Knave's Gambit

by Deforest Day

  Norelle lit her last Kool, crumpled the pack, threw it at the NO SMOKING sign over the magazine rack. The others were lounging, sleeping, on the sofas, the easy chairs. “That’s because there ain’t no 'lectric. I don’t think this place is ready for prime time.” She worked her already short skirt up and sat on the edge of the Ping-Pong table. “Wish to hell my cell was working. Call my man to come fetch me. Get my ass back to civilization. I got the algeries to country.”

  Alice stood at the window, rubbing her skinny arms. It was way past time for her afternoon taste. And no chef Leroy in sight. Nothing in sight, but old people. Old people, and dirt. “What is this place, anyways? All them old people out there, must be some kind of re-tirement home.”

  “Re-tirement home for crooks. Or people in that witness defection situation. Else why all them young boys with the guns?”

  Big Rita joined Alice at the window. “Yeah, they sneaky lookin’, all right. Only if they crooks, they rich ones. You see that tall, skinny dude, white hair like the cream they put on your caffy grandy? Man give me a General Grant last week, polish his knob. He couldn’t finish up, but paid up, anyhow. She-it.”

  Polish his knob. One of Liz's classmates had used that expression just last week, and then explained it in graphic detail. She focused on the tall, skinny dude. “He’s the Minority Whip.”

  They turned to Schoolgirl at the next window. “Lordy me; look who back from the dead.”

  Schoolgirl laughed. “After I barfed, I feel a whole lot better.” She turned back to the window, pointed. “And the one he’s talking to? Looks like he’s pregnant? He’s the Ranking Member on the Senate Armed Services Committee.”

  “Girl, you do have a brain on you. How you know this shit?”

  “From my Current Events Class. Same place Sister told us how girls are kidnapped by Muslims, and sold into White Slavery. Is that what happened to you?”

  “Now ain’t that rich. White slaves. Child, you ain’t so smart, after all. Probably why you wound up stoned, and sharin’ a cell wif us.”

  “Leave Schoolgirl alone. Ain’t her fault she got picked up. She-it. I been picked up plenty, just for bein’ dressed wrong, standin’ on the wrong street corner, three o’clock in the AM.”

  LaDonna took Liz by the arm, led her away from the others. “Don’t you be listenin’ to these hoes. I can see by the way you sound, you ain’t street. We see a way out of this place, we take you back to civilization, with us.”

  Schoolgirl said, “You want to get out of here, then lure a couple of those soldiers in here, do something to distract them, and the rest of us will take away their guns.”

  “And then what? We don’t know nothin’ about no guns.”

  “I do.”

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Tran and Nick heard Poppy lift off from the hayfield. They watched the helicopter pass overhead; rising, nose down, grabbing forward speed. The staccato beat of the rotor faded, and stillness settled on the forest.

  They moved single file through mature oak and maple, with enough mountain laurel and dogwood in the under story they were glad for the narrow trail created by the local fauna.

  A few minutes later the buzz of a single engine airplane broke the soft rustle of leaves and melodic birdsong. When they reached a fieldstone fence line overgrown with sumac and sassafras they saw Camp Catoctin in the valley below.

  Nick opened the hard case, handed Tran the range finder binoculars. “You ever use one of these?”

  Tran examined the instrument, gave Nick a brief look of disdain. “Only when I play golf.”

  “We need to draw a range card. Distances. Elevations, windage. In case I have to do some shooting.”

  Tran sighted on the tall white flagpole. “Four hundred fifty three.” He lowered the range finder, watched Nick take a small spiral notebook out of a cargo pocket in his cammo pants. “What you doing?”

  “Making a range card.” He drew a rough sketch of the parade ground, noted the distance to the flag pole. The flag hung limp, but a slight breeze stirred the dust at ground level. “Noting distance to possible targets. Temperature, humidity, and windspeed all can effect the the bullet between barrel and target. All snipers make a range card.”

  “You were sniper?”

  “No, but I’ve fired thousands of rounds in practice, in competition.”

  “Competition not combat.”

  —o—

  Gunny made a quick tour of the compound while the fat old fart from Washington entertained Congress. He was stretched thin, with only a handful of troopers to wrangle this herd of cats, but Woody was enthralled by toys, and had spent too much of his HomSec millions on Strykers, the Gulfstream, a public relations and lobbying campaign to promote the corporate image.

  Then there was this goddamn fishbowl. A piss poor place to put a military compound. Which Camp Catoctin was, never mind the bureaucratic words used to describe it. ‘Temporary Internment Facility’. Bullshit. As he saw it, the location was based upon its proximity to DC, and the inability to receive cell phone signals. Sure, it simplified transportation, and negated the embarrassment of confiscating BlackBerries and smartphones, but it also meant a couple of snipers in the heights could make life miserable for his men.

  Men, against his better judgment, armed only with close-quarter weapons. He sure could use a few fifty cal Brownings mounted on up-armored HUMVEES.

  Gunny lit a smoke, feeling good it was only the second of the day. He made a slow scan of the high country, and caught the glint of glass in the sun.

  —o—

  The dark haired woman spotted the Jet Ranger as it lifted off from the hayfield. “Looks like they’re headed for the compound we just flew over.”

  “Let’s try to eighty six that.” The swarthy man banked, flew in a lazy racetrack two thousand feet above the helicopter. A sleek fast falcon, high above a slow fat pigeon. “I can both fly better and shoot better than you.” He locked eyes with her. “But I can’t do them at the same time.”

  She gave him a dirty look as she shed her AmSafe inflatable harness and shoved the barrel of the M-14 out the hinged flap in the passenger window.

  He trimmed the ailerons to give her a steady platform. “Use the armor piercing rounds, and aim for the turbine.”

  “Suck my dick.”

  The first shot hit six feet in front of the turbine, and tore through the tinted Lexan panel above Kat’s head, passed between her knees, and out the bottom of the helicopter. A blast of air whistled through the small hole, ruffling the hem of Stormy Skyz’ dress. Everyone craned their necks, saw the faint white speck against the deepening sky. Kat said, “What the hell was that?”

  Poppy and Howie knew exactly what the hell it was, though they had never taken incoming from above. They had, however, survived enough AK-47 attacks from below it became routine to sit on your vest, and have another one beneath the seat. Howie reached beneath his own seat for a rifle. “Sumbitch is shooting at us.”

  —o—

  LaDonna said, “And how we get them boys in here? The do’s locked.”

  Schoolgirl said, “Maybe if we opened a window? They could climb in.”

  Norelle came over, said to LaDonna, “Yeah. Lean out the window, and whistle. You do know how to whistle don’t you? I bet you do; how did the movie star say it? Put yo’ lips together and blow.”

  “Oh, I knows how to whistle, awright, and a whole lot mo’. But I expect you best be the one to lean out the window, catch they eye. What with all you got up top, catch they eyes with.”

  Liz wished she hadn’t tossed her pepper spray aside when her father had grabbed her outside the Cannon Works. But then she guessed these women traveled in far more dangerous places, and probably had more and better weapons than pepper spray. And said so.

  LaDonna said, “Well, yeah, child. Of course we does. But you think the po-lice let us keep ‘em, they pick us up? Get real, girl.”

  Norelle said, “I got me a nail file they missed, when they turned out
my bag.”

  “Nail file! Yeah; we can bay-o-net his ass with your nail file.” LaDonna put her hand on Schoolgirl’s shoulder, smiled. “Don’t you worry about it, Honey; we get them inside, we figure something out.” Schoolgirl realized in their world planning ahead was not a primary job skill.

  Norelle adjusted her considerable assets and displayed them on the window sill. “Hey, soldier,” she called. “Y’all got a smoke? I’m out.”

  Former PFC Heston had been detailed to stand guard at the Admin building, not let anyone in. It was an easy job, because Gunny had locked the door and handed him the keys.

  He lounged in the shade of the eaves and watched a small airplane fly over at altitude, disappear behind the hill. This Bearclaw outfit was a lot more casual than the Corps, as far as spit and shine went. Except for the asshole Woody, who liked to inspect your uniform, see it was high and tight. He especially liked to grab your weapon and open the bolt, look down the barrel, to see if it was clean. One of these days the man was gonna shoot himself through the eyeball.

  He turned at the sound of a woman’s voice. Not five feet from his face was a pair of creamy smooth mountains, with the hint of their twin peaks peeking over the edge of a tube top tailored for maximum effect.

  Damn right he had a smoke, and he fumbled with the flap on his uniform pocket while maintaining eye contact with the shadowy valley between those mountains.

  A rumor floating around the camp said Gunny returned from Washington with a bus load of women, but Heston wrote it off as wishful thinking. Most likely it was just more of those dried up old grannies like the one told him to go piss up a rope. Former PFC Heston lit a cigarette and passed it up to the woman.

  “Thank you, honey. We cooped up in here, all by ourselves. Gettin’ lonesome.” Norelle exhaled, ran her tongue around freshly applied crimson lips. “Why don’t you come on inside, keep us ladies company?”

  Heston swung his eyes across the empty parade ground. Everybody else, troopers and numbnuts alike, were in the DFAC. Listening, most likely, to what the fat man from the helicopter had to say. “No can do, ma’am. I got orders to guard this door, not let nobody in.”

  Norelle pursed her lips, stuck the cigarette between them, and pinched her nipples through the thin fabric of her top. They, and Heston, came to attention.

  He saw Former Master Sergeant Blaine crossing from the DFAC to the shiny green helicopter, and called to him. “Hey, Sergeant. I got to take a shit. Stand post for me?”

  Blaine broke stride, turned to the sound. Jesus. Kids today. You didn’t ask a Master Sergeant to relieve you. It was like tossing your car keys to one of these senators, telling him to go park your ride. He was glad to be out; thirty and done. “No can do, sonny. I have to go tell the pilot of the Green Weenie to spool up. His bossman is heading back to DC.” He stopped, eyeballed the big, dumb kid. What the hell. Wasn’t like this was a Hot Zone. Nothing was going to happen, out here in the middle of nowhere, riding herd on a bunch of old farts. “Go make your latrine visit, but make it quick. I’ll send someone from the fence line detail to cover for you.”

  Heston waited until Blaine climbed the steps and disappeared into the big helicopter before unlocking the entrance to the Admin building and slipping inside.

  —o—

  In the First War, the Great War, the War To End All Wars, aerial combat was born when the pilot of a Sopwith Camel fired his Webley .455 revolver at a Fokker Dreidecker, only to have the other pilot answer with his 9mm Luger.

  Then came machine guns synchronized with the propellers, machine guns in the wings, followed, decade by decade, with more bigger faster guns, only to be supplanted by air-to-air Sidewinder fire-and-forget Hellfire over-the-horizon weapons.

  Unless it was two civilian aircraft, battling above the Maryland countryside.

  Poppy used the stick, the collective, and the tail rotor to do some air combat maneuvers, hoping he was giving whoever was shooting at them the illusion of a kill shot on the first shot.

  He was busy enough with his hands and feet he had to yell for Kat to kill the FADEC.

  “English, please.”

  He used his head to indicate a series of switches in a panel just below the TSM. “Full Automatic Digital Engine Control. Those switches control the throttle and the rotor revolutions. I need hands on, from here on. The computer won’t let me do these next moves. Damn thing cares more about keeping Sky Six alive than us.”

  He checked her harness, yelled over his shoulder for the back seats to tighten up. No sense in frightening the civilians with the possibility of bank angles and G loads approaching the NATOPS limits. Or the hammerhead stalls, split-S maneuvers, and loops and rolls which can can result in mast-bumping, overstress, overtorque, high sink rates, and other shit-meet-fan conditions. What the hell; a couple of rounds in the turbine would make those situations minor annoyances. Besides, it was time to fight back.

  —o—

  Gunny studied the high ground. Most likely deer hunters. It’s what he’d be doing himself on a crisp November afternoon, if he wasn’t riding herd on this clusterfuck.

  But he was head honcho of this particular clusterfuck, so he’d be remiss if he didn’t send someone up there to check it out. Not that there even was an OpFor to worry about. Woody said the Army and The Corps was otherwise occupied with exercises somewhere in the southern hemisphere. Still. You never knew what the crazies might attempt. Some home-grown militia, worshipping at the altar of the almighty Second Amendment. Martial law and all it entailed might look good on paper, but when you put boots on the streets it didn’t necessarily work out the way the pencil pushers drew it up.

  He lit another cigarette and recalled the image of the old NRA spokesman and his cold, dead hands slogan, and imagined his own old Pappy, back home in Tennessee, and how he was reacting to this martial law nonsense. Probably unlocking the gun cabinet, deciding which weapon he’d carry to the rocker on the porch.

  Gunny scanned the parade ground for someone to send on a recon mission. Sure would be nice to have a few ATVs, but Woody was a city boy, and went with a fleet of flat black Humvees with a dumb-ass logo on the doors. What the hell; Marines were trained to slog it. He headed for the trooper outside the HQ building. Who had he detailed for the job? Heston. The big dumb kid.

  Except this one was smaller and older and had the thousand yard stare of a combat vet. Sergeant Sanderson. A Recon Marine who had served two deployments in Central Asia, then another in Africa, where he gunned down the wrong warlord and got busted back to Lance Corporal. Gunny had made him a squad leader, and sweetened the pot with an extra grand at sign on.

  “What the devil are you doing here? I detailed Heston for this. Where the hell is that boy?”

  “Fuck if I know. Sergeant Blaine snatched my butt off gate duty. Said to double time over here, watch this door for five, while someone took a shit break. My ass in a crack?”

  “No. Master Sergeant Blaine is in the chain, and Woody be damned, we follow my chain of command, unless he gives you a direct order.” He pointed to the tree line a quarter mile away. “Someone glassed us a minute ago. Probably hunters, but I need a body to go check it out. You’re in the wrong place at the right time, Sanderson, so ruck up and hump up, then bounce back with a sit rep.”

  Gunny rattled the door handle. Locked up tight. What the hell, just his bunch of hookers inside. Not likely they’d get into any mischief before the big dumb kid got back. He headed for the mess hall and the ruckus inside.

  —o—

  Nick and Tran lay in the weeds, using the fieldstone fence line for cover. Nick had rearranged several rocks to give himself both a comfortable prone position, and a field of fire covering the compound. He loaded five rounds in Goldilocks.

  The last time Liz fired her mother's rifle she'd nailed a couple of rats at two hundred meters. But then she'd swabbed the bore, run a brush through it, and a sniper always fires one fouling round, before casing his weapon. What the hell; he wasn't going to
make a head shot on a guy holding a hostage.

  Tran swept the vacant parade ground with the binoculars, searching for signs of life. A trooper loitered outside the building with the dishes on the roof. “Hey, Paloma,” he said. “Check out the HQ.”

  Nick zoomed the rifle's scope on the building. Tran said, “Titty lady not look like congresswoman, eh?”

  Nick watched the girl and the soldier interact in the age-old banter and barter of the sexes. “Not unless Oprah’s been elected to congress.” His eyes moved past the woman leaning out the window, and peered inside the building. It was too dark for the scope, and not dark enough to break out the night vision gear. “And I think there’s a bunch more women inside.” He put down the rifle, picked up the spiral notebook. “Give me a distance on the open window.”

  —o—

  “You got them!” The helicopter fluttered like a wounded partridge. The swarthy man put the nose down and gave the Lycoming engine full throttle. “Thirty seconds, and we’ll finish them, up close and personal.” As they dropped at six thousand feet per minute he didn’t realize the jinking, juking, slipsliding helicopter was rising at its maximum climb rate of two thousand feet per minute.

  Howie looked up, saw they were about to need the services of a door gunner. He reached under the seat, got a grip on one of the M-16’s. Forty years faded as the adrenaline rush kicked him in the gut.

  He yanked the latch and slid the rear door open. Poppy corrected for the sudden influx of air. He yelled above the roar of the engine, the beat of the rotor, and the cyclonic level of wind slamming into the opening, “You shoot my rotor off, and you’re banned for life from Poker Fridays.”

  “Well then, give me an angle on the sumbitch!” The moves from long forgotten LZ dustoffs, and rolling Lurps insertions came back to both of them, and Howie thumbed the selector switch to BURST.