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  “Fine,” she says, and then dismisses me and calls out, “Next!”

  Back in the hallway there are echoes from footsteps and people talking, and a huge clock hangs down from the peaked ceiling. The time matches my own watch and I see there’s five minutes to go before oh nine hundred. I take the ticket out, check it. The train departs from Track A in thirty-five minutes. I begin to wonder where my important escortee is.

  Some laughter and loud voices, and a squad of about a dozen Marines bustle through, in full battle-rattle, each carrying a Colt M-10, three of them with dogs, German shepherds, on leashes. We all make eye contact and, out of well-oiled habit, give each other the slightest of nods, an immediate acknowledgment of respect, essentially saying “Hey man, been there, done that too. I got your back, you’ve got mine.” Thor is good and doesn’t tug at his leash, but one of the German shepherds starts whining and pulling. His Marine handler tugs him back and eyes me. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

  “No problem, marine,” I say. “No problem at all.”

  He takes a gander at my rank and Recon Ranger patch, and says, “Good huntin’ now, okay?”

  “You too, bro.”

  The Marines saunter by like they own the joint, and in a way, I guess they do. They call themselves the few, the proud, and although some of my fellow troopers think they’re crazy, I’ve always been happy to have them on my flank in a battle or Creeper search. They have an élan or esprit de corps that some regular National Guard or Army units don’t have, and in battle, they’re pretty much damn fearless. I heard a rumor once that the Marines were so tough because they only allowed enlistees in who had lost family members during the Creeper war, but that’s just stupid talking. Ten years into it, it’s hard to find anybody out there who hasn’t lost somebody to the Creepers.

  As they head out to the tracks, a young girl’s voice is at my side: “Excuse me, Sergeant Knox? From the 2nd Recon Rangers?”

  I turn and take a pause. She’s about my age and is simply the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. She has long blonde hair falling about her slim shoulders, and even though she’s wearing a standard U.S. Army dress uniform, she fills it out quite nicely. Her uniform includes a skirt cut just below her knees, and her legs in her flat black dress shoes look mighty fine. Over one shoulder she carries a large black purse. She quietly says, “Sergeant, I’m Specialist Serena Coulson. My brother and I have been assigned to travel with you.”

  I’ve been staring at her light blue eyes with such focus that I hadn’t even noticed the young man standing next to her and a few steps behind. He looks to be about eleven or twelve, dressed in a light gray suit with white shirt and black necktie. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a guy that young so dressed up.

  I look to her and say, “Say again, specialist?”

  Now she looks aggravated. “As I said before, my brother and I have been assigned to travel with you to the capitol.”

  “Says who?” I asked.

  “Says your commanding officer, Colonel Malcolm Hunter. He is your commanding officer, is he not? The post commander for Fort St. Paul?”

  “That he is, but I’m not buying it. I just got here from the fort. Why don’t I know anything about it?”

  “How should I know?” I’m admiring how clean and styled her blonde hair is when she adds, “Will this help?”

  From a side jacket pocket she pulls out a business-sized envelope, its flap open. The return address is Fort St. Paul, Concord, New Hampshire. I put my assault pack on the cement floor and take out the letter inside. It’s on the colonel’s stationary, and there’s a handwritten note underneath the letterhead:

  Randy—

  Last minute, I know, but you’re to accompany Spec. Coulson and her brother Robert Coulson to the destination previously mentioned. Spec. Coulson’s father is a close personal friend of mine and wants the two of them with him on family business. I’m sure you’ll be able to perform both missions without fail.

  —Col. M. T. Hunter, Commanding

  I want to say something nasty out loud but Coulson’s expression and fair skin—was she wearing just a hint of makeup?—make me keep my mouth shut. I hand her the letter back. “Stick around, specialist. I’m going to make a phone call. Just to double-check.”

  She looks up at the train station’s clock. “If I may suggest, sergeant, you should move along. We don’t want to miss the train.”

  Give her credit, she’s that close to being insubordinate, but I let it slide and go to a nearby booth for the resurrected New England Bell. There are a number of civilians waiting their turn and I feel a sour tinge of guilt as I push myself to the head of the line.

  “Sorry,” I say to the farmer who’s up next and to the New England Bell worker, a gaunt-looking man with white hair who looks like he hasn’t eaten in days, sitting behind a low counter. “I need to make a phone call. Now.”

  The farmer grumbles and the Bell guy says, “Is it an emergency?”

  “No, but it’s official business.”

  He frowns. “Who are you calling?”

  “Yeah,” the farmer says. “You need to call your girlfriend or somethin’?”

  Looking to the Bell guy and making sure the farmer could hear me, I say, “Person to person call from Sergeant Randy Knox, Second Recon Rangers, to Colonel Malcolm Hunter, base commander, Fort St. Paul.” I write a number on a pad of paper with a stub of a pencil on the counter, slide it over.

  That shuts up the farmer and the Bell guy puts a headset on, presses a few switches, and says, “Go over there, to booth two. Just pick up the receiver and you’ll be connected.”

  I thank him and the farmer says glumly, “You know, there was a time I had a cell phone that could take pictures, surf the Web, and I could call my brother in London in a matter of seconds. Now, takes me a half-day to schedule a phone call to call my sister in Indiana.”

  I say, “Yeah, things are tough all over.”

  I go to the booth and leave the door open, and Thor sits down as I lift up the phone receiver. I get a dial tone, hissing with static, and then it rings once and is picked up. “Colonel Hunter’s office, Lieutenant Bouchard speaking, this is an unsecured line.” Usually outside calls go through the main switchboard but one of the few advantages of being related to the battalion commander is knowing his private phone number.

  “This is Sergeant Knox,” I say. “I need to talk to the colonel.”

  The lieutenant is not impressed. “You know the chain of command, sergeant. Talk to your platoon leader, Lieutenant May.”

  “I would, except I’m on mission directly tasked by the Colonel. And if I don’t talk to him within the next sixty seconds, then I’m hanging up and heading back to post to discuss the matter with him, face to face.”

  I hear her mutter something about somebody being a brat nephew, and there’s a click, a pause, and another click. “Colonel Hunter,” a familiar voice comes on.

  “Sir, Sergeant Knox, at the Concord rail station. I’ve been contacted by a Specialist Coulson and—”

  “Yes, yes, I saw her this morning and presented her with a note to give you. Didn’t she do that?”

  “Yes, she did, sir, but I wanted to ensure that—”

  “I’ve authorized her to do so. What’s the problem?”

  “Sir, you’re asking me to escort the . . .”

  “Open line,” he cautions, and I continue, “. . . the gentleman in question, and now you’re asking me to escort two more individuals.”

  “Those other individuals are your age or younger. Are you telling me, sergeant, that you can’t handle that?”

  “Well, I—”

  “And another thing. It appears that a K-9 named Thor is absent without proper authorization. Do you know anything about that?”

  Quickly thinking, I whistle and hiss into the receiver. “Sorry, sir, it appears the phone line is breaking up . . . and it looks like the train is coming.”

  I hang up and smile down at Thor. “Just can’t stop getting in
to trouble, now, can we?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Back out into the main hall of the train station, I meet up with Specialist Coulson, who’s standing there with her brother, an irritated expression on her face. “Fine,” I say. “You’re with me.”

  “I told you,” she says.

  “So you did. Do you have your tickets?”

  “I do.”

  I look beside her. “Any luggage?”

  “No.”

  “Really?”

  “According to Amtrak, the trip should only take six or seven hours,” she says. “We don’t need luggage.”

  “Specialist . . . in a perfect world, the trip should only take six or seven hours. Look around. Are we living in a perfect world?”

  She looks up at the clock. “The train should be arriving shortly, sergeant. I don’t think we have time for a philosophical discussion.”

  Again, edging that close to insubordination, but I don’t have the energy to fight with her. She was right again, it was almost time for the train. I look around the crowded hall once more and there he is, Mister Ezra Manson, representative to the Governor of New Hampshire, striding our way. He’s carrying a soft light brown leather suitcase in one hand, and a dark leather dispatch case in the other, wearing the same suit from the day before. As he gets closer, I see the dispatch case has a chain running from it, up to his wrist. Gee, just like the old films I’ve seen on movie night.

  “Sergeant,” Manson says, coming up to me. “Glad to see you’re on time.” He sees Specialist Coulson and her brother. “Are this boy and girl from your oufit?”

  I say, “I don’t know where Specialist Coulson is stationed, and it appears her younger brother is not in the service. Beyond that, they are joining us on the trip to the capitol.”

  “Under whose authority?”

  “Colonel Hunter’s,” I say.

  He glances down at Thor. “Is this . . . dog also coming with us?”

  “That dog is my battle buddy,” I reply, “and yes, he is part of our group.”

  Manson shakes his head. “Being escorted by a boy and his dog. Not sure if your colonel has a very high regard for you, or a very low regard for me.”

  I gently tug Thor’s leash. “Perhaps it’s both, Mister Manson.”

  And I’m secretly pleased to see a smile on Serena’s face. She takes her brother’s hand and we walk out to the tracks, quickly passing through a security checkpoint of Amtrak cops and Concord cops.

  The train is late, which isn’t a surprise. I join the cluster of passengers and I’m pleased to see the squad of Marines I had seen earlier bunching up, like they were going on our train. That’s good. I felt naked out in the open without back-up and without my M-10, and I’m glad to be traveling with the few and the proud. Manson is talking to a couple of men his age in suits by a wooden bench, and Serena is standing still with her brother by a concrete pillar holding up the overhead wooden roof, and there’s a large framed poster behind them. The poster is in a stylized art deco style, showing drawings of the three different types of Creeper exoskeletons, with lots of red and black. The lettering says:

  KNOW YOUR ENEMY

  Contact your local police force or military unit if you observe the following:

  Unexplained wildfires

  Burnt bodies

  Burnt structures

  Nighttime ‘clicking’ sounds

  Recently made trails in wilderness areas

  Strong odor of cinnamon

  Creepers Can Only Win If We Let Them!

  There’s another poster nearby, written and printed in the same style. It shows a stylized city, with a thick orange line coming down from the Creeper’s orbital station. The buildings are burning. Underneath, in big black bold letters:

  10/10 Never Again!

  Maybe so, if the news was right about the Air Force doing their job.

  But in my corner of the world, the war was still going on.

  Wonder if I should complain to anybody.

  I go to Serena and say, “So, what’s your specialty, Coulson?”

  “Special Projects,” she says.

  “Where are you stationed?”

  “Maine,” she says.

  “Where in Maine?”

  “Sorry, sergeant, I can’t say.”

  “OPSEC? Really?”

  She nods. “Really.”

  I look to her brother. “What do you say, pal? Is your sister telling the truth?”

  He stares at me with distaste, like I was getting close to spitting on his shiny suit or something. His sister looks at me with an equally distasteful look and says, “Sorry, sergeant. Buddy can’t talk.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Does it make any difference?”

  “I thought his name was Robert.”

  “Buddy is his nickname. And he’s a disabled vet.”

  I say, “Sorry to hear that. Creeper attack?”

  She shakes her head. “No, it was duty-related.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Can you tell me his duty, or is that classified as well?”

  She puts a protective hand on his shoulder. “He was in Intel, in the Obs Corps. For two years.”

  I stare at the young boy, not believing what I had just heard. To serve six months in the Observation Corps was a standard deployment. A year was stretching it . . .. Two years? I look at his eyes again, see something I hadn’t noted before: they were the eyes of an old man, a man who had suffered and toiled so very much. To be in the Observation Corps means working with a telescope with a motor drive, so you’re watching one piece of night sky for long hours, keeping watch on the stars and the floating debris. The point is to track the killer stealth satellites. Even if they’re invisible to radar or other means of observation, they can still block—or occulate—a star as they move in orbit. What an Observation Corps member does is to keep view on that assigned stretch of the night sky, and call out if he or she sees something pass by a star, making it “wink.” Another observer with an accurate timepiece then notes the time and the name of the star that was occulated, and keyed in with other observers, over the years, the orbits and positions of the killer stealth satellites can be tracked.

  It’s exhausting, grueling, mind-numbing work. No wonder Buddy doesn’t talk.

  I say, “Can he take care of himself?”

  A bit defensively, Serena says, “Yes. He can eat, wash, dress and go to the bathroom. But he doesn’t talk. He listens, but . . . look, here’s the train.”

  There’s the mournful howl of a train whistle and I look up the tracks. A steam train is moving along stately, smoke and steam trailing behind, and it passes by and then slowly grinds to a halt. The locomotive is old, of course, and there’s a yellow and blue sign painted on the side: SPONSORED BY WAL-MART, AS TOGETHER WE REBUILD AMERICA. The passenger cars are a different mix, all painted roughly with the blue and white Amtrak color scheme, but underneath the paint job other names are visible: Conway Scenic Railway, Kennebunkport Trolley Museum, New York MTA. Since the war started there was a scramble to get passenger cars from all across the nation, even if it meant raiding train museums and short-line excursion railways for tourists.

  As one the group of passengers moves onto the train. Coulson and Buddy are in front of me, and Manson catches up. “So how did those two get to join us, sergeant?”

  “Colonel’s orders.”

  “Why?”

  “Ask him, sir, if you’d like to know more.”

  “Doubtful,” he says. I give him a closer look and feel a shock of recognition. His eyes seem almost as tired as young Buddy Coulson’s, and I recall what my uncle had said. It was civilians like him that kept things going, so we weren’t being ruled by kings or warlords. For the briefest of moments I feel glad to be with him.

  But I’m sure the feeling wouldn’t last.

  A conductor wearing an Amtrak jacket with patches on the elbows directs us to our car, and after putting my assault pack in an overhead bin, and helping Manson wi
th his luggage, we sit down. Manson and Buddy sit on one seat, and Coulson and I sit across from them, Serena putting her large black purse in her lap. Thor sniffs around and rolls and sits down on the wooden floor. Manson frowns and crosses his legs, and Buddy looks down at my dog. For a moment I almost believe he smiles.

  We wait some more and I look out the near window. There are only a few people left on the platform, and—

  Someone approaches from the inside of the train station, pushing a bicycle at her side.

  Corporal Abby Monroe.

  She’s looking around at the few people left on the platform, looks to the train.

  There’s a thump and a bellow of steam as we start moving out.

  Abby keeps looking.

  I fumble with the window.

  It won’t move.

  It’s stuck.

  I bang at the window with my fist, and Abby’s head spins about, looking right at me, and I raise my hand.

  She raises a hand, smiles.

  Then she blows me a kiss.

  I’m torn. I want to throw her a kiss back but I know Coulson and Manson are looking at me.

  Then it’s too late. The train has left the station, and Abby has faded from view.

  I sit back down.

  An Excerpt From the Journal of Randall Knox

  Date night with Abby. Off to the 89 Café. It took a while to set up a date, with our conflicting training and deployment schedules. Plus we need to be discreet. Dating is forbidden between different rank structures, i.e., enlisted boys or girls can’t date NCO’s, NCO’s can’t date officers. It’s officially discouraged among platoon members, but again, if one is discreet, the officers tend to look the other way.

  Which is why I took Abby to the 89 Café. There are a couple of joints within walking distance of the post but too many of our fellow troopers go to them. So Abby managed to borrow a bike for me from the Motor Pool—saying she was taking it out for a test spin, hah hah hah—and dressed in civvies, we left Ft. St. Paul for a half-hour ride out to the café. A pleasant night, not even dusk yet, and we rode at a steady pace over cracked pavement where we could chat about post gossip, the lousy food in the dining hall, our last Creeper hunt, and the customary chit-chat between soldiers and friends. Under our civvies—we’re both wearing windbreakers, slacks and T-shirts, clean but nothing too fancy—are holstered Beretta 9 mm automatics.