At the airfield, everyone held their collective breath for a minute as Charlie and Delta teams continued to move toward their targets. The Bravo team snipers cleared a path for them as they moved quietly through the woods. They stopped every so often to peer around the tree trunks and make sure that the enemy hadn’t spotted them yet. As they got closer to one of the air defense vehicles, one of the Charlie members spied two men manning the system and three more guards. He silently exchanged hand signals to explain how many men he had seen and where they were positioned. Within moments, they had neutralized all five men with surgical precision, barely making any sounds at all; their rifles had silencers, and they had all been taken down with two shots to the chest and one to the head, so none of them were making any noises either.
A couple of the Charlie team members verified that the five men were indeed dead. Then they all walked around the bodies so that they could begin to place C4 bricks on the control panel and directly on the missile pods, which were wired up to remote-control detonators. Then they quickly moved on to the next task, continuing to clear the perimeter around the compound.
Delta team approached the entrance on the south side of the perimeter wall. As they moved towards the parked enemy vehicles, they shot three of the guards with their suppressed rifles. They all dropped instantly, without hardly a sound. At that moment, a Spetsnaz soldier (who had been using the “bathroom” in the tree line nearby) saw his comrades go down and immediately knew they were under attack. He released the safety on his rifle and took aim at two of the attackers he saw move past where his comrades had just been. Then he fired a quick burst from his rifle.
One of the Americans was killed outright when a bullet hit him in the neck and head, another was severely injured when he was struck several times in the chest and right shoulder. The other two operators returned fire, quickly killing the Russian before he even had time to zip up his pants. Unfortunately, the sound of roughly twenty rounds being rapidly fired had alerted the remaining guards and those in the compound that someone was attempting to attack their base.
Delta team, which had been at the edge of the perimeter wall, immediately kicked in the door to the side entrance leading into the compound. In seconds, they were inside the perimeter and had taken out the two guards at the side door to the building. An unlucky Russian soldier was exiting the door as they approached. With a rapid three round burst, the man dropped immediately to the ground. A second Russian soldier had been right behind him, and was also hit by the bullets. He fell backwards into the hallway.
Before any additional soldiers could run through the door, one of the Delta members threw a flash bang into the hallway, which would stun anyone rushing towards the exit with its excessively bright light and irritatingly high-pitched sound. As soon as it burst, several Delta members rushed in and began to move down the hallway, throwing fragmentation grenades into each room. These would spray anyone still in those areas with bursts of deadly shrapnel.
Delta’s four-man team began to sprint up the stairs, charging forward to the room that was holding the hostages. Just as they approached the entrance to the second floor, several Spetsnaz soldiers opened the door to the stairwell, and they literally ran into each other. Shocked, there was nothing else for either side to do other than to open fire at close range. In seconds, four Spetsnaz soldiers were dead along with two of the Delta members. The other two Delta operators survived the shootout and threw several fragmentation grenades down the hallway of the second floor to clear out any remaining hostiles. Then they proceeded to head towards the third floor toward their priority target.
As they reached the entrance to the third floor, one of the members threw a flash bang into the hallway and counted to two. Once the grenade went off, they both entered the hallway and neutralized the guards on the floor. They moved quickly to the room where the Americans were being held and shot the lock off. As they entered the room, they saw the two Americans, bound on the floor, bloodied and bruised. They quickly untied their hands and feet and instructed them, “Follow us out of the building!”
Charlie team had just finished clearing the first floor; they moved quickly to help Delta. As Charlie moved up to the stairwell, they collected the bodies of their two fallen comrades. Then they assisted Delta team in moving the prisoners to the extraction point.
Major Runyon sent a quick message to headquarters, “Mission completion. Three KIA. Requesting extraction and gunship support.”
While the breach team was moving the prisoners and casualties out of the building, Alpha and Bravo team were heavily engaged outside. Alpha detonated their charges on the SA-19, shooting a bright and loud explosion into the night sky. Soon after, the charges on the other air defense vehicles and armored personnel carriers were ignited as well.
As the snipers of Bravo team continued to pick off enemy soldiers, they spotted several of them sealing themselves into one of the armored personnel carriers. Once inside the vehicle, they immediately began to work the heavy machine gun, pouring 30mm cannon rounds into the American positions near the perimeter wall and the main compound. All the noises from the shooting and explosions had also alerted several of the militia units that were staying in the surrounding area that something was going on. Those forces began to mobilize and head towards the Russian compound to see what all the fuss was about.
The operations team watching the drone feeds sent a series of updates to Major Runyon, letting him know about the additional enemy forces converging on their position. As the Russian armored vehicle continued to discharge showers of heavy machine gun fire on the Americans, one of the Delta members unslung the AT4 from his backpack, mounted it on his shoulder, took aim at the troop carrier, and fired. In a split second, the rocket fired from the tube and impacted on the side of the vehicle, causing a small explosion. A few seconds later, smoke billowed excessively from its side, and then flames began to grow more and more noticeable.
Runyon yelled into his radio, “Command, this is Striker one. We need air support. Take out those incoming reinforcements and keep them away from our LZ until our gunships arrive. How copy?” As soon as he finished speaking, he raised his rifle to fire another three-round burst in the direction of several enemy soldiers.
“Striker one, this is Command. Good copy, standby for air support,” the JSOC operators radioed back.
High above the battle going on below, Lightning One received the call to begin dropping ordinance. The F-35 pilot entered the targeting data and double-checked it before arming his JDAMs. In a matter of seconds after receiving the order to engage the ground targets, Lightning One dropped two of his 250 lbs. smart bombs and began to guide them in towards several of the vehicles heading towards the compound.
As the Delta operators moved to the extraction point, the fighting began to die down until it eventually stopped. The two JDAMs demolished several of the vehicles that had been carrying additional reinforcements towards the Russian compound. The arrival of the two Apache gunships further eviscerated what little resistance remained in the area. As the gunships circled the area, the V-280s landed and picked up the team and began to whisk them away to safety.
Wiping the sweat from his face, Major Runyon sat in the helicopter and began to run through the operation in his head and ruminate on the details of what transpired. Three of their comrades had been killed, and another four more were injured. However, they had recovered the prisoners before they could be transferred to Russia. They had also thoroughly destroyed a Russian Spetsnaz base and killed many separatist rebels.