Pandemic

THIRTEEN.

The office tower was going down. Most of it, anyway. A giant piece wrenched clear and slid off in a biblical cloud of smoke and dust.

Prince ground his teeth. For him, that building symbolized everything. America’s strength reduced to rubble. His own impotence to stop it. The plague was stripping away everything that gave him a sense of self worth: his family, his command, his country.

“What did you find out?” he barked at Walker.

“I had an RTO perform a quick radio check with our special weapons and air units,” the major reported. “I don’t think that’s us.”

Prince glared at the man, his chest burning. “What in God’s name are you talking about?”

“That’s not us, sir. It’s not our mortars or air units doing the shooting.”

“Are you an idiot, Major? Of course it’s not us. That’s heavy artillery. Battlefield howitzers. Not mortars. It’s the National Guard. A unit from the 101st Field Artillery. I would expect even you to recognize the difference.”

Walker reddened. “My bad, sir.”

The colonel growled. “I’ll do it myself.” He turned and yelled at the Massachusetts Army National Guard liaison, “Hey, McDonald! What is that?”

The young lieutenant blanched. He put down the magazine he was reading and stood at attention. “What is what, Colonel?”

Prince stabbed his finger at the screen. “Some of your people caught the Bug and just blew up an office building on live television! Do you think you might want to do something about it?”

“Uh, yes, sir.” The pale liaison turned to his radio and worked the dials.

“We’re supposed to be helping people,” Prince screamed at him, “not destroying their last fucking ounce of hope!”

Across the trailer, the support personnel hunched even lower over their workstations. Prince paced in front of the TV like a lion tired of its cage. He was sick of playing defense. He wanted to take the initiative on something, anything.

Military personnel were catching the Bug. It was bad enough soccer moms were running around hacking up their neighbors with meat cleavers. The average soldier was capable of killing large numbers of people. If America stopped believing the Army would protect them, it’d be every man for himself out there. Game over.

On the screen, a second building was being shelled, a large hotel. They were hitting it with high-explosive incendiaries—white phosphorous. Several floors were already engulfed in chemical fire, pumping out rolling clouds of dense white smoke.

Big Brother was going to have Prince’s head, but that no longer mattered. If there were people inside, they were being burned alive. He had to stop it.

Conventional doctrine, aggressive action, flawless execution. That was his motto, and it had served him well during twenty years of service to the people and the Constitution of the United States. Though conventional thought and flawless execution had gone out the window, he still had aggressive action as a card to play. He could at least do that.

He wanted to do something. Something real. Something with results. His exhausted, throbbing brain had stopped cooperating. It was time to make some decisions from the gut.

“What do we have that can take out those Nasty Girls?” Prince asked, using Army slang to describe the National Guard.

“Our air assets are all tied up,” Walker said.

“Untie them. Get me something that can fly and shoot.”

“Sir, are you saying we should engage a Massachusetts Army National Guard unit?”

“An infected unit. And yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying, Major. We’ll use the Apaches to track them by radar, confirm they’re infected, and destroy them.”

“Sir, I feel it’s my duty to point out we’re in a rather delicate situation with the Governor.”

Prince had never wanted to punch a man so badly in his life. “Delicate?”

“Yes, sir.”

“We’re going to protect the man and his family and ensure Massachusetts has a government next week. What’s so delicate about that?”

“He won’t come, sir. He’s still holed up at Logan International Airport, surrounded by state police and Guard. He’s running the government from there.”

“Did you tell him the President of the United States declared a state of emergency? That’s why we’re here helping him keep whatever he has left from washing away.”

“He says he declared martial law, Colonel.”

“Good! We’re all on the same page! So what’s the problem?”

“He just declared all Federal units on Massachusetts soil to be under state control. He says our command is now subordinate to Major General Brock.”

The news struck Prince speechless for a moment. The situation had just changed so dramatically it gave him a sense of vertigo.

Based at Camp Edward in Cape Cod, Major General Brock commanded the Massachusetts Army National Guard, eight thousand strong. Prince considered Brock a dependable soldier and a solid brother officer. National Guard units were scattered all over Boston, and they shared communications and even staged joint operations with Prince’s battalion.

After declaring a state of emergency, the President had nationalized all Guard units, putting them under Federal control. But with the new order, the Governor was putting Prince’s battalion under Brock.

Prince glanced across the tactical operations center at the National Guard liaison sitting in front of a radio and talking to his counterpart. “What’s Brock going to do?”

Walker shook his head and shrugged. “Hell of a time to secede, though.”

The last thing Prince wanted was a shooting war against an entire brigade of National Guard. His eight hundred lightfighters were no longer in any condition for that kind of fight. And the rest of Tenth Mountain was committed. There was no help available from the outside.

But he had his orders. That, and there was no way he was going to take orders from the Governor; his boss was the President of the United States. “Major, I want you to draw up a contingency operational plan for doing a snatch grab on the Governor. In and out and with no blood spilled. I want to know what kind of assets we have and what kind of assets he has. Last time I checked, Massachusetts was still one of the fifty states.”

“Are you sure that’s wise, sir?”

“I’m sure it’s an order, Major.”

“Roger that, sir.”

“Outstanding attitude. Get me eyes on that arty unit and on that airport. As in now.”

“I’ll get on it right away.”

“And pull Harry Lee out of the field. I need my S-2.” He regarded Walker with disdain. “He’s the only officer I’ve got with a clear head and a pair of balls.”