Dogsoldiers

by James Tarr

  Ed stepped through the doorway and blinked as his eyes adjusted. There were three men in the room with him, two of them pointing rifles at the floor near his feet. The third was the man who’d shown himself to Ed. Ed looked at the two men covering him, his face unreadable, not moving his hands from his carbine, then moved his eyes to the tall man with the binoculars around his neck.

  “Theodore,” the man said.

  “Franklin,” Ed said. “You got room at the inn?”

  The tall man’s face cracked open in a huge grin. “Shit, Ed, I thought you were dead. I heard you had a nasty run-in with a Toad.” He stuck out a bony hand and the two men shook.

  Ed shrugged. “Weasel’s got a cracked rib, but we didn’t lose anybody.” Even inside the house they spoke quietly out of habit.

  “The geriatric squad pulls one out again,” one of the two rifle-toters said, slinging his weapon over his shoulder. Ed couldn’t remember his name, Mike or Mark, but he was just a kid, maybe twenty years old. “You move pretty quiet in those silver sneakers.” Someone nearby chuckled. Ed ignored him.

  “Clear to roll ‘em up?” Ed asked.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty quiet today.”

  Ed stepped into the doorway and signaled to George across the street. He couldn’t see George, but he knew he was somewhere over there, hunkered down, watching.

  “You get a call too?”

  Ed stepped back into the darkened room and looked at the tall man. “We’re compartmentalized for a reason, Tony,” was all he said.

  Tony tried to suppress a grin. Ed was still Ed.

  “Jesus,” Mark or Mike said in exasperation, with perhaps just a hint of admiration. His partner leaned his rifle against the wall and pulled out a canteen.

  Tony tried a different tack. “Charlie said everybody was invited.” He looked at Ed with raised eyebrows.

  Ed didn’t change his sour expression, but did say, “Well, then, I guess that includes us.”

  Tony’s eyes rolled up toward the ceiling. “You ever wonder how many of us there are? Not just us ARF Irregulars, necessarily, but who all else is out there. Because you know they’re out there, people that just showed up, on their own, alone or in pairs, guns in hand. I’ve seen them. We’ve all seen them. More at the start of the war, but they’re still out there.”

  “War tourists,” Mark/Mike said dismissively.

  “It’s not tourism if they’re fighting,” Ed said sternly. “Hell, just heading into the city can get you killed whether or not you’ve got a gun in your hands. They’re not getting Uncle Charlie’s intel, but then again if they’re unaffiliated…if our network gets compromised, the Irregulars wiped out cell by cell, it won’t affect them at all. They’ll still be out there stirring up trouble. Fighting for what’s right.”

  “Always the optimist,” Tony said, grinning but shaking his head.

  “You call them ‘war tourists’ now, but those solos were the first ones to fight. They’re the ones who lit the fire. And I’d wager they’ve killed as many Tabs as ARF with its tanks and planes and uniforms, all told.”

  “You think?”

  The squad came in slowly, one man at a time. George was last, signaling to Quentin as he crossed the street at a jog. George stood watch at the corner of Number One, the northernmost house, as Quentin rolled the Ford down the street.

  “Christ, what the hell is that?” Tony exclaimed as he watched the abused SUV slowly hop the curb. Quentin pulled it between the third and fourth houses and cut the engine, hoping it would start back up when they needed it. Just to the south of Number Four was a long, low brick building, a dentist’s office still sometimes open for business, and it shielded the ground floors of the four houses from any prying eyes that might be across the Ditch.

  “We lost our wheels,” Ed told him. “That’s all we could find on short notice.” His squad was spread out among the four houses, as was Tony’s.

  “I’m impressed you could even get it running.” Mark or Mike snickered, and Tony turned toward the young man.

  “Get back upstairs and get an eye on the Ditch,” he said shortly. The boy sobered up immediately and disappeared.

  George stepped into One and found Weasel talking quietly with John, Franklin squad’s SAW gunner.

  “John, how you doing?” George shook his hand, checking him over. The small man looked healthy, and was recently shaved. His equipment appeared in good condition. “Franklin in good shape?”

  “Nothing that couldn’t be fixed by a week on the beach,” John said, his smile missing a few teeth. He’d written FREEDOM ISNT FREE in big block letters with a black magic marker across the back and front of his plate carrier.

  “Sign me up for that too,” Weasel said wistfully.

  “Who’s upstairs with the eye?” George asked.

  “Sheila.”

  “Oh yeah?” Weasel said, glancing at the stairs, suddenly interested.

  George was short with him. “She saw you coming in. If she wanted another go-round with you she’d have come down. And you’ve got birds to clean, we can’t afford for that meat to go to waste.”

  George’s attempt to discourage him had zero effect on Weasel. “She’s on lookout, she can’t come down,” he told George as explanation. “The birds’ll keep for a bit.” He laid pleading eyes on John. “Can you relieve her?” he begged.

  George patted John on the shoulder and made his way through the house and out the side door. Number Two’s side door was about twelve feet away directly across a narrow driveway that was half weeds. George quickly crossed the space and had to blink as bright sunlight was once again replaced by dim interior. Mark, Early, and the new kid were all inside the front room of the stuffy house, talking to two of Tony’s men. Tony’s kids, really; not one member of the squad was over twenty-five. Franklin and Theodore had only worked together once, about six months previous, and Tony’s young people had been competent, if a bit overeager for George’s taste.

  “Gentlemen,” George said with a nod all around. Jeff and Tavon, he was pretty sure those were their names. They seemed in good spirits.

  “How long you reckon we’re here, Cap’n?” Early asked George. He was keeping watch through tattered curtains pulled across the living room window.

  “Just long enough,” George told him. Early nodded. No one who had any experience liked to spend time close to the Ditch. Too much chance of being noticed. And they’d packed a lot of Irregulars into a very small space, which was never a good idea. “You check if there’s any water?” George asked the big man.

  “I think there’s a little bit left in the trap,” Jeff said.

  “Don’t suppose y’all got any extra ammo laying around?” Early asked.

  “We’re a little short of that ourselves,” Tavon admitted. “I was just about to ask you.”

  “You okay?” George asked the young man. Tavon actually carried a Tavor; George was convinced that was God making some sort of cosmic joke. The Israeli-designed bullpup rifle looked odd, but was fed by standard AR-15 magazines. He wondered how many of the kid’s ammo pouches actually contained loaded magazines. Jeff carried an RPG, a launcher and three cone-shaped rocket-propelled grenades. It was an AirTronic copy of the classic Russian model, the design now more than seventy-five years old. The grenades themselves had been upgraded over the years, and would defeat most light armor. Toads, unfortunately, weren’t lightly armored except in a few, very hard-to-hit spots.

  “Can’t complain,” Tavon said with a shrug, then smiled and added, “but sometimes I still do.”

  George’s brows moved together, and he looked at Mark, who had a strange expression on his face.

  “My Maserati does one-eighty-five,” George astonished the young men by singing softly. His voice was a little gravelly, but even.

  “I lost my license, now I don’t drive,” Mark sang out, finishing the verse for him. Jeff, Tavon, and Jason all swiveled their heads around to look at the SAW gunner, as he and George burst out in harmony, “Lif
e’s been good to me so far….” Stunned silence greeted their spontaneous outburst.

  “Was that a song?” Jason finally asked.

  “Christ,” Early muttered.

  “Yes, it’s a song,” George growled, scowling. “You never heard of Joe Walsh? How about The Eagles?”

  “What’s a Maserati?” Jeff asked.

  Mark made a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. “I’m going to go kill myself now,” he announced, and stomped out of the room.

  George traded a commiserating look with Early and then carefully picked his way through the jagged hole in the kitchen wall. He stepped out next to Franklin’s transportation wedged between Two and Three. The Toyota was dusty and a bit dented but overall appeared in good condition. George felt a pang of envy.

  He stepped through the matching hole in the red bricks of Three—he didn’t know if it had been a grenade or something else that had damaged both houses, but other than the two ragged holes in their brickwork the four residences were in good shape. Inside Three he found Bobby, Quentin, and Arnold, one of Tony’s people. Arnold was a legendary asshole to anyone and everyone he met, but he’d proven himself under fire time and time again. The thick man hadn’t shaved in three days and sported a nearly full beard. He was happily eating a military nutro-bar and, of course, the thought of asking if anyone else wanted a bite never occurred to him.

  “Hey Bodycount,” he said to George, his mouth full of food. “Thought you fellas had your tickets punched by a Toad.”

  George gritted his teeth at the old nickname. “Just a little banged up, that’s all,” George said, never stopping. He found Ed in Number Four conferring with the other squad’s leader.

  “George,” Tony said in greeting. He studied the compact man. “Pissed off as usual, I see.” The teenager keeping watch out the back door stifled a laugh.

  “You got a whole squad of comedians here,” George said to him without humor. The young soldier in the room immediately grew serious. The lean intense man had earned the Bodycount nickname.

  Tony smiled and just shook his head, then got back to business. “We’ve been talking about going across. Staggered over an hour or whatever, or all together?”

  “All together,” George said without hesitation. “If anybody is out there watching I want all of us across before they have a chance to plan any surprises. And if they try something, it’ll be both of us pouring fire into them.”

  “Well, I’ll defer to your guys’ judgment,” Tony said, frowning. “You’ve got the experience.” As far as he was concerned, two cars together was far too big of a target, but George wasn’t wrong either. There was no way to cross the Ditch without putting a big target on your back.

  “I don’t want to burn too much daylight here.” George said.

  “No,” Ed agreed. He dug out the small tablet and handed it to George. “That photo we downloaded earlier is over an hour old now. See if you can pull up a more recent one. I’m going to go up and get eyes on.”

  Mark or Mike visibly straightened as Ed paused in the bedroom doorway. Theodore’s squad leader had as much of a reputation as anyone could have in their compartmentalized organization, and the young man eyed him appraisingly as the thin, bespectacled man stood in the center of the dim room and peered out the small window set high in the far wall.

  “You Mark or Mike?” Ed asked without turning around.

  “Mike.”

  Ed glanced over his shoulder at the young man sitting at the table behind the spotting scope, then back out the window. Mike looked nervous.

  “Seen anything?”

  “Half a dozen on foot, and two vehicles in the past half hour or so.”

  “Vehicles?”

  “Passenger cars. Small, scooting along the far service drive.”

  “Hmmm.” Ed lifted his binoculars to his eyes. He was far enough back from the window that light wouldn’t reflect off the lenses, but he still took a careful half step back as he studied the crossing.

  The Interstate known as the Ditch, with its eight lanes split by a four-foot cement wall, was out of sight, a concrete channel carved into the earth thirty feet below street level. Once it had been the area’s busiest road traveled by tens of thousands every day, cutting through the meat of the northern suburbs. No one used it anymore; rubble from damaged and downed overpasses had rendered it impassable, at least to anything larger than motorcycles. The service drives on either side were used regularly.

  The President where it crossed the Ditch was pockmarked by explosive damage so old nobody remembered if it had been caused by grenades, mortars, or an IED. Pedestrians could navigate its span safely, but vehicles had to use the intact crossovers a hundred yards to either side. Residential streets ran off the service drive to the south, the houses so close to the Ditch their second floor windows almost overlooked the abandoned traffic lanes far below. At the southwest corner of the intersection was the wreckage of a gas station, destroyed in a fire near the start of the war. Across the Pres from the station was a small strip mall, the stores now dusty and vacant.

  Ed played his binoculars over the front of the mall first, looking for movement or signs of human occupation, then turned to the houses visible along the service drive. The Army had, in years past, set up observation posts of its own overlooking undamaged crossing points of the Ditch. They themselves were usually spotted within twenty-four hours. What followed was a consistent pattern—harassing sniper fire, usually mixed with well-aimed 40mm grenades and the odd RPG, and in a day or a week the Army would abandon the post. The Army tried using tanks or armored fighting vehicles as mobile OPs at some of the crossing points, but anything the guerrillas couldn’t destroy they just avoided, and those OPs never had anything to report.

  The house closest to the twisted gas pumps showed sign of having been used as an Army OP some time past; its entire second floor had been obliterated by RPGs. Ed let his binoculars drop on their strap, then on second thought pulled them over his head and held them out. “Let me get on that,” he said to Mike. The young man got up from behind the spotting scope, taking the proffered binoculars, and Ed settled in behind the glass. What it lost in field-of-view over the binos was more than made up for by its thirty-power magnification.

  Ed set his glasses on the table so he could get his eye closer to the scope and adjusted the focus on its eyepiece. The shabby houses across the ditch jumped out at him, their siding shimmering in the heat mirage. He studied the black rectangles of their windows, looking for glints of light, movement, anything that might indicate the crossing was under surveillance. After ten minutes his eye hurt and he was starting to get a headache.

  He pulled his head back from the spotting scope and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know how snipers do it,” he said quietly.

  Mike was standing off to one side, using the binoculars. “Here,” he said. He dug into his pocket and produced a foil-wrapped stick of gum.

  “Thanks,” Ed said in surprise. He hadn’t seen any gum in over a year, and even though the stick was initially hard as ceramic he chewed it with appreciation.

  George popped his head through the doorway, saw Mike, then found Ed with his gaze. “Nothing new,” he told Ed, referencing the satellite photography. “Tony’s good to go, unless you’ve got something.”

  “Probably too much to hope for,” Ed mused. He put his glasses back on and stared out the window. “Other side looks clear. Why don’t you give everybody the heads up. Five minutes.”

  “Roger that.” George’s head disappeared.

  With a grunt Ed stood and moved from behind the table. “All yours,” he told Mike. He stuck a hand out for his binoculars. “You see anything, you let someone know.”

  “Yes Sir.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The word had been passed—five minutes. Jason wasn’t sure why everybody was nervous, but they were, and it was making him twitchy as well. “Did somebody see something?” he asked Early, as the big man checked his kit.

  “I
f they had, we wouldn’t be standing here with our thumbs up our behinds,” Early said. He pointed at the wall in the general direction of the Ditch. “That road ain’t the city limits, but south a it’s where things tend to get excitin’. Once we hit the border, well, that’s a whole ‘nother world.”

  The Ditch was as much a psychological boundary as it was a physical one. To the men in the squads, everything south of the Ditch was enemy territory, even though they were three miles from the actual city limits and plenty of civilians still lived between the Ditch and the Border, as they called the city limit.

  “Don’t worry,” Jeff told him. Jason looked at him, a young man not much older than he was. “When the shooting starts you’ll figure out real quick what to do.” Tavon nodded in agreement.

  “Or you won’t,” Mark said, fiddling with the SAW’s sling. He looked up at Jason. “Either way it’ll be over quick.” Jason didn’t know how to react to the statement, delivered without inflection. Jeff and Tavon just looked at Mark, then busied themselves checking their weapons.

  George stood near the center of the shadowy room, snapping his carbine up to his shoulder, aiming out the empty window frame at a loose brick sitting in the grass about thirty feet away. Tony’s young fighter, Mark, looked on silently in amusement. Tony caught his expression out of the corner of his eye.

  “You see something funny?” he snapped.

  The young man quickly shook his head and looked away. George glanced around, not sure what he’d just missed, then jumped up and down a few times, trying to loosen tense muscles and make sure nothing in his kit rattled. Ed stepped in through the doorway, blinking his eyes. It was a bright sunny day outside, and in comparison the inside of the small houses were dark as caves.

  “Your man in One says it’s all clear,” Ed said. “Time to go.”

  “Back into the fire,” George mumbled, so quietly no one heard.