by James Tarr
“More like a thousand. And better than nothing.”
George shrugged noncommittally. “Thirteen hand grenades, mostly frags, plus eleven rounds for your grenade launcher. We grabbed three M4 carbines that look older than I am, but at least that means they were never fitted with chips. I’m thinking we pull the bolt carriers out of two for parts and give the third to Jason.”
Ed continued shaking his head as he stared at all the looted gear. “Jesus, we’re rich.”
Early knelt in the dim living room and helped Jason wrestle on the gear someone had stripped from a fallen soldier specifically with the young man in mind. There was a spot of blood on one strap that Jason eyed warily, but he didn’t say anything as Early helped him into the uncomfortable harness. He hated the new rifle they’d given him, it didn’t point naturally at all, but he knew he’d have to get used to it.
Early helped him stuff the pouches of the vest with magazines for the rifle and then told him to walk around so he could get used to the weight. Between the armor plates and magazines and the four full canteens it was a struggle for Jason even to get to his feet. Early hid a smile and watched the kid walk away, then turned to peer out the back windows of the house.
“Early?”
“Yeah?”
“Why don’t we take prisoners? Why were Weasel and George killing their wounded?”
Early looked and saw the teenager was seriously bothered. “Well, there’s two answers to that. First one is…where would we take them? It’s not like we’ve got a base. Or vehicles to transport them. We wander around, causing trouble, living in empty houses and borrowed basements, and then when the cold rolls in either do more of the same or we hol’ up with friends or relatives or in our own houses, far away from the trouble.”
“We could let them live, let the Army treat their injuries.”
Early nodded. “And that’s the other part of it. At the start of the war we let them be, tried to do the civilized thing. Let the Tabs recover their wounded. Not now. Not after ten years. Because they just keep coming back, like the tide. At this point we’ve all realized we’re in a war of attrition—that means neither side is going to surrender, the war only ends when one side has been ground down so much they’ve got no one left who can fight. They’ve had their chance. Any Tabs still fighting are either too mean or too stupid to know they’re on the side of evil.”
“And after the war? In any other war, you capture POWs, at the end of the war you send ‘em home. Which is somewhere else, a whole ‘nother country. Over there somewhere.” He waved his hand vaguely. “After World War II the Germans were sent back to Germany, where they could be Germans, and be nowhere near us. That’s not what this war is. The Tabs live here; win or lose, they’re not going anywhere. Even if they’re not fightin’, and we’re all peaceable and neighborly, they’ll still believe the same things that caused the war in the first place—socialism, communism, vegan grocery bags, twenty-seven genders, guns are evil, America has never been great, never hit back, government should be in charge of everything, all of it. That’s not peace or victory, that’s just a temporary ceasefire. Their beliefs aren’t just evil, they’re a poison, a cancer, a rot. Winning doesn’t just mean the war stops, we want to have a healthy country after all this.”
“It ain’t pretty, son. It ain’t even nice. Maybe it’s our own brand of evil. You don’ like it? Good. That means you’ve got a soul. But it’s the only way we not just win the war, but win the peace afterward.”
“Cap’n?” Ed turned to see Early squatting nearby. The squad leader was sitting on the floor in the kitchen, studying his map.
“Yeah Earl?”
“We spendin’ the night here?”
Ed looked out the small kitchen window, then glanced through the doorway into the dining room. Mark was up on the second floor again, and George was somewhere out behind the house keeping an eye on their back door. The rest of the squad, having received their share of the gear, had spread out through the house. Ed caught snatches of their murmuring conversations and wished they’d get some rest, but they were probably still as wired as he was. He hadn’t heard a helicopter in almost an hour, but it was far too easy for him to imagine an armored search column rolling right for them. He hadn’t been able to sleep properly since he’d put on his first plate carrier.
“Yeah. I’d like to put more distance between us and the column, but they’re going to have high-flying fixed-wings and probably a satellite or two spinning overhead all night looking for something that looks bomb-able. Or missile-able, if that’s a word. We were a little too lucky today. Twelve KIA without so much as a scratch. Well, one scratch. And who knows how many with Weasel’s little present.” Although at least one of the soldiers had been killed by the unknown sniper. Ed would like to have a talk with him. Or her, he’d known two women over the years who had racked up a lot of kills behind a scope. Sniper-initiated ambushes were actually a military tactic, except Ed didn’t like surprises. Then again, would the patrol have passed by without spotting one of his men? Maybe not. Maybe that’s why the sniper had fired.
The tanned southerner nodded, and squinted at the window. “Thought I’d head out for a bit, see if I can’t find us something to eat.” He patted the suppressed .22 pistol in the holster under his arm.
Ed chewed on his lip for a while in thought.
“We’ve been running on empty for almost a week, Cap’n,” Early said in a quiet voice. “It’s a big city. Lot a people still running around that don’t want nothin’ to do with the war. One man alone, even if they spot me from the air, ain’t gonna give ‘em much pause. I’ll leave the rifle here.”
Ed chewed his lip for another second, then nodded. He stuck a finger at Early.
“You watch yourself. For some reason you get cut off, don’t try to make it back here. You know where we’re going.” He rubbed his nose, then looked past Early. There was no one else in sight.
“Jason?” he asked pointedly.
Early looked his leader in the eye as he responded. “Boy was scared spitless, but he stood up and fought when there was fightin’ to do.” He paused. “And hit what he was aiming at, at least once. Saw that much.”
Ed sighed and looked back out the small window. He could see part of a wispy cloud scudding across the blue sky, and listened to the hum of insects on a late summer afternoon. When he looked back at Early his eyes were weary. “Do what you can to keep him safe.”
Early smiled, flashing his big white teeth. “Be back in a bit,” he said.
Jason near the back door, saw him heading out and stood up. Early waved him back. “You stay here, keep outta trouble,” he told the boy.
“Where are you going?”
“Shoppin’,” Early said with a grin. “Practice working that new rifle, shoulderin’ it and flippin’ the safety off. You don’t want to be fumblin’ with it the next time bullets are whuppin’ by your head.” He silently stepped into tall grass of the back yard, slipped between two bushes, and disappeared from sight.
Two hours later Jason was sitting with Ed and Quentin in the downstairs hallway. He was sitting there in armor, with a new rifle, surrounded by dogsoldiers, still having flashbacks of the gunfight…and even with all that, he was bored. They’d been stuck in the house for hours, and now they were going to be spending the night there. He had no cards, no book to read (he’d checked the house) and had practiced shouldering his M4 until his shoulder and hands were sore. So he sat. And thought.
“Sir?” he finally said.
Ed looked up. He’d been daydreaming. “Yeah?”
“I saw a couple of radios with those soldiers. How come we didn’t grab one, to listen in on them?” He figured there was a good reason, he just had no idea what it was.
Ed nodded. “SOP—standard operating procedure—for the Tabs, when they’ve suffered an ambush or had any other sort of incident where they think a radio might have been snagged by us, is to immediately switch channels. All those radios are encrypte
d, which means to even listen in on a new channel you’ve got to punch in a code. Which we don’t have.”
“And we’re not sure they can’t triangulate our position with one of those things,” Quentin added.
“They kicked our asses at the start of the war,” Ed told the young man. “We had encrypted burst transmitters, military grade, and even though they couldn’t understand what we were saying, they could triangulate our position. We ate a lot of missiles, and lost a lot of people before we figured out how they were locating us, and we figure they could do the same with one of their radios if we took it. It’s not that we don’t have more high-tech gear, we just can’t use it. We’re low tech because it keeps us alive.”
“What the hell is this?” Weasel studied the brown chunk in his hand as he chewed. “I can’t tell if it’s supposed to be a brownie or beef jerky.”
Mark had his head tilted back against the wall and rolled it over so he could see what Weasel was talking about. “I don’t know. What’s it taste like?”
The hawk-faced man chewed for a while. “Cardboard,” he concluded finally.
“Then it’s a brownie,” Mark told him. “The beef jerky tastes like dirty socks.”
“You get some?” Weasel held up what was left of the bar.
“I got an entrée, some noodle thing, and a packet of crackers. I don’t know if I want to eat it or not, I think it’ll be just enough to remind my stomach how hungry I am.”
“I hear that.”
The two men were sitting in the upstairs hallway with their backs to opposite walls. They’d tacked up the heat-reflecting sheets on the ceilings in the hallway and the front bedroom, and had the wet mildewed mattress leaning up against the wall in the hallway, just in case. They could pull it down over them in just a few seconds. Quentin’s rifle lay beside Mark. It looked small compared to the SAW, which was still set up on its bipod on a table looking down out a second-floor window. Quentin was with it, taking his turn on watch.
Mark scratched at his forearm, and Weasel’s eye was drawn to his tattoos. He squinted in the dim hallway.
“What’s that?” he asked.
Mark looked down and twisted his arm. The black and red design was now no more than an unreadable splotch. “That’s sign of a misspent youth,” he said. “Was part of a biker gang. Used to think I was tough.” He snorted. “Then I got married and had kids. Tough is getting a real job and sticking to it even if it sucks, and then working double shifts of suck, so there’ll be food on the table and money for clothes.”
“Kids? I thought you just had one.”
Mark stared down at his tattoo, then rubbed a hand self-consciously over the artwork. “I had two boys, teenagers. Toby got killed in the riots. Still not sure what happened. My wife left with the younger to live with her sister until ‘all the craziness stopped.’ That’s how she put it. That was years ago.”
“How are they doing?”
Mark shook his head. “Haven’t spoken to them since November. Fine, then.”
The two men sat in silence for several minutes. Somewhere outside they could hear a blue jay protesting loudly. “I don’t have anybody. Not any more,” Weasel said after a while, looking up at Mark. Mark returned his gaze but didn’t say anything. “I…I don’t know if that’s better or not,” Weasel finally finished.
Mark didn’t answer him, and both men stared at the floor, alone with their thoughts.
“I remember when I used to run five miles for fun,” Parker gasped, the sweat streaming down his face. He looked at the readout on the treadmill as he cooled down after his workout. Three miles, at ten minutes a mile. Pathetic. But still better than not jogging. And he hadn’t thrown up, so there was that.
Lydia was on the treadmill next to him and she’d kept up with him effortlessly. Well, maybe not effortlessly, but she wasn’t gasping, and she wasn’t sweating as much as she was glistening. She gave him a smile, and her big white teeth were brilliant.
“It’s not like you’ve been sitting on your ass watching TV and eating Cheetos, General,” she told him. He gave her a small smile. She’d been telling him almost since they’d met that he should be a General, with all the responsibilities he had, and she liked calling him that when no one else was close enough to hear.
“Still,” he said. He glanced around. He had a four-man security detail—one man by the front door of the big gym, the only formal gym in the Blue Zone, one by the back near the locker room, one about twenty feet away trying to be inconspicuous, and one waiting in the Growler outside. She was the reason he’d started working out again, after however many years it had been. She was younger than him by five years, but looked at least ten years his junior. In her white athletic top and black yoga pants she looked simply fabulous, and he didn’t think she was wearing anything under those pants. Oof. If he ever met the man who had somehow convinced women everywhere yoga pants weren’t lingerie and were acceptable to wear in public he’d put him in for a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
She noticed him checking out her ass, which he did frequently. “You want to do another mile? Looks like you’ve still got some energy.”
“No, please, I surrender. You win. Let’s hit the showers, then maybe we can walk down Grand and grab a cup of coffee? I don’t have time to do much more than that today.” Coffee was too damn expensive to splurge on a cup just for himself, but he’d happily spend the money on her.
“Absolutely.” Him ending up behind her as they walked toward the locker rooms was no accident.
He’d never been with an African-American woman before, and he’d treaded very carefully, doing his best to make sure he never said or did anything that could be construed as offensive, sexist, culturally insensitive or, God forbid, racist. Until she’d made it clear that she had no time for the political correctness that seemed to be strangling the officer corps of the military.
“Of course this skirt looks good on me!” she’d told him after he’d given her a vague compliment on her outfit prior to them heading out to dinner on their third or fourth date. “I’ve got a black girl’s ass. And it’s a good thing, too, since I’m a black girl. Wouldn’t be right to have some flat-as-a-board white girl’s butt, I’d have to go around calling myself Britney or Karen and talk about Starbucks and soccer or whatever.” If he remembered correctly, it was that night after the dinner and wine they’d first had sex. And he’d quickly learned she was completely unconcerned with gender pronouns or racial stereotypes when they were behind closed doors and naked.
Twenty-five minutes later they were walking up 2nd Avenue toward West Grand. The huge 15-story Cadillac Place office complex was on their right, and the massive 30-story tower of the art deco Fisher Building was directly in front of them. Two of the men followed behind them in the Growler, while one was on foot in front and behind. There were a few people walking on the sidewalks in the warm afternoon sun, and the occasional vehicle, making this part of the city appear almost normal.
Directly across from them was the front entrance to the Fisher Building. The façade was three stylish stories of glass panes with gold lattice figurines just above the doors and black stone ravens on the exterior columns. The massive edifice was on the National Register of Historic Places and had somehow, so far, come through the war unscathed. Parker didn’t feel like walking a block to the nearest pedestrian walkway over the street, so he waved the Growler forward and had it block traffic as he and Lydia walked across West Grand. It was three eastbound and three westbound lanes separated by a grassy boulevard dotted with low trees.
Foot traffic passed in both directions, and there was actual vehicular traffic as well, personal vehicles as well as delivery trucks. West Grand was perhaps the busiest street in the city during business hours as so many corporations and city departments had their offices in nearby buildings. There were regular foot patrols in the area, to keep the civilians feeling happy and secure, as well as a few static posts that were more for visibility than function.
Comp
ared to anywhere else in the city the foot and vehicular traffic made it seem like rush hour in Manhattan, but he’d heard from locals that even this relatively bustling area of the city was but a shadow of its former self. The Cadillac Place office building was mostly empty; the same was true of the Fisher Building, New Center One next to it…in fact, that could be said of most of the Blue Zone. Even with the military protection, being inside a war zone was hard on people and business. War was hard on people and business.
Like many skyscrapers and high-rises the footprint of the Fisher Building was actually rather small. It’s 100,000 square feet of space was due to it rising thirty stories above the street, and one story below.
As the local combined TV and radio station broadcast out of the building the military treated it like a potential terrorist target, even though there’d never even been unsubstantiated threats against the facility. Nevertheless there were jersey barriers and dragon’s teeth in front of all four entrances, north, south, east, and west, and there was usually a manned Growler or IMP parked in front of the Fisher, or nearby.
Parker led Lydia between two of the concrete barriers and then held the door open for her. He nodded at the men in the Growler parked at the curb about fifty feet away. The three-story lobby of the building was just amazing, and had won a number of awards when it had been constructed over a century before. The vaulted ceiling was richly decorated and he’d once heard they’d used forty different kinds of marble. The lobby walls and hallway ceilings were covered with artwork including eight-foot-tall tile mosaics. Parker spotted two additional soldiers loitering at the security desk near the entrance. They straightened up when they saw him, and saluted. He nodded as he and Lydia walked by.
The independently-owned coffee shop was deep inside the building, and even with the outrageous prices did a steady business, as it was one of the few places inside the city to find coffee. Still, Parker winced inwardly at the near fifty-dollar bill for two large cups of the stuff. Just one more reason to hate capitalism.