"Were the things that dwelled in the dark and

cold of Alfenwehr a reflection of what was

inside us, or had we become a reflection of them?"

2/19th Special Weapons Group
Restricted Area, Alfenwehr West Germany
Late Winter- January, 1986
Day 12 of Repairs
Day 4 of the Second Incident
Morning

Our feet hammered down the hallway as we headed to the stairwell, Nancy getting there first and kicking the door open. I glanced behind us, but I didn't see anything in the darkness. Behind us the rich laughter kept sounding out, and I could picture him in my head. Over six foot, covered head to toe in extreme cold weather gear, a cold weather mask over his face, one eye bloodshot and swollen, a tooth knocked out.

And that fucking axe in his hands.

We hammered down the stairs, the whole thing shaking, ignoring the scream of agony from above us. Nancy pulled open the door to the short section and from the back I saw her stop dead, stepping backwards. Dobbs swore, Aine stared in shock, and Bomber shoved at Nancy.

"Get in there, goddamn it," he snarled at her.

Once I got the bottom of stairs I could see what they were scooting around. There was a dead man down there, dressed in Russian camo, sprawled out dead. His chest was hacked open, exposing broken ribs and frozen frost rimed organs.

"What happened to him?" Dobbs asked, toeing the body with her boot.

"Last month happened," Nancy snapped as I pulled the door to the stairwell shut. When I turned around Bomber and King had peeled the guy's legs out of the frozen blood and were working on pulling him out of the frozen blood to unblock the QASI office so we could get at the secure data vault.

"I thought you guys killed him," King said.

"Yeah, well, the mountain," Bomber offered. King just nodded, and everyone looked a little nervous as they broke the ice's grip on the dead body and pulled the body down to the door. I unlocked the door and pushed it open.

"Why's this happening?" Stokes asked.

"Because fuck you, that's why," I told her.

We moved into the office and I unzipped my parka.

"Take it off, back to combat boots. Ruck the gear," I ordered. Everyone pulled off their parkas and their Mickey Mouse boots. Rucksacks dropped onto the floor, and were pulled open. I stripped off the parka, tossed it on a desk, then pulled off the heavy boots, dumped out the sweat, and packed the boots and parka into the almost empty ruck. It was missing most of the gear I usually carried: spare uniforms; shelter half with rope and pegs; extra wool blanket; MRE's; chemical gear; climbing gear; toolkit; socks and underwear; wet weather gear; flares; whatever other crap the unit decided I needed to pack according to whatever new CO or Platoon Leader we had. All that was in this one was the cold weather gear. I changed socks, after throwing foot powder on my feet, then put on my combat boots and stood up, stomping twice to set the boots. I grabbed the Kevlar with the LBE and pulled it on over my field jacket, buckling it up, and grabbing the helmet that Nancy had handed me.

When everyone was done changing I waved at the computers. "Throw them against the wall, not the TV part, but the big part beside the desk. King, Bomber, burn the records. I'll handle the vault," I told them, reaching into my thigh pocket and pulling out a thermite grenade. Bomber and King moved to each of the lockers, putting a grenade on top of each of them. I heard the heavy computers shatter as they were thrown hard against the wall, breaking open the cases.

"These are the hard drives, right, Stillwater?" Nancy asked me. I turned from where I was setting the thermite grenade on the locking mechanism. She was pointing at the large hard drive, state of the art 200+MB hard drive that I'd love to pull out and throw in my IBM clone.

"Yeah," I told her, turning back to the vault door. I had to be careful to disable it, freeze it up, but not make it easier to get into. Behind me I heard a gunshot and knew that Nancy had just put a bullet into it.

"Ouch, watch it, goddamn it," Sherry bitched.

"Sorry," Nancy said. "Grab those things, we'll throw them out a window and into the snow."

"Got 'em wired," King said, moving back over to me.

"Done," Bomber said a second later.

"Throw the hard drives into the top drawer of the file cabinet," Stokes suggested.

"Which one's unlocked?" Nancy asked. Stokes pulled open one of the drawers on a file cabinet with a thermite grenade sitting on top of it. "Throw them in here. How's it coming, boys?"

"Almost done," I told her. I'd finally decided on just setting the thermite grenade on the top of the wheel's casing, behind the spokes.

There was a booming sound outside, and Artain looked into the QASI Office. "Someone's banging on the stairwell door," he said.

Laughter sounded from the stairwell, followed by another crashing of metal on metal that vibrated the air.

"It's not him," Bomber said, glancing at me.

"No, he wouldn't be coming in like this, not into so many weapons," I agreed.

Outside Artain fired off three spaced shots, and I could visualize the dimples appearing in the heavy steel door. Sounded like a great idea, except the doors weren't hollow, they were concrete and lime cored. The bullet would hit the quarter-inch thick steel, the full metal jacket round might get through the door, but would definitely stop on the concrete. Rumor had it that there was a quarter inch lead shield inside the door, but Bomber and I had torn one apart during the summer for the hell of it and didn't find the lead shielding.

"Quit that shit, it'd take a fifty-cal to get through that door," Stokes snapped, tapping on her helmet just over her ear with the heel of her hand.

There was another ring of steel on steel, and I heard rock crunch.

The son of a bitch was trying to hack through the door.

"Extraction route?" Bomber asked. He was in the middle of dumping the contents of the desk drawers onto the floor.

"Through the storage area, into the supply room, destroy the records in the supply room, figure out what to do in the ready room," I told him, yanking out a door full of files and dumping them on the pile before slinging the drawer on top of the broken computer case.

"How the fuck do we seal them off from the Arms Room?" Dobbs asked, spitting on the pile of paper. Her spit was red.

"Superglue again," King said.

"C-4?" I offered.

"Satchel charge," Sherry offered.

"You got one?" Artain asked.

"No," Sherry admitted.

"Then shut up," Stokes said, slinging the dumped drawer on the computer consoles.

There was another axe strike, metal on stone. The air shivered and ice flakes showered down on us.

"We don't have to worry about the weapons, or the gas masks. Most of them are with unit at Graf, only the spares and unassigned ones are left. Put thermite on the ammo lockers, leave the two that are just part, pull the pins, slam the doors, superglue the goddamn locks," I said, leaning back and panting. I felt something give in my chest right before the pressure eased up there. I inhaled deeply and relaxed. Nancy saw me and came over, pulling open my LBE and Kevlar, unzipping my field jacket and opening it, then unbuttoning my BDU blouse. I went to push her hands away and slapped my hands. "Ow. What are you doing?"

"I need to check your chest tube, dumbass," she told me. She yanked up my T-shirt and pulled back the patch of gauze, exposing a small plastic bubble looking thing with a thin plastic hose. There was blood with bubbles in it. She shook her head, pulled the bubble thing off, and dumped it on the floor, squeezing it twice to clear what looked to me like only a little bit of blood.

"Not bad. Not as bad as the book warned," she said, retaping the plastic bubble thing and then the gauze. She pulled a pill bottle out of her pocket and rattled three gel pills into her hand. "Open."

"What are they?" I asked, I opened my mouth to ask more and she pushed them into my mouth, grabbing my nose, making me swallow.

"Vitamin C, some B's, and some E," she said. "Along with a prenatal."

"Prenatal, what the fuck for? Do I look fucking pregnant?" I asked. She was turning away from me.

"God knows what kind of vitamins we've all lost, and some iron and vitamin D won't hurt us. Open," she said to Dobbs, who just opened her mouth and let Nancy toss the pills in.

There was the ring of steel on steel with the crunch of rock under it.

"Bomber, the fire sensor, break it," I said, pointing at the sensor that was on the pipes on the ceiling. He climbed up on the desk and smashed it(what is it?) against the sensor twice before the case cracked and the internals fell down.

"One over there," King said, pointing up. Bomber jumped from one desk to the next and repeated it.

"We ready?" I asked, turning back to the thermite grenade I'd placed. A chorus of 'ready' came back to me. "All right. On three. One. Two. Three." I pulled the ring, let the grenade go, and watched the spoon fly away. "Out, out, out."

We hustled into the hallway and I pulled the door shut. I could hear them start to hiss, the ignition fuses starting to burn, heating up the thermite to the point where it would catch fire. Burn through steel like butter, turn the records to ashes, leave nothing behind but molten metal and ash. It might even catch the lime in the concrete on fire. Hell, I'd heard that enough heat would do that, but I wasn't going to hang around and watch.

I used my keys to unlock the storage area. It held some of the War Stocks. Not the platoon or element level, but stuff like the light sets, the cabling, the stoves, chemical showers, the stuff that individual soldier's wouldn't be packing. There were also large boxes of personal stuff. The first work crews had removed the personal stuff from the rooms we'd taken the doors off of, boxed it up, and put it down here. When the unit came back from Graf everyone would get their stuff back, in boxes, then take inventory with someone from Supply or a ranking NCO in order to figure out what had been destroyed.

The Army was probably going to bill me for all of it.

Nancy shut the door and hit one of the light switches, which turned on a single row of hanging lights, the conical shields over the naked bulbs throwing the roof into weird shadows. I glanced at the far wall, where two blinking red lights told me that someone had dropped the blast shields.

The heavy door was locked, and my key didn't want to work. I went to slam my shoulder against the door, but Nancy grabbed me.

"No. It'll fuck up your shoulder more," she said. "King, Bomber, knock it open."

On three they both threw their shoulders against the double doors, right next to the seam down the middle, and the doors blew inward, exposing the Supply Room. Nancy hit the switches but no lights came on.

Stokes lit a flare, tossing it into the room, painting it shades of scarlet.

"Hit Sergeant First Class Roberts' desk. He'd have site records, nobody else would," I said.

"Can't take the chance. Dump all the paperwork in the desks into a pile," Stokes said, grabbing the edge of the desk that Bomber had flipped over.

There wasn't a body laying over it, and while I vaguely remembered someone mentioning dragging bodies out to the loading dock. I couldn't remember if that had happened, or if Tandy had dragged them outside to feast upon.

Christ, I didn't even know what I was doing. I was just a Corporal, I had no training in what to do and was just following the unit METL and guessing what we should destroy.

Once again my back was against the wall and all I cold rely on was US Army SOP and training. I hoped it would be enough, but I doubted it would be.

We dumped the contents of the drawers on the ground, creating a pretty good sized pile of paperwork, FM's, TM's, and whatever other crap they had in their desks. Roberts had a bottle of Old Granddad in his desk drawer that we passed around, barely making it twice around the group of us. We threw the empty bottle on top of the paperwork, and I dug another thermite grenade out of my thigh pocket. I waved everyone over to the door Bomber had kicked open, and yanked the pin on the cylindrical grenade before tossing it onto the paperwork. It was hissing when I turned around and walked by the flare.

Bomber had the LT's keys and was pulling open the secure items door, ice crackling and falling to the floor as the cage door swung open. He tossed the keys to King, who started unlocking the Arms Room.

"Artian, Sherry, watch the exits, give your thermites to Stokes," I said, following Lanks into the locker. It wasn't really anything impressive, just a ten by thirty room where radios, NVG's, codebooks in safes, and other things that the Army didn't want left laying around were stored. Lanks and Bomber were pulling the down the radios, stacking them, and I joined Nancy and Dobbs in pulling the remaining NVG's off the hooks and dropping them into a pile. Stokes came in, and added her part, so we went through the NVG's that the unit had left behind. They'd taken the majority of the gear to Graf, which meant there wasn't much left around. Normally there would be about sixty radios on the shelves, but there were only about a half dozen left. There would have been nearly 300 NVG's hanging on the hooks, instead of less than fifty. It didn't take us long to stack the radios, the code modules, and all the other fun shit that went with high security radio systems in two stacks as well as pile the NVG's into a small mound in the middle of the floor. The PRC-77s weren't that big of a deal, a couple hundred had probably dropped into the hands of the Soviet Union since Vietnam, but a lot of those codeboxes were less than a year old. We'd had to get a dedicated commo guy and two assistants once that shit got in. Stokes set the thermite grenades on top of the safes that held codebooks and other shit that I didn't really get that were against the wall. On the count of three we pulled the pins. I waited at the door until I saw all the grenades were smoking, then moved into the Ready Room and slammed the door shut. King was standing up from where he'd finished squirting superglue into the last of the locks.

"Almost done," I panted. There was a popping feeling in my chest and the pressure lightened again, making it easier to breathe.

"CO, XO, Top," King said. "Goddamn, this is surreal." He shook his head. "You think it was like this in like Beirut or during the fall of Saigon?"

"More people, more frantic, not so cold, from what I heard," Stokes said, leaning against one of the chest high tables and lighting a cigarette. "Back in my previous unit one of the guys I was fucking had been there for the fall of Beirut, he said it was crazy." I took it from her, she glared at me and lit another one, which Nancy took and had Dobbs take it from her. Stokes sighed in frustration, took another one out and tossed the pack of Camels on the table before lighting her own and stepping back. "Dude had a big steel plate in his forehead. When the car bomb went off he was getting sodas out of the machine, had the machine fall on him, but they evac'd him out, put in a plate." She giggled. "Looked like Frankenstein, fucked like a monster too."

"Lucky," Nancy said, a smile and mock jealousy in her voice. Stokes smiled, winked, and nodded.

"Christ, at least we're almost done," Artain said, shaking his head.

"It ain't done till we're in the NCO club with three fingers in a blonde," King said, tapping his ash on the floor and scraping at it with his boot.

"Or you've got eight inches of blond meat in your hand," Stokes added.

"No shit," Dobbs said, lighting a cigarette and coughing at the first drag. "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye." Her bandage was brownish, no bright red left on the gauze that covered the plethora of little punctures that covered the side of her face.

We all chuckled at that.

One by one the cigarettes were field stripped and the cherries crushed out, butts put in pockets, and everyone looked around.

"Let's knock this shit out," Bomber said, rocking his head from one side to the other to crack his neck. "Finish the fight, baby."

"Finish the fight," we all echoed.

We tromped out into the short hallway, and a glance showed me that the red light was lit for the blast doors having been dropped(is that the same as the two blinking lights for the blast shields?). Nancy hit the light switch and two lights blew out, leaving only a solitary fluorescent light feebly trying to push back the darkness.

"Goddamn this place sucks so much," Dobbs bitched as we walked into the small hallway leading to the CO's office, the Executive Officer's office, and the First Sergeant's office.

"That's why we can't escape," Stokes shot back. We all chuckled. An old joke but a good one.

"Who's got thermite left?" I asked, slapping my thigh pocket. "Down to one."

"One," Dobbs said, patting her pocket. "Well, one thermite to go with my eye, anyway."

"I got one," Artain said.

"Same here," Sherry added.

"I've got two," Stokes told us, tapping her left cargo pocket.

"I have three, Corporal," Aine said, looking at me through her eyelashes.

"McCullen, put them on top of the file cabinets in the Orderly Room. Same with you, Stokes. Sherry, take the 1SG office. Dobbs, take the XO's office. Artain, take the CO's office. You three put them on the safes, pull the pin, get the fuck out," I said.

"What about the paperwork in their desks?" Stokes asked.

"Throw it on the floor. How many flare you got left, Stokes?" I asked.

"Five or six," she answered.

"Dump out their desks, we'll use the flares," I said. "Bomber, King, help me dump the desks in the Orderly Room. Nancy, go help dump the desks in the offices," I said, moving into the Orderly room.

It only took a few minutes to drop everything out of the desk drawers and into a pile on the floor. Nancy carried the drawers to the CO's office and added them to the stack. When we were done, those of us that had placed the grenades or been dumping Orderly Room desks helped drag all the drawers from the other offices in and dump them. Stokes watched as we piled it all up, making a pretty good sized pile of paperwork. The Smith file, the XO's file, the 1SG's file on all of us. I was tempted to look in the pile and pull out LT James' file, see what I could learn about the man.

There was a folder with Cass' name on it, along with one for James, and rage flared up inside me, warming that singing emptiness that had filled me. The lizard raked its claws on the floor in anger, and I agreed with him. When we were done with it I'd go back into the tunnels and before anyone could stop me I would pull Major Mallory's head back and slowly and deliberately slit his throat. Go slow, let him enjoy every second of it, sever the carotid and jugular, lay open the windpipe, clamp my hand over the wound so the blood would run down his throat and drown him. Stare in his eyes as he struggled against me, and smile into his face while I...

I could feel the weight of someone staring at me, turning to see Aine looking at me. Not through her eyelashes, but staring at me with slightly wider than normal eyes. Her face was pale, and she took a step back when I curled my lip.

"Man, everyone's gonna be pissed at us," Dobbs said, pulling my attention to her and off of Aine. "Good thing V Corps and III CosCom has copies of all it."

"Except the Smith files," Stokes pointed out. "Be nice not to have all the shit we've done hanging over our heads."

"Which is what's gonna really piss off the brass," Dobbs said. She chuckled.

"Fuck it, we ain't getting off this mountain," Sherry said.

"You think they're gonna be mad now, wait till you hear what I just remembered we forgot to take into account," Bomber said, waving his hand at the rest of the barracks.

"What?" Nancy and Stokes asked at the same time. It suddenly dawned on me right when Bomber opened his mouth.

"The Mag Offices. There's paperwork on all the sites, all kinds of secure data, just sitting in the in-boxes and shit," Bomber said.

"Fuck, we already fucked the Arms Rooms, we're out of thermite," I said.

Bomber shrugged. "Well, what are the chances that they'll luck into grabbing something important?"

"Site inventories, unit strength, who works where." I grinned. "Not like it matters, MI already rolled up that fucking KGB ring, and our names are all on strike lists anyway." I waved at the building. "Say, the Platoon Leader's offices, the files, our inboxes and outboxes?" I looked at Stokes. "Got enough flares?"

She counted, sticking them in between her stomach and LBE. "If we pile it all in the Mag Areas, I'll have like four left after this."

I reached up and scrubbed the side of my face. "All right, we'll do it like that. Go pull the pins, we'll light this pile up, and head upstairs."

Bomber glanced up. "We split up and do it quick, or do we just go ahead and move all together?"

Nancy smacked him across the back of the helmet. "Are you fucking kidding me? You watch the same movies I do, you fucking idiot."

"Yeah, we split up, and BLAM! We're fucked," Dobbs said, smacking her fist into her palm.

"OK, OK, dumbass idea," Bomber admitted, holding his hands up in surrender. "Shit, you didn't have to smack me."

"You're a Texan," Nancy told him as Stokes cracked off the flare and tossed it on the mound of paperwork. It all went up with a woof, the dry paper crackling as the magnesium flare hit it.

"This is nice," Aine said conversationally, holding her bare hands to the burning paperwork. "At least it's warm."

"Let's go, creepy," Stokes said. Aine smiled cheerfully, ducked her head, and followed as we headed out of the Orderly and to the stairwell. We moved past the mailboxes and stopped at the door to the stairwell. Nancy put her hand on the door and kept anyone from opening it, turning to look at us.

"Look, trust me on this," she said. "Right now the barracks is cold as all Hell, there's ice everywhere, and worst of all, Tandy and that fuck with the axe are stalking the barracks."

Nobody scoffed. They'd all seen the same things we had.

"The winter's been let in," Stokes said softly.

Nancy nodded. "That means a lot in here. You can't trust your eyes, the barracks itself will try to kill you. If we get separated, we meet back at the War Fighter tunnels entrance." She looked at Aine. "I don't know what kind of weird love triangle thing you've got going with Tandy, you creepy little bitch, but if you think he's coming, you tell me, do you understand?"

Aine just gave her a little smile.

Nancy stepped forward and grabbed her by the front of her LBE, shoving her so her back was against the mailboxes. "I'm not kidding, McCullen, you think he's coming, you tell us."

Aine just kept smiling.

I drew my knife, stepping forward, and unsnapping Aine's helmet before pulling it off by the chinstrap. I grabbed her hair and yanked her out of Nancy's grasp, ignoring Aine's shriek of pain as I pulled her up on her tiptoes.

When I held the knife in front of her eyes she went silent.

"I swear to God, Aine, if you don't warn us, and he takes just one of us, I'll shave your goddamn hair," I told her. "I'll shave your hair, cut off your clothing, carve your face, and throw you in the snow."

I let go of her, and she raised her hands, snarling at me, to rub her head. I grabbed her arm, yanking it toward me. She had a band of hair on her wrist, one with a splotch of black on it, the other one, I knew without looking, was liberally smeared with black. I slid the point of my knife under the braided hair and sawed slightly, seeing that I was cutting into her skin, but not caring really even as her blood beaded up.

"Hey, you're..." Artian started. I knew he was bitching that I was cutting her skin, but I didn't care.

"Leave it," Stokes said. "This ain't got nothin' to do with you."

The hair parted, falling from her wrist, and I stepped back, slapping the knife in the sheathe, then stepping back into Aine's face. "Look into my eyes, Aine, and tell me I won't do it."

She lowered her head, and her shoulders slumped. "I'll behave, Ant," she said quietly.

"Say it, Aine," I growled at her.

"If I think he's coming, I'll tell you," she said softly.

"You finished, Ant?" Nancy asked. She pushed me to the side, but I saw her expression. While she looked angry, her scar was pale and I'd learned that it was an accurate barometer of her temper over the last month. "Stop treating her like shit, Ant, she's one of us."

"Yeah, I'm finished, let's do this," I told her, moving over to the door. "I'll go first. The rest of the come up behind me." I went to pull open the door.

"Ant, one problem," John said, holding up his hand. I turned and looked at him quizzically. "See, if we drag it into the Mag Areas and burn it, we just run a small risk. We start a fire on one floor, by the time we finish the next one, the whole barracks might be on fire." He pointed at the smoke gathering at the ceiling. "We need to move, but you pull open that door, and the fire's going to go apeshit."

"All right, let's move, talk in the stairwell. Move in fast, King, shut the door," I said. "Ready? Steady. Go." I pulled the door open and we ducked through fast, me leading the way up the stairs. I heard King yell "Clear!" as I went around the stairwell landing. I stopped at the first floor landing, looking down.

"The ammo we hauled into my room, we had thermite, right?" I asked.

"I grabbed a can, yeah," Stokes called up.

"Stokes, you and Bomber and Aine go get the can, the rest of us will hit the Platoon Leader offices," I said. "Aine can be your early warning system."

"We shouldn't split up," Nancy repeated.

"Something's coming, I can feel it," Aine whispered. "Something hungry."

"Go, move out, Actual!" I called out, running up the stairs. I pushed through the doors and into near Hammerhead Hall, pausing long enough to drop my NVG's down and turn them on. I heard the clicks behind me of everyone putting theirs on. It didn't help much as I started moving again, leading the way to my room. The NVG's IR lamp made everything sparkle. The ice was thick on the walls, snowflakes falling from the icy ceiling, and a thin crust of snow on the tile. When I hit the doors ice shattered off of them, bouncing off my helmet and the shoulders of my Kevlar vest.

By the time we hit the room door I had my keys out of my pocket. I managed to get the door open, and everyone scooted inside. "Sherry, out here with me." Sherry nodded, coming to a stop. "You watch the far end."

"Roger that," Sherry answered, and I heard his rifle click from safe to semi, or maybe he was putting it on or off full auto. I dropped down, kneeling, one leg up, the other planted, perfect form. I couldn't use the sight, not wearing NVG's, but hell, maybe I'd do better shooting by feel.

The XM-16E1 still felt wrong in my hands.

"Got it, divide it up," King said, coming out in the hallway. Bomber shut the door and locked it behind him.

We jogged back, and I had the weirdest feeling. Like something was gathering around me, an almost greasy feeling to the darkness, and the visualization was more from the lizard than from me. I kind of visualized it in my head as a nebulous cloud around us, tendrils worming into us. The lizard viewed it as being watched by the eye of predators, their hot breath wafting against our skin, and hissed softly to itself, sounding like a teapot beginning to steep. We went into the stairwell and headed up another flight to where the officers plotted and schemed. No repairs had really taken place up there, just plywood put over the windows.

"You guys hit the offices, Bomber and I will start yanking drawers. King, hand out the thermite," I said.

King nodded, setting down the ammo can. He ripped it open and pulled out the cardboard tubes the grenades were stored in. Once the grenades were free they were passed out. The can only had eight of them, but it was better than nothing. There weren't enough to set them on top of all the file cabinets, so we had to settle with yanking out the drawers.

We started dumping everything into the large room all the offices were connected to, building a big pile of paperwork in the middle of the floor. The pile was pretty large, and would probably take awhile to burn. There wasn't much airflow from non-existent windows, but hopefully everything would burn before too much O2 was lost. Just to be sure, I had Bomber help me break the double doors down. The same double doors we'd rehung a little over a week ago.

"Light it now?" Sherry asked.

"No. We'll light both piles at the same time and pull back to the War Fighter tunnels, that way if it cracks the concrete between floors and collapses it won't take us out or cut us off," Bomber said.

"Mag Area," I said.

We headed down a flight of stairs, feeling a chill at what we were doing like I hadn't felt when we were wrecking the place up. This felt... different somehow, and a feeling of hopelessness was slowly filling me.

The tentacles tightened. The carrion breath of the predators got closer.

The stairs were cold, and we moved carefully due to all the ice on them. If I didn't know better I'd swear someone had dumped water off the top steps, with the way it had spilled over like a ledge.

The NVG's lit it up, all of our IR lamps combining, turning the walls and the railings into a glittering fairy land. The ice on the steps was dark, cold, and seemed to pull in the IR.

Was it just me, or were the IR lamps not as bright?

The Mag Area was cold and dark, the plywood on the little windows high up on the wall, the wooden school desks, carved up and covered in graffiti, were against the wall. The posters were on the wall, glittering with frost. Ivan is Watching. OPSEC Saves Lives. Report Cold Weather Injuries. Identification of Radiation/Chemical Exposure.

"Let's knock this shit out," Bomber said.

"First Mag, Training Offices, then Second Mag," I said. "Nancy, Lanks, Stokes, hit the lockers, grab what supplies we might need, destroy the rest."

"No shit," Stokes said, heading into the First Mag Office.

"Bomber, rip that open, I want plenty of air." I waved at the plywood covered windows that we hadn't gotten around to replacing. They were high up on the wall, only about a foot high, and about six inches below the suspended ceiling. Bomber nodded, pulling that crowbar off his LBE. King moved to help him, waiting until Bomber pulled it away from the wall and tearing the plywood free with his hands. Then he'd pull the insulation free, and Sherry and Aine knocked the plywood out and into the snow.

It let grey light into the Mag Area, sunlight, something that initially it took me a second to figure out what it was. While wind pushed in, it wasn't howling in, and it wasn't full of snowflakes or snow seeds.

The storm was passing.

We hit First Mag and the Training Office first, dumping everything out into piles. Nancy grabbed a handful of FM's, making Lanks turn around so she could pack them in the other woman's rucksack.

When I opened the doors to the Mag Area I worked in I felt an ominous chill. My desk would be stripped out, dumped in a pile in the middle of the Mag Area where Actual was breaking up the wooden desks to ensure that the fire burned well.

Light filled the offices, and looking out the windows I noticed that the sun was rising. My NVG's flare compensation kicked in, dimming everything, and I turned off the IR lamp before flipping them back up on my helmet. That let me see the colors of the sunrise. The sun was turning the snow bloody as the crimson light bathed it. The office windows faced the motorpool and I could see the guard towers, the smooth snow all the way to the building, and the mountain itself. I could see the glacier clear as day. Looking out the window, I could see the damndest thing.

All around us was a grey wall. I could see how it looped around the back of the mountain, then covered to either side of us, from what I could see out the window.

The eye of the storm.

Everyone else had tromped into the office, Bomber moving over to my desk and pulling out the bottle of Bacardi Light & Dry I'd snagged and left in the drawer. He opened it, took a drink, and passed it to me.

"Beautiful," he said.

"Ayup," I answered.

It was beautiful. The sun sparkling on the snow, the snow itself blameless and smooth, the glacier painted shades of white and crimson, the trees heavy with ice and snow, and the rising sun on the other side of the barracks from me bringing cold light to the day. The snow was even with the windows, blown slightly up about six inches, maybe a foot.

The radio crackled on Stokes back. "Commo check, do you read?" the voice said. Unfamiliar, full of static, but a voice all the same. "Come on, Wiess, you're like twenty feet away, I wanna finish this shit and get out of here."

"Stokes," I snapped, but she was already moving over to me. I grabbed the mic.

"This is Echo-Five Actual, please identify, over," I said. There was a second or two before I got a reply.

"Who the fuck is this? Weiss?" the voice said.

"This is Echo-Five Actual, we're involved in a real world situation, over," I snapped.

"A what? Switch channels, asshole. Range control gave us this band and I'm trying to check the radios so I can go back to the fucking barracks," the voice crabbed back at me.

"Unidentified transmitter, please respond. This is Echo-Five Actual, please identify, over," I repeated. I waved at Bomber who came up, digging the codebook out from under his Kevlar.

"Listen, dumbass, get off the damn channel," the same voice snapped. "Don't make me get my fucking NCO."

"This is Echo-Five Actual, we have suffered real-world casualties, we've got dead and wounded, we're under attack by elements of the Soviet armed forces. We have destroyed all sensitive items and data, but have no extraction, do you copy? Over." I tried that.

"Wait, you're what? You're not fucking around?" the voice asked.

"No. This is a real world situation. Are you set to record? Are you set to validate codes? Over," I asked.

"Hang on, I need to get the Sergeant of the Guard or somebody," the voice said.

"Hurry up, we'll hold our position. Over," I said.

I slumped down on the floor, leaning against the side of Sergeant Nails' desk, lighting a cigarette.

"Hot damn. We can call for evac." Stokes smiled at me.

"Hell yeah!" Sherry yelled, punching a fist in the air, then grabbing his ribs. "Aw goddamn it, that hurts." He groaned.

"This is Echo-Five Actual, do you read? Come in, unknown transmitter. This is Echo-Five Actual, come in. We are not receiving you at this time. We have a real world situation. This is Echo-Five Actual, please come in," I kept repeating, letting off the transmit button in between each plea.

"Oh, goddamn it, don't tell me we lost them," Bomber said, looking out the window. "Still clear as day, but I can see flashing in the clouds."

"I still have you, Echo Five Actual. This is Staff Sergeant Meyers. Private Lorenze has told me you are in imminent danger. Can you confirm? Over," a new voice asked.

"I confirm imminent danger, Sergeant. I repeat: I confirm imminent danger. Over," I assured him. "We've taken heavy casualties, and have engaged Soviet Vympel on numerous occasions."

"Engaged what?" Meyers interrupted.

"Vympel, Sergeant. Victor Yankee Mike Papa Echo Lima. Soviet Special Forces. It appears that they are after classified data. Over," I told him.

"Who did you say you were again? Over," Meyers asked.

"Corporal Stillwater, ranking member of Echo-Five Actual, 2/19th Rear Detachment Quick Reaction Force, over," I answered.

God that sounded ridiculous.

"Anyone higher ranking I can confirm with, Corporal? Over."

"Negative, Sergeant. Everyone else is either dead or completely incapacitated. Over," I told him. "We've taken heavy casualties, literally one hundred percent." I pressed my forehead against Stokes' shoulder, breathing heavy. "Actual possesses all ten effectives, and we're all walking wounded, Sergeant. Over." I coughed and something in my chest released, letting me take a deep breath.

There was silence on the radio for a long moment.

"When you put it that way, it sounds pretty bad," Artain said.

"It is pretty bad," Sherry said, coughing and groaning.

"Artain, take these. They're Vicoden." Nancy said, rattling a pill bottle.

"Thanks, my ribs are killing me," Artain said.

"Echo Five Actual, do you read? Over," came the Sergeant's voice.

"I read you. Over," I told him.

"Did you receive my last? Over."

"Negative. Please repeat your last. Over." I took an offered cigarette from Stokes.

"I'm bumping you up my chain of command, but it might take up to two zero minutes for him to arrive. Can you hold that long? Over."

"Roger that. Will hold." I coughed again. "Will continue destruction of secure documents." I waved at everyone, letting off the mic. "Who's got smoke?"

King, Bomber, Nancy, and Aine all had red smoke, otherwise all we had was white smoke, HC and thermal masking.

"Can mark with red smoke. Over," I said.

"Goddamn, think they can get a helicopter to us from main post?" Artain asked, leaning against the desk. He pulled the tape free on the bandage on his forearm. "Goddamn this is itching like hell."

"Leave it alone," Nancy told him.

"Roger that, can mark with red smoke. Can you give me the names of your QRF? Over." Meyers asked.

"Negative on the last, Sergeant," I told him, closing my eyes again. Who knew who the hell was listening in. There was a Soviet listening post/artillery unit right across the pass from us. "This is an unsecure channel. Our secure commo gear is destroyed. Over."

"Roger that, Actual." I could almost hear the frustration in his voice and I suddenly became paranoid that it was the Vympel, not somebody that could actually help us.

"You heard the man, let's finish up so we can light this up and fall back," King said.

"We'll have to pull the LT and the others to an evac point," Stokes said. "Christ, can you think of a good evac point?"

"We can use kerosene, diesel, and mogas to burn off the snow on the upper motorpool, it's the only place big enough to land a Blackhawk or a shit-hook," Nancy said, moving out with everyone else into the main room, carrying drawers from the desks with them. Lanks was pulling open the locker where the aid bags were stored, her rucksack at her feet and open.

"Christ, a fucking evac," Artain was saying.

"You don't believe they're going to evac us, do you, Stillwater?" Stokes asked softly.

"No. I don't," I told her, shaking my head. I exhaled and looked at her through the smoke. "I've just got this feeling."

"Echo Five Actual, do you read? Over." The radio crackled. It was full of static.

"This is Echo-Five Actual, we read you. Over," I answered.

"Just checking, Actual. Over," Meyer said.

"Cocktease," Stokes grumbled.

Bomber found a bottle of Jack Daniels in a desk drawer and uncapped it, taking a swig before passing it Stokes, who took a hit off of it and handed it to me. It tasted good going down, and warmed me up.

For some weird reason it made it easier to breathe too.

Sergeant Meyer did a commo check four more times, during that time everyone finished piling everything up in a pretty good sized heap in the Mag Area. Bomber wasn't sure it would burn easily, but Nancy had pointed out that she'd found a half-gallon of Everclear in the First Mag Office. We figured we'd dump it on the stuff and then light it up with a couple flares.

"This is Lieutenant Colonel Archer to Echo-Five Actual, do your read? Over," a voice said.

"Thank God," Sherry said softly. I silently agreed as I keyed the mic.

"We read you, sir. Over," I answered. It had taken almost a half hour for him to get on the line, and the beautiful sunrise had started to clear up.

"Echo-Five Actual, I need you to confirm. I need a confirmation from you," Colonel Archer said. He sounded kind of pissed off. I waved at Bomber, who came over and dug the code book out from under his field jacket. I flipped it open, find the Julian date, and picked a third of the way across.

"This is Echo-Five Actual, please identify." I read off the code at the top of the page, then put my finger on the little box. "Code is: November Six Alpha Seven Seven Niner Six. Request verification. Over," I said.

There was static, and Stokes fucked with the radio a little bit. The voice was stronger, but still was a shitty connection when it comes back.

"Verification is: Alpha Niner Niner Seven Echo Two," I heard. The voice sounded incredulous. Bomber looked up and nodded. "This is Bravo Company, 3/67 Armor, out of Fort Hood. Who the hell is this? Over."

"This is Echo-Five Actual, 2/19th Special Weapons, Rear Detachment, Corporal Stillwater currently in command of Quebec Romeo Foxtrot," I told him. "We've got a real world situation here, sir. We've got wounded and killed in action. We need reinforcement and extraction for wounded, it looks like a pre-hostilities surgical strike. Over."

"A what? Son, are you fucking with me?" Archer asked.

"Bravo, are you set up to record? Over." I crossed my fingers.

"Negative, Echo-Five Alpha." There was silence for a second. "Are taking notes. Give me a sitrep. Over." the Colonel said.

"We've gone from over forty elements to ten effective. Secure items and data have been destroyed according to SOP," I started.

"You've taken how many casualties? Have you identified your hostiles? Over." The Colonel sounded disbelieving.

"We've taken one hundred percent casualties, Bravo." I chuckled. "I'm sitting here with a chest tube in, sir. We're all wounded, sir, and..."

"This is not an exercise, is it, son? Over." The Colonel broke in. He sounded suddenly serious, and I heard him address someone else. "Find out who the hell 2/19th is. Get ahold of III Corps Staff Duty."

"Negative, Bravo. We are currently at the barracks area, and I believe that we are being aggressed as part of a pre-conflict surgical strike. Over." Not exactly true. This was a CIA op gone to total shit, but we needed help. Nobody would fault me with my interpretation of what kind of shit we were in.

"Echo-Five Actual, you are currently engaging hostile forces in your barracks? Over."

"Roger that, Bravo. What is your current position? Are you at the field exercise areas here on post?" I asked.

"Please please please say yes," Dobbs said, turning away and folding her hands under her chin.

"Echo-Five Actual, we are currently at our motorpool on main post of Fort Hood. It's 0330 here, we were prepping to leave for the field here when you broke in channel. Where are you. Over?" he asked.

We all groaned.

"Goddamn ionosphere bullshit!" Bomber swore, grabbing one of the desks and flipping it onto its face. "They might as well be on the moon."

It wasn't uncommon for radio signals to bounce off the ionosphere, and I knew that we could pick up a radio station from LA when we were out at Atlas during the summer, which was a hell of a lot better than AFN radio or one of the German stations we could grab.

Now that bullshit might cost us our lives.

I thought fast. I was hoping 3/67 could come riding to our rescue. Looks like they were doing field duty at Fort Hood. Which meant we were screwed.

Unless...

"Echo-Five Actual, do you read? Over," the Colonel said.

"We read you, sir. Do you have outside commo? Over," I asked, digging out my green notebook.

"Roger that, Actual," the Colonel answered.

"Who the fuck cares?" Artain asked.

"Shut it," Stokes snapped. "I get it."

"I need you to call V Corps NBC Section, tell them that 2/19th Special Weapons is under attack," I told him. "Prepare to Copy. Over."

"Ready to copy, Actual. Over," the Colonel told me right back.

I have him the phone number, my authorization number, and had him repeat it back to me twice. Once static blotted him out, and it took Stokes a minute of screwing with the PRC-77 to get him back.

"Bravo, tell V Corps that we're going to finish destroying the secure data and fall back to the War Fighter tunnels," I told him. "We'll try to hold out until..."

"DOWN!" Dobbs shouted.

I reacted, hitting the floor with Stokes next to me. Everyone else reacted out of spinal reflex, hitting the tile. Sherry gave a sharp outcry of pain as he landed on his broken ribs.

Bullets shattered the window and blew deep craters in the cinderblock wall opposite of the window. More than just the sounds of AK-47's firing at us, I could hear two RPK's going off, their distinctive noise making me try to push my belly button through the tile floor.

The Russians had found us.

"Taking heavy fire!" I yelled into the mic. I thrust it at Stokes. "Let him know what's going on. We've gotta burn the data."

Bomber had crawled into the Mag Area, standing up and splashing Everclear out of the bottle and onto the stacked paperwork. Aine was shooting back, flat against the wall and firing without looking over the top. King had flipped over a desk, the same with Nancy, crouching down behind the heavy metal furniture. Artain was crawling after Sherry, both men heading for the Mag Area. Dobbs and Lanks were both hiding behind a third desk, and while I watched Dobbs rolled onto her back, put her feet against the edge of the desk, and pushed upward so that it fell on its back.

"Anyone see where they are?" I shouted, the outer face of the wall severely damaged. If they kept it up they'd blow through the wall and start shooting up the bathroom on the other side.

"They're keeping us pinned down!" Nancy yelled. "Bomber, the stairs!"

"Artain, Sherry, with me! We gotta hit the upstairs!" Bomber yelled. "Stokes, flares!"

"Sir, we've been engaged! Destroying classified data and pulling out!" Stokes said. She lifted the flares one by one and threw Bomber a total of four of them. More automatic fire came in, this time hitting the wall to my left and hammering the doors that led into the Mag Area.

They were shifting position, flanking us. That meant that the ones in the middle were moving forward while the flanks kept us pinned.

It sounded like straight AK-47's from either side, which meant that coming up the middle were their RPK's. I wasn't sure if that meant that the heavier concentration of troops was coming straight at us, or just four men, the RPK gunners and their assistants.

Bomber caught the flares, tossing one to Artain, then another, and tossing the other two to Sherry.

"What's going on, Actual?" the radio crackled.

"We're being flanked, multiple hostiles," Stokes said.

"Multitiple crew served weaponry," I shouted, glancing up. Nothing but white, the snow sparkling. I couldn't see shit out there.

"Hostiles have crew served weaponry, appear to be advancing on our position," Stokes reported.

"Fall back, middle stairwell!" I bellowed out, crawling toward the Mag Area.

"We're falling back to the War Fighter tunnels," Stokes yelled into the mic. She let it fall, grabbing her weapon and low crawling along the line desks, heading toward the door.

Bullets were still slamming into the walls, whipping over our heads. Constant fire, the initial flurry had died down, and it felt like they'd probably put only a magazine at us in two waves, one group cutting loose then reloading while other one did the same, before settling down to single shots as they moved forward. Enough to keep us down, but not like it was.

Bomber burst through the doorway, soot on his face, and ducked reflexively as a burst of tracers whipped across the Mag Area from the Mag Office door.

"Got it lit!" he called out.

"Lighting!" Artain called out. He cracked the flare, flipping the cap in his hand and striking it. It lit up and he tossed it into the damp paperwork and manuals where Bomber had splashed the Everclear. It went up with a whoosh, heat blossoming over us, the flames blue at first.

Dobbs got through the doors first, waving us after her. She'd dropped her NVG's down and turned them on. "Hallway's clear!"

"Let's go!" I yelled, getting to my feet and following through.

"Actual, report!" the Colonel was yelling. "Actual, give me a sit-rep!"

He'd have to read about it if anyone ever wrote it up.

Besides, if we lived or died, someone would be getting a visit from the DIA to officially disavow our little radio talk.

We ran down the hallway, our boots crunching on the ice, Dobbs leading the way. Nancy was pulling second, Lanks behind her. Aine was only a few steps behind me, and from the sounds of it King was pulling drag, the belts around his torso chiming as he hustled.

Dobbs hit the middle doors. Ice had reformed on the doors and it cascaded off of Dobbs, bouncing off her helmet.

Nancy grabbed one door, Lanks the other, as I put on speed. Even pumping my arms wasn't helping much, my chest starting to tighten, but I didn't want to get left behind.

That oppressive feeling was getting thicker. The lizard was starting to mutter again.

"Actual.... can you... read... sit... Actual..." crackled from the radio.

"Something's coming!" Aine yelled.

Dobbs opened the door to the stairwell with a hard yank on the handle, ice shattering from around the door.

The blade of the axe, covered in frost that made the handle of the axe glitter in the light of my IR lamp, but not obscuring 2/19th Motor Pool on the handle, came out of the darkness

And hit Dobbs in the stomach with a loud crunching sound, the sheer force of the strike throwing her against the laundry room door, her helmet smashing against the door. She slid down in slow motion, coughing, blood and saliva spraying out of her mouth.

He stepped into the doorway.