Pandemic r-1

by Craig DiLouie

  “Cease fire!” Wade called. “Save the ammo!”

  Young glared at him as if to say, Who are you to give orders? But he did as he was told.

  The bulldozer was coming fast.

  “Gray! Hit it with the two-oh-three!”

  Gray kissed a forty-millimeter grenade and loaded it into the launcher tube attached to his carbine. He took careful aim while the squad halted to provide security. “Firing!”

  The bulldozer’s cab exploded in a massive fireball. Bodies cartwheeled through the air. The smoking rig veered off the road and plowed into a cluster of abandoned vehicles with a metallic crash.

  The soldiers sent up a ragged cheer. They were panting with exhaustion. At last, night had come. The men flipped their helmet-mounted NVGs over their eyes. Wade did the same. The world brightened and shrank to a bright green circle.

  “Booyah,” Gray said.

  “Good shooting,” Rawlings said.

  Gray frowned at her and spit. “Happy now, Sergeant? We had a good position back there. We could have held that place. Instead, we’re out here holding our dicks.”

  Wade and Rawlings exchanged a glance. Was he kidding?

  She said, “You can always go back, Gray.”

  The soldier grinned. “Why would I do that? This is my squad, Nasty Girl. You’re a fucking reservist.” He pointed at a blocky building in the distance that looked like a school. “We’ll hole up there for the night.”

  “That’s a no go,” Wade told him. “We’ve got darkness on our side. We need to find a car dealership or something and get some vehicles. We’ll be back at Hanscom by morning.”

  Gray grinned. “You can always go on ahead by yourselves.”

  He started walking toward the school. The rest of the squad followed. They were smoked. Whether they were stopping for the night or pushing ahead, they needed a rest.

  Rawlings touched Wade’s shoulder. “Let’s move.”

  They had to stick together, and they had no time for a pissing contest.

  Gray signaled the squad to a listening halt outside the school. They heard nothing. He smashed a window with the butt of his carbine. The squad piled into a classroom. They cleared it and the hallway beyond then barricaded the door.

  Wade sat on the floor and propped his swollen ankle on his helmet to elevate it. The right side of his face felt heavy and foreign, as if his cheekbone had doubled in size and turned to rock. His disjointed muscles protested every movement. His body felt broken.

  Fisher sat next to him and lay on his side with a groan, shivering.

  Rawlings sat on his other side and removed her helmet with a sigh. “We’ll get some vehicles in the morning.”

  “No, we won’t,” Wade murmured with his eyes closed.

  “Don’t give up on me, Private Wade. We can do this. Don’t worry about Gray. His M203 made him the hero of the hour. But he can’t lead this squad. He couldn’t lead ants to a picnic.”

  “We barely made it three klicks in two hours. We burned through most of our ammo. Tomorrow, we’ll be traveling again in broad daylight, fighting for our lives. There won’t be any chance to find vehicles. Besides all that, by morning, I’ll barely be able to walk.”

  “We can leave tonight,” she whispered. “Rest up. Hit the road.”

  “We have to stick together. Maybe Gray was right. We shouldn’t have left the stadium. We left good men to die back there.”

  “We would have died with them. What would be the point of that?”

  “We’re dead anyway. At least at the stadium, we could have died with some honor.”

  “Screw that and screw you. You can’t put that on us. We tried to get them to leave. Staying was their choice. Their blood isn’t on our hands. Me, I’m not interested in suicide. Where’s the honor in that? I’m not interested in dying for something.” Her hand probed until it found his. “Right now, I’m a hell of a lot more interested in living for something.”

  They held hands in the dark. For the first time in weeks, Wade felt a sense of calm. He’d reached a decision. He’d tell her. She deserved to know.

  “Even if we make it, I’m not sure I’m going back,” he said. “All my friends are dead. Sergeant Ramos is dead. He wasn’t like a father to me because my dad was nice, but he cared. He was tough, but it was because he cared. All he cared about was keeping everybody in the squad alive. He saved my ass more times than I can count in Afghanistan.”

  He paused and went on, “I remember this one time, the Taliban totally lit us up. A textbook L-shaped ambush. Men went down instantly. Our lead element was cut off from the rest of the platoon. I dove behind a log and couldn’t raise my head. A PK ripped that log to shreds. Somebody shouted, ‘They got Esposito! They got him!’ Then Sergeant Ramos ran past me. We all got up to provide cover fire. A couple of Taliban had Esposito down in the gully. He was wounded, and they were dragging him away as a prize. Ramos chased after them, shot them down, and brought Esposito back. I don’t know how he did it. But it was something to see. It was really something.”

  Wade paused again, lost in the memory. “He was like that. He gave the orders, but we always came first. He has a sister and a nephew here in Boston. He wanted to protect them because they were the only family in the world he had left. He could have walked off the job, but he stayed. He put us first. He put the Army first. And now he’s dead. He died in a fucking hospital we had no business being in. Now his family is stuck in this city. I tell you, if I get out of this, I’m going to pay him back. I’ll go Elvis. I’m going to find them and protect them.”

  Rawlings squeezed his hand. “I understand.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. But don’t do it.”

  “No?”

  “We need you, Wade. I need you. Come here.” She touched his head and guided it to her shoulder. She stroked his hair.

  “I’m so fucking tired,” he said. His mind began to slip away.

  “Sorry to interrupt, lovebirds.”

  Gray grinned down at them, still wearing his NVGs.

  “Wade, you take first watch.”

  “Go to hell, Gray,” Wade told him.

  He closed his eyes and fell asleep in seconds.

  THIRTY-FOUR.

  Hanscom Air Force Base. Oh-dawn-hundred. Already hot and humid. The day was going to be a scorcher. First Battalion kicked off their fartsacks and got to their feet.

  Lt. Colonel Lee searched for the big sergeant the men called John Wayne.

  Sergeant Andy Muldoon, First Platoon, Delta Company. His squad was a rough bunch of bad apples. He had a reputation of taking misfits and turning them into hardened killers. He’d served seven tours on and off in Afghanistan and had been decorated three times. The Taliban knew his name, and they’d been afraid of him. The war had turned him into the type of man who knew he could never go home. He was on American soil again, but home was gone.

  He and Lee had history in Afghanistan. They held no special love for each other. But Lee needed his help.

  Lee found the sergeant sitting on a crate with his back against a palette of bottled water, whittling a piece of wood into what looked like a chess piece. Lee once again found himself impressed with the man’s colossal size; he was a virtual giant. His squad loitered around him with their shirts off, trading desserts from MRE pouches, lifting weights and sharpening their big knives. A boom box pounded out Iron Maiden’s “Run to the Hills.”

  “Sergeant Muldoon, a word.”

  The big sergeant squinted up at him. “Captain Lee. Or is it Colonel Lee now?”

  Lee crouched next to him. “Your men are fit? Ready to move?”

  Muldoon grinned. “Always. You tracked me down just to check up on me?”

  “They don’t look like they’re in a state of readiness.”

  “They’re ready.”

  “There’s a mission.”

  “There always is, Colonel. The second I laid eyes on you, I knew you needed my help.”

  “Believe me,” Lee said, �
�I don’t like it any more than you do.”

  “Then it must be a real choice mission, one you wouldn’t do yourself.”

  “I’d do it if ordered, and you wouldn’t see me bitch.”

  “You really think you’re better than me, don’t you? Now that you’re in command, you need somebody to do your dirty work for you, so you don’t get dirty yourself.”

  Lee sighed. It was like Afghanistan all over again. The mission that went wrong in every way possible. The kid. The long hours spent under the hammer. What happened between them there had turned into a never-ending pissing match that had no respect for decorum or rank. But Muldoon was the best man for the job he had in mind, and as always, the mission came first.

  “No, Sergeant. We’re all just different tools for the job. And when did you start caring what I think of you? You might be surprised to know I came here for your skills, not your morality.” He paused then added, “And definitely not for your personality, in case you were wondering.”

  “All right, Colonel. Fair enough. Give it to me. Straight, if you don’t mind.”

  Lee took a deep breath. “Major General Brock knows we’ve pulled out of the city. He says we work for him now. And he’s pissed about us blowing up the hospitals. Real pissed. He wants us to fall in line, go back to our original positions, and hold whatever ground we can.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s nuts. So?”

  “So he said he’ll prevent us from leaving Massachusetts by whatever means necessary.”

  “Which means what, exactly? Talk is cheap.”

  “Our drones identified two companies of infantry moving west out of Newton along Route 90.”

  Muldoon grunted. “That’s only like ten, twelve clicks from here.”

  “Most are on foot. Fuel must be a problem for them. But they have some vehicles. Humvees. A few five-tons.”

  “Armor?”

  “Negative.”

  The sergeant snorted. “Doesn’t sound like a fair fight to me. Let them come.”

  “It’s an opening move. Brock wouldn’t have sent them if he weren’t committed. More are probably on the way. He’s got four thousand men in the Greater Boston area. Armor, airpower, arty. We can’t watch them all. In any case, it’s a fight we don’t want even if we can win it.”

  “You know, there’s another way out of this.”

  “What’s that?”

  Muldoon grinned. “We hand you over and join the Guard.”

  Lee stared the man in the eye. “Is that what you want to do?”

  “Nope. Just throwing it out there. Because it sounds like what you want is for me and my boys to go down that road and risk our lives slowing them down.” He spit a stream of tobacco juice onto the ground. “Fighting our own guys.”

  “Like I said, I’m hoping there won’t be any fighting.”

  “You want the road blocked.”

  “That’s right.”

  “It’s six lanes of highway.”

  “I’m sending the engineers with you. They’ll handle the demolitions.”

  “You’ll be blocking the route to Drum,” Muldoon noted, “if we’re going that way.”

  “We’re not,” Lee told him. “Change of plans. We’ll be going west along other routes. Try to bypass some of the major cities. Fewer people, fewer problems. No National Guard.”

  “Smaller roads. They’ll be blocked in places. Slow going.”

  “The alternative is a pitched battle with Brock.”

  “Sold. So let’s leave then.”

  “We’re not ready. We’ve got stragglers coming in, and we’re still packing equipment. We can’t leave anything for the crazies. If they hoof it, the Guard may get here sooner than we’re ready to egress. We need time.”

  “And you want me to buy it for you.”

  “That’s right.”

  “It’s doable.”

  “There’s more. The drones are picking up big movement among the infected. A lot of them are coming this way. So you might have company out there.”

  Lee didn’t tell him about Radio Scream. Radio Scream, the voice on the FM dial rasped, where we pay to play. An infected engineer had figured out a way to take back control of the broadcast from Mount Weather’s override. The infected DJ preached his sadist gospel between “songs” that consisted of grating laughter and the screams of tortured innocents.

  Last night, the DJ told his listeners that Tenth Mountain was leaving the playpen without permission and that they should go and say bon voyage to the brave boys in uniform and personally thank them for their service to this great nation. He kept at it all night. By morning, the westward migration out of the burning Boston core began to shift. Toward Hanscom.

  He also didn’t tell Muldoon that he suspected Brock had put the word out. If First Battalion wouldn’t stay in Boston, Brock would use them while he had them. He’d flush the infected out and send them all into Tenth Mountain’s guns. If true, the man was utterly ruthless. Desperate. Smart. Either way, they weren’t getting out of here without a fight.

  “Great.” The sergeant leaned back and put his hands behind his head, revealing massive biceps. Lee knew Muldoon sometimes fired an M240 machine gun with one hand as a party trick at the firing range. “It’s a choice mission. All right. Convince me.”

  Lee frowned. “Most real soldiers find a direct order convincing.”

  The man laughed. “I’m about as much a real soldier as you are a real colonel. Sir. Times have changed. My boys and I could walk out of here anytime I say so.”

  The man was right. There was no use trying to argue otherwise. “Then why don’t you?”

  Muldoon leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. His eyes blazed. “Because I am a real soldier. Sir.”

  Lee grinned. “That’s what I thought.”

  “And we’re coming back. Don’t think we’re a bunch of Dixie cups.”

  Dixie cups. Disposable. “I don’t dislike you that much, Sergeant.”

  “Tell me something, Colonel. How far would you go for a mission? Where do you draw the line?”

  Lee said nothing. The meeting was over. Both had gotten what they wanted. Lee had the best man he could find to screen their withdrawal, and Muldoon had a mission and his pound of flesh.

  THIRTY-FIVE.

  The convoy of military vehicles roared down a barren stretch of I-95—Humvees and a couple of five-tons filled with engineers and hastily packed explosives.

  Sergeant Andy Muldoon rode in the point vehicle. He listened to the bang of the rig’s iron suspension, the V8 diesel engine’s grind, the hum of the big tires gripping the road. The Humvee was a perfect example of what he liked about Army life: nothing comfortable about it, no frills, everything utilitarian, designed to last and built to survive. There was a kind of Zen in it.

  He’d experienced real hardship in Afghanistan: constant fighting, hunger and thirst, scorching heat and numbing cold, days and nights without sleep, scorpions and giant spiders and bugs that ate you alive. The cherries came, and he taught them war. Some got hit; most went home different men than when they’d arrived.

  Muldoon couldn’t go home. Civilian life, with its comforts and niceties, kicked his ass, chewed him up, and spit him out. In the real world, he woke up with night terrors and flinched at loud noises. He drank all the time and got into fights. He’d pound some poor guy over nothing. He’d woken up in jail in Vicenza and Rome. His relationships with women tended to be stormy and short. Post-traumatic stress disorder, they called it. After some time home, he always asked to go right back into the shit. The Army psychologists kept an eye on him. But in the field, all his anxieties melted away. He grew stronger. Afghanistan was the devil he knew.

  America had been turned into a war zone. Nobody was going home. It sucked for everybody, but he personally didn’t mind it. It somehow felt right. Again, the devil he knew. In the new age, war wasn’t the anomaly; the real world was. War had become the norm. And he wasn’t just surviving. He was thriving. He could puzzle over that
for years.

  The only problem was serving under Harry Lee.

  The Tomcats dropped them into the bush outside a village in Korengal Valley near the Pakistani border. Taliban and foreign fighters crossed over from Pakistan each year to take on the American infidels. Lee had solid intel that a Taliban commander was going to be traveling along a certain route at a certain time. Muldoon’s squad was supposed to do the grab. Lee came along to see if he could get something from the man before they handed him up the ladder for interrogation. Muldoon was happy to get the mission. It was real Special Forces shit.

  They lay all night and most of the next day under cover in a gully, waiting for their guy to show up. Instead, boy walked straight through their area of operations; he couldn’t have been older than ten or twelve. The soldiers hunkered down. Lee looked at Muldoon.

  The kid had no business here. From the way he kept glancing around, he’d either spotted the Americans or had already known they were there.

  The captain drew his finger across his throat. He wanted Muldoon to kill the kid.

  Muldoon refused the order.

  Thirty minutes later, a heavy machine gun thudded on the ridge above, chewing up the ground around the squad’s position. Another opened up from the west. They were surrounded. The air filled with flying metal. The Taliban threw rocks down at them, hoping the Americans would believe they were grenades and leave cover.

  Captain Lee called in fire mission after fire mission on the ridges above. The big arty rounds rained down, but the Taliban didn’t quit. They smelled blood. After an hour of fighting, every weapon in the squad was suppressed. The insurgents could maneuver almost at will. They bounded down the rocks, closing in for the kill with their AKs. The Taliban didn’t take prisoners.

  Apaches roared overhead, like their cavalry ancestors, in the nick of time. The gunships had to drop their ordnance practically on the squad’s heads to keep them from being overrun. The Taliban were that close.

  Lee blamed Muldoon for the failure of the mission. Lee thought the kid had spotted them and reported their presence to Taliban in the village.