Their retreat from the fighting outside of Butler ten days ago had taken nearly every bullet they had. And every friend. Between the two of them, they had a grand total of fifteen rounds. Eight in Marlin’s rifle. Seven in Wibberley’s.
Wibberley gave Marlin a nod, and the two very slowly adjusted themselves and their rifles, easing the muzzles through the brush and pushing the leaves out of the way when they blocked their optics. They settled into their rifles. Marlin eased the lever on his ElCan forward, magnifying his sight picture to 4x. Wibberley did the same.
Marlin was on the left, so he took the sentry that was on the left, putting the crosshairs right on the back of the operative’s skull.
Two or three miles from Butler. Close enough that the rifle reports would probably be heard. They were both aware of this. But there wasn’t another option. They needed that pickup truck. They sure as shit weren’t going to walk to Texas.
God, I hope they have food, Marlin thought, and it didn’t even cross his mind that it might be inhuman of him to only think about food, and not the man he was about to kill to get it. Humanity was not a worthwhile consideration. This was survival.
“Ready,” Wibberley whispered, just the barest susurration.
Marlin put his finger on the trigger. Tightened it until he felt the wall, past which the trigger would break and the round would fly.
He whispered back, slow and steady: “Fire. Fire. Fire.”
Two rounds, perfectly synchronized into a single rifle report.
The bodies dropped.
Marlin wasted no time. He thrashed to his feet, muscles already cramping. His unwieldy legs nearly tripped as he tried to drag them through the brush and into a run. Rifle up. Shoulders burning.
They stamped out onto the roadway, pivoting around the driver’s side of the truck, where the two bodies lay, fallen on top of each other and slumped against the front tire.
Marlin slapped his ElCan back to 1x, then flashed the reticle across the bodies on the pavement. Dead eyes stared at nothing. Blood fountained from their noses. “Targets down,” Marlin said, immediately switching his focus to the truck. The windows were open. Marlin sidestepped, his respiration high despite the minimal effort. God, but his body was taking a shit on him.
“Clear,” Wibberley said, after strafing by the open windows and checking the seats and floorboards. He moved to the bodies and began stripping them of anything useful.
Marlin lowered his rifle and checked the bed. It contained the most valuable thing they could have hoped for—and the primary reason why they’d chosen to strike these particular sentries. A large auxiliary tank, the type that looks like a truckbed toolbox, but has a gas pump sticking out of the top.
Marlin hoisted himself briefly up onto the bed, snatching a glimpse of the auxiliary tank’s fuel guage. It was three quarters full. Probably in the neighborhood of sixty or seventy gallons?
For the first time in ten days, Marlin felt a tiny burst of triumph in his chest.
This was a big win for them.
In the back seat of the crew cab he found two go-packs. Marlin’s mouth watered, thinking they would probably contain water and food. And yeah, maybe some extra ammunition. But mainly he thought about the water and food.
“Keys in the ignition,” Marlin noted.
“Roger that. Crank her up.”
Marlin slid into the driver’s seat and cranked the engine. It rumbled to life with blessed ease. A half a tank of gas. Plus the auxiliary tank. It still might not be enough to get them where they wanted to go, but it was better than they could have hoped for.
Wibberly chucked two pilfered rifles and two pistols into the backseat. Then he returned and snatched one of the operative’s radios from the pouch on his armor, disconnected the earpiece and stood straight, listening.
Silence. For a moment.
Then: “Sentry Five, this is command. Come back.”
Wibberley traded a glance with Marlin, then brought the radio up to his mouth and keyed it. “This is Sentry Five,” Wibberley said, in a decent approximation of an American accent. “Go ahead, command.”
“Reports of gunshots in your area. Please advise.”
“Yeah, we heard them,” Wibberley said. “Sounded like they were coming from east of us.”
A new voice broke in: “Command, command, this is Sentry Five. I don’t know who the fuck that was on the radio.”
Wibberley grimaced, then pocketed the radio, his voice going back to his natural accent “Guess we need to get the hell out of here.”
Marlin helped him strip the armor from the bodies, piled them into the backseat with the guns, and then he and Wibberley jumped in and slammed the doors. The radio was squawking from Wibberley’s pocket: “All units, switch to emergency subchannel. Comms have been compromised.”
Marlin cranked the wheel to the left, then stomped on the gas. The pickup truck lurched forward and sped down the road, heading west.
***
The intersection with the two dead bodies in it remained quiet for a long moment after the last growl of the pickup’s engine faded in the distance.
The birds that had been silenced by the crash of the gunshots gradually got their gumption up again and started to chirp.
And then they fell silent again.
All except a lone blue jay that squawked indignantly at something moving beneath its nest.
Shapes emerged from the edges of the trees, all along the northeastern corner of the intersection. Tanned skin of different shades. Eyes staring out intensely at the two bodies.
The Alpha waited there at the treeline, feeling its mouth filling with saliva. A rope of it began to trickle from its lower jaw as it panted quietly in the warm stillness. The Alpha was hungry. Its body needed more than the last few weeks had given it, but they had only hunted a few times. Mostly they had travelled. Fast, and hard, and for many hours. Sleeping in the heat of the day, and the rest of the time spent moving. Ceaselessly moving.
It needed to feed. And yet it held itself back.
Some part of it that was beyond the baseline, predatory cleverness of its mind, had been hardwired by what had happened in the place where all the other alphas and their packs had congregated. The place where he had experienced The Glow, and encountered The Strange Ones.
It still did not know what The Strange Ones were. They were not like The Alpha, or even The Omegas. But they were also not like the Easy Prey. They straddled both existences. They knew things.
The Alpha feared them in a deep part of its brain. Because they made no sense to it. But in that fear, there was an imperative. Obedience. Somehow, someway, a part of The Alpha’s instinct that could not be ignored told it to follow The Strange Ones, just as a bird knows where to fly to migrate, and a fish knows where to swim to spawn. It simply is.
And so The Alpha and his pack, and the other packs that had combined with his, followed The Strange Ones, and they heard the noises that they made in the darkness when they were surrounded by The Omegas—noises like the Easy Prey—and The Omegas would tell The Alpha, and all the other alphas, what to do.
And they’d been told to wait. Even as they watched two Easy Prey kill two others, and then flee in their fast-moving shell. The Alpha, cognizant enough to know that four Easy Prey would feed them more than just two, still held back. Because The Omegas had not given them permission to feed, or to hunt, not yet. And The Omegas must be obeyed, because The Strange Ones knew things, and told them to The Omegas.
The scent of blood tinged the air, and The Alpha’s jaw began to open and close, tasting it on the sides of its tongue. Sharp. Demanding. Hungry.
A small hoot came from behind The Alpha.
And then The Alpha knew that it would feed. It had been told so. And it was grateful.
The alphas fed, while the others watched and waited, and when their bellies were full, they retreated from the bodies, and the others picked them clean. Not enough to go around. But they did not fight over what was left.
/> There would be more. There would be so many more.
They only needed to obey The Strange Ones.
They knew things.
SIX
─▬▬▬─
LOGISTICS
468 men, women and children.
356 of which were organized into armed squads. 112 of which served as support.
45 repurposed civilian vehicles. 18 guntrucks—ten Humvees, eight MATVs. Five MATVs with the assault configuration. Eleven tanker trucks, seven thousand gallons of fuel each. Pickup beds and Humvee fastbacks and SUV cargo areas stuffed with supplies. One flat-bed semi, on which they’d loaded the Blackhawk with its rotors folded—they had to keep the bird grounded, as they needed all the aviation fuel they had for the assault on Greeley.
It seemed like a lot, but Lee knew it was barely enough. 468 people were a lot of mouths to feed, and their meager food and water stores were already down to strict rationing.
Lee stared out the windshield of the Humvee as it pulled into the rear of the convoy. The train of vehicles snaked along the roughshod access road, disappearing into the trees beyond which the Project Hometown bunker lay.
Lee had been here before. It was the bunker that lay north of Caddo, Texas. The same one where they’d launched the assault on the power plant. The same one that he’d come back to and found Deuce waiting for him.
The driver craned his neck back and glanced at Lee. “Major, would you like us to try to skirt a little closer? So you don’t have to…” he trailed off, glancing at Lee’s bum leg.
Lee shook his head. “It’s fine. Stiff after the drive. Need to warm it up.”
In truth, the hike up the road to the bunker seemed exhausting. And he hated himself for that. What was a half-mile to him? A few weeks ago it would’ve been a light jog through the trees, no problem at all. Now it seemed like a journey.
And all those people. Those men and women with their weapons up, setting up a perimeter around their vehicles as they’d been taught, but occasionally glancing back at the Humvee that they knew contained Major Harden. He didn’t want to walk amongst them.
Limp amongst them.
He grunted against his own misgivings, and thrust his hand into the cargo pocket of his pants, drawing out the eyepatch that he only wore for the sake of others. It served no purpose other than to allow people to focus on his good eye, rather than feeling squeamish about his raw, scarred socket and the dead eye that it still held.
He slipped it on over his head, positioning the patch over his ruined eye.
“Arr, matey,” Abe intoned from beside him.
Lee managed a smirk, then pushed his door open and wrangled his way out. He did his best to not let his limp slow his stride. It was painful to push the pace, but he didn’t want the others to see him lagging. He couldn’t hide the limp, but he could at least appear strong.
Deuce followed at his side, and Abe met him around the front of the Humvee.
Lee strode along the ranks of civilians-turned-soldiers, making eye contact with each of them, sometimes giving them a nod, sometimes a pat on the shoulder, sometimes a word of encouragement. It seemed to bolster them.
Lee wasn’t sure why. It didn’t make much sense to him. But if he could provide that for them, then he would.
Angela waited halfway up the column of vehicles, flanked by Brinly and his Marine guard, and surrounded by a gaggle of the civilians that served in support roles. Liaisons. Logistics. Sure, they managed to be passionate about their jobs, but Lee couldn’t help but think of them as The Complaint Department.
“Madam President,” Lee nodded as he hitched his way up to them. “Major Brinly.”
“Bunker area is secured,” Brinly said. “They’re waiting on you.”
“Yup. I’m coming.” Lee only paused for a brief moment to cast his gaze over the support staff around them, as though wondering what they were going to ask for today. Then he moved on, Angela at his side now. Abby was with her, stealing glances of intense interest at Lee.
He pretended not to notice.
“They’re wondering about the showers,” Angela said, in a tone that suggested she was only saying it out of a sense of responsibility.
“Not gonna happen,” Lee said. “Any water in the bunker holding tanks needs to be harvested and stored for drinking. They’ll have to deal with their ass-stink for a bit longer.”
“Yeah, I figured,” Angela sighed. “Just passing it along.”
“You should’ve told them it was unrealistic.”
“I did.”
“Well, they should’ve listened to you.”
“They did. But I said I’d ask. It makes them feel better.”
“We never promised them comfort. I think we were quite clear about what they were going to get if they stuck around.”
“I’m just trying to keep everybody happy and focused. And don’t be so hard on them. They’re support. It’s their job.”
Lee didn’t say anything to that. He knew the support people were necessary. They were doing the best they could. But it was the fighters that he identified with. The people that were willing and able to pick up a gun and put their life on the line for the mission.
And what about you, Lee? He accused himself. Can you pick up a gun and put your life on the line?
He could. And he’d probably still be more effective than most. But it was a cold comfort to him. He couldn’t do what he used to do. He had to be useful in other ways now.
Command. That was where he was needed. That was what he could provide.
“Anything new on Triprock?” Lee asked Brinly as he made his way into the clearing where the bunker sat.
“No change.”
Lee thought about that settlement as he stopped at the bunker doors and keyed the code to get in. It hadn’t been changed since Mr. Daniels from Cornerstone had gotten his hands in the system and forced Tex to remove the gamut of security protocols.
He thought of the Robledos in Triprock. Sally, who had helped Abe arm himself and start the fight against the cartel. Those memories were all in shades of red. Like recalling something you’d done under the influence of some mind-altering substance.
Rage. That had been what had altered Lee’s mind. And everything in those bloody days was colored by it.
Was Lee any different now? The world felt different to him. But that was just experience. He’d changed and adapted, every new iteration of him slightly morphed from what it had been before. But deep down inside, he’d always been Lee. That rage was a part of him. It was then, and it was now.
What was it that it all came from? Different fruits that came from the same seed. Something that lay at the core of who he was as a person. Something he still couldn’t quite pin down.
As the doors to the bunker and the elevator inside opened, Lee turned to Brinly again. “Not sure how much is left down there, but what there is, we’re taking with us. Every bullet, every gallon of water, every pack of food, and every last bandage. We won’t be coming back.”
“We’ll take care of it.” Brinly turned and began to delegate a work crew while the others piled into the elevator.
It was cool inside. Air-conditioned. It came over Lee’s body like a shock.
Abby turned and looked at herself in the reflective surface of the stainless steel walls. Lee watched her as the floor moved under their feet and they began to descend. Her eyes ranged over the enclosed environment and then caught Lee in the reflection.
“You’ve never been in one of these bunkers before,” Lee said, almost like a flinch response to her eye contact. He couldn’t think of anything better to say.
She turned away from his reflection to look at him directly. She didn’t seem put off by his appearance. He wondered what she would think of him without his eyepatch.
“There are lots of them?” she asked.
“There are. But most of them are empty now.”
She put her hands on her hips, and for a flash, looked like a miniature of her mother. “W
ill there be enough guns and ammo?”
Lee traded a wry smirk with Abe. “There’s never enough guns and ammo.”
“But enough to do what we’re planning to do?”
Lee tilted his head. When had she become so forward with him? It seemed ass-backwards. This was the little girl that had been trapped on a rooftop, so many years ago, and watched Lee kill her infected father. She’d hated him for that. Probably still did. What got to Lee was that he’d looked normal then. His body had been bereft of the multitude of puckered scars that it now held. His face had been whole. He liked to imagine that there might’ve even been a bit of idealism still glowing in his eyes.
Now look at him.
And yet Abby chose now, when he was a grizzled, hateful wreck, to suddenly start talking to him?
Kids. They made no sense.
He cleared his throat. “Well. We hope so.”
They reached the bottom and filed out. The long corridor with the branching rooms to either side lay ahead, just as Lee had remembered it. And bloodstains. Those were still there. Black and old now. The blood of enemies and friends.
He gauged Abby’s reaction to this, but save for an nose-curl at a large splash of it right outside the elevator, she seemed not to care. She looked down the hall. “So all these rooms have stuff in them?”
“Some stuff. A lot of it’s been used up.” Lee moved around the gaggle of bodies. His purpose for being in the bunker was not for the supplies—Brinly’s men would take care of that. He stopped at the first door on his right and went in.
The control room. Only slightly larger than a walk-in closet. The computer terminal and bunker controls to his right. Some shelves to his left. Those were what he needed.
He quested a hand along a rank of three ring binders with enigmatic alphanumerics on them. Found what he was looking for. Pulled it out and returned to the desk where the computer terminal sat. He opened the binder and leafed to the page he needed.
Satellite photos. The US Army had seen fit to store all these images in hard-copy in the operational area of each bunker. In the beginning, Lee had considered them useless clutter, but they were a godsend now.
Lee Harden Series | Book 5 | Unbowed Page 5
