BooksBarbecue
Back War with Russia
Chapters (60)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Foreword
  4. Preface
  5. Prologue
  6. PART ONE
  7. Kharkiv, Ukraine
  8. The President’s weekly defense and foreign policy meeting, The Kremlin, Moscow
  9. Comprehensive Crisis Operations Management Center (CCOMC), Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), Belgium
  10. Briefing Room, Boryspill Air Force Base, Ukraine
  11. The Kremlin, Moscow
  12. Washington, D.C.
  13. Residence of DSACEUR La Belle Alliance, Erbisoeul, Belgium
  14. North Atlantic Council Conference Room, NATO Headquarters, Brussels
  15. Banks of River Daugava, Riga, Latvia
  16. Ādaži Training Camp, Latvia
  17. Riga, Latvia
  18. National Defense Control Center, Moscow
  19. Ādaži Training Camp, Latvia
  20. NATO Headquarters, Brussels
  21. National Armed Forces Joint HQ, Riga, Latvia
  22. Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), Mons, Belgium
  23. Central European Time 1600 hours, Eastern Standard Time, The White House, Washington, D.C.
  24. Lielvārde Air Base, Latvia
  25. Lielvārde Air Base, Latvia
  26. Camp David, Catoctin Mountains, Maryland
  27. British Embassy, 5, J.Alunana Street, Riga, Latvia
  28. The Russell Arms, Butler’s Cross, Buckinghamshire
  29. HMS Queen Elizabeth Middle Slip Jetty, HM Naval Base, Portsmouth
  30. National Defense Control Center, Moscow
  31. Comprehensive Crisis Operations Management Center (CCOMC) SHAPE headquarters, Mons, Belgium
  32. Somewhere in the forest, Gauja National Park, Latvia
  33. 10 Downing Street, Whitehall, London
  34. HMS Queen Elizabeth in the Baltic Sea
  35. Control Room, Kilo Class submarine Krasnokamensk, Baltic Sea
  36. PART TWO
  37. Prime Minister’s Office, House of Commons, London
  38. The Presidential Dacha Barvikha, Odintsovsky District of Moscow Oblast
  39. The White House, Washington, D.C.
  40. NATO Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium
  41. Gauja National Park Forest, Latvia
  42. PART THREE
  43. “The Tank,” Pentagon, Washington, D.C.
  44. North Atlantic Council NATO Headquarters, Brussels
  45. Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Cheltenham, England
  46. GCHQ, Cheltenham, England
  47. Forest south of Pravdinsk, Kaliningrad, Russia
  48. Headquarters, Kaliningrad Special Region, Kaliningrad
  49. The President’s Office, The Kremlin, Moscow
  50. Forest south of Pravdinsk, Kaliningrad, Russia
  51. Comprehensive Crisis Operations Management Center (CCOMC) SHAPE headquarters, Mons, Belgium
  52. Command Bunker, Iskander Missile Battery Pravdinsk, Kaliningrad
  53. Over Wroclaw, Poland
  54. Forest north of Pravdinsk Iskander Battery, Kaliningrad
  55. 25,000 feet above Kaliningrad
  56. Close to the Pravdinsk Iskander Battery, Kaliningrad
  57. Epilogue
  58. Glossary
  59. Acknowledgments
  60. Notes

Leaving the body, they crawled to where Lukša had been point man. And there, as the fire continued to play all around them, they found the Lithuanian slumped in the barley, left shoulder soaked in blood and left arm now a bloody stump from the elbow.

Krauja pushed forward, ripped open her first field dressing and wrapped it around the remains of his arm. A second dressing was strapped around his shoulder. The others passed forward more dressings and while Krauja put on all the pressure she could, Morland pulled his field tourniquet from his webbing, wrapped it around Lukša’s upper arm and tightened it. Slowly the blood flow eased. He reached back into his webbing and grabbed a morphine syrette.

“Hold tight, Arvydas. I’ll just give you a shot of morphine to ease the pain.”

Lukša looked at him with gritted teeth. “We Lithuanians don’t feel pain. Just stop the blood and I’ll be fine. I want to keep my head clear for killing fucking Russians.”

Morland looked at him in stunned admiration and, in that moment, knew that with soldiers like Lukša, they’d get out of this somehow. He felt a surge of adrenalin kick in. And anger. Unaccountably the fear had gone. He looked at Bradley, SA80 again on automatic, continuing to fire above the barley.

“Boss!” Bradley shouted. “The gun group are in action. The fire is easing off.”

Morland risked another look above the corn. From the corner of the forest behind them was the unmistakable and pleasingly familiar noise of burst after burst of GPMG. Cleverly sited in defilade, it was out of sight of the Russians manning what had to be a 12.7 millimeter heavy machine gun. Had the Russians been able to see them, it would have been no contest: Archer and Watson would soon be dead meat. Instead, they were doing good work and he could see their tracer landing all around the machine gun position to their left. Then the fire coming from that direction stopped. And that gave them the briefest of respites as the Russians turned all their fury on the GPMG.

Bradley grabbed Lukša and, helped by Krauja, dragged him on his back through the corn like a life-saver pulling a drowning man to shore, while Morland and Webb continued to engage the enemy.