by Td Barnes
Callahan dismissed the talk about a promotion, focusing instead on the mission ahead. “Thank you, sir. We are ready to head ‘em out. We’ll see you in the Area.”
Two hours later, Bradley climbed into the front seat of the JLTV with the driver, leaving Dr. Hains and Charlie Mitchell to sit in the rear seat. Hains, while waiting for their departure, squatted with his knees in the seat, looking backward to watch two soldiers load their items in the back of the vehicle along with MREs to feed them. The same occurred in the second JLTV containing three riflemen and their driver. A third JLTV carried a driver and three from the transportation section who would deliver any additional trucks located at Groom Lake back to the mountain.
Colonel Barlow and SMG Marshall exchanged salutes with Bradley as his JLTV passed. Barlow continued to exchange salutes with the occupants of each of the vehicles that followed.
Watching the last car disappear into the desert, Barlow turned to the Sergeant Major and repeated her argument made to Bradley. “Sergeant Major, there is no way that I can ever fill that man’s shoes.” While she spoke, she swept her arm in a scanning motion to encompass all the hustle and bustle occurring inside the mountain.
Marshall was looking at the massive steel door to the portal. It seemed strange having the gateway standing open after all these years. Guinea hens and cats roaming free inside the mountain were now exploring the entrance to the mountain while two young K-9 pups romped.
“Our colonel wears many different hats that most know nothing about,” Marshall said. He realized his goof. “I meant to say, Colonel Bradley, ma’am.”
Barlow smiled. “You are right, Sergeant Major. He is our colonel. I have served under him, but still, I do not know him.”
“No one knows the colonel. I did not realize this until Sergeant Major Weston died and I replaced him. Colonel Bradley is a secret and tormented man. Inside him is the leadership of General Patton, Mother Theresa’s heart, the crafts of spymaster Donovan, the knowledge of genius Albert Einstein, and the pioneering spirit of Howard Hughes. These traits try to control him.”
Barlow felt lucky that the EMP stranded Bradley in Beatty for him to take command inside the mountain. She felt that no one else could have held them together, much less have focused on his vision of the future. His methodology of leadership combined with his knowledge of the consequences of the EMP attack was responsible for their survival.
She replied, “He would never admit it, but he seems happier working on technical issues than commanding. He does not realize that in his engineering mode, he is almost as much a nerd or geek as the Ph.Ds about whom he jokes. Beneath his George Patton image, his heart breaks every day when he remembers the screening of those at Beatty to evacuate to the mountain. Mayor Robinson told me about the children that he turned away because of medical conditions that we would be unable to care for. She says that it broke his heart knowing that his rejecting them equated to a death sentence.”
1Lt. Samantha Bradley-Bronson, the only female and junior military officer on the mission, departed the mountain in convoy behind Bradley’s JLTV loaded with soldiers armed to the teeth.
Sammie was a stunningly good-looking woman with brown hair and beautiful dark eyes. Beneath her Kevlar, she smiled with excitement from the occasion and with increased adrenaline. She stuck her head out the passenger side of the JLTV and waved her arm in a move-out motion while singing the lyrics of the theme song of the old TV series Rawhide, “Head ‘em up, move ‘em out, Moves ‘em on, head ‘em out Rawhide! Set ‘em out, ride ‘em in, Ride ‘em in, let ‘em out, Cut ‘em out, ride ‘em in Rawhide.” The soldiers in the back seat picked up the song with everyone in the JLTV soon singing at the top of their lungs as they ventured on the first excursion outside the mountain since the bombs.
Bradley smiled at the sound of his excited troops while peering out the side window at the clear sky, marveling at the beauty of sunlight. Everyone acted adrenalized after spending four years on the mountain with the only view of the outside being the external camera view shown on a monitor. There had been the Aurora Northern Lights dancing in the heavens, even during the day, and then months of smoky haze from the firestorms in the cities leveled by the bombs. Summer changed to winter with black, dirty snow covering everything on the outside. Harsh winds blew through, and blackened chunks of ice fell out of the sky to bang on the metal portal door protecting them from the nuclear winter waging outside.
“Doctor Hain. You remarked about my being more than just a military man,” Bradley said to start a conversation.
“Yes, I did. Your knowledge of EMP and the nuclear winter effects gave you away. Scuttlebutt has always been that you played spook with one of the intelligence agencies.” Doctor Hains leaned forward in his seat to hear Bradley’s low, raspy voice.
“When the EMP hit us, I headed the Defense Intelligence Agency’s facility in Huntsville where I worked with NSA, CIA, and RSL at Nellis AFB, and with the intelligence agencies of most of our allies. My people developed the malware codenamed Stuxnet that you will remember infected the Iranian computers to set back their nuclear program. We also developed the missile defense that redirected the Chinese missiles during the Middle East war.”
“That explains some things. How in the world did you get involved here at the mountain?”
Bradley did not realize his signing before answering. “The EMP nailed us while Stacey and I were vacationing out here to see the kids. The purpose of the trip was my witnessing a bunker bomb demonstration at the National Tonopah Test Range. We spent the night in Beatty and woke up the next morning to find ourselves stranded. I hate to say it, but someone was looking out for us. Both of our kids were here in Nevada, with Jerry attending UNLV and Sammie working for Homeland Security.”
Bradley noted the driver was listening and said no more. Bradley glanced at the driver and realized they should not talk shop with him present. He turned back to face the front of the JLTV.
Traveling in daylight, those in convoy saw things that the earlier, Callahan’s night convoy did not. This at the beginning of the day and it cool enough, in ordinary times they might have seen some desert wildlife, but this morning they did not—an indication of the toll on wildlife by the nuclear winter.
They left behind the engine test stand, R-MAD, the Reactor Maintenance Assembly and Disassembly complex, and E-MAD, the engine maintenance facility in the former Nuclear Rocket Development Station corner of the old Nevada Test Site. The road name changed to Cane Spring Road at a junction that led through long-abandoned guard stations to the Jackass Flats Road.
The fast-moving convoy of vehicles turned left turn when they reached where the road dead-ended at the Mercury Highway to pass through the heart of the Nevada National Security Site. In their goggles, they caught glimpses of atomic bomb craters and infrastructure of those exciting days long past.
The speeding convoy passed the famous Sedan Crater and continued the main road, ignoring branch roads. Hains worked at the Nevada National Security Site before the EMP, so he acted as their guide. He pointed out Yucca Flat and the hundreds of subsidence craters from underground nuclear weapons, Yucca Lake where the CIA and military Special Ops airfield for training and conducting flights of RPV, piloted vehicles in the world’s military hot spots before the EMP.
The convoy raced through a series of abandoned security guard shacks and entered a long valley surrounded by the Groom Mountain Range and the Papoose Mountain Range where it sloped into a massive dry lake, a hard-packed playa perfect for a natural landing field.
Groom Dry Lake lay in a barren valley populated with silt, poisonous, spiny reptiles, insects, and plant life. Unmarred by neither hummock nor furrow, no tree or bush grew on this dry pluvial lakebed of parched clay and alkaline smoothed through the centuries to glasslike flatness from desert winds sweeping water from winter rains back and forth in a timeless cycle. They saw several runways, one of them so long that it disappeared across the dry lakebed.
All the wa
y across the former Nevada Atomic Proving Grounds, they seen camps identified by a military-type water tower. The Groom Lake facility differed by having a tall flight control tower in addition to the water tower. The office, dormitory, supply, mess, and even the massive hangars resembled any other American airbase. The RATSCAT, a radar scatter array of what must have been a model of every radar known to mankind stood out as being something different.
This being Hains’ first visit to this DOD facility, he too became a tourist staring in awe at what he saw on the rim of the dry lakebed.
The DYCOMS Radar Building looked like a traditional research building, but towering beside it stood the largest radar antenna that any of them ever seen before.
The CIA first used the DYCOMS Dish; the Dynamic Coherent Measurement System for radar cross section evaluations of its A-12 Blackbird spy plane. Ever since, this antenna remained a prominent feature of the facility, remaining in use by the Air Force Flight Test Center, Detachment 3 as an airborne RCS test system to evaluate the radar signatures of aircraft while overflying the facility. Near the DYCOMS facility, they saw the QUICK KILL radar site whose purpose none of them could determine.
Bradley muttered, “I’ll be damned.”
Hans followed the direction of his gaze, seeing a massive array of radar systems all looking towards a tall pole sitting out in the lakebed. “What,” Hains asked.
“Those are Soviet radar.” He pointed at one of them. “That is a P-35 BAR LOCK E/F band EW radar. I believe the one on the pad south of it is an RSN-125, LOW BLOW, engagement radar. We associated it with the S-125, SA-3 GOA SAM system. WOW. There is an Iberian, Tall King-C. Those damn things are what stopped our overflying Russia during the Cold War.”
“Sir,” Mitchell interrupted. “I think Lieutenant Bronson is looking for us. She is waving to us from the JLTV approaching the control tower.”
Callahan’s excluding females on this mission did not consider the persistence of Lieutenant Bronson who argued her participation being essential to testing her secret weapon. After evaluating her argument that only she knew what they needed, he waived this restriction for her on the condition that she had to accomplish her essential part and return to the mountain at the earliest possible time.
“We’re home, where are the aliens” she announced when the convoy came to a halt in front of the building where Ray and she once worked before the EMP attack. The soldiers dismounted with their weapons at ready.
“Ma’am, we are to guard you. What are your orders?” the only sergeant in the group asked, ignoring her joking comment about the aliens.
“We need to coordinate with Captain Callahan, but I suggest we bunk down in the control tower. There are dormitories here; however, the tower will give us an excellent field of fire and view of the perimeter. Here comes Captain Callahan. He will be the one to set up the perimeter guard detail. I’ll run this by him.”
She met Callahan a few feet away. They spoke for a moment and then she returned to her men.
“Okay, Guys—here’s the poop. They do not need you on the perimeter but do need you to maintain watch over the base from inside the tower in two-hour shifts. One on duty—the others can sleep. No radio transmission guys.” She smiled. “No loud snoring either,” she joked. “Let’s move our food supplies inside. They have absorbed enough radiation as it is on the drive over.” She glanced at the radiation level on her instrument as she spoke.
“Maybe they will taste better,” one of the soldiers griped and then laughed at his joke. The adrenaline rush was over so now, but they tried not to show it.
“Fellows,” she said. “I know that it is no longer relevant, but what you see here is top-secret and sensitive. Telling someone only endangers them, and all the rest of us should an enemy capture him or her. They can’t tell what they don’t know, so people do them a favor and keep your mouths zipped.”
From the control tower, Sammie watched the guards below rushing with their weapons to set up guard outposts around the perimeter of the facility.
She scanned her eyes around the Groom Lake closed drainage basin and the playas along the base of the Groom Mountain Range and the Papoose Mountain Range circling the valley.
Most were barren with scattered Pinion-juniper and semiarid scrub brush growing at the upper levels, all lying within howitzer range of where Sammie stood. The same features that made this a perfect venue for secrecy made it an ideal target for attack with the control tower in which she stood in the center of the bull's eye, or ground zero.
####
Captain Callahan chose the base security building for his base while Colonel Bradley opted to bunk in the control tower with Sammie and her crew. They allowed an hour to settle in before meeting at the base of the control tower.
Bradley climbed the stairs to the top of the control tower where he found it operational in appearance. It provided him a full view of the base and what assets of interest that it offered the mountain. Bradley saw enough to know what he wanted to see up close after his hooking up with Callahan and the nerds.
Bradley referred to the brainy ones chosen by Dr. Hains as nerds so often that they started using the name Project Nerd with a sense of pride among themselves. During his tour of the Groom Lake facility, Bradley tried to appear interested, but his mind kept drifting to Project Nerd.
The mountain’s raiding party found an incredibly small amount of EMP damage. This, they attributed to the EMP having struck at night and on the weekend with most likely only a skeleton crew at the base. Although the facility remained operational, the EMP eliminated any need for the United States maintaining its black world of futuristic technology.”
The raiding party found virtually everything shielded from orbiting satellites before the EMP, including sound and emissions. They saw everything stored in metal buildings, some of them even insulated to prevent revealing a vehicle’s heat from an infrared source.
One to credit this facility for having prepared for the EMP by ensuring that the buildings contained no windows or items to act as an antenna. If the rest of the United States had been so developed, the facility would have been still in operation.
Bradley turned to Callahan. “Have you talked to Ray or Sammie about the passive perimeter intrusion detection they have here? Per them, a pack rat can’t enter the perimeter undetected.”
“No, I haven’t. I’ll check on that. That will make my job of defending us from ground attack much easier. Speaking of defense, are you at liberty to say how we are getting along?”
“Bradley smiled smugly. “The grizzly has teeth and may soon have some cubs that I’ll need another group of nerds to manage.”
“Sounds as though you have found some other technical goodies,” Callahan said, hoping that he could elaborate.
Bradley replied. “I have found the Grand Canyon of technology,” He said nothing more.
Callahan lingered behind Hains and Mitchell so Bradley and he could talk. “By the way, Colonel, I liked your suggestion back at the mountain about our having a civilian appearance.” The military ACUs have worked inside the mountain because the uniform made the survivors realize the need for military preparedness both then and more so now. Outside the mountain, they are no longer wearing the Kevlar helmets worn inside the mountain to ward off the occasional falling rock.”
“Besides the reasons, I stated, I think we should preserve the uniforms for our future warriors.”
“How do you feel about me taking an expedition to Las Vegas to recon the situation and stock up on civilian clothing to replace the uniforms?”
“I like the idea, but you’re not going.”
Callahan did not respond.
“Major, you are our George Patton that we keep wrapped up all cozy, and comfortable to save you for combat. That is why you remained a captain when we promoted everyone else. We couldn't replace you.”
Callahan noted Bradley’s addressing him as major, but said nothing. “Thank you, sir. We can say the same about you.”
Callahan chuckled, picking up a small pebble and rolling it across the ground towards a signpost. “What do we do with some lazy bastard that doesn’t want to carry his load?”
To Bradley, this had been an ever-pressuring issue that he knew he and the other leaders would have to deal with eventually. “That is Colonel Barlow’s problem,” he joked. Turning serious, he said, “That is where democracy goes abysmally wrong. We tend to pass the trash. In the past, we either subsidized or promoted those whose competence peaks at the lower rungs of the ladder.”
“Or, elected the bastards to public office,” Callahan said in a harsh whisper dripping with contempt for the world leaders who placed humanity in this position. “The problem with democracy is that you sometimes subordinate your virtue to get anything done.”
“I don’t and won’t,” Bradley whispered. He said it but meant every word. “That’s the reason I never made general. You know, Lane, the more we talk about your suggestion for presenting a civilian appearance, the more I like it. We can park our military vehicles to conserve them for when we need them. If we appear to be civilians, we can hide them and use the private vehicles that we brought to the mountain.”
