The Kill Box

by H. Ripley Rawlings

  The woman entered the venue. A crowd of high-ranking officers dressed in their formal uniforms and civilians in sharp tuxedos and evening dresses were chatting freely and drinking champagne. The entire area was decorated with bouquets, red, white, and blue cloth bunting, and flags of all the U.S. states. Several foreign flags represented partnered nations’ dignitaries who were also in attendance. Behind all of this, looming large and grey against the dark sky, a full twenty stories tall, was the hull of the latest American nuclear supercarrier, set to be commissioned the next day.

  Stacey walked around a bit to get the lay of the land, then casually went over to one of many enormous potted palms brought in for the occasion. She set her purse down on the back side of a planter and pretended to adjust her uniform while she felt around inside the pot. She found what she was looking for. She smiled, thankful the shipyard employee had done his job. She cautiously fished out a slim black box the size of an iPhone with a crystal bubble on the top. Opening her purse, she gently pushed a worn red handkerchief to one side to make room, inserted the device, then snapped it shut.

  Stacey searched the room for her target. The son of a former president, a known womanizer and playboy. Spotting him among a group of chatting dignitaries and ambassadors, she worked her way over. Grabbing a champagne glass off a server’s platter, she looked for a spot to join their circle. There wasn’t long to wait. The French ambassador’s wife caught her husband eyeing Stacey, elbowed him knowingly in the ribs, then strolled off to look for something stronger than champagne.

  Striking up a conversation with the ambassador in almost perfect French, Stacey kept one eye on the president’s son, making sure to keep the slit of her skirt aimed squarely in his direction. He was unable to resist; it was only a couple of minutes before he moved in closer to speak with her.

  “Pretty cool, huh?” he said, waving his drink toward the carrier.

  She turned briefly from the ambassador, put on a flirty smile, and widened her eyes. “So, so cool!” she said, but then turned back to the French ambassador.

  Not dissuaded, the president’s son leaned in and tried again. “You know, I can get us a personal tour of the ship’s bridge later. You interested?”

  The French ambassador’s wife returned and unceremoniously steered her husband away. The ambassador begged Stacey’s forgiveness in flowery French but dutifully followed his wife.

  Stacey shrugged and turned to the president’s son. “You can do that?”

  “Of course. The damned thing is being named after my dad,” he said.

  “Oh, so that’s you?” she gushed.

  He smiled, glad that name-dropping had worked. It rarely failed. He looked at all the adornments on her uniform and said, “Pretty sure I don’t have to ask if you have the clearance.” He turned to one of the secret service agents. “Hey, Tim, can you get the admiral to open the bridge for a private tour later?”

  The agent looked at Stacey and frowned, but nodded, “Yes, sir. It’s doable.”

  “Excellent.” He leaned in and whispered in her ear while inhaling the scent of her hair. “Come find me later, honey.” He reached down, patted her butt, then walked over to one of the wet bars for another cocktail.

  Men are such simpletons, Stacey thought, and the big shots are even easier to manipulate, especially the drinkers. She lifted her glass in a secret victory toast to herself. Or maybe I am just that damned good. She downed the champagne and thought over the next steps of her plan.

  Three months ago

  West of Washington, D. C.

  The U.S. Navy corpsman had to shout over the noise of rushing air as the Humvee ambulance sped down Route 66 at a breakneck pace. “Did you hear the Russkies sank one of our carriers?”

  “What?” said the other corpsman, named Purvis. He’d heard the man, but he’d been ordered by their commander to count morphine ampules and didn’t want to stop to talk. Partially he didn’t want to restart the count, but also the counting was calming him down from what he’d witnessed that morning. Massive explosions, gunfire, and Russian tanks racing through downtown D.C., laying waste everything in their way.

  “It was that new one . . . just launched a few months ago. The one named after the president,” said the first man.

  Purvis stopped counting and glared at the other man. His count had reached two hundred and thirty-something, but with the combination of the vehicle’s motion, the other guy’s constant chatter, and his own fright, his stomach was churning, and now he had lost count again.

  “Who gives a shit right now?” Purvis said, restacking the loose ampules back into his unsorted box.

  Purvis recalled back to that morning. Commander Victoria Remington had grabbed him and the other man and ordered them to follow her to the narcotics room, she’d told him to fill one box with morphine and another box with QuikClot. The other guy grabbed bandages and suture kits. When both men had balked at the order, she pulled them into a common room and showed them the live newsfeeds of the White House being attacked by Russian Spetsnaz. After that, he just obeyed and grabbed everything he could, and now he was here.

  Purvis saw the other man hold his head in his hands and start sobbing gently, rocking back and forth.

  “For fuck’s sakes,” said Purvis. He figured he probably better comfort the other guy, but he didn’t even know the man’s name. Then the vehicle screeched to a halt, and both men went flying—as did all the morphine and other unorganized medical gear. The back hatches were flung open, and Commander Remington was there, her pistol drawn.

  “Get the fuck up, you two,” she yelled, “and bring your medical bags.” They obeyed, jumped out the back of the ambulance, and followed her. All six medical Humvees had halted behind them, and the navy personnel from those vehicles were likewise disembarking and following their commander to the front of their small convoy.

  Two big pickup trucks were parked across the road near where several cars were rolled onto their sides in a drainage ditch. As the corpsmen walked up, they could see a few men walking around the vehicles and talking in animated tones.

  “Hey!” Commander Remington yelled at the strangers, “do you need assistance?”

  Purvis had seen her around Bethesda Naval Hospital. She was average height, perpetually tanned, and normally had a serious look about her that made him and others think she was bitchy. Pale blue eyes, raven hair, and the striking good looks of a model without being so skinny, she reminded him of Danica Patrick, including her widow’s peak. But what most of the other corpsmen commented on was her chest size. It was grossly inappropriate for them to comment that way about an officer, but they were all in their early twenties and, like most young men, they just couldn’t refrain from talking about the female form.

  “Yeah, we got a few people here hurt real bad,” said a man standing by one of the trucks.

  Purvis thought he saw something, maybe the flash of metal, but then it was gone just as quickly. He was about to speak up, but he was too nervous thinking about what the crash victims were going to look like.

  Victoria motioned for all the navy corpsmen to approach. “Okay, looks like a vehicle accident. Let’s assess and assist, but stay sharp.” Purvis had never really noticed before, but she had an Italian accent. It sounded kind of songful, and sweet, like the voice of his favorite Italian Sports Illustrated calendar model, Daniella Sarahyba.

  The corpsmen followed her to the stricken vehicles in teams and started looking around for the wounded persons. When they were all within a few steps, the three strangers pulled out shotguns and aimed them at the navy personnel.

  “Now, listen up, we don’t want to hurt no one,” said one of the men. “But we aim to take whatever you got in the back of them ambulances. So if you want to live, just stand aside and—”

  Bang!

  Everything happened so fast, Purvis hadn’t even seen Commander Remington raise her pistol and shoot the man in the head. The man had propped his shotgun and his torso over the back of the pickup
, and when he was hit, his head flopped forward but his body barely moved—other than the blood spraying out the bullet hole through his head and all over the other men like a fountain.

  “Okay, now you listen to me!” yelled Victoria. “You are going to put those guns down and raise your hands. My men are gonna pick them up and toss them into the weeds. If any of you other figlio di puttana want to try something, I’ll put a fuckin’ bullet in your skull, too, capisce?”

  The men had clearly not reckoned on this kind of a response. By the looks of things, the owners of the other two vehicles in the ditch had probably just given up their goods and been on their way. Two of the navy corpsmen moved the civilian pickups out of the way, careful to lay the dead man in the back of his own truck. Purvis and his partner collected up the shotguns.

  “Holy shit, can you believe it?” the corpsman whispered to Purvis as they tossed the guns into the field.

  “No,” Purvis responded quietly. “But I also know our commander is one badass motherfucker.”

  Once they were all assembled again, Victoria yelled, “Mount up, sailors.” Then, to the locals, she said, “Next time, think twice about how you treat your American brothers and sisters.” And she spat toward them.

  The men kept their hands up and nodded frantically. Purvis noticed Victoria still hadn’t lowered her pistol. She kept it trained on them through the window, her finger on the trigger until everyone was mounted up and had driven off toward the mountains of West Virginia.

  CHAPTER 1

  Russian Occupation Zone

  Union, West Virginia

  Ghost breath, the exhalations from a panting boy and his father, joined a morning mist swirling head-high in the cool spring air. The early-rising farmer and his son led a team of horses up from watering them at a creek and went about hitching them to a wagon’s harness. The sound of vehicle engines caught their attention. They dropped the tackle, looked up from their labors, and froze. A string of headlights was visible across the valley, making miniature halos in the fog. The farmers stood motionless and stared as the lights approached.

  It had been three months since Russia had seized the U.S. centers of power. Life in the rural reaches of America had changed drastically and, somehow, not at all. On one hand, the markets were open, people were paying for and even stocking up on farm goods. But on the other hand, outsiders were showing up in increasing numbers in the valley.

  Sometimes, lone opportunists came through to steal food from the farms. Mostly at night. The fields were still barren from winter, but the grain silos were full, and every farm for miles around had healthy stocks of chickens, cows, and pigs. More recently, roving bands of displaced families had been through asking for handouts.

  Farmers and nearby townsfolk, who were mostly kin, anyhow, did what they had always done. From the Revolutionary War to the Civil War, through famines and the Great Depression, to the rationing of World War I and World War II—folks banded together. They watched over their own and their neighbors’ property, and they locked and loaded.

  About a month ago, a remnant U.S. military unit had come through fleeing south. The first U.S. troops the farmers had seen since the conflict had begun. At first, they were encouraged by the sight of U.S. military forces. They were running away from the strengthening Russian presence in the cities of West Virginia. They looked harried, skittish, and absolutely worn out. Their uniforms were in tatters. But what worried the farmers the most was that they looked scared. The farmers gave them some food, and then they melted away in full retreat.

  The farmers grew alarmed when a Russian vehicle patrol or a pair of helicopters entered the valley. But the vehicles moved through fast and never stopped. Besides this—and like most citizens of the U.S.—contact with their new Russian overlords had only come through TV, radio, and over what everyone knew was a Russian-controlled internet. The broadcasts and available news had mostly been about staying calm, and orders were issued to remain sheltered in place from the West Virginia state governor.

  Regardless, any approaching vehicles were reason enough to be cautious. The boy and the farmer could now see that the approaching headlights were some kind of convoy, and they didn’t stick around to find out whose. They ran toward their darkened homestead, leaving the horses behind.

  As the farmers ran, they didn’t realize the real trouble had actually been hidden right under their noses all morning—even before they had woken up that day. An as-yet-unseen danger that lurked only thirty yards away from where they’d stood. Another set of eyes watched the boy and the man sprint away—but, unlike those of the watchful farmers, these eyes betrayed no fear at the approaching convoy.

  The eyes belonged to a concealed, perfectly still form hidden amid the tall grass near a shallow stream at the edge of the farm. It was a sniper, clad from head to toe in a tan and green ghillie suit. The figure blended in perfectly with the mix of dried-out cornstalks and green rushes on a rise near the stream. Only a small hint of red showed from a handkerchief tied to the buttstock of a precision sniper rifle.

  With a gloved hand, the sniper pressed a toggle switch mounted on the pistol grip of the Orsis T-5000 rifle. The button brought the Trijicon IR Mk III thermal sight out of standby mode. After a few seconds more, the heat-sensing sight had cooled to the correct temperature and, even with the mist, displayed a crystal-clear green image of the convoy’s hot engines and tires. The hand relaxed against the forward bipods and pressed another button. This one activated an ultra–high frequency tactical radio on the sniper’s back.

  The sniper whispered into a boom microphone with a gentle female voice. “Ya gotova. Nachat’ podkhod.” I’m ready. Commence your approach.

  * * *

  Sixty-six kilometers away, two Russian MiG-35UB ground-strike jet aircraft received the transmission and began a slow turn to the northeast, entering into a shallow dive that brought them onto an intercept vector with the vehicle convoy.

  “Get ready,” the flight leader said to his weapons officer over the intercom. Then he keyed his ultra–high frequency radio. “I copy, Panther. I’ll have bombs on target in . . .” The pilot paused and waited for the weapons officer seated behind him to punch an update into the attack aircraft’s telemetry computer. In moments, a digital bombing solution appeared on the leader’s computer and in his heads-up display. He rekeyed the radio, “Two minutes, Panther.”

  “Vremya vyshlo,” came the whispery female voice over the radio. Continue.

  The weapons officer checked the attack solution once more, then sent it digitally to their wingman. “You will be early, Captain,” he said.

  “Fine,” said the pilot, unconcerned. “Let’s do this.”

  * * *

  Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Alejandra Encantar Diaz-Perez was not supposed to be manning one of her own machine guns. She was, after all, the weapons platoon sergeant and the de facto commander of the vehicle convoy careening through the misty valley. But her boss had ordered her personally on this mission, and she’d never failed him yet. She also enjoyed the morning’s cold wind against her face as she stood behind her gun. It was way better than coffee. It was the feeling of being alive and standing tall in the face of any danger, relished by most Marines.

  Her M240’s steel bipods scratched deep gouges in the russet-colored metal roof as she constantly shifted the machine gun from one side to the next, scanning for trouble. The damage to the vehicle didn’t bother the Bronx-born Latina one bit. She’d had her choice of vehicles when the unit, the 150th West Virginia Cavalry Regiment, had commandeered them new off the lot. That was just going to have to be the price of defending the U.S. The dealer they’d taken them from might someday give the U.S. a big bill, but she didn’t care.

  If the proverbial shit was going to hit the fan, Diaz preferred to be where she could blast a belt of ammo through her gun before she started issuing any commands. She’d been in combat a lot, and she knew fire dominance at the start of a battle was critical. Before the Russian invasion
had even begun, the Marine Corps had started admitting women to the venerable men’s club called the infantry. She wasn’t the world’s first female warrior and she wouldn’t be the last, but she was determined to be the most badass machine gun leader in the Marine unit and even the 150th regiment they belonged to now.

  As quickly as the numbers of women vying for entrance had increased, many of the women who had joined began leaving when the harsh reality hit that the infantry was nothing even most men relished. It was a terrible life: living in the dirt, constantly salt caked from sweat, always tired, usually on the move. But many other women stayed. They lasted through the pain and misery, and what’s more, they shined. In the end, those ladies still left in the ranks of the infantry, much like their male counterparts, were tested and found to be made of incredibly tough stock. Staff Sergeant Alejandra Diaz-Perez, machine gun and weapons platoon sergeant in the Marine Corps 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, was made of exactly the kind of stuff the Marine Corps had envisioned.

  Her mission directly from her boss, Lieutenant Colonel Asher, had been simple: “Go get us some ammo. As much as you can buy.” She’d chosen the most backwoods roads she could find and had hit up seven small towns with known gun and hardware stores. Since the invasion, ammo had become exceedingly scarce—especially because most of the citizens used the same common cartridges as the military for their hunting and sporting rifles. Which, she’d discovered, made citizens all the more reluctant to part with their coveted stockpiles, even for U.S. dollar bills or the now-hated military promissory notes. A bit of cajoling had been necessary. Nothing drastic, just a patriotic speech or two about home and hearth and kicking the Russians out. When need be, Diaz’s Bronx and Latina sides came out, along with a few tough words. Finally came the promise of actually paying them back once things returned to normal—a prospect that now seemed less and less likely, especially in the minds of a winter-and-war-weary citizenry.