Slaughterhouse

TWENTY-SIX.

Command Sergeant Major Doug Turner sat in the passenger seat of the lead Humvee, staring down the length of 45^th Infantry Division Drive as First Sergeant Boats drove. The road had been cut through a large rise in the land, and on either side, walls of sedentary rock rose like the twin, humped backs of some prehistoric beasts, arcing upward into the night sky. The Ravens had overflown the area just a few minutes before Turner’s element made its approach. There were no indications that any Klowns lay in wait along the ledges, but Turner still felt a squirming nervousness in his belly. They were in the perfect place for an ambush.

Nothing happened. The four Humvees sped through the cut and emerged on the other side.

“Well, that was certainly uneventful,” Boats said. Before joining the Army a millennia ago, he’d been with the Coast Guard. Turner thought the change suited the man. Certainly, Boats probably had an easier time lugging around his beloved Remington 870 tactical shotgun in the Army than he had in the USCG.

“Don’t sound so down about it,” Turner said.

“I’m not complaining,” Boats told him. “It’s just that I need to rotate the stock in my tool kit. Lots of old rounds in there I want to get rid of.”

“You’ll have your chance, Sunshine,” Turner said. “I promise.”

“Oh, goody.”

To the right, a large white water tower rose into the darkness. The fence around it seemed secure, so the tower had most likely remained unmolested during the fall of Fort Drum. Turner was happy about that. A soldier or two up there with a rifle or a few AT4s could have ruined their day big time. To the left was the post’s large dining facility. The lights were still on, but the DFAC looked deserted.

“No wait for chow,” Boats said. “And it is South of the Border Tuesday.”

“Lord knows I could use a burrito right about now, but let’s not stop just yet. Besides, the best chow I’ve ever had at a DFAC was in Taji.” While Turner had no love in his heart for Iraq, the best dining facilities he’d ever experienced had been in that war-torn nation.

“They did make some good burgers. That’s for sure. Nothing like hunting hajjis on a full stomach.” Boats took his foot off the accelerator, and the Humvee began to slow as they approached an intersection. “We still on for the main gate?”

“Yeah. Slowly.”

“Don’t worry about that, man—Humvees don’t have a fast button.”

The Humvee was traveling heavy, with four lightfighters in the cabin and a fifth manning the cupola, which was outfitted with an Mk19 grenade launcher. Boats rolled the vehicle up to the main gate of the 1^st Squadron, 71^st Cavalry Regiment. Ghost Squadron, as it was called, was one of the last units to retrograde home from southwest Asia. As such, it had been in reset mode when the Bug broke out and deemed unfit to deploy with the majority of Drum’s combat forces. As far as Turner knew, the squadron had been selected to serve as a follow-on force to either New York or Boston, but he had no idea if it had ever deployed. Looking through the chain link fence that surrounded the motor pool, he could see that a good number of vehicles were missing. Most that were left were support vehicles, trucks and unarmed Humvees. The cavalry traveled light, but they still had enough gear to pack a punch when required, and most of that gear was gone. That was disappointing. Turner was hoping to find some goodies to bring to the fight around Hays Hall.

“Gate’s locked,” Boats said.

“Not a bad sign. Let’s go, guys.” Turner stepped out, his M4 at the ready.

He was shadowed by two other senior NCOs, Master Sergeant Riggs and a Sergeant First Class Courtney. Boats and the soldier on the Mk19 remained with the vehicle. Turner advanced toward the gate, weapon out. The front gate still had a padlock on it, which indicated that the motor pool had been under Ghost Squadron’s control when they left it. Otherwise, the gate would have simply been left open.

“Do it, Courtney,” Turner said, falling back.

Turner and Riggs kept their rifles shouldered while Courtney advanced, holding a pair of bolt cutters. Less than a minute later, the padlock was tossed aside, and Courtney shoved the gate open. The three soldiers stepped inside the motor pool, took a quick look around, then waved for the Humvees to enter. Once the vehicles were through the opening, Courtney pushed the gate closed.

“Stay here and keep an eye out,” Turner told him. “Riggs, you stay with him.”

“Roger that,” Riggs said.

Turner went back to the lead Humvee. “Boats, come with me.”

Boats pulled his shotgun out of the vehicle. “What’s the plan?”

“Humvee inspection. I want to find the cav’s anti-armor rigs.”

Boats grunted. “I could get into sending a few TOW missiles downrange.”

Turner called out. “Hey, Weide!”

Master Sergeant Zhu Weide stepped away from his vehicle. “Yeah?”

“Take a look around, but stay out of the buildings for the moment. I’m headed off with Boats to find the cav’s TOW rigs.”

“Going off by yourselves before we can secure the area isn’t really smart, Doug.”

“So secure the motor pool,” Turner said.

“And if you hear gunfire, that’s just us making things easy for you by killing all the Klowns,” Boats added.

Weide grunted. “Go ahead, heroes. I’ll see you both in Valhalla.”

Turner and Boats split up and walked through the motor pool, looking at the remaining Humvees left in the compound. All the units left were uparmored and had cupolas on them, but no TOW missiles were to be found. They’d all either been dropped onto other units, or they were still in lockup. Turner heard footfalls behind him—well, more like a boot scraping across cement—and he tensed. At first, he thought it was Boats walking up on him, but then he spotted the taller first sergeant at the other end of the line of Humvees.

Turner spun, tucking in his M4. He found himself face-to-face with a short, scrawny soldier who already had Turner lined up in his sights.

“I wouldn’t move, man,” the soldier said.

“Who the fuck are you?” Turner barked.

The soldier studied Turner for a long moment. He seemed jumpy, which Turner could understand. He felt as if he’d just spent three hours knocking back Starbucks coffee.

“You’re not laughing,” Scrawny said.

“I don’t have shit to laugh about, soldier. Now, once again. Who the fuck are you?”

“Right back at you, Sergeant Major,” Scrawny said. “Identify yourself in two seconds, or you’re fucking dead.”

Turner sighed. The kid did have the drop on him. “Sergeant Major Turner, senior NCO, First Battalion, Fifty-fifth Infantry.”

“Bullshit,” Scrawny said, his eyes narrowing. “The One-Five-Five died in Boston.” His index finger shifted from his weapon’s trigger guard to the trigger.

“Au contraire, sonny boy,” Boats said, stepping around the Humvee behind the soldier and placing the serrated end of his shotgun barrel against Scrawny’s neck. “At least most of the One-Fifty-Five is here. Now, unless you want to taste some nice lead double-ought buck, why don’t you take your booger-picker off the bang lever and stop pointing your rifle at the nice sergeant major?”

“This is bullshit,” Scrawny said. There was no trace of laughter in his voice, no evidence of the quaking, nearly hysterical manic glee in his eyes. Turner figured the trooper wasn’t infected with anything other than a reasonable dose of fear.

“Put. It. Down,” Boats said.

Footfalls sounded behind Turner, and he heard the noises of several weapons being raised and shouldered.

“What do we have here?” Master Sergeant Zhu asked.

“Take it easy,” Turner said. “Everyone be cool.” He looked at Scrawny, who still had his rifle trained on him. “Son, we are from the One-Five-Five, and we are not infected. We pulled out of Boston when the city fell. We’re here to see what we can do to help out the division and to check on our families.”

“How can I be sure about that?”

Turner almost laughed then thought better of it. “Given the position you’re in, I think it’s best to trust us.”

The soldier sighed and finally lowered his weapon. “Oh, fuck it.”

Boats stepped back, still holding his shotgun on the man. “That’s better.”

“Where the rest of the cav?” Turner asked. “Did they get deployed to the other combat teams?”

“Part of the unit was sent out,” Scrawny said. “The rest of it was part of the push to keep the crazies out of Drum. Thing is, they were already inside when we figured out we were under attack.”

“What do you mean?” Boats asked.

“Guys from Boston and New York turned after they got back. We were already fighting them on the inside when Watertown became Looneytown, and all those suckers headed up here, looking for a fight.”

Turner nodded. It made sense. “And why are you here?”

“Someone had to stay behind to guard the motor pool. There were three of us, but the other two cut out. They had girlfriends in Watertown.”

“What about our dependents?” Zhu asked, moving closer.

“Gone. Most of them were sent to Philly. There was a big National Guard presence there out of Indiantown Gap. The city was supposed to be clean, so the brass decided to send all noncombatants on post property there. That was almost two weeks ago.”

Philadelphia… If that was true, then Turner’s family and the families of hundreds of other lightfighters were well outside the battalion’s combat radius. But in a way, the news was liberating. They would be free to maneuver with all fires while trying to extract the personnel trapped in Hays Hall.

Turner told Zhu. “I need an RTO to relay that to Wizard Five.” He turned back to Scrawny. “Name and rank?”

“Corporal Wallinsky, Alpha Troop, First of the Seventy-First Cavalry, Sergeant Major.”

“Wallinsky, are there any TOW missiles left around here?”

Wallinsky smiled. “Hell yes, Sergeant Major. Hell, yes.”