***
Saint Charles and Bloomington were crawling with Zs but showed no signs of life, human or otherwise.
Soon after bypassing Bloomington, Cade felt the helicopter beginning to slow. Then, a full six miles beyond the northernmost shore of Bear Lake, and barely a mile from the final waypoint where the helo would be just out of earshot from the target, the wind picked up out of the east and began to buffet the stealthy craft.
Cade felt the ship bob and shimmy as Ari made corrections to counter the intermittent gusts hitting them broadside. This continued for a short while until the Ghost Hawk banked hard to starboard and met the wind head on. Knowing that the sudden onset of blustery weather would not only further mask their approach by air, but also act to cocoon any latent noise once their boots hit the ground, he smiled at the good fortune Mother Nature had just bestowed on them all.
Chapter 74
Zero dark thirty.
The witching hour.
Full dark.
Many terms had been coined for the slice of early morning bookended between midnight and four a.m., when a sentry’s senses are dulled by sleep deprivation and boredom.
Cade didn’t have a particular favorite among the many he’d heard over the years—the majority coming from the mouths of commanders during meticulous assault briefings—of which this operation had none.
As Cade stared at the image from the FLIR on the screen before him, he was seeing proof of that age-old theory. During the two or three minutes Ari had been holding the Ghost Hawk in a steady hover nearly a mile west of Bear Lake County Airport, also known as Adrianville to the killer cannibals, Cade had determined that two of the three guards were either asleep or lulled into an unmoving trance by a job only the most dedicated could endure for prolonged stretches of time. Didn’t matter now. Another two minutes and the three armed guards separated by hundreds of yards and stationed in towers equidistant from each other would be asleep for good—all victims of .338 Lapua sleeping pills delivered from silenced rifles of the sniper teams positioned in hides outside the razor-wire-topped perimeter fencing.
As Haynes worked the FLIR from guard tower to guard tower, Cade gazed at the flat panel and soaked up all the details.
The two-strip municipal airport was set on a triangular-shaped plat of land he guessed to be roughly a thousand acres. A narrow river feeding into Bear Lake ran left to right along the airport’s west perimeter, while the land behind the airport to the north and southeast was forest for as far as the eye could see.
As per most airports after the 9/11 attacks, Bear Lake County Airport had been fortified with hurricane fencing topped off with triple-strand barbed wire. Sheets of some kind of fabric hung from the fence. Judging by how little effect the wind had on it, Cade pegged it as canvas likely sourced from Army surplus tents.
Paved lanes feeding to the surrounding roads paralleled the fencing on the west and northeast sides. A wide swathe of grass whipped by the wind dominated the landscape southeast of the outer fencing. Beyond the undulating carpet of grass was the Bear Lake Wildlife Refuge, a sanctuary mainly for waterfowl that stretched three-plus miles south to the northern shore of Bear Lake.
Dozens of concrete freeway noise barriers were erected parallel with the three outer fence lines. Standing on end and shored up with milled timbers, they formed a smaller triangle within the vast outer perimeter fencing that completely encompassed the airport’s multi-story administrative building and three airplane hangars. The two hangars on the right looked big enough to house several small planes, while the hangar abutting the centrally located administration building’s west side was nearly twice as large. Hidden from view behind the smaller hangars were a trio of glass greenhouses. Behind the larger hangar was a newly constructed barn. From the aerial footage put up on the flat panel earlier, Cade knew there would be goats, pigs, and chickens roaming around in pens behind the barn. He had also noted a small fleet of tractors hitched up to plowing apparatus as well as a pair of boxy, Zamboni-looking vehicles he took to be harvesters. He thought: Someone is planning on being here for the long haul.
He craned left to get a look at the motor pool situated southwest of the smaller hangars. Parked on the apron was a smattering of cars and pickup trucks, a half-dozen semi-tractors with flatbed trailers still attached, and one lone eighteen-wheeler hooked up to an oversized trailer, the words Custom Prefab Barns emblazoned on its slab side.
Heavy machinery sat in a neat row on the tarmac beside the tractor trailers. Cade counted two dozers, two diggers, and a solitary crane which was certainly the linchpin when it had come to erecting the concrete walls. And on each corner of those inner walls was a lone guard tower. Each rose a good fifteen feet above the tops of the cement barriers and, though Cade couldn’t be certain because of the diminished clarity of the FLIR camera, all three looked to have been constructed with two-by-fours and plywood sheets.
Trapped between the outer and inner perimeters, hundreds of Zs roamed freely about the unkempt grassy infields. Small groups of them even doddered along the laser-straight stretches of asphalt runway not trapped within the walled-in perimeter.
Poor man’s security guards.
As if reading Cade’s mind, Cross said, “Sure beats running active patrols outside the walls.”
“Or laying mines and sensors,” added Griff.
“I’m just glad we don’t have to deal with demonios,” said Lopez, throwing a shudder that went unnoticed thanks to the slipstream infiltrating the troop compartment.
Smiling, Axe said, “A Screamer dropped into the middle of the rotties would instigate one hell of a football match.”
“Soccer!” bellowed Cross and Griff, in unison.
Nipping the age-old argument in the bud before it had a chance to escalate, Ari said, “Five mikes out.”
For the umpteenth time during the hour-plus they’d all been sitting in close proximity to one another, all around Cade his teammates checked weapons, patted pockets down, and tweaked adjustments on their NVGs and comms packs.
Chapter 75
As Ari called the two-minute mark over the shipwide comms, Cade felt the helo nose down and begin a slow crawl forward. Though he wasn’t privy to the conversation taking place between Ari and the other aircraft in the package, he was at ease knowing that the steady shooting of three highly trained snipers was about to clear the way for their infil.
***
As Ari called out the one-minute mark, the distance from the standoff point roughly a mile west of the airport had been halved.
The ground below the Ghost Hawk, awash in detail thanks to the phosphor white of Cade’s NVGs, was ripping by at a dizzying speed.
***
“Thirty seconds out,” called Haynes, his voice calm and even.
Skipper let go of the minigun long enough to start the starboard door running back in its tracks.
Cade took a blast of cold, carrion-laced wind to the face.
No turning back now.
At this mark, the shooters were supposed to engage their targets. All parties involved in the hastily thrown-together planning session attended earlier by Beeson and the teams back at Bastion had concluded that the buffer would be sufficient to keep the inbound helos safe from an errantly fired round or bullet deflection that might occur as the guards were neutralized.
Three long beats later, all at once Cade saw on the flat panel the damage inflicted to the guards and in his headset heard Haynes saying, “Tangos Alpha, Bravo, Charlie are down. Twenty seconds to infil, gentlemen.”
Cade watched Lopez perform the sign of the cross over his chest, kiss his fingers and look skyward.
Across the ship, on the port side, Cross and Griffin were already free from their safety harnesses and edging forward on their seats.
NVGs covering his eyes, Axe stared Cade’s way and smiled wide. The SAS shooter mouthed, “Get some,” and patted his carbine with a gloved hand.
Remembering the ferociousness the Brit brought to the
battle last time he was downrange with the man, Cade nodded to show he was of the same mindset—and then some.
Gloved hands again wringing the grips, Skipper kept the minigun trained on the airport’s main cluster of buildings as the low flying helo crossed the outer fencing and began to nose up in order to crest the taller inner walls.
Cade heard mechanicals at work underfoot as the landing gear motored out of their housings. Praying that Ari remembered what had happened to the stealth helicopter during the Abbottabad raid, he held his breath as the top of the cement wall flashed by just underneath the still-deploying landing gear.
Unlike the Abbottabad insertion, this one didn’t end with an explosion and follow-on whirlwind of debris as composite rotor blades chewed into desert hardpan. Instead, the Ghost Hawk cleared the wall by a half-dozen feet, flared hard in front of the administration building’s south-facing side, and alit softly on its landing gear.
As expected, Lopez didn’t draw fire from the nearby guard tower when he scrambled through the helo’s open door.
Hot on Lowrider’s heels, Cade piled out with his head on a swivel and the M4’s suppressor tracking with his eyes. Two hundred feet to his right the pair of dual-rotor stealth Chinooks drifted groundward, flared in unison, and settled on the tarmac nose-to-tail broadside to the smaller hangars. A blur of fluid motion, the Special Forces teams, Dagger One and Two, spilled out of the yawning rear ramps. Crouched low and with their weapons snugged to their shoulders, the teams split up and set off toward their assigned hangars, separating the kids from the adults as their main objective. Then, as quickly as the hulking Ghost Chinooks had settled and disgorged the special ops troops, they were rising into the pale-white night sky and nosing off to the west.
“Go, go, go,” said Lopez as Jedi One-One lifted off with a turbine whine and quickly peeled away after the retreating Chinooks. In seconds the matte-black helo was passing over the inner wall with less room to spare than when it had come in hot and laden down with the Delta team and all their gear.
Less than twenty seconds after the three helicopters touched down, all were well beyond the outer fence line and Adrianville was again as quiet as a morgue.
In his headset, Cade heard Lopez hail Jedi One-One and identify himself as Whiplash Actual. In the next beat, the stocky operator was on the move toward the administration building and requesting a SITREP from Haynes, who was monitoring the situation on the ground via a live feed being beamed to One-One from a Reaper drone orbiting somewhere high above.
Without a word, the team quickly made their way in the dark to the squat administration building’s west-facing front door.
On the run, Cade eyed the structure’s features. He spotted a short stack of stairs leading to the front door which looked to be a steel item. Above the door was a short rectangular window. And like the windows to the left and right of the main entry, it was blacked-out—covered from inside, he guessed.
Lopez stopped beside the door and tried the handle. He said, “Locked,” and produced a lock gun from a cargo pocket. “Cover me,” he whispered as he went to work.
In his headset, Cade heard Haynes assure all teams that the perimeter inside and out was presently clear of tangos.
Feeling Axe’s hand on his shoulder and aware that the two SEALs were stacked up behind the SAS man, Cade aimed his rifle at the center panel on the door and nodded to Lopez.
“On one,” Lopez called and started to count down from three.
Hearing the count arrive at “one,” Cade mounted the stairs in a combat crouch and, weapon tracking left, followed the door’s smooth inward swing. As he crossed the threshold the distinctive chatter of an AK-47 rang out from somewhere near the large hangar. Knowing the fire was likely directed at the Dagger teams, he ignored it and continued on. Amazed by the clarity the new NVGs provided, he zippered through a maze of desks and filing cabinets with ease. Putting the would-be obstacle course behind him, he slowed his gait and took a quick peek down a hallway branching off to the building’s north side. Seeing only closed doors and muddied carpet stretching away to the right-hand bend at the end of the hall, he went to one knee and declared his sector clear.
While Cade was on the move, Axe and the SEALs had transited the tiled, open-air foyer and parted ways.
The SAS shooter skirted the low table and assemblage of cloth-upholstered chairs making up a waiting room of sorts. At the same instant Cade was calling his sector clear, Axe was training his carbine up the open stairwell off his right shoulder and declaring the same for his.
Before Cade was halfway through his sweep, Cross, Griff, and Lopez had stormed through the doorway in Axe’s wake.
Throwing the door closed behind him, Lopez covered the SEALs as they peeled off to clear their assigned sectors.
Stubby MP7s snugged tight, Cross and Griff stalked through the wide-open space to the right of the foyer hunting for targets. Finding only cubicles and desks and tarp-covered windows, one at a time, they called their sectors clear and reversed course.
With the rest of the Rider team ranging his way, Cade took a split-second inventory of the room.
Clues were everywhere that this place had recently been occupied. Near Axe, at the base of the steel and concrete stairs, was a bullet-style trashcan with empty MRE wrappers spilling from its jammed swinging door. Suggestive of constant comings and goings, the tile and carpet surrounding the entry was tracked with dried mud. Viewed through the NVGs, the boot prints showed up as pale gray against the stark whiteness of the floor.
Still standing on the tile entry, Lopez motioned for Cade and Axe to move to the end of the north-side hall—an order that also entailed clearing the rooms along the way.
Drowning out the soft footfalls of soldiers on the move, the sound of bare feet slapping the floor filtered down from upstairs.
Cade kept his rifle trained down the hall and cast a furtive glance at the stairs, barely thirty feet off his right shoulder.
Nearly to the mouth of the hallway, Axe spun a one-eighty and directed his attention to Lopez, who was already moving toward the stairs and directing Cross and Griff to cover him.
The footfalls ceased and a male voice called out, “Adrian? Is that you?”
The operators stood stock still.
More footsteps. They were now hollow-sounding, though.
“What the hell is going on outside?” asked the disembodied voice. “Did some deadheads squeeze through the gate?”
The footfalls drew nearer, then stopped abruptly.
Weapon trained on the second landing, Cross watched a wiry middle-aged man make the turn from above and halt on the flat six-by-six concrete slab. Despite the hour, the man was fully clothed in blue jeans and a long-sleeved shirt bearing the words BEAR LAKE AVIATION. Eyes bugged wide, the man looked more meth freak than pilot. Narrow face wearing a mask of concern and eyes darting every which way in a failing attempt to pick out anything in the suffocating dark, the man called out again. When there was no response, he reached one arm behind his back and pulled a boxy pistol from his waistband.
Cade saw white licks of flame leap from Lopez’s carbine. The suppressor swallowed most of the noise of the back-to-back-to-back discharges. In the still, the clatter of the bolt and follow-on tinkle of spent brass on the tile entry was very pronounced. As was the sharp crack of the limp body smacking the last tread head first. Even viewed in the phosphor white of his goggles, Cade knew that at least one of Lopez’s bullets had struck the man in the face. For when his wide-open mouth met the sharp edge of the bottom stair, a fist-sized blob of pulped brain oozed from the jagged crater where his eyes should have been.
In all, only five seconds had elapsed from the sound of the first footfalls to the man’s gory face plant.
Picking up where he left off, Lopez sent Cade and Axe on their way. Then, shaking his head in disgust, he stepped over the corpse and led Cross and Griff up the stairs.
Cade padded down the carpeted hall to the first of four doors. Lini
ng the hall two to a side, a dozen feet separated the doors, save for the last door on the left that looked to be the only entry to a room double the size of the others. Using the same technique with each door—Axe taking the cover position while Cade did the opening—they cleared the first three executive offices. Finding the rooms darkened and containing only desks topped with blotters, computer monitors, and engraved brass nameplates of long-dead nine-to-fivers, they moved on to the last door on the left.
Pressed to the wall beside door number four, Cade heard movement coming from inside. Just a soft fabric rustle at first.
In a raspy smoker’s voice, a man called out, “Is that you, Chet?”
Axe raised the M4’s suppressor level with the center of the wooden door and nodded.
In the next beat, there was a soft click and a paper-thin wedge of light spilled from under the door.
Cade tried the knob and found it locked. Shrugging, he rapped lightly.
Again the sound of fabric on fabric. Then a zipper was being worked. The noise was long and drawn out. Sleeping bag, thought Cade.
The man coughed. Then he said, “Chet? That you?”
On one knee now, Cade tucked his carbine in tight and slipped his finger into the trigger guard.
The sound of a lock being thrown came as the knob began to rattle.
Cade drew up some trigger pull.
“Damn it, Adrian,” said the voice through the door. “Next time you take Toy to the pisser, don’t just take your gun … take the fuckin’ keys, too!”
More so a byproduct from the utterance of the cannibal’s name than the fact that the door was now slowly swinging away from the doorjamb, Cade felt his body tense involuntarily.
Chapter 76
As the door hit the halfway point in its swing, two things happened. Cade heard Axe say, “Engaging,” and saw the fat, naked man filling the doorway propelled backward violently as a trio of rounds from the Brit’s M4 stitched him from sternum to chin. Then, just as he was following Axe into the room, in his headset, he heard Haynes say, “Whiplash Actual, Jedi One-One … be advised, you have a squirter near the Porta Johns. Repeat … scratch that. You have two squirters moving west along the north end of the administration building. One adult and one child. How copy?”
Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 12): Abyss Page 39
