Authors: Shawn Kupfer
Nick quickly learned the names of the guys in the EOD—apart from Rico, there was Spence (the driver) and Scott. The three members of the team moved quickly, assuredly, as if they had done this a thousand times before. Curious, Nick asked them how many times they had disarmed a nuclear bomb. Soon after, he wished he hadn’t.
“Never. But we’ve done a simulated one,” Scott told him.
It didn’t take long for Nick to feel like the fourth wheel on a tricycle. Aside from the occasional symbol the guys needed translated, he kept very much to the back of the Razor, becoming one with the wall. He watched them work, and listened to their short, clipped communications.
“Rico—”
“Got it.”
“Hand me the—thanks.”
“See the—?”
“Yep.”
“You got—”
“Right here.”
As fascinating as it was to watch them work, Nick still couldn’t help being jumpy. One wrong move, he knew, and he’d be dead before he knew anything had even happened. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from twitching every time one of the EOD techs moved a wire or made an adjustment.
“Hey, Nick. You all right over there, buddy?” Rico asked, looking up from his work and wiping sweat from his brow.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You look like you’re just waitin’ for this thing to go boom, man.” Scott smiled at him.
“Kinda, yeah.”
“Well, hate to disappoint you, but we’re done,” Rico said. “This baby’s only dangerous now if you drop it on your foot. So, you know, you can breathe now.”
Rico motioned for Nick to follow him out of the Razor, and the four of them walked back out to the EOD Cougar. Rico opened the driver’s door and grabbed a radio extender off the dashboard. “Four-fifteen EOD to Command and Control,” he said.
“Command and Control, copy.”
“Nuke disarmed. Recommend you dispose of the entire Razor—nuke’s welded to the floor plating.”
“We copy. Come on home, 415.”
“Roger that.” Rico tossed the extender back on the Cougar’s dashboard.
“Can we give you a lift, man?” Spence asked, climbing behind the Cougar’s wheel.
“Sure. Don’t know where I’m headed, though—pretty sure my unit’s been evacuated with everyone else.”
“Hey, just ride with us, man. We’re heading back to C2—well, eventually. Sure someone’ll be there to tell you where to go.” Rico smiled.
Nick shrugged and climbed into the back seat next to Scott. As Spence started the engine, Scott reached into a large ammo box and pulled out four huge bottles of Klinskoe beer. He opened one and held it out to Nick.
“Thanks. Thought we were heading back to Command and Control?” Nick smirked as he took a drink.
“We are. Eventually.” Scott winked, handing beers to Spence and Rico. “But for right now, we’ve got an empty city, a bunch of beer and a fast truck. If you’ve got a couple more of those cigarettes, I’d say we’ve got the makings of a party.”
Nick pulled three packs of Russian smokes from his cargo pockets and handed them out to the EOD crew. Spence slammed on the gas, and Rico flipped on the in-dash radio, to which he’d hooked up an MP3 player.
The black Cougar tore down the empty streets, blaring loud thrashcore and knocking over street signs. Nick surprised himself by bursting into a long, loud whoop, his first laugh since his arrest.
It took an hour to make it the three miles to Command and Control, mainly because they sped through every other street in Novosibirsk first. Nick was three beers up and feeling slightly drunk—even before his arrest, he wasn’t much of a drinker. The three EOD techs, however, acted stone sober as they led him to the elevator. There were no guards around this time as they walked down the long hallway to the blast doors outside of Command and Control.
“Nick, man. Don’t say anything unless they ask you a direct question, yeah? You’re a little tipsy, bro,” Rico whispered as the doors opened.
Nick nodded.
Major Harrison was in his usual spot, next to an Army Colonel Nick hadn’t met before. The Colonel turned to them as they walked in.
“City sweep complete, sir,” Rico said, saluting the Colonel and standing at attention.
“As you were, Sergeant Torres. Good work. The engineers have the Razor encased in concrete, and we’ll be flying it out to the Baltic Sea in a couple of hours. You did good work, there.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“This one of your men, Major Harrison?” the Colonel asked, nodding at Nick.
“Yes, sir. That’s the SIC of 47 Echo.”
“He was a real help to us, sir. We wouldn’t have been able to defuse the bomb without his translations,” Rico added.
“Good job, Echo. I hear you’re making quite a name for your unit. Haven’t lost but a man since you took over. You don’t know how rare that is in this game.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“The convict units are helping move everyone back into the Camp. It’ll take a few hours. You look beat, Echo. You a coffee drinker?”
“Used to be, sir.”
“Come on. I could go for a cup right now.” The Colonel smiled. “You boys are dismissed. Have a drink and get some downtime.”
Rico saluted and led his unit back out through the blast doors. Nick followed the Colonel to a small kitchen just off the main control room, where the Colonel poured two mugs of jet-black coffee from an old, stained auto-drip machine.
“So what’s your momma call you, Echo?”
“Nick, sir.”
“Well, Nick. You been in the service before?”
“No, sir. Construction.”
“From what I’ve heard, you’re natural military. You’ve done some good work in the last couple of weeks, not to mention you punched out that prick Sayed. Never liked that guy.” The Colonel chuckled, handing one of the cups to Nick.
Nick took a sip—he’d almost forgotten how much he missed coffee.
“Like I said, I’ve heard about you. That doesn’t happen, normally—you convicts outnumber us in the real Armed Forces almost five to one, but we never hear specific names. ‘Cept for you and your crew. There’ve been rumblings. I hear something is about to change for your crew.”
“Any idea what?”
“Sure. But wouldn’t want to spoil it for you.” The Colonel smirked. “My name’s Ross, by the way. Sawyer Ross. Call me crazy, but I don’t think this cup of coffee’s the last we’ll see of each other.”
“Good to meet you, Colonel Ross.”
Ross smirked and finished off his cup of coffee.
“Feel free to stay here and have another cup. I’ve got to get back to work. I’d say you’ve got three hours before you have to report back to your unit—if I were you, I’d just use that time to relax. You look like seventeen different kinds of hell, son.”
Nick nodded and poured himself another cup of coffee.
“Well, look at this! Savior of Camp Justice, in the flesh! Can I get your autograph, man?” Peter smiled as he walked in the door to 47 Echo’s apartment.
“Shut the fuck up, Pete.” Nick laughed.
The rest of the unit was behind Peter, some of them carrying packs over their shoulders. They all looked tired, but most of them were smiling. Nick did a quick head count as his unit filed in and came up one short.
“Where’s Kenneth?”
“Tried to fight one of the Kilo gangbangers. Got jumped by about ten more of ‘em. They’re all doing twenty-four in the box.” Christopher shook his head.
“Well, I won’t mind the quiet. I talked to Captain Neal a few minutes ago—we’ve got six hours of downtime, then we’re off on another job. I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t actually remember the last time I slept. I’m knocking myself out for the next five. Do what you feel like, but keep it down, all right?”
Nick’s men nodded their understanding, so he threw himself on his bunk, closed his eyes, and fell asleep within three breaths.
When he woke and checked the digital clock on the wall, Nick saw that four hours had passed. The sun was still up, but only just—it was starting to sink below the rooftops. His men were all passed out, except for Anthony, who sat out on the patio messing with the mobile he’d taken off the CDM’s pilot. Nick rifled through Christopher’s pack, found a pack of cigarettes, and took one. He walked out onto the patio and lit his smoke.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Anthony move to put away his phone.
“Don’t worry about it, Anthony. I’m the only one up.”
“Hey, boss. Just trying to get this thing, you know, working.”
“Really? I would have thought you would have given up with that by now.”
“Well, I mean, I don’t know much about tech stuff, but it’s—”
“Not fixing the phone. I know it works. I would have thought you’d have given up with the act. I’ve figured out who you are, and what you’re doing with the phone. You never killed anyone, man.”
“Then I should really sue someone for putting me in Echo.” Anthony laughed.
“Nope. Because Echo’s exactly where you wanted to be, even though you’re not a criminal. Your face was familiar to me the first time I saw you, Anthony. Just took me a little time to put it together.”
“Oh, yeah? Where do you think you know me from?”
“‘Adventure Vacations in Thailand.’”
Anthony’s smirk fell. “You read that?”
“Yep. That, and ‘Motorcycle Travels Across The Middle East.’ Good stories, both of them. Still with the New York Times Network?”
“Yeah. Look, I’ll tell you the whole story sometime soon, I promise. But I’ve gotta finish this story and get it sent to them. You’re not gonna tell anyone, are you?”
Nick smiled. “Wouldn’t do me much good if I did. Besides, freedom of the press. I dig it. Just be very careful. I’ll cover for you as much as I can, but don’t make me cover too much, yeah?”
“Appreciate it, boss.”
“Now…finish up. We’ve got a briefing to get to in an hour.”
***
“Good evening, 47 Echo. As you can plainly see, we have a new Razor for you, as the last one’s busy sinking to the bottom of the Baltic.” Neal addressed the eight men standing outside the apartment building.
The new Razor looked much like the old one, except that this one was painted black rather than olive drab. The blast shields were up and the rear hatch was open—Nick could just see inside, and was pretty sure there was at least one station that wasn’t standard issue built in near the back of the vehicle.
“Before I get to your mission, I have some news,” Neal continued. “Four-seven Echo is being repurposed.”
“Repurposed, sir?” Christopher asked.
“That’s right, Three-eleven—or, should I say, Mr. Lee. From now on, you’re no longer to be referred to as numbers. You’ve earned back your names.”
Murmurs sounded through the group, but Nick silenced his men with a look.
“Your unit is now called 47 Echo SRF. SRF stands for Special Reaction Force. Congratulations, gentlemen—you have the distinct honor of being the first Special Forces convict unit.”
“This mean our jobs are gonna get less dangerous?” Michael asked. There wasn’t a trace of sarcasm in his voice.
“I’m afraid not.” Neal smirked. “If anything, they’ll be more dangerous. But there is a bright side. All of you were serving life sentences. If you choose to remain in the SRF, you will be released and your criminal records expunged, should you survive to the end of this war.”
Murmurs again ran through Nick’s assembled unit, but this time he did nothing to stop them. Neal nodded. “You have a half an hour to decide if you wish to remain in the unit. Should you choose to leave the 47, you’ll be added to the 46 and the 48 and serve much as you were before. I’ll be back in thirty minutes to hear your decision, and to give those of you who remain your mission.”
As Neal turned his back and walked away, Nick looked at his men. Each of them nodded in turn.
“Sir,” Nick called after Neal. The Captain turned around.
“No need to wait a half an hour. We’re all in, sir. What’s the job?”
“Right,” Nick said. “Let’s load up, 4-7. We’ve got a long way to drive and not much time to get there. Chris, you’re on the wheel. Pete and Mike, guns. Anthony, comms. Gabe, targeting station. Owen, camera control. I’m going to try and figure out the new station as we drive. Wes, I want you to check our personal weapons and assist Pete and Mike if they need help reloading. Chris, you got the coordinates?”
“In the nav system.”
“Then start this big bitch up, and let’s get moving.”
Christopher turned over the huge twenty-four-cylinder engine, slammed the Razor in gear, and set off where the nav system told him to go. Nick sat down at the new station near the back of the Razor.
Anthony was just a few feet away, setting the comm beacon to transmit back to Camp Justice as soon as they left the green zone. “So what’s this new station do?”
“Makes us invisible. Like ninjas.” Nick smirked.
“Fine. Don’t tell me,” Anthony grumbled.
The night before, while Nick had been sweating his life away in the box, Major Harrison had received a call from Post K-13R. The call had only lasted forty-five seconds—just long enough to trace it to a cell tower—but Harrison was convinced it was Colonel Petkov. Somehow, he’d survived the attack on K-13R, gotten his hands on a cell phone, and called his old friend on his private line.
There had been a lot of static on the call, so the computers couldn’t positively verify Petkov’s voiceprint, but Harrison was convinced it was his friend. Petkov had given his coordinates, said he had important information, and warned that K-13R was crawling with Chinese and North Korean soldiers. The line had then gone dead, and Harrison had started putting together a mission profile for his new Special Forces team.
They’d be taking the Razor off-road, in an almost straight line to K-13R. With the underground listening posts and a sky full of Chinese UAVs, they couldn’t risk sending any more than one Razor, and they couldn’t carry it in via chopper—therefore, they’d all be stuck in their new Razor for three days. There were enough FSRs and bottles of water for eight men for more than a week, and they’d be making contact with Neal back at Camp Justice once a day until they got within a hundred miles of K-13R. Then they’d be on their own.
The first day passed pretty uneventfully. They drove through fields, small streams, and thick woods, but the Razor handled it all as if it was driving on level two-lane blacktop. Neal sent them some further information—plans for K-13R, a dossier on Petkov, AWACS recon on the site—which Nick studied before catching a few hours of sleep. He relieved Christopher at the wheel and drove through the next eight hours, wishing the whole time he had music to keep awake.
As the sun started to drop below the horizon line on the second night, Christopher nudged him on the shoulder.
“How’d you sleep?” Nick asked him.
“Well enough. Why don’t you catch a couple of hours of rack time, have one of those tasty FSRs. I’ve got the next stretch here.”
“Sounds good. Wake me up if anything happens, yeah?”
“God, I hope something does happen. This mission’s worse than downtime so far.” Christopher smirked, sliding into the vacated driver’s seat.
Nick climbed into one of the Razor’s fold-out racks—Gabriel and Peter occupied two others. Nick fell asleep quickly, thankful for his ability to pass out nearly anywhere. He dreamt of Chinatown in Los Angeles and the first time his father Alex had taken him there when he was five. His brother Stan was away at summer camp, and his mother was visiting relatives in Hong Kong—it was just Nick and his father in the house for three weeks. His father took leave from the Navy and decided he and Nick would explore the city.
Nick remembered Alex was surprised his mother had never taken him to Chinatown before. It was where they had met eight years before, and strangely, it hadn’t been Nick’s mother who had lived there. It had been Alexander himself, then twenty-two and straight out of SEAL training, living in a small, cheap apartment and driving a $65,000 car.
On the day Nick and his father visited, the city had been drenched in rain all morning, but the rain had stopped as soon as Alex parked the family Pontiac along the street. He took Nick to a small restaurant called Triple Happiness, and the two of them took a table near the kitchen. Almost immediately, an old Chinese man came running out of the kitchen, talking loudly and smiling at Alex.
“Nick, this is Mr. Ho. He owns the restaurant and the apartments above. I used to live here before I met your mom.”
Nick didn’t understand—why would his father live in a restaurant?—but he remembered being frightened of this animated old man who sat at the table, talking loudly and constantly hitting Alex playfully in the shoulder.
“
Aye yah
, so you’re back in Los Angeles, eh, Hero Alex? You been fighting over in Africa? I hear that on the news.”
“Somalia? Nah, my unit wasn’t there. We were in Eastern Europe at the time. Food was horrible. You want to make us something good for lunch, Leo?”
“You got it, Hero Alex!”
The old Chinese man scurried away, and Nick tugged on the sleeve of his father’s leather coat.
“Dad?”
“Yeah, kiddo?”
“Why’d he call you Hero Alex?”
“Just a silly nickname, kiddo. Like when Stan calls you Little Devil.”
Nick nodded. This made sense to him. He and his father had lunch and explored Chinatown for the rest of the day—it was one of Nick’s best memories of his father. It was 1996, and Chinatown wouldn’t descend into chaos, violence, starvation and anarchy for another twenty-one years.
The dream shifted. Nick was now thirteen, sitting in Baltimore/Washington International Airport with his brother Stan. They were supposed to have been spending the summer with their father in Annapolis, but plans had changed—it was only mid-June, and the two boys were waiting on a flight back to Los Angeles. Stan was on his cell phone, talking to their mother.
“It’s not his fault. His unit got called up—in case you haven’t been watching the news, we’re kind of invading Iraq and Afghanistan at the moment,” Stan said, frowning.
Their mother said something on her end of the line, and Stan’s frown got deeper. Nick’s brother was seventeen, and had ended up looking decidedly more like their father with his sandy hair and green eyes. Nick himself had turned out looking almost exactly like their mother. The two teenagers barely looked related at all.
“Hey, come on, Mom. I know the two of you got divorced, but you don’t have to give the guy shit. Yeah, I’m saying ‘shit.’“
Nick could hear his mother yelling on the other end of the line, but he couldn’t make out what she was saying.
“Fine. But that’s the last thing he needs. He’s going off to war, and he doesn’t need you calling him and yelling at him about me and Nick having to come home early. Look, just don’t call him, all right? We’ll be home this afternoon.” Stan hung up the phone and looked over at his brother. “Hey, bro. We still have a couple of hours before our flight. You hungry?”
Nick shrugged.
“C’mon. I saw a McDonald’s down the hall. I won’t tell Mom if you don’t.”
Nick stood to follow his brother, but someone suddenly laid a hand on his shoulder and shook gently.
Nick opened his eyes and found himself back in the Razor. Anthony was standing over him, his face a tight mask of concern.
“Hey, boss. Sorry to wake you.”
“No problem. What’s up?”
“We’re getting some traffic. Really faint, maybe a hundred miles off. Can you take a listen for me?”
“Yeah.” Nick yawned, swinging his legs clear of the rack and stretching as he stood. He followed Anthony the few paces to the comm station and put on a pair of headphones. What he heard was mostly static. He listened carefully for a few seconds and managed to pick up several words in quick, clipped Chinese. Nick nodded.
“What are they saying, boss?”
“It’s a perimeter patrol. Looks like they’re further into this area than our intel would have us believe. Time to see how this new station actually works,” Nick said, taking off the headphones. “Chris! Cut our speed to forty miles an hour, yeah?”
“You got it, boss.”
Nick activated the new station, and the dim lights in the Razor suddenly turned red.
“What the fuck was that?” Anthony said.
“We’re running in stealth mode. No radar signature, comms are set to receive only, vehicle’s running silent on half-cylinders from our hybrid drive.” Nick made sure his voice was loud enough for everyone in the Razor to hear. He didn’t want to repeat himself.
“Well, that’s great—until someone sees a huge black vehicle rolling around.”
“We’ve got a countermeasure for that, too. But it takes a lot of power, so we’re not turning it on just yet.”
“Looks like we’ll make K-13R in about ten hours,” Christopher told him.
“Stop us twenty miles or so out and find some cover. We’re not going in until nightfall,” Nick ordered.
“Roger that.”
The next ten hours passed quickly. Anthony kept monitoring the comm frequencies, and they managed to avoid Chinese patrols all the way to their destination—another ruined town twenty-five miles west of K-13R. Christopher found an empty warehouse in which to park the Razor, and Nick let the men out two at a time to stretch their legs a bit.
“Okay, boss. Five hours until dark. What’s your plan?” Christopher asked as the two of them smoked cigarettes just outside the Razor’s back hatch. Though it was unlikely anyone was around to hear them, Christopher’s voice was barely above a whisper.
Nick had been attempting to piece together a plan of action ever since the Razor had gone into stealth mode. He’d had some ideas, but he was thankful Christopher was there to bounce them off of.
“Solar batteries in the Razor fully charged?”
“Yeah. Fifteen hours of operational time.”
“We’ll have seven and a half under full stealth. The adaptive camouflage sucks power at double the rate.”
“Adaptive camouflage?”
“Makes the Razor…well, not exactly invisible to the naked eye, but really fucking hard to see. That’s why we’re waiting for nightfall. We’ll be able to get within a half a mile undetected. Then…well, then we’ll need to get closer. I’m going to go in myself, on foot.”
“Alone?”
“In a pinch, I can pass for Chinese. None of the rest of you can. I’ll need the latest calculations on where Petkov was calling from. Gabe and Mike can come within a quarter of a mile, hopefully provide some cover fire if I need it—but if it comes to a firefight, we’re fucked.”
“I suddenly don’t like this plan very much.”
“You and me both. But it’s our best shot.”
***
A few hours after dark, the Razor rolled to within a mile of K-13R. No one inside said a word—it wasn’t likely anyone standing just outside the vehicle could hear them if they were shouting, but no one wanted to take any chances. When the Razor crew finally found their voices, they spoke in whispers.
“You sure this adaptive camouflage bullshit even works?” Gabriel whispered.
“Yeah. Cameras on the outside of the Razor project the images they see on the vehicle’s skin. When you and I get outside, you’ll see what I mean,” Nick said. “Owen, bring up the long-range front camera, please. Let’s see what I’m walking into.”
Owen nodded and pressed a few buttons. On the dashboard screen, a green-and-white image popped up, blurry and jumpy. The Razor crew could see a hastily erected main gate with Chinese soldiers walking the fence. Out in front of the fence, someone had set up what looked like a large number of signposts.
“What the fuck are these things?” Peter asked, tapping the signposts on the screen.
The image sharpened considerably as Owen pressed a few more buttons, and everyone in the Razor cabin could now see what was posted outside K-13R.
Though it was pretty clear to everyone in the cabin, Nick said it out loud anyway, choking back the bile that was rising in his throat before the words came out. “Those would be the heads of the Russian tank crews. On pikes.”