The bunker, though, was damned near two klicks away. They must have been firing at the sound. For that matter, thinking about the approach, the squad had never been in view of the guys, probably Chechens, in the bunker. The stupid fuckers had given their position away for nothing.
“Bunker up in the pass,” he hissed over his shoulder to Lane. “Can’t see anything in it. Probaby a 12.7.”
“Got it,” Lane replied. “Here comes the sarge.”
“What you got?” Lawhon asked from just down the slope.
“Bunker,” Serris repeated. “Probably a 12.7. Maybe a 14.5. Nobody outside.” He paused as something, he wasn’t sure what. “Damn, make that two… no three bunkers. Any of them could have been firing.”
“Could they see us?”
“Negative, wrong angle.” Serris turned his head ever so slightly and verified that. Yeah, their whole approach had been out of sight. But if they’d gone another couple of hundred meters up the valley. “They’re securing the pass.”
“I called in,” Lawhon replied. “We’re to pull back. Our job is not to bet into a pissing contest with them unless they come down from the mountains. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
“Ay-firmative,” Serris said, sliding ever so slightly backwards. “I don’t want them taking my head off.”
“Captain Bathlick,” Colonel Nielson said. “Another familiarization flight?”
The pilot was just exiting her recently completed, there was still sawdust on the floor, ready room, helmet under her arm.
The first of the pre-fab hangers was in place. The structures were large versions of the venerable “Quonset” huts, large enough that the Hinds could be slid in with their rotors still on. They had come packed on dozens of pallets and the non-militia Keldara men had taken less than a day to get the first one up: the concrete holding up the curved metal skeleton was still drying.
Tacked onto one side was a small utility hut, the pilot “ready room.” Kacey was pretty sure it was going to be cold as hell when full winter hit.
“Not plowing one of the birds on the supply drop missions was luck as much as anything,” Kacey said. “The more time we get in the birds the better. Especially at night.”
“I agree,” Nielson replied. “However, you might want to wait up a bit. The first thing you need to know is that we just found out the Guerrmo Pass is secured by heavy weapons.”
“Damn,” Kacey said, shaking her head. Guerrmo Pass was the lowest pass into the area of the Keldara operation. It was their primary route if they had to go in in support. All the other ways were much higher and, thus, they could carry less equipment in or casualties out. “That’s bad news. How secured?”
“At least three bunkers with heavy machine guns at the opening,” Nielson said. “Not sure what might be further in.”
“The Hinds are tough, but… ”
“But, indeed,” Nielson admitted. “Not tough enough to take cross-fire from multiple heavy machine-guns. So stay away from the opening to Guerrmo Pass. The second reason you might want to wait up is that we were just informed that there is a shipment from the Georgian military on the way. They said it was left over parts from their Hinds; they recently decommissioned them. You probably want to look it over. Chief D’Allaird as well.”
“Great,” Kacey said, grumpily. “DXed parts from the Georgians. These should be great.”
“Never look a gift horse and all that,” Nielson said, smiling.
“Oh, I’m not,” the pilot replied. “But D’Allaird is going to have to fully cert them before they go in the bird. What are we going to do about the bunkers?”
“That is under discussion.”
“Well ain’t that some shit,” Captain Guerrin said.
“I think we can take ’em out,” Sergeant Lawhon offered. “They’ve got the pass covered. But if we swing up on the shoulder of the mountain we can come in on them from behind and above. Either hammer them from up there with Carl Gustavs or get a team down on top. I don’t think they can fire at each other or back up the pass.”
“And if they have supports further up the pass?” J.P. answered. “No, our mission isn’t to take out bunkers. Certainly not yet.” Guerrin paused and thought about the situation, both the “known” situation and the potential mission to support the Keldara. “But we need to keep an eye on them. Keep your squad up here. No more patrolling. Put in good security and keep a watch on that trail. Stay defiladed from the machine-guns but if anything comes out of that pass I want to know about it.”
“Yes, sir,” Lawhon replied.
“I’m going to redirect the company in this general direction,” Guerrin added. “So if you get in the shit, holler for help and we’ll come a runnin’.”
“Well ain’t this some shit.”
Mike looked down the slope and wondered if he should have stopped earlier. He had been in the lead on the last stretch of the ascent so it was all his fault if they had. He unzipped his jacket all the way, feeling a bite of cold sink into his mid-layer of fleece pullover, and pulled out his rangefinders. The battery-powered range finders, along with all their batteries, had to be carried under their clothes to keep the batteries from being drained by the cold.
He looked through the binos and pressed the button for range-finding. An invisible laser, good for about ten miles much less this short distance, lased the ground below and returned a range of nearly five hundred feet.
Fuck.
They had a couple of thousand foot ropes with them but he would have liked a bit more safety margin. However, this was as good as it was going to get.
He waved to Gregoriya and Mikhail then dumped his ruck in the snow. The serious climbing gear was in an outside pouch and he pulled out the pre-rigged harness. Some climbers would have clucked in horror at the piton hammer and pitons he pulled out. However, at the moment environmental consciousness was the last thing on his mind.
He used his ice axe to clear away some of the snow until he found solid granite then looked for a crack in the face. The air-driven piton hammer would drive one of the stainless steel spikes straight into the granite he had to do that. But a crack to start it was preferable. The good news was that it was granite. Feldspar or limestone, both prevalent in the area, both had the possibility of being highly friable, that is, the piton might work loose. That would be bad.
He found a crack, finally, and loaded the piton hammer then laid the tip of the piton on the crack, leaned into the hammer, and fired it.
The sound rebounded across the rocks. If there were any Chechens around he’d just definitively given their position away.
He punched in three pitons then connected caribiners to each of the pitons. The military called caribiners “D rings”, a metal “ring”, generally some form of oval with a sprung-loaded opening bale. Some people used them as key-rings but they were originally designed for climbing. Finally, he took one of the ropes Mikhail handed him, uncoiled it and then recoiled it in two heaps. Taking the center section, he began tying it off. That was a bit complex. He didn’t want to leave the rope behind so he had to put in a recovery knot. However, he also wanted to make sure that nobody fell, thus the three pitons. Putting in a three-way recovery knot was a pain in the ass. Finally, he managed it. The knot had a slip-knot built into it that permitted someone on the ground to untie it by a hard yank on one of the two dangling ropes. The problem was that they could start to untie all by themselves under heavy use. The answer was to slide a pin of some sort into the loop of the slip-knot until the last climber was ready to go down.