Kilo-29 (Damned of the 2/19th, Book 15)

Part 12

Site Kilo-29-Military Area
United States of America
Winter, 1993
Day Two-Morning

"The CIA?" Kincaid asked, confusion on his face. "I thought they were here to help us."

I laughed, bitterly, remembering the goddamn Company and the way they'd acted during our all too frequent meetings. "The CIA is on the CIA's side, kid. Don't ever think they're your friends or here to help you." I lifted up my little green notebook. "Get out your notebooks."

The two of them pulled out their little green notebooks and opened them. Both of them to the first page. I opened mine and thumbed three quarters of the way through until I reached the stuff I'd written down and laid it down on the desk beside us.

"Write those down. Those are the door codes I put in, all override access, which means you'll be able to open almost any door in the facility."

"Cool." Kincaid said, starting to copy.

"Be careful though, I don't want you getting killed." Kincaid looked at me in confusion. "You can override safety locks, and if the section past the door you're opening is flooded, when you open the door thousands of gallons of water can rush past and drown you." Kincaid swallowed and went back to copying the codes.

"Why would the CIA try to lock you out?" Donaldson asked.

"Why do those assholes do anything?" I answered, shrugging. "They have their own agenda, and the CIA is perfectly willing to sacrifice as many of us line slime as they need to in order to accomplish their agendas." I spit on the floor. "Fucking spooks."

A quick walk around the egg showed me the terminal I wanted, and I rehearsed what I was going to say in my head as I walked over to the terminal.

...leave them there to die, Ant, they wouldn't save you...

...we don't leave anyone behind, Dana...

The silence in my head was slightly sulky.

I sat down, cracked my knuckles, and hit the powerup on the clunky computer terminal. I watched the data flash on the screen as the computer booted up. It took a minute for the context menu to come up, but that gave me time to find the stylus. It had rolled to the back of the drawer, and by the time I fished it out the menu was displaying choices.

Civilian side. Civilian Motor Pool. PA System.

Each tap of the stylus highlighted the choice and flashed to a new screen. I tapped the words "LIVE MICROPHONE" and then turned and picked up the microphone.

"This is Sergeant Ant." I said, using the cadence to my speech that had been pounded into me during Basic Training for radio operations. "You cannot reply on this channel, there are no live microphones in the motor pool area."

I grinned, knowing what I was about to say would infuriate the Major.

"Gather up equipment, weapons, and supplies. The outside doors are under high security lock for the next 96 hours, but Privates Donaldson, Kincaid, and myself have managed to unlock the military living quarters as well as gain access to Operations." I paused for a moment, running the map in my head. "I will open the main civilian motorpool access door when we return, and we'll move to the military section. The food supplies are adequate for the entire facility to operate at 250% capacity for 5 years, so we do not face any worries about starvation. We have potable water access, as well as individual quarters."

I paused for a second.

"I remind you that I cannot hear you. Please be ready to move out within the next 30 minutes." I stated, still grinning. "Sergeant Ant, out."

I tapped the PA system off and then leaned back in the chair.

"The Major isn't going to like that." Donaldson warned.

"He doesn't have to like it." I told him. "When he screwed up this operation he dropped the whole goddamn mess into my lap."

I spun around and faced the two privates.

"I can track the access codes I gave you. Do not give them to anyone else, if I even think you did, I'll revoke your fucking access so fast it'll make your head spin." I took a deep breath and let it out. "For the next four days I've got to figure out what this place's mission is, figure out if it needs torn down or refurbished, and collect as much data on it as I can."

I sighed and scrubbed my face for a moment, then adjusted my eye patch back where it belongs under my glasses.

"As far as I could tell from the main operations terminal, this place is six levels, and sprawls out quite a bit." I smiled. "We've seen barely any of the site."

"How big?" Kincaid asked, disbelief evident in his tone.

"It looks like these were natural caverns, retrofitted to place the bunker system in here. There's six levels, and enough room for over six thousand people if they do hot bunking." I told him.

"Hot bunking?" Donaldson asked.

"That's when whoever has sleep shift uses the bunk while the other two members assigned to the bunk are on duty or recreation time. It triples the capacity."

"Six thousand?" Kincaid said. "That's a small city."

"Yeah." I told him. I waved at the touch screen. "Plus, if I'm right, this place underwent SLEP in the early 1980's."

"SLEP?" Donaldson again.

"Service Life Extension Program." I answered. "It keeps it up to date, upgrades the technology, and makes sure that it's still current. I'm not sure when touch screens came out, but the computers aren't as large as the ones in the Atlas sites, and there's floppy disc access to the operations computers."

"You've got that look, Sergeant." Donaldson said, snapping his little green notebook shut and pocketing it. "What's the bad news?"

...he's reading your mind, kill him! Kill him now!...

...hush, Nancy...

"I checked the entry logs." I admitted, looking up at the suspended ceiling for a moment, debating on whether or not to tell them the truth. I decided to take a chance. "Three groups have entered in the last 30 days, but I have no logs that match up with them leaving. In all cases they accessed the main doors, the civilian motor pool blast door, but then the logs are blank.

I stared at them for a moment.

"Someone deleted data." I admitted.

"Who would do that?" Kincaid asked. He closed his notebook and put it away.

"Them." Donaldson answered, nodding at the outside door. He grabbed my green notebook and tossed it to me.

"Maybe." I said, catching the notebook and putting it away. I could faintly hear the sound of women singing, just at the edge of hearing.

I ignored them.

"Let's head back." I told them, standing up and reaching in my pocket.

"What if 'they' jump us again?" Donaldson asked.

"We'll cover that when we come to it." I told them.

We headed out the air lock, and I noticed that the lights in the Operations Center shut off as the door slowly slid shut. I'd turned on main power, but the system was still programmed to keep power saving measures on.

I didn't like what I'd seen for one of the primary power options, the one I'd ignored in favor of the hydro-electric option. From what I could gather there were not only artesian taps, but a good sized underground river and a small lake or large pond. Whoever had designed the site had cut secondary channels for the river and about eight taps, lined them with hydro-electric equipment, and made it into sustainable power. Two of the channels had been non-responsive, one of them reporting a blockage and the other showing a failure to raise the access panels.

But that other option still bothered me. It couldn't be serious, could it?

As soon as we opened the door to the main hallway the smell hit us.

Something old and rotting, the smell of rotting blood and rotting meat, two distinct smells you never forgot once you smelled them. When the door lowered back down I could see blackish streaks across the door that had been missing the first time we'd come through. I'd bypassed the keypad so all we needed to do is throw the lever.

I'd unlocked the barracks areas, the kitchen, the dining hall, the recreation room, and the theater too.

We might as well be comfortable.

"Major Darson won't like you making decisions without consulting him." Kincaid said as we walked down the hallway.

"I'm pretty sure I'll survive any dislike from his end." I told them, shrugging.

The smell was present, but not thick if you know what I mean. More of an after stench than the thick cloying reek that had filled the hallway before. Still, it stayed with us the entire length of the corridor, through the gentle curves that were supposed to aid in the defense of the site. Once we reached the blast door with the happy greeting "You Will All Die Here" I'd almost gotten used to the smell.

I thought about scraping up the warning, but figured it might entertain the Major and it would be interesting to see the Suits reaction to it. It was a warning in blood, sure, but without a lab and a lot of knowledge I didn't have I wouldn't be able to tell if it was cow or pig blood, or even human.

I'd pretty much slept through biology class.

Before we lifted the door I chewed down another pill and lit another cigarette. The door shuddered and groaned, the lifting mechanism worn or slightly damaged but not enough for the system to shift over to secondary or trinary systems.

At the main entry I waved at both of them to stand back and threw the switch for the door, backing up on the other side of the blast barricades while the door slowly raised up.

When the tines of the forks met the blasting cap went off with a sharp crack, like a fire cracker. We moved through the facility and into the decon system, sitting on the benches while the water sprayed over us. It was warmer and smelled faintly of iodine. Standing under the thermal lamps I wondered if the Major was going to order his men in fully clothed or make them strip down.

It gave me an idea.

We dressed quickly then headed back out to the main blast deflection tunnel. Moving the system from "secure hibernation" to "facility activation" had made it so we only needed six digit codes on the high security doors like the armories, operations, primary military motorpool, the NBC warfare rooms, the lower levels and a handful of sub-levels. Everything else was a simple four digit code and throw the locking lever. I'd thought about overriding the need for the four digit code, but had decided I'd rather have the system record who used the codes so I could get a good idea of who had gone where. Add in the method that Air Force Tech had shown me to dump a record every two hours in a nice innocuous place under a simple filename, and I'd be able to track everyone who moved around.

...it's not paranoia if they're really out to get you. you should kill them first...

...hush, Taggart...

The Fates were winding back up, I could hear them faintly singing as we walked toward the civilian motorpool access. Not clear enough to hear words, but enough to hear the faint sounds of a chorus. The back of my head ached, under where I'd won myself a soft spot for a few weeks a lifetime ago.

"Get your gear. Donaldson, you drive my Humvee, Kincaid, throw your gear into my vehicle along with Donaldson's." I told them. "The Major said you're with me, so right now you two are my whole crew. That means we sleep together, eat together, and work together." I flashed them a grin. "You two did good, you listen and did what I told you to do, and that's all I can really ask."

"The Major did tell me that I was supposed to do what you say." Donaldson agreed.

Kincaid was chewing on his lower lip but nodded. I reached out and squeezed his shoulder. "I know, you didn't sign up for shadows on the walls, butchered meat, and warnings written in blood, but you'll do fine." He nodded again. "I'll do my best to get you out of this, and I won't run off and leave you to die."

...Get back here, Captain, you god damned coward!...

I squeezed my eyes shut and pinched the bridge of my nose under my glasses for a second, pushing back the sound of the yammering of automatic weapon fire, the quail covey taking flight and explosions of incoming light mortar fire, the screaming of the wounded, and the crackling of a burning vehicle. I could hear the Fates singing, their voices slightly louder, and my shoulder burned. I could smell burning metal, burning flesh, blood, and cordite, and feel the agony from broken ribs.

...no, no, not now, no...

"Are you OK, Sergeant?" Kincaid asked me, his hand suddenly touching my shoulder, shattering the memory and sending it back where it belonged. I felt like I'd suddenly been drenched in icewater, and was grateful that the memory had shattered before it could fully form.

"Yeah, I'm all right." I told him, opening my eyes. I'd come to a stop and leaned against the tunnel wall. I was breathing heavy and shaking, my body reacting as if the memory was real, as if it was happening all over again.

"Do you need another pill?" Kincaid's voice startled me. It sounded like he actually gave a shit.

...don't trust him! he's trying to lure you into letting your guard down! Kill him, Ant, KILL HIM NOW!...

...go away, Nancy, please...

"In a few minutes." I told him, pushing myself off the wall.

"Are you sure you're OK, Sergeant?" Kincaid asked. The compassion was honest and shocked me bad enough that I answered before I could stop myself.

"I took a bad head wound a few months ago. I get bad headaches." I told him. He nodded. I was aware that I was babbling a little as we started walking through the tunnel again. "I take meds to combat the headaches but sometimes they just come out of nowhere and make my want to claw my eye out to relieve the pressure."

I skipped the part where sometimes the pain was so bad all I could do was lay on the ground or floor and scream while my limbs shook, unable to even curl into the fetal position, every light a stabbing agony, every noise tearing apart my brain. And the part where I didn't so much as remember something that had been traumatic as relive it, or that I heard voices of people who weren't there, who were dead, and had women singing all of my sins to me.

The last happened to a lot of the men in my family as we got older. My uncle had returned from Vietnam with them singing so loudly he'd eventually put a pistol in his mouth to silence them.

The girls never had that problem. Except for Aunt Lois, who'd returned from Korea missing her left hand and left eye. But she was an exception who didn't sit with the matrons but rather with the old men.

"I don't sleep much, either." I admitted, stopping for a second to take a swig out of my canteen. Water mixed with lemon juice, it cut through the sticky paste in my mouth and the bitterness washed away the taste of blood that existed in my mind not on my tongue. "You two will have to get used to it. I sleep maybe two to four hours a night."

"We'll be bunking together?" Donaldson asked.

"Would you rather I have to track you down if shit hits the fan, or would you rather be right there?" I asked. "I doubt the Major is going to let his men be armed." I finished. Kincaid shifted his M-16 almost unconsciously, nodding.

"Should we tell him about those shadows?" Kincaid asked.

"No. He won't believe you anyway." I knew my smile didn't hold any amusement. "He won't believe it right up to the point where they rip his fucking guts out and start feeding."

...too long arms clad in mud and frost rimmed BDU sleeves that were tattered at the cuffs, the fingers too long, covered in blackened flesh except where the tips of sharpened bone poked through, coming out of the darkness of the room and grabbing tight just above the collarbones, the fingers sinking in with an obscene crunch. The look of pain and confusion turning quickly to terror right before the hands snatched him back into the darkness, leaving behind a boot that steamed in the cold...

"Sergeant?" Kincaid's voice cut through the screams of agony and I opened my eyes again.

"Yes?"

"What are they?"

"The enemy." I told him, starting to walk again. "We'll find out soon enough if we can kill them."

"And if we can't kill them?" Donaldson asked.

"Then we survive them." I told him, stopping in front of the civilian motorpool access. The main door, heavy and silent and foreboding. A monument to paranoia and the drive to fight and win. I punched in my code that not only would open the door but leave it open for two hours after the last time the code had been punched in and then just stood there as the warning lights began to flash and the siren sounded.

I rattled another pill into my mouth as we waited for the motorpool door to open.

"Sergeant Ant, post!" was the first thing I heard when I walked into the motorpool, my two Privates following me.

Well, it isn't like I hadn't given him a reason to be pissed at me.

Another pill rattled out of the bottle and into my mouth as I walked toward where the Major was standing in a pool of light, his face flushed and his body language angry. He had a clip board with paper on it and was looking at me with an expression like he had to piss really bad.

"I'm the one who gives orders here." He told me, discarding any preamble and coming straight to the point. I was looking around, taking headcount. All three suits were sitting by the sedan they'd driven up to the mountain, and Toothpick looked a little smug with himself.

...bet you wouldn't be so smug with a second smile carved under your chin...

...that's my wonderful Ant. Kill him now...

...not yet, Heather...

The Major was telling me all about the chain of command and how it worked, ending it with he had written me up for insubordination and usurpation of his lawful authority.

I guess he figured that the chain of command was going to be used to beat me with.

"Sir, I'm sure that you consider this your mission." I told him, taking the offered clipboard and glancing over it.

Service Member flaunted authority... Service Member refused to coordinate with mission leader... Service Member overstepped authority... Service Member ignored the proper chain of command... Service Member blah blah blah.

Basically: Service Member hurt my feelings.

"I'm in charge of this mission." The Major stated.

I sighed and dug in my pocket, pulling out my orders, which were rumpled and creased from where I'd folded them up into a square and jammed them into my pocket.

"You have no authority to decide where everyone bunks down, much less what duties anyone will be performing." The Major continued as I unfolded my orders. "I don't know what makes you think that you are in charge of decommissioning this site, but seeing as I'm the ranking officer here, I have command of this mission."

I flipped over the first two pages, glancing at the third and seeing that the pertinent section started about 2/3rd of the way down.

"Here, read that." I told him, clipping my orders to the top of the clipboard and handing it back unsigned.

The Fates were getting louder. I could almost make out words, tantalizing snatches that sounded like my name.

"What is this?" He asked, taking the clipboard.

"My orders. This is what they gave me at the Pentagon before I left." I told him. "I think you'll find that what you think the orders are and what they actually are happen to be two wildly different things."

The blood drained out of his face as he read the last 3rd of the page and started at the top of the fourth page. I stood there silently, rattling another pill into my mouth and grinding it up with my wonderful plastic teeth. I knew what he was reading and could tell it was making him more and more angry.

"Before you tear those up, I'll have you know I have several other copies of those orders stamped and signed secured away." I warned him, watching his nostril flare. "I trust that you understand now why I feel comfortable in telling you what to do."

"This set of orders are illegal and outrageous." He said, tearing my orders off of his clipboard and throwing them at me. I grabbed them and began folding them back up. "That isn't the way the Army does things."

"It's the way my Army does things, sir. I don't know about your Army, I've never been in your Army." I answered. "Now, would you be so kind as to hand me your orders so that I can check a certain section of them?"

"You don't have any need to review my orders." He snapped, then shook the clipboard at me as I started digging in my back pocket. "Are you going to sign this or not?"

"No." I told him, pulling out another set of orders and unfolding them.

...stab him in the eye with his stupid pen and break his trachea with the clipboard...

...hush, Bomber...

"What are those?" The Major asked.

"Your orders." I told him, staring him in the eyes. "Before I left the Pentagon I asked for copies of everyone's orders so that I could coordinate this mission." The smile I gave him made him flinch slightly. "There was a small chance that whatever officer they put in charge of the troops that were supposed to assist with this mission might decide to take it upon himself to decide he was running the show. I wanted to ensure that the orders he had been given told him that this wasn't his show to run."

He made a grab for the orders as I flipped to the third page, but I just stepped back and out of his reach.

"Says right here you are to 'facilitate the inspection and possible decommissioning of the mission site by providing assistance and leadership for enlisted work crew to mission commander." I looked at him. "That would be me according to my orders."

"An officer is a mission commander." He told me, stepping forward, I just stepped back and folded up the orders, stepping back again to put the orders in my back pocket.

"Sorry, sir, but I'm the one in charge of the mission." I told him. "You're just here to make sure your crew follows my orders."

"That's preposterous. That's not how it works. As ranking officer I immediately assume authority of the mission in the absence of a higher ranking officer. That's according to SOP, and something you should well know, Sergeant." He glared at me. "You should be aware of how the chain of command works having spent time in the military."

...in the cold, the snow, the darkness...

I shook my head. "Sir, that isn't how this is going to work." I told him flatly. "I'll give you three choices: You can either view me as the NCOIC of this mission and make sure my orders are carried out, you can leave and get clarification once the doors open, or you can place me under arrest and take charge of the mission yourself."

I paused and waited for him to open his mouth before finishing.

"You decide which one is the choice that probably won't land your ass in Leavenworth breaking big rocks into little rocks." I shrugged. "Nothing that will happen to me will ever be worse than what the military has already done to me."

"You've got a real smart mouth on you, Sergeant Ant." The Major told me.

I shrugged and walked a few paces away into the shadows, waving him over. After a second he stomped over to me.

"Sir, trust me when I tell you that this is not uncommon at the level you are now involved with." I told him gently, trying to smooth things out. "Have you ever worked with SOCOM?" He shook his head. "OK, spheres of authority are slightly blurred in the operator world, but that's not the point. The point is is that whenever I worked with them when it came to my sphere of knowledge and authority the team leader deferred to my decisions in order to let me do my job so they could accomplish their mission."

The shadows in the motorpool grew closer and I rattled another pill into my mouth, chewing it up and watching the Major's face.

"So you think I should just let you tell me what to do and be happy about it?" The Major probably didn't know how petulant he sounded. "I'm supposed to be happy about taking my orders from a drug addict?"

"No." I told him. He looked surprised. "I'm going to tell you what I need done in order for us to accomplish our mission, and you'll make sure your crop of hammer heads do it. I'm not going to walk around barking orders at you, I'm going to be too busy with my mission to stand over you like some little tin god."

The shadows grew closer and a bulb deep in the motorpool exploded into a shower of sparks.

"I know these places, I know the dangers they hold." I told him. "If I tell you not to open a door, it's not because I don't want you to discover Blackbeard's treasure, it's because opening the door is dangerous and might kill people." Donaldson was standing a few feet away at parade rest, his eyes locked onto something above our heads and far away.

...he's plotting against you with this shammer officer, get him before he gets you...

...leave me alone, Dana...

"Have you ever commanded a company before?" I asked him.

"Alpha Company, Twenty Second Forward Support." He told me. "I was there for a year."

"All right. When orders came down did you yell about them, or just have your men take care of business?" I asked.

"I just made sure they were carried out." He told me.

"Right. The important thing is accomplishing the mission." I reminded him. "You were tasked to me, to assist me in my mission. Your mission is to basically ensure that my mission succeeds." He nodded, still looking slightly angry. "Right now this whole site is pretty much an unknown. I've explored a tiny fraction of it so far, but according to the site's system the barracks area has been sealed for almost ten years, which means it should be safe to bunk down."

He nodded again.

"Me, Donaldson, and Kincaid will go check the living areas to make sure they're intact and livable, then we'll let you know. I want everyone together, not separated in case there's an emergency. Once the troops start getting settled in, you and I will check the mess area and see what can be done about getting everyone a hot meal." I shrugged. "These sites can be strange, the mess area might be damaged, or the living area might be unlivable, but we'll figure out what to do when we come to various problems."

"Why wouldn't the living area be usable?" He asked.

Good, he was starting to think past his wounded pride.

...it's a trick, kill him now!...

...hush, Nancy...

"Over the last decade or two a small water leak might have started as water from the artesian system works through cracks formed by the construction. The water might have run down main support beams, rusting them out and weakening them, until the weight of the area caused it to collapse into a pile of wreckage. Or part of the load bearing section of the ceiling might have collapsed due to a minor earth tremor and the are might be buried under tons of rock." I told him. "Or worse, the section might have never been finished, might be filled with millions of gallons of water, or poison gas might have filled the area somehow."

"I didn't think of any of that." He admitted.

"That's why I'm in charge and you're here to facilitate my mission." I told him. "I've worked in these kinds of sites for awhile." He nodded again, looking thoughtful instead of angry.

"Plus, we have a small problem, another reason to keep your men together and make sure they always go places in groups of three." I told him.