“Nothing. Forget it.”
“It didn’t sound like nothing.”
Before Green Ghost could respond, Joe Randall’s voice came over the speaker. “Target’s in sight. Prepare to land.”
“No shooting unless I give the say-so; everybody got that?” Green Ghost looked right at Nipple when he said it.
Morgan had never been on such a mission before and was content to let the Zombies go in first. But she couldn’t help staring at the side of Nipple’s pouting face, or forget those words about her mother.
#
Operation Comeback
1530 hours, April 17
“Excuse me, ma’am,” a corporal said to Amunet Mwangi. “Two aircraft inbound from the southwest, ETA ten minutes. Presumed to be helicopters.”
“Thank you, Corporal.” She turned to Norm. “Two helicopters?”
He shrugged. “Maybe Angriff showed Steeple around Overtime and Steeple’s returning the favor.”
“Raise them and ask for ID.”
The corporal cleared her throat. “We tried, but got no answer.”
Along with Fleming, his chief of staff Alexis Iskold, and Glide, Mwangi stood to one side near the elevator shack atop the mountain when the two helicopters touched down. The rotors had barely slowed when Nipple jumped out of Tank Girl, followed by Green Ghost, Morgan, and the rest of TFZ. They ran directly toward the knot standing by the shack.
“What’s the meaning of this, Norm?”
“I have no idea. Give me a minute.”
Green Ghost pulled him aside for a private conversation lasting less than thirty seconds. When he returned to her side, his cousin put hands on her hips and demanded answers.
Instead, Fleming drew his sidearm. “I’m relieving you of command.”
“You can’t do that!”
“I just did.”
Nipple, Morgan, and two medical techs, rolling the gurneys between them, took the elevator down to the last floor, while Green Ghost and the others descended a stairwell inside the shack. Three flights down, they poured into the command center.
“Hit the deck — everybody down!” Green Ghost yelled. The Nameless fanned out, guns trained, pushing everybody into a circle. It only took seconds to round up the dazed headquarters personnel and everything looked good until two security men ran around a corner.
“Shit!” one of them yelled, raising his rifle.
“Don’t do it!” Green Ghost screamed, but the man’s finger began to squeeze the trigger.
“Hey!” Glide barked from the man’s left. She took off at a dead run, straight for him, and both guards trained their guns on her. They opened fire at a range of less than ten feet. But Glide wasn’t there.
With her built-up speed, she hit the floor and slid toward them like a runner taking out a second baseman. Rounds zipped overhead and smashed into a computer monitor. Before they could lower their weapons, she struck. A fist smashed into the side of the knee of the man on her right, followed by an elbow to the back of the other man’s knee. As they screamed and fell, she hit both under their chins with the heels of her hands. When they overbalanced backward, their guns skittered across the concrete floor as they tried to break their falls.
Within seconds, Glide had both of them zip-tied with hands behind their backs.
“Damn,” one young private said, raising his hands a little higher.
“Be glad she’s on your side,” Vapor told him.
“That’s not what it looks like from here.”
“If she wasn’t, you’d already be dead. Just don’t ask to buy her a drink.”
They secured each floor in turn, except for the fourth floor. Four security men had gotten wind of the invasion and were holed up near the elevators. Morgan and Nipple were already below and, if they were on time, the two CHILSS chambers were already shut down. The clock was ticking as Green Ghost exited the stairwell into the fourth floor hall.
The newest team member, a stocky young woman with a reddish-blond crew cut, named Razor, briefed him. “Right around that corner, there’s a short hallway with the elevators right past it, on the wall facing the corridor. The guards’re on either side. They’ve got all the elevators locked open so nobody can use them.”
“Shots fired?”
“By them.”
“They wearing armor?”
“Not that I saw.”
“Any chit-chat?”
“They’re playing it hardcore.”
“Shit, we don’t have time for this. Listen up, I need something in the bird. There’s a small case under the bench, brown with no markings. It’s a little bigger than a briefcase. Get it and get back here pronto.”
Razor nodded and took off.
Green Ghost took a deep breath and moved to the corner. “We’re all on the same side here,” he called down the hallway.
One of the out-of-sight security men scoffed. “If that’s true, throw out your guns and come on in. We’ll talk.”
“Can’t do it, boys. I’m on a schedule.”
“Looks like you might be late.”
“I don’t think so.”
Razor returned within five minutes, lugging the case with her. Green Ghost opened it and retrieved a visor. Removing his helmet, he took off the visor already on it and replaced it with the new one. It extended both over his face and above to shield his forehead.
“Bullet-proof,” he said. “It’s a prototype and you can’t see for shit through it, but it’ll stop a forty-caliber round at point blank range.”
Next he took out something square, with folds on each side. Those he unfolded to reveal a second section. Once he had everything open, it measured three feet square, with a strap for his arm. Razor knew what that was: a collapsible bullet-proof shield.
Finally he replaced the magazine in his M-16 with a different one, pre-loaded, and chambered a new round. “Rubber,” he said. “I’d rather not kill Americans if I can help it.
“So here’s the play. I’m throwing two flash-bangs. If they’ve got even half a brain, they’ll be looking for that and open fire, but at least it should distract them for a second. I’m going down the far wall so I can take out the ones on the right. You count two seconds and then follow down the other wall. Cover me but do not shoot if you can avoid it. Understand? Those guys don’t know we’re on their side; they’re just doing their jobs. Ready?”
Kneeling inches from the hallway with his M-16 propped against the wall near his right knee, Green Ghost held an M-84 stun grenade in each hand, with both trigger fingers locked around the arming pins of the grenade in the other hand. The opened bullet-proof shield lay beside him on the left. With a jerk he pulled both pins and counted in his head… one… two… three. He tossed the grenades down the hallway, which drew rifle fire and sprayed his visor with concrete chips.
He grabbed his rifle and slid his left arm into the shield’s grip. With his eyes closed, he brought the shield around front and jumped into the hallway, right as the grenades went off. He felt the blast concussion and then opened his eyes. Smoke filled the end of the hallway fifteen feet away. He was among the guards before they knew what happened.
The two to his right were still blinded but started shooting anyway. He dropped both with shots to the chest and then whirled to the other two on his left. Both of them were on their knees, shaking their heads and coughing from the smoke. Razor showed up right on time and collected all their weapons.
“They okay?” he said, nodding at the two he’d shot.
“They’re breathing… I don’t see any blood.”
Disarmed, disoriented, and with a rifle pointed at them, the guards did as instructed and sat on their hands. Green Ghost went to each elevator in turn and unlocked them.
“Elevators clear, fourth floor secure, have medical standing by for two gunshot victims,” he said into the radio. “We’ll bring them to you.”
“Rothat,” Glide said in her abbreviated version of roger that. Green Ghost never got tired of her accent.
#
Chapter 40
Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining.
Old proverb
Operation Comeback
1542 hours, April 16
“This is an outrage, Norm, a fucking outrage! I’m the commander of this base, not some terrorist criminal.” She stood in front of Tom Steeple’s desk while Fleming sat in his chair.
Anyone who had ever met Norm Fleming could sense the almost limitless patience that kept him sanguine long after others would have lost their tempers. But the operative word in that assessment was almost. He did have a limit; it was just that most people never pushed him that far.
But Amunet Mwangi had done it before and now she’d done it again.
“I’ve heard enough, Colonel!” He slammed a fist on the desk. Fleming was a large, strong man and the papers on the desk jumped at the impact. The set of his jaw and wide eyes warned her to shut up. “I told you that by order of the commanding general, Nicholas Angriff, I am now the commander of Operation Comeback. You work for me now.”
“What about General Steeple?” she asked.
“What about him?”
“He outranks General Angriff and appointed me the commander.”
“Your intel is outdated, Colonel. He used to outrank General Angriff, but not any more.”
#
Operation Overtime
1552 hours
“That was one fine lunch,” Steeple said as he settled back into the couch in the Crystal Palace.
“A lot better than six months ago, anyway.”
“I mean it, Nick. A fresh salad with chicken on top? Are you kidding me? That was genuinely delicious.”
“It does beat the hell out of LSMREs…”
He said it in such a way that Steeple knew there was more. “Out with it, Nick. What’s on your mind? But make it quick. Don’t we have that conference at sixteen hundred?”
“I postponed it again.”
“Oh.” Steeple sensed something amiss but shook it off. “Why?”
“Still waiting on some key staff members to become available.”
“Something’s bothering you, so let’s get it over with. What’s wrong?”
“All right, since you asked… Comeback. Why tap our computers? What not tell me on the front end? Why all the secrecy?”
“We’re having that conversation? Now?”
“In the absence of facts, bullshit will flourish,” Angriff said. There was mild rebuke in his tone.
Steeple nodded and scratched his cheek. Despite his questions, the way he looked into the distance told Angriff he’d expected this and was surprised it had taken so long to surface.
“I had a mission to carry out,” Steeple said. “Fulfilling that mission required me to recruit the best battlefield commander possible. As recent events have proven, that was you. I’ve only read brief outlines, but I don’t know another general, then or now, who could have won the Battle of Prescott. I don’t think Julius Caesar himself could have won that, but you did.
“Was I a little disingenuous? Maybe. But if you’re expecting me to apologize for putting the right man in the right place at the right time, then you’re going to have a long wait. And I don’t think you can deny that you were emotionally spent and Overtime gave you a new reason for living.”
“No, that’s true enough,” Angriff said. “I was a basket case.” He thought, but did not say, Because of you. “You’re wrong in saying that I won that battle, though. My people won that. If one Marine hadn’t held off an entire regiment of Sevens for almost ten minutes, the battle could have been lost. If one half-destroyed Abrams hadn’t fought off a Chinese armored column, the battle could have been lost. The difference between victory and defeat came down to seconds, and those seconds were bought by the blood of heroes. That had nothing to do with me; the battle was won because of the courage of tough people who stood fast in the storm.”
“You could argue that without you, one of them wouldn’t have been here,” Steeple said, smiling at the reference to Morgan.
Angriff played along and grinned back. “That had more to do with a bottle of Hungarian Tokay.”
“Where is she, anyway?”
“Deployed at Prescott.”
“Well, you could also argue that if a certain general hadn’t circled the wagons to block the highway, the battle could have been lost.”
“You heard about that, huh? Well, I’m not a lobster, Tom. You don’t need to butter me up.”
“Ha!” Steeple said. “But the larger point is made. You were the man to lead this brigade, simple as that. There was no other choice. I did what I had to do to put you in that chair and I don’t apologize for it. Country comes first.”
“Does it? I’m glad to hear you say that. And by country, I assume you mean the Constitution and Bill of Rights?”
“That’s an odd question.”
“Why is that odd? You said country comes first. If you didn’t mean the documents on which the United States was founded, the basis for the rule of law, then what did you mean? Geography?”
“I didn’t say that, either. Why are you putting words in my mouth? Did I miss something here?”
“Sorry, Tom,” Angriff said, realizing that he was sliding into the rage which simmered just below his surface. He smiled again and sipped from his ever-present mug of coffee as a stall tactic until he regained his composure.
“That’s all right,” Steeple said. “But since you brought it up, the Constitution is the perfect starting point for updating things to reflect the new reality in the world. The past is the key to the future. So much of what made sense in 1776 is moot now, three hundred years later. There are some harsh truths facing all of us, and some hard decisions will need to be made if we’re going to rebuild our world.”
“Could you clarify that?”
“America died because the two main political parties cared more about getting re-elected than doing what benefitted the country.”
“Amen to that.”
“When we had a strong figure as president, we got more done. Look at Lincoln, or FDR. They might have stepped on a few civil rights, but overall the country was better off. Moving forward, we need to codify a way for that to be the normal course of events, instead of putting ourselves at the mercy of a fickle citizenry.”
“Now I think we disagree. Do you mean like deciding whether we need everything guaranteed in the Bill of Rights? Is that what we’re talking about? Ditching the Founding Fathers?”
“No, not ditching them; tweaking them. This is a unique opportunity, Nick. We have the very rare chance to start our civilization over again, but this time on an improved footing. We can get rid of the imperfections.”
“Imperfections…” Angriff said. “Do you know how many men and women have died defending those imperfections?”
“Come on,” Steeple said. “Those ideas are gone now; they’re in the trash heap of history. Everything they died for is gone, so how much good did all that sacrifice make in the long run? I know you still believe in the old ideals of Washington, Jefferson, Lee, and Patton, but none of those guys matter any more; they’re all gone now, just like their country.
“It’s like all the Romans who died to create the empire. We admire their fidelity to their country, but the government they fought for has been gone for sixteen hundred years. It’s up to us to build something new, something better. That’s how you honor America’s heroes, by improving what they started, not by worshiping at the altar of the dead.”
“America was just a place?” Angriff said.
“It was an idea in time, but that time has passed.”
Schiller stepped into the office doorway. “Pardon me, sirs. General Angriff, the ice has thawed on that condenser. Everything is good to go.”
Angriff nodded once. “Good timing, J.C. Thank you.” A subtle change came over his expression, one Steeple failed to notice, but it was very much like the sharpened focus when a cheetah chooses its prey out of
a herd of zebras.
“We honor them by building something new and improving what they started,” Angriff said, musing on Steeple’s words. “Something new… not a republic, I assume, since we’ve already had one of those?”
“Eventually, with some changes. Closer to the Roman model, perhaps.”
“Lord of the World,” Angriff grunted. “I’ll be damned. Father Eric was right?”
“What?”
“It’s a book written early in the twentieth century by a Catholic priest, I forget his name… My teacher, Father Eric, made us read it for high school religion class. It’s about a world where the people worship the government.”
“What are you talking about? That’s not the Roman model.”
“The Roman oligarchy was anointed by the gods. It was like dictator by committee.”
“Maybe. But the people had the tribunes of the plebs. It had balances.”
“In the meantime, while we’re setting up whatever form this government takes, we need what? A strong man in charge, for the good of all? Like a princeps, like Augustus?”
“If only we had such a man. Augustus added centuries to the life of the empire. But a great leader is useless without men he can trust,” Steeple said, in his most persuasive tone. “Men he can trust to do what is necessary for the good of all. Augustus had Agrippa.”
“Do what is necessary…” Angriff mused. “Augustus did have such men, it’s true. After he killed anybody and everybody who opposed him, of course, and took their money. And let’s not forget that he turned the empire over to Tiberius, which led directly to Caligula, Claudius, and Nero.”
“And we’ll avoid those mistakes. Look, Nick, whether you like it or not, governments have to enforce their will. I would think you, of all people, would recognize that.”
“I serve in the Army to protect my country from foreign threats, not domestic.”
“And yet here you are, fighting within the borders of the country that you claim still exists,” Steeple said.
“Posse comitatus doesn’t apply to Chinese invaders, religious cultists, or traitors, as I think you know. And don’t preach to me about using the U.S. Army against its own citizens. Did you forget that I’m from Virginia?”
Standing at the Edge Page 19
