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working a Combat Application Tourniquet onto his bloodied thigh. The wounded man was still conscious, still upright, but he was looking at the sky and his gaze was taking on that drunken and vacant aspect that was a sure sign of blood loss. The sergeant used the tourniquet rod to torque it down on the wounded soldier’s leg, then he looked back at Abe.
    “Sir?”
    “I need your radio! Quick!”
    The sergeant dipped his head toward Abe. “I’m plugged in. You’re gonna hafta grab it.”
    Abe could see the man’s hands were occupied trying to keep his man from bleeding out. The sergeant wore the radio headset, with his helmet over it. Abe leaned down over him and removed the man’s helmet, then snatched off the headset. He started searching the sergeant’s chest rig. “Where’s the button? Where’s the fucking button?”
    The sergeant snatched a black circle from one of the MOLLE loops of his vest and thrust it at Abe. “Right here.”
    Abe grabbed the button and depressed it with one hand as the other put the headset up to his ear, the boom mike jutting out awkwardly. “Fargo-Six! Fargo-Six! You’ve got infected moving up the bridge at you! How copy?”
    Tyler’s only response was, “I got it! I got it!”
    “Rocky-Six to Copperheads, I need guns on those infected pushing the south end of the bridge. Can either of you respond?”
    Calm. “Two-One, copies. We’re en route.”
    “Two-Five, we copy.”
    Abe stood there on the highest tier of the trilevel building, looking out across a big dirty expanse of rail yard. Off to the left came the heavy beating sounds of the Blackhawks, their door gunners loading fresh cases of ammunition. The two birds angled and pivoted, one following the other. They split as they rode low over the tops of Fargo Group’s vehicles in the middle of the bridge, one Blackhawk taking one side of the bridge and one taking the other. They dipped down low for a brief moment, like a shark might dive so that it can achieve a more powerful breach. The sound of their rotors changed, turned from basal to almost a sharp, knocking sound. Abe watched the dust across the rail yard kick up, the Blackhawks slowing into a hover, and then they rose, cleared the sides of the bridge, and the door gunners opened up.
    It was a bloody, chaotic spectacle. The bright streaks of tracer fire flashed in the early morning light, and they chewed through flesh and concrete, sending small figures crumpling and flailing to the ground. The Copperhead door gunners had the bridge in a crossfire that ground those poor, mad bastards to pieces, and then Fargo Group added their own to the mix, someone finally manning one of the fifty turrets on their gun trucks.
    Abe stood there watching it. Watching the infected run blindly into the raking cross fire, like their feet were not on the asphalt of a bridge but rather a conveyor belt, pulling each of them to their violent end. He turned his attention to the other two buildings at the north end of the bridge. He squinted to see the details of them, but several things were obvious. Most of the windows facing him were broken out and thick clouds of rapidly dissipating gray smoke were pouring from them.
    Frag and clears , Abe noted.
    The other obvious thing was the lack of muzzle flashes coming from the building. No one was firing at Fargo Group on the bridge. If they were alive at all, they were focused on the two teams of soldiers inside the building with them.
    Abe keyed the radio. “Rocky-Six to Yankee-Six or any other unit that came off the Blackhawks.”
    There was a long pause. And Abe had time to think about the men in those two buildings, maybe one or two of them having a radio, looking around, wondering how they should relay to Major Darabie that Captain Wright was KIA.
    But then: “Rocky-Six, stand by for Yankee-Six.”
    Abe took a deep breath. Felt his heart tapping against the inside of his throat.
    Out on the bridge, the gunfire had come to a stop. Abe could no