Raid on Afghanistan, page 17
* * *
Gemal Rahimi watched as Professor Bergmann used heavily shielded gloves to lift the uranium out of the container and into the shaped warhead charge he had ready. The man had resisted at first, and privately, Rahimi was impressed that such an elderly man could be so brave as to resist torture for week after week. When they’d heard of the debacle in the town below, he’d given the order to increase the treatment, and they’d gone to work with knives and cutters. After the professor had lost four of his teeth, wrenched out with pincers, four of his fingernails, and two entire fingers, he’d given in. They’d had no choice. With the woman gone, they had to persuade him to cooperate, or they might as well kill him. They didn’t inform him that she’d escaped. Instead, they’d threatened to go to work on her fingers. Benjamin Bergmann was right handed, so they’d been careful to only dismember the digits of his left hand, but even so, Rahimi could see him flinching as the pain prevented him from doing anything at more than a slow pace. So far, he’d been working non-stop for the past fourteen hours. They’d had to accelerate the whole process, now that they’d lost such an important captive. Rahimi cursed his fighters once again for allowing her to escape, and for forcing him to concentrate his operation here on this bleak, freezing mountaintop. The facility here was not so advanced as the one in the town, and it had only been intended as a last ditch backup if disaster hit the main laboratory. The radiation shielding was insufficient to protect the workers against long-term radiation. He smiled to himself. Long-term was not a term that applied in the case of the people working in this place, and he reminded himself not to spend too long in the vicinity of the deadly materials. He had to keep himself healthy for the nuclear jihad he planned to unleash when they were ready. He looked up and frowned. The Professor was removing the material, not inserting it.
“What are you doing?”
Bergmann turned, his face pale and strained. “I, I thought it was inserted wrongly. It needs to be removed and replaced. The alignment, it is all wrong. If we…”
“Leave it! Or perhaps you would prefer to finish working without two more of the fingers from your left hand, or something worse, your toes, maybe? Believe me, Professor. You can sit down to work if you wish. You don’t need to stand.”
“Do as you wish!” Bergmann flared. “I’ve had enough. I won’t help you anymore.”
“I can arrange for the torture to begin on daughter, if you prefer, and she’d be nothing more than a pain-wracked, living corpse by the time they’ve finished. It’s up to you, Professor.”
“No, no, don’t do that. I will do as you wish.”
Rahimi watched him pass the container to one of the half dozen assistants working with him, all local men, recruited for the duration of this project. They were all held in this mountaintop facility until the job was ended, and all doomed once the radiation seeped through their bones and killed them. They would find a place in Paradise, he reasoned, so they had nothing to fear. He picked up the complicated electronics-arming package, plugged it into the diagnostic package, and read the details of its internal programming. A noise alerted him, and Rahimi looked up. He’d heard something out of place, and it sounded as if it had come from the entrance. Probably those damn Pakistanis he’d recruited to carry supplies up here on their donkeys. They were always arguing, usually over money. He’d go and sort them out. Perhaps if he killed one of them, they’d quiet down.
* * *
Nolan and Moseley ran past a cave that stank of manure, obviously the donkey stables. It was the only way they’d get stores and equipment up this high. They heard a movement, a shuffling sound from the dark and noisome side cave. Moseley went left, Nolan to the right, and they leapt inside, guns ready. All that stared back at them was a long line of donkeys, maybe twenty of them, tethered to the wall of the cave. There was no human there, no attendant. Moseley, an animal lover, went up to the nearest animal. They were in a pitiable state, their bones showing through their hides, and running sores on their backs evidence of mistreatment.
“Don’t worry, guys. We’ll pay ‘em back for you,” he murmured.
“Dan, we need to move!” Nolan pointed out in a quiet murmur. “We haven’t got time for that.”
“Poor bastards.”
Dan followed Nolan out to the main tunnel that led into the cave system. Bryce waited for them, his eyes fixed on the dark recesses from where trouble could come at any second. At that moment, Talley and the rest of the platoon joined them, Agnetha was right behind him. Talley nodded at Nolan.
“I’ve left a couple of men to watch our backs, so we’re clear to take this place down. Remember, Agnetha is here to uncover intelligence about the extent of their nuclear program, so don’t destroy anything without her say so.”
“What about personnel?” Brad Rose asked. He was with Carl Winters and three other Seals who were to clear any hostiles so that Carl could plant his charges.
“Kill ‘em all,” Talley said firmly. “Just watch for Professor Bergmann and Najela. That’s it. Anyone else isn’t leaving this mountain.”
“Copy that.”
Brad led them further into the cave system, and the rest of the men spread out to make a search. They were about to move out when an iron hatch swung open at the side of the tunnel. A startled face looked out and then disappeared back inside. Before he could slam the hatch shut, Will picked up a piece of rock and jammed it in the opening. With the hatch prevented from closing, Nolan ripped out a grenade, armed it, and tossed it through the narrow gap. The explosion shook the tunnel, and the rock trembled beneath their feet. Before the vibrations ceased, Nolan and Moseley were through the hatch, and Bryce followed them. They ran along a low tunnel, maybe five and a half feet high. They had to duck to stop banging their heads against the rock ceiling. The sub-tunnel ended at a room carved out of the rock, some kind of dormitory. The cave was about twenty feet long, six wide, and lined with bunk beds built on wooden frames. The dim light came from a rusty oil lamp hanging from one of the frames; maybe someone’s reading light. Some of the men were scrambling out of the beds, and three of them were armed with AK-47s. The rest of them, maybe twenty or twenty-five, weren’t obviously armed, but they had no way of knowing who was clutching a handgun at their side in the gloom. They opened fire. The short bursts of fire cut through the bunch of men. Nolan and Moseley targeted the obvious threats first, the men with the AK-47s. The Seals advanced into the room, cutting down the hostiles as they frantically tried to regroup. In the far corner, a group of four fanatics grabbed assault rifles lying next to their bunks and tried to deploy them, but Will Bryce was covering, and they went down in a hail of full automatic 5.56 mm gunfire. Nolan made a quick inspection of the room and shouted, “Clear!” They ran back to the tunnel. There was no sign of Talley and the main group, but the thunder of gunfire echoed through the caves, and they ran along the tunnel to lend their support.
Talley had run headfirst into the main body of fighters who guarded the camp. There were more than a dozen men armed with a variety of automatic and semi-automatic weapons. AK-47s, AK-74s, the more modern Russian variant, and even a couple of M-16s began firing, and the Seals had to leap behind cover. Brad Rose ripped out a grenade and shouted, “Fire in the hole!” before tossing it in the direction of the enemy and ducking back inside cover. He wasn’t entirely successful, and a bullet slammed into his side before he was safely out of the line of fire. He grunted as the pain ripped through him, but then he forgot about it. This was not the time or the place to seek medical attention. The grenade exploded. Talley jumped up, shouted, “Charge!” and led them forward. Most of the hostiles were down, wounded, and a couple dead from the explosion, but not all. Two men waited, and as he appeared, jumped out, and started to fire. The man behind Talley screamed as a bullet took him in the chest. He went down with blood pouring from him. The other hostile was cut down before he could correct his aim. A score of bullets shredded his body, and the corpse dropped to the ground. One of the men looked at the wounded Seal.
“Leave him, we need to finish this!” Talley shouted. “Keep moving. We have to find where they’re assembling the bomb. Go!”
The squad rushed past, and more fighters pouring out to defend the complex were cut down even before they could fire a shot. Talley followed the men down the tunnel until they came to the next obstacle. Another heavy door, like the outer door, but this one had a half dozen firing holes built in, and the defenders were ready. The Seals ducked back inside cover as a hail of gunfire came from inside the door. They were lucky. The defenders had opened fire too quickly, and Talley’s men were able to duck out of the line of fire in time. But they were twenty feet from the door behind a bend in the tunnel, and with no cover between them and the door. Nolan and the other two men came up to join him. Talley glanced at them.
“We’ve hit a brick wall, Chief. They’ve got themselves dug in behind that door, and we can’t get near it without being hacked down by the defenders.”
“Is there any other way in?”
He shook his head. “I doubt it. We have to do it from the front.”
“What about Carl? He could toss his charges at the door. That’d bring it down.”
They looked at the demolitions man. Carl shrugged.
“I’m carrying five M67 frag grenades. They’re anti-personnel, of course. They were intended to destroy the enemy’s technicians if we found any. I guess if we don’t use ‘em, we won’t even get to the technicians.”
“Remember, my father is in there someplace, and he is a hostage,” Agnetha said from the rear of the group. She’d picked up a pistol from a fallen enemy fighter. It looked like a Russian made Nagant M1895. Wearing Afghan men’s clothing, she looked almost as warlike as the fanatics they were hunting. Talley turned to face her.
“We haven’t forgotten, Ma’am. But this is a battle, and in battle there are casualties. Until we get to him, he has to take his chances.”
She nodded. “I understand. Just be careful, he’s an old man.”
“We will. Carl, use the M67s, we’re wasting time here.”
Winters prepared the grenades, linking two together to form a more powerful charge.
“When these babies blow, the pressure wave is going to be something awful, so we’ll need to retreat down the tunnel as far as possible.”
“How much time will we have?” Nolan asked.
“I’m setting them for ten seconds. Any less, and we won’t get clear, any more and it’d give them time to come out and disarm them, or use them against us.”
“We can make the stables in that time.”
Talley looked blank. “Stables, as in horses?”
“As in donkeys. They’re back there. We’d be shielded from the main blast.”
The Lieutenant grinned. “That works for me. Do it, Carl. The rest of you, move back fast. When Carl starts to run, he doesn’t want a bunch of rubberneckers in his way.”
“Copy that,” Winters grinned.
The Seals ran back the way they’d come. Nolan led the way and then turned into the stable cave. The donkeys moved nervously at the unfamiliar people invading their space.
“Flatten out against the wall behind the doorway,” Nolan ordered. “It’ll shield us from the blast.”
As they were moving into position, they heard Carl’s shout, “Fire in the hole!” There was the sound of his running footsteps, and then he dived into the donkey cave, just as the frag grenades exploded. The pair of explosive charges sent a shock wave that reverberated along the tunnel, smashing into the Seals and almost bursting their eardrums. A hail of metal fragments and chips of rock whistled past them, followed by flame and smoke from the explosives. The charge had started a mini-tornado that surged through the tunnels, sucking the air from their lungs. The Seals didn’t wait. They were already moving when Talley shouted, “Hit them. Hit them now before they recover!”
They reached the door, or what had been the door. The grenades had demolished it, and behind it there were the bodies of eight fighters who’d been caught in the blast. They went straight past the corpses, and one of them moaned. He was still alive, and a Seal put a round in his head without even slowing. They ran on, and the tunnel opened out into a wide cave, a huge, underground space. Around the walls were benches piled with instruments and machinery, and in a corner a group of what were obviously technicians, cowered. Nolan, Moseley and Bryce ran up to them and checked them over. They were all unarmed.
“Hands over your head,” Bryce bellowed at them. “Lay flat on the floor, and then don’t move! That’s if you want to live.”
He didn’t need to repeat himself. There were nine of them, and they instantly lay down and stayed still, their hands over their heads. Talley looked them over, but he was puzzled. The main players weren’t there. No Gemal Rahimi, and no Professor Bergmann.
“Where is he?” he shouted at the men.
One of them glanced at a steel closet fastened to the wall.
“Keep them covered, Will.”
He ran to the closet, covered the opening with his Sig Sauer, and looked inside. It wasn’t a closet; the door led through to another room.
“What is it?” Talley demanded. “Where does it go?”
The technician who’d signaled it opened his mouth to speak. “It is the main…”
“Shut up!”
One of the prisoners sat up and glared at him. “Do not tell these people anything. American dogs, they will die if they do not leave this country. I tell you…”
It was as far as he got. Will Bryce casually shot him with a single round from his HK416.
“Take no notice, my friend. The Seals are in charge here, not Mohammed. Tell the officer what he wants to know.”
The man gulped. “It leads to the main administration complex. They keep the prisoners there, too.”
“Which prisoners?” Talley stared at him intently.
“The old man and the girl. The man is a professor, and Gemal hopes that he will help us build…” He stopped, realizing that things had changed. “I mean. He did hope that he would help.”
“How did they persuade him? I understand he refused.”
“We, they, they tortured him. Please, do not shoot me! I am only a technician. I am not a fighter.”
“That’s okay, buddy. We’re not going to shoot you.” He looked at the Seals. “Nolan, Moseley, take the point, see what’s through there. Remember, there are friendlies in there. If they’re still alive.”
“And Rahimi?” Nolan asked.
“Make sure he can’t do anyone any more harm. Fry him.”
“Roger that.”
They cautiously went through the steel door. It led through a short, narrow tunnel. Six feet further in, the tunnel opened out into a well-lit room. Nolan led the way and reached the end. He poked his gun barrel into the room, and a shot cracked out.
“Rahimi, there’s nowhere for you to go. You’re finished. Give up the prisoners and we’ll let you live.”
“Talley said to finish him,” Bryce whispered.
“Yeah, I just lied. Won’t make any difference to him. He’s done for whichever way it goes.”
Rahimi’s voice came back to them.
“Come on in and take them, infidel scum. I’ll never surrender them to you. Never! I will die first!”
Nolan was priming an M84 stun grenade. When it was ready, he pulled the pin and waited. The M84 was known as a flashbang. Upon detonation, it emitted an intensely loud bang and blinding flash of more than one million candela and 170–180 decibels within five feet of the explosion. It was sufficient to cause immediate temporary flash blindness, deafness, tinnitus, and inner ear disturbance. With a second to detonation, he lobbed it into the room and turned away. Moseley had seen the M84 and was ready. He covered his ears and crouched out of the line of the blast. The grenade went off instantly. Both men jumped up and ran into the room, covering the inside with their assault rifles. The explosive had done its job, and they recognized Rahimi. He’d caught the full force of the blast and was kneeling on the floor, trying to favor his ears and eyes that had taken the full impact. Next to him was a radio transmitter, lying broken and useless. Nolan dragged him to his feet.
“The prisoners, where are they?”
The man shook his head. “No, no, I will not tell you.”
“It’s okay,” Dan called to him. “There’s a locked door here with a barred opening. I can see them inside.”
Nolan took a zip tie out of his pack and fastened Rahimi’s hands behind him. Then he jerked him towards the door and watched while Dan tried to open it. It was locked. He looked at Rahimi.
“Where’s the key?”
The man shook his head. Dan shrugged. “I’ll do it the old fashioned way.”
He held the barrel of his Sig Sauer against the padlock and pulled the trigger. The weapon coughed once, and the bullet punched out the mechanism of the lock. Moseley dragged open the door, and they went in. A woman was crouched over a man who lay on the stone floor. She stood up and looked at them; her face masked with fear.
“Najela?” Nolan asked.
She nodded.
“Your grandfather sent us here to rescue you. We’re taking you home.”
Her expression cleared to one of relief. “I thank all of you for coming. Where is Grandfather?”
Nolan was silent for a few moments. Then he shook his head. “I’m sorry, Ma’am. He didn’t make it.”
She shed a few tears, but wiped them away. “I understand. You will need to look at this man, he is very ill.”
“Is that Professor Bergmann?”
“I think so, yes.”
