The reluctant Georgian soldiers split up and climbed into the trucks. Rat climbed into the middle seat in the front of the first truck, next to the captain and to the right of the Georgian driver. Mark James sat right behind Rat.
Rat glanced at the driver, who seemed extraordinarily young, thin, and small. He did everything tentatively, as if doing it for the first time even if he had just done it thirty seconds before.
The trucks started their noisy engines and rolled away from the colonel. They rumbled up the dirt road to the entrance to the gorge thirty kilometers away.
They drove without incident and started up the hill on the rutted dirt road that would take them down into the gorge. The truck climbed easily but slowly as it rocked back and forth in the ruts. Rat thought of how easy it would be for a sniper to hit the truck if so inclined. A good sniper could take out the engine with one shot from fifteen hundred yards away. The young driver seemed competent, but Rat had no confidence in his instincts if they came under fire. Rat studied the controls to ensure he could drive the truck if it came to that.
Rat had begun to doubt the need for this high-risk foray into the Pankisi gorge, one of the most dangerous places on earth. But he had to find the radioactive cores. It was really just a hunch that they were in the gorge. If the cores weren’t there it would mean they had yet another day’s head start to wherever they were headed.
The two trucks protested and creaked as they made their way over the mountain, finally cresting the top and heading down the steep narrowing road dense with trees and foliage on both sides. The road worsened as the descent grew steeper. The driver forced the manual transmission into its lowest gear, grinding the teeth of the gearing to slow their nearly vertical descent. As they approached the bottom of the hill the road improved and flattened into the valley. The road opened up on both sides and everyone in both trucks visibly relaxed.
Groomer, Robby, and Mark James were in the backseat behind Rat. McSwain sat in the middle of the front seat of the second truck, with a Georgian sergeant to his right and Banger behind him. Captain Kolbaia studied the map as they bounced along the now predictable dirt road and spoke to the driver in Georgian. They rounded a sharp curve, straightened out for a mile, and saw smoke from the settlement. The captain picked up the radio and transmitted to Beridze that they were approaching the first enclave.
Rat watched the trees on either side of them. He began to smell the distinctive scent of rotten food and burnt flesh, probably a goat being cooked over a campfire, or perhaps dog, something Rat hadn’t smelled in quite a while. He thought he saw several men in the woods with rifles pointed at them. His fingers curled around the trigger of his MP5N as they came around a bend and entered the settlement. He noticed the sad, thrown-together housing, mostly lean-tos and tents with an occasional tin shack. Open fires smoldered all around surrounded by general squalor and filth.
Their young driver slowed the truck as they approached numerous pedestrians who regarded them with suspicion and contempt. What Rat saw mostly was unhappiness. The men were surly and well armed. They looked Georgian, or Chechen for the most part, not that he could tell the difference. Rat looked in every direction for signs of Middle Eastern men, or Sudanese. He watched the people crossing the road and saw no one other than what appeared to be Chechen refugees.
The driver slowed as more people crossed the road and were joined by more still. “Here we go,” the captain said with disgust. “It is just to make us stop.”
The driver stopped as the road was completely blocked. Several large men with Russian assault rifles stood in front of the truck, while others moved around the truck. One came to the side where the captain was sitting and spoke to him in Georgian. “What are you doing here?” he asked with anger and an implied threat.
“Someone has found the core of a generator. They have taken it away. But it is still full of electricity. If someone opens it, or cracks it, or even drops it in the wrong way, it will electrocute them and anyone else within a fifty-meter radius. We have come to warn them, and get the device back.”
Rat couldn’t understand a word, and knew better than to ask in English what was being said.
“That is bad,” the man replied, concerned. “What does this thing look like?”
“It is silver, about this long, and round. It is fairly heavy, maybe ten kilos.”
“We have seen nothing like that. If we had, I would know about it. So you may go back.”
“No, we must warn all the villages. We must tell everyone.”
“Is that why you flew over our homes last night with your helicopters? Waking our children and trying to intimidate us?”
“I know nothing of this. What time did this occur? It might have been yet another incursion into our airspace by the Russians,” the captain replied, hitting the Chechen hot button. These rebel Chechens owed Georgia a debt of gratitude. They could avoid the endless war in Chechnya by hiding—staging, as the Russians asserted—in Georgia, and but for the sovereignty of Georgia, would certainly be pursued into the Pankisi gorge by the Russian Army. The Russians accused the Georgians of protecting the Chechens, of being effectively coconspirators with them. It was the only thing that kept the Chechens, and whoever else was in the gorge, from attacking the Georgians outright and trying to establish complete control over the gorge.
But lately, there had grown a new assertiveness among some in the gorge. They had begun exploring the idea of staying in the gorge permanently, free from the Russian Army, free from the outside world; able to do whatever they wanted. There had been some sniper attacks, denial of access, but thus far, no direct confrontation.
“You find out and tell me. Yes?” the large man said.
“Yes.”
“But tell me this,” the Chechen man insisted. “Why do you think this missing electrical canister would be here?”
The captain tried to think quickly. He hadn’t anticipated the question. “Because we know you don’t have electricity. Maybe someone who knows a lot about generators knew what it was, and wanted to try to use it to set up an electrical generator here.”
“That’s a good idea,” the man said, nodding. “Maybe if we find this thing, that’s what we’ll do instead of telling you about it.”
“I wouldn’t recommend it. You may have someone who thinks he’s smart enough to do that, but I promise you, he isn’t. It will kill him and several others. And then who will the people hold responsible? You?”
The Chechen had heard enough. “You need to leave us. We are busy people.”
“Whoever did this killed three Chechen guides. Including one named—he looked at a slip of paper—Nino Jorbenadze. One of the men who took them to the location of this generator.”
“What?” the man asked angrily. “Nino? They killed Nino? You are lying!” he screamed, lowering his rifle.
The captain handed him a photo of Nino lying in the shallow grave with maggots on his face.
The Georgian looked at the photo and threw it back into the truck. “It is fake. One of those digital photograph fakes.”
“No, it isn’t. I saw them myself. They were shot by the men they were guiding. Nino was shot in the chest, the others in the back.”
“It is impossible!”
“A farmer who heard the shooting came as soon as he could, and saw several men retreating. He said the shooters did not look Georgian.” He paused again. “Do you know who Nino was helping?”
The Chechen’s face was dark with fury. “We let certain people in because we share ideology. We have the same goals. But our means are different. And some of them treat their friends just like their enemies when it suits them. We have seen some men deep in the gorge, but they are in many different places. Near the border, elsewhere. I doubt you will see them though, unless you go on foot. They never go near the roads.”
The captain nodded. “Remember what I said.”
He nodded and began to move away, then hesitated. “Wait,” the man said. “This man sitting n
ext to you.”
The captain tried not to show any concern.
“Why is he carrying a fancy machine gun? Why does he not get the Georgian AK-47 like everyone else?”
The captain looked at Rat’s machine pistol for the first time. He didn’t know what to say. “We bought some new equipment to go after the non-Georgians here, like the men who shot Nino. This sergeant is one of the first to get one.”
“And not you?”
“No. I like Russian equipment. I don’t need a fancy German gun.”
“Let me see it,” the man said as others gathered behind him.
“No,” the captain said. He glanced up to see if the road was clear. It wasn’t.
“Yes. You must give me that fancy German gun or you will not pass. It is the toll,” the man said, smiling maliciously.
“No toll. This road belongs to Georgia. The Georgian Army pays no toll to drive on our roads.”
“You do today,” the man said, holding out his hand.
Captain Kolbaia was furious. “Either you move now, get out of the way and stop making ridiculous demands, or I will order my men out of the trucks and force you, even if we have to shoot you to do it.”
“You would never get out of here alive,” the man said, returning his hard gaze.
“Maybe not, but I’d certainly kill you, which would make it worthwhile.”
The man laughed, stepped back, and yelled at the others to clear the path. “We will keep our eyes out for your electricity canister!”
The captain spoke to the driver who jammed the stick shift into first gear and began slowly releasing the clutch. Rat spoke quietly to Mark James in the backseat to turn on his detection instrument. It was the size of a briefcase and was leaning against the door right behind the captain. He would have preferred to use headphones, but was content now to just watch the dials for indication of cesium or strontium. They were detectable in minute amounts with the remarkably sensitive gear James had. If they came within several hundred feet of one of the cores, he would find it. They hadn’t found anything in the flyover the previous night, so James wasn’t optimistic.
The truck crept through the people surrounding it. They all looked toward the leader, the one who wanted Rat’s weapon, who had been talking to the Georgian captain. He was content to let them pass.
They drove on, finally clear of the people and the overflow of the camp, into the hilly gorge.
“What was that about?”
“We should have given you a Georgian weapon.”
Rat thought about it. “You’re probably right.” He slid his weapon under the seat, out of sight.
They went from one hill to another, some covered with dense foliage, others stark and bare, covered only with sad grass. They saw no one but were sure they were being watched. The rutted road made it impossible to travel any faster than twenty kilometers per hour. Rat felt vulnerable. They passed through the next enclave without incident and with Mark James’s quiet equipment sniffing for gamma and beta rays, then the enclave after that. By mid-afternoon they had gone as deep into the gorge as they were going to go. They had found the camps they had wanted to visit. They hadn’t seen anyone who looked Sudanese, nor had they seen any of signs of the Europeans who supposedly had come to join the Chechen-Islamic struggle.
The captain turned to speak to Rat. “This is as far as we go. What do you want to do?”
“Is there any other way out?”
“There is another road that runs along the western side of the gorge. It is worse, and touches none of the populations. But who knows?”
“Let’s take that road. We’ll keep our instrumentation on all the way. Maybe we’ll pick something up.”
“It will be dark before we leave if we do that.”
“We’ve got to find these radioactive cores.”
The captain shrugged and instructed the driver to take the western road. They kept the instruments on throughout the bone-jarring ride, but found no sign of any of the missing nuclear cores. By the time they turned back onto the road on which they had entered the gorge, it was pitch dark. The moon was not yet visible over the hills.
The truck groaned and protested as it climbed the steep hill. The dull yellow headlights bounced around the road and off the countless trees. The diesel engine was tired and strained under the load. The driver was even more tired, and his efforts to avoid the ruts and holes were less successful.
Rat stared into the darkness wondering where the nuclear cores had gone. He was sure it was Duar’s men who had taken them. It was part of their obsessive, unending quest to make either a thermonuclear bomb, or short of that, a dirty nuclear bomb that would spread deadly nuclear radiation without the necessity of a nuclear explosion.
He saw something flash in the corner of his eye. He turned and saw a rocket-propelled grenade flying directly at them. “Incoming!” he yelled. The captain turned where Rat was pointing and saw the RPG-7 coming from the downhill side of the road. Rat yelled, “Ambush! Get out!”
The captain continued to stare a split second too long. Rat reached across him, opened his door, and pushed him out on the uphill side of the truck just as the grenade slammed into the truck behind them. Rat followed the captain, hit the ground, and rolled clear. The captain shouted to his men as they tried to scramble out of the truck before the next grenade hit.
Rat ran to the truck behind them. He approached the burning wreck from the uphill side as Banger ran to him and pulled the caps off the nightscope on his sniper rifle. “Shit, sir, that was close.”
“You see anybody?”
Banger shook his head.
Rat returned his attention to the burning truck. The heat was too intense for him to approach any closer than ten feet. He looked for McSwain, then saw what remained of him burning inside the cab. The armor-piercing grenade had penetrated the driver’s door, lodged itself in the cab, and blown up, instantly killing the driver, McSwain, and the other Georgian.
“Damn it!” Rat exclaimed. He and the Georgian captain ran to the back of the burning truck and helped the two survivors out. They looked like ghosts or zombies, with heavy gray smoke rolling up from their uniforms. They were unresponsive to their captain; they had been deafened by the explosion.
James stood beside Rat in stunned silence. Suddenly he turned. “I’ve got to get the instruments!” He ran back toward the front truck.
“No!” Rat yelled, nearly following him, but then turned back toward the burning truck. Rat helped the survivors away from the flames. Everyone huddled in a group down the road from the two trucks, leaning in toward the hill. “No way to tell how many are here, but you can be sure they think they have enough to take us. If we stay here we’ll be killed. We have to go right at them. We’ve already wasted too much time.”
The captain’s eyes were huge. He looked confused.
Rat said to him, “You ever been in combat?”
Captain Kolbaia shook his head.
“Take your men and go right at the source of the RPG. Spread out. Five meters apart. Stay low and fast. Don’t stop until you’re on top of them or you’re clear of them. After you start, I’ll take my men into the woods to the left and get behind them. We have night vision. I doubt they do, but don’t count on them not having it. Be careful.”
The silence was interrupted by automatic gunfire that tore into the trucks behind them. Rat looked up the hill and saw Mark James running toward them with his briefcase detection device. James made it to them unharmed. Rat noticed none of the gunfire aimed at James had come from uphill. “Dumbasses,” Rat said. “Don’t even know how to set up an ambush.” To the captain, “You ready?”
The captain nodded. His mouth hung open slightly. The bullets were now slamming into the dirt where the road had been cut out of the hill. “I should be in charge of our plan. I am a Georgian Army officer and we are in Georgia.”
“You’re right. No doubt about it. But I’ve seen a little of this before. So this time let’s do it my way. Next t
ime we’ll do it your way. Okay?”
He nodded. “We will go now.”
“When you get to the edge of the trees, turn right about ten degrees and head right for the shooting. They’ll be shooting in the dark—it will be hard to find you once we get inside the trees. The first twenty meters will be the most dangerous. They should be advancing now if they have any idea of what they’re doing. They won’t be expecting you to go right at them. You should be ready to shoot anyone in front of you, just don’t go left. We’ll be around your left flank and up behind them. As soon as you hear us fire you hit the deck and stop. It will sound very different. They’re shooting AK-47s. Ours will sound very different, but you have to listen! You ready? You got that?”
The captain nodded as he shouted instructions to his men, who made sure their clips were in their rifles and a round was in the chamber. Everyone was ready.
Rat moved away from the captain with the other Americans following, the SEALs and Green Berets who hadn’t been killed. Rat wondered why they hadn’t fired on the truck in front. Standard ambush procedure—fire from both sides, and disable the front vehicle to block the road. They were almost surely advancing up the woods to attack them at close range with automatic weapons. Rat hurried down the road in a crouch until he was a hundred meters down the hill. He stopped, put on his night-vision goggles, and waited for the other Americans to do likewise.
He had worked and trained with Green Berets before. They watched him expectantly. He looked up and down the road, then into the woods. He and Groomer were the only American officers alive. He nodded, and gave them hand signals—he would go across the road first, they were to follow in uneven succession and spread out in the woods in a line abreast, all to the left of him.
Rat dashed across the road and stopped low when he penetrated the tree line. He held his MP5N on his shoulder, ready to fire at anything that moved. He could see everything in green and white. He could see the Georgians spreading out nicely in the woods to his right, making their way slowly in the darkness. He could also see the tracer bullets from their attackers racing toward the truck and now generally toward the Georgians. Rat went deeper into the woods another hundred meters and turned right. He walked just under a trot, careful not to blunder into a trap. The other Americans followed him, watching him, and watching farther out to their left to make sure they wouldn’t get flanked themselves. They were five meters apart, instantly forming into a squad, bringing all their Special Forces training to bear. They pointed their submachine guns directly ahead of them with their fingers on the trigger, careful not to shoot before it was time, before they were right on top of their enemy.
Secret Justice Page 22
