# The raid

Alexey Sukonkin

Перевел на английский Руслан Калашников rjandson1(а)hotmail.com

Alexei Sukonkin


The Raid


One independent company from a special operations squadron performed really badly during the district's military exercises of reconnaissance units. The company's commanding officer was trying to organize a raid against a communications center of a hypothetical (maneuver) enemy, but even at the initial stages of the group's advance towards the object, the group was hypothetically detected and destroyed by guarding forces of the object. The second group that detected a radar station (exercises were held at the same location for some time, and senior soldiers could point that station out even blind-folded) directed the forces of a senior commanding officer towards it, and peacefully retreated to their halting day.

After the demise of one of his groups, the company's officer sitting at the general's command post broke into a cold sticky sweat waiting for a slew of "positive" emotions from his superiors...

The reconnaissance men looked pitiful. Two of them had shiners covering half of their faces that they received from the station's guardsmen. The rest were ragged and dirty. The group's commander, lieutenant Druzhinin, lost his shoulder-strap - the guardsmen ripped it off from his uniform.

-- But we too kicked their butts pretty well! - said Lekha (Alexey) Red apologetically, when the company's commander lined up his "hypothetically destroyed" group at their base.

Ivanov (the company commander) glanced at him silently, and the soldier lowered his confident gaze.

-- Group commander! Report how it all happened... - the company commander looked at Druzhinin.

The senior lieutenant glanced at his soldiers, then at the floor, and then at the commander:

-- My bad, comrade Major! I began the advance without checking other routes. I was sure that we were undetected, and, unfortunately, they had a secret post over there...

-- Unfortunately...- the commander grimaced scornfully. We screwed up...screwed up big time.

-- Can you let us right this mess? - asked Red suavely.

-- In what manner? - the commander looked with sadness at his unfortunate soldier who had a juicy shiner half the size of his face.

-- As a matter of improving our military skills, we are going to raid the neighboring military bases for several days. We'll kidnap an orderly and important company documentation...

-- Who gives a rip? - the commander asked. - Better think of ways to escape our disgrace...

-- But, - Red would not calm down, - we will scare the heck out of every one here for several days, and the news will reach the general, and you will say that yeah it is my boys exercising...to not lose a grip...to sharpen their skills.

The commander sneered. In Spetsnaz (special forces) everybody's opinion counts. But the final decision rests with the commander nonetheless.

-- Alright, - Ivanov nodded finally, - The plan should be on my desk by the evening. Senior lieutenant - you are in charge...

Ivanov turned around and walked along the barracks towards the exit.

Druzhinin helped his men with the plan of the raid and left to drink his wound away. In the evening Red, who always dreamt of becoming a sergeant yet never achieving this rank, showed the plan to the commander.

-- Tomorrow morning we will kidnap an orderly from the communications squadron... - Lekha waived his hand towards the location of the communications station of the Far East area, which was only about a 1.3 miles from their base.

-- Elaborate...

-- In the morning every one there is running out for a physical drill, we enter the barracks and kidnap one orderly.

-- Very smart. Couldn't come up with anything better?

Red realized that the commander does not like his plan.

-- What's wrong with it?

-- How far is the barracks from the fence?

-- About 300 feet.

-- This is bad.

-- Over here they have a bath-house, we can concentrate here and then dart for a capture.

-- What a smartass. Here they have a guards post. And everywhere they have eyes and ears. They will locate and neutralize you, and not hypothetically but for real because this object is very important.

-- We will creep.

-- Next to the four-story barracks? And no one will notice you from there either?

-- Who will look out for us, comrade Major? Everyone is at the drill!

-- The orderly, of course. They will lock up the barracks and call the guards. And this time all of your face will be blue...

-- Then a second version, - Lekha offered. - We will pick up an orderly two hours before the general wake up call. At night, everywhere is dark, we will not be seen. The orderly usually go out to the barracks porch for a smoke - there we'll get one.

-- Here you go - this is a much better plan. But how are you going to drag him if he refuses to go with you?

The commander looked at his soldier intently. Red held his gaze.

-- He will comply...


At night Red was awakened by an orderly at 3 AM and right away went to wake up the others. Even though everything was set to go last evening, no one wanted to get up. Lekha wasted half an hour waking up three soldiers. The remaining five soldiers of the "screwed-up" group declined to wake up. Everyone suffered from serious sleep deprivation due to the recent military exercises.

They ran on the road to get to the communications station. Then jumped into the woods, and guiding themselves by the lights from the guards' spotlights, they came out right in front of the communications squadron's fence. Another twenty minutes they spent to cross the soccer field and very soon hid themselves behind the benches of the common smoking place that was located right across the barracks. They did not have to wait long - two soldiers appeared on the porch. Luckily, one left a bit earlier than the other, and after three minutes the group with its "prisoner" was running through the woods towards the base.

It turned out that the orderly was in his first year of service. He decided not to demonstrate neither moral nor patriotic stability and even before the arrival of the commander, Red already had a list of the names of the squadron's commanders (officers) and numeric codes of battalions.

-- Here, comrade Major, mission accomplished...

The commander approached the soldier:

-- Who are you?

-- I am from the communications station.

-- Did they beat you? - the commander nodded in the direction of "sadists".

Red stealthily showed him a fist.

-- No...- the soldier shook his head.

The commander took the soldier back to his squadron. After coming back he called Red to his office.

-- It has been reported to the district about the whole thing. Now, they will either forgive us, or fire me...

Red smiled:

-- Maybe they'll give a medal...

-- Maybe. But if they fire me, I will turn your "uterus" (guts) inside out.

Red fearfully looked at his commander:

-- They can?

-- Of course. This is actually a crime.

-- And what do we do?

-- Wait...

Towards the evening, Ivanov received a call from his friend who worked in the department of special intelligence in the district's Intelligence Department, and told him in secret that the general liked their raid, and that he (Ivanov) is not in danger, and maybe even some of his (Ivanov's) old "sins" would be forgiven.

The commander was overjoyed by this news and felt satisfied with his wits and his soldiers. Before he went home, he shared this news with Red.

-- This night we will kidnap one more soldier at the same spot.

-- Enough. No more. They have already recognized us and, it looks like, they forgave us.

-- Comrade Major...

-- I said enough and that's final.

-- Alright...- Red seemed to be unhappy.


At 3 AM Red woke up his associates - seven this time, and all of them left for the communications squadron again. This time they decided to approach from the other side and capture someone from the guards post - they (guards) always slept at their post; therefore, tying up one of them was not a difficult task.

Approaching the post, Vasya Gromov called on Red:

-- Listen, Red...

-- What?

-- I was here once before. Do you know what is over there, behind the fence?

There was a railroad along the road and right behind the railroad there was a fence of some kind of factory, which exuded some unpleasant aroma.

-- What?

-- A sausage factory. There are mountains of sausage over there. And here is the store house of end products...so maybe instead of an orderly man we will get us some sausage?

The reconnaissance men stopped and began to argue. Red was very stubborn, but the rest of the gang were steadfast on sneaking into the factory instead of the communications squadron. What is the use of an orderly compared to sausage? After setting their priorities, they soon decided to raid the store house. Plus, their hungry stomachs demanded some addition do their scarce diet consisting of barley and chop.


They began to study the factory's defense system and possible approaches. From the opposite side of the store house they launched a distracting maneuver - imitated an attempt to penetrate the area, which allowed to count all the guards and dogs, as well as, to find out that the police are not being alerted, and the guards try to deal with the problem on their own.

After that they assigned the tasks amongst themselves: two of them again imitate a penetration making noise while others are performing a good-old raid.

It was not hard for the recon scouts to enter the store house. They got as much sausage as they could carry and started to retreat. Red was the last one securing the retreat, and he was the one attacked by a guard dog that sensed a foul play and turned all of its attention away from the fake maneuver to the real heist.

Red had already covered more than half the distance towards the safety of the fence when with his side vision he noted a sudden movement from the left side. He felt it in his gut that it was a dog though it raced without a single sound - probably it was an experienced guard dog able to execute stellar-like attacks...

Red himself wanted to scream out of fear because he understood that his commander taking out his "uterus" would be child's play compared to what this dog could do to him if it caught him before he reached the fence. But to scream now would be equal to death because if he had broken away from the dog, the guards with their rifles would leave him no chance to escape if they heard him.

Relieving himself of the sausage, Red jumped unto the fence without stopping and placing his leg on the side of it. He grabbed the edge of the fence, a silly thought of long-awaited safety crossing his mind, as he felt the dog roughly and painfully clenching its jaws onto his buttocks...

-- Bitch...Red howled, not making any gender distinctions concerning the beast clenching his rear end.

The dog started shaking its head skillfully tearing off the chunks of soft tissue, mauling his butt with its razor-sharp fangs.

Red, feeling that after a few moments there would be nothing but bones on his behind, strained and with his last willful effort flipped his wounded body over the store house fence. The dog stayed on the other side of the fence.

The blood was gushing from the fresh wound, and the hungry bloodsucker was howling behind the fence. They could already hear the yelling of the guards who finally realized where the real threat was coming from.

-- We must get the heck out of here! - Vasya Gromov said.

Red stood up squeezing the wound with his palm and dashed with the others into the woods...


The nurse examined him at the hospital, and later on the doctor put several stitches on his wound. The commander for a long time could not understand where and how his soldier got that jagged wound.

-- Did the orderly bite you? - Ivanov asked.

-- Yea, - Red nodded absentmindedly, - ...the orderly man...

The commander laughed for a long time, but then asked him with all seriousness. He asked him in such a way that Red confessed where he "earned" his wound, but refused to name his accomplices.

Using his informers within the intelligence, Ivanov soon found out about the attack on the sausage factory, and also the fact that the robbers messed up and broke into a storage facility for expired products that were stored there before disposition.


It was not hard to find the rest of the participants of this heist - towards the evening all of them hogged (occupied) the toilets...the reconnaissance group of the special operations company was unable to function for a long time.