Site Kilo-29-External Area United States of America Winter, 1993 Day One

The wind was cold and bitter, and the smell of snow carried in the air brought back memories of darkness and death that I pushed away. That place was eight thousands miles away, blown up and burnt down, and I'd pushed it behind me.

"That's it? That's what they sent us out here for?" One of the guys behind me bitched. I restrained a sudden urge to turn around, grab him by the front of his uniform, pull him close...

And ram my knife up under his sternum.

The smell of snow mixed with the smell of blood... for a second before I could push it and the unreasoning anger flooding through me away. I fished the little bottle of pills out of my pocket, uncapped it, and shook one into my mouth, chewing it into paste as I stared at the steel door that was mostly hidden by the overhanging rock.

I looked around in the last few minutes of sunshine we'd have for almost 12 hours and took in what was around us.

Just bare rock, and an almost hidden road that led into the woods that I knew would lead to a concealed helipad, painted to match the surrounding terrain. Next to the door was a peeling sign, white with red letters.

Governmentese for "Get the fuck out" was on the sign, a phrase I was long accustomed to. Order of the Secretary of Defense, Authorization for Lethal Force, Restricted Area, Prepare for Search and Seizure.

No graffiti, unlike a lot of the sites I'd been to in the last year.

"Hey, Sergeant, I thought you said they sent some guys from the Engineers and the Air Force up here." One of the guys said.

I hadn't bothered learning their names. I didn't care.

"Yeah, if they're up here, where's their vehicles?" Another asked. Meathead #5 was what I referred to him as.

"Ask the Major, how the fuck should I know?" I said, looking at the Meathead and waving my hand at the other Humvee pulling up. There was a black civilian car carrying three guys in black suits that claimed they were with the Department of the Interior, but weren't fooling me. They moved wrong, had pistol rigs under their suits, and an almost insulting sneering. Either No Such Agency or the CIA, and my guess, from the arrogance and general assholishness, CIA mooks with little to no field experience and puffed up egos.

"What is this place?" Another meathead asked, throwing a rock at the door. The rock shattered with a tink that meant to me that the door probably wasn't steel.

"It's a hard site." I grumbled, taking a swig off my canteen and swishing it around before swallowing. My head was starting to pound, but the pill would take care of it. I'd been suffering migraines for the past two years and had finally gone in and gotten medication for it.

"What's a hard site?" The same meathead asked.

"It's a Cold War bunker." I answered, closing my eyes and reaching behind my glasses to pinch the bridge of my nose.

"More Cold War garbage." One of the privates sneered.

how would you like a punch in the mouth?

I ignored their bullshit and looked around, taking a good look at the terrain around us. Heavy woods on the mountainside, an old road made with green colored concrete, snow probably 500-700 vertical feet above us. And nothing for over 50 miles in any direction. I'd payed attention on the way up, checking the ambush points, sighting points, and everything else.

It isn't paranoia if something is really out to get you...

One thing that was missing was the carefully concealed piles of tailings that I'd seen at other sites, meaning either there wasn't any or they'd carted off the rubble from creating the site. This was the 8th site since 1991 I'd been to, but I'd learned on the 3rd one to take nothing for granted. No tailings could mean many things.

My money was on a natural cave system that had been expanded and carefully modified to serve the interests of the site.

I heard doors slam and turned around, seeing the Major, some more Meatheads, and the Suits walking toward us. The Major was looking around, looking confused.

"Sergeant Stillwater." He called out. I dropped my cigarette, toed it out, and headed over at a trot.

"Yes, sir?" I asked, stopping and snapping a salute. Used to be, you didn't salute in the field or when on mission, but things were different in the New Army.

"Are you sure that this is the right spot?" He asked me.

"Yes, sir." I answered.

One of the Suits sneered and I ignored him. He was the tough guy with the toothpick in his mouth all the time, who liked to shoulder his way through the privates when they were gathered up, taking a petty sense of power in his authority over them. He'd tried that shit on me in the hotel the first night and I'd knocked his ass down the stairs.

The Major motioned for us to gather around, and turned around to where one of the Meatheads were carrying a box of books which were little more than a 3 ring top binder full of leaflets. I recognized them immediately as code books, instantly reminding me of War Fighter tunnel code books.

Keep up the pressure! sounded in my mind and I squeezed the bridge of my nose again to force back the memories.

"All right, listen up." The Major was unnecessarily loud, and I stepped back twice and lit up another cigarette, closing my firing eye out of habit.

"We don't have much on this site, looks like records were lost or misplaced, probably through negligence or stupidity."

slap a hand across the mouth, thrust downward between the third and fourth ribs

I shook out another pill as he went on with his little speech about the incompetence that surrounded these hard sites and ground it into paste between my teeth. My nice plastic teeth. Earned in the service of the very department he was in shit talking.

Why the fuck couldn't I have had a real goddamn team, and not this bunch of fucking meatheads? The last sweep and clears I'd done had been with real teams, Air Force and Army both, removing the evidence of our old plan to keep the enemy at bay by strapping dynamite to both of us and dancing around holding his trigger while he held mine.

While I smoked my cigarette he told them that this was an underground bunker, in case the Russians dropped nuclear weapons on our skulls, but beyond that he had been unable to locate any other information on how big it was. He added that it couldn't be that big, since it was built into a mountain. I mentally sneered, he'd obviously never been to NORAD. Then he told them all about how we'd be looking for any sensitive data that might have been left behind.

"...we have Staff Sergeant Stillwater if that proves to be the case." The Major finished up. The Meathheads and the Suits all turned to look at me and I just stared at them without blinking, locking my teeth.

"Do you have anything to add to my briefing, Sergeant Stillwater?" The question was polite, cordial, but I didn't much care. I could hear the dislike in his voice, and saw his eyes flick to my right shoulder. He'd gotten angry when I'd refused to answer his questions about how I'd earned my combat patch, and the fact that I'd sliced it off my sleeve the day before right in front of him before dropping it in my pocket had pissed him off even more. It had been right after his lecture to me about minding my place and not back talking him, about how he'd been officer since 1988 and I better know my place around him.

I didn't care. Not about much any more outside of my wife, children, and my blood brother and sisters. I shook another pill out of the container and slowly chewed it up, staring at them.

"Well?" He asked.

"No, sir." I said, and ignored the flicker of satisfaction in his eyes while I kept grinding the pill down.

"All right, go open the door, Natchez." He ordered. I kept myself from smiling as the Meathead moved up to the door and looked around for a moment before turning back around.

"How, sir?" He asked.

I shook my head and walked to the vehicle, glancing at the codebooks. One of them was a copy of the Civil Defense manual, and I grabbed that one and started limping toward the door.

"Look for a keypad on the door." The Major shouted.

The top page of every manual had "R-12-2C-U-6" on the top of the page.

I started at the edge of the door while the Major yelled at the Meathead and counted off four paces, then turned and looked at the rock face in front of me.

The keypad was embedded in the rock, about six feet up, tilted down slightly. It was a heavy one, an older design, from the late 60's or early 70's. I reached out and held down the "A" key on the pad. The readout stayed blank.

I crouched down and felt in the rocks, finding the plug pretty quickly.

"Sergeant Stillwater." The Major called out.

"Yes, sir." I called back, standing up and looking at the box again. The top had a 528 at the beginning of the serial number, which meant that pulling the box open would fire off a goddamn anti-personnel charge into my face, so something as simple as opening the box to replace the goddamn batteries couldn't be done without access to the maintenance records, something we didn't have, so I wouldn't know which screw or screws would trigger the charge.

"What are you doing over there?" He asked. He was being cordial so I was willing to be.

My meds were kicking in, making the cool trickle down my spine that had become my constant companion warm up, and I felt like maybe me and him had just gotten off on the wrong foot.

"Checking out the keypad." I answered.

"Well, open the door, Sergeant." he snapped.

"Battery's dead, sir, we're going to have to charge the system." I said, standing up and rolling my shoulders.

"Just replace the battery." One of the Suits snapped.

"The keypad is rigged with a security charge, I open this box, it'll blow my fucking head off." I shouted back. "Just grab the damn jumper cables and bring the Humvee over here."

"Why?" The Major asked.

"The system was updated in the 1970's or so, it's got a 24 volt charging plug, which is pretty standard on all Civil Defense and military vehicles." I answered. "We'll have to plug it in and probably have to wait for the air cylinders to charge if it's an older system or our luck is for shit or the generators to fire if it's newer and our luck is good."

"Private Wilkins, take Humvee Six over there and do what Sergeant Stillwater tells you do." the Major sounded confused.

Sounded to me like someone hadn't read the technical specs on post Atlas/Titan sites.

I waited for the Meathead to drive the vehicle over, letting my eyes roam over the rock. In the fading light I couldn't see any obvious marks of the cliff face having been cut away and then replaced like in West Virginia, but that didn't mean anything.

I plugged in the jumper cable to the truck, then pulled the plastic cap off the charging plug and walked back to the vehicle. The Meathead stared at me through the window till I sighed and motioned at him to roll down the window.

"What?" He asked. I stared at him till he added "Sergeant."

"Rev the engine, don't let off the gas, keep the RPMs up above 4 Kay." I told him. He snorted and I walked back.

The engine roared and I plugged the cable into the socket. The engine sputtered and almost died but the private slammed on the gas and the engine settled down. I held down the "A" key and about five seconds letter the little red LED's, old 1970's ones, flashed "NOT READY" then faded out.

The Major walked up and stood next to me, staring at the readout. "How long will this take?"

"Depends on how bad off the system is." I told him, lighting another cigarette. "If we're lucky there's generators and the power from the Humvee will move the fuel into the system, then fire the generators. If we're unlucky the system will be from the 1950's, will use compressed air for the hydraulic system function, and it'll take about an hour or two for the cylinders charge."

"How big is this place?" He asked me, reaching out and toeing the cable. I noticed the cable kept the impression of his boot.

"Shit." I said, turning around and walking away.

"Sergeant Stillwater!" The Major yelled.

"We've got about 90 seconds before that cable catches on fucking fire." I told him, climbing into the back of the truck and pulling open the toolbox to grab the fire extinguisher.

"What?"

I grabbed it and jumped down, moving up and spraying the jumper cable. Something I'd learned from an Air Force Technical Sergeant a few sites back. Dropping the temp would lower the resistance which would help with the massive current draw the doors were pulling. From what I'd seen it would take awhile before it needed hit again, probably 10 or fifteen minutes, and the extinguisher would last for five to seven hits.

"Have one of the privates put their hand on the cable and tell us when it heats up." I suggested.

"Will it help?" He asked me.

"Hopefully." I answered. "We've gotta open that door, and we didn't bring enough C-4 to blow that door open."

"We didn't bring any C-4." He told me.

"We brought the demo kits." I answered, holding down the "A" again.

"Right. You told me they were for engineers." He said, sounding puzzled.

The systems flashed "NOT READY" at me again, but this time kept flashing.

"How big is this place?" He asked again.

"It's a Kilo site." I told him. "From what I've heard, they're massive." The readout changed to "CHARGING" and I smiled.

"How long can this take?" He asked.

"A couple of hours, or if the generators fire, five to ten minutes." I told him.

"I thought this was like an ammo bunker." The Major said.

I turned and looked at him in surprise. "Didn't you read the data sheets?" I asked.

"There weren't any on this site." He told me.

"Didn't you read it on any Kilo sites?" I asked. He shook his head. "Any of the sites?" He shook his head again. "What kind of drawdowns have you been doing?"

"Ammo sites, fuel dumps, stuff like that on bases closing down." He told me.

"Sir, do you mind some advice?" I offered.

"Like?" He asked.

"I'm a hard site specialist." I admitted.

"So?" He asked.

"What else do you know about me?" I asked.

"Nothing. General Harmon wouldn't tell me anything except you're an expert at this." He told me.

"I am." I answered. I took a chance. "Look, sir, I've survived in some of the worst conditions the Army has to offer, I've done shit you wouldn't believe, and I've survived." I turned and faced him. "Every. Fucking. Time."

The Major looked at me for a moment, then glanced over my shoulder. "It's flashing ready."

I spun around, scooping the codebook off the ground and ran up to it, pushing my thumb against the ENTER key. The screen went blank and I quickly punched in the Hexidecimal code on the left hand margin of the book and waited. When it started flashing a code I started flipping through the book as quickly as I could.

"Those codes are all too long." The Major said.

"See the 2C on there? That means that I ignore the last 2 of the code its giving me and the code I put in." I told him. "Got it." I punched it in, then held the Enter key.

"OPENING" the keypad told me.

Off in the darkness, to our left, the door opened with a crack that echoed off the mountain.

Out in the woods, somewhere above us, something gave a howl of rage.

"What was that?" The Major asked.

"Probably a coyote or wolf bitch with puppies warning us off." I answered. Still, something about it really raised the short hairs on the back of my neck. It sounded... wrong.

"We'll probably have to use nightvision." I told the Major. "The generators for the door won't power the lights."

"What will be inside?" He asked.

"I have no idea. I've never been to a Kilo Site before." I answered.

"Major, the door is opening." One of the Meatheads yelled.

I jogged over to the door and looked in.

Another door greeted us, with three logos on it. The Continuity of Government seal, the US Government seal, and the one that chilled my blood.

"548th Strategic Missile Command (MILCOM)" on the crest.