He followed Martinez into the trees while loudspeakers demanded order. It might be a matter of minutes or seconds before the enemy analyzed video data and issued orders. Their gear abandoned, location known, the Wolves fled the scene of the crime.
Henry switched his night vision on. They sought the darkest places, the deepest shadows as they ran. They crouched, sprinted, crept, and lay still as stone. They moved through homes both abandoned and occupied, waiting for the buzz of a hunter-killer, which would be the last sound they would hear if the enemy had access to those particularly nasty drones.
They humped it all night and slept the next day in a basement at a day-care center, surrounded by children’s toys. They were hungry and thirsty and hunted.
“If I’d been half a second faster, that man would be alive,” Carlos said in the dark.
“I should have been there before you,” Henry said. “I didn’t see it coming. I should have.”
“It’s quick, man,” Carlos said. His voice was thick with emotion. “Evil is. It’s so fast you don’t even see it strike and then it’s already too late. Damn it. You try to stop it, but it moves so quick, like lightning. It’s done before you even see it. By the time you hear the thunder, see the flash, somebody’s dead.”
“It’s my fault,” Henry said. “I was closer.”
“No it’s not,” Martinez said. “Stop whining. You’ve seen men die. I don’t mean to be harsh, but self-pity and philosophy don’t save lives. You sound like a couple of cherries right now, and I’d like you to shut up. Get your shit together, get focused on what needs to be done instead of bitching about what happened, ’cause you can’t change that.”
“Copy that, sir,” Henry said.
“Fuck you, Sarn’t Major,” Carlos said. “All respect.”
“You want to change things? You want to win? Be the lightning,” Martinez said.
Lightning craves a thing to strike. Henry yearned for a target. He’d witnessed a father murdered, a man simply trying to get his family someplace safe, killed in a traffic jam because he’d run into the wrong guy at the worst time. Now those children would grow up without a dad, and there wasn’t any way to make sense of it. The chaos, the injustice, the essential roiling unfairness of it all.
“Be the lightning” was a hollow exhortation, the kind of thing a sergeant major was supposed to say, but which did not ring true at that moment. Martinez was probably barely keeping his own act together, worrying about his children back in Texas, not wanting to face his vulnerability or mortality in the wake of what they’d just witnessed.
Fathers die, even though they don’t want to admit it or speak of it, as if by acknowledging the brutal truth a man gives death an undeserved power over him. It’s a primitive, primal thing. The reason men avoid doctors, neglect wills, and hope for sons and daughters.
The next night, they set out again, ghosts moving silently through the shadows and darkest places. They saw houses lit with kerosene lamps and candles, and a few with generators. The city was mostly dark, though.
Packs of dogs roamed the streets looking for food, dogs released by owners who could no longer afford to feed them, hunting for cats and squirrels and garbage. The rain abated and the temperature dropped to below freezing, the roads slick now with ice.
Helicopters thudded overhead every half hour or so, and fighter jets screeched past in tight formations. The air was bitter and tasted like war.
In the suburb of Donelson, they slipped into a ransacked Walgreens and found a few cans of SpaghettiOs and dog food, which they ate with plastic spoons. The food was disgusting and cold, and Henry licked the can clean.
At a looted pawnshop, they searched for weapons, and came up dry. They did, however, find a battery-operated SAT phone in the back pocket of the bloated corpse of what was probably the shop’s owner. The phone had a trickle of juice left in it.
“Make the call,” Martinez told Henry.
“It’ll be tracked,” Henry said.
“Maybe. The bad guys already know we’re here. At least you can let her know you’re still alive. Your buddy might answer, or he might not.”
“You sure about this?”
“Yeah. If I had somebody on the other end who would answer, I’d do it.”
Henry called Bart’s number from memory. It was part of a bug-out plan he’d put in place years ago. Three beeps, and then…
“Go,” came Bart’s voice on the other end.
“Barkis is willing,” Henry said.
“Coyote,” Bart replied, the signal clicking and breaking up.
“Out,” Henry said, ending the call.
“You sure that was him?” Martinez asked.
“It was his voice. Doesn’t mean it was him for sure, but I’m pretty certain, because he said ‘Coyote.’ I know what that means. Nobody else would.”
“Well, all right,” Martinez said. “Feel better?” “Yes. Yes I do.”
They waited another day and night, observing Berry Field, the Air National Guard base attached to Nashville International Airport, from a distance. There was not much activity. A pair of soldiers with German shepherds performed perimeter patrols. There appeared to be little security, and the base was no longer home to aircraft. The hangers were shut and the airstrips vacant.
“About oh three hundred,” Martinez said. “That’s when the body is at its worst, the most sluggish. We know that Corporal Simmons will let us on. He’s good people. If he can convince whoever he’s on patrol with we’re okay, we might be able to get in to the op center undetected. The armory is bound to be empty, but Simmons might help us with that.”
The plan was risky, and Henry could see a hundred different ways it was likely to fail. They had little choice, though.
Jets landed and took off from Nashville International Airport, which had clearly become a regional operations center.
Henry slept fitfully, waking up from the sound of the planes and from the drowning dreams that plagued him.
He dreamed of his father, dying hard in a hospital. He woke gasping, fighting for air. He knew what it was to lose a father. Those poor kids, they’d seen it happen in the street, seen their daddy get killed by some redneck tweaker. It was senseless, unfair.
He tried to go back to sleep, but sleep would not come. He thought about Taylor, that perfect baby girl, growing up without her father, and he felt shattered. He wondered what he’d been doing with his life. He spent another uncomfortable hour, and then it was time.
“Let’s say hello,” Martinez said.
Henry and Carlos cut across the street and approached the main gate, timing their advance to coincide with the patrol. Henry hoped Simmons was on post again tonight. Out of sight, Martinez would be creeping ahead from a position on the opposite side of the base.
The dogs started barking before Henry and Carlos made it to the fence. The patrolling soldiers sauntered toward the gate.
“Simmons,” Henry hissed, feeling a bit ridiculous. He crouched in an open grassy area, waiting to be shot. His night vision optics, advanced as they were, did not reveal the details on the faces of the two oncoming men, but they did reveal the laser sights, a perfect straight line cutting across the green night, ending at his chest. Carlos received an identical deadly beam himself, dancing and moving as the perimeter guards drew closer.
The dogs stood growling, awaiting a command, and poised to attack.
“Simmons,” Henry repeated. “It’s Wilkins. We’re what’s left of the Wolves.”