Red Hammer: Voodoo Plague Book 4 (11 page)

An hour later Jackson climbed aboard an idling Black Hawk on
the tarmac at West Memphis airport.  The helicopter was already stuffed with
Rangers, and four others equally full were ready to go.  Crawford climbed in
behind him, taking the small, folding jump seat attached to the forward
bulkhead that had been left open for him.

“Let’s go.”  He said over the intercom as soon as he pulled
a headset on. 

In a coordinated ballet, the five helicopters lifted into
the air and turned to the southwest, quickly accelerating as they climbed to 500
feet.  Four Apaches flew cover at 1,500 feet, keeping an eye out for any
Russians that might want to crash the party.  One of the Rangers, a young
Corporal, was fiddling with an iPod and nodding his head to whatever music he
was listening to.  Crawford looked around, found a spare intercom cable and
after getting the Ranger’s attention handed it to him with a nod.  The Corporal
grinned, unplugged his headphones and inserted the cable into the jack.  A
moment later Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones blasted across the intercom,
the pilot flipping a switch that also played it over speakers inside the
cabin.  Having expected rap, or anything other than a 50 year old song by The
Stones, Crawford smiled and enjoyed being in the company of his soldiers.

After he had shot the first man, the other three were so
eager to talk they kept stumbling over their words.  It turned out they weren’t
really Sheriff’s deputies, but had taken the vehicles when the world fell
apart.  They were part of a white supremacist group that had settled in
Arkansas a few years ago after having been run out of Kentucky.  Their leader
claimed to be related to Hitler and routinely preached that someday they would
rise and join forces with all the other white men to rid their country of its
racial stain. 

Until the attacks they’d been held in check by law
enforcement to a degree, as well as the disdain of whatever community they
found themselves in.  They supported their quest by dealing drugs stolen from
pharmacies, sometimes breaking in after closing time, but more often through
violent, armed robberies.  They stayed in touch with other fanatical
organizations as well as outlaw motorcycle clubs, moving guns, drugs and
underage prostitutes along the interstate system in the southeastern United
States.  All of them had done time in prison and were members of the Aryan
Brotherhood.

Now, after the apocalypse, they were two dozen heavily armed
men living in an isolated compound on the edge of Arkansas rice country. 
Seeing the vacuum of authority, and taking it as an omen, their leader decided
it was time to start cleansing the countryside of impure races.  The first victims
were blacks, taken to work as slaves in their fields and animal pens.  If
someone was too old, too young or too sick to work they executed them.  With a
good number of slaves, they had decided to branch out and start taking white
women so they could start building the next generation of the master race. 
With none of them having an IQ greater than double digits, they all failed to
see the flaw in that plan.  But while they may not have been very smart, they
were very dangerous.

It was late afternoon, the flight of helicopters flying west
into the sun.  With help from the prisoners, Crawford and Jackson had located
the compound, sending a Black Hawk on a reconnaissance flight to confirm.  The
pilot had flown at 12,000 feet, using the onboard imaging equipment to verify
their target.  The video stream had been beamed back to West Memphis, clearly
showing three large structures, a barn, fields, and close to 40 people working
out in the hot sun.  Zoomed images identified the workers as black, heavily
armed guards standing watch over them as they toiled.

Crawford hadn’t even had to think about the decision to go
get the captives.  The government might be gone, but this was still the United
States and he wasn’t about to let assholes like this get away with what they
were doing.  He had briefly wondered if he would have been as incensed if this
was happening in another country, but dismissed the thought.  Like most men who
are drawn to the military, and especially any form of Special Operations, he
had no tolerance for people who forced their will on others.  These guys were
about to find out what happens when you try to do that.

The flight continued on to the west, past the target,
turning and approaching from out of the sun.  This wasn’t a military enemy that
would have early warning radar or IR sensors, these were just a bunch of dumb
white trash morons.  The only tactical advantage Crawford needed was to not be
seen until they started their attack runs. 

“Five minutes, Colonel,”  The pilot spoke over the intercom,
the music being silenced when he pressed the transmit button.  Jackson waved at
the Ranger and he unhooked the iPod and carefully wrapped it in a towel before
storing it in his pack.  He might be able to walk into any abandoned
electronics store and pick up a replacement, but it wasn’t so easy to download
music any longer.

The Rangers busied themselves with a final check of their
weapons.  The five Black Hawks shifted into a pattern where they flew abreast
of each other, spread out across half a mile of air space, Apaches setting up a
five mile picket line around them.  The helicopter Jackson was riding in had
two door guns mounted, and both door gunners slid the side doors open, settled
in behind their weapons and waited.  They had thrown the attack plan together
quickly, but it didn’t need to be complicated.  Everyone knew what they were
doing, and they knew the situation hadn’t changed, still getting a real time
video feed from the Black Hawk that was orbiting at 12,000 feet.

“Commencing run.”  The pilot spoke, the vibration already
increasing as they accelerated and dropped to 100 feet.  Ahead, a large square
plot of land, growing corn, was being worked by a dozen men and women.  On each
corner of the square, a man with a rifle stood guarding them.  To the left,
another field was being worked by close to 20 people, another four guards
positioned to watch them.  Beyond them, a few black men were working on some
vehicles, being watched by a group of six armed white men that sat on chairs in
the shade underneath a large Oak tree.  There were supposed to be 20 Aryans and
counting the four that had ambushed Rachel, they had accounted for 18 of them.

“Weapons free.”  Crawford spoke as they screamed towards the
compound.

The first shot of the battle was a hellfire missile targeted
on the base of the tree where the six men sat.  As it roared off its pylon,
door gunners on all five Black Hawks opened up.  The missile arrived before the
first bullet, smashing into one of the men a fraction of a second before detonating
against the trunk of the tree.  The resulting explosion destroyed everything
within a 30 yard radius, shattering the tree trunk and sending it toppling to
the ground. 

There was a mix of miniguns and 7.62 mm machine guns mounted
on the five aircraft, and as all of them opened up, the guards along the two
fields were shredded.  The ones struck by the machine gun fire had limbs blown
off and holes blasted through their bodies.  The ones hit by minigun fire
mostly vaporized into a pinkish mist.  In less than 20 seconds they had wiped
out all of the guards that were visible.  The people in the fields stood and
stared up at the helicopters, some of them cheering as it was obvious they were
being rescued.

Jackson’s Black Hawk was the first to land on the hard
packed dirt in front of the main house, the pilot coming in over the roof of
the structure and dropping the final 30 feet to the ground.  The door gunners
scanned the area while Crawford, Jackson and the Rangers leapt out of the open
doors and started spreading out.  Jackson had argued with the Colonel, not
wanting him to be on the ground until he and the soldiers had cleared the area,
but Crawford overruled him. 

“You don’t lead from the safety of a hovering helicopter,
Master Sergeant.”  He’d responded, putting an end to the discussion.

As soon as the last soldier exited the aircraft it roared
back into the sky, two more landing and disgorging their loads.  Directly ahead
of Jackson was a large house that was in dire need of maintenance, the paint
peeling so badly the wooden siding was warping away from the frame due to
exposure to the elements.  A sagging porch ran the length of the front of the
house, its roof seemingly ready to collapse at the first strong breeze. 
Between them and the house were the vehicles the captive men had been working
on, and Crawford and Jackson ran to them, the two Rangers Jackson had assigned
to protect the Colonel staying close on their heels.

The five men that had been pressed into mechanic duty had
hit the dirt when the missile exploded and took out their guards.  They were
still lying on their bellies, two trucks and an ancient Buick sheltering them
from the heat of the burning oak tree.  Crawford skidded to a stop on his knees
amongst them.

“Gentlemen,” he greeted them with a nod.  “How many of them
are left, and where are they?”

“There’s six of them in the house and two in the barn.”  One
of the younger men spoke up, pointing to the two locations as he named them. 
He was tall and looked like he was in good shape other than an eye that was
swollen shut, a split lip and a large purplish bruise on his jaw.  “And they’ve
got eight women in the house and four in the barn.  Haven’t been inside either
building so I can’t tell you the layout.”  The other men all nodded their heads
in agreement.

Crawford eyed the man for a moment, “You serve, son?”

“Yes, sir.  Lance Corporal James Lynch.  Marine Corps. 
Afghanistan and Iraq.” 

“Good, Marine.  Get these men out to the fields and get
everyone rounded up and down in the weeds.  Don’t want any friendly casualties
if we can help it.”

Lynch grinned and staying low to the ground motioned the
others to follow him as he headed out in a large arc that would get him to the
fields without coming too close to any of the structures.  Crawford glanced
around to make sure all his troops were in place, nodding to himself in
satisfaction when he saw they were.  Three of the five Black Hawks had dropped
Rangers in front of the structures, the other two unloading behind them. 

They had the remaining eight men surrounded.  Six more than
the prisoners had told him about.  He wasn’t surprised.  Fire from one of the
upper windows of the house started up, bullets smashing into the ground around
the men Crawford had just sent to safety.  One of the Rangers who was using the
Buick for cover and a shooting rest fired a single shot, silencing the sniper. 
Seven more to go. 

Jackson and Crawford had a brief conversation, then Jackson
started relaying orders over the radio.  All of the Rangers were already in
place, and on a nod from the Colonel, Jackson transmitted the execute order. 
Covering fire immediately erupted all around the structures, more Rangers
leaping to their feet and running towards their assigned buildings.  They ran
with their rifles up, spread into covering formations with each one aimed at a
different window or door.  Another sniper popped up in the barn, shooting
through a small opening at the end of the loft, but his bullets didn’t find
their target before the same Ranger at the Buick shot him through the throat.

Crawford led the assault on the house, Jackson on the barn. 
They breached each structure within moments of each other, the Rangers on their
heels spreading out as they entered each building.  The Aryans didn’t
surrender, and they didn’t survive very long.  They had spent a lot of time
“training”, but their training consisted of shooting rusting cans at the edge
of one of the fields.  Several of them got shots off, none of those finding
their mark before they were killed.  In less than a minute the assault was
over, all of the captors dead or dying of multiple gunshot wounds.

The Colonel stood in the middle of the main room on the
first floor of the house, looking down at the two men he’d personally killed
while the Rangers brought down the women they’d found locked in bedrooms on the
second floor.  While he waited, Jackson called him on the radio to let him know
the four women in the barn had been executed.  Crawford grimaced, taking the
death of those women personally. 

I was reaching to cut away my main canopy to go after
whoever was still falling when another body flashed past me, head down and arms
tight along the torso.

“Who’s still up?”  I called out on the radio.

“Yee here.  Scott just went after Martinez.  Think she’s
hypoxic.”  He meant she had passed out, probably due to a malfunction of her
oxygen supply.  Scott had cut away from his parachute and was going after her,
trying to save her.

“Steer on me, we’ll try to come down close to them.”  I
answered, pulling on the right toggle to go into a turn and spiral down along
the same path my other two teammates were falling.  I also released my pack,
letting it fall to the end of a long tether and hang below me.  The pack was
close to 70 pounds and would hit the ground ahead of me rather than adding its
weight to the impact my legs would have to absorb if I came down a little too
fast.

In the civilian world, and some military jumps, there’s a
piece of equipment called an Automatic Activation Device or AAD that will take control
and deploy your chute at 750 feet if it’s not already open.  These are commonly
used on equipment drops from high altitude where you don’t want the chute
opening as soon as the pallet goes out the back door of the aircraft.

I don’t like using these, and most of the guys I’ve jumped
with over the years don’t either.  There are reported cases of them
malfunctioning and opening too high, leaving you hanging there like an idiot
when you need to be much lower to maintain a degree of stealth.  AADs have a
built in altimeter, and I always suspected the reports of malfunctions were
actually user error, the jumper having failed to properly set ground level.  Regardless,
none of us had one, and if Scott couldn’t catch her and release her chute very
quickly he would have to deploy his reserve and let her fall to her death. 
Hell of a set of balls on him to do what he was doing.

“Got her!”  A moment later Scott’s voice came over the
radio. 

“Both of you under canopy?”  I asked, meaning did both of
them have their chutes deployed.

“Affirmative.  She’s unconscious.  I’m following her down. 
We’re under 500.  Will update when we’re on the ground.”

I looked below me, trying to spot them.  It was a dark night
with not much moon for light, the ground dark and the tops of their chutes even
darker.  I couldn’t spot them.  Checking my altimeter I noted I was at 2,000
feet and a quick check of the GPS showed I was several miles off target.  So
much for an easy insertion.

“We’re down.  Showing light now.”  Scott called out.  Normally,
showing any light was a big no-no, but we needed to find them quickly and stay
together.  If we had night vision he could have flashed an IR light at us, but
we didn’t so he did the next best thing and aimed a red lensed flashlight up
into the air and clicked it twice.  I didn’t see it, but Sergeant Yee did. 
Pulling on the toggles to slow my descent I let him get lower so he could lead
me to Scott and Martinez.

A few seconds later our boots were on the ground, both of us
making recruiting video perfect landings in the motionless air.  Quickly
shrugging out of my chute I passed it to Yee who added it to his before piling
rocks on top of both of them.  I had dropped to a knee with my rifle up,
scanning the area with the scope while he concealed our gear.  We planned to be
gone before the sun came up, but in case we weren’t we sure didn’t want to
leave a big sign behind telling the Russians that we had jumped in during the
night.  Rock pile complete, Yee shouldered his pack and raised his rifle.  Shouldering
mine I stood up. 

We had come down within 50 yards of the edge of the mesa. 
There was enough moon and starlight for me to see the sheer drop just to our
left.  That was a little too close for comfort.  I hand signed for Yee to take
point since I still didn’t know where Scott had come down, stepping off once he
had moved ten yards to our right.  Leading the way up a slope, he paused at the
crest to use the night vision in his rifle scope, then disappeared over the
top.  Following, I saw our two teammates below in a shallow depression when I
reached the crest.  Following Yee down, I dropped to a knee next to Scott who
was leaning over Martinez.  Yee stood to the side, surveying the area, a moment
later returning to the crest above us and setting up watch.

Martinez lay on her back, still unconscious.  Scott had
removed her O2 mask and parachute and was busily performing rescue breathing. 
While he worked I checked over her limbs, happy to not find any broken bones. 
Didn’t mean there wasn’t a severe ankle or knee sprain that would hamper her
movements, but we wouldn’t know that until we got her awake and on her feet.

Scott leaned back a minute later, pulled his glove off and
pressed two fingers to her neck.  “Pulse is good.  Finally smoothed out.”  He said
with a note of relief in his voice.  She was also breathing on her own again,
her chest rising and falling regularly without the help Scott had been
providing.

“I know a Colonel that’s convinced I’m crazy.”  I said to
Scott in a quiet voice.  “I need to introduce you to him.  That was some hot
shit, Tech Sergeant.”

Scott flashed a grin, teeth white against the dark makeup
covering his face.  “I just hope she’s ok.  How long do we wait before we wake
her up?”

“We need to know her status, and we need to move before the
sun comes up.  Can’t have a Russian patrol fly over and see us running around
in the daylight.”  I answered.  He nodded and dug through his pack for an
ammonia ampule.  Snapping it open he thrust it under her nose, holding it there
as she regained consciousness and tried to bat his hand away.  She started
moaning and Scott leaned over her, placing his hand lightly on her mouth and
whispering in her ear.

“Contact.”  I heard Yee’s voice over the radio and as I
snapped my head around he fired three shots from his rifle.  They were
suppressed and quiet, but he was only a dozen yards away and they were clearly
audible.  Signing for Scott to stay with Martinez I moved up to the crest,
laying down next to Yee with just my head, shoulders and rifle above the ridge-line. 
Looking through my scope I spotted three bodies in the dirt fifty yards away. 

“Talk to me.”  I mumbled to Yee.

“Three females.  They looked like they were scenting us. 
The one in front had her head tilted back like she was sniffing the air.”  He
sounded a little freaked out and I reminded myself that these three hadn’t
fought the infected face to face yet.

“You sure they were infected?”  I asked, still scanning the
bodies through the scope.

“Yes, sir.  I’m sure.”  Yee sounded like I’d offended him,
but I didn’t give a shit.  I wasn’t worried about the possibility of him having
shot survivors, I just wanted to know for sure if there were infected roaming
around this far away from town.  If he was going to take offense to every question
I asked, he was in for a long night.

“Martinez, ready to move?”  I asked over the radio.  “We’ve
got infected in the area.”

“Coming to you now.”  Scott answered.  A moment later he
suddenly appeared right next to me, Martinez joining him a second later.  She
didn’t look too bad, considering.

“You good to go, Captain?”  I asked her.

“I’m good to go, sir.”

“OK, we are…” I paused to double check my GPS.  “Six point
three miles from our target.  Infected are in the area and we need to move fast
and quiet.  Scott, you’re on point.  Yee, rear security.  I’m on right.  Let’s
move.” 

Scott briefly checked his GPS, then scrambled over the crest
and stood up, moving off at a fast walking pace.  Martinez and I fell in a few
yards behind him.  I was glad to see she hadn’t needed me to spell out that I
wanted her on the left as we moved.  Yee fell in behind us and we headed east
towards town.  Glancing down at the dead infected as he passed them, Scott
pointed at one of the bodies but didn’t break stride.  A few steps behind him I
looked at the body he’d identified as I walked past.  It was a female, and once
upon a time she’d been a Commander in the US Navy.  Lots of work was done on
military projects in Los Alamos and it didn’t surprise me to see the uniform. 
I expected to see more before the night was over.