Apocalypse Dawn (37 page)

The corporal stepped back and waved Joey on.

Slipping the car’s transmission back into drive, Joey rolled forward. He couldn’t help looking around. Only a little farther on, MPs obviously had harsh words with two men in civilian clothing. The men had no clue about how to act with a sergeant giving orders. Some of the men who lived on base were husbands of military women. Having trouble with male spouses in a military family wasn’t new.

Around the comer, Joey spotted a woman almost freaking out as she talked to a two-man team of MPs. She gestured wildly and thrust a baby jumper out at the two soldiers.

“My baby!” the woman wailed through the open window of the car. “Please help me find my baby!”

Before he knew it, Joey’s foot pressed a little harder on the accelerator. His mom’s car clattered over the speed bumps. He made the next turn and pulled into the emergency services center.

Nearly twenty people stood outside the building, clustered around two jeeps full of MPs.

Renewed anxiety screamed to life inside Joey, breaking loose like a flood shredding a dam. He turned to Jenny. “Out. Hurry. I’ve got to find Chris.” There was no way Chris could be sleeping through everything that was going on.

A siren screamed only a few blocks over, followed immediately by a voice thundering over a PA system.

If he’s not asleep, I can calm him down, Joey told himself. He’ll only have been worried for a few minutes. As late as I am, he’s probably already with Mom. She wouldn’t leave him here in the middle of this.

Unless something had happened to his mom. Joey’s belly flipflopped like a bag full of snakes. He started shaking as he jogged toward the building’s entrance. Bile bit at the back of his throat with sour venom.

A soldier in uniform stood near the entrance. Tears showed on his cheeks despite the night’s shadows. “My son is missing. I left him here. I brought him here myself not two hours ago after I was called in. These people can’t just tell me he’s disappeared. That every child in this place has just disappeared. They can’t make me believe-“

No! Panic burst inside Joey. He stepped up his jog to an all-out run, catching jenny off guard and powering by her.

“Hey!” A soldier at the entrance grabbed for him.

Joey ducked, going under the soldier’s arm and skidding feet-first in a baseball slide. He rose in a bounce automatically when his feet touched the wall at the first hallway. He slapped the wall with his hands, powering himself forward again as the soldier came after him. Another MP reached for jenny, but she evaded the guy’s grasp with athletic ease and raced after Joey and the first MP.

Only a couple turns later, knowing the location of the nursery from past acquaintance with the building, Joey saw four women dressed in scrubs standing out in the hallway. The MP pounded after him, not gaining ground because Joey was so quick.

Holding up his ID to the women as they started to draw back, out of breath, Joey said, “I’m here for my brother. Chris Gander. My mother, Megan Gander, brought him here.”

The women stared at Joey, then looked at each other. They all looked shell-shocked.

One of the women, a matronly type with gray hair and bifocals, looked at Joey. The children aren’t here, son.”

“Fine,” Joey said, breathing rapidly. “I figured my mom would come get him before I could get here.” See? Everything’s fine. Chris is fine. Mom is fine.

But the woman’s look told Joey everything wasn’t fine. “What’s wrong?”

“Your mom didn’t come get your brother,” the woman said.

“What do you mean?”

“The children that were left here … they aren’t here anymore.”

Panic slammed into Joey. “Then where are they?’

Before the woman could answer, the MP dropped a hand on Joey’s shoulder and spun him into the nearest wall. Joey ducked his head back in time to keep his face from smacking the cinder block. The impact knocked some of the breath from his lungs. In the next instant, the MP had levered Joey’s right arm so far up between his shoulder blades that Joey felt certain his arm was going to pop out of its socket.

“I’ve got ID,” Joey said, his voice rising to a high pitch because of the excruciating pain. ‘It’s in my shirt pocket. I’m military. I’ve got a right to be here. I’m here to pick up my little brother.”

The MP leaned into Joey from behind, pinning him up against the wall. “We’re not letting people into the building. We’ve got this area sealed up.”

“Why?” Joey demanded.

Jenny came running up, only a couple strides in front of the MP chasing her.

“Orders,” the soldier snapped. “Ma’am, you stay right there, and I mean now.”

Looking confused and ticked off, Jenny froze. The other MP arrived and ordered her to turn and face the wall, then put a hand against her back to hold her in place.

“What’s going on?” Joey demanded. “You’ve got no right to do this.”

“I’ve got every right,” the MP retorted. “This base has been put on emergency alert. General’s orders.”

“I just came here to get my brother,” Joey said. “I want to see my brother.”

“What’s your brother’s name?” the matronly woman asked.

“Gander,” Joey replied. “Chris Gander. I’m his older brother, Joey. My mom had to have told you people I would be here after him.’

“She did. Corporal, could I see his ID?”

.Yes, ma’am,” the corporal said. He took Joey’s ID from his shirt pocket and passed it over.

The woman examined the documents. “Corporal, I’d appreciate it if you’d let this young man go.”

“Ma’am, this kid just broke through our cordon and I can’t just-“

“This kid,” the woman said in a stem voice, “is a kid. Maybe you need to keep that in mind. He’s already gotten through your cordon. I suggest that taking him into custody now isn’t going to remove the fact that the cordon was broken, or square things with your sergeant. Now is it?”

The MP was slow in answering. “No, ma’am.”

“And his father is First Sergeant Goose Gander,” the woman said. “Maybe you haven’t heard of Goose, but I can guarantee that he won’t enjoy hearing that his son was manhandled by one of his fellow Rangers while he was off in Turkey fighting for his life.”

The MP’s reply was grudging. “Probably not, ma’am.”

“Then let him go. I’ll vouch for him.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The reluctance in the corporal’s voice was evident, but he stepped back from Joey and released him.

“When I get through talking to him,” the woman said, “I’ll send him back out to you.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Joey moved back from the wall.

“Is this young lady with you?” the woman asked.

“Yes,” Joey answered.

“Is she part of the family?”

Under other circumstances, the question would have embarrassed Joey. All he could think about was Chris. Missing. The word hung in his screaming mind like a malignant growth.

“No,” Joey answered. “Not family.”

“I’m a friend of Joey’s,” Jenny answered.

The woman looked at the two MPs. “Then I’ll need her to stay here as well.”

The two MPs touched their hat brims and left. Joey figured they would give him some flack for making their jobs hard, but they didn’t. They almost looked sorry for him.

Joey turned to the woman. “Where is my brother? Where is Chris?”

The woman reached out and took his hands. “He’s gone, Joey. I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, but he’s gone.” Fresh tears spilled down her face. Her voice turned into a forced whisper as she continued speaking. “They’re-they’re all gone.”

Joey shook his head desperately. “You’re not making any sense. My mother called me. She said she left Chris here. With you people. Did she come get him?”

“No.” The woman’s voice was hoarse. “I pray to God that she had. That all the parents had. But they didn’t.”

“Then where is my brother?” Joey was almost yelling. Jenny put a hand on his arm and stood close at his side. Joey made himself calm down; he wasn’t calm, but he wasn’t yelling, even though he wanted to.

The woman’s voice wouldn’t come. Finally, she took Joey by the hand and led him into a nearby room. The room was filled with beds. A box of preschool toys sat against one wall.

As he entered the room, Joey noticed the empty children’s clothing that had been left in each bed. He remembered the woman in the minivan who had lost her daughter. A rush of pain and confusion spilled over inside him, rising with horrifying certainty . The most horrible sight Joey had ever seen waited in the bed the woman guided him to.

There, in the middle of the bedding, Chris’s favorite PJs were spread out. The little jammies looked exactly like the other stacks of clothing on the beds and in the cribs. Six or seven grief-stricken parents and family members stood inside the room.

“No!” The cry tore loose from Joey’s throat. Before he knew it, his legs went out from under him and he dropped to his knees. “No!”

The Mediterranean Sea

USS Wasp

Local Time 0851 Hours

So many people missing.

The reality of the situation thundered through Delroy Harte’s mind as he entered names on the report he was preparing for Captain Mark Falkirk. He entered name after name, finding time and again a familiar name. And the letter remained to be written for Chief Mellencamp. The knowledge lay like an iron anvil in his thoughts.

USS Wasp was, in effect, a ghost ship. Nearly a third of her crew had inexplicably vanished. Only empty uniforms and personal items were left behind by the people who had been on board a half an hour ago. With the absence of the Marine wing and groundpounders, Wasp seemed to echo hollowly, as if her heart and guts had been ripped from her. The reports from the other ships came through in much the same vein.

CNN and FOX News carried video footage and commentary from a small group of Romanian reporters that had been behind the lines at the TurkishSyrian border. However, the wisps of information and glimpses of what that area had become were maddening. Not enough information was being received to know what was truly going on over there, and more than enough was being seen to let every crewperson aboard Wasp know that the relief effort had failed, becoming a disaster that further weakened the positions of the Rangers, the U.N. peacekeeping teams, and the Turkish army.

“Chaplain Harte.”

Surprised, Delroy glanced up and found a young ensign standing in the doorway to his office. The Navy chaplain recognized the young man but hadn’t had many dealings with him. Most of the usual staff assigned to him had turned up among the missing. Given what he was beginning to suspect, he found that oddly reassuring and traumatic at the same time. The men who had served with him had been true believers in God, and their faith had been strong.

Stronger than mine, Delroy thought. And for the first time in a long time, he wished that Glenda were there with him. His wife always seemed to be the rock in their relationship. When he fought with his doubts and his fears, when he questioned his own faith in Godwhen the time came to bury Terry-she had stood resolute at his side and seen that things were taken care of.

Her ability to deal with everything through God’s grace or her own patience had finally made him see what a drain he was on her. When his pain over his son’s death wouldn’t go away, when he saw how his own inability to deal with the grief resonated within his wife, he had left Charlotte. He had used her like a crutch, demanding that she make sense of something that made no sense at all. He hadn’t been able to deal with his own weakness and his guilt over it.

“Yes, Ensign,” Delroy said.

The ensign held up a box. “This was left down in the medical department.”

Delroy looked at the box without comprehension.

“Chief Mellencamp’s personal property. Dr. Thomas asked me to bring this box to you.”

Delroy stood and took the box. During the confusion of the disappearances, he had forgotten about the chiefs personal effects. He had intended them to be shipped back with the letter he had yet to write.

“Thank you, Ensign.” Delroy hefted the box, surprised to find that so little remained of a man. But Terrence’s personal possessions, shipped back after his death, had been few as well. And after Josiah Harte’s death, not counting the house and the car and bank accounts and life insurance, not much had remained of his father either.

lust the memories, Delroy told himself. He only had to close his eyes to see his father pounding the pulpit in front of the congregation, or to take Terrence’s hand when he’d taught his son fishing. lust close your eyes and they’re right there. But when you open them. God, when you open them.

“Is there anything else I can do, Chaplain Harte?” the ensign asked. “Coffee, maybe? You look like you could use it.”

Delroy placed the box on the corner of his desk. Chief Mellencamp’s Bible lay on top of the small pile of family pictures, jewelry, and knickknacks the chief had picked up around the world that Delroy had felt his family would want.

“Coffee would be most welcome,” Delroy answered.

“I’ll get you some.”

Taking the Bible from the box, Delroy studied the simulated leather and gilt lettering. “A moment before you go, Ensign.”

“All right.”