Site Kilo-29
Winter, 1993
Day Three-Night
Richardson had been my friend. We'd drank together, fought with other people together, hit on the same girls and sometimes fucked the same girls after the other one was done with her. We both like 'fun girls' and the same type of girl. Well, he liked blondes with thick bodies and I liked women. He'd been part of the crew that had been sent to the barracks to clean it up and repair it after that first winter, and had been trapped there when it turned ugly. He's been there when they'd sent us back after the second winter, and both times he'd stood shoulder to shoulder with us.
The spring of 1990 he'd been PCS'd, left the unit, and both of us had figured he'd escaped Tandy by getting out of the hell hole that was 2/19th. He'd been sent to Johnston Atoll, sunny and warm and not too far from Hawaii, and rumor control said you could grab the weekly mail flight if there was space and hitch a ride to spend the weekend at Pearl Harbor.
He'd been close to Stokes, sent her pictures when he got there, and Stokes had taken a flight to Hawaii out to be there when Richardson had gotten married in June of that year to a pretty blond Navy girl.
All of us, and the crew he'd worked with that was still in 2/19th, had flown out to the States less than 2 weeks later. His wife had been crossing the street when a fucking drunk plowed her with a car. She'd taken six hours to die.
Stokes had held him for hours while he cried. I'd goaded him into punching me in the face, and we'd rolled around fighting as he took out his rage at everything that life had taken from him on me. Afterwards Stokes had held him more, and he and I and the other boys had sat in the darkness after the girls went to bed while he talked quietly in the dark.
It was ritual we'd developed in 2/19th.
Now he was dead, sitting in the driver's seat of my vehicle, dead and looking like he'd gone missing in the winter and we'd just found him in the spring.
He looked like Tandy had when we'd found him.
If he'd been strangled.
And disemboweled.
Nancy was staring silently, muscles rippling along her jaw as she clenched her teeth, her eyes glittered with unshed tears but I could tell how angry she was by her stance.
You don't fuck someone for 4 years and not know them.
Bomber stood there, clenching his fists, his teeth bared in a vicious snarl. He was angry as hell, in a killing mood, staring at his friend sitting dead in the driver's seat of the Gypsy Wagon.
Taggart stood next to Bomber, weeping softly, her hands clenched and up under her chin as she stared at one of her few friends.
"Goddamn it." I snarled, pulling the dogtags free of Richardson's grip and shoving them in my pocket. I reached out, digging in Richardson's shirt, and pulling the dogtags free. The chain broke with a snap, and I pushed them into my pocket with the other dogtags I was carrying.
"Please, be gentle with him, please." Nancy said softly.
Kincaid looked right at Nancy, then shook his head like he was shaking off a punch.
"We need to get him out of there, we can't leave him like that." Kincaid said.
"Shads, in the back right pocket of my ruck there's a poncho, will you get it?" I asked, reaching out and touching Richardson's face.
His wife had had a child before they got married, and now the little blond girl, with sun browned skin, who Stokes had showed me pictures of, was all alone.
Another victim.
I could feel Shads digging my poncho out. He came around in front of me, letting it drop out of the way I'd rolled it up after folding it tightly.
"Kincaid, help me with him." I said.
"You knew him, didn't you?" Donaldson asked softly. He pulled a cravat out of his pocket and stepped forward. "Let me, Sergeant. Let us handle it."
I stepped back, almost falling backwards because of the snow. I was shivering in the cold, but didn't care. Donaldson folded the cravat and tied it across Richardson's face, obscuring the empty eyesockets and missing nose. Shads laid the poncho on the snow, and while I watched it Kincaid and Donaldson gently pulled Richardson out of the Gypsy Wagon and laid him on the poncho.
It was then I saw the bullet wound in his leg, and I knew why I hadn't been able to tell Agent Killain had been lying. Someone had shot him in the leg, and left him where Tandy could get him.
Nancy knelt down next to him, reaching out and touching the cravat. "Oh, Richie." She said, her voice heartbroken. "Oh, Katie." Richardson's daughter.
Taggart knelt in the snow, embracing the dead man. "I'm so sorry, baby." Out of all of us, her voice was the most expressive of us, and the loss and pain in her voice almost drove me to my knees. "I thought you were safe, baby."
Bomber leaned over and touched Richardson's chest, over where the US ARMY was half ripped away. "Goodbye, brother." He straightened up and stared at me. "That's another of you guys." He chuckled, although there was no humor in the sound. "It's starting to get creepy."
Taggart leaned stood up, moving up behind Shads and leaned forward. Her lips were almost touching his ear as she stood on her tiptoes. I could see her lips move as she whispered in the young man's ear, her tear filled eyes holding mine. Shads' nostrils flared and I could see his pupils dilate. She smiled as she stepped back and walked off into the darkness.
Bomber stepped up to Kincaid, reaching out and touching the other man's chest. "You're one of us, now, K-Bar." He turned and walked away, following Taggart.
Nancy moved up to me, leaning up and brushing her lips across mine, then moved to stand in front of Donaldson. "Keep him stable, keep him from going full apeshit on everything." She leaned forward and brushed her lips across his cheek. "Bring him home to us, Donaldson, bring him home to his wife and me." She kissed his other cheek. "Do not let him go overboard, he will use nuclear weapons to decon this site." She moved by him, her shoulder passing through his.
She walked away, looking over her shoulder and smiling at me before she disappeared in the darkness.
"Come home to me, bunny." Heather's voice came from behind me, and I felt her lips brush the flat spot on the back of my skull. "Come home to us."
My headache vanished.
"Do you want to say anything, Sergeant?" Shads asked. I nodded, clenching my fists and struggling to push back the anger far enough to think.
"Long way from that mountain, brother, and you still got taken. I'm sorry." I said quietly, staring at Richardson. "I did Agent Killain, Richie, I sent her off the hard way, and as soon as I get a chance, I'll drink you off properly. Sleep easy, brother. First Twenty all the way."
I stepped back, closing my eyes. Richardson had been one of the people who had kept me alive when my appendix ruptured and I went septic. He'd kidnapped Heather from her barracks room the night before the wedding, helping to shove her in the bag and carry her to where the girls had been waiting, then gone on to help kidnap me for my last night as an unmarried man.
And now he was gone.
It hurt, somewhere inside me, a small part that was smothered by the rage boiling up in me.
"I didn't know you, man, but you didn't deserve this, not here." Shads said. "Rest in peace."
"I'll get your boy out of here. If you had a family, I make sure they know you didn't go down like a pussy." Kincaid told him. "Rest in peace, man."
"A man died down here, a man known by one of us, loved by one of us. There is no shame in a man having love in him for another man, for a brother. His death leaves a hole in the hearts of those who loved him, but we are soldiers, and his death does not lessen us. It strengthens us, strengthens our resolve, and the knowledge that he went to his death with honor and bravery serves as an example that though we may die, as soldiers, it is never in vain." Donaldson said, his voice smooth and rolling. "Now we consign him to his eternal rest, and though we carry on without him, his spirit fights on with us. Your death, Richardson, has not gone unnoticed and will not be forgotten, by us. Go unto the embrace of the Lord thy God, and await for us when we too enter his arms and glory. Amen."
"Amen." I choked. Kincaid and Shads joined me, and Shads crossed himself.
I turned away, and Shads covered Richardson with the poncho.
"Let's put him in the cab of that truck." Donaldson said. "Kincaid, help me out, Shads, keep watch and keep an eye on Sergeant Ant."
I tuned it out as the two men lifted my dead friend up, wrapped in the shitty poncho. I wished I had a bodybag in the back of my Humvee, and I mental note to get one from the crates of them I'd seen in storage. The thought of him in that truck, with his daughter playing at his mother's house, hurt something inside of me. Something I wasn't used to feeling.
I went to the back of the Humvee, dropping the tailgate and brushing the snow out of the way. The temperature was still dropping as I pulled the ammo box over and stared at it.
It normally held M1A1 main gun rounds, but those were long gone. Instead I had it packed with things that might be useful. This one and the second one I pulled forward was full of something special.
Claymore land mines, bouncing Betty's, and det cord.
I pulled them out, opening the OD green canvas bags they were in, pulling them out, and inspecting them briefly before setting them on their canvas bags. The inspections only took seconds, I'd inspected thousands of them over the years, knew how to check for cracks along the seams or warped fuse wells, decayed stand prongs, and a thump with a knuckle told me if the epoxy resin ball bearing matrix had come undead from the explosive charge. One of the Betty's had a line of corrosion around the base, but it still was field usable. I'd set it at condition code H if I was just doing normal inspections, slating it for training use or destruction, but I needed it, and the thin line didn't breach the casing.
The sounds behind me, of the door of a truck being pulled open, of Kincaid grunting, told me that they were doing what I was pretending what was happening. I pushed the sounds away, and pulled up another box, opening it and starting to stack the pre-loaded magazines beside it.
We'd need ammo, grenades, mines, and other fun tricks. Toothpick's team was going to be at the excursion point within hours, and someone should set up a welcome committee for them.
A goddamn CIA hit team. They were relics, like me, of a time when there was no limits to the lengths you could go to fight communism. At least in their minds. I drew the line at murdering civilians. I might have been a "total war troop", but you've saved nothing but ashes and bodies if you destroyed the village to save it. I'd never seen a CIA hit team that was worth the powder to blow them to hell. In my eyes, they were scum, bullies who hid behind National Security and an agency that was willing to use American civilians as test subjects.
They saw the military as expendable assets.
I saw them as walking corpses.
Bush, and now Clinton, promised a "kinder, gentler" America, and I wondered how that could be if men like Toothpick weren't "retired" and either pensioned or retired the way Toothpick and his buddies seemed to be retiring others.
I patted one of the Claymores.
There's a retirement package, right there, baby.
I probably had one like it waiting on me.
Kincaid, Shads, and Donaldson came up and stared at the gear.
"Damn, Sergeant, how much crap do you have in this truck?" Kincaid asked.
"Enough to arm a crew for an extended engagement." I told them. I moved around to the cab, folding opening the back door and pulling the stacks of duffelbags and MRE boxes out of it until I revealed two ammo boxes on the seats. I pulled them both out, stacked them, and carried them to the back.
The pain in my shoulder just made me more angry.
When I revealed what was inside the box, Kincaid whistled. "You got fuel for my baby in there, Sergeant?"
"Nope, just for these." I told him, waving my hand at the box.
Shads reached in the box and stripped the foil packing off of one of the object, revealing an M-249 SAW. Kincaid whistled again.
"Wipe it down, there's cravats in the 5.56 can, ammo in the crate right there." I told them, pointing at the boxes.
"Where did you get all this stuff?" Donaldson asked, picking up one of the two M-60's in the box.
"Decommission sites. My boss knows I've got it, he just chalks it up to paranoia." I shrugged. "Better to have too much and have to turn it in later than not have what you need when you need it."
"You don't have a fifty in there, do you, Sergeant?" Shads asked, opening the can and pulling a cravat out of it. It was stained with grease, but clean.
"Two, on the back seat floorboards, with tripods. and six boxes of ammunition." I pulled another box forward and opened it, revealing storage canisters with frag grenades in then. "I've also got a half-dozen AT-4's and a pair of Stinger missiles and one launcher."
I started peeling the canister apart and dropping the grenades in the box.
"Why this much firepower?" Shads asked, wiping down the weapon.
...fall back to the village, Bomber, Picks, set up the Claymores, they'll come at us again...
...almost out of ammo, Ant...
...divvy up the magazines, I'll give up my rifle ammo and stick to my pistol, destroy that SAW and consolidate the ammo, wire up Humvee-7 and Humvee-4 to blow in place, leave the fifties on it, Nagle, set the triggers as the doors...
...Sir, how long till extraction, they're getting ready to come at us again...
...Extract came under heavy fire by ZSU's, gentlemen, they're pulling back to get fire support, revised ETA is two hours...
...we hold here. Gentlemen, prepare to defend yourselves...
...2/19th...
...FINISH THE FIGHT!...
"Didn't have it once when I needed it." I told them, shaking off the memory.
The snow was still in the way, and slogging through it was getting to be a pain in the ass. Plus, my feet were cold.
"Let's get back to the others. Shads, you drive." I told them, walking out of the circle of snow. Shads nodded and got in the vehicle, not showing any hesitation at sitting where we'd found a dead man. The vehicle fired right up, and Shads threw it into drive, letting it idle forward.
"What's the plan now, Sergeant?" Donaldson asked me, moving up next to me. His weapon was slung, the M-60 in his hands. He saw me glance at it. "Qualified Expert in it, Sergeant."
"Good, I can't shoot for shit with it." I told him.
"Not too good with a rifle, either, are you?" He asked.
I chuckled. "No, not really. More than an expert shot with the M-203 and on the post shooting team with pistols."
"And hell on wheels with a knife." Kincaid said, coming up next to me. He had his rifle but hadn't bothered taking off his flamethrower. He slapped the ejector. "We gonna pick up ammo for my baby?"
"Hell yeah." I smiled. "Nothing puts the fear of God into people like a flamethrower."
"So you've got a plan." Donaldson said.
"We're going to prepare a welcoming party for the CIA at the egress point." I told him. "We'll fill in the Major, arm up, hit the armory to reload K-Bar over there,"
"K-Bar? I like that." Kincaid said.
I kept going like he hadn't interrupted. "Get him refueled, help the Major and his men fortify their position, then head down to the egress point and booby trap the fuck out of the entrance."
"Then kill them all?" Kincaid asked.
I thought for a moment. "No. We'll give them a warning, but if they so much as blink wrong, we fucking kill them. No mercy."
"I like this plan." Kincaid grinned.
"Then what?" Donaldson asked. "What's your plan for the site?"
"Full sweep and clear. Take control of it, determine whether or not it can repurposed, salvaged, or if it's just blow in place." I told him.
"That's the part we seem to have trouble with." Kincaid interjected.
"Once we can get the doors open, we'll call in for another team, or blow it in place." I finished.
"Sounds like plan, Sergeant." Donaldson said.
"Let's hope it works, Corporal." I told him. "When we get there, pick five men, I want eight of you. I'd rather have a full team of 12, but we'll stick with 8."
"Will do, Sergeant." Donaldson told me.
The others were in sight, pulling the HEMMITs out of the motorpool and out the door to park in the hallway.
"Let's fucking do this." Kincaid said.
He pretty much said it all.