by RW Krpoun
“Why are Brick and Chip not on active teams?” Bear asked.
“They are the mechanic and medic, so I need to hold them back for use where needed in their specialties. Plus they serve as an emergency reserve and spare leaders if needed. We will remain flexible, but this should help get people used to working with each other, and ramp up our level of efficiency.”
“Neat,” Chip nodded. “We can split up into three parts.”
“Exactly. After yesterday’s fiasco with Hard Eight I’m thinking that we need to really upgrade our internal structure.”
Rolling Hunger Group Three North reached the Grand Forks train yard not long before noon; the temperature had reached the day’s high of thirty-eight degrees. With reasonable efficiency the Gnomes off-loaded to their temporary housing, which turned out to be a dim, dusty warehouse with an industrial washer and dryer and a row of six hastily-installed shower stalls. A female area was curtained off, a detail was assigned to clean the restrooms, and the office area was set up for private quarters for Dyson and the soon-to-be-arriving Anna.
“We’ll call it the wedding suite,” Bear grinned as they manhandled the last of the furniture out of the office.
“Bite me,” Dyson shook his head. “I can wait for another few days; this dump isn’t exactly conducive to the mood.”
“I didn’t realize how deeply sensitive you were,” the biker marveled.
Dyson flipped Bear off. “Besides, its too damn cold. What is in here, fifty?”
“At best,” Marv said from where he was helping Addison run extension cords to the desk they had just taken from the office. “Its kept the showers short. At least the dryer warms the place up.”
“Still better than the flatbeds,” JD said to a chorus of agreement.
“So, what’s the plan for the search?” Bear asked as he unfolded his green camp chair.
“We search the area Addison worked out and we plan on getting ambushed.” Marv tested a battered gray metal chair for strength, and then sat on it.
“Ambushed?”
“Yeah.” Marv checked that no one but the seven were within earshot. “I told the DSR that we needed to find a family member in Minnesota, and I’m sure that FASA and maybe other groups have ears inside the DSR. FASA will not like the implications of Operation Rolling Hunger, and they definitely don’t like the significant force expansion that corporate security represents for the USA. So I’m betting that we’ll have a welcome committee lurking around when we roll across the Red River. Nobody is going to miss the chance to give Rolling Hunger some bad press and off some corporate guns, and they will have had plenty of time to set up on us. Plus there’s a good chance Hodges checked out who reported the safe house, and he might decide that our abrupt journey north involves his high-value carcass; the guy is supposed to be smart and thorough, after all.”
“Damn, dude,” Chip said slowly. “We’re hardcore against zombies, but facing terrorists is another deal entirely.”
“I know. First, has anyone mentioned Hodges or the real reason we’re going into Minnesota to anyone outside us seven and the two girls?”
No one had. “I checked with the girls, so we’re still secure. Now, I figure we’re only up against one group-the terror cells are spread thin and facing a multitude of threats. They know the high points: when we get to Grand Forks, and that we are headed east, but that leaves a lot of country. They might be relying on our check-ins with DSR, but I’m betting they won’t; its unlikely they can get the information fast enough to act upon. So they need eyes on us now, while we’re still in a known location.”
Dyson glanced around. “You think they might have people watching this place?”
“Addison?”
“Four audio feeds inside, and two video-only feeds outside,” the dark Gnome mumbled. “They’re going to a receiver’s hard-drive no more than a hundred yards from here, where they are packaged and fired off in data bursts every hour.”
“It wouldn’t be hard to know where we are being quartered; the DSR prepped places for us, Hard Eight, and the State Guard, and there were people coming in and out setting up the washer, dryer, and showers, not to mention doing the piss-poor job of cleaning that the rank and file are correcting.”
“So they’re listening to us?” Chip looked overhead nervously.
“Not yet. After he did his sweep Addison foxed the bugs.”
“It will look like our wireless gear is interfering with the two that count,” Addison mumbled. “When they switch to the back-up freqs they’ll work fine. But that won’t be until they get their next package in…twelve minutes. And after they listen to it.”
“Can you can figure out where the listeners are at?” Bear asked.
“No.”
“He doesn’t have to,” Marv grinned. “They’re going to hear our travel plans. They’re going to be set up and waiting right where we want them to be set up and waiting. This ain’t my first rodeo, boys, and it isn’t the first time I’ve seen the tables turned on an eavesdropper. We used to do this sort of thing all the time in Afghanistan. This is the US of A, after all: we invented electronic spying.”
“Sir, do you have a moment?” Marv looked up from where he was sitting on the loading dock cleaning the soles of his spare boots with a nail. Lawrence Kent, a burly, hard-drinking rodeo rider and former manager of a Radio Shack in Lubbock stood with his hat literally in hand.
“Sure, draw up a patch of concrete.”
“Ah, it won’t take long sir. I’m turning in my resignation.”
“You’re quitting?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll stick around and guard your stuff while you’re in Minnesota, but when the train goes south I’ll be part of the train security force.”
“What’s the DSR paying you, a third of what we are, with no bonuses?”
“Its not the money, it’s the ride back to Texas.”
“Yesterday was a little much?”
“This business is…way too much.”
“Saving people, fighting for your country….that’s too much for you?” Marv kept his voice conversational.
Lawrence flushed. “Look...I’ve got a wife and a kid.”
“So did Whiz; two kids, in fact. How many wives and kids have we rescued on this trip alone? How many people have we saved indirectly by the hundreds of zeds we’ve put down since we rolled north? Next trip we’ll be doing that full-time and damned well.”
“I just need to be with my family,” Lawrence said stubbornly.
“Good thing for those families yesterday that we all didn’t feel that way,” Marv observed, turning back to his boots. “Turn your uniforms and equipment to Master Chief Operator Mapplethorpe and find yourself different quarters. We don’t need a coward around here.”
“I’m not a coward.”
“If you keep saying that, maybe someday you’ll believe it, but I won’t. Get your boots off my loading dock.”
“So you’re quitting?” Bear boomed, killing every conversation in the warehouse.
“Look, here’s my gear,” Kent, in jeans and a civilian parka, set the pack and duffle bag by the biker’s green camp chair.
“The cold shrivel your balls? Or maybe too many women around offends you?” Bear asked loudly, clearing and checking Kent’s rifle and sidearm. “You ever clean these?”
“Where do I need to sign?” Red-faced and visibly sweating, Kent refused to be provoked.
“Not so fast, I need to check everything. Maybe you could sign on with Hard Eight, I hear the ability to run away is a major prerequisite.”
“What’s up?” JD strolled over.
“Lawrence here has been bitten by the gay fairy,” Bear observed, dumping out the pack.
“I just quit,” Kent said bitterly. “Can I have my back pay?”
“All pay is issued at home base, didn’t you read your contract?” JD shrugged. “You do know that bailing on an operation means you forfeit all pending bonuses?”
“I don’t care.”
Wade Schmidt looked up from his map as Franklin Hodges entered the cabin. “Hey.”
The program director pulled off his gloves and unzipped his coat, revealing that today his bow tie was a red and blue check pattern. “Why are you still here?”
“Relax,” Wade held up a hand in a peace gesture. “We’re about to get started; the guys just need a little time to pull one more train on those stewardesses we picked up last week. Damn shame to have to turn ‘em.”
Hodges bristled. “Our mission is to improve the role of Humanity, not torment civilians.”
“I know that, but sadly enough not many of my crew are true believers; they fight for loot and fun, and a wise man keeps that in mind. Besides, this is going to be a turkey shoot,” he jerked a thumb at the laptop. “I just got their travel itinerary e-mailed to me. We’ll stack them up like shooting fish in a barrel.”
“Make sure you do, as you’ll only get one chance at them.”
“No problem, I have the perfect spot picked out, and our girl in Grand Forks will call me by sat phone the moment they get moving. Its as good as done. ” He grinned at Hodge’s expression. “Relax, these are mercs, and second stringers at that, grocery clerks and oil roughnecks used to shooting zombies on drive-bys. We’re lucky the NSA didn’t pick the other company, Hard Eight. You ought to see their website: their boss is a war hero and every one of their guys looks like they were hired out of Delta Force. If they were coming after you it would be an entirely different proposition.”
That evening the Gnomes had a memorial for Whiz, followed by Sauron’s promotion to Operator and the layout of the new internal structure. The details of the new system of awards were talked out in a group meeting and Marv promised to get the standards written up as soon as possible.
Later, cuddled together under a pile of canary covers Anna brought the subject up. “This isn’t what I thought it was going to be like, your job. I thought it would be like…I don’t know, like security guards. Instead you guys look like commandos. The Air Force guys call each other by their first names and were kind of sloppy, and they had lots of rules about weapons. Your guys are sort of formal, Chief this and Chief that, and all buttons buttoned, and everyone has lots of guns on all the time.”
“Marv is hardcore,” Dyson shrugged, running a finger along the curve of her jaw. He wasn’t sure what it was about Anna that got to him, but she did. She reminded him of a younger, shorter version of the actress Julianne Nicholson, but that wasn’t it-he hadn’t even noticed the actress until he saw her on a movie about a family reunion in Oklahoma after having dating Anna for weeks. “Its contagious. The guys see that his way of doing things works and they respond to it.”
“Its just you were always your own boss, and now you’re not even the second in command.”
“I’m having to work to meet the standards of the job I have in the company. Look, its hard to explain; when I met Marv I had just faced down a mob of zeds with a pair of road flares and was feeling pretty good about myself. Then Marv shows up after having gone after an entire FASA team by himself and killed them all. The guy never questions, never doubts, he just goes for the enemy like a pit bull. I thought I was doing good keeping people alive, but Marv went to war with the zombies and the terrorists. He dragged us across the South and Heaven help what got in our path. Yesterday…yesterday we went toe-to-toe with two big groups of zeds and came away the winner both times.”
“So you’re a mercenary now,” she said carefully.
“Now I’m part of something,” he replied thoughtfully. “Something that turns a decent buck while saving people and taking an active role, albeit a tiny part, in the biggest crisis the USA has ever seen. And let’s face it, nobody is going to be paying for mixed martial arts training or coaching for quite some time. The Yard Gnomes means I’ll have a stake when things get back to normal, a decent sum of money and a lot of pride in what I have done.”
“I like that.”
“We save people, shug. Lots of them.”
“I’m proud of you.”
“But you don’t have to join up. Wait until we get back to Texas and you can look around, or help Angela and Kat get our logistics sorted out.”
“What, you think I don’t want to rock the smallest set of uniforms you guys got? Carry a shotgun and make grunting noises?” Anna was five foot one-quarter-inch, and enjoyed that fact.
“Its not for everyone.”
“These days, it just might be,” she said sadly. “My dad had to shoot three of them, zombies. He did it before I left. There’s not many in the area, although Bangor had some troubles. No, I think you might be right: we need to take a part in things.”
“Now you make it sound like Occupy,” he grinned.
“OK, take a meaningful part. Besides, I don’t think being a florist and part-time event planner is going to be a fast-track career choice at the moment.”
Addison watched downtown Grand Forks slide by as the Yard Gnomes rumbled towards the bridge leading into East Grand Forks and Minnesota. He and JD were riding in the rear of the truck with Sylvia so that Bugsy, who had refused to stay behind, could ride in the warmer cab. Gunner was driving, and their team, like all the teams and the command group, was a Gnome short. Marv said that when they got back to Texas they would recruit four more Gnomes, provided they came up with enough gear to equip them.
“I could be a regular Gnome, you know,” Sylvia announced from within the canary cover she had wrapped around herself.
“You are a real Gnome,” JD observed. “You’ve just got a different specialty. That’s how it worked in the Navy: some sailors sailed the ship, some manned the weapon systems, and some pushed paper or cooked, but if the ship got hit everyone shared the risk.”
“I can shoot zombies; I have shot quite a few zombies. Not as many as you, but I can catch up, and I bet with a little practice I could use a hammer and shield as good as anyone.”
“I don’t doubt that, and neither does Marv: he assigned you to this team, after all. If we run into trouble you’ll be covering one side of the truck. But somebody has to interface with rescued subjects and keep them organized-we’ve learned that the hard way. I can’t because I’m in charge, Addison can’t because he may have to step up into command or lead a detail. You’re pretty, which always helps in first encounters, and you have a lot of training and experience in public relations.”
“I was a beautician.”
“How much of repeat business relied on getting the customer to trust your skill, judgment, and reliability in a short amount of time?”
“OK,” she admitted.
“Plus you were training to be a teacher. Bambi had to keep half-drunk strangers in line without losing tips and Anna worked retail and event planning. On the other hand Bugsy dealt in insecticide-other people handed the public relations, and Gunner ran a fork-lift in a warehouse. When we get back to Texas you’ll be training with a hammer and shield, and from now on you get the same training as the other Gnomes, but we plan to make use of all of your talents, not just the ability to pull a trigger and swing a hammer. The Yard Gnomes are evolving.”
“Its just that George and Sauron had to earn their circles, but me and Bambi…”
“Remember Cross Plains? You earned yours there. Plus we needed you to guard our stuff, and a little rank gave that credibility. Now we realize the organizational model we came up with at first has to change. Besides, in a few weeks George and Sauron will be wearing two circles and more people will have one circle than not.”
“OK, I get it. I just don’t want to be treated like I’m someone’s girlfriend. I’m my own person, and I can contribute.”
“Believe me, we’re aware of that. There’s plenty of work for everyone; today one major job was making sure Kat didn’t sneak aboard one of the trucks.”
Sylvia grinned. “She is motivated.”
The conversation behind him trailed off, and Add
ison turned back to his own thoughts as they rolled into East Grand Forks. He had spent a lot of time with Angela in the last two days, and was confident that she was not a cultist nor a pawn of his mother. She had a quick, ready wit and a sensible world view that he found refreshing. Certainly someone as open-minded as to believe the world was flat would understand about his mother?
Wade Schmidt delicately ran the blade of his Chris Reeve Pacific model combat knife across the oiled surface of the fine-grain stone, touching up the blade’s edge. In the back room the Hernandez brothers were going after their favorite stewardess again; Hodges was going to be upset when he found out that they had brought two of the stews along instead of handing them over to be infected, but Hodges was warm and safe pushing papers, not out in the cold keeping a bunch of murderous bastards in line.
His eight-man team was a mixed bunch, six guys who had made their bones as cartel foot soldiers and two hardcore enforcers Wade knew from his days in the Ohio prison system. None of them were much inclined towards any loyalty to the ERF line, but that wasn’t really an important consideration for Schmidt, especially since he didn’t really care about the ERF, either. What was important that they were reliable, capable of a full range of violence, and honest within the selective sense of the criminal class in which Wade had spent his entire life. He understood these men and what it took to lead them, and together they had carved a bloody swath since the outbreak, drawing a solid paycheck along the way.
His team was in it for the money, the excitement, and the good-time rapes and robbery, and the ERF was paying better than most. He himself was more interested in payback: he wanted those straight-johns sitting in the jury box, sitting in Dennys restaurants eating breakfast and reading papers that listed convictions like baseball scores to get some back of what they had dealt out. He wanted them to learn what it was like to live without cops to protect them, without some over-educated asshole in a robe doing their dirty work.