“Okay. I’m heading over to stores. Need anything?”
“Not yet,” Todd said. “What are you getting?”
“Need to draw a new team radio.”
“What happened to yours?”
Belatedly, Todd noticed the long pouch on Brendan’s tactical vest was empty. “I dropped it.”
“What – where?”
Brendan didn’t smile. He rarely did.
“Out the window of that cargo truck.”
Gun Safety
The Stronghold - Zack and Baxter’s Room
“Jesus Christ, Zack. Godane already thinks you’re a spy. Now you’re actually gonna become one.”
Baxter and Zack both sat regarding the boxy team radio where it lay on the bed. It was an AN/PRC-152 Multiband Handheld Radio – the newer, higher tech version of the old AN/PRC-148 MBITR (pronounced “embitter”). Rolled out in 1990, the MBITR was what the vast majority of infantry used for squad-level communications, as well as comms back with their fire base. Not long before the end, spec-ops got the new one. It had excellent range and power, and was satellite and data capable.
“Yeah, pretty smart, right?” Zack said. “He’ll never guess I’m actually doing what his paranoia tells him I’m already doing.” He was trying to lighten the oppressive mood in there. But neither one of them laughed.
This was the first radio of any sort either of them had been alone in a room with since the fall. But they didn’t dare turn it on yet. Godane was completely paranoid about OPSEC and about the entire U.S. intelligence and military apparatus – despite it all being gone now.
Zack continued to stare at the radio where it lay. He looked up at Baxter. “Is it possible Godane still has guys monitoring the coalition frequencies? Or even scanning the whole spectrum?”
Baxter said, “Does it matter? This thing’s encrypted to hell and back.”
“True.” Zack spoke slowly. He was moving slowly, deliberately. They were in a very tight and dangerous place and sudden moves could get them killed. “But all they’d have to do is detect something transmitting from here – something that wasn’t them. They wouldn’t have to understand it. Just triangulate in.”
“Analysis,” Baxter said. “Is the return worth the risk? The eternal question.”
Zack did smile at this. The student had become the master.
He flexed the fingers of his left hand. Even with the bandages at the tips, the two fingers were still too short. And that shit wasn’t growing back. Baxter had patched him up first thing when he came staggering back in. Their big, fully stocked med ruck had long ago been confiscated by the state. But they’d managed to hang on to a small aid pouch. Just no painkillers – Godane’s guys were very big on those – and now the missing tips of Zack’s fingers ached and stung like goddamned sons of bitches. He tried to put them out of his mind.
“Trouble is, we don’t know how bad our risk already is,” he said. “What does Godane know? What else did Abo write in that Bible? The dumb country son of a bitch.”
Baxter nodded. “And just how sinister and cunning is Godane? Maybe he already knows everything – and he’s just toying with us, trying to find out more, or keeping us alive because he still needs us.”
“Or because he’s a sadistic bastard.”
The door opened, no knock. Zack actually fell on top of the radio, grabbed his hand, and looked like he was in pain. It didn’t take much acting skill. Two Praetorians were behind the door. One stepped in.
“Baxter. Waxaad haddaba kaalay.”
Baxter got up. Zack slid the radio under the blanket and started to rise as well.
“Aadan.” He punctuated this with a finger to the chest of Zack, who sat back down and exchanged a last wide-eyed look with Baxter. Both of them were wondering the same thing and the look communicated it.
Was this last time they’d see each other alive?
* * *
An hour later, Baxter came back. First thing, Zack checked the young man’s hands: yep, all ten fingers and they all still went all the way to the ends. That was something.
On the other hand, Baxter looked rattled. He sat down on his bed.
“Well?” Zack asked, sitting up straighter.
Baxter spoke dully. “We’ve got to get the hell out of here.”
Zack exhaled and just absorbed that for a second. “What’s happening?”
Baxter stopped staring at an arbitrary spot of wall and looked back over to Zack. “Godane’s putting together a war party. They’re going out for Triple Nickel – an all-out attack on their camp. It’s a with-your-shields-or-on-them kind of thing.”
“It was probably inevitable.”
“He wants me providing overwatch with the Pred.”
Zack squinted. “I told him he can’t put the Pred up now. The SF guys have got Stingers.”
Baxter nodded. “And, amazingly, he didn’t assume you were buffaloing him. The drone’s just for the first part of the patrol. He has me turning back before we get within Stinger missile range.”
Zack thought about this, trying to interpret it.
Baxter said, “It’s worse than that, though. This drone mission is also a non-negotiable training session for two of his more tech-savvy guys.”
Zack nodded. There was a time when “tech-savvy jihadis” would have been a contradiction in terms. But that was a long time ago. The jihad went online in about 2002. Increasingly sophisticated remote-triggered IEDs also required some technical finesse.
Baxter went on. “He made it clear that by the end of this mission, his people should be fully trained up on using the GCS and flying the UAV.” Baxter paused, not looking happy. “This can’t be a good sign for us.”
Zack said, “I don’t know. I think even if he offs me, he’s going to keep you.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Something about the fact that you’re white, and were born in a state that starts with a vowel. And went to Georgetown.”
“What the hell does that have to do with it? You went to Princeton.”
Zack nodded. “Yeah, I did. But my skin’s darker, and I’m from here, which makes it more of a betrayal. You’re just an infidel, but I’m an apostate – which for true believers is much worse. Crusaders will always come, and can be fought. But apostates rot Islam from the core. And I think Godane’s about ready to cut out my bit of bruised flesh.”
Baxter rose and stalked the four paces it took to get across the room and back again. “For Christ’s sake,” he said. “Isn’t all that dogmatic religious bullshit at least over with now? With the dead walking the Earth and whatnot?”
This was a rare outburst from Baxter, who was normally extremely well emotionally regulated. He sat down again, lowered his voice, and looked across at Zack, right in the eye. “It’s a nice theory you’ve got. But Godane put a pistol to my forehead not ten minutes ago.”
Zack’s lips parted. “Jesus.” He squinted in the dimness. Sure enough, he could now make out the faint red circular outline of where the muzzle had pressed into his skin. It was dead center in Baxter’s forehead. From the diameter, it was 9mm. Maybe 40-cal. “Was it loaded?”
“Yeah, it was loaded. Condition One – bullet in the chamber, safety off, and hammer back. I saw him rack the slide. I thought that was it for me.”
“Jesus.”
“And he had his finger not only inside the trigger guard, but curled snugly around the trigger. I saw because it was three inches from my eyeballs.”
“So much for the rules of gun safety.”
Baxter gave a short laugh. “You know perfectly well no one here was ever taught the rules of gun safety.”
“Did he have some purpose for putting a gun to your head, or was he just trying to terrify you?”
Baxter paused. “He wanted me to tell him exactly what you know about Triple Nickel. Everything.”
Now Zack paused. “And what did you tell him?”
“Nothing.”
“How’d that go down?”
“Like a purity ring at a frat party.”
“You’re right,” Zack said. “We’ve got to get the hell out of here.”
Baxter nodded at where the radio sat under the blanket. “Have we got somewhere to go now? I mean – is there somewhere?”
Zack pulled it out. Holding it in both hands with his forearms resting on his knees, leaning over it almost reverentially, he said, “With Godane’s war party heading out, this is about to turn into an all-out shooting war. And I don’t know that Triple Nickel is going to come out on the winning side. There are too few of them, they’re under-resourced compared to this place – and Godane knows where they live.”
“Yeah.” That seemed to take the wind out of Baxter’s sails. “What happens if we escape from here, rock up there – and we’re all wiped out a day later? It’d be like switching lanes at the grocery checkout.”
Zack gave him a look. He thought it was somewhat more serious than that. “There’s also the small matter of how we get the hell out of this medieval prison in the first place.”
“If Godane catches us trying, we’ll be lucky if he just kills us.”
Zack exhaled. “But war is coming. And our choices are going to narrow.”
Baxter looked at Zack’s fingers and smiled sadly. “I suppose the odds of us brokering some kind of a peace between the two sides are pretty slim at the moment.”
“Yeah. That bird has flown. Godane’s fighters have died in large numbers now – at the hands of U.S. Army Special Forces. And the Emir doesn’t have the kind of ego that will let that go. Not now. Not ever.”
“Not to mention it was a bunch of white guys – who also know you.”
“Yeah.”
“So it’s going to get ugly.”
Zack nodded. “Without a doubt. And the time is coming when we’re going to have to choose sides. And I think we’ve got to choose our friends.”
Baxter took a deep breath and exhaled it. “Okay, Zack. I’m with you.”
“I know, mate. You always have been.” Zack sat up straight now. “We’ll cast our lot. And if we go down, at least now we’ll go down fighting for something. And we’ll die on the right side.”
Baxter smiled, more genuinely now. One positive thing could definitely be said for this whole crisis: it had brought Zack back to life. The necessity of acting – and the possibility of his actions actually affecting outcomes, of positively impacting their situation – had snapped him out of his months-long depression and torpor.
Zack stood up now.
And he powered up the radio.
War Party
Camp Price - Stores
Brendan had just found the last two team radios at the bottom of a plastic storage box in the back corner. Powering one of them up and finding it still had about half a charge, he slotted it into his pouch and was just Velcro’ing it down, when it spoke his name. That was like taking a new phone out of the box with it ringing.
“Go for Bren.”
“Bren, Eli. TOC – right now.”
“On my way.”
Thirty seconds later, Elijah was pressing the big radio’s telephone handset into Brendan’s hand. The rest of the team was already filtering in through the TOC door. Word had gotten out.
“Is this who I think it is?” Brendan said into the handset.
Longish pause on the other end. “That probably depends.”
“Is this Zack?”
Even longer pause. “Wait, sorry – do I know you?” The voice suddenly sounded very English and proper.
Brendan switched the phone to his other hand and sat down on a stool beside the radio. “Doesn’t matter. But that’s my radio you’re talking on right now.” That much Brendan knew. If it didn’t have their encryption keys, it wouldn’t have come out on this channel as anything but painful squelching noises.
This seemed to satisfy the guy on the other end. Or maybe he just threw caution to the wind. “Listen carefully. They’re coming for you – RIGHT NOW.”
“You mean our favorite a-S commander?”
“Affirmative. He’s putting together a war party, and he’s sending it out.”
“When?”
“Soonest. They could be rolling out the gates any time. We believe it’s going to be a night march, for a dawn attack.”
Brendan squinted. “Pretty long march.”
Slight pause. “It’s a mechanized outfit. When they run out of road, they’ll march the last segment.”
“How many pax?”
“Unknown at this time. Probably a lot. Definitely more than last time.”
“Can you get us their exact order of battle?”
“Maybe.”
Now Brendan paused and scanned the faces of the others. The whole team was in there now. And from his side of the conversation alone, they had a pretty good idea of what was coming in on them.
“What’s his intent?”
“Reduce your camp. Put the defenders to the sword. And take all your shit.”
* * *
“Since we’ve got the advance intel,” Jake said, “this one is easy.”
He was sitting at the head of the table again. They’d all taken sixty seconds to move back to the team room. It was like the Shaman’s Lodge in there, a holy place. If they had to make decisions that might seal all their fates, they wanted to do it here. They trusted their process.
“Okay,” Brendan asked. “What’s the solution?”
“We don’t let them get here.”
Bren nodded. “Send out an ambush.”
“Exactly. We can make a good guess at their route now and firm that up with high-altitude surveillance.”
Elijah said, “As long as they’re on a road, I can see them from fifteen thousand feet – and they won’t see me. But that changes in the forest.”
Kate looked to Brendan. “We might get better intel from your asset.”
“And we might not.”
Kwon’s eyes were shining. “I like it. We set a textbook ambush and we wipe the bastards out – before they ever get close.”
Todd looked impressed. “Do it that way and we can make all the noise we want. As long as it’s far enough out, and we execute and exfil quickly, Camp Price stays out of it. And unmolested by the dead.”
Brendan surveyed the room. He saw a lot of bags under eyes. Most of them had only a couple of hours of sleep after their mission to Lemonnier – which had included two overnight drives. As a Special Forces Officer (18A), he’d been taught that sleep deprivation is a judgment killer – and been trained to guard carefully against it. He wasn’t sure he liked where the tide of team opinion was flowing, or how quickly.
He was also experiencing two other feelings: vindication and dread. Vindication because his prediction that Jake had provoked Godane, perhaps needlessly, was being validated. Godane was now coming for them – right where they lived.
And that was the source of the dread.
There was resentment in there, too. Because he felt like Jake was bringing the whirlwind down on their heads, drawing a lethal and implacable enemy straight to their previously safe and secure camp. And he wasn’t strong enough to stop this chain of events, which might end only with their destruction.
“When they dismount,” Brendan said, “and move into the bush, we’ll lose our drone coverage.”
“It’s a-S,” Jake said. “They’re not tactical geniuses, and they don’t like humping. We draw a straight line from their vehicle drop-off point to the camp, we can be pretty sure they’ll be on it.”
“Plus,” Kwon said, “we know the forest trails. I like our odds.”
Brendan said, “Let’s see if we can’t improve them.” He looked at Kwon, then Todd. “How quickly can you get one of the miniguns, and one of the Mk 47s, mounted on a gun truck?”
Kwon said, “You’re thinking we might find a location to emplace and conceal the truck. Use it to anchor the ambush.”
Brendan nodded. Given the advance warning, they just might have time f
or that. And if they could manage it, the additional firepower would be devastating.
Todd said, “The former a lot more quickly than the latter. The turret ring with the M2 on it will take the mounting kit for the minigun pretty seamlessly. The grenade launcher’s a different animal. If we had a Mk 19 already mounted up…” But they all knew General Præsidium had ruled out even the old grenade launchers.
Brendan looked at Jake. He seemed on board with this. “Make it happen.”
“Who goes out?” Kate asked.
Jake said, “We need a minimum of four bodies, two for each leg.”
Brendan tried to control his emotions. This was happening, and his ability to influence it was waning quickly.
Elijah said, “I’ve got to stay to pilot the drone.”
Brendan clenched his jaw. “I don’t like you out there without a medic, in case you take casualties.”
Jake said, “I don’t plan on taking casualties. This is going to be a firing squad execution.”
Elijah stood. “I’ll get in the TOC now and get the Shadow prepped.”
Brendan breathed. “Okay.” He looked around. “I’d better stay as well. That gives the two of us some kind of chance of defending the camp if they get around the ambush. And I can quarterback your op from the TOC.”
That left only four of them. So the matter was settled.
Jake stood and looked at Brendan. He said, “Yeah. You’d better stay.”
The implication was clear.
You don’t have to come.
But you can’t stop us.
* * *
“You’re going to laugh,” Baxter said. “But I’m actually going to miss a few people around here.”
Zack sat up straight. “Al-Sîf?”
“Yeah.”
Zack nodded. “He saved my life at Camp Lemonnier.”
“He’s saved mine once or twice.”
Zack looked off into memory. “I would have missed Abo. Hell, I do miss Abo.”
The two of them had spent the last half-hour, after their transmission to the SF guys, huddled over each other and whispering intently – updating their half-forgotten plans for escaping the Stronghold. They’d never written anything down – too dangerous. But they always knew they might have to get out of there in order to save their lives. But as it became clear there was nowhere to escape to, the plans had gone fallow. Now they had to dust them off.
Arisen : Nemesis Page 22
