Rod laughs. The Bolo Badge is slang for the marksmanship badge they give to soldiers who score at the lowest possible grade, and yet still pass, on the shooting range. In other words, Gabriela can’t shoot for shit. He’s proud of her. He always tried, and failed, to get her to learn how to use a handgun for home defense while he was away on deployments, but she always refused; she hates guns. Times have certainly changed, Rod thinks. I pity the dumb Jody who comes sniffing around our kids. My wife the pacifist will turn the bastard into Swiss cheese.
He skips ahead again.
So we’ve got a plague of bedbugs now. The kids all have rashes, and there’s not enough cream to go around, so we’re washing our bedding every day to try to get rid of the pesties. What else? Victor is walking now, and if you can believe it, he’s learned some sign language. Another family taught me a few basic signs for milk, eat, drink and sleep, and I tried them on Victor over the past few weeks. Just when I was about to give up, he asked for milk! Which I give him from the boob, as with everything that’s going on, I decided to keep nursing. I wasn’t even sure what he was doing at first, but sure enough, he kept squeezing his little fist together, which is the sign for milk! He cries so much less because he can tell me what he wants even though he can’t talk yet. Lilia isn’t doing so great right now, though. She asks about you all the time, cries a ton, and has nightmares that make her wet the bed. She’s back in diapers, and sleeps with me now at night. Kristina’s going the other way, thriving like a weed. She’s doing well in the camp school. The one thing that worries me is she’s starting to hoard food a little—she eats as fast as she can, and then squirrels away little bits—raisins, Cheerios, whatever she can get—under her cot.
Rod’s vision blurs with hot tears. His heart aches; he can barely stand it. He can’t believe how much he misses them. Can’t accept how much of them he is missing. They are growing up fast, without a father, in a refugee camp, while he fights this crazy war.
You’re so far away, Rod. I hope you’re safe and that these letters are finding their way to you somehow and giving you some comfort that I know you sorely need right now. I want you to know I’m proud of you, and so are our kids, and we will wait as long as it takes for you to come home. Do not worry about us, Rod. I will look after our little ones. You can keep us all safe by getting rid of these monsters plaguing our country. Fight hard for us, and win, so that you can come back to us by Christmas.
He buries his face in his hands and bawls while Corporal Carlson looks away, trying to give him some dignity. Rod is like every father in that he wants his children to have a better life than him. That is the reason he is here fighting. But he has a feeling that even if they win, his children will face a life of misery. The feeling haunts him.
And yet they are alive. His family is alive. This simple fact gives him all the hope he needs.
Rod is crying because he is happy.
“Corporal,” he says, carefully folding the letters and pocketing them.
“Yes, Sergeant?”
“I think I will get cleaned up before seeing the Captain.”
♦
Showered, shaved and wearing a clean uniform, Rod enters the big building through a cordon of military police armed with billy clubs and flamethrowers. The building has electricity, although it is rationed; only the security lights are on in the gloomy corridors, and its eight floors are accessible using the stairs only. The air is hot, humid and smells like dust and mold.
The corporal sneezes several times, and then they hit the stairs. Refreshed from the catnap, a quick shower and Gabriela’s letters, Rod follows alertly, feeling almost human again, rifle slung over his shoulder and his helmet held in the crook of his arm.
The fourth floor is busy with officers and aides and civilians clacking away on typewriters. Rod grunts with appreciation at seeing civilians contributing to the war effort. Mostly, the Army has been keeping the refugees penned like sheep—under martial law, no less—a complete waste of resources, in his opinion. No wonder they end up rioting. These people are not weak. They survived this long, didn’t they? They just don’t have the training, organization and security of the military. Someone needs to get them organized and into the fight, like those militias he’s been hearing so much about. The Maryland Regulars. The Philadelphia Free Militia. The New Liberty Army. The Virginia Field Army. The Allegany County Partisans.
Natural born killers, from what he heard. And most of them streaming toward Washington to join the final push to liberate the city from Wildfire.
The hot, crowded little office smells like flop sweat and burnt coffee. The window is open and the light is off. Major Duncan sits at his desk, sunlight gleaming on his bald head and glinting on his round wireframe glasses. Captain Rhodes, a gung ho Jane Wayne that Comanche picked up from Army Intelligence, stands behind him with Lieutenant Sims.
Rod knocks.
“Come in, Sergeant,” Duncan says.
He halts two paces in front of the officers and presents a tired salute. “Sergeant Hector Rodriguez, reporting to the commanding officer as directed.”
The officers return the salute, giving Rod a moment to notice the other two people in the room sitting against the wall in office chairs, one of them a hard case in SWAT armor, possibly National Security Agency but probably a mercenary, and the other a pale, blinking specimen in a wrinkled business suit who looks like he hasn’t seen daylight in weeks.
A spook? Rod wonders, but decides against it. The second man is definitely not NSA or CIA. He looks scared. Like he’d rather be anywhere but here. Like a prisoner.
“At ease, Sergeant,” Duncan tells him.
“Thank you, sir,” he answers, assuming the at-ease drill stance.
“Sergeant, of course you know Lieutenant Sims and Captain Rhodes. This here is Dr. Travis Price, a scientist posted at Mount Weather Special Facility, and Captain Fielding.”
“Captain?” Rod says, giving the man a onceover. “First Maniple? Flying Column Corp?”
Few of the private military contractors escaped the Sandbox in the first days of the epidemic. Their dissolving companies pulled some of them out and were forced to abandon the rest. The locals chewed them up until the Army absorbed the survivors on the way back to the States.
Like many soldiers, Rod does not like mercenaries.
“I’m not a merc,” Fielding says. He does not elaborate.
“Captain Fielding is paramilitary,” Duncan tries to explain.
Rod lifts his eyebrows at this, but says nothing. Something big is being planned; the excitement in the room is as palpable as the scientist’s anxiety. They’ll get around to explaining things to him if he stays quiet.
“Rod, we have a special job for you and your squad,” Duncan says. “This one comes straight from the top, and it could end the war.”
Rhodes and Sims grin at this.
“Yes, sir,” Rod says, his heart pounding.
Duncan turns to Rhodes. “Go ahead, Captain.”
“About twenty-four hours ago, we spotted a uniform mike who carries the Wildfire Agent, but is not showing symptoms,” she explains. “About two hundred miles northwest of where we’re standing. As far as we know, the man is unique. First, he spreads Wildfire through the air, and second, the Infected appear to be aware of and submissive to him. How and to what extent, we don’t know. Dr. Price here feels if this man can be captured, the scientists may be able to isolate a pure sample of the Wildfire Agent. If they can do that, they might be able to make a vaccine, a weapon, even a cure. Is that about right, Dr. Price?”