“Hooah!” The squad pulled themselves off the floor and hurried to their firing positions.
Alex took another longing look at the back door and went into a den that doubled as a guest bedroom. The mattress and bedding had been removed, leaving a metal bedframe. He took his assigned position next to Jack at the window.
“We were doing fine before the God squad showed up,” Donnie said from the hallway. “The libs come at us, we’ll kick their ass like always.”
The men cheered. Even now, they refused to believe the libs could fight. But the libs were coming, fractious yet now united, three militias strong with all their captured weapons, which now included flamethrowers.
It was time to start planning how to get out of Dodge. “Hey, Jack.”
“I told you I’m out.”
“That’s not what I—”
A house down the street exploded with a deafening crash.
“Contact!” Donnie yelled and started shooting.
Alex peered out the window in time to see a muzzle flash across the street. He threw a few rounds at it.
“Conserve your ammo,” Tom called out. “I want aimed fire.”
Judging by the gunfire in the distance, most of the lib militia were mopping up the Angels. Black smoke drifted in the air from battle fires. The enemy in front of them weren’t attacking; they were skirmishing.
“What were you going to say?” Jack said.
Alex withdrew his rifle from the window. “We should get out of here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean go find someplace where nobody tells us what to do or tries to kill us.”
“Don’t even say that,” Jack hissed. “They’ll shoot us.”
“The Angels used flamethrowers on them. They yanked wounded fighters out of the clinic and murdered them. You know that happened, you were there. The libs just wiped them out, and they’re coming for us next. They’re out for blood.”
Jack aimed and let off a burst. “We can’t just walk out the door.”
“All we have to do is hang back during the attack and be ready to bolt. When the libs break through, we run and don’t look back.”
“That’s the dumbest plan ever.”
“You got a better idea?”
“I don’t know, bro. Surrender?”
“Think about what we did to them. They’ll shoot us with our hands in the air.”
“I don’t know! What else can we do?”
Alex had no answer for him. Mortar rounds crashed in the distance.
Jack sighed. “Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“If they come at us like you think they will, we’ll keep an eye out for our chance to run.”
“Good.” Alex was glad to have his friend with him on this. “Until then, all we have to do is stay alive.”
Jack snorted and went back to shooting out the window. “Is that all?”
The hours rolled by trading potshots with the libs. They might not attack until tomorrow, but when they did, Alex would be ready. When the bullets started flying, he’d shoot Sergeant Shook in the head and get the hell out of here.
Shook had taught him the war was one big joke. Alex would be happy to teach him in return that sometimes, the joke’s on you.
FIFTY-FOUR
A woman Hannah didn’t know led her by the hand. She was Indy 300. They were on the same side, so Hannah trusted her. She gripped her AK-47 in her other hand just in case.
“I’m Imani,” the woman said.
Hannah walked in a daze. She was alive, her friend was dead, and nothing was fair. She flinched at a fresh round of gunfire crackling in the distance.
“You don’t have to worry about them,” Imani said. “That shooting is us mopping up. After what they did to us and our neighborhood, I doubt there will be any of them left.”
“You have a pretty name,” Hannah said.
The woman looked down at her and smiled. “It’s African. Kiswahili, actually. It means faith. What’s your name?”
Hannah, she thought. My name’s Hannah. It spells the same forward and backward. Mom told me she’d named me after Hannah Montana.
She let out a wracking sob. After watching her father die in the wreck and her mother hauled off the road like garbage, she’d thought it would have gotten easier to lose somebody she loved, but it only got harder.
Hannah had to face her helpless grief all over again. She stopped walking, overcome with a need to cry so powerful she doubled over retching.
“Jesus… Are you okay?”
“I’ve got her!” a familiar voice called out. “I’ll take her home. Thank you for bringing her back.” Kristy appeared at her side and hugged her. “Oh my God. What did they do to you?”
“I want my mom,” Hannah wailed.
Then Kristy was crying too. “I know. I know you do.”
Still holding each other, they trudged back to headquarters. Sabrina hurried outside and knelt in front of Hannah. “My good, brave girl. I’m so glad you’re okay.”
“They’re all dead,” Hannah said. “They didn’t run.”
“Come inside and get warm.”
The headquarters staff’s eyes widened as she entered the house. Her jacket was charred. She was covered in black soot. Her face was raw and aching.
Then she was surrounded by smiling faces as the girls mobbed her.
“Let me through, sisters,” the medic said. The woman inspected Hannah’s face and wet a cotton ball with alcohol. “This is going to sting.”
Hannah winced as the medic dabbed her cuts. “What did I miss?”
The girls all shouted at once. They told her what she already knew. First Angels. Human-wave attack concentrated along a small front, led by flamethrowers. Horrible casualties. The Indy 300 and Rainbow Warriors surrounding and destroying them.
“We didn’t fight today,” Kristy said. “But we will tonight.”
“You’re fighting tonight?” Hannah said.
“We’re all fighting,” Sabrina said. “All of us. One last fight.”
Hannah glanced at the strategic map behind the commander. It had been completely redrawn. The X’s were where she remembered them, but there were a lot more O’s. Three militias, now united.
“What’s going on?” she said.
“We’re going to break the rebel line and end the siege.”
“Boom,” Kristy said.
“Boom!” the girls yelled.
The medic applied Band-Aids and gave Hannah a bottle of water and handful of chewable vitamins. “You’re good to go, sister.”
She pictured the war ending. No more fighting, no more snipers, no more living in terror. “What about me?”
“You’ve done enough for one day,” Sabrina said. “I think you’ve earned a rest.”
Hannah said nothing. Instead, she raised her clenched fist over her head. A simple salute that symbolized support, solidarity, resistance.
The commander nodded. “I guess you’ve also earned the choice.”
“I don’t want to be a runner. I want to fight.”
“Tonight, you’ll do both. But first…” She held out her hand.
Hannah tightened her grip on her AK. “I fought today.”
“I’m going to trade you something better.”
Hannah followed her into the kitchen, where fourteen green canvas messenger bags rested on the floor. The commander opened one.
Connected by wires, brick-shaped boxes filled the bag.
Hannah stepped back. “Is that a bomb?”
“Five pounds of C-4. A Christmas present from the IMPD. Don’t worry, it’s safe until it’s armed.”
“What am I supposed to do with it?”
“Deliver it to the Liberty Tree at midnight. Sergeant Martinez will give you an address on North Holmes. You sneak up on the house, set the timer, and drop the bag in a window.”
“Okay.”
“Then you run as fast as you can. Got it? You run. Twenty seconds is all you get before
one hell of a bang.”
“Okay,” Hannah repeated, a little less certain.
Sabrina’s eyes probed hers. “Did Abigail ever tell you why we’re fighting?”
“We fight for justice.”
“That’s right. A fair shake. But there will never be justice for anybody if we don’t win. That’s my cause. Kill all fascists. Until we do, everything else is just bullshit. Understand? If we kill the few, we’ll save the many.”
“I think I understand.” She didn’t like it, but after what she’d suffered today, maybe Sabrina was right. There was no other way of dealing with them.
“I’d rather not have you anywhere near the fighting, but this is it. The big one. After the houses go up, I need every fighter I’ve got for the assault.”
Hannah pictured dropping her satchel on Mitch and the giant and blowing them sky-high. “I’ll do it.”
Kristy called: “Hannah, get back here.”
“Wait,” the commander said. She unbuckled her gun belt with its handgun in a leather holster. She handed it over. “You earned it. I’m proud of you, sister.”
Hannah held it in a tight grip. “Thank you.”
In the living room, Kristy huddled with the other girls, all twelve wrapping their arms around one another to form a tight circle. Hannah joined them and became part of something bigger than herself, something that was both loving and strong.
“Sisters,” Kristy said. “Tonight, the war’s going to end, and we’re going to end it. We’re going to pay them back for what they did to Maria. I love all of you.”
The huddle broke up. Hannah sighed at the sudden loss of warmth.
Kristy said, “Hannah, you’re with me. Pack up some food and get your bag.”
Sergeant Martinez gave them all addresses and a lesson on how to prime the bomb and set the timer. Twenty seconds then boom. The sergeant issued rations and blankets and gave each of them a kiss on the forehead.
The girls trooped out of the house.
A band of Rainbow Warriors marched past. At the sight of the girls, they raised their fists.
Hannah smiled back. Tonight, her war would be over, making all the suffering and loss finally mean something.
“Come on,” Kristy said.
They shouldered their heavy packs and canteens and started walking. The front line smoldered. The morning’s fighting had razed an entire block to the ground. They skirted this wasteland and ran into an Indy 300 patrol, which guided them to the house where they’d stay until it was time to attack.
Inside, a powerfully built woman wearing a blue head scarf greeted them. “Welcome to the 300. I’m Vicky.” She fixed her fierce gaze on Hannah. “You fought this morning. You’re the girl who held the Alamo.”
“I’m Hannah,” she said shyly. “This is Kristy.”
“This is my crew.”
The fighters smiled and waved from the floor, where they’d set up a Coleman stove. Only one didn’t, a man aiming his rifle out the window.
Vicky read the addresses they gave her. “You’re in the right place. Can I see it?”
Hannah opened her messenger bag. “Five pounds of C-4.”
The fighter whistled and gestured for the girls to follow her to the window. “Hannah, take a quick peek out there. You’ll see a gray house right across the street. That one’s yours. Kristy, your house is next to it on the right.”
Hannah raised her head. The house seemed abandoned and very, very far away. She caught a flicker of movement and ducked as a muzzle flash lit up a window. The round smacked into the siding.
“Pick your own spot, but stay low,” Vicky said. “We’ll keep them busy until midnight. You rock those houses, and we’ll come running. Any questions?”
“Did you get your name because there are three hundred of you?” Hannah said.
“There used to be.” The fighter pointed at the floor. “Wait.”
Hannah and Kristy sat and unwrapped their meal, which consisted of hunks of hard cheese and stale granola bars.
“Let’s see your arm,” Kristy said.
Hannah rolled up her sleeve to reveal the gang’s Venus symbol, skull and crossbones, and a banana that originally was intended to be a sword, Maria’s idea of a joke: Hannah was now forever Hannah Banana.
“Maria just wanted to be a kid,” she said.
“We’re not kids anymore. Roll up your sleeve as high as you can. This is going to be a big one. Any ideas?”
“I want you to write Maria’s name.”
“I love that.”
“Then I’ll do you.”
Kristy shook her head. “I haven’t earned it. You can give me one tomorrow, and I’ll give you another. An angry smiley face with a burning wick.”
Hannah slumped against the wall and gnawed her cheese while Kristy inked her arm. “What are you going to do after the war?”
“Find my mom.”
“Oh. I thought she was…”
“No, she’s in San Francisco. I flew out here to see my dad. During the troubles, he… I ended up stranded here.”
“It’s nice you have a home you can go back to when it’s all over, though.”
Kristy finished coloring the R. “Do you really think we can go back to the way it was before?”
“I guess not.”
“What about you?”
“I don’t think about it.”
“But you have a brother, right?”
Hannah gestured outside. “They’re making him fight for them.”
Kristy stopped drawing. “You don’t think he’s in one of those houses, do you?”
“He’s a kid. They probably have him behind the line.” She didn’t want to think about that either.
“You always have a home with me, you know. After the war, if you don’t have anywhere to go, you can come with me to San Francisco.”
Hannah tried to picture it. “We’d be sisters.”
“We already are. Okay, I’m done. Check it out.”
Hannah inspected her tattoo. MARIA in big black letters. “It’s good.”
The skirmishing tapered off as the sun went down. The Indy 300 stopped talking and extinguished the Coleman.
The world seemed to hold its breath.
Hannah wrapped herself in her blanket. She was so tired that her eyes hurt, but she didn’t think she’d ever sleep again. She slid into a deep slumber anyway, wracked by feverish nightmares filled with flamethrowers and Maria crying for help.
A hand was shaking her.
She sat up with a cry. “Stop it!”
The room was dark and cold. She looked around in alarm.
“It’s all right,” a voice said. “You’re all right. Be quiet.”
She focused on Vicky’s face. “What happened? Where’s Kristy?”
“Your friend left already to get in position. It’s almost midnight.”
Hannah took a deep breath and let it go. “Give me my bag.”
This was it. One last night. One last fight.
FIFTY-FIVE
His watch nearly over, Alex dozed at the window. As usual, he couldn’t sleep when he had the chance, and now he could barely stay awake.
The libs had fired at the house at random intervals all day. At sundown, the shooting stopped, making for uneventful watch duty. Behind him, the squad snored in their sleeping bags. Outside, the world was quiet.
Too quiet, he thought in an ominous movie voice.
As if. Right now, there was no such thing as too quiet. Very quiet was just how he liked it. Still, it was unnerving, knowing the enemy slept right across the street.
Nothing to see out there. Almost pitch-black.
Tom’s sleeping bag rustled. “There he goes! Shoot him!”
Nothing to worry about. Everybody in the squad knew the veteran muttered in his sleep, dreaming of some horror he’d lived during the war. Or maybe it was the other war he and Mitch always talked about, the one in Afghanistan, which had started before Alex was born.
He wondered why Tom and
the other guys kept at it, despite the toll it was taking. If Alex commanded the militia, he would have sent everybody home by now. They liked to fight, he got that part. They wanted respect. They fought for liberty. Because they were angry.
Alex wanted to be free to drive a car, stay up as late as he felt like, skateboard, and watch his favorite shows on TV. He wanted the kind of respect where guys weren’t always riding each other in a tiring game of dominance. He wasn’t angry at the government; he was angry at the man who hurt his family.
He found Jack and kicked his foot.
His friend sat upright, already reaching for his rifle. “What’s that?”
“Your turn for watch.”
“Aw, man.” The kid left his warm sleeping bag and stumbled to the window.
“Have fun.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Alex went outside. The air was tangy with the smell of smoke and burnt chemicals. The stars shimmered in the haze. A quick walk brought him to the house next door. Bravo was awake.
A militiaman let him in. “Hey, Rambo. You want a beer?”
“Sure.”
“Get your ass in here,” Sergeant Shook said from another room. “What’s the word?”
Alex passed through the kitchen and down a short hallway. He entered the living room and looked around. It had a similar floor plan as his billet. He noted the windows, where Shook would stand tomorrow facing the enemy.
“No word, Sarge,” he said. “It’s quiet out there.”
The squad sat around an LED lantern with a red bandana draped over it to dim the light. A small portable stove burned wood for heat. The soldier they called Blister stood watch at the window wearing night-vision goggles.
“Well, they’re coming tomorrow,” Shook said. “Sure as shit.”
“Yeah.”
“You going to sit with us and have a beer, or just stand there?”
“I’m too wired.”
“You won’t even look at me is what I’m noticing. Maybe you’re nervous about my Christmas present. A certain debt you owe me.”
Alex’s eyes circled the sergeant before settling on him. He tried to smile, but it came out a grimace. Shook didn’t smile back.
“It’s all a big joke, right?”
The big sergeant burst out laughing. The rest of the squad joined in.
Our War Page 28
