Unto the Breach

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The weather was preparing to suck.

The mountains were really steepening up. They’d gotten out of anything that couldn’t be called “low” at this point and were well into the “high-up.”

Between that and the decreased O2, Mike had slowed the pace. They weren’t quite going at “mountain speed” yet, but close.

It was coming on towards dawn and what he hadn’t seen, yet, was a good hide point. Hiding twenty people, above the woodline, was a chore. But they were going to have to go to ground. Soon. Like vampires, they couldn’t be out in the light.

They were moving up a narrow defile with an ice and boulder-choked stream running down the middle. He could just have them disperse to the sides of the canyon in their bivvies, but he didn’t like the looks of the weather. He also hadn’t been able to check his C2 gear recently. There was a storm coming in, but it wasn’t supposed to hit until late in the day. The way the clouds were building, it was going to be sooner. Given the storm, they might have to hunker down well into the night. The supply drop was going to be problematic.

They also hadn’t changed into their really heavy alpine gear, yet. The weather was still a bit too warm. The heavy alpine gear was for temperatures near or below zero farenheit. Currently it was just a tad above freezing and the standard fleece jackets were plenty. Probably too much, he was sweating a bit.

But the temperature usually climbed just a bit before a big storm. It would drop as it hit and drop more as it passed. Changing gear was going to be a pain in the ass, but necessary.

Finding a good hide site was even more necessary.

The stream had petered out and they were really scrambling, now. The slope was about sixty degrees, not quite vertical but close. Easier to negotiate on all fours, even with the ruck on his back. The line of Keldara struggled up the slope to just below the crest while the lead poked his head up. After a moment the lead turned and looked at Mike, pointing to his eyes.

Mike scrambled the rest of the way up the slope and cautiously poked his head up, turning it to the side to reduce the silhouette. Then he looked at the lead, Mikhail Ferani, and nodded, smiling.

Down below was a large cluster of boulders, probably dropped by the glacier they were headed for in its retreat. The teams could snuggle into the area, about an acre in size, easily.

The point had already made it up the next ridgeline but the trail was looking back and as Mike looked at him he pointed to the boulders. Mike gave a thumb’s up then turned to the lead and pointed at the boulders.

Their day-hide was in sight.

There wasn’t a fucking place to hide.

Adams didn’t want to push the movement much more. They were running along the side of a ridge, getting pretty close to the snow-line and not having a great time of it. The damned trails were slick with ice in places.

And there wasn’t a fucking place to hide. Mountains reared in every direction and he felt like an ant on a floor. Anybody could fucking see them as soon as the sun came up and it was already starting to get light.

The only choice was going to be to hunker down in their bivvies with netting over them and hope like hell nobody noticed them. It wasn’t good tactics at all.

The point had already crested the ridge and getting him back was going to be a pain in the ass. And the weather was closing in; the upper summits had already disappeared in clouds. It was about to either rain or snow, or maybe both, like a bitch.

Which would at least reduce visibility.

Finally he called a halt and signaled for the lead to go up and pull in the point. The damned sun was just about up and it was time to try to hide in plain sight.

He gestured for the team to spread out and then opened up his rucksack, pulling out his sleeping bag which was already encased by a bivvy sack. Short for “bivouac” the bivvy sack was a waterproof covering that could have a slight stiffener emplaced to keep it off the face. Adams hated the damned stiffeners so he always left his behind.

He rolled the bivvy out and secured it to the thin soil of the hillside then yanked out a ghillie net and covered the sack. Last he slid his rucksack under the net and climbed into the sack.

Dafid Shaynav, the assistant team leader, had followed his lead but now paused and made the gesture for “sentry.”

Adams shook his head and gestured to get in the sack and freeze. Then he pointed to the sky.

Dafid nodded then laid out his gear as the Master Chief had. But instead of immediately getting in the sack he began circulating, making sure everyone else was secure and camouflaged. That was his job.

Adams zipped the bivvy up, slid his hand out to pull up the net, then closed the bag all the way. He’d get out and look around in a minute, right now he wanted to check the weather.

He slid out of his jacket, got his weapon to one side and then pulled out the C2 satellite communicator. It was set to receive only but he could do a weather check.

Sure enough, the storm was moving faster than predicted. The satellite view showed it already raining at their location. This was so gonna suck.

When the sound of the Keldara getting into position died away he stuck his head out of the bag and looked around. It wasn’t full light, yet, so he slid out and walked up the hill.

It wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. Since he knew what he was looking for he could tell where the bivvies were. But the netting really did break up the outline. They didn’t look like much of anything. From a the mountainsides around them they were probably invisible. And even close up they were going to be hard to spot.

He slid back in his sack but kept the top off his face. The lead and the point still weren’t back. He wouldn’t really settle in until they were.

A snowflake hit his face and he winced. They’d better fucking hurry.

Danes Devlich shook his head.

“They were right there,” he said, pointing to the hillside which was rapidly disappearing in the snow. The snow was falling straight down, now, but he could tell by the taste of the air that it was soon going to be storming.

“There’s a hot-spot,” Jachin Ferani, the point leader, said shaking his head. “But… Oh, now I see it,” he added.

The sun was already up and they knew they were supposed to be out of sight. But they also didn’t want to lose their team. Not with a storm coming.

“Where?” Tomas Kulcyanov asked. All three of the team were down on their bellies, just below the crest of the ridge. Jachin was thermal imaging binoculars that could be switched for normal vision while Tomas and Dafid were peering through standard range-finding binos.

“Right where Dafid was pointing,’ Jachin said, chuckling. “In bivvies with their nets over them.”

“Damn,” Dafid said after a moment. “That is weird. I was looking right at them… ”

“We can make it down in about five minutes,” Tomas said.

“If we hurry,” Jachin pointed out. “We’re not going to hurry. We’re going to do the same thing. Right here.”

It had been nearly an hour since the team had bedded down when Adams heard a double click in his headphones. The point was, presumably, nearby but not coming in. Okay, he could live with that. They probably didn’t want to move in the light. He clicked once in reply. As he did, the wind started to pick up and the bivvy started flapping, hard.

“Well, this is gonna totally suck,” Adams whispered as the blizzard descended in ernest.

“Well, I think that Mr. Jenkins would say that this ‘sucks’,” Colonel Chechnik said, his jaw working as he read the report.

Russia’s intelligence agency did not have the technology or funds of its American equivalents. It made up for both by being, in many cases, far better.

The fall of the Soviet Union had released flood of information related to the “spy war” between the US and the Soviets going back to the 1930s and the returns were pretty much in: The Soviets had hammered the US.

The Russians had moles in most of the major defense and intelligence agencies not only in the US but in all of the West. They had penetrated almost every communications department, most secure research and regularly had people with access to the White House. They’d managed so many disinformation operations that straightening out fact from fiction was taking careful work by historians.

After the Fall, they’d had a hard time maintaining those links. But they had managed to retain very good HumInt in other areas.

Notably Chechnya.

While, as with the US, it wasn’t really helping them win the war, they often knew of movements before the Chechen high command. And when the High Command knew… well…

Chechnik looked at the document and sighed. He had placed a mid-level request in place related to the general area of the Keldara mission. And this was the result.

He looked at the phone, then the document then the phone. Finally, grimacing, he picked it up.

“I need to speak to the President.”

“You wanted to speak to me?” Nielson said, looking up.

Kacey and Tammie were in their new Keldara uniforms rather than flight suits since, given the hairy-ass missions of the last couple of days, they were taking a well-earned rest day.

“Colonel,” Kacey said, shifting uncomfortably in her new digi-cam. “Missions went fine. Clean in and out. How’re the teams?”

“Now we’re in blackout,” Nielson said, shrugging. “Hell of a storm on the way in. If they get into serious trouble they’ll call. But that’s likely to blow the mission. You know the orders the Keldara have on casualties?”

“No, sir,” Tammie answered.

“In the event that the casualty is anything but life-threatening and saveable by extraction, they are not to request evac. If the casualty is immovable, a broken leg for example, they and their partner will remain in place until after the mission and then be extracted if and when. We more or less anticipate Keldara being strung across the mountains until we can pull them out.”

“Holy crap,” Kacey breathed.

“That sucks,” Tammie said. “I mean, really sucks. I can see the reason, but… ”

“So I have no idea how the teams are doing,” Nielson said, smiling thinly. “For all I know, they could have been wiped out in an avalache. We won’t know for… ” He paused and checked his watch. “For four days and about twenty-one hours.”

“Understood, sir,” Kacey said. “And I notice most of the Rangers have moved out.”

“Third Platoon is tasked with local security,” Nielson said. “The other two platoons are up in the hills. I’d like you to coordinate with Captain Guerrin on any air support he might need. Doing at least one training mission with them would be wise to work out any bugs in methods or communication.”

“Will do, sir,” Kacey replied.

“And if that is all… ?”

“Actually, sir, we really came about something else,” Tammie said then nudged Kacey.

“Sir, we were looking at our budget… ” Kacey said.

“Just say it, captain,” Nielson replied with a smile. “I don’t need a power point presentation.”

“We’d like to do some… customization to our birds,” Kacey said, walking over to his desk and sliding a sheet of paper onto it. “I think we can do it just by shuffling a few items in the budget around. We don’t have two loadmasters and don’t really need them. We used a couple of the Keldara girls, who are budgetable lighter, for the supply drops and that worked fine. At some point the Chief can probably train them in on more complex tasks. So we can shift that portion of the budget around. And the Chief has some assets for parts that can probably cut our anticipated costs there. Even with the mods we should be able to cut some out of the budget.”

“I see,” Nielson replied, looking at the calculations. “And these mods are… ?”

“Well, that’s pretty hard to explain,” Tammie said, nervously. “Here’s a sketch,” she added, sliding a new sheet of paper onto the desk.

Nielson regarded it for a second and then grinned.

“Who came up with this?” Nielson asked, still grinning. “You gals or Chief D’Allaird?”

“We were talking about force multipliers,” Kacey said. “And I don’t know who said it first but we all thought of it at the same time.”

“The only thing I can’t figure out is why the Kildar didn’t first,” Nielson said. “Approved. And you might want to add express shipping on it,” he added with a grin. “It would be interesting to have it for the next series of missions.”

“How will this affect the mission?”

Getting to speak to the President of Russia, even when you have hot intel in your hand, was not easy. It was late in the day and Chechnik had been told he had only ten minutes.

Fortunately, the President was a former spook, so they could cover the ground fairly quickly.

“If Sadim sticks to this time table, it will make extraction very difficult,” Chechnik said. “Especially if they do not know about it.”

“If they know about it they are likely to cancel the mission entirely,” the President said, looking at the report again with cold eyes. “If I understand the timing, this should not affect the basic mission. They should be able to capture the package and destroy it long before this affects them. As long as they are not detected on insertion.”

“Correct, Mr. President,” Chechnik said, his face closed.

“What is the means?” the president asked. That information was not on the basic document.

“Dassam,” Chechnik replied, frowning.

“So the only data that we have is from our highest level source in the Chechnyan resistance,” the President said, slipping the document back into its folder. “There are no intercepts, no lower level confirmation?”

“No, Mr. President. Just this.”

“The Keldara can complete the basic mission,” the President said, handing back the document. “If they reacted on the basis of this it might reveal the source. They are not to be informed.”

Mike paused, looking up at the front of the glacier and frowning.

The storm of the previous day had laid a blanket of snow that while deep wasn’t particularly trying. But a night’s full movement had brought them to the base of the glacier that was, from his point of view, their major obstacle. Just getting up on it was going to be a pain in the ass. The glacier had plowed out the valley it formed in, ripping away the hard rock walls and even if there had been “easy” ways up before it formed, thouands of years before, they were now gone.

However, he needed to get up onto the damned thing. The best route he’d been able to find crossed the glacier. While that had it’s own issues, they were minor compared to the problems every other route presented. The Keldara were fine at walking in mountains, even very steep ones. They weren’t, by and large, quite so up on going up vertical faces.

The best approach seemed, based on both the satellite photos and his own eyeball, to be the left. But even that was damned near vertical. He’d planned on just tackling the face, about seventy five feet and about a 3 face, maybe a 4. However, thinking about it there was an easier way.

The glacier was flanked on either side by ridges that stretched in a serpentine up to the two nearby summits. They were currently positioned on the shoulder of the left ridge and the ascent on that looked fairly smooth and the worst pitch was maybe 60-70 degrees. They could walk that. Once they were above the glacier they could just rappel down to the surface.

He signaled to the point to head up the ridge and started walking again.

They’d gotten down to “mountain speed”, take a step, plant your ice axe, take a slow, deep breath, take another step. It was a slow way to move but the only way when the air got this thin. And the step-breath speed had several added benefits.

High mountains had dozens of ways to kill you.

The first and most obvious was just falling. The team was roped together so that if someone started to slip down on of the faces the rest of the team could stop their slide and recover them. But whole groups had slid off mountains before this. It was one of the things he was worried about with Yosif’s team. The step-breath pace meant each member of the team had time to get sure footing before taking the next step.

More subtle was hypoxia. Air pressure fell off fast above ten thousand feet. They weren’t in the super high, such as the Himalayas, but the air was definitely thin. At this level mild to extreme hypoxia was a real danger. Hypoxia occurred when the cells of the body exhausted all of their oxygen. Symptoms were headache, extreme exhaustion and nausea. At the extreme convulsions or even death were possible as the body’s tissues wrestled oxygen away from the nerve cells, which required one hell of a lot of O2. By moving slowly and deliberately it gave the body time to move all the oxygen it could grab around to the spots that needed it. If they moved faster the big muscles of the thigh, the reason that runners had to breath so hard, would start hogging the stuff.

And water was an issue. With the body needing more oxygen, the blood started to produce more red blood cells, thickening it. You had to drink and drink a lot to keep the blood from getting thick as molasses.

Another danger was sweating. Even as cold as it was, and it was really fucking cold, well below zero farenheit since they were moving at night, if you moved too fast you could break into a sweat. That was just fine under normal conditions. But up here if you sweated at some point you’d slow down and stop being so warm. Then the sweat would freeze onto your body, just like the frozen snot in his nose that tickled like mad and crinkled his nose hairs. If that happened, the only thing for it was for the whole team to stop and get whoever had broken a sweat into cover. They’d have to strip off their wet clothes, put on dry and cool down. If they didn’t, when the sweat froze it would suck every bit of heat out of their body, fast. The term for that was “hypothermia.” And just like hypoxia, it was deadly. Once the body dropped below a certain temperature it started to shut down.

To keep from sweating, despite the temperatures the team had their jackets partially unzipped and most were only wearing a balaklava over their face and head. Gear-wear ran a knife-edge as thin as they ridge they were walking up. If you wore too many clothes you got too hot and started sweating. By the same token, any exposed flesh was liable to frost-bite.

Keeping an eye out for hypothermia, frostbite and hypoxia was the job of the assistant team leaders. Heck, it was everybody’s job. When a person became hypothermic, hypoxic their judgement dropped to nil. And frostbite only occurred after a portion of skin had become so numb from cold you couldn’t tell it was frostbitten. The only way to tell was to look. And it was hard to look at your own face.

The problem was, what with the exertion, fatigue and general malaise caused by the low O2, everybody was thinking slower and so worn all they could do was concentrate on the next step. Mike found he had to flog his brain to get it to work. It was worse than being awake for a couple of days.

The team paused to rotate the point and he was willing to just stop and breathe for a bit. The guys breaking trail couldn’t take the added exertion for long. Mike had set a hard time limit of twenty minutes on trail-breaking and everyone, including him, took turns.

Just climbing up the slopes, carrying one heavy ass ruck, with a quarter the amount of oxygen available in lower areas, was hard enough. But when you also had to stamp down snow on each step it became a nightmare. So they were rotating. Mike found himself only two back from the front as they shifted the safety rope back. The previous point was standing by the side of the trail, carefully balanced on the edge of the knife-ridge, just breathing deep. Mike wasn’t sure, what with the helmet, goggles and face mask over the guy’s face, but he was pretty sure it was Sawn.

“Sweat?” he asked as he passed the previous trail breaker. He checked to see there was no exposed flesh but as far as he could see Sawn was covered from head to toe.

“Good,” Sawn said, gasping. “Tired. Fucking tired. No sweat.”

“Good… man,” Mike gasped back, taking another step. Even conversation was impossible.

Three more days.

Pavel slid the piton hammer into place and triggered it, slamming one of the spikes into the rock wall.

Pavel had never taken rock climbing training. He had only recently begun, through the internet connections the Kildar had installed, to realize there were others like him in the world. For among the Keldara Pavel had always been considered strange; he liked to climb.

The Keldara would sometimes, when grazing was bad, run their sheep, goats and cattle into the high valleys. And while sheep were stupid, goats were canny. They frequently did not want to come back to the corrals at night. And goats could climb. My, could they climb.

Since Pavel was very young, he had followed the herds into the mountains. And since he was a child it was often Pavel who went searching for the recalcitrant goats. Because anywhere a goat could go, and more, Pavel could, and would, go. With a grin on his face. The higher, the stranger, the more brutal the face, the more he enjoyed himself.

Currently he was in heaven. The Kildar had carefully pointed out the “difficult” portions of the mountain crossing to him, the places where it would be necessary to climb. And the device in his thigh pocket said that this face would be about fifty meters. Because of the angle of the shot, nearly vertical, it was hard to judge how difficult the climb would be. But the Kildar, although an excellent fighter, was clearly not an imagery analyst.

It was more like a hundred and fifty, much of it about a grade five if he was capable of judging. It was night, the clouds finally cleared off and the wind howling. It was probably forty below zero in celsius. And he was splayed across a rock wall, one finger stuck in a crack, his boots barely scrabbling to two more points and slamming in a piton with the biggest grin in the world on his mask-covered face.

This was the fucking shit as the Master Chief would say.

He clipped a carabiner to the piton, ran his safety line through it and looked for the next set of hold points. Frankly, directly up there weren’t any. But he’d seen an easy ledge off to the side.

He let go of all three points, holding himself only on the piton and swung sideways. For a moment he was suspended in the air, flying free as a bird. Then one hand slammed into the crack in the rock, the “easy” ledge that was a bare jutting of rock, and thumb and finger clamped to it like a limpet.

For a moment he hung, suspended, then the other hand came up, sliding a pair of fingers into the crack and clamping them in a knuckle hold. There wasn’t anywhere to put his feet, but he could see another hold just a half meter or so up. He’d have to leave the fingers in the crack and lift himself on those to get to it.

This was assuredly the shit.

“How long we gonna be doin’ this shit?” Serris asked.

They’d been out on the mountains for only a day and already he was ready to head back to the barracks. First of all, there wasn’t a thing moving except them. You got a feel for an area pretty quick and all the animals they’d run across had that “undisturbed” feel. They’d sat on one trail in ambush positions all day and half the night and seen dick all.

Then there was the terrain. The area reminded him of Afghanistan except for the, often thick, underbrush and the trees. The vegetation was more like around Dahlonega, the Rangers’ primary mountain training area. But the slopes were one fuck of a lot higher; Dahlonega was in the Appalachians not the fucking Alps. And they seemed steeper. They’d been slithering upwards towards the treeline for the last day, except for the ambush position, and they could quit any time as far as Ma Serris’ little boy was concerned.

This was just stupid.

“Til we’re done,” Staff Sergeant Jordan Lawhon said. “Time to do one of our ‘deception operations’.”

The Ranger squad had stopped on the east slope of a ridge, looking out over a small valley that had a trail running down the far side. Just to their north and west the valley funneled to a pass through the mountains, the source of the trail. The deciduous trees and choking underbrush of the lower slopes had given way to firs, mostly wide spaced. A careful visual check hadn’t spotted anyone in view, though, so it seemed like a good place to do a “notional” ambush.

“This is such shit,” Lane replied, flopping down and leaning back on a tree. He opened up the breach on his Squad Automatic Weapon and pouted. “I’m gonna foul the shit out of this, you know that? I’m gonna have to break it right the fuck down, clean it and then maybe I can load live rounds again.”

“Quit the bitching,” Lawhon said, frowning. “We’re all gonna have to clean our pieces. Which is why only Alpha and Bravo team are gonna fire. Charlie’s gonna stay hot.”

Squads were broken down into two “fire teams”. Each of the fire teams was led by a sergeant or corporal and had five men, the team leader, a SAW gunner, a grenadier and two riflemen. At least on paper. Rarely was a TOE, table of organization and equipment, filled.

“Fine,” Lane sighed, pulling out his blank adapter and a case of blank ammo. “Let’s get this over with. We gotta run and shout or what?”

“I think we just shoot the shit,” the squad leader said. “Maybe do some shouting.”

“This is fucking nuts,” Serris said, readying his weapon. “Say when.”

“Everybody ready?” Lawhon asked. “Charlie, do not fire.”

“Got it,” Corporal John Pitzel, the Charlie team leader, replied. “Team, check fire.” Since the team was sprawled out on the ground in the traditional “rucksack flop”, that was unlikely.

“Okay, Alpha and Bravo, open fire,” Lawhon said and pointed his blank-adapter covered muzzle in the general direction of uphill before pulling the trigger.

The blank-adapter was required because without the back-pressure from the round that normally travelled down the barrel, the weapon would only fire one time and the receiver wouldn’t cycle the next round into the breach. With the usually red blank adapter screwed into the barrel the weapon would cycle normally even firing the blank ammunition.

The other problem with blank ammunition was that it was dirty as hell. The propellant was a less refined material than the usual propellant in live rounds and coated the weapon in carbon that was difficult to remove. You could fire thousands of rounds through an M4 before it fouled. You might get a couple of hundred blanks out before the damned thing jammed solid.

Despite those facts the Rangers had as much fun as they could.

“ARRRRHHH!” Lane screamed, triggering expert five round bursts from his SAW despite having the barrel cover laid over his right knee. “TAKE THAT YOU DIRTY RAGHEADS!”

“EAT SHIT AND DIE, ISLAMIC MOTHERFUCKERS!” Serris replied.

“YOUR MOTHER WAS A WHORE AND YOUR FATHER A PIG!” Lane screamed, not to be outdone.

“I WAVE THE BOTTOM OF MY SHOE IN YOUR GENERAL DIRECTION!!!” Serris added then looked up. “SARGE! WE’RE TAKING FIRE!”

“CHECK FIRE!” Lawhon screamed, diving to the ground. He had been firing properly, weapon tucked into his shoulder, leaning into the non-existent recoil and aiming. In this case at a tree over by the trail, but training was training. Now he dove to the ground and looked up. Sure enough, the branches overhead were being cut by fire. “Where the fuck is that coming from?” The rounds were big. Maybe a fifty caliber. And now that the firing had stopped, he could hear the weapon firing, the dull thud-thud-thud of a heavy machine-gun.

“Not in sight,” Pitzel replied. “Sounds like it’s coming from over the ridge.”

“Serris, check it out,” Lawhon said, instantly.

“Can I at least put live rounds in?” Serris asked, sarcastically. He already had the blank adapter unscrewed and was seating a mag of hot.

“Just get your ass up there,” Lawhon replied.

“There you are, you fucker,” Serris hissed. He’d pulled a ghillie cloak over his head and pulled up his balaklava to reduce the shine on his face then slid up the ridge to the crest. The top was a knife-edge and by laying belly down, half behind one of the firs, he had a pretty good view of the far side. The valley they’d been in hooked around to the west and up at the head of it, right at the opening of the pass, there was a bunker. It was hard to spot, whoever built it had camouflaged the hell out of the damned thing, but Serris had spent enough time in the Stans to get pretty good at spotting shit like that. One of the reasons Lawhon sent him up. He also had “sniper eyes”, the ability to pick out something from the background that others missed.

The bunker, though, was damned near two klicks away. They must have been firing at the sound. For that matter, thinking about the approach, the squad had never been in view of the guys, probably Chechens, in the bunker. The stupid fuckers had given their position away for nothing.

“Bunker up in the pass,” he hissed over his shoulder to Lane. “Can’t see anything in it. Probaby a 12.7.”

“Got it,” Lane replied. “Here comes the sarge.”

“What you got?” Lawhon asked from just down the slope.

“Bunker,” Serris repeated. “Probably a 12.7. Maybe a 14.5. Nobody outside.” He paused as something, he wasn’t sure what. “Damn, make that two… no three bunkers. Any of them could have been firing.”

“Could they see us?”

“Negative, wrong angle.” Serris turned his head ever so slightly and verified that. Yeah, their whole approach had been out of sight. But if they’d gone another couple of hundred meters up the valley. “They’re securing the pass.”

“I called in,” Lawhon replied. “We’re to pull back. Our job is not to bet into a pissing contest with them unless they come down from the mountains. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“Ay-firmative,” Serris said, sliding ever so slightly backwards. “I don’t want them taking my head off.”

“Captain Bathlick,” Colonel Nielson said. “Another familiarization flight?”

The pilot was just exiting her recently completed, there was still sawdust on the floor, ready room, helmet under her arm.

The first of the pre-fab hangers was in place. The structures were large versions of the venerable “Quonset” huts, large enough that the Hinds could be slid in with their rotors still on. They had come packed on dozens of pallets and the non-militia Keldara men had taken less than a day to get the first one up: the concrete holding up the curved metal skeleton was still drying.

Tacked onto one side was a small utility hut, the pilot “ready room.” Kacey was pretty sure it was going to be cold as hell when full winter hit.

“Not plowing one of the birds on the supply drop missions was luck as much as anything,” Kacey said. “The more time we get in the birds the better. Especially at night.”

“I agree,” Nielson replied. “However, you might want to wait up a bit. The first thing you need to know is that we just found out the Guerrmo Pass is secured by heavy weapons.”

“Damn,” Kacey said, shaking her head. Guerrmo Pass was the lowest pass into the area of the Keldara operation. It was their primary route if they had to go in in support. All the other ways were much higher and, thus, they could carry less equipment in or casualties out. “That’s bad news. How secured?”

“At least three bunkers with heavy machine guns at the opening,” Nielson said. “Not sure what might be further in.”

“The Hinds are tough, but… ”

“But, indeed,” Nielson admitted. “Not tough enough to take cross-fire from multiple heavy machine-guns. So stay away from the opening to Guerrmo Pass. The second reason you might want to wait up is that we were just informed that there is a shipment from the Georgian military on the way. They said it was left over parts from their Hinds; they recently decommissioned them. You probably want to look it over. Chief D’Allaird as well.”

“Great,” Kacey said, grumpily. “DXed parts from the Georgians. These should be great.”

“Never look a gift horse and all that,” Nielson said, smiling.

“Oh, I’m not,” the pilot replied. “But D’Allaird is going to have to fully cert them before they go in the bird. What are we going to do about the bunkers?”

“That is under discussion.”

“Well ain’t that some shit,” Captain Guerrin said.

“I think we can take ’em out,” Sergeant Lawhon offered. “They’ve got the pass covered. But if we swing up on the shoulder of the mountain we can come in on them from behind and above. Either hammer them from up there with Carl Gustavs or get a team down on top. I don’t think they can fire at each other or back up the pass.”

“And if they have supports further up the pass?” J.P. answered. “No, our mission isn’t to take out bunkers. Certainly not yet.” Guerrin paused and thought about the situation, both the “known” situation and the potential mission to support the Keldara. “But we need to keep an eye on them. Keep your squad up here. No more patrolling. Put in good security and keep a watch on that trail. Stay defiladed from the machine-guns but if anything comes out of that pass I want to know about it.”

“Yes, sir,” Lawhon replied.

“I’m going to redirect the company in this general direction,” Guerrin added. “So if you get in the shit, holler for help and we’ll come a runnin’.”

“Well ain’t this some shit.”

Mike looked down the slope and wondered if he should have stopped earlier. He had been in the lead on the last stretch of the ascent so it was all his fault if they had. He unzipped his jacket all the way, feeling a bite of cold sink into his mid-layer of fleece pullover, and pulled out his rangefinders. The battery-powered range finders, along with all their batteries, had to be carried under their clothes to keep the batteries from being drained by the cold.

He looked through the binos and pressed the button for range-finding. An invisible laser, good for about ten miles much less this short distance, lased the ground below and returned a range of nearly five hundred feet.

Fuck.

They had a couple of thousand foot ropes with them but he would have liked a bit more safety margin. However, this was as good as it was going to get.

He waved to Gregoriya and Mikhail then dumped his ruck in the snow. The serious climbing gear was in an outside pouch and he pulled out the pre-rigged harness. Some climbers would have clucked in horror at the piton hammer and pitons he pulled out. However, at the moment environmental consciousness was the last thing on his mind.

He used his ice axe to clear away some of the snow until he found solid granite then looked for a crack in the face. The air-driven piton hammer would drive one of the stainless steel spikes straight into the granite he had to do that. But a crack to start it was preferable. The good news was that it was granite. Feldspar or limestone, both prevalent in the area, both had the possibility of being highly friable, that is, the piton might work loose. That would be bad.

He found a crack, finally, and loaded the piton hammer then laid the tip of the piton on the crack, leaned into the hammer, and fired it.

The sound rebounded across the rocks. If there were any Chechens around he’d just definitively given their position away.

He punched in three pitons then connected caribiners to each of the pitons. The military called caribiners “D rings”, a metal “ring”, generally some form of oval with a sprung-loaded opening bale. Some people used them as key-rings but they were originally designed for climbing. Finally, he took one of the ropes Mikhail handed him, uncoiled it and then recoiled it in two heaps. Taking the center section, he began tying it off. That was a bit complex. He didn’t want to leave the rope behind so he had to put in a recovery knot. However, he also wanted to make sure that nobody fell, thus the three pitons. Putting in a three-way recovery knot was a pain in the ass. Finally, he managed it. The knot had a slip-knot built into it that permitted someone on the ground to untie it by a hard yank on one of the two dangling ropes. The problem was that they could start to untie all by themselves under heavy use. The answer was to slide a pin of some sort into the loop of the slip-knot until the last climber was ready to go down.

Finally he had the entire rig set up and stood up, groaning as his bad knee protested. One of these days that damned thing was going to go out entirely. Hopefully not today.

Mikhail looked at him quizzically for a second and then picked up the two coils and tossed them over the side. Both, fortunately, fell straight and true without tangling and the tips hit the ground, barely.

The reason for the quizzical look, Mike realized, was that he should have tossed the loops. His brain was really working slow.

Nonetheless, he pointed to Sawn and then at the rappel at which Sawn nodded and stepped forward.

Everyone had already donned their climbing harnesses. These were padded nylon that ran around the upper body and under the arms. Earlier harnesses and those used for “light” mountaineering were a seat. But the upper body harnesses were necessary when you were working with rucks. Without them you tended to dangle upside down.

Sawn picked up the doubled ropes and attached them to his figure-eight. There were, Mike swore, as many ways to rappel as there were climbers. However, one of the simpler involved wrapping the rope through a doubled metal circle that looked vaguely like an 8 with one end much smaller than the other. They were only good for relatively short rappels, longer ones required a device called a “ladder.” But Mike wasn’t planning on doing any ten thousand foot rappels on this mission.

Sawn looped the ropes through the figure-eight, hooked it to his harness with a carabiner and stepped to the edge. He seated the ropes by leaning back on them while holding himself in place by the rappel line. The method of descent was simple. The tied rope ends, called the standing end, ran to the figure-eight then through a complex double loop. The untied end, the running end, then was held in the right hand of the climber. If he pulled the rope around his back it stopped him. Pulling it out to the side permitted the rope to slide through his hand. The left hand was placed on the standing end for stability. The important thing was to remember to bring the arm around rather than “grabbing” the running end. Grabbing didn’t get you anything but a burned glove. The gloves Mike had ordered had leather palms specifically for rappelling but if the rope ran through the palm too fast or was gripped too hard it was going to burn through, anyway.

When he was sure the ropes were set Sawn walked backwards to the edge of the cliff, looking down over his shoulder, placing his feet carefully on the ice-covered edge of the cliff and shaking the rope slightly to keep it from binding. At the top of a long rappel the weight of the rope tended to stop the climber from descending due to friction across the figure-eight. Once his full weight hit, though, it would smooth out.

Finally, he was in an “L” shape, feet planted on the wall and ruck dangling below him. At that point he began bounding slightly outwards from the cliff, falling a short distance on each bound, stopping when his feet hit the wall then bounding out and down again. He took it slow, which was good, but it meant the team was going to be rappelling when the sun came up. Bad.

Mike started putting in another set of ropes. Sigh. God he was tired. Hopefully something was going right on this mission.

“So far, so good,” Rashid said as the Nissan pickup bounced down the potholed road.

Al-Kariya nodded but didn’t answer, continuing to run a string of worry beads through his fingers.

The king-cab pickup was the third truck in a convoy of nine, each of them holding four to five hand-picked mujaheddin. Most of them Al-Kariya had known, off and on, for years.

Although he was now a “senior financier” he had not always had that job. After getting a degree in finance from Princeton he had disappeared for several years in the late 1970s. The first stop of his wide travels had been to the new government of Iran, where the Ayatollah Khomeini had recently overthrown the Shah and instituted shariah law. This was a goal the Prophet, praise be upon him, decreed all good Muslims must strive. And the young Al-Kariya, then using the name Al-Dubiya, had reveled in the triumph of the True Faith over the secularism of that pig the Shah. Yes, Khomeini had been, in many ways, a blasphemer. The Shia branch of Islam believed that Mohammed had not been the last prophet, true blasphemy. But Khomeini had made much of the oil wealth of the nation available to any group that was willing to strive for world-wide jihad and the imposition of true shariah.

Managing that wealth, stealthily, was difficult however. Moving the money was a pain when the Americans, French, Germans and Israelis were always poking in where they weren’t wanted. Al-Kariya had seen his proper place in the world-wide jihad clearly. He knew the theoretical details of international finance back and forward. He knew the gaps, the hidden ways.

But you didn’t just get handed a bunch of money no matter what your financial CV. You had to prove you truly supported the jihad. You had to be “made” in the fraternity of the mujaheddin.

Thus, after a brief trip to the Bekaa Valley for training in a PLO camp, his next stop had been Afghanistan where the war against the pig Russians was in high gear. There the Americans, for reasons everyone recognized as cynical, were pouring in material and funds. And there the young man with the soft hands and mind of a calculator had been “made” killing Russian conscripts patrolling in the mountains they feared and hated.

That was a long time ago, though. Now he remembered the smells, the fear, of those missions. It had been a long time since he had had his kidneys jolted out by horrible roads. A long time since he’d been surrounded by unwashed fighters.

Some of them, though, he knew from those long ago days. The fighters in this convoy were the best the jihad had to offer. These weren’t human bombs or half-trained zealots that pointed their weapons in the direction of the enemy and sprayed their fire. Every member of this security detail had been on multiple battlefields, fighting the Russians, the Israelis and, especially, the Americans in multiple countries. They had fought, survived and often triumphed. Most were older though few as old as Al-Kariya. Haza Saghedi, though, the team leader riding in the fourth truck, he was an old comrade in arms from Afghanistan. Pashtun, raised in the fiercest of warrior traditions, he had even fought on the side of the Saudis in the war against Iraq. Then, later, he had been in Iraq fighting the Americans. He had taken the path of true jihad, fighting the infidels on every front and surviving. It was he who had picked most of the fighters in the convoy.

Al-Kariya assumed that if the Russians saw an advantage they would try to betray them. Piled next to him in the back seat of the truck was a king’s ransom; any king you’d care to name. And the areas they were traveling through could not be considered “safe” by any rational human. Thus he had ensured that the very best were guarding it, and him. Yes, things were going well.

But all he could think as they bounced down the atrocious road was how much he wished he were back in his comfortable office, sitting in his two thousand dollar chair, with a glass of tea by his hand and clicking on his laptop.

Instead of having his kidneys jolted out.

“I’m getting too old for this,” was his reply.

It was less than twenty minutes before first one, then two and finally seven tractor trailers made the sharp final bend into the valley. By the time the seventh was on the flats a machine-gun toting GAZ, a Russian made military SUV, had pulled into the newly laid helo-port in the lead of the first truck.

“Colonel Nielson,” the captain said in crisp faintly Brit accented English. “Good to see you. My father-in-law sends his regards.” He snapped a crispy salute and dropped it at the colonel’s reply.

“Ah, Captain Kahbolov, we’ve never met,” Nielson said, shaking the captain’s hand. “Captain Bathlick, Captain Efim Kahbolov. His father is the Georgian Chief of Staff. And he’s a pilot as well.”

“Good to meet you, Captain,” Kacey said, shaking his hand.

“And you, Captain,” the Georgian said, grinning. “I was originally trained on the Hind. I understand the Js are sweet birds. Hopefully these will help.” He pulled an envelope out of the GAZ and handed it to Nielson.

“This is certainly generous,” Nielson said, ripping open the envelope and sliding out the contents. He looked at the papers and then blanched. “Holy Fuck, captain.”

“Which one?” Kacey asked, looking over his shoulder. However, the documents were in Cyrillic and incomprehensible.

“Thank your father, captain,” Nielson said, awe in his voice. He looked up at the trucks and shook his head. “Thank him very VERY much for us.”

“They were going to be sold,” the captain replied with a shrug. “My father thought that using them in the defense of the homeland made a better choice. Use them well, captain. That will be worth the very long, very cold, ride.”

“What?” Kacey asked, frowning. “What’s the big deal about parts?”

“They’re not parts, Kacey,” Nielson said, handing her the documents while continuing to look at the trucks in wonder. “The lead truck is three complete gun systems for a Hind. The second has rocket launchers. The rest… is ammo.”

The whole team was down, the sun was coming up and it was time for Mike to descend.

The view across the glacier was spectacular in the pre-dawn light. The blue pre-morning twilight reflected off the glacier and filled the valley with a glow quite unlike anything Mike had seen before in his life. It was something like being in the middle of a blue-white diamond. The figures of the Keldara below, rapidly setting up a camp and getting camouflage in place, seemed to walk through a mist of blue-white.

However, this wasn’t a good time for sight-seeing; it was time to get down to business.

The only incident was one of the Makanee’s ending up tangled down half way down the cliff. The guy was utterly unable to free himself so the next rappeller down stopped alongside and managed to get him untangled, mainly by cutting on his outer wear. That was gonna require patching. Then the two of them went down the rest of the way.

Mike had already tossed the second rope and now, with difficulty, yanked out the pins securing the primary. Storing those he hooked up and stepped to the edge, pulling carefully on both ropes to ensure they were secure. So far, so good.

Someone was on belay below and he looked down and waved. The belay man was in place as a safety measure. If the climber descending lost control of the rappel, the belay man could, by putting pressure on the rope, stop him in place.

Mike stepped over the edge and got in a good L position then bounded out. All good. It wasn’t like he hadn’t done this a thousand times.

However, about half way down, the entire rig trembled and went momentarily slack, dropping him into freefall for a moment and then jerking him to a stop.

He’d done slack rappels enough times to recognize the signs. The primary slip-knot had released. Whether it was the cold working on the ropes to make them more slippery or what, the slip-knots were coming undone. If all three let go, he was going to fall three hundred feet onto solid ice covered in about an inch of snow.

The term was “splat.”

As his feet touched the face he bounded instantly outward and threw his right arm out to the side, removing all pressure on the rope and falling, effectively, in freefall, the rope screaming through both hands with the smell of burning leather.

The fall, however, wasn’t quite freefall: the friction of the rope running over the figure-eight prevented that. So in keeping with simple Newtonian physics, Mike was pulled back to the face in a long, slow swing. The arc of pendulum was very long, but inexorable. Thus about two hundred feet over the ice he had to slow, again, for a bound. As he did he felt the shock of the second knot giving way.

This time he pushed off, hard, and let loose of the rope almost instantly. He’d never really stopped at the bound and was falling fast enough it wasn’t much different than a freefall jump. He wasn’t sure whether he should do a parachute landing fall at the bottom or not. However, doing it with the ruck on his back was pretty much out.

He had one more, probably shaky, knot between him and splatsville. He had about two hundred pounds of gear wearing him down and nasty ice right underneath. And he was falling at about terminal velocity. Oh, and he was inexorably swinging in towards the face.

On the other hand, he had to admit that this was the sort of thing he fucking lived for. Adrenaline was pumping, the time seemed to slow and endorphins were riding high in anticipation of sudden and incredible pain. A degree of skill and one hell of a lot of luck were the only things between life a very messy death. Forget sex, forget gambling, this was life on the blade. The only moments better than this was the kill after a long stalk or being in the center of a fuck-load of enemies, a larger number than a buttload and just shy of a shitload, with several full magazines and a mild amount of cover.

Time had slowed and he expertly judged the distances involved. The arc of pendulum had opened out a lot on the last bound and he anticipated that, even with breaking, he shouldn’t slam into the wall. He was going to have to brake, though, and that was where the luck came in. The variable was how long the last knot was going to last. Based on the previous two the answer was “not very fucking long, if at all.”

He had two choices, brake slow and hope the knot held under the lighter, longer, pressure or brake hard. Hard was shorter time on the knot but more “pull.”

In an instant he made the decision. Hard. Hell, he’d passed the point of “slow” anyway.

Fifty feet over the ground, and smokin’, literally, he pulled the rope in and pressed it, hard, against his side and back.

Instantly he started to slow from a full freefall to something survivable. With luck. But he was still going pretty fast, maybe seven feet per second, when he felt the knot pop free with a shock.

The next moment his feet hit the ice and he rolled back onto his ruck. His kidneys did not enjoy that moment but he was alive to feel the pain. Pain was good.

“Nice,” Sawn said from the belay as the rope started to fall all over Mike. “That was the most perfect rappel I’ve ever seen, Kildar. You didn’t even have to undo the ropes.”

Mike, from his position on his back, realized with a feeling of horror that Sawn truly believed it had all been planned.

“Yeah, well, that’s why I went last,” Mike said, as nonchalantly as he could under the circumstances. “When you’ve been doing this as long as I have you pick up a few tricks.”

“You know,” Kacey said, watching as the gun system was uncrated by a couple of the older Keldara men, “I think it’s cool that the Georgians just gave us all this shit, but I just realized, I have no fucking clue how to use it.”

Unloading had gone fast, it turned out the Kildar had, among other equipment, a field mobile forklift. All the crates had been pulled off and the gear stacked inside the hangar. The ammo had been carted off to the ammo bunkers.

“There is that,” Tammie admitted. “I’ve never driven a gun-ship.”

“Got a partial answer to that,” D’Allaird said. “Problem being, we are on incredibly short time. You know the mission goes down tonight, right? You’re going to have to be ready to fly.”

“And I’d love to be able to fly hot,” Kacey said. “But I don’t even know where the damned buttons are for this shit. Much less how to shoot with it.”

“Like I said, got a partial answer for that,” D’Allaird repeated. “Would you ladies care to accompany me up to my room?”

“Chief,” Tammie said, “I didn’t know you cared!”

“Oh, I’ve always cared, honey-bunch, but that’s not what I meant,” D’Allaird said. He’d scrounged one of the Keldara trucks and he now gestured to it. “I do think a trip to the caravanserai is in order, though.”

“That’s a very interesting place,” Specialist Andrew Sivula said, gesturing with his chin up to the castle on the hill as an SUV approached the front gates. “We’re not quartered up there, which is too bad. I’d love to take a look around.”

“The home of the Kildar,” Jessia Mahona replied, smiling. “I suppose it is interesting, but it has been there my whole life, you know? It just is. The Kildar, he is interesting. He has brought many changes. I never thought I would be allowed to handle weapons, much less my beauty.”

Sivula had to admit that the 120 was pretty. With a tube nearly six feet long and nearly six inches across, the thing could throw a mortar round, set for proximity, instanteous or delay detonation, 7200 meters. And it was pretty clear that the mortar team, all women, maintained it meticulously. The tube looked as if it had just come from the factory but looking down the bore it was clear it had been fired. A lot.

However, pretty as the mortar was, it paled next to the mortar team leader. The girl was fucking awesome. Tall, about 5’ 10” and stacked with pretty brown eyes and curly brown hair. Sivula was pretty sure he was in love. Her English wasn’t bad, either. He knew he was in lust, but he was pretty sure it was love, too. He knew there was a hands off policy, but he wondered who you approached about an honest offer of fucking marriage.

They weren’t alone in the bunker, though. Four of the seven “man” female crew were performing maintenance on the tube while three more were showing the Bravo mortar team the ammo bunker while his AG tried to chat up one of the girls doing maintenance.

“I haven’t played with 120s since I was in mortar school,” the Ranger said in reply. It was that or “ubba, ubba, ubba.” “We carry 60s. But I know the tune and I can dance a few steps.”

“What?” Jessia asked, confused.

“Sorry, not a reference you’d get,” Sivula replied. “I sort of know how to gun one. What I don’t get is what you use for poles.”

Normally, mortars were aimed using poles that looked a bit like surveyor’s stakes and were drawn from the same background. The poles were about five feet long and, generally, red and white striped. Two would be put in, aligned so that when the mortar was at a central “rest” position the rear pole was occluded by the front in the sight. When a call for fire came in the angle was dialed in on the sight then the mortar slewed right or left in the direction it needed to point. By keeping aligned on the poles the mortar could be vectored to its direction of fire.

This mortar, though, was dug way into the ground. The bunker was one of the best he’d ever seen, deep with sandbag walls and a metal “splinter” cover that could be drawn across the top. There were three tunnels running off of it, one to a separate ammo bunker the other two to the mortar battery command center and a personnel shelter, respectively. The personnel shelter, for that matter, connected to the next bunker in line.

Jessia was in charge of the 2 gun of the battery, the central gun that was used not only for calls for fire but for aligning all three batteries. That was generally a position given only to the best crew and Sivula had to wonder just how good she was.

“You don’t need them with these,” Jessia said, pointing to the wall of the bunker at some lines drawn on plywood boards. They were numbered in some code he hadn’t been able to figure out. “The green one is the primary east aiming line. Lay the sight on the left side of that and you can slew through half the circle. The blue one is primary west.”

“And the red ones?” Sivula asked, looking through the sight. Sure enough, it was laid on the left side of the green line.

“Those are presets,” Jessia replied. “They refer to specific spots that are probable avenues of approach. If something is detected at one of those points, all we have to do is swing the mortar to it, adjust the elevation and fire. Like this… ”

She snapped something in Georgian and the girls doing maintenance dropped what they were doing, literally dropped everything, while the girls who had been in the ammo bunker piled out. Four of them took hold of the legs of the bipod and lifted the heavy mortar into the air. Another, presumably the AG, caught a tossed round from one of the girls in the bunker and shifted with the mortar.

The team rapidly slewed the mortar and then Jessia fiddled for a second, not much longer, and called out again in Georgian.

One of the girls in the bunker hit a button and a loud siren started to sound. The girls who had slewed the gun stuck fingers in their ears as Jessia backed off the gun and the assistant gunner lifted the round over the opening of the tube.

“Holy shit,” Andy snapped, sticking fingers in his ears and ducking to the side. “FIRE IN THE HOLE!”

A mortar does not “crump” at short range, it cracks, it slams, it explodes. It is like a rifle shot but infinitely louder, compressing the lungs for a moment and causing the head to ring even through earplugs or stuffed in fingers. Especially in the confined space of a motar pit.

The team was already moving the mortar back into place and in another few seconds, fast enough, easily, to pass Mortar Square at Benning, the gun was back in action on its original azimuth.

“We just fired one round at a trail in the mountains, one that the Chechens often use. Our accuracy is generally within ten meters with first round. The round impacted well away from your patrols, I’ll add.” Jessia smiled at him prettily. “Wouldn’t want anyone injured.”

“Lady, you are fucking crazy,” Andy said, grinning. “I am going to get in so much trouble for asking this, but are you married or engaged?”

Jessia suddenly stopped smiling and her face set. Andrew knew he’d fucked up. Bad. He was going to get fucking killed by Top.

“Actually, no,” Jessia replied. “I’m a widow.”

It was Andrew’s turn to freeze and blink.

“How old are you?” Andy asked.

“Nineteen,” Jessia said. “My husband was killed… He was killed in battle. I… We don’t talk about all the battles our men participate in but he was killed earlier this year. They didn’t, couldn’t bring his body home, though.” She paused and shrugged. “He is in the Halls but… The women of the Keldara rarely remarry. There are too many girls to marry off as it is.”

“So, you’re just going to go to your grave without even the chance of getting another husband?” Andy said. “That sucks.”

“I had my time,” Jessia replied. “Beslan ///fix/// was a good man and a fine warrior. As are you, Sergeant Sivula,” she added, smiling.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck… Andrew knew when the fickle finger of fate had fucked again. This was definitely love.

“You brought an Xbox?” Tammie said. “You love Halo that much?”

The Chief’s room was much better outfitted than either hers or Kacey’s. Among other things it had a full stereo system, a plasma screen TV and the game console. On a small desk there was a high-end laptop.

“I don’t play Halo that much these days,” D’Allaird said, slipping a disk into the console. “I found another addiction. And it turned out there were already a couple around.”

It took a moment for the game to boot up then he fiddled with the menu. Finally, they were looking at a very familiar view.

“It’s a Hind combat simulator,” D’Allaird said. “I ran across it a couple of months ago. Face facts, most engineers are guys who couldn’t get into pilot training. This is the closest I get.”

“Holy shit,” Kacey said, sitting down in the floor chair in front of the TV. “But it’s one of those controller things.”

“Ah, no,” D’Allaird said, pulling out a set of controls and sliding them over. “I’ve got two. You can split screen and both pl… train at the same time. You can even work on coordination.”

“These are pretty accurate,” Tammie said, sitting down in an adjoining chair. “Why two chairs?”

“Oh, I’ve been playing with Colonel Nielson,” D’Allaird admitted. “He’s pretty good at Medal of Honor… ”

“Gun position, left,” Tammie yelled. “Fuck, I’m taking fire!”

“Got it,” Kacey replied then paused. “Okay, actually I missed it, coming around.”

“I’ve got a hot engine light! See ya! I’m down.”

“I got the gun position, at least,” Kacey said. “Try to land near the friendlies.”

“There aren’t any friendlies here,” Tammie pointed out. “I’m going back to last checkpoint. I see you, coming in on your seven o’clock, low.”

“There’s another position on the other side of the ridge,” Kacey said, calmly, pulling back on the stick and then leaning sideways with another yank. “Scissor left.”

“Got it.”

“Directly south of that other position, one hundred yards. They’re engaging me… ”

“Got it. Smoked.”

“Good,” Kacey said. “You take lead, I’ll take your right. I got dinged on that one… ”

“Okay, wingman. You get the chicken.”

“Hey!”

“I wonder if everybody on this op is having this much fun?”

“Probably not… ”

Katya sighed and lay down on the bed in her clothes, wrapping the thin blanket around herself and luxuriating in the aloneness. Soon the mission would be done and she could go back to her room in the caravanserai. She realized she had started to think of it as home and blanched. She lived “in the cold” as Jay would put it. There was nowhere in her world that was warm. She refused to allow the possibility.

But the thought of the walls of the caravanserai around her, the Keldara patrolling the mountains, the Kildar with his guns and his training, the lock on the door.

Crap. She was getting soft.

She stuck her hand under the thin, lice infested pillow, felt her fingers touch paper and froze. She rolled over, pulling the blanket up more and slid the slip of paper out in one natural motion. Even if there was a video bug in the room it was unlikely anyone would see the motion. Unfortunately, there was no way she could read it in this light. She considered that for a moment then stuck it in her bra and got up.

The outhouse was cold as hell but there wasn’t anyone around on a rainy and nasty night like this. Once inside, fearful of the results from the stench of the place, she struck a match and read the brief note.

“Switch for Marina tomorrow night.”

Stuck to the paper was a small bit of plastic. Pealing it off she saw that it was a fake scar, identical to the one on Marina’s chin. Fucking identical down to the slight hook at the base.

The note was signed simply: J.

“Oh. My. Fucking. God.”

She realized there was no way she was going to be able to figure out which of the people in town the spymaster was posing as. But just having him nearby gave her that warm feeling again. It was that, as much as the fact that he was here, that had caused the exclamation.

She was not getting soft. Not.

She touched the match to the paper and it flared briefly, with very little light, then disappeared into bare ash. She rubbed her fingers together, waved the match out and dropped it between her legs.

The scar went into her bra. Right by her heart.

The point paused at the entrance of the defile and looked in cautiously.

The weather, to most people, would fall into the category of “sucks.” The clouds had dropped even more, filling the upland valley with fog mixed with rain, sleet and snow as if it couldn’t figure out which way it wanted to go.

To Mike it was perfection. It was damned hard to see fifty feet, much less miles, which meant easier for the teams to stay out of sight.

The terrain wasn’t bad, either. The clear uplands had been nervous making from the point of view of being spotted. And this side of the mountains was incredibly drier than just sixty miles away. The lowlands were mostly covered in tight, thorny thickets of scrub. Making their way through the tight-packed and dripping scrub had been a nightmare. Mike had figured about twice their movement rate and, with the sun well up, they were late to their rendezvous. But even that wasn’t bad; they’d spotted two Chechen patrols before they themselves were spotted and let them waft right by. Tight scrub was pretty scrub in his view.

Now to find out if anybody else was going to make the show. God only knew when Yosif’s team would make it. If any of them did. He’d half convinced himself Yosif couldn’t find his way across a paddock, much less over the mountains and through this maze.

The designated rendezvous point was a narrow ravine packed with rodedendron. The stuff was normal in upland areas like this but on this side of the mountains it was only found in narrow clefts like this where there was sufficient water.

The area was large enough to hide all three teams, away from noticeable trails and, of course, good concealment given the nature of the vegetation. The only question was whether the Chechens had thought the same thing.

The majority of the team was on the slope of the larger valley the ravine intersected. There was a small stream running down the ravine, it’s waters still free of ice, and a larger one, fed by the glacier they’d crossed, running down the valley. To get to the ravine they’d have to cross the river but that wasn’t the problem.

The point team, Ivan Shaynav and Mikhail Ferani, were cautiously observing the entrance from about fifty meters away. They apparently didn’t like what they were seeing. Mike, peering through the underbrush in the way, wasn’t sure what had them spooked.

Finally, Mikhail slithered forward on his belly to the juncture of the two streams and took up a position by a boulder. Back in his ghillie suit, over the heavy arctic wear they were all still encumbered by, he was hard enough for Mike to see. Probably any Chechen sentry wouldn’t have noticed him, yet.

Mike saw him start, though and then look around. Finally, clambering to his feet, Mikhail lifted one hand, middle-finger extended in a rude gesture directed across the river.

A figure in an identical ghillie suit stood up, right at the edge of the open area, and threw back the hood of the suit. Then Yosif Devlich waved and tossed a rope across the stream.

Fucking Yosif had beat them to the rendezvous. Mike couldn’t figure out why he’d ever been worried.

“Do we know the status on the Georgian mission?” the president asked. It was seven o’clock in Washington and about time for him to retire. Especially since he was planning on being up early. “And do we have Predators up?”

“We’ve got four on standby, Mr. President,” the National Security Advisor replied. “Two will take off at midnight and two more just before dawn. All four are CIA UCAVs with Hellfire missiles. Just in case they can be useful. We do not have a status on the teams at this time. We caught a glimpse of what was probably one of them on a satellite pass last night. But the next pass we’d lost them. There has been no special movement noted in the Chechen camps on the last two passes.”

“B-2 is on the way,” the Secretary of Defense added. “Flying light. Two special munitions.”

“Two?” the president asked, curiously.

“There is always a possibility that one will be a dud,” the SecDef pointed out. “Probably not, but… ”

“I don’t want to use even one,” the president said.

“Naturally,” the SecDef agreed. “But you will if you must.”

“If I must,” the president replied with a sigh. “Early morning, gentlemen. I want you all to get some sleep tonight.”

“And are you going to take your own advice?” the SecDef asked.

“As well as I can.”

“Whatcha got, Lydia?” Nielson asked.

The girl had asked to meet him in the command room and had arrived with a couple of documents and a flash stick. She stuck that in the room’s computer and brought up a mapping program that flashed the data on the wall.

Nielson was looking at intercepts. People had been transmitting and each of the transmissions was triangulated. There were probably more than were on the screen, the girls were constantly getting intercepts, but he was looking at quite a few already.

“I’m not sure what I have,” Lydia admitted. “It might be butterflies in my stomach from the baby. But we have been picking up a large number of slowly moving intercepts. They break down into two types, medium range radios and satellite phones. We, of course, don’t get all the satellite phones, especially at this range, but we are picking up most of the radio transmissions, we think.”

She keyed a command and most of the intercepts disappeared. Then, apparently in a time loop, they began reappearing. They seemed to march east to west across the map, staying mostly close to roads through the mountains between Russia and Azerbaijan that were effectively owned by the Chechens.

“What we don’t have is internals item one,” Lydia continued. “The transmissions are brief, frequency skipping and encrypted. That, in and of itself, is a data item. Whoever is transmitting has good communication security. There are seven satellite phones. There are about nine radios. They only transmit once to twice per day. They are color coded as you can see. We filtered for any that were fixed. Sat Phone 28, though, appears to communicate with Sat Phone 19, one of the ones pegged as Chechen Command, about once per day.”

Nielson fiddled with the controls for a moment then shrugged.

“Could you do something for me?” he asked. “Zoom in one one of the radios. Then follow it as it moves. Stop at each of the transmissions. I’ll need to see the previous transmission at each point. I’d like to see approximate road distance between each of the transmissions.”

He pulled out a pad of paper and watched as the girl expertly massaged the data out of the computer. Given that he’d been using computers for a few years and she had only been introduced to them about six months ago he should have been better than Lydia but there was no question who had the better tech knowledge. So he just watched. At each point he made a note and nodded for her to go on.

He looked at the pad when she was done then shook his head.

“Do it again,” he said. “Zoom in close on the terrain on each.”

After the third he nodded.

“Stop,” he said, pointing at the screen. “River crossing. The previous one was a road junction. The one before that a pass.”

“And that means?” Lydia asked.

“Phase points,” Nielson replied. “It’s a unit calling in as it passes each phase point in what looks very like a route march on foot. They are moving west, how far we can’t know. But the Pansiki is the obvious destination. The sat phone communicating to headquarters is going to be the commander of the overall unit. Probably he checks in each day to give overall progress reports. But it’s what we don’t know that is important.”

“Which is?” Lydia asked.

“How big the total unit is and where, exactly, they are going. Send a priority request through to Pierson for a satellite pass on anything they have. And send this package on to Colonel Chechnik along with my analysis. See if the Russians have anything. Good job. And, no, it wasn’t the pregnancy hormones; I’ve got the same butterflies.”

Chechnik looked at the communique and swore. That was confirmation, not that he really needed it; Dussam had never been wrong.

He still knew the answer, but he typed up a short report and sent it to the priority attention of the President.

Then he sent a reply to the Keldara: The Russian Intelligence Service had no knowledge of a Chechen movement through that region.

In other words, time to lie.

“You made good time,” Mike muttered, stripping off the arctic parka and wiping his face.

Yosif, Sawn and Mike were huddled under a poncho “hooch”, a temporary shelter made by stringing the poncho up to the rodedendrons, having a command huddle. Sawn was mostly out of the climbing gear while Mike was still working on his.

“Thank you, Kildar,” Yosif replied, grinning slightly. “But I think we had the easier route, yes? Nonetheless, Jitka broke a leg dropping in a small crevasse. I left him and Jonal behind, as ordered. They should be fine; plenty to eat and fuel and well hidden. We found a cave near the head of the ravine. Our excess gear is cached there. Perhaps we can retrieve it sometime.”

“Not until the Georgians or the Russians or somebody combs the Chechens out of these hills,” Mike said.

“We spotted two of their patrols since we left the mountains,” Sawn noted. All three of them had their voices pitched low, but not whispering. A whisper would carry further. However, one reason Mike had picked the spot was that the stream would tend to cover the inevitable sound of everyone getting out of the damned arctic gear and into something marginally more comfortable. It would also conceal the sound of quiet conversation.

He debated whether to strip out of the long johns, it was still cold as hell, and decided to leave them on. They were going to be here til dark and might as well be marginally comfortable.

“Get Sawn a guide to the cave,” Mike continued. “Sawn, cache your gear and then get your guys bedded down. This might be the last rest they get for a while.”

“Will do, Kildar,” Sawn said, shrugging into his combat fleece.

“No sign of Padrek?” Mike asked.

“Not… ” Yosif replied as a light bird call sounded through the trees. “Not until just now… ”

Adams watched as the point team entered the rendezvous point, a rodedendron choked pile of boulders. They hadn’t seen hide nor hair of anyone on their way down the mountains. In fact, they hadn’t seen sign of anyone in days. It was like the Keldara were the only people in the universe at the moment. Which was just the way he liked it.

The point came back in view for a moment and waved, indicating the area was unoccupied. Which was good in one way and bad in another. It was nearly noon, the sun well up, and he had hoped the other teams had beaten them in.

He moved out with the group, scanning the area for signs of life. So far, so good. He had four hours to see who was going to make the show. Then it was game time.

Katya led Marina back into the room, ignoring the looks of the men. She’d taken to keeping her head down, her hood pulled up, so that there was less to look at. But the Russian guards hadn’t had much in the way of women lately and had been guarding Marina for a couple of weeks. They had to be jacking off on a regular basis.

As always she led the girl to the bed for the evening. This evening though, she slid the blindfold off and held up her finger to her lips.

Marina blinked at the dim light in the room. The flickering kerosene lamp was probably the first light she’d seen in weeks. She looked frightened, too. She had to know that if they were caught there would be punishment. And it was almost time for Kurt’s evening check.

Katya gestured for her to take off her clothes and began stripping herself, fast. She’d checked, carefully, to make sure there were no video pickups in the room. As long as they weren’t heard they could get away with the switch.

Marina’s eyes widened in fear again and Katya paused and shook her head. She gestured to herself then the bed. Then she gestured to Marina and outside. Finally she leaned forward to the girl’s ear.

“Pull the hood up. Keep your head down. When you leave, turn right. Down the street three houses is a long building. Almost empty but some beds. Go in there and sit on the bed that has a blanket on it. Someone will come for you. Now strip and take my clothes.”

Marina pulled back and looked at her wide-eyed again then started to strip, fast.

The two changed clothes and, at the last moment, Katya applied the fake scar. She didn’t know what glue J had used but it still stuck to her chin. She hadn’t applied make-up on purpose. For one thing, Marina didn’t have any and for another she was afraid the scar wouldn’t hold if she did.

When both were changed she got in the bed, put on the blindfold and held her hands up to be shackled.

Marina had been tied up enough but she’d never done it. With some coaching, conducted in gestures, she managed to get the shackles on, tight but not too tight. Then she covered Katya with the blanket and left.

There was a chance that Kurt would notice the deception, but slight. He would expect to see the girl in the bed, as she always was.

Katya lay there, unmoving, as the girl left. There was no outcry so presumably she made it out of the building. Now to see if that blond killer would notice the exchange. If so she put her life expectancy as slightly lower than a snowflake in a fire. But that was the nature of the job. If she wanted safe she should have stayed in the caravanserai.

Marina kept her head down the whole way to the building. She had been in the town for two weeks and never seen it but she didn’t look around. What she did know was the sounds and they were normal. God keep that they stayed normal. This had been a nightmare. All she knew was that the men wanted her father to do something and that he had been cooperating. Given what he did for a living she could imagine what that might be.

She stopped at the door of the building she thought the whore, or the girl who acted the whore, meant. Opening it she saw that it was filled with beds and otherwise nearly empty. One had a blanket on it and she went over and sat down on it.

She wasn’t sure what to feel. She wasn’t tied up anymore but she also wasn’t free. There was no way she could get out of the town on her own. All she could do was hope. But it was more hope than she had had in weeks.

It was a seeming eternity before the door opened and a hugely fat man came in. She recalled that wheezing breath from when the new whore had been brought to the house. He was the girl’s pimp. Her pimp, now, for as long as she could pull off the deception.

“You’ve been sold,” the man said, wheezingly. “And the German says that you aren’t needed anymore. So come along.”

“Yes, sir,” Marina said, keeping her head down.

She followed the man out of the building to a nearly deserted café. There were only five men in the room, one a large, powerful looking man with the most evil face she had ever seen.

“This is the girl I told you about,” Yaroslav said, settling into an overstressed chair. “She is beautiful, no? Ten thousand euros.”

“I can barely see her face and nothing of her body,” the man replied. “A thousand.”

“It is a cold, wet night and I am tired,” Yaroslav said. “Nine thousand or I take her back.”

The haggling was brief. They settled at six thousand.

“No profit for me but I finally have these damned women off my hands,” Yaroslav sighed, taking the money. “I think it is time to find a better place for business.”

“Wherever you go you seem to find women dropped on you,” the man said, standing up and taking Marina by the wrist. “If you try to run, bitch, I will pound you into a pulp.”

“I won’t run,” Marina promised. Had she been released from the men holding her only to be sold as a whore? Was that why the girl had changed with her? But, if so, where had that fake scar come from.