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The soldier lay prone on a sandy hill overlooking a Soviet encampment. Were it not for the dry brush covering him, as well as the low-visibility tiger-stripe fatigues he wore, the light of the clear Afghanistan night would almost certainly expose him to the soldiers that patrolled below. As it stood, however, the only indication he was there at all was the minute glint of reflective glass from the pair of binoculars pressed to his eyes.
The camp below stood on the edge of a dirt road which wound upwards into the mountains. On his side of the road, the ground curved up into the hill he lay on, but the other side was a sheer drop. There would be no escape that way. If he were to fail in his mission, his only option would be to retreat uphill with no cover, exposed to plenty of gunfire. He didn’t like his odds should he fail, and that necessitated a flawless execution.
The man swept the binoculars over the camp in a practiced, systematic manner, checking its perimeter and beyond before moving into the heart of the camp itself. Surprisingly, he only saw one soldier on perimeter guard duty. This he chalked up to the camp’s proximity to a Soviet staging area just a few miles uphill. Attacking a lone encampment was easy enough, but doing so with the prospect of a near-immediate armored response was enough to cause even the most seasoned of soldiers pause.
“One, two, three, four, five,” he muttered, the words made visible as his breath crystallized in the cold desert air, then faded. There were five soldiers in total. Counting aloud, while a risky move in a solo op like this, allowed his count to be precise, to ensure he wasn’t counting the same soldier twice. Numbers were important in this game of subterfuge and evasion. A lack of attention could cost him his life.
Finally, his eyes settled on what he was looking for: a dark red shipping container that sat beside the road. His eyes settled on the airlift harness still wrapped around it. In spite of all of his unit’s successes, they still hadn’t bothered to remove the harnesses. His hand wrapped around a modified explosive detonator clipped to his web gear. If everything went smoothly, he had a perfect extraction already lined up. The man flicked a switch on the detonator, and a red light atop its grip flickered on once, then faded. The device was armed. Another press would trigger the release of a fast-filling balloon and tether from the otherwise unassuming olive drab kit he carried at his waist- a portable Fulton Recovery Device. Within moments, modified UH-60 Blackhawk loitering nearby would swoop down and carry him free. With the right timing, a few good distractions, and a fair amount of luck, the man would be in and out before anyone could fire a single shot.
Satisfied, he tucked the binoculars away, securing them firmly inside a pouch on his vest. Checking once more to ensure he wasn’t being watched, he shimmied free of his cover and wormed his way slowly down the hill toward the camp, the moonlight finally revealing the tall, scruffy-looking intruder.
Getting to the perimeter was remarkably easy. None of the soldiers, even those actively engaged in guard duty, seemed particularly interested in doing anything but getting a small fire going. The man found that he wasn’t surprised. He’d been one of them almost a year ago, forced to fight in a strange land for a cause he wasn’t certain he even understood, let alone believed in. Things were different now. There were larger battles to fight, wars that transcended politics and state lines, and a man to follow, one with a cause worth fighting for; the same man that had given him the codename printed on the tags he carried around his neck: Grizzly Bear.
And this was why he found himself in Afghanistan tonight, skulking around a camp belonging to his former allies with every intent to steal from them. Running operations for Big Boss’s Diamond Dogs cost resources, after all, and what better way to acquire them than by stealing from the enemy? No paper trails, no additional expenditures. It was the perfect solution.
As he crawled up against one of the tents, Grizzly slowly transitioned to a crouching stance, at the same time drawing a suppressed nine millimeter pistol from the holster on his hip. He had no plans to kill anyone tonight. Bodies were one thing, but leaving behind survivors, men who claimed phantoms had stolen off with their well-protected equipment, that was something else entirely. Better to be feared than thought of as just another gunman.
Cautiously he peered around the edge of the tent. Four of the soldiers had succeeded in starting the fire, and were now gathered around it, rolling cigarettes and cooking whatever food they had. The fifth stood by the road’s edge, his back to the camp. Not one eye was upon him. Keeping low, Grizzly darted from one tent to the next, mindful of his footfalls. Even if they couldn’t see him, a misplaced step could betray his position in an instant.
Again, Grizzly peered around the tent to keep an eye on the men by the fire, but this time he drew back sharply, careful not to make a sound. One of the soldiers was headed his way, and while it seemed he hadn’t noticed anything, his rifle was with him. Grizzly listened carefully to his footsteps, hoping he was just headed for the tent, but the steady beat of the Soviet’s boots carried on past the edge of the camp. He would be on him in moments. Acting quickly, Grizzly grabbed a cluster of loose stones and threw them in a tall arc towards the hill he’d just slid down. They hit, rolling to a halt at the camp’s edge, and immediately he could hear the clattering of metal as the soldiers readied their weapons. This was followed by a moment of eerie silence. Grizzly imagined the tension, imagined the soldiers all trained on the source of the noise, ready to engage. Finally, someone spoke up.
“Feliks! Go check that out.”
“Why me?” he heard the soldier closest to him call back.
“Because your ass is already up. Get over there!”
There was something familiar about the voice ordering Feliks around, but Grizzly didn’t dwell on it. Instead, he waited for Feliks’s response. There was a dejected sigh, a muttered curse, and soon the footsteps changed direction, heading for the hill. Grizzly felt the muscles in his chest loosen, and he allowed himself to breathe, albeit still remaining alert. When he was satisfied that the soldier was gone, he allowed himself one more look into the camp. All of the others, the perimeter guard included, were now focused on the hill. His eyes darted to the container. Only one tent stood between him and it- a command tent, open on both sides- the perfect cover. Without taking his eyes off of the soldiers, he crossed the gap quicky, ducking inside. Much to his relief, no one seemed to notice.
From cover, Grizzly once more considered his options. He would have to work quickly, but as long as the soldiers outside remained by the fire, he could duck in and out of the tent as needed. He’d need less than a minute to secure the Fulton kit, but he had plenty of cover to take his time, if he needed to. Mentally, he ran through his plan: secure the kit, take cover, deploy the balloon from inside the tent, and grab on just before the recovery was initiated. Easy. He’d done similar extractions before.
“Hey, I found something!”
The voice of Feliks shattered the tense silence and Grizzly froze, listening carefully. Within seconds he heard the sound of boots running towards the hill. More of the soldiers had gone to investigate. Seeing his chance, Grizzly slipped out of the tent and got to work, unhooking the kit from the rest of his gear and fastening it tightly to the airlift harness.
“Tracks!” he heard another voice call out, “spread out and search the camp. We have an intruder.”
Grizzly’s pulse quickened. He had almost secured the device, but he knew the Soviets’ eyes would be on the camp now, scanning for any hint of movement. He readied his sidearm, pressing himself against the cold, metal hull of the container. Within moments he could see the shadows of the soldiers as they passed by the fire, beginning their search. One was headed for the container, no doubt already aware of the numerous container thefts that had occurred over the last few months already. Grizzly backed away, towards the command tent, slowly reverting to a combat stance. The soldier would almost certainly see the Fulton kit, but if he could silence him before he had the chance to hail the rest of his comrades, he still had a chance. As for the attack itself, he was certain of the outcome. His nickname hadn’t been chosen on a whim.
He watched as the tip of the soldier’s Kalashnikov poked around the corner of the tent, his eyes, unblinking, locked on where he knew the soldier would emerge next, waiting for the moment to pounce.
A crunch of gravel snapped him from his combat-trance and Grizzly whirled around toward the source moments before the hard butt of a rifle impacted the side of his head. There was a bright, phosphorescent flash, and then the moon and stars went out. He never even felt his body hit the ground.
…
The next sensation Grizzly felt was a dull sting on the side of his face. It felt as if someone was placing a hot iron on his cheek, albeit one covered by a thick layer of felt. A sound cut through the murk, muffled, like he was listening to someone talk underwater. He tried to focus on it, to understand what it was saying, but as soon as he did, the pain in his cheek grew in intensity. He kept trying, kept pushing in spite of the pain, and soon he heard what the voice was saying.
“Viktor!”
Grizzly didn’t open his eyes. He knew that name, but he had greater concerns to deal with at the moment. The pain became suddenly apparent. He didn’t have the strength to flinch, instead working his tongue over the inside of his cheek. The area felt raw and swollen.
“Viktor, you son of a bitch, get up! I can see you moving.”
Slowly, Grizzly cracked his eyes open. As his eyes adjusted, he could see that it was still nighttime. Four figures stood over him, backlit by the campfire, their Kalashnikovs fixed squarely on him.
“Don’t shoot,” he tried to croak, but only a groan escaped his lips. At this, the figure closest to him took a knee, and it was then that Grizzly knew why one of the voices had sounded so familiar. He knew this man, from his curly brown mop of a barely-regulation haircut down to the slightly-lazy eye he always tried to hide. He had served with him.
“M- Mikhail?” he managed to sputter. In response, a hand clapped his shoulder roughly. Grizzly’s world exploded in a flash of white hot pain, coupled with a loud ringing in his ears. He winced, but the figure was undeterred, grasping his hand firmly and pulling him into a tight bear hug. Grizzly relented, returning the gesture even as his forehead pounded.
“You son of a bitch,” Mikhail laughed as the two parted, “gone for six months, then I find you sneaking around in my tent. Where have you been? What’s with all of this?” He tugged at Grizzly’s uniform, at the patch on his shoulder.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Mikhail!” Grizzly laughed back, “out of all the camps I had to stumble on tonight, it just had to be yours… I tell you, I have quite the story for you.”
“Well you had better tell it,” one of the men standing beside Mikhail interjected. “Because sneaking around in the Starshina’s tent with a foreign uniform on after going AWOL is grounds for severe punishment.”
The mood in the camp, the temporary, artificial high spirits deflated in an instant as Grizzly was faced with the stark reminder of who he was, who these men were; his mission. Nevertheless, the smile never left his face.
“And so I will,” he replied, making his way over to the fire, nursing his swollen jaw, “and when I’m finished, perhaps you’ll think twice about pointing those guns at me. Either that, or you won’t hesitate to shoot.” He shrugged nonchalantly, “either way, I’m prepared.”
The four men took a seat by the fire. Out of the corner of his eye, Grizzly saw the fifth standing by the road, his back to them, his guard duty resumed.
“Smoke?”
Grizzly’s attention was brought swiftly back to the fire, to the soldiers who sat, Kalashnikovs at the ready, across from him, and to Mikhail’s outstretched hand holding a thin, white cylinder.
“Soviet?” Grizzly asked hesitantly. Mikhail shook his head.
“No, I never smoke that musor. I rolled these ones myself. Local.”
Mikhail watched as Grizzly eagerly took the cigarette, lighting it by the fire and taking a long drag. It was only then that he realized how tense the man had been. As he inhaled, his whole body seemed to slump. Knees, once bent like mousetraps, relaxed, fists unclenched, and even his eyes’ frequent, alert sweeps began to slow.
“Not bad,” Grizzly said, passing the items back to Mikhail, who stored them back in his rucksack.
“Of course,” Mikhail replied, passing his makeshift cigarettes around the fire, “they are mine, after all. But back to my question: where have you been? You’ve been AWOL for six months now. We all assumed you were dead, but obviously that’s not true, is it? Now you come stealing through our camp in the middle of the night wearing fatigues I’ve never seen before. What’s happened to you, Viktor?”
“Well first of all, ‘Viktor’ is not my name anymore,” Grizzly said, leaning closer to the fire. The temperature had dropped rapidly since his failed incursion, as it often did in the desert.
“It’s ‘Grizzly Bear.’”
The loud guffaws that came from Mikhail and the other soldiers were far from unexpected. He even smiled knowingly along with them. The whole premise of codenames had seemed childish to him as well when he first found the Diamond Dogs. Now he knew their purpose.
“Grizzly Bear?” Mikhail roared, barely able to contain himself, “Viktor, I don’t know what happened to you six months ago, but I’d bet good money something isn’t right up here.” He knocked on the side of his head to emphasize his point.
Grizzly retorted, “laugh all you want, but I’m saner than any man in this camp. I see everything differently now.”
“Do tell,” one of the other soldiers chortled, exhaling a cloud of nicotine-laced smoke in his direction, “you have our undivided attention.”
Grizzly smiled. “Surely you’ve heard of Big Boss.”
The laughter fell silent. Someone cleared his throat uncomfortably. Grizzly’s smile widened.
“Thought you might have. But that story’s pretty hard to swallow, isn’t it? A man who can disappear in the blink of an eye, best any man in single combat, and comes and goes through our territory as he pleases, like a ghost. Some might even call him a demon.”
The men nodded. For the first time, Grizzly noticed, he did have their full, undivided attention. Mention of the Boss had that effect on most people.
“Probably rumors though, right?” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “Well, I certainly thought so until that night six months ago, when my convoy was attacked.”
“The food shipment from Kabul,” Mikhail nodded thoughtfully, piecing together the events of that night for himself, “I remember. I was waiting for it at base camp, but it never arrived. We never found a trace.”
“That’s because the whole thing floated up into the sky.”
The men turned towards the road at the sound of the perimeter guard’s voice.
“Bullshit, Sergei!” someone called out to him, “you’re more gullible than my kid back home.”
“If that’s so, then how do you explain what they found? Why the tracks just stopped in the middle of the road? Why not one of those men, save for him—” he nodded to Grizzly and Grizzly nodded back appreciatively, “—has ever been accounted for?”
This seemed to shut the man up, and he turned his back, retrieving a flask from his boot and taking a brisk swig.
“So you were kidnapped by Big Boss, and decided to work for him?” Mikhail shook his head, “something doesn’t add up about this.”
Grizzly shifted himself towards the fire. Across from him the hand of one of the soldiers shot to the grip of his gun, hesitated, and then fell back. Within the Diamond Dog, a spring unfurled slowly, releasing its invisible tension as he continued his tale.
“I never wanted to be one of his Diamond Dogs,” he started slowly, “not at first, but I wasn’t going anywhere, either. I was their prisoner, after all, but they treated me well enough, so I tried my best to return the favor. I found myself on a triage line after a raid went south; after that, I think I earned his trust. It wasn’t until a ride-along on one of his many missions that he made me the offer…”
…
The Blackhawk bucked sharply as it crested a range of rocky hills. Below, a plume of oily black smoke rose from the shattered husk of what had once been a village. It was this scene of devastation that the helicopter circled, vulture-like, until finally descending, discharging its squad of four soldiers into the dry, late afternoon heat. Viktor Borom raised a hand to wave the flies from his face, but the gesture was futile. Each sweep of his hand only deterred them for an instant, and then they were back, landing on him, mopping up the sweat from his pores. Their hum, combined with the stench of smoke and decay, only served to increase his uneasiness, but the soldier on point— a man horribly disfigured by old shrapnel wounds and a missing eye— seemed unfazed.
No, he decided, “numb” was a better word for it.
They advanced slowly through the village, their American-made M-16 rifles raised at the ready. They were unchallenged. The Boss stopped by the ruins of what looked like a bazaar, gutted by an explosion. Viktor, his eyes conditioned by years of experience as a field medic, spotted the carnage immediately. Bodies blackened by fire and rot lay strewn about like a child’s collection of dolls. Part of an arm, lay not eight feet away, the body it once belonged to no longer in sight. One glance was all it took to know that they were too late; they were unlikely to find any survivors.
Nevertheless, this was the command issued to him by the Boss in his usual, gruff manner. While he and his two “official” Diamond Dogs moved into the bazaar, he made himself busy checking for signs of life. As expected, he found nothing but bodies, burnt-out buildings, and bullet holes adorning whatever chunks of cement and brick still stood. When the Boss returned, no more than five minutes later, he clapped a hand on Viktor’s shoulder, wordlessly indicating that he should follow. Above, he heard the roar of rotors as their helicopter descended.
The men began to board the chopper, but Viktor, confused, stopped Big Boss before he could board.
“Comrade,” he yelled, barely audible above the helicopter’s din, “I don’t understand. Why did you bring me here?”
The Boss didn’t answer, but Viktor thought he saw a flash of… something in his good eye. He turned and made a waving motion to the helicopter pilot with his arm. The pilot nodded, and the chopper took off, resuming its circular pattern. When it was gone, its noise diminished, the Boss beckoned for Viktor to follow, heading once again towards the village.
They moved slower now, less cautiously than before, and while Viktor kept his hand on his weapon, the Boss did not. Instead, he brought them back to the bazaar, where he knelt down by the corpse of a uniformed soldier. Viktor recognized the pattern and insignia. He had once been a Soviet.
“This man was one of your comrades,” the Boss spoke finally, his voice a low growl. He moved on, walking past overturned tables and debris until he found another man. This one had only a black t-shirt and wore a pair of torn BDU pants with black combat boots.
“And this one was an American.”
He stood, sweeping his eye about the scene of the disaster.
“And everyone else, Mujahideen or otherwise, were Afghanis. But they all had something in common.”
“What is that?” Viktor asked, uncertain whether to expect a lecture or a bullet to the head.
“They were all pawns in a game much larger than any of them could imagine. The Russian soldiers that died here will be hailed as heroes by their country. The Americans who armed the Mujahideen and offered their own expertise to fight them, will be respected by their peers. The man who detonated the bomb that stopped this little skirmish dead in its tracks will be forever remembered as a martyr by the people who follow what he believes. They’re all heroes, Viktor, heroes to the people who look up to them, but the people who look down on them? The ones they receive their orders from? They couldn’t care less.”
“It’s all a big pissing match,” Viktor gritted his teeth hard enough to scrape the inside of his cheek. The Boss’s words resonated with him, and he found his eyes straying towards the dead Soviet behind him.
“When you turned down my initial offer to join the Diamond Dogs, I couldn’t blame you. You were a loyal Soviet soldier, and we were a group of mercenaries. We still are. But the war we fight, the enemies we struggle against, are not the ones televised around the globe. I wanted to show you that, to show you why we fight against the systems that allow things like this to happen, before I made my offer a second time.”
Viktor was speechless. He had anticipated a second offer, but the fact that the Boss trusted him enough to talk alone with him— even if he knew Viktor didn’t stand a chance in single combat against him— was unparalleled. He found himself at the edge of a chasm; the Boss was an onlooker, promising a future worth living if only he would jump. He did not know what to say. Not immediately.
“And if I refuse your offer?”
“Then you walk away, return to your unit, and go on fighting.”
“You won’t kill me?”
“One day, perhaps, but not today.”
Grizzly took one last look around, taking in all of the lives, all of the stories cut short by one man’s desperate act to end the fighting. Years of training, a lifetime of loyalty, screamed at him not to take the offer, to return home to Russia and count himself lucky he was still alive. But he felt anger, anger at the ones to whom he once owed loyalty, and for the first time, he found he could no longer hold it back. He wanted to kill the ones responsible for this. How many times had he been told who the enemy was, and blindly obeyed? These new thoughts startled him, and for a moment he considered suppressing them, burying them deep as he realized he had done for most of his life.
Instead he extended his hand.
“Alright,” he said, hesitantly at first, but with growing conviction, “I’m in.”
Another hand met his, one that Viktor knew had choked the life out of many men better than he, and shook it.
“Welcome to the Diamond Dogs.”
…
Around the fire, the men had grown silent. They knew what he was talking about. In their eyes, Grizzly saw the reflections of the images he spoke of. They’d all seen them too, at one point or another: someone face-down in a ditch, a smoldering civilian car by the side of a road, children wandering helplessly, looking for parents that they knew they would never see again. But while the soldiers’ eyes were downcast, there was a certain gleam to his own, one that Mikhail seemed to pick up on.
“Are we enemies now then, Viktor?”
Grizzly nodded. “I suppose so.”
To his surprise, no one reacted to his answer. The rifles of the men remained at rest. Grizzly stood slowly, reaching down only to discover the pistol he carried was gone from its holster. The others watched him. Curious, he made his way over to the shipping crate. The harness he had attached was still there. He reached out a hand to touch it. No one moved to stop him. His other hand pressed the detonator affixed to his web gear. There was a sudden muffled explosion of air, and a balloon rose rapidly skyward. He looked back at the men. Two of them held their guns tightly, their expressions strained as if conflicted on whether or not to shoot him. It seemed as if everyone was waiting for someone else to take the shot. Far away, he could hear the steady chop-chop of rotor blades as he clung to the harness. Thirty seconds.
“Gun’s in my tent, on the cot.”
It was Mikhail who spoke. His words were treasonous, but no one moved to stop him. Grizzly unwound himself from the harness and entered the nearby tent, expecting to die the moment his back was turned. The gun was right where Mikhail said it was, and Grizzly placed it snugly back into his holster before returning, miraculously un-shot, to the crate. It only took a moment longer for the silence to finally break his professional veneer of stoicism.
“Why not come back with me?” he asked finally, “after everything I’ve told you, why stay when you can fight for something better?”
“Why would I?” Mikhail replied, “I don’t want to stay here. In three months, our deployment ends, and my war is over. But you? Yours will never end.”
This caused Grizzly to pause for a moment, pondering his former friend’s statement.
“You would rather live peacefully in a flawed world than fight for a perfect one?”
“We’re all fighting for a perfect world. Think about it, Viktor. There will always be someone new to fight. You can’t fight for peace when peace looks different to everyone on earth. There will always be a war for you.”
“Maybe,” he said, wrapping his leg around the steadily-rising tether, “but then again, maybe that’s the way it has to be.”
“Goodbye, Viktor.”
Grizzly swallowed hard, and nodded to his former friend.
“Goodbye, Mikhail.”
Above, there came a roar of blades, rotors beating and chopping the night air as the dark shape of the Blackhawk passed above him. Grizzly braced himself, and a moment later, there was a sudden, bone-shaking jerk, followed by the sensation of lifting. Then he was gone, borne aloft by another successful Fulton recovery. Tightening his grip, he looked back at the rapidly-disappearing campsite below, reflecting on his last words to Mikhail.
“Maybe that’s the way it has to be.”
And as the light of the fire faded to a speck, and then disappeared altogether, Grizzly wondered whether he truly meant it.