Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 09 (62 page)

 
          
“Perhaps
you will accept some help from our men?” the aide asked, after making the
translation and listening to the colonel’s reply. “Tell us what you would like
to do, and Captain Rokov will assign some of his men to assist, in the spirit
of cooperation.”

 
          
“Tell
the captain no thanks, but we have things well under control.”

 
          
At
that moment, there was a shout behind him. Two Russian soldiers were dragging
Major Kramer out of one of the school buildings. He had been badly beaten up,
and a line of blood was coming out one of the soldier’s nostrils.

 
          
“Shto
teebye?"
The civilian that had exited the Mi-8 helicopter with Rokov
stepped forward toward the captured officer.

 
          
“Hey!
Leave him alone!” Lewis shouted. Two soldiers stepped in front of Lewis, rifles
raised.

 
          
The
civilian grabbed Kramer by the hair and lifted his face up, screaming something
at him. The soldiers that were carrying Kramer shouted something to Rokov. The
aide translating for the Russian commander said, “They say he was hiding in one
of the condemned buildings with a radio, calling in an air strike against our
position.”

           
“That’s bullshit!” Lewis shouted.
“We are a construction unit, helping the Macedonians rebuild this school
campus.”

 
          
The
civilian continued to yell at Kramer, but the American looked like he was only
half conscious. The civilian then pulled a pistol out of his coat and aimed it
at Kramer.

 
          
“No!”
Lewis shouted. He managed to knock over the soldiers blocking his path and
started to run toward Kramer. Captain Rokov pulled his side arm from its
holster, jacked a round into the chamber, and put two bullets into Chief Master
Sergeant Lewis’s back from less than fifteen feet away. He was dead before he
hit the ground. The civilian holding Kramer smiled, turned to the dazed
American, and put two bullets into his head from point-blank range.

 
          
“Hold
your fire! All units,
hold your fire!"
Rokov screamed. The civilian
let go of Kramer, wiping blood and bits of brains off his coat and pants. The
soldiers let him drop, unsure of what to do. “Order the troops to spread out,
find the rest of the NATO and Macedonian soldiers. Capture them if possible,
kill them if necessary,” Rokov ordered, holstering his pistol. “As soon as this
site is secure, bring in the second and third waves of troops and start moving
south toward the main highway. I want the highway in both directions secure
before
noon
.” Aides
hurried off to relay his orders.

 
          
The
captain turned, stooped down, and looked at the man he had killed. It was his
first kill. The last way he ever wanted to do it was to shoot a man in the
back. Worse, the man was unarmed. He had shot an unarmed soldier in the back.
He would never live that truth down.

 
          
Rokov
tore a patch off Lewis’s BDU jacket and handed it to another of his officers,
his intelligence officer. “What is it?”

 
          
“It’s
... it is the One-fifty-eighth Fighter Wing, as expected, sir,” the aide said
nervously, obviously frightened by the double murders. “An F-16A Air Defense
Fighter unit based in the
province
of
Vermont
, northeastern
United States
, part of the American Air National Guard
reserve forces. Responsible for continental air defense. Sometimes deploys to
Iceland
or
Canada
.”

           
Rokov had to struggle to drag his
consciousness to the present. Two unarmed American soldiers were dead. What in
hell had they done? But it was too late to fret over it. “An American air
defense fighter unit deployed out here? Why?”

 
          
“I
do not believe they are a real Fighter unit, sir,” the intel officer said. “I
believe they were sent out here as an advance unit, setting up air defense and
surveillance operations in southern
Macedonia
.”

 
          
“But
why down here in this river valley?” Rokov asked. “Why not in the highlands
themselves, or a few kilometers farther east where they have a clear
unobstructed view of the frontier? This is the worst place they could have
picked if they were going to set up any kind of radar or line-of-sight
communications system.”

 
          
“I
still believe this is an intelligence-gathering unit, sir,” the Russian intel
officer said resolutely, although the confusion and uncertainty was evident in
his eyes. “They have set up this site as a listening post, disguised as some
sort of humanitarian aid project.”

 
          
“Well,
dammit, find the officers, find the equipment, and find the crypto gear, and do
it quickly!” Rokov ordered, snatching the dead NCO’s patch away from the confused
intel officer. “The main body of the Fifty-first Airborne Regiment will be
moving through here tonight, and I don't want any sort of recon groups or
intelligence-gathering devices to be operating when they do. Now get going.”
The aide hurried off. glad to be out of range of the captain’s rising anger.

 
          
Rokov
stuffed the patch in his BDU jacket pocket. Gunfire started to erupt nearby,
along with shouts in Russian to stop, more shooting, the sounds of terrified
men and women screaming More shooting, more screaming—this time, the sounds of
screaming children, lots of them.

 
          
This
just didn’t make sense, he thought. His observer had said the Americans had set
up a special forces recon base here in the
Czur
Valley
to monitor Russian troop activities, and
his intel staff had confirmed the report. Then some reports had come in saying
the group was not a special forces or recon team, but a civil aid project team
called Cornerstone. The intel staff maintains they are a recon group, merely
disguised as a civil aid project. Then he receives a report saying the
Americans were part of an F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter unit, which raises all
sorts of new suspicions.

 
          
Rokov
turned to the civilian passenger beside him and asked, “Well, Comrade Kazakov?
I see no signs of American special forces or recon teams here. This place has
no helicopters, no communications outlets, and is located in the worst possible
location.”

 
          
“Did
you expect the Americans to be standing out here in the open waving in welcome
as you flew in?” Pavel Kazakov asked derisively. He was taking some rough
survey shots with a portable laser/GPS transit, measuring elevations and
distances from the school to the river, making mental calculations on exactly
where he was going to lay his pipeline. It was never a good idea to build a big
pipeline too close to the main highway, but it still had to be accessible. This
was a perfect spot for a pumping and metering station, The flooding concerned
him, so he had to find where the mean water level had been, so he could update
the flood charts and make calculations on the water table. “It sounds like your
men are digging the real enemy troops out right now.”

 
          
“I
see no evidence a battalion-size force ever has been here,” Rokov observed. “I
see no evidence of armor, weapons concentrations, antiaircraft weaponry, fuel
storage, or marshaling yards. Where is all this heavy military equipment you
reported?”

 
          
“You
have been on the ground five minutes, Rokov—did you expect all the answers to
just pop out at you so quickly?”

 
          
Rokov
looked at Kazakov suspiciously. “I find it interesting, Comrade,” he said
warily, “that with all the resistance we were told to expect here, with all the
danger requiring a heliborne assault by an entire airborne infantry company,
that you decided to come along. It was a very large risk. It makes me wonder if
there were any heavy forces here at all.”

 
          
“Were
you hoping for a firefight. Captain? Anxious to win some more medals?”

 
          
“All
I’m looking for are some straight answers—”

 
          
“I’m
not here to answer questions for you, Captain,” Kazakov snapped. “I’ve been
authorized to accompany you on this operation, and that’s all you need to know.
It is your job to secure this location and then move south to secure the
stretch of highway near Resen to prepare for the Fifty-first Airborne Regiment
to move up from their positions near
Bitola
.”

 
          
Captain
Rokov turned to Kazakov in some surprise. “And how did you know about the
Fifty-first’s jumping-off point near
Bitola
?” he asked. “I learned about it in a
top-secret briefing just before we mounted up for this assault.”

 
          
“More
stupid questions,” Kazakov scoffed, ignoring the question. He anchored a
measuring tape to a stake and started to walk. “I’ve got my work. Captain, and
you have yours.”

           
“Wait one minute, Kazakov—”

           
“That’s
Mr
Kazakov to you.
Captain!” Pavel snapped. “I warn you—do not
try
me. Go about your
business, now.”

 
          
“Or
what.
Mr
Kazakov?”

 
          
“You
suddenly think you’re so tough, Captain Rokov?” Kazakov spat. “You’re the one
who shot an unarmed American noncommissioned officer in the back. Your career
is over.”

           
“That is a failure of discipline
and a personal shame that I will live with for the rest of my life,” Rokov
said. “But what of you? What is your interest in all of this?”

           
“None of your business.”

 
          
“Perhaps
the rumors are true, Comrade—you are letting the army obtain and secure land
for your oil pipeline through the Balkans,” Rokov said. “You make up a fantasy
story about American spies and Macedonian saboteurs in order to get a rccon
company to land you on this site, then you busy yourself surveying it. What’s
next? Will you order a Mi-28 to carry in your bulldozers and cranes?”

 
          
“What
I would concern myself about, Captain,” Kazakov hissed in a low voice, stepping
nose to nose with the Russian infantry officer, “is your fiancee and her
four-year-old daughter in Rostov at her new job at the Zil plant. She just got
moved to the graveyard shift so she can work while her daughter is in bed, I
understand. It would be a shame to hear that she was hurt coming home after a
long night at work.”

 
          
“How
in hell could you possibly know ... ?” And then Rokov stopped short. Kazakov
knew about his fiancee and her daughter the same way he knew about the
Fifty-first doing an airborne assault tonight—he had either powerful
connections or well-informed spies, and either way he could not hope to fight
him.

 
          
“I
see we now understand each other,” Kazakov said, nodding and putting on a sly,
knowing grin. “You did a fine job this morning. Captain. The assault was swift,
accurate, precise, and well-executed. My suggestion to you: report that these
filthy American spies attacked you after your men discovered their spy network,
and you had no choice but to defend yourselves. You may even take credit for
killing both spies. I'm sure your men can devise a way to make it appear as if
the shootings were in self-defense—maybe take these corpses out to the forest
and put some bullet holes in their bodies that are going in and out in the
proper direction. Let's not have any more cross words between us, I will stay
out of your way—”

 
          
“And
you had better stay out of mine, Kazakov," Rokov said.

 
          
“
Zamyechateel'niy,”
Kazakov said. “Very good. I see we understand each other perfectly.”

 
          
Rokov
maintained eye contact with Kazakov for a long moment, but eventually stepped
away to supervise the mopping- up operation. Minutes later, more troops started
to arrive; already, the first few American soldiers were being herded into the
parking lot, hands on top of their heads like captured prisoners of war.