by John L. Monk
When it had gone on long enough, he banged the table. “Cool it, guys. Okay, Greg, you’re up.”
Greg clamped his arms tightly to his sides and clicked his heels. “Sir, yes sir!”
The assembly listened in mounting fascination as Greg recounted the trip to Occoquan, how they’d found a small sailboat to learn on, and how Andrew had lied about his experience to join the expedition.
Larry, one of Andrew’s friends, laughed openly at this.
Greg explained how they’d found both sailing and fishing remarkably easy, and that they’d had a blast tooling up and down the Chesapeake and visiting the many small islands. The looks in the officers’ and base leaders’ eyes were of undisguised envy.
“Guaranteed,” Greg added, “the seagoing life’s a billion times more fun than milking cows and herding chickens.”
“Would you get on with it?” Jack snapped. If it sounded too fun, nobody would stick around to do the other work!
Greg grinned impishly. “Sorry, buddy-boo. Where was I? Oh yeah: the daring pirate raid on the Smithsonian Institution.”
He told them everything … in his own special way: the climb up the mast to the bridge, how they’d snuck into the museum in pursuit of lost treasure, and how they’d found military tanks and Blackhawk helicopters waiting for someone to come along and take them for a spin.
“Would you please just tell them about the airport?” Jack said.
Greg’s enthusiasm waned considerably as he related the part about the airport.
“We saw someone driving around,” he said guiltily, “but figured it was just … you know … I mean, nobody thought they were gonna do anything. We were in a boat, right? So anyway, after we came back from the pirate raid, Chelsea and Andrew were gone, and then Sarah … um … got caught too.”
Jack and Lisa knew the truth about Sarah and had convinced Greg to say they’d all been captured. “So people don’t lose hope,” Jack had told him. And if rescuing four people was an easier sell than three, then so much the better.
Greg glossed over the trip through the sewers and told them about the kids with the night vision headgear and the trucks with the mounted guns. Somewhat sheepishly, he confessed to being overly optimistic when it came to Tony’s weight, which led to Tony’s capture.
Greg shook his head at the shame of it. “How many times did we tell him he needed to lay off the cookies? Poor kid … He had a monkey on his back.”
Jack said, “Are you ever going to tell us about the guys with the boats?”
“I’m getting to it,” Greg said. He scratched his chin, mouth moving silently in thought. Then he nodded. “So, there I was, coming home to get help, when all the sudden ten boats filled with armed commandos zoom out of nowhere, guns a’ blazin’. I wasn’t afraid, though. My solemn vow to rescue my men was all the armor I needed.”
After a fierce battle, Greg was captured and hauled back to the enemy base: a big, brick mansion overlooking the water. His story differed remarkably from the one he’d given Jack and Lisa upon his return. In that tale, the kids had hauled him out of the water, tied him up, and interrogated him at length to see who he was. Several of them wanted to kill him on the spot. When he said his friends had been captured by kids at the airport, they calmed down and wanted to hear more. Apparently, there was a beef between the two groups. The boat kids had launched an attack on them to steal something called “FEMA food,” only to lose half their original raiding party. Since then, they’d been gathering more people, more guns, and were waiting for the right time to try another attack.
Greg addressed the base leaders and officers. “I think they’re scared. They mostly have hunting rifles and a few ARs. And pistols, of course. Nothing automatic, and no killer trucks.”
“Did you tell ’em about us?” Larry said.
“Everyone but you,” Greg said. “Didn’t wanna scare them.”
Larry snorted and a few people laughed.
Greg had told them about Jack and the rest of the group, saying they’d definitely try to get Tony and the others back, even if it came to a fight. When the boat kids—who had no official name—heard that Jack commanded a sizable force of his own, they’d requested a meeting.
“They want those FEMA bars,” Greg said. “Apparently, they’ve been eating a lot of fish, and they don’t like fishing in the cold, or going hungry when nothing’s biting.”
“How many little kids did you see?” Jack said.
Greg pursed his lips in thought. “You know what? I didn’t see any.”
Lisa said, “I don’t trust anyone who throws out little kids.”
Jack agreed, but didn’t see much choice if he wanted to ensure the best possible chance of getting his people back.
For the rest of the meeting, Jack and his leadership discussed how best to use the boat kids. He made it clear that, whatever happened, no one in Legion would take orders from them. Greg said he could find his way back to their mansion, which had its own dock, and Jack said they wouldn’t go there with a few people. He’d bring as many as he could while still taking care of the little kids and the farm animals back home.
Priscilla raised her hand.
Sighing inwardly, Jack said, “Yeah?”
“If these airport jerks have machine guns and Uzis, how are we supposed to stop them?”
Constantly with the Uzis.
But it was a fair question, and the way the room quieted, they were all worried.
“Right now,” Jack said, “these guys are pretty strong. But they’re nowhere near as tough as they’ll be in a year. By then, we’ll be stronger too, but we’ll also have more to lose. And every day that goes by, we’ll be sitting here afraid they’ll attack us again. But if we hit them now—wipe them out—we can change that. We do that, and everyone will know the price of messing with us.”
They still looked worried, but some of them were nodding.
“Okay, Olivia,” he said, “can you pass out the—”
Priscilla raised her hand again. “What do you mean a message to everyone? Nobody knows what they did except us.”
Olivia, who’d started to stand, sat back down again and waited politely.
“A message to ourselves,” Jack said. “We protect our people. That’s the message. Are you going to keep interrupting?”
When Priscilla shook her head resolutely no, Olivia got up and began passing out composition notebooks and pens. On the front of each notebook was the name of the seven bases: Winchester, Warrenton, Berryville, Maple, Stanton, Gainesville, and Haymarket.
For the rest of the afternoon—in a brick house overlooking I-66 called Camp Phoenix—Jack and the leaders of Legion prepared for war.
42
Three nights before the planned attack, Jack stood on a pier in Old Town Alexandria, near the airport, with a girl named Wendy. Before the Sickness, she used to fly airplanes with her dad. Jack had quizzed her all about flying, and now felt reasonably certain she wasn’t a liar. He’d also asked about her other hobbies … and then had grown weirdly jealous. The girl’s parents had been super wealthy, it turned out, and pretty much got her every toy she asked for. One of those toys was a super-expensive, long-distance drone with night vision capabilities.
“You sure you know how to fly this thing?” Jack said dubiously, staring at the multiple propeller blades.
“Duh …” Wendy said while fiddling carefully with the controls. “Now shush, I have to concentrate.”
Her tongue poked out of her mouth partway as she adjusted the remote. A minute later and she sent the drone soaring into the sky. Jack did his best to seem unfazed, but wow, this thing was cool.
She had a laptop open on a bench with a feed of that part of the river. Most of Jack’s raiders were in boats anchored at Belle Haven, where Greg’s new “friends” had spent the day ferrying kids and supplies in from Occoquan. The ferrying had not gone smoothly. The boat kids tended to look down on the “hicks” from out west, and several fights had broken out—one of wh
ich resulted in the murder of a kid out of Warrenton. The dead boy’s friends had called for justice, which Jack had denied so as not to lose what amounted to his navy. He would have lost Warrenton’s support altogether if not for some quick, harsh words from Larry, who they feared more than Jack.
Before leaving that morning with Wendy, Jack asked Larry to chum up to the snobbish boat kids’ leader—a guy named Trevor with curly blond hair and a silver hoop in his ear. The alliance had to hold until his people were rescued, if they were alive, and the threat from the airport kids neutralized.
“Take it farther north, along the shore, and then west,” Jack said, staring at his map. “You sure they can’t hear it coming?”
“Told you five times, no,” Wendy said, staring intently at her laptop.
Through the spectrum of night-vision green and gray, Jack saw the two big wings of the airport. Jumbo jets were stacked everywhere like toys, never to fly again. There was also a truck down there with its lights on, patrolling along the waterline. A minute later, it reached the end and turned around.
“Take it over to the front,” Jack said. “Look for a bridge with tall buildings on one side, like skyscrapers. And stay up high so they don’t hear you.”
“They won’t hear me,” she said.
Greg said he and Tony had been ambushed on a bridge. He said the airport kids had night vision too, like Wendy’s drone. Jack found that a little hard to believe, given everything he’s seen from the cabbages he’d run into, but he was softening to the idea that he wasn’t nearly as smart as his parents had led him to believe. Whoever ran the airport might even look at him as a cabbage.
Maybe even a potato.
“Potato?” Wendy said.
“Huh?”
“You said potato.”
“Never mind that,” Jack said, pointing at her screen. “Zoom in there.”
Five military vehicles were parked near a booth at one of the airport entrances. As reported, they had roof-mounted guns.
He pointed at the controller. “You said this thing has infrared?”
“Yeah, but it’s not as sharp.”
“That’s fine,” Jack said. “Just hover and turn it on.”
“One second …”
Moments later, the screen changed subtly and then red shapes could be seen. There were two of them inside the booth, though not in any of the vehicles.
“Take it north and then west,” Jack said. He pointed at the screen again. “Here and over here, see?”
Wendy leveled him a flat look, shook her head, and flew the drone north and then west as asked.
The other entrances to the airport were all blocked with metal barriers—not cars, like every other roadblock he’d seen so far. Jack figured the only way in and out was past the guard booth.
“My battery’s dying,” Wendy said.
Jack smiled. “Are you a robot?”
“Hah hah,” she said and smiled too. “I better bring it back.”
After the drone landed on the pier, Wendy carried it to the powerboat and plugged it in. Many of the larger boats had generators and something called an inverter, and now people were sneaking away to find cell phones so they could play games again.
Done for the night, Jack and Wendy shared a quick catfish dinner—a new delicacy among the ex-Dragsters, who’d grown sick of beef. Then they headed back to Belle Haven.
“Where do you get your fuel from?” Jack said to Trevor, trying to feel him out a little. Impressed with the way Larry had dealt with the Warrenton group, the snobbish leader of the boat kids had tried to secretly recruit his second in command. Larry said he’d think about it, then immediately told Jack.
Trevor wore a slight smile. “Everywhere. Why?”
“You have like thirty boats, all diesel-powered. We were thinking of going all sailboats to save on fuel.”
Trevor snorted. “Seriously? Your friend … the weird one … we thought he must have been retarded when we rescued him. You’re welcome for that, by the way. Wind came up and knocked his boat over. He almost drowned.”
“Thank you,” Jack said, nodding appreciatively. “He means well …”
“Diesel’s where it’s at. Every marina has zillions of gallons of it just waiting. You can go clear from the bay to the airport and back again in like an hour in a powerboat. Sailboats are for pussies.”
“I’m starting to realize that now. Thank you.”
“No problem.”
Jack didn’t tell him the fuel they were using had a shelf life, if a somewhat long one. He also let Trevor spout whatever thoughts he had, unchallenged. It was Trevor’s humble opinion that Legion did everything wrong, and that his group did everything right. He also hinted heavily that Legion should join them. Whenever he brought it up, Jack promised to think it over.
The next two days were spent acclimating everyone to sleeping during the day so they’d be fresh for the attack, which would happen at night. During that time, Jack kept his group separate from Trevor’s. The plan was for the ex-Dragsters and the kids from the new bases to attack by land, whereas Trevor’s would attack from the river. Greg’s group would tie down the attack trucks until the boat kids could reach the terminal.
“How do we know he’ll really do that?” Trevor said.
“Do what?” Jack said.
“Keep those trucks away. They got machine guns, man.”
“Take my word for it. Also, if one gets through, I have those special bullets, remember?”
He’d shown Trevor some colorful, soft-tipped 5.56 rounds and said they were armor-piercing. In truth, they were useless against anything other than soft targets.
“Sorry bro, but your friend’s a wimp,” Trevor said. “You got no idea what those things can do once they start shooting.”
“They attacked us too,” Jack said.
“So you say …”
To quell his fears, Jack and Larry agreed to attack the beach with him. Greg only had to hold the trucks off for a few minutes. Once everyone was inside the airport, they’d be useless.
“You think this will really work?” Larry had said later.
“Probably.”
“Probably?” Larry shook his head. “You really think Greg will come through?”
“He’ll be fine,” Jack said. “There’s more to him than being funny. Besides, we’ll probably be inside before they know it, just like the raids. But hey … if you don’t want to go, I understand. Not sure about Trevor, though.”
“That guy’s a douche. And I’m going.”
“Okay.”
Jack had no illusions about the dangers involved. He knew some would die, and quite possibly himself. But the way he saw it, they could either fight or run away—and then run again when the next group of murderous kids came along.
After talking again with Greg, who worried he wouldn’t be able to see at night, Jack switched the plan from a night attack to a dawn attack. The move wasn’t without its plusses. The enemy would be very tired—possibly asleep at their posts—and limited to normal vision like everyone else.
The night of the attack, Jack assembled Greg and Lisa’s teams under the trees in the adjoining park. Everyone received a white strip of linen to wrap around his or her left arm. Easy to see against their dark jackets, and they’d help reduce accidents from friendly fire.
“He’s going to give a speech!” someone yelled. A few people laughed, and someone told the kid who’d yelled to shut up, prompting even more laughter.
Jack waited it out, then stepped forward so they could see him
“Larry said some of you are running your mouths about how scared you are,” Jack said, shaking his head at the ludicrous tale. “I said that can’t be true, because my guys shoot better than any of those child killers. Remember that? They shot little kids in the back as they ran away. But we won’t run away, now will we?”
He waited while Larry’s friends clapped and shouted “No way!” on cue.
Jack nodded. “But we’re not little kid
s. We’ll be armed to the teeth and hungry for revenge. We’ll also be better rested than our enemies. Before they finish wiping the boogers from their eyes, we’ll be on top of them. I told Larry, No way my guys are afraid!”
The pre-selected cheerers cheered and shoved each other playfully, proving to one and all how brave they were.
“But hey,” Jack said with a sideways glance at his second in command. “Could it be that Larry’s the one afraid? Is that it?”
Larry pumped his shotgun and glared, causing everyone to laugh.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw Lisa with a fist over her mouth, staring at him with a disapproving look. But what was he supposed to do? Send her off with scared troops?
“What about Greg?” a girl shouted. “Is he scared?”
Greg motioned for Jack to back away. “Allow me to handle this.” The crowd’s response was more cheerful this time, less aggressive. “I’m more mad than scared, to be honest. But that’s because I’m an American, and Americans have weird blood. And … oh, wait a minute. You didn’t know that?”
Some in the audience seemed amused, and others intrigued. One boy yelled, “I knew,” and everyone laughed at him.
“It’s totally true,” Greg said. “Whenever we’re angry and not scared, it causes bullets to bounce right off us and fly into our enemies. Now, as you all know, I took a bullet and lived. It didn’t bounce off because I wasn’t mad. But I’m angry now. Who else is mad?”
“I’m pissed off, Greg!” a kid named Stewart said. His little brother had died in the attack on the cabins.
“Are you pissed too, Shelly?” Greg shouted.
“I’m gonna kill every one of them!” Shelly shouted.
Her younger sister, twelve years old, had been gunned down playing frisbee in the parking lot.
Jack nodded at Greg and took his place. “What about you, Alex?”
“Gonna wish they weren’t born!”
And so it went, with Jack calling them one-by-one to see how mad they were. He and Greg had worked out in advance who to call on to get the ball rolling.
As his raiders gave their testimonies—inspiring even the most frightened among them to declare their hatred, for fear of looking different—Jack wondered how he’d live with the guilt when some of these boys and girls died.