Surviving the Dead 03: Warrior Within (9 page)

If I had known how the rest of the morning was going to go, I would have stood there for a good while longer.

*****

Gabe wasn’t alone on the Grinder when I emerged from the gravel path leading to the camp. Groggy recruits were unloading two wagons full of supplies under the watchful eye of Sergeant Raymond Grabovsky—one of the two soldiers under Steve’s command who had traveled with him from North Carolina. The squat Green Beret walked in precise circles around hives of activity, constantly tapping his ‘teaching aid’, a slender length of cane, against the outside of his boot.

Although I stood nearly five inches taller than he did, he probably outweighed me by a good twenty pounds, and none of it on his waist. Nearly as wide through the shoulders as he was tall, Grabovsky was a dense, bulky, fireplug of a man.

“Took you long enough,” Gabe said as I pulled the brakes on my bicycle and stopped next to him, standing on one leg.

“Hey, it’s my day off. You should be kissing my ass for showing up at all. Where’s Marc and Curtis?”

Marcus Cohen and Curtis Wilkins were the other two drill instructors. Marc was an ex-Marine and current sheriff’s deputy, and Curtis was the second Green Beret under Steve’s command.

“They’re with the general’s men at the old pawn shop doing inventory,” Gabe said. “Got another supply drop coming in today at around noon.”

“They send us any uniforms yet?” 

He shook his head. “Not yet. Hopefully they’ll come with today’s drop. We did get some rifles, though, and a couple of crates of ammo.”

“M-16s?”

“No, M-4s. Also a few grenade launchers, claymores, and a couple of M-240s.”

“Good. Now you just have to teach these kids how to use that stuff without blowing themselves up.” 

Ahead of us, a recruit dropped a box of food he was carrying, and Grabovsky cracked him on the back of the leg with his cane. “Watch what you’re doing, knucklehead. Those supplies are worth more than your life.”

The offending recruit rubbed the back of his leg and glared at Grabovsky before picking up his box and carrying it to the mess hall.

“Do you think it’s a good idea, letting him do that?” I said, keeping my voice low. “Sooner or later, he’s going to hit the wrong person and things are gonna get ugly.”

“He knows what he’s doing,” Gabe replied. “That stick saves time and effort getting the point across. How many times have you seen someone make the same mistake twice around Grabovsky? And anyway, I’d put money on him against any one of these kids. He’d break ’em in half.”

He had a point. The Army veteran’s methods may have been harsh, but I couldn’t argue with the results. And if any of these recruits had delusions of grandeur and tried to step up to the G-man, well … it would be over quickly, at least.

I stepped off my bike and pushed it over to the instructor’s barracks. I didn’t bother locking it up; no recruit would be stupid enough to risk stealing it. Gabe would rain death and fire on their heads if they tried. The smell of hot butter and frying eggs wafted from the mess hall, making my stomach rumble in response. Breakfast would have to wait, however. I wanted to see what kinds of goodies Uncle Sam had brought us.

On the way to the supply building, the distant
thup-thup-thup-thup
of the Chinook carried to me faintly over the treetops. I stopped and looked westward, catching a speck of movement against the far horizon. Gabe walked over and stood next to me, looking in the same direction.

“Never thought I’d be happy to hear that sound again,” he said.

“Makes you want to reenlist, doesn’t it?”

He glanced at me and snorted. “Yeah, it’s on my to-do list. Right under gouging my own eyes out and cutting my balls off with a rusty nail.”

The helicopter became larger as it grew closer, a bulging cargo net swaying slowly beneath it.

“Come on man, it wasn’t that bad, was it?”

“You remember that fight with the Legion a couple of months back, right?”

I grimaced, absently touching the scars on my side. “How could I forget?”

“Imagine doing shit like that day in, and day out, for fifteen months at a time, with only seven months of downtime between deployments. Then repeat it five times. Do that, and you’ll have the beginning of an idea of what it was like over there.”

I turned to look at him. “Jesus, five deployments?”

He nodded, his mouth set in a firm line.

“No wonder you’re such a grumpy bastard. If I had to go that long without getting laid, that many times, I’d probably be an asshole, too.”

He didn’t quite manage to keep the grin off his face when he punched me in the arm. Hard.

“Hey, not in front of the kids,” I said, pointing a thumb at the recruits behind us. “Nobody wants to see mom and dad fighting.”

Gabe was still grinning when he opened his mouth to say something, but a low chattering sound in the distance brought him up short.

“The hell was that?” I asked.

Gabe had gone still, staring toward the chopper. “That’s a fucking fifty-cal.”

Just as he said it, the Chinook began to lose altitude and for a brief, heart-pounding moment, I thought it was going to crash into the forest and I would have to stand there watching, helpless to do anything about it. At the last second, the cargo net detached and dropped down into the trees, freeing up engine power for the massive helicopter to gain altitude and take evasive action.

“Grabovsky!” Gabe turned and yelled. “The chopper’s under attack!”

The other soldier was already moving and barking out orders. “Squad leaders, round up your squads. Do it now! Sanchez, Flannigan, Vincenzo, get to the armory and start issuing weapons. Marone, Helms, Jeffreys, we need trauma kits and stretchers. Robinson, you’re my runner. Get your skinny ass into town, find Doc Laroux, and tell her to get ready for wounded. MOVE IT!”

I yelled out that Allison was at home. Robinson took off as fast as his long legs could carry him. The other recruits erupted into a flurry of action. I slipped my rifle around to the front and gripped it, watching the Chinook climb higher and turn back in our direction.

“What now?” I asked, looking to Gabe.

He was still watching the chopper, fists clenched at his sides. “We need to secure that cargo before the Legion gets it. Tell Grabovsky to get these recruits ready to move out platoon strength, then grab two people and meet me at the west trail.”

With that, he turned on his heel and sprinted for the instructor’s barracks. I assumed he was going for his weapons, pried my hands loose from my rifle, slid it around to my back, and ran toward the armory.

“Grabovsky,” I called out on the way. “We’re gonna go find those supplies. Gabe wants you to get the recruits ready to move out and meet us out there.”

He gave me a thumbs-up. “Will do. Watch your ass out there, Riordan, the place is probably crawling with Legion. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He turned and began shouting orders at the recruits with renewed vigor, speeding them along with his cane.

When I reached the armory, I grabbed the two closest recruits and shoved them at the door. “You two hand out rifles. Sanchez, Flannigan, you’re with me, let’s go.”

They both grabbed a carbine, a bandolier of ammo, and followed me as I ran toward the western edge of the field. Gabe caught up with us on the way. He had two long, green cylinders slung over his back, and he was carrying his big SCAR 17 battle rifle.

“Are those rockets?” I asked, pointing over his shoulder.

“Yep. I don’t know where they got that fifty, but I want to make sure we have the firepower to take it out. Grabovsky can fucking bill me.”

Flannigan spoke up from behind me, “Hey, you wanna tell us where we’re going?”

“Hold up, Eric,” Gabe said, slowing to a halt. I stopped.

“Listen, playtime is over.” He turned to face the two recruits. “This is the real deal. That cargo you saw drop? That’s shit we need, and we can’t let the Legion get their hands on it. We have no idea how many of them there are, and the fuckers have a fifty-caliber machine gun. We have to get there, take out that fifty, set up a perimeter, and hold out until backup arrives. You two come with us, you might not come home. If you want to back out of this fight, now would be a good time to do it.”

“Fuck that,” Flannigan said. “This is what I joined up for.”

Gabe’s mouth flattened into a tight smile. “What about you Sanchez. You ready for this?”

The Mexican shrugged. “Probably not, but you gotta die of something, right?”

“Great. Awesome,” I said. “Can we get a move on now?”

“Quick check.” Gabe tapped his rifle. “Safeties off, round in the chamber. You two, secure those bandoliers around your waist, you want that ammo quick at hand.”

We all checked out gear, and I was glad Gabe had said something. In all the excitement, I had forgotten to chamber a round.

“Everybody good?”

We were.

“All right, I’ll take point. The rest of you fan out, five-yard intervals. You two watch our flanks. Eric, you keep an eye on our six. Stay low, stay quiet, keep your heads on a swivel, and when the shooting starts, stay in your lane. Let’s move.”

Gabe turned and jogged down the trail. The rest of us followed.

*****

One of the many lessons Gabe taught me about warfare is that going after an enemy head on, when said enemy knows what direction you’re coming from, is never a good idea. Success in combat comes down to three things: sufficient firepower, knowledge of an enemy’s location, and most importantly, the element of surprise. Contrary to popular belief, modern warfare, rather than being an outrageously bloody slugfest, is more of a prolonged series of sneak attacks, traps, and ambushes. In this arena, if a man wants to live to a ripe old age, then he had better damned well make sure that when the shooting starts, he is the ambusher, and not the ambushee.

It was with this lesson in mind that I found myself growing increasingly nervous as we drew closer to the area where the Chinook’s cargo had taken a swan dive. We had not encountered any opposition, and had seen no sign of the Legion having been there, despite the fact that we were about to cross into their territory. The forest was quiet.

The ground under my feet had been sloping steadily upward for nearly half a mile, and I knew we had to be getting close to a ridgeline. Sure enough, up ahead Gabe held up a fist. He flattened his hand, lowered it slowly toward the ground, and then moved it forward. Turning around, he pointed two fingers at his eyes. In plain English, this meant stop, get down, belly crawl to my position, enemy sighted.

I was the first to reach Gabe, crawling next to him to see what he was looking at. The hill beneath me sloped abruptly downward, sparsely dotted with trees, and terminated at a steep berm above a section of crumbling two-lane blacktop. Ahead of us, we saw six men milling about, and more than a dozen heavy-duty plastic crates scattered across the empty highway. On the side of the road, an old Browning heavy machine gun lay next to a wheelbarrow, along with a tripod and two boxes of ammunition. Gabe and I exchanged a glance, then backed off down the hill to wait for Sanchez and Flannigan.

“Here’s the plan,” Gabe whispered when they arrived. “I’m going to stay here on the ridgeline. Flannigan, you go back down the hill about twenty yards and keep an eye on our flanks. Remember, check both sides, check our six, then do it again. Keep at it until I call for you. Clear?”

“Crystal.” She nodded.

“Sanchez, you work your way nice and quiet about twenty-five paces that way from my position.” He pointed to a spot on the ridgeline. “Stay low, and for God’s sake, don’t skyline yourself. Eric, you take the other side. I’m going to count to sixty, and then I’m going to fire a rocket at that machine gun. When it hits, you two use the distraction to start taking out those six raiders. If you can, wound a couple so we can take them prisoner. Any more show up, give them the same treatment. We have to hold this ridge until Grabovsky gets here with reinforcements. And don’t forget, all this noise is going to draw the infected, so don’t waste ammo. Make ’em count; we might have to shoot our way out of here. Everybody clear?”

We all gave an affirmative and moved into position.

I adjusted the magnification on my scope, attached a suppressor to the barrel, deployed the spring-loaded bipod from the foregrip, and settled down into a firing position. I was well hidden on a depression just beyond the edge of the ridgeline. From there, in just a few quick steps, I could move back down the embankment and out of sight in either direction. This would allow me to take cover and relocate if the raiders below tried to concentrate fire on me.

A strong breeze picked up from the north and whipped over the hills, carrying stinging swarms of autumn leaves across the low valley. The trees around me made a good windbreak, but the raiders down the hill had nothing to shield them from the blinding debris. As the wind picked up, they had to shout to hear one another. From the snippets of conversation I could make out, it sounded like they were excited.

“Fuck me, look at all this shit,” one of them yelled. “We’re gonna be drowning in pussy for a month.”