by James Cook
Shortly thereafter, the props sped up and the lumbering giant of an aircraft gained momentum. It looked painfully slow at first, but quickly sped up. In a far shorter stretch of tarmac than I would have guessed it needed, the nose tipped upward and the C-130 gained altitude. Minutes later, it banked eastward and flew higher until only the drone of its engines remained. That too eventually faded.
*****
My satellite phone rang when we were three blocks from the main gate. I answered it.
“We’re on,” Tyrel said.
“Got it,” I said. “On our way.”
“Be quick about it.” He hung up.
“That who I think it was?” Gabe asked.
“Tyrel. Time to go to work.”
We doubled-timed it the rest of the way. Despite Gabe being twenty years older and outweighing me by at least thirty pounds, I had to open my stride to keep pace with him. I could only imagine what he must have been like at my age.
I showed my black card at the gate and said Gabe was with me. The guard checked my ID carefully but let us through without comment. We hoofed it immediately to General Jacobs’ office.
A short, stocky man with captain’s bars and a Special Forces rocker met us in the lobby. When he saw Gabe, he grinned broadly.
“Long time no see,” the short man said. His nametag read Grabovsky.
Gabe smiled back and the two men shook hands. “The hell you been hiding?” Gabe asked.
“Oh, here and there. You?”
“Tried being an honest businessman for a while. Did pretty well, but got bored with it. Now I’m with the Blackthorns.”
“Worked with some of those guys. Nice outfit. Good pay. Man could do a hell of a lot worse.”
“True. I could have your job.”
“Fuck off. How’s the Ninth TVM doing?”
“Hanging in there. Most of ‘em stuck around. Lost a couple.”
“Infected?”
“And raiders.”
A head shake. “Fucking raiders. Soon as we get done with the ROC, they’re our next order of business.”
Gabe tilted his head. “I assume by ‘we’ you mean SF?”
“And then some. Probably be seeing more of each other in the not-too-distant future.”
“Always good to stay busy.”
Grabovsky glanced at me. “Who’s the kid?”
“Captain Caleb Hicks,” I said. I did not offer to shake hands. SF types, in my experience, did not generally treat other people like human beings unless they did something to earn it.
Grabovsky looked skeptical. “He with us?”
“Yep,” Gabe said.
“Any good?”
“One of the best.”
The shorter man’s eyes widened a little. “Serious?”
“Serious.”
Another appraising glare. “Where you coming from, kid?”
“First Reconnaissance Expeditionary.”
“No shit. What platoon?”
“First.”
“Lieutenant Jonas still the platoon commander?”
“Last I heard.”
“Huh. Small world. You get back there, tell him Raymond Grabovsky said hi.”
“Be glad to, except I won’t be going back,” I said.
Grabovsky was about to say something else when the door opened behind me.
“Where’s Jacobs?” Tyrel asked as he strode into the lobby.
“Don’t know,” Gabe said.
“You won’t be seeing him,” Grabovsky said. “He’s headed out of town. I’m your point of contact from here on in.”
Tyrel stopped next to me and stared hard at the Green Beret. “I feel like I know you from somewhere.”
“You look familiar too. You ever with JSOC?”
“Years ago. Long before the Outbreak.”
Grabovsky snapped his fingers. “Coronado, joint exercise, couple years after we invaded Iraq. You were one of the instructors. Remember that?”
“I’ll be damned,” Tyrel said. “Forgot all about it ‘til you just said something. You were enlisted back then.”
“I was.” Grabovsky held out a hand. “Glad to see you made it.”
Tyrel shook. “Same to you. So what’s next, Captain?”
Grabovsky’s demeanor shifted. He was all business now. “First things first, you fellas need to gear up. General Jacobs told me one of you has a black card.”
“That would be me,” I said.
“We need a vehicle. Something with plenty of cargo space.”
I walked behind the reception desk and picked up a radio handset.
“Coming right up,” I said.
FIFTEEN
A sergeant driving a deuce-and-a-half stopped in front of the headquarters building. I identified myself and showed my black card. Grabovsky looked at me with newfound respect.
“How long you been in?” he asked.
“Coming up on three years.”
“Three?” he said incredulously. “That’s it?”
“It ain’t the years, it’s the miles.”
I climbed into the passenger’s seat and shut the door. The others filed into the back of the truck. As they went, I heard Grabovsky talking to Gabe.
“He fucking serious?”
“Yep.”
“He wasn’t in before the Outbreak. How’d he make captain?”
“Field commission.”
“From who?”
“General Jacobs.”
I watched in the side-view mirror as Grabovsky turned and looked at me. Probably didn’t think I could hear him.
“Who the fuck is this guy?”
“Not sure,” Gabe said. “Hardly ever talks. But he’s good, I can attest to that.”
“You worked with him?”
“Lots of times.”
Grabovsky shook his head. “I been in twelve goddamn years. Took a silver star and a recommendation from a general to get me a field commission. And they give a black card to a fucking kid? Unbelievable.”
The truck rumbled to life and the quiet sergeant drove us toward the south side of the base. I stared out the window as we rolled along, watching servicemen and civilians passing by. No one looked our way. A transport truck going past them was so common as to not warrant attention. I had certainly ignored my fair share.
I wondered if the people around me ever thought about the ROC, or marauders, or infected, or what the world used to be. If I was honest, I tried not to think too much about those things myself. And I was one of the few people in a position to actually do something about it. Most people were not. They simply went about their lives and hoped those with the guns and the troops and the power acted in their best interests. It was not a misplaced hope, mostly, as long as the interests of the people and the interests of those in power were aligned. For now, we had common enemies. But if we took care of the ROC, made the highways and trade routes safe from marauders, and exterminated enough infected to prevent another major outbreak, what then?
One more thing I didn’t like to think about.
I told the driver where to turn. The truck turned off onto a gravel track leading to a set of four cinder-block buildings in an open field. According to General Jacobs, this was where Peterson AAB kept the lion’s share of its supply stock.
By the look of the buildings, they had been built post-Outbreak. A tall chain-link fence topped with concertina wire surrounded them on four sides. There were eight guard towers, all manned with machine guns. The gravel road gave way to a series of concrete highway dividers set in a serpentine pattern to prevent vehicles from rushing the gate. There were two more machine guns guarding the gate—fifty caliber M2s—and several guards with M-4s and grenade launchers. A Humvee parked near the gate had an automatic grenade launcher on the roof turret. I was willing to bet a month’s pay that each of the guard towers had at least two LAW rockets.
A guard held up a hand and stepped into the middle of the narrow lane. The driver stopped. I climbed out of the truck, held up my hands
, and approached the guard.
“Stop,” he said. One of his hands rested on a carbine hanging from a tactical sling, the other was held palm-up toward me.
I stopped.
“Captain Caleb Hicks,” I said. “Here on authority of Major General Phillip Jacobs.”
“Turn around,” the guard said.
I did.
“Walk backward toward my voice.”
A dozen or so careful steps. The last thing I wanted was to trip and fall on my ass. Hard to look dignified and official when you’re picking yourself up off the ground.
“Stop.”
I obeyed.
“Keep your hands where I can see them.”
“Okay.”
“Are you armed?”
“No.”
I heard footsteps approach and someone searched me. They used two hands, so I figured I wasn’t about to be shot.
“Keep your hands up and turn around.”
I did.
“ID?”
“Left breast pocket.”
The guard reached a hand in and removed the leather case holding my black card. He opened it, examined it, compared the picture to my face carefully, and handed it back.
“Sorry, sir. Protocol.”
“No worries. Just doing your job.”
“Anyone with you other than the driver, sir?”
“One officer and two civilian contractors.”
“Can you ask them to step out of the truck please?”
I turned and shouted for them. Gabe, Tyrel, and Grabovsky climbed out of the truck and approached.
“Follow me, please,” the guard said.
“What about the truck?” I asked.
“It’ll have to stay here, sir. Just until we get authorization.”
“Fair enough.”
Our quartet followed the guard through the gate. A tension that had been building in my shoulders eased once I was past the business end of the perimeter defenses. It is hard to relax with fifty-cals and grenades ready to end one’s existence in spectacular fashion.
The guard led us to one of the buildings and knocked on the door. There was a pause, and I heard an electric clack. The guard opened the door and led us inside.
We walked into a foyer with another door at the end. The guard shut the outer door behind us and I heard the lock engage automatically. He approached the other door and waited. Another clack, and we went through.
The building was a wide, single-story affair with exposed steel rafters and a smooth concrete floor. There was fluorescent lighting, shiny ventilation ducts overhead, cables and wires running along the bare white walls, and I heard the muffled hum of a generator. Tall rows of steel shelves packed with boxes and crates of all sizes marched off toward the far end of the building. There was airflow, but only enough to keep the interior under eighty degrees. Before the Outbreak, I would have said it was stuffy and uncomfortable. Now, I thought it was a nice break from the relentless heat outside.
There was movement to my right. I turned my head and saw a master sergeant exit a small office with a wide window looking out onto the warehouse floor. He looked first to the guard and handed him a writing pad and pencil, one hand hovering near a sidearm on his right hip. The guard wrote something on the pad and handed it back.
“Okay, sir,” the master sergeant said, relaxing as he addressed me. He had a strong Southern accent, was about my height, graying hair cut high-and-tight, lean and strong-looking, and had a hard face turned permanently leathery by the sun. His nametag read Hoffman. “What can I do for you?”
The guard left without being asked. I looked to Grabovsky.
“Got a list for you,” he said, pulling a set of papers from a pocket. He unfolded them and handed them to Master Sergeant Hoffman. The sergeant shuffled the papers and scratched his head.
“Sir, I need a requisition form to give you all this.”
“Got it right here.” I handed him my black card. He looked at it.
“Oh. Right. Well, give me just a minute to get some help-”
“Negative,” Grabovsky said. “We ain’t above grunt work.”
Hoffman nodded. “Fair enough, sir. I’ll tell the guards to let your truck through.”
*****
Grabovsky got a call and excused himself.
“So much for not being above grunt work,” Gabe said. Grabovsky gave him the finger as he walked away.
The rest of us, along with Sergeant Hoffman and a couple of guys he called over for assistance, loaded the rest of our gear onto the truck. It was hot outside, the noonday sun beating down without regard to who it roasted. Shimmering waves of superheated air drifted up from the parking lot, making an already unpleasant day downright miserable. The crates and bags were heavy, and my uniform was soaked through with sweat.
Grabovsky’s surprisingly long list had included radio equipment, MRE’s, machine guns, explosives, lots of ammunition, night vision equipment, generators, fuel, and enough medical supplies to make even Gabe raise an eyebrow. I was glad I had opted for a large transport and not just a Humvee. I would have had to request additional vehicles.
“Bird’s waiting whenever we’re ready,” Grabovsky said. “You guys got your own gear, right?”
“We do,” Tyrel said.
“Where at?”
“Storage building over by the BOQ,” Gabe said.
“Hicks,” Grabovsky said, “how about you grab three or four bodies and we’ll head over there.”
“Sure. What do we need the extra men for?”
“What do you think? You wanna unload all this shit by yourself?”
I pointed a finger at him. “Got it.”
Hoffman wasn’t happy about it, but knew better than to argue with a black card with captain’s bars. He fetched us four stout-looking troops, all privates who had probably been in the Army for roughly fifteen minutes each, and told them to go with us. I assured Hoffman I would have my driver return his men when we were done with them.
“Thank you, sir,” he said. He did not look grateful. Neither did the men going with us.
The BOQ was a short drive away. I told the driver to keep the truck idling while we handled our business. I swung by my room and put away a few possessions I had left out that morning. Then I grabbed a duffel bag and filled it with two pairs of spare boots (both already broken in), four sets of dark combat fatigues with no insignia, a small case of body paint used for camouflage, extra socks and underwear, my Beretta and its suppressor, and a personalized wilderness survival kit.
Next I unlocked the closet and took out my sniper rifle, a SCAR 17 modified for long-range work. The SCAR was a recent acquisition, and not one I had paid for.
Upon receiving my black card from General Jacobs, he had instructed me in its use. Being a federal emissary granted me access to almost every government facility in the country, as well as the authority to requisition or commandeer anything I needed from within the military or federal law enforcement community. Which, being stationed in the Springs, was great. However, if I went anywhere without a military installation nearby, my black card was worth precisely jack shit.
But since I was in the Springs, and likely would be for the next couple of years, I decided the one thing I would always need would be a good sniper rifle. So off I went to a building set aside for JSOC operators and other special ops types where they could outfit themselves with weapons and equipment not normally available to your average infantry grunt. Having been the aforesaid infantry grunt for over two years, walking into the local JSOC armory for the first time was like walking into a candy store. This was the kind of gear I could only dream about in my previous assignment.
I spoke to the guy in charge of the place, a scarred Navy SEAL master chief who looked like he ate anvils for breakfast, and explained what I was looking for. He was cold at first, but when he realized I was knowledgeable and not some idiot there to drool over cool-looking guns, he brightened up and said he might have something for me.
; The two of us spent the next hour building my ideal semi-auto sniper system from the ground up. When we were finished, he let me borrow a Leupold scope and took me to test the rifle at the sniper range. After zeroing the scope, I was able to group .5 minute-of-angle shots at a hundred yards. In other words, at one hundred yards the shots all landed within half an inch of one another. At two hundred yards, they hit within 1 inch, an inch and a half at three-hundred yards, and so on. Since the SCAR fired powerful NATO 7.62x51 cartridges, I tested it out to 700 yards. Same result.
“This’ll do nicely,” I said to the master chief, whose name was Grumley.
“You’re never returning it, are you?” he replied.
“You can have the scope back,” I said, smiling.
“Very generous of you.”
“Not really. Got my own. Nightforce one to nine power, thirty millimeter.”
“In that case, fuck you very much.”
I made sure to bring the rifle with me every time I had occasion to visit Master Chief Grumley. The gesture significantly mitigated his hatred toward me.
Before I left my room, I stripped the sheets from the bed and put them in a laundry cart at the end of the hall. The maids had been by earlier in the day. The floor had been swept, the bathroom had been scrubbed, the small kitchen I never used wiped spotless. No dust, no dirt, and other than the locks on my dresser and closet, no sign anyone lived here. My duffel bag was in one hand, my rifle hanging over my shoulder.
I wondered if I would ever see the place again.
SIXTEEN
“At least it’s a dry heat.”
I turned to look at Grabovsky. My sunglasses dialed down the harsh glare of the Nevada sun enough to make it tolerable, but the heat was a different matter.
“It’s still fucking hot,” I said.
“’Bout a hundred and fifteen,” Gabe said.
Grabovsky consulted his tablet. “I’ll be damned. It’s a hundred and seven, heat index one-fifteen.”
Gabe nodded. He and Tyrel were wearing wrap-around sunglasses like mine, along with weather-beaten keffiyehs wound over their heads and loosely across their faces. The big greenish scarves had checkered patterns to break up their wearer’s outline and sheer see-through stripes that could be worn over the eyes if necessary. I had seen Iraq and Afghanistan veterans wearing similar garb before. Sometimes they called it a shemagh instead of a keffiyeh. I didn’t know the difference. All I knew was I was tired of wind-blown dust caking my head and neck and wished I had one. The scarf in my possession was of the narrow winter variety. Good for protecting my mouth and keeping out bits of ghoul flesh when need arose, but not much else. And because of its thick fabric, it was too damned hot to wear at the moment.
