Tooth and Nail Read Free Page A

important. In fact, it is possibly the most important thing the Army has done since the founding of the Republic.
    We’ve got to see America through the Pandemic, he said.
    The boys glanced at each other in formation, exchanging quick, discrete grins. It was actually happening. They were finally going home.
    As Charlie Company boarded the planes, First Platoon found that Private Tyrone Botus, the kid everybody called Rook, had gone Elvis. He had ventured out near the quarantine tents to refill his squad’s canteens the night before. They couldn’t find him anywhere.

We have bayonets. That should make an impression
    Jake Sherman, the platoon’s radio/telephone operator, hands Lieutenant Bowman the handset attached to the SINCGAR radio pack on his back. “War Dogs Six on the net, LT,” he says, his mouth full of gum.
    War Dogs is Charlie Company’s call sign and War Dogs Six is the commander of Charlie Company, Captain West.
    “This is War Dogs Two actual,” Bowman says into the phone. “I send ‘Metallica,’ over.”
    This is War Dogs actual. I copy “Metallica.” Wait one, over. Um, roger that, over.
    “Request riot control gear, over.”
    Wait one, over. That’s a, uh, no go, over.
    “Request to be relieved by riot control units. How copy? Over.” That’s another no go, War Dogs Two. I’ve got nothing to send you. You’ll have to make do, over.
    The LT grinds his teeth and says, “Roger that, sir.”
    Hearts and minds, son. Good luck. Out.
    Bowman turns to face his squad leaders. His rifle platoon is divided into three rifle squads of nine men plus what’s left of Weapons Squad, decimated by Lyssa infection back in Iraq, leaving a single gun team. Each of the rifle squads, in turn, is led by a staff sergeant easy to pick out because, like Bowman, they are the only ones wearing patrol caps instead of Kevlar helmets. The men lean into the conference.
    To the east, across the river somewhere in Brooklyn, a splash of small arms fire.
    “Gentlemen, our position here is changing,” says the LT.
    The platoon occupied the block in front of the hospital, where the City parked a bus in front of the emergency room doors. Double strands of concertina wire were laid across both ends of the block, weighted down by sandbags, with nests for the platoon’s thirty-caliber machine gun. In the intersections beyond, concrete barriers blocked off the adjoining streets, but people simply drove around them using the sidewalks and abandoned their cars in the intersections. Beyond the roadblocks, the streets are jammed with cars in slowly moving traffic, drivers yelling at each other and leaning on their horns. Looking at the bumper-to-bumper traffic only a block away, you could almost believe things are still normal here. At least normal for New York.
    “Until now, our mission has been to protect the hospital and ensure the orderly flow of cases through the triage process,” Bowman adds. “Now the hospital is full up, as I’ve just informed Captain West using the mission code. This means the orderly flow of cases is about to hit a dam. We’re shutting off both entrances in thirty minutes.”
    “The good citizens of New York are not going to like that one bit,” Sergeant Ruiz points out. “Could get ugly fast.”
    “Any word on the non-lethals, sir?” asks Sergeant McGraw in his heavy South Carolina drawl.
    “The Captain says that’s a November Golf, Pete.”
    In other words, a “no go.”
    McGraw rubs his nose. With his barrel chest, handlebar mustache bristling on his upper lip, and heavily tattooed forearms, he has an intimidating appearance. When not soldiering, he is usually riding a Harley across the Bible Belt with his young biker girlfriend, hammering down on the big slab. “Kind of hard to do crowd control with what we got, LT,” he says. “We’re armed to the teeth and can’t use any of it. You know that.”
    “We have bayonets. That should make an impression. Hopefully, it will be