Nuclear Spring

by Td Barnes

  Griffin pointed out a stalled delivery van a short distance away in the direction of Arizona. “Fellows, we are coed, so the dudes will potty behind that van. The LT’s potty will be behind that blue Chrysler 300.”

  Sammie recalled his earlier remark about referencing her to Arab customs.

  “Sarge. You served in Islamic countries. It is true that those dudes down there wipe with the left, shake hands and eat with the right?”

  “That’s what we're told,” he said laughing while pointedly using his left hand to grasp Sammie’s arm to pull her beside him at the wall of the bridge.

  Sammie looked at her arm before thinking. “Smart ass,” she chuckled, not realizing this being her first expression of humor since losing her mom.

  “What is the plan, LT?” Griffin asked—both watching the dam for any activity outside the guards. From their vantage point, they could see the water flowing over 800 feet below as it exited the dam to travel through a narrow canyon of the Colorado River. Looking at the lake side of the dam, it seemed more like a parking lot for abandoned and damaged boats.

  Four years of currents delivered to this narrow stretch of water just about every type of boat imaginable—all them having become stranded by the EMP. “The water level has risen since the EMP,” Griffin commented while looking at the bathtub ring on the walls of the barren canyon. “Look how blue the water is. I wonder what the radiation has done to the fish.”

  “I suggest we observe and try to get a count of those occupying the dam. It is too dangerous to try rousting them out, so we need to catch them outside the dam and deny them entry back inside. The Cuban say they are busy as beavers stocking the place before the radiation returns, so most likely they are out of the mountain as we speak. If so, we should be seeing some returning with what they have gathered in town. If they go out tomorrow, we’ll make our move.”

  “Speak of the devil,” Griffin said, nudging her to get her attention. Following his lead, she focused her binoculars on the winding highway onto the dam where she saw two deuce and a half trucks winding down into the canyon towards the dam entrance. The vehicles stopped in front of the stairway where the four armed occupants of the truck lowered the tailgate. They set their weapons aside and started unloading a variety of merchandise taken from stores in Las Vegas or Henderson. One of the four hurried down the stairwell and returned afterward with six men to help carry the merchandise into the dam.

  “Here comes another truck,” Griffin said.

  “Sergeant, look. I think the king bee has come out of the nest.” Emerging from the dam was a man dressed in traditional Arab full-length body cover. The workers stood aside while the man inspected the contents of each truck. The four guards joined the man peeking into the trucks.

  “Sergeant, I think this is the moment to strike while the boss is out of the dam,” Sammie said. She tucked away her binoculars and climbed into the vehicle. She started the generator and fired up the system.

  Her strategy was simple. Deny them entry to the dam and drive them away.

  Sergeant Griffin climbed aboard and joined her at the controls.

  “I am taking out the raghead,” she said. “Anyone is approaching him will get zapped until they get the point and move away from the entrance. We will then drive them away from the dam.”

  “Go for it, LT. Let’s do it.”

  ####

  The mountain-same time.

  “We have action,” the radio operator called into the War Room to alert the others.

  Bradley, Barlow, Mitchell, and Sergeant Major Marshall, who joined them for the wait, gathered around the computer screen in the War Room to watch the drama unfold at the dam. The position of the camera on Mount Charleston was at an angle where they could see everything without moving the camera.

  To bring the others up to speed, the radio operator said, “The two trucks just now arrived. One of the soldiers entered the dam and returned with six men. The guy in the sheet just now appeared. When he showed up, the Lieutenant and Sergeant Griffin rushed aboard the truck, and as you can see, she is preparing the weapon.”

  “Got it, Specialist,” Callahan called to let the radio operator know that they were on top of things. They all watched in awe as the action started as a silent movie. The actions spoke for themselves.

  The rays from the Grizzly were invisible, so the first sign of the attack came from the Arab dressed man whose arms shot up to his temples while he started to turn towards the stairway. Instead, he crumbled to the ground with his head exploding at the same time his knees hit the ground.

  The soldiers showed surprise and then confusion. The closest guard ran towards the downed leader and could be seen screaming and placing his hands to his temple as the first man did. It became apparent to those watching inside the mountain that Sammie wanted this to be a warning to the others. Instead of killing the guard, she stopped the ray, allowing him to back away. Others are just starting to react to follow him to their leader now backed away in shock.

  “She is heating them up now,” Callahan said. Sure enough, all the soldiers begin looking at their hands and feeling any of their bare skin now heating up from a non-lethal ray from the Grizzly. It was obvious when one of the guards remembered the earlier experience that the other three guards and he attributed to the power lines. He pointed to the overhead power lines and began backing away, pointing and yelling at the others with a frightened look on his face. They too backed away, and the heat on their skin stopped.

  “That’s my girl,” Bradley said with the first spark of his old self since losing Stacey and the others. “She is kicking ass—separating them from their den. Watch what happens if any tries to return.”

  The Jihadists banded together near the rail on the water side of the dam while listening to the guards’ account of what happened to them earlier. From their motions, it was evident that they blamed the power lines. It took a few minutes before one of them again decided to approach their leader. Sammie allowed him to approach to within 25 feet before turning on the heat. The man screamed, looking up at the power lines while scampering back to the others.

  “Lieutenant Bronson has drawn her line in the sand,” Callahan said.

  Inside the mountain, they watched as fright turned to desperation while the men conferred and pointed to the stairway. They looked to a second stairway towards the middle of the dam as if trying to figure a way of getting past the power lines to enter the dam from a different stairwell. The shaking of their heads and their body gestures indicated there was no way they could get to the second entrance. One pointed to the west at the sun now dropping below the mountain horizon with darkness now descending on the desert mountains.

  ####

  Hoover Dam-same time

  The way the Jihadists hung around, milling about in apparent desperation, it became evident that there were no leaders among them. They acted as though they wanted again to try entering the dam, but fear of the power lines overpowered such thoughts. One minute they looked at their vehicles sitting in the death zone and the next up the winding road to the top hoping to see the return of the rest of their army from the assault on the mountain.

  With the sun setting and darkness setting in, Sammie and her squad donned infrared goggles to enable them to watch over the dam. An hour after darkness set in, the Jihadists left the dam, trudging in the dark up the steep highway out of the canyon towards Boulder City.

  “Sergeant, you’ll note that no one has come out of the dam to check on the others. Do you suppose we have everyone out?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine, Lieutenant. I agree with your logic, but who knows with these people. I would bet that none of those walking out of the canyon are from a Muslim country. The guy we popped is the only one in that category. These jokers just got here and are most likely playing point for the main body to follow.”

  Sammie scanned over the dam with her infrared binoculars. “This is important real estate to someone. We cannot blow the dam, and we cannot
stay here to babysit it. I suggest we call for a demolition team to take out all entrances and the roads. We now have eyes on the dam, so if anyone decides to undo the damage, we will know and can react appropriately.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me, LT.”

  “I’ll call for explosives and a demolition team. We’ll blow the doors to this puppy in the morning.”

  “Airborne 4, this is the base. Six Actual will return your call in ten minutes,” the radio operator at the mountain responded to Sammie’s radio call. He reached for the intercom and paged Major Callahan in a mess.

  The arrival of sunset rendered the camera on Mount Charleston useless to those inside the mountain. Everyone except the relief radio operator adjourned to the mess hall for dinner, leaving instructions for the radio operator to call them if anything developed during the night.

  Moments later, Bradley, Barlow, Callahan, and Mitchell rushed back to the War Room upon hearing the page for Major Callahan. They stood gathered around Callahan while he called Sammie back and received her proposal. He placed her on standby until the others, and he could discuss the course of action.

  , Colonel Bradley agreed with Sammie’s proposal for denying access to the dam. Colonel Barlow and Major Callahan both disagreed and made their pitch.

  It was evident that Bradley set aside his grief to deal with this new challenge when he said, “You two trained for nation rebuilding, which I respect. Both of you feel we need to take control of the dam and defend it against the future takeover. My problem is how do we protect both it and the mountain with the small number of military personnel? It is not the personnel or the means of protecting both facilities that bother me. We have the weapons to accomplish that. What concerns me is logistics and accommodations required to maintain both venues should we have a prolonged bout of radiation exposure that keeps both places sealed in.”

  “Tom,” Barlow said with extra firm conviction. “The two are linked whether we want them to be or not. Whoever controls Hoover Dam controls the water and future source of electricity for the entire southwestern United States. The turbines are still running and producing power. The EMP took out the distribution system. To acquire these assets, all they must do is a waltz in and take it. However, to control and defend these assets, they must have our technology, archives, and the knowledgeable individuals that we are protecting. Once they know we have advanced weapons, they will want those as well.”

  Bradley sympathized with their position, but could not put the dots together on how that could feasibly do it. “I hear both of you, but what happens if we split our forces and get hit with a three-year stretch of nuclear winter?

  “Using your argument, sir, what happens if it is a five-year winter and we run out of food for our people? At the dam, we would have an endless supply of fish.”

  Bradley whispered dryly, “You don’t make it easy, Major.”

  Callahan responded, “The choice is simple, sir. It is how we manage it that makes it almost mission impossible. You have emphasized knowledge from your intelligence background that eventually the bad guys will come and take what they want. Un, it is happening sooner.”

  Bradley turned to Mitchell. “Charlie, I know that you don’t know the answer, but I have to have a reply anyway. I know that with the coming of the fall of the year, that we can expect the return of radiation that will keep us underground through the winter months. We have five months until then. We need to know your gut feeling on what to expect during this five months. How long will this upcoming storm keep us penned inside the mountain? Dammit, let me rephrase that. If we needed to occupy the dam, how many days would be we able to be outdoors hauling supplies from here to there?”

  Mitchell frowned. Being a former Air Force Intel as well as a meteorologist at Area 51, he knew both Barlow and Callahan were right with their arguments and that Bradley was right with his concerns about the welfare of those he might put in the dam to accomplish what they proposed. He did not quibble in his answer.

  “Colonel, you have about two weeks until the current storm shuts us in. It will last about two weeks and leave a moderate residue of radiation that will dissipate enough in seven days that you can resume outdoor activities on a limited basis. We can expect one, and maybe two more storms before the approach of winter. All total, you should have 90 days to accomplish what you have to do before winter sets in.”

  Bradley looked Mitchell in the eye and with a single nod of his head, thanked him for a straightforward and honest answer. He glanced over at his desk with the collage that he brought to the alcove to place in the tunnel as a reminder of those lost. Turning to face Callahan, he motioned for him to hand him the headset.

  “Airborne 4—base. Affirmative your request. Hold your position and standby. Great piece of work today. Base out.” He turned to Callahan. “There is not that much hurry to take and secure the dam.” He looked towards Barlow.

  “We are not in immediate danger from the Jihadists or anyone else. It has just now become safe for anyone to be on the move and winter will be setting in soon so it will be next spring before anyone can assemble and organize anything of substance at the dam. We have eyes on it and will know fast enough to do something if I am wrong.

  Bradley not quibbled in making his decision and the others did not see any other solution regardless their concerns.

  Callahan retrieved his Kevlar and weapon to leave. “If you Colonels will excuse me, I have some work to do. I’ll have the powder crew on the way at first light.”

  At the dam, Sammie looked at Griffin and in the darkness, saw him giving her a thumb up gesture of approval. Both placed great significance in Colonel Bradley giving them the message rather than Major Callahan. To them this meant this being a command decision rather than tactical or strategic.

  “Sergeant, I want eyes on the target throughout the night. If anything even farts, I want to know about it. Otherwise, have the men get as much rest as possible. That includes you, Sergeant. I have a feeling that we may have a long day tomorrow.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  ####

  Chapter 7 - A New War

  Same time

  She was everywhere. He looked at the army cot where she was sleeping peacefully. He looked at the computer on her footlocker where he saw her watching a video. Her western hat lay on the footlocker beside the computer. He saw her peeking out the window that she is drawn on the face of the rock wall when they first moved into the mountain. He remembered the female soldier and her laughing when she asked the soldier to bring her some curtains from the Quartermaster for the window.

  “Stacey,” he whispered. She did not answer. He spoke her name again, and again, she did not respond. He looked back at the bed. It was empty. He looked at the computer, and the screen was black. He looked towards the imaginary window and saw her saddle, her boots, and the western hat on the floor that he thought he saw on the footlocker. Shards of debris from the explosion severely damaged her saddle and hat. The boots—they still contained stains of her blood.

  “Stacey,” he moaned. “Stacey.” This time, he whispered the words. He sat up and swung his knees to sit up on his cot. He cried out again, this time in deep sorrow as he became wide-awake. He sat for a moment in silence with his head buried in his hands. A sob had escaped before he realized it.

  “Sammie,” he whispered. This whisper sounded of concern. He stood up and dressed. Stacey was gone, Sammie was not, however, she was in harm's way.

  If the duty officer was surprised to see Colonel Bradley walking up the tunnel into the War Room at this hour, he did not show it.

  “As you were, Lieutenant,” Bradley said when the officer jumped to his feet. Bradley looked towards the radiation monitor to check the radiation level outdoors and then the external camera screen. Everything seemed normal there, so he drifted into the War Room and into the communications center where one of the young radio operators was manning the radios.

  Bradley looked at the monitor for the new camera place
d on Mt. Charleston. In the lower right-hand corner of the screen, he could see a small campfire burning, but elsewhere the screen was black. Before the EMP, the neon light would have filled the screen, but not now and never again.

  “Any action on the radios?” he asked the radio operator.

  “Negative, sir.”

  “Sir, we have some fresh coffee at the guard station if you would like some.”

  Bradley looked at the young sergeant from the guard detail standing at the entrance to the War Room.

  “You are a lifesaver, Sergeant,” Bradley said. He followed the sergeant up the tunnel to the guard station.

  The duty officer, the sergeant, and two of the guards waiting their turn to start a shift, and he sat on the cots and made small talk while they drank. Behind them, two guards passed the time by naming the late George Carlin’s euphemisms on the absurdity of ‘politically correct’ speak. Ordinarily, he would have enjoyed their trivial nonsense, but not tonight.

  “Sergeant, is that an extra cot?” he asked, glancing toward a cot that appeared to be unoccupied.

  “Yes, sir. It is.”

  “We have detail in the field, and I would like to be close by should they call in,” he said. “Lieutenant, Mind if I bunk here tonight?”

  “Please do, sir. Sergeant, find the colonel a blanket and pillow.” Both the sergeant and he suspected the colonel of needing company and not wanting to sleep in an empty alcove without his wife.

  Both and drained, Bradley fell into a deep sleep, never hearing the change of guard or the occasional messages and pages broadcasted over the intercom system of the mountain.

  Six hours later, he awoke to someone shaking his shoulder and calling his name. He opened his eyes to see Major Callahan standing beside his cot with a hot cup of coffee in his hand. “Good morning, Colonel. Fallout for reveille.”