“Motherfuckers. Motherfuckers.” Weasel was staring at the burning pickup just a few feet away, seemingly oblivious to the heat. Sheila’s body was inside that inferno. His only comfort was that it had been quick for her, and that was no comfort at all.
“Weasel. Weasel! Grab their gear and any intelligence. Personal items. Can’t afford to leave anything.” Ed was pawing through the pockets of the fallen, with disappointing results. Franklin had been as short on ammo as they were. From the four bodies blown free of the wreckage Ed and Weasel recovered just five magazines, two of them only partially loaded.
One of the Toyota’s tires blew from the heat, sounding like a shotgun. Ed flinched involuntarily, then glanced up at the towering column of black smoke roiling up from the burning truck. It was over a hundred feet tall already and could be seen for miles. The helicopter had also probably radioed their position, if not their strength as well, which meant they were tempting fate with every second they stayed there. Thank God there’d only been one helicopter, or they’d all be dead.
The two men ran back across the bridge to the ruined Expedition. Ed waved Weasel toward one of the nearby houses to take up a covering position and then stopped behind George and Early and looked down.
George squatted in the street, staring down at Bobby. He ran a bloody hand through his short, graying hair, then started pulling equipment from the teenager’s gear. Early looked up at Ed but said nothing.
“There was nothing I could do,” George said through clenched teeth, patting Bobby’s pockets. “Both his femoral arteries were shredded. As soon as he was hit he was dead.” He concentrated on what he was doing, not looking at anything or anybody.
Looking between his two soldiers Ed stared at the blood-soaked pantlegs. What looked like a gallon of blood filled the curbside gutter and was trickling toward the storm drain. There was so much of it he could smell it. He shifted his weight and looked over George’s shoulder. Bobby’s pale, lifeless face stared up at the sky, eyes open and glassy.
Ed gritted his teeth and his hands shook as they squeezed his carbine but he didn’t let the anger distract him. “We’ve got to get moving.” When that didn’t get a response, he added, “We’ve got to leave him. Army’ll bury him.”
George sagged with a sigh. “I know,” he said. George stood, pocketing the rifle magazines he’d taken off Bobby. Early rose without a word. He looked at Ed without expression, then raised an arm and signaled for the squad to get ready to move. Ed could see his men prone on nearby porches or squatting behind bushes, looking over their rifles in every direction, and he glanced around quickly to get his bearings. The street they were on had overhead tree cover as good or better than any nearby. Ridgedale, if he remembered correctly, although the street sign had been torn down long ago to confuse those unfamiliar with the area. He pointed south.
“Go.”
The squad jogged down the sidewalks on both sides of the street in two ragged lines, more interested in putting distance between them and the downed chopper than being stealthy. Ed was last in line on the left. Quentin was half a dozen steps in front of him as they began jogging down the sidewalk, and he turned and jogged backwards for a while, staring back at the bridge and Bobby. He looked at Ed, but all Ed could do was shake his head. After a few more seconds Quentin turned back around, his expression both sad and full of rage.
“Go! Go!” Early urged Jason, as the boy seemed reluctant to move.
“But what about—?” he began, as the squad began moving out.
“Ev’ry body that’s comin’ is here,” Early growled. “Move, boy.”
The spreading arms of mature maples, beeches, and birch trees kept most of the sidewalk in shade, but after a hundred yards there wasn’t a man among them who wasn’t soaked in sweat in the humid heat. The houses to either side were single story red brick block houses with small lawns, maybe a tenth of which were still being maintained to one degree or another. None of the residents poked their heads out as the squad went by, but there were definitely eyes on them.
Ridgedale ended four-tenths of a mile from the service drive in a T-intersection. The experienced fighters increased their intervals as they neared the intersection. So far they hadn’t heard the growl of approaching armor or the freight train roar of 4-blade helicopter rotors, but they knew as soon as that Kestrel had gone down an alarm had gone off in the military’s operations center.
At the T the squad turned right and again spread out on both sides of the street. It ended a hundred yards up. George was in the lead and he slowed to a walk as he moved between the houses on the west side of the small cul-de-sac. Past the back yards he could see the overgrown field he was looking for, but he paused between the brick walls to catch his breath and scan the area with his eyes and ears. The squad spread out around two houses and watched the sky.
Jason knelt between two overgrown yew bushes and tried to fight down his panic. Bobby was dead? It didn’t seem possible. He was a kid, hardly older than Jason himself. It had to be a mistake. But he knew it wasn’t. He’d seen the blood as they’d pulled Bobby from the SUV. It had been everywhere. He’d never seen so much blood. He could still smell it. And once they’d laid him in the street Bobby’d never moved. The explosion of the rocket—had it been a rocket? He didn’t really know—had been louder than anything he could have imagined. He’d felt it in his chest, and his ears were still ringing. Jason found he was gripping the lever action so tightly his fingers began to hurt. He stared down at the rifle. It belonged to his father. His father, who didn’t see a reason for the war, didn’t understand why people felt they had to fight, who’d never taken a stand for or against anything in his life, and who’d never pointed the Marlin at anything other than deer.
“You okay?”
Jason looked up to see Early standing over him, looking concerned at the expression on Jason’s face. Jason glanced from the big rifle in Early’s knuckly hands to the slender lever action in his own, then up at the big man’s face.
“I’m fine.”
Early regarded him with appraising eyes for a few seconds, then nodded. Then the look Jason had given his rifle sunk in.
“Sheeeit,” he cursed quietly. “We shoulda grabbed you Bobby’s rifle. And armor.” He glanced back past the houses the way they had come. “Cain’t go back now. My fault.”
Jason again looked down at the weapon in his hands, then back up at Early. “I’m okay.” Something in his voice made Early give him a second look.
George moved out, still on point. He slipped through a gap in the chain link fence encircling the house’s back yard and moved in quick strides into waist-high grass beyond. The slightly elevated field sat at the edge of the small bedroom community’s indoor/outdoor recreation complex. George avoided crossing the field directly as it would expose them unnecessarily. He reached the weed-choked gravel drive behind the ice arena building and followed it west. The men spread out in a line behind him, mostly hidden from view by the arena building on one side and the raised field with its high grass on the other.
The air was calm and quiet but for the sounds of a few birds as the squad prowled forward at a fast walk. They were trying to be careful and cautious, but at the same time there was still far too little distance between them and the crashed Kestrel. At the far end of the tan brick building the land opened up and George paused. He peered around the bricks to the left and could see a section of the municipal parking lot. Only a few cars were in sight, and while some looked drivable they were all unoccupied civilian vehicles. Even if they held fuel, which was doubtful, there was no time to hotwire one of them, and none of them was large enough to hold the entire squad, which meant they’d have to hotwire two. At least he didn’t see any tanks, or IMPs, or troop trucks disgorging enraged soldiers by the dozen.