Burke went on as if he hadn’t heard the brigadier’s question. “Tanks?” he asked. “You want to take tanks into London with you? Against shredders?”
Calhoun’s face was growing redder by the moment. He looked over to where Ellington was sitting. “Who is this man,” he asked, pointing a finger at Burke, “and what the fuck is he doing in my meeting?”
Both Ellington and Burke answered at the same time, their voices drowning each other out until the sharp, clear voice of Colonel Nichols cut through the clamor.
“He’s one of my people, Brigadier General,” he said calmly. “Major Michael Burke. You might recognize him as the commander of the unit that destroyed that airship Lieutenant Colonel Ellington mentioned earlier, the one targeted at Paris?”
The others in the room were looking at Burke a bit differently now, but he barely noticed. His attention was squarely on the idiot at the front of the room.
Nichols went on. “While his decorum leaves much to be desired, something that he and I will discuss in detail immediately after this meeting, I assure you, he does have more firsthand experience in dealing with the shamblers and other classes of undead than anyone else in this room, save perhaps Professor Graves. I, for one, would be interested in what he has to say.”
Burke knew a cue when he heard one. He jumped in before any of the other senior officers in the room could shut him down.
“Look, I’m all for rescuing the King and Queen, but what you are suggesting is way off the mark. A small covert team of operatives could probably succeed where a larger, heavily armed force might not, but you sure as hell can’t go in there with infantry supported by armor. It will be suicide for all concerned.”
Calhoun scoffed. “Suicide? I hardly think so. Fifteen tanks and over four hundred men should be more than enough against an unarmed mob. We’ll drive a spearhead into the city with the armor and use the infantry to defend the palace while we get the royal family out.”
Burke stared at him in disbelief. Unarmed mob? Where was this idiot getting his information?
“With all due respect, Brigadier, don’t be an idiot. It’s clear that you don’t know what you are talking about. Suicide is exactly what that will be! The shredders will zero in on those tanks the moment you fire up the engines to roll them off whatever ship you’re bringing them in on. As soon as they do, they’ll all come running like you’d just rung the world’s biggest dinner bell!”
Burke glanced around the room, looking for support and finding none. A little voice inside his head was telling him to shut up while he still had the chance, that antagonizing a room full of senior officers might not be the wisest thing he could be doing for his career, but Burke couldn’t seem to make himself stop. Once the floodgates were opened, it was all going to come out, whether he liked it or not.
“How the hell are you going to use tanks against shredders?” he asked. “Do you think they are going to turn around and flee the first time you lob a shell into their midst?”
The room had gone deathly silent, but Burke barreled onward.
“I’ll tell you exactly what is going to happen. You’ll kill some with that first tank shell, but that will be the only shot you’ll manage to get off. These things are relentless killing machines; they don’t feel fear, they don’t feel pain, hell, they don’t feel anything! Those that survive the first shot from your tank crews will swarm the tank and the infantry it is supposed to be protecting faster than you can imagine. Before you know it, all you’ll have is a bunch of corpses on your hands. Is that what you want?”
Calhoun frowned. “I hardly think . . .”
Burke cut him off. “That’s part of the problem! You aren’t thinking! If you were, you wouldn’t be sending more than four hundred men to their deaths! For God’s sake, General, wake up!”
For just a moment, Burke thought he’d done it, thought he’d talked some sense into the man, made him see that what he was suggesting was nothing more than a great big cock-up just waiting to happen.
Then the man’s gaze drifted from Burke’s face to those of the men sitting around them, all of whom were staring at the brigadier general, wondering how he was going to deal with this upstart major in their midst, and Burke watched his chance slip away. The man’s ego was more important than the lives of the men under his command, a failure in more than one senior officer down through the years, and Burke knew the argument was lost then and there.
He slumped down in his chair, disgusted, as the room erupted in chaos around him. He barely heard the general’s orders to have the idiot who’d disrupted his meeting forcibly removed from the room and didn’t resist as a squad of MPs came in to walk him out. Thankfully, he wasn’t in Calhoun’s chain of command and so escaped a more serious punishment when, after a quiet word from Nichols, Lieutenant Colonel Ellington declined to press charges.
Colonel Nichols, however, was anything but quiet when he caught up with Burke outside the headquarters building moments later.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t shitcan your ass right now, Burke!” he hollered, oblivious to the other men passing around them as the meeting broke up. “Just what the hell did you think you were doing in there?”
Burke’s common sense had finally caught up with him. He stood rigidly at attention in front of the colonel and prudently kept his mouth shut. Not that Colonel Nichols was looking for an answer; Burke knew a rhetorical question when he heard one.
“Get the hell out of my sight, Burke, before I bust you back down to private and return you to the trenches. Dismissed!”
As Burke turned and marched away, he missed the self-satisfied smile that crossed the colonel’s face.
Chapter Eight
THINGS WERE QUIET for the next few days. Burke did his best to stay away from MID headquarters, knowing Colonel Nichols was still pissed at him for his outburst in front of Brigadier Calhoun.
No sense stirring up any more trouble, he thought with only the slightest bit of chagrin as he watched another group of refugees lining up to board a convoy of trucks bound for Marseille in the south, where they would be transferred to one of the steamers headed to India or Australia. London might be gone, but the British Empire lingered, and hopefully these people could build new lives for themselves. God knew an active war zone wasn’t the place for them, no matter how many wanted to remain with the troops who had rescued them.
Burke had some time to think about his outburst at the meeting, and the truth was that he didn’t regret what he’d said so much as the way he’d said it and then only because it had caused some issues for Colonel Nichols. The bottom line was that he’d said what needed to be said and to hell with the political issues it might cause anyone else. It was time the upper brass got their heads out of their asses and started fighting the war the way it needed to be fought, not as a conflict between nations but as a battle for the very existence of the human race.
He watched as a sergeant wearily explained to an elderly woman waiting to be helped up into the back of a two-ton lorry that she was going to have to leave her beat-up old sailor’s trunk behind. Space was at a premium and they could fit at least one, possibly two more passengers into the back of the truck in place of the trunk. The sergeant was doing his best to reassure the woman that he would send it on to Marseille as soon as he could, but he wasn’t fooling anyone; the resignation in his voice was plain for everyone to hear. As he droned on, the woman visibly gathered the shreds of her dignity around her like a tattered old cloak and turned away without saying anything more, turning her back on what had to be the last few things she owned in this world in order to give a total stranger a chance at a new life somewhere far from this place.
It was a brave and unselfish thing to do.
As she turned away, her gaze met Burke’s and he could see the pain and misery floating there just behind her eyes, held at bay through nothing more than her own
raw determination. In response to that burden, Burke did the only thing he could think of.
Holding her gaze with his own, Burke pulled himself up into a textbook-perfect salute, his back ramrod straight, his hand like a knife’s edge against the side of his forehead, honoring not only the sacrifice she was making now but also those that they both knew were sure to come on the road ahead.
They stared at each other and for a long moment Burke thought his gesture would go unacknowledged, but then he saw the edge of the woman’s mouth curl up into the slightest little smile and she nodded at him, noting his unspoken praise and solidarity. When she turned away, she stood a bit straighter and there was a spring to her step that hadn’t been there moments before.
Feeling as if he’d done his good deed for the day, Burke turned to continue his walk, only to see Colonel Nichols’s aide, Corporal Davis, racing toward him in an open-topped staff car and waving frantically to get his attention.
Looks like it’s time to pay the piper, Burke thought.
DAVIS DEPOSITED HIM back at MID headquarters, with orders to see the colonel immediately. Burke slipped inside and found Nichols waiting for him in his office. With him was the Black Watch noncom from a few days before, Sergeant Drummond. The expressions on both their faces spoke volumes.
Burke’s good mood evaporated.
“How bad?” he asked.
Nichols’s mouth tightened into a hard, thin line. “See for yourself,” he said, pointing to a table off to one side on which a stack of eight-by-ten photographs rested.
Burke stepped over, picked up the images, and began leafing through them one by one.
The photos were taken from several hundred feet up, most likely from the backseat of an Avro 504 reconnaissance aircraft or something similar. The photographer had been looking down upon the elements of Calhoun’s rescue operation as they moved through the center of a small town somewhere outside of London. It was clear from the first photograph that the unit had already come under attack at some point; they were short several tanks from their initial complement, and more than a few men were being helped along by their fellow soldiers. The fact that the attack was continuing was made clear in the second image for it showed a handful of shredders charging out of a nearby alley on the column’s left flank. The third image showed that those first few shredders were just the vanguard of an enormous mob of such creatures pouring out of every nearby street and swarming over tanks and soldiers alike.
By the time Burke got to the last of the ten photographs, there wasn’t a single living soldier left standing in the final image.
Calhoun’s rescue operation had been overrun before it had even reached the streets of London.
Just as Burke had predicted.
Putting the photographs down, he turned back to face the other two. “Did any of them make it out?”
Nichols shook his head.
“Sweet mother of God,” Burke said under his breath.
The Scotsman laughed, a harsh, bitter sound. “You ain’t heard the half of it yet.”
“There’s more?” Burke asked Nichols warily.
The other man cast a sour glance at the sergeant and then turned to face Burke.
“An hour ago the acting prime minister petitioned the president for help in rescuing the royal family. No doubt seeing an opportunity to stage another press conference to help him get reelected, President Harper agreed to send his crack team of special operatives to do the job.”
Burke frowned. “You don’t mean . . .”
“I do indeed. This communiqué came right from the president himself.”
Nichols handed over a slim sheet of telegraph paper.
As of 1100 hours this morning, Burke’s Marauders are ordered to London with all necessary dispatch to locate and rescue the surviving members of the royal family.
Burke stared down at the orders in his hand without really seeing them.
“Fuck me,” he said, after a moment.
Drummond laughed again. “From over here it looks like somebody already has.”
Burke shot a withering glance in Drummond’s direction and then followed his commanding officer as he headed back to his desk.
“With all due respect, sir,” he said to Nichols’s retreating back, “if Calhoun’s three divisions couldn’t pull this off, what makes you think we can?”
Nichols sat down at his desk and began hunting through a stack of papers in his in-box, clearly looking for something. “It doesn’t matter what I think, Burke,” he said. “It’s what the president thinks. And after your success in Verdun, he apparently thinks you can walk on water. Besides, you said it yourself, ‘A small covert team of operatives could probably succeed where a larger, heavily armed force might not.’ ”
Burke frowned. “I said that?”
“Right before you called Brigadier Calhoun an idiot.”
That Burke remembered. One of his more accurate remarks from that particular morning, as the evidence now showed. Still, this wasn’t the first time his tendency to tell it like he saw it had landed him in hot water.
“The next time I open my mouth in a meeting, do me a favor and tell me to shut up.”
“I tried. Remember?” Nichols answered dryly.
Burke did have some vague recollection of brushing Nichols’s hand off his arm, but there was no way he was going to admit that now.
Nichols went on. “I had the men in your unit recalled as soon as I knew what the president intended. Graves never bothered to take his leave, so he’s been here since your last mission. Williams was on leave in Paris, but I managed to track him down and he will be arriving later this afternoon. I understand that you’ve already met your three new squad members, Cohen, Montagna, and Bankowski.”
Burke nodded. That left one member of his team unaccounted for.
“What about Jones?”
“He’s in the stockade.”
“Again?” Burke asked, exasperated. “What did he do this time?”
“Some foolishness involving General Harrington’s staff car,” Nichols said absently, as he searched his desk. After a moment, he found the set of orders he was looking for and passed them over to Burke.
“You’ll need these to get him out.”
Burke took them with barely a glance. “How long until we ship out?”
“There’s a convoy leaving for Le Havre at 1500 hours. You and your men need to be on it. When you arrive, you are to seek out Captain Wattley of the Royal Navy. He’ll see you safely across the Channel.”
Burke didn’t question the hurried pace; time was of the absolute essence if they wanted to save the royal family. He just hoped they weren’t too late.
The colonel inclined his head in the direction of the Black Watch noncom standing nearby. “I’ve spoken to British High Command and they’ve agreed to temporarily reassign Sergeant Drummond to your squad. He’ll act as your advance scout, guiding you across the city to Buckingham Palace along the same route he used to escape from there several days ago. If that path is no longer secure, you’ll be able to fall back on his knowledge of the local area to select an alternate route.”
“Fine with me,” Burke replied. Drummond had found his way out of a city crawling with shredders and done it in record time, it seemed. That fact alone was enough to tell Burke that he was more than competent. With Moore currently MIA, Burke needed a new sergeant.
Even if it was only temporary.
Burke turned and extended his hand to the other man. “Welcome to the Marauders,” he said, as they shook.
“Thank you, Major. I’ll try not to let you down,” Drummond answered with a grin.
Nichols issued them a set of maps for the city of London and the surrounding area, as well as a series of requisition vouchers that would allow them to gather the weapons, ammunition, and rations they would need to make the
trip. Burke handed them off to Drummond, with orders to gather up Cohen and Montagna for a trip to the quartermaster while Burke went to collect their final team member.
THE STOCKADE HAD once been a dairy barn and still smelled like one. The individual stalls had been raised to ceiling height and fitted with doors that came with small viewing slots from which to observe the prisoners, of which there were usually a dozen or so at any given time. Most of them were here for minor infractions like being drunk and disorderly or fighting with a fellow soldier. Those who committed more serious crimes might spend a night or two here while awaiting transport to the main correctional facility out of Paris, but that didn’t happen very often.
The two guards standing outside the facility saluted when Burke approached and then opened the door to admit him. Inside Burke found a third man, the jailer, sitting astride a small stool. From somewhere deeper in the building came the sound of a man singing.
Singing very badly.
Burke handed his orders to the jailer, who glanced at them and then leaped to his feet.
“Thank you, Lord!” he cried, a wide smile spreading across his face. “And thank you, Major!”
For a moment, Burke didn’t understand. Then, “Is that . . . ?” he asked, pointing deeper into the building were the awful caterwauling was coming from.
“Yes, sir, it is, and can I just say how happy I am that you are taking him away from us?” The jailer was positively beaming at the thought of the prisoner being transferred.
Jones could have that effect on people.
The jailer led Burke down the center aisle and stopped before a cell about three-quarters of the way down. The cells all around it were empty; even the army can take pity on people sometimes, it seemed. From inside the cell came the strong smell of cow manure and the singing he’d heard earlier, if it could even be called that. It sounded like a moose was trying to mate with a mountain lion and neither animal was too happy about it.
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