CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Remember the Alamo
Denver, Colorado
Friday, December 21, 1951
The Denver Federal Center had its own detention facility—and that was where maximum security prisoner Susan Farley had been held during the days immediately following the attempt on President Grace’s life.
The transfer area was a drab space with green walls, slit-style windows, and furniture that was bolted to the floor. Ironically enough, the only decoration in the room consisted of three pictures: one of the Federal Center’s head administrator, one of Vice President McCullen, and one of President Grace.
Before being allowed to enter the transfer center, Hale was searched, not just once, but twice. Two armed guards stood side by side with their backs to a cement wall as he waited for Susan to appear.
The chains on her wrists and ankles made a rattling sound, so he heard his sister before the steel door swung open and Susan shuffled into the brightly lit room. Her hair had been shaved off and the spot where Hale’s bullet had nicked the side of her skull was concealed by a white bandage. Had the projectile been one inch to the right, she would have been dead. Susan was dressed in gray prison garb, including a coat with a hood that hung down onto her shoulders.
“You’ve got five minutes,” the prison matron said sternly. “Don’t touch, don’t whisper, and don’t exchange physical objects without permission. The clock starts now.”
Susan nodded impassively as she looked into Hale’s golden yellow eyes.
“So you came.”
“Of course I came,” Hale replied. “You’re my sister. I hired a lawyer… He’ll visit you in the prison.”
“Why bother?” Susan replied bleakly. “I did it. Everyone knows that.”
“You sure as hell did,” Hale agreed soberly. “But who knows? Maybe we can get your sentence reduced.”
Susan smiled grimly.
“All of us are under a death sentence. You—of all people—should realize that. The so-called Liberty Defense Perimeter isn’t going to work, the Grace administration is more interested in holding on to power than winning the war, and anyone with the guts to oppose them winds up in a Protection Camp… or worse. The only thing I regret is the fact that I missed. That was your fault, Nathan… And you’re going to regret it, too,” she added bitterly.
“That will be enough of that,” the matron said grimly as she noticed the prisoner’s agitated state, and motioned to the guards. “Load her on the bus. And keep your eyes peeled. She belongs to Freedom First, and there are plenty of sympathizers in the area.”
Hale wanted to say something comforting, wanted to make peace somehow, but couldn’t find the words as the guards escorted Susan through the door, and into the cold light beyond. “Don’t worry, Lieutenant,” the matron said gruffly. “She’ll be all right.”
“Thank you,” he responded, but he wasn’t sure anything would be “all right” ever again.
* * *
After days spent worrying about Susan, and being questioned by law enforcement officers of every type, Hale was happy to return to work. Even if the first thing he had to do was attend a meeting.
It was being held at the Federal Center, but on the far side of the complex, and Hale no longer had the Lynx. So he set a brisk pace for himself, and after a ten-minute walk, he spotted his destination ahead.
SRPA headquarters-Denver was located in an unremarkable four-story brick building, which, according to the sign out front, was home to something called the “Federal Land Acquisitions Agency.” A very real organization that occupied half of the first floor. The rest of the structure served the needs of SRPA staff. They were an extremely hardworking group who were responsible for planning and coordinating SAR missions throughout the West.
The briefing center was located on the second floor, and after clearing a security check, Hale arrived five minutes late. As he entered the rather austere conference room Hale saw that Major Blake, Chief of Staff Dentweiler, and a man he didn’t know were waiting for him.
“Sorry I’m late, sir,” Hale said. “I had to hike in from the other side of the center.”
“No problem,” Blake replied. “We just sat down. Have a chair. You know Mr. Dentweiler… And this is Mr. Burl. He was a prisoner in what was almost certainly a Chimeran Conversion Center until just days ago.”
Hale shook Dentweiler’s hand, noticed that it was still cold, and turned to the other civilian. “Mr. Burl… It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir. And congratulations on your escape. If you don’t mind my asking, how did you pull it off?”
Burl had a firm grip and a direct gaze. “I was lucky,” he answered simply. “The stinks were holding us in a big pit. We dug escape tunnels, and one of them paid off. A few of us got away.”
“Mr. Burl was the last person out,” Blake added. “The alarm had been given by then, so rather than run into the Chimera’s arms, he found a place to hide not fifty feet from the tunnel. So close the stinks didn’t bother to search it carefully enough.”
“I damned near froze my ass off,” Burl put in ruefully. “But I was wearing four layers of clothing, and that helped. The real break came six hours later when a snowstorm passed through. I made use of the low visibility to escape the area.”
“He stumbled across a road, followed it to a house, and hot-wired a pickup,” Blake said admiringly. “And there he was, racing south, when a VTOL crew spotted him.”
“Nice work,” Hale said sincerely. “Did anyone else make it out?”
“A few did,” Burl answered soberly, as he looked down at his hands. “But there’s no way to know if any of them are still alive. Hundreds of people are still in the pit.”
“Yes,” Dentweiler said, as he spoke for the first time, “and one of them is ex-Secretary of War Walker.”
Hale’s eyebrows rose.
“Really? The man we’ve been looking for?”
“Exactly,” Dentweiler replied grimly. “It seems the stinks grabbed the bastard while he and his wife were on their way to Chicago. All we have to do is pick him up.”
Burl felt a sense of forboding. He’d been too trusting. That was apparent now. But his intentions had been good.
Almost from the moment the VTOL picked him up, Burl had been telling anyone who would listen that Walker was being held prisoner, in hopes that authorities would want to rescue the Secretary of War—and therefore all of the poor souls in the stink hole.
He hadn’t mentioned the tapes, however, and wasn’t going to—not until he had to. He cleared his throat. “Yes, well, you might want to remember that the stinks take people away every few days. So Walker could be dead by now.”
“We need to know,” Dentweiler put in vehemently, his eyes hard. “The man’s a traitor!” He turned to the Sentinel. “I want you to go in and get him. More importantly, the President wants you to go in and get him.”
“And the other prisoners?” Hale wanted to know.
“We’ll bring them out, too,” Blake responded hurriedly, as if fearful that Dentweiler would give some other instruction. “But it’s got to be fast… So the Chimera won’t have time to counterattack. Otherwise we could wind up having to rescue the rescuers.”
Hale nodded. “Understood. How large a force can I have?”
The question was directed to Major Blake, but Dentweiler chose to answer for him.
“You can have anything you want,” the Chief of Staff said flatly.
Major Blake frowned but remained silent.
“And one more thing,” Dentweiler added, his eyes on Hale. “The thing with your sister… Good work. We kept your name out of the press—we had to, given the fact that you’re officially dead—but the President is grateful. He’d like to thank you personally once this mission is over. And with Major Blake’s permission, we’re going to add a contingent of Sentinels to the President’s security team, and put you in command of them.”
There had been a time, only days earlier, when Hale would have been
proud to play such a role. Now, after seeing how much Susan had been willing to sacrifice in order to remove Grace from office, he wasn’t so sure.
But Hale was a soldier—and gave the only reply he could. “Yes, sir. I’ll do my best.”
The sun had just risen, and was a dimly seen presence off to the east, as the six VTOLs came in from the west. Though not especially fast under even the best conditions, these aircraft were especially slow because of the vehicle that dangled beneath each ship. And, as the wintry landscape seemed to creep past below, the officer in command of the mission was busy questioning his own logic.
Hale was in the lead VTOL, crouched between his old friend Purvis and the Party Girl’s copilot, the three of them eyeing the terrain ahead. It was flat farm country for the most part, much of which had been ravaged by the war, but some of the farmhouses, barns, and silos appeared to be intact under layers of gauzy snow.
Strike Force Zebra had been spotted by that time, Hale felt certain of that, so it was safe to assume that the stinks were organizing a response. And that was where the speed versus throw weight calculation came into play. By choosing to bring two M-12 tanks, plus four LU-P Lynx All-Purpose Vehicles along with his troops, Hale was betting that no matter how quickly they arrived the team might have to cope with a major counterattack. If so both he and the rest of the Sentinels would be glad to have some heavy weapons on their side.
Of course the flip side was that Blake fully expected Hale to bring the vehicles out, which would entail time spent rigging lift harnesses, and a slower exit from Chimera-held territory. It was important matériel, and Hale was extremely conscious of his responsibilities. Purvis spoke over the intercom, breaking into his thoughts.
“We’re five out. Prepare to deploy all vehicles—and get ready to hit the dirt. Welcome to Wisconsin, gentlemen.”
As Hale rose, Purvis turned his way. He flipped the intercom off so only Hale and the copilot could hear him. “Watch your six, Hale,” Purvis said, “so we can come in and save it again.”
Hale grinned, shot the other officer a one-finger salute, and went back into the cargo area.
In addition to carrying a vehicle, each VTOL was loaded with twelve men, for a total of seventy-two soldiers counting Hale himself. It was an unusually large command for a second lieutenant, especially since more than half the troops were Sentinels, each of whom was judged to be worth three Rangers due to their quickness and ability to recover from wounds.
But given Hale’s combat record, and his familiarity with the Henry Walker mission, Blake had been willing to put him in charge, with Kawecki acting as platoon sergeant. Now, as Hale took his seat, he knew all the men were watching him closely. “Remember,” he said as he looked around, “I hate paperwork… So don’t get killed.”
That produced some guffaws, and served to take the edge off as the Party Girl’s door gunners began to clear the landing zone of stinks. Then, as all forward motion stopped, the crew chief pulled a lever and Hale felt the ship rise suddenly as the tank dangling under the VTOL’s belly hit the ground.
Having released the extra load, Purvis put the Party Girl down about fifty feet away from the M-12, ordered the crew chief to deploy the ramp, and cut power. A lot of fuel had been consumed on the trip out, and he wanted to conserve as much of it as he could. The engines were still spooling down as Hale led his men out onto the flat area that surrounded the mine.
Two of the soldiers ran over to the tank, while the rest followed Hale toward the point where one of the enemy’s automatic mortars was dropping shell after shell into the crater below. Gouts of mixed mud and snow rose into the air as explosions marched across the pit and the defenseless prisoners ran every which way, searching for a place to hide.
“Shut that weapon down!” Hale ordered. “Then turn it around. If the stinks counterattack, we’ll use it against them.”
It took the better part of five minutes to kill the Hybrids who were guarding the emplacement and take possession of the mortar. Once that was done, Hale left a team of three men to redeploy the weapon while he turned his attention to what was happening elsewhere. And there were lots of things to worry about, something Blake had warned him about earlier.
“You’re used to leading small groups,” the older officer had cautioned. “This mission will be different. It’ll have a lot of moving parts—not the least of which will be Mr. Dentweiler. The trick is to avoid being pulled down into the tactical stuff, and keep your eye on the big picture.”
That prediction was already proving true. The rest of the strike force was on the ground by then, and a number of brisk firefights had begun as various squads began to tackle the objectives they had been given. But rather than try to micromanage those conflicts, Hale knew it was his responsibility to focus on the main objective, as two of the group’s All-Purpose Vehicles came roaring up to stop a few feet away.
The first Lynx was assigned to Hale, and the second was reserved for Dentweiler and Burl, both of whom wore Ranger uniforms minus insignia, and carried pistols.
Hale had argued against bringing the civilians along, but without success, or much sympathy from his commanding officer.
“You want tanks?” Blake had inquired rhetorically. “Well, you got ′em… Along with the guy who wrote you the blank check. Enjoy.”
“Come on!” Dentweiler shouted as he stood upright in the Lynx. “Let’s get down into that pit and find Walker!”
Burl, who was seated in the rear next to the machine gunner, looked worried. Hale wondered what the man was thinking. Here he was, returning to his own personal hell only days after escaping it.
Hale lifted a hand by way of an acknowledgment as he climbed in next to the driver. He was armed with a HE .44 Magnum and a Bellock Automatic. Both weapons had been chosen for close-in work if it came to that.
“Okay,” Hale said to the driver, “take us past those buildings and down into the pit.”
The engine roared, wheels spun, and slush flew sideways as the Lynx took off, closely followed by the second unit. Hale barely had time to look at the yawning crater off to the left and marvel at how large it was before a couple of Howlers came bounding out of cover and the .50 caliber machine gun began to chug.
Both Chimera were knocked off their feet, and the vehicle bumped over one of them, forcing Hale to hang on for dear life as the four-by-four skidded sideways and a dozen Hybrids poured out of the buildings ahead. They opened fire with Bullseyes, and as the gunner brought the .50 to bear, Hale triggered the Bellock. The combination proved deadly as half a dozen stinks went down.
The driver straightened the vehicle out, just in time for the second Lynx to hose the Chimera down as it followed along behind. Then the battle was over as both vehicles followed the circular road downward. They were about halfway to the bottom when the gunner shouted, “Drones at ten o’clock!” and began to fire.
Hale looked up to see that a swarm of the flying machines had been dispatched to intercept the incoming vehicles. So he fired the Bellock, and had the satisfaction of seeing one of the drones vanish with a loud bang. An instant later the gunner scored two kills of his own. “Yee-haw!” the Sentinel shouted as he smoked a third machine. “Eat lead, assholes!”
Then they were past the drones, leaving the second Lynx to fire on the surviving machines, as they made one last circle of the pit and came to a smooth stop next to the half-frozen lake. Within a matter of seconds a flood of raggedy prisoners surged out of their various hiding places, all yelling excitedly as some tried to jump aboard the vehicles.
That was when Burl stood up and shouted at the crowd: “Back off!” Burl got nearly instant obedience as members of the Fair and Square Squad recognized their leader and hurried to provide him with backup. Hale was suddenly grateful for the civilian’s presence as he gave orders for the prisoners to form a column of twos and prepare to march up out of the pit as fast as they could.
Meanwhile, having exited the second Lynx, Dentweiler was shouldering his way through
the crowd while holding up an 8 X 10 glossy of Henry Walker for everyone to see. “Have you seen this man?” Dentweiler demanded loudly. “If so, where is he?”
There were lots of garbled replies as Burl left the organizing task to the members of the Fair and Square Squad and hurried over to the spot where the Walkers liked to eat their meals. The carefully wrapped recorder and the recordings had been hidden there, in a crevice between two large rocks.
But they were gone.
Burl was disappointed, and started scanning the crowd for Walker, when one of his buddies hurried over. “Harley, you crazy sonofabitch! You made it! And you came back… Never mind that serving of glop you owe me. We’re square.”
Burl grinned. “Good. I was going to mention it if you hadn’t.” Then he resumed his search, and said, “Where’s Walker? I don’t see him anywhere.”
“They took him,” the man announced sadly. “Yesterday morning, along with twenty-three others. He’d been here a long time, Harley, you know that, and the poor bastard’s luck ran out.”
“Damn it,” Burl said disgustedly. “Twenty-four hours. The difference between life and death. Do me a favor would you? Help the squad get everybody ready to go. I’ve got to speak with Lieutenant Hale.”
The Sentinel was standing next to his Lynx, listening to the latest in a series of sit reps from the noncoms up on the rim, when Burl materialized out of the crowd.
“Thanks for the help,” Hale said, as he eyed the area around him. “What’s up?”
“It’s Walker,” Burl replied soberly. “I know what happened to him.”
Hale’s eyes came around to meet Burl’s.
“Yeah? Where is he?”
“He’s almost certainly dead,” Burl answered. “But we need to find his body. He was carrying audio recordings of President Grace laying plans to open negotiations with the stinks. Can you believe that shit? I didn’t, until he let me listen to some of them. That’s why Henry and his wife were headed for Chicago… They were going to give the tapes to the Freedom First people, except the Chimera grabbed them the same day the bastards got me.”
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