Standing Before Hell's Gate

by William Alan Webb

  He filled Angriff in on his dispositions while the mortar crews’ forward observers climbed to the top of a hundred-foot-high ridge overlooking the bowl where the Rednecks camped. Twin doors in the vehicles’ top folded back to allow the mortar tube to be raised and aimed. Other members of the crew stacked round green cylinders containing the actual shells forward of the tube and within easy reach.

  Even as Wincommer spoke, Angriff’s eyes cut to watch the performance, and he couldn’t help comparing them to a NASCAR pit crew. “Sounds like you’re ready, Major.”

  “We are, General. All we need now—”

  “Major!” A stocky corporal half ran, half slid down the ridge. Covered in dust, he saluted and coughed.

  “What is it, Coco?”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, but you need to see this sir.”

  “See what?”

  “They’re torturing some dogs.”

  Without another word, both Wincommer and Angriff went scrambling up the rocky slope. Once there, they lay down and looked over the crest into an oblong space surrounded on three sides by rock walls. Only on the north was it open. It measured about three hundred yards wide and five hundred long. Penned animals took up most of the western side, to their left. A sprawling one-story building abutted the stockyard, with heaps of materials scattered nearby, everything from copper pipes to bricks.

  The Rednecks were mostly gathered around a large bonfire about one hundred yards distant from where Angriff lay. Several charred bodies lay nearby, still smoking, and he realized they had been dogs. Four people without red scarves stood guarded by three Rednecks and even at that distance he could see the rage on their faces as one Redneck laughed and held something over his head. At first Angriff couldn’t tell what it was, only that it was black, gray, and tan, but then it squirmed and he knew it was a puppy. The Redneck had it by the scruff of its neck and swung it around before walking slowly toward the fire.

  “That bastard’s going to throw it in!” Wincommer said.

  Angriff looked past the major to a captain he hadn’t met yet, who held an M-4. He panted and blinked away tears, forgetting everything as rage took him. “Gimme that rifle, Captain,” he said, holding out his hand. The man didn’t hesitate and neither did Angriff. “As soon as I shoot, Major, open fire.”

  He heard Wincommer’s frantic radio calls to alert his command, but ignored them and drew aim on the man one hundred and twelve yards to his front. The man’s right side faced him but he didn’t want to risk hitting the dog, so he aimed below the armpit. Angriff had always known that if he was put on Earth for only one reason, it was to shoot a gun, any gun. His hand-eye coordination had always amazed those who saw him shoot, but it was more than that. Lying there, his breathing slowed without him thinking about it. The gunsights lined up as if they had a will of their own, and he knew precisely how long he could wait until the man got too close to the fire for him to risk it, and in that millisecond he squeezed the trigger.

  The recoil wasn’t like his beloved M-1 Garand, but the bullet flew just as true. It struck the man holding the puppy exactly where Angriff had aimed, shattered a rib and sent fragments into the left lung while maintaining enough velocity to strike his spinal cord and lodge there. With a gasp, the man took one more step, fell to his knees, and then pitched forward on his face. Nerveless fingers released the puppy, which scurried into Ma Kelly’s.

  A split second after he fired came the shotgun-like cough of the mortars, followed within two seconds by three explosions amid the knot of Rednecks gathered near the bonfire. Simultaneously the troop of cavalry opened up with small arms and cut down the enemy. Two men made it to the horses and tried to ride out the northern opening, but the Americans blocked the exit by stepping out into the opening. One man tried to ride through and slumped off his saddle, riddled with bullets. The other pulled his horse into a halt and threw up his hands. Neither of their mounts was hit.

  The fight was over in less than a minute. The Rednecks managed to get a few shots off but didn’t hit anybody. None of them were left standing, although one man dragged himself toward the horses as blood poured from the stump of his right leg. Angriff rose even before the last shots rang out, rifle at the ready and searching for a new target. Once it was over, he handed the rifle back to the captain, whose name he read from the man’s uniform. “Thanks for the loan of the rifle, Captain Lozano.”

  “You’re welcome, General. That was… uh, a fine shot.”

  “Yeah.” His gaze drifted in the direction of the scorched dogs and a change came over his face, a tenseness of the jaw muscles, betraying the anger that earlier in life would have consumed him. He’d toned it down in recent years, but earlier in his career it had inspired the sobriquet of Nick the A. “I wish I’d gotten here sooner.”

  #

  Chapter 11

  The best thing about food is that it’s food.

  Bunny Carlos

  Groom Lake Air Force Facility

  1102 hours, April 24

  The returnees ate lunch at the same table they’d eaten at the night before, only this time nobody stood behind Randall and Carlos with a gun. Major Cole was likewise different, treating them with gratitude, if not respect.

  “Why’d you boys do it?” he asked after washing down a mouthful of cornbread with tepid water. Where the base got corn flour, he didn’t say.

  Randall chewed a lean cut of meat that tasted like deer, but he’d been told was antelope. “I can’t speak for Lieutenant Carlos,” Randall said, which prompted Carlos to give him a look that meant since when? “But I doubted I could explain the difference between us and you, it being pitch dark and all. I figured the Rednecks would shoot us out of hand.”

  “So we were the lesser of two evils.”

  “Something like that.”

  “I’m flattered.”

  “I’m not sure what else you expect, Major. Look at it from our standpoint. We thought we were dead. We’re up there flying an unfamiliar aircraft through a combat zone, the largest aircraft ever built, for good measure. We’ve got thunderheads topping fifty thousand feet piling up between us and our landing field, and then suddenly, like magic, a long, beautiful runway presents itself for us to land on. Then a couple of F-22s with USAF markings show up as a fighter escort to sweeten the deal. Against all odds, we touch down safely and see genuine American military people waiting for us, only to have guns stuck in our faces and to be treated as enemies.”

  “If you’re expecting an apology, you’re going to have a long wait.”

  “Right now I’d settle for an explanation.”

  “All right… you’ve obviously heard of this place before…”

  “Not under the name you called it.”

  “But you’ve heard of it.”

  “In the pre-Collapse world, everybody’d heard the name you don’t want me to use for some weird reason. There were books, movies, TV shows, you name it, all about what was going on out here.”

  “UFO people.”

  “Not just them. When something’s as mysterious as this place, people are gonna wonder about it. But yeah, for the UFO believers this was ground zero.”

  “And if an unauthorized C-5 Galaxy had violated the restricted airspace over that place, what would have happened?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m guessing they’d have been blown out of the sky.”

  Cole nodded. “That’s right, and yet you weren’t. At my command you could have been, those F-22s carried operational air-to-air ordnance, but you weren’t. I allowed you to land safely, which wasn’t a universally approved decision, I can tell you. Many people saw no reason to take a chance on you.”

  “So why did you?”

  “The plane. That aircraft is now worth more than anything in the world, at least to me. But first things first. I’m in command of this whole base now. If this was the old world, I’d have to be at least a three-star general to hold this command, but those days are long gone. Or I thought they were, anyway. At its he
ight, tens of thousands of people worked here, but now there’s less than three hundred of us and most of us came here after the Collapse.”

  “You, too?”

  “Yes and no. My father was stationed here when the earthquakes hit and we joined him some time after that, my mom, brother, sister, and me. I was three. Dad was ordered to stay here and safeguard the research projects, to keep them away from the enemy. As part of the deal, those who stuck around got their families flown in to join them. As the country deteriorated, most of the people left, a few like us came, but after a while flights and incoming traffic died away. At the end, only wagons and lone stragglers came here. One day they quit coming, too.”

  “So you grew up here.”

  “My brother and I both did. My sister died when I was still a little boy, stung by a bark scorpion, but Mom and Dad lived until about ten years ago. They died within a week of each other. It was my father who taught me about the base and groomed me to take over his duties.”

  “What happened to your brother?”

  “You saved his life last night.”

  “You mean what’s his name… Bondo?”

  “That’s him.”

  “Why is your brother named after a car body filler?”

  Cole chuckled at that. “He’s not. His real name is Winfrey Butler Cole. When he was a kid, he got teased about his name, so he told everybody to call him a name after the toughest man he could think of… James Bond. Except he thought it was Bond-oh. So that’s the name that stuck. It’s just a coincidence that he’s a genius around engines.”

  With Major Cole more relaxed, Randall asked the one question he couldn’t imagine an answer for. “America’s been gone for more than forty years, so why are you still guarding this place?”

  “That’s easier to show than tell. How would you boys like a tour?”

  “Hell yes!” Carlos said before Randall could answer.

  “Remember you said that,” Cole said.

  #

  Chapter 12

  Truly the universe is full of ghosts, not sheeted churchyard spectres, but the inextinguishable elements of individual life, which having once been, can never die, though they blend and change, and change again for ever.

  H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon’s Mines

  Groom Lake Air Force Facility

  1141 hours, April 24

  The base was enormous, even when compared to Overtime Prime. Despite acres of solar panels and wind turbines, energy was precious, so foot power was the only mode of transportation. Cole explained that both the solar and wind generators had lost efficiency over the years and the base still required a lot of power for the functioning lights, refrigerators, and the like. In the baking heat, it didn’t take long for Carlos to regret his earlier enthusiasm. As for Randall, as much as he itched to get back to Creech, like so much of the world he’d spent his whole life wondering what the elaborate security measures at Area 51 really concealed. Curiosity drove him to drink in every detail of what Cole showed them, although he told himself it was research for his father-in-law.

  Cole started by showing them two cavernous hangars filled with non-serviceable aircraft of every make, type, and size. The only lighting came from huge skylights in the walls and roof, with slatted blast doors for protection that could be opened or closed at need. Opened now, Randall doubted they had been closed for decades.

  Randall didn’t know Air Force aircraft types all that well, but the plethora of F-22s was hard to miss and he mentioned it.

  “They were collected here when the F-35 went into service. Apparently a lot of the Air Force commanders didn’t like the F-35 and wanted, as my father used to say, ‘to have a real fighter if the shit hit the fan.’”

  “I thought the shit did hit the fan?”

  Cole shrugged. “I was a little kid. All Dad ever said about it was that everything happened fast.”

  Cole let them stroll among the planes and waited by the door they’d entered through. Although outside it neared midday, even with all of the windows the lighting wasn’t good. Wandering among the parked aircraft, Randall and Carlos could only shake their heads at the potential of the collected warplanes.

  He had just rounded the nosewheel of yet another F-22 when Randall pulled up short and waved for Carlos to join him. “What the hell is that?” he said, pointing at an aircraft parked in a corner.

  “Beats the hell out of me, but I’m in love.”

  It was shaped something like a cross between the F-16 and the F-22, but was much longer than either of those planes. Mounted on either sides of the sleek fuselage were swept wings, and instead of two twin engines mounted side by side, it had four, laid out in a square around a boom tail. The all-black aircraft’s only markings were small white stars near four covered slots in the nose.

  “Hey, Major! What’s this thing?”

  “Eh?” It took Cole nearly a minute to find them. “Oh, there you are. I see you found our Rogue. The Boeing XF-77, gentlemen. That’s the prototype of the first orbital fighter jet.”

  Randall stood beside the nosewheel and pointed upward at the four grooves in the metal over his head. “Are those cannon?”

  Cole nodded. “Yeah. Dad said the idea was that battle damage at the edge of space would be instantly fatal.”

  “Did he say why? I mean… cannon? Fighters haven’t had onboard cannon for decades.”

  “He never explained about the damage, no, but those cannon were supposed to fire homing rounds. There’s even a store of them here they used for testing. The shields over the tubes retract when they’re not being used.”

  “I wonder if this thing ever flew…” Randall mused.

  “Oh, yeah, I saw it fly half a dozen times when I was a kid. A lot of the design engineers didn’t have anywhere else to go, so they stayed here and kept working on it up until about twenty years ago. This is actually the third prototype; the other two are underground.”

  “I wonder if it could still be put into service…”

  “If so, nobody here knows how to do it.”

  They next headed for the parts and tools area, the machine shop, paint shop, power-generator plant, solar power collectors, and the water well and purification system. Power still flowed to the latter system.

  As they walked through the quiet buildings, illuminated only by morning sunlight that seeped through holes in the hangar walls, both Randall and Carlos gaped at the dark skeletons of once state-of-the-art machines that had been crammed into every available space. Not just aircraft but forklifts, bulldozers, excavators, cars, trucks, gantries, cranes, and even an ice cream machine. None of the hardware remained operational.

  Cole explained how the old-timers had passed on their skills to the younger people, but without the intense practice mechanics and technicians had in the pre-Collapse Air Force, their abilities had atrophied. Nevertheless, the Groom Lake Air Force Facility, the part of the Nevada Test and Training Range that he commanded, had been outfitted to survive almost anything.

  After spending an hour aboveground, Cole led them to double doors marked Approved Personnel Only in faded red letters. Heavy double steel doors led to a stairwell, which Cole pointed to but didn’t lead them down. He explained that while most of the base was underground, including vast hydroponics farms, research and medical facilities, barracks, laboratories, bowling alleys, nuclear bunkers, and a water processing plant connected to deep wells, the only way down was twenty stories of steps, or about 300 in all.

  “I remember,” Randall said.

  Cole thought for a second. “Oh, that’s right, you were down there.”

  “There’s no elevators?” Carlos said.

  “Yeah, of course. Lots. But only three that work, and those are reserved for emergencies. Take no offense, boys, but showing you around doesn’t qualify as an emergency.”

  “What about the rest of it?”

  Cole’s convivial smile faded. “I honestly don’t know.”

  “How can you not know?”

&n
bsp; “Drop it, Randall. Just drop it.” Cole’s tone left no room for discussion.

  So Randall changed the subject. “Why are you doing this? What’s this place to you?”

  Cole appeared genuinely surprised by the question. “It’s home.”

  “Yeah, okay, I get that, but…”

  “But?”

  “But all this military formality, all of this loyalty to a country that no longer exists… I don’t get it. I’ve seen it before, it’s like this down at Creech, but I don’t understand it.”

  Cole paused in front of double doors labeled Bio-Hazard Area. His middle fingers met at the point of his hairline and he ran them down each temple, pausing to massage the skin near the outside edge of his eyebrows. The two pilots’ eyes met and Carlos mouthed headache?

  “I don’t know anything else, Randall. I’ve never lived anywhere else and this is how I was taught. D-3 has everything we need to survive, and from what I’m told, places outside of here don’t, so why would I ever leave? As to protecting it for a country that doesn’t exist… if what you’ve told me is true, then you grew up in that world, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you knew what you signed up for. I never knew that world. My dad said there used to be places called grocery stores, where you could get any food you wanted… that’s true?”

  “A little simplified, but yeah, it was like that.”

  “So you knew what you were protecting when you joined the army. I didn’t have that, but a man’s still gotta have a purpose to his life; otherwise he’s not living, he’s existing. At least that’s what my father always drilled into our skulls. I know the country slid pretty far down before it collapsed, that’s what all the adults told us kids, but from everything I’ve known in my life, it sounded like a helluva nice world to live in. From everything I know, there’s some potentially powerful weapons on this base, so keeping them out of other people’s hands, people who might use them to make this world even worse than it is, well, that just seems like a worthy goal, you know?”