Combat Alley (2007) (32 page)

The journey had begun five hours previously with a ride down to the town of Dolirod, then a quick turn up Highway Panj to a spot where the foothills of the Kangal Mountains offered access to the Pranistay Steppes. The Russians went by this longer route because they were unaware of the more convenient way discovered by the SEAL Andy Malachenko when he was in their midst as an undercover agent.

Now, with the rising of the sun hours away, Surov's map reading skills had brought the group to the spot where the fifty Mahsuds waited for them. The Pashtuns, with near the physical and spiritual endurance of the Russians, paid scant attention to the cold temperatures as they stood with their horses in the confines of a large stand of boulders not far from the edge of the foothills. The war leader Dagar was squatting beside his mount, holding the reins lightly in his calloused fingers as the Russians approached. He watched them, seemingly with disinterest, as they drew closer. Even when they reined in their horses, the Pashtun made no overt gesture of greeting. Surov swung out of his saddle and walked up to the man. Only then did Dagar stand up. He sniffed a bit and rubbed his nose, then said, Pe khayr raghle.

Khayr ose, Surov replied. Are you and your men ready?

Ho, Dagar replied. I sent scouts out earlier, and they have returned. All is quiet at the village.

Does it appear there are visitors there? Surov asked.

Dagar shook his head. There are no extra people. The only Yousafzai are those that dwell at the location.

This should be done as rapidly as possible, Surov said in his crude but effective Pashto. Because of the isolation we do not have to worry about noise. When we are a hundred meters away, we will all charge straight through the village and go out the other side for the first part of the attack.

We do not know what a hundred meters looks like, Dagar said.

Then tell your mujahideen to watch us, Surov suggested. Do what we do when we do it. After the first charge, we will make another. Then I will direct the fight as the situation dictates. Pohezhe?

Dagar nodded. Pohezham.

With the basic plan taken care of, both turned to get their men onto horseback. With that done, the Russians went off at a trot with the Pashtuns following, spreading out along both sides at the rear of the formation.

THE village was the smallest of the Yousafzai tribe. As such it could muster no more than a couple of dozen fighting men, but it was part of a perceptive clan organization. It was more than lusty married couples that made their tribal family groups the most numerous of all the Pashtuns on the Pranistay Steppes. In the many battles in which they had participated over their eons of existence, their cunning instincts had kept their casualty rates down in campaigns that were nearly all victorious. It was because of those strong instincts for survival that they had adjusted their security routines to meet what seemed to be a changing situation in the locality.

These Yousafzais still used preteen boys for lookouts on the top of houses, but because of the unsettled conditions of late, tribal riflemen with AK-47s and bandoleers of ammunition had stationed themselves in depressions, behind rocky outcrops, and took advantage of other available cover around the hamlet on a twenty-four/seven basis. Their warlord, Awalmir, had paid a personal visit to the location a couple of weeks previously to satisfy himself that his kinsmen were taking the extra precautions that he had insisted on.

One of the adult guards on duty that night was an old fighter by the name of Reshteen. He had just turned thirty when the Russians invaded Afghanistan, and he had been among the first to offer resistance. He hated Russians more than he loved his own children, and the thought of any showing up to do harm to his home village was enough to put fire in the blood of the man who was now well into his fifties. His pukhoor was drawn tight around his body as he lay behind a rock a meter wide and half again as tall. He had the right side of the serape-like garment loose enough that he could easily bring his assault rifle to bear on any potential target. He had pulled the puhtee down to cover one ear for warmth. He alternated the arrangement from left to right every twenty or thirty minutes, so that his hearing would not be impeded.

Reshteen heard the clack that he instantly recognized as the strike of a horse's hoof against a rock. It was followed by a sudden influx of the noise, and he emitted a whistle to alert the others around the village. He grinned when he realized his warning had been sounded simultaneously by the others. That meant everyone on guard duty had heard the disturbance. Now he raised the sides of the puhtee so that both ears were unimpeded. Within a few moments, he could determine that the raiders were to his direct front. He would be the first they would come into contact with.

One of the best advantages a fighter can have during combat at night is to be low to the ground and looking upward into the lighter area of the sky. Reshteen enjoyed this benefit as the first row of horsemen came into view. He knew better than to try to use the sights in the darkness, so he raised his head to peer directly over the barrel of the rifle at the enemy. Two quick squeezes on the trigger sent nearly a dozen of the 7.62-millimeter slugs flying in a close-packed swarm at the attackers. One man was knocked off his horse and another hung on tightly in spite of being hit.

VALENTIN Surov saw the man crash to the ground at the same moment the incoming salvo exploded brightly ahead. Another man was obviously struck by at least one bullet and would be out of the fight. Surov's own AKS-74 barked a three-round automatic burst as he continued to ride forward, quickly going from a trot to a full gallop.

HORSES pounded past on both sides of Reshteen, and the next group that appeared after the first drove him to insane fury. Even in the dark he could tell they were Pashtuns, and he knew the sons of Satan had to be the cursed Mahsuds. He fired again, unsure if he had hit anything. He swung the muzzle of his weapon more to the left, but four simultaneous hits slammed into his shoulders, penetrating deep down into his torso, tearing up vital organs and arteries. The old fighter did his best to fire again, but the darkness of the night turned into the darkness of death, and he gave up the ghost as the Mahsuds galloped past him.

ZGARD, the guard at the rear of the village, leaped to his feet and ran to the right where his best friend Wakman was located in a depression that had once been a well. They were both in their late teens and anxious to make reputations as fierce warriors within the group of older men. When he reached the edge of the nearest house, he took cover and glanced out toward Wakman's position. He could see his friend already firing at the horsemen closing in on him. Wakman shot one off his horse, then was overwhelmed and gunned down, collapsing back out of sight into his fighting position.

At that moment the enemy attackers in the center of their formation had reached the interior of the village, galloping between the houses and firing into the windows and doors. By the time Zgard turned around, they had gone completely through the hamlet and were going out the rear. Zgard could easily make out the Pashtun riders in the group, and he began to methodically employ squeezes on the trigger, sending bursts of automatic fire into their midst. He shot down four before turning and running for cover between the mud domiciles.

SUROV led the men to a spot fifty meters past the village limits, then shouted orders in both Russian and Pashto. Brashaite! Aweshzi!

The attacking horsemen all wheeled around, the maneuver causing both ethnic groups to break up and mingle together.

Another bilingual shout from Surov ordered them to charge back through the village. They galloped into better illumination as the people opened windows where lantern light and flames in hearths exposed the crude streets to easy viewing. The raiders fired indiscriminately into the dwellings as they galloped by, inflicting casualties among women, children, and the elderly as well as the fighters who had come wide awake to repel the attack.

THE surviving man who had been on guard duty on the left side of the village had come in to join the fight in the interior. He teamed up with Zgard and two more men who had positioned themselves across a row of several houses to offer resistance. By the time the attackers had galloped through for the second time, all four of the Yousafzais were dead. The incoming fire from the overwhelming force of enemy was too heavy to stand up to.

THIS time when the attacking force turned around, Surov ordered the Russians to dismount while he sent the Pashtuns charging back through the village with instructions to wait on the far side. As the Mahsuds returned to the fray, horse handlers among the ex-convicts took the reins to hold the animals while the rest of the group moved on foot toward the houses. Each man had a traditional Russian army grenade sack across his shoulder holding three RGD-5 fragmentation hand grenades. These had been looted from the old prison's armory after the place was abandoned and stored in what had once been the back part of Luka Yarkov's house.

The Slavic fighting force formed into five skirmish lines of fourteen to sixteen men. This was part of ex-Captain Valentin Surov's tactics. The first two ranks, firing short full-auto bursts from the AKS-74s, moved rapidly through the objective, directing the salvos at targets of opportunities such as windows, doorways, and unwise villagers who exposed themselves. Their main job was to quickly knock down any outright or potential resistance. Behind them came the slow movers, doing mopping up chores with better aimed shooting and the tossing of grenades. When they had worked themselves through the houses and reached the outskirts where the Mahsud mujahideen waited, all resistance within the village had ended.

Pistolieti! Temanchan! Surov ordered in both languages.

Now the Pashtuns dismounted and, like their Russian comrades in arms, those who had pistols pulled them from holsters. Thus began a systematic house-to-house search for survivors and wounded. All were given a final dispatch from this earthly life with shots to the head.

Step one of Aleksander Akloschenko's invasion was completed.

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SEALs BIVOUAC

0930 HOURS

PETTY Officer Frank Gomez, sitting with the laptop computer across his legs, typed occasionally when the discussion going on around him required it. He was situated in the midst of the detachment's brains: Lieutenant Bill Brannigan, Lieutenant (JG) Jim Cruiser, Ensign Orlando Taylor, and Senior Chief Petty Officer Buford Dawkins. Those learned gentlemen of mayhem were busy composing an OPLAN to be submitted to Brigadier General Greg Leroux through Commander Tom Carey. This involved the operation to bring the Pashtun tribes of the Pranistay Steppes under control. It was the preliminary step in Leroux's orders issued aboard the USS Combs on Thanksgiving Day.

An extensive program of recon and map sketching had been undertaken before they reached the point of actually putting the operational plans down on paper or, as in this case, into Gomez's computer. Unfortunately, the bivouac headquarters had no printer on which to produce a hard copy of the effort, so the OPLAN would be submitted on a disk to be printed out in Carey's office. It was tedious, but they either used that method or removed the Brigands' officers from the OA to do the work on the ship. That was not an acceptable alternative, given the potential of unexpected violence on the steppes.

The senior chief was in the middle of his dissertation on additional supplies needed for the coming activities when the sound of galloping hooves disturbed the calm. Everyone leaped to their feet, grabbing weapons as they readied themselves for a worst-case scenario. The entire detachment, including the men off watch, also responded with M16s locked and loaded.

The horses approaching were led by their asset Chinar, with several members of both the Janoon and Yousafzai tribes following him. Brannigan was surprised to see no less than the warlord Awalmir among them. The group came to a dusty, noisy halt at the headquarters hootch with Chinar and Awalmir leaping from their saddles. Chinar's eyes were open wide with excitement. Skipper! A Yousafzai village has been destroyed earlier this morning. Everyone is dead!

Alright, Brannigan said in a calm tone. Take a deep breath, then give me the details.

Aye, aye, aye, sir, Chinar said. He had picked up this affirmation of orders from the SEALs but his excitement had caused him to add extra ayes to the mix. He inhaled, held it, then exhaled and immediately began talking. Awalmir Kahn received word that the smallest village of his tribe was attacked and everybody there was killed, and it seems to be the same thing that happened to the Swatis. His warriors tell him many, many horsemen were there and they attacked and also they fought on foot. Awalmir Kahn is very angry. He has already sent his number one fighting man, Paywastun, to gather the tribe for war. We Janoons have sworn badal with our brothers the Yousafzai.

Brannigan looked over at Awalmir, who stood beside Chinar, nodding to him in acknowledgment of what had happened at the village. The Skipper turned back to the young interpreter. Tell Awalmir I am very angry, as will be the American commanders when I tell them of the crime. Ask him to wait while I make contact and get their reactions. Make him understand they will not stand for this outrage.