CIA Listening Post #487
Secure Area, Alfenwehr
West Germany
28 October, 1987
1500

It took some work, mainly because I didn't have any tools past a Leatherman and what little I could scrounge up. I used the nylon straps and the buckles from the backpacks in the survival locker to hold the metal strips in place, and it took me almost two hours to drill holes in the metal strips I took from the bottom of the bunk beds. I used springs from the beds to keep tension, and it took me nearly four hours to make it. It buckled at the top of my thigh, straps to keep my thigh straight, spring tensioned swivel at the knee, strapped to my calf, the looped under the arch of my boot with spring tension loading on the ankle swivels.

When I stood up it didn't feel like my knee was going to buckle at any second and it was able to hold my weight with only teeth gritting pain. My thigh hurt, badly, but it was the pain of a deep bruise rather than ground glass so I could handle it. The makeshift brace squealed and made sproinging noises when I moved, and it took the stress off of my swollen ankle too. I wasn't sure what I'd done to my ankle, nothing really stood out, but I'd badly damaged my leg earlier in the year, my knee and thigh taking the worst of it.

Satisfied I'd be able to stand without doing too much more damage to my leg I staggered around the listening post again, double-checking everything. The safe was still ice cold and I knew I had enough C-4 to cut through the safe like butter.

If I knew how, which honestly, I didn't.

What I did have was lockpick training and all the time in the world. It was a simple standard forty point dial and triple tumbler with an opening handle. Those were usually good enough, but the cold would provide additional tricks.

On the eighth try the safe gave up its secrets, opening up.

Bullseye.

Two 9mm Beretta M9 service pistols with three magazines each. The console for the standard RF band transceiver. A codebook. A can of thermite grenades.

A part of me, a younger part, wanted to grab the two pistols and storm the barracks, kill the cannibals, take back my unit. My home.

But that was the younger me talking, the junior NCO, the one who didn't have any responsibilities beyond keeping my crew alive and keeping Atlas in war fighting condition. Henley had spent a lot of time and effort to force me to grow up, to bring out what he had seen in me that very few others had seen.

The Mission was simple: Contact command.

Searching the rest of the building I found the battery backup and a few other interesting things. What was interesting was that someone had took the conditions into account when they'd built the battery backup and the housing. It was insulated nine ways to Sunday, the batteries kept in storage mode, and they had three quarters of a charge.

Tracing the breakers was rough. Not the time or difficulty, but moving around. The cold was really settling into my leg, my thigh aching with shooting pains every other step and my knee nothing but throbbing agony. I had to pause twice to cough. Wracking coughs that took me forever before I could straighten up.

Still within operational parameters though.

...the body is a meat machine, driven by the orders of the brain, which is driven by your will...

...strong mind. strong body. strong will...

Once I was sure that the only thing turned on was the communication panel, the antenna's signal boosters, and the transmitter at the top of the tower, I started work on the transceiver itself.

I used the Leatherman to reconnect everything, checking it twice before hitting the power. The needles pegged, then dropped back down while I had another coughing fit. Battery power was at 73% and started dropping real fast when the system warmed up. I hadn't bothered to hook up speakers, just used one of the headsets. I silently thanked Foster for all the training over the years, and began moving through the dials. Silence on most channels, if I discounted the ionosphere crap. A preacher in Texarkana, a PBS show out of Jersey, a strung out sounding DJ in Alaska, and some hippie in Cali. A number station or six, then the Wildflicken Range Control channel was live.

There was commo going on across the band was minor stuff, just coordinating the artillery impact ranges with the artillery units. It wasn't minor to anyone involved, but priorities. I took the time to make coffee, listening to the traffic to get a feel for what was going on. It might have only been three days, but like I'd found out: a lot of shit could go down in three days. I finished half of my canteen cup of coffee and had another coughing fit before I put on the headset and pressed the button on the transmit.

"Break net, break net, this is Two-one-nine operating on a limited transmitter under emergency circumstances, do you read, over," I said. I waited to the count of two for everyone n the net to shut the hell up. It took a while for it to settle down and Wildflicken Range Control took over.

"Two-One-Nine, this is Wilflicken Range Control, we read you," A woman's voice said. "State the nature of your emergency, over."

I took another sip of coffee. "I need you to patch in Two-Nineteenth Special Weapons, currently operating at Graf, over?" There was lightning and static tore through my transmission. "Did you read my last, over?"

"Did not copy after 'Special Weapons', Two-Nineteenth, over," The woman said.

I repeated the message, this time nothing interfered and she read it back to me.

"I'm on limited battery life here, Range Control, I'll reconnect in ten mikes. Ensure Chief Warrant Officer Three Henley, I repeat, Henley, is on channel," I told them, holding back the tickle in my throat and heavy feeling in my chest that made me want to cough. "Battery power is at 55% and dropping, Range Control, will reconnect in fifteen mikes, over and out."

Coughing, I snapped off the radio and moved quickly to kill the breakers.

It was cold, and the system was pulling a lot of juice. I didn't have the luxury of the generators to make the call. I walked back and checked the battery levels, the leg brace making weird 'pop-sproing-ging' noises as I walked. The battery charge had jumped back up to 60% once the load had eased off it.

I didn't have a deck of cards so I amused myself by drawing dots in two straight lines, twenty dots on each side of the cross, then drawing line from the far end dot to the near dot on the line at the base, making a webbed star. I smoked a cigarette slowly, which would take roughly fifteen minutes, then powered everything back up and pop-sproing-ginged my way back to the chair and slapped on the headset.

Dead Air.

"This is Two-One-Nine broadcasting in the clear with an emergency situation on limited battery, do you read, over?" I tried.

"Two-One-Nine Romeo Delta, this is Two-One-Nine Saber, I read you. Do you read, Delta, over?" Chief Henley's voice.

"I read you, Saber," I said. I knew my voice sounded stressed. I went to say more and started coughing again and I let off the button. They were deep, tearing coughs that sounded liquid. I brought up something that tasted like old blood and bad fried chicken and spit it into one of the empty soda bottles I'd found.

"If you're injured, Romeo, break squelch twice, over" Henely said, his voice calm. I thumbed the button twice. "Is Cromwell alive, over?" I broke squelch twice again. "Are you separated from Cromwell, over?" Twice again. "Are all of you separated from Rear Detachment." Twice again.

I wiped my mouth and there was a little bit of blood and thick green and yellow phlegm.

Crap, my lung was bleeding. I'd hoped that I hadn't been exposed to the freezing air for too long, and Cromwell had told me that I'd been coughing up blood while I was half-dead.  I'd been coughing up blood in my bathroom in those hazy fractured memories I had of waking up on the floor of my room.

I pressed the button, interrupting Chief Henley when he was asking if any of the 'sensitive assets' were in danger.

"We've got fatalities, Chief," I coughed. "I'm badly injured, but Cromwell and the elements we escorted are in the War Fighter Tunnels," I told him. I started coughing again.

"We got alerted by V Corps that the tunnels had been open, but there appears to be no commo with the command center," Henley told me, filling the air as I kept coughing. "Do you have O2?"

I squelched twice.

"Use your O2," Henley snapped. I grabbed the bottle and pulled the elastic over my head and pressed the mask over my face and turned the valve. The O2 hissed into my mouth and I inhaled deep as I could, from my belly. I pressed twice on the squelch.

"Are your injuries from combat, over?" Henley asked.

"Combat?" Range Control's voice cut into.

"Clear the net," Henley snapped.

I pressed squelch twice, moving the mask so I could cough again.

Battery power had dropped to 32%.

"Can you survive without medical aid, over?" Henley asked me.

I pressed squelch once.

"Can you evac, over?"

I pressed squelch once.

The O2 cut out.

26%

I got my breathing under control, managed to hold back the coughing, and spit blood and phlegm into the bottle. I pressed the button.

"Rear-D has gone feral, Chief," I gasped, my voice tight. "Cannibal," I coughed. "All three surface buildings are in their control." More coughing. "Officers and upper NCO's in the Chow Hall in control of food, another group in the Motor Pool, unknown number. Last and largest group is in the barracks, gone feral and cannibal. Attacked me, attacked Cromwell, but we got them into the tunnels. Cromwell managed to get me on my feet after I was attacked, but I'm still seriously injured."

14%

"I got them into the tunnels, Chief," I gasped. "It cost me. Cost me bad, Chief," I coughed again, feeling something cold wash through me. "I can feel Tandy's talons around my heart, Chief," I groaned, then coughed again, and I could hear bubbling noises at the end as blood filled my mouth. I coughed and spit it out. "Got 'em all in the tunnels, Chief. Twenty meters of snow up here, War Fighter Tunnels were our only choice. Didn't lose none of them, sir," I coughed some more.

3%

"Two nineteenth all the way, sir," I said. "Almost out of battery. I got 'em out, Chief."

My head was spinning and I couldn't seem to catch my breath.

"Born to fight. Trained to kill. Willing to die..." I said in a singsong voice.

"But never will," Chief Henley finished with me.

"It was an honor, sir," I managed to choke out before starting to cough again.

The red light on the console went out.

The battery died. I got to my feet, staggered to the windows and threw them all open, then threw open the doors before moving to the various windows and throwing them open too. I crawled into my shelter, pulling the sliding mattress shut.

I pulled the blankets up under my chin, shivering.

My brain wasn't working right.

The CIA listening post, the mattress fort, it was a good place. Better than a ditch, which is what I had always believed that I was going to end up in.

I was starting to feel warmer. I didn't know if it was hypothermia setting in or not, but my money was on the cold leeching into me.

I yawned, tiredness washing over me. My injuries were far away things. I knew they were there, knew they hurt, but it was like it was happening to someone else.

I knew this feeling.

I yawned again and tried to roll over, tried to get into position to pull the mattress back open, but somehow ended up more comfortable.

Despite my desires, warm darkness pulled me down.