."
"And are you going to take your own advice?" the SecDef asked.
"As well as I can."
* * *
"Whatcha got, Lydia?" Nielson asked.
The girl had asked to meet him in the command room and had arrived with a couple of documents and a flash stick. She stuck that in the room's computer and brought up a mapping program that flashed the data on the wall.
Nielson was looking at intercepts. People had been transmitting and each of the transmissions was triangulated. There were probably more than were on the screen, the girls were constantly getting intercepts, but he was looking at quite a few already.
"I'm not sure what I have," Lydia admitted. "It might be butterflies in my stomach from the baby. But we have been picking up a large number of slowly moving intercepts. They break down into two types, medium range radios and satellite phones. We, of course, don't get all the satellite phones, especially at this range, but we are picking up most of the radio transmissions, we think."
She keyed a command and most of the intercepts disappeared. Then, apparently in a time loop, they began reappearing. They seemed to march east to west across the map, staying mostly close to roads through the mountains between Russia and Azerbaijan that were effectively owned by the Chechens.
"What we don't have is internals item one," Lydia continued. "The transmissions are brief, frequency skipping and encrypted. That, in and of itself, is a data item. Whoever is transmitting has good communication security. There are seven satellite phones. There are about nine radios. They only transmit once to twice per day. They are color coded as you can see. We filtered for any that were fixed. Sat Phone 28, though, appears to communicate with Sat Phone 19, one of the ones pegged as Chechen Command, about once per day."
Nielson fiddled with the controls for a moment then shrugged.
"Could you do something for me?" he asked. "Zoom in on one of the radios. Then follow it as it moves. Stop at each of the transmissions. I'll need to see the previous transmission at each point. I'd like to see approximate road distance between each of the transmissions."
He pulled out a pad of paper and watched as the girl expertly massaged the data out of the computer. Given that he'd been using computers for a few years and she had only been introduced to them about six months ago he should have been better than Lydia but there was no question who had the better tech knowledge. So he just watched. At each point he made a note and nodded for her to go on.
