Overture (Earth Song)

by Mark Wandrey

  “Did you say ‘do not let them be deployed’?” asked his second in charge.

  “I said under no fucking circumstances are you to allow the local forces to take control of our people. You four, come with me.”

  Masciler marched toward the landing field control building. Everywhere there was uncoordinated activity and people milling about in confusion. Masciler cut through the throng easily. Such was the disorder of the operation that no one even challenged them until he was at the office of the field commander.

  “Who are you?” asked a surprised soldier as Masciler bulled his way through.

  “Stand aside, boy,” he said and trusted his men behind him to be sure the soldier didn’t cause any more trouble. He threw the door open and looked around.

  An Air Force lieutenant was sitting behind a desk, reading through a huge pile of documents and looking surprised at being interrupted. “What do you want? Who are you?”

  “FBI, Chief Masciler from Seattle, you call for help?”

  “I didn’t; it was someone from the state. Everything is completely out of control here and getting worse by the hour.”

  “Where’s the general in charge? Some guy named Prescott?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “What?”

  “I said he’s dead. He was getting ready to make an announcement from what’s left of the scaffolding out by the perimeter wall. Someone tossed a Molotov cocktail over the wall and it went off at his feet. Poor old bastard screamed for minutes before we put him out.” Masciler screwed up his face and looked at the lieutenant with distaste. “We couldn’t help it. No one had a fire extinguisher!”

  “Fuck that, who’s in charge now?”

  “I don’t really know. We’ve been waiting for word from Washington.”

  “Don’t give me that shit, what are the senior ranks?”

  “Well, my commander is Col. Edwards and he’s in the red trailer down by the temporary hanger. Army Colonel Hotchkins has his men down by the bunker entrance. Oh, and a small contingency of Marines is led by Captain O’Neil. They don’t have any fixed facilities; they just live in their APC and helicopters. She’s probably down by the truck entrance with most of her men.”

  “I thought the Army was holding the perimeter.”

  “They were, but not after Prescott died. The crowd almost made it over the wall. After we fought them back, Hotchkins took the Army soldiers and pulled back into the entrance of the bunker.”

  “So three senior officers, three different branches of the military. Nice. From what I’ve seen, the Army is in charge and the bunker is the issue, so I’m going to find this Hotchkins.” Masciler turned to leave without further fanfare.

  “They’re not letting anyone in!” the lieutenant yelled after him.

  “We’ll see,” Masciler said as he jumped down the short steps and strode toward the distant cave entrance. His men fell in behind him as they marched, creating an advancing phalanx of black-suited agents. “Be ready for anything,” he told the men and reached under his tactical jacket to loosen his matching Glock pistols in their shoulder holsters.

  “Halt!” said an Air Force MP.

  “Move aside son, FBI.”

  “This is a military installation-”

  “The hell it is,” Masciler said and shoved past the surprised MP.

  “I said stop. Stop. STOP, or I’ll be forced to shoot.”

  “Then pull that trigger if you must,” Masciler said back to the man, “but we’re here on orders from Washington so you better be sure of what you’re doing before you make a big mistake.”

  The man never raised his weapon. He just watched impotently as the five FBI agents walked boldly through his checkpoint. “That’s one,” Masciler said to his men. The next one is Army, they’re not such pushovers. Do not fire unless they do, or I do.”

  “What’s going on here, boss?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m damn well going to find out! Bump the rest of the team; have them ready to come this way in a huge hurry.” As they marched purposefully toward the looming bunker entrance, two squads of Army soldiers in crisp BDUs awaited their approach.

  “Halt, you’ve been ordered to report for crowd control at-”

  “Shut up, boy.” Masciler growled and shoved the man back. Instantly, the rest of the soldiers took a step back and brought their weapons up.

  “You are violating a military cordon!” another soldier yelled as he ran toward them. “I am ordering you to stand down!”

  “I am the civilian authority here, mister!” Masciler yelled back, removing the red-tinted paper from his pocket and showing him the top where the Presidential Seal was prominently visible. “I will see your ass in jail if you do not stand aside in five seconds. One!”

  “That doesn’t mean shit!”

  Masciler could see he was a Master Sergeant and, while the men around him did not lower their weapons, many of them were glancing at the paper nervously.

  “Two!” The soldiers wavered further.

  “Stand your ground!” the Master Sergeant barked.

  “Prepare to take these men into custody,” Masciler said and nodded to his second in command who made a subtle move that activated his radio. Masciler could see his lips moving as he called for help. “Three!”

  Some of the soldiers had passed their level of tolerance and began to lower their weapons. The Master Sergeant stepped behind one man and drew his pistol. “If any of you lower your weapons, I’ll fucking shoot you myself!”

  “Four!” Masciler yelled, drawing out the word. All his men now had a pair of handcuffs dangling from their off hands, the other hand rested on their gun butts.

  “If this person attempts to move through this line, you are authorized to FIRE!” It was entirely the wrong thing to say. The eight young men holding the line were already scared stiff. They only heard the word ‘fire’. A single round went off from somewhere, then all hell broke loose.

  The soldiers were trained to kill the enemy, but the FBI agents were trained for close quarters handgun combat. For a few seconds it was a draw with bullets whizzing in both directions. Masciler dropped and rolled to the side, his aging back creaking in protest, and came up with a Glock in each hand. The guns had no external safety, and that was part of the reason the FBI carried them.

  Two-weapon practice was mandatory for all senior agents. He put two rounds into the chest of the Master Sergeant, one from each gun. The man bucked with each hit but did not go down. Body armor, eh? Masciler snorted and shifted his aim in a split second. Two more shots found their mark on the man’s crotch. One hit square over the genitals. The armor stopped the bullet while the blunt force trauma made him drop his gun and scream in agony. The second shot hit high in on the thigh and produced a bright red fountain. Femoral artery, Masciler noted and changed his target; the sergeant was no longer a threat.

  His men accounted themselves well. They were outnumbered two to one, but the fight was over within seconds. All the soldiers had fired their M-4s empty while the agents still had rounds to spare in their weapons. All eight soldiers and their NCO were on the ground dead, dying or disabled. Two of his men had slight wounds, including the one received in the initial shot. A couple minutes later, the rest of his men came running up with their heavier machine pistols at the ready.

  “Take this place,” he ordered his men and spat on the blood-covered ground. “Use whatever force is necessary. I want this Colonel Hotchkins taken into custody. Quickly!” The men set out in teams of three. None of this had been in the mission briefing but it didn’t matter. In ten minutes they were in control of the entrance and Hotchkins was in handcuffs.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Masciler demanded of him, “Why haven’t people been allowed to start entering the bunker?”

  “I haven’t received the order yet,” the Colonel said. He had a weeping bullet wound on his shoulder and was trying to ignore it.

  “There’s a damned meteor storm just a couple hours away
and you’re all just running around like nut jobs! I want to see this bunker and everything else.”

  “No!” the Colonel nearly screamed, veins standing out on his neck.

  “Why?”

  “It’s not time yet, we just need a few more hours…”

  “For what? All you’re doing is stocking provisions, so why can’t the civilians take shelter inside? Why did your men attack us when we tried to get in to see you? Why are you acting like this place is a nuclear storage facility?” He just glared back.

  “Bah,” Masciler spat. “I need some answers. Find this command center, we need the computer files and communications records with DC.”

  “You are not to touch anything in my office!”

  “Oh, yeah, gag that moron while you’re at it.”

  The men searched for several minutes as time ticked by before the radio crackled. “Sir, we’ve found something.”

  “What do you have, where are you?”

  “We’ve got the command center.”

  “What’s in there?”

  “Just get down here sir, and fast.”

  Masciler glanced at his senior agents, who all looked worried. “You men hold the entrance,” he said, gesturing to ten men standing nearby. “The rest come with me.”

  “Stay away from my command center,” screamed Colonel Hotchkins at Masciler’s back, “you won’t like what you find.” He was silenced a moment later as a rag was stuffed in his mouth.

  “I already think I know what I’m going to find.” He mumbled and led his men deeper into the bunker. The team he’d sent to find the command post had done so easily. Without Hotchkins screeching at them on the radio to stop all intruders, his men lost the will to fight. That was until they reached the point where the semi-trailers unloaded. Dozens of trucks waited for the smaller yard dogs that took their laden trailers to their final destination, but no more of the small trucks were arriving. The drivers stood next to their trucks and watched the FBI agents with trepidation.

  “What’s going on here?” Masciler asked the first driver he reached.

  “Buncha’ soldiers showed up a few minutes ago and called away the yard dogs that was takin' our trailers. Now we don’t know what to do. Most of us are low on fuel; it’s been gettin' hard to find diesel.”

  “Turn off your engines until we make sense out of this.” He turned to his men. “Be ready for trouble ahead.” Those that hadn’t already done so jacked a round into the chamber while others did a press-check on their carbines and prepared.

  The sunlight at the entrance was dwindling into a small circle behind them. The cave shrank to only a few dozen yards of paved and lined concrete. A short distance ahead, they could see a barricade being quickly erected from plastic barrels by four people. “Quickly,” Masciler hissed and waved his men forward. They came at those figures low and fast, making as little noise as possible. A few meters before they reached the barricade, one man looked up.

  “Freeze! FBI, you’re under arrest!” the forwardmost agent yelled, just as they were trained. The man produced a handgun. A heartbeat before he could fire, Masciler’s men put him down. The other three men were construction workers and surrendered immediately.

  “Cuff them to that junction box,” Masciler ordered, “and hurry up.”

  They resumed their marched down into the bowels of the Earth, the tunnel turning and descending rapidly. They reached a point where the lights were out. The group of agents paused long enough to fasten Maglite flashlights to the clips under their machine gun barrels before proceeding. “They’re going to see us coming, so be on your guard,” he warned as they proceeded.

  The agents move on for another few minutes with only occasional comments. “Wish we’d brought a car,” one of them said and earned a few chuckles. Masciler saw no reason to stop the chatter. They were much more visible from their flashlights than the hushed talk.

  After what felt like an hour of walking down the turning roadway they saw glaring search lights around the corner and a voice boomed up at them. “Halt, come no farther!”

  “Lights out,” Masciler ordered. The two agents in front dropped to their knees and fired bursts, quickly plunging them into darkness. Then the firefight started in earnest. “Echelon sweep, left!” he barked over the staccato weapons fire. Six of his men took off to the left, holding their weapons up as they ran in a crouch. The remaining men and Masciler fired intermittently from behind the cover the corner provided.

  The echelon reached their objective and an intense burst of fire followed. The men remaining with Masciler held their fire until they were called in, lest their own people got shot. The call for help never came because the tactic worked perfectly. “Echelon team: we’ve neutralized the ambush party, clear and secured.”

  Everyone else moved up to find half a dozen more men dressed in construction workers uniforms, all dead. “They wouldn’t surrender,” the head of the echelon group told Masciler.

  “No problem, let’s move on.”

  They reached the bottom. Spread out before them was the bunker, and it wasn’t what they expected. The cavern spread out for hundreds of yards in all directions. Thousands of semi-trailers were parked in neat rows as far as the eye could see. The reason the yard dogs no longer came up for loads was obvious. There was no more room. Masciler could see no signs of life.

  They moved into the nearest group of trailers. “Look at this,” the man nearest Masciler said. “The load lock is still in place!”

  “They can’t be intending to store this stuff here, are they? Right by the entrance?” another man asked. “You can barely squeeze by in single file!”

  “Pop the lock,” Masciler ordered. One of his men produced a small pry bar, standard equipment in the field, and the load lock was snapped. The door swung open to reveal the contents.

  U.S. Government Property

  AMERICAN CHEESE

  USDA Warehouse 113-A

  They opened four other trailers and each one was full of similar products. One held bacon, another cans of dried milk and yet another water. All of it marked as USDA surplus or US Army Stores. “None of this shit is civilian purchased,” one man said, stating the obvious.

  “They said they were spending billions, but the government already owns this crap.”

  “That’s enough,” Masciler said, silencing the chatter. “I want three teams to split up and figure out this rat hole. Find the exits, find the living quarters, and find someone down here in charge!” In moments, he was alone with his hand-picked team. “This is just wrong,” he said to no one in particular. The men with him started searching.

  The truck park seemed endless. Masciler occupied his mind by doing the math on how many trailers must be in the cavern. More than ten thousand was as close as he could get. They were all full of government surplus junk as far as he could tell. He had the feeling the truth was just around the corner. Actually, it was at the farthest end of the cavern.

  “We’ve found something, Chief,” reported one team.

  “What is it?”

  “We found the marines and the rest of the civilians in charge.”

  “About damn time,” Masciler said and broke into a run. He'd slowed to a walk by the time he reached them. The Marine Captain, O’Neil, and a squad of her men were all dead. They had fought it out with a lightly armed group of civilian workers. There were no survivors or clues as to why the battle was fought. Masciler surveyed the bloody scene and shook his head.

  “Search of eastern cavern completed, no exits,” was the next report.

  “Western edge done, nothing here either.”

  “That just leaves us,” Masciler said and pointed to the nearby exit, the only exit besides the one they came down through from the west. “Let’s see where that goes.”

  The men left the carnage behind them and moved cautiously through the carved doorway. Masciler already knew they wouldn’t find what was supposed to be there; the passage was too small. Nine hundred thousand were to have l
ived here and while the supplies looked sufficient, this small exit would only have accommodated one or two people at a time. It would take a week to admit that many people and only if they all sprinted through like Olympic athletes.

  They came running back up the passageway only a few minutes later. “Get that truck!” Masciler yelled and they all piled into the back of an electric utility vehicle. Despite it being severely overloaded, they took it anyway. The big yard dogs were parked nearby, but none of them knew how to operate one. The man who jumped behind the wheel was an expert driver who'd logged countless undercover hours. He hot-wired it and they were tearing up the spiraling ramp in less than a minute.

  “Christ, don’t kill us getting out of here!” Masciler said.

  “Sorry, sir,” the man replied and slowed slightly. He didn’t blame them for wanting to get out of there as fast as possible. The reality was even more horrible than he’d thought. They went round and round and eventually came out into the main cavern were they could see the flood lights outside. The truck’s overtaxed engine whined in protest.

  As they rocketed past the waiting truck drivers, he didn’t bother slowing to explain. The same for the dozens of soldiers and workers waiting outside; there was no time. The truck’s electric motor was smoking by the time they reached the helipad. As he’d ordered over the secure radio, their helicopters were already idling and ready for takeoff.

  “What about all these people?” an agent asked as the truck screeched to a stop between the big idling Chinooks and the lone Blackhawk. The truck gave a final shudder and smoke began pouring from under the hood.

  “What about them?” Masciler asked back rhetorically as they ran to his chopper.

  “We have to tell them to leave, find somewhere else to hide.”

  Masciler pointed to the east as they strapped in. Flashes of light on the dark horizon like huge lightning strikes from an approaching storm could be seen. “What would you suggest we do to help them get away from that?”

  The helicopter jumped into the air and Masciler was already giving orders. “Get on the horn with Seattle while the radio holds out, tell them to have the senior staff waiting in the basement shelter and make sure we maintain a secure channel to Washington. I need to speak to the President.”