“Sorry?”
“I said, what’s your story?”
Rawlings thought about it. The rest of the soldiers were glancing her way, waiting for her response, even though they were all supposed to have eyes out, scanning for threats.
“No story,” Rawlings said finally.
“Really.” Muldoon’s expression didn’t change. “No story, but here you are, a beat-up Nasty Girl hitching a ride with a bunch of lightfighters. Who were you with?”
“The One Sixty-Fourth Transportation Battalion.”
“So you were what? A truck driver?”
Rawlings nodded. “Basically. Yeah.”
“What happened to your unit?”
“Overrun at Harvard Stadium. We were hauling supplies and drove into an ambush. Infected police hit us, along with a few dozen others. As far as I know, the headquarters company is still with the rest of the Guard at Logan.” The National Guard had facilities at Logan International Airport, just across the Callahan Tunnel from downtown Boston.
“And what happened to you?” Muldoon tapped his face, indicating the position of the big bruise that covered Rawling’s cheek.
“I fought my way out. Took a shot to the head.”
“Really.” If he was impressed, Muldoon didn’t allow it to show. “What happened to the dude who tapped you?”
“Shot him through the head. In through the chin, out through the crown.”
Muldoon nodded. “That’s the way to do it. How’d you find your way here?”
“Walked,” she said.
“All the way from Harvard Stadium?”
Rawlings found she didn’t have the will or desire to explain her situation any further. “Yeah. Mostly. Caught a ride with some of your guys. They didn’t make it, and was on foot after that.” She motioned toward the front of the column. “I told your XO all about it.”
“Walker?”
“Yeah.”
Muldoon grunted. “He’s a blue falcon. Stay away from him. You know what that means, Rawlings?”
“Yeah. I know what a buddy fucker is.”
“You go through rifleman training?” Muldoon asked.
“Yes, Sergeant Muldoon. National Guard BCT is the same for us as it was for you.”
Muldoon seemed to glare at her, but she couldn’t be certain because of his sunglasses. “Rawlings, you’re nothing like us. Don’t think that you are.” He looked toward the truck cab. “Well, you might be like Lieutenant Crais.”
“I’m in charge,” several of the other soldiers said in unison.
Muldoon nodded toward a pasty-skinned man in the rear of the truck. “Or maybe like Nutter.”
“Colonel Nutter, sir!” the soldiers chanted, saluting the man Muldoon had pointed out, though the salutes were delivered from crotch level. Definitely atypical, in Rawlings’s experience.
She couldn’t see Nutter’s eyes, as he was turned facing the rear, his M4 held at low ready. But he raised his left hand to acknowledge the salutes with his middle finger. Rawlings figured that was regular occurrence.
“Don’t mean to presume I’m even close to being a lightfighter, Muldoon,” she said. “But we’re all soldiers.”
“Not John Wayne,” said a reedy black lightfighter whose nametape read JOHNSON. He pointed at Muldoon. “He’s not a soldier. He’s a weapon, I’m telling you.”
With effort, Rawlings refrained from rolling her eyes. “I’ll remember that.”
“Good,” Muldoon said. “Keep that in mind. Now, you just sit back and—”
Two Apaches roared past, fast and low, drowning out the rest of his comment. Reading his lips, Rawlings was pretty sure he’d finished with “Let us take care of you.”
Great. Just great.
SIX.
The road movement was, for the most part, going according to plan.
Lieutenant Colonel Harry Lee kept tabs on the column’s progress as it moved along the turnpike. The next blocking force had already set up, and the scouts had handed off their mission to some of the Apache gunships so the smaller aircraft could head off and refuel.
Lee was a little worried about the scout element. They had a long way to go, and the Kiowa Warriors had short legs, only a little over an hour of station time—less if they had to continually fly and fight as they had been. The Apaches weren’t much better. They could perhaps eke out three hours of flying time, but the aircraft had been running nonstop for well over a week. They would need maintenance, which meant they would have to be pulled off the line, housed somewhere secure, and defended from the Klowns or whatever else God decided to throw their way.
Lee was a lightfighter just like the rest of his men, but he knew the value in having an armed attack battalion on-station to provide close air support when they needed it. He had no idea how many Infected were in Boston, but it had to be well into the hundreds of thousands if not millions. Only a fraction of those were interested in taking out the battalion’s convoy, which was a blessing, though it was equal parts curse. Those that weren’t attacking the battalion were out infecting others, and that was clearly worse for the nation.
And of course, Lee had no idea what lay between his unit and Fort Drum. Their route would take them past several well-populated establishments, but by sticking to the smaller roads, they could avoid the larger cities: Framingham, Worcester, and Springfield, all in Massachusetts. Then on into New York. There, they would bypass Albany, Schenectady, and Utica before rolling upstate toward Watertown, and, just beyond, Fort Drum. Home of the 10th Mountain Division and several other tenant units. All of whom had apparently gone dark.
Lee didn’t know what to make of that. It had been days since he’d heard anything from the Brigade Combat Team’s tactical operations center, and even longer since a divisional command had been in touch. While the battalion had been working out of Boston, the rest of the brigade and the majority of Drum’s infantry and aviation assets had gone farther south to assist in stabilizing New York. If the Big Apple had undergone the same transformation as Boston, then Lee doubted he would hear anything from higher field commands anytime soon.
As in, ever.
He kept track of the column’s progress using both GPS and a handheld map and marking off their phase lines with a grease pencil. The survivors of the Bushmaster element had been recovered, but there were precious few of them. The element had taken ninety percent losses, including Bravo Company’s commander, Captain Marsh. Losing Marsh stung, not because he was a close friend of Lee’s, but because he was a seasoned company grade commander who had led his men in combat in Afghanistan and, briefly, in Iraq. A good deal of tactical capability and knowledge had died with him, and that was what Lee would miss the most. Added to the casualty list were experienced noncommissioned officers and other skilled soldiers, as well as the loss of at least two tactical vehicles. All of that weakened the battalion, making it less capable at dictating the tempo of operations—in other words, its ability to efficiently kill Klowns.
For the twentieth time, Lee reconsidered their route. Taking the Mass Turnpike and then westward seemed to be the most expedient path—better roadways, more lanes, flatter terrain, less opportunity for attack as they moved away from Boston—but they had no real idea of what lay just beyond their previous area of operations. Their unmanned aerial reconnaissance systems were of the battlefield variety, and they had an operational radius of around six miles. The controllers would also have to stop, launch the small airplane-like devices by hand, then monitor their progress. Flying along at around fifty miles per hour and up to an altitude of fifteen thousand feet, the small drones could do much to increase Lee’s local situational awareness, but that would mean having to bring the column of Humvees, trucks, support vehicles, and civilian cars and trucks to a halt. And stopping invited an attack. Since they were deep inside Indian Country, the last thing Lee wanted to do was call the column to a halt just so they could launch some toy airplanes and take a look at what lay a few miles down the road. They had helicopters at their disposal, which could fly higher, move faster, observe with superior optics, and if the need arose, cause more than a little bit of damage to any enemy formations in their path.