“Hmm.” Ed stared at the hand-drawn map, and then at the blank green square on his city map that was the site. “Weasel?”
“South side of the property is Lyndon. Along Lyndon, for pretty much the entire length, is a junk yard. Well, junk yard, tow lot, auto repair, maybe something having to do with construction or the cement business, there was a mountain of busted concrete, but the thing is the place is giant, and there’s that same kind of fence Q was talking about running all along the sidewalk on Lyndon. There are no slits in the slats,” he blinked at the sound of that, then continued, “so you can’t easily see into the yard. Or out. The office of the junk yard, though, is almost directly across the street from the sports complex building where we’re supposed to go. And there’s no fence blocking the view there. We could slide through the gap in that fence right next door and we’re in the junk yard. Far side of it is the office, and from there we’re practically on top of that place, we could set up there and see anybody and everybody coming and going. It’s really the only place we could position ourselves anywhere near it, and the only place where you can see shit unless you want to loiter on the sidewalk.”
“You go in there? The junk yard?”
Weasel shook his head. “I just wandered around, trying to look harmless and homeless.” He looked up at the ceiling. “I bet Jason can see into it halfway decent. There are a few trees in the way, but with binos you’ll probably get a pretty good eyeball on the whole place including the office all the way across the lot, I don’t think there’s anything tall in there except for those concrete mountains, and they’re in the back.”
“So the sports complex buildings, or building, is huge, and right out in the open, surrounded by open fields, but because of all the fences and how the neighborhood is set up you can’t set up to watch the front door except from one spot, unless you want to stand out in the open?” Early said. He looked at Ed and George. “You think that’s an accident?”
“I doubt it,” George said.
“I think I saw a running track on the north side of the building,” Weasel added. “overgrown to shit, just like everything else. And I think it’s just one building, all connected. But Q’s right, it’s the size of a school. There could be a thousand people packed in there. Or nobody. I didn’t see anybody go in or out of the front doors at all. There is one vehicle in the parking lot, but it’s sitting on rims, all the windows busted out.”
Ed looked around the squad. “Well, we’re still technically a day early. Think we should head to the junk yard office, get a closer look?”
“I think we have to,” Mark said. “Although… if it is a trap, we’ll probably never see it coming.”
“We’re all going into this with our eyes open,” Ed said. “If it is a trap, they probably know we’re here right now. If they’re waiting to jump us at the school, hopefully if we’re smart they shouldn’t be able to get all of us.” He shrugged. “Or, if they do, that we give as good as we got. Should we risk a drone flyover? We’ve got the thing now, we should use it.”
“I can’t think of any reason not to,” George said. “I’ll get it spun up.”
“Assuming we don’t see anything with the drone that we didn’t see walking around the place, head out now?” Weasel asked. “Once we’re inside that junkyard fence, we’re pretty much gonna be invisible to everybody but the eye in the sky. And if he’s already peering down at this little patch of nothing special, four miles from the Blue Zone, we’re fucked anyway.”
“Let’s see what we see with the drone. And I think I want to wait until dark before moving out,” Ed said after thinking on it a bit. “Just to be on the safe side. Renny?”
“Yeah?”
“Think you can get up on the roof with that rifle while we do this drone flyby? That scope’s more powerful than these binoculars, maybe you can see something I don’t. And I’m curious if you can get eyes on that junk yard office from up there.”
Renny looked up at the high ceiling and thought of the way the tire stack had swayed and wiggled while Jason had climbed it. “‘What’d you do in the war, dad?’ ‘Well, son, I broke a hip’,” he muttered, shaking his head, then looked at Ed and said heartily with a big fake smile, “Sure, what could go wrong?”
The rest of the squad broke out in laughter. The old man with the big rifle was still the new man on the squad, but after hearing from George how the bland-faced senior had reflexively executed the cannibal with a shot to the back of the head, followed by two more just to make sure, their comfort and trust levels had gone way up.
Parker stood in the middle of his operations center, hands on his hips, staring up at the display on the big board. His people had plotted all of the significant confirmed and suspected enemy activity in the metropolitan area for the past two weeks up on the large illuminated map. His S3, Major Mike Chamberlain, stood on one side of him, his S2 Major Paul Cooper on the other. Captain Jessie Green, his S7, was standing in the background, just observing as she usually did. That was something new for this war that nobody talked about, the S7 position—Political Officer. Green spent most of her time approving broadcast content for the Voice of the People, censoring whatever needed censoring. She also had access to all electronic communications so she could monitor them for any anti-government sentiment. It was an unpleasant job, so it was no surprise Green was an unpleasant person, but she was very efficient. Around them the soldiers assigned to the OpCenter worked at their stations, staring into widescreen computer monitors.
“If there’s a pattern here, I’m not seeing it,” Parker said.
“Maybe it’s the increased activity itself that’s the red flag,” Cooper replied.
“Hmmm. I’m not sure that it is increased activity,” Parker mused. “Compare it to last summer at this time. Things always pick up this time of year and drop close to zero in the middle of winter, could just be a coincidence that we’ve had so many things happen in such a short period of time.” He turned his head and saw the look on the Major’s face. “I know, probably not,” he said, “playing a little Devil’s Advocate, but I’ll be damned if I see anything here that looks connected or a concerted effort. It’s scattershot. Mike, clear the map, and then bring up everything we’ve had in the past two weeks, in order. I want to go through these all again, see if anything jumps out.”
His S3 cleared the map, then started. “I’ll do sniper activity separately afterward, as so many of those are individuals or one-offs.” He clicked, and a red icon popped up on the city’s northeast side. “August first, a patrol ambushed. Small arms fire. We suffered four dead and a handful wounded. No clue as to enemy strength or numbers or casualties.”
He clicked, and a red icon appeared on the east side of the city. “August third, a checkpoint came under fire. Rifles and one RPG round fired. We went after them, but they disappeared into the city, as usual. We suffered one dead, four wounded. They suffered two EKIA, unknown if any of them were wounded. From the way it went down, that one RPG round they fired was probably the only one they had.”
“I’m surprised they had any, at this late date, to be honest, but they must be getting smuggled in somehow,” Parker observed.
Another click, this icon north of the city, in one of the adjoining suburbs. “Nothing further until the tenth, when Kilo One-Three engaged two vehicles on a bridge over the Ditch. Eight confirmed enemy casualties, but we lost Kilo One-Three and the two aircrew.” He nodded at the Colonel. “RPG, launcher recovered at the scene. We suspect there were more terrorists in the area. Later that night ground forces and Kilo One-Eight engaged what we think were terrorists in the two apartment high-rises here.” He clicked, and a red icon appeared two kilometers directly southwest of where the Kestrel had gone down. “Six confirmed dead, but not sure how many of them were terrorists or just residents. Two enemy weapons were recovered.”