by Dirk Patton
The SEALs standing around me laughed and responded with more than a few disparaging comments about the Army. I walked up the hill with them and we dug into the breakfast that had finally arrived.
“Feel better?” Sherman asked as we were driving back down the hill.
“That what this was all about?”
“Not really,” he said. “Needed to see if you could keep up.”
I looked at him, then nodded in understanding. My ego might be a little bruised by the idea, but that didn’t matter. What did was that if I wound up going into combat with his men, I wasn’t a liability that could get them killed.
“Not what I used to be.” I admitted.
“You passed muster with Master Chief Baldwin, and he’s not easy to impress.”
I grunted, not having a reply for the compliment.
“What did the doc really tell you?”
“Said it’s a fifty-fifty chance that removing the fragment will restore my vision.”
“That all?” he asked, giving me a sideways look.
“The longer I wait, the greater chance the damage is permanent.”
“So, what are you waiting for?”
“Got some things to take care of,” I said, looking out the window as we bounced back onto pavement.
“You saw my boys,” he said a minute later. “No disrespect, but what are you going to do that we can’t?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Look,” he finally said. “There’s no doubt you’re a top tier operator. You wouldn’t be alive today if you weren’t. But if you want my support, you’d better come clean. What’s so important about you coming with us?”
I was quiet for a long time as we drove across the base for our meeting. Finally, I took a deep breath and sighed.
“Because I need to be the one to end the motherfucker that killed my wife.”
Another mile passed in silence.
“You’re not the only one who lost people he loved,” Sherman said, pain clear in his voice.
“Who’d you lose?” I asked.
“Parents. Brothers and sisters. Wife and two daughters,” he said, gripping the wheel tight enough to turn his knuckles white.
“I’m sorry,” I said as we wheeled into a parking lot.
He nodded and turned off the engine, pausing a moment before opening his door. After several seconds, he climbed out and I followed him into the building.
6
Sherman dropped me at the hospital entrance after a long day of planning. It had been the two of us, two other SEALs, a guy from Naval Intelligence and the Admiral’s aide. Captain West had pulled me aside before the meeting got underway, reminding me that not everyone in the room was aware of the coming planetary blight, and wouldn’t be read in. That detail had no bearing on the two missions that were being put together.
So, with that in mind, we’d begun working. The two plans, of which we now had a rough outline, couldn’t have been more different. One was the assassination of a world leader inside a major metropolitan area and protected by multiple rings of what appeared to be impenetrable security. Add to the complexity the fact that he supposedly had the ability to release nerve agent in all of Australia’s major cities on a moment’s notice, and the difficulty level ratcheted up significantly.
The major concern was that we had absolutely zero intelligence on the mechanism he would use to trigger the gas. Or who, besides him, might also have access. Or was it a Deadman switch that required a periodic reset to prevent it from automatically functioning? We didn’t know, and that was the main reason the Admiral hadn’t flown a stealth bomber over Sydney and dropped a big ass JDAM on the fucker’s head.
The second mission couldn’t launch until the first was successfully completed. We were concerned that if Barinov got even a hint that we were trying to rescue Shevchenko, he’d order the man’s immediate execution. But when we created a power vacuum at the top of Russia’s government, the imprisoned Admiral needed to be ready to step forward immediately before control was seized by another politician or military commander. The team had to be in place, ready to go the instant they were given the word that the operation in Australia had succeeded.
We discussed the raid into Siberia, and the challenges associated with locating and identifying the target. But that was only a small part of the problem. The other was the physical location of the prison camp. Thousands of miles inland, there was not going to be any easy way to insert a team and avoid detection by Russian air defenses and satellites.
Ideas were thrown around, beaten up and, for the most part, dismissed. We desperately needed assets on the ground who could provide us with advance intelligence, but they were limited. An administrative staffer at the camp who’d been on the CIA’s payroll for over a decade was the source of information about Shevchenko’s presence. It had been through a routine communication channel the Navy had intercepted, but there had been nothing since.
The CIA officer who had recruited and handled the clerk was dead. Other than a small contingent that was in Hawaii, the CIA was defunct. And no one had any idea how to contact the asset to request details about the camp or even if Shevchenko was still alive. We were going to have to go in on blind faith that the target was still there and in condition to take control of Russia when Barinov was eliminated.
At 1700, Captain West called a halt for the day. Not that there wasn’t plenty of work remaining to be done, but several options had been proposed that needed to be researched and vetted before the best one was selected. The agent from NIS and West would both have a busy night before our 0700 start the next day, but the rest of us were left with nothing to do. For the moment.
In the hospital, I stopped by Vance’s room first. He was sprawled out in an oversized bed, foam bolsters beneath each knee to raise his legs and spread them apart. We’d talked for a few minutes, neither of us raising the topic of his possible nerve damage. He said the pain was under control and the swelling was going down, but it would be a while before he’d be back in the saddle. I didn’t ask if he was talking about a fighter jet, or women.
With a promise to visit again tomorrow, I wandered around and got lost before asking for directions to Igor’s room. When I walked in, he was sitting up in bed watching a rerun of Hogan’s Heroes. He looked none the worse for wear. I sat down in the chair next to him, glancing up at the two IV bags hanging from a pole at the top of his bed.
“How you feeling?” I asked.
“Piss at you,” he grumbled without taking his eyes off the TV screen.
“Pissed,” I said, automatically correcting him before I realized what he’d said. “Pissed? What the hell did I do?”
“You tell Irina.”
“Well?” I asked, grinning despite myself. “Did she say anything to you?”
Igor turned and glared at me.
“She say she love me!”
“Then why the hell are you pissed?” I asked, smiling.
“She act like babushka, now,” he grumped.
“What the hell’s a babushka?”
“Old woman.”
“Are you serious?” I asked. “Irina ain’t even close to being an old woman!”
“Act like it,” Igor muttered. “Tell me how take care of self!”
I burst out laughing, earning another glare from the big Russian.
“Don’t be a pussy!” I sputtered.
“You tell Rachel?”
“Yes, I did!” I said, smiling.
“When do that?” he asked, frowning like he didn’t believe me.
“This morning, jackass,” I said, still chuckling.
“What is jackass?”
“A stubborn goddamn Moscow mule!”
“I from Minsk, not Moscow,” Igor said, clearly not understanding.
I laughed at him again, shaking my head.
“What’s so funny?”
We looked at the door as Rachel and Irina walked in, both of us stunned into silence. They’d obviously been shoppi
ng. And had their hair done. And they were absolutely breathtaking, standing there smiling at our reaction to their appearance.
“Wow!” I said.
“You’d better be talking about me,” Rachel said, tossing an armload of bags onto an empty chair as she came forward for a kiss.
“Actually, she’s the one that caught my eye,” I said, earning a punch to the stomach.
Irina smiled at me, then hurried forward to check on Igor. She spoke in Russian, but I didn’t need to understand the words to recognize she was fussing over him. He looked at me and raised an eyebrow as if to say, “see what I mean?”
“You like?” Rachel asked, twirling so I could get a good view of her new dress.
“Very much,” I said. “But how did you buy it?”
“I talked to the Senior Chief this morning and he got me a card I could use at the BX. Said whatever I spent would be deducted from your pay. By the way, this was kind of expensive. How much do you make?”
“I’ve got no clue,” I said.
I hadn’t even given a thought to money. And now that I considered it, I was slightly surprised it was still being used. After all, what good was it? But if people were willing to accept it in exchange for goods and services, I suppose it didn’t really matter.
“Well, I hope you think it was worth it!”
I stood and caught her hand, smiling as she leaned in for a kiss.
“Thought you were going to see about helping at the hospital,” I said, giving Rachel my seat and clearing her packages off the other chair for Irina.
“I did. I start tomorrow morning!” Rachel said, beaming.
“Doing what?”
“I talked to Captain Kearse, the Director of Medicine. Told him my whole story, education wise. He’s going to put me on as an intern while I study for my boards. If I pass, I’ll officially be a doctor!”
“He can do that? I thought you hadn’t finished med school.”
“Told him that, and he’s more concerned with having enough staff than he is with the final few months of schooling I missed. Seems they’ve had to adapt and not be so rigid about education versus experience.”
“That’s great!” I said, genuinely happy for her.
There was a knock and everyone turned to look at the open door. It was Gonzales and Nicole. The Master Chief’s arms were loaded down with takeout, and he looked around for a place to put all the food down.
“Thought we’d eat in and not leave Igor alone,” I said to Rachel and Irina when they gave me curious glances.
7
It had been a long day for Anna. After she’d woken to find a grinning William standing over her, he had left the room without releasing her bonds. Her body ached and her head pounded from the helicopter crash. She had a vague memory of him hitting her, but wasn’t entirely sure whether she had imagined that part, or not.
For a few hours, she drifted in and out of consciousness. When she was awake, she tried to imagine any scenario in which she’d wound up in William’s clutches, but couldn’t reconcile events with her fragmented memory. Slowly, the fog in her battered skull lifted to the point that she became frightened of what would become of her.
Then the need for a bathroom, which had been little more than a nagging impulse, suddenly became urgent. She struggled against her bonds, but the heavy straps held her tightly to the bed. Taking a deep breath, she shouted William’s name several times, then paused to listen. He didn’t open the door and come into the room. She tested the restraints again, finding them more than a match for her strength. Then came more screaming, which went unanswered.
Finally, with no choice, she quit fighting the urge and relaxed her pelvic muscles. Immediately, warm urine flowed, soaking into her clothing and the bedding beneath. A foul odor accompanied it, telling her there had been some damage to her kidneys. Praying that the injury was minor, she lay there and breathed deeply in relief from having emptied her bladder. But soon the wet fabric grew cold, making her nearly as uncomfortable as she had been.
With a deep sigh, she tried to ignore the discomfort and indignity of her position and looked around the room. It was small and served as the bunker’s infirmary. Two of William’s men had been corpsmen in the Air Force and were the sum total of the survivors’ medical staff. Her father had either overlooked the need for a physician, or hadn’t been successful in finding one.
Across the room was a counter with several glass fronted cabinets. They contained supplies and basic medications. An open suture kit was scattered across the surface. The wall at her head held a pair of oxygen tanks and on her other side were more storage cabinets that were constructed of heavy gauge steel, secured with commercial grade locks. Those cabinets held what would have been controlled substances, pain killers and the like, and other than Nitro, she was the only one with the combination.
She looked back at the counter, eyes focusing on the surgical steel scissors that were part of the suture kit. They were certainly sharp enough and strong enough to cut the straps that held her to the gurney, but they might as well have been a thousand miles away. Three sturdy pieces of nylon secured her body, one each at her chest, waist and thighs. In addition, each wrist and ankle was tightly restrained and she couldn’t move her hands other than to open or close her fingers. There was no way to reach any object to help her escape.
Fear surged through her as her imagination ran wild, considering all the possible reasons William had brought her back here. She knew he’d coveted her from the moment she’d arrived, and that memory stoked her imagination until she was nearly hyperventilating in panic. Even though William had made constant advances, which he’d apparently thought of as witty, she had interpreted them as childish and crude. She was certain that only Nitro’s hulking presence had kept her safe from the man’s juvenile suggestions progressing to physical intimidation.
Images of being beaten and raped flashed through her mind, causing her to bite down on her lip hard enough to draw blood. The pain focused her, and she was able to slow her breathing. Concentrating, she brought her heart rate down and forced herself to work on the problem at hand.
A few years ago, before her first deployment to the Middle East, Anna had been required to go through the Army’s Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape (SERE) training. Like everything she had ever done, she had approached the course with dogged determination to be the best.
SERE began in the military as an informal, word of mouth, advice from air crews who had survived being shot down over France and Nazi Germany in World War II. The men who not only survived, but managed to find their way back to Allied lines, felt it was their obligation to pass on what they’d learned. The value of this sort of training didn’t escape the notice of the military, which ran with the idea and created a formal training program that was required for all personnel who were considered at increased risk for capture by the enemy.
Each branch has developed their own program, but the differences really aren’t that significant. The Army requires all flight crews to complete the course which is taught at Fort Rucker in Alabama. For Special Forces personnel, and any others deemed at risk, there’s another school at the John F. Kennedy Land Warfare School at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. This is where Anna went.
Normally, an officer who never enters the field would not be sent through SERE. But the Army was concerned with the public relations nightmare that would come if a female soldier was captured by the enemy in Iraq or Afghanistan and the media picked up on the fact that she hadn’t been given all available survival training. It was a double standard coming out of a highly politicized Pentagon, but Anna hadn’t cared. She was excited to be tested.
She had shown up on day one of the three-week course, eager to dive in. The first week had consisted solely of classroom training. Twelve hours a day. The soldiers in attendance were told what to expect. Taught the basics of survival in the wilderness and land navigation. There were long discussions on how to manage their emotions and fears. Then they we
re shown footage of what happened to American military members who were captured by the enemy.
At the beginning of week two, the trainees were taken to the field for practical training. Under the critical eyes of their instructors, they practiced the skills that had been taught in the classroom. Anna had excelled, which was both good and bad. She had caught the attention of the senior cadre at the school, who routinely looked for one or two students to intentionally push to the breaking point.
To the uninitiated, this would seem cruel at first. Almost as if those who were at the top of their class were being selected for failure. But that’s not the point of SERE. The whole point is to prepare the student for what could be a very real eventuality of war. There is one cold, hard fact that every instructor knows, but none of the students understand. Everyone breaks.
Some will hold out longer than others, but anyone can be broken. And experience has shown, over and over again, that the better a student performs, the more resistant they are to the idea that they could be one of those that eventually cracks under pressure. To graduate them from the course, without taking them to the edge to stare into the abyss, would be a disservice. They need to understand what can and will be done to them if they fall into the enemy’s hands.
At the beginning of week three, the students were broken up and individually dropped into the middle of nowhere in the wild North Carolina mountains. It was late fall and the weather had already turned wet and very cold. Anna had been allowed a pair of boots, ACU pants and a thin T-shirt. She had a compass, a knife and nothing else. Before she left the helicopter that had ferried her out to the forest, she was told a single word. Abernathy.
That word was the vital secret she carried and what the enemy would attempt to extract if she were captured. While the word itself meant nothing, it represented intelligence that could be used against other American soldiers. In the real world, the revelation of sensitive information entailed very real consequences, quite possibly the deaths of fellow soldiers, if it was disclosed.
