Dark Coup (4 page)

The sun was going down by the time the infantry started its assault all along the perimeter of the base.

There was no way for Ben to defend the entire perimeter; he simply didn’t have the manpower.  Instead, he’d reinforced the passive defenses as much as he could; additional razor wire at both the top and bottom of fences and remotely detonated claymore anti-personnel mines, as well as unmanned sandbag bunkers to give the impression of a larger defensive force and discourage the invaders from using that avenue of approach.

Ultimately, it took less than a day for the invading force to gain a decisive advantage and Ben was forced to admit that they would have to abandon the base.

…

“It’s going to be a fighting retreat,” Ben told the platoon sergeants, “and we’ll punch through to the west.”

“Sir,” one of the Sergeants said, “it’s almost like they want us to do just that.  The fighting has dropped off there and there’s hardly any heavy weaponry on that side.”

“I know,” Ben said.  “And I admit that I don’t know for sure, but with the way this battle has progressed up to this point, I get the feeling that whoever’s commanding the troops on the ground on the other side would just as soon let us go as kill us to a man.  He has to know he’s going to win eventually, but if he can give us a way out without making it too obvious, he’ll save a lot of lives on both sides.”

Ben didn’t say that he also got the impression that in the grand scheme of things, the opposing commander was on their side.  Sure, people had died on both sides, many more on the other side than Ben’s, but the
percentage
of casualties was far higher for Ben and both sides knew it.

“First rule of an ambush,” one of the other Sergeants said.  “Give the other side a way out and let them see it when the time is right.  Yeah, I know this isn’t an ambush, but it’s still true.”

“What’s our casualty situation,” Ben asked.

“Seventeen dead, Sir,” the first Sergeant said.  “Eighty-one who can’t be moved.”

Ben closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose.  “I hate to have to ask,” Ben began.

“You don’t have to, Sir,” the Sergeant said.  “Six medics have already volunteered to stay behind with the wounded.”

Ben nodded.

“Let’s start consolidating the forces for a final push to the west,” Ben said.  “We’ll wait for a lull in the fighting, which should happen any time now.  It’s been about three hours since their last push and they’ll back off before they make another attempt.  When they do, we fall back and put everything we have into getting out the back.  Use our Bradleys to clear the way through our own defenses.”

…

Fighting retreat turned out to be an understatement.  While the attacking force to the west was certainly smaller than the other two, either they didn’t get the memo to let him go or it had been a feint all along.

The initial push had gone well enough and all of his forces were able to clear the final fence without too much resistance.  Part of that, he was sure, was due to the fact that his counterattack had been so unexpected.

That, of course, was when his plan, minimal as it was, met reality and it turned into an every-man-for-himself run for the border–in this case, the Tennessee border.

After what felt like a week, but was in fact only about an hour, the attackers broke off their pursuit.  Without air support it was just too dangerous, and the further they got from the base greater the risk of an ambush grew.

With a final shot over Ben’s bow from the Abrams, which had been oddly silent during the entire chase, the pursuit was called off and the attackers headed back to the newly ‘liberated’ Fort Campbell.

Chapter Four

May 27, 2013 - Promised Land Army Base, Natchez Trace State Park, Tennessee

Dan knocked on the door frame of the office Joel used when his duties as Mayor forced him to spend the day in Redemption. “I see we got some new blood,” Dan said.

“Yup,” Joel said as he looked up from the pile of papers he was working on, “and a pretty good-sized group, too.  It looks like the neighborhood or community, or whatever they were relying on, finally collapsed about three weeks ago.”

“How’d they know to head here?”  Dan asked.

Joel leaned back in his chair and tried to stretch some of the kinks out of his back.  “Well, we’ve been here for almost a year, Dan,” Joel said.  “Word is bound to have spread that there’s
something
going on in Natchez Trace.”

Dan made a face.  “Yeah, I guess.  I mean,
we
found you and all we had to go on was a hunch based on how a bunch of postcards were arranged on a bulletin board,” Dan said.

“True,” Joel said and shook his head.  “You know, I didn’t even know about that until you told me?  I had to ask Rachael about it later that night.  She admitted to it but claimed that she was sure that nobody we wouldn’t want finding us would be able to figure it out.  I’m glad she was right.”

“Me too,” Dan said.  “I’m really glad she left that clue or we’d have been toast.  But back to this new group, where are they setting up?”

“For now,” Joel said, “they’re in the tents in camp.  Now that we’ve filled the lodge, cabins, and the rest of the houses here in town, that’s all we have left.”

“At least they’ve all got wooden sides now,” Dan said.

Joel nodded.  “After three weeks on the move, they were just happy to have a warm, dry, safe place to sleep.”

“How’re Rachael and Aurora?” Dan asked, changing topics.

Joel smiled.  “They’re doing fine.  Aurora is doing a great job of keeping us from getting a full night’s sleep, like a newborn should, and we’re doing our best to keep the world from seeing us at our worst.”

“Spoken like a new dad,” Dan said with a return smile.  “Speaking of which, how are you doing?  Not burning too much of the midnight oil?”

“I’m fine,” Joel said, “but I really think Ty could use a hand.”

Dan made a ‘humph’ noise and rolled his eyes.

“No, seriously,” Joel said.  “I think the new group may have brought some kind of bug in with them and Ty’s already got a lot on his plate just dealing with the everyday stuff around camp.”

“Yeah,” Dan said.  “Ty loves it when I offer to help.  Gives him a chance to lord it over me that he’s a doctor and I’m just a medic.  I don’t even bother asking anymore, Joel.  A man’s ego can only take so much.”

“Well,” Joel said, “he really does look like he’s running himself ragged.  Would you be willing to give it one more try…for me?”

Dan laughed.  “Ok,” he said, “for you.  But seriously, unless there’s someone who needs a splinter removed, or maybe an enema, he’s not going to let me help out with anything.”

…

“Dan,” Ty said, “I appreciate the offer, I really do, but this isn’t that big of a deal.”

Dan was trying to remain calm.  He could already tell how this was going to play out by Ty’s condescending attitude.  Still, he’d promised Joel he’d try, and now that he’d seen what was actually going around…he felt he had to try for his own sake.

“Ty,” Dan said, “Dr. Novak, please listen to me.  We had something just like this back in our neighborhood.  It
killed
my only son.  Only eighteen-months old.  One day he was with us, the next he was
gone
. It didn’t spread like this at first, but a couple of months later it came back, and it started with the kids both times.  These are the same symptoms, Ty.  I know they are.”

“Dan, listen…I’m deeply sorry for your loss.  I can’t even imagine what that would be like, but you have got to calm down.  These symptoms you’re so worried about are also the symptoms of a lot of other mostly harmless illnesses.  Which you’d know…if you were a doctor.”

Dan quietly fumed as Ty continued, oblivious.

“I’ve got this under control.  You didn’t see these folks when they first arrived.  At the very least they all had somewhat compromised immune systems. Children get hit the hardest with that.”

“Ty,” Dan started.

“Look,” Ty interrupted, “I know you mean well, but I think I’ve been exposed to more of these things than you have.  Go back to town and I’ll let you know if anything comes up and I need your help, okay?”

“Right,”
Dan thought. 
“Just like you let me know we were letting
sick
people
into the community in the first place?”

…

“April, honey, I really want you to take a nap,” her mother, Jean Oliver, said.  “The doctor said you need to get some rest to kick this thing.  You’ve been out with the other children every day since we got here.”

“But I’m already feeling better,” April whined.  “There’s a bunch of kids here.  I’m not tired, and lying in bed is so-o-o boring.”

Jean reached out to check her daughter’s forehead for a fever.  She didn’t feel warm right now, so she gave in.  “Ok, but take it easy.  Don’t run around too much, and if you start coughing I want you to come right back to the tent and lay down. Understood?”

April sighed, but nodded.  “Okay, Mom.”

“I love you, honey, now go make some friends.”

…

“How’s Derek handling the transition,” Jean asked Stan Bryant, one of the fathers from the neighborhood that had come in with her, while they were starting what little laundry they had.

“He was hoping to meet some of the older kids here in camp since it’s the weekend,” Stan said.  “But he wasn’t feeling well this morning.  He had a headache and I couldn’t get him to eat any breakfast.”

Jean shook her head.  “April swore up and down she was feeling better, so I let her go out to make some friends.  It’s probably just that everything’s finally catching up with him.”

“Probably,” Stan said.  “He would sometimes get stomachaches and have trouble sleeping when things weren’t going well at school.  It might just be the stress.”

…

Jean came back from the laundry to find April on her cot and inside her sleeping bag.

“Change your mind,” she asked with raised eyebrows–until she heard her daughter’s teeth chattering.  It was easily in the mid-seventies outside, which meant that April must have quite a fever to be shivering like that.  Jean hurried to her daughter and felt her forehead.

“Oh, honey, you’re burning up!”  Jean tried to keep the panic out of her voice and was thankful, for the umpteenth time today that they weren’t on the road anymore.  “Stay here, honey; I’m going to go get the doctor.”

April just nodded weakly and coughed a couple of times as Jean left the tent, and almost ran smack into the doctor on her way out the door.

“Doctor…,” Jean looked for the nametag on his shirt but couldn’t find it right away and couldn’t remember his name off the top of her head.  She recognized him, though, as the man who had cleared them for entry into Promised Land.

“Novak, Ma’am,” Ty answered for her.  “I just came from the Bryant’s.  It’s Ms. Oliver, isn’t it?”

“Yes.  It’s my daughter, April,” Jean said as she turned around, and they both walked into the tent.  “She was fine this morning, but she came back from playing with some of the kids and now her fever is back.”

April was coughing frequently, and shivering hard inside the sleeping bag, despite sweating profusely.

After putting on gloves, Ty felt her forehead and then took her temperature.  After checking the digital thermometer he cleared it and took it again; 103.2.

“April, I know you are shivering but I need to listen to your lungs, honey,” he said.  “We’ll get you back under the covers as quick as we can.”

April nodded and sat up slowly. Ty listened to her breathing, which was growing more rapid, when she wasn’t coughing, and made a bit of a face.

“Ok, lay back down,” he said, and took her pulse.

“Ms. Oliver?”  Ty said, and nodded towards outside.  Ty wanted to let April try to get some sleep.

“Ma’am,” Ty started.  “April has been on the antibiotics for four days.  By now, the cough should have cleared up, and she really shouldn’t have a fever of any kind unless the infection is resistant to what we gave her.  Since you said she wasn’t allergic to penicillin, I put her on something in that family.”

Ty stopped speaking as April had a coughing fit. He wanted to listen to how it sounded.  “As bad as that sounds, at least she isn’t wheezing.  Unfortunately, what sounded like an upper-respiratory infection a few days ago, and should have been responding to antibiotics, has settled deeper into her lungs.”  Ty said.  “I’m worried about pneumonia at this point, and I think we need to change the antibiotics.  I’d like to move her to town, where we have a more permanent clinic, as well.”

Jean nodded, “Whatever you say.”

“I’ll go talk to the Major and get everything arranged,” Ty said, and then reached into his bag and pulled out a packet of ibuprofen. “Give her these while I’m gone, we need to start getting the fever down.”

“Thank you,” Jean said.

“Just doing my job, Ma’am,” Ty said.

…

“This is Dan,” he said as he answered the radio.

“Dan,” Ty said.  “Have you got a minute?”

“Um, sure,” Dan said, a little taken aback to receive a call from the doctor after their run-in this morning.

“We may have a situation developing,” Ty said, “and I need to know if you’ve noticed anything out of the ordinary in town.”

Dan leaned forward and rubbed his eyes.  “Nothing’s come up over the last week or so, no,” Dan said.  “It doesn’t have to do with the group that just came in does it?”

“Possibly,” Ty said.  “I’ll let you know if I need anything else.”

“Aaaaand I’m back to being shunned,” Dan said after the radio cut off.

…

“What’s going on, Sergeant,” Mallory asked, with no preamble, as Ty came into the command tent.

“I’m not entirely sure,” Ty said.  “We’ve had some lingering colds crop up over the last couple of months but…”

Mallory looked up at Ty’s pause.

After a breath, Ty continued.  “It looks like something came in with the last group.”

“How bad is it?”  Mallory asked.  “And is it something that we can stop with a quarantine of the group?”

“I don’t have an answer to either of those questions yet, unfortunately,” Ty said.  “Quarantine might be a good idea to contain whatever it is, but it might be too late, too.  It’s been almost a week, and there’s been a lot of contact already–especially between the kids.  We don’t have to panic yet.   Like I said, I don’t really know how bad it is.”