Contagious (47 page)

The men turned and started to move out by squads.
Perry took one more look at the dead man, then stood and began jogging after the men of Whiskey Company.
1:00 P.M.: The Pythagorean Fucking Theorem
Corporal Kinney Johnson was no Corporal Cope. That was for sure.
“Talk to me,” Ogden said. “This isn’t the Pythagorean fucking theorem here—just give me a fucking
head count
.”
Kinney was on one knee, handset held to his ear, trying to contact the remaining soldiers. He scribbled away on a note pad as he talked.
“Johnson!”
He looked up, his face showing anguish, panic and fear all at the same time.
“My guess, sir, twenty men. That’s the best I can do.”
Twenty. That was not good.
“Sir,” Johnson said, “I’m also getting reports from the inner perimeter. Large force of maybe fifty men moving southwest down Lafayette, toward our position. Regular army. Snipers are slowing them, but we can’t stop them.”
Ogden hung his head. Whiskey Company had found a way. So close to success. Fifteen more minutes, that’s all they needed. As long as Murray didn’t know what building they were in, he’d have to bomb half the city. Or drop the nuke, and Gutierrez didn’t have the grapes for that.
But the attackers probably had Dawsey—he would sniff out the gate, and that would be that.
Ogden had to protect Chelsea.
“Tell all units to fall back to Bravo positions,” Ogden said. “That includes Mazagatti and my personal squad.”
Ogden closed his eyes and reached out. He had to prepare Chelsea.
1:02 P.M.: Bravo Positions
Maraget and Otto sat motionless beneath a loose chunk of plaster and lath. They were in what had once been a small closet, or a smaller bathroom, she wasn’t sure—some of the holes in the floor might have been for plumbing.
She hoped their black suits would let them fade into the shadows. Clarence was down to one bullet. If the three soldiers found them here, it was all over.
When they’d entered this room, they’d been careful to avoid the crack vials that littered the floor. Even with the gunfire echoing through the city, any noise might give them away. Ogden’s men had been searching for ten minutes, rummaging through the ground floor while Margaret silently prayed they would leave. They hadn’t. Now they were going through the second floor. Every few seconds the men shot something. Probably firing into shadows, just to make sure.
Soon they would fire into
this
shadow.
“They’re coming,” Clarence whispered. “Our only chance is for me to shoot the first guy in and take his weapon.”
“No,”
Margaret hissed. “They’re moving as a team.”
“We have to try something. When I move, you stay here. Maybe if they get me, they’ll think we split up. After they leave, you sneak out as best you can.”
Margaret couldn’t speak. If they
got him,
meaning if they
killed him
, he hoped it would give her a chance to live.
Clarence Otto was willing to die for her.
She heard a crunching pop of glass, a foot stepping on a crack vial. She grabbed Clarence’s hand and squeezed it tight. Then she remembered he needed the hand to shoot, and she let go.
Moments later, feet softly crunched the broken glass as a second man entered the room. Even through the suit, she felt Clarence’s body stiffen.
“Hey, Sergeant Major, hold up,” one of the men said. A pause, then: “That douchebag Kinney says the general ordered us back to Bravo position.”
“Now?”
“Yeah, of course now.”
“What about Montoya?”
“Forget her, man. We gotta get ready for the counterattack. If the general beats us there . . .”
“Fine. Let’s go, men. Haul balls.”
Creaking boards. One last faint crunch of glass. Footsteps descending the stairs. Margaret and Clarence waited, but heard nothing. Her body sagged as if her soul had slid free and taken her skeleton with it.
Her body relaxed, but Clarence’s did not.
“I want you to stay here,” he said. “I’m going to follow them and see if I can spot this Bravo location.”
“Clarence,
no
. You’ve only got one bullet. We need to get out of here.”
“I’m not discussing this with you. I have to see what it is.”
“Fine,” Margaret said. “Then I’m going with you.”
“Margaret, goddamit, knock it off. There is some serious shit going down. It’s not just Ogden’s men. It’s total chaos out there. You could get hit by friendly fire. Stay here, and as soon as I make contact with someone, I’ll have Murray send people right to you.”
“I’m not leaving your side,” she said. “I don’t want to get shot at anymore,
believe me,
but if you go, I’m following you. So it’s your call. If you want
me
out of harm’s way, that’s exactly where
you
need to be.”
He glared at her. He looked even angrier than when she’d broken his tooth.
She glared right back.
He shook his head and sighed. “You stay behind me and be ready to run, got it?”
Damn it. She assumed he would stay with her. Well, she’d opened her mouth, and no matter what, she wasn’t letting him go alone.
“I got it,” she said. “After you.”
He walked out of the room, quickly but carefully, letting his pistol lead the way. Margaret stood and followed.
1:06 P.M.: Target Locked . . .
Dew popped up over the trunk of a Ford, fired off a burst, then ducked back down. Bullets peppered the car, hitting metal, glass and rubber. Whiskey Company had cut through most resistance up until now, but Ogden’s men seemed to have concentrated in this area. The fighting grew nastier by the second, racking up casualties—about fifteen so far. With the uncontested and constant air support, that left plenty of fighting strength to push forward. When Ogden’s men did fire, Apache chain-guns quickly ripped into their positions.
“Come on, Perry,” Dew said. “They’re digging in here. We’ve got to be close. Which goddamn direction do we go?”
Perry lay curled up half under the Ford, slush-wet pavement coating him in black winter road grime.
“I’m trying,” he said. “They’re jamming me. It’s getting bad. I think it’s Chelsea, Dew; I think that little bitch is doing it.”
Another burst of plings and cracks as bullets ripped into the Ford.
Dew heard the buzzing roar of a chain gun, then the firecracker-on-steroids blast of thirty-millimeter rounds tearing through brick and wood and glass.
Then nothing, a pause in the action. Dew pulled Perry back up to a sitting position and leaned him against the ruined Ford.
“Look at me, Perry,” Dew said. “We’ve got nine minutes. Come on, kid,
focus
.”
Perry nodded and closed his eyes. “It’s blurry, Dew. It’s two signals, and . . . and one of them is
moving
.”
“Key on the signal that is
not
moving,” Dew said. “They can’t move the gate.”
Perry nodded. He breathed in deeply through his nose and let it out slowly from his mouth. Eyes still closed, he raised a hand and pointed over the hood of the battered Ford.
He was pointing down Atwater Street, toward downtown. A snowy field stretched along the left side of the road, and past that, the Detroit River. On the right side of the street, he saw a dilapidated three-story brick building surrounded by empty lots. Faded blue paint up on top had a barely legible sign painted on it: GLOBE TRADING COMPANY.
“That way?” Dew said. “Where, behind that building?”
“No, in it. I think.”
“You
think
or you
know
?”
“I think,” Perry said. “I told you, the signal is fading really fast.”
Dew scratched at his face, then looked around. Even in the middle of the firefight, he could see civilians scrambling for cover, cowering in doorways, frightened eyes peeking out from windows.
Apache HEAT rounds would destroy the building, but that didn’t guarantee destruction of the gate. Was there a basement? Had Ogden built protective berms or other support structures to harden the target?
Dew could have one of the F-15s drop a two-thousand-pound bomb, but again he wouldn’t know
for sure
if that took out the gate. Not to mention inevitable civilian casualties. Those bombs could kill people as far as a hundred yards from impact. Dew’s
conservative
guess was that a bomb would kill at least fifty people: men, women and children.
He checked his watch—1:08 P.M. Five minutes to go.
Dew pulled out his satphone. “Murray! Come in!”
Murray’s scratchy voice came back immediately. “Murray here, over.”
“We think we found the gate,” Dew said. “Corner of Orleans and Atwater.”
“Understood,” Murray said. “Can we bomb it?”
“Negative. Do not take out the building. There are too many civilians around. I’ll take Whiskey Company in and make sure this is the real deal. We’ll capture it, blow it manually if it gets hot.”
There was a pause.
“Dew, this is President Gutierrez.”
“Uh . . . hello, sir.”
“It’s admirable that you want to protect civilian life, but I was informed that Dawsey is one-hundred percent sure that gate opens at one-fifteen.”
“That’s correct.”
“I’m ordering the bomb run for one-fifteen,” Gutierrez said. “If you want to stop it, enter the building and capture the gate in the next six minutes.”
Fuck. Dew shoved the satphone into his flak jacket, then thumbed the transmit button on his helmet mike. “Nails, Nails, come in, over.”
Dew heard the response in his helmet’s earphones. “Nails here. What are your orders?”
“Building at the corner of Orleans and Atwater,” Dew said. “That’s the target. Get in there right now, kill everything that moves. We have four minutes to secure that building or they’re going to drop a bomb that will level about five square blocks.”
“Yessir!”
Dew looked at Perry. “Well, kid, you ready?”
“No,” Perry said. “Not even close.”
Dew slapped him on the shoulder. “Tell you what. We go out there, we get this bullshit done, and then tomorrow you and I go fishing. How about that?”
Perry stared at him for a second, then nodded. “Okay.”
Maybe Dew’s daughter wouldn’t go fishing, but Perry was probably the closest thing he’d ever have to a son.
1:11 P.M.: Hostages
Following the three gunmen turned out to be much easier than Margaret had thought possible, for a very disturbing reason. They had run back to the eight-laned Jefferson Avenue, turned west and started collecting hostages. Herding them along at gunpoint, like cattle. Sixteen so far. Women, children, a few men. Some people had resisted—and had been gunned down instantly. A few had shot back, men in their twenties and thirties, firing handguns and even one shotgun. Gangbangers, maybe. They didn’t stand a chance. The body-armor-clad soldiers worked as a team, moved as a unit and gunned down any resistance. They even collected the resisters’ weapons, leaving nothing behind.
Margaret and Clarence followed at a distance, staying out of sight, feeling completely helpless. Clarence kept cursing in a low growl. He wanted to kill those men. So did Margaret, but Clarence still had only one bullet.
Attacking the gunmen would be suicide, plain and simple. There was nothing he could do but wait for an opportunity. So he followed, and Margaret stayed by his side.
1:12 P.M.: . . . and Fire
Perry didn’t know jack shit about military tactics, but as a football player he knew great team play when he saw it. Right before Dew called in the attack on the old factory building, Perry could spot maybe four Whiskey Company soldiers. They popped up, shot, dropped back down, moved from one spot of cover to the next. They grabbed wounded comrades and civilians alike, dragging them to safety. Fifteen seconds after Dew’s call to Nails, Perry saw at least two dozen soldiers. They seemed to materialize out of nowhere, charging forward, shooting at the Globe building’s boarded-up windows. The building grew hazy as bullets pounded bricks into little puffy tan clouds. Perry’s helmet radio buzzed with the excited talk of soldiers on the attack.
“Sniper, third floor!”
“Got him!”
“Keep that fire on the second-floor windows. They’re chucking grenades!”
Dew stood, groaning a bit as he did, then scooted around the front of the Ford and ran toward the building.
Perry drew his .45 and followed. This was insanity. But if Dew was going, Perry was going with him.
Dew’s sprint wasn’t much of a sprint at all. Mentally, maybe the guy had shed twenty years, but physically, not so much. Soldiers raced across the empty lot on either side, passing Perry and Dew as if they were standing still. Each step felt like it took five minutes, five minutes during which a bullet might connect at any second.
Yet no fire came his way.
Perry saw only one enemy gunman. Didn’t actually see
him
, really, just four or five muzzle flashes from behind a cracked piece of plywood covering a third-floor window. About two seconds after that shot, the plywood disintegrated thanks to a massive concentration of fire that kicked out a rain of splinters and paint chips. The gunman didn’t fire again.
Dew followed a dozen soldiers toward a rusted roll-up garage door that was closed only a quarter of the way. A battered plywood wall blocked the rest of the opening. Perry heard a
whoosh
from behind and instinctively ducked. A rocket shot past, at least twenty feet to his right. It hit the plywood wall and erupted in a cloud of fire and wooden shrapnel.
Nail’s voice in his helmet speakers. “
Take that building!
”
Perry moved forward, still right behind Dew. Whiskey Company soldiers were thirty yards ahead of them, rushing toward the now-gaping door. For what must have been the hundredth time in the past hour, Perry tried to comprehend the bravery of a soldier, someone who
chose
to rush headlong into enemy fire.
The first soldiers reached the open door. One tossed in a grenade. Like an optical illusion, someone from inside the building tossed
out
a grenade at the same time. The two devices actually passed by each other, going opposite ways. The charging Whiskey Company men scattered and dove for cover. Two didn’t make it far enough. The grenade exploded. No fireball like in the movies, just a hellacious bang, an instant cloud of smoke and a fist-hard hit of air. The two men were standing one second, falling the next. One hit the ground face-first and didn’t move. The other turned as he fell, landing on his right side, hands reaching behind his back and grabbing madly as if his clothes were on fire.
Automatic gunfire erupted from the boarded-up second-floor windows, one gunman on either side of the roll-up garage door. Another Whiskey Company soldier went down, screaming, grabbing at a thigh instantly soaked with blood.