The two bodyguards were soldiers. There was no mistaking that. He already knew the Russian was a soldier from Ray. The man was taller than Skirjanek by an inch or two but built like a fullback. At the moment, the Russian was ignoring both of them and scanning the surrounding buildings with what looked to be a practiced eye.
The soldier who had been in the back seat was as tall as he was and about the same age. A Marine, he guessed, and a lifer by the looks of it. One didn’t get the fused-vertebrae look in the Army, and the look on the Marine’s face was screaming that he thought his CO was insane.
“You’re Jason?” The colonel sounded friendly enough, almost conversational.
“I am, Jason Larsen.”
“Shit.” Ray gave his head a shake. “I suppose I should have handled introductions.”
“No worries, Mr. Hoover.” The colonel waved away the concern as he walked up to him, holding out his hand. “Jason, I’m Andrew Skirjanek. Drew to my friends.”
“It’s good to meet you,” he said. “Is it Colonel Skirjanek?”
The man’s eyes were laughing as he took in the surrounding courtyard. He lingered on the burned-out shell of a minivan in the middle of what used to be the ice rink. “Certainly not in any official capacity. Everything I swore an oath to is well and gone.” Skirjanek nodded in greeting at Ray and then turned back to him. “I understand from Mr. Hoover, you’re the leader of your group.”
“Not exactly,” he answered. “I didn’t want the job. I guess you could say I’m the head watchdog for our civilian authority, and by civilian, I mean a former soccer mom with anger issues.”
“Fair enough.” Skirjanek nodded to himself. “We’ve all got that in common, I suppose.” Turning to his subordinates, he said, “I’d like to introduce my colleagues. This is Captain Pavel Volkov, formerly Russian Army Spetsnaz. He and his people were in Antarctica as well, and hitched a ride off the ice with us.”
He offered what he thought was a friendly nod of respect in the Russian’s direction.
“How many guns are looking at us?” the Russian asked, as he continued to scan the surrounding buildings.
“Enough,” he answered with a smile, before turning back to the colonel. “No disrespect intended, just playing it safe.”
“More than understandable.” Skirjanek waved away the concern and turned to his other bodyguard. “This is Lieutenant John Bruce, former Marine gunnery sergeant, Marine recon.”
“It’s a pleasure, sir,” the Marine answered, sounding a lot more like the Marine sergeant he had been than a postapocalypse field-promoted lieutenant.
“It’s just Jason,” he responded. “Good to meet you, all of you.” Jason made a point of turning back to the Russian, whose focus was taken up with the upper stories of the office building behind him and Ray.
“Captain, my people have been told to stand ready. They aren’t going to start anything. You’re all safe, as long as we remain friendly.”
“Am only worried about truck, limited edition.”
“Mr. Larsen,” Skirjanek cut in and motioned with his laptop when the shared laughter died down. “I learned a lesson when I spoke to Mr. Hoover. Perhaps I can answer your question of how full of shit I am, right off the bat.”
He smiled and nodded. “Not sure I’d put it that way, but Ray did mention a video I had to see.”
As the video of the conference between Skirjanek and President Huffman played, Jason was struck by a sense of the surreal; watching the classified meeting from a laptop, sitting on the hood of a pickup, in the middle of the Town Center’s courtyard. The collapse of civilization that the president referred to had happened. They were all part of the “lucky, or possibly unlucky, few” who were mentioned.
When the video ended, Skirjanek stepped away and looked again at the metal carcass of the minivan on the ice-skating rink. Jason had watched the entire video, and caught the last part where Skirjanek had basically told the president that his family had been in touch, and was dying. He closed the laptop and regarded Skirjanek’s back for a moment.
The colonel turned back towards him and jerked a thumb towards the ice-skating rink. “Last time I was here, my wife and I came with my daughter.” Skirjanek tried to smile and failed. “She wanted to ice-skate. My wife drove our minivan.”
Jason wanted to tell Skirjanek that thinking back on the past was a short road to anger and madness that didn’t fade easily. “Colonel . . .”
Skirjanek held out a hand and waved off the concern in his voice. “I was just wondering how long it will be, if ever, before we build a place to go ice-skating. The idea is like the recording you just watched. It’s an artifact of a dead world.”
“And your last orders?” he asked. “Another artifact?”
“Without a doubt,” Skirjanek agreed and walked closer. “But, if there’s a better way to help the people who managed to survive, I haven’t thought of it. Do the most good, for the most people.” Skirjanek indicated his two men and himself. “In terms of a grand strategy—that’s it in a nutshell.”
Jason glanced at Ray, who had retreated a few steps to where he was leaning against his motorcycle. The man’s face was, as usual, unreadable.
“I’m still here,” Ray announced and then gave a nod in the colonel’s direction.
“So the Navy rescued you?”
Skirjanek described the trip north for his group and the Russians in a single submarine. He was far more detailed regarding their interaction with Charlottesville, and the loss of Captain Naylor and four others. Jason had already decided he’d share all he knew about the Charlottesville group when the colonel’s description of the skirmish mentioned they’d fired a Javelin.
“Wait.” He shook his head. “A Javelin? Where’d you manage to loot a Javelin?”
Skirjanek smiled and pointed to Lieutenant Bruce. During the discussion, the Marine had continued to loosen up and was sitting next to the Russian on the curb.
“That brings us to our Marine contingent. Lieutenant Bruce’s squad spent nine months sealed underground, in Virginia, in a classified continuity of a government site that was meant to be an arms cache, supporting the same mission I had in Antarctica. Which was basically to ensure the survival of a coherent command authority with which to restart and rebuild in the event of nuclear war.”
“Underground? For nine months?” He glanced over at the Marine, wondering how the guy was still sane.
Bruce nodded slowly. “And eleven days.”
The colonel looked twenty years younger than his late forties when he smiled. “When I showed up with the proper authentication codes to let them out, there was a moment when I wondered if I would ever see them again. To answer your question, the Javelin, as well as a great deal of other gear we have availed ourselves to, came out of that facility—The Hole.”
Every time he’d listened to someone’s tale of the die-off and their personal aftermath, he usually came away thinking that he’d been relatively lucky. He’d been with Sam when he lost her. What had followed had been a result of his choices. These guys? Trapped and starving in Antarctica or locked underground for nine months was a new level of suckage.
“Humor me for a moment.” Skirjanek moved to the laptop and brought up a new screen. “What was your SSN?”
“Seriously?”
“You worried about identity theft?” Ray barked out with a laugh from behind him.
He provided the numbers that Skirjanek typed in and was shocked when his Army personnel jacket, with a photo, appeared on the screen.
He overcame his surprise quickly. “If you’re going to try and reenlist me, you should have brought more people.”
“Nothing like that.” Skirjanek nodded at the screen. “Just an example of what I have access to in The Hole, and forgive me, I wanted to know who I was talking with as well.”
Jason nodded at the laptop. “You’ve convinced me . . . and you’ve got anti-tank missiles. Why did you request this . . . meeting? It doesn’t sound like you nee
d our help.”
Skirjanek turned himself around and leaned his ass against the front bumper. “When I accused Ray of being from Charlottesville, he mentioned that you’ve already had a run-in with them.”
“Far as we can tell, most of the state outside of the DC metro area has already been steamrolled by them.” Jason couldn’t see how it would hurt anything to share what he knew. Trust didn’t come easy, but the concept of “the enemy of my enemy” still applied. “I spent a night sneaking around their campus. I’ve seen their . . . I guess you’d call it a reeducation camp up close. They’ve got a lot of people.”
“The stadium? We wondered what was going on in there.”
He found himself nodding. “PowerPoint and audio playing twenty-four seven. Whoever’s running the place is not a fan of the way things were.” Jason added his own air quotes. “Who are we going to help? Everyone. Who’s going to stop us? No one.”
“To hell with that.” Lieutenant Bruce was shaking his head. “We’ve seen how they go about collecting people, at least in Richmond. We’ll stop them.”
“That we will,” Skirjanek added softly.
He wasn’t about to stand aside and let others fight his battle. “Well, we know our group is on their to-do list. They’ve already scouted us. If I can help, I will. A few others might agree to as well.”
Skirjanek seemed relieved, but was shaking his head as if he wasn’t sure about something. “Would you feel the same way, if I told you I’m trying to save as many lives in Charlottesville as I can?”
“They’ve attacked you, attacked everyone they could . . . killed your friend. You’re going to try and save them?”
“Do the most good . . . for the most people. It’s the only kind of math that makes any sense to me. I could destroy the entire campus, right now with one MLRS strike.”
“Wait! You mean to tell me you’ve got an MLRS battery?” The Multiple Launch Rocket System had been at times known as the “grid square removal system” or “the finger of God” for its ability to destroy everything in a single map square.
“Mr. Larsen, I’ve got the equipment, gear, and fuel to outfit and operate a Mechanized Infantry Division, including the armor, and aviation brigades and the artillery battalion. Not to mention a lot of civilian equipment that, given the time and security to put it to use, could be utilized to jump-start a civilization worthy of the name. What I don’t have is the stomach for killing four or five thousand people of the so very few we have left.”
Skirjanek came off the bumper and walked in a tight circle before facing him again. “I’m not interested in adding to the butcher’s bill out of revenge. I don’t want to take over, any more than I’m willing to be someone else’s attack dog. As for Charlottesville? And the New People’s Republic? I very much think a change in leadership, not to mention a name change, is in order. I think we might have something in common there, you and I.”
What Skirjanek wasn’t saying clicked in place for him. “How few are you, Colonel?”
The man shared a look with Lieutenant Bruce, who just shrugged and then smiled back at him. “Pretty smart for Army.”
“We have a total of sixty-four people, half of whom I’m beginning to have some confidence won’t shoot me or someone else by accident. Including my seven Marines, Captain Volkov, and some former military contractors, we have twenty-one people who have at least deployed in the past with a weapon in hand. Out of the remaining crew of the Boise, we have another dozen or so who are coming along.
Skirjanek put a hand atop his head and smiled. “What I do have, our secret weapon for the long term . . . is what I’m guessing is the single best-educated group of survivors on the planet. Outside of strictly military personnel, I’m overflowing with scientists and researchers. There’s a bunch of graduate students who would have been PhDs if it weren’t for their doctorate review boards dying. That includes the Russian contingent that basically staffed a mirror of McMurdo at their Vostok base. Giving those people a place, the time, and the security to work their magic is my job one. Charlottesville is just in the way.”
“You really think you can build something . . . lasting?”
“If I didn’t, I’d take one of our MRAPs and just drive off into the sunset. I’d be lying if I said the idea hasn’t sounded pretty good some days.”
Jason understood that on a fundamental level. He’d almost done it himself. Ray was in the process of doing it. “I can understand that.”
Skirjanek held out both hands, like he was pleading. “Whether I can talk you and some of your people into helping us or not, I’d like to suggest . . . hell, I’m flat-out asking that you take in my noncombatants. I assure you, they’ll more than pull their weight.”
“I see . . .”
“The rest of my group, we call ourselves the Gypsies; we are looking for a little payback. If we can buy a larger group like yours the time and security they need—it’s as good a chance as we are going to get to start over.”
Jason was aware of his head shaking. “One thing I’ve learned in the last year, those people aren’t going to sit back and let you challenge their leadership to a duel. They will fight. Their scout we captured is a certified true believer.”
“I’m sure they will,” Skirjanek agreed. “The best we can tell, they have between four and five thousand people.”
“Civilians . . .” Pavel’s tone couldn’t have been more derisive.
“Yes, civilians—who have been forced to fight.” Skirjanek was getting excited. “You can’t tell me that among that number, there one or two folks competent to lead that would make for a better neighborhood.”
“Restart the HOA?” Jason knew he sounded incredulous. The memory of what Bauman had created in Tysons, what Ray had been through in Kentucky, what Charlottesville had done to its neighbors. “We’re barbecuing the carcass of civilization atop a dumpster fire.”
Skirjanek barked a short laugh before pointing at the laptop. “I saw you have a degree in history; so do I. We aren’t the only population center trying to stand up. We won’t be the only one that manages to get their hands on military gear. The satellite feeds I had access to at McMurdo and the more limited feeds I have access to at The Hole show that clearly.”
The colonel ran a hand through his short hair, shaking his head. “I think for the next century, if not longer, we’ll be lucky to progress to the city-state level of civilization. We’ll have all the wonderful rivalry and hate-filled baggage that went along with it. The whole concept of ‘us versus them’ pretty much got codified and perfected during that stage of our development. Throw in a civilizational collapse, mass psychological trauma, and some charismatic leadership, and your dumpster fire is going to grow into something far more dangerous that we, and I mean the human race, might not recover from.”
As much as he tried to find fault with Skirjanek’s logic, he knew he couldn’t. The man wasn’t saying anything he disagreed with. He’d been wrong—this colonel wasn’t a PowerPoint warrior. He might be somebody he could respect enough to follow. Every time he formed an argument in his head, an image of Elsa or Pro or Rachel would manifest itself. They’d said much the same to him months ago. This world was all they had; they had to fight for it.
“I push too hard . . .?” The disappointment on Skirjanek’s face was clear.
“No, Colonel. I was just remembering something that was said to me a few months back, by some kids who have come to mean a great deal to me. Different words, but same message. I’ll help.”
“We’ll help,” Ray added. “Just so long as you keep your promise when this is over.”
“What promise?” Jason did a double take.
“Mr. Hoover extorted an armed escort to Georgia out of me, in exchange for arranging this meeting with you.”
“Not bad.” He felt himself smile as he shook his head.
“We drink now?” Pavel suggested. “Make official.”
“Oorah!” Lieutenant Bruce piped in.
Chapter 18
“North Team, this is Gypsy One. We are on the beltway, five minutes out.”
Jason thumbed his radio. “Copy, Gypsy One.”
“Gypsy One?” Michelle and Daniel spoke with one voice. The rarity of that happening gave him pause.
“Made sense.” He shrugged. “They call themselves the Gypsies.” Both Michelle and Daniel were standing next to him, outside, on the top of the mall’s parking deck. The day was hot, and the humidity was getting bad, which had everyone’s temper on a short fuse. It wasn’t just the heat. The stench of rot from the dead was back, worse than it had ever been the year before. They were now all paying for whatever reprieve the cool fall and hard winter had provided last year.
Fear of disease had forced them to work hard clearing the remains from the immediate area, both during Bauman’s reign and after. The smell now was in the wind, coming from everywhere. They’d taken to opening the doors and windows of houses to give nature’s scavengers access to what they sought, but it was a slow process and one more reason to abandon Tysons for something more suburban.
“Making themselves right at home, aren’t they?” In the week since his meeting with Colonel Skirjanek, Michelle had vacillated back and forth between ecstatic to take on newcomers, and resentful of the extra work it entailed.
“We did agree to this,” Daniel pointed out with a smile; he was thrilled to be getting some technical help. The move westward to the new site, a series of compounds each able to support the others, had continued unabated. Every day, there were new problems; distributing the power from the solar farm taken from the roof of the mall, wiring up the pumps that still needed to be installed in the wells they had yet to finish digging, and the seemingly endless list of builds and repairs that were needed to make the new site livable and secure. They had the need for technical expertise that very few of them even understood well enough to explain. Skirjanek’s promise of equipment and expertise was enough to quell, for the most part, even Michelle’s concern that they were going to be taken over by the military.
Seasons of Man | Book 2 | Reap What You Sow Page 17