“So we’re on the gate alone?” Tom asked in disbelief.
“We’re not alone.”
“How do you figure?”
“We got Erin. She will keep them off of us until we can destroy the column.”
“Bet your ass I will,” she growled.
Tom looked at Stryker, then Erin, and then back.
“You better deploy them in groups of two and have them get some sleep in turns.” Stryker said.
“I hope this damn thing doesn’t turn into a siege.” Tom sighed.
“If it does, we’ll be ready. You’re right about one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Sooner or later, they have to take the base.”
“How long will we wait?”
“About a minute longer than them,” Stryker replied.
“Erin, take the overwatch now. If you see anything moving, let me know. I will be in the garage watching you, so just wave.”
“Got it.” She moved off at a jog, entered the building, and a moment later waved at Stryker from the second floor.
“Might as well get them set up, Tom. This could happen at any time.”
“Roger that.” He sighed again and walked off.
“I really don't get this guy,” Stryker muttered to himself. He walked into the garage, found a lawn chair, and set it up next to the tool box.
He hoped the wait wouldn’t be too long.
Stryker could play the long game with the best of them. But, it was time to get back to San Diego and start a household with Erin.
He glanced at the sentries and saw Tom talking to the shorter one, and then he pointed toward the beach.
The man jogged toward the water.
“Come to papa,” Stryker whispered.
CHAPTER TWENTY
They waited, and then they waited two more days.
Stryker was getting antsy and wondered if they should just leave and give the base back to the gang. It irked him to give them anything they wanted, but he was growing weary of the endless days and nights with fitful sleep.
The remaining sailors were getting short-tempered, and even the usually placid Jose was starting to frame his replies in poorly-executed, sarcastic answers.
Erin came down from her overwatch position and rubbed his shoulders. “It sucks, but we have to let them come to us.”
“I know.”
Tom walked over to them when he saw them chatting. “Well, I guess they are going to wait us out.”
“We’ll wait longer.” Stryker spit to the side of his chair and leaned back.
“You sure you want to do that?”
“Nothing else to do.”
Erin glanced down at Stryker and saw a look of stubbornness and frustration that was so clear she could have seen it through a dense fog.
“This really is not your kind of fight,” she finally said.
“Any fight is my kind of fight.”
Stryker stood, stretched his back out, and then walked back to the rear of the building, where he had set up the percolator.
He poured a cup of coffee and returned to the chair, sat down, and looked up at Tom and Erin.
“Get back to your positions. We still have a fight in front of us, and you can’t do any good here.”
They left and Stryker was alone with his thoughts.
He played The Rolling Stones song, “Wild Horses” on his mental CD and checked out for a long moment. Then, everything around him seemed to come into focus. The chirping of cicadas, the croaks of tree frogs, and the sound of the mild breeze passing by lulled him.
Behind all those sounds, the music continued unabated, providing a background to nature’s music.
Stryker smiled and then fell into a state of near sleep as Mick Jagger’s plaintive voice begged a woman to love him.
The frogs continue to croak.
The breeze abated.
Stryker was good with it all.
There was a reckoning coming, and he would be ready.
He thought about the die-off. How so many had succumbed to the plague.
He wondered at the lives that remained, and what they really could do with the shattered remnants of the world.
Then, he thought of the future he had with Erin and the possibility of having a child and actually being the father who was there all the time for the child and could nurture and care for an infant.
Stryker’s face split into a gentle smile as he imagined it.
He would be the perfect father.
Their child would be tough, but compassionate, and he and Erin would spend eternity together.
Their child would be the living testimony to their love.
Stryker’s smile grew wider as he fell into a deeper sleep.
Then the gunfire started.
Stryker rubbed his eyes to clear them. He resisted the urge to run to the gunfire, picked up an AT, and sighted on the gate. The gunfire from the beach side of the base continued, and Stryker heard the roar of the Barrett as Erin engaged in the fight by the water.
Which meant that he and Tom were now without covering fire. He inched his M-4 closer with his free hand and returned to watching the gate.
He glanced up at the second floor of the barracks and saw that Tom also had his AT on his shoulder and was looking at the gate.
The roar of a big diesel engine filled the air and the first Humvee turned off the highway and started toward the base. Stryker tightened his grip on the AT and waited for the vehicle to get closer.
Stryker fired when the Humvee cleared the gate and entered the courtyard. The projectile exploded out of the tube and, as if connected by an invisible wire, it flew into the Humvee. The vehicle reared up on two wheels, hung suspended for a moment, and then crashed back to the ground. Four men were thrown out the side of the vehicle.
The sound of gunfire from the beach side ceased.
Stryker picked up his carbine and fired a burst into the man farthest away from his position who was attempting to stand.
He then moved to his right to get an angle on two men who lay motionless on the opposite side of the vehicle, fired, and saw dust puff off their uniforms. The last man lay under the front right tire of the Humvee, pinned to the ground.
Stryker fired a burst into him and he ceased moving.
Stryker picked up his last AT.
It was Tom’s turn to fire next, so he held it on his shoulder and waited.
The second Humvee careened through the gate, clipped the front left fender of the first, and spun around.
Stryker saw the projectile hit the interior of the vehicle, and the men inside were vaporized into pink mist filled with chunks of the Humvee’s interior.
Stryker shouldered his last AT and waited patiently. The last vehicle cleared the gate cleanly and three men inside fired wildly around the compound. The Humvee slowed to a stop and Stryker fired his last AT. It impacted the passenger door on the driver’s side and detonated, instantly killing three of the four men.
The fourth was trying to get out of the back seat when the Barret boomed. A round struck him in the upper torso. He pivoted from the force of the impact and spun to the ground.
“Overwatch,” Stryker yelled.
“Got it,” Erin replied.
“Me too,” Tom added.
Stryker moved through the battle site and found only one man breathing. He fired one into the man’s forehead. As he looked around the carnage, he did not see a body that seemed unusually large.
“Erin, tell Jose to come over,” he shouted.
Jose appeared shortly, looking pale, and clearly wishing he were somewhere else.
“Are any of these men Big Carlos?” Stryker asked.
“No,” Jose replied shakily. “None of them is big enough. Can I leave now?”
“Go ahead.”
Tom and Erin walked to where Stryker stood, lost in thought.
“What are you thinking?” Erin asked.
“Carlos is not among the dead here.”
“You’re kidding.” Tom’s voice was filled with disbelief.
“No. And, that means there must be more of them.”
“Why?”
“If he had no fighters left, he would have been with this group.”
Stryker and Tom waited, back in their positions, not knowing if Carlos would come back with another force. If there was another group, perhaps they pulled back because they too heard the fight on the beach conclude with two rounds fired from the Barrett, and saw the first Humvee get hit by the projectile.
“Two bad guys down on the beach.” Erin yelled from the top of the building. “No casualties on our side. It’s clear for now.”
“Keep an eye on that side,” Stryker yelled back. “We got this side covered.”
“What do we do now?” Tom yelled from the barracks window.
“We wait,” Stryker shouted back.
Two hours later, Tom posted two sentries at the gate, and one on the ocean side of the compound.
He walked back to the barracks and sat with Erin and Stryker as they drank coffee. “What’s their next move?”
“I’m not sure they have one,” Stryker replied.
“Why?” Erin stared at Stryker
“Well, they tried the beach approach and attempted to force the gate and lost on both counts. I really don't know what they have left to try.”
“The sides of the compound to the north and south,” Erin said. “They have that left.”
“We talked about that, and they can’t use the .50s on the Humvees if they come in on foot. I just can’t see them giving up the only big dog they have in this fight.”
“They’ll get desperate eventually.”
“They already are,” Tom muttered. “The last move was a suicide mission. They now know we are ready for them and they might just give up.” He looked disappointed at the notion.
“We can always just leave. We have all the Humvees we need to get to San Diego, and the two .50s. If they try to engage us on the road, it will be slaughter.”
“I’d rather finish them.” Tom’s voice was filled with hate.
“That might not be possible.” Erin sighed. “They may just give up and wait us out, and in the end, we don't know what they have on the navy base, so I say let’s call it good and head back.”
“I’m with her,” Stryker added. “We can’t sit here forever wondering when they will come back, if at all. We will lose more men eventually because the only move they have left is to try to take us out with sniper fire and attrition.”
“They can’t have more than ten men left. We can finish this by attacking their base.” Tom wore a stubborn look that made Stryker sigh with frustration.
“It’s over, Tom. We need to go and resume rebuilding the base and getting more groups back to San Diego. This has turned into a fool’s mission, and I’m tired of being foolish. Stay and die if you like, but we are moving on.”
Stryker stood and left the room, walked over to the Humvee they’d liberated from the Mexicans, and threw his messenger bag and pack into the rear seat.
He walked up to the two sentries at the front gate. “Go tell the others that we are leaving in ten minutes. Anyone who isn’t here gets left behind.”
The man looked at him with a confused expression.
“Now,” Stryker growled.
The man left at a jog and soon the men were all assembled in the courtyard.
“If you’re coming with us, pick a vehicle and a seat and follow us.”
They sorted themselves out, and as the engines started, Tom and Erin walked out of the barracks and approached the group.
“Tom is on the other .50,” Erin said. “I guess I’m driving?”
“Yes, I got our .50.”
“We in the lead?”
“Yes.”
Stryker turned to face the men, who now filled three vehicles.
“We are around an hour and a half away from San Diego. We plan on driving through without stopping. Anything moves, shoot it. Are we clear?”
The men nodded collectively, Tom took his place behind the Ma Deuce, and Erin got into the driver’s seat.
They pulled through the gate and turned north, with Erin leading the way and Stryker standing over the big gun.
“How did you convince Tom to come along?”
“I didn’t,” Erin replied.
“Any idea why he changed his mind?”
“I guess the idea of ending up like the captain didn’t appeal to him, and he knew that’s what would happen eventually if he stayed.
“I guess.”
As Erin increased speed, further talking was out of the question. Stryker watched the landscape stream by them as they headed north. He turned around every so often to look for pursuit.
None was visible and he finally sat down in the rear of the Humvee.
Stryker wasn’t happy with the outcome of the battle; the fact was they had not won, but rather fought to a stalemate and called it good. It stuck in his craw, but he knew when to cut losses and was certain they had chosen the right path.
His eyes continued to click across the landscape, relentless and ceaseless.
Erin glanced at him in the rear view mirror, reading his expression.
“Not happy?”
“No.”
“It was the right decision.”
“I know.”
Erin fell silent. He obviously didn’t want to talk about it and would process it over time.
They passed by the faint outline of what had been a vineyard, with dead and dying vines propped up by stakes that were no longer straight.
“Grapes? Here?” Erin asked.
“This area and to the south of here were the wine region of Mexico.”
“I didn’t know Mexico made wine.”
“They had some very good wines. This area wasn’t a Napa Valley by any means, but they made some good product.”
They fell silent for a moment and then Erin said, “Are you going to explain to the men what happened when we get to the traffic jam by the border.”
“I’m going to have to, I guess. I would rather not get them thinking about what happened to their family and friends, but it has to be explained to them. Sooner or later they have to come to grips with it. It is easy for us to forget that they didn’t live through the plague and probably have never seen anything remotely like what they are about to see.”
“There’s no way to detour around it?”
“No.”
They were now moving through a featureless landscape. There were no houses or commercial buildings, no outlines of fields that once were cultivated, and no trees. It was nothing but sand and rock as far as the eye could see.
Finally, the convoy passed through a small town, dotted with adobe structures apparently placed at random on irregular lots. They dodged potholes as the town receded behind them, and then got to a better patch of road.
“This is uglier than a bucket full of assholes,” Stryker muttered, as he glanced around at a landscape that was devoid of color. “Who the hell would want to live here?”
“Obviously, nobody.” Erin grinned.
“True.”
An hour later, they passed the column of bullet-ridden vehicles, and Erin stopped on the north side of the snarl of cars and trucks that extended for a mile. She pulled to the shoulder of the road, and they both got out.
The other Humvees approached and parked behind Erin’s vehicle. The men got out and all stared at the piles of bones that littered the ditches of the road and the long line of stalled vehicles that stretched to the south.
“Get on the .50,” Stryker said to Erin.
“What happened here?” one man whispered.
Tom had a question mark in his eyes as Stryker approached.
“I know you guys all were at sea during and after the plague. But the world is very different now, and you are going to see things like this, so you need to harden up.”
“But… what happened?” Tom’s face was ash
en.
“When the plague broke out, many Californians thought they would have a better chance of survival south of the border, so they came here in droves, trying to outrun the death that surrounded them.”
“Why would things be any better here?” Carl asked.
“They wouldn’t, and who knows why they thought that.” Stryker decided to not get bogged down in the details and not go through the entire explanation.
“A lot of those vehicles had large caliber bullet holes and we saw the Humvees with the .50s as we passed them.” Tom’s face was pale.
“The Mexicans decided to stop the exodus and did what they had to do to keep the Americans out. They were probably afraid of more contagious people running around the country.”
“This was a slaughter.”
“No argument there,” Stryker replied grimly.
The men were in various stages of shock and dismay. Nothing could prepare them for the world they now occupied and Stryker felt for them, but knew they had to keep moving. He gave them a few more moments to process the scene before them and watched as they blinked away the horror of the scene and a few regained the color in their faces.
“We have to go,” he said quietly. “Things will be more normal at the base, and this will shortly be a bad memory. Despite everything that has happened, we will move forward and you will regain your lives. It will be different and it will be challenging, but we can do it.
Tom shook his head mutely.
“Now, let’s saddle up and head home.”
Stryker walked back to the Humvee, replaced Erin on the .50, and they again headed north.
“You staying on the Ma Duece?” Erin asked.
“Yes, until we are through Tijuana. I don’t like all those tall buildings and narrow streets.”
Erin nodded and again accelerated, with the other vehicles following close behind.
They again passed through the shanty town with its tumbled-down houses and negotiated their way around several mudslides that covered the highway.
“Slow it down,” Stryker said as they started into the commercial area of the city. “You watch to the left, I’ll take the right.
Stryker’s senses grew more acute. His vision seemed to sharpen and the stench of rotting garbage filled his nostrils. He was fairly certain if anything bad was going to happen, it would be on this stretch of narrow road, or the border crossing.
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