Уильям Дитц - Seek and Destroy

Mac chose to jog and, since she wasn’t wearing a pack, it felt good. When Mac glanced over her shoulder, she saw that the rest of the squad was behind her, with Fisk in the ten slot. That meant both halves of the squad would have leadership if it was cut in two.

The route took them across some hardpan, down into a snowy riverbed, and up a gravelly slope. As they neared the top, the terrain began to flatten out. That was when Mac raised a hand, and the squad came to a halt. “I don’t know who created this,” she told the soldiers. “Or why they did so. So don’t leave any more tracks than you have to. Fort up while I take a look.”

Fisk didn’t like that, judging from the expression on his face. He wanted to send the entire squad. But that couldn’t be helped. The flat area didn’t look right… And if the bad guys were up to something, then why let them know that people were onto them?

Mac sat on a rock in order to remove her boots. Then she went forward without them. The ground was cold, too cold for socks, and there were lots of little rocks.

But as Mac looked back, she could see that the strategy was working. There were no footprints. Not so in the middle of the flat area. Mac could see that a plane had landed during a thaw and left tracks that were frozen in place. But why ? The makeshift landing strip wasn’t adjacent to a ranch, much less a town, so what was its purpose?

But, Mac thought, maybe that’s the point. Maybe somebody put it out in the boonies, so it wouldn’t attract attention. Mac looked up, and because she knew it was there, could see the drone. “Six to Bravo-Twelve. Can you see a trail, or a road that leads away from the airstrip?”

“That’s affirmative,” Henry replied. “A dirt track leads to the northwest.”

Mac thought about what that could mean. If the trail continued in that direction, it might connect with a highway. And the highway could take passengers or cargoes north to the area controlled by Howard. Of course, it could take them south, too. The secret strip was interesting either way. She turned and made her way back. Her feet were getting numb, and she hurried to pull her boots on. “Sergeant Henry.”

UAV pilot Mo Henry was standing nearby. She had red hair, green eyes, and freckles. “Ma’am?”

“Did you bring some trail cams with you? The ones we can leave behind?”

Henry nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Two of them.”

“Find a place to hide them. Let’s see who uses this strip… Sergeant Fisk, assign someone to give Henry a hand.”

The motion-activated cameras were similar to those used by hunters and scientists to snap pictures of elusive animals, except that they could upload data to a drone, and that’s why the UAV pilot was in charge of them.

After backtracking, the company resumed its trip to Wright, Wyoming. It was located on the edge of what Howard considered to be his fiefdom. And that’s why the town had been attacked on numerous occasions. But the people who lived there were tough—and had been able to keep “Howard’s Horde” at bay thus far.

As the Strykers continued cross-country, Mac took the opportunity to put each platoon leader and each platoon sergeant in command for a while, so that all of them could gain more experience. That resulted in a couple of screwups, but nothing serious. And rather than jump in, Mac made it a point to let people extract themselves from whatever trouble they were in.

The plan was to stay the night in Wright and return to Fort Carney the next day. But as the light started to fade, and Mac saw columns of smoke in the distance, she felt something cold trickle into her bloodstream. She was about to contact Henry when the UAV pilot spoke. “Bravo-Twelve to Six… The Raven is over Wright, and at least a dozen buildings are on fire. It looks like the town was overrun. Over.”

Mac knew she shouldn’t feel guilty but did. Had she pushed the company north, rather than going sideways, maybe things would have been different. “Can you see troops? Are they in control?”

“No,” Henry replied. “The smoke makes it hard to see, but it looks like they pulled out. Over.”

“This is Six,” Mac said. “One-one will take point. Stay sharp… We might be rolling into a trap. Over.”

There was no trap. That was evident when Bravo Company arrived on the outskirts of Wright twenty minutes later. An effort had been made to protect the center of the city by using the one thing the locals had plenty of, and that was rock. Countless tons of the stuff had been used to create the eight-foot-high barrier that circled the town. The only thing that could break through was a huge bulldozer. And in order to do so, the operator would have to cross a kill zone under fire from marksmen concealed behind the rocks. So how had the horde been able to succeed?

Mac dropped to the ground, ordered Perkins to secure the area, and led a squad of soldiers up to the rock wall. A blast-scorched truck had been left there. A ramp had been attached to the rear end of the vehicle. One end touched the ground, and the other was aimed at the compound beyond. Why?

Mac was thinking about that as she scrambled up over a pile of boulders to the top of the wall. The sun was about to set, but fires lit the city.

As Mac led the squad down onto the ground, a man emerged from the smoke-drifted gloom. His hair was white, his eyes stared out of caves, and a bloody arm hung useless at his side. “Now you come,” he said, as if correcting a child. “Late… Too late.”

“I’m sorry,” Mac replied. “We didn’t know. What happened?”

“We pulled back inside the wall when the horde came. But they were ready for that. They had trucks with ramps attached to them. Once the trucks were in position, motorcycle riders raced up the ramps and jumped over the wall! Each bike carried a rider… And each rider had a machine pistol. They rode every which way, killing and killing. Oh, we nailed some of them,” the man said grimly. “We sure as hell did… But not nearly enough. So they captured the town. And that’s when the real horror began.”

Mac felt a sense of foreboding. “What do you mean?”

“They herded everyone together, sorted them out, and shot every male they could find. Little boys included.”

“But why ?” Mac wanted to know.

“To eliminate any possibility of revenge,” the man said, as tears ran down his cheeks. “I ran and hid in the church steeple… So I saw it happen. After dividing the females into two groups, young and old, they… they…” The man couldn’t bring himself to say it, but there was no need to. Mac knew that the older women had been executed.

Mac had never been exposed to an atrocity on such a scale. But she could imagine it—and fought to maintain her composure. “And the younger ones?”

“They were taken away,” the man said, “to be sold and used. They have my granddaughter, Sissy,” the man added. “I should have killed her… I thought about it, and I pointed the rifle, but I couldn’t pull the trigger. Find them, Captain… Find them and kill them.”

Mac was trying to formulate some sort of response when the man moved. “He has a gun!” Sergeant Gray shouted, but her warning came too late.

Mac was just starting to react when the gore-covered pistol came up under the man’s chin. His eyes were locked with hers as he pulled the trigger. Mac heard a bang and saw the light vanish from the man’s eyes. Then, as all strength left his knees, he crumpled to the ground.

It happened so quickly that the soldiers were caught flat-footed. Sergeant Gray was the first to speak. “The poor bastard… May he rest in peace.”

There isn’t going to be any peace, Mac thought to herself. Not until we find Robert Howard and kill him. And we need to do it quickly… For the women. For Sissy. There was a harsh quality to her voice. “Sergeant Gray.”