"I wasn't always a weapon. But being

a weapon was better than what I

might have been if it hadn't been

for the Army."

Chapter Eight

FSTS-317/NATO Site-93

AKA "ATLAS"

Secure Area, Western Germany

On the 1K Zone

08 July, 1985

"Eight books." I said, looking at my cards. Out of thirteen cards I had almost all spades, including the two of spades and the ace of spades, both jokers, and the king of diamonds. I grinned at my partner. "We got this shit in the bag." The guy, a German officer from GSG-9 who knew how to play spades, smiled back and shrugged. The other two guys, an NCO from the Rangers and the 1SG from the infantry company, looked at their cards sourly.

"I've got two." The GSG-9 officer said.

"Stillwater." Johnson said, looking up from the notebook he had in front of the radio. Everyone set their cards down on the MRE box table/dresser we'd built by taping empty MRE boxes together three high, in a cube of four, with holes punched in the front of the interior box so that I could loop 550 cord chunks into it to act as handles. It made for a good way to keep track of paperwork and stuff without actually pulling a 3 drawer chest out of stocks. I glanced over to where MSG Richards was leaned back in a chair with his softcap pulled down over his eyes.

"What's up, Johnson?" I asked, pulling out my green notebook. It was almost full, I'd have to turn it in to S-2 to have them redact anything bad so I could throw it in with the rest of my old used ones and replace it with a new one that would last me about a week under the current operational tempo.

"Stokes just called from Perseus." He started. I nodded. "Looks like we might have a problem." I motioned for him to go on. "They've got about a dozen leaking rounds. She says it's the new VX eight inch arty rounds. Binary corrosive, glass canister liners, looks like they used tin grooved canisters. Last four of the Lot Number is 6631."

That made me sit up. MSG Richards pulled his hat off.

"Who's on downrange radio?" I asked.

"Bomber." He told me. "Foster's got your vehicle."

"OK, tell Foster I'll be right down..." MSG Richards cleared his throat and I stopped in the middle of what I was saying. I made a chopping motion and Johnson nodded. The other NCOs were watching me and I could feel the pressure. "All right, we'll do it like this. Tell Foster to pick up Nagle, have Nagle go to 61st Medical and pull any doctors and medics she's trained up for NBC operations. Put them on standby and get ready for any decon. Have Foster then go to each unit and warn them to wake everyone up and have them stay in their tents in MOPP 3. Tell Bomber to get Dewly and Bradly to put a 3K forklift inside and have them put a portable seal over the door of bunker nineteen. Have Foster take a 1.5 KW Meep down to inflate it, and have Little Bit and Bomber suit up in J-suits with full oxy. Check the inside of the bunker for contamination levels then start pulling those rounds and setting in them in the ready area inside."

MSG Richards nodded approvingly. He'd been teaching me how to delegate instead of running down and trying to supervise everything myself.

"I better have my men get in protective equipment." The GSG-9 officer said, standing up. He flipped his cards right side up and I saw he had an ace of hearts and an ace of clubs in his hand. We could have done 13 books and probably taken it all.

"Same here." The Ranger and Infantry guys said, flipping there's over. Bad hands, only one spade between them and that the three of spades. The MP NCO who hung out in The Fort was putting on his helmet.

"How dangerous is this?" SFC Tellington asked me, finishing snapping his helmet chinstrap.

"Right now, not very. It sounds like the manufacturers fucked up. The problem is is if two of the canisters leak vapor into the air because the round isn't properly sealed, the vapor will mix in the air of the bunker and we'll either get full strength VX in the bunker or a slight contamination that we won't notice until we start getting the shakes." I shook my head. "In May Hercules had that problem, they didn't realize what was going on until about half of their crew got put in the hospital."

"I'm going to tell my CO to make sure that everyone is awake and in full MOPP." Tellington said.

"Don't forget to tell the German guard force or the Trans guys." Richards told me. I nodded and waved at Johnson who nodded and jotted something down. He was speaking rapidly into his radio headset.

I sat back down and started cracking my knuckles, twisting my fingers in anxiousness. I wanted Bomber and everyone else to give me minute to minute updates, but Richards had taught me to avoid that kind of micromanagement, reminding me how much I hated it when officers and NCOs did that shit to me. I got up and started pacing around the common room of The Fort, stopping to mess with the German gambling machine, dig a Mt Dew out of the box and drink half of it, and try to avoid looming over Johnson's shoulder.

"Take a deep breath." Richards advised me. "Start writing up the report now, leaving it open for either way it comes out, and figure out what you're going to do tomorrow based on any of the outcomes."

I sighed, sat down, and pulled open one of the boxes to pull out the report forms.

"You're doing just fine, Corporal." Richards told me. "You've been running drills in case this happened so everyone knows it could happen, it isn't the result of your troops mistakes, and you're ensuring it gets handled."

"I'm not cut out to just sit up here." I told him.

"Yeah. That's one of the suck parts." He chuckled and picked up the cards to shuffle them. "There's two types of NCO's, Stillwater. Those who prefer to hang out in their offices so they don't have to do anything and those who want to be there with their troops working right beside them."

"Right." I said. "The guys who sit in the office annoy me."

"Well, the Army needs both. That way the guys like you and me have someone back to handle the office shit we don't want to" Richards told me. "You want to know what you need to learn now?"

I noticed that Johnson was pretending not to listen to our conversation.

"Sure." I said.

"All right. You've got a capable Assistant Squad Leader in Specialist Bomber. You need to start teaching him everything we're all teaching you so he can step up if you get killed or put out of operation." The Master Sergeant told me, leaning back in his chair again. "Start teaching every man the job of those below them and above them, cross train everyone in everything. You've basically got an entire self-contained unit out here. You don't have anyone out here but yourselves for months at a time, so you're going to have to figure everything out and assign people positions." He waved at the desk I'd built. "Write yourself up a TO&E for out here, think up the positions, and assign people to the slots."

"No way Chief Henley will let that fly." I told him.

He made a scornful noise. "You keep saying Atlas is it's own little world. If he won't approve it, put it in the site data and the next time the courier from V Corps comes out just include it in a data-packet. Call it 'FSTS-317 METL Update' and they'll probably lock it in and Chief Henley won't have any choice." He picked up his canteen cup and took a sip of the coffee he'd poured into it. "You need to learn to work with officers but you also need to learn the ways to move around obstructive officers without the aggressive and insubordinate way you do it now."

"That's a good idea." I said. I picked up an empty dispatch folder and got out a black Sharpie. I wrote "FSTS-317 METL" on the cover.

"You're on your own out here, son. Let's face it, in the case of war your unit won't make it here since they'll get caught up in the fighting in the Gap. You'll have to take on the Russians across the way, coordinate with the Air Force to protect this site, and pretty much handle a lot of responsibility." He took another long drink. "Goddamn this is good stuff. See, you bought a coffee maker and installed it in here and it improves your troops morale. You're doing better than men with ten or fifteen years in the Army. You care about your troops, you won't ask them to do anything you wouldn't do and they know it, you're learning to delegate authority to give them training in leadership." He tugged the lip of his soft-cap over his eyes. "You're doing just fine, Corporal."

"Thanks, Master Sergeant." I said. I went back to jotting down notes. I'd hit the typewriter later and type everything up, but sitting down to write up a METL let me see where I had missed things all these months and where things could be improved.

"Corporal?" One of the infantry guys who were assigned as door guards poked his head in.

"Yes, Sergeant?" I asked. I expected the NCO's who were assigned as door guard to act like assholes at having to report to a Corporal but they'd just acted like it was no big thing. I'd expected their company commander to raise hell when he found out the entire operation was being run by an 18 year old Corporal but he'd just introduced himself, let me know what kind of armament his unit had and that they had just completed a tour of the Fort Ord Urban Warfare Center, then assigned his XO and a SFC as the liaisons and withdrawn. It was really weird to me, but maybe it had something to do with the fact they were just in Europe for some training.

"The East Germans just fired off a white star flare." He told me.

"White and not green?" I asked.

"White." Johnson said, his voice tight.

"Shit." I put away the folder and grabbed my gear. That meant that they had to talk to me right now and were doing so under force. A red one would let us know that something had gone bad and we all needed to mask. Yeah, in a way it was collaborating with the enemy, but if the balloon went up we'd honestly do our best to kill each other and carry out our duty. The white cluster flare meant that it wasn't a hit or anything like that but still the East German guy needed to get a hold of me.

"Let Bomber know I'll handle this." I told Johnson, who nodded. I turned to Richards. "Feel like throwing away your career?"

"Naw. I'm allergic to hard labor in prison." Richards said.

"Johnson, tell the SF guys that I need someone who can follow orders and can speak Russian and German, two if it has to be. If they can't follow my orders they can just stay back and look for snakes to..." I started. MSG Richards made a tutting noise and I cleared my throat. "If they can't follow my orders to the letter then I can't use them."

"Gotcha." Johnson said, flipping the preset switches on his commo gear. I had no idea how all that shit worked, and Johnson was Special Weapons with no background in commo, but he'd dove into the FM's, TM's, and correspondence courses like his life depended on it. I'd encouraged him to see about getting the cross training put in his jacket, since he'd even learned how to use the specialized equipment that Corps had sent us.

"I'll be heading down main drag, have them meet me and tell them to doubletime it." I picked up my rifle, loaded in a white cluster flare into the 40mm and headed out of The Fort. When I got outside I fired off the flare, dropped the empty 40mm into my cargo pocket, and loaded up an HEDP round.

No sense in being careless.

Halfway down the road from The Fort two men joined me. Captain Karcher and SFC Devitt from the SF dwonks. When they'd originally showed up their hair had been out of regs, they'd all needed shaves, but their team leader had made them start making sure they looked just like everyone else.

"What's going down? What's with the flares." CPT Karcher asked.

"We've got a little different way of doing things out here." I warned them. "The East Germans want to talk to us and are risking their GRU officer shooting them in the face." I turned to them. "I've cultivated this relationship with them very very carefully over the last few months, so do not screw this up. Twice they've refused orders to engage us when others have used their base to launch an attack on this site, and warned us several times about actions that might have blown up in everyone faces. They don't want World War III kicking off any more then we do, gentlemen."

"Roger." The both answered.

We got the fence and I undid the bread ties and slipped through.

"Safeties off, gentlemen, these men are still the enemy. Make sure they can see you do, it's all part of the dance." I told them. Both of them obviously switched their fire selectors from safe to semi and racked back the charging handle. I didn't bother, just tapped the side of my M-203.

My counterpart had five others out with him, which was unusual in itself.

"What's going on?" I asked when I walked up. All six men were sweating in the warm evening air. I lifted the 100 MPH tape and he shook his head slightly.

He'd be lying to me at critical points.

"We are being reinforced, some feel that this site may be used to base a first strike from." My counterpoint said with no preamble. He looked really nervous.

"Let me guess, that psycho who runs the 117th Guards Motor Rifle Regiment out at Meiningen." I swore. That idiot had been the one who sent the goddamn sniper, who had sent the dumbasses in the HiND, and had tried to convince my counterpart to try sneak attacking us at night. All six men nodded. "How many?"

"A little more than one of your brigades." The East German said. He glanced at my US Army. "They are all conscripts, no professionals. It is just training, there will be no live ammunition, so you and your men have nothing to fear from any of it."

"Can you keep a lid on any of your more excitable men?" I asked.

He shook his head. "I will be relieved of command when they get here." He looked pained. "There will be GRU with them, comrade." He glanced at my nametag. "They will arrive tomorrow." I nodded slightly.

I swore. "All right."

"We will not be able to meet with you either." He wiped his brow. "The GRU officers have a bad reputation among us, this may be our last meeting."

I held out my hand. "It was good working with you, sir. Stay safe." I thought for a second. "Just remind your men to make sure that your new friends understand that there's no way I'm going to let this site be taken. I'll burn West Germany before I let that happen."

Two of the men gulped loudly.

"And you and your people know exactly what I've got in there. I won't hesitate to use it."

The head honcho smiled and nodded. "I will play up that you are mad, we have pictures of you and your men doing Systema training, I will select pictures and tell them that it is you physically disciplining your men." He looked uncomfortable. "We have... umm... delicate pictures of you and Nagle. Would you object to me telling the GRU officers that it is of you sexually assaulting her?"

I knew I was blushing. "Yeah, anything to let them think I'm crazy enough. I want us able to go see our families."

They all nodded at that. There was some whispering, but all of them knew I couldn't speak Russian and my German was spotty at best, only good enough to find the subway, the train, a room for the night, the police station, the bar, and order food and drink.

"We better break this up before someone notices." I said. We shook hands again and parted.

"Don't look behind you. None of my men would." I said quietly to my SF entourage. "Don't hurry."

"Why not?" Captain Karcher asked, his voice low, but not whispering.

"The GRU guys are watching this." I told them. "I've had Little Bit acting as overwatch for the last week and she ID'd all the new people. GRU are easy to mark out, everyone gets all nervous around them and they throw their weight around like the CIA does." We slipped through the fence. "She's been doing up the fire card for the whole base they have. We've got a laser rangefinder that she's using to range everything out between the fence and targets in their area."

"Why didn't you have us do it?" Captain Karcher asked after I helped them through and was retying the bread ties.

"It would have taken you days to get up to speed and..." I stopped, hearing MSG Richards voice in my head telling me to work at integrating others. "You know what, how many snipers in your groups?"

"That's classified." SFC Devitt said.

"That's why." I told them, slipping through the other fence. "You can play your little snake-eater games, brag to everyone else about how you protected us, and we'll take care of ourselves." I put a lot of scorn into my tone. "That's why I haven't tasked you or the Rangers to do anything because you think you're the top of top secret when you're little more than glorified infantry out here." I closed the fence behind them and started to do the bread ties up. "Besides, we don't need you."

"You're a mouthy little punk, aren't you?" Devitt asked. Yup, I was right, he was the weak link. I just ignored him.

"Just telling you how it is out here at Atlas." I told them, straightening up. "There's going to be classified actions happening, Captain, tell your team leaders to pull everyone back to your encampment and stay put. I'll see about getting you transportation out of here so you don't have to risk your unit's classified status." Bomber was waiting for me with the radio on his back, smoking a cigarette.

"That's all right, Corporal, I'll handle Sergeant Devitt's objections and anyone else's objections." The Captain told me. "I have four sniper teams I can offer you."

"What's the bad news?" Bomber asked me, lighting an extra cigarette and handing it to me.

"I thought you weren't supposed to smoke this close to ammunition?" Devitt asked. I just ignored him.

"Mind your business, Sergeant." Karcher said.

"The GRU is already moved in, probably with some headstomper assholes they pulled from high loyalty units." I told him. He swore. "Tell Johnson to switch encryption right now. Head uprange and then make sure that everyone is on the same encryption page." I inhaled, closed my eyes, and made a hard decision. "Crack last year's war books, use those passwords and encryptions, let Corps know what's going on. Have Johnson tell 7th SOS that we'll need them to make a show of force and see if 11th ACR minds tasking some extra Apache's out here. We'll load them up with anti-armor 30mm and APERS 2.75's."

"I'll let the Colonel know that he needs to confer with you." Karcher told me. "Is this going to get ugly?"

"It might. They tried to roll over us not too long ago, some GRU or KGB idiot or some General might be thinking we're easy to take out." I sighed. "Well, my Father always told me that sooner or later the right thing to do will be the thing that costs you your career." My brain was working in overdrive. I looked at Bomber. "We're going to make this obvious, we're going to make it ugly. Tell Combat Talon that I want them to fly low enough that we'll be able to see the ordnance on their bellies."

"Johnson saying that Corps just called." Bomber's voice got the weird clipped sound he got whenever he was relaying information without thinking about it. "Sat recon shows that there's a major movement of troops from the Soviet base at Meiningen. They estimate we've got at least two Brigades coming at us, looks like mechanized infantry with at least a company of armor. They contacted Group command and let them know that we might an incident brewing up out here."

"Tell them I'll be taking defensive steps only." I took a deep breath. "I need a real officer and real NCO out here to take over."

Bomber relayed everything, and I noticed that the two SF guys stayed next to me. After a moment Bomber looked at me. "Corps is tapping Colonel Pritchard from 1st Special Forces to handle command decisions since he is already on site. You'll be his adviser on the site. We are not supposed to get aggressive but are allowed to defend ourselves if the Soviet Union sends forces into the 1K Zone but only to engage any forces advancing upon the site. Corps has the utmost confidence in your skills, training, and professionalism during this."

"Goddamn it." I grumbled. I turned to the Captain. "Should I head back with you to talk to the Colonel?"

"I'll have him meet with you." Karcher told me. "Sounds like you have your hands full."

"Yeah." I looked at the East German base. All two buildings of it. "We might have a front row seat."

"To what?" Devitt asked.

"The end of the world." Karcher said.

* * * * *

"You sure about this?" Bomber asked. We were both wearing radiation suits, kneeling beside the lead lined box that we'd hauled out that was normally used for inspection.

"Yeah. It'll work." I told him. I lifted up the little spherical core. It weighed about twenty-two pounds, and it was hard to believe just how much Net Explosive Weight I was holding in my hands.

"What if they call your bluff?" Bomber asked.

"Davey Crockett." I told him. "I'm going to issue them to the Rangers and the rest of the SOG guys. We'll train them on it."

"Christ, the Crockett's. Are you sure?"

"If we end up using those, we'll be operating under full warfare." I said. "If we have to bring out the heavy stuff then the Pentagon will know that World War III has started because this whole area is going to vanish in a flash of light."

"Goddamn, man. If anything goes off they'll throw you under the bus to settle things with the Soviet Union, you know that?" Bomber said, starting to put the round back together. It was an ugly little thing, all steel and normally wrapped in an OD green nylon backpack system for the SOG dwonks to carry into position.

"I'll be dead, so it won't matter to anyone but historians." I told him.

"No, you won't, we'll do this right. We'll make it so that they'll have to dig us out of here with shovels." He sighed. "We'll get the CO's and the S-2 of the units we have out here and show them about the War-Fighter tunnels."

"We'll have Bradley go in and warm the whole thing up. Christ, this is going to get ugly." I said. "We'll have to read those guys into the site mission and that means I'll have to answer for that too."

"Why don't we just talk to their S-2 guys, have Bradley man the War-Fighter Tunnels, and we'll read them if it gets ugly?" Bomber asked, bolting the case back together.

"Because they'll have less than 10 minutes to get into the tunnels and I don't to leave anyone out here if we start throwing the big guns around." I told him. I sighed and wished I could scratch my nose. "We'll grab some four point two corrosive agent and put it ready. We'll make the infantry guys set up their mortars now and instruct them that this isn't normal shit, this is big gun and anyone who fires one without authorization will get shot in the back of the head."

Bomber nodded, lifting up the case. I held open the nylon sleeve and he carefully slid it into the container. We moved it over and put it with the other nineteen of them.

I closed the case and locked it, then had moved the case to the back of the bunker with the pallet jack.

Enough uranium to destroy New York. Christ.

When I got back to the front of the bunker John was stripping out of his suit, revealing that he had done the same as me and stripped down to his T-shirt and boxers. He grabbed his LBE and pulled his canteen out along with a cravat. He poured the water onto the cravat and started wiping down his leg after stripping off his boxers. I took mine off and he offered me the cravat but I just shook my head. I hadn't had to piss that bad. It wasn't any big deal, when you were suited up you had two choices: Hold it or just go.

We put our uniforms back on, Bomber jamming the cravat wrapped boxers into his cargo pocket and then starting to fold the suits up while I opened up the bunker door.

Bunker nine was the first hot-bunker on the site and faced the 1K Zone. We usually only worked it with the pad covered in camoflauge netting and at night while using NVG's, but I wanted the Soviets to see what we were doing.

Time to see if anyone blinked.

There were a group of Rangers and SF guys standing there. Captain Karcher stood there looking a little nervous at what was sitting just inside the door.

"This is Madam." I said to the SOG dwonks, pointing at the twenty weird looking rucksacks. "She demands respect and you will give her respect." I pointed at the 1K Zone. "Madam wishes to go on vacation, to see the sites, so she is leaving her estate to go hang around out there." Bomber chuckled. "Madam likes to be buried with six inches of earth above her, she likes to be turned on before being placed in a hole." I pointed at the Claymore land mine boxes on the pallet on a different pallet jack. "Madam demands that Mr. Claymore attend to her, so you will put four of them around her in case someone touches her."

"Any questions?" Bomber asked when I lit a cigarette to try to calm my nerves.

Madam was a big girl.

"What are these?" One of the Rangers asked.

"Madam is a Medium Atomic Demolition Munition with a W-47 45 kiloton warhead." I told them. All of them paled. "You will place these at irregular intervals in the 1K Zone," I held up my finger. "But you will be sure that you are seen doing it. I want you to inspect the outside of the round, don't try to shield it, then bury it." I waved at our friends across the way, who mainly hung out on their vehicles and run up and down the 1K Zone including every morning and every night charging the 1K Zone and stopping less then a hundred yards from the edge.

They wanted to play asshole games, I'd play too.

"So, go take Madam to the dance." I smiled, and started walking away.

We headed down toward Bunker Fourteen. There were infantry guys there and it was time to scare the living shit out of them too.

"You think the Soviets are going to buy it?" Bomber asked.

I laughed. "Those snake eaters looked like they wanted to run away screaming, the Soviet guys will see that and know that they're handling something that they are treating like live snakes, so the Ruskies are going to take a good look."

"Except Madam isn't ready to dance." Bomber pointed out.

"Yeah, well, that's the bluff."

"Are you sure about the Crocketts?"

"No. We start hauling out the Crocketts all bets are off." I wiped my brow. Goddamn it was hot at Atlas.

Bomber gave a long sigh. "I wish we'd disassembled and destroyed those things. I hate them."

"You aren't the only one." I shook my head. "Who the hell thought those things up?"

"Same assholes who put us in this position." Bomber offered. "Motherfuckers who never have to worry about firing them."

"I'll hand out the launchers, they're pretty obvious, you can't mistake them for anything else."

"Think they'll push it?"

"If they do, then it'll be the last thing they push. Like I said, the Pentagon will know we're under attack because this place and most of us will vanish in a flash of light." I told him.

Bomber nodded.

"I wanna fire one." He said with a grin. "I'll take the armor buster."

He was talking about a 50 Kiloton shoulder fired nuclear anti-tank rocket. They were designed in the 1950's, and originally they were able to fired from a safe distance but advances in warheads without the complimentary and comparable advances in propellant and delivery systems for the Crockett meant that with the high yield warhead the firer was actually a suicide mission since they'd be inside the insta-kill zone and take the enhanced burst of > 43,000 rem at out to a mile thanks to the M388A4 warhead.

"I wanted to do it." I told him. "I mean, come on, I'd be in history books."

Bomber grinned at me. "Sorry, but you've gotta stay here for command and control. I'm expendable, baby, you're mission essential."

"Dammit." I said, stomping a couple steps.

"Hah, you lose, Mr. Bond." Bomber used his shitty movie villain voice that was ruined by his Texas accent.

The Special Forces Colonel Pritchard was walking up the road toward me. He looked a little wild-eyed around the edges but still veered right toward us. I'd expected him to start throwing his rank around and 'fix' everything I'd done over the last three weeks. Instead he pretty much kicked back, made his men train harder on NBC Warfare, and gave me advice to help me keep from screwing the pooch.

However, defense of Atlas was my responsibility and Chief Henley and Group had made it plain with the 'do whatever you want, you goddamn moron, just pack that ammo before I have you shot in the balls' that I could carry out the plan I'd come up with.

It was a crazy plan.

It was a MAD plan.

But I was insane, so it was all right.

"I'm not to sure about this operations plan." The Colonel said when we got close. "I don't see really any way that this will have long term tactical gains."

"It isn't about that, sir." I said, pausing. There were a bunch of infantry gathered up on the pad to Bunker Fourteen. "This has no long term tactical gain, it has only one goal."

He looked uncertain. "And that goal is?"

"Destroy the enemy, leave no ground for him to go to, poison his men, and destroy his will to make war." I smiled.

He shook his head. "I know that sooner or later my life will be the price for mission success, but this doesn't even seem to have an real objective beyond firing off nuclear weapons."

"That's the objective." I told him.

"If you fire those off everyone is going to know it." Colonel Pritchard said. "It might evoke a panic response and everyone might fire off their own weapons and it might start World War III." He looked faintly sick. "Even if it doesn't there has to about a thousand people you'll irradiate. Are you sure you've thought this through?"

"Fifty-eight thousand nine hundred victims from the initial burst, with another two hundred fifteen thousand exposed to doses of radiation that will prove lethal within the next six months, with fatalities from secondary effects moving up into the half million mark by year two due to the enhanced jacketing on the weapons and the fact that both Davey Crocketts are salted rounds." I told him. "That's only assuming we use the four M388A4 warheads I have in usable condition. If we go full bore at them and their reinforcements and then do our part to gut any type of advance at the Fulda Gap we'll kill over six point two million people within thirty days. The ground will be unusable for up to sixteen years, five years if they plant sunflowers and do other decon." I stared at him. "I've thought this over, sir."

"Then why a plan that risks this much? Why not just a sheer conventional plan?" He asked me.

"Because they think they can take us conventionally." Bomber said. "Those are Mr. Popov's newest babies, the T-80U Main Battle Tank and I was able to spot third generation NBC warfare systems on board which the Soviet Union knows cannot take on a face full of tactical weaponry and is primarily used for extensive operations in post deployment battlefield." Bomber took a deep breath and continued. "The T-80U has the new Kilo-5 explosive reactive armor which will incandescence during the thermal pulse, improved gunsight and targeting system, the piece of shit Refleks missile system (which will gangfire when exposed to the emp and thermal pulse), and has a 1,000 hp power train."

The Colonel nodded. He was past being surprised at the shit my crew knew. He'd been allowed in The Fort and seen the posters on the wall and the FM's, TM's and updates we all looked at.

"They have an entire company of tanks and think that we don't have anything conventional to stop them." I finished. "I want their GRU agents to realize that doing anything will up the stakes to unthinkable levels and I want them to think twice about any ideas of having those Spetz eliminating us and thinking they can just roll over us and using fait accompli to claim that it's all over." I grinned at Bomber and then at the Colonel. "Bomber is Texan and his file shows he's more than willing to fight a war like this, but he's methodical and cold blooded about it. My file shows that I've been dying to detonate a nuclear weapon myself since I watched the underground test in 1983. That means that eliminating one of us takes the chain off of the other."

"I hate this MAD shit." Colonel Pritchard said. "I didn't mind working the Mujahedin in Afghanistan, or in Central America, but this shit is just... just..." He tried to find a word for it.

"Mad?" Bomber grinned, then laughed. It was a tight, brittle sound that made Pritchard shudder.

"Yeah." He said.

"Let's go talk to the bullet catchers." I told them. "Time to lie."

We moved up and the Lieutenant with the bullet catchers went to salute before he caught himself.

"Good afternoon, I'm Corporal Stillwater and this is Specialist Bomber, we'll be instructing you today." I said. Bomber walked past and pulled the chain to open up the door while I kept talking. "You have been selected by your Commanding Officer due to your psychological profiles, your dedication to duty, and the fact that you're actually smarter than..." I stopped myself before I said "A severely autistic rock". "Most infantrymen are required to be."

Bomber came out of the bunker with a long tube launcher and dragging a metal box with radiation symbols. Foster pulled up on the road and parked the vehicle on the pad.

"Today you will be learning about the M-29 Davy Crockett nuclear rocket launcher." I smiled. "It will be armed with a M388A4 zero point five kiloton tactical nuclear weapon that is used for anti-armor and anti-personnel with a maximum effective lethality range of eight hundred meters and a lowered radiation output." I waved at the 1K Zone. "We hit them, all we need is sunglasses and suntan lotion."

I lied to them the entire time. I was going to stack 40-75 Kt warheads on the launcher, but bullet catchers were almost expendable as Marines. They didn't know I was basically lying about everything from the yield to the lethal range to the maximum range of the weapon. The weapons were two to three times more powerful as the weapons use in Hiroshima and Nagasaki with enhanced jackets and 'salted warheads' designed to increase the radiation levels for the initial burst and the secondary pulse.

They were ugly weapons.

I was a terrible person.

When we were done we broke up the sixteen men into four four man teams and sent them on their way with the launchers.

One of Combat Talon's F-111's went by overhead, maybe a hundred feet off the deck, close enough we could see the cluster of air to surface missiles on it. It was hauling ass when it went by and the pilot kicked in the afterburners and blew through the sound barrier right after he cleared the site, the sonic boom rolling over us. The first few times they did that everyone dropped to the ground, now nobody even flinched. The jet went fast enough that the jet was already by when we heard the sound. It was kind of cool.

I wanted everyone used to big explosions.

You know, just in case.

We walked down to Bunker Sixteen, where more infantry guys were waiting. This was the mortar section for the company, loaded up with 4.2 mortars and a serious case of boredom most of the time. They looked both curious and bored.

Time to shake up the bullet catchers.

They looked at us when we stepped onto the pad, Foster pulling in right after us and parking the vehicle. The infantry checked me out and then dismissed me, figuring I was just someone that didn't matter. Of course the three NCOs took more notice of me when I stopped and pulled out my green notebook.

"Good afternoon, I'm Corporal Stillwater, this is Specialist Bomber, and we'll be briefing you on the exclusive fire mission you will be tasked to perform as well as the weaponry we will be using." I just started. I pointed at the two men who weren't carrying their masks. "Inform your squad leader and platoon sergeants that you are hereby restricted to your company AoO and you are off this team."

"What, why?" One asked.

"You don't have your masks, dumbasses." The lieutenant with them said. "With everything going on at the site, all the drills, and you two chuckle-fucks left your masks at your cots?" Both men made mumbling noises. "You're confined to your tent until I get back." He turned to me. "Do I need to pull two more men?"

"Not right now, sir, you can OJT them." I said. I turned to the rest. "You need to mask at this time and wear it until further notice." The LT had his one before I was even done, well under 15 seconds, probably closer to ten seconds. When they had it on I turned to Bomber, pulling out the little packet in my pocket. "You taken your booster today?"

He shook his head and I tore a little square off of the pack and tossed it to him. He and I both popped the little white pill out of the packet and chewed it up carefully before swallowing the paste.

"If you don't mind me asking, what did you two just take?" The LT asked. I noticed his nametag read Wilson.

"Due to MOS requirements and where we work we take Pyridostigmine Bromide which gives us an increased resistance to chemical weaponry." Bomber said.

"Why don't we get it?" One of the infantry guys asked.

"You wouldn't survive it." I told him flat out. The pills were highly experimental, were only issued out a few months ago, and were supposed to give us a higher resistance to on site contamination and allow us to get another fourteen seconds to get into whatever MOPP we needed to and gave us a moderate immunity to Soman, Lewesite, BZ, and phosphene.

It also caused the shakes, vomiting, migraines, nosebleeds, convulsions, and drooling.

Oh, yeah, and if you got an erection that was rock hard and could smash diamonds and took two or three orgasms to go down. Oh, and hurt a lot if you didn't yank that shit out or find someone to help you out somehow.

Not as much fun as it sounds.

But it beat not getting one. Ever. Again.

"Can I have one?" The same guy asked.

Bomber and I both laughed, but I started speaking before it got out of hand. "Initial dose will cause a convulsive episode within thirty minutes that will last up to thirty minutes of intermittent convulsions. You will also suffer a migraine for at least two hours, during which you will need dosed again or your liver will fail."

"Can I give it to him instead?" The same guy asked, pointing at the guy next to him. Everyone laughed and Bomber and I joined in.

"Let's go into Satan's broom closet." I told them, waving them after me as I headed into the bunker. "If you don't have your atropine and 2Pam-Chloride injectors please do not enter, Specialist Bomber will give you new ones." They all followed me and I waited until they were all in before I hit the light switches to turn on the banks of lights.

Bunker Sixteen lit up and I felt a chill run down my spine.

Three hundred feet wide. Thirty-five feet high, with a maximum stack size of thirty-two feet. Twelve hundred feet deep. One main aisle ten feet wide, two aisles on each side six feet wide. Every hundred to hundred and fifty feet were ten foot aisles. Three to five feet gap at the top. Complete climate control. Sensors for motion detection, radiation detection, multiple spectrum chemical detection, and heat detection. Alarm systems, fire suppression system, air filters, negative pressure system when the door was closed.

State of the art and a medium class bunker for the site. It was two thirds the size of the maximum sized bunkers.

The impressive part wasn't the bunker.

It was the thousands of VX rounds stacked in the bunker.

And two months ago I'd seen a news report where it was claimed that there were no chemical weapons in Western Europe.

I had enough to VX the world.

"This is VX. It is an organophosphate based weapon with the texture and consistency of motor oil, this one is a corrosive agent with not only extremely persistent qualities but can be refreshed by light rainfall or improper decontamination. Body shutdown begins at twenty seconds, unconsciousness occurs at roughly thirty seconds, death is total, total brain-death, in less then sixty seconds, for even a minimum dose." I stated. "This is the nastiest, meanest, deadliest chemical weapon known to man. It makes Zyklon-B look like talcum powder, can perform kills at one part per ten thousand. Additionally this is what is known as 'thickened' which means it is even more deadly. It can cross the skin to blood barrier, it can eat through the skin, it can eat through mask seals and anything up to high end ceramic filters." I slapped an eight inch shell as I walked by it. "As an additional 'fuck you' to everyone this particular variant has a propensity to adhere to high density metals and certain paints, meaning all of those pretty tanks are its preferred food."

I slapped a 155mm VX round on my way by. "This is a binary round, which means that there are two separate containers that rupture due to barrel spin and mix the chemicals. These and the newer trinary rounds are the safest way to store nasty shit like this. That is not the type of round you will be handling." I stopped next to a stack of over 6,000 rounds, 4.2" mortar rounds where each one contained enough VX to kill a small town. "These are mono-containment rounds, short range mortar rounds."

I turned to face them. "Your mortar teams will be equipped with four dozen of these, per team, with a fire plan that will coat an eight square mile area with enough of this stuff that it'll gleam on the grass like morning dew." I let my expression get serious. "You will be committing a war crime by the Geneva Convention and firing the first shots in World War III. Additionally once your fire mission is done three kiloton level weapons will be used for airburst so that the thermal pulse will vaporize the VX and ensure it is airborne and increase dispersal. This will cause a secondary lethal effect with an extended downwind range."

The LT held up his hand and I nodded to him.

"If you feel that you cannot perform this duty you may be excused." The LT said.

None of them moved.

I turned around and threw out my arms to encompass the whole bunker.

"Welcome to Atlas."