Surviving the Dead 03: Warrior Within (40 page)

“That’s fucking hardcore, man,” I said, breaking a smile. Paul chuckled, and the hard lines of his face relaxed.

“Yeah, I get carried away talking about that shit. It just means a lot to me, you know?”

“I know exactly what you mean, Paul. Believe me.” I leaned back on my elbows and looked at the sky. Now that the world had gone dark, the stars stood out bright and clear, crystalline against the cloudless night sky.

“Just wait until you start training and go on your first raid. That’s when shit’s gonna get real.” He stood up and stretched before tapping the ashes out of his bowl. “I got the munchies like a bastard. I’ll catch you later, Morrison. I’m gonna go find some grub.”

“All right, man. See you around.”

He ambled off, a little unsteady. When the door had shut behind him, I let out a sigh and released the end of the table. I had been gripping it hard, resisting the urge to do something painful and damaging to Paul. When I looked at my hands, they wood had bitten into them and they were bleeding a little. I picked out the splinters and tossed them to the ground, and then I lay back on the table and stared up at the sky.

You’re a goddamn evil genius, Lucian. To take a man and turn him into a monster like that. You’re going to pay for what you’ve done, you heartless fuck. You’re going to get it back in spades
.

I thought about the transponder implanted under my skin. I thought about its range, and the battery that I charged every time I moved. I thought about the satellites swirling up there in space, exchanging RF signals with the little blue sphere below. I thought about Steve, and his little shack with all the radio equipment. He would have my signal by now. Or at the very least, they had it over in the Springs and would be sending an encrypted message to Hollow Rock in short order. I wondered who Steve would send. Great Hawk for sure. Maybe Grabovsky? Gabe? Whoever it was, the Legion was in for a world of hurt.

I thought about all this, lying there in the cold, and I smiled.

“We’ve picked up his signal again,” Steve said without preamble as I stepped into his office. He stood up and flipped the map on his desk around so that I could see it, pointing to a spot fifteen miles northwest of Hollow Rock.

“It showed up again here, the same place as where we lost it. He’s on the move, headed northwest.”

I stepped forward and glanced down at the map. “You sure?”

He nodded. “Positive. Central Command still has plenty of GPS satellites up and running. They can pinpoint his transponder to within five yards, and the signal is one of a kind, unique to his device. It’s him.”

“How do we know he’s still alive? Maybe the Legion is moving his corpse. Or maybe they got overrun by the walkers, and he’s wandering away.”

“No, if that were the case we’d know it. The transponder is programmed to tell us if his vitals have flatlined. He’s definitely alive.”

I felt a tension that had been building in me for the last six weeks begin to loosen. “That’s good news. What do we do now?”

Steve eased back into his chair and motioned for me to have a seat. The office we occupied at the VFW hall was the same one that General Jacobs had commandeered a few weeks earlier. The old soldier had flown back to Colorado Springs, and was lobbying for us with Central Command for troops and resources. After Eric left, we had hoped to find information he could use to argue our case. A month and a half had gone by, and so far, things had not been going well.

“Now we try to make contact with him,” Steve said. “I wish I knew why it took so long for him to resurface. Maybe the Legion changed their recruiting tactics, or something went wrong that kept Eric tied up in the tunnels.”

I leaned back in my seat and steepled my hands under my chin. “That’s good news for Grayson Morrow. I’m sure he’s just as anxious to get word from Eric as we are. Probably more so, seeing as his life depends on it.”

Steve’s expression darkened. “He’s not out of the woods yet. At least not until we contact Eric and find out if his story holds water.”

“Let’s hope it does, for all our sakes.”

Steve nodded again and went silent for a few seconds. He rubbed a hand over his chin, and I got the feeling he was working his way up to what he wanted to say next, choosing his words carefully.

“I had planned to send Grabovsky with Great Hawk for next phase of the operation, but after careful consideration, I think you might be a better candidate for the job, Gabe.”

I waited a few seconds, staring him down. “Why the sudden change of heart, Captain? I thought you wanted me to keep my distance from this op. What was it you said, that I was too ‘emotionally invested’?”

He accepted the jibe with a shrug. “I’ve had time to think about it. You know Eric better than anyone else. You know how he thinks, and you can predict what he might do. Beyond that, you’re every bit as good an operator as Grabovsky, if not better. And Great Hawk actually
wants
to work with you.”

He leaned forward, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial hush. “You should feel special. That guy never works with anyone unless he’s ordered to. And even then he has a tendency to take off on his own, the slippery bastard.”

“On his own? Do the SEALs not work in teams anymore?” I asked.

“They do. At least most of the time. Great Hawk went from Team Three, where he excelled, to Team Six, where he excelled even more. After the Outbreak, the president tasked General Jacobs with selecting the best operators to assist with the bloodier aspects of the reclamation effort. Guess whose name was at the top of the list?”

I absorbed that, letting out a low whistle. “Jesus. Is he really that good?”

“Yes. He’s that good. Honestly, the guy scares me.”

Steve leaned back and rolled a short distance from his desk, crossing one boot over his knee. “Of course, you’re free to refuse the assignment. I have no authority to give you orders, not that it would do me any good if I did. But I would urge you to consider the danger to our mutual friend, and how you would feel if one of my guys bungled the op.”

“Our mutual friend? Is that what you think Eric is? Your friend?”

Some of the animated energy left the Green Beret, and he went still as he shot me a flat glare. “I may not be as close to him as you, but he and I have been through some shit together. He’s a good man, and I’d like to see him come home safe. Same as I would any other soldier.”

“You realize Eric isn’t one of your soldiers, right?”

“He may not wear the uniform, but he does the same job. I wish I had ten of him. We would have destroyed the Legion months ago.”

I couldn’t find fault with that sentiment, so I stayed silent for a little while, thinking. Steve’s logic was dead on. I was the best person for the job, hands down. No doubt about that. But Great Hawk was a wild card. I didn’t know him, didn’t trust him, and I had never worked with him before, which meant that he was unpredictable. None of that filled me with confidence that he could help me rescue Eric, regardless of what Steve had to say about him.

“Why not just send me? I’ve worked alone plenty of times. Keep the Apache in reserve, just in case. If anything happens to me, send him in with Grabovsky.”

Steve shook his head. “If you don’t come back, I’m not sending anyone else in because that would mean the entire mission has gone tits-up, and the Legion figured us out.” He cut his hand in a negating gesture. “I need both of you for this. You two are the best I have, and your best chance at success is to work together. I’m sorry, Gabe, but this is a non-negotiable, take-it-or-leave-it offer.”

“I could always go on my own.” I scowled at him. “I know where to look, and we both know you’re not going to stop me.”

“That’s true,” he said. “But you would go alone, with no support, no comms, and no backup.”

He smiled then, his yellowish eyes twinkling with mischief. “We can do better than that, Mr. Garrett. Much better, in fact.”

He opened a drawer, took out another map, and spread it out on the desk.

“I’ve been keeping this quiet, but I think it’s time to let you in on it.” He stood up and began pointing out locations on the map. The paper was laminated, with three symbols drawn on it in black grease pencil. The symbols formed the vertexes of a triangle, each symbol highlighting locations to the north, west, and south of Hollow Rock, roughly thirty miles from the center of town.

“Over the last six weeks, General Jacobs has been quietly moving troops from Fort Bragg to these locations around Hollow Rock, and lining up air support from Pope AFB. They weren’t able to spare much; the Springs is preparing for action against rogue factions. But we do have an AC-130 gunship, two Chinooks, and two Apache Longbows that we can call on. Not to mention about two hundred troops.”

I blinked at the map a few times, and then looked up at Steve. “So all this time, while you were hemming and hawing about not getting enough support from Central Command, it was just a smokescreen? They were helping us all along?”

He smiled and held up his hands. “Hey, you never know. There could be spies anywhere. I figured it was best to play it safe.”

“Holy shit.”

Steve’s smile widened. “Holy shit is right.”

He let me study the map while he sat back down behind his desk. “So what do you say, Garrett? You want in, or what?”

I sat down heavily, and felt a warm tingling run from my stomach all the way out to the tips of my fingers. The Apache attack helicopters by themselves would have been enough to devastate the Legion, if we could only find them. But with a gunship and two-hundred troops at our disposal, this thing was setting up to be a bloodbath.

“When do we leave?” 

*****

I had four people to talk to in the next forty-eight hours: Allison Laroux, Elizabeth Stone, Raymond Grabovsky, and Lincoln Great Hawk. Not necessarily in that order.

Elizabeth’s office was just down the street from the VFW hall, so I started there. Not surprisingly, she already knew about the troops and aircraft stationed around Hollow Rock, as well as Steve’s plan to rescue Eric.

“I know you’re the right man for the job,” she said. “But I still don’t like it.”

She stood with her back to me in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows in her office. The pale, mid-morning light framed her curves in a golden silhouette. Looking at her, I felt a stirring in my chest that had been growing harder and harder to ignore.

“It’s not just about Eric.” I stepped forward and put my hands on her shoulders. “Whatever he’s learned, it’s going to be invaluable in the fight against the Legion. He’s risking his life for the people of this town, people that you’ve sworn to protect. We have to make sure he gets home safe. The future of Hollow Rock depends on it.”

She nodded slowly and leaned back into me, still looking out the window. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her shoulders slumped with weariness. “I know,” she said quietly. “But still … I don’t want you to get hurt, Gabriel.”

She turned around, her arms slipping around my waist. Even though she was tall for a woman, her head barely came up to the middle of my chest.

“Don’t worry about me,” I said, holding her and stroking her hair. “I’m as tough as old saddle-leather. Those Legion yahoos have no idea who they’re fucking with.”

She chuckled, and looked up at me, leaning back to meet my eyes. “Just be careful, okay?”

“I always am.” I bent down to kiss her, and then said goodbye.

My next order of business took me through the north gate and out to the training camp. Grabovsky was aware that Steve wanted me to take his place on the rescue mission and, from what I had gathered, the G-man was none too happy about it. Since being wounded a few months earlier, the recent skirmish against the Legion had been the only action he had seen. Special Forces operators become Special Forces operators because they
want
to fight. If they wanted a less dangerous job, they could work in supply or logistics. Grabovsky was anxious to get back into the proverbial shit, and me taking his spot on the upcoming operation was likely to cause tension between the two of us. I figured it best to mend that fence sooner rather than later.

When I reached the camp, the recruits were on the Grinder watching Marshall give a presentation about squad tactics. He had dragged a rolling chalkboard out of the instructors’ barracks and was describing assault formations like a coach mapping out plays to a football team. Grabovsky stood with his arms folded over his chest behind where the recruits were sitting, and the look on his face was not a happy one.

I stopped next to him, and tried to think of something to say. He kept his gaze on Marshall, not turning to me.

“Fuck you, Gabe.” He pitched his voice low, so that the recruits wouldn’t hear him.

“Come on, Ray,” I whispered. “What do you want me to do?”

“Turn down the offer and let me fucking do it, that’s what. I’ve been babysitting this militia for three months now, and I’m bored out of my goddamn mind. If I don’t shoot something soon, I’m gonna fucking lose it.”