“Welcome to the war,” Hawk said. “I heard you had a nice vacation.”
So that's how it was going to be. I was relieved. “Glad to be here,” I said.
We stood in the newly built command bunker, a cave blasted into the side of Rendezvous Mountain and filled with desks, maps and radio equipment. Cables snaked along the floor and rows of light bulbs hung from the roof of the cavern, casting a harsh glow and giving the place an eerie feel.
Hawk grinned at me. His blond hair was cut short and his arctic blue eyes searched me intently. “Are you squared away?”
“Yes sir. Fully operational.”
“Cut that sir crap,” Hawk said. “I'm glad to have you back. Colonel Majors will be here any minute along with Chilli. We're working on something I want you in on.” He offered me a cup of coffee and sat down. He looked tired, and there were wrinkles around his eyes I'd never noticed before. He did not look like a surfer boy without a board any more.
I'd left Lamar before dawn in a rickety old single engine Cessna after subdued farewells to Ryder and Crystal. Ryder had clung to me and wailed. With Crystal, it was not as hard as I feared, perhaps because we had been saying goodbye for so long. She had kissed my cheek, squeezed my arm, and that was all.
While we waited for the other men, Hawk updated me on our situation. “We're not as screwed as I thought we'd be,” he said. “But we've got more than our fair share of problems.” Food was at the top of the list. Overall production was down because of the war. Men and women were working in the small factories and machine shops, training with weapons, and on deployments to various forward operating bases. More greenhouses were under construction. Swimming pools were converted to self-sustaining algae and fish farms. Hunters foraged in the wilds for dwindling game while herds of livestock were shrinking. Convoys brought in food daily from outlying areas. Jackson was becoming too large to sustain itself.
Because of the food and labor shortage, Hawk had released the Gideonites and granted safe passage for those that wanted to leave for Salt Lake City. Most chose to stay.
“And then there is maintenance,” Hawk said. “The aircraft are all maintenance pigs. There are a lot of parts we can't make any more. Our Air Force is eating itself for spare parts. Half our birds are held together with duct tape and maple syrup.” Hawk paced around the table, full of nervous energy. “And of course we're low on ammunition and ordnance. I thought we had enough stockpiled for World War Four. It's amazing how fast we go through it, and the real fight hasn't even started yet.”
He explained that a train had gone east, risking going into hot zones to resupply the hungry machines of war. In the East there were many nuclear power plants that had melted down since The Fall, adding to the already radioactive land from the thermonuclear weapons launched by China and Russia. Hawk hoped that farther east there would be army depots and armories that had not been pillaged.
Men began to file into the room, dressed in a variety of fatigues. Chilli walked up to me and clasped my shoulder. “It's good to see you, brother.” He leaned in and said “How are Crystal and Ryder?”
I shrugged. “They're being strong.” The truth was, I wasn't really sure.
He peered into me intently. “And you?”
“I'm all right,” I said.
Colonel Dan Majors entered drinking a huge cup of coffee. His eyes crinkled when he saw me and he shook my hand. “Young William,” he said around his pipe, “you've been missed.”
“Sir,” I said. We sat down at a table.
“Colonel, why don't we discuss Dugway?” Hawk said.
“It's here,” Colonel Dan said, pointing at a map laid out on the table, “about eighty five miles southwest of the city. We've got a four man recon team led by Max keeping eyes on it from a healthy distance. The base is heavily guarded and throbbing with activity.”
“What are they doing?”
“We don't know what we don't know,” Colonel Dan said, “And we can't figure out how to get in there. They're probably cooking up something nasty.”
“I'd like to bomb it off the map,” Hawk said. “But we're afraid of unleashing something we can't contain. So that's a last option.”
“We need to take it,” Chilli said. “If we can get control of the base, we might be able to force Gideon into a truce.”
“The problem with that is,” Colonel Dan said, “most of their army is just up the road from the base. We couldn't hold it.”
“So,” Hawk interjected, “we are going to draw them out. A two pronged attack that engages their armor and pulls them away from the proving ground, then we'll drop in to Dugway and try to hold it.”
“An all-out assault,” Chilli said. “But it leaves the Hole vulnerable.”
“The enemy is already massing for an attack,” Colonel Dan said. “We'd rather hit them on our time frame, not theirs.”
“What's our schedule?” I asked.
“It starts in a week,” Colonel Dan replied. “Two at the most. We'll start bombing runs while we're moving up our artillery and armor. The ground assault will begin a week after that.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“A diplomatic mission to Anchorage,” Hawk said. “They've offered to loan us a C-17 Globemaster loaded for bear. I want you to fly up there with Arthur and bring it back. Most important, I want you to convince them to give up a nuke. I've got a hunch that they didn't disarm. Get it and bring it back.”
Something in my face must have given me away. “Don't worry,” Chilli said, “When you get back here you'll be leading an elite group of Rangers. There will be plenty of war left for you. It'll be a quick trip. We can get you there in an F-15 in a few hours.”
“Why me?”
“You're trusted up in Alaska,” Hawk said. “I would go, but I've got too much on my plate here. I'd send the Governor, but frankly they don't trust him. They know all about you. If you convince them to help us, it could make the difference.” He hesitated. “Also, we want to sell the idea to Gideon that you've gone and done this. Even if Anchorage won't or can't give us a weapon, if Gideon believes we have one, that could change things.”
I disagreed with the idea that having a nuclear weapon would be a deterrent to a man like Gideon, but I held my tongue. Having more aircraft in Jackson was a win in itself. And if I could somehow convince them to commit to more help, even better.
The briefing went on for several hours. Colonel Dan outlined our defensive strategy for Jackson and Sinclair and Chilli went into specifics for the planned assault on Gideon in Salt Lake and at the Dugway Proving Ground. I paid close attention, but said little. I felt their eyes on me, gauging my strength and looking for signs of weakness. Worse, I caught hints of sympathy directed my way and that made me angry. I carelessly knocked over my drink while reaching across the table to point at the map, trying to illustrate my concern that the enemy might try to flank us at Sinclair, and I spilled coffee on the map. Rather than bust my chops for my clumsiness and laugh derisively, at least a little, they ignored it. Later, Colonel Dan mentioned his newborn granddaughter, in the context of being worried about a counterattack on Jackson. As soon as the words left his mouth, Hawk and Chilli looked ashen, and then unflappable Colonel Dan himself sputtered and began to pack his pipe. Though these were small things, I needed their trust, not their pity.
Perhaps because I wanted to feel normal, I requested a bunk with the Rangers I would be fighting with, men who did not know me yet, but who would be like brothers to me. It was mid-afternoon when I found them drilling on one of the firing ranges. I was feeling chaffed and grumpy.
“Who's in charge here?” I said. I was shouting in the startled ear of a soldier lying prone with an M-16. He leaned sideways and looked me in the eye.
“Who the hell are you?” he said.
“I'm your new CO. Your Sargent?”
“That would be Sargent Major Gonzalez, sir,” he said. The man stood up and executed a salute. He pointed at another soldier several men down the line, sighting down a sniper rifle. I stalked over to Gonzalez.
“Sargent Major,” I hollered.
He stood but did not salute, merely looked at me like I was crazy. He was a compact truck of a man, of average height and considerable muscle. He wore a dark scruffy beard and shoulder length hair, and I guessed him to be roughly in his early thirties at the time, but would learn he was actually forty-five when I met him.
Gonzo, as he was known by his men, had fought in Afghanistan with the 101st Airborne before The Fall, and since then had soldiered for the Alliance. He was a rare combination of intelligence and lethality who had passed up continuous opportunities because he loved his unit. He was like an oak tree, deeply rooted and dignified in a solid kind of way.
He cocked his head and looked at me like I was something stuck to the bottom of his boot. “All right then.”
I liked him immediately. I offered my hand. “I'm William Fox. I guess we should get this started.”
Recognition and amusement flickered on his face and he was neither impressed nor full of guarded sympathy. He put my hand in a vise grip and grinned. “Sir,” he said. The other men were getting up and gathering around expectantly.
“Men, this is our new commanding officer,” Gonzo said. His voice was a machine gun with just a trace of LA barrio in his inflection. “Apparently he is aware of our Ranger traditions and he has come to greet us properly.” Some of the men snickered. There were thirty of them.
I removed my sidearm and my Ka-Bar and put them on the ground. The men formed a ring around me, smirking and looking hungry.
There has always been violence in me, mostly coiled and rippling underneath, contained, but sometimes unleashed with bloody consequence. In this world, that is not necessarily a bad thing. Before The Fall, men demonstrated prowess and manhood by making money and providing security for mates with wealth, taking pride in a new BMW as a peacock might be glad of its tail, and building mansions full of pretty, useless things that glittered and shone. Lawyers were proxy fists and the law itself a shield they hid behind in the event that life became unpleasant. Most of the fabulously wealthy died behind their walls along with the rest of the world. Money could not save them from Cholera, Tarantula, a missile, or a bullet, and their gated neighborhoods were no impediment to the roving hordes of starving and sick who were willing to kill for a can of cat food. There was no suit to cower behind, no policeman to write a citation, and no judge to deliver a verdict. If someone wanted something, they took it. Among the elite military units, men were not so “vaginized,” as Gunny used to say, and the Alpha male was still encouraged to be a powerful predator, aggressive and full of fang. Despite years of peace, those who survived The Fall were no strangers to violence, and the children who became men in the aftermath were not the soft, video game playing, spoiled and entitled kids of my own generation. My hackles were raised as I faced the men.
It was brutal and quick. The first two rushed me, a big blond man named Lutz and a small man named Veejay. I learned to know them well, but they were tentative and probably trying not to hurt me. I repaid reticence with violence and they lay at my feet gasping for the wind knocked from their lungs. An elbow and a fist and they were down, and I didn't pull my punches.
“Speed, surprise, and violence of action!” I shouted. And that was that. The men howled and tackled me and I tapped out about two seconds later, my face in the dirt and my right arm pinned painfully behind my back. It was glorious.
Over the coming weeks, I would never know when an onslaught might take place. I could be emerging from an outhouse or trying to enjoy a first cup of morning coffee and they would attack me. There were black eyes and bloody noses, bruised balls and stitched lips, and it was worth it because the men came to respect me as one of their own, not just as an officer, not as someone they had heard about, but as someone they knew was as crazy as they were. Sometimes I would win against two or three of the smaller men, but mostly I got whooped. Gonzo chose to stay out of the fray; he had already proved himself to his men.
We trained together at the airport, practicing breaching and clearing rooms, moving building to building as a single minded entity.
*
We were returning to Jackson from a three day patrol south of town, our feet blistered and sore from covering sixty miles of rough terrain when we encountered the first of the infected. It was not yet fully light and we were marching in a ragged line down an exposed grassy hillside toward a blacktop road hugging deep forest. Gonzo, who was on point, dropped to one knee and raised his fist. We all sank silently.
A man stood in the middle of the road holding an assault rifle, more than a hundred yards down the hill from our position.
“Ho there!” Gonzo shouted.
The man whirled around and began spraying the hillside with rounds. Gonzo dropped him with a head shot.
“Anyone hit?” I yelled.
The men sounded off and no one was wounded. I crawled forward to where Gonzo lay. “What do you think?” I said.
“Send a team down to investigate. We'll hang back in case he has friends.” With hand signals he conveyed orders to the two machine gun teams, who set out in opposite directions to find suitable positions. Our machine guns were Browning fifty caliber “Ma Deuces,” and accounted for most of our firepower. The heavy weapons required one man to carry the tripod while another carried the gun itself. One man fired the weapon while the other handled the ammunition. The mortar team began to set up while the rest of us spread out along the hillside, seeking cover behind small rocks.
The four man team ran down the slope and onto the road. One bent to examine the dead man while the others kept their eyes on the woods.
Three of our men fell before we heard the shots. The soldier who had been crouching to look at the gunman stood and began to run back up the hill but he was cut down by a fusillade of bullets. Our mortar crew began firing and the woods exploded. I was trying to acquire targets but I could see nothing moving in the forest.
The machine gun teams let loose with the fifties and saplings and small trees fell under the barrage.
“Cease fire!” Gonzo shouted.
I stared down the sights of my M-16 and saw nothing. Smoke and the smell of propellant filled the air. The enemy was still shooting. I saw a muzzle flash and fired. The machine gunners started again and the mortars rained down.
Inexplicably, the enemy charged from the woods. They burst from the forest howling and shooting and I tried to make myself small as I returned fire. It was over in less than ten seconds. The heavy fifties shredded the enemy and left them lying torn and bloody in the road.
“Hold!” Gonzo ordered. We waited for a few minutes and there was no movement. Finally we went down to the road as a unit, with only the machine gunners and mortar teams left on the hillside. All four of our men who had been caught in the ambush were dead.
“That was the dumbest thing I've ever seen,” Gonzo said.
I was looking at a dead man, one of his arms torn almost completely off from a heavy round, and a football sized hole through his chest. His open eyes stared lifelessly into mine. The right side of his face and neck was being eaten by a hairy black spider larger than my hand. The fine stalks of the Tarantula fungus marked every one of the dead attackers.