Executive orders - Tom Clancy [457]
Neat! Jack Junior thought.
Will she be scared of us? Sally asked.
No, nobody hunts them here, and they're used to the vehicles, Overton told them. That's Elvira, she's the second-oldest doe here.
She'd given birth only minutes before. Elvira was getting up now, licking the newborn fawn whose eyes were confused by a new world it had no reason to expect.
Bambi! Katie Ryan observed, being an expert on the Disney film. It only took minutes, and then the fawn wobbled to its-they couldn't tell the gender yet-feet.
Okay. Katie?
Yes? she asked, not looking away.
You get to give her her name, Captain Overton told the toddler. It was a tradition here.
Miss Marlene, SANDBOX said without hesitation.
* * *
45 - CONFIRMATION
AS THE SAYING WENT, miles and miles of miles and miles. The road was about as boring as any civil engineer could make, but it hadn't been anyone's fault. So was the land. Brown and Holbrook now knew why the Mountain Men had become Mountain Men. At least there was scenery there. They could have driven faster, but it took time to learn the handling characteristics of this beast, and so they rarely got above fifty. That earned them the poisonous looks of every other driver on I-90, especially the cowboy-hatted K-Whopper owner-operators who thought the unlimited speed limit in eastern Montana was just great, plus the occasional lawyer-they had to be lawyers-in German muscle cars who blazed by their truck as though it were a cattle-feeder.
They also found it was hard work. Both men were pretty tired from all the preparation. All the weeks of effort to set up the truck, mix the explosives, cast the bullets, and then embed them. It had all made for little sleep, and there was nothing like driving a western interstate highway to put a man to sleep. Their first overnight was at a motel in Sheridan, just over the line into Wyoming. Getting that far, their first day driving the damned thing, had almost been their undoing, especially negotiating the split of I-90 and I-94 in Billings. They'd known that the cement truck would corner about as well as a hog on ice, but actually experiencing it had exceeded their worst fears. They ended up sleeping past eight that morning.
The motel was actually a truck stop of sorts that catered both to private cars and to interstate freight carriers. The dining room served a hearty breakfast, wolfed down by a lot of rugged-looking independent men, and a few similarly minded women. Breakfast conversation was predictable.
Gotta be rag-head sunzabitches, opined a big-bellied trucker with tattoos on his beefy forearms.
Think so? Ernie Brown asked from down the counter, hoping to get a feel for how these kindred souls felt about things.
Who else would go after younguns? Sunzabitches. The driver returned to his blueberry pancakes.
If the TV has it right, those two cops got it done, a milk hauler announced. Five head shots. Whoa!
What about the one guy who went down hard, standing up like that against six riflemen! With a pistol. Dropped three of them, maybe four. There died a real American lawman. He looked up from his pancakes again. This one had a load of cattle. He's earned his place in Valhalla, and that's for damn sure.
Hey, they were feds, man, Holbrook said, chewing on his toast. They ain't heroes. What about-
You can stick that one, good buddy, the milk hauler warned. I don't wanna hear it. There was twenty, thirty children in that place.
Another driver chimed in. And that black kid, rollin' on in with his -16. Damn, like when I was in the Cav for the Second of Happy Valley. I wouldn't mind buying that boy a beer, maybe shake his hand.
You were AirCav? the cattle hauler asked, turning away from his breakfast.
Charlie, First of the Seventh. He turned to show the oversized patch of the First Air Cavalry Division on his leather jacket.
Gary Owen, bro'! Delta, Second/Seventh. He stood up from the counter and walked over to take the man's hand. Where you outa?
Seattle. That's mine out there with the machine parts. Heading for St. Louis.