Blood In The Snow

A Chapter by Serge Wlodarski

It would take the rebels two days to get to the river junction where we hoped to start tracking them. We were three days away. That was okay. In fact, preferable. We did not want them to find our tracks before we found theirs.

The rebels would be heading west to east. We were coming from the other direction, staying to the north. When we turned south, we were assuming they had already passed the line we were on. If we guessed properly, we would cross their path in the next 48 hours.

We knew there were six men. Investigators at the mine made detailed notes of the men’s footprints. The information had been relayed to us via radio. I was certain we would be able to distinguish the rebel’s trail from any others we would find. Not many people live in this forbidding territory.

The fire team steadily made its way south in the Bilin River valley. We occasionally found human tracks. Often you can guess the person’s intent. In winter, in these desolate mountains, one does not travel farther than the outhouse without a reason. Footsteps to and from the river probably indicate a fishing trip. Someone with a heavy load of firewood on their back will walk bent over and there will be subtle hints of that in the prints they make.

The men we were looking for would not be fishing or gathering firewood.

We wanted to be behind the rebels, but not too far behind. The next snowfall could obscure their trail. We could not afford to travel only in the dark, or on the high ground where there are no trails. You can stalk safely, or you can stalk in a hurry. You can’t do both. We stayed on the established trails that parallel the path of the river.

To mitigate the risk, the four of us spread out. We took turns walking point. Sergeant Alexeyev was in the lead when he found the footprints, made by six pairs of boots. The trail led to a wide, shallow spot in the river. There was a patch of trampled snow on the bank. Where they would have stripped down to their underwear and put on their spare boots, prior to wading across.

We would do the same. The hunt was beginning in earnest. We ate, then had a discussion about tactics. From then on, we would have to be wary of snipers and booby traps.

One or more of the rebels could hide and wait if they were concerned about pursuers. Our lead man would be an easy target. But someone in hiding is not getting closer to sanctuary. Their best chance of survival was to retreat to the high mountains as fast as they could.

They would not take the time for elaborate booby traps. Some can be set up quickly. Swinging logs, spring loaded spears, explosive trip wires, and spike pits, to name a few. We would have to travel carefully now that we were on their trail. Each of us carried a walking stick, and we constantly probed ahead as we walked. We kept our eyes open. Even the most skilled trap builder cannot completely disguise his work from someone who knows what to look for.

Two kilometers after crossing the river, the path turned and began ascending the slope. The trail gradually turned north. We stopped to rest. I used my compass and a map to get our bearings. There is a remote valley just across the border in the direction we were heading. The notes on the map indicated there were no permanent residents in the area. Four large ponds interrupt the vegetation on the valley floor. The steep slopes were thick with trees. It looked like the kind of place I would go, if I did not want to be found. We will see if the footsteps lead us there.

I was on point when my walking stick found a soft spot. I used the stick to carefully scrape off the snow. The rebels had left us a modern variation of a Punji foot trap. They dug a hole, just bigger than a man’s foot, and 12 inches deep. In a circle around the top of the hole, they embedded half a dozen sticks. They cut a groove in each stick, then wedged a short length of slice wire in each groove. If a man stepped in the hole, he would lose his balance and could easily break an ankle. The slice wire would cut through his pants into his skin.

The cuts from the slice wire would not be life threatening. But the feces they spread on it would get into the wounds, and cause a nasty infection. A man with a broken ankle, lacerations, and blood poisoning would definitely slow us down.

It was time for a strategy session. I was in favor of going off trail. I had gotten lucky finding the first trap. Luck has a way of running out. But it was Sergeant Alexeyev’s call. His priority was not losing the rebels’ track. It had begun snowing, and the wind was picking up. When you are depending on something as transient as snow to tell you where men walk, the clock is always ticking.

After discussing the pros and cons, Alexeyev decided. “We’re staying on the trail. I will take point.”

As always, we spread out on the trail. The rule of thumb was to keep as far apart as we could and still see the man in front and behind. We continued up the slopes into Mongolia.

I was in the rear when I heard Alexeyev scream. I ran to see what happened. The other men were already tending to him when I got there. Emil was holding his arm straight. The fourth member of our team, Private Maslak, was cutting the head off of the arrow that had penetrated his arm. The sergeant let out another scream when Maslak pulled the shaft of the arrow out of his bicep.

Sergeant Alexeyev had triggered an arrow trap. An ingenious device that is easy to set up with the right equipment. The rebels had split a length of a tree branch and hollowed it out. The pieces were bound together with rope to make a tube. The tube was tied to a tree, aimed at chest level, and disguised with vegetation. An arrow, the kind Mongols have been making for thousands of years, was placed in the tube. A set of sticks, arranged as a catch device, held tension on a thick rubber band. The apex of the rubber band was in the notch in the end of the arrow.

When Alexeyev disturbed the trip wire, it triggered the catch device, and unleashed the arrow. The rebels knew what they were doing. The only thing that stopped the shot from being fatal was that Alexeyev’s arm got between the arrow and his chest. By the time it went through his coat sleeve, his bicep, the other side of the sleeve, then another layer of the jacket, it only had enough force to wedge between his ribs. Just short of his lung. Had his arm been in a slightly different position, the arrow would have ended up in his heart and he would already be bleeding to death. He was making a puddle of blood in the snow as it was.

We inspected the wounds. He needed more sophisticated care than we could give him. We would do what we could. We held pressure and after a few minutes the bleeding slowed to a trickle. No major arteries had been lacerated.

I inspected the arrowhead and saw traces of what I was looking for. The rebels had smeared feces on it. We cleaned and dressed the wounds as best we could, and gave Alexeyev a starting dose of antibiotic pills.

After that, we stayed off trail. By the time we made camp that evening, Alexeyev had a fever, was pale and sweating, and complained of being cold. The antibiotics were not working. The mission was in jeopardy. We discussed the options. A helicopter evacuation to the nearest hospital was what the sergeant needed. There was no way to do that without alerting the rebels to our presence.

Alexeyev insisted we continue with the mission. We compromised. Private Maslak would stay with him and make camp here, while Emil and I continued pursuing the rebels.

The valley where I suspected their camp was located was less than a day’s hike ahead of us. Emil and I set out at 5am and stayed near the ridge line. When we stood on the peak, overlooking the valley, it was noon.

The valley was four kilometers long, about a half kilometer wide. The ponds would be filled with fish, an easy source of food for anyone trying to survive in this remote area. The trees and vegetation provided thick cover on the valley floor and about half of the way up the slopes. We scanned with our binoculars, looking for signs of human life.

After an hour of fruitless watching, I was having trouble staying focused. My mind was wandering when Emil poked me and said what sounded like svetaya korova! Translated to English, “Holy Cow!”

He told me to scan the northeast corner of the second pond. From where we were, the hole in the ice was a tiny dot. It was difficult to make out the man in the white-gray camouflage doing the fishing. But that was what we were looking for.

The man fished for another hour, then disappeared underneath the thick canopy of trees. If he turned north or south, he would cross one of the small streams that run down the slope. If he continued moving west, he would be heading uphill and eventually go past the tree line. We would see him in any of those cases. Emil kept an eye on the stream to the north, I watched the one to the south, and we split watching the tree line.

It should take the man less than a half hour to walk through the trees if his destination was somewhere else. It began to look like the rebel camp was somewhere in the shadows on that hillside.

That would narrow their location down to an area the size of ten city blocks. It would be a simple matter, after dark, to hike down to the pond and trace his steps to their camp. Given their proclivity for booby traps, we ruled that option out.

By then, we’d been on the mountain peak for hours. Unlike the somewhat protected valley, the wind was brutally cold. But we didn’t know their exact location. And we expected nasty surprises waiting for us on the slopes around their camp.

At the very least, these men would surround the camp with noise-making traps. In a traditional design, something like metal dinner plates will bang together when a trip wire is activated. Eastwood and I once made one with a hand-held air horn. That would have woken up anyone within 1000 feet, no matter how soundly they were sleeping.

Despite the cold, we continued watching. It was possible the men would eat the fish raw. But unlikely. Salmonella exists in Mongolian ponds as it does everywhere. And, a man who has spent hours on a frozen pond is going to want a hot meal. As we scanned the trees for signs of the fisherman, we also searched for signs of a camp fire.

Fires produce smoke because they do not burn wood completely. It is possible to make a fire with very little smoke. Completely dry wood with the bark removed is the first ingredient. Start with small diameter branches, or split larger logs to no larger than the diameter of your wrist. The next priority is making sure the fire gets enough oxygen. I expected these men to know how to make what Eastwood called a Dakota fire pit.

In the woods of Alaska, I had dug a one-foot diameter pit in the ground, a foot deep. On my belly, using a hand shovel, I carefully dug out the walls, so the pit was about two feet across at the bottom. Then, at a 45-degree angle, I dug a six-inch tunnel from the bottom of the pit to the surface. The tunnel faced the direction of the prevailing wind.

When we started the fire, hot air rose out of the pit, creating a partial vacuum. That pulled air in through the tunnel. It was like there was a fan constantly blowing on the fire. We had a very hot, almost smokeless fire.

We looked across the tops of the trees for telltale signs of smoke or heat. Even a completely smokeless fire generates hot air, which will rise and cause subtle distortions that can be seen. I noticed the trees were thickest about halfway up the slope. I told Emil to start in the middle, and work his way up. I would work my way from the middle to the bottom.

It took a while. I must have looked at the spot a dozen times before I detected the tiny bit of shimmering. The result of a rising column of hot air. It was only evident in those brief pauses where the wind was not blowing in the valley. I told Emil where to look and had him double check. He agreed. We found their fire. We knew where they were.

I pulled a notepad and pencil out of my pack and began drawing. I made a diagram of the hill and valley above and below the camp. I included the slope directly across the valley. We will attack from above. I imagined myself standing at the edge of the tree line, on the slope above their camp. I looked across the valley and tried to triangulate. What can I see on the other side that will allow me to draw a line that crosses over the camp?

There was a prominent rock knob on the slope above the rebels. A group of cliffs stood out on the other side of the valley. I noted which of the cliffs formed a line through the rebel location to the knob. I estimated the camp was 225 meters down the slope from the knob.

By then we were down to the last hour of daylight. We were freezing cold. I had noticed that the southern tip of the valley curved around the peak we were on, hiding it from the rebel’s location. We climbed down the slope to the tree line, made a quick camp and warmed ourselves by a fire. After eating, we set our alarms for midnight. We laid down, and tried to get some rest. I fell asleep and dreamt of killing.

Emil’s hand shook me awake. He had not slept. We hiked to the tree line above the rebel camp. We made decent time as we stayed just under the mountain ridge. We stood on the knob I had drawn on the diagram. I scanned the ridge across the valley through the night vision binoculars. I found the cliff I had noted.

Both of us left our packs behind the knob. I took off all of my thick clothing and put on my lightest pair of shoes. I left my AK-47 with the pack. I needed to be able to focus on stealth and careful movement. If our team needed rifle fire, that was all on Emil. I had my Colt M1911 pistol and my knife. We began a very slow, careful descent.

I took the lead. Emil would follow, and only move on ground I had covered. We both moved as low as possible. I focused on moving quietly as I searched for trip wires and buried devices.

That meant probing with the thin poles I carried with me. The thinnest one would flex when touched against a taut trip wire. I would move that ahead of me slowly. If there was no deflection in the shaft, there was no trip wire. The rest of the poles and the small hand tools would be used to carefully probe through the snow and soil. That took much longer.

By 2am, we’d made it to within 50 meters of where we expected the camp to be. I stopped and carefully scanned below me. I was looking for a tent, a person standing guard, or any other sign that we were in the right place.

In the dark, amid the dense trees in a forest, it is easy to imagine that the lumpy shadow you see is a human. Some of the time, it is. I began moving even slower. After another 30 meters, the lump stood up and began pacing back and forth. Bingo.

I stopped. I was in the man’s field of vision. But in the shadows. If I didn’t move, he wouldn’t see me. I waited. A few minutes later, another man appeared. Seemingly out of the ground. That clarified things. They were holed up in a man-made cave. The rock and soil they excavated was strewn down the slope in front of the opening.

The men spoke for a moment, then the first one climbed down into the hole. The changing of the guard. I would wait. A man standing guard on the dreaded night shift is at high risk for falling asleep. He paced back and forth for a while. Then propped his rifle against a tree and sat on a rock. I waited some more. A half hour passed, and he hadn’t moved. I began to creep forward. I knew Emil was close behind, and would be crouched down, with the man in the sights of his AK-47.

I was pretty sure the guard would be dead within a few minutes. My only remaining goal was to get close enough to the cave entrance that I could fire on anyone coming out. I almost made it. I must have lost my patience, and did not notice the trip wire that pulled on the string of empty food cans. The guard reacted to the sound of the clattering cans and lunged for his weapon. I was pulling my pistol out of the holster when I heard Emil’s rifle.

The man fell face first into the snow. I crossed the last few meters to the cave entrance as fast as I could. Just as I had my Colt aimed, a man’s head popped out. I fired. He disappeared back into the cave. I had missed. I saw the shot ricochet just to the left of his head.

Emil made it to my side. We could hear voices inside the cave. I covered the entrance with my pistol while he checked the man he had shot. His blood puddled in the snow as he took his last breath.

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