Outbreak boston, p.2
Outbreak: Boston, page 2
“Hey, kiddo.” said a rough, masculine voice. Amy’s father smoked two packs a day and it showed in his voice. Amy could tell he was worried but was trying to sound upbeat. “What's shakin'?”
“Hi, Dad. Just calling to let you know that I got recalled.” she answered quickly. The headlights of the buses to take them to the staging area came in to view at the other end of the parking lot. She frowned at the driver, willing him to give her just two more minutes. “Listen, Dad…why don't you take Mom and Carl up to the camp for a little while?”
She could not hear her father's response because the buses had pulled up right in front of her and the airmen began crowding on to each of them. “Dad, I gotta go. Tell everybody not to worry, I love them and I'll see everybody soon.” She hung up and stuck the phone back in her pocket as she boarded the rear bus.
Amy could not help but feel like she had wasted her breath telling her parents not to worry. Her dad, who had served as a tank commander in the Marine Corps during Desert Storm, would act like he was not worried (even though he was). Mom would most likely bawl her eyes out like she did when her flight got on the plane for Iraq. Carl, of course, would probably wonder what they were so bothered about. She had Brian Effin’ Emery watching her back, after all.
Amy plopped into the seat next to Sergeant Emery, her rucksack on her lap. Captain Forsythe clomped up the stairs to the bus and stood next to the driver. “I need two volunteers to drive a Humvee.” he said loudly, his voice barely audible over the din of the airmen getting settled in for the ride. Amy shrunk behind the seat in front of her and lifted her rucksack in an attempt to hide from what she knew was coming. “Alright. Airman Jacobson and...” the man surveyed the airmen in front of him “Airman Frays. Get over to the motor pool and sign out Bravo Three Four.”
Amy bit back a groan. The bus seats were way more comfortable than the Humvee, not to mention the fact that the bus had air conditioning and it was easily a very muggy ninety degrees or more outside. Frays also didn't like the idea of spending the next couple of hours trapped in a vehicle with Airman Nick Jacobson either. He was short with bad skin and just on the edge of being jammed up over his weight. Not to mention the way he sometimes looked at the female personnel when the unit got together for PT and stuff made her skin crawl. It reminded her a little too much of the way the male personnel would stare at the females in the chow hall at good ol’ Camp Freedom.
The detail disembarked, pulled their gear out of the bus's cargo hold and took off at a trot towards the high fence surrounding the motor pool. A couple of airmen from the Base Security section opened the gate to the motor pool and held it open for them while they got the Humvee ready to go. Amy opened the door and unlocked the chain securing the vehicle's steering wheel. She pulled the sling of her M4 over her head and snapped the weapon in to the rack next to the driver's seat. Airman Jacobson tossed his rucksack onto the back seat and secured his weapon as well.
Frays programmed the radio mounted to the Humvee’s dash then picked up the handset and keyed the mike. “Any station this net, any station this net, this is Bravo Three Four. Radio check.” she said quickly as she flicked the switches to turn the vehicle's motor over.
“This is Bravo One Actual.” said Captain Forsythe, the man's voice rendered somewhat tinny and distorted by the radio's speakers. “Read you Lima Charlie, Bravo Three Four.”
“Roger that, Bravo One Actual.” Amy said as the Humvee roared to life and she flicked on the headlamps. “We're ready to roll.”
Ten minutes later the convoy of buses, Humvees and Five Tons was headed east down the interstate towards the staging area. Amy occasionally spared a glance at the young man sitting next to her. He looked pale and frightened, like a scared little boy. She suddenly remembered that he had joined the unit after she had gotten back and started to feel like kind of a jerk for her harsh opinion of the guy. This was his first deployment and it might just be in his backyard. She felt around under the radio mount until her fingers found what she was looking for: a thin black wire with the male end of an audio jack on the end.
“Hey, Jacobson. Do you got an iPod or something?” she asked, holding up the wire so he could see it “Hook this into its headphone jack.”
Jacobson looked a little confused. “What?” he asked, arching an eyebrow at the woman seated next to him. “Won't we get in trouble?”
Amy laughed. “If Captain Forsythe wants to jam us up I'll rip out the same set up I put in his Humvee.” she turned her attention back to the road in front of her. “Go ahead, man. It's fine.”
Pretty soon the two of them were cruising down the road with the gentle strains of some kind of German speed metal band that sounded to Amy like someone put a microphone in a sack full of sick cats then started swinging it around their head and recorded the noises it made screaming at them out of the Humvee's speakers. This improved Jacobson's mood greatly however and he even started talking more. In fact, he turned out to be a regular chatterbox and he started grilling her about her previous deployment. Amy told him all she felt comfortable with and gently redirected the conversation when he got too close to something she felt was better left alone.
The radio squawked, thankfully cutting off the music. “This is Bravo One Actual. There's a rest stop two miles up ahead.” said Captain Forsythe. He paused and keyed his mike again. “The Dunkin' Donuts is donating coffee and donuts to emergency services personnel. We're taking a twenty minute latrine break. How copy?”
Several jubilant cries went up over the radio as the convoy pulled in to the rest stop. Amy grabbed her weapon and hurried in as dignified manner as she could towards the ladies' room while Jacobson made a beeline for the Dunkin' Donuts. When she came out and walked back to the vehicle the younger man pressed a large cup of black coffee into her hand. “Check it out, Frays.” he said, holding up a paperboard box with a proud smile. “I scored us a half dozen fried cakes and a bunch of doughnut holes.”
She looked quickly over both shoulders and flashed Jacobson a quick grin. “Good deal.” Amy said as she led the way back to their vehicle. “Keep those out of sight until we're moving again.” Frays stopped a few paces from the Humvee, a yawn slowly building in her chest. “Would you mind driving?” she asked as she covered her mouth with a fist and yawned.
Jacobson grinned like a kid. “Sure!” he said quickly. “I just finished up driver's training!”
Amy could not help but smile nervously at the young man's enthusiasm. “Just be careful, okay?” Jacobson seemed like a good guy but she could not help but wonder if she was making a mistake as she stowed her weapon and climbed into the passenger seat.
Sgt. Emery approached their Humvee with two plastic bags in each hand that were full almost to the point of bursting. “Hey, Frays.” he said as he handed her one of the bags through the window. “A little present from Maria. Merry Christmas, guys.” The two of them thanked him as he hurried back to the bus. The two of them divided up the bottles of soda, cans of Red Bull and snack cakes. Amy grumbled under her breath when she saw Emery's other present: a carton of Marlboro Red Pack 100s. He even included a couple Bic lighters. “He knows I've been trying to quit!” she cried, holding the cigarettes up for Jacobson's inspection. Frays sighed and ripped open the box then took out a pack and jammed it into her pocket.
“No, thanks.” Jacobson said when Frays offered him a pack. She frowned and put it back. Figures he doesn’t smoke Frays thought sourly as she pulled her rucksack off of the back seat and put the cigarettes inside.
The man laughed at the sour look on her face. “He's just looking out for you.” he said as he fired up the vehicle's engine. “Besides, you picked a helluva time to quit smoking.” he added in a perfect impression of Robert Stack in the movie Airplane! Amy cracked up in spite of herself.
Maybe ten minutes after they were down the road Amy found she was having trouble keeping her eyes open. A few seconds after that she was snoring contentedly, the paper cup still clutched in her hand. Jacobson watched her out of the corner of his eye. The peaceable look on her face brought an uncomfortable stirring sensation in his groin. He quickly gulped down his coffee and threw the paper cup out the window. Jacobson hesitated for a moment then reached across Frays' lap and took her coffee. He allowed his fingertips to brush against her left thigh, the soft skin of her wrist before returning to his side of the vehicle. The woman mumbled something under her breath and shifted around in her seat a couple times before falling back to sleep.
It was still dark when she opened her eyes. Amy groaned and stretched then checked her watch. She blinked at the numbers on the watch’s face, trying to make them make sense. “Wakey, Wakey sleepyhead!” Jacobson said, his voice rising and falling in an annoyingly sing-song manner. “I saved your coffee for you but it's been cold for at least an hour.” He held the cup out to her. “You want it?”
Amy waved it away and grimaced in disgust as the man chugged the bitter black liquid. “Any of those donuts left?” Jacobson handed her the box and she was surprised to find the box mostly full. She picked out a handful of chocolate covered doughnut holes.
Jacobson turned the volume on his iPod up a few notches. “Go ahead and eat them if you want those donuts.” he said when Frays put the box back in between their seats. “I don't need them.” the Airman added as he gave his middle a pat.
They rode in silence for a few minutes. “Good thing you woke up when you did.” Jacobson said quickly. “We're almost there.” he licked his lips nervously. “I-um...nobody showed up from my flight. Do you think we'll end up together? Working I mean.”
Amy laughed quietly. “I don't know. We'll have to see.” she answered. There was something in the young man's tone that made her a little nervous. “It's not up to me anyway. That would probably be up to Sergeant Emery.” Jacobson looked more than a little crestfallen. “I'll see what I can do.” Amy said quickly, drawing a grin to the young man's face. “Sergeant Emery likes me.”
Their convoy pulled up to the gate of some sports stadium Amy had never heard of but then she reflected that she never really followed sports all that much. Policemen decked out in riot gear waved the buses and other vehicles inside the perimeter before closing the gate behind them. Amy's heart settled in to an uncomfortable region somewhere around her ankles.
The sight that greeted their eyes was something Amy never expected to see in an American city: hundreds of people lay on stretchers swathed in bloody bandages while medics hurried in between them. Dozens of heavily armed soldiers and policemen trundled off in trucks or Humvees. There were even a few Strykers, the latest and greatest thing in armored personnel carriers, which Amy guessed probably came from an Army Reserve or National Guard unit (or so she found herself hoping). The APCs could shrug off just about anything the Iraqi insurgents could throw at them so she found their presence simultaneously reassuring and terrifying.
Following Captain Forsythe's orders, Jacobson steered their vehicle into an empty space in the parking lot. “This is Bravo One Actual.” said Captain Forsythe. Amy looked around and saw the unit commander's Humvee perhaps a hundred meters away. “Flight leaders, NCOs and acting NCOs, there's a briefing at my Humvee in thirty mike where you'll get your assignments. Everybody else hang tight by your vehicles.”
Amy and Nick stood near their vehicle, watching Forsythe move off towards a boxy command trailer that bristled with antennae and satellite dishes. A couple awkward minutes passed. “Wait here. I'll be right back.” Amy said as she ambled off in search of Sergeant Emery.
She found him talking with a couple other NCOs so Amy hovered near the edge of the conversation, waiting for an appropriate time to pull her flight sergeant away. “Hey Sergeant Emery” Frays called as soon as the chance presented itself “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Once the two of them were away from the others Amy took a deep breath. “Jacobson wanted me to ask if he can ride with us.” she said quickly. Frays paused for a second, studying her flight sergeant's face. “He seems like he's alright, but he's...new.”
Sergeant Emery mulled the subject over for a few minutes. “I saw that there wasn't anybody from his flight here.” he half mumbled, scratching the stubble on his chin as he thought. “I trust your judgment, Frays. If you think he's alright and nobody else calls dibs he can ride with us.”
A sick feeling rolled around in her stomach. “Where is everybody?” Amy asked quietly. She felt her forehead and cheeks suddenly feeling hot despite the slight breeze blowing in from the ocean. “Don't they know we need them here?” She lashed out angrily, sending an empty soda can near the toe of her boot flying across the parking lot where it landed with a hollow rattle. “What the…heck is wrong with them?!”
Once the storm had subsided Sergeant Emery grabbed the woman's shoulders. “Look at me.” he said sternly. Amy glanced at her boots, at his. “Look at me, Airman.” the big sergeant repeated himself, this time turning the statement into an order. “I need you here. Jacobson needs you here. Don't worry about what those fucktards are doing. We'll get this wrapped up and the chain of command will handle it. Roger?”
Amy smiled, feeling her game face coming back. “Roger that, Sergeant.” she said quietly as she composed herself. “Sorry. This is just so out there, you know?”
Sergeant Emery laughed and clapped his subordinate on the back. “It's strange, I'll give you that.” he said as the two of them walked back towards the vehicles. “It's about time for the briefing. I'll update you and Jacobson when it's done.”
Jacobson awaited her almost like an expectant puppy, happy that his person came home. “Did you ask him?” the young Airman asked. Amy could almost swear that he was actually trying to restrain himself from hopping from one foot to the other. “What did he say?”
“He said if nobody calls dibs on you from your flight you can ride out with us.” she said carefully. Unthinking, Amy dug her cigarettes out of her cargo pocket and tore open the cellophane. Before she could produce her lighter Jacobson had his out, the lighter's small flame flickering. She muttered a thanks she lit her cancer stick.
Another awkward silence threatened the two of them as they watched the police and soldiers mobilizing around their staging area. “I thought you didn’t smoke.” Amy said at last. She field stripped the butt of her cigarette and dropped the filter into the cargo pocket of her ABUs. They went to the back of the Humvee and pulled out their vehicle’s crew served weapon: a Browning M2 .50 caliber heavy machine gun.
“There's a lot you don't know about me.” Jacobson said with a raised eyebrow, drawing a chuckle from the young woman next to him as he picked up the weapon’s pintle mount. “Though seriously, I don't. A lighter can just be a handy thing to have.”
A couple minutes later Sgt. Emery left the briefing and approached their Humvee. “Alright you crazy kids! Road trip!” he cried, spreading a tactical map on the hood of the vehicle. Amy and Jacobson crowded around him and peered at the map. “We're gonna go here” Sgt. Emery informed his subordinates “this right here is scenic Checkpoint Twelve on the north side of the Harvard Bridge. There we'll find about a half squad of Marines from the One Eight Combat Engineers battalion.”
He paused so that Frays and Jacobson could finish writing down what he just told them. “Our mission is to contain the civilian population on the south side of the bridge.” Emery said, circling the quarantine zone with a red grease pencil on the map. “Intel indicates that so far only a few civilians have approached the bridge, though command expects that more will turn up eventually. Nobody crosses the bridge. Civilians are to return to their homes and stay there until told otherwise.” Emery rubbed his jaw and added with a hint of unease “Some people might be too sick to understand directions. We may have to use lethal force to maintain the quarantine. Just keep your heads and don’t do anything without orders unless you perceive a direct threat to yourself, friendly forces or civilians. Clear?”
He paused a moment to see if the airmen had any questions then continued the briefing. “When we get there, there’s this jarhead lieutenant named Peterson is in charge. We follow his orders unless we hear different come down from higher.” Sergeant Emery let Frays copy the marks he made on his map on her own. “We're leaving in ten so let's finish getting our fifty cal mounted and ready to go, kids.”
Jacobson rode shotgun while Frays drove. Their truck was part of a four vehicle convoy of Army and Air Force Humvees moving from the staging area to their assigned sectors. Sergeant Emery rode in the commander's cupola behind the Humvee's crew served weapon. Once they were out of the staging area, much to Amy's secret annoyance, Jacobson hooked his iPod back up and the German cat torturers were blaring once more. She was just wondering when Sergeant Emery was going to get sick of it when he bent down into the vehicle and bellowed “Turn that shit off!” The young man seemed to deflate a little as he complied. Amy smiled into the palm of her hand. The few times they had to go outside the wire on deployment Sergeant Emery had her crank ‘Bad to the Bone’ by George Thorogood and The Destroyers.
A half an hour of driving made Amy think of downtown Mosul: hundreds of cars crowded the streets, people yelling at each other, car horns blaring. Many of the vehicles had luggage or other household goods strapped to the top. A few of them even had animal carriers complete with panicked cats or dogs in them. “Any of this look familiar to you, Sergeant?” Frays said loudly so he could hear her over the street noise.
“Kinda!” shouted Sergeant Emery “Except there's more white people!” The two of them laughed then turned their full attention back to what they were doing. Jacobson chuckled nervously and began fiddling with his equipment. “Try to speed up a little. There’s a guy in a blue sedan, right side intersection, next block. Looks like he might try to get in the middle of the convoy.”
Frays stepped on the gas, keeping the car from cutting into traffic and screwing with the convoy. Sergeant Emery swung the fifty cal around and pointed it in the offending vehicle’s general direction just in case. When they came to a stoplight Amy dug a Red Bull out of her rucksack, unfolded the knife blade from her multi-tool and used it to shotgun the energy drink. “Relax, Jacobson.” she said as she dropped the empty can into a plastic bag on the back of the man's seat. “It's gonna be alright. Just stay cool, buddy. We'll look after you.”
