“We’ve got the infected trying to make the human race extinct and now these Real Americans jumping in to make our job even harder.” Jeff said sounding frustrated. It was an awkward topic to discuss around Jeff since he’d been the one who’d orchestrated the government breaking away from the people in the first place. He’d basically been the catalyst for groups like the Real Americans to have formed.
“We need to go talk to them.” Yue said.
“Or just shoot them all.” Harley said cheerfully. He was all about turning the other cheek. However, this particular group had sent men to kill him and the people under his protection. They’d very nearly succeeded. He was good with seeing the Real Americans in a real big hole. Jeff was shaking his head though.
“No. Yue’s right. We need to go talk to them. They’re obviously not going to come to us. I’m not going to sanction killing them unless it’s a last resort. Plus the Real Americans are just one group. Who knows how many others there are. If we can convince them then we can bring the others over too. We need every able bodied person we can get if we want to retake the country. I was a big part of creating groups like them. I’ll go and try to fix it.” Jeff said.
“I’m going with you.” Yue said.
“I was hoping you’d say that. You’re so much better than me at this kind of stuff.” Jeff said smiling.
“I’ll tell our interviewers to try and find out how to get in contact with them. We can arrange a neutral place to meet.” Lindsey added. Yue mentally added that to her own list of things to do. Lindsey looked like she was reconsidering the whole not pressing the pain button thing.
“Excellent. Once we have their leadership in a nice neutral place to talk to us, we can knock them out with one bomb then tell the rest of them to join us or else.” Harley said grinning. Despite the big smile on his face they all knew he wasn’t joking. He was trying to look like he was making light of it, but the grin pasted on his face looked more like something you’d see pasted on the face of a great white.
Chapter 10: Pass the Peace Pipe
“This guy has an inflated sense of self-importance.” Yue commented as her and Jeff walked down the corridors leading to the exit from the base. It’d taken a couple of days to get in touch with the leader of the forces Kernel Schmidt and crew had been part of. The man leading them was a General Rattigan. A quick search of the Weathertop database had spit out an unremarkable career by a man who was a fourth generation career civil servant. Reading his dossier Yue could barely believe that this man could the rabble rouser his men were making him out to be.
“I hope he’s sending us a signal. Appomattox is where the rebels surrendered in the Civil War. I’m hoping that he wants to rejoin the union before more Americans die over nothing.” Jeff answered Yue.
Yue looked thoughtful before responding. “Yeah, thanks I’d figured out the whole Appomattox symbolism thing. AP US History for the win. This guy has quite the ego if he thinks a few hundred men make him Robert E Lee. Hopefully he’s not making it seem like he wants to surrender just to get us to drop our guard.”
The power couple exited the base and marched briskly up the inclined concrete entryway. They were headed up to where the chinook was waiting with a full complement of the suicide squad to accompany them to the historic courthouse. LeBron greeted them as they approached the helicopter. It was a diplomatic mission, but he was dressed in his standard field gear as was everyone else. Long gone were the days of showing up in a suit and tie. Shaun was the POTUS now and he still slept with a pistol strapped to his leg. It was the apocalypse not a cocktail party.
“You get the symbolism, right?” LeBron asked as soon as Yue was within hearing range. When she nodded with a little half-smile, he seemed to deflate a little bit. He’d obviously thought he had himself some final jeopardy level knowledge on their destination. With nothing else to discuss they boarded the helicopter and took their seats.
A short time later they were hovering over the overgrown fields surrounding the famous courthouse. Looking down there was no one in view on any of the fields. Checking his watch Jeff noted they were early for the meeting. Selecting one of the fields at random he ordered the pilot to set them down so they could get setup. The general was either going to show up or he wasn’t.
Jeff wasn’t too worried about getting stood up. The general had way more to gain by meeting with them than by standing them up. Jeff was willing to bury the hatchet over the attack on the train. Or at least he would be as long as the general gave a decent reason why he’d ordered it. Jeff also expected the man to be genuinely apologetic about having ordered it. If this Rattigan couldn’t express remorse over killing the brave men and women who’d been on the train, then Jeff might consider option two. In option two the general and his escort didn’t get to leave the field alive.
“They’re coming.” The information was transmitted into everyone’s ears by the man sent to provide overwatch from the top of the courthouse. He’d had Yue check the large structure before he went up to the roof and miraculously enough it’d been crawler free.
Jeff, LeBron, Harley and Yue walked over to the main road. There was a gaggle of guards in a semicircle behind them. That didn’t count all the others who were watching through the scopes of high powered sniper rifles. It also didn’t count the men manning the machine guns and rocket launchers over in the chinook. If this turned out to be a trap, then the people coming up the road in the two Humvees were screwed. The men stood silently waiting as the Humvees rolled to a stop.
“I take it you’re Jeff.” Said the tired looking white haired man who’d gotten out of the Humvee and walked across the field to stand in front of them. He definitely didn’t look anything like the rebel fighter Yue had envisioned. He didn’t even look as healthy or well put together as the decidedly average picture on his service jacket. He looked like an alcoholic grandpa with one of those diseases that’s really hard to spell.
“That’s correct sir. I assume you’re General Rattigan?” Jeff asked politely. He moved in closer with his hand extended to be shaken. The old man left him hanging.
“You’re the same Jeff who wrote up the plans to abandon the American people when they needed their government the most? The one who pulled out the military and hoarded all the supplies?” General Rattigan asked aggressively. Thinking option two might end up being the way to go Yue ran her fingers through her hair a few times. That was the signal they’d worked out ahead of time for the snipers to go hot. The casual gesture was leading to safeties being flicked off and rounds being chambered.
“I was put in charge of the redistribution of supplies to ensure the government could survive the first wave of the infection. I helped draft plans that protected the government so that the government could then go back and help the people. It wasn’t ideal but it was executed based on trying to save the greatest number of people.” Jeff answered.
“Your plan didn’t save my daughter or grandkids!” General Rattigan screamed. Spit flew out of his mouth as he pulled out his pistol to shoot Jeff dead on the spot. The men with him instantly went into motion as well. They’d all been waiting for this moment. A chance to exact revenge for the crime of deserting them in their time of need. Yue could almost empathize with them if they weren’t trying so hard to kill her.
Blood, brains and skull fragments sprayed out in an arc from the general and his men. The second the general had pulled his gun the squad snipers had opened up. It would’ve been pretty awkward if he’d just been very quickly reaching for a pen or something. Yue found herself being thrown to the ground. Harley stepped in front of her and shielded her with his own body. Jeff and the others were walking forward blasting away at the handful of enemy soldiers still standing. A man suddenly popped into the turret of the machine gun mounted on one of the Humvees. Before he could get rolling, his head exploded like a watermelon stuffed with fireworks courtesy of the overwatch guys.
Not a single person on their side got wounded. None of them were in a
big hurry to stand that close to people whose heads were exploding again anytime soon though. There was only so much you could do with hand sanitizer and napkins. They pulled a couple of enemy soldiers out of the Humvees. The terrified men had thrown out their weapons and surrendered before they could be killed. A little bit of torture later they confirmed those two had known nothing about the fact that the general had been planning to assassinate Jeff when they met. The two hapless soldiers had just happened to be available when the general had needed a couple of drivers that morning.
“So that didn’t go very well.” Yue said once they’d had spent a few minutes cleaning nameless gunk off their faces and clothes. Yue was doing her best to comb fragments of something out of her hair without looking to see what it was. Why the hell she’d worn her hair down today of all days was beyond her.
“This next bit isn’t going to be very well received either. We know where they came from. We tried to negotiate with them. The President wants us to hit them before they disappear on us.” Jeff said.
“Has Shaun considered that the rest of them may be more willing to negotiate than these yahoos were?” Yue asked. She intentionally called the President by his given name. It made more sense to her than acting like he had some sort of infallibility just because of the office he’d recently inherited.
“Have you considered that all of them may hate us and want us dead?” Harley asked. He was firmly on the ‘kill them all and let god sort them out’ bandwagon. Seeing that look in Yue’s eyes he was worried he was already too late. There might be no stopping her from talking Jeff into letting her try to talk to the nest of vipers before they exterminated them.
“If they’ve been being fed the trash their general was spewing out this whole time then we may have a bunch of them that hate us and want us dead. The ones that captured Lisa, Lindsey and I weren’t super friendly. I just can’t see hundreds of people hating like that though. Those two guys we pulled out of the car don’t seem to have a huge problem with us.” Yue responded.
“They might if we keep beating the hell out of them.” LeBron noted. He was all for torture with a purpose. It kind of looked like the squad guys were just taking out some pent up frustration on the two prisoners now though. The two enemy drivers had been on the side that’d just tried to kill them under a white flag. LeBron didn’t really care that they were being beat up for no reason. He was starting to think that they might be useful though.
Jeff walked over and handed the two prisoners water and some napkins. Under the watchful eyes of the squad Jeff and LeBron then began questioning the two. It soon became obvious that the force the two were a part of had absolutely made it a core principle that the absentee US government was not to be trusted. Jeff himself was a pretty infamous figure as the man who wrote the plan to abandon them. The two prisoners revealed that information after getting reassurances that no one would beat them for telling the truth.
“Does everybody feel as strongly as Kernel Schmidt and General Rattigan did?” Jeff asked. He wasn’t feeling great that this was coming back on him. It was like a Karmic collision. He should’ve known the universe would eventually punish him for pushing the President to make the hard decision. To make the inhumane yet logical decision. It’d been a complete betrayal of the citizens trust. He’d only been doing what he thought was best for the country. If he was able to do it over again knowing what he knew now he’d probably do it differently. It wasn’t like there was a handbook or case studies for the end of the world. They’d been making up a lot of it as they went along.
One of the prisoners piped up almost immediately. “Not really. Most of us are just trying to survive. We do whatever it takes to keep our families alive. Was Schmidt the guy who wore the cape? I always thought he was kind of an idiot. He totally bought into hating the exiled government and us being the real America and all that. I’d say ninety percent of us just give that stuff lip service.”
“Thanks. Shoot them both.” Jeff said. Both of the prisoners went from relieved looking to complete panic mode. Jeff laughed. “Just kidding. As long as you keep feeding us intel the second that we ask for it you get to live.”
“Should we shoot one of them so the other one knows we’re serious sir?” Harley asked. It was impossible to tell by looking at his face if he was joking or not. Jeff went with considering it serious. He paused to look like he was contemplating it then shook his head in the negative.
“Not yet. Get them some of those bracelets that lock together and secure them in the back of the chinook. Give them ears so I can ask them questions.” Jeff said. Harley nodded and grabbed a couple of the other guys to help him get the prisoners properly trussed up and thrown onto the helicopter.
Jeff, LeBron, Yue and the patrol leader from the squad came together for an impromptu pow wow. They were still being covered by the men in the overwatch positions. They leaned against one of the Humvees that was currently being searched and stripped of anything of value. Jeff didn’t think they had to worry too much about it but there was always the chance that the enemy had deployed a couple of snipers before driving over. That meant they needed to come to a consensus on next steps quickly so they could get the hell off this field.
“If we know where they are why not just send a bomber to take them out?” LeBron asked. Strategically it was the right answer. There was no value in sending in men to fight them hand to hand. Not when they had access to a plane with big bombs on it. LeBron wasn’t sure on the range but maybe they could even just launch a missile from one of the ships they had patrolling the East Coast.
Yue opted to answer that before Jeff could open his mouth. “If there’re hundreds of them there then that probably means women and children. It wouldn’t just be blowing up a bunch of General Rattigan and Schmidt clones. It’d be blowing up a bunch of scared people who clung to the men who could keep them alive. No offense but the government did abandon them. I think we owe it to them to try and save them from themselves. I remember how I felt when I saw the President saying he was abandoning us on TV.”
“Ouch. Yeah, I get it. You’re right. OK. So I’m going to call for backup. If we go in with just the one helicopter, they might feel like they have a chance to fight. We come in like a Vietnam war movie with four of these big ass warbirds then they’ll probably be willing to listen.” Jeff said. He seemed pretty proud of his plan.
“Or just have that same plane that would’ve bombed them do a flyby.” LeBron said.
Jeff nodded. He was good with whatever worked. Yue was right about these people deserving a second chance. He knew it wasn’t just for them though. He was giving himself a second chance too. Yue’s words had struck him pretty hard. He hadn’t really thought before about what it must have been like to watch the President on TV telling everyone that they were on their own. How hard that must have been for everyone left behind. He knew how hard it’d been for the President himself to do it.
He looked down at General Rattigan’s bloody mess of a face. If it’d been hard for civilians to accept that their government was abandoning them how much harder must it have been for the military being left behind. Jeff blamed himself for not trying harder to come up with a better plan. They could’ve sectioned off the country and put national guard units in charge of different sections. Most of them wouldn’t have made it but they would’ve gone down thinking they were following the plan of a country that cared about them. They could’ve at least kept an open line of communications with the military units left behind.
In the end that open line most likely wouldn’t have done the units any good. General Rattigan probably wouldn’t have still been alive if he’d let himself take orders from some flunky sitting out on a carrier. A flunky who knew it was all just being done for show and no one expected the people on land to actually survive anyway. It’d all been one giant cluster, but they could’ve done a better job. With no one else to blame Jeff blamed himself.
Chapter 11: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
The P
resident didn’t agree that the best course of action was for them to land in the parking lot of a warehouse and try to talk to a few hundred armed people who wanted them dead. When Jeff brought up the fact that the people in that warehouse had every right to hate the government that didn’t help his argument at all. Jeff had the President patched into a headset that he was pressing up to one of his ears while holding the mic with his other hand. That should have kept the conversation secure enough. Jeff had so incensed the President though that Yue had no problem making out the general gist of Shaun’s responses.
“Who cares if they have a good reason to want to kill you! Will the reason really matter when you’re dead? Did you wake up this morning and eat a big bowl of dumbass flakes? What the hell man!” Shaun was really on a roll. Jeff needed to work on his delivery. Yue reached over and gestured for Jeff to hand him the headsets. Jeff shrugged and passed the contraption over.
“Hey Shaun, it’s me Yue.” Yue said once she had the headsets positioned correctly. She’d also had to wait a few more seconds for Shaun to finish colorfully calling Jeff an idiot. It sounded like he may have been asking if Jeff’s parents had been related.
“Hey Yue. Why are you with that moron? Do you know what he wants to do?” Shaun asked her. Yue considered the best way to respond to that highly loaded question.
Crawlerz: Book 5: Off the Rails Page 9