I’d kept myself aligned with her need for vengeance through my own personal logic. My hatred had bled away each time I looked down at one of the Korean soldiers I had killed and saw it was just a regular guy laying there. Most of them had hated their leader’s way before I had. They just couldn’t do anything about it. If they had tried the North Korean government threw them and their family into the death camps they had going over there. I remembered seeing satellite photos of the death camps the Koreans ran for political dissidents on the news. The leaders over in Korea had dined on caviar while the soldiers in the huge army they couldn’t afford ate potatoes grown in fields fertilized with human feces. Defectors from North Korea had been found with giant worms growing in their bodies since eating your own crap was bad.
That was the life those people had lived. Now their leaders had somehow managed to kill most of the world’s population and were moving these soldiers into a land where they would be able to grow edible food. Where there was room to spread out. Where it wasn’t cold and miserable most of the time. I had an understanding of how the common man must feel on their side. I couldn’t let myself empathize too much though. I still knew that in order for me and mine to survive and thrive we needed to kill as many of them as possible. With that cheery thought in mind, I reached out and grabbed Ann’s hand as we continued to walk towards the barracks where we hoped to find Reeves.
Entry 9: Impromptu Planning Session
We couldn’t find Reeves in the barracks. We did find a soldier who took us to see Captain Abraham when we asked about Reeves. Abraham and a few other Seals were hanging out in the control room. Basically, an underground room equipped with some radio equipment so they could communicate with ground forces at a distance. There were relays embedded into the mountains and field around her for several miles giving them a pretty decent broadcast range. I heard Wilsons voice on the radio as Ann and I wandered in. Abraham looked up when we opened the door and nodded at us. Once Wilson had finished transmitting Abraham came over to talk to us.
“How you feeling there Steve? You looked like a Zombie when you left last night except green instead of blue.” He paused for himself and Ann to laugh at me for a few seconds. “I assume you’re out here looking for Reeves. He’s out with Wilson and a small team trying to recon the area we left the last bomb in. I’m thinking one backpack nuke is awesome but two would be even more awesome.”
Ann and I stood there for a second taking it in. Before we could start grilling the Captain with questions he started talking again.
“I hated leaving that one nuke out in the field knowing we were going to probably want to have it for the upcoming operation. Given the situation at the time I agree it was the best thing to do. I planned on going back for the other bomb the whole time though. I went to go recruit some guys to go out this morning and Wilson and I found Reeves and three Seals had gotten back into the Whiskey last night after we all thought they’d passed out. The fastest hangover cure I know of is being sent out on a miserable, cold day to go recon a nuclear weapon that is probably still surrounded by Zombies. I didn’t order Reeves to go along he just kind of took it upon himself. Probably wasn’t thinking too straight.”
“You don’t think sending them out there in that condition was poor judgment? They could be killed!” Ann was looking like she may get into the Captains face. “Reeves is not one of your little toy soldiers to send wherever you want.”
The Captain held up his hand to stop the onslaught.
“I appreciate that Reeves is not mine to give direct orders to. Although he is in the reserves and he is an enlisted man which would actually place him under my command if I chose to exercise that right.” He put his hand back up to stop the next blast from Ann. “I am not choosing to exercise that right. Just pointing out it is in the realm of possibilities. Reeves went because he chose to go and help out. I rather assume if you guys had been hanging around here you would have volunteered to go as well. As far as danger, the orders are to get as close as possible then crawl up on a building or hill and get eyes on the target and see if it would be possible for us to get it.”
More talking from over by the radio had the Captain asking us to excuse him for a second as he went back and started talking to Wilson again. I was trying to eavesdrop while simultaneously rubbing Ann’s back and hoping she didn’t flip out on the Captain again. I was hoping he’d realized she wasn’t pissed at him. She was just fearful for Reeves and it was coming out at the closest target which happened to be him. I wasn’t all that scared for Reeves based on the assignment. No more than I normally was afraid for him, or the rest of us, anyway. These days you could die trying to brush your teeth.
We waited impatiently while Abraham stayed on the radio. We noticed everyone seemed to get more tense. Finally, Abraham came back over to us.
“They parked the transport and went about two miles further on foot in the early morning while it was still pretty dark. They got setup and they can see the Zombies still crawling around the truck with the bomb in it. While they have been sitting there talking to us a couple of transports of Koreans have rolled up on them and look to be headed for where the truck with the bomb is laying. They also saw a helicopter off in the distance. I’ve ordered them to lay low for now and send us hourly updates unless they need immediate backup. There looks to be around fifty to sixty of the Korean special forces guys on the trucks.”
Ann gave me a look. The look clearly communicated that five seconds before I had been spouting a bunch of bullshit about this being a relatively safe mission. The look was turning into the standard ‘I told you so’ kind of look women get. Any man who has ever been in a serious relationship knows the look well. I asked the Captain what the plan was to pull them out. For right now, the plan was for the Seal team to observe and see if the Koreans grabbed the nuke or not. There was too many of them for us to attack but if they attacked the Zombies we could hit them when they were done and then grab the bomb from them. Let them do all the hard work.
I liked that plan but still felt like we should be heading out to help. I could see Abraham running scenarios in his mind. Finally, he came over and asked us if we wanted to help pull Reeves out of the fire and hopefully get our hands on that second nuke. We both said we did and would love to hear what he was thinking.
“Ok. I want to keep enough guys here in reserve so that if something were to happen to everyone trying to get the second nuke we’d still be able to deliver the first bomb and do some damage. I think we need to reinforce the guys we have out in the field to the point where it is realistic to let the Koreans attack the Zombies then hit them from behind when they have cleared enough of the Zombies out for us to be able to capture the nuke. Once we do that we’re going to need to abandon this base. No big deal there except for the thirty-eight girls we have sitting over in a barracks. I’ll need to send them somewhere safe. I have other safe places we could send them but they don’t have anyone who has been out in this world to guide them there and I can’t spare any fighting men if we are going to be able to acquire the second nuke and send it down into Korean territory.”
He stopped. Probably to breathe. He’d been talking for a pretty long time. It was good stuff though. It also gave me some ideas on how I could take care of some things I’d been worried about.
“Ann, why don’t you take Ginny and lead the girls to the next safe base and then we’ll meet up with you once we drop off these bombs?”
“Not gonna happen. Abraham, can you excuse us for a minute.” Ann was radiating some seriously pissed off vibes. I hoped Abraham would stay since Ann seemed more pissed at him than me. He must have sensed the vibes though because he about tripped over his own feet getting out of there to go stand beside the radio operator. He was standing there now studiously ignoring me trying to make eye contact with him. Ann got in my face and began whispering at me in a dead, cold tone that sent chills up my spine.
“We live or die together. If we’re going to go try and blow up Sa
n Diego then we’re doing it together. We’ll probably die together but no way am I sending you off by yourself and then going to sit somewhere and wonder if you’re ever going to show up or not. Get that idea out of your head.” She gave a me a hard look and I just shook my head. “The Captain does need someone to lead the girls to the next safe place. I say we send Ginny with them. She’ll get the girls there and be somewhere safe in case we don’t make it. She can take Daisy too. We’re going to be sneaking into an enemy stronghold carrying a few hundred pounds of bombs so I’m thinking we don’t want to lug around a drugged-up dog on top of all of that.”
I kissed her and told her that worked for me if she was sure. I really didn’t want her to go. I kind of assumed this was a one-way trip but I saw her point about being left behind. It wasn’t like there was any way on this earth that I would have let her go while I stayed behind. Now we just needed to get the plan together with Abraham and tell Ginny. I had no desire to be the one who had to tell Ginny she was being sent off to safety. I’d need to weasel my way out of that and let Ann do it.
I went over and tapped the Captain on the shoulder. He got up and came back to talk to us in the alcove area. We told him we were good with that and we planned on sending Ginny and Daisy along with the refugees to help them get to their destination. The Captain told us he was going to send along two Seals as well. They were currently in the infirmary with various limbs broken from the recent operations. They weren’t going to be able to help us hump bombs into the heart of San Diego anytime soon so he was going to send them to safety with the women. Those guys had pulled the lucky straw with whatever injuries they’d managed to wrack up. Knowing the warrior ethos around here they still would probably fight the order and request to be included in the assault force.
I asked the Captain when he wanted to set everything into motion. He told us to be ready to meet up by the exit in the parking garage with all of our gear in one hour. That didn’t give us a lot of time to go say our goodbyes to Ginny and Daisy and get all of our crap together. Knowing we only had that hour we didn’t waste any more time hanging out. We set off to have a very tough conversation with Ginny and shove our worldly possessions into a couple of backpacks.
Entry 10: Strike where the Enemy is Weak
Ginny was less than thrilled to be told she was going to be sent off to take the group of women to safety.
“What the fuck do you mean you’re sending me away with all those prisoners and a couple of crippled Seals!” The dropping of the ‘F’ bomb told me I was in trouble. I thought Ann had been going to handle this but somehow it was me standing here getting my ass handed to me by a skinny little fifteen-year-old girl.
“Someone needs to lead the girls and make sure they get to the next base safe. We all know you’re a good leader and we thought you’d be the best one to – “
“You mean you all want me out of the way so you can go fight without worrying about me. Guess what, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m a better shot than you are and I have more training in going to war than you do. Only reason you shoot zombies is because there is always so many of the damned things that is hard to miss them. I’m going with you.”
“The Seals need someone to lead the girls.”
“Then have the Seals lead the prisoners to safety. They can flex their muscles and try to get lucky. I don’t give a shit. You’re not sending me away while you guys go and try to blow up a city with Reeves. Reeves, the guy who has currently managed to get himself stuck on top of a building in the middle of nowhere surrounded by Zombies and Koreans. You guys need me.”
“Ginny, you need to go with the other girls. Be safe. We want you safe.”
“I’m not some stupid teeny bopper. I’m a soldier. I can shoot. I can run. I can take orders. But, I’m not taking an order to leave my friends and let them go die.”
“We need someone to take care of Daisy and get her out of this.”
“I love Daisy to death but she’s a dog Steve. She’s nothing compared to you guys. You’re my big brothers and sister. I need you and you need me. We don’t abandon each other. I’m not leaving you.”
“If we send those girls off by themselves they’ll end up dead. We need you to do it. We rescued them and they’re our responsibility.”
“Cool. Let’s all go take them to safety then we can go blow up the southern part of California. We can rescue Reeves on the way there.”
“You’re going.” I had about had it. We only had an hour and at this rate I wouldn’t have any of my crap together. I’d still be standing here arguing when they ordered everyone to leave. I’d at least like to put on some fresh underwear. I try to change them weekly whether they need it or not. They pretty much always do.
“I’m not going. I’m staying with you guys.”
I needed backup. I went to the other room where Ann was packing our stuff and pretending like she had not been listening to me and Ginny arguing.
“You really put the hammer down there Steve. I’m guessing you haven’t had a lot of sales jobs?”
“Not ones that I was any good at.” I admitted.
Ann shook her head and told me to work on getting my stuff packed and she’d go try and talk to Ginny. She left and about ten minutes later she came back in. She let me know Ginny was packing and was going to lead the girls to safety. I asked her what she had said to get her to go. Ann smiled at me.
“I didn’t have to tell her anything. She’s a smart girl. I just hugged her and she asked if I agreed with you on the plan and then she said she’d do it but we better not get ourselves killed or she was going to be pissed. She’s packing her stuff now.”
As long as she was packing her stuff and headed out of danger I was happy. I sat down and started shoving loose bullets into the clip for my AR. I had my pack ready to go. None of us really unpacked anymore as we all expected to be hauling ass out of the room and running for our lives at any second. It had become second nature at this point to always be ready to move. Once that has happened to you enough you learn that having to leave important stuff behind can be a pain the ass so you start making sure you have all your stuff where you can grab it and go fast.
The Seals had a ton of gear here they’d let us sort through. We’d all gotten web belts and Ginny had pronounced camo to be the new pink. We had cold weather gear and backpacks without action figures on them now. We may not all have the extensive training the Seals had but at least now we looked more the part. We also had two straight years of operational experience surviving and running successful operations in this new world. We had been running and gunning for so long that we were all pretty damned good at it. The Captain had said he’d take that kind of experience over training any day. He’d also recognized that still being alive after trekking from Florida to California was worthy of some kind of a medal.
I assumed he wanted us on the mission because of that experience. Because of that experience and the fact that he was way low in terms of manpower. Otherwise, he’d probably have shipped us all off with the women we had rescued. I stood up in front of the mirror. I looked almost like a bad ass soldier in these clothes. Not at all like the awkward twenty something I felt like under those clothes. I tightened my grip on my hands. Stretching out the skin graft from where I’d left most of the original skin on a rope on the side of the Luxor. The corpsman who had patched me up was dead now. The remaining corpsman who was here at the base had looked it over for me and given me some ointment and extra bandages for it. He’d told me it would have earned me some serious bed rest and a sling a couple of years ago. Now you got a band aid and some Oxy and they hand you back your weapon and tell you to go fight some more.
I stood up and shrugged into my pack then helped Ann get hers situated on her back. We walked out of the room and shut the door behind us. It had been nice feeling semi-safe. Even if the stay had been brief. I waited for Ginny to come join us but looking in the room she was already gone. Reeves had nothing personal in the room. He carried everythi
ng he needed at all times. He claimed that was why he didn’t take showers as often as the rest of us. I think he was just lazy.
We walked out into the parking garage and over towards the exit. There was a lot of activity going on across the large floor. More non-blue people than I had seen in a single spot in a long time were gathered around a bunch of trucks and hummers and working on getting situated. It looked like they were also trying to load all of the supplies into the vehicles. I supposed it made sense to take as much as possible. I just still wasn’t a hundred percent on why we had to abandon this base. It seemed like an overabundance of caution to me but my knowledge of the interworking of military intelligence and information gathering was limited to the couple of Tom Clancy novels I had read. Well, started and then watched the movie at least, those books were pretty long and I had stuff to do.
Zournal (Book 6): The Final Countdown Page 5