* * *
1030 HOURS - ZERO DAY +155
Taggart sat hunched over his “desk” with its two oil lamps providing light as he read this week’s Intel briefings—dozens of slips of paper from all over the city and a couple of typed pages of analysis from the Defense Intelligence enlisted man. Taggart couldn’t remember the kid’s name, but he had been in Third Company until his Intel training came to light and he had been transferred to Taggart’s HQ immediately.
The majority of the sheets were clipped together into one stack, the SALUTE reports—an acronym that stood for Size, Activity, Location, Unit identification, Time, and Equipment—which had been sent in both by his battalion and by their many informers throughout the city. Organized with the most recent reports on top, he knew his Intel trooper would have the priority details put together on one of the typed sheets that accompanied today’s stack.
All in all, between the SALUTEs and other intel they’d put together, the data painted an ugly picture. He grabbed the summary sheet he had set aside and flipped to page two, where there was a handwritten note that read—
525,000 Vaders (425,000 ISNA / 100,000 NKor)
300,000 Gangsters (280,000 Loy’st / 20,000 Vadist)
200,000 Militia/stragglers (175,000 Loy’st / 25,000 Vadist)
Vadists: 570,000 - Unified cmd, organized minions
Loyalists: 455,000 - Coalitions, disorganized
He didn’t need the notes with the numbers. Every week the numbers grew more accurate as data was compiled, and on paper those numbers didn’t look all that unpromising. His forces trailed by only one hundred thousand, and he didn’t have to secure an entire base of operations large enough to manage a force that size.
In addition, most of the remaining locals were downright partisan in supporting them. Mao, Fidel, and many other guerrilla war leaders had recognized that support by the populace is always critically important for success at the guerrilla warfare that Taggart was now caught in.
But Taggart knew the numbers were misleading, mainly for the fact that nearly all the enemy were actual soldiers in a unified command structure while his own forces were scattered over the entire city. Most were either undisciplined gang members or retired and former military who were self-organized into something much like the cells of an insurrection.
Hell, they were the insurrectionists now. It was a good thing he had spent so much time in the Sandbox of Iraq and Afghanistan because he had gotten to see how insurrectionists did things. It was a completely different way of thinking. He smiled to remember that, in the 1700s, American colonists had fired at marching Redcoats from behind trees and rock walls, sparking British complaints about ungentlemanly behavior. Mao and Fidel didn’t invent guerrilla warfare. Still, continually figuring out how to deal with the enemy in Afghanistan had taught him what not to do, here and now…
A rap at the door brought him back from his musings. “Enter.”
Eagan opened the door and came in, closing it behind him and not bothering to salute here in the privacy of Taggart’s office. “I brought you coffee. I also wanted to talk to you again, now that you’ve had a minute.”
“I’ve been awake since oh-dark-thirty. Thanks for the coffee.”
After a moment, Eagan asked for permission to speak freely, and Taggart nodded. Eagan said, “Sir, I see the movement orders you give out to the other units in our little confederation of survivor groups. I’m pretty sure I know what you’re up to.”
Taggart raised an eyebrow, but frankly, it wasn’t much of a surprise. Of course that smart little shit would figure this out before anyone else. That was one of the things that made him a great staff sergeant, because the shitbird didn’t need to have his hand held when Taggart passed him orders. “You don’t approve.” It was a statement, not a question.
Eagan shrugged. “What do I know? I’m not paid all this money to think, sir. But I’m still a glorified monkey, and I got that monkey curiosity. Like, why are we pushing to leave the island? We’re getting stronger all the time now that we’ve got all these assets under us. A lot of them are going to die if your draft orders get finalized and sent, and without you coordinating all this there’s a chance the resistance in the Big Apple’s gonna fall apart again.”
Taggart, mug in hand, stood and strolled to the large NYC wall map. The thing was littered with pushpins that had little paper labels like flags, all color-coded and with details written on them. They showed the locations of all known units, friendly or otherwise, plus a lot of caches, enemy strong points, and other Areas of Interest, or AOIs. For a moment he only stared at it, sipping his coffee. It was important to say this right so Eagan would be on board—not that he’d disobey, because behind his mouthy act he had discipline, and he trusted Taggart’s judgment, but it was still better to have one of your best men pushing, not following.
Taggart said, “We know Ree is getting supplies from the mainland. If we get to the mainland, we can intercept those supplies. Our friend Dark Ryder has shown us the casualty projections for New York and as you’ll recall, within six months most of New York will have eaten one another. Our people are getting enough supplies from our raids that we haven’t had to do that yet, which no doubt accounts for a lot of their loyalty, but we will eventually see cannibalism here if we stay, probably starting with the gangbangers. They make up the bulk of our Manhattan army and they’re the least reliable, most untrained military force possible. Loyal to themselves and no one else. Plus, they’re ruthless from living in the streets. If they get hungry, they know where some of the other units are and that makes the resistance itself the easy prey. Things will fall apart fast after that. We don’t want to be here.”
Taggart watched as Eagan stared at him, unblinking and pretty clearly holding his breath. It was terrible having to shock him like that, but the force of those words would do wonders to motivate the young aide, who was also the Army’s most reluctant acting staff sergeant. After a pause for it all to sink in, Taggart continued. “Moreover, I have intel that suggests the area to the northwest of us has been depopulated of survivors. It’s a form of low-intensity guerrilla warfare with the practical effect of genocide or migration away by the natives. Settlers always follow migrations of that sort.”
Eagan slowly nodded. His wheels were turning. “So, Ree was smart to do that because those migrants cause chaos and even more stress on all the regions surrounding us. It prevents them from organizing and trying to push through to the City center. And the now-vacated area can be easily resettled with the slaves Ree took from the city before the American EMPs happened. Almost like he knew our side would eventually be able to use EMPs in retaliation.”
“Yes, almost like he knew it was all coming. Makes you think, doesn’t it? The militia support that never turned up. We’d have been wiped out without Dark Ryder’s warning. And Ree has set himself up now with a food production center within reach of the City, supplying his Island fortress. Once the City’s people eat each other down to a sustainable population level, nothing stands between Ree and his controlling the entire Eastern Seaboard by autumn’s harvest time.”
“So you want us to get out before things fall apart. And you’re willing to sacrifice a lot of our forces to do it.” Eagan didn’t look disgusted or judgmental, but his blank expression didn’t look friendly. Then again, Eagan was utterly practical. He’d heckle Taggart for it here and there, in private, but it wouldn’t affect his drive or energy for the task if he bought into the need for it. Much like the kid brother Taggart usually thought of him as, he’d probably seem rebellious until the chips were down. Then he’d be fierce.
“They’re dead anyway when things fall apart completely, or they will be. This way they win us some room to maneuver. Dark Ryder’s analysis matches my own—he says there will be barely over half a million people left in all of New York City by next winter. I’ll take as many of the trained Militia and ex-military assets with us as my analysis shows we can support in the field while still staying in
command. So far it’s turning out to be a surprisingly large number. We can all do better without worrying about what the street thugs get themselves into. I’ve had enough of them anyway.”
“So what then? What will we do once we break out of this prison Ree put us in, if we manage to not die trying?”
Taggart grinned then, a wolfish expression. “The same dispersal of his assets that makes it easy to control that region on the mainland will make it easy for us to strike hard and deep, and keep them squealin’ from the feelin’. Every little fortress we take gives us more guns and all its slaves. They’ll be motivated partisans once they’re free and fed, I’ll bet my huge paycheck on it. We can start a cancer that spreads way too fast for Ree to deal with.”
Taggart looked at the map again. It was a great plan, if he could keep it secret from Ree. Eagan commented, “That means not telling anyone outside this unit about your plans. That Intel guy says he’s pretty damn sure our resistance is riddled with double agents.”
Taggart nodded and replied, “We don’t have to tell any of them the whole truth to arrange for the militia units we trust the most to be close enough to come with us when we cross to the mainland.”
Eagan nodded thoughtfully. He’d been steadily losing that “no expression” look, and Taggart knew that meant he was buying into the whole idea.
To make this work, Taggart would use the identified double agents to his own advantage by feeding them false information. When he and Eagan were done, no one would know what the hell was going on until it was a done deal and much too late to stop it. He’d be deep into Hackensack, New Jersey territory by the time Ree could organize well enough to close the window of opportunity. With luck. He had to remember that no plan ever survives the first encounter with the enemy. But you had to plan.
“We’ll turn the tables on him, Eagan. Happy New Year, Ree, you little bastard. You got some big misery coming.”
Eagan was grinning now. Yeah. The two of them could pull this off.
- 15 -
1100 HOURS - ZERO DAY +159
ETHAN SAT AT his computer and stared at the screen with a sly, sloppy grin. He’d been asked not to use his satellites to track Taggart’s activities or the area in and around New York, but not the reason for it. He hadn’t asked, and for the one satellite that had been in perfect position he simply put it into a long series of diagnostics. That would make the bird inefficient for anyone else to use, but more importantly it gave Dark Ryder the alibi he’d need to cover his own intentional negligence if the 20s should happen to wonder why Ethan hadn’t alerted them to Taggart going “off the reservation” and ignoring orders.
Now he saw just why Taggart had sent the request a few days back. He called Amber in, and she padded into the “room,” looking over Ethan’s shoulder.
“Taggart’s report—sent through our back-channel comms route—explains why he asked me to hang up the reports. Just after I told him the bird was taken care of, he got busier than a hyperactive squirrel on caffeine and meth!”
Amber snickered, and read over his shoulder. “So, first thing Taggart did was give the order to launch something he’d obviously spent some time planning, simultaneous attacks on a couple dozen ’vader supply stations all across the west end of the City? It couldn’t be coincidence that his gangbanging cells were tasked to hit the places with tons of food awaiting transit to Ree’s base on the other end of the island. He says that most of those locations ended up being guarded by ’vader forces several times the size his intel said, just as he said he suspected they might.”
“Yeah. That can only mean one thing: Taggart has enemy spies in his units, and he knew it. He set them up for failure, and to cause a huge ruckus while they were at it. And here’s the part I love—while the gangbangers held Ree’s attention, a lot of his best ex-military troops attacked unimportant sites near the Hudson River using a quieter commando style. Maybe a couple thousand military-grade fighters. All far away from the biggest noise.”
Amber grinned and said, “I get it. Let me guess—once all hell broke loose, he crossed the Hudson with his best peeps?”
“Yep. Crossed the Hudson with few thousand experienced troops. Pushed straight through to the Hackensack Meadowlands Conservation and Wildlife Area and vanished for a while.”
Amber said, “I can only imagine how rough it would be to try to get through that swamp with gear and rations and whatever loot they could carry.”
“Not to mention the looks on the faces of people he left behind when they figure out what he did. As for the gangbangers in that southern group, he must have been so sorry to lose those guys…”
Amber snorted and Ethan grinned up at her. They both knew the gangbangers had caused trouble for Taggart more than once. But Taggart had been smart to set up his short-range radio to skip over to another radio, still in New York, rigged as a repeater. Anyone tracking his signal would likely think he was still in the City, or at least be mighty confused about where he really was. The ruse wouldn’t last forever, of course, but long enough. Or so he hoped, and crossed his fingers for Taggart. More superstition, he knew, but he did it anyway.
Amber sat in the chair next to him and started going through the messages in earnest. Ethan rose and went to get something to eat while she read, then sat and watched episodes of iZombie from his stash of downloaded shows and movies while he ate. Toward the end of the second episode, he heard Amber finally getting up to stretch. Well, it had been a lot of data to sift through. She came into the room and sat next to him, and he paused Episode 2. He watched her with a half-smile, waiting for the moment when all that data assembled itself in her mind into a good picture of Taggart’s activities. Yes! There is was. He grinned up at her.
Amber cleared her throat and then said, “Okay. In the past two days, organized teams of his new army—his elite, really—burst out from the Wildlife area in all directions, but especially north, and with Ree’s decentralized structure the ’vaders didn’t have anything that could stop them. His people pushed far north into the Hackensack area and discovered some of the slave labor camps you mentioned before. He also found some of Ree’s little fortified areas, one of the notes said. I guess Ree used them to project power in the region without actually having to guard everything. But they did have pretty good armories, which Taggart’s people seized.”
“Right,” Ethan said. “Taggart freed thousands of slaves and let Ree arm them for him. Taggart probably left thank-you notes to Ree just to rub it in. I would have, anyway. Then he sent those newly freed slaves out on fresh raids elsewhere in the area. I kind of picture it like, a creeping flood of blue dots overwhelming red dots, turning them blue as well, releasing and arming more slaves kinda like zombies spreading. Or like a nuclear chain reaction, growing exponentially. Ree won’t be able to stop it now that it’s started.” He grinned at the thought.
Amber was giggling. “Zombies? Really? That’s what you came up with… You are just the cutest geek ever.” She reached over to pinch his cheek.
“Hey,” Ethan protested as he dodged away, his tone sounding wounded but still wearing a grin. Then a thought struck him. “That’s a pretty good description, actually, because everything they didn’t use, take over, or take with them, they burned. Everything’s lit up now across the whole urban sprawl from Hoboken in the south to Garfield in the north, and his report says it turned into a firestorm. So it’s spreading and growing all by itself now. I doubt it’ll burn out until everything between the Hudson and Passaic rivers is toast. Ree won’t be able to reclaim it anytime soon.”
Amber frowned. Of course it was sad to burn whole cities like that, but with the fire and the chaos, the invaders couldn’t even react directly to Taggart’s assault—they had to clear out and salvage what gear and supplies they could if they wanted to survive the winter, and that left no time for hunting guerrillas. Brutal, maybe, but he bet the freed slaves cheered at the sight.
“Smile, honey,” Ethan crowed. “That sumbitch Ree is going to re
alize pretty soon that it’s no guerrilla operation—it’s Taggart off the island. It’s a mirror image of the way the ’vaders are doing it now around Brickerville. Wouldn’t you just love to be a fly on Ree’s wall when they figure that one out?”
A beep from the computer area interrupted their conversation and Ethan got up to check, leaving Amber in the other room. When he got to the computer, however, he saw it was a chat request from Watcher One, whom Ethan figured was his “handler” for the 20s, and through them, for General Houle back west at the Mountain. He let out a frustrated breath. They couldn’t have waited twenty minutes for him to finish watching iZombie?
He hollered out that he’d be a minute, and went through the authentication and decoding routines. Then the window finally popped up—
Watcher1 >> Dark Ryder, respond…
Ethan gritted his teeth. Ugh. That guy just got on his nerves for some reason.
D.Ryder >> Go ahead
Watcher1 >> Need SITREP on NYC status ASAP pls
D.Ryder >> Aff. What’s up?
Watcher1 >> SITREP please. We’ve noticed some concerning chatter.
Well. That was interesting news. It meant that the 20s had at least some minimal way of checking radio and maybe Net traffic from New York even though Watcher One was, to Ethan’s best guess, somewhere down in Virginia. Another player? Maybe a secret channel into Ree’s HQ?
D.Ryder >> Copy. I’ll write up and send ASAP, but basically he vanished. You-Know-Who did some big op while I wasn’t looking w/no warning, then went 2 ground. Still trying 2 piece it 2gether.
Watcher1 >> Neg. A friend hacked a bird! Haxxor teh wurld, ikr? Says New Jersey’s burning. Got another shortwave radiohead in the City who sez r guy is broadcasting from in-city. Not sure what 2 make of all that. C’mon, Ryder, ur slippin! I win!
Dark New World (Book 4): EMP Backdraft Page 23