Operation Wild Tarpan Read Online Free PDF Page A

before starting to ease.
    He’d had worse.
    No, that was a lie to bolster his self-esteem. In the army he’d been shot at —live fire training exercises, gunfire whizzing overhead—and he’d been in the vicinity of hostile gunfire in his time as a bodyguard, but he’d never been shot . Never had anyone specifically trying to kill him .
    His strength fled him, and he clutched the shower cubicle’s walls until he was steady on his own feet.
    He saw that soldier’s face, rising up from behind the enemy Bravo, and saw it vanish behind the muzzle-flash of his M27. He relived pouring fire into the window that SMAW had been launched from—for all Miller knew the walls were thin, the rounds had gone straight through. Then there was the faceless corpse du Trieux had stolen the keys from.
    He’d worn that uniform. That same fucking uniform.
    At last he punched off the shower’s spray, wrapped himself up, set himself in front of the mirror, and picked up his razor.
    He unfolded it, held it to his throat, thought better of it, and put the razor back down.
    First no dry cleaners, now no barbers.
    He ran the hot water faucet until it steamed, then doused the hand towel. It hurt to pick up, but Miller diligently did just that, spotting it with dabs of his cologne—the best substitute he had to hand for a barber’s essential oils—before smothering his face in aromatic heat.
    There were few pleasures in the world like a hot towel shave, and few so simple.
    Rubbing the towel into his bristles, breathing in scented steam, Miller shut his eyes and did his best to forget, distracting himself with pleasant thoughts of ex-lovers he’d taught to do this, and the one he’d learned it from. He replayed a vivid memory of trying it on a laughing Samantha’s legs, since she didn’t have a beard.
    He rubbed away tears, spat the sour taste in his mouth away when the image of that missing face came back to him, and went about carefully applying, then scraping off dabs of shaving gel with his straight-edge razor.
    Feeling clean, aching, but purified, there was nothing he wanted more than to pull on his comfortable old suit and see if he could find the cufflinks Billy had given him, but it was all packed away, and Stockman’s forces were on their way.
    Fresh underclothes and a soft t-shirt to wear under his combat gear would have to do.
    He emerged into the light of the end of days; not a new man, but at least a bruised and refreshed one.
     
     
    S CREAMING SHAPES KNIFED through the air overhead, smaller titan-birds chasing down prey. A fresh coat of stinking fungicide had been laid down 4th Street, seeping into the asphalt and repelling the usual crowds of civilians looking for somewhere quiet to go.
    Not that they’d find any.
    The steady growl of generators was pouring in all the way from 1st Street. Miller hefted up his M27, and slipped his earpiece back in.
    “Cobalt-2 Actual back on duty.”
    “ Join us at barricade six, son, ” Lewis said.
    Miller made his way past piled car bodies that the Boltman engineers had stacked up for spare sheet metal, down an alleyway criss-crossed with old piping and new camera mounts, the shady space burned white in LED cones.
    A kid chasing her ball stopped dead at the sight of Miller, and backed up against the wall as he passed. Her face was pale, almost unreadable as she hugged the ball to herself, running off the moment he’d gone by.
    Before he was quite out of earshot, he heard her laugh. A child laughing, running along, being a kid. In the middle of all this, with the internet and all its amusements effectively dead.
    It felt good to hear something normal. Was this the new normal?
    Some time soon the day would come when the children in this compound wouldn’t remember anything different. Babies were born, children would grow up inside these walls. Miller wondered how many generations would be here, maintaining a twisted status quo, not recollecting how life outside had once been.
    As it