Tammie looked at her instruments and was surprised to see that she was tanked up.

"Stella, where we at?"

"We are loading ammunition, Captain," the new crew-chief answered. "We just got the bird cleaned out."

The girl was one of the intel and commo specialists that worked up at the castle. She was also, unfortunately, the only unmarried female around who spoke English. Tammie hadn't caught quite where the other girls had gone, but they weren't around.

So she'd been rushed down from the castle, rapidly briefed in on care of the wounded, and suited up.

Unfortunately, she was larger than Casey and a bit smaller than Tammie so the flightsuit sort of hung on her. However, she'd turned up with a suit of clearly familiar body armor and an MP-5 that had seen some use. Apparently she was an "out on point" intel specialist.

"Okee, dokee," Tammy said, hitting the engine start b.u.t.ton. "Captain?" she said, handing him the bottle.

"Good luck," Captain Kahbolov said, shaking his head. "I wish I was in your seat. h.e.l.l, in your front seat."

"You'll have your day, Captain," Tammie said as the bar displays came into the green. She rotated her back the tightened down her straps. "Let me have mine."

Mike really wanted to use one of the new M-60s but he had, reluctantly, turned it over to Ionis Mahona from Sawn's team. He had other things to do.

One of them was arranging the defenses. He'd detailed four of the teams to the forward slope of the hill, arrayed to create interlocking fire on the main approaches. Once he detailed that to Oleg, Vil, Sawn and Padrek he'd letAdams handle the details.

The rear, though, was another question. They were pretty solid, there, but nothing was perfect. The ridge, after the little "hump" they were on, steepened out and about four hundred feet over their head went straight vertical for a while. Getting down on them would take some serious mountaineering. And their were small gorges to either side with whitewater streams cascading down them. The walls there were steep and slick.

However, all that was surmountable and the ridges to either side were, potentially, useable to emplace heavy weapons or snipers to enfilade them. The positions that could be used were a couple of klicks away but a heavy machine gun wouldn't have trouble with it and some of the Chechens were reputed to be pretty good snipers.

He'd pointed the problems out to Pavel and left it to him. Pavel's approach to combat was simple but had merit; height was power. He'd left half his team working on security positions on the rear of the headquarters and taken the other half straight up. They were up there, now, tackling the vertical face.

He'd also taken two sniper teams with him and a Robar. Mike wasn't worried about snipers on the other ridges anymore.

The headquarters was pretty secure, too.

The Keldara had managed to create a sort of bunker using a boulder formation that was already in a tripod. They'd piled rocks into the gaps, dug some of the dirt out and packed it in and generally stiffened things up. It was pretty solid. And it wasn't like they could find any trees to make overhead cover up here.

The remaining wounded, those that were totally out of the fight, were secured in the bunker along with spare ammo. Mike wasn't worried about running it back and forth. As soon as the Keldara finished their individual fighting positions they had started to run trenches to each other and back to the command post.

The boys were digging fools.

"What we got, Vanner?" Mike asked, leaning back on a boulder.

"The girls say most of the radio traffic has dropped off the air," Vanner replied. "But that's because a pretty big force has gathered right about...here..." he said, pointing to a big red spot on the map. "Say eight or nine hundred. Sadim's unit, and some odds and sods are still making their way up to us. The question is whether the first group is going to attack before they get here."

"What's the pool?" Mike asked, closing his eyes. f.u.c.k,now he was getting tired.

"Six to one says they attack first," Vanner replied. "They're really exercised about something. I think it's the money."

"Or that f.u.c.ker we captured," Mike said. "Heavy weapons?"

"Mortars are out there," Vanner said. "They might be setting up. We think we've got coordinates. I sent them to the Predator guys. Sounds as if the heavy machine guns are still straggling forward. Might not make it before the other force. If then."

"What I wouldn't do for a Specter or a few JDAMs," Mike said, sitting up. He wasnot going to sleep.

"Team leaders. Check in."

"Sawn." "Vil." "Pavel." "Dafyd." "Yosif." "Oleg."

"Guys, do not, say again, donot use the new machine guns unless we have to," Mike said. "We're probably going to get hit soon. There may be mortars. Try not to use them in the first attack. Snipers concentrate on leadership. All the rest of you guys, f.u.c.k them over good. But try to play like we don't have mediums. If they get right down to the line, open up. But not unless I say so."

"Tiger Base, this is Tiger one."

"Go Kildar."

Mike liked that the commo people were all Keldara girls. It was just refreshing to hear a chirpy female voice.

"ETA on the next Valkyrie run?" Mike said.

"Twenty mikes, Kildar," Base replied. "5.56, grenades, rocket rounds. Water, food and beer."

"Oorah," Mike said. "Six casualties to go. Make Valkyrie aware that we are expecting an attack at any time. She should not, say againnot , attempt to approach without my call."

"Roger, Kildar."

"Kildar, out."

"Pedar is pretty bad," Vanner pointed out. Julia and Olga had taken over tending to the wounded but Vanner had been giving pointers. "He needs some whole blood."

"And it would be pretty bad if the Hind dropped on us in the middle of a major firefight," Mike pointed out then keyed his throat mike. "Hey, a.s.s-boy One. You see if they're moving into position, yet?"

"Negative, a.s.s-boy Two,"Adams replied. "Nada."

"Kildar, Lasko."

"You still hanging in there old man?" Mike asked.

"Yes, Kildar, I am," Lasko answered, coldly. "They are putting snipers in on Hill 357."

Mike looked at the map and shrugged.

"Snipers may engage at will," he said. "Keep them off our backs."

"Roger, Kildar."

Mike looked at the boulders stacked over his head and started counting.

"Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one..." There was a crack of a rifle in the distance and he smiled. "One sniper down."

Lasko had kept up, but barely. And he had been ashamed that Pyotar, from Team Yosif who had taken over as his spotter, had done most of the preparation of the hide. But he had been totally worn out. So worn out all he could carry was his personal rifle and ammunition. It was left to Pyotar to carry the heavier Robar.

Now, though, he was back in his element. He didn't need the Robar at this range, just the beautiful Mannlicher.

There were three snipers setting up positions on the hill, probably thinking they were out of sight or range.

Fools, if the enemy is in range, so are you.

Of the three, one was taking the most cover, and care, as he prepared his position. He was barely visible behind a rock, rolling more rocks in the way for cover. Really, all that was visible seven hundred and twenty three meters away was his head.

Stroke, crack.

Now hehad no head.

Chapter Forty-One.

The president looked at the clock on his desk, sighed and picked up his phone.

"Sarah?" he said, "I do believe it's quitting time."

"Yes, sir," his administrative a.s.sistant replied. "Schedule is now officially clear. No evening meetings."

"Good, good," he said. "Have a good night. See you tomorrow." He hit the disconnect on the phone and touched another key.

"Pierson."

"Ah, Colonel Pierson, I see they tracked you down. Status on the Keldara."

"They're pinned, sir," Pierson replied. "Predators detected a Chechen blocking force in the pa.s.s. The Kildar elected to take a defensive position and hunker down."

"What?" the president snapped. "That'ssuicide !"

"We've been monitoring their communications, sir," Pierson said, uncomfortably. "The Kildar is aware of the correlation of forces but he and Colonel Nielson believe it is possible to ravage the Chechen main force. I presume they believe that will force the blocking force to be committed to the battle. If they can sufficiently damage the main force and the blocking force they have the possibility of slipping out of the noose. Mr. Jenkins' main worry is mortars and other indirect fire and the Predator has been tasked to look for those."

"That sounds like more of a desperate wish than a plan," the president replied.

"The reason that they feel that this is, in fact, a plan and not desperation has to do with some fairly high end battle theory, sir," Pierson said. "Do you want me to cover it?"

"I've got ten minutes free," the president replied. "Can you give me a summary in less than ten minutes?"

"Yes, sir," Pierson said.

"Come up."

The colonel had only been in the Oval Office twice before, but he knew the route. When he entered he went to the center of the rug, a presidential seal, and came to a position of attention.

"Colonel Pierson, reporting as ordered, sir."

"Would you prefer to sit or stand?" the president asked, waving to a chair.

"Stand, if I may, sir," Pierson replied, dropping to parade rest.

"Go."

"Theory on the psychology and processes of battle has rapidly advanced over the last ten years or so, Mr. President," Pierson began. "Many battles in history had outcomes that defied conventional wisdom.

Notable among those are Rourke's Drift,Crecy and Alesia. In each of those cases, numerically inferior units comparable in apparent capability with their opponents were placed in a situation where defeat was, apparently, inevitable. Yet they prevailed. Countervailing these oddities were the much more common experiences where numerically inferior units failed. A well known example of the latter was the Battle of Little Big Horn.

"Various theories existed over time in cla.s.sic warfare literature which tried to define the reason for these anomalous outcomes. Most of them came down to sayings: 'On deadly ground, fight.' 'The moral is as the physical by three to one.' And so on. But the mechanism was poorly understood and did not always stand up to tests. AtDieppe , for example, a unit that might have survived under other circ.u.mstances was killed or captured. Whereas in the same war, atBastogne , another unit with comparable correlation of forces survived and beat their larger opponent.

"Recent theory of the psychology of combat indicates that certain forms of training are synergistic. That is one method of training laid upon other methods, along with a functionality best described as 'esprit', is capable of creating units that have a high 'true' force multiple in combat. A recent example was found during the entry phase of the Iraq war in which a heavy infantry company was cut off and surrounded by the near order of ten times their number. Despite that fact, they were able to not only defeat the attackers but ravage them. They killed nearly three times their number in attackers and suffered a single casualty, he only wounded.

"Recently, this theoretical form of battle, tentatively called unit form asymmetrical battle, has been used in an ad hoc way notably in Afghanistan. On several occasions our small patrols have been attacked by numerically superior Taliban units. On each of those occasions the small unit was able to not only defeat the numerically superior force but do so with casualties to their attackers that were higher than would normally be expected.

"It should be noted, here, Mr. President, that all such instances were unintentional. No one in the US Army is willing, at this time, to test the theory in practice. The chance of failure is too high.

"Theory suggests that there are two sides to the psychology. The first is the psychology of the attacker.

Seeing a small unit, trapped, unable to be reinforced and numerically far inferior, the attacker a.s.sumes the ability to defeat the unit utterly. They, therefore, press the attack to a much greater degree than would normally be the case. Call it the 'bully' mentality. They can beat up on a group that has been bothering them and antic.i.p.ate little real difficulty in doing so.

"The other side, the combat psychology and ability of the defender, is arguably the more important. The defenders must have several conditions to succeed. They must see no possible outcome but utter destruction and universal termination if they lose. Surrender must not be an option. They must have total confidence in their superiority. They must have capable leadership. And last but arguably most important, they must have a level of training that places their combat skills in a multiple over their attacker.

"In World War II, for example, the j.a.panese had three of these pre-conditions: unwillingness to surrender, confidence and capable leadership. And during the early phases of the war they were superior in training. Thus they often were able to defeat opponents that were numerically superior. As time went on, however, and the level of training of American and British forces improved, they were unable to effect their earlier successes.

"Modern Western combat training has been tested and proven to create soldiers that have a combat ability that is unheard of up until recently. Modern American standard infantry soldiers find, localize, engage and destroy targets with a coldness and precision that was unthinkable only twenty years ago.

The reasons are complex and involve both new methods of training and certain societally common experiences. But the effect has been proven, repeatedly, to be synergistic and give the individual soldier and unit a combat multiplier over any of our standard opponents on the near order of twelve to one.

"The Kildar is apparently banking that the combination of prepared defenses, which are normally gamed as being a three to one advantage for the defender, and the combat multiplier of the Keldara over the Chechens, on an order of six to ten to one, will permit him to survive the encounter. And given the psychology of the attacker, that the Chechens will press the attack hard enough that he will not just defeat them but devastate them. That concludes my lecture, Mr. President."

"Well done," the president said, smiling. "How many times have you given that lecture?"

"About three, Mr. President," Pierson replied. "I specifically avoided words like 'transformative' but I am in a small but growing community that believe that the really 'transformative' aspects of warfare don't lie in the cool gadgets or 'effects based warfare' but in transforming the ability of the individual to bring death and destruction upon the enemies of America, in stressing the training and psychological preparation of the combatant. I was unaware that Colonel Nielson was a fellow traveler but that is apparently the case."

"So you think this will work?" the president asked.

"Sir, honestly, I don't know," Pierson admitted, slumping slightly. "Every case in which this sort of thing has worked it has been when units were more prepared and had better support. Even in Rourke's Drift one aspect often overlooked was that it was a supply base. They had virtually unlimited ammunition and were well rested and fed before the battle. The Keldara have been running all night, they haven't had anything to eat in nearly twenty-four hours and they're yellow on ammunition already. That is they are below eighty percent of their standard ammunition load. They have little or no functional indirect or air support; a couple of Hinds just don't do it for the current situation and one of those is down. They also don't have a source of water immediately available; there are two streams nearby but when they are under fire they will be difficult to access. Last, but not least, the Kildar, while capable, is not a trained officer for this sort of engagement. He depends to too great a degree on Nielson's professional input.

Nielson, being remote from the situation, inevitably will overlook items of importance. If I were the Chechen commander, I'd set in a ring of heavy weapons and emplacements and starve them for a couple of days.Then I'd attack. Fortunately, with the nature of the Chechen resistance, that is unlikely. They just don't have the cohesion."

"When will we know?" the president said with a sigh.