by Dirk Patton
“We’re getting set up inside, sir. If you’ll follow me, we’ll get started.” He turned and pulled the door open, leading the way inside and turning into the first doorway we encountered.
The room was large, appearing to be a pilot’s briefing room. Two large tables at the back of the room were stacked high with equipment being checked over by another man dressed similarly to Scott, and a woman wearing a standard AF uniform with Captain’s bars on her collar. Scott called them to attention as we entered and I walked over to meet them, telling them to stand at ease. The woman was small and looked to be in outstanding physical condition. The name tape on her uniform blouse read Martinez and when I looked in her eyes I recognized something that told me she was not a woman you wanted to mess with. The other man was an AF Staff Sergeant named Yee, nearly as short as Martinez and whip thin. He looked like the type that could run a marathon as a warm up for the day.
The two Sergeants were part of a very small and elite group in the Air Force called SOF TACP or Special Operations Forces Tactical Air Control Party. They normally run with Army SF units to coordinate any air support that unit may need to complete their mission. To be able to do that they had trained to the same level as their Army counterparts and in most if not all cases were just as capable. I was glad to have them along for the fight. Martinez didn’t have the same level of training, though she looked like she could have made it through the selection process, but was a helicopter pilot. Her job was to ride along with us and if we found the opportunity to get our hands on a helo, she’d fly us where we needed to go.
Looking down at the gear I couldn’t help but smile. New weapons, clothing, radios, jump suits, parachutes, the list went on and on. Everything was neatly separated by category and I was happy to find a change of clothes and lightweight but very warm long underwear. It was going to be cold where we were going.
“No night vision?” I asked, hoping there was some that just wasn’t out in the open.
“That’s the one thing we couldn’t get our hands on.” Scott shook his head, looked at me and shrugged his shoulders.
Glancing up at the clock I was surprised to see it was already 1500 – 3 pm. We needed to get our gear together and start getting ready to depart for New Mexico. But, first things first.
“Have any of you fought the infected, face to face?” I asked, looking at the three AF personnel. All three shook their heads.
“Not like you have,” Sergeant Scott spoke up after glancing at Captain Martinez. “We’ve had some on base and also been into parts of town to help clear them out, but we’ve always had superior numbers.”
“OK, then you know some of the basics. These are just humans. They aren’t zombies or vampires that can’t be killed. That said, they are so pumped up on adrenalin from the infection that they don’t feel injury. Body shots are all but useless unless you hit the heart. Head shots put them down instantly, and if they’re really close a good knife thrust to the heart or brainstem works well too. I’ve seen infected take injuries that would completely incapacitate one of us and keep on coming like nothing happened. Those injuries will eventually kill them, but they don’t feel pain or go into shock. They go until their body completely fails. Questions?”
There were none, so I continued. “Have you been briefed on the smart infected?” Nods all around this time.
“I won’t beat a dead horse, but the smart ones, which seem to be just the females, are scary as hell. I’ve encountered a few and they understand death and the concept of self-preservation. They also are able to work together and set up ambushes as well as form hunting parties. They don’t just scream and run at you, they stalk you and strike when you’re vulnerable. Heads on swivels out there. Got it?” There were more nods and I was happy to see that while they were taking me seriously, none of them were looking like they were going to freak out.
“One final thing. They are strong as hell, both male and female. Remember, they’re in a rage. I’ve fought females that were the size of Martinez here, and they were nearly as strong as I am. You cannot engage with multiples in hand to hand. They will overpower you, especially since nothing you’ve been trained to do will stop them short of a knife or a bullet. The males are slow, but the females are fast as hell. They don’t tire. I imagine they’d run at a sprint until their heart exploded, but I’ve never seen one get to that point. You won’t outrun them. You won’t outlast them. No one will, no matter what kind of shape you’re in. If you find yourself being pursued, find a defensible position and start killing them. That’s your only option.”
I looked at each of them in turn. Sergeant Scott met my look, steely resolve in his eyes. I saw the same thing in Martinez and Yee and decided I had a good team to go in with me. I was opening my mouth to ask where the mess hall was when a strident alarm began blaring. Martinez dashed to a phone hanging on the wall next to the door and snatched the handset off the cradle. Apparently listening to an announcement, she stared intently at the floor with the phone held tightly to her ear, slamming it back in place after about 20 seconds.
“Russian air raid,” She said in a surprisingly calm voice. “Our CAP is engaging them 100 miles to the west, but there’s more of them than there are of us. We’re going now!”
She ran to the tables, and with the two Sergeants helping, started stuffing equipment into waiting duffel bags. Stepping over I joined in and soon we had eight very large and heavy duffels ready to go. Each of us grabbed two and Scott led the way outside and around the building to where an AF pickup was parked. We tossed the bags into the truck, Scott and Yee piling in on top of them as Martinez jumped behind the wheel and I joined her in the cab.
The alarm was louder in the open air and she didn’t hesitate to floor the accelerator as soon as the truck started, leaving twin, black patches of rubber on the concrete. Driving fast, she swung onto a road that paralleled the runways and quickly pushed our speed to over 100 miles an hour. Next to us on the runway, a pair of F-35s screamed into the sky, quickly followed by two more. Ahead, I could see more F-35s lining up for takeoff, waiting behind half a dozen F-18s that were already starting their takeoff roll.
As Martinez drove I watched fighter after fighter leap off the runway and into the air, pilots immediately going nearly vertical to gain altitude as quickly as possible. Beyond the sortieing jets were several massive hangars. A couple of them had the tail sections of cargo planes sticking out as the aircraft were having maintenance performed on them, but the three largest hangars were buttoned up tight, each with its own chain link fence topped with coiled razor wire.
Martinez pulled out a small, hand held radio and spoke briefly into it. Moments later I saw the doors of the closest high security hangar crack open and two figures ran across the large apron. The rolling gate in the fence started moving and Martinez pointed the front of the truck at the opening. I’m pretty much a fearless driver, but don’t do well when someone else is behind the wheel. It took every ounce of my self-control to not scream at her that we weren’t going to make it. The gate was opening much too slowly and we were going way too fast.
Somehow, we did make it, roaring through at over 100 miles per hour. If there was more than two inches of clearance on either side of the truck I’ll eat my beret. Fucking pilots! Approaching the hangar doors, which were still trundling open, Martinez braked sharply and cut our speed to a sedate pace as she drove into the cavernous building. She made a sharp right before coming to a screeching halt, parking the truck out of the way of the menacing looking plane that sat in the middle of the hangar. I’d never seen a stealth bomber up close before.
14
It turned out that the bomber wasn’t even officially an Air Force plane yet. It was a prototype of the next generation stealth bomber, the replacement for the B2, that had been undergoing performance testing when the attacks happened. Now it had been pressed into service, being flown by a Boeing test pilot who had retired from the Air Force ten years ago and started a second career with the giant
aircraft builder. He was in control in the pilot’s seat, an active duty Air Force pilot flying co-pilot. The rest of us were spread out in the back of the aircraft.
One of the requirements the Air Force had for the new bomber was that it could do dual duty as a transport and covert insertion platform for SF units. To accommodate this, Boeing had made it easy to reconfigure the inside of the plane and had also added a ramp at the rear. I’d had a conversation with the test pilot after we were in the air and cruising along at 40,000 feet. He had assured me that the Russians could not detect us.
According to him we had the radar cross section of a sparrow, and the IR – infrared – signature of a duck. When I asked him what that meant he laughed and told me that a duck farting would release more heat into the atmosphere than the bomber’s engines did. The only risk was being visually spotted by a very observant pilot, and it was his job to make sure that didn’t happen. That is until he opened the bomb bay doors or lowered the rear ramp. Then, due to the change in the profile of the aircraft, we would be detectable on radar for the amount of time either was open.
Currently we were flying south, the Gulf of Mexico eight miles beneath us. The pilot may have been confident that the Russians couldn’t detect us, but at the same time we didn’t want to tempt fate by taking a direct route from Little Rock to Los Alamos and fly directly over territory already occupied. Instead, we headed south over the gulf and would soon be turning west over Mexico before turning to the north and coming back into the US over Arizona, after the sun had set. From there we’d proceed northeast to Los Alamos. I can’t say the thought of asking him to put down at the airport in Phoenix for a couple of hours didn’t go through my head, but I had a lot of people depending on me and didn’t have time for personal missions.
When we reached Los Alamos, we’d descend to 35,000 feet, the pilot would lower the rear ramp and we’d jump. This is called a HALO – High Altitude Low Opening – insertion and was the only option we could come up with on short notice and with even shorter resources. Lots of things could go wrong. Just like divers that have to worry about the bends, nitrogen bubbles forming in the blood stream because of rapid pressure changes, high altitude jumps face the same issue. In extreme cases, the jumper can suffer from hypoxia, fall unconscious and fail to open their chute. There’s also concern over frostbite. At 35,000 feet the temperature outside the aircraft is about -50 degrees Fahrenheit. And that’s just the first few items on the list of things that can go FUBAR when jumping out of a plane nearly seven miles up. Oh, and I haven’t done a HALO jump in about 10 years.
The two Sergeants were crashed out, heads pillowed on their parachutes. Martinez sat a few feet away from them honing a wicked looking dagger on a small sharpening stone. I was tired, but too keyed up to sleep so I made my way forward to talk with the pilots.
“Where are we?” I asked, poking my head into the cockpit. They both looked around, surprised to see me.
“About 300 miles south of New Orleans at the moment.” The pilot answered. “I’m going to turn us west in about 10 minutes. Just killing time right now. I don’t want to re-enter US airspace while the sun is up. The fucking commies will have patrols up and the last thing we need is for a Mig pilot to see the sun glint off this baby.” I nodded in agreement.
“Any word from Little Rock?” I asked.
“They fought the Russians off, but took heavy losses and a lot of damage to the field. Only one runway left in operation.” The Air Force officer answered.
I thanked them, asked them to let me know when we were crossing into Arizona, then headed for the back to get some sleep. Curling up in a space that would normally hold a stick of bombs, I rested my head on my parachute and closed my eyes. The bomber was surprisingly quiet in flight and I could clearly hear the rasp of blade on stone as Martinez kept working the dagger’s edge to razor sharpness.
Normally I can fall asleep on a plane at the drop of a hat. It was a useful skill I learned early on in life when I’d spend hours in the belly of a C-130, being flown to whatever part of the world the Army chose to send me. Later, when I started traveling for work in the civilian world, I’d usually be asleep before we were even off the ground. It’s the only way to fly if you ask me. Keep your in-flight movies, drinks, snacks and chatty seat mates. Let me sleep. But I couldn’t. I had too much I was worried about.
Katie. Rachel and Dog. The impending jump with a parachute that had been packed by God only knew who. I had toyed with the idea of pulling it open and repacking myself, but there just wasn’t room in the plane. I was worried about the jump. I’ve got a ton of jumps under my belt, and a fair number of both HALO and HAHO – High Altitude High Opening – but like I said, it’s been 10 years since the last time I threw myself out of a perfectly good aircraft. I thought I remembered everything I needed to remember, but the rub is the stuff you don’t even realize you forgot until it was too late.
I’d had time to chat with the three Air Force personnel after we took off from Little Rock. The two Sergeants had five HALO jumps between them, which meant they were still rookies, but at least they’d done it in a combat environment. Martinez had none. She’d jumped before, but from a nice, sedate 10,000 feet on calm, sunny days. When you’re falling at night from 35,000 feet to the 1,500 feet that was my target for opening our chutes, lots of things can happen. Updrafts, downdrafts and cross winds can push you around and you wind up coming down miles away from the rest of your unit.
We would be wearing special suits with flaps of fabric sewn in between the arms and body and between the legs. We used to call these bat suits, and for the life of me I couldn’t remember what the proper name for them was. If you knew what you were doing these suits helped you steer and to a degree fly well enough to compensate for any winds that might push you around. If you knew what you were doing. I had no doubt Martinez had been trained on how to control her body during a descent, but this was going to be like nothing she had ever experienced.
These may have sounded like petty concerns, but I’d been to Los Alamos before. It was built on the top of several mesas which are nothing more than tall, flat topped mountains surrounded by fairly deep and rugged canyons. If one of us missed the mesa and dropped into a canyon, we were screwed. A broken ankle would be almost assured, and would probably be the least of the injuries sustained.
The terrain in the area was unforgiving and very difficult to navigate. Exactly the reason the government had chosen this location for the development of the first atomic bomb during World War II. Instead of dwelling on these concerns and worrying over something I couldn’t control, I let them roll around in my head for a bit, finally falling asleep to the steady rasp of Martinez’ blade.
15
Rachel startled awake when Dog growled. She’d lived through enough danger in the post-apocalyptic world to know to stay perfectly still and see if she could detect what had upset him before she moved. Movement would reveal her position, and might very well draw an attack that would have passed her by if she had just remained motionless. Madison’s head was still pillowed in her lap, the small girl snoring softly. Lindsey had slid down the side of Rachel’s body in her sleep, head resting against Rachel’s hip.
Moving her eyes only, Rachel scanned the area but saw nothing. The sun was up and shining brightly, the small office already hot and humid. Dog was lying perfectly still, facing the windows, ears stiffly alert. About to sit up straighter for a better view, Rachel froze when she saw movement in the field on the far side of the road. Three females.
At first she wasn’t sure if they were infected or not. They were walking slowly, looking down at the ground as if they’d lost something, but when one of them ticked her shoulder up before twitching her head she knew they were infected. As Rachel watched, they kept moving forward slowly, one of them suddenly freezing in place and snapping her head to stare at a spot on the ground a few feet in front of her. She stayed still for a few moments, then with inhuman speed and agility leapt forward and reache
d for the spot she had been watching. Rising back up to her feet she held a small, squirming rodent in her hands, quickly devouring the creature.
Trying to suppress a shudder of revulsion, Rachel failed. Lindsey stirred from the movement and changed position, stretching her leg out and bumping an ancient table that served as a desk. A large, metal ash tray sat on the edge of the table, nearly half of it hanging into open space, having been pushed there by the piles of receipts and papers spread across the surface. Rachel held her breath as the table shook and the ash tray wobbled. Seeing what was about to happen she reached out to catch it, but the two girls restricted her movement and she could only stare in horror as the heavy object finally tipped beyond the point of no return and fell off the table.
Six inches across and an inch deep with a wide lip around the perimeter, the aluminum clattered like a gong when it struck the concrete floor. Dog grunted in surprise and leapt to his feet. Both girls snapped awake with sharp intakes of breath. Rachel groaned internally and looked up to see all three females staring at the building where they hid. First the closest one, then all three broke into a sprint in their direction.
Not trusting the glass windows to stop the infected, Rachel scrambled to her feet and snatched Madison up into her arms. To her right a battered steel door led into a small garage area and Rachel dashed through the door, yelling for Lindsey and Dog to follow her. In the service bay she set Madison down on her feet, and as Lindsey and Dog ran through the opening she slammed the door and frantically looked for a way to secure it. The door opened into the garage and there was only a standard door knob without a lock to hold it shut. She didn’t think the females could turn the knob to open the door, but they might be able to ram their way through, especially if they were hungry enough.