The Fall of America: Winter Ops (7 page)

As soon as the meal was finished, with two large fish left over, he wrapped it up in some cloth and attached it to his belt.  At least now, they'd not starve to death, because there was enough fish left for a couple of days.  By his estimation, they should be close to the base by morning.

“Lieutenant?  Can you walk?”

“Yes, but I thought we would stop for the night.”

“Sir, we cannot take that risk.  With partisans moving around us, we need to return to the base as quickly as possible.  If we are caught out here, I would fight hard, but the battle would not last long.  We need to continue to move until we reach safety.”

Standing, the Lieutenant said, “I understand; I am just hurting and tired.  My mind is not working well.”

Pulling his first aid kit open, the Senior Sergeant handed the officer a small white pill, placing it in the man's hand.

“Take the painkiller, so you can continue to move.”

Lieutenant Smirnov pulled his canteen, placed the pill in his mouth and washed it down with a swig of tepid water.  He screwed the top back on the container and said, “Let us move now.”

In the darkness the officer tripped often, until Morozov realized he was moving too quickly for the man, so he slowed his rate down.  Deep inside, the Senior Sergeant was afraid, because he'd seen what partisans did to captured Russians, and it filled him with apprehension.

All went well, until half way through the night, and the Sergeant smelled smoke.  Moving forward carefully Morozov hoped to see the fire before he saw a guard. It was directly up wind and strong, which mean the men with the fire were to their west, or left side.  The Senior Sergeant would move forward about ten feet, stop, listen and smell, only so far he'd seen nothing.

The Lieutenant said, “I —”

The Senior Sergeant slapped him hard and then whispered, “Damn, Lieutenant, keep your voice down, sir.  Do you not smell the smoke? It is probably partisans and we do not need for them to catch us.”

“I was not thinking.”  the Lieutenant whispered back.

  “Sorry I hit you, but you endangered our lives.  Now, we are going to slowly move forward and hopefully not see anyone.”

“Okay, I will keep quiet.”

You had better stay quiet or I will stick a knife in you.  You, the big officer, will not get me killed.
Morozov thought and then slowly moved forward.

Suddenly, on his left he spotted a light and guessed it was a couple hundred feet from the trail.
There is always a chance they have mined the trail to give them advance warning,
he thought, and then moved toward the trees to his right, hoping to circle the trail for about a hundred meters.  His heart was pounding in his chest as he moved and hoped the Lieutenant wouldn't draw attention by falling or talking.  He slipped the safety off his Bison as he moved.

Twenty minutes later, he was back on the trail and moving toward the Russian camp.  The Lieutenant had remained quiet and other than having to hold onto the belt to lead the injured man, it was hard to believe the officer was injured.  While still snowing lightly, the moon was out and it looked as if the bad weather would soon be gone.  The moonlight made for faster travel, but the Sergeant knew it would allow his enemies to spot him faster too.

Near dawn, he stepped around a curve in the trail and came face-to-face with a partisan point man.  The confrontation surprised both men and as the American brought his gun up, the Senior Sergeant fired from the hip. The slugs of his sub-machine gun stitched the man up the left side, barely grazing him, until a bullet struck his left shoulder. The round exited the man's back, blowing

bone, blood, and gore out behind him.  The partisan fell unmoving, but Morozov knew he had seconds to escape.  Either the wounded American would fire or his comrades would come to investigate the shooting.  

Jerking the belt he said, “You must run now, Lieutenant, or we both will die.”

When the Senior Sergeant cut to the left and started running, he felt no resistance on the belt.  Looking back the officer was keeping up, which was good, because Morozov would leave him in a second.  Bullets knocked down leaves and small twigs as they moved, but the NCO knew hitting a running man in the woods was hard to do for most soldiers. It was then he felt a blow to his right leg and he fell, taking the officer down with him.  Once he glanced down, he knew they were in trouble, because the round had struck bone; the front of his kneecap was missing.  

“Sir, I cannot walk.”

“I will carry you then.  You will have to tell me how to walk; now hurry, before the Americans come to see if we were injured.  Once away from here, you can splint your leg and be able to walk again.”

Bending down, the Lieutenant had Morozov climb on his back and after he picked him up, he said, “Whisper to me as we move.”

“Straight ten steps and then turn sharply to your left.”

Taking the steps was slow, but once done, both men knew they could do this for a short distance.

“How far do we need to move, Sergeant?”

“Maybe one kilometer.  I do not see them looking for us long, because the temperature is too cold, and it is still snowing.  Also while the moon is out now, the clouds are moving closer.  The moon will soon be covered and once the clouds do that, it will be dark again.  I think in another hour, we will start to have sunlight.  Go straight about forty steps and I will tell you when to turn to your right.”

An hour later, the two men were under a large oak tree as Morozov trimmed a limb to use as a splint for his leg.  The limb was long enough that he'd removed the branches and then cut the stem in half.  He'd already cleaned and wrapped the injury as well as he could, so once the splint was in place, they could move.  He had taken two of the white pills; his pain was almost gone, but enough remained to remind him of his injury.  He wondered how painful it would be to move.

He wrapped the splint in place using his cutup tee shirt, and then with the help of the Lieutenant, he stood.  He took a single step and then winced in pain; it hurt badly, but what choice did he have?  To remain meant death and that wasn't an option for him.  

“Is your pain severe?”

“Bad enough, but we must move, do we not?”

“Yes, so hand me the belt.”

Ten minutes later, Morozov was in such pain he was crying silently as they walked.  He wanted to take another pain pill, but knew too much of the medication would harm his liver, so he kept moving.  

More than once over the morning, he felt faint and he knew soon he'd have to rest for a few hours.  His mind was clouded with painfulness of such a level he worried about passing out.  He gritted his teeth and kept moving.  The snow had stopped, but the temperature dropped a great deal, and now he grew concerned about freezing to death if they stopped without a fire.  He didn't want to build a fire, because any partisans in the area would either see the smoke or smell it, and that he couldn't afford, so they kept moving.  

It was as they crossed a small clearing that he heard the helicopter and felt a knot in his stomach suddenly come alive.  If the crew thought they were partisans, they were dead meat, because there was no way they could move fast enough to avoid being killed.

“Lieutenant, stop and wave your arms and I will do the same.  We have to convince the helicopter crew that we are Russians or we are dead!  Wave, and do it now!”

The helicopter approached, circled and finally after many long minutes, it sat down in the field and four men ran to the two.  Two men guarded them, as they were asked their names and units.  Realizing the two were Russians, the crew escorted them back to the helicopter.  Once inside, they were strapped into their seats and handed hot cups of tea.  A highly trained medic began working on both men, inserting an IV, but he started evaluating the most seriously injured first, the Lieutenant.

They'd raised about fifty feet in the air, when someone screamed and Morozov saw something fly by the door of the aircraft.  There came two loud explosions, just outside the aircraft, causing the helicopter to roll violently and then shudder.  Two machine-guns opened up and the noise was loud.  The gunner on the left side screamed and most of his backbone, blood and bone fragments, flew from his body to land on the back of the other gunner. The spattered gunner ignored the mess and kept firing.  A few minutes later, the single gun grew quiet, and gun smoke from the cabin disappeared into the slip-stream.

The medic moved to the downed gunner, looked him over and said something in his microphone. He then met the eyes of the Senior Sergeant and shook his head.  The gunner was dead and all that was holding him in the aircraft was a strap of nylon.

Three bullets entered the cabin from the floor with loud pings. One bullet struck a piece of metal and ricocheted around the cabin, until it struck the medic in the left leg. The medic fell to the floor and screamed as he opened his pouch, and removed a syringe of morphine. He injected the drug into his leg and began dressing the wound.  One of the other bullets must have pierced a line, because a thick oil like substance began to flow steadily to the floor.

 The helicopter climbed to a higher altitude and moved toward the base.

Just as the base was in view, the aircraft began to smoke and thick toxic fumes filled the rear cabin.  When Morozov looked up, sparks were flying and he wondered if the liquid pouring from the ruptured pipe was flammable.  The lone gunner handed out smoke masks to those still alive.  The Senior Sergeant pulled his mask from a small red canvas bag and donned it quickly.

The pilot turned and yelled something that no one heard. The aircraft began to shake violently, then a piece of tin from the aircraft flew past the door where the dead gunner lay, and the helicopter started descending. Morozov tightened his seat-belt, crossed himself, and then grasped the mounting bracket of his red canvas seat firmly.
Damn me, go through all that shit in the field, and then get killed in a helicopter crash.  My luck has not been good on this mission.  I hope when we hit, I do not cause more injury to my leg.  If not for the morphine, I would be crying now,
he thought as he clinched his teeth and waited for impact.

Impact was bone jarring hard and Morozov quickly unbuckled his seat-belt, grabbed the Lieutenant by his ankles and ran from the aircraft, not caring if he caused the officer more injuries or not. When he reached what he thought was a safe distance, he turned, saw the gunner and one of the pilots run,  and a split-second later there came a loud explosion. As the red flames and black smoke rolled into each other, they formed a mushroom cloud overhead; one of the men still in the helicopter stepped from the flames. He was totally engulfed in fire and was shrieking loudly as he stumbled away from the inferno. Morozov raised his bison and put half a magazine in the man.  

“No one should be allowed to burn to death, no one!” he screamed when the weapon clicked, empty.

The survivors gathered together and discovered they were inside the perimeter of the base, so all felt safe. Emergency response teams were moving toward them now so the Senior Sergeant asked, “What happened?  That was a flight from hell.”

The co-pilot was on the ground screaming with an injured back and the Lieutenant was unmoving. The surviving gunner said, “I am not sure. I heard the pilot say the fire warning light was on and then smoke began filling the aircraft.  I think the fire burned it's way to our fuel, or the crew did not turn the electrical switches off when we crashed.  We will know in a few days.”

Morozov shrugged and watched the rescue crews nearing with lights flashing.  He then saw the gunner looking the two injured men over.  

As the fire trucks neared, he asked, “How is my Lieutenant?”

The gunner shook his head and said, “Dead. He must have taken some of the bullets from the ground fire, because he took one in the spine and another near his heart. I am sorry, Senior Sergeant.”

“It is nothing. People get killed in wars.”  The smell of burnt bodies was strong and the Sergeant had a strong desire for a glass of vodka, a big glass.

S
cott looked the maps and other papers over and then shook his head. He met my eyes and said, “Sir, the Russians are gathering, well, at this exact spot circled on the map.”  He pointed and then added, “They've decided to try poison gases in Mississippi, county by county. Their plans are to gas a place, then send in specially trained units to kill any survivors, and it very well may work.”

“Do they say what kind of gas?”  I asked. I didn't like the idea, because it would end up killing a lot of civilians and very few partisans.  Most of us had masks and atropine to counter the effects of most agents, but especially nerve gas.

“Nerve gas, and lots of it.  It's to be delivered in many different ways. The orders list bombs, artillery shells, and aircraft as ways to release it, and the operation starts one week from today.”

I thought for a minute and then said, “Okay, we need to make an example of the Russians we have with us and then beat feet to the Colonel. Once we contact him, we'll take it from there.  If he wants us to still go to Pearl, we'll do so.  He may decide to attack some installations while they're lightly manned to stop the whole Russian operation. The commander of the Russians troops tried poison gas before, except it didn't work then, and it'll not work now.”

“Why is that, sir?”  Scott asked.

“The partisans have gear we've stolen from the Russians and most civilians have either been rounded up and placed in Gulags, killed, or died years ago during the fall of America.”

Sandra neared with Dolly, handed the dog's leash to me and said, “Let's complete our mission and get out of here.  I know some people will be killed if they use gas, and I want to keep the casualties down if we can.  A nerve agent is a hell of a rough way to die.”

I said, “Saddle up, folks, and let's move. Private Walsh, you bring up the rear and Kerr, you are my point man. Joyce?”

“Yo?”

“You stay near the prisoners.  If we're ambushed, kill 'em all.”

“I understand.” she said and then looked at the Russians and smiled, in case one or two spoke English.