The Best Defense

by Todd A. Stone

  Val scowled.

  “But, Ma’am,” Christine continued, “it doesn’t matter. Even if we had enough thermite grenades, we still couldn’t neutralize all the weapons. Or even five percent of them.”

  Val’s eyebrows went up.

  “You see, Ma’am, any time you neutralize a nuke round, you don’t destroy it. Rather, the thermite grenade melts through the round’s jacket and into the enriched uranium. The resulting impurities in the fissionable material and the destruction of the round’s jacket make it unusable, although you could reprocess and reuse the uranium without too much trouble. But what does happen when you break that steel seal is that you release both radioactive tritium gas and radiation—not huge clouds, but enough of it. In war, if you’re about to be overrun, it doesn’t matter. But here, with the concentration of nukes that we have in this small area, detonating thermite grenades on only five percent of them would release enough radiation to make us all glow in the dark.”

  Christine sighed. “It gets worse. I haven’t even talked about the old chemical stuff the Russians left here. It’s not my specialty, and we don’t have the chemical officer we’re authorized, but a quick run of the numbers says that we can’t neutralize those bullets either. Normally, the Army evacuates the stuff to Johnson Island in the Pacific to destroy it. When they do, they use very sophisticated processes, and they still end up contaminating a couple of square miles. All we have is C4, which means the resulting explosions would spread nerve agent all over the place. The depot and tunnels below it would be uninhabitable in a matter of hours, chemical suits or no. And that’s not counting the bunch of old bullets—chem and nuke—we have that are already leaking. Hmm, I didn’t figure those into my analysis.” She turned back to her computer.

  “Never mind,” Val said. “I get the picture. We got the stuff and we have to keep it.”

  There was a knock on her office door. “Phone call for you, Ma’am,” said the duty NCO. “It’s CENTCOM.”

  Val picked up the phone and punched a button.

  “Major Macintyre.”

  “This is Colonel Mike Lesko, Deputy G2 for Security. I need for you to hold your prisoner for twenty-four more hours. I’ve just been hit with a major requirement—something I can’t discuss on an unsecure line—and I won’t be able to gin up a team to get down there until tomorrow.”

  “Save yourself the trouble, sir. The Russian Special Security picked up the prisoner more than half an hour ago.”

  “Please hold, Major.”

  “Major Macintyre,” said Lesko when he came back on “under what authority did you release the prisoner to the Russians?”

  Perplexed, Val rifled the papers on her desk until she found the paperwork the Special Security agents had given her.

  “Sir, I’m looking at a signed, stamped, and authenticated CENTCOM Joint Special Form 907, prisoner release or transfer document.” She flipped through the three-page form, checking its entries for the third time. “It’s all straight, sir, down to the last detail.”

  “Who authenticated it, Major?”

  Val checked the last page, then slowly laid the document on her desk. She hit the “speakerphone on” button, turned down the volume, and motioned for Denight and Christine to move closer, where they could hear.

  “Why, sir?”

  “Because I’d like to know who in my office did so without my authority. Hell, we just contacted the Russian liaison an hour or so ago. Without going into the gory details, Major, I may have to chew some ass if I have a problem in this office with my people not following proper procedure.”

  Val tapped her finger next to the typed name and signature in document’s authentication block. Christine looked at her quizzically. Denight raised one eyebrow and nodded.

  “Major Macintyre? What numbnuts signed that thing?”

  “You did, sir. Michael L. Lesko, Colonel, Military Intelligence, Assistant G2, CENTCOM.”

  “Dammit, Major, I sure as hell didn’t sign any damn forms, especially not that one.”

  “Then your problem is much bigger than just somebody not following procedure.”

  ~*~

  “Luka came highly recommended,” Ziven said. “I am sorry he disappointed you.”

  The commander of the Russian contract guard force stood in Val’s office, feigning ignorance and silently cursing Luka’s stupidity.

  “Disappointed isn’t the word,” Val said. “Betrayal is.”

  “Greed can ruin the soul of even the most loyal of men,” Ziven said. “It is a problem in my country these days.”

  “The problem,” Denight butted in, “is that I’ve caught your people either drunk or asleep at their posts so many times that we’re almost better off guarding this place ourselves.”

  “Each incident was investigated,” Ziven said, “and the results of the investigations turned over to the previous commander.”

  “Who did nothing,” Denight said.

  “He was the commander,” Ziven shrugged. “I am merely an employee.”

  “I am the commander now,” Val said. “There will be no more dereliction of duty, or there will be no more contract.”

  “You can not guard this installation all by yourselves,” Ziven said, “and there is no rush of men volunteering to work in a place so remote as Infernesk. Even your own troops hate it here.”

  “But they do their jobs, and then some,” Val said. “Now you need to do yours, and ensure your guards do theirs.”

  “We always do our best. What time shall we stand down from the increased security level?’

  “When I say so,” Val said. “That will be all.”

  Ziven turned to leave. He stopped in the doorway and turned back to Val.

  “A word of advice, Major. You are among Russians. We are a good people, but we watch, we see. Like the castle on the mountain above us, we are old and we guard what is ours. Tread softly on Mother Russia.”

  He was out the door.

  Val let out a long breath. She turned to Denight.

  “Can we trust them?”

  “For now, we have to,” said Denight. He stood and walked to her window. Castle Infernesk was visible in the distance.

  “We’ll trust,” Denight said, still staring at the castle, “but verify.”

  Vicinity Castle Infernesk

  From the depot’s front entrance, especially from the two guard towers, Infernesk’s soldiers had an excellent view of an older, and much stronger, fortress.

  Castle Infernesk was built in the thirteenth century, when barons controlled most of a fractured Russia. The castle, or rather the ruins of the castle, with an attached small inn and spa that date only from 1986, is perched roughly half-way up Mt. Infernesk, the tallest of the peaks in the range that rings the village of Infernesk and the nearby depot. From the castle’s crumbling ramparts or from a good room in the inn, a visitor can look down and see the village where it sits astride the one main road running through the Infernesk Heights. The view is nearly postcard-perfect. Broad green fields are surrounded by low but rugged mountains. Forested hillsides enclose the tranquil scene and cut off interference from the outside world.

  Located roughly in the center of the great green circle, the depot’s blight of haphazardly arranged buildings and warehouses and misshapen concentric rings of bunkers was partially masked by parts of the cultivated forest known for its huge black boars.

  Dressed in their jeans and rough wool sweaters, Denight and Christine looked like any other weekend hikers as they trudged up the mountain path. They walked together for three-quarters of an hour before Denight stopped and pulled off into the woods. Denight slid the orange daypack that Val had loaned him off his shoulder, rummaged around inside, and pulled out a map. Then he studied the folds in mountainside for a few minutes, matching them up with the map’s closely spaced brown contour lines. Satisfied, he nodded to himself, reached behind to check the nine-millimeter pistol he’d stuffed under his sweater, then folded the map and put it away.

/>   “Sergeant Major?” queried Christine. Her normal tone of voice was so loud over the quiet forest that Denight started.

  “Yes, Ma’am? Would you please speak quieter, Ma’am?”

  “Yes, Sergeant Major.” She lowered her voice. “But I thought we were coming up here to look at the depot from the enemy’s point of view.”

  “We are, Ma’am.”

  Christine looked around. “But we can’t see anything from here, Sergeant Major. Shouldn’t we go back to the castle or the inn? You can see really well from there.”

  Denight eyed Christine. Time to teach this butterbar something about defense, he said to himself. Now be gentle, the kid may not know squat.

  “Yes, Ma’am, you can. But that castle was a command post, mostly set up to watch over the entrance to the plain. You can see the depot from there, sure, but only the main gate and the front part. Those old barons were smart—they set up their CPs then just like we do now, on the best ground available to maneuver and defend from. But because of the forest and way the ground rolls, a good part of the plain—and most of the depot—is hidden from their view. Now Ma’am, remember your tactics classes from the basic course? Everybody gets them. What’s the term for ground that we can’t see?”

  “Deadspace,” said Christine without hesitation.

  Denight was pleasantly surprised. “Very good. And what do we do about deadspace?”

  “We cover it with indirect fire, Sergeant Major. But back then they didn’t have any—catapults or siege cannon, maybe. But they’d still need some way to observe into that deadspace, and some way to get the word back if something was going on in it.” Christine ran her eyes along the trail. “They’d set up some kind of observation post, and if they had to man it year round, they’d fortify it so people could stay there and be out of the weather. This trail must be the way to that OP—their runners must have used it to send messages.”

  “And haul chow, supplies, building materials, and everything else,” Denight said. He smiled. The kid has potential, he thought. She catches on quicker than a lot of the others I’ve had to break in. “You got it. The best view of the depot is about four hundred yards up this trail.”

  “Okay, then, Sergeant Major. Let’s go.” Christine moved to get back on the path.

  “No, Ma’am. We need to cut cross country and come up behind them.”

  “Why?” Christine knit her brow. “What do you mean ‘them’? Do you think it’s occupied? Who would be there, and why would they be watching—us?”

  Denight nodded. “I know it’s occupied, Ma’am. Earlier I saw the sun glint off what had to be binos, and I saw it again when we were driving up here. Somebody’s scoping us out, and I intend to find out who. And I aim to give you a pressbox view of the depot. So, if you’ll follow me.” He turned and set off into the woods.

  They moved through the forest for about five minutes before Denight stopped and turned.

  “Ma’am, could you please walk a little quieter? We’re trying to sneak up on someone.”

  “Yes, Sergeant Major. Uh, Sergeant Major?”

  “Yes, Ma’am?”

  “How?”

  In Christine’s face he saw an eagerness to learn, and Denight felt the old rush of competence flowing back into him. How about that, he thought, an officer smart enough to ask an NCO a question, even if it is a girl. Now how many officers, he asked himself as he grinned, have I taught to walk in the woods? Lord God, add up all those that passed through the Benning phase at Ranger school, plus those in the SF qualification course. Nah, I can’t count that high.

  “You start, Ma’am, by picking up your feet. Then they won’t scuff and drag on the underbrush. You have to pick your route to avoid deadfall and loose soil. Take shorter strides, too, so you don’t come down so hard. To make it easier for yourself, drop back five meters behind me and step where I step.”

  “Then you’ll have to take shorter strides, Sergeant Major. My legs aren’t that long.”

  Denight nodded and again took off through the forest, thinking that the lieutenant might teach him a thing or two as well.

  They picked their way through the woods for half an hour, Christine’s movement gradually becoming quieter as she practiced the techniques Denight had offered. The pair had worked their way to within thirty meters of the top of a small knoll when Denight held up his hand.

  “Listen, Ma’am,” Denight whispered. “Shove the forest noise into the background and what do you hear?”

  At first there was nothing except the whisper of the breeze and the hum of insects. Then, as Christine’s hearing reached out beyond the natural sounds, pieces of broken, guttural conversation came to her.

  “They’re nearby, aren’t they?”

  “We’re very close, not even fifty meters away. From on top of this rise we should be able look down on the depot, and on whoever is in that old OP.” He waved his hand for her to follow.

  Slowly, careful to make no noise, they crept to the top and peered over. The Infernesk plain lay spread before them. And not forty meters below Christine, standing in the crumbled foundations of an ancient outpost, were three men.

  Denight noticed that all had binoculars, that one carried a hand-held radio, that another had a notebook, and that those two also had slight bulges under their jackets in the center of their backs, right on their beltlines. He felt the weight of his own pistol pressing into his back.

  The Russian sightseers were armed.

  Christine recognized the man in the middle as Luka.

  Denight slipped the backpack off his shoulder and quietly pulled out the map. “Ma’am,” he whispered, “you take this and look it over. Familiarize yourself with the ground, how it looks on paper and how you see it. Then you look at the depot down there and figure out how you would sneak up on it, both alone and with a bunch of people. I’m going to go on a little recon mission, get a closer look, and maybe listen in a little on those folks.”

  “Be careful, Sergeant Major.”

  “Yes, Ma’am. Don’t worry, I know what they can do.”

  He slid silently into the woods, deciding that rather than go straight down he’d first move away, then come back in behind them at an angle. His eyes cut through the pines and firs, selecting the best way around the hill. Denight occasionally halted to listen, waiting until his own breathing had quieted and the sound of his targets’ voices told him he was undetected.

  He started moving again, silently easing closer. He crept forward a few more meters, then stopped. He lay near enough to hear the change rattle in their pockets.

  His Russian was rusty, but he could pick out the critical words.

  Denight lay quietly until the three had walked well out of earshot down the path, then he moved quickly back to Christine. He found her sprawled on her belly, her eyes alternating between the binoculars she held in one hand to view the depot, the map, and a sketch she was drawing. Denight nodded to himself. I didn’t say one word about using the binos or drawing a sketch map, he thought, and she figured it out for herself. Now that’s as good as any infantry lieutenant; better than a whole bunch of them.

  “What did you learn?”

  Christine rolled over, sat up, and brushed the mud from her sweater. “Quite a bit, Sergeant Major. Let me show you.”

  For the next half hour she briefed him, pointing out potential obstacles, key terrain, observation points, concealment, and avenues of approach. It took only an occasional prompt from her enlisted mentor for Christine to explain the most likely course of action that an attacking force might take. As Christine wrapped up, Denight smiled, thoroughly impressed at the young woman’s quick mastery of the relationship between terrain and tactics. The major was right, Denight thought. The el-tee is as green as they come, but she learns quick. Especially for a woman.

  “And you, Sergeant Major?” Christine asked. “What did you learn on your mission?”

  “Plenty, Ma’am. Plenty. I’ll tell you on the ride back.”

  Vicinity
Castle Infernesk

  On the mountainside, two well-camouflaged observers exchanged notes as Denight and Christine headed down the path.

  “The big guy is damn good,” whispered one.

  “Or the three yahoos he was stalking were real bad.”

  “Some of both. I’ve seen the two military ones at the Inn. As discreet as a LA streetwalkers. Someone let them out of their cages to keep tabs on the depot, and those boys are enjoying every minute of their freedom.”

  “Report them? Won’t take me long to set up the commo.”

  “Doesn’t meet the boss’s criteria. We make a transmission, the National Security Agency boys will pick it up, and we’re not supposed to be here, remember?”

  “Big deal. We’re not supposed to exist, much less be anyplace.”

  Silence settled back in. Clouds cut in front of the sun and the mountainside grew suddenly colder.

  “How come they get to stay at the inn and we have to freeze in the woods?”

  “‘Cause we’re the good guys, and the good guys always have it tougher.”

  Commander’s office

  Infernesk munitions depot

  Val listened intently, scribbling notes as Denight reported what he’d heard on the hillside. Christine sat quietly, half listening, half staring out the window.

  Denight finished. Val put down her pen.

  “What’s your read, Sergeant Major?”

  “The most benign explanation for the events of the last several days is that the Russians don’t trust us. They’re dissatisfied with the security here, and so were hedging their bets by keeping their own watch—externally and internally—on the facility. That may or may not mean there’s a real threat to worry about. It wouldn’t be the first time friends have spied on friends.”

  Christine looked first at Val, then at Denight. Their carefully controlled tone and the deep concern on their faces told her there was more.