The Grave Diggers

by Chris Fritschi

  The sudden flare of temper hinted to Tate that he was close to a nerve. He paused as he considered what he was about to say; no matter what happened next, it would be a game changer. The only question was whether that change included painting a giant target on his back.

  To hell with it, he thought. It was time to kick over this anthill and see who crawled out.

  "Sir, we have one of the men who attacked us... and I'm going to find out everything he knows."

  There was a long silence on the other end of the phone, and even though the colonel hadn't said anything, Tate sensed a palpable change in him.

  "Damn it, Jack. I'm warning you now, you don't want to do this."

  The colonel sounded more worried than dangerous. If he was keeping any secrets, now was Tate's moment to hit him while he was off balance, and he wound up to deliver a haymaker.

  "I know there's a leak in my team. I'm pretty damn sure it was your organization that ambushed us at the villa. I'm going to squeeze this guy to a pulp until I find out who and why. Do you want to tell me where you fit into all of this, or do I find out from my prisoner?"

  "Well..." sighed the colonel. "At the moment it looks like I'm in the middle of a shit-candle that's burning at both ends."

  "Did you have anything to do with the ambush?"

  "No," said the colonel flatly.

  "I think it's time you told me what you know, sir."

  "It doesn't sound like I have much choice," said the colonel. "But you're not going to like it. The outbreak did a lot more damage to our country than many know. All our systems of government, business, hell, even the military were fractured, and we lost a lot of men and women in power that kept things running. The vacuum was filled with amateurs. Some saw an opportunity to help their country, but others saw a chance for a quick rise to power. Now our country is infested with parasites who are feeding off this country, and slowly bleeding it out. I didn't spend my life serving this country only to sit back now and do nothing."

  "And that's why you got involved with this...?"

  "Ring. At least that's what they call themselves," said the colonel. "They said they were looking for patriots who wanted to stop what's happening to the country. They recruit powerful and influential members in the government, military, businesses, you name it. The plan was to operate outside the red tape and bureaucracy that's dragging down our country’s ability to rebuild itself.

  “But something was wrong. The principals the Ring was supposed to operate by began to change. It was small things at first, but then it got worse. In the beginning, our meetings, planning sessions, all of it was done in the open for everyone to have a voice, but over time people started having closed door meetings. Then I started hearing about off book operations. A new agenda was happening behind the scenes. I was recruited into the Ring by a trusted friend. I discovered he had his own concerns when one night he comes out of the shadows as I'm heading for my car. Scared the hell out of me. He said we've been lied to. Everything we've been doing is a smokescreen. There's something deeper, darker going on. That's all he would tell me. He was getting out and urged me to do the same, before it was too late."

  With each new piece of the colonel's story, Tate weighed its validity, because sooner or later he'd have to make a decision if the colonel could be trusted.

  "What did you do? Did you get out?"

  "I was making plans to," said the colonel. "Disappear, cover my tracks. I wasn't sure how bad the threat was." His voice took on a steely resolve Tate had heard in his own voice when he had faced live or die situations.

  "But then they killed my friend. They made it look like an accidental car wreck, but I saw the police report. Drunk. Driving too fast, lost control and wrapped his car around a tree in the middle of the night. Bullshit. He didn't drink, and he didn't drive at night because of his bad eyesight. They killed him. That changed everything. Instead of running, I decided I'm going to rip this organization a new asshole."

  "What else should I know?" asked Tate.

  "Enough that you don't want to get tangled up in any of this. There's something monumentally bad going on, and they're not messing around. If they suspect you're a threat, or even a hint they can't trust you, they'll come after you, Jack. You're on their radar as a good little soldier. You don't want to mess that up. I can't explain what happened at the villa. Maybe there's rival infighting in the Ring. Maybe it was a redundancy in case you couldn't handle it. I don't know, but if they wanted you dead, we wouldn't be having this conversation. My advice is to keep your head down."

  Tate knew there was no way he could swallow the idea of playing a pawn just to save his own skin. He thought he'd have more time to consider his next move, but the time for a decision landed in front of him sooner than he had expected.

  Could Hewett be trusted, or was he feeding Tate disinformation, hoping to play him like a puppet?

  Ultimately, the answer didn't matter. Tate swore an oath to defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic and he would make a deal with the devil to do it.

  It was time to make the deal; only time would tell if Hewett was the devil.

  "I know too much to play dead, Colonel. In fact, I think your odds of success look a whole lot better if you added a 'boots on the ground' element to your course of action."

  "Damn, Sergeant Major. Single handedly killed six well-trained operators, and now volunteering for covert ops? You aren't the man I met at the Orchid."

  "A lot's happened," said Tate.

  "That's an understatement, but glad to have you. Now look, at the moment I don't have much actionable intel. Over time, I'll work my way into their operation. As I find out more, we'll take these bastards apart one bone at a time. The success of the villa mission made you a viable asset to them. They'll begin to trust you on more important missions, and we'll use the intel you collect against them, but you have to be careful. They aren't shy about keeping eyes on you."

  "Like Cooper?" said Tate. "I'll handle that leak, but if I'm going to be facing units like the one I ran into at the ambassador’s villa, that'll be a problem. My team barely held it together in that last encounter. They don't have the combat experience. I need something more. An equalizer."

  "There may be something I can do to level that playing field," said the colonel. "Give me some time to get back to you. Anything else?"

  Tate was encouraged by the colonel's willingness. He wasn't convinced he could trust him, but it weighed in his favor.

  "Yes. That file you have on the Night Devils. I need an address."

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ENEMY WITHIN

  Tate’s guts were twisting inside him, aided with a generous helping of shame and anxiety. It had started the moment the plane’s tires had met tarmac with a screech, at the Ronald Regan Washington National airport; and it hadn't let up since.

  Tate was returning to his former life; the thing he'd convinced himself would never happen, could never happen, and here he was.

  The discovery of Cooper leaking classified intel was compelling enough for Tate to agree to a deal with Dante Barrios, but as he pieced together the deeper implications of somebody planting a spy in his unit, he was mocked by the question of what he could do about it. He had no resources, no tools; when he walked away from his previous life, he'd cut all ties with anyone who could help him.

  Dante would be bringing his prisoner to a secluded location for Tate in four days. The fact was that no matter what the captured soldier told Tate, he was utterly alone and feebly incapable to determine if he was lying, or act on what he believed. For two days, he'd racked his brain for a solution, refusing to acknowledge the harsh truth.

  There was only one place he could turn to; the answer was in the folder on the seat next to Tate. Inside was a dossier on each member of the Night Devils he'd gotten from Colonel Hewett months before, at the Blue Orchid. Each of the Devils had a specialty, and Kaiden Benedict had the skills Tate needed so desperately he would swallow his disgrace
to get it.

  Tate looked out the window of the gypsy cab as it rolled down Arlington Boulevard. Stretches of houses were dotted with empty lots, piled with rubble and debris; dark reminders of panic and martial law.

  When the outbreak hit, cities across the country began to fall as political correctness and politics crippled the ability for police and National Guard to take action; the President made the decision that would not happen to Washington DC. Martial Law was announced, even as armored vehicles sped throughout the city. The public was ordered to go home and stay there, with a blunt warning that beginning the next day at 6 AM anyone seen outside would be held at a detention facility indefinitely.

  Emergency broadcasts instructed who to contact for medical aid and other special circumstances. Neighborhoods were given zone designations, and supplied with a schedule when food would be distributed on a weekly basis.

  Initially there were some who saw the martial law as an opportunity for looting and anti-government protests. A melting pot of hundreds gathered at the Washington monument, from accusations of a power-hungry government running wild, demands the President be impeached to an open cry to over throw of the country.

  The National Guard and police were ordered to keep a distance, but to use reasonable force if the protest turned into a riot.

  A school bus of protesters was racing down an empty 15th Street, eager to join the rally, but unknown and unnoticed was that one of their group, Greg, had been bitten the night before while fighting off what he thought was a drunk as he and his buddies looted the local Starbucks.

  Among all the cheering and yelling in the bus, nobody noticed the infection take their friend. Then the nightmare of dominos began to fall.

  The bus driver didn't notice when the cheers and yells turned to shouts of alarm as he quickly crossed Constitution Avenue. He heard the screams a moment before the things that had been his friends reached around the driver’s seat and tore open his chest.

  His momentarily lifeless body slumped forward, with his dead weight putting the gas pedal to the floor. The three National Guardsmen’s attention was on the mass of people shouting over each other with bullhorns, and didn't see the bus behind them wildly swerve and jump the sidewalk.

  The radioed warning from another Guard unit came too late. The impact on the heavy armored Humvee crushed in the soft nose of the bus, driving the chassis down into the ground. Like a pole vault, the sudden stopping of the bus’s kinetic energy transferred to the rear, causing the bus to cartwheel over the wrecked Humvee.

  The thin skin of the bus was no match for the sudden shearing force, and it blew apart near its apex, catapulting the writhing corpses within into the crowded rally.

  The news helicopter caught the entire thing on camera, as the dead savagely turned on the living in what the horrified reporter described as a "feeding frenzy of sharks". The expression was forever burned into the country’s psyche.

  Later, hearings would fail to determine if an order was given or if the soldiers panicked, but one after another the armored vehicles opened fire.

  Up until the first .50 caliber machine gun began thumping out rounds, hardly anyone actually believed the National Guard had loaded weapons.

  Soon, every soldier and cop with a weapon was pouring fire into the crowd. Few protesters survived both the 'sharks' and the bullets; it was a tragic, sickening event that would divide the nation. What many called a massacre was the cities narrow escape from an extinction event.

  That night, the President addressed the country, speaking his own words; his spin-doctors had been given the night off. Ashen and red eyed, he did what few presidents had done before. He took every truth he knew about the rally and the outbreak, and dropped it squarely in the people’s lap.

  Any fantasy or denial the country held about the outbreak was swept away. The President announced a mandatory quarantine for the entire city of Washington DC. He explained the risk of infection was so dangerous and could spread so rapidly he had issued a 'shoot on sight' order to the National Guard. Anyone they saw would be considered infected, and a danger to everyone.

  Additionally, a hotline was created for people to report sightings of anyone outside, or other suspicious activity.

  That same night, Miss. Ala Vance called the hotline when she'd heard screaming from the house next door. When the National Guard arrived at the house, their knock at the door was met by snarls, growls and scratching at the door. Any doubt that the sounds were coming from a family dog were removed as a ragged hand clawed through the solid wood front door. The order was given, and the house and everyone inside was annihilated. Nobody was taking chances anymore.

  Today, Washington DC was as close to normal as could be. Quick-fab walls were assembled, and safe zones were sectioned off. As other areas were secured, the zones were expanded, until little by little they joined up.

  Now, people went to work, shopped, sent their kids to school, but nobody forgot what was hunting them somewhere beyond the walls.

  The cab slowed down as it neared its destination, nudging Tate out of his own thoughts.

  He got out and gave the driver an extra ten dollars to stick around, just in case things didn't go well.

  It was a modest brick house with gabled windows on the second floor. Tate noticed a single car in the driveway as he came to the door.

  A swarm of scenarios flooded Tate’s mind, each one predicting what would happen in the next moments. He willed them all into silence.

  He made his decision to be here, and had his reasons. Doubt had its chance to talk him out of it and lost; come what may, he was here.

  Just as he was about to knock, the door opened.

  Kaiden Benedict stood in the doorway, looking at Tate as if she were watching paint drying.

  "You look like shit, Jack." She left him at the door and walked inside. "Come on," she said over her shoulder. "I have dinner on the table."

  During the next twenty minutes, Kaiden had chatted with Tate like they'd seen each other last week.

  He listened, while absorbing the moment. Except for her eyes, Kaiden didn't look like she'd aged at all. Her familiar ponytail was gone, but in typical Kaiden low-maintenance fashion, she went with a relaxed chin-length bob cut. On his way through the living room, he'd noticed the medals and trophies for several triathlons, mud runs and other endurance competitions. Her athletic build, tenacious will power and keen intelligence got her through the nine grueling months training for Marine Corps Forces, Special Operations Command.

  When she joined the Night Devils, the men traded looks of unspoken skepticism, but their first mission said everything about her they needed to know. The men never gave her special treatment, and she never asked for it. No matter the miles, weight of a fully loaded combat pack or other demands of a mission, she pulled her own and was accepted as one of the team.

  Her specialty in the team was intel analysis, and she was unsettlingly good at it.

  Years before, the team had exhausted its resources in trying to determine the location of a high value target. Shortly after Kaiden joined the team, she requested the team do a recon of suspected areas the target could be hiding.

  They spent the early winter cris-crossing a large rural area in southern Belarus. It was early morning as they drove down a country road, and while there was a light snow flurry, they could easily see the countryside.

  They had just come to an old stone bridge when Kaiden had them stop the car. She told them the target was at the farm they'd passed a couple of miles back.

  They returned on foot to scout the farm from a safe distance, so they wouldn't be seen.

  There was nothing remarkable about the farm. Green acreage surrounded the white two-story farmhouse. Nearby was a feed silo and well kept red barn, with a tractor and other equipment parked next to it. Sheep grazed all around the house, while cattle dotted further in the distance.

  The team scrutinized the farm from their vantage point, but saw nothing to indicate their target was i
nside.

  "The sheep," said Kaiden, with a tired sigh.

  "Those sheep?" said Tate. "Like the same sheep every other farm we've seen has?"

  "How did you trigger jockeys ever complete a mission without me?" Kaiden asked.

  The other team members only stared at her without a response.

  "As far back as 1700 BC, the wealth of cities were built on the wool trade. That's why, even now, sheep farmers are more protective of their livestock than any other types of farmers."

  "Thanks for the history lesson," said Tate. "How about connecting the dots for us trigger jockeys?"

  "I only mention it because wool is what those sheep don't have. Those sheep have been sheared, something farmers only do in midsummer, never in winter, which could kill them. They also wouldn't leave expensive equipment like that tractor out in the snow. It would be in the barn."

  Tate looked at the farm through his binoculars, then back at Kaiden. "That's it? You think our target's there because a farmer's got bad timing and doesn't put his toys away?"

  Kaiden smiled, accepting Tate's challenge. "Our target's highly allergic to lanolin, which is found where? Wool. He travels with two custom-built armored cars, a Land Rover Defender for his guards, and a Mercedes S Class for himself. Not the kind of things that blend into rural countryside. He'd have to hide them in the barn, which wouldn't leave any room for the farmers equipment. Last, but not least, a nice two-story farmhouse leaves lots of room for a farmer's family, a high profile target... and his guards, don't you think?"

  Tate reluctantly agreed to set up surveillance of the farmhouse, and three days later they saw their target through an upstairs window.

  From that day forward, Kaiden would use her ability to interpret meaning out of the meaningless. She was so good it was spooky, and earned her the call sign Nostradamus, or Nos for short.

  Tate returned from his reminiscing to find Kaiden looking at him, slightly annoyed.

  "Am I boring you?" she asked.