Transmission: Voodoo Plague Book 5 (5 page)

Rachel tried the key a second time, but there was no
response from the starter no matter how hard she turned it.  Turning the
ignition back to the off position, she pulled the key out and reversed it,
reinserted and turned.  Still nothing.  The dash wasn’t even lighting up.  She
sat back in the seat and stared at the gauges, finally pounding the steering
wheel in frustration. 

She didn’t know what to do.  Getting out and opening the
hood wouldn’t help her unless there was something incredibly obvious that was
causing the problem.  Something as obvious as a part dangling in front of her
face with a flashing sign hanging from it saying “I’m causing all the
problems.” 

“Shit!”  She muttered under her breath, leaned down and
pulled the hood release lever. 

The hood popped up a couple of inches and she climbed down,
Dog hopping out behind her to see what was going on.  Rachel lifted the hood
and peered into the dirty engine compartment.  Never one to care about cars, other
than as transportation that was supposed to work when you needed it, she had no
idea what to check. 

She knew that cars needed electricity to start and run, and
decided the best idea was to check every wire she could find.  The Bronco had
been working just fine, so she suspected something had simply vibrated loose. 
If she could just find the right wire, she felt confident she could reconnect
it and fix the truck.

Rachel spent twenty minutes identifying and tracing wiring. 
But every wire she found appeared to be solidly connected, or disappeared into
a piece of the engine that she had no idea what function it performed.  She
gave it another ten minutes, then decided to try the ignition again.  Not
bothering to climb back behind the wheel, she reached in and turned the key. 
The vehicle was still completely dead.

Slamming the door, she turned and surveyed her
surroundings.  There was some heavy construction equipment that had apparently
been used to dig the trench that had saved her from the tornado, and the same
vehicles she had checked earlier when she found the Bronco were still sitting
where they had been.  The only possibility was the Mercedes.  It hadn’t had
keys in the ignition when she’d checked it, but maybe they were somewhere
inside the vehicle.

Walking over, she opened the door and started searching. 
Looked under the seats, in the center console, the glove compartment, pockets
molded into the doors.  She didn’t find them.  Frustration growing, she slammed
the door and kicked it, leaving a large dent. 

Looking around again she thought about trying to get one of
the pieces of construction equipment started and use it to drag the truck out
of the ditch.  Once she got it back to ground level it wouldn’t be difficult to
get Jackson’s body out of the cab, and she knew the keys were still in the
ignition.  Then she remembered that the truck was sitting in several feet of
water, and even if she could manage to get it out of the ditch it was most
likely damaged beyond repair.

Frustration was starting to become despair when Dog bumped
her with his muzzle and growled.  Adrenaline surged and she looked in the
direction his nose was pointed, but didn’t see anything.  Regardless, she
wasn’t about to discount his warning.  If he was seeing or smelling something
he didn’t like, she was instantly ready to trust him. 

Not knowing what to do, but certain that standing out in the
open was a bad idea, Rachel hoisted her pack onto her shoulder and ran for the
flooded field where she’d hidden from the car that had passed earlier.  Dog ran
next to her, and in less than a minute they were back on the muddy slope of the
field.  Rachel lay on her stomach, only the top of her head visible above the
edge as she watched the road.

She watched for a long time, but nothing appeared.  A check
of Dog kept her on edge as he was still on high alert, eyes glued to the east. 
Finally, after what she estimated was another five minutes, Rachel saw several
figures materialize on the horizon.  At first they were too far away, but after
another five minutes she could tell they were approaching.

Another five minutes went by, the figures continuing to draw
closer.  They didn’t seem to be in any hurry as they calmly walked down the
middle of the westbound lanes of the Interstate.  Another couple of minutes and
she could tell it was four men.  A minute after that and she could make out the
barrels of their rifles pointing skyward from where they were slung across the
men’s shoulders.

Rachel would have liked to trust them.  To run out and meet
them and ask for their help.  But there wasn’t anything she could think of that
would make her trust a man that was a stranger.  Not after all that she had
seen and what had happened to her.  When they were still about two hundred
yards away from the abandoned Bronco, Dog growled again.

Turning to look in the new direction, Rachel caught her
breath when she saw two large animals moving across the muddy field directly to
the east of her.  She didn’t know what they were, but they were big, and they
were moving fast.  Their destination was the small group of men, and they were
approaching at an angle, behind them.  None of the men had seen them yet.

The animals had heavy front shoulders and big heads.  Even
from a distance, Rachel could see the gleam of white tusks or fangs protruding
from their mouths.  She couldn’t be certain, but each of them looked to be
easily twice the size of Dog, maybe even larger than that.  Fear coursed
through her as she watched the beasts swiftly close on the unsuspecting men. 
They were terrifyingly fast, covering ground at a ferocious rate.  Frozen in
place, Rachel could only watch the attack unfold. 

One of the men walking at the back of the group finally
heard something and looked over his shoulder.  For a second he froze in place,
gawking, then he shouted and started to turn and pull his rifle off his
shoulder.  He never completed the turn, the lead beast charging in with head
lowered.  Reaching the man, it slammed into his legs and using its powerful
neck, slashed upward into his body.

The man screamed as he was torn open from groin to chest,
then the razor sharp tusks hooked on bone and he was lifted into the air and
tossed over the animal’s back.  The second beast, running a few steps behind
the leader, attacked and stomped on him with heavy hooves while slicing open
his throat.

When the first man had shouted the other three had reacted
slowly, looking to see what the commotion was before bothering to unsling their
rifles.  The first animal to arrive still had momentum on his side and slammed
into another of the group, tearing into his body.  Blood jetted from severed
arteries and the animal squealed as it attacked.  Rachel was stunned and
terrified to her core by the speed with which two grown men had just been torn
open and killed.

By now the two surviving men had their rifles up and started
shooting.  The reports from the weapons were deep and loud and Rachel could
tell they were firing a much heavier bullet than she had in her rifle.  Even
with the heavier caliber hunting rifles, neither of the animals went down
easily.  From her vantage point, Rachel didn’t think they went down until they
were shot in the head.   

 Both animals on the ground, the men slowly advanced on
them, rifles aimed and ready to fire if either one twitched.  After a quick
check, one of them slung his rifle and pulled a large revolver.  He fired a
shot into each of the brutish heads from only a couple of feet away.  Rachel
wanted to cheer his actions.  She did not want to see either of these things
get up again.

The two survivors checked on their friends, who were both
apparently already dead.  The men just stood and stared at the bodies.  Rachel
could tell they were talking to each other, but they were too far away for her
to hear anything that was said.  After several minutes, they pulled packs off
the bodies and began rummaging through them, taking several items which were then
stowed in their packs.

Ready to proceed, they took the time to raise their scoped
rifles and start scanning their surroundings.  Rachel ducked below the lip of
the berm she was lying on, making sure Dog was also hidden from their line of
sight.  She gave them plenty of time to check the area before carefully
sticking her head back up.

They had finished their scan and were just walking up to the
Bronco.  Where before they had been walking casually, rifles slung, they now
moved with their weapons in their hands.  Both were constantly checking their
surroundings, frequently looking behind to make sure there were no more
surprise attacks.

“Let’s check that one.”  She clearly heard one of them say
as he gestured at the Mercedes.

They walked over and while one stood guard the other opened
the door.  After checking the ignition he searched the vehicle for the keys,
but didn’t have any more success than Rachel.  Except for the Bronco, all the
other vehicles in the area were obviously disabled.  Rachel had left the hood
up, but that didn’t deter them from checking.

Again, one stood guard as the other opened the door and
leaned inside the vehicle.  Rachel could see him reach in and by the way his
arm moved knew that he had turned the ignition.  He didn’t have any better
luck.  Stepping around the open door he moved to the front and peered under the
hood.

“What the fuck was that, Mike?”  The man on watch said.  The
near panic in his voice was clear to Rachel.

“Don’t know, man.  Never heard of a razorback attacking like
that for no reason.”  Mike reached deep into the engine compartment and grunted
as he applied force to something.  A minute later he straightened up and wiped
his hands on grubby jeans.

Rachel had lived in the southeastern United States all her
life, and while she’d never seen one before, she knew what a razorback was. 
Her dad had hunted them when she was a little girl, and she remembered stories
about how dangerous they were when cornered.  How they could tear open the dogs
used to hunt them with just a single slash of their tusks.  She shuddered and
looked around to make sure there weren’t any racing up on her, even though she
knew Dog would warn her long before she could detect them.

The sound of a starter followed by the rumble of a big
engine snapped Rachel’s head back to the front.  Son of a bitch!  It had taken him
all of a minute to find the problem and fix it, and her transportation was
about to drive away without her.  Did she approach them and ask for a ride? 
Was that less of a risk than being stranded out here with murderous razorbacks
running around?  She couldn’t decide.

They looked OK.  Looked like nothing more than survivors
that were trying to make it to the safety of the west.  Everyone couldn’t be
just looking to hurt their fellow survivors.  Could they?  Rachel lay watching
them, and her indecision became her choice as they got into the Bronco and
drove off to the west without even knowing she was there.  Dog looked back to
the east and growled deep in his chest.

Captain Irina Vostov stood in the shade of the hangar door
and watched as a large crate was loaded into the belly of the giant Antonov
AN-124 cargo plane.  The three American SADMs were well packed inside, the
wooden slats that made up the sides of the crate marked with severe warnings in
Cyrillic against opening or tampering with the contents.  The lid was held in
place with a dozen large screws and tagged with a bright red GRU seal.  If the
warnings on the sides didn’t discourage attempts at petty theft, the GRU tag
certainly would.  Perhaps the SVR, descendent of the KGB, might not fear the
repercussions, but Irina wasn’t worried.  GRU cargo was nearly sacrosanct in
Russia.

Along with her crate were dozens of other shipping
containers that held looted American technology, as well as a couple secured with
Kremlin seals.  She had no doubt these contained luxury goods that had been
taken for President Barinov and his cronies.  All of the crates and shipping
containers loaded and secured, one of the American’s Stealth Hawk helicopters
was slowly wheeled up the ramp by a large tractor.  Its rotor blades had been put
into shipping position, with all of them turned in the same direction to extend
along the length of the aircraft then securely strapped to the tail.

She didn’t understand the reason for taking the helicopter
back to Russia to be disassembled, studied and duplicated.  There were no adversaries
left on the face of the Earth that could ever hope to stand against the Russian
military.  China and all of Asia was dead.  India was dead.  Western Europe
still had some pockets of life, but they were few and far between. 

Despite the best efforts of the Mexicans, Central and South
Americans, the virus had jumped the quarantine zone and spread like wild fire,
stopping only when it reached the southern tip of Argentina.  Other than
Russia, where the vaccine had been widely distributed to the population, only a
few select islands remained untouched.  The largest of these was the island
continent of Australia. 

Early on, almost as soon as the attacks on the United States
had happened, Australia had sealed its borders.  All inbound air and ship
traffic had been turned away.  And so far, it was working.  The land down under
had not had a single case of infection.  What at first had been sharp criticism
of the government for turning away refugees, in one case sinking a boat loaded
with people that refused to reverse course, was now praise.  But Irina knew
that without the vaccine Australia was on borrowed time.  The virus was loose
in the world, and there was no stopping it.

She hoped the American soldier to whom she’d given the
vaccine had made it safely to whatever his destination was, and that the
Americans were even now feverishly producing and distributing the inoculations. 
Time was running out for them.  She’d just seen a report that the Air Force
personnel being held in the local jail were starting to turn.  Only eight of
them so far, but she knew this was just the beginning.  The start of an
unstoppable avalanche.

The helicopter made it fully inside the cavernous interior
of the Antonov and the crew, under the sharp tongued instructions of the loadmaster,
set about securing it for the 6,000 mile journey to Kubinka Air Base just
outside of Moscow.  A flight of 12 Mig fighter jets sat at the end of the
closest runway, waiting for the giant plane to be ready to go.  They would
escort it all the way to Moscow, ensuring that the remnants of the American
military or any of its NATO allies weren’t able to interfere.

When the plane landed at Kubinka, at 0300 local Moscow time,
a GRU Colonel would be there to meet it and take possession of the crate
containing the nukes.  Colonel Alexander Grishin was a childhood friend of her
uncle, and was risking everything to assassinate President Barinov and help
seize control of Russia.  He had already disabled the air base’s radiation
detectors with the help of one of Russia’s most notorious hacker groups.  Once the
bombs were clear of the base, they would re-enable the detectors, and were prepared
to shut down the net that constantly monitored all approaches to, and the
interior of, the Kremlin.

She had spoken with Colonel Grishin via encrypted satellite
phone less than an hour before, and the man had sounded as calm as if he were
talking to her about the weather.  Her nerves were getting to her, and she was
sweating, even though it wasn’t that warm of a day in the high, New Mexico
desert.  Watching the flight crew complete preparations for take off, she
thought about her Uncle’s plan.

One of the nukes would be armed and placed in the trunk of
an official military sedan that would deliver him to a meeting with the president. 
This meeting would be attended by all of the highest ranking military officers
and all members of the Duma, the equivalent of the American’s Congress.  Due to
his rank and status, the vehicle would not be searched, and with the radiation
detectors offline, the bomb would be driven right into the heart of the
Kremlin.  Early in the meeting he would fall ill and excuse himself, returning
to the car where his driver would have disabled the vehicle in a manner that
would appear to be a normal breakdown of the notoriously unreliable Zil
automobiles.

Another car would be called for, his driver telling security
that a maintenance crew would be along presently to retrieve it.  Her uncle and
his driver would depart in the second vehicle, and an hour later a nuclear
detonation equivalent to 1,000 tons of TNT would destroy the Kremlin, President
Barinov and the entire military and political leadership of the country.  So
many things could go wrong with the plan, including Barinov refusing to excuse
her uncle.  If that happened, his driver, a trusted aide, would shut down the
nuke’s timer and they would have to look for another opportunity.

The flight crew was done and the cargo doors now closed. 
The pilot and co-pilot were performing a walk around of the aircraft prior to
takeoff.  They were dwarfed by everything about the plane, even the tires on
the landing gear taller than they were.  Despite their imminent departure with
the crate safely aboard, Irina didn’t budge from where she stood.  The sharp
burning pain from the bullet wound in her leg gnawed at her, but she stoically
endured it.  She was a Russian and could proudly handle pain.  Once the plane
was in the air and she could no longer see it, she would alert Colonel Grishin
that it was on the way.  Only then would she leave the hangar and get some much
needed rest.