Somewhere in the undiscovered country between reality and dreams I flew, the snowcapped peaks and granite faces flitting past in a monotony of grandeur. Cascading waterfalls, streams, and countless miles of untouched green swept by below. The roar of the engine, the throb of the rotors, while loud at first, became a soothing lullaby, dulling me into a lethargy in which the beauty I saw was endless and normal until I did not really see the way the sun reflected against the pristine snow. I was frantic to find a nuclear weapon capable of killing the world, yet I was so exhausted I had to fight to appreciate the little things, to acknowledge the beauty I beheld, to savor it.
In the end, my angst and appreciation both lost out to fatigue. It was like offshore fishing with my father. When I was a child, there was no greater hope or thrill in me than the prospect of going off shore with my dad to catch dolphin, sailfish, tuna or marlin, and the nights before those kinds of trips, I could not sleep, thrumming with anticipation. Once we were out into the Gulf Stream, though, the boat droning steadily, the bow gently rising and falling, the waves slapping the hull, the bilge whirring as we trolled across the trackless blue with the sun hot on my back and the subtle changes in the pitch of the engine as it labored up one wave and then down another, my four in the morning enthusiasm would dissipate. Every time, at some point in the late morning, I would sleep.
We were trolling to save the world, and I dozed.
*
Skimming the treetops, we crossed over Yellowstone Lake. The mountains to our north and east were dark blue, with snow bright and white upon the high ridges and peaks. The lake beneath us was a mirror reflecting the mountains and the crisp morning sky, so perfect it was difficult to distinguish where the lake ended and the sky began.
The shore was dotted with gray plumes of steam from vents and hot springs, and there were places where stands of trees had withered and died under the heat and gases spewing into the air. The open side of the Black Hawk gave me a view of a small herd of bison, brown dots against the green grasslands and tall ponderosa pines.
Hawk's son Arthur was our pilot, and he announced that we were approaching the second target area of the day. Gonzo was on the door gun across from me, and Chewy was at my side, feigning sleep.
I wondered what it would look like if the volcano erupted, how many seconds I would live before the shockwave hit.
“Two minutes,” Arthur said.
I checked my weapon, an M-4 carbine with a medium range scope and an under barrel grenade launcher.
The helicopter touched down about a mile north of the lake in a small grassy clearing. Gonzo was out first and I was right behind him. The helicopter lifted off and we made for the tree line.
According to our map, the mine was located over the next ridge, a gold mine abandoned in the late eighteen hundreds that did not even appear on all of the survey maps. Heimowitz had chosen it partly for that reason.
Our ten-man assault team, plus Drew, moved fast into the woods and we began to ascend the slope ahead. We walked through a stand of birch trees with white peeling bark. The ground was covered with small plants and ferns and was easy to walk over. We stalked uphill, spread out and abreast of one another.
Drew Billings, the man we had with us to disarm any weapons we might discover, had experience in dismantling warheads with the Alliance, but he was as loud as a moose in rut as he crashed through the woods. I had to stop him time and time again at the first site, and I ended up instructing him to stay right behind me, to step only where I stepped. Still, he managed to make more noise than I would have thought possible, and I cringed at every snapping branch and cracking leaf.
When we reached the top, we hit our bellies and crawled. The descending slope on other side was sparsely treed, a gentle half mile of open green that ended in a small stream bordered by dense willows and reeds. Beyond that, somewhere less than a mile from where we lay, the mine was concealed in brush and trees that hugged the base of a mountain.
I scanned the area with binoculars. I could see no sign of human activity, no evidence that anyone had ever been there.
“What do you think?” I said to Gonzo. “Looks like another bust.” We were looking for areas of disturbed ground, heavy equipment, and a large helicopter.
“Let's get a closer look, but I think you're right.” Gonzo turned and motioned to two of the men. “Hump it downhill. Get a visual on the mine opening. It should be boarded up. Pop smoke when you're satisfied.”
The two men, cammo paint striped on their faces in green and black, nodded and took off down the hill. I watched their progress through my binoculars as they crossed the stream, then climbed uphill and eventually vanished into the trees. Fifteen minutes later, they appeared, and orange smoke spilled out of a canister.
“Okay,” I said. “Call for extraction. On the smoke.”
“Copy that,” Gonzo said. He hailed Arthur, who had touched down nearby.
We hiked down the open hillside through waist high grass. I heard the thrum of the helicopter behind us as it crested the rise and dipped toward the valley floor. A large bull moose, startled by the sound, burst from the willows and cantered away.
Knee deep in the icy mountain stream I heard explosions I could not see. The tangle of willows on the opposite bank obstructed my view. I surged ahead, the current swift and tugging at me as I stepped on slick rocks. There was an intense volley of small arms fire.
A whine then, and there was the screech of metal twisting, the thump of rotor blades hitting the earth, and then pieces of metal whipping through the air. An entire blade careened over my head, spinning wildly into the hillside we had just departed. A whoosh of a rocket propelled grenade, followed by another explosion. The willows and reeds bent with the shockwave, and I felt heat on my face as I reached the opposite shore. I looked over my shoulder and saw my men behind and beside me. I leopard crawled onto the shore, the ground damp and yielding against my chest as I moved forward, propelling myself with elbows, feet and knees.
The wind blew the smoke toward us, black and foul, and the rounds in the aircraft began to go off, ignited by the intense heat, and then there was the crack and pop of the fire itself, the rushing of air into it to feed the hungry flames.
I crawled ahead, hugging a shallow tributary to the stream we had crossed, thick grasses along the edges. Fifty yards away the helicopter burned, consumed in a firestorm, a skeletal metal husk lying on its side. Arthur could not have survived.
I heard whoops of victory from beyond the wreckage. Gonzo was at my elbow.
“Call in for reinforcements,” I said. “We can't afford to wait, but at least our guys will know.”
We had uphill open ground before us, and the enemy would have the cover of trees at the base of the mountain. I hoped they would assume they had neutralized the entire threat, that when they hit the helicopter, they killed our entire team.
I raised my arm and made a circular motion, and my team regrouped on me. Drew Billings, our disarming specialist, looked like he was about to wet himself.
“Hey,” I hissed. “Get it together. I need you to be on task. You're the most important person on this team.”
Drew mumbled something incoherent. I knew he had been all over the west as part of the Alliance's disarmament team, but he had never been in combat. He wore a .357 revolver in a shoulder holster, his only weapon, but I had no faith in his ability to use it.
“Stay put,” I said to him. “Not a sound. When it's time, I'll send for you.” He nodded miserably.
“Gonzo? Any luck on the horn?”
“Negative. Mountains.”
“Leave the radio with Drew. If we don't make it, maybe he can call in for help.”
Gonzo handed Drew his radio wordlessly. My men were gathered around me, bellies in the mud.
I looked at Gonzo. “We split into three teams, you on the right, Chewy in the middle, me on the left. Chewy will open up with the SAW to provide suppressing fire. We hit them from the flanks.”
“Yes sir,” Gonzo said.
“All right,” I said. “Chewy, give us three minutes to get into position, then move up, if you can. If the enemy is poking around the chopper like I think they are, don't move, hit 'em from cover.” He nodded, steel in his eyes, tight braids in his long beard.
“Maybe some .203s,” I said. “Everybody, it goes without saying, pick your targets and watch your spacing. No friendly fire. After it's over, we head for the mine. Whoever gets there first pops smoke, then wait. Understood?” The men nodded. “Questions?” There were none.
*
I left the safety of the shallow bank and crawled through the grass, which was tall enough to provide limited cover. Behind me was Lutz Larson, known to most as 'The Swede,' a tall blond man from Minnesota with Viking roots and spirit, and behind him was Veejay Patel, born in Delhi and raised in California, a diminutive, dark skinned man who was as taciturn in equal measure to Lutz's overt aggressiveness and tendency toward the bombastic. They were best friends, an unlikely pair with a lifetime of combat experience. We crept along parallel to the mountain. I checked my watch, put up one finger. Lutz and Veejay gave quick nods.
I held up a closed fist, indicating that they should hold position, and I changed direction and crawled directly toward the tree line, which I could not see because of the incline.
The SAW let loose a quick burst, then another. I rose to a crouch and sighted uphill and to my right. The chopper burned and seven or eight enemy soldiers, ridiculous in black uniforms, were in a semi-circle around the dead helicopter, but the men were moving, diving, and falling as Chewy fired into their midst. I put three into the back of a man as he turned, a triangle of roses blossoming on his back as he twisted to the ground.
I fired an M-203 grenade round from my under barrel launcher into the ground just behind the cluster of enemy soldiers, earth and smoke erupting in the air, and another grenade hit, fired from one of my other men. I was sprinting uphill then, while Chewy continued to fire the M-249.
I ran as fast as I could up the hill, fully exposed, toward trees more than fifty yards away, my heart hammering in my chest, every breath loud in my ears, the taste of an old penny in my mouth, and my hands sweaty on my weapon. The raw terror in me was mingling with purpose and rage, and succumbing to the anger. And then, as there often was at moments like that, this sense of invulnerability, intoxicating and powerful, and the sharp smell of propellant on the air fueled me.
There is a kind of exultation in it, where you transcend reality in your mind, for you must, death hurtling toward you at supersonic speed, pointed lead missiles whose only purpose is to rend and tear through flesh. If you survive this, there is the relief with every measurable moment that combines with indignation at the idea that someone is trying to kill you; the anger then, and as you defend yourself, draw blood and feel that satisfaction, that vindication, at watching your foe fall, there is a special kind of glory. In that second, there is no guilt, for there is a purity of living encapsulated in it, a primal scream of life and death that men seem to yearn for, to walk towards, and thus find ways to justify. It has been called many things, that feeling of euphoria and the addictive flood of aggression, for battle lust is in us and a part of us, and it is a part of myself I will never truly understand. I do know it frightens me.
How, as a Christian, can I reconcile the profound gratification I felt as I aimed at a man in black, and squeezed the trigger, watching him cease to be? One careful bullet through center mass, then another through his brain, my breathing slow and steady, the buck of the rifle against my shoulder noticeable only in the way it affected my aim for the next shot, that terrible part of me that was smiling in between each careful squeeze.
In the middle of it, things happen too fast to really be conscious of your thoughts, but they are there nonetheless, and later, when you think about these things, you see it, slow it down and replay the scene with all of the smells and sounds and emotions. As it unfolds, you follow your training; your brothers are under fire so you move and shoot and try to survive, but that feeling you felt right then, as you hold another man's life in your hands while he tries to kill you or your brothers, is incandescent and the memory remains forever. It is a terrible, guilty thing, later on. Not what you did, but how you felt about it, even if only for a moment.
Because later on, you realize in some small reptilian part of your brain, maybe you liked it.
Full of blood lust, Chewy charged up the hill, firing from the hip, followed by two of our men. The last enemy standing fell under the hail of lead.
We turned uphill to attempt to locate the mine.