Dark Victory - eARC (29 page)

I grab the key and go to the metal door, insert the key, give it a twist. Sirens are still sounding, and there’s the sound of engines roaring by. The door opens up. I get into a tiled corridor. I start down the hallway, looking left, looking right. Severe looking cells, made of stone and stainless steel, with drains in the center, and their own gated doors, and steel toilets and washbasins.

And every one of the cells I pass is empty.

Empty!

“Damn it to hell,” I whisper.

I turn and go back to the stockade’s office.

It’s now empty as well.

I’m all alone.

The sirens outside wail and wail.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Outside of the stockade I stumble around, find a bench, sit down, my blanket roll on the ground, and I allow myself a good cry. The dark sky is lightening up and I don’t care. For months I had kept alive the hope that my Dad was alive and well, and during those long months, I had reoccurring fantasies of what it would be like when we finally got back together. There would be laughs, hugs, handshakes, back slaps and a long night back at his quarters, talking and gossiping and catching up on our missing half year apart.

I pick up my belongings, start walking away from the stockade. Now I knew where he had been, where Serena’s dad had been.

And I had missed them by thirty minutes . . . not even a damn hour!

The sirens have stopped their wailing. Part of me hopes that’s a good sign and another part really doesn’t care.

But the arsenal’s roads still have traffic, from Humvees to horses, and I’m ignored as I walk, lost in what I have to do. Get safely out of here. Get to Troy, see if I can find Serena and Buddy at the USO. From there . . . ?

Work it through, one step at a time.

It’s getting lighter. With all of this about me, I’m still thinking about Abbie, back at my home base. Poor wounded Thor, hopefully not thinking I’ve abandoned him. And the people I’ve met, from Colonel Minh to Captain Diaz to—

A cluster of Humvees up ahead, around a barracks or a maintenance garage. Soldiers are gathered in small groups, talking and smoking, and they’re not soldiers, no.

They’re Marines. And one Humvee has a Marine flag, flying off a pole on the rear bumper.

I quicken my pace, go up to the nearest group, and ask for Lieutenant Sinclair. I’m directed to an area on the other side of the building, and there he is, bent over a picnic table, looking at some maps with two other lieutenants. I step forward and he spots me, smiles.

“Hey, it’s the sergeant from New Hampshire,” Lieutenant Sinclair says, genuine surprise in his voice. “How the hell did you get here?”

“Long story,” I say. “Sir, if I may, have you already been to Troy and back?”

He shakes his tired head. “No can do, sergeant,” he says. “The bridge over the Hudson is blocked with a massive pile-up, happened right after Albany got smacked. Goddamn civilians. We’re tryin’ here to figure out the best way to get up there.”

“Your passengers . . . the specialist and her brother . . .”

A shrug. “Last time I saw, they were back there in the garage, taking a breather.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He goes back to the maps. I go into the garage. Humvees and other vehicles in various stages of repair are clustered closely around the floor. There’s shouts and the whine and buzz of tools, overhead gaslights flicker, making strange shadows. I take my time and after a few minutes, I find them both: Serena and Buddy, sitting in a corner, all tucked in behind a large red tool box on casters, like they’re trying to hide. Serena has her arm around Buddy and her face shows me that she’s been crying. My pack is nearby.

She looks up and bursts into tears, and I put a finger to my lip. “Zip it, Specialist,” I say. “We need to get out of here, but we need to do it quietly. Come on.”

I extend a hand and she grabs it, as I help her up, and Buddy stands up as well, and maybe it’s the flickering lights or my own exhaustion, but it seems like he’s awarded me with a brief smile.

“I was so damn worried,” she says, brushing her BDUs clean. “I wasn’t sure when the Marines could get to Troy, didn’t know if we’d be picked up by the MPs, but—”

“Enough,” I say. “We need to get going.”

She picks up my knapsack and says, “The only thing that went right is that I got your letter to that Abby posted.”

“Thanks.”

Serena shoulders my pack. “Our dads? Did you find them?”

“No,” I say. “They’ve been transferred. I was about a half-hour late.”

“Oh, Randy . . .”

I offer her a tired smile. “What? You think that’s it? You think I’m giving up?”

She takes Buddy’s hand. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“Our dads are being taken to the train station in Schenectady,” I say. “You think they’re going to get there and get on a train right away? Some express train to Leavenworth? Chances are, they’ll have to wait, and while they’re waiting, we’re going to scoop them up.”

We start out of the maintenance garage and Serena keeps pace with me. “Just like that? You think the MPs will give them up, just like that?”

“Why not?” I ask. “I can do anything I want. I’ve just gotten the Silver Star from the President of the United States.”

Serena murmurs, “At least he did something useful before Albany got hit.”

Outside of the garage the sky is graying out nicely. I go back to the squad of Marines, looking here and there, until I see the Marine I’m looking for: Private Chang, the Marine who had spoken up for me back at the burning hillside. His helmet is off and he’s washing his face from a basin balanced on the hood of a Humvee. Other Humvees and tied up horses are tangled around the parking area. A haze of smoke is in the air. One Marine says to another, “Listen up, bud, you catch that smell? That’s Albany burning.”

His mate says, “How the hell can you tell?”

“Burning chickenshit and red tape, how else?”

Chang recognizes me again and says, “Hey, Sergeant, didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

“Me neither,” I say, Serena and Buddy trailing behind me. I go up to him. “Look can you do me a favor?”

He shrugs. “Depends, I guess. What’s going on?”

I make a point of looking around the crowded area. “How about we go someplace a bit more private?”

Another shrug. “Up to you.” He dries his hands on a gray towel, grabs his helmet and M-10, and I follow him to the rear of the garage. There are oil drums filled with scrap metal and broken parts, some low trimmed shrubbery at the rear by locked Dumpsters. He turns, putting his helmet back on, tightening the chin straps. “What’s up?”

“Private, after what you did for me back in Albany, I hate to do this to you, but I need a Humvee, along with an M-10, rations, and an M-4.”

Chang starts to laugh and stops when he sees I’m not in on the apparent joke. “Sure. Why not. Let’s go see my ell-tee, fill out some paperwork, and we’ll send you on your way. Even give you some Hershey bars to pass out to any civvies you meet. Bet we can get you out in five minutes or less, if you say pretty-please.”

I move fast and sure, slipping out my Beretta, cocking the hammer. I don’t point it at Chang, but I don’t try to hide it. “Private, I owe you one, but I really need that Humvee and those weapons. Now.”

Chang stands still. He’s about my age, and in the quickening light burn tissue and scars on his neck become visible. “Or what. You going to shoot me?”

“It’s a thought.”

Now he laughs for real. “Go ahead. Put me out of my misery. I’ve been fighting those damn bugs, off and on for five years, and just when we’re told the war’s over, time to get back to civvie life, time to relax, Albany gets smoked. War’s back on. Think I’m gung-ho for that shit again?”

I point the Beretta at a leg. “Or maybe I just put a round through your knee, cripple you for the rest of your life.”

His smile is wider. “Why not? Get me disabled, get me out of the Corps. Oh, yeah, and my platoon will hear the gunshot, see me on the ground bleeding out, and you won’t live to get to a stockade. Gotta do better than that, Sergeant.”

I don’t move. He’s got me trapped, damn it.

“What’s the deal then?” Chang asks. “You looking to bail out? Head off to the Catskills or something, become a deserter? With a Humvee and military-issued weps?”

The rumble of a Humvee starting up startles me. Each second I’m spending here, means another second wasted while my dad and Serena’s dad get closer to the train station. So, tell him the truth? That me and that scared young girl and quiet boy I’m escorting have the keys to ending this war? Tell him the truth? Chang’s eyes are staring right at me, no fear, not much of anything.

Tell him the truth.

“I’m after my dad,” I say. “And the specialist’s dad. They were in the arsenal’s stockade, and now they’re being shipped to Schenectady. We haven’t seen them for nearly a half year.”

Chang’s expression changes. “Your dads . . . they’re alive?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re trying to get to them?”

“Yes.”

His eyes and expression soften, like a hard candy or something, exposed to sunlight. “My dad . . . he’d been in the Corps, years before. When the war started, he got me and Mom and my two sisters, he got us out of Cincinnati, one of the few diesel buses still running . . . he had on his BDUs and his gut was hanging out, but he was off to the war . . .”

He snaps to. “Last time I ever saw him. You want to get to your dads? Should have told me right away. C’mon.”

After a few minutes, Chang leads us to the end of the parking lot, to the last parked Humvee. He tosses me his M-10, along with a bandolier of five egg-shaped rounds. “Going into harm’s way?”

“You know it,” I say. I open the doors and Serena gets into the front, and Buddy is in the rear. There’s a jumble of packs and equipment, and Buddy squirms his way in. Chang steps away, comes back with an M-4. “Best I could do. You’ve only got one magazine, so don’t waste your shots.”

I make sure the M-4 is in safe, give it to Serena. Chang ducks down and looks at the console, and says, “This baby’s old, has been converted to electric, and I don’t know how much of a charge you got, and the transmission’s cranky as hell. Best I can do, Sergeant, wasn’t gonna let you take one of our better ones.”

I shake his hand. “Appreciate it.”

He gives my hand a hard squeeze. “Get the hell out of here.”

“How are you going to explain this to your lieutenant?”

Chang laughs, waves an arm at the busy and confusing parking lot, the road in front of the garage, the sounds of shouts and yells and engines, the
clop-clop
of horse’s hooves. “Fog of war, how else? Now, git.”

I go.

* * *

The interior of the Humvee stinks of sweat, burnt things, and gun oil. The set-up was pretty simple. An on/off switch for the electric motor, and a sliding shift lever on the transmission lump between me and Serena that had four markings: P, D, N and R. Much, much easier than that old Impala I had struggled with back in Albany.

I flip the switch on, catch a low hum, and I point something out to Serena: a faded bit of scratched graffiti, above the old dials that didn’t mean anything and near an old-fashioned ball compass: baghdad or bust.

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“It means this thing’s older than you and me put together,” she says. “Randy, please, drive.”

I flipped the selector to D, and with a soft surge, we go out of the crowded parking lot.

“Look at me,” I say. “Driving twice in two days.”

“Goodie for you,” Serena says, arms crossed.

I speed up as we approach the main gate, and the MP there just waves me on. I turn right and join the rest of the traffic getting out of the arsenal. Serena says, “You know how to get to Schenectady?”

“Nope.”

“You got a map?”

“Nope.”

“Then how the hell do you plan to get there?”

“Ask someone who knows.”

It’s full morning when I arrive back at the farm where I had departed some hours ago, being driven out on a raspy Vespa scooter, and the dirt driveway before the barn is crowded with horse-drawn wagons and one battered Ford pick-up truck that looks to be nearly a century old. I park at an open spot near the barn and get out, jostled by some folks going in and out of the barn. I spot Billy Whittum and he fetches his mom, she’s coming out of the barn, on crutches, looking much more tired than from before.

“Sergeant,” she says. “Looks like you’ve been at your rally point and back. Good for you, but if you’re looking for breakfast, sorry, we’re all out.”

“No, ma’am,” I say. “Just directions, and then I’ll be on my way.”

She looks at me, and then the Humvee. “I see. You’re coming up in the world . . . where are you going?”

“Schenectady.”

“What for?”

I feel like a dick, but I can’t do anything else. “Sorry, ma’am. You know how it is. OPSEC.”

She sags some in her crutches. A passing breeze tosses the loose pant leg where her stump is and she says, “OPSEC. Terrible bitch, ain’t she. Billy! A piece of paper and pencil.”

Leaning onto the hood of the Humvee, she laboriously draws out a map, and she passes it over. “Anything else?”

Time, time, time. But I say, “Yes. Thor.”

Andrea seems to understand. “Sure. This way.”

‘This way” is an attached stall at the side of the barn, and God love my boy, I hear him whine as I approach. He knows I’m here. Behind me I see Serena get out of the Humvee, hurrying over to us. I go into the stall and Thor lifts his head, smiles, starts panting and wagging his tail. He’s resting on a dog bed made from a large canvas sack stuffed with something, resting upon soft hay, and I motion him to stay still. Behind me Andrea joins me and he says, “We changed his dressings and the pup didn’t give us no mind at all. Ate some dinner scraps and drank right up. That’s one fine boy you got there, Sergeant.”

The rest here has done Thor well. His eyes are bright and shiny. Serena joins us and says, “Randy . . . I mean, Sergeant, we really have to get moving.”

“We certainly do,” I reply. “And we’re all moving together.”

“Sergeant . . .”

I want to look at Serena but my eyes are filling, and I don’t want her to see that. “Back in the Humvee, in the rear. I’m sure I spotted a collapsible stretcher. Bring it back.”

My boy’s tail thumps and thumps, and damn it, how does he know what I’m thinking?

“Thor’s coming with us,” I say.

A few minutes later Thor is in the rear of the Humvee, and Buddy smiles in enjoyment, and rubs and rubs his head, and Thor licks his hand in response. I fold up the collapsible stretcher and shove it in where I can, and return to the front of the vehicle. I turn the Humvee around and head out to the end of the driveway. To the south are columns of smoke and the orange glow of fires out of control, at our nation’s latest capitol.