“Now that is one fine piece of ass,” Grogan said as he watched the woman deposit the bags in the pickup and start back toward her house, hurrying now, as she looked in all directions. “You reckon it’s just her and the old lady?”
“That’s my guess,” Morton said, “‘cause I’m thinking if there was a husband or father or brother, he’d have hauled the stuff to the truck.”
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Grogan asked.
“If you’re thinking you know how to spend the rest of our little break, I believe I am,” Morton said, then added, “First dibs.”
“Screw you, Morton! You already got my whiskey, so I got first dibs on the woman. Besides, you probably only need about seventeen seconds anyway, seeing as how you’re so fast and all.”
“Screw you back, Grogan,” Morton said, but he was laughing as the two men rose and moved toward the old lady’s house.
“What’s up, Sergeant?” Luke asked as Washington lowered the binoculars.
“I don’t know,” Washington said, “but it doesn’t seem right. A bunch of people started dropping off food in the pickup not long after Grogan and Morton started canvassing. That’s way faster than I expected, and now there hasn’t been anyone there for the last fifteen minutes.”
“You think you should—”
Gunfire sounded down the street from the direction of the cul-de-sac, a few individual shots, possibly a handgun, followed after a brief pause by semiautomatic rifle fire.
“Shit!” Washington said as he swung into the driver’s seat on the Humvee and grabbed the mike.
“Shopping Cart Four this is Shopping Cart two. Sitrep, NOW. Over,” Washington said.
“We’re taking fire, repeat, we’re taking fire. Grogan is down, repeat, Grogan is down. I am withdrawing to the pickup. Over,” came Morton’s voice.
“We copy, Four. Support is on the way. Over.”
Washington looked at Luke, who was already in the driver’s seat of his own Humvee, picking up the mike. “Shopping Cart Three, this is Shopping Cart Actual. Suspend your current operation and move pickup to our current position to assume control of the subdivision entrance. Shopping Cart Actual and Shopping Cart Two are moving in support of Shopping Cart Four. Confirm. Over.”
“This is Shopping Cart Three, we copy. On the way, LT,” Abrams said.
Luke cranked up the Humvee and started after Washington, who was already racing toward Grogan and Morton’s pickup. They arrived within seconds of each other, bracketing the pickup, just as Morton ran across a lawn and ducked behind the truck, rising to shoot toward the house, then moving into the more secure area behind Washington’s Humvee. Gibson and Long manned the M2s, searching for threats, as Luke and Washington exited their vehicles on the sides away from the house and moved beside Morton.
“What the hell happened, Morton?” Washington demanded.
“Me and Grogan heard screaming coming from that house. We got there and found the door kicked in and stumbled upon a bunch of gangbangers, must be a dozen of them, maybe more. Anyway, we got in a firefight and Grogan got hit. They almost got me too. I had to leave him; there was too many of them,” Morton said.
“Is Grogan dead?” Luke asked.
Morton nodded. “Absolutely, LT. He took a round in the head. I hated to leave him, but it was just too hot. I think there may be more of them. We need to get out of here ‘cause this place will be crawling with bangers in a few minutes.”
“We’re not leaving anyone.” Luke moved to peer around the Humvee at the house. “Damn! The place is on fire. There’s smoke coming out the windows.”
“The dude is DEAD,” Morton said, “and we shouldn’t risk anyone just to recover a body.”
Luke kept his face impassive. “All right, Morton, settle down. Take cover behind the pickup and keep an eye on the front door. I have to think about this.”
“The dude is DEAD,” Morton repeated, but assumed the position behind the truck as ordered.
Luke nodded at Washington and stepped away as far as possible. “What do you think of that story?” he asked softly.
“It’s a fairy tale. The gunfire we heard wasn’t nearly sustained enough to be a firefight, and if there were bangers in there, they’d be opening up on us. They’re all trigger-happy assholes with no fire discipline at all, and the only one shooting when we got here was Morton.” Washington looked toward the house. “And if we want to find out what went down, we don’t have much time before it goes up in smoke.”
Luke nodded and drew his sidearm. “Get Long down here, but leave Gibson on the Ma Deuce just in case there’s a miracle and this asshole is telling the truth.”
Washington nodded and hurried to carry out those orders as Luke walked back over to Morton. Morton stiffened when he saw the handgun and Luke saw the man’s weapon move a bit.
“Don’t even think about it, Morton. Set your weapon down gently against the truck, face away from me and put both hands on the back of your head.”
“What the fuc—”
Luke leveled the gun at Morton’s head. “I’m not going to ask twice, and it’s well within my authority to shoot you for disobeying a direct order while in contact with the enemy.”
“All right, all right,” Morton said as Long climbed out of the Humvee.
“Long, zip-tie Private Morton’s hands and sit him down behind the pickup. If he makes an aggressive move, shoot him. Got it?” Luke asked.
“Absolutely,” Long replied.
Luke looked at Washington. “Okay, Sergeant, let’s go take out these gangbangers.”
Washington nodded and they approached the house on opposite zigzag paths, taking advantage of available cover to stack up on opposite sides of the splintered front door.
Washington pulled out a flash bang and looked a question at Luke, who nodded, and the big man activated it and tossed it into the house. Both men rushed in on the heels of the explosion and found the house—empty—or at least not occupied by the living. The smoke was emanating from smoldering curtains in the family room, evidently set on fire by Morton before his hasty retreat. Washington pulled them down and dragged them through a patio door to toss them into an inground pool with green scummy water, then returned, leaving the patio door open to help clear the room.
Luke stared at the scene, rage rising within him. Grogan was dead, sure enough, lying face up with his pants and underwear around his ankles, his face disfigured by the exit wound of a gunshot. There was also an old woman on the floor beside a wheelchair, dead of multiple gunshot wounds, and a young girl near the woman, dead of the same cause. The girl was naked and there were angry red marks on her body from where her underwear had been ripped from her body. There was a Colt 1911 on the floor beside the girl.
Luke looked at Washington, who only shook his head, as if incapable of speech, and both men turned and left the house. At the Humvees, Luke stood staring down at Morton.
“Let’s hear it, Morton,” he said.
“It was an accident, LT. We didn’t mean to kill ‘em. We just wanted to have a little fun, you know.”
“Go on,” Luke said, his face a mask.
“Well, I taped the old lady’s trap to shut her up and taped her hands to the wheelchair and then rolled her out of the way into a bedroom, but the old bitch got loose somehow. The next thing I know, I’m watching Grogan do his business and she rolls out with a Colt and shoots Grogan in the head. Right there in front of me, for Christ’s sake. Then she starts shooting at me, but I’ve stripped off most of my gear and I have to dive behind the couch, and by the time I can get to my gun and shoot the old bitch, the girl got out from under Grogan. Then when I cap the old lady, the girl picks up the gun and starts shooting at me, so I have to shoot her too. I mean, I didn’t have a choice, it was self-defense.”
“So you figure you’ll just make up this fairy tale and burn down the house, and we’re all cool, huh?” Luke asked.
Morton shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Then he continued, “
Look, LT, I know we screwed up and I’m sorry I didn’t come clean. I’m willing to take any punishment you want. Why, when Grogan and I screwed up in Uganda, Rorke had us on all the shit details for six months and—”
“So you’ve done this before?”
“No, not exactly like this, but some chick’s kid brother got pissed off and tried to kill us, so we had to defend ourselves, and Rorke had to smooth it over with the head dude in the village. I think he bought him a bunch of goats or something—”
“Shut your mouth, you sick bastard,” Washington said. “I heard enough.”
Washington stalked away, jerking his head for Luke to follow. He stopped some distance from the Humvees and turned to Luke.
“What are we gonna do, LT? If we take that piece of shit back, you know Rorke’s gonna let him off with a slap on the wrist. Five will get you ten, he’ll pay lip service to ‘severe punishment’ and a few weeks from now Morton will just be in another unit. This is messed up.”
Luke said nothing as Washington articulated his own worst fears. He looked over at Morton on his knees and the truck full of looted food. Beyond the truck he could see people starting to emerge from houses along the cul-de-sac, their body language telegraphing their fear, even at a distance. And here and there, he saw angry gestures and an occasional pistol or hunting rifle. None of the residents understood what had happened just yet, but when they did, a conflict was inevitable.
What had Rorke called it, ‘medieval Genghis Khan shit’? A lawless time with no rules, except those made by men with power for their own benefit. Was that a system he could live under, even under duress? He turned back to Washington and looked him in the eye.
“WE aren’t going to do anything, Sergeant. This is entirely MY responsibility and if it goes sideways, no blame will be on you or any other member of this unit. Is that clear?”
“But, LT—”
“Sergeant Washington, please confirm your understanding of the difference between your responsibilities and mine by saying yes, sir.”
Washington came almost to attention. “Yes, sir!”
“Very good, Sergeant.” Luke turned and marched back to Morton.
“Private Morton, you have confirmed you killed the two women in the house across the street, is that correct?”
Morton looked confused. “Yeah, like I said, I shot them in self-defense—”
“Private Morton, you stand convicted by your own testimony of two criminal acts against the civilian population, specifically violations of Article 118 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, or murder. Furthermore, and also by your own testimony, both such criminal acts occurred during the commission of a violation of Article 120 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, specifically rape, making these crimes especially vile in nature. The penalty for these crimes is death. Accordingly, by the legal precedent which allows for the summary execution of soldiers in emergency situations with no recourse to legal process, and in light of your own confession, I hereby inform you of my intention to carry out that execution.”
Luke drew his sidearm. “Do you have any last words?”
“Wh-what do you mean?”
“I mean I’m about to blow your sorry ass away, but you get to say something first.”
“You can’t do this!”
Luke shot Morton between the eyes.
“Yes, I can,” he whispered as he looked down at Morton’s lifeless body, “and I wish I’d done it a lot sooner.” He straightened.
“Sergeant Washington!”
“Yes, sir?”
“Sergeant, throw Morton’s remains on the pickup truck and then take Private Long and go collect Grogan. We’ve done enough to these people without leaving them our garbage to deal with. Then I want Long to drive the pickup and we’ll all withdraw to the traffic circle and pick up Shopping Cart Three as we exit the subdivision. We need to get out of here ASAP before anyone else is hurt. We’ll rally in the Publix parking lot. Clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Washington said, and nodded to Long as he stooped to pick up Morton’s body.
Thirty minutes later, Luke directed the four vehicles to form a hollow square in the center of the Publix parking lot. Everyone dismounted in the center except for Gibson, who stayed on the Ma Deuce, scanning for threats.
“Can you hear me okay up there, Gibson?” asked Luke from the center of the square.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Okay, people, listen up. As you know, this is a confused situation, and we’re all doing the best we can. We all volunteered for the SRF on the understanding we’d be helping in the recovery, and no one told us at the time the transfer was permanent, or we’d be ‘discharged’ if we attempted to resign from the SRF. I can no longer in good conscience follow the orders I’m being given, but I sure as hell am not going to let them disarm me and dump me God knows where. I’m taking one of the Humvees and a share of the stores and leaving. Anyone who wants to come with me is welcome, and anyone who wants to return to base can do so in the other vehicles. Your call.”
“But where you gonna go, LT?” Long asked. “I heard standing orders are anybody who bugs out is classed a deserter.”
“I can’t answer that question because I don’t have a plan, but I do know I’d rather be a deserter than associated with this mercenary scum they’re pairing us with, following orders I believe are criminal. My dad’s in the Coast Guard up in Wilmington, so I guess I’ll head that way.” He paused. “But I want all of you to think VERY hard before you decide to come with me or just strike off on your own. I have no hard feelings either way, and after you commit, there’s no turning back.”
There was murmuring and head nods, but after the briefest of pauses, Washington spoke.
“I’m with you, LT.”
“Make it three,” Long said.
“Four,” Gibson called down from the Ma Deuce. “My folks’ place is just northeast of Wilmington anyway, so that works for me. I’ll stay with you at least that far, LT.”
Gibson’s agreement was followed quickly by nods from the other two Marines.
Luke nodded. “All right then, gentlemen, I guess we’re all officially rogues and outlaws.”
There was a long silence as they all reflected on his words, but slowly Washington’s face split into a grin.
“Hell, LT, this is the best I felt since the friggin’ lights went out!”
Fort Box
Wilmington Container Terminal
Wilmington, North Carolina
Day 14, 9:00 a.m.
Chief Boatswain’s Mate Mike Butler watched from his raised vantage point on the deck of the container ship as across the terminal, large forklifts stacked empty containers into a makeshift wall a hundred feet inside the chain-link fence surrounding the terminal.
“Fort Box, huh? Accurate, but not real original.”
Beside him, Sergeant Josh Wright grunted. “I’m more interested in defensible than original. We couldn’t defend the entire terminal perimeter now anyway, even with the crew-served weapons. This way, we limit the wall to what we can defend and expand it as the need arises and we have more manpower. And we can set up inside the fence, leaving good fields of fire between the new wall and the original fence. We just concentrate the ships on one section of the dock and just build out from there. The added bonus is there aren’t any nearby buildings high enough to let the gangbangers, or anyone else, snipe at us inside the new walls.”
Butler nodded and followed Wright’s gaze down the length of the dock. Three other fully loaded container ships were tied up bow to stern, just forward of the ship he was on, and two grain carriers, with full cargoes of corn and wheat respectively, rested forward of the farthest container ship. The container ships were tied up with their starboard sides directly to the dock, so they could all be worked by the terminal cranes, but the grain carriers were rafted side by side with one tied off abreast of the other to reduce the length of dock the ships occupied and thus minimize the length of defensive wall to be construc
ted. Two loaded product tankers were similarly rafted together side by side, sharing the single berth in the product terminal just downriver, previously occupied by Pecos Trader . Given the importance of fuel, ‘Fort Box’ was being extended downstream to include the product terminal within its protective walls. The few ships carrying cement, paper, and other bulk cargoes of no immediate use had been moored at various docks downstream, outside the defensive perimeter of the fledgling fort. Food, water, and defense of same were priorities now. Anything else was a distant second.
Butler turned his gaze to the substantial but increasingly crowded patch of asphalt being enclosed by the growing wall of containers.
“Well, expansion can’t be too soon for me, since our ‘defensible’ area is already chockablock with RVs, travel trailers, your swimming pool waterworks, and God knows what all,” Butler said. “You know we still need room to get the stuff OFF the ships and some place to put it, and the transporters need room to move around—”
Wright held up his hand. “And we’re leaving you plenty of room next to each ship and a lane to get the containers out of the defended area. You’ll just have to store them out beyond the wall until the stuff is needed. They’ll be behind the fence and in sight and within coverage of the M2s on the wall. It’s not like the bangers can steal a whole container. They got no clue what’s in which box anyway. Hell, we got the manifests, and it’s still tough to find stuff among all these boxes. It’s getting easier, though, now that we got a few folks assigned full time.” Wright nodded. “We’re in a hell of a lot better shape than I ever thought possible.”
“That we are,” Butler said. “It’s an embarrassment of riches, really. We need to start distributing some of this stuff.”
“Just as soon as we have a defensible perimeter and the ability to safeguard what we have. I agree with Major Hunnicutt on this one—if we try to start helping people before we’re prepared, everything could go tits up in a hurry. I’m thinking another three or four days max, then we can start on a relief/feeding station. “
“Where?” Butler asked.
Under a Tell-Tale Sky: Disruption - Book 1 Page 21
