by Td Barnes
The crowd sobbed while the single sound of taps drifted over the flats from a soldier standing behind them on the mountain slope. Following taps, seven soldiers conducted the 21-gun salute ritual, using real bullets, as the mountain no blanks for the rifles. Each of the clerics said a piece at the gravesite followed by a representative group of military and civilians shoveling dirt into the grave. The monument would come later.
Bradley and Barlow earlier discussed when to tell the colony about the probable return of the nuclear winter and agreed now being the best time. When the EMP survivors first arrived at the mountain, Bradley and Barlow decided that keeping everyone busy would reduce the memories of their leaving loved ones behind and would raise the morale. Remembering its success, they decided to repeat the tactic.
Colonel Barlow walked over and took the microphone from Bradley. Stepping forward, she said. “Listen up, everyone. There is no right time to tell you this. It is unconfirmed, but we have reason to believe the nuclear winter fallout will return within the next 30 days. We hope it will not last long, but we must remain prepared. Effectively, the mountain will revert to the martial law with Colonel Bradley in command as before.
####
Two days later
Bradley did not know whether to rate his news as good or bad. He stood beside the big screen while the staff of the mountain sat at the conference table and along the space near the entrance to the War Room.
“Yesterday, Mitchell and our special projects team cracked the code of a weather satellite that has haunted us for weeks. I’ll give you a bit of background before going into that. We discovered this satellite soon after our return from Groom Lake and thought we solved our weather forecasting problem. We later found that each day the data remained identical. Someone was jamming the satellite and causing it to transmit a set block of never changing data. Complicating matters were our only knowledge of the satellite because of our traitor, Carlos, and our failure to locate any of our expected American weather service satellites. We made some headway when we discovered valid data transmitting on the upper and lower frequency lobes.”
“Colonel Bradley found the lobes,” Mitchell interrupted.
Bradley glanced at Mitchell and continued.
“A major problem was this being a foreign satellite using different decoding than our American systems. Mitchell solved that.” He glanced at Mitchell to indicate that he was getting even for his complementary interruption. “Yesterday, Mitchell was able to provide us with live weather forecasting.”
Bradley motioned to Mitchell for him to put the data on the big screen. The big screen jumped to life with incoming raw data. Mitchell selected filtered data from the decoders, and the image changed to one that for ages awed the public and made the TV weather forecasters appear magical.
“Mitchell will now provide the mountain with its first weather forecast.”
“TV weathermen are always comedians, so I’ll be no different when I warn you that this presentation may be graphic.” Everyone laughed nervously at his joke. He continued, showing everyone where the atmospheric pressure highs and lows, and how they were influencing the jet stream. He explained how the normal change of season affected the changes, and then started his forecast.
“The jet stream is dipping out of Canada to Portland, Oregon. We do not have an exact rate of movement yet, but I am guessing that we will see the return of fallout in less than 30 days. This storm appears to be carrying only the fallout in the troposphere and stratosphere, which includes the ozone layer so we can expect temperatures to plummet. We will see a few days of much cooler weather, heavy cloud coverage, more like a haze, and a sharp rise in radiation levels. The most fallout will be coarse particles like sand or grit. This means that when we can return outdoors, we will be able to clean anything exposed and then ingest it.”
He used a pointer to direct everyone to what he discussed. He paused a moment to let everyone digest what he thus far covered before continuing.
He pointed to a dark winding band high on the big screen. “This is the mean stuff that the firestorms placed in the mesosphere and thermosphere. For those who do not know, the mesosphere and thermosphere contain the ionosphere, exosphere, and the magnetosphere. The lower level that we have approaching us has lost most of its radioactivity. You do not want it to catch you outdoors. It will burn your skin and could develop into skin cancer. Of course, if you ingest it, you are inviting some long-range problems— cancer. This stuff, however, will cook you,” he said, pointing back to the higher band. It will drop black snow, huge balls of black ice as we saw at first here inside the mountain, and will still be emitting radiation. Mind you that I said emitting rather than carrying. There is a difference. We saw what emissions did to those jerks who tried to take the mountain. It is not pretty. The point is—we are still in a nuclear winter, and this stuff will return.”
Bradley stepped up beside Mitchell. “Thanks, Charlie. At least we know where we stand. Back to the satellite jamming that we first encountered, we believe now that someone in orbit a jamming device to use as a cyber weapon. It is most likely another satellite. We can do nothing about it. It may also account for our losing contact with our American weather service satellites. Having found useful data on the satellite that we have, we are not spending any more time seeking causes or reasons when there is nothing that we can do about it in any case. Are there any questions?”
“What do you intend to do about our prisoner of war and missing soldier?”
“Cesar Oquendo surrendered to Sergeant Stratton’s squad and did not attempt to harm any of our people. He has cooperated with us, and none of us sees him as a threat. We cannot let him leave, so it is Colonel Barlow, Major Callahan, and my opinion that we accept him into the mountain. He has no alliances and will be a great asset when we are ready to confront the enemy. As to Sergeant Harper, we are working on locating him and conducting an extraction. There is not much we can say at this point, except that he will not be left behind.”
“So, you think that we do have a realistic enemy?”
“There is no question about that. They overflew us, spied upon us through Carlos, and shot Sergeant Stratton. We have to recover Harper and then it is now a matter of whether we go preemptive or remain defensive.”
####
Sammie stood and watched for a moment before continuing to where her father knelt on one knee and mourning at the grave of Stacey and the others. She quietly kneeled beside him. After a respectful time, she said, “Jer was here earlier. He could not stay. They needed him back at the clinic to handle the sick call.”
Bradley glanced at her. “Are you ready to go? I see some of the family members coming.”
“Yes, I’m ready. Mom knows we were here. I’ll walk with you to the War Room.”
“Now this is interesting,” she said when she saw his desk. She picked up a stack of blueprints of the Hoover Dam. “Did you find what you are looking for, Dad?”
“Um, no.”
She did not give him room to squirm for an unclassified answer. “What are you looking for?” She stared into his eyes when she asked.
He did not quibble. “A means of sending the damn monolith down the river with the senator’s army inside.”
“Do you think a senator is behind this? Oquendo said a politician.”
“I’m not implying any particular senator. Half of the politicians in Washington would be standing in line for a piece of the action if they knew about it. I called him a politician because that is the lowest class of humanity that I can think of about now.”
“So, do we have a plan B?”
He noticed Sammie using the word we. “There is no we.”
“Bullshit! The hell there isn’t. I have a dog in this fight as much as you do. “
Seeing the tears flooding her eyes and hearing the determination and compassion in her voice was more than Bradley could stand. His lips quivered as tears appeared in his eyes as well. Memories flooded into his mind of Stacey a
nd his riding horses at the ranch while they courted, and their Western-style wedding complete with an old west Shivaree where their friends hauled him off after the wedding to keep Stacey and him apart for hours on their wedding night. He recalled every minute detail of each time that he and Stacey parted with him headed to some hellhole to battle the bad guys. He pictured in his mind how she polished the brass of his uniforms, sewed on his insignia and unit patches, cared for the children while he was gone, and stood like royalty during his military successes and honors.
“Sammie,” he sobbed. “Why her? Why the children?” His sorrow elevated to flustered anger. “What did they do to that bastard to deserve this?”
Sammie sobbed as she ran around the table to clutch her father. They buried their heads against each other as they vented their grief and sorrow.
The radio operator standing in for SP5 Dawson heard their exchange when the volume of their voices elevated and recognized what was happening. He motioned to Mitchell, Doctor Hains, and their personnel to leave the room to afford privacy to Bradley and Sammie in their moment of grief.
The moment passed for each of them. Each regained their composure and embarrassingly tried to tell themselves that the time of weakness never happened. Sammie spoke first. “What do you propose to do first, sir?” Slipping back into military protocol was her way of letting him know that she was ready to move on.
“Your mother would want us to soldier on. We, Lieutenant, are going to ensure that none of these scumbags ever enter Jackass Flats or Emigrant Valley to harm anyone else,” he whispered, as though sounding tough might offset his lapse of self-control. He dragged the blueprints before them for both to view. “The dam is hollow with maintenance facilities and control rooms for the turbines and electrical distribution.” Pointing to details on the blueprints, he said, “These are the elevators used for public tours. They will not be operational, which means everyone must use these stairs. They will have guards, so our getting in will be difficult.”
“Why go in, sir? This is not the time or place for military chicanery. You are thinking Special Forces or Delta Force guerrilla warfare tactics. We have at our disposal the weapon to send the senator’s a message that they might want to choose a different venue for their treachery.”
“The Grizzly?”
“More like the Beast.” She selected a site layout sheet showing the infrastructure of the Hoover Dam. “The clowns will not expect any opposition, so we should have no problem slipping in at night and setting it up by this tourist observation tower. From what Sergeant Stratton’s squad saw, and from what Oquendo told us, these guys are going balls out to stock up for the next winter period just as we are. We catch them returning to the dam and deny them entry. Most likely these guys are not trained soldiers, so they are not going to stick around when things get hot, and they start crapping in their pants.” She even managed to laugh. “I mean hot—like hot, hot.”
She thought for a moment. “On second thought, we might want to use the Grizzly. I believe it is more effective not to kill them. They will be unable to detect what is happening to them. There is no sound, smell, or anything visible. When their skin becomes unbearably hot, they will blame the overhead power lines or whatever, but they will never know that they are under attack. The word will spread not to go to the dam. The downside of going nonlethal is letting them live might enable our traitor to bring them here.”
“They won’t make it far if we conduct our operations just ahead of the storm. To survive, they must join up with the zombies. We have the second Grizzly and a mountain full of badass soldiers so we can handle them if they make it here. Question. Oquendo knows the layout, numbers, etc. Can we trust him to support us rather than them?”
“I’ll find out. He spent only two weeks with them.” She stood up to leave and glanced at the outdoor radiation level reading.
“My nerd gang is at the mess. Tell them that I am ready to go back to work.” He added, “Have someone bring me a cup of Joe.”
Mitchell and the others returned to the alcove and resumed their work as though nothing happened. “Thanks, Charlie,” Bradley said to him while accepting the cup of coffee. Mitchell knew the thanks were for more than the coffee.
Bradley stood and followed him to his area of the War Room. He knew that the weather service prediction program covered only seven days, but needed more.
“Charlie, I need a ballpark estimate of when the storm will force us back into the mountain.”
“Seventeen days for a ballpark estimate at the current rate of movement in the jet stream.”
“That will work.”
“That will work!” Mitchell thought. “That is a strange answer.” The answer suggests something occurring during this time frame rather than providing a deadline to get something done.
Bradley’s next question generated, even more, suspicion in Mitchell’s mind that Bradley might be planning an ops.
“Charlie, at Groom, you showed me the special use of your system being high-resolution surveillance photographs. Is that available to us?”
“Sorry, Colonel. Not with this satellite. It does not have the camera needed for my system.”
“Crap!”
“I could process digitized photographic data from the RPVs, Piloted Vehicles that we have here inside the mountain if we were able to fly them. However, without the prerequisite support and relay satellites, it would be a line of sight between my parabolic antenna and the subject.”
“That will not be possible. Never mind my fishing for options.”
“Options?” Now Mitchell knew something was in the wind.
“Wait a minute,” Bradley said, not as an order, but more as a fresh thought. He rushed back to his desk where he dug through some maps until he found one of the Mount Charleston Quadrant. “Come here, Charlie,” he said. He tapped on the map at the peak of Mount Charleston. “This is a line of sight with us, and it is LOS with most of southern Nevada and into California and Arizona. “Do we have a camera system that we can install as a remote to provide our eyes over the region?”
“We have those we brought from Groom. It must be nuclear powered because of the extended periods of time that we will not have sunlight for solar power. You will be able to capture an image, but if the magnetic interference returns, transmitting it to your receivers here at the mountain might be iffy.”
“In that case, I doubt if there would be anything to photograph anyway,” Bradley called outside the War Room alcove for someone from the security detail. “Locate Major Callahan and get him here ASAP.”
“Yes, sir. Sir, Major Callahan said that he was going up above to look at the back of the mountain.”
“Very well. When he returns, tell him that I need to see him.”
“Yes, sir.”
Thirty minutes later, Callahan entered the War Room. Seeing Bradley alone and out of hearing a range of anyone else, he greeted him by his first name, as they often did when alone.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Tom. I was playing mountain goat, climbing the mountain to look at the other side.”
“Oh?”
“We won’t have time before the next storm, but when we can, I want to extend our intrusion detection to the back side of the mountain as well. While we are at it, let’s beef up our camera presence on top to cover any blind spots on the perimeter.”
“I agree.” Bradley made a point of looking at Callahan’s boots. “I’m happy to see that you are into mountain climbing. That is what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Oh?” He said it, grinning to mimic Bradley’s response to his saying that he been on the mountain. ” What’s up?”
“We brought some special cameras from Groom Lake that has a high enough resolution to count the wrinkles on a fly’s ass from 50 miles away. I want to install one on Mount Charleston overlooking the Las Vegas Valley using a nuclear power plant. While we are at it, we might as well install an array of cameras looking back at us. That will cover any access routes i
nto our territory. Let’s also install a radio repeater to give us long-range communications.” He pointed to his map. “We can reach this ranger station, and it has the line of sight we need for here and Las Vegas. Per this map, there is already a microwave tower for mounting our equipment.”
“Looking for weather or an enemy?”
“Is there a difference? This is a rush job, Lane. We have two weeks before our nuclear winter sets in again.”
“And Sergeant Harper?”
“We’re still working on a plan for that. We’re hoping the camera will give us some Intel so we can make an extraction.” Bradley paused in thought. “
Lane, I am former Special Forces, so I think I should share the lead with you on the extraction. Ray, Sammie, and I are thinking of deploying one of the Grizzlies and the Beast, depending on our Intel. We will need to coordinate that with the extraction team, so I think our best approach is for you to pick the team and we assign them to Lieutenant Bronson. Bronson is not combat tested or experienced. We need a mission leader. That is your call. You and I’ll monitor and advise where needed.”
“You’re not going?”
“I would love to, but neither you nor I am going into the field. At this point, there is no one to replace us. Losing either or both of us could doom the entire colony.”
“Dammit. I don’t like being the Old Man at less than 40 years old.”
Bradley chuckled. “Just wait until you become a grandpa to an entire tribe of misfits as I have. Remember that I am not much older than you are. Pick your Mount Charleston team and let’s brief them after dinner and load their equipment for installation tomorrow. Plan this as an overnighter just in case.”
