by Shawn Kupfer
Christopher put a hand on her shoulder, then turned to face the rest of his crew.
“OK, people. Here’s how it’s going to go down. Mary’s going to send a pulse to the GPS system on the other Razor that tells it ‘hey, you’re where you’re supposed to be. Stop the truck.’“
Bryce nodded.
“Yeah. GPS will put the brakes on and kill the engine. But there’s the double-check after that,” he said.
“Right. Five seconds later, the GPS will try to confirm its location, just in case it’s a couple hundred meters off. We’ll send that pulse too, and we should have just enough access and just enough time to send one other command: ‘open driver door.’“
“Question,” Anthony said. “We’ll have to drop the electronic part of the stealth to send the pulse.”
“That wasn’t a question, man,” Peter pointed out.
“But it’s correct,” Mary said. “Adaptive camouflage will still be active, but they’ll be able to pinpoint signals.”
“Here’s the question – won’t they pick up our transponder? The one that identifies our Razor?” Anthony said, shooting a glare at Peter.
“Transponder’s not the problem. We’ll just turn it off,” Mary said. “Before you say it can’t be turned off, Tony, I mean we’ll disconnect the power running to it.”
Anthony had opened his mouth to say something, but just closed it and nodded.
“But there is a problem,” Christopher said. “When we jumped out on these guys earlier, they picked up the convict locators in the guys who ran up on them. Unless they’re complete fucking idiots, they’ll have their computer monitoring for those locators. The second we shut down our electronic stealth, they’ll know we’re there.”
“Which means we have five seconds to jump out, run up to the driver door, and keep it open long enough to kill everyone inside,” Peter said.
“Correct again.”
“What about the ELR’s weapons systems? You gonna be able to shut those down?” Gabriel asked.
“Can’t guarantee that. The only thing I’m 95% on is the GPS exploit and being able to access the driver panel,” Mary said.
“So if they got someone up in the .50 turrets, we’re fucked the second we get out of our truck,” Peter said.
“If they do, yeah. We know they’re running a skeleton crew, so it’s possible no one’s up in the turrets. Mikey, how long does it take you to get up there?”
“Three, four seconds,” Michael said. “But there’s a way around that. We stay to the side of their Razor, the guns can’t hit us. Five feet away, we’re dead. But hand on the truck, we’re fine. We’re exposed for two, three seconds when we jump out of the middle hatch on the driver’s side of our own truck.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Christopher said.
“Assault plan for the driver’s door calls for me, Mikey, and one other gunner. Daniel’s gonna be useless from that angle – no offense, homeboy,” Peter said.
“None taken,” Daniel said.
“So the other gunner can be anyone who can shoot worth a damn.”
“That’s me,” Christopher said.
“Negative, Chief,” Bryce piped up. “If I jump out from the driver’s door, I’m several feet closer, and not exposed for more than a millisecond before I can side up on the other truck. I’m the logical choice.”
“That’s assuming I’m letting you drive,” Christopher said. “You’re not the only one who can sit in that chair, you know... but you are probably the only one who can drive the ELR back. You’re staying in here.”
Bryce started to say something, but Christopher cut him off.
“That’s not an invitation for a discussion, Bryce. You stay in the truck.”
Bryce closed his mouth and simply nodded.
“Martin – assuming we don’t make it to the driver door in five seconds and they realize what’s up and lock us out, you’re the second wave,” Christopher continued.
“Engine’s still off, right?”
“Yeah,” Mary said. “I’m shutting down the whole drive system. Take them at least a minute and a half to get it back up.”
“That case, I’ll need one of you muscleheads to give me a boost. I’m gonna take everything I’ve got left and blow out one of the blast shields on the front of the Razor. That’s the weak spot – it’ll basically be like blowing the windshield out of a car and crawling in that way.”
“What about driving it back? NoKos will probably notice an open window floating along,” Anthony said.
“There’s a TFT thing. We can patch it. I’ll explain it if I have to, but I can re-camo whatever hole I blow,” Martin snapped impatiently.
“Good enough for me, Martin. Calm down,” Christopher said.
“I’ll throw him up on the hood,” Daniel said. “What do you weigh, man, like a buck forty?”
Martin nodded.
“Good. Everyone clear?”
There were nods and affirmative grunts all around the inside of the truck.
“Let’s do this right, people. And fast. We’ll all be back underway before any of the locals know anything happened.”
Christopher shot his team a nod and headed back up to the front of the cabin. He switched out with Bryce in the driver’s seat, and Bryce took the passenger seat.
“You sound suspiciously like you know what the hell you’re doing,” Bryce said. “I’m actually beginning to believe that we’ll all get out of this alive yet again.”
“Yeah. But just in case I’m wrong, and those .50s take out me and Mike and Pete... you’re in charge. Get that other Razor and get everyone home.”
“You’ll survive this one, Chief. I have a good feeling about it.”
“We’ll find out in less than an hour, won’t we?”
Chapter Forty-Two
When The Shit Hits The Fan
The second Hardy sounded the alarm, data from the Ops station flashed across Nick’s screens. It was just a string of numbers and letters, but he immediately recognized them. And he immediately knew who “those guys from earlier” were.
The characters that flashed across his screen were “47ECHO1313.” It was his team. His friends.
Nick didn’t waste any time, pulling the Type 77 from his belt and spinning in his chair to put a bullet in the back of Harlan’s head. Before he could pull the trigger, though, the Razor jolted to a sudden stop, as if Cruz had stomped on the brakes. Nick tumbled out of his chair and hit the deck hard, the pistol tumbling from his hand and sliding under Harlan’s chair.
“The fuck?” Cruz yelled. Before anyone could say anything else, the Razor jolted again, as if hit hard from behind.
“Larry! Get on those fucking .50s!” Harlan yelled.
Nick scrambled to his feet as Hardy raced to the turrets. Before the convict could make it to his post, Nick shot his right hand out, twisting his hip into the blow as hard as he could. The flat bit of his hand between his thumb and forefinger slammed into Hardy’s throat, and the convict dropped immediately, choking and gurgling. He floundered on the deck and spit up blood.
“They got the door!” Cruz shouted.
“Lock it, fuckwit!” Harlan yelled, hopping out of his chair and rushing back at Nick.
Nick heard the locks click, heard someone outside trying to open the door, just as Hardy barreled into him. Nick had dropped into a crouch the second he’d seen the big man coming, but Hardy was insanely strong. Nick’s bad knee gave out, and both men tumbled to the ground. Hardy landed on top and immediately drove his huge right fist into Nick’s nose.
“Knew we shoulda just fucking shot you when we found you,” Harlan said, his voice even and flat. He raised his hand to strike again.
Time slowed for Nick. Through the blood and blurred vision, he saw the punch headed for his right eye. He tried to bring an arm up to block or deflect the blow, but Harlan had his arms pinned under his knees. Nick jerked his head to the left, and the punch grazed him.
Harlan’s hand sma
cked into the metal decking, but if the big guy felt any pain, he didn’t show it. He simply reached behind his back and drew a knife.
Nick brought his left knee up as hard and fast as he could, slamming it into the small of Harlan’s back. Harlan toppled forward just enough for Nick to get his right shoulder free. He moved quickly, flipping Harlan over while the big man was still off balance. Nick was now on top, raining punches down on Harlan’s face as hard as he could.
Nick was so engrossed in punching the shit out of the big man that he almost didn’t feel it when Harlan jammed the knife through his left forearm. Nick stopped punching, yanked the knife out of his arm, and stabbed it as hard as he could into Harlan’s left eye socket.
The big man let out one surprised yelp, twitched hard a few times, then went silent.
Nick dragged himself into a standing position and turned to face Cruz, who was now out of his seat and advancing cautiously toward Nick, his fists balled up in front of him. Nick looked at him and sighed.
“Really?”
Cruz let out a wordless yell and threw a sloppy punch at Nick’s already smashed nose. Nick slapped the punch away, kicked Cruz hard in the groin with his left foot, and dropped the small man with a savage right-handed jab to the temple as he doubled over.
Nick was the only one standing in the ELR, the only one moving. He could hear something happening outside on the hood of the truck, though, and glanced over at the camera station next to him. On the forward feed, he saw Martin Chase climb onto the front of the Razor and fumble with a backpack.
Nick reached down and took the hand radio off of Harlan’s belt and quickly set the frequency to 1-9 Victor.
“Hey, Chris. Tell Martin he doesn’t get to blow shit up today. Everyone in here is dead or wishing they were,” he said into the radio.
There was static for a second. Then he heard a voice he felt like he hadn’t heard in years.
“Nick?” Christopher said, his voice full of doubt.
“That’s the name my momma gave me,” Nick radioed back.
Martin must have had his radio on, too, because the man was just standing on the hood of the truck, looking confused. Nick punched a few commands into the ops panel and opened both of the ELR’s side doors.
“Use the door like a civilized person, Martin,” he radioed. “And someone send Gabriel over here. I’m all fucked up.”
* * *
The next several hours – if his sense of time was anywhere near accurate, which he doubted – were a blurred mess in Nick’s memory.
He remembered Daniel charging through the side door, seeing him, and stopping in his tracks.
He remembered Gabriel and Daniel loading him onto a stretcher and carrying him back to the other Razor.
He remembered silence inside the Razor before Gabriel finally went to work.
When he woke up again, they were moving. He was on one of the fold-down racks, and Gabriel was sitting over him, checking a bloody bandage on his left arm.
“How bad is it?” Nick remembered asking.
“You want the list? Knife wound to the arm is ugly, but it should heal. I re-set your nose, but it’ll probably be crooked. Sorry about that. Your knee is dislocated. No idea how you were walking around on that shit. You scraped off one of your toe implants and ripped a nice little hole in your foot, but the doctors can fix that. I just left that shit alone. Besides that –”
“I’m OK?”
“You’re dehydrated, malnourished, and you were about ten minutes away from a heart attack thanks to the stimulant overdose. How many Dexys did you put down, anyway?”
Nick tried to shrug, but it hurt.
“Oh, yeah. Dislocated shoulder, too. I put it back in, but it’s gonna ache for a while. You need to sleep, boss. For, like, a week.”
“The other Razor?”
“Bryce is driving it right behind us.”
“And the crew who stole it?”
“You killed the shit out of them, man. Go back to sleep, or I’ll have to shoot you up with something.”
Nick nodded and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Christopher was sitting where Gabriel had been. He was drinking a cup of coffee.
“You look awful,” Nick said, grinning.
“You’re not at the top of the list for GQ yourself, boss.”
“How are we?”
“Surprisingly good. Richmond’s holding on. He’s out of the war, though. Got a dead arm.”
“The Ranger kid?”
“Yeah. He was on our team this time out.”
“Everyone else?”
“Shit, boss. We’ve been riding in air-conditioned comfort for the last couple of weeks. Nothing a few days off and a nice stout lager won’t cure.”
If there was any more to that conversation, Nick didn’t remember it. He didn’t remember opening his eyes again, either – his next memory was of trying to sit up, and having a blinding headache. The pain was bad enough that he felt like he was going to vomit.
“Got an empty ammo can right here, boss. Try to hit that,” he heard Gabriel say.
Nick choked back the bile and waved Gabriel off.
“Stimulant withdrawal. It’s a bitch,” Gabriel chided.
Nick managed to struggle into a sitting position. He looked around the Razor – Christopher was driving, but the passenger seat was empty. Daniel was manning the stealth station, and Anthony was on cameras.
“Where is everyone else?”
“Other Razor for the next couple of days ‘till we make it back to Carbon-4. We haven’t encountered any resistance yet. We’ve been lucky.”
“Help me over to the passenger seat,” Nick said. “Might as well make myself useful.”
As the big medic helped Nick strap in to the passenger seat, Christopher handed his CO a cigarette and lit it for him.
“Good to have you back, boss.”
Nick took a long drag and exhaled. The pain in his head started to subside slightly.
“Good to be back, brother. How are we doing?”
Epilogue
Nick expected to be thrown right back into the fray as soon as his wounds healed, which wouldn’t take long. Christopher had told him about the traitor at Carbon-4 – someone Neal hadn’t been able to ferret out – and Nick thought that was a likely first assignment. Either that, or he and his crew would be asked to go on another balls-crazy no-win mission behind enemy lines.
What he hadn’t expected was to end up behind a desk at an Army base just outside of Moscow.
Nick had been put in charge of the guards at Camp Lancer, a POW detainment facility in Lytkarino. The guards under his command were mostly convicts themselves, Army and Marine conscripts with lesser, nonviolent charges. The official reason for Nick’s transfer was that he would be close to the Army’s 23rd General Hospital, also in Lytkarino, for stimulant-abuse rehab. After the first month he was clean, though, Nick started to suspect he was there for another reason altogether.
Rumors abounded about Chinese brainwashing programs, and Nick had been on his own in China for nearly three weeks. Someone several pay grades above Nick and Captain Neal seemed to think Nick was captured at some point, reprogrammed, and dropped in North Korea just in time to link back up with his unit. He wasn’t at Camp Lancer for rehab – he was there for observation.
The rest of 47 Echo had finally gotten their much-needed and long-promised training. Gabriel had spent the past month at 23rd General, finally getting some real medic experience under his belt. Most of his crew was training nearby, except for Christopher, who had been rotated back to Quantico in the States to attend the same two-week accelerated Officer Training School Nick had attended almost two years before.
Working at Camp Lytkarino was mind-numbing, and his substance-abuse counselor had released him from therapy with a clean bill of health a week before. So on the afternoon Nick marked the two-month anniversary of his desk job with no end in sight, he was happy to see Gabriel appear at his doorway.
“You
busy, boss?” the young medic said, his face breaking into a wide smile.
“Shit no,” Nick said, rising from his chair and pounding fists with his friend. “How’s Corpsman school?”
“Done, I think. They always tell me what time to report the next day, but they let me out early without saying another word today,” Gabriel told him, shrugging. “So I grabbed a ride from your second-shift guys and figured I’d see what you were up to.”
Nick looked out his window to the prison courtyard to see a 7-ton MTVR unloading a fresh batch of gray-uniformed convicts. He knew he should go down and start handing out duty assignments, but he decided they could wait five minutes. He’d rather talk to Gabriel anyway.
“Those aren’t my guys, Gabe,” Nick said, shaking his head. “You’re my guys.”
“No argument there, boss. They tell you when we’re going back out in the field?”
“Nope. Every time I ask, I get stalled. Neal tells me he needs to check with Ross, Ross tells me he needs to hear from the SOCOM brass back in Tampa, and SOCOM doesn’t bother to answer.”
“Hope it’s soon, man. Bryce and Daniel just got back from three days leave, and no one’s told them where to go yet, either. And I hear Pete and Mike are coming to Lytkarino soon. I’m choosing to see that as a good sign.”
Nick nodded and attempted a smile, but he didn’t feel it. Just because they’re getting you all together again doesn’t mean I’m going to be going with you, he thought.
“So I was hoping you’d heard something, but I guess you know as much as me.”
“Less, I guess, considering I didn’t know the team was on the way back until you told me,” Nick said, sighing.
“All right, boss. Give me a squawk on 1-9 if you hear anything, yeah? I gotta go meet Daniel and Bryce and get them sorted out with a place to crash.”
“Will do.”
“Good seeing you again, man.”
Nick walked Gabriel to the door, then turned to the task of herding his less-than-enthusiastic guards into the prison to begin their shift.
* * *
