Recovery: V Plague Book 8 Read online

  It had taken us a while and when we walked back into the VIP area Colonel Crawford and Martinez were sharing a drink at the bar. Dog was sprawled out near them, his tail thumping the floor when he saw me.

  “Major. Ma’am,” he greeted us.

  “Please, Colonel. It’s Katie. Ma’am is my mother.”

  Crawford smiled and nodded before turning his attention to me. “The Captain tells me we need to transfer fuel to the Huey.”

  “Yes, sir.” I said, joining them after pulling a stool out for Katie. “I’m thinking let’s get in the air and start broadcasting for Scott and hope he’s in range. Unless you have a better idea.”

  “I do, but… well, this is a little embarrassing.” Crawford reached into his pocket and placed a satellite phone on the bar in front of us. “I had this and a charger in my pack. I’d love to place a call to Pearl Harbor and have them look on satellite and find Scott, but I don’t know the number.”

  “Sir?” I asked, not understanding. I knew he’d been talking to Admiral Packard for weeks.

  “This isn’t my phone,” he confessed. “Somehow I picked this one up when I was throwing stuff in my pack and none of the working numbers at Pearl are in it. Blanchard had programmed them into my phone for me, so I just hit a speed dial button without ever even seeing the number.”

  We all sat there for a few moments, staring at the phone as if we could magically cause it to have the information we needed suddenly appear. I knew how Crawford felt, but it didn’t have any bearing on my plan.

  “May I?” Katie asked, reaching out and holding her hand above the phone.

  “By all means,” Crawford said, giving her a quizzical look.

  Katie picked the phone off the bar and powered it on. She sat staring at the screen for a couple of minutes before standing.

  “No signal in here,” she said. “I’m going to the roof.”

  “Dog, go with her,” I pointed. He stood up, shook, and ran up the stairs ahead of Katie.

  “Who’s she calling?” Crawford asked.

  “An old boyfriend,” I said, suppressing a laugh at the look on his and Martinez’ faces. “He’s with the CIA, stationed at a listening post in Western Australia. He’s how she got out of Arizona and to Tinker.”

  “OK, sir,” Martinez poured a drink and pushed it towards me. “We’ve got time. Give with the story.”

  9

  Tech Sergeant Scott cursed in frustration, barely restraining himself from smashing the FSOC communications panel. It had worked fine the last time he’d spoken with Colonel Blanchard but ever since, the system would not lock onto the orbiting satellite. He’d tried a dozen times, from an equal number of different locations, with the same result on each attempt. A little wheel would spin on the display while it flashed a message that the system was attempting to make a connection, but that’s as far as it ever got.

  He’d rebooted the system. He’d climbed onto the roof of the Bradley and inspected the laser system that transmitted the beam. He’d cleaned the lens. He’d even said a prayer, not thinking about the irony of using every four-letter word in the book as part of a plea to God. None of it helped.

  “Still not working?” Irina asked. She was seated in the back of the Bradley, sharing an MRE with Igor.

  “No,” Scott said, frustration clear in his voice. “The goddamn thing won’t lock on, or maybe it will lock on but the software won’t sync, or… who the fuck knows what’s wrong with it.”

  Irina translated and Igor laughed before saying something in Russian.

  “Igor says you should try the Russian fix,” Irina translated.

  “Yeah, what’s that?” Scott turned to look at them.

  “Drink some Vodka and slap the side of the computer really hard.”

  “Tell him if he’s got some Vodka I’m happy to give it a try,” Scott replied with a snort.

  Irina translated and Igor smiled and shrugged.

  “So what do we do now?” She asked. “Tinker is abandoned. We don’t have comms with anyone. Should we head back towards the canyons where we found Rachel?”

  Scott sat back and let out a long sigh. Forcing himself to be calm he reached out and hit the button to reboot the FSOC system. Once it completed the restart he initiated the sync process, willing the spinning wheel to go away and the status to change from red to green. But it didn’t.

  “That’s our best option at this point,” he said. “But we can’t spend much time looking for the Major. We need to head to Idaho. Rachel’s on the ground.”

  “And where in Idaho do we start looking?” Irina asked with her eyebrows raised. “I believe it’s a fairly large state.”

  Scott looked at her but didn’t have a good answer. His frustration threatened to boil over but he held back. There was no point in losing his temper with Irina. She was right. Idaho was big. And it was a long ways away. Shutting down the comm app he loaded the navigation system and started looking.

  Idaho was about 1,400 miles away from where they were sitting on the windswept Oklahoma prairie. And the damn state was over 80,000 square miles. Clicking a couple of icons he had the system generate a route to Idaho. Once it came up he had the system calculate drive time.

  A Bradley’s top speed is 40 miles per hour. Maintaining that speed for 1,400 miles wasn’t reasonable, so he calculated using a 30 miles per hour average. 44 hours without fuel stops, but they’d have to stop five times to fill the big vehicle’s tank. Best time would be 48 hours, but it would probably be longer than that, depending on what they ran into along the way. Then, once they got there, where the hell did they start looking?

  “OK, so going to Idaho may not be a smart move. Let’s get rolling and see if we can find the Major.”

  Scott cleared the route to Idaho and set up a new path that would take them back to the area where they had found Rachel and Joe. At least they had a starting point to search for the Major.

  Irina finished up her meal and went back to the front of the vehicle where she climbed into the driver’s station. Starting the engine she goosed the throttle and put them on the route Scott had sent to her nav station.

  10

  “Why do I only hear from you when you need something?” Steve asked with a petulant tone in his voice.

  Katie suppressed the sigh that wanted to escape from her mouth. She knew better than to let him hear that she was frustrated with him. It might very well push him over the edge and result in his refusal to help.

  “I talked to you when I got to Tinker,” she said patiently. “You know I couldn’t have made it without you. After that, things were crazy and I didn’t have a chance to call you. Then I was kidnapped.”

  “You were what?” The switch to concern in his voice was immediate.

  “Kidnapped,” she said again. “Some psycho Air Force officer tasered me and tied me up and took me off the base. He killed the pilot he had forced to fly us, and I thought he was going to kill me.”

  “Oh my God!” Steve exclaimed. “How did you get away? What happened?”

  “John found me and rescued me, but not before I was shot.” She said.

  “What? You were shot? Are you OK?” He was nearly shouting into the phone.

  “I’m recovering,” she said, not willing to give him any more details. “But we all need your help. Tinker has been evacuated. It’s overrun with infected. There are four of us still here. We stayed behind to find a small group that was out searching for us. That’s what I need your help with. Finding them.”

  “I can’t help you,” Steve said after a long moment to digest what she’d told him.

  “Please, Steve. It’s not for me. It’s for the three people that stayed behind to find me.” Katie hated begging, but she would do what it took to enlist his assistance.

  “No, you misunderstood me. It’s not that I won’t help, it’s that I can’t help. All of the satellites over North America have gone dark. Don’t know if it’s the Russians or not, but I can’t connect to any of them.”
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  Katie cursed, this time letting Steve hear the sigh of frustration. “There must be something you can do,” she said.

  “I don’t know what,” he replied. “I’ve been trying for days, and nothing is working.”

  Katie stood quiet for a few moments, watching Dog as he wandered around the far end of the roof looking for a good spot to take care of some personal business.

  “Wait a minute,” she said, feeling a little hope. “I’m talking to you on a satellite phone. If all the satellites are down, how is that happening?”

  “Hang on,” he said and she could hear his fingers flying over a keyboard. “You’re signal is heavily encrypted. I can’t pull your location or number or any other data. You must be coming over an NSA satellite. If it was commercial or even military I’d be able to get in. Who’s phone are you using?”

  “I know just who to ask,” she said. “I’ll call you back in a few minutes.”

  Katie broke the connection and whistled for Dog. He came running, following her through the roof top door that she had propped open. They descended the stairs and she found the rest of her group still sitting at the bar. She explained the situation to Colonel Crawford and he jumped to his feet.

  “Call him back and let me talk to him,” he said. “He’s right, it is an NSA satellite. He won’t get in, but I’ll bet he can put me in touch with Pearl Harbor.”

  Crawford and Katie headed for the roof, Martinez turning to me and smiling.

  “So you were saying? They were engaged and you took her away from him?” She prompted.

  “I didn’t even know about him,” I said, shaking my head in emphasis. “I met Katie and, well, it just happened. We’d known each other maybe three weeks when we got married. I don’t know when she told him, for sure, but he didn’t take it well.

  “Now, enough soap opera. It sounds like the Colonel will be talking to Pearl soon, which means we’ll probably have a location on Scott soon. We’d better get busy transferring the fuel from the Pave Hawk to the Huey so we’re ready to go.”

  Martinez frowned that I wasn’t going to tell her anything else, then stood up and drained her glass.

  “We need to find a hose and some tools,” she said.

  “We can probably find that in the maintenance room,” I stood, leaving my drink unfinished. “Don’t need a pump?”

  “Nope. Going to disconnect one of the fuel lines from its engine, connect it to the hose and use the Pave Hawk’s fuel booster pump to move gas to the Huey. It won’t be fast, but it will get the job done.” She said.

  Nodding, I took a moment to return to the suite Katie and I had slept in, retrieving my boots and vest. I’d also found clean socks and was very happy to have them when I pulled the boots onto my feet. Martinez dressed in clothes Katie had found for her while I was getting ready then we went scavenging.

  We easily found what we needed, lugging it through the casino and up the stairs to the roof. Crawford was still on the phone but I couldn’t tell if he was talking to Steve or had managed to reach someone at Pearl Harbor.

  “Steve got him through to Pearl,” Katie said when she walked up. “I think he’s still trying to get through the maze and talk to some Admiral. And Steve’s going to try to get access into the satellite in case we need his help again.”

  I nodded, keeping my mouth shut when it came to Steve. Dropping the long, coiled hose next to the Pave Hawk I bent and removed the ties that were keeping it neatly rolled. Martinez already had the aircraft opened up and was pulling maintenance panels off to access the fuel lines. While she worked I grabbed an end of the hose and started stretching it across the roof towards the Huey.

  “I’m kind of surprised Steve is willing to help you,” I said to Katie who had fallen in next to me as I dragged the hose. OK, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut forever.

  “I feel bad every time I talk to him,” she said. “He’s not over me. That’s obvious, and I feel like I’m playing with his emotions to get him to help.”

  “You know you’re doing what you have to,” I said. “His feelings don’t stack up against peoples’ lives. You feel bad because you’re a good person.”

  I had reached the Huey by now and stuck the hose deep into the fuel port. Looking back across I could see Martinez still working on her end.

  “Yeah, well, that doesn’t make me feel any better.” Katie said.

  Reaching out I put my arm around her shoulders and pulled her to me. There really wasn’t anything else I could say.

  “Found them!”

  I looked up to see Crawford waving at me. Removing my arm from Katie’s shoulders I took her hand and led her across the roof. The Colonel was just wrapping up his conversation when we walked up.

  “Where?” I asked.

  “They’re about fifty miles east-southeast from here. Heading towards some canyons.” He said.

  “They’re still looking for me,” I said. “How did they find them so fast?”

  “They’re in the only Bradley that’s moving in all of North America,” Crawford replied. “It wasn’t hard, at least according to the Petty Officer I just spoke with. How long before we’re ready to go?”

  I shrugged and stepped over to the Pave Hawk where Martinez was just climbing in to the cockpit.

  “How long, Captain?” I asked.

  “I can’t remember the flow rate of the booster pump so I’m guessing an hour. Could be more, could be less. Sorry, sir. Best I can tell you at the moment.”

  Crawford had walked over with us and nodded his head when she spoke.

  “We’ve got another problem,” he said. “The plane Rachel was in was shot down.”

  At first I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. I stood staring at him with my mouth hanging open. Martinez had frozen with her hand hovering over the switch to activate the pump.

  “She and the pilot ejected,” he continued. “They made it down but they’re in the Sawtooth Wilderness in Idaho. Damn rugged country and they’ve got weather coming in.”

  “SAR on the way?” I asked, hoping a Search And Rescue flight was in the air.

  “No go, Major,” Crawford said. “The Russians have surged. Thousands of troops and hundreds of aircraft. They’re flying a 24-hour CAP over most of the western US. The Navy has already lost multiple aircraft trying to get to them. We can’t put anything in the air.”

  I stood there, controlling my emotions. I wanted to rage. Wanted to throw something or break something, but that wouldn’t help the situation.

  “So we go on the ground,” I said. “We know where a perfectly good Bradley is.”

  “We do,” Crawford nodded. “If we can get there in time. Bradley’s are slow and it’s a long way to Idaho. There’s a weather front coming in, dropping down from Canada. The temperature is going to drop and it’s going to snow. And there’s infected.”

  “There can’t be that many,” I said. “There were something like seventy million or more bearing down on Tinker. Right?”

  “That was infected out of the mid-west, northeast, Texas and Colorado,” Crawford said. “These are herds moving out of the west coast cities. The Admiral thinks the Russians are moving them as they prepare for occupation. California is emptying out and the problem in Idaho is what’s coming out of Portland and Seattle. More than six million infected between the two cities and they’re heading due east.”

  11

  Rachel shivered, scooting a couple of inches closer to the fire. Across from her sat the Navy pilot, Lieutenant Commander William Smith who was also pushed as close to the flames as he could get without risking burns. It was dark and a strong wind was blowing out of the north, sighing through the tops of the pine trees surrounding them.

  The wind brought the smell of damp and cold, and it cut through the flight suits the pair wore. Rachel guessed the temperature was in the upper 40s at best but the wind-chill was almost certainly in the low 30s. Her toes, fingers and nose were numb and she wished for the hot weather that had nearly killed her in Oklah
oma.

  The pilot knew they were in Idaho but beyond that he was as lost as she was. There had been five terrifying minutes as he had made every effort to evade a flight of six Russian fighter jets then a klaxon in the cockpit had begun screaming.

  “Missile!” He had shouted over the intercom. A moment later the world around Rachel had exploded.

  First, the clear canopy over her head had been blasted free from the airframe. An instant later, without warning, her seat rocketed straight up with an ear splitting roar. Only a moment behind the pilot’s seat had also shot out of the doomed jet, trailing a plume of flames and smoke. As they were still accelerating upwards the Russian missile slammed into the rear of their jet, detonating with a force that knocked both of them over onto their backs.

  Then she was falling, still strapped to the seat. She had no idea how far they’d dropped, but after what seemed an eternity she heard a flapping in the air over her head and looked up to see a small drogue chute at the end of a long tether. There was a loud thump from her seat and the straps holding her fell away.

  Rachel screamed as she started to fall, but as her body separated from the ejection seat the parachute on her back was triggered. The canopy fluttered out above her then a hard jerk took most of her breath as it filled with air and slowed her descent. She still wanted to scream but got her fear under control and looked for the pilot.

  After twisting her head around she finally spotted him hanging in the air above and behind her. He was gripping a handle with each hand. A line ran up to the parachute from each and she assumed that allowed him to control his fall. She saw the same handles flapping around on either side of her, but with no idea how to use them decided it was best to leave them alone.