by James Cook
No head shot, no kill. Another trait of ghouls I do not find endearing.
The reticle of Grabovsky’s VCOG was familiar. I lined it up on a ghoul’s head and gently squeezed the trigger. It broke cleanly at maybe four pounds. The ghouls head snapped to the side, a gout of black stuff erupted over its shoulder, and it slumped to the ground. I searched for another target and soon found one. It was a little farther away, so I increased the magnification on the VCOG. When I looked through it again, I could make out the details of the ghoul in question.
She was young, maybe early twenties, and recently dead. Her clothes were mostly intact, her shoes were still on her feet, and she did not appear to be suffering from the abundance of injuries one sometimes sees on ghouls that were torn apart before they died. She may have even been pretty once. Now, her lank hair was matted and filthy, its color indeterminate, her skin a mottled gray, her eyes covered by a milky white film. She was wearing a flannel shirt and jeans and sturdy boots. Her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows. There was an ugly black oval on one of her forearms.
Got bit, didn’t you? I thought. Probably killed the ghoul that did it too. But you couldn’t pull the trigger on yourself, could you? Or maybe you were out of bullets. Either way, happy trails.
I put an end to her sad pseudo-existence, pushed down the tide of pity rising within me, and searched for another ghoul to kill.
“Cease fire!” Hopper screamed into his handset. “Cease fire!”
The M-240 and the automatic grenade launcher went silent. Grabovsky stopped firing rockets. I scanned the hillside with the scope, but saw no movement. I did, however, see a lot of dead KPA troops.
“Get to the trucks!”
Gabe and the SEALs were on their feet and running immediately. I picked up the mags and the box of ammo on the ground beside me, tossed them into the back of the truck, and hopped in. Gellar, Gabe, and the other SEALs arrived seconds later. All around us, ghouls were closing in.
“Get that machine gun up front,” Hopper ordered. “Come on, let’s move.”
The trucks revved up and turned around on the loose ground, kicking up gravel and mud as they did so. In seconds, we were headed back toward the bunker. Despite the converging horde, the Resistance fighters showed discipline in their driving. We moved a little faster than on the way out, but not fast enough to risk disabling a vehicle.
Ghouls are slow, after all.
THIRTY-SEVEN
After debrief, the Resistance sent a team of scouts to make sure we had not been followed. Considering the size of the horde swarming in our wake, it seemed unlikely any KPA survivors would be foolish enough to attempt such a thing. But the Resistance had not survived this long by leaving stones unturned. A few hours later, the scouts came back tired, sweating, and footsore from fleeing the infected, but reported all clear.
The man who died was Hank Crowley. He had been one of the recruits sent to Idaho, and had participated in the first main assault against the ROC. Two other Resistance fighters suffered minor wounds, which Doctor Faraday treated, and one of the SEALs, Chavez, caught some shrapnel in the muscle over his shoulder blade. A medic removed the metal and cleaned and stitched the wounds. General Jacobs gave him the option to sit out the final assault. Chavez informed the general the wounds had been beneficial. His back was itchy before the attack, and the shrapnel had scratched it for him. He felt much better now. Jacobs smiled and said, “Very well.”
We had a memorial service for Crowley the next morning in the mess hall. My group and I stayed toward the back. We hadn’t known the man, but for a brief while, we’d fought side by side with him. We owed it to him to attend his wake, even if it was not our place to speak words over his passing. He had friends in the Resistance, including Mike, who took care of that part.
Afterward, everyone went back to work. Crowley was not the first comrade they had lost, and no one expected him to be the last.
According to Hopper, whom I spoke with after the wake, the patrol was considered a strategic success. Mike, Hopper, and General Jacobs had long suspected the KPA was sending patrols farther south into Resistance controlled territory, and now they had confirmation. Not only that, but we’d taken out as many as fifty-six KPA special operations troops at the cost of only one man. It was dreadful arithmetic, but by Resistance standards, this was considered a more than acceptable loss.
I mentioned that pretty soon the KPA would notice their patrol hadn’t returned and send someone to investigate. Hopper said that was a good thing. Killing ‘Kim’, as he called the KPA, (apparently a reference both to the former North Korean dictator and the ubiquity of the name in Korean culture), was a lot easier if you could draw him out. I expressed concern about reprisals.
“Nah,” Hopper said. “Kim already figured out that don’t work. Besides, they need people to grow their food. Fuckers don’t know shit about farming. They’d starve without the prisoners.”
I stopped walking when Hopper said that. It gave me a thought so terrible I did not want to give it voice.
“Hey, you okay?” Hopper asked.
“Yeah, sorry. Just remembered something. I gotta go.”
“All right. See you around.”
I strode briskly to the warehouse, picked the lock to the Phoenix Initiative wing, and set about searching for Faraday.
“Hey,” a young assistant called to me as I stormed past. “You can’t be in here.”
He ran up to me and grabbed my arm. I seized his hand, put him in a wristlock, bent his arm until he was doubled over, and dropped a hammer fist onto the back of his neck. His legs gave out and he slumped to the floor, eyes glazed. Throughout the process, I did not break stride.
I found Faraday in his office poring over paperwork. His door was open. He looked up when I stopped outside, and when he saw my expression, his face went pale.
“Captain Hicks, what are you-”
“Tell me we’re not killing them.”
His mouth worked a few times and his forehead wrinkled in confusion. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Killing whom?”
“The prisoners in the camps. AIM-38. You said it was curable. You also said the KPA may have stolen the formula for the inoculant. If those prisoners die, the KPA starves. I want to know if the point of this mission is to kill the prisoners and starve out the KPA.”
It took a few moments for the question to register. The confusion on Faraday’s face could not have been manufactured, and I knew right then I had my answer. But I had come here and leveled the accusation, so I would stand there and listen to the reply. I owed Faraday that much, especially considering the assistant who was probably still laid out in the hallway.
After a few moments, Faraday’s eyes cleared and his face reddened with anger. He stood up to his full height and glared at me in pure indignation. “Captain Hicks, whatever you may think of me, I am not the monster your friend Gabriel thinks I am. I have done a great many things I regret, mostly out of cowardice. I should have refused more assignments than you would believe. But I don’t do that kind of work anymore. I realize you don’t know much about the Initiative, but did it ever occur to you to wonder why a man with multiple doctorates in a variety of disciplines, and a former Initiative department head no less, is assigned to a hole in the ground on the front lines of a brushfire war?”
It was a point that should have occurred to me. I felt deflated. “No. I figured the Army needed a subject matter expert on AIM-38, so they sent the man who developed it.”
“I wish that were so, but it isn’t. There are literally dozens of people the Initiative could have sent to handle this assignment just as well as I. The truth is, this is a punishment.”
Now I was the one confused. “Punishment? For what?”
Faraday ran a hand through his hair, a lost look shrouding his eyes like the shadow of an approaching cloud.
“For years, I grappled with the things I’ve been asked to do, with my role in the programs I’ve participated in. Over time, the guilt in
side me grew and festered and ate at my conscience until it nearly consumed me. I was on every anti-depressant the Initiative had access to, and a few it did not. I drank constantly. I was on the verge of a breakdown. Rock bottom came when my superiors asked me to do something…beyond countenance. I’m not at liberty to say what it was, but believe me when I tell you, it was an atrocity even a jaded soul such as me could not stomach. So I told them no. I told them I was done. I’d had enough. I could not, would not, do their dirty work anymore. They told me I had no choice. I told them there was always a choice, even if it was a terrible one. I was then marched into a courtyard and forced to my knees and a man put a gun to the back of my head. The director of the Initiative himself stood next to me and told me I had one last chance. I told him to go fuck himself. At that moment, I honestly did not care if they killed me. I was ready. A few seconds passed, and then the man with the gun holstered his weapon and escorted me back to my quarters.”
I swallowed and found I could not meet Faraday’s eyes. He took a step closer to me, his tone softening.
“The director’s assistant visited me the next day. She asked what I wanted to do going forward. I told her I wanted to do the opposite of what I had been doing. I wanted to help people, not use them like lab rats. I wanted to make a difference for the better. So they sent me here. And whether you choose to believe me or not, I am trying to make a difference. I know what we’re doing seems like madness to you, but I assure you it is a calculated risk. I want those prisoners to survive. I want them freed. I want them to get their lives back, or as much of them as they can. It would be the first good thing I’ve done in a lifetime of villainy. So no, Captain. The plan is not to kill the hostages and starve their captors. This is, unequivocally, a rescue mission.”
I nodded slowly, not meeting his gaze.
“Are you satisfied now?”
“Yeah. Sorry to bother you.” I started to walk away, then stopped. “I, uh…one of your assistants…”
“He didn’t try to stop you, did he?”
“Yeah. He did.”
“Is he alive?”
“He’ll be all right. Might have a headache for a while.”
Faraday sighed, took off his glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Where is he?”
I told him. He said he’d take care of it, and in the future, if I wanted to speak with him, to go through channels. I told him I would, and then I scuttled out of there with my tail between my legs.
THIRTY-EIGHT
In the days following the patrol and the ensuing battle, the resistance fighters acted differently around me. Before, they had regarded me with skepticism, probably wondering how someone my age could be as well trained as the other JSOC operators they had worked with. After seeing me in action, however, they seemed to have changed their opinions. While I was not exactly everyone’s best friend, they at least acknowledged I could hold my own in a fight. This, apparently, held significant weight in their estimation, and they treated me accordingly.
The SEALs, on the other hand, remained unimpressed. While they acknowledged my capabilities, they showed little interest in getting to know me personally. All but one of them, that is: Petty Officer First Class Charles (Chuck) Hemingway.
Over chow one day, I asked him if he was related to the famous author with the same last name. He winked at me. “You never know. Guy got around.”
I supposed it was possible. Chuck was tall, had square features, brown hair and eyes, a high widow’s peak in his hairline, and was strongly built like his namesake had been.
“Ever get the urge to write literary fiction or pet a six-toed cat?” I asked him jokingly.
“Fuck no,” he said, grinning. “I can barely spell my own name, and cats make me sneeze.”
“Maybe not then.”
Hemingway laughed quietly and went back to his meal.
At another juncture, while pouring over intel reports, I heard Hemingway refer to Chavez as Domingo.
I looked at him. “Domingo Chavez?” I asked.
He looked at me. “Yeah. What, you heard of me?”
“Sort of. Ever read anything by Tom Clancy?”
He squinted at me. “Who?”
“Never mind.”
While waiting for the mission to start, we met with Master Chief Gellar and company on a daily basis. We poured over the same maps and read the same intel briefings and asked the same questions and worried about the same problems. It did not necessarily improve our standing as a fighting unit, but we at least got to know each other a little better.
The day before we were ordered to deploy for the final assault, Hemingway and I were in the warehouse above the bunker enjoying a respite from the underground warren. It felt good to see the sun again. The garage door was open, allowing in a cool afternoon breeze. Hemingway was good company. He spoke when he had something to say, stayed quiet when he didn’t, and did not fidget or compose useless utterances in the midst of perfectly good silence. People like that are rare, and I consider it a privilege when I find them. Which is why I was surprised when Hemingway suddenly trudged into a question hesitantly, as if unsure of his boundaries.
“I want to ask you about something,” he said, an edge of caution in his voice.
I looked at him. “Okay.”
“You uh…I think you might know somebody I know.”
“Okay.”
“Thing is, I’m not supposed to know you might know them, or why you might know them. Know what I mean?”
I blinked a few times and shook my head. “No, Chuck. You’re not making a damn bit of sense.”
He scratched his head. “Okay, how about this. There’s a guy out there. You might have run across him. Big guy. Apache Indian from Arizona. Name’s Lincoln Great Hawk.”
“Oh, okay. Yeah, I know the guy.”
Hemingway looked surprised. At what, I wasn’t sure. “So, like, you can talk about that?”
Ah, I thought. Now I understand.
“You know how it is,” I said. “There’s things I can talk about, and there’s things I can’t. As for Great Hawk, he quit whatever three-lettered acronym he was working for and settled down in Tennessee in a little town called Hollow Rock. Owns part of a mercantile there. I used to be stationed at the FOB near the place, Fort McCray.”
“I’ve heard of Hollow Rock. Supposed to be pretty nice there.”
“It is.”
Hemingway was quiet a moment, then his expression became inquisitive. “Wait, so you were with the First Recon?”
“Yep.”
“But they’re regular Army.”
“And tough bastards, in spite of it all.”
“How’d you go from infantry to, you know, this.” He held out his hands as if the forest around us were a metaphor for Joint Special Operations Command.
“Guess I shot enough people someone figured out I was talented.”
Hemingway thought it was funny. I didn’t tell him I was serious.
“So that thing in Illinois, you know what I mean?”
“Officially, no. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Officially.”
“Correct.”
“But you know Great Hawk.”
“I do.”
“And Fort McCray was the closest FOB to Alliance territory back in the day.”
“It was.”
“And you were stationed there.”
“Yep.”
“And now you’re here, and you have a fucking black card.”
“I do. And you, Petty Officer Hemingway, have a wonderful talent for regurgitating known facts.”
“Just seems like a hell of a coincidence, you know?”
“It does indeed.”
Hemingway stared at me. I did not stare back. “So you and Great Hawk, that thing in Illinois…”
“What thing?”
“That’s your story, huh?”
“And I’m sticking to it.”
We sat quietly for a while longer. The s
un moved behind the warehouse, casting us in cool, deep shade. A breeze picked up from the south, carrying with it the faint dusty smell of northern California. The sweat on my forehead dried and I relished the break from the day’s heat and humidity.
“You’re a goddamn liar, Hicks. You were there.”
“I’ve been lots of places. You’ll have to be more specific.”
Hemingway threw up his hands and sat back in his chair. “Anyway, how’s Great Hawk? You said he runs a store or something now?”
“Bought into a transport and salvage business. Mostly he runs the salvage side of things, but pickings are getting slim in western Tennessee. A mutual friend told me he’s starting his own private security business.”
“What, like the Blackthorns?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
“Jeez. Never thought he’d give up the life.”
“I’m not entirely sure he did.”
“What’s that mean?”
I shook my head. “Nice day, don’t you think?”
A pause. “Fuck you, Hicks.”
Hemingway leaned back in his chair, extended his legs, and closed his eyes. He may not have been graceful about it, but he knew when to admit defeat.
THIRTY-NINE
Late the next morning, while I was sitting in my room reading a dog-eared copy of For Whom the Bell Tolls, there was a knock at my door. I put the book down and went to see who it was.
“Word just came down from Central,” Grabovsky told me when I opened the door. “We got the green light.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow night.”
I felt an unexpected wave of relief. “About damn time.”
“No shit. Briefing’s at 1600 in the conference room. Don’t be late.”
“I’ll be there,” I said, but Grabovsky was already walking away.
Finally.
