“He was the best friend anybody could ever hope for,” Marty said.
“Well, he sure left you a fine set of wheels.”
It occurred to Marty then, for the very first time, that he and Joe had a great deal in common now. “It’s a good Jeep,” he said.
They drove back into town and Sullivan parked as close to the Air Force perimeter as he dared. “They’re keeping their supplies in what they consider to be their rear on their northern perimeter. We can keep to the side streets and walk right up to their supply column like I did the other night. They’ve still got night vision but they’re not keeping up a very good watch.”
“What if we swipe one of their chargers?” Marty asked. “Plug it into the cigarette lighter here in the Jeep? That way we could drive without headlights, right?”
“Let’s not get greedy,” Sullivan said.
“What’s one look like?” Marty said. “I’m wearing an Air Force uniform.”
“Whoa!” Emory said. “You can’t even walk the walk, Marty, much less talk the talk. And you’re wearing Adidas.”
“Who looks at anybody’s feet in the dark?” Marty argued.
“He’s a got a point,” Sullivan said. “And a charger would be a big advantage. Otherwise, these NVDs will be useless in a day or two.”
“He’s got a death wish is what he’s got,” Emory said.
“No, I don’t, Shannon. I really do want to see the crater.”
Emory reluctantly agreed, then they came up with a plan. They used the night vision devices attached to their helmets to cover the last two blocks, easily slipping through the Air Force perimeter undetected. They grabbed two cases of MREs apiece from the nearest deuce-and-a-half, each case containing twelve complete meals, and hurried back to the edge of the perimeter. There were a number of sentries posted, but they were either sleeping or busy talking, most of them in total darkness with NVDs in the up position on the front of their helmets. Apparently they were feeling invincible now that the Mongol threat had been smashed.
The trio stashed the food in a safe place and made their way back to the supply trucks, searching the cab of each for a charger. Not finding one, they were forced to penetrate deeper within the Air Force perimeter, finally taking cover behind a U-Haul truck near a well-lighted repair station where a number of airmen stood around talking and smoking cigarettes. A large green diesel-powered generator was running at the back of the repair bay, providing heat as well as light to a row of six fifty-three-foot Air Force trailers parked to the right of the garage.
“That’s a command car over there,” Sullivan said, pointing across the lot to an armored Humvee festooned with multiple radio antennae.
“If they don’t have one in there,” Emory said, “they don’t have one.”
“I’ll be back,” Marty said, and stepped boldly from behind the truck into the light before Emory could grab him.
“He does have a goddamn death wish!” Sullivan hissed, bringing his M-4 to bear, sighting on the group of nine airmen inside the bay.
“I told you,” she muttered, doing the same, her finger on the trigger of the M-203.
The airmen glanced in Marty’s direction as he strolled casually across the lot with the carbine slung over a shoulder, his hand in his pocket, waving lazily as he passed within a hundred feet of the open door. The wave was returned by a couple of the airmen who went right back to their bullshitting.
“Check that out,” Emory said.
“I’m still gonna jerk a half-hitch in his ass… if we survive this.”
Marty walked past the trailers and over to the command car, which sat out of view from the garage, cloaked in shadow. He opened the far-side door and got in, shutting the door and using his red light to have a look around. There was a charger on the deck between the seats, resting on top of a grenade-bearing vest containing a dozen 40mm grenades. In the backseat he saw a medical bag like the one Emory had worn over her shoulder the day he and Susan met her.
The grenade vest was confusing at first, but Marty was getting the hang of the military’s tricky contraptions, so he managed to shrug into it without much trouble. He tucked the charger away in his harness, shouldered the med kit, and got out of the Humvee.
He heard a woman’s muted cry and froze. A man laughed. Marty looked up at the windows of the trailers, and his skin tightened into gooseflesh as he realized what the trailers were being used for.
“No more,” he muttered, taking Joe’s .45 from its holster and stalking through the darkness to the closest trailer. He stepped onto the stairs and slowly opened the door.
“Get ready to run,” Sullivan said, watching Marty through his NVD.
“Go ahead, split,” Emory said. “I can’t leave him.”
“You’ve got a death wish too now?”
“No,” she said, resigned to her fate. “But I like the guy. He saved my ass.”
“Fuck all,” he muttered, sighting down the barrel of his M-4 and getting ready to do battle.
“Go on, Sullivan. You don’t need to stay here. You can make a good run without us. There’s enough food back there to last you a couple of months.”
“Can’t do it,” he said. “You might be my only chance of ever getting laid again.”
She patted him on the shoulder. “In that case, hon, you’d definitely better go. I’m playing for the other team.”
He took his eye from the scope just long enough to see if she was kidding. “Still,” he said. “I got a pretty good tongue. You might get desperate.”
“Hooah,” she said with a chuckle, and prepared herself to meet death standing up.
Marty stepped into the trailer with the pistol concealed behind his thigh to find an Air Force sergeant sitting at a desk reading Hustler magazine. The sergeant pulled himself out of his fantasy and set the magazine aside, having a look at his clipboard and frowning as he flipped to the next sheet of paper.
“You’re confused, Miller. You’re not up until tomorrow night.”
“No, I’m up right now,” Marty said, pointing the pistol into the sergeant’s face, seeing that his name was Priest.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Priest said, cautious but unafraid. “You got shit for brains? You can’t wait twenty-four hours? Put that fucking thing away before I report your ass to Moriarty.”
“How many men in the back?” Marty asked.
The sergeant gave him a queer look, noting the dark stain on the collar of Marty’s jacket. “Who the fuck are you, buddy?”
“Priest, I’m not your buddy. So unless you’d like to die with me, you’d better answer my question.”
“Six,” Priest said, his mouth suddenly dry. “Three broads to a side.”
Marty took a look around, now noticing the six rifles in a rack on the wall behind the desk. “Get the fuck out,” he said, stepping aside and waving the sergeant toward the door.
Priest kept his hands shoulder high as he came around the desk, and Marty belted him in the back of the head with the pistol as he passed.
Now, in every movie he had ever seen where a man got whacked in the back of the head with a gun, the guy always fell down; Priest did not fall down. What Priest did was grab the back of his head and spin around, swearing aloud and forcing Marty to belt him again, only this time on the top of the skull, which knocked Priest to his knees, but he still didn’t fall over. So Marty bashed him a third time, much harder, and the sergeant finally fell over, but he still wasn’t knocked out. He was, in fact, now sobbing like a child.
This put Marty in a serious quandary, mindless brutality not really being his field of expertise.