Fulcrum: V Plague Book 12 (15 page)

 We stood in shock, staring at the impossibly massive
plume of water pouring through the gaping hole in the top of the dam.  A
heavy mist was created as it rushed past the shattered concrete and fell 700
feet to the canyon floor.  That mist quickly soaked us to the skin, as if
we were out in a pouring rain.

I could hear the Yak fighter, circling overhead, but at the
moment knew that we were safe.  There was so much water vapor saturating
the air all around the dam, there was no way he could see us.  Not even
with thermal imaging.  For the moment, we were safe.

The roar of the lake emptying itself was tremendous, and the
ground vibrated from the impact of millions of tons of water as it struck the
rocks below.  The sound was intense, completely enveloping us in its
embrace.  It was mesmerizing, watching the raw power of the water.

Tiffany was crying, and started to move closer to the dam,
but Rachel grabbed her and pulled her into her arms.  There was another
crack, loud enough to be heard over the pounding roar.  I couldn’t see
anything through the heavy mist, but suspected another piece of the top of the
dam had been torn away by the unimaginable force of the water. 

I looked up as the Russian jet screamed overhead again, sounding
much lower this time.  He was trying to find another target.  We were
still in the cloud of mist, getting a steady drenching, but I urged the girls
into a run, wanting to reach some cover before he decided to start blindly
shooting up the whole area.

“Are here?”  Igor’s voice over the radio startled me.

Rachel also had a radio earpiece, and by the look of
surprise on her face I could tell she’d heard the transmission.

“Igor!  You big Russian bastard!  You’re
OK?”  I shouted as we ran.

“Da.  Who with you?”

“Sam didn’t make it.  He was on the section that broke
free.  Is Long with you?”

“Nyet.  No.  Sam lead.  Long follow.  I
no see Sam go over.  Dam broke right in front me after missile strike.  Long
and Humvee fall.  I stop and go reverse.”

By now we had reached the relative safety of a jumble of
massive boulders that overlooked the road leading to the dam.  We worked
our way in, and I looked up involuntarily as the Yak fighter passed overhead
again.  At least I think it was the same jet.  Maybe there was a
whole squadron of them up there.  I looked around to see Rachel telling
Tiffany that Igor had survived.

“Ask him who’s with him!”  Tiffany cried, hope blooming
on her face.

“Igor.  Who do you have with you?”

“Caleb, Chelsea, and girl name Sara.  Who with you?”

Tiffany slumped against a boulder in relief when Rachel told
her who else had made it.

“Rachel, Dog and Tiffany,” I answered.  “What’s your
status?”

“Vehicle good.  Not injured.  What we do?”

“We wait for that goddamn jet to leave.  After that, I
don’t know yet.  Stand by.”

I thought about his question for a minute.  Lake Mead
was huge, stretching for more than forty miles to the east and north.  Then
there was a little thing called the Grand Canyon.  It would take days,
probably close to a week with current conditions, for him to circle around and
reach our location.

The Yak flew over again, the bellow of its engines loud,
echoing in the canyon.  Amazingly, it was clearly audible even above the all-enveloping
rumble of water pouring out of the lake.

“What the hell happened?”  Rachel asked, pushing wet
hair out of her eyes.

“Goddamn Russian fighter,” I said, pointing at the
sky.  “Fucker put a couple of missiles into the dam.  It sounded like
it was in trouble, and those munitions just finished it off.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Hold on,” I said, cocking my head to listen. 

The roar of the water was loud, but I could no longer hear
jet engines.  Maybe the pilot had gained altitude or moved into a wider
orbit.  Or maybe, if luck was with us, he was low on fuel and had been
forced to head home.

“Igor,” I called on the radio.  “Can you hear the
fighter?”

“Nyet,” he replied after almost a minute.  “Think he
gone.”

“OK.  Get your ass back to where we came from. 
He’ll be back, or he’s put out a radio call, and others will be coming.”

“What you do?  I come to you!”  

“You can’t,” I said.

He was quiet for a long pause.  I stood there and
stared at the water still pouring over the dam.  Thinking.  Glancing
to my right, I checked the level of the lake.  Despite how much had
already rushed through the breach, it wasn’t noticeably lower.  Of course,
there was so much water in the reservoir, it would take a long time for enough
to drain out to have a significant impact.

“Negative, Igor.  Get out of the area as fast as you
can before more fighters or helicopters show up.  There’s no way for you
to get to me with the flooding.”

“What you do?”  He repeated.

Turning around, I checked the parking lot where tourists
would leave their cars when visiting the dam.  It was empty.  Closer
was a secured area where employees could park, but the fence had been torn down,
and there weren’t any vehicles in the lot.  Rachel, hearing both sides of
the conversation with Igor, was watching me expectantly.

“We’re stuck,” I said to Rachel after several minutes. 
“This is a damn big, desolate part of the southwest.  It’s been a few
years since I’ve driven between Phoenix and Vegas, but there’s only one
road.  The one we’re standing on.  And it’s at least 30 miles south
before there’s a goddamn thing other than rocks and cactus.”

“So what’s there?  We can walk 30 miles in a few hours.”

“Tiny little wide spot in the road,” I said.  “Can’t
even remember the name.  Nothing but a gas station and a few mobile
homes.  I do remember that it’s the only place to get gas for a long way
in either direction.”

“Igor,” I said into the radio.

“I here.”

“We’re walking.  There’s a small town to the south. 
We’ll pick up a vehicle there and continue on.”

He was quiet for several seconds, and I suspected he didn’t
like having to turn around any more than I would have.

“I go south.  Follow river.”

“Negative,” I said, shaking my head.  “Listen to
me.  You need to return to where we left the others.  The only way
around the flooding would be to go west to the coast, then turn south. 
That’s a lot of heavily populated area.  Probably lots of infected.”

The southern California coast was pretty much one big metropolis
from Santa Barbara, through LA and San Diego to the Mexican border.  And
just on the other side of that border was Tijuana, which had a population of
nearly two million before the attacks.  No, there was no way anyone was
going to make it through all of that mess.

“Da,” he said resignedly, after a very long pause.  “We
go back.  Dos Vedanya.”

“Be careful and good luck,” I said, wishing there was a way
to get him across the canyon.

I turned and looked at my companions.  Rachel was
watching me, through tangled, dripping hair.  Tiffany was seated on a wet rock,
her arms wrapped around Dog’s thick neck.  His head was lowered and
pressed against her chest as she hugged him close. 

The earlier relief over the news that Caleb was alive had
been replaced with tears.  I was sure she was thinking about her teammates
that had been lost.  At the moment, I would have been happy to sit down
and hug Dog, too.  Lose myself for a while in mourning over the loss of
Katie, Sam and Long and the girls.  But I didn’t have that luxury. 
Maybe once I’d exacted vengeance from Barinov.

“Time to move,” I said to Tiffany.

“Where?”  She looked up without releasing Dog.

“We’re walking south.  There’s a small town, and I hope
we can find a car.”

“What if the Russians show up?”  Rachel asked,
standing.

“I don’t think they’re going to be worried about three
people walking across the desert,” I said, hoping I was right.  “They
probably spotted the Humvees and attacked because they’re US military
vehicles.”

“If you’re wrong?”  Tiffany asked.

I looked at her and shook my head.  On foot, in open
terrain, there would be nothing we could do if Russian aircraft took an
interest in us.  But we couldn’t stay where we were.  Finally, I
shrugged and gestured towards the road.  Slowly, she removed her arms from
Dog’s neck, sniffed and wiped her eyes.  Without another word, she stood
up and followed as I led the way.

We’d been walking for a couple of hours, and none of us were
in the mood for conversation.  I was setting a fast pace, one I hoped was
averaging out to about five miles an hour.  The farther we got from the
dam, the better I was feeling.  Not that an aircraft couldn’t easily range
the few miles we’d covered and find us, but if the Russians were coming back, I
strongly suspected they’d be looking for vehicles.

Still, I kept a sharp ear out for the sounds of approaching aircraft. 
I’d already prepared the girls on what to do if I heard one.  On either
side of the road was open desert with large tracts of barren desert between occasional
outcroppings of rock.  If I gave the word, we were going to do our best to
burrow into the sand, hoping it would block enough of our heat signature from
Russian thermal imaging that we would be overlooked.  It was a desperate
measure, and probably wouldn’t work, but it was all I had.

It was still dark, which was a good thing.  Even though
it was well into fall, it could still get very warm in the Arizona deserts. 
We didn’t have any water or food, or much of anything for that matter. 
Our packs had been in the Humvees, along with all of our provisions and medical
supplies.  And spare ammo, which was another concern.  After the
battle with the females, I was down to two full magazines and a partial. 
Rachel had less than two, and Tiffany only had ten rounds total.  We
weren’t in good shape if we had to fight.

The only good news was that none of us were burdened with
the weight of a pack, and we were making good time.  Getting to a vehicle quickly
was a very real concern.  The clock was ticking for the pilot, and now for
us.  We had to worry about the enemy returning.  And getting caught
out in the middle of the day with no shelter and nothing to drink. 

The night was cool, and we were doing OK without water,
though I’d have loved a tall, cold beer about now.  A real beer.  Ice
cold with a nice golden glow and a frothy head.  None of this bohemian,
hipster micro-brew shit that had become so popular.  Or the flavored crap
like blueberry or, God help me here, root beer.  What the hell was wrong
with a beer that tasted like beer?  That made you spit it out when you
were a teenager and got your first taste?  You want fruity flavors, buy a
goddamn soda pop. 

“How much farther is it?”  Tiffany asked.

Her question startled me out of my thoughts.  Maybe
thinking about beer wasn’t the most productive use of my mind, but it beat the
hell out of dwelling on the deaths of people I cared about.  I’d been down
that road before and knew it wasn’t a good thing to keep thinking about. 
Sure, I will always remember the people I’ve lost.  But concentrating on
them is distracting, and will eventually result in compromised decision making because
you’re afraid of losing someone else.

That’s fine, if you’re not a Soldier.  I suppose it’s good,
in fact.  But when you’re in combat, the lower risk decision is rarely the
correct one.  Things have to be done, and if you’re all knotted up
worrying about sending someone into harm’s way, you’re not doing your job as a
leader.

“Something like 20 miles,” I answered.  “Maybe another
four or five hours.”

Despite the toughness the young woman had already displayed,
I expected her to complain.  Whine that she was tired, or her feet hurt,
or she was hungry or thirsty.  She didn’t do any of that.  Simply
nodded and kept plodding right along, matching me stride for stride with her
much shorter legs.

Rachel was on the far side of her, and she met my eyes with
a grin.  That little smirk conveyed her message perfectly.  I smiled
at her and turned back to the front, scanning across the barren landscape for
threats.  I saw nothing other than a perfectly straight ribbon of asphalt
and empty desert.  Dog walked beside me, ears at full mast and nose in the
air as he, too, kept watch.

Starting to think about beer again, I forced myself to focus
on the situation at hand.  If there wasn’t a vehicle in the little town
ahead, we were pretty much screwed.  There were a couple more, tiny
outposts of civilization farther south, but the closest one was at least
another forty miles beyond our destination.  Probably even farther, as I
hadn’t driven this highway in a long time and was working off of memory. 
The map had been in the Humvee Sam was driving.

But I had to think positively.  There would be a
vehicle in the first town we reached, and it would have gas.  And I’d be
able to get it started.  I regretted not having taken the opportunity to
have Long teach me how to hotwire a car.  In the end, it hadn’t been
exactly difficult to start the Ford truck Rachel and I had used to escape from
Atlanta, but I also knew I’d gotten lucky.  It was a several generation
old model and didn’t have any built in anti-theft features. 

Moving past those concerns, I thought about the route we’d
take to get to the pilot.  I knew the area well enough not to need a map. 
It was fairly straightforward, and the only part of it that concerned me was
skirting the Phoenix metropolitan area.  Maybe it would be free of
infected, or it could be overrun.  Only one way to find out.

Then I remembered that we’d pass very close to Luke Air
Force Base on the west side of the city.  Whatever we found that would get
us that far, we could make a stop and switch to another Humvee, and hopefully,
replenish the ammo and supplies that we’d lost.  Thinking about the air
base, another idea occurred to me.

“Tiffany, you don’t know how to fly a plane, do you?”

At this point, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d said
she was a pilot and could fly anything in the Air Force inventory.  But, I
never get that lucky.  She just looked at me and shook her head.

We kept walking.  One foot in front of the other. 
Maintaining our pace, and ignoring the complaints from our knees and
ankles.  Well, at least mine were complaining.  I had no idea about Rachel
and figured Tiffany was too young to have joint problems.  Regardless, I
sucked it up and walked.

Half a mile later, I came to a sudden stop and held up my
hand to tell the girls to remain quiet.  Turning my head from side to
side, I was able to hear the occasional roar of a jet engine.  It was
distant, fading in and out as the plane changed perspective to my
position. 

Closing my eyes, I focused on the noise.  It was coming
from the direction of the dam and sounded like at least two different aircraft
were in an orbit.  More jets had probably arrived and were searching.

“Russians?”  Rachel asked, moving next to me and
staring to the north.

“Has to be,” I said, looking to my left at the desert
floor.  “Let’s get ready, in case they come this way.”

We moved onto the sand, each of us using our hands to scoop
out holes in the shape of shallow graves.  If the Russian fighters began
approaching, we’d lay down in them and cover our bodies as best we could. 
I wasn’t worried about Dog.  If they saw him on thermal, he’d look just
like a coyote and wouldn’t draw any attention.

The holes were dug quickly, and we each got on our knees,
ready to dive into them as we listened.  It seemed like it took forever,
but eventually the noise of the jets faded away.  It happened slowly, as
if they were incrementally moving their search towards Vegas.  I hoped
Igor was driving like hell and could avoid the militia.  And, even though
they were Americans, part of me hoped the Russian fighters spotted the
militia.  They’d almost certainly take out all of their vehicles at a
minimum.

When several minutes had passed without me hearing the
fighters, I got to my feet and headed for the pavement.  Before I could
reach the edge of the road, the beat of a helicopter rotor caught my
attention.  I whirled around and scanned in the direction of the sound,
but couldn’t spot anything.  Listening for a moment, I dashed for the hole
I’d dug when I realized the noise was coming closer.

“In your hole!  Pull sand over your body, just like we
talked about!”

I shouted as I flopped onto my back and began using my arms
to sweep piles of sand on top of myself.  Dog, thinking it was a game, came
and stood over my face.  I had to push him away when he kept trying to
lick me. 

Quickly covered in several inches of sand from the chest
down, I craned my neck and checked on Rachel and Tiffany.  They were both
concealed as well as I was, and I lay my head back and shoveled some more until
I was buried to my neck, then lay still.  The rotor was still approaching,
apparently following the road we had been walking on, transiting from north to
south.

As it drew closer, Dog came back to stand over my head. 
The view was less than pleasant as I stared up.

“Dog, so help me, you piss on my head and I’ll cut your
balls off,” I said.

He turned and stuck his nose in my face, gave me a big, wet
lick then lay down and plopped a big paw onto my forehead.  Worming an arm
free of the sand, I moved it off my face, scratched his neck briefly then put
it back under cover.

The rotor was growing loud, and I could now tell there were
two helos coming our way.  From the sound of them, both were Hinds, which
was to be expected. 

“What do we do if they see us?”  Tiffany called.

“Stay behind him and do what he says,” Rachel answered
before I could speak, and there wasn’t anything I could add to that.

A minute later a pair of Mi-24s passed directly
overhead.  They were no more than 500 feet above the ground, and I got a
good look at them through the night vision.  They didn’t slow or deviate
from their course, going right by and continuing south.  I let out a sigh
once they were another mile down the road.

“Stay put,” I said to the girls.  “They may turn back.”

There was no response, but they didn’t get up.  We
stayed where we were, buried in the sand as the Russians flew far enough south
to pass out of earshot.  I didn’t think they’d go much farther.   This
had to feel like a futile search to the pilots, and I decided to give them ten more
minutes before moving.  Time was nearly expired when I picked up the sound
of their rotors again.  They were coming back.

“They’re coming back!”  Tiffany said, panic in her
voice.

“It’s OK,” I said, calmly.  “They’re in a search
pattern.  They’ve gone as far south as they’re going to, now they’re
heading back north.  Nothing to worry about.”

I don’t know if I made her feel any better, but she didn’t
say anything else.  Fortunately, I was right.  A few minutes later
they passed overhead again, heading north.  This time, they were much
higher and moving faster, apparently bored with searching an empty road and
ready to head home.  The only question I was left with was, where the hell
were they operating out of?

Dismissing that thought, I climbed out of the hole and
started shaking sand out of my clothing.  Rachel and Tiffany followed suit,
without saying anything, and we quickly resumed our southerly trek.

Two more hours passed in silence.  Nothing but the
sounds of our feet on the asphalt and Dog’s soft panting.  The temperature
suddenly dropped noticeably, going from cool to downright chilly.  I knew
this meant the sun would be rising soon, and glanced over my left shoulder to
the east.

The sky was just perceptibly lighter than it was directly
overhead.  We had maybe another forty minutes before the sun peeked over
the mountain tops.  When it did, the temperature was going to go up fast.

I wasn’t really sure what month it was, but knew North
America had settled into late fall/early winter.  I tried to figure that
out for a few minutes before giving up.  Maybe Chelsea, with her
mathematical mind, could tell me, but I’d been too busy running and fighting to
worry about what the date was.  All I knew, with any degree of certainty,
was that it had been early summer when the attacks occurred.

Trying to figure out the timeline based on everything that
had occurred since turned out to be an exercise in futility.  I finally
gave up and guessed it was somewhere around late November.  That made me
think of a Thanksgiving meal, and my stomach rumbled long and loud. 
Tiffany looked at me and giggled.  I made a face at her, seeing Rachel
shake her head from the corner of my eye.

Even though it wasn’t summer, the daytime temperatures in
the open desert can easily reach 90 degrees Fahrenheit.  If we were out in
the sun for any extended period, the lack of water was going to become a serious
problem.  But that shouldn’t happen, I reminded myself.  We had been
walking for over four hours, and must have already covered 20 miles.  That
left ten to go, with less than that by sunrise.  As long as we didn’t have
to keep going to the next town, or get stalled hiding from Russians, we’d be
fine.

Realizing I’d fallen into a near trance as I walked, I
silently cursed myself and took a long look at our surroundings. 
Everything looked exactly the same as it had since we’d left the dam.  Sun
blasted, barren desert.  Not even a bush visible within the range of my
night vision goggles.

“Where do you think all those females came from?” 
Rachel broke the silence.

“Probably Boulder City,” I said after thinking about it for
a minute.  “It’s a town that sprang up for the workers who built the
dam.  Not a big place, but the only population center in the area that I
can think of.”

“How’d they know we were there?”  Tiffany asked.

“They have hearing like a bat,” I said.  “Most likely
the noise of the vehicles as we drove in.  We were moving faster than they
can, but once we’d been stopped for a while, they caught up.”

Tiffany and Rachel came to a stop when a high pitched howl
floated across the night air from somewhere to our right.  Dog’s head
snapped in that direction, but he didn’t react in any other way.  When I
realized he and I were walking alone, I stopped and turned around.