“Hold your horses, Lopez,” said Cooper calmly. “We don’t go anywhere till the President is off-loaded.”
“It’s true?” asked Lopez, eyes wide. “I heard rumors and we all heard the radio but…” he shook his head. “Damn, that’s wild. Never met a President before.”
It took longer than Cooper wanted, but at last all the doctors, nurses, agents and SEALs were off the bus, along with the President in his litter, and all the medical equipment needed to keep him alive. Cooper glanced toward the east again, sure the North Koreans would appear at any second, guns blazing.
“Let’s move—follow the sergeant there,” he said, pointing at Lopez. “There’s an entrance to the bunker over there. Jax, Swede, you take point.”
Cooper stood back and watched as Lopez, Jax, Swede, and the agents and doctors carefully but quickly maneuvered around the rubble and disappeared down the exposed stairway through the bunker entrance.
“Beaver, Sparky, stay with Slipknot.”
“Hooyah,” said the shortest SEAL as he strolled past.
A sense of uneasiness continued to grow and intensify down Cooper’s spine even though they were finally secure behind the massive, closed blast doors underground. Arrayed before them in an enormous entryway were a dozen or so Air Force security guards, all with weapons, all standing in awe at the sight of the President being carried by Secret Service agents. He could hear the mumbled talk and see the excited gestures. Someone whispered “President” loud enough for him to hear. He frowned. Like it or not, their cover was officially blown to shit.
Two of the guards were huddled over a radio, keeping wary eyes on the newcomers. Cooper tensed when they whispered into the device, then quickly made their way down a corridor. “Where are they going?” he asked Lopez.
“Lopez, what the hell were you thinking, bringing these guys down here? Jesus, they’re probably all infected—” barked another man. He raised his M-4 up and pointed it at Charlie.
“Hey, I’m just following orders, man!” protested Lopez.
“Not the Colonel’s orders!” The man with the rifle jabbed it at Charlie’s chest. “Who are you? And what the hell—”
“Lopez, tell your friend there to lower his weapon before I shove it up his ass,” said Cooper, his voice controlled and calm.
The man turned his attention to Cooper, and moved the rifle barrel slightly away Charlie’s chest. It was all the distraction Charlie needed. In a blur of movement, his hands shot out, one deflecting the muzzle of the M-4 off to his left so it pointed between him and Cooper, while the other snapped-out and delivered a sharp chop to the nervous guard’s throat.
The airman guard fell to the floor on his back, gasping and grabbing at his neck. Charlie slung the captured rifle over his left shoulder and stepped back, smiling.
“Jesus!” said Lopez. “You didn’t have to do that!” He knelt by his stricken comrade, who roughly shoved him away.
“Anyone who puts a gun in my face either gets that,” said Charlie, “or doesn’t live to talk about it.” He drew his sidearm in one smooth motion. “Want me to give him option two?”
The man on the floor, eyes bulging, shook his head and waved for Charlie to put the gun away. He gasped and choked, trying to talk, but the color was draining from his face. Sgt. Lopez helped him to sit up.
Finally he took a deep breath and growled, “You assholes are in deep shit now, bunch of traitors!”
Charlie looked at Cooper, a bemused smile on his face. “You know, that rifle was still on safe. Want me to hold him while you shove it up his ass?”
The sputtering man on the ground turned red. “When the Colonel finds out you’re here, he’s going to hang you all.”
“The hell’s he talking about?” asked Swede.
“It was on all the civvie bands—Washington found out we have the President and the new guy in the oval office doesn’t want him alive. So we’re all traitors now.”
“Oh,” said the big SEAL with a frown on his broad face. “Awesome.”
“Who’s this ‘Colonel’?” asked Charlie.
Lopez shook his head. “He’s the base XO. General Nadina is in charge, but he was wounded during the attack. Colonel Molton is acting CO now.” He leaned in between Charlie and Cooper and whispered, “He’s a real bootlicker. Got a hard-on for promotion. He thinks if he toes the line from Washington in all this and manages to keep Space Command in operation, he’ll get his star.”
“And you didn’t think he would have an issue with us joining your little underground party?” asked Cooper in a dangerous tone.
“Aw, shit,” muttered Charlie, making a sour face at the man on the floor.
“I didn’t really believe all that traitor bullshit they were talking about on the radio. I thought it had to be misinformation—you know, to throw the Koreans off your trail or something? Look guys,” he said, hands spread wide. “All I wanted to do was help protect the President.”
The man on the ground staggered to his feet, glaring at Lopez. “So you’re a traitor, too, huh, Lopez?” He spat on the ground. “Shoulda shipped your ass back across the border where you belong.” He turned and pulled a knife from his belt and made for the President’s litter.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” asked Lopez. He tried to step in front of the big airman and got shoved roughly aside.
“There’s a reward—”
Cooper and two of his men had weapons up and beads on the airman before he could blink. He paused, holding the knife like a dagger with the point down, and looked at the men aiming weapons at him. “You don’t have the balls.”
A thunderclap erupted in the windowless room. All the Air Force guards ducked and covered their ears. Cooper glanced over his shoulder as Agent Sheffield lowered his sidearm and looked down at the man on the floor who was writhing silently in a spreading pool of dark blood.
“Not on my watch, son,” said the Special Agent in Charge of the Presidential Detail. He stared at the man on the floor with eyes completely lacking compassion.
“Shit!” yelled Lopez, one hand on his ear.
Sheffield got a respectful nod from Cooper who then turned to the rest of the group and said: “Gentlemen, this shit is real. These guys apparently want our blood.”
A door down the corridor opened and a woman in Air Force-gray BDUs opened the door and stepped out. She took in the scene before her: the doctors, the President, the agents, the SEALs and a bleeding man dying on the floor. Without a word, she stepped back through the door and slammed it shut.
“We’re in it now,” moaned Lopez. “Why did they have to tell me to go up topside…”
“We gotta get outta here, man,” said Jax, leaning over to Cooper’s ear. “While there’s still time.”
“Alert One: The Koreans have returned—all personnel, general quarters. Get to your pre-assigned defensive positions. Repeat, all personnel get to your pre-assigned defensive positions!” blared over hidden loudspeakers.
The big Texan sighed. “Or not.”
Cooper stepped forward to address the rest of the guards. “Anyone here want to help President Denton?” That seemed to snap them out of their apparent momentary paralysis.
He got a few immediate shouts of “Hell yes!” and mostly nods. It was good enough.
“Then someone get us to a secure location where we can let the doctors keep him alive. Anyone know of a place where your Colonel will be hard-pressed to overtake us?”
“Confess!” yelled the President. He thrashed against the cords and tubes sticking out of his arms and chest. A coughing fit ensued. He blinked and gasped for air, making a wheezing, sucking sound. He reached out a skeletal hand toward Cooper. “The nation…I need…talk to them…” Doctor Honeycutt placed a breathing mask over his face and silenced his delirious thrashing.
Cooper looked at Lopez as he led everyone down the right-hand corridor. “Is there any way,” he said gesturing toward the ailing President, “he can get some air-time?”
“I know where it’s at, man,” said Lopez. He pulled Cooper aside as the rest of the group continued forward. In a lower voice, he said, “Look—that old comms room up there, maybe can get you some bandwidth—but there’s only one way in or out of that room. You go in, you’ll be trapped and the Colonel will—”
The loudspeakers in the corridor erupted with ear-splitting audio again: “Attention all base personnel, we have been breached by a group of armed men. They have someone infected with them. Consider them armed and dangerous. Do not approach them—stay clear of the infected. If they resist, base guards are authorized to use deadly force. Repeat, deadly force is authorized…”
The message repeated, accompanied by flashing lights at the ends of all corridors. Cooper frowned. “Your comms room is looking better already. Let’s go everyone! Move!”
Lopez led them deeper and deeper into the bunker, always taking stairs and access hatches to lead them three floors down from the main level. They could hear shouting and footsteps all around them but never saw anyone.
After what seemed to Cooper like an hour of sneaking around the various, wide-ranging passageways in the subterranean chamber, Lopez finally held the group up at an access hatch and whispered to Cooper, “This is it man. We go through that hatch and straight ahead. The door at the end of the corridor is the old comms room. But there’s no way out except right back this way.”
“Got it. Let’s move.” He stood guard at the access hatch as the agents and doctors and nurses filed past into the darkened communications room. As the President was carried through the hatch, he reached an arm out to grab Cooper.
The ailing President ripped off his ventilator mask and gasped, “Thank you, son.” He dropped back on the litter and was carried in by the agents.
Doctor Alston was next. She too, paused at the entrance to the room and looked at Cooper. “Are you sure about this?” she asked softly. She tucked a stray lock of auburn hair over her left ear.
He nodded and felt his neck grow warm at the sight of her in the dim light of the corridor. “You heard the announcements, ma’am. We’re traitors. And from what I can gather, this Colonel is some sort of hard-ass that’s going to use our blood to get a promotion. Our options are to stay in here and try and figure a way out after we’ve rested, or head up to the surface now and deal with the North Koreans.” He looked over her shoulder at the stragglers. “I don’t know, maybe we can get the President on the horn and clear things up with the base CO.”
She nodded. “Rock and a hard place, that’s for sure.”
“SSDD,” he mumbled. Gently, he put a hand on her shoulder and nudged her forward, secretly thrilled at the simple touch. “Let’s go, now, we need to get everyone in and seal this up. It won’t be long before—”
“I got movement!” echoed down the hall behind them.
“Let’s go!” Cooper grabbed the last two agents and shoved them through the hatch after Dr. Alston. “Move!” Switching his mic on, he called out: “That’s everyone. Jax, Beaver, get your asses in here!”
“Already on the way.”
Gunfire rang out in the distance and echoed like canon fire in the hallway.
“Sparky, get up here and man this hatch. I’m moving ahead for covering fire.”
“Hooyah.”
Cooper moved back to the closest intersection and crouched, peering low around the corner in the direction that his men were coming. Flashes of light and more gunfire signaled their imminent arrival. “Stay to the right!” he called out. Laying prone on the floor at an angle to the corner, he took aim down the hallway and shot past his men into the crowd of airmen coming into range. Two men fell, adding their screams to the maelstrom of noise.
A round impacted the wall above his head, but Cooper didn’t so much as twitch an eyelash. His men were being pursued by men that on any other day he certainly would have been proud to call ‘brother’ two weeks earlier. Fellow members of the armed forces, sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution…he fired off two more bursts as he ran and another airman tumbled to the ground shrieking in pain.
What am I doing? He asked himself. These men are Americans… Mortified that he was shooting at his own comrades, he pulled a smoke grenade from his vest and called out: “Popping smoke!”
As the wall of smoke enveloped the end of the corridor and blocked his view of the airmen, his men arrived and dove around the corner, behind him, gasping for air. Satisfied that the pursuit had slackened for a moment, Cooper scurried back near his men. A brief sprint down the hallway under cover of the team sniper at the door and they were all safely sealed-up in the dusty communications room.
Cooper leaned against the heavy steel door and pounded a fist in blind rage. “What the hell, man? Our own people shooting at us like we were the Goddamned NKors.”
“I told you,” said Lopez, examining some of the old communications equipment on the far side of the large room. “The Colonel’s a hard-charger. He’s the President’s man, to the bone.” A glance at President Denton’s unconscious form made the airman frown. “Not that President. No offense, sir.”
“Doc, how’s he doing?” asked Cooper, striding across the room toward the cluster of medical professionals. Dr. Honeycutt looked up, stethoscope hanging from his neck, and pulled his surgical mask down. The haggard look on his face belied what news he was about to give.
“He doesn’t have much time. Too much movement, too much stress. I’m sorry.” He sighed. “Honestly, I don’t see how he managed to survive this long without the vaccine. He didn’t have much of a chance from the get go.”
“Strength of will,” said Dr. Alston, her voice muffled by a cloth mask. She stood at the President’s head, gently smoothing the sweat-soaked hair on his forehead with her gloved hands. Every breath he took resulted in a faint moan.
“Son,” the President said weakly. Cooper heard the room go silent. Everyone leaned in a little to hear the next words. The President shook his head feebly. “Do not…blame yourself. You did what you could.”
Cooper slung his rifle on his back and knelt at the side of his Commander in Chief. He took the offered mask from a nurse and held it to his face. It didn’t feel like much protection, but it felt better than nothing, he supposed.
The flu was destroying the man right before his eyes. The President had traces of dried blood on his earlobes, and bloody tears from the corners of his eyes. His nose was a pink-stained mess and dark dried blood stained his linens and clothes. The skin around the older man’s ears and eye-sockets was turning a blue so dark it was borderline indigo. The sheen of sweat on the President’s forehead and pink cheeks indicated he was still suffering from a high fever.
“Sir, I’m sorry.” He looked down, truly ashamed he had failed the mission. “It wasn’t enough. If we had known…” he looked around for encouragement. Most of the doctors just looked tired and sad. A few of the nurses were crying softly. The agents were stone-faced, but it was clear that they too, were trying to hide their emotions.
The President patted Cooper’s arm in a weak gesture. “Thank you, son, for what you have done. For your sacrifice. What’s…” he started coughing and gasped for breath. After a nurse reattached his oxygen mask, he took a few ragged breaths and pushed it aside. “…name?”
“Master Chief Cooper Braaten, Mr. President.”
Tears started to roll down the President’s cheeks. “It’s all my fault, Master Chief…” he wheezed. “Everything…”
“Sir, how could you possibly have known the North Koreans were going to invade?”
“That…” the President gasped for breath again. The wet sucking sound made Cooper flinch. “…sniveling bastard. Barron.” He shook his head, with more vigor. “Never should have nominated him as my VP.” The President growled and coughed bloody
phlegm on the concrete floor. “He wants to be king…”
Cooper looked around the room. Everyone watched the President. What the hell do we do now? His thought was mirrored on many of the tired, sweaty faces that surrounded the President’s litter.
The President grew quiet and after a while, looked at Cooper with eyes clear of pain and fear. His body was weak and dying a slow, painful death but his eyes were sharp, clear and strong. “I need to address the nation one last time. To explain things.”
“Out of the question,” said Dr. Honeycutt immediately. “Sir, you—”
“Please,” the President whispered, his eyes boring deep into Cooper’s soul.
Cooper swallowed hard and looked into those eyes and the skull-like face that surrounded them. He nodded. Taking hold of the President’s shriveled and clammy hand, Cooper looked at the airmen standing farther back. He nodded toward the banks of screens and control panels.
“You guys know how to run this stuff?”
One of the airmen looked at the communication equipment, a doubtful look crossing his face. “It’s old, but…I think so.” He reached up and flipped a switch. A screen glowed to life and a row of computers turned on. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I can get this to work.”
“Master Chief Braaten, the President is in no condition—” began Dr. Honeycutt.
Cooper’s look silenced the old doctor. He surveyed his little group of refugees and turned back to the airmen who had spoken.
“Fire it up. The President needs to make a speech.”
CHAPTER 21
Salmon Falls, Idaho.
The Ridge.
DENNY CROUCHED LOW BEHIND the bush and smoothly pulled his bow to full draw. He held it there for a moment. He felt his heartbeat, the gentle breeze through the pines, and savored the slight warmth on his cheek from the afternoon sun as it filtered through the forest canopy. His eyes focused on the deer some fifteen yards away, blissfully cropping the stunted vegetation on the forest floor. She raised a graceful neck and casually looked around, delicately sniffing the air. The doe presented Denny with a near-perfect broadside profile. The animal chewed placidly, her ears swiveling in an attempt to identify any possible danger. The doe blinked and bent back down to take another bite.
Apache Dawn: Book I of the Wildfire Saga Page 30