Four Guardsmen were crouched down behind a smashed wall, and one of them was firing a light machine gun down the street. Spent cartridges clattered against the concrete.
“Friendlies!” Martinez said. The men turned their heads.
“Did the captain make it?”
“No,” Martinez replied.
“Motherfuckers. There’s more infantry. And I think I hear armor.”
“Yeah, there’s a Bradley, at least one, heading up the road,” said another man.
“Get out of here,” Martinez said. “Go home.”
“Home is gone,” said the machine gunner. “You go. I’m done.” He leaned into the scope and fired a burst. “That’s right!” he screamed. “Get some, you cocksuckers!” He fired again.
“Where is the rest of your unit?” Martinez said. “Did any of you fall back?”
The gunner laughed without humor. “You’re looking at us.”
“What about communications? Have you got a SAT phone? A radio linked to your brigade? Anything?”
“Captain Canella had a radio,” said the gunner. He fired again. “They’re trying to flank us,” he said calmly. “I’d strongly suggest you get the fuck out of here.”
“Good luck. And thanks,” Martinez said. He turned and Henry followed him out through the back of the church. Behind him, the machine gun resumed and pounded away.
They cut through more yards and side roads until they were beyond the town and into the hills and woods. Henry contemplated the drones that might be searching for them, the satellites and surveillance aircraft, and he had the feeling of being a seal on the surface of an ocean of great white sharks, wondering when he’d be ripped to pieces, and knowing there was nothing he could do about it.
He hoped that he was not a priority. There was a war going on, and within that war were many stories. There would be command and control issues, communication glitches and lags. And there were only so many assets in the area that an enemy could bring to bear. Federalist forces were still engaging; the F-35s had proven that. Maybe they could slip away.
The sun edged below the mountains and the sky was golden and pink and the air was sharp in Henry’s lungs. The woods were silent and still and brooding.
They slept for a few hours in a ramshackle cabin, probably a poacher’s lodge. They were in the middle of some kind of national forest or park. The tallest peaks were behind them now, and the plains would be ahead. They decided to travel mostly by night, and the overall plan changed.
In front of a pathetic fire crackling in a stone fireplace, Martinez stared at the flash drive in his hands.
“Whatever this is, it’s more important than we know. It’s more important than any of us, anyhow. We’ve got an oath to uphold.”
“What do you mean?” Carlos said.
“I mean, the information that is on this thing has gotten a lot of people killed. Not just our boys, either. I think maybe the reason for this war is on this thing. Maybe the people behind it. They’re scared.”
“If that’s true,” Henry said, “they’ll never stop coming.”
“Right,” Martinez said. “They’ll come for us, for our families, and they’ll never quit. I’m guessing they know exactly who each of us is by now. They could have pulled down that footage the idiot reporter put up on the net and run us through facial recognition software. They have tremendous power and influence to have pulled off what they have. They stopped an upload. That means they either had control of that satellite, or the whole damn Internet. I don’t know. And they had to know what they were looking for. That kid Travis said the upload stopped after only a few seconds. The airstrike, and I’m thinking it was a drone, was… what? Maybe two minutes after that? Whoever these guys are, they saw us on the Internet, knew we were a part of Alpha Pack, tasked a drone to that shithole town, and then waited for us to show our faces again.”
“You really know how to inspire,” Carlos said. “I feel all warm and fuzzy now.”
“We’re still alive, though,” Martinez said. “So we managed to lose them for now. Those jets might have engaged some of their drones, saving our asses twice. So now we stay off the grid completely. They are powerful, but they’re not God. They’ve got an Achilles’ heel, and I’m holding it right here in my hands.”
“But how are we going to use that?” Henry said.
“I haven’t figured that part out yet,” Martinez admitted. “But let me ask you something. How did you feel when you saw those kids? Those little children and their grieving parents?”
“Sad,” Carlos said. “Angry too. Really angry.”
“Yeah,” Henry agreed. He’d been enraged and broken inside. It hurt to remember.
“Well, these guys don’t care,” Martinez said. “They don’t care about taking innocent lives. They don’t give a damn about leveling a town or killing a family in a van or hitting our capital with a nuclear weapon. They just don’t care. So I’ve been thinking. What do they care about?”
“Power,” Henry said.
“Money,” Carlos added.
“Exactly. Power and money. And that’s it. They don’t care about anything else, because if they did, I don’t think any of this would have happened.”
“I don’t follow,” Henry said.
“Work backwards,” Martinez said. “Who thinks like that? Who just doesn’t give a fuck about anything but money and power?”
“Well, that’s a pretty long list. Wall Street. Politicians. China, maybe. The Russians.”
You’re spot on,” Martinez said. “I’m just a dumb grunt from LA with a little bit of community college, but I know people. I see patterns. Work with me here. For the last, what? Fifteen years, the global economy has been crap.”
“Yep,” Henry said.
“Europe and the US hit a major recession. The recovery we keep hearing about, well, we all know how that’s been. China’s real estate bubble popped and that made things even worse. Everybody is poorer than they were.”
“Mostly,” Henry said.
“Right. Mostly. Who’s not? Who is better off now than fifteen years ago? The people at the very top, that’s who. The clowns who have the system rigged in their favor. The guys with private islands and more than one jet. They’ve managed to turn tremendous profits while everyone else got poorer. I wonder how they did that?”
“They’re smart,” Carlos said. “And they work harder than everyone else.” He chuckled.
“That’s the campaign poster, right? That’s what they want us to believe. And I’m sure some of them are for real. Some of those people are brilliant and earned every penny, and more power to them. Some of them, though, just don’t give a damn. That’s who we’re fighting right now. The people who ordered the wholesale slaughter of innocents. You guys know anything about the Civil War?”
“You mean the first one?” Carlos said. “Yeah, man. I love Lincoln. Emancipation Proclamation. Gettysburg Address. Freed the slaves.”
“Uh-huh,” Martinez said. “Any idea how many people died?”
“Let’s see,” Carlos said. He smiled, his dark face getting darker in the flickering firelight, teeth white and shining. His voice changed, slightly lower in pitch, and his inflection altered. He sounded like a documentary voice-over narrator on the History Channel.
“The Civil War was the bloodiest war in American history. More than 650,000 Americans died. The bloodiest single day for America was at Antietam. We lost more men in a day than in ten years of fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq combined.”
“This war is already worse,” Martinez said. “And it’s only been a few weeks.”
“I’m lost,” Henry said.
“What the sergeant major is saying is two things,” Carlos said. “Number one, this war is going to become exponentially worse than the first Civil War because of the increased lethality of our weapons and training and the fact that the people pulling the strings don’t give a fuck about killing everyone. Finally, it’s our job to stop them. That about right, Sar’n?”
Martinez gave Carlos an odd, appraising look. “Yes, Carlos, that’s about right.”
“The Civil War was not about slavery or morality, not really,” Carlos said. “It was about money and power. The men on the ground, the guys pointing the rifle at each other, they were caught up in it. Most Confederate soldiers were never even related to someone who owned a slave, and still they fought. Maybe they listened to the wrong sermon, or maybe because their brothers were all fighting, too, and that was the honorable thing to do. A bunch of dirt farmers and sharecroppers who fought like hell because they had been manipulated into believing in a system which benefitted the gentry at a disproportionate rate to the general populace.”
“Where the hell did that come from, and who the hell are you?” Martinez said with a grin.
“I like history,” Carlos said. “I love to read. But in the army, it doesn’t pay to be too smart.”
All three of them laughed then, and they told stories about foolish and dangerous officers they’d all served under. In the stories, the lieutenants, captains, and majors were buffoons. Henry rejoiced in the laughter and shared reminiscing, for the stories were similar. There were cowards, bullies, and grossly inept officers they’d all had the displeasure of serving under. It wasn’t all funny, though; soldiers had died because of these fools. The conversation became serious.
“That’s what this is, you know,” Carlos said.
“What?” Martinez asked.
“The same kind of thinking, similar manipulation, but on a broader scale now, that compelled the South to really go to war the first time. Fear, misinformation, dehumanization, misplaced loyalty. Brotherhood. Money and power. But the money and power now, worse than then, is centralized in the hands of a few. And the economy is global. I’m guessing our real enemies have estates in Europe, Asia, all over the world. They’re loyal to the dollar and the yuan and the ruble. They don’t want to lose what they’ve got, and they’ve managed to get people to fight for them. And now we have a new ‘bloodiest day in American history.’”
“I’m sorry,” Henry said, “but it’s not quite that simple. The government has gone nuts. They’re in our personal business and no one is stopping them. They want to take our guns, hand out money to people who lay around all day and expect us to pay for it. Welfare, entitlements. Spending money the government doesn’t have to spend. And you’re wrong about the Civil War. The first one, I mean. It wasn’t just about—”
“All right, Johnny Reb,” Carlos said. “You tell that to the motherfucker with the private island who’s trying to kill you. The team that comes for your wife and kid. We can debate the Federalist Papers and the theory of nullification then. Right now, there is an enemy that needs some killing.”
“Amen, brother,” Martinez said. “Now shut up and get some sleep. I’ve got the first watch.”