Fire and Ash (Benny Imura 4)
Page 40
“What?”
“I kind of wish he was over at the airfield. Being the logistics guy, he’d have a notebook with every detail of every movement of every person, every box, every piece of pocket lint. Ortega was totally anal-retentive. He was always making notes about stuff and shoving them into his shirt. Added them to his duty log at the end of the day.”
“I also found one little notebook, but I don’t think it’s a duty log.” Benny handed it over.
Joe leafed through it and gave a dismissive grunt. “Reaper prayer book. Might be useful as toilet paper, that’s about it.”
“No,” said Benny, “look at the last page.”
Joe flipped it over and scanned the list, and his face made an ugly shape. “Oh . . . crap.”
“What’s it mean?”
Joe held out the book and pointed to the first lines.
CA/R 1: 4,522
Quad: 66
CA/R 2: 19,200
Quad: 452
“R stands for reaper. CA is California.”
“How do you know that?” asked Benny.
“Because there are abbreviations for Nevada and Wyoming, too. NV and WY.” Joe sighed. “These are head counts of reaper armies. Looks like there are two in California, one of 4,522 and a much bigger one of 19,200. Then you have 14,795 in Nevada, 2,375 in Utah, and 8,371 in Wyoming. You were asking about how many reapers there are. This is your answer.”
Benny did the math in his head. “That’s 49,263. Oh my God.”
“Yeah, well, we already knew we were in big trouble.”
“What are the rest of those numbers? The quads . . . those are how many bikes they have?”
“Yup, and the good news is that they don’t have a lot of them. Sixty-six for one group and only 452 for the big army.”
“That’s good news?”
Joe sighed. “Actually, come to think of it, it’s not. Saint John is probably using quads to pull equipment and food wagons, but push comes to shove, he’ll detach those and use the quads like light cavalry.”
Benny had hoped this stuff might help Joe find the D-series notes, but instead it was quickly crushing Benny’s own optimism. He almost didn’t give the ranger the last piece.
“I also found this,” he said reluctantly. “It’s a handwritten note, and I think it’s from Dr. McReady.”
Joe read the note.
Mutations reported in California.
This needs to be checked out.
Field Team Five?
“What’s it mean?” asked Benny.
The ranger gave him a brief, bleak stare. “It means that we have more questions than answers.” Joe clicked his tongue for Grimm, who lumbered to his feet. “Listen, kid, I want to go show this to Colonel Reid. Maybe she can make something out of it.”
“Who?”