by Mark Rounds
The van is headed north out of Othello. We have one unarmed Q-8B monitoring its position. The Navy is refusing to release the armed MQ-8C for support. The rapid reaction force you requested is being recalled now. The Chinook is pre-flighting and should be loaded and ready to fly in forty minutes. Please advise.
“Colonel Hodges,” said Andy standing up from his chair at the conference table, “something has come up. May I interrupt?”
“By all means,” said Hodges. “I was nearly done anyway.”
“I would normally pursue this through the chain of command,” said Andy, choosing his words carefully, “but I am in the middle of a classified operation. The naval chain of command is refusing to release the MQ-8C drone for the operation. Under normal circumstances, I would wait until after the meeting and follow the chain of command, but …”
“Colonel,” said CAPT Lassiter from the Bangor sub base. He was a tall and lean man with salt and pepper gray hair that he kept closely cut. “You dammed well will address this through proper channels. You have been using Navy assets cavalierly for classified missions to do God knows what. The only reason these drones are here at all is that the LCS’s Milwaukee and the Omaha were in port debriefing from anti-submarine exercises against the Seawolf. They have limited spares and maintenance support for these drones on board and they represent the best anti-sub assets apart from the Seawolf that we have. I will not have that degraded …”
“Enough, Captain,” said LTG Buckley. “Launch the drone.”
“With respect, sir,” said CAPT Lassiter nervously, “I can’t allow it, not without some indication as to what the mission is.”
“Admiral Turner,” said Gen Buckley turning to the senior naval officer and his deputy, “this mission is time sensitive and highly classified. I direct you to launch. We don’t have time for a pissing contest.”
“Launch, Captain,” said Turner. “The General and I will take this matter up privately later.”
The drone launched seven minutes later, and at its top speed of one hundred and fifteen knots, it would arrive on site in seventy-one minutes.
Col Antonopoulos left the meeting in mid-sentence, garnering more than his share of dirty looks, and arrived at the runway with two Special Forces A-Teams, a sniper team from the 7th Division, and a party from 22nd Special Tactics Squadron seven minutes later. The air party consisted of two forward air controllers, a recon specialist with a satellite link and a tactical computer and five PJ’s who were members of a Special Tactics team.
“Major Eveleth,” said Col Antonopoulos to the ranking Special Forces officer, “You have command of the ground element. I am along for overall mission command. I promise not to tell you how to do your job, just what the goal is, we will brief that in flight but as soon as we hit the ground, they are your troops. Are we clear?”
“Glad to have you along, Colonel,” said Major Eveleth, shaking his hand.
“Like hell, Major,” said Col Antonopoulos. “I am a nuisance and I know it. I will try to stay out of the way.”
The conversation was interrupted as the Chinook did an engine run up as part of the crew’s checklist. The rear engine shut down suddenly and a harried looking Sergeant Major holding a wrench and a radio came running up.
“Major, Colonel,” said the sergeant saluting, “Sergeant McGlyn here, I am the line chief. This bird is not going to fly. We have a chip light on for the rear gear box.”
“What does that mean in Air Force?” asked Col Antonopoulos.
“Sir, it means that there is probably a loose piece of metal somewhere in the rear gear box,” said the sergeant. “The rear rotor could seize up at any time. That could ruin your whole day.”
“Blast!” said Col Antonopoulos. “What other assets do we have to get troops on site ASAP?”
“Sir,” said the sergeant, “we are thawing out another Chinook right now. We have a single Blackhawk as an alert bird but that is on the pad for the security reaction force for the perimeter. Most of the rest are in storage as we have been ordered to keep the level of air ops low.”
“How long before we get the Chinook?” asked Col Antonopoulos.
“I have my best troops on the new bird, sir,” said Sergeant McGlyn. “The crew is transferring now. It should be ready to fly in twenty minutes tops, sir.”
“Make it happen, sergeant,” said Col Antonopoulos.
Twenty-two minutes later, the Chinook lifted off the runway. As soon as they were safely airborne, Colonel Antonopoulos made his way to the cockpit.
“Captain, I didn’t catch your name.” said Col Antonopoulos as he tapped the pilot on the shoulder.”
“Sir, Wallace, Andrew Wallace,” said the pilot.
“OK, Captain Wallace, how fast can this crate go?”
“One hundred and seventy knots sir,” said Capt Wallace.
“I want it all; get us to LZ Alpha on this chart ASAP.”
“Yes, sir,” said Wallace, “I suspect I can coax a few more rpms out of the bird for you,” as he nodded to the flight engineer who advanced the throttles on the two big Lycoming turboshaft engines.
Col Antonopoulos patted the flight engineer on the shoulder and then sat down and worked out the ground speed issues on his old-fashioned whiz wheel. Even fudging the wind speed a bit, the armed drone was going to beat them by five minutes.
June 6th, Saturday, 10:16 am PDT
North of Othello, WA
Mary was driving the Subaru when all of a sudden, the trailer started pulling extremely hard and started to drag the car off to the left. Mary pulled over to the left side of the road and stopped. It wasn’t hard as they were only going about twenty miles an hour.
“What happened?” said Mary through the rolled down window.
“The tire on the trailer blew out,” said Chad. “We have a spare; I only hope we don’t have to unload to change the tire.”
“I saw you put two of them right on the back so they would be easy to get to,” said Mary.
“I did,” said Chad, “but I’m concerned about how much weight the jack can hold. That trailer is pretty heavily loaded down.”
Chad got out of the car and went to look at the tire. Even though they weren’t going fast, it was completely shredded.
“We must have rolled over some junk on the road a bit back,” said Chris looking at the tire; he could get around a bit now and was riding in a chair rather than the cot, but Amber wouldn’t let him do any heavy work because she was afraid he would open his leg wound again.
“The tire looked fine then, but sometimes the belts aren’t lined up right when the tire was made or they were out of round to begin with so they start to wobble and heat up. The next thing you know, they blow without any warning.”
They started to pump on the hydraulic jack they had taken from the service station in Royal City, but it couldn’t get the wheel high enough to spin the flat tire freely even without the rubber. There was no way they could change the tire like this so they got everyone off and sent Ace east on the road towards Warden while the Hammer went back towards their campsite. They had gotten a late start and were only eight miles down the road. As soon as the outriders left, they started to unload the trailer.
Chris and Dave, despite their protestations, were set up as lookouts. Heather hustled the younger kids off into the brush to take cover, and Chad, Connor, Amy, and Mary started to work. They had just made a complete mess of the roadside with about a third of their gear when the Hammer came screaming down the road.
“There’s a gang of bikers coming,” he said before he even got stopped. “There must be a hundred of them, mostly punk kids from Othello.”
“Shit, get off the road then, we’ll have to ambush them as they come up,” shouted Dave as he tossed his Benelli at the Hammer. “Arm up and hide; everyone on this side of the road. We’ll take them as they slow down to look. Nobody shoot until I set off the claymore.”
As people gathered weapons and found places to hide, Dave pulled out one of th
e homemade claymore mine he had built while waiting for the truck to be fixed. It was similar to what he had booby-trapped their old homes with, but using C-4 instead of an improvised explosive he could generate much more energy. The higher energy explosive meant that the nuts and bolts packed into the C-4 would be moving much faster, doing more damage and having a greater range.
He planted it fifty feet back from the trailer, about where he figured the bikers would stop. When he was finished, he plopped down near Chad and pulled out one of the MP-5’s the Air Force had sent.
“I must be getting old,” said Dave as everyone settled down and things got quiet. “I should have put a couple claymores out as a matter of course when we started the unloading. Mistakes like that can get you killed.”
Dave pulled the bolt back on the MP-5, chambered a round, and flicked off the safety, being very careful to keep his finger off the trigger. The wind was blowing slightly and things seemed almost pastoral. Then they all heard the sound of unmuffled Harleys, souped up import engines, diesels, and other miscellaneous motors as they became visible around the bend in the road. It was a weird convoy. The Hammer was, if anything, being conservative in his estimate of numbers. The convoy began to slow down and a familiar figure got off an ancient Harley to inspect the vehicle.
Macklin!
June 6th, Saturday, 10:19 am PDT
North of Othello, WA
Macklin had only ridden dirt bikes as a kid in Ohio, so riding the Harley Hog was a struggle. After his interview with Nergüi, he had rousted out the gangbangers from various parts of Othello and for a ruinously large amount of slash had traded for a hard used old bike blowing white smoke and barely able to make sixty miles an hour.
The previous drug peddler had kept a goodly portion of the product supplied by Nergüi for his own enterprises and as a result, there was significant pent-up demand. The crowd of Infected and addicts clustered around him was large and in serious need. They rolled out with Harleys all right, but they also had pickup trucks, passenger cars and even one school bus. There were at least a hundred and twenty armed individuals trying to get a fix.
The quality of his accompanying mob left much to be desired. If his last posting had been with the dregs of society, this one was made up of their wannabes. The average age was less than twenty and the quality of their weapons was poor. There were a few shotguns, a single AR-15, and many cheap pistols and knives. Some carried bike chains and even clubs. Many of them were so high that they were more of a danger to themselves and Macklin than to anyone they might run into.
He had cell phone communication with Nergüi so when his boss went west on highway 262, Macklin, who came along three hours later, went east. There were several abandoned and looted vehicles on the road and so, when he first spotted the half unloaded trailer, he figured that it was a recently abandoned and hence only partially looted site like the others he had driven by. It was only as he got closer that he realized that it was the Stricklands’ forest green Subaru.
Before he stopped, he speed dialed Nergüi.
“Macklin here. I think I have found the Stricklands’ vehicle abandoned by the road. They are definitely headed east.”
“Wait there,” said Nergüi urgently. “Don’t start shooting unless there is no alternative. We want the girl alive.”
Macklin’s convoy slowed down and various gangbangers, bikers, and ne’er-do-well’s started piling out of the vehicles. Then the bus pulled up and even more began to boil out. Macklin had to turn his attention from the Stricklands’ vehicle to the unruly mob that was forming behind him. As he tried to control and organize the crowd behind him, there was a loud tearing burst of the exploding claymore.
June 6th, Saturday, 10:20 am PDT
North of Othello, WA
Dave triggered the claymore, dropped the detonator, picked up his MP-5, and scanned the target area. Macklin was still standing but at least ten of his minions were down and others were injured and bleeding. The rest were stunned and looking at blackened asphalt where the claymore had been. Dave looked for the largest group of hostiles who were standing around the bus and opened fire, burning up his whole magazine.
Before he clocked out, Chad opened up with his AR-15 and was quickly followed by the others. The hostiles began diving for cover. A number of them who were high or infected or both charged forward. Many were cut down, but some who were on the western flank were able to get around and behind which worried Dave.
The Hammer started to low crawl to the west, trying to take the escapees under fire. Mary jumped up and began running back towards where the children were hiding with Heather. Chad tackled her as the fire from the Infected began to pick up.
“Let me go!” shouted Mary as she tried to push Chad away.
“Be still!” said Chad holding her firmly. “You’ll get shot if you stand up and run. The Hammer and Heather will be able to get the leakers. The older girls are armed too.”
“They’re just children!” said Mary as she sagged into his arms.
“We have to live through the next five minutes to protect them. We have to hold here.”
Mary looked at him hard and them took up her shotgun and began firing at the gang members.
June 6th, Saturday, 10:21 am PDT
Airborne, West of Othello, WA
Air Force recon specialist Staff Sergeant Alred waved Col Antonopoulos over to his position in the helicopter. Andy made his way forward and saw that the computer in the recon specialist’s hands was showing real-time imaging from the drone.
“Sir, I have the drone’s imaging and it looks like the Strickland party is in trouble.”
“What have you got, sergeant?” asked Andy with alarm.
“There is a large group of apparent hostiles taking the Strickland party under fire sir.”
“How big?”
“Hard to say sir, it’s certainly over a hundred,” said Sergeant Alred scrutinizing his computer screen.
“We need to help them right now, or they’ll be overrun,” said Andy. “Senior Master Sergeant Rausch, what’s the load out on the MQ-8C?”
“Eight Hydra 70 rockets with the APKWS laser guidance,” said Rausch.
“I’m a trash hauler,” said Andy testily. “What does that mean?”
“Sir, the effective range of a Hydra 70 rocket is eight thousand seven hundred meters with a max range of over eleven thousand. We are stuck with US Navy missiles so we have standard M151 warheads with 2.3 pounds of Composition B-4 high explosive sir. This missile itself is supersonic after launch so it will arrive on target with no warning if we fire from altitude.”
“Very well,” said Andy, “clear the Navy pilot to fire at will on any large clusters. Have him retain two weapons in reserve.”
“Yes, sir,” said Sergeant Rausch, “and sir, it’s her, not him.”
“So noted,” said Andy.
June 6th, Saturday, 10:22 am PDT
North of Othello, WA
Chad was laying down suppressive fire with his AR-15. After the first mad rush, the Infected were content to maintain a base of fire. This was not good. His ready ammo was already low. If he and his friends could not break this attack in a few minutes, their ammo would be expended. Not long after that, they would be overrun. Chad had no idea how long it would take them to realize they were clocked-out, so he had become very conservative, using aimed, controlled fire.
He looked for Macklin, but after the claymore had gone off, he was nowhere to be seen. He could only hope that the blast had killed him but he was not optimistic. Macklin kept turning up like a bad penny.
Chad was sighting in on a man hiding underneath the bus when the bus blew up with little warning.
“Dave!” shouted Chad. “What did you do this time?”
“That was not one of my dirty tricks,” said Dave over the intervening ten feet.
Just then another explosion occurred behind a little bump across the road from where they were, flinging several bodies into the air.
; “I’d say we have air support,” said Dave with a smile.
June 6th, Saturday, 10:22 am PDT
North of Othello, WA
Macklin was furious. He had no history with this mob and no henchmen to carry out his orders, so all he could do was rage at the colossal stupidity that he was witnessing. Some of his erstwhile employees were firing away madly with no specific target that he could discern. Some had rushed ahead and were now mostly lying in the road dead or wounded. Still others were trying to edge back from the fight.
Worse still, someone had him in his sights. Every time he moved or tried to shout or get control of the cluster that this had devolved into, someone fired on him. It wasn’t just any rifle either. Its report had a deeper note, like a sniper rifle, and at this range, Macklin was under no illusions that his body armor would stop the slug.
Just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse, the bus blew up. It didn’t just blow up; there was an initial explosion that sent pieces in several directions and ruptured the fuel tank, spraying burning gas all over. One poor unfortunate was covered with fuel and ran blindly forward until he was taken down by shotgun fire. Then Macklin’s phone rang.
“What?!” shouted Macklin into the phone. His shout was rewarded with a rifle bullet passing inches above his head.
“You seem distressed, did I call at a bad time?” said Nergüi sarcastically.
“I don’t have time for this,” said Macklin. “This gang of losers you saddled me with is trying to kill everything in sight. The Stricklands, as usual, are kicking our collective asses because we have no discipline or communications. Is there anything else you want? I don’t have time for idle chat because there is a sniper who is trying his very best to kill me.”
“Is the girl still alive?” asked Nergüi, suddenly serious.
“As far as I know,” said Macklin. “We haven’t hurt them at all, though their Subaru looks like shit.”