Atlas Reloaded - Book Five of the Damned of the 2/19th

Blood Makes the Grass Grow

There was at least four, maybe five, men crossing into the 1K Zone that I could see through my shitty NVG's. My vision was shot through with static and I reminded myself to pull a new set out of War Stocks if I had to. They weren't the ones from last winter, those had been broken and left in the ice and dark and cold.

"Here they come," I said, bumping my butt backwards to push myself off the side of the Gypsy Wagon. "Remember, none of you say jack or shit. Let me do all the talking. Just stand there and look menacing."

"Why are we bringing the chick?" One of the Rangers asked.

"Because she could pull your arms off and not break a sweat," I said. "She's an eskrima student, one of the best our instructors have seen in a long time. She could probably beat my ass if I couldn't break her first."

"I like fighting in The Pit," Cromwell said softly. "Foster's better than me, though."

"He doesn't count," I grinned, jumping down into the concrete blast ditch.

Everyone else landed behind me as I was climbing up the other side.

"Isn't that your radio man?" The Major asked as we approached the double fence. I nodded. "Why doesn't he count?"

"He's Foster. You'll figure it out," I told him.

"He's a sociopath," Cromwell said as I undid the twist-ties holding the fence together in a particular spot. "His tells are all confusing and mixed up."

"Wait, for real? He's a real crazy person?" The Major asked.

"Clinical sociopath," I clarified. "He knows right from wrong, his emotions test as muted or missing. You can tell if you interact with him for long. He's the perfect radioman."

I undid the ties on the second fence. "All right, nobody else talk. I don't care what's said, you don't react. I know all three of you speak Russian, but don't let that fact show on your face. Pretend you're on the parade ground."

We were silent as we cross the spring grass, both groups of us heading to the middle of the 1K Zone. A demilitarized strip of land between East & West Germany that was supposed to keep NATO and the Warsaw Pact from bumping heads over the border.

Except part of Atlas was in the 1K Zone and the Soviet Union claimed the 1K Zone started about a mile to the west of Atlas.

I scanned the group as soon as I could see them as clearly as my NVG's would let me. Seven men, three of them big bruisers that looked like they belonged in a steel mill somewhere doing crank and beating hookers, the tall lean Spetz officer I'd dealt with for almost a year, a lean short guy with the face of a chicken killing coyote, and two guys I didn't recognize, both with GRU markings. The big thugs were holding their weapons in such a way that they weren't pointing them at us but they weren't exactly pointing them away from us either.

I'd given the Rangers and Cromwell strict orders to keep the end of the barrel of their weapons pointed at the ground.

The rumbling of their vehicles and generators picked up volume. It shouldn't have surprised me that the Soviet Union wouldn't bother with mufflers, but some part of me still was.

Their noise discipline was shit.

As I got closer I recognized each of them from the DIA packets. Little-Bit had taken their pictures through her scope, Bomber had couriered them to Darmstadt, and the DIA had sent me the data they had on the men in front of me.

Three walking corpses who didn't know it yet, a Spetsnaz Major with experience in Afghanistan and Vietnam, a GRU Captain with experience in Afghanistan who'd been out here since late last summer, a KGB Captain with no experience outside the Kremlin, and a GRU Colonel with no experience outside of political ass licking and dick sucking. The KGB thug and the GRU Colonel were new additions to the Major's little group of fucktards.