They are the last of the main column after Bowman took the rest of the platoon east to divert the Mad Dogs: McGraw, Mooney, Wyatt and the scientist, Dr. Petrova.

They march in single file close to the buildings, staying in the shadows. With each step, the gunfire and shouting recedes further behind them until they can see the greenery of Central Park beckoning to them and promising sanctuary.

More than once, they have had to hide to avoid bands of Maddies, all heading south towards the shooting.

A metal garbage can rolls into view from behind the next corner, trailing garbage, and comes to a halt in the gutter. Slimy rats pour out of it, scrambling for cover.

Petrova groans with revulsion, her nails digging into Mooney's arm. She has faced every horror without faltering but his arm, the usual target of her channeled hysteria, is now covered with scratches and bruises.

Mooney accepts the abuse without complaint. He likes the attractive scientist, but that is only part of it. The pain keeps him from screaming in fear and revulsion and grief himself.

McGraw has called a security halt. Chewing on his handlebar mustache, his eyes wide behind his tinted sungla.s.ses, he signals that he wants Mooney and Wyatt front and center.

Mooney gestures at Petrova, but the Sergeant does not care. There is n.o.body else. The last time they ran into a mob of infected, Carrillo, Finnegan, Ratliff, Rollins, Eckhardt and Sherman were cut off, climbed into the bed of a pickup truck and made a stand.

And now they are dead. They know this because they had to come back for the radio and found their bodies scattered like mangled, discarded puppets.

Wyatt offers Mooney one of his gimpy grins, making his big gla.s.ses crooked, and then winks. Mooney nods, wearing an expression of hopeful sadness. They've brought each other luck so far. They can't die now.

McGraw punches the air, pointing.

Prepare for action.

Mooney and Wyatt creep up to the corner, weapons held ready to shoot. Other than two charred, burned-out police cars at an abandoned checkpoint, the street appears empty. Perhaps the garbage can just fell over. It happens.

He is about to signal that the area is clear. Then he sees movement.

It is a dog. A pack of them. Filthy, feral dogs, feasting on a child. "Hey!" he says.

Wyatt hisses at him to shut up, but he cannot stand the sight of that boy being eaten.

"Git!"

One of the dogs slouches closer, its lips peeled back and its ears flat, snarling in defense of its meat.

Mooney looks down at his bayonet. He is not allowed to shoot unless it is a matter of life and death; otherwise, it is the bayonet. But he does not want to get into a knife fight with a pack of feral dogs carrying G.o.d knows what diseases.

He picks up a beer bottle off the ground and throws it at the dogs, who scatter with snarls and yelps, licking their b.l.o.o.d.y chops.

"Dude, check it out," Wyatt says. "Hajjis on our three."

Four teenage boys stand across the street, wearing dirty hoodies and looking at them.

Wyatt adds, "You think they're infected?"

Mooney shakes his head, unsure. He raises his hand and waves.

The boys exchange a glance. One waves back.

"I don't think so, Joel."

The boys start walking towards them, glancing both ways, out of habit, before crossing the street.

They are holding baseball bats, but of course they would be armed. It would be madness to go outside without some type of protection. But Mooney is not in the mood to take chances anymore.

"That's close enough," his says, raising his carbine.

The boys stop in the middle of the street, their eyes vacant, and exchange a long, meaningful glance. They turn back to the soldiers. One of them grins.

As he grins, saliva leaks down his chin. He is infected, but has not turned yet.

They suddenly sprint forward, swinging their bats.

"Stop or I swear to G.o.d I'll shoot you dead," Mooney says.

One of the boys runs clumsily into Wyatt's bayonet, spearing himself, while another hits him in the arm with a bat, hard enough to make him drop his carbine. They close to grapple. Moody swings his own carbine to slash at the other two boys with his bayonet, but they dodge out of reach and pause, their mouths open and laughing soundlessly.

One breaks left and the other right- McGraw's shotgun discharges with a deafening bang, killing one of them instantly. The two survivors flee, leaving one dead and the other trying to pull his bleeding body across the street, keening in his death throes.

"Finish him quick, Mooney," McGraw says. "Count your coup."

"Roger that, Sergeant."

If the blast did not bring Maddy running, the kid's grating death wail will. It is best to finish him quick. Mooney takes a deep breath, raises his carbine with the bayonet pointing down, and brings it down into the boy's back.

The knife pierces the boy's body clean through, impacting the street below with a jolt that resonates up Mooney's arms and neck. For several moments, the boy writhes under the bayonet like a fly pinned to a wall. Then he falls still, bleeding out onto the asphalt.

"Dead now, Sergeant," Mooney says.

"Then let's go," the Sergeant says.

Mooney pulls his bayonet free and stands over the corpse, exhausted. He notices Petrova staring at him, wide-eyed with horror.

"I had no choice," he says weakly.

"Your eyes," she whispers.

Mooney blinks. What does she see?

"Are you wounded, Private?" McGraw asks Wyatt.

Wyatt, standing aside with his hands jammed in his armpits, wags his head, looking pale and tired.

"I'm good, Sarge," he says. Wincing, he bends to pick up his carbine.

"What's wrong with my eyes?" Mooney demands.

But Petrova is not paying attention to him. She is looking up at the pale gray sky.

He follows her gaze and senses the change in atmosphere. Then he hears the sound coming from the southeast: the thunder of rotors. It rapidly grows in volume until three CH-47 helicopters roar over nearby rooftops at more than a hundred fifty miles per hour, red lights blinking on their bellies.

"Get on the horn with those Chinooks and tell them we're coming," McGraw shouts at Mooney, who has been carrying the SINCGAR since Jake Sherman died. "Tell them to hover at the rendezvous point until we reestablish radio contact!"

Mooney begins chanting into the radio, trying to contact the pilots.

Roger, War Dogs Two-One. We copy.

"I've made contact," he tells the others.

The group lets out a ragged cheer. Only Wyatt looks sour, staring after the disappearing helicopters glumly and muttering something to himself.

"You see that, Joel?" he adds. "We might just make it."

Seeing those ma.s.sive birds cross the sky was one of the most beautiful things that Mooney has ever seen.

He feels like he will be home again soon, wherever that may be.

The opposite direction

McLeod opens his eyes and slowly extricates himself from the cab's backseat, his face sticky with drying blood and his ears ringing at a deafening volume.

He stands and takes a deep breath.

The sky spins, filled with the distant echo of gunfire.

He falls to his knees, vomiting messily onto the b.l.o.o.d.y ground. Somebody hands him a canteen and he drinks greedily, spits.

"How," he says, and groans at the pain in his head.

The street has been turned into a nightmare landscape made up of hills of dead people and body parts and lakes of blood. Here and there, a wounded Maddy writhes on the ground, eyes and mouth gaping like a fish out of water. Civilians from nearby buildings silently pick at the dead, scavenging. The women mourn the soldiers, weeping as they search the bodies for food, blood splashed up to their elbows. The men pick up the carbines and look wistfully toward the sounds of shooting to the north. Everybody is pale with wide, panicked eyes; several people have paused in their work to vomit against a nearby wall.

McLeod shrugs off the hands trying to help him up and staggers to the place where he last saw Ruiz. His feet squish in boots filled with warm blood. He can't find the man's remains but knows he is there, buried in the scattered human wreckage.

"Sergeant?" he says, and breaks down coughing, his throat hoa.r.s.e and sore.

Wait, he tells himself. The world does not know how to mind its own business. There are people out there who are going to try to stop you. You must be ready to fight.

He bends to pick up a carbine and pistol, load his pockets with ammo, and scavenge a few MREs and a canteen.

"Did I do right?" he says.

He bends over and coughs, spitting repeatedly.

"Did I do right by you then, Sergeant?"

The civilians gather around him as he starts moving in the opposite direction of the sounds of gunfire. They step out of his way and touch him lightly as he pa.s.ses. Behind him, a woman sobs quietly.

He pauses long enough to touch his heart and say quietly to himself, "Shookran, Sergeant," then continues on his way.

He will break into a music shop and play every instrument. He will set up house in the New York Public Library and read every one of its books. Life is short, and this is the greatest city in the world, filled with treasures.

From now on, he vows, n.o.body will ever tell him what to do again.

You made it this far for a reason

Mooney's heart pounds as the double-prop Chinooks land in Sheep Meadow, the thirty-foot-long propeller blades savagely chopping the chilly air during their descent and sending waves of swirling dust and slivers of gra.s.s roaring across the field.

Each of these twelve-ton machines is nearly one hundred feet long and can transport more than fifty soldiers. Today, they will take on only four new pa.s.sengers.

Next to him, Dr. Petrova is crying.

"We played here," she says, feebly gesturing at the field. "All of us." He can barely hear her. The noise is incredible.

"That was my spot, under that tree," the scientist adds.

The loading ramps at the rear of the helicopters' fuselages drop, unloading Special Forces fireteams that fan out and establish security. Several start shooting at distant targets, dropping the first Maddies attracted to the heavy thumping of the rotors.

One of the soldiers stands and waves.

"That's our cue," McGraw shouts. "Let's go!"

The wind blast is strong, tugging at their uniforms and making them cough on the waves of dust. Mooney takes Petrova's hand to steady her as they half run, half limp to safety.

"We're almost there," he tells her, unable to believe they are going to make it.

The woman is pale and weak, murmuring to herself.

But this was his home, she says.

"Whose home?" he asks. "Keep moving, Ma'am!"

We ate ice cream last summer.