“I thought they got ’em all,” Kate whispered.
“No, Jim didn’t want them disturbed. Gave the town hell about it.”
By the end of the second week in December, an unsettling reality had descended on most of New England. The sheer number of deaths caused by the flu solidly overtook local efforts to handle the dead bodies, and the coroner’s office no longer responded to civilian requests. Temporary morgues located in any and all available refrigerated spaces, including refrigerated trailers, filled up within days, leaving most households with no real option for removing a dead body.
It didn’t take long for outdoor morgues to materialize, usually within a securely-fenced industrial facility, or a local baseball park, and nearly everyone with deceased family members was directed to one of these sites by early December. The outdoor morgues became loosely monitored dumping grounds, quickly descending into disorder and plagued by nasty rumors. Many households opted to keep their own dead safe in a shed, or just inside their basement bulkhead doors, where they would remain refrigerated or frozen until spring.
James had dragged the bodies of his wife and seven-month-old child into the conservation woods in late March and buried them in graves that took him nearly a week to dig in the solid ground.
All of the kids in front of the Walkers’ house fell silent and watched as the pickup truck pulled into the Thompsons’ driveway. Ed said something to the kids, and they all started walking toward Ed’s house. James Thompson appeared at the top of the driveway to meet the truck. The men from the truck hopped out and James shook hands with them. The driver, a man dressed in faded jeans and a flannel shirt, patted him on the shoulder. The second man displayed a badge and tucked it back into his back pocket. James nodded to them and walked back into his garage.
The two men went to the back of the pickup truck and lowered the gate. The driver pulled two shovels out of the bed, and the deputy removed what Alex knew would be two dark green, military-issue body bags. They both met James, who carried a shovel over his shoulder, at the top of the driveway, and James led them around the garage.
“I think we should go inside. Last thing he needs is for the whole neighborhood to watch as they load his wife and baby on the truck.”
“Should we tell the kids to come in?” Kate asked, reaching a hand up to Alex.
He pulled her to her feet. “No, they’re fine with Ed.”
He looked over at Ed, who nodded toward them and turned to go about the business of moving the gaggle of kids over to the opposite side of his house.
“I don’t like them out of sight,” Kate said.
“They’ll be fine for a couple minutes,” he assured her, and they both stepped inside.
They walked back into the kitchen, where Alex placed his empty bottle down on the island and opened the refrigerator to get another beer.
I could use something stronger than a beer.
“Someone called while we were out front,” Kate announced and picked up the phone.
“Probably Ed or Charlie.”
Alex fished around the refrigerator for a beer buried near the back.
“Actually, it was the police,” she said suddenly.
Alex lifted his head above the refrigerator. “Really?”
“Yep.”
He quickly pulled a beer from the back of the refrigerator and almost knocked a yellow ceramic bowl filled with bean salad onto the floor. He caught the bowl between his left forearm and thigh, burying his elbow in the beans. Kate came around to help him.
“Nice catch, huh?”
“Yeah, I love the taste of elbow in my food. I’m tempted to stand back and see how you’ll figure this one out, but I’m afraid to see what might go into the beans next.”
She reached for the salad bowl.
“Thank you, my love,” he said and backed out of the way of the refrigerator.
“I thought the cops were done with us.” She placed the bowl back on the bottom shelf and closed the door.
“I have a feeling we’ll be hearing a lot more from them. Frankly, I was surprised they didn’t spend more time around here…once they finally got around to checking it out.”
During the third week in January, state police officers had arrived to conduct a preliminary investigation into the reported murders and shootings. They walked a half mile in snow shoes, from High Rise Road, which was the nearest passable road in the area. Escorted by Charlie and Ed, they took a look at the Hayes’ and Coopers’ houses. Their response was underwhelming, but expected. They said that the bodies couldn’t be removed any time soon, and that nobody should disturb either crime scene.
Charlie and Ed also led them to the retention pond, to show the officers where they had dumped the three neighborhood shootout casualties. The troopers took a few notes and asked even fewer questions. Apparently, the shootout on Durham Road didn’t qualify as unusual to either of them. They took a cursory look through the Murrays’ house, which was once again empty, and took a few more notes before leaving the neighborhood.
Alex twisted off the top of his beer and took a long swig. “Well, let’s see what they want. I’ll be up in the office.”
“I’m gonna head over to Sam and Ed’s. Head over when you’re done.”
“Love you,” he said.
“Love you more.”
He headed upstairs and sat down in his office chair. He stared out at the neighborhood and saw Derek with his family, still playing in their backyard. He stood up and opened the windows. A warm breeze rolled gently in, lazily displacing a few sheets of loose paper on the desk. He spotted Jamie heading across the street toward Ed’s.
Probably saw Kate heading over.
He sat back down and stared at the phone, not in the least bit interested in talking to the police about what had transpired in December. Just then, the orange LED screen lit up. “Murray, Gregory.” Alex picked up the phone, hopeful that their friends were finally on their way home.
The End
The Perseid Collapse, the highly anticipated sequel to The Jakarta Pandemic, will be released on Dec 1st, 2013 You can pre-order a copy of it here: The Perseid Collapse. Go to excerpt from The Perseid Collapse.
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Steven Konkoly is the author of Black Flagged,
Black Flagged Redux, Black Flagged Apex, and Black Flagged Vektor
Go to excerpt from Black Flagged,
the first book in the Black Flagged series.
Excerpt from The Perseid Collapse (unedited)
Chapter Four
Monday: August 19, 2019
USS Gravely (DDG107)
Norfolk Naval Base, Virginia
Chief Fire Controlman Warren Jeffries took a long swig of bitter coffee from a worn USS Gravely travel mug and stared at the unchanging console screen. Three hours until one of Destroyer Squadron Twenty-two’s teams arrived and resumed responsibility for this watch, allowing his sailors a much needed break before the start of the work week. As Atlantic Fleet’s designated Launch On Remote (LOR) Homeland Ballistic Missile Defense (HBMD) platform, Gravely maintained a continuous state of readiness to fire her RIM-161 Standard Missile Three (SM-3) shipboard missiles at ballistic missile threats to key infrastructure assets in Washington D.C. With an operational range of three hundred miles, the Block IIB version carried onboard Gravely could conceivably protect New York City.
Gravely was directly linked to the Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) Command, Control, Battle Management Communications (C2BMC) program, which connected and integrated all elements of the nation’s ballistic missile defense system in a multi-layered approach to defeating detected threats. Gravely served as one of the final layers, providing long-range anti-ballistic missiles and shipboard phased array termin
al guidance capabilities to the overall effort.
Chief Jeffries stepped away from the console manned by Fire Controlman Clark and sat down at a deactivated console station several feet away to “rest” his eyes for a few seconds. The watch required two qualified Fire Controlman, who would conduct last minute checks and sound the appropriate shipboard alarms in the unlikely event that Gravely’s weapons and sensors were remotely co-opted by the Missile Defense Agency. Aside from running system diagnostic checks every two hours, they did little more than keep each other awake. Jeffries settled into a deeply relaxing state, letting the hum of the Combat Information Center’s active equipment lull him perilously close to sleep.
“Chief, I think we have something,” said the petty officer Clark from the designated C2BMC console.
“What is it? Another system wide test? Always at five in the god damned morning,” said Jeffries, opening his eyes and reaching for his coffee mug.
“No. This looks…holy shit! Missiles away in thirty seconds!” he yelled.
“Bullshit. Get out of that chair,” said Jeffries.
He barely waited for petty officer to vacate the seat before jamming his slightly oversized body into the fixed chair to scan the display.
“Son of a mother! Activate the general alarm and read this over the 1-MC,” he said, unclipping a laminated card from the console and handing it to the petty officer.
“When you’re done with that, get over to the VLS console and make sure the birds are ready. I’ll take care of the Aegis array. Let’s go!” he said.
Missiles started to cycle out of the forward Vertical Launch System before either of them had completed their diagnostic checks, shaking the ship’s superstructure. Buried deep within the ship, inside the Combat Information Center, they barely heard each successive launch over the piercing shrill of the ship’s general alarm. Jeffries ran back to console to see if the C2BMC system had given them any further information regarding the threat that continued to drain his ship’s SM3 missiles. Glancing at the screen, his first thought was that somebody or something had “fucked up big time.”
None of the data made sense. The missiles would arc into a western trajectory to intercept a target identified by the PAVE PAWS (Phased Array Warning System) station at Beale Air Force Base in California. He didn’t have enough data to make a detailed assessment, but one target parameter stood out as impossible. Target speed. His Mach 7.88 missiles had been sent to intercept a target moving at Mach 58. This had to be a mistake. He was not aware of an ICBM that travelled faster than Mach 23 at any point in its trajectory. He wasn’t even sure if Gravely’s AEGIS system could provide terminal guidance to intercept a target moving at that speed. It really didn’t matter, because it was out of his hands.
The missiles stopped firing, jarring him out of the data induced trance. He lifted the retractable armrest and ran to the active AEGIS tracking console, still shocked to see the digital representations of his missiles streaking west over Virginia to intercept a track originating from the southwest. Not a single BMD training scenario had involved a missile threat from that direction.
Thirteen missiles had been fired without “skin on track” by Gravely’s AN/SPY-1D phased array radar, meaning that the ship’s radar had not acquired the target. The C2BMC system would guide the missiles until Gravely’s powerful sensors picked up the track. At that point, the ship’s fire control system would provide terminal guidance to ensure that each missile’s Light Exo-Atmospheric Projectile (LEAP) collided with the threat.
The entry hatch to CIC flew open, spilling a panicked contingent of crewmembers into the dimly lit space. Dressed in the digital blue camouflage patterned Navy Working Uniform, Gravely’s Command Duty Officer, Lieutenant Mosely, pushed the first sailors out of the way and ran to Jeffries.
“What the fuck just happened?” said Mosely.
“Our ship remote launched thirteen SM-3’s at an inbound target identified by C2. It’s moving Mach fifty-eight out of the southwest. That’s all I know, sir,” said Chief Jeffries.
“You mean Mach five point eight,” corrected the officer.
“No, Lieutenant. Fifty-eight. Have you called the Captain?”
The lieutenant glanced around for a second, clearly confused by the entire situation. Jeffries could understand the officer’s hesitation. Less than a minute ago, the ship had been quiet. Within the span of forty-five seconds, Gravely had auto-fired thirteen anti-ballistic missiles, and they had very little information. For all any of them knew, they could be on the verge of a full-scale nuclear war.
“I’ll call him right now. Are you talking to anyone at IMD?” said the officer.
“Not yet. We barely got our checks done before the missiles launched,” said Jeffries, turning to type into the BMD console.
“Get IMD on the line. They’re running the show.”
“I’m already on it, sir. Petty Officer Clark, start making calls to the Integrated Missile Defense command. Get me anyone that knows what’s going on. Numbers are on the card,” said the chief.
He stood up from his chair and turned to the half dozen sailors hovering near the hatch.
“The rest of you get out of here!” he said.
Two minutes later, Chief Jeffries and Fire Controlman Ben Clark watched the AEGIS display in horror as Gravely’s missiles disappeared one by one over central Virginia. Gravely’s fire control system acquired and tracked the target for nine seconds, before it vanished in the vicinity of Richmond, Virginia.
“That wasn’t a missile, sir,” said the chief.
“What are you saying, Chief? Hold on, Captain,” said the lieutenant, covering the phone’s mouthpiece.
“Radar cross section was nine hundred and sixty thousand,” he said, his voice trailing off in disbelief.
He still couldn’t process his emotions. Everything had happened too fast. Repeating the radar cross-section brought a single emotion to the surface. Fear. His family lived ten miles in the direction of Richmond. His vision started to shrink and he barely heard the lieutenant’s reply.
“Meters? That can’t be right,” said the officer, walking toward the AEGIS console.
He glanced at the data over the chief’s shoulder and shook his head.
“Fuck. We have to get IMD on the line, Chief,” yelled Lieutenant Mosely, pulling Jeffries back from the precipice of emotional black hole.
“Captain. Chief Jeffries just confirmed that the target had a radar cross section over nine hundred thousand. Something has to be wrong. That would put the diameter over three hundred meters,” he said.
Jeffries waited for the lieutenant to continue the conversation, but heard nothing. He looked up at the officer, who pressed his ear against the receiver and squinted.
“Captain? Can you hear me? Chief, I think my call…”
His sentence was interrupted by a complete and sudden darkness. The Combat Information Center went dead for a second, before bulkhead mounted, battery powered LED “battle lanterns” started to provide illumination. The eerie silence continued.
“Shore power’s out. We should get power from one of the generators in a few seconds,” said the lieutenant.
Ten seconds elapsed, yielding no change to the eerie silence.
“I think we lost more than shore power,” said the Chief.
They heard someone knock on the hatch to CIC and open the door.
“CDO. They need you on the quarterdeck!” said a panicked voice.
Chief Jeffries stood up and started to walk with Lieutenant Mosely toward the hatch, but stopped when the metal beneath his feet started to shake. He felt the entire ship slide laterally, followed by a severe rumbling. Once the ship settled, he unsheathed a powerful LED flashlight from his belt and illuminated the young Hispanic woman’s face. She wore an expression of terror that shook Jeffries to the core.
“What happened?” said Mosely
“Norfolk Naval Base is on fire!”
Chapter Five
Monday: August 19
, 2019
Jewell Island, Maine
Alex Fletcher stirred in the hammock, annoyed by the sudden bright light penetrating his eyelids. He opened his eyes, expecting to find Kate standing on one of the cockpit benches, aiming a flashlight directly into his face. Peering through the mesh cocoon suspending him from the boom, he found nothing out of place in the cockpit. Woken out of a deep sleep, his mind had not kicked into gear. He knew something was wrong, but simply couldn’t figure it out on a newly jumpstarted brain. A strange tingling sensation grew throughout his body, and for the briefest moment, he would have sworn under oath that the backstay radiated a faint, greenish-white aura. Lightning strike!
He rolled himself out of the hammock and laid flat on the fiberglass cockpit floor, expecting to see and feel a massive bolt of electricity strike the boat’s mast. He’d never been close to a lightning strike before, but he’d read enough articles in outdoor adventure magazines to know the signs. Cowered against the portside bench, staring skyward like a primitive man-beast afraid of the heavens, he suddenly realized that he must have been dreaming. The sky was clear and full of stars, hardly a meteorological condition conducive to lightning. He stood up on the cockpit bench, grabbing hold of the boom for balance, when his brain finally registered the problem. The sun had risen in the wrong place and was fading quickly.
Alex had spent enough time at anchor in this cove to immediately identify all of the cardinal directions, without the use of a compass. His boat was pointed southeast, in the direction of the prevailing coastal winds, pulling lazily against the anchor line. Nine times out ten, he would wake up in this cove to the same scene. The cove’s narrow opening lay directly off the port side, and the Katelyn Ann faced directly into a tree-lined, rocky cliff. The sun always rose over the cliff, somewhere between the bow and cove’s entrance, spilling golden rays of warmth over the boat. Today it appeared due south, hidden behind the tallest part of the island where the cove ended. By the time Alex had ducked under the boom to get a better view, the light had vanished, returning the cove to pre-dawn darkness.
The Jakarta Pandemic Page 48
