“Hey,” said the younger man. “I know it’s been tough, but this isn’t the day to be getting morose. This is the day it all gets better. You saved all these people. You brought them through hell and got them home.”
St. George looked at Freedom talking with Danielle and Barry, the Black Hawks flanking the Melrose Gate, and the crowd mobbing the soldiers. “I guess we did,” he said.
“Hell, yeah, you did.” Smith gave him a punch in the arm. “Welcome back to the United States of America.”
Chapter 13 - The Spirit of Freedom
THEN
My great-great grandfather was born a slave. On his fourth birthday he and everyone he knew became free citizens of the United States. When he was eighteen, he changed our family name to what he thought was the greatest word in the English language. I never met him, but my father did. It’s a powerful thing, to think how short a time that was.
Now there’s a black man in the White House. And a black man was selected to be the symbol of the new American military. It was a long process for both of us.
My first posting as an officer was Iraq. December of 2003. I’d been there for eight weeks, a freshly-minted second lieutenant, when a soldier in my section, Private First Class Adam James, found a well-constructed IED on a patrol. He was killed instantly. From what I was told later, the two soldiers on either side of him were dead within the hour. They were lucky never to regain consciousness. Sergeant James Cole lost his left leg and three fingers off his left hand. I was thrown fifteen feet into the side of our Humvee.
Three men dead. One crippled for life. I suffered a concussion, a broken arm that needed two pins, five fractured ribs that got wire supports, and eleven pieces of shrapnel which needed to be surgically removed. One of the doctors said they took out as much metal as they put in. I know some men and women who save such things as trophies. I didn’t want to be reminded of failing the people under my command.
I spent three months in a hospital in Germany, received a Purple Heart, and was put back in the field. I always prefer to be in the field, and those days an officer who went into the field willingly was considered an asset.
Six years later I was standing in front of the colonel’s desk at Project Krypton, asking to be assigned to the field. It was May fourteenth, 2009. I recall thinking later we should mark it as the day the world ended, but that kind of negative thinking was bad for morale.
“They’re mindless things,” Shelly told me. “This virus turns people into walking vegetables. No real threat at all unless they’re in large numbers. The media’s just blowing things out of proportion again.”
I hadn’t served under the colonel for long. I don’t think I even knew if he was married or not at that point. I did know he was a horrible liar. Lying is a politician’s game, not a soldier’s. All good soldiers are bad liars. The best ones are horrible at it.
Shelly was lying. There were uprisings in every major city. Even Yuma proper had reported a few dozen wandering the streets. If there were dozens wandering the street in a state where more than half the citizens carried firearms on a regular basis, it didn’t bode well for anywhere else. But he was a good soldier, and his orders told him it wasn’t a crisis and we weren’t needed.
“Be that as it may, sir,” I said, “I’m requesting deployment into one of the hot spots. The Unbreakables are ready to go.”
“It’s still too soon for active deployment,” Shelly said. “Sorensen thinks all of you need another month or so of observation. Especially you, captain. It’s been three weeks since you finished your treatments.”
“And I feel excellent, sir. Better than excellent.”
The corners of his mouth twitched. It was what passed for a polite smile in the colonel’s office. “The official decision, captain, is you and your men would just be overkill.”
The Unbreakables had only been my men for a month. But I knew they were good soldiers. When I was first introduced to them, Shelly and Sorensen assured me they weren’t picked just for their names. I think the doctor found something funny about it. I’m sure similar coincidences have happened in every branch of the service at one time or another.
Besides, I’ve taken enough good-natured ribbing about my name over the years. I can’t say anything about anyone else’s. According to my mother, I was named after her father and the sitting president when I was born. As my father tells it, I was named for his boyhood hero, a man of honor and the greatest soldier of two worlds. I’ve often sided with my father when the topic has come up.
“From what I’ve heard, sir,” I said, “the actual heroes are trying to pitch in and not having much luck. We’d hardly be overkill.”
“Really?” said Shelly. His voice was dry. “What exactly have you heard, captain?”
“Through official sources, sir, I’ve heard they’ve deployed the Cerberus exoskeleton in Washington D.C.”
“Official sources is Agent Smith shooting his mouth off again, correct?”
“Yes sir.”
“What else have you heard?”
The base was locked down, but rumors still made their way in. A few sources said the heroes were kicking zombie ass everywhere they went, but most of them told me the heroes were making no headway at all. They were slowing the spread of the infection at best. And there were a few stories that some of them had died. Even one or two claims they’d come back, and there were super-powered zombies overwhelming the police in some cities. It did occur to me that no one could name which heroes had died.
“Nothing else, sir,” I said.
He nodded. I was sure there was nothing I’d heard that he hadn’t. “Is that all, captain?”
“Sir,” I said, “permission to speak freely?”
“Granted.”
“As I understand it, sir, all of B company is being pulled out of Yuma and redeployed in civilian centers.”
“Yes,” he said, “they are. There’s still more than enough forces stateside to deal with this epidemic, especially with a few platoons of regular Army backing them up.”
“Regardless, sir, isn’t this just what the Unbreakables were created for? If our control group is gone, any testing has to be over. If the testing is over, there’s no reason for us not to be doing our jobs.”
Colonel Shelly considered my words and a red drop swelled up under his nose. In the desert climate, nosebleeds aren’t uncommon. First Sergeant Paine tells me two or three of the soldiers in A company get them. I opened my mouth to say something and the drop hit the bursting point, too big to support its own weight. It became a red line across the colonel’s lips. A few drops hit his paperwork.
“Damn it.” He pinched his nose and tilted his head back.
“Can I get you anything, sir?”
“Thank you, no,” he sighed. “Captain, for the time being you and your men are not needed in this action. You will remain assigned to the proving ground. Those are your orders. Is that clear?”
“Yes sir.”
That was that. He took his hand away from his nose and returned my salute. His attention went back to the paperwork on his desk. He yanked a kleenex from a drawer to dab at it. I’d reached the door when he called out to me.
“Captain Freedom.”
“Yes sir?”
He held out the blood-streaked warning order he’d been working on. “Take the Unbreakables toward Yuma tomorrow morning and see if you can find any civilians in need of assistance. Bring three transports with you in case you need to evacuate anyone. Deal with any infected you encounter.”
“Yes sir. Thank you, sir.”
I left his office and got a quick salute from his staff sergeant who was talking with First Sergeant Paine. Paine fell in next to me as we headed out into the hall. Walking side by side we filled the hallway. “Orders, sir?”