Plague War

“Tell them I have what I was looking for. Just like that. It should buy us more time.”

“I’ll call them now.”

“I’m so sorry,” Ruth said. “I am.” Words were inadequate. Once again she’d hurt the very people who were risking everything to help her.

23

Chinese artillery pounded the land in the distance, a staggered thumping that came and went. Three or four explosions hit together, followed by a pause, then ten or more impacts in a rush. In the brief quiet, Cam heard American guns returning ‚re. His left ear was still partly deaf but the outgoing shells made a distinct crack. Crack crack. Then the heavier explosions picked up again, battering the other side of the mountain a few miles to the west. Cam wished they’d driven farther from Sylvan Mountain. He constantly expected this narrow rock gorge to erupt with death. They were still so close, and the enemy had begun a new offensive with reinforcements out of Arizona.

The war was always there. Smoke and dust poisoned the evening sky, drifting toward them on the wind. Cam stared at the sunset, a sooty orange glow beyond the dark peaks that formed the horizon — but people were dying in that spectacular light, he knew, and the beauty of it upset him.

He turned the other way, looking for Ruth in the gorge. He was huddled with Foshtomi and Goodrich along a split face of granite, cleaning half a dozen carbines. Busywork. Otherwise the waiting was impossible. Hernandez had ordered them to sit tight. Estey wanted to run patrols through the area — he was as restless as any of them, Cam thought — but they were behind their own lines and Hernandez insisted on as little activity as possible to keep from drawing the enemy’s attention. It was bad enough that they’d rolled away from Sylvan Mountain in two trucks and a jeep, with Ruth, Cam, Deborah, and the ‚ve Rangers supported by a Marine platoon and Hernandez himself.

Hernandez intended to take Ruth all the way to the command bunkers at Castle Peak, but they’d already lost too much time. If she could produce an answer, he needed it now. So they waited. They ate. They tended each other’s wounds and tried to catch up on their sleep.

It had been nearly thirty-six hours since they’d hidden in this jagged gully. Cam ached with tension. More than anything else, the plague year had taught him to act. The urge to stay ahead of every threat, whether real or imagined, was exactly why he’d left Allison. He still wondered at himself. He’d given up her smile and her warmth in exchange for nothing except more hardship, blood, and glory. That was not the decision of a well-grounded individual. At the same time, he wasn’t sure what kind of man would have let Ruth go alone.

“Hey, take it easy,” Foshtomi said, pressing her knee against his.

The slight movement made Cam realize he was as rigid as the rock itself, his body hunched as if to jump up. His jaw hurt from grinding his teeth. She’s right, he thought. You’re actually damaging yourself.

“Sometimes the only thing you can do is wait it out,” Foshtomi said, returning her work. She was inspecting an M4’s bolt carrier group, yet Cam saw her hazel eyes lift to his face once more as if to catch him disobeying her. Sarah Foshtomi was a good squadmate. Cam almost smiled. There were worse things than sitting here with this resilient young woman. That much was true. But he didn’t have the bene‚t of Foshtomi’s years in the military. She knew how to do her job and only her job, accepting her place in the larger whole, whereas Cam had learned nothing except the self-reliance of a loner.

He had never felt more apart. Two of Hernandez’s Marines remembered him as an enemy. Nathan Gilbride was among those Cam had betrayed in Sacramento, and neither Gilbride nor Sergeant Watts seemed as ready to forgive him as their commanding of‚cer had been. Worse, they’d told their fellow Marines. It was an unexpected strain. Cam had never imagined he would see any of those men alive again. He kept his mouth shut and his eyes down. Even Ruth had been taken from him. Ruth had the only tent in camp, a lean-to they’d erected against one of the trucks and disguised with netting and dirt, blending the long shape of the vehicle into the rock. In a day and a half Cam had seen her just twice, both times in conference with Deborah, Hernandez, and Gilbride — and yet as much as he wanted to touch her, he’d stayed back. Her work came ‚rst. Cam was jealous of Deborah for being so necessary. Deborah served as Ruth’s assistant, organizing the blood samples from Sylvan Mountain. Deborah wasn’t above fetching Ruth’s meals, either, or emptying the bucket that served as her latrine.

Cam had to be careful. He’d made a mistake the last time they were in this situation. When Ruth disappeared into her lab in Grand Lake, he’d found Allison.

“Okay, let’s pack up,” Goodrich said. He slung two of the M4s over his shoulder and Cam and Foshtomi stood with him, gathering their own carbines. Sunset was giving way to night. In thirty minutes they were on watch.

As he walked with Foshtomi to the second truck, Cam could not stop himself from gazing at Ruth’s tent. It was a †imsy structure in which to house their best hope. They could never protect Ruth from artillery or planes, whether there were twenty soldiers here or ‚ve hundred, and he knew that he was the least useful of all, with minimal training, one good ear, and the quiet animosity between himself and the Marines.

He might have left on his own if he had anywhere to go, if only to get moving again. The urge ran that deep. He recognized the feeling for what it was, nerves and doubt and old trauma, but he wondered if he would ever be able to settle down. Even if Ruth gave him the opportunity, or Allison or anyone, Cam wondered if he would always be trying to get away from himself.

* * * *

“There she is,” Foshtomi said as lantern light spilled through the gorge. Two silhouettes held open the side of the tent, Deborah and Ruth.

Directly in front of the two women, a Marine ducked his head, pinned in the yellow light. Hernandez had ordered a total blackout. “Hey!” someone shouted. Ruth’s shape hesitated, but Deborah’s taller ‚gure let go of the tent †ap.

Cam set down his canteen and started toward them, blinking to regain his night vision. “Cam, wait,” Goodrich said. He didn’t stop. If the sergeant pressed the matter, he would say he hadn’t understood because of his ear.

“Where is General Hernandez?” Deborah asked the soldiers in front of the tent. She was supporting Ruth as well as speaking for her. Ruth stood awkwardly, protecting her hip, and Deborah kept one arm around her waist. Cam edged through the few Marines to reach her side. One of them said something that Cam only caught part of, “—ight now,” but the man pointed as he spoke and that was enough. Cam was more interested in trying to assess Ruth’s health in the dark.

She noticed him and smiled.

“How are you?” she asked. Then they were separated again as Deborah guided Ruth forward, walking through the Marines. Ruth looked back once, her curly hair like a soft tangle in the moonlight.

What did you ‚nd? Cam thought. He knew her moods well enough to recognize this exhausted pleasure. Good news. It was good news, and that meant none of their losses had been in vain. The thrill of it made him grin as he strode after the group. The wind sifted through the gorge, cold and alive. Cam was aware of another kind of motion around them as other soldiers got up and paced alongside them. Most of the twenty-six Rangers and Marines were in foxholes outside the gully, but Ruth drew the remainder to her in twos and threes.

Like the trucks, the jeep was also draped in netting. Hernandez slept beside the vehicle and its radio. A Marine corporal sat nearby, leaning against a tire with his submachine gun in his lap. He woke Hernandez, who coughed and pushed himself up. Then he coughed again, uncontrollably.

Deborah let go of Ruth and knelt close to him, laying her hand on his back as he rasped for air. “General,” she said.

“I’m ‚ne.” He choked the words out.

Deborah stayed with him. She was obviously trying to gauge the strength of his breathing and Cam didn’t like the obvious tension in her shoulders. Shit. Hernandez had hidden his respiratory problems from them, but even if it was just a cold, not radiation sickness, the man was in dangerously bad shape to be ‚ghting off a virus.