Dead Zone (11 page)

Sergeant Lytle spoke up. “I hear you’re not too bad with a gun either.”

Aubrey looked down and shook her head.

The applause quieted, and Gillett took his place at the head of the table.

“I wish we had more time to debrief last night’s mission. There are things that we need to talk about, but first I want to make you aware of a new situation that’s arisen.”

He unfolded a map on the table.

“We’re here, just north of Yakima. The Russians are on the other side of the Cascade mountain range. That’s good, because there aren’t a lot of ways to cross the mountains, and under normal circumstances we would be able to pin them in the mountain passes and stop their advance.”

“But,” Rich said, “they have the device.”

Gillett nodded. “This morning, an armored division tried to move into defensive positions around the mouth of Snowqualmie Pass and got stopped in its tracks—literally, I guess. Our satellite intel suggests that the Russians will be both moving through the pass and making use of the railroad.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?” Rich asked.

“No,” Gillett said, and pointed again. “The railroad takes a slightly different course through the mountains.”

“Can’t we bomb the railroad?” Jack asked.

“If we could keep anything in the air long enough,” Gillett said, frustration in his voice. “We should be able to bomb the pass, too. Our analysts expect the Russians to move fast. They want to take all of Washington, and they want to do it before we are able to get enough troops here to defend it.”

“How far away are reinforcements?” Rich asked.

“We don’t have that kind of information. We need to focus on our job, and right now our job is to find that damn device and destroy it.”

“Captain,” Chase-Dunn said. “If the Russians haven’t made it through the pass yet, then how did the device get up to stop our armor? Is it moving separately?”

“We don’t know,” Gillett answered. “At this point, we have no idea what this device looks like or how it’s being moved or activated. Some have suggested that it’s a satellite, or a high-altitude plane. Some have suggested that it’s small and being moved in a civilian truck. Some have even suggested that it’s a lambda.”

“That would be one scary lambda,” Chase-Dunn said.

“And that’s why the lambda theory keeps getting shot down,” Gillett said. “We’ve never encountered anyone with powers even remotely on the scale of this thing.”

“So what are we supposed to do?” Aubrey asked.

“We’re going to the front lines—for real this time,” Gillett answered. “We’re officially the recon team looking for the device.”

He looked at the six lambdas. “You can all perform without power. And we can all fire our rifles without power. We’re going to stop them.”

TWENTY-ONE

ZASHA STOOD OVER FYODOR’S BED,
watching him twitch and writhe under the effect of the drugs. They were in a farmhouse just off of I-90, in the town of Cle Elum, at the far east end of the pass through the mountains. She’d been told the name of the pass but it was some American Indian word she couldn’t pronounce.

Two companies of armor and an artillery company were in the town now. All of them were immobilized by Fyodor, but he was positioned as the barrier blocking the American advance. Behind them, in the pass, hundreds more Russian vehicles were approaching. They were being covered by Russian fighter aircraft—Zasha couldn’t be everywhere at once.

“We need to break through here—and soon,” General Feklisov was saying in the other room. “Our northern and southern spearheads are struggling to cross the mountains. If we can’t do it with Zasha and Fyodor, then no one can do it.”

Zasha sat down in the large overstuffed chair in the corner. This house seemed very American to her—the bedroom was a child’s and it was decorated with posters of basketball players. It wasn’t a sport she’d ever seen played, but she recognized the distinctive ball. There hadn’t been much time for sports in her training camp, other than the occasional game of football—what did Americans call it? She couldn’t remember.

This child seemed to have a lot of toys. More than one child should need. He certainly didn’t have enough books. Those had been her childhood entertainments, and the pitifully small shelf above this boy’s bed made her disgusted with him. Or with his parents. They were probably the ones to blame for a boy who cared more for toys and basketball than for books. She looked at Fyodor’s twisted, emaciated body. He loved to read, even more than she did.

Doctor Safin entered the room, and Zasha stood.

“He’s been on the drugs too long,” she said.

Doctor Safin nodded. “Yes. But it will have to be a little bit longer.”

The doctor took Fyodor’s pulse, and then his blood pressure. He checked his temperature and his pupils. All the things he normally did. Zasha wondered if there would ever be a time when Fyodor’s health would override the general’s demands. She doubted it.

And why should it? Fyodor’s powers were immense. If he wasn’t utilized for his powers, then what good was he to the country? He was just an invalid boy.

No, he was a friend. A powerful tool, but a friend. She wished that he were awake so he could speak.

“When do we move out?” she asked the doctor. She rarely spoke with the generals directly—she worked with Doctor Safin. “And are we bringing in the glider?”

“Are you feeling overworked?” the doctor asked, looking up at her.

“The generals are talking about a full ground attack, aren’t they? We ought to have the glider ready.”

“If you’re positioned well you won’t need to move about too much,” he said.

“When are we moving out?” she asked again.

“There is already American armor at the edge of Fyodor’s bubble,” he said. “Quite a bit. And more is coming. We’ll wait until more of our artillery has been brought into position.”

She knew what her role would be then: get thirteen kilometers behind enemy lines, so that the front of Fyodor’s bubble extended to the front of the American lines. Then, just as they had done with the Navy, the Russian guns would open up on a sea of powerless targets.

“We’re going to give you the drug,” Doctor Safin said, and Zasha winced at the words.

“I know you don’t like it,” he said, “but the battle will be long.”

“That’s why we need the glider.”

“You know you’re better than the glider,” he said. “And the glider can only be used at night.”

“How long will Fyodor be active?”

“No longer than he’s been active in the past.”

She stood and walked to the window. A platoon of infantry was there, preparing surface-to-air defenses. When Zasha moved forward, they’d be vulnerable to any plane that didn’t fly through Fyodor’s bubble.

“When do we move?” she asked, checking her antique watch.

“Tonight.”

TWENTY-TWO

AUBREY WAS DRESSED IN HER
full ACU, including helmet and heavy Kevlar vest. She was carrying her M16 and a full complement of ammunition, grenades, and equipment.

Everyone in the passenger compartment of the armored personnel carrier—a Bradley—was also in uniform: Jack, Tabitha, Sharps, Chase-Dunn, and Lytle. The rest of the group was in another Bradley following out on the battlefield, though they couldn’t tell where without windows. It felt claustrophobic in the tiny compartment, three on each side, their knees touching. There were no windows; light came from the open turret, and even that was minimal. It was five o’clock, and that was late enough this time of year to turn the sky a dull gray.

“When is Thanksgiving?” she asked as the Bradley rumbled forward.

“Five days,” Jack said.

“You’ve been counting down?”

“Gotta keep sight of something,” Jack said.

“I don’t think we’re going to be home for turkey dinner,” Tabitha said.

“Probably won’t be home for Christmas either,” Lytle said.

Aubrey adjusted her glasses. The movement of the vehicle kept making them slip down her nose. “You think this war is going to last through Christmas?”

“You know as much about this war as I do,” Lytle said. “But I do know this: I’ve never been in a short war.”

“If we can stop them here, won’t that be a big deal?” Aubrey asked. “If we can keep them west of the Cascades?”

Nick answered. “There are three main ways they can get out of the Cascades—up by Vancouver, down by Portland, or right here.”

“Or can’t they just go straight down the West Coast?” Tabitha asked.

“They could,” Nick said.

“If they wanted to do that, wouldn’t they have landed farther south?” Aubrey asked.

“That question’s above my pay grade,” Nick said. “For all we know, they have landed or will land to the south.”

Lytle grunted approval. “That’s one thing you have to get used to. In a war, you only know what your unit is supposed to do. You don’t worry about what everyone else is doing.”

Nick and Chase-Dunn nodded.

Rumbling started. It sounded like distant thunder, but within moments it began to roar all around them.

Aubrey tensed, and she wished she could hold Jack’s hand. Instead she gripped her rifle.

“Is that ours or theirs?” Tabitha asked nervously.

“Ours,” Jack answered. “It’s coming from behind us. I can hear planes, too.”

Lytle looked at the ceiling of the tight compartment as though he could see the stars. “Let’s hope to hell they stay up in the sky.”

The commander standing in the turret climbed down and closed the hatch, leaving them with the few lights glowing inside the Bradley.

The worst part of this mission was that they didn’t know what they were looking for. They were part of the offensive—part of the overall attack on the mouth of Snowqualmie Pass to stop the Russians from breaking through their lines to the geographic freedom of the east—but Aubrey didn’t know what she was going to be doing. This wasn’t like the infiltration at the roadblock, where Aubrey would be listening to Tabitha and reporting to Jack, and they knew they had to create a distraction and sneak up on the vehicles. This wasn’t organized at all. There was no real plan.

She noticed she was shaking, and not from the movement of the vehicle. She clutched her rifle tightly again, feeling the trembling moving up her forearm.

The roar of the artillery was louder, and getting louder still. Aubrey was certain they had to be close to the battle.

“How are we supposed to find the device?” Tabitha asked, a note of panic in her voice.

“We’ve already talked about that. We don’t know,” Nick said, his voice more calm than his words would suggest. “We’re going to find it because we have to find it. We’re moving toward the center of their lines, which is where we expect them to move the device when the battle gets in full swing.”

“We think it’s like a spray bottle, radiating out in a cone,” Lytle said. “So, if it’s at the front of their lines they can still use it, but it stops us cold.”

Tabitha’s voice appeared in Aubrey’s mind. She sounded frightened. “This is suicide. We don’t even have a plan.”

Aubrey looked at Tabitha, but she had her eyes closed. It looked like she was grimacing against every loud rumble of artillery fire.

“If they disable us, they’ll disable themselves, too, right?” Aubrey said. “Will this turn into an infantry fight?”

“In the dark with no night vision,” Tabitha said out loud.

“We don’t know what to expect,” Nick said. “So far our artillery is firing, which means they must have targets and we’re not disabled yet.”

Just as he finished the sentence, all the lights in the Bradley went out, and it came to a sudden stop.

Lytle swore.

“What do we do now?” Tabitha asked, plainly terrified.

There was silence. Complete silence.

The commander climbed up and opened the hatch on the turret. A little light trickled in, but they were still mostly in darkness.

“Everything’s out,” the commander called down to his crew.

“What do we do?” Tabitha asked again.

Aubrey watched the commander, who was scanning the horizon with binoculars.

“Hold tight, darlin’,” Lytle said.

“Don’t call me that,” Tabitha snapped, but it was obvious her concerns had nothing to do with the word
darlin’
.

“Nothing’s moving,” the commander relayed down to them. “It’s like the whole world just turned off.”

The gunner called out, “Chain gun’s down.”

“Get up here on the machine gun.”

“This isn’t good,” Tabitha said telepathically to Aubrey. “We’re sitting ducks.”

Aubrey searched the darkness for Nick’s face, but she couldn’t see well enough to make out an expression.

“I’m seventeen years old,” Tabitha continued. “I shouldn’t be here. Not like this. Not in the middle of a war.”

Aubrey wanted to say that Tabitha was a private—that she’d been through the same shortened basic training just like Aubrey—but the words were frozen in her mouth. It wasn’t even Tabitha’s telepathic thoughts that prevented Aubrey from talking. It was her own fear.

She wanted to disappear, but there was nowhere to go.

“Shit,” the commander yelled. “Get down! Close the hatch! Incoming!”

There was a long moment of deadly silence, of intense quiet that was so heavy it squeezed all the air out of Aubrey’s chest.

And then the world exploded.

The Bradley rocked as artillery shells seemed to detonate right on top of them.

Tabitha screamed, and Jack grabbed Aubrey’s arm. She fumbled with his hand until their fingers were laced together. It was completely, utterly black inside the vehicle, but it felt as if they were in an earthquake.

“What do we do?” Aubrey shouted, but her cries were covered up by the noise. She doubted even Jack could hear her.

There was nothing they could do, and she knew it. They were under heavy artillery fire. If they went outside they’d be torn to shreds by shrapnel. Already she could hear flecks of metal scraping the sides of the vehicle, and the thought seemed to make her leg flare with pain.

“No one’s answering me,” Tabitha said in Aubrey’s mind, her telepathic voice cutting through the deafening noise. “What are we supposed to do? We’re going to die!”

Aubrey let go of Jack’s hand and reached across him to where Tabitha sat. She grabbed at Tabitha’s jacket and then their hands met. They clutched each other for a moment, fingertips to fingertips, until an enormous explosion seemed to lift the Bradley a few feet and drop it again. Their hands were torn apart.

“We’re going to die,” Tabitha repeated. “We’re going to die.”

Aubrey wished she could get Tabitha out of her head, but there was nothing she could do.

“They’re going to keep firing. Nothing can stop them. We can’t get out of here.”

“Calm down,” Aubrey shouted, her voice smothered by the noise of the artillery.

Aubrey reached for Jack’s hand again, and found he was covering his ears. She grabbed his leg instead.

She didn’t want yesterday to be the last thing she did with her life—the killing of nine men. She had resolved to be so much more, to make her life more meaningful. To be a better soldier, a better person.

She couldn’t die here.

And then the darkness turned into bright yellow light, and the noise was so loud that it didn’t even seem like noise—it felt like weight, like heat, like death.