“I count nine, ten of them,” Foster reported. “They’re running right at us.”
Lee saw them now. Escapees from one of the fever clinics, naked or dressed in paper gowns and carrying makeshift weapons—tire irons, garden shears, kitchen knives. A woman snapped a pair of scissors in each hand. A grinning man with a hairy chest lugged a gas can and a lighter.
They were all smiling and shouting and waving at the soldiers. “Wait up! Wait for me!”
“Private Foster, once the hostiles clear those wrecks, you are cleared to engage,” Lee said.
“Now we’re talking!” Foster aimed his heavy machine gun. “Gonna kill some motherfuckers!”
Lee glanced at Murphy, who shook his head. The fifty-cal hammered. The path of the rounds, illuminated by bright tracers, flew over the mob. Foster corrected, walking his fire into the infected.
The battle was over in seconds. The torn bodies of the infected lay in the street like road kill.
“For such a gung-ho mo-fo, you can’t shoot for shit, Foster,” Murphy said.
The private said nothing. He wore a vacant smile, happy to have had the chance to use his big gun against a legitimate target.
Some of the soldiers didn’t feel remorse about killing the infected. The older generation liked to blame the younger for embracing violence due to rap songs and video games. Lee believed some people just didn’t have much in the empathy department. At the moment, he was glad people like that were on his side.
Lee felt remorse. A lot, but he buried it. The mission came first.
A voice called, “Coming out!”
Three soldiers scurried out of the one of the dormitory buildings while a fourth provided overwatch at the door. They opened the gate.
One of them waved and said, “Hurry the fuck up before we all get killed.” He noticed Lee’s rank and added quickly, “Sir!”
Lee and his men jogged through the gate and into the building.
Captain Marsh welcomed them in the dining hall with a scowl. “Captain Lee, this is a bag of dicks,” he said, using the popular Army term for a horrible situation. “It’s the mother of all bags of dicks. You’re the battalion S-2. What the hell is going on?”
Lee looked around. The soldiers of Bravo Company glared back at him. All of them were geared up in full battle rattle, as if they expected the crazies to come howling through the door at any moment. The air was tense. They were scared.
“We’re losing Boston,” Lee said. “What else do you want to know?”
Marsh nodded. “We lost contact with Second Platoon. They were assigned on a fragmentation order when we pulled back yesterday, and they’ve disappeared. Any word?”
Lee shook his head.
“Any idea why the Colonel put the nix on Operation Mercy?”
“Can’t help you there, either.”
Marsh said, “If our intelligence officer doesn’t know jack, then I guess we’re really in the dark.”
“What was the fragmentary order?” Lee asked. “You seem to be sealed up tight. What’s your mission here?”
“Staying alive, Captain. Other than that, not a lot. We were ordered to stand down, stay concealed and observe. If it looks like the neighborhood is starting to get crowded, we’re supposed to pull back again, toward Hanscom.”
“Who issued the order?”
“Major Walker.”
Walker was the XO, the Colonel’s right-hand man. The orders were legit, but it made no sense.
Lee said, “The strategy’s changed, but I’ve received no word of it.”
“We’re under the hammer here. We’re low on everything—ammo, food, you name it. We need rest and refit. We need a fucking plan. Fighting the crazies sucks. Hiding is worse. I need to get out there and find my missing boys.”
“I’m on my way back to HQ. I’ll try to get some answers. Something’s not right.”
“Something else isn’t right. On the other side of the Charles River is Harvard Stadium, a refugee camp with a couple thousand people. There was an MP platoon there to help keep order and distribute resources, but they were ordered out. The camp has been turned into a casualty collection point. Apparently, running the place is now the job of a mixed unit of First Battalion’s casualties. Has been for a few days. A lot of them aren’t fit for duty.”
Lee shook his head. “Get me some gas, and I’ll be on my way to find out what the hell is going on. I’ll make finding your boys my top priority once I’m back on base.”
Marsh offered his hand for a shake. “I appreciate anything you can do, Captain.”
One thing Lee knew for sure. Marsh’s men weren’t holding ground. They were waiting for a siege. It was dangerous. They weren’t projecting power onto their area of operations, and they weren’t bugging out either.
The whole thing suggested a big shift in strategy. Lee was used to increasingly erratic thinking at the top, but not from Lt. Colonel Prince. The man was predictable.
But Prince followed orders. Maybe it wasn’t his strategy.
Maybe the Brass was preparing to pull the military out of the cities.
EIGHTEEN.
The Hellfires had beautiful effect on target. The drone footage showed an aerial view of helicopters hovering in front of a large hospital, which exploded outward in a titanic blast.
Lt. Colonel Prince shook his pill bottle and heard the rattle of his last Advil. He slapped the capsule into his palm and knocked it back. He needed something stronger to dull the throbbing pain in his head. Much stronger.
The first wave of missiles ripped away the shell. The next brought it down. It was like watching a building get pounded into rubble by a giant’s fists. After that, the Apaches fired incendiary rockets to burn up anything still alive in the wreckage.
“Major Walker,” Prince said.
His XO was talking to one of the radio operators in hushed tones.
“Major!” Prince roared. “Un-ass that radio and get over here.”
The ability of the Army to function depended on following orders, explicit orders carefully designed by the chain of command. Sometimes, the orders sucked.
The alternative—to disobey—was far worse, particularly in a crisis like this. In the end, without discipline, they wouldn’t be an army. They’d turn into a rabble on a slippery slope to helping destroy what they sought to protect.
Walker stiffened and approached, looking pale and frazzled. The man was terrified of something.
Prince hesitated; he’d never seen fear wipe the smug look off his XO’s face. “Major, our aviation unit is engaging the targets designated in Operation Mercy.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The OPORD specifically required boots on the ground.”
“Using the Tomcats accomplished the objective with less risk.”
“So you showed independent initiative.”
“That’s right, sir.”
“Outstanding, Major.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Outstanding, Major, as in you are an outstanding fucking idiot.”
Walker flinched.
Prince continued. “Do you realize you just destroyed four civilian buildings? Deploying air assets I wanted to use against an arty unit that was doing the exact same thing? Air assets we need to bring in the Governor?”
“Sir, it was the best—”
“Are you also aware we are at the screaming edge with General Brock, who might not take kindly to wholesale destruction of city property? Do you know what the optics are on something like this? It looks like we declared war on the American people!”
“That doesn’t—”
“Did you at least evacuate any medical staff still on site, or did you just kill uninfected civilians? Doctors, for Christ’s sake—”
“We contacted each hospital and instructed them—”
“The whole world’s going to see this when CNN gets a hold of it!”
“There’s not going to be a CNN tomorrow!” Walker exploded.
All work
in the command post came to a halt. The staff stared at them in wonder.
Prince blinked in surprise. For all his faults, the major thrived on order. He was loyal. He never lost his cool. He was too damned logical. He certainly never questioned Prince in front of the enlisted men under his command.
Prince tilted his head toward a corner of the room, where they could speak in relative privacy. Walker followed him there.
Prince said, “You’d better explain yourself, Major, because I’m about to land on you with both boots.”
“That city out there isn’t Boston anymore. It’s not even Afghanistan. It’s worse than Afghanistan. We need to change our thinking, or we’re done.”
Prince smoldered while the staff officers and sergeants continued to stare. He hated backtalk. He took it from Captain Lee, but he respected Lee. “Major Walker, I understand your concerns. We are overextended. But it’s not up to you. It’s not up to me. We have our orders. Having independent initiative to implement orders doesn’t mean you get to ignore them.”
“We’ve lost control of almost every single major city in the country, Colonel. We need to start thinking about taking care of ourselves.”
“What are you saying? We should mutiny?”
“I’m saying the optics don’t matter anymore. The infected artillery unit doesn’t matter. The Governor doesn’t matter. Going after them is just going to dig our hole deeper. The situation is changing by the hour now. We need to think about accomplishing our primary mission at the least amount of risk. We need to start thinking about the probability of collapse.”
Prince frowned. “Collapse.” He winced, as if the word tasted like crap. “Collapse.”
“Across the board. I’ve been in contact with other units around the—”
“Are you saying we should pull out of Boston and give it to the infected wrapped in a bow?”
Walker held his ground. “Affirmative.”
Prince growled, “We’re done here.”
“Sir, if we don’t—”
“Not another word, or I’ll relieve you. I swear to Christ, I’ll shoot you myself for cowardice. I’ll shoot you in the fucking head.”
A soldier burst into the trailer, laughing and crying. The staff sergeants leaped out of their chairs and backed away.
“I resign!” the man screamed. “I’m going Elvis!”
Prince pulled his 9mm from its holster and flicked the safety lever. Several men stood in his way. “Make a hole!”
Another enlisted man ran into the trailer, grabbed the first man, and pulled him out.
Prince, burning with rage, started to follow.
Walker blocked his path. “The man was just drunk, sir.”
For every physical casualty, there were two psychiatric ones. But it was no excuse.
“Get out of my way, Major.”
“I’ll get him squared away, sir.”
“You’re relieved. Get the fuck out of my sight.”
“Sir, there’s one more thing you need to know.”
“Be thankful I don’t throw you off the base and let the crazies have you.”
“Sir, listen to me. We’ve lost contact with Big Brother.”
The red mist dissipated. Prince’s headache returned full force. “What?”
“We’ve lost contact with Colonel Armstrong’s command.”
NINETEEN.
Sergeant Ramos, half his face turned into hamburger and billowing smoke, grinned at him with the other half and showed him the pig-sticker he kept in his boot.
Wade awoke, gasping for air.
A soldier in ragged fatigues jumped back as Wade lunged upright.
“You were screaming, bro,” the soldier said. “Bad for morale.”
“He means shut the fuck up,” another soldier barked, lying against the wall.
Wade heard the distant babble of thousands of voices. He was hot. Sweat was pouring off him. His face ached and itched. He was lying on the carpet of some type of office. From the trophies and pennants that decorated the place, he guessed the occupant to be a football coach.
A few soldiers sat smoking in chairs or on the floor. They were from Tenth Mountain, but Wade didn’t recognize anybody from Bravo Company.
He touched the bulky bandage on his face. His vision blurred. He was gone again.
Sometime later, a woman’s asked, “You want some water?”
Wade opened his eyes and drank deep from the offered canteen.
“You’re all right,” she said. The woman was slim and athletic-looking, pretty except for the black eye and massive bruise on the left side of her face.
“Who are you?” he croaked.
She smiled, displaying some broken teeth. “Sergeant Sandra Rawlings. 164th Transportation Battalion. Alpha Company, the Muleskinners. Massachusetts Guard.”
“Where’s my platoon?”
“Can’t help you there, soldier.”
“Wade. Private First Class Scott Wade. Bravo Company.”
“First Battalion, Tenth Mountain, right. You look like you were in the shit. Somebody brought you here, and now here you are.”
“What is this place?”
“I’ll give you the nickel tour.” She held up a knife. “First, the special orientation.”
Wade stared at the knife. He saw Ramos holding it, leering down with his Klown face.
Gonna make a hole. Make it wide.
“If you touch me without permission, I’ll cut off your balls,” Rawlings said. “And if you ever get the drop on me, you’d better kill me after. Understand?”
He gaped at the knife twirling in her hand.
I’m going to make you one of us.
BOOM! Ha, ha!
“Jesus, Rawlings, give the guy a break,” one of the soldiers said.
She put the knife away and studied Wade with concern. “You okay?”
He blinked. “No.”
She offered her hand. “Let’s get you that nickel tour.”
Wade let her help him up. He felt unsteady on his feet. His ankle still hurt from the fight at the hospital. He was bruised everywhere from the Humvee crash. A little dizzy, he wondered if he’d suffered a mild concussion.
Rawlings swept her hand across one of the big picture windows. “Harvard Stadium.”
The U-shaped stadium offered a majestic view of the playing field and stands. The field was covered in tents. Thousands of people milled around them. A safety shelter.
“It’s something to see, huh?” Rawlings grinned. “Home of Harvard’s football team. Janis Joplin performed her last show here in 1970. It’s where The Game is played.”
“You mean football?”
“The Game, Wade. Harvard versus Yale. You’re not from around here, are you?”
“I’m from Wisconsin.”
“Never been there.” She shook her head. “I’ve been to Iraq but not Wisconsin. Funny.”
“Who’s in charge here?”
“Down there? Nobody. You got Red Cross, some local government, charities and churches. Those people are shell shocked. Many of them are armed. And they’re really pissed off.”
“I need to report in and find my unit. Who’s in command of this unit?”
“Nobody. You want the job, Wade?”
“Who’s senior?”
Rawlings jerked her thumb toward the far corner of the room. “Him.”
Wade turned and saw a sergeant lying in a fetal ball on the floor.
She said, “Don’t know his name. He hasn’t said a word since he got here.”
“What is this? Why are we here?”
“I was guarding a truck that got thwacked. Ended up here by chance. As for you Tenth Mountain boys… Apparently, this is a casualty collection point. There are guys here from all over your battalion, some walking wounded, but mostly psychiatric casualties. Guys messed up in the head. Wounds that run deep. A few are catatonic. There are maybe thirty guys here in all.”
Wade nodded at the massive crowds below. “And the mission is to prot
ect them?”
“Our job is to stay alive, Wade. This building is the university’s athletics department. We got views all around. We keep an eye on things. Helicopters drop food once a week. We go down there and get what we need at gunpoint. We let them sort out the rest on their own.”
“Aren’t we supposed to be distributing it or something?”
Rawlings snorted. “That sounds like a great way to get killed.”
“What’s it like down there?”
“Just what it looks like. A shithole. Every day, you got fistfights, murders, rape and shootings over women, beer, smokes. You ask me, it’s a powder keg just waiting to go off. You got a weapon, cowboy?”
He shook his head. “Lost it.”
“Ammo?”
“A few mags for my M4.”
“We’ll see about getting you armed. One more thing, Wade. Sleep every chance you get.”
“Why is that?”
“Because somebody is always screaming in their sleep and waking everybody up.” She sighed. “Those poor guys, the things they’ve seen and done… I don’t want to know.”
Wade studied her face. She really was pretty. “What happened to you, Sergeant?”
“You don’t want to know.”
TWENTY.
Lt. Colonel Prince closed the door to his private office in the command trailer and sat at his desk with his head in his hands. The migraine bloomed behind his eyes. He could hardly think. No amount of aspirin would help. What he needed was a long, long sleep.
Ignoring his desktop computer, which demanded his attention, he opened a drawer and scooped out a bottle of Jim Beam. He kept the bottle around for special occasions, to toast a promotion or observe the end of an operation. Sharing a shot always made the moment memorable. He wondered if drinking alone would have the opposite effect. What he needed now was to forget everything.
He put the bottle away without drinking. He had work to do. Still he didn’t move. What was the point? Anything he did was just pushing a broom against an avalanche.
The radio/telephone operator had contacted Harry Lee. The captain was en route back to Hanscom. He’d seen some horrible things on his recon trip. The confidential report he’d transmitted stuck to the facts, but the story was clear enough. Boston was a lost cause.
This Is the End: The Post-Apocalyptic Box Set (7 Book Collection) Page 21