Surviving the Dead 03: Warrior Within (18 page)

A glance to my right showed me a broad, overgrown field of chest-high grass stretching off for maybe three hundred yards before terminating at a narrow road. A cluster of trees and small houses stood on the other side. I could only see their roofs, which meant that from that distance, unless they had a telescope and a ladder, there was no way they could see me.

I squatted down, kept my head below the sill of the first window, and walked along the edges of my feet until I was standing beneath the window directly behind Jacobs’s chair. A conversation was already in progress, and by pressing my head close to the wall just below the bottom edge, I could make out what they were saying.

“… Riordan’s on board, sir. I’ll need a couple of weeks to get him ready, but we should still be able to stick to the new timetable.”

A sigh. “That’s the first good news I’ve had all day. Assuming he really is up to the task.”

A short pause. I could almost see Steve nodding in his patient way. “If anyone in this town is, sir, it’s him.”

“Fine. You’ve done a good job so far, Captain. I trust you’ll continue to do so. Have you taken Riordan’s statement about the incident yesterday?”

Incident? Christ’s sake, is that all they think of it?

“Not yet. I’m going to pay him another visit this afternoon. I was hoping you would come along and hear it for yourself.”

The general’s tone was impatient when he answered. “Captain, we already have several viable candidates for the program, and they all have exemplary service records. I fail to see what a civilian with no formal training would have to offer that they can’t.”

“You see, sir, that’s the problem,” Steve said. “They’re all military and law-enforcement types. They stick to the strictures of their training. The situations that these new operators are going be facing are highly unconventional, and adhere not in the least to the rules and tactics that were effective for these kinds of things before the Outbreak. Riordan doesn’t suffer from that handicap. As much as I hate to use this phrase, in this case it applies—he thinks outside the box. He’s quick-minded, resourceful, personable, and highly adaptive to his environment. Rather than solely counting on his training, he uses whatever is around him, be it people or materials, to find clever solutions to difficult problems. Beyond that, he has a sense of presence that tends to inspire trust, and in terms of combat skills, he’s on the scale of an Army Ranger with combat experience and high-level marksmanship. He might not have formal training, but his abilities are nonetheless quite remarkable.”

Jacobs was quiet for a long moment. I heard a creak that told me he was leaning back in his chair. “Captain McCray, you know I lean heavily on your advice, but on this one, I must admit I have my doubts.”

“Which is why I want you to be there when I speak with him,” Steve said quickly. “From what the others who were there yesterday have told me, his performance under fire was impressive. And having seen him in action myself, I don’t doubt the validity of their statements.”

“All right, fine. I’ll go with you and hear the man out. But I’m not making any promises, understood?”

“Perfectly.”

There were a few seconds of silence, then a scrape of plastic on wood. “Here’s Garrett’s statement,” Jacobs said. “Go ahead and get reports from Grabovsky and anyone else you think might know anything, and compile a report to send back to Command. Great Hawk and Marshall are working on getting generators up and running, so you should have a 3G connection available before the end of the day.”

McCray said, “Secure connection?”

“As best we can manage, yes. It’ll have to do.”

“Understood, sir.” In a lower voice, he asked, “Speaking of electricity, is Command still going to be sending us a facilitator?”

“As of now, yes, but not until we deal with the insurgency here. Facilitators are too valuable to risk sending into hot zones. The sooner you take care of this so-called Free Legion, the sooner you can help these people get the lights back on.”

A few seconds pause. Again, I could almost see McCray nodding, his yellow eyes narrowed in thought.

“Sir, there’s something else you should know about. Something Grabovsky found yesterday after the skirmish.”

Jacobs said, “And what’s that?”

“The weapons that the Legion were using, the AK-47s. They all matched the descriptions of the weapons recovered in Nevada. Same manufacturer, same ammo. Near as we can tell, anyway.”

Jacobs was silent for a few seconds. “How many did you recover?”

“A lot, I don’t have an exact number yet. Grabovsky is out there with a work crew today gathering them up and collecting the corpses. Great Hawk is going out there later to see what he can find out.” 

“If anybody can make some sense out of this, it’ll be the tracker,” Jacobs replied.

“Do you think this has anything to do with the ROC?” Steve said.

“Could be,” Jacobs replied. “The flotilla pulls into Humboldt Bay, secures the waterfront, offloads their ships, and a couple of months later, the ROC is suddenly a major player. Can’t be a coincidence.”

“But if they’re making arms shipments to the Legion, who else are they supplying?” Steve asked.

“That’s the million-dollar question, Captain. I think we both know the answer to that.”

There was a creak and a rustle as one of them stood up. It was faint, so I figured it was Steve.

“One last thing, sir.”

“Hmm?”

“How did things go with Garrett? I thought I heard raised voices.”

Jacobs chuckled, but it was mirthless. “Once again, you get to say I told you so.”

“He refused?”

“I think at one point he actually called me a dumbfuck. I’m not sure, I was too busy being scared shitless the big fucker was gonna jump over the desk and snap me like a twig before Sergeant Krymeier could do anything about it.”

There was a smile in McCray’s voice. “Yes, he has that effect on people.”

I smirked. Nice to know I still had the old magic.

“There anything else you need, Captain? Anything you want me to have sent out to you?”

“Not right now, no. I should have everything I need for the time being.”

“All right then. I’ll be in meetings until about sixteen-hundred. Come by and get me after that, and we’ll go see about this Riordan character.”

“Will do, sir.”

The door opened and shut again. I crept to the end of the building and listened as McCray’s footsteps marched off toward the north side of town, growing fainter and fainter until they were out of earshot. Risking a quick peek around the corner, I saw that no one else was around, and set off toward town hall as quickly as I could without running.

Liz was going to be very interested to hear about this.

By the time Steve returned with General Jacobs that afternoon, my hangover had mostly faded.

Not all the way, but enough that I could eat without throwing up, and I could move my head without a hammer pounding away at the interior of my skull. Mike’s hooch was quality stuff, but it would be a long time before I let myself drink that much of it again.

Feeling less shaky, I spent the latter part of the day cleaning and working on small projects around the house until, at about a quarter after four, a pair of footsteps stopped at the front door. I opened it before Steve had a chance to knock, and he stood startled for a moment with his knuckles poised in the air.

“Come on in, gentlemen.” I made a gesture with my arm, waited as they stepped by, and shut the door behind them.

“Have a seat,” I said. “I’ll be right with you.”

While the two soldiers made themselves comfortable on the couch, I put a kettle on the stove and popped two more painkillers. It wouldn’t do to spend the conversation with teeth my gritted and wincing every time I turned my head. I had an idea where this meeting was about to go, and it would behoove me to stay sharp.

“Here you go fellas.” I placed a large silver try on the coffee table.

“Is that real sugar?” Steve asked.

“Yep.” I smirked. “Scavenging is risky business, but for the brave, the rewards are many.”

I poured a cup for each of the men, one for myself, and sat back in my chair. Steve was hesitant as he spooned a small amount of sugar into his cup, as though not quite sure how much propriety allowed him to take.

“Take all you want,” I said, gesturing to the small bowl. “I’ve got plenty.”

Steve glanced at me. “You know how much this stuff is worth, right?”

I nodded.

“Well, hell,” Jacobs chimed in. “If you’re offering, I’m not too proud to take it. I can’t remember the last time I had sugar.”

They dug in again, more generously this time, and practically moaned as they sipped the hot tea.

“My God,” Steve said. “You know, you go so long without having this stuff, you forget how good it is. Can’t believe I ever took it for granted.”

Jacobs chuckled. “I find myself feeling that way about a great many things these days.”

“Amen to that,” I said.

We were quiet for a while after that, to the point where it began to grow awkward. Finally, Steve cleared his throat and set his cup down on the table.

“I appreciate the hospitality, but we do have some business to take care of this afternoon.” He reached into a pocket, took out a digital recorder and pressed a button on it. “Test, test.” He clicked another button, played his voice back, then cleared it and handed it to me.

“We need to get a statement from you about what happened yesterday. I’m putting together a report to send back to Central Command, and hopefully if we can show them how bad things are getting out here, we can convince them to send us more troops.”

“That would be nice,” I said.

“Anything you can remember will help us, Eric, anything at all. Just start from the beginning, and tell us as much as you can remember.”

I tapped my fingers on the recorder, hesitating. “You know, everything happened really fast, it’s kind of a blur. I’m not sure if I can remember all of it.”

“Don’t worry about it. Just do the best you can. I’ll ask questions along the way to help jog your memory.”

I took a deep breath and turned on the recorder. It took me the better part of an hour to tell all of it, and when I was done, a few things stood out, and one minor mystery was solved.

When I expressed concern over the fact that the Legion had known what direction the Chinook was coming from, Steve provided a simple explanation: The chopper had come in on the exact same vector the crew had used the day before. Anybody with a pair of eyes and a sense of direction could have found that path and set a trap on it. I was a little embarrassed that I hadn’t thought of that myself, but it was a lesson learned. General Jacobs said he would make sure the aircrews didn’t repeat that mistake.

Another point of significance was the weapons the Legion used during the firefight. The M-16s could have been scavenged from any number of places, but the AK-47s were a mystery. Civilian versions were cheap and fairly abundant before the Outbreak, but the ones the Legion used had fully automatic capability—not something that would have been available in large numbers. I watched the general while I talked about it, and he grew strangely pensive.

“Something on your mind, Phil?” I asked.

He opened his mouth, hesitated, closed it, and then drummed his fingers on his knee for a few seconds while deciding what to say. “I don’t want to go spreading ridiculous rumors, but I’ve read a few reports from our outposts out west that have me thinking …”

Steve and I watched him while he ruminated, and finally he said, “There’s a large group of separatists out in California and Oregon who, according to what our scouts tell us, all seem to be armed with an inordinately large number of AK-47s, most likely of Chinese manufacture. I can’t help but wonder if the two things might not be related.”

Steve and I exchanged a glance and were both still while we pondered that.

“Well, either way,” Steve said, “it doesn’t change what we have to do. We know what they’re armed with now, and we can plan accordingly. That’s the important thing. I’ll talk to Grayson Morrow tonight and see if he knows anything about it.”

Jacobs conceded the point with a nod and turned his attention back my way. “Is there anything else you can think of that might be important? Anything at all?”

I thought hard for a moment, but other than what I had already gone over, I couldn’t come up with anything. “No, I’m afraid not. If I think of anything, I’ll write it down and let you know.”

Jacobs’s gunmetal eyes stared at me appraisingly, and I could almost hear the gears turning over in his head. I felt uneasiness bloom in the pit of my stomach, perhaps something akin to what a prized heifer might feel like on the block at a cattle auction. As he watched me, I noticed a scar above one of his eyes and suddenly remembered where I recognized him from.

Back during the Outbreak, I had watched news footage of an Army unit retreating from Dalton, Georgia. They had crossed paths with a convoy from the Tennessee National Guard en route to reinforce them. General Jacobs had been a colonel then, and he’d ordered the officer of the Guard troops to turn around and head for another fallback position. Dalton had been overrun, and there was no saving it. At the time, Jacobs had worn a bandage over one eye. Whatever caused the injury, it had left the scar I was looking at.