The following days saw torrential rains that battered the soil in thick droplets, and floods sprung up throughout town, water sweeping across the roadways and pooling in soil depressions to form small ponds. Then finally, on a cool morning, the clouds broke to a pale shade of gray, and no rain fell. The next day saw the same conditions, and Karl ordered the advance party to ready for departure. Captain Black was left in charge of Odyssey, and before they left, he showed Karl the area on a map where the captive man had claimed he was heading to a settlement of unknown size. It was north of Alice by several miles, in a municipality called Hightown.
Karl took the map and they left to witness the man’s inauguration into the brotherhood of the Red Hands. The squadron was waiting to depart in the stables, and Karl joined them after the man affirmed his ritualistic oath. The officers and scouts mounted their horses and pulled the reins. The gates opened, and the delegates left for the East.
Chapter Seventeen
Convoy
After the second night sleeping in the woods, the group encountered a highway, and continued to follow roads for the majority of the trip.
The worldwide destruction became more apparent as the wilderness of the South and West gave way to increased towns and cities. Civilization was nothing more than rubble heaps and vacant, dusty shells of buildings. The Priest hummed tunes during the long afternoons, and conversation was subdued. Sultan rode lead with Karl, Liam, and Mark, telling them all the things they already knew about the port town, and some things they did not.
“Commander Sergei Ivanov is the leader, and his two lieutenants, Ivan Volkov and Viktor Petrov, are second in command. Ivanov, Volkov, and Petrov.”
“I been trying for months, and I still can’t get ’em right,” Mark said. “Iva-Ivana?”
“Ivanov,” Sultan continued. “All three are genuine Russian military, and the main battle cruiser is theirs. They came on it, and it houses most of the men. A few live dockside around the guard towers, and the rest live in the other warships. Their main defenses are the ships themselves. Some aren’t docked at the pier, but can only be accessed by boat or raft. They’re like little islands out there, able to shoot at anything on land.”
“How many ships comprise their fleet?” Karl asked.
“About a dozen. Some destroyers, some anti-submarine. These are big ships, General. Fully armed.”
“Are all of the men military?”
“Only a few. The commander’s crew got the disease and died off on their way to the US, all except the lieutenants and maybe a dozen more. Some are from other armies, a few Chinese, but most are homegrown survivors.”
“And they can navigate those vessels?”
“The commander can, and his lieutenants know enough. The others have been taught how to man the guns and run some of the equipment, but actually steering those things—especially the battle cruiser—isn’t an easy task. The main one’s broken down, the reactor’s not working right, which scares the shit out of me, being that it’s a nuclear vessel and all. But the commander says it’s safe, so I trust him. If anyone knows how to work one of those things, it’s him. Them ships, even the smaller cruisers, are like floating cities.”
“I could steer ’em,” Liam said. “No problem. Russian, US, whatever. There’s not a vessel I can’t navigate.”
“All right,” Karl said. “Commander Ivanov, Lieutenant Volkov, and Lieutenant Petrov. Easy enough.”
“You got it, my man.”
Karl found a cigar and lit it, then riffled through his saddlebag for a bottle of dark liquor. “Rum,” he said. “Seems appropriate.” He took a drink, then handed the bottle to Sultan.
***
Days passed, and with them, no evidence of human life. At times, they identified extinguished campfires that could have been days old, but they saw nothing to suggest recent activity. Not even any large game. No deer, and few rabbits and squirrels.
Dead soldiers of unknown nationality littered the land in such numbers that it was impossible to decipher their values. There were plenty of small arms to sort through, and some of the men swapped out what they carried or added to their inventory.
Bishop made a hobby of collecting patches from uniforms, and he stopped every now and again, knife in hand. He took to sewing the national flag patches on the arms of his jacket, and he now had five. Three on his left shoulder and two on his right.
In the collapsed form of a building, they discovered four boxes containing military rations, still vacuum sealed, and the eating was plentiful. They found themselves nearing the East Coast with renewed strength and vigor.
At little more than a crawl, Karl led Bishop, Mark, and Liam near the area where the prisoner had told of a settlement, leaving the rest of the party behind in a wooded field. Before they came upon the town, they heard movement in the woods. Rustling. Voices. They slowed their advance. Bishop was in the lead, and when he raised his fist, Karl froze.
There was an irregular dark shape through the thicket of trees. Movement. A helmeted head. Two, and then three. They backtracked until they were far enough away to speak, and it was decided that Bishop would scout alone. Karl took out a map and selected a location to meet in several hours. The rest of the officers went back to the waiting party, and led the squad to the prearranged area.
As evening approached and the men were settling down, one of the horsekeepers ran into the clearing.
“Karl,” the man said, rubbing his dirty palms together. “You gotta see this.”
Karl followed the man, with Liam and Mark at his heels. About a quarter mile into the woods, they heard rumbling.
“I was looking for a grain field for the horses, and I heard it coming. I ran back as soon as I saw them.”
The men squatted in the brush, their elevation sufficient so that they could see the road ahead. Karl took out his binoculars and steadied himself against the side of a tree. A procession of five vehicles were driving down the road. The lead car and the one in the rear were pickup trucks, and the flatbeds on each were lined with armed men. The vehicles in-between were cargo vans, military issued, and the one in the middle was long, cylindrical, and shiny.
“What the hell you suppose they’re carting?” Mark whispered.
“No clue. Liquid. Fuel or water.”
“I’ll round up the men. We can overtake them.” Mark began to stand.
Karl counted the armed soldiers on the back of the trucks as the vehicles passed.
“No,” he said. “We’d never catch up. Plus, those men look clean, well-fed. Genuine military. We might outnumber them, but they’d kill at least half of us.”
“We could catch up. I’ll lead ten men now, fast through the woods. We’ll intersect them a half mile down, cut them off. You can take up the rear, and we’d have them all dead as a doornail before they knew what was coming.”
“Sometimes, Mister Rothstein, it’s better to wait and watch. They’re heading from Hightown, due south.” Karl found his map in his pocket, and trailed his finger over the page. “If they keep course, veer a few miles to the west … here, on this road, the convoy leads straight to Alice. Hightown and Alice … they’re allies, I presume. Send a scout to follow them, and leave someone watching the road. Make sure they stay far away. Let’s go back and wait for Bishop.”
Chapter Eighteen
Sergeant Marcus
Bishop returned at dawn. They compared notes, inspected a map, and then he was allowed four hours of sleep before leading the officers to a vantage point overlooking Hightown. The climb up the hill was tough, but once at the peak, the scene was incredible.
The walls were metal and cement, with hardened bunkers lining the tops in perfect intervals. Bishop had spent the night tracing the perimeter. The town was partially bordered with water, an immense bay to the northeast that fed into the ocean.
“We’d never overtake them,” Mark whispered. He removed a small backpack and passed out high-calorie survival bars, followed by a canteen.
“Patience, Mister Rothstein. Patience.” Karl unwrapped the silver foil and took a bite of the rock-hard bar. He soured his face and said, “Is this thing wood?” He tapped it against a rock and continued. “We know nothing about them; who these people are, what their ambitions may be.”
“Look like army to me.”
“Yes.” Karl peered through binoculars. “Look there, east of the wall … are those hummers? And … a tank?”
“Appears so,” Liam said. “What’s the plan?”
“Plan? No plan. Not yet. We sure as hell can’t attack them head-on. We might break through down in Alice, if the defenses are what we’ve been led to believe. But up here? Not a chance. And if these two colonies are connected, if they’re allies, our efforts will require something outside of a direct assault. What we need is more information. For now, we continue to the docks.”
***
Back at camp, Karl and the officers met with Sultan and the Priest and explained what they could see of Hightown. A soldier sitting on the broad side of a fallen tree interjected in their conversation. “You say they’re military?”
Karl looked to Sergeant Iain Marcus.
“It appears so.”
Iain played with a thin stick against the ground. The tip of his pointer finger was missing below where the nail would be.
“If they’re military, a direct assault would be the hardest battle we’ve fought, and victory isn’t certain. Overtaking them like how we took the bunker is the best plan. We were lucky then, because the people were ripe for revolt, and they were stupid enough to let us walk right in. Judging from what you’ve explained of this colony, and what we know of Alice, there’s nothing to suggest these settlements are on the verge of an uprising. They won’t be kind to strays. Getting in will require a degree of tactical know-how that we have not yet employed.”
Karl stared at the man for a moment, and then said, “Quite a knowledgeable observation. By my own experience, the hearts of men can always be turned. There are regularly a few with dark ambitions. The key is to find them, strengthen their resolve, and make the rest of them whither from within. Tell me, how do you know any of what you’ve said?”
The man shrugged, and looked up from the random designs he was carving in the dirt. He scratched at an old scar running the length of his cheek, leading to his gray and dusty hair. “If the men are military, they’ll be under order,” Iain said, “and if anything, the military knows how to follow orders. They’ve survived this long because they have strong leadership. It’s safe to assume they keep to their own, are dedicated to the civilization they have created, and are fiercely loyal to their command.”
“Mister Marcus,” Karl said, “you were in the military yourself, am I correct?”
“Sir. Yes, sir. I think I could be of help.”
“How so?”
“If they’re military, genuine US military, there’s a chance they’ll talk to another soldier. If I can get an encounter with a few of them alone, I might be able to strike an accord.”
They were silent for a moment. Then Karl said, “Come closer. Take a seat. Let me hear what you got.”
Chapter Nineteen
Harbor
Camp was broken down at dawn the following morning, and the men mounted their horses.
As the scouting party began to disappear in the thick woods, Iain Marcus and three soldiers stayed behind.
The last thing Karl said to him was, “Don’t fail me,” and he pulled on his reins.
A few yards away, Liam asked, “You think he’ll get in?”
“I think he has a logical plan. Whether he gets himself behind the gates as a friend or as a prisoner is yet to be seen.”
Liam spat tobacco juice to his side. “True enough. Might do us well to have a backup plan.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there, Mister Briggs.”
As their journey progressed, the wilderness diminished, and soon they were in an urban terrain. The body count here was impressive, with whole town squares and parks turned into scenes of macabre fascination. At noon, they stopped in the shade of a department store, the shattered glass before the skeleton doorframe covered in a layer of dust. Two men went inside as the rest of the party filled buckets of water for their horses.
The great majority of the parking lot was cordoned off, with strips of bright yellow caution tape stretching from one telephone pole to the next, and torn strips fluttering in the breeze. Larger neon signs read:
CAUTION POTENTIAL BIOHAZARD PRESENT
A geometric design indicating a biohazard was underneath the lettering.
An orderly operation had been underway in that parking lot, with hundreds of decayed corpses in body bags, wrapped in sheets, dressed in full clothing, robes, nightgowns, underwear, business suits, military camouflage, and hazmat suits, arranged in perfect rows. Hives of winged insects floated over the blacktop in dark clouds. Whatever association had started this cleanup was no longer present, the disease unsparing to even the most careful, and many of the bodies in protective gear could have belonged to the same people responsible for this organized mess.
Several white tents were erected in various places, and a few of the men went to inspect the ones on the outskirts, but nothing was left behind except old biohazard suits and barrels of chemicals.
In a second section of the parking lot were four massive incinerators. A metal conveyor belt preceded each, and a line of bodies remained on the tracks. Industrial trucks, backhoes, and small cranes sat cold and idle, along with a line of dump trucks with their cargo in various stages of fill. It appeared that at some stage this operation was augmented by the addition of two massive pyres, both left half burned.
Resting at a fair distance, Doctor Freeman removed his leather-bound binder and a cloth containing an assortment of charcoals, and began sketching the scene before him.
Karl watched him for a few strokes, then leaned his head against the side of the building and closed his eyes.
The rest of the men took to lighting cigarettes and cigars, and a few meandered inside the department store, but came back empty-handed.
Twenty minutes later, Karl opened his eyes. “Saddle up,” he said, and the men left.
***
The docks were on the outskirts of a residential area, the once manicured lawns now shin-high grasses and weeds. Sultan took lead, and he turned to Karl with a smile. “Almost there, my man. Right this way.”
A few blocks further they passed under an overpass, and on the other side they came to the fenced entrance of a proper US military naval base. Two ceremonial cannons were displayed, one on each side of the gate. Sultan walked his horse to the guard post, and a man stood from behind the glass-enclosed booth.
“Sultan,” he said, strapping a rifle over his shoulder. “That you?”
“In the flesh.”
The guard stepped out from the booth. “Welcome home.”
“Ha!” Sultan said, shining down a mouthful of white teeth. “Home … the world is my home, my man. I never left it.”
Another guard appeared and exchanged pleasantries, and the two men began sliding back the tall chain-link fence. More soldiers appeared, five or six, all dressed in full military fatigues and armed with rifles and side arms. Sultan introduced a few to Karl and the officers, and the congregation continued through the gates.
The guard stepped into his booth to speak into a microphone, and when he returned, he said, “I sent word. The commander will be expecting you by the boats.”
Beyond the checkpoint, they followed a wide lane lined with row after row of military housing and facilities. They were all painted the same drab color of tan, and other than some having more windows than others, they were identical.
They continued riding down the road for many minutes, and the size of the base became apparent. A city of its own, complete with a park and baseball diamond, a boarded-up convenience store, and even a once working gas station.
They came around a turn, and befor
e them the sea overtook the horizon. The dock extending out from the mainland was more of a bridge, with two vehicle lanes going down the center, protruding for what looked like a half mile out. Ships of assorted sizes were moored in intervals, and at the end, the jetty split into three lanes like a trident. The ships anchored there were like floating metropolises.
Along their march through the base, only a handful of the dock’s men were visible, but now at the harbor, dozens were walking about. Tables lined the waterfront, and more were being brought out from a nearby building. Soldiers followed, carrying pitchers of water, bottles of wine, and a rack of glasses.
Karl and his men dismounted their horses, and the horsekeepers were led away by the dockworkers to an area of grassland for the animals to graze.
Just as Sultan led Karl and the men to the tables, the faint sound of an engine could be heard. The men turned to watch two jeeps advance from the far stretch of the dock. They parked at the entrance to the mainland, and the engines were turned off, filling the air with silence.
The doors opened and six men stepped out, dressed the same as the others: olive drab pants and shirts, black boots, and holstered sidearms. One man walked quicker than the others, and smiled at Sultan.
“Finally,” he said in a whispered purr of a Russian accent, and shook Sultan’s hand.
“Commander,” Sultan said returning the smile. “Here’s the man of the hour. Meet General Karl Metzger.”
The man, standing a full head shorter, turned to Karl. He first saluted, then reached out to shake. “General,” he said. “Welcome.”
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