Fiction Friday: My Enemy's Enemy

My Enemy’s Enemy

Mark H. Walker

Dmitri Ivanovich had little to offer, little but the crated package in the bed of his GAZ 24 pickup, a package that was at once innocuous, yet also deadly.

Dmitri was a killer by trade, born in the slums of Moscow’s western district, left by his father, beaten by his mother. He enlisted in the Red Army on April 17^th, 1977, the day he turned eighteen. He loved the army. For the first time in his life, Dmitri had someone who cared for him. Yes, it was a rough caring—rough as the coarse wool blankets on the barrack cots and as uncomfortable as the stiff new combat boots, but it was a caring nonetheless. The army clothed him, feed him, and put a roof—although it was often canvas roof, loud with the drumming of rain—over his head. They even paid him. In return, Dmitri did what he was told, did it as well as he knew, and was soon promoted to squad leader. It was a match made in heaven.

In 1986 he deployed to Afghanistan with the 73^rd Motorized Rifle Division. He remembered the deployment well, remembered even better that day in the Kuri Pass. It was a day that changed his life, and would lead him to this dark evening.

His company was on patrol that May morning; the first vestiges of spring washing the Koh-i-Baba Mountain grass a light green, the early blooming tulips scenting the wind and dotting the slopes red. Dmitri’s squad rode on top of their BMP-2, their AK-74 assault rifles pointing lazily at the surrounding hills, sick of the claustrophobic troop compartment that reeked of diesel fumes and sweat.

Unfortunately for Dmitri and his men, those lazy rifles caught no sign of the Mujahedeen waiting to end the Soviet’s lives. One instant it was a beautiful spring morning, the next a slaughterhouse. Two smoky fingers reached from the mountain on the right, piercing the lead BMP-2. The gutted hulk skidded off the narrow, gravel road, striking the sheer rock on the opposite side of the pass, which spat a shower of pebbles in return. Immediately, the commander and driver’s hatch clanged open, and the two men began to scramble from the smoking vehicle. An instant later, the rear troop compartment doors swung out, and Dmitri’s eyes focused on the face of the first soldier to jump to the ground. It was a young face, still plump in the cheeks, eyes blue, eyes wide. A heartbeat later the BMP’s fuel exploded. One instant the BMP rested against the rocky slope, the next it was a fireball, the heat from the explosion singeing Dmitri’s eyebrows.

 “Debark,” he screamed to his men. He pointed at the rocky slope to the right. “Get some fire on that hill.” He looked back at the flaming BMP as he leapt to the ground, but there was no sign of the driver, the commander, or the young private, only oily, ravenous flames.

In quick succession two more BMP-s exploded, but then the RPG streams stopped—evidently the Afghani freedom fighters were out of rockets. There appeared to be, however, no shortage of machine gun ammo. The surrounding hills threw a hail of fire on Dmitri and his comrades, the bullets splitting the air like angry hornets and sparking off the surviving BMPs’ armor. The Soviets were pinned for 45 minutes, the Mujahedeen picking them off one by one.

And then came the Spetsnaz.

The rescuers’ blades churned the air, the sound wavering at first, oozing in and out the din of battle, but within seconds there was no mistaking the lawnmower drone of incoming helicopters. The Hind-24s swept through the valley, their noses low, hounds hungry for scent, the 23mm chin guns swiveling toward the Afghan hill. Rocket’s leapt from the stubby, wing-like weapon pods, and flames spurted from the chin gun barrels. Dirt geysered from the hillside, and when the rockets struck the dirty yellow-brown explosions mixed with the chain gun geysers, covering the side of the hill in a gauze of dust and smoke.

Before the smoke settled, the Spetsnaz landed. Clothed in tan-gray zebra camouflage, the Soviet commandos jumped from a clutch of Hind-24s that rose from behind the Afghan’s hill, the men tossing grenades and spraying the rebel positions with their AKSU-74 submachine-guns. It was over faster than the telling, but that wasn’t what Dmitri remembered. What he remembered was the aftermath. The Spetsnaz didn’t roam the hill searching for Afghan survivors—whose bullets were just as deadly as any others, or gather the Afghan weapons and lay them out in neat rows so the commissars could photograph them for Pravda, or pile the dead—slick with blood and their bowels last movement—for burning; all things that Dmitri and his men were routinely required to do. No, the Spetsnaz collected their wounded—there was only one—boarded the helicopters, and flew into the warming sky.

Dmitri stared at the withdrawing Hinds till they were specks in the blue. That was how wars should be fought. You arrived, killed your enemy, and then flew home for a shot of vodka. The next day Dmitri submitted his papers for Spetsnaz training, three months later they were accepted, and a year after the April ambush he first donned the uniform of the Spetsnaz.

Two years after the uniform’s donning, down came the Berlin wall and with its fall began the collapse of the Soviet empire. That would have been fine with Dmitri. He wasn’t an idealist; he cared not for the spread of communism, only for his beloved army. But the Soviet Union fractured more rapidly and more profoundly than anyone could have imagined, and as the Union splintered so did the Red Army. The Kremlin felt it either wasn’t needed or the cost was not worth the reward. Yet the reduction of the Soviet military was not the ordered downsizing evident in the intelligence Dmitri read about the Western Armies. No, this downsizing was cold, brutal, and careless. Dmitri’s regiment was stationed at the Ukraine base at Ohochee, south-west of Kharkov. In July, they stopped receiving their pay, in September their rations, in October they skirmished with Ukranian forces while scavenging for food. Two of the platoon died for lack of medical care.

The next day their Colonel called them together in the mess hall, which was cold—the government had not paid the heating bills either. The colonel, who six months ago was a burly man with a thick black beard, had been ruined by the dissolution of his command; almost as if each desertion, every hungry man seeking food, had taken a piece from his very body. His cheeks were sallow with hunger, and his once bright, insightful eyes were dull, the spark of hope long gone. The colonel waited till the remnants, there were no more than a couple of hundred men left, were seated. His words were simple.

“Comrades,” he hesitated, his eyes sweeping the assembled commandos. He began again. “Men, my messages to STAVKA have gone unanswered.” Dmitri wasn’t surprised; it was obvious that the Russian high command cared not for them. A quick glance around the dim mess hall—only the gray day seeping through the dirty windows provided light, showed the stoic, grimy faces of the assembled soldiers felt the same. “I won’t waste your time stating the obvious.” He raised his hands, shrugged his shoulders and slowly turned in place. “We have nothing, nothing but each other. There is no food, no electricity, no heat.” Once more the hesitation, then the Colonel lowered his arms. His eyes fell too, as if the weight of the gazes of the assembled troopers was too much for them to bear. “We… we have no duty. The people we serve have forgotten that we exist. While the politburo eat well and drink vodka in their resort dachas we starve, freeze, and wait for orders that never come. Men, I will not let you die like this. Not like cattle that have been led to a barren pasture.”

Their leader took a deep breath, the speech obviously difficult for him. “I, Colonel Andropov Miloyakasavich Predrosayen, disband the 33^rd Spetsnaz Regiment.”

A murmur rose. A young captain spoke.

“But sir, what do we do?”

“Go home, son. It may be no better where you live, but it can be no worse. I’ve ordered the last of the fuel to be put in the trucks, fill them up, select a destination and go. Go home.

Another lieutenant, Dmitri recalled that he had arrived just before the pay had stopped, rose, shaking with anger.

“But comrade, you cannot do this. You do not have the authority to disband a regiment of the Red Army.”

The Colonel looked at the lieutenant with tired eyes. “Well, boy, I just have, and I don’t see anyone to stop me.”

The lieutenant was pale with anger. “Sir, I cannot allow it.”

There were several clacks as rounds were chambered in the submachine guns held by commandos seated near the Colonel. No weapons were raised, no barrels were pointed, but they didn’t need to be. The commandos’ eyes were not on the Colonel, but rather the young lieutenant. The intent was obvious. The Colonel had eaten after these men had eaten, slept after they had slept, and most importantly, he had led these men in battle. They would not betray him now. The Colonel’s words were final. As far as these men were concerned they were all they needed to hear. They were law. If an upstart lieutenant got in the way of the law then the upstart lieutenant would be silenced.

The lieutenant was patriotic, no doubt, but he was not foolish. He glanced nervously at the soldiers and their readied guns and sat down.

A sad smile tugged the corners of the Colonel’s mouth. “Thank you Lieutenant for your concern, but I too am concerned. I’m concerned that if we don’t end this sham we will waste away like those cows on the barren land until, one-by-one, we drop. I will not see you drop.” He raised his eyes again to the regiment. Dmitri saw water welling in the eyes, the wetness making them gleam as they did when the regiment was well, and a battle was afoot.

“Go. Go now. Take what you need, what you feel may be of use to you, band together, load the trucks and leave.” The wetness ran in a stream down the Colonel’s cheeks. He wiped it with the sleeve of his dark green military issue coat. No one moved. “Go!” the Colonel bellowed and then strode from the hall, shoulders back, the wetness glistening on his sallow face.

And they had gone, they had taken, some more than others, Dmitri more than any. Now, three years later, he sat in the cab of his brown GAZ 24 pickup beside a small church on Kotlova Street, smoking a Proletarskie cigarette, waiting on an American named Paul. Just Paul.

The Russian tobacco was harsh, hot, and not entirely pure. Dmitri couldn’t afford the smooth, new blends based on American tobacco. But the Proletarskie was just fine. They calmed him when he was nervous, as he was now.

He doubted Paul was really the American’s name. He didn’t know his real name, didn’t know if he was really an American. Dmitri spoke English much too poorly to place an accent, and he usually spoke with Paul in Russian, a language in which Paul was fluent —fluent with a western accent.

In fact, he knew very little about the well-built, blond-haired man, but that wasn’t important. What was important was that Dmitri wanted what Paul had—large amounts of money, and Paul wanted what Dmitri had—a suitcase-sized nuclear bomb.

(To be continued.)