Nuclear Winter

by Td Barnes

  She waved to a couple of soldiers on the three-man firing line while picking up a pair of earplugs for the protection of her ears. The weapons electronically produced the actual sound of gunfire and could lower the volume by adjusting a control, but no one ever did.

  A civilian firing the.50 caliber machine gun saw her enter and secured his weapon to meet her. She gave him a light peck on the chin.

  "Hi, Ray. How many Maggie’s drawers, today?” referring to the red flag raised at a military firing range to indicate a shooter is missing the target.

  “Hi, Honey,” he responded. “I will not count yours if you do not count mine,” he said laughing. He resumed his target practice while she checked out her sniper rifle before firing it.

  A week after her father granted her friend and colleague from Area 51 permission to stow their secret weapons at the mountain, Raymond Bronson, the CIA weapons engineer stranded at Area 51 by the EMP and she had arranged for secluded access to the south portal. Realizing that Bradley knew about the weapon, they updated him on the progress made in its design at Area 51.

  They had secretly stowed and secured the weapons with her father insisting that Bronson remain at the mountain for the event they needed to field the weapons. Having no specific duty, he, like her, sought cross training in firearms while here, choosing training in the 50-caliber machine gun while she wanted sniper training.

  With both drawn by this common interest in weapons, they had developed a friendship that rapidly advanced into something more. Sammie planned this afternoon to tell Bronson of her intent to join the Army at the mountain as a sharpshooter.

  Sammie grew up an Army brat living in the shadow of a father always involved in secret work that he could not discuss with the family. The family accepted without complaint the burden of supporting him when he went to war, hot or cold, without ever knowing where he went or what he did. Her merely understanding would not have satisfied her — she had always wanted to share the load of what he did.

  Her admiration for her father also extended to her mother who carried her load of being a military wife. Her mom had supported and protected the unspoken deeds of her dad for if Sammie could remember. Even now, her mom never questioned his mysterious summons here at the mountain in the middle of the night and his rushing to handle something essential and secret like when he commanded a company or battery while a company-grade officer.

  She had grown up with the family never asking where he went, what he did, or when he expected to return home, this coming with the turf of his being a leader in the military. Being a leader in intelligence matters made it significantly different with less worry, but now, with his being back in a command position required his thinking about multiple roles that included Intel gathering and leadership.

  Her mother always knew somehow what to pack in his duffle bag or suitcase on these trips. She knew the sequence of his medals and ribbons on his uniform and still maintained the accouterments on his uniform to perfection. Sammie recalled a can of Brasso always sitting in the master bathroom along with cotton balls and a soft cotton cloth used for nothing but shining her father's belt buckle and insignia.

  Sammie had learned the responsibilities of being an Army-issue brat while a teenager. She learned protocol by her accompanying her mom and her father to military affairs where the family stood in support of their military member.

  Sammie quickly learned the diplomacy, protocol, and army hierarchy expected of Army dependents. She learned the do and did not's while in foreign countries and grew to love the life of being an ambassador representing her family, her father’s unit, the Army, and the United States of America.

  In her youth, she had wanted to join the Central Intelligence Agency, imagining this being the agency in which her father worked on things about which he could not talk. The Muslim radicals’ attack on her home country on 11 September 2001 had merely strengthened her targeting the CIA for her career. This changed when President Bush and the Congress formed the Department of Homeland Security.

  Knowing that the Department of Homeland Security operated out of Nevada, she had applied while in high school to attend college at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she took the required courses at UNLV needed to gain acceptance in the Agency.

  National Security Agency personnel working in tandem with the Department of Homeland Security noticed her interest in the Department of Homeland Security, and with a little nudging along the way, she soon found herself working with an NSA recruiter at UNLV who suggested she adjust her curriculum to include a new secret weapon technology project of the NSA.

  Since employment with DHS would provide her an excellent cover, her recruiter suggested she continue seeking acceptance with them for assignment in Nevada. She learned that the members of Homeland Security attended the quarterly Civilian Military Council luncheons at the Nellis Air Force Base Officers Club and managed to get her name on the invitation list. Once accepted, she took advantage of open seating at the luncheons and always managed to be at the table selected by the attending DHS personnel. They soon took her into their lunch group.

  During a time when many college graduates struggled to find a job of any type, DHS readily accepted her and assigned her to the National Nevada Security Site north of Las Vegas with a DOE Q security clearance. Two weeks later, she found herself processing an application for a top-secret security clearance for a loan to the black world, becoming the second member of the Bradley family to carry secrets that she could not share with her family, even her father.

  The EMP attack had played havoc with her career, placing her and her co-worker in the Black World at the mountain where she sought a substitute activity. She found it at an Army sergeant's firearm training course in a simulated firing range in one of the cubicles, also considering there that Bronson, her co-worker from Area 51 shared many of her interests.

  ****

  The malingering dust devil resumed its perilous trek across the alkaline covered valley on cue with a shift in the brisk wind swirling across a dry lake bed at Jackass Flats, bringing with it the crisp, clean smell of ozone.

  A rain squall drifted in from the south end of the valley, following the dust devil and shift in the wind direction, while another stalled midway up the slopes of Yucca Mountain. The systematic rain squalls, the ominous black radioactive cloudbank to the north, and the eternal ion light display streaking from horizon to horizon in the atmosphere above had occurred daily and nonstop ever since the war.

  Sunrise broke the horizon. The sun dimly pierced the atomic haze to begin the day like any other post-atomic day in the Mojave Desert. An ominous black ridge of clouds obscured the northern horizon to pose a reminder of the occurrence of Armageddon along the West Coast.

  The rain had stopped sometime during the night, allowing the temperature to climb to near sixty-five degrees. Sunlight forced its rays through the haze, dimly illuminating the stark, barren desert hills. Long shadows still extended on the backside of the sparse succulent vegetation of the desert, providing a degree of security for a wary jackrabbit hopping amid the shadows. Mutated kangaroo rats and ground squirrels darted from one clump of cacti to another, also avoiding becoming a meal for any one of the few surviving predators in the area.

  Most rattlesnakes and other cool-blooded reptiles now approached extinction, eliminating a significant source of evolutionary control for the mutant breeds of rodents now reproducing out of control. Far in the distance, three buzzards circled what could be either a human or an animal carcass. An adequately nourished, but dreadfully ill coyote led her two atomically weakened pups back to their den after a night of hunting on the desert floor below.

  The recon squad weaved their Air Force Humvees through cars stalled and crashed along Highway 95 by the EMP attack. The team did not bother to look for survivors.

  Massive gatherings of buzzards, bald eagles, and sleeking coyotes marked the scattered carcasses of those dying from exposure to the elements, lack of water, and starvation whe
n stranded by the EMP. The scavengers shuffled out of the way of the passing Humvees, few bothering to fly for fear of losing their find. A mountain lioness hunkered down inside one of the vehicles until the scouting patrol passed.

  The squad leader entered the restricted area at Lathrop Wells at the three-way road junction of Highway 95 — Death Valley to the west, a limited access road into the NRDS portion of the National Nevada Security Site to the right and Beatty straight ahead.

  Deserted cars extended for miles on Highway 95 south towards Las Vegas and stranded vehicles clustered around the lone service station in Lathrop Wells. The Shamrock Brothel behind the Quit-Stop service station showed evidence of numerous bullet holes from former raiders attempting to get in. A large hole in the wall on the back side showed where they had succeeded. They saw no sign of life other than the scavengers roaming the town.

  The unbearable stench of decaying bodies filled the smoke-filled air. The silent bombardment of radiation penetrating the bodies of the squad peaked at a lethal range nearer to Lathrop Wells, making it doubtful for their accomplishing their recon and living to make it back to Las Vegas.

  ****

  Yucca Mountain - Enemy Recon.

  Bradley stepped out of his quarters in the small alcove to start his regular morning rounds with the radios, the Command Center, and then to the shift officer's desk to retrieve his morning briefing report. He stopped to wait on Sarge, who fell behind while chasing a guinea hen away from his turf, all the while listening to the never-ending flow of Intermountain intercom messages, a resource that he used to provide an excellent gauge on the human heart inside the mountain.

  More volunteers staffed the intercom paging system these days — partly for training and because of the most intense demands of social and training activities. “Mrs. Anderson, please report to classroom four.” “Eric, please bring a block of salt when you return to the animal kingdom.” “Sergeant Dawson, please report to Lieutenant Archer at the quartermaster alcove.” “Attention at the south portal — one of the goats has escaped his pen again — he is believed to be in the motor pool area.”

  The messages occurred nonstop, causing the residents to become so accustomed to them that they no longer registered unless a keyword or name triggered one’s attention, the messaging sounds not bothering those sleeping at all. Everyone preferred the sweet, yet professional tone of a female voice, however, both male and female alike teenagers at the mountain volunteered for the duty. Usually, five minutes of listening to the pages provided Bradley a grasp of the overall pulse of the mountain. The intercom traffic indicated high morale and no problems this morning.

  The sky remained hazy on the external monitor except to the east, where it showed a dim light from the sunrise. A wind direction change to the north sometime during the night had brought with it a fresh film of nuclear fallout now coating everything in sight with gray-colored ash rather than the usual black soot.

  Unknown to the meteorologists sheltered at the mountain, the atmospheric course changes during the night had left behind a scattered trail of radioactive contamination in the atmosphere to remain for years before falling to the earth. It had also picked up the toxic fallout spreading over most of the Northern Hemisphere - Sweden, Norway, Lapland, all Russia, and the Pacific Rim. The wind currents carried the fallout into Nevada, where the height of the Sierra Nevada range and the steepness of the Sierra Escarpment at the southern end produced the Sierra Rotor, an observed wind phenomenon where the mountains created a rain shadow on the leeward side carrying the air masses over the mountain range towards Jackass Flats. Unfortunately, the clouds lacked precipitation after losing their moisture due to the falling temperatures

  Bradley looked at the outside temperature readout. "Forty-two degrees and it is still summer in the desert,” he muttered to himself. "We can expect a rough winter,” he thought.

  Bradley ventured to the mess hall to meet Captain Callahan for lunch. There, they joined up with more of the officers engaged in war stories and gossip after breakfast.

  Bradley enjoyed these social occasions but always made his appearance brief to maintain a degree of separation between his officers and himself. Captain Callahan stayed behind while he moved on to drop in on various medical modules and the quartermaster supply room. He intended to visit the motor pool but decided to head back to the Command Center instead.

  Bradley arrived back at the north portal and entered the Command Center where several staff officers and community leaders were hanging out. They distanced themselves from the area of Bradley’s desk when he entered. Bradley joined them briefly before going to his desk to study the training schedule. He had hardly started to read when one of the guards shouted. "We' have visitors, sir.”

  "What?”

  "Some soldiers just now drove up in a Humvee.”

  Bradley rushed over to the external camera monitors to see for himself. He turned to the shift officer. "Lieutenant, mobilize our standby defense and alert the rest,” he ordered briskly. He picked up the intercom to the radio room and ordered the radio operator to try contacting those outside.

  The military team on shift came running through the tunnel locking and loading their weapons while on the run. "Stand by,” the shift officer ordered them. Each of them took a defensive position.

  "No radio contact, sir,” the radio operator reported.

  "Do not open that door,” Bradley reminded everyone within hearing range.

  Captain Callahan arrived with his soldiers and stood beside Bradley. "Lieutenant, raise them on the external speakers and get them on the intercom to see who they are and what they want. Ask them for their authentication code,” he ordered.

  "Do we have an authentication code, sir?” the lieutenant asked in a bewildered tone.

  "Negative, but they do not know that. See how they answer.”

  Bradley glanced towards the external radiation monitor. "Belay that order, Lieutenant,” he commanded. "Pan the camera and zoom it in on them. Captain, let me know what you see.”

  The lieutenant nodded towards a staff sergeant standing near the remote control. The sergeant first panned onto the two vehicles and then located and zoomed in on each of the individuals. Each of the raiders wore a military battle uniform and carried a heavy weapon, but not necessarily the same model. Two of the recon teams rushed out of sight of the camera while hurriedly unbuttoning their trousers while under surveillance by the camera.

  "What do you see, Captain?” Bradley asked. Callahan looked puzzled at first while searching his mind for where the colonel headed with this. He moved his body from side to side as though that would redirect the camera track and follow the image on the screen.

  “You are not wearing a HUD, a heads-up display,” Bradley said in a joking rebuke.

  Callahan laughed with embarrassment. “Ah, I see what you are referring to, Colonel. How about you, Sergeant?” He asked another of the sergeants observing the monitor. The sergeant did not know the answer.

  "For Christ's sake,” Callahan exclaimed in a tone to spread Bradley’s rebuke to include all those present. Like Bradley, he intended this to be a cautionary example of the need for attention to detail.

  "Don’t embarrass us before the boss. Look at the friggin radiation level out there. It is 1,224 REMs per hour. Do you see any film badges or dosimeters on any of those clowns? The answer is no. Do you really believe any military commander would send his troops out on a recon without radiation detection and protection? Those guys are not only exposed, but they are also absorbing lethal gamma ray dosage and have for no telling how long. Their assholes are fried.”

  Bradley chuckled. “Good catch, Captain. Men, let this be your lesson for today. Do not trust any strangers. You NCOs put yourselves in your CO and my shoes. What if we had allowed you to open the door? What if you had ordered the door opened? Always remember that we have no friends outside this tunnel. Someday - maybe. But not now — not today.”

  One member of the party outside noticed
the camera movement and shouted to their leader while pointing at the camera. From inside, they could not make out the words, but could the motions when the leader cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted something to those at the mountain.

  The OIC glanced at Bradley and Callahan.

  "They’re too far from the exterior microphones. Do not respond in any way,” Callahan said. "Patch this video onto the entertainment monitors. The effect of radiation on the human body is our training exercise today.”

  Those at the mountain learned much more about the effects of acute radiation during the next four hours than anyone expected. The health of those outside deteriorated minute by minute from vomiting to a combination of vomiting and diarrhea. They showed the effects of radiation dosage on the brain after three hours. Irritation with one another steadily increased. This escalated to anger at those at the mountain. Two of the scouting party fired their rifles at the steel door. The effect inside the mountain is easily passed for someone pecking with a hammer except the external speakers picked up the sounds of the weapons firing. The men finally loaded into the Humvees and disappeared into the smoky haze a little after 1600 hours.

  ****

  T plus 62 days.

  The dining area buzzed with a dozen or more conversations coinciding. During the past two months, the occupants had increasingly made this their recreation spot to linger and bond with new friends. Even the PhDs that Bradley once described being unable to find their ass with both hands now joked and relaxed with people previously thought to be entirely beneath their professional league. Where they once fit under the biblical translation “For ye suffers fools gladly — seeing ye yourselves as wise,” they now shared stories about yesterday’s experience at the animal kingdom or the rifle range instead of spitting out formulas. The teenagers, after adopting a big brother or big sister in their field of interest, a mentor, followed them around asking questions and eagerly offering to participate.