Harden

by D. J. Molles

  “Fine. Are you aware of the situation?”

  “Halfway aware. Fill me in.”

  Lee did so quickly, hitting the main points. He finished with, “What are the chances of that Marine detachment actually leaving on time in the morning?”

  Marie blew out a breath that rattled in the microphone. “Shit, Lee. I’d say slim to none at this point.”

  Lee’s hand crept back up to his face, found his eyes, rubbed them. This is not what I wanted to hear. “Okay. Marie, you’re on speaker phone right now. Stay on the line with me, but we’re gonna discuss amongst ourselves for a minute.”

  “Is Julia there?” Marie asked.

  “I’m here, Sis,” Julia said, a note of genuine affection coming out in her voice.

  “Are you doing okay?”

  “We’re doing fine. It’s been rough, but we’re fine.”

  “Good,” Marie said, sounding like she was choking back tears. “Y’all go ahead. I’ll be right here.”

  Lee looked up at his gathered team. “We can’t wait.”

  Abe folded his hands and rested them on his magazines. “So you’re talking about hitting the fuel cache by ourselves.”

  “If we wait, there’s a chance they go after Butler. If we hit these fuckers hard, and soon, then they won’t have time to go after Butler—just like Julia said. The clock is ticking. We gotta take this fight to them. The opening is now. I say we exploit it.”

  “Why not wait?” Mitch weighed in. “I mean, I’m not saying we shouldn’t go after them now. I’m playing devil’s advocate here. But if we wait for the Marines, how much longer could it possibly take them? A day? Maybe two?”

  “Because right now they don’t know that we’re on to them,” Lee said. “In two days, or even one, they’re gonna realize that we hit those motherfuckers in the brown Suburban. And they’re gonna realize that they’ve lost contact with the two boys we just took out. Which means they’ll know where we are, and they’ll know that we’re on the warpath. Right now, they’re thinking they made they’re point with Paolo’s people, and for all they know, we’ve tucked tail and run back across the border to Georgia.”

  Carl cleared his throat and spoke quietly. “I’m with Lee on this. And not just because I’m pissed and ready. But once they find out what we’ve done, it’s not too much of an intuitive leap for them to assume that we got some information from one of their guys. They already know we’re here for fuel. It won’t be hard for them to figure out our next step.”

  Lee nodded along with Carl’s rationale. “Right now we’ve got the biggest force multiplier, and that’s the element of surprise. If we hit them hard before they expect it, then we even our odds on that assault.”

  Abe didn’t look entirely convinced, but he remained silent, weighing the arguments in his mind.

  Lee looked at him, felt a surge of anger. What Abe had said about Lucas still stuck in his craw. But he pushed past it. That’s what they had to do right now. “Abe, I’m not gonna do anything stupid. You have my word on that. If we go and scope this place out, and it’s too hard to hit, then we’ll figure something else out.”

  Abe nodded once. “Okay, Lee. I trust you.”

  Lee looked down at the phone. “Marie, can you take down a location to send the Marines to as soon as they can be ready to roll?”

  ***

  Sam seemed to be the only one that noticed Claire slip into the office.

  He jettisoned himself from the desk and approached her as she quietly closed the door behind her.

  “What are you doing here?” he said, keeping his voice down.

  Claire looked over his shoulder at everyone gathered around Abby. “I came when I heard we were in lockdown. I thought Angela might need me.”

  “How’d you get here?”

  She shot him a glare. “I ran, Sam.”

  Sam noticed that she did seem out of breath. He sidled closer to her and spoke in a whisper. “You know how those fuckers got in, don’t you?”

  Claire’s mouth tightened. “You don’t know that.”

  “How else could they have gotten in?”

  “I don’t know,” she snapped.

  “One of your people left the gate open.”

  Claire gave him a dangerous look. “No one left the gate open.”

  “Then they figured out how to get it open.”

  “No way.”

  “It was a fucking carabiner, Claire!” Sam hissed. “They can open doors. What makes you think they couldn’t figure that out?”

  “If you were so worried about it, why didn’t you say something before now?”

  “I did say something. To Charlie.”

  Claire brushed him off. “Just stop talking about it.”

  She broke away from him and walked further into the room.

  Angela was clearly preoccupied with Abby. Holding her hand. Soothing her. Kurt was hovering, looking like he wished he could figure out a way to be useful. Marie was on the satphone. She glanced at Claire, but didn’t seem to take too much notice of her sudden appearance.

  “Yeah,” Marie said into the phone. “Hold on.”

  She crossed to the desk. Or rather, the pile of papers and objects that Angela had swept off of it into a pile on the floor. She bent down, rifled through, found a pen, then grabbed a sheet of paper. She crossed back to the wall of the office. Put the satphone against her shoulder and put the paper against the wall. “Okay. Go ahead with it.”

  Claire crossed to Marie, just as she scrawled something on the paper.

  “Is there anything I can do?” Claire offered.

  Marie held up a finger to Claire, silently asking her to wait. She listened to something else that was being said over the satphone. Then she seemed to recover a sense of discretion, took the paper, and folded it in half, so that what was written on it was covered.

  “Yeah,” Marie said into the phone. “I’ll pass it along. Okay. Yes. You guys stay safe.” She hung up, and then handed the satphone to Claire. “Can you take this back down to Lieutenant Derrick?”

  Claire nodded, looking earnestly glad to be of some use.

  ***

  It was a late night for Major Bellamy.

  He was tired of being in the office. Tired of doing bullshit.

  Hell, he’d take a trip down to Louisiana to meet with that psychopath Espinoza over the cat-herding he was currently doing.

  He longed to leave his office and get back to his quarters, because in his mini-fridge was a gift from one of his operators. They’d happened across an un-looted convenience store during a clearing operation in the Colorado foothills last week, and managed to liberate several cases of beer.

  Two cans of Coors Original were chilling in Bellamy’s fridge at that moment, and they’d been calling to him all day.

  He got as far as shutting down his laptop and standing up from his desk before Captain Perry Griffin knocked on the jam of his open door.

  Bellamy looked up, hoping for a simple “see you tomorrow” but bracing for more work.

  Griffin held a sheet of paper in his hand. His eyes did not look like the eyes of someone about to bid him goodnight. They had an excitable glimmer to them.

  Bellamy’s heart sank.

  “What?” Bellamy griped.

  Griffin waggled the paper in the air, making it snap. “Just got a call from our girl.”

  Bellamy straightened up. “Bragg?”

  Griffin nodded. A ghost of a smile. “She’s got a solid location where Harden is going to be.”

  Bellamy held out his hand, waggled his fingers—gimme. “When?”

  Griffin stepped fully into the office and handed him the paper. “Sometime in the next day or so. Timeline is unconfirmed.”

  Bellamy held the paper up. “Andalusia, Alabama,” he read the big scrawl of hasty handwriting. “Airport.” He lowered the paper. “What’s there?”

  Griffin shook his head. “Fuck if I know. But she said Fort Bragg is dispatching a small group of Marines to that locat
ion. Something about an assault. Something about fuel.”

  Bellamy slapped the paper down on his desk. “This is good work, Captain.”

  Griffin nodded. “Anything I can do right now?”

  “You can close the door,” Bellamy said. “I’ll handle this.”

  Griffin backed out of the door, and obediently closed it behind him.

  Bellamy remained standing behind his desk, staring at the door, while he listened to the sound of Griffin’s retreating footsteps. Then he sat down and unlocked the drawer with the satphone in it.

  ***

  “We gonna rack out tonight?” Mitch asked after Lee put the borrowed satphone away.

  “Not here,” Lee replied, then grabbed his rifle. “We don’t know when more people are gonna show up to check on their boys we just took out. Get Logan and Blake. We’re leaving right now. Me and Carl will catch some Z’s on the way there. Find us a good place to hide out. Me and Carl will insert and have eyes on the airport by morning. You guys sleep during the day, and when me and Carl get back, we’ll put together a plan.”

  Lee looked around at his team, waited for objections, but none were forthcoming. “If we can pull it off, we’re hitting it tomorrow night. Hopefully the Marines will get there in time for us to fortify the airport against a counterattack. If not, we’ll take what we can and get the hell out.”

  Nods all around.

  Rudy spoke up. “What do you wanna do with this place?”

  “Pack any Claymores?”

  Rudy smirked. “But of course.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  ─▬▬▬─

  ROOTS

  Gunfire rattled on and off into the night.

  Every so often a truck would drive by outside and they heard the voice of one of the soldiers over a loudspeaker, telling everyone that the lockdown was still in effect and to remain indoors.

  Kurt monitored the squad comms and gave Angela updates that usually consisted of a tally of confirmed kills. They were up to eight now. Eight primals confirmed dead. Which meant that the pack that had gotten into their Safe Zone had been a large one.

  They’d moved Abby to a chair and she’d recovered her calm. She was now comforting Angela more than the other way around.

  “I think I’m gonna be okay,” Abby said, and squeezed her mother’s hand, who was sitting next to her. “I feel fine.”

  Angela smiled and nodded, though she only felt worse. “I’m sure you’ll be fine, Sweetie.”

  You don’t know that.

  They’d taken the tourniquets off an hour ago. There was logic to it, and that’s all that Angela could cling to at that moment. The tourniquets were not effective against infection, and Kurt told her that “limb morbidity” could set in after a few hours with them on. Which meant nerve damage if they left them on. Which meant that if they left them on, and Abby remained uninfected, she could lose the use of her leg.

  Angela knew that there was no purpose in leaving the tourniquets on. But taking them off had felt like signing a death sentence for her daughter, no matter how illogical that was.

  Claire got some water from the Watch Commander’s office, where he kept an emergency supply. She offered to get them something to eat, but it didn’t seem like anybody was hungry.

  They’d been in the office for almost four hours when Kurt perked up and walked over to Angela. “No contact for the last thirty minutes,” he told her. “They’re conducting a final sweep now. Last they saw of the primals they were heading towards the border near McFayden Pond. They’re gonna sweep that area for a breach.”

  Angela sat up. “Does that mean we can move to the hospital?”

  Kurt looked unsure. “They haven’t lifted the lockdown yet.”

  “But they haven’t had any contact for thirty minutes,” Angela argued. “And the primals were running. Retreating. Is that right?”

  “I don’t know how they would characterize it,” Kurt replied.

  “Well can you ask them if it’s safe to move to the hospital?”

  Kurt considered this for a moment. He reached for the PTT button on his chest rig, then stopped. He looked at Angela. “Ma’am, this might be one of those situations where it’s better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.”

  She stared at him. Unsure of what he was saying.

  “If I ask, and they say no, then I’ll have disobeyed orders. If you tell me to take you right now, after they’ve said that the grounds are mostly clear…then I can articulate I made a reasonable judgement call. And I might not be in too much trouble.”

  Angela swallowed. Nodded. “Kurt, I want you to take us to the hospital. Right now.”

  They left Claire at the office, in case anyone came looking for Angela.

  Kurt led the way out, followed by Sam, Angela, Abby, and Marie.

  They moved quickly to where Sam had left the SUV parked haphazardly on the curb. The hospital wasn’t very far away, but in the steeped darkness of midnight, the SUV was at least some protection.

  They piled into the SUV, with Sam driving again, because Kurt wanted to keep his rifle up and ready. For his inexperience, Sam drove quickly and carefully, without too many jolts to the brakes. It hadn’t been an issue before because he’d simply been standing on the accelerator.

  When they rounded the corner of the medical center, Kurt pointed to the front doors of the Emergency Room. “Pull us up right there. Leave the engine running and stay behind the wheel in case we need to beat a retreat.”

  Sam nodded gravely and did as he was told.

  Kurt exited first, scanning up and down and all around. He went briskly to the door and peered inside. He rattled the doors, but they wouldn’t budge. He glanced around, and then pounded on the glass with his fist.

  In the SUV, everyone wanted to watch the doors but smartly kept their eyes peeled for moving shadows.

  “Hey!”

  Everyone looked around.

  Kurt was motioning them out. There was a woman in scrubs on the other side, unlocking the door and pulling it open. It was Nurse Sullivan.

  Sam waited behind the wheel of the running SUV until they were all through the doors, then he cut the engine, pocketed the keys and ran inside with the rest of them.

  Sullivan closed and locked the doors.

  “Have you been stuck here the whole time?” Angela asked her.

  Sullivan shook her head and turned to them. “No. They went and picked up me and Doctor Trent just in case we were needed.”

  “Who picked you up?” Angela demanded.

  The nurse shook her head. “I dunno. Soldiers?”

  Angela looked at Kurt, but spoke to Sullivan. “How long have you been here?”

  “A few hours.”

  Kurt looked stricken. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled to Angela. “They didn’t say anything over my channel. I didn’t know.”

  Angela didn’t trust herself to respond in a civil manner. She turned to Sullivan. “Is Doctor Trent available right now?” She indicated Abby, who was standing on her own. “She’s been bitten.”

  The nurse looked at Abby and then at Angela, and the expression on her face was like the tolling of a death bell. She started leading them into the Emergency Room. “He’s treating one of the soldiers right now. And there are two others. Two other civilians that got here within the past hour.”

  Angela’s stomach was in upheavals. “Was anyone else bitten?”

  “Just the soldier he’s working on now. They had to amputate his arm.”

  “What about the civilians?”

  “They were caught in the crossfire. Minor gunshot wounds. I got them stabilized.”

  Nurse Sullivan hustled them into one of the ER rooms. Angela saw the two other civilian patients as she entered the small room. They were laying on hospital beds. One was a man who appeared to be asleep or passed out. The other was a woman who watched them keenly.

  Sullivan directed Abby to sit on the bed and lay back. She smiled reassuringly at the girl. “You must be Abb
y. Angela’s daughter?”

  Abby nodded, looking unsure of everything now. Her conviction that she was okay was starting to melt away. She’d noticed the look on the nurse’s face before.

  “Well,” Sullivan said, pulling a white hospital blanket over her. “You just stay warm. I know it’s a little chilly in here. Do you need anything?”

  “No,” Abby said, her voice small. “I’m okay.”

  Sullivan nodded, then looked at Angela. “Can I speak to you outside?”

  Angela looked over to Marie, who was standing beside Abby’s bed. Marie put her hand on Abby’s and nodded back, letting Angela know that she would stay with Abby.

  Angela and Sullivan slipped out of the room and walked a few paces down. The other woman pulled her into an empty adjacent room. Her smiley demeanor was gone. She looked serious now.

  “How long ago was she bit?”

  Angela felt her heart in her throat. “It’s been…five hours, I think.”

  Sullivan tried and failed to conceal her dismay at that news. “Look. Angela. I have to be frank with you.”

  Angela’s hand went up to her forehead. She didn’t like the sound of those words. They made her tongue gum up and her throat constrict.

  “If it’s been that long, there’s not much we can do,” Sullivan said. “The final say-so is up to Doctor Trent, but I don’t think there’s going to be any point in amputating the leg after five hours.”

  Angela’s voice didn’t come when she tried to talk. It was caught somewhere deep inside of her. Her words were a threadbare whisper. “There must be something you can do.”

  Pity flashed across Sullivan’s features. She touched Angela’s arm with all the reassurance she seemed to be able to muster. “Angela, we’re going to do everything we can. I’m going to treat that bite mark. We don’t have much antibiotics, but what we have, we’ll give to Abby. But those drugs aren’t useful against the FURY bacterium. You know that.”

  Angela didn’t respond. She was looking at the ceiling.

  “Listen to me,” Sullivan said. “I’ve heard that the bites aren’t as infectious as they were at the outset.”