Boone grinned. “It was, but I always sort of considered it to be mine. Especially since I did my own custom camouflage job on it.”
Carson smiled back. “How do they feel about you taking it?”
“I never stopped to ask. I didn’t sign a chit. When I walked off the job, I figured I might as well take the best stuff with me. They can add ‘theft of government property’ to my charge sheet—if they ever catch me.”
“You were at Fort Campbell when you took off?”
“Yeah, 5th Group. Last summer, after the foreign mercenaries were sent in. That’s when I, um, switched teams.”
“You think the military will ever take you back?”
“Do you mean will America ever get rid of the traitors in Washington and throw out the foreign enemies? I don’t know. But what else can a patriotic soldier do when his government is led by traitors? Traitors who trashed the real constitution and ginned up a phony one? Traitors who brought in foreign mercenaries to kill Americans and steal their land?”
The two old soldiers locked eyes, and found no disagreement.
Carson said, “I see we’re cooking with C-4. How much of it do you have?”
“Here in the cave? About forty pounds, but I’ve got more in some other caches.”
“Can’t you get any more? Can’t your friends up at Fort Campbell get some to you?”
“I wish. After they got the new constitution, federal agents came in and locked up all of our armories, and especially our demo bunkers. Ammo and demo are kept under strict federal control. The Army is kept on a short leash, a very short leash. Especially the Special Forces. They don’t trust us one inch. They even collected the bolts from our rifles, and took them away.”
“The Feds don’t trust the military?”
“Hell no, they don’t. I heard that they conducted secret polls, and about 90 percent of the military supported the old constitution. So they did as much as they could to neutralize the Army. Ammunition was collected and sent to armories under federal control.”
“What about body armor?” asked Carson. “Do you have any?”
“I’ve got a rifle plate that I usually wear on the front. It fits in a pouch on my combat vest. I figure there’s no point wearing soft armor. The bad guys are shooting rifles, and soft armor won’t stop rifle slugs. It’s the same old tradeoff: speed versus protection. There’s about zero chance of getting real medical help, so I try to focus on not getting shot in the first place.” Boone grinned. “So far, it’s worked like a charm.”
Carson asked, “Hey, are you going to booby-trap this place before we go?”
“Yeah, we’ll leave some surprises. I camouflaged the cave mouth pretty well, considering all the tracks you guys left. As long as the snow melts and they don’t bring dogs, it’s not too likely they’ll find it. But if they do…well, I’ve got the charges all laid out, but with an electrical firing circuit that’ll go dead in a few weeks. Otherwise, some Tennessee kids might crawl in here years from now and get themselves blown up. We’ll take the best stuff, as much as we can carry and still move fast, and we’ll leave the rest. You never know, we might have to come back.” He turned toward the simmering pot hanging above the iron tripod. “Doug, isn’t that stew about ready?”
19
Sunday was seafood night at the Cole Park Buffet on Fort Campbell. Dwight Granger remembered real seafood, and this was not even close. Crunchy breaded fillets of reconstituted mystery fish, “crab” salad and pasta were the highlights of the meager feast. Even so, he knew that it was better than anything available outside Fort Campbell. A ticket to the seafood buffet cost only twenty new North American Dollars, paid cash in advance. This was the price of just a single soyburger and fries off base. As usual, he dined alone, anonymous within the dining hall. After dinner, he moved to the bar in an adjoining room. Granger had not come just for the meal. He had a vague plan and a larger purpose tonight. He could not keep the USB memory sticks in his room, but neither could he bring himself to destroy them. He had to try to get them to people who might be able to use the information they contained.
Granger had narrowed his selection down to two tables of men who were clearly active duty or newly retired senior enlisted, even though they were dressed in casual civilian attire. There were only a few remaining occupied tables in the bar connected to the dining room. An Asian bartender dried glasses with a towel between his infrequent orders. A middle-aged barmaid with bleached-blond hair chewed gum and read a paperback, sitting on a chair near the kitchen pass-through. At eight thirty, one table broke up and the four diners departed, after saying a quick goodbye to the two men at his other prospective table.
Now it was time to either do it, or just forget the whole thing and throw away the memory sticks. His chosen pair consisted of two senior NCOs, or Dwight Granger had never served in the armed forces. They were wearing jeans and sweatshirts, but that didn’t hide their identity. After his first career as an Air Force enlisted man, he knew the type on sight. They spoke without moving their lips, or casually covered their mouths as if they were afraid of lip readers. Short military haircuts, and clean-shaven. Broken noses and scarred faces. Broad shoulders, but not overweight like most men their ages. They were the granite boulders that the entire United States military was built upon. It was time to carry out his plan.
He had not considered exactly how he would do this, beyond a hazy concept. Granger took a paper cocktail napkin, unfolded it, and in the middle he neatly wrote with a black ballpoint pen: “PLEASE OPEN THIS FILE—IMPORTANT—NO BS—THANK YOU.” Then he slipped the finger-sized USB drive from his pants pocket, and on his lap, he rolled it inside the napkin. His tab was already paid, so he stood up and put on his coat to leave. Once the deed was done, it would be a cold five-minute walk back to his solitary room in the UPQ.
They were sitting in the dimmest corner of the room, under large oil paintings of American tanks and helicopters in various wars. There was no smooth way to finesse this exchange. He looked to the exit door, and back at the two NCOs, still not sure if he could do it. Dwight Granger steeled up his courage, suppressed his fear, and walked across the room.
****
CW4 Hugh “Hulk” Rogan held his beer glass close to his mouth with the thumb and remaining three fingers of his right hand. The chief warrant officer helicopter pilot had left his pinkie and the tip of his ring finger in Iraq, but counted it as no big thing. He thought that their loss was more than a fair deal, considering all of his other wounds and near misses. Fragments of a machine-gun bullet had clipped off the finger while his hand was wrapped around the cyclic control—after passing through his thigh. The loss of the digit did not keep him from being fully mission qualified on Blackhawks and AH-6 Little Birds with the Special Operations Aviation Regiment.
What made him lose his FMQ status was the loss of flying hours, not fingers. The Night Stalkers of the 160th SOAR were grounded while the regiment was awaiting decommissioning as a unit. To Rogan, this often seemed like a microcosm of the Army in general: grounded and awaiting decommissioning. Tonight he was in a bad mood, and it looked like somebody wanted to make it worse. He shook his head and spoke quietly.
“Charlie, what the hell is up with that asshole over there? He keeps giving us the eye. Is he a faggot looking for a beating, or what?” Rogan had left New York thirty years earlier, but he retained some of the unmistakable accent.
“Who? You mean that geek-looking dude wearing the birth control glasses?” Sergeant Major Charlie Donelson was sitting with his back to the unwanted observer, but could see the man’s reflection angled off the bank of mirrors behind the bar. Donelson was a senior noncommissioned officer in the 5th Special Forces Group. He still wore a Green Beret to work, where he rode a desk and seemingly did little more than shuffle papers for a living, while awaiting the end of his nearly thirty-year career.
“Yeah, him,” said Rogan. “He must be a faggot. Jesus Mary and Joseph, does he think we’re homos too?”
“So what if he does? Hulkster, the fags have their rights in the Army now. ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ is history. These days, the rump rangers get married in the base chapel and move right into base housing.”
“Don’t remind me. Every time I see a couple of queer lieutenants slow dancing and making out in the All Ranks Club, I want to bash their faggot skulls together. That’s why I never go there anymore. That, and the shitty beer.”
Donelson sighed. “I sure do miss the old NCO clubs. Can you imagine a couple of queers dancing in an NCO club, in the old days? Hulk, this just ain’t the same Army we enlisted in.”
“No shit. When we enlisted, Reagan was president.”
“That was a different world. So, what about this guy? You seen him around?”
“I’ve seen him. He’s a civilian contract employee, I think. DOD, or maybe Homeland Security. I’m pretty sure he’s a Predator jockey. You know, part of that Building 1405 program.” Rogan smirked. “Clandestine operation, my ass.”
“Then what’s he got to do with us? Unless he gets off on getting his faggot ass kicked.”
“Hell if I know,” replied Rogan. “Why don’t you ask him—he’s coming over, it looks like.”
The two men sat across the small table, unmoving and silent as the stranger approached. The man was walking like he was crossing an unmarked minefield with an unexploded RPG jammed up his fourth point of contact. The two men said nothing, did not acknowledge the presence of the interloper until he was literally at their tableside, standing between them, and visibly shaking. He was the epitome of a tech rep, a technical support puke.
After an uneasy ten seconds, without looking up, Rogan tersely asked, “You want something buddy?”
The man seemed too afraid to speak, but finally he managed to croak out a whisper. “I trust you. God help me, but I trust you.” He dragged a shaking hand across the table, depositing a folded piece of white paper. Then the stranger about-faced and scurried toward the exit to the back parking lot.
“What the hell was that?” muttered Rogan. “ ‘I trust you?’ What the hell does that mean?”
“Hell if I know, but he sure wanted to give us this…whatever it is.” Donelson unrolled the napkin, revealing a small USB memory stick. Both men stared at it. “This stinks, this just stinks like crap, this is a setup,” whispered Donelson. “Don’t touch the thing. No, wrap it back up and drop it in the garbage can.”
“I don’t know, Charlie…aren’t you curious? The guy works on Predators, but he’s a civilian. You know about Building 1405, right?”
“Yeah, it used to be 101st’s logistics coordination center, until that was axed. Now it’s full of civilians, federal alphabet agency types. But there’s no sign out front, and no name on it.”
“Well, I’ve heard about it,” said Rogan. “It’s called the rural pacification program—but that’s not written down anywhere, at least not anywhere I could find. It’s all civilians, mostly feds. They have their offices in 1405 and a few other buildings around there, and they control the Predators out of the old fitness center across the drill field from 1405. Their UAV flight line is over on the old runway at Campbell Field. They’re running counterinsurgency ops against Americans, that’s what I hear.”
Donelson replied, “I knew what it was. You thought I didn’t know? Come on, Hulk, you’ve known me too long for that. After twenty-five years, there’s not much happening on this base I don’t know about.”
“So, why’s a civilian who works with Predators dropping a memory drive on our table? What’s his angle? Is he setting us up? It doesn’t make any sense. ‘I trust you’… What’s up with that?” CW4 Rogan finished his beer with a final swig and set the empty glass down on the table. “Let’s get the hell out of here and go to my place, and see what’s on it.”
“You’re not afraid it’s some kind of a setup, a sting?” asked Donelson.
“Charlie, who’s going to bother to run a sting on a couple of old has-beens like us? That doesn’t make sense. And I don’t give a damn anyway—this is still a free country, right?” He laughed. “Don’t answer that. We know it’s not. Not anymore. So fuck ’em if they think they can pull this KGB bullshit on us—I ain’t playing. Free or not, this is still America. I’m done playing bullshit games with the politicos. They want to bust me for putting this computer widget in my pocket? Let them try. They’re going to send me to some American gulag? I don’t think so. Let’s get the hell out of here and go to my place. I want to see what’s on this thing.”
“You’ve got electricity at your house today?”
“I did when I left. Let’s go find out.”
****
With no warning, the cave thudded as if a hand had slapped the hill above them. Boone froze in place, and a second later he felt more than heard a muffled boom.
“What was that?” asked Doug. Carson looked above them at the cave’s roof.
“The car, I think,” said Boone. “I’ll bet they found the car. Somebody probably tripped my booby trap. Well, I just hope it killed some of them.” He stood up from the table. “Okay, campers, that’s why we got ready early. New plan: it’s time to go. Grab your stuff, we’re leaving right now. Everybody get your headlamps on—this backdoor route’s not lit, and there’s no guide rope to follow.”
“What time is it?” asked Doug. “Is it dark outside?”
“It’s almost five, so it’ll be dark soon. They must have gotten lucky—if you can call detonating five pounds of C-4 lucky. I just hope we nailed some of the bastards, and that it slows them up some. They’ll be mighty careful after tripping a booby trap. But we can’t count on that, so we can’t stay here. If they found the car, they’ll find the cave—there’s just too many tracks in the snow and mud between there and here.”
Carson said, “If we just blew up a couple of their guys, it’ll take them a while to get their shit together, and by then it’ll be fully dark outside. You think they’ll be tracking us here in the dark?”
“I don’t know. There’s most of a moon up, even with the clouds. Moon over snow means plenty of ambient light. And they have night vision. We just can’t take the chance of getting trapped in here. We’re leaving now, right now. Jenny, the baby’s been fed? You have another bottle ready to go?” The message was implied: the infant had to be kept quiet for their escape.
“We’re ready,” she replied. “I’m packed.” Jenny was wearing a brown fleece jacket over a green military sweater, baggy blue jeans, and the dead traitor’s boots. She kept the traitor’s pack, it was American-made, not Kazak, and its former owner was not going to report it missing anytime soon. She had to trade her Russian-style fur hat for a hand-knitted gray wool cap, almost like the one Boone wore. Being seen wearing the fur hat would arouse instant attention from the Kazaks. Jenny pulled on a green vinyl raincoat with a hood, from the cave’s store of spare clothing items. The others made their final preparations for departure, slipping on coats, hats and packs, and picking up weapons.
Phil Carson and Doug Dolan had changed to their Army ACU-pattern camouflage uniforms and matching gore-tex parkas. This was Boone’s idea. It was now illegal for civilians to possess or to wear this current-issue Army combat uniform, and if they were captured while wearing them, they would be considered terrorists or spies. Paradoxically, their very illegality made wearing the ACU uniforms more advantageous. If they could not avoid making contact with their foreign enemies, they would attempt to pass themselves off as a unit of collaborating traitor Americans, and bluff their way out of danger. Besides American traitor units, the North American Legion also wore the ACUs, with different insignias attached. If they could not avoid a fight, their foreign enemies might hesitate to fire on “friendly” troops wearing ACUs, and this might provide them a critical edge. They also carried dark earth-toned brown and green civilian clothes in their packs, in case they had to move through open or built-up areas in the daylight.
With his long hair and beard, Boone could not possibly pass as a s
oldier. Nobody suggested that he should shave, or have his long hair cut to military length, just so that he could also wear the ACU uniform. Boone was Boone, and he obviously preferred to travel and fight in his own manner. His “Mossy Oak” pattern coat was printed with realistic-looking leaves, sticks and tree bark. This hunting camouflage was like a snapshot of the dark Tennessee winter woods, and he could virtually disappear, simply by melding into the brush and standing very still. As a sniper, his ability to disappear from view was a paramount consideration. His pack and his rifle were likewise camouflaged. Even his thick Icelandic hat was knitted in shades of brown and gray wool.
“Everybody should be ready to pull chocks in five minutes,” said Boone. Pulling chocks was military slang, it was done just before aircraft took off. “Now you understand why I was such a hard-ass about getting ready early. A lot of this route is low, hands-and-knees stuff, so tighten up your straps and slings. Take your time and do it all right. The one thing we can’t deal with now is an injury. Watch your heads, don’t rush it. I’ll go first, then Phil, Jenny and Zack. Doug, you bring up the rear. This is it: this is for real. If you forgot anything, this is your last chance—we’re not coming back. Jenny, is the baby ready? You can carry her inside your jacket, on your hands and knees?”
“I can do it, that’s how I got us in. I just need a minute to get us set.” Unlike the men, Jenny carried no rifle, only the pistol on her web belt, concealed beneath her rain slicker. The baby was awake, wearing a white pajama outfit with booties, and a yellow knit cap. She was alert, looking around her, but made no outcry as Jenny swaddled her in a blanket and zipped her inside her fleece parka.
They stood on the rough plank floor, helped each other on with their packs, cinched down their rifles to their chests, and turned on their headlamps. Boone reached above the table and switched off the single light bulb. He said, “When you see the person in front of you get low, you get low. Near the end, there’s a little room where we can get organized again. This way opens onto the side of a creek, and we might get a little wet. Any questions? Anybody forget anything? Zack and Jenny, you both have the road maps I marked? Good. I’ve armed the booby traps, so nobody goes back after we leave. Okay? Everybody is good to go? Okay, let’s move out. Follow me.”
Foreign Enemies and Traitors Page 46
