Foreign Enemies and Traitors

by Matthew Bracken

  Even in Radford County, people for the most part were only willing to defend their own neighborhoods. Very few were willing to take the next step, to go on the offensive and violently resist the foreign “peacekeepers.” It was too risky. Wives and children needed their fathers. Basic survival needs consumed all of their waking attention. There were too many random checkpoints, and always the threat of an unseen missile-armed UAV staring down at them, or an attack helicopter popping up over the next rise. Guerrilla attacks were countered with bloody reprisals, and gradually most of the people turned against the handful of active insurgents, blaming the rebel fighters for the revenge attacks instead of the foreign soldiers who carried them out. Boone thought of this as the Stockholm syndrome in reverse. Fewer and fewer doors were open to him, while his fear of being ratted out by informants grew. It took only one weak member of a family to go to the enemy, seeking to collect a blood-money bounty payment, paid in red TEDs or gasoline ration coupons.

  Over time, the people had become worn down by hunger and cold, and had slowly bought into the government propaganda. They came to believe that active resistance to the foreign occupation would only mean a delay of the day that the bridges would be reopened, the roads graded and repaved, and the electricity reconnected.

  Despite the steady diet of propaganda, some of the Radford County locals had supported his cause with food, and a place to hide and rest up when he arrived at their back doors after midnight. And as a reward for their defiant patriotism, most of the members of his network were dead now, lying frozen in the snow a few yards above him. So that’s it, it’s finally over, he thought. Active resistance is finished in Western Tennessee. If there was anyone else still actively opposing the foreign enemies in Western Tennessee, he had no way of knowing it. Sitting in the icy rain below the bodies of his neighbors, Boone Vikersun was the last guerrilla fighter.

  ****

  Bob Bullard’s blue and white Eurocopter was waiting on the runway apron when he arrived at 6:30 a.m. He was dressed in a khaki thermal snowmobile suit, the pants tucked into calf-height black rubber boots. The sleek civilian helicopter was dwarfed by rows of Blackhawks and Chinooks stationed at Fort Campbell’s Sabre Army Airfield. His pilot was waiting in the right seat; the helo’s turbine engine was already spooling up. As usual, he sat in the empty left front seat. There were no copilot controls in the civilian Eurocopters. It was a mystery to him why pilots sat in the right seat in helicopters but on the other side in fixed-wing aircraft. He handed the pilot a slip of paper with the GPS coordinates provided by the Kazaks, and when he slipped on his headset he told him, “No filming today, Jack. No video, no audio, no GPS tracking—nothing. No record.” The Eurocopters could automatically be set to record everything beneath them, with both visual and infrared cameras, and that was the last thing Bullard wanted on this day. Three bodyguards in black and Jeff Sinclair, his assistant, sat behind him in the passenger area, and they lifted off.

  The 150-mile flight from Fort Campbell south to Radford County roughly followed the course of the Tennessee River in reverse. The helicopter crossed the river several times as it meandered northward across the state on its final big looping turn back up from Alabama, on its way to meet the Ohio River. With the twin failures of the Tennessee and Pickwick dams after the first big quake, the water level in the western part of the Tennessee River had dropped more than fifty feet. Six hundred square miles of artificial lake had disappeared downstream in a calamity of Biblical proportions, washing away bridges already damaged by the earthquake. This left only the original Tennessee River channel snaking between wide mud banks that in places stretched for miles across, revealing entire drowned forests. The two earthen dams were designed and built during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and they had lasted three-quarters of a century. Well, Bullard mused, eventually they’d be rebuilt during the current Greater Depression. Once the region was fully pacified, those two reconstruction projects would mean work for thousands of men that would last for years. Pacifying the region so that the work could begin was his contribution to the overall mission.

  The helicopter banked and swept inland from the river, with dawn just breaking in the east. The Kazaks had sounded both guarded and uncertain in their radio calls, last night and this morning. The only thing he was reasonably sure that they had communicated accurately were the GPS coordinates of this flight’s destination. Like most of his foreign battalions, the Kazaks were practically useless without their American liaisons. Martin Zuberovsky had just been assigned to the contract battalion, and now he’d gone missing, only a few miles from the scene of yesterday’s events around the town of Mannville. Bob Bullard hated these kinds of coincidences.

  The pilot flew toward the GPS coordinates provided by the Kazaks. He had not even entered the latitude and longitude numbers into the helicopter’s onboard navigational system as a go-to point; instead, he clipped the slip of paper to his console and flew manually. Evidently, he had taken the admonition about no flight records seriously, and Bullard was pleased with his attention to detail. Icy rain clicked against the helicopter’s windscreen and streamed back. Their destination was a snow-covered hilltop, where an old house was finishing the process of burning down into its foundation. A plume of gray smoke and steam marked the location. Bullard ordered his pilot to orbit the knob a few times while he studied the situation from a thousand feet up. A circle of twenty or so widely spaced oak trees made a bull’s-eye a hundred yards across, with the burned-down house in the center. The pile of timber and charcoal was still smoldering, hours later. The snow had melted near the ruins, exposing a ring of brown grass. Obviously, any response from the local fire department was out of the question. There were no more operational fire departments in this part of West Tennessee.

  A pair of four-wheeled armored security vehicles was parked near the top of the destroyed home’s driveway. A large green military truck with a canvas-covered cargo area was parked below it. Last night’s snow had accumulated to a few inches, but even though it was still overcast, the day was warmer and it was already melting away in patches. The wind had swung around to the south, and it was raining. He could not figure out Tennessee weather to save his life. It wasn’t San Diego, that was for sure.

  The pilot set the helicopter down between the oaks and the former home site, where the ground was nearly level. Snow and ash whipped outward from the chopper’s downdraft. His retinue of bodyguards and his assistant climbed down with him onto the snowy field, and spread out around him.

  The Kazak officers stepped down from one of the green camouflage-painted ASVs; it was a stretched-out commander’s version without a turret, but with plenty of extra antennas. They walked halfway around the burned home to meet the Americans. Their new commander, Colonel Arman Burgut, did not have any of the problematic Colonel Yerzhan Jibek’s dash or charisma. Colonel Burgut suited Bullard much better. Burgut was shorter than his former commander, at no more than five seven or eight. This meant that Bullard could look down at him, unlike the taller and, frankly, more handsome Colonel Jibek, now deceased. Burgut had a half-Asian face, and a long mustache that covered his upper lip and reached nearly to his chin on both sides, in the Kazak style. He was wearing the Russian-style camouflage uniform and jacket, mostly brown with bold black zigzags, topped with a fur hat. Unlike the late Colonel Jibek, his successor made no pretense of culture or refinement. Burgut’s English was rudimentary at best, and his knowledge of American customs and culture was nil.

  Never one for small talk, Director Bullard got right to the point. “Colonel Burgut, where is my liaison officer, Major Zinovsky?” This was the alias that Special Agent Martin Zuberovsky was using while attached to the Kazak battalion.

  Burgut spoke haltingly, struggling to form comprehensible sentences. “Ah, General Blair, good it is to seeing you again. After very succeeded operation as we conducted yesterday, it is much I regret to inform to you that your officer is…he is missed. Missing. I am thinking that he is there, under
.” The Kazak officer indicated the smoking heap of timbers and ash with a hand sweep. They were standing near enough to the pit to hear steam hissing from the still-burning main beams somewhere below. The harsh stink of burnt paint and plastics assaulted their noses.

  “Are you sure that he was inside the house during the fire?”

  “Yes, I think…very sure.”

  “How many of your men were lost?”

  “Praise be unto…that is…thankfully, we lost no men. All my officers were able to remove selves from house quickly.”

  “I don’t understand. Then why is my liaison officer missing?”

  “He…Major Zinovsky was first to go up steps to number two level of house. The fire had begin—had began—on number two level. I saw this with my two eyes, standing where now we stand. There were places on number two level to make a fire, with small parts of tree, that is to say, wood. To give heat to bedrooms. Word in English is fire place? Yes, fire place. Big fire in house, I think came from small accident of fire place. I do not know why Major Zinovsky not did remove self from house. Frankly, General Blair, some of my officers were taking much strong drink. I think perhaps Major Zinovsky have taken too much whisky made from corn.” Colonel Burgut mimed lifting a bottle to his lips, grinned and rolled his eyes. “White thunder is called this whisky, you are knowing of?”

  “White lightning. The homemade corn whisky is called white lightning. Thunder is the noise. Tennessee is famous for it. The whisky, I mean.”

  “Yes. Too much of this corn whisky can make even the strong man go blind of eyes.”

  “Colonel Burgut, have you found any remains in the fire?”

  “Remains? I am not understanding.”

  “Human remains. A corpse. A dead body.”

  “General Blair, you must understand, is not possible to examine into fire. Even now house burns, and we have no machines for such work.”

  Bullard could see his point. Looking for human remains in that mountain of smoldering debris would be useless. “Okay, Colonel, let’s discuss yesterday’s operation. Your mission was to remove the remaining population from the southern part of Radford County. How would you evaluate your progress so far?”

  “Well, first day of operation was big success. Very big success. We shall conclude operation through next two or maybe three days. Problem is now not to having liaison officer. That makes big problem for radio communication with headquarters of Fort Campbell. Other problem is ammunition. Kazak armored vehicles are having almost no 40 millimeter linked ammunition. Last week was sent not correct ammunition, was sent 40 millimeter for American rifle grenade launcher. We are needing correct 40 millimeter linked grenade ammunition for armored vehicles.”

  Bullard ignored these last requests. The M117 Guardian armored security vehicles also had a .50 caliber heavy machine gun on their turrets—that was enough firepower for running roughshod over a few barely armed rebels. Supplying them with any 40mm grenades was a mistake; that level of destructive ordnance was clearly beyond their role as volunteer “military police.” Anyway, he wasn’t concerned about what the Kazaks wanted; that wasn’t why he had flown down here. “Where are the people from Mannville now, Colonel?” He already knew where they were, he had watched the operation via video feed from a Predator UAV, but he wanted to study the Kazak while he answered. He wanted to test Burgut’s ability to withstand any problematic questioning in the future. Two Kazak commanders dying in rapid succession might make it difficult to find the next replacement, but there was no doubt that Burgut would have an accident when the time was right. Until then he needed to be able to keep his mouth shut tight.

  Colonel Burgut answered nonchalantly, “They are…not far from here.”

  “Really? I would like to go there now, and see them for myself.”

  “General Blair, there is not need to see them.”

  “But I insist. We can fly there in my helicopter, right now. We’ll be back in half an hour. Let’s go, Colonel.” Bullard whispered to Jeff, his assistant. As planned, his bodyguards physically blocked Burgut’s two staff officers as their commander was shepherded toward the aircraft. Bullard had read the situation correctly, surmising that the new Kazak leader would not want to cause a face-losing scene by resisting his entreaties to go for a ride on the executive helicopter.

  Only the Kazak and Bob Bullard climbed aboard the chopper for the short trip; the pilot had remained in his seat. For this hop, the two men sat in the plush rear passenger seats. His pilot had also come up from the ATF, “Agents That Fly,” and Bullard trusted him as much as he trusted any man. Which was not much, but hopefully, enough. Because the pilot was about to see what had happened in a gully outside the small town of Mannville.

  Once they were aloft, Bob Bullard envisioned a freak aviation accident taking place a month or two in the future. Perhaps when the same pilot was flying Colonel Burgut to a rural pacification program meeting at Fort Campbell. It could easily be explained as a “lucky shot” from a rebel .50 caliber sniper rifle, fired from the ground. The famous “golden BB” was always a threat to helicopters flying too low over rebel territory. If Burgut and the pilot both went down in flames, that would be taking two birds with one stone. It would not be the first time Bullard had planted a small bomb to solve a problem. Sometimes the old ways were the best.

  ****

  Boone was suspended in a semi-trance, sitting on his root-chair with his back against a wall of frozen mud. He was still more or less dry in his gore-tex parka and trousers, but not warm by any stretch. The snow had turned to sleet and then to rain by the time it was light enough to see. For more than two decades, he had spent nights like this, hovering between dreams and memories, cataloging his life’s joys and regrets, ticking down the slowly dragging minutes and hours until the earth’s turning would bring another day. Most of the snow was dissolving before his eyes, and water was beginning to trickle down the erosion channels under his feet. When daylight finally came he carefully stood, turning very slowly, scanning above him for any watchers.

  He had put his night goggles away for the day, but it was still too early to take decent photographs. The ravine was in deep shadow. He stood at the bottom of the massacre site, looking uphill. He would have to climb a final slippery wall of mud and ice to get right among the bodies. As the snow had begun to disappear, the extent of the massacre was becoming clear. There were hundreds of dead in the ravine. The count would never be more than guesswork until the bodies could be removed one by one. It was impossible to know how many were buried in layers beneath the ones he could see.

  The victims were killed in whatever clothes they had been wearing when they were captured. The men were on top. They had their hands bound behind their backs with black nylon flex-cuffs. They must have been brought to the ravine last. He could see well enough to begin to collect some wallets for identification purposes, if these had not been removed before the victims had been shot. He would have to move bodies to search for any of the new ID badges or old driver’s licenses or credit cards. Radford County was an “unpacified” region, and for the most part the people had never submitted to wearing the ID badges.

  Boone was climbing among the bodies at the lower end of the killing site when he heard the diesel engine and recognized the sound of Army five-ton trucks. These heavy-duty all-wheel-drive monsters would have no problem negotiating the slippery dirt roads he had walked while following Jenny’s GPS track. It enraged him to think that somewhere, American Quislings helped to maintain these U.S. Army trucks, and then turned them over to the foreign occupiers. Turned them over for use on operations like this massacre. Many Americans would accept any kind of paying employment during this economic depression. No doubt, if questioned they would deny any knowledge of what their trucks were being used for. They would pretend to have clean hands. Many, Boone knew, were active duty soldiers putting in a few more years toward their pensions. Sometimes he hated them more than he hated the foreign enemies. But then, he didn’t have a family
to feed.

  The trucks were not far off, less than a mile away and getting closer. Most likely they were back on the asphalt two-lane road that led to Shiloh and then down into Mississippi. If they were carrying platoons of soldiers on a return trip to the massacre site, he might be trapped in this place, hemmed in on both sides by icy mud walls. The trucks might even follow the route he had taken, and if so, they might see his tracks. A few hours had passed since he had walked that path, and the snow had turned to rain since then. Instead of his prints being filled in with new snow, the rain could actually wash through his compressed tracks, leaving a perfect trail for the enemy to follow.

  One of the two truck engines stopped. He guessed that the motors belonged to five-ton, six-wheel-drive Medium Tactical Vehicles. These military trucks could be relieving sentries at a checkpoint, or dropping off a patrol. Five minutes later the noisy diesel started up again, and gradually the engine sounds diminished until he could no longer hear either truck. He had to assume that more troops had been dropped off, and not far away. Perhaps a full platoon of Cossack mercenaries.

  14

  The short flight took only five minutes. The countryside was pleasantly rolling, with dozens of fingerlike streams dividing woods, pastures and farmland. There was still some snow on the ground, melting under steady rain. Smoke curled from a few chimneys. Cows and horses continued their difficult grazing, ignoring the helicopter. They were not far from the Shiloh battlefield, on the Tennessee River. To Bob Bullard, it almost looked like one of those Currier and Ives dinner plates showing a New England scene from long ago. The blue and white Eurocopter set down in the clearing above the ravine, where the buses had brought their passengers for a one-way trip. Bullard had seen it already, from 15,000 feet up, bounced back from the Predator’s cameras. The helicopter’s downdraft blasted wet snow in all directions until the rotors stopped.