by Patton, Dirk
Now, I know fuck-all about kangaroos. But you don’t have to be an expert on Australian wildlife to recognize an attack coming your way. And coming deceptively fast. Plus, the bastards were bigger than I thought they would be, easily as tall and heavy as me, if not larger. And I could see the claws on their powerful hind legs. Maybe nothing compared to a big cat or a bear, but I had no doubt that all it would take would be a couple of kicks to rip me open.
Bringing the rifle up, I quickly dispatched the ones approaching, running to the ATV the instant the last one fell. Sounds from all around snapped my head up before I could even determine if the little vehicle was still operable. A curse escaped my mouth. At least a hundred kangaroos were advancing on my position, bounding across the terrain with effortless leaps.
25
Jessica stared in fascination as Vance expertly piloted the fighter jet into position beneath a hulking tanker. A crewman aboard the much larger aircraft controlled the drogue until it connected with the F-18s probe and fuel began to flow.
“That’s amazing,” she said, looking up at the KC-135 which was seemingly close enough to touch.
“Yeah, kind of is, isn’t it,” Vance responded over the intercom.
“So, where are we?” she asked.
They were flying through complete darkness. Above, the sky glittered with thousands of stars, but there was no moon. It was how she’d always imagined going into space would be.
“Five hundred miles from the west coast of CONUS. We’re going to go feet dry over Baja, then angle up into Arizona. Should skirt around the CAP the Russians are flying, and they’re going to be complacent. We haven’t sent any aircraft their way in a while.”
“Still five hundred miles to land?” Jessica asked. “And it’s a long way to come up from Mexico over Arizona. Are we going to refuel again?”
“Nope. This is it. Can’t risk bringing a tanker too close or the enemy will know something is up. Last thing we need is for them to start wondering what’s going on out here.”
“Will we have enough fuel?”
Jessica leaned forward in an attempt to scan the pilot’s instruments, wanting to satisfy herself that their tanks were indeed being filled to the brim.
“Ferry range for one of these is about eighteen hundred miles. We’ve only got about twelve hundred to go.”
“What’s that? Ferry range.”
“Means a nice steady cruise at a speed and altitude that will minimize fuel consumption. Also a lighter load, so not armed to the teeth. We’ve got some extra weight because I wasn’t about to go unarmed.”
Jessica thought about that for a few moments.
“What if you have to maneuver?”
Vance was quiet for few seconds before answering.
“Then we might come up a little short.”
“A little short!” Jessica cried. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Means we might be walking if we have to avoid any Russian patrols.”
She sat stunned with her mouth hanging open as she processed that thought.
“Oh... no, no, no, no, no, no. NO! There’re infected down there! No way! Unh uh! You get us where we’re going!”
“Chief, you need to get a grip on yourself. Right now!”
All trace of friendliness was gone from Vance’s voice as he looked at Jessica in a small mirror that allowed him to see the rear seat. A panicked passenger in the cockpit was not something that was good for either of them. She sat staring up at the tanker, breathing fast and shallow.
“Chief,” he said calmly. She didn’t respond. “Chief!”
She lowered her eyes, finally finding his in the small mirror.
“Chief, you need to slow your breathing. You’re going to hyperventilate. Slow, deep breaths. Can you do that?”
“Ye... yes, sir,” she said.
As she struggled to regain her composure, Vance signaled to the tanker that he was full and was going to disengage. The two aircraft slowly moved apart, then he gained altitude and increased his speed to three hundred knots.
“How you doing back there, Chief?” he called once they leveled off at fifty thousand feet.
“Better, sir. Sorry about before.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, flashing her a smile in the mirror. “You really think you can get this thing flying?”
Jessica took a deep breath, happy to have something to distract her from the thoughts of being stranded on the ground with infected on the prowl.
“I’ve got no idea. Maybe. Hopefully. You sure you can fly it?”
The question earned her a snort of laughter.
“Ever met a computer you couldn’t hack?”
“Point taken,” she said with a small grin. “But you’ve seen the thing. Right?”
“Gonna knock your socks off when you see it.”
They fell silent after that, the Hornet streaking along in perfect, velvety darkness. Jessica’s mind wandered and she had to make an effort to not allow herself to start thinking about the infected. The very idea of even seeing one, live and in person, terrified her.
“We’re over Mexico, Chief.”
Vance’s voice over the intercom startled her and she shifted to the side and craned her neck in an effort to see the ground below. Nothing but more darkness.
“No lights. Nobody left,” she said in a subdued voice. “I’ve seen it on sat images a hundred times, but this is real.”
He didn’t have a response and the conversation once again died. Passing over the Sea of Cortez, Vance pushed down memories of being adrift after being shot down by a Russian patrol. Of reconciling himself to the slow, painful death of exposure and dehydration. If it wasn’t for Major Chase’s determination to locate and rescue him...
The navigation computer beeped softly, reminding him it was time to turn to the north. The Russians weren’t terribly concerned with the vast, empty stretches of desert in northern Mexico. They were more focused on protecting a line just to the north of the border.
He knew their Combat Air Patrols, or CAP, regularly flew in a two-hundred-and-fifty-mile radius around Los Angeles where Barinov had taken up residence after leaving Australia. That left him plenty of room in Arizona as he traveled north. But he eventually had to enter air-space controlled by the enemy. There was no way to reach Groom Lake in Nevada without taking the risk.
But he had a plan to minimize the chances of being detected. From Arizona he would fly up over southern Utah, make a hard turn to the west and descend until they were barely above the ground. It’s called flying nap of the earth and a skill American pilots have trained on for decades.
The strategy was developed as a method to penetrate Soviet held territory during the Cold War with nuclear armed bombers. Radar of the era was incapable of picking out a B-52 flying less than a hundred feet off the ground. The enemy would never know it was there until it suddenly popped up, deep within their territory, and delivered its payload.
Technology had come a long way since the Cold War and modern, airborne radar in look-down mode could detect an aircraft at the lowest of altitudes. Sometimes. Depending on the terrain and how stealthy the target was. Vance was counting on the rugged features of the western US and the newest generation of radar absorbing material used on the skin of the Advanced Super Hornet to keep them hidden.
He hadn’t briefed Jessica on what the last leg of their journey was going to be like. Hugging the ground at high speed would put any amusement park ride to shame. It was going to be fun for him as he’d always enjoyed doing it in training, and a few times on combat missions in Afghanistan, only without a nuke strapped to his ass. He suspected it was going to be petrifying for his passenger.
Crossing the Arizona-Utah border, he checked all of his early warning systems. The plane was detecting Russian radar to the southwest and northwest of his planned route to Groom Lake. Exactly what he’d hoped for.
“Hey, Chief. You like roller coasters?” he called, switching his terrain following radar
into stand-by mode.
“Love them,” she said. “Why? Know of one still in operation?”
“Oh, you might say that,” he replied, banking sharply to the west, feeding in power and pushing them into a steep dive.
“What the fuuuuuuuuuuuu...” Jessica screamed.
---
Martinez and Anna looked up at the sudden sound of jet engines. They’d been walking the perimeter of the compound in southern Utah, neither having been able to sleep. Both women looked around quickly, ensuring the strict prohibition on showing light after dark was being followed. Despite never hearing or seeing an enemy aircraft overhead, neither wanted to run the risk of a Russian pilot spotting them and sending a ground team to investigate.
“What do you think it is?” Anna asked softly.
Martinez stood looking up at the night sky, unable to see the aircraft but tracking its rough location by sound.
“Heading west,” she said. “Same as those Black Hawks a few days ago.”
“Can you tell what it is?”
“Definitely not anything big. Fighter, probably.”
They stood quietly, listening until the roar faded away in the distance.
“Groom Lake,” Anna said. “Something’s going on there.”
“Yeah, but us or the Russians?”
“You’ll know better than me, but have you seen them operating any of our aircraft? Especially the Black Hawks?”
“Couple of Chinooks for troop transport,” Martinez said. “But that’s it. They brought their own.”
They fell silent for a few more minutes, staring to the west.
“I think we’d better find out what’s going on,” Anna finally said. “If it is American forces, we can get a lift out of here to Hawaii.”
“If it’s Russians, we could end up alerting them to our presence,” Martinez said.
“Then we’d better be extra careful.”
26
“Do you believe her, XO?” Commander Moore asked after Irina had left his quarters.
Small sat for a moment under the watchful glare of his Captain before responding.
“Yes, sir. I do.”
“Explain.”
Small took a breath and collected his thoughts.
“Well, first of all, I’ve heard a ton of stories about this Major Chase. He’s achieved some kind of folk hero status, but he’s the real deal. I’ve got a good friend who was a classmate at Annapolis. Marine, but I don’t hold that against him. When we put into Pearl for resupply, I had time to grab a beer with him.
“Anyway, he works directly for Admiral Packard as his head of security. He’s met the Major. Liked him, actually. It didn’t click until she was talking, but my buddy mentioned there were two Russian defectors with the Major when he reached Hawaii. A Spetsnaz soldier and a hot blonde woman. They had his trust, and apparently the Admiral’s as well because they were guests, not prisoners.”
“So, you’re saying we should trust her because someone we’ve never met trusts her?” Moore asked, frowning.
“No, sir. I’m saying I believe she’s telling the truth because I’ve got independent verification of who and what she is. I’m also saying that based on what I know to be fact, combined with what she has told us, it all has the ring of truth.”
Moore sat back, steepling his fingers over his lips in contemplation.
“I tend to agree with your assessment,” he said after a long stretch of quiet in which only the soft rush of air being recirculated was audible. “So, taking all of this into account, why would we be ordered to turn them over to the Russians?”
“I think the more important question is why was something like this sent within hours of Admiral Packard being attacked? Why the sudden change?”
“I had the same thought,” Moore acknowledged. “In fact, I’d never heard of Admiral Huber. I had an authentication verification request sent back and Pearl responded. It all checks out.”
“Then what do we do, sir? We have valid, lawful orders. And after listening to Captain Vostov…”
Moore was silent for another long stretch before speaking again.
“Your Marine buddy. Still in Hawaii, as far as you know?”
“Yes, sir. Far as I know,” Small said, frowning in confusion.
“Something about this stinks,” Moore said. “And the more I think about the likelihood of the old man cutting a deal with the Russians, the more it smells. He’s stood up to them from the very beginning. Stood up against traitors in our midst and is, in this officer’s humble opinion, the main reason there’s still any vestige of America remaining.”
“A mutiny? On shore? Seriously?”
Small was aghast at the possibility.
“These are not normal times, XO. And I think extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures to verify the validity of extremely unusual orders. Would you agree?”
The two men stared at each other, both well aware of what they were discussing. They had been presented with a verified, lawful order and were considering willfully delaying its execution, if not outright disobeying. The mere possibility of that happening, especially by men who were so carefully screened before being given command of nuclear submarines was all but unthinkable.
Unlike any other command in the military, submarine commanders were an island unto themselves. They can receive orders while submerged, but only very cryptic and simple ones. They can’t call home without surfacing or coming shallow enough to raise an antenna above the ocean’s surface. And if they did that they were easily detected, which negates the entire point of a submarine in the first place.
For as ingrained and important as following orders was for a submarine skipper, they also had to depend on themselves to a much greater degree than other leaders. As such, while they were carefully selected for a psychological profile that trended heavily towards following the rules, the very nature of their jobs attracted independent thinkers. A dichotomy that hadn’t been lost on anyone.
“I agree, Skipper,” Small finally said. “But we’d better talk to COB. If the Chief of the Boat isn’t on board…”
“All in good time, XO. Let’s not alarm anyone just yet. Not until you talk to your buddy.”
“Sir?”
“We’re going to come shallow and run up an antenna. Just enough to get a satellite lock so you can call him. Don’t tell him anything, but if there’s something rotten in Pearl, he’ll know. Right?”
“Well, he’s pretty much by the Admiral’s side from the time he gets out of bed each day, so, yes. He would know.”
“And he’d tell you?”
“I believe so, sir. He’ll want to know why I’m asking, but I can put him off.”
“Very good, XO. Head to the conn and bring us up. I’ll be along shortly to take command while you’re on the phone.”
After a beat, Small acknowledged the order and left the Captain’s quarters. Turning in his chair, Moore gazed at the framed photo of his lost family for nearly a minute. Wiping a tear from his eye, he moved to a bulkhead mounted safe and punched in a seven-digit code.
Removing a small, metal box, he opened it with a key from his pocket. Inside was a plastic baggie with a fistful of unstamped, small white pills. Fishing one out, he dry-swallowed it before returning his stash to the safe and securing the door.
Within minutes, he began to feel the effects. A sense of warmth washed over him, muting the acute pain he still felt over the loss of his dear wife and children. A sense of calm tamped down the boiling rage that churned deep inside, constantly seeking an outlet. With a slow breath he stood, adjusted his uniform in a full-length mirror and headed out to take command of his boat.
27
The sun was just peeking over the eastern horizon the next morning when Captain Black walked out the front of Viktoriya’s building. He was tired from no sleep and his eyes were gritty. But he’d learned what he needed to know which made up for any sleep he may have missed. And he had to acknowledge to himself that as they talke
d deep into the night, he’d gained a new appreciation for the GRU officer.
She was not only smart, but he’d seen glimpses of what he suspected was the real person buried beneath the intelligence officer. Fiercely proud of her country, she was still horrified by what had happened. He could respect that, even if she was technically the enemy. And he couldn’t deny that she was also a stunning beauty.
The valet was dozing in a small alcove where a stool had been set up and Black walked over, waking him with a sharp kick to one of the chrome legs.
“What the fuck, dude?” the man asked, startled.
“Get my car,” Black said, in no frame of mind to be delayed.
The valet blinked sleep-swollen eyes and peered at Black, recognition dawning on his face.
“Oh, riiight,” he said, a lascivious grin spreading across his face. “How was it? She as wild in the sack as she looks?”
Black sighed and glared at the man who was little more than a teenager. Resisted the urge to slap him like the little bitch he was.
“My car,” he said in a tone that erased the smile off the valet’s face and sent him scurrying off with the keys in hand.
Waiting, Black stepped to the curb and fished his phone out. As he raised it, he glanced across the street. Half a block down, a plain sedan sat at the curb. That wouldn’t normally draw attention, but this one was occupied by two men. The driver had his window rolled down, smoke swirling up and away as he puffed on a cigarette.
Keeping his head bent as if reading something on his phone, Black watched them watch him. FBI? CIA? Could it be the GRU, checking up on Viktoriya?
Whoever their employer was, they seem unconcerned with maintaining any illusion about their reason for being there. Both stared at him as he waited for his car to arrive.
Looking at his phone, he was surprised to see three missed calls from an unknown number. It had been set to silent and this was the first time he’d checked it since before walking into the club the previous evening.