Craig Dilouie - The Killing Floor

Something about the whole operation still smacks of a massive Army foul-up. Oops, we invaded ourselves by accident. Nice going, General Stupidity, you’re relieved. General Chaos will take it from here.

He can’t get used to it.

A foghorn booms in the west, answered by another in the south. Rod knows they are not real foghorns. They are giant monsters browsing their way through the city. He can’t get used to that either. An MH60 Blackhawk gunship catches up to the column and paces it, the thumping of its rotors drowning out even the foghorns. It will provide top cover for the rest of the trip.

It’s good to be back in the USA one way or the other. They all feel this way. They are back on sacred ground, that much closer to the people who matter most to them. They are home. When they captured the airport, a grizzled veteran dropped to his knees and kissed the tarmac. Mecca’s the other way, Sergeant , one of the boys said, slurring the word as Sarrunt as so many of them did, but nobody laughed. Rod nearly kissed the ground as well. Leading his squad across the tarmac, he half expected to see the Washington Monument wrapped in monstrous tentacles or the Lincoln Memorial covered in vines or half buried in apocalyptic sands. Instead, he saw a typical airport with stately jumbo jets at rest among fuel trucks, water trucks, ramps, hoses and other white utility vehicles. Some scattered luggage offered the only clue something was wrong. That, and the total absence of people. Everything was abandoned. The city appeared to have been converted into a massive, derelict parking lot.

The column winds through an artificial canyon formed by rows of boxy office buildings, street-level retail stores and the ever-present piles of cars pushed to the side of the road. One of the buildings boasts in large letter signage that it is the corporate home of general dynamics. Rod grins. They’re the company that makes the Stryker. The vehicles pass their maker. Minutes later, the column grinds to a halt in front of another large building and sits idling.

This is their objective. Seven floors. Three hundred and forty rooms.

The Crystal Palace Hotel.

♦

The plan is to unfuck America, starting with Washington, DC, their new area of operations. That is how Captain Mack, call sign Outlaw, put it during the mission briefing back in Germany. The Brass dubbed the invasion Operation Yellow Ribbon, but the grunts call it simply the Home Front. It is the largest and most complex military operation in America’s history, involving units staging from around the world, and thrown together in less than a month.

Rod considers liberating Washington to be a symbolic gesture. There is nothing special about the city itself. No weapons manufacturing, food production, vital scientific facilities. The scuttlebutt is the Brass did not want to do it. The generals wanted to fight a campaign somewhere else with less risk to gain a secure foothold on the mainland and gain experience fighting this new enemy. The President, however, wanted something big and decisive to raise morale.

“We’re going to take it back,” Captain Mack told them.

Washington . Rod can feel the raw power in the air, even with the city fallen to the Wildfire Agent. Talk about symbols and myths. Washington was where taxes came from. Where the establishment ran the country. Where politicians clowned and fought in neverending political theater. It was a bag of dicks, in Army parlance, even before Wildfire. Some guys Rod served with over the years considered Washington a foreign power. For his part, he cannot help but feel massive anger and pride actually being here. Anger at seeing his capital in the hands of the enemy. Pride at being part of a massive invasion force that will take it back.

This is the first army in the history of the world, Rod muses, called to war to fight a virus. A war fought not over religion or resources or territory, but pure survival.

Mack said the Regiment would be fighting within miles of Arlington Cemetery, where thousands lie buried having died fighting for freedom. Let’s do America proud , he told them. Let’s do the Army proud. Our families are back there. Our homeland is under siege. It’s time to take it back.

Standing at attention on the tarmac, the boys roared the regimental war cry.

AIEEYAH!

An hour later, they filed onto Russian-made AN-124 cargo planes for the long flight to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. After refueling, they hopped to Ronald Reagan National Airport ready to fight, crossing a Potomac swarming with Coast Guard cutters and supply ships, only to find the facility already secured by a unit of Marines and combat engineers, now banging away at Infected on the roads and clearing the traffic jams.

The Dragoons found themselves with nothing to do. Hurry up and wait, as usual. Welcome back to the Suck.

The EUCOM, CENTCOM, AFRICOM, PACOM and SOUTHCOM strategic commands were all heading home to be folded into NORTHCOM headquartered at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado. From all over South America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, troops poured into Andrews and were then flown to Reagan, while troops flying home from Pacific Command established a bridgehead on the other side of the country in Santa Barbara, California. Chinook helicopters filled the sky over Washington day and night, ferrying troops to bivouacs established on Theodore Roosevelt Island and East Potomac Park. The grand strategy was to expand these pockets to link up with Bolling Air Force Base, Fort Myer and the Pentagon, creating a secure zone supported by other installations in the region such as Quantico, Fort Belvoir, Andrews, Dahlgren and Indian Head. From this expanded beachhead, the invasion force would cross the Potomac and drive east through the Mall to secure the White House and the Capitol.

Apache and Battle Companies were called away on missions. Then Comanche Company got its turn, a solid operation that would take it outside the wire: secure the Crystal Palace hotel. The invasion force was beginning its expansion phase and, besides that, needed the extra housing for troops and refugees.

This is what war looks like to grunts. The grand strategy is sweeping and covers the entire region, but is ultimately comprised of small units capturing small objectives. Being a veteran, Rod understands that these small steps win campaigns. For Company C, the next day of the war will be spent seizing a hotel, searching and destroying.

Rod’s mission is much more personal than recovering Washington, DC, however. He needs to get home to his wife and children.

His marriage with Gabriela started off stormy. They tied the knot while the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were in full swing, and he spent most of those years in the Sandbox. When he came home he was angry, restless, difficult to live with. They foolishly decided having kids would fix things. Oddly, it did. Children changed him. His kids became his center; their chaos gave him a sense of stillness he needed. He wanted a hundred and settled for three: Kristina, age four, Lilia, age three, and Victor, the youngest, still a baby.

Rod cannot imagine what happened to them. He has had no contact with his family for twenty-three days. They lived on base at Fort Benning, Georgia. The base was evacuated, and Rod still has not been able to find out where they went.

If he finds his children okay at the other end of this thing, he will hand in his rifle and become a priest. If not, he will curse God. He does not know what he would do if he lost them. He heard the Infected kill and eat children instead of convert them. He cannot even imagine someone eating his Victor. Just trying would destroy his sanity.

Captain Mack is right. They are going to have to take America back one house, one building, one city at a time. Rod will be there, fighting every step of the way, until he gets home.