Steve Abbott - Devil's Gambit

Smoke and Dice put a couple of the captured scouts into stress positions and with a little personal persuasion and application of the myth that surrounds the SEAL Teams, the go codes were extracted from the men. Hunter relayed them over the captured radios. It was now close to high noon. In being so cautious, the Blue commander had given up any hope of surprise. Even a mad dash through the valley would have seen at least some of his force getting through, maybe. Hunter’s two positions would have been eliminated and his attack could sweep through the corridor to Red’s flank. Instead, his forces had been committed in piecemeal and disjointed fashion. Hunter called Smoke and Dice back to their start position. Two umpires escorted the “dead” scouts from the field. The main Blue push came at fifteen hundred hours.

A phalanx of M1A1 Abrams tanks roared into the valley, dust boiling around their churning treads. They were arranged in arrowhead groups of three. Blue had put everything into this gamble. Hunter hoped he had enough rounds. There were no infantry on foot. Behind the tank phalanx were three command tracks and twelve Bradley AFVs. That’s where the infantry was. Trading speed for skill. What did this guy think this was, an arcade game?

Hunter fed his first set of coordinates. Each mortar team adjusted their tripods. He waited until Blue was in the center of the valley, fully committed to the advance.

“Fire!”

“Whup!” His crew was the first to get a round off, but the crew on the other side of the valley was only a split-second behind. Hunter watched two white puffs of dust appear in the tank column. One was on the top of one of the Abram’s turret – a lucky hit but a welcome one. The tank ground to a halt as the umpires back at Central Command informed the crew that they were dead. The tank’s kill light flashing on top of its pole became the signpost marker for the start of a deadly traffic jam.

“Fire for effect!” Hunter yelled. “Thistle two, concentrate fire on the back of the column. Close the door on them.” He clicked over to the air channel, “Thorn elements, weasels are trapped in the barnyard. Provide support as needed. Prep for dust-off on my call.”

“Roger, Thistle one. Weasel killers inbound.”

Hunter flashed his field glasses over the valley floor.

At least ten of the tanks and four of the Bradleys had white splashes on their top decks. All sat immobile; traffic on the valley floor was at a standstill. The training rounds rained down on the column.

“Uh oh!” Soldiers began to boil out of the remaining Bradleys. The ground pounders split into two groups and were heading for the two bluffs. Hunter clicked to the guard channel, so everybody could hear him, “Infantry on the way up. Smoke, get your guys back up here. Wire the trail. It doesn’t look like too many got out of the valley.”

“Roger, Chief.”

“Thistle two, what do you have left for rounds?”

“We have ten rounds left.”

“Okay, send them and get to LZ Cabin. No sense in hanging around.”

“Roger that. See you at the bar. Two out.” The four-man team from the bottom of the bluff burst over the bluff edge into view. Dice ran in a low crouch over to Hunter’s position.

“What’s up, Chief?” Hunter pulled himself out of his firing position and moved away from the edge of the bluff. The last thing he wanted now was to take a stray tag from a MILES laser.

“Were bugging out. Blue isn’t going to be much of a threat to us anymore. I don’t see the sense in us getting our asses shot off to inflict a few more simulated casualties. Do you?”

Dice answered with a smile, “Hell no.”

Hunter grinned back. He called over to the mortar crew. “Frag, you boys done yet?”

“Last one just left the tube,” Frag shouted back.

“Break it down. We’re bugging out.”

“Roger that.”

“Thistle one to Thorn one, dust-off, dust-off, dust-off. LZ could be hot.” Hunter turned to Dice. “Pop a smoke. Purple. Thorn one, LZ smoke is purple. Repeat, purple.”

Hunter heard the claymore simulators go off below them with a soft “Pop.” Dice moved his men into firing positions to cover the approach to the bluff. Hunter dropped into a crouch beside him.

“Grenades?”

Dice looked over at his commander, “Sure, why not?” He put his fingers to his lips and let out a wolf whistle. His three men looked back. Dice held up his right hand in a clenched fist and popped his thumb. The three SEALS nodded. They pulled concussion grenades from their combat webbing and threw them over the edge of the bluff to the trail. The air filled with loud bangs as the grenades went off. Hunter hoped the umpire would rule in their favor.

“Thorn to Thistle one, we have your smoke. Prep for dust-off. State LZ condition.”

“Landing zone is secure, Thorn one, but keep your door gunners alert.”

“Copy that, Thistle. Stand by.” Hunter could hear the heavy Russian rotors approaching, but he could not see the Hinds.

Donovan and his partner kept the helicopters lower than the top of the bluff, just in case there were any working Stinger simulators left in the maelstrom of the valley. At the last instant, Donovan popped his attack chopper up over the crest of the bluff and brought it down by the smoke canister. The Heavy Weapons crew ran from their hide through the swirling dust with the mortar components. Hunter sprinted to the side of the helicopter and helped them throw the bulky tripod, tube and base plate on board.

There was still no resistance from the approach to the bluff.

“Dice, everybody, PUFO. If the Blues aren’t here by now, they’re not coming.”

“Copy that, packing up and fucking off.” Dice and his four men broke from their positions and fell back towards the Hind. Each man kept his weapon trained on the edge of the bluff. Hunter was the last on.

“All in. Go, go, go!” Dust and gravel churned around the Hind as it lifted off. The door gunners peppered the area with machine gun fire, just in case somebody had not gotten the message to keep their head down. Donovan slid them nose down to the other side of the bluff, leveling off a scant fifty feet from the desert floor. Once he was sure the threat receivers were inactive, he patched over to Mac’s Hind.

“Thorn two, status?”

“A’OK. Inbound to base.”

“Roger that. Good work Mac.” In the back, Hunter was composing the after-action report. Training mission or not, the Blue commander was going to have a new asshole chewed for him over his lack of tactical planning. Thank God it had not been for real. What were they teaching these guys in War College? Oh well; what did he care? After all, he was just a line animal.

Chun Seng Kyun sat and watched the thin blue ribbon of cigarette smoke curl through his fingers. Bittersweet memories of a game he and his young squad mates had played so many years ago filled his mind. A game played over sixty years ago on the banks of the Yalu River during the bloody rout of the UN forces. A time when Chun was just an underage private in the People’s Army of North Korea.

Each squad member took turns holding the lit end of a cigarette closer and closer to the webbing between his partner’s fingers. The one who held out the longest before pulling his hand away won. In retrospect, it was stupid; a game for young men not yet bloodied in battle. There was no prize, no money to be won, just the pain of a burnt hand. Chun always won.

That November had been a month of blood and fear. After their first clash with the Yankees and the first loss of one of their band, no one played the game anymore. It took two grueling weeks to push the UN forces back to and out of the capital, Pyongyang.