Apocalypse Dawn (13 page)

Vacation Bible school had never been like this. As soon as that thought raced through his mind, Joey felt an immediate surge of guilt and was reminded how the youth minister had always told him the best way to know what God wanted in a person’s life was by paying attention to the small niggling doubts that often turned into guilt if left unchecked. His preacher said that a sense of right and wrong was placed within every person, but it was up to that person to fine-tune that sense and keep his or her covenant with God.

An old anger surfaced in Joey again, triggering the rebellion that had claimed him. No one knew what was right for him. He didn’t even know, but he sure wasn’t going to let someone else tell him. He’d loved his dad, but Tony Holder had left and seldom showed up these days. Joey had liked the youth minister, Mr. Lewis, but Mr. Lewis had moved away.

Joey had deeply liked, admired, and respected Goose, especially in the early days of Goose’s marriage to his mom. Those times had been great. Then, in no time at all it seemed, The Squirt had been born. Chris’s arrival into the family had changed everything for Joey. Goose’s attention had been divided between the boys, and he wasn’t able to do as many guy things with Joey as he had before Chris had been born. The pickup basketball games and racquetball games Joey had loved stopped as Goose stayed home more to take care of Chris.

Part of that time spent together before Chris arrived, Joey knew, was because his mom worked long hours in the counseling center helping other people’s kids. That hadn’t been a problem before Chris had been born. Then, Goose had told them they were going to “bach” it, and they’d go take in a movie and grab dinner at a cafe off base. If they didn’t do a movie, they’d go to the rec center, shoot some hoops, or play racquetball till they were both too tired to stand.

Chris had spoiled all of that. Goose hadn’t been able to go as much when Joey’s mom wasn’t home to take care of the baby. And it was like Goose never even noticed how much things had changed. It was then that Joey realized that he was, and always would be, Goose’s stepson, not his real son. When he was feeling generous, which wasn’t often these days, Joey supposed that it wasn’t Goose’s fault. After all, Goose couldn’t have known how he would feel about having a real son until he had one.

But Joey felt lied to and taken advantage of. Like he’d been replaced. He pushed away those thoughts and concentrated on the moment. The music was loud, the lights were dizzying, and the crowd was wild. And he was in the middle of it.

The crowd shoved him toward the stage. Tossed and hurled across the surface of the crowd, Joey craned his neck around and spotted Jenny ten feet ahead of him and quickly approaching the stage. Most of the hands shoved him forward, but he caught more than a few punches to his back, ribs, and thighs. Anger ran rampant through much of the crowd. The hard music gave their rage a voice, and the various chemical stimulants they were imbibing gave people free reign to act on the primeval violence that moved within them. After this night, Joey was certain he’d be carrying bruises fora week.

Jenny reached the stage easily. She was a girl. Girls always reached the stage. But she was met by two burly security guards wearing band Tshirts with SECURITY stamped across the chest and back of the shirts. They wore black paratrooper pants, but none of the guys looked like the military government-issue guys that Joey had been around.

As Joey closed on the stage, the two security guards confronted Jenny. Usually, the security people pushed the crowd surfers back from the stage, and the dancers swept them back to the other end of the dance floor. But this time the lead guitarist-a guy with a tattooed face, skinny arms, and obscene T-shirt-stepped forward and spoke to the security people.

The guitarist started on a throbbing, ear-splitting solo and spoke to Jenny. Unbelievably, Jenny started dancing onstage, gyrating her body in a manner that filled Joey with lust and jealousy all at the same time. If she had danced for him like that-alone-he would have been thrilled. But dancing in front of guys who hooted and yelled and screamed encouragement was horrible. He also felt it was incredibly stupid.

Joey reached the stage. Anger burst loose inside of him. He tried to run across the stage and get to Jenny. He didn’t know what he was going to do when he reached her, but he was determined to reach her.

Two security guards caught him before he took his third step. With embarrassing ease, the security guys flung Joey back into the crowd. Once he landed atop the crowd, the dancers shouted in eager derision at his failed attempt and started shoving him to the back of the dance floor.

“No!’ Joey yelled, wanting to get to Jenny and get her off the stage or at least let everyone know she was with him. But the crowd wasn’t listening or couldn’t hear him. He fought and twisted and grabbed on to people. In the end, his efforts didn’t matter. He was swept along the top of the crowd like a piece of flotsam driven before an aggressive tide.

Turkey

As the tide of sand shifted around him, hands-Goose didn’t know how many-pulled at his feet and worked up his legs. He slid out from under the collapsed wall section as the sand rushed in to fill the empty space. But he kept his grip on the trapped man. Rough stone rasped and cut into Goose’s shoulders and the back of his head. His arm felt wrenched from its socket as he drew the trapped man from the sand, but he hung on.

As soon as the man came free of the sand, Goose shot out from under the wall. He managed to wrap his free arm behind the man’s head in an embrace to strengthen his hold. Someone grabbed his belt and the speed of the rescue attempt increased again.

Bright sunlight ripped into Goose’s eyes as he emerged. Bill reached for the rescued man. In the same instant, the wall section collapsed with a whumf that spat out a roiling mass of dust. The group of rescuers turned away from it.

“It’s okay, Sarge,” Bill said, dropping to the ground beside Goose. “I’ve got him. I’ve got him. He’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

Goose released his grip on the man and rolled over. The coughing fit he’d been holding back erupted, and for a moment he thought he was going to cough up a lung. His head felt near to bursting. Then, just as he thought he’d never draw another breath, enough of the dust cleared from his lungs that he could suck in a gasp of relatively fresh air.

Weak and shaking but recovering quickly, Goose forced himself to his feet.

“Are you all right, Sergeant Gander?” Danielle Vinchenzo stood at his side. Blood streaked one side of her face, leaking from her temple to her chin.

“Yes, ma’am,” Goose answered, then went through another coughing fit.

She offered him a canteen of water.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Are you always this polite?” she asked. “You nearly got crushed under that slab.”

Goose felt a little flustered. The question had come from left field and wasn’t connected to anything that had been going on. He uncapped the canteen and filled his mouth. Rinsing the dust from his mouth, he spat the water out. Then he took a drink. He glanced around at the bombed-out city.

“Sorry, Sergeant,” Danielle said with a wry grin that looked totally out of place on her bloody face. “A reporter’s professional curiosity, I’m afraid. I always try to understand the people and the stories I cover. And maybe I’m a little irritated that anyone can be that cool under pressure.”

“I’m from Waycross, Georgia, ma’am,” Goose said. “My daddy raised me to be respectful, and the military has kept it that way. As far as being cool under pressure, it’s just an act.” He smiled back at her.

“Golden Globe all the way, Sergeant.”

“If you’ll excuse me, ma’am, I’ve still got to see to getting these people-and you-out of here.” Goose turned from the reporter with a polite nod, then joined Bill at the side of the man they’d rescued.

The man looked to be in his late forties. The yellow dust clung to him, as thick as the confectioners’ sugar on a powdered donut, graying out his pinched features. He was bald and had firm features, the face of a man that an audience would trust as he delivered the nightly news. His lightweight gray suit was ripped and torn. His eyes rolled wildly in their sockets. From the crooked angle of his left foot, Goose knew the man’s leg or hip had been broken. Maybe both.

Goose thought he recognized the man from one of the television networks, either American or European, but he couldn’t be sure.

Bill tilted the man’s head back and poured water into his mouth from a canteen. “Easy there, mister. You’ll want to spit that out. If you swallow that mouthful without getting clear of all that sand, you’ll just be sick.”

The man rinsed his mouth and spat, getting most of the water on himself because he lacked the strength to spit far enough to clear his body. He pushed away Bill’s offer of the canteen again and croaked, “Teresa’s still down there.”

“Teresa?” Bill asked.

The man nodded. “She’s my producer. We took shelter when the missiles struck. She was standing right beside me when the building collapsed and started to fill with sand.”

Sorrowfully, Bill shook his head. “We didn’t find her.”

The man clutched at Bill’s uniform. “You’ve got to go back. You’ve got to find her. She was there. The sand pulled her away from me.”

“Sir,” Goose said, “we can’t.”

The man looked at Goose. Fire danced in his eyes. “Sergeant, that woman may be down there dying.”

Goose spoke patiently. “If she was down there, sir, then there’s nothing we can do for her. She’s in God’s hands.” He said the words, but he didn’t really believe them. And he hated the fact that the woman’s survival had been taken out of his hands before he had even known she had been at risk. It wasn’t fair.

Exhaustion and shock overcame the man. He fell back and sobbed helplessly, putting a hand over his face.

“Sarge.” Cusack trotted over with a section of canvas tent he’d cut.

The Rangers had salvaged pieces from the tents and used them to drag wounded over to the decades-old deuceand-a-half that had escaped the wholesale destruction that had swept through the rest of the town. Flames had blistered the vehicle’s camo paint and left a layer of black soot over it, but it was still serviceable. An enterprising Turkish man had ended up with the ex-military vehicle and had hired it out to the media to transport equipment back and forth from the airport. The roads to Glitter City were few, and only called roads in polite company.

Dockery gave Goose his assault rifle back, then helped Dewey organize the litter bearers to carry the man they’d rescued to the big truck. Together, the two Rangers hauled the injured man away, leaving a smooth concave trail in the sand behind them.

Goose pulled himself back into his gear, gazing across the single road that divided Glitter City and seeing that Hardin’s team had found another survivor. There were getting to be fewer and fewer of those, and most were too injured to help out with the rescue operation.

Hardin, Goose noticed, had also started a scavenger pile, throwing items he considered salvageable and marketable into a pile near the edge of the hard-packed earthen road. The man had a knack for finding things. Hardin was a good soldier but not a career-minded one. He remained military because he knew how to play the options that came to him and because he could follow orders. But Hardin also had a tendency to involve himself in barter and trade that bordered on black market. Still, his skill could be priceless in places like this.

During their last deployment, a peacekeeping mission in East Africa, Hardin had become the go-to guy to locate hard-to-find materials. That was the up-side. The down-side was that Hardin had also muscled his way into being something of a black market kingpin while the 75th was stationed there.

Goose had wanted to bust the man down in rank from corporal to private when he’d discovered the illicit trade he’d gotten involved in. But Remington, a company sergeant then, had smoothed the waters and kept Hardin at rank. When Remington had made officer, he’d brought Goose along with him, but he’d also brought Hardin along. There were times when Goose didn’t agree with Remington’s line of thinking.

But there was no mistaking Hardin’s value in a firefight or any op that needed a man who was cool, was quick under pressure, and never hesitated to make a life-or-death decision.

Sudden static in Goose’s left ear shot a bolt of white-hot pain screaming through his brain. His radio hissed, popped, and crackled, then cleared.

“Phoenix Leader,” a man’s voice said. “Phoenix Leader, this is Base. Do you read? Over.”

Goose put a hand to the headset and adjusted the volume. Static continued to ripple through the connection, but the communication remained steady. “Phoenix Leader reads you, Base.”

“Stand by, Leader. I’m connecting you to Base Commander.”

Knowing that the com officer was alerting Remington to the fact that he had Goose, the sergeant glanced toward the south. The booms of the heavy artillery continued. C’mon, Cal, Goose urged. Get with me. Let me know how bad this is and what we have to do to fix it.