Week 51, Day 1
The board of Circus Circus gazed sternly at the three men who entered their meeting room: Branson Missouri, his lieutenant Duke, and a very disheveled man in a uniform used by the self-defense force fielded by the Four Queens, Fremont, Gold Nugget and Binion's hotel-casinos. "My men have spent the last 36 hours conducting relief and search-and-rescue operations on Fremont Street," Branson said. "This man came forward of his own accord. I believe you should hear what he has to say."
"Call me Sands," the man said hoarsely. "I came out of New Mexico. I was in the National Guard... as a recruiter. I was at Binion's when the outbreak started. I made 200 kills as a deputy, got into the Combined Defense Force at the start, and made my way up to major. When command got word that the warlords had tanks, somebody decided to put me in charge of a brand-new anti-tank detail.
"You know the east-west through street is enclosed for the Fremont Street Experience. Our plan was to blow the roof down, if it came to that, and block or bury anybody who came that way. We figured there wasn't much risk from the south, either. So we set up our line between Binion's and Fremont. We had a barricade of vehicles, not cars but trucks, buses and Rvs..."
"Which an M60 can tear in half the long way," Duke said.
"We knew it couldn't hold them!" said Sands. "But it wasn't just that. We had demolition charges mixed in, and some decoys to keep them guessing. Then we had home-brewed weapons, straight outta World War 2, sticky bombs, molotovs, hand-thrown bombs..."
"And you had a missile," Branson said curtly.
The eyes of the board widened, and Sands lowered his eyes. "Yeah," he said, then looked up defiantly. "It was a one in a million find! I led the patrol that found it. There was an overturned humvee, and the hardware was in the back. It wasn't state-of-the-art, but it was standard issue for frontline troops. God knows what they thought they were going to do with it against a thousand zombies... Anyway, we found one launcher, never fired, one round, and even the manual... well, most of the manual."
"And you just held onto it," said Branson.
Sands looked to the board. "You all know how it was then! Individual patrols were covering a lot more ground than we did later, and we ran into a lot more surprises. So, if we ran across stuff we could use, it was finders keepers, and nobody had a problem with it! Besides, who else wanted an anti-tank weapon? So we kept it, and tried to figure out how to use it, just for fun and just in case. We stowed the shell as soon as we got back to base, but we actually used the launcher in the field: It had a nice sight with night vision as a bonus. We picked up quite a few zombies we might have missed otherwise, and once we used the infrared for a search and rescue operation.
"The whole time, me and five of my guys read that manual like it was the last copy of Playboy. But there were a lot of things we could never figure out. Like, there was this `top attack' setting that was supposed to better against tanks, but we were supposed to not aim directly at the target. We never knew for sure how that was supposed to work, and I finally decided if it came to that, we would just do without it. Then, the sight had been showing a low battery for a while, and we had to lay off practicing to conserve power. Then, of course, we still didn't know if that missile was still good, if it ever had been. Still, we did everything we could." He glared at Duke. "Just tell me, do you think anybody could have done better?"
"There were men in uniform who did worse," Duke said evenly.
"So, the day finally comes, when we actually get an actual tank incoming. That bastard, Whatsit Oklahoma, he was standing up in the turret like it was a parade. We could have potted him then and there, and I know we should of, but there was another vehicle right behind him, tracked but not a tank, and it was all business. So, I helped my two best students set up the launcher, and then I came out. I got ahead of our line, right in the path of the tank, and ordered him to stop or be fired upon. He did. He actually smiled.
"He said he was the rightful leader of the Syndicate, and he said he had come to Vegas after the single greatest threat to our survival- him." He jerked his thumb at Branson. "He said that his plan is to cut us off from the Strip and leave us for zombie bait. But he would offer us protection. All we had to do was provide housing and food to a hundred of his men... and two women for every one of them."
"Did he say the alternative?" mused Branson.
"Did he have to?" said Sands. "I told him he had two choices: He could get out and surrender, or he would be fired upon with a weapon powerful enough to completely destroy his tank. He said if his tank blew up, the explosion would kill me too. I told him I didn't care, then he laughed and said he didn't either. That was when somebody on the roof launched the missile."
Sands shook his head. "We both knew it was a gamble, pure and simple, and all or nothing... My guy was supposed to wait for a signal, but he took the shot. And it was a hit, dammit!" He slammed his fist on the table. "I saw the missile exhaust, I saw it hit, just ahead of the driver's hatch, I saw a little smoke still coming out after. Goddamn, I swear, Enid looked like he just dropped a brick for his number 2! But... it never went off."
"Based on your description," Duke said, not unkindly, "the missile was fired from less than minimum arming range- probably a matter of 5 meters or less. If it had hit a different part of the tank, it might have detonated."
"Tell them," Branson said coldly, "what happened after that."
"Enid dropped out of sight and shut the hatch," said Sands. "Then both vehicles turned around, and they drove away." He put his head in his hands. "That was when a shell hit the Four Queens. The first one."
"In total," Branson said, "we believe Enid expended twelve 15.5cm shells in three salvos. Bear in mind, furthermore, that the vehicle which fired the shells fired at a range undoubtedly in excess of two miles, and escaped direct observation by the forces of any casino. At least five shells struck Four Queens, two to three hit Binion's, one hit the Gold Nugget, and one seriously damaged the vault structure. It's probable that the coordinates of Four Queens were laid in in advance, and that it was the intended target for all shells fired. At present, 3,200 are confirmed dead. Many more remain unaccounted for."
He folded his hands on the table. "This, gentlemen, is what happens when a few people decide to try their `best', on their own, against a reasonably intelligent and quite psychotic man who happens to have three modern armored fighting vehicles! Any questions?"
After a rhetorical pause, he continued, "Here is how we are going to do things now. All combined operations will be placed under a single commander with unilateral authority to authorize or initiate any and all actions. That would, of course, would be me. My authority will include any and all actions against the forces commanded by Enid Oklahoma, and also the ongoing situation at Planet Hollywood."
The chairman held up a hand. "Excuse me, but you are making a very extraordinary request, and asking us to relinquish much of our own authority..."
"It seems to me that you don't have a great deal of authority, or you would have known that your allies thought they had a perfect plan to stop Enid," Branson said. "In any event, I am not making a request... I am making a demand."
"Or what?" The sultry voice came from the corner. Out stepped Krista Kansas.
"Point of order," Branson said. "What... if anything... is this person doing here?"
"You don't make a demand without an `or else'," Krista said. "So... or what?"
Branson looked to the board, smiling. "Do you recognize her authority to speak?"
"She has attended many of our meetings, with her husband," the chairman said. "She has continued to attend in his absence, and her right to speak has never been questioned. Our decisions, after all, directly affect her husband... and family."
Branson frowned. "Surely many of you are married, but I don't see your wives here," he said. "Or what about the wives and companions of the volunteers with Austin Texas? Surely they have an equal right to attend."
"How about you answer the question?" Krista said.
"Point of order," Branson said. "If nobody can give me a good reason why this woman has standing to address me, then I insist that she either be silent, or be removed."
Krista strode up to the table, pushing between two board members. "Or... what?"
An hour later, the meeting adjourned. Branson smiled at a coldly furious Krista, waiting at the door. "Well, I thought you should be the first to know," he said, "that I am the new commander of combined operations. My first order is that the Planet Hollywood force is to be resupplied immediately." He started to walk away, then turned back and said, "Ah, yes... evidently, you are now a board member."