Mirror Image

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Lieutenant Colonel Squires looked on absently as Ishi Honda checked the communications gear in his rucksack. While they were on the 76T, they used the airplane's uplink to talk to Op-Center. Once they were on the ground, however, they would be using the miniature black antenna tucked into the side of the ruck, next to the radio itself.

Honda knelt and unfolded the legs and arms of the seventeen-inch-diameter unit, checking to make sure that each prong was fully extended. He screwed the antenna's black, coaxial cable into the radio, slipped on his headset, and listened as the system went through a self-calibration check. Then he checked the microphone, counting backward from ten, and gave Squires an okay signal.

Next, he checked the global positioning system receiver, a remote-control-sized device with a luminous digital readout stored in a side pocket of the rucksack. He sent out a quarter-second signal which would enable him to make sure the device was working and yet wouldn't give the Russians time to fix their position. Private DeVonne was entrusted with the team's compass and altimeter, and would be responsible for getting them to the extraction point once the mission was completed.

Having woken from a nap, Sergeant Chick Grey checked his Tac III assault vest. Instead of containing a gas mask and 9mm submachine gun magazines, the pouches contained the C-4 they'd need for the mission. Before parachuting into Russia, all the Striker members would don their warm, rigid Nomex gloves, balaclavas, coveralls, goggles with shatterproof lenses, Kevlar vests, and assault boots. Then they would check the equipment in their Tac III overvests as well as the rappelling belts, the thigh pockets with flash/bang grenades, and their H&K 9mm MP5A2 submachine guns and Beretta 9mm pistols with extended magazines.

Only one thing was missing, Squires felt. He would have traded all the hot, hi-tech gear for a small fleet of fast-attack vehicles. Once they were on the ground in Russia, there wouldn't be much that Op-Center could do to help them with the train or extraction. But a couple of FAVs to get them across the rocks and ice at eighty miles an hour, with maybe an M6OE3 machine gun forward, a rear seated gunner with a.50-caliber machine gun— now, that would be nice. Hell to parachute down and assemble, but nice.

Squires walked to the cabin to stretch his legs and get an update from the crew. Everyone was feeling good about not having been contacted by the Russians, pilot Matt Mazer noting that it wasn't a tribute to their stealth and cunning but to the massive amounts of air traffic. After checking the map and seeing how far they had left to go across the Arctic Ocean and then down the Bering Sea and southwest over Japan, Squires returned to the cabin— just in time to receive a call from Mike Rodgers. Now that the 76T was within range of the Russian receivers, the call was being relayed through a radio link Defense Minister Niskanen had set up in the tower at Helsinki so it couldn't be traced back to Washington.

"This is Squires, sir," he said when Honda handed him the receiver.

"Colonel," said Rodgers, "we have a new development with the train. The Russian unit has stopped and taken on passengers— civilians There appear to be anywhere from five to ten men and women in each of the cars."

Squires took a moment to digest the information. He and his squad had practiced train-clearing exercises with terrorists and hostages, where the enemies were fewer in number and the civilians anxious to leave. But this was something different.

"Understood, sir," Squires said.

"There are soldiers in each car," Rodgers said. His voice sounded drawn, almost defeated. "I've gone over the photos of the train. You're going to have to get flash/ bangs in through the window, then disarm the soldiers and off-load everyone. When you've done that, we'll contact Vladivostok and tell them exactly where to find the passengers. Leave them with whatever cold-weather supplies you can spare."

"I understand."

"Extraction time is at the bridge I told you about earlier," Rodgers said. "Pickup is exactly at midnight. You'll have eight minutes before the extraction craft leaves, so make sure you get there. The Congressional Intelligence Committee wouldn't give us any more time than that."

"We'll be there, sir."

Rodgers said, "I've got some serious reservations about this one, Charlie, but there doesn't seem to be any alternative. If it were up to me, I'd've hit the train from the air— but for some reason, Congress frowns on killing enemy soldiers. It's better to risk our own."

"It's the job we signed up for, sir," Squires said. "And you know me, General. It's the kind of job I like."

"I know," Rodgers said. "But the officer in charge of the train, a junior lieutenant named Nikita Orlov, isn't one of those kids who joined the Army for a regular meal. According to what little we have on file about him, he's a fighter. The son of a hero cosmonaut who has something to prove."

"Good," Squires said. "I'd hate coming all this way just to walk through a mission, sir."

"Colonel, it's me," Rodgers said sternly. "Save the bravura for the troops. More than wanting the train stopped, I want my Strikers back. Do you understand?"

"I understand, sir," Squires said.

After wishing him good luck, Rodgers hung up and Squires handed the phone back to Ishi Honda. The Radio Officer returned to his seat and Squires looked at his watch, which he hadn't bothered to reset as they zipped through the time zones.

Another eight hours, he thought. Folding his hands on his belt, he extended his legs and shut his eyes. Before joining Striker just seven months before, he'd spent time at the Army's Natick Research and Development Center outside of Boston. There, he'd taken part in experiments designed to produce a uniform that instantly mimicked its surroundings like a chameleon. He'd worn uniforms with light-sensitive sensors that adjusted the light output of the cloth. He'd sat around while chemists toyed with the silk gene to create a synthetic fiber that changed color automatically. He'd tried to move in a comparatively bulky but remarkable EPS— electrophoresis suit— that had liquid dye poured between layers of plastic fabric, electrically charged particles coloring one or the other fabrics depending upon where and how strongly an electric field was applied. He remembered thinking at the time that before the century was out, camouflage suits, invisible Stealth tanks, and robot probes could make it possible for the United States to wage virtually bloodless wars. How the scientists would become the heroes, and not the soldiers.

He was surprised to find that that thought had saddened him, for while no soldier wanted to die, part of what drove all the fighters he ever knew was the desire to test themselves, to be willing to risk their lives for their country or their comrades. Without that danger, that price, that hard-fought victory, he wondered if anyone would cherish their freedoms as much.

With that thought on his mind, and Rodgers's voice still resonant in his ears, Squires drifted asleep thinking that at least there would always be chicken fights in the base pool, his son on his shoulders, and Private George falling backward, a look of surprise on his face