War with Russia

“We’ll take the Jurmala cycle path. That’s the way we bike to the beach in summer. It’s wide enough for this vehicle and it skirts the airport perimeter. It goes through the forest, so we won’t be seen.”

Fifteen minutes later, they were driving smoothly along the cycle path running through the forest. Finally Krauja stopped, reversed off the track into the trees and cut the engine. She pointed, but did not need to. The firefight was very close now and it was light enough for Morland to see the high, iron-link perimeter fence.

“Through the trees and you’ll see the airport.”

“De-bus!” Morland ordered.

The team jumped out of the Land Cruiser, shook out into a V formation to ensure all-round observation and moved the short distance to the edge of the forest from which, just as promised, they overlooked the northern perimeter of the airport. Krauja stayed with the vehicle, guarded by Corporal Paddy Archer, ready for a quick getaway.

Morland dropped to the ground, leopard-crawled to the edge of the forest and lay prone. He listened and looked around. No immediate threat. He pulled out his mini-binoculars from his breast pocket. The rest of the team took up positions in all-round defense, rifles pointing in a 360-degree circle. He looked through his binoculars. “Oh, shit!” he exclaimed, despite himself.

From the safety of his cover, Morland looked down the length of the runway. It was a scene of horror. Smoke billowed from lime-green-liveried AirBaltic passenger planes lined up on the hard-standing a kilometer away. In front of the modern, glass-fronted passenger terminal, a vast Russian Mi-26 Halo helicopter, capable of lifting ninety troops, lay on its side, burning fiercely. Curtains of machine-gun fire snaked across the runway and abandoned parachutes billowed on the grass. A full-scale assault on the international airport was under way.

However, despite the carnage on the tarmac, things were obviously not going well for the defenders, because yet more airborne soldiers were de-bussing from the cavernous bellies of other, intact, Mi-26 Halos and, as their feet touched the ground, they started skirmishing toward the buildings. Morland was impressed despite himself; these were highly trained and very brave troops, who were assaulting into murderous and well-aimed fire. However, with the sort of numbers being deployed, there was only going to be one outcome here this morning.

Then there was a heavier volley of fire from the far side of the runway and shells smacked into the terminal buildings, ripping chunks out of the walls and doing God knows what damage to the defenders inside.

Morland trained his binoculars on the vehicles doing the firing, and in one muzzle flash, saw what he had expected and feared: Russian BMD-4 armored vehicles. They would have been dropped with the initial parachute landings. There was no doubt about what he was witnessing; this was the cream of the Russian airborne, with the latest equipment, at work here.

The problem was that he was not close enough to get the quality of photographs the colonel had demanded; the unambiguous evidence that these were Russian regular forces and not some proxies, or some militia, as the Russians would doubtless claim—a game the Russians had played so cleverly and for so long in Ukraine.

Next moment he switched back to the terminal, as he saw flashes and heard the unmistakable crump of mortar rounds exploding among the advancing Russians. As the rounds fell on the hard tarmac, they blew the troops over, scythed down, just like the toy plastic soldiers Morland had played with as a child and knocked over with his finger to signify they were dead.

“Those Latvians sure know how to use their mortars.” Morland heard Sergeant Wild’s voice in his PRR, personal role radio, in his ear. “They’re giving the Russians something to think about… There’ll be a good few less in the queue for coffee and doughnuts when they finally get to the cafeteria.”

Morland could almost feel himself smile at the sergeant’s grim, gallows humor. But the happy thought that the Latvians were fighting back so effectively was destroyed moments later by a loud roar just above their heads. It was a flight of four Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunships, which opened fire on the airport buildings. Smoke from 80-millimeter rockets snaked from weapon stations mounted on their stub wings, while 23-millimeter nose-mounted cannons sent burst after burst into the Latvian infantry fire positions.

The roar and clatter of huge helicopters did not stop as four more Hinds roared low to replace the first flight, which turned for home, ammunition exhausted. Soon there was a regular taxi rank of gunships pouring fire onto the hapless Latvians from a mere 200 feet above the heads of Morland and his team.