by Bob Howard
There was a service entrance at one end of the dining hall, and we guessed the kitchen and food supplies would be the only areas beyond that door. That left us with door number three. We backtracked to where we entered door number two and hurried for the last door, and it had everything we were looking for.
The main console of a control room blinked with digital readouts giving everything from outside temperature to wind speeds. There was a map of the east coast with different colored lights at various locations, and one of the lights was situated directly over Fort Sumter. It was red.
I traced a path up the coast to a tiny island that had a green light on it. It was Mud Island. I considered the possibility there would be something automated on Mud Island that sent a signal to this console. It was intended to let someone know that Mud Island shelter was alive and well, but there was never anyone here who got the signal.
Kathy and Tom had zeroed in on a terminal that controlled an impressive number of cameras and monitors. They were scanning each monitor as fast as they could to see if we were going to be able to go up to the surface and find a boat. What they found was not encouraging.
Some of the cameras were either partially or completely blocked, and none of them had a clear view to where the Otter had crashed except a smaller version of the big view in the auditorium. The cameras that weren’t blocked showed enough of the old fortress to know that it was occupied by people, and they didn’t look like people they would want to meet.
One camera view showed what they did to people they didn’t like. They had prisoners. Some were in cages, and some were tied by their arms and legs to makeshift crosses. They looked like they were alive, but the four we could see looked like they wouldn’t be alive much longer.
On closer inspection, the cages all appeared to be full of women. Kathy found the controls and zoomed in for a closer look. They looked to be mostly young, and Kathy could guess why they were being held captive.
Kathy saw that the controls would also allow her to pan the cameras and began to rotate the one we had been using. Bus reached over and put his hand on top of hers.
“Kathy, that camera may be well hidden, but moving it may be visible to them. We won’t know until we see them for ourselves.”
“Okay,” she said, “but I need to see more of what’s happening out there. I need to get one camera turned far enough to see the other side of the harbor, and I won’t know which one does that without trying.”
She was still trying to fight back tears, but I could tell that more than anything, Kathy was really, really angry. Seeing we couldn’t go out to the surface and at least find a boat was bad enough, but seeing caged women and tortured men was causing her to want to get even.
“I’ll take it really slow, Bus. One camera at a time until we know everything we need to know.”
Tom was as angry as Kathy, but he was keeping it under control. He positioned himself between Kathy and the monitors.
“If the sun hits one camera lens, Kathy, there’s a chance someone will see it. The sun is far enough in the west where that shouldn’t happen, but that also means you can’t leave any pointing west when you’re done looking. The plane went down just slightly northwest of here, so just take it nice and slow.”
Kathy glared at Tom for a moment and then softened a bit. It might have occurred to her that Tom had a reason to be angry, too.
“I’ll be careful,” said. She pressed her lips together in a grim, half smile and half look of pain.
Tom stepped out of her way, and Kathy began to pan the camera view very slowly to the left. The cages disappeared from view to the right, and then we were looking at the inside wall of Fort Sumter. It was clear that this camera was going to be of little use to them because it was practically at ground level, well below the walls. She kept rotating it until something began to fill the entire field of vision.
The autofocus feature on the camera made the lens sharpen the image of something big and olive green. Whatever it was, there was no worry about the sun reflecting from the camera lens because it was practically on top of the camera.
Bus said, “Kathy, how far back can you focus?”
Kathy reversed the zoom as far as it would go, and a symbol took shape on the field of green that was blocking their view. It was an eagle with its wings spread wide, and it was perched on a globe that had an anchor right through the middle of it.
“What is that?” asked Kathy. “I’ve seen it before, but I don’t remember where.”
“Try a different camera,” I said. “I think I know what we’re looking at, but I want to be sure.”
There were more cameras than we had on Mud Island, perhaps because Fort Sumter was more conspicuous, or maybe because there was more to see from the fort. All you could really see from Mud Island was trees and water. From Fort Sumter you had a three hundred and sixty degree view of cities, islands, sand dunes, bridges, ships, and countless other things to see. The disadvantage was that there could be any number of things looking back at you.
“Here it is,” I said. “This camera should pan far enough to show us what’s blocking the other camera.”
The camera I had found was located somewhere on the wall facing the ocean and Morris Island. If someone had been watching this monitor earlier, they might have seen us landing near the southern tip. I began to rotate it slowly, and it gradually focused on the prisoners from the opposite side of their cages.
I began to see the edges of the massive shape that was blocking the other camera, and it quickly revealed its origin by the lettering on the side.
“Kathy,” I said, “that eagle sitting on the globe and anchor is the symbol of the Marine Corps, and that’s a helicopter.”
“That’s not just any helicopter,” said Bus. “Look at the big white letters on the side back by the tail.”
We couldn’t see the whole thing, but we could see enough to know it said, “United States of America.”
Bus added, “The White House had several of them at Andrews Air Force Base. In the event of a catastrophe, they could get the President and his family away from Washington, DC in a hurry.”
Tom said, “You mean that’s the President’s helicopter?”
“There’s no telling if he was on it or not, Tom. It could have been the Vice President, his family, the Secretary of State, or any number of other important people. They would have picked up whoever made it to the White House lawn, and then they would have tried to make it to different shelters. They wouldn’t have tried to bring all of them here. They would have tried to spread out their chain of succession.”
“Keep switching cameras, Eddie. We need to get back to finding where the Chief went down,” said Kathy.
Every camera I found that was capable of viewing the docks near where we saw the plane crash had the same problem. The wall had blocked our view when it crashed, but now other obstructions were in the way. The most promising view had Castle Pinckney directly between the camera and the crash site. We also learned that the current occupants of Fort Sumter had seen the Otter crash into the harbor, and they were standing along the walls waving their rifles in the air and cheering.
They were a ragged looking bunch, and they were the kind of people who survived by preying on others. The plane crashing into the harbor was nothing more than entertainment to them. The loss of our friends had made their day. As a matter of fact, they were enjoying themselves so much that some of them were waving in the direction of the crash site, and some were shooting their rifles in the air.
I could tell Kathy was too mad for words, and for a moment I thought she was going to find an exit to the surface and go out guns blazing. I was standing off to her right just in the corner of her eye, and I was watching for her to give me a sign about how she was going to react. Tom had a confused expression on his face that was more defeated than Kathy’s expression, and Bus just looked older. It had taken something out of all of us, but as much as I wanted to punish the people on the walls, there were jus
t too many of them.
“Don’t worry, Eddie. I’m not going to do something stupid,” said Kathy.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do right now,” I said. “We’re hurt, we’re angry, but we’re also stranded. If I had to bet anyone could survive a plane crash like that, I would bet on the Chief, but we have to think of ourselves right now.”
“Plan A,” said Tom. “We have to figure out a way to eliminate the trash on the surface of the fort, and it wouldn’t hurt if we could save the people in the cages at the same time. We aren’t leaving this place until we deal with them.”
Hearing Tom use one of the Chief’s phrases galvanized us all. It was like a spark of energy, and we looked from one to the other and all saw it. If we made a plan for eliminating the threat outside, then we could take it to the next step and find a way to at least cross the harbor to see if the Chief and Allison had survived the crash.
“Let’s get started with that plan,” said Kathy.
CHAPTER FIVE
City Streets
The Chief knew the seaplane was never going to land on water again. It had to come down sooner or later, but it wasn’t going to be a landing. He looked out his window and saw the struts sticking straight down, and there was no pontoon fastened to the ends. He would have preferred to lose both pontoons so he could put the plane down on its belly, but you couldn’t pick your damage.
They hadn’t flown even half of the distance back to Mud Island when the small gunboat had opened fire on them. He had no idea who they were or why they even cared enough to open fire on their plane. The boat looked like nothing more than a small river craft like the boats that third world countries use for their navies, but it had a fifty caliber machine gun on its bow and a gunner with good aim. He had shredded the pontoon, and something in the engine had been critically damaged. The Chief didn’t know how the plane even stayed in the air.
Allison had been alternating between yelling at the Chief and sulking when it happened, and the Chief honestly couldn’t tell the difference between when she was mad and scared. She was sulking when the first rounds hit the plane, and when she started yelling it sounded like she was blaming him.
To get away from the boat, the Chief had put the plane over into a steep bank toward the coast. The gunner must have been experienced with moving targets because he led the plane with his aim instead of firing straight at it. The Chief heard the bullets punching holes in the plane even when he thought they should be out of range.
The Chief wrestled with the steering yolk to keep control of the plane, but the remaining pontoon was putting drag on the right side while the engine was sputtering and trying to keep them in the air. The Chief was also cursing himself for not watching for exactly this kind of trouble. He couldn’t count the number of times they had kept one eye out for people cruising the shorelines for something to shoot at. Whether it was for piracy or sport, it was bound to happen sooner or later.
The effort to keep the plane in the air was so demanding that the Chief was surprised when he spotted the Ravenel Bridge and then the Yorktown on the left. Allison was screaming in his ear that she didn’t want to die, and she wanted him to land the plane. He didn’t have the time to explain to her that landing wasn’t really an option. He reached over and grabbed her seat belt just to be sure she was wearing it as tight as possible.
As the distance between them and his target began to get shorter, the Chief saw that he only had one choice. They were going to hit hard, and there was no doubt they were more likely to be killed than to survive, but it wasn’t in him to just give up. He knew that he had to try to pull up at the last second, cut the engine, and try to do a controlled fall. If they were lucky the fall would kill them instantly, but if they were really lucky it would just hurt like hell.
They passed over a small bit of land that jutted out from under the bridge, and the huge cranes that loomed over the docks seemed to be rushing toward them. At the last second the Chief did his maneuver. He pulled up and banked as if trying to make a turn and shut off the engine at the same time. He heard Allison screaming the entire time, but the sound of the plane’s belly hitting the water was ear shattering.
The Chief was disoriented at first, especially because of the silence that engulfed him. When his eyes opened, he saw that he was in the water. The plane had come apart, and he was sinking while still strapped to his seat.
Years on the ocean had given the Chief the unique ability to feel totally at home in the water. So much so that there wasn’t the slightest bit of panic as he unbuckled his seatbelt and began his ascent toward the surface. It was also zero visibility in this part of the Cooper River. He couldn’t see his hand in front of his face, and he knew he had to make it to the surface before he could even think about what had happened to Allison.
It was probably because he didn’t have any hope that he could locate Allison that he was so surprised when he bumped into her. She was free from her seat but unconscious, and she was drifting downward as he swam upward. The current made it difficult to swim and hang onto her, but he had to get her ashore as quickly as possible.
The fact that Allison was drifting downward was either good news or bad news, but the Chief wouldn’t know which it was until she was on dry land. A submariner had told the Chief that unconscious people had a better chance of not drowning than conscious people. If she was unconscious before going under the water, then she was drifting downward because she wasn’t making an effort to stay afloat. If she was awake when she went under, then she was drifting down because she had inhaled water. He hoped she had been unconscious, and he hoped that submariner hadn’t been just telling him a sea story.
When the Chief broke the surface with Allison in tow he began looking for the nearest place to get out of the water. The dock was closer than the end of the island that jutted out from under the bridge, but he didn’t know if the docks were occupied. He quickly decided the land that was hardly more than a mud plain with scrub bushes growing on it would at least be safe long enough for him to try to save Allison. He started swimming as hard as he could away from the docks.
Allison was totally limp when he pulled her body onto the sand, but there were no external signs of injury other than a bump on her head that was probably responsible for her being out cold. The Chief also didn’t see any obvious signs of broken bones. He did a quick visible inspection of her scalp, neck, rib cage, arms, and legs then began doing CPR.
Despite the nasty bump, Allison coughed and began spitting up water almost immediately. She would be sore, but unless she had an internal injury, she would survive. The Chief finally had a chance to take stock of his own condition. He took in a really deep breath of air to test his own ribs, and he moved his arms and legs around to be sure he hadn’t just been moving without pain due to adrenaline.
Satisfied that he was just going to be sore himself, he checked their surroundings. The docks were only about one hundred yards away, and there was no movement. He was a bit cold, and even though the day was pleasant, being wet and exposed was not the best thing for either of them.
Allison was still gasping and looked like she wasn't sure where she was. It was a good thing they were both wearing the Navy blue denim outfits they had found in all sizes in their shelter. The sun would dry them more quickly, and they blocked the breeze better than most clothing.
"Are you okay, Allison?" the Chief asked as gently as he could.
He wanted her to feel safe even though the only thing safe about their predicament was that they weren't being attacked by a swarm of infected dead. Even though there hadn't been an explosion, the sound of an airplane smacking the surface of the water was noisy, and the Chief kept looking at the docks to see if they had attracted any attention.
The longer the Chief looked at the docks the more he expected to see them coming their way, but it suddenly occurred to him that there was no safety railing along the concrete loading docks of the State Ports Authority. These were commercial docks for lo
ading container ships, and the people who worked these docks would have seen a safety railing as a nuisance that was in their way as they worked. If there had been any infected dead on these docks, they would have walked off the edges a long time ago. The current was so swift most of the time that they would have washed out to sea or become fish food, and if any had walked up onto this narrow spit of land, they would have just walked right back into the water again.
Allison was finally able to speak in a raspy voice. Salt water down the throat could really burn.
"Where are we? We're alive?" she asked.
The Chief said, "It's a miracle, but yes, we are alive. Better than alive for now, but we need to get to the mainland and find a boat. First things first, though. We need to find a way to get from here over to there. Do you think you can swim if I help you?"
"I don't even know where we are, Chief. This isn't Fort Sumter?"
"No, Allison, Fort Sumter is over there." The Chief pointed at the other side of the harbor where the Ashley River and the Cooper River joined into one wide passageway for the huge container ships.
As soon as he pointed at Fort Sumter he realized it was a mistake. Even from a distance without binoculars he could see the tiny bits of color moving on the walls of Fort Sumter were people. If one of them was using binoculars to watch the Chief and Allison, they would be in a position to cross the harbor if they had a boat. By the Chief's logic, if they held Fort Sumter they must have boats in order to keep it supplied.
The Chief had a trained eye, and with the sun in the west he was able to catch the reflected light as several of the figures on the wall lifted their binoculars. It was like being naked in the middle of a football field, and it was a sell-out crowd. There was nowhere to hide, and the men or women with the binoculars could study them both closely.
Allison looked toward the fort, and before the Chief could stop her, she waved excitedly in that direction. A few of them started waving back and shooting their rifles in the air.
