Payload (38 page)

“I’ve been giving the future a great deal of thought, sir,” Marv nodded.

There were three zeds in the park; Dyson dropped one with an arrow while Brick hammered the other two down, and then the pair buried the bodies and marked the spot as the government advisories suggested.  

Marv sat on a concrete bench at a concrete picnic table sipping a cold soda and watching the countryside. He had showered and put on a clean ACU, and taken a few aspirin for the aches and bruising that still dogged him from the chopper crash and the truck rollover. His hammer weighed down a folder on the table top, but he had left the shield inside Gnomehome. Behind him Chip and Sylvia were doing something at the side of the RV which involved a lot of whispering and giggling.

Finally they finished and joined him at the table. “You need to check out what we did,” Chip advised, grinning.

“What did you do?”

“Sylvia made decals with the printer, we just stuck them on. They’re little yard gnomes with the town and the number of people we saved under each one. You know, like bombers, they mark their missions, dude, three of them.”

“Clever,” the Ranger nodded tiredly. “How’s Portly?”

“Portal, the cult makes them take names that are theme-ist. Not the best, he’s got a bad concussion and riding in the bed of the truck all tied up isn’t doing him any good.”

“Will he live?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Good enough. Amnesty International can hold a concert for him, but until then he can suffer. All he needs to be is alive, and he should be thankful that he still is drawing breath. Whether he stays that way after the brass see his team’s video is another matter entirely.” The Ranger straightened up. “That’s vehicles, HUMVEEs, I bet. You guys scoot. It’s a million to one that FASA could pull a fast one, but I’m not taking any chances.”

Five armored HUMVEEs rolled up, each with a heavy weapon in the top mount. They rolled into a compact herringbone pattern at the entrance to the rest area, and all weapons faced outward.

Marv tucked the folder under his MOLLE vest and rose to meet the tall Army officer who emerged from the vehicles, trailed by a young Captain and four hard-faced Federal Marshals, one of whom was a woman.

One of the Marshals activated a battery powered lamp as they approached, and Marv could see NELSON on the officer’s name tag, and the new Colonel’s eagle on his rank patch. Nelson was tall and lean, with the look of a guy who played squash or tennis regularly, light and fast, with a weathered mug like a yachtsman’s, and a sprinkle of gray in his burr haircut. He had no combat badges, but he did have a right-sleeve patch, and Marv figured the guy for an intel type who killed by proxy, the sort of guy who caused missions, not led them.

“Sir.” Marv brought up a crisp salute.

“Lieutenant,” Colonel Nelson returned the salute and then grabbed Marv’s hand in a strong grip. “I am very glad to see you, son. Its been one helluva week. Your…mission output is getting rave reviews.”

“Good to hear, sir.”

“Now, first things first: we need the prisoners.”

Marv waved, and Chip and Brick brought the two up, Portal needing to be helped.

“What is wrong with this man?” the senior Marshal, the woman, demanded.

“He bore arms against the United States of America,” Colonel Nelson observed mildly. “That’s a dangerous occupation. These men are to be commended for having kept him alive; I understand the rest of his comrades weren’t so lucky.”

“I have been badly mistreated by these men,” Sophia advised the Marshal.

“You’ll be treated a great deal worse,” Colonel Nelson shrugged. “Don’t kid yourself, Miss Travis, the guards are civilian, but the hands they deliver you to will certainly not be operating by the restraints set out by the Federal Code. Just enjoy the illusionary remnants of the civilization you’ve attempted to destroy while they last.”

Marv signed an electronic form for the two prisoners and their personal belongings, and the four Marshals led them away for searching and proper restraints.

“Let’s grab a seat, I would like to have a word before I meet with your group,” the Colonel motioned towards a picnic table. “How are you holding up?”

“Its kind of surreal, sir. I’ve been running and gunning through the Twilight Zone for so long I’m not sure exactly what to feel.”

“I understand. Keep in mind that you’ve made a major contribution to the war effort by getting that payload out, and capturing Travis is not a minor achievement, either.” He took an attaché case from the Captain and set it on the table. “Today the President signed an order promoting you to First Lieutenant. The Chief of Staff’s office has authorized me a blank check for your next assignment, and in a ceremony sometime in the next few days we’re going to hang a Distinguished Service Cross, the Soldier’s Medal, and an Air Medal on you, plus a yet-to-be-determined award on each of your team or their next of kin.”

Marv nodded slowly. “The TV was indicating that there was a bounty on FASA operatives, like we used in Iraq, sir.”

“There is. It’s not formalized yet, and only the civilians in your team can benefit, but I expect Travis to be worth low to middle six figures, tax-free.”

Marv nodded again. He felt tired, sitting here in his beat-up, if clean, ACUs next to this crisp, polished Colonel; most of the pain from the chopper crash was still nagging at him, along with the truck rollover. After all, it had only been around five days, the twelfth to the sixteenth. “I’ve been in two combat ops today, sir.”

“Yes, there’s no doubt you’ve done your share and more.”

The Ranger pulled the folder out from beneath his vest. “About that blank check, sir. I know what I want.”

“Good.”

“I would like to be discharged, sir. Released from active duty, since I’m a Reserve officer now.”

Colonel Nelson was quiet for a moment. “Look, I know you’ve had it rough these last few days, Lieutenant, but don’t just throw it away. I promise you, Uncle Sam is going to take care of you. You’ve been promoted by Presidential Order; that alone means you’ll stay on active duty as long as you want, and retire a Lieutenant Colonel even if you’re a hopeless screw-up, which we both know you’re not. And let’s face it, the Army, hell the
country
needs men like you. The genie is out of the bottle, and even if it looks like we’ve got FASA on the run there’s still the virus to deal with.”

“Thank you, sir, but I’m not opting out of the fight, I just want out of the Army.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Sir, I’ve been in two combat ops today. The first one was pretty touch and go, but we saved fifty-one people and took down a bunch of zeds. Then I pulled the op that got us Sophia Travis. Even at First Lieutenant’s pay, the Army got a helluva deal for today’s work.”

“I appreciate your efforts, Lieutenant, but you’ve lost me on your thinking.”

“I want to leave the Army, and with just over six years in I’ve pretty well completed my contractual obligation. What I plan to do as soon as I am out is to form a security company, sir, and go to work for the US Government as a private contractor. I told you I wasn’t opting out of the fight, Colonel, just out of the Army. On TV they’re already talking about the Department of Defense gearing up to outsource logistics operations. If Uncle Sugar is really serious about thanking me, how about a little love when it comes to the paperwork? Maybe a bump up the list when it comes time to awarding contracts?”

“Do you think being a mercenary will make pulling two operations in a day easier?” Colonel Nelson’s voice was cold.

Marv sighed. “Not for me, sir. But I’ve got six guys who put it on the line to get that payload through, six regular guys whose lives are screwed up by this whole mess and who still stepped up. Two others died along the way. A few more bought it helping us indirectly.” Unbidden, the old Marine and his wife at the Wal Mart truck attack, and the lady manager at the RV park sprang to mind. “I owe it to them. I’ve built up a team, and to just leave them to their own devices and head off to a plum assignment isn’t who I am. And frankly, sir, I’m sick of taking orders. The next time I go on a combat op it will be because I chose to do it, not because someone back at headquarters decided it was worth the risk. I was lucky in that I was with you on this op, and that you are competent, but that’s a situation that isn’t always going to hold true.”

Colonel Nelson sighed and drummed his fingers on the attaché case. “Captain Smith is a lawyer with the AG’s office. An ace attorney, I’m told. Is what Lieutenant Burleson requesting possible?’

Smith cleared his throat. “I would expect that if the Lieutenant requested being returned to inactive status to pursue educational opportunities it could leave his record clear and give him the opportunity to return to active service at a point down the road. Correspondence courses and Officers Basic and Branch courses at a later time would keep the Army door open to him. It would likely eliminate the possibility of ever achieving flag rank, but I would guess that that is not a critical issue.”

“It isn’t, sir,” Marv agreed.

“I expect that a statement to the effect that the reward for Miss Travis is to be paid to a corporate entity still pending formation would suffice to get your business underway in short order.”

“Is that what you really want, Lieutenant? A quick door out of the Army?”

“Yes, sir. I was never a career soldier, I just stayed in out of inertia.”

“All right. Lord knows we’ll need a lot of contractors before all this is over,” the Colonel nodded. “And the benefits from getting your team fighting for the government may offset the loss of one officer. I would like to point out one thing, Lieutenant: look what you managed to do with six ordinary men. Now think what you could do with a company from the Eighty-Second or the One-oh-First?”

“That’s a valid point, sir,” Marv nodded, privately disagreeing. “But the fact is I’m a squad leader at heart. Company ops might well be outside my grasp. Just pinning the bar on me doesn’t make me an officer.” It was crap, but there was too much riding on this conversation to let his ego get in the way. Nelson was a lifer, and you had to handle lifers in a certain way.

“Well, Lieutenant, it’s a choice only you can make. You’ll need to stay in uniform until after we award you your decorations.”

“I’m actually looking forward to that, sir. Its quite an honor.”

After the HUMVEEs rumbled off into the darkness the Gnomes gathered in the RV. “We report to Camp Swift in central Texas,” Marv advised them. “In a couple days we all get medals and a check.”

“What about expunging my record?” Bear asked.

“We’ll get that sorted out at Swift, but I’ve got the paperwork started,” the Ranger leaned back in Doc’s folding chair. “Or rather some Captain has. It looks like they’ll cut me loose and make the check payable to a corporate entity. With the starting cash we can get set up fast.”

“Why are you getting out?” JD asked.

Marv shook his head. “I got the payload half-way across the country through terrorists and zombies, scrounging for everything I needed along the way, and in the end I am out-ranked and paid less than the guy who’s going to get Bear’s record cleared. He sat behind a desk for the last five days, but I have to call him ‘sir’. The Army’s appreciation comes in the form of medals, and five minutes after they pin it on you it doesn’t mean a thing. In the future if they want to tell me ‘
job well done
’ they’ll do it with a check. Money isn’t worth dying for, but neither is military glory. At least with money you have something to show for your actions.”

“More operations,” Chip said quietly.

“The moving business isn’t going to be doing too well in the next couple years,” JD pointed out. “Lotta jobs going to be opening up, but do you really want to drive a dump truck for FEMA or some construction contractor?”

“Say they give us a quarter-mill for Sophia,” Dyson shrugged. “Split seven ways that isn’t a lot of money, but combined it makes for a decent war chest. I would rather fight zombies than man a shovel or sit in a refugee camp.”

“Sylvia likes heroes,” Brick slapped the husky Gnome on the shoulder. “Impress her.”

“Yeah,” Chip sighed. “Its just been a long day.”

“That’s the truth,” Marv agreed. “Are we all in on this? OK, good, I’m glad. I gotta tell you guys something: we’ve built a real team, and that doesn’t happen as often as you might think. I’ve got some notes and paperwork from the lawyer who was with the Colonel, so we can line out how we’re gonna make this corporation work. This war won’t care if we’re civilian contractors or soldiers, so we had better get this right the first time.”

Sitting at a picnic bench on guard duty, Addison watched a meteor streak across the sky. It was nice sitting in the cool of the night, keeping his comrades safe. It was good being part of a group, especially this group. These were good men, dedicated and true, not a one of them prone to his mother’s wiles. He felt his teeth were safer than they had ever been.

Being in a group meant the cultists would have an easier time in tracking him down to propagate their super race, but he was all right with it. He certainly had seen cults with much more nefarious goals lately. And maybe he could find a non-cultist who would understand a man in desperate danger. He figured that at this point, given the massive troubles across the world, it would be easier than at any other time in his life.