The Rabid Brigadier (7 page)

“Come on, where are they?” Stone asked. “I’ll have a relapse and die for sure if you don’t tell me where my clothes are.”

She went to a six-foot aluminum cabinet and opened the
door. “Here, you can wear these for now—an NAA uniform, roughly your size. Dress and I’ll show you around.” She walked back
to the door, stopped and turned again, her eyes focusing on him again.

“Well,” Stone asked, starting across the floor to the cabinet, feeling like an idiot.

“Well what,” Nurse Williamson asked, flipping her shoulder-length hair around one shoulder and looking at him hard. Her body
was beautiful. There was no other way to describe it. Through the nurse’s gear he could see the round curve of her hips, the
melon breasts standing fully out, pressing against the white cotton as if they wanted to burst free. Now, if she had been
undressed too, it would have been a different matter.

“Well—I want to dress for Christ’s sake, lady. I know it’s the army and all that, but a man still has his sense of privacy.”

“I’m a nurse, sweetie,” she said, smiling at him. “Seen lots of men’s bodies. Naked, dead, sliced up into so many pieces.
I’ve seen it all, believe me, you get to know every part of a man. You know what I mean?” Stone gulped and dressed quickly.
The woman had a way with words that made him feel his family jewels were about to be scalpeled away.

“Come on,” she said when he was ready. “It’s just dinner time. We’ll walk over to the commissary and you can see the camp
along the way.” She led him along a hallway and then down a flight of stairs. The hospital wasn’t high tech, but it was clean,
well scrubbed, light bulbs in place, all of them actually functioning. Stone hadn’t seen anything this together since he’d
been out of the bunker. It gave him a sudden stirring of hope in his guts. It almost hurt—hope. He had pushed it all down.
The new America seemed… like
hell, from what he’d seen so far. He had been fighting through a sea of blood from the moment he’d emerged after five years
of living hidden inside a mountain fallout shelter. And the people he’d seen had been pretty fucking bad. These were the first
who… seemed even vaguely to be on the side of life. Maybe things could be put together again. Maybe Humpty Dumpty could be
glued and stitched up and placed back up on the wall. Maybe.

“My dog,” Stone suddenly said loudly, feeling an instant wave of guilt for not having thought of it before. “Where is—”

“He’s fine. I promise you. He knew we were helping you. He was trying to help you when you went down—licking your face, trying
to lift you by pulling your collar up, to get you moving again. The guards reported they had a problem with him at first.
But once he saw that he couldn’t do anything and that they had good intentions, he let them treat you. He was taken to a special
pound we have; they’re handling him well, I swear.”

“You don’t understand; he doesn’t get along with other dogs. He’s a real scrapper. I’ve seen him—”

“There are other pitbulls here, Mr. Stone,” she said with a smile as they reached the ground floor and walked along another
antiseptic hall. “General Patton III breeds pitbulls here—as his namesake did. The dog handlers have much experience in handling
the animal.”

“But—but,” Stone stuttered, somehow not imagining the animal allowing itself to be caged and fed army gruel—and God only knew
what all.

“After dinner, I’ll take you there. First thing.”

Stone hesitated. He should see it immediately. But the dog would have eaten first before coming to save him. And he was starving.

“After dinner,” Stone agreed, walking a little faster as his stomach began growling from even the thought of food. It had
probably been days and days since he’d eaten anything beyond the muck they had been feeding into his veins.

She led him past a guard who sat on duty at the front door. The soldier, a private, jumped to quick attention as he saw her
coming. He was young, in his late teens or early twenties, with an almost gawkish look about him. He gave the NAA salute—fist
about three inches in front of the nose, arm stretched out sideways, parallel to the ground.

“He’s okay,” she said, nodding at Stone, who walked just beside her. “He’s been cleared for minimum supervision. He’ll be
in my custody.”

“Yes sir, Lieutenant,” the man said, dropping the salute.

“At ease, Corporal,” Nurse Williamson said. She led Stone out the door and into the sunlight. It was so bright it instantly
made his eyes tear up and he had to stop for a second.

“Come on now, I can’t carry you,” she said, looking at him impatiently.

“Look Ms. Nurse,” Stone said coolly. “I was shooting craps with the grim reaper just twenty minutes ago; it makes a guy a
little dizzy. You should try it sometimes.”

“Sorry,” she answered, giving him a real smile for the first time, which quickly froze as she turned away. “Come on, let’s
move it.” They walked down a concrete pathway and out onto a main road, asphalt, very smooth and black as if recently put
down, and turned to the right. The camp was laid out logically and simply—all square buildings with wide thoroughfares between
them. There were barracks to one side, each about sixty feet long by twenty feet high, over fifty of them. A cleared field
was filled with vehicles—maybe forty jeeps, two dozen plus half-track type vehicles
covered with thick steel armor, on high reinforced super wheels—the things looked lethal—and more of the tanks he had seen
the night they rescued him, nearly twenty of them, all the same model—the Bradley III if his memory served him right. Dead
center of the wide parking area stood rows of gasoline tanks, huge thirty-foot steel cylinders filled with the valuable motor
fuel, worth more than gold these days. On the other side of the main thoroughfare, a number of two-story warehouses for arms
and munitions that looked, by the wooden crates standing outside some of them waiting to be loaded, filled to capacity.

Stone was impressed. Very impressed. This General Patton, or whoever the hell he was, had gathered a substantial strike force.
Given enough time, enough energy, he might well somehow gain control of the country. Although how he could weave together
the disparate criminal and even savage elements that the new United States had become was beyond him.

Stone noticed as they walked that the entire encampment was surrounded by a fifteen-foot-high fence of barbed wire crowned
link fence. And from the electrical equipment that stood nearby, it was probably able to electrocute, even kill those who
touched it. Machine-gun towers stood at the four corners of the camp and in the center of each gated wall. From here they
commanded a view of cleared field around the fort that extended hundreds of yards. The place seemed invulnerable.

Nurse Williamson pushed through a pair of swinging doors and they entered into a boisterous, soldier-filled cafeteria lined
with fifty long tables, every one of them filled to the brim. Stone almost reeled back for a second at the sudden encountering
of so much energy. But no one really paid much attention to them—too busy cramming bowls
of steaming food and loaves of bread into their mouths. She led him up along one side and to a set of trays. Stone walked
slowly along the bowls of food, huge canisters four feet high with ladles sitting around them.

“Take as much as you want,” Nurse Williamson said, pointing down. “We believe in feeding people here. General Patton believes
that a filled stomach is a loyal stomach.”

“He’s damned right about that. I’ve seen people die over a piece of bread,” he answered, loading up with what looked like
beef stew with carrots and onions. Food like people used to eat. “Jesus, this is incredible,” Stone said with a smile on his
face. He almost felt like a kid. Like he wanted to pile his plate high with everything. Take two plates, a whole loaf of bread.
But he contained himself and merely filled the plate to overflow.

“Here, sit here,” Williamson said, leading him to a table that was obviously reserved for officers, roped off to one side,
near some windows. There were about a dozen higher ranks sitting around the table chewing away and they looked up at Stone
and the nurse. They took two empty places along one side. Some of the officers, captains, colonels, a few majors, didn’t look
too pleased at his joining them. But they didn’t say anything.

“Hey, ain’t you the fellow they picked up just before the falls?” one of the officers directly across from Stone asked.

“Yeah, I’m the fool who ended up heading for Niagara Falls without a barrel.” Stone grinned back sheepishly. “And to every
man in this unit I’d like to give my thanks,” Stone said, looking quickly around the table. “I really mean it. And the medical
treatment I received when you all could have let me die. I haven’t seen this level of civilization anywhere—to say the least.”
He took a bite of the pungent stew
and felt his stomach growl. It tasted so good. Sending his mind back to better days when his mother had cooked thick stew
on a winter’s night. Days gone forever.

“Well thanks, mister,” one of the hardfaced colonels sitting next to him said. The rest seemed to have relaxed a little at
Stone’s expression of gratitude. All men like to be complimented. “And welcome to the New American Army if anyone hasn’t welcomed
you yet. You look like you’ll be a great recruit—once you can move your hand again.” They all laughed. “I heard you near got
yourself bitten to death.” The colonel grinned. “A heroic way to go.”

“Recruit?” Stone asked between bites. “I didn’t know I’d volunteered.”

“Oh, all able-bodied men are strongly suggested to join the NAA. Why, it’s an honor to serve under General Patton III. Only
one man in five can even meet the standards he’s set. Besides, I would think you’d want to join up with the only official
U.S. force trying to establish law and order in America. Help us create a future. If you’ve been out there, you’ve surely
seen what it’s like.”

“Maybe he’s on the wrong side,” a colonel said, a reddish scar running along the side of his face from ear to chin. He stared
at Stone like he wouldn’t have minded shooting him dead on the spot. “I mean, he
is
a biker. And from what I’ve seen, bikers are scum. Why, we’ve already taken out nearly a hundred of the bastards.”

The others stared at Stone to see how he would respond to the insult.

“Just because I ride a motorcycle,” Stone answered, letting his fork drop to the side of his bowl, “doesn’t mean I’m a murderer.
It seems a little absurd to judge a man by his mode of transportation.” Several of the faces grinned. They
weren’t all against him. “As to what side I’m on. That’s hard to say. I’m still not sure exactly what side all of you are
supposed to represent. So it’s a little hard to judge myself, as you apparently find it so easy to do.”

“The amount of armaments you carry on that motorcycle,” the scar-faced colonel went on, spitting out every word like they
were curses, “make it appear that you’re capable of wreaking heavy destruction. Just what have you been using them for?”

Stone didn’t like the third degree, but he wasn’t in a position to do what he felt like, which was to slam a fist into the
son-of-a-bitch’s face. “Look mister,” he said, talking slow and cold, “I’ve just been trying to survive, that’s all. I’ve
been battling the same assholes that you have. Just traveling around this part of the country is like being in a full-scale
war. What would you have me do—carry a little white flag and give out flowers to everyone who tries to kill me?”

The colonel’s face flushed and the jagged scar on his face seemed to turn three shades redder, virtually throbbing like a
thing alive. His mouth twitched a few times and then he rose, addressing the rest of the table.

“Well, you can all stay here if you want, but as for myself I won’t eat with scum like this. This biker”—he said the word
with a most insulting inflection—“has no place sitting at a table with honorable men, or even being inside our walls. He sullies
the very honor of our army.” With that he threw his napkin to the table with a dramatic flourish and walked quickly away.
Stone stared after him, his own heart beating fast. It might not have been the greatest thing after all to have been rescued
by these guys.

“Sorry about that,” the major across from him spoke up. “Colonel Matheson is a little quick to jump to conclusions.
My own philosophy is, don’t judge a man until you’ve seen him on the battlefield.” He looked at Stone expectantly.

“Right,” Stone answered, lapping up his food with quick angry strokes. “Nor the character of a man by the number of wheels
beneath his ass.”

CHAPTER
Eight

“M
ATHESON’S NOT really a bad sort,” the major who seemed somewhat friendly said. “He’s with I&CE, Intelligence and Counter-Espionage,
so he’s always on the alert for saboteurs and troublemakers. Sees them coming out of the woodwork sometimes. But it’s his
job, that’s all.”

“I’m surprised that anyone would even attempt to mess around in here,” Stone said, sopping up the last of his gravy with a
thick slice of excellent homebaked rye bread. “You guys look like you’re ready for World War IV.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” the major replied. “There’s a lot of criminal groups who’ve tried to find out what we’re doing in
here—and stop it. We’ve had three infiltrators in the last six months. They didn’t last very long. As I’m sure you’ll find
out, our security system is quite foolproof.”

“I look forward to it,” Stone said, not quite enjoying the
fact that all twelve pairs of vacuum eyes were still glued on him.

“Tell me Mr.—uh—” one of the colonels asked, an old hawk-faced fellow with all kinds of medals and insignias adorning his
uniform on chest and shoulders.

“Stone, Martin Stone,” he answered suddenly, wishing he had a calling card to hand out to all the stiff bastards with their
razor-pressed uniforms, their chests covered with bright trinkets. Something lewd perhaps—one of those 3D women whose clothes
came off as you turned her holographic image. Something about their stern military demeanor made him want to shock them, shake
them up, see their tight white faces turn red. Maybe because they reminded him of his father, Major Clayton, whom Stone had
fought will-to-will against from the time he was seven years old and began resisting the major’s plans to mold him into a
mirror image of the old man.