by Rounds, Mark
“What did the Indian bring?” asked Amos as he sat down.
“How could you tell he was Native?” asked Dave quizzically.
“I’m a bit of a horse nut,” said Amos sheepishly. “I saw him ride up. He was riding an Appaloosa. His riding kit was western, but he was in moccasins and along with his rifle, he also had a lance and a tomahawk. But back to business, what was in the pouch?”
“The short answer is,” said Chad with visible emotion, “that Bob is safe. They know where he is. They have a couple of good diagrams of the facility and a good read on the security set up.”
“Show me,” said Amos.
Chad rolled out his maps along with the diagrams that had come in Little Bear’s dispatch bag. Corporal Taylor set down a pot with four cups.
“Don’t tell me you have coffee,” said Dave reaching for a cup.
“It’s an experiment,” said Taylor cryptically.
“OK,” said Dave skeptically as he poured a cup and took a sip.
“Gak!” exclaimed Dave and then he took a second sip. “That’s some nasty coffee, but …”
“It’s not coffee,” said Taylor. “One of the local off the grid enthusiasts is trading this down at the market. He’s roasted some barley and then ground it. Then he made a drink using that as the base and steeped green ephedra in it. It’s got a little lift and to tastes kind of like coffee if you aren’t too critical.”
“Get more,” said Dave.
“Back to the war,” sad Amos sipping his drink. “Can we make an extraction?”
“The security looks tight,” said Chad. “They have at least ten guards patrolling at all times plus watch posts on the second floor.”
“Frontal assault would be risky then,” said Dave.
“Little Bear has a man inside,” said Chad. “It says here that there is a plan to make an escape attempt in a couple of days as Bob is sure that Macklin will kill them all after he gets what he wants.”
“That is, unfortunately, a fair assumption,” said Dave.
“What can we have in place,” asked Amos looking at the diagram, “In 36 hours?”
“We’ve got squat for fuel,” said Chad shaking his head. “We need what little we have to run the pumps to fill the storage tanks once more. We have enough water on hand at current consumption rates for ten days to two weeks unless we pump.”
“Cavalry then,” said Dave.
“Our mounted units are pretty green,” said Amos. “They also tend to be sixty percent female, that being the demographic of horse owners around here. I don’t think the local families would be too keen on sending a large portion of their horse flesh north with their daughters. We could use them for a pickup maybe, but not an attack.”
“Does Fairchild have anything?” asked Dave.
“They have two Little Birds and two flying UH1s,” said Chad checking his reports. “They have also scrounged up a special ops team from local talent. But, they are low on fuel too.”
“Let’s get on the sat phone,” said Amos. “Let’s see if we can get some support from somewhere, anywhere. In the meantime, Taylor, get LT. Sage over here. She and her platoon could potentially set up a rally point with wagons or something to get folks out of the area.”
“Yes sir,” said Taylor as he left the room.
“Chad, call the General,” said Amos turning to face Chad. “I am going to presume upon your personal relationship with him. Get on the sat phone and ask him to authorize Fairchild to help. Bleed on it. Make clear the game changing nature of your brother’s work. I’ll get a messenger over to Pullman to see if they can spare anything.”
“What should we tell Little Bear?” asked Dave.
“If the messenger arrives before we have a solid plan,” said Amos, “tell him we will support an op in 36 hours with whatever resources we can muster. Be candid about our force status and fuel. Better yet, write up an op order for it and send it with him if he can’t wait.”
“Yes sir,” said Chad, sipping his drink. If he closed his eyes, he could almost believe he was drinking coffee … for certain low values of coffee that is. “I think we need to send our sat phone back to Little Bear.”
“We only have the one you’re using,” said Amos dubiously, “plus the spare the students down in engineering built. It works most of the time.”
“I know,” said Chad, “and the total number is quite limited so I don’t think we get another either. But we have enough diesel to pump water to our tanks for a couple of weeks, maybe a month if rationing works.”
“We could use that fuel to field a Humvee and maybe twelve troops,” said Dave. “But how would we bring them back? I had a pretty long talk with Sergeant Brock from the Cavalry about the nature of horses and even if the horse soldiers started right now, they could just barely get there in time. The horses would be spent and in no shape to handle the return. If we are going to be successful, the bulk of the effort is going to have to come out of Fairchild. Little Bear’s report said that he has a few of his men around with rifles, but not near enough. He is going to need to coordinate this thing on the fly. Sir, I think Chad is right. We need to send the sat phone with the messenger so that Little Bear’s troops don’t get shot.”
“Right,” said Amos. “Chad, make the call!”
July 14th, Tuesday, 12:04 pm PDT
Headquarters Building, Joint Base Fort Lewis-McChord, Tacoma WA
“OK Hanson,” said Antonopoulos to the shackled man in his office. General Antonopoulos sat in his office chair. Former LT Hanson, who was, until just recently, General Johnson’s junior aid, was braced at attention four feet from the edge of Antonopoulos’s desk.
“You are here because you can do something for us that might, in some small way, provide some recompense for the crimes you have committed.”
“I have no excuse sir,” Hanson.
“No, you don’t,” said Antonopoulos fixing him with a stare.
“I understand you have been working with Captain Lassiter,” said Antonopoulos. “Feeding your contact, whoever that maybe, bogus information about our status. He says that you have been ‘useful.’ What do they think the situation is?”
“They think that I have successfully dodged the blame for the leaks,” said Hanson, his eyes downcast, “and put it on General Johnson. I have told them that I now work in Personnel. They let me talk to my fiancée every time I contact them with something they consider valuable. There has been pressure to give them more information about the command structure and our operation. I have protested that my current position doesn’t give me much in the way of intel but ...”
“We are going to change that,” said Antonopoulos interrupting Hanson’s excuses. “Starting immediately, you will tell them that there has been an attempted coup. Your source will be that you have been in-processing two unknown general officers. Captain Lassiter will feed you the information to send. It will be in bits and pieces so there will be a lot of transmissions. Let me be very clear, they must not suspect that you are being anything but completely straight with them.”
“About Marie …” began Hanson.
“You need to focus on being convincing,” said Antonopoulos cutting him off. “IF we can find where they are, there will be a mission. IF we can find her, she will come back with us. I don’t approve of traitors and I don’t approve of blackmail. This mission is being contemplated because it is of intelligence value and the potential of perhaps capturing her handler and maybe, just maybe relieving some of the pressure on this installation. Any personal benefit that you might accrue is only a minor point and just to ensure your cooperation. Am I clear?”
“Yes sir,” said Hanson.
“Then get out of my sight,” said Antonopoulos for an instant dropping his mask. “There are good men dead because of your actions. I’ll not have their lives wasted!”
The guards hustled Hanson out of the office while Antonopoulos seethed.
“Sir,” said Captain Williams, General Antonopoulos’s senior
aide, “there was a sat phone communication for you while you were interviewing Hanson.”
“Who the hell was it!” snapped Antonopoulos, immediately regretting his reaction.
“Sorry, Marc,” said Antonopoulos. “You didn’t deserve that.”
“Not a problem sir,” said Marc. “The call is from Captain Strickland. They have intel on Former Special Agent Macklin and his abduction of Robert Strickland. Sir, they want to mount an op to retrieve him.”
“What do they need?” asked a weary Antonopoulos.
“Just about everything sir,” said Williams. “And that’s not all. Their intel on the inside says that they have at most 48 hours to make the attempt or Macklin will likely take them out and that they are going in with what they have regardless of what we can provide. They were evasive about some of their assets, but I gather that they have a man inside and a few irregulars with rifles on the outside. After their transmission was complete, they sent their sat phone with a rider back to their assets on site. They said the code word for security was Rubber Chicken.”
“I understand why Chad would be so motivated," asked Antonopoulos, “but why is Colonel Amos all fired up about this?”
“Sir, if you’ll recall,” said Williams diplomatically, “the elder Strickland may have come up with a much more effective palliative for the Plague. It doesn’t have the adverse side effects of Slash addiction and apparently, according to the preliminary work the elder Dr. Strickland has done, the dosage doesn’t ramp. If we ever intend to get the country back on its feet, the 50 or 60 million people who are infected would have to be reincorporated back into society and more importantly, into the economy. The total US population is less than a 100 million and reducing every day. This could literally be our only way out.”
“Right, I remember,” said Antonopoulos shaking his head. “Authorize Colonel Phillips to help out. Ask Captain Lassiter to coordinate with Phillips on some of the intel assets that the Stricklands have developed. Also, call the Air Lift Wing and have them schedule a flight to Spokane to take whatever they need to pull this off. I suspect it will all go down before we can get anything there, but if we send POL, ammo, and any other requested support, they are likely to be a lot more forthcoming.”
“Sir,” said Williams diffidently, “the detachment in Moscow also sent another request for 500 gallons of diesel fuel to pump water.”
“Confer with Major Whipkey and Lt Col Amos,” said Antonopoulos wearily. “Include POL and a couple of truckloads of materiel suitable to their needs to Whipkey’s load list. Add those details to Whipkey’s frag order and bring it by for me to OK before it goes out. What else is in the hopper?”
July 14th, Tuesday, 3:56 pm PDT
The Providence Medical Research Center, Spokane WA
Macklin walked into Dr. Robert Strickland’s lab space. He had to admit the older Strickland was a good organizer. He had at least three of his ex-mercenaries working at various tasks and four people Macklin didn’t recognize doing some complex reductions with a bunch of glassware. Some were prepping the Oregon Grape bushes for the garden shredders that were the first step in processing. Then they went to a huge vat where they soaked in a bunch of chemicals that Strickland had demanded.
After the shredded plant parts soaked in that vat, they were ground up in a bunch of food processors and allowed to settle for a couple of hours. Then they went into the centrifuge, followed by some intense filtration and what looked for all the world to be a still.
“How is my favorite mad scientist doing?” asked Macklin sarcastically, knowing that the reference infuriated Strickland.
“I will have a test batch of two doses ready by tomorrow,” said the elder Strickland, not hiding his disdain for Macklin.
“All this plant material and two doses is all you have?” asked Macklin incredulously. “And who are these technicians? I don’t recognize them.”
“You provided me with three drug addicts that claimed to be lab techs,” said Strickland. “They’re marginally acceptable as long as they are not on Slash, which they appear to be most of the time. Forgive me if I didn’t trust them with the drug that you were going to inject into my blood stream. I went and found some I could trust.
“As to the time factor, these batches take at least two days to produce,” said Strickland. “We had to proof each stage because, again, you promised to test this on me. I had to make damned sure it wasn’t poisonous. What we will produce tomorrow will be the results of the third test batch we ran. The other two killed the rabbits we tested it on.”
“Why rabbits?” asked Macklin.
“Because your goons couldn’t find rhesus monkeys,” said Strickland testily. “I normally research statistical data. I am making this effort up as I go along from half remembered classes from grad school. These new techs made it possible. But the doses available tomorrow will be safe.”
“Two doses?” said Macklin. “OK, it will be you and that technician who picked this spot. I’ll be here at 9:00 am sharp for the demonstration.”
Without another word, he and his cluster of guards left.
“Do you think he knows?” asked the technician who was designated as the part of the test. Strickland glared at him harshly and then took his pad and wrote the following:
________________________________________________
We are likely bugged so keep your mouth shut. No, he doesn’t know that everyone who is infected in this lab has already been inoculated or he would be in here with his goons and shoot us all. Keep the production up so we can keep you going until I can reestablish this production after we escape.
_______________________________________________
The technician looked at the note and nodded. Strickland took the note over to a Bunsen burner and set it ablaze, rotating it carefully to ensure that the note was completely consumed.
Chapter 12
July 14th, Tuesday, 9:02 pm PDT
One Block South of The Providence Medical Research Center, Spokane WA
Johnny Comes at Night, one of Little Bear’s warriors, rode up on a lathered horse to the abandoned home where Little Bear had set up message drop.
“I hope you didn’t ride that horse hard all the way like a white man,” said Little Bear eyeing the horse.
“Relax,” said Johnny as he began rubbing down and watering his horse, “One of our University students picked up the pouch from the Stricklands and rode hard to Colfax. My son met him there and drove my old truck with a load of lentils and split peas and brought it to my hideout in Sprague. I came the rest of the way here with my horse.”
“And you were always a little soft on horses,” said Little Bear by way of apology. “I am edgy about this. I don’t like trusting people I don’t know. But enough of that, what’s in the package?”
“There is a something called a frag order,” said Johnny as he pulled out the sat phone, “and this.”
“What is that?” asked Little Bear indicating the communications device.
“They said just turn it on and tell them Rubber Chicken,” said Johnny. “That’s the password. The operator will connect you with whoever is honchoing this show. They say that it’s on for Wednesday at midnight.”
“That’s cutting it pretty close,” said Little Bear eyeing the sat phone receiver.
“From what our man at the meeting heard,” said Johnny, the “Stricklands are calling in some favors.”
“It’s his brother,” said Little Bear, shrugging as he picked up the headset of the phone and turned it on.
“Rubber Chicken?” said Little Bear dubiously into the microphone.
“This is Captain Nixon,” said the voice on the other end. “We’ve been waiting for your call. I’ll get Captain Lassiter.”
There was a pause of perhaps a pause of a minute and then a different voice came over the system.
“My name is Lassiter,” said the voice. “I have been instructed not to ask your name. I am also given to understand that you know the date of
the attempt.”
“I do,” said Little Bear.
“What assets can you deploy?” asked Lassiter.
“I will have four riflemen to take out as many of the sentries as we can,” said Little Bear, “and I will be on the inside, leading the party out.”
“It’s my understanding that security is tight,” said Lassiter, “having you transit the security zone might tip our hand.”
“I am the Ghost Who Walks,” said Little Bear with a smile. “They are babes in the woods compared to me.”
“Ok,” said Lasiter dubiously. “We’ll have four helicopters coming in with no lights. It would help if you could take out any air defenses. During the attack on Fairchild, they expended several Stingers so we expect more here. We will also send out a column from Fairchild as a diversion and as a backup if the air raid doesn’t succeed.”
“I have seen where they keep the Stingers,” said Little Bear. “They still look fine but will not function. The same goes for the M2 .50 caliber machine gun on the roof.”
“You have been thorough,” said Lassiter grudgingly.
“Don’t be late,” said Little Bear. “I’ll be inside using my knife to make ‘preparations’ OK? If it goes too long, extraction will be difficult.”
“We’ll be there,” said Lassiter. “Maybe you can tell me what preparations you will be making after this is over.”
“We’ll see,” said Little Bear.
July 14th, Tuesday, 10:36 pm PDT
Headquarters Building, Joint Base Fort Lewis-McChord, Tacoma WA
“General?” asked Captain Lassiter cautiously as he stepped into his office. Captain Williams had let him in with the caution that the General might be sleeping. Sure enough, the General had his head down on his desk.
“General,” said Lassiter a little louder this time.
“Wha …” said Antonopoulos wearily as he lifted his head.
“Sir,” said Lassiter a little more sternly, “when was the last time you slept in your bed at home?”
