Dogsoldiers

by James Tarr

  He still wasn’t sure how he’d ended up where he was, a member of the advance unit for a new offensive. They were scouting ahead for enemy positions, trying to gather intelligence on the move as best they could. The squad included the ranking officer of the operation, a curt, professional military veteran, a Captain who had no tolerance for fools. Assisting him were a Lieutenant and a Sergeant, backed up by nine trigger-pullers including, absurdly enough, him. They were one of three or six squads (Ed wasn’t sure), heading slowly but steadily south. Their target was the downtown depot, but they were also tasked with mapping out roadblocks and spotting armor.

  Things had been so crazy and hectic when he’d joined up that no one had time to find out if he knew which end of a rifle the bullet came out of. Their solution was to slap a weapon into his hands which gave him the greatest margin for error. Ed had been horrified to discover he was the proud new owner of a grenade launcher. It looked like a short, fat, single shot shotgun, only the shells were bigger around than jumbo-size eggs, not that he’d seen any of those recently. He’d received all of five minutes of training on how to use it, most of that consisting of instructions on how not to blow himself or any of his teammates into hamburger. He also had a pistol on his hip, and he was even less sure of his ability hit anything with that. But…everyone seemed to have a pistol, it seemed to be a badge of honor in a war that was, at least in small part, about guns.

  You would think he would’ve been used to the smell of unwashed bodies, but for some reason by now that wasn’t the case. So many nervous men, packed in together—the raw stink filled his nostrils, even though there wasn’t a whole pane of window glass left in the house. The temperature had been in the eighties all week—not too hot, but still they were having trouble finding enough water. It had been a hot summer, and all the rain traps were baked dry.

  “Got movement,” one of the lookouts called softly into the house. “Looks like Jasper.”

  The Captain looked up from the maps of the city he was constantly studying. He was a stout, imposing figure, with graying hair shaved to stubble and odd-looking ears that curled out at their tops. “’Bout goddamn time,” he growled.

  The lookout watched the slender, furtive figure hurry up the street, keeping to the shadows as much as possible, checking over his shoulder constantly. In a previous era his worn, dirty clothes would have identified him as homeless or an addict, now he just fit right in with the rest of the wretched populace still stuck in the city. The Captain had been going to give him another two hours and if he hadn’t shown up by then they would have had to move on without whatever information he had. They’d stayed too long already.

  At the news everyone inside the house breathed a little sigh of relief—at least their delay wouldn’t be for nothing. There were eyes everywhere, and every hour in hostile territory increased the chances they’d be discovered. Not that Jasper knew he was holding up seventy-plus men.

  In short order he arrived at the front door, breathless, as if he’d been running. He nearly jumped through the door and darted his head about, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the light. None of the men appeared happy to see him. His appearance had never inspired a lot of confidence.

  “You had me wondering whether or not you’d show up,” the Captain admitted to the new arrival.

  Jasper swallowed and his brows knitted together in worry. “Why?” he said quickly.

  “Because you’re fucking squirrelly, dude,” the Sergeant leaning in the doorway said.

  The Captain shot the NCO a look and turned to their local source. “You seem nervous, and so it makes my men nervous,” he said to Jasper. “Any reason why we should be nervous?”

  Jasper blinked in the dim light of the house, then snorted. “Of course you should be nervous. You’re in Army-controlled territory. And they’ve got tanks. You’d be stupid if you weren’t nervous.” The thin man was speaking quickly, as usual, gesturing wildly with his hands.

  The Captain sighed. “I meant specifically, right now. You were supposed to be finding us a safe route down. Spotting armor, patrols, roadblocks, etcetera. Your so-called inside man give you those patrol routes we were hoping for?”

  “Well, see, that’s the thing,” Jasper began, hopping from one foot to the other.

  The Sergeant rolled his eyes. “Here we go,” he said.

  Jasper gave the man a dirty look, then turned back to the Captain. “No, see, he did. Or he will. He’s supposed to. I just haven’t had a chance to hook up with him yet. He’s been busy or something. But I’m meeting up with him tonight.” He glanced at his watch. “In two hours. He’s gonna have the info for me then.”

  The Captain was not pleased to hear Jasper’s news. “Why didn’t you meet with him first? So you had that intelligence when you showed up here?”

  “I tried, but I couldn’t make that happen. Besides, I didn’t know for sure if you were going to be here. Plans change. Shit happens.”

  “Okay. I’ll send a man with you, for the meet, and—”

  “No,” Jasper said, shaking his head forcefully. “This guy, you think I’m nervous, I’m supposed to show up alone. He sees someone with me and he’s gone.”

  “I’ll have him stay out of sight.”

  Jasper blew a raspberry. “Please. All the empty houses these days, he could be watching from anywhere. He’ll spot your guy, and then he’ll be gone.” He raised a hand. “You just stay here, and I’ll be back before you know it. What this guy’s gonna give you, it’ll help you get right downtown, right on top of them, before they ever know you’re there.”

  Neither the Captain or the Sergeant were happy about having to wait several more hours, but there didn’t seem to be any other option. What Jasper’s source was promising was too valuable not to risk it. So the men watched him scurry away down the street, grumbling, irritated and eager to move on, but stymied.

  “Sir?”

  The Captain looked up. “Yes? It’s Ed, isn’t it?” While he was a new face on the teams, Ed was far from a baby-faced teenager. The man was in his mid-thirties, and did not have the vocabulary of a blue-collar laborer.

  “Yes sir. Sir, I know when it comes to war and tactics I don’t know anything about anything. Never been to West Point or read von Clausewitz…but I have a question. Do you trust him? Jasper.” The man in question had left the house fifteen minutes earlier.

  “Trust him?” The Captain snorted. “I barely trust myself these days.” Ed nodded. “Why?”

  “Because when he was in this house, standing right there, every fiber of my being was telling me to get the hell out. Get away from him.” Ed made a come-hither gesture with his hand and pointed out the nearest window of the house. “That house, right there, at the end of the block. It’s taller than its neighbors, just like this one. Great view of this house. I know we’ve got guns, and drones, but staying here… Put one person there on the second floor, and hide the rest of the squad a couple blocks away out of sight, in a basement or something. Jasper shows up, and nothing looks wrong, he’s all alone, the person in the window there can signal to him when he comes out wondering where the hell we went. Shout, flashlight, whatever. Meet him halfway between the two houses and get whatever intel he has.”

  “Are you always this suspicious?” the Captain asked Ed. His expression was unreadable.

  “This is the first job I’ve had where the competition actually wants to kill me,” Ed told the man. “I’ve been learning on the fly.” He gestured at the other house. “If I’m wrong, no harm no foul, other than Jasper maybe getting his feelings hurt a little bit. If I’m right…” He shrugged expansively. “I’m just saying, whether you trust him or not, he knows exactly where we are.”

  The Captain stared at Ed for thirty solid seconds. “Shit, you’re right,” he said finally. “Sergeant!” he barked.

  “Yes sir?”

  “You remember that Godawful ugly green house we passed on the way here? Maybe half a mile back? Probably less. You think you can find it
again?”

  “With my eyes closed, Captain.”

  “Well, the house next to it was all brick and stone and obviously abandoned. We’re heading there. On the fucking double. Ed here,” he turned to Ed and smiled grimly, “has volunteered to wait on our skittish friend.”

  “Yes sir, glad to hear it sir.” He turned and began getting the rest of the men up. They started pulling down the thick sheets on the walls and stuffing them in packs. The man controlling the eyeball drones that were doing a surveillance pattern over the house hit the recall button.

  The Captain turned to Ed. “You’ve got a flashlight if you need it? Good. Jasper shows up, you give him my apologies for not being here. Pressing, urgent matters elsewhere, yada yada. If it’s not just Jasper who shows up, you either go to ground or you pull back to us, whichever is safer. You remember where that green house is? Think you can find it?”

  “I think so.”

  “Good. Do you know the next rally point, if you can’t make it to the green house?”

  Ed always made a point of studying the Captain’s map whenever it was out, and had paid attention to every Rally Point there and back. “Yes sir.”

  The Captain nodded. Then he pointed at the grenade launcher slung over Ed’s shoulder. “You fire that thing off, everybody within half a mile is going to know exactly where you are. So my suggestion is don’t, unless the alternative is even worse.”

  Which is how Ed came to find himself alone, deep in enemy territory, armed with weapons he wasn’t even sure he could use correctly. He was standing in a dilapidated musty-smelling lilac-painted bedroom waiting for someone to show up. Waiting for something to happen. At first he was terrified, but after an hour of waiting the terror turned to boredom.

  Jasper appeared not quite three hours after he’d left, walking down the sidewalk past Ed’s position. The sun was very low in the sky, but it was reflecting off a bank of low clouds. Jasper didn’t appear as twitchy as before, but he also wasn’t moving very fast. He was heading straight for the rendezvous house, not looking around at all.

  Ed fought the urge to call out to the man as he walked by below, and instead hugged the window frame in the second story bedroom where he’d been waiting rather impatiently. He watched Jasper walk down the block, away from his position and toward the house they’d sheltered in for nearly twenty-four hours. Ed had the grenade launcher in his hands but had no idea what he’d actually do with it if something happened. And what would happen? What could happen? Jasper was alone and either unarmed or toting a pistol small enough to conceal.

  Doing his best not to expose himself, Ed looked out both windows in the bedroom, one facing east, one facing south. He could see where Jasper was heading, and where he’d come from. Nothing was moving in either direction.

  He turned back in time to see Jasper pause briefly, then the man headed across the street and up the walk to the front door of the house where he expected to find the squad. Jasper paused again, then went inside.

  Ed guessed it was less than ten seconds, long enough for Jasper to look around the house and realize that it was, in fact, now empty, before Jasper appeared at the front door. He raised his arm, Ed wondered later if he was trying to wave someone off, then there was a blinding flash and Ed found himself on the floor of the bedroom, the huge crashing boom echoing around the city.

  He struggled to his knees and peered over the windowsill. The house at the end of the block, where they’d all been just a short time before, was now a smoking ruin. The roof was ruptured, and the back of the house was a spray of bricks across the lawn. The explosion hadn’t thrown him down, he was too far away for that; he’d fallen down in shock.

  Thick black smoke poured out of the roof and windows, and after a few seconds he began to see the orange licks of flame. Then Ed spotted Jasper. He was facedown on the grass beside the street. The explosion had blown him thirty feet through the air, and he wasn’t moving. From the unnatural positions of his limbs, it didn’t seem likely he’d ever move again.

  Ed blinked and shook his head. What the hell had happened? If something like that had occurred before the war it would be blamed on a faulty gas main, but here? Now? He squinted, and looked at the hole in the roof. Just as he started to realize a missile had struck the house, he heard the faint sound of a straining diesel engine. Several of them, coming from the south…but heading his way. Fast. Growlers. And something…bigger.

  “Time to go!” he barked to himself, climbing to his feet. Whether he should hide in the basement of the house he was in or try to make it back to the rest of the squad, that was the question.

  They’d never made it to the depot downtown. None of the squads had. Their plan to assault in numbers and ransack the armory was turned on its ear as the government revealed that it could, in fact, do a pretty good job of triangulating the positions even of encrypted frequency-hopping radios. The two-day running gun battle which had resulted could best be described as a fighting retreat, one where the guerrillas had suffered almost fifty percent casualties. But, by the end of it, Ed was a bloodied veteran, and had used the grenade launcher several times to save his life and the lives of others.

  He realized, thinking back on the incident after all this time, that was the last big defeat for what had become the ARF Irregulars. Since that time they’d had losses, sure, but they’d consistently chewed away at the government forces, giving as good or better than they got, on average. No big losses…but no big victories, either. Then again, what would constitute a big victory in what was left of this city? He couldn’t picture it, but Uncle Charlie’s BIG FAMILY REUNION message had him strangely hopeful that things were about to change.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “I don’t actually like it down here, but why aren’t we doing more of this?” Jason whispered to Mark. “Isn’t it safer?”

  For the last twenty minutes they’d been half walking, half crawling through a sewer pipe. It was five feet in diameter, or had been before the bottom six inches was filled with semi-dried muck. After what seemed like forever they reached some sort of collection point. Several concrete pipes of varying diameter met in a rectangular space below street level. Six feet above them was a square ventilated steel cover that let in the first natural light they’d seen since entering the sewer system. While they packed the small space elbow to elbow, all of them were relishing the opportunity to straighten their backs.

  “Is that poop?” Jason had asked, when he’d been about to enter the cement tunnel. It was a stripe of brown sludge a foot wide along the bottom. He’d never even looked inside a sewer pipe before.

  “From who? From what?” Quentin responded. “Nobody left in the city to shit, and none of the toilets are working. That’s just mud.” He smiled. “Although it smells pretty shitty, I’ll give you that.”

  No matter what it was, it was a nightmare to walk through, especially when bent double carrying a rifle and backpack and wearing body armor. Everything about the sewer was nightmarish—the smell, the darkness, the claustrophobia. If he hadn’t had men in front of and behind him, grumbling and grunting and obviously as unhappy as he was, Jason might have panicked. Instead of being scary, it just became shared misery.

  Ed was in the lead, using a flashlight that, even on its lowest setting, provided a surprising amount of light in the obsidian gloom. Weasel, in the rear, had another small flashlight out, and between the two of them there was just enough light to trudge along without bumping into the man in front. Jason was terrified of what would happen if the batteries in their flashlights died, but then he’d remembered Early had a lighter, and somebody else had some sort of fire-starting tool.

  Mark took a drink from his canteen before answering. “Yes, a lot safer. And at the start of the war it was a great way to sneak around without being spotted. The larger trunk lines, I think they’re called, like this one, are big enough to move through, and there are more of them the closer you get to downtown. A few of those are ten feet wide. But the Army figured
out what we were doing real quick. They flooded some, blew up others, put booby traps in a few more, blocked some by pouring concrete or dirt or gravel down manholes. So we’ve only got isolated sections left that we can move through, and nothing close to the Blue Zone or the Army base. The Blue Zone’s blocked off below ground, and aboveground there are Tabs and drones.”

  “You never know from one year to the next which of these pipes are still going to be open,” Weasel added quietly. “City’s not doing any sewer repair, at least not outside the Blue Zone, so every winter and spring some pipes collapse, or flood, or fill up with silt.” He gestured at the floor below them, and smiled. “It’s a crapshoot.”

  His comment was greeted with moans, and his smile grew even wider.

  Jason looked at the various other pipe mouths. None of them was any wider than the one they’d just exited. “How much farther are we going down here?”

  “Another quarter mile, if nothing’s changed since the last time,” Ed told him. “Now stop asking questions and drink some water.”

  They took a twenty-minute lunch break in the ruins of a house that in its day had been quite impressive: two stories, fancy brickwork, a spacious floorplan probably in excess of three thousand square feet. At one point in its history it had been turned into apartments. Now it was crumbled in on itself, a fire having gutted it at least a year before.

  The roof was caved in onto the second floor, and the rear wall was a pile of bricks in the back yard grown through with weeds. Water damage from the rain and the abuse of many harsh winters had turned the plaster walls into an earth-tone kaleidoscope of color. Rats and pigeons and bugs had all at one time or another made the house their home, but after so much time living in ruins the men didn’t even see the broken shell around them as they wolfed down what little food they could spare.