Coalition of the Damned - 03 (26 page)

“Wait one, civilian transport.”

Mitchell waited a moment before the voice came back and ordered the pilot to enter into a holding pattern outside the outer markers. The pilot gave back an affirmative on the radio but informed Mitchell that they didn’t carry enough fuel to hold for very long. They could only maintain a holding pattern for maybe forty-five minutes at the most. The pilot had expected to just shoot down here and land then put the plane away.

Mitchell waited for about five minutes before he radioed the tower to ask what the holdup was. It turned out that Colonel A
nderson didn’t bother to tell anybody to expect company. He just sent non-essential personnel home and the base was operating under a skeleton crew and nobody could find the good colonel.

Mitchell did his best to control his temper. He got back on the radio and informed the tower to contact the Pentagon and go through General McAfee. He would inform them who the new base commander was…then they could clear the flight to land along with all of the following flights incoming from Tinker Air Force base and all of the other incoming flights that would be inbound from all over the world. Mitchell could hear the tower operator’s voice quiver somewhat once he dropped McAfee’s name, but it didn’t take long before clearance was granted.

Matt pulled his cell phone and called McAfee’s office and prayed that he would accept the call. To his surprise, the General answered his own phone as soon as it rang. “Sort of expected you’d be calling, Mitchell.”

“Sorry to bother you General, but it seems that Anderson is MIA.”,

“Well, he’s sort of on his way here.” The general almost sounded apologetic.

“He’s
what
?!” Matt all but screamed into the phone.

“Seems he felt that whether you were successful or not, he wanted his damned star. Said he wasn’t a necessary part of the equation.”

Mitchell seethed with anger as he heard the words come through his phone. “General, do me a favor please.” Mitchell said as nicely as he could muster.

“What’s that, Mitchell?”

“Contact whatever transport Anderson is on and have his ass shipped right back out here. On the double.” Matt could almost hear the general smiling through the phone.

“What reason should I give
Colonel
Anderson?”

“He hasn’t done a formal change of command, of course,” Mitchell stated. “I have no fucking clue what is what out here. That doesn’t seem the proper procedure for handing off one of the military’s shiniest black op bases, does it to you, General?”

There was only a slight pause before the general chuckled into the phone. “Consider it done, Mitchell.” He guffawed. “Anything else?”

Mitchell ground his teeth together as he fought the urge to ask the General to plant a foot in Anderson’s ass before he sent him back. “I think that will just about do it, General. I’ll see to the ass chewing once he gets here.”

“He won’t be happy.”

“I don’t give a shit, General. I almost got my ass shot off by my own fucking people because that moron forgot to tell them that we were coming,” he growled. “Maybe I’ll forget to tell them that
he’s
coming and see how he likes it.”

Matt heard the General chuckle a little more into the phone before he said, “Just mail the pieces back to the Pentagon, son.” And then he hung up.

As Matt put his phone back in his pocket the pilot turned to him and said, “Remind me never to piss you off, sir.”

Matt turned to him and chuckled. “Don’t pull a bonehead move like that one and you’ll be just fine. Taxi us inside one of the empty hangars so we can get the doors shut for Mr. Thorn. It’s still daylight out. You’ll probably have to radio the tower to find out which ones are empty.”

“Roger that, sir.”

*****

“Jack, it sounds like planes landing.” Tufo jogged back from the doors.

“Can you tell what kind?” Jack asked.

“The kind that fly in the air,” he answered in a smart-assed tone. “Dude, I was a Marine, not Air Force. I blew shit up for a living.”

Jack shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Lamb, you and J
acobs recon and see what kind of planes we have coming in and report back.”

“Aye, Chief.”

Lamb and Jacobs slipped out the back door and made their way between the buildings, staying low and in the shadows. They watched a civilian jet land and taxi toward them, base personnel coming out of an underground building across the way and heading to the hangar next to theirs. They crept back into the shadows and waited while the rollup doors were opened and the plane taxied inside. Ing worked his way back to the rear of the building and checked the rear doors of the hangar but they were locked. He double clicked his coms and worked his way back to where he left Ron who was spying C-130’s lining up to land on the dual runways.

“Looks like they’re ours,” he said into the lip mic.

“Okay, let’s get ready to meet and greet,” Thompson said. “Back inside.”

Lamb and Jacobs worked their way back into the hangar and shut the door behind them. “How are we going to do this boss?”

“I guess we just open the doors and let them know we’re here,” Jack said.

“And if for whatever reason these aren’t our people?” Tufo asked.

Jack shrugged his shoulders. “They’re due. If it isn’t them, then we surrender until our people show up.”

“What about those guys?” Mark asked, indicating the sec
urity forces.

“Untie them,” Jack said. “No sense in keeping them bound any longer. Whether they’re our people or not, it’s about to get real.”

Tufo nodded and walked over to the security forces. “Okay, guys. On your feet.” He helped each of them get to their feet and untied them, keeping a watchful eye on each of them to make sure they didn’t make a stupid move and try to jump him.

“We want our weapons back,” the mouthy one said.

“All in due time,” Mark replied.

“Why not now?” he asked. “I heard your leader. If this isn’t ‘your people’ then you’ll be surrendering anyway, so why not just give them back to us?”

Mark shot him a shut-the-fuck-up look. “You’ll get them when we say you get them,” he answered through gritted teeth. “Don’t push me on this or…”

“Or what, tough guy?” the smart-mouthed one asked, bo
wing up.

“Gunny,” Jack said without raising his voice. Mark conti
nued to stare the man down. “Gunny, come get the door.”

“Yeah, be a good dog and do what your master says,” the mouthy one snickered. Mark paused and shook his head. He forced himself to take a deep breath and walk away.

“He isn’t worth it, Mark,” Jack said once they were by the roll-up doors.

“Maybe not, but I’d feel better if I handed him his ass.”

“Like I said, we may well end up needing these guys—”

“For what? To drop smart assed remarks at the blood suc
kers?” Mark quipped. “‘Cuz that’s about all they’re good for.”

Jack peered back at the group milling about at the rear of the hangar. “Probably, but if nothing else, we can use them for bait,” he said smiling.

Mark gave him a double take. Slowly he smiled and said, “I like the way you’re thinking.”

*****

“So truly, you’ve never allowed him to feed from you while you made love?” Nadia asked her eyes still full of wonder that Laura and Evan were lovers.

Laura smiled and shook her head, her face tired from the constant blushing. “No. Even if I wanted him to, Evan would never try.”

Tasha still appeared bored from the constant questions and answers, but occasionally she would seem to have her curiosity piqued, but she quickly quelled her emotions and went back to pretending boredom. “Nadia, please, give Ms. Youngblood a break from the constant questions.” She gave her daughter a dismissive wave. “Some things are meant to remain private.”

“No, really. It’s okay. I understand that some things must seem truly bizarre to the uninitiated, or even—”

“Wrong,” Natashia stated rather drolly.

“Mother!” Nadia interjected.

Laura was taken somewhat aback by her quip. “I suppose one might think it…wrong,” Laura explained. “But if you truly knew Evan, you’d know that he isn’t like most vampires.”

“Think of Rufus, mother.”

“I could never have feelings for Rufus,” Natashia stated flatly. “He smells of death.”

“It is not just his scent though, mother. Think of
him
. He is kind, gentle and he has a good heart—” Nadia explained.

“He has a
dead
heart,” Natashia interrupted. “A heart that will never beat again.”

Laura sighed and shook her head. “I can’t expect someone else to understand.”

“I do,” Nadia said. “The heart wants what the heart wants.”

Laura smiled at her and Nadia smiled back. Natashia rolled her eyes at the two of them. “Oh please. A
real
man at least has a pulse. He has more than just body heat, he has a real
fire
inside of him.” Her eyes glossed over as she thought of Viktor. “He has strength and vitality. Broad, rippling shoulders, large arms and a huge—”

“Mother!” Nadia exclaimed. “I think we get the picture.”

Laura’s face flushed again as she fought
not
to form a mental image of what Natashia described.

“I cannot help it, my dear,” Natashia stated. “I am simply explaining that a real man is a real man. Not something that used to be a man and now is simply…dead flesh reanimated,” she said with obvious distaste.

“To each their own, I suppose,” Laura replied.

Nadia turned back to Laura, “Still, I have heard many say that the bite of a vampire is intoxicating. That the bite alone can induce orgasm.”

Laura was shocked. “No…no. The bite contains the virus. It can cause one to turn into a vampire just as easily as blood being introduced into the body.”

Nadia looked at Laura as if she were stupid. “Who has told you this?”

“I…er…well, the research we’ve done has shown that the same virus that is in the blood is in the mouth and that—”

“Non,” she interrupted. “There may well be a virus in the mouth, but it is not the same as that in the blood. Have you co
mpared the two?”

Laura sat there a moment and thought about whether the two were ever tested to see if they were the same. “I honestly don’t know. We just assumed…”

“You know what they say about assuming,” Natashia said in a sing-song voice, her eyes staring out the window.

Laura rolled her eyes. “I’m not a research scientist so I don’t know for sure. I just know what they have told me. Avoid being bitten and avoid getting blood in any cuts, eyes or in your mouth.”

Nadia giggled. “It is not that simple. The body has to be under stress in order to create a vampire.”

Laura turned her attention to her. “What do you mean?”

“Either the body has to be bled down and put under stress, or…some kind of outside source of major stress put on the body and
then
the vampire blood introduced. You cannot simply introduce vampire blood to a healthy human body and turn it into vampiri. Otherwise, what would stop a vampire from bleeding out into a local human water source?”

Laura thought about that a moment. “Wait a m
oment…but…that very thing happened once.”

Nadia shot her a questioning look. “What? When? How could this have happened?”

“A very long time ago. One of our hunters…he came from a very small border village. A group of vampires hit the village and killed a lot of the residents. One of the vampires ended up falling into the town well and bled out. The few survivors drank from the well and…well, they were turned. They had to be destroyed.”

Nadia thought for a moment. “So, the town was ravaged by vampires and people were hurt? Then a wounded vampire sought refuge from the sun in the town well and bled into it, the people drank from it and they in turn, were turned into vampiri? Yes?”

“More or less, yeah. So, if it doesn’t work that way…”

“The people were placed under a unique stress with the a
ttack? Some, if not all were injured in the attack? And then they drank from this well?” she asked.

Laura began to understand. And this made more sense why Hank and the small handful of residents who didn’t turn…who probably
also
drank from the same well, were safe from the effects. “So there has to be a major stressor, or injury
before
the virus is introduced to the human host?”

“Yes,” Nadia said, “and it comes from the blood, not from the mouth.”

“The virus in the mouth is different?”

“Very different,” Nadia explained. “The one on the mouth…it is more like a drug. It makes the person not care that it is being fed upon. It kills the pain of the bite. It makes you feel happy, content, and in many cases quite sexually fulfilled,” she said with a smile.