Ellen’s body with Dean hovered in a protection and in a loss of stance when they felt the violent jolting of the ground. Plaster fell amongst their backs as they shielded the John Doe.
“Ellen, get out.” Dean’s fingers touched in the region of the delicate spinal cord.
“We’re almost done.”
“Please get out.”
“You can’t move him, Dean. I won’t leave.” Her eyes widened. The smell of it caught her attention first, then the bright sight if it. Fire. The entire wall of the makeshift operating room became engulfed in flames. “Dean, hurry.”
“I’m getting there.”
“Dean.”
“Get ready.” Dean kept working.
Ellen placed the IV bag on the cart getting ready to help Dean wheel him out. She could feel the heat of the powerful flames burning so close to her. The fire crept up the wall and to the ceiling, crawling at them, like a snake in the grass.
“Ready and ... Now!” Dean dropped his instruments and gripped the cart, pushing it with Ellen to wheel the patient through the door.
Had Ellen not stopped at the startling sound of the loud crack, she wouldn’t have had to jump back in order to avoid being hit when a beam from the ceiling came crashing down separating her from Dean. The flames shot from the portion of the ceiling that fell to the floor and Ellen stood looking so helpless at Dean on the other side trying desperately to figure out a way to get her.
She turned around to look behind her and to the small, too small, window there. Ellen could see the rushing water against the window pane. It told her that help was out there, but as Ellen stood trapped, she had to wonder if they could put the fire out that surrounded her, before it got too late.
<><><><>
“We need more water power!” Frank barked out looking toward the eastern wing of the clinic that began to engulf with flames. “Robbie, I’ve been delayed. The clinic was hit.”
Robbie’s voice was nearly buried in the sounds of gunfire and explosions. “We’re good up here, Frank.”
“Mark, how are we looking.”
“Numbers dwindling, Frank, looks as though we got a pack still moving.”
“Where are they?”
“Point nine miles.”
Frank bit his lip and twitched his head in disgust. “Cole, get ready. They’re heading your way.”
“Copy, Frank. We’re on it,” Cole yelled back.
“You, you, and you.” Frank pointed to men as he reached for a hose to help out with the fire. “Back gate move it! Cole, you got squads headed up and I’m sending more your way.” As Frank lifted the hose he saw Henry running to him. “Henry!” Frank shouted at him. “You are not to be up here. Get down there in case we have to evacuate!”
“I can’t, Frank.” Henry sounded distraught. “Andrea just told me. Ellen and Dean are in the clinic. They’re operating on John Doe and for fear of the virus they’re in ...” Henry looked at the smoke coming from the clinic. “Oh God, the east wing.”
Frank dropped the hose and ran to the back of the building where his men not only tried to put the fire out, but hold it back from spreading any farther. In his horror, through the shimmering of smoke and rippling water effects, he saw Ellen pounding on that window even too tiny for her to squeeze out. Her mouth was open as she screamed something Frank could not hear. Then her hands went flush to the glass and Frank knew she saw him. “Oh my God.” Without thought or hesitation he took off to the front of the clinic. “Henry, get a team and get them inside. Hurry.”
Blasting through the front glass doors, Frank raced down the smoke filled hallways of the empty clinic. As he turned the first bend, he could hear Dean shouting back and Ellen’s un-interpretable response. Rounding the bend to the long hall of the east wing, the smoke got thicker. “Dean!”
“Frank,” Dean spoke his name in a relief. “I can’t get to her.”
“Frank!” Ellen cried out. “Frank, help me!”
“Move that patient out of the way,” Frank ordered Dean and backed up quick and as far as he could go down the hall away from the doorway of the room which Ellen was trapped.
Dean nearly shoved the cart from the way. “What are you ... are you crazy!” he yelled at Frank when he saw Frank take a runners stance.
“Yes.” He wiped the sweat from his eyes with the back of his hand, and took a deep breath. Then like a bull freed from his reluctant captivity, Frank charged full speed down that corridor with his heart, raising his arms as a shield and leaping with everything he had through the flames that blocked Ellen’s way out.
Ellen shrieked when she saw Frank emerge from the fire. His legs high in the air and he dropped hard in his land to the floor at her feet, the momentum of his run rolled him with a crash into the wall. “Frank!” Ellen coughed.
Frank shook his head with a twitch and picked himself up. He placed his hands on her shoulders stopping Ellen’s charge for him. He quickly looked around the room assessing it.
“Frank, I can’t believe you did that. Why?”
“Ellen ...” He saw the bed that had been shoved in the other corner out of the way.
“You should have never done that, Frank. You could have been killed.”
“I had to get you.” He moved to the bed.
“You should have left me.”
“What! And leave you here to die? Fuck that.” Frank grabbed for the mattress. “Besides ...” He grunted as he lifted it. “Dying is not an option right now.” He carried it toward the fire.
“What are you doing?”
“Watch out.” Frank looked past the flames blocking the door. He could see Dean and a few other men that made it to the hall. “Dean, back up.” He secured the mattress tightly. “Get ready, El.”
“Frank ...”
With a throaty call out, Frank raised the mattress and threw it outward toward the fire. The second it landed, tossing out ash, cinder, flames, and smoke to the sides of it, Frank lifted Ellen up into his arms and raced forth towards the flames, using the unbalanced mattress as a seesaw bridge over the smoldering fire that now ceased to keep him back.
Landing in safety’s range, Frank kissed Ellen quickly and set her down to her feet right with Dean. “Watch her.” He pointed at Dean and took off running from the clinic.
Ellen didn’t even have time to thank him. Frank was gone. She turned back to face Dean. And at that moment, Dean closed his eyes in gratefulness that she was all right and grabbed Ellen into his arms, embracing her.
Frank ran up to Henry who was battling the fire. “Henry, how’s it look?”
“We’ve got it under control. How’s Ellen?”
“She’s fine. They’re getting the fire from inside. I’m heading out.” Frank looked beyond the horizon of town. In the distance large clouds of smoke sprang up, the perfect back drop for the gunfire and explosions that rang out all around. “Dad, come in.”
“Yeah, Frank.” Though Joe spoke close to his radio, he didn’t cover the cries or sniffles that filled the tunnel.
“Town’s secure. Clinic fire is under control. I’m headed where I’m needed. Robbie? Robbie, how’s it look,” Frank asked as he ran to his jeep.
“We’re doing all we can, Frank. They’re scattering like ants.”
“Need me up there?”
“No. I think we have them. I think you’re needed there. A small group broke free, headed your way.”
“Not a problem. OK, good job.” Frank jumped in his jeep starting it. “Lay enough damage to give us a safe lack of movement up there, then bring it in and we’ll send ground troops to finish them off.”
“Got it, Frank.”
“Mark. How we looking.”
“In the distance we’re good, but ... some are here Frank.”
“How many?” Frank picked up his speed.
“Sixty ... Sixty-eight.”
“Cole,” Frank called out. “What’s the situation?”
Cole’s voice screamed over the loud sounds of shots behind him
. “We’re exchanging gunfire with them, Frank. They’re at the back gate. I have two down!”
“Keep behind the grade and in the trench, send four men to the roof of the utility building as snipers. I’ll be there in thirty seconds.”
Frank had sent his finest to the back gate to be front line. Though forty-four men laced the hillside not far from the back gate. Twenty-four of them Frank had trained by hand. As he jumped from the jeep he passed his four snipers in a run to the utility building. The battle rang out in an orchestrated manner. Rapid gunfire, single shots, a grunt here and there, the explosions of grenades, and an occasional scream.
In his low run to the hill and trenches, Frank could see the dirt sprawled everywhere from the badly thrown grenades. He rolled to Cole who had his back to the small grade. “How bad are our men hit?”
“Don’t know, Frank.” Cole reloaded. “They aren’t dead.”
Frank called over the radio. “Mark, what’s our back gate count.”
“Fifty-nine, Frank.”
Frank looked at Cole “There’s not that many out there.” Frank smiled gave a quick Joe-style whistle and yelled out. “Cease fire.”
“What?” Cole jolted his view to him.
“Cease fire.” Frank waited for the gunshots to slow down. “I need Squads One through Four right here. The rest of you hit safety in the trenches. Now!” Watching the men scurry to the trenches, and hearing the enemy’s gunfire, Frank looked to his fifteen men as he loaded his M-16. “Gentlemen, let’s stop pissing around and finish this thing. We’ll show these pussies what Beginnings’ Elite is made of. Let’s give them the wave. Take formation.” All sixteen of them lined up in one long row. “On my call ...” A synchronization of clicking chambers rang out. “Ready and ... now!” The first line of eight men stood up firing outward. “Now!” At the exact same time the first line lowered, the second line stood up firing. “Now.” A switch of positions, down went the second line, up went the first. “Again!” Frank stood again with his second line, staying up only in enough time to shoot in a dart and move fashion. “Down.” All men lowered “Reload and check, Mark, give me a count.”
“Twenty-six.”
“Beautiful.” Frank gripped his M-16. “Ladies, last call. Let’s do it.”
The up and down exchange took place until somewhere in the pauses, there were no more sounds of gunfire coming from the other side. A loud eruption of cheers echoed from the hillside and the trenches. Frank held his hand up. “Quiet. Mark?”
“One more, Frank. He’s not moving.”
“Dead?”
“Negative, Frank,” Mark answered. “I’m still getting other signals from out there only they’re weak. This one is strong.”
Frank closed his eyes thinking. “Tower, Do you spot anyone in the back gate region?”
“Can’t see anything, Frank.” Steve the tower guard came back.
Frank looked up to the sky at the sound of the helicopters. “Robbie, Robbie, come in.”
“We cleaned house, Frank. Get the men ready to go out.”
“We’ll do. But make a pass over the back gate region. See if you spot one out there, could be a sniper.”
“I’m on it.” Robbie revved up the chopper engines tilting the bird to the right, separating from John and Johnny. “Got him, Frank. I see him.”
“Where at, Robbie?”
“In the brush of S-12. I think one of my traps got him. I can’t be sure.”
“Only one way to find out. Head on in ... Security, down the back gate.” Frank stood up.
Cole tried to stop him. “Frank, you’ll be a walking target.”
“Then cover me,” Frank said arrogantly, walking over the small grade toward the back gate. He raised his weapon up, scope to his eye as he flung open the downed perimeter. Frank’s views shifted to the bodies, bloodied and tattered that lay all around. “What a fuckin mess.” He stepped over them. Looking as some hung from the tress, some on the dirt road, most dead in the positions they hid in. He marched ready to S-12, using his scope as a telescope and spotting him in the brush the closer he got.
The Society Soldier held on to his leg, two short dagger-type spears had seared into his calf so severely that the bone was exposed. The soldier struggled to free himself, he shook violently and breathed heavily in a panic.
A foot from him, holding is weapon in a steady aim at the soldier, Frank pumped back the chamber. The target in the scope marked his head and as Frank readied to depress his finger, the soldier raised his head to look. So scared he was, eyes filled with tears. And it was when Frank looked into those eyes that he saw they weren’t the eyes of a man. Glossed over they were, blinking rapidly. The soldier’s mouth quivered, and Frank knew by looking at him he couldn’t have been any older than seventeen. Steadying his weapon and pointing pressure on the trigger, the barrel inches from his head, Frank told himself this was the enemy. This was one of the ones who attacked his home. Shot his men. And then Frank told himself this was a kid. He lowered his weapon, tossing it over his shoulder and he bent down to the boy to free his leg. Frank had no reason not to shoot him right there, no reason for helping the boy. So he justified his actions in his mind. Beginnings needed this kid. He would be the first prisoner of war spawned from a battle that Beginnings ended quickly. A battle whose damage had yet to be determined.
<><><><>
There was silence in the Morse code room of George’s Command. Waiting, watching, hoping for something. However George did not give that antsy appearance and Jeremy Lyons noticed this.
Jeremy lifted away from his lean over the decoder. “Nothing, sir,” he told George. “No word at all. Not even a basic transmission.”
“Give it time.”
“Time?” Jeremy’s voice raised. “They were scheduled to hit over an hour ago. They were told to contact with the simple numerical codes to let us know their progress. We should have heard.”
“We may never,” George stated calmly.
“How can you be like this. Do you realize that is nearly five hundred lives?”
“I know this. But you knew as well as all of my division heads that those lives were expendable. We sent them out there never expecting their return.”
“So all this work and planning you did. A loss doesn’t matter.”
“A loss?” George laughed heartedly at that. “I beg to differ, this was no loss. Not at all. And like Beginnings, you don’t even realize it yet, do you? Four hundred and seventy, dead or not, this was still ... our victory.” And with that, George smiled.
THE BREAK OF THE HEARTS
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Robbie never realized how big of an area it was outside of the back gate region until he had to find hundreds of bodies, or at least pieces of them. Trying to determine whether an arm or a leg actually belonged to the same person was a tedious task. He had to give his best body count and he had to get near to what the computer said was out there.
Tromping through the woods with twelve other men, crunching the leaves, checking the bodies that could be alive, rolling over the ones that were, checking their wounds. If the wounds were fatal, Robbie and his men shot them in the head. If the wounds were not. He did what Frank asked him to do. He rounded them up, tagged them and readied to take them back to Beginnings. If they were adult, if they were not fatally injured, then at next morning light they would face a Beginnings firing squad.
Ellen glanced up in her walk down the clinic corridor to the overhead lights that flickered again then finally came on. So happy she was to see that, so scary it was for her to get cleaned up in the dark. At least the lights were a sign that the clinic wasn’t gone. The hammering and pounding of nails that echoed in the halls also told her that what damage done, had to be minimal. She shivered in gratefulness as she headed to the examining rooms, then smiled when she saw Henry walking up toward her.
“Hey, El.” He approached her. “How are you?”
“I’m doing fine, Henry. How are you?”
&
nbsp; “I got you up and running.”
Ellen smiled and looked up. “I see that.”
“Danny is still splicing the wires from the area burned out.”
“How is he doing? Is he OK, his stomach and all.”
“He’s fine,” Henry told her.
“What about the kids, Henry? How are they?”
“They’re all with Jenny and the other women. Alexandra’s a little frightened. If you get a chance in all this, could you go and see her. She needs to see her mom.”
“I’ll do that.” Ellen gave a peaceful smile. “Dean is in surgery with one of our men, and Andrea is in surgery with Jason on the other. I got stuck with a leg injury and as soon as I take care of that, I’ll go.”
“Good. I’m glad you’re OK.”
“I am too. If you see Frank, can you tell him I said ‘Thanks’ he ran off and ...”
“I’ll tell him. And ... I better be going. I wanna check on the crew I have sealing off the damaged section of the clinic.”
“I’ll talk to you later, Henry.” Ellen watched him start to walk away. “Henry?” She waited for him to look back. “Tell me, tell me in a way we were lucky. That all those stupid Frank-drills paid off when they hit us with the gas. Tell me.”
Henry’s mouth opened some, then he closed it. “El, I want to tell you that. But you and I both know, right now, we’re gonna have to wait and see.” Sadly, Henry turned and walked down the hall.
Ellen closed her eyes tightly and swallowed the painful lump in her throat, she spoke softly as her hands reached on the door to examining room two. “Please don’t let it have worked. Please.” She took a deep breath and opened the door. She didn’t recognize him when she walked inside and the soldier looked up at her. But she did recognize the ‘CS’ on the sleeve of his uniform. Seeing that, Ellen turned and began to walk from the room.
The Big Ten: The First Ten Books of the Beginnings Series Page 339