Gas & Blood (Damned of the 2/19th Novella) - Rough Draft Finished

Working Together

"What's your opinion?" He asked me.

"They're still rolling the new T80's off the lines, this is a mixed bag, but they're deploying T-80's to East Germany, which means they're reacting to the new M1A1's as well as building up armored forces," I told him, panning the binoculars, "I can see multiple sight systems, different types of reactive armor. Take that hexagonal pattern, that's not very common, but we started seeing it a year ago when that GRU officer brought in some tanks during Copper Window."

One thing I was noticing was that the tanks were not being driven with the practiced smoothness that I'd seen the tankers from 168th move their vehicles. While I watched one bumped another, swerved wildly, turned a sharp 90 degrees, and slammed into another one.

"That's why you shouldn't use dumbass conscripts, Ivan," I muttered, watching as the tank suddenly backed up and slammed into another one. I saw armor shard away and a track jump. The driver panicked and I watched the tank start to do tight donuts as the naked roadwheels tore into the grass.

"What?" Timmons asked. "Those are Soviet Army regulars."

"Yeah," I snorted, watching as the tanks swerved around the spinning one, two more colliding. "Christ, it's like monkeys fucking a football." I panned over to their concrete building, made with shitty cured non-rebar reinforced poured concrete. There was a guy in a Soviet uniform, with no markings, hustling over to the tank that was spinning and waving his arms.

"Just wait," I told Timmons. "Watch what's about to happen."

"What?" He asked.

"Just watch," I said. The unmarked guy had gotten the tank to stop and was yelling. After a minute someone climbed out. He moved in front of the unmarked guy that thought he was sneaky by not wearing any insignia.

"What..."

The GRU officer shot the tank driver in the head and began to walk away.

"Holy shit," Timmons said.

The GRU officer stalked back to the concrete building while two guys got out of the damaged tank, picked up the dead man, and carried him over to the tank. They slung him onto the front, then climbed up and back into the armored vehicle.

"Bet your file didn't mention that even the Soviet troops consider that guy a psychotic," I said, swinging back to watch the concrete building again. "He thinks it's World War Two."

"We don't know much about him, not as much as we'd like," Timmons admitted.

I watched him argue with my Soviet Army counterpart that normally manned the outpost across from us. I could tell the 'East German' soldier was angry. The big blond guy I was used to dealing with stood at least a head taller than the other man, but something the GRU guy said made the guy I was used to dealing with step back, holding his hands up and empty.

"I know a lot," I told Timmons, watching the other man make a gesture that was particularly insulting in Russia. "Stillwater and I have been putting together an intel packet on that son of a bitch for the last year."

"Did you forward it?" He asked.

I laughed at that as the GRU officer started strutting around, one hand on his pistol. I hated that son of a bitch so badly it was everything I could do to not lift up my rifle and put one through his head. Sure, it was over a thousand meters, and the drop would be serious, and I'd probably miss, but by all of Aine's strange gods I wanted to put a bullet in that psycho's skull.

"Nobody wants to hear the opinions of a couple of Army dipshits," I chuckled.

Timmons was silent for a long moment. "I'd like to."