Crisis Event: Black Feast (3 page)

She continued to cruise the center stripe of the highway, keeping her speed down in case she needed to stop suddenly.

“Going to need an air filter soon,” she told herself, and opened the throttle a little more, wincing as the wind whipped into her chest.

After a few more minutes, she settled into the saddle of her new machine and started looking for a secure and solid place to hide from the coming storm.

Chapter 3

 “What the hell are we doing out here?” Duck asked, and jerked the steering wheel hard to his right.

He swerved around a burned out Mazda and spun the steering wheel back to the left, shooting the Humvee through the gap between the two battered pick-up trucks blocking most of the road.

He made a too-fast S turn around a Ford Focus and an old Chevy Cutlass someone had put into place to make anyone coming in slow down. The swerve through his passengers around so violently they cursed or moaned in response.

After the zig-zag security maneuver, Duck pulled the Humvee onto a dust-covered road that curved through a stand of trees and disappeared around to their right.

The gray dawn gave off a weak light that was blocked by the dusty forest they’d entered.

Duck was forced to slow down and peer ahead to keep a clear idea of where the road was.

Dust and ash floated in the air, like the white floating plastic inside a snow globe. There was so much dust kicking up from the wind and so much dust on the ground that if he wasn’t careful he’d drive them off into a stand of gray trees and get them stuck.

“Where the hell is here, exactly?” Hider asked.

“Ravenna Arsenal,” Blakely said.

“And why are at Ravenna Arsenal,” Duck asked.

“Because we were ordered here,” Blakely said. “That’s all you need to know. Try to remember you’re in the goddamned army, will you?”

“Yes sir,” Duck quacked. Behind him, Hider, Meadowlark, and Sparks snickered, and Blakely rolled his eyes.

They’d been driving five hours straight, after camping inside an abandoned warehouse with a partially collapsed roof. They’d found the building just outside Youngstown when the trail of the unfriendlies from their firefight had gotten too hard to follow.

None of them—except Titman—had slept more than four hours. They’d all had to stand watch, so when Titman emerged from his Humvee at five in the morning and gave the command to move, there was more than a little grumbling.

The reservists, not used to going on short sleep, were not exactly in an alert and ready frame of mind. The fact that they’d taken five hours to travel thirty miles wasn’t helping.

The road ahead continued to curve through the woods, which looked impenetrable despite the fact that everything was dead and covered in dust. The underbrush had been thick and tall when the dust started falling, and now the dead bushes, shrubs, and vines that stretched beneath the dead trees looked a lot like tank traps and coils of razor wire.

The Humvee convoy followed the road, which turned right, then left, and back again, getting deeper and deeper into the woods.

After the snaky road had taken them deep into the dead forest they broke out of trees. Ahead, the road straightened and widened to two lanes.

“Finally an easy drive,” Duck said.

Blakely wasn’t so sure.

“Not if you’re an enemy.”

Someone had constructed berms on either side of the road, both running parallel to the road.

At ten feet high, the berms gave whoever might be atop them a nice firing platform. Gray cinder block pill boxes were staggered along the tops of the berms. The sides opposite roads were steep and covered in dusty overgrowth that looked like dead sticker vines and thorn bushes.

“Whoa,” Blakely said, “Slow down.”

He knew a choke point kill zone when he saw one.

Duck halted the Humvee a few feet short of the kill zone entrance.

Blakely looked through binoculars to get a closer look at the sharp right hand turn fifty meters inside the kill zone.

The turn would force the convoy to slow to a crawl. They’d be vulnerable to an ambush or and IED. He scanned the top of the berm to check for snipers but saw nothing.

“Hider and Meadowlark,” Blakely said. “Get up there and make sure no one’s going to open up on us. Sparks, get on the .50.”

“Yes sir,” they said, and pulled their respirators up to cover their faces.

Sparks flipped the hatch open and climbed into the gunner’s sling.

When Meadowlark and Hider opened the doors they went out at double time, then sprinted up the berm with their weapons at the ready.

“What about me?” Jake Smith asked. It was the first words he’d spoken since Titman had executed Navarro the day before.

“Be ready,” Blakely said without looking back at Smith. He was too busy watching Hider and Meadowlark climb and scout the berm.

“Looks clear,” Hider said through his radio.

“Keep going,” Blakely said. “And if you see a threat take it out.”

“Sergeant Blakely,” General Titman’s voice came through Blakely’s ear buds .

“Yes sir,” Blakely responded.

“Quit fucking around up there. We’re on a deadline and we got people waiting on us.

“Yes sir,” Blakely said, shaking his head.

He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was. Once again General Titman was being careless.

“All right, kids. You heard the man. Get back here.”

Half a minute later the men were back in the Humvee.

The .50 cal was unmanned, the hatch closed, and Duck was taking them down the short road between the berms.

When they reached the curve in the road Blakely glanced up to his right. Several men in respirators and gray camo uniforms were watching them from atop the berm, assault rifles at the ready.

As soon as Duck got them around the turn they found that the berms ended, tapering down into a widened road. A narrow wooden bridge acted as another choke point before yet another left-hand turn.

“They got a minotaur living out here?” Blakely asked, but his men, unsure what he was asking, remained silent.

The convoy rolled across the one-lane bridge, which clattered beneath their tires. It was obviously old, built over the twenty-foot-wide creek long before the water turned into a thick charcoal sludge.

After they made the left turn, they discovered they’d reached the end of the road. Duck slid them to a halt in a clearing carved out of the gray forest.

Right in front of them were six full-sized field tents. To the left of the tents, eight Humvees were lined up side by side, with enough space between them to allow simultaneous loading.

All eight Humvees were pointed toward the bottleneck bridge, as if they expected to have to move out at any moment.

Beyond the Humvees was another field tent, and next to it was a small rectangular area with three men in gray camo working on launching a white, six-bladed helicopter drone.

The rectangular launch area looked like it had seen heavy use. The dust was packed down hard and tight.

“Damn,” Duck said, “Look at that.”

But Blakely was already looking.

To the right of the two field tents was an open space, with several bonfires burning. Men in gray camo and respirators stood around the fires, or patrolled around the perimeter of the clearing.

Beyond the fires, a gently sloping hill rose up like a dome, not nearly as steep as the berms they’d driven through, but four times as tall at the top. Dead, dust-covered trees covered the domed hill, and a dark tunnel mouth had been carved about halfway up the hill, at least forty feet off the ground.

The tunnel mouth entrance was lined and supported with concrete abutments, and a wooden scaffold supporting stairs allowed people below to ascend to the entrance.

Blakely would have bet money the scaffolding was wired to blow. In an emergency, the hill would instantly become a formidable fortress.

Blakely scanned the clearing again, noticing the little gray camo tents scattered at various points, all of them near .50 caliber machine gun emplacements.

“What is this place?” Duck  asked.

“It’s not likely you’re ever going to know,” Blakely said, “so you might as well not worry about it.”

Blakely looked around some more and spotted two hidden fifty caliber machine gun emplacements covering the bridge, and he’d have bet money the bridge was as wired to blow as the hill’s scaffolding.

“Do me a favor, fellas,” Blakely said, “Don’t make any sudden movements.

“Yes sir,” the men in the back seat responded.

Titman’s voice came over the radio. “Blakely, get over here. Have your men re-supply. Tell Corporal Williams to talk to Sergeant Cheeks.”

“Yes sir,” Blakely said and looked at Duck. “You heard the man.”

Duck pulled his wireless headset off and held his hand over the mike.

“Why didn’t he just tell me. He knows we’re all wired.”

Blakely shrugged, not wanting to pull off his wireless rig or talk shit about the general. He was fairly sure his men were all loyal to him, but you never knew.

Titman was the kind of guy you couldn’t trust. He’d do his best to recruit a spy or two in any outfit he was running. Holding shit over people’s heads was about the only way he could get people to obey him. He certainly couldn’t inspire their respect.

“You notice the uniforms?” Duck asked as Blakely opened the door.

“Of course.”

“What about them?” Jake Smith asked from the back seat, and Blakely felt relief. The kid was coming around. Blakely had made sure he rode in his Humvee so he wouldn’t be tempted to take out Titman.

Blakely didn’t want to have to kill the kid for trying to do what he should have already done himself.

“No flags,” Blakely said. “No unit patches. No ID period. They’re not U.S. military.”

“What’s going on?” Hider asked.

“Who are they?” Duck asked.

“Duck, you take Smith and go find this Sergeant Cheeks and get us resupplied,” Blakely said. He turned to Hider and Meadowlark. “You two stay together. No one goes anywhere alone. You shit and jack off in pairs while we’re here.”

“You want us to get started on the shitting and jacking off right now?” Williams asked, and Blakely had to suppress a smile as his men snickered and guffawed.

“Just pass it along to everyone,” Blakely growled. “Stay together. Got it?”

“Yes sir,” the kids in the back seat said, and for once, they seemed appropriately scared.

“I got a bad feeling about this place” Duck said.

“Good.” Blakely said as he stepped out of the Humvee. “Hang on to it.”

Titman was grumpy when Blakely climbed into his Humvee.

“Morning, Sir,” Blakely said, trying hard to sound respectful, but knowing he was only partially succeeding. “May I ask what you’d like us to do today?”

“What you’re told,” Titman said. An unlit cigar dangled from his mouth. He was studying a map. “We’re here to resupply and get intel. We’re getting some reinforcements, too. Seems like the enemy is swinging a bigger dick up here than we thought.”

“Who is the enemy, sir? What were we doing fighting First Cavalry last night?”

Titman ignored Blakely and closed up his map.

“You got a location yet?” he asked the specialist in the front seat.

“No sir. Sorry sir.”

“Well keep trying,” Titman growled. “Come on, Sergeant.”

Blakely followed Titman, who’d opted to ignore his respirator, and the two of them strode over to the stairs at the bottom of the hill. Titman climbed the steps quickly, and Blakely came after him, three steps behind.

At the entrance, two guards in full face respirators stood with assault rifles slung over their shoulders.

The men looked relaxed, but Blakely could tell they were professionals, ready to swing their rifles around and fire in an instant.

They didn’t move out of the way when Titman and Blakely approached, and Titman was forced to stop suddenly to avoid running into them.

Blakely smiled from behind Titman. He could see the general’s shoulders tensing up.

“No admittance, sir,” one of the guards said with a flat, bored voice.

“Are you fucking serious, Hoss?” Titman asked.

“That’s okay, boys,” someone said from behind the guards. “Step aside.”

“Yes sir,” the guards said. They stepped back immediately and stood at attention.

Whoever these people were, Blakely thought, they were holding onto discipline.