(Wrath-06)-Smoke & Dust (2012)

by Chris Stewart

  Bono shrugged. Funny, he thought, as he folded the paper and put it back into his pocket, who would have thought the destruction of the nation’s capital would be the least of their worries now?

  The portable radiation detector was clicking at his side. Sam studied the readout, then carefully put the dosimeter back inside its protective cover and tucked it in his backpack.

  “Still good?” Bono asked him.

  “Kind of amazing,” Sam answered. “I’m not getting anything.”

  “Yeah. But remember, we’re upwind. And a long way from the detonation site.”

  Sam looked around, his eyes always moving.

  They stood on the median of the I-495 Beltway, the twelve-lane freeway that surrounded Washington, D.C. An enormous series of cement overpasses loomed before them where Route 66 merged with I-495. They were halfway to Fort Belvoir Military Reservation. It had been a long day, the traveling much harder and slower than they had hoped it would be.

  The freeway was a mass of stalled cars. Virtually nothing moved. Some of the people still waited in their vehicles, convinced the government was going to send someone out to save them—to pick them up and drive them home. Most of the drivers and passengers, however, along with other travelers like Bono and Sam, had finally started walking, and the freeway was crowded with weary people moving along the unending line of cars. Most of them avoided the sides of the road, walking between the stalled cars, realizing that traffic wasn’t going to start anytime soon. As Bono watched, he knew that few of them, if any, had any idea what was going on. The radios inside their automobiles would have been fried along with the electronic ignition, fuel injection, and computer circuits, and without their cell phones they had no way of knowing about the EMP.

  He smelled smoke and turned around. They’d been watching the growing flames for the past hour or so. Just outside the Beltway, somewhere south of Route 66, a fire had broken out inside a complex of tightly packed townhouses. What had started as a small fire (Bono suspected from something like some idiot trying to fry a hot dog on a hibachi inside his kitchen) had spread to the entire building, then to the building next to it. With no water pressure and no fire trucks to respond, there was little anyone could do but watch the buildings burn. That was a serious ongoing danger. Because there was no practical way to fight the fire, who knew how far it might spread? The smoke was growing thick, billowing upward in mushrooming clouds that rose several hundred feet before being carried in a long line to the east.

  Bono nudged Sam, pointing toward the fire. “How far do you think it might go?” he asked.

  Sam shrugged. “A long way, I guess.”

  “Think it could burn all the way to 66?”

  “Maybe. I mean, how are they going to stop it? No pressure in the city water lines. What are they going to do, beat it back with shovels? If things get bad enough, I guess they could bring in bulldozers, tear down a line of buildings to create a firebreak.” He paused, realizing that wasn’t going to happen either, and then asked, “Do you think the electrical circuits in heavy demolition equipment would be fried as well?”

  “The new stuff? Probably. But there’s lots of older equipment, bulldozers and land movers built before the 1980s, that probably doesn’t have electronic ignition and all the modern circuitry the new machinery has. I’m sure they could round up some old stuff. But let me ask you this.” Bono nodded toward the freeway. “How’re they going to get it to the fire? The roads are all impassable. Nothing’s going to move. It could be weeks, maybe months, before these roads are clear. Think about that, Sammy. You start with a single fire. You’ve got no way to fight it. You can’t even get equipment to it, the small amount of equipment that isn’t destroyed by the EMP in the first place . . . .” His voice trailed off. “You could lose an entire city. It could all burn away and there wouldn’t be anything we could do.”

  Sam watched the billowing smoke, then looked south again. “Come on,” he said. “We’ve got another eight miles. It’s getting late. I want to make the army post before nightfall.” He hoisted his backpack and jogged off.

  Bono fell in behind him. They stayed on the embankment of the highway, away from the people as much as possible. Angry, frightened eyes glared at them as they passed. Most everyone called to them, recognizing the uniforms.

  “Hey, you! Soldier! What’s happening here?”

  “Stop there! Can you help us?”

  “Hey, I’ve got a carload of kids with me! I need some help. Why are you running? I demand to know what’s going on!”

  The shouting was insistent and angry; the soldiers just ignored it. It would take a month to get to Fort Belvoir if they had to stop and explain what had happened to everyone they passed.

  Ten minutes later, Sam saw them. Three men. Two young women. Lots of leather, lots of chains, and a bunch of ugly, moody eyes. They stood around their car, cursing and shoving all the strangers who walked by. He watched them carefully as he and Bono approached, still at a gentle run. One of the men saw the soldiers coming and reached toward his hip. He’s armed, Sam thought, instinctively moving his hand toward the weapon underneath his camouflage uniform. He was in the lead and he turned to the left, moving farther off the road to give the men a wider berth.

  A screaming woman ran toward him, her eyes wild, her arms flailing in the air. “He shot someone!” she cried. “There’s a dead body up there! Between those two cars!” She motioned frantically toward the men on the road.

  Sam slowed. Bono came up behind him. “Are you certain?” he whispered toward the woman.

  She didn’t answer, her hands darting to her mouth.

  Sam watched the three men and two women. The girls had backed off. The men turned to face the soldiers, maybe forty feet away. “You got no business here, grunts,” the nearest man shouted to him. “You ain’t the police. You ain’t got nothing. Go on, keep on jogging. You got no business here.”

  Sam shot a look at Bono. “What do you think?” he asked.

  Bono looked at the mass of empty cars and people walking all around them. “I don’t know. We don’t have time for this. And we don’t really have any authority—”

  “But if they’re armed, if they’ve already popped someone . . . .”

  Bono nodded slowly. “We ought to do something, I guess.”

  “I know the world’s gone crazy, but man, Bono, it’s only been a day. Wouldn’t you think these people could hold off the barbarism for at least a week or two? And murder is probably still illegal. Inadvisable at least.” Sam had a habit of slipping into sarcasm when he was working up to combat mode.

  Bono studied the men, who had grouped together now.

  “If they’ve hurt someone, I don’t think we can just leave them here, not with a weapon,” Sam said.

  “OK,” Bono finally answered. “Check it out. See if it’s true. But we’re not the judge and jury. We don’t want to hurt anyone, you understand. All we want to do is make it impossible for them to intimidate or hurt any of these travelers, OK?”

  Sam nodded. “You got me?” he whispered softly.

  Neither of the men had pulled their weapons, but Bono nodded slowly. “Left hip for one, right hip for two,” he said.

  Sam walked toward the group of hoods.

  “Go on, soldier boy,” the first one sneered, waving him back. “You got no business here!”

  Twenty feet between them. Two lanes of cars. Sam looked down. Between a set of tires he saw the body. Brown leather shoes. Expensive suit pants. A pool of drying blood beneath the ankles. He quickly moved his eyes, not letting on that he had seen. A young woman hunched in the backseat of a nearby Lexus®: dark hair, lots of makeup, her head slumped against the window, her face stained, bruised and purple beneath her dark eyes. Half a second was all it took him to understand what had happened here.

  “No worries, buddy,” Sam shouted back. “I just wanted to ask you something.”

  “Stay back!” the man screamed in fury. Pulling out a weapon from under hi
s loose shirt, he aimed at Sam. “Go on, keep on running, you got no business here, soldier boy.” His voice was thick and hopeless. Nothing left to lose. Nothing left to gain. The world was over anyway, why not have some fun, stake your claim while there was something left to stake a claim to.

  Sam moved his eyes again, evaluating the threat. Three men. The first one armed. The second one? Almost certainly, from the way he held his hand beside his hip, just a few inches from the small of his back. The last man stayed away, his eyes darting between the soldiers and his friends. He was no threat.

  Sam swallowed, moved two steps to his right to allow Bono a clear line of fire, and lifted his hands, palms toward the screaming man to show that he was not holding a weapon.

  “Go back or I will kill you!” the man screamed again. He moved his finger to the trigger and squinted down the short barrel of his gun.

  Sam slowly dropped his right hand toward his hip.

  The bullets passed by his ear. Buzz, buzz. Hot and angry. There is no other sound like a passing 9 mm bullet.

  The first man screamed in pain and dropped his gun, the blood already spouting between his fingers as he held his shattered hand. The second man fell back, his shoulder bloody, his right arm hanging uselessly at his side. The window behind him burst as the flattened bullet passed through his shoulder and into the car. The two men screamed and cursed, crying in pain and fear. Their buddy, the oldest of the three, swore, his eyes wide, then turned and ran, sprinting like a rabbit down the line of empty cars. One of the young women screamed, fell to her knees, and threw up, her long hair falling into the mess. The other girl, no more than a teenager, ran toward her boyfriend, bent over him, saw the blood, then stood up and ran, following the other man.

  Sam drew his weapon and held it with both hands, his face deadly and intent. He moved toward the hoods with careful steps. “Get down,” he told them, his voice low and calm. Behind him, Bono kept his weapon trained on the attackers. Sam made certain he maintained a line of fire for his friend.

  He moved toward the Lexus and pulled open the back door. The woman stared up, her eyes wide with dread and fear. She seemed to be as afraid of him as she was of the other men. “You OK?” he whispered as he pulled her from the car. She felt heavy, fragile, too weak to help herself. “Come on,” he urged, his voice harder now. “Get up. You’ve got to get out of here.”

  She stood, brushing her hands across her face. Sam saw the tear in her dress, the bruises and scratches across her cheeks. She had fought them. He was proud of her. She was going to be OK.

  Across the highway, among the passing strangers, two older men were hiding behind a nearby car. “Over here!” Sam shouted to them.

  The two men hesitated, then came toward him. “Take care of her!” Sam said, gently prodding the battered woman toward the men.

  “What?” the first man answered in surprise.

  Sam nodded impatiently to the scene of carnage: the dead husband, the bleeding attackers, the injured woman. “Take care of her!” He cocked an eyebrow.

  The two men understood. “All right, sir. You got it!” The first man reached out for her hand. She cried, then fell into the stranger’s arms.

  Sam turned toward the two young men who were crying on the ground. He moved toward the first one, who sat holding his bleeding hand against his chest. “You’ve been a bad boy,” he muttered, kneeling down by his side.

  “He shot me! He shot me in the hand!” The young man cursed and swore at Bono, calling him every foul name that Sam had ever heard.

  “He could have shot you through the mouth if you’d prefer that,” Sam said in disgust. “And if you don’t shut up, I still might let him.”

  “He shot me, man!” the man screamed. “I’ll get you, you stinking soldier. I’ll kill you!” He swore again.

  Sam bent over and looked the young thug in the eyes. “Tell me, what is there in this situation that would lead me to believe that?” he asked.

  The man sniffled, then closed his mouth. Sam reached out and took his hand. Examining it carefully, he pulled a thick gauze pad from his first aid kit and compressed it into the man’s palm. “You’d better count your blessings,” he said. “My buddy there is good enough he was able to miss the major tendons and nerves. Believe me, tough guy, that was no accident—he could have destroyed your entire hand. He did you a huge favor: Your hand will heal OK. You’ll be able to stand trial for this murder with no problems, you slimy scum.”

  The man shook his head, then turned away.

  While Sam was working, Bono had moved toward the other man, kicked away his handgun, and examined his shoulder. It took them a few minutes to administer first aid.

  Standing, Sam gathered up their weapons. Bono wiped his hands on the attacker’s pants, then moved and stood at the side of his friend. Sam nodded toward the injured shoulder.

  “Just a flesh wound,” he told him. “It’ll be OK.”

  Sam tucked their two handguns inside his backpack, then turned toward the men. “You made things a whole lot harder than they needed to be,” he said. “Think about it, guys. Things are going to be tough for everyone right now, but they’re going to be a lot harder for you. How are you going to get to a hospital? What kind of care do you think you’re going to get? I wouldn’t want to be either one of you. But you made your own bed.”

  Bono reached into his backpack and pulled out some plastic bands they used as handcuffs to handle captured insurgents when working in Iraq. He dragged the two men together, cuffed them to each other, then ran another cuff around the dead man’s wrist. “A murder was committed here,” he said as he cuffed the men. “It would be a whole lot better if you didn’t leave the scene of the crime.”

  Sam wrote a brief note, explaining what had happened, wrote down his name, rank, and contact number, and left it on the windshield of the dead man’s car.

  “Come on,” he said to Bono, “we’ve still got a long way to go.”

  TEN

  Fort Belvoir Military Reservation

  “Look, I don’t know what to tell you,” Colonel Parvan said. “I mean it, guys, I’ve got my hands full right up to my elbows, and the last thing I need is a couple of lieutenants asking favors and hanging around my neck.”

  “We understand that, sir,” Bono answered respectfully. “But please remember, our Cherokee unit was brought back from overseas just a few days ago. Everyone has already scattered, heading off to see their families. Our unit has been gone for twenty-three of the past twenty-four months and we were all eager to get home. The problem is—”

  “The problem is, now that you’re all split up, there’s no way Special Forces Command is going to reconstitute your unit. Not right now. Not under the circumstances we find ourselves in.”

  “Exactly, sir.”

  “What does your boss want you to do then?” the commander of the helicopter aviation unit at Fort Belvoir demanded.

  Bono slid to the edge of his chair. His face was tight and sweaty. And he looked tired. Really tired. Not so much physically—though the hike across Washington, D.C. had worn him out—but there was a much deeper weariness and worry on his face. “He wants us to stay available,” he answered, “but frankly, sir, he knows it’s unlikely our particular unit is going to be called on anytime soon. So he’s giving us two weeks to go home and see our families. Two weeks. Not a lot of time when we’ve been gone for two years, but hey, we’re not complaining; we’re very happy to have any time at all. The problem is, of course, we’ve got no way to get there. We don’t own any horses, which might be the only way to get around right now. So we need a ride, sir. One of your helicopters out there. If we could get out to Andrews Air Force Base or down to Langley, we might be able to catch a hop from there. I’ve got to get to Memphis and Lieutenant Brighton here needs to get to Salt Lake City or,” Bono hesitated, “somewhere in between.”

  The gray-haired colonel raised an eyebrow and turned to Sam. “You don’t know where you’re trying to get to?” he asked, hi
s voice tired and sarcastic.

  Sam shook his head.

  “What, your family lives in a Winnebago or something”

  Sam blushed with anger and looked away. Bono huffed as he leaned back against his chair. “Where did that come from, sir?” he demanded, his voice hard.

  The colonel blushed. “Sorry,” he said, lifting his hand in apology. “Really. I wasn’t thinking. You know, guys, I’ve been working for weeks on about two hours’ sleep a night. It was a bad joke, a weak attempt at humor, but I meant nothing, OK?”

  Sam shrugged. “A joke. Oh, I get it. Funny, sir.”

  Bono slumped. He was too tired to really care. “As a matter of interest, you probably knew Lieutenant Brighton’s father,” the colonel’s face began to soften as Bono finished the sentence, “General Brighton at the White House.”

  “Of course, of course, I knew your father well.” He turned to Sam. “I hope, you know, I hope he’s OK. Did he, you know . . . .”

  “No, sir, he didn’t. He was killed in the explosion.” Sam stared at the colonel, his face blank.

  The older officer cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to hear that. I really am. I had the honor to fly your father many, many times. Even got him the front seat in one of those UH-60 helicopters out there. He did a pretty good job for an Air Force guy. Couldn’t ever learn to hover, but he was a right good ol’ pilot. More, he was a really decent fellow. Everyone who knew him liked him. Everyone knew how hard he worked.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Sam answered.

  Bono watched Sam for a moment, then glanced around the boxy office. Typical army: brown, faux-wood desk, a dozen pictures on the walls, an American flag in one corner, the regiment flag opposite it, a small window where the colonel could stand and count the helicopters—mostly Sikorsky UH-60s and Bell UH-1s—out on the flight line.

  They were sitting on the east side of Fort Belvoir, a section of the military installation known as Davidson Army Airfield. A component of the U.S. Army Military District of Washington, Davidson’s most important mission was to provide air transportation for army bigwigs, foreign dignitaries, and senior members of the Department of Defense.