"Troll Six Actual for Chateau Actual, over."
PanamaJack had been placed in charge of the combined team, which had been dubbed Troll Squad.
"Chateau Actual here. You're doing what exactly?"
"We think the Islamists will come here to bury themselves in the toughest bunker in the country, so we gonna, ya know, walk in and kill everyone inside after we've killed everyone outside."
"I said exactly, shithead."
"Blow the power lines, snipe the guards, hope the mortar teams don't find us in time, spook the guard and staff buildings, and generally cause chaos until everyone outside is dead. After that, find a vehicle, drive it down the tunnel, and politely ask them to open up."
"You have sixteen men. There are over one hundred guards at that installation, an unknown number of possibly-armed non-military personnel, and you are in hostile territory."
"We have sixteen men who can hit at a half-kilometer, and we're going to hit them from two sides and the barracks at the same time. There won't be anyone alive."
"Operational command is yours. Make the call, and don't forget that you have to be alive to get paid."
"We're going in tomorrow night at nightfall. Send everyone you can possibly send our way to help us out."
"We'll do what we can. Vendimus Mortem."
"Go ahead and fuck up their shit."
The reason they waited a day was to get snipers in position. The Americans had just taken Shahin Shar, and it was hoped that the Iranians would be too distracted by the Americans to notice a single van that had been parked on the other side of the mountains from the base.
Two hours after the call went out, a pair of UH-1 Hueys took off from an airfield outside Baghdad. Each bird had two pilots and six ice-eyed men in the back. They flew below the hills, hiding from the radar. Three hours later, they landed on a long, cratered airstrip just north of Shahin Shahr. The Americans had bombed the strip itself, then stationed a small Army detachment there to provide support for helicopter operations.
PBE has a surprising relationship with the United States Military. On one hand, we exist outside the chain of command, we don't even read their ROE, we don't take prisoners without charging extra, and we don't normally get along with anyone who bleeds flag colors. On the other hand, we often make magical phone calls to men wearing stars on their shoulders, and gates are opened, records are erased, and we walk past doors marked "Do not enter."
Within short order, the helicopters had been refueled, and some more phone calls were made. One was to HQ, telling the Boss that the QRF was in position. Another was to PJ, telling him the same thing. A third went to the local radio station, requesting Lady Gaga be played, and yet another, placed in fluent Farsi, asked a local man if he had Sheik Albert in a can.
The local food delivery service, sadly, had been destroyed during the invasion.
In Kandahar, a heavily-armed C-47 was fueled, and the crew ate a quick meal, preparing to sprint to the runway the instant the call came through. The holes in the fuselage had not been repaired, there would be time for cosmetic repairs another day.
In the dusty hills outside the Natanz Nuclear enrichment facility, four two-man teams got into position and began to wait, laying nearly motionless under dusty tan camo netting, sipping water and hoping they didn't get seen until it was time to start shooting.
In a regular military, if one was told to assault a facility that had 27 machine gun emplacements, an unknown number of mortar emplacements, an unknown number of heavy weapons kept inside buildings, and only had 16 men to assault the place with, they'd laugh nervously and refuse the mission. In a superpower's military, they'd soften the place up with artillery or airstrikes.
PBE just starts shooting. We're not going to pass up opportunities to complete the mission just because we're outnumbered. It's amazing what accurate long-range fire can do to even the odds.
The lead sniper on this mission was Jasta, a Canadian guy who'd joined up a few years back. He was amazing at long ranges, and had become PBE's top sniper when Swissguy had transfered to full-time training. He'd been tasked with coordinating the sniping attacks, and the instant the sun hit the horizon, he told the snipers glassing the gate to start.
The first rounds went downrange almost simultaneously, sailed through the windows of the guard huts without appreciably deflecting, and smashed into the chests of the two men who'd been distractedly discussing the progress of the war.
As soon as they went down, Jasta clicked the radio once, and the rest of the snipers opened up. The four teams had roughly encircled the eastern half of the facility, leaving the western approach where the assault team was waiting untouched. The snipers made quick work of the guards who'd been manning the towers, then went to work on the guards manning the weapons. At 500 yards, it was better to hit the guy with binoculars than the guy with the gun, because the guy with the gun couldn't see shit.
15 seconds after the first shot, a series of charges detonated, knocking over the first four high-tension powerlines leading into the facility. It was obvious that they'd have onsite power generation, but that wouldn't be able to power everything.
Standard assault doctrine is to weaken the approach side, and the flanks so that reinforcements will be slow in coming. A side benefit of that is that an untouched side will generally not be reinforced, which is why PJ's team had started low-crawling towards the wire the instant the lights went out. They stopped 50 meters short of the fenceline, breathing dirt and keeping grenade launchers aimed at the weapons emplacements.
The guards piled out of several different buildings and began to move towards the eastern side of the base. They started taking fire immediately, the snipers knew that it was easier to hit men running towards the fence than the men ducking behind walls, and they also knew the importance of disrupting the reinforcements as much as possible.
The radio crackled, informing PanamaJack that air support was 30 seconds out. The choppers were hiding just behind the mountain, waiting for the Spooky to blow the big stuff up before the air assault guys came in. And that's when everything went wrong.
One of the snipers saw it first, a column of dust snaking it's way up the desert towards the facility. Towards an already-outnumbered squad of mercs trying to shoot their way into a fortified compound.
"Fuck, we've got incoming!"
"OK, Cobra: check it out! Entry team: BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!"
Six 40-mm grenades were launched almost instantly, destroying the two closest gun emplacements, as well as the watch towers and the small huts next to them. The barbed wire took four more grenades to clear a small path through, and then it became a standard street-to-street operation. During the day, that would have been dicey, but at night with most of the lights out, the PBE troopers were as gods among children.
"PJ! Jasta, the column's the fucking Americans! They're telling us to abort the operation immediately!"
"What? We're in a fucking firefight, tell them we'll stop when we're not getting shot at!"
"They're pissed!"
"So am I! Payback, stay put, but do NOT let yourself get shot."
Four minutes, the Americans reached the front gate and officially joined the fight. Nothing PBE troopers carry has quite the effect of Abrams-mounted M2 machine guns, so once they started shooting, our troopers dove for cover and stayed down.
"PJ, Cobra here. I've told the Americans your location, they're ordering us to stand down and approach the column."
"Fuckers. All right, tell them we're in. Do not let them shoot at us. Jasta, get your men in here, we're done for the day."
It can't be said that the Americans aren't good in a fight. They tore through the remaining defenders with a ferocity rarely seen on the battlefield, and they moved with incredible coordination. These were definitely not the rank-and-file grunts we'd seen in action in Chile a few years before.
"Payback? Who the fuck's in charge of you assholes?"
However, it didn't seem their attitudes had improved any.
PJ stepped forward. "Technically, Colonel, I am in charge of this operation. At least until His Madness releases me from command."
"Ok, get your boys out of here. You're not authorized..." Some of the troopers laughed "...to be assaulting this facility."
"Our contract reads..."
"If you don't get the fuck out of here, your contract will be canceled and your boys will be listed KIA. You arrogant mercs, you think you can just waltz in and out of our combat zone, doing anything you like? You guys are thugs in polo shirts, nothing but the latest generation of thugs and contract killers."
"Well, Colonel, we're sorry that we didn't leave enough combat for you. I'll have a chat with my boss, and we'll clear out."
"You've got fifteen minutes."
PanamaJack walked around the corner and fished his satellite phone out of his backpack.
"Hotaru, what the fuck's going on?"
"Officially, the contract is being listed as fulfilled, but unofficially, the Americans are so pissed they can barely talk. Apparently, they're shitting themselves that the press might find out and/or the durkas might have a failsafe in there. They want this place intact, and they damn sure don't want us taking it for them."
"We're getting paid, right?"
"That's still under discussion."
"Paid or Payback, we're coming home."
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