A gunshot across the street shut her up. Dixon lunged for the glove box and kept his eye on the gas station on the other side of the intersection. Several teenagers stormed out, trailing loot, and scurried into a pickup truck full of camping gear. Their arms weren’t stuffed with money, cigarettes or even beer, but rather beef jerky and canned goods. Dixon snagged his Glock and loaded a magazine, but didn’t bother chambering a round.
An old, turban-clad man ran after the youths and fired a shotgun in the air. The well-dressed thieves tossed their hands up as police sirens rounded the corner. Dixon whistled.
“Wow. These beach cops are on the ball, huh?”
Four squad cars rolled past the armed, gesticulating shop owner… and kept racing south down A1A.
Rachel eased herself up and peeked over the dash. “What do you say we get out of here, huh?”
Dixon chewed his lip and pulled on to A1A, heading north. “Yeah, good idea.”
Rachel flipped on the radio, but the dashboard computer screen and its integrated GPS and entertainment system stayed black. Dixon splayed a hand across the blank digital displays.
“No dice. Maybe I shouldn’t have skipped the last maintenance check. None of the dash lights have come on since…” He only now noticed that most cars on the road overflowed with luggage.
“Jesus! Just what did those terrorists blow up?”
Rachel grinned while Dixon grimaced. “Maybe it was…” she wiggled her arms and howled, “an EMP! Woooh!”
Crinkling her nose, she snatched his loaded pistol from the seat with two fingers and tossed it back in the glove box. “Isn’t that what you and your prepper buddies are always fantasizing about? Some magical device that’ll reset the world order and put you manly men back on top of the food chain? Make you and the other gun nuts heroes in a world of, how do you call them? Sheeple?”
Dixon resisted the bait. Well, tried to, at any rate. They’d had this same silly argument a million times, but he couldn’t help himself. The girl knew how to push his buttons better than her mother ever could.
“I didn’t hear you complaining the last time I took you out to the gun range.”
She smirked like a hyena. Crap. He walked right into the ambush. “Sure, I like shooting. Who doesn’t? It’s more fun than a video game. On the other hand, it’s a whole different level of crazy when you start planning for the video game to become real. One of my teachers pointed out that right-wing Christian nuts with guns kill more people in America every year than all the Islamic terrorists combined.”
Dixon’s cheek twitched. “Cut the crap. Right-winger? Seriously? You know I’m about as political as a potato. As for religion, the last time I was even in a church was when Katherine and I got married. I’m just trying to be ready for anything. Gives me peace of mind. Governments and corporations have disaster contingency plans. What’s so crazy about a regular guy making his own?”
She rolled her eyes and muttered something about “disaster fetishes,” but Dixon was in the zone. “Yeah, when the chips are down, I don’t plan on relying on the generosity of my soulless employer or the foresight of some unaccountable government bureaucrat. Besides, it doesn’t take a zombie apocalypse to justify prepping. Plenty of real world, mini-catastrophes could ruin our lives. Financial collapses, hurricanes, terrorist attacks, whatever. Even the EMP scenario you love to mock. Forget a nuke; the sun is regularly churning out solar flares powerful enough to take down the power grids of entire countries on Earth. It’s happened at least twice in the last century.”
Rachel snickered. “So you’re scared of the sun now?”
“Rachel, you can’t be that naïve. I’m not wishing for bad things to happen, but I sure as heck won’t stick my head in the sand and pretend nothing can happen. Just look around, for example. One terrorist attack knocks out power and everyone freaks the fu—, uh hell out.”
Rachel crossed her arms and snorted like a true lady. Dixon cocked his head her way, waiting for the snarkiness… that never came. Was that even a slight tinge of respect in her eyes? She giggled. “Well, I’ll have to give you that one, but that’s only because we live in Florida. One great big, lawless swamp. SSDD.”
Dixon relaxed and laughed at the fifteen year old. “SSDD? Where’d you hear that saying?”
Her smile vanished. “From mom. Do you think she’s out there fighting the terrorists while we’re out getting pizza?”
Dixon’s mouth went dry. She didn’t say it, not this time, and her tone was perfectly neutral, but the same guilt and shame flooded his soul as if she’d slapped him. What’s a real man doing playing house while his wife is out saving the world?
Thankfully, the world changed the subject for him.
He lifted a finger over the steering wheel. “Check it out. Things can’t be that bad if NASA is still up and running. Is that the latest Mars rover you were so excited about? I thought the launch was scheduled for this weekend?”
A mammoth column of smoke, maybe 50 miles to the north, raced to heaven. Dixon wasn’t the obsessive space buff that Rachel was, but even he had to admit these regular rocket launches along the Space Coast were impressive. Downright inspirational. He beamed over at his stepdaughter, waiting for her to appreciate the careful attention he paid to her hobbies.
Instead of awe or more angst, Rachel’s face dripped raw, undulated terror.
“No fucking way!”
“Hey, what’s with the language? It’s only a rocket. Okay, two rockets. Hmm. Three now, wow, but still—”
“Peter, are you that stupid?” He snapped his head around at the first-ever use of his correct name. Rachel’s fingernails dug into the armrests. Her pale face was beyond horrified.
“Think about it. That’s north. Cape Canaveral is to the south! Can’t you figure out where these things are launching from?”
Dixon eased off the gas. His jaw hung open as a fourth rocket spouted skyward. “From King’s Bay. The Navy base…God almighty!”
“Yeah, the big submarine base.” Rachel clutched herself tight. “The one with all the subs carrying nuclear missiles.”
He might be slow on the uptake, but Dixon wasn’t the indecisive type. He slammed the brakes and jerked the wheel hard. Spitting in the face of gravity, they whipped around in an illegal U-turn across the grass median. Even with her cheek slammed against the passenger window, Rachel mumbled something as they raced south.
Dixon pried his eyes off the rearview mirror. Two dozen ballistic missile trails now pierced the sunny sky behind them.
“What are you doing? We’re only ten minutes away from the house!” Rachel threw up her hands.
“No, it ain’t home any longer, honey. Don’t you get it? America is at war. A friggin’ nuclear war. The type of war that was never supposed to happen in the 21st century. Think about it. Jacksonville is just a big, fat target at the moment. A target full of a million terrified and desperate folk.” He fought to keep the panic out of his voice.
“Please tell me you put your bug-out bag back in the trunk. I haven’t checked since the weekend.”
Rachel ignored him and used that same cold calculator voice her mother favored when worried. “The missiles are all launching straight at the sky. Bending a little towards the equator, maybe, but those trails don’t look anything like a ballistic arc. Strange.”
Dixon swerved to avoid a lane full of gawkers suddenly stopping in the middle of the road. A dozen drivers slammed their brakes without warning and shoved cameras out the windows. One guy even stepped out of a minivan and tried to get a selfie with the nukes in the background.
Dixon never took his foot off the gas as they shot past. “Don’t worry. I’m sure the Navy knows what they’re doing.”
“That’s exactly what worries me. I’m no aerospace engineer yet, but those aren’t normal launches. The missiles are going straight up. Looks more like a space intercept than a missile heading to Russia or China. They’re burning all their fuel exiting the atmosphere. Whatever the military
is aiming at doesn’t seem to be on Earth. I wonder what we’re shooting at up there?”
“Who cares? Whoever the enemy is, I’m sure they can fire back. Let’s just get to Palatka and grab our supplies. We can sort out the rest later.”
The drowsy little town of Palatka and his carefully scouted bug out site, complete with a well-stocked survival cache, was only a half hour drive away. Far enough to be outside of any nuclear blast zone or immediate fallout from Jacksonville, yet close enough to home that he could make it there on just a quarter tank of gas. Dixon glanced down at his pitiful fuel gauge. Damn. Not a lucky sign if you have to start with your worst-case evacuation scenario. The one day he broke the prepper Bible and let his tank dip below half full…
“Don’t worry. This isn’t how I expected things to go down, but that’s okay. If we stick to the plan, we’ll get back in control of things in no time.”
He twisted his eyes and peeked to see if she bought into his confidence. He couldn’t read her crinkled brow, but it didn’t seem likely. Especially since he didn’t believe his own words. Despite readying his mind, body and supply stash for years, prepping had never been more than a hobby. Rachel was half-right. It was all supposed to be a mere game. The worst Dixon ever expected was that they might have to live off the grid for a week, maybe two tops, if a bad storm hit. Nuclear war? Who could be ready for that type of insanity? He swallowed down his fear and tried to keep his voice nonchalant.
“Go ahead and hand me the weapon and holster, please. You know, just to be safe.”
Rachel sniffed, but gave him the gun. Attitude aside, he noted with pride how she cocked the slide back and double-checked the safety before clipping the holster to his belt.
“And then what, Mister Badass Prepper? You want to go camping and wait this out? My mother is out there fighting!” She snarled and cried at the same time, in only the way a teenager could.
“Peter, we can’t go hide in some swamp. We need to find the police or the Army or someone… I don’t know, but we need to get in the war! There’s got to be something we can do to help.”
Dixon gritted his teeth and pushed through his fear and helplessness. “The first priority is to get out of immediate danger. Then we’ll figure something out. Your mother would want—”
A pair of F-15 fighter planes flashed past, heading south, only a few hundred feet above them. The sonic booms in their wake shattered the driver’s side window and rattled Dixon’s bones. Both fighters volleyed off missiles at something over the horizon.
“To hell with this! We’re getting off the freeway. It’ll take us longer, but maybe we’ll make it to Palatka in one piece.”
Rachel reached over and plucked a small glass shard from his cheek.
“You’ve got more weapons in the storage unit, right? Mom wouldn’t go down without a fight and neither will I!”
Dixon couldn’t meet her petrified, yet resolved stare. So he just kept his eyes on the road.
“I’ve got a feeling surviving is going to be enough of a fight.”
He slowed the SUV to a more sane speed and craned his neck out the window. “Hey, how long would it take those nukes to detonate? If they can make it to Russia in twenty minutes, they should be able to go straight up faster. We should be seeing flashes by now, right?”
Rachel kept hugging herself despite the steel in her voice. “How should I know? Isn’t that a good thing? No bombs going off, no retaliation.”
Dixon rooted around under his seat for his ever-handy water bottle. Any drier and his mouth would suck moisture from the air. He didn’t answer, not wanting to scare the girl with what was on his mind.
Not that it mattered. Rachel puzzled it out soon enough. “My God. Do you think the enemy shot the missiles down? Are we sitting ducks?”
Dixon stayed focused on the winding country road ahead and pretended not to hear. Rachel peered at the sweat running down his neck, despite the AC on full blast.
Rachel stopped asking questions she didn’t want to know the answers to.
Royal Omani Air Force Base Thumrait
Southwestern Oman
“They weren’t kidding about this place being out of the way. Even the base personnel can’t seem to find it! Where the hell is everyone?”
Kat held her rifle at the low ready as the Osprey’s tilt-rotors spun to a halt. The rest of her team fanned out on the tarmac close by, but she’d never been lonelier. No one had responded when the pilot called the airfield on their final approach. Even after they buzzed the tower and flashed their landing lights, they still couldn’t get a peep out of the airbase.
Kat adjusted the gain on her Night Optical/Observation Device and panned back and forth. The runway and aprons were simply dark green in her night vision scope, but a few of the hangars glowed white-hot. The airfield had backup generators, which implied someone kept them fueled.
The pilot of the second Osprey whistled from his back ramp. He shined an infrared spotlight, invisible to the naked eye, at the only other aircraft still on the landing apron. Through her grainy green vision, Kat spotted a civilian Land Rover with headlights off flash past the C-130 five hundred yards away.
The Special Operations Command operators took a knee as one and lit up the vehicle with their own invisible PEQ-2 infrared lasers. In this part of the world, even on a friendly military base, you treated every unknown vehicle like a car bomb. Anything less than complete paranoia guaranteed you’d be coming home in a closed, leak-proof casket.
The Land Rover’s driver gambled with his life as he raced towards the troops without touching his brakes. Twenty safeties flicked off in unison as the stranger breached a hundred yards. Captain Dore tapped his throat mike. “Open fi—”
The Rover squealed to a halt fifty yards short of their deadline. Two older men hopped out and raised their empty hands.
“Hells yeah! Glad you made it.” Some US Air Force officer in blue utilities strode forward. He pumped everyone’s hands like a politician on election eve. “I’m Major Lyons, in charge of the US maintenance support team. This is Colonel Al-Raeesi with the Royal Omani Air Force. He’s the base commander. So, when are the rest of the Marines getting here?”
Lyons cut his eyes at Kat as she snorted. Dore hooked his rifle to a chest pouch and draped both arms over the stock. “We’re Army, actually. As far as I know, both the Marine Expeditionary Unit and the Ford carrier battle group were lost at sea. I’m afraid we’re all that’s left of the flotilla. How many troops can you muster here?”
Lyons’s eyelids fluttered on full automatic. “That can’t.... I mean… a dozen ships? Fifteen thousand men and women gone that fast! Damn…We’d heard the same rumor, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe it. Shit. All I have available is a small maintenance and security detachment. Fifty personnel, armed only with wrenches and a few rifles…” Lyons peered over Captain Dore’s shoulder and gawked at the haggard faces staring back from the helicopter.
The Omani colonel extended his own shaking hand. “Why, in Allah’s blessed name, are you bringing civilians into a warzone?”
Dore gripped Al-Raeesi’s sweating hand. “Doesn’t look like much fighting is going on around here. Where’s everyone? Don’t you have any jets? Why aren’t you providing air cover?”
Major Lyons’s khaki-clad companion squeezed Dore’s hand far too long. Kat could have sworn a tear trickled down and disappeared inside Al-Raeesi’s tangled beard.
“I sortied everything we had as soon as the attacks began. Ten brand-new Euro Typhoon fighters, crewed by our best UK-trained pilots. None were ever heard from again.”
He finally dropped Dore’s hand and went back to clacking his misbaḥah prayer beads. “After that slaughter, I released the ground crews. They were beginning to desert anyway. You have to understand, there wasn’t anything left for them to do. So why not let them go home and defend their families? What would you have done?”
Major Lyons clapped Al-Raeesi’s shivering shoulder and pushed him towards t
he Land Rover. “Relax. These people aren’t inspectors. No one is questioning your judgment.” Lyons turned back to Dore.
“Why don’t we get out of the open? I’m sure those civilians could use some chow. Let’s move everyone inside the admin building.”
Dore jerked his head at Sergeant Michaels. He and the other soldiers hustled their charges out of the choppers and across the tarmac. Kat started to join, but hung back. “Gentlemen, what’s the plan? How are we going to pay those sneaky Iranians back?”
Captain Dore grunted. “Iran? No way. They couldn’t pull off a surprise attack like this. This thing is too widespread and sophisticated. Whatever’s going on, it’s got Russia written all over it. Probably making their big move to control the Middle East.”
Major Lyons sighed and tapped the rear window of his SUV. Dore and Kat spun around as a third figure climbed out of the Rover’s backseat. The civilian’s polo shirt and slacks were far from intimidating, but his cheery voice boomed authority.
“You two really have no idea what’s going on, do you? Major, I think it’s time for a briefing. Please take our guests to the bunker.”
Kat planted her feet and cocked her head at the civilian. “And who exactly are you, Mr…”
“Call me John Smith. I’m just a lowly government contractor working for some boring agency you’ve never heard of.”
Major Lyons stepped between them and took Kat’s elbow. “Trust me. You’re going to want to see his communications getup. It’s better than anything we have.”
***
Five minutes later, Dore, Kat and the other senior staff of the Special Operations Command team crowded into a dank basement under a nondescript aluminum shack. Major Lyons dived into his briefing without preamble.
“We received a vague War Orders alert several hours before this shit began. Command was worried about something, but gave us no details. Two hours later, the lights went out. Most of the Arabian Peninsula lost power at the same time that our satellite communications went down. We’re assuming it was some type of EMP burst. Shortly afterwards, we began receiving conflicting reports of strange attacks around the world. Either nuclear detonations or meteorite impacts, but the effect seems to be the same: total annihilation. Now, this is all coming from fragmentary relay reports and not all of them in English, but what’s clear is at least a hundred national capitals have been leveled. Washington, London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Beijing… well, you get the idea. Another hundred or so large military bases and major population centers are gone as well, but the strikes appear highly selective.”
The Caliphate Invasion Page 3