Уильям Дитц - Into the Guns

Esco called for her an hour later. “Take my seat,” Esco said, as Mac entered the Humvee. “Rather than make you sit through the whole mission, I cut some of the footage together.”

The UAV operator crouched behind Mac where he could provide her with a running narration. “So here’s Flagstaff,” Esco said, as the drone circled over the snow-clad city. “Notice the smoke coming out of chimneys… That suggests that the power grid is down. And look at the streets. There’s very little traffic. Why? Because people are afraid to go out, that’s why.”

Esco leaned in to put a finger on the screen. “See this ? And this ? They’re barricades. It appears that the town has been Balkanized.”

Esco was correct. Mac could see the way cars, RVs, and piles of junk had been used to seal entire neighborhoods off. That seemed to suggest that the local government had collapsed, leaving citizens to fight among themselves.

“And here’s Camp Navajo,” Esco added. “It’s about thirty miles west of Flagstaff. You’ll notice that it’s sealed off as well… You can see vehicles inside the perimeter. That suggests that the Guard is still there, but nothing is moving. So where are the troops? Inside drinking hot chocolate?”

Where indeed? Mac wondered. There should have been lots of activity given the nature of the situation. Maybe the scouts would be able to provide some answers.

A six-hour wait followed the meeting with Esco. Mac knew that Kho and Brown had been able to reach the base, and were okay, because they had orders to report in every thirty minutes. But the frequencies available to them were available to the local Guard unit as well. That made it necessary to keep the transmissions short and cryptic.

At first, Mac killed time by wandering around, sticking her nose in where it wasn’t welcome, and offering unnecessary suggestions. That pissed everyone off. A problem she failed to recognize until Evans told her about it.

The temperature fell as the sun went down and a stygian darkness claimed the land. It was snowing by then—and Mac was worried. Maybe Brown and Kho had been ambushed. Maybe the scouts were lost. Maybe she should send the quick-reaction force out to find them. Maybe… “The scouts are back,” Sparks announced as he appeared at her side. “And they have a prisoner.”

Mac felt a tremendous flood of relief, thanked Munroe, and hurried toward the church. She could see her breath, feel the snow give under her boots, and hear the purring sound the generator made. Half a dozen jury-rigged lights were on inside, it was at least ten degrees warmer, and the odor of cooking hung in the air. Food was another thing they needed more of.

Pews had been moved to make way for rows of sleeping bags—and some of the children were playing a game in the middle of the chapel. All of them were wearing coats. Evans waved her over. “They’re in the office,” he told her. “Both are fine.”

“Good,” Mac said as she followed him through a door and into a room equipped with three mismatched desks, some metal filing cabinets, and a bulletin board filled with childish drawings. There were muddy tracks on the floor—and a pile of gear sat where the scouts had dumped it. Brown was standing off to one side, Kho was perched on the corner of a desk, and a stranger was seated on a plastic chair. He was twentysomething and wearing an Indian-style headband. Long black hair fell to his shoulders. Kho smiled. “We brought you a present.”

“That’s a present?” Mac inquired.

“Yup,” Brown responded. “He sure is. Lieutenant Macintyre, meet Corporal Vickers.” Vickers continued to stare at the floor.

“A corporal?” Mac inquired. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope,” Brown responded. “This piece of shit is a corporal. It says so on his ID card.”

“But he’s also a deserter,” Kho put in. “Which is how we came across him. There we were, scouting the base, when Vickers cut a hole in the wire and walked into our arms.”

“And no one noticed?” Mac inquired.

“Not while we were there,” Brown answered. “That’s because Vickers was on guard duty—and he left through the section of wire he had responsibility for.”

“Wow,” Mac said as she looked Vickers up and down. “You are a piece of shit. So let’s get to it. I want to know everything there is to know about conditions inside the base.”

Vickers looked up. His eyes were bloodshot, and arcane symbols were tattooed on his forehead. The letters were uneven and clearly the work of an amateur. “What will you give me?”

“That’s ‘what will you give me, ma’am ,’” Evans put in. “As for what we’ll give you, how about a bullet?”

Vickers turned to Mac. “Like I said, ma’am , what’s in it for me?”

Evans was playing bad cop, which left Mac free to be the good cop. “That depends,” she said. “ If you cooperate, and if you want a future, there might be a place for you in our unit. Not as an NCO, however. Not yet. You’d have to earn that.”

Vickers glanced at Evans, then back. He shrugged. “Okay, but understand this… Some bad shit went down on base… I didn’t lead it, but I was there, and if you plan to go army on me, let’s finish it now. Shoot me in the face. I want to see it coming.”

Mac felt a sudden emptiness at the pit of her stomach. “Some bad shit went down.” What did that mean? It wasn’t her job to play judge and jury, however. “You have my word,” Mac assured him. “Tell us what you know. And so long as you tell the truth, you can join or take a walk.”

It didn’t take much to make Vickers talk. He wanted to get some things off his chest. And they weren’t pretty. The problems began shortly after what Vickers called “the big hit.” It wasn’t long before some of the unit’s junior officers went AWOL, or were MIA, depending on what a person chose to believe.

Meanwhile, one of Flagstaff’s city council members tried to take control of the government, one of his peers shot him six times, and the rest of the survivors divided the city into small fiefdoms. Each neighborhood had its own militia—and each was intent on garnering support from the local Guard unit. Because if a council member could secure that —they’d be able to seize control of Flagstaff.

The XO wanted the company to align itself with the area she lived in, and roughly half of the soldiers agreed. But after the CO refused to go along, he was found dead of what might or might not have been a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. That put the XO in charge.

Her reign came to an abrupt end when troops loyal to the CO shot her and sealed themselves inside a heavily fortified maintenance facility where, according to Vickers, they still were. “So which faction did you belong to?” Mac inquired.

“The CO was a good man,” Vickers replied.

“So what’s with the long hair and all that crap?” Evans demanded.

Vickers shrugged. “Things went tribal. The XO’s people began to dress like cowboys. So we called ourselves the Indians. We let our hair grow, took new names, and went on the warpath every now and then. Some people wanted to leave but had no place to go. Flagstaff is fucked-up, and so is the rest of the country, according to what the ham-radio guys say.”

“But you decided to leave anyway?” Mac asked.

“Yes,” Vickers replied. “There have been a lot of fights lately, conditions are getting worse, and I was sick of it.”

Once the interrogation was over, Vickers was placed under guard, and Mac called her officers and noncoms into the office. After briefing them on the situation at Camp Navajo, she presented her plan. “Based on what Vickers told us, the troops inside the base no longer have unit cohesion, are largely leaderless, and at a low state of readiness. I think we should strike immediately since it’s hard to imagine how the situation could improve.