Part 35 (1/2)

The Platoon Sergeant nods. ”I figured on you feeling that way, Captain.”

”That's the mission.”

”It's a bag of d.i.c.ks, that's for certain.”

”Hooah, Mike.”

”Anyhow, you asked to see me. What do you need?”

”Right. It's like this, Mike: I need an officer to command Second Platoon.”

”What about Lieutenant Knight?”

”I've made him my XO.”

”Ah. Smart.”

”Mike, I'm offering you a promotion to the rank of first lieutenant.”

”Right. Ah, sorry, sir, but I'm going to have to say thanks but no thanks to that promotion. If you're really feeling magnanimous, sir, you can promote me to Sergeant Major. But even First Sergeant would be a nice step up in pay grade.”

The CO grins. ”Afraid all your friends would ditch you, Mike?”

”If I became an officer, sir, whose incompetence would I b.i.t.c.h about all day?”

Bowman laughs out loud and says, ”So be it. The battalion will be reconst.i.tuting as an overstrength company, and it's going to need a First Sergeant, so you're it.”

He extends his hand to Kemper, who shakes it warmly. ”Congratulations,” he adds. ”It's a well deserved promotion. Although I don't know about that rise in pay. Money's becoming worthless. For all I know, they're going to start paying us in MREs.”

”Thank you, sir.”

”Same to you, Mike. Thanks for everything. . . . I wanted to let you know, whatever happens, that I appreciate everything you've taught me.”

”You're paying me back for it. You're starting to teach me a thing or two.”

”Well,” Bowman says, embarra.s.sed.

”Do you mind if I take that map, sir?”

”Help yourself.”

Kemper takes it down from the wall, folds it carefully, and puts it in a pocket of his BDUs.

”Souvenir, sir,” he says.

I must be in good hands with soldiers who have a name like that

The elevator takes Petrova and a squad of gawking soldiers down to the lobby, where the rest of the company has a.s.sembled and is ready to leave the building. When they are not staring at her-the famous scientist they believe holds the secret to curing the plague-she likes to watch them work. These kids seem to know what they are doing. They move like clockwork and are well led by their NCOs, the professional warriors.

The company begins to file out of the building in sections. First, two platoons exit in a paired column, one soldier swinging left and one swinging right to provide a defensive perimeter on the street so that the rest of the company can safely exit. Then Captain Bowman, trailed by his machine gunners, whom he calls the Alamo Squad, leads the rest of the company outside.

Petrova blinks in the dim light, marveling at the sky, which she has not seen for days.

The air is chilly and the sky is gray and cloudy.

The helicopters took too long to get in the air. Dawn has come and the column will be moving in daylight. The gray sky is already filled with screaming birds, feeding on the dead.

She cannot believe the carnage. The cars smashed against each other at odd angles on a road of garbage and broken gla.s.s. The blood splashed across the ground and pooled in the potholes. She steps over random torn luggage, battered children's books, a pattern of cracked CDs. People's entire lives spilled onto the ground. Without its owners, it is just garbage.

The air smells like smoke.

My G.o.d, Petrova tells herself, it is not even a city anymore, but a wasteland. She was picturing a city in a crisis, not already fallen.

This was her home, and she is leaving it forever.

At last, the CO gives the order to move out. The company gets onto its feet, weapons and gear clanking, and begins its march north at a brisk pace. She feels safe being surrounded by so much legendary American firepower, and yet feels completely vulnerable in the open like this.

The Mad Dogs are out there in their armies, hunting the uninfected. Petrova can sense them. Their growling gently touches her ears as whispers on the breeze. Their marching vibrates under her feet, a deep rumble in the distance. If the Mad Dogs brought the greatest city in the world to ruin like this in days, what does this puny group of boys hope to do with their rifles and bombs and machine guns? They would shoot an ocean, hoping to kill it.

She pa.s.ses the burned wreck of a Chevy Malibu. The charred, blackened skeletons of the driver and his family are still inside. The driver's grinning jaws hang open, as if laughing silently at the fools pa.s.sing him by. The horror of it slaps her in the face.

She presses her hands over her mouth and swallows hard, painfully aware that the soldiers around her are watching to see how she will react. They are not being malicious. They are visibly anxious. If she starts screaming, she could put their lives in danger.

But Petrova does not scream; she steels herself and keeps walking, pa.s.sing one horror after another. Overhead, the black birds cackle, as if laughing at them all.

She turns to the soldier marching next to her, a tall, slim twenty-year-old with intelligent eyes, apparently part of a handpicked detail a.s.signed to guard her.

”What is your name?” she says as quietly as possible.

”PFC Jon Mooney, Ma'am,” he answers earnestly, if mechanically.

She tentatively holds out her hand.

He stares at it, then takes it with his own gloved hand, gripping it firmly.

”I've got you, Dr. Petrova.”

”I've got you, Dr. Petrova.”

”Thank you, Jon.”

The boy's face lights up at hearing his first name.