by John Holmes
I pulled back the slide and looked yet again, in the shrouded glow of a green chemlight, to see the dull circle of metal, a .22 Magnum round in the chamber. Let the slide ride forward and flicked the safety to Fire. I had been shot before, and I knew it would hurt, but only for a second. If anyone knew anything about where to place a small bullet to cause instant incapacitation, it was me. I placed the fat suppressor in my mouth, angled it up towards the back. I had thought this through many times, in case I had been bitten. I was never going to turn undead, and this had always been the fastest way. I cocked the hammer back and closed my eyes. Just a little pressure on the trigger, and the hammer would fall, strike the primer, and send the little piece of lead up and through the base of my brain. Peace, and an end to the killing. I squeezed the trigger gently as a tear rolled down my cheek.
Brit’s hand clamped down on mine, pushing the slide slightly backward as I squeezed. The pistol failed to fire due to the slide being out of place, and she pulled as hard as she could. It came out of my mouth, chipping one of my teeth as it did.
“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!” she hissed in my ear. I dropped the pistol and started sobbing. She picked it up, reset the hammer and safety, and stowed it in her cargo pocket. I sat with my back to the wall, tears streaming down my face, making uncontrollable animal noises in my throat. Brit put her arms around me and held me, rocking me slowly, telling me it would all be OK.
Red came over, a shadow in the darkness. “Brit,” he said “what’s going on? Everything OK?”
“Yes, everything’s fine. Go get me my aide bag, and bump up the guard schedule. You’re taking over for Nick. He needs to get some rest.” He returned quickly and placed the bag next to her, then went back to her spot in the rear bedroom, overlooking the lawn. She dug around and came up with a couple of tablets that she forced me to take.
“What are these?” I asked, voice hoarse. I was shaking all over.
“Just shut the fuck up and do what I tell you, Nick. How long has it been since you’ve slept?”
I tried hard to think of an answer as I chewed on the pills. “Three, four days I think. Can’t stop. Gotta keep everyone alive.”
“Goddamned Sir fraking Galahad” she said but her words were counterpointed by the soft, warm hand she put on my face, wiping away my tears. “You big, stupid idiot. I love you so much that putting a gun to your head would be the same as putting one to mine. Is that what you want?”
I shook my head, but I was beginning to feel fuzzy around the edges. I was surprised when I looked up and saw Epson standing there. We had cut him loose earlier, once he understood that he really had nowhere to go. He knelt down in front of me and asked Brit if I was OK.
“With all due respect, Mr. President, Colonel Sir, fuck your concern. You can blow it out your ass” she answered, hostility dripping out of her like poison.
He ignored her answer, merely sat back on his heals for a minute. I was fading fast. “How long has he been like this? I didn’t know how bad things were on the outside. We had it bad, yes, but we could ignore the big picture.”
“How long has been putting others first? Always, and it’s killing him. Four years I’ve known him, and every single death he’s taken personally.” Brit reached over and felt the rough stubble on my face. I was trying hard to follow their conversation. “He just wants to go home and raise our kids and grow some corn, but every time one of you jackasses waves the American Flag at him he goes off and running.”
Epson stood, and as I faded out, I heard him say “I had forgotten there were men like him in this country. Of course I’ll go back to Seattle and …” Before he finished his sentence, I faded away into a blackness where there were no dreams.
Chapter 19
When I woke, it was still dark. I looked at my watch, and was confused when it said 22:07. I had been on the 01:00 to 03:00 watch, and it should be approaching dawn. Not heading into the night. Brit heard me swing myself up on the side of the bed I had been laying on and came into the room. She sat down beside me and asked how I felt.
“Like shit” I managed to cough out, and she handed me a canteen, which I proceeded to drain. “I gotta piss” I said, because I had to. I got up and walked into the bathroom I had seen earlier and relieved myself in the nasty, crusty remains of the toilet, holding my nose as I did so. The houses’ water supply had failed with the electric, but I wasn’t going to go outside. I sat back down next to her and she held my hand.
“My watch is broken. What time is it?”
“It’s not broken. You slept about nineteen hours.”
I stood up abruptly. “Holy shit! NINETEEN hours?” She pulled me back down to the bed and told me to relax.
“Don’t worry. Everyone is settled down; even Ripley is doing OK. The head wound was a bleeder, but I stitched it up.”
“Epson?” I asked.
“We got him a rifle and ammo from those guys who got waxed on the ATV’s. He tried taking charge while you were out, but Ziv threatened to cut his throat, so he backed down.” I laughed a little at that one, and she used it as an opportunity to steer the conversation onto me.
“So” she said “let’s talk a little bit about what happened last night. You know, when I stopped you from splattering your brains all over the wall?”
I didn’t WANT to talk about it, but I knew I should. I felt a thousand percent better with sleep, and I was kicking myself already. Rest is a weapon, or so I always told my troops. Jason Bourne for the win! But I had ignored my own rules.
I kind of mumbled “I’m sorry.”
“What? I couldn’t hear you.”
“I’m SORRY!”
“That’s better, because, you know, I’m your goddamned WIFE and we have saved each other’s lives too many times to count. The next time you get some kinda notion to hurt yourself, you PROMISE to come and talk to me first. Listen, Nick” she said, and leaned forward to kiss my forehead “we’re almost done with this. I miss our son more than I can say, and I know you do too. We’ll be home soon, and then we can get back to living. Everyone is waiting downstairs to roll out.”
I didn’t say anything, just held her tight for a few minutes. As nice as that fantasy was, I suspected it was never going to be over. Not till every one of us was dead. Fuck it then, if we were going to die, we might as well continue mission.
“I’ll be OK” I lied to her. “We have a country to save, or at least get President Epson back to Fort Orange.”
We climbed down the ladder that someone had scrounged. The entire team, including Ripley and Epson, were assembled in the living room, doing checks on equipment and weapons. As I came down, they fell silent.
Better to head it off. “Listen up. I’m OK. I got too little sleep, and I had a bit of a breakdown. I wasn’t thinking straight and tried to eat my pistol. It happens. I got some much needed rest, and hopefully everyone else did to. If anyone has a problem with me, or my leadership, let me know right now, so we can hash it out.”
No one said anything until Ziv, of all people, walked over and put his hand on my shoulder. Then he turned and faced the rest of the squad and said “This is over and done with. We have work to be doing.” I was as surprised as the rest, but grateful for it. The rest of the guys gave me an affirmative. If anyone felt any misgivings, they kept it to themselves.
“OK then. Mission is to get President Epson back to Fort Orange. We have a bit of a hike to get to the LMTV, but hopefully it will go smoothly. We might even get it done tonight, but the dark is short. Riley” I said, pointing to the crippled NCO “you are President Epson’s’ bodyguard. If anything gets close to him, you are the last line of defense. Leave the big fight to us.” He nodded and continued to oil his .45 pistol.
“I can fight too, remember” said the former Infantry Colonel, who was holding an M-4 like he was remembering old times in the desert.
“I know you can, Sir, but we work as a team, and honestly, you’re more important than the rest of us right now.
Hopefully the DHS goons think they wacked you and will let things be. Order of march is Red on point, Hart followed by Bognaski. Then Me, Ripley, Epson, Brit, and Ziv on trail.”
As we headed out into the night, I wished for the donkey that had been carrying our supplies, but when we had first returned from the village, we found that it had bolted, taking much of our stuff with it. Hopefully it would find its way back to the farm, because mules were worth their weight in gold nowadays.
The light of a full moon had turned the landscape into a brilliant silver and black panorama, and we could easily see almost as well as daylight. We still used our Night Vision, though, unwilling to give up any technological advantage we might have.
Keyed up for anything, advancing cautiously, we made our way the more than fifteen miles to where we had hidden the truck, passing the site of the cannibals ambush, doing nothing more than scaring off crows and turkey vultures that were still picking at the corpses. We reached the ruck just before dawn, and I told everyone to take six hours and rest up before we rolled out.
Brit sat next to me and made me massage her feet after she had taken her boots off. She laughed and said “Remember that first march I did with you guys? In the snow from Utica to Saint Johnsville? How tore up my feet were?”
I smiled, thinking about the smart assed college girl who had somehow attached herself to the team. The first time I had met her, her greeting had been a shotgun blast that ruined my hearing, then later she had stabbed me and I had dislocated her shoulder. “Yeah, I remember. You were more useless than a box of rocks.”
She smacked my helmet and said “And you were a total hooah asshole to me. Not that I didn’t deserve it.”
“Well you did deserve it. Good thing you grew up.”
“Good thing for you, old man.”
“Yes” I said, and meant it. “Good thing for me.”
She was quiet for a minute, then said “Maybe you should take a break. All we have is the drive to Fort Orange, drop off Epson and then we can go home. Let Red run things for the rest of the day.”
It was my turn to laugh, a bitter, hollow sound. “Do you really think Scarletti is going to let an asset like us just sit around while him and his buddies attempt to overthrow the US Government? Especially since we already know what’s going on? Come one, Brit, you’re not that naïve.”
“Fuck him, I’m going back home, and you’re going with me.”
I wished that were true. I really did, but I knew better.
Chapter 20
“Gentlemen, you are here because I consider all of you patriots, and realists. I trust you all to uphold the Constitution of the United States, as you swore in your oath.”
I looked around the briefing room at Fort Orange. Present were a bunch of Army and Air Force officers, a sprinkle of Marines, and several from the Navy. All were Lieutenant Colonels and higher, or their service equivalents. Every major combat command was represented in the room. I saw the Team Leaders from IST- 2, 4, and 5. Team Three hadn’t been put back together after getting wiped out in Philadelphia, and the same for Team Six after our debacle up by Lake Champlain. I sat with my fellow TL’s at the back of the room.
“As you are all aware, Acting President Taylor, former Director of Homeland Security, has suspended the Constitution for the duration of the emergency. Despite repeated calls for elections, he has given no indication that these will happen. It’s time to take measures to restore the Constitution.”
A Navy Rear Admiral spoke up from the front row. “That’s treason!”
Scarletti’s burned face went into a grimace and he growled “Is it? Please take a look at these pictures.”
The lights dimmed and a projector came on, showing images from the Federal District. “Last month, Irregular Scout Team Five went in undercover through the Federal District. These are the images they brought back.” I leaned over and bumped fists with Ryan Szimanski, IST-5’s leader and whispered “Good shit”.
The first showed a FEMA Refugee Camp. We had been in a similar one two years ago, and wound up watching it get nuked when a Z outbreak occurred. This one looked like a concentration camp from World War II. Emaciated figures hung out on wooden steps in front of tents, looking almost like skeletons. Scarletti’s voice spoke form the darkness.
“This is a camp that demanded government representation and the right to elect a town council. They had their food cut by three quarters for six months as punishment. There were ten thousand people in the camp. IST-5 estimated there were less than a quarter of that alive when they infiltrated.”
The slide projector clicked over to another image. Bodies were piled high in a pit, with bulldozer moving dirt over them. No one in the room blinked an eye, since we were all used to such sites. The next picture, however, zoomed in onto some of the corpses. Their hands were bound, and several showed gaping bullet holes in their faces or the back of their heads.
“Political prisoners. Executed.”
Again, the slide changed. This was a video that started playing. It was in high definition and I could clearly see the faces of the people marching in the street, carrying signs and throwing rocks at riot police. Tear gas was fired and several people received beatings from the black clad DHS troopers.
“Play stupid games, win stupid prizes” said a Marine. That quickly changed into a “HOLY SHIT” and collective gasps from around the room. An M1A1 tank had appeared in the video, which was being shot from a second floor window. The riot police parted to let it through, and the crowd surged backwards, people falling and screaming. The 120mm gun went off with a huge CRACK and dust jumped off the buildings. The front rows of the crowd were mowed down, blood and body parts flying in all directions. A flaming Molotov Cocktail splashed harmlessly against the front slope of the tank, and it fired again, then charged forward down the broad avenue, grinding corpses and still moving wounded under its tracks. One man ran out of a side alley to grab a still moving woman, and the coax machine gun ripped him apart. The DHS troopers advanced behind it, firing individual shots into prone figures. A news crew had been filming the entire thing, but a volley of machine gun fire tore into them, shattering their truck and setting it on fire. Several individuals who had been trying to film the scene with their cell phones were felled by individual shots. The view changed to focus on snipers mounted on top of a police van further down the block. Then the window shattered and the video stopped.
Ski leaned over and whispered to me “I almost took a round filming that. I ducked just as the sniper fired, and we scrammed out the back.”
I whispered back “How did you get in and out? Boat?” I knew how Team Five operated.
“Nuke Sub, zodiac into the warehouses on the south end of Seattle. Swam out.”
Scarletti gave us a look and continued “As you can see, that was a canister round being fired into a crowd of protesters. Next slide please.”
This one showed an across the street view of a building with the FOX NEWS logo displayed outside. A squad of DHS infantry was stacked outside the door, and as we watched the embedded video, they broke down the door, tossed in flashbangs and proceeded into the building. A person fleeing out the back was gunned down, and several minutes later, bodies were dragged out. The camera zoomed on a female being brought out. I recognized her as a nationally known correspondent. Her arm had been torn off by a shotgun blast, and they dumped her on the sidewalk. An Air Force Colonel leaned over and threw up on the floor.
The lights came back on, and a silence filled the room. All of us hardened professional killers, and we were sickened by what we had seen.
“Make your choice now” said Scarletti as he pulled his M9 out of his leg holster. He let it hang down low at his side. “Some of you may be confused in your loyalties. We serve the people of the United States. If anyone has doubts about who is a domestic enemy now, please let me know.”
No one moved. Even the pair of three star Lieutenant Generals, who were in command of Military Region East and Midwest, sat in si
lence. Scarletti holstered his pistol and stepped back.
“Thank you. I had to make sure of your loyalty. And lest you think this is some Third World Coup attempt by a jumped up Colonel, I’d like you to meet the civilian in charge of this operation. He nodded to a Major standing by the door, who opened it to let in a tall, greying man with a serious look on his face.
“Mister President” said Scarletti, as former Vice President Epson stepped into the room. As one, chairs were pushed back and every person in the room stood at attention. Even I stood ramrod straight, even though two days ago he and I had been grappling on the ground.
Epson told everyone to take their seats and said “Gentlemen, Operation RETURN kicks of next Friday at 0200 Pacific Standard Time. It will be a combined arms assault launched from Joint Base Lewis – McCord aimed at the Federal Capital Complex in Seattle. Units participating will be elements of the 7th Infantry Division, 1st marine Division, 82nd Airborne Division, 2nd of the 75th Ranger Regiment, and the entire 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment. You have been called here to be in the know when it kicks off, so we do not have fighting between Regular Military Units. That is all the details that you will be informed of. You are dismissed to return to our units. Anyone breathing a word of this will be shot for Treason.”
