Crisis in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  Max thought. He’d have to get things ready faster than he’d thought, but it could be done. Hell, it would be done. His very life depended on it. “I’ll push the men night and day, and we should be able to launch a strike within forty-eight hours.”

  Claire glanced at a desk calendar. “Two days to launch, and another week for symptoms to start showing up in SUSA citizens, and one more week for them to realize what they’re up against.”

  She nodded. “That means I have to hold on for two to three weeks at the outside, and then we can start some preliminary talks with President Jeffreys.”

  “What about Ben Raines?”

  “Fuck Ben Raines,” Claire said with the first show of enthusiasm she’d had since he entered. “Raines is a bleeding heart, and that is perhaps his only weakness. As soon as his beloved people start dropping like flies, he’ll agree to anything to save them.”

  “I hope you’re right, Claire,” Max said, unconsciously massaging his neck, “I hope you’re right.”

  At precisely the same moment that General Maxwell was talking to Claire Osterman, President Jeffreys, Mike Post, and Doctor Lamar Chase were conferring with Ben Raines over a microphone.

  “Ben, Dr. Chase has some good news for us,” Mike said.

  “Good. Let’s hear it,” Ben said.

  “I’ve just finished our preliminary work in the laboratory with the plague bacillus and vaccine formula Dr. Ishi sent to Dr. Zimmer.”

  “Is it legitimate?”

  “Oh, yes. This is an extraordinary find. This strain of bubonic plague is almost a hundred years old, and nothing we have is even close to it immunologically.”

  “Then our previous vaccines won’t confer immunity to us?”

  “No, but from our tests, the vaccine Ishi sent will give ninety-nine percent immunity within a week, and at least fifty percent immediately.”

  “How long will it take to get it made up and distributed?”

  “If we pull out all the stops, I can have everyone in the SUSA who wishes to take it vaccinated within four days.”

  “You’ve got two days, Mike.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Intel tells me there is a crash program going on in the USA. They will probably be launching a strike within the next few days. They’ve already started vaccinating their troops and politicians.”

  “But Ishi’s note to Dr. Zimmer said he’d given them a false formula for the vaccine.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “Sure. He had no reason to lie. After all, he told the truth about giving them the plans for the bacterial bombs.”

  “Then, evidently her scientists are not able to tell they have a bogus vaccine. Ishi must be brilliant.”

  “That wouldn’t surprise me,” Dr. Chase said. “With Osterman killing off people at whim and all their ethnic cleansing, they’ve probably gotten rid of most of the scientific community that’s worth a damn over there.”

  “So, if Claire thinks she’s protected, there’s nothing to stop her from launching an attack momentarily.”

  “I agree,” Mike Post said over the speakerphone. “I’ll pull all nonessential personnel off everything else and put them to work manufacturing as much vaccine as we can before the attack.”

  “And I’ll redouble my efforts to get a Scout team into Indianapolis and see if we can’t hold up the attack for a few days with some judicious sabotage. Eagle One, over and out.”

  Ben turned off the radio and handed the mic to Corrie. He looked up at the Freedom Fighters who were gathered around listening to his transmission.

  “Chuck, you heard what was said. We’ve got to somehow mount a campaign against Osterman’s compound in Indianapolis, and soon, or there’s gonna be an untold number of casualties from the BW bombs she’s fixing to drop.”

  Chuck Harris shook his head, a worried look on his face. “God, I wish Lara and Carl hadn’t decided to quit and head for Canada. She had much better contacts in Indiana than the rest of us.”

  Ben didn’t mention that he was sure she had, since she’d been a spy for them for the past six months. He’d let Harris and the others think that Lara had simply decided she needed to take Carl somewhere safe to recuperate. They had no idea she’d betrayed them to save his life.

  “I know, Chuck, but she did, so we’re just going to have to do the best we can with what we have. If we can somehow manage to get our hands on one of the USA choppers, Coop can fly us in. He’s trained to pilot just about anything that flies.”

  “That’s gonna be tough, Ben. The USA guards those things like they’re made out of gold.”

  “You get your people to get us the location where one is hangered, and my team and I will see about getting us into it.”

  Jersey grinned as she sat sharpening her K-Bar. “They thought their prisoners were safe, and look what happened. You find it for us, Chuck, and I’ll guarantee you we’ll find a way to take out the guards.”

  Chuck laughed and shrugged. “Damned if I don’t believe you’d beard the devil in his own backyard, Jersey.”

  She shoved the K-Bar in its scabbard. “Count on it, Chuck.”

  “Nora,” Chuck said, “see if you can raise the group over our south. Last I heard they were having some trouble with raids by a helicopter during their last mission.”

  It was just after midnight the next night, and Ben was observing an air base on the southern border of New York state through a StarLight scope. They were on a knoll about two hundred yards from a hangar on the edge of the airfield. Besides his team, he was accompanied by Chuck, Nora, and three members of the local group of Freedom Fighters.

  Jerry Casey, the local leader, whispered to Ben, “There’s the bastard that’s been giving us fits. It’s a Huey with a side-mounted 50 caliber Gatling gun. Even if we’re hidden in thick cover in the forest, that son of a bitch’ll tear through it like it was mowing grass. We’ve lost three good men in the past week alone.”

  “Any idea how many guards?” Coop asked from his station behind Ben.

  Jerry shook his head. “I don’t know exactly, but at least a platoon . . . fifteen to twenty would be my best guess.”

  “Have you ever tried hitting them before?”

  “Once. The problem is there’s a clear zone of two hundred yards all around the hangar, and they’ve got sharpshooters stationed on the roof. We never even got close, and were barely able to escape with our lives.”

  “How many sharpshooters?” Ben asked.

  “Four. One on each corner of the building.”

  Ben turned to Coop. “I make it about two hundred yards and a downward trajectory. Can you make the shot?”

  Coop ran his hands over the rifle he was holding—a Heckler-Koch .44 magnum sniper rifle with a nine power infrared scope on it.

  “No problem, if they show themselves. But that’ll mean someone has to give them a target so they’ll come up to shoot. It’ll be risky, but I think it can be done.”

  Ben didn’t hesitate. “You stay up here and get situated. I’ll bump you on your headset when we’re ready. On my mark, we’ll charge and try to knock out the searchlights on our way in. When the snipers rise up to shoot, take ’em out.”

  “Yes, sir,” Coop said as he began to stuff long 380 grain bullets into the rifle’s magazine.

  Ben handed the StarLight scope to Anna. “Anna, I want you to stay up here and spot for Coop. He’s gonna need some help with his targeting since the field of vision of the infrared scope is so narrow.”

  “Roger, Daddy Ben,” Anna said, trying to hide her disappointment at not being chosen for the assault team.

  It took Ben and the others twenty minutes to make their way down the knoll to the edge of the forest next to the concrete runway.

  He keyed his headset and said, “Ready?”

  “Ready,” Coop answered.

  “Go!” Ben said and began to run forward, his CAR on full automatic, extra magazines in his coat pockets within easy reach.

  They’d m
ade it only thirty yards across the tarmac before they were spotted. Searchlights on the corners of the hangar swiveled toward them, and a shrill siren began to blast the night’s stillness.

  Flashes blossomed along the rooftop, and the whine of ricocheting bullets off cement punctuated the siren’s song.

  Billy Boudreaux, one of Jerry’s men, screamed and spun to the ground, a crimson stain on his right chest where he was hit.

  Ben slowed and aimed his CAR, triggering off a sustained blast which took out the left searchlight just as Jersey did the same and the right light winked out.

  A series of staccato shots from Beth stitched the side of the hangar near the door, and three men who were standing there fell screaming to the earth.

  A hollow boom from behind them was followed seconds later by the form of a man falling from the roof, his sniper’s rifle tumbling next to his dead body. Score one for Coop, Ben thought.

  Jerry fired his M-16 until the barrel was smoking and glowing a dull red in the darkness, and another searchlight was extinguished.

  A sniper fired just as another boom blasted the night. Jerry went down with a shout, and the sniper that got him paid for his shot with his life, jerked back out of sight by the force of Coop’s slug in his chest.

  Ben and his team were now only seventy-five yards from the hangar, and Jersey fired off a grenade from a launcher attached to her M-16. The grenade landed just in front of the big double doors to the hangar, blowing one off its hinges and completely destroying the other one.

  Ground troops were pouring out of the barracks attached to the hangar, only to be swatted down by almost continuous fire from Ben’s CAR and Beth’s M-16.

  There were two more loud explosions from the knoll, and seconds later Ben heard Coop say in his earpiece, “Scratch four snipers. Good hunting, partner.”

  As soon as Ben made it into the hangar, he set the others up as a perimeter guard and climbed in the Huey. He flicked switches, turning on the generator and starting the engines so they’d be warm by the time Cooper and Anna made it down to join them.

  There were scattered shots as individual soldiers tried to retake the hangar, but Ben’s team suffered no further injuries.

  Jersey stepped to the Huey. “I’m gonna backtrack and see if Jerry and Billy are still alive.”

  Ben nodded. “Go with her, Johnny,” he said to the last member of Jerry’s squad. “If you need help with them, give me three flashes with your light and we’ll be right there.”

  “Ten-four, Ben,” said Johnny as he and Jersey sprinted out onto the runway while Beth gave them cover with her M-16.

  While the engine was turning over and warming up, Ben checked the 50 caliber machine-gun mounted on the side of the Huey. It was primed and ready to go, with a box containing several thousand rounds of ammo sitting next to it. The gas gauge on the instrument panel read full, and all of the other gauges indicated the Huey was in good condition and ready to fly.

  Within minutes, Jersey came running back. Beside her was Jerry Casey, a large crimson stain on his left shoulder where the sniper’s bullet had torn a chunk out of his deltoid muscle. Johnny followed, the body of Billy Boudreaux over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. It was obvious the young man was dead.

  Seconds behind them were Coop and Anna, both breathing heavily after their 200-yard dash across the landing field.

  “Coop,” Ben yelled from the doorway of the Huey. “Get up here and get this thing ready to go. There’s no telling-how long we have before reinforcements arrive.”

  While the others smashed radios and telephones so no one could get a message out, Coop pulled the Huey out of the hanger and onto the tarmac.

  The others jumped aboard, and slowly, like a large bird of prey taking off, the Huey lifted into the darkness.

  Coop turned to Ben in the copilot’s seat. “Where to, Chief?” he asked.

  “Head southwest, toward the airfield just outside Indianapolis. It’s time to pay Claire Osterman a visit.”

  Coop grinned. “It’s gonna get awfully busy up here. They’ll have the airfield well-protected.”

  Ben glanced at his wristwatch. “By the time we get there it’ll be almost four in the morning. With luck unless we run into trouble along the way, they’ll all be asleep when we arrive.”

  “What about radar?”

  “Take us down on the deck, partner, we’ll fly under it,” Ben said, smiling.

  Coop shook his head and pushed the stick down. “Roger, Ben. Hell, who wants to live forever, anyway?”

  THIRTY-ONE

  Ben pulled out a map and gave Coop the coordinates of the airfield near Indianapolis and the correct heading to fly to get there.

  As the Huey sped through the night, only a few hundred yards above the ground, Ben gathered the rest of the team in the back of the Huey.

  “OK, people, here’s the drill. We’ve got to buy SUSA some time to get our troops and citizens inoculated. About the only way we can do that is to do as much damage as we can to the bombers and what few missiles she has left.”

  “But, Ben,” Corrie said, “we don’t have any ATG missiles, and no bombs on this craft.”

  “I know. But we’ve got a fifty caliber machine-gun, and all of us are carrying rifles and hand grenades.” He looked around at his troops and grinned, his teeth glowing white in the light from the instruments of the helicopter. “I don’t expect us to completely disable her air force with what little armament we have, but every plane we damage will be one less she’ll have to send against us with her deadly cargo. And, with our air defenses on full alert, maybe not too many of her aircraft will get through.”

  “Yeah,” Jersey added as she stuffed shells into her M-16’s magazines, “and all Mike asked for on his last radio transmission was a few days delay.”

  “Do you think we really have a chance with one twenty-year-old helicopter to make it all the way to the most heavily guarded airfield in the US?” Jerry asked while Chuck Harris worked to bandage his wounded shoulder and stop his bleeding.

  Ben glanced over his shoulder at Coop, who was leaning forward, staring intently through the plexiglass windshield of the Huey, watching for anything that could bring them down. “If it’s humanly possible, Coop’ll get us there.”

  “It’ll help that the chopper has USA markings on it,” Nora said. “Maybe that’ll make ’em hesitate just enough to give us an edge if we’re challenged.”

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, since we don’t know any of the radio codes or passwords,” Chuck Harris said, putting the final touches on Jerry’s bandages.

  “Coop can buy us a few seconds by feigning radio trouble,” Corrie said. “And if we’re prepared, that should be all we need.”

  Ben picked up his CAR and jacked a round in the chamber. “So, gentlemen and ladies, let’s get ready. We should be getting close enough to the airfield to run into some trouble soon.”

  Ben was right. Within ten minutes, the radio crackled to life. “Helicopter B-14, this is SAM Battery 34. Give the day’s password, please.”

  “How did they identify us?” Jerry asked, gripping his M-16 and staring at Ben with wide eyes.

  “Each aircraft has a transponder that’s always on,” Ben answered.

  “Can’t we turn it off?” Jerry asked.

  “Don’t want to,” Jersey answered. “As long as it’s on, they’ll be reluctant to fire on us, at least for a few minutes.”

  Coop picked up the mic and pressed the key down. Whistling through his lips and making other weird noises which sounded like static, he spoke a few words. “Trouble . . . whee-oow . . . radio . . . eeeyeow . . . can’t . . . shhhh . . . transmit—”

  Corrie laughed. “That’s the worst imitation of static and white noise I’ve ever heard.”

  “SAM Battery 34, having trouble reading you. Please repeat.”

  “Huey B-14,” Coop started, then began making more noise into the mic.

  “Say again, Huey B-14,” the SAM battery command
er said, and then they were out of range, and Coop put the Huey in a wide turn around a low knoll just beyond the surface-to-air missile battery, hoping if they did let loose a missile, it wouldn’t be able to track the heat from their engine.

  After a few seconds, they were in the clear, out of range of the missiles.

  “Good work, Coop,” Ben said, standing behind the pilot’s seat and looking out the windshield into the darkness ahead of them.

  During another ten minutes of silence the Huey swerved and jogged, dodging low-lying hills and high pine trees, speeding toward the airfield up ahead. Coop was flying so low that they could make out lights in windows of some of the houses along the road toward Indianapolis.

  The radio crackled to life again. “This is the control tower at Osterman Air Force Base,” the voice said over the speaker. “Helicopter B-14, please identity yourself and give the password, or we’ll be forced to shoot you down.”

  Coop chuckled and said over his shoulder, “The egotistical bitch has named the airfield after herself.”

  “Do you think we can make it?” Ben asked.

  Coop shrugged. “Probably. We should be within range in a few minutes.”

  “Lock and load, people,” Ben called, stationing himself behind the 50 Cal machine-gun in the Huey’s doorway. He strapped himself into the harness of the big gun, so he wouldn’t be thrown out when Coop banked and turned during the attack. The others squatted or stood next to him, also attaching themselves to the aircraft by means of leather straps.

  As Coop topped a rise, no more than fifty feet off the ground and traveling at almost a hundred and fifty miles an hour, the lights of the landing field could be seen ahead. Two Apache helicopters were in front of a hangar, their blades whirling as they warmed up, with men rushing back and forth, scrambling to get in the air.

  Ben spoke into his helmet mic. “Coop, do a flyby on those choppers first. They’re taking off now!”

  Coop banked the Huey and swerved toward the two Apaches. Men on the ground began to fire automatic rifles, but the small-caliber shells just ricocheted off the sheet metal armor of the chopper.

  As they bore down on them, one of the Apaches lifted several feet off the ground, swaying in the turbulence of the Huey as it tried to get airborne.