by Mel Odom
“Your mom is just trying to help those kids.” Jenny eyed him deliberately.
“She’s my mom. Not theirs.”
“I don’t think you realize what has happened here, Joey. These disappearances, they happened all around the world. A lot of people are scared. A lot more than just those kids in your house.”
“That’s not my problem.”
“It’s a good thing we’re not all as narrow-minded as you are.”
“Good for who?”
“Those kids in there need help, Joey.”
Unable to stand still any longer, Joey stepped off the porch. He gazed at the flower beds, remembering all the times he’d chased baseballs into them when he and Goose had played catch back there. The tire swing that Chris loved so much still hung from the tree above the covered sandbox he had helped Goose build three summers ago.
This was his house. His yard. And he had been invaded.
“Russia is threatening war,” Jenny said. “They think the United States is somehow responsible for all the disappearances. It’s all over the news.” She paused. “Are you listening to me?”
Joey wheeled on her from halfway out into the backyard. “What are you still doing here, Jenny?”
“I’m helping your mom.”
“Last night you seemed like you were in a hurry to get home.”
Jenny’s voice turned cold and measured. “Last night,” she stated, “I offered to come here and help you because your dad is over in Turkey, probably fighting for his life, and to be with you when you picked up your little brother. The only time I was ever in a hurry to get away from you was when I found out you’d been lying to me.”
Tears burned at the backs of Joey’s eyes but he refused to shed them. “Why are you here now, Jenny?”
“Because your mom could use some help. Because she asked me if I would help her if I didn’t have anything better to do.”
“And you don’t?”
Jenny was quiet for a moment. Her lower lip quivered for just an instant, then stilled. Her gaze turned cold and distant. “No, Joey, I don’t have anything better to do. I live with my dad. He’s an alcoholic. My mom couldn’t take it anymore, so she ran away. At least, that’s the excuse she used for leaving us when I was fifteen. I’ve put myself through school since then, got my dad up and going so it took him longer to finally get fired from jobs that he stopped showing up late to.” She took a breath. “I started to work at McDonald’s when I was sixteen because somebody needed to pay the rent in those crummy apartments where we lived. I work at Kettle O’ Fish to pay the rent in the crummy apartment where we live now. We’ve lived in that apartment for over two years. That’s the longest I’ve ever lived in any one place.”
Joey stared at her, not knowing what to say.
“I have to hide my money around the house because my dad will spend it on alcohol and beer if he finds it. These days, since I’ve been able to pay the bills, my dad works less and less. I don’t go to college because it would cost too much. I change jobs a lot because sooner or later my dad will find out where I work and come in there drunk and cause a scene.”
“Jenny, I—”
“Shut up, Joey!” Her voice was fierce. “I don’t want to hear ‘I’m sorry.’ I get that enough from my dad. ‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t pay the bills or put food on the table or give me back any of my self-respect.” She paused.
Joey let the silence stretch between them, not knowing what to say. He got the distinct feeling that whatever he said would only cause her to take his head off.
“Do you want to know why I don’t date?” Jenny asked in a strained voice.
Joey didn’t answer. Too much was coming at him at one time, and he didn’t know how to deal with it.
“Because when I dated in the past,” Jenny said, “I heard my dad say things to me I never thought he would say. Awful things, Joey. He accused me of stuff I didn’t do. Stuff I don’t do. He talks to me the way he used to talk to my mom. Only I’m not her; I can’t yell back at him the way she did. And even if I did, things would just be worse. I watched each of them put the other in the emergency room when I was little. More than once.”
“I didn’t know,” Joey whispered.
“Of course you didn’t know,” Jenny snapped. “I don’t let anybody know. I don’t want anybody to know. You look at me and all you see is a body. You don’t even know me, but all of a sudden you’re convinced you really like me, or maybe you’re even falling in love with me.” She let out a ragged breath. “But you don’t know me. You don’t even try to get to know me. You just like the way I look.”
Embarrassment burned Joey’s face.
“Guys come around and hit on me,” Jenny said. “They think that I need them. I don’t need them. I’m making it on my own. Maybe it’s not anybody’s dream world, but it’s what I’ve got to live with.”
Joey waited for a moment, wanting to make sure she was done. He knew he should just wait her out, wait until she went back into the house. Instead, he asked, “Why don’t you leave?”
“Leave my dad?”
“Yeah.”
“Because he’s my dad,” Jenny answered. “And because everyone else has left him. My mom. His parents and brothers and sister. His friends. Oh, he still has drinking buddies, but they only come around when he’s got money and he’s buying.” She paused. “Kind of the same way guys come around me because they like what they see and not because of who I am.”
“Nobody should have to live like that.” Joey thought he was being supportive, but judging from the look of reproach on Jenny’s face, she hadn’t taken it that way.
“Grow up, Joey,” she said. “It’s not a perfect world. Sometimes you just have to take what life hands you. If I left my dad, he would die or end up in jail. I hate living with him, but I don’t want that to happen.” A single tear tracked down her cheek. “He’s my father, Joey, and I’m not going to leave him. He’s been left by too many people.”
Joey shoved his hands into his pockets. His anger had wilted, but the pain inside him still resonated, stronger now because he could feel the pain inside Jenny.
“And you’re not the only one with a fake ID, Joey,” she said. “I’m not twenty-three. I’m nineteen. So if I can handle this, I know you can.” She nodded at the house. “I think your mom is a fantastic lady, but she has her hands full with those kids in there. She could use some help.” She looked at him expectantly.
Joey stared back at her. “You lied to me. You told me you were twenty-three.”
“Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?”
“No, it isn’t. If you hadn’t lied to me, I would have never lied to you. And you don’t know everything there is about living here.”
“And what don’t I know?”
Joey thought about the feelings he’d been having for months, about how Chris had seemed to consume the attentions of his mom and Goose, about how he had been relegated to the role of baby-sitter. The way his mom took in the kids who showed up at his house was a perfect case in point.
And now Jenny was using her own problems to try to make his seem insignificant. That was wrong. He was entitled to his feelings, and there was no denying how things had been around his house. Everybody had an excuse for why things had been that way. But in the end, that’s all they were: excuses.
Disgusted, frustrated, and hurting, missing Chris, Joey turned away and threw an open hand back at her. “Forget about it, Jenny. It’s not worth talking about.” He walked away, heading toward the base, not knowing what he was going to do but knowing he couldn’t stay there with all the pain and strangers inside his house.
He felt her eyes on his back for a long time, but when he turned around a couple blocks away, she wasn’t there. He kept walking, feeling more lost and alone than he ever had.
31
United States 75th Rangers 3rd Battalion
Field Command Post
35 Klicks South of Sanliurfa, Turkey
Local
Time 1542 Hours
The world hung suspended from a single strand as thin as a gossamer spider web above the gleaming jaws of death.
Cal Remington sat in his ready room in the command post and reflected on that thought. The prose was too purple to put in a field report, but the summation would stand out in a biography or an episode of The History Channel.
The Ranger captain had no doubt that history was being made and that he would probably figure large in that history. A third of the world’s population had disappeared with no apparent catalyst—except for a sudden border skirmish that had flared up in the Middle East. The Middle East had been a hotbed of terrorism and world threat for decades—centuries even. But the fighting had never been anything like this. Some weapon of unimaginable power had been unleashed, and Remington had been at ground zero.
Rosenzweig’s formula had changed the balance of power within the Middle East. If there was any finger-pointing later, Rosenzweig would surely bear the brunt of the blame. Perhaps the Israeli scientist had come up with the miracle growth serum, but someone else—surely the Russians or the Chinese—had come up with the weapon that had eradicated all the missing people.
But why give it to the Syrians to use?
That was the question.
Sitting behind the desk, Remington rested his elbows on the chair arms and rested his hands together, fingertip pressed to fingertip. He felt tired. He was coming up on almost forty-eight hours without sleep. But he’d never needed that much sleep, and he’d always been able to get from his body what he demanded of it. He wouldn’t accept any less now.
He scanned the notebook computer in front of him. The LCD screen filled the small lightless room with soft blue illumination that grayed out all the color of his BDUs and the blue steel of his Colt .45 lying in the modular holster on the metal desk. An earbud connected him to the computer so that he could listen to the files he wanted to without being overheard.
Now that the Crays were up and running at peak performance, Remington had the files archived off-site where he had access to them for reviewing through the notebook computer. He scanned the FOX and CNN feeds coming through, as well as the OneWorld NewsNet footage.
FOX and CNN covered most of the domestic scene in the United States, including the disaster areas that had been declared in all the major cities. Chicago had been hit hard, and Los Angeles had experienced looting, fires, and riots the likes of which even that city had never seen. D.C., New York, Atlanta all had their own share of troubles. The list went on.
The footage rolled, showing wrecked cars, burning buildings, downed planes shattered across airfields and cities. One catastrophe followed another. Martial law had been declared in several metropolitan areas, but the understaffing of the police, fire, and National Guard units that had experienced even larger percentages of disappearances than the population at large had made it almost impossible to enforce.
A knock sounded at the door.
“Come,” Remington said.
“Sir,” Corporal Waller, one of the computer techs, said, “there’s something on OneWorld NewsNet that you might want to see.”
“What is it, Corporal?” Remington let the irritation he felt at being interrupted sound in his voice.
Waller hesitated.
“You’re burning daylight, mister,” Remington warned.
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. It’s just kind of hard to explain. The OneWorld reporter, she’s with the 75th, Captain.”
That wasn’t news. The presence of the news teams in the area, with the acknowledgement that they couldn’t fault the military in any way, had been one of the concessions Remington had granted to Nicolae Carpathia’s liaison. Evidently Carpathia was planning to address the United Nations when he made an upcoming trip to the United States. The new Romanian president wanted to use some of the footage of the military engagement along the Turkish-Syrian border to make whatever case he was going to present.
“I knew those people were in the area,” Remington said. “As you might recall, I authorized their presence.”
“Yes, sir. I know that, sir. But the story they’re covering. That’s what I thought you might be interested in.”
“What is it?” Remington prepared himself to royally chew out his intelligence teams. If he had to learn of an enemy incursion into the protected territories through a news service, heads were going to roll.
“It’s the 75th, sir. They’re—” the corporal paused.
“Spit it out, soldier.” Uncertainty, one of the feelings that Remington most hated in the world, nibbled at the edges of his confidence. The planned retreat from the border was scheduled on a precarious timetable. He wouldn’t allow anything to circumvent that schedule.
“Well, Captain, there’s a man baptizing soldiers out there.”
At first, Remington was certain he hadn’t heard right. He couldn’t possibly have heard right. “What man?”
“I don’t know, sir. One of ours.”
“Dismissed, Corporal.”
“Yes, sir.” The corporal left with alacrity.
Remington closed the windows and opened a live streaming feed from OneWorld. The screen cleared, showing a beautiful brunette standing in front of a slow-moving stream. He recognized her from earlier transmissions that had basically introduced her to the viewing audience and recapped the situation along the border.
“This is Danielle Vinchenzo of OneWorld NewsNet,” the young woman said. “We’re only a few miles—or klicks, as the soldiers of the United States Army Rangers would say—from the border separating Turkey from Syria. Nearly nine hours have passed since the devastating launch of the SCUD missiles that piled up casualties here at ground zero along the border and several targets deeper into Turkey. The soldiers here—the Rangers, the United Nations peacekeeping effort, and the Turkish army—know they are in for the battle of their lives.”
Glancing past the woman, using the zoom function on the video program, Remington focused on the stream in the background. The cameraman almost had the shot in the frame. He couldn’t recognize the man doing the baptisms, but his actions were plain enough. Remington saw one line that was on the east side of the stream, judging by the sun’s position, made up of soldiers from all three units stationed along the border, as well as civilians. They stood quietly and patiently, and they appeared to be singing.
“Events have gone rather badly for the 75th Rangers,” Danielle said, “as they have for every soldier stationed along the contested border. The death count from this morning’s attack is still not finalized. Nor have the lists been compiled of those who have simply vanished as has happened around so much of the planet.”
Remington clicked the touch pad, bringing the image back to normal.
“But here in the heart of the darkness between these two ancient enemies,” the reporter went on, “a man seems driven to snatch hope from the jaws of despair.”
The video suddenly cut away and brought up stock footage. Remington immediately recognized the replay of Goose carrying the wounded Marine from one of the downed Sea Knight helicopters.
“So many of you are familiar with the horrible accident that knocked Marine reinforcements from the air only two hours after the blistering attack launched by the Syrian military. Many of you first came in contact with this man then.”
The image zoomed in tight on Goose’s face, showing the bloodand the sand-encrusted kerchief over his lower face, and the haunted blue eyes. The scar along his right cheekbone stood out bloodred against sunburned flesh.
Remington had seen the footage several times. Goose was clearly being molded into a hero by the media. But not Goose’s captain. The OneWorld reporter hadn’t sought him out for an interview. The fact chafed him. Goose hated media attention, yet here he was becoming a poster child for the Syrian engagement.
“This is First Sergeant Samuel Adams ‘Goose’ Gander,” Danielle said, “of the United States Army’s 75th Rangers. He helped organize the rescue of Glitter City, the television a
nd media center north of the border, after the initial SCUD launch, then arrived back at the border encampment to bring in reinforcements from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit from the Amphibious Readiness Group in the Mediterranean sea headed by USS Wasp.”
The video changed again, showing a quick snippet of Wasp cutting across the ocean under a full head of steam with helicopters flaring around her.
“In minutes, Sergeant Gander was forced to go from bringing a reinforcement team into the area to helping his flagging troops recover from the devastating attack to rescuing the survivors.”
Video footage rolled, showing Marine helicopters exploding.
Then the image changed and showed Danielle standing on the stream bank again. “With the reinforcements they were promised lying either in the triage area they’ve put together or as casualties across this battleground, with no hope of other reinforcements for some time to come, and knowing that they’ve been left in charge of defending this country, most soldiers would be daunted to say the least. Others might even give up.”
The camera swung past the reporter and focused on the two lines of men that met in the center of the stream. Several of the soldiers carried some wounded on gurneys.
“But the men of the 75th Rangers are not ordinary men,” Danielle said in a voice-over. “They are the best of the best. The cream of the crop. Even now, facing tremendous odds with the Syrian army standing down—at least for the moment—on the other side of the border, these soldiers have found a renewed faith.”
The camera focused on the huge man standing in the middle of the stream. Remington didn’t know the man—yet. But he would, and there would be an accounting two seconds later. The big man placed his hand over the face of a U.N. soldier, then lowered him into the water and raised him.
“I’m told this man, Corporal Joseph Baker, one of Sergeant Gander’s handpicked crew, was an ordained minister who had given up his church after losing his wife and child to tragedy.” Danielle’s voice quieted. “Some said his faith was broken. But Baker has found that faith again, here on one of the bloodiest battlefields that has happened in recent years.”
