Push Back: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (The Disruption Series Book 2) (6 page)

“Seriously, Major?”

“Okay, bad example,” Luke conceded, “but you know what I mean. Fact is, I’m having some qualms myself. One of the senior noncoms should have been promoted over me. I should have stayed a captain and Wright or Butler should have been bumped up to major; both have more experience.”

“Not real combat experience,” Washington said. “They’re good people, but Wright is, or was, a National Guard sergeant, and Butler was a Coastie chief petty officer. They’ll both get things done, but the only ones who have any real combat time are you and those of us you brought in with you, and I gotta feeling we’re gonna need all the combat experience we can find.” He sighed. “Anyway, Wright and Butler don’t like bein’ officers any more than I do, and none of us think it’s really necessary. Folks always figure out who to turn to when they need something. Always have, always will.”

“You might be right, but you’re still a lieutenant, Lieutenant.”

The look of dismay on Washington’s face was so comical Luke had all he could do to keep a straight face. “And my orders, Lieutenant, are to set up a twenty-four-hour sky watch. That’s the third chopper overflight in the last two days and I don’t like it. Make sure they have NV and IR gear at night. Even if the choppers come in dark, we’ll focus on the blade noise and know where to point the gear.”

Washington nodded, his forlorn look fading as he contemplated his new task. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I’ll get right on it. Anything else?”

“Not at the moment,” Luke said, “but I’m headed to the council meeting. Catch up with me in a couple of hours and I’ll brief you on what we discuss.”

“Better you than me, sir. I’ll see you in two hours.” He was grinning now. “Unless of course the council meeting runs long, but I’m sure that won’t happen.”

“Anyone ever mention you’re a wiseass, Washington?”

Washington’s grin widened. “Regularly, sir. Now if that will be all …”

Luke shook his head. “Go.”

Washington moved away across the concrete, still smiling, and Luke turned back toward his original destination. The former terminal building was a squat, three-story structure of utilitarian appearance, now the headquarters for ‘Fort Box,’ a name initially used as a joke referencing their improvised defensive wall of empty shipping containers, but which quickly became a point of pride as their little community grew.

Luke stopped at the door to the terminal building and looked back over what had previously been the container yard, amazed by what his new comrades had accomplished in such a short time. The change was remarkable, even since he’d brought his little band of deserters into the walls of Fort Box a scant week earlier.

A stout defensive wall of steel shipping containers stacked two high formed three walls of the fort, topped with a barbed wire barrier along the outer edge and with fortified firing positions at regular intervals. Machine guns were mounted on armored platforms at each corner, extending outward to allow them to sweep the length of the wall in any direction. All of the firing points were connected with a three-foot-wide wooden scaffold hung below the inside edge of the top container and running the length of the wall, allowing defenders to quickly move from point to point without exposing themselves to enemy fire. The new walls were set well back from the original terminal fence, and the area between had been cleared of containers. No one could approach the walls now except by crossing fifty yards of asphalt or concrete, all under the guns of the defenders.

The fourth side of Fort Box was formed by the container berths on the river, currently occupied by a collection of container and grain ships. The ships were moored bow to stern, their high steel sides forming a fourth wall, also protected by machine-gun emplacements at both ends with fields of fire sweeping the river approaches. The river side was perhaps the least secure perimeter due to irregular-shaped gaps between the ships, which were impossible to seal, but the river was a strong ally. The open water offered much wider fields of fire than the land sides, and a coordinated waterborne attack was considered unlikely.

But it was the progress inside the walls that was most remarkable; a collection of travel trailers and RVs mixed with military tents were lined up in a bizarre but strangely orderly looking series of newly created ‘streets’ radiating like the spokes of a wheel from the terminal-building-turned-HQ. In the central area next to the HQ stood a series of large army tents serving as central kitchen, mess hall, and clinic, while on the dock next to one of the ships was a collection of covered aboveground swimming pools known as ‘Wright’s Waterworks’ in honor of the man who’d solved their water storage problem. And everywhere there were containers, stacks and stacks of containers: large brightly colored steel boxes crammed with a cornucopia of canned food, packaged generators, and other goods, the full scope of which was still undetermined.

Luke marveled at the controlled chaos as men and women scurried in all directions. The faint smell of diesel exhaust filled the air, and the sounds of generators and heavy equipment assaulted his ears as the fortunate inhabitants of Fort Box labored to secure their future. Luke nodded and entered the building, smiling as cool air washed over him. Air-conditioning and ice were two things that made Southern summers bearable, and he was glad he’d have a little of both, at least as long as he stayed.

He glanced at his watch. He was five minutes early, but he’d quickly learned Major, now Colonel, Hunnicutt considered ten minutes early as ‘on time.’ By that standard he was five minutes late. He hurried down the hall toward the conference room and the sound of raised voices.

“I don’t give a damn, Lieutenant Wright. You know—” Colonel Hunnicutt looked up as Luke entered. “Well, nice of you to join us, Major. I do hope it wasn’t an inconvenience.”

“Sorry, sir,” Luke said, slipping into an unoccupied seat and nodding at the dozen people seated around the conference table. Hunnicutt gave him a curt nod and turned back to Wright.

“As I was saying, Lieutenant, you know the protocol and so should your men. We CANNOT police areas outside of our tasking and still hope to provide any relief to the bulk of the refugees. These criminals piss me off too, believe me, but we just don’t have the manpower and resources to be diverted by a conflict with the gangs at this point. I thought I made that clear?”

“You did, sir. And I’ve reprimanded Corporal Miles for disobeying orders, but honestly, I don’t believe he did so intentionally. Our mission is providing relief to the civilians, so when they heard a woman screaming for help, he used his own initiative. I can’t fault him for that. So what exactly was he supposed to do when his patrol stumbled on a gang rape, say ‘carry on’ and drive away?”

Hunnicutt heaved a sigh and fell silent. “I suppose not,” he said at last. “Where is the woman now?”

“Miles’ patrol took her and her husband to the refugee camp. They didn’t much want to go, but he couldn’t leave them there,” Wright said.

“And the bangers?”

Wright shrugged. “Too many to do anything with, even if we had facilities. They just told them to scatter, all except for the one they caught,” he hesitated, “you know…”

“I get the picture,” Hunnicutt said. “What did they do with him?”

Wright hesitated. “He was killed resisting arrest.”

The room grew deadly quiet as the meeting participants awaited Hunnicutt’s reaction.

“Boo fucking hoo,” Hunnicutt said, and the room erupted in laughter.

“But seriously, folks,” he said, “we can’t afford to get entangled with these bastards. We just have too much to do. Any expectations this will escalate, Lieutenant Wright?”

Wright shook his head. “We have them outgunned and they know it. If anything, they might try to lure a patrol into an ambush as payback.”

Hunnicutt nodded. “My thoughts exactly. Make sure not to answer ANY calls for distress, and double both the size and frequency of the patrols between here and the relief station until we’re sure this isn’t going to escalate.”

“Already done, sir,” Wright replied.

“All right,” Hunnicutt said, “let’s move on. Chief … I mean Lieutenant Butler, can you give us a quick SITREP on the facilities?”

Mike Butler, formerly chief boatswain’s mate, USCG, now first lieutenant, Wilmington Defense Force, nodded. “Our defensive perimeter is complete, though I’d still like to improve on the gate arrangement. Our snipes, along with the engineers from the merchant ships, have nearly solved our water problem. Between all the ships, we have multiple water distillers, and they rigged up a way to triple process the river water and basically heat the hell out of it to kill any bugs.” He looked over at Lieutenant Josh Wright and grinned. “They tell me by this time tomorrow, they’ll be producing enough water to keep Wright’s Waterworks topped up for the foreseeable future.”

“Great news,” Hunnicutt said, “but how’d they manage that?”

Butler shrugged. “They didn’t say and I sure as hell didn’t ask, sir. Else I’d have had to listen to a two-hour lecture explaining the process in great detail.” He paused to let the laughter die down before continuing. “But it gets better. They plan to use Wright’s swimming pools as reserve water storage for excess production, but they seem confident they can tie the shore facilities into the potable water system from
Maersk Tangier
and use her water pumps to pressurize it all. Her tanks are more than adequate to supply our needs on a day-to-day basis. They’ll have to dig up and disconnect the old supply from the city system, but after that, we’ll have running water in the terminal again. They said two or three days max.”

“That’s good news. We’ve been wasting a lot of manpower hauling water, and I for one will gladly give up the joy of flushing with a bucket.” Hunnicutt grimaced. “As long as the sewage lines aren’t plugged up, anyway.”

“Actually, there’s good news on that front, too,” Butler said. “The treatment plant’s only a mile or so downriver, and the snipes figure if we’re the only ones with running water to flush, it will take a while before we top out the storage capacity, even if the plant’s not running. And if we can get a generator and some fuel down there, they figure they might be able to restore the plant to at least limited operation. They think it will be more than enough to meet our needs.”

Across the table from Butler, a petite, dark-haired woman sat up straighter in her chair. “So does that mean if we can get water restored at the country club, we can establish some basic sanitation for the refugee camp? It’s horrific there. The port-a-potties you brought in were overflowing by the second day, and people are back to doing their business behind any bush. The stench is overpowering and it’s only going to get worse.”

The request caught Butler by surprise. “Maybe, Doc,” he replied, “but I don’t think there’s any way we can get water pressure back there and—”

“We could use the toilets in the clubhouse and swimming club. I think there are even some toilets over by the tennis courts. You told me yourself you’ve got a container full of portable generators from China, and we could pump the flushing water out of the small lake there. It’s fed by that little creek, so we should have plenty of water and—”

Butler held up both his hands in a stop gesture. “Whoa! Doc, slow down. I know you want to get things done, but you’ve been here less than a week, so I don’t think you fully appreciate how stretched we are. We can’t do everything at once and—”

The woman’s eyes flashed. “And I don’t think you fully appreciate what those people are going through, Lieutenant Butler. But I was in that hell for three weeks and I can’t forget. Just because I was fortunate enough to be offered shelter here, I’m not going to turn my back—”

“We’re not turning our backs on anyone, Dr. Jennings,” Hunnicutt said, “and we recruited you from among the refugee population not only because we needed a doctor here, but to form a medical team to help the refugees as much as we can. But Butler’s right. We have to use what resources we have wisely, or else we won’t be able to help anyone.” He turned back to Butler. “But the Doc’s right too, Butler. The camp’s already turning into a cesspool; can we get sewage service reestablished, and if so, how long?”

Butler rubbed his chin. “I expect the country club area is served by the same treatment plant since it’s on this side of town, but I don’t know how long it will support us here and thousands of refugees. The engineers figure there’s probably enough room in the facility’s holding ponds to last a while before we have to get the treatment plant running. But they weren’t considering several thousand folks from the refugee camp. If we dump that output into the system, I think the plan goes out the window; they’ll have to get the plant running sooner rather than later.” He sighed. “And they have their hands full now. They were hoping to hold off on addressing the treatment plant for a couple of weeks.”

Hunnicutt nodded. “Okay, let’s think about this. If we flush everything in the system and don’t get the plant running, the holding ponds overflow and things get nasty, am I right?”

Butler shrugged. “I guess so, sir. I hadn’t really thought about it, to be honest.”

“So that means if they CAN’T get the plant going in time, we have a stinking mess a mile or so downstream of us in the middle of an industrial area. It seems to me a stinking mess there where no one is around is much better than a disease-producing mess in the middle of several thousand refugees, wouldn’t you agree?” Hunnicutt asked.

Butler nodded, and Jennings beamed as Hunnicutt continued, “Okay then, let’s get the good doctor her flushing toilets, and tell the engineers to do the best they can on getting the treatment plant running, but not to let it override other priorities. This situation is going to throw new challenges at us every day, folks, and we just have to be flexible.”

“Yes, sir,” Butler said, and made a note on the pad in front of him.

“Thank you, Colonel,” Jennings said, “but it’s still going to be tough. We have toilets in the club house and the swimming club—”

Luke cleared his throat loudly, earning him a glare from Jennings. “I don’t think we should allow the ’fugees—”