Afghan Storm (Nick Woods Book 3) (24 page)

Chapter 68

Mushahid
gazed down on the road with a pair of binoculars, eyeing the advancing troops.
He guessed there were probably a hundred of them, and they were definitely
Afghan soldiers. He had no idea what unit they were from and didn’t care.

The soldiers
looked supremely confident, a few laughing and others smiling. These men were
certainly not raw recruits pushed into the fight.

They walked
up the road from the direction of Kabul, a column on each side of the mostly
empty road. Civilian vehicles still passed, but the people could sense a battle
was approaching. Most turned around to find another road the capital.

The two
columns stopped to talk with the police officer who had been stopping traffic,
and he walked with them closer to the killzone. Through the binoculars,
Mushahid watched the man frantically point and gesture up the hill, where he
and his men waited. The soldiers strained to see up the hill, but Mushahid knew
they couldn’t be seen from 1,300 yards away. Plus, they were low to the ground,
waiting in dug-in positions.

Mushahid had
to hand it to them, though, he had expected the Afghan army to pull up in
trucks, which he would have had his heavy machine gunners light up. Infantry
alone were not tempting enough targets for such heavy weapons, and he wanted
the guns to have ammo for the next set of responding forces. They might bring
up armored vehicles with weapon systems atop them to establish a base of fire,
and Mushahid intended to destroy those vehicles.

He glanced
about his men’s positions, which he had spent hours selecting. The holes were
hidden well and hard for him to see, and he had the advantage of knowing where
to look. He almost felt a moment of sympathy for the men now ascending the
hill. Never had so much talent and experience from the Taliban been brought
into a single battle. These were some of the Taliban’s best fighters.

Mushahid had
six snipers armed with Dragunov scoped rifles. They carried several hundred
rounds and had trained in Pakistan under the tutelage of a former Russian
sniper from Chechnya.

One sniper
in any engagement was deadly, but six combined together was a scary thought.

In addition
to the six snipers, his men had ten light and medium machine guns. RPKs and
RPDs, with belt after belt of ammunition that had been trucked in. Each man was
supposed to have three thousand rounds with him. Simply an immense and
unprecedented amount of ammunition for the Taliban to have on hand.

And between
the snipers and machine gunners were a couple dozen exceptional fighters with
AKs and RPGs. These weren’t old men who had physical issues, such as bad sight.
And they weren’t young boys, who had recently departed the madrassas (or
Islamic religious schools) in Pakistan, but lacked combat experience.

This was no
typical band of Taliban. They were hand-picked men, who expected to fight to
the death if necessary. Each knew of the pivotal role they now played in what
would be the second step toward Kabul falling and the illegitimate Afghan
government fleeing.

Mushahid
looked at the stacks of boxed-up ammo and thought about all the effort that had
gone into this fight. A lot of men had helped tote all the ammunition up this
monstrous hill, and he felt certain the Afghan government would soon regret
having abandoned their post on the hill.

The fact was
he had no idea how many men it would take to reclaim the hill, but he felt
confident that once they dealt with these troops below, they would find out.

Chapter 69

The Afghan
soldiers gasped and huffed as they inched up the steep, slick hill. Dirt and
loose rocks slid down the hill as they fought to stay upright and make progress
along the nearly vertical cliff face.

The hill was
part of the infamous Hindu Kush mountain range, which extends from Afghanistan
to Pakistan and all the way up to the edge of China. Near Kabul, the mountains
soar between 15,000 to nearly 20,000 feet high.

This hill
was merely a steep part of some of the fiercer, oxygen-required heights behind
it. An unpleasant welcome, if you will, to the often snow-covered peaks ahead.
At just at 1,800 yards high -- or 5,400 feet -- this hill allowed the heavy
machine guns to reach the road in the valley below with ease.

Also unique
about this hill was its fairly consistent incline. There were few dips or
crevices that might provide cover and protection. Rather, it was mostly a clean
-- albeit slippery -- surface of unsecured gravel and sand.

From a
tactical perspective, it was essentially a long firing range. Or a shooting
gallery if you were on the wrong end, down at the bottom looking up.

Still near
the bottom, the troops had barely covered two hundred yards in their climb, and
already many wondered if they could even make it all the way up the damned
hill. One mile of elevation, with this stiff of an incline, was no joke for
even the most hardened soldier when they were carrying a full combat load.

And for this
unit, barracks life had softened them some. Their crisp, starched uniforms,
which typically impressed so many visitors at the presidential palace, now
stuck to them and revealed sweat pockets under their armor and gear.

On the
bright side, with each additional step the men presumed the hill had been
abandoned. Surely the Taliban would have fired by now. So it was just put your
head down, put one foot in front of the other, and make it to the top somehow.
Confirm it was empty, then slip and slide back down. Back to base in three or
four hours, tops.

Mushahid
scanned the line of troops with his binoculars. They were entering the range of
his snipers. Keeping his voice low, he bowed and prayed, “May Allah be with
us.” Then, just slightly louder, he said to the men around him, “Snipers, begin
engaging targets.”

At the
maximum range of a sniper, you don’t hear the rifle actually fire. Rather, you
either hear the bullet snap by (loud as hell) if it’s a miss, or smack into
someone if it’s a hit. They usually scream almost instantly, and then the sound
of a shot follows.

This same
process occurred to the company of soldiers of the 3rd Brigade. The first
indication of being in someone’s scope for the men staggering up the hill was
the sharp slap of a bullet slamming into a man’s chest.

The men
reacted instantly. They dove to the ground, some losing their footing and
sliding as much as ten feet before coming to a stop. A man was screaming in
pain, and more bullets snapped by and pierced into other targets.

“Snipers!”
screamed an officer. “Suppress them!”

The riflemen
fired up the hill, shooting at the larger rocks and pieces of cover they hoped
might be hiding the snipers. Unfortunately for them, their M4’s 5.56 mm bullets
had a max effective range of six hundred yards at best. On the other hand, the
Dragunovs above them on the hill lobbed a 7.62 mm bullet with a max effective
range of eight hundred yards on point targets, and 1,300 yards on area targets,
which a long column of men strung out on a slope would certainly qualify as.

The head of
the column had closed to within eight hundred yards of the practically
invisible snipers, and the concealed sharpshooters were putting their expert
lessons from Pakistan to good use. They were taking their time, conserving
ammo, and hitting targets that were fully exposed, choosing not to fire at
partially obscured targets that would likely result in misses.

Further down
the hill, the column had bunched up in places as men waited for those ahead to
get beyond difficult obstacles. This was a huge tactical error, and Mushahid’s
machine gunners took advantage of it when they opened fire moments after the
snipers commenced firing.

The gunners
were firing 7.62 mm rounds from their medium machine guns, and just because the
M4s couldn’t reach them, didn’t mean they couldn’t reach the bunched up men
below. The machine gunners dropped small bursts of well-aimed fire into clumps
of men, adding to the panic and havoc below. The machine gunners, similar to
the snipers, were conserving their ammunition for the real battle to come.

Chapter 70

The company
of troops on the hill were pinned down. Badly. Very accurate fire from the
snipers and machine gunners rained down on them from above, and the men lay in
fear. Few bothered firing. Too many had died doing so.

Besides, the
extreme distance, the height up the hill, and the lack of targets made it
pretty much pointless. But the company wasn’t defenseless. It had seven M240
medium machine guns -- the same state-of-the-art machine guns used by the U.S.
Army and Marine Corps.

These
weapons fired 7.62 mm rounds, the same caliber as the enemy was using to great
effect against them. All that was needed was getting them into use.

The company
commander knew what needed to be done. Get the machine guns firing. And once
the enemy was suppressed, the company could get moving again. They’d fight
their way up the hill, route out the snipers, and throw grenades into the
machine-gun nests. It would be a great victory for his company, but none of
this would happen unless he got those machine guns into the action.

The company
commander picked up his radio and yelled over the sound of the incoming bullets
from up the hill, “Platoon commanders, get your machine gunners up and firing.”

No answer
came back on the net, and no movement took place on the line. A bullet whizzed
by, and the company commander ducked lower. He screamed louder into his radio,
more fear in his voice than intended.

Pressing his
receiver into his ear as hard as he could, he heard one lieutenant reply
despite the snapping bullets overhead. Thankfully, the lieutenant did more than
just reply, he started shouting and gesturing to his men. And that action
created a ripple effect among the men. Action resulted in more action, and men
hollered and gestured up and down the line.

Other
lieutenants got into the game, and soon every medium machine gun in the company
was blasting up the hill, spewing hundreds of bullets in a deadly stream. The
men cheered their comrades and cursed their enemies. A few regained their feet
and renewed their efforts to reach the peak.

But the
snipers and machine gunners on the hill under Mushahid were not amateurs. They
had survived countless battles and seen momentum in battles shift too many
times to count, same as it was starting to do below. The Taliban fighters
redoubled their efforts, ignored the bullets snapping by, and poured more fire
into the troops below.

The thought
of saving ammo was gone. It was either stop the Afghan soldiers or die under
the weight of their momentum. And like most battles, it was effectively decided
in seconds.

On the
hillside, suddenly courageous officers and charging soldiers fell to expert
sniper fire. And the Afghan army M240s sputtered and ceased firing under
merciless machine gun fire from above. A few brave Afghan soldiers removed the
shot-up machine gunners and assumed their place, but they, too, were silenced.

The Taliban
on the hill had the angle; they had prepared fighting holes, and they weren’t
out of breath or confused about where to fire. The battle turned back to a full
bloodbath, and with most of their officers and senior NCOs lying in pools of
blood, the Afghans broke. They fled down the hill, even leaving some of their
wounded and dead.

Mushahid
ordered his men to cease fire. Shooting the men retreating down the hill was
pointless. Those men were broken and wouldn’t be fighting again today. And his
men needed to conserve their ammo and prepare for the next attack by
redistributing ammo.

Chapter 71

The
ambulances arrived first. Mushahid Zubaida watched the scene from atop the hill
through his binoculars.

It was
painful to watch fellow Muslims in such pain, even for a hardened veteran such
as himself. Below, on the slope and street, men rushed to wounded and
motionless men. Those found to still be alive were hauled to the street and
loaded up in decade-old ambulances, which had rushed out to the battlefront
from Kabul.

The infantry
company had pulled itself together and made every effort to save those who
could be saved. Even civilian vehicles had been enlisted to help rush wounded
soldiers to hospitals and better care.

Mushahid
gripped the binoculars harder than he should. He yanked them down in disgust.
How had so many good Afghans been tricked and bribed by the Americans into
fighting against their own countrymen?

It was
beyond his ability to understand. Perhaps it was money and the security such a
steady paycheck would provide.

Regardless
of what it was, it made him sick nonetheless. Good men. Fellow Afghans.
Brothers in faith. And yet Mushahid and his men had been forced to cut them
down like sheep.

Typical
warfighting sense would say to fire on the men below, making their exit
difficult. But Mushahid couldn’t do it. He would only kill his fellow
countrymen when it was absolutely necessary. It was a perspective espoused by
Rasool.

It took a
long time for the rest of the Afghan troops to arrive by Western standards, but
within two hours of the rifle company from the 201st Corps being decimated, the
three remaining companies from the battalion walked up the road.

They, too,
had parked their vehicles out of sight to prevent providing such tempting targets.
The Americans, having monitored the fight over the radio, had begged the Afghan
government to allow it use air power to blast the Taliban off the hill. But the
suggestion had been quickly shot down. No way would the government allow air
operations just days after demanding them to cease.

The
battalion commander had requested the government allow the Americans to use
drones on the hill. Most Afghans wouldn’t know it wasn’t artillery when they
heard the explosions, the battalion commander had argued. This request received
more discussion than the request from the Americans, but it, too, was
eventually turned down.

The Afghan
government would not show weakness or lose face. The American Apaches had
mistakenly slaughtered too many Afghan soldiers for the government to forgive
so quickly.

“These are
some of our best trained men,” the Prime Minister had said to the head general
of the Afghan Armed Forces. “They are supplied with American weapons -- the
very best armament available. If these men cannot take this hill, just ten
miles from our country’s capital, then we soon won’t have a country to defend.”

Thus, hours
later, it came down to the men walking down the road. Their uniforms were crisp
and they had the look of garrison soldiers, but they had a raw fury pent up
inside them. Too many fellow soldiers had died on this hill, and their own
leaders were playing political games that would cost many of them their lives.

This they
all knew. But that came with the territory of being a grunt, no matter what
army you served in. Grunts got shit on and used, from one end of the globe to
the other. And while the men on the road might bitch and curse about the
situation, in the end, they were soldiers. And soldiers follow orders. They’d
take the damn hill or die trying.