Seek and Destroy

by William C. Dietz

  Mac heard a series of double clicks as she dropped down into the cargo bay. The air was thick with the stench of vomit. “Private Ray barfed into his brain bucket,” Sergeant Fisk explained. “Can we drop the ramp and air the bay out?”

  “Absolutely,” Mac responded. “But let’s stay ready to roll.”

  Fisk nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Mac turned to look at the forward-mounted drone monitor. The Raven was circling an area so flat, and so clear of obstructions, that it didn’t look natural. In fact, as Mac looked more closely, she saw the mounds of debris that bordered both sides of the runway. “This is Six,” she said. “I’m taking Bravo-One-One and his squad forward to take a look. Five will assume command. This would be a good time for a bio break. Over.”

  As Mac turned toward the ramp, she heard Perkins issue an order that half of the trucks were to be manned at all times. Her confidence in him continued to grow.

  Fisk and his squad were waiting outside the vehicle. “The flat is about a mile away, Sergeant. I’ll take the point. Let’s move.”

  Mac chose to jog and, since she wasn’t wearing a pack, it felt good. When Mac glanced over her shoulder, she saw that the rest of the squad was behind her, with Fisk in the ten slot. That meant both halves of the squad would have leadership if it was cut in two.

  The route took them across some hardpan, down into a snowy riverbed, and up a gravelly slope. As they neared the top, the terrain began to flatten out. That was when Mac raised a hand, and the squad came to a halt. “I don’t know who created this,” she told the soldiers. “Or why they did so. So don’t leave any more tracks than you have to. Fort up while I take a look.”

  Fisk didn’t like that, judging from the expression on his face. He wanted to send the entire squad. But that couldn’t be helped. The flat area didn’t look right . . . And if the bad guys were up to something, then why let them know that people were onto them?

  Mac sat on a rock in order to remove her boots. Then she went forward without them. The ground was cold, too cold for socks, and there were lots of little rocks.

  But as Mac looked back, she could see that the strategy was working. There were no footprints. Not so in the middle of the flat area. Mac could see that a plane had landed during a thaw and left tracks that were frozen in place. But why? The makeshift landing strip wasn’t adjacent to a ranch, much less a town, so what was its purpose?

  But, Mac thought, maybe that’s the point. Maybe somebody put it out in the boonies, so it wouldn’t attract attention. Mac looked up, and because she knew it was there, could see the drone. “Six to Bravo-Twelve. Can you see a trail, or a road that leads away from the airstrip?”

  “That’s affirmative,” Henry replied. “A dirt track leads to the northwest.”

  Mac thought about what that could mean. If the trail continued in that direction, it might connect with a highway. And the highway could take passengers or cargoes north to the area controlled by Howard. Of course, it could take them south, too. The secret strip was interesting either way. She turned and made her way back. Her feet were getting numb, and she hurried to pull her boots on. “Sergeant Henry.”

  UAV pilot Mo Henry was standing nearby. She had red hair, green eyes, and freckles. “Ma’am?”

  “Did you bring some trail cams with you? The ones we can leave behind?”

  Henry nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Two of them.”

  “Find a place to hide them. Let’s see who uses this strip . . . Sergeant Fisk, assign someone to give Henry a hand.”

  The motion-activated cameras were similar to those used by hunters and scientists to snap pictures of elusive animals, except that they could upload data to a drone, and that’s why the UAV pilot was in charge of them.

  After backtracking, the company resumed its trip to Wright, Wyoming. It was located on the edge of what Howard considered to be his fiefdom. And that’s why the town had been attacked on numerous occasions. But the people who lived there were tough—and had been able to keep “Howard’s Horde” at bay thus far.

  As the Strykers continued cross-country, Mac took the opportunity to put each platoon leader and each platoon sergeant in command for a while, so that all of them could gain more experience. That resulted in a couple of screwups, but nothing serious. And rather than jump in, Mac made it a point to let people extract themselves from whatever trouble they were in.

  The plan was to stay the night in Wright and return to Fort Carney the next day. But as the light started to fade, and Mac saw columns of smoke in the distance, she felt something cold trickle into her bloodstream. She was about to contact Henry when the UAV pilot spoke. “Bravo-Twelve to Six . . . The Raven is over Wright, and at least a dozen buildings are on fire. It looks like the town was overrun. Over.”

  Mac knew she shouldn’t feel guilty but did. Had she pushed the company north, rather than going sideways, maybe things would have been different. “Can you see troops? Are they in control?”

  “No,” Henry replied. “The smoke makes it hard to see, but it looks like they pulled out. Over.”

  “This is Six,” Mac said. “One-one will take point. Stay sharp . . . We might be rolling into a trap. Over.”

  There was no trap. That was evident when Bravo Company arrived on the outskirts of Wright twenty minutes later. An effort had been made to protect the center of the city by using the one thing the locals had plenty of, and that was rock. Countless tons of the stuff had been used to create the eight-foot-high barrier that circled the town. The only thing that could break through was a huge bulldozer. And in order to do so, the operator would have to cross a kill zone under fire from marksmen concealed behind the rocks. So how had the horde been able to succeed?

  Mac dropped to the ground, ordered Perkins to secure the area, and led a squad of soldiers up to the rock wall. A blast-scorched truck had been left there. A ramp had been attached to the rear end of the vehicle. One end touched the ground, and the other was aimed at the compound beyond. Why?

  Mac was thinking about that as she scrambled up over a pile of boulders to the top of the wall. The sun was about to set, but fires lit the city.

  As Mac led the squad down onto the ground, a man emerged from the smoke-drifted gloom. His hair was white, his eyes stared out of caves, and a bloody arm hung useless at his side. “Now you come,” he said, as if correcting a child. “Late . . . Too late.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mac replied. “We didn’t know. What happened?”

  “We pulled back inside the wall when the horde came. But they were ready for that. They had trucks with ramps attached to them. Once the trucks were in position, motorcycle riders raced up the ramps and jumped over the wall! Each bike carried a rider . . . And each rider had a machine pistol. They rode every which way, killing and killing. Oh, we nailed some of them,” the man said grimly. “We sure as hell did . . . But not nearly enough. So they captured the town. And that’s when the real horror began.”

  Mac felt a sense of foreboding. “What do you mean?”

  “They herded everyone together, sorted them out, and shot every male they could find. Little boys included.”

  “But why?” Mac wanted to know.

  “To eliminate any possibility of revenge,” the man said, as tears ran down his cheeks. “I ran and hid in the church steeple . . . So I saw it happen. After dividing the females into two groups, young and old, they . . . they . . .” The man couldn’t bring himself to say it, but there was no need to. Mac knew that the older women had been executed.

  Mac had never been exposed to an atrocity on such a scale. But she could imagine it—and fought to maintain her composure. “And the younger ones?”

  “They were taken away,” the man said, “to be sold and used. They have my granddaughter, Sissy,” the man added. “I should have killed her . . . I thought about it, and I pointed the rifle, but I couldn’t pull the trigger. Find them, Captai
n . . . Find them and kill them.”

  Mac was trying to formulate some sort of response when the man moved. “He has a gun!” Sergeant Gray shouted, but her warning came too late.

  Mac was just starting to react when the gore-covered pistol came up under the man’s chin. His eyes were locked with hers as he pulled the trigger. Mac heard a bang and saw the light vanish from the man’s eyes. Then, as all strength left his knees, he crumpled to the ground.

  It happened so quickly that the soldiers were caught flat-footed. Sergeant Gray was the first to speak. “The poor bastard . . . May he rest in peace.”

  There isn’t going to be any peace, Mac thought to herself. Not until we find Robert Howard and kill him. And we need to do it quickly . . . For the women. For Sissy. There was a harsh quality to her voice. “Sergeant Gray.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “There has to be a gate. Find it. I’ll send for the second platoon’s ESV. We have lots of bodies to bury.”

  “Ma’am, yes, ma’am.”

  As it turned out, there were two gates. Both blocked by sliding steel doors, and both open. After entering through the one that faced west, the company’s Stryker M1132 Engineer Squad Vehicle or ESV went to work. It had a bulldozer blade mounted up front, and even though it had been designed to clear mines, the vic could be used to scoop out a mass grave. And when a soldier from the third platoon showed up driving a CAT, the task went that much faster.

  Meanwhile, Mac put a squad to work photographing bodies, identifying them when that was possible, and “taking scalps.” A process that involved removing a small section of scalp from unidentified bodies that could be subjected to DNA testing later on. It was a grisly, heartbreaking business, and Mac told Perkins to rotate the “collection” teams every half hour.

  Finally, as the sky began to lighten in the east, the job was done. During the hours of darkness, 253 bodies had been laid out side by side and covered over.

  As far as the soldiers could make out, none of the dead had been members of the horde. That in spite of the fact that Howard’s “warriors” had suffered casualties. How could that be?

  Mac knew the answer, or believed she did. Howard had been a Green Beret. That meant he was familiar with the injunction, “Leave no man behind.” Obviously, it was an injunction that had been imposed on the horde. It was more than a gang . . . It was an army.

  They had no chaplain. But, according to Perkins, Corporal Forbes was the next best thing since he’d been studying to be a priest when the seminary he was going to kicked him out. And as the sun speared the town with rays of golden sunshine, Forbes removed his Stetson. He had a deep and resonant voice.

  In your hands, O Lord,

  we humbly entrust our brothers and sisters.

  In this life, you embraced them with your tender love;

  deliver them now from every evil

  and bid them eternal rest.

  The old order has passed away:

  welcome them into paradise,

  where there will be no sorrow, no weeping or pain,

  but fullness of peace and joy

  with your Son and the Holy Spirit

  forever and ever.

  Amen.

  The company was exhausted. But by taking Highway 387 to I-25, they could reach the fort in a matter of hours. And that beat the hell out of staying in the burned-out town.

  Besides . . . the faster they returned to Casper, the faster the battalion could go after Howard, rescue the women and girls from Wright, and stop the slaughter. Or so it seemed to Mac.

  It was always dangerous to travel down a highway because that’s where the threat of IEDs and ambushes was highest. This, plus the fact that Mac’s soldiers were tired, was a recipe for disaster. So Mac spent the return trip on the radio pestering her troops with reminders, alerts, and friendly insults.

  Fortunately, nothing happened. And as the company approached Fort Carney, Mac saw something new next to the main gate. It was a gore-drenched pole with a head on it. Warlord Cory Burns? Yes. It appeared that Colonel Crowley was back. And his attack on Arminto had been successful.

  Would the general staff approve of a colonel who took heads? And put them on display? Hell no. But Mac knew that Crowley didn’t care. He was sending a message to Robert Howard. And the message was, “Fuck you, asshole. You’re next.”

  Good, Mac thought to herself. Crazy Crowley is coming off a victory. That should put him in the mood to rescue those prisoners. She was wrong.

  CHAPTER 3

  Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate.

  —HUBERT H. HUMPHREY

  CLEVELAND, OHIO

  In spite of all the tasks associated with reconstruction, and his responsibilities as commander in chief, Sloan had to spend a great deal of time on politics. An activity that could be divided into two piles: the give-and-take of getting things done—and the need to raise money. Sloan preferred the first over the second.

  But what choice did he have? His term, which was to say his predecessor’s term, was going to end in a year. So he could either run or hand the presidency over to whom? That was the problem. The Patriot Party’s back bench was rather thin. Of course, the people seated on that bench would disagree.

  But the decision had been made, and Sloan was butt deep in a campaign to become president. An elected president . . . And it was hard work. He heard applause as a stagehand waved him forward. Sloan entered the auditorium from stage left, and the Whig Party’s candidate emerged from stage right. Her name was Senator Marsha Pickett—and Sloan heard a number of rebel yells as she waved to the crowd. All ten thousand seats were filled, and Sloan knew that millions of people were watching their TV sets or listening via radio. Unfortunately, millions more didn’t have telephone service, never mind cable television or the Internet. And that was just one of the many problems that one of them would face.

  Two podiums were located at the center of the stage. And as Sloan walked over to them, he knew that Pickett was a formidable opponent. She had a modelish face and high cheekbones. Her clothes weren’t so expensive as to make her appear wealthy, which she was, nor were they frumpy. So to the extent that a portion of the electorate would cast their votes for anyone with good looks, Pickett would do well. Better than he would? Yes, definitely.

  But Pickett was more than a runner-up for Miss Oklahoma. She was a Harvard-trained lawyer, a world-class skier, and the mother of two adorable children. All of which were accomplishments that Sloan couldn’t match. Pickett’s perfect teeth were very much on display as they met and shook hands. “Mr. President.”

  “Senator Pickett.”

  A second passed. Her perfectly plucked eyebrows rose incrementally. “Can I have my hand back?”

  Sloan felt himself flush as he let go. What the hell was wrong with him? Was her mike on? Had the comment gone out over the air? He was struggling to think of a rejoinder when the moderator took over. He was a much-respected journalist with a reputation for fairness. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen . . . My name is Lester Hollings, and I will serve as your moderator. As the participants take their places, let’s review the rules. Each candidate will have five minutes to introduce themselves, with President Sloan going first.

  “That will be followed by ten questions, all of which were sent in by members of the public and selected by a panel of six people split equally between the two parties. For those of you here in the auditorium, please don’t applaud until the end of the debate, and remember . . . the place for demonstrations is outside. Now, without further ado, it’s my pleasure to introduce the President of the United States, Samuel T. Sloan! Mr. President?”

  The cameras were on him, and Sloan knew better than to waste any of his precious airtime sucking up to the citizens of Cleveland. He went straight to what he thought of as “the pitch,” the centerpiece of which was a proposal to spend
four trillion dollars on his America Rising Initiative. A program that would not only serve to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure, but put millions of people to work and jump-start the economy.

  “But make no mistake,” Sloan added after the summary. “The America Rising Initiative will benefit the entire country, including the South. Because once we defeat the people who stole our oil reserves and imposed an oligarchy on the South, we will welcome our brothers and sisters back . . . just as our forefathers did after the first civil war.”

  “Yes!” a man shouted, as he stood. “God bless President Sloan!”

  “There will be no demonstrations,” Hollings said sternly. “Escort that man out. Senator Pickett? Please proceed.”

  Sloan’s proposal was anything but secret. He’d been saying the same things over and over for weeks. So Pickett’s people had been able to prepare a point-by-point response.

  “Good evening,” Pickett said. “It’s a pleasure to be here even if the man standing next to me favors an imperial presidency and a weak Congress. Is Mr. Sloan our chief executive? Or has he declared himself king?”

  There was fire in Pickett’s eyes as she scanned the audience. “Were any of us allowed to vote for or against the so-called ‘war of national reunification’? No. According to Mr. Sloan, and his Attorney General, the Insurrection Act of 1807 gives him all the authority he needs to turn family against family and state against state.

  “So without any sort of vote by the House or Senate, Mr. Sloan launched an airborne assault on Richton, Mississippi, where we lost a battalion of Army Rangers. I want to change that. I want to give you a voice in what happens next. If I’m elected, I will ask Congress to change the Constitution so as to make sure that the people who work hard and pay taxes will make the decisions! And once the changes I propose are in place, voters will shift the balance of power from Emperor Sloan to the men and women of the United States Congress. Then, if Congress wants to spend four trillion dollars and fight a war with the South, we will do so. My job, which is to say the president’s job, will be to implement what your elected representatives choose to do.