I banged open the door to the Quarantine Block. “PACK IT UP! TIME TO ROLL! E.R. Rogers, here we come!”
Steak. I wanted some serious steak, and the best place to get it was in Steilacom. I had drawn a GSA van and we piled in. I called ahead and made a reservation for five. Ahmed went his own way, wanting to go to a mosque for Friday prayers.
The steakhouse was in a large, converted Victorian-era house. We made our way upstairs, Red peeled off to hit the bar and we headed to our table. “Stay away from the real firewater, Red!” I called after him.
“Well, look who came in out of the rain! How nice to see you, Sergeant Agostine, Sergeant Hamilton, Ms. O’Neill. And who is this gentleman?”
I stopped short. Dr. Morano sat at a table by the window, laptop in front of her. Her two bodyguards sat at another table a few feet away.
“Where is that young lady, Specialist Mya? Ohhhhh, that’s right, I read the report. Such a tragedy.” The smile on her face didn’t reach her eyes.
I wasn’t fast enough. I shot out my arm to grab Brit, but she launched herself at Dr. Morano, catching her in a headlock and trying to bang her head into the table. The two fell to the floor, and the bodyguards’ table crashed over as they leapt up and drew their pistols. Ziv punched one in the back of the head with a set of brass knuckles that he had hid form the airport security guys. The other pressed his pistol against Brit’s head. Doc and I had out guns out and pointed at him.
“TELL YOUR BITCH TO STAND DOWN!” yelled the bodyguard.
“DROP THE FUCKING GUN!” I yelled back at him.
Brit held dead still. She could feel the barrel of the pistol pressed against the nape of her neck. Beneath her, Dr. Morano spoke through smashed lips.
“Johanson, put it away.”
He stood and holstered the pistol. Brit started to get up, then banged the doctor’s head off the floor. The bodyguard started, and Brit stood up and put her hands up in the air. “It’s OK, you trained dog. I’m done.” Then she hawked up some phlegm and spit on Dr. Morano’s steak.
“Did you have to spit on her steak? That might not have been the best idea.” We were driving north on I-5, having grabbed Redshirt from the bar and hightailed it out of there before the local cops showed up. maybe introduce that they were driving north first so it doesn’t seem like they started the discussion at the restaurant.
“Nick, I’ve done a lot of things that seemed like a good idea at the time. Spitting on her steak seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Yeah, but I think somehow we’re going to pay for that. I don’t think old Delta Force boy is happy with you punching him in the head, either.”
Ziv snorted. “Some men, they need to be punched. It keeps them, what is the word? Humble.”
Chapter 20
We were at a bar in downtown Seattle, far enough away from the bases so we weren’t surrounded by uniforms while we knocked back a few beers. Brit went over to the bar to get herself a drink and lay a trap. Far enough away that if someone interesting came her way she could talk to him, close enough to us if she needed mutual fire support or extraction under heavy fire.
She didn’t have long to wait. I could overhear the conversation but I pretended not to notice. A guy in uniform, badges piled high on his chest, sidled up the bar and leaned in. He looked about twenty years old but was wearing Sergeant Major rank. Zombie Airborne wings with a star, Air Assault, Pathfinder, Combat Infantry Badge with a star, Ranger, Sapper and Special Forces Tab over a an Airborne Zombie Combat Command patch. He had more stuff on his uniform than our whole team put together.
“Hey Good-Looking, is heaven missing an angel? Because I want to turn you in for the reward!”
Brit laughed. “You’re retarded.” He looked crestfallen, but waded in for another try.
“Hey, cut me a break, I just got in from the wild East Coast!” Doc choked on his beer and sprayed some out on the table. I shot him a look that said, shut it! This was going to be good.
Brit rolled with it, making her eyes open wide. “Really? Oh, my gosh! You were actually out in the Wild?” She rolled the neck of her beer between her breasts. His eyes never left the beer.
“Yeah, you might have seen us in the news, couple of weeks ago. Of course, our faces were blacked out, you know, Special Forces. We were the ones up at West Point. You know, that picture that was in ‘Merika Today.”
She leaned over and put a hand on his arm. “Oh, I bet that was some pretty bad stuff. Did you see some action?” She flipped her hair back over her shoulder.
“Hell yeah! There were zombies all over the frigging place! We got overrun. I was the last man on the chopper, held them off with the butt of my rifle. See this?” and he rolled up his sleeve to show a small scar on his forearm. “I got a Silver Star and three purple hearts for that action. Bad shit.”
“Ohhh, what unit did you say you were in?” she breathed out in a husky voice.
“Well, I’m not supposed to say, but you might have heard of us. I’m with the Irregular Scouts. We go where no one else will.”
By this point, we were all trying hard not to burst out laughing. Doc actually got up from the table with his hand over his mouth, and even Ziv had the ghost of a smile on his craggy face.
“Oh, that sounds dangerous! That’s the kind of man I’m looking for!”
His eyes lit up, and he leaned in further toward Brit. “Really?”
“Yeah, I got a thing for tough soldiers. Matter of fact, I wouldn’t mind showing you a thing or two! You know, support the troops and everything.” As Brit started to lift her shirt, the look on the guy’s face was pure amazement at his luck.
“Hell yeah!” he started to say, then cut it off when he saw the still livid scar across Brit’s abdomen.
“Yeah, I need a man who can take care of me. You know, when I come home tired and SHOT!”
His face had turned a bit green, and we all burst out laughing. “Whoops, I forgot about that! You see, I got SHOT. In NEW YORK. Before we went to WEST POINT.” She pulled her shirt down and pulled up the leg of her shorts.
“OMG, I totally forgot about this one! I got SHOT. In the LEG. When I was in NEW YORK. Before we went to WEST POINT!” We were all rolling on the floor, laughing our asses off. The guy turned and ran out of the bar as the whole place erupted in laughter.
I loved that woman.
Chapter 21
I stood in front of the auditorium, drinking coffee, trying to get the projector to work for our PowerPoint presentation. Doc sat at a desk, feet up on a chair, snoring loudly. We were both trying to get past our hangovers and get down to work.
Our job over the next few weeks was to pass along the lessons we had learned about fighting zombies to instructors at the Fort Lewis Basic Training unit. Since the plague, Fort Lewis had turned into a giant training ground and headquarters for the Army, and there were now thousands of troops being cycled through every month. Knowledge from the field was passed on through the Center For Army Lessons Learned. We were being used to give firsthand experience the instructors would pass on to the recruits.
They filed in, a group of captains, lieutenants, staff sergeants, sergeants and corporals. Most of them had combat patches on their right sleeves, only a few of them red Zombie Combat Command patch. It was considered “cooler” to wear a patch earned by fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan. Anyone could fight zombies. They all had a patch, though. The Army had learned, finally, that you don’t train your troops with inexperienced leaders.
We got past the standard introductions, all the wanker-measuring, all the street creds. Then, in answer to a question from one of the guys, I told them about our detachment.