Chapter 12
Afghanistan
Crossing the border went about as smoothly as could be hoped for, a padded wallet slipped into the checkpoint guard’s hand as he ‘inspected’ the trucks was all it took for the Russian soldier to wave them on through and a few minutes later they were rolling into the mountain night with the lights of the checkpoint fading in their rearview.
“Stay frosty,” Pruso ordered as they drove. “We’re most vulnerable right now. If the guard was flipped, we could have Russian Spetsnaz waiting for us.”
Lopez nodded, fingers regripping the wheel as he drove.
He knew the drill, the problem with corrupt guards was that they didn’t always hold to their word.
The Company was usually good in making it clear that there was more money in the future if they didn’t bite the hand that fed them, but you could never be entirely certain that some surge of patriotism or, more likely, fear of retribution from their bosses would cause them to flip.
Pruso said nothing for a while as they drove, his eyes focused out on the dark with a pair of AN/PVS-5 night vision goggles glued to his face.
They drove on for almost a half hour like that, until Pruso lowered the goggles and pulled his map from the dash. He flipped it over, finding their location, then nodded up ahead.
“There’s a cart road coming up, on the right,” He said. “Kill the headlights, then take it.”
“Yes sir.”
Rico killed the headlights as he stayed focused on the road, driving by starlight while the Captain used his flashlight to relay orders to the following truck. Sure enough, the cart road showed up a couple minutes later and he turned off the relatively solid road to the rough cartroad.
They were jostled around as the truck handled the old path with decent ease, heading further up into the mountains.
Running dark, their speed was considerably reduced but it would have been on the uneven terrain anyway. Rico was used to driving in worse situations to be sure, though not by much.
They came up on the ridge, the valley beyond opening up as they crested it, visible now to their adjusted eyes in the faint starlight. In another life, Rico would have considered the view beautiful in a spartan sort of way.
Now, in this world, it was just a place where enemies might be hiding.
Definitely are hiding.
“Alright,” Pruso said quietly into the dark cab. “We’re in-country, Sergeant. I want that briefing.”
Rico glanced over, but could only just make out the Captain’s profile against the faintly lighter terrain and sky beyond the window on the passenger side. He took a breath as he returned his attention to the road, against adjusting his grip on the wheel.
“Started with an op, few months ago now.” He said softly. “Standard mission, investigating a POI, some numbers station that was transmitting unknown coded messages from a shack in the backwoods of Libya. Well, back desert, I guess, but you know what I mean.”
Pruso snorted, “Keep going.”
“Normal mission, right up until it wasn’t.”
“That’s how it goes. What wasn’t?”
“Frankly, Sir? I still don’t know how to answer that. Tried a lot of times, to the brass, to the intel weenies… to myself. Still don’t know.” Rico said, his voice growing duller. “The squad… the ones who walked out anyway, we’ve never been able to agree.”
He laughed dryly as he drove, “Couple of the guys thought it was aliens from outer space, I kid you not. Me? I figure it’s more likely to be some Soviet bullshit that intel wants more details on, but…
I can’t really swear that the alien theory is wrong, god help me I wish I could but it was so damn weird. ”
Pruso shifted and Rico knew that the Captain was staring at him in the dark, the few instrument lights the only source of illumination.
“What was so weird?”
“We got hit by… honestly I don’t know what. Lost one guy right away, another won’t walk again, if he ever wakes up. Whatever it was had some kind of advanced camo, never seen anything like it. When it was still, it was like you could almost see right through it. When it moved…”
Rico shook his head, taking a breath.
“When it moved,” He went on, “it was a nightmare. Small arms fire didn’t do shit, we had to run like hell for the FAVs cause they were mounted with fifties.
Even then, we just drove it off. I think we could have…
I don’t know, killed it? Destroyed it? Whichever, but it withdrew to keep us from recovering anything. ”
“Great, I guess that explains the mission loadout,” Pruso muttered.
“Yes sir. There’s another station here in the mountains, not far from the meet,” Rico said. “Few hours drive along the exfil path we were given.”
Pruso swore, “I knew that path was sketchy. There were about five better ways out.”
Rico nodded, “At least.”
“They give you the objective?”
“Intel gathering is priority one. Bosses want to know what the hell it was, and what it has to do with these stations. We’ve had teams hit several more over the summer, but they were all abandoned before the men kicked in the doors. We’ve got a leak, and it’s high up.”
Pruso just nodded at that.
“Figured that much out. The level of security on this mission is nuts. That it?”
“One more thing,” Rico said. “Bastion.”
“What the hell is Bastion?”
“Not what, who. The only reason we got out alive is because we pulled a pulse transmission from someone identifying themselves as ‘Bastion’. Told us exactly what we were in for, how to spot the trap, and how to hurt the fuckers.”
“Pulse transmission? The new tech they crammed into these,” Pruso asked, holding up his radio.
“Yes Sir.”
“You boys got the update early?”
“No Sir. Bastion upgraded our radios with transmitted code.” Rico said dryly.
“Jesus. How the…”
“Believe me, that’s just one question the bosses have for the man.”
*****
“Sebastian Parker, are you sure you’re alright? You spent a long time in the bathroom this morning.”
Seb forced a grimace, nodding, “I’m fine, Ma’am. Just a little off today, I think. Don’t worry about it.”
The teacher stared for a moment before she reluctantly nodded.
“Alright, but if you feel like you’re coming down with something let us know. We’ll call your mother.”
“I’ll be fine, don’t bother her at work. I’ll just take it easy after class.”
The teacher nodded slowly, but didn’t seem to have much more to add, so she went back to her desk as Seb opened up his text book and settled in to read ahead of the current chapter, mostly as a refresher.
There were upsides to being considered a good and responsible student. One of them was that the teachers didn’t question him when he lied, most of the time at least. Seb got away with more stuff than most of the troublemakers would even dream of. It just never got attributed to him.
For now, though, all he could do was wait and hope that Al was on top of things.
Not sure if there’s much I can do with this mission, but we can monitor their comms at least. Once I get out of this prison… sorry, school. Seb thought sourly, ugh, I’m already starting to think like a kid. Prison. Honestly.
He found that he was being forced, more and more, to fight back the more childish thoughts that he knew he’d had the first time around.
Seb figured that there was a paper in all this to be written… a lot of papers, to be honest… how a young, flexible, brain with youthful hormones affected a mature mind, it was a fascinating concept.
Unfortunately, with only one single data point, there wasn’t a lot to be proved.
Still should write things down as I notice them, I guess, Seb thought as he pulled a blank scribbler from his bag and started jotting down some observations, disguising them as ideas for a novel.
He wasn’t sure it would ever be useful, but it was worth doing all the same, even if it was only for his own edification.
*****
Seb jogged back to the house from the bus, already forgetting the day's classes as he focused on the team making their way through the Afghan mountains. They were the best chance he had, currently, of gaining just a little more information about the current disposition of the alien forces.
He just hoped those guys got out of it alright.
Seb closed the door to his room as he sat down at his computer and pretended to do homework.
“Al, what’s going on with the SOCOM team?”
“Welcome home, Mein Herr. The Green Berets A-Team in question has reported accomplishing their mission and is moving toward their extraction point.”
Seb frowned, “What was the mission?”
“Unknown, they use only coded words for that, even under heavy encryption. I do not believe it had anything to do with the invaders, however,” Al responded. “The location was several hours from the station I am monitoring.”
“Huh.” Seb leaned back, thinking about it. False alarm? No. What are the odds that a survivor from a previous encounter just happens to be reassigned to another team and get sent out close to another station and it’s not connected?
“Ok, do you have their location now?”
“No, Mein Herr. After reporting mission success and indicating that they were exfiltrating, they went silent once more.”
“Damn. Alright, stay on it. Let me know if anything changes.”
“Of course, Mein Herr.”
*****
Afghanistan
False dawn was visible behind the mountains as Lopez drove the old Hi-Lux toward the exfiltration point. His grip was tighter now, knuckles whitening. The real goal was getting closer, and he was scared.
The 7.62mm H&K G3 crammed into the crack of the seat next to him was a heavier hitting round than the 5.62mm in his usual carry, the M4, but he only had the word of a voice on the radio that it would be any more effective than his weapons were that day.
It was a helluva thing, trusting a voice with no face… with his life.
Lopez didn’t know if he was crazy, or if it was just the rest of the world. Either way, he was here and riding right head on into another encounter like the worst day of his life.
Something sure as hell is crazy.
“Turn here,” Pruso said, nodding to a split in the road.
“I got it,” Lopez said.
One turn took them to exfiltration. The other to the source of his most recent nightmares. Part of his mind all but gibbered in terror as he made the turn, but all Rico could think was that he was amazed his hands weren’t shaking.
“Radio silent from here on until we hit the target,” Pruso ordered.
“Yes sir.”
*****
Lopez pulled the truck over to the side of the path, letting the engine die as the Captain jumped out and surveyed the area.
The sun was just starting to break over the range to the East, casting more shadows than light for the moment, but he knew that wouldn’t keep for long. Rico grabbed the G3 from the seat and checked that the mag was seated and a round was chambered as the Captain got everyone else into place.
“Alright, we’re humping it on foot from here on out.” Pruso told the team, “We’ve got a secondary target of opportunity up ahead that we’re going to investigate and possibly eliminate. Stay frosty, and stay on the trigger. Lopez.”
“Yes, Captain?”
“Tell the team how serious this is.”
“Deadly, Captain. If it’s the crew we’re expecting, shoot first, mag dump, reload and do it again.”
Pruso looked slowly around, “Not our usual work, but we have our orders. Everyone clear?”
“Huah, Captain!”
Pruso just nodded, “alright, load up and move out.”
Rico shouldered his pack, hooking it up so it hung right, then plucked up his rifle and nodded. He was about as ready as he could make it, he supposed. He glanced around the mountainside, then settled his gaze in the direction of the target.
The A-Team started moving out, with Lopez taking up a central position in the formation since they didn’t yet trust the new guy running point or handling the drag position.
That was fine, he knew he’d have plenty of time to show them he could be depended on.
Lot of mission left to go, lot of thing left to go wrong.
*****