KOSOVO 1999

“Hold!” Sergeant Billings voice crackled through my earpiece embedded in my tactical helmet. The farmhouse door was beginning to open not five meters from me, and I froze, fist held up to stop the line of soldiers behind me. I then chopped left and right so they all would make for cover.

The black Nomex fatigues we wore, with Kevlar protection would help us blend into the shadows, but the light spilling out from the doorway stretched out in an arc as the door traversed its usual trajectory. I would be exposed within seconds. I cramped down onto my belly, flipping my night vision up to prevent being blinded by the light.

I found myself lying in a gutter running along the edge of the house, damp, but no water in the channel. Becoming one with the wall and floor, legs and body stretched in the gutter before the light could reach me. I scrunched my eyes to protect from the glare.

Reacting as fast as I could, while staying silent, hoping the other three members of my team had found cover themselves. I froze in this prone position, Heckler & Koch HK MP5SD Suppressed Submachine Gun held to cover the door we were supposed to breach. If any of us were discovered, we would have to go in hot, guns blazing. That would not be good for the hostages inside.

I tapped a double squelch across the radio waves. Superfluous acknowledgement, because the Sergeant would be able to see we had already complied with his warning. His sniper nest perfectly positioned to cover the entire back structure of the farmhouse.

I held my breath, waiting for the swinging door to come to a halt.

“One dog, two Tangos!” Sergeant Billings updated us over the net, indicating what he could see from his vantage. Again I tapped a double squelch to acknowledge. This was bad. The dog would notice me if they turned right. If they went left, I had a chance to remain undiscovered.

A moment later the dog whined, then nails scrabbling on the kitchen tiles, pulled on the leash in its attempt to rush out the door. It was a German Shepard. I had to keep dead still.

Being point, I was the closest to the danger. The fact that the dog didn’t start barking immediately meant my team had all found adequate cover. Probably they had managed to get behind the corner of the building we had just vacated, as we approached the door for staging, before we commenced with Phase one.

I hadn’t heard a sound from them. Good people my team.

The Serbian soldier began talking to the dog. A placating tone. The Tango behind grumbled at the handler from within the house. His annoyed attitude gave me the impression he did not want them going out.

So, not a patrol, he was just taking the dog for a walk. It was a trained dog, but even so, the handler was taking no chances and using a leash. Not surprising considering the number of anti-personnel traps we had to disarm to get this close. A dog running around free outside had every chance of blowing itself up. An IED or claymore would leave very little for the dog handler to clean up.

They turned left. The dog pulling fervently. Clearly he had been cooped up inside for a long time. The urgency of his nature call making him inattentive. Lucky.

Another voice shouted from deep inside the house. A slurred voice. The Tango at the door replied and then leaned out to call the handler. It brought the straining man to a halt.

The dog tugged him harder and began to bark in excitement. It was certainly frustrated that it was being stalled so close to relief.The man turned at the waist, his Kalashnikov slung across his chest coming into my view, it had the folding butt and banana shaped magazine, with a second magazine duct-taped together upside down for easy reloading, his annoyed expression belied his reply.

He stopped mid-sentence. The widening of his eyes told me all I needed to know.

I squeezed the trigger twice and his face crumpled into itself, the double tap from my suppressed SMG making muffled hammer blows as the bolt worked and the hollow point projectiles coughed from my silenced barrel.

“Tango down.” My impassive voice echoed across the radio waves. A slight adjustment and another squeeze while I moved my body to take a knee from my prone position. A bit risky shooting while moving, but we trained for it. The man leaning out the door collapsed dead too.

“Tango down!” My second message to the team autonomous and implacable.

“Go! go! go!” came Ron’s voice, the Team Alpha commander stacked at the front of the house. I couldn’t delay now, timing was everything. I reached for the flash bangs attached to my webbing on my weak hand side. My SSMG swinging from its sling.

My eyes never left the dog. Still leashed to the handler, who’s grip had gone slack as he spasmed in death throes.

It had been a second, three at the most and the dog was only now starting to react. It’s lips curled in anger to reveal the long ivory canines. It’s body hunched to launch itself in my direction. Two leaping strides and it would be upon me.

I observed and acted. Impassive. My hands grasping the flash-bangs and jerking the pins. Fast arms seeming to move like treacle to throw the flash-bangs into the kitchen door. We had to get to the hostages. I dismissed the threat the dog posed. Not because it wasn’t a danger to me, because that wasn’t the case at all. It was probably trained to kill. Sure my kit would probably obstruct the animal from being deadly, but for sure it could incapacitate me, damage my extremities, do any number of things to me before I could get it off. The simple truth was, I ignored it because of one thing only.

I had brought friends.

“Go Sniper!” My voice on the channel was sharp, filled with adrenaline. My attention focussed on what I was doing. I had a job to do. It was to get the flash-bangs into the kitchen before we breached and nothing was going to stop me. Absently in the periphery of my vision I noticed a flash on the hillside. I also noticed the dog getting bigger and bigger, closer and closer. It would be a tight thing. My three teammates would be forming up behind me, would one of them be able to take out the dog while I was engaged?

My one hand pulled the pins and my other hand swung the two cylinders, the trigger mechanisms plinking off to the side as the flash-bang grenades arced through the air.

The dog leapt, it was going to hit me full tilt. The flash and ringing sound of an explosion right besides me answered my questions. Trooper Jerry had the Remington 870. Primarily a shotgun used to take hinges off doors. Fortunately in this case it proved equally good at decimating attacking dogs.

At the same time Jerry fired his weapon, the dog flinched mid-air as it was hit in the chest by the sniper bullet. A hole the size of my fist through its once beating heart. I braced to accept the impact.

The Remington shot would have missed if it was any other type of weapon, but as it was, it caught the now deceased creature mid-flight in its deadly arc of slugs and literally minced 50kg’s of dog meat. The shower of tenderised entrails, bone, muscle and dog fur mildly distracting for me as explosions rocked the farmhouse at the front entrance. Team one had inserted.

I did not stop what I was doing and just managed to swing the door to jam semi-ajar against Tango two’s corpse. My own flash bangs went off, blinding flashes and concussion waves pounded against me, the deflagration designed to incapacitate and stun rather than kill.

The partly-closed door protected us from most of its debilitating effects. I then swung it open, while hitching my weapon to a ready pose and penetrated into the kitchen, going immediately left, checking the corner.

Jerry by this time had his hand on my shoulder and then he peeled off right. Three and Four infiltrated past us to continue the sweep into the house. We had to get to those hostages.

It was dangerous doing a front and back insertion like this, with possible friendly fire a big factor. That being said, my teams primary focus was to get to the basement where the hostages were. Team one’s job was to clear the ground floor and then move to take the second floor. A third team of four men would be abseiling onto the roof from a heli, if the snipers had managed to take out all the peripheral guards that we hadn’t handled already.

Despite the disruption at the outset of our infiltration, things seemed to be going smoothly. I kept hearing ‘Tango down’ over the net and there had been no return fire as of yet. Our 3am attack had caught them with their pants down.

I reached the stairs leading down to the basement, a reinforced door at the bottom, opening into the basement space, away from us.

We stacked up. Jerry went forward, having reloaded his Remington. This was it. The time to shine. Everything until now had just been a warmup. Intel had no idea about the layout down below, and according to informants, it had at least five rooms off a central passage. Informants were notoriously unreliable though and often said what would get them the most money.

I paused, then nodded. Jerry fired at the first hinge, blowing a hole where it used to be. Some shrapnel hit my arms and legs, my helmet too. I flinched. Jerry fired again at the second hinge, then fired at the lock. I hoped fervently that the slugs would not bounce around killing the hostages.

Then I stepped forward and kicked the door. Without hinges or functioning lock it fell forward face-planting beyond. It’s reinforced weight slamming down with a resounding boom! just short of the passage wall. The wide passage ran perpendicular left and right.

The plink tinkle as two more flash bangs arced past me, each one bouncing down to either side of the door cause me to crouch down and squeeze my eyes shut, mouth slightly ajar. The concussive force could blow eardrums and the light would ruin my eyesight if I didn’t brace for it.

Boom! Boom!

They went off almost at the same time and the force rocked all four of us back. What it would do to those unprepared within would be anything from a mild stun to complete incapacitation.

It was dark down here, the power already cut, and I flicked my head forward to let the night vision gear fall into place. Everything suddenly washed in a green ambiance.

“Three, four, you go left, Two, you with me.” We entered the passage and began to clear rooms. It wasn’t a four or five room space. This was a friggin tunnel complex. At least ten rooms lead off the passage to either side.

It was at this point in the mission when things started to get weird.

A male nurse walked out of the first room. Fearful and hesitant.

“Ruke gore!” I shouted, the only Serbian I knew. That his hands flew up meant he understood me well enough. I didn’t know how to tell him to get on the ground, but I had a way to show him. It wasn’t gentle. He wasn’t one of the hostages and that meant he was potential enemy. Never take chances.

Number Two cuffed him as I kept cover. He used thumb locks, hands braced behind the nurses back. Cable ties were used, and another set around ankles and then knees, and finally the ankles were tethered to the wrists as he lay on his belly.

Trussed up and immobile, he wasn’t going anywhere. His eyes by this time were as big as saucers. He was trying to saying something, but neither of us spoke the language, so we gagged him and placed a hood over his head. Incapacitated, we left him and continued.

Room one where the man had exited was a smoke break room or tea room. A place where people went to unwind. Magazines piled on the table. Old Playboys, Hustler and several with Balkan Cyrillic text splashed across nude women on the covers, some in the throes of ecstasy, or enticing poses. The room was more like a sleazy teenager basement than a prison for hostages.

At the second door we hit pay-dirt. Five men, all military age stood sullenly. Naked and cuffed to pipes along either side wall. It had a gutter running down the center that acted as a latrine.

The smell was like a physical presence. The state of the men at first glance and in the green glow of my night vision was awful and their blank expressions left me thinking they had given up the ghost already. My infrared target acquisition laser showed the room to be five meters deep. These fellows weren’t going anywhere. I closed the door. and joined Two as we proceeded to the next door.

Door three was were our hostages were. Similarly bound, the women and children stood or crouched. Huddling in fear. Our loud entrance had woken them from their slumber, although how they could sleep while cuffed to the pipes was beyond me. It was a sickening sight and as much as I wanted to help them, I had to remain focussed on the job.

Clear first, then we could see to the naked forms of the hostages. I closed the door and continued on.

Each room presented more of a mystery. There were no more people, but the next few rooms were like operating theatres and recovery rooms. One bed had a patient, but the patient was beyond our help. He had incisions on his belly and despite the drip attached to his arm, the heart monitor had a flat line. Perhaps our rude entrance had caused his demise, I didn’t know, but what was obvious was that he had passed very recently. The ominous drone of the monitor just went on and on. The medical device that monitored his vitals was working on batteries, because we had cut the power upon entry.

Two looked at me and moved the sheet to cover the corpse. We went back out and finished clearing the other rooms. The last room was a refrigerator unit. The hiss as we opened it and the stream of cold air that fanned out showed row upon row of organs. It was a macabre scene and one I would sooner forget. Hearts, Livers, kidneys and possibly lungs were all being kept on ice.

I was starting to get a picture of what was going on, and exactly what kind of farm this was. My grim visage reflected my mixed up emotions and Two’s eyes had that cold glint of rage dancing behind them. We scampered back to the basement insertion point.

Awaiting the other teams all clear signal. We found the nurse dead. Somehow he had managed to imbibe something poisonous. Three and Four had cleared the gag and bonds and were trying to do CPR, but the froth coming from his mouth had a peculiar odour and after a minute I pulled them off. He was gone.

“Sitrep Bravo Leader?” said the OIC on the command channel.

“Two Tango’s and a K9 down on insertion phase one.” I paused, then continued, “Phase two, basement clear. Hostages found and secure. Seventeen additional unidentified. Two deceased. Recommend we bring in the ‘terp.” I updated the Major in control of our mission and requested the interpreter to be brought in. We needed to know what the hell was going on down here.