Air Battle Force (43 page)

“I am Captain Rizov,” the young Russian officer said. Orazov translated the Russian for Zarazi. “I am aide-de-camp for the commander of the Turkmen Seventeenth Mechanized Infantry Brigade, Colonel Yuri Borokov.”

“Why couldn't the colonel come out here himself?”

“Colonel Borokov does not negotiate with terrorists,” Rizov said. He was remarkably calm, Turabi noticed—the confidence and fearlessness of youth, no doubt. Rizov had probably never been in battle and thought he was invincible sitting in that little APC. “He is busy planning his operation to grind your little band of raiders into the sand. I offered to negotiate on behalf of the colonel and the people of Chärjew.”

“Then your colonel is a coward for sending a junior officer to do his dirty work for him,” Zarazi said. “You have shown great courage by coming out here alone and unarmed. I admire that. You do not deserve to die. You may withdraw; I guarantee your safety.”

“Thank you for the compliment, sir, but I don't need your guarantees. What I need is your cooperation to avoid any violence,” Rizov said. “If you move your forces any farther west, Colonel Borokov will attack without warning. That is
my
guarantee.”

“I could use a young, courageous fighter like you in my force, Captain,” Zarazi said. “You could command one of my tank companies.”

“Then I'd be commanding a company of corpses,” Rizov said. “You cannot hope to win an assault against Turkmen regulars. The Seventeenth has a total fighting force of eight thousand soldiers in seven combat battalions—”

“My intelligence says the Seventeenth has a total of
thirteen
thousand soldiers in
eleven
combat and three support battalions, Captain,” Zarazi interrupted. “Elements of the Twenty-second Infantry Brigade from Mary joined up with you yesterday, along with three reserve battalions—old men and youngsters, hardly real fighting men, but still a fairly successful call-up of reserve forces for a country with virtually no army at all. In addition, the Fourth Attack Wing from Ashkhabad, with one squadron each of MiG-23 and Sukhoi-25 bombers, has reportedly been deployed to Mary and should be ready to begin close air-support operations by tomorrow. I am told you moved an artillery company to Khodzhayli, but even my most conservative intelligence estimates cannot tell me if the unit is ready to fight or even if the batteries are real or just fakes. I congratulate you for trying to disguise your numbers, but I am very well informed of Turkmen troop movements. Is there anything I've left out,
Captain?”

Rizov fell silent for a moment. Zarazi had indeed left a few things out, but Rizov was amazed at what the Taliban fighter
did
know. “What is it you wish in Chärjew, sir?”

“If you join my army, Captain, you will learn everything,” Zarazi said. “Because of your courage, you may still withdraw with safety if you refuse to join me. But I warn you: If you do not join my army, you will be killed the next time we meet.”

“Sir, I did not come here to listen to threats,” Rizov said. “I agreed to come out here like this to learn what you want. We know that TransCal company officials are prepared to offer you large sums of money to keep their pipelines safe. I understand their concern. They make more money if the lines are undamaged and their product is flowing. Frankly, I believe that the Turkmen government thinks similarly. If you agree not to harm the lines and withdraw, the Turkmen government will see to it that you are paid, promptly and generously.”

“So your commander will
pay me
not to fight? What kind of soldier is he, Captain?”

“A practical one, sir,” Rizov said. “If it is money you are after in Turkmenistan, then we offer it to you. I am carrying a sizable amount with me right now. Withdraw your forces immediately, and by the time you reach the Afghan border, I will deliver it to you.”

“How much are you carrying?” Jalaluddin Turabi shouted.

“Quiet, you idiot, or I will have you shot,” Zarazi growled, speaking out of a corner of his mouth and not turning toward Turabi so as to not indicate that there was any discord in their ranks.

“We are here to gather funds for our tribe and for the Al Qaeda cells that we support,” Turabi said in a low voice. “If he is offering money, we should take it.”

“I said
shut up,
Colonel.
Now,
” Zarazi ordered.

“I am authorized to pay you one hundred thousand dollars in gold bullion if you agree not to move any farther west,” Rizov said. He still had his tanker's helmet on, but Turabi could tell by his expression and by his tone of voice that he had indeed heard Zarazi's angry comment and was pleased that they were arguing. “A helicopter from Ashkhabad will deliver another two hundred thousand dollars in gold to the town of Mukry, on the Afghan border south of Gaurdak. You may even have the helicopter to transport the gold out.”

“One hundred thousand dollars just to
hold our position?
” Turabi exclaimed to Zarazi. “Offer to do it for five hundred thousand, Wakil, and it's a deal.”

“I said be quiet,” Zarazi snapped.

“We'll take two hundred thousand now, and three hundred thousand when we reach Mukry!” Turabi shouted to the Russian. “All in gold bullion. If we see anyone but you, the deal is off and we will lay siege to Chärjew.”

“I warned you, Turabi . . . !”

“Done!” Rizov shouted back. “I have fifteen kilos of gold bullion on board right here. Stand by, and I will unload it.” Rizov motioned to someone inside the armored personnel carrier, and soon a young soldier carried what looked like a steel footlocker out of the APC and started walking toward Zarazi's vehicle.

Orazov was visibly shaking in excitement. “General, let me go get the money,” he said. “When I bring it back, let's kill that bastard and take his APC.” He leaped off the APC and headed for the steel case.

“Stay where you are, Orazov,” Turabi said. “Can't you smell a trap?”

“A trap?”

“Do you really think the Turkmen carry fifteen kilos of gold around in military vehicles, you fucking idiot?” Turabi asked. “It's a trap.”

The Turkmen soldier carried the steel case several meters in front of his APC, then laid it on the highway, undid the latch, opened it, and stood up. Turabi could see something sparkly inside. “There's your down payment,” Rizov shouted, “and that is also the line over which you may not cross. The deal is off if you move past that box.” He gave an order, and the soldier started heading back to his APC.

“Thank you, Captain,” Turabi said. “Now, if your man there would be so kind as to dump the contents of the box on the pavement?”

“Excuse me, sir?” Rizov asked. He barked another order, and the soldier started running back to the APC.

Turabi reached over to the twenty-three-millimeter cannon beside him, cocked the action, aimed, and pulled the trigger. The steel box jumped and danced on the pavement—and then a gush of thick white gas began to stream out of the shattered steel box.

“Gas!”
Orazov screamed. “They booby-trapped that case!”

“Get us out of here!” Zarazi shouted. As Turabi laid down machine-gun fire on the Turkmen APC, the driver threw the transmission into reverse, and they roared backward. The gas was spreading quickly, probably with some sort of aerosol propellant to disperse it faster.

The Turkmen soldier was hit in the leg by Turabi's machine-gun fire, and he pitched forward, screaming in pain. Rizov's APC was in full reverse by now, too. Soon the white gas reached the soldier—and within seconds he was flopping and writhing on the ground like a fish caught in a gill net. Just when Turabi thought he was going to break his neck with the force of his convulsions, he lay still. “Allah have mercy . . . !”

“I don't think we'll be facing any untrained Turkmen border guards or conscripts from here on out,” Wakil Zarazi said as they roared away from the area. “The Russians play to win.”

They soon found out that the artillery batteries set up at Khodzhayli Airport southeast of Chärjew were not fakes when the barrage started, just after midnight. The attack was initiated with strings of starburst illuminators over their positions, followed by rounds that appeared to miss them by very wide margins. “Good thing the Turkmen can't shoot,” someone remarked.

“Have you never seen an artillery attack before?” Zarazi said. “The illuminators were dead-on. If they fired standard rounds, we'd have been chewed up pretty bad. The rounds that are falling short are not high explosives—they are seeding the area with mines.”

“Mines?”

“Antivehicle and antipersonnel mines,” Zarazi said. “They are surrounding our positions very well, even to our rear. If we panic and move without sweeping our escape paths, we'll blow ourselves up. The shelling will start within a few minutes, and they'll be very accurate, I assure you.”

“I hope Turabi is in position,” Aman Orazov muttered. He had volunteered for the mission that Turabi had been sent on. He was still in shock from being duped so easily by the Turkmen, and now he was smarting from not being chosen to lead this raid. “If he fails, we're going to have a very, very long night.”

Turabi and his light-infantry platoons had departed immediately after the attempted Russian nerve-gas attack, driving light vehicles across the rocky sands toward Chärjew, spread out on either side of the highway.

They first investigated the small airfield at Chauder, but it had been recently abandoned—no doubt the Russians thought it would be the first to fall—and moved back to a more defensible position. Turabi ordered a second security company to move forward, search for mines and booby traps, and take the airfield.

Their first firefight was with a Turkmen security platoon at a power substation northeast of Sayat, and it was here that the Taliban fighters first learned what the Turkmen army was really made of. Although outnumbered three to one, the Turkmen held on to that tiny five-acre substation as if it were the birthplace of the prophet Muhammad. The fighting lasted almost a half hour. Turabi lost five men and had three wounded, including himself—a ricocheting bullet, mostly spent, hit him on the cheek, causing him to momentarily lose vision in his left eye.

He could not afford to take any more losses like that tonight, Turabi thought ruefully. He left the remnants of one decimated platoon behind to tend to the wounded, called for replacements, slapped a fresh bandage on his cheek, and moved on.

They quickly approached the airfield at Khodzhayli, skirting the village of Sakar and then fanning out for their assault. Turabi stationed mortar squads east and west of the airport, then split up his platoons, forming a semicircle southwest of the airfield. The plan was to have his mortar platoons start walking in mortar rounds and then have his rifle and machine-gun platoons pick off any security teams and any other targets of opportunity. Turabi knew he was outnumbered, so his objective wasn't to attack the artillery-battery security forces; all he had to do was prevent the security teams from closing in to the mortar teams until they could knock out or disrupt the fire batteries and then cover their escape.

Like most plans, Turabi's didn't survive first contact.

The eastern mortar platoon managed to set up just a few dozen meters from a Turkmen machine-gun squad that was either sleeping or just not paying attention, so as soon as the first mortar was launched, the platoon was under fire. Instantly, Turabi was laying in only half the number of rounds he thought necessary to take out the artillery site, and his team was under attack. His men started engaging the Turkmen security forces right away, and soon the mortar platoon was able to resume firing, but just thirty seconds into their operation the entire Turkmen army was converging on them. The Turkmen defenders were using troops in “spider holes” to spread their forces out more and keep them out of the line of fire—as soon as a soldier reported contact, a nearby machine-gun nest behind him opened fire over his head. As long as the soldier did not stick more than his head, shoulders, and rifle out of the hole, he was safe.

“Use your smoke! Use your smoke!” Turabi shouted on the radio. Their smoke grenades were very effective—the smoke hung close to the ground, obscuring the Turkmen's sight. Finding the spider holes turned out to be relatively easy: The Turkmen had dug them in an almost perfect circle, so once one of Turabi's men made contact, all they had to do was search left and right for another hole. But the machine-gun fire, although not accurate—the gunner could not see his target, although he knew they were out there—was devastating. One by one his men were going down, usually clipped in the upper thigh or near the waist by big twenty-three-millimeter shells. The screams of his own men, dying and maimed, started to engulf him. Surrounded by smoke, sand, stones, and dead comrades, Turabi felt disorganized, disoriented, and helpless—but he kept on moving forward.

He practically fell into a spider hole, plopping right down onto the headless body of a Turkmen soldier. He scrambled out of the blood and gore, keeping down below the rim of the hole while machine-gun fire zinged all around him. He reloaded and checked his ammo—just four magazines left, plus his sidearm with two extra mags. He had used up over half his ammo already, and they hadn't hit one thing at the airport. Turabi had to assume, since he was frugal with his ammo, that his men were probably much lower. Once he used up another mag, he decided, they would pull back. This attack was going nowhere.

Then he saw it: a field telephone, a simple, old-style crank-and-talk box. The Turkmen soldiers didn't even have radios out here! Turabi found the dead soldier's headphones, rubbed the blood and brains out of the ear cups, and put them on.

He was desperate—he could think of only one thing to try. He cranked the phone and, summoning all his Russian-language skills, pressed the talk button and shouted,
“Astanavleevat'sya! Eta vazmooteeteel'no!”
he shouted, doing his best impersonation of a pissed-off Russian officer. “Who in hell are you shooting at?”