The bloodstain begins five feet from them and ends at a pair of doors twenty feet distant. The blood is smeared, as if somebody dragged a mop soaked with blood through the doors.

"You gotta be kidding," Mooney says as Wyatt approaches the doors.

They should be getting back. If Third Squad's engaged outside, McGraw's probably mustering the squad. Right about now, he is working himself into a blind rage looking for his AWOL riflemen, chewing his ma.s.sive handlebar mustache and grinding the molars in that big square jaw of his.

Mooney also has no interest in seeing what's on the other side of those doors. What did that guy say?

Awful, he said. It sounded awful. Like an animal being slaughtered. "We'd better go back," Mooney says. "McGraw's gonna kill us." Wyatt grins. "I'll just take a quick look. Dude, this place is like a haunted house. Wouldn't it be cool if there were zombies on the other side of these doors?"

He presses a b.u.t.ton on the wall with the palm of his hand. The doors swing open automatically.

Clear the f.u.c.king net

Jake Sherman, the platoon radio/telephone operator, sits in a janitor's closet with his feet up on a box containing cheap toilet paper, eating a packet of instant coffee mixed with hot chocolate powder and was.h.i.+ng it down with Red Bull while listening to the traffic on the military nets. He started mainlining caffeine after too many sleepless nights in Iraq, and hasn't yet kicked the habit of getting completely wired while on duty.

Blackhawk flight, this is War Pig Three directly below you, what's your call sign?

War Pig Three, this is Red Baron Two.

Red Baron Two, request flyover east of us, about three blocks. We hear a high noise level in that direction, possibly a firefight in progress. What is happening at that location? Confirm, over.

Wait, over. . . . War Pig Three, we see multiple, uh, estimate fifty, civilians at an intersection three blocks north and two blocks east of you. Break. Riot in progress. Break. Some are armed. Break. They appear to be fighting each other. Over.

Roger that and thanks for the eyes, Red Baron Two. Out.

Then the excitement is over and the company's voice traffic quickly returns to the ongoing rhythm of units talking to each other in the night about location, condition, supply and all the other mundane communications required to keep two infantry brigades functioning on the ground in New York. Sherman switches from the company to the battalion net and listens in on the chatter. War Pig (Delta Company) continues to collect and pa.s.s around intelligence about the riot. War Hammer (Alpha Company) is requesting a medevac for a grenadier who got his ear bitten off by a Lyssa victim. Warmonger (Bravo Company) is asking the last calling station to authenticate its ident.i.ty.

He switches to civilian traffic, looking for more information about the riot. The authorities provided more frequencies than normally needed based on the extreme nature of the epidemic, and he has access to everything. The police are aware of the riot but cannot sc.r.a.pe together enough manpower to do anything about it. A fire is also raging in a warehouse in Queens but there are not enough firefighters to respond to the call. Police units are overwhelmed with domestic disturbance calls and looting. Violence is reported inside Lyssa clinics and one of them has apparently been firebombed with Molotov c.o.c.ktails. Despite several major arteries in the City being blocked off for official vehicles only, traffic has virtually ground to a standstill almost everywhere.

Sherman laughs to himself: The voices on the SINCGAR, while edgy and tense, could still make the Apocalypse sound like just another logistical foul-up. Glancing at his watch, he switches back to the company frequency for a commo check. He hears: War Dogs Two, War Dogs Two, this is War Dogs, how copy, over? Sherman recognizes the man's voice at the other end. It's Doug Price, Captain West's RTO. He fires back, chewing on hot chocolate powder: "War Dogs, this is War Dogs Two, I copy, over."

War Dogs Two, message follows, over.

He takes out a small notepad and pencil.

"Roger that. Send message, over."

War Dogs Two, I send "Nirv-"

Sherman can't hear for a moment; men are shouting in the background and it sounds like somebody is shooting a rifle.

"Negative contact, War Dogs. Say again, over."

I send "Nirvana." How copy? Over.

"That's a good copy, War Dogs; I copy *Nirvana.' Wait one, over." He looks up "Nirvana" on his code card, his cheat sheet for routine communications requiring encoding, but it's not there. He digs out his mission code book and looks up the term.

It means: "Unit is under attack."

Sherman coughs on hot chocolate powder. He takes another swig of Red Bull to clear his throat and lights a cigarette, thinking for a moment. Who would be stupid enough to attack a platoon of heavily armed U.S. infantry in Manhattan in the middle of the night? But there it is: an authentic message from the company commander, announcing that the company HQ and First Platoon is under attack.

He says, "Roger, War Dogs."

War Dogs Two, this is War Dogs, second message follows, over. "Standing by to copy, over."

I send "Motorhead Slayer November Sierra Oscar November," over. "War Dogs, I copy *Motorhead Slayer November Sierra Oscar November,'" Sherman says, scribbling the message in his notepad. "Wait one, over."

He looks up the code, translating: "Rendezvous at our location at ohseven-thirty."

LT needs to hear this message right away.

"Roger that, War Dogs. Stand by. Wait, out."

Jake? Jake, are you there?

Sherman tenses for a moment, unsure how to answer this breach of protocol. Finally, he says, "Yeah, I'm here, Doug."

Be careful coming over here, okay? There are thousands of them. "Thousands of who?"

Somebody lied to us, Jake.

The radio screeches, making him flinch.

War Dogs, this is Quarantine. Clear the f.u.c.king net.

A place we can hold up while the world ends

"That's it," says Susan, pointing at one of several rundown-looking prewar apartment buildings across the street. "Home."

"Don't worry," says Boyd, trying to put on a brave face.

He cannot understand why he is so scared. He's a soldier. He has seen men die. He's even killed some himself. Well, at least the one that he is sure about. He has a locked and loaded carbine and should not be afraid of one homicidal but weaponless guy tearing apart some crummy New York apartment.

And yet he's so scared he can barely think straight.

They enter the building, and Susan points up.

"Fourth floor."

They walk up the stairs slowly, quietly, Boyd first, holding his carbine, Susan hugging the wall behind him, clearly terrified.

On the second floor, Boyd flinches as he hears screams behind one of the doors. A woman's voice pleads with somebody named John not to hurt her. The screams become high-pitched until they dissolve into sounds of furniture being tossed aside and an ensuing struggle on the floor and a long, shrill peal of terror.

Then silence.

Boyd swallows hard and turns to Susan, sees tears running down her face.

"I know that woman," she says. "I know her and her husband."

"Can you go on?"

"They have a baby."

"I don't know what to do. I don't think there's anything we can do."

"I'm so sorry, Rick."

"You're a brave girl."

He feels very close to her now.

I could fall in love with this girl, he thinks.

"Don't give up yet," he adds.

She nods, visibly trembling, and they continue their climb. On the third floor, he hears an ominous gurgling growl behind one of the doors, the sound of pacing feet, reminding Boyd of an animal in a cage.

The wall vibrates from an impact.

"Let me call home first," she says. "See if anybody answers. Okay?"

"All right," he tells her, thankful for the break in the tension.

Susan takes out her cell phone and calls the number, but hangs up after a few seconds.

"Nothing," she says, paling.

He wants to comfort her, but can only nod and glance up at the ceiling. They climb the next set of stairs. She points to a door and says, "This is it right here."

Boyd wipes sweat from his eyes, blinks, nods, steadies his carbine against his shoulder. "Let's do this," he says.

He hears a door open behind him. Before he can turn, something heavy cracks against his right leg, which gives out beneath him, forcing him onto his knee. Hands tug at his carbine. The barrel of a pistol is pushed roughly against the side of his head.

"Let go of it, man," he hears.

"Susan!" he cries, reaching out, but the girl flings herself into the arms of a tall, muscular boy. "I did it, baby," she says, kissing him pa.s.sionately. "I did it." Her boasting quickly turns into hysterical sobbing, her face buried against his chest. "I did it, you G.o.dd.a.m.n b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

The boy says to another holding a length of pipe, "She should never have had to go out there to do this."

"And yet she did, and she got back alive, and mission accomplished."

"She's a wreck, look at her. She could have died out there."

The whole thing was a setup, Boyd realizes. The cell phone call was the signal.

"Williams said your story was s.h.i.+t and that you were a junkie," he cuts in, blinking tears of shame and rage. "I should have listened to him."

"Junkie?" says the grinning boy holding the gun. "We're NYU students. I'm pre-med. Susan's a freaking philosophy major."

The boy with the pipe crouches and looks Boyd in the eye. "It's nothing personal, guy. I'm really sorry I had to hurt your leg. We just need your rifle and any ammo you got, then you can go home."

The boy with the pistol chimes in, "We need to cross over to Jersey tonight, and we got to have some weapons in case we have to fight our way through any drooling wackos. We grabbed this pistol off a dead cop. Then Bob and Susan cooked up this lunatic idea to get a couple of you guys out here and do a s.n.a.t.c.h-grab on your guns." He laughs crazily. "Seeing you actually here in the flesh, I can't believe it worked. It was a stupid plan."

Glaring, Boyd asks, "What's in New Jersey?"

"A place we can hold up while the world ends."

"The world's not ending."

"Are you blind? Did you not see what's going on out there, friend?"

"I'm not your friend," Boyd seethes.

The jock holding Susan says, "You know, you could always come with us." His friends try to shout him down, but he presses on: "We got your rifle but we don't even know how to use it right. We need a guy like you with us. I almost had a heart attack when we mugged you. But you have experience with this sort of thing. What do you say?"

The others look at him expectantly.

Fifteen minutes later, Boyd limps briskly down the street, wincing at the jolt of pain lancing through his leg with each step.

He is alone.

Those crazy dumb kids won't make it to New Jersey, he thinks. They're not going anywhere. Weapon or no weapon, if it's going to get as bad as they say it will, they're going to die.

He sees a body lying face down in the middle of the street, twitching, and gives it a wide berth.

After everything he has seen and heard tonight, the safest place to be is smack in the middle of Charlie Company's Second Platoon, with natural born killers like Hicks and Ruiz watching his back. He would rather be with them, with Ruiz kicking his a.s.s black and blue for going over the hill and losing his M4, than take his chances with a bunch of gun-slinging, middle-cla.s.s, smart-a.s.s college kids.

Another three blocks and he'll be home.

He tries again to think up some good excuse for abandoning his post and losing his weapon and ammo, but his tired brain still isn't giving him anything. An infantryman losing his rifle is like a Samurai losing his sword. He is never going to live this down.

He hears gurgling in the dark. He turns, seeking refuge, a place to hide, but nothing is in easy reach. Down the street, two dark figures are moving towards him at a loping gait. He quickens his pace, but the pain in his leg flares until he sees stars. The figures have already drawn closer, their faces in shadow.