Tooth And Nail Part 34

"Yes, Sergeant."

"I got one question for you."

Do you want to get punched in the face or stomach?

"The question is: Are you ready to man up, son?"

"Sergeant?"

"McLeod, this unit has been in constant danger for the past four days.

Our battalion has lost about two-thirds of its strength during that time. A good number of our casualties were sustained by mobs of people who tore our guys apart with their bare hands. While all this was going on, have you fired your weapon even once?"

"Um," says McLeod.

"Speak up, son."

"No, Sergeant," he says clearly.

"It's not a test," Ruiz tells him. "At ease."

Just tell me when you're going to do it. Don't sucker punch me. That's all I ask.

"I said relax, Private. Relax and listen good. I'm trying to teach you something."

"Yes, Sergeant," McLeod says, swallowing hard.

"Do you know what time it is, son?"

Time to kick my a.s.s?

He answers, "It's about oh-five-forty-five, Sergeant."

"That is affirmative. Outstanding, Private. Do you know when the sun rises? I'll tell you when. Today, the sun will rise around zero-six-twenty. Do you know what that means?"

McLeod chews his lip, sweating.

The Sergeant says, "Don't hurt yourself, Private. It's not a trick question. I'll tell you what it means. It means that even if Immunity were to put birds in the air right now and we left this facility right now to meet them up in Central Park, we still wouldn't have enough time under darkness to conceal our movements. That means we will be taking some, most or all of this trip in daylight exposed to Maddy. What would you do if you were in command?"

"Me? I guess I'd ask the General to wait until tomorrow night."

"Outstanding, Private! But the General just told you it's now or never, do or die. Division is pulling stakes and trucking south. In twenty-four hours, all their birds are going to be far gone, committed to other missions. There'll be empty sky around here as far as the eye can see. So it looks like we have no choice. We're moving out, and we'll be walking in Maddy's shadow." Ruiz puts on a sad face. "How does that make you feel, Private?"

"Feel, Sergeant?" McLeod clears his throat. "Well, honestly, it makes me-"

"Do not answer that question, Private."

"Yes, Sergeant."

"Get your s.h.i.t together, son!"

"Yes, Sergeant."

"What's holding you back from kicking Maddy's a.s.s? Are you scared?" I just want "Yes, Sergeant. I'm scared."

Ruiz shakes his head, circling McLeod like a shark studying its prey. "You got to man up, son. Fear is your b.i.t.c.h. Do you understand?" to go to school "Yes, Sergeant."

"When Maddy hits you, you got to hit him back tenfold. Hooah?" and read books "Hooah, Sergeant."

"If you survive the next one or two hours, you can survive anything.

You are really and truly the baddest motherf.u.c.ker in the world. Really and truly the best. Am I right?" and be left alone.

"Yes, Sergeant."

"Remember son, pain is temporary, but honor is forever. This is about how you see yourself in your old age. What you tell your grandkids about what you were doing during the plague. So are you a warrior? Or are you chickens.h.i.t?"

McLeod relaxes his stance and looks his squad leader in the eyes.

Time to be honest with this guy for once.

"Sergeant," he says, "I never was a warrior and I doubt I'll ever be one.

You know it and I know it. But I'll do right by you. You've always done right by me. You may not think I think that, but I do. So I'll do right by you. I'll kick a.s.s today for the squad."

Ruiz blinks.

"All right, then," he says finally. "Just be aggressive with that SAW."

"Hooah, Sergeant," McLeod says, coming to attention and saluting.

The NCO shakes his head, regarding McLeod with his intense stare. "You really are a piece of work, Private. Anybody ever tell you that?"

McLeod grins and tells him, "Every day, Sergeant."

"Be aggressive on this march, McLeod," Ruiz says darkly. "I'll be watching. Now get your s.h.i.t-eating grin out of my sight before I kick your a.s.s all over this building."

Brave or stupid, take your pick

First Squad sprawls on the floor in full battle rattle, wolfing down MREs and catching last-minute smokes but otherwise ready to move. Mooney and Wyatt share the last pack of cupcakes from the rich kids' lockers. Ratliff is hunched over a boot, finishing his repair of a broken lace. Carrillo pulls the plates out of his body armor, as the boys have been ordered to ditch the extra weight so they can move as fast as possible. Finnegan reloads the last bullets he just cleaned into a magazine, which will improve the odds that his carbine will not jam. Like Sergeant McGraw, who was spotted earlier playing pocket pool with his lucky talismans, the boys have their superst.i.tions: Finnegan kisses the magazine before loading it into his carbine. Rollins runs off to find the chaplain after being told the man is leading a group of soldiers in prayer in another room.

Mooney sits against a wall, his carbine between his knees and his mouth blissfully full of stale cupcake, and listens to the sounds of the boys sharing stories and seeking each other out in fellowship. He is intensely aware of everything around him and his own place among them. Like the other soldiers, he has an innate knowledge that every pa.s.sing minute is bringing them closer to a confrontation with Maddy in daylight. In just a half an hour, he might be dead, his body torn to shreds by a homicidal mob. Life is particularly precious to the doomed. Every moment that pa.s.ses, he experiences like a snapshot. And he is filled with intense fraternal love for all of the other soldiers because they might die, too.

The thing is, if they will die, at least they won't die alone. In the end, after all, that is all a soldier truly owns in combat-the possible comfort of dying among friends. That is why soldiers consider other soldiers their family. They look the tiger in the eye together, at the edge of oblivion.

It is sad to think, though, that for those who do die today, war will be the only thing they have every truly experienced.

"So this Hajji's up on the roof firing an RPG-remember that guy?" Carrillo says, almost shouting as he reminisces. "Every time Second Squad shot at him, he ducked down, then popped up to fire again, only he wasn't even firing at us."

"Oh right, he kept shooting at that yellow station wagon parked near that factory," Finnegan chimes in. "And we were like, *What's he shooting at? Does he need gla.s.ses or is he just an idiot?'"

"They had Second Squad boxed up nice and neat in a kill zone and that dude could have done some serious damage to those guys, but he kept firing at the vehicle," Ratliff says, laughing.

"That's right, it was a VCIED!" Carrillo says, his eyes gleaming and slightly vacant, reliving the moment. "That car was wired up like a big brick of C4 but didn't go off. So he tried to make it blow by hitting it with a grenade."

"Only he couldn't shoot for s.h.i.t," Wyatt points out.

"Some of them could," Mooney says, instantly regretting it. The laughter dies down into a smattering of chuckles. Now they are starting to think about the rest of that horrible day fighting in the alleys, streets, court-yards, houses. By the end of that day, they were exchanging point blank fire with insurgents in the middle of people's living rooms. They cannot remember whether the insurgents were Sunni or Shi'a, jihadist or nationalist. But they do remember how Torres died in the house to house fighting, how Simmons lost both his legs.

"Yeah," Carrillo says softly, trying to hold onto the moment.

"Hey, what about that night, when the Tank Team showed up, and that crazy Hajji took on an M1 Abrams with an AK?" Finnegan says.

The boys howl with laughter, rekindling their mirth with fresh memories. Mooney grins. The AK47 rounds bounced harmlessly off the tank's composite armor, already scorched and scratched by numerous RPG hits and heavy machine gun fire. At first, the tankers could not believe what they were seeing, then decided if it's a duel the insurgent wanted, they would oblige. The tank ground to a halt in a cloud of dust, its turret swiveling, and lowered its rifled tank gun. Moments later, it fired a round that lit up the street like daytime for a moment, vaporizing the Iraqi instantly.

"Like a fly swatter squashing a gnat," Finnegan adds.

"Brave or stupid, take your pick," Corporal Eckhardt chimes in.

Again, the levity does not last. This time, the image of the lone Iraqi pointlessly shooting at a sixty-ton armored monster bearing down on him-its steel-clad treads squealing and its big gun lining up to belch instant death in the form of a 105-mm HE round-does not strike them as quite so darkly comical today.

The prospect of going up against Maddy again this morning, in fact, is suddenly making them identify with that plucky but seemingly suicidal insurgent.

Brave or stupid, take your pick.

And yet they too would try.

Not quite saving the world, but I'll take it

Kemper knocks on the door with the nameplate that says JOSEPH HARDY, RESEARCH DIRECTOR, and enters to find the CO sitting on the edge of the desk, studying his wrinkled map of Manhattan that he has thumbtacked to the wall.

Kemper places his hand over his heart and says, "Salaam 'Alayk.u.m, sir."

Bowman usually answers, "Hooah" to this greeting when it's given by a fellow veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom-specifically, Operation Together Forward III, in which all soldiers learned Iraqi customs as a strategy to win hears and minds-but today he says earnestly, "Wa 'Alayk.u.m As-Salaam, Mike."

And unto you be peace.

Kemper's eyes flicker to the map.

"The plan is solid, sir," he says. "The men know what to do."

"I have endless faith in the men," Bowman answers. "But almost none in plans."

Kemper laughs, lighting one of his foul-smelling cigars.

Bowman continues: "A million things could go wrong and get us all killed. It's going to be a hard day, Mike. The ultimate test."

"Yes, sir."

"This will be the last military operation before America gives up on New York. Once we're gone, the city will be ceded to the virus."

"If Maddy lets us leave, sir."

"And if Immunity sends us those birds." Bowman checks his watch.

"It's already too late. We're going to be making part of this march in broad daylight."

"I don't suppose you can get the General to postpone the extraction for a day."

"I'm afraid that's a big November Golf, Mike."

"You don't want to go now, while it's dark, and wait for the birds at the Park?"

"What if they don't show? We'd be stuck out in the open. This is a good position we've got here. We've got electricity. We may end up having to stick around."

"Speaking of which, there is another alternative, sir, that I didn't want to bring up in front of the other men for obvious reasons."

"Stay here?"

"Do what everybody else is doing. Take care of number one." Kemper realizes that only in a crisis as bad as this are they able to even talk this openly about desertion.

"And then what?"

Kemper shrugs. "Maybe try to get back to the high school and sit this thing out until Maddy finally drops dead. Try to get the people here fed and organized somehow after it's over. They're going to need a government. Perhaps this is where our duty lies?"

"Yeah. You've seen how good we are at nation building."

Kemper exhales a cloud of smoke and laughs again.

Bowman shakes his head.

"Seriously, Mike. I don't know about you, but I'd like to stay in this war as long as I can. We raised our right hand to uphold the Const.i.tution against all enemies, and if ever America needed us to fight an enemy, it's now. In any case, we've got to get the scientist out. Who knows, maybe she really can cure this thing. The world can't have a vaccine right now, but it might need one later. It's not quite saving the world, but I'll take it."