Net Force

surface streets in his flatscreen file, when and if he cares to look.

'The population is largely Chechen or Russian, that is to say—'

'Skip the geopolitical history, Sergeant. Let's get to strategy and tactics, please.'

'As the colonel wishes.' He grinned, relaxed. 'Our two vintage UH-1H Hueys are scheduled to be off-loaded at 1900 hours from jet transport at Vladikavkaz, in North Os-setia, a favor for which the locals hope to obtain certain reciprocal courtesies from the U.S. Since we want friends in that area, such courtesies will no doubt eventually be extended.

'Once on the ground and operational, we will have to violate about fifteen kilometers of Ingushetian airspace to reach Chechnya. Our command post will be outside Urus-Martan, which is another twenty-five klicks inside Chechnya. All in all, we're talking about flying over forty kilometers of unfriendly territory.

'Of course, both countries have radar and something of an air force; however, at treetop level in the dark, it is unlikely that anybody but a few goats will even notice our choppers' overflight. It should be a milk run, if a bit crowded.

'We have a truck waiting in Grozny, which our four-trooper collection-team squad will reach from Urus-Martan upon the two Russian motor scooters we'll bring with us on the black copters. Vespa knockoffs, I believe. They aren't very fast, but it's only a dozen kilometers from Urus-Martan to Grozny, and they'll be coming back in a truck. Pretty good trade, actually, leaving the two scooters for one murdering Russian. The locals come out way ahead.'

Howard made the keep-it-rolling sign.

'We arrive, all things going well, at about 2200 hours, set up our tactical base in an old dairy farm owned by our friends the spooks. The spooks don't know we'll be using the place, as per our DTNS-policy on this mission.'

Howard frowned. A new acronym. 'DTNS?'

'Don't tell nobody squat,' Fernandez said. 'Especially the CIA.' He grinned widely.

'You just made that up, didn't you?'

'I am hurt that the colonel believes I would do such a thing.'

'Sergeant Fernandez, I believe you would give a polar bear a poodle cut and call him Fifi.'

Fernandez laughed. 'Sir. This farm — there's no neighbors within shouting range. Everything going as planned, our CT squad putt-putts into town, collects their ride, grabs the Russky, comes back, and a few minutes after midnight, we're all airborne and on the way back to this here comfortable 747, which is by then all gassed up and waiting for us at the Vladikavkaz Airport. As a gesture of goodwill, we leave the transport copters for our new friends the North Ossetians, climb on our ride and fly away home. Everything by the numbers.'

'If everything goes as planned,' Howard said.

'You worry too much, sir. Our squad speaks fluent Russian, and a bit of the local dialect. They got the proper travel and ID papers, they can shoot the balls off a gnat at ten paces. They'll get him. And if there is any problem they can't handle, that's what the two dozen of us sitting at the farm cleaning our weapons are for, ain't it?'

Howard nodded. He had been surprised the mission had gone forward, given how cloudy the politics were in Washington. He did not want to get into a shooting war with the Chechens. No matter whose fault it might be, he was the man in charge, and the fallout would all settle on him. No, he didn't want a war this time. He wanted a nice clean insertion and retrieval, and as Fernandez had said, to fly away home. This one was too touchy for anything else.

Saturday, October 9th, 10:00 a.m. Springfield, Virginia

Ruzhyo and Grigory the Snake were at a petrol service station off 1-95, not far from the Springfield Regional Shopping Center. According to the map Ruzhyo had, the old Fort Belvoir Proving Ground was a few miles ahead, on the way to Quantico. What, he wondered, did an American proving ground look like? It must depend on what they were trying to prove, which weapon or vehicle they were testing.

Winters, the Texan, had gone home, to Dallas or Fort Worth or wherever it was he claimed he was from. Should they need him in the next few days, he'd said, he would check for messages at the secure number.

They had stopped at the station because Grigory had an urgent need to use the toilet. From the muffled groans he had made as he urinated, Ruzhyo guessed that Zmeya's own… personal snake was afflicted with some ailment. Gonorrhea, probably, since that was the venereal disease most likely to manifest itself with pain while peeing. As a soldier, Ruzhyo had heard many men groan while dribbling thus, usually a day or three after returning from the whores they had enjoyed while on leave.

Here was the Snake's reward for his adventures in Las Vegas.

Grigory came out of the toilet, his face flushed. 'I need some penicillin, Mikhayl.'

'Was she worth this?'

'Then, yes. Now, no.'

'I do not believe you can buy penicillin without a doctor's order here,' Ruzhyo said. He kept his face bland, even though he felt much like smiling. It served the fool right.

'There is a pet store nearby,' Grigory said. 'We can get it there.'

'A pet store?'

'Da. The Americans have rules against selling antibiotics for people, but not for animals. You can buy penicillin, tetracycline, streptomycin, even chloramphenicol for your pet fish. You open the capsules, sprinkle the medicine into the water. The drugs are not so pure as those intended for people, and they are expensive, but they work just as well.'

Ruzhyd shook his head. Amazing. Not just that the Americans would do such a thing — Americans no longer surprised him with how stupid they could be — but that the Snake would know this? That was truly fascinating. How had he come by such knowledge?

Ruzhyo asked him.

'I have been unlucky in love a few times,' Grigory allowed.

Ruzhyo stared at the Snake. A man who knew no better was merely ignorant, a thing that could be remedied. Someone who knew better, but proceeded anyway? That was stupid, and not so easily repaired. 'Very well. We shall go to your pet store, so that you may buy fish medicine to fix your sick zmeyd. Then we find a way to get within range of Net Force HQ. I am thinking we will become U.S. Marines. What better disguise in a place like Quantico?'

'Anything you like, Mikhayl, once I get my penicillin.'

Saturday, October 9th, 10:48 p.m. Urus-Martan, Chechnya

Howard looked at his watch, then through the dilapidated farmhouse's window. The troops had managed to roll both the copters into the massive, if decrepit, barn. There had once been stalls for rows of cows to be milked, but the spooks had gutted enough of the barn to allow for such things as hiding two beat-up Hueys. They didn't look pretty, but they were in fine mechanical condition. They were painted a dark, dead military green and not black, but they were covert birds. They didn't carry any weapons, not even machine guns. They were strictly transport. Not very fast transport — a loaded Huey might hit 120 knots — but the craft were sturdy and dependable. You weren't going to outrun an air-to-air or ground-to-air missile in anything that had a top rotor anyhow. They couldn't fight and they couldn't run too fast, but nobody could shoot you if they didn't see you. Hiding was better than shooting in this scenario.

Howard turned away. 'Status, Sergeant?'

Julio stood behind three TacComp Specialists, who sat on stools in front of a bank of five field computers set up on their own telescoping legs. They were opened like big suitcases with the monitors in the hinged lids. The systems were also ugly-looking — lean-mean-GI-green — but when it came to this kind of hardware, pretty was as pretty did. These were state-of-the-art 900-MHz machines, with the new FireEye bioneuro chips, massive amounts of fiberlight memory, and fourteen hours of active battery power if the local plugs didn't work.

'Sir, our squad's GPS sig puts them here.' He pointed at a map on-screen. There was a tiny red dot flashing in the approximate middle of it. 'Two kilometers from their destination.'

'Report?'

'Their coded signal-bounce three minutes ago stetted a continued ASG — all systems green.'

'Good.'

One of the TCS operators said, 'We got on-line vid from the Big Bird spysat footprinting the locale. Check this out.'