I checked the body of the spotter for Intel and found a cotton-duck-covered field message pad. I tore off the cover and flipped it open. Each page that had been written on was folded in half – a neat way to refer back to earlier orders, but not the smartest of tactical moves - you might wind up getting killed, and anything left in that pad is valuable information for whoever killed you should they check your body.
Clearly the dead man broke that rule. I scanned the pages looking for anything that would be of use. All I found were map references and timings – ten full pages of them. I quickly pulled out my map and checked to see where the grid references led but they didn’t make any tactical sense: each location was either middle of farmer’s field and area of high ground or in the center of thick bush. The timings were interesting, though, and I decided to question the sniper to see what they meant, assuming he was in the mood for sharing.
All soldiers are trained to keep their traps shut - that’s why interrogation techniques have become so complex over the years. I wasn’t planning on water boarding the guy, but I was going to make it crystal clear that his life depended on answering questions. I also had an ace up my sleeve. Dawn-Marie recognized him. I made a mental note to have her with me when I started asking questions.
Climbing back into the carrier, I ordered Doug to take us back to Ark Two. I left the navigation up to him, turning my attention to the rear of the carrier. Our prisoner’s hands were bound behind his back with cable ties. He stared at the floor while Cruze and Dawn-Marie kept a close eye on him. He wasn’t bleeding to death, but a 5.56 millimeter bullet was lodged in his thigh - that would have to come out if the guy had any hope of keeping his leg from becoming infected and eventually turning gangrenous. It probably hurt like hell, too.
A few minutes later the carrier rolled to a halt alongside Ark Two. Jo did her level best to give me a big smile, only it wasn’t working. Her eyes were puffy and she’d been crying pretty hard.
I climbed inside and lifted her chin with my index finger. “Hey, kiddo – how are you holding up?”
Jo offered the tiniest of shrugs and sniffled loudly. “I’m okay,” she said in a whisper of a voice. “I’m just sad because of what happened to Katie.”
I drew her close and gave her a warm hug. “I know, Jo. It’s not fair that she was killed. Katie was the bravest person I’ve ever met, but we have to be grateful that she didn’t die … badly.”
Jo gazed up at me and blinked a few times. “You mean that it’s a good thing it wasn’t a creeper that got her.”
I nodded. “That’s the worst way to go.”
She sniffled again and said, “Are you mad at Sid?”
“Sid made a big mistake, Jo,” I replied. “And I think he knows he let everyone down, especially Kate. That’s why it’s so important that we’ve got each other’s backs. We can’t let our feelings cloud our judgment, because it has an effect on everyone in the team.”
Jo’s eyes darkened as she lowered her eyebrows, shifting her gaze to the floor of the carrier. “You have the bad guy that shot Katie now, right?”
I nodded. “That’s right. I need to question him. We have to find out as much as we can about Sunray and all the people who work with him.”
What she said next sent me reeling.
“I want you to kill him, David,” she said in a cold, hard voice. “He killed Katie and I want you to shoot him in the head just like he shot her.”
Holy shit.
I might have done a lot of things wrong since Day Zero, but I’d tried my level best to protect Jo from the worst of this dangerous new world. I’d long known that there was no way to shield her from every bad thing that could happen, but if we were going to survive, I was desperate to provide my little sister with that most precious of commodities: hope. But maybe I didn’t understand Jo as much as I’d thought. The long months of scraping by, of surviving by inches and facing threat after threat after threat had changed my little sister, in spite of my best efforts. She was a soldier now, just like the rest of us.
A child.
I dropped down onto the jump seat opposite Jo unsure of what to say to her. She gave me a curious look and for the first time in my life, I didn’t have any answers for her. I couldn’t look her in the eye and tell her that it was okay to shoot someone who was your prisoner. I just couldn’t do it, so I took the coward’s way out: I didn’t give her a definitive yes or no. Instead, I just answered her question by not answering her question.
“We’ll figure out what to do with him once we get the information we need,” I said, sounding deflated. “In the meantime you stay hatches down and rest up, Jo. It’s going to be a long day and everyone needs to focus.”
“Alright, David,” she said easily. All the stone cold seriousness had left her voice and the old Jo had returned.
For how long was anyone’s guess.
***
We shrouded Dawson’s body in a groundsheet, binding it tight with bungee cord. A few minutes later we pulled both carriers into an area of low ground about a hundred meters clear of the highway. I booted the sniper out of the back of the carrier and then tossed him a shovel.
“Start digging, prick,” I said menacingly. “And don’t get any crazy ideas about going ape shit with that shovel on our people because I’ll shoot you where you stand.”
He nodded quickly and then hobbled a few feet away from the rear doors to begin his task. And surely he was thinking the grave was meant for him. I’m sure everyone on the team would have liked to give Kate a proper burial in a place that wasn’t a dried out slough in the middle of a farmer’s field. Somewhere peaceful with trees overlooking a valley, but there wasn’t any time.
“Dig faster, asshole,” said Cruze as she watched the shooter scraping madly at the partially frozen ground. “The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can get the fuck out of this exposed position.”
Sid leaned against the back of the carrier and slid down against a rear wheel. He avoided my gaze as the gravity of Kate’s death started to sink in. He stared across the snow covered field as he fished a cigarette out of his pocket.
“Fuck … I should have kept my mouth shut,” he whispered as he ran a sleeve across his eyes. “I caused this and now Kate’s gone and-“
“You’re fucking right you caused this, Sid.” Cruze interrupted. “And Kate would probably kick you in the balls for wasting time crying over her.”
“I’m not crying, okay?” Sid answered.
Kenny climbed out of his carrier and fired a murderous look at the shooter.
“Prick,” he hissed. “Please tell me he’s digging a grave for himself.”
I shook my head. “No – we’re going to bury Kate then we’re going to get moving. I’ll interrogate this asshole later. If he’s smart, he’ll cooperate.”
“And if he doesn’t?” said Cruze.
The shooter glanced nervously over his shoulder at me and stared at my carbine.
“He’ll talk.” I said threateningly.
Jo kept inside the carrier and didn’t even bother poking her head out to look at our prisoner. He was dressed in camouflage combat fatigues – the new ones they’d issued to the regular force as opposed to the tattered hand-me-downs the reservists got. He had brown hair that had grown shaggy at the back and his eyes had that same haunted expression you saw in the eyes of everyone who survived Day Zero. He looked older than us, with crow’s feet around his eyes and a thick five o’clock shadow. I’d have pegged him to be in his late twenties to early thirties. On his combat jacket were three chevrons on each sleeve – he was a Sergeant. His regimental affiliation was nowhere to be seen – not that it mattered anymore because the army as we knew it was long dead.
The shovel scraped against the partially frozen ground and echoed across the field as the team looked on. I gazed down at Kate’s shrouded body and felt my throat beginning to tighten up – we’d survived so much over the past few months. We’d seen other members of the King’s Own die in the weeks and months after the siege, but the loss of Kate Dawson hit everyone hard. Doug Manybears crawled out the back of Ark One and began chanting something in his native language, his voice lilting up an octave. A haunting, mournful song poured out from between his lips as he knelt before Kate’s body.
He continued singing for another fifteen minutes until the grave was completed. The sniper climbed out and sat down on the dirt covered snow under the watchful eye of Mel Dixon. Doug and Sid gently carried Kate’s body to the grave and slid her down the edges. A sharp gust of wind blew across the spoil from Kate’s grave and we all just stood there looking down at the body of our friend. It was as if each of us was waiting for someone to conduct a makeshift service. I’d have said something but there really wasn’t anything to say that would lessen the shock we’d all experienced.
And it was shocking. We’d all seen comrades die but it was always at the hands of the creeps. This was different. Kate Dawson wasn’t being hunted by a monster. She wasn’t in the throes of battle – she’d climbed atop the carrier to do her job as my second in command and she wound up shot to death.
“Fuck this,” said Mel Dixon as she turned on her heels. “If anyone wants me, I’ll be inside Ark Two.”
Her feet crunched loudly in the freshly fallen snow as I grabbed the shovel and tossed it to the prisoner. “Fill the hole – you’ve got five minutes.”
“Then what?” he asked with a groan as he got back to his feet.
“You’ll know when it happens,” I said coldly.
***
We stood around Kate’s now filled-in grave as Jo crawled out of the carrier. In her hands she carried Kate’s SPECTRA helmet which she placed in the center as a kind of marker.
“Hang on, Jo,” said Sid as he disappeared around the carrier. He returned a few moments later with a large stone about the size of a basketball. He brushed off the snow and tossed Jo a thick felt marker from his breast pocket.
“It’s not a proper headstone, but it’s better than a helmet.”
Jo wrote Kate’s name on the flattest side of the stone along with the image of the sun shining in the sky and some birds flying in the distance. Sid carefully placed the stone at the head of Kate’s grave and wiped his eyes again with the sleeve of his combat jacket.
I put a hand on Jo’s shoulder and said, “That was nice, baby sister. Thanks for doing that. Wherever Kate is, she’s probably smiling down on…”
“Mother-fucking contact you assholes!” Melanie roared from her turret. “Get your shit in gear - there’s an enemy APC skirting the forward edge of the tree line up ahead!”
In seconds we were under fire. Tracer rounds flew over the top of the carrier. We quickly dropped what we were doing and scrambled into the carriers. Once inside, I frantically cable-tied the prisoner to a gun rack and closed the rear doors and hatches.
“What are you seeing, Sid!” I shouted as I crawled into my crew commander’s hatch.
“Armored Recce!” he bellowed. “Jesus H. Christ, we gotta move now, they’ve got a freaking Cougar!”
I fumbled with the headset and pulled my hatch lid down over my head as I peered into my periscope to see a cloud of snow behind the rear wheels of a heavily camouflaged Cougar light tank. The Cougar, though it was the exact same vehicle as the one we were driving, possessed a very significant advantage: a turret from a British Scorpion battle tank and a 76 mm main cannon. A well-placed shot from that gun on any part of our APC and we’d brew up faster than a coffeepot at a truck stop.
“Get us out of here or we’re fucking dead!” I shouted into the radio.
Doug Manybears was already taking evasive action, having pulled a wide U-Turn in the low ground beside the highway. I peered through my periscope just in time to see the muzzle flash from the cougar’s main gun. Less than a second later our carrier pitched sharply to the left as the high explosive round hit the pavement to my right.
“Smoke! Smoke! Smoke!” I screamed into my microphone as the turret spun around overhead.
Three loud thunks later and the smoke canisters were away.
“That round came too freaking close for comfort!” Cruze shouted into the radio. “My smoke is away, we’ve got good cover!”
“Copy that - both vehicles onto the highway now – bury the freaking needle and keep your guns at the ready!”
Doug gave me a thumbs-up as I fumbled with my map.
Our sniper had been part of a recce element. That explained why we hadn’t seen a vehicle anywhere. The spotter and the shooter had likely been conducting a foot patrol when they saw us barreling up the highway. The smoke we’d seen was probably from a small fire the rest of their team had been using to warm up - it was well below zero outside. I’d driven us straight into a trap. Part of me hoped we’d wind up getting broadsided by an anti-tank round, because ever since the moment we broke out of the armory, I’d made piss poor decisions and got us all into firefights at every freaking turn.
I heard the turret spin around quickly from behind as Sid’s voice filled my headset. “He’s still a good distance back, but he’s on our tail!”
I snapped out of it, peering through my periscope for a bit of land we could use for cover.
“Are we out of range of that gun?” I barked.
“Yeah … barely,” Sid answered.
“Keep that needle buried, Doug! We need to put more distance between us.”
Doug Manybears answered through a haze of static. “It’s buried. I don’t know how much faster I can make this thing go. We gotta figure out a way to take down that Cougar.”
“No shit! Ark Two – get your ass parallel to our carrier. We’ll slow down slightly and let you take the lead.”
The radio hissed. “Are you nuts, Dave?” shouted Cruze. “He’ll have two big fat olive drab targets to fire at!”
I pressed the PTT button as my heart raced. “Only for a couple of seconds. Just do it!”
“FUCK!” she bellowed.
The pitch from our engine dropped only slightly as the APC’s engine break kicked in. I could make out the nose of Cruze’s carrier in my peripheral vision, so I ordered Doug to let Ark Two take the lead. An enormous cloud of snow filled the air in front of the trim vane as Cruze’s APC moved ahead.
“How are we doing for distance now, Sid?” I shouted.
There was a short pause and then Sid answered. “Jesus – we’re within range. He’s maybe eight hundred meters back.”
“Any smoke left?” I asked.
“Three shots left on the right dischargers. What’s the plan?”
“The plan is we get up another screen and I’m going to jump out of the carrier into the ditch.”
The radio squawked. “Don’t you freaking do it, Dave. He’ll mow you down!”
I clenched my jaw tightly as I glanced back to the jump seat where Dawson used to sit. My idea was a massive risk and entirely suicidal, but it was all I had. I pressed the intercom button. “Sid, get ready to fire off that smoke on my mark. Stand by.”
“Roger that,” he answered. I quickly unplugged my headset and raced to the back of the APC, climbed onto the left rear jump seat and rolled back the tarp on the floor. Beneath it was a fiberglass case, containing two 84mm high explosive anti-tank rockets. I quickly sliced off the safety wire that sealed the box and flipped it open. Inside were two plastic tubes about as long as my arm. I lifted one out of the box and placed it between my knees, giving it a sharp twist to the right. The packing tube came off, exposing a long black cylinder with a yellow band painted across the shiny surface. I handed the anti-tank round to Dawn-Marie as I spun around and pulled the rigging off the Carl Gustav recoilless rifle stowed just underneath the hatch door. It was clumsy, heavy and usually a two-man-operated weapon, but my second in command was dead and we’d all be joining her if I didn’t get the weapon loaded quickly.
I glanced up at the sniper, whose face had turned ashen. He must have known all along there would be a Cougar coming out of the coulee at some point. “Your buddies are hot on our tail. How many are in that Cougar?”
“The driver and crew commander,” he said, staring at the weapon.
“And what’s down inside that coulee?”
“Unit outpost,” he answered.
“How many?”
“A couple of dozen.”
“All civilians?”
He shook his head.
I glanced at Dawn-Marie and she gave me a sharp nod. There was a frightened look in her eyes. I had a hunch that she too knew what was down inside that coulee. It would have been nice if she’d have told me before we’d left the hide.
“Is he lying to me, Dawn-Marie?” I asked as I slid the long projectile into the firing tube.
“No – it’s an outpost. At least, that’s what our handlers told us. They threatened to send us there if we broke any of Eden’s laws.”
I looked at the sniper and remembered the coordinates inside the field message pad I’d found on the dead spotter. I wanted to question him about the pad’s contents but there wasn’t any time – this was confirmed by Sid’s shrill voice blasting down from the turret.
“Five hundred meters, Dave!” Sid hollered. “If you’re going to do something, you’d better freaking do it now!”
“Who is Sunray?” I barked, my eyes never leaving the sniper. “Who is your commander - is he down in the coulee?”
Kate’s killer must have known his number was just about up. His lips arched up into a cruel smile and he started to chuckle. Dawn-Marie bashed him in the side of the head with our first aid kit, and his giggling morphed into a fit of laughter.
“Answer him!” Dawn-Marie snapped.
The sniper shifted his gaze to the front of the carrier “Freaking kids. You’re already dead, and you don’t even know it.”
I lunged at him, dropping the now fully-loaded recoilless rifle onto the floor of the carrier.
“Who is Sunray?” I roared, shaking the man like a rag doll. “Where is his location?”
He blinked a couple of times and stared me straight in the eye. “Sunray is Major J.T. Martins. Commander of the battle school. You won’t find him, because he’s on the move – he’s always on the move. You might as well all shoot yourselves right now - because when he gets his hands on you, you’ll be begging for that bullet.”
I’d heard enough. I cut the cable tie on his wrist and then slid over to the right rear door and flipped off the combat lock.
“Sid!” I bellowed. “Get your ass down from the turret, right now!”
Sid’s feet dropped down to the bottom of the turret cage. He squatted next to the sniper as I threw open the rear door; a jet of cold air rushed into the carrier, along with a heavy dusting of snow. I glared at the sniper with a look that could melt iron bars. “You killed my second,” I shouted over the wind. “You tried to kill me and your people have been trying to kill us ever since we set foot in Eden. The freaking creeps are the enemy, not breathers! You made your choice. Now I’m making mine.”
Sid Toomey drove a size 16 combat boot into the sniper’s shoulder. He toppled over the edge of the jump seat and out onto the snow-covered highway, his body barrel-rolling through a snow squall. Sid lifted his carbine and raised it to his shoulder.
“Kill that son of a bitch,” I snarled.
A pair of shots rang out. I didn’t bother to see if they’d hit their target.
Sid climbed back up into the turret as I plugged my headset into the intercom jack again. “Sid – fire off those remaining three smoke now!” I shouted, heaving the loaded Carl Gustav onto my lap. I swung my legs over the edge of the rear door, ignoring the snow that was blowing into my face.
“Smoke’s away!” Sid shouted.
“Doug, slow this pig down to a crawl - I’m getting out!” I bellowed.
I saw him raise his thumb and seconds later the engine retarder brake kicked in with a deafening metallic shriek. I looked at Dawn-Marie. “When I jump out, close this freaking door and tell the driver to floor it. He’s in charge now – got it?”
She looked at me nervously and gave me a short, quick nod. “Tell the gunner to keep his eyes on the rear of the carrier. If he sees that I’ve taken down that Cougar, tell them double back and get me.”
“And if you don’t?” she asked. Her voice was shaking.
I gazed out the back door to see that the entire highway behind us was covered by a thick blanket of white smoke. The carrier was now moving at a walking pace, so I hopped out the back, hefting the recoilless rifle onto my shoulder.
“Then it won’t matter,” I said, pushing on the thinly-armored door. “Now go!”
The door shut with a loud clang and the carrier took off, kicking up another cloud of snow in its wake. I had one shot – one single chance to destroy the light tank. I wasn’t going to waste it. Under the cover of our smoke screen, I raced across the highway and into a ditch, and cocked the Carl Gustav. The sound of the Cougar’s engine echoed across the empty farmland as it drew closer. I dropped into the prone position and heaved the anti-tank gun onto my shoulder. I could feel the vibration of the Cougar’s weight shaking the ground underneath my chest, and I took a deep breath, peering into the telescopic sight on the side of the firing tube.
What happened next would decide whether I lived or died. Whether my team would make it through another day and whether I failed my sister Jo. My heart was hammering as fast as a two-stroke engine and my throat was sandpaper dry. I gulped back a mouthful of cold air as the Cougar rolled past, temporarily blinding me with a face full of snow. I quickly shot up on one knee and lined up the crosshair with the enemy’s rear doors. Exhaling slowly, I watched the cross hairs slowly drop until they were parallel with the base of the hull.
“This is for you, Kate,” I whispered as I squeezed the trigger.
A jet of intense heat burst out of the back of the gun as the anti-tank round thundered up the highway. There was a bright yellow-orange flash, followed less than a second later by an explosion that shook the ground beneath me. The Cougar rolled to a screeching halt. I watched the rear doors flying through the air, landing on the pavement about 50 feet away from the burning vehicle.
And then it brewed up.
Liquid fire poured out the sides of the turret as a man engulfed in flames scrambled out of his hatch. He screamed in an inhuman voice as he fell over the side of the burning machine, landing face-first on the pavement. He didn’t get up. Thick black smoke filled the air as I lowered the gun. I started walking up the highway in a scene better suited to an action movie.
I’d just ended the lives of three men in less than five minutes and I’d done it without an ounce of remorse.
I knew what was down in the coulee, but that knowledge had come at a terrible cost. Kate Dawson was dead, and my little sister’s innocence was dying as well.
We weren’t going to make it to Sanctuary Base. I knew that now. If we had any hope of surviving and rebuilding our lives, we had to destroy Eden. The only question left was how to find Sunray.
And kill him.