The Heart of War: Book Seven of the What's Left of My World Series

by C. A. Rudolph

  Lauren shuffled past Woo Tang and moved closer in. A duo of the unit’s enlisted were digging through the wreckage with their bare hands. Upon seeing her, they shouted dire admonishments, told her the threat was still active and to please preserve a safe distance. Lauren asked for an explanation but didn’t receive one. She then asked if anyone had been inside the building and waited a long while for a reply, but one never came.

  Backing away as requested, she took in the full view of the grounds. It looked like a war zone, a miniaturized, lifelike rendering of that which could be found in historical Civil War-era photographs. The razed colonial homes of Richmond, Charlottesville, and Fredericksburg, Virginia. Ruins of plantations set ablaze and hand-erected buildings crushed by cannon fire in Columbia, South Carolina, Atlanta and Savannah. And all the churches, cathedrals and religious meeting houses mindlessly reduced to ashes in those days.

  She circled the lot and found that almost every one of the unit’s vehicles and transports parked near the building had sustained extensive damage, failing one. At the far end, pulled as close to the trees as it could go, sat the only vehicle left relatively unscathed. Richie was seated on its hood, his uniform stained, torn and in disarray. His arms drew his knees into his chest, and his head rested inside his forearms, shrouding his face.

  Lauren started toward him, but Woo Tang got there first. A dialogue between them began, and Richie lifted his head to expose a mug covered in dirt and grime, riven by lines of white skin stretching from his eyes to his jawline. He’d been crying. She further closed the distance, arriving in time to hear one of Woo Tang’s terse inquiries.

  “Casualties?”

  Richie sniffled and shook, pointing to where he had relocated the fallen and covered them with woolen blankets. “Five,” he grieved. “Five, Chief. I dragged five men out of that mess, including myself. No idea how, but I did. And they’re all dead…all five of them, dead!” One by one, he rattled off their names and ranks in a tone as flustered as his appearance. “It should’ve been half-dozen, but I made it. Me. I was the only one…and I don’t know why. Why did I live and they didn’t?”

  Woo Tang gripped Richie’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Certain questions were designed to be unanswerable for reasons beyond our comprehension. That is the way of things. You endured, and they did not because nature determined it so.” A pause. “Stand fast, warrior. I need you in the fight.”

  Richie sighed and wiped his eyes. “I’m trying, Chief. I’m trying.”

  Lauren was stunned; she had never seen Richie this way. He’d never once openly displayed his emotions in this manner, and this abrupt unpretentiousness was out of character, making him appear almost normal to her.

  Both radios were chattering off at the same time in Woo Tang’s hands, and he backstepped away while laboring to interact with both. The smaller handheld Lauren had given him, while virtually silent before, with its volume still at its highest setting, had become the rowdiest. Whatever he and Will Sharp had spoken about, whatever information had been conveyed between them, had ignited a tumultuous round of questioning from numerous insistent voices, each representing an anxiously inquiring mind. The transmissions were received one on top of the other, almost concurrently at times, transforming the voices into an unreadable garble of buzzing and squawking.

  Woo Tang tried breaking through the pile-up to call for Will, but when he unkeyed, the contorted mess persisted, and in the end, no one could hear anyone else. Fred’s brusque voice pushed through at times, attempting to slice through the chaotic jumble and regain control, though nothing came of it.

  Then Woo Tang perceived a split second of intermission. He clamped down on the Baofeng’s transmit button with vigor in the same manner he would his M4’s trigger during a follow-up shot. “Break, break!” He unkeyed, waited one second, then pressed again. “I say again, break, break!” He unkeyed again, this time a few seconds longer, and waited, noting that the channel had cleared. “All stations, this is Command. I need all stations to stand by. I say again, stand by. A potentially catastrophic situation is developing, and priority traffic must take precedence.”

  The channel went terminally silent. Woo Tang called for Will, who came back to him without delay. He relayed his damage and casualty report in a proficient, succinct manner.

  A long period passed before hearing back. “Jesus. Acknowledged, Chief. Copy your five KIA and one FOL total loss. Anything further to advise? Over.”

  “I have teams deploying for recon and damage assessment at this time. Remain where you are until you hear further. That is all.”

  “Roger, received. Five KIA unit casualties for a total of eight, that’s number eight my count, along with three civilians…”

  Lauren took notice in a flash, her lips parting.

  “That’s three my count…”

  Woo Tang watched her, his gaze cautious and circumspect.

  “Can you confirm my readback, Chief?”

  “Three civilians,” said Lauren, attempting to urge him along.

  The former frogman held the radio close, his eyes cutting into slits, hesitating to respond.

  “Are you going to ask him who?”

  “Are you still there, Chief?” Will’s voice surged through the speaker.

  Lauren tilted her head angrily. “Jae?”

  Woo Tang tightened his eyelids and looked deep into the passionate, shaken-up eyes across from him. “Your…readback is confirmed. Command out.” He lowered the radio. “I am sorry. Will cannot advise.”

  “No shit he didn’t advise,” Lauren fired back. “I’m standing right here. I heard everything.” She made a play to retrieve the Baofeng.

  Woo Tang twisted, putting himself between her and the device. “That is not what I said—I said he cannot advise!” he thundered. “Nor will he, out of respect for those listening.”

  A sinking feeling drilled into Lauren’s soul with the strength and sharpness of an auger. Her stomach felt weighted down by liquid iron. The term civilians indicated these were people she knew. They were neighbors. Friends. That instant, she went bright red in the face and sprinted to her ATV.

  “Lauren Russell!” Woo Tang called. “You must not leave! A follow-up attack could occur without warning! You must remain where it is safe!”

  “It isn’t safe anywhere anymore. I’m going, Jae. I have to know. And I’m not sorry.” She cranked the engine and spun tires all the way to Trout Run Road, disappearing soon after in the rising dust.

  Woo Tang’s face tensed, as did his grip on both radios. He cursed aloud, then tried calling Will to notify him that Lauren was en route to their location, but it was no use. The channel was inundated with frantic calls once again, rendering the frequency useless. His frustration redlining, he wound up and threw both transceivers into the woods.

  Richie approached him from behind with an expression displaying a notable level of sincerity, possibly for the first time in his life. “Chief? You good?”

  Woo Tang regarded him calmly and bowed a tinge. “Our long-range communications capabilities were severed irreparably today. Sending word beyond the environmental walls of this valley is no longer viable in our current state. It has become paramount that we reestablish contact with the unit.”

  “I agree fully. That won’t be easy with Neo laid up.”

  Woo Tang nodded understanding.

  “You, uh…want me to go there, don’t you?” Richie inquired. “To Rocket Center.”

  “It is a perilous journey bearing an assortment of risks, as you already know. It brings me no comfort to request this of you or anyone, nor would I, had I not deemed it entirely unavoidable.”

  “I don’t care about risks or comfort,” Richie said. “Give the order, Chief. Give me an order, and I’ll follow it. I’ll get this done. We lost a lot of good guys today, and any one of them could have been me. I was spared for a reason; maybe this was it. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  “Very well. Go. Convey what has taken place here, b
ut do not go alone. Take two men at maximum and as much firepower and armor as your team can carry.”

  Richie brought his feet together and stood at attention. “Aye, Chief.”

  “Good luck, Corporal. And do not stop for anything.”

  Chapter 28

  When Lauren arrived at the former address of Michael and Kristen Perry, she skidded the ATV into the gravel driveway, killed the engine, and leapt from it while in motion. It veered away from her, yawed left, and drifted to an eventual standstill in the tall unkempt grass of what at one time had been a well-pruned and ornately decorated front yard.

  Nothing remained of the house aside from a charred, debris-filled foundation. Wafting columns of smoke rose into the air, merging into a murky cloud above areas still aflame. The aboveground fuel storage tanks were no longer. Several of the tractors, trucks and dozers that had remained parked here since Michael Perry’s death were now ravaged beyond the point of repair, and a trio of all-terrain vehicles, one knocked on its side, sat in a line at the driveway’s edge, their tires melted and flattened, bodies heat-scorched down to their frames.

  Will Sharp and another soldier, whom Lauren recognized but didn’t know, were standing between her and the smoldering ruins left behind in the attack’s wake. They had moved closer together since her arrival and, for some inexplicable reason, appeared to be guarding something from her or, more accurately, guarding her from it.

  Unwavering and unabated, she marched directly to them, scrutinizing each look she was getting until she could grasp the enormity of the terrible news they retained by facial expressions alone, especially the one being conveyed acutely to her now by Will Sharp.

  She looked away and past him to where three human forms lay parallel to one another, each silhouetted beneath cloaks of pale fabric. The painful knot in her stomach tripled in size, and the ache of nausea crept into her abdomen. Her teeth began chattering, and she felt obnoxiously warm all over. Lauren didn’t know how, but she knew who had died, even though every contentious ounce of her being refused to accept it as true.

  She could feel Will trying to pull her stare into his, but she couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t look away from the dead, knowing what she knew. “Is it…” she began, only for her voice to fracture into a sullen, whimpering demise. “Is it…John?”

  Will rolled a set of trembling lips against his teeth, sparring internally with himself over what he knew to be certain, his choice of response, and the effect it would have. Soon after, he yielded a single modest nod.

  Lauren jerked her head away in absolute dismissal, refusing to accept his reply. Shaking, she stared hard at the three blackened ATVs, folded an arm tightly to her, rested an elbow atop, then raked her teeth against her knuckles. “Norman, too?”

  He nodded again. “And Kristen, the lady who used to live here. Peter from across the road was first on the scene. He confirmed it…said they were here to get gas.” Will took a moment to gauge just how far gone she was. “I’m sorry, Lauren. I truly am sorry.”

  “So am I.” Then Lauren screamed hellish rage at the sky and exploded into torrential tears that drenched the sullied skin of her face. She trembled violently and set forth, trying to force her way past, but Will moved in to block her way.

  “Lauren, no. Please…you can’t go over there.”

  “Get the fuck out of my way, Will!”

  “No, I won’t! I won’t do that,” he growled back, pushing her by the arms. “Listen to me…you don’t understand.”

  “What is there to understand?” She pounded her fists against him, his chest resonating a cavernous tenor beneath her bile. “Get out of my way!” Lauren’s fists stiffened, and her body tensed wrathfully as if she were readying to wage war with the world. Her eyelids expanded, welling to their seams with woeful fluid while she gnashed her teeth like a rabid animal. And then, gradually, she succumbed and lost every last bit of her control. Her muscles went limp, her body sagged, and she came apart.

  Will caught her before she collapsed inertly to the gravel below. Arms cradling her now, he hoisted her upright, pulled her head close to him, and held her while she cried and rattled John’s name over and over from the tip of her tongue.

  “I…didn’t know him.” Fischer spoke up, himself now showing signs of breaking down. “I didn’t know any of them, but I’m sorry, too, Lauren. I’m very sorry for your loss. This has been a bad day for all of us.”

  Lauren didn’t respond; she couldn’t respond. She couldn’t see through the tears in her eyes. She couldn’t breathe over the aching in her chest or the expanding mucus in her sinuses. She couldn’t speak over the soreness and swelling in her throat. She felt cold, alone, and miles from herself. None of this was real—it couldn’t be real. It was a future that never could have come to pass; and it was far too much for her to bear.

  Several grueling, sniveling minutes went by, and Lauren pulled away from Will. She wiped her nose and eyes, unblurring her view of the recently departed. “I…I need to go over there,” she said, voice ensnared in anguish. “I need to see them.”

  Will pled with her again. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “You don’t understand…I don’t have a choice. I have to say goodbye to them, Will. You have to let me tell them goodbye.” Lauren bit into her trembling lip. “The whole time Dad was gone, Norman…he took care of us. He was a father to me. And John…he…I…” She choked up and dissolved into tears again.

  Will’s eyes watered along with hers. He couldn’t hold back anymore. Lauren’s emotions were impassioned and penetrating, such that they diffused into his own. “I know, you told me. I know how you feel about him. And I’m not going to stand in your way and hold you back from doing what you feel you need to do. It’s not my job to decide what’s best for you, or for them.” A pause. “I’ll let you pass; we’ll turn a blind eye to this. But only on one condition.”

  Lauren rubbed her eyes and looked expectantly at him.

  “Don’t move the sheets, Lauren. Not even an inch,” said Will. “There isn’t anything there worth seeing. And you don’t want a nightmare like that haunting you the rest of your life, and it will do that, believe me. Remember them the way they were, not as they are now. Remember their voices. Remember Norman’s smile, the way John used to look…and the way he used to look at you, before today. Before this. Can you do that?”

  Lauren nodded her head solemnly, sending along a look of gratitude that conveyed the sentiment clearer than words ever could. She felt Will’s grip loosen beneath her arms, then slid away from him in slow, cautious movements as if entranced in a world alien to her, her feet as heavy as anvils as they dragged the ground every step of the way.

  Memories of the times she’d spent with John, the times he’d protected her, every doting expression he had ever sent, the warmth of his hand on hers, the feeling of every kiss he’d willed to her lips came to mind, but when she arrived, the reverie was over and the realness took root.

  Lauren walked past each form, gauging their shapes. The sheets covering the burnt hideousness of them were smeared with earth, the blackness of carbon, and sprinkles of debris. John had always been skinny and lanky compared to his father, who’d borne a muscular frame and a few extra pounds around his waist. Norman was also a few inches shorter, and that was how Lauren could tell the difference between them, enshrouded now beneath layers of worn fiber.

  She knelt beside John’s body and ran her index finger along his chest, shuddering at traces of two familiar divots in his central sternum. Her uncertainty removed, Lauren took a breath and let it out slowly, feeling her chest sting and rattle. Even now, she wanted so badly to feel close to him just one last time. Kicking out her legs, she lay down on her side inches away and tried willing away all the distasteful odors permeating the air, as awful as they were. She began to imagine what he must look like beneath the cloak, which now seemed to mummify him, and then surrendered to her tears again.

  Lauren cried herself into shivers and a s
pell of dry coughs accompanied by damp sniffles. She wanted so badly to make up for all the wrongs and for her and John to be together again, but his life was over now; none of it mattered anymore. Before long, an interlude came, and she forced away her tears long enough to speak to him, hoping and praying that somehow he was looking upon her now from above. If nothing else, she needed John to know she was with him, and to hear every word she was about to say.

  Lauren suppressed her heartache as best she could and said, “John? I’m…here. I’m with you. I…hope you’re okay. I hope this happened fast for you and that you didn’t suffer. I think you’ve done enough of that. God knows I caused you enough pain on my own, but I pray you didn’t feel any today. I hope this happened so quickly that none of you knew what happened…but more than that, I really wish it hadn’t happened at all! I want to go back and erase this whole day…start over and make all of this go away!” She paused, sniffling. “I never saw myself here right now. I never thought you would be…I never thought I’d see the day when you were just…gone. And now…you are. I was wrong, John, in so many ways, and I’m so sorry for everything I did, but I’m even more sorry that I never got a chance to tell you. Now I have to live with this…regret and knowing our last conversation was a stupid argument…when we broke up. And that isn’t fair! Dammit! Damn you, John! You weren’t supposed to leave me like this!”