He turned carefully—so as to make no disturbance—then walked back to the center aisle and down it to the door at the macabre nursery’s far end. Viktor took a last look over his charges and decided he must move on to the others. It would not do to spend too much time with some and shortchange the others. He reached over and turned the lights down.
“Good night, my children.”
Access Road #2
Infernesk Munitions Depot
Val Macintyre was just plain mad.
“Sergeant Major, you haven’t paid attention to a single word I’ve said!”
“Ma’am, you want the munitions moved.” There was unmistakable disapproval in Denight’s voice.
“I want them moved to the level three storage area,” Val said, trying to put a lid on her anger, “and I want the work to begin today.”
“Ma’am, with all due respect, it seems like an awful lot of work to put these people through, and I don’t understand what for.” He paused. “We don’t have that many men able to do it, and they’ll be doing most of the work.”
Val had sensed Denight’s underlying resentment since the day she took charge of Infernesk Munitions Depot. She couldn’t fix his tone, but he was quietly, indirectly resisting her orders. At first she thought it was just directed at her. While Denight surely resented having a woman for a commander, she dealt quickly with that as she dealt with it before.
Now she sensed his distaste, not only at being the Sergeant Major of a unit three times smaller than he should have been assigned to—the eighty-five or so soldiers at Infernesk should only rate a First Sergeant but got a Sergeant Major because the depot was so isolated—but also at being the senior enlisted man in a unit which was more than seventy percent women.
She knew that Denight had come up through the ranks of the infantry, had seen combat a dozen times, participated in numerous covert operations, and known only a “man’s army”. Now, thought Val, this must be the ultimate insult to this macho warrior. He was not in a combat unit, he’d been at this depot too long, and now he not only had a unit full of women to take care of, he had a woman for a boss.
I wonder if there’s any fight left in this old SOB? Val stood silent in thought, arms folded in front of her.
“Sergeant Major, let me have a few moments to myself, I need to make a decision.”
Maybe this battle-ax bitch will see things my way after all, thought Denight.
“Yes, Ma’am.” Denight walked away and pulled a bag of chewing tobacco from the pouch in his pocket. Officers were like that, he thought, stuffing a wad into his mouth. You’d tell them what they should do and then they’d call it their decision. This broad wouldn’t be that hard to handle. Satisfied with himself, he spat juice into the grass.
“Sergeant Major, I’ve decided.”
As he turned his head Val spoke quickly. “I’ve decided you need a transfer. I know of the perfect job—you’ll have your own desk back at CENTCOM headquarters.” She smiled.
Denight nearly swallowed the whole wad, coughed violently, choked, and spat out the entire brown mess.
“It’ll be no problem, Sergeant Major,” replied Val with mock innocence. “I made friends with the enlisted assignments officer during my tour at the Pentagon before I came here. You’re tired; you need a rest.”
“Tired! Tired? I’ve never felt better,” he answered defensively. “I can work longer and harder than any of these wimps around here.”
“Maybe it’s time you get a desk job,” Val continued, her voice dripping with sympathy. “Really. I mean you’ve already so much as said you can’t get the jobs done which I want you to do. If you’re not up to the challenge of motivating and leading both men and women, then maybe a staff job would be a good thing to do before you retire.”
“Retire? Staff job?” Denight’s mouth gaped in disbelief. “Me not able to get a job done, not able to lead soldiers? Dammit, Ma’am, I can teach anybody in this Army to do anything,” Denight spluttered back at her. “Why, I taught a bunch of Afghani tribesmen to...”
“But these are women, Sergeant Major.”
“I can train these women to be Green Berets if you let me!”
“Perhaps you can.” She rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “But there’s still the issue of moving the munitions. Now, if you were out to sabotage this place, aren’t those munitions both the most sensitive and least secure assets we have here? I’d have thought you would have already noticed that.” Val looked him in the eye. “That’s what I mean—since you can’t get all the soldiers to pull their load and since you didn’t notice what I think is obvious, maybe you’ve lost your edge.” She paused, still staring him down. “Maybe the desk job will be right for you. I’m sure you’ll fit right in.”
The “fit right in” did it. Denight drew his head back, then stared back at Val and shook his finger at her.
“I want nothing to do with any damn desk job, any place, any time. I laid recommendations for improving the security of this place, to include relocating the nukes, on your predecessor’s desk, but he nixed it.” There was a touch of bitterness in Denight’s voice. “I’ll have a team begin moving the munitions out of the bunkers tonight. And I’ll begin training in a few days, as soon as I work up a plan and get some extra duty volunteers to square away our old rifle range.”
“I want to see those recommendations, if you can find them. And about the training. You could use the Air Force Base Security Force training plan. That would let you start sooner.” Val suggested. “I have a copy of it in my office. It’s a pretty good plan.”
“I know,” said Denight. “I was on the joint Army/Air Force committee that helped write it. Bastards made me take some of the really nasty stuff I learned in Viet Nam out.”
“Really?” said Val in mock surprise. “I graduated from that course. The first woman,” she said, not without some pride. “Led an all-female class through.”
“That’s pretty good,” Denight nodded approvingly.
“I fought my way into it after I got back from Panama. Figured I needed to learn more about tactics than the Army was willing to teach an ordnance company commander. I wish I had gone to the course before I went on ‘Just Cause’.” Val had his attention. “I lost two down there when they waited too long to shoot. Wanted to ask questions first.” She looked away.
“It’s always tough to lose kids.” It was Denight’s turn to be sympathetic, although his was real. There was a quick flash through his mind of himself as a twenty-year-old sergeant in a steaming jungle, bending over the mangled body of a kid who’d arrived “in country” only a week before.
Denight hadn’t even known his name.
“I don’t ever want to lose any more because they weren’t aggressive enough.” Val’s jaw was set as her words came out. “You’ll need to hustle, and to hustle them.” She paused again. “If you think you’re up to it.”
“Ma’am,” Denight replied toughly, “it’ll get done quickly.”
“Brief me on the training plan and the munitions movement progress tomorrow morning, 0900. And Sergeant Major? Maybe you should put the nasty stuff back in.”
“Yes, Ma’am!”
They saluted and Denight walked away, off to get things in motion.
Someday, Val thought, I won’t have to be slick about it; I won’t have to invent some assignment officer. I’ll just tell you to get it done and you’ll do it.
“The Silver Bullet” all-ranks club
Infernesk Munitions Depot
Too small to warrant an exchange-service sponsored “watering hole” for its off-duty soldiers, and certainly too small for separate cantinas for its officers, sergeants, and enlisted soldiers, nevertheless the Infernesk Munitions Depot could boast that it provided a place for its garrison to wash away the taste of the workday with a few cold ones, regulations or not. That place was “The Silver Bullet”, which took its name, hand-lettered on the shingle over the door, from the nickname artillery men give to nuclear artillery shells, and
from a popular stateside alcoholic beverage.
The depot’s non-coms, on a rotating basis, dispensed Russian beer—bought at wholesale and sold just under retail prices—from behind the plywood bar. With no hard liquor and with NCOs handing out “absolutely not more than two beers per individual, I don’t want any sniveling hangovers when they show up for my PT formations” and riding herd on the customers, the little club let the garrison unwind, and over time it helped build a strong sense of camaraderie, despite all the official pronouncements from on high about the necessity to “deglamorize” alcohol consumption. With its patrons in combat boots and its bartenders most often those patrons’ immediate supervisors, the small bar was as far removed from glamorous as Infernesk was from the rest of the world.
The Silver Bullet opened a little early that day, just after Denight held a final formation to spell out what was to come. Master Sergeant Annette Rich decided to save her trip to the garrison’s weight room for the next day.
Twenty minutes and three beers later found the platoon leader of Infernesk’s understrength Military Police security detachment, along with her clique, quietly holding court at one of the tables in the sergeants’ section. On trial were Edward T. Denight and Val Macintyre.
“It’s stupid, a waste of time, dangerous, and worst of all downright demeaning. Denight is deliberately setting us up to fail and that turncoat new kid on the block of a major is going along with it, probably just to make herself look good.”
“What do you mean,” asked one of the half-dozen NCOs assembled around the table, “‘setting us up to fail’?”
“Don’t you see? That old fart is an infantry expert—he’ll set the standards, he’ll make the rules, he’ll tell us if we’re doing well or doing poorly, and every step of the way, even if he doesn’t say it, you know he’ll be comparing us to men. And believe me, he’ll make sure we do poorly. Not that we couldn’t do well, but not with daddy Denight in charge, oh no. Just to make sure we know our places, he’ll make sure we know how lousy we are. It’s just one more way for him to reinforce his authority. And moreover, he’s taking us away from doing our jobs. How are we supposed to be better MPs if we’re busy playing G. I. Grunt? So we get the double whammy and Denight, Macintyre, and that blonde airhead Tampier get the glory. Ain’t it a great day to be a soldier?” She finished her fourth beer, then leaned over, snatched a can from one of the other sergeants at the table, and drained it.
Around the table heads nodded, and a few sergeants murmured to one another. Yet Sergeant First Class Claire Horowitz had heard it all before, and she was growing tired of listening to Rich’s same old story.
“Chill out a little bit on the rhetoric, huh, Annie?” replied Horowitz. “If I hear one more lecture of yours, I think I’ll puke.”
“What did he do for you, Horoshitz,” Rich shot back, “promise that admin management section of yours some time off? Take you off his little bartending duty roster? Maybe he told you how nice that ass of yours looks in those baggy camouflage pants?”
“You can’t stand it when somebody calls your bluff, can you?” Clair shot back. “We finally get a chance to learn the combat skills that we didn’t learn in basic or AIT because some jerk thought women would never need them, and now you’re whining. It wouldn’t be because we got a new boss that’s gotten ole Denight out of his rut and you’re not going to be lord God almighty around here like you have been, would it? It wouldn’t be that for all your bullshit you’re going to have to get down to brass tacks and really lead, instead of badger and backstab, would it?”
Horowitz paused to take another drink.
“I seem to recall an Annette Rich who bitched real loud that she didn’t get any combat training, and so was deliberately put at a disadvantage relative to her male counterparts,” Horowitz went on. “I’m pretty sure I remember one of your diatribes about how women damn sure ought to be in the combat arms, ‘cause combat arms produces most of the general officers and that was one way to get women in positions of power. Here’s your chance, and you snivel because the deck is stacked against you. Shit. And Me? Denight didn’t promise me anything. And I tell you what, I think this combat training shit is going to be a royal pain in the ass, but I think I’m going to learn a lot. And I’ll be a better sergeant in the US Army for it.” She paused to drain her beer and crush the can.
Annette Rich, the daughter of an Air Force colonel who’d told her “you’re always a skirt in uniform, no matter what you do” stood and popped her knuckles.
Claire Horowitz, whose daddy was drummed out of New York City’s Crown Heights for being its first conservative Jew to marry a Jamaican woman, rose and readied herself to fight. Rich was six inches taller and twice as mean. Horowitz knew that against the taller woman she’d at best put up a good show.
Val had entered The Silver Bullet fifteen minutes earlier to have a beer with her troops, and despite her best efforts to ignore the sergeants’ rising voices, she’d caught every word. As the little pub grew silent and the women’s words caught the small crowd’s attention, Val knew that the soldiers’ eyes were on her as much as on Rich and Horowitz. When her two NCOs came out of their seats, she sat her beer mug down firmly on the bar, shook her head, and walked with purpose to their table.
“We have entirely too many other things to do and too many other enemies to fight to be wasting time fighting each other,” Val said quietly. “I don’t expect you two to shake hands, but I do expect you to be professional.” Horowitz and Rich’s heads snapped to one side to look at their commander.
She put herself between them. “Now cut the crap. You are not setting the example. Sergeant Rich, go home. Sergeant Horowitz, get out of here. Just to make sure we don’t have a problem, Sergeant Horowitz, you spend a few minutes helping Sergeant Gates tend bar. Sergeant Rich, you leave. Now. That will be all.”
The women did not move.
“I said, that…will…be…all.” Val drew out her words for emphasis. “Now.”
Rich unclenched her fists, picked up her “borrowed” beer, and drained it. She walked to the door, turning to send one last burn-in-hell glance at Val and Horowitz. I’ll beat them at their own game, thought Rich as she made her way back to her room in the NCO apartments. I’ll beat all the bastards at their own game, no matter what it takes.
Val had a second beer that evening, one poured by a somewhat sheepish Claire Horowitz.
Commander’s office
Special Security Regiment 23
Ditchnesk, Russia
“I am but the poor owner of a small electrician’s business,” Gregor Ziven said, “who hopes to serve his country by serving one of its soldiers.”
“You are neither businessman or patriot,” Dimonokov said. “Do not waste my time. I have soldiers to train. You came for something.”
“Great-grandmother was a gypsy, she read the future in tea leaves. I see the future in current events. Your brother is dead. My condolences. Your superior is dead. Again, my condolences. I am no fool; I wish to be alive and profitable. I knew their businesses. I know your business. I have something you may want.”
“I can think of nothing.”
“A contact on the inside at the American Central Command headquarters, a man on the inside of the American’s headquarters at Infernesk, and the contract for all the men who guard the depot.”
“None of which is of any interest to me. I am a soldier doing a soldier’s work.”
Ziven locked his gaze with Dimonokov’s.
“I am sorry to have wasted your time,” Ziven said. He rose to leave.
“But if I were interested,” Dimonokov said, “what extortion would be demanded in return?”
“Only the opportunity to manage the affairs of your late brother, which a soldier doing a soldier’s work has little time or desire for.”
Money, thought Dimonokov. They all want money. Let them have it. Ziven might give him a clearer way to a place in history that money could not buy.
“Sit d
own,” Dimonokov said. “We should talk more.”
Level 2, “The basement”
Infernesk Munitions Depot
“How come I always get the shit jobs?” Specialist Fourth Class Edilberto Cruz muttered to himself as he jabbed the crowbar into the stone wall. Tasked to help the detail prepare the tunnel complex for a defense, Cruz was covered with mortar, sweat, and dust. Along with several other soldiers who were busy hauling away rock or reinforcing fighting positions, Cruz toiled below ground.
Eddie smacked his lips, trying to get the stale taste of tunnel air out of his mouth.
Ten feet away, Sp4 Ann Shapiro knelt, chipping her own hole in the wall. “Because you’re a shithead, that’s why, Cruiser.”
“Huh? How did…?”
“We been in the same team in the same squad for months. I know what you’re thinking before you think it.”
“Oh, yeah?” He gave her a long look.
“Yeah. And in your dreams, GI, only in your dreams. Keep digging. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we get out of here.”
“Great. We get out of here and go to guard and outpost duty, and from guard and outpost duty we go to individual training, and from individual training we go haul ammo, and from hauling ammo we go to fortifying positions, and from fortifying positions we go to squad training, and from squad training we go to making this cave a fort, and from making this cave a fort we go to guard and outpost duty. It sucks. So I’ll hurry a lot.”
“Cruiser, there is a very important reason why I want you to hurry, and it’s a personal one.”
A cocky half-grin came to his face. “So it’s personal? So what is it?”
“I can’t stand to be in the same room with you, that’s what. Now dig before I shove this crowbar where the sun don’t shine.”
The Best Defense Page 10
