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  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  The unnerving thing was, while Rakken and his people were headed into urban terrain with outdated weapons, the Russian Spetsnaz had dropped in with state-of-the-art firepower.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.

  Though dressed like locals, Vatz’s team wore their camera-equipped Artisent ballistic assault helmets with laser target designator; the headgear subsystems’ 180-degree emissive visors provided them with maps, routes, and other networked data in the cross com monocle below their left eyes. High bandwidth wireless communications, along with a microelectronic/optics sensor suite, provided 360-degree situational awareness and small arms protection.

  At the moment, Vatz worked the system’s handheld controller, not unlike the ones used for video games. He studied a radar image being piped in to both ODA teams. Twelve glowing blips were superimposed over a local map. The blips morphed into the glowing silhouettes of inbound Ka-29s with an ETA of about twenty-two minutes.

  After muttering a faint, “Whoa,” he pulled up the camera images from every man on his team, silently making sure that each operator was in place.

  ODA 888, call sign Berserker, and ODA 887, call sign Zodiac, lay in wait.

  Many ODA team members liked to pick radio call signs based upon the first letter of the team’s name, with the detachment commander always being the team’s name followed by the number six, for command. Vatz’s old team used “Victor,” and he’d picked Vortex, which in his humble opinion sounded cool.

  But when he’d been reassigned to Berserker, a “B” name had eluded him. The depression hadn’t helped. It was Marc Rakken who had suggested “Bali,” short for balisong, referencing the knives they both collected and reminding Vatz once more of the Venturi in his pocket.

  Thus Nathan Vatz, call sign “Bali,” was reborn.

  Captain Godfrey got on the radio: “Berserker team, this is Berserker Six. Enemy force inbound on your screens. Start with the plan. And when it goes to hell, you think. Adapt. Shoot. Move. Communicate. Are we clear?”

  “HOOAH!” they all boomed over the channel.

  “Hey, up there! Hey!”

  The voice had come from below, and Vatz peered over the rooftop to spy the mayor on the sidewalk below, shielding his eyes from the glare.

  “Mr. Mayor!” shouted Captain Godfrey. “They’ll be here soon. Stay inside!”

  “We’ve made a decision. It’s the best for everyone. Now I need you people to come down. We’re not going to offer any resistance when they arrive. We don’t want any bloodshed.”

  The mayor was joined by the fire chief and the RCMP commander.

  Before Captain Godfrey could reply—and Vatz could shake his head in disbelief—Warrant Officer Samson’s voice boomed over the radio: “Berserker Six, this is Black Bear. We got an inbound helo on radar, coming in from the southeast. Lone aircraft, could be a civilian. Trying to establish comm with that pilot now, over.”

  “Roger that,” said Godfrey. “We need him on the ground A-SAP!”

  “I hear you, Six. Working on it.”

  The captain then lifted his voice. “Mr. Mayor, get inside. It’s too late now.”

  “I won’t. We need to wave our white flag, damn it. You’re going to get us all killed!”

  “They’re going to kill you anyway,” cried Vatz, unable to contain himself.

  “Sergeant, I got this,” said Godfrey, who winked and hollered, “He’s right. You don’t get inside, you’re dead.”

  The mayor dismissed them with a wave. “We’ll see about that!”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Colonel Pavel Doletskaya had convinced them to remove the straitjacket. He had no intention of hurting himself, and it was ridiculous for him to summon a guard every time he needed to use the small toilet in the corner of his cell.

  Besides, they had four cameras inside and two guards outside. If he so much as held his breath, they would be on him in seconds.

  They had even given him a small metal cot with a thin mattress and a military-issue blanket. His requests for reading material—for anything, really, to occupy his time—had been ignored. Moreover, it had been several hours since his last visit from the interrogators.

  So he lay there, staring up at the ceiling, burping up the remnants of MRE #07, meat loaf and gravy. It was no wonder the American soldiers so often retreated during combat; they were all running to the bathroom after consuming 1,200 calories of pure indigestion.

  Doletskaya draped an arm over his head and closed his eyes, longing to clear his mind . . .

  They were back at her apartment now after a remarkable first meal together, and he looked into her eyes as she straddled him.

  “Colonel,” he began softly. “I didn’t expect this.”

  “Neither did I.”

  Viktoria Antsyforov was even more beautiful in the shadows of her bedroom, her long hair, usually bound in a tight bun, fluttering like dark flames.

  Following that fateful meeting at Kupol, they became lovers and spent the next few months working out the logistics of her plan. She foisted her ideas upon her colleagues and summarily crushed those who challenged her in their meetings.

  On several occasions, Doletskaya had watched as she caught the eye of Izotov himself. Soon, the rumors that she was sleeping with the general circulated. Doletskaya only grinned them away.

  On the last night he had seen her alive, they’d returned to Kupol for an elegant dinner at his suggestion.

  She’d be
en quiet throughout the meal.

  And when he asked what was wrong, she snapped at him, “I want you to leave your wife. Does that make me a bad person?”

  “No. But you know that’s not possible. Not for a man in my position.”

  “Why not? You can’t bear a few scars? All my life I’ve been the snow maiden, afraid my heart would melt me. But it is warm now. For you. And I’m not melting. I’m asking you to do something for me.”

  “And I’m telling you I can’t.”

  She rose, stormed away from the table.

  “Viktoria, please . . .”

  He sat there for a few more minutes, paid the check, then went to a local bar for a drink. It was there he decided that he would leave his wife for her, no matter the cost. He did love her.

  As he left, he felt lighter, half his age, and suddenly very, very happy.

  But when he returned to her apartment building, the entire floor was engulfed in flames, and he couldn’t get anywhere near the area. He stood there in the street, the snow falling on his head and shoulders, watching the fire-men, the flames bending in the high wind, the people covering their mouths and crying.

  Two days later they identified her body. They said the fire had originated in her apartment and had been deliberately set. Arson. A suicide.

  And Doletskaya had been left wondering why.

  Meanwhile, he continued to push forward with her plan. There was too much momentum, too much at stake.

  It was what she would have wanted.

  But he just could not believe what she had done. And there was still no extinguishing the fire in his own heart.

  For her.

  He lay there in the cell, wishing he had been strong enough to tell her yes at that last moment. Yes, I will leave her. Yes, I want you.

  Now he had lost the only thing that had mattered to him—more than the war, his career, everything.