“What about water? You going to walk around with a diving rod until you find a spring?”
“Then we’ll clear a few blocks here. Or up in Phoenix.”
“And how long until those church guys find you? Then you’re sitting ducks. Even the Sky Ghost can’t take on two or three squadrons by himself.”
“We can get some more planes—”
“Sabres? Voodoos? That’s like fighting tanks with horses and wooden lances.”
Hunter sighs with frustration. He slams his empty glass on Jimmy’s desk. “Instead of shooting down my ideas, why don’t you give me one? You know the area better than I do.”
“I’d like to help, but—”
A knock on the door interrupts their conversation. A young man in green coveralls sticks his head into the room. “Sorry to bother you, sir, but someone’s declaring an emergency.”
“Another one? Jesus Christ. The crash crew on standby?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The pilot say how bad he’s hit?”
The young man shifts uncomfortably. “Actually, sir, it’s a she.”
Hunter looks to Jimmy and then at the boy. “Is she flying a P-39 Warhawk?”
“I’m not sure. It’s an old crate for sure, but—”
Hunter is already on his feet and brushing past the boy. He doesn’t stop running until he’s standing next to a group of men in silver fire suits. There’s a fire truck waiting nearby should they need it.
From the way the Warhawk is wobbling, Hunter suspects it won’t be much longer until they do need the fire truck. Just as bad for a pilot as letting someone else do the flying is to watch another pilot in distress and being unable to do anything about it. Hunter can only watch the old fighter dive towards the runway.
“The landing gear aren’t coming down,” Hunter says, though the crash crew can probably see that for themselves. “You guys have a barrier?”
“No need. There’s plenty of sand at the end of the runway.”
Hunter doesn’t agree with that assessment, but there’s nothing he can do about it now. “Come on, Val,” he mumbles. “Get those gear down.”
As the Warhawk closes in, he can see the holes in the wings, fuselage, and tail. Someone has chewed the plane into a piece of Swiss cheese. The cockpit glass is shattered on one side; he suspects Val is just as bad off as her plane. “You have a medical team on standby?”
“We know what we’re doing, buddy,” one fireman growls.
“Sorry. She’s a friend.”
There’s a shower of sparks as the belly of the Warhawk scrapes onto the runway. The plane streaks along the pavement, leaving skid marks along with a trail of sparks. Hunter can see a tiny figure slumped in the cockpit, but there’s no way to tell if Val is alive or not.
Before they can find that out, they have to wait for the P-39 to stop. It starts to spin as it hits a rut in the pavement. If Val is conscious, she doesn’t seem to be doing anything to correct the spin or bring the plane to a stop. As the Warhawk streaks past, Hunter starts to run after it.
As the fireman indicated, there’s a bank of sand to help finally bring the plane to a stop. It lurches hard enough that he’s surprised Val isn’t thrown right out of the cockpit. Hunter picks up the pace as he smells something burning. The fire truck is starting to get underway, but it might not be quick enough.
With the cockpit partially broken, Hunter can reach inside to trigger the latch. He shoves the cockpit open and then pushes Val back against her seat. As he feared, there’s blood staining the left side of her flight suit. She does at least seem to be breathing.
There’s no more time for evaluation; he has to get her out of here before the whole plane goes up. He unfastens her straps and then starts to yank her from the seat. Her leg is caught on something. Hunter curses to himself and then leans into the cockpit to find the problem.
“Jesus,” he mumbles to himself when he gets a look at the bloody mess that remains of her left leg. There’s no time to be delicate; he tears her leg free, leaving a good portion below the knee in the cockpit.
With that, Val is free. He carries her away from the crashed plane, towards the oncoming fire truck. The truck doesn’t stop, not until it’s close enough to reach the plane with its hoses. Hunter ignores the firemen working to find a first aid kit. There’s not much in there that can help with wounds this bad, except for a syringe of morphine.
He sets Val down on the runway and then kneels beside her. His hands fumble a little with the wrapper of the morphine syringe, but it finally comes loose. There’s no time to be picky, not with the kind of pain she’s going to be in if she wakes up, so he jams the needle into her leg.
That’s when her eyes flutter open. A slow grin spreads across her face. “Hey,” she mumbles. She raises her right hand towards his face; he takes it in his hand to give it a squeeze. “You’re rescuing me again.”
She actually starts to giggle at this. He squeezes her hand again. “You’re going to be all right. We’re going to get you fixed up good as new.”
She nods slightly. “My leg…how is it?”
“It’ll be fine,” he lies. “We just have to stop the bleeding.”
Hunter takes off the belt from his church uniform pants. He straps the belt around her left thigh and then wrenches it tight enough that Val squeaks with pain. “Sorry,” he says. “It has to be tight.”
“Uh-huh.” Her hand flails around again until it finds his. “Hunter, you gotta promise me something. Phil. You have to get Phil…and the others.”
“Where are they?”
“San Diego. The Washington.” Then she passes out. Hunter has a pretty good idea what Val is referring to, though he finds it hard to believe. All of the US Navy’s aircraft carriers were thought to be sunk or scuttled after the outbreak and war. But maybe Nation and Val found the USS George Washington in San Diego. And maybe someone tried to kill them for it.
“I’ll get them,” Hunter tells her. Then he lifts her from the pavement to carry her towards the approaching ambulance.
Chapter 25
The first pirates try to jump him as he gets near the California border. They’re F-5 Freedom Fighters painted the colors of the Mexican flag. His Spanish isn’t fluent, but apparently they’re from a gang called the Bandidos Asesino—the Killer Bandits. They want him to set the Harrier down so they can have it—and probably put a couple of bullets in his head in the process.
Hunter doesn’t bother to respond with the radio. He lets his Sidewinders do the talking for him. The first one clips the left wing of one F-5. That’s enough to send the fighter into a spin. The second starts to take evasive action, but Hunter is already maneuvering the Harrier into position. He fires a burst from the cannon pods that rakes the fuselage of the Freedom Fighter. White vapor spews from the holes like blood. Hunter fires another burst that chews up the fighter’s engines.
The canopy of the F-5 flies off, followed by the pilot’s seat rocketing into the air. Hunter watches the seat drop away and then the pilot open his parachute. It would be easy enough to finish the man off by either shooting him with the Harrier’s cannons or collapsing the parachute with the engines.
He doesn’t do either. He puts the Harrier into a hover to watch the pilot drift down towards the ground. As the pilot is nearing the ground, Hunter drops the Harrier down to land on the desert floor. He pops the canopy and then yanks out his sidearm.
It takes a couple of minutes for the pilot to finally come down. He forgets the crucial bit about tucking your feet in before you hit the ground; Hunter can hear a snap from the Harrier’s cockpit. The pirate flails around with the parachute until he can unbuckle the harness. He tries to get to his feet, groans, and then collapses again.
The pirate is reaching for a pistol strapped to his injured leg when Hunter kicks him hard in the ribs. The pirate groans again and then curses at Hunter in Spanish. Hunter takes the pirate’s gun from the holster to stuff into the empty holster for his sidearm. Then he rol
ls the pirate over to look the man in the eye.
In halting Spanish he tries to describe a P-39 Warhawk. There’s recognition in the man’s eyes, but he says in English, “I no see it. I no see it!”
“She lost her left leg.” Hunter gestures to the pirate’s injured leg. “Seems like an even trade to me.”
He turns on his heel to stomp back to the Harrier. As Hunter is climbing back up, the pirate shouts, “No leave me! No leave me!”
Hunter ignores the man’s pleas. This won’t bring Val’s leg back, but at least these assholes won’t be able to jump anyone else. He closes the cockpit and then starts up the engines. The pirate has managed to get to his knees by the time Hunter lifts off. It will be a long crawl to find any shelter. It will most likely be a race to see whether the heat, animals, or zeebs kill him first.
Hunter doesn’t smile at this. There’s no satisfaction in killing, not even those who deserve it. He leaves the pilot to his fate while he aims west again for San Diego.
***
San Diego is a lot worse off than Seattle or most of the other big cities he has visited. Most of the city’s downtown has become charred rubble that indicates there was some major fighting here. He hopes none of that fighting involved nuclear weapons, though the damage doesn’t seem consistent to what even the smallest tactical nuke would do.
There are plenty of zeebs wandering around the streets. They all seem to be heading in one direction. Hunter follows them with his eyes to the shipyards. There are a couple of cruisers and destroyers listing at dangerous angles, their hulls pockmarked with black spots that again indicate some heavy fighting.
The aircraft carrier is easy enough to find. It’s beached on the shore and tilted about thirty degrees. Despite this, there are a half-dozen helicopters of various types sitting on the flight deck. The figures moving around on the flight deck are far too coordinated to be zeebs, plus Hunter can see weapons in some of their hands.
He doesn’t need much of an imagination to figure these are rival scavengers trying to claim the carrier and anything inside it. Nation is probably down amongst them, though Hunter can’t be sure from this altitude. All the fighting is probably what’s drawing the zeebs towards the carrier, though it doesn’t seem like any way they could get on board without some help.
Hunter decides to announce his presence by flying over the carrier only a few feet over the rotors of the helicopters. He can see the scavengers scrambling to find cover, sensing how vulnerable they are. They’re right about that; Hunter brings the Harrier to a dead stop in mid-air and then spins it around to head back for the carrier.
He doesn’t recognize anyone on the flight deck from Nation’s crew. He doesn’t want to take the chance of accidentally shooting a friendly and yet he can’t give away his advantage in firepower by landing. He mentally crosses his fingers and then fires a burst from his cannons.
One of the helicopters explodes. He takes out the rest of the helicopters, leaving the scavengers on the deck no way out except to try diving from the carrier’s deck, which would be like jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. Some of the scavengers try to fire back with their small arms, but the shots are too quickly aimed to do any damage while Hunter’s counterattack is far more effective.
A few of the brighter scavengers make a break for the conning tower. Hunter cuts them down before they can make it. He does another flyover to make sure there isn’t any resistance left. Not receiving any return fire, he sets the Harrier down on a clear spot of deck.
He takes the M4 from behind the seat along with the two pistols. There could be a lot more of the scavengers below. There might even be zeebs down there left over from the ship’s crew. He imagines Nation shambling around down there as a zeeb and then thinks of when he had to shoot General George; having to put Nation down would be nearly as bad.
Before going below, Hunter sweeps the flight deck to make sure he has all the scavengers taken out. He squats down beside each one to make sure it’s not a familiar face. Those who seem in danger of coming back he stabs in the head with his knife. It’s not a pleasant experience, but he doesn’t want to leave a bunch of fresh zeebs up here.
None of the scavengers have any identification on them, no unit patches or tattoos or any markings that he can see to indicate what gang they might belong to. Whoever they are, they’re out of business now. Maybe they weren’t really bad guys, maybe they were just trying to make a few gold pieces like Nation, but with Val dying and over two hundred women and children in need to find a new home, Hunter doesn’t have time to negotiate. He’s here to find Nation and get him back to Davis-Monthan so he can be there when Val wakes up—if she does.
***
Hunter decides to start up the stairs for the bridge. Nation might have taken cover there. At the very least it would be a lot shorter climb up there than searching the bowels of the aircraft carrier.
He finds the first zeeb shambling down a narrow corridor, still wearing a khaki officer’s uniform. The zeeb isn’t close enough to pose a threat, so Hunter leaves him be for the moment. It does beg the question of how many of the ship’s crew are still wandering around undead. Considering an aircraft carrier like the Washington carried more than five thousand people, he might need a lot more bullets.
The door to the bridge is open. Hunter sticks the barrel of his M4 through and then slowly follows it inside. The overpowering stench of decay brings tears to his eyes. He readies himself to take down a few zeebs, but the only person here is the captain of the ship. He’s slumped in a chair, a large, bloody hole in his head. From the amount of decay, it’s clear he has been dead for quite some time. He probably thought he was going down with the ship.
Hunter slings the M4 over his shoulder to look for some schematics to aid his search of the ship. There are some cutaway diagrams that help to give him a better idea for the layout of the carrier. They aren’t small enough to take with him, so he does his best to memorize them.
Then he starts back down the stairs. On his way, he stops to stab the zeeb he saw in the head. It collapses to the deck, finally at peace. Hunter wipes the blade off on its uniform before sticking the knife back in its sheath. He hopes he won’t have to do that with Nation.
***
The good thing about the narrow corridors of the ship is that it makes it hard to miss any zeebs. The bad thing is it makes it hard for them to miss him. Hunter stabbed the first couple he saw, but when he ran into a pack of a half-dozen in denim uniforms, he had to take the M4 off his shoulder.
The noise has brought more towards him. He hurries down the corridor as fast as he can, pausing every now and then to pick off a zeeb that lurches out in front of him. He doesn’t need to do any calculations to know if this keeps up he’s going to be in big trouble. Once the bullets run out he’ll still have the knife, but there’s only so long a man can fight with a knife before fatigue and the sheer number of the zeebs will bring him down.
He needs to find a weapons locker; that would give him some more ammunition, though still maybe not enough depending on how many of the crew turned. He doesn’t remember seeing the weapons locker on the diagrams he found, but there has to be one somewhere for the Marines who were stationed aboard the ship. Of course even if he does find it, the weapons might have been cleaned out already.
He skids to a stop as he sees dozens of zeebs crowding the corridor ahead of him. There are dozens more behind him. If he stays here, he’s going to be the meat in a zeeb sandwich. It’s not an appetizing thought.
There’s a door to his right that he hopes isn’t someone’s quarters or a supply closet or something else tiny with no way out. Hunter turns the wheel to open the hatch and then pulls it open. He doesn’t bother to sweep the room before throwing himself through the doorway. Before any of the zeebs outside can get him, he slams the hatch shut.
The familiar smells of oil, jet fuel, and hydraulic fluid tickle his nostrils. He has stumbled into one of the hangars. Some light comes in from the elevators for t
he planes. It’s not very bright, but enough that he can see a couple of guys in greasy coveralls shambling towards him. He shoots them at close range, though the sound will still alert any others to his presence.
Hunter isn’t surprised to find the hangar empty. Any of the planes—mostly F/A-18 Hornets—would probably have taken off a long time ago if they had any brains. About all that’s left are maintenance and ammunition carts. If he could get the elevators to work he could get some more fuel and Sidewinders for the Harrier’s return trip. Since the Washington is nuclear that ought to be possible, if he could dispose of the zeebs long enough to get the systems back online.
He slings the M4 over his shoulder again to take out the pistol from the Mexican pirate. There are a couple more zeebs in the hangar for him to dispatch with the gun, but nothing like what’s out in the corridor waiting for him. Before he shoots each zeeb, he makes sure it’s not Nation or anyone from his crew. If they’re still on the ship, they must be farther below.
The question is how Hunter can get out of here. He could try to jump off one of the elevators, into the harbor, but it’s still a pretty steep drop from here. He might wind up breaking his neck or if he’s not deep enough, shattering his head or spine on a rock.
There might be some ropes around he that he could use to climb down, or to climb up to the Harrier on the flight deck. Seeing a rack of five-hundred-pound iron bombs, he gets another idea for how he can get out of the hangar. It’s risky, but a little less so than his other options at the moment.
Hunter takes apart one of the bombs to remove the actual explosives from the casing. The detonator is designed to go off on contact once armed, which will come in handy right now. He sets the guts of the bomb on a cart and then takes a deep breath before arming it. It doesn’t go off prematurely to turn him into a stain on the deck.
He takes a step back and then kicks the cart away from him. As the cart streaks in one direction, Hunter runs in the other. He flattens himself on the deck just as the cart must tip over, the detonator contacting the deck. The explosion shakes the whole hangar, but there’s no chain-reaction to take out any of the other weapons or flammable materials inside.
Army of the Damned (Sky Ghost #1) Page 23