Craig Dilouie - Tooth And Nail

“That’s what Captain West said.”

“You told him what happened? What’d he say?”

“He said his own hands are full and that I should follow my fucking orders. End quote.”

Kemper leans back in his chair, absorbing this information.

“All this. . . . It doesn’t make much sense, does it?”

“It makes no sense at all.”

“Have you talked to any of the other platoon leaders?”

“That’s just the thing, Mike. Quarantine is restricting the net to emergency traffic only. Something big is happening, and we’re isolated. I’ve got no intel. No big picture.”

Kemper is beginning to understand what is going on inside the LT’s brain. The situation has changed and with it, the ROE, and Bowman is trying to figure out why. If he understands why, he can make good decisions and, perhaps, justify to himself why he ordered his men to shoot down more than forty civilians in cold blood.

“Everybody’s feeling like crap right now and unfit to wear the uniform. Morale is shit. But we’re the professionals. We can’t appear indecisive in front of the boys. They need us to lead them.”

Bowman stiffens, then smiles shyly. “So this isn’t all about me then, is it.”

“No, sir, it ain’t,” Kemper says quietly.

“What’s so weird about this whole mess is it’s like this is a foreign country and we’re the enemy. I feel like we’re in this Twilight Zone episode where we did something terrible in Iraq so God warps reality and turns America into Iraq. And we have to figure out what we did wrong or repeat the same mistakes against our own people.”

“Sir, with all due respect, you think way too goddamn much.”

Bowman smiles grimly. “Mike, I just saw a cop shoot a wounded American citizen in the head. A cop who watched his best friends get ripped apart by a crazed mob in a rare terminal stage of a new disease. I’d say anything is on the table at this point.”

“We’re all tired.” The NCO exhales another cloud of smoke and grinds his cigar against his boot heel. “We’re wiped out. In any case, New York has always seemed like a foreign country to me.”

The LT regards him for a moment, then laughs out loud.

“It gives me an idea,” he says. “The situation demands that we treat the city as hostile. So we do just that. If your force is isolated in hostile country and you need to move from a place of security to a new AO, what’s the first thing you do?”

Kemper suddenly smiles.

“You reconnoiter,” he says.

“Right. We have just enough time to do a recon mission before we have to be on the move. It might give us the answers we need so we know what we’re facing here.”

“Satisfactory,” says Kemper. This is the Todd Bowman that the platoon sergeant trained to be a commander in Iraq, and it is good to have him back. “I know just the men for this mission.”

We could use a gun, though

Morning brings a cool, dewy feel to the air. The windows on the taller buildings gleam in the first light. Several buildings near the site of yesterday’s explosion are still smoldering, and a sudden change in wind rains ash and the acrid stench of burning furniture. The boys check their rucksacks and top up their ammo, coughing into their fists. They’re getting ready to move.

Second Platoon is exhausted. They spent hours clearing out the hospital and cleaning up the mess. Small groups of infected attacked the wire through the night and had to be shot down, their bodies left out in the open until dawn among the ruins of the cars.

The scuttlebutt about the platoon moving to rejoin the company is they might be lined up and shot for what they’ve done, the LT included. The boys fought in Iraq and they know their duty but they signed up to shoot bad guys, not Americans, and what they are doing doesn’t feel like real service anymore. Instead, they feel like war criminals, regardless of what the new ROE lets them do. Some have had it and are ready to quit and go home. Others want somebody to blame. This is a dangerous mood. The NCOs sense it, and kick ass to keep the boys hopping while keeping an eye peeled for symptoms of post-traumatic stress.

In the lobby, the LT says his goodbyes to the hospital chief and the cop.

“Sorry we can’t stay and continue to support you,” Bowman tells Dr. Linton, who appears to have aged another ten years overnight. “What are you going to do?”

“We’re staying right here, Lieutenant,” Winslow cuts in, answering for Linton. “The doc and I are going to try to keep the place running and convert it into a recovery clinic.”

“We’ve got plenty of food and water, gas and a generator,” Linton adds. He clears his throat politely. “We could use a gun, though.”

“Are you sure, sir?”

“I’m certain.”

Bowman hands Winslow back his Glock 19 handgun.

“I’ll arrange for the sidearms and ammunition to be returned to you that we recovered, um, from your men, sir,” he says.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” the cop says, grimacing.

“Well. Good luck to you both, then. You’re very brave.”

Brave and doomed, he thinks.

One psycho cop with a couple of handguns won’t be able to protect an entire hospital against people who will certainly use force to break in and demand medical care for their families. That, or junkies looking for drugs, will finish them.

If only his platoon could stay in place, they could remain secure and finish what they started here. But orders are orders.

“Somebody has to survive, Lieutenant,” Winslow tells him.

Bowman frowns in response to this odd statement. He puts on his patrol cap and salutes, then leaves Trinity Hospital without looking back.

Outside, the boys are sitting on the ground with their gear, cleaning their weapons and chowing down on MREs. They look at the LT expectantly, with scared eyes, but say nothing. The silence, in fact, is the first thing Bowman notices upon walking out of the hospital. The boys are all business. None of the usual sparring and grab-ass this morning. They are still trying to wrap their heads around what they have done.

Today, Bowman will lead them northwest to a middle school that has been turned into a Lyssa clinic and is the current area of operations for First Platoon and Charlie Company HQ. The distance is over a mile. They have no transport, so they will hoof it.

Bowman nods to Sergeant McGraw and says quietly, “All right?”

“Managing, sir,” replies the leader of First Squad.

“Find Private Mooney and Private Wyatt and bring them to me, Sergeant.”

“Right away, sir.”

Kemper approaches and salutes. Bowman returns it.

“Good morning, sir.”

“All right, Mike?”

“All present except for Private Boyd. He’s still MIA.”

“Well, we combed the hospital good last night. We’ll have to assume he slipped out past the wire and went AWOL. Let’s take a walk and see what we can see.”

They move out past the wire and climb onto the roof of an abandoned car to get a good view down First Avenue. Bowman uses the close combat optic on his rifle, Kemper a pair of Vortex Viper binoculars. The road is choked with abandoned vehicles as far north as they can see. Smoke hangs like a pall over the scene, drastically reducing visibility. Some of the cars are on fire, billowing thick, oily smoke.

They see no people.

Gunfire snarls in the distance, intense and violent.

A chill trickles down Bowman’s spine.

“Other than that shooting, things seem pretty calm this morning,” the Platoon Sergeant says.

“Right. No sirens. No traffic. For that matter, I don’t see any new patients trying to get into the hospital. It’s eerie.”

“I sure would like to know where all the people went who were driving those cars. Looks like some kind of battle took place out there last night, just outside those roadblocks. Maybe you are right about one thing, sir.”