Chapter 109

It’s been raining for the last eight days.

The winter in northern France was still warm and predicted to stay further into this new year. I had been stuck here since the 26th. The injury on my cheek was almost fully healed and whatever toxin was cleared from my body. I have been stuck in this base camp, unsure where I am. Sitting in a fold-out chair watching the rain under a military tent as the number of vehicles increased in and out of the camp was not my idea of a good time.

The tempo of the camp had changed. This had brought me out of the tent I was in to sit in a foldout chair I was now in. It was clear that something was happening as the number of helicopters arriving increased dramatically. In the distance to the south was a vast fog bank denoting the edge of a massive zone. It stretched many miles in both directions. This was the first time I got to see one of the larger super zones as they were called. I quickly developed a bad feeling that we were going to do something near or around here.

“Harrington?” I turn around, recognising the voice.

“Hills! Why are you here?”

“Don’t know. I was assigned here for a mission briefing.”

“Odd.”

“When did you get here?” She asked.

“I have been stuck here since the 26th.”

“What! Why?”

“No idea. I was just picked up and dropped here. Gregson has been with me the whole time.”

“Something is going on. I spotted Sargent Grey when I arrived.” She told me.

“She is here? I did not know that.” Now I am getting confused.

“Yes, there were a lot…..” She started.

“Alana, there you are.” Gregson said as he arrived. We both turned to him.

“Morning, Gregson.” Hills greeted him. Like everyone else, she uses his last name when addressing him.

“Come with me. We got briefing to attend.” We both can’t fail to notice his tension and the way he expresses it in his abrupt manner. He didn’t even bother to wait for us to answer just turned and walked away and we quickly got up and followed him.

“Any idea what’s going on?” Hills asks him.

“I’m not sure, but it looks like it’s a major operation. You’ll find that once we get briefed.” He says over his shoulder, still walking towards the command tent.

Looking around as we walked, I noticed the camp's activity tempo had changed. The personnel were now moving far more purposefully and preparing for deployment. I spotted both support and sealing team members being rounded up and heading towards transportation crates.

It didn’t take long for us to reach the tent and inside was just as busy as outside. Colonel Hawk had arrived at some time and was standing on the opposite side of the tent. He was standing with several other people, all in military fatigues. Mostly British, but some Euro Corps. There was standing in front of a large map indicating a city as we approached. Things were looking worse by the minute. Hawk turns and sees us approaching.

“Excellent we will just wait on the others and then we can begin.” He says, indicating that we should join the group. I tried to edge my way over to have a better look at the map, but the group’s attention was drawn to the tent entrance. Three more British operatives entered our lead over by the minders to us. I recognise the three as a team that had become prominent when I was out of action as a replacement for the now-defunct RCT.

The trio consisted of two men and a woman. All three were near or around 6 feet and in excellent physical condition. Two were white, with the second man of Indian descent. I had a vague impression of encountering them individually, maybe over the last few years, because the way they carried themselves as they walked indicated they knew what they were doing. This was no arrogant strut for the walk of three people who knew what they were heading into.

“Right, now that everyone’s here. We can begin.” Hawk drew everyone’s attention to him. “Tomorrow will be launching our first major operation into the largest zone in northern France.” He indicated the map on the wall.

“The Paris zone.” Those who do not know where the mission is planned, like myself, all expressed unease with our body language and occasional mutter. He wasn’t kidding when he said the largest zone in northern France. “We are going to close one of the three breaches that make up the zone. Due to the three breaches, this zone is a mixed type, so we don’t know what you will be facing in there.”

“The mission is as follows. Five operatives, a level I support team and a breach sealing team will depart from this location.” He pointed to an area on the map to the north of the city near the edge of the zone, which was marked on the map. “They will travel together following this route to the best of their ability to reach here. The Stade de France. This is the location of the breach in the northern part of the city. Sealing it will allow us to reclaim most of Paris and protect the part of the city still not subsumed.” He traced the route they hoped we could take through the city following the major roadways. He made it sound simple, but we could all see the distance involved and the fact that we were moving through an urbanised environment.

“Instead of the usual two-stage incursion tactics. It has been decided that all advanced as one group. The goal is to get the new slammer mk.2 device to the stadium and trigger it.” He turned to face the group. “As you advance along the route we have earmarked, there are several milestones that you will indicate you have reached by firing off blue flares. Yellow flares are to be used to indicate engagement with enemies, but you are still proceeding. A red flare will indicate that you have encountered opposition too great to overcome and are withdrawing.”

I looked at the map again and noted that several stars must indicate the milestone locations he was talking about. And it quickly dawned on me just how massive the zone was.

“As I said, the support team will be a type I and be led by Sgt Patterson.” He indicated to a British soldier standing next to him. “As standard operating procedure, the operatives will be organised into another team and its leader will have overall operational command. That will be operative Harrington.” He indicated to me and the group turned to look.

What the fuck!

Many people noted that I did bother to hide my surprise at this. I was getting thrown into the shit again! Hills was surprised but seemed okay with it. The other three operatives I was unsure of.

“Once in the zone, as you all know, operative Harrington has the final say on all decisions. The second will be operative Davids.” He indicated to the leader of the three operatives I had just entered. Davids, I knew I had seen before at various training seminars. I think he was recruited 2-3 years ago and if you are still around, it means he knows what he’s doing. He has Brown hair and eyes with a light tan to his skin. I briefly wondered if he uses a tanning machine as we are in winter. He looks at Hawk, then at me and briefly nods, indicating understood. I, however, got the suspicion somehow that he was unhappy.

“As far as we know, no one has tried an operation like this on a zone this big. It is highly likely that you will spend the night in the zone and need to complete the mission the day after.” Hawk continued and was met by another wave of unease and muttering. “Yes, I know we’re going to ask a lot of you on this mission, but we need to start taking action against the larger zones. With your success here, we hope we can start striking at them and reclaiming what we have lost.”

He was trying to pump us up with that bit of speech to focus on the positive aspects of what we were going to do and not what we would be walking into. A mixed-type zone is the polite government-speak way of saying they do not know what we will be facing there.

“The whole briefing is stored on E pads that will need to be returned before you leave tomorrow.” One of the camp’s personnel began handing out the pads to us and I knew they would store nothing but information on the upcoming mission. I noticed Walker moving around the desks in the tent, clearly focused on her duties.

“I will let you all head off and read the materials and we will meet again later tonight for a final mission brief and questions. Dismissed.” Minders quickly herded our five operatives into a separate tent. This was for us to get to know each other and review the mission. We were soon left alone in the tent closed behind us and a clear division line separated us. Davids and the other two on one side, with Hills and me on the other. It wasn’t intentional. As far as I'm aware, it was down to the simple fact that we never really interacted with each other.

“Well, this is an epic shit show in the making.” I said, deciding to break the tension before it built too much.

“I agree.” Davids said.

“Okay, let’s get started. I am John Harrington.”

“Alana Hills.”

“Jack Davids.”

“Agnes Holden.”

“Harold Patel.” Came from the final member of his group.

“Harold?” I asked.

“My father always liked the name for some reason and I was one who got stuck with it.” He said, shrugging his shoulders, clearly used to explaining the odd name.

“Okay. Let’s go over what zone command think is going to happen.” I begin to open the file on my E pad.

“Wait.” Davids said. All right, here we go. “We need to talk about command structure first.” I genuinely hope we would avoid this conversation.

“Me and my team have spent over a year working together. We’ve all heard of both you and Hills. I know you’ve both been around and seen some serious action, but more logical if we ask that I be put in charge of the operatives and the overall mission.” Davids made his pitch. He made a sound like Hills has got herself a bit of a reputation and a good one at that.

“All right then.” I said. My answer confused him for a second or two as he expected me to argue my right to be in charge.

“So… you are happy that we can go to Colonel Hawk and request a change?”

“Yes.” I told him bluntly, looking him straight in the eye.

“I am not.” Hills added. This caused us all to look at her. “I have not been on a mission with you or your team Davids. In any case, I’ve heard good things from all those who have been omissions with you. But I have with Harrington. I know if he’s been assigned leadership because we are walking into a damn nightmare there. Out of all of us, he’s been through far more fucked up missions. That means I trust him to get me out of this thing alive and if you were smart, you would too.”

Davids was not expecting that and neither was I. I knew Hills had grown into the role of a zone operative, even leading a few missions of self. But this was far different from the young rookie I took into the zone on a training mission one time that went pear-shaped. But this was the first time I indeed saw it.

“I still want to ask.” Davids said after a moment. Hills made no further objection.

“Go ahead.” I told him. We decided to stop that discussion and turned ourselves to the mission briefing. It was long and in-depth and we knew most of it was utterly useless. But by the time we were to meet for the second full briefing and question session, we had many questions to ask.

I had not bothered meeting Davids’s challenge for command the two simple reasons. First, the most obvious I did not want it. Second, I knew Hawk better than Davids and already knew the answer. I found that when it comes to people like Davids, who are competent and like being in charge, it’s best to leave them to find the limits of their influence.

Colonel Hawk said no after he was approached later in the evening.