"Do you still miss them Sergeant Mick?" Kat asked.
Katrinka was sitting next to me in the back of the Gamagoat sharing dinner. Kat had come to us a couple months ago, the day I found out that my wife and daughter had been killed in the bombing of Boston. It was also just before the best mission we had ever done, and we considered her to be a lucky charm. She had shown up in a tattered and torn blouse and skirt with ratty sandals on her feet. Now she had a full set of BDU's, to include boots and a helmet. No one was willing to give her an M-16, but Lt. Nichols had taken her out and taught our 14-year-old orphan how to shoot a captured pistol. She proved to be a natural talent and now wore the gun holstered on her web belt.
I put my arm around her and gave her a big hug. "Yeah I do, but you help the pain just by being here hon."
I was interrupted by a crash and yelling coming from outside.
Damn, Stretch was at it again. I pushed Kat away from me and gave her the instruction, "guard duty". Kat didn't hesitate; she unsnapped the cover on her holster and jumped to the ground, headed for the perimeter.
Outside I saw what I expected to see. SSG Stretch, she had been promoted last month, and SP4 Everholz were standing opposite each other across a tipped over table. "Stretch! I need to see you please, Lani, clean up the mess and get ready to roll." When Debra looked to object I repeated to her, "over here Deb, now."
When she climbed up into the goat I dropped the back curtain for some privacy.
"It wasn't me Mickey, she..."
"I don't want to hear it Deb. You have been on a tear ever since we lost Jimmy. You know losing him wasn't your fault, so why are you going nuts on me? Are you that horny? Am I going to have to trade you to the other team so you can get your ashes hauled?"
I knew the indicators for her being frustrated. I had known Debra Stretch for a long time. She arrived in Turkey just after I did and I trained her on the systems there, then three years later she arrived at Devens as a student when I was teaching TACJAM. Her course was almost completed when we were tapped for the war. Deb was already in the 520th MI and volunteered to be my partner. While in Turkey she had started getting bitchy until she found a young 98C to ease her tensions. Jimmy Fallon had served that purpose here until a rabid dog had attacked him. I had killed the dog, but Jimmy's leg was pretty badly torn up and we had to call in a Medevac. Jimmy's replacement was SP4 Lani Everholz, a combination of Hawaiian and German. She was just over 5' high and built like a truck. Square face, broad shoulders, wide hips and thick legs. When she smiled she was very pretty, but she only smiled at women, except for Stretch lately.
"No! Please don't trade me away Mick. I'll be good, it's just that, well, you know."
"Yeah, I know Deb. What if I request a few days in garrison for maintenance on the track? The cooling unit is starting to have trouble."
"I guess that would be okay, but there is a better solution. You know why I was screwing Jimmy, don't you?"
"He was young and able to keep up with you?"
"Well yeah, that, but mainly it was because I couldn't have what I wanted. You Mick. I was trying to make you jealous. Instead you picked up a pretty little slave."
Whoa, two stunning revelations at once. "First off, Kat isn't a slave. We are helping her stay safe."
"Yeah Sarge, you're keeping the little girl safe by driving her around in the biggest fucking target on the battlefield. She idolizes you and would do anything you asked. Ask her to drop trou and her panties would be at her ankles and wet. After her rape I think that you are the only man who could ever get between her legs. We have talked, and it took some talking I can tell you, to make her realize that you weren't rejecting her, but that you were married and would be true to that oath. The problem is that now that oath has been broken through no fault of yours and you still haven't taken her. As far as she is concerned Mick, you own her."
"Damn it Stretch, this isn't the talk I thought we were going to have. Are you two blind? I'm old and fat, hell my daughter was almost Kat's age, and I top you by at least a decade. Hell yes I was jealous of Jimmy, I was jealous of Bob in Turkey too, especially when you took that vacation with him in England on the way home. But that was the simple jealousy of wanting something I could never have."
"You may be big, but I've seen how strong you are, and age means nothing to a woman Mick. I'd have propositioned you long ago, but your wife was always there in the background and you are such a loyal man that no one was going to get around your vow, and that just made me want you more."
"Alpha Victor five two, this is Romeo Juliet three seven, over."
The radio had saved me from having to answer that absurd statement.
"Romeo Juliet three seven this is Alpha Victor five two, go ahead, over."
Platoon HQ responded with a message. I broke out the codebook and saw that we were recalled to base, and it gave the coordinates for us to meet at.
"We'll talk about this later Stretch, let's go."
Taking down camp was never much work; we did not expect to stay in one place long so we were always ready to bug out.
For once I was glad of the noise of the track. I didn't have to talk to Katrinka, and she was still excited by riding in the rumbling vehicle.
When we got to the platoon ops, collocated with the Company and Battalion HQ's, I was surprised to see two TACJAM huts sitting there. Wolfelt's I was familiar with, but the second one had the name "Shamu" painted under the windshield and the markings for 1st Cavalry Division on the side. Unfortunately I thought I recognized the slight figure standing beside the system talking to Wolfelt.
I pulled up beside my goat and the figure turned around, damn, it was her. SFC Ann Christopher and I had never gotten along at all. Ann considered me to be sloppy, and a poor example to the students. She adored my boss though. Doug Brigham was her idea of a soldier and if they both hadn't already been married, there would have been sparks flying.
I got down out of the track and her face fell when she saw whom it was. I know that she had been expecting Doug and was probably very disappointed.
"Hello Sergeant First Class Christopher. I'm surprised to see you here."
"When I heard that there was somebody tearing up the sov's with a jammer, you are not what I expected Sergeant," she leaned further toward me, "First Class Hill? When did that happen? You sure weren't headed that way the last time I saw you."
"Just last month, the Colonel pinned it on him for merit Sergeant Christopher. Sergeant Hill has made jamming a viable weapon and that was why I requested you from 1st Cav." Captain Jameson, our company CO, had walked up behind Ann as she was talking. "They weren't getting any use at all from your system as it was and they were happy to trade you for a 60 KW generator. What happened to the other two systems you deployed with?"
"They were destroyed while on a mission sir. It was only our second mission and we had been transmitting for about 2 minutes when the rounds came in. I was moving to my next position when they went up or we would have been gone too."
"You were up for two minutes? Sergeant Wolfelt, how long was the last mission you did?"
"Almost twenty minutes from start to end sir."
"Twenty minutes?! What were you doing, bouncing the signal off a cliff or something?"
"No, we use a scalpel, not a sledgehammer. The most power I have had to put on target in the last three months is about 150 watts. By the time we got done with that mech infantry battalion last week they walked into an ambush without a clue. Mick has us doing things that drive the sov's loopy."
"We were doing the same thing you were to start with," Cpt Jameson said, "that's how we lost Brigham and his team. Sergeant Hill, I believe that Lieutenant Nichols has a surprise for you on the other side of this hut."
I nodded to Captain Jameson and SFC Christopher and stepped by them to go around the track. On the other side was a jeep with trailer, and judging by the 1st Cav patches on them they belonged to Shamu. Lt. Nichols was standing beside the jeep looking in to where someone was messing with the radios mounted behind the driver.
"Hey LT, what have you got for me ma'am?" I took a look inside the jeep and saw Cyrillic letters on the radio the tech was working on. "Is that what I think it is?"
"You got it Sarge, you have been bugging me for months to get you a way to monitor your targets without using your system. Do you think this will work? We took them off that mech infrantry group you deposited in our lap last week. They even come with manuals. We have one for each of you, we'll install yours next."
"Oh yeah, this is what I'm talking about. Stretch can get hours of tape on each of the ops and we'll be able to turn them around backwards. If I can get Ann with the program we should be able to keep a scam going for half an hour or so. They had the right idea to have one unit moving while the other two jammed, we just have to get her to cut the power down." I hadn't realized that Kat was behind me when I heard, "Silly sobaka" from her.
"Now Kat, be nice. Sergeant Christopher has never liked me much, but she is a soldier and the mission comes first. She has date of rank on me Lieutenant, is that likely to be a problem?"
"If she can't work for you as an E-7 we'll bust her down a grade or replace her Mickey. Ever since you took over we are the darlings of the Division and what you need you get. Sergeant Christopher will adapt or else. Now let's go on over to your goat and put the new radio in it. Speaking of the goat, would you like to trade it for a hummer? We have a couple spares available."
"No thanks LT, I've gotten used to the beast and it never gets too far ahead of the track like a hummer would. Stretch might take off and leave me if I got her something fast enough."
"Deb only leave if you gonna follow Sgt Mick. You have to kick her to get her away."
"That's enough of that Kat, we have work to do. Are the powers that be planning a mission for us LT?"
"Not today, but within the week there is going to be a big push through the south sector of the front and they are going to want support from you. What I want you to do now is get together with your new crew and get them on the same sheet of music you and Staff Sergeant Wolfelt are using. I have no intention of screwing around with success."
The tech was finished with the jeep by now and grabbed his tools and headed over to the goat. We followed along and saw the Captain leaving as we arrived. Lani was coming over from the analysis section then as well. Her job whenever we got to garrison was to get as much info from the other 98C's as she could. They kept a notebook for her and SP4 Horning on team 3 updated at all times now. Before being assigned to us after Jimmy's accident she had been responsible for keeping the notebook up to date. I had reamed her out pretty good one time and from then on we got the best treatment she could manage. Now she made sure that her replacement didn't slack off on her.
"Got some good shit here Sarge, and they told me that we are going to be able to monitor targets ourselves. Is that right?"
"Right as rain Lani, we are getting our very own high quality Russian radios complete with manuals. LT says they took them off that mech infantry unit."
"Cool beans." She then turned to look at SFC Christopher, "ops says you have been spouting shit about Sergeant Hill. Care to back any of it up?"
"Take it easy Everholz." I turned to Sergeant Christopher, "why don't you introduce me to your team Sergeant? Have you worked together for very long?"
"My second is Staff Sergeant Fleming. Bill and I have only been together since we dug this beast out of POMCOS*. He is the Russian speaker; I was working with a Korean intercept team when the first shirt saw the damn K3 on my MOS file. Just like your folks, they didn't have a TACJAM at Ft. Hood and nobody knew how to work one. I got drafted and I had to teach Bill enough to get by. I don't have a 98C; I was told that you folks would supply me with one. Sgt Nelson over there just came along to help drive, and take the 60 KW back. I see that you have an extra member on your team, getting them a little young aren't you Mickey?"
I had to hold Kat back just then, Lani looked like she wanted trouble too. "This is Katrinka Pushkin Ann, she came to us for help when the farm she was living on was destroyed along with all of her family. She kind of adopted us and we haven't had the heart to send her away. It's always helpful to have another set of eyes to watch for trouble in the remote sites we tend to live in." I looked over at Everholz, "Do you know of anyone in the analysis section that would work with the new team two Lani?"
Lani looked at Ann for a moment, "Johnson has been making noise about getting out of garrison. I was thinking about trading places with him for a while," she gave a sideways glance at Stretch, "he's pretty sharp and should work well enough with her. You want me to get him?"
"I trust your judgment Lani, go ahead and I'll clear it with the CO." I turned to Ann, "let's go have some lunch and we can do some planning when they join us Ann."
*POMCOS: Prepositioned Ordinance and Military Combat Operational Supplies. (may or may not be correct words, best I could come up with) Vast warehouses in Germany, which were loaded with equipment, weapons, vehicles, and ammo for the first American units to arrive into a European war. Set up during the cold war and constantly restocked and perishable items rotated. There may be TACJAM systems in there, but I doubt it. The idea fit the story, so I used it.