Days Of Perdition: Voodoo Plague Book 6 Read online

  It was a day much like all the others, Katie on the phone with Steve as she watched a group of children playing. They were about to wrap up their conversation when he suddenly told her to hold on. She could hear him breathing over the open connection, a keyboard and mouse clicking in the background.

  “Katie, there’s a large group that just pulled into Payson. Heavily armed and organized. Looks like at least a hundred men.” He finally said.

  “What are they doing?” She asked, turning her back on the kids and focusing on his voice.

  “They’ve already shot several of the Peacekeepers and a couple of civilians. Hold on, let me watch them for a few minutes.” He said.

  Katie stood in the shade of a pine tree, impatient, but holding her tongue. She could still hear sounds over the phone; the low hum of the equipment in the listening post, the occasional mouse click and the squeak of Steve’s chair every time he shifted his weight.

  “You should probably get out of there soon,” he finally said. “They’re spreading out and looting. They’re also taking women. If anyone tries to stand up to them they’re shooting them. They’ve got heavy weapons. Either got into a police SWAT or more likely a National Guard armory. No one other than the Army is going to be able to stand up to them.”

  “Are they coming this way?” She asked.

  “Not yet. There’s plenty in town to keep them occupied, but I wouldn’t count on them to not come looking to see what else there is in the area.” Katie ran a hand through her thick hair, frustrated and afraid of what a group of men like that would do.

  “If we leave, where do we go?” She asked after almost a minute of silence.

  “East,” Steve immediately answered. “I’ve been watching what’s going on in the country, looking for a safe haven for you in case you had to move. There’s a large buildup of military in Oklahoma City at Tinker Air Force Base. The city is still relatively normal and in the control of the authorities. If you head due east from where you are and cut across the Indian Reservations into New Mexico, then across the Texas pan handle that will get you into Oklahoma without encountering any problems I can see on satellite. No infected if you stay away from northern New Mexico. No gangs to speak of. That’s your best option.”

  “Have you kept an eye on my house like I asked?” Katie had hoped that if John did make it to Arizona that Steve would be able to see him and let her know he was close. Steve had been a little weird for the past few days and she was hesitant to ask him, but had to know before she could even think about heading out on the road.

  “You’re whole neighborhood burned four days ago.” He answered hesitantly.

  “My house?” Katie’s breath caught in her throat.

  “Yes, your house too. I’m sorry.” He said.

  Katie couldn’t stop the tears from welling up in her eyes and rolling down her face. The house was gone, and so was her note to John. He’d never be able to find her, even if he was still alive and looking for her. She thanked Steve and broke the connection. Getting her emotions under control she went to find the other adults and fill them in on the outlaws that had just arrived in town.

  14

  It had been a frustrating morning. Infuriating might be a better way to describe it. Having found my truck parked on Tinker Air Force Base amongst the sea of vehicles that had been driven there by refugees, I was forced to deal with more demanding priorities than immediately looking for Katie. There were thousands of infected still wandering around the base that had poured through the intentional breach in the perimeter fence. It was noon before Colonel Crawford, who had taken command of the overall response to the incursion, declared the emergency under control.

  Igor and Irina, who had assisted with clearing out the infected, were now in a guarded conference room in the base administration building. I mostly trusted them, but my trust didn’t extend to the Air Force, so they were being treated like visiting foreign military VIPs. Certainly not prisoners, but not left alone to do as they wished either. I had made sure they were being treated well. Food and water had been provided as well as medical attention for Irina’s leg that was still freshly wounded from a firefight in Los Alamos.

  Rachel, Dog, Martinez and myself sat in another room with Colonel Crawford, Captain Blanchard and General Triplett, the commander of Tinker. Various other Air Force staffers were in attendance, taking notes and video taping the debriefing. Kathleen Clark, the new President of the United States and Admiral Packard, CINCPACFLT and the ranking US military officer, were listening in, their images displayed on a large screen mounted to the front wall of the room. Normally each of us would have been debriefed separately, and certainly without POTUS in attendance, but times were hardly normal.

  I had been speaking for the better part of an hour, relaying the details of our mission to deliver the three nuclear bombs to the Russians. The only way they’d gotten me to sit still this long was by tasking a Security Forces Major with trying to locate Katie. I was antsy as hell, angry that I had to sit on my ass while my wife was out there somewhere. My mood was apparently evident in my tone as there were several times when Rachel had reached under the table and placed her hand on my leg in an attempt to calm me down.

  When I reached the point where the Marines had arrived and plucked us out of the desert, I stopped my narrative. Admiral Packard flipped through several pages of notes he had taken; pausing to read when he found the page he was looking for.

  “Major, I’d like some clarification.” He said, still looking down at his notepad. “You said Mr. Cummings stated that the President had opened a dialogue with the Russian president and was not in support of the coup being attempted by the GRU?”

  “That is correct, Admiral.” I said, flicking my eyes to the half of the screen displaying the President.

  “And you stated that, in your opinion, the rendezvous was a ruse by the Russians to get our remaining three devices out into the open and capture Captain Vostov. Correct?” He looked up over the top edge of his reading glasses at the camera, staring at me out of the high definition screen.

  “Yes, sir. That is correct. They were in place ahead of us. If all they’d wanted was to arrest Captain Vostov they could have done so before she departed Kirtland. They wanted the nukes off the table, sir. Didn’t want us with any type of strike weapon.”

  “And it seems that part of their mission succeeded. You detonated two of them, the third one destroyed in one of the explosions. Correct?” This from President Clark.

  “Yes, ma’am.” I said, seething internally that I was wasting time repeatedly going over the same facts when all I wanted was to be searching for Katie.

  “Colonel?” Her gaze shifted to Crawford.

  “Initial interrogation of Captain Vostov confirms the facts Major Chase has provided. We’ve lost all three devices. Mr. Cummings was killed in a missile strike on the Russians who ambushed the meet.” Crawford answered.

  Packard looked around the room before leaning back in his chair and exhaling a deep breath.

  “Madam President,” he said. “We still have signal intercept capability and I’d like to play an audio file for you that was intercepted yesterday.”

  “What’s on the recording, Admiral?” She asked, her face neutral.

  “It’s a satellite phone call made by Mr. Cummings from Tinker Air Force Base prior to the team’s departure for Texas, ma’am.” The President stared into the camera on her end for several long moments before shaking her head.

  “That won’t be necessary, Admiral. I need to think about these developments. I’ll be in touch.” A moment later her image disappeared from the screen.

  “Well if this isn’t just a cluster fuck of monumental proportions.” He said. “Colonel, we need to speak. Privately. Call me in ten minutes.”

  What the Admiral probably wanted to discuss was the fact that both himself and Colonel Crawford had been working with the renegade GRU to support the overthrow of Russian President Barinov. They now had a President who
seemed to be willing to betray them. Crawford read between the lines and nodded at a look from Packard. I suspected there was something more going on behind the scenes, but right now all I really cared about was finding my wife.

  The debrief wrapped up quickly from that point. Admiral Packard shut down the videoconference from his end, one of the Air Force staffers powering down the equipment in the room. I had just asked Crawford to excuse me and was starting to stand when an Air Force Major knocked and hustled into the room. He was carrying a laptop and stepped up to the end of the table.

  “Sir,” he addressed General Triplett. “We have video of the individual responsible for the breach in the perimeter fence.”

  “Who was it?” Triplett asked, looking surprised.

  “One of ours, sir. Captain Lee Roach.”

  I was almost out the door when I heard the name, freezing in my tracks so suddenly that Rachel bumped into my back. Turning back into the room I met Crawford’s eyes and he nodded at my just vacated chair, telling me to sit down and listen. I glanced at Rachel who looked as shocked as I felt. We hadn’t talked about it, but I suspected she assumed he had died in the Mississippi River, just as I did.

  Slowly we took our seats as the Security Forces Major connected his laptop to a video cable attached to the display at the front of the room. As his computer finished booting up he began speaking.

  “This is actually a much more complicated matter than just the sabotage of the perimeter fence.” He began. “Captain Lee William Roach appeared at the main gate three days ago with a woman he claimed was his wife.”

  The laptop was up and running now and the Major clicked a series of icons. Momentarily we were looking at a still image of Roach and a girl I didn’t recognize taken from video recorded at the main gate to Tinker. A large Security Forces Sergeant was escorting them out of a civilian pickup and Roach was still dressed in his underwear and a tactical vest, as he’d been when he went into the river.

  “He claimed that he and his wife had escaped Tennessee ahead of the secondary outbreak and arrival of the herds. We performed as full of a background investigation as possible with the limited resources that are still operational. There were no red flags found and after validating his identity and service record he was cleared and assigned as refugee liaison officer.”

  The Major continued to talk, telling the story of a missing Tech Sergeant at the base’s water treatment plant and a missing Security Forces Airman. He had pieced together video footage from various security cameras around the base and I watched as Roach first threw his wife over a fence to be eaten by infected, then killed a witness.

  From a different view he attacked a female Airman and placed her body in the back of his Humvee before driving out of the frame in her vehicle, presumably to hide it as he returned shortly and left in his. Another jump in the video and we watched from a high angle as Roach hooked a chain to the perimeter fence and used a Hummer to tear it open.

  The Major kept narrating what we were watching, the video following Roach as he drove across the base after breaching the fence. It jumped from camera to camera as he moved, the angle and perspective continually changing. He went to a large brick building, hurrying inside, a moment later panicked people visible running across the screen.

  “This is when we believe he called in an alert that the fence was breached.” The Major said, hitting the pause button.

  “Why breach the fence, then call it in?” Asked General Triplett. “Is he trying to be a hero? Set up a crisis and be the one to sound the alarm?”

  “No sir, I think it was to create a distraction. Watch.” The Major responded.

  A few short minutes after Roach ran into the building he reappeared with a woman who appeared to be carrying a pair of boots in her hand. The long, red hair and the way she moved caught my eye and I leaned forward to peer at the screen, fingers turning white as I gripped the edge of the table, but the camera had been high in the air and too far away to make out any details.

  The image jumped a few times as the pieced together video followed Roach’s Humvee to the flight line where a young pilot stood next to a Pave Hawk waiting for him. The camera angle and position was better and as soon as the Hummer’s passenger door opened I stood and stepped close to the screen to watch. Watched as Katie ran for the Pave Hawk, Roach by her side.

  I stopped breathing when I saw him raise what at first I thought was a pistol and point it at the back of her head as she started to climb into the aircraft’s side door. Relief flooded through me when I realized it was only a Taser. I stood helplessly watching as my wife was tossed into the helicopter that then took off, disappearing from view.

  “Major?” It was Crawford speaking to me. I was now standing directly in front of the screen, back to the room and couldn’t respond. A moment later I felt a hand on my arm and turned my head to look at Rachel. I was in a daze. I was frightened, angry, and unable to form a coherent thought for a few moments.

  “Major, are you alright?” Colonel Crawford again.

  I slowly turned to face the room. Everyone was on their feet staring at me. Rachel was next to me, hand on my arm, and when I looked at her I could tell she knew.

  “My wife.” I said in a low voice.

  “Your wife, son?” General Triplett asked, confusion creasing his features.

  “My wife, sir.” I said in a stronger voice as the fury in my gut began churning its way up. “That was my wife that was taken by that son of a bitch!”

  15

  The room was silent as everyone looked from me back up to the screen at the frozen image of Roach lifting a disabled Katie into the Pave Hawk.

  “Major, where did that helicopter go?” Colonel Crawford broke the silence.

  “We don’t know, sir. This was an unauthorized flight, so in effect the aircraft was stolen. We’re trying to identify the pilot, but we don’t have an image that’s good enough for facial recognition software to give us a match. There are investigators tracking down every pilot on base at the moment.

  “I’ve checked with Air and they didn’t track the helo on radar, so it apparently flew low to avoid detection and had the IFF beacon turned off. We’re in the process of trying to force activate the IFF remotely, but that’s a long shot at best.” IFF stands for Identify Friend or Foe and is how aircraft let radar operators know they are friendly. Every civilian and military aircraft has one, but they can be turned off if the pilot wants to hide.

  “Captain,” Crawford turned to Blanchard. “See if we’ve got any sat imagery of the area from the time that aircraft took off.”

  “Yes, sir.” Blanchard said, bending over his laptop.

  I was in a daze. My heart ached and anger pulsed through me like a sonar ping, but I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know where to start looking for Katie. Waves of helplessness washed over me like a physical force, feeding the white-hot ball of anger boiling inside.

  Rachel took my arm and guided me back to a chair as one of General Triplett’s aides entered the room. He stepped up to the General and whispered in his ear. A moment later Triplett stood and strode out of the room. Crawford watched him leave with hooded eyes, then excused himself to presumably go have a private conversation with Admiral Packard. I sat at the table, hands balled into fists, staring at Captain Blanchard.

  “I’m downloading the image files now, sir. It will take a few minutes.” He said, feeling the weight of my stare.

  I nodded as he stood and walked out of the room after letting me know he was just going to the latrine and would be back before the files finished downloading. Rachel wrapped her arms around me and kissed the side of my head, then followed Blanchard out into the hall.

  There were a few Air Force staffers still in the room, and finding themselves alone with me they quickly started packing up and preparing to leave. I idly noticed them all stand at the same time and come to attention. No matter how angry you are, if you’re in the military and see a bunch of people snap to attention, you look around
to see why.

  General Triplett stood just inside the doorway, three large Security Forces Airmen to his left. I could see half a dozen more crowded in the hallway. I slowly stood, pushing my chair away with the backs of my legs and turned to face the General.

  “I’m sorry, Major. By order of the President of the United States you are under arrest for the murder of Brent Cummings and Treason for conspiring to assassinate a foreign head of state.”

  I stood staring at him, dumbfounded. Then I thought about what I knew. President Clark had betrayed our plans to Barinov. Perhaps Cummings had made the actual call that the Admiral had referred to, but he had done it on her orders. Now, she was going to shut down any resistance to her plan to lie down and spread her legs for the Russians.

  The lead Security Forces Master Sergeant stepped forward, hand on the butt of his holstered pistol. He was a big guy, about my size, and looked like he’d been around the block a couple of times. The Tech Sergeant and Staff Sergeant backing him up were equally as large and when he stepped forward they took up positions a couple of feet on either side of him.

  “Sir, please place your hands on top of your head.” He said, the tone in his voice leaving no doubt that he was ready for a confrontation.

  Well, so was I. There was no way in hell I was going to cool my heels in the Air Force version of the stockade while Katie was still out there in the hands of a maniac. The anger that was nearly consuming me boiled over when he finished speaking, and I lunged, delivering a massive uppercut to his chin, yelling at Dog to stay. As furious as I was, I didn’t want Dog to kill these guys for just following a lawful order.

  The lead cop might have been expecting resistance, but he had probably been expecting me to go for a weapon, not charge in. Without the opportunity to defend himself I landed the blow, feeling the impact all the way up my arm and into my shoulder. The Master Sergeant’s head snapped back, his feet left the floor and he crashed onto his back. The two cops in the room with him hesitated when I struck, most likely used to subjects of arrest not fighting back. Or if they did fight, it was once the cuffs started going on.