Anvil (17 page)

“Is it
time?”  I asked when Colonel Blanchard appeared out of the darkness.

I was
sitting on a scrounged poncho in the snow, leaned against a large rock. 
Rachel was snuggled against me, my arm around her shoulders.  Irina sat a
few feet away, but none of us had been talking.  We were just sitting,
staring into the flames of a small campfire.  We’d been that way for
several hours.

I was
exhausted and hungry, but was too tired to sleep and had too much on my mind to
worry about food.  Rachel and Irina had tried to share an MRE, but neither
had much of an appetite.  Rachel and I had argued, at length, but she
hadn’t changed my mind.

“No,” he
said, and I thought I detected something in his voice.  “Come with me.”

I gently
pried myself free of Rachel and got to my feet.  Blanchard led the way to
one of the tents.  When I followed him inside, I recognized the wiring
embedded in the fabric.  This was a portable SCIF, or Sensitive
Compartmented Information Facility.  The wiring was part of a system that
blocked electronic eavesdropping.  On the modern battlefield this was
about the only way commanders could have a conversation that was guaranteed to
be private.

“What’s
going on?”  I asked.

“I just got
off the phone with Admiral Packard,” he began, dropping into a folding chair
and waving me to take a seat.  “It sounds like they have a regular
Lifetime Movie going on at Pearl.  Petty Officer Simmons is under
suspicion of espionage, and now she’s being charged with murder.  But she’s
still working.”

“What?” 
Was all I could manage to say.

“Long story
short.  She came forward and confessed to telling her boyfriend, a Chief
Petty Officer, about the help she was giving you.  Apparently she told him
enough for him to pass it on to the Russians.  That’s how they kept
showing up whenever you changed locations.  She claims it was innocent,
but Naval Intelligence isn’t sold.”

“For what
it’s worth, I believe her,” I said, deciding it was time to come clean. 
“Actually, I’m the one that gave her a heads up there was a problem.”

Blanchard
stared at me for a long pause before shaking his head.

“Colonel
Crawford was right.  You are a pain in the ass,” he said.

“By the way,
where is the Colonel?” 

“You don’t
know,” Blanchard said, sadness passing across his face.

“What
happened?”

“He made it to
Seattle after the Russians captured the ladies.  Linked up with the SEALs
securing the research facility, but decided to stick his thumb in the Russians’
eye.  The SEALs helped him make a pair of limpet mines and he went to the
waterfront and sank their flagship and a destroyer.  He didn’t come out of
the water.”

I sat there
speechless, knowing the look on my face mirrored the one of loss on
Blanchard’s.  Colonel Crawford had been one of those leaders, and there
are damn few of them, that you would follow to hell and back.  He was just
one of that rare breed that inspired that level of loyalty in the men under his
command.

“What about
Igor and Dog,” I asked when I was able to speak.

“Igor called
it a war.  Stayed back and took up residence in a house in the mountains
overlooking Seattle.  Dog is with him.  They’re safe, for the
moment.”

“For the
moment?”

“The Russian
flag ship the Colonel sank was Peter the Great.  Nuclear powered. 
The reactor core was breached and is sitting right next to downtown
Seattle.  That, and the Navy engaged the Russians off the Pacific
coast.  It went nuclear.  Fallout is spreading towards the
region.  We don’t know how bad, but the SEALs are getting some gear to
keep tabs on it.”

“We need to
go get them,” I said, already trying to work out how I was going to get to
Seattle and pull Igor and Dog out to safety.

“For the
moment, they’re OK,” Blanchard said.  “If the SEALs have to move I’ll make
sure Igor gets evac’d.  There’s more.  There’s a chance to turn this
around.”

I shook my
head, not understanding what he was talking about.

“The Petty
Officer.  The murder she’s being charged with is the boyfriend.  She
cut his dick off.”

“She did
what?”  I asked, stunned.

“Cut it off. 
Sat in the mess hall giving him a hand job under the table.  Got him nice
and hard, then leaned over and sliced it off.  Also got his femoral
artery.  He bled out before they got him into surgery.”

“Holy shit,”
I breathed.  “But wait a minute.  You said she’s still working.”

“She
is.  Admiral Packard is beside himself, but apparently she’s the only
person who can get through the security into some mystery system.  Before
the attacks there were supposedly about a dozen people in the world that could
have pulled off the hack.  Now, as far as we know, she’s all that’s
left.  The Admiral doesn’t have a choice.  And, she got in half an
hour ago.”

“What is
it?”

“Don’t
know.  The Admiral won’t tell me, and frankly I don’t want to know. 
Not sitting here with the Russians just a few miles away.  What he did
tell me is that if we can get it operating we can counter Barinov’s
threat.  That means you don’t go to the Russians and Hawaii doesn’t get
nuked.”

Blanchard
sounded hopeful, but I’m a little older and little more jaded.

“What do you
mean “if we can get it working”?  I thought Jessica had gotten in.”

“She
did.  But the system was still under control of the contractor that built
it.  Hadn’t been signed off yet.  So, while she’s in, she can’t
control it.  Not without the software.  To do that, we have to get
into the contractor’s servers and transfer the operating system.  And it’s
offline,” Blanchard said.

Besides
being a little more jaded when you get older, you also learn to recognize when
someone is leading up to something they want you to do.

“Where’s the
contractor?”  I asked.

“Salt Lake
City,” Blanchard said.

“Are you
fucking kidding me?”  I blurted.  “That’s where the goddamn Russians
sent all the infected they pulled out of the west coast cities.”

“I’m not kidding,”
Blanchard said, shaking his head.  “And you’re right.  There’s over
five million infected, all within a ten-mile radius of the center of the
city.  We don’t know if this is just a coincidence, or if the Russians
know what’s there and are trying to make sure we can’t get to it.”

“A small
nuke would take care of that,” I said.

“For some
reason we don’t understand, Barinov wants North America.  Wants it as
unspoiled as possible.  Maybe it really is just a coincidence.”

I shook my
head.  No way was this a coincidence.  Whatever this was, this weapon
or weapons system, I was willing to bet the Russians knew all about it. 
The mystery a few days ago had been why were they drawing huge herds of
infected into Salt Lake City.  Now the mystery was solved.  Or maybe
I was giving them too much credit.  If they knew enough to send the
infected, why do that and not just go in and capture or destroy it?  They
certainly had the troops available and in close proximity.

“OK, doesn’t
matter if they knew about it or not.  What’s it going to take to activate
it?  And how do we keep them from figuring out what I’m doing and dropping
a bomb on my head?”

“What you’re
doing?”

“You’re not
telling me all this just to keep me entertained,” I said sarcastically.

Blanchard
leaned back and grinned.  He looked at me for a moment before standing and
moving to the tent door.  Pulling the flap open he stuck his head out and
said something.  Stepping back in, an Air Force Captain followed with an
open laptop.  Pulling a portable table in front of me he placed the
computer on it and began briefing me on the facility in Utah.

Thirteen
hours.  That’s how much time I had left to pull this off.  I was in a
Black Hawk helicopter, sitting on the deck with the back of my head resting against
a vibrating bulkhead.  We were screaming along a few thousand feet in the
air, having just left Mountain Home Air Force Base after a quick
refueling.  We were heading for Salt Lake City, about 250 air miles to the
southeast.

Several
helicopters had made the flight to the base, one of them peeling off and
heading in to town to try and convince Titus to leave his bunker and be
available for the virologists.  I would have liked to go with them to talk
to him.  Convince him to help.  I also wanted to know how he’d taken
out the sniper that had me pinned down in the park, letting me escape from the
Russians.

But the
clock was ticking and I had a job to do.  If I didn’t get it completed in
time, well… to put it in no uncertain terms, I was fucked.  Just under
thirteen hours from now I’d be in Russian hands.  To make matters worse,
if Barinov wasn’t already holding a grudge, I’d royally pissed them off over
the past few days.

Rachel and
Irina had been with me for the short hop to the air base.  They were
catching a ride on a C-130 that was transporting wounded back to the Bahamas. 
Once there, they would lay over for a couple of days, waiting to see what
happened.  If I did my job, and whatever the Thor System was actually
worked and prevented the Russians from bombing us, they’d fly to Hawaii and
eventually on to Australia.

We had all
climbed out of the helicopter while it was being fueled.  Irina had
embraced me tightly, kissed each cheek as she liked to do, and walked away
without saying a word.  I appreciated her good bye.  I’m not one for
drawn out, emotional parting scenes.  But I didn’t get off easy with
Rachel.

When Irina
headed for the plane, Rachel fell against me, wrapping her arms around my waist
and burying her face in my chest.  She was crying and didn’t want to let
go.  I wished there was something I could say that would comfort her, and
me, but nothing came to mind.  All I could do was hold her tight and try
to control my own emotions at the sense of loss. 

When the
Black Hawk crew chief shouted that the aircraft was ready to go, I had to
gently pry Rachel’s arms from around me.  I took half a step back,
maintaining my grip on her upper arms so she didn’t try to wrap me up again.

“I hope you
find Katie and she can be saved,” Rachel said, sniffing back tears.  “I’ll
be waiting for you.  Or both of you.  Just be safe.”

I looked
into her red rimmed eyes, fighting to maintain my composure.  Leaning
forward I kissed her on the lips, softly, letting it linger for a moment.

“Thank you
for everything,” I said when I broke the kiss. 

Rachel
looked at me for a beat, fresh tears flowing, then turned and began walking
towards the C-130.  After only a few steps she broke into a run.  I
would have stood there watching until she was on board, but the crew chief
shouted again.  Taking a deep, shuddering breath, I jogged to the
helicopter and jumped aboard.

Finding some
open space on the floor, I sat down and stared at my boots as the pilot lifted
off.  Distressed.  Heart broken.  Emotionally wrung out. 
Those were all the things I was at the moment, and that wasn’t good.  I
needed my head in the game or the already slim odds of pulling this off would drop
to about zero.

I was making
this trip on a wing and a prayer.  No one outside of Pearl Harbor knew
anything about whatever type of weapon or defensive system this was.  Not
that I blamed them.  Too much information had already been slipped to the
Russians.  There was no point in widening the circle of people that knew
the secret.  I didn’t need to know anything more than what I already knew
to complete my job.

My body was
tired, wanting sleep, but my mind was racing with concern for Katie and angst
over sending Rachel away.  How the hell had I managed to fall in love with
two women?  Before Katie there had been plenty, but they hadn’t been
anything more than a momentary distraction.  For not the first time, I
reminded myself of how much alike they were, trying to salve my guilt for
having feelings for a woman other than my wife.

“You OK,
Major?”

It was
Dutch, sitting a few feet away and staring at me with a concerned look on his
face.  I met his eyes, forcing down my feelings, and nodded.

“Just
fucking great,” I growled.

I was in no
mood to discuss my situation, and didn’t like the fact that I’d let the façade
crack open far enough for someone else to see my pain.  But he was right
to ask.  His ass was on the line, just like the rest of the men coming
with me.  If one of us was distracted, it could mean failure which would
mean death.

Looking
around, I mentally ticked off each man that was in the helicopter with
me.  I’d had about half an hour with them before leaving the front.  All
but one were Rangers, so I knew they’d had the training and experience to do
the job we were going to do.  But I didn’t know the men.  Each would have
unique strengths and weaknesses, and what makes a team truly effective is when
the leader knows the capabilities of the men under his command.

To achieve
that requires lots of time spent together.  Training. 
Fighting.  Bonding.  We hadn’t had that, and I was as unknown to them
as they were to me.  But it was what it was.  Not only do you fight
with what you have,
you fight with whom you have
, I reminded myself.

In addition
to Dutch, there were three more Rangers sitting on the deck of the helicopter,
two Sergeants and a Staff Sergeant.  Farthest from me was the Staff
Sergeant.  He was a huge, blocky blonde guy from Minnesota named
Brooks.  He reminded me of a young Dolph Lundgren.  I guess I wasn’t
the first to think that as everyone called him Drago, after the Russian fighter
played by Lundgren in one of the Rocky movies.

To his
right, Sergeant Rodriguez from Miami.  Chico.  A first generation
American and the only son of Cuban refugees.  Short, big shoulders and
hands that looked like they could crush anything they grasped into pulp. 
His arms were covered in tattoos that almost disappeared against his bronze
skin.  He was already asleep, head back as he snored loud enough to be
heard over the Black Hawk in flight.

Finally,
there was Tayvon James.  TJ.  He was a tall, almost painfully thin
black man from Houston.  He had played college basketball for Rice
University and had been drafted by the Miami Heat.  He turned them down
and joined the Army instead.

His story
bothered me at first.  Turning down a multi million-dollar contract with
an NBA team to earn a few hundred dollars a month wasn’t something you heard
about every day.  The last thing I wanted was to have someone along who
was looking to prove themselves.  I needed confident, motivated warriors. 

Dutch had
allayed my concerns when he explained that TJ’s father had been killed in the opening
days of the first Iraq war.  His mother found out she was pregnant with
him the same day his father died.

One man was
along for the ride that wasn’t a Ranger.  He was a young Air Force Lieutenant
named Edwards.  Short, thin and soft looking, he was our nerd and would
handle the computers and comm gear once we got inside the building.  He
sat a little to the side, by himself, eyes closed.  Nervous sweat stained
his shirt. 

He was about
as far from his comfort zone as he could be.  He lived in big, dark, air
conditioned rooms full of computers, staring at monitors.  I doubted he
saw the light of day often, unless it was time for him to pass his physical
testing or certify on the firing range.  We’d let him have a pistol,
without a round in the chamber, and Drago was assigned to stick with him and
ensure his safety.  And make sure he kept up.

Then there
was Dutch.  A First Sergeant.  The same in rank as a Master Sergeant,
but a step up in responsibility and authority.  He was from a large family
of Polish immigrants and had grown up in Chicago.  He had been in and out
of the Middle East almost his entire career and had a total of seven tours
between Afghanistan and Iraq.  The way the world was headed before the
attacks, he’d probably have gotten to visit Iran and Syria before he reached
retirement.

Satisfied I
had a good team going in with me, I changed mental gears and began replaying
the briefing I had received before leaving the front.  The Department of
Defense contractor was called RWA Systems.  I’d never heard of them, but
then I’d had other things to worry about in life than staying current on DOD
contractors and what they did.  They were located near Interstate 15, a
few miles north of downtown Salt Lake City in a very large, very secure
facility surrounded by acres of asphalt parking lots.

“Here’s what
I’ve been able to find out,” the Captain who prepped me had said, clicking a
button on the laptop to display a series of satellite photos.  “Two story
building.  Total of just over forty thousand square feet.  Entrances
here, here and here.  Interior stair wells here, here, here and here.”

With each
“here”, he pointed at a spot on the overhead shot of the facility.  I
leaned in for a better view, memorizing each location and going back over it a
couple of times before nodding for him to continue.

“First order
of business is to restore power,” he said, clicking to a new photo. 
“There are two large, diesel generators here on the north side of the
building.  They appear undamaged and are likely only out of fuel. 
Once they are running and supplying power, the computer systems have to be
restarted, and comms restored.”

He brought
up another overhead photo, zoomed onto a section of the roof.  Several
thousand square feet of space was devoted to an array of satellite dishes,
microwave radomes and UHF antennas.

“You know I
have no fucking clue how to do any of that,” I said.

“Yes,
sir.  The Colonel informed me you might be technically deficient.  I
am sending Lieutenant Edwards with you.  He works for me and is an IT
specialist.  You just have to get the power on and get him into the server
room.  He’ll take it from there.”

“Do we know
where in that monster the server room is?”  I asked, looking back at the
image on the laptop screen.

“No,
sir.  You’ll have to locate it once you’re inside.”

“OK,” I
grumbled, not really surprised at the answer.  “Sit tight.  I’m going
to grab the rest of the team and have you start over from the beginning.”

Once I had
Dutch and the others gathered, the briefing lasted for another forty
minutes.  There really wasn’t that much the Captain was able to tell
us.  We were limited to exterior photos of the building.  Pre-attack
he would have been able to access floor plans and a few thousand other details
online, but…  Well, that just wasn’t an option now.

I spent the
rest of the flight thinking about anything other than Katie or Rachel or what
would happen when the Russians got their hands on me.  Instead I focused
on the loss of Crawford, Martinez and Scott.  Their deaths had hit me
hard, Martinez more so.  Crawford was my CO and to a degree my
friend.  Scott was a fellow warrior that I would have done anything to
save.  But Martinez was family.

“Would you
look at that shit!” 

I looked up
when TJ spoke.  He was leaned sideways, peering at the ground below us
through night vision goggles.  The rest of the men crowded around him,
quiet curses being mumbled as they saw what was below us.  I stayed where
I was.  I didn’t need to look.  I’d seen more herds of infected than
I cared to think about.