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

Part 41

Site Kilo-29
Winter-1993
Day Four-Morning

It was snowing inside the shaft, fat gentle flakes that slowly fell from above us to built a soft pillowy landscape around where we were crouching, falling past us in the dim light to vanish below us. We'd all either subconsciously or consciously adjusted our breathing so it wasn't audible in the shaft, quietly waiting for the people we knew were coming. Every once in awhile Kincaid or Donaldson would rub at their chests, and I would rub my shoulder trying to keep it from stiffening up in the cold. It seemed like we waited in the there an eternity, but I knew the way time slowed down could be deceiving when you were stressed and waiting on someone else to do something.

Oakes and Kebble were still going on, giggling with Agent Killain about the various things that the agents who had the other guys prisoner had done. A litany of filthy, betrayal, murder, rape, theft, and worse. Much of it was probably lies, or distortions, but hearing it still effected me, and despite what I wanted, despite how I tried to block them out, I still listened to their voices as they gleefully recited all of the evils done by the Agents who had my men in their power.

They mentioned two names I knew. Both officers who had been found dead, ruled suicide with suspicious details. A third name I thought I recognized, thought it was the name of one of the chemical weapon deployment instructors I'd worked with, but I couldn't be sure about it.

Donaldson and Kincaid's "sins" that the three dead women had listed wasn't so much something to make me look at them badly, but it was something that would give them doubts about themselves, and was supposed to give me doubts about them. The sex thing was new, before it seemed like Tandy couldn't really understand about sex, personal relationships, or anything like that. Something had changed him, maybe Bishop, maybe Oakes and Kebble, or maybe it was something else, something we'd overlooked with the constant fear of Tandy. Still, it was obvious that whatever malevolent thing Tandy was expected to change the way I viewed D and K-Bar.

Which revealed it still really didn't understand the way people thought.

Being under fire changes a man. That was something I understood, and knew that whatever the two men had been before the doors had closed and locked us in the mountain were gone, just like the teenagers they'd been when they'd signed up were gone, ground away during the precise and controlled dehumanizing basic training. Kincaid may have been afraid when we started out, but that was just a normal response to the situation. I'd been terrified at times, to the point that all I could do was stand and stare. Sure, both Kincaid and Donaldson had bother frozen up, but that was normal too. They weren't psychos, like I had become, they were decent people who'd never been in this kind of situation, never had something that hated them for existing hunting them, never been outnumbered and had an enemy that viewed you as a food source or worse. I'd only had a place that hated me and something that like to play with its food hunting me, I'd never dealt with what was locked inside the mountain, so I knew that they didn't have it any easier than I did.

We were just normal men, and we were in way over our heads. Training for the battlefield was one thing, and while it helped to help us keep it together, to push down physical and psychological trauma, to keep going even when we were on the edge of running out of gas, on the edge of collapse, training couldn't prepare us for the kind of shit we were in. The only thing it did was help us keep on going. There's no real noble reason for it, you don't do it to be manly or because you're some kind of super-patriot. You do it just to survive.

During the Cold War I'd been trained that I'd always be outnumbered, that the chain of command would have been shattered by the Red Steamroller and nuclear fire, that the odds would be overwhelming. They'd trained me to push down the fear, and keep fighting, to keep going and there is always a chance of fighting your way free, of managing to fight long enough to survive till the bitter end. That training made it so that being outnumbered by the things that lived here was nothing more than the status quo. I had the edge in training, weaponry, size, strength, and just sheer meaness. Together we had the edge in discipline and mutual support.

We'd stick together till the bitter end.

When the door above us rise, we knew we were close to the bitter end.

The CS gas had been drifting down the stairwell for awhile. At first it had been a thick yellowish fog, now it was almost dispersed, but I could still smell it through the filters of my mask. The smell was bitter, sour, and the denatured charcoal that filtered the gas gave the air a distinctive smell and taste. It had frozen to the walls, layered into the snow, but still filled the air.

Curious I'd broken the seal on mask twice. The first time my eyes had itched a little and the cut on my lip had stung, but the second time I hadn't noticed anything but the smell of it, and only because I was really familiar with it. The snow made it so you couldn't really see the remaining haze, and it would take a few moments for the CS to really start to set in.

Just according to plan.

We heard them coming in the door, heard the crunching of the snow, hear them coming into the passage.

"There's the stairwell access." We heard Shads say. "That'll take us up to the main level where everyone is."

"Just keep being so cooperative, Mr. Donaldson, and your men will live to get out of here." One of the agents said, the same one that had been running his yap, and the same one who shot Donaldson in the chest.

"We'll even make it quick for you." Another one said, and the rest chuckled.

One of them coughed.

I had my pistol in my hand, Kincaid had my rifle, Donaldson had his. I had an SMG draped from my neck. The other two strapped to Donaldson's ruck, and I had the ammunition in my pockets. It was subsonic ammunition, and we'd found silencers on the agents. I knew there would be holes drilled in the barrel to bleed off the compression against the bullet in order to lower the speed so between it and the low power loads the bullet wouldn't break the sound barrier.

That's what had saved Donaldson's life. 9mm bullets, lower speed, the Kevlar vest.

"We'll need to be careful in the stairs, they're unstable, there's no lights, and there's wild animals that got into the facility that live several levels up." Shads continued. "I'll go first."

"No, Mister Donaldson, I don't think," The Agent broke off to cough. "I want you to have the chance to run. We'll go first. Agent Miles, Agent Willis, you two follow them, if they try anything, start shooting them." There was more coughing.

shit, that wasn't according to plan...

"What's wrong with the air in here?" One of them coughed.

"Insulation caught on fire when Sergeant Ant blew open the panel. The whole corridor and the stairwell was full of smoke." Shads said. I heard him grunt. "There's something wrong with the air on several of the levels, which is why Sergeant Ant had us carry out chemical gear."

"What kind of 'something', Mr. Donaldson?" Mr. In Charge asked.

"He wasn't sure. He said something about denatured blister agent or something like that."

"Wait, we're breathing in mustard gas?" One of the agents asked.

"No, not really. Sergeant Ant said that the blister agent had been out in the air too long, that it had degraded, dispersed, something like that, so it would cause mild irritation but nothing too much." Shads lied smoothly. "He told us it wasn't more than just old tear gas smell now."

"Then why the mask?" One asked, coughing between each word. I could hear the others coughing too.

"His chemical alarm went off when he sent it down to some of the lower levels on the elevator, he said that it has recent live blister agent leakage." Shads told them. He coughed a few times.

"Give us your masks." Mr. In Charge said.

"We took them off because the filters are clogged. They're useless right now, we were going to change out the filters after we ambushed you." Shads told them, another lie. "The smoke was poisonous, and clogged up the filters, so it's dangerous to wear them."

"Goddamn it." More coughing from an agent I hadn't heard speak before. "What about that other stuff, the live blister agent?" They were getting closer.

"Sergeant Ant said it was heavier than air, it'll stay in the lower levels, once it becomes inert it gets lighter and will drift up through the ventilation systems, but cooling it makes it go inert faster, which is why the ventilation system is blowing so much cold air." Shads lied. I could hear them now, their footsteps in the snow, even with their voices.

Goddamn, was that hallway that fucking long?

"That's why some vents are blowing snow?" Another agent asked.

"Yes, Sergeant Ant had me help reroute the ducting pathways to run the air through a bunch of huge freezers in part of the complex, and then we turned on the fire sprinklers." One of my crew, Jacobs I thought, said easily. He coughed a few times. "The snow helps bind the blister agent, and it's water soluble, so it binds it up and makes it inert even faster."

"Wait, these snowflakes are full of blister agent?" Another agent asked, his voice held the edge of panic.

"It's no big deal. You just shower afterwards, you might get a sunburn." Someone said. "Breathing it in is risky, but it'll just give you pneumonia, and once we get out of here, some time in the hospital and we'll be fine."

"Shut the fuck up, all of you." Mr. In Charge ordered, but I could hear the panic behind the bravado. "Let's get up these stairs so we can have a nice talk with your CO. Let's get moving."

I heard them step on the metal plate, heard the plate squeal slightly with the weight.

My eye had adjusted the darkness and the dim red light from the emergency lights, and I watched as the special agents started to enter the stairwell. I turned my head, facing away from the entrance, as they started mounting the steps. I saw the other two men do the same, and they both emulated me lifting my arm up to shield my eyes as well as opening my mouth to reduce the blast effects.

One of them hit the tripwire I'd ran across the steps most of a level above us.

The flashbang went off, the light reflected and magnified off the snow and steel walls of the corridor, the majority of the flash was blocked the steel plate I'd hidden it under, mainly scattering out into the hallway. Still the detonation echoed and punished the ears.

No words, nothing, just a quick motion and we moved rapidly up the steps, knowing the ringing in the agent's ears would cover our steps. I saw the agents on by the entrance, pawing at their eyes, with the other four up the steps.

Donaldson pulled up his rifle, socking it to his shoulder, and started pulling the trigger. I kept moving up, firing my pistol as I moved, all the years of practice and experience paying off. Kincaid was hot on my heels as Donaldson kept firing, the two in the entrance dropping.

Out in the hallway someone fired the submachinegun. I could hear cursing, my hearing coming back pretty fast. When I came out into the corridor one of the guys was down, holding onto his stomach with one hand and levering himself back up, his face twisted in an angry snarl. The blood covering his fingers was steaming in the cold, but he wasn't down.

Shads had one guy down, and the guy pulled the trigger on the weapon again, the slugs hitting the steel wall and dimpling it, but Shads had the guy's arm pinned with his knee as he was punching the guy in the face with one hand, the other one digging into the guy's throat.

The other guy was being held in a full nelson, and before I could say anything one of the new guys pulled the agent's knife off his gear and buried it in the agent's stomach, wrapping his other hand around his wrist and wrenching it up.

"Shads!" I yelled.

Too late.

Shads drew back his arm, his fingers curled, hand cocked back at a 90 degree angle, and he slammed the heel of his hand upwards against the agent's nose twice before I could stop him. In the two steps it took to reach Shad's he'd released the guy's throat, straightened his hand and drove his curled fingers in the guy's throat with a sharp outcry.

The gunshots in the stairwell stopped.

"Check Jacobs, Sergeant." Shads said, starting to stand up.

"You all right?" I asked, skidding to a stop next to him and almost busting my ass on the snow slicked floor. Shads pivoted at the said, grabbing my LBE belt and arm to steady me. Pain ran up my arm as the pressure was put on my shoulder joint.

"Steady, Sergeant." He said in his soft voice.

"Thanks." I answered, then looked at him. "You all right?"

"Fine, but I think Jacobs is hurt."

"I'm shot, goddamn it!" Jacobs yelled. I glanced back to see the other man had managed to get to his feet, his hand pressed to his stomach. "Fucker shot me in the gut."

"Yeah, he's shot." I said, grinning. "He'll be fine."

There was six paced shots from the stairwell behind me as we were talking. Donaldson and Kincaid making sure.

"Get two men to help Jacobs, we need to keep moving. We have to head back down." I said, turning away from Shads. I raised my voice. "Kincaid, you and Donaldson search the bodies then burn them."