All of it.
The entire thing.
Word for word.
No mistakes, no hesitation. It was as if he was reading it straight from the book, but that wasn’t possible. I was holding the book out of sight, and besides, his eyes were closed. When he had finished the recitation, he gave me a grim smile and said, “Nice trick, huh? Pick another page.”
I did, and he repeated the process. For a long moment, all I could do was sit and stare, jaw slack with astonishment.
“Holy shit, Gabe.”
He picked up his tumbler and sipped it. “Holy shit indeed.”
“You’ve got a fucking photographic memory.”
“Actually, the correct technical term is eidetic memory. I’m not limited just to images. I can remember damn near anything, from anytime, even shit that happened decades ago, with a clarity most people will never know.”
“That’s a hell of a gift, man.”
His eyes clouded over. “A gift? Really? You think so?”
He stood up from the table and pulled up his shirt, pointing a finger at a long, ragged scar on his lower abdomen.
“You see that? An RPG did that. Baghdad. It was February eleventh. A Saturday. I had the cookie bar from an MRE for breakfast that morning. When the RPG hit, shrapnel tore open my belly like gutting a fish, and pieces of that cookie bar fell out onto the street. My intestines were dangling down to my knees before I collapsed from blood loss. Imagine what it would be like to relive that memory in vivid detail every time you look at yourself in the mirror. Imagine what it would be like to remember your mother dying of cancer when the passage of time does nothing to dull the memory. Imagine being eight years old, and your father dies under a mountain of rubble in a coal mine, and you can’t make that pain go away no matter how much you wish it would. Imagine the feeling of failure when your marriage falls apart because you’ve turned into a useless drunk. When your wife can’t stand the thought of you being the father of her children, and throws you out. Imagine that staying with you, never fading, never getting any easier. You think about that the next time you want to call what I can do a gift. It ain’t a gift, Eric. It’s a goddamn curse.”
My sense of wonder atrophied under the onslaught of Gabe’s anger. I fished around for something to say, but pulled back an empty hook. Gabe lowered his shirt and sat back down at the table, leaning forward on his meaty forearms. Neither one of us said anything for a long time. The wind blew outside the window, and the house creaked in response, until I finally worked up the courage to open my mouth again.
“So how many languages do you speak?”
The big man sat back in his chair. “Not counting English?”
I nodded.
“Eight. Russian, German, Spanish, French, Mandarin, Arabic, Japanese, and Farsi. That last one isn’t my strongest; I had to learn it on the go.”
“Well, that’s about eight fucking more languages than I speak.”
“I thought you knew Spanish?”
“A little bit. I’m not fluent.”
“Oh.”
Silence took up residence again, sitting down with us at the table. I completely gave up on trying to think of something to say, my mind too stunned to come up with anything meaningful, and settled for drinking my hooch. When my glass was empty, I filled it back up and didn’t feel the least bit guilty about it. At the end of drink number two, just as I was eyeballing the bottle and thinking hard about a third, someone knocked at the front door. Relieved, I stood up and went to answer it.
When I opened it, Grabovsky stood on the porch, grinning. “He broke.”
“What?”
“Lucian. Steve broke him. Come on, we’ve got work to do.”
I glanced at Gabe. The big man stood up and strode over to where his vest and weapons hung from the wall. Mine were still at home. I turned back to Grabovsky.
“Give me ten minutes.”
*****
“That was quick.”
Steve looked at me flatly and handed me a copy of Lucian’s statement. “I can be very persuasive.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
I sat down and started scanning the document. It was an inch thick, printed front and back. Thankfully, Steve—or someone on his staff—had included a summation of pertinent facts in the first few pages. Steve handed additional copies to Gabe, Marshall, Grabovsky, Wilkins, and Great Hawk, and then sat down at the head of the conference table next to General Jacobs and Mayor Stone. The general’s command center was next door at the VFW, but we had chosen to hold the meeting in town hall’s lone conference room rather than crowd everyone into his tiny office.
Jacobs had pinned a large map of western Tennessee to the wall where everyone could see it. The locations of the three remaining Legion strongholds were highlighted in red, along with a rough approximation of the Legion’s tunnel network traced out in yellow. There were four long tunnels, and a dozen or so shorter ones branching out from the main corridors. All radiated out from Legion Central.
After giving everyone a few minutes to read over the intel Lucian had provided, Jacobs got up from his seat and shined a laser pointer at Legion Central.
“As you all know,” he began, “Legion Central has been captured. We still have a contingent of Rangers there guarding the insurgent prisoners, and eliminating the infected population. We have plans to transport the insurgents to a secure facility in Kansas, but due to our tactical situation and resource concerns, that’s on the back burner for the moment.”
He shifted the little red dot to a spot west of Hollow Rock, just north of Huntingdon. “This is Legion West. It’s a smaller facility than Central, but there are more troops stationed there. They’ve set up shop in a small business park just off Highway 77. As you can see, the tunnel they call the connector loop runs directly to it. We believe this is the Legion’s primary staging area for weapons and munitions.”
The dot moved to the east of Hollow Rock this time, not quite five miles from the Tennessee River. “This is the location known among the Legion as Haven. It’s a gated community of luxury homes surrounded by an eight-foot security fence. This location is going to be a problem. According to the insurgents we’ve questioned, there are families and children living here, and a significant number of slaves. Obviously, we’ll have to approach this one with the utmost caution.”
Last, he indicated another spot south of Hollow Rock, a few miles north of I-40. “And this is Legion South. It’s an old valve factory. Thick walls, easy to fortify. Most of the insurgents stationed here aren’t Lucian’s recruits; they’re reinforcements from the Midwest Alliance. There are some three hundred enemy combatants at this location. We’re going to make sure they don’t bother anyone ever again.”
He clicked off the laser pointer and turned to face the room. “I’m a firm believer that the simplest solution to a problem is often the best solution. So I’m going to make this simple. Legion South and West are the two biggest threats, so that’s where I’ll be directing the most resources. Grabovsky, I want you and the company from the First REU to take down Legion West. You’ll have an Apache and a Chinook for air support. If what this Lucian character tells us is true, there’s a wealth of weapons and ammunition there, not to mention supplies and equipment. I want it. There are a few thousand people on extermination duty back in the Springs that would love to get their hands on that ordnance. Garrett, Riordan, and McCray, I want you to pick a squad of Rangers and get eyes on Legion South. I’m putting the AC-130 at your disposal. Do your worst. The rest of you will be leading the remainder of the Rangers and the Hollow Rock militia to Haven. You’ll have the lion’s share of medical staff, the Pave Hawk, the other Chinook, and the other Apache. Well, two Apaches if you count Great Hawk.”
The general smiled at his joke, but no one laughed. Great Hawk’s obsidian eyes glittered blankly, his expression unmoved. After a brief, awkward moment, Jacobs’s smile faded and he continued. “Take as many prisoners as you need to, and keep the collateral
damage to a minimum if you can. That said, your priority is to dismantle the insurgency. Period. Anything else takes a back seat, and that includes sparing non-combatants. Is that clear?”
No one spoke, we all simply nodded. There were a lot of things I could have said to that, but in all honesty, the general was right. We would make every effort to minimize the body count, but when the bullets started flying, there would only be so much we could do. If the Legion troops stationed at Haven really cared about their families, then they would surrender peacefully. If they didn’t, well … we would do what was necessary. The people of Hollow Rock had never wanted this fight. The Legion had brought it to our doorstep. Now, we were going to end it.
“All right then,” Jacobs said. “You all have your orders. Let’s get this over with.”
We all stood up and filed out of the conference room. On the way out, I caught Mayor Stone exchanging a glance with Gabriel. It was brief, only a few seconds, but there was a lot in their eyes as they looked at each other. I wondered if anyone else noticed.
I pedaled my bike home and sat down in the living room. Allison still hadn’t gotten home from the clinic, and only a few weakly burning coals remained in the fireplace. I thought about getting another fire going, but decided I didn’t have the energy. What little mental fuel I had left, I needed to save for when Allison got home.
She wasn’t going to be happy when I told her I was leaving again.
Chapter 28
… In Ashes They Shall Reap
Legion South looked just as abandoned as Legion Central had, but my FLIR scope told me a different story.
There were six sentries on the roof, but they stayed well back from the edge, making them invisible from the ground. Another ten patrolled the perimeter just past the tall grass bordering the treeline. There had been two on the water tower where I was watching from, rotating out every few hours with the other patrols. We had left them alone until word came down to secure the perimeter and get ready for the final assault to begin. Gabe and I decided that the water tower would be a good spot to watch the show, but first, there was the minor problem of the two Legion troops currently occupying it.
My M-110 had solved that problem nicely.
The AC-130 gunship was en route from Pope Air Force Base, but it would be a little while longer before it arrived. In the meantime, Grabovsky and Echo Company had begun their assault on Legion West. They’d encountered stiff resistance, and had lost several men. Grabovsky himself had been wounded as well. Not life-threatening, but he would be out of commission for a while.
The reward for their efforts was more than a hundred dead or mortally wounded Legion troops, a massive stockpile of guns, ammo, and supplies, and documentation revealing the location of all the Legion’s supply caches. The price our people paid was six dead and eleven wounded, counting Grabovsky. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was worth it. Maybe it would have been better if we’d said to hell with the supplies, and just bombed the shit out of the place. I knew it wasn’t my call to make, but it still bothered me.
At least I didn’t have to worry about that at Legion South. As soon as the gunship arrived, it was going to rain death on the Legion as fast as its 40mm Bofors and M102 Howitzer cannons could pour it out. The only concern now was waiting for Great Hawk and Marshall to check in from Haven. Steve had set up our radios to listen in on the satellite uplink the Apache would be calling in on. It had required extra equipment, and extra weight for all of us to carry, but keeping everyone on the same page was more than worth the inconvenience.
My earpiece buzzed, and a slow, resonant voice spoke. “Alpha, Hawk, how copy?”
Speak of the devil.
“Loud and clear, Hawk. Give me a sitrep.”
“Something is wrong here, Alpha. Haven has been abandoned.”
The radio was silent for a few seconds. I could imagine Steve’s face pinching down as he absorbed the news. In the silence, distantly, I heard the drone of the AC-130’s engines approaching.
“What do you mean abandoned, Hawk?”
“There is no one here. The houses are all empty, and rigged with homemade explosives. If I had not been here, our men may have walked right into them. I found a tripwire on the first house my team searched, and radioed to the other fire teams to be on the lookout. Every one of these houses was set up to be a death trap. It looks like they left through the tunnels, and then blew the entrance behind them to keep us from following.”
The sound of four turboprop engines turning in unison grew louder. A few of the sentries on the roof turned in the direction of the gunship and started motioning to the others.
“Shit,” Steve said. “They knew we were coming.”
“It gets worse, Alpha,” Great Hawk intoned.
“What happened?”
“We found the slaves. They are all dead, shot execution-style. The Legion left their bodies piled in a house they were using as slave quarters. It looks like the people here left in a hurry, and did not want to deal with the slaves slowing them down.”
While Steve and Great Hawk spoke, the sentries below realized what was going on above their heads and retreated down the stairwell back into the factory. Through my thermals, I saw the gunship arrive on station and wheel around, presenting its port side, slowly beginning to tip is wings in a pylon turn that would allow it to pulverize the factory with a stream of sustained fire. Gabe activated an illuminator and directed it at the factory, highlighting the target clearly in the aircraft’s FLIR.
“Hawk, withdraw your troops and radio the Chinook. Get your people out of there.”
“Acknowledged.”
Less than a minute after the last sentry vanished down the rooftop access, the door opened again the four men came out, running in pairs. One man in each team was carrying a long cylinder with optical sights mounted to the top. One of the men stopped, brought what looked like a night vision scope to his face, and searched the sky. He pointed in the direction of the gunship and motioned to the others.
What the hell?
Beside me, I heard Gabe curse and key his radio. “Alpha, Wolf, there are two SAMs on the rooftop. Repeat, two SAMs on the rooftop. Radio the gunship and get them the hell out of here.”
“What?”
“SAMs goddammit! Surface-to-air fucking missiles! Stingers! Get that plane out of here now!”
The radio cut out as Steve switched frequencies.
“Come on, Eric, shoot the fuckers!”
Gabe dropped the illuminator and picked up his .338. I remembered that I was holding an M-110, and hurriedly raised the scope. Through the crosshairs, I saw both men carrying missiles take aim. I remembered what Gabe had told me about Stinger missiles, how effective and easy to use they were. How they were heat-seekers that could bring down an aircraft as big as a 747.
The gunship was smaller than that.
Gabe’s rifle fired next to me, and again, I marveled at how fast he could sight in and shoot. I was coming along as a sniper, but I wasn’t at Gabe’s level yet. It took me a couple of seconds longer than him to sight in, let out half a breath, and squeeze the trigger.
It was a couple of seconds too long.
Gabe’s round hit its target just as he was firing the Stinger. The impact from the powerful slug knocked him forward, and his missile flew straight out over the treetops and detonated a few hundred yards distant, its propellant sending it streaking into a tower supporting high-tension wires. The explosion snapped the heavy wires, causing them to whipsaw through air in a flailing path of destruction that would stretch for miles.
At the same instant that I pulled the trigger on my M-110, the Legion troop on the rooftop fired his Stinger. The missile shot forth from the tube, and then the propellant kicked in, sending it streaking toward the gunship. The man who fired it didn’t live long enough to see what happened next—my bullet took him through the heart, and he was dead before he hit the ground—but I did.
The only explanation I could come up with was that St
eve hadn’t radioed the pilot in time for him to deploy countermeasures. If he had, the white-hot flares would have lit up the night sky and diverted the missile, and disaster.
But that’s not what happened.
Instead, the missile careened upward almost faster than my eyes could follow, blazed a trail straight to the gunship, and exploded into one of the port-side engines. Half of the wing on that side sheared away, leaving only a flaming stump behind. The massive airplane rolled over like a huge, bloated bird shot in mid-flight, and plummeted nose-down, spiraling toward the Earth.
As I watched, my heartbeat fluttered in my chest, I stopped breathing, and I felt a sinking sensation, as though I were standing on the gunship’s one remaining wing and falling down with the doomed flight crew. It seemed to take forever for the plane to descend, foot by agonizing foot. Lower it fell, closer and closer until finally it hit the ground with a thundering PHOOM that set the forest around it swaying, and made the water tower under my feet shudder and heave. An orange ball of fire bloomed into the night sky, billowing upward in an impossibly expanding mushroom cloud. The surrounding forest—bereft of rain for the past several weeks—was dry as kindling and went up like it was covered in gasoline. A few seconds later, even as far away as I was, a blast of heat struck me like the hand of an angry god, sending me shrinking back with my arms over my face.
Gradually, the heat faded and I got to my feet, slowly lowering my arms to stare at the wreckage.
The mushroom cloud dissipated, revealing the remains of the gunship covering a huge swath of blasted ground, and for hundreds of yards in every direction, the surrounding trees had burst into flame, catching and spreading in a furious blaze. All I could do was stand and stare. Dimly, I wondered how the hell the Legion had gotten their hands on Stinger missiles.
And then, coming to mind unbidden, I remembered the map General Jacobs had shown us. I remembered the tunnel system, and the yellow highlighter marks that traced its path. I remembered looking at Haven and Legion South, and seeing the thin yellow band connecting the two. No side tunnels, no deviations. Just a straight line from point A to point B.
Surviving the Dead 03: Warrior Within Page 38