Problem was, we did need him. I tried to smooth things over before one of them knifed the other.
“Yes, Brit is a damn good soldier and I have every confidence in her. She has saved me more times than I can count. Is it going to be a problem?”
He spoke after a moment. “No, no problem. This is America, I forget sometimes, you are not old country.” After that he had said little, just pitched in and helped organize the pallets for loading on the C-130.
Now he sat across from me, eyes closed, ignoring the bumping ride of the plane. I hoped he would be an asset to the team. We could use a good fighter to replace Jonesy, but the attitude toward Brit might be a problem. That and he might be full of shit about his combat experience, but I didn’t think so.
The ride smoothed out as we approached the city, passing through the tail end of the front. The crew chief came back to lower the ramp prior to the pallet drop, and gave me a “six minutes” sign. We stood up, a tough thing to do with chute and equipment, and staged ourselves at the jump door on the side of the plane, doing the usual pre-jump checks. I was jump master, so I went out last, making sure everyone had a good exit. If anyone held up at the door, I wanted to be able to kick them in the ass. Being last out, I could also watch how the others landed. We were jumping onto a park about 500 meters east of the container facility. Jumping onto hard concrete was a good way to get a broken leg. The team used static lines instead of jumping off the back ramp because Brit and Ahmed had only gone through a rushed, one week airborne qualification jumping from helicopters up at Fort Orange. Good enough to get them out the door and onto the ground without breaking their necks, but that was about it.
The pallets went out first, off the back ramp. They would drop directly onto the port grounds, showing an IR beacon so we didn’t have to haul them from the Drop Zone. A slow turn back out over lower New York Harbor and the pilot lined up on our DZ.
Over the rush of air from the slipstream and the droning engines, the Crew Chief yelled to me “THIRTY SECONDS!” I felt that icy knot build up in my stomach, happened no matter how many times I had done this before, and then the light turned green.
Chapter 12
One thing I loved about the Zombie Apocalypse, and I won’t deny it, was how dark it got at night. With very few places using electricity, you could see the stars burning in the night sky. They distracted me for a moment as I looked up to check my canopy. Then I looked down and counted chutes. We were dropping from 500 feet above ground level, and that ground came up awfully fast.
One, two, three… I reached six. Dammit! Below me in the moonlight I saw a body plummeting towards earth, spread eagle, his chute a tangled mess. His reserve chute came out, but he still hit hard, with a sickening crunch I could hear from several hundred feet away.
As soon as I was on the ground and had gathered up my chute, I jogged over to where the figure still lay prone. Doc was already bent over him, giving him a quick once over. Around me, the team gathered in a circle, pulling 360 degree security.
“It’s Desen. Compound fracture of the right leg.” grunted Doc as he worked to cut off Desen’s pant leg. He untied his boot, then put on a rough splint. “We’re going to have to carry him.”
He lay there groaning as Doc shot him up with some morphine. “Don’t worry about it, trooper. You just sit tight and we’ll get you out of here once we’re done with the scout.”
Ziv came over and looked down at Desen, then turned to me.
“If he compromises us, we kill him, yes?”
In the darkness, I doubt he could see my expression, but I’m sure he could tell from the tone of my voice how pissed I was.
“He’s my troop. I decide what happens to whom. Got it? Now get back to your position.”
“Sure, boss. Whatever you say.” He shuffled back to his position in the circle. What the hell? Yeah, sometimes we had to do things that you wouldn’t consider in the old world. But you don’t freaking talk about it right in front of the guy.
“OK. Ahmed and Killeen, you two carry him, the rest, split up his gear. Let’s go.” Way to start off a mission.
We set off towards the Northwest. In our NVG’s we could see the infrared strobe from the two pallets that had dropped down before us, directly onto the container yard. Brit led on point, stopping every few hundred meters to listen for any Zombie howls. The place was eerily silent, and I hoped it would stay that way. The day before, a US Navy destroyer, the USS Reuben James, had bombarded the other side of Staten Island for more than an hour with its 76mm main gun. Hopefully the noise had drawn off most of the Zs present. They were scheduled to provide Naval gunfire support if we needed it, but small caliber Naval guns didn’t have much effect on zombies. Rumor had it that the USS New Jersey, one of the old Iowa class battleships, was being refitted to fire 16 inch BB rounds. Last year we had scouted and raided the Watervliet Arsenal, with engineers stripping out all the machine tools and sending them back west. Meanwhile, we made do.
Brit made it to the gate at the container yard without encountering a single Z and we quickly cut a hole in the fence. Each of us slid through, dragging Desen on a collapsible stretcher.
“Brit, Ahmed, Red, you scout out the closest building. Clear it, and then report back to me. Killeen, Ziv, and I will go to the next closest. Doc, stay here with Desen, be ready to move to whichever we decide forts up best.”
Brit and her team took off running towards a building that looked like it was the operations center for the place. We passed them just as Ahmed fired into the door lock with a loud cough and they piled into the first room.
Our target building was a large garage. I didn’t expect much trouble there, but I wanted to keep an eye on Ziv and Killeen.
The first door we tried was open, and we cautiously stepped into the deeper darkness. Through my NGVs, I immediately saw the softly glowing heat shapes of two zombies stumbling towards us, attracted by the noise. I sighted down my rifle to shoot, and my optics were suddenly obscured by the bright heat source of a warm, live body. I felt, more than heard, one of my team members run past me.
I dropped my rifle barrel down to the floor and watched as Ziv rushed them and swung left, then right, knocking them both across their skulls with a three pound hammer. He spit on them and muttered something, then came stalking back to us.
Ignoring Ziv, Killeen and I continued to sweep the rest of the building, coming up empty.
“Outside, let’s go.” I kept my voice tight, but I was furious.
In my ear, Brit’s voice crackled over the radio. “Building clear. Three Zulus down. Looks like a good place to fort up, over.”
“Roger, be there in two mikes, over.”
“Roger, out.”
We stepped outside and I stopped Ziv.
“Ziv, hang on a second.”
He stood silently. Killeen kept walking, not wanting to be part of the conversation he knew was coming.
“Let’s get something straight. We aren’t glory hounds. We’re not here to kill every zombie on earth. We’re here to scout. That means doing the job quick and at the least risk to ourselves. I know you have been living on your own, surviving for years now, but we are a team. Do you understand?”
“Are you coward, Nick?”
Was this guy shitting me? Coward? I took a deep breath.
“No, Ziv, I’m not a coward. No one on this team is, but we have one job to do, and I want every one of us to come back alive. That means you work as part of a team, or I leave your ass here on Staten Island. Do you understand me?”