Echo Six: Black Ops 4 - Chechen Massacre (10 page)

"Listen up, people. We're going to crawl across the open ground until we’re in a position to come up behind the NKs attacking Guy’s position. Keep very low. We're almost on top of them."

He didn't need to add, 'If they see us, we're dead'. They knew.

He slid across the snow. If the attackers cared to send a patrol down the length of the train, they'd spot them for sure, but there was no enemy patrol. He made it and ducked behind the low bank sheltering the men attacking the train. The bank was a zigzag shape, following the natural contours of the ground, and they were able to keep out of sight of the main force at the other end of the train. The rest of his squad joined him, and he gave orders to move out. When they were only fifty meters from the NKs, he called a halt, and they ducked behind the shelter of an old maintenance hut.

"I estimate two thirds of the hostiles attacked us at the front, and the other third at the rear. My guess is about seventy men, possibly with some of the Chechens. If we hit them from behind, we could wipe out a big chunk of their force."

Barrington objected: "We're still heavily outnumbered. It would be far better, Commander, if we hit them with heavy fire, enough to scare them away. That way, we can make our escape. We've obviously come up against a much stronger force. All we can do is get out of here and advise Admiral Brooks to send in more men."

"That’s not going to happen, Major. If we pull out, those nukes will reach Pyongyang, and it'll be impossible to do anything about them," Talley grimaced.

The MP gaped at him: "You still think you can succeed here? That's crazy! There's no way we can beat those North Koreans, especially now we've lost the element of surprise. We don't even know where the warheads are. You said so yourself. They might be in any one of those wagons, and I would remind you the train is one kilometer long. This operation is finished. All we can do is get out."

Talley stared at him for a brief moment, and then put him out of his mind as irrelevant. He called Guy.

"This is One. Give it everything you have for twenty seconds, and then cease fire. We're coming in."

"Copy that."

The noise of gunfire rose to a crescendo as Guy’s squad emptied their clips at the North Koreans. The enemy returned fire. Flashes lit up the sky once more, and tracers as hot lead chewed around their positions. Then it stopped.

Talley catapulted to his feet. "Let's go! Straight in, we need to scare the pants off them."

For the first few meters, they ran in silence; the only noise the crunch of their boots in the snow, not enough to carry to the enemy. Then they saw them, wearing the muddy green winter uniforms of the North Korean Army, not snow camouflage. The enemy troops were backlit against the snow, making them easier targets. When he thought they were near enough, he gave the order.

"Fire! Charge!”

There were twelve of them. Talley and his men, Captain Alessandra Falco, armed with an HK416 assault rifle, and even Barrington gave in to the inevitable, firing his M-16. Eleven assault rifles, shooting with a hot fury at the enemy. Roy Reynolds carried the Minimi and fired from the hip, emptying the two hundred round box mags in seconds, while Virgil Kane next to him, handed him a new mag. The enemy began to die on that snowy ground; the crisp, clean white landscape turning to red, as soldier after soldier was torn to shreds under the withering gunfire. Several of them tried to shoot back, but they were panicked and only managed ill-aimed snapshots.

By the time Talley's squad reached their position, half of them were already dead or dying, and the other half were on the run. Panicked men, desperate to escape with their lives, which made them vulnerable. Guy was never a man to let an opportunity slip. He'd begun to move his men into a blocking position when Talley charged, and as the NKs came abreast of his small force, they cut them to pieces. It was a rout, a bloodbath. A few, the ones who were faster runners and luckier than the rest, ditched their weapons and equipment. They managed to escape, racing across the snow out into the Siberian wastelands, to get away from the fury that fell on them from the night. But most died, and Talley estimated sixty men were dead or seriously wounded, their bodies strewn across the red snow. The firing died away, and Guy ambled across to him, grinning.

"That was well done, Boss. For a while it was touch and go."

"Any casualties?"

"No, the armored vests prevented any serious injuries. But those crazy bastards, the NKs, why don’t they wear armor? Several times they showed themselves and we were able to kill them. If they'd been equipped with armor, they’d have been okay."

Talley shook his head. "I've no idea. Maybe they can't afford it? I guess they shouldn't spend their money on WMDs. They could give their troops the equipment they need.” He stopped when they heard shouts from the head of the train. “We need to get out of here. The rest of them will soon get wind of what happened here, and they'll be madder than hell."

Barrington came up and nodded to Guy. "Those troops from the front of the train, they're already on the way. We need to hurry.” He pointed into the moonlit night. Against the white snow, they could see the dark shapes of soldiers racing toward them.

Talley nodded: "You’re right. We’ll find somewhere to shelter while we regroup and work out our next move." He gestured to the men, “Move out. Jonas, let’s go."

"Where? The only place we'll find any decent shelter is Irkutsk, and we need to find out what happened to Borodin and his men.”

"Borodin can fend for himself. This is his territory. But you're right, Major, Irkutsk is exactly where we're going."

"Not yet, we’re not."

He turned to look as Rovere shouted. Half of the NKs from the front of the train were bearing down on them fast. The others had raced down the length of the train on the other side; the same side Talley's men had used to flank the smaller NK force. Once they reached the end of the train, they'd loop around, and Echo Six would be caught in a pincer between the enemy troops. There was only one way to go.

He snapped out orders.

"Out into the countryside, now! We'll be able to shake them off in the snowdrifts, and then we can work our way back toward the city."

He led them in a lung-searing race through the snow, a white nightmare that snatched at their boots and did everything possible to slow them down. The only advantage was that it slowed the enemy down no less. He finally called a halt when they were four hundred meters from the train. The ground sloped sharply a couple of meters down, making a low bank; enough for them to hide behind and keep out of sight of any enemy pursuit. But they weren’t pursuing as he'd expected. He had to explain it to a puzzled Barrington, who was all for them putting more distance between them and the hostiles.

"It’s quite simple, Major. Much as they would love to finish us, they have a primary task. Somewhere on the train, one of those wagons is loaded with the warheads. There's no way they'd abandon them, just to come after us. Think about it. They know there are only a few of us, twenty-two enemy troops. If they get those nukes to Pyongyang, they can strap one on a missile and take out a hundred thousand people at a stroke. They'll stay with the train."

He studied the train, careful to keep out of sight. It was certain they wouldn’t abandon it, but it didn't mean they wouldn't have another nasty surprise to hit them with, like a long-distance sniper, waiting for an opportune target. If they saw movement, they could even launch a rocket. The NKs were marching back. When they reached the train, they began attacking the wreckage of the damaged passenger coaches with sledgehammers, pulling away the damaged sections. Borodin's attack had failed to do any real damage to the wheels and chassis, which was unsurprising. They were aiming to kill men, not destroy rolling stock. After a half-hour, they'd managed to remove most of the loose sections of bodywork that had hung down, enough to enable the train to get on the move. Then they swarmed around the truck blocking the line. They’d pushed it aside within minutes.

The troops began boarding the train. Instead of the smashed passenger cars, they climbed into freight wagons to continue the journey. Finally, only one man remained outside the train. He nimbly swung himself onto the end of a freight wagon and climbed to the roof. He stood there, a shadow in the darkness, surveying the ground around them with a heavy pair of NV binoculars. He looked to either end of the train, and then cross-country, directly toward their position, as if he knew exactly where they sheltered. When the man faced him, Talley was convinced the North Korean officer was staring directly at him. It was eerie. Guy was beside him, watching, and Talley gasped as the distant Korean officer lowered the bulky binoculars to reveal his face.

"My Christ! Him!"

Talley felt cold, bitterly, freezing cold, but it was not the cold of Siberia that chilled him further. It was the recognition of the man standing on top of the wagon. A man he'd seen before, in North Korea. A man he'd brought back to the South, a Colonel in the Ministry of State Security. A man who was already feared in his own country before he pretended to defect to Seoul, and subsequently murdered eight nurses in an orgy of blood. A man he'd vowed to kill.

Colonel Ho. He’s here!

The officer took a last look around and then climbed back to the ground. He walked along the train, climbing into the locomotive at the front. The cabin would, of course, be heated. There would be no such luxury for his men carried in the freezing goods wagons. The huge diesels began to throb as the driver started up, then they roared as he increased power. The blue, white, and red painted locomotive began to pull away. Within seconds, it was out of sight. Gone.

"That's it. We lost them."

The voice was bitter. He looked around to see Major Barrington had joined them.

"I don't think so. They're four thousand kilometers from Vladivostok, and then they still have to get to Pyongyang. They're a long way from their destination."

The other man shook his head angrily. "For God's sake, Talley, when will you realize? We're stuck outside the city of Irkutsk. We have no transport, hardly any food, for God’s sake. How the hell can you even think we’d have a chance at that train? Even if we could catch up, which I doubt, have you forgotten they massively outnumber us?"

"That's true, but now we have the element of surprise in our favor. “

“But how can you know that?”

“Because, Major, someone sold us out. They had to. It was the only way they’d know we were coming. It sure wasn’t one of our unit, and we’ll make certain it doesn’t happen again. By the way, what happened to Vladimir Borodin? I saw his men get chewed up in the attack, but most of them must have got away. Where did they run?"

"We didn't run, but twenty of my men were killed in the ambush."

He looked around and smiled. A man had come up behind them, moving in silence across the frozen steppe, like his boss, Vladimir Borodin. With a chill, Talley realized he was wearing Borodin’s massive fur coat and hat. Further back, another group of men waited in the shadows, maybe thirty of them.

"Yuri! You got away. What happened to Borodin?"

The Russian’s eyes seemed to glow in the moonlight, "He was killed. My father is dead."

"He was your father?"

He inherited the coat. Is it some sort of badge of leadership? Or the warmest thing a man can wear in these frozen wastes?

He nodded: "I am Yuri Borodin. Someone betrayed us and caused his death. One of my men sold us out to those creatures, the Chechens, and their godless North Korean friends. When I find who it was, they will have a blood price to pay."

"That explains how they managed the ambush. I wish you luck with that," Talley replied. "In the meantime, we have to get into the city and find transport to catch up with the train."

"We have trucks nearby. We will go together."

The Russian used a handheld radio to call his men to bring up the trucks. Big, modern Gaz vehicles, three of them, no longer the oddly-designed vehicles of Stalin’s era, but modern, well built vehicles with Mercedes and VW engines. Talley climbed into the cab of the second vehicle with Alessandra Falco, and Guy and Domenico into the cab of the third in line. Talley's men piled into the back, sharing the cargo space with Borodin's men. The first truck pulled away, and Yuri Borodin, who was driving the second, followed. As they drove along the rough, frozen road that led into the city, he turned to Talley.

"How will you regain the train? Even though there are four days before it reaches Vladivostok, Siberia is not Western Europe. The few roads we have are little better than this one, and even with fast cars, I doubt you would have sufficient speed to catch up. Besides, large parts of the railway line go cross-country, and there are many river bridges with no nearby road crossings." Yuri spat out of the window. “Everything about that railroad is crap. Built on the cheap with slave labor, and it’s falling apart. There should have been roads following the same route, but it was the same story. No money.”