Nothing was how it was supposed to be. He was supposed to be second-in-command of the company, but the major had been killed more than three months ago. So he had ended up in command, except their operational tempo had been such that he had less than a squad left. Thanks to bullshit like this morning’s mission. They hadn’t been allowed to plan the operation themselves. One squad in one gunship for an entire village of Tajiks. It was a platoon-strength job, for at least two gunships. Vadim hadn’t wanted to drop incendiaries on the village. His company had a rule: don’t kill them unless they’re armed. It had nothing to do with sentiment. They just didn’t feel like providing the various Afghan peoples with any further reason to hate them. That said, he had a moral responsibility to get as many of his people home as possible, and if that meant burning a village, then so be it.
The surviving villagers were mainly frightened children and weeping women, and a few very old, but still steely-eyed men staring at the Spetsnazcommandos with undisguised hatred. All of them were kneeling on the open ground where the village met the high plateau. Against Vadim’s better judgement, Gulag – Private Nikodim Timoshenko – was watching over the prisoners. Like the rest of them, the Muscovite wore a white snow smock over his uniform, but the hood was down and Vadim could see the prison tattoos creeping up over his neckline. The tattoos marked him as one of the Bratva, the ‘Brotherhood,’ Mother Russia’s unacknowledged organised crime network. His gloved hands hid the two fingers he’d lost to frostbite in the Siberian forced labour camp. His face was lean and hungry, and there was something animalistic just under the surface. Calculating eyes always looking for a weakness. Open contempt on his face as he looked down at the villagers.
The sun was little more than a distant glow behind the mountains in the east; most of the illumination came from the fires still burning in the village. He could make out the Fräulein standing a little way from him, watching his back. She was holding Princess’s AKS-74, her own RPKS-74 light machine gun slung across her back. The snipers, Princess and Skull, were above the village in the mountains, hunting for the Spaniard’s killer. The Hind gunship was playing bait for the snipers; recklessly, to Vadim’s mind. He checked his watch; Princess and Skull were due back soon and he hadn’t heard any gunfire. Not that he necessarily would.
He glanced at the Spaniard’s body. Not even he knew where Sergeant Pavel Orlinsky had gotten the nickname, and out of everyone in the squad he had known him the longest. They had met in Angola, and spent time in Cuba, and South and Central America together.
They had been debussing from the helicopter; Vadim had been last out. The squad had taken up positions surrounding the Hind, checking all around them, and Pavel had stood up to move. One second he was there, the next he was on the ground, six feet back from where he’d been standing, his rib cage hollowed out and his head blown clean off. They’d scattered for cover as another round hit the Hind, sparking off the flying tank’s armour as it took off and peeled away from the village. A third round had blown a hole the size of a car wheel in the mud-brick wall of one of the houses. The shots were still echoing over the plateau when Skull and Princess had shouted out that they were dropping their carbines and heading into the mountains. Vadim had told them to be back before 5am. Skull, the Chechen sniper, would want to be back for morning prayer anyway. The two snipers had pulled the hoods of their concealment suits over their heads and run into the rocks above the village. Another shot had echoed out, powdering a boulder behind Princess’s heels. Vadim still had no idea where the sniper was, but judging by the delay between the report and the hit, it was quite some distance. He’d heard the whoosh of rockets being fired from the pods under the Hind’s stubby wings; he guessed the crew of the gunship had seen something. A line of fireballs rolled across a steep, shale-covered slope in the distance. The gunship closed and strafed the impact area with rounds from the 12.7mm four-barrel Yak-B machine gun under its nose. Vadim had no idea if the rockets had hit anything, but no more shots were forthcoming. It was still a while before they emerged from cover.
“Boss,” the Fräulein said quietly. On day one of the brutal Spetsnaz training, every recruit was given a nickname, hence ‘the Fräulein.’ Some stuck, others didn’t. Vadim had never liked his nickname, but Spetsnaz units tended to be informal, so he answered to either Boss or Vadim.
“I can hear it,” he told his newly promoted second-in-command. A lone helicopter – a Mi-8 transport helicopter, at a guess – making its way through the twilight gloom, threading in and out of the high mountain passes at close to its operational ceiling.
“We expecting anyone?” she asked.
Vadim just shook his head.
“This can’t be good.”
Vadim and the Fräulein moved towards where Gulag was standing over the prisoners as the ungainly-looking Mi-8 clattered in to land. A platoon of VDV airborne troops piled out of the transport. Vadim vaguely recognised the lieutenant in charge of them. He didn’t know the man with him, but he wore the rank and uniform of a lieutenant in the KGB border guards. The Fräulein glanced at Vadim as the two officers approached. The KGB officer’s uniform looked crisp and clean. They came to a halt and the KGB officer saluted, earning a withering look from the VDV officer.
“Put your damn hand down,” Vadim snapped. The KGB officer looked as though he’d been slapped.
“Comrade captain, I am Lieutenant Ivack. And I may well just be a lieutenant, but I am a lieutenant in the KGB. My position holds more authority than my rank. I was merely showing courtesy.” Young and keen and rake thin, he would have been handsome but for the familiar fanatic’s gleam in his eyes. Children like this made Vadim feel every one of his fifty-three years. That and the all the pains in his joints, how much he now felt the cold, and how easily he got out of breath these days.
“Your courtesy could get him killed,” the VDV officer muttered.
“We don’t salute out here, lieutenant. It tells any watching snipers who’s in charge,” Vadim explained before turning to the VDV officer. “Lieutenant, I have a squad covering a lot of ground. Could we rotate your men onto security and guarding the villagers while I bring my people in?”
The VDV officer nodded. He looked haggard, like every other soldier serving in this war.
“Thank you, please coordinate with Sergeant Sauer.” Vadim gestured to his second-in-command. The VDV officer nodded curtly and strode over to the Fräulein and began conversing. He didn’t even introduced himself; probably too tired.
Vadim turned back to Ivack, trying not to sigh. “Frankly, lieutenant, I could have done with the extra manpower and another helicopter three hours ago.”
“Did you find the Stingers?” the lieutenant all but demanded. Vadim narrowed his grey eyes. It was clear what Ivack had done: let Vadim and his squad do the dirty work so he could fly in at the last moment, with a platoon of VDV no less, and claim the find as his own.
“I’m afraid not,” Vadim said, through clenched teeth.
“What is the reason for your failure?” Ivack demanded.
“Mostly the absence of any Stingers.”
“The intelligence was good!” Ivack insisted.
“And yet…”
“Did you find any trace of them? Did you take any of the mujahideenprisoner?”
“Anyone fit enough to hold a gun is in the mountains,” Vadim told him. We burned this village for nothing, he decided not to add.