General Tympkin continued, “Reports state the President of the United States has been killed. It is regrettable, but some of his Secret Service agents decided to make a last stand at the White House, and the president was caught in the crossfire. The vice president has disappeared into hiding, or is missing, maybe even dead somewhere. There is still much confusion.” The general paused and looked at Kolikoff, judging his reaction. There was none. Kolikoff was more interested in saving his own skin at this point, and he’d grown slightly numb to all the battlefield stimuli.
“I see, General. That is not contrary to our plan.”
“No, you are correct. Not our biggest issue at the moment. But we have managed to find the American secretary of state, and she has been more than willing to step up to assume the new duties as president. She has immediately agreed to our terms, as long as it brings about a cease-fire. We suspect she will immediately lodge a protest with the international community. But, since we now control the majority of U.S. communications and news, we can filter out what we don’t like. Again, thanks to your careful planning, we have detected very little in the way of public media interference. In most regions, we control what information the people will hear. A very satisfactory initial gain, General Kolikoff. You should be proud.”
The general clapped Kolikoff on the shoulder again and smiled a broad, gold-toothed grin. “Now, I must be off. There is a matter of the two nearest bases, Fort Myer and Fort Belvoir.”
“They resist?” said Kolikoff. This news truly caught him off guard. Both of the D.C. bases had nothing but support personnel, and no real combat commands.
“Yes, your computer failed to predict a handful of military police and computer experts would put up a fight.” He laughed a bit at the last comment, knowing full well the implications for Kolikoff as well.
Having toyed with Kolikoff enough and seeing he’d dampened his spirits, Tympkin chuckled and patted him again. “But Viktor, no one could have predicted a bunch of grave diggers at Arlington National Cemetery would arm themselves and fight to the last man for a handful of old headstones, either. It’s no matter . . . we will mop them up, too, soon. You focus on getting your computers running and in premium condition. Use whatever you need from the computer networks you find here. You have my permission.”
And with that, General Tympkin strode back out, his protection detail eyeing the damaged room and Kolikoff suspiciously once again. Their AKs had been at the ready the whole time.
The old bastard trusts no one. Even us, his loyal dogs, thought Kolikoff, looking at his computer technicians and the three majors who were still standing in the corner, hoping to remain unnoticed.
He surveyed what was left of the Iron Room—the former core of the U.S. military’s might. The command and control center for all U.S. forces, now covered in dangling wires and broken computer screens. Only now did he see four bodies stacked hastily in the corner. Looking closer, they looked like staff officers. None looked as though they were even armed. They all appeared to have met violent ends. One was still wearing his reading glasses. For some reason that angered him.
Kolikoff and his countrymen were now occupiers, conquerors of this land. After so many years of hating and fearing America, he felt a new and completely different sensation. There was no greater power left on the planet. With the overthrow of the U.S. government, Russia was the world’s only superpower. In a split second, that wonder turned to terror.
What have we done? he thought. His head was beginning to absorb the gravity of everything and began to swim. Maybe it was fatigue from the last few days of preparation, planning, and flights. No, no, this is right. It has always been right. As long as I can remember, America has been the enemy. They blocked Russia’s natural order in the world with venom and deception for so many, many years.
But something gnawed at him. Absently, Kolikoff reached behind him. Suddenly he recalled where he had been sitting. Between his fingers he felt the sticky, still-warm blood that had covered his backside and legs. He pulled out a gore-stained hand and realized he was covered in another man’s death. He raced from the Iron Room, passing the lackadaisical and uncaring guards. His stomach began churning violently, and he urgently sought out the nearest bathroom before he added vomit to the list of new battlefield sights and smells.
CHAPTER 14
Parsons
Tyce sipped on some coffee, cupping his hands around it to warm them against the biting winter cold. He and Parsons Police Chief Braydon had planned all night and now sat in the squad car, both staring out into the darkness watching some of Tyce’s men prepare for a patrol in the morning’s predawn twilight. Braydon was a fit, clean-shaven man who had spent two of his younger years in the service. He still showed the snap and pop, wore a clean uniform, and kept order among his deputies, but he also seemed to be keeping a suspicious eye on Tyce and his men.
The chief was the first to speak, “Did your men ever link up with that special forces unit?”
Tyce stopped mid-sip “What special forces unit, Chief?”
“The guys training in the woods.” The chief looked over at Tyce but could see he had no idea what the chief was talking about. “There’s a training base about two miles out of town.”
“Are you serious?”
“I thought you army guys knew all this stuff. Don’t you all talk? I mean, I’m . . . well, I was in touch with all the surrounding police forces pretty much daily. We were integrated on the Web for arrests, warrants, etcetera.”
“Well, for the thousandth time, I’m a Marine, Chief. And I thought I told you I was stationed in Quantico. We only come over the Blue Ridge to some do big training exercises.”
“Oh, everyone knows about the classified special forces training camp.” The chief looked at Tyce, smiled, and shrugged his shoulders. “There ain’t much up in these hills that stays a secret for very long.”
The chief put the squad car in gear and started driving them out of town. In minutes, they were whizzing past thick stands of tall pines—driving in silence, the Cheat River sparkling in the moonlight. Tyce turned on the radio and flicked through the channels. Nothing but static.
“We didn’t get many stations back here before. Looks like the Russians stopped even the few we did get.”
The chief braked suddenly as he rounded a bend in the road and his headlight caught two men in dark camouflage uniforms. Both had M4 carbines, which they leveled and aimed at the car. For what seemed like minutes, both groups stared at each other. Then, before Tyce or the chief had made a move, there was a figure at the passenger’s-side window rapping on the glass with the point of a pistol.
Tyce rolled down his window and peered up at a balaclava-clad individual pointing his pistol right at Tyce’s forehead. The men in front and two others visible in the rearview mirror closed in on them, and then the man with the pistol spoke in a calm voice. “Hey, fellas. Gonna need you all to hop on out of the car.”
Tyce began to speak but thought better of it as one of the men in front turned on a laser sight. Tyce saw the laser beam cut clearly in the cold, misty dawn. It was trained through the windshield and right onto his chest.
* * *
They were instructed to dismount the squad car and proceed on foot. Their hands were bound behind their backs, and they were led over hills and through dales. It was a full hour before Tyce and the chief had passed through all the guards and wards the special forces men had established. Overwatch positions, booby-trapped roads and trails, several kill zones set up so the entrant would have no idea they were in deep trouble until it was too late to escape alive. Tyce felt like a fish in a tidal fish trap for most of the way. Then for the last five hundred meters, both men were blindfolded.
Finally, they arrived in a small cave, and their blindfolds were removed. The dimly lit room looked like a clubhouse for Boy Scouts. A soldier in one corner was weightlifting metal rifle cases like they were simple barbells. Weapons and ammo were neatly stacked. In one corner, a soldier w
orked on a set of night vision goggles and repaired a rifle scope. Yet another had a copy of a girly magazine propped up on his knees and was playing a harmonica.
A man entered and sat opposite from them across stacked ammo crates in place of tables.
“So,” said the man, who had an army captain’s bars and a paratrooper tab, “what unit are you with?”
“I’m Major Tyce Asher. Company D, 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion.”
“You were nabbed by my boys pretty easily for a Marine recon-bubba.”
“Well, for the record, Marine Light Armored Recon . . . Oh, never mind. Are you the OIC for this unit?”
“Commander, yes, I am the officer in charge. Vy gov-orite po-russki, tovarishch?” said Ned.
“No, I don’t speak Russian.”
The weightlifting soldier snapped, “You answered the commanding officer’s Russian pretty quick, for a Yank.”
The soldier working on the NVGs chimed in. “Yeah, and what’s a Marine doing way up here in the mountains? All this way from the ocean and beach, even?”
The captain chuckled and turned back to Tyce. “Maybe Sergeant Porso has it right. What is a Marine doing this far from the coast, anyhow?”
It was clear to Tyce that the captain was at least fairly confident that Tyce was on the level and was now just having some friendly service rivalry fun at the Marine officer’s expense.
“Okay, look. We can spend all night trying to prove I’m not a Russian, but we could really use your help.”
The captain smiled a broad grin, and a solid gold tooth sparkled out from the front where an incisor should be. He stuck out a hand at the end of a heavily muscled arm. “Captain William Blake, sir. Everyone calls me Ned, or call sign Comanche-six. What can the 19th Special Forces do for you today, Jarhead?”
Tyce indicated that he’d shake the man’s hand back, but he was still zip-tied.
“Ah. Montana, untie the men,” said Ned.
After a few moments, Tyce rubbed his sore wrist and shook Ned’s hand.
“What’s been happening, Major?” asked Ned. “We lost all radio comms yesterday, but we’ve been watching foreign aircraft overhead. We set up shop here, hoping we’d get some word from upstairs, but nothing. What’s the scoop?”
“Russian invasion. Total invasion. Looks like it caught everyone with their pants down. As best as we can tell, they wiped out whole reserve army and Marine units. A few as they showed up at their bases for muster. Nuked some of them and fried some of the spots where the Second Amendment weapons were being stored.” Eyebrows went up around the cave, and Tyce noticed a few men leaning in to hear the news from the outside world. “You guys really haven’t heard anything?”
“No, total blackout. We suspected something, but we didn’t want to alert anyone to our presence. Figured we could use it to our advantage. Only our higher HQ knows we are here.”
“Where’s your HQ?”
“Draper, Utah. Heard anything from that far west? A lot of the guys have families.”
“No . . . but we did see a huge wave of bombers headed west. They must have been loaded for bear and aiming to take out a lot of the midland bases.”
“Where’s our mighty air force?”
“Lots of it is was forward deployed to counter that Iran stuff. Hopefully someday, they’ll come back and kick the Russians around for us, but most of the reserve and National Guard air forces were nailed on the ground. We saw only a few of them get airborne, and there’s no telling if they had anything to come back to once they were done dogfighting.”
Ned rubbed what looked like a few days’ worth of beard stubble, thinking for a minute. “What choo got for fighting forces? I mean, you ain’t some kind of troop admin pukes, are you?”
Tyce sighed. “No. We’re a fighting battalion. A severely understrength battalion.”
“Straight-legs?” asked Ned, using the slang for a regular infantry unit.
“Elements of my company. Delta company, Marine Corps 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance battalion. Call sign Dragoons.”
“LAR, I’ve heard of them. Don’t the straight-legs call you all Lazy Ass Recon?”
Tyce ignored the comment and continued, “Then we have men from B Troop, 150th Cav—”
“The armor guys?” he interrupted, “I know ’em. Good unit. Call sign Second West Virginia, right?” Ned was starting to seem impressed.
“No, they switched to ‘Iron Horse,’ for our exercise.”
“Do they have any of their Bradley Fighting Vehicles?”
“No, unfortunately not,” said Tyce with a frown, “most of the Brads were destroyed in the opening minutes. Hit by Russian attack jets while they were being trucked back up on flatbeds from our training exercise down south. We have two left. But they guzzle so much gas that their acting commander, Lieutenant Zane, put them all in Humvees and on foot. We hid the last two Brads in the woods in case we find a whole shit-ton of gas.”
“Or you get in a shit sandwich. Right, sir.”
Tyce was starting to get a picture of this guy. Squared away, tough and motivated, and just a bit too cocky, like most Army SF.
“And you, sir? Are you the boss man, or is there a colonel or a general or something?”
“Well . . .” said Tyce, rubbing his wrists, “That part’s kind of tricky. We had a National Guard colonel in charge of our mixed-unit training. Exercise Ridge Runner.”
“I’ve heard of the exercise. Who is the colonel?”
“An officer named Colonel David Nepo.”
“Heard of him, too. Not much good, though.”
“Yeah . . . well, he’s missing, presumed captured. He drove into Morgantown just as the Russian paratroops assaulted the National Guard headquarters.”
“The Russkies have paratroopers?” Ned smiled. “Hey men, hear that? The Marines found us some genuine Russki Spetsnaz to fight.” Then he turning back to Tyce. “Sir, I’ve heard enough, we’re in.”
“Not sure I invited you yet, but—”
“Yeah, listen, sir, you’re gonna need my guys. Almost all of them are card-carrying combat infantrymen. Whatever you’re up to, we’re glad to get out of the defensive and onto the offensive.” Ned got down onto the dirt floor and cranked out twenty quick pushups, and his men hurriedly fell to the ground and followed their leader, all counting off together every third pushup with a loud “Ranger!”
He caught Tyce’s amused look. “Hey, sir, if we ain’t killin, we’re either prayin’ or workin’ out, or f—”
“I get the picture, Ned,” Tyce interrupted. “And . . . thanks. We could definitely use a hand.”
“Okay,” said Ned. Ned seemed to be big on shaking everyone’s hand. Tyce took it, in spite of the fact that pebbles and small stones were still sticking to it from the special forces man’s quick demonstration of bravado on the cave floor.
“If you can lead me and the chief out of here and back to Parsons, I’ll have my operations officer fill you in on more of the details. I’m presuming you have your own rides?”
“Yup. We are low on fuel, though. Can you hook a brother up?”
Tyce looked over at the chief, who had been too stunned by the whole affair to speak, and now just nodded.
* * *
Tyce was worn thin by the series of seemingly unending days spent going nowhere. He sat in the corner and stared at the maps of the area his men laid out for him. Some were simple Michelin maps; others had been printed on Chief Braydon’s printer, then taped together. He had to hand it to his men—they were nothing if not innovative. Still, he had a lot to consider.
It’s only a matter of time, he thought. They will want to try to get their eyes on any resistance that might be organizing. Eyes on us.
Tyce listened while his headquarters Marines read Ned’s special forces men in on the latest situation, pointing to spots on the map and discussing the small bits of details beyond their own little valley. Mostly rumors, but Ned and his men were very eager to hear any news.
>
While he listened, Tyce considered the overall tactical picture. The city of Parsons commanded a strategic location with its two bridges over the Cheat River and, perhaps more important, three large roads coming in from Virginia and leading through the mountains down into North Carolina. The main roads of West Virginia would, of course, be completely blocked off, so it was just a matter of time before the Russians started to explore the secondary and tertiary arteries and the country roads up into the backwoods. Parsons would be a logical starting point for these explorations. Tyce slowly tipped his stool back against the wall, all the while pondering what kind of trap they could set for a Russian scouting party.
After the briefing was over, Tyce pulled Chief Braydon aside.
“Hey, Chief. Do you have anyone who knows the local landscape really well? Or better, a kind of fixer type of guy? Someone who is good at getting things.”
“You mean like information, or stealing something?” replied the chief.
“Well, both, I guess.”
“Thought your boys were masters of reconnaissance.”
“Yeah, not the kind I’m looking for. I need a civilian. But someone who can think on his feet.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“Kind of a one-man reconnaissance. I want someone to infiltrate the National Guard base in Morgantown.”
“Okay. Got it. Your guys would be too obvious, and one of my mountain men might also be too obvious. A yokel poking around Morgantown would make about as much sense as a Marine eighteen-year-old with a high-n-tight.”
“You got it.”
“Hmm . . . Well, I think I have just the man for the job.”
“Excellent. When can I speak to him?”
“Hmm . . .”
“If he’s too far away, I can send some of my men to get him.”
“No. He’s not far. In fact, he’s right here.”
“Here in Parsons, excellent. Why the reticence?”
“No, he’s right here in my headquarters.”
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