Sons of War

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  “Nah, you won’t,” Yellowtail said. He turned up some gangsta rap that Vinny had heard as a kid.

  “Some California lovin’ is what I need right now,” Yellowtail said. “You two virgins pop your cherries finally?”

  Vinny laughed.

  “Come on, did ya get a dime piece, Vin?” Yellowtail flashed Vinny a look in the rearview mirror, then cut his eyes at Doberman. “We know you got some skanks.”

  “You really shouldn’t learn English from this music,” Doberman shot back.

  Yellowtail grinned. “Got to learn somehow, right?”

  “If you don’t want to piss off Don Antonio,” Vinny replied. His uncle required his men to learn English, but some were still struggling with it. Vinny and Doberman, on the other hand, were fluent from attending American schools.

  The drive to North Long Beach reminded Vinny of how good things had been when they first got here. Even with the shattered economy, he still loved Los Angeles—the bars, the music, the girls.

  He grinned as they passed a group of girls on the corner of a park, wearing shorts that showed off their tan legs, and crop tops showing a lot of pushed-up cleavage.

  He wasn’t a fan of girls showing off too much, which was why he didn’t like strip clubs. He liked to be surprised when it got down to business, like last night, when he finally got with Carmen, a girl he’d been chasing for a year.

  The steamy memories surfaced, but he buried them and focused on the dangers of today. The gangs were coming out of the woodwork like cockroaches after the lights go out.

  Police and military were everywhere, trying to curb the violence, but they were barely keeping up.

  “Just up here,” Doberman said, pointing.

  They pulled off the highway and drove to the truck stop, right across the street from a fenced-off storage business.

  “This the place?” Yellowtail asked.

  Doberman nodded. “This is where we normally meet Lil Snipes.”

  “‘Lil Snipes’—what a dumb-ass name,” Yellowtail said.

  “I mean, I like it better than ‘Yellowtail,’” Doberman said. “I don’t know whether to think of a fish or blond pussy.”

  Yellowtail glared at him.

  “Sorry,” Doberman said.

  A grin told him Yellowtail liked the joke.

  “Better not ever call me a blond pussy, though, or I’ll break your neck, bitch,” Yellowtail said as a purple Cadillac with twenty-inch rims pulled up.

  The bass boomed so loud, it rattled the trunk.

  This was the problem with gangsters in Los Angeles, Vinny mused. It seemed they wanted to get caught. He appreciated his uncle’s under-the-radar approach. No flashy cars or flashy houses.

  Maybe that would change when they could afford it, though. He recalled the compound they had shared in Naples. The thought made him think of his mom again.

  Stay strong, Vin. You got business to take care of.

  Lil Snipes rolled down his window, letting out a cloud of skunky smoke, and waved for them to follow.

  They got back into the van and drove across the street to a lot full of shipping containers. Vinny wasn’t too worried. Lil Snipes was an asshole, but he was a businessman, and he was about to get a hell of a deal.

  When they got to an isolated area of the lot, four African American guys were waiting there, pants hanging off their asses, red bandannas or baseball caps on their heads. Bloods.

  “Hold up,” Vinny said.

  Yellowtail slowed the van. “I can’t believe Don Antonio makes us deal with these fucking cazzi.”

  “Lil Snipes isn’t all that bad,” Vinny said. “But something feels off about this.”

  Doberman reached down to the sawed-off shotgun.

  “Stay here and watch my back,” Vinny said.

  “What, bro?” Doberman said, twisting around in his seat.

  “Just do it.”

  Vinny opened the van door and hopped out into the hot morning sun. He brought his sunglasses down over his eyes and walked over.

  “’Sup, Lil Snipes?” he said.

  The Cadillac door opened, and Lil Snipes got out, flicking away the butt of a joint.

  “’Sup, Vin, my man?” He held up his muscular arms and grinned, his gold grill and gold-rimmed Armani aviator shades sparkling in the sun.

  They slapped hands and did a shake followed with a fist bump.

  “Yo, what up with your boys?” Lil Snipes asked, flipping his glasses up to look at the van.

  “Albinos, man,” Vinny replied. “They don’t like the sun. I told ’em to stay put.”

  Lil Snipes chuckled. “I thought you Sicilians loved the sun.”

  “We’re not Sicilian, bro. We’re from southern Italy. Big difference.”

  He said, “I still don’t get the entire Italian gangsta thing, my man. It’s not a thing in these parts, feel?”

  No, I don’t feel. “Guess we’re trying to make a comeback.”

  Lil Snipes’s gold grin widened. “By selling me a bulk load of stuff at a discount. A’ight, my man.”

  “So, we gonna do this, or just shoot the shit all morning?”

  “My boys got the cash,” Lil Snipes said. “They’ll hand it over once we take possession of that fine Italian wardrobe you wops got.”

  “Wops? ” said a voice.

  Vinny heard the click of a van door and cringed.

  Yellowtail walked over, looking like a bull about to charge. The gold cross necklace dangled out over his square pecs.

  “Who the fuck you s’poseta be?” Lil Snipes asked. He chuckled and shook his head. “You look like the Eye-talian version of Cartman.”

  The other four Bloods broke out laughing.

  Vinny half expected Yellowtail to pull out his pistol and blast them all where they stood, but he managed to keep his cool.

  “That’s pretty funny,” Yellowtail said. “But if I look like Cartman, that’d make you Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo.”

  Ah, fuck two ducks, Vinny thought. He raised his hands in the air and stepped between the two men just as Lil Snipes’s nostrils flared.

  “We’re all friends here,” Vinny said. “No need to bust each other’s balls. This is business, nothin’ else.”

  Lil Snipes and Yellowtail stared daggers at each other over Vinny’s shoulders.

  “Don’t forget about AMP and the cops, guys,” Vinny said. “They’re everywhere. Quicker we get this shit done, the better.”

  Both men seemed to hear that. Logic won the day, and they backed down.

  “We’ll do the trade at the same time,” Yellowtail said. “Bring the money, and we’ll open the van.”

  Lil Snipes gestured for his men.

  Ten minutes later, Vinny breathed a sigh of relief and reached out his hand.

  “Nice doing business with you, bro,” Vinny said.

  “You too, my man. But next time, leave Cartman back in South Park.”

  Yellowtail was already back in the van, sitting behind the wheel, eyeing them both.

  Vinny held back a laugh.

  “Keep dodgin’ them bullets, man,” he said.

  “I don’t dodge, I dance,” Lil Snipes said, doing a smooth little Crip walk.

  Vinny got in, and they pulled out of the lot, eyes back on the Bloods.

  “I don’t like that guy,” Yellowtail said.

  “I’d say the feeling is mutual,” Vinny said. He relaxed in his seat and smiled as Doberman hooked up his phone to the stereo, blaring Andrea Bocelli.

  Yellowtail winced. “This shit makes me want to puke.”

  “So does your gangsta music,” Doberman said.

  Reaching over, Yellowtail turned off the radio. “Don’t fuck with me, kid.”

  Doberman sulked, and Vinny looked out the window, tired from the dr
ama of what should have been an easy day.

  They drove another hour across the city, sitting in stop-and-go traffic. Protests and a riot had shut down parts of the highway, and they took a detour to Long Beach.

  Vinny pulled back the drape and looked out. The sidewalks were crowded. It was odd to see, but with public transportation mostly down and half the city unable to afford gas, it made sense.

  “All right, here we go,” Yellowtail said.

  “Why the hell are we outside a school?” Doberman asked. “They’re supposed to be out for the summer.”

  “Not this one,” Yellowtail said. “This is a Valley Christian High School, and they’re doing summer classes, which is why we’re here.”

  “Uh, why is that?” Vinny asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  As they sat watching, a group of kids filed out the front doors and headed toward expensive cars waiting out front.

  “Must be nice,” Doberman said. “These people are so rich, they don’t have to worry about shit.”

  “One of ’em has to worry.” Yellowtail held his cell phone up and clicked on the Facebook profile of a girl, then handed it back to Vinny. “Don Antonio wants us to find her and nab her as soon as we can. So, for the next few days, I’ll be tagging along so you two don’t screw it up.”

  Vinny had no problem with drugs, stolen merchandise, or violence, but kidnapping a schoolgirl?

  He looked at the face, then the name. “Carly Sarcone,” he said.

  “Well?” Yellowtail said. “You up for this shit or what?”

  Vinny swallowed. “Yeah, man, we’re in.”

  * * *

  The perfect storm, Ronaldo thought. That was what experts were calling the storm front rolling toward the Midwest. The supersystem carried more than swollen storm clouds. It also carried the radioactive isotopes dispersed into the atmosphere from the damaged nuclear power plant in Palo Verde, Arizona.

  He was on his way to Phoenix now, in the back of an enclosed flatbed truck with half his platoon. Fresh off the C-130, he thought he would be glad to leave behind the hellhole that Atlanta had become, but leave it to the Corps to find someplace worse.

  Terrorists had managed to penetrate the Palo Verde nuclear facility and set off bombs in the central reactors, blowing through the containment vessels and setting up a chain reaction. But it wasn’t just the release of radiation that had Ronaldo worried.

  Losing power meant that densely populated parts of southern Arizona and southern California, including Los Angeles, were dark, adding to the volatile conditions in both places.

  Ronaldo couldn’t help but wonder whether California was being targeted. First the attack on San Francisco; now a plant that provided power to LA. The only saving grace had been talking to Elena before he left Atlanta. She was safe, and the kids were fine, but she was beside herself when he told her he was heading to Arizona.

  He had never been to Arizona before and never really wanted to go—Iraq had scorched him with enough heat for two lifetimes. And he certainly didn’t want to be here today. But new orders had come down the pipeline, and his platoon boarded a plane at the forward operating base in Atlanta. Four hours ago, they had landed at a new FOB a hundred miles from ground zero.

  Ronaldo took a deep breath, knowing how lucky he was to still be in uniform. After shooting the AMP soldier in the helicopter back in Atlanta, he had faced an almost certain court martial, maybe even a dishonorable discharge and prison.

  The nation was barreling headlong toward a second civil war, between the federal government and states that wanted to secede and govern themselves.

  Governor Jim McGehee of California had refused to reorganize the state’s National Guard under AMP, and the rumors were flying. One of the more credible sources said that President Coleman was preparing to deploy more AMP troops to those states and arrest the governors who refused the order.

  Stories abounded of soldiers being shot for desertion and others being locked away for even the most trifling infractions. The country was going down the shitter. Ronaldo was just trying to do his duty, not get killed, and make it home to his family.

  Fortunately, Lieutenant Castle had his back for shooting the homicidal AMP door gunner, and was able to pitch Ronaldo’s unblemished record and Purple Heart from Afghanistan to the AMP colonel who wanted Ronaldo’s nuts on a satay skewer.

  “If you ask me, you’re looking to try the wrong man,” Castle had argued. “The one standing to my right is a hero. Your man, on the other hand, murdered dozens of innocent civilians. When he gets out of the hospital, he’s the one who should go on trial.”

  The colonel said he would push for a tribunal, and Castle mentioned that he would be making the same plea with the Marine Corps brass—but to try the AMP gunner on thirty counts of second-degree murder.

  “They’ll probably forget all about it until things calm down,” Castle had said as they were leaving the colonel’s office. “And that’ll be a long damn time from now.”

  If they ever calm down, Ronaldo thought as the truck bounced over another pothole.

  The dozen marines with him were sweltering inside camouflage CBRN suits just like his. Ronaldo couldn’t see their faces behind the visors, but he would bet they all had the same grim look.

  Back at Parris Island almost twenty years ago, when he was just a grunt, Ronaldo had seen pictures of radiation burns, but nothing was going to prepare him for what they would see when they got to Phoenix. Reports of people with radiation sickness had been included in their briefing on the plane. According to the radiation charts, everything within a ten-mile radius of the nuclear power plant was already considered a dead zone.

  Thank God the marine platoon wasn’t going there. That job was left to people who knew what they were doing.

  The comm line crackled—a message from Lieutenant Castle.

  “All right, ladies, we’re thirty miles from Phoenix. Check your gear, check your buddy’s gear, and then check it again. There are still over 1.6 million people in the area, and our job is to help get them out before it’s too late.”

  Ronaldo and Marks checked each other as the lieutenant spoke over the channel. His voice was more strained than normal—gravelly, like a chain smoker’s. Part of that was from weeks spent screaming at rioters in Atlanta.

  “This shit ain’t gonna be pretty,” Castle said. “As you know, those core explosions released significant quantities of radioactive materials and airborne isotopes. A good portion of the population within a twenty-five-mile radius of the plant is going to have acute radiation syndrome, so get your head screwed on tight. We have a job to do, marines, and I expect you all to do it with competence and dignity.”

  The men finished their gear and suit preps without any of the usual side banter. They were all business now. Innocent American lives were on the line.

  Ronaldo glimpsed the command Humvee next to their truck. Castle sat shotgun wearing a CBRN suit.

  The men all respected their lieutenant. He was a smart, brave marine who had saved their platoon several times by making quick decisions in dicey situations. Ronaldo alone owed him a couple of lives.

  “How do we still not know who’s doing this shit?” Tooth asked as he checked Bettis’s ruck. “Somebody tell me how these attacks keep happening without us catching a single terrorist.”

  “Easy,” said the lance corporal everyone called Timmy. “They have people on the inside. It’s the deep state, man. Think about it. Who can sneak into a power plant, set off explosives, and get away?”

  “How do we know they did?” Bettis asked.

  “I may not be honor roll material,” said Tooth, “but I don’t believe in all that deep-state conspiracy horseshit. Some of it might be real, but if you ask me, this was al-Qaeda, or maybe ISIS.”

  “Maybe,” Marks said, “but they’re not shy about claiming credit. And we hav
en’t seen any of that.”

  “Well, whoever it is, they won’t be hitting another power plant,” Ronaldo said. “Every last one’ll be on lockdown.”

  Marks shook his helmet wearily. “Y’all don’t get it.”

  “What don’t we get, Sarge?” said Timmy.

  “They don’t need to hit another power plant. You saw the charts. You heard what they said about the clouds carrying the radiation.”

  All the other CBRN visors were turned toward Marks.

  “Palo Verde is the biggest nuclear power plant in the country. The fallout will poison any crops in the Midwest that made it through the drought. It’ll be the coup de grâce for our economy.”

  The other marines considered his words in silence. It wasn’t just talk about the deep state or Islamic terrorists that had the men on edge. Rumors were rampant about North Korean or Russian sleeper cells. Some people were even saying it was one of the Mexican cartels.

  Not knowing fueled paranoia and anger. Fear had the nation by the short hairs. The newly formed AMP and the rest of the military were up against more than rioters now. Gangs, organized crime families, and the cartels were taking over in cities like Los Angeles—where Ronaldo’s family lived.

  The flatbed came to a stop, and Ronaldo checked his suit one last time. The marines emptied out the back, jumping onto Interstate 10. They were on the outskirts of Phoenix, with a view of downtown and the billowing plume of smoke rising from the power plant’s ruins.

  “Holy shit,” Marks breathed.

  Ronaldo fell in with the rest of the platoon. The highway’s westbound lanes were almost completely clear of vehicles, while a steady train of cars and trucks crawled eastward away from the dead zone.

  The marines got to the first roadblock, where AMP soldiers in CBRN suits had already set up concrete barriers and a gate. One of the men spoke to Lieutenant Castle, explaining that they had shut the road down and that they needed help getting people out of an assisted living community two miles away.

  Castle nodded and moved back to his men to relay orders.

  “Staff Sergeant Marks, your team is with me, but Corporal Bettis stays here,” he said.

  A few minutes later, Ronaldo was in the command Humvee, heading toward the dead zone.