Old Airfield
Old Air Control Building
Former 2/19th SWG Secure Area
Alfenwehr, Germany
2300 Hours
27 October, 2004

I woke up quietly, aware I'd been crying in my sleep again. That was nothing new, that had started a long time back. My muscles were trembling with echoes of a dream that had quickly turned into a nightmare. I felt fully rested, alert, and ready to go.

When I unzipped my sleeping bag and sat up I noticed that Blake had taken guard duty with Kelvin. That left Vandemire with me, Beakman with Johnson. They were both over by the stove, huddled up for warmth. I could hear the wind howling outside, but the building was rock solid.

They weren't paying too good attention, not really noticing as I stood up and got dressed. Desert BDU pants, long john pants, socks, boots, and brown t-shirt. I slept naked, a habit learned at arctic survival school, so it wasn't like anyone watched me dress. They did look when I came over with an old tin coffee pot and set it on top of the stove.

"Good morning, Gentlemen," I said, sitting down in one of the chairs we'd rescued from the building. It popped loudly but held.

"You're not up for another hour," Blake said, standing up and stretching.

"I'm done sleeping," I told him. We'd tossed what we didn't want out of the MRE's into an empty box and digging around in it rewarded me with a chocolate covered brownie.

"Sounds like its really storming out," Kelvin said, leaning back in his chair. "This place is a right shit-hole."

That made me chuckle, "You ain't seen nothing until the place gets ten feet of snow dumped on it overnight."

"What the worst it's gotten up here for you?" Blake asked, picking up his deck of cards and shuffling them.

I thought for a moment, going over the entire thing. One was particularly bad, the personal loss had been so bad it had damaged my brain. I could still hear the whispers about it.

...it was just a car wreck, Ant, there was nothing you could do...

"We got attacked by a lone maniac," I admitted, looking around, "He cut the power and phone lines, then started stalking us. Six of us made it out," I tapped my head, "I suffered a skull fracture halfway through and was bleeding into my brain by the end. My best friend suffered a trauma induced ruptured appendix and was going septic. It was pretty bad."

Kelvin shook his head, "Goddamn, couldn't you fight back?"

I nodded, "We did. I stabbed the shit out of him a couple times, and in the end one of my friends hacked him into about six pieces with a fire axe. He'd strike from ambush, and he had taken the time to plan out every step, so everything we did we were unknowingly reacting to his plans instead of acting until the very end when we broke every window and kicked down every door to deny him any safe territory," I shrugged, "At the end, we just wanted to take him with us."

Blake whistled. "That sounds like some serious shit."

I nodded, pulling my sleeve so they could see the thick scar that went around my shoulder, "It was. He put a bayonet clear through my shoulder and left me for dead. My friends pulled SAR, brought me back, pulled the bayonet free and stitched me up."

Blake startled me by reaching forward to touch the scar with his fingertip, "Damn, that's a serious wound." I nodded, "You got lucky." I nodded again. He shuffled his cards again, "Mind if I ask you a personal question?"

I shrugged, "Go ahead, but there's a lot of shit I won't answer."

He started laying the cards out for solitaire. "How come you didn't join back up for the War on Terror?"

I picked up my canteen cup and took a swig of lemon-lime kool-aid, collecting my thoughts.

"I'd been out for four years. After the Soviet Union fell apart I really didn't have a job. I kind of wandered around the military at the edges doing shit that popped up and then spending the rest of my time drunk," I told them. I sighed and stared at my boots, "Instead of asking if I wanted to join, they sent armed men to my house to try to convince me to return for the good of the service."

I waved my hand around at the room we were in. "This is how the military treated me and everyone I knew, and they wanted to tell me that the military needed me?" I made a scoffing sound as the coffee started perking in the pot, brown liquid bubbling up into the glass nipple at the top of the coffee pot. "Then Iraq happened, and they tried to force me back in again, mainly because I helped Iraq set up their chemical weapon program back in 84 and 85, as well as made sure they were destroyed in 1991."

"So why didn't you join back up?" Kelvin asked.

"Anger, mostly. They treated me pretty badly when I was put out. Treated me pretty badly while I was in. I felt old, tired, and I didn't feel like dealing with the equivalent of Special Ed after fighting super-villain shit all my life. Plus, my training and ingrained reflexes are all wrong." I finished off my koolaid and used my T-shirt to wipe out my canteen cup.

"What do you mean?" Kelvin asked me, sniffing the air appreciatively as the scent of coffee filled the room.

"You come under attack from insurgents. Before your ROE allows you to fire back, they haul ass back to a village. You got a good look at them and can ID them, what do you do?" I asked.

"Move down into the village and try to make arrests," Kelvin said.

"My training was a bit different," I told them, shrugging. "We'd move down and execute them right there, in front of their families and the rest of the village, then toss the entire village, and anyone caught with weapons would be executed. Anyone who runs gets shot. Burn or otherwise destroy all buildings housing weapons. And if this is more than the second time, destroy one half of all crops and farm animals and two houses at random."

"That creates more insurgents," Kelvin said.

I shrugged, "Then you kill them too."

"That's a never-ending cycle," Blake said.

I shrugged again. "Eventually they'll all be dead. Problem solved." I tapped my finger against the side of the canteen cup, "I came in on the tail end of bad Vietnam training with a healthy helping of Total War, and the beginning of kinder and gentler, so I didn't really fit in anywhere aside from Total War." I shrugged again, "Although if one of my female troops had come to me telling me that some shitbag had raped them, PMC or military, I'd have taken the guy out back, rigorously interrogated him, then shot him in the back of the head or hung him by the neck until he was dead."

"What about court? You can't just take the law into your own hands," Blake said.

I shrugged, "I was left on my own, with no leadership, for too many years. Given state of the art military gear, leftover garbage from previous wars to fight with, and no leadership. The UCMJ wasn't holding too well and all I had was tyranny and brute force." I laughed, a bitter sound, "But despite the fact my crew was a quarter to one third female soldiers, rape wasn't a problem like you guys have."

"I guess not," Blake said.

"Don't think I'm saying I'd have fought the war better, I wouldn't have," I said. "I would have made it worse, because most of your leadership was all incompetent shitbag careerists who pushed out all the experienced guys and it'll take a few years for all those to get killed or everyone to realize their incompetent dumbasses. If I was in, I'd be one of the incompetent dumbasses and probably on trial for war crimes."

"At least your honest," Kelvin said.

I shrugged again, "The truth costs nothing," I picked up the coffee pot and poured myself a cup, then added powdered cream and sugar. "Lying to myself and you guys serves no purpose." I grinned, stirring the cup, "But, if you want me to VX the shit out those mud people and pop a couple pee-wee's on their shitty little cities to remind them who we are, I'm the guy you want."

There was a banging noise from further in the building, rhythmic with the wind, and I cursed, looking at the door.

"What?" Kelvin asked.

"Part of me wants to go lock that down, the other part of me is wondering why its banging in the first place. We resealed this place tight," I told him.

The sounds of automatic weapon fire floated in, muffled and distorted by distance and the mountain.

"That shit's been going on all night," Blake said, pouring himself a cup.

"Figures," I grunted. I stood up and walked over to the radio, blowing on my canteen cup to cool the coffee to a manageable level. I turned it on, keeping the volume down, and fucked with the squelch until it quit squealing at me. "November Four Delta Romeo, this is November Four Delta Actual, come in, November Four Delta Romeo, over."

The line was full of static and I heard my own voice echo faintly in the static.

"November Four Delta Romeo, this is November Four Delta Actual, verification three-one-seven, come in November Four Delta Romeo, over."

"November Four Delta Actual, this is November Four Delta Romeo, counter-sign 'all the way', we read you, Actual, over." Aine's voice again.

"We can hear weapon fire. Any on your end, over?"

"Negative on that. Possibly echoes from night fire exercises on Main Post, Actual, over." She told me. That was a line of shit, but it was what her and I both knew was acceptable.

"Any changes, over?"

"Negative. No casualties or changes to report, Actual. How are you guys doing, over?"

"It's fucking cold up here and the wind is bad, but other than that, no worse that Station Zulu-Six was for that four months," I told her. "Base camp is nominal. We'll examine the wreckage tomorrow, overnight here again, and head back down the next day if we keep to schedule, over."

"Novermber Four Delta Six wants you to return ASAP, over," She told me. Six was always used for the CO. An old code, long broken by anyone who mattered, but who gave a shit. Maybe I'd get lucky and Tandy would eat him.

"Tell him to take it up with the mountain. I'm not taking any unnecessary risks. We'll have fresh snowpack and..." I heard a loud explosion that my brain immediately ID'd as a TOW-II, followed by explosive cracking noises from outside, like sharp demo charges. "We've got a situation, Romeo, we'll..." There was a shuddering groan from outside that reminded me of a ship's main beam twisting. "Evac the CQ and first floor NOW! Actual, over and out."

"What the fuck is that?" Johnson asked, sitting up in his sleeping bag.

There was another long shuddering groan, punctuated by loud cracks, like support struts breaking.

"Get on the floor," I snapped, not heeding my own advice and moving to the gas can for the stove. Another long groan, this time with two particularly large cracks. I put the gas can down on floor level, right side up, to cut the feed to the stove, then turned and dumped Vandemire on the floor, flipping his cot. Beakman was rolling onto the floor, sleeping bag and all, not even bothering with anything else.

"What..." Blake started as I threw myself to the ground.

The groan went on for long seconds, getting closer, and then there was a booming sound that wasn't even noise. It was too vast, too great, for a mere noise. The ground shook and a roaring noise accompanied it. Water, melted frost, shivered from the ceiling, and there were more impacts that shook the ground. There were several impacts that made the building shake. The roaring noise got louder, then moved away, sounding like a great beast.

After a moment the noise stopped and I slowly stood up.

"What the fuck? Did someone nuke us?" Johnson asked.

"Can we get up?" Beakman asked.

"Give it ten minutes," I told him, moving back over to the radio. I thumbed the mic, "November Four Delta Romeo, this is Actual, do you read, over?"

Her voice was thick with static. "I read you, Actual, over. Sit-rep."

"The glacier calved, sounds like a good sized chunk hit the air field," I told her. There was another set of pops and the ground shook as a couple more booms sounded out. "We're still having after-shocks. We're all right though, over."

"We evac'd CQ right before the avalanche swept through, thanks for the warning, Actual, over."

"How bad is the damage, over?"

"Inside airlock doors held, but we have what looks like a 5-ton smashed against the entryway. Most the windows on that side on the ground floor were destroyed, so we're moving people now. Your warning saved lives, over."

"We'll do a commo check in an hour or so, Romeo. This is Actual, over and out."

"Come home safe, Actual. Over and out," Aine's voice sounded wistful and I knew she was wishing she was here with me.

When I turned around I saw Vandemire, Johnson and Beakman were dressing. I shook my head and set down the mic. "Relax, anything more will be small ice sheets. The new snow must have compacted the bottom of the glacier against that old ridge its been grinding down for centuries and caused a good sized chunk to sheer off."

"Felt like the goddamn world was ending," Kelvin grumbled. He tapped the gas can for the stove and I nodded.

"There's an ice sheet probably a couple hundred feet thick laying shattered out on the airfield right now," I told them. "That fucking thing calves three to six times a year. Causes avalanches on our side every fucking time, which piles up the snow on the ski resort." I picked up my cup of coffee and looking at it. No paint chips or anything else, and a sip of it tasted good. "The sheet slides down slightly, hits that ridge, splits, then tumbles, then hits the airfield and shatters. We can take a look tomorrow, it's goddamn impressive."

Blake shook his head. "They made you guys live up here?"

I shrugged, "It's the way it was. The airfield up here wasn't manned during the winter, though. First forecast for snow and everyone got the hell out. Flew the helicopters down to Fulda with the crews and did full maintenance on them during the winter."

"Every winter?" Blake asked. "Seems like a lot of effort."

"They tried staying in 87, it didn't work out well. They left behind maintenance, traffic control, and a few sets of pilots, by spring they were all dead," I told him.

He let it drop.

Vandemire was panting, hyperventilating, and I moved over to him, guiding him to where we'd put the O2 bottles. One had fallen over and I righted it before handing him the mask. "Slow your breathing, control it," He nodded, making an effort to take long deep breaths. I gave him a hit of O2, then turned to everyone else while he moved over to his cot and righted it. "Everyone come take a single hit. Your panic response burned a lot of oxygen out of your system, you'll need to replenish it."

I was last, and took a long deep breath. I didn't feel like I needed it, but why take the chance. I set the mask down and moved over to my gear, taking off my T-shirt and pulling on woolen long johns before putting back on my T-shirt.

There was more banging from inside, the wind still howling, only now the banging was coming from more than one place inside. I'd need to check the building. It wasn't built right. Instead of an ice-breaker corner facing the glacier they had built it so that the ice would hit it head on.

"We need to check the structural integrity of the building," I said, pulling on my top. "Vandemire, since you and I are on guard next, we'll go do it."

Vandemire gave a 'why me' grunt, but started dressing. I grabbed one of the small O2 bottles, the size of a thermos, with the mask and hose attached with a Velcro strap and tossed it onto his bunk, and clipped one to my belt.

We got dressed, me adding my cold weather cloak just in case. Nobody said anything when I grabbed an ice axe and dropped it onto my belt.

"Password is chipmunk, all clear counter-sign is Theodore, trouble counter-sign is Alvin," I told them. That got grins. "Please don't blow my ass up with the Claymores when I come back, but do. not. open. the doors unless we give the proper password." I hefted the ice axe with the pick on one side. "We'll be back as soon as I'm sure we're not completely boned."

"And if we are?" Beakman asked, laying down on top of his sleeping bag.

"Then we have to relocate, in the dark, in 70 kay winds, in the teeth of a blizzard," I told him, moving to the door. "Either that or decide that the risk of staying in a structurally comprised building is less than the certain death you guys will face trying to relocate base camp."

I turned the handle on the door, cracking it open and taking a peek. Nothing. I dropped my NVG's down, turned them on, and checked again. Still nothing.

"All right, Van, let's go see if we're boned," I told him, slipping out the door, making sure the barrel of my body-slung XM-16E1 didn't catch the door. He followed, the sling system on his M-4A1 different than mine and allowing him an easier time.

The door closed behind us and I took a deep breath, looking around. The side doors weren't burst open, although it looked like they had been pushed slightly inward at the center.

Off in the distance an M-60 fired a long burst, M-16 and AK-47 popping sounding muted.

"No flashlights, NVG's only, maintain noise discipline," I said softly. "Don't whisper, whispers carry, speak softly." I tugged on the line between the two of us. "You get in trouble, pull twice."

"Roger," Vandemire said.

We checked the hallway, then rounded the corner to the front hallway. The doors were smashed in, the cinderblock wall, two layers thick with radiation and blast compression shielding inside, was intact but the doors were crumpled.

Part of a tail rotor assembly was inside the door, sticking out of the packed snow. It was old and rusted, the black paint scraped away by the ice exposing bright metal.

We went into the main room, and saw the the interior wall had burst, snow piling in before crumbling. We skirted it and I stopped to stare up at the ceiling. It was intact, but the snow had scraped the florescent lights away, twisted them up, and now allowed them to peek out of the snow.

More small arms fire, and what sounded like a grenade.

"Jesus, it sounds like a war zone. What kind of night fire are they doing?" Vandemire said softly as I carefully walked around the snow pile, using my IR lamp in the NVG's to get a clear view.

"None," I told him. "It's old echoes. In about ten seconds you're going to hear and AT-4 hit and heavy machinegun fire followed by an explosion."

Ten seconds later there was the distinctive sound of an AT-4 anti-tank rocket, and then the heavy chugging of a Ma-Deuce .50 general purpose heavy machinegun. Right afterwards was an explosion.

"How did you know?" He asked as we moved over to the stairs.

"I fired the AT-4," I told him. "The explosion was a HiND gunship."

I put my fingers against the door at the top of the stairs.

"A Hind? What the fuck was a hind doing here?" He asked.

"Surgical strike by the Soviets in 88," I told him, spitting on the stairs. I pushed open the door, revealing the hallway beyond. Tile had shattered and fallen, the roof lights were hanging down on their cables, and icicles as thick as my forearm were as low as halfway to the floor, some with icicles growing off the floor to meet them.

"You guys were in a whole different Army, weren't you?" He asked me as I stepped forward and began moving down the hallway.

"Whole different world," I told him. I had to hack a few thick bars of ice out of the way. The ice-axe did a good job, and it was better than trying to use my bare hands and feet to do it.

"Destroying the Hind end it?" He asked.

I shook my head. "No, destroying their vehicles gave them no choice but to come into our teeth if they wanted to survive. By that time we were all combat vets and even though they outnumbered us like eight to one, we slaughtered them like sheep. No quarter offered, no quarter asked." There were two more explosions.

"Two more and that'll be over, the mountain will move to something else," I told him.

The NVG's showed me that light was coming in through the window, which overlooked the eastern half of the airfield, toward the barracks. I lifted them slightly, and saw that orange and red fire was causing the light.

"What the fuck is that?" He asked.

"I have no idea," I said honestly. "There shouldn't be anything to make that big of a fire."

We moved up to the window, and I flattened against the wall next to it. Vandemire put himself against the wall next to me. I checked my weapon quickly, swapping out the APERS round for a white star cluster. Wind was blowing in through several of the broken windows, but the wall opposite the window was completely lit up from whatever was burning outside.

When I peeked around the corner I stared in shock for a moment before pulling back.

"What is it?" Vandemire asked.

"A big problem," I told him, crouching down, moving to one of the broken window panes, and looking again. Vandemire peeked around the edge of the window and stared.

We could see the broken shelf of ice on the right, the lead edge shattered into boulders of ice the size of small houses. In front of us were two burning helicopters, with a third burning while partially buried beneath the fallen ice. Tracers were zipping back and forth between the destroyed helicopters and the wood-line at the end of the airstrip, a quarter mile away. The sound of machinegun fire was broken by a roar and I could see the gout of flame from the muzzle of the XM-82 anti-material rifle.

"What the fuck?" Vandemire asked.

"You're seeing an echo," I told him. The XM-82 fired again. "Shit shit shit."

"What?" He asked, watching me lever the barrel of the M-203 out the window.

"That happened sixteen years ago, I gotta make sure of something," I told him.

"What?" He repeated.

I pulled the trigger on the M-203, the distinctive 'bloop' sound muffled by the sound of that anti-material rifle firing again. Two seconds later the flare popped to life, parachutes holding several white flares in mid-air.

Between the fire and the flare the whole outside was lit up in bright greens. I could see people struggling through the snow toward the air control tower, one of them splattering, their whole chest liquefying as the XM-82 fired again. Van swore softly and I knew he'd seen it too.

"We need to get back right now," I said, moving to the edge of the window and standing up.

"Who's that heading for us?" Van asked, pulling himself away from the window and following me as I hurried down the hallway.

"Vympel team. We need to get ready," I told him.

"Why?" He asked, "Wait, are they real?"

"Real enough for the mountain," I told him. "They might just be illusions, phantasms, or they could be dead and coming right us, those would be the best two options."

"And the third?" He asked as we hurried down the stairs, being careful not to slip on any of the ice.

"They're living breathing men, echoes of the men who were here, and able to somewhat think for themselves," I told him, pausing for a second to catch my breath. My lungs were burning again and it felt like there was a steel band tightening around my chest. I pushed myself up, "I can't remember exactly, but we let at least a platoon retreat to this building, knowing the power was off, to let the mountain kill them."

"That's pretty fucking cold," Van said as we skirted the snow packed hallway by cutting through the main room. The desks were still all disorganized, shoved aside by the snow and one another.

"Alfenwehr is a cold place," I told him, leading him into the hallway. My hands were working automatically, dropping the still warm empty 40mm shell casing into a pocket and reloading it with an APERS round from my bandoleer.

We hit the doors and I knocked, shave and a haircut.

"Who goes there?" Came from inside.

"Just some freezing to death chipmunks, asshole," I called back.

I heard more AK-47 fire. It was suppression fire by the Soviets to keep us from following them, but by that time we had already been breaking contact, disassembling the fifty and hauling ass.

"Just a second, Theodore is going to open the door," Kelvin answered. I looked down the hallway, toward the East, wondering how long we had until they breached the door. If I was remembering it right, they'd fucked up right from the get go by using a grenade to breach the door, virtually guaranteeing that they'd freeze to death.

"Are they really going to attack us?" Vandemire asked.

"I don't know, maybe, maybe not," I said as Kelvin swung open the door. Beakman and Johnson were asleep again. "Depends."

"What depends?" Captain Blake asked.

"Get everyone up, get ready," I snapped, heading for where we'd stacked up the body armor.

"For what?" Blake asked.

"Van, help me with this armor, I don't know how to wear it," I told him, pulling off my cloak and the parka.

"What is going on?" Blake asked, reaching for arm. He stopped when I glared at him.

"We've possibly got multiple hostile elements. If we do, it's platoon strength, highly trained opponents who are going to be desperate. We've got about two minutes before they breach this place," I told him.

"Who the hell is going to attack us here, in the middle of a blizzard?" Kelvin asked.

"Put it on like this," Vandemire said, showing me by putting on his own Interceptor Vest.

I copied him as I kept speaking, "An old Soviet Vympel team from 1988. They've been routed, half their force is going for the barracks, half here. They're cut off from evac and have lost about a quarter of their number and all their equipment." I managed to get into the vest, making sure the plates were set properly. "This shit actually work?"

"Saved my ass twice," Kelvin said, starting to put his on. "You're serious, aren't you?"

"I counted three burning helicopters," Van said.

"The fourth and fifth would be buried under the ice sheet," I told them. "We used a TOW-II to hit the glacier and it calved, crushing two of their Hinds, and used AT-4's on the ones that didn't get crushed."

The sound of AK-47's wasn't muted, short sharp bursts, but a few long panic fueled bursts.

Everyone was ready, dressed in full battle rattle. Gunny Beakman turned off the stove and set the fuel can upright. I quickly rolled my sleeping bag and stowed it under my ruck, then rolled the sleeping pad and stowed it on the top. The others followed my example.

"Fire control, gentlemen. Verify your targets, this will be close quarters," Captain Blake said, pulling the charging handle on his M-4A1 to load a round into the chamber. I finished fixing the bayonet to the end of my old XM-16A1. "If we're forced back, we'll meet at the west end of the airfield." He looked at me. "Any landmarks out there?"

I nodded, "An old C-141 that crashed, nobody ever bothered to clean up the wreckage," I smiled, flashing steel in the dim light right before Johnson turned off the bulb and killed the generator. "We buried a survival cache there. It should still be there."

He nodded. "Everyone got flares and prepped for evac if we have to pull out?" I nodded, slapping the side of my ruck.

"November Four Delta Actual, this is November Four Delta Romeo, do you read, over?" Came Aine's voice.

Vandemire grabbed the mic, "This is Actual, verification three-one-seven, over."

"Verification 'all the way'. We have small arms fire in the motorpool, is that you, over?" Aine asked.

"Negative. We have small arms fire and crew served weaponry up here, is that you or main body, over?" Vandemir asked. The channel was full of static.

"Negative on that, Actual, we're going to move to condition amber here," Aine said. "Keep us appraised of the situation, over."

"Roger that, over and out," Vandemire said, dropping the mic.

"Romeo, over and out," Aine finished. The radio hissed and popped with static.

There was an explosion, shaking water droplets from the ceiling. Everyone stared at each other.

"Remember, there is no way that anyone flew a helicopter up here during a blizzard with the cold as bad as it is. This is not reinforcement, this is not rescue, this is something that shouldn't be," I broke the silence. "This may be dead men, or living, but they will kill you if you let them."

They all nodded as another explosion sounded, this time with the shriek of tortured metal.

"They're going to try to push us into the snow, let the mountain kill us," I said, dropping down on one knee. "They'll use fire and maneuver, grenades, and close quarters."

I could hear the Russians calling out to one another. One of them was screaming in agony.

"They've got two with severe injuries. Their team leader is telling them to sweep and clear the upper level while team two checks down here," I translated. Blake and Kelvin gave me weird looks.

More shouting.

"Their radio's screwed. The sniper shot clean through the radioman, he's dead, and their radio, they're trying to figure out if there's working commo up here," I translated. "That was our sniper, Little Bit, on an XM-82 fifty-cal anti-material rifle. She killed a good dozen of them before we pulled back."

Gunny Beakman just shook his head.

The voices were getting louder, "They're looking for the tower control access," I translated. "Masks on," I said softly, pulling mine up from around my neck and covering my face. "The cache is under the cockpit plating of the crashed C-141."

I tightened my grip on my XM-16, my gloved finger moving onto the trigger.

"Get ready," I said. "Their NVG's don't work in this kind of cold, they'll be using flashlights."

We could hear banging and crashing. Doors being kicked open upstairs. There was another detonation, some idiot throwing a grenade into a room rather than clearing it correctly. Blake, Johnson, Kelvin, and Beakman all dropped their NVG's over their eyes.

"One of their wounded just died, they're getting desperate," I translated. Vandemire held up the clacker for the Claymore. "They're worried that the force that downed their helicopters is after them. They think it's the 108th Delta Rangers."

"Ready," Vandemire breathed.

Johnson held up one, Beakman the other. "Ready," They both said.

More Russian. An officer by the authority in voice, ordered them to kick open the door. "Here they come," I snapped, lifting my weapon up to my shoulder and sighting.

I could almost feel the malevolent glee of the mountain. I'd been a shit shot with the M-16 when I'd been up here, once missing a man less than five feet from me.

The door burst open, revealing four men in old Russian winter/arctic uniforms, one of them half carrying a man who was smeared with blood. They were stark in the green of my NVG's, their flashlight beams raking across the room.

They saw Kelvin, yelling in Russian, at the same time as we had a positive ID.

"ENEMY CONTACT!" Johnson called out. One of the men was bearing his teeth, blood streaming down from a gash on his brow, bringing around his AK-47.

"OPEN FIRE!" Blake and I yelled at the same time. The officer at the back yelled the same thing in Russian.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!" Vandemire yelled, clicking the Claymore clacker three times.

All of it took place at once, at a range of less than ten meters.

Fingers clamped down on triggers and assault rifles fired. The Claymore went off.

The dying started.