“Yeah, that sneaky Pashtun on your team. Hell of a shot.”
“This is a message from him. He knew we would come after them.”
“So how do we find him?”
“We don’t. He finds us.”
He did, just as the sun set. We had pulled back outside the clearing and set up a perimeter on a small knoll. Probably the same one from where Red had watched the campsite.
I was watching the site, wishing for full dark so I could turn my NVGs on. I heard a slight rustle off to my left, and I turned to look in that direction. I found myself staring down the barrel of Ahmed’s Dragonov. He had slipped past our rear security and gotten within five feet of me before I heard anything, and then probably because he wanted me to.
Then we both heard the quiet “snick” of a weapon being taken off safe. Ahmed whispered to the figure that stood over him.
“Godless American whore, at least let me pray to Allah before you kill me.”
“OH MY GOD AHMED!” she whispered back loudly, and body tackled him. At least she had the presence of mind to put the safety back on before she did it.
“GET OFF ME, WOMAN! COVER YOURSELF!”
When Brit helped him up to a kneeling position, Captain Buswarry had come over, leaving Red and his two others to pull security. A quick, quiet conversation followed.
“Nick, there is a squad sized element advancing down the trail from the north. I am assuming they heard the sound of your helicopter and are hoping to ambush you as they did to our team last month. I have been following them since this morning, and I moved ahead of them to warn you. We have about twenty minutes before they get here.”
I quickly thought about it. Our forces would be about equal size, but they knew the terrain and could move faster. We had the advantage of surprise, though, because we knew about them, and they only suspected us.
“How good are they?”
“Nick, they are Infantry. American Infantry. Mountain soldiers, from the Vermont National Guard. Many combat veterans and survivors of the Zombie Apocalypse. They are good. I did not see any night vision equipment, though, and their weapons are a mix. One squad automatic weapon, but I think they are short on ammunition. The gunner only had M-4 magazines on him, no 200 round boxes, and there was a 30 round magazine inserted.” I didn’t ask him how he knew who they were, just assumed that one of their soldiers had disappeared in the prior month while Ahmed was living in the forest. We trumped them on firepower, too, since we had armed ourselves heavy based on the initial ambush. McCross carried an M-240B machine gun and we had two 40mm grenade launchers.
“Shit. I don’t want to kill our own. Until we get this sorted out, though, I guess we’re going to have to do what we have to do. If they ask for surrender, though, we give it. I want prisoners. Besides, I have a plan. Here’s what we’re going to do.”
Chapter 14
I sat in the darkness, watching their lead scout approach through my NVGs. This was going to be tricky, a pretty slick piece of timing.
In the center of the clearing sat a military issue flashlight, turned on. It was shining on an American flag Brit had had stuffed in her pack, suspended from a stick in the ground. I knew Ziv and Doc had talked. They had no reason not to. So the Vermonters, for want of a better name, had to know the US Army was back in town. I’m sure whoever was running the show was thinking long and hard about what to do now. They had ignored repeated radio calls for survivors, but real live soldiers were a different story.
As I watched the figure of the lead scout stop outside the circle of light, he held up a hand, and his squad fanned out in a line behind him. A figure rose up from the ground beside him where Ahmed had lain in wait, and a brief struggle ensued, followed by Ahmed getting up and moving away. The scout lay on the ground for a minute, and crawled back towards his squad.
Captain Buswarry watched with me. “So, now we wait.”
“Yep, the hardest part.” We waited for about fifteen minutes, then I took off the NVGs, slung my rifle behind my back, and walked forward into the light. I was freaking out. In the next few seconds, my life could be over. If they rejected our terms, I would get shot.
“I just want to talk” I yelled into the darkness. “Send out your senior man!” I held my hands palms up, in a gesture of peace.
Stepping into the circle of light, a figure clad in old style BDUs slowly walked forward, dropping down his M-4 as he approached.
“Son of a bitch. Nick Agostine.”
“Danny Westbrook. I’ll be damned.”
I held out my hand, and he pulled me into a bear hug. “Damn,” I said. “I haven’t seen you since you got blown out of your HUMVEE in Mosul!” He stepped back and held up his left hand, showing me that it was missing three fingers.
“Cool!” I said. “Check this out, zombie bite!” and I rolled up my pants leg to show him the carbon fiber leg.
We both turned and waved our teams in, and they eyed each other warily in the dim light, pointedly not aiming at each other. I wondered which one of them had killed Svenson and Toshi, but I had to put that aside if we were to have a chance in hell of pulling this off.
Danny pulled up a log to sit on while we talked, and he gave us the down low on what was happening on this end of the lake.
“Well, first off, let me tell you, I wasn’t in charge of the patrol that ambushed your guys. Not that I would have done anything differently, I just don’t want you to hold that against me.” I nodded. “Your two guys are in the lockup on Grand Isle. That’s all I’m going to say until you understand the situation there.”
“Go ahead. We all have a story to tell.”
“It’s like this. You guys are the first ones we’ve seen in what, three years from the federal government?”
“So far as I know, but there is satellite news and the Internet is still up in some places. You HAD to know there was still a functioning government in Seattle. ”
“Yeah, well, Seattle is a long way from here, and us Green Mountain Boys have always been an independent lot. The Regular Army cut and ran once things fell apart in New York, and we had to deal with a horde that came up from Quebec and Montreal. The Vermont Guard, well, we blew the bridges to Grand Isle and hunkered down.”
I told him how we had done something similar in New York, with the creation of the giant base at Seneca Army Depot in the Finger Lakes. It only made sense.
“Well, that first winter was an ever-loving bitch. We had maybe ten thousand refugees crammed onto that island. The Adjutant General, Major General Allen, he declared martial law on the Island. That went over like yelling fire in a theater. We killed a LOT of civilians, Nick. Ain’t something I’m proud of. We ran out of food around March the following year.”
“So then what happened? Did you…” I left the question about cannibalism unspoken.
“No, none of us military guys did. The General made sure we, the military, got fed first. The civilians, well, we told them they could like it or leave. Most of them did, left. We’re down to about nine hundred civilians and about a hundred military all told.”
“Why are you telling me all this? Giving me all your numbers?”
“Because I don’t like the way things are run there. The General, well, a decent guy at the start, but all this power stuff has gone to his head. You know me, I don’t have much patience for being bossed around. Never did. That’s why I was still an E-6 when I got blown out of the service. That and he’s got some real nasty people backing him up.”
I thought about it for a minute. “Still, I don’t see what business it is of ours. I have to tell you, Danny, we just came back this way to get our people. The US Cavalry isn’t going to come galloping in here to save anyone anytime soon. We have enough problems with NYC.”