Midnight Skills

by William Allen

  “But that’s enough speechifying because we all have work to do,” Jefferson continued after a significant pause. He was experienced well beyond his years, after all, and knew the rest of the platoon would have been eavesdropping as well. Nice way to get them fired up, Jefferson thought with some amusement.

  “Private Messner, you think you can hang with Sergeant Hernandez and Second Squad?”

  “Yes, sir,” Luke replied, “I can hang.”

  “Good, because this morning, you are leading the squad back to Point Sierra, and your squad will avoid contact and get us an accurate sitrep of that intersection. You read me?”

  “I read you, sir,” Luke replied, a little more forcefully than before.

  “Then, son, after we get moved and settled in, I want you to come see me.”

  “Sir?”

  “We aren’t fighting for some political agenda, or so we can act as peacekeepers. I don’t want to sit in these trenches, Private. We are fighting to win, damn it. I want you to go do your damnedest to root those miserable fuckers out of their holes and make ‘em run home, crying for their mommas!”

  Jefferson nodded to himself when he saw the same fire burning in the young man’s eye that Hernandez noted earlier. Except, unlike Hernandez, Jefferson welcomed the sight.

  “Yes, sir,” the private growled, and the rest of the men in the garage gave a little whoop of delight at the captain’s impassioned and heartfelt words.

  CHAPTER 36

  The captain was right, Luke thought, sitting in a dirt hole sucked. That was the bad news. The good news, as Luke preferred to think of it, meant he and Second Squad would be back out again the next evening for another mission. One that didn’t require sitting in a spot that stank like an open cesspool.

  When Luke led the scouting mission that morning, he’d found nothing definitive, but something felt off, like a tiny stone in his shoe that he couldn’t shake loose. They’d stalked the frost-rimed forest around the eastern tip of their defensive earthworks, as Sergeant Hernandez referred to them, and while Luke found sign of several small patrols, he failed to identify an endpoint for any of them. Luke knew he could eventually solve the puzzle, but he couldn’t tell where they went, without spending time Hernandez wasn’t willing to give him. Their timeline had slipped already, and Hernandez wasn’t willing to go off script yet again.

  Once they’d reached the lumberyard a little after noon, Hernandez ordered his men to take up a pair of observation posts set back twenty yards from the edge of the highway, and slightly less than one hundred yards apart on the same side of the road. The sergeant kept Beatty and Silcott, sending Luke to the other outpost with Corporal Mansour.

  Luke didn’t like Mansour. Something about the guy made Luke’s skin crawl, and he didn’t trust the corporal one inch to watch his back. His smug demeanor reminded Luke of a vulture, just hanging around for his chance to begin gorging on his latest meal.

  “Keep a lookout while I get some sleep, Wonderboy,” Mansour ordered. That’s the name a few of the other men in their platoon hung on Luke, but Mansour was the only one in their squad who openly used it.

  “How long you want to sack out?”

  “Until I wake up,” Mansour growled. “Now shut it and let me sleep.”

  Luke didn’t like the OP locations. No, the locations weren’t the problem, he mentally amended. He was worried because these crude little shacks, nothing more than a piece of plywood set on bricks at the corners and laid over a shallow scrape in the earth, appeared to have been constructed some time ago, judging from the winter-killed grasses and worn path to the back entry. Luke figured the enemy knew right where they sat. In fact, he’d insisted they spend five minutes checking the hole for booby traps before Mansour simply dropped his pack and crawled inside. Yes, it was cold outside, but not colder than a grave.

  Hours later, Luke lay hunkered down by the mouth of the depression, forcing his eyes to move over terrain he’d already memorized within the first thirty minutes of their arrival. A view of the county road. Patched two-lane asphalt with a faded yellow stripe down the middle. To his left, Luke spied once again, the hulking metal building, two stories tall and pockmarked with a string of broken windows facing out on the road. He could barely catch a glimpse of the second structure out back, but he knew the store, like any lumberyard Luke had ever seen, would boast a secondary warehouse space stacked with sheets of plywood, racks of two-by-fours, two-by-sixes, and posts of varying length. At least, that was in the old days. A wise man would have cleaned out much of that stock for their own use. For firewood, if nothing else.

  Nothing stirred in the gathering gloom, which reminded Luke of something. These woods, like most he’d seen in the last few months, seemed devoid of any wildlife larger than a raccoon. No deer, or even wild hogs. The desperate locals had decimated the local wildlife, in an effort to feed their families, and even if the lights came back on tomorrow, the ecosystem would take years to recover.

  Well, after this winter, Luke mused morbidly, they won’t see near as many hunters. Between the lack of clean drinking water, the absence of those game animals, and the continuing cold weather, Luke figured the already reduced population of survivors to be further winnowed. Winnowed, he thought, was a curious sounding word. Means to be sorted or examined. Judged. So many judged and found wanting.

  Thinking about the oddities of the English language brought back unwanted thoughts, and he remembered his mother. Their resident English teacher. Except now, he was remembering her in that white print dress with the faint pastel flowers she loved. Amy and some of the other women at the ranch had lovingly clothed her in that dress for her funeral, but the rough-hewn casket was still a closed affair. Not that Luke couldn’t still see her burned face every time he closed his eyes.

  Needing to stop that train before it left the station, Luke relaxed his eyes and strained his ears, focusing on the silence outside. Except it wasn’t silent. Not completely.

  Despite his best efforts, earlier in the day, Luke still found himself crackling like a bag full of fall leaves when he’d moved through the frosty grass. Even when the snow failed to stick, the cold hovered right around freezing and gave the otherwise dry stalks an icy coating.

  Now, he was detecting that same crackling, except he was snug in his hide and someone else was outside, most likely behind their hide, trying to creep quietly through the dusk.

  Luke debated sliding further back into the observation post, but he worried about tipping off the approaching force, whoever or whatever it might be. Also, Mansour still slumbered on, and Luke had little confidence in the weasel actually waking from a deep sleep and being of any use immediately in a fight. Still, he couldn’t leave the bastard asleep, so reaching back with his left leg, he found what he thought was Mansour, rolled up in his woobie.

  After a sharp kick aimed at the corporal and a hissed warning of “Raiders approaching the rear,” Luke elbow-walked his way out the front of the OP and rolled over, looking back. Not the most tactically sound move, maybe, but he needed to see what was approaching their six. He made out seven shapes, ducked down and trying to creep up on their prey. Well, that sucked.

  Continuing into his roll, Luke swung his legs around and ended up back on his belly, magazines dully digging into his chest and abdomen like always, but with the stock of the M4 pressed tight into the pocket of his shoulder. The low sheet of rotted plywood partially obscured two of the attackers to his extreme right, but this also served to conceal Luke.

  Either the men heard Luke moving around or else had simply reached the appointed demarcation line, for they picked that instant to rush forward and engage their target. No more time for stealth.

  “Mansour, wake the fuck up!” Luke bellowed as he took up the slack in his trigger and fired a short burst into the first attacker, aiming for center mass. No way he was taking head shots in this gloom with seven attackers bearing down on him. The shape went down in a crumple, and Luke rolled left, just as incoming fire t
ore up the grass around him.

  With no warning, the small observation post blew up in a hail of shrapnel and flying wood splinters. The explosion knocked Luke deeper into the brush and he could tell his ears would be ringing for hours, but the sudden violence rocked the attackers back for just a second. Centering his rifle, Luke used that second to take out two more of his attackers, and from the spray of blood he saw flash briefly in the dark, he’d managed to score at least one headshot by accident. Seeing his surviving attackers hesitate, three of their number already down, Luke gritted his teeth in a bloodthirsty grin and he emptied the rest of his magazine into the clumped together group of white uniformed soldiers.

  When he rolled away, parallel to his earlier line but perpendicular to the attackers once again, Luke managed a rapid magazine change, dropping the spent magazine while slamming home the fresh one in a smooth, fluid motion. All the while, he continued working to keep his senses open, not succumbing to the tunnel vision that killed so many soldiers in battle.

  He fired again, a short burst, followed by another, as he felt more than heard rounds cracking high over his head. His father’s stories came back as reflected experience and he remained hunkered low, searching for movement. Luke had now seen proof of how inexperienced fighters often fired high in the dark, and it was a lesson he took to heart. Every time he registered movement, that earned another three to five rounds of 5.56mm as Luke gradually worked his way further from the devastated observation post.

  After an eternity passed and the late twilight faded into full dark, Luke became aware of the absence of return fire. In his haste to get rounds downrange, he’d run through three magazines fired in the general direction of the raider’s force. His body still vibrating from the rapid adrenaline dump, Luke forced himself to take slow, deep breaths while he scanned the dark for more foes. He missed his NVGs, still sealed in the shock-proof case in his pack, since he hadn’t time to retrieve them before the assault had begun. He hadn’t wanted to deplete the batteries too soon, and now he regretted the decision.

  “Mansour, you still alive?” Luke called out, trying to control the volume of his voice, but not sure if he was shouting or not. He didn’t hear an answer, but since his ears still felt like they were stuffed with cotton, he wasn’t able to do much. At least, he could tell the debris pile that used to be the observation post didn’t shift an inch.

  On his elbows, Luke wriggled forward to a fresh position and went very still while he surveyed the scene by the light of the recently risen moon. Fast moving clouds overhead made odd shapes dance in the small clearing as silvery light played across the splayed bodies, an odd view that reminded Luke of the moonlight the first time he’d ever seen Amy.

  Luke’s sudden awareness of Amy’s absence sent a spike lunging through the young man’s heart, and he paused to gather his emotions. The burn of adrenaline from this fight, once again left Luke vulnerable to the pain of their separation. I’m a fucking idiot, Luke realized. This isn’t really my war, and I’m not some fucking superhero coming to win the fight single-handedly. Yes, this might offer a chance for vengeance, but by now, the seventeen-year-old knew revenge made a cold pillow to comfort you in your sleep.

  Thinking about the motivations for revenge made Luke wonder briefly about how his father was coping. Not well, he concluded, unless Mike and Amy managed to get him back into action. While he lay there surveying the carnage unleashed by his wrath, Luke began to calculate. How could a low-level peon end this war quickly, and with a favorable outcome for his own side? If he wanted to hand the victory to Chambers and his goons, the solution was simple. Assassinate President Dandridge and the generals loyal to him. So…

  Luke’s musings evaporated when he detected movement to his rear. From the muted scuffling, he was hearing one, maybe two at the most. Snatching a quick glance back, Luke made it one soldier, creeping in a hunched manner that reminded the private of the Commies he’d just snuffed. The shape maneuvered closer to the split sheet of plywood that marked the ruined OP, and Luke felt a sigh of relief when he heard the call and recognized Private Silcott’s voice.

  “Marco? Marco?”

  Luke, in a fit of juvenile humor, almost called out, “Polo”, which was the idea. Would have earned him a bullet, too, if Silcott had someone covering him. Anyone trying to guess the countersign would make that mistake.

  “Pedro,” Luke replied instead, using the proper word for the day.

  Luke was pleased to find many of Hernandez’s experiences dealing with insurgents overseas, worked well in this new environment. The squad always had sign and countersign for each twenty-four-hour period, and the sergeant worked to maintain proper separation and spacing when the men moved. No single file, either. That was for the movies, not the real world where a .50 caliber round from a sniper might kill the whole squad, if they lined up just right. Of course, the man screwed up by setting the two OPs too far apart. They could offer mutual fire support and communications were reduced to…well, playing tag in the dark. With live ammo.

  “Mansour, that you?” Silcott whispered as he moved closer to Luke.

  “Messner. Mansour never got out of the hole.” Luke replied tersely.

  “How many?”

  “Clocked seven incoming,” Luke explained, shorthanding it. He didn’t feel all that comfy sitting here in the open chatting, now the adrenaline was wearing off. “I count six bodies here. One missing, but I can’t see what’s on the far side of the OP.”

  “Let me check the other side. Make a count. Sergeant wants you and…well, he wants us to consolidate in the other spot. Once I get a count, I’ll give you a few minutes to gather your stuff, and we’ll haul ass.”

  “Got it. I’ll provide overwatch while you check the dead.” After a pause, Luke continued. “Make sure they are dead and watch for booby traps.”

  “Booby traps? Why would…”

  Luke sighed, not in the mood to play Twenty Questions. “Look, just cover me and I’ll check. Need to see if we can find out why these guys are here. You fine setting up here?”

  “Yeah, here’s okay,” Silcott murmured. “You sure Mansour’s dead?”

  Luke fought off the urge to shrug, not sure Silcott would be able to make out the motion in the gathering dark. “He never got off a shot, and then the roof exploded. From the inside. I’ll look there first. I need to see if my backpack made it anyway.”

  “Cold, man. More worried about your gear than one of us,” Silcott chided.

  “I got a red filter flashlight on the side pocket of my pack,” Luke replied, his tone neutral. “Be nice if it still worked, and that’s all I meant.”

  Leaving Silcott to stew, or not, Luke slid over the frozen grass and approached the plywood sheet, noting how the pressure of the explosion inside had bowed and split the weathered board. Grenade, Luke figured, and he was happy to see his backpack still wedged in the side of the improvised bunker, holding up part of the roof as near as he could tell.

  Using his shoulder, Luke manhandled the splintered piece of wood back enough to withdraw the tough weatherproofed canvas and aluminum-ribbed backpack. Other than a scorch mark on the rear of the pack and three small pieces of shrapnel sticking out of the tough fabric, Luke pronounced it good enough. He’d have to inspect the contents closely later, but Luke was willing to bet at least part of his gear remained intact.

  Using the small flashlight, Luke rapidly surveyed what he could make out in the rest of the four-foot-by-four-foot depression. The scene made Luke gag a little bit, and he’d seen some horrible things in the last year. Clicking off the red-tinted light, Luke eased back out of the blasted observation post, dumped the pack, and proceeded out into the cold evening air at a low crawl. He was once more, thankful for the elbow and knee pads his father insisted he take, and the long, dark gray scarf provided by Amy. That scarf both kept the chill down, and more importantly at the moment, prevented his exhalations from giving away his position. Luke doubted any of the enemy soldiers remained behind
to harass their squad, but by now a veteran of dozens of skirmishes and more than a few full-out gun battles, the young man wanted to take no chances. Well, no more than he had to, at any rate.

  Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Luke went over each body, stripping away their rifles and ammunition as he went. Habit, and he figured somebody on their side could find a use for old M-16s. Luke found nothing, not even pocket litter, on six of the bodies, but on the last, lucky number seven, he found the folded scrap of a map stuffed in the jacket pocket, but that was it. This man had taken two shots high up in the chest, one just a few inches above where Luke placed the heart and somehow managed to crawl nearly one hundred feet before Luke found him under an overgrown holly bush.

  Tough bugger, Luke decided, and he resolved to leave these men alone. They looked more like the rank-and-file volunteers Hernandez described, garbed in ragged uniforms and lacking in the heavy boots or coats needed for this cold. Hell, one of the young men had what looked like straw stuffed in his sleeves to provide more insulation. Food volunteers, and little better than cannon fodder.

  That wasn’t all Luke figured out from the dead, though.

  None wore any type of identifying tabs or dogtags, and that troubled Luke more than he wanted to admit. In addition, other than the middle-aged man he’d found last, the others appeared more-ready to attend a high school dance than attack an observation post at dusk. None of the six looked a day over eighteen, and Luke wondered how many of them had even started shaving. Plus, none looked like more than skin and bones under their mottled brown uniforms. If not for the uniforms and the commonality of weapons, Luke would have taken them for bandits rather than soldiers. Plus, who the hell wears brown in a winter campaign?

  Men who don’t have anything else, that’s who, Luke thought. No, he wouldn’t subject their corpses to the same mutilation he’d reserved for the stormtroopers. The idea was to spread fear while exacting his revenge, but he would reserve the beheadings for the men who he thought needed the lesson. Those Homeland agents who willingly served Chambers and his crew would receive the full measure of his anger, his distilled hatred, and he would get his point across eventually. No matter how many he needed to kill.