The SAS and the legionnaires gave the American teams a head start of fifteen minutes before they moved out. Their movement to occupation of positions from which they could place effective fire upon the Russians huddled around the silo went off without a hitch. The Russians defending the silo, lulled into a slate of complacency by boredom and an all-consuming desire to stay warm, remained oblivious to the mortal danger closing in on them.
Thai the defending troops were not alerted to their presence was. to Andrew Fretello. nothing short of a minor miracle. Rather than gliding swiftly across the broken landscape in absolute silence as he had before, the British commandos and their brethren from across the Channel tromped and stumbled about like a line of Hindu beaters advancing through the bush during a tiger hunt. At least that was how Fretello saw it as he made his way forward between the two assault groups. He could not imagine them making any more noise than they did if they had tried.
Of course, as their leader, he was keenly aware of everything that was going on around him. Fretello was sensitive to every infraction of their stringent noise discipline, whether intentional or not. Only the knowledge that any action he might take to impose greater vigilance would generate even more of a commotion kept him from doing so. With no good choices available, the American major chose to do what all wise commanders do under similar circumstances. He ignored the problem as best he could and hoped for the best.
It wasn't until he received word that everyone had settled into position that Fretello began to feel a sense of relief. To his immediate right were Patrick Hogg's men. At a ninety-degree angle and to his left were the legionnaires. Like the Brits, they were deployed in a line that was more or less straight along ground that overlooked the Russian positions. This deployment allowed Fretello, located between the two teams, to observe the fire of each and its effect on the Russians below. Across from him, on the far side of the clearing in which the silo sat, were two sharpshooters detached from the Special Forces teams that were providing an outer ring of security. Rather then wasting them on the outer perimeter, where there would be no immediate targets for them, Fretello had taken the sharpshooters along with him for the assault on the silo. There they would be able to put their skills and high-powered weapons to good use. From their isolated position, these American marksmen would be free to take out any of the defenders who managed to find cover from the fire directed at them by the main force.
With everything set, all that remained to be done was for Fretello to initiate the action. In a man's life, there is nothing like the feeling of power that this sort of situation instills. It is absolutely intoxicating. It was more than the simple fact that he, as the commanding officer of an elite unit of commandos, was about to unleash a storm of fire that no living creature could survive. It was more than the godlike sense of power that some men experience when they realize that with a single word, they were about to snuff out lives. There is a certain rush a soldier feels when he pulls the trigger or twists the handle of a blasting machine. The smell of cordite, the kick of a weapon, the heat from the blast of air generated by an explosion washing over his face, all this has an allure so incredible that it raises a soldier's senses to a state of exquisite rapture, a feeling that is savored in the same way decent people enjoy those illicit pleasures that tempt them but of which they never speak, It is the feeling that a young boy experiences as he fondles a smooth stone in his hand while eyeing a windowpane that he has set his sights on.
As Andrew Fretello lay on the ground flanked by his command, the tension in the air was all but palpable. The cold, hard fact that he was about to give an order that would end the lives of the Russians before him never came into play. Only later, as many combat veterans discover when the world is once more at peace, would the horror of what they had done return to remind. Them of the hell in which they had once participated.
"Open fire!"
To his right, he shouted for all he was worth, using every ounce of breath his lungs held. Pausing only long enough to gulp down a fresh breath and turn his head, he repeated the command, this time to his left, to where the legionnaires lay. "Open fire!"
No one heard this second command. Even the British sniper curled up behind a tree stump not more than a meter away from him heard Fretello repeat the order to fire. The eruption of small-arms-fire from rifles, assault guns, machine guns, and grenade launchers was as deafening as it was deadly. All over the patch of open ground that surrounded the concrete silo cover, Russian soldiers were struck down in mid-stride. Some died before they had any idea that they were under attack. Others, who had not been marked for death during the initial devastating volley, ran, stopped, turned, and ran back from where they had come, much in the way a deer caught by an approaching car at night will bolt to safety, only to pivot about and go back toward the danger it so feared. This was panic, pure and simple.
Because he was the commanding officer, charged with orchestrating and directing the action, Andrew Fretello did not fire his weapon. Instead, he watched as his tiny command went about slaying its foe. The scene before him did not form a single, seamless image. Rather, the mind of the American major captured individual, discrete portraits of men in distress. Fretello's eyes fell upon the far end of the field, where the final seconds of a' man's life were glutted as he was hit trying to flee. Struck from behind, the Russian threw his arms out and his head back before flying forward onto the ground, face-first and stone-cold dead. Off to one side, another man was literally being chewed to bits by accurate machine-gun fire. Already on the ground but not yet finished, his limbs and torso flopped and bucked about wildly, up and down, side to side, as he was hit repeatedly by a sustained burst of fire. It was like watching a puppet being tossed about by invisible strings. Above all of this was the deafening report of weapons of every sort, manufactured by the leading arms makers of the world with but one purpose in mind: to deliver deadly, accurate fire. As best as Fretello could see, those firearms were more than meeting that criteria.
Like the American in charge, Patrick Hogg did not personally contribute to the mayhem and slaughter. But he was just as much a part of it as any of his men. With the coolness of a professional and the eye of a perfectionist, the SAS captain kept track of what his men were doing, the effect that their fire was having, and the manner in which the Russians were responding. When he saw a foe preparing to resist, Hogg would glance up and down his line of men, deciding who was in the best position to deal with the threat and direct that man's fire onto the Russian's position. His orders were crisp, clear, and direct. "Jamie! To your right. In the second hole."
There was no need to say anything more to Corporal James Cochran, a man armed with an Accuracy International PM. Known in the British Army as the L96A1, the bolt-action rifle fires a Match standard 7.62mm by 51mm round. Shifting it in the direction of his new target, Cochran lowered the barrel of his weapon until the bipod at the front of the stock was firmly planted. Once set, he leaned his cheek against the stock, made of high-impact plastic, brought his right eye up to the six-power scope, and laid the crosshairs on the mark his captain had identified for him. Pausing only long enough to take up a good sighting and capture the last of a breath that he was releasing in the same slow and deliberate manner he used when aiming, Cochran squeezed the trigger and waited for the discharge. While he did so, he entertained no personal thoughts. Nor did he struggle to overcome any moral dilemma. He simply executed his assigned duties and then, when he was sure that a second shot wasn't required, moved on.