GWOT VII - Bear Extract
Feb. 28th, 2021 08:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyGWOT VII - Bear Extract
"Confirm that!" she snapped to the radio operator.
Her teams were scattered all over the city.
Change of mission always requires authentication, but this wasn't a change of mission. This was an abandonment of mission.
The operator - himself a scout-sergeant - frowned.
"Enemy RF..." he began.
"Risk it," she ordered.
He composed a burst. The answer was immediate.
"Confirmed, and we have to go, now," he asserted.
Two transmissions from the same spot was begging to meet a Homeland team. Which was OK but they would vector in Army, and that was a whole new level of badness.
"Goddamn it," she cursed as they smoothly trotted down the stairs to the parking garage, and the car they could only use the once.
###
He sighed and put down the charge.
"Rig it for abandonment. We have three minutes."
What a waste.
"Can I at least put a trembler on it?"
"No. Timer. Just timer."
###
The cooling towers taunted him, as he detached the bipod from the mortar, preparatory to humping it back through the marsh.
"Leave it in situ."
"What?" But orders were orders, and he set the mortar back up again, aimed once again at the nuclear power plant's vulnerability.
"For someone else?"
"No. We extract now."
###
"OUT! OUT OUT OUT!"
As one, the tac team ran for the same doors and windows they had just forced open.
The abort command was absolute.
It was comic, not tragic, when one of them tripped over the rolls of deto cord.
Only because they did not go off. His partner lifted him by his arms and dragged him out.
###
"Seven sites?"
"Seven that we've found so far."
The Army major held stock still at attention. Giving bad news to a General was never good at the best of times.
These were not the best of times.
"At ease, Major, we have enough problems. What is the common factor?"
"Military ordinance. From all over the place. American, French, Russian, Arizona, even Chinese."
"Let me guess. Nothing from Cali."
"Nothing from Cali."
As good as a signed letter of responsibility from that Godless sexless bitch they called a Governor.
###
Bear Force and Collections mixed about as well as ... cats and rocking chairs. But it was a mix both organizations were resigned to.
Collections got Bear Force operatives in, provided them intel, and helped smuggle their stuff.
This was less common. Smuggling a Bear Force operative _out_ of a hot A.O. with all the pomp and circumstances the Americans could bring to bear, so to speak.
But it was a mission. And a truck driver hiding his lot lizard girlfriend in the back bunk was an extra layer of deniability if they caught and shot her.
###
"We had a perfect setup. Perfect!" she raged at her boss.
The last leg of the extraction had been by sports car, from Salt Lake via Reno to ... a place with no name.
"It was perfect. The Americans are horrified. Had you carried it out as planned, you would have wrecked the city and likely made it as uninhabitable as The City."
Spoken that way by a California officer, there was only one The City. Past tense.
"The psychological effect is likely to be as useful as an actual strike would have been. But that's not why we canceled."
"Oh?"
"We have a more important tasking for you. Report to CNMB Monterey forthwith. In the uniform of your rank."
That meant underwater ops. Sabotage and swimming and sharks.
But in the uniform of her rank?
"I don't think I have one."
"Borrow something. Or they can fit you." He turned, talked to someone.
"Never mind. Put on this flight suit. You're going express."
###
The next hour was a blur. And she was not going to Monterey after all.
Put on flight suit, get in backseat of fighter. First time for everything - in this case, experiencing a sonic boom from the inside.
Flying over California, high and fast, from her home base in the Sierra"s directly to Los Angeles International Airport.
On landing, met by a limousine carrying a bag packed for her, civilian clothing cut to her size, and a frantic Collections tailor who measured her while she changed, then started work on alterations.
She was handed a letter by a man the Bear Force called a "no face." Carefully bland in every way. Especially unnoticeable in a way that drew their notice.
"Read it, hand it back."
She did.
She was not surprised when he took out a lighter and burned it in front of her, nor when it burned fiercely and cleanly. Designed to do so.
"Verbal precis of your orders, please."
"I am assigned to personal close-in security for a Colonel in China. I am to take his orders without question, 'eyes and hands.' It's a diplo assignment but expected to be very, very wet."
Wet in her world, as in his, meant blood.
"Any comment?"
"They're _orders_!" she blurted.
"Did you notice who the Colonel was?"
"No."
"You knew him as Echo 18, I believe."
Her knees folded. She managed to keep her feet.
"That son of a bitch."
"Is there a problem, Captain?"
"No, sir."
There would be. Oh, there would be, she seethed to herself.
"Confirm that!" she snapped to the radio operator.
Her teams were scattered all over the city.
Change of mission always requires authentication, but this wasn't a change of mission. This was an abandonment of mission.
The operator - himself a scout-sergeant - frowned.
"Enemy RF..." he began.
"Risk it," she ordered.
He composed a burst. The answer was immediate.
"Confirmed, and we have to go, now," he asserted.
Two transmissions from the same spot was begging to meet a Homeland team. Which was OK but they would vector in Army, and that was a whole new level of badness.
"Goddamn it," she cursed as they smoothly trotted down the stairs to the parking garage, and the car they could only use the once.
###
He sighed and put down the charge.
"Rig it for abandonment. We have three minutes."
What a waste.
"Can I at least put a trembler on it?"
"No. Timer. Just timer."
###
The cooling towers taunted him, as he detached the bipod from the mortar, preparatory to humping it back through the marsh.
"Leave it in situ."
"What?" But orders were orders, and he set the mortar back up again, aimed once again at the nuclear power plant's vulnerability.
"For someone else?"
"No. We extract now."
###
"OUT! OUT OUT OUT!"
As one, the tac team ran for the same doors and windows they had just forced open.
The abort command was absolute.
It was comic, not tragic, when one of them tripped over the rolls of deto cord.
Only because they did not go off. His partner lifted him by his arms and dragged him out.
###
"Seven sites?"
"Seven that we've found so far."
The Army major held stock still at attention. Giving bad news to a General was never good at the best of times.
These were not the best of times.
"At ease, Major, we have enough problems. What is the common factor?"
"Military ordinance. From all over the place. American, French, Russian, Arizona, even Chinese."
"Let me guess. Nothing from Cali."
"Nothing from Cali."
As good as a signed letter of responsibility from that Godless sexless bitch they called a Governor.
###
Bear Force and Collections mixed about as well as ... cats and rocking chairs. But it was a mix both organizations were resigned to.
Collections got Bear Force operatives in, provided them intel, and helped smuggle their stuff.
This was less common. Smuggling a Bear Force operative _out_ of a hot A.O. with all the pomp and circumstances the Americans could bring to bear, so to speak.
But it was a mission. And a truck driver hiding his lot lizard girlfriend in the back bunk was an extra layer of deniability if they caught and shot her.
###
"We had a perfect setup. Perfect!" she raged at her boss.
The last leg of the extraction had been by sports car, from Salt Lake via Reno to ... a place with no name.
"It was perfect. The Americans are horrified. Had you carried it out as planned, you would have wrecked the city and likely made it as uninhabitable as The City."
Spoken that way by a California officer, there was only one The City. Past tense.
"The psychological effect is likely to be as useful as an actual strike would have been. But that's not why we canceled."
"Oh?"
"We have a more important tasking for you. Report to CNMB Monterey forthwith. In the uniform of your rank."
That meant underwater ops. Sabotage and swimming and sharks.
But in the uniform of her rank?
"I don't think I have one."
"Borrow something. Or they can fit you." He turned, talked to someone.
"Never mind. Put on this flight suit. You're going express."
###
The next hour was a blur. And she was not going to Monterey after all.
Put on flight suit, get in backseat of fighter. First time for everything - in this case, experiencing a sonic boom from the inside.
Flying over California, high and fast, from her home base in the Sierra"s directly to Los Angeles International Airport.
On landing, met by a limousine carrying a bag packed for her, civilian clothing cut to her size, and a frantic Collections tailor who measured her while she changed, then started work on alterations.
She was handed a letter by a man the Bear Force called a "no face." Carefully bland in every way. Especially unnoticeable in a way that drew their notice.
"Read it, hand it back."
She did.
She was not surprised when he took out a lighter and burned it in front of her, nor when it burned fiercely and cleanly. Designed to do so.
"Verbal precis of your orders, please."
"I am assigned to personal close-in security for a Colonel in China. I am to take his orders without question, 'eyes and hands.' It's a diplo assignment but expected to be very, very wet."
Wet in her world, as in his, meant blood.
"Any comment?"
"They're _orders_!" she blurted.
"Did you notice who the Colonel was?"
"No."
"You knew him as Echo 18, I believe."
Her knees folded. She managed to keep her feet.
"That son of a bitch."
"Is there a problem, Captain?"
"No, sir."
There would be. Oh, there would be, she seethed to herself.
