The gunny was going to stay behind with First Squad, squad leader still Staff Sergeant “I’m so Salty I squeak” Barnard while Faith took Second Squad, led by Hooch and with Smitty as his Bravo Team leader, up to the police barracks.
They had landed right in front of the L’Hotel De Colectivite, which sounded like something commie to Faith. Probably not, since nothing commie ever looked that good. At least before it burned.
There was a narrow dirt path between the northwest side of “L’Hotel” and the bay which the squad followed. Hooch had put Lance Corporal Quade on point, then Hooch to make sure he could figure out the way. Faith was between the two teams. She’d quietly moved Kirby to the lead position in the rear team since the alternative was Sergeant Hoag and she didn’t want Sheila behind her with a loaded weapon. Smitty was following at the rear and keeping an eye on his team’s movement and weapons control while she was doing the same with Alpha Team.
“Curran, your sector is right,” Faith said. “Keep an eye on your sector. Filipowicz, you’re up, not left. They do occasionally get on balconies…”
The area behind the burned building was cluttered with equally burned vehicles and the usual materials, dumpsters, carts, you found behind commercial buildings. It looked as if somebody had tried to barricade the road at one point. And it looked as if it had flooded for some reason. What it didn’t have was infected.
The drive behind L’Hotel connected directly to Rue Shkelcher. She’d wondered about that name, it didn’t sound French, until she recalled her own briefing on the Swedish heritage of the town. The fort was right above them and they could just climb the steep ass hill through the thick ass jungle foliage. Which was the “by the book” route the staff sergeant pointed out since it “avoided paths and potential ambushes or IEDs.”
The staff sergeant had been reading the Marine Infantry manual. “With supplements.” Unfortunately, everybody in the current Marine Corps had been too busy to write many supplements on zombie fighting. They had some for clearance operations on ships. Ground was still come-as-you-are without the “assistance” of properly written manuals. Faith pointing out that zombies don’t prepare L-shaped ambushes—they just hit you randomly no matter where you moved, and getting hit in constricting foliage, where they could come to grips, negated the effect, such as it was, of their Barbie guns—didn’t seem to faze the experienced USMC Staff NCO.
Honest to God, Faith was starting to get the thing about second lieutenants. Every time Staff Sergeant Barnard said “In my experience” Faith wanted to laugh out loud. Thank God her first Staff had been Januscheitis. Otherwise she’d have assumed all Marine staff sergeants were given a lobotomy along with their certificate as a Staff NCO in the United States Marine Corps. Fontana had been a Special Forces staff sergeant and he didn’t make any big deal about it. Barnard’s attitude seemed to imply that Staff NCOs in the United States Marine Corps automatically shit gold bricks.
Faith realized she needed to center her aggression again. Not to mention keep an eye on the fire team, which was technically an NCO’s job.
“Curran, I am going to fucking shoot you if you don’t keep an eye on your sect—”
She fired five times in rapid succession. At an infected. That burst out of cover in Curran’s sector. Headed for Curran.
“Clear!” she yelled. “Keep moving. Haugen, cover Curran’s sector. Curran, you swept the fuck out of Randolph. Again. Drop your mag and jack out your round. You are limited to support for the rest of the mission.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Curran said, unloading his weapon.
“Cover your own damned sectors, people!”
CHAPTER 24
“…can still see zombies moving on the Grapevine. It’s like they’re never going to end! Where the hell is the government…?”
“Holy crap,” Smitty said, looking through the binos. “I would swear that’s Christy Fucking Southard!”
The group of women on top of the police station were still up there and didn’t seem in a mood to get down. Most of them were throwing kisses to the Marines. Faith had put the unit in a circular perimeter while she and the NCOs considered the situation from the road a couple hundred meters away.
“Really?” Curran said, turning to look.
“Your fucking sector, Curran!” Faith barked. She didn’t see him turn, she just knew he would She knew most of the Marines were going to be looking around. “Keep on your fucking sectors, oorah? Yes, that looks like Anna Holmes as well…”
“Holy shit,” Hooch said. “That’s Sarah Cassill! I’m sure it is.”
“Dibs on inviting a star to the Marine Corps Ball,” Kirby said.
Faith didn’t bother to check. She knew Kirby was still covering his sector.
“Sector, Lance Corporal, with respect,” Kirby continued. Freeman clearly wasn’t.
“So why aren’t they coming down?” Faith said. “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair. People, keep a very sharp lookout for not just infected, oorah?”
“You thinking a Money for Nothing thing, ma’am?” Smitty asked.
“Possibly,” Faith said, referring to the Russian oligarch who had tried to hijack her sister’s boat. They’d ended up with his megayacht instead, which was now the support yacht for this mission. “Or they’re just too God-damned dumb to be able to figure out how to open their own doors. So much for being belle of the damned Ball.”
“You’ll always be the Belle of the Ball, ma’am,” Smitty said. “You’re Shewolf, ma’am.”
“Thank you, Smitty,” Faith said, lowering the binoculars. “You’re just bucking for a promotion to Staff, right? Don’t worry, it worked. Why aren’t they coming down? Who has a good throwing arm?”
“I used to play baseball, ma’am,” Hooch said. “Semi-pro on the Marine team.”
“How long have we known each other and I didn’t know that?” Faith asked, pulling off her ruck. “Take one of the Coastie radios and toss it to them. It’s shock resistant so it should handle landing on the roof.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Hooch said, taking one of the radios.
“Better turn it on in advance,” Faith said. “They probably can’t operate it with their fingernails and all.”
The first toss by Sergeant Hocieniec was a perfect parabola that would have landed on the roof. Had not Christy Southard done a flailing attempt at a catch that batted it out into thin air.
Fortunately Hooch was as good a fielder as a thrower and caught it. Despite being shock resistant the three-story fall probably would have broken the radio.
He waved for the women to clear a path, then threw again, this time getting it onto the roof.
Faith waited until one of the women came into view with the radio in hand.
“Listen carefully,” Faith said. “The way that a radio works is there is a button on the side that’s red. You press that and speak into it. But when you press it, you can’t hear me so you have to let up. Press it, say something, say ‘over’ to tell me you’re done, then let up on the button, over.”
“I am familiar with the operation of a radio,” the woman said. She had a cultured accent that was a mixture of English and something Germanic. “I am Princess Julianna Gustavason, Baroness Chelm. Princess of Bad-Werschtein und der Uld. To whom am I speaking, over?”