But as two days morphed into three, the pressure was starting to build. As the amount of crime in the surrounding areas continued to increase, people wanted to enter the base for safety’s sake. And Mac couldn’t blame them.
A tall, thin MP had taken up a position in front of the barricades and was clutching a bullhorn. “Do not approach the barricade unless you are a member of the military and have ID to prove it!” the MP declared. “Please stay back.”
A woman with two children approached him. Mac couldn’t hear what was said, but could see the look of anguish on her face and saw the MP point. The woman was sobbing as she led her children back into the seething crowd. It was heartbreaking.
Macintyre heard a buzzing sound and turned in time to see a civilian helicopter appear from the south. It was flying low in order to escape the worst of the airborne grit and seemed to be following I-5 north. As an aid to navigation? In order to assess conditions on the freeway? Either possibility would make sense.
As the helo passed in front of her, Mac heard sporadic gunfire and realized that civilians on the freeway were firing on the aircraft! Why? Maybe they wanted to punish someone for the situation they found themselves in even if that didn’t make sense. Would her troops think the refugees were firing at them? Mac feared that the answer could be yes. “This is Archer-One actual,” she said via the platoon net. “Hold your fire.” They did, and the helicopter continued on its way, apparently undamaged.
The crowd in front of them continued to swell as more and more people left the freeway searching for assistance. Or had the crowd morphed into a mob? That was the way it appeared as a self-appointed leader elbowed his way up to the front of the assemblage and began to chant. “Let us in! Let us in! Let us in!”
The MP with the bullhorn tried to respond, but the mob shouted him down. Mac was about to notify Captain Driscoll when he appeared at her side. “Fire warning shots if they start to push through the barricade. If that doesn’t work, shoot their leaders.”
Mac was about to reply when a bullet blew the top of Driscoll’s skull off. Blood and brain tissue sprayed sideways, and as Doc hurried to respond, the rest of them hit the dirt.
All sorts of thoughts flitted through Mac’s mind. Had the sniper been waiting for an officer senior to her? Should she have ordered the platoon to dig in? Why wasn’t Driscoll wearing his helmet? Private Hadley’s voice cut through the muddle. “I have the bastard, Lieutenant . . . Just say the word.”
Hadley was the platoon’s marksman. “Smoke him,” Mac ordered, and heard the Remington 700 fire a fraction of a second later. “Got him,” the sniper said. “Over.”
“Confirmed,” his spotter echoed. “He was on the overpass at one o’clock. You can see the hole in the crowd. Over.”
Mac looked, and sure enough, she could see a steadily expanding gap in the crowd of people who lined the rail. Unfortunately, there was no time in which to give the matter further thought as another voice came over the radio. “Brown here . . . Look west . . . Something big is coming our way. It’s a front loader, and the bucket is raised to shield the driver.”
Mac had to stand in order to see what Brown saw but was careful to use one-two for cover. A pair of binoculars brought everything in close. The machine wasn’t big—it was HUGE! Stolen from a construction site? Probably. It looked as though criminals were trying to use the refugees as cannon fodder.
The loader was flanked by columns of motorcycles. The plan was obvious. Some sort of gang was planning to drive the machine through the TCP and head for the main gate. Once inside the base, they would go looking for heavy weapons. The kind they could use to take what they wanted. Judging from appearances, it looked as if the outriders hoped to flank the Strykers and get in behind them.
Did the man or woman in charge have some military training? Mac figured the answer was yes. She spoke into her mike. “Archer-One-Seven . . . Once the loader is fifty feet from the barricades, fire a burst of .50 cal over it. Archer-One-Four . . . If that plan doesn’t work, put two rockets on the bastard. Stryker commanders are to engage the motorcycles if they attempt to flank us or charge the barricades. Over.” Mac heard half a dozen clicks by way of a response.
People screamed and ran every which way as the loader and its escorts cleared the underpass and began to increase speed. The MP was still manning his post, his .9mm pistol raised, firing round after round at the charging machine. It was a gesture, but a brave one, and Mac was relieved when the soldier dived for the ground.
The sound of thunder was heard as the motorcycle riders revved their engines and spread out. Each man or woman had a passenger—and each passenger was armed. Mac heard the ping, ping, ping of bullets hitting one-two’s armor as they opened fire.
Then the loader smashed through the barricades and someone on Brown’s squad fired a rocket at it. The missile struck the bucket and blew it away. The second rocket sped through the resulting gap and hit the cab. Mac saw a flash of light and heard the resulting boom as the machine jerked to a halt.
That didn’t slow the bikers though . . . They kept coming. And that was when the remotely operated machine guns mounted on her Strykers began to chug. The subsequent battle lasted for less than thirty seconds. Once it was over, motorcycles and riders lay in a bloody sprawl out in front of the platoon’s position. It was the first time Mac had been in combat. But rather than a sense of satisfaction—she felt sick to her stomach as she turned to Munroe. “Tell the captain what happened . . . I’m going forward to give Doc a hand.”
Munroe stared at her. “Captain Driscoll is dead, Lieutenant . . . You’re in command.”
That was when Mac remembered the way Driscoll had been killed and turned to look at the body. The sight came as a shock. In command? It made sense since she was the company’s XO (executive officer.) But I don’t want to be in command, Mac thought to herself. Hell, I don’t want to be in the army.
Yet you joined, the other her put in. Not right away, like Dad wanted you to, but after goofing off for two years. Why was that anyway? To please the old bastard? To compete with your sister? Or because you couldn’t think of an alternative?
Mac forced herself to focus. The rest of Archer Company . . . Where was it? What had the other platoons been ordered to do? She spent the next half hour making the rounds.
Like the first platoon, the other two were positioned to prevent people from entering the base. But that wasn’t all. Foot soldiers were patrolling the perimeter while the MPs searched for infiltrators, a number of whom had been placed under arrest. All of which made it impossible for the army to go out and help surrounding communities.
And that, according to a rumor Mac had heard, was the focus of a ninety-minute meeting between General Rawlings and a representative from the governor’s office. A woman who, by all accounts, believed that all of JBLM’s four-thousand-plus military personnel should be patrolling neighborhoods as far north as Seattle. But Rawlings called bullshit on that by pointing out that if the base were overrun, any work the troops managed to accomplish would be negated.
That was the way things stood as darkness fell, and orders came down for Archer Company’s platoons to remain where they were. Mac ordered everyone to dig defensive fighting positions and stand four-hour watches. She was with the second platoon, eating an MRE, when Driscoll’s replacement arrived. His name was Nick Hollister and he’d been taken off a desk job to lead Archer Company. Mac didn’t have much respect for staff officers, but Hollister could talk the talk and clearly knew one end of a Stryker from the other.
Mac decided to take comfort from that as she completed the handover and hitched a ride to the spot where the first platoon was dug in. The power grid was down, but the spill of light from one-two’s cargo compartment was sufficient to see by. Evans was there to greet Mac and provide a sitrep. “Everything’s quiet,” he assured her. “Everything except for some occasional sniper fire. But that’s no big
deal compared to what’s happening on the other side of the freeway.”
Mac turned to look west. No stars were visible because of the heavy cloud cover. But Mac could see the orange-red glow of what had to be a large blaze, and hear the intermittent pop, pop, pop of small-arms fire. No sirens though . . . Not a single one. After three days of chaos, the local police and fire departments had been neutralized.
Maybe the bad guys couldn’t take JBLM. Not yet anyway . . . But they were free to rob, rape, and murder defenseless citizens. Some anyway. Although, with more than 300 million guns in the United States, others had the means to fight back.
That was the beginning of a long and mostly sleepless night. When dawn arrived, there was no sunrise as such. Just a gradual increase in the cold gray light that filtered down through thick layers of cloud. The air felt colder than it should have in May—and Mac wished she was wearing cold-weather gear. But that was in the BOQ with the rest of her belongings. So all she could do was clasp a hot mug of coffee with both hands and snuggle up to the heat that was radiating off one-two. That’s what Mac was doing when a Humvee arrived and Captain Hollister got out. He had sandy-colored hair, a roundish face, and a spray of freckles across his nose. The same nose on which a pair of black-rimmed birth control glasses (BCG) rested.
Maybe Hollister was a PowerPoint Ranger, and maybe he wasn’t. But he sure as hell looked like one. “Good morning,” Hollister said, never mind the fact that it clearly wasn’t. “Please ask the people who aren’t on duty to gather around. Reliable information is still hard to come by, but I’ll share what I have and ask you to brief the rest of the platoon later.”
Mac was eager to hear the news no matter how iffy it might be—and knew the people in her platoon felt the same way. They were worried about their families and friends, some to the point where they were barely functional.
The soldiers came together on the east side of a Stryker, where they would be safe from snipers. “Okay,” Hollister said as he consulted a printout. “Here’s what the Intel people have been able to pull together. An object, widely believed to be one of at least a dozen meteorites, exploded over the San Juan Islands at approximately 1300 hours three days ago. The blast, plus the resulting shock wave, killed thousands of people. Earthquakes triggered by subsequent impacts caused additional deaths. Around the same time, a tsunami surged south through Puget Sound and laid waste to low-lying coastal areas. The Bremerton Naval Base and the Port of Seattle were destroyed.”
That produced a chorus of groans. Hollister kept his eyes on the piece of paper. Because he was focused on the briefing? Or because it was difficult to maintain his composure? Mac suspected the latter. “The tidal wave surged south,” Hollister continued. “And when it entered the Tacoma Narrows, the wall of water was a hundred feet high. The westbound span of the Narrows Bridge collapsed and dumped dozens of cars into the water. That means the channel is blocked, which will prevent ships from entering or leaving the port of Olympia until the Corps of Engineers can clear it.”
Hollister looked up at that point. His expression was grave. “We still don’t have a lot of information about the national or international situation other than what the colonel provided earlier. Once it comes in, I’ll pass it along. In the meantime, we will continue to perform our duties.
“Unfortunately, Sea-Tac Airport was damaged by a quake—and very few planes are flying because of the particulate matter in the air. In fact, so much of the local infrastructure has been damaged that we have orders to escort thousands of civilians over Snoqualmie Pass to Yakima. A fleet of approximately forty buses is being assembled in Tacoma, and the convoy will depart at 0900 tomorrow morning. This platoon will take the point—and be responsible for scouting ahead.
“Your job will be to assess the condition of roads and bridges and provide the column with the kind of guidance that will enable it to keep moving. And that’s critical. Because if the convoy bogs down, it might become difficult to keep the evacuees under control, and we’ll be sitting ducks if criminal elements attack us. The second platoon will lead the column—and the third will bring up the rear. Platoon leaders will receive their orders by 1300 hours today.”
Hollister looked at Mac. “In the meantime, you are to rotate your people back to their quarters, where they can shower, collect their winter clothing, and gear up. A platoon of Bradleys will relieve your platoon by 1600 hours. Once they do, swing by supply and pick up trailers loaded with MREs and water. We’ll have a lot of mouths to feed. Do you have any questions?”
Mac had questions—plenty of ’em. Like, “How the hell can a recon platoon do its job while towing a frigging trailer?” But that sort of thing was best saved for a private conversation—or dispensed with altogether under the circumstances. “I’ll get back to you, sir.”
Hollister nodded. His expression was bleak. “Good. This is just the beginning. We’re going to move two thousand people. But there are, or were, about 3.5 million people living in the Puget Sound area. Based on initial estimates something like 2.8 million of them are still alive. So our convoy will be the first of many as the government seeks to move at least eight hundred thousand residents east. I’m proud to say that Archer Company was chosen to lead the way.”
Hollister made it sound good . . . But as a practical matter, Mac found it hard to believe that the authorities would be able to move that many people across the mountains two thousand at a time. What was that? Something like sixteen thousand busloads? Still, they were trying . . . And that beat the alternative.
It was snowing in May. That was what Mac discovered when she rolled out of her rack and crossed the room to peer through the blinds. It was dark outside, but JBLM’s emergency generators were running, and half of the streetlights were on. Mac could see individual snowflakes as they twirled down out of the black sky. Did that mean the weather had started to deteriorate? Because of the persistent overcast? Probably. And would this have a negative effect on crops? The answer was yes. According to one news report the so-called impact winter was going to have a devastating effect on agriculture, causing up to 25 percent of the human population to perish. That would be something like 3.5 billion people! A number so large, Mac couldn’t wrap her mind around it. But there was nothing she could do other than help to the extent she could.
Mac had what was likely to be her last hot shower for days to come. It felt good, and she took her time. Once Mac was dressed, there were choices to make. Archer Company was supposed to return to JBLM in a matter of days. And maybe it would. But what if it didn’t? Depending on what happened, she might never see her belongings again. So Mac placed the items of greatest importance into her “A” bag. That included all her winter clothing, two hundred dollars’ worth of personal items purchased at the PX the evening before, and three framed pictures.
The first was of her mother. Some people said there was a resemblance, and Mac hoped they were right, because Margaret Macintyre had dark hair, intelligent eyes, and a softly rounded face. But unfortunately the woman in the picture had died of cancer shortly after her youngest daughter’s tenth birthday. Mac missed her every day.
The second photo was of her father. The general was decked out in his dress uniform and looking into the camera with the implacable stare that he reserved for daughters who fell short of his expectations. Which was to say Mac, since Victoria excelled at everything.
And finally there was a picture of Victoria. It had been taken by one of Mac’s friends and sent to her without Victoria’s knowledge. In it, Vic could be seen kissing a helicopter pilot—the same helicopter pilot Mac had been engaged to at the time.
Had Victoria been in love with the man? Or had she taken him away just for the fun of it? To prove that she could? The answer could be seen in the fact that Vic dumped the pilot one week after Mac ended the relationship.
Then why did you frame the photo? Mac asked herself. And, why keep it? The answer was complicated. To remi
nd herself that Victoria was a bitch? Certainly. Because it was the only image of Victoria she had? Maybe and maybe not.
Mac wrapped each picture in a tee shirt before placing them in the bag. The platoon wasn’t supposed to take “A” bags because they were too large. But screw that. Mac had instructed Evans to let her people choose. Their “A” bag or a smaller “B” bag. The choice was up to them.
Finally, with her field gear on, her “A” bag in one hand and a rucksack dangling from the other, Mac left the BOQ. A flight of stairs took her down to a door and out into the frigid air beyond. A snowflake kissed her cheek. She didn’t look back.
All four of Mac’s Strykers were lined up and waiting. The so-called birdcages that surrounded the Strykers made them look big and ungainly but offered protection against rocket-propelled grenades. Each vic had eight wheels and was armed with light machine guns in addition to a .50 caliber machine gun or a grenade launcher.
The Engineer Squad Vehicle or ESV looked different from the rest, however. It had what looked like a bulldozer blade mounted up front. But rather than use the machine for clearing mines, which it was designed to do, Mac planned to move stalled cars with it. Something they’d do a lot of. It hadn’t been easy to get the ESV, though . . . Hollister had been cynical, and Evans was on record saying that the last thing they needed was “a fucking anchor.” But Mac had prevailed in the end, and the ESV had been brought in to replace her fourth truck.
After handing her gear to a private in one-four, Mac went looking for Captain Hollister. He was with the second platoon. “Good morning,” he said, seemingly oblivious to what lay ahead. “How’s the first platoon? Did everyone report for duty?”
Into the Guns Page 2