As soon as it was full dark they started off, swinging wide away from the farm and keeping to the eastern woodline to cross the valley. There was a swift-flowing stream at the base and they rigged a rope-line across it for the crossing. After that obstacle there wasn’t anything hindering them except the woods. They were dark and tangled and the team went in line ahead, cautiously moving through the brush. They were approaching one of the trails the Chechens might use and it wouldn’t do to stumble into them.
When they got near the trail Mike called a halt. He had the team array itself in a line parallel to the trail, then he doffed his ghillie suit and most of his gear, designating Vanim and Lasko to bring it up, then ghosted forward silently through the woods to the edge of the trail.
He was just in sight of Praz as he reached the trail and checked it out. There wasn’t anything moving in view and no noise, although that would be muffled by the rain. There also weren’t any tracks. Given that the rain wasn’t heavy yet, there probably would have still been some sign of two hundred guys and some mules moving through.
He waved the team forward, keeping an eye on the trail until they were across, then joining up with them at a rally point on the far side.
From there it was a climb up the ridge. There weren’t any useful trails in their area so they had to make their way through the brush. It was heavy going; the hill was steep and the brush thick. More than once they had to form a human chain to get over some obstacle. But by midnight they were on the top of the ridge and looking for a good observation point.
They’d been able to see the easternmost trail most of the way up the hill, but it wasn’t until they got to the top that they could see the western one. They stopped for a time when they reached the top and Mike and Praz scanned both trails looking for signs of the Chechens. The rain had increased but Mike ignored it, searching the west trail for any glimmer of heat signs. He picked up a few, but they were all animals. The Chechens weren’t here.
It was likely, frankly, that they weren’t going to show. The intel was light, to be honest, and there was no real reason for a “battalion” of Chechens to attack the Keldara. Such a heavy attack might force the government of Georgia to finally react. And it was a long way from their real enemies, the Russians. On the other hand, they could be reacting to being stung by the intel Mike had passed. It wasn’t smart, but the Chechens weren’t usually described as “smart.”
However, they weren’t here. Vadim had been talking to the farmers in the area and if the Chechens had passed down the valley they couldn’t have missed them. Hell, the farm probably would have been a smoking wreck. And there really weren’t many trails they could have used to the east. So either they weren’t coming or Mike’s team was in place ahead of them.
After ensuring their quarry wasn’t on the trail, Mike led the team up along the spine of the ridge towards a high prominence. He’d spotted it from their first OP and it looked like a good place to set up, a group of rocks at a high point on the ridge. From there they should have a good view of both trails.
It took about an hour to make it up to the designated OP but when he got there he found it was nearly perfect. Erosion had worn away underlying rock, leaving a series of large granite boulders that had fallen in on themselves. There were even a few dry semi-caves under the rocks and the team crawled into their shelter gratefully.
“Okay, same list as last night,” Mike said. “Lasko and Me, then Killjoy and Vanim, Russell and Otar. Praz gets a double day-shift. No fires tonight, not even chem fires.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Mike took the opportunity to pull out his Gortex rain-gear and showed Lasko how to use it, then the two of them took up a position overlooking the trails. Mike had Lasko watch the western trail, which was less likely to be used, while he watched the eastern. Both of them stopped from time to time to check their surroundings as well. Mike figured even with the rain they would hear anyone coming before they were in view.
When Mike’s shift was over he tried the radio. The box was designed to be used with the microboxes and instead of sending out a strong signal designed to bounce off the ionosphere or use ground conduction, it sent out a light signal, slowly increasing, as it hunted for what was, essentially, an internet router. They’d set up a box on the far ridge and it should be in range. Finally the signal strength went to nearly full and he keyed the mike.
“Keldara Base this is Six,” Mike said. The radio was frequency agile and encrypted, meaning that it switched frequencies repeatedly, staying on one for less than a second, and digitally scrambled the voices. All that a very good intercept system would pick up would be random hisses on various frequencies. He wasn’t sure that even Uncle Sam could listen in. And localizing it, because of the frequency changes and the distributed system, was very difficult.
“Six, Base,” a female voice answered.
“We’re at point 274,” Mike said. Prior to setting out, he and Vanner had marked up the old Soviet map with a series of location points and 274 was very near their present position. “Negative contact, negative sign.”
“Roger, Six,” the female voice answered. “Team Sawn near point 618.” That would put them up on the first ridgeline. Mike hoped they were being careful. On the other hand, if the shit hit the fan there were something like supports handy.
“Roger 618. Six, out,” Mike said. Just because nobody should be able to listen, it didn’t mean he should take chances.
This set up the program for the next few days. The team checked in hourly — that way if they were surprised or there was a radio malfunction somebody would know they were cut off — reported negative contact and checked back out. They had enough food for four days and there was a spring not far off so they had water. They were bored out of their gourds, but Mike thought it was good training for the Keldara sniper designates.
He’d reconned the area with an eye to a possible ambush of the Chechens. They had a good view of both trails from their OP, but egressing, running away, would be difficult. On the second day, with no one in sight, he had the three Keldara start clearing the trail along the ridgeline. Both the east and west trails snaked back and forth. If they engaged from up here, they should be able to engage and then run down the ridgeline, more or less straight, to the valley. He could either bring up a vehicle on call or do the two-step boogie across the valley.
On the third day they were there, Team Oleg moved up to supporting position, fresh from a couple of days on the range. They weren’t exactly what Mike would call trained but they were better than Sawn’s group, which only knew which end the bullet came out of. Adams was with them, as well as McKenzie and Porter, his assistant trainer.
Late on the third day, just as dusk was coming on, Praz stuck his hand out of his ghillie suit and made a motion of men walking.
Mike slithered over to the lookout and peered through binoculars at the trail. There were three men moving down the trail. The men wore civilian clothing but they were carrying AKs so they were legitimate combatants; Mike had checked with Vadim about friendly forces and there weren’t any active in the area. The three weren’t being particularly cautious and looked, frankly, bored. They stopped at a place where a stream crossed the trail and the area widened out. One of them crossed the stream and went into the woods on the far side, then came back out.
As he did, a larger group moved into the area and spread out, most of them flopping to the ground at the tree line. The men weren’t wearing packs, they only had their weapons and some of them wore ammunition vests, so Mike couldn’t figure out why they looked so tired. Moving through the mountains, even in the rain, wasn’t all that hard.