Into the Guns (3 page)

“Your job will be to assess the condition of roads and bridges and provide the column with the kind of guidance that will enable it to keep moving. And that's critical. Because if the convoy bogs
down, it might become difficult to keep the evacuees under control, and we'll be sitting ducks if criminal elements attack us. The second platoon will lead the column—and the third will bring up the rear. Platoon leaders will receive their orders by 1300 hours today.”

Hollister looked at Mac. “In the meantime, you are to rotate your people back to their quarters, where they can shower, collect their winter clothing, and gear up. A platoon of Bradleys will relieve your platoon by 1600 hours. Once they do, swing by supply and pick up trailers loaded with MREs and water. We'll have a lot of mouths to feed. Do you have any questions?”

Mac had questions—plenty of 'em. Like, “How the hell can a recon platoon do its job while towing a frigging trailer?” But that sort of thing was best saved for a private conversation—or dispensed with altogether under the circumstances. “I'll get back to you, sir.”

Hollister nodded. His expression was bleak. “Good. This is just the beginning. We're going to move two thousand people. But there are, or were, about 3.5 million people living in the Puget Sound area. Based on initial estimates something like 2.8 million of them are still alive. So our convoy will be the first of many as the government seeks to move at least eight hundred thousand residents east. I'm proud to say that Archer Company was chosen to lead the way.”

Hollister made it
sound
good . . . But as a practical matter, Mac found it hard to believe that the authorities would be able to move that many people across the mountains two thousand at a time. What was that? Something like
sixteen thousand
busloads? Still, they were trying . . . And that beat the alternative.

It was snowing in May. That was what Mac discovered when she rolled out of her rack and crossed the room to peer through the
blinds. It was dark outside, but JBLM's emergency generators were running, and half of the streetlights were on. Mac could see individual snowflakes as they twirled down out of the black sky. Did that mean the weather had started to deteriorate? Because of the persistent overcast? Probably. And would this have a negative effect on crops? The answer was yes. According to one news report the so-called impact winter was going to have a devastating effect on agriculture, causing up to 25 percent of the human population to perish. That would be something like 3.5 billion people! A number so large, Mac couldn't wrap her mind around it. But there was nothing she could do other than help to the extent she could.

Mac had what was likely to be her last hot shower for days to come. It felt good, and she took her time. Once Mac was dressed, there were choices to make. Archer Company was supposed to return to JBLM in a matter of days. And maybe it would. But what if it didn't? Depending on what happened, she might never see her belongings again. So Mac placed the items of greatest importance into her “A” bag. That included all her winter clothing, two hundred dollars' worth of personal items purchased at the PX the evening before, and three framed pictures.

The first was of her mother. Some people said there was a resemblance, and Mac hoped they were right, because Margaret Macintyre had dark hair, intelligent eyes, and a softly rounded face. But unfortunately the woman in the picture had died of cancer shortly after her youngest daughter's tenth birthday. Mac missed her every day.

The second photo was of her father. The general was decked out in his dress uniform and looking into the camera with the implacable stare that he reserved for daughters who fell short of his expectations. Which was to say Mac, since Victoria excelled at everything.

And finally there was a picture of Victoria. It had been taken by one of Mac's friends and sent to her without Victoria's knowledge. In it, Vic could be seen kissing a helicopter pilot—the
same
helicopter pilot Mac had been engaged to at the time.

Had Victoria been in love with the man? Or had she taken him away just for the fun of it? To prove that she could? The answer could be seen in the fact that Vic dumped the pilot one week after Mac ended the relationship.

Then why did you frame the photo?
Mac asked herself.
And, why keep it?
The answer was complicated. To remind herself that Victoria was a bitch? Certainly. Because it was the
only
image of Victoria she had? Maybe and maybe not.

Mac wrapped each picture in a tee shirt before placing them in the bag. The platoon wasn't supposed to take “A” bags because they were too large. But screw that. Mac had instructed Evans to let her people choose. Their “A” bag or a smaller “B” bag. The choice was up to them.

Finally, with her field gear on, her “A” bag in one hand and a rucksack dangling from the other, Mac left the BOQ. A flight of stairs took her down to a door and out into the frigid air beyond. A snowflake kissed her cheek. She didn't look back.

All four of Mac's Strykers were lined up and waiting. The so-called birdcages that surrounded the Strykers made them look big and ungainly but offered protection against rocket-propelled grenades. Each vic had eight wheels and was armed with light machine guns in addition to a .50 caliber machine gun or a grenade launcher.

The Engineer Squad Vehicle or ESV looked different from the rest, however. It had what looked like a bulldozer blade mounted up front. But rather than use the machine for clearing mines, which it was designed to do, Mac planned to move stalled cars with it.
Something they'd do a lot of. It hadn't been easy to get the ESV, though . . . Hollister had been cynical, and Evans was on record saying that the last thing they needed was “a fucking anchor.” But Mac had prevailed in the end, and the ESV had been brought in to replace her fourth truck.

After handing her gear to a private in one-four, Mac went looking for Captain Hollister. He was with the second platoon. “Good morning,” he said, seemingly oblivious to what lay ahead. “How's the first platoon? Did everyone report for duty?”

Mac hadn't thought to ask but knew Evans would have told her if someone had gone over the hill. “The people who were MIA yesterday still are,” she replied. “But the rest of the platoon is here.”

“Good,” Hollister replied. “Two members of the second platoon are AWOL, along with a soldier from the third. All of them have families who live off base.”

Mac winced. It made sense given how bad things were. An effort was under way to bring dependents inside the wire—but that could take weeks. And how would families fare in the meantime? Had she been in their place, Mac might have done the same thing. “Yes, sir. I understand.”

“Okay,” Hollister said as he offered a printout. “Here's the plan. Take your platoon to the Tacoma Mall parking lot, where the buses will be waiting for you. Then you'll lead the column up I-5 and onto Highway 18, which will take you to I-90. From that point, it will be a straight shot up and over the pass. I will ride with the second platoon at the head of the column. Do you have any questions?”

“Yes, sir,” Mac said. “Odds are that at least one of those buses will break down. What then?”

“That's a good question,” Hollister answered. “We will have
forty-two
buses. Two more than we need, plus a fuel tanker, and a wrecker following along behind the column.”

“That's awesome,” Mac said, as she gave Hollister points for planning. It looked as if the ex–desk jockey had a clue. Thank God.

The sky was starting to lighten as the first platoon led Archer Company down Forty-first Division Drive to I-5. Mac was riding in one-two, with her head and shoulders sticking up through the forward air guard hatch. There were two reasons for that. The first was that she wanted a clear view of what was taking place—and the second had to do with her incipient claustrophobia.

So Mac was in a good position to see the Bradleys, the aid station, and the recently established food-distribution point. Two six-bys were parked next to it, and soldiers were busy unloading boxes of MREs for the people lined up to receive them. The line stretched west and under I-5 to the neighborhood beyond. MPs were patrolling the column to prevent people from jumping the queue—and that was critical to keeping the situation under control.

It was cold, though . . . And most of the folks in line were wearing winter coats or had blankets draped over their shoulders. Mac waved at them, and most waved back. That boosted her spirits. The feeling was short-lived, however, as one-two pulled up the ramp and onto the freeway. There was enough light to see by then, and I-5 was strewn with cars, RVs, and trucks. An Apache helicopter roared overhead and disappeared to the south. God help anyone who fired at it.

Having determined the situation to be relatively safe, Mac ordered the ESV to take the lead. Then, with the blade lowered, it began to push cars out of the way so that the other trucks could follow. Most of the abandoned vehicles had been looted. So smashed windows and open doors were a common sight. Items the thieves didn't want lay strewn on the highway. There were a lot of brightly colored toys.

The process went slowly at first.
Too
slowly. But as the ESV's
driver continued to gain confidence, the pace quickened. That, plus the fact that there were occasional open spaces, meant that the rest of the column could travel at a steady 5 mph. Bodies lined the route, and the crows covered them like black shrouds. As the ESV approached, some of the birds were so full, they were barely able to take off.

There were signs of life, however, including pet dogs that didn't know where to go and refugees who came in all shapes and sizes. Some, like a disheveled businessman, were on foot. But there were bicyclists, too . . . Plus people on horses and a steady stream of heavily laden motorcyclists traveling in both directions. Mac tracked them with the machine gun mounted forward of the hatch, but none posed a threat.

It took an hour to make what should have been a fifteen-minute trip. The snow had tapered off by the time they arrived at the mall. The parking lot was strewn with items looted from the stores and later rejected. Dozens of people were picking through the castoffs, searching for shoes that fit them, a jacket for a child, or something to eat.

As the company entered the parking lot on the east side of the Tacoma Mall, Mac saw that while some of the stores were intact, about a third of the complex lay in ruins. According to Hollister, the two thousand people who were going to take a bus ride east had been chosen from roughly five thousand people camped in and around the mall. Were they looters? Hell yes, they were. Although the line between thief and survivalist had started to blur.

A lottery had been held to determine who the “winners” would be—assuming that the people who boarded the buses were better off as a result. But would that occur? The final outcome was anything but certain. As one-two came to a stop, Mac saw that the last passengers were passing through a security checkpoint before
boarding the buses. That's where they were required to temporarily surrender their weapons or remain in Tacoma. A commonsense precaution that was intended to prevent violence along the way.

Some of the buses were yellow and had the words
TACOMA SCHOOL DISTRICT
painted on their flanks. Others were the property of Pierce County Transit and Greyhound. “Archer-Six to Archer-One,” Hollister said over her headset. “Send some people out to verify that each and every bus has a full tank of diesel. Over.”

Mac's estimate of Hollister's competence went up another notch. “This is One. Roger that, over.”

Evans had already dispatched a squad to do Hollister's bidding by the time Mac ducked down into the cargo area and exited through the rear hatch. It took the better part of an hour to check all of the buses, top off tanks, and get the riders settled.

Meanwhile,
more
people had arrived at the mall, and some of them were pissed. Why weren't
they
on one of the buses? Hollister tried to explain, but many of the newcomers refused to listen, and the situation had started to get ugly when Mac received orders to move out. “Clear the way,” Hollister told her. “The second will lead the convoy out—and the third will provide security until the last bus is clear.”

Mac returned to one-two and her position in the front hatch. The ESV led the rest of the platoon out of the parking lot, over I-5, and onto the freeway. That stretch of highway was depressingly similar to what they'd experienced earlier. But things went smoothly until they arrived at the point where an overpass had collapsed onto the freeway, blocking all the northbound lanes.

Mac radioed a warning to Hollister and ordered her vehicles to execute a U-turn. Even though it took fifteen minutes to reach the last exit, they still arrived before the column did and were able to
lead it down a ramp onto a frontage road. It took them north under the portion of the overpass that was still standing.