Authors: Shawn Kupfer
By the end of the day, there were four men in 47 Echo, counting Christopher and Nick. Christopher had already told him that a full unit was ten plus CO, so Nick didn’t expect to be assigned until there were more of them. He was wrong.
In addition to himself and Christopher, the new additions to the unit were twenty-two-year-old armed robber and killer Peter King (47 Echo 1154), and thirty-four-year-old double-murderer Michael Riley (47 Echo 1155). Michael was affable, talkative, and generally likeable. Peter had said barely a word since he’d been assigned to the unit.
“All right, Echo. We’ve got one more joining us in the morning—1153, I think you’ve met him already. Once he gets his head stitched up, the gentleman you met in line will be reassigned from 31 Alpha to 47 Echo. Soon as that happens, we’re on the move,” Neal told them, reading from the screen in his hand.
“Without a full unit, sir?” Christopher asked.
“Correct, 311. We’re supporting 18 Echo.”
“Doing what, exactly?”
“Need to know, 1153. Need to know. Gentlemen, 311 will show you to your bunks. Grab some sleep now. Who knows when you’ll get another chance.”
Neal turned off the screen in his hand and walked away. Christopher motioned to his three charges.
“Follow me, gents. You think the processing area’s shitty, wait ‘til you see where they got us sleeping,” he said with a wink.
“Ain’t they afraid we’re just gonna run off?” Peter asked, looking around as the three of them fell into step behind Christopher.
“Holy shit! You can talk?” Christopher laughed. “Look around you, Chief. See all those Marines with guns? You take off, they’ll shoot the shit out of you. Plus, where you gonna go?”
Christopher spread his arms wide. Apart from soldiers, convicts and bodies, there wasn’t much to see.
“See this area we’re in now? Used to be the central park of this city. Then China bombed the place off the map. You run, you’ll just find ruins in every direction for ten, fifteen square miles.”
“About that, Chris,” Nick said.
“Yeah?”
“Just where the fuck are we, anyway? They landed us at what looked like a commercial airport, chucked us in the back of some big trucks, and dropped us off here.”
“You’re in Staging Area November, formerly known as Irkutsk, Russia.”
“They got to Russia already?” Michael asked, shaking his head.
“More of it than you want to know, pal. You’ve heard of the front lines? This ain’t them, but you can sure as hell see them from here.”
“Shit.” Peter shook his head. “Anyone got some smokes?”
Nick wordlessly offered the pack to Peter, who took one.
“Don’t let a CO catch you smoking that, by the way. Neal’s cool, but some of the others can be real bitches,” Christopher warned.
The four of them walked for a few minutes until they came to half of a large, long rectangular building. Several heavily armed soldiers guarded the front of the place.
“Welcome to what’s left of the Hotel Angara, folks. No power, no running water, beds like plywood. Home, for the moment. Shall we?” Christopher led his men past the guards and down a long, dark hallway lit sporadically with chemical glowsticks. They stopped at a room numbered in Cyrillic—“47E” had been haphazardly spray-painted over the lower half of the door.
“One hotel room for four guys?” Peter asked.
“Hey, usually it’s for ten, so don’t bitch. Oh, yeah. Gotta warn you—when the place was hit by bombs a few months back, the water mains broke. Soaked everything. It smells pretty awful in there.”
Christopher opened the door. It wasn’t locked, Nick noticed. In fact, the deadbolts had been removed completely, leaving a small hole in the door. Inside were five beds and a large mess of pillows and blankets on the floor. There was no other furniture in the room—the only evidence that it had once been a place for tourists to stay was a stained, framed picture of downtown Irkutsk hanging on the west wall.
And Christopher was right. It stank. The odor reminded him of a dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant crossed with wet dog.
Nick chose a bed and sat on it, folding his booted feet under him. Fortunately, the mattress was a little hard but not completely uncomfortable. Unfortunately, the beds also seemed to be the source of the smell. Michael and Peter also grabbed bunks, but Christopher stayed standing, opening the window a crack and lighting a cigarette.
“Man. I thought I lived in a shithole back in Detroit.” Peter said, looking around the room, his nose wrinkling.
“That where you’re from, kid?” Michael asked.
“Yeah. You?”
“Boston.”
Christopher grinned. “I could tell that just by looking at you, Riley,” he said, blowing out smoke. “You look Irish enough to be named Shaun O’Shaunnesy.”
Michael smirked. “Oh yeah? And where do you hail from?”
“Daytona.”
“Went there on spring break in college. Shit town,” Michael shot back.
“I agree. Which is why this place doesn’t seem so bad to me,” Christopher said.
“Yeah, you know, if you squint your eyes, it pretty much looks like the place I stayed on spring break. Kinda smells like it, too.”
Christopher and Michael shared a laugh.
“What about you, Nick? Where you from, man?” Christopher asked.
“Nowhere interesting.” Nick smiled halfheartedly. “Just outside of Los Angeles.”
“Oh, man. Were you in the city when—”
“Yeah,” Nick cut Christopher off.
The silence was immediate, and broken a minute later only by the sounds of a loud scuffle down the hall.
“Ignore that,” Christopher waved his hand at the door. “Happens all the time. Some unit gets convinced another unit has a better room than they do, try to forcibly switch. No one fucks with Echo rooms, though. We kinda scare the crap out of them.”
***
The next morning, guards walked up and down the halls pounding on doors at five. “Look alive, convicts!” they yelled.
Nick rolled out of bed and jammed his feet into his secondhand boots. Despite being two slightly different sizes, they seemed to fit just fine. He zipped the sides of the boots tightly to his feet. Although he was sure he’d slept last night, he didn’t feel terribly rested.
“Hey, bro. Can I get another one of them smokes from you?” Peter asked, groggily sitting up in the next bed.
“Yeah, sure thing.”
Nick held out the pack, and as Peter took a cigarette, Nick noticed the Thug Life tattoo on the dark skin of his forearm.
“Gang?”
“Yeah. Pretty stupid, considering where I ended up.”
“I don’t think anyone in this unit can throw stones at you for that, man.” Nick smirked, shrugging into his BDU jacket.
“Four-seven Echo! Front and center, ninety seconds!” one of the guards in the hall yelled.
“Better hurry, kids. Trust me, they fucking mean it,” Christopher told them, quickly buttoning his uniform coat and zipping up his boots.
All four men were standing in the hall in full uniform when Lieutenant Neal walked up a minute later.
“Punctual. Good start, boys. As you know, we’re hooked up with the 1-8 this morning. Their CO, Captain Sayed, is running this mission, so he’ll fill you in on the details. Follow me.”
Neal led his four-man squad outside, where they met another unit led by a small but muscular black man, a Captain in convict fatigues. Nick also noticed, standing off to the side, the man he’d knocked out in line the day before, now in uniform and not looking happy at all.
“Thanks for finally joining us, 47,” Sayed boomed. “All right, you convict fuck-ups. Listen up. We’re detailed to Port Baikal just south of here. Command set up comms to monitor the area two months ago. Yesterday afternoon, for undetermined reasons, those comms quit sending. We’re on our way down to find out why.”
“Sounds like fun,” Michael muttered from behind Nick.
Sayed’s gaze immediately locked onto Michael. “You’re new, kid, so I’m going to let that go this time. Next time you speak without being asked something, I’ll snap your fucking cracker spine like kindling. We clear?”
“Clear, sir,” Michael replied.
“That goes for all of you newbs. The men in my unit know that if you shut the fuck up and do your damned jobs, you ain’t gonna have problems with me. And trust me, people, you do not want problems with me. Lieutenant Neal, load your men up.”
“Yes, sir!”
Neal turned to his men. “Weapons are already on the van. Reviewing your files, I see you all were arrested for crimes with various firearms, so I trust I don’t need to tell you how to use them. Today will function as your basic training, gents. Keep your eyes open and listen for orders from either myself or Captain Sayed. Any questions?”
Both Michael and the new guy raised their hands.
“Good. Keep them to your fucking selves. On the van. Move!”
Neal waved his hand in the direction of the second of two parked GAZ Sobol vans—both more than a decade old and clumsily converted to hybrid solar. Nick followed Christopher to the van, and as Christopher got in, Nick felt hot breath on his ear.
“Don’t think I forgot how I got into this shit unit, pal. Next time the COs aren’t looking, you and me are gonna have a little rematch, and I won’t fall for a fucking sucker punch this time.”
Nick got on the van, sat down, and turned to face the new kid. “First off, I didn’t punch you. I kicked you in that ugly melon of yours. And second, the sucker ain’t the one doing the punching, pal.”
“Eleven fifty-six! Stop fucking standing around, and get on the fucking van!” Neal yelled.
The rest of 47 Echo loaded up quickly, followed by three members of 18. Neal started up the van and followed the lead vehicle away from the hotel. With the noisy old engine rumbling, Nick and Christopher could talk without Neal hearing them.
“Jesus. This piece of crap is what they’re sending us out in?” Nick asked, his eyes wide as he scanned the dirty interior of the aging van.
“You expect them to give us decent equipment? Spend money on a bunch of convicts? Wait ‘til you see the guns. They’re museum pieces. Little tip—you get into a situation, try and pick up an enemy weapon if you can. They’re in better shape than ours by a mile.”
Nick nodded. “Know anything about the new kid? Eleven fifty-six?”
“Yeah, found out a bit last night from Neal. Gabe Martinez. One of those Latin gangs. Convicted of assault. Would’ve had a slot in Alpha if he hadn’t freaked out and shot a real soldier. And he already doesn’t much like you, but you knew that part.”
***
Slightly more than two hours later, the vans stopped on a long, desolate road. Neal turned off the ignition and turned to face his men.
“All right, people. As you’ve no doubt noticed, we’re not sneaking up on anyone in these things. We’re on foot from here in. Three-eleven, you’re on weapons. Let’s move out.”
Christopher and Neal were the first off the van. Christopher opened up the back doors of the van and shook his head. “Come on, L.T. Really?” He shook his head again.
“At least this batch works. Tested them myself,” Neal said apologetically.
“All right, folks. Line up and get your shitty, shitty guns,” Christopher said, holding up a pair of Ruger 9mm pistols.
After getting his gun and one extra clip of ammo, Nick fell into step behind the other soldiers. Christopher caught up to him a moment later and walked next to him as the combined unit headed down toward the lake shore.
“Any idea what we’ll find when we get there?” Nick asked.
“Hopefully not a whole platoon of pissed-off Chinks.” Christopher shrugged.
In the roughly mile and a half the unit walked on foot, Nick made it a point to learn as much as he could. The first thing he noticed was that 18 Echo’s weapons were quite a bit better than 47’s—in most cases, they actually had assault rifles rather than decades-old pistols. He also noticed that Sayed made Neal take point rather than leading the way himself.
He learned even more talking quietly to Christopher as they walked.
“Lake Baikal is kind of a barrier between us and the Chinese forces. Intel says they’re massing on the other side, and that it’s only a matter of time before they swarm across and take Irkutsk. When that happens, we’re fucked.”
“So that’s why they’re so freaked about monitoring devices going down?”
“Yeah. Even with all the cons they keep funneling through Irkutsk, we really don’t have the strength to defend Area November. They open us up there, they can use it to invade a whole lot more of Russia than they already have. ’Specially since we got renegade Russian forces coming at us from the northwest.”
“Looks like I picked the wrong time to get convicted of murder.”
“Didn’t we all, though. Didn’t we all.”
Sayed held up his hand, indicating the line of soldiers behind him should stop. They had reached the bottom of a small hill covered in tall grass—Sayed consulted a screen on his uniform sleeve and quietly consulted with Neal. Nick was close enough to hear most of what they were saying.
“GPS says the first marker’s just over the hill,” Sayed said.
“That jives with my info.”
“I’m picking up a weak signal. Couple of the comms are still active, but enough have been knocked out of their network to cut their effective range to a couple of miles.”
Neal said something Nick couldn’t make out. Sayed motioned for the unit to follow him up the hill, then to drop down when they neared the top. Sayed, Neal, Christopher, Nick and two of Sayed’s men all formed a line in the front. Sayed pulled out a pair of binoculars, and Neal followed suit.
“See ‘em, Jimbo?” Sayed asked after a moment.
“That’s affirmative.”
Christopher pulled out his own pair of compact binoculars and looked through them. He passed them to Neal—two short, rough Asian men in dark blue pants, white shirts, and heavy blue jackets were standing by the lake shore. One of them had a small device in his hands, and was turning it over, inspecting it.
“Looks like we found the source of the problem,” Sayed growled. “Fucking Chinks.”
“They’re not Chinese,” Nick said without thinking, zooming in with his binoculars.
“I don’t recall asking you a goddamned thing, convict,” Sayed spat out.
“Regardless, sir, they’re not Chinese. They’re Mongolian.”
“How do you know that?” Neal asked.
Because I’m not a fucking idiot,
Nick wanted to say. “The script on their jackets. It’s Mongolian. The symbols are Mongolian Police.”
“Neal, shut his hole. Two-ten, 1412, I want you to take up positions and mow these Chink bastards down.”
Nick looked over at Neal—he could see that his Lieutenant didn’t agree with Sayed one bit.
Fuck. What’s the worst they can do to me?
Nick thought, standing on his haunches and inching closer to Sayed.
“Captain Sayed, sir,” Nick started.
“I thought I told you to shut the fuck—”
Sayed didn’t have a chance to finish his sentence. Nick cold-cocked the officer in the jaw with his right fist, immediately dropping him. Sayed twitched once on the ground, bleeding slightly from the mouth, but Nick knew he hadn’t killed the man. He could see his chest rising and falling evenly.
“Two-ten, 1412, cancel your previous order,” Neal said quickly. “Three-eleven, take 1153 into custody for striking an officer.”
Christopher nodded and took a zip-tie from his cargo pocket. He loosely tied Nick’s hands behind his back. Neal caught Nick’s eye and winked.
“All right, gentlemen. Here’s how we’re going to play this…”
Nick could only watch as Christopher, Michael and two of the 18 soldiers approached the two Mongolian policemen. The four convicts walked up slowly, hands empty and open at their sides so as not to spook the two cops. Nick would have expected a similar reaction from the two police, but instead, the cops jumped up and down excitedly and waved their arms. One of them ran up and hugged Christopher.
“Um…yeah, sir. I think we’re dealing with non-hostiles,” Christopher’s voice crackled over Neal’s radio.
“All right, 311. Bring them back here. We’re taking them back to Area November with us.”
“Copy that.”
As Christopher’s small detachment escorted the two Mongolian cops over to rejoin the rest of the unit, Nick noticed that both policemen were frightfully thin and their shoes had worn down to almost nothing. He guessed they’d come most of the way from home on foot, on very little food and no water.
“Six-eighteen, 1412, you’re carrying Captain Sayed back to the vans. The rest of you, double-time. Just because we haven’t seen any Chinese forces yet doesn’t mean there aren’t any. Let’s move.”
As the unit started to jog back to the vans a mile and a half away, Christopher sped up to run beside Nick.
“Man. You just like hitting people, don’t you, kid?”
Nick tried to shrug, but it wasn’t easy with his hands tied behind his back. It took the unit just under eight minutes to make it back to the vans and less than two minutes to load up. Christopher was driving the second van—Neal made sure to keep Nick in the first, away from Sayed should the Captain wake up and want to shoot him.
Nick was sitting next to the Mongolian cops in the van’s third row. The two cops were still smiling widely and talking excitedly to each other in quick whispers. Nick tried to pick up what they were saying but found it tough, as he didn’t speak Mongolian at all.
Gabriel Martinez was in the seat in front of Nick and turned around to face him, grinning. “And to think I was pissed at you for getting me thrown in with you fucking Mechoes. You’re about to have it much worse than I did, pal. Sucker punching didn’t work out for ya this time, did it?” His voice had a definite edge to it, an animal growl that made his smile look feral and filled his words with bile.
Nick smiled. “Ah, to be young. Remember, kiddo. Sucker ain’t the one doing the punching.”
***
Neal immediately turned Nick over to a pair of uniformed Military Police as soon as they reached Staging Area November. He assured Nick this was for his own protection because Captain Sayed was in Echo for shooting a junior officer who’d disagreed with him in the real Marines. The MPs took Nick to a holding cell in what had once been the bottom level of a parking garage. The cage had been set up in a corner of the garage, bracing two floor-to-ceiling iron grates against the concrete walls. Two armed guards stood in front of Nick’s cage, waiting for Nick to try something, anything.
Nick, however, didn’t plan on attempting escape. He decided instead to sit on the small folding chair in the cell and say nothing. He guessed there wasn’t a whole lot more they could do to him—he was already in a suicide squad, and Nick had figured out relatively quickly that the powers-that-be didn’t want to waste able-bodied soldiers.
The combined Echo unit had returned from Port Baikal just after one in the afternoon—it was well past nightfall when someone finally appeared to deal with Nick. A tall, thin man in regular Marine fatigues walked out of the relative darkness of the parking garage to the dim circle of light thrown by the glowsticks attached to the cell grates. One of the guards grabbed a folding chair propped up against the concrete wall just outside the cell and set it up across from Nick’s chair.
As the Marine sat down on the other side of the grate, Nick caught a glimpse of oak clusters on his shoulder. Either a Major or a Lieutenant Colonel. The ranks were starting to come back to him now.
“Four-seven Echo 1153. I’m Lieutenant Colonel David Markham. The convict units are under my direct supervision.”
Nick had no idea what to say, so he just nodded.
Markham consulted a small screen in his hand. “Looks like you’re in here for striking a senior officer. I’ve already talked to your CO and men from both the 4-7 and the 1-8, so I really don’t need your input…but I am curious. Why did you hit Captain Sayed?”
“To be honest, sir, he was making a reckless decision and, just for the hell of it, was going to kill the two men we brought back.”
“I realize you’re new here. The penalty for striking a senior officer is usually a transfer to the next unit down, but you’re already pretty much as low as you can go. For you high-numbered Echoes, such an offense would usually buy you a couple of days in the box.”
“The box, sir?”
“You’d rather not know, trust me. But in this case, I happen to agree with what you did. Doesn’t hurt that the two men you brought back had valuable intel, either. We do need soldiers who can think. I am surprised, though, that you had an objection to killing these two men. Your own record is not, as they say, lily-white.”
“True, sir. But I figure the only way I’m going to stay alive out here is to use my head.”
Markham grinned. “I like you, Morrow. All right. You’re released. Try to steer clear of Captain Sayed. He’s been warned to stay clear of you, but I doubt he will.”
Nick had been released and escorted back to his unit before he realized that Markham hadn’t used his number. He’d called Nick by his real name.
Four-seven Echo was just returning to their room at the half-hotel when Nick arrived. Christopher, who Nick had thus far only seen smiling or grinning, wore a blank expression. The other three men in the unit also looked completely worn-out and pale. Though he’d just spent several hours in a makeshift jail, Nick looked more awake and in much better spirits than any of his comrades.
“Oh, good. They didn’t kill you or anything,” Gabriel said wearily.
“No, they just let me go. Talked to the bigwig in charge of all us convicts. What the hell happened to you guys?”
Christopher nudged open the door to 47 Echo’s room with his boot and dropped down on the closest bed. He wearily lit a cigarette and took a drag. He didn’t seem to have the energy to move the pack from where it fell against his chest.
“Soon as we got back, they detailed us to the Irkutsk Airport in Klyuchevaya. Happens sometimes—we provide extra security for incoming convicts,” Christopher explained, little puffs of smoke accompanying every few syllables.
Nick took a seat on the bed next to Christopher’s—the other men had already sprawled out on the rest of the bunks. Peter was also smoking a cigarette, and through the haze of smoke surrounding the young man’s face, Nick could see that his eyes were only half-open.
“C-5s came in just like normal. Only this time, when the planes opened up, no convicts. Just one Air Force flyboy who told us to start loading equipment,” Christopher explained.
“Shit was heavy, yo,” Peter grumbled from his bed.
“We must have loaded up four, five planes in four hours. And I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a C-5, but they’re fucking big. We loaded those motherfuckers to the roof.”
“With what?”
“Shit in boxes,” Michael said. “Comm equipment. Tents. I’m guessing everything in the damned camp, but that’s probably just my sprained back talking.”
“Then one more Galaxy landed. This one started unloading stuff—armored vehicles. Three of them. Boxes of weapons. Decent ones,” Christopher said.
“So what’s going on, you think?”
Christopher shrugged and finished off his cigarette. “I didn’t get a chance to ask any of my usual sources. Neal vanished as soon as we got to the airport. Didn’t see any of my guys from other Echo units. Saw a few Alpha guys and a Delta I know, but they didn’t know any more than I do, which is shit. My guess, though?”
Nick nodded. “I’m guessing we’re evacuating Area November. Like, quickly.”
“Those Mongolians you had us bring back must’ve scared the shit out of someone,” Gabriel said, shaking his head. “Someone gimme a smoke.”
“Fuck you, kid. You’re not even eighteen yet.” Christopher grinned weakly, tossing the pack across the room.
Gabriel caught the pack and pulled out a cigarette. Nick handed the young man a lighter.
“Fuck you right back, man. I will be next week.”
“Well, that’s all sorts of depressing,” Michael said.
“So we’re getting out of here?” Nick asked Christopher.
“Well, someone is. I’m thinking someone has to stay behind and cover the evac. And guess who gets all the shit jobs around here?”