Seasons of Man | Book 2 | Reap What You Sow

by Anderson, S. M.

  *

  “The colonel’s going to dance around them tonight, knock on their door with the tank, overfly the campus for a message drop and maybe even let them get a look at the drone, all starting with the drone in a couple of hours.” John Bruce’s briefing was short on details. The mission wasn’t at all complicated; locate the Charlottesville leadership and eliminate it.

  “All diversionary, but in force,” Bruce continued. “Give your team some noise to hide in as you make your way to the campus.”

  His team . . . Jason had already decided on splitting it up. Pavel and Pro would be one team. If they were questioned, it was an easier sell for a teenager and a guy who spoke broken English with a Russian accent to say they were new additions to the community. Farmer, and he would be their backup, there to eliminate anybody who didn’t buy their story.

  “We’ll keep the pressure up during the day tomorrow. Hopefully, by nightfall, you’ll have had some success. The colonel will roll for real, either through or past their block, starting at 2000 hours, and he’ll use the ford we located just north of the freeway to cross the Rivanna. From there, he’ll proceed northwest towards the campus. With luck, he’s hoping they’ll try to stop him. My team will roll down the rail bed.” Bruce paused and jerked a thumb at the four Bradleys he and his people had brought up. “My unit has my Marines minus Poy, and Salguero filled out with Mr. Reed’s best people. Twenty-four infantry; we’ll be on call to assist you as needed or otherwise react. The train tracks roll right to the southern edge and northern edge of campus, but we can get off anywhere along the line.”

  “Poy staying home to fly the drone?” Farmer asked.

  “Yes,” Bruce answered. “But he’s also got two M triple seven howitzers laid in. He’s convinced the colonel he’s tied it into the GPS network. He’s been training up some of Mr. Reed’s people, but targeting time or rate of fire isn’t going to be anything like we are used to. Skirjanek expressly ordered me to make certain that no ‘danger close’ -fire missions are requested. It’s stand off and stay away only.”

  “Poy playing video games with 155mm, what could go wrong?” Nathans piped in from the edge of the gathered crowd stacked between two Bradleys.

  “We need arty; I for one will be glad it’s him at the other end.” Bruce shot Nathans a withering look.

  “Oorah, Captain Bruce.”

  “Questions?”

  “Simple enough.” Jason nodded to himself and looked over at Pavel, who was regarding Nathans with an evil smile. “I think Major Volkov and I just had the same idea. I’d like to take Nathans with us, get him and his gun in a good position before the balloon goes up.”

  “Works.” Bruce nodded. “With luck, we spot her and cut the head off this snake, and it dies quick.”

  Bruce turned and looked at everyone gathered around him. “The colonel has taken pains to limit any casualties, and that will continue. We are going to hit them hard, especially any military hardware we see. Where they stand and fight, we’ll hit them hard, but it’s all to get them moving. Which we are going to let them do. These are civilians who have been playing bully. Most of them haven’t had a choice in that. That said, this will be a fight. Do not hesitate. The decision process is all on their side.” John had turned and was speaking directly to Reed and his team who would be the infantry inside the Bradleys.

  “We are here to fight—do not take any risks in trying to determine their intentions. Until you see a white flag or their asses running away, they are the enemy. They will have a chance to choose wisely.” John’s face broke out into a wide smile. “We’ll be starting leaflet drops with clear instructions for them, starting in about an hour.”

  *

  Drew shook his head at the sight of Poy trying to “fix” the copy machine. The tight spaces of the big machine weren’t designed for a forearm the size of most thighs. He took in the extension cord that snaked across the floor, out the window, to a portable generator, and could almost laugh at the thought that the initial step of their first battle was delayed by, in Poy’s descriptive parlance, the “freakin’ mother of all paper jams.”

  “This mean I don’t have to fly? If he can’t fix it?” Tim Calhoun, his reluctant helo pilot, was almost smiling at the single sheet of paper the machine had produced before it had starting making a grinding noise that sounded like it was eating itself.

  “We’ll handwrite the damn things if we have to.”

  He watched his “pilot” walk back outside, mumbling to himself. Poy and a couple of Jason’s people who had shown some interest had been buried in technical maintenance manuals for the Black Hawk for a week. Spare parts he had plenty of; they just had to pull them from The Hole. The hard part, according to Poy, was identifying the right part, then locating it in the massive underground warehouse. The upside was that the helo was in better shape now than when it had arrived.

  Poy’s current difficulties aside, the technical whiz had been a godsend. Cameron “Poy” Park was going to be promoted very soon. As much as he could use another trained Marine, the guy was invaluable in keeping what technology and gear they had working.

  “Drop your crayons, Colonel,” Poy announced. “I think I found the problem.”

  Poy started dropping shredded paper and what looked like grass over his shoulder. “Mice, sir. An old nest.”

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose and did his best to roll with the punches. Mice . . . “What do you need, Mr. Poy? How can I help?”

  “Sir, I usually have Elliot playing gopher for me, but I could use a vacuum cleaner. One of those hand jobbies—like for cleaning the inside of your car. A can of compressed air if we can find some. It’s a mess in here, sir.”

  “Keep working the problem, Poy. I’m on it.”

  Shakespeare sprang to mind immediately—something about “my kingdom for a horse.” West Point, the Special Forces, a graduate year at Harvard Business School, CENTCOM Chief of Operations), and more command staff positions at the Pentagon than he cared to remember, interspersed with three combat tours; the apocalypse had changed everything. Right now, he needed to find a vacuum.

  “Just like you’re spraying fields!” the colonel yelled into his helmet mic. Calhoun almost cringed; why the hell did everyone think they had to yell into the thing? “Stay low and fast. We’ll be out of there before they have time to react.”

  They were coming in from the south and had just crossed over the freeway. The colonel had told him to pass to the east of the football stadium, past the hospital, and then straight down the main lawn, using Jefferson’s famous Rotunda as his aim point. He could do that; as much as it killed him to admit it, flying sixty feet off the ground at over 130 miles an hour was fun. Or would be until someone started shooting at them. He hoped the colonel had an appreciation for how many things could break or wear out on a helicopter. The damn things basically tried to shake themselves apart between maintenance checks.

  For the hundredth time in the last twenty minutes, he wondered why the colonel had insisted on coming along. His people in the back, with the cardboard boxes of flyers, had guns. It wasn’t like he had anywhere else to go in the event he just decided to fly off.

  “I’ve been studying this place for almost a month by map. I want to get eyes on.” The colonel seemed to answer him, and for a moment, he feared he might have spoken out loud. It wouldn’t have been the first time his mouth outran his brain.

  “Get your boys ready to dump your cargo, Colonel.”

  “If you see a large group of people, aim for them. We want to spread the message as wide as we can.”

  “They’ll have guns, Colonel. They all have guns.”

  “Far as they know, you are bringing their helicopter back. I doubt they told anyone they lost their pilot—not that type of leadership.”

  Calhoun stifled his laughter. “Lost! Is that what you are calling it? Shanghaied, more like.”

  “Semantics, Mr. Calhoun.”

  “OK, lots of people stay in these neighbor
hoods between the hospital and the stadium. Get ready to dump.” He made certain the colonel signaled his team in the back of the bird as he checked his airspeed and eased up on the collective a little bit. He wasn’t too worried about being shot out of the sky. The colonel was right; as low as they were, they’d be through and gone before most people even saw them. He even thought he’d have time to swing west at the top of the campus so the colonel could paper the dining hall and dorm areas past the baseball field.

  “OK, now! Bombs away!”

  Josh had heard the beating blades of the helicopter fading in and out of earshot for a few minutes before it suddenly grew in volume and shot past where he stood, near the entrance to the hospital. Its appearance caught him by surprise; by the time he started pulling his rifle around from his back, he could see the masses of paper fluttering out in the downwash. The paper looked like big feathers shedding off an even bigger bird.

  Smart, he thought, as he let out a held breath in relief. He’d been trying to warn as many people as he could without falling under the suspicion of Cooper or one of her hard-core minions. Colonel Skirjanek had just done that for him. He was at the hospital to warn Naomi and get her somewhere safe before Lisa figured out her invaders weren’t dying, or even sick. When that happened, he and Naomi had to have a plan to avoid Cooper. Their survival depended on it.

  He watched as the helicopter quickly dropped past the horizon of trees at the edge of the parking lot, before focusing on the dumped debris floating down. Some of it was going to land in the parking lot. Most had hit the ground before he had made it out there, and he had no problem picking up several.

  Citizens of Charlottesville—Your leadership has just advised us by messenger that they purposely infected our group with the virus. I won’t go into the morals or ethics of such an action; that is for each of you to decide. What concerns we have had with your leadership have now passed into the realm of vendetta. We may be dying, but our last actions are going to be taking Lisa Cooper and Steven Marks with us. Any and all occupants of Charlottesville who support what they have done, or attempt to defend them from our wrath, are warmly invited to join them. For those of you who wish to see a newly elected leadership from your own ranks, you have two options. Lay down your arms and signal your surrender when we attack—OR—take matters into your own hands before we do. Save yourselves from a fight you cannot win.

  Colonel Andrew Skirjanek, Former US Army

  “They just dropped these all over campus.” He handed the flyer to Naomi. “You need to hide . . . now.”

  “I’ve got a place picked out in—”

  “I don’t want to know, and don’t tell anyone. Don’t let anyone see you go.”

  She looked at him with concern. “I thought you’d want to come with me.”

  “I do.” He was surprised at how much he wanted to do just that, right this instant. He also wanted to keep her safe. Not Dr. Vance, but Naomi. She’d risked everything to save lives, lives of people she didn’t even know. With her looking at him the way she was right now, he couldn’t do any less.

  “If I disappear now, Cooper will know we lied to her. She’d burn this place down looking for us, and Marks might actually get better prepared to face them; right now, he thinks they’re all half-dead. I’ll get somewhere safe, but it can’t be until the fight starts. Cooper will need me then. Right now, I’m just another potential threat.” He pointed at the flyer in her hands. “Especially after this.”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise.” He leaned in to give her a hug, but she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, hard enough that he immediately questioned his judgment.

  “I’m going to hold you to that.”

  Josh’s radio was going berserk before he made it back to his vehicle. Calls were coming in from all over campus. He switched to the command channel, and before he could check in, Marks’s voice was screaming for him to report back to the admin building.

  “On my way.” He paused and brought the radio back up to his face. “General, did you catch the tail number on the helicopter?”

  “Affirmative, get back here, Josh.”

  The drive back across campus was a study in mood swings. He could sense the unease in the faces he saw, looks that left no doubt as to whether the paper drop had been successful. Some of those people knew him and how close he was to Cooper and Marks. They looked scared.

  Driving up to the admin building, he was stopped at the gate by a group of militia.

  “What the hell?” he almost shouted. “I got orders to report.”

  “We know.” Brian Casper was one of the students who had been with Cooper from the very beginning. He had almost a dozen of Cooper’s diehards standing behind him, blocking his pickup from entering the fenced parking lot. “We heard the radio call.”

  “So are you going to get out of my way?”

  “We were told to disarm anyone and everyone before they go in the building.” Brian tried to give him a smile. “Miss Cooper’s orders.”

  “Because of the flyers?” He tried not to shout. “It’s what they are trying to do, drive us apart. This is stupid.”

  Brian looked like he might agree with him, but he knew it wasn’t going to matter. “Sorry, orders.”

  He handed over his sidearm, and jerked his head back at the assault rifle resting in his gun rack. “It’ll stay in the truck; one of you can babysit it. I figure on needing it soon.”

  Brian held up the sidearm. “That’ll work.”

  “You said they were on their last legs!” Lisa started yelling the minute he entered her office. Marks was there as well, and he tried not to let his surprise show that the general was still armed. Lisa had a couple of her civilian advisors in the room with her, as well as a trio of bodyguards that Marks had always referred to as Cooper’s Praetorian Guard. “How they’d manage to fly a helicopter?”

  “I don’t think they did,” he said. “I think it was Calhoun flying; I know it was the same helicopter.”

  “You think they are forcing him to help?” Marks asked.

  “Maybe he volunteered,” he offered. “Doesn’t really matter, does it?”

  “Makes sense,” Marks commented, filling the surprised silence. “If they’d had a helicopter before he went missing, they’d have used it.”

  Marjorie Elster spoke up. “I’m in agreement with Josh.” The woman was another academic of some sort, “rescued” from James Madison University in Harrisonburg. She had been attached to Lisa’s hip ever since. “It doesn’t matter; what matters is the content of the flyers. It’s affecting morale.”

  “So is replacing my guards with those militia bullyboys outside.” Marks was getting worked up. Josh wondered how long this meeting had been running before he’d arrived. The flyers had been dropped less than an hour ago. He got the immediate impression that Marks was severely outnumbered in the room.

  “That was a political decision, General,” Karen, Cooper’s personal assistant, answered.

  Marks’s face went red in anger as he spun in place to face the woman. “It was a stupid decision! One that undermines the morale of the very people you all are going to be relying on for your survival.”

  “It was my decision, General.” Lisa’s voice was calm. Crazy or not, Josh thought it was an effective counterpoint to Marks’s panic.

  Marks looked at Lisa for a moment, a myriad of emotions flashing across his reddened face. Josh could see the resignation in it. “Are we supposed to pretend that makes it a viable decision?” Marks shook his head in disgust. “You’re all nuts. You aren’t leading a revolution here; you’re sitting on a group of traumatized survivors.”

  Where had this general been for the last year? Josh noted the guards all had their hands clasped behind them. He was betting they had guns already in hand. He figured Cooper had already made her decision regarding Marks. He’d been ordered to report to see where his loyalties lay.

  “Steven.” Lisa shook her head as if disappointed in an
answer given by a student. “No one appreciates the role you have played here more than I. But I think the time has come for you step down.”

  Marks barked in laughter. “Is that what you are going to call it?”

  “It’s preferable to other things I could call it.” Lisa nodded at the guards. “Please relieve the general of his weapon and place him under arrest. He’ll hold until this current crisis is over.”

  Marks reached for his sidearm. Josh had been waiting for it and grabbed the general’s arm, pinning it to his body. For a moment, his back was to the rest of the room, and his face was inches from Marks’s. The man stared back at him in wounded shock. He offered him a quick wink. The way he figured it; he’d just saved Marks’s life. It might not matter. The man was firmly on Skirjanek’s list as well.

  He was left holding the general’s sidearm as he watched two of the guards frog- marched him out of the room. He held the handgun out, grip first, to the remaining guard, who had his own gun leveled at his head.

  “Ronnie, that won’t be necessary.” Lisa came around the conference table to him. “Why don’t you keep the general’s gun? We don’t have any reason not to trust you at this point.”

  Oh, yes, you do . . . but I’m too chickenshit to pull this trigger and trade my life for yours. “For the record, I think you could have trusted the general too,” he said.

  “You might be right.” Lisa tilted her head to the side as if she was considering his opinion. “But I couldn’t be sure he was as committed to the survival of Charlottesville as he was to his own skin. You . . . I don’t worry about.”

  *

  Chapter 29