Kat punched the Kevlar-lined deck above her head. “No, no, no! Nuclear war? Sir, that makes no sense! Iran doesn’t have enough nukes to do much damage and Russia and China know they could never hit all our ICBM’s before we retaliated. That’s the whole point behind Mutually Assured Destruction. They call our deterrence plan M.A.D for a damn reason!”
Dore leaned back and closed his eyes. “Do you have a better theory? Don’t you see all those missiles? The only question is whether this is just regional or worldwide.”
The pilot whistled and adjusted the gain on the helicopter’s radio. “Hey! I picked up an AWACS over the Persian Gulf. They’re broadcasting on most frequencies. Both civilian and military.”
Kat fumbled to plug her radio into the internal Combat Vehicle Crew intercom. She finally got it connected on the third try.
“…I say again, negative on the NUCFLASH event. No nuclear weapons are in play, by any nation. The Tel Aviv blast was out of radar range, but we can confirm that Tehran and Riyadh were destroyed by falling objects. Likely meteorites. We tracked both trajectories for two minutes. The damn rocks were the size of a bus and had a terminal velocity more than 20,000 mph. Break… all US, NATO and other allied military forces in range: the American president has ordered a DEFCON 1 alert. This is no exercise. We are at war. We’re tracking thousands of small, unidentified—”
Kat jumped back from the reality-splitting squelch. “Shit. That’s not jamming. The line was open when they were taken down…”
Through the ringing in her ears, a faint voice faded in and out over the intercom.
“This is Admiral Miller, Fifth Fleet…on board the Ford. We’re engaging…hundreds of hostile aircraft…” An explosion in the background drowned him out. “…closed for recovery operations.”
The admiral seemed to yell at someone else in the same room, forgetting to switch off the mike.
“Fine, abandon ship then, but I’m not going anywhere!” The weak connection flickered out.
The helicopter pilot’s flat voice filled the net and cut through the cabin’s complete silence. “Captain, if we turn now, we’ll have just enough fuel to make it to Thumrait Air Base in Oman. It’s the closest friendly airfield. With luck, it’s also too small to be a prime target for… well, whatever the hell is going on.”
“Fine. Just get us on the ground as fast as you can.”
As both Ospreys banked to the northwest, now with propellers down in airplane flight mode, Kat noticed the Apaches continuing ahead. All alone.
“Dragon, this is Butterfly. Where do you guys think you’re going, over?”
“Sorry, but we don’t have such long legs as ya’ll. Without a refueling tanker, we’ll never make it back to shore. I’d sooner take my chances in that mess with the fleet than ditch off the coast of Deathtoamerica-stan. Good luck, Butterfly. Kick some ass for us!”
Kat didn’t have anything to say. She just clutched her handset until her knuckles burned white. Out the side window, both gunships slipped deeper into the darkness. Much farther out in the inky blackness, hundreds of surface-to-air missile plumes danced across the sky.
Somewhere over the horizon, their carrier battle group wasn’t going down quietly. As silly as it sounded, Kat ached to join the battle.
“At least we’re putting up a hell of a fight.”
Captain Dore studied the small carbine in his hands. “Ya, but isn’t hell where all the demons come from?”
Ponte Vedra, Florida
10 miles south of Jacksonville Beach
“Hey, Rachel! Sorry it took so long. This darn power outage knocked out every traffic light in town. Must have been an accident every mile.”
The skinny blonde girl on the curb stabbed Dixon with her eyes while he waved like a fool. Rachel hopped in the passenger side of his SUV without a word and buried her face in her phone.
Dixon smiled. So far, it was a perfectly normal day.
He glanced around the ghost parking lot. “I guess none of your friends need a ride.”
Rachel powered off her service-less phone, but didn’t look his way. “Everyone’s parents came by already. I told Claire’s dad that you’d ‘be here any minute.’ That was about forty-five minutes ago!”
Dixon pulled up to the lightless, eight-lane intersection and scanned carefully. Traffic was slim, but those still on the road drove like wet cats escaping a bath.
“Again, I’m sorry. At least your old man’s here now. What do you say we grab a pizza and…” He swallowed his mistake too late. Rachel cut him deep with another icy glare.
“Listen, Dick.” She loved calling him by that odd nickname for Peter, even if no one else had since high school. “Do you really think you’re my father? I’m fifteen-years old and you’ve been with my mother for less than three of them. There’s a reason mom didn’t take your last name when you married. So no matter how much you fantasize, we’ll never be that—”
A gunshot across the street shut her up. Dixon lunged for the glove box and kept his eye on the gas station on the other side of the intersection. Several teenagers stormed out, trailing loot, and scurried into a pickup truck full of camping gear. Their arms weren’t stuffed with money, cigarettes or even beer, but rather beef jerky and canned goods. Dixon snagged his Glock and loaded a magazine, but didn’t bother chambering a round.
An old, turban-clad man ran after the youths and fired a shotgun in the air. The well-dressed thieves tossed their hands up as police sirens rounded the corner. Dixon whistled.
“Wow. These beach cops are on the ball, huh?”
Four squad cars rolled past the armed, gesticulating shop owner… and kept racing south down A1A.
Rachel eased herself up and peeked over the dash. “What do you say we get out of here, huh?”
Dixon chewed his lip and pulled on to A1A, heading north. “Ya, good idea.”
Rachel flipped on the radio, but the dashboard computer screen and its integrated GPS and entertainment system stayed black. Dixon splayed a hand across the blank digital displays.
“No dice. Maybe I shouldn’t have skipped the last maintenance check. None of the dash lights have come on since…” He only now noticed that most cars on the road overflowed with luggage.
“Jesus! Just what did those terrorists blow up?”
Rachel grinned while Dixon grimaced. “Maybe it was…” she wiggled her arms and howled, “an EMP! Woooh!”
Crinkling her nose, she snatched his loaded pistol from the seat with two fingers and tossed it back in the glove box. “Isn’t that what you and your prepper buddies are always fantasizing about? Some magical device that’ll reset the world order and put you manly men back on top of the food chain? Make you and the other gun nuts heroes in a world of, how do you call them? Sheeple?”
Dixon resisted the bait. Well, tried to, at any rate. They’d had this same silly argument a million times, but he couldn’t help himself. The girl knew how to push his buttons better than her mother ever could.
“I didn’t hear you complaining the last time I took you out to the gun range.”
She smirked like a hyena. Crap. He walked right into the ambush. “Sure, I like shooting. Who doesn’t? It’s more fun than a video game. On the other hand, it’s a whole different level of crazy when you start planning for the video game to become real. One of my teachers pointed out that right-wing Christian nuts with guns kill more people in America every year than all the Islamic terrorists combined.”
Dixon’s cheek twitched. “Cut the crap. Right-winger? Seriously? You know I’m about as political as a potato. As for religion, the last time I was even in a church was when Katherine and I got married. I’m just trying to be r
eady for anything. Gives me peace of mind. Governments and corporations have disaster contingency plans. What’s so crazy about a regular guy making his own?”
She rolled her eyes and muttered something about “disaster fetishes,” but Dixon was in the zone. “Ya, when the chips are down, I don’t plan on relying on the generosity of my soulless employer or the foresight of some unaccountable government bureaucrat. Besides, it doesn’t take a zombie apocalypse to justify prepping. Plenty of real world, mini-catastrophes could ruin our lives. Financial collapses, hurricanes, terrorist attacks, whatever. Even the EMP scenario you love to mock. Forget a nuke; the sun is regularly churning out solar flares powerful enough to take down the power grids of entire countries on Earth. It’s happened at least twice in the last century.”
Rachel snickered. “So you’re scared of the sun now?”
“Rachel, you can’t be that naïve. I’m not wishing for bad things to happen, but I sure as heck won’t stick my head in the sand and pretend nothing can happen. Just look around, for example. One terrorist attack knocks out power and everyone freaks the fu—, uh hell out.”
Rachel crossed her arms and snorted like a true lady. Dixon cocked his head her way, waiting for the snarkiness… that never came. Was that even a slight tinge of respect in her eyes? She giggled. “Well, I’ll have to give you that one, but that’s only because we live in Florida. One great big, lawless swamp. SSDD.”
Dixon relaxed and laughed at the fifteen year old. “SSDD? Where’d you hear that saying?”
Her smile vanished. “From mom. Do you think she’s out there fighting the terrorists while we’re out getting pizza?”
Dixon’s mouth went dry. She didn’t say it, not this time, and her tone was perfectly neutral, but the same guilt and shame flooded his soul as if she’d slapped him. What’s a real man doing playing house while his wife is out saving the world?
Thankfully, the world changed the subject for him.
He lifted a finger over the steering wheel. “Check it out. Things can’t be that bad if NASA is still up and running. Is that the latest Mars rover you were so excited about? I thought the launch was scheduled for this weekend?”
A mammoth column of smoke, maybe 50 miles to the north, raced to heaven. Dixon wasn’t the obsessive space buff that Rachel was, but even he had to admit these regular rocket launches along the Space Coast were impressive. Downright inspirational. He beamed over at his stepdaughter, waiting for her to appreciate the careful attention he paid to her hobbies.
Instead of awe or more angst, Rachel’s face dripped raw, undulated terror.
“No fucking way!”
“Hey, what’s with the language? It’s only a rocket. Okay, two rockets. Hmm. Three now, wow, but still—”
“Peter, are you that stupid?” He snapped his head around at the first-ever use of his correct name. Rachel’s fingernails dug into the armrests. Her pale face was beyond horrified.
“Think about it. That’s north. Cape Canaveral is to the south! Can’t you figure out where these things are launching from?”
Dixon eased off the gas. His jaw hung open as a fourth rocket spouted skyward. “From King’s Bay. The Navy base…God almighty!”
“Ya, the big submarine base.” Rachel clutched herself tight. “The one with all the subs carrying nuclear missiles.”
He might be slow on the uptake, but Dixon wasn’t the indecisive type. He slammed the brakes and jerked the wheel hard. Spitting in the face of gravity, they whipped around in an illegal U-turn across the grass median. Even with her cheek slammed against the passenger window, Rachel mumbled something as they raced south.
Dixon pried his eyes off the rearview mirror. Two dozen ballistic missile trails now pierced the sunny sky behind them.
“What are you doing? We’re only ten minutes away from the house!” Rachel threw up her hands.
“No, it ain’t home any longer, honey. Don’t you get it? America is at war. A friggin’ nuclear war. The type of war that was never supposed to happen in the 21st century. Think about it. Jacksonville is just a big, fat target at the moment. A target full of a million terrified and desperate folk.” He fought to keep the panic out of his voice.
“Please tell me you put your bug-out bag back in the trunk. I haven’t checked since the weekend.”
Rachel ignored him and used that same cold calculator voice her mother favored when worried. “The missiles are all launching straight at the sky. Bending a little towards the equator, maybe, but those trails don’t look anything like a ballistic arc. Strange.”
Dixon swerved to avoid a lane full of gawkers suddenly stopping in the middle of the road. A dozen drivers slammed their brakes without warning and shoved cameras out the windows. One guy even stepped out of a minivan and tried to get a selfie with the nukes in the background.
Dixon never took his foot off the gas as they shot past. “Don’t worry. I’m sure the Navy knows what they’re doing.”
“That’s exactly what worries me. I’m no aerospace engineer yet, but those aren’t normal launches. The missiles are going straight up. Looks more like a space intercept than a missile heading to Russia or China. They’re burning all their fuel exiting the atmosphere. Whatever the military is aiming at doesn’t seem to be on Earth. I wonder what we’re shooting at up there?”
“Who cares? Whoever the enemy is, I’m sure they can fire back. Let’s just get to Palatka and grab our supplies. We can sort out the rest later.”
The drowsy little town of Palatka and his carefully scouted bug out site, complete with a well-stocked survival cache, was only a half hour drive away. Far enough to be outside of any nuclear blast zone or immediate fallout from Jacksonville, yet close enough to home that he could make it there on just a quarter tank of gas. Dixon glanced down at his pitiful fuel gauge. Damn. Not a lucky sign if you have to start with your worst-case evacuation scenario. The one day he broke the prepper Bible and let his tank dip below half full…
“Don’t worry. This isn’t how I expected things to go down, but that’s okay. If we stick to the plan, we’ll get back in control of things in no time.”
He twisted his eyes and peeked to see if she bought into his confidence. He couldn’t read her crinkled brow, but it didn’t seem likely. Especially since he didn’t believe his own words. Despite readying his mind, body and supply stash for years, prepping had never been more than a hobby. Rachel was half-right. It was all supposed to be a mere game. The worst Dixon ever expected was that they might have to live off the grid for a week, maybe two tops, if a bad storm hit. Nuclear war? Who could be ready for that type of insanity? He swallowed down his fear and tried to keep his voice nonchalant.
“Go ahead and hand me the weapon and holster, please. You know, just to be safe.”
Rachel sniffed, but gave him the gun. Attitude aside, he noted with pride how she cocked the slide back and double-checked the safety before clipping the holster to his belt.
“And then what, Mister Badass Prepper? You want to go camping and wait this out? My mother is out there fighting!” She snarled and cried at the same time, in only the way a teenager could.
“Peter, we can’t go hide in some swamp. We need to find the police or the Army or someone… I don’t know, but we need to get in the war! There’s got to be something we can do to help.”
Dixon gritted his teeth and pushed through his fear and helplessness. “The first priority is to get out of immediate danger. Then we’ll figure something out. Your mother would want—”
A pair of F-15 fighter planes flashed past, heading south, only a few hundred feet above them. The sonic booms in their wake shattered the driver’s side window and rattled Dixon’s bones. Both fighters volleyed off missiles at something over
the horizon.
“To hell with this! We’re getting off the freeway. It’ll take us longer, but maybe we’ll make it to Palatka in one piece.”
Rachel reached over and plucked a small glass shard from his cheek.
“You’ve got more weapons in the storage unit, right? Mom wouldn’t go down without a fight and neither will I!”
Dixon couldn’t meet her petrified, yet resolved stare. So he just kept his eyes on the road.
“I’ve got a feeling surviving is going to be enough of a fight.”
He slowed the SUV to a more sane speed and craned his neck out the window. “Hey, how long would it take those nukes to detonate? If they can make it to Russia in twenty minutes, they should be able to go straight up faster. We should be seeing flashes by now, right?”
Rachel kept hugging herself despite the steel in her voice. “How should I know? Isn’t that a good thing? No bombs going off, no retaliation.”
Dixon rooted around under his seat for his ever-handy water bottle. Any drier and his mouth would suck moisture from the air. He didn’t answer, not wanting to scare the girl with what was on his mind.
Not that it mattered. Rachel puzzled it out soon enough. “My God. Do you think the enemy shot the missiles down? Are we sitting ducks?”
Dixon stayed focused on the winding country road ahead and pretended not to hear. Rachel peered at the sweat running down his neck, despite the AC on full blast.
Rachel stopped asking questions she didn’t want to know the answers to.
Royal Omani Air Force Base Thumrait
Southwestern Oman
“They weren’t kidding about this place being out of the way. Even the base personnel can’t seem to find it! Where the hell is everyone?”
Kat held her rifle at the low ready as the Osprey’s tilt-rotors spun to a halt. The rest of her team fanned out on the tarmac close by, but she’d never been lonelier. No one had responded when the pilot called the airfield on their final approach. Even after they buzzed the tower and flashed their landing lights, they still couldn’t get a peep out of the airbase.
Kat and Die Wolfsschanze Page 30
