by Brian Parker
“Now don’t you go gettin’ that in your head,” he chided her. “Jake volunteered to go into town and get supplies that a member of our group needed. Without that formula, Lincoln may not make it, and I ain’t about to let one of our people suffer needlessly.” He grumbled from behind his mustache. “Hmpf. We needed supplies and he went into town. That’s the end of discussion on the subject.”
Sidney accepted the scoop of eggs and sliver of cornbread that Sally offered her without comment. She ate in silence as Vern and his granddaughters discussed the day’s chores that needed to be done before the snow fell even harder than it currently was. February was famously brutal on the Plains for snowstorms and they had no idea if, or when, the weather would get worse.
Finally, after listening to them for a few minutes, Sidney put her fork down. “I’m going to go find him,” she declared.
“What?” Carmen said, jerking her head back.
She glanced at Jake’s girlfriend, or whatever the term would be these days for the two of them. The woman looked genuinely surprised at what Sidney had said. “He’s gotten himself into some kind of trouble, I just know it. And, he’s in trouble because of me and Lincoln. You may be able to live with something like that on your conscience, Vern, but I can’t.”
“And just what in the Good Lord’s name do you think you’re gonna do about it, Sidney?” Vern demanded. “That boy’s an Army Ranger. He’s been trained for this sort of work.”
“Nobody was trained to face this,” she countered, waving her hand toward the window where she’d watched for his return. “He went into town on my urging. Now he’s in trouble and I’m going to go get him.”
“What about Lincoln?” Sally asked.
She turned her fiery gaze on the oldest of Vern’s granddaughters. “I’m going to have to leave him here. He has enough formula for a week or so, can one of you girls watch him for me?”
“Wait a minute—” Vern started, but was interrupted by Carmen.
“I’ll watch him.” She fretted with her napkin for a moment before saying, “It should be me going, though. Not you.”
“You know that you’re not cut out for what has to be done, Carmen.”
“And you are?” Vern laughed. “Girl, this world is—”
He was cut off again as Sidney slapped the table. “I’m going and that’s final. I’ll wear all white and blend in with the snow as much as possible. The infected won’t be able to tell that I’m there.”
“Ha!” he scoffed. “And what will you do if they do see you?”
“Then I’ll kill them,” she replied calmly. “I may be small, but I’m not a fucking—”
“Please,” Vern said. He was a devout Baptist and hated cursing in his presence.
“Sorry,” she amended before continuing. “I’m not a victim, Vern. I’m not going to let a good man possibly die because I was too afraid to go after him and help out. I’m not letting that rest on my conscience.”
“I’m coming too,” Sally said.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Vern grumbled. “You aren’t going anywhere, Sally. I forbid it.”
“You can’t make me stay here, Grandpa.”
“I can and I will, young lady.”
“I’m not so young anymore,” she retorted. “I can make my own choices.” She held up her hand to quiet the old man. “No, hear me out. Sidney’s right about their eyesight being terrible—worse now than it was at first. Wearing all white may be the perfect disguise against the snowy backdrop. Plus, having a partner with her makes her a whole lot less vulnerable since we can watch each other’s back. Sending her out there alone is dangerous, but the two of us together can make it to that Neighborhood Market that he was planning on going to and then come back here once we get an idea of what happened to him. It should only take a few hours.”
Vern looked back and forth between the two women. He knew his granddaughter too well to know that she wouldn’t back down once she set her mind to something, even if it was dangerous. No amount of arguing or protesting on his part would change that girl’s mind.
“You’re going to give me an ulcer,” he grumbled.
“Does that mean you approve of me going?”
“No, it means I can’t stop you.” He pushed up from the table and picked up one of the M-4 rifles that had belonged to the two soldiers that Jake brought with him. Those two got themselves killed trying to rescue his granddaughters and Jake had come near enough to joining them.
He handed the rifle over to her. “That boy had better be in a heap of trouble and need your help instead of sleepin’ off a drunk somewhere because he finally got some alcohol in him.”
Sally accepted the rifle and checked the chamber like he taught her. Then she used the sling to put it on her shoulder. Everyone, including old Vern himself, had drilled extensively with the shorter, more maneuverable weapons over the course of the winter and it looked like Sally had taken those drills seriously.
“It’s 9:15 according to Mickey,” he grumbled, referring to the cheap digital watch that had replaced his old wind-up Mickey Mouse watch ten years ago. “You girls need to get ready and be prepared to get out of here by ten. That’ll give you two or three hours to town, no more than an hour or two looking for that darn boy, and then two or three more hours for the return trip.”
The women nodded and Sidney turned to follow Sally out of the kitchen. Vern grabbed her arm. “You keep my grandbaby safe, y’hear? I’ve seen what she’s capable of, but I don’t know about you yet. If you run into trouble, just stay low, the infected will most likely walk right past you.”
“I’m not going looking for a fight, Vern.”
“Yeah, but one may come looking for you. Keep that ego of yours in check. The world is a dangerous place, but not everyone is out to get you, and you sure as heck can’t take it on alone. Your baby will be here waiting for you to get back. You get me?”
Sidney stared hard at him for a moment. Was that a veiled threat against Lincoln if Sally got hurt or was she reading way too much into the old man’s advice? She’d vowed to herself that she wouldn’t be a victim ever again, and that had meant being a hard-nosed bitch at times, but Vern was right. She could carry out her mission without starting a fight. She didn’t have to face every problem head-on. There was a lot of truth to the old sports axiom that sometimes the best offense was a good defense.
She nodded her chin curtly. “I’ll keep us in the shadows and let the small threats pass by without starting a fight.”
“Good,” he replied, releasing her elbow. “There are a bunch of old bedsheets in that big chest in the attic. Sally knows where it is. Use those to help camouflage you in the snow.”
She leaned down to pick up the other M-4 and checked the chamber and safety as well. “Thank you,” she said, forcing herself to be polite to the man who may, or may not, have threatened her child. She still wasn’t sure if he had or not, but she sure as hell would be on guard around him from now on.
She glanced back to Carmen. “Thank you for watching Lincoln. Can you watch after Rick James too? I know you don’t like him, but—”
“Shhh! Of course I’ll watch them,” the nurse replied.
Sidney stared at Vern as she said, “That’s one less thing I’ll have to worry about. Good to know that we’ve got support back here.”
She didn’t give him the opportunity to respond. She had a mission to do. Sitting around here arguing wasn’t going to help her accomplish it. It was time to go.
7
* * *
NEAR TYRONE, OKLAHOMA
FEBRUARY 12TH
“Say again, Truck Six?” Jim Albrecht had heard what the soldier reported, but wanted to be sure. It was simply too far-fetched to be accurate.
“I say again,” the young sergeant’s voice came over the radio. “A non-US fast mover of unknown type just flew across the horizon behind us.”
He stood up taller in the TC hatch and turned around to look behind the column down the road. He
was in the middle of a simple road march column in Truck Three, with about seventy meters between trucks. Truck Six was in the back of the five vehicle column pulling rear security after they’d left Truck Five in the garage back at Santa Rosa. The rear truck had the responsibility of watching behind them to ensure that no infected snuck up and attacked the group each time that they slowed down to maneuver around obstacles in the road and when they stopped, like now.
Jim toggled the push-to-talk switch on his CVC helmet. “Are you sure it was a non-US jet?” Corporal Jones’ question about North Korean troops on the morning they left Fort Bliss swam up from the recesses of his mind.
“Yes, sir. I’m an aircraft enthusiast. Was gonna apply to the Air Force Academy before I got my girlfriend pregnant.” Jim grimaced as everyone in the column could hear what the kid was saying. He’d have to talk to him about discretion. “I know every aircraft that the Air Force and Navy uses, plus a lot of our allies. If I were a betting man, I’d say that was a Russian-made MiG-29.”
“Okay, thanks for the head’s up, Truck Six.” Jim paused a moment and then put out a net call for all the truck commanders, “Guidons. Guidons. Guidons. This is Ready Six. I’m sure all of you monitored Truck Six’s transmission about seeing a foreign jet. I’ll reach out to Division to see what I can learn.
“In the meantime, keep an eye out. But, this doesn’t change our mission. We are in position to hit the target house now. As discussed, drivers, TCs and gunners will stay with the trucks. Everyone else will dismount and move through the cornfield to the target. Acknowledge.”
He waited until all the trucks had replied and then told Sergeant First Class Turner to meet him at his truck in four minutes. He figured that amount of time should give the grizzled infantryman enough time to get everyone online and ready to attack toward the last known position of Lieutenant Murphy’s Stryker vehicle. In all honesty, Jim had zero idea of what to expect at their objective.
They had satellite photos of the farmhouse and barn from the pre-outbreak timeframe, but that was coming up on at least a year old, possibly more. Any type of improvement to the land, or fortifications that the residents—or Lieutenant Murphy—had made would be a surprise to them. It was of the utmost importance that they go in slow and deliberate without alerting the occupants of their presence.
The threat didn’t end with the residents of the house. The infected that they’d seen in the area appeared to be well fed, possibly from all the old corn and wildlife in the area. The cornfields that had been planted in the spring when the outbreak occurred grew wild and unharvested, the kernels drying up. Deer, quail, squirrels, and rabbits had been seen in abundance and it was all Jim could do to keep his soldiers from shooting one of them in order to supplement their diets of MREs and bottled water.
Soon enough, he told himself. They were only minutes away from actioning on their target. If Murphy’s merry band of deserters weren’t at the farmhouse, Jim’s mission would be over. Without giant signs saying exactly where they’d gone, there was no way to find them, regardless of what he’d told his soldiers the other day before they left Fort Bliss.
He’d never admit to the men and women under his command that he secretly hoped they came up with a dry hole at the farmhouse. The more he thought about the position that he’d put Murphy in by placing him in that refugee camp, the more Jim believed that the kid had no other options available to him. He deserted an army that had already abandoned him.
Jim toggled the radio a bit and tried to reach the base operations cell back at Fort Bliss. Even with perfect conditions, pre-outbreak, the military radios using satellites to pass data would have been a long shot. Now, with an unknown number of satellites down for maintenance, or that had simply fallen out of the sky when their orbiting pattern had decayed, the military radios were useless beyond line of sight.
He grunted and pulled the satellite phone that he’d been given for emergency use only from his pocket. Jim wasn’t sure if it was going to work either. The Division Signal Officer had assured him that military satellites remained aloft, but the lack of standard radio comms disproved that assertion.
It rang twice and then the general’s aide, Lieutenant Freddy MacArthur, answered. “First Armored Division Commanding General’s office, Lieutenant MacArthur speaking. How may I help you, sir or ma’am?”
“Freddy Mac!” Jim replied, genuinely glad that the phone worked. “This is Colonel Albrecht. Is Iron Six available?”
“I’m sorry, sir. He’s not. He’s on a SVTC with the president right now.”
Jim was impressed. If the division commander, Major General Bhagat, was in a Secret Video Teleconference with the president, then maybe there was some good news about a cure or at least a way ahead. As far as Jim knew, they hadn’t heard much from their civilian leadership since the outbreak, so it was a welcome change to how things had been going.
“That’s good to hear,” Jim said. “Hey, you’re in all the CG’s meetings, do you know anything about non-US aircraft in US airspace? We believe that we’ve seen an aircraft, possibly a Russian MiG-29.”
“Russian?” the lieutenant asked. ”That’s weird. They were hit just as badly as us. You sure it wasn’t—” He stopped talking for a moment. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know anything about foreign aircraft.”
“Freddy, you know something. What is it?”
“Sir, I’m not authorized to discuss it.”
“We’ve already heard the rumors down here. What’s the real story?”
“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t—”
“Bullshit, Freddy. You know me. I was the one that recommended you for the CG’s aide position. I wouldn’t be asking you if I didn’t have a need to know. I’m operating completely alone out here, without any type of communication with Higher since we rolled out the gates.” He dropped his voice so anyone within earshot of him couldn’t hear. “What the fuck is going on, Lieutenant?”
“Wait one, sir.” There was a rustling of clothing and then Jim thought he could hear a door open, then shut. Finally, the lieutenant returned. “Sir, it’s fucked up. UN forces are operating inside the US. There have been reports of firefights between the Koreans and civilians. It’s—”
“Wait,” Jim said, stopping him. “Koreans? That rumor is true?”
“I don’t know which rumor you heard, sir. There are a lot of them going around. North Korea—and Iran—have troops on the ground here. Almost every UN troop-contributing nation was hit hard by outbreaks in their own countries. North Korea and Iran volunteered to provide military and humanitarian support and the UN Security Council accepted it. They had to.”
“What the hell?”
“Like I said, there have been reports about gunfights between US civilians and the NORKs—uh, I mean North Koreans.”
“How long have you known about this?” Jim demanded.
“A couple of months, sir. The CG was gonna talk to all the brigade commanders and then the uprisings happened, then it seemed like everything was O.B.E. and it sort of fell off the radar.”
“So instead of dealing with this, he has me chasing a damn deserter all across the Great Plains?”
“The general feels very strongly about desertion because of our tenuous position here at Bliss and he also thinks that Jake Murphy caused the uprisings, so he’s on the CG’s shit list twice over.”
“In other words, shut up and color,” Jim mumbled. He was disliking his division commander more and more.
“I’m sorry, sir. But the general is adamant that you recover the Stryker and that Murphy is brought to justice.”
Jim nodded, then rolled his eyes since the action couldn’t be seen over the phone. “Okay. So until I get a change of mission, I’ll carry on with attempting to find and apprehend Murphy.”
“Yes, sir. Do you have a SITREP that you’d like me to pass on to the CG?”
He considered his words carefully before replying, “Tell Major General Bhagat that we’ve reached the last known location o
f Lieutenant Murphy’s Stryker. We are in our assembly area now and are preparing to move to the target location on foot. I also want you to be sure to tell him that we’ve observed foreign fast movers operating overhead near the Oklahoma-Kansas border and have established an air guard to protect our vehicles. Maybe if he hears that we are reacting to foreign troops on US soil, he’ll actually share some information with us so we don’t accidentally shoot down a United Nations jet.”
“Sir, I—”
“No worries, Freddy. I’ll keep what you told me close to my chest. The general will never know that you told me. Thank you for being honest with me, son.”
“Roger, sir. Thank you.” Freddy Mac sounded truly relieved, which prompted Jim to wonder just what in the hell was going on at the division headquarters. Purposefully keeping operational intelligence from men in the field was a major leadership failure. Bhagat was playing a deadly game and he sure as hell didn’t appreciate being one of the pawns.
“Alright, Freddy Mac. You keep your head down.” He paused and then said, “Don’t hesitate to call me if something else major is in the works, okay?”
“I’ll try to, sir.”
He ended the call and walked back toward where the dismounts were preparing to go through the cornfield toward the farmhouse. The news about the United Nations being supplemented by North Koreans and Iranians was disturbing, to say the least, but the fact that those UN soldiers were now operating on US soil was mind boggling. They’d been enemy nations less than a year ago, now they were here on a peacekeeping mission.
It also sounded suspicious as fuck.
The world of international politics was certainly strange and outside of Jim’s realm of expertise, but something about the entire ordeal stank. If they were here for humanitarian reasons, why was the Fort Bliss Safe Zone still isolated and running out of food? Why was Bhagat keeping their presence a secret? Hell, having that knowledge a few months ago meant that the uprisings could have been stopped. Almost two hundred thousand dead, double that for wounded who would either die from wounds or heal on their own since the base had run out of medical supplies to render aid. Those people rioted over food, and information that there was an international humanitarian mission might have prevented it.