Up From the Depths: Book 4 Movement to Contact

by J. R. Jackson

Wood nodded his greeting, still trying to wake up.

  “Mr. President, we have confirmation that stage one of Arctic Saber is complete,” Packwood announced. Wood shook his head at the name. The computer had randomly generated the mission name but he still thought it was a silly name.

  “Special Operations units have joined up at Fairchild and are preparing for the flight to Alaska,” Packwood explained. “Admiral Crockett has his ground forces moving towards Site 18 in Kansas but it may take more time for them to get there. They were forced to detour around a large infestation.” Packwood consulted his notes. “Fuel and maintenance issues now come into play I’m afraid,” he added.

  “How will that affect successful completion of the mission?” Wood asked.

  “Hard to say sir; last transmission we received indicated they were outside of Paducah, Kentucky and still heading west,” Dunlavy commented. “They’ve had to detour several times since making landfall.”

  Wood considered if his decision to go forward with the operation was based on some personal need to eradicate those responsible for this event or a sound tactical move.

  “What’s their speed?” Wood asked knowing that if the ground forces couldn’t reach Site 18 at about the same time that the units in Alaska hit their target, one or the other would have the chance to send a warning.

  “Intermittent. Probably not very fast given the conditions,” Packwood stated. Wood knew what Packwood meant, he remembered sitting through the briefing that the former DIS employee had given explaining how the roads and major highways were clogged in a traffic snarl that made previous traffic congestion issues null and void. Sure, the military vehicles could bull their way through but that took time and resources that were finite. Avoiding major hordes of infected meant taking secondary roads, farm roads or making your own road and taxing those same resources.

  “Keep me informed if anything changes,” Wood said tiredly, thinking about his wife.

  “Yes sir.”

  Wood walked back across the hall to his wife’s room. Nothing had changed in his absence. Sergeant Warren was checking vitals and looked up as he entered. She gave him a look, one that she had practiced for years. It was the look that a health care provider gives a family member when there isn’t any change in a loved one’s condition. Wood nodded to her as he sat back down in the chair and grasped his wife’s hand.

  ***

  Chapter 20

  Fairchild Air Force Base, Eastern Washington State

  Deck O’Toole looked at the large Boeing Globemaster III C-17B cargo plane. It was immense even from this distance yet not as large as the older C-5 he had once flown in. Designed to operate from short and narrow runways as well as unpaved and unimproved roads, the C-17 also had the capability to use its engines to reverse while taxiing thereby removing a large ground support element. O’Toole looked over at the other aircraft sharing space on the tarmac with the cargo planes.

  The large tail of the E4B National Airborne Operations Center that had flown in from some unknown location, poked out of one of the hangars that had been used to house one of the base’s B-52s. O’Toole looked back at his team. They had been cooped up on the base waiting for the order to move out. Now that a SEAL detachment had arrived with the NAOC plane, maybe they were finally going to get somewhere. O’Toole had seen the heavily converted 747-400 land then quickly taxi off the runway to the hangar it was now in but hadn’t seen anyone deplane. Several armed Hummers and flight line support vehicles had formed a security cordon around the airborne command post as it taxied. The Air Force took their security very seriously. He felt secure here at the base with its Hesco barriers around the perimeter and the heavily armed and armored M117 Dragoons patrolling. There were even well built and supplied observation towers evenly spaced all along the barriers that added to the defensive perimeter. He had heard that the Yakima Training Center had even more perimeter defense. From what they had seen when they passed by a section of it, it appeared unchanged.

  O’Toole walked back into the hangar his team had been assigned to. He would have preferred to be in a more secure building but space was limited due to the relocated civilians. Not that it mattered if they did use the building; it was at the far end of the apron away from all the active units and had once been used for maintenance before that unit was consolidated into another. As he approached where his men were, he heard a Johnny Cash song coming from the boom box that was on the hood of their Hummer. Spread out and sitting on cots, ODA-141 was cleaning their weapons and sharpening their blades. O’Toole reached out and tapped the stop button on the radio. His team looked up at the sudden silence.

  “The froggies have finally shown up,” he announced.

  “That’s the best news I’ve heard since I puked up my lunch,” Sands drawled before he leaned over and spit a wad of tobacco juice into the can at his feet. “About fucking time,” he added.

  “How soon are we pulling out?” Gorman asked.

  “Don’t know but I plan to find out,” O’Toole answered.

  “What team are these squids from?” Gillette asked as he thumbed .50 shells into one of his SASR’s magazines.

  “Don’t know that either,” O’Toole answered.

  “Well shit, captain. You don’t seem to know a whole lot,” Sands joked.

  “Keep them in line while I’m gone,” O’Toole directed to Sands who was now the most senior NCO in the team having replaced Butler. He walked out the large hangar doors and towards the C-17.

  ***

  Shark Platoon, Detachment Golf, SEAL Team 3 was transferring the majority of their gear to the back of an Air Force pick-up when O’Toole approached.

  “Ho, fellow cake eaters,” O’Toole said in greeting. “Where’s your OIC?”

  Willis stepped out of the human chain that was transferring the equipment and walked over to meet O’Toole.

  “James Willis, SEAL Team 3,” he said extending his hand.

  “Deck O’Toole, 1st Group.” The two special operators sized each other up in those few seconds that they shook hands.

  “Where you boys been operating?” O’Toole asked.

  “Here and there, mostly there,” Willis replied. O’Toole grinned at that reply. He had heard and used that same answer many times in the past. He leaned closer to Willis.

  “You know anything about this op?” he asked the SEAL officer.

  “Just what you know,” Willis replied. “Head north, freeze our asses off; generate a little heat and extract.”

  “Yeah,” O’Toole said nodding his head. “Same thing I heard.” He paused then looked out at the empty airfield. “My team’s over there at the end of that line of hangars,” he said indicating in that general direction. “You’re welcome to billet with us, we have plenty of room.”

  Willis nodded then turned. “Billy! When the boys get done here, send them out to the last hangar in this row.”

  “Hoo-yah!”

  “Looks like you got some work to do so I’ll leave you to it,” O’Toole said nodding his head then leaving the hangar to walk back to where his team was. Willis watched him walk away before turning to rejoin the human conveyor belt.

  ***

  Later that evening, Det Golf was in ODA-141’s hangar settling into their accommodations. The combined equipment for both units was stacked in Pelican cases and deployment bags on one pallet while two other shrink wrapped pallets contained their ammunition. A CD was playing in the boom box, this time an eclectic mix of Reba McEntire, Tim McGraw, Johnny Cash, Charlie Daniels and incongruously, Def Leppard.

  “SCAR-H?” Willis asked O’Toole as they sat in scrounged lawn chairs taken from the rear deck of the now closed Officer’s Club, a well used and abused Coleman cooler of beer and soda between them. O’Toole brought his rifle up from where it was leaning, ejected the magazine and worked the action to eject the live round in the chamber before handing it to Willis. The SEAL officer checked and cleared the weapon again before he inspected it.

  “Sure
fire Tactical light, pressure switch on the foregrip,” Willis commented. “Nice balance,” he added putting the rifle to his shoulder and sweeping the rafters of the hangar before he handed the rifle back.

  “It gets the job done,” O’Toole agreed. Willis took a sip of his beer.

  “We were on the list to get some of those before all this happened,” he said. O’Toole nodded. He knew a lot of SOCOM units had been on the list to transition from the various models of M4 to the SCAR. Some of those units had received the SCAR-L, the 5.56mm version of the FN battle rifle which was impressive in its own right. O’Toole took a long pull from his beer.

  “What’s your preference?” O’Toole asked.

  “416 with ACOG,” Willis replied. “Its a reliable platform. Better performance. Smoother action. We played a little with the 416C during CQB.”

  O’Toole nodded and took another long pull from his beer. The two operators sat in silence for a while before O’Toole spoke.

  “What do you make of all this?” he asked, gesturing with the hand that held the beer bottle.

  Willis took a sip from his beer.

  “It’s different. Not the type of operational area that we’re used to. But, we adapt and overcome,” Willis said. “I did hear some theories that as wild as they may sound, are starting to make sense given what we’ve seen out there.”

  “Yeah,” O’Toole agreed nodding his head. “That’s the same shit I heard too.” He fished into the cooler for another beer. “Want another brain grenade?” Willis shook his head. O’Toole leaned back in his chair and popped the top off the new bottle.

  “Sounds like this one is going to be a real dick dragger,” he commented changing the subject back to the upcoming mission.

  “At least our boys are playing nice with each other,” Willis stated looking over at Webb and Gillette as the two snipers inspected each other’s preferred long range rifle while the rest of the SEALs and Army Special Forces lounged around looking as relaxed as possible given the circumstances. Unusual for the SEALs, none of them besides Chief Rogers were married. Willis had tried to cultivate relationships a few times, each ending in disaster as the female in question couldn’t deal with his prolonged absence and rotational deployments. He felt it was pretty much the same with the rest of the men in the detachment. He made a mental note to ask Rogers about his wife.

  ***

  Fairchild AFB, Eastern Washington State

  Early the next morning, the two SOF units were up and doing morning PT. They ran around the flight line access road away from the runways in the cold post dawn air. None of them dropped out or showed any signs of distress from the alcoholic intake the previous evening. Of course, the beer that was rationed to them was not enough to get drunk on just enough to relax with. Most of them had nursed a single beer the entire evening. The Air Force personnel gave them strange looks as they ran past. It had been some time since they had seen anyone run for fitness as most of the running now was done to get away from the infected. After breakfast the two officers left their men to supervise the loading of the C-17 as they attended a briefing.

  “Welcome gentlemen,” General Orville Hodges said as they entered his office. Hodges was a jovial looking man with a crisp set of ABU’s and two subdued stars on his collar. He shook their hands after they saluted him. “Have a seat, take a load off,” Hodges stated as he sat in his high back imitation leather chair.

  The three men studied each other in silence.

  “I have to say it’s great to see that some special operations units are still active,” Hodges finally said. “My own people, the PJs, are scattered to hell and back.” Willis and O’Toole didn’t comment, both knew that it had been utter chaos in the days and weeks following infection and it was pure chance or maybe luck that they and their teams were still alive.

  Hodges opened a desk drawer and removed a thick, sealed packet and placed it on the desk with a light thump. He put one hand on top of it and studied the two capable officers in front of him.

  “I haven’t read this or even looked at it. My Intel staff compiled this from the data that Site R sent over,” he paused before continuing. “This isn’t the complete package. Everything has been compartmentalized. This will get you to your jumping off point,” he said as he slid the packet towards them. All three looked at the sealed packet, no one dared touch it.

  “I am adding one little caveat to this operation,” Hodges stated. “There’s a small unit of AFSOC here, Special Operations Weather. They’re going with you. I get the feeling that you’ll need them more than we will,” the general said. O’Toole and Willis nodded. Both knew that having the ability to forecast weather conditions, especially in Alaska would help with mission success.

  “That’s all I have, gentlemen,” Hodges said after an uncomfortable silence. O’Toole and Willis stood, came to attention and saluted. Hodges returned the salute. O’Toole looked at Willis; the two men shared a look before O’Toole picked up the packet then followed Willis out the door. Neither man spoke until they were almost back to the hangar.

  “This is going to be interesting,” O’Toole commented.

  “Sounds like a real dick dragger,” Willis replied copying the phrase that O’Toole had used the previous night.

  They entered the hangar and went straight to the pilot’s briefing room where they opened the packet and read the contents.

  “Holy shit,” O’Toole muttered quietly after reading through the first few pages. He handed the pages to Willis.

  “We’re going to get some on this one,” Willis stated.

  ***

  Interlude

  The spray of the Pacific Ocean washed along the sides of the gray vessel as the deep ‘V’ of the hull sliced through the waves. White foam spewed up and over the large twenty foot tall numbers, 63, painted on the bow of the ship. A brass nameplate mounted on the superstructure identified the warship by name and what a warship she was. Launched in 1944 from the Brooklyn Shipyard as one of the last battleships ever commissioned by the United States, she had seen action in several theaters earning 11 Battle Stars over her decade’s long career. When it was finally decided that the era of the great battleships was over, she had been sent to Hawaii, fully renovated and tied to the pier as a floating museum. Her life as a tourist attraction was now over. Though her nine main guns had protective covers over them, there was no denying that she had been, and still was, a formidable warrior. Her decks were empty, exterior hatches closed for the night but deep inside, the steam turbines that had replaced her original oil boilers thrummed with power that vibrated throughout the ship.

  The Mighty Mo was coming home.

  ***

  Chapter 21

  Clovis, New Mexico

  NOW

  “It should have been me!” Frank Durst wailed from the back seat of the Tahoe. Blood soaked through his clothes and the seat. It even dripped from the overhead. John Stone was semi-conscious half on half off the back seat as Durst held pressure against the large exit wound on Stone’s thigh.

  He bit back the bile that rose in his throat as he packed more gauze into the large hole. In the front seat, Mecceloni turned and twisted the steering wheel to avoid hitting the groups of infected that seemed to pour out of every building they passed. Ahead of them, the tan CUCV slammed into a swarm of infected tossing them aside in a bloody spray that painted the buildings and street, scattering the rest like rotted bowling pins that spewed their contents upon impact. He could see someone, maybe Sharon or Cassie, firing out the passenger side window. The heavy boom of a shotgun heard over the roar of the engine.

  ***

  Earlier

  Safeguard, New Mexico

  “As you can see,” Elwood St. John said. “Duty Officer has located both vehicles. One has been moved but the other is right where we left it.”

  “That’s good news, Woody,” Stone commented. “But is there any way to know if there are infected in the area?”

  “No, sorry, there isn’t any
way to know that,” St. John said shaking his head. “But both vehicles are still operational if that helps.”

  “We can take the remaining Tahoe up to about a mile from the main gate,” Mecceloni said pulling out a map of the area and unfolding it on the table. “We stop here,” he said indicating a position on the map. “Whoever drops us off, waits for us right there. We go in, find the vehicles and get out.”

  “Don’t know about that, dude,” Durst stated. “That’s a mile walk across the desert. That area looks as flat as a pool table. Anyone could see us coming.”

  “Ever read a topographical map before?” Mecceloni asked. “See these wiggly lines here, that means elevation and land contours. They have to be high or low enough to appear on a map. We use those elevations and depressions to get as close to the gates as possible before we expose ourselves,” he explained.

  ***

  NOW

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” Durst muttered as he used the thick gauze pad to push muscle tissue back into the exit wound on Stone’s thigh. Mecceloni snapped another magazine into his M4 then tossed Durst a roll of Quick Clot impregnated gauze.

  “Wrap that on the wound, it should seal and stop the blood,” he said before leaning out of the alley and firing a short burst into the advancing horde of infected.

  Durst tore open the packet, pulled the gauze out and wrapped it over the the wound. Stone grimaced as the coagulating chemical hit the open wound and started sealing the opening.

  “Sonovabitch that hurts!” Stone exclaimed. “I’m not going to be able to walk on this leg,” he said between gasps.

  ***

  Earlier

  Durst and Stone were in the surface garage where the remaining Tahoe was parked. They had spent the last 30 minutes bringing up extra ammunition that was stacked in the rear cargo area. Durst slid a case of bottled water under the rear seat then closed the door. He shrugged his shoulders to adjust the tactical vest he hadn’t worn in months.