War with Russia

Time had been short and while Vronsky was confident of his Spetsnaz team’s ability to find, attack and neutralize the insurgents, he was very much less confident of the professionalism and combat experience of the battalion that would establish the all-important inner and outer cordons. But they were all that was immediately available.

At least the fact he had been personally selected by the President gave him the ultimate say in how the operation should be executed. Nevertheless, as a major, Vronsky still had to take account of the lieutenant colonel commanding the conscripts of the local Motor Rifle battalion, who would provide the cordons. Vronsky assumed that they must know the local area by now, but even on that count he had been disappointed; the nervous young soldiers had started off by patrolling into the woods, but as the numbers and effectiveness of the resistance increased, ever fewer came back out. Now they kept to the roads and their defended blockhouses as they were too few, and the forest too large, for them to be able to patrol in strength.

Had Vronsky known this from the outset, he would have insisted on being backed up by an airborne battalion or more Spetsnaz, but it was too late now. The Int and Comms boys had narrowed down the hide area to within a hundred meters and they had to attack before the murdering bastards moved, as was their habit. They were not proper soldiers, Vronsky mused; proper soldiers stood and fought. Terrorists bombed, shot and ran away, which is why a wall was awaiting all but this one man: Morland. Probably, Vronsky mused as he worked up his ambush plan, by the time the President had finished with him, he would have opted for the wall. Nobody had ever accused the President of being a forgiving man.

Vronsky had given his orders and the operation had been rehearsed several times; first by the companies individually and finally by the whole battalion working together, by day and then by night. They were as ready as they’d ever be, and so they had moved out. Now he was here and there was nothing for it but to hope that the young conscripts would not screw things up at the last minute.

This had meant keeping the plan as simple as possible. Without the President’s demand for Morland intact, Vronsky would have slipped unseen into position and pinpointed the target with a laser designator at a set time. Some smart bombs dropped from a distance and there would have been nothing left to put against a wall. Instead, he had been forced to set up a camp attack. It would be launched from one side of the insurgent hideout with the simple aim of making the outnumbered and shocked Forest Brothers bug out in the other direction, straight into the ambush where Vronsky was now lying in wait.

The inner cordon, behind him, was the “backstop” in case anyone got through his ambush position. There was also an outer cordon, which would prevent any interference from elsewhere in the forest. Very simple but very effective, and very much the plan he would have used even with an airborne battalion. But it was the quality of the individual soldiers that was worrying Vronsky. Once the rounds started flying, would the conscripts hold their position and shoot back? Would they shoot straight, or perhaps even shoot each other in the inevitable confusion? For that he had no answer and no solution. So he tried not to worry about it.

The message had come through at midnight that the cordons had been established, with heavy weapons even further behind and in support if required.

Vronsky and his team of ten Spetsnaz soldiers then moved noiselessly into their final ambush position. At H-Hour, the feint attack would be launched from the other side of the camp. In order to maximize surprise, it would be launched silently, meaning that if the Forest Brothers had not set guards, the attackers might even overrun the camp without Vronsky and his men getting involved. Not that Vronsky cared. He felt no need to shoot or to be shot at. All he wanted was the right result, regardless of how it was achieved or who achieved it. Unlike the President, he thought bitterly, he did not take things personally. Which was one reason he had continued to survive and thrive, while so many of his friends had become casualties in the various vicious conflicts in the Caucasus.

Vronsky looked again at his watch. The minutes were ticking by in the almost oppressive silence of the forest. And then, to his horror, Vronsky heard from behind him the sharp crack of two high-velocity shots: unmistakably an AK-74M, the standard Russian infantry assault rifle. That was followed a few seconds later by multiple bursts of automatic fire, swiftly followed by a short contact report from the outer-cordon company commander, broadcast into the personal radio clamped to his left ear.