Officer Of The Watch: Blackout Volume 1

by D W McAliley

  Joe shifted the '58 back into drive and sped down the winding country road. The men went back to watching the shadows for movement, but every so often, their eyes were drawn to the northern horizon and the reddish orange glow on the horizon. Slowly, the glow of the fire fell behind them and faded with distance.

  Joe rode with his window down, the cool night wind in his hair, and one hand on his pistol. When they crossed an old concrete bridge over a small creek, the clear song of a whippoorwill rang out for a brief moment and then was swept away in their wake.

  Joe took a deep breath and tightened his grip on the wheel. He was exhausted, and the constant edginess was beginning to wear on him. With a slight shrug of his shoulders, Joe consciously set that part of himself aside in a small compartment. He couldn't afford to think about it right now, so he wouldn't. Joe stuffed all of his distractions and his second-guesses into that little compartment, and slammed the door hard on them.

  There would be plenty of time for doubts and second-guesses when the mission was done. Right now, he had to focus.

  CH. 45

  Up Before The Sun

  Eric woke slowly and reluctantly. He felt the hard floor in his back first and started to shift uncomfortably. The dim sounds of birds outside the bedroom window weren't enough to wake him, but he could hear them clearly. Suddenly, there was a slight tugging on his right big toe, and Eric sat bolt upright in his quilts to find his grandfather sitting at his feet, a broad grin on his face.

  "Come on, Doc," Levy said softly. "Time to get a jump on the day."

  Levy stood and left the room, trusting to Eric to get himself up and out of his makeshift bed. Christina stirred softly in the bed on the other side of the room, but she was still sound asleep. Eric stood and dressed himself quickly, but quietly, in a pair of faded blue jeans and a loose plaid cotton button down shirt.

  When Eric stepped into the kitchen, Levy was pouring two plain white porcelain mugs of coffee from a dented and scratched aluminum percolator. The coffee pot was close to twice as old as Eric himself, but it still made hot, strong coffee. Eric took the mug from his grandfather and then followed him out the back door.

  The sky was already pearly shade of gray, but the sun wasn't quite up yet. Along the eastern horizon, a few low clouds were painted bright crimson and orange along their bottom edges, the first hints of the coming dawn. Levy led the way down the concrete stairs and to the old curing barn on the back edge of the farmyard.

  "You got that length of copper?" Levy asked as he walked around to the tin lean-to shed on the left side of the tall barn.

  Eric frowned for a moment as he dug around and eventually pulled the stiff six inch copper rod from his pocket. He ran his thumb along both points, still puzzling over its purpose even as he showed it to his grandfather. Levy nodded and smiled, then took a seat on an upturned section of oak log that served as his stool. He poked around in the leaves for a moment until he found a large flat section of pottery with a deep brown glaze over it.

  Levy handed the piece of ceramic to Eric and asked, "Know what this is?"

  Eric examined the piece and turned it over several times in his hands. "It's part of an insulator for a power cable," he answered. "I've found smaller pieces out in the fields around here and the ones out by the road."

  Levy nodded. "That's right, Doc," he said. "Way back when the power company was first running lines through this part of the state, they used these thick copper power cables and they used to get hot as all get out. Well, these huge insulators kept the hot cable from burning down the wood power poles."

  Eric turned the piece over in his hand and was impressed by its size. If the circle it had broken from had been whole, it would have been twice the size of a dinner plate, and at least four times as thick. And this was part of one section from the original insulator.

  "Years ago," Levy said, "before you were born, a bad ice storm came through here. A lot of the lines running through this part of the country got so heavy, they snapped right in half, and brought the power poles down with them. It was so cold that when the insulators hit the ground, they shattered."

  Levy took the piece back from Eric and started turning it over and over in his hands, examining every crack and scratch on it. Finally, after several minutes of scrutiny, Levy reached into the leaves on the other side of his stool, and fished around until he picked up a smooth, round stone that had come down from the river bottom. He turned the piece of ceramic over a few more times, then changed his grip on it, and struck it fast and hard with the round river stone in his other hand.

  There was a loud snap, and Eric was certain the pottery had shattered. But when Levy opened his fingers, a small sliver of ceramic fell to the ground, and the rest of the piece was intact.

  "Your uncle MacBride and I went around while the lines was down," Levy said, half speaking to himself, "and we collected all the copper and insulator pieces we could find. When them power company boys came back through, we played dumb about it, and they just strung up new lines like it weren't nothing. We didn't really know what we was gonna use it all for back then, at least I didn't, but back then you saved stuff just to save it, whether you could use it right then or not. Never know what's gonna happen down the road."

  Levy looked up at Eric and winked. He picked another spot and struck the edge of the pottery shard, knocking off thin flake. Levy fell silent for a while, and he worked on the piece of insulator with his stone, moving slowly around the edges. Eric picked up one of the flakes and looked at it in the growing light. It was thin, and razor sharp along the edges. It reminded him of something, but he couldn't quite place it at first.

  After about twenty minutes, Levy nodded to himself and handed the piece of pottery back to a dumbfounded Eric. The piece of insulator had been completely transformed. It no longer even resembled ceramics, but had taken on a rough diamond shape a little smaller than Eric's hand. It looked a lot like the stone arrowheads and knife blades he'd found in the fields as a young boy.

  "Now, take a look at your piece of copper," Levy said. As Eric did as he was told, Levy reached in his back pocket and pulled out a long, thin stick. At one end of the stick was a hammered point of copper just like the end of Eric's piece. The length of copper line was held to the stick with leather lashings. The entire tool had the weathered and worn look that comes from years of use. Along the copper end of the stick were dark, rusty brown stains that could only be old, dried blood.

  Levy took the piece of pottery back from Eric and began working on it again. This time, instead of striking it with the rock, Levy carefully picked at it with the sharpened copper point of his tool. He worked slowly down one side, then the other. Turning it, and examining it between each flake.

  The sun was nearly halfway over the horizon when Levy handed the finished blade to Eric. It was smooth, with a regular pattern of zigzagging marks down the full length of it. The edges were razor sharp, and Eric had to make a conscious effort to handle the blade without being cut. Levy smiled and nodded at him.

  "You keep that," Levy said. "I'll teach you how to do the same thing, and then you'll have something to measure your work against."

  "How did you learn to do that, Granddaddy?" Eric asked, thoroughly impressed.

  "Well, it was Bride that did it first, Doc," Levy said shaking his head slightly. "He was a lot better at it than I was. You see, when I was a lot younger than you are now, we'd have to get up 'fore the sun every morning. We had to milk the cow, feed the pigs, check the chickens for eggs, build a fire in the stove... all the kinds of morning chores that you young'uns have growed out of these days. Well, while I was doing all of that, Bride would sneak off somewhere and do this," Levy gestured with his pressure flaker, "and he got real good at it, too. We worked out a deal where I'd do the chores, and he'd make me stone knives, and arrows, and teach me as best he could."

  Levy grabbed his cup of coffee that was still steaming slightly and drained it in one gulp without spilling a drop. He chuckled to hi
mself as memories Eric could only guess at danced through his head.

  After a few moments, Levy nodded and smiled again. "Well, I ain't had any cows to milk around here for twenty years or more, and we ain't had chickens or pigs in at least ten. I guess I finally had time to start getting good at knapping myself, and I figure it's time to pass it on to you."

  Eric shook his head and tried to hand the ceramic knife blade back to his grandfather. "I appreciate it, Granddaddy," he said, "but I don't think I'm going to have a lot of free time to practice this. Like you said, there's a lot to do in the garden, and with everything else going on, I just don't know."

  Levy's face suddenly grew serious, and he leaned toward Eric without even moving to take the blade from him.

  "Now you mark my words, Doc," Levy said. "You'd better make time. There's gonna come a day in your lifetime when you can't find any more bullets for them guns you carry. And when that happens, you're still gonna need something....something the other fella ain't got. You get my meaning?"

  Eric felt the razor sharp edge of the stone knife blade again and imagined a fight where it would make the difference between winning and dying. Finally, he nodded, and said, "Okay, Granddaddy, I understand. Now, can you show me how you hit with the rock, please?"

  Levy just smiled and shook his head. "One step at a time, son. We'll practice some more later. Right now, it's time to get to work."

  Levy stood and put an arm around Eric's shoulders. The two walked back to the house while Levy laughed and told outlandish stories about the uncle that Eric had never met.

  Ch. 46

  Familiar Faces

  The sun was about halfway up on the eastern horizon, and already the day was hot and humid. No thunderstorms the day before had left the atmosphere with tons of excess energy. When the evening storms finally broke loose, they would be intense.

  Tom slowed the station wagon and looked over at Joe, who took a deep breath and thought for a moment before shaking his head. Tom pulled the '58 off to the side of the road and shifted into Park. He switched off the engine a good twenty yards from the foot of the low concrete bridge over the Elizabeth River. They'd crossed that bridge just the day before on their way out of town in the re-purposed HUMVEE.

  Now it ended a hundred yards out over the river in a jagged heap of charred concrete and twisted rebar. The men got out of the car and walked slowly to the foot of the bridge, their eyes wide in disbelief. Joe nudged a charred chunk of concrete with the toe of his boot and shook his head.

  "J-DAM," Henderson said softly. "Two thousand pounder, from the looks of it. They like to roll in and hit center span, weakest point. One hit, and it collapses in under its own weight."

  Joe frowned at the young Marine. "Seen this kind of thing before, Corporal?" he asked.

  Henderson nodded. "It was classified," he said slowly, "but I guess that's all a bit beside the point now. I was with one of the expeditionary units that went into the Hindu-Kush, sir. Helped call in close support and forward offensive air strikes on strategic targets."

  Henderson grinned. "Truth be told, sir, all I really did was track, trap, hunt, and pull the trigger when I needed to. A couple of the other guys...the real scary ones....they did all the radio and satellite communications stuff. I worked with a Seal team and two boys from the Air Force. Anyway, one of the things we had to do sometimes was check and confirm hits on target. So I saw a lot of.... that.... over there."

  Joe just shook his head, staring over at the far side of the river. All of the names he'd recognized had lived in and immediately around Norfolk. And if they had gone through the trouble of taking out one bridge with an air strike, the odds are they'd taken out all of them. Joe closed his eyes and said a silent prayer for his brothers in arms.

  When he turned back to Tom, his face was grim. "That list," he said. "Were any of the addresses in Chesapeake?"

  Tom shook his head. "None of the ones I recognized," he replied. "All of them were Norfolk and Virginia Beach. There was one that was up in Hampton Roads, but I'm pretty sure he moved to Arizona a couple of years ago and never told anybody."

  "What about names you didn't recognize?" Joe asked, but Tom only shrugged.

  The men turned back to the station wagon to check the papers and froze. Four men stood around the car, examining it from every side. A fifth man leaned on the front driver side fender, his arms crossed, watching them.

  "This sure is a nice car," the stranger said in a slow, deep southern drawl.

  The other four men stopped their scrutiny of the vehicle and turned towards Joe and his companions. Their faces were all grim and dirty. Two of them had the look of bar fighters, with rough chins and crooked noses. One of them looked like a quiet gardener, and the last looked like he desperately wanted people to think he was tough.

  Joe shared a glance with Tom and Henderson, and he then started walking calmly and purposefully at the obvious leader. The broad-shouldered man stepped away from the fender and stretched. He made a show of being nonchalant as Joe stalked up on him. When Joe was about five yards away, the man nodded to two of his lackeys, who stepped forward threateningly.

  Joe stopped and waited, Tom slightly behind him and to the right, Henderson to his left. He didn't speak, and that began to bother the other man. Whatever was going on here, Joe wasn't going to give the stranger any information he didn't want to part with.

  Finally, the large man stepped forward a few paces and pointed to Joe's right hand. "That sure is a fancy ring, Mister. Big, sky-blue stone in it. I know a guy seen a ring like that recently. Said the man wearing it was driving a military transport, and he had a bit of a hit and run. Know anything about that?"

  Joe's eyes narrowed and he felt his stomach sink. With a beard added to his face and a bottle of whiskey for his hand, the stranger would have been a dead ringer for the man who had shot at them in the street. Joe swallowed hard and shook his head slowly.

  "Now, what's the odds of another fella with the same kind of ring coming through here less than two days later?" The man asked with thick sarcasm. "Not very good, I think," he answered before Joe could speak.

  The man reached around behind his back, but he froze when Joe suddenly drew his 9mm FNX and leveled it at him calmly. Tom had his pistol in his hand, scanning two of the men, and Henderson had done the same. No one moved for a moment, as the stranger and his friends stood in stunned silence.

  There was soft laughter from behind Joe, and he felt goose bumps run up his neck. "Tom, if this guy's hand moves, drop him," Joe said.

  "Roger," Tom replied, and he smoothly swung his gun over to the man, while keeping an eye on his two friends."

  Joe turned and found himself looking at another familiar face. The young man from the railroad tracks stood with his three compatriots, their hands all stretched out to their sides. The young man shook his head ruefully.

  "I told y'all not to mess with this dude," Donovan said. "I seen him and another cat put down four of the baddest mothas I ever seen. Well, I had a blind fold on, but I heard the guys start falling. Next thing I know, this other cat, that I don't even see is pullin off my hood and givin me the run down. I tried to tell you y'all don't want to mess with these guys. But y'all wouldn't listen to me, damn dumb red-neck."

  "He killed my brother," the stranger bellowed.

  "Yeah, and if you move they gonna kill you, too," Donovan said, "and what's that gonna solve. Your brother was a dead-beat drunk a-hole, and you know it."

  Donovan turned back to Joe and shook his head. "Man, I don't want no trouble with y'all," the young man said. "I ain't gonna try and stand in your way, I ain't gonna try to stop ya. Don't mean I gotta help you none, though. Like I said before, you don't know me, and I don't know you. I'd still like to keep it that way, to be honest."

  Joe nodded slowly. "That's probably best," he said and fixed the stranger with a hard stare. "You agree, or do you want to die today? Cause I mean to go home to my family."

  The stranger took a deep, slo
w breath and seemed to shudder from his head down through to his toes. Finally, he opened his eyes and met Joe's glare. "I'll find you," he grated. "I will find you, you mark my words. You're in North Carolina, a half day's ride from here, maybe a little more. There ain't but so many places it could be, and I will find you."

  After a moment more, he very slowly took an empty hand out from behind his back and held it out to one side. The men turned together and walked down the road past Donovan and his friends, casting glares of thinly veiled contempt as they moved. For their part, Donovan's friends gave as good as they got, but no one came to blows over it.

  With the others moving down the road, Donovan began backing up, still facing the men, "Like I said, you go your way, and I'll go mine."

  Joe frowned. "I think we'll be helping each other more than you realize, Donovan," he said.

  Donovan opened his mouth to reply but stopped; his eyes widened. He slowly raised his hand to point, and Joe frowned. A dim noise that had been creeping into the edge of his hearing grew, and he turned. A pair of A-10's screamed low overhead, coming out of the south east. Joe turned as he watched them both rock their wings slightly. The aircraft were desert tan with gleaming white teeth painted in a shark-mouth design on the nose cone.

  The two jets rapidly climbed over the city, banked into a hard, inverted dive, and fired off four hellfire missiles each. The missiles streaked away on independent flight paths, impacting a few seconds later. Both jets were already on climbing trajectories again. They banked over once more into inverted rolls and ended nose down, streaking towards the ground. The massive nose cannons rattled off a long string of fire like a pair of insanely over-charged buzz saws.

  Clouds of smoke rose over the city in the area of the naval base and the freight port. The two A-10's began to climb a third time, but suddenly broke hard for the ground in separate directions. One of them let off a string of burning infrared flares as it climbed and banked at sharp angles. From the North West, a large white streak raced into view, tracing the A-10's path. As it closed, though, the missile changed direction slightly, and targeted one of the flares, detonating in a massive ball of fire two hundred yards behind the A-10.