He hoped that wouldn’t be the case. Still, as always, outside the wire each and every action taken came with its own unique consequence.
With the Ross Island Bridge gliding by overhead, Cade summoned Cross topside.
Cross emerged from below decks carrying his MP7 and nothing else. He’d taken the components of his Modular Sniper Rifle sniper rifle out of his pack, assembled the Remington tack driver, and left the pack below deck.
With the stock folded down on the frame and both the magazine and suppressor stuffed into his cargo pockets, the slung rifle all but disappeared into the folds of his fatigue blouse.
Stuffed into Cross’s chest rig were two extra magazines for the MSR, three thirty-round mags for his MP7, and another pair of magazines for his sidearm.
Cade said to Cross, “I’m calling a last second audible. Give me the HK and the mags. You take my M4. Push comes to shove and the Chicoms are moving in on you, it’ll be good for you to have the advantage of its extended range.”
They traded weapons and magazines.
While Cade was giving up a third of his ammunition, he was gaining a suppressed weapon whose subsonic rounds were whisper-quiet indoor and out. Perfect for where he was going.
Cade felt the boat begin to slow underneath him. There was no change in sound save for a subtle diminishing of noise made by the prow.
Feather popped his head into the open. “Thirty seconds.”
Regarding the Portland skyline made Cade yearn for the past. He saw the rocket-ship-shaped KOIN Center building rooted close in on the west bank. In the middle distance was the forty-story, 546-foot tall, Wells Fargo Building. It was all white stone save for columns of smoked, vertically aligned windows. The contrast between the recessed windows and white exterior gave the impression the tower was zebra striped.
In the far distance, rising up from within a cluster of smaller buildings, was Portland’s second tallest structure. At 536 feet, US Bancorp Tower, or Big Pink—a nickname based on the color of its granite cladding—rose prominently over the nearby Pearl District.
On the Croc’s starboard side was a dock nearly identical to the one at Sellwood Riverfront Park. It was held in check by telephone-pole-sized metal pylons driven into the riverbed. Pointed white cones topped each pylon. In a way, they looked like half-a-dozen ballistic missiles standing at the ready.
Beyond the dock was a flat expanse of asphalt. It was flanked on the left by a fenced-in lot that encompassed an entire city block. On the right, abutting the sea of asphalt, was a windowless two-story warehouse.
Random zombies patrolled the bank near the first insertion point.
As the Croc went lower in the water, Cross checked over the M4. Powering up the EOTech—just in case—he rose and moved to the starboard side of the stern.
The insertion was, literally, a touch-and-go affair. There were no fenders deployed. Instead, Cox brushed the floating dock ever so gently with the Croc’s starboard side.
The moment contact occurred, Cross leaped from the boat. The drop was a foot or less, with him easily carrying the distance to the center of the rain-slickened dock.
While Cross did not fall, his Salomons did squeee when they caught purchase and arrested his forward movement.
As the Croc was powering away, Cade watched every Z ashore stop in its tracks. Next, their heads turning in unison toward the dock, they all about-faced.
Even as the Zs were beginning their slow-speed turns toward the source of the sound, Cross was up the ramp and moving swiftly toward them, about to run straight through the metaphorical belly of the beast.
Cade wished Cross “God speed” in his head and then said a silent prayer for his safe passage.
***
Seconds after the first insertion, with OMSI’s uneven roofline visible around the next left-to-right river bend, Nat was let off at the base of a steep bank shored up by a field of jagged steamer-trunk-sized boulders. Though the monster of a man was carrying the twenty-two-pound Mk 46 in one hand, and a spare can of ammo for it in the other, he tackled the unforgiving incline with the grace of a mountain goat.
As Cade watched his old friend crest the incline, he took solace in the knowledge that Nat’s path was currently free of threats and his final destination was completely surrounded by fence and Jersey barriers.
Once Nat was out of sight, Cox nosed the Croc toward one of the cement pilings supporting the Marquam Bridge. With the bridge’s lower deck one hundred feet over their heads, Cox pointed the Croc’s bow upriver, reversed the powerful water jets, then continued upping the thrust until the boat went stationary a dozen feet abreast of the massive support column.
From a couple of hundred yards west of OMSI’s boarded-up facade, with Cox doing an admirable job of providing a semi-stable viewing platform, Cade and Griff spent a few minutes watching the museum and its sprawling grounds for movement.
Cade knew OMSI well. When Raven was little, he brought her here often. When he was deployed, Brook made the trek from home several times a week.
Formerly a steam-powered electric generating plant, the cement building now contained a domed IMAX movie theater, massive planetarium, and three floors of mostly hands-on exhibits.
In the river, moored permanently to a pier adjacent to the museum, was the USS Blueback. Used in the filming of the movie Hunt for Red October, the retired submarine was open for tours seven days a week.
On any given day during the school year, the road fronting the building would be lined with yellow school busses. And on those days, its halls filled with teachers herding around packs of school kids giddy to be free of their studies, the museum was a claustrophobe’s worst nightmare.
At the moment, the entire building was boarded up and blacked out, which made it impossible to tell if anyone was occupying the place.
Save for a couple of Zs standing before the wrought iron fence on the museum’s left side, nothing moved. No sentries patrolled the north/south walkway skirting OMSI on the river side. No spotters milled about the HVAC apparatus on the flat portions of the uneven roofline.
Based on all that he’d seen so far, it was clear to Cade that the Chicoms felt their newest forward operating base was untouchable. In the next few minutes, if he had anything to do with it, they were going to sorely regret their hubris.
Back to back to back, three things happened. First, in their headsets, both Cade and Griff heard a pair of clicks. It was Nat breaking squelch over the coms to let them know he was safely in position. Then, on the heels of that, a single click came over the comms. This time it was Cross signaling that he had reached the hide on the Martin Luther King Junior Viaduct and overwatch had begun.
As Cade was responding that he understood by issuing a single mike click of his own, the low rumble of a diesel engine rolled across the river. It came from the eastside industrial area north of OMSI and could mean only one thing: game on.
Before Cox had the boat turned toward shore, Cade was getting the first taste of the adrenaline dump he so missed. Catching Griff looking a question his way, Cade said, “Lock and load,” and donned his ruck.
Their approach to the drop-off point was smooth and quiet. Cox steered the Croc past the ten-foot cement wall supporting the museum’s viewing promontory, then pulled back on the throttle. While the Croc slowed and came broadside to the rock-strewn bank, Feather kept his MP5 trained on the esplanade looming over them.
Cade felt the deck vibrate under his boots as Cox again reversed the water jets. Once the Croc had gone dead in the water, Feather pointed to shore.
Cade said, “Go, go, go,” and patted Griff on the shoulder.
As soon as Griff was on his way, Cade trapped the MP7 to his chest with one arm and launched himself off the starboard gunwale.
Though there was only a yard or so of open water for the two men to clear, their landing spot was far from ideal.
Griff hit the field of rain-slickened rocks with most of his weight, plus the forty-pound ruck, dragging him bac
kward. He immediately released his hold on the MP7, entrusting the sling to do its job. In a futile effort to regain his balance, he threw both arms forward and clawed at the air. Arms windmilling furiously clockwise, he realized no amount of rolling up the windows was going to spare him from taking an unwanted swim.
As luck would have it, Cade landed on a flat spot between two rocks. If it hadn’t been for him seeing Griff’s flailing arms, then reaching over and grabbing hold of his chest rig, the tables would have turned, with the landlubber Delta boy diving into the drink to save a Navy SEAL.
The ribbing Cross would have rained down on Griff had the scenario come to pass would have been nonstop and merciless.
A guttural grunt followed by a sincere “Thanks” was how Griff reacted.
All business was how Cade interpreted it. No denying that the shooter was nothing but a consummate professional in the field.
With the Croc already slipping away to the south, both shooters trained their weapons on the walkway fronting the museum, then started to thread their way between the rocks.
Chapter 74
The moment Cross saw the troop carrier and black Mercedes G Wagon roll up on the parking lot and stop before the gate, he was on the comms and relaying what he was seeing to everyone listening.
Ari Silver was one of those people. He was roughly twenty miles northeast of downtown Portland and already strapped into Jedi One’s right seat. As he activated the ship’s APU—auxiliary power unit—there was a turbine whine and a tiny jolt raced through the airframe. By the time he was feeling the satisfying rumble of the turbines behind him firing to life, the rotors atop the other two ships in the flight were beginning to spin.
Seeing the sag leave the rotor blades as they picked up speed, Ari asked Haynes to power up the FLIR pod. Next, his hands pressing buttons and flicking switches, Ari instructed his crew chief to ready the ship for flight.
Skeleton mask in place underneath deployed NVGs, Skip punched the Door Close button, then stuck a thumbs up between the front seats.
Jedi One went light on her gear, lifted off the tarmac fronting a long row of rust-spotted light-blue hangars, then spun a quick one-eighty. Now facing west, simultaneously Ari increased power and pulled pitch.
Ari watched Troutdale Airport disappear behind his ship. In seconds, Jedi One was formed up with the Comanche and Ghost Chinook.
Assuming the lead position, Ari radioed ahead to inform the team their close air support and QRF was en route and on schedule.
Hearing this bit of good news made Cade eager to rush in and start slitting throats. But he couldn’t. They needed to allow the general enough time to choose his girl, or girls, and then retire with them to the room Feather insisted was in the far southeast corner on the building’s second floor. Though Cade had a hard time swallowing the other reason for the necessary pause, the general’s goon also needed time to collect the President’s man from the cell they kept him in and walk him to the second-floor interrogation room.
With Cade taking point, they picked their way up the rocky bank. Coming to an alcove between a pair of two-by-two cement pillars that were part of the building’s foundation, Cade held up a fist and took a knee.
The alcove was ten feet wide and maybe four deep. Like the pillars, these three walls were also load-bearing and an integral part of the building’s foundation. On the right wall, exactly where Feather said it would be, was an angled metal shroud. The shroud was attached with metal screws to a two-by-two ventilation duct. Whether the duct was for intake or exhaust, Cade hadn’t a clue. What he did know was that the alcove was fenced off.
After listening hard for a few seconds, they went to work.
Griff dove into his ruck and came out with a compact fence cutter.
While Griff cut a vertical seam, Cade watched their backs.
In just under two minutes, the job was done, and Griff was stowing the tool in his pack.
Peeling the fence back, Cade motioned Griff through the tight opening.
Griff did the same for Cade, then smoothed the two halves together as best he could.
Once inside the cramped alcove, Cade took out his multi-tool and went to work removing the shroud. He was through the sixth of eight screws when Cross came on the comms with word that the HVTs were inside the building and the transport was leaving the wire.
Finished extracting the remaining screws, Cade worked the shroud loose with Griff’s help.
Once the shroud was removed, they were faced with a wire-mesh grate. While the fence Griff just cut through was likely to keep the homeless from sleeping inside the alcove, this grate, Cade surmised, was here to keep vermin from getting inside the museum.
Grateful he wasn’t going to be shimmying through a constrictive metal duct, Cade pushed hard against the grate with both hands. Feeling a bit of give, he concluded it was secured to the foundation from the inside. The flex in the grate gave him hope the cement, likely poured over a hundred years ago, had relaxed its hold on whatever fasteners the original builders had used.
Going back into his ruck, Griff fished out another of his breaking and entering tools and handed it over to Cade.
Trying to keep the noise to a minimum, Cade inserted the flat end of the mini crowbar into the seam between the grill and foundation. Applying a few pounds of pressure separated the bottom of the grate from the crumbling cement lip. He did the same to the sides, then set the tool aside.
One step ahead of Cade, Griff had already cut a long length of paracord from a bracelet he kept in his ruck.
Nodding, Cade threaded one end of the cord through the grate near the bottom and tied it off. Gripping the cord a foot from where it was anchored, he punched the grate near the top.
It moved, but the fasteners held.
The second punch was the charm. The grate popped off and fell away. Arrested by the paracord, the grate banged against the foundation. The clang Cade had anticipated was minimal. Thankfully it wasn’t followed by a prolonged echo.
Sticking his head through the opening and seeing cobwebs and dust confirmed to Cade that once again Feather knew what he was talking about. This part of the foundation was left over from when the building was still a power company concern. Overhead pipes and conduit snaked east along the ceiling then took a hard left at the end of a long, narrow passage. A passage that Feather’s blueprints indicated would track north for a few yards to a stairway leading up. At the top of the stairway was a door opening into a cavernous wing of the museum once home to a number of school-bus-sized steam turbines.
Cade shrugged off his pack. He unclipped the MP7 and handed it to Griff.
Fitting his legs and hips through the opening was no problem. Once Cade got to his chest, the going was not as smooth on account of the plate carrier and chest rig full of spare mags.
Perched on his stomach, with his lower extremities dangling over the floor, he had to really work hard to get his upper body through.
Finally, as his shoulders cleared the cement frame, he felt his toes touch the floor.
Griff quickly passed the packs and weapons through the opening. Being a bit bigger around the waist and chest, he needed Cade’s help to make it inside.
Once they were both standing inside the museum basement, they threw on their packs and gunned up.
Still taking the lead, Cade padded down the passage. Ignoring the spider webs and insect husks clinging to his uniform and gear, he stopped at the end of the twenty-foot passage and took a quick turkey peek around the corner.
At the end of another twenty-foot-long cement corridor, every inch of it crisscrossed by cobwebs, was an open stairway. On the wall across from the stairs was a bank of electrical boxes. Next to the boxes, higher up on the wall, was a trio of boxy electrical components. That they were connected to colorful cables led Cade to believe he was looking at internet routers and alarm company equipment.
The stairs went up to a cramped landing then turned back on themselves. At the top of the second flight stood
a windowless door. It was clean and new-looking and had a brushed stainless doorknob. On the door chest-high to Cade was a keyed deadbolt.
Cade paused on the landing and tried to hail Cross. He got no reply. Nat didn’t answer, either.
One of his guys dropping off the net was a bad omen. Could mean big trouble, actually. But both of them going silent at the same time? And with no warning whatsoever? Impossible. Both men had more than a hundred combat missions under their belt. Furthermore, they were both expert at concealment and recon. No way the Chicoms would get the jump on both of them at the same time.
Cade turned to face Griff. Tapping his headset, he asked, “Did you hear me calling Cross and Nat just now?”
Griff nodded and whispered, “I heard you loud and clear. That’s it though. Maybe try hailing Ari?”
Mentally berating himself for not thinking of it, Cade said, “Jedi One, this is Anvil Actual … how copy?”
Nothing.
Cade tried one more time.
No reply.
Tapping the wall, Cade said, “It’s gotta be structural interference.”
He’d been in this situation once before.
Speed and violence of action was how he handled the problem then. And that’s exactly how he intended to triumph over it now.
In essence, Cade was going to put his head down and push through the fog of war, killing every last enemy unlucky enough to cross paths with him.
With no window to peer through, Cade reached into a cargo pocket and produced a three-inch LCD monitor. From his other pocket he retrieved a directional fiber-optic cable. Attaching the flexible probe to the screen, he turned to Griff. “You smell that?”
“Fish?”
Cade nodded. Sniffing his wet fatigues, he said, “It’s not me.”
Bringing his sleeve to his nose, Griff shook his head. “Not me.”
Seeing the building’s floor plan in his head, Cade said, “Across the turbine hall is the brown-bag-lunch area. I’m thinking some of the grunts are having a late dinner.”
Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 14): Home Page 39
