Yeah. Now that could be tied into the tale very nicely. "Even old Lucky Dave was happy. Should've seen it, guys. Smiling. Bigtime."
Lucky Dave Heifetz, the terror of the regiment. The guy who was reported never to have felt a single human emotion in his life.
Sturgis had been disconcerted by the unexpected appearance of a second party during his evacuation procedures — and Lucky Dave, of all people. All things considered, however, he figured it was worth it. For the tale he would have to tell. And for the reassurance Heifetz's good mood had given him.
They had met the enemy — and knocked their dicks in the mud.
He had been worried, of course. He had never been in combat before, and he had read lots of war novels and seen plenty of movies and heard how tough it all was from the veterans. They said you never knew who was going to break down and turn out to be a pussy.
Well, now he knew. He was no pussy. He had what it took proven in battle. As he trudged back toward the camouflaged position of his M-100, Jack Sturgis luxuriated in visions of a great military career. Someday he might even be as famous as the old man, Colonel Taylor. Or even more famous. He had no intentions of becoming disfigured, however. He didn't want to look like Taylor. Sturgis cast himself in a far more romantic light, and no vision of success was complete without a complementary vision of well-disposed women.
Sturgis took a deep breath. It was a wonderful thing to be a soldier. To be a real combat leader.
A snowflake caught at the corner of the young man's eye. He paused to wipe it away, touching a gloved hand to his shying eyelash.
And Captain Jack Sturgis jerked perfectly upright, gripped by a pain the intensity of which no human animal had ever before experienced.
19
"Sierra five-five, this is Saber six. Sierra five-five, this is Saber six…"
Taylor knew immediately that something was seriously wrong when he heard Reno's voice on the command net. The general's son was always careful to maintain a studied coolness over any open communications means, except when he was verbally destroying one of his subordinates, or in combat, when his voice screamed for medals, awards, citations. Now Reno's voice strained with emotion and he had done something which he never had done before. He had used the call sign "Saber six" on Taylor's net.
Taylor knew that Reno affected the call sign on his squadron's internal comms, but the man was always careful to use his proper call sign on the regimental command net, both because Taylor made it plain that he disapproved of unauthorized nonsense and because "Saber six" was a timeworn cavalry handle reserved for regimental commanders — not for the subordinate lieutenant colonels who commanded squadrons.
"Tango five-five, this is Sierra five-five. Over."
"This is Saber — I mean, Tango five-five. I can't contact anybody at A A Silver. I was on the horn with the One-three, and he just cut out in midsentence. I've tried calling Whisky five-five, but I don't even get anything breaking up. Nothing. Is something going on down there? What's going on?"
"Tango, this is Sierra. Wait. Sierra one-three," Taylor called Heifetz, "this is Sierra five-five. Over."
Taylor waited. Around him, he could feel the tension in Meredith and Parker, as well as the concern of the surviving staff NCO. The crowded cabin stank with sweat and dried blood, and at the very back the shock case sat dully beside the bunk they had jerry-rigged for the soldier with the concussion.
Nothing.
Taylor knew that something was wrong. This was not a single comms malfunction. It was funny how you knew. The instinct you developed over the years of living in the proximity of death.
"Sierra one-three," Taylor tried again, "this is Sierra five-five. I cannot hear your station. If you are monitoring my transmission, meet me on the strat link, over."
He knew that something was wrong. Yet, he struggled against knowing it. He turned to the special satellite communications link that was normally reserved for conversations with the nation's highest authorities.
Meredith was already keying the system. Then they all waited again, while in the background Reno pleaded for attention and answers over the regimental command net.
They waited for five minutes. But there was nothing. The heavens were dead.
Finally, Taylor turned back to the command net, determined to make one last attempt.
"Any Whisky station, any Whisky station," he called First Squadron, his words reaching out toward Assembly Area Silver, "this is Sierra five-five. How do you hear this station, over?"
Nothing.
Suddenly, the comms set fuzzed to life. But it was only Reno with another plea for information. The man was badly shaken.
Taylor ignored him. He turned to Meredith.
"How long until we reach Silver?"
Meredith glanced at the panel. "Fifteen minutes. Do you want to divert until we find out what's going on, sir? We might just be able to make the northeast edge of AA Platinum before we run out of fuel."
Everyone looked at Taylor. There was a heaviness in the cabin's air that sobered each man like the sight of a dirt-encrusted skull.
"No," Taylor said. "We're going in. We're going to find out what the hell's going on."
Taylor called ahead to Second Squadron at Platinum, just outside of Orenburg. The squadron commander had been monitoring the traffic on the net, digesting it and maintaining radio discipline.
"If you lose contact with me," Taylor said, "you are to assume command of the regiment." Everyone knew that Reno was the senior squadron commander by date of rank. But Reno was in no condition to lead the regiment at the moment. If he ever had been.
Reno did not contest the message that had been sent openly for all command net subscribers to hear.
Well, Taylor thought, I've still got Second and Third squadrons. If worse comes to worst.
"Contact the escort element," Taylor told the assistant S-3. "Tell them we're going in ready to fight."
Meredith did not believe in ghosts. Even as a child, the dark had held no power over him, and the demonic tales each generation felt compelled to recast and retell simply bored him. The only witchery of interest had been the spell of the eighth-grade blonde with whom he shared his first date. Guaranteed a safety net of their mutual friends, she agreed to go with him to see a film that had captured the attention of young America for a split second. Their friends were noisy, probingly teasing, and, finally, unmistakably separate in the gloom as popcorn smells meandered above the tang of cleaning solution. When the seating lights died and the screen began to redefine the universe, a vault door shut over the mundane cares of homework and team tryouts. Actors labored to convince him of scarlet, improbable horrors, but their exaggerated agonies were nothing compared to the doubt he felt in the long minutes before his classmate took his hand. Unlearned, she gripped him with athletic ferocity as a once-human beast rampaged across a film set. He remembered feeling mature and very strong then, with his unwavering eyes and unquestioned command of the fingers another child had anxiously intertwined with his. These dressed-up unexamined fears were of too primitive an order to move him, and he grew older in a world where hauntings always turned out to be headlights reflecting off a window, and "supernatural" was merely a word from which ill-dressed hucksters tried to wring a profit. His devils had always lurked elsewhere, beyond the reach of vampire, astrologer, or special-effects wizard, and the last time the hackles on the back of his neck had alerted had been under the torment of a woman's fingernails, before love settled in and the woman became his wife.