Days Of Perdition: Voodoo Plague Book 6 (8 page)

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!”

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.

Their delay in reacting was what I expected.  Letting the
momentum of my attack carry me I spun an elbow into the temple of the guy on my
right and he dropped like a marionette without the strings.  The third guy
grabbed my arm as shouts of alarm came from the group in the hall.  I turned
into his grasp and crashed my forehead into the bridge of his nose, sending him
sprawling to the tile floor.

I turned to meet the charge from the hall just in time to
absorb a flying tackle from the first cop through the door.  He wasn’t as big
as the first three I’d already put down, but he hit me squarely in the chest
with his shoulder and drove me back onto the large table in the middle of the
room, arms locked around my mid-section.

Up to that point Dog had obeyed and stayed out of the
fracas, but seeing me tackled was more than he could take.  The cop screamed
when Dog clamped down on his leg and began dragging him off of me.  When his
grip loosened I hit him in the face three times, fast and hard, then he was on
the floor holding his face and moaning as the rest of the squad flooded the
room.

As I scrambled back to my feet I saw the first Taser raised
and heard the pop when it fired.  The darts couldn’t penetrate my vest and I
reached for the cop who had fired the device but never got my hands on him. 
There were now eight more Security Forces pushing in on me and two more Tasers
fired, one of them finding exposed skin on my right arm.

The jolt of electricity hurt like hell and made my head
spin, but I was able to grab the wires leading from the barbs embedded in my
skin back to the battery pack in the butt of the Taser, ripping them loose. 
The current stopped surging through my body, but the jolt had slowed me.  Four
of them charged in, trying to bury me under their mass.

I was ready for them, jumping back to clamber across the
table and open some space, but the table must have been weakened when I was first
tackled onto it.  This time it collapsed, dropping me flat on my back with four
cops piled on top of me.  I could hear Dog’s snarls then a yelp of pain and I fought
harder, gouging an eye, squeezing a pair of balls hard enough to feel one of
them pop, but more cops rushed in and the fight went out of me when a handheld
Taser was pressed against my neck and triggered until I couldn’t move.