The Future War

CHAPTER ELEVEN

MISSOURI

Dennis Reese had gone about fifty yards before he realized that Mary wasn't with him. He looked in all directions, then headed back along his trail to find her sitting on a boulder beneath a huge shagbark hickory, just coming into leaf. She was sitting with her legs crossed at the knee, leaning her chin on one fist, staring at nothing.

'I thought I'd lost you,' he said.

Mary just looked him over.

Now what? he wondered. 'Hello?'

'I think we need to talk,' she said, sitting up.

'I think we need to get away from that thing.'

'We have, for the moment. Now we need to figure out what to do and where to go. I honestly don't think the camp would be our best choice.'

He looked away from her, folding his arms across his chest, then took a few steps away from where she sat. Mary raised an eyebrow and one corner of her shapely mouth, but said nothing.

He turned and they looked at each other, neither wanting to be the first to speak, until finally Mary rolled her eyes.

'Pull up a rock,' she said. 'We could use a break at least.'

After a beat she said, 'I'm sorry I hit you.' Which she'd done a number of times as he dragged her into the trees. Hard.

Lucky she didn't have any combat training, he thought. She hit as hard as she could… which is exactly what you should do in a situation like that. Too many untrained civilians just made symbolic hitting gestures, particularly women.

He waved her apology aside and sat down. 'You're taking this well,' he commented.

'Bullshit.' She sneered. 'I'm taking this very badly and I'm thinking things that scare me.' She looked him in the eye. 'But I'm not the type to run around in circles yelling 'the sky is falling.' '

Reese lowered his eyes and nodded. He was taking this pretty badly himself. He kept hearing the sudden barrage of shots and the pitifully few screams from their abandoned patients. While it was true that most of those people were probably going to die anyway, exterminating them like that was vile. Especially if what Mary had overheard was true and they'd been deliberately infected in the first place.

'I hate to sound like a conspiracy nut,' the young nurse said,

'but this couldn't have happened without some sort of cooperation from elements in the army.'

What she'd said was a reflection of his own thoughts. 'If you were a conspiracy nut, you'd have just said 'the army,'' Reese pointed out.

Some of the tension visibly left her body. 'It's good that you caught the difference. Because, much as I'd like to think that what just happened was a nightmare…'

'Same here,' he agreed.

'So, is Yanik involved, or is he just following orders?' Mary asked.

Reese frowned. 'I don't know him well,' he said. 'But I got the impression that he's an all right guy. He's not enthusiastic about running herd on a bunch of civilians, but then, none of us are. As for following orders, if they come from the right place, bearing the right names and codes, why wouldn't he obey them? We did.'

'So the army's been infiltrated.'

He spread his hands. 'By what? Trailer trash?'

Mary tightened her lips. She'd been about to call him on his assumption that people who lived in trailers were automatically trash, when she realized she was just looking for a distraction.

'We've got to warn them,' she said.

'And how will we get them to believe us?' he asked.

'Well, we've got neither trucks, nor patients, and we can take them… back there,' she pointed out. 'What do you think we should do? Hide out in the boonies and hope someone else takes care of the problem?'

He gave her a look. 'How about we talk a little less and think a little more,' he suggested.

They were silent after that. Then Mary raised her head excitedly.

'Do you hear that?' she whispered.

The lieutenant strained his ears, and after a minute he heard a rushing sound.

'Water!' Mary exclaimed happily. 'Let's go find it.' She leapt to her feet and started off in the direction of the sound.

'Hey!' Reese said, but quietly and started off in pursuit. He'd just grabbed her arm when he heard the sound of a rifle being cocked.

'Who goes there?' a young voice barked.

Reese froze and Mary looked at him with eyes like saucers.

'Lieutenant Dennis Reese,' he said, carefully holding his hands away from his body, 'U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.' He nodded meaningfully at his companion.

'Uh, Mary Shea, nurse.'

From out of the greenery came a slight figure in fatigues and camouflage paint carrying an M-16 pointed unwaveringly in their direction.

'You got ID?'

'Yes.' Reese reached for his orders.

' Slowly,' the youngster barked. 'Using two fingers, take it out of your pocket and toss it to me.'

The lieutenant did as he was told; then he nodded at Mary, who slid a laminated badge from her pants pocket and tossed it over as well.

Not looking away for even an instant, the youngster stepped forward, scooped up the two IDs, and stepped back. Then, constantly flicking eyes from page to prisoners, he read them.

'I'll hold on to these for now,' the kid said. 'I better take you in.'

Gesturing with the rifle for them to turn around and start walking, the youngster followed, barking out terse directions now and then. It seemed to Reese that occasionally he'd glimpse a human form disguised with brush and paint, but he honestly couldn't be sure. Having a cocked automatic weapon behind his back, in the hands of someone barely old enough to shave, was nervous making enough.

Finally they came upon a cabin on the edge of a small clearing, overshadowed by a group of oaks sprouting from a rocky cleft; their massive writhing limbs formed a virtual platform over it. The cabin itself was notched logs chinked with mortar, the door and shutters weathered and splintered; it looked like thousands of others in varying stages of decay up here in the hollows of the Ozarks.

Hmm. Reese decided that appearances could be deceptive: despite the cabin's rustic appearance there was a keypad under a wooden catch by the door. The kid gestured them to one side, then entered a code—carefully keeping his body between the pad and the prisoners, Reese noted. There was the sound of a lock being tripped and Mary and Reese were silently ordered to enter the cabin.

A man was seated at a rough-hewn table sipping from a tin cup.

'Daddy?' the kid said.

'Good job, honey,' the man said. 'Just give me their papers and I'll take it from here. Y'all get back to your post.'

Uh-oh, Reese thought. Good thing I didn't make that joke about being too young to shave.

The girl, which they now saw her to be, grinned and pulled the two prisoners' IDs out of her breast pocket. 'Betcha they thought I was too young to shave,' she said, glancing aside at Reese. 'Or at least this guy did.'

'Maybe you shave your legs,' Mary replied with a slight snort.

The girl handed the IDs over, saluted, and left, pulling the door closed behind her.