EndWar

“You Black Bear?” asked McAllen.

“Yep, Warrant Officer Samson, ODA-888 out of Fort Lewis.” He proffered a gloved hand

McAllen shook firmly. “Sergeant Ray McAllen, Force Recon, Thirteenth MEU out of Pendleton. This is Sergeant Rule, my assistant team leader. Well, we just came to fill her up and clean the windshield. Do we need a key for the bathroom?”

“Funny guy. Why don’t you boys get up on the roof?> Keep low so they don’t see your uniforms. We want them to think we’re all locals for now, good old Canadians with hunting rifles, not much of a threat.”

McAllen grimaced. “We’ll stick with our bird, get the fuel, and get the hell out. We’re headed up north on a TRAP mission.”

“We don’t stop those incoming helos, you’re not going anywhere.” Black Bear removed the cigar from his mouth. “Tell you what. You take up positions along the west wall, close to your bird. Stay out of sight. Get on our channel. You wait for us. All I’m going to say is ‘Outlaw Team,’ and you cut loose.”

“Good enough. Good luck.”

Black Bear nodded. “Good luck to us all.”

Major Stephanie Halverson ran along the wooden fence, keeping within a meter of it, hoping the poles might break up the vertical line that was a United States Air Force pilot shot down and fleeing.

The farmhouse was just a thousand yards ahead, with a couple of barns in the back, a few horses, and another long building. The place stood postcard still.

Almost there. Fight for it.

Nearly out of breath, her nose running, her legs on fire, she repeatedly glanced over her shoulder; there were no Spetsnaz troops in sight.

But as she left the fence to make a final mad dash to the main house, whose front door looked more inviting than anything in the world, the terrible whining of those engines drew near, and a glance back triggered a wave of panic.

She mounted the front stoop, wrenched open the screen door, tried the knob.

Open. Open? Well, what did she expect? She was in the middle of nowhere Canada, crime rate: zero.

Bursting into the house, she cried, “Hello? Hello? Is anyone home?”

It was a weekday morning, and a middle-aged woman in jeans and sweatshirt appeared from the kitchen beyond. “Who are you? What are you doing in our house?” she demanded.

A middle-aged man with a graying beard came rushing forward, along with a long-haired teenage boy, wearing a ball cap.

“Dad, there’s a crazy lady with a gun in our living room,” said the boy, strangely calm. “And she’s wearing a costume.”

Halverson spoke a million miles a minute: “I’m Major Stephanie Halverson, U.S. Air Force. I got shot down. Russians are here. On snowmobiles. They’re coming. Do you have a car?”

The father glanced down at the pistol in her grip and raised his hands. “If this is some kind of sick joke…”

“It’s not a joke! Do you have a TV? Do you watch the news? The Russians are invading!” Halverson nearly screamed at the family.

“They were talking about some kind of military maneuver on the morning show,” said the mother. “And now there’s some weird news program on every channel.”

As the snowmobile engines grew louder, the teenager, unfazed by Halverson’s pistol, darted to the front window, peeked past the curtain. “She’s not lying. Looks like soldiers out there. They’re coming!”

“I’ll get my rifle,” said the father. “Joey, you take her and your mom to the basement.”

“We can’t stay. We have to go!” Halverson said.

“Well, Major, you picked the wrong address, because my pickup’s battery is dead, and the one tractor I have would never outrun them. I was supposed to drive my boy to school.”

Halverson waved the pistol, tipped her head toward the window. “Those are Spetsnaz troops. Do you know what that means?”

“It means you’d better get in the basement!” cried the father.

Without time to think, Halverson followed the boy and his mother through the kitchen, past an open door, and down a flight of rickety wooden steps. It was a full cellar, the entire footprint of the house, cluttered with boxes, machinery, a washing machine and dryer, and clothes hanging from lines spanning the room.

The boy, Joey, switched the light off, but a dim shaft filtered in through the single window, up near the ceiling. Then he headed toward the back, where he wanted to hide between sheets of plywood leaning against the wall.

“No,” said Halverson. “You and your mom stay here. I’m under the steps. Go.”

Even as she spoke, a crash resounded from upstairs, and a man shouted in a thick Russian accent, “Come out, Yankee pilot!”

TWENTY-FIVE

President Becerra leaned forward in his seat aboard Air Force One and sharpened his tone. “Prime Minister, Spetsnaz forces are in the streets of Edmonton and Calgary.”

Emerson’s tone turned equally sharp. “I’m well aware of that, Mr. President.”

“They’ve captured your communications uplinks and early warning radar, and they’ve hacked in to and now control your power grid.”

“Yes, they have.”