by Leo Champion
They’d see tomorrow morning that there were definitely fewer nomads than there had been, but they’d have a harder time knowing how many fewer – and they’d undercounted the horde by almost fifty percent anyway.
“You think you can handle Vozhar?” von Kallweit asked Second Lieutenant Hecht. As von Kallweit’s most experienced officer available – he’d done twelve years as an enlisted soldier before taking his commission – Hecht was literally going to be minding the fort. With Vozhar son of Venzhen, a bannerman who happened to be Axhar’s uncle.
“He understands. Sit there and keep them from breaking out,” said Hecht. “If they even try. I don’t need a thousand for that.”
“Once our main horde leaves the area that Station Nineteen had been jamming, the other jammers will mean we can’t communicate by radio,” von Kallweit said. “We’re only going about a few hours’ ride, but – you have message riders ready, of course.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“I want a report every hour that the situation hasn’t changed. Regardless of whether they have or not.” He was being paranoid, but Colonel Lavasseur was looking over his shoulder.
Besides, Hecht and Vozhar did have more nomads than they needed – it would have been an insult to give the khan’s uncle a smaller force, and he had seemed the most reliable of the senior bannermen. They could spare a few riders to be constantly moving between the two groups.
“Yes, Captain,” said Hecht.
von Kallweit pressed his zak forward, heading to rejoin Axhar and the horde leadership group. There was going to be an upside to the jamming, too; the Americans being ambushed would not be able to call for help.
* * *
Numminen sat across from Hadfield in the tent they’d set up as a nominal command post while the company prepared trucks. Supplies had been allocated to the operation, some from the East Vasimir reserves but mostly flown in from Templeton; it turned out that a reinforced battalion going almost nine hundred miles, round-trip, was going to use a lot of fuel.
On the folding table, the company XO was drawing shapes with a four-colored pen. He’d been – nervously? – doing that all day; from the thickness of the pad he was going through, probably longer.
“Sir,” said company signals chief Sergeant Raymond as he pushed open the tent. “Engineer platoon just landed. Thought you might want to know.”
“Take a walk and greet them?” Hadfield suggested.
“Kowalski, you good to mind the place?” Numminen asked the first sergeant as he got up.
“Yessir.”
It was twenty-one hundred hours; nothing was going to happen. Some of his men were off-duty anyway; everyone was still worn out from the long trek.
As they walked out of the office, Numminen noticed the personal phone still clipped to his XO’s belt. It wasn’t forbidden to possess personal devices on duty, but they weren’t supposed to be attached to the uniform.
Something he’d have to mention soon. You could only ignore regulations so far for so long.
The airstrip wasn’t far away. A C-175 had just unloaded pallets and men, was taxiing over to a refueling station. The rucksack-carrying men, about thirty of them, were One-Four-Four’s combat-engineers platoon, a part of HQ Company.
“Captain Numminen.” Senior Lieutenant Jester said. He was a tall blond man of about thirty. “It was good to hear about Delta.”
“Thanks Dave. Now let’s do something for Bravo.”
Numminen shook hands with his friend, then looked around at the men.
“You know where to go? We’ve set up tents for your guys. Lieutenant-Colonel Gillivray will probably greet you tomorrow.”
“Yeah.” The combat engineers were already filing in the right direction. Jester moved to join them.
Most of the cargo was being cleared from the landing area, but an anxious young man with senior airman’s stripes stood next to six pallets of what looked to be stacked parachutes bound in cargo netting. There was a scanner in his hand as he approached Numinnen and Hadfield.
“Excuse me, sir? Captain, First Lieutenant?”
“Senior Airman,” Numminen acknowledged him.
“I need an officer’s ID and signature for this, please. Just mark it as declined, sir.”
Numminen took his identification card from his pocket but asked, “What exactly am I signing?”
“Misdirected shipment, sir. Vazhao sent a company’s worth of parachutes to a unit that’s actually in Varren Province. I just need an officer to decline receipt of it so we can get it shipped onwards.”
Hadfield nudged Numminen, who shook his head slightly. Just because you could steal from Army didn’t mean you had to at every opportunity.
“We’ll sign for them,” said the XO.
Or perhaps if you were Hadfield, you did. Fine.
Numminen put the half-drawn military ID back, took out his wallet and found a different one. He handed it to the young airman, who scanned the chip and gave it back without even a glance at the photo.
“Thank you, sir,” The airman handed him an electronic clipboard.
“Just check the Decline box and sign right here, sir.”
“Hold on,” said Numminen. “Let me just read what I’m signing. Cargo manifest, one hundred and sixty M-991A steerable parachutes… Third Brigade, Eighteenth Airborne Division, intended for upcoming operation… Acceptance by Major Browne or Designated Representative Only.”
The airman moved uncomfortably from side to side as Numminen carefully pretended to read every word of the standard shipping documentation.
“Thank you,” he said. He checked the Accept box, scribbled a signature and handed the digital clipboard back.
“Sir! You were—” The young airman was horrified, but caught himself before he could raise his voice further to the two officers. “Sir, undoing that is going to take a couple of minutes and maybe delay the flight.”
“Senior Airman,” said Numminen. “I have accepted delivery of the shipment on behalf of Major Browne for the Third Brigade. I accept responsibility for it. You’re good.”
“Sir, they were sent here by mistake, sir!”
“A mistake that’s now my responsibility, Senior Airman,” said Numminen firmly. “Senior Lieutenant, can you find a work party to move them to company HQ?”
“Yessir,” said Hadfield and headed off with a slight smile on his face.
“A mistake that is now legally and officially my responsibility,” Numminen said.
“Why do you want—”
“Senior Airman,” Numminen interrupted him. “The shipment stopped being your responsibility when you verified my identity and I signed for it. It is legally outside of your control now.”
Numminen could sense wheels turning in the kid’s head; if the Legion officer wanted to steal parachutes, trouble would eventually fall on him. He, the airman, had done everything his own job required. This was no longer his problem.
“Yessir,” the airman said. “Thank you sir.”
As he left, Hadfield came back with a group of men, one of them wheeling a pallet-jack. A sergeant got them moving while the XO fell in beside his boss.
“Kleptomaniac,” said Numminen. “What do we want those for?”
Hadfield shrugged. “Captain Diodorus always wants everything he can get his hands on. Trade value, if nothing else. Better to have them than not have them.”
Numminen slowly shook his head.
“Have you ever thought, Darryl, that maybe there’s a reason the Army doesn’t like us?”
* * *
“Just hold until Task Force Gillivray shows up, Bravo Six,” Doom said into the handset. “Gambler Six Actual out.”
Faden sat with him in the colonel’s Templeton office, part of a prefabricated building in the busy Templeton Base military hub. They’d spent all day tracking units, confirming plans with Lieutenant-Colonel Gillivray and, in Faden’s case doing a bit of independent research.
On the battalion commander’s screen was
a satellite view of Kandin-dak and the surrounds. Yes, nomads had definitely moved, although they hadn’t taken their tents. They weren’t all gone, and it was hard to guess how many might have been in the ruined city, but Doom had said there were at most a thousand around the fort now, and possibly fewer.
“So they definitely know about the task force,” said Faden. “And they’re moving to meet it. Do we have any idea where?”
Doom brought up a map on the screen and gestured his fingers at an area.
“The most logical places would be here or here. They want options, because they’re not going to have any more radio communications than the task force will. Unless they choose to disable the jamming, which I doubt they’ll want to. Not being able to call in backup hurts us more than it hurts them. The main horde is leaving the fort and will be out of radio communications from it.”
“But you know where they’re going?” said Faden. Which made sense. If the enemy had access to the battalion network, and their movements showed they definitely knew about a rescue force and were moving to meet it… they’d know the force’s capabilities and time limits.
“Some idea. The satellites will show, anyway. It would be suspicious if we didn’t open up a proper satellite link to the place, so Kandin-dak is going to have full-time relay coverage in a few hours. Also more recon over the area.”
“So – why can’t we just send in some high-altitude aircraft?” asked Faden. “The AU-9 stinger only has a range of about a mile; it can’t touch bombers.”
Was that Doom’s plan? Perhaps it was. Create a task force to lure the horde into where they could be carpet-bombed from thirty thousand feet, then send the task force through over its corpses.
“Just drop some fuel-air explosions or cluster munitions,” said Faden eagerly, “and there’s a way through that the Governor will definitely authorize!”
Doom shook his head.
“Evanston’s not going to authorize strategic bombing on US soil, Captain. Period.”
“Sir?” It was the obvious tactic. Objectives like this were what bombers existed for.
“The wastelands are still legally United States territory,” Doom said. “Wendy Evanston isn’t going to do anything that might feature in an election opponent’s attack ad. She’s not going to be the governor who bombed American soil – why do you think we haven’t been simply cluster-bombing the hordes? That and collateral damage to Chongdin.”
“The Navy is going to start doing that when they show up,” said Faden. “They didn’t take long to nuke Bergschloss.”
“Navy decisions aren’t Evanston’s problem, politically speaking. So no, we don’t have strategic air.”
So what was the plan? Faden thought.
Actually, he had a pretty good idea. Doom had let the enemy know there was a relief force coming, and deliberately misinformed the enemy into thinking that the relief force expected to face about seven thousand nomads instead of probably ten thousand in ambush.
The enemy would spend themselves on that ambush and then Doom’s secret reserve would come up. And for that—
“Well sir, I did find us some armor. Informal connections,” he said.
Doom cocked his head.
“Yessir,” said Faden. “I was double-checking every unit near Vasimir or Templeton. There’s two troops of T-45s available if we switch out two of the cavalry troops to replace them. They’re ready to go; just need you to talk with their commander on your informal networks.”
He’d expected the colonel to be pleased by the new asset. Not just armor, but top-of-the-line fast heavy armor!
“No hovertanks,” said Doom firmly. “Unproven technology. If they can keep up, they’ll break down.”
“The new ones are supposed to be reliable,” said Faden. “The nomads will have a hard time with them.” It was obvious why Faden hadn’t mentioned them over the radio; if the enemy knew the rescue force would include heavy armor, they might decide it was too tough a nut and go for the fort first. But if the operation was going to involve a much bigger relief force than the official Task Force Gillivray, why was Doom turning down covertly-acquired armor?
“No armor. Do not talk to armor,” said Doom. “Not even informally. I can’t do anything about those guys being there, but we can keep them from coming to the Euros’ attention. Don’t talk to them and don’t talk about them.”
“Yessir,” said Faden. It was an order, although he was getting deeply suspicious of the new battalion commander. Didn’t con men rely on trust – exactly the sort of blind trust Faden had given the man, and was now running out of – in order to execute their scams?
“Now,” Doom said, “I want you, Master Sergeant Rhee and the available Bravo men to be on one-hour notice for combat as of tomorrow morning. Full kit, ready to go in sixty minutes.”
“Yessir.”
“Make sure of it,” Doom said. “Dismissed, Captain.”
* * *
“Sir,” Faden said to Major Ramos a few minutes later when he’d found the man. In his office, reviewing something on his computer. “I need a word with you, sir. Now.”
Ramos looked Faden over and thought for a moment.
“In private, I assume. Is this what I think it is?”
So the battalion XO had the same doubts.
“Probably, sir.”
“Let’s take a walk,” said Ramos. “And see if we can pick up the BSM on the way.”
* * *
“He might have bugged my office,” said Ramos to Faden and Cedeno as they walked along the Templeton flight line. Because of its central location and the troop concentrations there, Templeton AFB was running 24/7 as a logistical hub for a dozen military enclaves in Chongdin. “He’d have the means to. He can’t bug here.”
“You think the skipper’s crooked,” said Faden.
“I don’t know what he’s doing, but that’s the only explanation,” said Ramos. “Now that we’ve confirmed the enemy are in fact listening.”
“He gave them the codes, he said,” said Faden. “Sold them to them. So either there’s not going to be a relief force, or he’s intending for it to get slaughtered. Then the nomads are going to go back and wipe out Bravo Company.”
“And Doom spends the rest of his life a rich man in Europe,” said Cedeno.
Faden nodded.
“Have you raised these suspicions to him, Captain?” Ramos asked.
“No sir. Took it to you first.”
“We’ve been thinking along the same lines,” Cedeno agreed. “There’s nothing more to the relief force than what he’s allowed the Euros to know all about. So either it doesn’t leave Vasimir, or it does and it gets ambushed. Then the horde finishes off Kandin-dak anyway. At most he’s bought Bravo a couple more days. At worst he gets hundreds more killed.”
“So – who do we go to?” Faden asked. Their brigade command structure was purely administrative; would there be counterintelligence people at Templeton Military District Command? Almost certainly.
“First step is to stop him,” said Munoz firmly. “Faden, do you have your sidearm?”
“Yessir.”
“Cedeno?”
The sergeant-major tapped under his shoulder.
“Then come with me.”
Faden and Cedeno fell in behind Ramos as the major headed for Doom’s office.
* * *
“Sir,” said Major Ramos, pushing Doom’s door open. Sergeant-Major Cedeno and Captain Faden were with him, both with drawn pistols. “You are being placed under arrest.”
“Next time knock first, please,” said Doom mildly.
“Keep your hands where we can see them, sir,” Faden said. He and Cedeno were spreading past the door to cover Doom from different directions, their guns not pointed away from him.
Doom, who’d been sitting, got to his feet. Cedeno raised his gun, seven feet away, to point at Doom’s head. Doom tried to pretend it wasn’t there.
“Sit back down, sir,” said Ramos. “We’ll wait here fo
r the military police. Sergeant-Major, please call them.”
“May I ask what charges this arrest is being based on?” Doom asked as though the guns weren’t there. He didn’t sit down.
“Treason, to start with,” said Ramos. “Selling secrets to a foreign power.”
“Intent to commit mass murder,” said Cedeno coldly.
“When the un-reinforced relief force walks into the ambush we know they’re setting up because I warned them,” said Doom. “Right?”
“You confess it?” Faden asked.
Doom looked the captain in the eye.
“That force, I can assure all three of you, does not have even a theoretical chance of ever being authorized to leave East Vasimir,” said Faden. “It’s being assembled… Ramos, where did you grow up?”
“Farm in Honduras State, Mexico,” said the battalion executive officer. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“I grew up in New York City,” said Doom. “On my own since I was a young kid. Had to hustle to survive. There were a lot of tourists – this was during the Insurrection, there were military on leave too. And I’d play three-card monte.
“Even tourists know to be skeptical of three-card monte games, so they were suspicious of me. But eventually someone would put a five down against my ten – and they’d win. And eight-year-old Ricky Doom would get upset.
“I’d say, ‘my dad is going to kill me if I lose that’ and show a fifty to try and get the five back. Double or nothing. The tourist would put down a twenty, and I’d take that twenty and lose my fifty. Crying, I’d pack up my table and flee.”
“But somehow you learned better,” said Faden dryly. “From losing sixty dollars a night at three-card monte… to selling Interstate 95. But you’re not going to retire on screwing the Legion, sir.”
“Oh, I’d pull it more than once a night,” said Doom. “But no, I got twenty-five bucks of tourist money, legitimate cash. I ‘lost’ two counterfeit bills so crudely photocopied they may as well have been drawn in crayon.
“They knew I was trying to hustle them, they were so focused on making sure I wasn’t palming the ball – that they didn’t even look in the direction of what I was actually doing.