The Dying of the Light (Book 3): Beginning (31 page)

“Maybe…” Eden didn’t look at him. She had her elbows on her knees and held her hands together as she tried to stare a hole through the deck. “Maybe you don’t need to, Dad.”

“Don’t you get it, Eden? Don’t you understand what this means?” He stood up and walked in a circle. He could feel his heart breaking in his chest with the weight of this choice. His cheeks got hot and he could feel the tears start to well up and for once, he didn’t care. “Sure, you’ve been out there in our little neck of the woods with a few old and toothless walkers and one or two Driebachs. But this is war! War on a scale you’ve never seen or been around. This is so vastly different from everything you’ve done before… You’re asking me to abandon my daughter, my flesh and blood. To let her go off and fight and die and never see her again—”

He turned around and faced her. “And worse, even worse than that, as if that wasn’t bad enough, you’re making me go home and tell your mother that I just left you here to die. That she doesn’t even get to say goodbye.”

“Did any of the other Hunters or soldiers get to make a special call home? Of course not.” She stepped closer and laid a hand on his chest. “I was gone for two months. Neither of you got to say goodbye then either. I know you sent out those patrols ‘looking for Driebachs’ to find me.”

“I’m sorry…”

“Stop apologizing. It was the right thing to do, and we both know it. Just as we both know this is the right place for me to be.”

“You’re asking me to choose between the mission and my daughter! How can you ask me that?”

“Because I have to do this!” Eden shouted.

He’d held back his tears thus far, but when she began to cry too, even though they were tears of anger, he couldn’t keep them back any longer.

“Don’t you see, Dad? Don’t you get it? He’s dead because of me!” She wiped a hand across her eyes and sobbed. “His kids are going to grow up without a dad because of me. Because I was reckless and stupid, and now he’s gone and I can’t change it and—”

The next thing David knew, he had pulled his daughter against him and she was crying against his chest as he held her. He wished he hadn’t been so stupid. Of course this would’ve affected her, everyone yelling at her for days on end, hating her for years… the stresses she must’ve felt and all while she was, in every sense of the word, a teenager.

How could he have been so blind?

“I have… I have to do it for him, Dad. For all of you. I don’t want to let anyone down anymore.” She sniffed and sighed. “I have to be better, and here, I can be. This is where I belong. I can be useful here.”

David kissed the top of her head and gave her a squeeze, then stepped back as he let her go. “Some days, I count my lucky stars that your brother is nothing like you,” he said with a slight smile.

“I’m being like me so he doesn’t have to,” she said with a small smile of her own.

“And then, other days, days like today, you make me so proud…”

She scrubbed her eyes once more. “Don’t start or we’re both gonna start crying again.” She laughed.

David shook his head as he wiped his own eyes. “No, no more tears. I really am proud of you. I wasn’t thinking of how tough this must’ve been for you too. That doesn’t excuse what you did, but I think I understand now. I still want to tie you to a seat upstairs, don’t get me wrong.”

“Just try it,” she said with another laugh.

“But you’re an adult now, I guess, and you can make your own choices. And you’re right, Anderson can use you here. And I can’t think of anyone else who could protect you better.”

Eden looked at him under lowered brows. “So I can stay…”

“It’s not up to me. It never was. And God only knows what I’m going to tell your mother. But you’ve made up your mind. You’re a soldier now. I hope she can see it that way.”

“Tell her I’m sorry?”

David shook his head. “You tell her that when you come home. And that’s an order, Hunter.”

Eden smiled and hugged him again. “Yes, sir, Governor, sir.”

Anderson enjoyed the view of the darkening Iowa sky until David spoke again.

“We’re ready now, Frank.”

Anderson turned and held out a hand for David, who had descended the ramp to meet him. “Good luck, Mr. Blake. Governor, that is.”

David shook his head. “Still not used to that. You stay safe, Frank. Morena would kill us all if something happened to you.”

Anderson smiled, then glanced at Eden and jerked his head in the direction of the terminal. “You have your orders, Corporal. Carry them out!”

“Yes, sir,” she said and double-timed off, headed for the terminal. She only glanced back once at her father.

“What the fuck am I doing, Frank? Kim is going to kill me.”

Anderson snorted. “Yeah, probably. But the girl is too much like her mother. Headstrong, doesn’t take any shit. She was bound and damn determined to come here. Ain’t nothing you could’ve done to stop her, and she’d have hated you forever if you took her home.”

David looked after his daughter’s retreating form. “None of that helps me figure out what I’m going to say to her mother. Or how either of us will deal with it if she doesn’t come home.”

Anderson clapped the younger man on the shoulder. “With that, my friend, you’re on your own. Safe flight.”

“Call us with updates!” David yelled over the noise of the rotors and the plane’s nose closing as he strode back up the ramp.

Anderson nodded and waved. He preferred to keep his screaming ability for the troops later. Moments later, with his fingers in his ears against the noise of the takeoff, he watched one of his oldest friends leave for greener pastures. He turned back to the forces assembling under the cover of darkness and the shelter of the now-empty hangars and wondered if he’d ever see his own greener pastures again.

He sent a small prayer heavenward, hoping his old pal George was listening, and asked the old codger to see him safe home to his wife and son. “You owe me that much, George,” he said, then jogged toward the terminal.

It was time to go take over a bunker.

Coalition Command Center
Des Moines International Airport, Des Moines, Iowa

“Bunker Four isn’t like the others,” General Frank Anderson said to the teams he was briefing. “For one thing, there’s nothing above ground except for an armored building just big enough for the vehicle elevators. Underground, it gets worse.” Anderson pointed to the top sheet on a set of drawings spread out on the table in the makeshift command center.

One of the hangars at the airport had still been serviceable, so they’d commandeered it for their use. All the vehicles and supplies were indoors in case the enemy were using UAVs or other aerial reconnaissance methods. Everyone agreed that there was no sense in advertising their presence here and giving the bunker time to fortify.

“Here’s the bad: This isn’t a hole we dug in the ground for the bunker. It’s a converted missile silo. That means a bunch of tall holes in the ground with walkways between them and a small area in the middle that’s carved out for living space. Only eight of the fifteen silos are for personnel and other storage, and they still have more than enough space.

“It gets worse. This will be all close-combat fighting. Lots of blind corners, places to dig in. What’s great for keeping out zombies is just as good at keeping us out in this case. The one saving grace is that Ops is up top, just like it is in the other bunkers, ‘up top’ in this case meaning forty feet below the surface, all hardened concrete.

“What makes it a nightmare, though, is the Driebachs.” Anderson heard the whispers start and ignored them. “That’s right, people. This is where they were designed. You can expect them to be in here somewhere, probably on the lower levels in some experiment room. We have no idea how many either. Could be hundreds, could be ten. I want all of you at the top of your game on this one.”

He stabbed a finger at the plans again. “There’s one way in—the elevator. So, we have to play this smart. Major Mancuso is in overall command of the Hunters, and they’ll take out some of the roving patrols. We’ll use those to infiltrate the bunker. The patrols run at most about forty- to forty-five minutes out from the bunker, and we’re three hours away. We can assume they’ll have some sort of aerial reconnaissance, but we won’t know for sure until we spot them, at which point it’ll be too late.

“Our only chance is to prep ambushes under cover of darkness and wait for the go code from the Fleet guys. Then we can take them on their next patrol.” Anderson turned to his comm specialist. “Lieutenant Celero here has been monitoring their communications with the patrols. He thinks we’ll be okay to take them down if we do them at the same time. We’ll have about a ten-minute window before their comm checks cycle back through.”

One of the men let out a low whistle, and Anderson grunted. “Yeah, it ain’t no picnic,” he said. “But we’ve got the men and means to do it. You’re from different bunkers, and you’re used to different styles of command, different training rotations, whatever. But you’ve all got the basics, and you all know what’s at stake. Stay alert, stay safe, and remember the headshots.”

Someone laughed, and the others chuckled with him. “Seriously, though, we’ve been killing walkers for twenty years. That’s easy. Walkers don’t shoot back. These fellas will. And you can be damned sure that anyone Dagger lets out of the bunker is one hundred and fifty percent on his side and will take us out without even thinking about it.” He pointed at Celero, who stepped forward.

Celero was a short, olive-skinned man with dark hair. His big nose, bushy eyebrows, and bristling mustache made him look like a young Albert Einstein. From what Anderson knew from Celero’s CO, Major James of Bunker Three, he was at that level of intelligence too, at least when it came to electronics and communications.

And because Anderson gave the man his undivided attention, so did everyone else.

“We have no leeway here. They run their comm checks on a perfect schedule, exactly ten minutes. There are four patrols, each with a three-man team in a Humvee equipped with a high-powered radio and a .50-caliber gun. They spend no more than one hour on patrol, less if they spot nothing suspicious or noteworthy. They don’t chat, they don’t bullshit, they stay off comms unless they have something to report.”

He sighed. “In short, the worst setup we could want. But if we pull this off and maintain the schedule, they should have no reason to suspect us until we’re inside. I’ve already set up a jammer equidistant from their usual patrol routes. It’s powerful enough to knock them out of commission for at least a full comm cycle. We’ll have that long, but no more.”

Anderson stepped forward as Celero stepped back and looked at his assembled team leaders. “This is the big one, folks. If we don’t take this bunker, we can kiss the human race goodbye. That ain’t hyperbole, either. Dagger and his men have done and will do some of the nastiest things you can think of if they’re not captured or killed. The stakes could not be higher. You all have your assignments. We won’t have eyes on you for most of this. I expect each of your men to make this go off without a hitch. Any questions?”

A hand raised from the back of the crowd. “Just one, sir.”

The crowd of soldiers parted to reveal his least-favorite and newest addition to the team, Eden Blake. He had nothing but respect for her dad, but the way she’d made it here hadn’t endeared her to the general. He hated stowaways, and rebellious teenager stowaways were even worse. “Yes, Blake?”

There was a general murmur in the crowd, and Anderson growled. “Stow it! You’ve all known who she was since before she landed. Can it and let her speak.” Just because he didn’t particularly like her was no reason to let discipline slip.

“Thank you, sir. I was just wondering where you’d like the Hunters, sir.”

“As I said, Mancuso has command of them, Corporal. Get your orders from your CO.” He started to turn away but stopped short when Eden cleared her throat.

“Excuse me, sir, but Major Mancuso is gone. I thought you knew.” Eden looked surprised, as did everyone else. “Did no one know this? Fuck me,” she said, with a sigh and a shake of her head.

Anderson knew his reputation for stoicism and had worked hard to earn it. Even so, this took him by surprise, and one eyebrow raised before he could get himself under control—equivalent to a gasp from anyone else. The others darted knowing looks at each other. “Say again, Corporal?”

“Major Mancuso is nowhere to be found, sir. We’ve all been looking. After his initial briefing of the teams, he disappeared.”

Anderson had known the major for most of his career, and this was so unlike the man as to be worrisome. “Right. Blake, check with the perimeter and see if they’ve seen anything, and get Marquez in here. The rest of you, report to your teams and begin a detailed search. Sierra team will remain on guard. We have no time for this, people. Graves and his men will be coming up on the bunker any minute. Move out!”

The group of soldiers spun and ran, each racing to his or her duties. Anderson watched Blake head over to the comms table and followed. It would be interesting, if nothing else, to see how she handled herself in this crisis. Was she as level-headed as her mom? Or a dreamer like her dad? Though her old man had earned the general’s respect, Eden hadn’t yet, and he would be careful with what he assigned her.

“. . . if they’ve seen Major Mancuso pass through the perimeter for any reason. All sentries should be on high alert.”

“Yes, Corporal,” the comms tech said as she twisted a dial. “Perimeter, all stations, all stations. Report any sighting of Major Mancuso. High alert, I say again. High alert.”

A response came back almost immediately, the words clear over the short distance. “Perimeter Three here. Major Mancuso passed outside the wire a half hour ago, said he was running recon. Over.”

Anderson didn’t wait for the comms tech to repeat it but walked over to the map marking the perimeter positions. Perimeter Three was east/northeast, toward the airport outbuildings and a residential area. “What in the bright blue fuck is he looking for out there? And without a team? No one ordered him on any recon. Dammit.”