He couldn’t shut it off. Chest aching, heart bludgeoning itself against his rib cage, he felt dizzy. A veil of sweat dampened his face, his back. He staggered around the side of the house—for privacy. Then feeling as if he had inhaled firecrackers, he sunk down onto the grass. His body shook uncontrollably.
Am I having a heart attack? he wondered. Will Jessie and Abby survive without me? Or am I so worthless, so powerless as a protector that my absence won’t matter?
93C
BRADLEY WALKED TOWARD the Levins’ house. Two more gunmen lay dead in the driveway, a third in the grass.
“I got those two ...”
He turned, surprised to see Abby behind him.
“... And believe it or not, my dad got that one.”
“That makes ten.” Grinning sheepishly, Bradley lobbed the grenade to her and said, “I think you dropped this.”
Abby caught it with a downward swiping motion. “You’re welcome.” A playful taunt glinted in her blue eyes, then she began walking up the hill. “Did you count the two up here?”
Bradley trailed after her.
A man halfway up the hill had been shot twice, through the thigh and the back.
“Freaking lead,” she muttered. “Took me four shots—triple miss.”
Bradley liberated an American-made M4 from the dead man’s grasp and cleared the rifle. Unlike the others, this guy was clothed in a U.S. Army battle dress uniform with name and rank insignias identifying him as Sergeant Smith.
Bradley squatted beside the body and removed a black headband, adorned with a silk-screened white rectangle and a foreign script that looked Middle Eastern. His attention was riveted on the emblems printed on either side; a globe, and in the foreground, a fist grasping an assault rifle.
He followed Abby to the second body at the top of the ridge. “Sergeant Dias” clutched an M4, and Bradley tracked the barrel to overwatch. A frosty tingle ricocheted inside his skull, whizzed along his spine, and blitzed every nerve ending in his body. He had come within seconds of being shot.
“He never should’ve made it this far,” Abby was saying, her tone apologetic.
That’s why she was so pissed about the four shots, he thought. Bradley took a closer look at the man who had nearly killed him. “A head shot? Up here?”
“That’s all I could see. And it still took me two stinking tries.”
Their eyes fused in an unspoken conversation, and Bradley knew his were betraying his emotions, exposing feelings he had desperately tried to conceal. Abby was seeing that he adored her; that he wanted her so badly it scared him; but he didn’t care. She already knew. Everybody freaking knew.
Abby sidestepped to higher ground, eliminating the height difference between them. “You could’ve been killed. And I never would’ve gotten a chance to find out.”
Find out what? he thought, pulse accelerating as her arms looped around his neck. Then those warm, full lips pressed against his, softly and seductively.
Bradley’s restraint shattered. His left arm closed around her waist, drawing her body against him; his right hand cupped her face. He returned her kiss, his tongue grazing her lips, gently prodding them apart, and he felt her shiver. Pent-up emotion coursed through him like a tidal wave. Kissing her felt so intoxicating, so natural; Bradley never wanted to stop. Nothing else mattered.
Not that she was sixteen.
Not that he would have to report for duty.
Not even her parents ... watching from the street below.
94C
“I KNOW YOU FEEL TERRIBLE right now,” Jessie said, fingers massaging Kyle’s scalp, “but you did the right thing. You protected Abby and me. You kept your promise.”
His posture straightened, his chin lifted, and he pulled her into a hug. “Thanks. I guess I needed to hear that.”
Arm in arm, they started toward Sugar Lake Road, then Jessie lunged in her husband’s path. “Kyle, don’t go over there.”
“Look at them! Of course, I’m going over there—”
“To do what? To yell at her? To make her run off again?”
A crippling pain shone in his green eyes, but she couldn’t let him confront Abby. Not now; when he was so angry.
“So there aren’t rules anymore?” he shouted. “Moral values go out the window? We just let her do whatever she damned well pleases?”
“Our street is a freaking combat zone.” Jessie drew a prolonged, uneven breath, measuring her words, trying to forestall an emotional firefight sure to devastate her family. While physical wounds could heal and be forgotten, Jessie knew hateful words could inflict pain over a lifetime. “Kyle, I’m saying we can’t dump adult responsibilities on Abby then treat her like a child—”
“She is a child.” The words sputtered from Kyle’s mouth.
“Not anymore.”
Eyes widening in horror, he said, “Are you telling me she’s already sleeping with him?”
“Not yet—”
“Yet?” Kyle plowed forward, and Jessie lodged her hands against his shoulders. She planted her feet and leveraged her body to halt his advance.
“I’m just asking you to wait ... until you calm down,” Jessie said, her voice pleading, eyes filming. “Please, Kyle. Wait. For me?”
95C
BRADLEY GRABBED A SHOVEL, and as he began digging the grave, it seeped into his consciousness, how close he had come to dying.
Rattled and disillusioned, it was more than the prospect of dying in a firefight; it was his own obliviousness that haunted him. Abby had snuck up on him the day Will arrived; and today, he had allowed a savage to do the same thing. When it came to situational awareness, Bradley was failing.
If Abby had missed, he would be dead right now. The thought soured his stomach. He was supposed to be protecting her. Giving a flustered sigh, Bradley wondered which was worse: Being shot by a sixteen-year-old girl? Or being saved by one?
Or maybe it was French kissing one on a hilltop for all to see?
His resolve had crumbled, he had crossed a boundary, and the damage was irreversible. No kiss had ever stirred him so intensely. Was it just a psychological craving for forbidden fruit? Infatuation? Or something far more frightening?
Kyle was approaching, shovel in hand, and Bradley grimaced.
What do I say to him?
“Are you planning on burying all the savages?”
“Hell no,” Bradley told him.
“Feed them to the gators?”
“Not a good plan if you intend to eat the gators.”
Both men shoveled in uneasy silence, metal slicing against sand, the slooshing sound ticking off time until Kyle said, “Can you help me to understand something?”
Dread rioted through Bradley. Here it comes.
“First, you have Abby calling you Sexy. Then your best friend’s wife and kid get shredded. Corpses litter our street. And you decide it’s a good time to jam your tongue down my daughter’s throat?”
Spoken aloud, it sounded even more unseemly, indefensible. Bradley slammed the shovel into the sand, rested both hands atop the wooden handle, and stared down into the hole, wishing he could disappear into it.
“Sexy is just a retaliatory nickname for me calling her Squirt—”
“Look, Bradley, I know you’re the reason we’re alive. I get that. And I appreciate it.”
“But?”
“But, I’m asking you to back off. Stay away from Abby ...”
He was surprised how deeply those words cut.
“... She worships you because you’re a Sniper. You know that, so don’t take advantage of it.”
Take advantage? Bradley bit the inside of his mouth, attempting to contain his anger. “Understood, sir. And you won’t have to worry about it much longer because I’ll be leaving.”
“Leaving?” Kyle repeated.
“I have an obligation to the Marine Corps.”
Kyle stumbled backward, clumsily taking a seat on the hillside. “Bradley, I don’t want you to leave.”
“W
ell, I have to. And I’m done waiting for you to figure shit out. Your training starts tomorrow at 0700 hours.”
( ( ( 49% Complete ) ) )
* * Change of Heart(2C)? * *
YES ... Back to Moral Dilemma 2A
NO ... Page forward to continue
( ( ( DAY 14C ) ) )
Thursday, February 27th
96C
“IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE,” Bradley said, tossing two black headbands onto the kitchen table.
Will peered at him, eyelids drooping with grief and exhaustion. “You can’t apply logic and common sense to people who are willing to use children as bombs.”
Gramps examined the tattered fabric, speckled with blood and missing its ties. He plunged a pinky through the bullet hole. “Showing off on this one?”
Bradley shook his head. “Nope. That was your protégé.”
“Abby should be aiming center mass,” Gramps said, tapping his chest. “No head shots. Did you set her straight?”
“She, uh ... That’s all she could see.”
“The body at the crest?” Gramps’ brow tightened as he reconstructed the scenario. “So the tongue wrestling on the hill? That was your way of thanking Abby for saving your ass?”
He stiffened, eyes momentarily clamping shut to deflect the question.
Gramps began humming Can’t Help Falling In Love. Will chimed in with the lyrics.
“Can we get back on task, here?” Bradley snapped. “Those weren’t just garden-variety savages.”
Grudgingly, Gramps’ attention returned to the headband. “If we’re lucky, it’s a group of wannabes ... Or we could be dealing with the Al Quds Force, the branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps responsible for spreading the Islamic revolution abroad.”
“IRGC?” Bradley repeated. “Why the hell would they attack us?”
A pained recognition registered on Will’s face. “I think they were after my truck.”
Bradley swatted the possibility as if shooing an insect. “It’s been in the Levins’ gar—” His chair scraped backward. He sprung to his feet, palms flattened against the table. “Abby’s bike! You took the truck to get it?” He glared at Gramps. “And you let him?”
“It’s not your grandfather’s fault,” Will said. “I just took off. He gave me hell when I got back. I didn’t think anyone saw me.”
Bradley’s thoughts spun. Foreboding feelings buzzed through him. What if they have explosives, rocket-propelled grenades, or mortars? What if they come back with fifty fighters?
“Damn it, Gramps. We may have just swatted a hornets’ nest.”
“I’ve been mulling this over all night,” Will said. “And if they want the truck that badly, I say let ‘em have it!”
97C
WEDGED IN THE BACKSEAT of the truck behind Bradley and Will, Kyle couldn’t stop yawning. The aftermath of yesterday’s battle and his argument with Abby had made sleep impossible.
I don’t want her involved with a twenty-year-old. Does that really make me a tyrant?
A strained silence loomed during the six-mile drive to Summit Springs, but as Bradley backed the pickup onto the playground, Kyle’s mood lightened.
One by one, they pitched dead savages over the tailgate and erected a human monument beside the swing set, an inkling of justice for that young girl.
Bradley jumped down from the truck bed.
“What about that last body?” Kyle asked.
“We’re taking him with us. Just get in.”
Taking him where? Kyle wondered, climbing back into the truck. And why?
Bradley drove north for ten miles, weaving around vehicles; and for brief stretches the landscape appeared ordinary, untouched by the EMP. Kyle began to reminisce, mourning the beautifully intricate and indulgent world he had lost: being able to eat anything, anytime; feeling safe inside his own home; having an entire planet of experts an Internet connection away. He had taken so much for granted.
I want to go back, Kyle thought, knowing he would have a better chance of getting to Mars. At least Mars still existed.
The Marine braked to a stop south of Astatula. “Kyle, you need to stand watch,” he said, gesturing toward a scraggly orange tree at the side of the road.
Despite dozens of questions whipping through his mind, he extricated himself from the backseat, rifle in hand, and hurried toward the tree, a good vantage point to detect threats.
He watched Bradley haul the dead savage from the truck bed and wrestle his rigid body into the driver’s seat. Will was hammering something inside the engine.
Kyle forced his focus back to security. The peak of a gently sloping hill lay to the north; to the south, the road bent and seemed to be swallowed up by trees. Why this location? Desolate and remote?
He stole another glance. Bradley was positioning an AK-47 so that its barrel jutted out the driver’s window. Will was standing atop the truck bed, rifling through his cross-bed toolbox. Is this some clever plan? Or did they both lose it?
A glistening wet thread began twiddling along the roadway.
“Um, Will ... truck’s leaking oil.”
“I know. I jacked the oil filter, so the engine will seize in about a half hour.”
He’s destroying the only running vehicle we have?
Waving for Kyle and Will, Bradley said, “Follow me and stay low to the ground.”
They crept into a stand of trees at the hill’s apex. Below them stood a khaki-colored warehouse with thirty-foot corrugated steel walls and a rolling bay door large enough for a tractor trailer. Two traditional man-sized doors provided access to the front and side of the building, and dozens of skylights allowed natural light into the windowless metal box. An eight-foot, chain-link fence enclosed the warehouse and its parking area; and stationed at the gate, two men in U.S. military uniforms stood guard.
“Are those U.S. troops?” Kyle asked.
“Negative,” Bradley told him. “This warehouse is a distribution hub for the savages.”
Sabotaging the truck, the dead driver—the madness was starting to make sense.
A low-pitched, cranking growl drew Kyle’s attention back to the warehouse. A desert-camouflage fuel tanker was chugging from the building, streaming a cloud of dense black exhaust. Two more Army vehicles emerged and turned north onto County Road 561.
Bradley’s lips were set in a grim line. Outrage seemed to radiate from his pores.
“Just how bad is this?” Kyle whispered.
“Worse than you can imagine.”
98C
VLADIMIR STOLEV HAD dreamed of becoming a cosmonaut since he was a boy; and as the Russian space vehicle left Earth’s atmosphere, a feeling of accomplishment glowed like a fire within him. This would be his final mission, a mighty blow to the United States.
The plan had been fermenting for decades—vengeance for an economic war that had fractured the Soviet Union. Through the launch of Saudi Arabian oil fields, excessive domestic oil production, and brazen speculation, the Americans had created a glut of oil. They had maliciously driven down the price of crude, the financial lifeblood of the communist superpower, bankrupting it, driving it into collapse. Now, the United States would experience disintegration.
The world believed this launch was a routine resupply mission to the International Space Station. It had been scheduled months prior to the EMP to guarantee safe passage for his precious cargo—stealth microdrones programmed to intercept the orbits of U.S. military satellites. The miniaturized spacecraft contained no explosives, instead relying on the 22,000-mile-per-hour orbital speed of the satellite to cause massive destruction. Metal fragments would become supersonic shrapnel, and Vladimir smirked, likening the orbiting space debris to Saturn’s rings.
Miles below on terra firma, missiles were flying like a global food fight, diverting America’s attention. Iranian volleys were savaging the streets of Tel Aviv; and North Korean barrages were targeting Seoul and Tokyo.
After releasing the drones, Vladimir had two opti
ons. Reenter Earth’s atmosphere and be shot down by the U.S. military? Or pop a cyanide pill and float into the cosmos?
The choice was an easy one.
Vladimir refused to give the Americans the satisfaction.
99C
FLABBERGASTED, BRADLEY remained immobile while his mind jetted. He couldn’t pursue the convoy because the pickup’s engine would seize; and even if he had been able to follow the vehicles, he couldn’t stop them—not with an AR-10.
“Excuse my ignorance,” Kyle said. “But what was that?”
“A Patriot missile battery. A high-tech surface-to-air defense system that can shoot down ballistic missiles, drones, and fighter jets—even at high altitude.”
Will let out an aggravated grunt. “So, terrorists can shoot down our planes with our missiles?”
“Satellites will track the battery, and Special Forces will recover it,” Bradley told him. “Hopefully before the savages can use it.”
They returned to the pickup, and after shifting the vehicle into neutral, they pushed it up the gradual incline until gravity tugged the idling engine past the crest, pulling it downhill. Bradley, Kyle, and Will retreated back to the stand of trees in time to see the gate guards open fire. Bullets pulverized the windshield, and the truck coasted to a stop ten yards from the warehouse entrance.
A teenaged boy was sent out to investigate. He pulled the dead man from the cab, got behind the wheel, and steered the truck into the compound. Six camouflage-clad men with black headbands surrounded the vehicle. One shouted something in his native tongue, then four teenaged jihadists spilled from the warehouse. They swarmed over the tailgate and fenders into the truck bed, joining the young driver, dancing, pumping their AK-47s, shouting, “Allahu Akbar!”
A series of dull pops augmented the celebration. Glimmering objects swirled around the truck as if the vehicle were trapped inside a giant snow globe. Amidst shrieks, bloodied fingers clutched at wounds—legs, chests, throats, and eyes. Dazed and frightened jihadists bounded into one another. A few tumbled down onto the pavement as the men with headbands rushed to their aid.
“Will, what the fuck did you do?” Bradley demanded, readying his rifle.
Powerless- America Unplugged Page 65
