August 1995, Camp Springbok on the Rio Cuanza, ten miles west of Muxima, Angola.
Whining down from a fast run up the river from the sea, the former Danish Navy Soloven-class fast patrol boat gently nosed against the boards of a wooden pier. A man of about forty stepped off the bridge, having shut down the three maritime-modified aviation turbines, as one of the crew threw a rope loop onto a bollard and pulled them in close. Emerging from tents pitched around a rather-beaten looking Boeing 727 airliner, more people congregated around the boat, securing a second rope to the pier and allowing the crew to begin unloading.
The vessel had been out into the Western Atlantic to meet a cargo vessel with supplies aboard and a couple of contacts who did business with them. The captain. Sergei Ivanovich, stepped onto land, the forty-year old ex-Zaslon Spetsnaz operative letting the slightest smile out as he was approached by his current commanding officer. Harry Potter. Believed to be born English around 1975, known resident in South Africa since 1978, believed to be an orphan who had been forcefully conscripted into the infamous 32 Battalion in 1987 but had deserted when the unit withdrew from Angola in 1989. When he had been recruited to the ragtag group of mercenaries, Potter had been in East Germany making a fortune out of the demand for ex-Eastern Bloc equipment.
Upon leaving Europe, Ivanovich and a fifteen-year old KGB conscript who had escaped the KGB during the August Putsch accompanying Potter had gained a contract from the United States Department of Defence to mobilise Kurdish forces during Operation Desert Storm. Finally returning to Africa in 1992 with an increased mercenary force, the MPLA government of Angola paying dearly for their services against UNITA after the Communist forces retreated from the country.
"Ten crates of nine-mil, five crates of seven-six-two Russian, ten of seven-six-two NATO and two of twenty-three by one-one-five." Ivanovich reported smartly; "The dealer's representative prove to be... reluctant to accept the agreed payment."
"He was dealt with appropriately?" asked Harry, a deep guttural Afrikaans accent more pronounced by the Cuban cigar he was smoking, one of a great number looted when the Cubans retreated from Angola.
"I believe breathing may prove difficult with a cut throat." said the Russian in the same apathetic monotone, snagging a cigar case from Harry's belt; "And the retirement package is in the hands of your Zurich contact, there will be no issues there."
Harry nodded, snatching back his cigar case after Ivanovich took a cigar out and lit it. The 'retirement package' was the pension for the founding three, himself, the Spetsnaz operative and the ex-KGB recruit, his contemporary, Natasha Romanova. Gold, diamonds and cash, a nice little insurance for when they decided to end their careers.
"Also, you may have heard, the Canadians banned semi-automatics, a contact of mine, I believe the word is 'minion' lifted a great number of rifles and is shipping them to us. I have no intention of paying him, he's coming in person and bodies often turn up in the rivers." Ivanovich stated as they walked through the mercenary camp.
"FN FAL L1A1s?" Harry asked as they approached his tent; "We've already got a couple of hundred stolen during the latter stages of the British disarmament."
"Indeed." was the response as they ducked into the tent where a table sat with a large map laid on it, another mercenary poring over them, a former British Special Air Service man still wearing his much-faded and stained beret.
"Glad to see you're back Russian." grunted the SAS man, Jim Haxham; "I've got a nice bit of trade for a raiding party. There's a UNITA compound up-river about fifteen miles, it's recently established. Our native scouts have identified heavy machine-guns, a couple of captured BTR-40s, Strela launchers, plenty of small arms."
"Put it down as priority." Harry ordered; "If they get launchers within ten miles, we can't operate our transport. How close to the river."
"On the riverbank itself." stated Jim.
"Hit them hard and fast. Take the gunboat up the river, I can barrage mortars into the camp, use the Bofors and the machine-guns to destroy anything in line-of-sight and simultaneously land our troops as a light vehicle force comes from inland." Ivanovich advised; "Send two of the Austrian twin-Bofors M42s with the armed Land Rovers."
"Sounds like a plan." Harry replied, looking over the map which had the compound pencilled in; "Ordnance storage?"
"East side, low building of corrugated iron." Jim said, allowing Harry to outline the location.
"Motor pool?"
"Vehicles are parked up just inside the gates, north-north west."
"Barracks?"
"Tents spread around the entire place."
"Sergei, start quietly mobilizing, it's ten AM, we go in at midnight." came the order; "Jim, get the Land Rovers ready and arm up the natives."
The core of their unit were five mercenaries. Harry, Sergei, Natasha, Jim and an Iraqi Kurd, Berzan who was generally known simply as 'Zan'. The rest of them were hired locals, paid for by the Angolan government to work under the leadership of the mercenaries.
As ever before a mission, Harry had a certain ritual he went through. It was simply checking every bit of his equipment from his medium-weight body armour to the L1A1 SLR slung at his side. Knives were checked for sharpness, pistols cleaned and loaded, magazines carefully placed in combat rig pockets along with grenades.
Not far away, the four-round clips for the twenty-round magazine on the forty-millimetre Bofors were being loaded aboard the Soloven, followed by belts of NATO 7.62 for the rapid-fire MG3 machine-guns, followed by the payload for the heavy weapons battery on the stern replacing the second Bofors. The heavy weapons included eighty-one millimetre mortars, a pintle-mounted SNEB rocket pod and two MILAN wire-guided missile launchers, requiring a lot of ordnance.
Harry slapped a magazine into his rifle and checked the load on his favourite Colt M1911 before heading out of his tent towards the motor pool to check on the preparations. As he neared he saw the five Land Rovers readied for the assault with their MG3 guns for the front passengers loaded and belts being poured into drums fed up into GSh-6-23 rotary machine-guns looted from old Angolan Air Force Sukhoi Su-24 Fencers mounted on the roll bars of the stripped-down cars.
"Good evening boss." said one of the Angolans, Raul, as he approached.
"Everything ready?" Harry asked.
"We just finish loading the guns and then we mount up and go!" replied Raul.
"Good." Harry stated as another Land Rover roared up, a redhead in similar combat fatigues as he was wearing jumping out.
"All clear, they've been at the kapuka all day, we should be able to overrun them with minimal casualties." she stated, the faintest hint of a Russian accent showing through in her English.
"Thanks Natasha." Harry grinned; "Who're you riding with?"
"I'll join you with the boat crew. More explosions, less risk." Natasha replied with a smirk as the sound of the three Rolls-Royce Tyne Mark 21s, ripped out of a transport plane, starting in the Soloven became audible.
"Good." said Harry, glancing at the sky.
Being close to the equator, sunset was about six o'clock. By midnight, which it was approaching, it was pitch-black. Six hours from sunset, six hours until sunrise. Within minutes they were on the Soloven, with the radio systems being tested. Then the order came from Harry to mobilize.
Ivanovich took the boat downstream, the three turbines cruising towards the sea. Then turning around in the estuary, he pointed it up-stream, with the multitude of weapons crewed mainly by locals. The three engines whined up to full power, thrusting the boat forward with each six-thousand horsepower Tyne engine howling.
"Ready?" Harry asked, leaning against the forward port MILAN launcher, looking at Natasha, who had tied a dark-green shemagh around her head to conceal flame-red hair.
"You bet." she laughed, checking a final time the load and the scope on her Dragunov SVD as the Soloven raced down the river.
"One minute." said Harry, checking visually their location against the map he had tucked through his belt.
"You know we could have used the Zodiacs and the suppressed Vintorez rifles and got in without anyone realising?" Natasha asked as she mentally began counting down. They were skimming the water into the depths of Cuanza Norte, insurgent central at a good sixty miles an hour, the former Spetsnaz operative masterfully balancing the racing vessel around the bends in the river.
Pulling his night-vision goggles down over his eyes, Harry readied himself, knelt on the deck, tensed against the missile launcher and the deck rail with his rifle against his shoulder, muzzle down and safety catch on. Dead on time the river widened out into a small basin, with, on the north side, a ragtag group of small fishing vessels and a jetty with evidence of the insurgent compound beyond.
"Crew, targets eleven o'clock, fire at will!" shouted the commander of the Bofors mount.
The Bofors gun quickly traversed left and down, barking three times in rapid succession. Quickly more clips were loaded as it blazed away in short bursts, obliterating the small boats. The twin MG3 machine-gun mount on the ship's open bridge opened up, chewing through over forty rounds a second between them, hosing down the jetty and boathouse with a steady stream of bullets.
One of the Angolan crew opened up with a revolver grenade launcher, pumping two high-explosive shells in quick succession into the boathouse which erupted into a shower of wood debris. The Soloven nosed past the jetty with inches to spare, allowing Harry and Natasha to throw themselves off the boat, hitting the jetty, tumbling into rolls. Harry, from a half-crouched position opened fire first as insurgents started flocking towards them. His L1A1 fired twice straight into a target as he dashed towards them. The dead fighter fell, as if in slow motion, into the water with a terrific splash.
Pitching a grenade into the throng of half-asleep insurgents, Harry dropped behind the cover of a small hillock, Natasha diving in next to him, slamming home a fresh magazine into her SVD. The Soloven came around again, delivering devastating fire from the Bofors and the bridge-mounted machine-guns. Then the mortars mounted on the stern began to cough, immense bursts of flames erupting from the earth of the camp as the mortar shells began to land. This time with far less speed, the Soloven brushed past the jetty allowing the Angolan force to jump from the ship.
Immediately the exchange of fire began. The compound was built right up to the shoreline, and now the AK-47s and L1A1s of the Angolan natives began to tell with a barrage of bullets. A pair of forty-millimetre shells blasted into the pack of insurgents, the shock-and-awe factor causing a momentary halt which Harry took as an opportunity to dive out of cover, running forward to close the distance.
Abandoning his rifle with the magazine empty, Harry snatched his Czechoslovakian Skorpion machine-pistol from his belt, snapping a magazine into it and opening fire. In moments it was over. The magazine empty, his ka-bar embedded in the chest of one of the insurgents while the others died around him, picked off by Natasha's precision shooting and the barrage from the Angolans.
"Move up!" Harry barked.
Blasts from mortars were still landing all around, the encampment was mostly obliterated as the vehicle-borne force secured the motor pool and the arms stockpile. A BM-21 Grad rocket truck was parked on the far side of the camp from the rest of the UNITA vehicles, along with a communications array. Breaking out from a gully, several insurgents ran towards the truck, separating to avoid the inevitable barrage of bullets.
Dodging the blast from a mortar shell, the first pair were caught as a Land Rover-mounted GSh-6-23 burbled for a moment, chewing up the ground and walking right across a tent and tearing apart the two insurgents. The end of the other pair was equally gruesome as one of the two ex-Austrian M42 Dusters got a bead on them and churned over half-a-dozen shells into them.
The last gunfire was silenced, and slowly the terrible quiet of a finished battle descended. The Angolans advanced forward, kicking over corpses, checking for any sign of life and looting weapons. Harry sighed, picking up his rifle and slinging it around his back. Battles were either day after day of skirmishing with no true engagement, or like this, a blitzkrieg attack over in five minutes.
"Why do they fight." Natasha commented; "Barely any of these insurgents even know what the cause of their masters is."
"Fear an army of sheep led by a lion." Harry shrugged, stepping over the grim remains of the insurgents caught by the M42 Duster's twin cannon; "Our contract here is to push the insurgents back from Cambambe and retake the hydroelectric plant, which would give us access to the old Alto Dondo airstrip. We've been resting, recuperating and rearming from the last offensive, it's time to start pushing back."
"We need to clear up here, bury the bodies and make camp. Assess what we've captured, move up our weapons from base camp and prepare for further offensives." Natasha stated, rolling a body into one of the gullies running across the compound with a firm kick; "The boat will be of use right up to the dam at Cambambe and we can keep up a fast advance with the motor vehicles, but the streets of the towns will need clearing, house-by-house."
"Yes, luckily I think I can force more militia out of the government for us to send in." said Harry; "Only time will tell how the campaign goes."
Ex-Arpatheid era bush soldier turned mercenary? Hell yes. If you can't tell I've got a certain fondness for Natasha Romanova, and as in Marvel canon she turned to lone-wolf contract work, that joining a mercenary group wasn't out of the question. One-shot for the moment, sort-of connected to the previous minific, I was thinking that J & L would survive, but Harry go missing a while later, ending up in South Africa.