“I hadn’t thought about it from that aspect,” Jake admitted. Turner had a good point about the natural immunity as a starting point for how Harper became an anathema to the infected and could walk amongst them without fear of attack. “Doesn’t seem like much of a vaccine if they’re already immune, huh?”
Turner shrugged. “If it makes it so those immune fellers could go outside the walls without worrying about attack, then there could be some real value to that.” The NCO pulled his cup away from the fire to set it down on the balcony as he ripped open the packet of instant coffee. “But hey, I’m just a dumb grunt. What the fuck do I know? Maybe that kid will be able to do something amazing and create a useful vaccine for all of us, huh?”
Jake followed his lead, removing his cup. “I hope so. Although, I’m less confident about it after this little conversation than I was yesterday.”
“I never was very good at pep talks, sir.”
Jake grinned and stirred his coffee, watching the water turn an unnatural brown color from the dissolved flakes. He took a sip of the liquid and frowned. “It ain’t Starbucks.”
“You drink that burnt, over-priced shit?”
“Everybody in my generation drinks that burnt, over-priced shit, Sergeant. Or did, anyways.”
The apartment’s front door opened and Jake’s eyes snapped upward. It was Phil, the former NYPD officer. He raised a hand in greeting as he walked in. Jake and Turner rose to meet him.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said with a strained look on his face. If possible, his accent was even thicker in the morning than it had been in the afternoon yesterday.
“What’s wrong?” Turner asked gruffly.
“Seems like one of your boys went and got himself in some trouble last night. Killed a whole bunch of Latin Kings. We had a truce with them and Jefferson is pissed.”
“I’m pissed off too,” Jake said. “When I woke up this morning, he was gone. Taavi told me that he went out to go hunting.”
“This ain’t something to just be pissed off about. This is some serious fucking shit, LT. The Latin Kings ain’t a group to fuck around with. They’re organized, they’re armed, and they’re violent. They completely wiped out the Crips who’d tried to move into Manhattan from Harlem, left their bodies strung up like scarecrows for a week. They’ve even got those MS-13 fucks intimidated into staying over in Queens.”
“Where’s Harper now?” Sergeant Turner asked.
“Harper?” Phil asked, blinking rapidly. “Fuck.”
“What?” Jake asked. That sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach was beginning to return.
“We didn’t know it was Harper. The Kings got him. They nabbed him. He’s being held down on their turf.”
“Mother fucker,” Jake yelled, much louder than he’d meant to. “That stupid fucking dipshit, cowboy sonofabitch, piece of—”
“As you can see,” Sergeant Turner said, sliding between Jake and Phil, “Lieutenant Murphy did not approve of Harper’s actions. But we need him. He’s the one who’s immune. He’s the reason we came all this way.”
“I don’t know that Jefferson would be willing to help you. It’s the Latin Kings, fellas. We aren’t willing to go to war with them. We have a good thing going right now. They do whatever the fuck they want at night while the good people of Manhattan are locked away safe and sound, then we operate during the day to try to build the city back up.”
“I understand that, Phil,” Turner said, glancing back at Jake, who still cursed under his breath while he watched his platoon sergeant try to work an angle on the situation. “We aren’t asking anyone from Jefferson’s organization to go to bat for us. Just tell us where they’re keeping Harper. We’ll go get him.”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
The words of the Ranger Creed echoed through Jake’s mind. He’d had to memorize that damned thing and said it probably sixty times a day at Ranger School. He would never forget the words. Part of the Creed stated, “I will never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy…” This moment was exactly what the Creed had meant. Fucking Grady Harper might not be the savior of the human race, or even a very good person, but by God, he was a member of First Platoon. They weren’t going to leave him to his fate.
“It’s important for our men to know that we will be there for them, no matter what,” Jake said. “We might shoot the fucking bastard for going AWOL after we rescue him, but I’m not about to abandon him to some gang. We’re going to go get him.”
“You sure you don’t want me to ask Jefferson about this?”
Jake gritted his teeth. “Your boss has been very hospitable to us and we’re thankful for his generosity. But given the circumstances, I’m not asking for his permission. We’re doing this with his blessing or without. We don’t leave our men behind.”
“Goddamned right we don’t, sir,” Turner said, smiling approvingly. “Rangers Lead the Way.”
“Rangers Lead the Way,” Jake replied. He wasn’t sure, but he felt like he’d just hit a turning point with Sergeant Turner. The old NCO had never questioned his decisions or denied that he was in charge, even after Jake had gone AWOL with Sidney from Fort Bliss. But Jake got the sense that it was always simmering just below the surface that the man was ready to step in and override Jake’s authority.
That feeling evaporated. He’d passed Sergeant Turner’s test. He was truly the platoon’s leader now, not just in title, but by virtue. They would rescue Grady Fucking Harper, return him to Jackson Jefferson, and try to unfuck America.
20
* * *
BRAZILIAN HIGHLANDS RAINFOREST, BRAZIL
MARCH 7TH
Hannah stood, balancing herself precariously on the heavy duty straps that were woven loosely together to form the C-130’s passenger seating. The crew chief had announced they’d entered Brazilian airspace and she wanted to see what was below them. She lifted herself up onto her toes to see the upper canopy of the jungle speeding by below. It was beautiful. Too bad she knew what really lurked beneath the foliage.
“See anything, ma’am?”
“Huh?” she asked, turning around to see the young sergeant, Pollard, across the way looking intently at her.
“I asked what you can see out the window.”
She gripped the metal cable that ran the length of the fuselage for support and stepped down. She sat and said, “Nothing but jungle.”
He nodded, leaning back. Hannah wondered if that was the extent of his conversation. He’d sat almost directly across from her for six hours while they were flying, including the in-air refuel operation, without saying a word to her. He was the guy who’d led the assault that reestablished communications between Holloman and Fort Bliss. That was a major accomplishment for a sergeant, a very young one at that.
“So, what’s your story?” she yelled over the roar of the big engines. He didn’t seem to hear her, so she reached across the small aisle and tapped his knee. When he looked at her, she repeated the question.
“I don’t know, ma’am. I’m just trying to survive day-to-day.”
The kid wasn’t a talker. She could accept that. “Are you a part of the unit that got tasked to come down here or are you an advisor or something?”
He pointed to a specialist on his right who’d been asleep from the moment they took off. “Nope. I’m just lucky enough to be in one of the platoons that got tasked with assaulting the facility.”
“Lucky you.” Hannah struggled to think of something else to say, but she gave up on it. He was one of the only people who’d been beyond the walls of Fort Bliss after they locked it down, so he knew about moving amongst the infected instead of just shooting at them from atop the wall. If things went south, she wanted to be near him, but he wasn’t interested in talking to the crazy immune lady who’d lived out with the infected for a year and bore the scars to prove it. At twenty-nine, her face bore wrinkles of worry and streaks of gray shot through her once vibrant blonde locks. Added to the visible
aging that had occurred, her joints ached from the combination of constant walking she’d endured and the infection from the virus that coursed through her veins.
“Okay…” Hannah leaned back against the fuselage, closing her eyes against the headache that the constant roar of the C-130’s engines had caused. She wondered idly if the sergeant was one of the anti-immune people she’d heard whisperings about. There was some type of movement gaining traction that believed the immune were no better than the infected and were ticking time bombs. Hell, maybe we are, Hannah thought, squeezing her eyes tighter.
Before long, the engines changed pitch and she felt the plane bank in a wide arc. She pressed her feet to the floor and reached back for the shoulder harness. Stupid, Hannah chastised herself. She knew better than to sit in a military aircraft without being strapped in. The pilots could make any sort of movement without alerting the passengers and she could have ended up on the other side of the plane, or worse.
They stayed in the turn for a full two minutes, which meant they were circling, probably surveying the runway at the facility to see if it was safe to land. There was an airport about ten miles from the target that Colonel Tovey’s folks had found in case they couldn’t use the one below. She hoped the small strip would be okay, because she really didn’t want to have to travel overland through the jungle…again.
The plane straightened out and the interior lighting switched from white light to green. All around her, men were slapping their sleeping brethren awake. Once the green lighting switched to red, then everyone knew that they were going to land in one minute. Soldiers began to pack away any gear they’d gotten out of their packs and took last-minute gulps of water from camelbacks or canteens.
Hannah followed suit and then chambered a round into the M-4 she’d carried since her previous mission to the facility with Grady. She had a quick moment of panic. She hadn’t fired the weapon in probably six or seven months. What if it jammed or…?
“Stop it,” she mumbled under her breath. She’d cleaned the weapon thoroughly. It would do fine. Even though nobody could hear her over the roar of the engines, Hannah was still annoyed at herself. She’d spent way too long alone with nobody to talk to except herself. Now that she was back amongst humans, they were gonna think she was a weirdo for talking to herself. Actually, she thought she was a weirdo for doing it, so she couldn’t imagine how others might react.
“You got that on safe?” one of the soldiers across from her asked, breaking her self-reprimand.
She stared hard at him. Of course, my weapon is on safe, asshole, she thought. Most of the guys around her had noticed her suppressed M-4 while they waited to board the plane. She’d heard their whispers of derision. They thought she was a typical headquarters douchebag who got all the Gucci gear without knowing what the hell to do with it except look cool. They didn’t know her story, but it still pissed her off that they automatically assumed that she wasn’t a warfighter simply because she was a girl.
“Fuck you,” she said aloud, directing it at the guy specifically, but all of them in general.
“What?”
“I said fuck you, dickbag,” she shouted to be heard. “I know what the fuck I’m doing. I’m not some fairy princess who—”
Sergeant Pollard put a restraining hand on the soldier and shouted something that she couldn’t make out. It was a bit longer than the NCO telling him to shut the fuck up, and when he was done, the soldier who’d asked her if she knew what she was doing looked at her differently.
“Sorry, ma’am,” he called out before busying himself with his own weapon.
“I don’t need you defending me,” she said when Pollard glanced at her. “I can take care of my own damn self.”
“I know, ma’am. I heard your story in that briefing with the general. You don’t gotta convince me that you can handle a weapon.” He pointed at the muzzle of her weapon. “Wish we had suppressors. If we have to start shooting, it’ll bring anything within a ten mile radius right to us.”
Hannah hadn’t considered that. She’d been in special operations units almost her entire career, so she’d taken for granted that everyone had suppressors. “Why don’t you guys have them?”
He shrugged. “Special use only. There are only a couple hundred of them back at Bliss. They don’t want to risk losing them if this mission goes tits up— Ah, I mean, if the mission goes bad.”
“Tits up is okay,” she replied with a smile. “I’m an Army girl, remember, Sergeant? A little bit of cursing doesn’t offend me.”
“Got it, ma’am.”
The interior lighting switched from green to red. One minute. Hannah leaned back against the cargo netting along the fuselage. Depending on the condition of the landing strip, it might be a bumpy landing. The wheels touched down and almost immediately, she was thrown forward as the pilots applied the brakes. She’d been in the room with the planners when they found the facility on satellite. The landing strip was estimated to be about 3,500 feet long, which is 500 more feet than the C-130’s tactical insertion minimum requirement. Still, it was cutting it close with the impenetrable jungle waiting at the end of the runway.
The taxi lasted several tense seconds as the back ramp began to open before they stopped. Bright daylight flooded into the cargo area, temporarily blinding everyone. Hannah shielded her eyes against the brightness. Almost immediately, the temperature in the plane skyrocketed as the Southern Hemisphere summer weather overtook the aircraft’s environmental control system’s capacity. The scent of damp, lush jungle with an undertone of decay filled the airplane, threatening to overwhelm the regular smells of the C-130’s fuel and the soldiers’ body odor.
Outside the plane, the world passed by in an ever-increasing view as the ramp continued to descend. On one side, jungle leaves and vines flashed by, on the other, they passed by shipping containers and the low, gray cinder block building that had haunted her nightmares. All that distance that she’d endured, the days of endless travel to make it back to the States, and here she was, right back where she’d started. It had all been for nothing.
The crushing feeling of defeat threatened to overwhelm her as the aircraft finally braked to a complete halt. The crew chief lowered the ramp the rest of the way and soldiers surged to their feet around her. Hannah tried to do the same, but the harness restrained her. She struggled to unclip herself as bodies brushed past her legs and backpacks obstructed her view. It was hardly the glorious impression of a seasoned warfighter that she’d tried to project.
Hannah had to wait for an opening in the line of soldiers before she could join the shuffling march toward the open end of the plane. When she finally broke free of the aircraft’s confines, she took several quick, deep breaths. She was okay. She would be okay.
“Hey, you okay?”
She turned to see one of the soldiers who’d come off the plane last with her. “Um, yeah. Just—”
“Clear the flight line!” the crew chief shouted from the back of the ramp. “We’re turning around.”
Hannah shook her head to clear it. What was she doing here? Her knowledge about the facility began and ended with the outside. She glanced at the building. Check, they were at the right place. Now what?
“Let’s get you over here to cover,” the soldier who’d asked her if she was okay said. He gripped her elbow gently, pushing her toward one of the big shipping containers.
She watched in detachment as several soldiers bounded toward the facility’s loading dock. Behind her, the C-130’s engines increased thrust as the plane pivoted in a circle to spin around, preparing the bird for a quick takeoff if they had to leave in a hurry. Prop blast scattered the detritus on the ground around her feet, revealing a long, dull white bone. It was thick, like a femur bone or maybe the humerus—Hannah had done terrible in biology at West Point, thankful that their engineering program relied little on the life sciences or else she might not have gotten her first choice to become a pilot.
“Ma’am, are you okay? Wha
t’s wrong?”
She focused on the man who’d helped her. “Uh… I’m fine. Really. I just… I never thought I’d be back here.”
“I’m gonna get the major.”
“No. I’m fine,” she reasserted, lifting her rifle into the pocket of her shoulder. “Just point me to the command section. That’s where they wanted me to stay.”
The soldier grinned. “Well, you’re here, ma’am. I’m Specialist Tunde. I’m one of the medics. Major Edmunds is coordinating the assault. Then we’ll move up.”
Hannah glanced back at the jungle, then along the line of shipping containers. “Is anyone securing the back side of the perimeter or are they—”
“We’ve got this, ma’am,” Tunde said. “There are troops positioned on the other side of the containers. We’re actually outside of the perimeter right now.”
They walked beyond the first loose row of shipping containers where soldiers knelt behind the concealment they provided. Hannah heard the aircraft engines turn off. The plan called for hiding their movements as much as possible from any potential infected in the area, so powering off the loud engines was important. Doing so added time to a potential escape if the mission had to be ended quickly, but the need to end the loud sounds from the engines outweighed the need for speed. Already, inhuman screams echoed from the jungle. The infected were out there, they just didn’t know how far away.
Hannah and Specialist Tunde walked quickly toward the building. The command post was set up at the final row of shipping containers before the open cargo dock area. Four people stood around a large aerial photograph of the facility, while another soldier knelt with a radio on his back. Major Edmunds glanced at them as they walked up, but he didn’t say anything. So far, Hannah had gotten a cold shoulder from the mission commander. He didn’t think she needed to be on the mission and viewed her as a distraction.
The radio operator held the handset out for the major and he took it, placing the receiver to his ear. She heard him say, “Yes, engage with snipers. All other elements, hold your fire.”
Five Roads To Texas | Book 11 | Reciprocity [Sidney's Way 3] Page 14
