Alfenwehr
Restricted Area, Fulda Gap
Western Germany, Europe
28 October, 1984
The snow had finally stopped falling, the sky clearing up to a beautiful azure without a trace of clouds in the sky. I stood in the Day Room, looking out the window at the beauty of Alfenwehr. Make no mistake, the mountain, the Fulda Gap itself, was beautiful in the winter. Tall evergreen trees, over a hundred feet tall. Sheer cliffs, steep slopes, ridges and draws. The Secure Area was on the eastern slope, less than 2 miles from the base of the mountain was the 1K Zone and Soviet territory. The barracks were almost three miles up, the highest US Army facility in the world, up so high there were dangers inherent in the low pressure.
But it made the sky so beautiful.
"Corporal," Sergeant Mayer said from behind me.
"Yes, sergeant?" I asked, still looking out the window.
The last time I was up here, in the snow, the barracks had burned down. Left me with burns on my back, across my shoulders, and on my forearms. I'd driven through the snow and the dark, almost sobbing from my injuries, till we reached main post.
Five miles by road, three as the crow flies, around to the west side of the mountain.
"Security sweep," was all he said.
I took one more long look at the scene in front of me, the pure driven snow that was flat and wind swept, the tree tops sticking up from the twenty feet of snow, and the clear blameless sky. When I turned around he was standing there at the double doors staring at me, irritation and impatience on his dark face.
He glanced down at my boot as I walked toward him.
"You know, back at Fort Hood, knives weren't part of the uniform," he said, frowning.
I just shrugged. I'd had this conversation a hundred times.
It always ended the same way: with me carrying the knife in the boot sheathe.
"You need to remove that knife. I don't want to see it on your boot again," he told me, standing in the doorway to prevent me from passing him.
I heaved a sigh.
"At Hood we adhered to AR-670-1," he tried again, referencing the Army regulation on uniform wear.
I just stared down at him. I was six foot, he was five-nine, and I had about fifty pounds of muscle on him. The fear that flickered through his eyes told me that he knew it too.
Every damn thing, he brought up Fort Hood, or First Cav. Every single thing. It was really getting annoying. He had a real bad case of "In my last unit..." going on.
"We'll stop by your room and drop that knife off," he told me.
I sighed. "No," I said simply. I turned around walking back to the window.
"Are you disobeying a direct order?" He asked me, following after.
I didn't answer, just stayed silent, stopping in front of the windows again. Frost was forming on the edges, at the corners, even though the windows were an inch and a half thick of layered quarter-inch tempered glass.
"What are you looking at?" He asked me.
The shadow of the peak behind us swept over the barracks, darkening the snow in front of me.
"Dark soon," I told him. My voice was still raspy from Atlas.
"So?" He asked, looking out the window with me.
I just shrugged.
He glanced at me. "So?" he repeated.
I put my hand on the glass. It felt like too slick ice. The thin, almost invisible line of skin oil and sweat on my hand froze, leaving behind a handprint on the glass when I pulled my hand away.
I stared right at him, tapping on the handprint with my forefinger.
"So?" He asked again.
"Cold," I told him.
He made a scoffing sound. "No shit. You mental or something?"
I just shrugged, turning away from the window and walking toward the door. He was silent as I led the way out. I was hoping that it had sunk into his head. Fort Hood, Texas, was a thousand miles south, near sea level. He'd been there seven years, got used to it.
Now he was in Hell's frozen ass.
"Careful guy, aren't you?" He asked as we were halfway down the stairs toward the bottom floor. I had my hand on the railing and was moving slowly.
"Yes," I told him. Last thing I wanted to do is fall and bust my skull. After everything I'd been through since finding Atlas, that would just top off my year.
He just grunted.
First doorway on the left led to a large open room with a cement floor. It contained the Arms Room, the NBC Room, the Secure Items Room, and the Communication Room, as well as access to the Supply Room.
We checked each door, checking the seals, then moved on.
Mailroom. Secure. First Sergeant, Executive Officer, Commanding Officer's offices, secure. File cabinets with the secure records, secure. Back up to the first floor, to the CQ Area, through the doors of the first floor hallway. Down the Middle Stairwell. Into the big empty room that was slated to become the War Stocks Room. Eventually the room would be full of gear so that if we had to deploy for World War Three we'd have good gear. Right now there was just the emergency section and the big water tanks and water heaters.
We checked the heaters, making sure they were operating within tolerance, then checked the seal on the door to the emergency section.
"What's in there?" He asked, tapping the doors to the secure section.
I shrugged, staring at the door. I tapped the sign next to the door. Emergency generators, fuel storage, emergency heating, backup environmental, lower access.
"All of that's down there?" He asked.
I just shrugged.
"Aren't we supposed to check to make sure it's there and intact?" He asked. Again, I just shrugged. He stared at me. "That's a lot of stuff."
He started going through the keys on the key ring, trying each unmarked key. I stood there, silent, while he went through a dozen keys before giving up.
"I thought we'd have a key to it," he looked at me and I just shrugged.
Right before I reached the door I caught a whiff of rotting blood. I stopped, looking behind me.
The massive cement room, a half block long, two hundred feet wide, fifteen feet high, was empty except the massive water heaters.
"What?" Sergeant Mayer asked.
I held up my hand to keep him quiet, cocking my head. The hairs on the back of my neck rose up but I ignored that, listening for a second. After a moment I dropped my hand down, shrugging at him.
"Superstitious?" He asked me.
I just shrugged as he checked the seals on the other doors. QUASI (QUality ASsurance Inspection) Section, the records room, the morgue.
"We have a morgue?" He asked me.
I nodded, tapping the sign next to the door.
"Creepy," he shuddered.
I nodded.
"Doesn't it bother you, Corporal?" he asked me.
I just shook my head.
"That a terrible attitude, Corporal," he told me.
I just shrugged as a thought went through my head. This is a terrible place.
He was silent as we headed back upstairs. All the way up to the second floor, down through Near Hammerhead Hall to check the Magazine Platoon Offices. Then the third floor to check Kill Shop, meteorology, communications/cryptography.
"I didn't realize how much classified data there was," he told me as we checked the lock on the door.
I just shrugged again.
"It's a waste, that's what it is. We'll never fire a single shot at the Soviets. They'll just hit us with a nuke and move on," he scoffed as we headed back toward the Near Stairwell.
He was talking to himself, not me, so I didn't answer.
He just frowned at me as I pushed open the door into the CQ Area. When we sat down behind the CQ desk I looked at him.
"What's your MOS?" He asked me, referring to my Military Occupation Specialty. Basically, my job in the military. The military didn't force you into a job anymore, you were allowed to pick whatever job you wanted. You could tell a lot about someone by their MOS.
<
br /> "I'm a truck driver," he told me.
I nodded.
"Fifty-five-Zulu," I told him, reaching up and tapping the "SPECIAL WEAPONS" scroll above the V Corps on my left shoulder.
"I've never heard of that MOS," he told me. "What is it?"
I just shrugged. "NBC Field Warfare Specialist."
We sat there for a while. Before he could ask me anything else the phones started ringing. We grabbed each one after the second ring but before the first ring. Our phones were a little dodgy and sometimes they rang once and there was dead air only on the line.
Each one we answered: "Two-Nineteenth Special Weapons Group, Corporal Stillwater/Sergeant Mayer speaking, how may I help you, sir or ma'am?"
Each one was answered with "FSTS" and then the number, followed by "Alles ist OK." They followed it with the number/letter combination for the day.
That let us know that the site was still in our hands and we didn't need to call a strike package in or let the Rangers know they had to take back the site.
Finally, all twelve of the Forward Storage and Transportation Sites had called in. We had logged each one, writing down who called, in what order, the confirmation code they gave us, and what time, then signed our initials.
We sat silently for a while after that. I stared at the front doors. Two sets of double doors, with a five-foot gap in between. The doors opened outward to resist the push of the wind that sometimes got all the way up to sixty miles an hour. The door glass was an inch thick, the glass walls to either side were two inches thick, made of quarter inch tempered glass layered.
The only sound was the ticking of the clocks on the wall behind us. One for local time, one for the Pentagon, one for Geneva, one for NORAD, another for Moscow. None of them held the same time for long, no matter how many times we reset them. The doors were covered with snow but I could see the wind was brushing the layers of snow off the top.
By dawn the road would be clear, all that snow blown down the mountain.
"You don't talk much, do you, Corporal?" He asked me.
I shook my head.
"Why not?" He asked me. I just stared at him for a long moment before his face flushed. "Are you going to answer me, Corporal?"
"That's just Ant," a man's voice sounded out, a heavy Texas drawl filling it. I looked up and smiled.
Specialist John Bomber, my assistant Squad Leader, best friend, and all around pain in my ass.
Sergeant Mayers glared at John, who was leaning against the open door to the game room. "What are you doing down here?"
"Playing pinball," John said. When Mayer glared at him again he laughed. "Dude, I'm a double-digit midget, so short I can crawl under a dime. Give it up."
John was referring to the fact that he had less than one hundred days before he ETS'd out.
"What do you want?" Mayers snapped.
"Ohhh, nuuuuthin," John grinned. "Just figured I'd let you know that badgering ol' Ant there about not speakin' ain't gonna getcha nowhere."
Sergeant Mayer glared. "You know, back in First Cav," he started.
John barked a laugh. "We ain't in Cav here, Sergeant," He said, taking another drink off of the beer bottle in his hand. "Quicker ya learn that there fact, better yer chances a' makin' it ta spring'll be."
Mayer snorted at that. "You're drunk."
John shrugged. "Naw, just a bit of a buzz goin' on," he said.
"Go back to your room," Sergeant Mayer said, standing up.
"How 'bout you make me?" John said, staring at the other man.
Sergeant Mayer started around the CQ counter. John got a big grin on his face, setting down his beer and stepping forward.
"John," I said.
John Bomber looked at me and I shook my head.
"Aw, come on, Ant," He said.
Sergeant Mayer looked at me, stopping about three steps from John, completely unaware the big Texan was about to pull his arms off.
"John," I repeated.
Bomber just sighed, bending down and picking up his beer. He took another slug off the bottle and then waved it at me. "Come look me up in the morning, Ant. We'll have a couple drinks before you gotta hit the rack."
I just nodded and John headed toward the Near Stairwell. He kissed two fingers and tapped them against the training bra hanging from the sign that read YOU MUST BE THIS BIG TO BE IN THIS HALL next to the double doors that led into the hallway that had been designated for female soldiers and nicknamed "Titty Territory" by the females who lived there.
"Don't be buggin' Ant here none about him not talking," John said, pausing at the stairwell. "He ain't never been much of a talker, AIT made him quieter.”
With that, John let the door close on him.
"You need to remind your man about military discipline and courtesy," Sergeant Mayer told me, stomping back around to sit down behind the counter.
I just stared at the window beside the double doors.
"This is why they should haven't put a Corporal in charge of your site. You're not maintaining military discipline, obviously," He said.
I just kept staring at the window.
The wind had stripped away a foot of the snow.
One of the lights buzzed and went out.
That got my attention.
"What's wrong?" Mayer asked me.
I looked at him for a long moment then heaved a sigh. "First failure," I said, pointing at the light.
"So?" He asked. "It's a blown tube, so what?"
I stared at the doors to Titty Territory, remembering when the black smoke had poured out of the doors and flooded the CQ Area, right before the fire had roared up in the stairwell.
"This building hasn't been here during a winter," I told him.
"So what?" Mayer asked me.
"Building was finished in July. Built to take a near nuclear hit in the megaton range," I told him. "The cold up here, though, we don't know how the building will handle it."
"It'll be fine," he scoffed.
There was a loud crash above us.
Part of me flinched, remembering the winter before.
"What was..." Mayer started.
Sharp shouting in German sounded out above us.
"...was that?" Mayer finished.
I shrugged, feeling my gut tighten.
"We never found out," I told him. I dug out my cigarettes, moving the ashtray in front of me. I lit one, putting away my smokes.
"You've heard this before?" He asked me.
Something cracked, almost like a gunshot, down Titty Territory.
"Yeah," I told him.
The temperature seemed to drop slightly.
Mayer stared at me. "When?"
"Right before the barracks burned down," I told him.
Another fluorescent bulb chose that moment to buzz, flicker, and go dead.
We sat in silence as I stared at the burnt out bulb.
The winter before had been bad.
Why did I have the feeling that this winter was going to be worse?
You Know What Time It Is!
We didn't know, not then
But we found out.
In the dark and cold
2/19th Group Area
Alfenwehr
Restricted Area, Fulda Gap
Western Germany, Europe
31 October, 1984
The quarter bounced off the wooden end table, flipping up into the air before coming down to the hit the edge of the glass. It danced a moment on the rim, clattering against the cut crystal, before sliding into the whiskey.
"Hah! Drink!" Bomber said as I snatched up the glass and gulped down the Wild Turkey in the glass and slapped it back down.
I wiped my mouth off and grinned at the others around the table. Sergeant Swopes, John Bomber, Nancy Nagle, and me. We were playing chandeliers, which involved a shot glass in front of each person, gathered around a tall liter glass. We were playing that you had to bounce it off the table and into a glass. Whoever's glass it was had to drink the shot. If you mana
ged to bounce it into the tall glass everyone had to drink, last one to slap their glass on the table had to drink the big glass.
I spit the quarter into my hand and slapped it on the table. The lights flickered and the stereo cut off, leaving the room silent except for the clicking of the radiator and the hiss of the wind on the glass of the windows.
I grinned at Sergeant Swopes, holding the quarter and snapping my wrist toward her.
"You're just trying to get me all liquored up so you can take advantage of me," She grinned. The brunette cupped her chest and made everything jiggle. "You just wanna see my tits."
"Damn right," John said.
I lifted up the quarter, still grinning at Swopes. Her glass was on the other side of the tall one-liter crystal glass.
"No way you get this, Ant," Swopes smiled.
"Wanna bet, Julia?" Nancy asked her.
"No. Fucking. Way," she laughed.
"Never bet against my boy Ant, Julia," Bomber slurred, waving his beer bottle again.
"Time for Julia here to get liquored up," Nancy said, then burped.
I tapped the edge of the quarter on the table, lifted it up, and that part of my brain went live. Angle, force, spin of the quarter, density of the wood. All of it merged together to tell me exactly when to release the quarter, at what angle, and how fast.
The quarter bounced off the wood, arcing up into the air in a tight arc, over the tall glass, and dropped straight into Julia's glass.
The wiring went dark again.
Julia grabbed the glass, throwing back the mouthful of Jack Daniels, and wiped her mouth as she slapped the glass onto the table. She urped, made a face, then grabbed her pack of cigarettes off the table.
"Told ya," Bomber said. The radiator clanked for a moment then gurgled before going silent.
"Air in the pipes," Nancy said when she caught me glancing at the radiator.
"How the hell do you do that?" Julia asked as she lit her cigarette. I just shrugged.
"Should see my boy with his '203," John said, referring to the 40mm grenade launcher underslung on the M-16 series rifle. "Seen him make some shots past the four hundred meter max."
Julia just shook her head as she reached down next to her chair and grabbed the bottle of Jack Daniels she'd brought up. She filled her shot glass, staring at me with her vivid blue eyes.
Three Little Snowmen (Damned of the 2/19th) Page 3