by Dirk Patton
Rachel didn’t have a response, just stood next to me, staring at the plane. Finally, I moved us forward, very cautiously. Dog stayed close and alert, but not acting as if there was anything to worry about. I was willing to trust his keener senses, especially with a rifle to my shoulder. Just in case.
We reached the rear of the aircraft, pausing to look up at the closed ramp. There was no way to open it from the outside, at least no way I was aware of, so after checking the length of starboard, I led the way around the back and along the port side. There is a crew door in front of the wing, which was my destination, but as soon as we rounded the corner and Dog caught scent of the breeze, he stopped.
I watched him for a few seconds, his nose in the air. He didn’t growl or seem concerned, which made me feel slightly better. At least there weren’t any infected upwind from where we were standing. A moment later the wind gusted, bringing the smell to me that had caused him to pause. It was the smell of death.
Turning my head slightly, I used my peripheral vision to see what was ahead of us. Several forms lay on the smooth, desert floor beneath the wing. Glancing at Rachel, I could tell she had smelled what was ahead of us, then moved forward and circled past the bodies to check the rest of the plane.
The crew door was open, the set of folding stairs extended down. I couldn’t see beneath the belly of the aircraft, but Dog was low enough to have a clear view so I trusted there was no one playing hide-n-seek with us. Signaling for Rachel to watch our rear, I approached the dark door, leading with the muzzle of my rifle, stopping again at the bottom of the steps.
Dog was calm, alleviating my concern that an enemy was hiding inside. I tapped him on the back and he bounded up the steps, into the plane. I followed, slightly slower, pausing inside the opening. As dark as it had been outside, there was an absolute absence of light within the cavernous interior. I couldn’t even see Dog’s shape, but could hear him a few feet away, softly sniffing the hot, stale air.
Without a light or night vision, I wasn’t about to start trying to wander around and clear the aircraft. Grumbling a few choice words to myself, I dug out the disposable lighter from the mostly empty pack of cigarettes in my pocket. With a deep breath, I flicked the wheel and a brilliant flame sprang to life. Holding it above my head, I looked around and located a large electrical panel, found the right switch and moved it to on with a solid thunk.
Lights affixed to the ceiling of the cargo area came to life, washing everything in a blood red glow. I’d intentionally avoided turning on the white lights that would have destroyed my night vision. Red wasn’t great to search by, but it allowed me to see everything and I’d be able to walk back outside without being blind until my eye adjusted.
It was a matter of less than a minute to determine that Dog and I were the only living things within the plane. I also found and opened several large lockers which held all variety of items for the SEAL team. Slipping on a pair of night vision goggles, I took another for Rachel as well as two lights that would attach to the rails on our rifles. Stepping back outside, I activated the NVGs and handed Rachel the other set.
“All good?” she asked.
“Inside’s clear.”
I turned and walked over to what I could now see were five bodies. We’d been on a very long flight, requiring multiple, in-air refuelings. Because of the duration of the trip, two flight crews had been assigned. While one was in the cockpit, the other was resting so they could switch on a regular basis and ensure an alert pilot and co-pilot were in control. The fifth corpse belonged to the crew chief who didn’t need a relief as there hadn’t been a whole lot for him to do.
All five men had been shot in the back of the head. It appeared they had been herded beneath the wing and made to get on their knees before being executed where their bodies would be concealed from orbiting cameras.
“What the hell?” Rachel breathed from next to me.
“Goddamn Russians,” I said bitterly. “Took the flight crew out first so they could approach from this direction without the SEALs being alerted.”
Despite the stench of voided bowels and bladders, as well as the obvious bullet wounds in their skulls, Rachel still stepped forward and checked each body for a pulse. It didn’t take long and she stood without saying anything. There was no point.
Dog stood between us and he turned his head to the side and let out a low growl. A second later I heard a howl that reminded me a lot of a wolf. Quickly there were answering calls from all around. Rachel shuddered and moved closer.
“What the hell is that?” she asked.
“Dingoes. I think,” I said scanning the surrounding desert through the night vision.
At the limit of their range, I thought I could see several sinuous forms moving across the desert.
“They want the bodies. I’m surprised we got here before they did.”
“Will they attack?”
“No idea,” I said. “But let’s not mess around. Go inside and start opening lockers. There’ll be some body bags, somewhere. I’m not going to leave these guys out here for the fuckin’ scavengers.”
Rachel hurried into the plane, returning a few minutes later with a bundle of heavy bags in her arms. While I’d been waiting, the dingoes had continued to howl and had moved close enough for me to get a good view.
They looked pretty much like any medium sized, mixed-breed mutt I’d ever seen. More domesticated dog-like than the coyotes I was used to in the American southwest. And there were a lot of them. The pack was constantly in motion, but I was pretty sure there more than twenty of the little bastards.
Dog was growling frequently and I was glad he wasn’t of a mind to go charging out to face the pack. He was much larger and stronger than any of the dingoes, but he was seriously outnumbered. They’d work together to take him down.
“Get the bags unfolded and ready,” I said to Rachel, not wanting to take my attention off the wildlife.
“They’re coming closer,” she said, fear in her voice.
I glanced over to see her standing and watching the pack. She was probably remembering nearly being taken by wolves in the Idaho mountains, but I was getting a little nervous, too. Coyotes wouldn’t have been this bold. Well, there’s a reason they aren’t.
Confident there was no one within hearing range, I removed the suppressor from the end of my rifle and started shooting. The pack froze in place for an instant at the loud report of the first round. It found its target, the dingo flipping sideways and tumbling to the dirt, dead.
Before I could sight in the second one, they turned and streaked away into the night. I still managed to drop one with a lucky shot, then fired a long burst of full auto in the direction they had gone. I didn’t expect any of the bullets to find their mark, I just wanted to reinforce the fear they had of the sharp reports of the weapon.
“OK, let’s get this done before they get their courage back.”
Rachel nodded and we moved quickly, being as respectful of the fallen as we could, under the circumstances. Dog kept watch as we worked, sweating from the exertion of getting the men into bags then carrying them up the steps and through the crew door.
Before we were finished, Dog growled again and I scanned our surroundings. The dingoes were back. But this time they weren’t running around or trying to push closer. They were just out there, a couple hundred yards away, watching us.
Moving the final corpse into the cargo area of the C-130, I called Dog inside and stood in the opening, looking out across the desert. The pack hadn’t drawn any closer and were still quiet, but I decided they needed a reminder not to press their luck. Finding the largest animal, I took my time in drawing a bead, then pulled the trigger.
The dingo fell dead before the sound of the shot reached the rest of the pack. They immediately scattered, running away until I lost sight of them. Pulling the door closed behind me, I turned and shoved the NVGs off my face.
Rachel had already found water and was drinking deeply. I did as well,
pausing and looking around when a soft electronic beep came from the cockpit. We made our way forward and looked at a small screen with a dedicated keyboard to the side and behind the co-pilot’s seat. It sounded again and I reached out and touched the enter key. The screen lit up, displaying a request for a passcode.
“What’s that?” Rachel asked as the beeping continued.
“STU,” I said. “Secure Terminal Unit. Someone’s trying to reach the crew or the SEALs.”
“Should we answer?”
“Can’t, even if we wanted to,” I said, pointing at the message. “Don’t have a code to unlock it.”
“So, what now?” she asked as muted howls from the pack of dingoes reached our ears.
First things first. We both drank some more water, fighting dehydration from the hot, arid climate. Dog drank greedily, splashing as much on the deck as he consumed. The next order of business was to open some more lockers and load up with full magazines and several other tools of the trade. Once our supplies were replenished, I went on a search for any type of communications gear that didn’t require a passcode to function.
As I did this, howls from the dingoes increased in volume as they surrounded the plane. There wasn’t a window to look out other than the cockpit windscreen and I didn’t bother to go forward. I was pretty sure the pack had zeroed in on the blood-soaked sand where the pilots and crew chief had been murdered. At least, that’s what coyotes would do.
But even in a pack, coyotes won’t close in on a human the way the dingoes had done. But coyotes are sneaky little bastards, whereas their Australian cousins seemed to be more brazen. I didn’t know if there was a real risk of them attacking as a group when we stepped outside, but I’d deal with that when the time came. I was now well armed and could see at least as well as the wild animals right outside the skin of the plane.
I spent close to twenty minutes searching the plane. Other than the STU, which was still sounding an alert, and the radio built into the cockpit, I struck out. No cell phones, satellite phones or any other comm devices. With an internal sigh, I realized I should have checked the bodies of the dead SEALs before heading into the desert. That thought gave me an idea and I moved to where we’d placed the five body bags.
Unzipping the closest one, I wrinkled my nose at the smell and thoroughly checked over the dead man’s flight suit. Car keys, a pack of cigarettes that went into my pocket and a battered leather wallet with photos of a smiling woman, and that was it. Closing the bag, I moved to the next, glancing over at Rachel who was seated on the deck with Dog by her side. She had prepared an MRE from one of the lockers and was sharing the food with him.
Finally, in the next to last bag, I found a personal cell phone in the breast pocket of a man wearing Lieutenant Commander’s oak leaves. Rocking back on my haunches, I pressed the power button and watched intently as it went through its startup procedure. It finished quickly, displaying a lock screen. Across the top were a couple of icons that told me the battery was fully charged, but there was no service. Rachel had moved next to me when she saw the phone and peered at it over my shoulder.
“We’re in the middle of nowhere,” she said.
“That, or an American phone isn’t compatible with Australian cell service.”
I almost tossed the device back into the body bag, but changed my mind at the last instant. Instead, I used the pilot’s thumbprint to unlock the handset and poked around menus and disabled the locking function. Powering it down, I shoved it in my pocket and moved on to check the final corpse. Nothing.
Frustrated, I closed the zipper and moved away from the dead, taking a seat on the deck and leaning against a bulkhead. Dog immediately came over and lay down with his head in my lap. Scratching his ears, I took a slow look around the inside of the plane as Rachel sat on the other side and rested her hand on my leg.
16
“Think we’re safe here?” Rachel asked after a few minutes of silence.
“From the dingoes?”
“Well, yes, but I meant the Russians. What if they send another helicopter?”
I thought about that for a minute before answering. Her question wasn’t at all invalid, but the idea wasn’t something that worried me. Even though they’d lost their Spetsnaz team, from their perspective the assault had been a success. It was probably all over the news by now, so even if they weren’t watching on satellite they’d be getting reports of how many bodies were found.
But what had to be a massive response from the authorities, as well as the news media, most likely meant we were safe. The scene of the battle really wasn’t all that far away and, even as arrogant as the Russians were in operating a gunship and killing lots of Americans, I didn’t think they’d push their luck and send in a second team. It just didn’t make sense that they’d be worried about a man, a woman and a dog having survived.
“I think we’re okay,” I finally said. “There’s got to be a lot of attention on this part of the outback at the moment and they won’t want to stir things up any more than they already have. Besides, they don’t know who I am, so I don’t see them expending the effort to come after two lone survivors.”
Rachel nodded when I finished speaking and was quiet for a bit. I continued to absently scratch Dog’s ears, trying to come up with the best idea for continuing the quest to reach Sydney and kill Barinov.
“Why are we still doing this?” Rachel asked.
“Doing what?”
“This. Still fighting, just so you can kill a single man. Isn’t it time to call it a day and figure out what the rest of our lives are going to be like? It certainly seems as if that’s what the Admiral has done.”
“I have to do this,” I said. “We’ve had this conversation. I don’t know what’s changed that the Admiral is pulling back, but this son of a bitch needs to be removed from what’s left of the planet. The world is still dying…”
“What if it’s not?” Rachel asked, interrupting me. “What if that’s why he called off the mission? Maybe the scientists were wrong, or had bad data or something. Or found a way to neutralize the virus in the environment.”
“You don’t really believe that,” I said.
“I don’t know what I believe. It’s possible, but without knowing, you’re charging into a situation to take an action that may no longer be necessary.”
“Still necessary to me,” I mumbled.
“I know,” she said sadly. “I was hoping you would be able to move on without having to extract vengeance.”
I fell quiet again, the only sound the scratching of my fingers on Dog’s head.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know that’s what you want and I don’t blame you. But I can’t let this go. I’ve tried. I’m so damn tired of running and fighting, especially since it seems like we’re not making any progress. Everything that’s happened since the night of the attacks, and where am I? My wife is dead. Most of my friends are dead. All I have is you and fur face.”
There was a long silence, Rachel gently rubbing my leg.
“I’ve got a really bad feeling,” she finally said.
“About what?”
“Remember the conversation in the van with Nitro about gut feelings?”
I nodded.
“Like that,” she said. “Nothing I can describe. Just a… a… sense of dread. Like something really terrible is going to happen if we don’t turn around and leave.”
I turned and looked at her eyes. There was no doubt she was sincere. This wasn’t something she’d made up to try and sway me.
“How long have you had the feeling?” I asked.
“Not sure,” she said, shaking her head. “Since before we left Lucas’s place. And it’s getting worse. Like something bad’s going to happen. Something really bad.”
“To us?”
“Us,” she said, nodding. “Dog, too.”
Dog opened his eyes when he heard his name, but when there wasn’t food or a ball in view, he closed them with a sigh. I looked at Rachel fo
r a long moment but didn’t know what to say. Something had been nagging at me, too, but I’d ignored it. Until now.
Her revelation sent prickly little bumps down my back. Were we walking into a trap? And why the hell was I still going down this path with only Rachel and Dog? Could I really go against Barinov by myself?
As that thought ran through my head, I remembered Lucas and his men. I wasn’t by myself. It only felt that way. All I needed to do was get to Sydney and connect with them. Put a bullet through the fucker’s head that was responsible for so many deaths. Once that was done, I could stop fighting and begin the next chapter of my life with Rachel.
Neither of us had anything else to say. After a few minutes went by, I snagged one of the MREs out of the locker next to me. Dog was instantly alert, sitting up and intently watching every movement of my hands as I activated the heater. When it was ready, I ate a little over half before spreading the package out on the deck. He polished it off in three seconds flat, then stood there looking at me expectantly and licking his lips.
Settling back against the bulkhead, I put my arm around Rachel’s shoulders so she could pillow her head on my chest. Dog held out for nearly a minute, hoping for more food, but finally surrendered, turned a couple of circles and lay down with his chin in my lap. I’d decided that we would spend the night in the plane, then head out when the sun came up.
My plan was to walk a couple of miles south to clear the area where the battle had taken place, then head back to the highway. We’d ditch our weapons in the bushes and hopefully be able to flag down one of the rare travelers. It shouldn’t be hard to find our way to Sydney and I still remembered the name I’d been given. Once we arrived, I’d contact him and he should be able to put me back in touch with Lucas.
It was probably going to take a long time to make the journey and we couldn’t be walking around the civilized world with weapons strapped to our bodies. Hopefully Lucas would be able to provide what we’d have to leave behind. There wasn’t another option, so I didn’t spend any more time thinking about it.
