Pandemic

FIFTEEN.

Captain Harry Lee had learned a lot during his tour of Boston. His Humvee had the bullet holes to prove it. The windshield had been cracked by an axe. The doors bore the scars of a run-in with a chainsaw.

He sat on the passenger side in front of a stack of radios, consulting a map that revealed the strategic situation at a glance. He used one of the radios to talk to base and the other to communicate with the escort vehicles. The map had an overlay of clear film, on which he’d drawn all known blue forces in the area with a wax pencil. Next to him, Staff Sergeant Michael Murphy, a large wad of dip tucked into his cheek, spit into a cup and kept his eyes on the road.

With his handsome face and square jaw, Captain Lee looked like a World War Two movie hero. One expected to see him charging a machine gun nest on a Pacific island in some grainy black-and-white film. The overall impression people got from him was fierce, though he rarely lost his cool. It was his eyes; when he became angry, his gray eyes bored right through you.

Two Humvees rolled in their wake, carrying a squad of handpicked shooters from HQ Company. These same guys had escorted Lee to endless parleys with village elders in Afghanistan and on more than a few field trips deep into the bush. At first, they’d bitched that he was always dragging them into the shit, but now they followed him around like a pack of loyal bloodhounds. They looked up to Lee as a father figure and imitated his cool. They would kill for him, and they would die for him. With that kind of devotion came a special kind of responsibility because for Lee, the mission always came first, and he would do anything to achieve it.

Lee was the battalion S-2, or intelligence officer. Intelligence assessment was critical to mission planning, but the situation was fluid, and he didn’t like what he’d been getting from the field. He’d toured the city in a helicopter and had seen hell below. Then he took three Humvees out into the field to see what was happening on the ground.

He’d seen, all right. He’d seen things he’d never forget. And he’d come to a disturbing realization, one that confirmed his suspicions—and worst fears—about what was happening.

Military and civilian authorities had lost control of Boston.

“A lot of cars ahead,” Foster called down from the Humvee’s cupola.

Lee saw them. The cars weren’t moving, which meant the Humvee would have to slow down and possibly stop. “Stay frosty.” He radioed the same message to his escorts.

“It’s a traffic jam,” Foster added. “No way through.”

Murphy already had a map spread across the steering wheel. “If we turn at this next intersection, it’ll take us right back to Massachusetts Avenue.”

That was a November Golf—a no go. The civilian population had lost faith in the military after the power failed and, in open defiance of the ongoing curfew, had tried to flee the city in anything that moved. A huge number of refugees had been caught out in the open; the infected must have thought it was Christmas. Most of the arteries leading out of the city had been turned into parking lots strewn with abandoned luggage and the unlucky dead.

“There’s always Garden Street,” Murphy added.

They were trying to reach the Harvard University campus. Several buildings there had been commandeered by Bravo Company as an operating base. Harvard was the last stop on Lee’s tour. Once he reached it and refueled, he’d be able to work his way onto Fresh Pond Parkway and take it to Concord Turnpike, routes that had been blocked off for military and emergency vehicle use. Those roads would get him and his boys most of the way back to Hanscom Airbase.

“Cut through the park,” Lee ordered. “Stick to the pedestrian paths.”

Murphy smirked. “I hadn’t thought of that. It’s funny, I still keep thinking this is America, and you can’t just drive a Humvee through a park without special permission.”

“Times have changed, Mike.”

Murphy turned the wheel. “Roger that.”

What started as a daytrip had turned into three, each marked by traffic jams and random attacks, with the attacks growing more frequent by the hour. The infection rate had become geometric; it wasn’t going to be long before the crazies outnumbered the rest of the population here. They already far outnumbered the military forces in the area. The only reason Boston hadn’t already become a complete madhouse was that, while the crazies enjoyed infecting their victims, they liked killing them even more.

The only answer was withdrawal. Give up Boston. Game over.

That, or extermination. Get some armor. Announce a curfew. Put Bradleys and Humvees on every street, Apaches in the air, and have them shoot everything in sight. Totally clean house.

The Colonel, of course, wouldn’t hear of it. It was against doctrine. The U.S. Army had given up the initiative early in the game. The infected had become the most dedicated, deadly enemy the Army had ever faced. But doctrine still regarded the crazies as sick civilians.

The civilian leadership and the Big Green Machine would realize what had to be done at some point, but by then, it would be too late, if it weren’t already. So instead of concentrating overwhelming force and doing what needed doing, the battalion remained dispersed in small formations, trying to maintain law and order while getting chewed up for it.

Imagine you deploy an army on a series of hills. From there, you command the region. Then a flood comes. The hills become islands, and your army commands nothing but the ground it’s standing on. And the waters keep rising…

The Humvees drove past trees from which a grisly collection of bodies hung by their necks. Men, women, children. In the distance, a group of laughing women roasted a flayed corpse on a spit over an open fire. One wore a helmet that once belonged to an infantryman.

They waved and flashed their breasts as the Humvees passed.

“Can I light them up?” Foster yelled, yanking the charging handle on his heavy machine gun.

“Don’t waste the ammo.”

“It’s time for some payback, Captain.”

Lee shook his head. With the Taliban, payback had meant something. Killing the infected for payback was like punching a shelf after you accidentally slammed your head against it. The shelf wouldn’t care, and you’d probably just hurt yourself.

Murphy growled, “Give it a rest, Foster. You’ll see more action soon enough. We need you to stay alert up there.”

“Wilco, Staff Sergeant.”

The little convoy drove the rest of the way through the park without incident.

“I got some family here,” Murphy said after a while. “Distant relatives.”

“I didn’t know,” Lee said.

The big staff sergeant shrugged.

“Are they okay? Have you heard anything?”

“No.”

“If they’re on our route, we could stop and check on them.” It was an offer Lee would not have made to anyone else.

“Right now, sir, I’m focused on getting back to Hanscom alive.” Murphy spit into his cup. “We weren’t close or anything, but I’d visit them from time to time. I liked coming here. You know, it used to be a really nice town.”

Lee knew he should say something earnest about it becoming a great city again once they completed their mission. The streets would be packed with people and traffic, and the Red Sox would play again at Fenway Park. But he couldn’t. He said nothing.

At that moment, he realized he’d lost faith in their ability to win this war.

Murphy sighed and nodded as if he’d read the captain’s mind. “Yeah.”

“We’re still here,” Lee said. “We won’t lose it all.”

It was more a vow than a prediction.