CHAPTER 26
Russian Pentagon
Washington, D. C.
General Kolikoff stared at his three majors. None of them stirred. Each was staring at their computer screens pretending not to notice he was glaring at them.
“Well? What do the newest calculations tell us?” the general asked.
“General, do we really think this is a fruitful use of our time?” Captain Shenkov said from the side of the room. “This SPETS-VTOR computer thing. I mean, we could just mount my men back up on helos and head over to reinforce the train. Maybe we could even use the helo to airlift something off the train so it’s less vulnerable.”
“I’ve considered it, but I want to see what the computer says, given the newest variables.”
Captain Shenkov looked the general and his three majors over. Useless idiots, he thought. We waste time while the enemy concocts plans. He knew General Kolikoff was a falling star—his meeting with Tympkin had proved that—but he was still a general, and for some reason, Tympkin still trusted him to run his operations. Shenkov walked out to the helicopter pad to inspect his men. Might as well get moving since his time here had been wasted.
* * *
“What news from Agent Panther Chameleon?” General Tympkin stopped in at Kolikoff’s office just off the operations room floor.
“I’ll ask, General.” Kolikoff leaned out of the office and shouted, “What is the latest report from Agent Panther?”
A watch officer spoke up immediately. “Nothing yet, General. We’re watching for her device on the satellite feeds. Wolf’s device is turned on and giving a location, but Panther’s device is turned off.”
“Do we at least have a last-known-position report?” asked Kolikoff.
“General, she submitted some notes soon after the actions on the Ohio River. Beacon has been turned off since.”
“Hmmm . . . we could use her reconnaissance reports,” Kolikoff said to General Tympkin, “but I’ll have the men use the SPETS-VTOR to figure out some appropriate next steps.”
Stazia had proven valuable before, and it was difficult to disregard her now, but agents and intelligence were like that. The more you tried to attach a leash to them, the more independently they operated. In his experience, trying to direct them was nearly impossible.
Tympkin nodded and leaned forward. He seemed to be about to tell Kolikoff something in confidence, but then Kolikoff’s door opened.
“General.” Major Pavel nodded to each man and walked in, rather presumptuously. “There is something here in the SPETS-VTOR data that might be of use.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, it’s from some of the old calculations, but it’s an item we haven’t done much with. It was an earlier analysis on where the Appalachian hillbillies might set up camp.”
“Yes?”
“Well, I cross referenced the SPETS-VTOR analysis of likely headquarters locations with recent radio intercept patterns. As you know, the Americans have, for the most part, stayed off their own military radio networks. But there is a spike around the Tucker County, West Virginia, region.”
“And?” said Kolikoff.
“Well, we had been looking at the data from before Shenkov’s ambush at the Ohio River. The SPETS-VTOR suggested we look at data collected after the attack.”
“For Christ’s sakes, Major, get to the point,” said Tympkin hotly.
“Well, sir, there is a distinct spike in activity up around some buildings in the mountains. Google Earth has proven very useful in identifying some of these U.S. buildings.” He held up a map printout. “It’s near a high school, just like the SPETS-VTOR listed as a probable location. With the new data, there is a seventy-five percent chance it is now one of the enemy’s operating bases.”
“Hmmm. Send the data over to my computer, Major Pavel,” said Kolikoff, who then turned to Tympkin. “This may be the intelligence we need to close in on the enemy mountain forces.”
Tympkin flicked his hand at Major Pavel, who saluted and went out. “Okay, go ahead and look at it. I’ll wait.”
General Kolikoff looked over the intelligence and supposition analysis overlays generated by the SPETS-VTOR, then looked at the Google Earth link Major Pavel had found. The data looked good.
“Let me see if there are any spot reports from any of our aircraft operating in the region. Even a debrief from some of our reconnaissance aircraft noting vehicle traffic would be useful. We usually have something up in the air twenty-four seven.”
Tympkin didn’t say anything, but he thought, This is why I keep Kolikoff around. One of my only quick thinkers. The SPETS-VTOR is nothing without him—and vice versa.
“I’ll check the flight reports near the location of that school and the last-known location of that response force we tailed from the Agent Panther Chameleon’s strike near Union, West Virginia,” said Kolikoff as he tapped into the Russian attack aviation flight debrief logs. “Just another moment, sir.” He dialed a phone number for the operations room floor. A minute after Kolikoff placed the call, Major Drugov was at the door.
“Sir, you have orders?”
“Yes, Major Drugov. Get on the phone over to the 79th Aviation Regiment. We have a location that coincides with airborne detection and signals intelligence. Tomorrow morning, I want to bomb these assholes back into the Stone Age.”
Tympkin smiled. “Good work, Kolikoff. I can see why they are calling you Rasputin.”
Kolikoff went back to his computer, completely forgetting that Tympkin had been about to tell him something. Tympkin hesitated and, seemingly deciding against sharing, left without saying anything more.
* * *
Blue shifted uncomfortably in his seat. It had been a few hours since they’d started driving, and there hadn’t been a word between him and the sheriff, but his movement seemed to take the sheriff out of his thoughts and made him remember he had a passenger.
The sheriff spoke very slowly. “Are you up for this?”
Blue thought it a funny question; after all, the sheriff could probably have done this assignment himself. He most likely just didn’t have the stomach for it.
“Yep,” Blue said.
The sheriff was silent again for a moment, focused on the road, but now he seemed interested in talking. “You know this ain’t gonna be like shooting some Russki.”
Blue was fairly clear on the ramifications of his actions, just unsure of the motive. He chose not to respond, but the sheriff continued anyway in a chiding sort of tone. “I mean, you are about to kill a U.S. citizen.”
Blue remained silent. The sheriff shifted his gun belt over his large stomach and held onto the wheel with one hand, the other going for his coffee cup. He took his gaze off the road a moment and glanced over at Blue to see if there were any emotions visible. Convinced Blue was too simple to understand his actions, the sheriff seemed to perk up like a dog that sniffs a cat and in a brutal way wants to play and see if he can kill it.
“I killed before,” Blue said.
“Yeah, but not another American, I reckon.”
“No,” Blue said.
Sensing he was on to something, the sheriff circled and tried another approach. “I mean, this ain’t just an ordinary American, he’s an elected official.”
“A corrupt official,” Blue said, sounding a little like he was reassuring himself.
The sheriff was silent a moment again. Then he said, “Might be, but when you kill him, you kill the thousands of votes from the people. Don’t that sink in with you any? Or are ya too dumb to know what all that means?”
Blue flicked his rifle’s safety on and off and stared out the window. Seemingly satisfied that he’d broken into Blue’s mind, the sheriff turned on the radio. The only station that worked was playing some kind of Euro-techno music—one of the many stations that had cropped up when Russian military DJs had taken over the U.S. radio stations in some vain attempt to calm the masses and still control the national news cycles. It was as jarring to Bl
ue as the conversation with the sheriff, and Blue kept looking out the dark window thinking about how he’d gotten himself into this situation. None of it felt right.
CHAPTER 27
Tucker County High School
West Virginia
Stacey pulled over a chair and shimmied right up next to Tyce as he busied himself with the charts and maps. He crunched on some leftover crackers and drank a cold cup of coffee from the day before.
“You know, I just had an idea?” she cooed close to his ear. She stared intently at the small hairs on the earlobe that moved from her breath.
“Yeah?” Tyce said absently. He had a list of names of all the wounded and fallen soldiers and Marines in each unit in front of him and was completely absorbed in his morbid task. “How to find that mole?” He ran the tip of his pen down the roster to review next of kin for his letters to their families.
“No,” she said. Inside, she was wondering just how long it was going to take to seduce him. It usually wasn’t much of a challenge. Ever since she was sixteen, she had known that boys, and later men, could hardly contain themselves around her. “Which way the train is going to go.”
Tyce stopped looking through the charts and turned toward her. He pulled his face back, only just now realizing how close she’d gotten to him on the operations center map table. “Uh, well, what do you think, Petty Officer?” He blinked. After many nights on only a few hours of sleep, propped up by multiple pots of coffee, his mind was not functioning at its highest level.
She backed off a little, too, as if she had just been looking at one of the maps. He’d used her rank and not her name, so she recognized she was going to have to slow things down. But only just a touch.
The confident ones take longer, she thought. That’s okay. He is going to be such a prize once I make it happen.
And even better, it was going to be right under the nose of that bitch, Victoria. Something ticked off her insides at the thought of that woman.
She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she knew conquering Tyce was going to be much sweeter than killing Captain Blake. But only half as good as killing Tyce out on the battlefield was inevitably going to be.
One thing at a time, she reminded herself. She shifted a half inch closer to Tyce on the bench, ostensibly to reach some highlighters on the other side of him. She could tell he was groggy. Time to turn up the sweetness and hit him where he’s vulnerable; he likes to plan a successful mission.
“I still have some contacts back there at our last headquarters,” said Stacey. “Back at the Omni Homestead Hotel. You know, I think I once saw you swimming there.” She gave him a brief smile and shrugged her shoulders, then went back to explaining, “I had gotten in good with a few of the employees there, and if I can get in touch with them before the train goes through, I might be able to persuade one of them to go out into the Shenandoah Valley where the train tracks split north and south and get him to relay back to us. It’ll save a hell of a lot of time, and then we can better vector Lieutenant Bryce in on the train.”
“Do you trust the person?” Tyce asked. He didn’t know intelligence work other than in passing—he gave them information from his reconnaissance missions, and they sent him the refined intelligence products.
“Oh, for sure. He’d do anything for me,” she said.
Tyce raised his eyebrows. “Jeez. That’s a hell of a good idea, Petty Officer Van Andersson. I mean, really good work.”
“Thank you,” she said, “I feel like, maybe, since we’re gonna be working with each other for some time, it would be okay to drop the formalities . . . What do you think, Tyce?” she asked playfully.
Tyce’s brain was still a step behind, but his expression changed. “What? No. It’s still Colonel Asher and Petty Officer Van Andersson.” His tone was slightly shocked, but his sleep-addled brain was still chewing on what would be needed to intercept the train once Stacey’s contact found it. “But I think you really may be on to something big. This will make the difference in our operations for the next seventy-two hours. How soon can you place the call?”
“Right away . . . sir.” She smiled. She bounced upright to a slightly childish version of attention and saluted. “I can probably have something within the hour.”
“Excellent. I’ll get Gunny to have Lieutenant Bryce check in by radio in an hour, and we’ll relay any news you can get us.”
Stacey wagged her finger at him and said, “Stay off those radios, Colonel. Remember, the big Russian Bear is listening.” And she went off to make the call.
Tyce’s gaze followed her as she went, unconsciously homing in on her shapely backside, apparent even through her Navy uniform. Was it just his imagination, or had she just now come on to him? Nah, she’s a real trooper. The girl is all work, he thought. Troops just want to make friends with their bosses, and in tight quarters, the first thing they want to drop are ranks and last names. It was all natural—Tyce had seen it a lot before, especially given the stress they all go through. He had spent almost his entire Marine Corps career around males, but he respected every trooper, every dedicated American who cared enough to sacrifice during this invasion. Especially ones who could help him solve clever tactical problems. Anyone who helped give him the edge it took to get the job done right was a bonus, in his experience. In combat, seconds were king; in operations, hours made the difference between a mission’s success and catastrophic failure.
Tyce’s mind was still stuck on Stacey when Gunny arrived a moment later.
“Sir, Bryce and his guys are ready. Should I send ’em?”
“Immediately. They can get a head start. But tell him to stay up on his radios. We may have some message traffic for him on the train in about an hour’s time. Something really good, I hope.”
“Great.” Gunny seemed surprised. “Do we know something?”
“We’ll if Sta—uh.” Now she had him saying it. “If Petty Officer Van Andersson can hook it up, we may know soon whether the train is going north or south.”
“Holy crap, sir. That’d save us hours. Probably a whole day, and a lot of nail-biting. If we get the direction, we can set up a fully prepared ambush.” Gunny thought about it for a second. “I’ll go brief Lieutenant Bryce quickly so he knows, and I’ll come find you when I’m done. Where are you gonna be?”
“I’m headed over to the battalion surgery to check in on the wounded Comanche men, then over to the mortuary for a bit.”
“Got it, sir. I need to visit there, too. Meet you there in a bit.” He was about to go, then he added, “That girl’s got some brains, and ain’t too tough on the eyes, either. We really would be at a loss if it weren’t for Petty Officer Van A. Damn well-trained intel specialist and has proven her worth in gold.”
“You got that right, Gunny. At least we know one person who isn’t the mole.”
Morgantown, West Virginia
Wynand pulled the car over to the side of the road for the fifth time and cursed the Russians. They’d been driving around for over an hour avoiding Russian patrols but found every bridge over the river was blocked and manned by Russian checkpoints. “Goddamn. How the hell are we gonna make it like this? Gonna be damn daylight soon.”
“At least we got closer. Look.” Victoria pointed above a house to their right. The blinking red lights atop a tall building were visible in the distance. “That’s the hospital.”
“It’s still across the river,” Bill was quick to point out.
“I’ll get us closer,” Wynand said, “but we gonna have to swim.”
No one in the car relished that fact, but there it was. If they wanted to get to the hospital, they were going to have to swim across the freezing-cold Monongahela River.
Ten minutes later, Wynand pulled the car over in a quiet spot and parked behind an autobody shop. The three disembarked, slung their rifles, and pulled out their empty rucksacks. The thickets and brambles tore at their hands and faces as they made their way down to the banks of the river.
�
�Strip down to our skivvies,” Victoria said, “and we can put our clothes in our bags so we at least have dry clothes to change into on the other side.”
Without a word, everyone started pulling off jackets, shirts, and pants and stuffing them away.
“What if we look for some kind of boat?” Bill asked.
“A little late for that suggestion,” Wynand said.
Victoria was still angry, and though she’d had that same thought a half hour earlier, she didn’t want to talk to the two men anymore. She’d been looking for a boat ramp or a boat repair shop as they drove, but she’d lost patience with the other two.
And why wouldn’t I? she thought. They treated me like shit. She knew she wasn’t a natural-born-leader type, but she didn’t need to be degraded or have her loyalties questioned. It was times like this that she just wished she could have an ounce of Tyce’s courage, or even just his usual male bravado. She wanted so badly to put both men into their place, but she also knew from many years of experience that when women spoke up on matters of imminent leadership, the men ganged up on them. Better to just keep going and do her job.
Victoria put her naked foot in the water, and a shiver went up and down her spine. She looked back at the other two, who were still changing out of their clothes, and caught Wynand ogling her.
Creep. She plunged farther into the freezing water. Once she was more than waist deep, she looked back and saw both men standing half naked on the rocky beach.
“What are you waiting for? Let’s get going.” Turning around, she lifted the pack above her head and plunged up to her neck in the water. She didn’t look back until she’d gotten halfway. Behind her, she could see Wynand struggling against the currents and Bill still back on the other bank. She finished her swim and was already into her pack pulling out her clothes as Wynand came panting up. It looked as though he had struggled the whole way.
“Where’s Bill?” she asked.
“I . . . I . . .” He was completely out of breath. In the moonlight she could see his pale, skinny chest heaving from exertion. Combined with his scraggly hair and droopy, wet moustache, he looked like he’d nearly drowned. The image of the usual tough country boy was gone and she couldn’t help but giggle a little.
The Kill Box Page 20