The Eternity Brigade (13 page)

Green sighed. “I just have to play the game differently. You want to gamble one way, I want to gamble another. The odds are lousy either way, but... I don’t know, maybe I just don’t have the guts to stick it out from day to day. Maybe I’m just an optimist, thinking there’s a rainbow around the corner and tomorrow will be brighter than today. I’ll try the way I know best.”

Symington stood up, and Hawker thought he saw a flash of anger in the big man for the first time in their acquaintance. “You do that. Me, I’m heading out. New York isn’t the only fucking place in the world. Things have got to be better somewhere else. Maybe that guy on the phone yesterday really had something, talking about Alaska. Not that I’d buy his fucking land, but I’ll bet there’s something there for a guy to do. Sure, it’s a frontier, they always need people.”

He gave them one last look, then turned his back and walked out of the restaurant.

Green watched him go. “Good luck,” he said, too softly for Symington to hear. Then, turning to Hawker, he asked, “Do you think we’re doing the right thing?”

Hawker shrugged. “I don’t know, but it’s the only thing I can think of, too.”

“I wish I had his kind of courage,” Green said, staring down into his coffee cup. “Lucky’s the sort of guy who just plows ahead and refuses to admit he’s beat. Me, if I see the game’s lost, I look around for another one somewhere, one I have a better chance of winning.”

He looked up again, the traces of depression almost gone from his face. “This time will be different, though. We know the ropes now, we know some of the mistakes we made and we can make sure they don’t happen again.”

“What mistakes did we make?” Hawker asked.

“The main thing is, we didn’t take care of the money we were earning. We just let the army hold onto it, at no interest. Of course, the program was secret then, and we couldn’t go to an accountant and ask him the best way to handle the matter. Now we can. We can have our paychecks deposited in a trust account, and let the trustees invest it for us while we’re sleeping. If we’re away for the same length of time, it could make a substantial difference. I’ll bet we could accumulate twice the money in the same period. Added to what we’ve already got coming—and using that as a starter—we could end up so rich we’d never have to work again a day in our lives.”

“If we live through the next war,” Hawker reminded him. But Green had done with being gloomy for the day, and would hear no further criticism.

They spent the next week checking with more investment firms and banks, working out the arrangements for their trust fund. Finally they agreed to a pattern of investments that balanced high yield with security, and promised to make them very wealthy indeed if they slept for any substantial length of time.

They further agreed that, if one of them should die, all proceeds would go to the other—and if they both died, the trust fund would go to Symington or his heirs.

That done, they went to the downtown army recruiting station to re-enlist. The sergeant at first was reluctant even to talk to them—the sleeper program was working well, and the army had little use for general recruits—but once they explained they’d been sleepers before and wanted to sign up again, he was delighted to take them on. They received their special bonuses—most of which went straight into the trust fund—and within a week they were preparing to undergo the ordeal of suspended animation once more.

Within three days of arriving at the base, Hawker and Green were back in their coffins, resting coldly and quietly until the army needed them once again.

***

Waking up was less traumatic this next time. Hawker remembered how weak he’d felt on his first emergence from suspended animation, and concluded this must have been a shorter sleep. He was to find out just the reverse; he and the other men had slept for nearly fourteen years. The army had learned from its previous experiment; while thawing the men out, their bodies were put through traction exercises to get the muscles back in shape, and they were given hormone injections to improve muscle tone. As a result, Hawker merely felt tired, as though recuperating from a bad cold. The recovery period was shortened from two weeks to six days, and even that probably  erred on the conservative side.

The thought of another fourteen years stolen out from under him was more than a little frightening, but it was balanced by the comforting thought of the trust fund, and how it would have built up over the interval. Even with all the devaluations the government chose to throw at him, he would still end up with a sizable chunk of money to call his own.

On the third day after awakening, Hawker was reunited with Green, and the two friends greeted one another with unrestrained abandon. They agreed that they didn’t look too bad for middle-aged men, and chortled to think that they were nearing the end of the twenty-first century and still young enough to enjoy it—providing, of course, they survived the war.

The next day brought them another surprise. They ran into another sleeper, and almost walked right past him before they noticed it was Symington. They hadn’t expected to see him here under these conditions, and bombarded him with questions. Symington was sheepish at first, but under their persistent interrogation he admitted they’d been right—the world of fourteen years ago had not been suitable for people from their original time. He had gone to Alaska and found that out the hard way, squandering most of his money in the process. Bitter, broke, and a year older, Symington had come wearily back to the army, which accepted him like the prodigal son.

There was one man on the base, though, who didn’t find his friends. After the third day of awakening, he wandered around the camp, stopping everyone he could and asking if they’d seen Norquist. Hawker, Green, and Symington had never met Norquist and wouldn’t recognize him if they saw him. Apparently, Norquist had been this man’s buddy and they’d been frozen at the same time; now there was no trace of him, and the army refused to release any information.

The soldier became increasingly distraught, and went AWOL two days later. Hawker never learned what happened to him. No trace of Norquist was ever found, either; he’d joined the other missing sleepers, from then on known as Norquist’s Rangers. The name stuck as a ghostly memorial to all that was left of them.

Hawker and Green tried to call their bank to find out how well their trust fund had done, but were told outside calls were forbidden; this was an army camp in wartime, and security was tight. Mail service and email were sporadic and unreliable. They accepted the news philosophically: there was a war to be fought before they could use their money, anyway.

While walking to the exercise yard, Hawker also spotted Thaddeus Connors. Apparently, the man was still on the run, whether from the Aryan Legion or from himself, Hawker would never know. He shook his head and walked slightly faster, hoping Connors wouldn’t spot him.

***

This war was completely different from anything the sleepers had expected. China, Russia, and the European Union were now allies of the United States, and the enemy was a conglomerate of emerging nations from South America and Africa. The prize of contention was Antarctica—and, in particular, the wealth of resources recently discovered there once ice-melt made them accessible. The old-time superpowers desperately needed the resources to maintain their economic dominance, while the smaller nations saw this as their last chance to break the hegemony of the industrialized countries. This was a battle to the death for one side or the other.

The nature of this war’s terrain forced some mental adjustments. His first war had been fought in the jungles of Africa, and his second on the plains and mountains of China. The battlefield this time was a land of frigid wastes. Even after global warming it was a world of bitter cold and blustery winds that chilled him through his heavily furred parka. The only luxuries were a ski mask and the pair of battery-heated gloves to keep his fingers warm.

He suffered for three weeks as his unit advanced over icy terrain that looked no different from the area all around them, yet which the brass insisted was vitally important. There were occasional skirmishes, but in general the enemy seemed to be falling back in front of them. They made great advances, but Hawker grew worried. This was a little too easy, and he suspected a trap. None of the officers asked his opinion, though, and Hawker would never think of volunteering it.

The big attack came shortly before sunset. The enemy’s forward lines, which had been routinely falling back, suddenly stiffened. At the same time, Hawker’s unit found itself under attack from the flanks, too. They’d been drawn into a classic box, which was rapidly closing around them, cutting off all retreat. The ground rocked with explosions, and the constant flare of gunfire provided an eerie, if intermittent, illumination.

Early on during the attack, Hawker was hit by pieces of a fragmentation shell, making wounds in his right leg and the left side of his torso. He fell to the ground, unable to move. The pain was excruciating, and he found himself wishing he would die and end the torment. He drifted in and out of consciousness to the lullaby of death and destruction.

The shooting eventually stopped, and Hawker lay quietly, thankful the two sides were willing to let him die in peace. Then a squad came walking by. One of them kicked him in the ribs. At first, Hawker thought he was so deep in pain he couldn’t make sense out of their gibberish; then he realized belatedly they were speaking Spanish. He’d been picked up by the enemy.

After some small discussion, two of the men lifted him and carried him awkwardly to a waiting vehicle. He was tossed in with other soldiers, some wounded, some dead. More bodies were tossed in around him. Then there was a long, jostling ride that only aggravated his injuries. He felt feverish despite the cold. The edges of reality wavered at the corners of his vision. He was positive death would come at any moment to relieve his suffering. His only regret was he’d never spend all the money he’d earned while sleeping the past fourteen years.

The enemy doctors, though, had other ideas. This was still early in the war, before shortages of medical supplies became acute. The Sammie staffs were honestly trying to be humane. After more than a week of wavering between life and death, Hawker finally landed on the positive side. Eventually he recovered without the loss of limbs or organs.

The Sammies treated prisoners much more fairly than prisoners were treated during the wars in either Africa or China. The Freeks, on the other hand, were rumored to still have a few primitive notions about the treatment of captured enemies.

Not that his life as a Sammie prisoner was easy. Food and supplies were always minimal, and the Red Cross packages were always too little and too late. As the war dragged on, food became even scarcer. He sometimes went for days at a time without eating. The prison camp guards were no less sadistic than others of that profession since the beginning of time; Hawker was beaten occasionally, but never so badly that it would show when a Red Cross inspection team came for a visit. There were three attempted escapes during his term in the prison camp, of which he was involved in two. None of them was successful and all of them brought prompt and stern punishment.

The accommodations were large, chilly tents, since more solid structures used up resources that were scarce in this environment. Even though the tents had been new when the war started, the harsh winds and low temperatures quickly caused even the strongest fabric to deteriorate, and the prisoners were left with little protection against the howling gusts. Patches ripped open within days of being applied, and were seldom effective for long.

Many prisoners simply fell ill and died under these conditions. There was no way to bury them in the permafrost ground. In the earliest days the corpses were simply wrapped in sheets and left out in the open, with no worry about their decaying. Then the Sammie officers became more practical and fed the scraps to the guard dogs, who were glad for the extra protein.

Hawker lived through two years of this particular hell. Then one afternoon Col. Suarez assembled the prisoners in the open ground that served as the exercise yard. “My unit is being reassigned to combat duty,” he told them through his interpreter. As of today, this camp will be under the command of Col. Itaga and his men.” He indicated a tall black man standing behind him.

The prisoners looked from one to another. They’d all heard stories about what went on in the Freek prison camps.

The ensuing riot left five prisoners and one guard dead, and more than a dozen others on both sides nursing serious injuries.

Conditions got worse. Rations were cut still further, the guards were more brutal, and there were no more Red Cross visits. Prisoners who gathered in suspicious groups were beaten. Morale, never high to begin with, plummeted.

About two weeks after the Freeks took over, more prisoners were brought in. All of them were gaunt and haggard, but one in particular looked familiar. Hawker came over to him and saw it was David Green. His face was cut and bruised, his eyes were sunken. But it was definitely him.

Hawker didn’t know whether to be happy he was reunited with his old friend or sad that Green was in the same horrible predicament he was. But at least he was alive. That had to count for something.

Hawker went over to say hello, and the two men embraced in a joyless hug. Green was too weak for anything more, and Hawker appointed himself Green’s personal protector as long as both were in the camp.