Assault by Fire

by Lt. Col. H. Ripley Rawlings IV (USMC, Ret. )

  The officers stared blankly back at him from the same spot on the worn red carpet.

  Colonel Kolikoff didn’t bother waiting for an answer; he continued his tirade. “The Victory Day parade is one month away. Every military district will come with their fighter jets, tanks, troops, all polished to the last brass belt buckle”—he inhaled deeply and boomed again—“and quite literally, you fools have nothing to show for your months of preparation except a stupid computer?”

  Of course, Kolikoff knew basically what this computer was. The so-called SPETS-VTOR computer. In the closing days of World War II, the Soviets had gone out of their way to capture a bunch of Nazi computer scientists, just as they had captured German rocket scientists for their missile program. Ever since, some of these scientists had been toiling away with first Soviet and now Russian Federation computers to make them do something. Well, finally, they were supposedly doing something

  Sighing heavily, Kolikoff resigned himself to his fate. He lowered his voice and spoke slowly. “Okay . . . go and issue the order. Every man below the rank of major will march in the parade. I want every baker, cook, and mechanic in this command to polish their boots, clean their rifle, and drill every day from now until then.” He went back over to the window, trying to gain some solace from the view overlooking the bourgeoisie—Just as, he thought, maybe the Tzar did.

  His anger rising again, continuing to stare at the bustling streets of Saint Petersburg, he shouted, “Ev-er-y day!” Then, simmering down, he said, “And last—and most importantly—I want something big on that computer. Something enormous. If we have nothing but this stupid computer as our centerpiece, I want it to calculate something immense in scope and grandeur.”

  One of the lieutenants opened his dry mouth, about to ask a question.

  Kolikoff interrupted before the junior officer could speak. “Have it calculate the plans . . . the battle plans to invade the United States of America.” And with a wave of his hand, he dismissed the men, who gladly hurried off.

  Kolikoff suddenly noticed that the huge windows he’d been looking through so proudly—windows that framed a view he’d admired immensely these last few months—had iron bars on them. The converted Tzar’s palace was just a pathetic, worn-out army headquarters. As drab and confining as all the other offices he’d had before.

  CHAPTER 2

  Twelve years ago

  Fallujah

  Tyce tried to push the dead man off him, but he was drained, almost completely out of strength. The adrenaline rush was ebbing. He felt a sharp pain in his face and a dull steady throb below. He inched his hand down his leg. His fingers felt nothing but a sinewy mess below his knee where his leg should be.

  The grenade had shredded the insurgent, killing him instantly, but apparently Tyce had left a small section of himself uncovered by the man’s body. The explosion turned Tyce’s leg into a mass of exposed ligaments, flesh, and blood vessels. Through blood-clouded vision, he saw movement at the stairwell and fully expected another enemy fighter coming to finish him off. Instead, his captain ran forward, towering over him. Tyce tried to read his boss’s words as he dragged the dead enemy off him. The captain looked at Tyce’s bleeding cheek, then down to his missing leg. The captain smiled in a reassuring way and Tyce saw the words, “You’ll be okay.”

  A navy corpsman appeared. He slapped a four-inch gauze wadding on Tyce’s cheek wound. Elevated his head from the debris. Put a tourniquet on his leg. Stabbed him in the thigh with two morphine auto-shots. Dipped his finger in Tyce’s blood and wrote “M-M” on his forehead, then ran back down the stairs to attend other casualties.

  Tyce watched, detached, as a machine gun team entered the room. Stepping over Tyce, they ran to the window. Brass shell casings poured from the Fabrique Nationale M240G 7.62mm machine gun in a downspout, mixing with the blood, rubble, and remains. A second Marine machine gun team took a position at another window and began firing.

  Tyce yearned to help, to get into the fight alongside his boys, but another corpsman arrived, pinned him down, said something, checked the tourniquet, and pointed to his leg while shaking his head. None of the words were clear.

  Tyce’s vision started to tunnel. His chest began to feel warm, and he could feel his heartbeat, slow and arrhythmic. Everything was getting fuzzy, but the pain was receding. The double morphine shot was taking effect. He smiled as a Marine Shoulder-Launched Multipurpose Assault Weapon, or SMAW, anti-rocket crew moved to the window pushing a machine gun team aside. The displaced machine gunners in wild-eyed dismay now took a moment to look at him, prone and bleeding on the floor.

  The rocket gunner fired. The big 83mm rocket let loose a sharp crack.

  Tyce felt rather than heard the brief but massive red flame of the rocket’s backblast. Heat, body parts, brass casings, dirt, and battlefield detritus ricocheted around the room, peppering him.

  Hmm . . . we’re all gonna die because of my stupid orders. But that doc, thought Tyce, was totally hardcore . . . I gotta remember to tell him he’s doing a great job under fire ... Real pro . . .

  Tyce was vaguely aware of another massive, bright red flash. More debris flew through the air, like stinging hornets. His world was starting to go black.

  And then . . . nothing.

  Twelve years ago

  Siberia

  Two AK-47 rifle barrels thrust into the truck bed, lifting the canvas flap and revealing the five dirty, half-frozen men hiding beneath. The early morning light reflecting off the heavy snow outside blinded them. The back of the large troop truck was cramped and stank from the men’s foul odors.

  Two men with thick, almost guttural Siberian accents, their AKs still pointed forcefully at Colonel Viktor Kolikoff and his officers and the scientists, ordered them all gruffly and immediately out of the truck. They all rose up stiffly, joints aching, eyes watery and fatigued.

  Kolikoff pulled his grey army greatcoat around him, trying to gather some semblance of the proud officer he had been only a few days before his great fall. The shoulders of the large coat had kept him from dying of cold but were now bare where the shoulder boards of a colonel had once been.

  Kolikoff painfully threw a leg over the side of the truck and clumsily dropped to the frozen earth, losing whatever dignity he had so far maintained in front of the Siberian enlisted men. They laughed at all of them as the others tumbled roughly off the truck after him.

  The prisoners gathered in a cluster, blinking—their eyes still stinging in the glaring winter sunlight. They glanced around, anxiously wondering what came next.

  A Russian army captain in a dirty overcoat and worn black leather gloves spoke out of Kolikoff ’s earshot to the armed Siberian soldiers, then quickly gave a shout for all the prisoners to walk over to a deep pit forty yards away in an open field.

  Three other trucks were being unloaded, too, and a long line of terrified, gaunt prisoners—tied together by ropes—trudged through the deep snow joining the rest over at the pit. A heavy military tractor idled nearby, the engine sputtering, thick diesel exhaust rising into the sky. The rock-hard Siberian ground hadn’t yielded much to the tractor; Kolikoff noticed the shallow scrape was only a few feet deep.

  Kolikoff watched as the other roped-together prisoners were hustled and lined up next to the pit. All the men’s eyes grew wide as they realized what was about to happen.

  This was an execution!

  There was no other conclusion to be drawn. How could this have happened? Kolikoff thought he had achieved a true breakthrough with the computer. But the presentation had been dismissed as an enormous waste of Russian resources and labeled as “treasonous” by his commander. He’d become the scapegoat for his entire command’s failure to impress Moscow. It must have worked, because he next day his boss was still in command, but he, Dr. Vogel, and the rest of the team received orders that read simply, “Upon receipt, report immediately to the commander, Transbaikal Regional Headquarters. Further instructions upon arrival at said new duty location. Tr
ansportation will be arranged. Failure to report will be considered a crime of disobedience of orders.” Getting him out of the way clearly prevented any protestations or chance for disloyalty.

  As Kolikoff eyed the men lined up along the long pit, a sense of utter betrayal slowed his walk. His lieutenants and scientists, coming to the same realization, halted with him. Three soldiers raced over and kicked Kolikoff and his men roughly with heavy boots and jabbed them with the barrels of their rifles toward the end of the line of prisoners. Everyone was lined up on the near end of the pit.

  This, Kolikoff presumed, was so their bodies would fall back and make it easier for the bulldozer driver to cover them over. Efficient.

  He glanced down the line: they were on the far end of about forty men in total. With only a dozen rifles, the execution was going to be a mess.

  I could do this better, he thought. His arrogance briefly flared up, an almost out-of-body feeling. Then he remembered that he, too, was one of the condemned men, and shivers of fear ran down his spine.

  The heavy snowdrifts crunched underfoot as the firing squad lined up opposite Kolikoff and the prisoners. A group of boys, really, he thought.

  Kolikoff looked out at the frozen snow-covered hills past the trucks, staff cars, and small assembly of men. In the distance, the mountains and evergreen forests beckoned. He contemplated making a run for it, in spite of his ice-numbed knees and joints. But any time to run had come and gone; even if his legs were able to comply, his mind was unwilling, and the distance was too great.

  Ten paces, and I’d be cut to pieces.

  He sighed and hung his head. Considering his life, he inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with the cold air. A life of hard service, late nights to make himself look good in the eyes of his superiors. Days of hard training as a young man, given opportunities by Mother Russia. A system that gave him advantages, one he had trusted. All in vain . . . it had only gotten him here, at the point of a dozen rifle barrels. Not even enough rifles to do the job in one volley.

  A sergeant came around, tying the men’s hands and ankles together with metal twine and pulling hoods over their heads. The sergeant grinned when he got to Kolikoff. He smiled as he pulled a thick burlap sack over Kolikoff’s head.

  After what seemed an eternity, Kolikoff heard the sergeant’s footsteps crunching back over the snow toward the firing line. The commands came fast.

  “Zaryazhay!” Load.

  Kolikoff heard through the hood the sounds of men weeping, sobbing hysterically.

  “Tselya! . . .” Take aim.

  Kolikoff recognized the sounds of safeties clicking off and the clatter of bolts as a dozen AK-47 rifles chambered rounds. He heard some of the prisoners fall to their knees and pray.

  “Ogon!” Fire!

  The crack of a dozen rifles rang out crisply, followed by a dozen heavy thuds as the men fell, and then the sound was lost in the vast emptiness.

  “Ogon!” Another volley and more thuds, these directly adjacent to Kolikoff.

  However, this time he heard a new sound. A howl began down the line, like a wounded animal. One of the shots had clearly failed to hit its mark, and a wounded man was gagging and gurgling on his own blood.

  Bastards, he thought. Can they do nothing right?

  “For God’s sake, put him out of his misery!” Kolikoff heard himself shout, though he was surprised by his own courage. The crunch of snow. A single pistol shot, and the howling ceased.

  The crunch of more snow, and someone stopped directly in front of him. He cringed slightly, awaiting the bullet.

  So they saved me for last. Typical, he thought.

  Then, to his great surprise, the hood was lifted. He squinted against the bright daylight. The rising sun once more warmed his face.

  In front of him, a general’s shoulder boards. The Transbaikal region’s commander—General Grigor Tympkin, he remembered from his briefing on the SPETS-VTOR. Though his stomach still churned, he chanced a glance down the line at the dozens of bloodstained bodies lying in the snow.

  General Tympkin’s face was grim, lined from years of service and fighting in Afghanistan and Chechnya. He raised his fingers, making a pistol, and stuck the forefinger against Kolikoff’s forehead before snapping down his thumb.

  “Bang,” he said, a wry smile on his face.

  Kolikoff flinched, his knees wobbling from the sudden release of fear, and he collapsed to the ground.

  “Welcome to Siberia, Major,” Tympkin said. “Now you and that computer work for me.”

  General Tympkin let it set in a moment but remained staring down directly into Kolikoff’s uplifted eyes.

  “We will await our chance, then we are going to make history. You, me, and that computer.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Two years ago

  Washington, D.C.

  Tyce was sweating through his Marine Corps Service Alpha uniform more from the worry than the overly heated old Marine Corps building. Outwardly, his uniform was sharp, pressed with a perfect row of combat ribbons across his chest. One of them represented his greatest honor but also the grim reason he was here today. The Purple Heart.

  His nerves were at their end, but today was the day. A Marine sergeant, likewise dressed in the Marine Corps dress uniform, ushered him inside the outer office.

  “Sir, you are to knock on the hatch and then report directly to the colonel of the board.” said the Marine, using the naval term for a door. Even when not aboard a sailing vessel, Marines and sailors used the old nautical terms. “Hatch” for a door, “bulkhead” for a wall, and “porthole” for a window.

  Tyce knocked, then strode in, trying his level best to disguise his limp. The room was cavernous, its ancient wooden walls bedecked with oil paintings of navy and Marine Corps battles. In front of him, a Marine colonel sat at the center of the table. Beside him were two lieutenant colonels and two U.S. Navy commanders with medical insignia on their collars.

  Tyce walked to the middle of the room, snapped to attention, and barked out, “Captain Tyce Asher, reporting as ordered.”

  “Okay, Captain,” said the colonel, rummaging through the stack of papers on the desk in front of him, “You know why you’re here, right, Asher?”

  “Affirmative, sir.”

  “Alright, then. Please tell the board, in your own words, why you believe the government should retain you on active duty.”

  “Well, sir—”

  The colonel interrupted, “Oh, and, stand at ease. I mean, as best as you can with that leg.”

  Tyce’s face flushed as the colonel’s words reinforced the nature of his appointment here before the Naval Medical Retention Review board. Lumped in with several other officers who had spotty records and others who were sick or lame, like himself. Feeling a lot like he was in a pile of rejects, and worse, he now had to prove to the Marine Corps personally why he believed he was still fit for service.

  Tyce cleared his throat and began again, this time with noticeably less gusto than before. The colonel’s offhanded comment had all but fully let the wind out of his sails, “Well, sir . . . um, gentlemen . . . if you all have read through my record, you will see I can now pass a first-class physical fitness test—”

  “The modified PFT though. You do a rowing machine or something, right, Captain?” interjected one of the Marine Corps lieutenant colonels.

  “Yes, um . . . yes, sir. I can do everything any other Marine can do, all but for the running.”

  “So . . . not quite everything a normal Marine can do,” said the other one of the Navy docs, indicating quotation marks with his fingers.

  “Correct, sir. It’s all in my file,” said Tyce, his voice began to betray his frustration.

  “Okay, yes, yes. We’ve looked over it all. But tell me why you want to remain,” said the colonel.

  “Sir . . . the Corps is, is . . . is my life. I want to continue to serve our nation’s defense.”

  One of the navy doctors spoke up, “Fine, Captain Asher, but in rev
iewing your files, I see you were also subjected to a very large blast. Um . . .” He picked over the paperwork one sheet at a time until he found it. “A roadside bomb . . . blew you out of your Humvee.” He looked up, a little incredulously. “How are your cognitive skills?”

  “Fine, sir,” Tyce said stiffly. “No different than anyone else who got bumped around over there.”

  “We call that more than a bump, Captain. It’s called a traumatic brain injury.”

  “I do not have TBI, sir. I’ve been tested and I’m fine.” His voice grew testy.

  The colonel intervened before the situation got worse. “Look, we’re just not sure why you don’t want to go home, Captain Asher. Settle down. Take a break, you know? I’ve looked over the compensatory offer from the government, and you have a very nice retirement and disability package being offered to you.”

  “Sir, I never joined the Corps for money.”

  “OK, Captain Asher . . .” The colonel’s look became more serious, “I’m going to level with you. The Corps really wants to have all our wounded warriors off the rosters . . . you know, it looks like we’re back to fighting in the Middle East, a nd we need to keep the Corps free from . . . well, in any case the Corps values your sacrifice. You have earned it. But maybe it’s time to finally hang up the sword, Marine.”

  “Respectfully, sir, I disagree. I want to remain on active duty.”

  “Okay,” said the colonel, drumming his fingers on the table and looking up and down the table. “Unless there is an objection from the navy medical personnel or any of the other officers of the board here, I’m going to go ahead and stamp approval.”

  Tyce felt a sense of immense relief and tried to conceal the beginnings of a smile.

  “But,” the colonel continued, “with the recent hostilities in Iran, we only have one spot available for someone with breadth of expertise and, ahem. . . your type of disability. We’re going to send you over to train with the reserves and the National Guard.”