“The attack occurs at the forty-two second mark,” Nash intoned. “The newly arrived second vehicle is a Chinese Yuan class killer sat. Watch closely.”
She turned back towards the flat-panel and aimed the remote to put the image back into motion. The tension in the room became palpable. Gone was the shuffling of feet and the hushed conversation. All eyes were riveted on the flat-panel display awaiting the inevitable.
Cade watched the elapsed time running in the screen’s corner. He had never witnessed any kind of space-borne laser being discharged either during a test or used in an attack of this nature. And though he knew this footage was days old, he still felt a twinge of sorrow for the people onboard the ISS—even the lone Chinese national.
The numerals crawled forward, and when they hit the forty-one second mark he felt a sudden overwhelming empathy towards the crew, all of who were totally oblivious that they had only one second left to live. Every muscle in his body went rigid as he waited for a green or red laser beam to lance from the Chinese sat and then some kind of huge fireball to bloom as a result. In his mind’s eye he saw an X-Wing Fighter being obliterated by the Death Star’s ion cannons.
Instead, two things happened at once: some kind of cylindrical object—probably made from titanium, Cade reasoned—flashed diagonally from the Chinese Yuan hunter-killer satellite, transited space on a razor-straight trajectory, and then disappeared without any kind of a fireball or cataclysmic explosion, sound, or light show, into what he guessed was the crew compartment just aft of the fully deployed solar sails. The impact tore a rapidly widening black wound into the station’s pristine white skin.
Next, a burst of propellant shot from the thrust gimbals located on the rogue satellite’s flank, changing its attitude and setting it on a digressive tangent, taking it away from the slowly disintegrating space station. A tick later, the Chinese Yuan craft fell victim to a similar attack, as multiple projectiles of like size blurred by the optics of the KH-12 and dissected the unmanned Chinese sat into several smaller pieces, which in turn spun off in different directions, trailing a glittering carpet of flash-frozen fuels and lubricants intermixed with thousands of minuscule pieces of shimmering exotic metals. The entire aftermath, minus the planet in the background, reminded him of how the lights of Los Angeles use to sparkle at nighttime.
The room came alive as every person took a collective breath. Then went silent as the fate of the doomed crew aboard the ISS became evident. Finally on the upswing of the emotional rollercoaster, a cheer went up as the Chinese satellite was destroyed.
Emotion-filled conversations erupted around the room and increased in volume until Nash cleared her throat into the hot microphone. After a few seconds, she stopped the footage. It was replaced with the 50th Space Wing’s logo on a bright blue background. The room suddenly fell silent, and Nash’s commanding presence took over.
“The attack that you just witnessed was not initiated by the Chinese government as we know it. At least not recently. Like Russia and most of Europe, China has gone black. The entire country is quiet. Their military is idle. As for their Navy, we’re certain their sub fleet is intact—at least the ones that were underway when things went south for them. Nearly every vessel in their surface fleet—littoral and blue water—was either in port or returned home by Z-day plus two. The direct line to Secretary General Jinlong has been silent since Z-day, and we have had zero contact with anyone in their government since. So the fact that no one contacted the President after this heinous act—either to confirm, deny, or apologize is not surprising, and says more than the act itself. I don’t want to sound cliché, but ladies and gentlemen, the silence is deafening. The only communication we have had with mainland China was with a handful of people operating Ham radios, and that ceased days ago. Every single one of those interactions indicated what we had already suspected: the dead have taken over and their government has failed them. So this begs the question: why are their space-based assets targeting our platforms?”
She paused for a moment, noticed several people looking questions at her. Took a drink from her bottled water.
“The Chinese programmed their hunter-killers with Dead Hand protocols similar to the way the Soviets had their ICBMs set up to strike if the USSR was attacked. Essentially, all of the attacks on our assets were ordered—preprogrammed if you will—well before Omega escaped from their BSL-4 facility. That every one of us are still breathing is the reason why we are certain Jinlong and the generals are dead. If they were not, the second phase of any attack we have ever war gamed would have come next. A wave of ICBMs would have been launched against us... and snuffed the rest of humanity out in the process. The bang following the whimper at least. I’m going to step aside now—President Clay wants to say a few words.”
As Cade processed the major’s briefing, the proverbial light bulb went off in his head and the reason Nash hadn’t been able to provide real time satellite blanket over Jackson Hole was now crystal clear. You’re forgiven, Freda, he thought to himself.
He watched Clay come to the podium. The way she moved suggested she had a ballistic vest strapped on under her ACU blouse. Her security detail lagged back, watching everybody’s hands. Their training dictated they watch for telltale clues that might precede an attack. And hands going into pockets were one of those signs.
Nash shook the President’s hand and then stepped aside. The President didn’t need to adjust the microphone or take a drink of water. She didn’t have a fistful of notes, nor did she look nervous. She wasted no time and dove right in.
“I want to commend General Ronnie Gaines first and foremost for the stellar job he’s done in place of Mike Desantos, whose boots were big enough for two men to fill.”
She looked Cade’s direction. He shifted his gaze to Gaines, who just happened to be staring in his direction. Shit, Cade thought. Don’t do this here. Not now. Suddenly he regretted affixing the captain’s bars to his uniform.
“All kudos go to the 4th ID and the 10th Special Forces who have been under his command. Downtown is nearly clear of the dead,” Clay added. After a few seconds of applause she went on. “They have also moved a number of shipping containers south to construct an improvised barrier. Something to slow the dead that have been a constant trickle up from Pueblo.” She paused. A ripple of subtle movement made rounds of the room as excited people processed the added snippet of good news. A sort of poor man’s wave sans the sporting event. “I also want to recognize Captain Cade Grayson for his continued allegiance to the flag and to the country,” she said, meeting his gaze.
Here it comes, he said to himself. He nodded. Smiled. It was forced and tight. He watched her step from the podium and stride in his direction. He thought about bolting. Then a quick burst of flash traffic from Egoville entered his thought process. General Grayson does have kind of a nice ring to it. But the G word carried way too much baggage for his liking. And as the President squared up less than a foot in front of him, he asked himself: how in the hell am I going to politely decline this?
Like a Secret Service agent, his eyes tracked her hand as it delved into her pocket. Out came a black velvet box.
With his gut doing flip flops, Cade stood at attention. Too late to say or do anything. For lack of a better word—he was trapped.
She unsealed the box. Inside was a light blue ribbon that appeared to be folded over on itself more than once. As the lid hinged fully open, President Clay rotated it towards him. Nestled atop the ornate ribbon, decorated with a field of tiny white stars, sat a gilded five-pointed star surrounded by a green laurel wreath. He’d seen this before in books and once in person at the Smithsonian in DC. His throat clenched upon noticing the American eagle sitting atop a gold herald, on which the word VALOR had been inscribed in bold, important-looking letters.
“You earned this,” she whispered in his ear as she stood on her toes to place the Congressional Medal of Honor over his bowed head. “And this one is for Mike,” she added, covertly slipping
an identical black box in his blouse pocket. “Had to look high and low for these, but that’s a story for another day.” She backed away a couple of steps and offered up a professional looking salute. Cade reciprocated. And as he held his arm at the proper angle, he noticed on the edge of his vision the rest of his peers go rigid and do the same. His throat was closing in on itself. He felt on the verge of tears. And not a single one of them could he attribute to his situation. They were all reserved for the Desantos family.
***
Twenty minutes later, after Clay had concluded her pep rally and Shrill had touched over an impending nuclear crisis which most of the facilities in the country were sure to face in the coming weeks and months, the majority of the people in attendance were politely asked to leave by Major Nash.
Once the TOC was cleared of all nonessential personnel, she launched into the real meat of the briefing. “I’m going to keep this short, gentlemen... and lady,” said Nash, nodding towards Major Ripley, who in her navy blue flight suit stood apart from her male counterparts. “First of all, Captain Grayson, congratulations. Don’t let it go to your head.” She smiled at him and then moved her gaze around the room. “As all of you know, a thumb drive containing notes taken by Sylvester Fuentes, who was working on the Omega antiserum, has been located. Not to put any undue pressure on the men and women who will be going downrange... but finding the right people to interpret the data contained on the drive is the linchpin to producing more of the antiserum Fuentes used successfully one time. I’m not going to go into all of the details of how it came into my possession, but do know that without decisive action taken by Captain Cade Grayson this may not have fallen in my lap. It’s real,” —she held up the brushed metal device for all to see— “and your mission to the CDC’s counterpart in Winnipeg, aptly named Operation Slap Shot, may be the linchpin to mankind’s survival.” Nash paused as a low murmur circulated the room. Then, to infuse some hope in the support crew as well as the operators, she offered up an extra nugget of information. “As of 1500 hours yesterday afternoon, we have proof of life inside the facility. The general has all of the details and he’ll share those once you are underway.”
The briefing lasted another twenty minutes. Call signs were issued to the air and ground elements. The Ghost Hawk would go by Jedi One-One, the original title bestowed upon the black helo the day it rolled out of the Skunk Works facility at Area 51. The name had stuck like glue, and no one, not even the desk pilots who loved coining new and sometimes silly call signs, had ever attempted to change them. And considering the fact that the Gen-3 helos were now affectionately called Jedi Rides by the elite warriors who rode the stealthy helicopters into combat, the paper pushers knew better than to ever broach the subject.
The President’s Osprey, call sign Jedi One-Two, with a chalk of Rangers aboard would accompany Jedi One-One on the mission.
Nash went over the refueling logistics, which seemed to have multiple redundancies already put into place—just in case. Good to see the little—but very important—details were being attended to, Cade thought to himself. He glanced at Lopez, Tice, and General Gaines. The three operators seemed to be listening closely as the feisty major continued going over contingencies and emergency procedures. They would have limited sat coverage, Cade was pleased to hear. Better than none.
“What about drone support?” he asked.
His interruption received a chilly glare from Nash but she obliged anyway. “Not as of now,” she said. “We’re still trying to reconstitute those forces.”
“Copy that,” Cade intoned. He subconsciously fingered the medal he had just received. Then, feeling a little embarrassed, he slipped it off and dropped it into his pocket next to Mike’s posthumous award. He looked around. Thankfully, it appeared his action had gone unnoticed. He glanced sidelong at Ari and Durant, then shifted forward in his seat and regarded Hicks, the oftentimes quiet flight engineer/door gunner, who rounded out the crew responsible for keeping Jedi One-One in the air.
After the Jackson Hole op, Gaines had ordered everyone who had gone “down range” to take a mandatory two-day stand down. That, in Cade’s opinion, had left all three of the SOAR members looking well rested and raring to go—at least as good to go as a person could appear with ninety-plus percent of the populace walking around hungering for flesh.
Ari busted Cade eyeballing him, cracked a wide smile, and flashed a thumbs up.
Someone likes his mission profile, Cade mused. He can thank me later for the extra refueling tankers.
Cade put his hand in his pocket, felt the medal sitting there. Touched the points of the star just to make sure he hadn’t been daydreaming. So it was decided. Coming to the briefing had been more than a gesture. In fact, the moment he Velcroed the black captain’s bars on his ACU’s and strapped on his weapons there had been no turning back. Brook knew what she was doing, he thought. She knew he could never say no to this mission. She had seen the pull of duty drag him back in too many times to count during their thirteen years of marriage. He
was too much of a patriot to turn down something on the order of this magnitude. The far-ranging implications of the mission’s failure were too many to calculate and too cataclysmic to ignore. He had nobody to blame but himself that this mission to Canada’s version of the CDC had been dropped into his lap. After all, he was the one who’d yanked the tail of the cosmic tiger. It had been his decision to rescue the girl at Grand Junction Regional—the girl who had found the thumb drive. A fair amount of serendipity had gone into the events leading up to this moment. Therefore, he concluded, who was he to decide that his part in God’s plan was over?
Chapter 43
Outbreak - Day 16
Logan Winters’s Compound
“If I would have known then what I know now, this is the first prep I would’ve done after I bought this plat of land. Only I think I would have gone with surgical steel—ground the bastards down to a sharp point before sticking ‘em in the ground.”
Duncan stabbed his dagger into the earth and handed Logan another finished product. “Woulda, coulda, shouldas don’t carry much weight these days, baby bro. How’d it go escorting the kid to his vehicle?”
“Did just like you said. He about shit himself when I handed him his AK. Coulda swore he was thinking about turning it on us.”
“Gus pick up on that too?” Duncan asked. “Him being law enforcement and all.”
“Yeah, nothing untoward happened though. Gimme one of those,” Logan said, motioning to the sticks Duncan was whittling. Working by the sterile blue-white light of his headlamp, Logan gripped the first foot-long branch firmly with both hands. It was alder, and about as big around as his thumb. He worked the blunt end into the mud and clay wall of the two-foot deep hole, making sure that the whittled point slanted downward at about a forty-five degree angle. He planted a dozen more of the sharpened sticks into the walls of the hole, pointing in from all directions of the compass. When he was finished, he policed up some dried foliage and used it to conceal his handiwork.
“These things effective?” Logan asked, a measure of skepticism in his voice.
“Punji traps?” Duncan nodded, the beam from his headlamp moving lazily up and down. “Good as a bear trap... when you don’t have a bear trap,” he added in his usual slow drawl.
Logan grunted as he exerted himself, trying to get the angle on the next stick just so. “How exactly does the thing work?”
“Well, it’s pretty simple. The fella steps in there and his foot hits the bottom—VC sometimes put spikes there too. So now he’s up to his knee in a hole. He’s pissed and kinda stunned like he just stepped off a curb he wasn’t expecting... and what’s the natural thing he’s gonna do?”
“After he shits himself ?” Logan said, smiling at the visual. “He yanks his leg out, of course.”
“Correct. That’s why the Viet Cong angled their sticks downward. Picture it... so now the spikes are biting into his leg. They might be splintering, but the more
he struggles the deeper they dig into the muscle. He can’t pull it out,” Duncan intoned, his eyes widening. “He’s stuck now, like a kid that got hisself caught in a Chinese finger trap.”
Then, as if someone had flicked a switch, some birds in the canopy above them suddenly came alive. Dull sleepy chirps, sporadic at first, that swiftly ramped up to a raucous chorus. Duncan went silent, gazing up through the spiderweb of limbs at the sky. The black was giving way to a deep purple as the sun prepared to make its first appearance of the day. He scanned the surrounding forest. Turned a full three-sixty, slowly, with his AR-15 held level. At the ready. After a few ticks he looked back at Logan, shrugged, and continued. “Most times the VC put their own shit on these things. Not quite a million dollar injury. Like a through and through gunshot wound could be. That kind of shit came with a Purple Heart and a jet plane ride home... stewardesses and all. Still, sometimes the infection brought on was good enough to get a fella sent to Da-Nang... maybe even get laid by a horny nurse. Shave a few days off his tour if he’s lucky.”
“Back from your trip down memory lane yet?” Logan asked.
The question, though he was clearly joking, earned him a cold glare from his older sibling. “There are a few things this old hombre can teach you. Might come in handy when I’m no longer around to wipe your butt.”
“That’s right... you’re so ancient you did wipe my ass. How could I have forgotten?” Logan slapped Duncan on the shoulder. “In all seriousness... I know there’s no way those mindless rotters are going to notice this camouflage... but do you really think this is gonna fool a person?”
“We ain’t up against the VC. I’m confident from what I saw when me and Phil tried to go to town... these folks don’t cover their tracks. The gunfire I heard sounded to me like some fool shooting holes in the sky. Bottom line... they aren’t very cautious. Either way... something or someone comes this way, they’re getting stuck in one of these.”
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