January 29, 2011
Before I left FOB Forest, Sully gave me this journal. He said it was a good coping mechanism-for the whole 'transportation to a new world' shit. He ain't wrong, but it'd definitely be nice to just have my story somewhere, you know? Besides, I could make this a book one day when this is all over. Millions of bucks, easy.
We've been in Richmond, Indiana only a day, Mac's been setting up a fallback point in case our assassination mission goes south. There're about two platoons worth of rebels around the area as backup. He had us hoof it from Forest to here, which took about a month. I learned a lot from him on the way; he's been in the SAS for years. He won't tell me how long he's served with them (probably doesn't want to admit he's old), but I'd guess around two decades. Bare minimum.
But it don't matter how old he is, he knows what he's doing. I've seen him take out two men 600 yards away with one shot. The dude's a prodigy in the art of marksmanship. He's been teaching me how to be a sniper; not a frontline marksman, but a miles-behind-enemy-lines sniper. How to camouflage your rifle, how to make a ghillie suit, how to gauge wind without instruments, how to hit a human head over a mile away-he's taught it to me in the rotting husks of abandoned towns from Point A to B.
He says that Richmond was the center of some kind of nuclear power plant prototype in '84, but it malfunctioned somehow while the APC performed a safety test in '01. 50,000 people were evacuated, 1,000 of those dead in the weeks that followed. Hasn't been inhabited by humans since then. Radiation is still everywhere, hopefully we'll avoid the big pockets.
Almost exactly like Pripyat. If you didn't count the fact that the ARA blew the top off the power plant a few days after everyone left. Well, everyone except the Army. From what I've been told, it's gonna be a preview of the nuclear post-apocalypse.
We were given experimental anti-radiation pills for this operation by Montagne. The label is in a language I can't even identify. I think Polish. I don't want to know where she got it from.
We've already set up a few vantage points in the different places this arms deal might take place. Mac said shoot to kill. This Greg Pason fucker won't know what hit him.
"Oi, Jumpa!" John heard outside of his camouflaged blanket. He looked up to the blackness and heard rustling. "Patrol's coming in, we leave in 1." He nodded and looked back down to the journal he had propped up between his legs, a pencil in one hand and a flashlight in the other.
He keeps on calling me Jumper too, because I jumped dimensions. I've always heard that jet pilots don't choose their call signs, they get chosen for them. Special forces must be the same way. I better not complain, cause I heard you get a worst one if you do.
He felt tapping on his head.
"Mission is a go," Macmillan said. John wordlessly nodded, getting up onto his knees and throwing off his camp blanket. He put his things into his backpack-covered in moss and tall grass-and threw it over his shoulders. He picked up his rifle-a heavily camoflauged M110 rifle- from the ground and pulled back the receiver and got up to a knee. He saw Macmillan crouched behind a fallen tree trunk, his M21 in his arms.
"Get down!" He exclaimed, falling down to his belly. John quickly followed suit, watching as a beam of light washed over the spot where his torso just was.
"I don't understand why we're out here," Someone said. The speaker peered over the tree trunk, and Jihn caught a glimpse of a Russian-made helmet on top of a black man's head. He swivels his light down, and John closed his eyes so they wouldn't gleem and twitch if they were caught in the spotlight. "Trudging through a forest like a couple of fuckin' retarded hunters."
"Trudy said she saw somethin' out 'ere," Another man said with a heavy Bostonian accent, "And Pason don't want any nasty supises, kapeesh?"
"Yeah, yeah," He grumbled, turning away from their position. He put away the flashlight and pressed a button on the radio on his shoulder. "Captain, this is Peterson, Sector 2 is clear. Tell Trudy she's seeing ghosts."
"Goddamn right," MacMillan mumbled, John able to hear him from the radio in his ear. He smirked under his earth-colored mask. He raised a grass-covered arm and gestured behind him, to John's left. "Alright, let's get a move on." He spun on his heel and began crouch walking around the log, waiting for John to follow.
John copied his crouch walk, staying close to Macmillan's back as they went down the small hill and into the outskirts of a town.
The streets were covered in various kinds of overgrowth, while the few homes around were shrouded in moss and vines. Several long vines were shooting through broken windows, the shards covering the ground.
John crouched down behind a collapsed one-story house, Macmillan doing the same in front of him. He poked his head around the corner for a moment, pulling it back a moment later.
"Patrol ahead," He whispered, indicating his eyes with two fingers and pointing them around the corner, "Three men, one has a dog."
"Rog'," John whispered. He peered behind him and into the large hole in the wall of the house. "Going in closer for a better look." He turned around and slowly climbed through the hole, into the small living room. He saw an old Sony television on a small but sturdy table facing a couch eaten through by mice, it's insides an incubator for bedbugs and cockroaches.
He pointed his rifle in the opening in a curtain of vines covering a shattered window, peering into the 10x scope. He saw, down the road, three armed men in average paramilitary wear; Harnesses and vests over hunter's jackets and camo tops, balaclavas covering their faces, and AKs cradled in their arms. John noted how mechanical the men's behavior was, their heads turning to look at their surroundings at the same time every few seconds. Their posture-as well as the manner they held their fire arms-was professional, much more than their garb suggested.
"Think these guys are professionals," John said over the radio.
"Aye," Mac whispered in a low voice. John recognized it as the man who took over his body when he was about to murder someone. Or multiple someones.
"SS?" His answer came as the neck of the German shepherd exploded in red in quick succession with his handler. The two others were quickly felled with a chest and headshot from John. Not a single shot echoed across the area.
"Check the bodies," Mac ordered before getting up from his position in a patch of long grass in the middle of the street to do it himself.
John quickly moved out of his position from the front door frame. The jogged over to the man he felled with a bullet to the heart, his Kevlar vest having done nothing to stop the rifle round. He felt for the man's pockets, eventually pulling out a wallet from his pants. His brow furrowed as he pulled a pair of dog tags out of the wallet, reading the words inscribed in the pieces of steel.
"It's in Russian," He muttered loud enough for Mac to hear. He tossed it over his shoulder and tore off the man's balaclava. He turned his head to look for any tattoos on his neck, finding a red star with a hammer and sickle on the left side of his neck.
"Un-bloody-fokkin-believable," Macmillan whispered, finding the same thing on the man he was checking over. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a handheld satellite radio.
"Baseplate, this is Bravo Six," He said, distress in his voice. John unconsciously gripped his weapon tighter. "Do you read? Over."
"Baseplate to Bravo Six, you better a damn good reason to break radio silence, over." John noted that the voice had more of an English accent than the Scottish one he'd become accustomed to.
"Baseplate, we confirm that Spetsnaz operators are acting as paramilitary security for the arms deal." There was a pause.
"Bravo Six, transmit your distress signal when the situation goes bad; We're gonna send in the cavalry to get you out of there. If the Russians are involved in this, there's no telling what's going to happen, and we can't risk you being discovered when the smoke clears. If could start a war we aren't prepared for with half the damn world."
"Bravo Six copies all, out." He put away the radio and grabbed his rifle. "Stay frosty, Jumpa; We just entered the realm of extreme unpredictability."
John kicked in the door of the church, walking in quickly with Macmillan watching his back across the street. He raised his rifle and checked the rafters for any kind of surveillance cameras or hidden Russian ninjas. He checked both sides of the sanctuary and lowered his gaze back to his eye-level, taking a moment to marvel at the sad beauty of the damaged stained glass picture of Jesus Christ.
His concentration was broken when a body fell in front of him from the ceiling. He jumped and accidently fired his rifle, the silenced bullet hitting the dead body in the stomach.
"Alright there, Jumpa?" Macmillan asked over the radio. John grimaced underneath his mask, looking upwards to where the body had fallen from. He saw that the steeple had had turned into a heavily fortified-and hidden-sniper's nest, one that he had easily missed.
"Just scared the piss outta me, that's all," He reported, "The church's clear, by the way." Macmillan scoffed.
"Aye," He said, walking inside after dashing across the street, "Now it is." He kicked the body for emphasis, stepping over it and making his way to the back door. He hugged the wall between a broken window and the metal door, which was hanging desperately on only one hinge. John took position by the window. He peered out of it.
"We got about...300 meters of high grass from here to downtown," He reported, "If we can make it through there and over the highway, we can slip into downtown and set up a nest." Macmillan looked over his shoulder and gestured to his head, which was covered in a shroud of shrubbery.
"Aye, that's why I had us pack these," He commented. He turned his head back to the door and slowly opened it. The door cracked open, then fell off the hinge and slammed into the rocky ground with a loud thud. Macmillan stared at the fallen door for a moment before shrugging.
"Ah well," He muttered, hopping out of the door frame with a small crunch into the rocky ground a few feet below them, "Let's go." He made a dash to the grass a dozen yards away. John quickly did the same after checking to see if the coast was clear.
He dropped to his stomach in the tall grass right beside Macmillan. He paused, unsure of what to do, when Macmillan began slowly commando-crawling forward, his M21 tucked comfortably in his arms. He quickly copied the technique, unsure how long it would take them to get to the highway at their pace.
The crawl took the pair two hours, where they stopped at the edge of the grass right beside the highway, which John identified by a fallen sign as US Route 40. He grabbed Macmillan's arm when he began getting up. He was unable to voice his question when the reason zoomed across the road.
Three Humvees, two of the troop carrier variation and one with a .50 caliber machine gun on top. The gun was manned by a man garbed in the uniform of the APC Army. Next came two BTR-90s, with auto cannons placed on the top turrets. Macmillan's breath hitched as the last vehicle rumbled down the road, while John's heart stopped.
It was a T-90, with its large black bulk silhouetting against the setting sun. Its large 120mm cannon stuck out of its turret like a spike, almost acting like a pinnochio nose for the two glowing sensors on either side of it, looking like demented eyes.
"You gonna radio that in, sir?" John asked. Mac shook his head as they waited for any other vehicles.
"Aye, later," He muttered, getting up to a knee. He tapped John on the head and began sprinting to and across the highway. John cursed under his breath and got up quickly to follow him, careful not to slip in the small puddles in the pavement.
He dropped to a crouch behind Macmillan, keeping an eye on the road behind and path behind them. Mac was watching something through a pair of binoculars.
"Where to next, sir?" He asked, gripping his weapon nervously. A bad feeling suddenly seeped into his bones. Mac lowered his binoculars and nudged John with them.
John turned around and gasped softly. The sight of the city was terrifying, in a way. The lone skyscraper-about sixty stories high-had been cut in half, the top embedded in the ground like a dart and the sides arching down to the ground like a peeled banana. Mac whistled slowly.
"You Americans knew how to blow shit up," He commented. John took the binoculars and held them up to his eyes. He scanned the ruins until he saw a tattered American flag sticking out of a pile of rubble flying pitifully in a small breeze.
"Yeah," He muttered, "'Knew.'"
"Don't 'ou dare provoke it," Mac said, one hand on his gun and the other on John's chest. A few yards in front of them was a pack of wild dog, most of their fur gone in patches and stomached shrunk from starvation, chow down on a half eaten body of an APC soldier. One of the mongrels spit out a piece of the man's uniform before tearing a chunk of meat out of his bicep.
"Fuck that's disgusting," John let out as they slowly walked around them, making sure to not even look at them.
"Circle of life, lad," Mac told him as they ducked into the next building's doorway, the threat of the dogs now gone.
They creeped through several hallways, old propaganda posters made by the Commonwealth's Ministry of Morale peeling on the walls, speaking of building a great new country from the rubble of America. The bland construction and the disabled security cameras at around every corner told the two that the building was built after the Dissolution.
They snuck into another doorway, the exit to the large building. MacMillan led John, rifles and eyes both forward.
"Buildin' up ahead with a good vantage point of the deal," Mac said taking a knee and pulling out the container of the anti-rad pills. He pulled out his canteen and took one, handing the pills to John. "Keep it up, this's where the mission always goes wrong." They both stood up and John let his eyes wander to the right some, and it stopped him dead in his tracks.
In front of him was one of the large reactor domes, top cracked apart and thrown off by the ARA explosive. The damage of the blast that released the atomic energy barely a decade ago was still prominent. He saw the husks of dead APC men and women in the overgrown courtyard in front of the reactor, bones showing through rips in their MOPP gear.
He could almost hear the whispers of the dead, as if they're grisly irradiated deaths kept their bitter souls rooted to the earth for all eternity.
"Holy shit," He whispered, awe and terror rooting him in place. Mac turned around and saw John standing like a fool in the large radiation pocket. He got close enough to punch him in the shoulder.
"We're in ah pocket, ya dumbarse!" He exclaimed, "Let's go!" John shook his head, nodded and ran behind Mac as they both bolted out of the radiation pocket.
They stopped as they reached the building, breathing heavy but fine. John walked in first, sweeping the lobby as Mac closed the door behind them.
"One helluva way to test those pills," He said as he regained his breath. He turned around and poked John hard in the chest. "Don't let me catchin' ya doing somethin' stupid like tha' again, understood?" John nodded solemnly.
"yessir, sorry sir," He apologized, "Just...shook me, is all." Mac shrugged, checking to see if the coast one more time.
"It's war, lad," He said, "Both sides do some pretty nasty shit." John nodded, remembering bits and pieces from Afghanistan.
"I know that, just..." He sighed, making Mac stop as he was going up the stairs.
"I starting to wonder if there are good guys in this war."
John had wandered why Macmillan's pack was heavier than his. His answer came when he pulled out his backpack from underneath a web of shrubbery and leaves, a large part of a anti-materiel rifle strapped to the side. Unpacking, he pulled out the rest of the rifle, revealing it to be an M107.
"Jesus, sir," John, "You sniping a tank?" Mac shook his head.
"Just gotta make sure the fucka we're here to kill stays dead," He replied, loading the gun with a hefty magazine. He loaded a bullet in the chamber, and set up the tripod. He rested it on a piece of fallen concrete in front of a large hole in a wall facing a large courtyard a mile away from them. He laid down in the ground and patted the ground beside him, indicting to John that he should lay there.
"Now what?" John asked, laying belly down on the dirty concrete floor. Mac handed him a pair of binoculars while he took the rifle with its high powered scope.
"Now," Mac let out with a sigh, "We wait."
"How long?" Mac shrugged, uncovering a watch on his wrist amid the foliage and tapping it a few times.
"Eh, a couple-a days." Mac took off the shroud covering his face, and flashed John a shit-eating grin. John took off his own shroud and glanced back.
In the months since John had been placed under Mac's field command, he felt that he had begun to learn some of the Scotsman's expressions. This one meant that he had an amusing thought, bouncing in-between the methods of murder tucked inside his mind. 'Hopefully to help pass the time,' John thought.
"So, who's the latest lady to see yer cock?"
Richmond Nuclear Disaster: During the last few years of the United States' existence, the government began funding long lasting infastructure projects in hopes of benefiting the states that would come after it in case of complete collapse. One of the stages of the project was the construction of a dozen nuclear power plants in cities with heavy industry and population of over 50,000, the cities chosen by a raffle. Richmond, Indiana was home to a munitions factory that directly supplied the US Army, as well as several civilian manufacturing plants. The construction was almost completed when the government collapsed.
The APC took over the final touches and managed it when it was completed, expanding the industry in the city. In 2001, the plant malfunctioned during a safety test. A large contingent of APC Army personnel were deployed to oversee the evacuations of the people as radiation blew westward, contaminating Midwestern crop fields and indirectly causing a continent-wide famine due to the irradiated food.
Once most of the civilian population was gone, the ARA staged an attack on the city, jhoping to destroy a significant portion of the APC military. They planted large military-grade explosives in the plant and detonated them. The explosion killed everything within the city with the force of a small nuclear bomb, and contaminated the downtown area with deadly radiation. Since then, the area has beeen used for APC black ops training and criminal activities, including kidnapping and weapon dealing.
Spetsnaz: The special forces of the Soviet Union, the Spetsnaz are among the premier operators on the planet. They are deployed all across the world with varying degrees of public knowledge to further the Kremlin's goals of a whole world united under communism. They are equipped with the best the communist world has to offer, and are usually the field testers for new weapons-platforms.
Today, there are an unusually high amount of Spetsnaz operators deployed to North America. While it is said by the Russian government that most are there to "Train the American Communists to spread peace and Marxism throughout the land", it is speculated by British and American military strategists that they are stirring the pot that is the old US. What they would gain from it, they cannot determine.