The atmosphere in the room was all business. Those sitting at the table and along the walls were in receive mode and taking it all in. Here was the new man, laying down what he wanted done and when. Everyone now had a purpose, and accompanying that purpose were a multitude of tasks that would need to be fulfilled. There was strong direction now, which meant the time for sitting and waiting had ended. It was time to get back to work.
A chorus of “No, sirs” rang out around the room. The senior members of the staff got to their feet, and the audience of assistants and aides alongside the wall stepped off as they preceded their principals out of the room to carry out the president’s requests.
As people continued to leave the room, Cornell motioned for Victor and Parker to join him. He then turned to Hastings and Slater as they marched for the exit. “Captain Hastings, Master Sergeant Slater? Please hang back a moment. I’d like to have a word.”
Both men stopped where they were and waited for the room to empty out. Victor motioned them over once the majority of the civilians had left the room.
“Bring it in, gents,” the short officer said.
Cornell exchanged a glance with Victor and Parker as they drew near. He turned back to Hastings and nodded quickly before expanding his gaze to include the officers and Slater. “Colonel, Sarmajor ... I want to keep both Hastings and Slater in their current positions with our group from the Gap. I realize I’m probably stepping on your toes here, but I think it’s best to keep both these men on so they can continue to be our maneuver element. We can only get so much done while sealed up in a mountain, and I need ground truth feedback as well as decisions to be made in our collective absence.”
Victor cocked his head at an inquisitive angle. “I’m sorry, sir ... but ‘our collective absence?’”
“I envision you and the sarmajor are going to remain here for a time, Colonel,” Cornell said. “I’m going to need senior staff to start implementing the COG initiatives, and that will probably entail the majority of your direct reports as well.” Cornell jerked his thumb toward Hastings and Slater. “I think you’ll agree with me that these two here have done a hell of a lot for us, not only while we were on the road but back at the Gap, as well. We can supplement them with additional personnel from this facility to support them.”
Victor crossed his arms and regarded Hastings and Slater openly. “I don’t have any issues with anything you’re saying here, sir. Sarmajor?”
Parker snorted. “Sorry, Mr. President. That’s just a non-starter, sir.”
Cornell looked at Parker through narrowed eyes before Parker allowed himself to smile. Realizing he’d been put on, Cornell guffawed. “I knew I could count on a brother to keep me straight!”
Parker nodded toward Hastings and Slater. “Sir, both of these men are capable of carrying out whatever you order them to do. Capable in the extreme, I’d say.”
“Well, then.” Cornell put his hands on his hips and turned to Hastings and Slater again. “I guess that just leaves you two. Interested in doing your work in the field?”
“Hell yes, sir,” Slater said immediately.
Hastings nodded. “We’ll go wherever you need us, sir. You’re the commander in chief, after all.”
Cornell gave Hastings a wry smile. “We’ll see how long I last. At any rate, I know I can count on you both to carry out the tasks ahead of us. And I’ll make any of the resources we have available to you in order to accomplish the mission. Whatever you need, if I have it, I’ll give it. In the meantime, see to the men. And I’d like both of you to be here for the 1800 meeting—that way you’ll know everything first hand going forward.”
“Understood, sir. We appreciate your confidence in us and your support,” Hastings said.
“Don’t sweat it, Mr. President,” Slater said. “Hastings and I will see to it that you continue to get the information you need. And we’ll stay on top of your personal protection detail until the Secret Service can assume that duty.”
“Much appreciated, Sergeant,” Cornell said.
“Mr. President? Sir, if I may. I’d like to continue to pursue identifying our guest John Mosby. I have the FBI’s most wanted list from the post office, but the picture isn’t entirely conclusive. I’d like to have the folks here look into whatever databases they have access to, in order to see if they can dig up anything more concrete that can give us a positive ID on this guy.”
Cornell nodded at that immediately. “By all means. Find out what you can about that individual. I am as curious as you are to find out if we have a domestic terrorist in our midst.”
“Will do, sir.”
“Anything else for Hastings and Slater, sir?” Victor asked.
“For them? No. From you? Yes. Sorry, Colonel. You’re not off the hook yet,” Cornell said with a smile. “Captain, Sergeant ... off you go. See you at 1800.”
“Thank you, sir.”
With that, the two men exited the SCIF and into the corridor outside. Hastings took in a deep breath and looked around—he and Slater were brand new to the complex, and finding their way around might be a light challenge.
“Excuse me—Captain? Sergeant?”
Hastings turned and found himself facing Melissa Cornell. “Yes, ma’am? If you’re looking for your husband, he’s still inside...”
“No. It’s the two of you I was looking for. I won’t be long, I promise.”
“Ma’am?” Slater asked, puzzled.
“I just wanted to thank both of you personally. You’ve done so much. You two have practically moved mountains for me and Henry. I really, really appreciate you and all that you’ve done. Thank you.” There was no mistaking the genuine emotion in her voice when she spoke.
“Well ma’am, of course,” Hastings said. “It’s our duty, and our job.”
Melissa reached out and put her hand on Hastings’s arm. “I know having to do that job after losing what you did has got to be extremely difficult, Captain. I don’t know if there’s anything I can do for you, but if there is ... both Henry and myself will do whatever you need from us.”
Hastings sighed and shook his head. “Thank you, ma’am. But I think this is going to be a do-it-yourself kind of thing. But I appreciate the thought. Really.”
Melissa smiled at him then nodded to both of them. “I’ll let you get back to your jobs, then. Thank you both, again.”
With that, she turned and walked up the corridor. Hastings turned to see Slater looking at him openly, his blue eyes glittering beneath his brows. Slater could present an unnerving kind of stare, as if he could peer into the depths of a man’s soul. Hastings and the rest of the lightfighters had noticed that immediately during their first meeting outside the fuel oil company in New York as they were picking their way back to the remains of Fort Drum. Where Hastings’s family had met their end, all while he was busy trying to save strangers in New York City with the rest of the division.
“What?” Hastings asked.
“No one’s really had the time to deal with everything that’s happened,” Slater said. “Losing your family’s got to be absolutely crushing, but you’re still up and moving. And now, you’re even separated from your guys. I have to hand it to you, Phil. You sure are one tough son of a bitch.”
Hastings didn’t quite know how to handle that. To date, his relationship with Slater had been purely professional. Now that it had crossed into the personal, it left him feeling a little discombobulated.
“Thanks,” he said simply.
“You need to talk some stuff out, you let me know,” Slater said. “I’m no high-priced psychologist, but I’ll advise where I can.”
“They teach you that stuff in Special Forces too?”
Slater shook his head. “No. Life teaches that.”
“All right. Well, thanks again. Anyhow, let’s get to the operations center and see what we can find out about Mosby. Okay?”
“Roger that, sir.” And like that, Slater turned off his Deep Stare and looked down the corridor they sto
od in. Together they worked their way back to the OPCEN to find the people who could potentially help them identify the man they knew as John Mosby. Their first stop was the S-2 shop and any of the other agencies sections that dealt in intelligence matters. Trying to identify the man was a twenty-five-meter target for them and something easier to accomplish compared to the realities they had been facing since Hastings was pushed out of New York. Plus, it was personal; both he and Slater wanted to know if the man they had in custody was responsible for the earlier attack on the convoy, which resulted in the deaths of their men. Finding that information out was easier and likely something they could do themselves, but confirming his true identity was another matter.
Either way, a reckoning was coming. How it would play out was still yet to be seen.
###
The train thundered on through the day and through the evening. At times it would literally highball down great lengths of track; at others, it would slow to a mere crawl. Twice teams were deployed to check switches and rail conditions. Ballantine linked up with Captain Bellara and ventured out with him on one of those verification runs, something that made both his family and Guerra cross with him. Kay and the boys had understandable right to protest; Guerra less so. It seemed that a few hours of sack time had only served to make Hector even less friendly. Ballantine shrugged to himself. Lately, he just couldn’t win with the staff sergeant.
“What’s the op here, sir?” Ballantine asked Bellara when he joined the rest of the Guard commander’s squad on the ground after the train had come to a halt. It was getting dark. All the shooters had night vision goggles and were outfitted for nocturnal operations. The remainder of Bellara’s company had dismounted as well, standing ready to provide security for the train while it was stopped.
“We’ll go forward and provide security for Munn and his guy while they decide how they’re going to move the switch,” Bellara said.
“Munn? I thought he was an engineer?”
“I am, Sergeant.” Lieutenant Munn, the middle-aged National Guard first lieutenant, appeared behind him with another man in his tow. While Munn wore the standard Army combat uniform, the beefy, bearded man with him was dressed in well-worn denim overalls and thick black work boots. His eyes were small and porcine beneath the bill of his Mack Trucks cap.
Munn pointed to the front of the train. “My brother-in-law has more experience on big rigs like this—I was a light rail driver, so he’s the one keeping this pig going forward. I’m just his backup.”
“Got that, sir. Who’s this?” Ballantine nodded to the blubbery man behind him.
“Scotch Billings,” said the man. His voice was low and ragged, and Ballantine immediately knew Scotch was a fitting name. The man clearly lived a life where his best pals were named whisky and cigarettes.
Munn clucked his tongue. “Scotch, Ballantine. Ballantine, Scotch. Not a lot of time for a meet and greet here, guys.”
“Roger that.” Ballantine looked at Bellara. “Order of advance, sir?”
Bellara looked at Munn. “Lieutenant?”
Munn pointed toward the front of the train, where an old switching tower stood beneath the gathering gloom. “That way. The faster we get this over with the better.”
The men set out, with Ballantine the three of Bellara’s soldiers forming the leading edge. It was still too bright for their NVGs to be of much use, so Ballantine kept his attention focused on the areas of deep shadow. The train had essentially come to a halt along a graded cut through a flat field, so visibility was good despite the diminishing sunlight. There was no discernible movement out among the grass. In the distance, lights appeared. Vehicles moving along a far off road. Ballantine took that to be an encouraging sign, as he doubted reekers could drive.
“Don’t worry about the vehicle traffic, Ballantine,” Bellara said behind him. “We’re not out here to make contact with anyone, so if you’re afraid I’m going to send you out? Forget about that.”
“Didn’t think that was on the task list, Captain. I had a chat with Jarmusch. He told me why we’re not stopping to aid and assist beyond giving some canned advice.”
“Oh, no shit? You should loop me in on that, Sergeant.”
“Maybe later, sir.”
The group walked away from the train. Armed soldiers were all over the consist, several of them standing upright on the backs of the diesel engines. Munn waved to the man sitting behind the controls in the first engine. He was the same man who had presided over the obliteration of the small zombie herd earlier, the one who liked Johnny Carson. The man waved back through his open window.
Out on the tracks, with the throbbing of the diesel locomotives providing the only musical accompaniment, Ballantine received a crash course in rail switching from Munn and Scotch. As a hands-on kind of guy who was more than slightly mechanically talented, it was interesting to him even if nonessential. The rails the train traveled on were fixed and immobile; these were called the stock rail. The other players in the switch point were the switch rail itself, partnered with the toe rail. The two moveable rails were connected by a stretcher bar, which was actually two or more metal bars that joined the rail set so it moved as a single entity. At the center of the rail transfer was the nose, the section of track that absorbed the high impact load presented when a multi-ton consist of rail cars were shunted either left or right.
Munn walked over to a long, flat metal and plastic casing lying ten feet away from the left stock rail. “And here, we have our electromechanical switch. Which is of course, dead. Scotch?”
Scotch cleared his throat and hawked a loogie the size of Minnesota across the field. “On that shit.” He moved his ponderous bulk over to the switch and slowly knelt beside it, grunting. He carried a leather bag with him, and he removed a battery-powered drill from it. He looked at the screw heads for a moment, then pulled a bit from a plastic case and set it in the drill. “Gonna need a couple.”
Bellara stepped up next to Ballantine. “So Lieutenant, what happens next?”
“Scotch gets the case off and disconnects the motor,” Munn said, looking around the field. “Once that happens, we manually move the facing point locks and lock the switch to the left so we can continue straight ahead.” He pointed to the rails that veered off to the right. “We use those, we go into Minnesota.”
Ballantine pointed at the dilapidated switching tower that stood nearby. Its windows were streaked with grime, and moss grew across its shingled roof like cancer. “Can’t we operate it from there?”
“No, Sergeant. That thing was out of commission ten years before the zombie apocalypse—hell, Reagan was probably still counting jellybeans on his desk in Washington when that thing threw its last switch. No one’s in there, and there’s nothing left inside to help us.” Munn looked around the field again. “Now maybe you guys can keep your eyes out?”
“We’ve got you covered, Lieutenant,” Bellara said.
Scotch unscrewed the switch’s cover and pulled it aside as Munn stooped over to help him. The big man grunted as he inspected the device’s guts for a long moment while Munn set the shroud on the ground and straightened up. Scotch seemed dismayed by what he saw as his small eyes narrowed and he grunted again.
“Something wrong?” Munn asked.
Scotch grunted once more and squeezed his eyes closed. Ballantine thought the big man was about to have a heart attack. Instead, he leaned forward slightly and released a loud, two-tone fart that sounded like a French horn being gang-raped by two tubas while a trombone cheered on from the sidelines. It was a loud noise even over the rumbling of the diesel engines a hundred meters away.
Ballantine chuckled, but Bellara broke out in laughter. “God damn, guy!”
“Just a little Kentucky windage,” Scotch said without an ounce of remorse. “Happens when there’s not enough sour mash in my diet.”
“Too bad we’re not headed for Kentucky or Tennessee,” a very unamused Munn said. “Think we can get back to work now, or is there
something else you need to tend—oh my God, Scotch! What did you fucking eat?” Munn suddenly staggered backward as the raw odor of Scotch’s excrescence wafted through the air.
“Okay Munn, we’ll leave the two of you to your work!” Bellara said, laughing again as he stepped back.
Ballantine did the same. He turned to the soldiers standing around them and threw a knife-hand toward the fields. “Eyes out, troops. Keep watch for deadheads, some of that grass is kind of tall.”
The troops rogered their confirmation and went back to work while Munn gathered himself enough to brave Scotch’s reek and concentrate on the switch. Ballantine scanned the horizon, looking for movement amongst the trees. They were hundreds of meters away, and in areas the grass grew to almost three feet high. It was still too bright for night vision goggles, but it was dark enough that reekers could sneak up on them. Bellara’s element was the farthest from the train, and almost right off its cliff-like nose. Even if the soldiers on the consist saw an oncoming zombie force, the train’s aspect to the switch team would reduce the amount of suppressive fire that could be dialed in to neutralize the threat. Basically, Ballantine and the others were on their own.
It took almost ten minutes to get the switch set, Ballantine heard the rails move across the ties as it locked into place. Scotch pushed himself to his feet and joined Munn in inspecting the adjustment. The two men dickered back and forth quietly, pointing at the switch rail and its positioning.
Downrange, a rifle cracked. Then another, and another.
“Crusader One Seven, this is Crusader One-Two.” Guerra’s voice came over Ballantine’s earphones.
“Send it, One-Two.”
“Reekers walking up on the rear of the train. Looks like a small formation, so it should be handled. Nothing in our line of sight. Civilian coaches are good to go.”
These Dead Lands (Book 2): Desolation Page 19