Read PDF The Home Team: Weapons Grade

Dennis Chalker

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A chuckle started up from the other two SEALs at the table. Oh, and thanks for the deal. Carlson just sat and glowered at his cards as if willing them to change to a winning hand. As highly trained warriors, each of the SEALs wanted very much to be taking part in the action over near Khafji. The most action they could expect would be to swim after a downed pilot. An important job, but not what they had been training for since joining the Teams. With the air war running twenty-four hours a day, the Iraqis were constantly being pounded from the skies.

Thankfully, there had been relatively few Coalition aircraft lost. But that also meant that working on CSAR duty meant a whole lot of nothing was happening.

The Home Team: Weapons Grade

It was a good thing that this CSAR tasking was only scheduled to continue for another sixty hours at most. To keep the game from getting too serious, and because of those Navy regulations about gambling, Reaper allowed the game to only be played for small change.

Pots never amounted to much. The pile of chips he had just raked in totaled only twenty-seven cents. Shaking his head at how the SEALs screwed around with each other, Chief Caronti turned and headed to his quarters on the other side of the compartment, opposite the mess-area table. It was the call bell mounted underneath the control console in the pilothouse.

That signal meant Caronti was needed in the pilothouse, and he immediately headed above deck. He was up the steep ladder and standing in the aft area of the pilothouse before Miller finished shuffling the cards. He had a communications headset on his head with a boom microphone extended in front of his mouth. The headset was cocked so that his left ear was exposed and he could hear Caronti coming into the pilothouse. Once hooked up, Chief Caronti nodded to Katz, who then took his own headset off. Katz concentrated on keeping the Mark III on course as his chief listened to the information coming literally from on high.

Katz knew this was a very serious situation. Major assets like the J-STARS did not spend time talking to a simple patrol boat—not unless a pilot had gone down in the Gulf somewhere nearby. As he listened to the information coming in over his headset, Chief Caronti moved to the rear of the pilothouse. In addition, he made notations on the open charts. Notify us of any further updates.

Black Cat Actual out. Only the center engine had heavy mufflers to suppress the sound of the boat. The port and starboard engines roared with power as they blew through almost-straight exhaust systems and started driving the sixty-three-foot boat forward at nearly thirty knots. Sing out if your hear anything. Reaching past the radar display unit to his right, Katz turned the controls on the URC remote control box.

He looked up to the gyrocompass mounted above the helm position and watched the indicator settle on degrees. Deep in the desert, miles away from the U. The J-STARS had been the only Coalition asset the Marines had been able to contact since being separated from their unit, and their situation was becoming desperate. The two men had been running from Iraqi forces since having first observed and sniped against them nearly twenty-four hours earlier.

The precision fire of the scout-sniper team had been the only real weapon they had against the overwhelming firepower of the Iraqis, and even that was almost spent, as their ammunition was down to the last few rounds. High Eagle, this is Delta zero niner. Delta zero niner out. The last word was for us to make for the coast.

The Iraqi forces that had not yet taken refuge in Khafji were being eliminated by the A Thunderbolts and fighters that ripped through them. What remained of the Iraqi armored forces was scattering across the area. The men had been conducting an exhausting game of hide-and-seek with the Iraqis for many hours. They were tired, thirsty, and worse. The evening before, both men had been watching an Iraqi reconnaissance platoon.

Both men had spotted an Iraqi officer standing in the open turret hatch of his tracked BMP-1 armored infantry fighting vehicle. The fitted Remington action and match-grade barrel fired, guiding the 7. It took much less than a second for the bullet to travel the meters between the scout-sniper team and the Iraqi BMP. The Iraqi officer barely had time to see the muzzle flash before the grain pointed boat-tail bullet from the M40A1 smashed into his chest, piercing his heart.

Dozens of the B32 AP-I traveled across the Saudi Arabian desert and spent their energy into the sand and gravel hundreds of meters away from the weapons that fired them. But one projectile did not just waste itself into the desert. The massive bullet from the KPV machine gun could penetrate nearly an inch and a half of steel armor at one hundred meters.

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The radio nearly exploded as the Soviet-made slug tore it apart. The resistance of the radio was not enough to ignite the incendiary composition on the nose of the projectile, but that was the only grace it gave Sergeant Schaefer. Any one of the wounds would have been serious enough to hospitalize even the tough Marine NCO— and there were dozens of them.

All night long, Sergeant Shaefer and Warrick had slipped along the desert, trying to evade the Iraqi units searching for them. When the Marines finally made contact with a Coalition aircraft flying high overhead, they heard the bad news that no helicopter support could come in and extract them. The Iraqi forces outside of Khafji were becoming more and more scattered under the onslaught of the Coalition air strikes, but their firepower was still a major threat to any helicopter landing.

To survive their situation, the two Marines would have to make their way to the shore of the Persian Gulf. Once there, Navy forces would come in and get them out. Warrick looked at his sergeant with concern. So we have to destroy the extra gear. And that sure as hell includes our commo gear. The KY is pretty much intact. It has to be completely destroyed. Dig a hole and burn it. The KY would scramble their voice communications with their main base back in Khafji, and it would automatically unscramble incoming messages.

Since the scout-sniper team was carrying that kind of sensitive equipment on their mission, they also had with them the means to destroy it completely. The abbreviation incen in purple letters on the gray-colored cylindrical body of the grenade indicated its purpose as an incendiary device.

Once fired, the TH3 thermate mixture within the grenade would burn for about forty seconds. The burning thermate would reach a temperature of 4, degrees Fahrenheit, more than enough to obliterate the plastic and metal components of the KY The burning grenade would also pour out white-hot molten iron, welding or slagging almost anything it touched.

The smashed radio, KY, and other bits and pieces of equipment were placed into the bottom of the deep hole dug into the desert sand. Less than two seconds later, there was a pop and hiss as the thermate filler of the grenade ignited. A brilliant white light and smoke started to come up out of the hole as the thermate burned, igniting the aluminum case of the PRC With his face turned away, Warrick pushed sand down into the hole to cut down on the escaping light and smoke.

Once ignited, the M14 incendiary grenade would continue burning, even while underwater. The little bit of sand dumped in on the grenade would hardly even slow the fire down, it would just be turned to glass by the heat. But the sand would help hide where the Marines had destroyed the gear.

He picked up his M40A1 rifle and cradled the long weapon in his arms. Even wounded, Sergeant Shaefer hung on doggedly to his M16A2 rifle as he started out on their trek across the desert. While the Marines struggled across the sands, support was on its way to them in the form of a small Navy boat and a handful of competent and very determined men.

On the table, Caronti had spread out charts showing the waters they were passing through and the Kuwaiti shoreline they were heading for. That team is in serious trouble and just about out of communications with anyone. Even the J-STARS bird, with all of its electronics, could only maintain communications with them long enough to tell them to head for the shore. Our planes are eating them up, but Intel says that there are still small units and individual vehicles capable of putting up a fight. So far, the Iraqis are on the losing end of this scrap.

But a helicopter hanging around searching for a pair of men on the ground could make itself a juicy target for an Iraqi shoulder-fired missile or antiaircraft system. Trouble is, those Marines may not make it to later today. And we are the closest naval asset to the area. And we can get pretty close to shore, but only pretty close.

Any closer, and we run the risk of running aground and hanging up the boat. Any aircraft around will respond to that. The craft had four Mark 16 machine gun stands on the upper deck, two forward and two aft. Three of the stands carried. The port side aft stand carried a Mark 19 Mod 3 40mm grenade launcher in place of a machine gun. The Mark 19 could put out 40mm highexplosive grenades at a rate of rounds per minute. The half-pound grenades could reach a maximum range of 2, meters. On the port side of the boat, across from the pilothouse, was a raised heavy weapons platform.

On the platform was a weapon that had proved its worth during combat in Vietnam, a Mark 2 Mod 1 81mm direct-fire mortar with a. The Mark 2 81mm mortar could be pointed directly at a target and fired like a cannon, or the muzzle could be pointed up into the sky and the weapon could lob its shells in a high arc. The 81mm M high-explosive shell with its 2. It was a very heavy punch and all of the men around the mess table knew it. Between the SEALs and the crew of the patrol boat, they had the men, mobility, firepower, and skills to pull off such a last-moment rescue. The other three SEALs met his eyes without looking away.

From those looks, Reaper had all of the answer he needed. Caronti and his men had also trained and drilled, either together or on other small-boat crews, so they all knew every aspect and ability of both their vessel and themselves. The SEALs had been prepared to conduct combat search and rescue missions. That meant a lot more swimming than active combat.

And Eddie Schultz had his radio gear. But none of the SEALs had their usual combat load of weapons and ammunition. Both Carlson and Schultz also kept their M4 carbines—the short, handy weapons giving them a good effective range across the desert or beach. A strong, powerful man, even for a SEAL, Miller could handle the twenty-four-pound machine gun with ease. The eleven-hundred-meter range of the 7. The inflated Zodiac F rubber boat was tied up to the stern of the patrol boat, lashed in place against the port-side six-man lifeboat support rack.

Pulling the boat up onto the deck, Carlson, Schultz, and Miller went over each piece of it, paying particular attention to the 55hp Evinrude outboard motor that would push the rubber boat to the beach and back. If the rugged motor crapped out on them, the SEALs could have a long paddle ahead of them to get back to the patrol boat, a trip they might have to conduct while under enemy fire and transporting two, possibly wounded, Marines. While his men went over every piece of the equipment they would use, Reaper sat at the mess-area table, pouring over the charts Caronti had left there.

Each man made himself familiar with the area they were heading into. There was no way to tell exactly where the Marines would hit the shoreline. They would probably try their best to hit point foxtrot-echo dead-on. So the SEALs all looked at the charts and familiarized themselves with every aspect of the terrain while the patrol boat came about to head north and started approaching the shoreline, only a few dozen miles away.

Looking toward the beach less than a hundred yards in front of them, a sweating and breathless sergeant Schaefer turned to his partner. Seeing that Warrick was facing back the way they had come, Schaefer tried to turn, but the pain from his wounds kept him from twisting his body around. No cover, no concealment. But that meant Warrick had kept expending his ammunition to keep the Iraqis buttoned up at long range, limiting their visibility. Coming around the point that curved out into the gulf to the south of their position, Warrick and Schaefer could see a tan-colored patrol boat cutting across the blue water.

Can you read me? Pulling the pin and throwing the grenade far out onto the beach, Warrick heard the pop and hiss of the MA2 fuze as it ignited the Violet smoke, a stark purple against the dark tan of the beach, poured from the holes in the grenade. The signal was an established emergency marker. The patrol boat had to see it, and probably the Iraqis would as well. Not another word was spoken. Every man on the patrol boat could see the cluster of vehicles away in the desert. Schultz was acting as the coxswain at the rear of the black rubber boat as it sped across the water. The rest of the fire team spread out along the gunwales of the boat.

They crouched low, lying across the tubes, their weapons in their hands. On the port side of the bow, Miller held his M60 machine gun loaded and ready to put out a heavy spray of covering fire. Reaper was on the starboard side of the bow, Carlson up tight behind him. Each man would be covered in bruises from the shocks before this mission was done. As the bow came up and they could see across the sand, they all knew what the plume of dust rising in the distance meant.

The Iraqis had seen the burning smoke grenade, and were heading toward it. As the Zodiac came closer to the shore, Reaper, Miller, and Carlson rolled over the side and into the shallows as Schultz cut back on the outboard. The water was only hip deep, and the SEALs were running light in terms of weapons and ammunition. So moving through the shallow water was easy for them. Running was not easy for the two Marines struggling across the sands of the beach. Almost exhausted from blood loss and dehydration, Schaefer was staggering as he leaned against Warrick.

Both men reached the edge of the water as the shore erupted behind them. A mm 3OF18 high explosive shell fired from the main gun of the T whistled in and punched down onto the beach. The TNT filler of the round exploded, sending a huge plume of sand into the air, and steel splinters spinning across the area. The tank gunner had fired while the T was running across the sand. But as the big tank came closer, its gunner would be more accurate.

The tank commander had opened the top hatch of the T and was firing on the escaping men with the heavy machine gun. As Lieutenant Mustafa Fawzi, the commander of the T watched, he saw the shell burst in the water nearly twenty yards past the black boat and the men struggling around it. He started to shout a correction into his communications headset that would put the next cannon round directly on target. The Marines reached their rescuers as bullets started splashing down nearby like an approaching steel rain. Leaning heavily on Warrick, Schaefer stumbled through the water as his strength finally gave out completely.

Grabbing the collapsing man, Reaper pulled Schaefer from Warrick and slung him over his shoulder. Once Schaefer was in safe hands, Warrick startled the SEALs as he turned away from the boat and kneeled down in the water. As he turned away, Warrick pulled his M40A1 rifle from where he had slung it across his back.

Shouldering the weapon, the Marine sniper seemed to freeze into position for a moment as he knelt. The barrel of the long gun waved about, steadied, and stopped. A single shot rang out. Without even looking to see the results of his shot, Warrick stood up and turned back to the boat. The rest of the SEALs were pushing the boat around to quickly get it heading back out to sea. Nearly seven hundred meters away, only a second from the time that Warrick pulled the trigger of his rifle, Mustafa Fawzi felt a heavy blow against his chest. At first he thought he had slammed himself against the mount of the big DShK.

With his rifle in one hand, Warrick shoved the boat to help push it on its way. Then he rolled over the taut black rubber gunwales of the craft as Reaper and his men climbed back into position on the tubes. Open this bitch up and get us the hell out of their range! But the big cannon only had to get close to upset the speeding Zodiac. As Reaper and his men watched, they saw the patrol boat turn and come back along the shore. It would make a big target for the cannon on the tank. But Caronti had told Reaper about an ace he kept in reserve, a card the big Navy chief had his men put into play at that moment.

Manning the Mark 2, Dunnigan compensated for the roll and pitch of the patrol boat, paused until the boat reached the right position, and then pulled the trigger of the mortar. Immediately, Randy Peters dropped another round down the long tube of the mortar. The fins of the M mortar shell made a fluttering sound as the projectile dropped down to the beach. Particles of burning phosphorus glowed yellow as they left a trail of dense white smoke behind them. As more and more of the mortar shells impacted the beach, they created a thick cloud of dense white smoke that none of the Iraqis in the vehicles could see through.

Behind the cover of the smoke screen, the Zodiac continued to approach the patrol boat. The crewmen helped the Marines up, and the SEALs abandoned the rubber boat that had served them so well. As he saw everyone come aboard, Caronti pushed the throttles open and all three of the big engines began driving the boat through the water. It would only be a few minutes before they were out of range of even the biggest weapon the Iraqis had back on the beach. High up in the sky, a trio of rapidly approaching dots told everyone on the patrol boat that the long-desired air support had finally arrived.

Looking back at the beach that had almost become his graveyard, Warrick watched the Warthogs make short work of the enemy forces that had dogged him and his partner for so many long hours. Turning to Reaper, Warrick tried to say something, but words seemed hopelessly inadequate. Not a rich brown, the color of earth, or even mud. This was a bleak, pale kind of tan. The whole place would have to undergo heavy renovation just to be called desolate. A rising plume of dust, thrown up by the wheels of a three-vehicle caravan, indicated the only movement across the dry plain.

Leading the way was a Toyota Land Cruiser that had seen long years of hard service. Following the Land Cruiser were a pair of large military trucks. The rear of the Bedford was filled with a boxy something that stuck out at odd angles against its canvas covering. Though all of the vehicles looked to be well past their prime, a practiced ear would have heard nothing but the sound of engines in perfect mechanical condition under the control of skilled drivers.

One of the drivers was considerably less skillful than the others. Peering through the streaked and smeared windshield of the Toyota, Vladimir Posenovich looked up at the few clouds in the sky. There would be little comfort from that direction. What could be seen of it through the grimy windshield looked dirty from the blown dust. Posenovich should have been happy, at least reasonably so.

The German geologist who hired him had paid him in hard currency—U. And the cloth-upholstered interior of the Toyota was comfortable; both the heater and the air conditioner worked. But it was not his car, and Posenovich was reflecting on just how far he had fallen from being a promising young military officer, a lieutenant in the Soviet army, more than fifteen years earlier. Taking a moment away from watching the open terrain ahead of them, Posenovich looked at the man sitting next to him before he answered.

Heinrick Stahl was supposed to be a German petrochemical geologist and was in overall charge of the expedition. But Stahl did not seem like a man who worked with his hands much, especially not in the rough world of oil exploration. He reminded the Russian of one of the zampolit, the political officers of his military days.

They would pretend to be your friend while collecting information on your reliability for their reports to Moscow. This man just seemed too handsome to work outside, like one of those actors who played in the James Bond movies. His hands were soft and his skin only held the tan of a sportsman, not someone who worked outside under the glare of the desert sun. Besides, Posenovich thought he smiled too much. And you should call it Rebirth Island. The woman in the backseat was pleasantly different from Stahl as far as Posenovich was concerned, and he liked her very much.

She was the one bright light in the whole of the stark landscape surrounding them. By any normal measurement, Veronica Haslett was a beautiful woman. Only of medium height but possessing a very well-filled-out figure above and below a slim waist, Haslett was a pleasant sight in the rear-view mirror when Posenovich tilted his head.

The plan to irrigate the desert areas surrounding here needed water, and lots of it. The cotton crops grew only one year and the weak desert soil was depleted. But the old Soviet planners were stubborn. The waters were kept flowing into the fields, and the Aral Sea shrank. Or at least, they were the sands that used to surround Rebirth. That small rise we passed a few hours ago should have been Konstantin Island. It used to lie to the southwest of Rebirth.

Now, it has just become another part of it. The gray eyes of the man never seemed to blink. They just bored into Posenovich as if the owner could look into the depths of his very soul. He had seen their like before in the tougher career sergeants he had served with in the Soviet military. The man was tapping on the control panel of a tan-colored device he had placed in a bracket attached to the dashboard of the Toyota.

Posenovich knew the device was some kind of global positioning system receiver that would detect their location by tracking a bunch of American satellites far overhead. It was just one more of the gadgets that Stahl always seemed to be playing with. The man had a laptop computer sitting on the seat next to a bulky cell phone handset. We went by the landmarks and careful navigation.

It was not easy to come by and cost a good deal. The Americans are using them right now in Iraq and Afghanistan. If it works for them, it will do the same for me. The very best of them is the system of roads built by the Soviet engineers. There are only three primary roads on the island, and we should be crossing one any time now. The man in the backseat grunted a single word in whatever language he spoke and Stahl barked a short laugh. Whatever had been said, Posenovich was sure it was a jest at his expense.

The interior of the Toyota lapsed back into silence as he drove across the landscape. The bumpy ride grew worse as the vehicle went up a gradual rocky incline. Patches of rock now stood out more often among the sand and rough scrub. Without the four-wheel drive of the Toyota, they would have bogged down long ago. As it was, the trucks behind them had fallen behind as they struggled along, while the Toyota crested the rise.

But Posenovich had some good news to deliver. Cutting across the terrain a kilometer or so away was a darker line in the scrub and sand. It was a hardtop road, only sandy asphalt, but the first sign of anything man-made they had seen since the caravan left the tiny Uzbekistan village of Uchsay, kilometers to the south. Let the trucks catch up. Getting over to the road made the driving a lot easier, but pulling off into the scrub and stopping in the shade of the rocky outcrop was even better.

The ex-Soviet officer sighed as he finally turned off the engine. The hot metal beneath the hood pinged and tapped as it started to cool. Regretfully, Posenovich felt the cool breeze from the air-conditioning fade away as the engine halted. Now the only thing cooling the interior of the Toyota was the shade they had stopped in. Picking up the pewter-colored briefcase he never seemed to be without, Stahl stepped out of the Toyota and turned back the way they had come. The two trucks were quickly approaching and Stahl stood waiting for them.

Watching the actions of the German, Posenovich thought the sight of the man standing there with a briefcase in his hand the strangest thing. He was being paid, and that was enough. Outside of the rocks rising up to their right, there was little to look at from the interior of the Toyota. Both rear doors opened behind him and the other passengers got out. She went around to the back of the vehicle and her legs disappeared as she climbed into it. With a groan, Posenovich opened his door and climbed out of the Toyota. His back was stiff and his knees hurt from the long drive.

And he needed to take a piss. He had always hated this damned island, and pissing on it felt like a good idea, anyway. But before he could act on his impulse, he heard Stahl call out his name. Over by the Bedford truck, Stahl was talking to several of his men. He waved Posenovich over. Suppressing a sigh, Posenovich walked over. In fact, I insist that you know. Surprised and stunned, the Russian could only struggle weakly while the two other men quickly wrapped chains around his arms and chest. Additional lengths went around his legs before he could kick them away. The ends of the chains were locked to the frame and wheels of the truck, securing Posenovich in a spread-eagle position.

As the Russian started to shout, one of the men stuffed a filthy rag into his mouth to stifle his protests. Shock and panic caused him to struggle against his bonds. But his jerking against the chains only showed how firmly he was secured. His eyes bulged from their sockets as he watched in horrified fascination. Individually, none of the items would normally get a second look. They all belonged with trucks or a convoy.

There were pliers with sharply serrated jaws. Lastly, a small green metal box was set down next to the tools. One of the workers picked up the ends of the jumper cables and looked at Posenovich. With a vicious smile spreading across his face, he touched the ends of the cables together. The fat sparks that popped out when the two clamps touched caused Posenovich to snap his head back against the side of the truck. He started screaming hoarsely into his gag. The weak sounds only demonstrated the impossible position he was in.

Walking up to where the tools were laid out on the ground, Stahl pulled on a pair of tight black leather gloves. He watched Posenovich struggle for a moment, the screams from the struggling Russian reaching a high-pitched tone as despair started to settle in. A dark, wet stain spread across the crotch of his trousers and the smell of urine filled the air.

The screaming had stopped as the Russian stared at the man in front of him. Before that time, the Uzbekistan government does indeed want this area checked for possible oil deposits. This island should be a stable enough area if the waters come back. No, we need some information regarding the recent past of this particular island. And I assure you, you will tell me what I want to know. The only choice you have is the means by which I will convince you to give me the information I want. My men and I can persuade you with the materials here at hand—quietly or otherwise. Moving closer to Posenovich, he stood directly in front of the man.

Posenovich could only stare at the shiny tip of the screwdriver scant inches away from his face. Flat , Dostoyevsky Avenue, Kiev— would like to have you back again someday. It would be preferable not to have to check out lies, and then go to the trouble to convince you to speak further. Inside were paper-banded bundles of currency.

Then the smile dropped away and the voice grew hard. Handing the bottle back, he waved to where Posenovich was secured. The man walked up to the bound Russian and snatched the gag from his mouth. Choking and gagging for a moment, Posenovich started to drink greedily. Fear, and the cloth gag, had dried his mouth out completely. Finally, the water bottle was pulled away and the Russian hung in his chains gasping. With the panic slipping away for the moment, Posenovich could at least start to think.

Just who in the hell was this man? First, he acts like the worst hard case Posenovich had ever known. Then, he talks like an American, or at least a capitalist who expects money to work for him. And he was right. Now that Posenovich had a moment, he thought he knew what Stahl was going to ask about.

Then they stood and looked at Stahl. Especially as a young officer in Military Unit This was the largest testing area for Soviet biological weapons of all kinds. When the government decided to get rid of their stockpiles, drums were loaded aboard trains, then boats, and finally trucks. All to be disposed of here. The bleach that had been poured onto the powder before burial did little to kill it. So the Americans paid to have all eleven dump sites dug up and decontaminated. Only there was one site they missed. A twelfth site, separate from the rest. Yes, I know about that. And I want to know more.

Like exactly where those drums are buried. On the seat in front of him was his open computer. The laptop was a ruggedized military model that seemed impervious to the dust and grit that blew all around the edge of the rock face where they had stopped. Looking down at the computer, Stahl frowned as he tapped on the keyboard.

On the ground sitting next to his left leg was his everpresent briefcase. Not ten minutes earlier, Stahl had been threatening him with a gruesome death by torture. Now, he was acting like some long-lost tovarisch. He was still smiling, but his eyes had grown very cold. Please take a look at this. Our position is marked here by the flashing red dot. What I want to know from you is the exact location of the burial site for those drums. Wincing slightly at the sound of the code name, Posenovich looked away from the computer screen.

We had passed a curve in the road and were out of sight of anyone who may have been watching us when the rear axle spring on the transport truck broke. It was the first shipment for burial, and they sent it to us directly from the production facility at Sverdlovsk. There were three dozen one-hundred-liter cylinders of dry agent. After that first batch, all of the shipments came out of Irkutsk. Those were all two-hundred-fifty-liter drums filled with wet slurry agent mixed with bleach.

They wanted us to dump that agent into pits and save the stainlesssteel drums for reuse. His throat was still dry from the fear that had washed through his system such a short time ago. Unscrewing the cap, Posenovich drank with a desperate need. After a long moment, the same man who had given him the water bottle snatched it back.

For additional concealment, we were to drive under blackout conditions with strict light discipline. The trouble is, these roads are hard enough to drive on at night with headlights. A patch of sand that looked like it had just blown across the road turned out to be a soft pit.

The transport truck bogged down in it and snapped a suspension spring. So we excavated a pit and buried the cylinders just off to the side of the road, not twenty meters away from it. No one ever knew, or was ever supposed to know. Too bad the old Soviet military restricted field maps to only officers. If not, we might have never met, you know. You may drive us to the burial site—now.

The weapon was of such recent issue that Posenovich had never seen that model before, with a hard stock folded over to the side of the receiver. The safety was switched to the central, fullautomatic-fire position. They have shoot-on-sight orders for anyone who approaches that side of the island. Patrols are random at worst. We shall not be bothered during our search. Which I insist we start on now. She had calmly watched his interrogation in a very detached pose, standing in the doorway to the ZIL van. It was obvious to the Russian that she was the same kind of hard-nosed killer as any of the men there, only in a prettier package.

Veronica had changed into some kind of blue coveralls when she had gone into the van. The snug fit showed her figure off to the best advantage as she climbed into her accustomed seat in the back of the Toyota. He hoped that the man holding it had put the safety back on, or was riding without his finger on the trigger. One bad bump, and Posenovich could be just a memory.

It was the third time the caravan had stopped. The rest of the men had remained on guard at the trucks, watching both Posenovich as well as the terrain all around them. Stahl may have trusted the information he had been given about the local Uzbeki troops and their disposition, but he still felt no need to take chances. All of the men had weapons near at hand.

Only Stahl, Haslett, and Posenovich himself were not obviously armed. As his men swept the area next to the road with the huge two-meter-square coils of the metal detectors, Stahl looked on with a calm stoicism that would have done a Russian Cossack proud. They could be buried much deeper now because of the drifting. My men have practiced with them until they can find a bottle cap under two meters of sand. And that would make me a very unhappy man. But it was an absolutely deadly one.

Kundrecensioner

It had looked at Posenovich as if he were prey, the same look Posenovich was seeing right now. The silence of the long moment was broken only by the sigh of the desert wind. The afternoon was going by quickly and they had yet to find anything. All Posenovich could feel just then was a rising panic at the tension in the air. Just when he thought he would scream, one of the men called out from where he had just stopped searching.

Stahl barked orders and the men were suddenly scrambling to carry them out.

What he could understand was the bright-eyed look Stahl gave him when he turned to face him. It seems we may have found what we came here for. In spite of his fear, Posenovich was fascinated by what was uncovered. If Posenovich had been placed into the jaws of this mechanical nightmare, he would have agreed to anything Stahl wanted almost instantly. With two men guiding the driver, the Bedford and its load was backed up to the discovery site that had been marked out on the sand.

Everyone was now wearing dust masks as the sand was kicked up by the movement of the heavy truck. Once the vehicle had stopped in place, the driver remained in the cab and worked a second set of controls. Part of the assembly in the bed of the truck began to lift and extend itself out over the back bumper. Now Posenovich could see that the toothed chains were some kind of digging machine. That conveyor belt above the cutting chains will dump the soil to either side of the trench as it goes.

In just a few minutes, it will uncover what was buried here. Those chains will tear the drums open and spread the anthrax all around us. My men are very good at operating this digger. And we have all been vaccinated against anthrax. We even have such a booster for yourself if needed. Additional precautions will also be taken as we approach the containers. And besides—ah, here she is, right on cue. With her head and shoulders sticking out from the front opening of the suit, the huge bubble-helmet of the garment was folded back from her head and a large glass-fronted mask hung by straps from around her neck.

This was a very advanced biological protection suit with a self-contained breathing system, something Posenovich vaguely recognized from when he worked at Aralsk In her hands were several very large clear plastic bags filled with something. All Posenovich could make out on the bags was the large orange sticker with a spider-like black trefoil on it—the international biohazard warning label.

While the men were now digging by hand in shifts, the others were also suiting up from the kit bags Haslett handed out. Once everyone was suited up and their respirator masks were in place, the men in the trench got down on their hands and knees, removing the last of the sand with small hand shovels.

One of the men ran a hose from the water tank hitched to the ZIL van.

He dragged the nozzle of the hose up to the edge of the pit and turned the water on. The spray smelled of bleach as he sprinkled water all over the inside of the trench and the surrounding area. The dust that had been kicked up by the digger was immediately washed out of the air. In the trench, the wetdown men were now digging in soggy sand, but all of the dust was gone.

The odd color combination of the brown Tyvek suit, black gloves, and yellow boots comforted Posenovich as he realized just how the outlandish getup protected him. And he felt he needed that protection as he looked down into the trench and saw something he never had wished to see again in his life, There was a row of dirty-silver cylinders, drums with sealed lids, all of them together possibly holding nearly two metric tons of some of the deadliest biological weapon that had ever been made. And he had helped to expose this terror to the world at large. While Posenovich stared, the men climbed out of the trench as Haslett approached.

Clambering down into the trench, the suited woman approached the one drum the men had righted for her. The filler cap had been brushed off and exposed. Setting down the bag she had brought with her from the back of the van, Haslett removed an odd-looking wrench and fitted it over the cap. In spite of the years it had been underground, the filler cap turned easily as Haslett put pressure on the wrench handle. Setting down the tool, she spread out a roll of sampling equipment and bottles. Posenovich could hear Stahl breathing heavily next to him as the woman used a very long probe to carefully take a sample from deep inside the cylinder.

A powdery substance could now be seen filling the container. A soft tan powder that seemed to almost flow like water moved in the glass jar as Haslett placed it in a protected carrying case. It was obvious to Posenovich that the liquid bleach he had been told was dumped into the cylinders had not reached the center of the mass that was inside them. The tan powder the woman had collected was weaponized anthrax spores. The woman carefully closed up the filler cap on the cylinder and sealed all the tools she had used inside plastic bags—double-bagging all of the contaminated equipment.

Once I have those results, the agent monitor will positively identify the material. Now let me get on with my work.

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The third instalment of the HOME TEAM series, a combination of Vince Flynn and Richard Marcinko. Ex–Navy SEAL Ted Reaper and his expert team must rush. Editorial Reviews. About the Author. Dennis Chalker enlisted in the Army before joining the The Home Team: Weapons Grade Kindle Edition. by Dennis.

This air tank is only good for an hour before I have to change it. The Soviet truck had also been backed up so the rear of it faced the trench. It was obvious now to Posenovich that the van held a laboratory, and probably not one that would just test geological samples. But Stahl was walking around the pit like an expectant father.

He looked ridiculous in his protective equipment with his briefcase in his hand. The other men were all standing around their respective vehicles, just waiting. Then, the back of the van opened up and Haslett, still completely encased in her protective suit, leaned out. Her voice was muffled by the breathing mask and suit hood, but her words came across clearly enough. It will take at least several hours to confirm the strain. Anthrax , exactly what we had hoped for. As everyone turned, Posenovich felt his heart almost stop in his chest.

Approaching from around a bend in the road was a pair of UAZB open trucks. On the bumper of the front UAZ flew a small red, white, and green horizontally striped flag. They were Uzbeki troops. Chapter Three On the other side of the world, concerns of people on an island were considerably different from those on the Aral Sea.

Spring in Northern Michigan is sometimes only distinguishable from the winter by the lack of snow. This is something particularly noticeable on the islands of Lake Michigan. The heavy lead-gray clouds of the sky are almost a match in color for the dark surface of the roiling lake waters below. It will take weeks of energy from the sun shining down to warm those waters to a noticeable degree. In March, the cold wind blows across the waves and breaks against the evergreens growing on the relatively dry land of South Wolverine Island.

The huge rock-faced mansion on the island looked out over an open field of what was presently wet, brown grassland. It would be a field of luxuriant grass inside of a few months. Care had been taken in restoring the room to its former look.

Even a close examination of the paneled walls or stone fireplace would have failed to reveal any damage. And there certainly had been damage nearly two years before when a savage fight had taken place between Ted Reaper and his friends and a group of terrorists using the mansion and the island around it as a staging area. Reaper and his men had ended the threat within hours of the terrorists launching their attack. Setting his book down on the table next to his leather armchair, the ex-Marine scout-sniper stood and stretched.

But this sitting around is way too much like the worst parts of being in the corps. Besides, the spring weather up here can really drag you down. I forget what the sun looks like. Time to get out and get moving. His wheelchair gave him the mobility he needed, and anyone who thought they could take advantage of a cripple in a chair would have been badly surprised by the strength in the arms of the ex-Army Ranger sergeant.

Now, where is everybody? And I have no idea where Caronti is, he was with Reaper a while ago. See if you can get everyone together in the office. The men made up the Four Horsemen, a team of special operations veterans from all of the services who worked as a consulting group for the United States government. The truth of the matter was that the men operated solely for an office of the Department of Homeland security. It was Straker who had intervened with the Federal, State, and local authorities who had wanted to prosecute Reaper when he and his friends had gone up against what had looked like a group of drug dealers looking to strong-arm Reaper into supplying guns for their operations.

Recognizing the rare mix of skills and abilities gathered in the group, Alan Straker had protected the men from the legal fallout of their actions, in exchange for them conducting special operations for him as the Four Horsemen. For their success in that action as well as their earlier exploits, the men had been given the island and its contents to use as a base of operations.

The financial rewards of capturing or eliminating a number of high-ranking terrorist operatives had also given the group a very large nest egg of operating funds. That money had gone into outfitting the men with the best equipment that could be purchased, as well as restoring the island estate to its former glory. The blue jumpsuit he was wearing was blotched with dark spots, showing how he had rushed to the briefing before properly drying off.

It had been a long period of study and training over the winter months, and Reaper looked forward to some action to break the spell of relative inactivity just as much as the rest of his team did. The Four Horsemen are to penetrate the reactor sites and uncover any weaknesses in their overall security. Only the head of security for each site will know just who we are and what we are trying to do.

Other than that, we are to use our own resources to plan out and conduct the penetration. I hate the idea of glowing in the dark. And it will make us operational for a few months given a couple of weeks to check out each site. He was more than a little pissed at his present situation. You join the army and you pull your share of shit duties. But patrolling this island and its abandoned base was something more along the lines of punishment.

Of course, there was the question of radical Islamic terrorists to be dealt with. But the Aral Sea was at the opposite end of the country from Kyrgyzstan, hundreds of kilometers from the border with Afghanistan and about the same distance from Iran. Captain Rostikov, the company commander, had thought such an exercise might help season the new men more quickly that training with the company.

Half the men in his squad were conscripts fresh out of training, ready to serve their sixteen months and get the hell out of the army. With these gloomy thoughts on his mind, the last thing Yakubov expected his two-vehicle patrol to run into was, well, anything. There were all kinds of bumps, holes, and curves on the road as it wound through an area of rocky hills.

The twists and turns were due to the topography, the bumps and craters owed their existence to more than ten years of neglect. Each hill they passed look like the one before it, and the next one as well. But when they passed around one rocky rise, there was a construction project going on. Surely if there were any official standing for such a project, his orders would have mentioned it. When Lieutenant Yakubov signaled a halt, Sergeant Borutova immediately deployed the men. At his barked signal, two men jumped out of the back of each of the UAZB open light trucks and covered the strangers with their weapons.

With five AKs and a 7. Then Yakubov was even more astonished when one of the strangers started shouting at him—in perfect Russian. Even through the muffle of his respirator, the tone of his voice suggested anything but a man who was looking down the barrels of a half dozen automatic weapons. Even as some of the men turned their weapons onto him, Stahl kept up his pretense. We already had to start our excavations in order to stay on schedule.

You are trespassing on restricted government soil. You could be shot where you stand. I have authorizations signed by President Karimov himself. Several of the troops were obviously young and they looked more than a little nervous. Scared would have been a better description. He and a couple of the older-appearing soldiers looked to be the most competent, and that made them the most dangerous.

When you bluff, you have to bluff big. He lives in southern California. He lives in Michigan. The story of one soldier pushed too far. But when drug dealing terrorists intrude on his early retirement and threaten his family, he bands together with a group of special forces operators to show the dealers the true meaning of retribution. Skilled in all forms of combat, weapons, explosives, special equipment, and tactics, the group of soldiers is unchecked by any government agency, unsupervised by any congressional committee, and fully prepared to do what must be done to win their own private war at any cost.

All the pain, punishment, endurance and commitment needed to survive the hell week of bootcamp training is chronicled in this riveting tale of determination and intrigue. No pain, no gain Account Options Sign in. Ex—Navy SEAL Ted Reaper and his expert team must rush to stop terrorists from launching weapons of mass destruction at the next space shuttle launch in Florida. Flowing text, Original pages. Web, Tablet, Phone, eReader.

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