As much as he wanted to go check on Rachel and Pro as the line of vehicles pulled off to both sides of the I-64 interchange, it was Lieutenant Bruce who caught his attention in the front vehicle, waving at him. There wasn’t a whole lot of time to waste. The overhead feeds from Poy Boy’s drone had revealed that Charlottesville was prepping for something.
“How’d they do?” he asked as Captain Bruce and a Marine he hadn’t met yet walked up to him.
“Mixed bag.” Bruce shook his hand. “A lot better than I expected, better than our own civilians we’ve been training up.”
“Most of them have had a lot of experience they’d just as soon forget, but I suppose it counts.”
“It showed.” Bruce didn’t look as if he’d slept a lot either. He turned to his fellow Marine. “I want you to meet our newly minted lieutenant, Lucas Hanson, aka Farmer. He’s my right hand, and before the shit show, he’d been accepted into OCS.”
He regarded the young man, who looked like he belonged on a Marine recruiting poster or in Hollywood. “Farmer?” He smiled. “I’d have guessed ‘Terminator.’”
“Grew up on a farm, sir. The name kind of stuck during basic.”
“Just Jason, Lucas. It’s good to meet you.”
Bruce patted Lucas on the back and grinned at his fellow Marine. “You two have a lot to talk about. I need to go find the colonel.”
Bruce was gone in a flash and yelling at people to start unloading before he’d gone three steps. Once a sergeant, always a sergeant.
“What’s that all about? Everything alright?”
“All good, sir . . . I mean Jason. I just wanted to check on you regarding Pro.”
He could feel himself start to grin. He figured he knew where this was headed. “How’d he do?”
“That’s the problem.” Lucas nodded to himself. “The kid’s a natural, and even with a bum shoulder, he’s better than anybody in that group outside of Reed. He insists on being at the pointy end.”
“Welcome to my world.”
“In the old world, IF he was eighteen, and IF he was a Marine, he’d be sidelined for another two weeks with that shoulder. But you were a soldier; you understand he just fits in. Salguero, one of my squad, pretty much adopted him as a little brother. I warned him we probably wouldn’t let him in on this next fight, but he made me promise I’d check with you.”
“If he’s at a hundred percent, I’d have no problem adding him to one of the scout teams.” He recognized how strange it felt to say that, but Pro was that good. “The kid can just up and disappear; he actually headed up our scouts. But I’m in complete agreement about waiting until he’s healed up.”
“He going to accept that, if it comes from you?” Lucas sounded dubious.
“No.” He smiled and shook his head. “Short of tying him up and having him watched, he’ll figure out a way to insert himself. Kid’s a bit of a barracks-room attorney when it comes to the subject of him being a legal adult by way of the world ending.”
Lucas laughed at that. “’Bout what I figured. So . . . I kind of had him cross-trained.”
*
He was driving a tank! Pro had the driver’s hatch open and the seat in its elevated position so he could see out. Tommy was sitting on the hull outside, next to his head.
“This will be easier than when you loaded it. You just drive straight off—sloooow and straight.”
“What happens if I screw up?”
“To you and the tank? Nada. But we might need to use this transporter again.”
Transporter? It was a flatbed. Pro wanted to say something, but held off. Why did everything in the military have to have a different name just because of its paint job?
“Remember the rules about driving this thing?”
“There are no rules, only things that go squish.”
“Right. So . . . slow and straight, pull ahead.”
His seat and his whole body vibrated with the 1500-horsepower turbine engine, but he was amazed at how quiet it was. The tank almost seemed to whine more than rumble. He was already in gear; he popped the emergency brake and then let up on the brakes controlled by the left-hand yoke on the T-shaped steering bar. He applied some power and almost panicked—he couldn’t see what was in front of him. Then he remembered the training; you go where and when the commander says to go. Salguero was the tank commander, so he went.
The trailer moaned as the sixty-nine-ton beast shifted and eased itself down onto the trailer ramps.
“Bueno, ese.” Salguero flashed him a thumbs-up. “Till I say stop.”
Pro breathed a sigh of relief. The tank was sitting on flat ground.
“Bring it around, big circle to the right. Park it next to the tanker—not too close though.”
Riiiiiight . . . Not too close to the tanker truck full of fuel. Jeez, did they think he was stupid? Still, he was driving a tank! They could harp on him all they wanted.
“OK, stop.” Salguero made a cutting motion across his throat. The vehicle seemed to float, rocking back and forth smoothly as he came to a stop. “Emergency brake?”
He reached down with his right hand and pulled the handle up. “Engaged.”
“OK, kill it.”
He did as he was told and sat there for a moment, listening to the turbine wind down. Holy shit! They might actually let him drive the tank.
Jason watched Pro crawl up out of the driver’s hatch and waved. He couldn’t believe he was considering letting Pro drive the thing. There probably wasn’t a safer place for Pro to be in the kind of fight they were planning, but his mind was busy playing catch- up.
“He’s actually got about eight hours of terrain work under his belt,” Luca explained. “It was all we had time for. Took longer than we thought it would to prep the tank.”
“I’m sold,” he said. Pro’s shit-eating grin as he slid down the forward glacis of the tank was priceless. He watched as Pro bumped knuckles with the people he’d been training with and had to smile. Pro’s mascot status had transferred over to the Gypsies.
“There’s something else I wanted to say, sir.”
“It’s just Jason, Lucas . . .”
“Right.” Hanson’s radio went off. It was Skirjanek, wanting him to report immediately.
“It’ll wait, sir.” Hanson looked almost relieved as he turned away and moved off at a jog.
It took him a couple of minutes walking down the line of flatbeds until he found Rachel off the back ramp of an M2 Bradley. She saw him, dropped her pack and her gun on top of it, and came running.
She slammed into him and kissed him hard. “Miss me?”
“You know I did. How was it?”
“It was more fun than I thought it would be, but long days.”
“You teach them how to shoot?”
Rachel’s face glowed as she pushed herself away. “There’s some guy here, Nathan? They want to put me up against him on a range.”
He nodded. “Trey Nathans, and he’s been warned. You do know he’s a Marine sniper?”
“That doesn’t mean anything against St. Mary’s British School’s best.”
“That’s the spirit.” He pulled her into another hug. “I still wish you weren’t here.”
“I know,” she said into his shoulder and gave him another squeeze. “But you’re going to manage, right?”
“Hey!” Pro came around the side of the Bradley. “Did you tell him the Marines were hitting on you?”
Rachel shook her head, annoyed at Pro, and looked up at him. “Just one.” She smiled. “And he could not have been more polite. I think I scared him to death when I told him I was spoken for. Pro’s the one who can’t seem to let it go.”
“Let me guess, Lieutenant Hanson?”
The look of surprise on Rachel’s face was priceless. “How . . .?”
“I think he was about to tell me about it.”
“Why? It was harmless.”
“Man code.” He smiled and turned to Pro. “And you need to mind your own d
amn business.”
Pro’s excitement wasn’t going to be sidetracked. “OK, OK . . . are you going to let me drive the tank for Sergeant Salguero? He was a tanker for a year before he went recon, he said—”
He held up a hand and stopped Pro. “I need to talk to the colonel first, see how he wants to use it.”
“The tank?”
“Yes, the tank. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to Rachel for a moment . . .”
“Right.” Pro flashed him a two-fingered thing that might have started out as a salute. “Tell him, Rachel, you saw me drive that thing back at The Hole.”
“Go!”
“OK, OK . . .”
They both watched the irrepressible teenager skip off.
“As much as I don’t want to admit it, he really did a good job. Even followed the Marine’s orders. I think he wants to enlist.”
“Yeah, Bruce and Hanson told me.”
“So, you did talk to them?”
“Yes, I spoke to the movie-star handsome Marine lieutenant.”
Rachel gave his hand a squeeze. “You know, if Clark Kent had blond hair . . .”
He smiled at her. “I missed you.”
“Me too. Any chance we’ll get any time for ourselves down here?”
“I do have my own tent.”
She slapped his arm. “Not what I meant, not entirely at any rate.”
“I think things are going to get busy over the next couple of days.”
“That’s it, that’s the plan.” Skirjanek motioned towards the map on the table. “I’ll take the infantry, as a diversion only, right up I-64 and hold their attention. We’ll avoid a pitched battle at all costs, and what actions we do take will be focused on the enemy’s vehicles. Captain Larsen will take his team and hit the outpost that they have established on Highway 29 at the Rivanna River crossing, and destroy the two bridges there if possible.
“Major Volkov will swing north of their roadblock on 64 and attempt to destroy the Long Street Bridge over the Rivanna that leads into town; it doesn’t look to be guarded, so after blowing the bridge he should be available to hit their roadblock on 64 from behind, in the event, and only if they move out up the freeway against our diversion. Captain Bruce will swing south and take out the I-64 bridge west of the eastern roadblock and then move back along 64 to hit them from behind on the south side if needed, again only in the event they come out looking for a fight . . . Questions? Concerns?”
Skirjanek looked around the room at them. “Remember, this isn’t do or die. We are just trying to dick with them by creating a siege mentality. I want to deny them any way of moving their heavy equipment east or north by transporter; taking out the bridges will do that. They’ll still be able to cross that stream in a dozen places with their vehicles, and anywhere on foot, but they won’t be loading up Bradleys or M1 Abrams for any field trips unless they want to go the long way around into the Shenandoah. Meanwhile, they’ll be burning more fuel we don’t think they can easily replace.”
Bruce spoke up. “What is our ROE?”
“If you engage, whether initiated by you in pursuit of your mission or in self-defense, you will utilize all means to protect the lives of your people—that is priority one. This is more of a probe with some distinct goals. Avoid stand-up fights if you can. We are not at war with these people, not yet—just their leadership. Killing large numbers of them, which we could do at any point, would be counterproductive to our long-term goals.”
Jason could appreciate Skirjanek’s sentiment, and as he glanced around the break room of the large landscaping business that was acting as Skirjanek’s HQ, he thought most present would agree. Major Volkov was a glaring exception; the former Spetsnaz thought it better to soundly defeat Charlottesville and then treat with the survivors. Jason wasn’t certain he didn’t agree with Pavel, and they’d both said as much to Skirjanek in private. The colonel freely admitted it might come to that, but he’d asked for their support, and they’d given it.
That had been an easy conversation to have back at Zion Crossroads. Now, looking at his assigned bridges and the manned guard posts on the north side of the river through his NVDs, he was leaning in support of Volkov’s argument.
“Rachel, do you have angles on both bridges?” She was set up on the north side of the river, far to the right of him, between the two bridges, the main Highway 29 bridge and the smaller, newer-construction bridge four hundred yards to the west.
“I have them, except for easternmost group on the main bridge. The ones on our side of the river.”
Somebody had known what they were doing when they’d set up what they were labeling guard posts. Both bridges had sandbag emplacements at either end. The small Rivanna River, which at this time of year wasn’t much more than a big creek, ran sixty feet below the bridge. The ravine created by the river was more of a geographic feature than the waterway itself. Across the river, on the south bank, two more emplacements had been set up between the bridges, both able to fire on either bridge.
“How about positions across the river?”
“I have them both. I am almost directly across from middle guard post. They look to have knocked off.”
“Say again.”
“Position directly across river from me, they are asleep.”
“Copy.” He supposed it would be too much to ask that the ones on their side of the river would catch a few z’s; they seemed very alert; their attention focused on Highway 29 stretching north out of town.
Ray and Sergeant Uwasi were somewhere down in the riverbed, making their way slowly west until they were under the bridges. He’d known Ray had been a deep-sea welder, but he’d been pleasantly surprised when it turned out he had a lot of experience with demolition charges. “Usually set them to go off under four hundred feet of water, blowing damaged wellheads or pipe,” Ray had explained as if it were something everyone could do. “How hard can it be to rig up something where I can see clearly and breathe the air?”
It wasn’t setting the charges that he was worried about. Uwasi had some real-world experience in that box as well. It was getting to the underside of the bridge unseen, and then back out, that would be the issue. If Ray and Uwasi were discovered, it would be up to him and the rest of his small team to keep the enemy on the bridges engaged.
He glanced at Sergeant Elliot next to him. The Marine was focused on his binoculars, which were pointed across the river, towards the glow of light from the campus that stood out on the horizon like a beacon.
“Anything?”
“Lots of activity, sir. Vehicle headlights moving around. Can’t see where they’re headed.”
Chances were, the colonel’s diversion had been spotted. It was too big a threat for Charlottesville to ignore. Jason wasn’t sure what to make of Elliot. He knew Elliot was the target of a good bit of ribbing. The kid was so gung-ho, so “Marine,” that at times, it didn’t seem like the fact that the old world had died had set in with Elliot. So far, though, in the field, he hadn’t seen anything to give him pause. All the Marines were now sergeants, except Farmer, who was their lieutenant, and Bruce, who had vaulted to captain alongside him.
“Keep an eye out there. They’ll be rolling soon.”
“Will do, sir.”
He activated his mic. “Ray? Status?”
He had to wait for the one-click response; so far, so good. It was just taking too long. His team had traveled farther than any other to get to their target, and on top of that, they had two bridges to wire. The plan was to hold off detonating anything until Skirjanek’s diversion got a response, but at that point, it was going to be “fire in the hole” for anyone who was ready.
*
The thrill of driving the seventy-ton tank had worn off in about ten minutes. Salguero wouldn’t let him go any faster than three or four miles an hour, which was harder to do than he’d thought it would be. This thing wanted to run. The last time the tank’s commander had yelled into his head phone to slow down, it had been fol
lowed by a “last warning!” It had taken him an hour to get up the courage to ask why they were moving so damned slow.
“Because we’re going to be the surprise. We can’t do that if we’re first in line.” Salguero’s tone was calm, much calmer than it had been when he’d been yelling at him to slow down. “There’s two Bradleys out ahead of us, as well as two Javelin teams on foot. We don’t want to outrun our support. Remember, we want them to shoot at us.”
It all made sense, except that last part.
“Stop! Skew left sixty!” Salguero’s voice screeched in his headset a few minutes later.
He was already turning as he engaged the brake. He watched his rotating compass heading continue to spin until the tank was aligned roughly 60 degrees to the left of their previous direction of travel.
“Good! Much better.” Salguero’s voice came through clearer without the track’s road noise. “Why do we do that, Pro?”
“To put us at an angle to a threat you have spotted.” He repeated the answer he’d given the last two times Salguero had ordered a stop. “It increases the depth of our armor relative to the threat.” He couldn’t see any threat.
“That is correct. Cruz! Were you standing where the recoil wouldn’t have broken you in half?”
“You bet your sweet ass!”
“Good deal. Remember, I might not have time or might forget to give a warning for that first shot. It’s already loaded, so you don’t have the muscle memory of loading, stepping back, and enabling the shot—we are in battery. Most injuries in these things look a lot like a mashed loader who was standing behind the breech during a recoil. More often than not, it happens on the first shot.”
“How are you doing, Mr. Mason?”
“All good, looking for something to shoot.”
Mason was their gunner. As Pro understood it, Mason had operated the cannon on a Bradley in the past, when he’d been a real Marine. Not that it mattered at all, but Pro realized that Mason was the only one in the tank who wasn’t Hispanic.
Seasons of Man | Book 2 | Reap What You Sow Page 19