“He was badly wounded in Somalia,” Ali said.
Sarah’s eyes went wide with alarm – Ali trying to tell how genuine this even was – but Homer’s narrowed with concern. This was the first he was hearing of it, too.
“He’s going to make it,” Ali said. “They wheeled him out of surgery an hour ago. There’s some question about his walking – a nerve to his leg.”
“Where is he?” Sarah asked.
“Med wing. But you can’t see him. He’s in an induced coma.”
While Sarah seemed to be trying to absorb this, it was Homer who asked, “And Henno?” He had still been around when the two Alpha rivals had gone back to hold the line, but was long gone by the time only Handon came back.
Ali shook her head. “He fell in the last stand, covering our exfil. Going toe-to-toe with the Spetsnaz commander.”
Homer looked saddened but respectful. That at least seemed like a fitting exit for the SAS man. For their friend.
Sarah came out of her reverie. “Simon?”
“At work down in the Biosciences complex.”
Sarah nodded. “I’d like my old job back.”
“What? Protecting him?” Ali didn’t jump on this offer. She didn’t trust Sarah in the first place – and knew the former police officer had already fucked up that assignment once, nearly getting Park killed belowdecks after the Battle of the JFK. She didn’t understand why Handon had put her back on Park’s protection detail after that.
Or maybe she did understand. She just didn’t like it.
Homer pitched in on Sarah’s side. “It’s what Handon would have wanted. And Park is comfortable with her.”
Ali kept her expression neutral. Yeah, there was definitely something between Homer and Sarah, something she couldn’t put her finger on. It made her scalp itch. Oh, well fuck it, she thought. Let her put herself to some good use. Cameron had a weapon, and could presumably employ it to a reasonable standard – Ali knew Henno had been training her up, putting in some range time on the carrier, before he died. Plus sending her to Bio would get her out of the way.
“It’s the big white building,” Ali said. “You can’t miss it.”
Sarah seemed to hesitate.
Ali nodded at the door. “If you’re going, go – get on station. Park isn’t getting any less indispensable. And things are about to get hot around here.”
Sarah nodded and left.
* * *
But she immediately ran into Fick, coming into the JOC as she was exiting. The two stopped for a word.
“Sergeant Lovell okay?” Sarah asked. Lovell, whose mother had been a police officer, had not only given Sarah the weapon that allowed any of them to survive Jizan, but had singlehandedly gotten her and Park out of the hospital siege. Along the way, they’d become close.
But Fick just shook his head.
Jesus, Sarah thought. Death is on us like a blanket. But she already knew that. Everyone did. So she just looked gently at Fick and said, “He saved me. Me and Park both.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Fick. “Which means he saved everyone everywhere – well, on the off-chance anyone anywhere survives this whole shit show.”
Sarah exhaled. “How did he die?”
“In my arms.” Fick exhaled. “I gotta go.” He turned and headed for Ali’s office – so Sarah turned as well and headed out the door and down the stairs. She’d already seen the big white Bio complex hulking out on the Common. But she wasn’t going that way, at least not right away. Instead, when she hit the SHQ lobby, she asked directions from the guard she found there – to the prison med wing.
Just a quick detour, she thought. A minute won’t matter…
* * *
Ali and Homer turned to see Fick enter the office. Both knew what he was here to find out.
Homer took a deep breath. And when he spoke, his voice was level, but with an undertone of compassion. “I don’t have exact casualty numbers from the carrier. Even CIC didn’t have final numbers when I left – and I left in a hurry.”
Fick didn’t speak, but just waited for it.
“I’m sorry. The fight against the Spetsnaz boarders was bloody, nose-to-nose, and very close-hauled. It almost went the other way. Your Marines led from the front, the whole battle – and up until the very end. They got it done. But the word I got was they all went down fighting. I definitely didn’t see any on their feet when it was over. But I also didn’t have time to do a headcount before I…”
Homer trailed off, seeing the look on Fick’s face.
Fick turned without a word, and slumped out the door.
* * *
It wasn’t lack of courage, but simply good and constantly improving tactical acumen that caused Wesley to wait for his team before he entered the woods, to check out the reported suspicious movement there. He’d come a long way from that tiny security shack, and his comedy-show two-man detail of security guards, back at the foot of the Channel Tunnel.
But when the two RMPs he’d called trotted up, armed and kitted out as everyone was all the time now, Wesley nodded, turned, and headed into the treeline – leading from the front.
With the sun already on the horizon and dropping fast, and the stormy sky growing darker, lower, and more oppressive by the minute, the parkland underneath the tree canopy was particularly dim and spooky. The three moved deeper into the small stretch of forest, Wesley keeping his eyes wide, head on a swivel, game face on, and index finger extended out along his M4’s trigger guard. He was long past needing to look back to see if his men were following.
He now understood that leading fearlessly ensured that.
He’d also been through enough and sufficiently varied zombie scraps at this point to understand that no amount of tactical acumen, no level of confidence in one’s leadership, no amount of firepower, assured anyone of anything. One bite now, one scratch, one second’s lapse of attention… and it would be the same as if that just-turned woman at his feet in Paris on the day of the fall had gotten him. She might as well have bitten his leg, rather than his boot. He’d be exactly as dead, or rather undead.
But when he felt a smile incongruously tug at the corner of his mouth, he began to think that wasn’t quite right.
Because, actually, no matter what happened to him now, whatever became of what was left of humanity… nothing could take away his experiences of these last remarkable few weeks. Nothing could reverse, not really, the striking ways in which Wesley had grown. And nothing could erase the contributions he’d been able to make to the cause – finally, fumblingly, through sheer trial-and-error and dogged persistence.
He’d been part of a great undertaking. And part of a team.
A crunching noise ahead and to the right drew his eye, then his rifle, then finally his body as he pivoted and moved in that direction. When the crunching turned to moaning, he picked up his pace and eased his finger inside his trigger guard, starting to take some of the slack out of the trigger…
The moans turned to groans – louder now.
Wesley’s breathing went shallow and fluttery. Yep, that’ll wake you up in the morning, he thought, as adrenaline flooded his system and spiked his senses and nerves, and he found he could actually hear the ragged breathing and feel the fear of the two men following behind him and to either side.
The dead just never stopped being scary.
But the fear could at least be managed.
Nearly on top of the noises now, Wesley jogged left then right around a last couple of trees, side-stepping to keep his body and weapon pointing forward, then finally emerged into a small clearing. As he stepped into the open, his muzzle and optic dropped and panned over to two writhing and moaning bodies on the ground, both moving desperately, and one shouting out loud now…
And he eased off his trigger and exhaled.
“It’s not the dead,” he said aloud, laughing as the built-up tension bled away. “Just la petite morte.” He was using the colorful French expression for orgasm – the little death.
“What? What the hell?” This was one of the RMPs stepping into the clearing behind him.
The woman on the ground yelped and grabbed for her shirt, as the man on top of her rolled off, face red and lips a tight line, also reaching for his discarded uniform.
“Well, isn’t our timing just shit,” the second RMP said with a grin. And it was – they had caught the couple pretty much at the critical moment.
Wesley squinted at the rank insignia on the unworn uniforms of the man and woman who were now rapidly and fumblingly trying to get dressed – or rather the lack of rank.
“What are your duty stations?” Wesley said crisply.
“Laundry service,” the man said, trying to sound dignified.
“Motor pool,” the woman answered.
Wesley tut-tutted, hoping he looked stern – but mainly trying to keep from laughing. “Get your kit on, get back to work.” He turned and snapped his fingers at the leering RMPs and shoved them out of the clearing, then hit his radio and hailed the JOC. When he got Ali on the line, he reported what they’d found, concluding, “I honestly have no idea what these two were thinking.”
There was a pause on the other end before Ali answered.
“They were probably thinking… they’ll be dead tomorrow.”
Absolution
CentCom – Roof of SHQ
United States Marine Corps Master Gunnery Sergeant Fick – senior NCO, Teams 1 & 2, A Company, 2nd Marine Special Operations Battalion (MSOB) – stood alone. Alone up on the roof of SHQ. But, much more, alone in the world.
All his Marines were gone. It was only him left.
And now the prophecy had been fulfilled.
This was his punishment. It was his destiny. And there had never been any dodging it. Ever since the day of his great crime, when he had sinned against the God of this United States Marine Corps, the outcome had been inscribed in the scroll of his fate. It had been that fateful day in Darwin, Australia, on that scavenging mission gone badly wrong, when he’d let the lieutenant, the MARSOC team’s commanding officer, stay back and die holding the line, making it possible for the men to escape.
Making it possible for Fick to escape, and to live on.
He’d made that decision, to let the LT die in what should have been his place, because of the unforgivable sin of hubris – of believing that he, the team senior NCO, was more capable of leading the men than their young commander. That he was more capable of accomplishing the missions.
And keeping the men alive.
Across the long months of ZA since then, as waves of guilt and remorse never really stopped washing over him, the only thing Fick could do to allay that guilt, to expiate his sin, was to try to make the premise of it more true: to be the best possible commander of the team. To complete the missions.
And to keep his Marines alive.
But now it had become clear – he had utterly failed. All his Marines were dead. As they had continued to fall, doing their jobs, fighting like mythical Greek heroes, never hesitating, always advancing, not giving a damn about themselves, but only about each other and about the jobs they had to do… and as Fick himself kept surviving, mission after debacle, watching them go down one by one, commanding their operations, sending them to their deaths… it had eventually become obvious, and utterly undeniable.
That it was his fate to watch them all die, one by one.
And to be the very last man standing.
But now at last the way was clear – for him to finally go down himself. But it wasn’t Fick’s death that would absolve him of his crime. That wasn’t his punishment. No, death was easy. His punishment was different – and he had already submitted to it, many times over. Because he’d had to watch everyone else fall. That was the impossible price he’d had to pay.
To watch his Marines die, one by one.
And now there was no one else left to die in his place. There was only him. Maybe he’d get snuffed finally getting this job done, in victory, saving the world. Or maybe he’d go down in defeat, in a last rush, before the dead finally took the field, forever and all time. But it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that he could finish up.
The way was clear.
As Fick’s eyes refocused, blinking from the cold wind of the incoming storm on his leathery face, he realized he was half-listening to some radio traffic. Something about some junior enlisted personnel caught fucking in the woods.
Jesus Christ in an Alligator Fuckhouse, he thought, coming back from his unaccustomed philosophical maundering. What kind of goat-fellating third-world communist cock-suck military are they running around here?
As he mentally reviewed the transmission, he also realized he wasn’t satisfied with the Ali-mandated sweep of the Common Wes had just executed, nor with his report that it had been resolved. Because one damned thing in a copse of woods wasn’t necessarily everything in those woods. He’d go check it out himself – he needed to get back to his QRF, anyway.
Because the siege was about to be upon them.
Too much grief and self-pity, Fick thought, getting his stiff, sore, tired, and mortified old flesh moving.
Not enough goddamned work.
And this mission wasn’t over yet.
* * *
Another mission, one ended many years ago, deep in denied territory – also in deep enough trouble that it might be over in minutes. Handon couldn’t seem to remember what the objective was. Or maybe he just didn’t have time to think about it. Anyway, they had it now, whatever it was that had required such risk and daring from his men. All that remained was to get it, and them, the hell out of there.
To exfil, and extract.
But the team was still pinned down, continuing to take heavy fire from entrenched forces in that compound. The enemy held a commanding position, and there was no getting out from under it. And the men on his team were still waiting.
For a decision from him – the team leader.
He finally made it: “Draugur, Akuma – assault the compound. Suppress those firing positions.” No one else could be spared. These two operators were only weeks out of OTC, the Operator Training Course, and on their first deployment with the Unit, practically their first mission. Then again, Master Sergeant Handon was on his very first mission as team leader. They were all babes in the woods. But ones with giant responsibilities.
Dragur nodded seriously. “We’ll get it done.”
The two men rose and headed off into the darkness, and into the teeth of the murderous incoming fire, as their team leader watched them go.
“Not good enough, mate.”
Handon’s eyes tried to flutter open again. And what he saw once again was… Henno – but this time lying beside him in the blood-daubed mud, overlooking that Somalian riverbank. He could make out very clearly the severe lines etched around the corners of the Brit’s flinty eyes. As usual, Henno’s unyielding gaze was like being pinned by the eye of God.
“Not good enough,” he said again, in his broad and deep Yorkshire accent. Henno shook his head slowly and minutely. “No, you had better pull yourself together, Handon. And get your arse out of bed. Because this still isn’t over. You need to get ready to do what’s necessary, to sacrifice more – to do whatever’s required. And be ready to watch more people die. Because, believe me, those two were just the beginning. And I’m not anything like the end.”
And then Handon watched the light go out of Henno’s eyes once again, just as it had before.
But as the weight of his own eyelids pulled them shut, he could hear someone else calling his name. But it wasn’t a name he was accustomed to being called by. And as he tried to make it out, he also realized… it was a woman’s voice. And there was only one woman left alive anywhere in the world who called him by that name.
Oh no, he thought, Henno’s words replaying in his head.
Not her, too…
* * *
“Shane. It’s me. Can you hear me? Shane.”
“Excuse me.
What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Sarah Cameron turned away from Handon’s bedside in the clean but dim air of the med wing, and found herself looking up at a nurse or medical orderly.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “He’s my… I need to speak with him.”
“Well you can’t bloody well speak with him. He’s only just out of surgery, and sedated. What you need to do…” But the young man trailed off and softened when he saw tears at the corners of Sarah’s eyes. He took a breath. “I’ll get his doctor. He’ll speak with you.”
He turned and left the small hospital ward. Sarah watched him go then looked around, only now realizing there was just one other patient in here, the other eight beds empty. When she looked back at Handon, she belatedly noticed something out of place, nestled between his arm and torso. It was a knife in a sheath – it looked like Handon’s commando knife. She smiled, easily able to imagine someone on his team tucking it in there for him.
As she waited, she leaned back and felt his duty belt draped on the chair, over the top of his assault suit, and poking her. She ran her hand over it, its shape familiar from having hung in the cabin they’d shared on the JFK, and thus comforting. She touched the empty holster for his second .45, the long pouch of pistol magazines in back, his multitool, his sat phone. Then a tactical light – and beside that, another pouch the same size and shape, but which she didn’t recognize. Opening it up, she pulled out a cylindrical night-vision monocular, and hesitated with it in her hand. Night-vision gear was expensive, so she’d never had it as a civilian, and never been issued any since. Finally she pocketed it.
Handon wouldn’t need it in bed. And it might help her keep Park alive.
She looked up guiltily to see a tall and lean middle-aged man enter. He had short graying hair, and wore scrubs and a surgical cap with the insignia of the Royal Army Medical Corps. He pulled up the only other chair and sat on its edge, forearms on knees, just looking at her. He had bright eyes and an intelligent cast to his face.
Feeling at a loss, Sarah nodded at the one other patient, who appeared to be sleeping. “No one else?”
“It’s zombie-fighting. You’re kind of either totally healthy or you’re KIA.” The doctor’s voice supported Sarah’s visual impression of him – educated, intelligent.
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