Chris Ryan
Battleground
Author’s note
In August 2008, 3,000 British troops and a convoy of vehicles spent five days moving a new turbine across Helmand Province to the Kajaki dam. It was one of the biggest operations of the current war effort in Afghanistan and is testament to the importance of Kajaki. British forces continue to guard the dam diligently. It remains a principal target for the enemy insurgents in the area, who would like to see it destroyed. If this happened, it would be an untold disaster for southern Afghanistan.
Prologue
‘Ambush!’
Dmitri Kirov, the Soviet soldier, barked the word in Russian. He was in the middle of the convoy, which came to a sudden halt. There were ten of them in three vehicles, all heavily armed because they carried a precious cargo: the case at his feet in the rear of this open-backed truck.
They’d been going slowly. The road up into the mountains was narrow. The pale, wintry sun failed to melt the patches of ice on the road, and with the wind it felt like it was several degrees below zero. Worse than that, their own army had littered this place with anti-personnel mines as part of their long war against the Mujahideen of Afghanistan. These mines were an effective way of killing people. The trouble with them was that they didn’t mind which people they killed: Mujahideen, innocent children, or Soviet soldiers.
To drive through this part of the world was to take your life in your hands.
‘Ambush!’
Kirov was a tough man. A fierce soldier. They all were. That’s why they’d been chosen for this job — a job where they could expect random attacks from a determined enemy. But even he knew, as he stood exposed in the open air with his AK-47 pointing straight ahead, that the situation was bad. To his right, on the slope leading up into the mountains, three men in black robes and head-dresses had appeared from nowhere. They each knelt on one knee and pointed their rifles in the direction of the convoy. Four more men appeared, two at the front of the convoy and two at the back, at a distance of about twenty metres. They were dressed the same way, but instead of rifles they carried rocket-propelled grenade launchers. RPG-7s. Dmitri Kirov would recognize them anywhere.
There was a still, horrible silence, then one of the men at the front barked an order.
The thumping sound of the grenades being launched went right through Kirov. But it was nothing compared to the sound they made when they hit the front and rear trucks in the convoy. It was a massive explosion that echoed across the mountains. The truck ahead of him was a sudden flash of orange fire and black smoke. He thought he heard the sound of one of his comrades screaming inside it.
The scream didn’t last long.
Kirov felt his skin scorching; he could smell burning diesel and his own singed hair. Smoke surrounded him and he started firing blindly towards the slope. There was an immediate return of fire. Bullets started zipping over his head, but by some miracle they didn’t hit him. He had to duck down into the back of the truck for cover, his head in his hands as fear overtook him.
He heard the sound of shouting and made a quick calculation. There had been four men in the front truck and three in the back, which meant that of the ten of them who had set out that morning, seven were already dead. Kirov expected to join them any second.
The comrades in the front of his truck started shouting, and then there was the sound of two shots.
Then silence. He knew what that meant.
With a cold, creeping feeling, Kirov realized he was the only one left.
The two trucks were still burning and crackling. He looked up from his crouching position, and through the wobbly heat haze he saw three of the black-robed men approach, their rifles pointing in his direction. Kirov knew there was no way he could fight his way out of this situation, so he left his AK-47 on the floor of the truck and raised his hands in the air. Perhaps the Mujahideen would show him mercy. Just perhaps …
A harsh voice, speaking Russian with an accent. ‘Get down!’
Kirov hesitated.
‘Get down! Now!’
He did as he was told, wincing from the heat of the burning metal on either side. Once he was down from the truck, one of his attackers grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to the edge of the road before forcing him to his knees and pointing a gun at his head. The rest of the ambushers swarmed over the truck like black wasps.
Kirov was shaking with fear. ‘P-please,’ he stuttered. ‘Please, do not—’
‘Silence!’
A second ambusher approached and the two black-robed men spoke in what Kirov supposed was the Afghan language of Pashtun. Then the man who held him at gunpoint spoke to him once more.
‘What are you carrying in the back of the truck?’ he demanded.
‘N-nothing,’ Kirov stuttered. ‘It is nothing.’
‘Kill him,’ the second man said.
‘No! Wait!’ Kirov’s breath came in sharp, frightened gasps. ‘I will tell you.’
‘You should do it quickly, if you don’t want a bullet in your brain.’
Kirov could hardly get the words out. ‘It is a weapon,’ he said.
The two Mujahideen looked at each other. ‘What sort of weapon?’
‘A bomb,’ Kirov replied. ‘A suitcase bomb. Nuclear. If you destroy that truck, it will take out half this mountainside.’
Behind him, he heard the flickering sound of the two burning vehicles. His attacker slowly lowered his rifle and started unwinding the black cloth that was wound round his head. He had dark, sweaty skin and a long beard. His eyes glowed. Kirov couldn’t tell if that was because of the reflection of the flames or for some other reason.
‘A nuclear suitcase bomb,’ the bearded man repeated. ‘I have heard of such things.’ He shouted an instruction, then watched as the Mujahideen on the truck carefully lifted the case and gently laid it on the side of the road two metres from where Kirov was kneeling.
Shaped like a cylinder, it was khaki-brown in colour and held together with canvas straps. It was rather battered and old — to look at it, you would think it was a soldier’s trunk from an earlier war. The bearded man crouched down to inspect it. He stroked the case, rather like someone petting a cat. His face was sweating profusely, but a smile played on his lips.
He looked directly at Kirov. ‘We will take it with us,’ he said quietly. ‘The day may come, God willing, when this weapon will change all our fortunes.’ He said something again in Pashtun, and Kirov watched as two of the others picked the case up once more and started carrying it up the mountainside.
The bearded man stood up and for a moment he looked as if he was going to leave Kirov there on the roadside. What will I tell my superiors? the Russian thought to himself. The idea was almost as terrifying as being left here with the Afghans.
He didn’t get a chance to think on it any further because he realized he was being spoken to. ‘Get back into the truck,’ the bearded man told him, nudging him once more with the butt of his rifle.
Kirov could only do what he was told. The two other trucks were burning less angrily now, but they still let off a lot of heat as he stumbled back towards his vehicle.
‘Get into the back,’ the Mujahideen instructed.
Kirov did so. His AK-47 was still lying on the floor of the truck. He wondered if he should bend down, pick it up and try to fire at his attackers. But he didn’t have the time, because just then he realized what was happening. From the slope above him, one of the ambushers was raising his RPG launcher and pointing it in Kirov’s direction.