Nuclear Spring

by Td Barnes

  Sarge lay curled up on the end of the cot at Bradley’s feet. He hopped off the cot to greet Callahan.

  Bradley shook off the cobwebs in his mind and sat up with his legs hanging over the cot’s edge. “Good morning, Major.” He looked glanced at the time, the radiation reading, and the external camera monitor. “Thanks,” he said as he accepted the cup of coffee from Callahan.

  “Any word from the Hoover Dam detail?”

  “No, sir. They are up and on the station. The demolition detail just passed the Railroad Pass Casino, and so far, has not encountered any resistance. Their ETA is ten minutes. I knew you would want to watch the action at the dam.”

  “How many on the demolition detail?”

  Callahan replied. “Two demolitions and a sharpshooter. Sammie will know if they need some from her detail for backup. Sir, if you want to watch from the War Room, I’ll have the mess hall deliver your breakfast.”

  Bradley stood up. “Let’s do it.”

  In the War Room, they sat down in front of the Mount Charleston camera monitor where they saw Sammie, Ray, Griffin, and the rest of the squad leaning against the wall of the bridge. Sergeant Griffin and Sammie leaned their elbows on the top of the railing to study their hands while peering into the twilight at the top of the dam through their binoculars.

  They saw Sammie stiffen and concentrate her focus on the spot on the dam. She said something to Griffin to induce him to shift his concentration to the same place. Whatever she said caused concern to the others who stopped what they were doing to look in that direction as well.

  “Something must not seem right,” Callahan said. Both Bradley and he stared at the monitor screen to see if they could detect whatever appeared to concern the squad. It was not light enough yet for the camera to pierce the shadows on the dam.

  Sammie turned to face Mt Charleston camera and made an abort signal by slicing her fingers across her throat. She jabbed her hand towards the dam and then made a walking motion with her fingers. Hoping that someone was watching the camera and could interpret her movements, she returned to surveilling the road across the dam.

  “Can you see what is concerning them?” Callahan asked.

  Bradley stared at the monitor but still could not see anything of concern. Nothing was moving that he could see. “Negative. Her signal is clear. Something has moved, and she wants us to alert the demolition team.”

  “Sergeant Kauger is the team leader. His call sign is Bear. I’ll put them on hold until we know the score.”

  The War Room was monitoring the frequency of the repeater on Mt. Charleston. Callahan keyed the mike and said, “Bear, hole up and wait for orders.”

  Almost, the repeater broke squelch on the War Room radio. “Roger.”

  Sergeant Kauger, a rangy six-foot-one soldier whose built contributed to his call sign, Bear, scanned ahead looking for a location to conceal their vehicle. They were on Highway 95 and along a straight stretch of road with barren hills on their left and miles of Eldorado Valley extending south to their right. Coming up was an interception where Highway 95 split off the Boulder Highway and headed south to the towns of Searchlight and Laughlin in Nevada, and eventually Needles, California. Boulder Highway crossed over Highway 95 south via an overpass.

  Kauger saw the exit ahead and the overpass and directed his driver to take the exit and park out of sight under the bridge. They stopped and dismounted from the vehicle and scattered in defensive positions, the driver staying close enough to the vehicle that he could hear the radio.

  On the bridge, Sergeant Griffin took his eyes off his binoculars and scanned the surrounding area with his naked eyes. “He sure as hell didn’t walk away LT. Someone to move the body.” The body of the robed Jihadist somehow disappeared during the night.

  Sammie continued peering into the shadows along the top of the dam. “I agree, Sergeant. The question is, do we have a lone survivor still in the dam or are we sitting on a beehive of those bastards.”

  Sergeant Griffin looked back at the rest of the team to give them instructions only to find they are anticipating what he wanted and dispersing into a defensive position to guard their flanks.

  To the east, the sun peeked over the mountains lining Lake Mead. Both Sammie and Griffin resumed their watch with binoculars, peering into the former shadows dissipated by sun rays.

  “What do you think, LT?”

  “I don’t see any movement. I say we continue with our original plan to blow the entrances. Before we bring in the explosives team, I think we’d better put some boots on the ground.”

  They watched for another ten minutes and still saw no movement. “We’ll take the JLTV. Ray and you can cover our sixes.”

  “Let’s get the demolition team here first.” She did not want to break radio silence, so she again turned to face the Mt. Charleston camera and motioned for the team to advance to her location. She decided to allow the team time to arrive before resorting to using the radio if they failed to do so.

  Griffin looked down the bridge to the north to where they parked the stalled vehicle to block anyone driving to their location. He motioned to the others in the squad to follow him to clear the road for the incoming detail and to provide an exit back to Las Vegas for themselves. The demolition team arrived while they were moving the vehicles.

  Not knowing what to expect, Sergeant Griffin’s squad took the lead with the demolition detail lagging. Everybody wore their flak and Kevlar with weapons loaded and able to fire. Ray and Sammie waited five minutes before firing up the generator and taking the controls of the Beast. Using their binoculars, Ray watched the winding highway onto the dam for the arriving squad while Sammie kept watch for activity at their target.

  Ray looked below the bridge at the Colorado River almost 900 feet below. Two spillways, one on each side of the canyon protected the dam and powerhouse from overflow. The water on the Lake Mead side was over 500 feet deep, causing a massive amount of pressure on the water discharging at a rate of 40,000 cubic feet per second below. Sammie followed his gaze.

  He resumed scanning the road, commenting, “There are openings down there that the enemy could use to get in and out of the dam.”

  She shrugged her shoulders and responded, “Does not matter. The cliffs of the canyon are vertical and look at the flow of water rushing out of the spillways. There is no way anyone can survive in that flow of water. Even if they managed to survive the discharge water, they would be in the turbulent water for miles before finding a break in the cliff walls for them to get out of the water.”

  “Heads up, Hon, our boys are descending the canyon onto the entrance to the dam.” Sammie shifted her surveillance to Griffin’s squad and returned to watching the entrance to the dam.

  The JLTV approached the visitors’ center at the north entrance onto the dam and stopped. The squad scrambled out of the vehicle with eyes searching and weapons while they located behind light posts for partial protection. Seeing no threat, they worked their way across the dam towards the north stairway.

  Griffin motioned for two of the soldiers to secure the north stairway while the others and he advanced to the second one. Finding both entrances with the stairwell doors closed, his soldiers positioned with weapons pointed at the doors while he motioned for the demolition team to move in.

  On the bridge, Ray, and Sammie the Beast on standby and ready to fire if needed. From her vantage point, she watched with satisfaction the methodological way Sergeant Griffin and his squad secured the dam for safe insertion of the demolition team.

  In the War Room, Bradley, Callahan, and the radio operator watched all of this play out on their monitors like an action video with no audio. They watched the two demolition specialists prepare their charges in the stairwell, followed by their signaling everyone to vacate the area, and then the soldiers running towards Griffin’s JLTV, weapons at port arms and revolver holsters slapping their legs. Everything appeared to freeze in place as the demolition specials wired the explosives for detonatio
n. Once completed, the two demolition specialists, each lifted their hands and performed a countdown by extending their fingers one at a time from a closed fist. Upon extending their third finger, each detonated their explosive device.

  Being that the explosive setting was for destroying concrete, the explosive specialist shaped the explosives to explode inward down the stairwells. The soldiers on the dam, however, felt the mighty concussion robust enough to make the dam shake. They heard the loud sound of dual explosions, and saw the smoke and powered concrete blow out of the stairways. Sammie and Ray at the bridge, and those watching at the mountain, however, did not see a lot of physical evidence of the explosions.

  Following the detonations, the squad and demolition detail roared up to the stairways in the JLTVs, where they dismounted to examine the damage. Each stairwell was now an open shaft, the stairs now jumbled metal and concrete lying on the first level below the surface. Each peeked into the staircases but failed to see much because of the smoke, soot, concrete dust, and explosive gasses still blowing out of the dam. After waiting a few minutes, they could assess the damage after the air cleared inside the stairwell.

  One of the demolition specials said, “Sarge, I suggest we lower another charge to the bottom of each stairwell to make all this junk collapse to the bottom.” Thirty minutes later, the soldiers from the mountain secured their equipment and headed back to the mountain knowing that no one would be entering or leaving the dam without extensive and hazardous construction work that might take several weeks to accomplish.

  The mood of those in the War Room of those watching the events play out at the dam articulated from somber concern during the execution to ecstatic jubilation seeing those on the bridge and at the dam preparing to head home to the mountain. The expressions of relief from seeing their combatants emerging from the battle unscathed was brief and restrained by the presence of Colonel Bradley reminding them of the reason for the mountain command having to conduct military action.

  Callahan watched the reactions of Bradley seeing his daughter in combat, noting a brief glimmer of pride. He saw Bradley reach for the photo collage of Stacey and the others lost in the explosion. Somehow, he managed to hide his emotions, and the grief is boiling inside.

  Bradley looked up when Callahan approached, and wordless extended his hand for the collage. Taking it from Bradley’s hand, Callahan carried it through the alcove entrance where he looked for a place to display it above the entrance. Scanning the wall of the main tunnel, he located a slight ledge-like protrusion above the War Room entrance.

  At the nearby guard station, the duty officer and guards on standby recognized his intentions and rushed over to help. The guards provided a step with their hands to lift a female soldier high enough that she could place the collage on the ledge. She dismounted, and they all backed away to view it.

  Callahan noticed the female soldier rendering the hand over heart gesture in a sign of respect and did the same. The others, seeing the gesture followed suit in a gesture of honor and remembrance.

  Word rippled throughout the mountain about the successful offensive and the mounting of the collage above the door to the War Room alcove. One after another, the residents appeared to view the collage depicting loved ones lost. Almost, they repeated the hand over heart gesture, establishing at that point a universal gesture of remembrance observed by everyone inside the mountain while passing by the collage.

  ####

  Three Hours Later

  The soft music piped through the mountain stopped in mid-song. “This is Colonel Barlow. As most of you know, the mountain command dispatched our military on an offensive against those who attacked us in North Las Vegas and murdered Sergeant Harper. These were the same ones responsible for the killing of our people at the south portal. Our heroes have returned and will be attending a debriefing in the Command Center in thirty minutes. I am happy to report that we suffered no casualties. While this does not avenge the loss of our loved ones, it does send a message to those aggressors who seek to do us harm.”

  Bradley stood in front of the big screen watching the ever-changing dance of data. At his computer, Mitchell sat studying the computation of data arriving at night, wishing for a magic ball to confirm what he suspected. He did not say anything, wanting to run another computation of the data coming in at present before raising any alarm. In any case, news about the weather could wait while the Mountain celebrated the success of its first combat sortie.

  “Charlie, I’ll be at the Command Center,” he announced while shouldering the rifle that he now carried in addition to his revolver, and headed for the exit.

  At the south portal, the three JLTVs stopped at the entrance to Sammie’s vehicle in the lead. “This is silly,” thought Sammie when they drove up to the open portal still missing its door. “Everyone knows that we are here, so why are we still hiding?”

  “Specialist,” she addressed the driver. “Take us to the north portal.”

  The perimeter guards watching the JLTVs approaching came to life to salute Sammie as she passed. The JLTVs lined up at the north portal where everyone dismounted, shouldered their weapons, and headed to face the outdoor camera to identify themselves for admission through the portal door.

  Sammie beckoned for one of the guards. “Soldier, do not allow anyone near the weapon. Guard it with your life.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The portal door opened just enough for them to enter and clanged shut. At the entrance to the War Room, they noticed the collage and stopped to study it. Sammie teared up, but shook away her emotions and entered.

  “Congratulations, troops for a job well done. Lieutenant, the colonel, is at the Command Center. Colonel Barlow is expecting you there.”

  Sammie thanked Mitchell and pivoted to head out the entrance and down the tunnel towards the Command Center.

  Nearing the Command Center, residents wishing to see and congratulate their warriors congested the tunnel into a gantlet line as the people saluted them, and reached out to touch their uniforms. Some could not contain their emotions as they thought back to the reasons for the mountain's having to go to battle.

  Sammie flashed recognition to her dad while advancing to Colonel Barlow’s desk to report in. Her troops followed behind and stood at attention.

  “At ease,” Barlow said while rising to her feet. She walked around her desk to shake Sammie’s hand and then the hands of the rest of the team. Returning to Sammie, the colonel pivoted to face her. Sammie recognized the motion and snapped back to the position of attention.

  Barlow said in an official tone of voice, “Lieutenant Bronson, I am proud to promote you to the rank of captain. Congratulations for a job well done.”

  They exchanged salutes at which time Barlow pivoted and marched to where Ray Bronson was standing beside the soldiers. Bronson continued, “Thank you, Mr. Bronson, for your service to the mountain.”

  Returning to her desk, Colonel Barlow dismissed the squad; asking Captain Bronson, Sergeant First Class Griffin, and Mr. Bronson remain for a debriefing by the S-2, Lieutenant Colonel Schwartz with Colonel Bradley, Major Callahan, and Sergeant Major Marshall in attendance.

  The debriefing was short, lasting fifteen minutes. At the conclusion, Sammie requested to speak on another subject.

  “What is on your mind, Captain,” Barlow asked.

  Sammie glanced at Major Callahan. “Sir, I realize that protocol dictates my going through the chain of command, but I feel in this case that the gravity of what I want to say warrants submission to all of you for consideration.”

  She looked at her father and directed her comments to him. “Sir, our adversaries know that we are here. I suggest there no longer be a reason to hide inside the mountain. After the bomb attack on the south portal and during the Jihadist attack, lack of transportation outside the mountain hamstrung us, made us ineffective. I suggest our perimeter defense be beefed up with an armed vehicle at each portal and at least one JLTV for external travel between the
two portals.”

  “I concur,” said Major Callahan to support Sammie. “We have enough room just inside the north portal to park a couple of vehicles, and since we have to rebuild the south portal because of Carlo’s bomb attack, we can redesign it to accommodate a fleet of defensive vehicles.”

  Sammie flashed Major Callahan a look of appreciation for his supporting her. After she had stood down, her suggestion with Major Callahan’s endorsement received universal concurrence from the others. They all knew that someone would someday test the mountain again, but felt much more assured after the mountain's having brought the battle to the enemy to preempt a future attack. They all knew that this would not be the last time the mountain would go to battle. It made sense for the mountain to prepare.

  Sammie felt a need to be with her brother, Jer. She and Bradley left the debriefing together as father and daughter and headed to the medical clinic.

  On the way, Bradley’s thoughts turned to his son. Somehow, he seemed to have lost connect with his son. With Jer choosing to be a doctor in Bradley’s mind somehow separated him from the military roles of Sammie and him even with Jeb being military. Perhaps it was because Jer carried a stethoscope rather than a weapon, wore scrubs rather than a combat uniform. In any case, they lacked common interests.

  Jer, however, did not share his father’s feelings of disconnect. He admired both his father and his sister for their leadership roles, their patriotism. That said, he had always known that he inherited his mother’s gentle traits. He felt satisfaction in his role in healing.

  Jer chose to grieve for the loss of his mother in private. Much like his father and sister, he buried his grief in his work. He could not imagine what it must be like for his father to return to an empty alcove at night. He thought of inviting him to move in with Jamie and him but realized that this would not work for any of them.