"Affirmative. Turn onto Second Avenue, out."

A moment later, Ruiz gets back on the commo.

"War Dogs Two-Six, this is War Dogs Two-Three. You better get up here, over."

I see them. On my way, out.

The intersection of Forty-Second Street and Second Avenue is dense with people fighting each other around a line of cop cars set up to block off access to Forty-Second. Several food delivery trucks are parked beyond, half unloaded.

There appears to be a pitched battle in progress.

Not here to reenact My Lai or Custer's Last Stand

The LT has called together the NCOs into a close huddle and tells them the situation on the ground has changed and as a result there is a new OpOrder for the unit. He speaks quickly, as the unit's presence has begun to attract the attention of desperate civilians in the area and the platoon needs to get back on the move fast. The people stand as close to the platoon and its umbrella of protective firepower as possible, wringing their hands and begging for help, while Third Squad holds them at bay.

"I can't contact Captain West," he says. "We appear to be on our own."

The non-coms glance at each other.

"Think we should take another route and go around?" says McGraw.

"Negative. We already tried that. We're now on Third Avenue and out of time. We pushed our luck as it is. I think this is like Iraq where the bad guys sleep from four to eight and then the bullets start flying. This city is waking up and it is like an ocean rising under our feet. We're just going to have to push through or we could be overrun before we reach our objective."

"Roger that, sir," the NCOs tell him.

They know as much as he does because he told them about Private Richard Boyd, the soldier who was bitten by a Mad Dog and within hours turned into a Mad Dog. The soldier who made him aware that the rules of the game had changed.

The infection is spreading at an exponential rate.

The Army gave him a big hint that this was happening with the bizarrely aggressive ROE. New York gave him a big hint with all the gunfire indicating flashpoints of Mad Dogs attacking Army and police units. And the Mad Dogs themselves gave a big hint when they began showing up everywhere in force.

But he knows they are spreading infection through their bites and spreading rapidly because PFC Richard Boyd went AWOL in an almost perfect state of health and several hours later turned up bitten and a Mad Dog.

Every hour, there are more infected and fewer of everybody else. At some point, it could be hours, tomorrow or the next day, the streets of New York will likely become too dangerous to walk even for a platoon of U.S. infantry armed to the teeth.

There isn't a military on the planet that has the force to meet this threat. Infection will keep spreading and spreading until there is simply n.o.body around to bite.

It's a simple numbers game.

"Stand back," Hawkeye says to the civilians.

"As you can see-" Bowman pauses as a civilian runs by, emptying a .38 at a pursuing Mad Dog and missing except for the last shot, which topples his a.s.sailant. The man continues on, stumbling and crying, unaware that he now has a dozen rifles trained on him. "We are facing a major open danger area ahead. The government is distributing food, and some type of riot appears to be in progress, which we are not going to try to suppress or we'll end up with another bloodbath on our hands. Understood? Speed is going to be our ally. We will cross the intersection in a platoon V formation, with each squad acting independently once we enter the open danger area. Any questions?"

"Satisfactory, sir," says Ruiz.

"Stand back, Ma'am," says Hawkeye.

"The rally point is the other side, if clear, or the Company HQ, if not. The squads getting across first will set up a defensive line until the platoon is reunited. Lewis, you will take the left. Ruiz, you will be going up the middle with HQ and Weapons Squad; I want good security for our gun team as they're going to be useless in this fight but I have a feeling we're going to need their services later. Okay? McGraw, you've got the right."

"Yes, sir," McGraw says.

"Stand back, I said!" Hawkeye barks at the crowd.

"One last thing, gentlemen," Bowman says. "We're not here to reenact My Lai or Custer's Last Stand. Regardless of what you see happening, our mission is to rejoin the Company with as few bullets and bodies as possible. That is our mission. Understood?"

"Hooah, sir," they say.

"Step off as soon-"

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing?"

The civilians scatter as two men and a bald woman, drooling and gurgling, step forward and latch onto Hawkeye's limbs, pulling at them with their full strength. In an instant, he is shrieking and flailing.

Ruiz fires his shotgun, deafening all of them, knocking both of the men to the ground. The woman loses her balance and falls backward, then comes back snarling. Ruiz clubs her senseless with a single stroke of the b.u.t.t of his weapon.

Lewis helps Hawkeye back onto his feet. The other boys look at the bleeding and dying civilians, and then Ruiz, with something like awe.

"Did they bite you, Private?" the LT asks Hawkeye.

"You saw what they were doing, sir," Hawkeye says, barely concealing his irritation while he rubs his left arm. "They tried to pull my arms off. Hurt like h.e.l.l, too."

"I'm not making fun of you, Private. Did any of them bite you?"

"No, sir. n.o.body did."

Bowman nods to Ruiz, then says, "All right, back to your squads. Let's move while we still have the freedom to do so."

"Hooah," they shout.

The soldiers deploy as fast as they can through the wreckage of the abandoned vehicles choking Second Avenue, then Bowman gives them the order to step off.

Speed is a type of security. If they can move fast enough, they can punch their way through with minimal loss of life and ammunition.

People come running past them, screaming for their lives, hugging or dropping their food parcels. Some begin clinging to the soldiers, who shrug them off and keep moving while their sergeants howl at them to Go go go, cursing a blue streak.

"Stay close to me, boys," Bowman tells Martin and Boomer.

Nearby, a man has jumped into one of the abandoned cars and is trying to close the door while a Mad Dog slowly forces it open. One of the soldiers drops the Mad Dog with a single shot. Bowman shoulders his carbine and unholsters his nine-millimeter sidearm. A woman flies by on rollerblades, shouting, "Heads up! Coming through!"

The platoon wades into chaos.

Exactly what you were trying to avoid

Third Squad moves fast among the cars and approaches the intersection, which is a scene of chaos. There are people everywhere, many of them infected. Mad Dogs are fighting uninfected people, uninfected people are fighting each other around the food trucks. Nearby, incredibly, two New York City police officers have wrestled a Mad Dog to the ground and are trying to cuff him, while five feet away a man is beating a woman to death in a frenzy with a broken hairdryer. One of the officers is bleeding from bites on his arm. The police cars' lights strobe red and blue, sparkling in the soldiers' eyes.

Mounted above the chaos, the intersection's traffic signal mundanely turns from red to green as it is programmed to do.

The air crackles with small arms fire and several people collapse to the ground. Second Squad has entered the intersection and is plowing ahead, shooting anything that looks hostile. First Squad is bogged down by civilians clinging to them for protection, their formation broken, while McGraw lays about him with the b.u.t.t of his shotgun, trying to untangle his unit. The screaming is grating and endless, shredding their nerves.

"Get off me!" McLeod shouts, shoving his way through the civilians.

The infected appear to focus on whoever fired last, which is unnerving.

Hicks is crying as he bayonets a Mad Dog.

"Keep going!" he shouts.

"Don't make me shoot you!" McLeod is pleading, pus.h.i.+ng against a woman's back with the b.u.t.t of his SAW. She screams and drops a television set she's been carrying, which falls to the street with a crash.

People are running everywhere, but the soldiers are moving into the current, forming a dam, and then it's hand to hand.

Bowman fires his pistol into a snarling face, which disappears.

This is exactly what you were trying to avoid, he tells himself. "Reform!" he cries, but there are too many civilians in the way, drawn to the soldiers' uniforms like metal to magnets. The civilians hold onto the soldiers' rucksacks, which are already heavy, and slow them to a crawl.

Williams fires a series of warning shots into the air, without effect.

A taxi and a delivery truck are lurching along with the flow of people in fits and starts, the drivers leaning on their horns. A woman climbs onto the roof of the cab and lies down, hugging her child close. Across the street, a man is defending his family with a baseball bat. Behind him, the plate gla.s.s front of a convenience store shatters and people begin looting. Its owner comes stumbling out, his head split open and pouring blood. The police cars' strobing lights bathe the scene in a surreal glow.

The stink is incredible, the dense sour-milk stench of the infected. Then a wave of heat and thick, oily smoke descends upon them from a burning city bus down the street, choking them as it billows through the crowd until it suddenly lifts as fast as it had come.

"Go, go, go!"

Third Squad pa.s.ses a group of people, drunk and staggering along through the melee, laughing and shouting, "f.u.c.k it!" while working on popping the cork on a champagne bottle.

One of the revelers is shorn away and mauled to the asphalt.

The Lieutenant is panicking now, breathing hard, his vision shrinking to a box. He can't keep track of the blurred shapes around him anymore. The smoke falls upon them again like a wave, choking and blinding.

The last reveler throws the champagne bottle into the air, screaming, "I don't care!"

"Why aren't we moving?" Hicks is saying.

SPC Martin is wrestling with an uninfected man and teenage boy for possession of his machine gun. Next to him, the RTO is trading punches with a man twice his size. People are screaming and a civilian, his s.h.i.+rt off and leaking blood from his eyes and ears, begins shooting people randomly with a pistol.

Ruiz roars as a stray bullet takes off the top of the skull of a man who is running by, spraying him with blood and brains.

Two bullets rip into Sherman's radio pack, spinning him like a top.

The Newb grunts and falls to his knees.

"Sir, we can get through this," Kemper is shouting.

Bowman's field of view unfolds. His stress suddenly takes an entirely different and beneficial direction. Time dilates and he calmly, almost serenely, watches the horror unravel in slow motion, able to take in every detail.

His squad is still intact and they can get through this if they do whatever it takes. But if he chooses to live, life after today may not be worth living.

For some reason, at this instant, he remembers Winslow telling him, "Somebody has to survive, Lieutenant."

As Bowman did in the hospital, again, he makes his choice.

Loading a fresh clip, he quickly identifies the people bogging down his squad and shoots them one by one.

"Watch out, Mike," he says, and puts a round in a teenager's throat.

Slowly, the knot unravels and the squad is able to begin moving again. The people he shot were not infected.

"Coming through, sir," Kemper says.

He racks a round in his shotgun and blasts the crowd in front of the squad.

A hole is instantly created as people moan and fall in a tangled heap of limbs.

"All right, move out," Bowman roars.

A block past the intersection, they stop, reload and set up a defensive line, panting. A woman is shrieking at them to go back and HELP THESE PEOPLE, HELP THEM.

"Sergeant, keep those civilians back or consider them hostile," the LT says.

But Ruiz isn't listening. "Where's Johnston?" he demands.

Two of the boys hurry over, huffing, carrying The Newb on a makes.h.i.+ft stretcher.

"He's dead," Corporal Wheeler tells him, sounding dazed. "Got hit by a stray bullet. It looked like friendly fire to me, Sergeant. One of our own guys shot him."

Ruiz spits on the ground, purple with rage.

"Second Squad, probably," the Sergeant says. "They were shooting everything that moved back there. G.o.dd.a.m.nit. He was a good kid."

"Civilians, Sergeant," Bowman says quietly.

"I'm on it, sir," Ruiz tells him, glaring. "Wheeler, get his tags."