Allegiance (24 page)

Outbreak - Day 15

Schriever AFB

Colorado Springs,
Colorado

The sun was making its
downward slide over the Rockies as Brook worked the key in the lock. The
hottest part of the day was behind her, and now she was looking forward to a
little family time. Time to clear up a few things. Time to cleanse her palate
for a steaming plate of crow.

She took another look at
the sky going red, pushed the door in and stood back. “Cade... you in there?”

Nothing
.

She turned back to
Raven. “I want you to stay right here while I check things out.” Raven nodded.
Mouthed a silent OK.

Brook entered the dim
room holding the M4 at low ready, with the barrel at a forty-five degree angle
between horizontal and the floor, just like Cade had taught her the first time
they’d hunted pheasant together. Before Raven was born and well before
brandishing a weapon against danger, real or perceived, had become a part of
her normal routine. Just like eating or breathing—two things necessary to
sustain life—toting around seven pounds of forged titanium and machined metal
had become nearly as important for her survival.

She had one boot in the
door when Max confronted her, muzzle against her leg and his stubby tail wagging
a manic hello. Ignoring the dog, she pushed in further. And once her eyes had
adjusted she saw her shirtless husband, chest rising and falling, splayed out
on the bunk opposite the two they had pushed together to serve as a sort of
mini-queen bed. She noticed his M4 amongst his gear near her feet, but she
didn’t see the ever-present pair of Glock pistols.

“Cade—” she said in a
low voice. She watched him for a tick. He stirred, but didn’t respond. She
called out to Raven. “Come on in sweetie... but be quiet, your dad’s asleep.”

***

Cade finally stirred
after a couple of minutes. He opened one eye to recon the room. Except for a
trickle of light coming in around the covered windows, it was gloomy and he
appeared to be alone. He propped his head up on one elbow and shifted his gaze
behind him.

“Hi Dad.”

“Hi sweetie,” he said to
Raven, who was sitting on the adjacent bunk. “I was wiped.” He ran his hands
through his dark hair. Rubbed his eyes, squinting against the fading light.

“Time for a haircut,
Dad,” Raven said. “Maybe a shave too? Sure looks itchy.”

“No, it’s not so bad
sweetie. I think I’m going to let it grow out a little.”

“I liked your face
before this... when it was smooth. You know, like Uncle Mike’s—” she stopped
mid-sentence. Made a face, clearly wishing she could take back the words.

The three of them said
nothing for a couple of minutes.

Finally Cade broke the
silence. “It’s OK, Raven. Even though we can’t talk to him, Uncle Mike is still
with us. Right in here... in
spirit
,” he said, touching his chest over
his heart.

“How do you know?” she
asked, screwing up her face.

“I read about it in the
old
people
hand book. You’ll have to trust me. Can you do that?”

“Yes Dad.”

He stood and stretched.
“I’m going to go on a quick run before it’s full dark,” he said. “Want me to
take the
dog
?”

“Not so fast,
Captain
Grayson. Wouldn’t want Max to get
lost
now, would we,” Brook said,
adding air quotes with her fingers to the word ‘
lost
.’

“I
love
dogs,”
Cade said, suppressing a grin.

“
Sit down
,” Brook
commanded.

He dropped his tennis
shoes and did as he was told, planting his butt on the rack.

“We need to have a
family conversation, and honey, I have a confession to make,” she said softly.
She paced the floor for a few seconds. Took a deep cleansing breath and went on.
“I left the reservation while you were on your way to Jackson Hole. Went on a
food run along with General Gaines, some of his 10th Special Forces guys, and a
few of the civilians.”

Cade’s eyes narrowed. “I
know,” he said matter-of-factly.

Brook stared into his
brown eyes. “Who told you... I mean how did you find out?”

“Your boots gave you
away.”

“My boots?” she asked as
her gaze shifted unconsciously down the length of her body towards her feet.

“The mud caked on those
things wasn’t from around here. Too many minerals. Smelled like manure. No kind
of soil like that around here.”

Brook chuckled. “That
was
gated community
dirt,” she said. “
Rich folks dirt
.”

“Like I said before. We
live and die by the decisions we make, and we’re not going to live forever.”

“
Dad
...”

“I’m only speaking to
the truth, Raven. Your mom and me are trying to prepare you for that day, and
it starts right now. Keep it on your mind so that when it does happen you’ll
know exactly what
you
need to do.”

“And then?” she asked
softly, her head resting on the bunk’s vertical post.

“You
survive
,”
Brook added. “You forget about us and you save yourself... that’s what it’s
going to take for you to survive. You’ll have to detach—”

“Detach?”

“You know. Like I had to
do in Myrtle Beach. Those things were no longer your Grandma and Grandpa... and
I didn’t think of that thing crawling down the hall as my Mom when I pulled
that trigger.” Brook paused to let it sink in. Watched Raven’s brow crinkle.
Too
much too soon
, Brook thought to herself. Then she changed the subject. Went
on to explain to Cade where she and Raven had been and what they had been
doing. Over the course of an hour she told him about Wilson and Sasha and their
entire story—from Denver on up to their unanticipated mess hall meeting after
breakfast. She went over the horrors Taryn had endured inside of Grand Junction
Regional until she was rescued by him and his Delta team. Finally she dropped
the thumb drive bombshell in his lap.

Cade visibly tensed as
he listened to the improbable news coming out of her mouth. He sat up and
gently extricated himself from Brook’s embrace. Exhaled audibly and looked her
in the eye for a beat. Shifted his gaze over to his daughter.

“It’s true,” Raven said
rapid-fire. “I believe Taryn. She’s nice. Wilson... he’s kind of old and
annoying—”

Brook whispered in
Cade’s ear, “He’s twenty.”

Raven went on, “—and
Sasha... she’s kind of full of herself, but I think sooner or later she’ll come
around.”

“You’ve got ‘em all
figured out,” Cade said, feigning surprise. “Except for the dog... If I were
you I wouldn’t get too attached to anyone. Because we’re not going to be here
much longer.”

Raven smiled.

“We’ll cover that in
part two of our family meeting,” Brook said rather tentatively. Then she laid
out her proposal. “We’ll all go to Eden. You, me, and Raven. Sasha. Wilson and
Taryn, from the sounds of it, will pull their weight.”

“Don’t forget Max,”
chimed Raven.

“And the dog,” Brook
said, shooting a reassuring look at her daughter who was standing hands on hips
and glowering her way.

There was silence as
Cade just stared at Brook with a sour look on his face. He shifted his gaze to
Raven, then the dog. He was outnumbered.

Brook and Raven stood
before him. Smiling.

The whole thing had been
a cleverly crafted and properly sprung ambush. Cade fought off the small curl
of a smile working on the corners of his lips.

Brook continued. “If
they go with us there will be someone close to Raven’s age. Plus,” she
whispered into Cade’s ear. “Young people like Taryn and Wilson are going to be
necessary to repopulate. To keep us going. Keep us fighting back against those
things.”

Cade was speechless. The
word
incredulous
crept into his mind. Rarely was he at a loss for words,
so he merely stared with a firm set to his jaw.

“Bed time, Raven. I need
to work on your father. Set Max up on one of the bottom bunks.”

Max heard his name and
emerged from the shadows. Raven scratched behind his ears. Then she pecked Mom
and Dad on the cheek. “Come on boy,” she said as she headed to the bathroom to
get ready for bed.

***

One
hour later

“So it’s settled
then—you’ll at least show up at the briefing at zero-five-hundred? Give them
your two cents’ worth?” Brook wrapped her toned arms around her man. Wrestled
him flat to the bunk without receiving much of a fight in return.

“I’m not sold yet,” Cade
replied. “Plus it depends on where they’re going.”

“
Bullshit,
Cade
Grayson, you’re too much of a
patriot
to let the objective stop you from
going. There’s
so much
riding on this. Like Nash said to me in not so
many words, ‘Time is of the essence’—
cliché’
but true.”

“I’ll go and sniff
around. See what kind of mission they are planning.”

“Take these,” Brook
said, holding out her right hand. It was balled up into a fist, her knuckles
facing the ceiling. “You’ll need them.”

He held his hand out
palm up.

She dropped two squares
of desert tan fabric into his ready hand. Velcro on one side—captain’s bars
stitched in black on a field of desert camo on the other. “Nash said for you to
keep them whether you report to the briefing in the morning or not.” Brook
grabbed Cade’s other arm, looked at the Suunto strapped to his wrist. She
looked into the gloom towards Raven’s oasis. Cocked her head and listened for a
beat. She heard nothing but rhythmic breathing. “Looks like we’ve got a window
of opportunity,” Brook said in a soft sing song voice. “Don’t worry... I’ll
leave you a couple of hours to decide on the mission.” She kissed him hard on
the mouth. Felt him pressing against her, an urgency rippling through his
muscles. They stopped simultaneously. Twisted around to face the back of their
quarters. A few words of gibberish echoed from the dark. “Talking in her
sleep,” Cade said as he rolled Brook from her side to her back.

They made love in the
dark. Stopping only when both of them were winded and spent.

Brook dabbed the sheen
from Cade’s cheeks and upper lip. Ran both hands through his damp hair. Then
she abruptly kissed her man on the forehead, rolled away and was asleep in less
than five.

That was it
, he told himself. He had just witnessed Brook’s
ritual. She had started to compartmentalize. To ready herself for another
stretch of being alone while he was outside the wire. That simple act—rolling
over and switching off like a circuit breaker being thrown—after they had just
shared an hour of intimacy. An hour of true feelings exchanged without words.
Her body language told him it was OK for him to go. Told him she understood.
Told him she had known what she was getting herself into thirteen years ago
when they married. And it assured him that she hadn’t forgotten.

He lay there staring at
the mattress above him. Contemplating the waffle pattern the springs cut into
the dingy green fabric. Imagining what would have been if he had left Taryn to
the mercy of the zombies at Grand Junction, just like he had left the survivors
from the capsized barge at the Flaming Gorge dam. For if he hadn’t rescued her,
he surely wouldn’t be wrestling with the decision to once again forsake his
family and put his life on the line for the sake of the many.

He fell asleep with the
unanswered questions ensconced in his mind and the fabric captain’s emblems
clutched in his hand.

Outbreak - Day 15

Near Winters’s Compound

“Goddamnit, what a pain
in the ass,” Phillip muttered. The task he had started in the back of the
Humvee had quickly grown old. His spindly legs didn’t altogether fit in the
cramped back end, and he kept whacking his head on the pistol grips hanging
from the big machine gun. So now he sat in the grass with a slowly diminishing
pile of metal links, meticulously relinking them with loose fifty-caliber
rounds. He’d lost count at two hundred but he still had one and a half ammo
cans full of the inch-thick cartridges that were topped off with armor-piercing
lead.

“Hey buddy,” Duncan
called out from his blind side. Phillip’s head jerked up. He dropped a pair of
the links he had been holding. “Shit,” he exclaimed. “What are you doing
sneaking up on a fella like that?”

“Sorry... take this.”
Duncan handed the lanky man a longneck Bud. “It’s warm—still wets the whistle
though,” he drawled. “Pass me some of those... I’ll give you a hand.”

“Why do we need so much
belted ammo?” Phillip inquired.

“You remember the
machinegun fire we heard down by the roadblock—coming from inside the city?”

Phillip looked up from
his task and nodded.

“AK-47... heard that
kind of chatter gun poppin’ off in my direction more times than I care to
remember. Mostly in Nam. Been on the wrong side of ‘em a couple times in the
last couple of weeks though. But that’s not the point. If those hombres have
Kalashnikovs, then no doubt they have bigger stuff. Hell, that Chance kid we
let go had an AK-47. Leads me to believe our bad guys are calling Huntsville
home, and like I already said... sooner or later we’ll be facing off against
them. Rather do it on our terms out in the open. That Ma Deuce there... she
packs a Helluva punch. Thing can swat a Huey outta the sky. Just makes sense to
have her as an
equalizer
.”

“Good thinking, Sir. At
least we got
something
out of our little excursion.” Phillip grabbed the
last olive green ammo can. Looked inside and made a quick mental calculation.
“There are about seventy rounds left. How many does Logan want me to leave him
for his Barrett?”

“Better leave him fifty
or so,” Duncan said. “I can’t wait to see Oops shoot that thing and get his
skinny butt knocked to the dirt.”

Both men worked in
silence for a few minutes. Duncan stopped to shoo away an armada of buzzing
gnats. “Saved my ass back there at the roadblock,” he said out of nowhere. He
looked over the top of his aviator glasses. “Thanks,” he added sincerely. “I
figure I owe you one.”

Phillip took a long pull
off of his Budweiser. “Wasn’t nothing. I just hope you get the chance to pay me
back is all.”

“Alternative sucks.”
Duncan smiled and let out a low chortle. The kind of sound someone makes after
they’ve stared down death and survived.

“No disrespect Sir... I
mean Duncan... you didn’t see those rotters flanking us today, did you?”

“’Fraid I didn’t,”
Duncan answered demurely.

“Those thing’s
prescription?” Phillip asked, tapping at his eye as if he were the one wearing
the glasses.

“Yes Sir. I was supposed
to go to the VA hospital up on the hill in Portland to get my eyes checked
about a year ago. Kept putting it off until finally a week before the feces hit
the oscillating thingy I finally made my appointment. The shit part of it is...
my appointment was yesterday.” He upended his amber bottle and looked for its
replacement.

“Newsflash Duncan. You
ain’t getting new glasses, so I better stick close to you from here on out.
Wouldn’t want you to get eaten.”

“
Shiiiit
,” Duncan
drawled. “This old boy’s flesh is
tougher
than a deep fried chicken
gizzard—good luck with that, rotters.”

Both men shared a few
moments of morbid laughter.

“You know somethin,
Phillip,” Duncan said as he regained his composure.

“Lay it on me,” Phillip
replied.

“You’re an OK guy when
you aren’t calling me Sir.”