Site Kilo-29
Winter-1993
Day Three-Night
Donaldson was laying next to me, behind a low pallet of fertilizer, his helmet resting against the top of the feeder tray for the M-60. Like me, he was probably half-dozing, waiting for the CIA direct action team to arrive.
I'd hallucinated the HEMMITs, and Donaldson had insisted I take my medication once I'd told my now reenforced squad how to set up the welcoming gifts at the egress tunnel. Kincaid was fully refueled, and the Gypsy Wagon had another five sets of tanks in the back of it where it was sitting on the heavy steel grate that would pull it back up the main mechanics area.
The Major had sent a squad with us to loot the armory so his men had weapons and ammunition. He'd decided on 3 CUC-V's and a 5-ton, to cut down on the number of vulnerable vehicles. He planned on grabbing snow tires, and one of his meat-heads had located the snow-plow blade in one of the storage rooms off the maintenance section. It meant that he'd have to get one of the forklifts up and running, he'd decided against the pallet-jack, knowing his men were exhausted, and that exhausted men made mistakes. He'd had them rotate sleep shits when we left.
We'd driven the Gypsy Wagon into the Event Tunnels, heading to the egress point, and from there hauled the equipment we'd planned on using. Kincaid escorted the two men who took the Gypsy Wagon back to the steel grate elevator, and double timed them back.
It was snowing in the hallway, the same as it was in the cavern we were currently waiting in.
The cavern was huge, as wide as a football field, at least twice as long, the ceiling easily fifty feet high in the middle of the slow vaulted ceiling. It was full of temporary buildings, fertilizer, farming vehicles circa 1950's to 1060's, sacks of seed and feed, and everything you'd need to start a couple of farms.
The egress point had been opened manually, and was still stuck open. Twenty feet high, thirty feet wide, and over a hundred feet deep. A heavy shock absorber, drop grill, heavy duty doors, recessed lights, everything it needed to survive a near hit.
I hadn't checked outside.
I was sort of awake, but dreaming of years gone by. While it snowed around me I was dreaming about 2/19th again. In my dream I was laying on Nancy's bed while she was sitting on it, my head in her lap while she held my hand and had her other hand on my forehead.
"How's the shoulder?" She was asking me.
"Hurts." I told her. I was drowsy from the sunlight coming in the window and bathing the bed and the painkillers rushing through my system. I ignored the pain and reached up to cup her cheek with my right hand. "Love you, Nancy."
"I know." She said, running one finger down the side of my face. She sighed. "Ant, you can't keep doing this."
"It's OK." I told her, dropping one hand to cup her breast.
"No, it's not." She sighed. "You had surgery, what, a week ago?"
"Yeah." I squeezed gently.
"You're supposed to get 15 or 30 days convalescent leave." She shook her head. "It's a week, and you've been on light duty since they released you from the hospital." She put her hand on my cheek. "Ant, it isn't right."
"Mission essential." I quoted. "Who else is going to run the point?"
"Jackson had it in hand. We were just taking inventory." She touched my face and I smiled. She tapped one of my capped front teeth with her fingernail. "You should be somewhere healing up."
"It doesn't matter." I told her. I smiled at her, feeling a little hazy. I'd taken my pain killers about a half-hour before lunch, and we'd been in Nancy's room about 15 minutes, the painkillers kicking in. "I'm just a waste anyway. It doesn't matter."
Irritation flashed across her face, quickly vanishing. "Honey, you matter to me, you matter to John, you manage to your whole crew."
"Yeah, but I'm just a waste, Nancy. Better I go down than someone who's actually worth a shit." I let go of her breast and folded my arms over my chest, sighing and closing my eyes. "I'm not worth a damn, never will be."
Her fingers kept stroking the side of my face. "Honey, stop, please."
"Face it, Nancy, I'm just a boy. Boys die when they blow the bugles, boys hold the line while everyone else falls back, boys stand and deliver." I sighed with pleasure as the warmth moved to tingling. "It doesn't really matter, Nancy, no matter what anyone says. I know what I am."
"What would your Father say?" She asked me. We'd had this argument before, and would have it again and again. "Is that all your Father is?"
I shook my head slightly. "No. He's better than I am, like you. Like John. Like Jackson." I kind of huddled up without really moving. "Face it, Nancy, I'm just born to die in some ditch somewhere. All I can hope to do is make it expensive."
I was slipping deeper, starting to doze, and I yawned. It was silent for a long time, and just as a dream started to form I heard her whisper from far away "I love you, Fifty Foot."
Another voice mingled with hers. Heather. "I love you too, Fifty Foot."
I jerked awake, staring through the snowflakes. I could still feel Nancy's touch on my skin, still hear Heather's voice.
There were shapes moving in the snow, coming out of the tunnel. I counted six right off the bat and sighed, kicking Donaldson's boot to wake him up. Donaldson jerked, his hands moving back to the ready position on the M-60.
"You might want to stop right there before you hit a wire and blow yourselves in half." I called out, pitching my voice to be heard over the wind.
"You're already inside the pipe, and if you don't put your hands in the air, we'll blow you to fucking dog food." I called out, watching them freeze in place. I held the clacker in my right hand, the wire trailing behind me.
The shapes had resolved into men, my NVG's throwing them into sharp focus. There was nine of them, all wearing black and fake military gear, carrying rifles.
"Hit a flare, K-Bar!" I called out.
NVG-7's had flare-compensation built into them. The early ones didn't, and a flare would overload them for a few seconds, but the newer ones went blank for a half a second. The illumination round kicked off, bathing the whole area in stark magnesium white. The NVG's compensated in less than a second, but everything was bright green and I could tell from the distortion at the left hand side of my vision that the illumination round was on the edge of overloading them.
"You're bracketed by mines, and we've got an interlocking..." I started.
One of them turned, aiming his weapon at my voice, and I ducked back behind the fertilizer without bothering to finish my sentence or pause for a second.
"Light 'em up!" I yelled.
The mines had been set in 3 layers, the first rounds was angled at the mouth of the tunnel, the second set was ten paces back, angled to cover the front of the tunnel as well as the arc in front of it. The last layer was interlocked blast fields that would cover the entire area and fifty feet in front of them.
The clacker's tension popped and I snapped the lever down three times out of habit, knowing there was no way for the CIA team to get out of the carefully prepared killing field I'd set up.
I'd used almost the same setup in Kuwait, Africa, and other places.
I squeezed quickly, clacking it another three times, before dropping it and grabbing at my rifle.
Nothing happened.
I never relied on a single wire, I always ran two more, running them in parallel so that if one wire didn't work the others would fire the charges. It was a trick that I'd learned in 2/19th during Wed. training. Hell, we even wired them that way at the range.
The mines just sat there.
A low liquid chuckle slithered through the snow to run icy fingers down my spine.
"K-Bar, kick 'em off, then fall back to point Bravo!" I yelled. "Shads, make sure the boys fall back."
Sirens kicked on, loud klaxons that I'd only heard one other time inside the facility. I'd heard it in others, though, and knew what it meant.
The tunnel was closing, the heavy outside and inner doors, the shock absorber would be rolling into place to completely fill the tunnel. In less than sixty second the mountain would be completely sealed up again.
Who the fuck had triggered the door controls? They'd been hotwired, the casing pulled open and a bypass run. How in the hell had the doors closed?
Someone started screaming, Donaldson's M-60 cut loose, the heavy chugging distinctive from the SAW or a fifty, and another chuckle wound its way through the air.
It'd all gone to crap in less than ten seconds.
"Let's go, fall back to Bravo." I told Donaldson, smacking the back of his helmet before he'd pull through a quarter of the belt.
"I can't see them." He told me.
"Let's go." I told him. He grabbed the 60 and followed me as I scrambled up and headed back toward where we'd decided point bravo was. We hustled past the two temporary buildings that had already been set up.
Gunfire sounded behind us and a bullet cracked by our heads as we put the buildings between us and the egress point, hustling for the arc of construction vehicles that we'd piled fertilizer bags around and used to block the gaps between the vehicles.
There was a loud boom, then a muffled thud that I knew was the shock absorber dropping into position. The egress point was closed.
"United States Army Special Forces, drop your weapons!" sounded out.
"Fuck you, liar!" I tossed over my shoulder, still running. I hurdled over the fertilizer bags, stumbling and going down, landing on my bad shoulder and screaming in pain as the bruised flesh took the impact and the whole joint compressed, already punished nerves squeezed. Something inside crunched.
The klaxons cut out.
"Stand down, that's a lawful order!" Came from the snow.
That dark chuckle floated through the snow.
"Get on your knees, hands behind your head!" sounded from somewhere toward the egress tunnel.
I looked at Donaldson, who'd outsprinted me, who was in the middle of taking a quick headcount.
"Get down! Not another step!" rang out.
Donaldson looked at me and gave me the thumbs up.
We were all accounted for, who the fuck were they yelling at.
"Stop right there!" the same voice.
"Get on the stick. Assigned positions. Move it." Donaldson hissed out. Shads, Kincaid, and the meat-heads all nodded, scrambling to the four gaps between vehicles. I dropped down next to Donaldson and one of the meat-heads that Dee had assigned to carry ammo for the pig as well as the loader bag.
"No closer, get down, I won't warn you again!" Sounded out, same voice.
"Who the fuck are they yelling at?" The meat-head asked. I shook my head.
"I hope I'm wrong." I said.
"Morris, I got one!" Someone called out.
"Oh, shit." Donaldson breathed.
"Fall back, point Charlie, he's here." I said. Donaldson nodded. "Lead the way, Corporal, I'll pull drag."
"You heard the Sergeant, Jacobs, let's go." Donaldson said, getting up and pulling the 60 with him.
"I said get down!" sounded out. "What the fuck!" the voice turned into a scream.
"That's our cue, let's get the fuck out of here." Kinciad said. He'd been waiting at point bravo, in his armored J-Suit and armed with his flamethrower.
The screaming was going up in volume, turning bubbly.
"Hang on, Bellings, we're coming!" Someone called out.
Kincaid led the way, jogging in the suit. I'd seen him put it on, he'd lost at least 10 pounds while he wore it the last time, and I'd shown him how to fill and use the drinking system and made him eat two MRE's. He'd be burning calories like mad.
There was another chuckle as I swapped the wires out off the clacker and hooked up the Claymores at the access points for our little fallback position.
If it had just been the CIA guys we would have stayed and fought, but with Tandy out there in the snow, we didn't stand a chance. We had to get somewhere else, somewhere he couldn't just materialize out of the snow to take us one at a time.
...stumbling and staggering through the snow, heading for lower post...
...Tandy coming out of the snow, taking two of us as we headed for safety we might no make it to...
...not caring that we might not make it, just wanting it to all be over...
One hundred seventy-five yards didn't sound like much. Hell, that was short/medium range for a rifle. Through the snow and dark, even with NVG's, Kincaid couldn't hustle too fast, even though he was doing his best, weighed down by the J-Suit, the flamethrower, and the fuel tanks.
Not to mention the snow and wind, which was picking up.
"Get off him!" the cry echoed through the cavern. "Get the fuck off of him!" Gunshots sounded out, flat snaps soaked up by the snow and wind without a single echo. "Get off him!"
More gunshots, and that chuckle again.
Point Charlie was a row of sandbags in a semi-circle around the entryway to the Event Locker we were in, the main hallway that we'd brought the Gypsy Wagon in. There was a fifty there, with one of the meat-heads we'd been given on it. It was one of two I'd had on the floorboards of the Gypsy Wagon, barrels pulled, tripods folded up. Now the barrel was back in it, the 250 round belt locked into it, and sitting on the deployed tripod.
I'd drifted to the left of the spread out staggered line of troops in front of me, Kincaid had fallen back, shuffling next to me, breathing heavy. His rib was bruised badly from the bullet that had hit him earlier. He'd laughed it was his first cracked rib, and now it was slowing him down. If you'd never had one you didn't know how to breathe around it, you'd start breathing fast and shallow, which would make it hurt worse, which would speed up your breathing, making it hurt more. You had to make slow deep breaths, regulate your breathing, deal with the slow stabbing feeling, and keep breathing slowly and deeply to keep your blood oxygenated.
The snow twirled around as I slowed down a little more to keep pace with Kincaid when he curled over slightly, letting go of the flame thrower ejector to put his hand on his chest.
"Can't breathe." He told me.
"We'll hold up." I answered, squinting through the snow.
The snow swirled, and freak gap in it let me see the fifty and Donaldson slowing down.
Two guys were standing behind the fifty, and the meat-head was down on his knees, his hands up, his fingers interlaced at his neck. One of the guys had what my brain ID'd as an SMG to the back of the kid's head.
"Stay here, be quiet." I told Kincaid, pulling my rifle off my back and handing it to him. I went in low, ducking down and moving forward through the snow.
"Drop your weapons, hands in the air." One of the guys was saying. They were dressed in black too, SMG's in their hands, and I could see one of them grinning. I was only fifteen, twenty meters out. "We're Special Forces, we're here to get you out."
"Do it." Donaldson said. I could hear the anger in his voice.
"That's right, Sergeant, act smart." The one who had been speaking said.
"He's..." one of the meat-heads started to saw, behind Donaldson, but Shads elbowed him in the ribs.
"I'm Sergeant Ant." Donaldson said. "You're with SF?"
"Yeah, we got sent to save you guys, heard their was a problem here." The one said. "Put your hands behind your head, lock your fingers, hands on your neck."
"You guys with First Special Forces out of Dix?" Donaldson asked.
"Yeah." He said. "Now, get on your knees, all of you but you, Sergeant."
Two shadows moved through the snow near me, dressed in black, with two others following carrying a third between them. I hunched down, keeping a stack of concertina wire on a pallet between them and me. Two more followed them, and I ghosted after them.
"Go join the others." The one who had been speaking. I could barely see the kid that was on his knees getting up. I looked down, seeing I was moving in the other men's trails, blood spattered on the snow, already freezing up and being covered by the blowing snow.
I darted to the next piece of cover, a stack of pipes that went for at least twenty feet.
"These all of your men, Sergeant Ant?" One of them asked Donaldson.
"Yeah." Donaldson answered. "Major Dursten is upstairs with the rest of the men."
"That your CO?" Someone asked.
"Yeah, Major Dursten." Donaldson repeated. I saw someone open their mouth and Shads kick their boot from where they were kneeling down.
"What the fuck happened to Bellings?" Another voice asked.
"Some freak jumped him, when I got there the guy was ripping at Billing's face with a razor blade or something in his hands." The voice that I'd heard earlier answered. "I shot his ass and left him there dead. Some asshole in brown camouflage."
Tandy. About time he did something good, but I wasn't willing to bet he was dead.
He liked to do that.
I think it amused him.
"That was Kincaid you killed." Donaldson said. "So what now?"
"This." The guy doing all the talking said.
And shot Donaldson twice in the chest.
Site Kilo-29
Winter-1993
Day Three-Night
Event Lockers
Donaldson went down without a sound, one hand moving to his chest as he went down in the snow. The guy who'd shot him chuckled while the troops, my troops, cried out in outrage.
"Shut the hell up, or you're all next." the guy who'd shot Donaldson said. "Rogers, Smith, get 'em up, let's go see Major Dursten."
"Hell, he wasn't about shit." One of them said. "Fellman was right, that dude wasn't shit."
Two of them laughed, the guy being supported by the other two moaned and kicked, his head hanging down.
"Bring Bellings, we'll go up to where Major Dursten is, link up with Fellman and Killain, lock these guys down with the others, and get to work." The one who'd been talking stated.
Shads was staring at the guy, his eyes narrowed.
"You are all going to die down here." Shads said, his voice cold and dead.
All the assholes in black laughed. "What makes you think that... umm..." the guy paused.
"Corporal Donaldson, Sergeant Ant's assistant squad leader." Shads told him.
"Well, Corporal Donaldson, keep your men under control and Sergeant Ant will be the only casualty." The guy said. "All of you, get up." He twitched the SMG in his hand. "Since you're feeling talkative, Corporal, you can lead us back to Major Dursten."
Shads nodded, getting to his feet. "Let's go, men." He stared for a long second. "If you're SF, why did you kill Sergeant Ant?"
"He pulled a gun on me, we all saw it." The guy said. The others nodded, and he laughed. Bellings groaned. "I had to defend myself and my men."
"It's like that then." Shads said.
"Shut up, get moving." the one doing all the talking said. The snow swirled heavier and a chuckle came slithering out of the darkness. "Why is fucking snowing in here? We're inside."
Shads shrugged. "Sergeant Ant knew." he moved toward Donaldson.
"I said, let's go." The CIA guy said.
"If we want to get through the doors, I need his notebook, he kept the codes to himself." Shads knelt down next to Donaldson, fumbling at the other man's pocket and coming up with a green notebook.
"We've already got the codes." One of them said.
"Bellings is hurt really bad." One said.
"He'll be fine. Drag him along." The leader said.
"No, you don't." Shads told them. "Sergeant Ant reset all the codes."
"Anything else I need to know, Mr. Donaldson?" The guy asked.
"You've killed two of our men, the Major won't be too thrilled about that." Shads said. "Even if the Major and Sergeant Ant hated each other, he isn't going to be too happy."
"We'll make Major Dursten see reason." The guy said. "Get up, Mister Donaldson." He paused for a moment. "You try anything, I shoot one of your men in the stomach."
Shads nodded and walked toward the CIA guy, shrugging. His dark face looked angry, but he kept his mouth shut.
"Rogers, Smith, stay here with Bellings, head back to that door and open it up. As soon as we hook up with Fellman, we'll get these guys in the helicopter and get out of here." The one in charge told them. "Let's go, soldiers."
They let Bellings down, sitting him on the sandbags. The guys in black marched Shads and others down the hallway, talking to each other.
I turned away, creeping back through the snow to where I'd left Kincaid. He was sitting down, holding onto his chest.
"What the fuck's been going on, I can't hear shit in this suit." Kincaid said.
"Donaldson's down, they shot him twice in the chest." I told him.
"Fuck. The others?" He asked. He shifted the backpack. "Fucking strap feels like it's pushing my ribs into my guts."
"They've got them, they think that Shads is Donaldson, and thought Donaldson was me." I told him. "Stay here."
"Where are you going?" He asked, and coughed.
"I've gotta check Donaldson, he might not be dead." I told him. "Body armor might have stopped the bullets, but he's laying there in the snow."
"Fucking Bishop's out here, watch it." He warned me. I nodded, and moved back into the snow.
In Basic Training, AIT, and 2/19th they took teenagers and broke them down before building them to survive the Cold War. We were taught to use mines, fight and win on the chemical battlefield, and Vietnam had only been a decade behind us all so the people who trained us had learned their lessons in the jungle. We learned to use every advantage, trained constantly. Qualifying at the leadership development course, training in urban combat, training for desert combat, and in 2/19th, trained to fight in the cold and the snow.
I moved slow, on my belly, slowly moving forward, looking to the side of where I wanted to go as I inched through the snow with my Gerber in my fist.
Human beings are amazing. People forget that we're the apex predator, without claws, without fangs, and we were the top of the food chain. We can feel when someone is watching us, sensing the intent of another predator, and get some kind of warning when we're in danger. If you want to sneak up on a human, you don't look directly at them, you stay out of their peripheral vision, you don't move fast, and you don't move steady. You move slow, stop, move slow again, stop, and keep your mind blank. You don't want to think about them, for some reason it seems to warn your target, like there is a connection on a subconscious level.
One was down on one knee, talking to the wounded guy, who was holding his face and rocking back and forth. The other was staring out into the snow, nervously fingering his weapon as I moved slowly toward them.
"He wasn't human, Rogers, I'm telling you..." the guy rocking back and forth mumbled from between his hands. "He wasn't human."
"He's fucking dead, man, I killed him." The guy kneeling down said.
Taking them alive would be harder than just hanging back and shooting at them with my pistol. Hell, I was down to about ten feet from them, I'd have no problem nailing them with the pistol, but I didn't know which ones I wanted alive. I needed to know a few things, and I wasn't sure which one I needed.
Be just my luck to shoot the one I needed to talk to in the face.
I got into a crouch beside the sandbags we hadn't used and gauged the distance. Ten feet, at the most, with the third guy walking back to stand next to the others. He turned around and faced out into the snow.
"I think something's out there." He told them.
"There's nothing out there." The one kneeling down answered, standing up.
"I got a bad feeling about this." the first one said, walking toward where I was crouched down.
hello, sweetums
"You always say that." The guy said, moving over next to the wounded guy and leaning against the sandbags.
"It feels different this..." he started, still looking away.
I came up from behind the sandbags, taking two steps and slamming the knife into his stomach before shouldering him off. He was screaming as he went back, dropping his weapon, his hands going to his gut, as I kept moving forward. The one sitting down still had his hands over his face, but the one who had just sat down came up, his hands going to his weapon.
too late
He brought his hand up but I wasn't going after him. Instead I kicked the injured guy in the face, watching the other guy tumble backwards over the sandbags. The guy with the ravaged face fell to the side, his hands falling away.
Bishop/Tandy had torn off one ear, ripped off his upper lip, gouged deep slices into his face, and ripped out an eye, tearing away the eyelid with it. He was missing his left nostril, same side as the eye, and I made it worse by kicking him right in the chin, broken teeth bubbling out of his mouth.
I didn't care, hurtling over the sandbags to land next to him, stomping on his upper arm when he tried to raise the submachine gun, then kneeling down to drive the knife into his chest, high on the right side, pulling it out and driving it in again lower down.
I let them scream as I walked over to where Donaldson was laying in the snow.
When I knelt down I saw his breath steam out and knew he was still alive. I patted down his chest gently, looking for any stickiness, feeling for nearly coagulated blood. He groaned when I pushed slightly, his eyelids fluttering.
"Fuck." he coughed. "Bastards shot me."
"Just lay there." I told him, undoing his LBE and pulling open his Kevlar vest. No holes in his BDU top. I pressed lightly on his chest and he groaned again.
"Oh shit, that fucking hurts." He groaned.
His ribcage wasn't shifting, and when I pulled up his shirts I didn't see any discoloration aside from two bruises on his chest, so I was pretty sure he wasn't bleeding internally.
"Get up." I told him, "You'll be fine, you pussy." I held out my hand, standing up, and Donaldson grabbed it. I heaved him up, and he groaned again.
"Christ, my chest hurts." He said.
"Follow me." I told him. We walked by the three men. All three of them were laying there, two of them screaming, the third unconscious. I led him to where Kincaid was staggering toward us.
"I'm going to send you two up the tunnel while I talk to my new friends." I told them.
"Fuck that, asshole shot me." Donaldson said. "thought I was you."
"Yeah, lots of people don't like me." I chuckled.
"We separate and your old CO will rip our guts out." Kincaid said.
"You hear that stupid shit they were spouting?" Donaldson said, stopping to cough. "First Special Forces out of Dix? They shut Dix down like two years ago, and First SF is out of Lewis." He coughed again while I nodded. "And that stupid fucker didn't even know what chocolate chips were."
"Well, I'm going to find out what they do know." I told them. "You two don't want to be here when I start asking questions."
"Fuck that." Kincaid's voice was muffled. "I don't care if you break their goddamn fingers, when you're done, I'm fucking burning them down." He snapped the igniter.
"And if I tell you not to?" I asked, pausing. Beside us Donaldson hacked for a moment before catching up.
"Sergeant, we're not getting out of this." Kincaid answered. "Say what you want, but we're dying in here, and I'll be goddamn if I sit on my ass while these assholes kill people I've worked with and eventually kill me." He popped the igniter twice more. "There ain't no going back, and whatever you do is going to splatter me. I might as well know what's going to happen."
"It's going to be ugly." I told them. Donaldson nodded. Kincaid just laughed.
I reached down, grabbing the phony ass LBE of the guy laying on the ground and dragging him, ignoring his screams, dragging him over the sandbags and into the semi-circle. I made a motion and Donaldson drug the other guy over the sandbags, dumping him on the ground.
"My fucking chest hurts like a motherfucker." Kincaid said, squatting down so the sandbags took the weight of the tanks off his chest and shoulders.
"Shut up, pussy." Donaldson grinned. "Fucker shot me twice." He coughed again. "Goddamn, hurts all the way through to my back."
I glanced at him, filing the information away. I'd need to check him within an hour or so, but right now I had other things to take care of.
My boys were tough.
I knelt down next to the one I'd stabbed in the stomach, holding up the knife and showing it to him. The matte-black steel was clean, just blood on my hand, and I made sure it had his attention.
"Well, that didn't work out so well for you, did it?" I asked him, smiling for him.
"You fucking bastard." He groaned, holding onto his stomach. "You can't do this."
"Why do you always say that?" I asked, shaking my head.
"Dunno, Sergeant." Kincaid said, snapping the igniter again.
"You don't know who you're fucking with, you little bastard." He said again, trying to sit up.
"Kick him down, Dee." I said. Donaldson kicked him in the face, knocking him backwards.
"Now, before you start crying about National Security and telling me I can't do this, we're just going to skip all that and get right to Ms. Pointy Thing." I told him. "Dee, K-Bar, go watch the other two."
Both men nodded, moving through the snow. I smiled at the guy laying in front of me, one hand on his belly, the other holding his mouth. Blood was running over both sets of fingers, and he glared at me in hot hatred as I held up the knife again.
"I'm going to ask you questions." I told him. "You'll answer. If I think you're lying, then Ms. Pointy Thing is going to ask you a question. Do you understand?"
"You wouldn't fucking dare, the Geneva..." He started.
Without even bothering to answer to drove the knife into his side, under his belly button this time, and rocked it back and forth, letting him scream.
"Doesn't cover CIA douchebags." I told him. I grinned. "Hell, why do you guys seem to think that I wouldn't dare do anything to you. Didn't you read my file?" he was still screaming. "I figured you guys would at least pay attention to the shit I've done, or do you just sit in your offices jerking off to the thought that it's still Vietnam and you can do what you want?" His screaming was winding down. "You CIA tough guys always forget that sooner or later you run into someone meaner than you." I smiled at him, pulling his hand away from his stomach and holding his forearm between my knees while I pried his fingers open. "You always think that nobody can touch you."
"You're in a shitload of trouble, you little punk." he snarled. "You really think that Fellman's going to let you walk out of here?"
I smiled, letting go of his hand and reaching into my pocket to pull out an ID folder. I opened it up, held it up where he could see it, then dropped it. "You mean this Agent Fellman? Yeah, about that, see, he looked a little different from that picture by the time I was done with him."
I grabbed his wrist and pushed my knife between his fingers, tightening my knees as I pushed the blade through his hand. "And I'm the one who asks the questions."
It got real ugly, real fast.
* * * * *
We were silent as we walked down the hallway, heading for the stairs. Kincaid was in front of us, tromping down the corridor in the armored J-Suit. Donaldson had one arm thrown over my shoulders, wheezing heavily as we half-dragged him to the medical point that I'd worked on Natchez's arm. There was ice on the walls and ceiling, most of the lights were out, and there was a light dusting of snow on the ice.
"Come on, brother, you can make it." I told Donaldson when he sagged against me.
"What's wrong with him?" Kincaid asked.
"Collapsed lung, I think." I told them, putting my arm across Donaldson's back to grab his LBE and hoist him up slightly.
"Goddamn bastard shot me." Donaldson groaned. "I'm gonna rip his goddamn eyes out when we catch him."
"Almost there." Kincaid said. "How come he's worse than I am?"
"Shot was from closer, and the guy put two bullets within an inch or two of each other." I said. "How much do you weight?"
"One seventy five." Kincaid answered.
"How tall?"
"Five ten, why?"
"Because you're heavier than Donaldson." I told him. "More meat to absorb the kinetic energy."
"Six foot, one forty-five." Donaldson gasped. "I'm fucked, right?"
"Not if I can get you to the medical center in time." I told him.
"How long do I have?" Donaldson said, trying to bend forward to cough. I kept him from folding over.
"A couple hours, I hope." I was honest with him.
"Your Nancy know how to handle a collapsed lung?" Donaldson asked.
"Yeah." Kincaid and I both answered at the same time. I looked at him and he shrugged. "I figured she'd know how to. I mean, come on, she knew what to do with Natchez." I nodded, and went back to dragging Donaldson.
A few minutes of silent struggle and I could see the door of the treatment area. A few more minutes and I pulled inside, laying him down on one of the cold gurneys. We ignored the bodies, the blood spatters, the scorch marks from Kincaid's flamethrower, and I pulled him onto the gurney as soon as I could. Normally you'd pull a sterilized cover onto it, but I didn't have time.
"We're in trouble again, aren't we?" Kincaid asked, taking off the flamethrower tank and letting it sit on one of the gurneys.
"Been in worse." I told him, starting to take off Donaldson's gear.
"Shit, I don't even get dinner and a kiss." Donaldson said, laughing and then gasping. His skin was looking bluish, his lips tinged bad.
"I'll give you a reach around." I told him, pulling open his BDU top before slicing up his T-shirt with my knife. The cloth parted with a whisper.
"Goddamn that thing's hot." Kincaid said, stepping out of his suit and picking up my rifle. "You suck with this, I shot expert."
"Whatever." I told him, looking at Donaldson's chest. It was one big bruise on the right side, but his belly wasn't distended. The large veins in his neck were prominent, and he was breathing rapidly despite having bad color.
"Kincaid, get his clothing off." I said, moving over to the cabinet. I looked at the lock for second, then held out my hand. Kincaid handed me the rifle and I hammered on it with the buttplate until the lock hasp broke off. I handed back the rifle and pulled it open. I grabbed a metal spoon-looking thing, a stethoscope, and a big ass syringe along with some needles that were next to it. I set the stuff down, then stripped the plastic off the syringe and the needles, screwing the needle onto the syringe.
Kincaid had his hands on Donaldson's shoulders, looking down at the other man. "Sergeant's got you, man. I'm here, brother."
"Can't. Breathe." Donaldson choked out.
I moved up quick. Nancy was standing behind Kincaid.
"Tell me what to do." I said, looking at her. Kincaid opened his mouth to say something when Nancy spoke.
"You're going to have to put the stethoscope against his chest, then thump on his chest with your fingers. Listen for it to sound hollow." She said.
Kincaid looked around him, frowning. "She telling you what to do?"
"Tell him to go fucking shower, he smells like a damn puma." She bitched.
"Go shower, be quick, K-Bar." I told him. The nickname fit easily. He nodded and let go of Donaldson, moving toward the emergency decon shower. "Then what?"
"You remembered the syringe, that's good. We could use the valve in the aid bag, but this is more permanent." Nancy told me. She was naked from the waist up, her breasts smeared with blood and her arms soaked up to the elbows with it. The blood was smeared and pale on her face, the flesh over her cheekbones peeling, the tip of her nose bluish black, and the outside of her ears was the some color.
scars of 2/19th
"Start at the bottom of his ribcage, work your way up to his collarbone." I nodded, pulling on the stethoscope. "Luckily all you have to do is stab him with the needle, and that's one thing you've always been good at."
"Bite me, big titties." I smiled, then put the pad on Dee's chest and thumped below it with two fingers.
It sounded fine.
Kincaid finished his shower by the time I'd found the spot. It was the size of my palm and sounded like knocking on a watermelon through the stethoscope. I looked at Kincaid, who was standing at Donaldson's head, a towel wrapped around his waist, smoothing the other man's brow.
"Hold him down." I said to Kincaid, who nodded.
Kincaid hadn't flinched when I was asking 'pointed' questions, but now he looked nervous and afraid as I lifted up the syringe and pushed in the plunger all the way.
"This is going to hurt a lot, Donaldson." I told him.
And began pushing the large gauge needle into his chest, between his ribs.