I was ordered to the meeting that took place in the hour after we’d discovered Chief McCluskey had taken himself off outside the wire. The sergeant major and the platoon leaders got a change of mission from Captain Knife Hand thirty minutes later. Then I was sent down to the river to find out exactly what happened when the SEAL rode his horse across the water.
There wasn’t much to find out. The rifle squad, still improving their fighting positions and working on their MREs, told me Chief McCluskey just walked his black horse down to the river’s edge, crossed over, and disappeared into the gloom under the trees over there.
When I got back to the C-17 to report this, I was then tasked with standing by and waiting to see just where I’d be needed tonight. For a while I listened in on the general murmur inside the tactical operations center of the command post and I began to understand what the new plan of action would be to meet tonight’s threat. The sergeant major and the captain, with Chief Rapp listening in and commenting where he felt he could contribute, didn’t trust Chief McCluskey in the slightest. None of them did. They hadn’t liked him, and they’d picked up on everything I’d noticed too. Though their critical assessments were probably much more insightful than, “But Sergeant Major, he didn’t use your proper rank.”
The general consensus was that most likely the naval warfare special operator was somehow compromised. Or he’d just gone crazy. It was noted by Chief Rapp that McCluskey had been specifically non-forthcoming with regard to useful details from a tactical assessment side of things. He’d obviously been on the other side of the wire and had passed through enemy- held territory. Why then no disposition of forces or plan to disrupt enemy operations? Also, what happened to the rest of his team? What happened to their Forge on their C-17, which was, according to the Forge technician, Josh Penderly, specifically hardened against the nano-plague here in the future? Unlike all modern technology—weapons, smartphones, and Ninja blenders—it should still be operational. Why, then, was McCluskey geared up like a Bronze Age warlord?
That was someone else’s assessment, by the way. The Bronze Age part.
Mine would have put his tech cap at somewhere around late Dark Ages, not Medieval just yet. But tomato tomah-to.
They’d also noted that McCluskey had been very interested, without being conspicuously overly interested, in the Forge’s exact location aboard our grounded aircraft. Long story short, he’d left a pretty bad vibe in everyone’s chi and no one much trusted him. Given time… maybe the command team could have developed faith in him. But instead, in the face of an imminent enemy attack he’d left the defenses and moved right back into enemy territory. Therefore it was agreed he was most likely working with the enemy currently harassing us for reasons unknown.
“He’s a bad guy now and is to be treated as such,” saith Captain Knife Hand.
So, it has been spoken, so will the Rangers snuffeth on sight. This was the safest route forward and it was just considered by all a bonus that he was a SEAL.
When dark came, the captain went forward to the southernmost fighting positions along the island’s edge. This was where the command team was expecting us to be hit tonight. It was the last direction the enemy had left that they had not come at us from. The first night had been the probes along the eastern side. Last night a full-scale assault from the west. The northern tip of the island, just beneath the watchful gaze of what we were calling Sniper Hill, was guarded by a fork in the river where the water was swift, dark, and deep. The enemy couldn’t cross effectively from the other side to there. Plus, Sniper Hill was too steep to easily ascend from the river’s edge. Or from any other direction for that matter. We’d had to cut trenches into it to make a path to the top to carry gear and ammo up there.
With the platoon leaders, platoon sergeants, and squad leaders in attendance and me somewhere in the back, the captain laid out our new battle plan just before he left.
The command sergeant major would take the CP. The two civilians, Volman and the Baroness—the latter of whom just watched everything and now and then shook her head with a bewildered smile before returning to her work on her notebook—along with Forge Tech Penderly, the flight crew, and the two SAW gunners, were tasked with CP security around the aircraft. And me. But I was going to be used as a runner in case comm went down for any more unexplained reasons. PFC Kennedy had been relieved
from latrine pit construction and was sent off to fill one of the KIA slots in the line rifle squads.
Volman objected to all this and indicated he would feel much more comfortable if a general vote by all “survivors” could be taken in order that “a Leadership Steering Committee might be formed” to navigate this current crisis.
His words.
The sergeant major, upon hearing this from Deep State Volman, looked utterly blank, allowing the bureaucratic buffoon to actually stop the meeting and hector Captain Knife Hand for a few minutes in front of everyone as the op order was being given. I was pretty sure the blank look was the sergeant major’s murder face. Blank. Nothing personal. He was just going to murder you as soon as possible.
Then I remembered he already had.
Rather, he’d ordered me to do it. I was supposed to murder Deep State Volman with the sergeant major’s sidearm and silencer. Retire. Clean. Call it what you want. I felt for the silencer in my cargo pocket, because I’m super cool like that, just to make sure it was still there, and when I looked up, the sergeant major was staring right at me as Volman continued to run his mouth on and on about how the vote he wanted taken should be conducted and who should tally the results so that a new government could be formed here on the island.
He felt that bloating enemy corpses floating in the river were a big problem and a clear indicator that things were going badly.
The captain stopped him suddenly and said, “That won’t be happening right now, Mr. Volman. We’re fighting tonight. I suggest you find a way to make yourself useful with the chief and the medics. There will be wounded.” Then the captain continued on with the plan.
That shut Volman up. He turned to his iPhone and started furiously tapping in notes. No doubt preparing some kind of report that would indict everyone who disagreed with him when “the government” was formed. I had no idea who he’d give his secret report to. Nor did anyone else. But he seemed confident that almighty bureaucratic order would soon be restored, and that Captain Knife Hand would be hung from the nearest tree in the judicial aftermath.
Some people want to watch the world burn. That’s true. Others want to
organize a committee to watch the world burn—and to make sure everyone goes up in flames right along with it.
When the meeting was over, Deep State Volman made a big show of sweeping his super-expensive Sharper Image messenger bag up and rushing off to something important. Instead of offering assistance to Chief Rapp as had been suggested. I wondered exactly what he imagined was an “important” place to be. Because this was it. The cargo deck of the grounded C-17 was the only place of importance. The tactical operations heart of the command post that would be the center of a fight for our lives tonight. The rest of the island was fighting positions and Rangers with murder in their hearts.
He’d be real stupid to go and try his Hey, let’s all overthrow the captain, guys act out there on the line. No one was that stupid.
But then I remembered he seemed stupid enough to try.
Now would probably have been a good time to retire or clean him. But when I got outside the C-17, he was gone, off into the forest dark. I stood there for a long moment, alone in the cold and the deepening twilight. Knowing I should hear some soft little night bird calling out, trying its first song of the night. But I heard nothing. And somehow, that made what we were about to face in the coming hours even more ominous.
There were three body bags laid out a short distance from the aircraft and I found myself just staring at them as night covered the island and the drums began to roll and chant to one another across the river. Deep and way off in the forest on the other side. They were coming for us now.
I watched as the flight crew came out and sent their humming little drone up into the sky a short while later. Then it was quiet and I thought about not dying tonight as I watched the dark motionless shapes in the body bags over there. Out of the way. Done with the fight. But not forgotten.
