“True enough,” Mallory said. “And before you ask, no I still haven’t heard anything from Major Franklin.”
“Have you…” Joel started.
“Yes, I’ve made another call—several, in fact” Mallory said, “and was told that the Major was unavailable. I don’t know what that means. I don’t want to beg, but I’m considering it.”
“Well,” Joel said looking skyward. “Here’s hoping for the mother of all thunderstorms.”
No sooner had Joel said the words than there was a rumble off to the west and a muddy-pawed Millie made her appearance.
“From your lips to God’s ears,” Mallory said.
“And it must be a bad one coming for you to show up, you big coward,” Joel bent down and got a face full of dog breath as Millie alternated licking him and whining. He scratched her neck and back and stood up again wiping his face. “She hates thunderstorms almost as much as Rachael does.”
“Then you better get her home to Rachael and take care of them both,” Mallory said.
…
“One day,” Joel muttered while he was massaging Rachael’s feet. “One measly day of storms is all we get.”
“Hey!” Rachael snapped, only half joking.
“Ok, sorry.” Joel said, only taking the reprimand partially to heart. “I know you hate thunderstorms, and even more so when you’re pregnant, but, well, it meant holding things off while it was bad.”
“I know, but,” Rachael shrugged, “I’m not looking forward to this any more than you are. Really, I’m not. Frankly I’m scared to death, but we don’t joke about thunderstorms, ok?”
Joel laughed. “Ok, no more joking about storms,” he said. “How’s the mattress holding up?”
Rachael squirmed a little before she answered and then made a face. “Not too much longer and we’re going to have to move.” She said.
“I was afraid you were going to say that.” Joel sighed.
Their queen air mattress had lasted almost three months before getting its first hole, which was unheard of for even a high-end mattress like theirs. Unfortunately, that had been the first of many and within a couple of weeks it was, as Joel’s grandfather used to say, more holey than righteous.
Joel had been using pine needles and leaves as a fill and covering it with the old air mattress, and replacing the fill a couple of times a week, but the further along Rachael got, the less acceptable that was becoming. Without something to at least secure the fill, or a frame and rope base to lay everything on and give a combination of support and cushion, it wasn’t much better than sleeping directly on the ground.
“We have four people in the family,” Joel said. “There are still cabins for four available. I’ve been holding off on moving us to one so it didn’t look like I was taking advantage of my position but I think it’s beyond time. I’ll have Josh start getting things packed and he can actually drive the stuff down there.”
Rachael smiled. “He’ll be happy to have some driving to do.” She said. “You know he’s been learning right?”
“Yes,” Joel said. “Some things still need to be taught, including Driver’s Ed.”
…
Josh wasn’t really a morning person but he wasn’t going to turn his nose up at a chance to drive. The cabins and lodge were located on Cub Creek Lake, well south of where the original encampment was located, which was just west of Maple Creek Lake. It wasn’t that much of a drive, about eight miles one way due to the curving nature of the roads, but he was allowed to drive by himself so he was all for it.
His dad had given him an extra military radio, just in case something happened—typical overprotective father. “Don’t lose it and don’t use it unless it’s an emergency!”
Josh grabbed a couple of sleeping bags and headed into their new home after unlocking the front door. “Home sweet,” Josh made a face at the smell, “stale home.” He tossed the sleeping bags in the room that he and Maya would be sharing and checked out the other room. “Oh, mom and dad are gonna’ love that.” Josh laughed. “Bunk beds.”
On his way back to the Suburban he stopped and cocked his head with his ear skyward. “Wha…” he muttered, and then it hit him. He hadn’t heard the sound in almost five months so it took a second to sink in. It was the sound that everyone had been dreading for almost a week…helicopters.
Josh grabbed the radio on his belt and hit the transmit key. “Mayday mayday mayday! This is Josh Taylor. I’m at the cabins at Cub Creek Lake and I hear helicopters approaching. Come in anybody!”
When he let go of the button he got back a burst of static and then nothing and when he looked at the display it read “NO OPER”.
“No Oper?” Josh said. “What does that mean?”
…
“Delta leader to Delta base,” the wing commander radioed back to base. “We are approaching what we believe to be the southern perimeter of Promised Land.”
“Acknowledged Delta Leader, satellite communications have been locked out for that unit,” came the reply. “All mobile and portable comms should be disabled until they take their portable relay offline. There are no indications they are aware of this limitation or the resolution.”
“Good copy Delta base. We should be on target in less than five minutes.” The wing leader wasn’t happy about the job he’d been sent to do but he’d be less happy to find himself and his family turned out of the base, or worse, he and his family shot for treason or some other trumped up charge by the Colonel.
…
Josh repeated his call again as the sound of the helicopters grew closer, with the same result—no response and apparently no signal. He looked around frantically, wondering if he should try to drive back to the base and warn everyone, or if he could even get there before the helicopters. While looking around wildly he saw the CB antenna.
“Who’d have thought we’d ever need to use this again?” Josh said as he jumped back into the Suburban and started it up so he wouldn’t kill the battery. He tried to remember everything that friendly trucker had told them about how to use the rig, and everything the Sergeant Lake had told him about radios in general, and then decided to throw caution to the wind.
With the channel set to 40 and the power as high as it would go, Josh mashed the handheld microphone button and transmitted for the third time that day.”
…
Mallory was walking by the radio tent just as Specialist Cox switched to the blinking CB frequency that was transmitting and “DAY MAYDAY!” came blaring out of the speakers.
Mallory dodged into the tent to see what in the world was going on as the voice was so distorted it was impossible to tell who it was.
Cox turned down the speakers, which helped some, and they got the rest of the message. “This is Josh Taylor. I’m at the cabins at Cub Creek Lake and I hear helicopters approaching. Come in anybody!”
Mallory grabbed the microphone and Specialist Cox was all too happy to oblige. He knew he was no good with kids. “Josh, this is Major Jensen. I copy you hear incoming helicopters. Can you see them?”
“No ma’am,” Josh said, “but I can tell there’s more than one because of how it sounds. There’s,” and then Josh paused and Mallory could hear the Black Hawks going overhead. “I counted three just now, but I didn’t stick my head out the window and they weren’t in a line.”
“Stay there, Josh,” Mallory said. “You’re safer there than here, so please, stay there and get off the radio, now!”
“Why didn’t this come in over our regular squad radios?” Mallory asked Cox as she pulled hers off of her belt only to be greeted by the “NO OPER” message. “Never mind, I just answered my own question. Sound the alarm.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Mallory had just stepped out of the tent when the sirens started up, which actually drowned out the sound of the approaching helicopters. “I don’t know if that’s better or worse.” Mallory thought to herself.
People stopped whatever they were doing for a heartbe
at and then panic set in, and it was no better with the military personnel than with the civilians. Across the road from her she actually watched two people turn around and run directly into each other, knocking each other down. To their credit they helped each other up, but it was a classic comedy bit that wasn’t the least bit funny in real life. All they needed now was for someone to run out from between two tents and scream “My baby, my baby, has anyone seen my baby!?”
Based on the sound of the ‘Hawks over the CB she guessed they had about five or six minutes, at the outside, to try and get ready.
Mallory was almost to her command tent when Eric caught up to her and the alarm cut off. “Thank heavens. That was getting annoying,” he said. “You still haven’t changed your mind about this?”
“No. I’m not going to put myself in any more danger than anyone else,” Mallory said, “but I’m not going to hide like that cockroach, Olsen. We need every rifle we can get, Eric, and the last time we were at the range I matched you.”
“We can’t afford to lose you,” Eric said.
Mallory made a rude noise. “Bull,” she said. “We can’t afford to lose. If I die, then command falls to you, and I brevet promote you to Major. Shut up and move.” And Mallory went into her command tent to unlock her rifle and put on her gear.”
…
“Delta leader to Delta base,” the wing commander radioed in. “We are one minute from insertion. Our next transmission should be from the ground.”
“Good copy Delta leader,” was the only response from Delta base.
“Remind me again why we’re doing this,” the pilot said to the co-pilot.
“Because we’re good little soldiers with families and we’re just following orders,” the co-pilot replied.
“You do realize that defense doesn’t hold water at The Hague don’t you?” The pilot said.
The co-pilot chuckled. The pilot hadn’t been kidding.
Forty-five seconds later, their threat indicator lit up like a veritable Christmas tree of warning lights.
“We’re being painted by three, four…no SEVEN SAM radars!” One of the crew chiefs yelled over the in-flight comm system.
“You don’t need to yell, Simmons.” The pilot said calmly. “We’re all right here.”
“Break and evade,” the pilot radioed to his squadron. “Rendezvous south of the park.”
“Delta base this is Delta leader,” the pilot said as he began to take evasive action. “Houston, we have a problem.”
…
Mallory heard the sound of the helicopters approaching; literally coming straight for where they were and then they were suddenly…moving around.
“What are they doing?” She said to Sergeant Morris who was in the camouflaged bunker with her along with a few others.
“Seriously,” he said. “You’re asking me? Uh, ma’am.”
Mallory barked a short laugh. “No, just thinking out loud.” She said. “I would like to know what they are doing up there, though.”
…
“Well, I’ll be,” the pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Peyton Briggs said. “They won’t paint us if we don’t get too close. I wonder how low we can get.”
“Delta two through Delta eight, hold station, I’m going to try something and if it doesn’t work Delta two becomes delta leader,” Briggs sent out on the team radio channel and then descended to see how low he could go before he started generating interest.
It didn’t take long before he picked up his first radar hit and a few seconds later he had two more. That was enough for Briggs.
“Let’s pull it back to about I-40 and see if we can land,” he radioed to the rest of his team and they all made a tight turn back to the freeway. There would be just enough space in the area within the on and off-ramps to set down all eight Black Hawks.
“My turn,” Delta eight called in as they approached their potential landing zone. “I’ll be the guinea pig this time.”
He got within twenty feet of the ground before the radar lit him up, but, sure enough, it was there. “No good,” he said as he pulled back up.
“Roger that,” Briggs said. “They painted us all when you got too close. Suggestions?”
…
Mallory could just barely hear the helicopters now and figured they were trying to land out near the entrance to the park, off of I-40. That was the largest, flattest area outside of the spaces they had cleared here inside the park, and the only area she could think of to land the birds without running the risk of damaging the props.
“Be right back,” she said as she got up and scurried out of the bunker.
“Ma’am,” came the stifled cry of one of the men who had been tasked with protecting her.
She was jogging to her command tent when she heard the unmistakable whine of one of the Black Hawks coming in fast, far faster than they had been coming in before.
“Damn,” she thought, “prior planning prevents piss-poor performance! This is why you don’t do things by the seat of your pants Mallory!” and she started sprinting the rest of the way to her command tent.
About thirty feet from her destination two things happened at once. The Black Hawk came over the trees and almost froze in place. That may have been because time seemed to stand still or because the pilot was just that good. It had come in just over the trees and she could feel the prop wash pushing down and out. The nose was tilted up just a bit so the pilot might very well be that good.
It was far enough above her that it wasn’t threatening to knock her down, but if her helmet hadn’t been buckled on it would have blown it off. The doors were open and she could see the men inside. She knew without counting that there would be fourteen troops, fully geared up and ready to do whatever they felt necessary.
…
“God speed Delta three,” Briggs said as the third ‘Hawk in the formation opened its side doors and took off at 120 nautical miles an hour.
Warrant Officer Damian Stanton had been flying for five years and had flown this stretch once before. The joke on base was that flying it once beforehand for Damian was like cheating; flying it again at 120 at treetop level would be nothing. He’d seen where he would stop—what looked like the main open area of camp—and dare them to shoot him down.
From where they had taken up station, halfway between the highway and his destination, the flight took a little less than a minute, including acceleration and deceleration. Damian cursed himself for slowing down too fast as he’d stopped a little too close to the trees.
“One,” his co-pilot said ten seconds into their flight, referring to the number of threat radars.
“Two, three, four,” he said at fifteen, eighteen and twenty-one seconds.
“Five, six, seven,” he said at twenty-eight, thirty one, and forty-nine seconds.
“Eight,” he said at fifty-two seconds.
“Launch!” His co-pilot yelled.
…
The second thing to happen was that she heard a new noise. A noise she hadn’t heard since heavy weapons training. A noise she didn’t recognize until it streaked past her at twice the speed of sound, missing the ‘Hawk by about thirty feet.
Mallory froze.
…
Damian knew he was dead. He’d just killed himself and seventeen other men, plus the man or woman standing on the ground beneath them. The threat indicator showed less than a mile away and at Mach 2.2 he had just over 2 seconds to live.
“I’m sorry, guys,” was all he could say over the radio.
And then the Stinger went thirty feet in front of his cockpit window.
“Black Hawk squadron invading the airspace around Natchez Trace and U.S. Army Base Promised Land,” the radios on all eight helicopters came to life on the standard UHF FAA frequency that was monitored at all times, “the next shots fired will not, I repeat, will not miss. Do you understand?”
“Roger, good copy,” Damian replied. “Blackhawk three clear.”
Damian gently pulled up and made
his way slowly back to the rest of his squadron.
“This is Blackhawk one,” Briggs said on the FAA frequency. “We are leaving the area, you have my word.”
“We’ll trust but verify, if it’s all the same,” the voice on the FAA frequency replied.
“Understood,” Briggs said and switched channels. “Delta lead to Delta team, we’re gone.”
Briggs changed channels again. “Delta lead to Delta base, mission is a no go, repeat mission is a no go. We almost lost three to coordinated Stinger fire.” He was deliberately being vague about what had happened just now.
What he’d said was technically correct, and he’d meant that they had almost lost chopper three to fire that was being coordinated by multiple radars. Base could take what he just said any way they wanted. Briggs wasn’t going anywhere near that place any time soon if he could help it.
“Understood Delta lead, Delta base out.”
Briggs shook his head and started the flight home.
…
Once the Black Hawk in front of her slowly turned around and headed back the way it came, Mallory made a mad dash to the command tent and turned on her HAM rig.
“Alpha Prime calling Optimus Prime, come in Optimus Prime!” she almost yelled.
“This is Optimus Prime, authenticate…”
“Screw that!” she snapped. “You know damned good and well who this is. Get the Major on the radio right now.”
“Um, ma’am, I’m sorry but I can’t do that,” was the very stunned and incredibly apologetic response.
“Can’t or won’t,” She said. “Because I’m getting tired of being told he’s unavailable.”
“Well, ma’am, he’s actually unavailable right…”
“Then where the hell is he!” Mallory yelled.
“Um, ma’am,” came the flustered response. “He should be down there!”
“Oh.” Mallory paused for a second. “In that case, I’m sorry. Alpha Prime clear.”
…
Mallory came out of her command tent with the modified radio Sparky had given her a couple of weeks ago and turned it on, wrinkling her nose at the smell of spent solid rocket fuel that still hung in the air. Thankfully, she was greeted with the normal screen and not “NO OPER”, which would have really made her day. She hit scan and put it on her belt, to replace the one that no longer worked, and started walking to the bunker she had vacated just a few moments ago.
Dark Grid (Book 2): Dark Road Page 28