Seven Days To Brooklyn: A Sara Robinson Adventure

by Christopher Westley

  “Timber Wolf Six Bravo cannot reach the rest of the team members; believe I’m the only survivor. Request fire support, over.”

  The radio operator in the aircraft yells up to the pilots to prepare the aircraft for departure.

  “Good copy, Timber Wolf. We will be overhead in three minutes; send target coordinates.”

  “Lancer, the target is a single shooter on top of a building two blocks from my position; I will paint the target.” The commando relays his message and does not have to send a grid coordinate. In his possession is a high-power laser that the aircraft will be able to track to the target when they get overhead. Still scanning the scope for any movement, Sara picks up on the sound of the C-130 moving overhead above the low cloud layer. With Mac and Aren still inside the building and their location unknown to her, she decides to leave the rooftop and go back down the staircase.

  “Lancer, Timber Wolf here; I am painting the large building just north of my position. Fire when ready.” The commando holds the laser beam on the side of the building near the roof.

  “That’s a good copy, Timber Wolf; we are locked on and ready to fire.”

  The weapons officer inside the C-130 gunship locks onto the laser beam and then pushes the button on the control panel, putting the ship into auto fire, letting the computer calculate distance and trajectory. Seconds later, the large cannon sends a round down on top of the roof, knocking Sara off her feet, two stories below in the staircase. Looking up at the roofline, the commando scans for signs of the shooter. Confident that the shooter was killed in the blast, he quickly moves to the front of the building, running inside past the rows of slot machines. Eyeing the staircase at the back end of the casino, the commando rushes up the stairs. Four flights up, Mac and Aren are rocked by the blast and decide to go back to the lobby. Looking down the staircase around the corner, Mac can hear the commando coming up the stairs to him. “Come on,” he whispers to Aren.

  Mac grabs Aren and steps out of the staircase and into the hotel hallway leading to the hundreds of rooms. As the commando rounds the fourth flight of stairs, he catches the closing movement of the door Mac just went through. Carefully opening the door, he steps into the empty hallway. The hallway is more than a hundred yards long with room after room on the left and right. Walking slowly with his Mp5 machine gun at the ready, the commando checks door after door that is locked. Walking around a ninety-degree corner, he hears a sneeze.

  “Quiet.”

  Mac puts his hand over Aren’s mouth, trying to muffle the sound. On the other side of room 433, Mac and Aren stand less than ten feet away from the commando. With shotgun ready, Mac prepares for the coming assault.

  There is a loud thump on the other side of the door.

  Mac looks at Aren with a confused expression on his face. The door to the room slowly swings open, and Sara is standing over the commando, removing the knife from the back of the soldier’s neck. The double-edged blade, perfectly balanced and expertly thrown, made contact with his spinal cord, killing him instantly.

  “What are we waiting for? Ain’t got all day.” She wipes the blade off on the commando’s clothing.

  “Thanks. Thought you were dead. That blast was major.”

  Back inside the hangar, General Edwards walks up to the car cover lying on the floor. The 1974 Porsche 911 was his prized possession; it was a loss like losing a son or daughter. Wondering what happened to it, Edwards stares at the empty spot and cover on the hangar floor.

  “Son of a bitch. Leave a car for a week and it’s gone before you know it.”

  The radio in his right hand squelches as he walks back out of the hangar.

  “Watchman Zero Six, Lancer here.”

  “Go ahead, Lancer.”

  “Sir, we’ve lost contact with the entire team.”

  General Edwards curses out loud as he kicks the air in front of him. “Lancer, I’m ready for extraction as soon as you can get back here.”

  The operator in the C-130 tells the pilot to turn around and fly back to the airport.

  “Good copy, Watchman Zero Six; we’re on our way.”

  Walking out of the casino, Mac, Sara, and Aren run down the street to the dune buggy. Overhead, the C-130 is losing altitude on its approach to the airport. Mac is the first one to the dune buggy and has it started, moving it up the street to pick up Aren and Sara. Still tired from a mysterious ailment, Aren is a couple of blocks behind Sara. Rolling up to Sara, Mac stops the buggy to pick her up.

  “Come on; let’s get Aren, then turn around. We’re going to head out to the airport.” She yells.

  Sara has again formulated a plan and will put the .50 caliber machine gun that is mounted on top of the buggy to use. Pulling alongside Aren, Sara steps out and helps her get into the front seat, buckling her up in the five-point harness. Climbing into the back of the buggy, Sara grabs the handles of the machine gun and slides the cocking lever back, ejecting a round, preparing them for battle. With all occupants on board and strapped in, Mac spins the steering wheel around while pushing the throttle to the floor. The buggy’s tires squeal as they slip on the asphalt and sand that has blown in from the desert. Sara can see the C-130 making a low approach to the runway as they head to the airport.

  “Faster, faster, they are landing. Now is our chance!” Not sure of exactly what they will do when they get there, Mac complies with Sara’s order and pushes the buggy harder, picking up speed, hurling the trio to an uncertain destiny. Sliding around the next intersection while turning into the airport, Mac downshifts then floors it again, bringing the buggy out onto the airport taxiway. Two thousand yards away, the C-130 has already loaded the general up and is slowly taxiing out into position on the runway. The roar of the turboprop engines rumbles in the distance as the aircraft starts rolling down the runway.

  “Get out on the runway; let’s play some chicken,” Sara yells over the wind noise, still hanging onto the machine gun. Swerving out onto the runway, they are on a collision course with the aircraft. Behind Mac’s head, the fifty-caliber machine rips through the wind noise, sending a hail of lead toward the aircraft, every fifth round a tracer, showing the flight path of the bullets. Aiming directly at the nose of the aircraft, Sara makes multiple direct hits, knocking out the radar and computerized target acquisition system. Almost like a slow-motion scene in a movie, the two vehicles close the distance between each other in mere seconds, with the C-130 pulling the nose up and lifting off just in time to miss hitting the buggy. Slamming on the brakes, Mac puts the buggy into a slide, spinning it around to face the rear of the aircraft. Sara squeezes off another hail of gunfire, sending more lead up into the tail of the aircraft. The last round of gunfire rips through electrical wiring, disabling some of the flight control systems. Struggling to maintain controlled flight, the aircraft slowly rolls left until it is at a ninety-degree wing low position. Smoke trailing from the rear of the aircraft is the first indication that there is a fire inside. Watching the aircraft struggle to maintain flight, Sara jumps up and down, waving her fist at the aircraft while mumbling obscenities. A white parachute, then two more, is the first indication that the aircraft is going down. Disappearing over the horizon, a flash, then smoke, followed by a loud bang gives the group satisfaction that they will have no more trouble from the C-130.

  Sitting down in the backseat, Sara pats Mac on the shoulder. “North.”

  Driving out of the airport, the trio head north out of town on their way again to Brooklyn.

  Pulling the journal back out of her coat pocket, Sara thumbs through the map pages, finding a route north.

  “Take highway ninety-five out of town, which will take us up to Reno and back on track.”

  Looking over his shoulder Mac gives her a thumbs-up. In the right passenger seat, the outdoors and the beauty of the early morning in the desert overwhelm Aren, who is moving her head from right to left, trying to soak in everything she is seeing.

  15

  LOOKING ABOVE THE steering wheel, Mac
strains his eyes to see down the road in front of him. Up ahead, the heat simmering off the asphalt makes the road look like a lake. A mirage you can never reach, Mac is sure it is an apparition. The closer they drive to the lake, the farther away it seems to be.

  Just north of Vegas, a parachute blows across the ground, its occupant still attached but motionless. Rolling over on his side, General Edwards lets out a painful groan from the recent impact with the ground. A few yards away, a voice from one of the airmen calls out to him.

  “Sir, are you okay?”

  He doesn’t answer, the fog of semi-consciousness still gripping his brain. The airman kneels down and unclips the chute from the general’s harness. The chute blows across the desert and out of sight. Pulling a satellite phone out of the general’s field pack, the airman dials up command. The phone rings at SOAC in Colorado.

  “SOAC, airman Rodriguez.”

  “This is Lancer; we are down. Request immediate medevac and extraction for Watchman Six Bravo.”

  Rodriguez is stunned that the aircraft is down, pausing a few seconds before he replies. “I understand your situation; we are dispatching med-evac to your position immediately.”

  Hanging up the phone, Rodriquez runs over to the computer operator and tells him to scramble a med-evac helicopter to the area where the C-130 crashed just minutes earlier. Ten minutes later, a Blackhawk helicopter takes off from the remote mountain base on its way to the crash site.

  On the highway north of Vegas, Mac, Sara, and Aren continue traveling north to the unknown. Looking over at Aren, Mac can tell she is doing better, and it appears the insulin shot is working.

  “How are you feeling?” After driving for an hour straight and the stress of the morning’s activity, Mac tries to break up the silence.

  “I’m good,” Aren says. She is still overwhelmed with information overload, having never seen the outdoors, let alone the desert of Nevada. “Where are we going?”

  “North,” Sara replies from the backseat.

  “Why north?” It was another direct question from Aren, who has spun around in her seat looking right at Sara.

  “Because south sucks and north is supposed to be better.”

  Sara knows this is going to be a game of continual questions but is not bothered by the girl’s ignorance. Sara is overly intrigued, to the point that she fires off a question of her own.

  “You lived in the facility all your life, right?”

  “Oh, yes, along with all my sisters; we studied, learned judo, kung fu, and all kinds of martial arts.”

  Still intrigued, Sara presses her for more information. “Why didn’t you go outside?”

  Aren looks at her through uncaring, dull eyes. “The doctor said that we could not live outside. That we were special and if we went outside we would die. He said our body would not be able to defend itself from viruses.”

  “I think you will be fine, as long as we stay ahead of the soldiers and away from flesh-eaters. Besides, Mac and I will take care of you. Right, Mac?”

  “Yes, we sure will. You can stay with us all the way to Brooklyn; then, from there, we’re not sure what will happen.” Mac glances over from the driver’s seat, still pushing the buggy past highway speeds trying to put as much distance between them and the city as he can.

  “Thanks.”

  Sara’s mind is already hundreds of miles away thinking about Brooklyn as she stares across the desert. She wonders what the destination will hold for them and why it was so important that her father made a point of telling her to go there. In her earliest memories, she can’t ever remember going to Brooklyn when they traveled to the Pacific Northwest. They took many trips to Seattle, tours into the Cascade Mountains, and journeys out to see the grandeur of the Pacific Ocean, but they never stopped in the small, out-of-the-way, defunct town of Brooklyn Washington, the town that never became a town. A hole-in-the-wall destination made popular by the local tavern named after the town itself. The tavern, a bit rundown, more of a barn that has been repurposed into a viable drinking establishment, is the local watering hole for many fine citizens in the rugged hills just east of Aberdeen. The town itself is just a few buildings. An elementary school, a Catholic church, and a few houses line the single two-lane road that winds itself around the hills and opens up into a small valley that is Brooklyn.

  Stirred back into reality, Sara turns back to the conversation with Aren.

  “What else did you do in the facility?”

  Aren turns back around to face Sara in the backseat. “Most days we would work with the doctors.”

  “What kind of work?”

  “They would take two or three of us at a time down to the lab, putting us in an empty room, shutting us inside, and have us talk to each other.”

  Sara looks at her as though she has just gone crazy. “Talk to each other? What about?”

  “We would talk about anything, you know, what we had for dinner, what life was like outside, that kind of stuff.”

  Mac is quite amused by the conversation between the two girls and has to add in his own two cents. “Sounds like regular girl stuff to me.”

  “Oh, yes. But the best part was how we were talking.”

  Less enthused now, Sara is about to end this meaningless conversation and stares off in the distance when Aren speaks with her directly. Without saying it out loud, using telepathy, Aren starts talking to Sara.

  “Just like this, Sara. I know, somehow, you can hear me without me speaking out loud.” Sara’s head snaps around quickly as she stares at Aren. Still talking with her mind, Aren shocks Sara. It’s a skill Sara has never used before, unaware of her telepathic ability.

  “See, you can hear me and talk to me without using words.”

  “How?” Sara’s lips don’t move. “How is this possible? I’ve never been able to do this.”

  Smiling, Aren continues to explain how the facility helped them develop their special capacities and gifts. Through constant training, tests, and perseverance, some of the girls in the facility could delve deeply into the confines of the mind, unlocking the telepathy receptors in the brain. During the final days of testing, nearly all the girls had use of this new skill. Others could do more. Still using telepathy, Aren glances at Mac, who is unaware of the conversation that is going on right in front of him.

  “You are part of me; we are the same. I don’t know how or why, but we are connected, just like the other girls in the facility.”

  Speechless, Sara just sits there stunned. She knew her father was working on special projects with the U.S. government, but she did not know what they were or how she could possibly be involved.

  Talking out loud again, Aren turns back around in her seat, moving her gaze back out across the desert that is whizzing by at seventy miles per hour. “Well, that was interesting, wasn’t it? I am sure we will have many more days to talk about that, won’t we?”

  Confused, Mac just brushes it off as preteen chitchat, not giving it another thought. Still reeling from what just happened, Sara tries to remember back to her life in Texas with her father, a life that seemed so idyllic. She had everything: a large palatial estate, maid, gardener, and personal training coach for martial arts, weaponry, and survival training. She is wondering now if her father was preparing her for this new life all along.

  TWO HOURS LATER

  TONOPAH 12

  “Look, a town up ahead.” Mac is ready to get out of the buggy for a few minutes to stretch his legs. “Maybe we can find something to eat and gas if we are lucky.”

  “One can only hope so, Mac. Although we may be lucky enough to run into some more flesh-eaters.” Sara is not worried nor is she scared, although she brings up the harsh reality to him.

  Talking with her mind, Sara tries to engage Aren. “When we get to town, we have to be very careful. There are bad people out here that want to do bad things to us.”

  Aren ignores her. She does not seem to be concerned about what is up ahead as she continues to stare off in the d
istance, watching the tumbleweeds and cacti pass them by.

  Not knowing whether Aren can hear her or not, Sara gets mad and yells at her through telepathy. “Hey, is it working? Can you hear a damn word I am saying?”

  “Yes, I hear and see everything. You need to work on your patience.”

  The twelve miles to the mining town of Tonopah disappear as the residential homes show up in front of them. Not much of a town even before the event, Tonopah is just as deserted and dusty as it was months before. Driving through town, they search for a fueling station or any abandoned vehicle that may provide some gasoline. Up ahead on the right-hand side of the two-lane street, a full-service gas station still advertising gasoline for two dollars and ninety-nine cents sits vacant. Rolling across the rubber tube that sends a signal to ring a bell inside, Mac pulls the buggy up to one of the two pumps out front.

  “Here we are, ladies; keep your eyes open. Never know what we’re going to find; hopefully some gas and food.”

  Jumping out of the back of the buggy, Sara walks up to the gas pump and lifts the nozzle out of its cradle, flipping the handle up to start the pump. The pump numbers spin, a model made way before digital and computerized pumps became the standard. Inside the pump, the motor whirs.

  “I think it works.” Removing the filler cap, Sara places the nozzle down into the neck of the tank and squeezes the handle. “Hey, we got fuel.”

  Overwhelmed by her newfound skill, Sara repeats her statement again, using telepathy. “I said, we got fuel.”

  Aren, still sitting in the front seat of the buggy, turns her head to the right and leans out to look directly at Sara.

  “That’s very nice, but you don’t have to yell. Besides, that is not all that we got; we got company, too.” She points over to the storefront at a small group of people who have gathered just inside the building.

  Mac, unaware of the conversation going on between the girls, spots the group. “Uh, Sara, we may want to ask them if we can have the fuel or if they want to trade something for it.”