Operation Whiteraft

2:03AM, GMT+1
APRIL 13TH, 2002
10 MILES OUTSIDE OF WETZLAR
HESSE, GERMANY

The operation had come and gone fluidly. It was a simple in-and-out reconnaissance check; of course, the official dissolution of the Red Army had been almost three full years ago now, but only a real moron believed the so-called "official" truth of it, anyway. There were rumours of splinter cells in a small satellite-designated hamlet ten miles outside of Wetzlar; they left from the GSG headquarters in Sankt Augustin at 2100 hours sharp; landed in the designated LZ outside of Wetzlar at 2134 hours; and then from there, continued for a mile to the designated objective zone.

Upon arrival the hamlet had been completely empty; several weapons caches and important documents had been dotted around, and whilst looking as if they'd been ransacked, the houses were dead for human contact. Five of them - and none occupied in the slightest, though it looked as if their escape had been recent. At 2332 hours, after collecting documents, their team leader, Fw (Feldwebel) Gardner, had announced their departure, though to stay on their guard. And it was when they returned to the landing zone about midnight, waiting for their ride home, that the GSG-9 squad let their guard down.

There were six men. Uffz Ruger was the designated marksman; Fw Gardner the team leader; StGefr Abeln was a technical specialist, and Furst of the same rank was the close-quarters point man. That left HptGefr Holzer, the combat medic, and Gefr Janz, the newbie. Without any warning, the circle of hay bales surrounding their landing zone exploded with the chatter of gunfire, and from within emerged an eleven-man troop of ex-RAF members, each clutching either pistols or badly-maintained sub-machine guns, assault rifles; anything.

In the crossfire both Adeln and Holz fell to the storm of rounds; Gardner, Ruger, and Janz escaped to take cover behind the furthest bale unscathed, and though Holzer had taken a round through his thigh, with the assistance of his companions, he had managed to have been hauled to safety as the four of them sat there, the rookie hyperventilating, and their team leader tending to the medic's wound - ironically, which left him. Damon Tomasz Ruger. The sniper.

With his single-shot Gewehr 36 rifle kitted out with a PSO-1 telescopic sight, Damon inhaled deeply and threw himself around the corner, sight first snapping to the first shoddily-armoured target he could see. His hands tightened in a steely grip around the rifle's forward stock, and his finger squeezed down on the trigger; with a tremendous spurt of crimson, and a shot of pink mist from the back, the first target went down.

Having not expected return fire due to their casualties, the ex-RAF splinter cell members fumbled for their weapons - the Eagle Eye swung his rifle to the left and peppered the next two rifle-clutching insurgents that fell in his sights with two rounds apiece, felling them deftly, before he lugged the rifle and his head back behind the hay bale to look to his team. The team leader had given the duty of dealing with the wound to the rookie, and instead deemed it appropriate to retrieve his transmitter and begin howling down it, over and over, over and over. "We need evacuation, NOW! We have wounded!"

And no matter how the promises came from command, no matter how much Damon hoped to hear Ride of the Valkyries chime out and a fleet of Hueys emerge from over the hill as they had in Vietnam, they didn't. Perhaps this was the moment that the sniper truly gave up hoping - and instead begun doing. Until that single loaned Hind D arrived in the next promised ten minutes to get them out of here, they were on their own. Behind light and useless cover, dodging rounds as they spiraled over their head; at first the ex-RAF troop hadn't thought the GSG-9 were going to return fire, and simply thought they'd relent...

...how wrong they were.

2:14AM, GMT+1
APRIL 13TH, 2002
10 MILES OUTSIDE OF WETZLAR
HESSE, GERMANY

Nine remained - and the rookie, Janz, was still holding down pressure on the thigh wound that the medic, Holzer, had sustained. It was close to the man's femoral artery; and the warm blood had been seeping out and over the young man's fingers for what felt like an eon now. Crouched opposite and almost symmetrical to him on the other side was Gardner, who had ceased hassling the overwatch for their tardy evacuation, instead clutching a Gewehr 36 carbine of his own.

A storm of lead either sheared through the air over their heads or though the hay bale proper, perforating it with tiny rays of clear, unblemished moonlight from overhead, each new shot on-target opening up another disc of lunar illumination to shine over the bloody and tainted men who were slumped there, frantically, both hyperventilating - whereas the two that remained on their flanks, irrespective of what an electrocardiogram might have said, had kept a cool head all the way through.

It was safe to say that the continuous fire placed on them was relentless; and gave them no time to even fire blindly without risking sustaining a wound. Though soldiers of the GSG-9 were relentless: they were also mechanical, and did their best to patiently bide their time until a window opened - the ex-RAF troops could not have an unlimited stock of ammunition. Sooner or later there came a halt in the fire. And looking to Gardner's signal, the pair of marksmen silently nodded at each other, and pulled themselves around the bale, opening fire on their adversaries once more.

But as they took shot after shot, reducing the numbers of the men who seemed only to crouch there, not fiddling with the magazine wells of their poorly-maintained Kalashnikovs, the same analogous thought rang through the minds of both Fw Gardner and Uffz Ruger. What were they doing? And it was only when the pair of GSG-9 members paused to reload and heard the clink of grenade pins falling against the cold, hard April ground, the roll of the cylinders themselves down and thudding oh-so-lightly into the front of the bale that they realised that all Hell was about to break loose in their landing zone.

It was another four kills that the team's leader and sniper had chalked up in that short burst, pushing the remainder of the ambush troop down only to five - but they paid a terrible price for it. The intermingling of three, maybe four separate tickings; that sudden, terrible locking of the pair's stares in recognition - the realisation that there was no time to save the kid or the medic lest they end up burnt to a crisp and absolutely eviscerated, ground into a sizzling, bloody mulch of shredded viscera... the call came at the bellowing top of Damon Tomasz Ruger's lungs.


He and Gardner threw themselves out into cover each with a formidable leap - and as the rounds continued to shred through the air above them, they managed only to clear the zone of the blast before it happened: a great pillar of flame that forced a storm of hay and shrapnel outwards, the grenade's casing flying out like tiny daggers launched with speed unparalleled by that of any archer or acrobat. The heat rushed over Damon, the hay and grit scattered over his back - the dirt and earth was thrown up in a brief cloud that let him clamber and scramble, ears still ringing, back into cover, just as Gardner did opposite: but they'd paid the price.

Holzer and Janz were dead.

2:21AM, GMT+1
APRIL 13TH, 2002
10 MILES OUTSIDE OF WETZLAR
HESSE, GERMANY

Five of them were left against the two remaining members of Jaeger Riege. Hunter Team - that was their designation. And of the six hunters, two stood. It was less than twenty minutes; they'd suffered four casualties. Four of the best damn men that Gardner and Ruger had ever seen fight. Four of the corps' finest marksmen who had ascended out of their own painstaking prowess and training to GSG-9. Four men with wives. Children. Families. Four men felled by these Red Army scum.

Damon could not see his team leader - the pair of them now took cover behind hay bales opposite and tilted away - but evac was arriving soon, and it would take even longer if the landing zone was still crawling with hostile troops. Raising his rifle and loading in a fresh clip, tucking the last away into a pouch, the marksman took one, final deep breath. This was it. Make or break. He could go out there and face a storm of shoddily-maintained hand-loaded 7.62mm rounds. Or he could go out there and succeed.

Five men meant five bullets to a real sniper; but today he had a battle rifle. Pulling the Gewehr up into his shoulder and spinning around, he drew in breath sharply and double-tapped the first who spun to greet him in the chest, and pulling up to shoot the pistol-wielding comrade on his left in the neck, with a grandiose spray of crimson and a choking splutter. The other three all turned on him; one with a hunting rifle, one with a double-barreled shotgun, and the last with an Uzi - he could see, even from there, in their eyes. The tenacity. The hatred. The determination. These men may have been under-trained. But they were going to kill him.

A sharp whistle rang from the left. "OVER HERE YOU BASTARDS!" And Damon could only watch as it unfolded; Gardner stood there cradling the rifle of his own - drawing attention only on himself - and opened fire on the first of them with the shotgun, peppering his torso with rounds. But the troop holding the hunting rifle fired a single .300 Winchester round, revolving through the air until it met Fw Gardner's forehead, half an inch above his right eye, and all too quickly turned the back of his head into an exit wound.

There was time to mourn and to grieve later, and time to thank Gardner's spirit for saving his life: but now was the time to act. Bringing up the rifle, two more shots rang out and the last two troops were left with the gentle April breeze whistling through fresh holes in their head before they could so much as consider pulling their own respective triggers. And then... suddenly, the place was empty. It was just Damon. Damon Tomasz Ruger. And a field full of corpses.

5:32AM, GMT+1
APRIL 13TH, 2002
DEBRIEFING ROOM
GSG-9 HEADQUARTERS
SANKT AUGUSTIN
GERMANY

The entire affair had moved so fast. It had been 0230 before the Hind they'd rented from the Spetsnaz touched down in the bloody field outside Wetzlar, with the lone GSG-9 agent sat there slumped against a bullet-riddled hay bale, waiting patiently for his evac to arrive. The chopper's rotors sheared through the air with vigour as the Oberst ran through, beret and all, in his own camouflage fatigues, shouting through the air. "UNTEROFFIZIER RUGER! WHERE IS YOUR TEAM LEADER?"

Damon scrabbled to his feet, the Gewehr hanging on a sling on his shoulder swinging idly in the air. "Dead, Oberst Schmidt." He replied matter-of-factly, though the weariness in his voice was very much evident. "They ambushed us. The entire team is gone." And to utter a sentiment that would apply to him for years then to come, the marksman continued. "I'm the only one left."

The debrief had begun as soon as they touched down back in Sankt Augustin: Damon explained the entire affair as if it were textbook. Though he mourned for his dead friends, there was nothing to be done about it now - some had fallen before his eyes in other Gruppe operations. Death was a part of this life that he'd come to expect a time ago. But what he hasn't come to expect was this: all drained from the room bar Oberst Schmidt, who spoke very briefly and very gravely. "There is a man here to see you, Unteroffizier Ruger." With that, he got to his feet and left - opening the door for a huge tank of a man to step in.

"Unteroffizier Ruger." Came the voice belonging to this titan, almost a full seven feet tall. "I am Knight-Commandant Darius Magnus. You will not know the people I work for." Damon blinked stoically and waited as he skirted around the room and pulled the blinds shut, before returning to the door, closing it with a click, and slapping a dossier on the folder. "The file my superiors have on you is an impressive summary of your accolades." The GSG-9 agent nodded slowly, still silent. "Three years in the Federal Police. And now another four working for GSG-9, with two training between."

Magnus took a seat. "Your reputation does precede you, Unteroffizier Ruger. You are a talented and capable marksman, and you take after your father in the old SEK. And you've taken only nine years to put yourself on our radar, when it takes most state police candidates at least fifteen." Damon was confused. What... what was this man talking about? But his idle flipping through page upon page of classified documents that should have had the black strip of censorship through - yet were completely accessible - ceased as he slammed the hefty dossier shut. "But that's not what I'm here to talk about."

Damon arched an eyebrow again as Magnus continued, the British accent heavy in his voice, but a faint... middle-eastern tone there still noticeable. "There's a threat out there that's bigger than you can imagine. A threat that I and the people I work for have devoted our entire livelihoods to suppressing the existence of." Leaning forwards, his voice lowered to little more than an emphasised whisper. "And we want your help." Naturally... "I can't tell you any more until you join. But... are you interested?"

Now - it was Damon Tomasz Ruger's turn to speak. And he only had one question.

"Do I get to pick my own gear?"