Dominating this clearing were two huge Buddhas, carved into the surrounding mountains. Well aware that they had finally reached their goal, Grigori stirred in anticipation. His eyes narrowed as they swept over the collection of sand-colored stone huts that comprised the village of Bamian. It had been a mecca for the decadent, hashish-smoking American hippies in the 1970s. Now the Mujahiddin considered their rule there undisputed. He’d soon show this rabble how wrong these so-called Warriors of God were in this assumption.
His mouth was dry, his glance expectant, yet he couldn’t pick out a single human being visible beneath them. Swearing under the cover of his breath, he looked on impotently. Had their elusive quarry escaped them once again? And would the lives of his fallen comrades go unrevenged?
He was just about to admit defeat when a massive rectangle of flaming torches became visible, lighting up a distant field. Catching this sight at the same instant, the pilot exclaimed, “It’s the entire town!
They’re down there on the Buzkashi field. We must have caught them in the midst of some sort of festival!”
Most conscious of what this meant, Grigori smiled and his fingers tightened their grip on the gunship’s weapons controls. Without further comment, they soared in to attack.
For the next few minutes, all Grigori Yagoda was aware of was the steady staccato blasting of the gunship’s four wing-mounted gatt ling guns. Instinctively, his index finger depressed the firing trigger and the 12.7-mm. bullets flew forth in a hydraulic flurry of 2,000 rounds a minute. Designed to pierce the surface of a light armored vehicle, the bullets played havoc with human flesh. This fact was most evident as the casualties below steadily mounted.
The Afghans had been in the midst of their national game when the Mi-24 swept in from above.
Hundreds of villagers were watching the Buzkashi tournament and they were apparently caught totally off guard. During their first pass, Grigori was afforded an excellent view of the match itself, which his bullets all too soon disrupted. Dozens of horsemen had been visible in the center of the torchlit field, busy trying to gain possession of a stuffed burlap sack. The object of the game was to secure this sack and ride it around the two poles placed at either end of the rectangular field. In days of old, a sheep’s head was this sack’s contents. As he remembered the decapitated body of Commander Valerin, Grigori’s fury intensified.
They had completed over a half-dozen passes, and the area was now littered with hundreds of prone, bloody bodies, yet still Yagoda craved more. It was only when an anti-aircraft tracer shot out from a surrounding hillside that Grigori cried out angrily.
“There’s the bastards responsible for the deaths of our comrades, they’re in the hills! Let’s show those spineless cowards what it is to fight like real men. For the glory of the Motherland!”
Possessed by the intensity of battle and the strength of Yagoda’s words, the pilot didn’t hesitate to turn his attention to this new target. With throttles wide open, the gunship streaked through the dusk-colored sky, its nose pointed straight for the rugged hills that lay to the north of the village. Again a tracer shot out toward them. To answer this blast, Grigori released a pair of 5.7-mm. rockets, which streaked out from their storage racks and smacked into the hillside with a fiery vengeance. As the Mi-24 turned to make another pass, Grigori noticed a good-sized contingent of armed rebels scurrying for cover among the rocks beneath them. Signaling the pilot of their presence, Grigori spoke out.
“We’ll never get them all from this vantage point, comrade. I want you to drop me and my squad off on the crest of that hill. Then we’ll show that rabble what it means to provoke the are of the Motherland’s finest!”
A quick scan showed them clearly outnumbered, yet the pilot didn’t dare challenge Yagoda’s request.
Even though standard military practice would have them call in reinforcements, he guided the chopper over to the rocky crest the commando had pointed out. Yagoda stood and flashed him a victory sign.
“Don’t go far, Captain. This won’t take long. Take us down to twenty meters. We’ll use ropes to go the rest of the way.”
Signaling that he understood, the pilot saw the tall, blond-haired Spetsnaz operative turn and disappear back into the Mi-24’s main cabin. With practiced ease, he then began the difficult task of settling the lumbering gunship over the proper landing site.
As the chopper hovered and slowly began descending, three sets of ropes flew from its opened main hatchway. Lit by the light of dusk, three figures, with rifles strapped over their backs, expertly slid down the ropes. Hardly had their boots touched the ground when they sprinted for cover behind some nearby boulders. The down draft of the now-ascending gunship veiled the crest in waves of dust, and all too soon the helicopter’s racket was gone, to be replaced with a hushed, primordial silence.
Utilizing a system of birdcalls to communicate with each other, the three men silently leapfrogged down the mountainside. It was Dmitri Andreyev who first chanced upon the enemy. As he crawled from the cover of a particularly jagged boulder, he found himself face-to-face with a trio of startled rebels.
Taking in their characteristic baggy pantaloons, long, loose shirts, and beard-stub bled faces, Andreyev put a bullet neatly into each man’s forehead long before they could even raise their Kalashnikovs.
The report of these shots caused a half-dozen Mujahiddin to suddenly show themselves from the rocks immediately to Andreyev’s left. Just as he turned to put his own weapon into play, six shots sounded out from behind him. Before any of these Afghans could even hit their triggers, each of them received a single, fatal wound from the hidden barrels of his two comrades. Still not certain exactly where they were located, Dmitri allowed himself a sigh of relief. He had been caught oft guard and that breath could very well have been his last.
The shrill cry of a quail sounded to his right, and Andreyev knew it was time to be on the move once again. Answering with a call of his own, he continued on down the hillside. This time it was the booming blast of an automatic weapon that caught his attention. Unlike any rifle that the members of his squadron used, he picked out the distinctive whine of a 7.62-mm. PK machine gun. A series of bullets ricocheted off the rocks immediately before him, and he desperately scanned the surrounding hills to pick out their source. Only when a raven’s harsh cry emanated from his left did he know that the machine gun was set up behind him. With his back pressed up against a solid ledge of rock, he cautiously moved in the direction the raven had called from. Again the machine gun whined, and this time its bullets bit off several chips of nearby rock. One of these fragments grazed his cheek, and for the first time in weeks Dmitri Andreyev tasted his own blood.
Not certain how he would extra cate himself from this situation, the commando froze. His extensive training taught him to think out a problem fully before committing himself too hastily. As it eventually turned out, his savior was crouched only a few meters away from him. Waiting patiently beside the large rock ledge to his left was the grinning figure of Grigori Yagoda.
Only when Yagoda was certain of Dmitri’s position did he stand up and lob a single RGD-5 hand grenade into the rocks behind them. The machine gun instantly coughed alive, and Yagoda was forced to dive for cover. Three seconds later, the grenade’s 110 grams of TNT burst with an ear-splitting crack.
The sound of this explosion echoed off the rock cliffs and the distinctive whine of the machine gun became noticeably absent.
Dusting the debris off his fatigues, Grigori Yagoda stood and signaled that the obstacle behind them had been cleared. Only then did Dmitri join him.
“It looks like the Afghan marksmen have finally drawn the blood of Russia’s finest,” whispered Grigori, as he pointed to the wound that lined his comrade’s cheek.