“Sir, no base manned by a Marine is undermanned.”
“You will be the end of the line.”
“We’ll hold.”
“No doubt in my mind, Major.”
Her lips barely curved upward in what Kinnick thought was an all-out smile of satisfaction.
Alvarado gestured toward her map. “Here, Colonel.”
Kinnick moved closer to the table and leaned over, inspecting the map.
“We’re here,” Alvarado said, pointing at a circled La Crosse and La Crescent on the map.
Kinnick ran his finger down the map. “We are going to hit any town that has an access point across the river. If there’s people still alive, we’re gonna drop a unit. Starting here.” He tapped his finger on the map. “Lansing, Iowa. Then we will move to the next town McGregor. We’ll continue down the river south. Once we get moving on the river, Captain Boucher will advance with a few units to St. Louis to see what is salvageable there. That might be more of a containment operation.”
Captain Boucher nodded, staring at the map with an M4A1 strapped to his chest in a downward safe position. “We will set up outside of St. Louis. Portage des Sioux looks isolated enough.”
“Use your best judgment, but that will work, Captain.”
“What about south of St. Louis?” Alvarado asked.
“That area falls on Special Forces Colonel Canton. His responsibility is to hold southern Missouri to Louisiana.”
She nodded. “Understood.”
Kinnick looked at his fellow officers. Stubbly checked and wavy-haired Boucher, the ox of a man Heath, and the short steel-rod of a woman Alvarado.
“Operation Homefront is about Americans. Let’s give them hope.” They all nodded in affirmation, mentally preparing for the long road ahead.
Alvarado lifted her chin. “I’d like to show you the SURCs.”
“That would be appreciated, Major.” He lifted a hand toward the tent opening. “Lead the way.”
They followed Major Alvarado and Captain Heath out of the command tent.
The outpost had been setup in an RV resort and marina on an island in the Mississippi River between Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Kinnick followed Alvarado through the outpost. Woodland green tents were placed in a neat linear fashion, their spacing from one another uniform. A giant warehouse was enveloped in the outpost along with a brown-sided grocery store.
“We took out the bridge and moved to sorties with the SURCs,” Alvarado said as she walked. She pointed over the tents toward La Crosse. Short skyscrapers sat across the river and a blue-wired suspension bridge dipped into the river wires dangling from the collapse. “Interstate 14 runs from La Crosse, Wisconsin to La Crescent, Minnesota and cuts through the island here, but we’re much closer to Minnesota. This island is made up of only thin strips of land. It’s covered with little canals. If the water raises in the river too much, we will flood out.” Water sat between the RV resort and Interstate 14 like a moat.
They walked down to a small marina. A few white motorboats and pontoons rested in their slips. A host of houseboats bobbed along the docks that had men and women standing on them. Alvarado gave a crisp wave and they waved back.
“They were here when we set up our outpost.” She paused, waiting for Kinnick to reprimand her for keeping the civilians within the facility.
Kinnick gave her a nod. He understood. This was total war. The virus was indiscriminate about who it infected. The dead were nonselective as to who they infected. Civilians were fair game just like anyone. Exposing them to the virus only swelled the dead army’s ranks.
“The SURCs are over here.” Alvarado pointed to cleared-out slips. They marched down a dirt path to the dock. Once they mounted the dock, their feet rang as they walked along the silver metal.
Dark gray small unit riverine craft were moored in a long row, each one accessible from the dock. They had rigid hulls and Kinnick estimated they were over thirty-eight feet long. A GAU-17/A Minigun was mounted on one side of the bow and the venerable M2 Browning .50 caliber machine gun matching it on the other. Near the center rear of the craft was a covered overhang and the helm.
“We operated these in Iraq for a period of time. Then they gave the program over to the Navy. Since we left Iraq, we’re back to using them again. Seems that with the more counterdrug, antiterrorism, humanitarian missions that we incur, the more useful they are. Captain Heath, please enlighten our colonel.”
The large Marine captain smiled and swatted the thick collar running around the sides of the boat. His hand bounced and an airy buoyant noise reverberated from the collar. “This small craft can carry a rifle squad or sixteen people over two hundred and fifty nautical miles.” He pointed to the back engines. “Twin Yanmar 6LY2A-STP Diesel Engines and Twin Hamilton waterjets HJ292 give this puppy the capability to turn 180 degrees in less than three boat lengths and accelerate to twenty-five knots in less than fifteen seconds.”
“Sounds perfect.” Kinnick eyed the craft up and down. “Reminds me of the River Patrol Boats of Vietnam.” He looked up at the hulking Marine. The Marine gave him a half-grin.
“That’s exactly what they came in to replace. Sure there were other small craft between, but this is our version of it. Faster. Longer range. Better armor. This collar around the top.” He ran his hand along it. “Solid cell foam. Provides stability, redundant buoyancy, and small-arms ballistic protection. Been known to deflect an RPG.” He pointed down at the rigid metal hull. “Has beaching plates too. This was made for us. Oorah, colonel.” Captain Heath gave him a wide smile.
Kinnick gave him a grim grin. “Oorah, captain.” I only hope it will be enough.
STEELE
Pentwater, MI
Steele led the entourage of bikers and the Sable Point volunteers surrounding the pastor. He limped along without his crutch, slowing down the entire group, but he felt that it was necessary for his appearance to be less incapacitated. He ignored the grating of the pellets grinding away under his flesh. The ones that were too deep were left inside him by one of War Child’s gang, who had been a corpsman in a previous life. Steele flexed his hand, stretching his fingers and making a fist.
The throng of people walked to the center of Pentwater’s main streets, Lake Shore and Main, in view of the fire station. Lounging bikers watched them curiously from buildings and on the street corners, the former occupants of Sable Point sprinkled among them.
Steele turned around and the group widened as if they were afraid of the pastor, giving him plenty of space like a man-eating tiger on a long chain.
The pastor stood before Steele. His black clothes were soiled and his collar blood stained from where Steele had pricked his neck with his axe. He had the look of a weary new-world missionary who had found his first convert after so long in the bush. His face was tired but his eyes held fire like he was on the verge of exhaustion but happy. What does he have to be happy about?
The pastor closemouthed grinned at him, looked toward the sun, and shut his eyes.
He kept his eyes closed as he spoke. “You may take your revenge, Mr. Steele, but it will not soothe your soul and it will not bring back the dead.” He opened his eyes at the end and his gaze was unafraid of what was to come. “I made peace with death a long time ago.”
Steele stared at the man he had spent weeks trying to make peace with, and all he had gotten was fire and blood. He flexed his fingers again. Appeasement never works. They always want more. This lanky old man has caused me so many problems and taken good people’s lives. How many lives have you taken? His mind mocked his morals.
“I am not here for revenge, pastor.” But maybe I should plant my hawk into his skull anyway and be done with the man. Nobody here would care. They all hate him.
“Then why have you released me from my prison? Surely you do not intend to release me after our—.” He paused, searching for the word in his mind. “Conflict.”
Steele gripped the head of his tomahawk tightly and pulled it f
rom his belt, holding it beneath head. Be fair, he reminded himself. To be fair is to exact justice. His mind shouted at him while he stared at his enemy. Remember the bigger picture. Jackson is coming.
“I may yet take your head.”
The pastor spread his arms. “I give it freely for I am at peace with God. My soul is already his.”
“Fuck you,” shouted Gat.
“Don’t give us your pious bullshit. You’re a murderer, you bastard,” Tess shouted at him. Her hands balled into fists at her sides. “You murdered Pagan,” she screamed. “He only ever wanted to help people and you burned him alive.”
The pastor bowed his head. “If I made a mistake in burning Pagan, then God will forgive me for my heart was in the right place.”
Steele held up his tomahawk in the air. “Enough.” He gave Tess a side eye. She scowled at him in return. His eyes panned over Ahmed, the stocky Egyptian-American, and Kevin, the lanky high-school teacher, standing side by side with M4s. They are with me. His eyes reached Thunder. Thunder’s eyes were level, giving no indication of his true emotions. Is he still with me? He knew he might lose Tess with this, but what other choice did he have?
“We’ve had our differences, but now that I have the upper hand, I will show what it means to create peace. I will show you what mercy looks like,” Steele said. He gave Tess a side glance. She fumed. He ignored her and pushed on.
Steele walked closer to the pastor, his left leg slow on the uptake. The pastor’s eyes peered down at him. Steele spun his hawk in his hand. The pastor smiled at him in a truly carefree manner. Does he have no fear of death?
Steele got within three feet of him and looked up at the pastor’s long-worn face.
“I will make it easier, son,” the pastor said. He bent his head low near Steele’s. “Send me home,” the pastor said softer. The man began murmuring the Lord’s Prayer under his breath. The crowd held in silence awaiting his justice.
A swing and this troublesome man is out of the way. Everyone will be happier. He stood, twirling his hawk in his hand, staring at the top of the pastor’s thinly haired head.
“You are free.”
The pastor raised his head a bit, his eyes peering from beneath his brows. “Pardon me?” he whispered.
“You are free under the following conditions.”
The pastor only raised his head and eyebrows at Steele.
“You and your community are to join ours. You will not harm, burn, or condemn anyone not infected to any sort of damnation. In return, your people will be treated as equals and will suffer no abuse at our hands.”
The pastor blinked slowly as if he were contemplating which was better, the terms or certain death. His voice came out slowly. “Our approach can be modified. God’s will reaches further than the flame sometimes.”
“I’m not finished,” Steele said. “You and your men will fight with us against the dead and the living.”
The pastor’s eyes lit up. “You will return my men’s weapons?”
“Yes, once they have sworn not to use them against my people.” Steele swallowed hard, knowing that this could start another war, but Colonel Jackson and his legion were close, and he needed the pastor’s men if it came to a shootout.
“I will see to it that they do as you ask.”
“There are no chances on this. They follow or they die.”
The pastor grinned. “We will not have any issues.”
Steele eyed the man again, trying to see if he held deceit in his eyes.
“Then you and your men are free.” Steele waved Kevin forward. Kevin handed the pastor his carpenter’s hammer. The pastor’s smile grew wide. He looked up at the heavens and raised the hammer above his head.
“God wills it!” he shouted. No one took up the call. Murmurs of dissent rippled through the bikers and volunteers alike.
“No!” Tess screeched. She marched over to Steele and the pastor. “You can’t be serious? This man tried to burn us alive and you’re going to free him?”
Steele took in a deep breath. “It’s the only way.”
“The only way?” She jabbed a finger at the pastor. “This guy is a fucking monster! Kill him. He just brainwashes people. You know it. You’ve seen it.” Her voice dropped to a low hiss. “He murdered your mother.”
The pastor sheathed his hammer through his belt. “So much hate in such a small body.” He raised a hand in her direction. “I forgive you, my daughter. May God cull your anger and use you for his own good work.” He bowed his head in her direction, keeping his hand outstretched. “I forgive you.”
“Screw you,” she shouted. Her arms wrapped tightly around her chest. “Why are you doing this? This is not what we had agreed on for Sable.”
“We are bigger than Sable now.”
The pastor stuck his hand out at Steele. “I dare not know why, but God has drawn us together on a single path. It is his will that we partake in this journey together. You have my word in God’s name.” His hand wavered as he held it outstretched to Steele.
Tears of anger formed around Tess’s eyes, but he couldn’t go back now. Everything would fall into chaos and disintegrate before their eyes if he did. Steele turned away from her and faced the pastor. He took the pastor’s slender hand in his and gripped it tight.
“God has a plan for us. You’ve let my people go.” The pastor let go and turned his back on them and raised his hands to the sky. “God is great.”
Steele nodded to Thunder. “Make sure they get food and water. And let’s keep them apart from the others until tempers die down.”
Thunder waved forward his sergeant-in-arms. “Garrett, grab War Child and his boys. We will need some help with the supplies.”
Steele hobbled back to the fire station, a red brick building with two large garages stacked with supplies. He plopped down in a lawn chair, feeling the exhaustion of moving around at his inhibited pace. Tess had followed him and now paced in front of him.
She spread her arms wide as she walked. “You can’t do this.”
“I just did.”
“Take it back. They are our enemy. Keep them locked up. Or we can take them as prisoners with us.”
“They would be useless mouths to feed. Now we can use them to scout, scavenge, and hopefully fight.”
“Sounds like you’re afraid.” She gave him an evil eye and continued with sarcasm. “That must be a first.”
“I am afraid of a lot of things. If you knew better, you would be afraid too.”
“What’s so scary about this Colonel Jackson? What is he, a relative of yours? Why can’t we handle him like we did the pastor?”
His blue eyes locked with her almost black ones. “The pastor is a madman with an army of followers. Colonel Jackson is a madman with hundreds of trained soldiers. His ranks are filled with veterans of multiple wars, soldiers who’ve been trained by the best. With my limited knowledge of strategy, I outmaneuvered the pastor, who knew nothing about warfare. But the colonel is just that, a colonel. An O-6. Just beneath a brigadier general. He’s read all the books. He’s conducted operations. He’s led hundreds if not thousands of men in battle. He’s survived when other soldiers have been overrun.”
She looked at him silently, her eyes still smoldering.
“I haven’t done any of that. I set a trap for an unskilled tactician and it almost didn’t work.”
He rubbed his brow with his good hand and sent his hand over the puckered wound where he had taken a rifle round to the top of his head.
She sat down next to him. “I don’t care what he can offer. He murdered Pagan. I will never forgive him.” Anger and hate blazed in her eyes.
He knew she meant every word. “I know you won’t.” He looked over at her. The embers of her eyes were cooling down.
“You’re a lot older than when I first met you. One might even call you old with your bum leg and bum arm and bum head.”
He grimaced and smiled. “A lot of trouble a few weeks will do to you. Don’t remind me.�
�� He paused watching the bikers remove some of the boxes of food. “I won’t let the idea of Sable be extinguished. Our people are still free.” He glanced at her. “Will you promise me not to kill the pastor?”
She gave him a coy look, raising a black eyebrow. An amused look spread over her face as if she had already killed the pastor a hundred times over and he didn’t even know about it yet.
“I promise not to kill him,” she said softly.
“Thank you. This is important.” He leaned his head back and relaxed for a moment. Shouting erupted from the gym, forcing his exhausted head upright. Tess heard it too. Her features hardened like stone, and she stared in the direction of the commotion.
They couldn’t make out the words at first but the chant grew louder and louder until the words took shape. “God wills it. God wills it. God wills it,” reverberated over the town, rising up to the sky.
Have I unleashed a monster? “Tomorrow, we leave,” he whispered.
GWEN
Reynolds Farm, IA
Gwen sat atop her grandfather’s old yellow mare, Patsy. The leather of her saddle creaked as the horse walked. She controlled the old horse with her legs and Patsy easily let herself be steered, having many years of experience beneath her.
A cold fall sun sat in the sky, releasing enough sunlight to give them some extra warmth on their journey. Her grandfather rode along beside her. He had insisted on taking the family horses to save fuel. She had made it clear that she could make it to town on her own, but the old man was adamant that he travel with her for safety. Not wanting to hurt his pride, she obliged.
She watched him as he rode. John’s back had a deeper hunch than normal in it, but the old man still was a proficient rider. The eighty-five-year-old still had strength in him despite a quadruple bypass two years prior. The hooves of his horse clopped as it moved at a steady pace along the country road.
She half believed he wanted to go with her to show her off to his fellow neighbors. He had always been so proud of her and would always beam when he spoke about her.
The Departing (The End Time Saga Book 4) Page 8