CANNIBAL KINGDOM

by John L. Campbell

  “General, the PROC fleet in the Formosa Straits crossed the center line last night, headed for Taiwan. The Taiwanese already had fighters on combat air patrol, monitoring their movements, and when the ships crossed over without responding to radio calls, the patrol started lighting them up with ship-killers.”

  Rowe massaged the bridge of his nose with a thumb and forefinger, making a grunting noise. “How hard did the Reds hit back?”

  “Not at all, sir,” said the XO, getting his commander’s full attention. “Four ships were sunk, and the rest of the fleet broke formation. Not evasive maneuvering, sir, more like wandering, no sense of order.”

  “Like our own ships,” Rowe growled.

  “Yes, sir. The PROC didn’t launch so much as a single SAM against the attacking Taiwanese. When the fleet formation drifted apart, the Taiwanese jets headed home, but half a dozen went down anyway.”

  “The pilots turned,” Rowe said, nodding. At least the U.S. wasn’t the only country with that problem.

  The Major tried to stifle a yawn and rubbed his eyes. “Pakistan and India are shooting at each other. It’s conventional right now, nothing nuclear yet. Each side is blaming the other for unleashing the plague as part of a bio-warfare campaign.”

  “Of course,” said Rowe.

  “The European nations have closed their borders,” the major continued, “and Russia isn’t talking to anyone. Here at home…” he gestured to the screens, “…complete chaos.”

  “What about the President?” Rowe wanted to know.

  The major shook his head. “We had brief comms with Camp David. POTUS is missing and presumed dead. VPOTUS was supposed to be heading for Feather Mountain, but we lost contact with Camp David shortly after we got them. We did make contact with a Marine helicopter pilot who says he’s inbound from Camp David with high profile passengers, but that VPOTUS is not aboard. He’s a few minutes out by now, sir.”

  Rowe rubbed his own eyes and wished for coffee. “Okay, let’s get-”

  “Sir!” A communications man at one of the front consoles yelled and pointed up at one of the screens. “We have a thermal bloom inside the continental United States, consistent with a low yield nuclear detonation.”

  “Where?” Rowe demanded.

  It took a moment for the tech to bring the satellite image in closer. “It looks like Texas, sir. Best guess is Dallas.”

  Dallas? Rowe thought. There wasn’t anything nuclear in Dallas, nothing that could cause an accident like that. “No missile tracking?”

  “Negative, sir, the skies are clear.”

  That leaves terror. Rowe clenched his teeth. As if things aren’t bad enough.

  “General,” a mountain staffer called, “that Marine chopper is on the approach, and we’re getting radio traffic from some more small aircraft requesting permission to land. Their codes are legitimate.” The female sergeant had a binder of laminated pages clearly identifying what aircraft were authorized to land here for Bank Vault (the only time planes were permitted on the airfield) and what authorized clearance codes they were to use. “We have a larger contact calling in sir, but it’s not cleared.”

  Rowe pointed at the tech who had reported the detonation. “Get me more on Dallas. XO, go assist with air traffic control for those inbounds.”

  The major responded with a giggle.

  “XO?” Rowe looked to see his second-in-command staring at the floor, clenching and unclenching his fists, drooling onto his combat boots.

  It had been a long night of fitful sleeping and rotating watches. Donny Knapp, the three men from his unit and Corporal Woods, the female quartermaster they’d discovered on base, had spent the small hours of the overnight either watching out the windows of the tiny cinderblock building beside the airstrip or trying to rest propped up in corners.

  There wasn’t much to this place; a table and chairs, a base radio set and an electrical panel to control the field lights, a closet with some cleaning supplies and a deck of cards. They were all grateful for the small latrine just off the single, main room. On a back wall was a large map of the Feather Mountain installation depicting roads, structures and fence-lines. Most of it was covered in pine forest, and Second Lieutenant Knapp had spent a lot of time looking at it. He was surprised to see just how close the main gates were to his current position.

  When they’d gotten here, there was no sign of the two men who’d originally been assigned to the blockhouse, the two they’d seen when the general’s helicopter arrived. They’d just wandered away…or something.

  Everyone was tense. They’d expected an attack all night, but it hadn’t come. There had been sightings though, distant silhouettes running across the airstrip, dark, loping shapes in the moonlight. And there had been the laughter, the crazed, wavering giggles that floated out of the black forest. Hearing them, knowing the Green Berets and the rest of Knapp’s company were out there but having nothing to fire at, frayed the nerves.

  Donny turned away from the window where he’d been standing and looked at the newest members of the squad. They had come running out of the forest around four this morning, pounding on the door to the little structure and pleading to be let inside. Donny let them in, but the squad had kept their weapons pointed at the new arrivals until their lieutenant was satisfied that neither one was showing signs of turning.

  Both were Green Berets, survivors of the massacre in the woods. They’d managed to hold onto their rifles, so Donny redistributed magazines from his team to replace the blanks the two men had been using. That made seven of them now. Donny wondered if there were more out there, hiding within the trees or running to escape being devoured by their brothers-in-arms.

  Specialists Valenti and Quayle were sleeping hard on the concrete floor now, wrapped in rain ponchos with their rifles close at hand. Donny had peppered them with questions about their unit and what happened, but they were as confused as everyone else. They said that every Green Beret they knew was either dead at the hands of their friends or transformed into madmen. The only reason they’d survived, they said, was because they ran. They didn’t display any shame at that as they told the story, and instead wore the haunted expressions of people who had witnessed something truly horrific and were still trying to come to terms with it.

  Donny turned back to his window. Full daylight now. They’d see what the morning would bring. He doubted it would bring the arrival of a more senior officer to take over and relieve the young second lieutenant of his burden. His thoughts were interrupted by a click and a voice from the base radio set.

  “Mountain-Six to Airfield-One.”

  That must mean us. Donny grabbed the mic. “Go, Mountain-Six. Second Lieutenant Knapp here.”

  “Roger, Airfield. Be advised you have aircraft inbound to your position.”

  “Air Force One?” Donny asked.

  “Negative, Lieutenant,” said the voice. “Three small fixed wing and one rotary. They’re all squawking proper codes and are authorized to land. We’ll handle traffic control from here. I need you to switch on the field lights.”

  Donny nodded at the radio, then looked at a well-labeled wall console almost identical to the circuit breaker panel in a private home. He flipped any switch marked FIELD, and instantly the massive airstrip was flanked by rows of blue and white lights, brilliant even in daylight.

  “The field is lit, Mountain-Six,” he reported.

  “Roger. We have the inbounds stacked at ten minute intervals, with the rotary wing coming in last. The fixed wing pilots have been directed to immediately taxi to the ramp upon landing.”

  Donny had boarded and exited enough military troop aircraft to know that the ramp was a term for the large, concrete pad just off the runway where planes could turn around or park.

  “Lieutenant,” Said Mountain-Six, “your objective is to keep the area clear of hostiles and obstructions in order to facilitate the safe landing of these aircraft.”

  Donny looked out the window. Obstructions like that. A unifo
rmed man was running across the ramp, heading for the airstrip and the little cinderblock house. The blood on his uniform indicated that he might just be wounded, but the fact that he had been disemboweled and his entrails were now dangling out of the wound and flopping against his knees as he ran told a different story.

  “Copy that,” Donny told the radio, then snapped his fingers at the squad. “Akins, Corporal Woods.” He pointed out the window. “Deal with that and then get it off the runway.” I just called it an it.

  Akins just stared, but the black, female quartermaster punched him hard in the arm, then grabbed his combat harness and hauled him outside. Donny watched as they ran toward the thing now running at them. He swallowed hard. He hoped the man’s condition meant that he’d turned…

  “Air Field-One,” said the voice on the radio, “you are to collect all arriving personnel and secure them at your position.”

  Donny started shaking his head slowly, watching as Woods and Akins stopped fifty feet from the running soldier and cut him down with long bursts of automatic fire. Then they grabbed him by his boots and hauled him to the grass at the edge of the pavement, leaving a red smear on the concrete.

  “Mountain-Six, be advised that I can’t spare any men to escort them to the bunker.”

  “You’re not listening, Lieutenant.” The voice had an edge to it. “That is a negative on the escort. The mountain is compromised. Secure the arrivals at your location until further orders.”

  Great, Donny thought. Plane-loads of high-ranking officials exposed and in the open, protected by seven tired soldiers. He acknowledged the command, just as Woods and Akins were returning to the cinderblock house, both of them breathing hard.

  “Was he…?” Donny started.

  The corporal shook her head. “Infected and turned, sir.”

  Behind them, Private Akins grumbled to his buddies that he hadn’t killed the soldier, he had missed on purpose. She had been the one to shoot him down. The killing was on her.

  Donny was getting sick of Akins and his bullshit, but there wasn’t time to deal with it now. He looked at his corporal. “Wake up our Green Berets, then get the squad outside. Defensive perimeter around the blockhouse. Company’s coming.”

  The lights descending from the sky were stacked too close together, certainly too close for the ten minute landing intervals Mountain-Six had described. Donny was no pilot, but to him there looked to be less than a minute’s worth of space between each.

  The first to come in, a white business jet, was wobbling and didn’t have its landing gear down. At a speed much too fast to attempt landing, it swept the length of the airstrip as low as a crop-duster, engines screaming. It nudged up at the far end, avoiding the tops of the pines, but then tipped in a hard bank to the left and plunged nose-first into the forest. The resulting fireball boiled into the sky amid a confetti storm of burning October leaves. The soldiers around the blockhouse felt the heat and pressure wave even at this distance.

  The second jet – just one minute behind – landed perfectly, rolled off the runway and onto the ramp, then just sat there with its engines idling. The side door didn’t open to let out passengers.

  Donny tapped one of the Green Berets – Quayle, he thought - on the shoulder and pointed at the business jet. “That’s your field of responsibility, nothing else.”

  “Roger that.” The young man knelt and trained his assault rifle on the motionless plane.

  Aircraft number three, another identical small jet, suddenly banked right, climbed and disappeared, leaving the area altogether. Donny suspected he’d never know why, and would never see the plane again. He was right.

  Almost at the same moment, an olive-green helicopter with MARINES stenciled along its tail boom appeared over the trees to their right, coming in with its nose aimed at the blockhouse. The pilot got as close as he dared, pivoted the chopper and landed, the wind of his rotors making Donny’s squad shield their eyes from the dust and grit blowing around. A handful of figures emerged from the Marine helicopter, hunched over and running toward the soldiers. Once they were clear of the rotors, the aircraft lifted off and headed back in the direction from which it had come.

  The new arrivals moved immediately to the only officer they saw. There was a woman with two kids, a boy and a girl, both pre-teen. A man in a suit immediately moved in front of them, identifying himself to Donny as Secret Service. Another man in a suit said he was the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, and he identified the last passenger, an elderly man in rumpled clothes, as a Justice of the Supreme Court.

  Donny recognized the Vice President’s wife from seeing her on TV. He looked at the White House man. “POTUS and VPOTUS?”

  “No to both,” the deputy said, “but neither is confirmed.” His eyes cut away when he said that. “Let’s get this group inside Bank Vault.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Donny said, “I have orders to hold you here for the time being. Security reasons.”

  “My God,” the Vice President’s wife said, “We can’t stay out here.” She pulled her children close.

  “We’ll protect you, ma’am.” Donny realized it was probably a lie even as he said it. He was about to show them into the blockhouse when his corporal caught his arm and pointed at the sky above and beyond the opposite end of the runway.

  “That wasn’t on the list,” she said.

  It was huge, a four-engine prop that dwarfed the business jets, painted in a camouflage pattern, making it military. Donny didn’t need the camo to tell him what it was, for he’d flown on planes like that many times. It was a C-130 cargo plane, the workhorse of the skies. Now everyone was looking, and there was a collective gasp as a cluster of tiny silhouettes – pin-wheeling bodies – dropped from the rear of the plane to fall helplessly into the forest.

  Its cargo ramp was down.

  And it was landing anyway.

  -31-

  BUFFALO TWO-EIGHT

  Western Pennsylvania – October 29

  The word HARVARD was stenciled across her flight helmet, the combination nickname/call-sign she’d picked up at the Air Force Academy for the not-so-original reason that her home town was Boston. Of course her sharp, nasally accent, combined with an academic scoring that put her at the top of her class, assured anyone who knew it that the call-sign was more than appropriate. She was fit and petite, physically a good fit for the tight confines of a fighter cockpit, and she certainly had the brains and reflexes for it. Being a jet jockey held no interest for her, though. She liked the control of commanding large aircraft, the bigger the better. A spray of freckles across her nose made her look younger than her thirty-one years.

  Major Erin Boyle was alone in the cockpit of her C-130 Hercules. Well, not exactly alone if she counted the two dead men in here with her; the co-pilot still buckled into his seat and the flight engineer lying on the steel decking just behind her. She didn’t need to see the bullet holes in their flight helmets or the blood and brains on the seats and control panel to know they were gone. She’d done the job herself.

  Something was pounding on the steel door that separated the cockpit from the cargo area. Several somethings.

  Under optimum conditions, the C-130 was a cumbersome aircraft; almost a hundred feet long, thirty-six tons empty with a wingspan of one hundred thirty two feet. Now it was handling like a busted freight train, its flight characteristics completely out of whack. For whatever reason, perhaps out of panic, the loadmaster who traveled in back had performed one final, stupid act before he died. And there was little doubt that he was indeed dead. A small video monitor over the pilot’s seat gave the major a view of what was happening in the cargo area. Nope, no doubt. The loadmaster had lowered the cargo ramp in-flight, at altitude.

  The Hercules was in fact designed for this, for making slow, low-altitude runs where palletized equipment with parachutes was pushed out the back, or more often gear on heavy skids (also with parachutes) pushed out only feet above a runway to slide to a stop on the pavement. But tha
t was for low and level flight, and the ramp was closed soon after delivery. The aircraft wasn’t meant to fly in this state for long periods of time. The ramp had been down for more than an hour now, and the airflow drag was rapidly exhausting her fuel.

  Maybe he opened it hoping they’d fall out. Erin shrugged. Didn’t matter at this point.

  She was orbiting now, looking out through the cockpit’s side window at a very long, very sexy, empty runway out in the sticks of western Pennsylvania. It was active, as several approaching business jets proved, as well as the chatter between the planes and a controller called Mountain-Six. Her laminated maps showed the runway and the surrounding area, labeling it FEATHER MOUNTAIN MILITARY RESERVATION – RESTRICTED.

  Surely not for her, though.

  “Mountain-Six,” she called over the radio, “this is Buffalo-Two-Eight, alpha-foxtrot cee-one-thirty out of Pope. I’m at two-seven-zero, range ten miles from yah field.” She listened to the thumping, a sound that even the hum of the four big turbo-props couldn’t drown out. The thumping was made worse because she knew what was on the other side of that door.

  Major Boyle continued her orbit. “Mountain-Six, I am bingo fuel and declaring an emergency. Request permission to land.”

  She saw the first of three, white executive jets scream over the runway and vector into a fireball amid the trees. A second jet was coming in close behind, but he looked to be approaching and descending in good order. Before she could call in the crash, a voice responded to her call.

  “Buffalo-Two-Eight, Mountain-Six. That’s a negative on your request. This is a restricted field. Suggest you divert north to Custer.”

  “Mountain-Six, I am a military flight and need emergency landing clearance.”

  “Copy that, Buffalo-Two-Eight, but you are not authorized to land at this field. Custer is close, and their field is long enough to handle your aircraft.”