by Td Barnes
Noting one closed and locked door in the warehouse, one of the soldiers shot off the lock and entered. He returned to the doorway where he motioned for Stratton.
“It’s not pretty, Sarge., these bastards held some young girls captive. When the fighting ended, no one checked on them. See, their bones chained to the wall. They left them here to die like alley dogs of thirst and hunger. You can see by their clothes these being young girls most likely still in school when the EMP hit.” Near each set of human bones and related items of clothing, they saw claw marks where the suffering girls tried to dig through the walls using their fingers.
“This explains the body dumping.” Stratton gently closed the door and shut the scene out of mind by concentrating on the job at hand.
Inside the warehouse, they found five Army National Guard M35 deuce and a half trucks. Some looked original while others appeared modified to provide the passenger's protection from fallout radiation. “Pick out two of them,” Stratton ordered. “Check the fuel, oil, and tires.”
The soldiers picked the two trucks based on cleanliness and lack of modification by Sergeant Taylor’s army. One of the soldiers sniffed the fuel in the tanks and reported that the fuel smelled high octane and not deadened with age. Moments later, both trucks roared to life and raced out of the warehouse back towards the base with one JLTV in the lead and one guarding their rear.
The trucks arriving back at the base backed up to separate entrances to the BX where the soldiers shopped with SFC Stratton standing guard.
The vast Nellis AFB Exchange contained many items of no use to anyone—slim line televisions, computers, kitchen appliances—all sorts of gadgets that all required electricity. The soldiers ignored all these temptations and concentrated on clothing suitable for the colony. These did not include suits, sports jackets, and such. When through, they realized that they failed to accomplish their goal.
“Sarge, we’re bombing out on finding anything useful. This casual and business crap isn't cutting it. We are finding some nice things for the ladies, however. We emptied the cosmetic shelves, picked up a few pieces of lovely jewelry, and cleaned the shelves of toiletry items, women’s sanitary stuff, and undergarments.”
Stratton climbed to look at the contents loaded into the trucks. He recalled Colonel Bradley mentioning Sheplers. He climbed down from the truck and assembled his squad.
“I don’t like it, but it looks as if we will go to Las Vegas. There is a Sheplers in the Sam’s Town Casino that will have western wear. It is on the second floor. We should avoid Boulder Highway. I think we should use Nellis Boulevard to get there. Consider this a combat zone. Keep your speed up and fingers on the trigger. If we don’t find enough working man’s clothes there, we will hit Walmart on the way out.”
From all appearances, thus far, Stratton did not expect to come across any civilians. Any place having food or water been visited countless times over the past four years. If there are any people left, they will be near a natural source of water and food. At Sam’s Town, his people would be near Vegas Wash, which is where he could expect to find any survivors of the nuclear winter. The squad must avoid any human contact, which he knew would most likely be hostile or desperate to go with them.
The convoy of two JLTVs and two deuce and a half trucks wove their way down Nellis Boulevard, past the intersection at Charleston Boulevard and a few miles later the entrance to the Sam’s Town Hotel and Casino. The entrance wound around the parking garage and into the public parking area of the casino. Passing the car park, the soldiers experienced a hint of what to expect when they saw a stack of human bones. Either someone threw them off, or they jumped off the upper floors of the parking garage. From where they stopped to enter the casino and Sheplers, they could see the nine-story hotel where a much larger stack of human remains lay where the person landed after jumping to his or her death.
Stratton shook his head in disbelief and disgust at the sight. “I can’t imagine what the mega hotels along the Las Vegas Strip must look like,” he thought. He dismounted from his JLTV to watch the drivers of the trucks backing them to the casino entrance with the other soldiers guiding them with their weapons readied for any surprises.
####
The thumping sounds of the galloping horses a stereo effect.
“Whoa.”
The sounds slowed and then stopped. Now came the sounds of feet shuffling, the sound of cinch and girth straps under strain. The horse grunted as Bradley used the stirrup to dismount. He stepped forward to rub the horse’s nose and hug its neck. “This is better than sex,” he announced.
“Oh?” That good, huh? Stacey remained mounted and with her reins, guided her horse in a tight circle to quiet it down. “Quitting already?” She asked. She looked towards the east at the rising sun. “Look at the sun. It is another beautiful day.”
Bradley looked at the sun and then turned to look towards the southwest. Seeing no clouds on the horizon, he scanned the sky for planes or surveillance platforms.
Bradley performed this ritual several times a day. “It will not last,” he murmured. One could almost see and hear his mind changing gears. “Sorry, Stacey, I must get to work.”
He saw the concern on her face from seeing his switch from having so much fun to his displaying a sense of urgency.
“Stacey, the winter will return. I don’t know how much time I have.”
He failed to mention his added fear of not knowing who surveilled them two months, ago. ”Are they on the way in force and he was not aware it? Who are they, and what do they want?”
“We sent a recon to Las Vegas yesterday, and I want to be there when Callahan debriefs the squad.”
“I understand.” She hid her disappointment.
“Stacey,” he said apologetically. “I’m sorry for spoiling the moment. It is just that I fear that we are living on borrowed time.”
Stacey sighed. “I know, Darling. I apologize for dropping anchor on you. Go on—I’ll care for the horses.”
Bradley arrived at the command post and joined with Major Callahan only moments before SFC Stratton reported in. Each returned Stratton’s salute followed by Callahan waving him to a chair and offering him a cup of coffee.
Both listened in silence while Stratton gave his report. Bradley expressed interest in what they saw at Nellis AFB and felt relieved to learn of no signs of any outside activity occurring there. Otherwise, Stratton’s report contained what they all dreaded, but expected. Bradley looked concerned, even after learning of the recon squad having accomplished their mission of obtaining two truckloads of civilian work clothes,
“Something I should know about, sir?”
“Negative. I am just having another of my premonitions that I cannot put the finger on. It’s nothing to be concerned about.”
“That concerns me, Colonel. You’ve never been wrong yet.”
“Maybe I’ll be this time. Mitchell expects to have the weather station running today. We hope to learn something from an operating weather satellite.”
Callahan was not the only one noticing another of his premonitions weighing on the colonel’s mind. Having served within sight and hearing of Bradley’s command post for the past four years, SP5 Dawson knew more about him and his premonitions than anyone else. She was thinking about this and shuttered. “I wonder what it is that the colonel senses in the wind.”
Dawson was correct. Bradley an inchoate suspicion that things were about to go wrong, but no concrete reason for his concern. His premonition of danger is increasing by the moment. He still worried about the surveillance overflights and now tried to connect that to his growing concerns. He did not know which of the projects concerned him the most—the weather or learning the state of possible human adversaries elsewhere in the world.
“Doctor Hains, tell me some good news,” he said in his whisper when he entered the radio room.
“Gee, Colonel. Only yesterday, we gave you a functioning satellite. They do not grow on trees, you know.”
Bradley could tell by Hains jubilant reply that there been another breakthrough. Hains turned and headed to one of the computers where two of his men studiously worked on something that excited them.
“We’ve located another active satellite parked in high, stationary orbit. As expected, it has encryption techniques and algorithms to prevent link hijacking and signal spoofing. We located it using a Quadra filer-helix antenna configuration tuned to the wavelength of the signals transmitted from the NOAA satellite constellation. Your nerds constructed this out of PVC pipe and simple items lying around the tunnel.” “high-tech,” he added.
Bradley’s eyes recognized the nerd comment, and he almost smiled.
Hains continued, pointing to some equipment added to the table since his last visit.
“This is a decoder that we’re working on, and this is the receiver. We are recording the intercepted telemetry signal where we hope to isolate the dedicated links and crack the code.”
“You will need to determine the methodology, spectrum, and encryption. We can assume they use authentication or encryption. Are any of you familiar with the surveillance programs at DIA, NSA, and CIA? We used technology to monitor communication as we transitioned to oblique surveillance where information accumulated on its own. We targeted email providers, search engines, social networks, and telecoms.”
Bradley’s nerds, including Doctor Hains, all looked at him in different ways. Some acted as though he just pissed into their goldfish tank, looking at him in veiled disgust. Others displayed awed admiration of what Bradley just revealed about his past. Bradley recognized this and sought to justify this bit about his past that he until now kept shrouded in his self-imposed secrecy.
It irritated him when at times he got the impression that because he was military and from a ranch in West Texas, that some of the academia types considered him a hick. More than once, he felt they looked down on his West Texas expressions and aphorisms.
He tried to explain the benefits of his past intelligence activity being in the interest of freedom and independence.
Bradley could tell the group not accepting his explanation. He looked towards Hains for an explanation. Hains hesitated to say anything with all the others listening. Bradley motioned him to join him outside the room.
“What the fuck is that all about,” Bradley hissed. “These guys are acting as if I just dropped a turd into their hot tub.”
“Colonel, I hinted my concerns about two of our guys to you while we were at Area 51. When we formed the Homeland Security Agency, for our cyber-warfare unit we recruited what we considered as the best in the hacking business. Un, some of the best learned their tradecraft hacking into our government computers. Rather than jail some of them, we recruited them. When Obama ordered us to outsource our investigators for security clearance, they did a sloppy job, and we ended up with anti-government types amidst our ranks. “
“What!” Bradley exclaimed the best his voice allowed. “I have that WikiLeaks trash in my mountain. Private Manning, Snowden, and what the fuck is his name, uh, Julian Assange under my protection? Who in the hell do I hang for allowing shit like that in my mountain?”
“I know, Colonel. This is an example of what put us inside the mountain in the first place. The CIA didn’t even trust the FBI to investigate people for the agency’s sensitive positions, but Homeland outsourced and cleared just anyone who breathed.”
Bradley glared witheringly at Hains. “I want all the information that you have on these guys,” he said, indicated everyone in the room.
“Colonel, I assure you that I wave the red, white, and blue. I am comfortable with the mission loyalty of two of our people. As far as talent is concerned, these kids are the best. The two that you are concerned about arrived at the mountain came from Washington. We received JJ, Jeremy Jackson, the tall, skinny one with the earrings, and Juan Carlos, the chubby, Latino with the beard two days before the EMP attack. Seeing how they just now acted, I’ll drop them out of the project. I fear that our baby boomers produced a society with no respect for honesty or allegiance. If we have a problem with any of the others, I’ll hand you their tallywacker for you to fine tune to the wavelength of the signal we are seeking.”
“I’ll hold you to that, Doctor.” Bradley left the radio room so disgusted that he stalked by Dawson without speaking. Out of habit, he glanced at the radiation level reading when he entered the War Room.
####
Chapter 4-Revelations.
The next day
“Mrs. Anderson, please report to the teachers’ alcove.” Following the announcement, the mountain’s paging intercom speakers returned to playing soft music throughout the mountain. The genre of this morning’s songs was western music, identifying the operator on duty being former Beatty rancher Harry Hopkin’s teenage son, Larry. The residents long ago learned to recognize the teenager on intercom paging duty by the type of music he or she played. The music paused again for Larry to announce sick call starting in fifteen minutes.
Bradley stepped out the CP alcove to continue his morning rounds with Sarge following at his heels. The next stop on this morning’s agenda was to check on Charlie Mitchell’s progress with the meteorology station.
He looked concerned. Absence today was his usual acknowledgment of those he met in the tunnel during his walk.
His mind was still on his nerd squad. The thought of being in the same room with them nauseated him. He wished he did not need them for their knowledge of hacking cyber links.
In his subconsciousness was another concern that involved the meteorology project—something bugging him about Mitchell’s equipment.
Locating satellites was child’s play in his former line of work. If you thought about it, Mitchell was not doing rocket science considering the material available to him. “That’s it,” he thought. “It is the equipment.”
Before the EMP attack, the Air Force Flight Test Center, Detachment 3 ran the Department of Defense Groom Lake operating facility. This meant that this facility received its meteorology reports from one of the Air Force’s global weather service centers. This also meant that an intelligence agency needed an independent source of weather data other than the Air Force to maintain its secrecy. The question remained—which agency, and—what else did Mitchell’s station provide at Area 51? Perhaps the answer to these issues might be in his learning who Charlie Mitchell is. After the incident at the nerd lab, he now realized that he did not know the VIPs in his mountain. This was unacceptable.
“Good morning, Colonel,” Mitchell greeted Bradley when he approached the weather station. “Did you by chance see big tits Nancy, my administrative assistant for today? She is late again.”
“I did. I saw her grazing on some weeds growing just outside the portal door.”
Despite his mental slump, Bradley could not resist a chuckle.
“Coffee, sir? I expected you and brought some from the mess.”
“You know me. I never turn down a cup of java. I must have my caffeine fix. You say you expected me?”
Mitchell smiled.
“Well, here goes,” Bradley thought. He blurted out, “Charley, who in the hell are you? Wait. Do not answer that. My question to you is who am I?”
Mitchell sipped his coffee and sat his cup on this desk. He assumed a relaxed position in his comfortable computer chair before answering.
“You are Colonel Thomas J. Bradley, grew up on a ranch in West Texas, and married Stacey, a high school sweetheart. You enlisted in the United States Army and promoted to staff sergeant before applying for OCS at Fort Benning. You received combat wounds in both Iran and Iraq, which accounts for your handsome facial features and sexy voice. Besides being a decorated Special Forces officer, you are an electronic genius recruited by the Defense Intelligence Agency. You dabbled with all the DIA NSA, and even the CIA, Intel games, Carnivore, Echelon, Total Information Awareness, PRISM, Boundless Informant, and such things as FISA orders. We characterized these catalyzing program
s as proximate surveillance. You headed the team of DIA, NSA, and Israeli Mossad geeks who came up with the Stuxnet worm that screwed up Iran’s nuclear processing program. Your team also developed the go home missile defense that caused China to step on its dick and saved Israel from Iran. That is who you are. Does that answer your first question of who I am?”
“Holy shit!” Bradley exclaimed almost under his breath. “You’ve been in my mountain for four years, and I am just now learning about you,” Bradley also said in a surprised and amazed whisper. “So, you are not a meteorologist for the Yucca airstrip and Area 51?” He thought, “How does this guy know about my overt trip to Israel to deliver the missile defense modules?”
“There you are wrong, Colonel. I do meteorology, among other things.”
“Among other things.” Bradley nodded his head as he digested what Mitchell implied. Trying to figure out who Mitchell was, reminded him of the genesis of the Defense Intelligence Agency that began under cover of weather reporting. This was the cover when CIA U-2 crews posed as NASA weathermen exploring weather from high altitude. When the Soviets shot Powers down over Russia, Ike tried to excuse it as a NASA weather flight that accidentally crossed into the Soviet Union.
Mitchell remained silent to give Bradley time to sort things out and reach his conclusions.
“You are military. Are you still active or were you sheep-dipped into one of the agencies?”
“I am active, but on loan much, as you were at DIA. It’s Lt. Col. Mitchell, Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) at the CIA’s secret Yucca Lake PRV operation, sir.”