“Clever.” Daniel considered pouring the spicy sauce in his mouth to drown out the taste of the “eggs,” but he was determined not to waste anything he didn’t have to ever again. Call it a bit of survivor’s guilt, or even a renewed belief in the idiom waste not, want not. “Bismarck… yeah, those were better times.”
“Yeah, the papers are a little behind.”
Daniel nodded, finally setting his fork down. “The Viral Response teams were a good idea. They still are, but I wouldn’t expect to hear the name 1st VR again.”
“Why not?”
“Bad blood on that name, like Titanic or yes, even Bismarck. Over the weekend I corresponded via email with one of my former commanding officers. They’re going to reabsorb the unit back into the regular Army, but they’ll be teaching the whole force the same tactics now. It’ll probably work out.”
Shane pushed his own portion of egg-paste away. “You sound like you wish you weren’t here, like maybe you have somewhere else you’d rather be?”
“What are you, a fuckin’ psychologist?”
“Yeah.”
“What?”
“I should have introduced myself as Shane Clair, PhD, but that sounds pretentious, don’t you think?” Shane reached for the Tabasco and retried his eggs. It wasn’t a success. “See, we’re all getting the same basic course right now, but eventually they’ll split us up into separate divisions. My job is, or was if the Vics hadn’t come along, Behavioral Analysis. It would have been my job to interview and determine if suspects in murder trials are really crazy. Gotta admit though, I never thought about apply for the Secret Service.”
“I have waking nightmares of a dead girl only I can see.” Daniel said flatly, gaging Shane’s response. “I just choose not to talk to her anymore.” It was the other way around with Lea’s ghost, but he was judging Shane’s response.
For a moment Shane said nothing, then he smiled. “You’re funny, but I just finished eight years of college in six, don’t think you’re going to get out of this on a Section 8. If someone didn’t want you to be here, you wouldn’t be here.”
“Who, the Almighty?”
“No, but maybe someone with a bit of a God Complex.” Shane stealthily pointed his finger at the last portrait in a row on a wall that featured a painting or photograph of every US President thus far.
“Isn’t he like six months over his second term now?” Daniel leaned back and let the government cheese digest. “My Pop and I were discussing that before I got on the plane.”
Shane nodded. “Yeah, but Congress voted him emergency war powers, so he’s it till this shit is over.”
Daniel lowered his eyebrows. “This shit will never be over, Doc. It’s global. There will be new cases for the rest of human existence, I promise you. Hell, Bubonic Plague still exists in the Mohave Desert. It’s just going to be a matter of learning to keep it in check and depriving it of new hosts until one day Envier Plague isn’t thought any more highly of than smallpox.”
“You can inoculate against smallpox.” Shane countered. “Even a drop-”
“Trust me. I know.” Daniel said, cutting Shane off as their training officer reappeared. It would have to wait until later, but Daniel knew he needed to talk to Dr. Clair in a more private setting. He wasn’t sure yet he really wanted this job, especially if it meant guarding someone who didn’t deserve to be guarded by so much as a lethargic dog, let alone the most elite security force in the world. The prospect of being declared too crazy to do this job was a bit more appealing than it should have been.
*
Major Jeffry Sharp sat alone in his quarters, a rundown trailer he shared with two other officers. Neither of them had been in 1st VR, which was good, because then they wouldn’t know just how far from grace he had fallen. To them he was just another war weary veteran who had perfected his thousand yard stare. In truth he wasn’t traumatized, he didn’t have any semblance of post-traumatic stress, he was just bitter about losing his command because that aptly named idiot Rambo had to gun down a junior legacy. True, Sharp was moments away from a violent outburst himself, but he certainly wouldn’t have shot Anders just for insubordinate back-talking. He outlined that in his report, but damage done and the wrong people had seen firsthand how fragile his grip on the unit was. It didn’t help that Lt. Anders had surviving brothers elsewhere in the military and a father on the Pentagon staff. Words couldn’t accurately describe how fucked Sharp felt he was with that looming over him. He just didn’t trust that they would be satisfied with Rambo’s death.
Someone knocked on the trailer’s door. Had one of his insufferable roommates really forgotten their keys again? He was going to pierce a ring through their noses and attach their keys that way if… and it wasn’t them. This was someone else entirely, a face Sharp didn’t expect to ever see in person.
“Sir.” He snapped to attention, despite being in a maroon bath robe.
“Are you going to invite me in, Major?” General Watts asked. This man was as well-known as he wasn’t, depending on the circles you ran in. He’d been there, behind or on the flanks of all the major battles in Iraq, even Fallujah. What the units with imbedded reporters couldn’t do, he did. Even as a lieutenant colonel his personal body count was in the hundreds, and he wasn’t even Special Forces. In his own words, General Watts was, “Just a Grunt.”
“Absolutely, Sir. I’m sorry for the mess, Captain Lewis and Major Cutter aren’t any better at housekeeping than I am, I’m afraid.” That sounded bad. Of course he wasn’t good at keeping his own house in order. That was why he’d lost 1st VR upon their return to Cheyenne.
General Watts took a seat. “Before I give you the speech, Major, just tell me if you’re planning to hand in your walking papers like General Brown’s boy, or if you’re still in it to win it, because one answer means I can get lunch early, the other means I get it later.”
Sharp seemed taken aback. He was expecting a very personal ass-chewing before a very public court-martial, not a potential job offer. “Um… yes, Sir. I am a Soldier, here to do a Soldier’s work. I just thought… well…”
“That you’d be relieved of command and forced to resign?” Watts almost laughed through his out of regulation mustache. The commanding lip-ferret made Sharp envious. “Trust me that option was on the table, but only as a formality. Depended on how many heads General Brown demanded roll into her basket. I think you got lucky Lt. Sawyer didn’t put more effort into bringing you up on charges. I don’t have to tell you Secretary Clint would not hesitate to throw you under the bus.”
“I know that, Sir.”
Pausing for a moment, General Watts waited for the excuse that didn’t come. “I also know that you were just following orders. To a T, I might add. And it’s because of that I’ve been authorized to make you an offer you’d be unwise to decline.”
*
Chapter 17
The difference between the Army’s Basic Combat Training and the United States Secret Service’s training program was drastic enough that Daniel openly wondered why the combatives he was having to learn here weren’t given to each and every serviceman before graduation. Had he been taught even half of the tactics the USSS employed he would have been much better suited to surviving when the dead began to walk, everyone would have been. Too late to worry about that now, he was in the smallest class the Secret Service had ever trained, and nobody was allowed to fail. POTUS, or President of the United States, was rarely seen outside the restricted levels of Cheyenne Mountain, which made protecting him significantly easier. Nevertheless, the precious few recruits they were able to get to volunteer for the job were put through the rigors of a very specific training course.
Of all the things they were taught to do, Daniel hated running beside the limousine the most. The original armored vehicle the President used was reportedly a rusted out hulk on a tarmac at Reagan International Airport, the one they would use if their dear leader ever left his nest was just a regular Cadillac, but no need for the p
ublic to know that. Most of the civilian populace had been forced to turn their firearms and ammunition over to the Civilian National Police upon arriving at the Cheyenne Community Complex Project, so the threat of an armed Civilian uprising was “negated.” The real threat they practiced to defend against was a Lone Wolf Sniper and an overwhelming Envier Horde.
Daniel’s specialty, almost naturally, was in directing fire against a zombie horde. His new friend Shane Clair was being groomed to be a Behavior Analysis Expert, his job was going to be to assess people for body language and eye signals for potential subversive behavior. That was all just a fancy way of saying he was better than most at guessing who the bad guy was. In virtually every scenario Shane could spot the OpFor who was supposed to be up to something, which was no easy task with a troop of professional actors recruited for the more intense scenario-based training exercise imaginable. This wasn’t a typical way for a government on a budget to train its men, before the war this would have been considered an extravagant usage of tax payer’s money, but with hundreds of out of work former celebrities practically begging for attention, it became more of a game among the trainees to figure out which TV actor was the Lone Wolf.
On a more memorable day Daniel got to meet two of his favorite actors from shows he’d watched with his father as a young boy. Their names were omitted from any official records, as was Daniel’s on most official documents now, but it would be safe to say one had a leading role on one of the C.S.I. series, and the other was a legend in his own time for the role he played on the bridge of the original Star Trek television show. Neither of the men had drawn the short straw to play the OpFor, probably because of their age and notoriety, but Daniel and some of the other recruits got to nerd out for a few hours after the scenario was indexed. Everyone walked away with an autograph or two during the final month of training. It reminded those who remembered, or who had read about, a Hollywood that had once been patriotic. Actors, singers and various other celebrities had once upon a time conducted war-bond drives, toured with the USO to entertain the troops, and in cases of men like Elvis Presley and Leonard Nemoy (not that I’m suggesting the Enterprise crewman Daniel met was Mr. Spock), had served in the armed forces during World War Two. On a side note, seeing someone related to the name Enterprise made Daniel wonder how the Navy was doing, if any of the super-carriers like the current U.S.S. Enterprise or her sister ships were still afloat. He knew what they were doing, the US Navy was just as busy as any armed force on Earth now, but how well they were doing he no longer knew. The time he spent aboard the U.S.S. Winston S. Churchill seemed another lifetime atop another lifetime ago, and yet Daniel was only just old enough now to buy a beer.
The day before graduation, a closed event to which only immediate family were invited, Daniel got a knock at his barracks room door. Unlike most of the people inhabiting Cheyenne Mountain, the trainees of the USSS’s smallest class in history weren’t put up in a mobile home that had been towed into the caverns below, day and night being governed by programmable UV floodlights above them. No, they got the royal treatment of staying in rooms carved right out of the mountain, shielded against nuclear blasts even more so than the majority of the complex. Daniel had to spin a wheel lock like an old battleship or submarine to open the door, which he expected to be Shane coming back from his evening workout. Instead it was Lt. Kelly Hallstead, a welcome face after almost three months of looking at the same thirteen assholes day in and day out without so much as a phone call home.
“Hey.” He smiled. “I was wondering if I’d ever get to see you again.” He was trying to play it smooth, after so many days without seeing a reasonably attractive woman except for actors he dared not touch, Daniel had an itch he was certain Kelly could scratch.
“Well it’s not like you ever called.” She countered, inviting herself in. “You know they didn’t even tell your mother where you were being housed?” She made herself comfortable on the dusty couch someone had pulled out of storage marked 1978 Surplus.
Daniel stopped, completely spacing out of this conversation, suddenly caught off guard by how much the incident at Lincoln had affected him. The images of Anders’ on the floor, and then of Lea in the yard, all flashed in front of his eyes. “I can’t be a hero anymore. I had my time in the spotlight and it was glorious, but now… it feels like everything I’d been fighting for was a lie. You know, under my command my platoon never lost a man? Not one Vic bite, not even so much as a traffic accident…”
“And then Major Sharp goes and does something totally out of bounds, you protested, a man died for it.” Kelly stood and got close to Daniel. She could tell he was letting his edge slip, the memories become calcified emotional scar tissue. So she did the only thing she could think of that might lift his spirits; she kissed him and told him, “You did the right thing. I’m just glad it wasn’t you.”
“Why?” Daniel let a single tear fall. “Anders was a better man than me, I know that and I barely knew him. I get it, ya know? Captain Rambo was a fuck-tard and a filthy fucking drunk, but we weren’t going to attack him or Sharp. I don’t even think we expected them to listen to us, let alone stop the airstrike. It was just… so fucking random, ya kow?”
Kelly nodded, stroking the side of Daniel’s face. “I don’t have any good advice for you, Daniel. Nobody I went to the Air Force Academy with is still alive, or on our side. At least what your friend died for was good, his death wasn’t in vein, the bombs only fell on one truck and you took Lincoln and Bismarck intact. All of those people get to keep their homes, no FEMA trailers for them. How could that not be a victory? When you’re done here, I’ll help you find Lt. Anders’ family if you want.”
Daniel nodded. He had been mulling over the idea of telling someone with more clout than his own just how Anders had died. His relatives in the Army would for certain want to know who Major Sharp was, and what kind of men he kept in his company. Though the Army needed all the men it could get, Daniel was already resigned to the fact that Jeffry Sharp wasn’t one of them. The stain on his personal honor if he stayed silent would be enough to make him fall on his own sword one day. Maybe though, for Kelly’s sake, he would sit on his need for revenge until after the war.
“Whoa, who’s she?” Shane came back, glistening with sweat and draping a towel over his shoulder, he looked Kelly over like the eye-candy she was.
“Oh, who me?” Kelly didn’t wait for Daniel to introduce her. “Why, I’m the competition for your lovely little man-crush here.” She teased, hiking her leg up to Daniel’s chest and petting his face like a cat just to be silly.
Shane pretended to be butt-hurt. “I still get him for one more night, honey!” He did his best version of the feminine man-lisp that could only be described as incredibly gay. “No, but seriously, Merry Christmas, Dan.” Shane handed a small wrapped gift to Daniel.
“Shit.” Daniel’s face flushed. “I forgot it was almost Christmas.”
“It’s cool, man.” Shane reached in his pocket and pulled out a letter. “You got mail, too.”
Daniel took the gift and the letter, which he figured was just standard paperwork from the Army catching up to him in the Secret Service. Unwrapping the present it with a lack of care for the paper, Daniel found an origami tiger that had been dipped in a resin to dry it solid forever. Shane was always making paper cranes, turtles and just about anything he could imagine, but this was made special just for Daniel after a conversation about their favorite animals one boring evening after training.
“Dude, thanks.” Daniel hugged his friend. “I love you, bro. No-homo.”
“Are you sure?” Kelly started taking her uniform top off.
Daniel abruptly shoved Shane out of the room and without breaking eye contact with Kelly he kept the joke going so Shane couldn’t get a word in edgewise. “I said no-homo first. That totally makes it not gay.” The door shut behind him.
“And who told you that?” Kelly finished with the button up jacket and started on the belt. There wer
e many provocative buttons on those trousers, all leading somewhere good.
“The other guys I was sleeping in close proximity to and showering with every morning a few summers back. They called it the Army or some shit.” Daniel smiled and helped Kelly with the buttons of her trousers while she worked on the t-shirt.
Before Daniel could get to the unauthorized pink panties, Kelly had a notion. “What’s the letter?”
“Who cares?” Daniel got his fingers wrapped round the silky lace. Kelly reached over to the table and grabbed it.
“Who’s Private Hubert Garner? Is he another boyfriend?” She teased.
Daniel let go of the panties and tore the dirty looking envelope apart. “He’s a friend of mine from high school. He was surviving in Lincoln, I ran into him the night before… well, before everything went to shit.” The paper had an official letterhead on it, stationary from a newly established Army post in the south of the Cheyenne Community Complex Project, Ft. Victory.
“Did he join the Army?”
“Yeah, I tried to talk him out of it, but…” Daniel started reading the letter out loud, the act of violating Kelly would have to be postponed for a minute.
“1LT Sawyer, Daniel E.,” he began aloud so Kelly wouldn’t have to read over his shoulder. “I’m sorry I missed you when your unit shipped out, but hangovers are a bitch, right? I know an E1 isn’t supposed to correspond with an officer, but I thought you should know that I’ve followed your lead and decided to do my part. They tell me 1st VR isn’t a unit anymore, that someone lost their job over the truck we lost. Drill Sergeant Kemper said that the whole Army is learning their tactics even though the unit was dissolved so your men could train the rest of us. SFC Kemper is my Drill Sergeant, imagine that, but he doesn’t treat me special. He said you’d disapprove of that, and I totally agree, so I’ll just say that when all this is over I expect to see you on my front porch for beer and BBQ on the 4th.
World of Ashes II Page 28
