The convoy continued on. Into the dark maw of death.
TWENTY-TWO.
“Sir, you’re out of your fucking mind,” Turner said, his voice a low rumble.
“Yeah, that is kind of new for you,” Muldoon added.
Lee looked at the two men in the dim glow of the sliver moon that hovered high overhead. The convoy had finally come to a halt, three miles from the boundary of Fort Drum. To their south, the town of Watertown was a lunatic’s shooting gallery.
“Guys, I don’t understand the problem here,” he said.
“It’s pretty simple, sir. You’re the commanding officer. You don’t lead from the front,” Turner said.
“Going on a recon is hardly ‘leading from the front,’” Lee said. “Besides, I held two phase lines and came under attack both times. This isn’t any riskier. At least this time, we’ll be mobile and have the ability to maneuver.”
“You want to be a captain, then that’s fine. Execute some recon missions,” Turner said. “You want to be a lieutenant colonel, you’re going to have to learn to stand off and watch.”
Lee grunted, but he understood. While it wasn’t unheard of for field grade officers to venture to the forward lines and do some real work, that kind of mission usually rested with company grade officers. Lee had several good ones at his disposal, along with a menagerie of noncommissioned officers possessed of refined fieldcraft that left his in the dust. But in his mind, Lee was still an operator. While he was an officer, at his core he still believed in walking the walk, not just talking the talk. And it was time to do something other than huddle up inside his Humvee and wait for Death to rap its knuckles on the uparmored door and invite him to step outside for one final dance.
“I appreciate your opinion, Sergeant Major,” Lee told Turner. “But we’re all in this one up to our necks. We need to know what we’re up against.”
“Not in disagreement about the mission, sir, just with you personally leading it,” Turner said. “Hell, I’ll do it. I’ve got a lot of miles on my odometer. This kind of stuff is second nature to me.”
Lee shook his head. “You’re the man with the institutional knowledge here, Sergeant Major. Of the two of us, you’re the least expendable.”
“Sir, I’m a soldier—”
“With almost thirty years of experience. A shame to waste it, or even worse, you get infected and then all that knowledge and expertise gets handed to the Klowns. Right?”
“Cuts both ways, sir,” Turner said firmly.
“Colonel, maybe we should make another pass with the drones.” Major Walker said. He was leaning against Lee’s Humvee, his arms crossed over his harness and body armor. He wore his MOPP overgarment, but the mask hung from his belt.
“How many passes will be enough, Major?” Lee asked. “We’ve already gotten good optics on the area. We’re clear on this side of the Black River, and the part of the post across from us appears to be deserted. But we need to get eyes on target in order to find the enemy’s main body, and we can’t have the drones flying all night long.”
“I understand the desire to act, but I’d argue for a more conservative approach,” Walker said. “We have other troops who can do this mission and probably just as well as—”
“Stop worrying, people. I’ve got John Wayne with me.” Lee pointed at Muldoon, who rolled his eyes and shook his head.
“And who are you supposed to be, sir?” Turner asked. “Jimmy Stewart?”
“I had him pegged for Dean Martin,” Muldoon said. “Just not as drunk. Unless you’d like to make a confession here, sir.”
Lee made the decision final. “I think we’re done,” he said. “Walker, you have operational control of the battalion until my return. Lean on Sergeant Major Turner here if things get tough, and don’t forget the company commanders. They’re all warfighters, and they’re ready to close with the enemy and kill him if he gets too close.”
“Roger that,” Walker said, but there wasn’t much enthusiasm in his voice.
“We’ll have the drones up in the air, sir,” Turner said. “We’ll keep eyes on you for as long as we can. But maybe instead of trying to sneak in, you could just radio Mountaineer Five and tell him we’re in the neighborhood?”
Explosions erupted in the distance, followed by a long volley of gunfire. Fifty cals and if Lee wasn’t mistaken, some Vulcan twenty-millimeter cannon fire. There were no aircraft in the sky other than the drones, and the chances they were being engaged by the Vulcans was negligible. The Ravens were just too small to be seen at night. That meant the folks at Drum were using air defense weaponry against ground targets. Mixed in with all of that were volleys of small-arms fire.
“We can’t be sure Mountaineer is still alive and that his TOC hasn’t been compromised,” Lee said. “I want to put eyes on target before we make any calls.”
TWENTY-THREE.
Rawlings crawled up the muddy river bank, shivering in the night air. Even though the night was warm one—well over seventy degrees and humid as hell—the waist-high water of the Black River was icy cold, and the rushing river’s embrace had sucked away a great deal of her body heat as she and the rest of the soldiers forded the tributary, holding their weapons over their heads.
She had been issued night vision goggles—those had been taken from one of the fallen—as well as body armor and a full lightfighter kit. She struggled beneath the weight of all the gear. While she was no dainty kitchen fairy and was used to physical labor—her job with the National Guard had been to keep heavy equipment running, and that involved a lot of heavy lifting—humping a hundred pounds of gear across a fairly swift-moving river was no easy task.
She had to leave the file to grab Nutter when he tripped over a rock and went under. She spent a few frantic seconds casting about in the darkness with one hand, while holding her rifle out of the water with the other. The river’s surface tended to reflect light like a giant serpentine mirror, so she’d lost a visual on Nutter as soon as he went down, despite the night vision goggles. But her searching fingers grazed his rucksack, and she grabbed it and pulled with all her strength as one of the soldiers behind her steadied her, preventing her from going down as well. Nutter came to the surface, sputtering, trying to mute his coughs.
“Fuck,” he said after hacking up at least a cup of water. “I can’t believe I got saved by a girl.”
“Takes one to know one, asshole,” Rawlings said.
“Knock it off and keep going,” the soldier behind them said.
Nutter grunted and pressed on, holding his waterlogged rifle above his head.
Later, slipping in the mud, Rawlings followed Nutter up the bank and into the dark woods that stood silent watch nearby. The soldiers who had already made it into the tree line had taken up defensive positions, waiting for the rest of the element to close up.
Rawlings took a knee and checked her rifle. It seemed to be fine. Water slowly rolled off her, dripping to the forest floor. A hundred meters to their right, New York Highway 26 spanned the river, and a hundred yards beyond that, a small set of waterfalls roared, providing some acoustic cover as the lightfighters behind pressed into the woods. They moved as quietly as they could, but just the same, branches snapped and dried leaves rustled. If there were any Klowns in the vicinity, they would have heard the approaching force and come to investigate.
Rawlings looked up as the commander, Colonel Lee, surveyed the area with light-intensifying binoculars. They were already inside the perimeter of Fort Drum. Beyond the trees, Rawlings could see a good-sized building surrounded by a parking lot. A thousand feet to the northwest lay the post airfield, but Rawlings couldn’t see it just yet. She presumed that the lack of operating aircraft indicated the field was out of service. From deeper inside the post, gunfire ripped through the night and sporadic flashes of light briefly played along the horizon. Hell lay in that direction.