“She saved your life, Red. You would have been dead if you tried to help her.”
Doc came up. “VX nerve agent. Bad shit, Nick. Persistent oil-based. If we had fired that and it had misfired, or blown back at us, we could have all been wiped out. What the fuck were they thinking?”
“They were thinking they needed to do a field experiment, and they didn’t care who happened to get burnt in the process.”
I looked back at Mya lying dead in the moonlight. I would file a report back to JSOC, and I’m sure we would see LTC Morano again. I had an urge to wrap my hands around her throat, but we would have to be very, very careful around her.
Chapter 9
“GO! GO! GO!” The back ramp was down before we hit the ground. A swirl of dust and ash obscured the LZ, lifted by the rotor wash of the other CH-47. The Chinook had touched its back wheels down sixty seconds before us, dropping off two squads of infantry, then lifting back off. One more squad and a heavy weapons team filled the canvas seats in our chopper, along with the rest of the Zombie Killers. As soon as the ramp touched, the guys filed out in two lines, breaking left and right to add to the perimeter. Then the heavy weapons team carried out their M-249 SAWs and the head-high tripods they were mounted on, along with crates of extra ammo. The infantrymen quickly started pushing debris into some kind of perimeter, unraveling concertina wire in a big loop around the front doors of the Home Depot and pounding stakes to hold it into the parking lot.
The heavy weapons team had four M-249s that they set up to cover likely areas of approach. Each light machine gun was mounted on a tripod which held the weapon roughly five and half feet off the ground, just about the average height of a zombie head. Yeah, aimed shots were better than automatic fire, but sweeping a packed mass of a zombie hoard with a couple hundred rounds a minute at head height, if you’ve got the ammo, can work wonders. The Infantry worked hard to push any moveable cars to create channels for zombies to be herded into and machine gunned. Already single shots were popping off from the Designated Marksmen teams, taking out a few Zs that were stumbling around on the road.
The doors of Home Depot were shattered, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Sometimes a closed storefront would hide a pack of zombies that had become trapped in the store. This one had been hit by looters, but I was pretty sure that we would be able to find everything we needed. I led the way in the stack, followed by Brit, Doc and Redshirt. We all carried shotguns for quick snapshots down the aisle. Ahmed stayed outside with the two Infantry guys we had picked up, Corporal Killeen and Specialist Desen, doing some very long range sniping.
We moved through the front of the store, coming up dry. That was the easiest part. The hard part would be going down through the aisles, with limited visibility, making noise stumbling over debris and trying to keep our footing. Stepping into the first aisle, we snapped on head-mounted and weapon-mounted flashlights. Even in bright daylight, the store was dark and gloomy. We could have used NVGs but if you looked back at the bright sunlight at the front of the store they tended to blank out.
Down the center aisle, we split into two teams; Doc and Redshirt together in one and Brit and I in the other, and headed in separate directions. We would meet back in the front of the store after confirming ID.
Brit led the way, shotgun at the ready. The flashlights created a jumpy, dancing pattern of shadows, and my heart was pounding.
“Are you up to this?” I whispered as I noticed her favoring her leg that had been wounded a few weeks before.
“Suck it, Fat Boy” she whispered, without looking back at me. I grinned in the darkness. She was okay.
We had made it through the tools section, moving aisle by aisle. Brit poked a small periscope with a PVS-14 NVG attached to it around each corner, looking for the faint heat signatures a zombie gave off. Shining a light down the aisle could miss something hiding in shadows. Looking around one corner, she held up one hand, palm down, then two fingers, then a walking motion towards herself. Okay, two zombies, ambulatory, moving toward us. I brought my shotgun up to my shoulder and put my knee on her back to let her know I was ready.
As soon as I felt her move, I swung past her right and turned left down the aisle. My flashlight swept up the floor to center on the head of the right hand zombie and I fired twice. I heard Brit’s gun boom next to me at the same time. Her first shot spun the left hand zombie, the second shot taking off the back of its head. Mine was also down, but still trying to crawl forward with half its face blown off. I walked up and hit it in the head with the weighted stick I carried.
“CLEAR, two zulu down.”
“Roger, two zulu down.” came Doc’s response over the radio.
We met back up at the front of the store, then each team peeled off to get the assigned items, Brit pushing a shopping cart and me a pallet. Outside, the firing was picking up, going from occasional shots to almost continuous single shots. We ran down the aisles, throwing things we needed into the cart and onto the pallet while keeping an eye out for any Zs we might have missed.
“Do we have everything?” I asked, slightly out of breath from pushing the heavy cart as fast as possible.
“I need new mechanic’s gloves.”
I held up a pair in her size. “I grabbed you a pair. Let’s get the hell out of here.” She nodded and we walked out into the bright sunlight, followed a minute later by Doc and Redshirt.
Outside it had evolved into a full-fledged firefight. Zs were piling up on the perimeter, climbing over bodies to get at the fresh meat shooting at them. The machine guns were hammering out a steady symphony of bursts, waiting for a cluster of Zs to show themselves over the pile. Brass lay all over the parking lot.
I grabbed the Infantry Platoon Leader where he was directing fire and shifting people and yelled in his ear.
“SIR, WE ARE GOOD TO GO!”
“ROGER THAT!” and he shouted for his platoon sergeant, making a whirling motion with his hand over his head. Then he popped smoke right in front of the pallets and shopping carts. While we waited for the birds, the team secured all the loose items in each pallet or cart with a tarp, duct taping them down heavily. Once on board, the crew chief would strap them down.
Now came the hard part: Withdrawing under pressure. As the helo set down, we joined the perimeter, firing along with the Infantry at the massive horde pouring out of the city of Newburgh. Next to me a young trooper panicked, trying to reload his magazine as a Z came straight at him. He dropped the weapon and turned to run but tripped on the broken pavement. I shot the Z coming at him, but another was right behind him. It grabbed his ankle and started to viciously bite on his leg, dragging him out of the perimeter. His scream was cut short as Redshirt put a burst into his chest. A stream of tracers from the machine guns tore through head level of the crowd of zombies, but a bullet caught another trooper in the back of the head as he stood up to swing his knocker at them. He fell forward on his face and lay still.
We shortened the line as each squad peeled back into the choppers. As the heavy weapons crew collapsed their tripods and ran into the last chopper, we followed them in. I counted off the whole team, getting a thumbs-up from each, then boarded myself. The last squad practically fell onto the ramp, getting a hand up from the guys already aboard.
As we lifted, zombies rushed the helos and the crew chief opened up with his minigun. A hundred rounds a second, and only a few fell to head shots. More fell from limbs being torn off.
We flew out over river. Across from me, a young kid stood up and staggered over to me.
“I HOPE IT WAS WORTH IT, YOU MOTHERFUCKER!” he yelled at me. I guess one of the guys who had died was a friend.
“I DON’T KNOW IF IT WAS OR NOT!” That took the wind out of him, and he sat back down, tears running down his face.
Truth was, I didn’t know.
Chapter 10
The mood in the Infantry was ugly when we got back. They helped us unload our supplies, but little was said. The company commander called me, the
platoon sergeant and the platoon leader aside and asked what had happened. When we got to the part about the two soldiers who had been lost, he said nothing but his eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched.
“I’m sorry about that, Sir. I know you guys were supporting us.” It sounded contrite, but I wasn’t sure what else to say. This was a new company, most of them new privates straight out of basic training at Joint Base Lewis-McChord outside Seattle.
He nodded. “It’s OK, Nick. You and I have both been around this fight long enough to know that people are going to die. They’re dead because of their own mistakes and lack of training.” At that, he looked hard at the platoon leader, who flushed red.
“Can’t always stop a man from panicking, Captain. It happens. Most of these kids have never dealt with a zombie horde. Hell, some of them might not have even seen one outside the rifle range at Basic Training. Isn’t that why you sent them with us on this scrounging raid in the first place? Two men dead, but it might save a lot of lives later.”
He was silent for a minute, then he nodded his head toward me. “I’m going to make sure none of them has a problem with supporting your team in the future.”
“Thanks, appreciate it.”
He walked away and climbed on top of a pallet that was sitting by the LZ. He waited ‘til his guys had all stopped what they were doing and he had their attention.
“Listen up. We lost two soldiers today. Good guys. Dietrich and Coburn. They were friends of yours. They were your friends and my soldiers. I know you’re upset by what happened, but they are dead. Get that into your heads. This isn’t Call of Duty, and you don’t respawn. Soldiers die, and in this shitty war, some of you will die on almost every mission we go on. I hope not. I really, really do.” He paused for a second and took off his glasses, rubbing them on his T-shirt and then putting them back on.
“Just remember this about your buddies. They aren’t zombies, stumbling around in the dark with their souls trapped in a rotting body. Sergeant Agostine’s soldier did the right thing by shooting Coburn. If not, he would have been a danger to all of you if he had turned Z while inside the lines. He saved your lives. Don’t hold it against him, or the rest of his team. Your job is to go where you are told and kill what you see. You did that today, and I’m proud of you.” He paused for a minute to let that sink in, then he pointed back to me.
“Their job is to go alone, unsupported into infected territory, and get information so that more of you don’t die when we do assault into hostile territory. The information they bring back is worth more than its weight in gold. If they need our help, they will get it. What they do out there alone will save your lives.”
He jumped down and walked back toward the Command Post. I saluted him as he walked past. There are officers, and then there are leaders.
We spent the rest of the day packing everything onto two pallets. We had grabbed two of most things, because I had seen a chute failure often enough on cargo drops in Afghanistan, and if we lost one, I wanted back up. We would jump with as much ammo as we could carry and stack the pallets with them too.
At 1900 I headed over to the CP for a mission planning session. All the service reps were there, and a Lt. Commander was leading the briefing. He jumped right in.
“As you know, the Navy holds Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba as the only bases on this side of the Atlantic. Bermuda is still holding steady, but it’s 600 miles off the coast and doesn’t have the port facilities we need. We have a carrier strike group based out of Portsmouth, but we need a deep water port that can hold the whole fleet if necessary.” He used a laser pointer to illustrate each of the places he was talking about on a large map of the east coast.
“Naval Intelligence wants reconnaissance of each of the large ports on the East Coast. Yesterday we lost contact with a scout team in Philadelphia, presumed overrun. We also have teams set to go into Jacksonville, Florida, and Baltimore, Maryland tonight and tomorrow, respectively. ”
I interrupted him. “Sir, do you know what team that was? Who was in charge?”
“Let me check my notes. Um, JSOC IST 3. Doesn’t give any names.”
“Ok, thanks.” The Zombie Killers were Joint Special Operations Command Irregular Scout Team 1. I knew who led Team 3; in fact I knew all the guys on it. Correction, I had known all the guys on it.
He continued on. “We need your team to go check out the New York Container Terminal on Staten Island. The usual drill.” He tacked up a black and white photograph of the terminal, a wide open area with cargo cranes and warehouses.
“I’ve been there before” I said. “Back in ’04, prior to going to Iraq, to familiarize ourselves with container operations. Nice wide open space. For a minute I thought you were going to drop us into Manhattan.”
“We thought about it, right up until Team 3 disappeared.”
“Nice. Why not insert from boats? Seems like it would be a lot easier.”
The Infantry company Supply Sergeant chimed in.
“Gas shortage, and a boat shortage. We’re having a real hard time getting gasoline for the patrol boats, and spare parts, too. Aviation fuel we have a shit ton of, courtesy of the Navy.”
I chewed that around for a bit. “OK, but how do we get out?”
“Well, if the facility looks useable, based on your report, you will be relieved by a reinforced Marine Rifle Company from the USS New York flying in on Ospreys. From there, the Navy will expand its presence in the city and you will be retasked.”
“What if the place is unusable?”
“Then the same Ospreys will pick you up and take you back here to FOB Castle.”
“How long can we expect to be on the ground before pickup?”
He turned to the Marine sitting in the front row. He leaned back and said “Just give us a call, and we’ll come get you.”
“Right, and the check is in the mail. You better.”
Chapter 11
I hated flying. I didn’t mind helos, but a plane? No fraking way. Just ordinary flying turned me white with fear. Tonight we were bucking violent winds, the tail end of a storm front that had blown through.
The C-130 lurched in another downdraft. Beside me, Brit threw up her hands in the air and screamed at the top of her lungs, “YEEEEHHHHHAAAAAA! We’re on a goddamn roller coaster from Hell, Nick!”
I bent forward and stared at the floor in front of me, trying to ignore her, whispering a prayer for safety as we lurched through the sky. Across from me, Ahmed slept. Doc was reading a medical textbook. Redshirt looked out the window as we flew down the Hudson River Valley from Albany.
I took a minute to study the three new people on our team. Corporal Killeen and Specialist Desen were two regular Army infantry soldiers whom I had picked out to accompany us, out of the half dozen volunteers we had gotten. Killeen was the big redneck sniper who had been shooting with Ahmed on the boat when the airborne trooper was killed. Desen was his spotter. The two went everywhere together, and with the wide open spaces of the cargo terminal, I wanted some longer range hitting power. He carried an M14EBR-R, a modified M-14 rifle that fired the heavier 7.62 round and had better range and hitting power than our M4A2s (the M4s firing .22 magnum rounds). I had watched him shoot on the barge, and he was good. The only thing I wanted to know was where he was able to find dip. I knew guys who would kill for it, and here he was, spitting in between the seats when the C-130 crew wasn’t watching. His partner, Desen, was one of those small, wiry guys who looked like he never ate anything and could run your ass into the ground. He chain smoked on base, but I knew a guy like that could make himself so unseen a whole zombie horde could walk right past him.
Directly next to them sat our newest civilian Zombie Killer. He had shown up on the island at dusk the day before, paddling a canoe from the far shore of the river. Sascha Zivkovic, or “Ziv,” so he called himself, said he was looking to kill Zs. He claimed he had been surviving up in the Hudson highlands and had heard the gunfire and come dow
n to investigate. He looked like a tough character, and had readily agreed to come with us to the city when I explained what we about.
“We’re going to be jumping into the City. What experience do you have with airborne operations?”
I already knew he was tough if he had been surviving this close to the hordes in the city, but I didn’t want someone with no jump experience getting hurt on a static line drop. In answer, he rolled up his sleeve to reveal a tattoo of a parachute with the number 63 on it. Over it were several Cyrillic letters, and over that, an old scar I recognizes as a crudely sewn-up bullet puncture.
“Serbian Army. 63rd Parachute Battalion. Bosnians, Croats, Zombies, all the same.” he said in a thick eastern European accent.
“OK then, I guess you’re qualified. Ever jump with a T-11 chute?”
“Six hundred and fifty two times. Eleven times into combat in war.”
Jeez, where the hell did we find these guys? I guess it figured though, war veterans survived where others didn’t. We knew the world could go to shit any time, and half expected it.
I introduced him to the team, and shook their hands in a reserved, standoff manner. When he got to Brit, he stared at her for a minute, left her hand hanging, then turned to me.
“You have woman on your team?”
“Yes we do. She is third in command, after myself and Doc.” Out of the corner of my eye I could see Brit starting to get angry. Not a good way to start off, brother.
“She is soldier? Maybe lesbian. They make good fighters. Very angry.” He eyed her up and down, and she glared back at him.
“I’ll cut your effing balls off! Lesbian, my ass. Nick, dump him. We don’t need him.”
“Ha, she has spirit. I like that in woman.” He grinned at her, showing bad European dental work.
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