Anvil (12 page)

Petty
Officer Simmons had been even quieter than normal after speaking with the Army
Major.  She thought about what he’d told her, brooding as she pulled
archives and confirmed his suspicions.  The Russians were always right
behind him.  Just like he said.  Just like someone was feeding them
information.  But who? 

Jessica
looked around the room at the five other occupants.  There was Lieutenant
Hunt, her CO.  She eliminated him from the mental list of suspects she was
compiling.  He had the same access she did and would have been able to
pinpoint the Major’s location.  No, this was someone who had a good idea
of where he was, but wasn’t in the system.

Pulling up a
security system window, she spent several minutes going through the logs. 
She was looking for any record of one of her co-workers having accessed the
data stream specific to Major Chase.  None of them had, but there was
something else she needed to check.

Closing the
security logs, Jessica initiated an admin login directly to the orbiting
satellite.  Once in, she ran through three different logs.  Still no
access by anyone other than her.  Sighing in frustration she began to log
out but paused, deciding to perform a keyword search in case she had missed
something in her review of the records.

One by one
she searched for the login IDs of everyone who worked in her unit.  The
IDs were comprised of the first three letters of the user’s first name,
followed by a middle initial and the first three letters of the last
name.  Glancing at each console, she noted middle initials which were not
something she had committed to memory.

ROBWROB – No
results found.

CHAHZEM – No
results found.

MELKSTE – No
results found.

THORSYS –
THOR SYSTEM LOGIN.

Jessica
blinked, surprised by the results.  She had been searching for Chief Petty
Officer Thomas R. Sysko.  He hadn’t logged in to the satellite, but what
the hell was Thor System?  Curiosity got the best of her and she selected
the response.

There was a
slight delay before a new screen appeared.  It gave no indication of what
it was for, containing only a password prompt.  Opening an additional
window, Jessica began digging into the satellite’s operating system.  It
took some doing, but she finally determined that the password prompt was coming
from another satellite which was communicating through the NSA bird.

“Sir, you
need to see this,” she called to Lieutenant Hunt.

A moment
later he was leaning over her shoulder, peering at her console.

“What’s up?”

“There’s
another bird up there, sir.  One of ours apparently.  I’m
communicating through the NSA satellite and got to a login prompt.”

“What is
it?”  He asked.

“No idea,”
Jessica said, staring at the blinking cursor in the password field.  “I
was poking around and found it.  It’s called Thor System.  Ever heard
of it?”

“No,” he
replied, shaking his head.  “Can you get in?”

“Haven’t
tried yet.  Didn’t want to try without checking with you first.  Just
in case it’s something I shouldn’t be messing around with.”  She looked
over her shoulder and met his eyes.

“Probably a
good idea,” he said, straightening up.  “Let me make some calls, see if
anyone knows what it is before you start breaking in.”

“Yes, sir,”
Jessica said as Hunt headed for his console and snatched up a phone.

Dismissing
the new discovery from her mind for the moment, she returned to working on her
list of suspects.  She was confident the people in the room with her were
clear.  Besides, the very nature of their jobs had required an incredibly
extensive and intrusive background check before each of them received a
security clearance.  And the clearances were updated every six
months.  The odds of someone being a Russian agent or sympathizer were so
small they were microscopic.

That left
people that didn’t work directly in her unit.  Who had been in the room or
had access to the information about Major Chase? 

Admiral
Packard.  Jessica briefly considered the possibility before dismissing it
outright.  Besides, if the Admiral was in the Russian’s pocket they had
much bigger problems than who was feeding intel about one Army Major.

The Captain
from Naval Intelligence.  More possible than the Admiral, but
unlikely.  Still, he had been present in the room and had seen and heard
enough information to put the Russians on the Major’s trail without being able
to give them precise coordinates.  Jessica mentally labeled him as a
possibility.

Who
else?  She had no knowledge of who the Admiral or Captain may have
told.  Staffers, fellow officers, lovers…

Jessica
caught her breath when the last word went through her head.  Mark? 
No, it wasn’t possible.  With an internal groan, she forced herself to
acknowledge that it was possible.  And if it was Mark, that meant she was
the leak.  But what had she told him, if anything?

Their
relationship was relatively young and still in the phase that was ruled by
physical passion.  She went to sleep each night thinking about the things
he did to her, let her do to him, and woke up with a smile on her face. 
But what had she told him?  It was hard to remember, difficult to separate
the things she had said when the majority of their encounters were limited to
heart pounding sex.

Setting
aside their trysts and focusing, she felt a hot flush of guilt when she
remembered having made off the cuff comments to Mark about her work.  She
had told him the general area that Major Chase was in south of Mountain Home,
and a short time later the Russians had been searching for him in precisely
that area.

Thinking
back, she remembered several other little bits of information she’d
shared.  None of them had been specific, but certainly were enough to
compromise Major Chase’s escape.  Guilt turned to anger, burning until
there was a ball of white hot fury in her chest.  Her suspicions weren’t
proof, but the seed of doubt had been planted in her head.

“Start working
on getting in.”

Jessica was
so wrapped up in her thoughts about Mark that she was startled when Lieutenant
Hunt spoke directly behind her.  She jumped in her seat and let out with
an involuntary squeak of fright, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.

“Are you
alright, Petty Officer?”  Hunt asked, taken aback by her reaction.

“Yes,
sir.  I’m fine.  Was just lost in thought and didn’t hear you walk
up.  Sorry, sir.  I’ll get on it right away,” she said, lowering her
head and concentrating on not meeting any of the eyes that were looking at her.

Working
quickly, she began looking for a back door around the password prompt. 
She knew it would be there, was confident she’d find it.  Once she did she
would be able to start working on defeating the layers of security that were
almost certainly in place to protect the new satellite.

Jessica
worked for several minutes, but was distracted.  Thoughts of Mark tumbled
through her head and the pain of her suspicions gnawed at her like a
cancer.  Finally, she sighed, acknowledging she was too distracted at the
moment to be trying to hack into a heavily secured system.  Knowing there
was only one thing she could do, she secured her terminal and walked over to
where Lieutenant Hunt was wrapping up a phone call.

“Sir, can we
speak in private?”  Jessica asked when he replaced the handset.

He looked
momentarily surprised, then nodded.  Standing, he led the way to a small,
secure conference room and closed the door behind them.  He took a seat at
the head of the table, but Jessica remained standing, staring at a large map of
the western hemisphere that was attached to the far wall.

“Petty
Officer?”  Hunt prompted after several moments of uncomfortable silence.

Jessica
turned and he could see the moisture in her eyes.  Moving slowly, she took
a seat at the opposite end of the table and began telling him about the call
from Major Chase and what she’d done since receiving the information.  He
listened attentively, letting her speak without interruption.

“This isn’t
good,” he breathed when she was done.  “Is there anything else you need to
tell me?”

“No,
sir.  That’s all of it.”

“Stay
put.  Don’t move,” he said, standing and walking out of the conference
room.

He closed
the door behind him and since there were no windows looking into the working
area of the unit, a security feature, Jessica was left feeling as if she were
already in prison.  It was close to five minutes before Hunt returned, a
legal pad and pen in hand.

“Here,” he
said, placing the items on the table in front of her.  “I want you to
write down everything you just told me.  Don’t leave anything out. 
There’s someone from NIS on the way to talk to you.”

He was
referring to the Naval Intelligence Service.  Jessica nodded, picking up
the pen after wiping tears from her eyes.  Hunt looked like he wanted to
say something else, but after a long pause left the room, pulling the door
softly shut.

The BTR
slowly wheeled around the base of a large hill, bouncing over mounds that
weren’t much smaller than the one we were using for cover.  I didn’t think
the driver or gunner had spotted us yet as there wasn’t any fire coming our
way, but it was probably only a matter of time.  I took a couple of
seconds to glance over the men around me, hoping someone had something capable
of penetrating the Russian vehicle’s armor.  I didn’t really expect to get
that lucky, and I didn’t.

Scrambling
through the dirt, shoving legs and feet out of my way, I moved to where I could
get a look at the BTR’s supporting ground troops as well as the main body of
advancing enemy.  The news wasn’t good.  We were cut off.  The
only good news here was that it looked as if Dutch had gotten the main body of
the company out of the area just in time.

Mortars were
still falling around us.  Fortunately, they didn’t have us zeroed.  They
were close enough to make us duck and press our bodies against the ground, but they
weren’t close enough for us to be taking shrapnel.  Yet.  It was only
a matter of time before the Russians began making adjustments and dropped one
right in the middle of us.

The two
Rangers had spread apart and were set up to start sending defensive fire. 
They were holding off as long as possible, not wanting the BTR to spot us and
open up with its 30 mm canon.  The Corporal and surviving Private were
sheltering with one of the Rangers while the Apache pilot worked to stop the
blood flowing from his gunner’s leg wound.

More
Russians were approaching than I could count.  We needed artillery and air
support or we weren’t going to last more than five minutes.  Keeping my
head down, I dialed in the channel for the artillery battery.  The fire
mission I’d called in a few minutes ago had stopped, and I needed these guys
back in the battle.

After
several unanswered calls, I cursed and switched to the frequency I’d heard the
Air Force using.  The channel was flooded with orders being issued and
pilots shouting over screaming engines.  I broke in, transmitting a
distress call.  It took several attempts before a calm voice with a heavy
Georgia accent answered, asking me to identify myself.

Turning to
the Corporal, I grabbed his arm and shouted to be heard over the blast of a
detonating mortar bomb that was way too close for comfort.

“What
Company are you with?”

“Alpha
Company, third platoon,” he shouted back.

I relayed
this info over the radio, and requested immediate air support to our east and
south.  I was told to “stand by” and screamed that we didn’t have time to
wait.  A mortar dropped on the top of the hill screening us from the
Russians, the blast deafening and stunning us.  Dirt and rocks rained
down, covering everyone in a thick layer of dirt.

Ears
ringing, I looked around and saw the Apache pilot sitting up.  He had
thrown his body across the gunner’s face to protect it from the dirt cascading
down.  He paused when he saw the man’s eyes, reaching out to find the
pulse in his neck.  He didn’t find one, looking up and shaking his head
when he saw me watching.

The Private
chose that moment to break, leaping to his feet and running into the
open.  He was heading west, running hard, panic lending wings to his
feet.  A hundred yards away was a short bluff overlooking a narrow channel
that had been carved by water during rainstorms.  I had already seen it,
and dismissed it as crossing that much open ground was suicide.

He had
covered a third of the distance before the Russians saw him and swung a machine
gun in his direction.  The gunner tracked him for several steps, the
bullets striking the ground all around him.  But none of them hit and he
kept running.  He was two thirds of the way to safety, and I was starting
to think he might actually make it.

There were
three loud, rapid reports from the BTR, smoke swirling around the muzzle of its
canon before the wind whipped it away.  The three shells arrived on target
in fast succession.  An area the size of a small house disappeared in the
blasts and I lost sight of the fleeing man.

The wind was
freshening and quickly cleared the dust and smoke.  I looked for the
Private, but couldn’t find him in the churned soil.  There were a couple
of things that could have been body parts, or maybe they were just rocks, but
he was gone.  I didn’t feel sorry for him because his panic induced sprint
had given our precise location to the Russians.  A moment later there was
more firing by the BTR and shells began tearing up the ground all around our
hill.

The blasts
were brutal, the mortar drawing in tighter until we were completely
bracketed.  There was a scream to my left an instant after a particularly
close strike from one of the BTR’s shells, but I wasn’t about to raise my head
off the ground to see who had been hit.

The ringing
in my ears was subsiding and I thought I could hear a voice in my earpiece over
the near constant crump of exploding munitions.  Pressing it tighter, I
listened, relief flooding over me when the radio call was from a pilot that had
been redirected to my location.

“… pop smoke
and call it.”  I heard.

The pilot
wanted me to mark my position with a smoke grenade so he knew where to avoid as
he came in.  But that was a problem as I didn’t have one.  I turned
and shouted, coughing from the thick, acrid smoke produced by the exploding
shells that had us pinned down.  No one had one.

“No smoke,”
I shouted into the radio, lifting my head for half a second to get a look at
the BTR.  “We’re pinned down three hundred meters due north of the BTR.”

The pilot
told me to hold on and a few seconds later a pair of A-10s roared directly over
our position.  The lead one was already firing and as they banked away
there was a large explosion from the direction of the Russian vehicle. 
Poking my head around I breathed a sigh when I saw it burning furiously.

“Good
shooting,” I shouted.  “Now, to my east, half a klick.  Get that
fucking mortar and I owe you a beer.”

This time I
didn’t see the Warthogs until the sound of their guns firing helped me spot
them.  Their grey paint scheme blended well with the heavy clouds, hiding
them from sight.  The ground along the advancing Russians erupted,
captured Hummers as well as infantry being shredded by the heavy slugs.

The pair of
jets banked away, dropping lower to stay close to the safety of the
ground.  They were turning, aligning for another strafing run when the
trail of an air-to-air missile streaked in from the west.  It was
traveling almost impossibly fast, the lead pilot standing his aircraft on its
wing and turning, trying to evade.  But the missile was locked on and
homed in, destroying the A-10 and sending flaming wreckage scattering across
the terrain.

The second
jet changed course, turning away from the fireball that marked the grave of the
first one.  He jinked hard when a shoulder fired anti-aircraft missile
screamed skyward from the rear of the Russian lines.  The pilot dropped so
low I was losing sight of the plane as hills and bluffs blocked my view,
finally disappearing completely from sight.  I didn’t see an explosion, so
hoped he’d been successful in evading the missile.

The Mortar
had stopped firing and for the moment all we had to worry about was rifle and
light machine gun fire.  The shout I’d heard was the Ranger on the left
and when I checked on him he was dead.  A piece of shrapnel had pierced
his chest.  The Corporal was huddled behind the corpse, but at least he
had his weapon up to cover that flank.

Ahead, the
BTR still burned and I could make out several bodies on the ground, but there
were still nearly fifty Russians on foot that were pushing in on us.  They
had set up a couple of machine guns on the tops of hills and were using them to
hose down our hiding spot while the rest of them dashed forward.

The one
surviving Ranger was firing, picking his targets, and dropping a running enemy
with almost every pull of the trigger.  I slapped the Corporal on his
helmet and told him to start shooting.  As he began firing, I pulled the
rifle and spare magazines off the dead Ranger and tossed them to the Apache
pilot.  His right arm was broken, the hand dangling uselessly, but he pulled
the rifle up to his left shoulder and joined the fight.

The Russians
kept advancing.  Slowing as they drew inside a hundred and fifty yards and
our fire became more accurate, but we didn’t stop them.  To the west,
Apaches had shown up and were harassing the larger force.  But the
Russians called in their own helicopters to counter and soon our air support
was driven off, outnumbered three to one.

They brought
the machine gunners closer, first one then both opening up and putting out much
more accurate fire due to the reduced range.  The Corporal was killed when
he raised up to change magazines, several slugs ripping his throat and chest
open.  That left one of the Rangers, an injured helicopter pilot and me. 

Behind us
the battle was picking up.  The rate of fire and the sounds of large
caliber canons was drawing closer.  I tried several times to use the
radio, hoping for some artillery support, but it wasn’t working.  The
Ranger was also equipped with a comm unit that wasn’t working.  The
Russians were jamming the airwaves, disrupting our communications.

On the
horizon to the west an aerial dog fight was taking place between two large
flights of helicopters.  They were too far away for me to see much more
than a basic outline and I couldn’t tell who was getting the worst of it. 
Not having time to watch, I focused on the approaching Russians, carefully
picking targets.

The
surviving Ranger and I were finding an enemy soldier with almost every shot,
but we weren’t firing very often.  Machine gun fire was forcing us to stay
behind cover, each getting to spot a target only when there was a lull in the
incoming suppressive fire.  The Apache pilot had settled for holding the
rifle at the ready for when the Russians overran our position.

Mortar fire resumed
from the main body of the advance, and they damn near had us zeroed.  The
second shell that dropped rang my bell.  The only good news was that its
shrapnel missed all three of us.  I felt like I was wrapped in heavy gauze,
my senses dulled from the concussion of the blast and felt more than heard the
beat of a rotor as a helicopter suddenly appeared behind me.

Spinning, I
began firing at the aircraft when I recognized a Russian Havoc attack
helo.  But, it’s well armored and my rifle bullets did nothing.  The
Apache pilot was screaming something at me that I couldn’t understand as he
held the trigger down and emptied his rifle at the new arrival.  His first
couple of rounds were deflected off the ballistic windscreen, then the recoil
from full auto lifted his rifle’s muzzle up and to the side, sending the
remaining fire flying harmlessly off target.

The Havoc
just hung there, weapons staring back at us.  It was no more than fifty
yards away and we’d be dead before our brains even registered that it had fired
a rocket or canon.  With nowhere to run and nothing to effectively fight
back, I let my rifle drop as thoughts of Katie ran through my head. 

Not the
infected Katie, but the girl I’d married.  I guess this was my life
passing before my eyes.  Not all of it, just the best part.  The part
I’d spent with her.