Mortar rounds were falling, he saw. They were falling on the big new machine shop just beyond the barracks. Men were stumbling out the door of the latter when he arrived, and he had to stop and hold up his arms to avoid being shot. “I am Colonel Bondarenko! Where is your officer?” “Here!” A lieutenant came out. “What—” Someone had just learned of his mistake. The next mortar round hit the back of the barracks.
“Follow me!” Bondarenko screamed, leading them away from the most obvious target in sight. All around them was the deadly chatter of rifles—Soviet rifles; the Colonel noted at once that he couldn’t use sound to identify who was who. Wonderful! “Form up!”
“What is—”
“We’re under attack, Lieutenant! How many men do you have?”
He turned and counted. Bondarenko did it faster still. There were forty-one, all with rifles, but there were no heavy weapons, and no radios. The machine guns he could do without, but radios were vital.
The dogs, he told himself stupidly, they should have kept the dogs . . .
The tactical situation was appallingly bad, and he knew that it would only get worse. A series of explosions sundered the night.
“The lasers, we must—” the Lieutenant said, but the Colonel grabbed his shoulder.
“We can rebuild the machines,” Bondarenko said urgently, “but we cannot rebuild the scientists. We’re going to get to the apartment building and hold that until relieved. Send a good sergeant to the bachelor quarters and get them to the apartments.”
“No, Comrade Colonel! My orders are to protect the lasers, and I must—”
“I am ordering you to get your men—”
“No!” the Lieutenant screamed back at him.
Bondarenko knocked him down, took his rifle, flipped off the safety, and fired two rounds into his chest. He turned. “Who’s the best sergeant?”
“I am, Colonel,” a young man said shakily.
“I am Colonel Bondarenko, and I am in command!” the officer announced as forcefully as a command from God. “You take four men, get to the bachelor barracks, and bring everyone up the hill to the apartment building. Fast as you can!” The sergeant pointed to four others and ran off. “The rest of you, follow me!” He led them into the falling snow. There wasn’t time for him or them to wonder what awaited. Before they’d gone ten meters, every light in the camp went out.
At the gate of the laser site a GAZ jeep sat, with a heavy machine gun aboard. General Pokryshkin ran from the control building when he heard the explosions, and was stunned to see that only blazing stumps remained of his three guard towers. The commander of the KGB detachment raced down to him on his vehicle.
“We’re under attack,” the officer said unnecessarily, “Get your men together—right here.” Pokryshkin looked up to see running men. They were dressed in Soviet uniforms, but somehow he knew that they were not Russians. The General climbed into the back of the jeep and brought the machine gun around over the head of the astonished KGB officer. The first time he pressed the trigger nothing happened, and he had to ratchet a round into the chamber. The second time, Pokryshkin had the satisfaction of watching three men fall. The guard force commander needed no further encouragement. He barked rapid orders into his radio. The battle under way degenerated at once into confusion, as it had to— both sides were wearing identical uniforms and using identical weapons. But there were more Afghans than Russians.
Morozov and several of his unmarried friends had stepped outside when they heard the noise. Most of them had military experience, though he did not. It didn’t matter—nobody had the first idea what they should do. Five men came running out of the darkness. They were wearing uniforms and carrying rifles.
“Come! All of you come, follow us!” More weapons started firing close by, and two of the KGB troops went down, one dead, one wounded. He fired back, emptying his rifle in one long burst. There was a scream in the darkness, followed by shouts. Morozov ran inside and called for people to make for the door. The engineers needed little prompting.
“Up the hill,” the sergeant said. “To the apartment block. Fast as you can!” The four KGB troops waved them along, looking for targets, but seeing only flashes. Bullets were flying everywhere now. Another of the troops went down screaming out his last breath, but the sergeant got the one who killed him. When the last engineer left the room, he and a private grabbed the spare rifles and helped their comrade back up the hill.
It was too big a mission for eighty men, the Archer realized too late. Too much ground to cover, too many buildings, but there were many unbelievers running around, and that was why he’d brought his men here. He watched one of them explode a bus with an RPG-7 antitank round. It burst into flames and slid off the road, rolling down the side of the mountain while those inside screamed. Teams of men with explosives went into the buildings. They found machine tools bathed in oil and set their charges quickly, running out before the explosions could begin the fires. The Archer had realized a minute too late which building was the guard barracks, and now that was ablaze as he led his section in to mop up the men who’d been kept there. He was too late, but didn’t know it yet. A stray mortar round had cut the power line that handled all of the site’s lighting, and all of his men were robbed of their night vision by the flashes of their own weapons.
“Well done, Sergeant!” Bondarenko told the boy. He’d already ordered the engineers upstairs. “We’ll set our perimeter around the building. They may force us back. If so, we’ll make our stand on the first floor. The walls are concrete. RPGs can hurt us, but the roof and walls will stop bullets. Pick one man to go inside and find men with military experience. Give them those two rifles. Whenever a man goes down, retrieve his weapon and get it to someone who knows how to use it. I’m going inside for a moment to see if I can get a telephone to work—”
“There’s a radiotelephone in the first-floor office,” the sergeant said. “All the buildings have them.”
“Good! Hold the perimeter, Sergeant. I’ll be back to you in two minutes.” Bondarenko ran inside. The radiotelephone was hanging on a wall hook, and he was relieved to see it was a military type, powered by its own battery. The Colonel shouldered it and ran back outside.
The attackers—who were they? he wondered—had planned their attack poorly. First they had failed to identify the KGB barracks before launching their assault; second, they hadn’t hit the residential area as quickly as they should have. They were moving in now, but they found a line of Border Guards lying in the snow. They were only KGB troops, Bondarenko knew, but they did have basic training, and most of all they knew that there was no place to run. That young sergeant was a good one, he saw. He moved from point to point along the perimeter, not using his weapon but encouraging the men and telling them what to do. The Colonel activated the radio.
“This is Colonel G. I. Bondarenko at Project Bright Star. We are under attack. I repeat, Bright Star is under attack. Any unit on this net respond at once, over.”
“Gennady. this is Pokryshkin at the laser site. We’re in the control building. What is your situation?”
“I’m at the apartments. I have all the civilians we could find inside. I have forty men, and we’re going to try to hold this place. What about help?”
“I’m trying. Gennady, we cannot get you any help from here. Can you hold?”
“Ask me in twenty minutes.”
“Protect my people, Colonel. Protect my people!” Pokryshkin shouted into the microphone.
“To the death, Comrade General. Out.” Bondarenko kept the radio on his back and hefted his rifle. “Sergeant!”
“Here, Colonel!” The young man appeared. “They’re probing now, not really attacking yet—”
“Looking for weaknesses.” Bondarenko got back down to his knees. The air seemed alive with gunfire, but it was not yet concentrated. Above and behind the two, windows were shattering. Bullets pounded into the pre-cast concrete sections that formed the building wall, spraying everyone outside with chips. “Position yourself at the corner opposite this one. You’ll command the north and east walls. I’ll handle these two. Tell your men to fire only when they have targets—”
“Already done, Comrade.”
“Good!” Bondarenko punched the young man on the shoulder. “Don’t fall back until you have to, but tell me if you do. The people in this building are priceless assets. They must survive. Go!” The Colonel watched the sergeant run off. Perhaps the KGB did train some of its people. He ran to this corner of the building.