Уильям Дитц - Into the Guns

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the BMW’s tank was full. Victoria hurried to retrieve the transfer kit and stow it away. The bike started with a reassuring roar, and it wasn’t until she was half a mile away that Victoria allowed herself a sigh of relief.

The next hour was spent riding north toward Columbus, Ohio. Then as it began to rain, and the light started to fade, it was time to seek cover. Choosing a place to spend the night was part science and part gut instinct. Victoria knew that any house or outbuilding that looked good to her would look good to everyone else and should be avoided.

But old barns, sheds, and looted strip malls were relatively safe places to hole up. The key was to find a spot where she could take the BMW inside and out of sight. So when Victoria spotted the half-burned house, she was quick to turn off the highway and follow a driveway up to an overgrown yard.

The front door was ajar, which allowed Victoria to bump up over a couple of stairs and ride the BMW into a badly trashed living room, where she killed the engine. The next few minutes were spent checking all of the rooms. They were empty.

In keeping with long-established habits, Victoria went about the process of heating water on her Jetboil. Then she poured some of it into a foil pouch filled with dehydrated mac and cheese before making coffee. Once dinner was over, Victoria cleared a place to lie down.

Rather than sleep on the wooden floor, she made a bed out of funky couch cushions—and laid the supercompact Sparks SP1 sleeping bag on top of it. Then, with her water bottle and the Glock close at hand, it was time to remove her boots and slide in. Victoria didn’t expect to sleep. So when she awoke to see filtered daylight coming through the shattered windows, it came as a surprise.

Victoria dreaded leaving the bag, and even though she was fully dressed, the cold air made her shiver. She went outside to pee before returning to the house for breakfast. It consisted of instant oatmeal and a packet of Starbucks instant coffee. That was hard to obtain, and she was eternally on the lookout for it. The combination of the two was enough to fill her stomach and make her feel warmer.

Once everything was packed away, Victoria put her one-piece Thermo suit on and rode the motorcycle out through the front door. The highway was covered with a thin layer of mostly undisturbed slush. Occasional snowflakes twirled down out of the lead-gray sky as she cruised along. Victoria knew there would be icy spots—so she was careful to keep the speed down.

Had conditions been better, it would have been possible to reach Indianapolis in three or four hours. But the snow, plus the need to circumvent cities like Columbus, made the trip last longer. Eventually, Victoria found her way onto I-70 just east of Springfield, where she had to share the freeway with pedestrians, fellow bikers, and the occasional bus.

But traffic was light, and that made for an easy ride. There was no sign of military traffic—and Victoria made a mental note to include that observation in her next report.

There was a lot of interesting graffiti, however—much of which was prominently displayed on overpasses. Most of the messages had an anti-Confederate bent. “Down with the New Odor,” was one of them, along with “United We Stand,” and “Free the South!”

That was interesting because the tags seemed to suggest that, despite the way that the Northerners were squabbling among themselves, they had a shared distaste for the Confederacy. Could Sloan, or the person who was pretending to be Sloan, harness that energy? Victoria figured the answer was yes.

Traffic grew worse after the first hour as hundreds of people poured onto the freeway. Some rode and some were on foot. Judging from the flags they carried, most of Victoria’s fellow travelers were patriots—and it didn’t take a genius to realize that they were headed for the Third Continental Congress in Indianapolis.

Eventually, the snow stopped, and the temperature rose ten degrees. The procession resembled a parade by then—complete with a bagpiper, a platoon of Civil War reenactors, and a group of high school cheerleaders on a flatbed truck. So when the time came, all Victoria had to do was follow the herd off the freeway, through the streets, and into the Indiana Convention Center’s parking lot. The center’s modernistic buildings were situated next to Lucas Oil Stadium, and the lights were on! That was nothing less than a miracle in the energy-starved North.

Victoria chained the BMW to a lamppost and joined the swirling crowd. There were dozens of food vendors, and the air was filled with tantalizing odors. Victoria bought a paper plate loaded with grilled sausage, corn bread, and coleslaw—all of which she wolfed down while watching the people around her.

With a full stomach, and the pack on her back, Victoria followed a group of rowdy teens through a maze of tents and into an area where a variety of military vehicles were parked. The menagerie included Humvees, some Bradleys, and a brace of tanks.

Victoria thought she was looking at an element of the Northern army at first. Then she realized that she was surrounded by mercenary units. They had names like the Night Stalkers, the Wolverines, and the Red Ball Express. And, judging from the gear most of them were wearing, they’d been active-duty soldiers or Marines before the shit hit the fan.

Victoria spent the next half hour visiting individual units and chatting them up. Once she told them that she’d been a major in the army, quite a few of the mercs offered to hire her on the spot. It seemed that untrained wannabes were easy to come by, but veterans weren’t. And that gave Victoria an excuse to ask lots of questions.

A picture began to emerge. As civil order disintegrated, and military units were fragmented, some soldiers had gone into business for themselves. And with all manner of bandits roaming the land, there were plenty of customers. They were small towns mostly, which would hire a unit or combination of units to protect them, or to attack a neighboring community.

But the people camped in the parking lot knew that change was in the air. What if the North managed to restore the federal government? It would need to defend itself against warlords and the Confederacy. And the new structure wouldn’t be able to rebuild the military overnight. It would take time, giving the mercs an opportunity to cash in. All of which presented Victoria with the perfect chance to assess the players and look for the kind of assets the Confederacy could use.

But where to start? The answer presented itself in the form of an ex–cavalry officer named Captain Ross Olson. He was a tall man with slicked-back hair, a boyishly handsome face, and hazel eyes. Olson had put together a company of scouts. They were equipped with dirt bikes, armed rat rods, and a platoon of M1161 Growlers. The unit was too lightly armed to battle a warlord toe-to-toe—but just right for intelligence gathering and lightning-fast raids. That meant that Olson’s clients would be likely to employ other mercenary units as well.

After some verbal foreplay, Victoria began to probe. They were standing next to the bus-sized RV that served Olson as a mobile command post, drinking coffee laced with rum. “So, what’s your preference?” she inquired. “Are you rooting for the North or the South?”

Olson smiled. “Some of my folks are from the South, and some are from the North, so we swing both ways. It’s about the money so far as we’re concerned.”

“That’s good to hear,” Victoria said. “There are all sorts of opportunities to be had these days.”

“Such as?”

“Things are going to get complicated soon.” Victoria predicted. “I work for a group of people who would like to establish ongoing relationships with outfits like yours.”