Taggart smiled. Just before the lights went out, they’d gotten word that POTUS was safe in some unmarked survival shelter, and most of the rest of the civvy command structure was en route to other safe spots. Taking D.C. was a pointless gesture. Enjoy the mosquitos, fuckers. Not that Taggart much cared for the current President or any of the assholes in Congress or whatever, but with them alive there was still a chance at getting the lights on, and getting the invaders the fuck out of the U.S. of A.
“We’ll make do, Black. Eagan, go radio the other safe houses and get a SITREP. Black, will you please make sure I get the maps and other intel you picked up from the OpFor? I need to get a grip on where things stand.”
Black nodded. “Yeah, sure, whatever. Fuckin’ maps, okay? Bullshit. But they’re yours. I’ll have ‘em sent to your room, along with some food. You look like shit and smell worse—wash up before you come back down.” Then he stormed out of the room.
Eagan opened his eyes again and looked at Taggart. “You know, taking D.C. was awesome of them. Maybe they did us a favor and wasted my Senator. I wrote him a letter once about my bank fucking me over, and he only sent back a stupid form letter.”
“You’re a frikkin ‘Private Pyle,’ you know that? You’re supposed to write your congressman for that shit. Senators are like fleas. They irritate you for a while, then go away, only to be replaced by new fleas who do the same damn thing. Anyway, the Commander-in-Chief is safe. Remember the intel we got with our last order before the shit hit the fan.”
“I can always hope, Cap’n. There’s always hope.”
Taggart chuckled and spared a weary smile for the Private. “Eagan, you are one unsat shitbird, you know that?”
“Yes, sir. The Captain has provided that knowledge to the Private on a daily basis, sir.”
“Eagan?”
“Yes, sir, Captain, sir?” replied Eagan, one side of his mouth curled up into a smirk.
“Shut the fuck up. Let’s go eat and look at some maps.”
Neither of them moved for another ten minutes, but eventually, hunger overpowered their weariness. Sadly, the food only turned out to be the enemy’s version of MREs and were labeled in that shitty squiggle-writing they used. They were seized supplies, of course, taken during the various raids Taggart’s men were undertaking. Taggart’s MRE turned out to be something like a rice-and-vegetable mush.
“Eagan, what would it take to trade for your pouch?”
“Five minutes with poor Spec-4 Louis’s sister.”
“He’s dead, he won’t mind. Done. Wherever she is, she’s yours for five mikes.”
“Roger that, Cap.”
* * *
Cassy lounged around the fire with Aidan and Brianna to either side of her. The others were haphazardly arranged around the fire as well, and there were several conversations going on at once in more hushed tones than usual. No one wanted to awaken Mary, who, despite being bitten by a copperhead snake, was fitfully sleeping with the aid of a couple pills from Ethan’s stash of medical supplies.
A sudden flash of light on the horizon caught her eye, and like the others, she turned her head to look. Then there were more and more such flashes, all to the south. Seconds later a deep, almost inaudible THUMP noise washed over them, felt more than heard. Cassy turned to Michael with eyes wide from fear.
“Artillery,” Michael said in a monotone, almost dead-sounding voice. It was the tone he had used during the gunfight when the clan tried to sneak past the garage—his military voice. “I imagine that’s the invaders, finally getting deployed in force along the I-76 Highway 30 corridor. They’ll be pushing on Lancaster and Harrisburg as fast as they can, to control the Susquehanna River crossings to the west. Then on to York. That means they must have already taken Wilmington, farther south in Delaware.”
Cassy turned back to the display of lights that now showed all across the southern horizon. The group was silent for a long time. So many people must be dead and dying in those blasts, that very minute, and Cassy’s thoughts grew morbid.
Jed finally broke the silence. “Michael, can they be stopped? I mean, will America survive? You’re the military guy, tell us how this will play down.”
Michael, still with that dead voice, said, “Soon they’ll have everything from Washington, D.C. to Boston on the coast, and inland to Buffalo and Cleveland. At least, I don’t think we can organize a real counterattack with the grid down at least until then. But Ethan said they’re in Florida too. I think they’ll push up to Richland on the coast and inland to Charlotte and Atlanta.”
Cassy frowned. That was an awful lot of territory, and would wipe out America’s ability to defend anything east of the Appalachians. More importantly, in the long run, it would give the enemy a vast territory that was easy to defend by land. “So, we’re screwed,” she spat.
Michael shrugged. “I’m just a grunt, what do I know? But I think you’re forgetting that the U.S. is more than just the East Coast. Every redneck from Roanoke to Spokane, Washington is going to be bleeding them every minute of every day—and the more rednecks they kill, the more will sign up to play modern-day Quantrill’s Raiders.”
Aidan was listening to Michael intently, soaking in the man’s words. “What’s a Quantrill?” he asked.
Cassy patted him on the head. “Not a what, but a who. Quantrill led a group of Confederate raiders during the Civil War. They say Jesse James fought alongside him.”
“I know who Jesse James was.” He smiled, and Cassy smiled back. Then he returned to watching the sporadic bursts of light on the horizon.
Cassy stood up and brushed off her pants. “Gotta take a potty break,” she said, and walked to the cat hole they’d dug some thirty feet into the woods. It was far enough for privacy and sanitation, but close enough to find at night without getting lost. She would have preferred it be farther into the woods, but Michael was insistent, and she eventually gave in.
Every few steps another burst of light would faintly illuminate the area, sending eerie shadows sprinting in all directions. The shadows vanished just as quickly as the light winked out. Still, she had an eerie feeling, and the hair on the back of her neck and arms stood on end. It was foolish, she knew, but she could swear someone was watching her every move.
“Is anyone there?” she asked in a hoarse near-whisper, voice starting to shake with fear. “You’re psyching yourself out, girl,” she told herself, but it did nothing to help abate her uneasy feeling.
Cassy reached the latrine they’d dug and unbuckled her pants. She held them up around her knees and straddled the pit as she did her best to ignore the smell. Even a fresh latrine smelled after one use, she mused, and wondered why whoever had gone before her didn’t throw dirt over their mess the way she and Michael had told them.
The sound of twigs snapping to her left caught her attention. Cassy clawed at her pants to get them up and fumbled with the buckle. Her eyes never stopped scanning the area from which the noise came. After a moment, she saw a brush with long, slender leaves that looked like it was lightly swaying in the breeze, though she could feel no wind.
“Who’s there?” she said in a loud, clear voice, but she couldn’t help notice how shaky her voice sounded. She pulled out her pistol and racked it, putting a round in the chamber. “Show yourself, whoever it is. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
As the brush continued to wave despite the lack of wind, she heard another sound to her left and spared a glance; another brush and another set of leaves moving. Whoever was out there, there were two of them. Time to go.
Cassy backed up as quickly as she could, heading toward the camp without turning her back on the moving bushes. Her pulse raced, and she felt the onset of adrenaline sweat. He knees began to feel shaky, but she was determined not to show it. When she was close enough, she yelled for help and in seconds, she heard the welcome sounds of the clan rushing toward her and the sounds of weapons being racked. Whoever was out there wasn’t going to get easy prey today.
-
11 -
2200 HOURS – ZERO DAY +7
AFTER HE AND Eagan finished eating the food they took from the invaders—disgusting mush of rice and unidentifiable green things—Capt. Taggart met with Mr. Black in a back room to go over both the most recent intel from the 20s, and the bits of information they’d either seized or coerced from the invaders during the raids earlier that day.
Mr. Black stood over the bench full of documents and notes and photographs, which itself rested under a large wall covered with maps with colored pins and handwritten notes. “So you see, jarhead…”
“That’s the Marines. I’m Army.”
Taggart’s face was expressionless, so Black continued, “Whatever. So you see, New York is applesauce. The Invaders have everything worth having.”
Taggart nodded. “We have the low-value populated areas, but only really control the areas around our safe houses and bunkers.”
“The rest of those millions of people are dying now,” Black said. “Some starving, but more getting killed by their neighbors ’n shit. Especially by that wetback, Spyder, who controls the shit just to our north, ‘cause he’s working with the invaders or so I hear. And the ‘vaders are taking slaves from all over New York just as fast as they can round them up, with most being moved to somewhere outside of the City. We don’t know where they’re going, where the enemy is, or where Uncle Sam’s Best are because we haven’t had an update worth a shit from the 20s in days.”
Taggart shrugged. “They said something about a break in the chain of communications. One of their key operatives went dark, but they hope he comes back online soon. I worry about taking help from these 20s. We know nothing about them, except that we don’t have any choice but to use the intel they send us because it’s better than nothing.”
“Shit, you don’t know what you don’t know. Take your 411 when you can, not when you want it, yo.”
Taggart froze but carefully kept his face expressionless. Long practice doing that when talking to officers who had their heads up their ass had made him a master at that. Of course, he was now the officer and usually felt like he had his head up his ass. He didn’t know what he was doing, but all the tea in China couldn’t keep him from fighting for his country and, more importantly, fighting for his boys and girls under his command. They were his.
“What did you say, Black?” asked Taggart, still expressionless.
“I said take your 411 when you get it, not when you want it. It’s a thing I say when my crew don’t know what they doing and don’t want to listen. Or did say, before all this shit happened.”
Pvt. Eagan walked in, then. He practically skidded to a halt and looked back and forth between Taggart, rigid and frozen, and Black, who was laughing about something. “Captain, we need you out here a minute, sir,” Eagan said in a rapid-fire of words.
Taggart gave him one curt nod and followed Eagan out without saying a word to Black, who only shrugged and went back to looking at his maps. Piece of dog crap, pretending to be El Jeffe, as far as Taggart was concerned.
“What do you need, Eagan,” Taggart demanded, eyes narrow and jaw clenched.
Eagan saluted. “Sir! When I entered, I think I know the Captain well enough to see that he was about to rearrange Mr. Black’s face, or worse. I know the Captain well enough to read that body language. I felt it was my responsibility to my Captain to remove him from the situation before a strategic mistake was made. Sir.”
Taggart was motionless for half a minute, staring at Eagan and trying to regain full control of himself. The impertinent shit was right, dammit. Taggart had been about to tear Black apart. Finally, he let out a long, tense breath and returned the salute, releasing Eagan from his rigid position.
“Very good, Eagan. You did not read the situation wrong, I suppose, and it isn’t your fault so I won’t take it out on you. So. Situation report. What brought you in there in the first place?”
“What? Oh. Coffee’s made, if you want a cup of November Juliet, sir. What had you so riled up? Oops, officers don’t get riled up. What had the Captain prepared to engage his civilian Liaison to the resistance, in Resistance headquarters, surrounded by Resistance members?”
Taggart smiled. “You’re still a shitbird, Eagan,” he chuckled. “Well, the fact is, I just realized I know that guy. Mr. Black. That’s not his name, of course, but before all this he was a low-level drug dealer and pimp who made most of his money running a crew of robbers. It doesn’t matter how I met him, Eagan, but don’t turn your back on that piece of shit. We may need his Resistance, but Mr. Black is everything we hate about civilians, thugs, all the shit wrong with the society we used to have. Don’t let him charm you, Eagan. And watch my back.”
Taggart stalked away still clenching his jaw, leaving a confused and worried Pvt. Eagan in his wake. He barreled through the rooms of the building, ignoring the questioning looks of both his other men and resistance fighters, and only slowed down when he reached his quarters. He went inside, closed the door quietly, and sat on his bunk.
Thoughts raced through his mind. He couldn’t fathom how a low-level gangbanger got to be the head of the local Resistance. Worse yet, how many of his crew—or worse, other crews from his gang—were here posing as righteous freedom fighters? Obviously, Black couldn’t be trusted, nor could any of his men who might have been running on the street with him before all this started. And yet, they were the only game in town. To be combat-effective, Taggart had to work with the “indigenous population,” as he had begun to think of the Resistance. They knew the territory, they had what little intelligence was to be had, and they were the ones with the supplies and the network.
So, as much as it pissed him off, he’d have to work with that piece of shit ganger. Damn. He remembered vividly when they found his cousin’s body a year ago, with two bullets to the back of his head. Dimitrius was a troubled teenager, and ran with the wrong crowd, but he’d been a good kid inside. Taggart remembered fondly how the kid had melted the family’s hearts, despite being a half-breed. He had charisma, that one. But he had crossed his gang’s leader, and despite Taggart’s best efforts to get him the hell out of New York, Dimitrius paid with his life for crossing Black’s boss.
Taggart had never dealt with Black directly but had seen him and heard about him from his cousin. His name was something else, of course, but Taggart couldn’t remember what it was. But Dimitrius had been clear about him—he didn’t like “Mr. Black,” or any of Black’s crew, back in the day. And that ‘411’ comment was something Dimitrius quoted often, usually with a dramatic roll of the eyes and followed by a bunch of shit-talking.
“Very well, Soldier,” he said to himself out loud, “suck it up and accomplish the mission. Deal with The World later. Right now, you have orders to follow and job to do: save America. And then put a bullet in that little fucker.”
Taggart tried to tell himself that was it, that his decision was made, but in truth it would be a daily struggle to keep his mission front and center. But he was a soldier of the U.S. Army, and his personal crap would have to take a back seat to his oath of service. For now.
* * *
Well, Cassy mused, they’d made it back to camp. She explained everything, and now Michael was running around stringing up make-shift booby-traps and alarms around the camp. Cassy had insisted they keep two people on guard at all times through the night, and Michael had agreed. There was no resistance to the idea among the others. It just made sense.
As she stared out into the night, searching, she occasionally saw a brush move or heard a sapling rattle its leaves. Whoever made those noises was otherwise as silent as the dead, however, and they never heard or saw whoever was moving around out there.
Jed stood up. “I’m going out with Michael to look for tracks. I want to know what all we’re dealin’ with here, and how many of ‘em are out there.” Without another word, he walked out into the night toward where Michael could be seen rigging some sort of trip alarm with cans on a string. He’d found th
e cans and other trash all over the woods. Being close to people, it had been misused somewhat as a garbage dump.
Cassy stood and walked to Mary. She was pale and sweaty, still. “How are you doing, sweetie?”
“Well I feel like crap, but Ethan says I’m almost certain to make it without permanent damage. He says I should be ‘eighty percent good to go’ by tomorrow, or the next day at the latest. I can’t wait…”
Cassy chuckled. “Me neither. You really had us worried. Thank the Lord it wasn’t a rattler, eh?”
“Yeah. Thank God for small favors. Um, listen, Cassy, can I talk plainly?” asked Mary, and she looked around to make sure no one else was within easy hearing distance.
Cassy nodded and gave a shrug. Sure, whatever you want. “Fire when ready.”
“It’s kind of awkward. But I guess I should just rip the bandage off with this, so here goes. Do I have anything to worry about with you and Frank? I see how you look at him, and honestly, he looks at you the same way. Of course, only when you both think the other person isn’t looking. But I’ve had a lot of time to just sit and watch you all lately. I’m not accusing you of anything, mind you. It’s just that… Well, there’s enough dynamite in camp right now, and you know just who I’m talking about.”
Cassy froze, and for a second a shiver of adrenaline shot up her spine. But no, Mary wasn’t accusing her of anything. And anyway there was nothing to accuse her of in the first place. But did Frank really look at her, too? Another, very different shiver ran through her.
“No, Mary. No. He’s a handsome, capable guy for sure, but he’s mighty in love with you and you have a family together. Whatever passing thought I might have, it’s just that—a passing thought. Even if Frank tried anything, I’d shoot him down. We got enough problems, like you said, with the Jasmine-Amber bullshit going on. We’ll have to deal with that sooner or later, I reckon.”
Dark New World (Book 2): EMP Exodus Page 7
