converse, they slept, read, or listened to music or watched videos on their iPods.
The squad was divided into two teams, A and B. A team had a team leader, a grenadier (GREN) who carried a rifle with attached M203 grenade launcher, an automatic rifleman (AR) with an M249 SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon), and a rifleman with the AT-4 antitank weapon (RMAT). B team had all of the same, except the RMAT was replaced by a DM — a designated marksman equipped with an M16A4 with a heavy barrel and improved optics.
While the Force Recon Marines, SEALs, and Army Special Forces were already fielding a lot of the new future force warrior gear, budget restrictions along with heavy pressure from liberal antiwar lobbyists had forced the Army to push back implementation of most of that high-tech equipment to the general infantry to at least 2032, war notwithstanding.
The unnerving thing was, while Rakken and his people were headed into urban terrain with outdated weapons, the Russian Spetsnaz had dropped in with state-of-the-art firepower. Rakken’s squad could be facing anything from directed energy weapons to the microwave weapons made famous by the Euros to Electrodarts delivering fifty thousand volts.
And of course, the threat of biological and chemical weapons always loomed.
“You guys are awful quiet,” said PFC Hassa.
“Just thinking, Hassa,” said Rakken. “I got a buddy who got sent up to High Level.”
“Where the hell is that?”
“Way up in Alberta. I’m just hoping he’s okay.”
“Aw, you believe that?” she asked, interrupting him.
“What?”
“Bunch of kids in a pickup truck just drove by and flipped us the bird!”
“Call in some air support.”
“I’ll give them air support, all right.”
“So, you guys want the good news or the bad news?” said Appleman.
Rakken was about to answer when Hassa cursed and cut the wheel, the Stryker rumbling as they tipped sideways and left the road, bouncing onto the embankment.
“Oh, my God!” she cried.
TWENTY-THREE
Almost every vehicle in the brigade possessed a built-in GPS to pinpoint their exact location. All you had to do was click on a blue icon to learn exactly which unit that was. If you saw an enemy, you could e-mail in the report, and red icons would appear on every display in the brigade.
But when Private Hassa shouted and Sergeant Appleman added, “The screen’s showing nothing. No enemy contacts,” Sergeant Marc Rakken knew better and sprang into action. “We have to get out!”
“Hassa, stop!” hollered Appleman.
“Let’s move, let’s move!” Rakken ordered.
Before the ramp had fully lowered, Rakken’s squad was out on the embankment, up to their ankles in slush and snow.
Smoke billowed from two of the four Strykers in Rakken’s rifle platoon. Pieces of the road were gone. The stench of gasoline hung heavily in the air. With a whine, ramps opened on the two smoldering vehicles, and the squads stumbled out, coughing and disoriented. A few guys fell to their knees.
The vehicle commanders were already screaming for medics as still more troops leapt from the backs of the Strykers behind them, fanning out to sweep the area, a broad section of the interstate with literally no place to hide.
And above, fighter planes sliced through the clouds, engines echoing.
“Russian jets all the way down here? No way!” shouted Appleman.
“They’re ours!” hollered Rakken. “That’s a flight of Raptors.”
“Did they fire on us?” asked Appleman.
“I don’t think so. They’re covering.” Rakken bit back a curse and jogged to the front of the Stryker, where Hassa was in her driver’s hatch. “What’d you see?”
“They just lit up, one after another.”
“Nothing dropped?”
“No. And we went over our vehicles with a fine-toothed comb, like we always do.”
“Sergeant?” Rakken called to Appleman. “Better send up word. Those Green Vox bastards didn’t stop at the mess hall.”
“Oh, man. They must’ve planted them on the vehicles.”
“Think about it. The Russians planned their attack. They knew in advance we’d be called up. The Brigade hit the mess hall, now they hit us again. That’s too much of a coincidence. I think they’re back to working for the Russians.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
Rakken sighed. “All right. A Team? You got security.” He cocked his thumb toward the still-burning Strykers. “B Team, go help ’em out!”
About a quarter mile back, another explosion suddenly rocked the convoy. Then, six vehicles up, yet another series of booms.
“I’m getting out,” shouted Hassa, quickly dismounting from the vehicle and jogging away, as though it, too, might explode.
This was exactly what the Russians wanted, thought Rakken. Delays and paranoia.
Sergeant Raymond McAllen and his frozen little band of Force Recon Marines piled onboard the Longranger III helicopter, barely able to squeeze themselves and their gear inside.
The pilot, a rugged-looking blond in his forties nicknamed Khaki, was an ex-Canadian Special Forces guy who had a lot to say about his country’s unwillingness to take up arms against the Russians (he was pissed). He had a lot to say about his willingness to fly them into hell and back, too — not because he was pro America or pro Canada, but because he was pro saving a fighter pilot’s life.
He’d been there, done that himself. So Colonel Stack had lucked out when he’d made that call to Highland to rent them a bird on American taxpayers’ dollars.
The bad news was that the helo only had a range of about three hundred miles, so they’d have to put down in High Level to refuel before heading up into the Northwest Territories. The company’s own hangar there was empty, since they’d already assisted in the evacuation, but there was a full fuel truck waiting for them.
McAllen recalled that two ODA teams from the Army’s Special Forces were up there. And he learned via the network that at nearly the same time they reached the town, High Level might be paid an unexpected visit from some Ka-29s inbound from Behchoko, part of a Spetsnaz combat and reconnaissance patrol (CRP) that would no doubt have mechanized forces on its heels.
Not wanting Khaki to get too excited if they rubbed shoulders with a few Russkies, McAllen carefully filled him in over the intercom.
Surprisingly, the pilot said, “Well, if the Russians are en route, let’s get to the gas before they do. And hey, you like Subway? Quiznos? They even got a Kentucky Fried.”
McAllen laughed a little. “We won’t have time for lunch.”
Khaki smiled. “They got drive-through.”
The RCMP had gone through the town of High Level ordering everyone to evacuate to Highway 35, and Sergeant Nathan Vatz was getting reports from his team that the citizens were indeed complying. One of his commo guys did say that he spotted quite a few men driving their families off; if Vatz were married with children, he wondered whether he’d do the same.
At the police station, members of the local chamber of commerce, along with the local fire chief and mayor,
