EndWar e-1 Page 13

  The reckless and basically suicidal thought to confront the troops did cross her mind. Shelly would have said, “Go for it.” Her sister had taken on some bullies when they’d been in middle school, literally beating all three girls to the ground, earning her a suspension for a month and summer school for two years.

  But no one bothered Stephanie after that.

  Unsurprisingly, it had been Shelly who had urged Stephanie to join the military, to take life by the horns, to recognize the warrior inside. She had cheered Stephanie on through the Air Force Academy and beyond—

  Until the cancer had struck.

  Sorry, Shell, I can’t take them on this time. I think I’ll beat them by running, not shooting. I’ve never been a great shot anyway.

  When Sergeant Nathan Vatz, Captain Godfrey, and Warrant Officer Samson walked into the RCMP station, they were confronted by an empty front desk. On the walls behind hung photos of Mounties wearing their Stetsons and scarlet tunics with lanyards slung across their chests.

  “I see they got things under control,” quipped Godfrey. “They’re at DEFCON One.”

  Vatz laughed under his breath.

  “It’s early,” Samson reminded them.

  “Hello, anyone home?” Vatz called.

  A woman, probably in her late fifties and dressed in a gray-and-blue RCMP uniform, appeared from behind a closed door, looking as though she had just risen from a deep sleep.

  She took one look at their Nomex jumpsuits and frowned. “Can I help you?”

  Vatz smiled inwardly over her accent.

  “Ma’am? I’m Captain Godfrey. This is Warrant Officer Samson, and Sergeant Vatz. We’re Special Forces troops from the United States Army. We need to speak to the police chief or detachment commander, whatever you call him. And we need the mayor here immediately.”

  “What’s going on? I saw something on the news about some Russian planes up north. Then we started getting weird military broadcasts by guys with Russian accents. We thought the satellite dish was messed up.”

  “Ma’am, if you could just get those people here, we’ll fill you all in A-SAP.”

  Vatz stepped away as one of his weapons sergeants called on the radio to say they’d used their plasma knives to gain entrance into the local sporting goods store and were securing clothing and more gear.

  “Roger that. Zodiac Six’s team will be around to pick you up, then rally on us.”

  It took ten precious minutes for the local detachment commander and mayor to arrive. Both were overweight men in their late fifties whose cholesterol levels had to be skyrocketing, Vatz mused.

  But Vatz appreciated the mayor’s candor and easygoing demeanor when the man drawled, “What the hell’s going on, boys?”

  Captain Godfrey spelled it out for him, and Vatz had never seen two men grow pale so quickly.

  “You need to evacuate the entire town right now,” added Godfrey. “Get all the women and children in their cars, get on Highway 35, and get them down to Grand Prairie. That’s where our brigade from the Tenth Mountain Division will be coming in. We’ll set up camps for IDPs there.”

  “IDPs?” asked the mayor.

  “Internally displaced persons,” answered Godfrey. “Trust me, in the next few days, there will be tens of thousands of them.”

  “All right, let me get everybody I have out there,” said the detachment commander.

  “Just get those Suburbans rolling through those neighborhoods. Get on the bullhorn. Get ’em out.”

  “You said only the women and children,” repeated the mayor.

  “Vatz?” said Captain Godfrey. “Why don’t you explain it to him.”

  Vatz cleared his throat. “Sir, the Russians will send recon elements first, by land and air. If we can hold them off until the Tenth arrives, we’ll have control of Highways 35 and 58. That’s what we need to do. The Russians can’t move their ground troops across the frozen lakes or through all the snow. It’s just too damned slow. They’ll stick to the roads. They’ll come to take the oil and gas fields at Rainbow Lake and Zama City west of here. And they’ll need control of this town if they’re going to push farther south. We can’t let that happen. Sir, we’re just two teams here, about twenty-five operators. We need every man willing to fight.”

  The mayor’s jaw dropped. For a moment, he couldn’t speak; then he managed, “Are you kidding me?”

  “No, sir. And there’s no time for a debate. They’re coming to take your town. If you own a rifle, I suggest you get it.”

  “But this is Canada! We’re not in the war. We’re neutral, for God’s sake.”

  Warrant Officer Samson drew an unlit cigar from his breast pocket, shoved it in his mouth. “Tell that to the Russians.”

  McAllen and his Marines marched down the C-130’s loading ramp, ready to set foot on the tarmac of Fort McMurray Airport.

  But before they could reach said tarmac, Colonel Stack accosted them. “Sergeant McAllen?”

  “Uh, yes, sir?”

  “This your team?” The colonel’s gaze played over the five men standing on the ramp behind McAllen.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You boys feel like taking a little ride?”

  They all boomed: “Sir, yes, sir!”

  “I’m talking way up north, behind enemy lines.”

  McAllen smiled. “That’s the way we roll, sir.”

  “Very well. Seems there’s a pilot who got shot down. It seems the president has taken a liking to her. So this comes down from The Man himself.”

  “Sir, begging your pardon, sir, but it’s obvious why you picked us. We’re the best, of course, but—”

  “Slow down, Sergeant. And stow that ego before you hurt someone with it. Truth is, I didn’t pick you for this. I wanted your green Marine asses up on Highway 63, but apparently there’s a major in Tampa who took orders from The Man, and she personally requested you boys.”

  “You hear that, Sergeant?” cried McAllen’s new assistant, Scott Rule. “We haven’t even dropped a Russian and we’re already famous.”

  McAllen grinned crookedly, then silenced the man with a look.

  The colonel went on, “So this major heard you were the first team at that crash site in Cuba. She must’ve figured you’re doing something right. Bad news is, best I got to get you up there is a civilian chopper. It’s a Bell LongRanger III. Company’s called Highland. Might be a blessing. The Russians might not take a potshot at a tourist bird. But that’s only your ride up. I’m still working on your ride home. There’s an HMMWV coming off one of the other 130s. You’ll hop on and take that up to Highland’s hangar. Official warning orders to follow. Questions?”

  “I assume we have the last known GPS coordinates of this pilot?”

  “We do. She’s northwest of Behchoko, though she hasn’t activated her survival kit’s beacon.”

  “Sat phone?”

  “Iridium is down.”

  “So there’s no guarantee she’s even still alive.”

  “Sergeant, you come back with the woman or her body. That’s what The Man wants.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Stack glanced off in the distance, shielding his eyes from the morning sun. “There’s your ride now.”

  Staff Sergeant Marc Rakken sat inside the Stryker with the rest of his rifle squad. It would be at least another six hours before they reached the outskirts of Calgary, and the ride east on Interstate 90 had taken forever because of the patches of ice and civilians getting in the way to gape at the brigade rumbling east. They finally had turned onto 95 to head north.

  The Stryker’s driver, Private First Class Penny Hassa, was a spunky, freckle-faced twenty-one-year-old who kept Rakken entertained with her sarcastic remarks regarding the traffic, the weather, and anything else that struck her.

  She’d assume a general’s deep drawl and announce into the intercom, “Gentlemen, the rules are different in this Stryker. We have a strict sexual harassment policy — we believe in it!”

  And that
’d inspire Rakken into a fit of laughter. In point of fact, Hassa didn’t take any crap from anyone, but she loved to tease.

  The vehicle’s commander, Sergeant Timothy Appleman, who was also wired into the intercom, allowed Hassa her indulgences, and Rakken certainly appreciated that.

  Rakken and his troops sat knee-to-knee, facing one another, their heavy packs and boxes of ammo, along with a half dozen AT-4s, jammed into the storage areas above and behind their seats. Since it was too loud to converse, they slept, read, or listened to music or watched videos on their iPods.

  The squad was divided into two teams, A and B. A team had a team leader, a grenadier (GREN) who carried a rifle with attached M203 grenade launcher, an automatic rifleman (AR) with an M249 SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon), and a rifleman with the AT-4 antitank weapon (RMAT). B team had all of the same, except the RMAT was replaced by a DM — a designated marksman equipped with an M16A4 with a heavy barrel and improved optics.

  While the Force Recon Marines, SEALs, and Army Special Forces were already fielding a lot of the new future force warrior gear, budget restrictions along with heavy pressure from liberal antiwar lobbyists had forced the Army to push back implementation of most of that high-tech equipment to the general infantry to at least 2032, war notwithstanding.

  The unnerving thing was, while Rakken and his people were headed into urban terrain with outdated weapons, the Russian Spetsnaz had dropped in with state-of-the-art firepower. Rakken’s squad could be facing anything from directed energy weapons to the microwave weapons made famous by the Euros to Electrodarts delivering fifty thousand volts.

  And of course, the threat of biological and chemical weapons always loomed.

  “You guys are awful quiet,” said PFC Hassa.

  “Just thinking, Hassa,” said Rakken. “I got a buddy who got sent up to High Level.”

  “Where the hell is that?”

  “Way up in Alberta. I’m just hoping he’s okay.”

  “Aw, you believe that?” she asked, interrupting him.

  “What?”

  “Bunch of kids in a pickup truck just drove by and flipped us the bird!”

  “Call in some air support.”

  “I’ll give them air support, all right.”

  “So, you guys want the good news or the bad news?” said Appleman.

  Rakken was about to answer when Hassa cursed and cut the wheel, the Stryker rumbling as they tipped sideways and left the road, bouncing onto the embankment.

  “Oh, my God!” she cried.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Almost every vehicle in the brigade possessed a built-in GPS to pinpoint their exact location. All you had to do was click on a blue icon to learn exactly which unit that was. If you saw an enemy, you could e-mail in the report, and red icons would appear on every display in the brigade.

  But when Private Hassa shouted and Sergeant Appleman added, “The screen’s showing nothing. No enemy contacts,” Sergeant Marc Rakken knew better and sprang into action. “We have to get out!”

  “Hassa, stop!” hollered Appleman.

  “Let’s move, let’s move!” Rakken ordered.

  Before the ramp had fully lowered, Rakken’s squad was out on the embankment, up to their ankles in slush and snow.

  Smoke billowed from two of the four Strykers in Rakken’s rifle platoon. Pieces of the road were gone. The stench of gasoline hung heavily in the air. With a whine, ramps opened on the two smoldering vehicles, and the squads stumbled out, coughing and disoriented. A few guys fell to their knees.

  The vehicle commanders were already screaming for medics as still more troops leapt from the backs of the Strykers behind them, fanning out to sweep the area, a broad section of the interstate with literally no place to hide.

  And above, fighter planes sliced through the clouds, engines echoing.

  “Russian jets all the way down here? No way!” shouted Appleman.

  “They’re ours!” hollered Rakken. “That’s a flight of Raptors.”

  “Did they fire on us?” asked Appleman.

  “I don’t think so. They’re covering.” Rakken bit back a curse and jogged to the front of the Stryker, where Hassa was in her driver’s hatch. “What’d you see?”

  “They just lit up, one after another.”

  “Nothing dropped?”

  “No. And we went over our vehicles with a fine-toothed comb, like we always do.”

  “Sergeant?” Rakken called to Appleman. “Better send up word. Those Green Vox bastards didn’t stop at the mess hall.”

  “Oh, man. They must’ve planted them on the vehicles.”

  “Think about it. The Russians planned their attack. They knew in advance we’d be called up. The Brigade hit the mess hall, now they hit us again. That’s too much of a coincidence. I think they’re back to working for the Russians.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  Rakken sighed. “All right. A Team? You got security.” He cocked his thumb toward the still-burning Strykers. “B Team, go help ’em out!”

  About a quarter mile back, another explosion suddenly rocked the convoy. Then, six vehicles up, yet another series of booms.

  “I’m getting out,” shouted Hassa, quickly dismounting from the vehicle and jogging away, as though it, too, might explode.

  This was exactly what the Russians wanted, thought Rakken. Delays and paranoia.

  Sergeant Raymond McAllen and his frozen little band of Force Recon Marines piled onboard the Longranger III helicopter, barely able to squeeze themselves and their gear inside.

  The pilot, a rugged-looking blond in his forties nicknamed Khaki, was an ex-Canadian Special Forces guy who had a lot to say about his country’s unwillingness to take up arms against the Russians (he was pissed). He had a lot to say about his willingness to fly them into hell and back, too — not because he was pro America or pro Canada, but because he was pro saving a fighter pilot’s life.

  He’d been there, done that himself. So Colonel Stack had lucked out when he’d made that call to Highland to rent them a bird on American taxpayers’ dollars.

  The bad news was that the helo only had a range of about three hundred miles, so they’d have to put down in High Level to refuel before heading up into the Northwest Territories. The company’s own hangar there was empty, since they’d already assisted in the evacuation, but there was a full fuel truck waiting for them.

  McAllen recalled that two ODA teams from the Army’s Special Forces were up there. And he learned via the network that at nearly the same time they reached the town, High Level might be paid an unexpected visit from some Ka-29s inbound from Behchoko, part of a Spetsnaz combat and reconnaissance patrol (CRP) that would no doubt have mechanized forces on its heels.

  Not wanting Khaki to get too excited if they rubbed shoulders with a few Russkies, McAllen carefully filled him in over the intercom.

  Surprisingly, the pilot said, “Well, if the Russians are en route, let’s get to the gas before they do. And hey, you like Subway? Quiznos? They even got a Kentucky Fried.”

  McAllen laughed a little. “We won’t have time for lunch.”

  Khaki smiled. “They got drive-through.”

  The RCMP had gone through the town of High Level ordering everyone to evacuate to Highway 35, and Sergeant Nathan Vatz was getting reports from his team that the citizens were indeed complying. One of his commo guys did say that he spotted quite a few men driving their families off; if Vatz were married with children, he wondered whether he’d do the same.

  At the police station, members of the local chamber of commerce, along with the local fire chief and mayor, were engaged in a huge debate over whether they should defend themselves or simply surrender to the Russians in order to preserve the town and save lives.

  Captain Mike Godfrey and Warrant Officer Samson had walked out of that meeting, telling the townsfolk that they welcomed help but had no intentions of surrendering. A lot of the local men had told the mayor to kiss off. They were fighting to protect their
town. Period. And their numbers were growing.

  Meanwhile, Vatz worked with about twenty guys to set up the main roadblock north of town. Fortunately, demolition derbies were a big pastime in High Level, and with the drivers’ help, they were able to create a nice little wall of vehicles, even adding a couple of tractor trailers from the local lumber mill. This wall would channel oncoming mechanized forces to the left or right, into the embankments—

  Where Vatz and his men had set up a little high-tech surprise that, when they were finished, left all of them wearing evil grins.

  The roadblocks on 58 to the east and west were hardly as reinforced, containing just four cars each but manned by another twenty riflemen that Vatz had organized into two teams. Nice thing was, quite a few of those guys were hunters who owned high-powered rifles with scopes — one of the benefits of working with a more rural community.

  The final roadblock on the south side of the town was not yet in place, since there was still a steady flow of evacuees. But they had another 18-wheeler whose driver claimed he could flip the thing onto its side so that the entire trailer would lie across the road. He seemed eager to try that. At least thirty more guys would help hold that exit.

  Finally, half of Vatz’s team had staked out the local airport, six miles southeast, with its single five-thousand-foot runway and small air terminal building. It seemed highly likely that at least some of the air recon forces would land there, the crews refueling while the troops dismounted. Vatz’s boys had negotiated a little something special for that party.

  Vatz figured that a few more helos would land in the downtown area, near the RCMP station, town hall, fire station, and the local hotel and motels. So that’s where he and his half of the team were now positioned, strung out along the rooftops in sniper positions. Vatz had found himself a nice perch above the town hall, near a large stone balustrade. He was in one corner of the rooftop, while Captain Godfrey was in the other.

  In some respects, this was a classic foreign internal defense (FID) mission, often an exclusive task of Special Forces operators. The training of the resistance in occupied France during World War II was one of the more famous FID missions that Vatz had studied. However, most teams had a lot more time to train and organize the citizens. Still, Vatz was proud of the work they’d accomplished in such a short time.