by James Cook
Looking up, I saw Hemingway had killed his Gray and moved back into position. I followed suit. The last four ghouls were still inbound. They would be on us in less than a minute. I glanced behind me and saw Mike split a ghoul’s head down the middle like a melon before yanking his blade free.
“Come on,” he said. “We ain’t done yet.”
We reversed positions with the others. I checked our surroundings with the IR scope, but saw no more infected. Gabe, Miller, Tyrel, and Gellar made short work of the last of the undead. Everyone looked around just as I had done, looking for threats. There were none in sight.
“Okay,” Gellar said. “Clean your weapons and-”
“GRRRGH!”
We all jumped and turned toward the sound, weapons raised. Hemingway was fighting with something attached to his leg.
Oh shit, I thought. Oh no.
It was the ghoul he’d fought. There was a wide gash in its skull, but the blade had not penetrated deep enough to kill it. We all rushed forward at the same time. Gabe got there first and hit the thing in the back of the neck with his falcata. Its jaw released from Hemingway’s calf muscle and it fell to the ground. The tall SEAL’s face became a mask of rage and he began stomping the creature’s head in impotent fury. We all took a few steps back and let him get it out. When he was done, the ghouls head was a pulpy mess. He stood staring at it for a few seconds, breathing heavily.
“Somebody look at my leg,” he said, desolation in his voice.
Gellar activated a flashlight with a red lens, squatted down, and shined it on the bitten area. The fabric and a chunk of skin had been ripped away and blood was pouring down into Hemingway’s boot. Gellar stood up.
“I’m sorry, Chuck. It got you.”
Hemingway took off his NVGs and let the M3 slide to the ground. Then he dropped his pack and sat down on it, head hanging between his knees.
“It’s my own damn fault,” he said. “I should have made sure it was dead.”
No one said anything for a while. It was Mike who finally spoke up.
“What do you want to do, son?”
Hemingway ran a hand through his hair. “It takes a while for the Phage to kick in, right? I probably still have some time. We could put a bandage on my leg. I could still help with the mission.”
Gellar shook his head sadly. “Can’t risk it, Chuck. You know that.”
Hemingway looked like he wanted to argue, but stopped himself. He sighed and looked up with resignation written on his face.
“Sorry guys. I fucked up.”
No one responded. There was nothing to say. Everyone knew what had to be done, including Hemingway. Chavez stepped forward, took a knee, and embraced the man who had been his friend for years, who had spilled blood in the same dirt and fought and hurt and struggled and shared with him all the hardships of surviving in a ruined world. Words are paltry and weak in such moments.
Sorry, brother,” Chavez said, his voice choked. “Gonna miss you.”
Hemingway hugged Chavez back, tears squeezing from between closed eyelids. “So long, amigo.”
The rest of the SEALs took turns saying goodbye. I hung back. Gabe, Mike, Tyrel, and Grabovsky all gave their condolences as well. I was the last to approach.
“Been nice knowing you, Chuck.”
He reached out a hand. I shook it. “Same to you, Caleb. You’re good people. Wish we could have had more time.”
“Same here.”
When I was done, Gellar approached. His eyes glimmered wetly in the darkness. “How do you want to handle it?”
“You mind, Master Chief?”
“Not at all.”
Hemingway nodded and looked at the ground. “From the side, if it’s all the same. My sister will probably want an open casket. You’re gonna come back for my body, right?”
“Soon as we can.”
“Good. Let my sister know I went down fighting, okay?”
Gellar put a hand on Hemingway’s shoulder. “No problem. You ready?”
The young man took one last, long look up at the sky. “Wish the stars were out tonight. Be nice to see ‘em one last time.”
He made a ‘get on with it’ motion with his hand. Gellar dropped his pack, produced a small .22 pistol, and threaded a long suppressor to the barrel.
“Good luck, brothers,” Hemingway said. “Go save some lives.”
“See you soon, brother,” Gellar said. Then he aimed the gun and put a single round into the side of Hemingway’s head.
The young man went slack. Chavez stepped forward, caught him, and eased him to the ground. Once there, he and the other SEALs arranged him carefully and folded his arms over his chest. Lowell stepped forward, closed Hemingway’s eyes, and wrapped the fallen man’s right hand around his MK 9 and his left around his dagger. When he was finished, he dug something out of his pack and put two coins on Hemingway’s eyelids. Even in the dark I could see the unmistakable luster of gold.
“For your journey,” Lowell said quietly.
“Anybody got anything they want to say?” Gellar asked. No one answered.
“All right then,” Gellar went on. “Whatever you’re feeling right now, put it in a box. We still have work to do. Miller, you’re on the M3. Chavez, collect Chuck’s ammo and split it up. Captain Grabovsky, I need you to notify Central and send a GPS fix for this location.”
“No problem.”
“Let’s clean our weapons and get moving,” Mike said.
I wiped down my machete and knife with alcohol-soaked wipes I carried in my pack. That done, I checked Gabe’s face for blood spatter and he did the same for me. We were both clean. I wiped my gloves down just to be on the safe side. The Phage was deadly and irreversible once inside a host, but outside a host, even a mild disinfectant such as soapy water, vinegar, or grain alcohol could kill it.
When everyone was finished, Mike asked Grabovsky to check his tablet.
“The other teams are on station,” Grabovsky said. “We’re holding up the show.”
Mike turned and began walking. “Then let’s not keep ‘em waiting.”
FORTY-ONE
The forest thinned and the ground sloped sharply downward. Mike ordered a halt when we reached the edge of the woodlands. He and Grabovsky covered themselves with a rain poncho to shield prying eyes from the light emitted by the ruggedized tablet. A few minutes later, they emerged and Mike motioned for us to gather close.
“We’ve gone over the plan before, but we’re doing it again.” He pointed at the field east of us. “There’s two-hundred yards of waist high grass between us and the camp’s field of fire. We’ll get across that pretty easy. The hard part is gonna be the last hundred and fifty yards. Kim was smart when he built this place. All the fields are to the south where the irrigation ditches are. They use the slaves to keep the killing ground cut low so guys like us can’t sneak up on ‘em. But that’s exactly what we’re gonna have to do. And that’s not the worst of it. When we get to the wall, we’ll probably have infected to deal with. That said, we got a few things working in our favor.”
Mike began to count off on his fingers as he spoke.
“One, they’ve been hit with AIM-38. Satellites have been watching close ever since. The slaves are laid up, and so are most of the guards. But about two dozen or so have been seen moving around, so we have to assume they were inoculated and the enemy knows what’s going on. Two, they don’t know when, or if, we’re going to attack. They probably heard the helicopters, but General Jacobs has been making sure to keep plenty of aircraft flying around here at night, so they might not think too much of it. But that’s a big ‘might’. Don’t count on it. Three, no matter how many are left, we got ‘em outnumbered. So remember, let the other units assault the main compound. Our job is to take out the guards on our side, breach the wall, and assault the command center. If we don’t find who we’re looking for there, we’ll search this place inch by inch until we do. As soon as the assault starts, Blackhawks are going to be in the air
searching for runners on FLIR. If we don’t find our people here, we might have to chase ‘em through the woods, so be ready for that. Everybody clear?”
We said we were.
“Good. Let’s get it done.”
I put on my ghillie suit, as did the others. When we were ready, Gabe, Mike, and I led the way across the field. Grabovsky, Gellar, and Tyrel came next, the remaining SEALs departing after them in pairs. Miller and Chavez hung toward the back with the Carl Gustaf. Between them, they had five rounds: two high explosive anti-structure munitions (ASMs), two fragmentation anti-personnel rounds, and one star shell. The star shell, otherwise known as an illumination round, could be fired into the air to cast light on the encampment. I’d seen them used before, and for the brief time they were in the air, they turned night into day over a small area.
It took us half an hour to cover the distance to the open ground surrounding the prison camp. Mike radioed for everyone to hold position. I looked over at him and saw him produce a suppressed sniper rifle he’d been carrying in a waterproof sleeve on the way out here. Now that I could see it, I recognized it as a bolt-action .300 Winchester magnum, or Win-mag, as it’s commonly known. His rifle was more powerful and had better range than the 7.62x51 rounds Gabe and I were using. I also noticed the Win-mag was suppressed with a can nearly a foot long, which almost made me laugh. Even suppressed, .300 Win-mag is loud enough to hear at long distances.
Better than nothing.
There were about ten yards between us. From where we lay, we had a clear field of view of the western wall of the compound. The place looked much different at ground level than it did in the satellite photos. The wall was twelve feet high and built much like the one back at Hollow Rock. There was a deep trench on the outside from which I could hear the moans of infected. The trench sloped upward toward a double palisade of telephone poles. It occurred to me I had not seen a single roadside pole since arriving in ROC territory. Now I knew why.
The space between the inner and outer walls of the palisade had been filled in with dirt and gravel to reinforce the wall. There was a tightly packed berm butting up against the inner wall to buttress it against the weight of large hordes. The fact this place had been built in less than a year spoke to how hard the KPA had driven the prisoners trapped here. A familiar, red-tinged anger rose up and filled me with a desire to come to grips with the people responsible for this atrocity. I almost breathed a sigh of relief.
There you are. Been waiting for you to show up.
“There’s four guards on our side,” Mike’s voice told me though my earpiece. “Gabe, you take the two on the north side. I’ll take the guard tower in the middle. Caleb, you take the rover on the south side. You see anybody in the tower in that direction?”
“Wait one.” I switched to thermal and used the zoom function to examine the tower. It was empty.”
“Nope. It’s clear.”
“All right. Stand by. Gotta call the bossman.”
Mike switched over to the command net and spent a couple of minutes in whispered conversation.
“Listen up,” Mike said into our squad’s channel when he was finished. “Switch over to the all stations net. Once we breach the wall, switch back to our channel. Acknowledge.”
Everyone did, and then switched frequencies. The net was mostly inactive, only the occasional check-in between squads breaking the silence. There were six other squads positioned around the killing ground, all of us designated delta. We were Delta One, being that we had the senior man on the battlefield in our squad.
“All delta stations, this is Delta One. It’s time to do what we came here for. Acquire your targets and sound off when ready. All other stations, maintain radio silence.”
It took two minutes for the other delta squads to respond. I used that time to dial in my thermal imager so it had the same magnification as a scope set to six power. My view of the rover was crisp and clear, the imager producing resolution high enough to make out the features of his face, albeit indistinctly.
I’d felt bad using my black card to procure the NV/IR scope back in the Springs. The Army didn’t have many of them, and they were in high demand. But considering the stakes I was facing, I was glad I had taken it.
“All stations, Delta One. Fire on my mark. Three, two, one, mark.”
I fired. My target went stiff and stumbled back a few steps, but stayed on his feet. I fired again, and this time he went down, landed sideways, and fell into the interior of the wall. To my left I heard the muffled report of Mike’s Win-mag and Gabe’s SCAR. The latter fired three times. Mike looked over at me. I gave him a thumbs up. Then he looked at Gabe, who did the same.
“All delta stations, Delta One. Report status.”
The other teams had all taken out their targets. I heard no sound of gunfire or explosions from inside the compound. So far, so good.
Mike switched over to the command net and had another whispered conversation, then switched back.
“All stations, Delta One. Initiate phase two.”
There was a rustle in the grass behind me. I looked back and saw Miller’s broad form standing next to Chavez’s slender one. Smith was on his feet moving in their direction in case they needed additional shells. Chavez opened the breach, put in a shell, closed the breach, and slapped Miller on the shoulder. He did not bother to announce the back blast area was clear. If there was anyone behind us, they were enemies, and I sincerely hoped they ran face-first into the blowback from the Venturi damper.
Miller did not bother to announce three times that he was firing, nor did Chavez put a hand on his back to steady him. Chavez was smart enough to know what was about to happen, and a man Miller’s size did not need someone to brace him. He was plenty strong enough to fire the M3 on his own.
I was glad I was wearing my earplugs when the M3 went off. The first shell, an anti-structure munition, covered the hundred and fifty yards in a blink and detonated against the wall. When the smoke cleared, the outer wall had been blown open on the lower half, spilling out a few tons of dirt and rocks, but had not been fully breached. Chavez loaded another shell and Miller sent it downrange. This one hit higher on the wall, causing a four-foot-wide section of the outer wall to collapse. As it did, a tidal wave of ballast spilled out, filling in a large portion of the trench below.
One more ought to do it.
I looked back and saw Smith hand Chavez another ASM. The M3 roared again, and this time when the dust cleared, I could see a path into the camp.
While all this was going on, I heard LAW rockets, mortars, and more recoilless rifles firing at other sections of the wall. The urge to charge headlong into the fray was almost overwhelming. Only the discipline instilled in me by over two-and-a-half years of military service kept me in place.
“All stations, Delta One,” Mike said over the radio. “Proceed with phase three. Delta Two, you’re in command until I get back on the net.”
“Roger that, Delta One.”
“All right,” Mike shouted to us as he stood up. “Switch to the squad channel and drop your suits. Time to go to work.”
We did not bother taking off our ghillie suits the proper way. The ten of us produced knives and cut our way out of them to save time. We could always make new ones. Once free, we did a quick comms check, then set out for the breach.
The final assault had begun.
FORTY-TWO
The SCAR was on a two-point sling with a pull tab that allowed me to quickly loosen or tighten it. I pulled it outward to loosen the sling and moved the SCAR around to my back. Gabe ran in my direction as I did so. I slowed my pace so he could peel off the Velcro straps holding a suppressed M-4 to my pack. When I had it in my hands, we switched places and I did the same for him. Mike had simply left his sniper rifle where it lay and switched weapons before we set out across the killing ground.
Despite the instincts roaring at me to go as fast as I could, I matched Mike’s speed. He kept us at a quick but even pace. This was not beca
use he was out of shape—he wasn’t—but because he wanted Chavez, Miller, and the seals carrying M3 shells to be able to keep up. They did so with no trouble, and I had the impression they could go faster if Mike urged them to.
When we reached the towering hole in the prison camp’s outer perimeter, Mike made us stop and scan the trench. There were infected visible from where we stood, but the ones immediately beneath the wall when it collapsed were buried under tons of rubble. The outflow of rocks and dirt had created a bridge across the trench that would allow us to avoid the undead completely.
“Those ghouls ain’t made it up yet,” Mike said over the squad channel, “but they will. When we get in there, watch your backs. Turn on your lasers and let’s move.”
I activated the PEQ-15 on my M-4 and followed Mike as he ran for the breach. Gabe was beside him on the left, and I took position on his right. I heard Tyrel curse at us as he caught up and took position on our six.
“You fuckers forget about me or something?” he shouted.
“Just waiting for you to catch up,” Mike yelled back.
All further banter was forgotten as we reached the pile of rubble. To either side of us, undead eyes stared and clawed fingers reached in our direction. None of them were close enough to grab us, so we ignored them and focused on the path ahead. The slope up the berm was steep, and I had to put a hand on the ground at several points to keep my balance. The others seemed to have some trouble as well.
Gabe and Mike made it through the breach first and took up defensive positions. I made it in ahead of Tyrel and knelt five yards to Mike’s right, covering the south side of the prison yard. On the southern and eastern walls I could see troops pouring in through other breaches, most of them even more heavily armed than my squad. The Army had spared no expense for this offensive.
I wondered how the Resistance forces and spec ops guys at the other internment camps were faring. I also wondered how long it would be before the F-18s from one of the Navy’s last remaining aircraft carriers stationed two-hundred miles offshore began dropping JDAMs on outposts manned solely by KPA troops.