“No movement, Colonel. We appear to be alone.”
Thank God for that. “Alright, work your team back to the vehicle, check the warehouse behind the admin building on your way, Cruz can show you where that is. Skirjanek out.” He turned the radio off to conserve power.
“Was this part of your plan?” Naylor was jerking a thumb towards the bare concrete of the warehouse.
“No,” he answered. “But it would have been nice to pick up some gear to hold us over. Let’s get back to the vehicles.”
Vehicles? They’d found a school bus and a small collection of pickup trucks that they were able to get running. Fuel was the problem. They’d been scavenging all they could, but some of the supplies sitting in tanks had already started to age and separate. It was a real problem that was only going to get worse. Much of what they found was used to run the generator that Hoyt’s people had rigged up at their temporary base, which was nothing more than a dockside warehouse in Norfolk. They’d been collecting solar panels off of roofs and had found hundreds of the things, but they didn’t plan on being there long enough to set them up. It was time to move.
Pavel’s two-truck team caught up with them by the time they made it back to their temporary home. Preparations were well underway for loading everything into the backs of trucks and trailers. Everyone was working—or at least everyone who had decided to remain. Thirty-seven people had left during the week he had given them. They’d scattered to all points of the compass, seeking whatever home they dreamed they still had. He wished them well, but he didn’t want to think about the trips they had in front of them. He was left with sixty-two people, slightly more than half of them women. A higher proportion of the women had elected to stay rather than risk a trip into the unknown, across whatever was left of the country.
The gender mix wasn’t the issue; their collective backgrounds were. Most of the civilians had been support staff or researchers who had been working in Antarctica. Pure brainpower he had in spades. People with actual military experience made a grand total of twenty-six, the majority of which were crewmen from the Boise. When he tried to figure out how many of those had actually seen some form of combat, he had quickly stopped counting before depression set in.
His story that he knew where they were headed was wearing thin. The truth was a little more complicated. He desperately wanted to make sure The Hole was operationally viable before he let on that their supply problems might have a solution. That, and he hadn’t wanted to say anything to the larger group, mostly former civilians, until those who had planned to leave were well and truly gone.
He glanced at Pavel’s empty truck bed as it pulled up. That made Ft. Eustis a complete bust. Same as Norfolk, same as Langley Air Force Base, same as Little Creek, same as, same as. They’d all been picked clean. What hadn’t been removed had been disabled. He was experienced enough to think in terms of logistics; random scavengers could take what they could carry. Someone had possessed the logistical capacity to pack off everything of immediate use. Two-hundred-million-dollar F-22s sat in their bunkers, next to one-hundred-million-dollar F-35s, collecting dust.
At Langley AFB alone, they’d seen three C-141s and one C-5 parked on the apron, sitting on flat tires, surrounded by dozens of Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, Humvees, JLTVs, and transport trucks whose engines had been professionally sabotaged. The empty bags of sand still lying atop the engine blocks had been all the evidence he needed that someone was purposely limiting the military capability of anyone else scavenging for gear. Depending on who was behind it, it was either a very good thing or his worst-case scenario. Anything resembling small arms, ammunition for the same, supplies, food—it was all gone. Where to, was the question.
“We are prepared, Colonel.”
Dr. Mandel’s voice caught him off guard. He looked up to find the Russian scientist standing next to Captain Naylor.
He spread out the map on the tailgate of the truck and dropped a finger on a site he had circled. “I need you two to get everyone to this campground off of Highway 17. It’s a mile past the Virginia Motor Speedway, a big racetrack. I’ll be taking Pavel, Hoyt, Antwan, and Cruz to a facility a little further down the road that isn’t on any map. Staff Sergeant Mason and his fire team will be going with you. If he and his team are needed, listen to him.”
He had a moment of consternation with splitting up like this. Kent Mason was a retired Marine, one of the members of McMurdo’s contractor security team who had decided to remain behind with him. He had no worries regarding Mason’s experience or his skill set. The Marine had spent six years of his career as a drill instructor at Lejeune. He seemed the natural pick to take on the task of training up what he thought of as a fire team, utilizing members of Naylor’s submarine crew, Seabees from McMurdo, and assorted former researchers, both American and Russian. So far, the results had been as mixed as the raw material Mason had to work with.
“Is it wise to split up?” Naylor asked.
He didn’t mind the question. Hell, he needed someone to bounce shit off of, and he’d made it very clear to Naylor that he wanted and needed his input.
“The facility should be manned. If they’re alive, they’ll have been sealed up since before the suck. I don’t want to roll up on them looking like the gypsy caravan we are. You should make the campground within two hours. We’ll get word back to you, or rejoin you as soon as we can.”
“Is it beyond radio range?” Cruz asked. The Navy chief was one-half of the team along with Army Sergeant Antwan Sikes, whom he’d come to rely on at McMurdo.
“Possibly, but I want to enforce strict radio silence from this point forward in all but an emergency. We’ll switch on the radios every two hours.” He checked his watch. “Starting at 2100 hours. I want to avoid any and all radio traffic excepting an emergency.”
“You’re thinking about whoever raided the bases.” Naylor hadn’t phrased it as a question.
“They might be playing on the blue team.” He shrugged.
“They might not.” Cruz pointed out the obvious.
“I assume the opponents are the red team?” Dr. Mandel asked.
“Old habits,” he answered.
Naylor held out his hand. “We’ll be waiting for you. We don’t have the fuel to go much further.”
“Colonel?” Dr. Mandel had a single finger aligned with his chin. It usually meant the Russian scientist was in pontification mode. He didn’t mind; the guy usually knew what he was talking about. If he was surrounded by a bunch of Mensa-qualified professors, Dr. Mandel would have easily qualified as the Grand High potentate. The Russian scientist was scary smart. He’d played some chess with the man on the Boise during their trip, and he’d quickly learned that when Yefrem Ilyaevich said, “I will checkmate you in six moves,” he meant it.
“These men you seek, if they have been sequestered since before the virus, you should take care. There are likely to be . . . complications arising from their isolation.”
No shit . . . He nodded politely. “Noted.”
Chapter 6
Tysons Corner, Northern Virginia
Rachel watched the small group approach. Something about them set her on edge, which was ridiculous. Pro and nearly a dozen others with rifles had the six strangers covered from hidden positions within the building behind her.
“Lot better equipped than most,” Reed said, standing next to her.
“Might just mean they’re smarter than most,” Michelle added. Rachel almost smiled at the comment. The women who called Tysons home were probably the most habitually armed group in their community. They’d learned a lesson that they weren’t going to forget. For Michelle, her weapons were almost religious talismans, her daily target practice a catechism of sorts. Rachel didn’t think she was in the same category, but when she thought about it, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d missed one of the self-defense sessions.
“Smart or not, looks like they want to talk.” Reed turned to Daniel; they all did.
The group of strangers was made up of three men, one elderly and moving slow; two women, one about Rachel’s age, the other mid-forties; and one young boy of five or six years old. The boy fell into a demographic that they hadn’t seen much of. He was young enough that he had to have been found by a surviving adult early on.
“OK,” Daniel relented. “We’ve done this before. They pass muster? We’ll separate them, get their stories, and compare notes in a couple of days.”
Daniel stepped out from behind the barricade of cars they’d set up at the intersection of Dolly Madison and International. He signaled the rest of them to step out into the clear as well. He wanted the new arrivals to see how well armed they were. Then again, these people should know that already; it wasn’t like they hadn’t done their own investigation.
He walked the twenty yards to where they stood, alone. In one of those post-suck ironies, he could recall Bauman doing this dozens of times, all smiles and courtesy.
“Where you all from?”
“All over,” the older woman answered almost immediately. She had a rugged, solid look to her, no nonsense. “For myself, and this little guy here, we’ve been together since the beginning. The rest of us been together since the big snowstorm, except Ray. We found each other in Winchester. My name’s Carla.” She gave a gentle nudge to the young boy, who stood in front of her. “Say hello, Samuel.”
The young boy wasn’t having any of it, and he kept his eyes firmly on the ground, a few paces from his own feet.
“He goes by Sammy,” the older woman explained with a shrug.
On the surface, the story made sense. A lot of people had “found” each other during the winter’s big snowstorm. For survivors, footprints in the snow had been proof that they weren’t alone. Those same footprints had been used by people like Bauman to gather in sheep.
“The rest of you?”
The old man took a step forward. “Name’s Charles Dubois, this is my granddaughter, Tina. My boy’s child, my real granddaughter. We hail from outside Winchester.”
He felt his eyebrows rise in surprise. Simple probability explained it, but it was the first time any of them had met anyone with an actual blood relation who had survived the virus.
“These two hard cases,” the old man continued, “are Thomas and Ray. Thomas has been with me since last fall. We came across Ray a few months past.” Of the two men, only Ray looked anything like a hard case to him. About forty years old, he could have been on either side of the marker. The man was bald headed and had calm eyes that seemed to take in everything. He just nodded politely at the mention of his name.
To Daniel, there was a sense of ease about the way he held his gun. The man’s attention wasn’t so much on him as it was on the others standing behind him and on the windows of the building above him.
“Where you from, Ray?”
“Started outside of Cincinnati, been walking to Georgia since the die-off. Got held up with some trouble in Lexington, Kentucky.”
“What kind of trouble?”
Ray glanced at the young boy for just a moment before looking back at him and giving his head a slight shake. Against his better judgment, Daniel thought the man’s reticence spoke well of him. “The bad kind.”
Daniel turned his attention to the young man, mid-twenties, maybe a little older. He wondered if that was just the road mileage showing.
“And you?”
“Thomas Cairn, just Tom. I was a grad student at Virginia Tech.”
It was Daniel’s alma mater. He figured there’d be time to test that particular story later.
“What were you studying?”
“Veterinary science, equine medicine to be exact.”
“He’s a horse doctor,” the young boy blurted out, “but he fixed Ray’s arm.”
He gave the kid a smile and then looked up towards Ray. “What happened to your arm?”
“I’d been shot,” Ray answered, after sharing a friendly smile with the young boy.
Daniel waited a moment for more of the story, but it was clear Ray had already moved on.
“Alright, what do you need?” he asked. “We’ve got a few supplies we can hand out. It’s not much, but it’ll help you on your way.”
“We can’t stay?” the young woman, Tina, asked in a tone that screamed exhaustion.
“Why would you want to?”
“’Cause your womenfolk are armed to the teeth,” the older woman, Carla, answered for her group. “We’ve been watching y’all for a day or two. You seem like decent people.”
The group of newcomers had scouted them for exactly four days. Pro and his scouts had watched the group’s approach down Route 7 and had kept tabs on them since. He couldn’t fault the small lie; he’d have played it the same way. Anyone with a shred of common sense would have. He figured those without common sense were already dead or living in places like Tysons had been, or maybe like Lexington was.
“I saw them fields you planted,” the old man interjected. “A lot of your rows are too close together, unless it was all wheat or rye.”
“You a farmer?”
“Not since my younger days, but I remember a fair bit.”
“Can you use a doctor?” the young woman, Tina, asked and pointed at Tom.
“I’m just a vet,” the man corrected, “or would have been.”
Carla spoke in his defense. “He’s a good doctor. Mister, if you aren’t taking in newcomers, at least let us stay a few days and rest up. We’ll give up our weapons, if you promise us, we’ll get them back.”
Michelle turned to Rachel at the older woman’s last words. “Nuh-uh, no freaking way. I don’t trust them.” Rachel hoped Michelle’s harsh whisper went unheard.
“I’ll just be moving on, then.” Ray was shaking his head and looking at Carla, who was clearly in charge of the group. “I’m not giving up my gun.”
“Now, that makes sense,” Michelle whispered again. She and Daniel were on the same wavelength.
“You can keep your guns.” Daniel nodded. “We aren’t about to ask anyone to go unarmed. We’ve had some experience with that; it doesn’t work. But you’ll be watched closely. Everybody works. If it doesn’t work out for us, for any reason. . . you’ll be asked to leave.”
“Sounds fair to us,” Carla answered.
*
“I’m telling you, they’re not right.” Pro had watched the group through his scope for days, and he wasn’t holding back. “The old lady runs the group—”
“She’s not an old lady,” Michelle broke in and dared Pro to argue the point. “You’re right, though. She is in charge, and it should be that Ray guy—something’s fishy.”
“The bald guy?” Pro shook his head. “No way. He’s barely part of their group. The geek doesn’t like him, probably ’cause he’s got the hots for the young lady. I don’t think the old . . . sorry, Carla lady likes him much either. The little boy seems to be the only one who really talks to him.”
It was all good intel, as Jason would have called it. But Daniel had to hide his exasperated smile behind his hands at Pro’s unvarnished report.
“First off, he’s a vet,” Daniel said. “Which probably makes him at least as close to a doctor as what we have now with Doc Adams. So not a geek.”
Pro rolled his eyes and held up a hand. “Sorry, and I know I shouldn’t say he had the hots. I just meant that the gee . . . the vet acts like he’s worried baldy is going to move in on his girlfriend.”
Reed shook his head. “All I know is the old man has forgotten more about farming than anybody we have around here knows. He’s already been a huge help.”
The group had been with them for three days, during which they’d acte
d like anyone who knew they were being watched. They’d all been on good behavior, and had worked hard. Daniel and Reed had been working with Ray and the old man all day, raiding fertilizer from every garden store, nursery, and home improvement center they could find. The old man, Charles, had been a font of knowledge, but pessimistic regarding what he referred to as the “piss-poor” clay soil of the area.
Ray had been quiet, but had worked hard. Daniel was more convinced than ever that Ray was hiding something, but he was the last person in the world to hold that against anyone.
“How about the girl?” Reed turned to Rachel. “She really the old man’s granddaughter?”
“As far as I can tell.” Rachel nodded. “One thing’s for certain; she’s quite smitten with the young doctor.”
“Well, yeah.” Michelle laughed. “A doctor! What young girl doesn’t want to hook a doctor? Can’t you imagine the private schools for their kids, the big house, the parties? She’ll never have to work a day in her life.”
“That last part is true,” Rachel added as soon as the laughter died down.
“Which part?” Daniel asked.
“Girl is a complete sluggard, lazy all day long, and she carries that gun for show. Says she’s never fired it. I know it sounds odd, but it’s as if she has some sort of entitlement thing going because of the young horse doctor. How does she get that in such a small group? On the road?”
The road scavengers were relentless. The small bands of a half dozen or so were the worst; they were next to impossible to pin down and track. All they’d been able to do throughout the spring was harass them enough to drive them out further into the suburbs. The point being, they all knew how dangerous it was to travel. How would anyone get from Winchester to Tysons on foot without fighting? They all knew it and wondered how anybody could have survived as long as the group had without fighting.
Michelle stood up from the table, signaling the meeting was over. “Like I’ve been saying, something’s not right with these people.”
Seasons of Man | Book 2 | Reap What You Sow Page 4