by Peter Nealen
And only very rarely in a form you could shoot.
“They want a nice, neat, quick resolution.” I shook my head, and I wasn’t alone. “I don’t think it’s possible in this situation, but the mission is what it is.”
“We’re in the middle of what happens when you go for the nice, quick, neat resolution for eighty years or more.” Jordan ordinarily didn’t comment on a lot of political stuff, except where it involved overt Communists or white supremacists. He had a deep-seated hatred for both. But he was also an old SF guy, and he was always watching and thinking, even if his emotions sometimes got in the way.
The emotional obstruction seemed to have gotten less frequent over the last few months. I couldn’t quite say conclusively that he’d mellowed, but the chip on his shoulder had lightened.
It was good to see. Jordan’s temper had been the source of no small bit of tension and friction within the team.
“So, what stopgap are we supposed to secure?” Tony was getting tired of the conversation. His taciturn nature had earned him the callsign “Chatty,” and he had a tendency to hold his peace right up to the point when he figured the rest of us were talking too much. Considering the fact that none of us—except maybe Greg—could be considered social butterflies, it was still impressive how often that happened.
I pointed to the open folder. “Gritta Landau. According to her dossier, she’s a well-respected former member of the CDU, Germany’s primary center-right party, but she’s been on the outs with the EDC for a few years now. She likes the idea of the old European Union—as disastrously as that failed—but doesn’t like how ‘militant’ the EDC has become. I understand she really doesn’t like the Euro Defense Corps.
“She’s currently living in Denmark. Still under EDC jurisdiction, but she’s not directly involved in German politics, so she apparently thinks she’s safer there. Special Envoy Martin Van Pelt thinks that she’s an ideal candidate for the New European Council. Which is apparently what we’re calling it, since European Defense Council has bad implications politically, now.”
“So, what? We’re supposed to go into Denmark and get her? Or recruit her?” Chris asked.
“Yes, to both.” I couldn’t say that I liked the idea. We weren’t spooks, though we were pretty good at moving around the unconventional warfare world. And this could easily get weird, given the rough outlines of the plan that I’d been given. “We’re going to head to Finland, then fly into Denmark as civilians, find Landau, make contact, and get her to where she can be picked up and flown out to the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower to stage for the eventual transfer of power.”
“Is that all?” Jordan snorted.
“There’s something missing from this little brief.” Reuben was sitting on his cot in the corner, leaning on his elbows. “What’s her attitude toward us? I spent some time in Germany, back in the day. I’ve known some Germans who were awesome people. Friendliest, most polite folks I’ve ever met. I’ve also known some Germans who consider ‘American’ to be a synonym for ‘dumbass.’”
I smiled tightly and humorlessly. “That’s not in the dossier.” A chorus of groans filled the room. “Yeah. So, we have no idea what our reception is going to be like.”
“Do we get to take weapons, or are we going in unarmed?” Tony asked.
“Right now, since we’re flying civilian air, the plan is unarmed.” Another chorus of groans. “I’m fighting that, and so is Brian. There are a few other possibilities, including charter flights. The Finns are technically under the EDC’s authority, but they’ve been trying damned hard to stay out of this. In fact, the Russians are making them nervous enough that they’re quietly talking to the Poles on the side. We might be able to set up a charter flight that will allow us to smuggle weapons in. However, the kind of covert, greenside insert we did in Germany a few months ago is out of the question.
“She’s not active in German politics anymore, but Landau is still a public figure. She regularly gives talks on international relations at Aalborg University in Copenhagen. She’s got one coming up in two weeks. That should be the best time to make contact. Which means that we’re going to have to be clean-cut and non-threatening, rather than coming out of a dark alley in greens and ghillie hoodovers with cammie paint still in our ears.”
“Great. Here’s hoping we can get weapons in.” Reuben was even less happy than before.
I couldn’t say I blamed him.
“What about opposition?” Scott was already thinking ahead, finding more holes in the brief before I’d gotten to them. “Denmark’s still EU/EDC. They might be trying to stay neutral right now, but they’ve still got ties. What are the odds the Danes are going to be working against us?”
“Pretty good. Like you said, they are still beholden to Brussels—though as far as I know there isn’t a Danish member of the Council at the moment—so their security service is probably going to be reporting back to the EDC. Even if they’re not, they probably don’t want us running ops in their country, so they’ll come down on us if we act too shady.
“There are other factors, too, though. The Danes are, frankly, the least of my worries.” I pointed to the dossier where it sat on my cot. “There are reports that the Fourth Reich and the DDSB have people in Denmark, and the jihadis are all over the damned place now. And there are still a couple of good-sized Islamic ghettos in Copenhagen. It’s apparently still a dirty little secret, but riots and violent crimes in those areas are up again. Landau’s a target, too. She’s been threatened, despite the fact that she’s a strong pro-immigration, pro-Islam advocate.”
“Apparently not strong enough,” David muttered.
“So, if she’s that controversial, she’s going to have security.” Scott stepped over and picked up the dossier, flipping through it. “That’s going to make it harder to get close to her.”
“Does she speak English?” Greg looked around. “Because my German’s not that great.”
“Mine’s decent,” I said. “But from what that says, yes, she speaks English. Probably better than most of us do.” I looked around at the team. Everyone had their game face on. Even Greg, who was usually the goofiest of us—which could be disarming, because the man had been through hell and back, having had most of his face blown off by an IED and put back together by plastic surgeons—was serious and focused. We were in planning mode, even though we still had about two weeks until go time. “We’ll have to handle this carefully. Scott’s right. While the dossier doesn’t go into it, she’s going to have security. She’s enough of a bleeding heart that it might be minimal, but it is going to be there.”
“Does she live in Copenhagen, or does she travel in from out of town for these talks?” Jordan stood up and peered over Scott’s shoulder as Scott paged through the meager information we had to work with.
“That’s uncertain at the moment. We should know before we leave.” I jerked a thumb in the general direction of the TOC. “A lot of this is still being developed. If the powers that be decide on a different course of action within the next week, the whole mission might end up being scrubbed.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Scott said amiably, still reading through the intel, a faint frown on his face.
I pointed to the team laptop, an ancient ToughBook that had probably been through several wars already. “Let’s pull up the imagery and maps and start planning our infiltration. For now, assume civil air and no weapons, but we’ll develop a plan for a charter flight with a smuggler’s box of long guns.”
We got down to work.
***
Hours later, we had to take a break. Not so much because we were strung out; this phase of planning was pretty easy, really. But we only had so much to work with, and with over a week before we really had to start packing, that made it even easier.
We were just about at the limit of what we knew, it was getting late, and there was no point in rehashing what little information we had on what-ifs that got increasingly wild and esoteric. We all had activ
e imaginations, especially for contingencies, and there came a point where we had to rein it in.
I’d worked with guys in the past who couldn’t rein it in on their own, and I’d had to check them myself. The point of diminishing returns goes past quick once you start overthinking things.
I had stepped outside. It was getting warmer, and it was a nice, clear day. The winter had been rough, made worse by the steady drumbeat of harassing attacks and strikes on Polish infrastructure. Spring was welcome.
Jordan had come out, too, and was sitting on a creaky chair on the porch, lighting up a cigar. He looked up as smoke began to puff away from the coal. “Well, well. Look who it is.”
I followed his gaze to see a man in US Army cammies, looking a little uncertain as he paused at the edge of the street below us. I stood up, a faint grin starting to force its way onto my face, and stepped down off the porch to meet him.
“Chief Warren.” I stuck my hand out and he shook it, grinning from ear to ear. He’d lost even more weight since I’d seen him last, and from the strength of his grip, he’d been training, too. “How are you doing, Evan?”
His grin faltered just a little. “I’m alive.” He looked up at the house. “You guys busy?”
I nodded toward the porch. “We just knocked off for a while.” I couldn’t talk openly with Warren about what we were doing, despite our history.
Chief Warrant Officer Evan Warren had been the senior officer among the US Army survivors after the attack on FOB Keystone in Slovakia. He’d been an IT pogue, and he had been completely out of his depth when the bullets started flying. He’d tried to do his job as the senior surviving officer, but he’d had to learn the hard way just how brutal a world he’d been thrown into. We Triarii, especially, were more experienced and better trained. But unlike some people in his position—and in defiance of the expectations we’d had set within hours of meeting him—he’d learned and adapted.
He’d adapted so well that he’d been effectively relegated to the role of persona non grata once we’d joined up with 7th BCT in Poland. There’d been a lot of officers who really didn’t want to hear what this IT pogue who’d survived the long march from just outside Bratislava, through the battle for Nitra, and into Poland had to say. Especially not when he was saying that the Triarii weren’t so bad.
Some of them had learned the error of their ways as the war had heated up. Some of the others were dead.
We stepped up onto the porch. We’d set several chairs out there, all of them old and rickety. I grabbed one, and Warren grabbed the other, after shaking hands with Jordan, who was still wreathed in tobacco smoke. I didn’t know how many cigars he had left, but probably not many.
“So, what brings you out this way? Getting out of the office now that the Big Orange Ball is showing his face a little more?” I was pretty sure there was more to his visit than that, given his body language, but figured that I’d let him talk about it in his own time.
“Something like that.” He leaned his elbows on his knees and rubbed his hands together. Then he looked up at me. “If I was to get out of the Army next month, do you think the Triarii would take me?”
I blinked. Of all the things he might have said, that was not one I’d been expecting. “Would they let you get out?” We were in an active warzone, after all.
He laughed quietly. “Surprisingly, yeah, they would. There’s no stop-loss in effect, and even if there was, my MOS might be exempt.” He shrugged. “Not a huge demand for extra IT guys right now. Even with the cyber element. Most of that damage has already been done.”
I tilted my head and studied him narrowly. “Has it been that bad?”
He looked down at his boots. “Yes and no. A lot of the bullshit over working with you guys stopped shortly after the battle for Gdansk. But I’m a supernumerary. The rest of the survivors of my shop got brought into the 7th, but they don’t really need another warrant. Those billets are all still filled. And I can’t cross-deck here, either.” He looked up at me. “That’s not all, though.” He sighed. “It hasn’t been the same, going back to a desk and a bunch of computers after… well, after everything that happened in Slovakia.”
His eyes got far away. I’d seen that look before. I’d worn it myself, more than once. “I thought I’d be happy to go back to the office. I could be clean, warm, and nobody was going to be trying to kill me or my soldiers.” He paused, his gaze still somewhere a long way from where we sat.
“But it’s not so simple.” I didn’t need to ask. It had been years since my own baptism of fire, but I still remembered it. I still remembered the feeling that nothing was ever going to be the same. Things that had seemed to be of earthshaking importance faded to insignificance, once you’d faced death in combat. People whose opinions you’d valued before seemed less insightful when you realized they had never stood at the edge of that abyss, that they still thought that things you’d realized were barely worth noticing were of paramount importance.
It wasn’t necessarily all true; much of that was simply perception. Combat can provide some clarity, but it doesn’t make you all-knowing. Some of my compatriots had never quite gotten that.
But it leaves its mark, and once you’ve seen the elephant, there are two ways to go. One is to run from it, back to normalcy. Pretend it never happened, and that it didn’t affect you that much. Try to be the regular guy you were before.
The other way is the way that most of us had taken. We embraced it. We hardly felt alive anymore, unless we were preparing for it or engaged in it. Maybe that made us addicts.
I preferred to think it made us warriors.
“No, it’s not.” His voice was haunted. “I can’t get it out of my head. I can’t stop thinking about Killian’s body, and all those other boys and girls going back out there. Shit, I don’t even know if all of them are still alive. I lost track of most of them once the fighting here in Poland kicked off last fall.” He clenched his fists. “And I’m back to sitting at a desk, staring at a computer screen.”
I knew that feeling too. And when I glanced over at Jordan, I saw that he knew exactly what Warren was going through, as well. He nodded, his cigar still between his fingers.
“We can’t bring you on the team.” I chose my words carefully. Frankly, I was a lot more worried about the Army than the Triarii when it came to Warren’s case. Without a stop-loss, they might let him get out, but getting home was a whole different animal. “You don’t have the background or any of the training. I got in despite being a regular grunt just because I had just enough of the training, and I was too damned stubborn to take ‘No’ for an answer. But you’d need to start essentially from scratch.”
His face started to fall, but I held up a hand. “That’s not a ‘No.’ It just means you can’t be a Grex Luporum Triarius yet.” I stood up. “Come on. Let’s go find Gutierrez. We might have a place for you, if the Army lets you go.”
Chapter 5
“So, is Warren coming over to our side of the house?” Tyler Bradshaw and his infantry section had been on the range when we’d showed up with the SIG MCX Rattlers that we hoped we were going to be able to take with us to Denmark. We had the weapons, but the flight was still up in the air. Which was making me more than a little nervous as the days went by. We had to be in-country within less than a week.
“Sounds like he’s going to try.” I slung the weapon as we stepped up to the line, flipped the stock open, locked the bolt back, and slid a magazine of .300 Blackout rounds into the mag well before sending the bolt home. “He’s talking to Gutierrez, though his contract’s up in a month, and we might be in the thick of it before then. He doesn’t think there’s a stop-loss, but the Army might decide otherwise when his date comes around.”
I shouldered the Rattler and flipped the selector to “fire.” The ergonomics were straight-up, standard AR pattern, so I didn’t have to hunt for any controls or adjust my grip or stance at all from my OBR. The suppressor didn’t make it too barrel-heavy—probably because th
e barrel was only five and a half inches long. From my limited experience with the platform, the suppressor was also pretty much mandatory—otherwise the recoil was a bastard, and the muzzle blast was worse. Even a subsonic .300 Blackout doesn’t burn all the powder in only five and a half inches, so the tongue of flame spitting from an unsuppressed Rattler is impressive.
I squeezed off three shots. The SBR handled well, and while I wasn’t at any great range—only about fifty yards—the group was pretty good when we walked down to check on it.
“Well, if he does get out and come over, I’d take him.” I glanced at Bradshaw with some surprise as we walked back toward the firing line.
“Really?” Bradshaw had always been a little less patient than me. “I didn’t think you were exactly cozy with him back then.”
He shrugged. “He stuck it out. Sure, he’s a pogue, but I can teach weapons and tactics. Mindset’s different. A year ago? Hell no, I wouldn’t have taken him. He was worthless. But he dug deep and found some fire in Slovakia, and the last couple times I’ve seen him, he’s been either here or in the gym. Dude’s trying to be born again hard, and I can work with that.”
“Weapons and tactics still aren’t an overnight thing.” We had reached the firing line again, and I turned back toward the target, checking to make sure the range was clear. “And unit cohesion’s even less so.”
“Well, it might not even be an issue.” I could already hear the dry sarcasm in his voice. “To hear some of these newcomers, the war might be over in another month.”
“You don’t believe that any more than I do.” I started the next drill before he could respond with much more than a smirk.
***
Planning and preparation for an op like this—which on the surface might seem like little more than a tourist trip—is a lot more complicated than it seems. You have more to worry about than just how to get in and make contact. We had to get in without making it obvious that American special operators—even if we were, technically, privateers—were arriving. In fact, the less obvious it was that Americans were around, the better. And then we had to plan the way out. With or without Landau.