Outbreak: Boston (32 page)

“Rodriguez, you’re with me.” Sergeant Barnes ordered as he marched past the two people guarding the door to the teacher’s lounge. “Where is Private Powers?”

“He should be on duty in the kitchen.” Francesca said carefully. She had never seen her superior so pissed off and did not want his anger directed at her. “What’s going on? I heard shouting in there but I couldn’t make it out.”

“Powers raped that female hajji.” Sergeant Barnes said coldly. Rodriguez shivered as they made their way towards the kitchen. The sudden realization of how easily it could have been her, how many opportunities Powers had to…do that…to her made bile tickle the back of her throat. Strangely, she had not really ever even considered him a threat in that way.

“So what are we going to do, Sarge?” Rodriguez asked. She had an idea of what Sergeant Barnes had in mind but she was not sure if she was on board or not.
Jesus Fuckin’ Christ this is so fuckin’ fucked up
she thought as the two of them burst into the kitchen. Thankfully, Powers was nowhere to be found.

On a hunch, Sergeant Barnes stomped over to the male latrine across the hall from the cafeteria. He ordered Rodriguez to wait at the entrance and keep everybody out before blowing into the room like a hurricane. The big man kicked in each stall door he came to and pointed his M4 into the space. “Stop right there!” Powers called from the last stall. “I have a gun and I’ll fuckin’ shoot. Go away!”

Sergeant Barnes halted his search of the latrine stalls. “Alright, Private.” he said quietly as he tried to line up his sights on the sound of the voice. “Nobody wants to hurt you. Just put down your weapon and come on out, alright?”

“Just leave me alone, Sarge!” Powers shouted. He sounded like he was crying, but because there was several stalls between himself and the younger man, Barnes could not be certain. “I didn’t mean to hurt anybody! Just leave me alone!”

“I know, Max. I know.” Barnes said quietly as he crept closer to the stall. “Come on out, man. We’ll make sure everybody knows that, alright?”

“You just
wanna kill me!” Powers whimpered. Barnes thought he could hear the hammer of the Private’s M9 snick back. “I can hear you coming, Sarge! Back the fuck off or I’ll shoot! I swear to fucking God I’ll shoot!”

Barnes frowned and paused for a moment, weighing his options. “Okay, Max.” he said quietly as he started walking backwards towards the latrine’s front door. “I’m backing off. Just be cool, alright? Don’t do anything fuckin’ foolish, okay?”

Once he was in the latrine’s doorway he glanced over his shoulder at Rodriguez. “Go tell Alex to let Frays out and get her over here with those CS grenades. We might need to smoke Powers out.” He ordered as he turned his attention back to the latrine. Barnes could sense the woman still standing behind him. “Go on, Specialist! Get!”                

Francesca tapped her foot impatiently while Alex fumbled with the keys to the door and blew by him once he had the
teacher’s lounge open. Frays leapt to her feet when Rodriguez entered. “What’s going on?” she asked. It was plain to see that she was worried sick about what might be happening on outside while she was stuck in the teacher’s lounge.

“Sergeant Barnes wants you to get your shit, Amy.” Rodriguez said quickly as the other woman started to put on her ACU top. “Powers is sitting in the latrine with a gun. Come on, let’s go.”

Frays groaned. “Lacey has my weapons and stuff.” she said as the two of them hurried out of the teacher’s lounge. “I think he locked ‘em up in the workshop’s storage room.” The two women ran down the hall to the wood and metal shop and barged through the door. Frays rooted around in her pockets and came up with her keychain. After a few seconds of searching she got the door open and threw on her field gear.

“Hey babies.” Amy whispered lovingly as she took her weapons down off the shelf, performed function checks on them and loaded the carbine and pistol. “Did Uncle Lacey take good care of you? Mommy missed you so much!” Francesca looked at her friend like she was beginning to doubt her sanity. “C’mon, admit it. You missed your weapons too.” Frays said as they left the storage room.

“Yeah, but I didn’t talk to them, ya weirdo.” Rodriguez admitted, drawing a little laughter from her friend as they hustled off to see how things were progressing at the male latrine. There was a small crowd gathered around the door behind Sergeant Barnes when the two women arrived. The big man was still crouched in the doorway with his M4 pointed inside the latrine.

“Hey, Sergeant.” Frays said as she stood off to the side of the door with her back to the wall and peeked inside the room. “What’s shakin’?” She slid open the breech of her grenade launcher, loaded it and snapped it shut. “Heard you might need some help.”

Sergeant Barnes shook his head, a small smile flitting briefly across his face. “Powers is in there with a gun.” he said quietly as he kept an eye on the inside of the latrine. “He’s in one of the last stalls but I couldn’t get close enough to figure out which one. I want you nearby with those CS grenades if we can’t talk him out.”

Amy frowned at the man. “If I gotta use one in here nobody’s gonna be able to be in this end of the building for a couple days. If the CS gets into the air ducts we’ll all be living on the roof until the place airs out. And the grenade will bounce all over in there. Might even start a fire.” she said quietly, as if she were considering other options. “Can I try and talk to him?”

Both Sergeant Barnes and Rodriguez looked at Frays carefully. After a couple seconds of deliberation he stood up to allow the woman space to get by him. “Alright. Just a couple minutes.” he whispered as Amy walked past him. The big man caught her arm. “Five minutes then out. If he starts shooting, hit the dirt and stay there because me and Rodriguez are coming in hot.”

Amy nodded then continued on inside. “Hey, Powers.” Frays said quietly as she crept inside. The young woman held her breath, half expecting the man inside to start shooting the second she opened her mouth. “How’s it going?”

“Fuck off, bitch!” Powers spat angrily. She could hear the man moving around inside the stall. Amy stopped just inside the latrine and froze, somehow certain that she was staring down the barrel of a gun even if she could not see it. “What, are you gonna try and talk me out now too? Fuck you! Fuck that asshole Barnes too! Fuck all of you!”

Amy felt a brief shiver of panic. The man was close to the edge… She moved off to the side and hopped up on the counter across from the stalls, her feet swinging casually over the edge. “Listen, I’m sorry. My first name’s Amy. What’s yours?” she asked, hoping to draw the man into a conversation.

“M-Max.” he said quietly. “My first name’s Max.”

A smile came to Amy’s face. “Max Powers? Really?” she asked, trying to keep from snickering. “Your name is
really Max Powers? That…that is great.”

“Yeah, my folks have…had…” Frays thought she heard the man make a strangled sob inside the stall at the far side of the room. He was quiet for a long time. “Listen, just get out of here. You think I don’t know what you’re doing?”

“I’m trying to keep you from doing anything we all might regret later.” she said quietly, her feet still swinging back and forth. Frays carefully flicked the safety catch off of her M4 with her thumb as she kept the weapon pointed towards where she suspected Powers was hiding. “Listen, I just wanted to apologize to you for earlier. You were just looking out for me and I yelled at you. That was wrong.”

“Oh, come the fuck on!” Max shouted angrily. Frays wished she could see what the man was doing in there. “You don’t give a shit about me. You’d rather be off fucking that scrawny little jarhead of yours than taking the time to even fuckin’ learn my goddamn name!”

Amy bit down hard on a sudden burst of frustrated anger. “Come on, man.” Frays said once she had caught hold of herself. “We’ve all been a little distracted. I mean…look, you’re not the only one who’s hurting right now. My best friend got shot in the face right in front of me not two weeks ago. I find out yesterday that my new friend started the riot that made that happen.” Amy paused a moment to collect herself. “Please, Max. Put the gun down and come on out so we can talk about this. I don’t want to see anybody else hurt. I’m getting so…tired of seeing people hurt. Aren’t you?”

The latrine was quiet for what seemed like forever. “Yeah, I guess I am too.” Max muttered as he came out of the stall. The man loosely held an M9 in his right hand as he stumbled into the room. Amy smiled at him and hopped down off the counter. “I’m just really tired.” Frays’ eyes went wide when the young man started to bring the pistol up to his own head.

“NO!” Frays shouted, flinching and hoping that the man would obey. She was surprised when the pistol hesitated half way between Max’s waist and head. “C’mon, Max. We’re talking here. Don’t…don’t do it, man. It’s alright.”

“I did a bad thing.” Max said tearfully. The pistol trembled in his hand as the young man hesitated. Amy’s gut twisted up in knots because the muzzle of the gun was pointed in her general direction. He was shaking like a leaf and his finger was on the trigger. “I-I didn’t mean to. I mean, I dunno what I was doing.”

Amy swallowed hard. “Look, Max…can you do me a favor?” she asked, trying to keep her voice as friendly sounding as possible. Frays even managed a nervous smile. “Would you mind pointing that gun at the floor? I don’t want anybody to get the wrong idea, okay?”

The gun still wavered in the air. “Get rid of your M4 first.”

Frays put the safety catch back on and swung the carbine around to her back. “There we go.” she said carefully. Amy looked expectantly at the man across the room. He slowly lowered the pistol until it was pointed at the floor. “Good! Now we can talk like regular people.” 

“I’m not gonna get out of here. Sergeant Barnes is gonna kill me.” Max muttered despondently. He stood there trembling and throwing nervous glances at the door behind Frays. “He told me he would.”

Frays silently cursed the man. “I’m sure he won’t.” Amy said in a low, calming voice. “He talks tough but he’s really not that bad of a guy.” She slowly started edging closer to the man. “I promise I won’t let him hurt you.”

Max looked at her skeptically. “Right. He’s like five times your size.”

“Listen, you let me worry about that, alright? Barnes isn’t the type to hit a girl.” Amy said with a small smile. She inched a little closer to the man and extended her hand. “Can I have the gun, please?”

Powers smiled and started to bring the M9 up to his temple. Amy threw herself at him, hoping to knock him to the ground before he could pull the trigger. The shot seemed incredibly loud as she drove her shoulder into Max’s chest, knocking the man to the ground and hopefully knocking the wind out of him. The M9 boomed again as Frays wrestled with Powers, both of them trying to get control of the weapon. The gun went off so close to her head that she could feel the concussion of the muzzle blast on her face. Suddenly Rodriguez and Sergeant Barnes burst into the room and joined the fray. Francesca helped her hold the man down while Sergeant Barnes grabbed Max’s gun and twisted it out of his grasp. The big man noticed sickly that he had probably broken Powers’ index finger getting the pistol away from him.

Rodriguez rolled Powers onto his stomach. “Easy! Easy, Max!” she said soothingly as she reached out and grabbed a zip tie out of the MOLLE strips on Frays’ right suspender. “Just take it easy, Max. It’s alright, we’re not gonna hurt you.” She noticed that the man’s Kevlar was sitting on his head at an odd angle and there was a growing pool of blood on the floor. “Come on, buddy. Let’s go see the medics, alright? Everything’s gonna be okay.” She quickly put on a pair of latex gloves and took a pressure bandage out of her CLS kit then used it to staunch the wound on the side of the man’s head.

Amy’s ears were ringing as Sergeant Barnes led Powers out of the latrine and towards Eamon’s office. There was a lot of blood streaming down the side of the man’s head where he had nearly shot himself. Rodriguez’s jaw dropped when she turned around and saw Frays standing behind her
, clutching the side of her head with a look of stunned horror on her face. A steady stream of blood coursed from between the woman’s fingers and she looked pale and wobbly on her feet. Her Kevlar was missing. “Holy shit, Zoomie. Sit your ass down.” Francesca said as she took Amy by the arm and steered her into the cafeteria.

Frays
slowly became aware of a burning sensation on her left cheek. God, she could barely hear a thing over the ringing her ears and her poor little brains were spinning.
Please, Saint Cornelius, don’t let this be permanent!
she thought anxiously as Rodriguez sat her down on a chair next to the closest table. “Just relax, you crazy bitch.” Frannie said, softening her statement with a nervous smile as she pulled a pressure bandage and a package of Quik Clot out of her CLS kit. She put the sponge treated with the chemical on the bandage pad and pressed them both against her friend’s face. “Frays! Frays, can you hold on to that for me? Thanks.” She took the woman’s hand and pressed it to the bandage.

Rodriguez wound the bandage around Frays’ head and tied the bandage down snuggly to keep pressure on the wound. “What happened?” Amy mumbled through the gauze packed against her face. The bandage was on so tightly that she could barely open her mouth.

“Looks like you’ve got some powder burns, maybe a little knick from a bullet on your cheek.” Rodriguez said and loosed an uneasy laugh. She pulled up a chair next to her and sat down, holding her friend’s hand tightly. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ, what were you thinking? He almost shot you in the fucking head!”