Ulaanbaatar

If Lieutenant Colonel Irina Shirinova had pointed a weapon at me, or punched me in the face, I would have known what to do next.  For the second time since I came to Siberia, I realized I was out of my league.  The first time, I was facing dozens of heavily armed soldiers.  I sat on the ground and played some Neil Young on my harmonica.

 

As before, I realized I was in a situation Eastwood had not prepared me for.  I had little experience to go on.  The closest to sex I had been was a brief make-out session one summer at a skating rink in Anchorage.  The girl was drunk and led me to an unlocked utility room.  The fun ended after a couple of minutes of kissing and touching, when the alcohol and her previous meal decided to reappear.

 

Not that I was a stickler for the rules, but I was well aware that officers and enlisted soldiers are not allowed to fraternize.  If anything were to be done, it would

have to be discreet.  Not that it mattered.  I recognized the emotion I was experiencing.

 

I’d felt it more than once, somewhere in the Alaskan wilderness, enduring one of Eastwood’s crazy games.  When the woman with red hair told me she would have sex with me, I was terrified.

 

When she finished talking, I said, “Well, for now, I just need to concentrate on killing Mongolian rebels.”

 

She smiled and said, “Let’s go back.  Why don’t you tell me more about Eastwood…”

 

The journey from Ushmun to Ulaanbaatar took an entire day.  Kashuba and his staff were reassigned as well.  Malikov wanted his most experienced man on the job when it came to keeping me in my place.

 

It was past dark when the truck crested the last hill.  The lights of the vast city spread across the valley in front of me.  More than a million people live here.  I had spent most of my life in Wales, Alaska.  Population, less than 150.  The outpost at Ushmun was barely larger than that. 

 

In Ulaanbaatar, the Soviet influence was obvious.  The structures we passed on our long drive through rural Mongolia were small and made of wood or stone.  In the city, as we approached downtown, the bland concrete buildings that typify Soviet architecture began springing up.  Traffic became heavy on the narrow highway and we stopped frequently.  The sidewalks were filled with pedestrians.  I could hear them when they laughed or shouted at each other.  They looked and sounded like the people I had just killed.

 

In the center of town, the narrow highway was bound by tall buildings on both sides.  Emil saw the look on my face and laughed.  He could tell what was going on in my head.

 

I can fall sleep inside a casket sized quinzhee.  I’d crawled through narrow crevices and ice caves all over northern Alaska.  But the sensation I felt, surrounded by the rows of tall buildings, was profound claustrophobia.  I couldn’t wait for the truck to move on. 

 

The military base is on the southwest edge of the city.  Just west is the Buyant-Ukhaa Airport.  The base sprawls up both sides of Nuhkt Road and terminates in trails leading into the Khentii Mountains.  The rough terrain of the mountain range will be suitable for the training my team will need.

 

We started the next morning, with a group of 16 men.  Which ones would remain as the training progressed was yet to be decided.  To get things going, I decided on a jog.  We ran the six kilometers down Nuhkt Road to the highway and back.  The first half of the trip was downhill and everyone kept up.  As we turned and began running up the hill, the men separated into a line.  I ran back and forth from the leaders to the stragglers, trying to get a read on their effort.  I didn’t care how long it took them to make the run.  I wanted to see who would refuse to give up.

 

All of the men finished.  Emil was near the end.  Speed was never going to be one of his strong points.  But I noted that he ran at a steady pace and the expression on his face never changed.

 

We stopped in front of our barracks, and I told everyone to sit and rest.  The next phase of the test was beginning. 

 

The temperature was below freezing.  That morning I had told the men we would start the day with a run, but I did not give them any instructions about clothing.  My training would stress that they need to think for themselves, and think ahead, at all times.  To prove the point, I intentionally made the same mistake all of the men made.  I wore too many layers of clothing. 

 

A person will generate a lot of heat while running.  The body cannot function if it overheats, so it produces sweat.  Ideally, the sweat will evaporate into the surrounding air and carry the excess heat with it.  Thick clothing interrupts that process and the sweat stays next to the skin.  As long as the body is moving and generating heat, there is no problem.  But when the movement stops, a wet body will cool down rapidly. 

 

It is possible to go from sweating to hypothermia in a matter of minutes.  By the time all of the men had completed the run, the earliest finishers were beginning to shiver.  I was feeling it myself.  Time for my song and dance.

 

“So the first lesson of survival is, it doesn’t matter if it is hot or cold.  When you are out in the elements, always regulate your sweat. To help us remember the lesson, we’re going to do something I like to refer to as taking our clothes off.”

 

That is what I did.  I stripped down to my underwear and socks, then put my boots back on.  I stood up.  The men exchanged looks when I started undressing, but they followed suit. 

 

“Right now, every one of us is on the verge of hypothermia.  We have two choices.  Get into a warm environment, or generate more body heat.  Each of you may go to the barracks and crawl into your sleeping bag if you wish. Or…”

 

I turned and began running back down the hill.  I stopped when I got to the highway.  I wanted to see how many had followed me.  Emil was the last man to make it to the bottom, and number fourteen.  Not bad. 

 

The run back up the hill was pure hell.  I was pretty sure the men were hating my guts by then.  I certainly was. 

 

Fourteen mostly naked men running around a Soviet military base in winter will tend to draw attention.  On the way back, we had an audience.  Whenever we passed a building, people were standing outside, watching.  Some applauded and cheered.

 

When I reached the administrative building, Kashuba was there.  I saluted as I jogged past.  He said, “Good to see you working on your tan, Private.”

 

This time there was no funny stuff at the end of the run.  We were exhausted and freezing cold, and spent the afternoon shivering in our bunks.  I was satisfied that so many of the men had passed the initiation. 

 

When I woke up the next morning, it felt like I had been run over by a truck.  Today’s activities would have to be low impact.  We spent the day learning how to start fires.  Matches and lighters were not allowed.

 

First we gathered tinder.  Any dry, thin material that will burn.  Dried weeds and grasses, and thin layers of tree bark can be found in any forest.  Next, we built piles of branches and logs.

 

One of the simplest ways to start a fire is with a hand drill.  It is also one of the hardest to make work.  A short, straight stick with a point on the end is used as a drill.  A strong, determined person can spin the stick between his palms, pushing down while rotating the tip in a groove cut into a flat piece of wood.  The friction will eventually create an ember that can be used to ignite a tinder pile.

 

I carefully carved the pieces of wood.  Like any machine, if the parts don’t fit, it will not work well.  With a hand drill, you need a strong operator.  When I finished I gave the stick to Emil.  After a little practice, he started spinning the stick fast enough to produce the smell of burning wood.  By the time sweat was beading up on the corporal’s forehead, there was an orange glow under the tip of the stick.  I carefully transferred the ember to the tinder, blew on it, and the pile flamed up.

 

While Corporal Sadovnichy was spinning the stick between his palms, I began making a bow drill.  It works similar a hand drill.  Except you make a bow first, like you would use to shoot arrows.  All you need is a thin branch and string or rope. 

 

The bow string is wrapped around the stick and it spins the stick instead of your hands. The top of the stick is held in place with a smaller piece of wood.  The stick will spin very fast when you pull back and forth on the bow.  Making a good bow is harder than it would seem, but anyone can get an ember started with a proper bow drill.

 

By the middle of the afternoon, we had covered nine ways to start a fire without matches.  It did not take long to show the men how to gather insects.  I left most of the men to hunt bugs, then took the three best marksmen with me into the woods.  By the time the sun went down, we had squirrel and rabbit roasting on sticks over the fires we had built, along with grubs and larvae. 

 

The days in Ulaanbaatar went by like that.  I taught the men about stealth and stalking.  How to cover your tracks and leave false trails.  How to navigate with a compass and a map.  How to climb mountains, find food and water, and build shelters.  What to do when injured or soaking wet.  I wanted them to think like a someone who had lived their life in snow and at high altitude. 

 

And, three times a week, there were my sessions with Irina.

 

We started each time with a recap of what I’d done since the last time we had spoken.  She asked a lot of questions, particularly about how I interacted with other people.  Why did I say what I said?  Why did I think what I thought?

 

I don’t know much about psychiatry.  As far as I could tell, our sessions did nothing to touch the dark spot deep inside me.  I did not see how Irina could reach there from the outside.  But, as the weeks went past, I began to look forward to the time I spent with her.

 

While Lieutenant Colonel Shirinova probed around my head, our team began to find its stride.  The sixteen men I started with had been winnowed down to eight.  After six months of training, I told Kashuba we were ready.

 

We decided our base camp would be in the Urd-Herheyn mountains, just on the Mongolian side of the border.  Sixty kilometers south of Orlik, Siberia.

 

Our eight-man squad was divided into a supply/command team and a fire team.  Four men per team. 

 

A dirt road snaked south from Orlik, and turned into a foot trail just across the border.  We set up camp where near the trailhead.  Two men on the supply team would be in camp at all times and would be the communication link between the fire team and the command center in Ulaanbaatar.   They would also serve as emergency backups.  The other two would spend their time transporting supplies.  They would drive to Orlik, to pick up food, fuel, and whatever else was needed.  Then they would backpack the goods to pre-determined locations in the mountains and bury it. 

 

The caches of supplies would allow me and the rest of the fire team to stay in the field indefinitely.  Like before, our strategy was to be waiting when the rebels attacked.  We would try to pick up their trail when they retreated.  If we find them, we will follow them.  Hopefully, they would lead us to their base camp.  Regardless, the mission will end with a firefight.  Preferably, one that starts while the rebels are asleep.  I had no interest in fair fights.

 

It will be a guessing game.  The rugged mountain ranges to the west of Lake Khosvgol cover an area the size of New Jersey.  There are a handful of dirt roads, thousands of trails, and tall mountain peaks in every direction.  There is no guarantee the rebels are staying in one place.  They may have multiple retreats set up, similar to what we are doing with our supplies.  We might look for a long time before we find them.  I was okay with that.  There wasn’t anywhere else I needed to be.

 

The only thing that would keep us from remaining in the mountains continuously was our orders.  We were to stay in the field no longer than three months at a time.  Then we would hike out and make the drive to Orlik.  Colonel Kashuba and his team would fly from Ulaanbaatar to Irkutsk, and take a helicopter to meet us in the small town.  After debriefing, planning meetings, and a few days of R & R, we would return to the field.  While in Orlik, I would have daily counseling sessions with Irina.

 

The supply team steadily buried the cached goods.  The fire team roamed near the border, waiting for go time.  As with my previous mission, we were able to communicate with a helicopter hovering many kilometers away, as long as we were high enough on a mountainside and facing the right direction.

 

When the call came, it was a surprise.  There had been three simultaneous attacks.  The rebels were more numerous than we thought.  From the locations of the attacks, it is likely they have more than one base camp.  We are going to be busy.

 

The first attack was to the east.  They set fire to a fuel depot in Mondy.  To the west, they destroyed equipment at a copper mine under construction near Lake Tas-Kul.  North of Orlik, they blew up transmission towers, one of their favorite targets.  The attacks occurred within an hour of each other. 

 

The rebels had upped the ante.  The four of us sat and talked, looking at the map.  Thinking about the best way to throw our chips on the table.  The terrain around the copper mine caught our attention.

 

The mining operation was being set up on a mountain slope facing Lake Tas-Kul.  The rebels had attacked from the mountain ridge to the east, and their tracks led back up towards the ridge. 

 

From the top of the ridge, there would be several ways to get to Mongolia.  If they weren’t wanted criminals, they would stick to the marked trails.  These men would avoid the obvious routes.  But it was unlikely they would travel exclusively on the higher terrain.  It is too dangerous, and too slow.  

 

No matter the exact route, it was likely they would make their way south to the Kyzyl-Khem River valley. Then they would turn east, cross the Mongolian border, and disappear somewhere in the mountains.

 

We pondered the options.  If they had access to a boat, they could cross the deep, fast moving river and head into Mongolia from any number of widely spaced mountain passes.  That seemed unlikely.  The best guess was they would stay on the north side of the Kyzyl-Khem.  There would be some small rivers and creeks to cross.  None too deep for an experienced outdoorsman.

 

Near the border, the Kyzyl-Khem is formed where three smaller rivers join.  If this is the route the rebels take, they will be able to cross the shallower tributaries and enter Mongolia.  We identified a four-kilometer-wide area we felt they were most likely to pass through.

 

We geared up, and began the trek to where the Little Yenesei and Bilin Rivers meet.