Issue In Doubt (7 page)

In seconds, all three fire teams of first squad had reported everybody present, and Martin reported to Commiskey. So did second and third squads, along with the gun squad attached to the platoon.

“Third platoon, stand fast and look alert,” Commiskey barked.

“What was that back on the beach?” Orndoff asked Mackie as soon as it became evident that they’d be in position for at least a few minutes. “That looked like Amos Weaver.”

“Where have you been, Orndoff? That
was
Amos Weaver. And Ulysses G. Buzzard next to him.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

“Wow, I was almost close enough to Amos Weaver to touch him!”

Mackie shook his head. How could Orndoff be so dense he didn’t realize Buzzard and Weaver were there setting cam-lines to shoot second battalion when it made a landing in obsolete armored amphibious vehicles in the wake of 3rd Battalion’s landing? How could anybody in the 1st Marines not know they were making an epic trid of one of the major sea battles of the twenty-second century European Union War, and had hired second battalion as extras? Mackie grimaced; he thought Buzzard should have hired 3rd Battalion instead of second. Hell, everybody in the First Marine Division knew 3rd Battalion was the best in the 1st Marines, probably the best battalion in the entire division. Maybe the best battalion in the entire Marine Corps.

Mackie’s reverie was interrupted by Martin’s order: “First squad, on your feet. We’re going in column. First fire team, second, and third. I’m between first and second. Third, maintain contact with first gun team. Move out.”

“Mackie, take point,” Adriance ordered. “Me, then Zion. Orndoff, maintain contact with Sergeant Martin. Do you have the route, Mackie?”

Mackie turned on his heads-up-display. A map showing the terrain a kilometer in each direction appeared. Red dots, many of them slowly moving, showed the last known positions of other members of the company. The dot in the middle blinked, indicating his position. A small cluster of purple dots to his right rear had to be Buzzard, Weaver and their aides. A red line showed the route Mackie was to follow in leading the squad. There were none of the blinking yellow lights that would show suspected positions of aggressor forces. Mackie didn’t attach any importance to the lack of yellow, he’d been in the Marines long enough to know that the aggressors wouldn’t necessarily show up anyway.

“Got it,” Mackie reported.

“Go,” Adriance told him.

Mackie oriented himself on the HUD map, picked a faintly seen landmark through the trees, turned his HUD off, and stepped out on a meter-wide trail, headed for his aiming point. From here on, Adriance would direct him.

The trees weren’t particularly high or very thick, which made for a spotty canopy that allowed plenty of sunlight through for dense undergrowth to sprout. Numerous narrow paths wove through the area. Some were worn by small game and other animals, others by the many civilians who came to Bellows Field Park for recreation—it was common for Marines practicing wet landings to charge up the beach through crowds of startled sunbathers. Because Bellows Field was a state park as well as a military training area, the Marines stayed on paths instead of breaking their way through the brush as they would in other training areas in order to protect the environment.

A hundred meters along, Mackie toggled his helmet net to the fire team circuit. “See anything on your HUD?”

“I’ll let you know if anything pops,” Adriance answered. “Just keep your eyes peeled.”

“Aye aye.” Mackie kept swiveling his head side to side, looking into the trees in all directions, the muzzle of his rifle constantly swinging to point where his eyes went. He swallowed. Something wasn’t right. He couldn’t remember another training exercise where the platoon hadn’t made contact within a hundred meters of the waterline.

Then he saw a flash up ahead and froze, with his left hand dropped down and out from his side, palm facing the rear, signaling Adriance to stop.

“What do you have?” Adriance asked.

“I don’t know. Movement off the trail about thirty meters ahead.” Mackie lowered himself to one knee, looking to where he’d seen the motion, pointing his rifle at it.

In a few seconds, Martin dropped to a knee next to him. “Tell me.”

Mackie pointed. “See that double-trunked tree on the left and the mound next to it?”

“‘Bout a meter high?” When Mackie nodded, Martin said, “Got it.”

“I couldn’t see for sure what it was, but something moved there.”

“Did you see it?” Martin asked Adriance.

“No. My HUD doesn’t show anybody, either.”

“You sure you saw somebody, Mackie?”

“I saw
something
. It was too fast, I couldn’t tell if it was a person. But it might be.”

Martin thought for a moment, looking where Mackie said he saw motion. “All right, Mackie, you saw it, you go. Adriance, send somebody with him.”

“Orndoff,” Adriance called softly, “you go.”

Mackie looked back and signaled Orndoff to join him. “I’m going up the right side of the trail. You go up the left. When I reach that mound, I’m going over it. You hit it from the flank, and be ready to blow away anybody you see who isn’t me. Got it?”

“Got it.” Orndoff sounded like he had a frog in his throat.

Padding rapidly, Mackie headed for the low mound, keeping his eyes and rifle sweeping over and around its sides. There was no movement and no sound. As soon as he was alongside the mound, he spun to his left and dashed up it, angling his rifle to shoot anybody who might be hiding behind it. There was. Mackie instantly recognized the white band around the Marine’s hat and jerked his muzzle up before he shot him in the face.

“Don’t shoot!” Mackie shouted at Orndoff.

An enlisted referee was on his knees in front of Mackie. A major with a similar white band on his camouflage cover crouched behind him.

“Damn, but you scared me!” the enlisted referee gasped. Sweat popped out on his face. Mackie knew the Marine had to be scared. Even though the Marines were firing blanks on this exercise, at the range he’d nearly shot the referee, the Marine would have been injured, possibly even blinded.

“How’d you know we were here?” the major asked in a shaky voice.

“I saw movement, sir,” Mackie replied.

The major stood up and shook his head. “I was positive we were hidden before you got close enough to see us.”

Mackie grinned. “India Three/One, Sir. We’re the best.” He turned to look at where the rest of the squad was moving up. “Referees, Sergeant Martin.”

“Referees, huh?” Martin reached the mound and looked at the major. “Sorry to have disturbed you, sir. Mackie, good job. Continue as you were.”

“Aye aye, Sergeant.” Mackie returned to the trail to resume his advance.

A couple of minutes later, Lieutenant Commiskey’s voice came over the platoon net. “The point just flushed a couple of referees, so you know bad guys have to be close. Everybody, look alert.” Primary functions of the “referees” were to determine who were “casualties,” which casualties were wounded, which killed, and to free up the “casualties” once it was proper for them to move.

Commiskey was right; less than fifty meters beyond where he’d discovered the referees, Mackie, taking a slow step, felt a tug on his boot. He eased his foot back and looked down, but couldn’t see what he’d felt. He took a careful step backward, and lowered himself to examine the path close up.

There! He caught the faint glimmer of a monofilament tripwire about ten centimeters above the ground. He followed it with his eyes in one direction and saw where it was secured to the base of a sapling. In the other it was attached to a flash-bang, a simulated antipersonnel mine. The wire was taut, holding the fuse’s striker out. If the tension on the wire was released by the wire being broken, the striker would slam home, setting off the mine.

“Damn,” Adriance murmured just behind Mackie’s shoulder.

“Got that right,” Mackie murmured back. He carefully examined the area around the flash-bang without touching anything. He was looking for the safety pin; if he could find it he could insert it to prevent the striker from going home when the tripwire broke. He didn’t expect to find the pin.

“Pull back,” Adriance said, and duck-walked backward himself. Mackie followed.

Sergeant Martin joined them. “Talk to me,” he said. Mackie told the squad leader what he’d found. Martin toggled his helmet comm to the platoon’s command circuit and reported the finding of the booby trap to Commiskey. He didn’t look happy when he’d gotten his instructions.

“Mark the booby trap, then move off the trail to the right and wait for instructions. Second squad’s going to the left and third’s in reserve. We’re going to sweep the area to the front, looking for an ambush. Do it while I tell the rest of the squad.”

“Aye aye.” Adriance’s expression said he didn’t like it either. “You heard the man. Mark that booby trap.”

“Right. Mark it with what?”

“Come on, Mackie, you’re smart.”

“Yeah,” Mackie said sourly. “Field expedient. Hold this for me.” He extended his rifle for his fire team leader to take. As he returned the few meters to the booby trap, he reached into the first aid kit hanging from his belt and withdrew a field dressing. He stopped far enough away from where he remembered the tripwire was that he wouldn’t accidentally hit it, and knelt. While he looked for anchor points that wouldn’t interfere with the wire, he opened the field dressing and unwound its straps. He tied the end of one strap to a sapling a few centimeters from the one the tripwire was attached to, then tied the end of the other strap to a similar place near the flash-bang. When the field dressing was in place a few centimeters higher than the wire, he withdrew his bayonet and drew a series of “X”s in the path under the marking, with two arrows pointing at the explosive. Finished, he backed off.

“Here.” Adriance handed his rifle to him. “Let’s go.” Adriance pointed into the brush next to the trail. “You know where it is. Take a position two meters in from it and wait.”

“Are you sure?” Mackie asked. “That close to the trail?”

Adriance shrugged. “That’s what the man said.”

“What about protecting the environment?”

“Just do it, Mackie.”

Mackie shook his head. He didn’t think two meters from the path was deep enough, and he’d let higher-higher worry about trampling the environment. He went where Adriance sent him and lowered to one knee, pointing his rifle to his front, ready to open fire. Sounds to his right told him that Adriance was positioning the rest of the fire team. More sounds, faintly-heard, were Sergeant Martin positioning the rest of the squad.

Commiskey’s voice came over the platoon net. “First and second squads, move out. Maintain your interval and dress.”

The two squads started advancing slowly, the twenty-six Marines walking as quietly as they could through the brush, which wasn’t as quiet as any of them wanted. They watched their front for the “enemy,” and looked to their sides to check their intervals and dress—made sure they didn’t bunch up and that they stayed approximately on line.

PFC Zion, on the fire team’s extreme right, eight meters from the path, was the first to spot the ambush. Unfortunately for him, the ambush had heard the squad’s approach, and shifted position to face its flank. The detectors on Zion’s chest registered the fire aimed at him and his armor froze him in mid-step before he could get off a shot. Off balance, he toppled to the ground.

At the sound of the first shot, Mackie dove for the ground. But before he got there, a flash-bang went off close to his right front. His armor froze and he hit the ground in the attitude he’d been diving; his rifle pushing forward to go into his shoulder, his left arm extending along the rifle’s forestock, right arm bending to the side, his legs spreading, his torso curving. He slapped into the ground and the blank-fire-adapter on the muzzle of his rifle skidded into the leaves and dirt in front of him. For an instant, Mackie’s toes and the adapter on his rifle held him off the ground, then the weight of his load toppled him onto his right side; momentum carried him over onto his left. After a second, he rocked back to his right side, then left again. It took several rocks before he reached an uncomfortable equilibrium.

Adriance and Orndoff were diving and were hit at the same time as Mackie. They also froze and rocked as Mackie had, until the three of them looked like nothing so much as three upended tortoises.

Before second squad managed to realign itself and charge across the path into the flank of the ambush, first squad suffered five more simulated casualties. Third squad rushed up from behind and added its fire to the fight.

In the end, none of the bad guys got away, but third platoon had suffered eight “dead” and seven more “badly wounded,” including Commiskey. That left Guillen in command of a platoon of twenty-seven Marines, the strength of two squads plus someone in command. Everyone in first squad was out of action.

The referees Mackie had discovered followed behind third squad and closely observed the fire fight, noting where all the casualties were. When the shooting was over, the major unfroze them one at a time, noting each casualty’s name, and handed the “dead” over to the enlisted referee to escort to the “morgue,” where they would remain until the end of this phase of the exercise. Third platoon and the company corpsmen were responsible for moving the “wounded” to the battalion aid station.

A few hours later, phase one of the exercise was finished. All the dead were resurrected, and the seriously wounded were healed. Captain Carl L. Sitter, the India Company commanding officer, assembled his Marines for a debriefing during the hour they had before the next phase of the exercise began. The enlisted Marines gathered in a semi-circle in front of him, the officers and platoon sergeants grouped to his rear.

“Did I tell you to unass your gear?” Sitter snarled. Nearly all of the Marines had removed their packs and load-bearing webbing to ease the strain of carrying the nearly one hundred kilos of weaponry, ammunition, and other items in their basic combat loads. Sitter and the senior Marines behind him were all wearing their packs and gear.