The Days Before: A Prequel to the Five Roads to Texas series (A Five Roads to Texas Novel Book 8)

by Brian Parker

  The demolitions man nodded and Grady made his way to the cabin. It was controlled chaos as the men—and one woman—went through the duties of flying the plane along with the myriad of other tasks that it took to keep the giant airplane aloft while still maintaining communications with their headquarters.

  “What’s going on?” Grady said loudly after he’d closed the door behind himself.

  A major looked over his shoulder at Grady. “We just lost two birds near the Brazilian border. The AOB from 7th Group was blown out of the sky.”

  Grady gritted his teeth. That’s exactly what he’d heard over the radio, but he hadn’t believed it. “What do you mean?”

  “This is coming from Command, sir,” the pilot replied. “They lost contact with both aircraft after they reported missile lock.”

  “Missile lock? They were shot down?”

  “Looks like it, sir.”

  Grady glanced out the window at the trees far below. “Are we going anywhere near where those aircraft were shot down?”

  “Depends on your definition of near,” the woman replied, pulling one of the earphones away from her ear. “We’re about three hundred and fifty nautical miles from where the 7th Group planes went down. If a shoulder-fired missile shot them down, then we’re good. If they were taken out by a more complex anti-aircraft system, then we’re probably in range of whatever took them out.”

  “How far until the airport?”

  “Thirty-seven minutes, sir.”

  “Dammit,” Grady cursed. “We can’t abort this mission. Can you call back to Tokyo on your radios?”

  “Of course,” the female navigator answered, scowling.

  “I need to talk to someone back there to see what they want us to do.”

  The woman held up a finger as she pushed her remaining headphone against her ear. Her eyebrows rose and she gestured toward a pair of headphones resting on a hook across the cockpit. “Put those on. Call from JSOC.”

  Grady had been assigned to the Joint Special Operations Command the entire time that he’d been on active duty as a Green Beret and worked with them often during his time at Havoc, so he began planning his response to their unasked questions as he slipped the headphones on and listened to the conversation between the pilots and whomever they were speaking to at JSOC.

  “…until we can analyze the threat,” the JSOC person stated.

  “Understood,” the major up front replied. “Preparing to RTB.”

  “Now wait a minute,” Grady cut in. “We are thirty minutes out. We don’t need to return to base. This is too big to let some battle captain make the call.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Grady Harper, Havoc team leader,” he said. “We are thirty minutes from the airport. My team is prepared to insert without additional support. I need to talk to the OIC of the JOC.”

  “Understood, Harper. Wait one.”

  The radio was silent for a long time before JSOC came back on. “Harper, this is Admiral Davenport, JSOC G3. We believe the 7th Group planes were hit by MANPADS fired from just inside the Brazilian border. If that’s the case, then you’re out of their line of sight. If it were something bigger, you’d already know.” He paused as he released the mic for a moment. “You are a go for insertion. Follow your original mission protocols. Your transportation is waiting for you at the airport to take you to the target.”

  “Roger, sir,” Grady said. “We were planning to advise them as they moved in at 0500 local time. Without the AOB, is that timeline still attainable?”

  “Negative. Our timeline has sped up significantly. Seems there was an outbreak in Tokyo. Same symptoms as described in those manuals.”

  “Tokyo? Was it Major Alcock?” Grady asked.

  “Unknown at this time. It originated at the hospital where he was taken, so it’s a possibility,” the admiral replied. “You are to proceed directly to the target site upon arrival and put it out of operation.”

  “Sir, that’s not a lot of time—”

  “Understood, Harper. Can’t be helped. The president has ordered us to get as much research data as possible from that location. That means hitting them hard and fast while they believe they have some time since they knocked out our strike force. They were our only team currently in South America. We have several more teams spinning up here in Florida, but no one is anywhere near as close as you are right now.”

  The muscles in Grady’s jaws danced as he gritted his teeth. “Yeah, roger, sir,” he answered.

  “Harper?” the admiral said.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Good luck, son. Your team is the only hope we have of knocking this thing out before it’s too late. If your team doesn’t succeed, the president is prepared to take any actions necessary to put an end to this threat. It has the potential to change humanity’s fate for eternity.”

  “No pressure, right?”

  “No. No pressure. Just get the job done. Davenport out.”

  Grady looked up to the pilots, who stared back at him, wide-eyed. “What the hell is going on, Harper?” the major asked. They clearly hadn’t been briefed on the situation.

  “You heard the admiral. We’re here to stop a virus that can destroy the entire human population before it gets out of the lab. We were supposed to support the 7th Group teams, but they got wiped out. Now it’s us.” He looked to the navigator. “See why I said turning around wasn’t an option?”

  She nodded and he slapped the door back to the cargo area. “I’ve got to brief my team on the situation,” Grady stated. “We just got moved back up from the minor league to the big league and they don’t know anything about it.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  * * *

  SHELDON LAKE, MICHIGAN

  MARCH 24TH

  Clay was annoyed as he pressed his remote control ineffectually. Truth be told, he was always annoyed. The old man seemed to be irritated by most of the outside world these days. That’s why he preferred to just stay home and only went into town for the essentials. He was a simple man. He liked a good ball game on the television or a fishing pole in one hand with a cold beer in the other. Let the rest of the yahoos ruin their lives. He had all he needed up here on the lake.

  He tried the remote again with the same results. There was static on every channel. It happened often enough that he considered canceling his cable subscription every couple of months. Paying for a service that didn’t work was just stupid, but if he did that, he wouldn’t be able to watch the Tigers lose just about every damn game they played. How did they earn so much money to be so bad year after year?

  Clay grumbled and put the remote down gently. He’d learned his lesson that the cheap plastic controllers broke easily and it was a pain in the ass to get them replaced. “Well, Rufous,” he grunted. “Looks like we’re gonna go outside early today.”

  The dog whined excitedly as Clay scratched his ear vigorously for a moment before reaching down to pull the handle on his recliner. The footrest folded in and he used the chair’s momentum to help himself up. He groaned as his knees protested the movement. He was looking forward to the warmer weather in a couple of months, the rainy spring was hell on his joints. The only bad part about the summer was all the vacationers on the other side of the lake. They were always so loud and obnoxious in their big speedboats. Ruined the perfect calm that he enjoyed on the water for eight months out of the year.

  “Alright, boy,” he said, limping to the kitchen counter. “Give me a minute.” He opened a pill bottle and popped an aspirin. It’d help with the arthritis, and his doctor told him it was good for his heart, so Clay was happy to oblige. In four hours or so, he’d pop the top on a beer can and use that to numb the pain in his knee.

  Next, he changed the batteries in his bright yellow AM/FM headset. He’d forgotten to do it before the last couple of walks and the damn thing had been getting spotty reception. That usually meant it was time to change the batteries. He fumbled with the dial until he was right near AM 1220, then he put
the old headset over his ears, fine-tuning the dial until NPR came in clearly. He smiled. Changing the batteries worked like a charm. Older electronics, like the twenty-five year old headset, were reliable, not like the cheap crap they sold today with the intention of forcing consumers to buy something new every couple of years.

  “Alright, Rufous, you old bastard,” Clay said. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  The dog barked and wagged his tail excitedly as Clay walked to the door. He glanced out the window at the thermometer mounted on his porch. It was in the low forties so he put on a jacket, no sense in catching a chill.

  Rufous burst through the door the moment he opened it, making Clay laugh. That damned dog was about the only thing that ever made him laugh out loud anymore—sure as hell wasn’t what the television companies called comedies these days. Most of that was politically correct drivel with shit writing, women who acted like men, and men who acted like women.

  He stepped off his porch and onto the small gravel walkway leading down to the road. Crabgrass was already peeking up through the rocks in several places. He’d meant to put in a cement walkway for years, but somehow it never got done. His buddies down at the VFW always seemed to have grandchildren willing to pull weeds for a few bucks, so he’d pay a kid every few weeks and then, before he knew it, the summer was gone.

  The radio beeped a few times warning of an impending test of the Emergency Broadcast System and Clay pulled the headset off. He sure as hell didn’t want to listen to some computer voice tell him they were testing an outdated system that nobody cared about anymore.

  A scream from across the lake made him look over to the south. A man ran full speed down the road, headed back toward town and two women chased after him. He glanced at his watch. It was only 8 a.m., entirely too early for those morons to be playing grab-ass. He’d retired to the lake to get away from people, but somehow, they always had a way of intruding on his space. He put the headset back on as he turned west on Lakeshore Drive to trail after Rufous.

  “Damned tourists,” he grumbled aloud. “I just want some peace and quiet.”

  There was a story on the radio about some new illness among the hundreds of thousands of homeless people in California and he pulled the headset off his ears once more. He sure as hell didn’t give a shit about what happened in California. Their problems were their own making and it was a world away from him and the lake.

  Instead, he tried to focus on the solitude of the morning. It was relaxing—as long as he purposefully ignored those idiots down on the south shore who were hollering and acting like a bunch of fools.

  MARECHAL RONDON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, CUIABÁ, BRAZIL

  “Harper! We’ve got a welcoming committee,” Knasovich stated as he ducked down, pointing out the open cargo ramp of the Globemaster.

  Grady looked up from his pack and saw an old, honest-to-goodness Army Jeep driving up the access road toward their plane. It held four men in olive drab uniforms. “Looks like the Brazilian Army,” he grunted. He’d been briefed that they would meet up with the local army unit for escort to where the facility was believed to be located. “Let’s go say hello.”

  He hefted his backpack in one hand and walked down the ramp. The clanging of the metal plates underfoot told him that the others were following suit. Grady walked about ten feet away from the plane and set both his pack and his rifle down on the tarmac.

  The Jeep pulled up within seconds. The two men in the back jumped out and one of them assisted a thin, older soldier from the passenger seat. The contractors waited as the soldier comically straightened the older officer’s uniform. When they were finished, the three soldiers strolled casually up to Grady and his team while the driver remained at the Jeep.

  “You are the American Special Forces team?” he asked with a thick accent.

  “Yes, sir,” Grady said, preferring to keep it simple. He wasn’t sure how much the Brazilians had been told, but they obviously knew that an SF team was inserting into their country. “We’re here to—”

  “No, no, no!” the man said, holding up his hands. He turned to the two men who’d escorted him and said something in what Grady assumed was Portuguese. They both saluted and returned to the Jeep.

  When they were out of earshot, the officer said, “I am Colonel Oliveira. I am the chief of the Military Police for the state of Mato Grosso.”

  Grady stuck out a hand. “Nice to meet you, sir. Grady Harper.” He indicated each of his team in turn. “Akram Bazan. Hannah Dunn. Robert Carmike. Alex Knasovich. And, Chris McCormick.”

  The colonel shook everyone’s hand as Grady introduced them. “Now,” he said, placing his hands over belt. “I have been briefed by my government of the situation. We are to escort you to a small village near the Cuiabá River that is about eighty kilometers from the city. Is this correct?”

  Grady turned to Robert Carmike. “Rob, I need you to contact Havoc. Ask them who our contact in Cuiabá is.” He looked back at the colonel. “You’ll have to forgive me, sir. I just need to verify that we are authorized to discuss the matter with you.”

  “Of course, Mr. Harper. I completely understand. If what they are doing at that production facility is what your government says it is, then we are willing to assist you in any manner necessary.”

  Grady nodded. “Thank you. It’ll just be a moment.”

  He watched intently as Carmike talked on the satellite phone with his finger pressed to his ear. After a moment, he looked up at Grady and gave a thumbs up.

  “Good enough for me, Colonel,” Grady said. “We need to find that facility as soon as possible and put a stop to their actions.”

  “That is no problem,” the soldier replied. “I know exactly where it is located. You can’t build a facility of that size, with its own airfield, and not attract the attention of the local police.”

  “Your government knows about this place?”

  “Of course we do.” He held up a thin, wrinkled finger. “However, they are supposed to be here mapping the phosphate deposits in the Highlands and then begin mining once they find a suitable location. The facility is mainly just office space and sleeping quarters now, but eventually, it will become the processing center for the minerals.”

  “Your government didn’t think anything was weird when North Koreans and Iranians started working together in your country?”

  The old man shrugged. “I am not a political man, Mr. Harper. I am a soldier. I don’t know anything about North Koreans. We were told that the Iranians would offset our oil needs in exchange for the phosphate mining in the jungle.”

  Grady grunted in acknowledgement. He’d done some quick, down and dirty reading on the internet during the flight. When Venezuela collapsed a few years ago, most of the region’s oil production came to a screeching halt. Brazil was rife with natural resources, but had no oil reserves. The Brazilian government had been making deals with most of the Middle Eastern nations for oil, so it made sense that the Iranians had disguised their biological experimentation facility as a mineral extraction research company.

  He set his jaw. The Brazilians were likely just innocent pawns in the Iranian long game. “You’re right, sir. We’re just the soldiers who do our governments’ bidding. You said the facility is eighty kilometers from here?”

  “Yes. But there is no direct route and the jungle roads are in poor shape. It takes about three hours to drive to the village.”

  Grady checked his watch before glancing back at his team. “Is there a hotel nearby? Somewhere where my team can take about two hours to drop our extra gear, use the latrine, and get some food?”

  “There are many hotels in Cuiabá, Mr. Harper,” the colonel replied. “However, I wouldn’t recommend any of them due to safety concerns. Your men—ah, I mean, you team—can come back to the police station and do these things. I can have my officers bring food for you as well.”

  “No need,” Grady replied, remembering the time he’d been dumb enough to accept food from an Argentinian Army
officer. His team sergeant recommended that he politely decline the meat and raw vegetable feast the Argentinians had prepared for his Special Forces A-Team after a month-long field exercise. He’d eaten the food anyway and was sick in bed for nearly forty-eight hours. “We have rations in our packs. Just need a couple hours of hygiene after being in the field for almost a week.”

  “Yes, of course. Let us return to my headquarters then.”

  Grady looked at the tiny Jeep and then back to the colonel. “Uh, is there a car rental place nearby?”

  The old man laughed. “No. No. I have a truck standing by.” He turned and barked an order to the driver, who pulled an ancient CB radio microphone/speaker from the dashboard. Within minutes, another relic from the past rumbled up beside the Jeep. The Korean War-era 2½ ton truck sputtered for a moment and then died when the driver put it into park.

  “Come,” the colonel laughed. “Let’s go get cleaned up.”

  Grady glanced to his left and right at his teammates. Most wore amused smiles at the Brazilian’s equipment. “Alright, sir. Will your men be prepared to move in about two hours?”

  “Yes. We are ready to go now, but I understand the needs of the human body.” He pointed at the C-17. “Those aircraft do not have proper restroom facilities.”

  “Exactly, sir,” Grady answered.

  “Will the plane be staying here in Cuiabá or—?”

  “They have orders to wait for our return,” Grady stated.

  “Do they require anything?”

  “No. The crew has everything they need while they wait for us.”

  The older soldier shrugged. “Okay.” He waved the team forward. “Let’s go then. Mr. Harper, do you want to ride with me in the command vehicle or stay with your team?”

  “I’d prefer to stay with my team.”

  The colonel smiled. “Good man. Good man.”

  CUIABÁ, BRAZIL

  Private Melo walked casually out the front doors of the police headquarters building where he worked. Even though they’d denied it, Colonel Oliveira ordered him to go over to the market to get food for the Americans. He smiled. The old fool gave him the perfect opportunity to leave. He didn’t even need to make up an excuse.