Apache Dawn: Book I of the Wildfire Saga

by Marcus Richardson

  Enough of this shit, Cooper said to himself, feeling his anger catch fire.

  The airman took a breath, leaned forward and threw another mighty punch, straight for Cooper’s face. Cooper moved just a fraction of an inch inside the punch, grabbed the man’s wrist as it approached, then twisted and pulled with all his strength. Thompson gasped in surprise as he found himself flung through the air onto his back.

  Quick as a snake, the bigger man was back on his feet and charging with a scream of rage. This time, Cooper held his ground. In a smooth motion, almost nonchalantly, he stepped forward, spread his thumb from his fingers, and jabbed his left arm, straight out into the throat of his attacker. Cooper pulled back the hit at the last possible second—he had no desire to kill the hulking thug, just teach him a lesson.

  The lesson was learned fast. Like a matador side-stepping a charging bull, Cooper swung his arm free and stepped farther into the hallway as Thompson crashed to his knees, clutching at his throat and gasping for air. Without looking, Cooper swung his left elbow back and connected with the back of Thompson’s head, sending the big man sprawling face first onto the floor, still choking in a blind rage.

  Jax laughed, the sound echoed down the corridor loudly. He fist-bumped Cooper. “Hardcore, baby.”

  Cooper squatted to pick up his rifle and raised it again, watching the wide-eyed MPs in the hallway. He rolled his neck, to the accompaniment of several loud cracks as he stood. He sighed, then looked at the MPs lining the hallway.

  “So, who’s reaching for the sky? Or does anyone else want to choose ‘face down’? ‘Cause I don’t have time for anymore bullshit.” He chambered a round in his rifle.

  All the hands in the hallway went up.

  He turned around and saw Thompson struggle to get to his knees, his face purple but regaining its natural color. He shakily raised both hands with a meek expression on his face. He did not meet Cooper’s eyes. Still, Cooper allowed himself to relax only after the MPs were secured with their own handcuffs and plastic ties.

  “Charlie,” Cooper said, turning his back so the prisoners couldn’t hear.

  “Yeah?” said his XO, moving to join him.

  “Take a few of the ones who look ready to cry into the comms room. We’re gonna let them go—”

  “What?” Charlie hissed. He shot a look at the prisoners. “Man they just just tried to kill us!”

  “Wrong—the base CO did, and that big guy Thompson was his enforcer. I’m pretty sure most of them didn’t want to go along with−”

  “Coop…remember Tehran?” he whispered.

  Cooper did indeed remember that hellish day during the aftermath of The Pandemic. In the blink of an eye, he could smell the dusty streets, the street vendors and their spices, the exotic heat of the place. He remembered the back alley where they had found their man and were about to high tail it out of the area when some kids playing soccer of all things stumbled on them. Swede had wanted to kill them all to ensure mission success. Charlie had been inclined to go along with Swede but Cooper could not—would not kill innocent children. Rather than lose valuable time arguing, Cooper made a snap decision and they moved on, only to be confronted by the beginnings of an angry mob around the corner. The kids had ratted them out.

  It had been slaughter. A full strength SEAL Team fully-loaded for war packs an awesome punch. Later, when push came to shove, they shoved hardest and mowed through anyone that stood in their way. If Cooper had decided to end the life of those handful of kids, it would have saved dozens of lives in the long run. Re-living that awful choice still gave Cooper nightmares when he had too much to drink, but he didn’t have the luxury to regret his decision for one second. After all, he was still around to have nightmares.

  Cooper took a deep breath and pulled himself back into the present. He looked around and saw frightened nurses treating wounded and exhausted Secret Service agents. Some of his rough-around-the-edges SEALs were even lending a hand and seeing to some very nervous airmen. He shook his head.

  “Man, this is not Tehran. Those are Americans—our brothers in arms. We’re up to our neck in North Koreans topside and we need every man we can get. Now cut ‘em loose.”

  “I’m not saying we kill ‘em,” replied Charlie in a defensive tone. “Tehran was before I met Allie…before…” he swallowed. “Before my kid. It’s hard not to think of getting back to my family in all this shit, you know? If I wasn’t who I am…man, I’d be tearing my way through every NKor up there to get to Allie and Charlie.” He sniffed and looked away for a moment. Then: “Could I do what I suggested back in Tehran, now? No way. But…cutting them loose? We need—”

  Cooper spun and dropped to a knee, rifle raised. He heard footsteps. “Striker, we got incoming,” he whispered into his mic.

  Charlie crouched next to Cooper, the argument forgotten. Muffled voices drifted down the hallway. Cooper could hear faint words, and a voice that sounded like it carried authority, but the only word he could really hear was “traitors”. He tensed as the sounds grew closer. It was definitely more than just one or two people approaching. Here we go again…

  “Stay frosty,” Cooper warned. “No one opens-up until I give the signal.”

  “Hooyah,” someone replied in a whisper.

  One of the prisoners started to pray, his body shaking in fear. Cooper did a quick scan of them, all lined up along the corridor behind him, and saw mostly round eyes and sweaty foreheads. His SEALs were spread out along the corridor and guarding the entrance to the comms room. The airmen would be sitting ducks and caught in the crossfire if a firefight erupted. And they knew it.

  The sound of the approaching footsteps slowed and stopped just around the closest corner. Cooper held a fist up in the air: hold your fire. He heard some more whispers that sounded almost like commands, then a single set of footsteps grew louder.

  A man in Air Force-gray BDUs walked calmly around the corner, pistol in hand, as if he were on a parade ground. The way he carried himself screamed officer. As the sound of the officer’s boots echoed off the linoleum floor down the hallway, Cooper counted to five in his head. Then he switched on the laser sight of his gun and aimed for center mass.

  “That’s far enough, bub.”

  It had the desired effect. The man froze and spread his arms out wide.

  “I don’t know who you are, but I’m on your side,” the man said. The voice was not uncertain, shaky, or quiet. Whoever he was, the airman standing there in the corridor with a laser sight on his chest was calm and confident.

  “Who are you?” barked Cooper. Another laser tagged the man and the red dot climbed up his torso and stopped on his forehead.

  “Captain William Arol.”

  Cooper exchanged a look with Charlie, then nodded and stood up, lowering his rifle. He noticed two more lasers appear on Arol’s chest and tried to suppress a grin. His boys were making double sure the good captain didn’t try any funny business. Cooper took a few quick steps, anticipating an ambush and stopped an arm’s length from Arol. The man was looking over the bound airmen sitting on the ground. He nodded reassurance to them before turning his face to Cooper. He had the makings of a terrific shiner on his left eye and a serrated cut on his right cheek. His lower lip was swollen and bleeding, but there was a fire in his eyes that Cooper recognized and liked.

  “Thank you for not killing my men.”

  Cooper looked over his shoulder at the prisoners. He turned back to Arol and raised an eyebrow. “Your men?”

  “They’re part of my detachment. I’m the XO of base security. Well, I guess I’m in charge, now, thanks to the Koreans.” He swallowed. “Who the hell are you guys?” Arol reversed his grip on his pistol and offered it to Cooper.

  “Master Chief Cooper Braaten, US Navy.” He took the offered pistol and pulled the slide back, checking the chamber. Brass gleamed back at him in the glow of the florescent tube lights that hung overhead. He worked the release and caught the magazine that popped out. He slapped the magazine
home again and rested his hands on the chest pockets of his combat vest, rifle dangling by the sling on his shoulder.

  The man before him watched all this with calm eyes, not nervous or impatient. Cooper decided this man was truthful in his convictions—he knew he was right and wasn’t about to back down. Cooper had learned to read people like a book in stressful situations over the course of his SEAL career. None of Cooper’s warning bells went off—his gut told him the man he faced was no threat.

  “My men and I were tasked with extracting Slipknot from L.A.—”

  “He’s really here?” gasped Arol. “That speech was live?”

  “He is,” nodded Cooper. “Or was.” He sniffed. “Doesn’t matter now. We were supposed to get him out of danger and we did—or we thought we did, until we brought him here. Didn’t expect the welcome we received, that’s for damn sure.”

  Arol frowned. “Where’s Colonel Molton?” he asked, looking over the prisoners again.

  “Back down the hallway in a pool of his own blood. He tried to draw on me.”

  “Good riddance,” said Arol. “He was an ass; no one got along with him. He kept going on about some damn personal phone call he’d received from the President—Barron. About how we were under orders to hunt you guys down and kill you all. He said the President would give us all raises and promotions for staying loyal to him.” He wiped sweat off his forehead with a disgusted look. “As if we were mercenaries.”

  “So you’re in charge of this goat-fuck, now,” said Cooper. “The question is, what are you gonna do?”

  “I’m going to take back this base and try not to get shot.”

  Cooper felt a smile spread across his face. He returned the pistol. “Stand down,” he said into his throat mic. The laser’s winked out and Arol visibly relaxed.

  “Where’s the base CO? Is he alive?”

  Arol holstered his weapon. “Yeah, a bunch of the less-intelligent and more-gullible personnel on base sided with Molton and took control of the chokepoints. The hotheads, kids, some raw recruits. Basically the worst we got here. The rest of us stood with General Williams. He got wounded in the chaos when the North Koreans showed up and he’s been under lock and key in sick bay ever since.”

  Cooper sighed. “Let me guess, the guards are part of Molton’s crew, right?”

  Arol grimaced. “Yeah. I didn’t think anything of it, until he announced that there were traitors in the base and he was assuming command. He didn’t have a clue about the MPs, so he asked me to join him.”

  “Why did you?” Cooper already knew the answer.

  “I wanted to get close to him and keep an eye on him.” He shrugged. “I hoped that maybe if he was locked up, his followers would just give up.”

  “You trust any of the men you see here?” asked Cooper quietly.

  “Most of them, yes. But not Thompson and a few others like him. They were just looking for an excuse to shoot someone, I think. We’ve had our suspicions that a few of the men are actually in local gangs and are trying to smuggle weapons off-base. I was running an op to bust the ring when the Koreans screwed everything up.”

  Cooper nodded. “Fine. You point out the ones you trust, we’ll cut ‘em loose. My men will secure the rest here. You need to rally the troops and take back your base. Get your CO out of confinement. Can you do that?”

  “You bet your ass I can. There’s a lot more of us than there are of them,” he said nodding toward the sulking form of Thompson. “My question is what are you gonna do?”

  “That’s a comms room, right?” asked Cooper, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m going back in there and linking up with Coronado or NORAD or someone that knows what the hell is going on and can give me some intel.”

  “On it,” said Sparky. He shouldered his rifle and disappeared into the comms room.

  “Also, I’ve got nurses, doctors, Secret Service agents, and President Denton’s body in there. We’ll need to get all these people out and seen to; most of them haven’t slept in 24 hours and they’re half starved. Got some walking wounded, too.”

  Arol scratched his close-shaven head. “You dragged all these people here?”

  Cooper nodded. “Straight from downtown. The President was at All Saint’s Memorial, getting treated for the flu.”

  The MP whistled, hands on his hips. “Well, let me gather up a posse and we’ll see what’s what.”

  “You’ll want to prepare for infections, Captain. I’m afraid we brought the super-flu in with us.” He leaned in and whispered, “I think one of the nurses has it…”

  “Damn. Well, there’s no since worrying about that now. We’ve got work to do.”

  Cooper turned to see Agent Sheffield emerge from the comms room and approach him, straitening a dusty, ratty tie. “I need a moment.”

  “All right.” Cooper turned back and nodded to Arol to start selecting his men.

  “My men and I—we have duties to perform,” said gent Sheffield in a pained voice.

  “Pardon my ignorance, but isn’t the President dead?” Cooper asked, keeping an eye on Arol as he began to move down the line of prisoners, releasing a few. They stood, rubbing wrists and stretching, but gave no indication they held a grudge against the SEALs. For that at least, Cooper was thankful.

  “President Denton named a successor.”

  “The Speaker, right,” Cooper said, as he turned back to face the Secret Service agent in front of him. “Orren Harris. Isn’t he a Republican?”

  “Yeah,” chuckled the agent-in-charge. “That ought to play hell with the politics back in D.C.—but it’s not my problem. My problem,” he said, hooking thumbs under his belt as he put his hands on his hips. “Is that I was in charge of the Presidential Detail. Without counter-orders from the Director, my job is to protect the President, whoever that is, at all costs. I need to get to President Harris.”

  Cooper grinned. The man was persistent, if nothing else. “Well, where is the new President? D.C.?”

  The older man shook his head. “No, Apache Dawn has been put into play. That means COG is too. They’ll split up the upper tier officials. I’m pretty sure that Speaker—I mean, President—Harris is assigned to NORAD.”

  Cooper nodded in agreement. It made sense to have the backup President in one of the most secured locations on the planet. “Any idea which way they’ll go?” Cooper saw the confused look on the agent’s face. “Which President will NORAD back? Which way will the Joint Chiefs go? You guys work in the White House—you have to know more than us grunts in the mud.”

  Sheffield chuckled. “You’d be surprised at the stuff we don’t know. I’m not sure who’s in charge of NORAD, but I can tell you the Joint Chiefs don’t care for Barron. They never liked him as a Vice President. I can only guess they despise him now.”

  “Well, regardless of what happens in D.C., we need to worry about up there,” he said pointing to the ceiling, “before you can go anywhere.”

  Cooper turned back to Arol. “Got a sit-rep topside?”

  “Last I saw before Molton dragged me down here was that there was a North Korean force—we think—approaching from the northeast. All our equipment has been damaged, so all we could really tell was that a fairly large group of something was coming.” He shrugged, wincing in pain. “We assumed it was the Koreans.”

  Cooper keyed his throat mic: “Sparky, keep on it until you get something. Let me know when you get a signal.”

  “Aye, aye.”

  Cooper pulled out his spare radio, a handheld unit. He tossed it to Arol. “Channel 6, if you need anything. I’m counting on you to take back this base, flyboy. We’re going up top to recon. Is there any other way out of this bunker? We may need to beat feet in a hurry if the Koreans show up in force.”

  Arol nodded. “There’s two emergency exits, at the north and south ends of the facility. If we need to, I can get us out of here. But going topside may be a death sentence.”

  “Well, I hate being trapped. All right,” he said to Sheffield
. “If the coast is clear, feel free to head wherever you want.”

  “You’re not coming with us?”

  “No.” Cooper frowned. “The North Koreans took out half my Team, including my CO. Men I’ve spilled blood with for the past decade. You Secret Service guys are trained to protect the President. I get that.” Cooper exhaled and looked down. “There’s gonna be a reckoning, and until I get orders to the contrary, my mission now is to destroy the enemy. It’s what they trained us for.”

  Cooper turned away. “Swede!” he called down the hall.

  “Yo,” replied the big SEAL as he came around a corner.

  “On me. Let’s go do a look-see topside.”

  IT TOOK A SURPRISINGLY long amount of time for Cooper and Swede to make their way through the warren of corridors and hatches up to the surface. There was some damage to the entrance to which they were directed by Arol, but the main hatch was still at least somewhat serviceable. Cooper put his ear to the big metal door. He could hear a humming sound, more of a vibration than an actual sound.

  “Something’s going on out there. Let’s see what we can see. Ready?”

  Swede nodded. He adjusted his grip on the hatch handle.

  “All right,” Cooper said, taking a knee and bringing his rifle up. “Do it.”

  Swede grunted with effort and after a moment of painful-sounding steel on steel, the door relented and a shaft of sunlight pierced the dust-clogged air. The door also let in the overpowering sound of engines. Lots of them. Big ones. Cooper held up his hand to stop the door from opening any farther. He crept forward to get a look.

  Through the rubble, he could see a sliver of blue sky. Something gray flashed by, accompanied by the roar of those engines. At first he thought it was a helicopter, but something about the shape of the flash he saw suggested a plane. It was moving too slow for a plane, though. As the noise receded, he heard some indistinct shouts and the rumble and unmistakable squeak of tank treads.