FSTS-317/NATO Site 93
Classified Location
Edge of the 1K Zone
Fulda Gap, Western Germany
28 April, 1986
0900 Hours

The radiation levels kept rising, and I'd used the Gypsy Wagon to drive about 60 miles away and check the levels of radiation there twice the day before. Not as bad as Atlas. The weird weather pattern s of the Fulda Gap were dropping heavy rains on us, but eight miles away you could stand there and watch it rain on the woods that surround Atlas and enjoy the warm spring sunshine. I stripped off my poncho and stood in the sunshine for a long time, steam rising off my damp uniform, closing my eyes and lifting my fact to the sun.

I'd driven back to Atlas after checking eight points driving nearly five hours total, and finding that the mountains were probably saving Western Germany from a shitload of fallout. When I got back I fired a green star-cluster flare, walked across the 1K Zone, and took a reading there. The Soviet troops stared nervously. One big moron stepped in front of me, made fun of my parentage in Russian, but backed down when I answered that I'd stomp his ass like a little kid if he didn't move in the same language.

The new GRU officer introduced himself to me. He seemed a lot more stable than the other guy, and I doubted his grand-father had been shot for cowardice on the Eastern Front during World War Two. The GRU guy understood that Stillwater had ordered his predecessor killed out of a personal disagreement, not between our two countries.

He understood that old Texas: "Some men just gotta die."

As we were walking toward the border he asked me if I would get him a couple porno mags featuring Mexican women. I laughed, gave him a pack of smokes, which he was surprised at, since it was an unopened pack of Winstons, which I knew were a lot better than the crappy East German smokes he was probably pulling down.

He had ordered the Soviet armor and the R-17's off the Zone, and told me he had sent them back to their bases in order to deescalate the situation. I let him know we needed our armor units there for security, but I'd drop it back to a dozen of them as a show of faith.

Neither of us mentioned the Hawk or the Patriot wagons, Combat Talon, or 11th ACR still holding position.

I'd walked back to the Gypsy Wagon and drove it uprange, stripping down and dropping the uniform into the plastic bucket that we'd been dropping them into. Sergeant Bonnham had driven back to Group and gotten over a dozen uniforms for everyone, as well as boots, socks, bras, underwear, and battle rattle.

We left the battlerattle and boots she brought in The Fort, and strapped on our contaminated stuff when we went outside.

Timmons had gone inside the commo room when Foster had ducked outside and told him that he had a phone call over the secure line. That was the only line that we were allowed to use, we were still under Special Weapons doctrine and protocols. The only people who knew anything had gone down out here was V-Corps, ChemCorps, and Blackbriar. The Joint Chiefs had been advised we had a situation, but from what I'd been told, the Joint Chiefs had been informed by Blackbriar that the situation was currently in hand and being investigated.

For over 24 hours we had been checking the levels of radiation, watching them rise slowly. Something bad had happened in the Soviet Union, and so far we had no clue. We were taking our readings, and I knew that it was considered Top Secret, Secret From Birth, nobody was to hear about it.

I knew that meant that not even the Senate, the House, or the President had been informed.

"We've got an update," Timmons told me, sitting down in one of the folding chairs.

"Should we be present?" Sergeant Bonnham asked.

The woman had impressed me, I'd have to admit. She'd buckled down, let me do my job and backed me all the way. I could tell she did not like the fact I kept going out and measuring the levels, but she understood that it was my duty.

She'd backed me when I told Stokes, Aine, and Nagle that they were forbidden from going outside. It wasn't Total War, and I'd be negligent in committing them to repeated radiation exposure just to measure the outside levels.

Sergeant Bonnham had understood why I didn't wake up Stillwater. She had seen the bruising, seen the staples and stitches holding him together. She'd ordered him down, and despite what he wanted, he stayed down, turning command of Atlas back over to me.

"It's fine, it'll be all over the news by this evening," Timmons said, sitting down and scrubbing his face with his hands. His other agents were asleep, their suits outside in the disposal bucket, dressed, like Timmons, in spare BDUs. He bummed a cigarette at looked around the room. "Swedish authorities are investigating the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant for any leaks. Workers there entered the building with fallout on their clothing."

"Are we exchanging data?" I asked.

Timmons shook his head. "No. I wanted to, my supervisor wanted to, but apparently some guys from someplace called Blackbriar Analysis and Control Division came into the offices and put my supervisor under house arrest early this morning."

Stokes chuckled. "Blackbriar." When he looked at her she shook her head. "It's where they make people like us, the people who control people like us work there. You're talking about some serious black bag shit if you got some of the guys out of there to visit."

"Well, aside from that, the Swedish authorities believe that there isn't any leak at the plant, so they're starting to look for data," He said. He looked at me, "The radiation reached them at zero two forty-seven this morning."

I closed my eyes, updating my map. Several other nuclear sites had reported radiation, several units, mainly NBC units, several hospitals, a couple of armor units, and a handful of units that were coincidentally doing training on their radiation detection gear. Timmons, VII Corps and V Corps ChemCorps liaisons had ensured we got the data of exactly when they had detected the radiation.

Group had sent people to each location to monitor the levels.

With the prevailing wind currents, the atmospheric data that Timmons and ChemCorps and Blackbriar were having delivered hourly to me via courier, I was beginning to narrow the list of possibilities down.

"It's out of the Ukraine," I said, standing up and walking over to the map of Europe. Chief Henley had brought it in when he showed up to yell at all of us and tell Stillwater that he was goddamn lucky that Chief Henley was going to ignore the fact that Stillwater had just plain murdered that GRU officer.

"You're sure?" Timmons asked.

"He's sure," Bonnham said. I just stared at him.

"Sorry," He flushed.

"It's a core explosion, it has to be," I said, tapping the Ukraine. "Based on the weather, the wind currents, and the meteorological data, combined with the fallout patterns we're seeing, it has to be here, near Pripyat, the Chernobyl facility. I think Reactor One failed again, exploded."

Timmons nodded. "Why?"

I looked at Stokes, who stood up and moved over next to me. "RBMK reactors, the type that Chernobyl is made of, use light water for coolant and graphite for moderation. The graphite slows down neutrons and thermalizes them into low energy neutrons so they interact better with the uranium-235, which is used in uranium-doixide for the fuel rods. Now, unfortunately, this can cause the light water to turn into steam, not a thick layer, but a layer nonetheless, which causes what's called a positive void coefficient as neutron density occurs at an exponential rate. That's a going to create a cascading failure that will cause the fuel to overheat, then..." She let it trail off.

"Boom," Farley said, opening her hands slowly.

"That positive void coefficient is what Blackbriar thinks happened last time they suffered a partial core meltdown," I said, walking away from the map. "If you factor in the materials used to create a plant, factor in that they might have tried to SCRAM, which would just make things worse, and the fallout should start to drop in the next three days."

"Jesus," Sergeant Reddings said.

"Doesn't care about Special Weapons," Stokes snapped. "This is a Charlie-Class Nuclear Event, and unfortunately we can't do jack or shit about it."

I nodded at that. "How much fallout we see depends on a couple factors. Did it SCRAM, in which case right now the pile's burning, did it explode completely, but that would have resulted in a seismic event, was it a partial explosion and now it's burning?"

"What's you're opinion? The Soviets are well known for covering shit up and not addressing it rather than give any clue anything is going on," Timmons said.

I shook my head. "That'll all be up to local response, not the Soviet government," I took a breath. "It will all come down to the men at the site. Their bravery and willingness to do what is going to have to be done."

"How willing they are to die to accomplish the mission," Sergeant Bonnham said softly. "Christ, no wonder you guys get away with so much."

Farley nodded. "The Pentagon doesn't care about a few domestic violence incidents or a couple of murders here and there if it keeps these guys running. The MOS has a list strength of 1,500, but there are less than 200 active Special Weapons Field Warfare Specialists like these guys."

Bonnham wrung her hands. "And now there's less thanks to my stupidity," She shook her head. "God, I wish I'd never listened to goddamn Colonel Thrush, I wish I'd approved the requests to fix the lightning protections out here before I got forty fucking people killed."

"Wait, what?" Nancy asked. "What about Thrush?"

"I brought it up to him during a meeting, he told me that the sites weren't in any danger, that the ammo was all in bunkers, and even if it wasn't, lightning wasn't going to hit anything," Bonnham told her. "So I kept stopping the requests."

"For God's sake, do not tell Stillwater that," Nancy said, then looked at where Aine was curled up in a ball on a cot, snuggled up next to Cromwell, sucking her thumb, "Or McCullen. Either one of them will flat out murder Thrush in cold fucking blood."

Bonnham nodded, looking at where Stillwater was sleeping, then looking at me.

I nodded, "Yeah. He'll take that fucking knife of his and have a 'Ms. Pointy Thing' discussion," I told her. "A long, bloody conversation that will involve a lot of fucking screaming."

"Don't matter," Stokes said, her voice thick, "I'm gonna kill him with my bare goddamn hands."

"At ease that shit," Bonnham snapped. "Nobody is killing anyone. Or have all of you goddamn mouth breathing knuckle dragging brain damaged monkeys forgotten there's a mission?" She sighed, "Besides, it's on me, not him. I should have gone around him. Should have realized it was an illegal order and gone over his head. Instead, I just went along with it instead of having the guts to do what I should have done. So everyone needs to nut up and carry on with the mission. Any objections?"

"No, Sergeant," everyone said.

"What do you think happened?" Timmons asked me.

"Nagle?" I redirected the question. She was better at human behavioral analysis than I was.

"They're Ukrainian. They won't hesitate. They'll throw themselves onto a burning nuclear core with mouthfuls of spit if they have to. They have to stop it before the radiation output kills everyone in Pripyat, kills their children. They'll put out that fire with their own goddamn blood if they have to."

I nodded.

"Are you sure?" Timmons asked.

"Any Ukrainian man who runs away will have his throat slit by his wife and daughters, or his mother, and would rather die where they stand than let it happen," Nagle said. She glanced at Stillwater, a little movement that I still caught, although I doubt anyone else did. "I know that type of man, trust me, the Ukrainian men will put out any fire and do whatever is necessary to contain it, with or without the approval of Moscow." She laughed, a harsh, bitter thing, "They'll be dead, beyond punishment, and the government will blame the dead while hailing them as heroes."

"If you'll excuse me, I need to make a phone call," Timmons said.

"Foster, go with him, monitor the conversation," I said. Foster nodded, standing up and limping after the CIA agent. Timmons wasn't offended, he understood that it was just protocol.

After a few minutes Timmons came out. He looked at where Farley was giving Stillwater another injection of painkillers, muscle relaxants, and sedatives to keep him under.

"He's crying. Is he OK?" Timmons asked.

"He's done that for a long time," Nagle said.

"How long?" Bonnham asked.

Nagle shut up.

"How long?" She asked again.

I ain't saying shit, I thought.

"Since Westlin got killed," Foster said, staring at Bonnham. He wasn't wearing his eyepatch, and the bruising around his eye had closed it, and stitches were holding his eyelids together so he couldn't open his eye if he wanted to. "He carried her up to the helipad in his arms, held her until the medevac got there. She died on the ride out. When he heard, he went out into the 1K Zone and cut the throat of the sniper and held his wrists while he bled out so he couldn't grab the small wound he'd made right here," He reached up and tapped his jugular vein. "Took the guy about four minutes to bleed out."

Timmons eyes opened wide in shock and horror.

"Good," Bonnham nodded. "Blood for blood."

I grinned.

We sat there for awhile, and I went out to check the levels again. Foster was Special Weapons, he could have gone out, but I wanted him to stay on commo. Timmons said he'd take the next levels check so I laid down on a cot and put my hat over my eyes while everyone else sat and listened to Farley giving a class on treating massive shrapnel injuries.

I was sleeping when Foster woke me up.

"There's a vehicle out there. The guys from our guard tank called it in. A sedan, one guy with a suit on," He told me.

I got up and stretched. Timmons was asleep and I realized that I'd need to check the levels again in about ten minutes. I sighed, put on a uniform, and just carried my XM-16 out into the rain. The sedan was on the other side of the fence and I unlocked the gate, went outside, and stopped next to the sedan.

After a minute the suit rolled down the window and held out a tube. "Delivery for Atlas." was all he said. I took it, expecting him to have me sign for it. Instead he rolled up his window, threw the sedan in reverse, and backed away.

Whatever if was, it was marked TOP SECRET SAP(LIGHTHOUSE) on it. I hustled back into the Fort, not bothering to strip, and handed the tube to Timmons before walking into the office and grabbing the magnifying glass off the desk.

"I called it up. Had the local Frankfurt office tap into a satellite to get us some pictures of Pripyat," Timmons said, cracking the tube and shaking it. Rolled up pictures, poster sized ones, slid out. He unrolled them and we all looked.

"Jesus," Bonnham said.

"They lost the whole reactor," I said, using the magnifying glass. "Look at that. Firetrucks, grounded helicopters. Radiation would have ionized the batteries, any vehicle shut down wouldn't start again."

"These are time chops for the last four days, satellite scans," Timmons said. "Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Holy shit."

I looked.

The CIA spy-sat had caught it. Mid explosion. The others, taken at thirty minute intervals, showed the massive response. According to the time chops, the fire was put out 0530 and 0600 our time, 0630 and 0700 Chernobyl local time.

"They're evacuating today," Timmons said, tapping one of the scans. I looked, seeing the long lines of cars, buses, military vehicles, all carrying tiny people. The resolution was amazing, more like a spyplane than an orbiting spy-sat.

"It's serious," Nancy said, tapping the Chernobyl reactor scan. "Those firetruck aren't moving."

"Crews are dead," I said. "If they went near that, they're dead, dying, or will be sick within the week," I shook my head. "They did it, though." I got up and got the bottle of Wild Turkey out of the office, coming back. Everyone got out their canteen cups, and I poured everyone a drink.

"To the firefighters of Pripyat, the poor brave bastards," I said.

"Finish the Fight," Stokes said quietly.

We all repeated her, raising our canteen cups and gulping down the whiskey.

Finish the fight indeed, I thought, staring at the picture from two hours ago.