Ranger (The Bugging Out Series Book 5)

by Noah Mann

  Thirty

  Sometime in the night, as Olin slept, I heard two voices in the near distance.

  I’d only dozed fitfully, knowing that the huge rock formation which protected us also trapped us. There was no escape or retreat from this position. One well thrown grenade would end us both.

  And the voices I heard were nearly close enough to do just that.

  I couldn’t make out what they were saying, the tones hushed to avoid detection. It seemed plain to me that they had no idea how close they were to potential adversaries, which we certainly were. Though, at the moment, it appeared that I was the only viable combatant to face them.

  Or so I thought.

  As I rose slowly from where I’d bedded down, my AR in hand, I felt a hand grasp my leg just above the ankle. The fingers were strong, clamping tight, as if to hold me in place. To keep me from making any move.

  Any foolish move.

  I glanced behind and down, and in the weak slant of moonlight I could just make out Olin’s face, free of the blanket covering the rest of his body. He gave a slight shake of his head, then released his hold on me, hand slipping back into his sleeping bag.

  The voices drew closer. And closer. I held my position, weapon ready, finger just to the side of my AR’s trigger. I began to be able to make out some of what the soldiers were saying. Something about movement. Plans. Big guns coming.

  Then, the talking began to recede. The voices grew quieter. And quieter. Until they were lost in the whisper of the night’s cool breeze.

  * * *

  I didn’t sleep the rest of the night, and as dawn crept over the hills to the east I readied my pack and my weapons for departure.

  “They walk at night,” Olin said. “I hear them. They’re untrained. They want a fight about as much as you.”

  “There was some discussion early on that we should just attack,” I told him. “Maybe we should have.”

  Olin shook his head where he lay.

  “What you heard, and what I shot, they’re just cannon fodder. Just troops the Unified Government can lose. Probably drafted from some other town or city they rolled over. The real fighters are out beyond the hills.”

  “Big guns coming...”

  I repeated what I’d heard in the night. Olin nodded.

  “Things are about to get real,” the spy said.

  And we weren’t ready. We were worse off. Our numbers were depleted by the virus. The thing that probably had some moniker like BA Five Five, but we would never know that. And those of us who lived through what was to come, a group I doubted I’d be part of, wouldn’t care what name it went by.

  “You didn’t get what you came for,” Olin said, his thin sleeping bag pulled tight around him. “If I had a miracle drug, yours truly wouldn’t be coughing up blood.”

  He tipped his head toward a balled-up rag next to his canteen, splashes of dark red soaked into the once white material, stained like the sleeve of his jacket.

  “I should say thank you,” I said to the man as I picked up my AR and slipped into my pack.

  “But you don’t want to express gratitude to a guy like me,” Olin said, reading me like an open book. “A dirty spy.”

  I clipped my rifle into the sling stretched across my chest and stepped toward the wide crack between the boulders.

  “You can’t go back empty handed,” Olin said.

  I stopped and looked to the man. He pushed himself up so that he was reclining against the rough granite face at the back of his shelter, his .30-30 leaning next to him. He didn’t cough, just wheezed through several breaths, then he spoke. I listened, then left the man, expecting that we would never cross paths again.

  I was wrong. Dead wrong.

  Thirty One

  I found my way back to our own lines as the day was fading and was taken quickly to the town hall. Schiavo and Martin met me as the Humvee pulled up.

  “Don’t get out,” Schiavo said, climbing in next to me.

  Martin took the shotgun seat next to Private Quincy, at the wheel.

  “Take us to Fletch’s house,” Schiavo said.

  I was instantly worried. Panicked, actually.

  “Is Elaine all right? What happened?”

  Schiavo half-turned in the seat to face me. Her face was flushed, but seemed not as weary as when I’d left.

  “She’s doing better,” Schiavo told me. “Much better.”

  “Genesee had a small supply of anti-viral meds he’d been saving,” Martin explained. “He broke them out for the sickest and those vital to the town’s defense.”

  “Genesee,” I said.

  Martin nodded, noting my quiet surprise. The man I’d advanced as a suspect in Martin’s mole hunt had, in this one act, removed his name from consideration as our traitor. There was no reason, even as subterfuge, that he would aid our ability to fight. Bringing some back to a semblance of health served only our purpose, not those the turncoat served.

  “Elaine was vital and sick,” Schiavo said.

  “And you?”

  The captain shook her head.

  “She won’t take anything,” Martin said, his throat sounding like broken glass on sandpaper.

  “And apparently you won’t, either,” I said to him.

  “We’re hydrating and medicating for the fever,” he said.

  How long those simple measures would allow both of the hard-chargers to keep ahead of the virus’s worst effects was unknown. But that point of no return would be measured in days. Maybe hours.

  “The Unified Government is moving up its best troops,” I told them.

  “Olin told you this?” Schiavo asked.

  “No. Their troops on the perimeter aren’t well disciplined. They talk too much.”

  Schiavo thought on this. The revelation didn’t seem to worry her. Didn’t seem to affect her in any way I could detect.

  “More show?” Martin wondered.

  Whether these forces would be used to up the pressure on us, to tighten the noose around Bandon, or to actually press an attack, all were conjecture. And we’d face any possibility as we were now, with our backs against the wall.

  “Did you get anything from Olin?” Schiavo asked. “Anything useful.”

  There was only one piece of information I’d been able to pry from the man, and it was just a confirmation of a negative.

  “It’s not BA Four Twelve that they hit us with,” I told them. “He said the intelligence on that would indicate everyone exposed would be dead within eight hours.”

  “And you believe him?” Martin asked.

  “He has no reason to lie,” I said. “He’s as sick as either of you.”

  Martin shook his head, disappointed, it seemed.

  “I actually thought he’d be able to provide something of use,” the man said.

  “He has,” Schiavo said.

  “What exactly is that?” Martin pressed his wife.

  “He just confirmed that the Unified Government doesn’t have it,” Schiavo said. “If they did, they would have used it as a threat. There would have been none of this drama. No extended siege. They would have put Neil on camera to tell us about it.”

  “Neil didn’t give it to them,” Martin said, understanding, but only until more confusion rose. “Then why did they pull him out of here to go with them?”

  “He could be using it as a bargaining chip,” Schiavo suggested. “Forcing them to go easy on us or he won’t hand it over to them.”

  “That would mean it’s somewhere he can lead them,” I said.

  “Once Bandon is taken,” Martin said.

  Schiavo nodded and sat back in her seat, exhausted.

  “It is here,” the captain said. “He stashed it somewhere here.”

  “I don’t believe that,” I said, still holding to my gut feeling that Neil would never put his family near something so dangerous. “He wouldn’t do that.”

  Martin, who’d shared the same doubt as me, did not echo my belief anymore. Did not back me up.
<
br />   “Martin...”

  He looked to his wife, then to me.

  “I didn’t think he was capable of such a thing,” Martin said. “But we have to remember, if Olin is a liar, then so is Neil. They’re cut from the same cloth.”

  Schiavo brought a hand up and coughed into it as Private Quincy turned the Humvee onto my street.

  “I don’t like spies,” Schiavo said. “I can respect an enemy who takes up arms against me, an enemy in a uniform, but this...”

  “It’s necessary,” Martin said. “It’s part of warfare.”

  “That doesn’t mean I have to like it,” Schiavo said. “Not one bit.”

  The Humvee pulled to a stop in front of my house, but I did not immediately open the door.

  “Olin did say something else,” I told them.

  Schiavo eyed me, with a hint of irritation, wondering, maybe, why I hadn’t shared what I was about to earlier. His offhand remark as I was departing his camp had almost slipped my mind, as it seemed part wild prognostication, and part educated assumption.

  “What did he say?” Martin asked.

  “He told me the Ranger Signal would stop,” I said. “Soon.”

  “How would he know this?” Schiavo asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe it’s because the virus is hitting us hard now. He said it’s time.”

  “Time for what?” Martin asked.

  “Time for them to make contact.”

  * * *

  I came into our house expecting to still find Elaine in bed, despite what I’d just been told about her condition. Certainly the medicine she’d been given would not have a dramatic effect in the thirty hours I’d been gone.

  Thankfully, I was wrong in my estimation.

  “Hey...”

  Elaine spoke to me from where she sat in the living room, resting easily in an overstuffed chair. I shed my gear and weapons and went to her.

  “What is that smell?”

  “A night in the woods,” I told her.

  She stood, surprisingly steady, and kissed me. When she eased back I took in the sight of her. There was still a bit of paleness to her complexion, and a hint of thinness about her jawline. But her eyes were bright, and her smile brighter.

  “You look...”

  I couldn’t finish my thought, amazed at the transformation.

  “Don’t get used to it,” Elaine said. “It’s only temporary.”

  My heart sank, but nothing about her expression changed. She was letting the moment be the moment.

  “How long?” I asked.

  “A few days.”

  Others were still suffering through the virus. To be angry that we’d been granted some respite, however brief, while those afflicted could only claw their way through the fever, the pain, was to ignore this chance. Maybe our last at some normalcy.

  But normal in our world, in this time, this place, was not what anyone wanted it to be. Reality would always intrude.

  “We have assignments tomorrow,” Elaine told me.

  I nodded. No respite from the needs of our defense would come until we had won. Or lost.

  “But that’s tomorrow,” Elaine said, reaching up to unbutton my soiled shirt. “Right now we need to get you into the shower.”

  She wasn’t talking about simply cleaning the grit from my trek off of me. I knew that. There was suggestion in her voice, and in her gaze. In the way her fingers brushed my skin.

  “Are you sure you should...”

  She nodded, voiding any concern I was expressing.

  “I’m tired, and sore, and I want you,” she said, a seriousness now about her. “How many more nights will we have? We don’t know. So I want this while we have this one. Okay?”

  How could I deny this moment, with her, even if I wanted to. Which I didn’t.

  “Okay,” I said.

  She moved past me and flipped the light switch off. I followed her through the darkness as she walked down the hall.

  Thirty Two

  The radio went silent the next morning.

  “Ten minutes ago,” Schiavo said.

  She stood on our porch, Elaine and I absorbing the news the captain had brought us personally.

  “Just like Olin said would happen,” I said.

  The captain nodded, then looked to my wife and smiled.

  “You look better,” she said.

  “Off death’s doorstep,” Elaine said. “For the moment.”

  Schiavo still hadn’t accepted any medication from Genesee, insisting instead that it go to those sicker than she was. There was another reason, though, that she was passing on the potentially lifesaving drugs. She hadn’t said so, but she didn’t need to.

  “The medicine is safe during pregnancy,” I told the captain.

  “You read the box Genesee left behind.”

  “I did,” I said, confirming the captain’s suspicion.

  “I saw the term ‘unlikely’ in there,” Schiavo said. “Effects on unborn children are ‘unlikely’. That’s not good enough for me.”

  “You laid flat by this thing won’t be good for a child, either,” I said.

  “You could ask Genesee,” Elaine said.

  Schiavo rejected the idea with a weakened shake of her head. She reached out and planted a hand on the door jamb to support herself. I’d seen her like this, as had Elaine, when she’d refused to lighten her load after being shot on our way to Skagway so many months ago. She’d pushed through the pain there, and the weakness, driving forward and leading her troops, her men, to an ultimate victory against the Russian contingent which had invaded Alaska.

  Here, though, the enemy was invisible to her. She could not battle it as she would her opposites in a firefight. But she was still charging forward, refusing to slow, making the fight itself what sustained her.

  “My people all have the medicine,” Schiavo said. “I’m just a desk riding bureaucrat with a sidearm.”

  “So you won’t be on the line if the fight comes,” I said, correcting myself quickly. “When the fight comes.”

  “We’ll see,” the captain said, allowing another smile. “Elaine, I need to change your assignment for today.”

  “Whatever you need.”

  She’d been scheduled to go with me to check our southern lines, but this sudden, if expected, quieting of the airwaves had necessitated some change in plans, I imagined. Along with an alteration of deployments.

  “I need you at the com center to back up Private Westin,” Schiavo said. “We need ears on our radios every second.”

  “The ultimatum’s coming,” Elaine said.

  Schiavo didn’t confirm what we all knew to be true. The demands from the Unified Government were imminent. Our response, and our reaction, would dictate what happened beyond that.

  “Fletch, I want those checkpoints squared away,” Schiavo said. “No weak links. No mistakes.”

  “Understood,” I told the captain.

  She stood there for a few seconds, just taking in the sight of us, two people, in love, facing their destiny together. Just as she and Martin were.

  “Stay sharp,” Schiavo said, then headed down the walkway to the Humvee she’d left at the curb.

  “A fall baby,” Elaine said as we watched Schiavo drive away.

  “What?”

  “They’re going to have a baby in the fall.”

  I did the math in my head. Based upon what Martin ad Schiavo had shared, Elaine was right.

  “October or November,” I said.

  “A long ways off,” Elaine said. “A long, long ways.”

  So much could happen between now and then. Or between now and when the sun went down. We were promised this moment. That was it. Everything beyond that had to be earned.

  “Let’s get ready,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Elaine agreed.

  It was time to earn our tomorrow.

  Thirty Three

  I was heading toward the third stop of my assignment, inspecting the southern checkpoint ne
arest the shore, when Elaine came screaming up in an old pickup that had been used and abused hauling ammo to the new armory.

  “Eric!”

  She called out to me through the open driver’s window and hung a fast one-eighty on the wide road, back tires slipping, the vehicle rattling as it threatened to fishtail before stopping, pointed back toward town.

  “What is it?”

  “They made contact,” Elaine told me through a cough.

  She was more surprised than excited.

  “The Unified Government?”

  “Yeah,” she confirmed.

  “What did they say?”

  “Get in,” she told me. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  * * *

  Five minutes later I stood in the garrison’s communication center with Schiavo and Elaine. The message, transcribed by Westin, had already been shared with Martin and Mayor Allen, both of whom the captain informed me were on their way to the very place I’d been quarantined.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Read it,” Schiavo said, handing me the slip of paper on which the message had been translated from dots and dashes to words that would carry some meaning.

  I took the slip of paper and read aloud.

  “Initiate ATV transmission and reception at thirteen hundred hours tomorrow. The Unified Government.”

  ATV. An Amateur Television transmission was what we were supposed to expect. A crude video broadcast sent over amateur radio frequencies, the same as Micah had received. Simple images of a thriving tomato plant which had sent us across the wastelands to retrieve the cure for the blight.

  “Keep reading,” Schiavo said.

  “Request point of contact be Eric Fletcher,” I read.

  “You seem to be popular on all fronts,” the captain said.

  Elaine put a hand on my arm as I read the full message in silence again.

  “You know what this means,” my wife said.

  “It means Neil will be speaking on their behalf.”

  I crumpled the slip of paper up and dropped it on the floor.

  Part Three

  Contact

  Thirty Four

  I sat at Micah’s workstation, computers humming, the display before me a jumble of electronic noise alternating between fuzzy black and white static. The speaker connected to the system shifted between silence and hissing. It was an oddly rhythmic sound that seemed to match and mock my own quickened breathing.