Chapter 23

We put in at an industrial pier in Texas City, just inside Galveston Bay, and sent an armed four-person group ashore to look for military installations. Raymond Pryor led the scouting contingent, consisting of Umberto Gomez, Brenda DiQuinzio and Roald Victorsen.

The remaining distance to Houston from our landing point was still considerable, and a wide scattering of once-heavily populated suburban towns created a confusing array of possibilities for our scouts. Since they were expected to be out of range of our walkie-talkies, we had equipped them with an FM radio transmitter. Martin Kazner monitored their progress continuously from the ship's radio room.

The group located a National Guard infantry brigade headquarters on the outskirts of Houston, but reported back that although they'd found two heavy machine guns, there were no useful vehicles there -- other than a couple of armored Humvees.

Our scouts then exchanged their civilian vehicle for the two Humvees and loaded them up with all the guns and ammunition they could carry. "We can't find a major ground forces base with significant armor anywhere around here," Brenda reported by radio. "But there's a National Guard installation in a place called Angleton. We're going to try there."

Shipboard, we found Angleton on a Texas map and discovered it was well south of Houston -- closer to our ship, at that moment, than was our scouting expedition. It looked to be an awfully small town.

It was almost two hours before Pryor's group located the armory there. When Brenda called in on the radio, she sounded excited. "Bingo!" she said. "This is the place!"

It turned out the Angleton facility had been the home base of a National Guard tank company. We had all agreed that tanks would be a little too ambitious for us, but there were three Bradley Fighting Vehicles housed there that could be useful.

Raymond Pryor was on the radio, talking excitedly to Martin and Ingmar, back on the ship. "These Bradleys are great!" he said. "It would be real hard, driving them all the way to... where we're going, but we don't have to! They're already sitting on low-rider flatbeds! Big trucks! We can drive 'em, right where they're sitting!"

"What kind of guns?" Ingmar said.

"Big suckers! Chain guns -- they're called -- and they fire 25 millimeter rounds. There's some ammunition boxes in the vehicles, and, probably, more inside the armory. There's a mount for a machine gun, too, but we haven't located those guns yet. We'll search around for them, inside the armory. There's some locked-up places in there, but I think we can break in."

"Look at everything!" Martin Kazner said. "Look for other types of guns -- and maybe body armor. And look for night-vision goggles! This place you found could be a gold mine for us. Don't think just about the trip over, Raymond. Think about defenses for the... for the building."

Everybody was taking some care not to mention our destination over the radio.

Janice Pennington, Dr. Montoya, and I were about to be dispatched to search for vehicles suitable for the rest of us to use in making the trip to San Antonio.

"Maybe a Greyhound bus," Martin suggested, "or a big truck... We could ask Raymond to look around, where he is now, for a troop-carrier type truck."

"Too vulnerable to fire from an ambush," I said. "A bus -- or more than one bus -- would be better. Or maybe even the Humvees that Raymond's already found."

"We need something to carry our gear in," Ingmar reminded. "When we leave this ship, we've got tons of food and supplies that it would just make good sense to take with us."

"There has to be some balancing, between our need to move, and our need to carry along all our stuff," Bridgett said.

Anticipating the need to drive several vehicles back to the ship, our scouting party was increased from three to five, with Max Coward and Aurora Perez coming along to serve as additional drivers, if necessary. "I couldn't ever drive a bus!" Janice protested at one point. "I've never driven a pickup truck, even!"

"You can do a lot of things," I told her, "when you really have to."

Our group headed north for downtown Houston, figuring we'd know what we wanted when we saw it. Texas City, however, was heavily industrial in character, and we hadn't gone far at all when we found a whole lot full of tractor-trailers that would serve our purposes. After checking the trailers and finding them empty, Max and Aurora located the ignition keys inside a utility building and were assigned the task of driving two of the big trucks back to the dock.

"My God!" Aurora Perez said from the driver's seat of one of the big rigs. "Look at this thing! I can't drive this monster!"

"We're only a mile or so from the ship!" I told her. "Just... drive! Find a low gear and stay in it, if you have to. Just... get it there!"

"No," Dr. Montoya said. "We can't just send them back alone. You two go ahead and drive the trucks, but we'll all follow you back, for protection."

So that's what we did. It was a slow, gear-grinding trip, but not a long one. As advertised, Aurora -- and Max, too, for that matter -- were in serious need of some basic training as big-rig drivers.

Soon, however, the tractor-trailers were parked close to the ship and all five of us were off again, heading for the city. This time, we were looking for a bus station.

Houston had a gorgeous skyline, and it was the largest city we'd been in since Chicago. A feeling of deep regret passed through me at the sight of it. A shiver. All those people -- gone. All that civilization -- wasted.

It occurred to me that we could just stay there, in Houston. I mean, there were hospitals in Houston. If we could occupy a hospital in San Antonio, why not do the same here? Why make the trip at all? San Antonio had made the most sense, as a destination, when we had been making our plans to drive inland from Corpus Christi Harbor. But why go there now? Why not scout comparable locations, right here?

I thought it was a good question, and, quietly, I asked Dr. Montoya what he thought.

"We could stay here," he agreed. "There are likely to be facilities here that are the equal of the one we found in San Antonio."

"So... why don't we?... Stay here?"

"Because that day -- the day when we came back to the ship, in Corpus Christi, we inflamed everyone about the prospects of going to Brooke Army Hospital. We had begun selling them on the idea, even before we were back to the ship. And then, after we had to leave the harbor, and put to sea again, everyone felt... homeless. And you showed everyone the photographs of the hospital, and you and I both -- and Raymond, too -- talked about how well it was going to meet all our needs."

Dr. Montoya smiled at me. "I don't want to even look for another hospital here," he said. "Do you? Let's face it -- Brooke Hospital has become a symbol of our future. It's... it's our Mecca."

"You're right," I said. "Let's get ready to go to San Antonio!"

We all took a Greyhound bus back to the ship. I drove. Now, that was an adventure! We'd had a difficult time, just getting the bus to start. A lot of time had passed since the Virus had hit, and we were, increasingly, encountering dead batteries and vehicles that wouldn't readily start. But we had managed.

By the time we got back to the ship, Raymond's group also had returned. The docks at Texas City were crowded with an array of vehicles now: Two flatbed trucks, each with a Bradley Fighting Vehicle mounted near the rear, and piles of military supplies strewn on the flatbeds between the AFVs and the trucks' cabs. Raymond had even found close to a dozen small tubular units that he called "AT4's," -- these were M-136 anti-tank rocket-firing weapons.