Ziv had walked away before the news ended and sat at the doorway. I walked over and sat down next to him.
“Guess you haven’t had much news over the last few years, huh?”
He sat smoking a cigarette, then taking a swig from a flask. Ordinarily I would have said something about the alcohol, but not right now.
“It is all gone, no?”
“Europe? Yeah, pretty much. England is OK, they took in a lot of refugees in. There were some pretty bad riots a year or so in, but they have it under control now. Some of the Scandinavian islands, parts of Denmark. Africa, is, well, Africa.”
“Serbia?”
“No one has heard anything out of Central Europe in two years. Did you have a lot of family there?”
He nodded. “We Serbs have big families.”
Standing up, he ground the cigarette out and capped the flask, then started checking his weapons.
“Well, at least all those bastard Croats and devil Bosnian pagans are burning in hell now. I always thought I would go back and we would finish the job, but God has beaten me to it.”
I had nothing to say to that. As far as I could recollect, the Serbs had as much blood on their hands as any of them, if not more. Whatever. That feud was ended, after a thousand years. Death and the Zombie Plague treated everyone as equals.
Chapter 15
In the end, the container yard was a bust. Not a Z to be seen, and our main objective, the cranes that lifted the containers from the ships to the trucks, sat mute. From everything we could tell, they seemed in good condition, but I couldn’t answer the Navy’s main question of whether they worked or not. I had brought up that specific point when we were getting our mission brief, but I was told to just do my best. Of course, when I reported this, they blew their stack.
“Swabbie six niner, this is Lostboys six, over.”
“Lostboys, use proper callsigns, over.”
I ran my finger down the Signal Operating Instructions that I had taped to my forearm.
“Ah, Rapier seven two, this is Lostboys six, over.”
“This is Rapier six, you are sending unsecure, please authenticate, over.”
Great, the frigging admiral in charge of the Navy Task Force was sitting off New York Harbor, and he wanted me to send different word codes to make sure I was really me. Who the hell else would be calling him? Plus, he was a jerk anyway, which I knew from personal experience.
“Rapier six, I authenticate your daughter has a birthmark on her right breast, just below her nipple, over.”
Brit shot me a dirty look. I grinned at her. “Hey, you weren’t the only one to have a good time in Bermuda last year.”
The radio stayed silent for a minute, then the fleet executive officer came on. “Roger, Lost Boys, this is Rapier five, I also can confirm. Send your traffic, over.” Ha ha, that would be Captain Reynolds. Fighter pilot, good guy, and man, could he drink.
I gave them the quick lowdown on the terminal. The loading docks were all secure, buildings looked good, but we were unable to determine if the cranes worked without power, as we had said in our initial briefing.
“Lost Boys, this is Rapier Six. What do you mean you can’t determine if they work, over?” He sounded pissed.
“I mean without a massive generator to tie into the power infrastructure, there is no way to determine. They look functional, over.”
Captain Reynolds came back online.
“Lost Boys, what is your tactical situation, over?”
“Rapier, we are secure at this time. When can we expect exfill, over?”
“Twenty- four to thirty-six hours, unless your situation deteriorates. QRF is tied up in Philadelphia, over.”
Great. Would have been nice if they could have come and get us right away.
“This is Lost Boys, twenty- four to thirty-six, out.”
I gathered the team around. Killeen was up on the roof, pulling overwatch.
“Well, here’s the deal. The Marines can’t get here for a day, day and half. If we sit tight, nice and quiet, there shouldn’t be much of a problem. Nearest residential area is more than half mile away and I think our sniper teams have already cleared out the local Zulus.”
“A lot less than usual.” observed Ahmed. “Something doesn’t seem right. This was a heavily populated area. The number of wanderers alone should be in the hundreds.”
Doc chimed in. “I remember the evacuation out of the City didn’t cover Staten Island, since the Goethals Bridge had become jam-packed with crashed vehicles on day one of the plague. Place was a madhouse. Boats running out, gunfights, riots. Army just basically wrote it off after day three.”
“Well, regardless, it seems quiet here. We’ve hunted the whole compound out, killed maybe another six Zulus outside the gate. Doc, how is Desen doing?”
“Seems OK so far, but he needs proper medical attention. I’ve splinted the leg and given him antibiotics and painkillers, but the longer he doesn’t get it set properly, the bigger the chance of infection and improper healing.”
“Keep an eye on him. Position improvement, overwatch from the roof. Soon as it’s dark, sleep rotation. I’ve got a weird feeling, but hopefully by this time tomorrow we’ll be turning this place over to the jarheads.”
Killeens’ voice crackled over the radio. “Sarge, we got movement, human heat sources, vehicle noises and engine heat. Two vehicles, no, three. Stopped about three hundred meters back. Looks like scouts moving up either side of the street. I count two scouts and eleven in the main body. One vehicle mounted weapon.” I could barely understand him between the southern drawl and the dip in his mouth.
“I copy, be there in a second.”
Everyone had heard the transmission and started scrambling to fighting positions inside the building. I headed up to the roof, followed by Ahmed. Along the way, I told Red to be ready to go out and do a meet and greet, bring Ziv as a body guard. We had done this before, encountered survivors, and it could go three ways. One, they welcomed us with open arms and wanted our help. Two, they were indifferent and went their own way. Three, well, three was to be avoided at all costs.
Chapter 16
At my signal, Doc launched a flare from his 203. It burst into light directly over the main body of intruders, and they immediately went to ground behind wrecked cars. It slowly drifted down and burned out as it lay on the pavement.
When it was out, Redshirt crept forward, followed by Ziv. Now the hard part. They knew we were here, next move was up to them. We waited a few minutes, but they did nothing.
Red stood up and yelled out “UNITED STATES ARMY!” at the top of his lungs. The response was a shot from one of the scouts. Red grabbed his chest just as Ziv tackled him, and they both fell to the ground as the machine gun on the vehicle opened up, along with scattered rifle shots.
Rounds started skipping across the pavement where they had fallen, and Ziv picked Red up in a fireman’s carry, dashing back to the cover of some cars. Killeen and Ahmed started firing, trying to take out the machine gunner. The vehicle accelerated forward, and the front of the building was shattered by dozens of rounds.
Doc placed a high explosive round directly onto the cab of the truck, and it exploded with a muted crump. Flames burst out of the engine compartment, and the truck swerved, crashed through a storefront.