Sons of War

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  Most of those brave firefighter crews were on their own.

  Not so different from the Desert Snakes.

  Ronaldo’s small team trekked with their new platoon across the mud, toward the tracks, to meet the next train of refugees. He was glad to be here to help, but he still wasn’t sure why Command wanted them along the border and not in the fight against the gangs. And if Marks knew anything, he wasn’t talking.

  A mobile Los Angeles County Emergency Operations unit was set up in the parking lot to their right, and standing on a platform in plain sight was Sarah DaBuke, the FEMA incident commander.

  For the past decade, she had worked on some of the biggest natural disasters that had led to the crash of the economy, and now she was in Los Angeles, trying to save it from becoming a statistic like the other major metro areas across the country.

  So far, she had solidified her glowing reputation by successfully organizing the refugee camps in Los Angeles County and working with the city officials to block off roads to the east.

  Ronaldo was impressed with her ability to respond quickly and efficiently to situations like this. But she didn’t seem to like the military much.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she said to Marks.

  Ronaldo hung back but not too far to hear their conversation.

  “What do you mean?” Marks asked her.

  She gestured toward the twenty-odd armed marines making their way to the train platform.

  “We have orders to help here, ma’am,” Marks said politely.

  “And while I respect that you have your orders, these incoming refugees are sick and scared. I ask that you remain out of sight while we work to get these people assigned to case workers and medical support.”

  “Sorry, ma’am, no can do. My orders are clear. We’re to remain on the platform and help supervise the orderly movement of these refugees.”

  “Then I kindly ask you to leave your weapons locked in your vehicles.”

  Marks tilted his head. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I’m dead serious. These people have had their lives torn apart by this civil war. The last thing they need is to get off this train and see men in uniform, holding machine guns.”

  Tooth stepped up next to Ronaldo. “What the hell is this lady saying?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  Ronaldo turned to the rest of the platoon standing in the soupy field. He had taken on the duty of first squad leader, under Marks as platoon leader. But not knowing most of them was making things dicey, and he did worry that someone might do something stupid.

  They certainly looked intimidating in their layered camo, gas masks, and neoprene gloves. Not to mention the weapons they carried.

  A horn blared in the distance, and a train engine emerged on the tracks to the east. The FEMA staff and aid workers fanned out across the platforms, wearing breathing masks and goggles against the gusting wind.

  “We’re not losing the weapons, ma’am, I’m sorry. Doing so would put my men at risk—and your people too, as well as the very refugees we are here to protect.” Marks pulled off his gas mask to look her in the eyes. “However, you have my word that we will be professional and empathetic with these people.”

  Sarah DaBuke folded her arms across her chest. “I’ll hold you to that.”

  She walked away, and Marks slipped his mask back on and gave Ronaldo a nod.

  “All right, let’s do this,” Ronaldo said.

  The platoon trudged forward to the tracks. Halfway across the field, a gunshot pierced the early evening, and Ronaldo stopped dead in the slop.

  It didn’t sound far. More than likely, it came from the other side of the border barriers. Not surprising, either. Everything on that side had fallen into complete chaos.

  This was exactly why they needed their weapons.

  Chances were good someone was taking potshots at the train and this next batch of terrified refugees the city had accepted.

  Welcome to the City of Angels.

  The locomotive pulled dozens of shipping containers on flatcars. The colorful train crawled forward. The cargo inside wasn’t coal, processed foods, or medical supplies. It was people.

  The marines moved out onto the platforms, spreading outward to team up with aid workers for each arriving car.

  “Stay frosty, everyone,” Marks said over the comm. “And by that, I mean, do not raise your weapon unless you are being assaulted by a goddamn flesh-eating zombie elephant.”

  Tooth made a trumpeting sound , drawing a laugh from several of the men.

  “God damn it, Tooth, fix yourself,” Marks said.

  “Oorah, Gunny,” Tooth said.

  The train rounded the next corner and began to slow, screeching to a stop. Ronaldo joined a woman wearing a FEMA baseball cap and an American flag bandanna up to her nose.

  “I’ve got this,” he said.

  The marines down the platform approached the doors, each fitted with a square-foot grate to let in air. Eyes peered through the grates as Ronaldo unlatched the door. He opened it to somber faces, spirits broken, little remaining but the instinct to survive.

  They shuffled toward the door, some of them shrinking back from his reach.

  Even with the activated-charcoal filtration mask on, he could smell the stench from inside.

  “One at a time,” he said, stepping up to help people down.

  The aid worker got behind him to help guide the people away. Several people jumped out without accepting Ronaldo’s hand.

  A woman wearing a tattered sweatshirt that exposed part of her breast stepped up. Bruises framed her eyes, so that she reminded him of a raccoon. When he reached up for her, she hesitated in the open doorway, and he saw the fear in her dull green eyes.

  “Come on, lady!” shouted the guy behind her.

  “It’s okay,” Ronaldo said calmly. She finally took his hand, and he helped her down. Next came two brown-haired boys wearing nothing but T-shirts and shorts. No shoes or socks, every inch of exposed skin covered in grime.

  He grabbed each boy around the waist and lifted them down from the car, setting them down in front of the aid worker.

  “Where are your parents?” she asked.

  The older of the two shook his head.

  “I’m sorry. Go to that truck over there, and you will be assigned a case worker.”

  The kids walked away, heads down, and Ronaldo turned back with a heavy heart. It continued to break as he helped the survivors out of the car. Each one seemed thinner and filthier than the one before.

  When the last person jumped out, he saw the body on the floor inside.

  A blanket half-covered the woman, and he could tell right away that she wasn’t breathing. He climbed inside to check just in case, stepping over a small mound of feces.

  The buckets were filled to the brim with diarrhea, which made sense. Most of these people were from Nevada, New Mexico, and California. They all were sick with mild to severe radiation poisoning, dehydration, or worse.

  Cholera was no longer a worry. It was bordering on becoming an epidemic.

  When Ronaldo got to the woman, he bent down and took off a glove to check for a pulse just to be sure. Feeling nothing but cold flesh, he pulled the blanket up to cover her corpse.

  He put on his glove and moved back to the open door, trying his best to avoid the muck on the floor. A sea of refugees staggered past the open door, each following the feet in front of them, like livestock.

  The tattered clothes, protruding ribs, and filthy faces were a grim snapshot of war’s human cost.

  How had this happened in America?

  Then he remembered the madman Elliot.

  Burn in hell, asshole. Move over, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao.

  As Ronaldo jumped back to the platform, static crackled
from the comms piece in his ear.

  “Snake One to Snake Two, where are you?” said Marks.

  Ronaldo looked up the line of cars, counting. “Snake One. I’m at car fourteen, over.”

  “Report to car forty-one.”

  “Roger. On my way,” Ronaldo replied. He started weaving his way through the crowd, anxious about what he would discover in the train car.

  “Sarge!” shouted a voice.

  Ronaldo could see Tooth waving across the platform, where he had moved to supervise the line.

  “Watch out. Move. Out of the way, please,” Ronaldo said as he gently moved people aside.

  He worked through the tide of people coming from the cars down the track, finally making it through to Tooth. They jogged along the outer edge of the platform, next to the hundreds of refugees heading toward the aid trucks and workers.

  Everything seemed to be going smoothly enough. Organized, efficient, calm. But he had a feeling something had happened down the rail.

  “Snake One to Snake Two, where the hell are you?”

  “On my way, Snake One.”

  Ronaldo waved at the people in front of him. “Let’s move it, folks!”

  Another gunshot cracked in the distance. This time, it was close—this side of the barrier.

  “Ah, shit,” Ronaldo muttered.

  Pushing less gently now through the moving horde, he saw panic in the faces around him, and people began to cry out in alarm.

  “Stay calm, everyone,” he said. “Please keep moving and stay calm.”

  The marines’ greatest worry was a terrorist attack from some die-hard AMP loyalist, but these people had already been searched before boarding. It was more likely that someone had gotten killed over a candy bar or a canteen of water.

  The tide of refugees parted as Ronaldo advanced, and he could see the marines outside a car near the end of train.

  Two men were on their knees at the edge of the platform, and a third was sprawled on the ground.

  “Shit, shit, shit!” Ronaldo growled.

  He ran harder now that the path was clear, and Tooth kept pace alongside him. They passed a car with multiple dead bodies, and he could hear aid workers inside puking up whatever they had managed to eat today.

  A marine stood guard, watching them vomit.

  Ronaldo slowed his pace as he approached car 41. Two medical workers had climbed inside and were working on a rail-thin girl curled up on the floor, holding her equally thin teenage sister. She looked as though she had barely survived the trek.

  Then Ronaldo realized that she hadn’t. The girl was as white as the ashfall.

  He continued over to the group of marines, who had formed a circle around two men on their knees. A third lay in a growing pool of blood.

  Ronaldo didn’t need to ask what had gone down. But the young marine who had shot the guy would need a hell of a good explanation for executing an unarmed man.

  The marine who had pulled the trigger was sobbing.

  “This piece of garbage raped her and then her sister, Sarge,” the man said. “He got what he had coming!”

  “Get him the fuck out of here,” Marks said.

  Bettis and Tooth grabbed the marine and pulled him away from the platform while Marks spoke to Ronaldo.

  “Got a shitty situation here, Ronnie,” Marks said. “First, we found what appear to be two former AMP soldiers in car thirty-five, both of them murdered, their testicles stuffed in their mouths. And now we got this …”

  Footfalls pounded the platform and both marines pivoted to see the incident commander, breathing heavily.

  “What on earth is going on here?” Sarah DaBuke asked, trying to catch her breath.

  More like what in bloody hell, Ronaldo thought, but he let Marks do the talking.

  “Got three guys accused of raping this girl and her dead sister. One of my men decided to play judge, jury, and executioner. Happened before I got here.”

  DaBuke scanned the scene and then walked over to the boxcar, where she held a sleeve over her mask. She said something to the medical workers attending the surviving girl and then turned back to the two men still on their knees beside their dead compadre.

  “Did you do this?” she asked the men. “Did you rape and kill that girl’s sister?”

  One of them shook his head. The other gave her the black and broken grin of a meth head. His gaze flitted to Ronaldo, who was tempted to put a bullet in his groin and another between those soulless eyes.

  “The other guy was laughing when my man shot him in the head,” Marks said. “Thought this shit was funny, just like his friend.”

  Marks used the butt of his rifle to hit the still-grinning guy in the back, knocking him to the ground.

  Ronaldo expected DaBuke to protest, but she just looked at Marks with the gaze of a woman who had seen her share of casual violence.

  “Do an investigation,” she said, “and if they did it, I’m sure you will take the appropriate action.” Then she moved back to the car. “Someone, help us get her out of there.”

  Ronaldo climbed into the car and took off his gas mask to avoid frightening the already terrified young girl. The foul air inside nearly made him gag.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m here to help you.”

  The girl looked up at him, and for a moment, he was transported back to Mount Baldy, holding Monica in his arms as she cried and cried after the attack in the woods.

  “Is it okay if I pick you up?” he asked the girl.

  She managed a weak nod.

  Ronaldo gently picked her up, disturbed by how light she felt. She sobbed as they left her dead sister in the boxcar.

  Ever so carefully, he eased down from the car onto the right-of-way.

  He carried her past the dead man, turning to shield her from the view. The guy had deserved far worse than he got.

  That night, Bettis and Ronaldo sat by the girl and prayed with her as she succumbed to her injuries and severe dehydration that there was simply no coming back from.

  The next day, they buried her in a park, next to her sister.

  * * *

  Antonio felt played. The entire point of getting Vinny onto the police force was to feed them information, trick them, and get intel on his enemies. Now that he had the intel, he knew that his biggest enemy was on the payroll of the LAPD anti-gang task force. Ironic, and it complicated things. But there was always a fix to a problem like this. Instead of starting off at the bottom of the ladder, he would take the express elevator.

  He had the men. He had the weapons. And now he had a special tool that was going to help him deal with the Vegas.

  Getting up from his desk, Antonio walked down the eight flights to the casino floor, where his brother was sitting at a blackjack table with Frankie, Raff, and Carmine.

  Yellowtail stood behind the table as the dealer.

  “Don Antonio,” he said.

  The other men all turned and stood.

  “Enjoying yourselves?” Antonio said.

  “Just waiting on you,” Christopher said. He took off his suit jacket, folded it, and laid it on the chair. Frankie and Carmine did the same, and Raff stood, nodding his bandaged head.

  As they walked to the service floor, Antonio rolled up his sleeves.

  Christopher guided them into the kitchens that had once served thousands of tourists and gambling addicts who burned their money in the slots and at the tables.

  Antonio wasn’t much of a gambling man, not unless he was the house or playing a private game of poker. He never did understand why people pissed their money away at games like blackjack. Since the Morettis’ escape from Naples, he understood more than ever how tough it was to be the underdog with the odds stacked against him.

  But the game had changed, and over the past few years, he had flipped those odds.


  When they got to the industrial-size kitchen, Frankie spat the matchstick out of his mouth and walked over to the freezer door. Christopher put the lantern down on a stainless-steel food-prep table.

  They still didn’t have the generators working, but they had plenty of batteries for their flashlights and lanterns.

  With a loud click, Frankie unlatched the freezer door. He pulled out a flashlight and directed it inside at three naked men tied up by their hands and feet.

  One of them, wet with piss and blood, squirmed across the floor. The other two men lay still, their bodies covered in bruises and cuts.

  The crawler was the one Antonio had come to visit. His men dragged him across the floor and hoisted him onto a metal chair. Frankie went to shut the door, but Antonio shook his hand.

  “Make them watch,” he said.

  The guy in the chair squirmed again, making little squealing sounds like a baby pig.

  Christopher moved the lantern, and the light illuminated the man’s weathered skin and jet-black hair. A large, drooping nose, square, bony features, and short stature told Antonio he was of Mesoamerican Indian descent, perhaps Mayan.

  Many of the narcos had campesinos on their payroll, giving them more money in a week to commit horrific crimes than they would make in a year working the land in their home country.

  Judging by this guy’s wrinkled forehead and callused hands, he was no stranger to working in the fields. His eyes widened as Carmine and Frankie walked behind him to hold him down and untie the bandanna they had used to mute his screams.

  Raff watched, his arms folded across his chest. Normally, he wasn’t involved in the violence, but after what happened on the road, he had requested to be here.

  That was good. The soldier needed to see this.

  Carmine pulled off the bandanna, and as the prisoner wriggled in his chair, Antonio bent down and put a finger to his lips as if shushing a baby.

  “Por favor, jefe,” the man groaned. “Please don’t kill me.”