Villain (Gone 8)

The big problem as always was logistics, starting with the loading of live ordnance, thousands of tank rounds, hundreds of thousands of rounds of machine-gun and chain-gun ammunition, not to mention the issue of fuel. Then they would need to refuel en route, which meant sending fuel trucks, of which he had far too few. Moving at speed right down the interstates with no regard for traffic or road surfaces, and moving at tank speed—he had neither time nor enough flatbeds to truck the tanks to the scene—they could be in Vegas five hours after they set out. But even with top-priority, all-hands-on-deck measures it would be ten hours before they could start. Ten hours to prepare, five hours to drive, and it was now after three a.m. That would have them arriving in the city at sunset the next day.

And then?

His orders went no further than, “Engage enemy mutants and restore order.” Nuts! A tank brigade in the middle of an American city? He had seen the news; he knew Las Vegas was experiencing an emergency, but the solution to civil unrest was not supposed to be tanks, for God’s sake. These were not Special Forces; they weren’t even infantry, though they would have some foot soldiers with them. These soldiers were not trained for civil unrest. One modern ABCT could have taken on and defeated the entire German army of World War II. The destructive power was shocking. And he’d been assured he would have support from the air as well, though what in hell the Pentagon thought they could accomplish with F-18s over a major city was terrifying to contemplate.

He considered taking personal command of the operation, but this whole thing had career suicide written all over it. Congressional investigations, maybe even a court-martial. He had two experienced colonels he could task with the job, the OPFOR commander, Andrea Mataconis, who was a protégé, and the visiting unit

’s colonel, Frank “Frankenstein” Poole. The nickname came from the colonel’s unusually high forehead, and from junior officers who whispered that he was a monster if you pissed him off.

Fullalove summoned Poole, who arrived in crisp uniform and polished boots, his oblong face alight with excitement.

“Poole, I’m giving you this scratch brigade. You will take command and advance at speed to Las Vegas to deal with the . . . the situation.”

Poole was a gung-ho, hard-charging officer, but he wasn’t crazy, so he said, “General, I assume there will be written orders?”

Fullalove nodded, already imagining himself before a Senate investigating committee of smug, stupid senators. “I’m having them cut right now. But Frank, you’re going to have a lot of autonomy on this. We don’t exactly have battle plans for this sort of thing. You’ll develop rules of engagement as we get new info.”

“Understood, sir.”

Frankenstein Poole received his written orders—vague and clearly rushed—and practically levitated down the steps to his waiting staff car. He’d served fifteen years and had yet to fire a shot in anger. Now he was to ride into Vegas like George freaking Patton, with every camera on earth watching.

“Hell, yeah,” he said, and laughed.

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department had 2,600 sworn police officers. The casinos hired many times that number of security officers of varying levels of professionalism. All wore uniforms.

The first police officer to die at the hands of Dillon’s slave army was officer Carla Sanchez, exhausted from the already bloody day. She and her partner had pulled into a 7-Eleven to get coffee when a half dozen civilians charged them and beat her to the ground before she could draw her weapon. Her partner fired off a full clip of 9-millimeter, killing two and wounding one, before the rushing mob swept over him as well, oblivious to the danger.

Officer Sanchez’s last conscious thought was that it was strange, very, very strange, to die from tire-iron blows delivered by a middle-aged woman who kept apologizing.

Nevada State Troopers rushed to the city. Cops and EMTs and firefighters from towns and cities as far away as Bakersfield were on the way, but blocked by panicky people who jammed all lanes of traffic on both sides of every road. Vegas was doing its best to empty out, but with a population of six hundred thousand, not to mention at least a hundred thousand tourists, it would take hours. Days.

Meanwhile police and security were being rushed by mobs that could not be stopped by anything short of death. But the mobs also attacked and murdered shift workers at McDonald’s and In-N-Out, as well as doormen and valets, sanitation workers, and even cocktail waitresses and blackjack dealers.

It took four hours before the police chief realized that the mobs were focusing on uniforms. Any uniform. Mostly cops and guards, but when they couldn’t find anyone in those categories, the mob would pour into casinos and bite, beat, strangle, stab, and shoot anyone wearing what could be described as a uniform.

The PC ordered all police to remove their uniforms immediately, with the result that now there were cops in underwear who were safe from attack, but too disorganized to even begin to formulate a strategy. The PC did his best to alert the casino security teams, but communications were overwhelmed, and it wasn’t as if anyone was pausing to check their texts or emails.

By three a.m., Las Vegas was in lockdown. The casino doors were locked and barricaded with piles of slot machines. Guests still in the casinos were not allowed out, and no one but no one was getting in.

At least at first.

In the early morning hours the mob—now minus close to five hundred dead who lay scattered all up and down the Strip alongside hundreds of their victims—began to commandeer the early morning garbage trucks and used them to ram the doors of Treasure Island casino. The Venetian was already in flames; Treasure Island soon followed.

Tom Peaks had finished Drake’s half bottle of vodka. He stepped outside of Drake’s cave. Peaks did not have a weak stomach, but that place was the heart of evil, and he was sickened by it.

He fired up his phone. It was a risk, he knew it was a risk. He had swapped out SIM cards, but still, the US government had serious skills when it came to electronic surveillance.

But he needed contact with reality.

He tried to check his wife’s Facebook page. She’d shut it down. That hurt. It was not hard to guess at the social media abuse his poor wife had endured. God only knew what his kids were going through. He’d always taught them to be honest and straightforward, to stand up to bullies, but what was the honest and straightforward way to counter, Your dad is a monster! Or, Your dad killed people!

He considered taking his own life. Drake surely had a gun lying around. A knife or a razor would do the trick as well. Or he could just climb up this very hill, this pile of rocks, take a last look at the stars, and jump.

Then he came across Shade Darby’s uploaded video of the annihilation of the Ranch.

That brought some grim satisfaction. DiMarco must be crapping herself. But then, too, many people Peaks had worked with, had hired, had nurtured as employees, were dead. The Ranch—his creation—would never recover.

The US government was very far from finished, but they would not have their mutant army. They would not have cyborgs. They would have to prevail by more conventional means.