“Slow down,” Commander Bukara said as the first vehicle came in sight. “Stop! Everyone out!”
Mikhail Ashenov had been a lieutenant in the Red Army when the Soviet Union broke up. But though he had a Russianized name, he had been raised a devoted Muslim. The Prophet had decreed it permissible, indeed recommended, that the faithful lie to the unbelievers. And under Communism, being an Islamic made it impossible to have a decent life. So the Ashenov family had worshipped in secret and held true to the ideal that, some day, Chechnya would return to the umah.
But even with the breakup of the Soviet Union, the fucking Russians had held tight to Chechnya. Chechnya with its oil fields and mines. Chechnya with its forests and powerful rivers supplying hydroelectric power.
Mikhail Ashenov had been one of the first recruits of the burgeoning Chechen resistance. At first distrusted he had rapidly proven to be an able fighter, combining the methods of the guerilla with his professional training. For the last ten years he had gathered more and more fighters to him until he was a notable “battalion” commander with five hundred trained mujaheddin under his command.
Make that about four hundred and seventy, now.
The Chechens had been fighting the Russians for a long time so they knew the drill well. The fighters piled out of the vehicles fast, some of them moving up the sides of the road and others fading into the trees.
“Damn them,” Bukara said, walking forward. He’d hoped to catch this team before they faded away and were picked up by their helicopters. He assumed that it must be Spetznaz. As he walked up the line of stitched vehicles, bodies tumbled out on the ground he shook his head. He had gathered together as many men as he had vehicles for and thrown them ahead, hoping to pin the Spetznaz before they could escape. This was the result.
“They were slaughtered.” Sayeed was his long-term driver and bodyguard. But Bukara could hear the tone in his voice. It was a very unhappy tone.
A Chechen “commander” could only command as long as he had the respect of his men. Although there was discipline in the army, any army had to have laws, fighters could desert to other commanders. The quickest way to become an ex battalion commander was to lose his men’s trust and respect. And having a slaughter like this on his books was a way to lose that respect fast. This was a disaster.
Suddenly there was a massive crash from the front and he dove behind one of the vehicles as the air seemed to fill with bees.
“Directional mines,” Saayeed said.
“Fuckers,” Bukara replied. The blast had come from up by the trees that blocked the road. The fucking Spetznaz had assumed whoever came next would start to clear the trees. And they’d laid in mines to make that more dangerous. If the whole blockade was laced with explosives this could take hours to clear.
“Commander!” one of the fighters called, holding something up in his hand. It looked like a piece of cloth.
Bukara strode forward as men gathered around the wounded, pulling them back to the motley collection of vehicles he’d managed to gather in Gamasoara.
The fighter was holding what looked like some sort of patch. Bukara took it and shown his flashlight on it.
“Blood of the Prophet.”
Bukara had fought his former Russian masters for over ten years. They came in several forms, the half-trained conscripts that were so easy to kill it was almost a crime, the better trained “elite” units that some of the divisions now sported and, worst of all, the Spetznaz, those cold-eyed killers who slaughtered and then faded into the night and shadows. But though the Russians were powerful, they were not feared. Hated, yes, but not feared.
This enemy, though. They had been interfering with convoys for quite some time now and the one concerted effort to destroy them had been a disaster; the battalion of two hundred sent against them had been utterly destroyed. And the word that they got from several sources was that it had been by less than thirty of the pagans.
And their reputation went back further than that. The Chechens had sparred with them for generations and of all groups in Georgia they were the most feared. Ancient and powerful fighters, wielders of broad axes which could cleave a man to the waist. Warriors and reavers who masked as simple farmers. Pagans that hid their faith and played at being Christians. Drinkers of blood in secret rights under the mountains, they were rumored to sacrifice their captives to their black gods.
Now they had a new lord, a mercenary from distant lands as had always been the case. And fucking American spec-ops of all things. Americans were feared among the mujaheddin as perhaps the greatest threat to the umah since the Byzantines. And their spec-ops, from what Bukara had heard, made the Spetznaz seem like child conscripts.
It had been long since the Tigers crossed the mountains, bringing fire and axe to Chechen villages, but mothers still used them to strike fear into the hearts of children. “Be a good boy or the Tigers will take you and eat your heart.”
The scrap of fabric in his hand told the whole story.
The Keldara were back.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“There’s another one,” Greznya said, holding up her hand. She tapped a control and the electronic feed was automatically shunted to a computer program Vanner had “borrowed” from the National Security Agency. The computer chuckled over the intercept and then spat out a prediction. “Borana’s Brigade. Approximate numbers nine hundred. Heavy weapons, 12.7 on trucks and 81 millimeter mortars. RPGs as usual. They’re about seven hours away but rolling out now.”
“That makes well over nineteen distinct units heading for the Area of Operations,” Lydia Kulcyanov said, looking over her shoulder at Colonel Nielson. She looked about six months pregnant. Given that she had only been married to Oleg for four months, that made the child almost certainly the Kildar’s. Not that anyone was going to note that or even care. But it would be nice to get her husband back so she could have one with him. With nineteen Chechen units, each of unknown numbers, closing on the hundred and twenty or so Keldara, it was looking more and more like Oleg was going to come home in a body bag. If at all.
The colonel just nodded and gestured with his chin.
“Update the board,” he said.
Kacey watched her dials as they came into the green and took a deep breath.
The back had been rigged for litters. Four of them. There were more casualties than that but she could loft a couple more bodies. If they used the Guerrmo Pass on the way back. Outgoing, with just herself, Tammie, Gretchen, some ammo and heavy weapons and the litters they would be fine.
She’d seriously considered asking the Rangers for one of their medics. The Ranger medics were 18 Deltas, trained at the Special Forces Medic School at Ft. Sam Houston. Like Special Forces medics they were trained to do anything but “open the cranial cavity.” All of them were EMT qualified and could keep somebody alive just about as well as a first class emergency room. But they were under the same stupid damned orders as the rest of their company. They could not cross the mountains under any circumstances. Washington was playing political games while people were dying.
So were the Georgians, for that matter. But they were in support. Captain Kahbolov had turned up with three Blackhawks, each with hand-picked medics in the back. All Kacey had to do was get the wounded Keldara back to the base. Then the Georgians would take over, flying the wounded back to Tblisi Military Hospital.
Six casualties to evac. And the Russian scientist. And “Katya” whom she’d never met but heard enough about. There was no way they were getting them all in one lift. Too much weight.