“All right!” Willie yelled.
“That’s it baby. Keep purring,” Barry said.
He read the instructions once more before turned the lever that would supply power to the building. The generator slowed at first then sped back up. The engine went up and down in RPMs for a few seconds and then leveled out. They could see the lights flicker on in the building.
“You did it.”
“Seems like it.”
“Man. I’m sure glad you knew what to do,” Willie said.
“I didn’t. I have always known one thing. You can’t ever do anything unless you try. Doing something and making a mistake is better than doing nothing at all.”
Willie shook his head in understanding as the words sunk in. He would have to try to be more like that in the future. The others clapped as they came back around the front.
“Shall we go inside and see what’s working?” he suggested.
They filed in and within minutes were looking for food. They found snacks and some warm soft drinks but it was better than nothing at all.
“I think we will have to walk back to the store and see what we can salvage. After we have all eaten we can decide what everyone wants to do,” Henderson said.
“Let the others go get the food. I’ve already done my walking,” Wilson said.
“Mr. Wilson, you can do whatever you like. You can help contribute to the group or go off on your own. It’s totally your choice. I personally am going to make sure that if and when I leave, anyone staying behind is taken care of and has provisions,” Henderson replied.
“Whatever,” Wilson said, stuffing potato chips in his mouth.
CHAPTER TEN
NORAD
“Look, I don’t want you to take any unnecessary chances. If something is wrong, get your butts back in here. We won’t have any way of communicating with you once you go out the ETE,” General Martin said to Colonel Webber.
“We won’t. We have a good selection of fire power and I picked the best we have. We will take a look around and if it looks good we will make our way around to the front blast doors and see what we can do.”
“We may all have to use the ETE if you can’t restore power somehow. We will keep working on it from our end as well.”
“Then I guess we should be going. If we aren’t back in four hours you can assume the worst. I would say you need to stay inside the compound a few more days before you send out another team.”
They were dressed in white biological warfare suits with helmets that had lights built in. The communication devices were not working so they had to resort to hand signals and shouting to be heard.
“Good luck Colonel,” the General yelled with his face close to the helmet of Colonel Webber.
“Thank you General. Men, let’s move out,” he said leading them to the hatch of the ETE.
The door weighed over five hundred pounds and was normally operated hydraulically but since they had only emergency power they had rigged up a chain hoist to lift it open.
The first part was a tunnel that went straight down for several yards. At the bottom was another door that they would have to open as well. That led to a tunnel that ran parallel to the mountain for several yards before making a ninety degree turn. A third door would be the next obstacle and once that was opened they would find a series of sharp bends and double backs until they finally ended up at the last door that would lead to the outside several hundred yards from the main blast doors.
The design seemed disheveled at first but it was designed to reduce any blast that the mountain might take during a nuclear strike. The men climbed down to the first door and it took three of them using a considerable amount of effort to finally get the second door open. Each door seemed to weigh more as the heat in the tunnel began to drain their strength. They were all relived when they got to the last door.
“Men, I have no idea what we are going to find. I want you to lock and load your weapons and take up defensive positions as soon as we open the door. No hero stuff. Let’s just do this by the numbers,” Colonel Webber said.
“Yes Sir,” came the reply. Three men went to work on getting the door open. As soon as they had dislodged it all five came out of the tunnel in the ready position, each pointing in a different direction.
“Clear.”
“Clear.”
“Clear.”
One by one they relayed the information.
“What the hell?” one of them said, looking around.
“Easy son,” The colonel replied.
They were all looking at the sky.
“Colonel,” one of the men said.
“Yes?”
The man pointed at what had once been a row of hedges that bordered the fence that led to the blast door tunnel. The Colonel didn’t reply but kept sweeping the horizon.
“No one is at the gate,” one of them replied.
“Yes. I saw that right off. Go check out the guard shack,” Webber told two of the men.
The rest waited until they returned.
“No one was in the shack. Some strange stuff out front was all we found.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“I don’t know. Like snot.”
The Colonel just looked at him for a second.
“Wilkins?”
“I don’t know Colonel. It was just a big patch of something that looked like green Jell-O or something like that.”
“Snot and Jell-O.”
“Yes sir,” the both replied.
“Come on men. I have to see this for myself.”
They hiked the few hundred yards to the guard station and sure enough it was as they had described.
“Okay. Green snotty Jell-O it is,” he conceded.
They walked through the gate and headed for the tunnel that led to the blast doors. They passed three other spots along the way.
“Hey look. That one has a West Point ring in it,” one of the men observed.
He stopped and reached down to retrieve it. His biological protection suit immediately began to melt where his hands had touched it. He let out a loud scream and started flailing around. The others just looked at him at first, trying to decide if he was pulling some kind of joke. It became apparent that he was in pain when they saw the suit smoking.
“What the hell,” the Colonel exclaimed. “Get him. Find out what happened,” he ordered but none of them sprang into action too quickly.
Finally two of the men grabbed him and pulled him to the ground and held him down while one of the others looked at his hand. His fingers and palm were burnt black and huge blisters had formed.
“His hand is burnt,” the man said.
“Burnt? What the hell did he touch?”
“Some of that stuff,” he said pointing at a splotch where the ring was.
“Don’t anyone else touch it. It must be acid of some kind.”
They all moved back a little further from the patch of goo.
“He’s exposed to the air,” the man looking at his hand reported.
“Nothing we can do about it now,” the Colonel replied.
“God, my hand hurts,” the man said, his voice cracking from pain.
“Hold still. Mike has a first aid kit. He is going to put some burn cream on it.”
“Hurry. It hurts like hell.”
“Mike.”
“I got him,” Mike said and went to work on the man’s blackened hand.
He rinsed it with an antiseptic wash, applied burn cream and loosely wrapped it. There wasn’t much more he could do until they got back inside.
“You men make sure you stay clear of that stuff,” the Colonel said but it wasn’t necessary. Everyone was definitely going to steer clear of any of those patches.
“Can you make it?” Mike asked.
“Got something for pain?”
“Sorry, just aspirin.”
“Shit, I don’t care. I’ll take whatever you got.”
“What about his helmet?”
; “Too late now. He has already been exposed.”
Mike gave him five aspirin and a drink of water before letting him get up.
“They should kick in shortly,” Mike said.
“Thanks man. That hurt like hell.”
“Okay, let’s get moving. Let’s see what’s in the tunnel,” the Colonel said, starting off again toward the main blast doors.
The trip down the tunnel was eerie with only the lights from their helmets. Shadows ran across the floor and along the walls. They could see the giant blast doors gleaming as the light bounced off of them.
“Now what?” one of the men asked.
The Colonel replied, “Form a defensive semi-circle. I want you all facing out at the ready.”
They all looked at each other then went into formation as ordered. The Colonel made sure they were facing away from him before he slid back a thick secret door that had a combination dial lock. He took out a small slip of paper and entered the numbers. A second panel slid back and a lever was inside. It was attached to a heavy counter balance weight inside the door that would unlock the massive bolts in just such an emergency.
Only two people knew about the lever and had the code. The other was General Martin. Webber pulled the lever down but nothing seemed to happen for a few seconds. Then a deep clicking sound echoed through the tunnel followed by two more a few seconds later. The giant door could now be opened by the men. Even with all its weight, the door was so perfectly balanced that two or three men could open it. It really was a marvel of engineering.
“Okay, let’s get this thing open,” he said and the men worked to open it enough so they could get inside. General Martin was standing there when they finally stepped inside.
“You made it with two hours to spare,” he said, smiling.
“Everything checks out. No radiation, no anomalies no chemicals. In fact, other than a few odd things, it looks fairly normal.
“Sir,” one of the men said.
“Oh, right. Get Clark to sick bay and have his hand checked out.”
“What happened to him?” the General asked.
“Got a burn of some kind. Acid or something like it.”
“What did you find?”
“Nothing. And I mean nothing. No guards, no one at all. All the vegetation seems to be gone as well.”
“The vegetation? Why would that be gone?”
“Don’t have a clue. The sky is really strange as well. It’s a dark mass of swirling clouds but not one bit of wind.”
“Do you think it’s safe for us to all go outside?”
“I would give it a couple of hours. See what happens to Clark and the others before we all go out. Clark got exposed to the air. If he checks out okay, it should be safe for the rest.”
“Sounds right. We will wait two more hours before we venture out. Thank you Colonel Webber. You may be a pain in the ass at times but I admire your spirit.”
“Thank you General. I feel the same about you.”
The General looked at him for second and then broke out laughing.
“You’re a corker. Let’s go to my office so we can talk in private.”
“Yes sir. I’ll just get out of this suit and be right over.”
“Good.”
****
Ten minutes later Colonel Webber was back in his uniform standing in front of Martin’s desk.
“Have a seat Colonel.”
“I’m fine sir.”
“Damn it. Sit. I want to have a frank, off the record talk with you Colonel Webber and I can’t do it with you standing there like a statue.”
“Yes sir,” he said and sat down.
“Now. What the hell is really going on out there? Did you see anything to indicate we had been attacked in any way?”
“Not in the usual sense. No blast marks. No obvious damage to structures. The biggest thing is what happened to the personnel. They were somehow turned into an acidy glob of goop, for lack of a better term.”
“You mean no bones or anything?”
“Exactly. Whatever it was seems to have dissolved them. The acid residue was discovered when Corporal Clark reached in to retrieve a West Point ring. It burned through his suit and blackened the fingers on his hand. It was some kind of acid.”
“How was it delivered?”
“I don’t know. Maybe through the air.”
“And nothing else is damaged?”
“No sir. The Hummers, buildings, and cars in the lot all seem fine. Other than no people or vegetation and the weird sky, it would seem normal.”
“I saw the sky. Have you ever encountered anything like that before?”
“Nothing. With all that swirling you would think we would have some wind but we had nothing. In fact, it was strangely calm.”
“So, what do you think happened?” the General asked.
“I have no idea.”
“Really?”
“No sir.”
The General just sat behind his desk looking at the Colonel. He had used the pregnant pause many times as a way of getting subordinates to tell him more.
“General, I don’t think you really want to hear what I think about all of this,” Webber said at last.
“You’re wrong. That is exactly what I want to hear. You already alluded to it in the meeting. Have you changed your mind?”
“No sir. In fact I guess you could say I am more convinced now than ever. No military power could have done this. We have no weapons that I am aware of that could have inflicted this kind of damage. Whatever it was is tied into the anomalies that popped up on our defense grids.”
“What do you think we should do next?”
“Sir, before I would let the others leave, I would send a scout team into town and see what other damage has been done. Maybe just the NORAD complex was targeted. Everything further away may still be just fine.”
“Do you really believe that?” the General asked.
“I’m not sure. I want to believe it but honestly, in my heart of hearts, I think we are going to find that it is very widespread.”
“Meaning all of the country?”
“Maybe the entire planet,” the Colonel replied.
“I’ll send another team out but I want you to head to the airport and grab the fastest thing you can find and fly to Washington. We need to know what’s going on at the National level.”
“I’ll need to take a man with me to prep the plane.”
“Take whatever you need. I’ll have Lt. Markker head up the Colorado Springs expedition.”
“Good choice. He’s a good man.”
“Yes. Once you get to Washington, go directly to the Pentagon and find General Peterson. Give him our status and find out how they want to handle the situation.”
“And if the same thing has happened in Washington?”
“We have to know that as well.”
“Sir. If Washington is in the same situation, we are all in a world of hurt.”
“Oh yeah. We may be the only government left and I am uncomfortable even thinking about that,” the General said.
“What about other facilities. Bunker Hill has an underground facility. They may still be operational.”
“Good thought. While you’re gone, we will compile a list of all known underground military facilities and then we can decide how to proceed from there. I only hope you find Washington still intact so we don’t have to take that step,” the General said, leaning back in his chair.
It was quiet in the room for several more seconds while each man thought of the implications of no real government in place.
Even if the President had survived it would still be almost impossible to recover.
“I was thinking, what if whoever did this, returns?”
“Does it really matter? I mean, what the hell can we do about it? Hell, we don’t even know who ‘they’ are or how they managed to carry out this attack,” the General replied, shrugging his shoulders.
“Still. We can’t just sit on our bu
tts and let the human race be eliminated.”
“One bridge at a time, Colonel. We need a lot more information before we start worrying about the ‘what ifs.”
****
“Colonel, none of the Hummers will start,” Lt. Markker said.
“None of them?”
“No sir. Something has fried the electronics. They are incapacitated.”
“Everything?”
“Sir, even the passenger cars.”
“What about the 6 X 6s?”
“Sir?”
“Did you try them?”
“Uh..No sir. I didn’t think about them.”
“Give them a try. They are older and don’t have all that fancy electronic junk on them,” Colonel Webber said, zipping up his flight suit.
“Yes sir. Right away, sir,” the Lieutenant replied, saluting and heading back down the hall.
“I always thought the older stuff may be some of the best,” Webber said.
“I can’t say I disagree,” the General replied.
“I’m ready. I’ve got Goddard and Franklin going along. Franklin is going to go all the way to Washington with me. Goddard will return after we get off the ground. I told him to come directly back and report to you so you would know our wheels up time,” the Colonel told him.
“Good. I think taking Franklin is a good plan. Who knows what you will find in Washington. Besides, two can keep a lookout better from a security point. You will both be armed, correct?”
“Yes sir. Side arms and M-16’s.”
“Good. Good. Well then, best of luck and get back here as quickly as you can,” the General said, standing up and offering his hand. The Colonel was taken aback at first then shook his hand.
“We’ll be back, sir.”
“God be with you,” the General said.
“God be with us all,” the Colonel said and saluted. The General returned it and Colonel Webber headed to the tunnel and the outside world.
****
“Good thinking Sir,” Lt. Markker said, saluting when the Colonel came up to him.
“I thought they might still work. Give me a lift to the airport first and then you can check out the town.”
“Yes sir. We were just getting ready to take off.”
THE END - Book I - Of THE EVENT SERIES Page 11
