by John Holmes
As we stood up, I turned to Ski and said “That is a shitstorm I am glad we aren’t going to be mixed up in.” Light Scout teams such as ours had no business being in a heavy fight with armored units.
“No shit, Sherlock” he answered, but then Scarletti’s voice rang out.
“IST Team Leaders, briefing in Room 38 in twenty minutes. Bring your entire teams.”
“Oh, damn, spoke too soon” said Szimanski.
“Bring your Vaseline, brother.”
Twenty minutes later, we sat in the classroom, trading stories back and forth, and waited for Scarletti to come in, which he did, ten minutes late. He half looked like he expected us to jump to attention, but seeing Ziv with his feet propped up on the chair in front of him, smoking a cigarette, I think he suddenly remembered that half of the scouts were civilians.
“I’ll get straight to the point. We don’t expect Taylor to be at the Federal Capital Complex. Like it or not, someone is going to get word to him about the operation, which actually kicks off Thursday, not Friday. We expect he is going to move himself and a company, at least, of DHS troops to Maury Island, where they have a Command and Control Center. Informants have told us that the man is just about batshit crazy, but we want him for trial.”
He handed out folders to all of us with maps of the objective on it. It looked like a standard Forward Operating Base, with clear fields of fire and bunkers all around.
“Looks like a tough nut to crack” said 1LT Billy Kraus from Team Two. “I’m guessing an airborne insert? Will we have fire support?”
Scarletti nodded. “There will be an AC-130 gunship on call for fire support. Team Five will be going in by boat twenty minutes early to provide target designation for JDAM strikes on the bunkers.”
“SWEET! No frigging plane for us!” said Szimanski. He high fived his cousin Will. Scarletti ignored them both.
“No planes for anyone. The remaining three teams will drop into the compound by MH-60 helo. From there, you will proceed to reduce the enemy and CAPTURE, not kill, Acting President Taylor. He is to be CAPTURED and held for trial. I’m talking to you and your merry band of killer, Sergeant Major Agostine.”
“Noted” I said. Scarletti looked at Ziv for a long second, but he just smiled and blew a cloud of smoke at him, and drummed his fingers on the hilt of his knife.
“I’m serious, Major Zivkovic. You’ll obey orders or I will have you shot for war crimes you committed in Bosnia.” The smile dropped off Ziv’s face, to be replaced by a scowl. Damn, Scarletti had some seriously good intel.
“What’s the ex-fil plan?” asked Team Four’s NCOIC, Master Sergeant Bates. Greg had a point. Not a lot of good getting in, if a ton of DHS troopers descended on us as we waited around.
“Team Five will secure and cover your retreat to a dock area, and you will be picked up by a boat team from U.S.S. New York, which will be acting as the 1st Marine Division Command Post for the fight.”
Scarletti paused to suck down some water, then continued. “I’ve given you the broad outline of the plan, and your team missions. I’ll leave it up to you to figure out the details. Since this whole Irregular Scout Team thing was Sergeant Major Agostine’s brainchild, he is in charge. If you need any additional support, Captain Kwiecinski will be here for fire support planning and Major Graczyk for air insertion and combat rescue. SFC Daffin has the complete order of battle for the Department of Homeland Security troops.”
At the mention of my name as mission commander, Brit shot me a look. I looked back, lying to her with my eyes. I didn’t expect to live through this mission, so I was all in. There’s more than one way to commit suicide, and like Lieutenant Spears said in Band of Brothers, the only way to look at combat was as if you were dead already.
Chapter 21
We took a break from planning to go grab something to eat, and Brit waved off the rest of the team as they started to follow us down to the cafeteria. Here it comes, I thought to myself. She said nothing as we grabbed some hamburgers from the short order line and sat down at a table, just gave me the evil redhead eye. Two can play that game, though. I just sat and ate my pudding and looked back at her.
She pushed her own tray aside and sighed. “Nick, are you ready to BE in charge of this whole thing? Why don’t you let Captain Hideyoshi take over? He’s actually senior to you.”
Hideyoshi, the leader of IST – 4, was a good guy, but … I shook my head.
“Nope, no dice. It’s me or nothing. I can handle this We’re coming down to the end, and afterwards, it’s going to be like you said. Back home to the island.” I tried to put sincerity into my voice, I couldn’t look her in the eye.
I reached across the table and tried to take her hand, but she took her fork and stabbed me as hard as she could right in my palm. I jerked back my hand and yelled “OW! What the fuck did you do that for?”
“So every time you reach for you gun you get reminded that you’re alive. I can’t watch you twenty four seven in a gunfight.” Seeing the hurt look on my face, she laughed and said “I know you, Nick. You need some bringing back to reality. Yeah, I know your PTSD is kicking your ass real bad. Me too, in case you haven’t noticed, but we can get past that. But I KNOW you. You probably have some romantic, fatalistic notion in your head about going on some kind of suicide mission. Let me tell you this, dipshit. If you get yourself killed, you’re probably going to get everyone else killed. And if you get my girl Hart killed so she can’t go home to her baby, or you get ME killed and I can’t go home to our son, I am going to steal your soul with my last breath. That’s a redhead promise, I swear to you by my freckles.” Then she stabbed my in the arm hard enough to penetrate my ACU shirt.
“Dammit, I thought you got over your crazy shit!” She tried again and I grabbed her wrist and held it down to the table. Around us the cafeteria had fallen into silence. Brit threw back her head laughed. “Kiss me, you fool!” she said, and I did.
“ … so anyway” said Szymanski, picking up an argument that I think had been going on in his team for I think from probably day two of the zombie apocalypse “I know you guys like the .22 Magnum so you can carry more rounds, but their ain’t no beating a .45 for stopping power.”
“Yeah, but eight rounds in a .45 is, how you say in America, BULLSHIT. I am great shot, I kill fifty one zombies with fifty bullets while you kill two with your eight bullets.” Ziv punctuated his exclamation with a swig from a hip flask, then lit another cigarette and blew smoke in Will Szymanski’s face.
“Oh no!” said Brit in a small voice. “Every time we get the teams together.” I saw a crazy look pass over Sergeant First Class Billy “Balls” Ball, who was sitting next to Will, and he smiled a shit eating grin.
“I bet I could nail your mom with eight out of eight shots, Zivkovic.”
Ziv blew smoke in his face too, and said “Impossible. Your sister told me she bit your dick off.”
“Leave my sister out of this, pig fucker.”
Ziv took another swig of what I knew was vodka and said “Just because I fuck your sister does not make her pig.”
Balls launched himself over the table at Ziv, and they crashed to the ground in a melee of fists and boots , punching and kicking. Red jumped up to go help Ziv, but Kelly Hart grabbed him by the collar and sat him back down. Bognaski looked over at me, and I nodded. He took a running lead off the table and landed on Balls, pulling him off of Ziv. Jimmy Kinser stood up, yelled, “I’m your Huckleberry!” handed his pistol to another one of his team mates, and threw a punch that hit Bognaski in the shoulder, throwing him off balance and into Ryan Szymanski.
“Fuck it” I said “haven’t had any fun in a while. ALL IN!” I yelled and dove at Kinser, who now had Bognaski in an arm bar. I heard Brit laugh like a maniac and then all hell really broke loose. “DON’T BITE ANYONE, BRIT! NO KNIVES, ZIV”
The fighting was stopped dead in its tracks by a loud BANG as Colonel Scarletti fired his pistol into the floor.
“The next person t
hat throws a punch, I will shoot. IS THAT CLEAR?”
We all slowly came to attention, extricating ourselves from choke holds and various grappling holds. “Yessir” I said.
“Just blowing off steam, Colonel” said Hart. She dropped Mike Lloyd with a crash onto the floor. She had been holding him up off the ground, squeezing him around the waist. He sat there wheezing and tried to catch his breath.
One of the newer guys, a civilian I didn’t recognize, laughed and said “You wouldn’t shoot any of us. No offense, scarface, but you need us.”
The room went absolutely still. Scarletti walked over to the guy. “What’s your name?” he said, looking him in the face.
“Joe Richardson. I’m with Team Two.”
Scarletti shot him in the foot, blood instantly welling up. Richardson fell to the floor and grabbed at his boot, howling in pain. “Sergeant Lester, take a look at that. Sergeant Ball, go over to the 108th Infantry and get a replacement.”
Ball nodded and headed out of the room while the medic wrapped a pressure dressing around the remains of Richardson’s boot, then helped him up. I told Red to help, and together they half carried, half dragged the sobbing, wounded man out of the room.
“I’m not fucking around, people” said Scarletti. He turned and walked back out.
As soon as he did, Brit slapped Kisner across the face, hard. “What the hell was that for?” he said, touching the angry palm print.
“For squeezing my boob! Do it again the next time we’re in a brawl, and you lose the hand!” The room burst into laughter, and we started picking up tables, chairs, and spilled food trays.
Chapter 22
“OK, so how are we going to do this? Team Five, you know what you have to do. Just be there on the way out.”
Captain Hideyoshi took out a laser pointer and aimed it at the blowup of the compound. “My recommendation is that we drop down here” and he indicated an open space to the rear of what we had taken to calling the Headquarters.
LT Kraus from Team Two spoke up. “Why not on the roof? Blow our way in and then clear it?”
Major Graczyk answered him. “First off, we can’t fit three birds over the roof at one time. Nor do we want to drop in one at a time. The last helo would receive inordinate amounts of ground fire. At best we can put two birds in back and one in the front.”
I nodded and agreed. “One team will have to go up front as a blocking force, to tie own any QRF from this barracks, here” and I pointed to a two story cinder block building two hundred meters away.
“Can I interrupt?” said Captain Kwiecinski. “I think you’ve been playing Scout too long, Sergeant Major. How about we just blow the shit out of the barracks? Couple of 105mm rounds at the corners should collapse the building.”
She was right. We HAD been sneaking and peeking too long, and I had been out of the game for more than a year. “Can you do that at the same time as the strikes on the bunkers?”
“Sure” she said. Kwiecinski had been an F-16 pilot for the last four years, dropping cluster bombs and napalm on zombies and rebels. She knew her shit and had acted as a Forward Air Controller on the ground. If she said they could do it, they could.
“OK, that’s settled then. Team Four, you drop in the front, block and QRF, and watch for squirters out the front door. Team Two, LT Kraus, your guys go in using a breeching charge on the back wall. Clear the ground floor and hold, my team will go up to the second floor.”
Ball leaned back in his chair. “Getting all the glory again, huh Nick? Are we going to bring another cameraman along for your reality show?” Everyone burst out laughing, and I turned to look at Brit, whose idea it had been. She just whistled innocently and looked away. GRRRR.
“Fine, then. Your team goes for Taylor. We’ll secure the ground floor. LT Kraus, you OK with that?”
Visions of glory danced in the young officer’s eyes. “Sure, Sergeant Major.”
“Happy now, Balls?”
“Do I get my own camera crew?” That brought a snicker from the rest of the room.
“No. Stop busting my balls, Balls. Moving along… Once Taylor is captured, we will extract out the front door and down the road to the docks. We will pass through Team Four’s position, and they will take the rear. Order of March is Team One, Two, and Four. Szi, make sure we’re free to get there.”
“Roger that. But why can’t you just fly back out?”
Graczyk answered again before I could. “We expect that your assault will take about twenty minutes. The gunship will be pulling out after fifteen minutes, because we expect fighter units loyal to DHS will be in the air as soon as the armored column leaves out of Fort Lewis. Air Defense units and Navy F-18’s SHOULD be able to handle them, but only fast movers will be in the air until that threat is taken care of.”
“Does that answer your question?” He nodded and I continued on with the briefing, covering and recovering actions on the objective. How we were going to get in and get out. Emphasis on capturing, not killing. Estimates of enemy troop levels. Then I dropped the bombshell on them.
“Team Leaders, if you have anyone on your teams who has NOT had any real experience fighting anything other than undead, I would highly discourage you from taking them on this op. Replacements can be found over at 2-108 Infantry.” I general uproar broke out, with cries of BULLSHIT and MAKES SENSE. I finally got them to quiet down by yelling “AT EASE!” at the top of my lungs.
“Listen, people. This is a whole different ball game here. WE are going to be going up against troops who SHOOT BACK. Aside from duking it out with some Reavers and looters, how many of you have been in a knockdown, drag out fire fight with heavy automatic weapons and indirect fire? You are used to taking headshots at undead advancing on your position. This is going to be very, very different, and the reflexes that have kept you alive fighting Zs are going to get you killed.”
I didn’t look Brit in the eye, but I feel her staring at me. I dealt with it.
“Those of you who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, or other wars, know what I’m talking about. You don’t seek cover from undead, and return fire. You stand your ground and shoot and hope you don’t run out of ammo, and seek higher ground. That will get you KILLED.” They were all silent, and I continued on. “I’m leaving it up to the individual Team Leaders, but unless one of your team has been to at least Basic Training and Infantry AIT, I recommend them staying back.”
Brit got up and walked out of the room. Damn, I was in the shit.
“We have three days, not counting transport. Team Two, I want you to get blueprints or whatever you can of the building. Lay out a sand table and a tape diagram of the building, so we can walk through our assaults. The rest of you, we’re going to the armory and draw M-4’s with a thousand rounds of ammo each. I want every weapon zeroed and all that ammo burned through before we are wheels up. Same for any snipers. You know what we need to do; let’s do it. Dismissed.”
As they filled out of the room, I hung back. I would rather have walked straight into a horde of undead, naked and covered with fresh blood, than face Brit right now.
She was waiting for me out in the corridor. I started to speak, but she just reached up and put her finger on my lips. “Shhh” she said “I understand. Just let me go through the next couple of days with you, and come out to Seattle. I’ll wait for you there, and help with command and control back at the OPS center.”
I was prepared for an argument, but not this. My mouth opened and then closed; I had nothing to say. Almost twenty years of combat had never prepared me for dealing with women.
“Let me see, you’re thinking I’m going to throw a fit, bitch about how much of a badass I am, tell you I’m part of the team, I’m your wife so we shouldn’t be separated, yadda yadda yadda blah blah.”
“Something like that, yes” I answered.
A smirk appeared on her face and she said “Well, I know how fraking stubborn you can be when you want to, and I think that you would do something stupid like hav
e me locked up if I insisted on going. So, I’m not going.”
I started to get worried. “Just like that?”
“Just like that. We have a kid to look after, too, you know. And if you DO get smoked, I don’t want my last memory of you to be an argument.”
“Gee, thanks, I think.”
Chapter 23
The next few days were a blur of training and physical exhaustion. We had a limited time to rehearse and get up to speed for the assault, and I was nervous about it.
Like I said before, there was a big difference between Undead combat and knock down drag out fights with armed troops. The effective range of a zombie was about a meter. The effective range of a 5.56 NATO round measured in the hundreds of meters. We were used to making head shots at less than a hundred meters, engaging like clockwork while they steadily advanced on us. Fighting body armored troops who took cover and advanced in bounding overwatch, covering for each other with suppressive fire, well, that was something different.
Ziv, who probably had the most combat experience of all of us, was made our training officer. What he had going for him was his experience, and the fact that he was a prick and had no favorites. Despite being far older than most of the guys, he lead us all on a five mile run the next morning, out pacing us all and then laughing at us while he smoked a cigarette.
The first day was training with some airsoft guns that we looted from a local Walmart. Crossman’s with metal BB’s, and he turned the speed way up, hard enough to make a welt, and set the teams to force on force training with each other. They needed to get used to live engagements again, and by the end of the day, we were covered in welts and ad a healthy respect for distance again.
Second day was MILES gear on a rehearsal. Half a platoon of Infantry from the 2-108 acted as defenders, and the first run gave us fifty percent casualties and made us mission incapable.
“Do it again” said Ziv, and we did. Again. And again. We worked out problems and what ifs over and over.
