In Harm's Way (9 page)

Outbreak - Day 8

Schriever AFB Infirmary

Colorado Springs, Colorado

Cade gently opened the door and entered as quietly as possible for a man wearing combat boots. Brook looked like an archeologist working on a dig, perched on a stool, hunched over with her face hovering just inches above Carl’s prostrate body. She was fully immersed in the task at hand. Cade felt guilty for intruding but he had little choice.

Brook looked up from what she was doing. Her eyes smiled when she noticed it was her man standing a few feet away from her. “I’m finished removing the old dressings and now I begin cleaning up Carl’s back,” she said, thinking out loud.

“How bad were his wounds?” Cade asked in a hushed tone as he crept closer to the bed.

“In addition to the broken ankle, I think you only got to see his mangled face yesterday. He was peppered with a back blast of buckshot. I performed field surgery on him outside of Bragg with dime store tweezers. His modeling career is shot, but he’ll be prettier than the zombie that tore into his back. The wounds in his back were deep and got terribly infected.” Brook carefully placed the scalpel on the tray, then buried her head in Cade’s chest. “That effing monster ripped foot long strips of flesh from his back, and to add insult to his injury Carl contracted a flesh-eating virus that put him into the coma and nearly killed him.”

Cade palmed Brook’s head with both hands, savoring her scent, and then kissed her fully on the lips.

An emotional dam broke inside of Brook. Her tiny frame heaved in silence, the sobs absorbed by Cade’s crisp ACUs.

“You two get a room.” Carl’s voice came from underneath the table. “Here I am, down here.”

Cade went to one knee and hiked up the overhanging bed sheet. Carl’s jaundiced eyes peered out from his puffed up pizza face. He was lying on a massage table, stomach down, arms at his side, his ravaged face cradled in the cut out hole.

“Want me to hold a book for you?” Cade joked.

“No... but can you scratch my nose, bro?”

“
Do not
touch his face. The open sores are still very susceptible to infection,” Brook warned with her stern nurse’s voice.

“Cade?”

“Yes Carl?” Cade answered, eagerly awaiting whatever smartass comment Carl was incubating.

“Will you scratch my ass then?” Carl started to laugh before an intense wave of pain extinguished the humor.

“Wash it first,” Cade shot back.

“Boys. Stifle it.” Brook shook the scalpel menacingly at her husband. “Is there something that can’t wait until later? I’m trying to excise some dead flesh here.”

Cade screwed his face up when he was reminded of the spoiled hamburger smell wafting from Carl’s wounds. Then he looked under the table. “Big brother, I owe you for getting my family here. Thanks a million.”

“No need for thanks here. Brook pulled more than her fair share of the weight. I didn’t know my lil sis had it in her,” Carl said admiringly.

Cade suddenly realized he hadn’t seen his daughter in a while. “Honey, where is Raven?”

“She’s with her second mom and no doubt playing with Mike Junior,” Brook answered. She quickly contemplated mentioning Raven’s target practice session but decided it could wait.

“Sweetie, give Raven my love. I have to leave five minutes ago. Desantos is probably kitted out and on the flight line by now,” Cade said, forcing the lump from his throat. The prospect of never seeing Brook or Raven again entered his mind and lingered for a millisecond before he squashed it.

Brook’s mouth tightened. “
Hoo-ah
... I’m a military wife
again
. Stiff upper lip and all that jazz.”

Cade lovingly placed a hand on Brook’s abdomen and locked his steely eyes with her big browns. “Stay frosty. If things go sideways... it will happen very quickly.” He considered revisiting the egress plan he and Brook had agreed on, but opted not to. Based on what Carl had just said--and bolstered by the secondhand stuff he had heard through the grapevine about Brook’s exploits--Cade decided she was mission capable and didn’t need to be micromanaged.

Before Cade was two steps out the door he had begun his ritual of visualization, and in his mind he was already running the mission over and over again.

Outbreak - Day 8

Schriever AFB

Colorado Springs, Colorado

“Great minds still run on the same track, I see,” General Desantos said to Cade as he patted the black SCAR-L dangling from its single point tactical sling.

“I asked the armorer what kit you left with... monkey see, monkey do,” Cade said with a smile. He gave his own SCAR carbine an affectionate rub. “He told me the long guns are already on the birds. Pray tell, do we have an MSR
along for the ride?” Cade had a soft spot for the Remington tack driver. When chambered for the .338 Lapua round it was a versatile sniper rifle that packed a big punch, a great choice if you wanted to reach out and touch someone. The design allowed for quick takedown. And in a pinch, the rifle could be used for CQB (close quarters battle).

“Wyatt... I made you. Therefore I know you. There are two Remington rifles coming along for the ride.” The usually stone-faced Desantos smiled, his white teeth making a rare appearance. Cade thought he looked like a movie star waiting for the director to yell action. All he needed was a cigar and he could have been easily mistaken for Hannibal from the A-Team television show.

“With all due respect, Cowboy, Beeson introduced me to the art of sniping. You introduced me to the teams... for which I will be forever grateful.” Cade looked over his shoulders to make sure they were alone. “I’ve been meaning to say something to you. I cannot thank you enough for what you did for Brook, Raven and my brother-in-law. If you hadn’t intervened, I have a feeling they wouldn’t have made it here from Bragg.”

“Don’t sell the girls short. Annie told me Brook was her rock throughout the entire ordeal.” He paused for a moment and broke eye contact with Cade. “
Good women
picked us, young man,” Desantos said, looking to the distant horizon. “
Good women
.”

***

Desantos drove the four-person golf cart the same way he attacked life: fast and furious. Cade gripped the chicken bar with one hand and the black SCAR with the other. Sergeant First Class “Low-Rider” Lopez and Sergeant Darwin Maddox took up the seats in back. Desantos cut the corner like Al Unser at the Indy 500. Tires squawked as the cart listed on two wheels, forcing the operators to brace themselves to keep from tumbling out onto the tarmac. The General let loose with a loud, out of character rebel yell.

A bevy of flat black helos came into view from behind the southeastern hangars. Cade hadn’t been to this part of the base since he first arrived in Springs with Duncan, Daymon and the young stutter-prone soldier from Camp Williams. On approach he expected, hoped is a better word, to see a bustling triage center full of incoming survivors. However, that wasn’t the case here. He noticed there had been a new addition. Next to the induction center a larger tent was erected inside the jumbo hangar. The nylon roof and walls ruffled gently; there was a natural rhythm to the movement, almost like the structure was alive.

“General, what’s in the big tent? Cade asked.

The cart chirped to a halt. Lopez and Maddox hopped out and began offloading their gear.

“That’s a state of the art laboratory for the good doctors from the CDC. He and his lady colleague have the best equipment the U.S. Army could pilfer for them. Word is they are working on an aggressive antidote that when taken would boost a person’s immune system against Omega as well as an antiserum to be used immediately following infection. This is need to know, the Alpha patient is in that tent,” Desantos said in a hushed tone. “That thing was a mess, Doctor Fuentes was experimenting on him when we came knocking. The worst part: we had to bring the thing back kicking and moaning.”

Lopez, who had been eavesdropping, interrupted. “Easy for you to say General. You didn’t carry that
demonio
up fourteen flights of stairs.”

“Still sore Lopez?” Desantos joked.

“No, but I had to burn my stinking uniform afterward,” Lopez shot back.

“Someone call Batman... he’s missing some toys,” Cade said to the rest of the team. He had just noticed the two sleek Gen-3 helicopters sitting on the flight line in the shadows of the hulking, dual rotor, CH-47D Chinooks. Cade had ridden in one of its predecessors, known as Stealth Hawks, but never in a Ghost Hawk also affectionately called “Jedi Rides” by the Night Stalkers that piloted them. It was the ultimate, super secret, stealth helo that the 160th SOAR would never comment on, let alone admit existed. And here they were, waiting to take him into battle.
Oh well, no one to keep them secret from now
, Cade thought.

The ship’s angular lines married with soft edges made the rotor wing craft look like something out of the distant future. The Ghost Hawks were painted a matte black that Darth Vader would envy.

“Shotgun,” said Lopez.

“Just get in and strap in, Low-Rider,” General Desantos ordered.

“We’re Oscar Mike in five. Saddle up,” Chief Warrant Officer Ari Silver ordered. Ari was the most decorated aviator in the 160th SOAR, and had piloted the Black Hawk that carried Desantos and his D-Boys to the CDC on their recovery mission.

“You heard him, move it. We wouldn’t want to keep the Night Stalkers waiting, now would we?” General Desantos had to raise his voice to be heard as the turbines came to life, belting out a high frequency whine. Although the Ghosts were
extremely
quiet, the engines, combined with the whoosh of the carbon fiber rotor spinning a few feet above their heads, made the flight line a noisy place to communicate.

Cade mounted the closest Ghost Hawk and quickly donned a flight helmet. He strapped into the seat across from Desantos, on the port side of the cabin. Lopez and Maddox sat side by side, their backs against the bulkhead, where they could see the horizon through the cockpit.

The CIA man named Tice took a seat opposite from the door gunner. Nash had introduced the Delta team to the operative shortly before the mission briefing. He wore the same desert tan camo as the operators, but his ACUs were devoid of rank, branch, or unit insignia. Cade’s first impression of the man was typical spook. The CIA specialist was cold, aloof and seemed to think he was better than his peers. Cade didn’t give a shit what the man thought of himself as long as he completed his part of the mission with a modicum of competence. Lastly, the crew chief Hicks entered the helo and took his seat near the mini-gun.

Cade listened in on the chatter between the SOAR aviators.

“Limo
is
a word, Durant. I don’t want to hear about it,” Ari said.

“It’s not a word. It’s an abbreviation of a word,” Durant answered.

Cade wore a confused look on his face.

Desantos noticed the expression and tried to explain the unusual banter between the pilot and co-pilot. “They’re quoting from the movie Black Hawk Down. It’s a ritual they perform before every mission. Our co-pilot Durant was not
the
Durant that went down in Mogadishu in Super Six-Four. Ari started doing it awhile back just to bust his balls.”

Cade shrugged his shoulders.
To each his own
, he thought. Lord knows he used to have rituals. He contemplated asking Desantos more about Tice before remembering that discretion is
usually
the better part of valor.

The helicopter leapt off the tarmac, catching the operators unaware.

“Hoo-ah,” Cade said into the mic. He marveled at the helicopter’s incredible power on takeoff, without the earsplitting, bone-rattling rawness of the standard H-60 Black Hawk.

“This is Jedi One-One. Form up right echelon. Tanker rendezvous in six-zero-mikes,” Ari said into his boom mic.

A chorus of affirmatives replied back from the other Ghost Hawk and the two Chinooks.

Cade smiled inwardly at the call sign, closed his eyes, and ran the mission through his mind for the umpteenth time.

Outbreak - Day 8

Western Side of the Rocky Mountains

The Traveler parked his dusty truck on the shoulder near the backside of the small rise in the road. He climbed out of the Ford, popped his back and neck, and then did a couple of quick squats to get the blood flowing into his lower extremities. The man had driven all night, stopping only to clear wrecks from the road when he couldn’t negotiate the oversized four-wheel drive pickup around them.

***

He had been breaking and entering across two states looking for supplies and trading up for better rides along the way, and he had grown attached to the truck he was driving now. The shiny Black Ford F-650 had been hidden inside a six car garage underneath an enormous mountain chalet in a little town on the western side of the Rocky Mountains. The only thing that stood between him and the truck was the undead owner.

The man had been a real narcissist; his face adorned nearly every wall throughout the entire house. In most of the photos he was wearing a Denver Nuggets uniform and either dunking or passing a basketball. What a mess the seven foot tall, three hundred pound decomposing corpse had made of the inside of the mansion, ambling around and tearing the place apart. The way the Traveler looked at it, the ex-hoopster didn’t need the truck, nor would he ever need the rest of the exotic cars and off-road toys parked in his slick garage. Two rounds from the .45 caliber Kimber and the pink slip was his. The rig had an extra aftermarket fuel tank, six inch lift and the biggest off-road tires he had ever seen on a street legal vehicle.