Grafenwöhr
US Army Training Area
Training Site 22
2/19th Company Area
West Germany
29 October, 1987
2230 Hours

Specialist, no, Corporal Bomber stared at the map, shaking his head. He could see the same thing I could, that Stillwater was stuck in a bad position that was only going to get worse as the air got colder and colder through the night. Latest reports was the there was lightning in the clouds, and with the low pressure front the cloud tops, which currently were mirror smooth, would mushroom up and into the low pressure.

Which would expose Stillwater to ice crystals and the ion haze of the lightning bolt.

"Well, shit, Chief, if'n there a way to help Ant, I sure can't figure it out," Bomber said, staring at the map. "I mean, I might be able to lead a small team up the side of the mountain, maybe up AWOL Trail, but..." he let the sentence trail off.

"That's only an option if he fails," I told him. "What about Goat-Fuck Trail, could you use that to reach the lower egress point?"

He tapped the map and shook his head. "No, you have to move along a five foot wide path right here, and the wind sheers right across it," He looked at me, "At fifty miles an hour? It'll snatch someone clean off that ledge and throw them two thousand feet straight down."

I shook my head, "How the hell do you guys justify taking that trail drunk off your asses?"

He just shrugs. "It seems like a good idea at the time."

"Your mothers all obviously threw away the living children and kept the afterbirth and stupidity that thick is obviously genetic," I snapped. Bomber just shrugged, my insults just rolling off his thick hide. "Goddamn it, there has to be a way to give him some help." I rubbed my temples, trying to think of something.

Nothing.

Goddamn it, just when that retard was starting to show some potential beyond typical enlisted man stupidity and arrogance, and now he was going to get killed for no fucking reason beyond some asshole had been too lazy to his fucking job.

I lit a cigarette and slapped my Zippo down. When Bomber tapped the pack and looked at me questioningly I waved my hand, staring at the map. Holding the cigarette between my teeth I slowly walked around the table, looking at it from different angles, trying to figure out something to give him an edge.

"Fast movers," Bomber said suddenly.

"He doesn't need a goddamn napalm strike," I snarled.

Bomber grinned, "Why not?" He suggested. "There's sixty feet of goddamn snow up there. Hit the Group Area here, here and here, that'll cut everything off from one another, give him straight channels of fire."

When he swiped his finger down the main road, and then the road that led up to the motorpool, then between the chow hall and the Dispensary I just stared as he put forth what had to be the dumbest thing I had heard since Captain Quintin had ordered my platoon to take that goddamn hill back in '69. Yeah, it would melt the snow all right, but the steam would cover everything and God himself only knew what it would do to the storm clouds.

"Joking, joking, Chief," Bomber said, exhaling smoke with a grin.

I wanted to punch him in his smart mouth. I opened my mouth to tell him to outside and play in the goddamn snow, tell him to shove those fast movers right up his...

...wait...

...jets...

I picked up the Naval Weather Service paper, only a half hour old and stared at it. A C-130 wouldn't cut it since the barracks themselves were over the plane's maximum ceiling, you'd need jet thrust at that altitude, but a C-141 might do the trick.

The idea took root and I started figuring out the angles. Have it take off from Frankfurt, that would be the best place, since the runways at Rien-Mien were iced over. Come in slow and low over the airfield and drop...

What?

I couldn't think of anything to drop that Stillwater wouldn't already have. If I tried to send him reinforcements that way they'd all be dead before they could even reach shelter. Worse yet, I had no way of letting Stillwater know that he would be getting resupply or reinforcements. Stillwater was barely restrained violence at the best of times nowadays, and I knew that boy wouldn't trust anyone from the SEALS, Rangers, anyone like that.

Fool him once, shame on you. Fool him twice, he'll kill you.

No, it wouldn't work. For one, I'd be risking the lives of the Air Force personnel on the jet, for almost no return. Alfenwehr was a bitch at the best of times, and more than one plane had caught a sudden and unexplained wind sheer and crashed over the last four years. The last thing I needed was to screw up and kill more people for little to no return.

Hell, maybe Bomber's dumb ass idea of cordoning off the sections with napalm might be the best bet.

"Airdrop won't work, Chief," Bomber suddenly said, staring at me through a cloud of exhaled smoke. I frowned and he grinned, "I could hear you thinking all the way over here. Airdrop is logical from our point of view," he tapped the satellite scan showing the massive storm sweeping down from the Arctic Circle and across West Germany, "Except for this. By the time we even get a jet that can go that high loaded, Stillwater's already killed everyone or is dead himself. That storm will also be straight overhead, and it's going to mingle with that little one around Alfenwehr and drop a hundred feet of snowy shit all over everything."

The big Texan shrugged and I shook my head. "You're right. And any men we send up there Stillwater will probably kill. By now he's probably gone blood crazy and I'd be surprised if he wasn't sacrificing them to an altar with one of your goddamn Celtic Witches egging him on."

"They aren't that bad," Bomber protested.

I stared at him for a long moment till he blushed. "The Hell they aren't," I told him, keeping my voice even, "Hannah Lane will tear the throat out of a full grown man with her goddamn teeth and drink the blood on the way down. Cromwell isn't above weaving holly into her braid when she's nervous," I stared at him, "I'm from Louisiana, you mouth breathing retard, I know a goddamn witch when I see it."

Bomber just shrugged. "Any path to victory," he said simply.

"Don't you fucking quote that at me, you overgrown thug," I snapped. I shook my head to clear the anger and sat down, flicking my ash on the canvas floor of my tent and rubbing at it with the toe of my boot.

"Sorry, Chief," Bomber said. He moved over to his rucksack and dug inside for a moment before pulling out a bottle of hard alcohol. I sat there silently, trying to think of some way to improve Stillwater's odds, while Bomber poured us both a half canteen cup of booze, cut it with water, then put in instant coffee before putting both canteen cups on the stove.

"Helicopters are out. Artillery support would be useless. No air support. No reenforcements. No communication," I shook my head, "Does he have anything?"

Bomber shrugged, stirring the liquid with his finger, "He's Special Weapons, Chief, and you know as well as I do that he don't die too easy. Lots of motherfuckers have tried, and with the exception of Alfenwehr and Atlas, they're all in graves and we're sitting here worrying about him like a pair of old mother hens."

That made me chuckle. "True, true, Texas. So what do we do about it?"

He switched cups, still stirring, then flicked his ashes into the thin wedge that led into the inside of the stove. "Well, right now, all we can try to do is figure out something he might have missed. If the storm wasn't so bad we could get an F-111 to do a flyby with a camera, give us some idea of how it looks up there."

I nodded at that, leaning back in my chair and crossing my hands over my stomach. I winced a little at the fact I'd put on winter weight, but I'd had a problem with my waist for a long time. The joys of a profile to keep you from having to worry about passing the tape test.

"If he hasn't contacted us by morning, that would probably be a good idea," I paused for a moment, then put forth the big question, at least in my mind. "Corporal Bomber," I said distinctly.

Bomber turned around, raising one eyebrow, "Yes, Chief Warrant Officer Henley?"

"What is your estimation of the probability of Sergeant Stillwater detonating the nuclear weapons?" I asked him.

Blackbriar didn't think he'd do it. They'd insisted that he wouldn't be able to figure out how to get the tank rounds to go critical, then they had tried to insist he wouldn't have the willpower to do it. Lastly they had insisted that training and  would hold and the neural programming the did now would hold.

They hadn't stared into that boy's eyes, hadn't seen that darkness back there. I doubted they understood exactly what Alfenwehr and Atlas had made Stillwater into. I knew good and goddamn well he'd detonate it.

I just needed to know what would push him to do it.

Bomber looked thoughtful of a moment, taking a long drag off his cigarette before picking up the canteen cups and moving over to the table and settling down on the three legged foldable canvas stool.

"If it looks like the Russians are going to get them and he isn't able to mount an effective defense?" He asked. I nodded. "One hundred percent, without hesitation. If it looks like he's going to lose to the guys already up there, probably a 50-50 chance normally, but if he thinks there's Soviet troops on standby, he'll blow one at each building. He doesn't have to worry about Cromwell and the others, the War Fighter Tunnels will take the blow or they won't, he won't care."

"Shit," I said, shaking my head. "Goddamn Blackbriar for wanting me to put it through as extreme prejudice."

"Why did you do it? I mean, you know Ant as well as I do. Hell, why did you agree to the total war option up there?" He asked me. No recrimination, even though I looked for a reason to smack him across the face his tone, body language, and expression didn't give me one.

I sighed. "Blackbriar ordered it. I argued it, but they overrode me, said they doubted he would detonate one to prevent them from falling in enemy hands."

Bomber snorted at that. "Then they're goddamn idiots. Ant fights to win, no matter what the personal cost," he shook his head, "If nothing else, what happened the other summer should have shown anyone who looked that he'll do anything he has to in order to complete the mission."

"Great. So goddamn Blackbriar overrode my decision and let Stillwater loose. Well, I was getting close to retiring anyway. I was hoping for thirty, but I guess just over twenty will have to suffice," I said, looking at the map. "There's no way to stop him, no way to make sure he isn't pushed until he detonates the nukes, no way to increase his chances of survival."

"You know, he might just disabled or destroy the rounds," Bomber said thoughtfully. "Ant and me, we've explored all over that mountain, there's plenty of hidey holes that he and I know and not many other people. He could hump the cores up there and destroy the rounds with the thermite grenades we keep for secure item destruction."

That made me nod. "Will he think of that?"

Bomber shook his head, "I don't know. You said he was pretty badly wounded and you let him off the leash with a total war option. That changes one major detail. Something you and everyone else missed."

I frowned at him and took a sip off the canteen cup. It was harsh enough to strip paint, but better than nothing.

"What's that?" I asked him. I couldn't think of anything.

"It isn't Stillwater up there," Bomber said softly, tapping the transparency where the sat had caught the dead bodies. "Ya'll fucked up. That ain't Stillwater at all."

"Who is it?" I frowned.

"Ant." he said.

It took me a second to get it.

When I did I was suddenly sick to my stomach.