The Kill Box

by H. Ripley Rawlings

  Lucky, at least he died quickly, thought Tyce. Not so for Diaz. From the looks of things, she probably died from massive blood loss.

  “Hey, give me a hand,” Tyce said to the soldier. They both tried to wrench the passenger’s side door open. A foot-wide bomb crater about ten feet away had blasted what looked like a million steel shards into the SUV, sealing the door. They both gave a Herculean pull, and even Trigger got involved. They tried to shoo him, but he bit on to the door handle and pulled in unison with the men.

  The door gave way on the final pull and jerked free from its hinges. The two men and Trigger fell back in a heap from the door’s release, but Tyce jumped back up and crawled into the vehicle to get a look at the woman he’d put in charge of this mission. He was going to personally recover his fallen infantrywoman. An infantrywoman whom Tyce respected as much for her combat skill as for her tenacious leadership.

  He knelt over her, but his gaze was drawn to her terrible wound. Sickeningly, the lower three-fourths of her arm looked almost normal, strong and solid with muscle built by gym and hard work. What remained of a tattoo of a row of machine gun bullets crossed above her big bicep. At least, what had been her bicep. Through it was a hole the size of a tennis ball. Skin and sinew on either side of the hole were holding the arm roughly in place, but Tyce could see through it—nothing but shattered bone and flesh. He looked back at Diaz and supported her head in his hand for one last look. Her face was grey, like the ash in a fireplace.

  “Damn it, Diaz,” Tyce said quietly. “You know Gunny is going to be crushed . . . and probably furious with me.”

  That’s when he noticed her lip quivering. Grunting sounds issued forth from her throat. Then she croaked, “Motherfu—”

  “Oh my God!” Tyce exclaimed.

  “Get off . . . my fucking leg . . . sir.” Her voice was still just a scratching whisper.

  Tyce’s eyes grew wide in astonishment. He felt like he was looking into the face of the living dead. “Holy . . .” He pulled himself off her leg. Then, at the top of his lungs, he yelled, “Corpsman up! Quickly!”

  The response to the battlefield cry for a corpsman in the Marine Corps or Navy or a medic in the army was the same. Any corpsman or medic would sprint as fast as they could to the man yelling and render immediate aid. It gave the common soldier listening, a grunt, a mix of hope and dread: hope that the corpsman could fix their buddy, but dread that another casualty had been found. Sometimes it was easier to process a dead comrade rather than one who probably wouldn’t make it.

  In seconds, Victoria was there. She began dragging Tyce out of the vehicle.

  “Outta the fucking way,” she yelled. Any sense of familiarity between the two was gone. Back again was the Italian ball of fury.

  Tyce leapt out of the SUV but remained nearby, watching as Victoria went in through the ripped door and took stock of the badly wounded but apparently still alive Marine Staff Sergeant. Another corpsman arrived, reached through the driver’s side window opposite and jabbed an IV in Diaz’s good arm. He connected a vein and held up a bag of saline, squeezing it to force the fluid in and replace the lost blood. Victoria sliced apart the remaining skin with medical shears, grabbed a tourniquet, and wrenched it around what remained of Diaz’s upper arm, cinching it down tightly. She then tossed Diaz’s severed arm out the broken window and ordered someone to help her get Diaz out of the vehicle. There was no saving the limb, but she might be able to save the patient.

  “Asher, get me her blood type, now!” Victoria yelled at Tyce. Then, “Purvis, go get more saline and pull all the blood packs we have from the Humvee.”

  “We only have three bags in the cooler, ma’am.”

  “I’m aware. Bring it. Then get on the radio and relay back to base that we’ll be coming in hot.” She glanced at Tyce.

  “Tell them an hour and a half,” said Tyce, looking at his watch and hastily calculating their time to return to base.

  “We have to leave now if we’re going to save her and the others,” she said to Tyce.

  “Understood,” said Tyce. The men had already loaded several other possible survivors. Tyce would remain behind and collect up the dead.

  An army medic came over. “Ma’am, six is the count. Mostly burns and shrapnel. Some might make it if we hurry.”

  “Copy. Get saline in all of them, and load them up most A-S-A-fucking-P, you got me?”

  “Ma’am!” he yelled as he ran to obey the order, grabbing four troops as he went as stretcher bearers.

  Tyce turned to the nearest noncommissioned officer. This NCO was usually the most direct and forceful of the enlisted leaders. “Collapse the perimeter, except for mine and one other vehicle. Have everyone else assist in loading the wounded. Immediately!”

  The last part wasn’t needed, but with seemingly no resistance in the area, all of Tyce’s troops needed to switch roles. Victoria’s actions told him that time was now absolutely critical. That, and it had now become more than a little personal to him. Tyce tried to never show favoritism toward any of the troops, but Diaz had proven her worth in the direst of firefights, and he wasn’t about to let her die after all the wounds she’d endured in today’s attack.

  “Hey, sir.” Two of Tyce’s reconnaissance men jogged over. They were holding a busted, mud-covered rifle.

  “Whatcha got?” asked Tyce.

  “Sir, over there, in that farm.” The Marine pointed with the busted rifle. “The farmer and his son called us over. They could see the whole attack from the upper-story window of their farmhouse. They said they watched the sniper heading up into the hills from his position in the field, a few hours ago or more. They went over once they felt it was safe and found a sniper’s hide position. That’s where they found the rifle and some gear.”

  Tyce followed their pointing and saw the two farmers, a boy and his dad, standing at the edge of their farm. They seemed willing to provide info, just not to come over and get involved.

  Prudent, thought Tyce. There was no telling if the sniper might seek retribution once Tyce and his unit left. As Tyce glanced at the hills, he could feel a prickling on the back of his neck as the hair stood up. It was very likely they were still being observed. A good sniper would take hours or even days getting into their positions, and probably hours to get away.

  “Okay, we’ll stick behind and see what else we can find out. If my guess is right, we had a one-man show. The sniper probably called in the whole air strike, took some shots, including on Staff Sergeant Diaz, then headed out.”

  “How do you know he was alone, sir?”

  “If he wasn’t, his buddy would be picking us off right now.”

  “The rifle is pretty badly damaged, sir. Looks like one of the Russian bombs landed a little too close. Take a look.” He held up the rifle.

  A three-inch shard of steel stuck out of the rifle’s forward stock. The wood was split apart, and the barrel had peeled back and away.

  Extremely lucky, Tyce thought. He pulled out some binoculars and looked about where the sniper had been. The sniper would have had perfect visibility down the long axis of the convoy. Then Tyce spotted the bomb crater. Or maybe extremely unlucky.

  The sniper’s position was more than five hundred meters from the convoy. Normally this wouldn’t be in the line of fire from an air strike.

  In any case, the rifle was now useless, but Tyce would keep it to see if they could glean anything about this sniper. If there was a proficient enemy sniper operating in their area, they needed to know absolutely everything about him. Tyce had fought sniper threats before in both Iraq and Afghanistan. New units in combat were said to be taking a “sniper lesson.” It took great skill, battlefield intelligence, and diligence. And woe to the unit that ignored a sniper attack. The ones who tried to convince themselves that it was just a onetime thing succumbed to the sniper’s lesson again and again. Most snipers were more than glad to oblige a new unit’s laziness.

  Tyce watched Victoria race alongside Diaz as two str
etcher bearers carried her quickly to the ambulance. Once they were rolling in the vehicle, Victoria had medical shears in one hand and was snipping away at flesh; in her other hand she had a set of clamps and was looking for nerves and veins she’d have to tie up or cauterize. All of this was going to happen while driving eighty miles per hour down the paved but bumpy back roads to the 150th base of operations at the Omni Homestead Resort just across the border in Virginia.

  Tyce helped another stretcher crew, then slammed the back hatch of the medical Humvee shut. The others were quickly loaded and raced away, with their escorts taking positions at the front and the rear. Tyce watched them head off. Then he turned to the remaining men, some of whom were still keeping an eye on their perimeter. He called them all in to give them a hasty game plan: look around, find what you can. If they were lucky, they’d find some trace of the sniper.

  “After all, a neutered sniper is now just another infantryman,” Tyce said. “Better to get him now, before he gets ahold of another rifle.”

  His words seemed to encourage the men, lifting their spirits a bit and putting them back on the offensive. They needed it after witnessing what amounted to a smoldering catastrophe for the unit.

  * * *

  Nearby, up on an east-facing slope on the adjacent mountain, the sniper watched through a pair of heavy, long-range binoculars from the edge of a clearing. She nursed her still-numb left arm. Propping the binoculars up on her knee, she watched the leader of the unit. He and some men scoured the area, picking over her sniper position. Regrettably, they’d found her rifle.

  Hmmm . . . she thought. Either you are combat experienced and know I was alone, or you are exceedingly stupid. I wonder which one. No worries, I’ll find out.

  She kept her binos trained on him. One of his men pulled her drag bag out of the weeds. She’d dumped all that wasn’t necessary to get away, but now felt a deep sense of resentment at losing her kit and especially her rifle. Even if it was just a busted piece of junk, leaving it behind was contrary to her training. She scanned over the still-smoldering wreckage of the man’s convoy, raising her spirits by admiring her handiwork.

  Her lip curled in a sneer. It was worth it, she thought.

  She massaged her arm; a prickly sensation was returning. She put the binoculars back on the leader and began her sniper’s breathing regimen, consciously steadying her hand and body. Through her one blue and one brown eye, she fixated on him. She placed the binoculars’ crosshair reticle on the man’s forehead, just like she would her rifle scope.

  “Bang!” she whispered.

  CHAPTER 4

  Russian Pentagon

  Washington, D. C.

  The Russians’ morning ops-intel briefing was in full swing when a stir behind Kolikoff at the back of the room made everyone pivot to the rear. Four black-clad Russian special forces soldiers were trying to force their way in, while two of Kolikoff ’s administrative personnel fought a losing battle to bar their entrance.

  One of the clerks held up his hand to try to physically stop the men. He’d been instructed by Kolikoff personally to prevent any intrusion into these operational planning meetings. To the shock of the gathered staff, the young soldier’s obedience to orders gained him a swift AK-14 muzzle jab to the ribs. He crumpled to the floor in pain, and the men stepped over him, taking up positions at the four corners of the room. Kolikoff had been too slow to intervene—he knew who they were. The special bodyguard of the Eastern U.S. district military commander, General Grigor Tympkin himself.

  Kolikoff waved the remaining man to stand aside as Tympkin entered and surveyed the room.

  “Ah.” Tympkin beamed at the small crowd of army and air force officers. “Look at all these great minds working together. I take great faith knowing you gentlemen are inside the brains of our liberation operations. Planning our path to victory, eh men?”

  Tympkin was constantly smiles and niceties in public, but in private, Kolikoff knew him to be a completely different beast.

  The room snapped to attention, and Kolikoff gave the appropriate greeting. “Good morning, General. Russian Forces Staff Directorate for Occupation Operations reports all men accounted for. The situation continues as briefed.”

  “Does it?” Tympkin said, then waved his hand for the men to relax. “Very well, very well. One correction, though, Major General Kolikoff. We are to replace the term ‘occupation. ’ From now on, you and your men are the American Liberation, Operations Directorate. Though you will still work directly for me and the Eastern Army.”

  Kolikoff wasn’t surprised. He’d half expected the generals to start rearranging things after the initial invasion was successful. When a fight was going poorly and no reinforcements were forthcoming, the generals renamed and rearranged the pieces they owned. “Understood, General. We will make the change.”

  “Good. Now, General Kolikoff, release your men for a short break. I need to speak to you privately, and they look like they could use a hot coffee. Or one of those doughnuts outside the Pentagon mezzanine. I see we have brought several kiosks back online. Surely they are accepting the new American ruble we are paying the troops with these days. We need to show the capital that everything is returning to normal.”

  Kolikoff didn’t have to give the order; the room was glad for a break. The three majors scooted out first, with the rest quickly following behind. On his way out, the stricken clerk’s comrade collected up his buddy, who was still clutching his ribs.

  Tympkin walked to the front of the room, studied the large map of the United States, and was silent for a moment. Seemingly unconsciously, he clasped and unclasped his hand rapidly, Kolikoff noticed. It was a worrisome tic Kolikoff had not seen before today.

  “Viktor, I just got off the satellite radio with the 8th Guards commander. They are completely and utterly bogged down against the American 10th Mountain Division in New York. I cannot peel even a platoon away from them for other areas needing . . . pacification in our area of operations on the East Coast.” Tympkin poked his finger at West Virginia, then ran it up and down the Allegheny Mountain Range a few times. “And this sideshow of circus freaks continues to be a giant fucking pain in my ass.” His volume increased near the end, and he turned and glared at Kolikoff. “What does your computer tell us we should do?”

  It seemed an easy way to enter into a conversation, but Kolikoff knew whenever Tympkin posed a question, there were usually several layers beneath the surface. Kolikoff had always known Tympkin was a very cold and calculating man, but seeing a glimpse of his raw rage was unusual. It was distinctly possible that Tympkin was suffering the ill effects of sending back poor reports to Moscow after many months of triumph. Kolikoff tried to put this notion out of his mind. Whatever Tympkin was, Kolikoff’s fate was inextricably tied to his.

  Kolikoff chose to answer cautiously. “Sir, there is no doubt about it. We must finish the 10th off quickly. If not, we risk much more, and we lose our foothold in the north. We have been working on this problem for some days now.”

  “Your SPETS-VTOR computer calculated their Fort Drum would be pacified sixty days after the initial invasion phase. We are now ten days past that and supposed to be beginning phase three, and there seems to be no end in sight.”

  When Tympkin was miffed about missed timetables, he enjoyed ridiculing Kolikoff and his computer. Kolikoff seemed to be quickly becoming Tympkin’s favorite whipping boy, but he was confident the computer data was solid. It had paid off time and again. After all, the computer had accurately predicted the best infiltration routes for their special forces, the best targets to sabotage, and the best invasion corridors for their ships and planes. But Kolikoff had decided Tympkin liked loyal dogs more than he liked perfect plans.

  Probably the prime reason he keeps me around, thought Kolikoff. He’d personally saved Kolikoff from a firing squad, so Kolikoff both owed and feared his boss. Which is exactly the way he likes it, he thought.

  Kolikoff answered slowly and deliberately, “The 82n
d Airborne should have cracked by now. They are, after all, only the last remnants of the unit: clerks, mailmen, warehouse personnel. The best part of their unit is deployed, stuck in the Middle East. What is left will not last long. When they are defeated, which we calculate will be within the next three months, we can free up the 58th to go support the battles in the North.”

  “So you’re saying things are not as dire in the South as they seem?” Tympkin asked.

  “No, sir,” said Kolikoff.

  “And in the North?”

  “It is . . . more dire.”

  “Is that you speaking, or the computer?” Tympkin was getting annoyed again.

  “The computer, sir,” Kolikoff answered quickly. Maybe too quickly. It sounded like he was dodging any blame.

  “Then you say the southern commander, the commander of the 58th, lies? He says he is making great headway against the 82nd Airborne Division in North Carolina.”

  “There remains the risk of the enemy 101st Airborne Division linking up—”

  “Not my problem,” Tympkin interrupted. “Central Army will have to deal with them, and he has all the forces he needs. Besides, 101st is just another airborne unit without their planes. Light infantry on the ground against our motorized rifle brigades will eventually lose. No, the critical battle is here”—he stabbed at Fort Drum—“and, as I’ve already said, our weakness is here.” Tympkin pointed back to the Alleghenies, and his tone became very serious. “Any attempt we make to move forces across the region is spied upon. Every action is reported to U.S. conventional units and coordinated by their vice president. Our supplies and logistics cannot cross the region. How the whole East Coast is split in half by this region of inbred, nose-picking hillbillies remains a perpetual thorn up my ass, and I have shit left for forces to deal with them.”