Tooth and Nail (19 page)

Knight whistles. “Jesus, do the math!”

“Suppose just ten percent of the population of this city becomes a Mad Dog. Just one out of ten. And then suppose we had the men and the weapons and a safe position to shoot them down from.”

Knight finishes for him. “There aren’t enough bullets.”

Bowman nods. “It’s a numbers game. There’s no way to stop this. It’s only going to get worse. In a few hours, maybe a day, ten percent becomes twenty percent. A flood.”

Across the street, a civilian in a private office has noticed them and is holding up a sign against his window that says: TRAPPED, HELP.

The officers move to another part of the roof, seething with shame. They can only help those they can without risking the security of the unit. For a moment, Bowman thinks of Reinhold Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer, which his uncle Gabe, a recovering alcoholic in AA, taught him when he was ten years old:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

“Who could pull the trigger that many times anyhow?” Knight wonders.

“Private Chen couldn’t,” Bowman murmurs. The soldier wouldn’t be the last who would rather eat a bullet than fight this war, either.

Knight continues, “One of the reasons we got chewed up so bad all the way here is some of my boys just couldn’t shoot Americans.” He glances at his platoon sergeant, then looks away. “Have you, uh, shared your discovery with your platoon?”

“They’re not dumb,” Bowman says. “They know what’s going on. It’s just that nobody’s said it out loud for them yet. They haven’t had a minute to think about it.”

“Yes,” says Knight.

“I guess we’ll have to tell them.”

They flinch as the muffled boom of an explosion reaches their ears. A large cloud of smoke and dust billows out from behind a building between them and Times Square. Even yesterday, this would have been remarkable to them. Today, they take it in stride.

Knight laughs viciously. “We’re going to tell them how their families, and everybody they know, are probably dying or being converted into those things out there.”

“We’re going to tell them to do their jobs, Steve.”

Lewis fires his rifle, which discharges with a loud bang.

“It’s getting personal, Todd. You better come up with something better than that if you want them to keep fighting for a country that’s falling apart around them.”

Bowman looks at Knight in surprise. “Why me?”

Knight smiles sadly. “You’re the one who’s in charge here, Todd.” “We’re the same rank, but you’ve got seniority over me. You’ve got seniority over Greg Bishop of First Platoon, too. You’re in command.”

“On the way over here . . .” Knight looks at Sergeant First Class Vaughan, who stares back at him stonily, his expression inscrutable behind his N95 mask. “I was one of the people who couldn’t shoot. I couldn’t even give the order. I froze. It was Sergeant Vaughan here that got us out.”

“Damn, Steve,” Bowman says quietly.

He glances at Vaughan, but the NCO is a professional and while his face is flushed, making the diagonal scar across his face livid, his gray eyes give nothing away.

Knight says, “A lot of my boys are dead because I couldn’t tell them to shoot.”

Tears stream down the officer’s face. Vaughan lowers his eyes. Knight looks away, gazing at the skyscrapers.

“Twenty-five percent casualties,” he adds. “But you know what?” He hisses, fiercely, “If I could go back and do it all over again, I still wouldn’t give that goddamn order.”

Bowman says nothing. He had given the order to shoot. He personally not only shot Mad Dogs, he also shot down uninfected civilians who got in his way.

By any definition, he is a murderer and a war criminal. He knows it. His own platoon sergeant knows it. The two men were made from the same stuff; he saw Kemper do the same as him to get the platoon out of the riot and to safety.

And if they did not do what they did, if they were not war criminals, they might all be dead right now.

Nevertheless, he can’t shake the feeling that he is damned.

The officers hear the piercing wail of a fire engine, punctuated by the bursts of its horn. It is a plucky sound amid the rattle of small arms fire and distant screams, reminding them that somewhere, out there, people are still fighting back against the rising tide of violence and anarchy.

The sound reminds them that it is not every man for himself out there. Not yet.

Similarly, the power continues to cut in and out, but somebody is still manning the controls at the power plant, and somebody is still delivering coal to burn to make electricity. In all the jobs that matter, from cop to soldier to paramedic to power plant operator, people are still doing their duty. Bowman finds strength in this idea.

Knight wipes the tears from his face and clears his throat.

“I wouldn’t give the order,” he says. “I guess that makes me a nice guy or something. But I have no right to lead Charlie.” He sighs. “We should have stayed where we were. We were doing some good there.”

“No,” Bowman says. His eyes follow a pair of helicopters moving over the East River until they disappear behind a tall building. He takes it as a good sign that there are still birds in the air. “Captain West had the right idea trying to concentrate the Company. Warlord is spread out all over Manhattan and is vulnerable to being destroyed piecemeal. But it’s too late. We got chewed up. We should have consolidated sooner.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Knight says. “We shouldn’t have been spread out in the first place, then. It’s a mystery. I have a hard time believing that either the government or the Army didn’t know about the infection rate among the Mad Dogs.”

“Could be they were trying to avoid pushing an already panicked country into outright hysteria,” Bowman says. “Could be that they honestly didn’t know. Who knows? Right now, my situational awareness extends to what I can see with my own eyes.”

“Well, if somebody higher up knew about this and didn’t tell us, they may have just destroyed our brigade.”

Bowman stares at him intensely and says, “Hell, Steve. Forget Quarantine. If somebody higher up knew and didn’t tell us, they may have destroyed the U.S. Army.”

Sherman tries again to raise Warlord, the call sign for Battalion, and Quarantine, which is Brigade’s call sign, without success.

“Warlord, Warlord, this is War Dogs, do you copy, over?”

No answer from Battalion. The Battalion net is being overloaded with chaotic messages blending together into one long screech. From what the RTO can tell, War Hammer is screaming for reinforcements and ammunition, Warmonger reports the successful occupation of the old Seventh Regiment Armory Building, and War Pig says it has three men down and where’s their goddamn medevac.

“Warlord, Warlord,” Sherman says, then stops. It’s useless.

Sherman switches to the Brigade net and tries to hail Quarantine. Nobody answers. The only officer he can get a hold of, as they say in the ranks, is General Confusion. The voices on the Brigade net are less panicked than Charlie’s sister companies, but equally confused. There are units missing, trying to consolidate, requesting orders, demanding resupply, on the move, taking casualties. There are gaps in the chain of command. Units are disappearing or moving without their commanders knowing it.

When Quarantine’s XO finally makes an appearance on the net, it is apparently without his knowledge or consent, as he’s shouting at somebody else in the room about a story that
The New York Times
is writing about the Army’s sudden decision to lay waste to New York and almost every other major city in the country.

Somebody else, Sherman does not recognize the voice, says there is not going to be a
New York Times
tomorrow morning, and then the transmission cut out.

The civilian nets are even more ominous.

National Guard units defending City Hall have abandoned their positions and moved north, and protestors have occupied the building and are busy turning it into a fortress. The commander of the Guard unit was found dead at his post. The Mayor is missing. Right now, there is nobody running the government of New York City.

Meanwhile, operators are still calling first responder units, but units are not reporting back. The nets are going silent one by one, populated only by panicked operators asking over and over if anybody can hear them.

A cop gets on the net, says he has eyes on a group of vigilantes lynching five Lyssa victims from streetlight poles, and requests backup, but there is no help to give. Frustrated, the cop breaks protocol by asking the operator if there is a fucking plan.

Sherman senses that the government and the military are holding something back from the people who live here, but the people already know about it, and have begun to take matters into their own hands.

It is interesting, but ultimately not his concern.

He switches to Charlie Company’s net and resumes his search for Fourth Platoon, which had been on Third Platoon’s heels during the march to the school but suddenly disappeared and is now considered lost.

All of this makes for discouraging work for a radio/telephone operator, but a good RTO must have the patience of a saint, and Sherman is good at his job. He is not complaining. Even though he is not getting through to anybody, the traffic is more entertaining than he has ever heard it.

Things are bad, but like all crises, this too shall pass, he believes. He tells himself the government and the Army will fix it when those in charge finally get their heads out of their collective asses and do what needs doing. The United States survived the First and Second World Wars, Cold War, Spanish Flu Pandemic, Presidents Nixon through Obama, the Great Depression and the September Eleventh attacks. It can survive this lousy Lyssa Pandemic. Someday, he will tell his kids about how scary and exciting it all was, and he and his comrades will be called the Greatest Generation by their grandchildren.

He likes working alone so that he can take off his mask and smoke without any hassles. Lighting one up, he realizes that he is down to four packs now and after that, with all the supply problems he has been hearing about, there might not be any more cigarettes for a while. The thought fills him with panic. A lot of the boys smoke for fun, but he is an addict. He tries to put this unsettling train of thought out of his mind by throwing himself back into his work.

When he switches back to Brigade traffic, a strong, gravelly voice cuts through the babble:

The voice is calm, almost dry, but the effect is electrifying. Within moments, the chatter is reduced by more than half.

I say again: This is Quarantine actual. Clear the net. Break.
Sherman takes out his notepad and pencil, excited. He has only rarely heard Colonel Winters, the commander of the Brigade, get on the net in person.

McLeod paces just inside the doors to the school. About ten meters down the hallway, Martin and Boomer pass a cigarette back and forth, leaning on the sandbags of their MG emplacement. McLeod strolls over, cradling his SAW.

“
Salaam ’Alaykum
, boys,” he says.

The gunners nod. McLeod watches in amusement as they turn away and pull down their masks to take a drag.

He adds: “You guys do realize that if one of you has Lyssa, the other now has it.”

“Go to hell, McLeod,” Boomer says.

“What do you mean?” Martin says.

“You’re sharing a smoke,” McLeod explains. Seeing their blank expressions, he shakes his head. “Never mind.”

“This is not a good time to go around scaring people,” Boomer warns him.

“What a crappy post,” McLeod says darkly. “A freaking school. Look at this poster some kid made with a bunch of crummy markers: ‘Welcome back’ in a hundred languages. Christ, I’d rather be in goddamn Baghdad getting shot at.”

“I’ll bet you were one of the most popular guys in high school,” Martin deadpans, making the AG snort with laughter. “Because you’re such a comedian.”

“Sleep deprivation makes me hilarious.” McLeod yells at the ceiling, “I need sleep!”

“Why aren’t you bunking with your squad, McLeod?” Martin says, winking at Boomer, who grins back.

“Magilla’s got it in for me. Everybody else gets to sleep a few hours, while I’m stuck doing guard duty with—no offense—you guys.”

Boomer bursts into laughter while Martin says, “You’re lucky that’s all you got.”

“Are you kidding? What’d I ever do to anybody?”

“Have you ever tried seeing what would happen if you maybe shut your big mouth, McLeod?” Boomer says.

McLeod smiles and says nothing.

Boomer adds, “Looks like you’re as popular in the Army as you were in high school, McLeod. Count yourself lucky you’re not shoveling body parts into the basement furnace with the Hajjis—I mean, the civilians.”

“Instead, you got guard duty,” Martin says, gesturing toward the front doors of the school. “Hmm. Aren’t you supposed to be like, you know, guarding?”

“Nobody’s going to come here,” McLeod tells him.

“It’s a Lyssa hospital in the middle of a Lyssa plague,” Martin says, taking off his cap and making a show of scratching his closely shorn head. “Hmm.”

“Yeah, I wonder if anybody’s coming,” the AG says, cracking up now.

“Shush, I’m thinking,” Martin says, still in character.

“Quiet for a sec,” says McLeod. “Listen.”

In the distance, they hear the roar of a diesel engine.

A large vehicle is approaching the school.

He adds, “Oh thank God, they’re starting to pick up the trash again.” The MGR rolls his eyes and says, “Boomer, stay here, I’m going to go with McFly and check it out.”