The smell hit them at once. Even with their masks on, they could smell it. A faint stench, it was putrid, tingling their noses, they tasted its rotten flavor.
“Fucking masks don’t work,” Boris commented.
Everyone agree, and within three seconds, they all tossed them to the ground. The smell was a bit harsher, but not unbearable. At least now they could speak. At least now they didn’t feel constricted by the respirators.
A bit longer and Kirov stepped closer to green leader, asking, “Anything?”
“Negative, Comrade Colonel,” Morozov said. This was Kirov’s second in command. “The chemical seems to have dissipated, think it’s gone mostly. With some luck, that smell doesn’t mean we’re fucked.”
“Am I going to get some strange disease?” Boris asked, worried that the women back in his village wouldn’t sleep with him if he had some disease.
“Our instruments tell us there’s no harm and I just tested another soil sample. Looks clean. Think the chemical won’t hurt us,” Morozov said.
“Good,” Kirov said, a bit impatient. “Keep moving, take that next corner. This cave will open up at some point. We caught them early, so most would have been sleeping. Now move! They must be in here somewhere.”
On and on.
Step after step.
Kirov and his men continued their search. They’d stop at corners, fan around, move along more hallways.
Left, then right.
Right, then left.
Each turn, each heart racing moment when they came around the corner expecting a gunfight, they grew more tense, more jumpy. This cave was built well, and the Spetsnaz cursed the Americans for helping the Mujahideen build such a fortress. Sure, the Soviets had aided the Viet Cong not all that long ago, but it made them bitter at the moment.
The farther from daylight, the farther from their way out — the Mi-24s — the more anxious they became.
They snapped around yet another corner, their motion fluid, as one, a perfect work of art. They’d been through thick and thin many times, had learned valuable tactics as this war raged on. They moved in perfect unison, each man knowing the exact movements of his comrade. Each man willing to die for the next. They were a cohesive unit, prepared for anything.
Another corner, just like the last. Except this time, green team halted. They pointed their AK-47s, forward stance, fingers on the triggers.
Silence.
No movement, green team was frozen at the opening of a massive cavern.
“Report,” Kirov said, unable to see and moving forward.
Silence.
“Report, dammit! What the hell is it? Muj?” Kirov growled, forcing his way past one of the green team members. He looked into the massive room, and the sight before him filled the Colonel with dread.
The cavern opened, the space wide. It was the first of many control rooms, perhaps twenty meters tall, forty meters wide. It was big, housing many tables and chairs. A long row of computers, a cache of AK-47s, grenades, knives and other killing devices lined the walls. Electrical lines ran along the wall, communication lines above. There were radios, a complex communications network, running water. File cabinets and desks of papers and maps filled the room.
Four large lamps were mounted high up, three working, the fourth flickering from time to time. The back of the cave was hard to see, a shadow at the end of this room and the entrance to yet another.
And though these Spetsnaz had entered many caves, had seen some that were quite sophisticated, this was nothing they’d ever seen before. The room was intricate, no doubt well funded by the Americans.
Though the light wasn’t bright enough, it added to their vision immensely, the ability to see better was reassuring.
At first.
Overall, everything seemed normal.
That is, except for the carnage.
An unnerving chill crawled up their spines. Even the legendary Colonel Kirov felt fear. That box that was supposed to be kept locked away — it popped open, and it haunted the man.
The stench of death, they now knew the source. There were at least two dozen bodies. Mostly men, but a few women and a boy no older than nine. The butchery was unimaginable, and even the Spetsnaz, who were brutal in their own right, were downright appalled.
They had slaughtered their own.
The two dozen bodies were strewn about. Some were scattered across desks and tables, others stacked in neat piles, almost as if on display.
Heads were lobbed off. Arms ripped out. Wide gashes and what looked like bite wounds ravished the dead bodies.
For some reason, Kirov looked up. He was disgusted by the sight of human intestines hanging from the lights above. He couldn’t imagine how they could have gotten up there.
As they moved in, Boris felt something at his feet. The teams had spread out in groups of three, and his team moved right. He nearly jumped, looking down, seeing the head of an Afghani woman at his feet. A portion of her spine was still attached to the open throat, its contents seeping out. The woman’s hair was black, long, she appeared to be in her forties, though it was hard to tell. Her skin had turned yellow in color, a sign that death was recent.
Boris stared down at her, even as his two partners kept moving. He couldn’t help it, the sight terrified him. The woman’s right eyeball had been plucked out, her left eye half swollen. That remaining eye seemed to stare at him. It even blinked a few times.
“I don’t… I don’t,” Boris began, shock starting to take hold of the big Russian.
Kirov moved in fast, pushing the large man forward. “Move your ass.”
“But Comrade Colonel, she’s… she’s looking at me,” Boris said, panic in his voice.
“Do your job or get a bullet,” Kirov stated, pushing the man past. He wouldn’t allow one of his men to freeze up, under no circumstances were soldiers to allow such things to mess with their heads in combat. That mind-fuck was meant for later. When they were back home, when they were asleep — in their nightmares.
But that would come later, and Kirov pushed the man, who finally snapped to and pressed forward.
More gore, more filth.
They cleared half the room, keeping a careful eye on the far edge, where it was dark. They scanned the computers, the maps, whatever else they could see. This was an enemy hideout, and they took a few moments to collect INTEL.
Finally, Morozov came to Kirov, saying, “Colonel, I don’t think it worked. They said the Muj would be alive, but this isn’t alive, sir. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. And how it did, I couldn’t possibly understand.”
“You think those chemicals did this?” Kirov asked, pointing to the carnage.
“I don’t know what could have caused this!”
“The chemical worked just the way they wanted. We need to move on, because there are indeed survivors.”
“How do you know?”
“Because something did this. Somebody killed these people, and did it in quick order.”
“Killed their own?”
“Yes. And did so in a way I’ve never imagined. Now move,” Kirov said.
They rounded another corner, a short hallway. Three more bodies, all men, all having suffered grievous wounds. Their skin peeled back, insides gutted.
Ensuring the men were dead, the soldiers moved past, stepping around the heinous scene.
Another turn and they stopped at the entrance of another wide cavern. It wasn’t as wide, but held four different entrances.
“What the hell is this?” Morozov declared. He stared in utter fear, terror overtaking him. His words were hardly audible as he lowered his voice to a near whisper, “I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve never heard of anything like this. Colonel, what happened here?”
The scene before them was worse than the last. It was the art of a madman. They counted sixteen dead bodies, a giant pile of body parts were stacked in an orderly pile. It was the vilest thing these men had seen. One of Kirov’s men stepped back, throwing up, unable to control himself.