The Theater
0732 EST
"This is gonna suck," mutter Ryckmen softly. The layout of the District Union Arena before him was dangerously incomplete, based off scavenged fliers, a few video clips still playable on portable devices, and recollections of the few surviving sports fans who'd been there more than once in their lives. One of Sawyer's recovery teams had tried to find the building blueprints, but discovered the records office had been completely burned out. Worse, the plans hadn't been digitized, which meant ISAC couldn't pull them up for inspection.
"Fog of war, Lowell," Sawyer said philosophically, putting a tin cup of coffee next to his elbow. "We're not guaranteed to know the terrain all the time."
Ryckmen stuck his tongue out at her. "You do know that was one of my many jobs in the 10th Mountain, right? Finding out the terrain so the rest of the guys would know what they were getting into before the shooting started?"
"Yeah, yeah. Probably went uphill both ways in the snow, too."
"Well, there was that one job..." Ryckmen began, causing Sawyer to laugh.
"It's good to see you finding the humor in things again, snake."
"Let's not get too ahead out of ourselves, Oddball," said Ryckmen in a gently warning tone. "I'm not likely to start showing up at open mic nights around here."
"You stewing about the Hyenas or something else?"
"You know the something else."
Sawyer sighed softly, drinking from her own coffee cup. "Is Peace wrong?"
"I want him to be wrong!" Ryckmen snarled, smashing his hand against the map table, sloshing some of the coffee. "Jesus, Odessa, everything has fallen apart. I am sick and frigging tired of watching it all crumble in front of me. I get it. We're in this 'for the duration.' But I don't think anybody anticipated 'the duration' lasting this long. This isn't some nice neat little war against a foreign threat we can rally around. This isn't even like the Civil War with Yanks and Rebs sharing food and stories between battles. The brass certainly didn't anticipate the lunatics like Joe Ferro and Emeline Shaw coming out of the woodwork, and probably figured full bore traitors like Charles Bliss and Antwon Ridgeway would have been put up against the wall sooner rather than later." He shook his head slowly. "It's getting harder and harder for me to keep the faith, Odessa. And right now, I gotta believe Ellis is the President and exactly that much is right with the world. Because anything else is likely to get me, Peace, and everybody else killed." A hard, almost pitiless, expression came over Ryckmen's face. "I've lost too many people already because of this debacle. And I'm not going to be taking any unwarranted risks with the people I've got left."
"Nobody's asking you to, Lowell, at least not outside of yourself. But be honest. How many times have we been harmed by the people supposedly on our side? How many ops have been blown because some dumb bastard couldn't maintain basic trigger discipline? To say nothing of the suits and REMFs throwing bureaucratic grit in the gears? Lowell, you really do have to worry more about your friends than you do your enemies."
"Why do you think I'm so frustrated with Paxton?" Ryckmen growled softly, causing Sawyer's eyebrows to shoot up.
"I'm gonna pretend for a moment you did not just say that," she said coldly. "There's friends and then there's real friends. Buddies, comrades, the guys we trust out on the sharp end with our lives. Has Peace done anything to make you think he's trying, even unintentionally, to screw you?"
"The last week or two, he's been seriously damaging my normally Zen-like calm, Odessa. And that is a bad idea. Particularly with us gearing up to put the other factions out of business for good. Do you really want to see me distracted in the middle of a firefight?"
"No, I don't, and I ought to slap you silly for even hinting I might. But he's doing his job, same as you are, Lowell. He has a responsibility to consider the information he has available to him and develop tactical, operational, and strategic analyses from that information. No matter how personally painful it might be. And you know that. So what is it about him doing his job that has you scared so damned much?"
Ryckmen closed his eyes and drained the coffee cup in a single gulp. "Back in New York, we had a doctor handling R&D for the medical side of things. She was absolutely insufferable. Attila the Hun probably had a better bedside manner. But Kandel was good at her job, despite her shortcomings on the personal side of things. Right after we found the data we needed to properly start working up a vaccine for Green Poison, she accidentally let slip that she was a human being who did have feelings. Somebody who saw the cost not only to the city, or the refugees over in the dorm areas we'd set up, but to the entire human race. She looked right at me and said, 'We can't survive this again.' And Odessa," said Ryckmen, a hard and unflinching light in his eyes, "my hand to God, those five little words have haunted me ever since. Because damn her, she was right then, and she's still right now. If it comes down to a point where we have to take Ellis into custody, or even terminate him if he tries to resist, who's left? We don't even know how many other Cabinet members and Congressional reps are still alive, if any. You honestly think we can survive losing yet another President, especially if it turns out he's betrayed the country? I don't, Odessa. Look around you." He looked around the Theater, seeing everything that had been built up in such a short time, looking past the accomplishment to a fragility he didn't dare to disturb. "All of this burns if Peace is right. All of this, all of Henry's work at the Campus, even the damned White House goes away. We can't survive another round. Not right now."
"Then when, Lowell? How long before the bodies get dug up and the secrets come out?"
"I don't know. I wish to God I did. But since I don't, the best thing I can think of is to cut down the potential threats against us. Remove anything that might create instability in the near future. Once we've got Ridgeway and Shaw out of business and the Hyenas put down, give everybody a breather to let themselves feel...American again, for lack of a better phrase, and I'll be right there helping Peace sort this out. But not right now. Especially not when we're so close to closing the book on the factions around here."
"If you say so," Sawyer said, her tone not especially warm. She turned and went over by the space set aside for preserving art treasures and important artifacts, smiling as she saw the rest of Team Peacemaker walking through the west gate. She went over to Gregory and gave him a friendly hug. "Welcome back, Peace. We missed you guys."
"Good to be back, Odessa. But I don't think we're gonna be here terribly long. Lowell said he was chewing on the intel, wanted us to come by and bounce some ideas off him."
"Yeah, he's not liking how this one's going to play out, Paxton. District Union Arena's a big site, and there's a lot of space which isn't directly on the arena floor. It's probably going to come down to a prolonged sweep, moving in concentric rings, if it's even that straightforward. I expect you're going to be slowed up as much by scavenging ammo off corpses as you are making sure all the corners are clear."
"Ahhh," said Tarvey with a rueful smile. "Just another beautiful Tuesday in D.C."
"Hopefully a little less interesting than your usual Tuesdays, sailor. But I wouldn't swear to it." She looked at Gregory with a more serious expression. "I did some more checking on our boy Schaeffer. He's definitely been sheep dipped. More than a few times, if I'm reading his 201 right."
"Sheep dipped?" asked Gregory, brow furrowing in puzzlement.
"It's where a soldier or sailor or airman unofficially disappears," said Tarvey. "Usually somebody who gets seconded to an intelligence agency, or an organization which is in no way traceably connected to an intelligence agency, has their personnel file tucked away in some file cabinet nobody officially knows about. It was very big during the Cold War, and the practice never really stopped. From the soldier's perspective, they're not serving officers or NCOs anymore, which means they aren't bound by the chain of command or other pesky little details like that. Since it was employed as part of long term counterinsurgency operations and other black ops projects Congress would have had a fit about, part of the process was that you stayed current with other soldiers in terms of promotions. If you came back alive and the agency was done with you, the file went back into your duty station's file cabinet and you went back to your post at the highest rank or rate of your contemporaries. If you died," he finished with a shrug, "well, training accidents happen all the time."
"That's kinda screwed up," said Gregory feelingly.
"The things we do for love of country, brother. Admittedly, sheep dipping during the Cold War covered a multitude of heinous sins, but it was that or operate openly and risk some drunk Russian pushing the button on several thousand nukes. I'm sure the Soviets did the same thing for much the same reason."
"Almost certainly," Sawyer said with a nod. "Anyhow, Schaeffer went through it a lot. Short stretches of time, though, so his promotion schedule was actually slowed up a little bit because they kept dropping him in and out. But he mustered out a couple years before the outbreak. So he was certainly footloose and fancy free, and easily hireable by the private sector."
"Interesting. Definitely something to keep in mind." Gregory squared his shoulders. "We better go talk to Lowell, see if we can't take the Arena without leveling the place."
* * *
District Union Arena, Judiciary Square District
0428 EST
The Hyena standing watch in the JTF-built guard tower never heard the bullet which drilled through his forehead. The sudden crack of the rifle drew the attention of the remaining Hyenas, making them look exactly the wrong way as the rest of Team Peacemaker took them from the flanks. With the entrance secure, Ryckmen trotted up to join the others, his Model 700 slung, the MDR held low in his hands. Regrouped, the team moved into the Arena.
As battle plans went, it was about as simple as one could make it. Team Peacemaker would enter the Arena from the southwest entrance, then sweep along the concourses until they hit a dead end or a force hard enough to make them fall back to a more advantageous position. The single biggest weakness of the plan was the complete lack of how things might be laid out inside the Arena at the immediate moment. Much like they had in New York, CERA had commandeered the arena as a field hospital, which represented the most firm data available to the Division. The problem was whether or not the Hyenas had altered those sections. The entire team, not wanting to be overly optimistic, assumed there would be some differences from what had been recorded earlier.
Moving through the first concourse, the team arranged themselves in a skewed diamond formation, Tarvey on point, each member with clear fields of fire. They'd picked their assault time with malice aforethought. From the few informants still available, it was clear that the Hyenas regularly partied hard until the wee hours of the morning. Between coming down from their drug fueled excesses and the pre-dawn time, initial resistance was likely to be pretty shaky. As they moved, hungover and strung out Hyenas tried to engage them, their fire wildly inaccurate compared to the focused marksmanship of the Division agents.
The second concourse seemed to be fairly clear until the team hit their first obstacle, a steel shutter closing off a restaurant from the rest of the concourse. Gregory moved behind the kitchen area into the utility closet, flipping breakers until the power came back on. With power restored, the shutter opened smoothly, allowing the team to resume their sweep. They passed through a shopping area clearly intended for well heeled fans and into an upscale lounge.
"Fish in a barrel," muttered Gregory as he saw Hyenas snoring on couches.
"Gut'em," Ryckmen growled.
Tarvey and Bundmeister shifted the diamond, putting her on point behind the bar as they shot Hyenas where they slept. A few managed to rouse themselves, only barely conscious before they died. Without stopping, the team went through a door at the far end of the lounge and into a very ornately furnished room. It might have been a VIP dining room, or simply a plush employee lounge, and the team could not have cared less. The Hyenas inside were somewhat more alert than their now deceased fellows, but "more alert" was purely relative against a fully functioning team of Division agents. Once the room was cleared, they paused to do an ammo check. Surprisingly, the speed with which they'd moved so far through the arena had contributed to an economy of ammunition expenditures.
The only way out of the employee lounge was a set of fire stairs. Taking those down led to an outdoor pathway half covered in garbage, a service passage which led to a soaring shopping arcade reaching all the way to the top of the structure. Here, the Hyenas were on full alert. One in particular seemed to be organizing his fellows to try and cover the doorway on the far side of the arcade. Ryckmen slipped silently up to the second story, then took up position, his Model 700 fixed firmly against his shoulder.
"On your go, Lobo," subvocalized Gregory.
Ryckmen squeezed the trigger, feeling the break at a pound and a half of pressure. The organizing Hyena caught the round squarely in the sniper's triangle, dead before his body hit the ground. The rest of the team opened up, short bursts of rifle fire shredding the defenders as they tried to recover from the loss of leadership. As they confirmed the arcade was secure, ISAC picked up a Hyena transmission, a request for a radio check-in. When one failed to materialize, the speaker directed Hyenas towards the parking garage under the arena. Tarvey went over to a bank of elevators, snorting as he confirmed they were completely shut down, then ambled over to the doorway the Hyenas had been defending.
"You know, I do believe these boys are starting to realize they're getting corncobbed," he drawled as he secured a descent line down an elevator shaft.
"You don't suppose we've been taking out actual Council members at this point, do you?" asked Gregory speculatively.
"Guess we'll find out after we finish up here," Bundmeister replied with a slightly feral grin on her face.
The team descended through the elevator shaft, coming into a storage area for parts and various pieces of maintenance equipment. They passed through quietly and entered the garage's office. Peering through half-turned blinds, Ryckmen raised an eyebrow.
"What the hell are those idiots doing?"
Tarvey briefly peeked through the blinds. "Think somebody's been seeing too many WWII movies. It's like they're trying to turn a Humvee into a half-track Rommel would have used in North Africa."
"How are you fixed for grenades, Ricky?"
"I've got five right now."
"Think you can toss a couple into the turret area?"
Tarvey peeked again briefly through the blinds. "The left side looks promising. Keep them occupied long enough, I'll take it out of commission."
"All right. Peace, I want you near the left side with the 249. Give them something nice and noisy to focus their attention."
"Got it," nodded Gregory.
"Move out."
The team spilled out of the garage and took up defensive positions. Gregory opened up with the M249, sweeping his fire across the garage, forcing the Hyenas to grab cover in every direction away from him. The turret on the vehicle opened fire, but had a much narrower range to traverse, owing to the armor placement. Tarvey stayed low, hidden behind parts bins and small crates of equipment. The Hyenas were modifying an existing Army Humvee, replacing the M2 machine gun with a minigun. The part of him which still rejoiced in being a machinist's mate was appalled by the sloppy welds and shoddy armor placement. If that abortion could withstand more than one grenade, it would be a miracle.
Pulling the pins on two grenades, Tarvey released the spoons to cook them a bit, then tossed them into the open topped turret. The minigun stopped firing, and muffled yells escaped the inside of the vehicle as doors opened. One of the Hyenas managed to get out, decked out in the improvised body armor normally given to Council members and their most trusted lieutenants. Tarvey skated a third grenade underneath the Hyena, watching it detonate underneath him and send the bulk of the man's body flying forward into a support beam.
"Diesel, are you there?" came the speaker from before. "Diesel, are you dead too, you inbred redneck bastard? Everybody, get to the arena floor, now!"
"How did these yahoos ever get to be a serious threat?" asked Gregory.
"Dumb luck and better weapons than they deserved," Ryckmen replied grimly. "Let's get this wrapped up. If we hustle, we can get breakfast back at the Theater."
Leaving the garage, the team came up on an improvised grow house, small marijuana plants sprouting in foam cups set into PVC pipes in a crude hydroponic setup. Continuing along, they opened the doors on what had been a kitchen, the overwhelming odors of Spice production forcing them to put on their masks. Keeping low, they heard a group of Hyenas entering the kitchen on the far side. Gregory and Bundmeister each pulled a grenade, pulled the pins and tossed them simultaneously, killing the entire squad instantly. The explosions must have carried through to where the Hyenas were gathering.
"Listen up. We've got devils in our house and they mean to kill us all. We have to stand and fight. You hear me? Stand and fight!"
"Not terribly smart, but it is brave," rumbled Ryckmen.
Leaving the drug lab, the team followed the signs in the corridor to the arena floor. Cargo containers with CERA markings stood on the arena floor, mostly stacked, a few turned into crude lounges. Ryckmen moved up on top of one of the containers, Tarvey following behind with his M1A, while Gregory and Bundmeister took up a position behind and below them to ensure nobody came around behind the sharpshooters.
Ryckmen and Tarvey both fired at nearby targets, alerting the Hyenas that their reckoning was finally at hand. Gregory held down the bulk of the arena floor, traversing the M249 and sweeping up Hyenas in his fire effortlessly as Bundmeister protected the narrow corridor to the right of the cargo container where Ryckmen and Tarvey were perched. Hyenas dropped in from the stands at all angles, trying to destroy the agents who'd so thoroughly annihilated their fellows, and failing to come close to the invader's positions. When the last Hyena died from one of Ryckmen's rifle rounds through the eye slit of a riot shield, there was dead silence in the arena. The four agents scanned the area, looking for any sign of movement, hoping ISAC would catch a scrap of radio chatter to indicate further adversaries. They heard nothing and saw nothing.
"Think we cleared them out," murmured Gregory.
Ryckmen nodded slowly as he stood up. "Guess we did. Get on the horn to Odessa. I'm sure there's all sorts of goodies here she can salvage from this place." Gregory nodded and tapped his watch.
"One down," Tarvey said with a grim little smile.
"Two to go," said Bundmeister, nodding as she slung her AK.