Bug Out! Atlantic Book 8, page 13
He smiled, moving closer to her, kissing her tenderly. “We’re taking our time now, right?”
“Yes, until I can’t stand it anymore.”
They made love on and off for the rest of the day.
{ 11 }
Hot Zone
W hitaker got on the comm unit in the command center, Pat, Derrick, Hymie, and Bailey sitting around the big table, Burr on the far end, face buried in his laptop.
Derrick’s phone buzzed. “He’s ready.”
“Send him the connect info,” Whitaker said, reading it off, Derrick typing it into the text stream and sending it. A few moments later the comm unit beeped, Whitaker accepting the call. The screen showed another meeting room, looking like a garage, several people around the table, Blumenthal’s tall lanky form at the head, Terry sitting next to him.
“Greetings,” Blumenthal said.
“Great to see you guys again,” Derrick said. “How’s it been going?”
“We’ve been lying low and training on the new weapons,” Terry said. “Nice hardware. I’ve added accessories to quite a few. Lights, lasers, better sights.”
“Good,” Whitaker said. “We’ve been able to fortify the Apache base. It’s not impenetrable, but it’s a lot better than it was.”
“Still building Blockbusters?” Blumenthal asked.
Bailey grinned. “They’ll have number three completed by the time we get home.”
Horsley smiled. “We’ve taken your lead, armored some of my trucks. Don’t have anything as good as your grenade launchers, though.”
Derrick and Bailey shot each other a glance. “We might be able to work with you on the M19 sets. They’ll take some modifications that will be difficult to undo, though. Probably will reduce the value of your trucks.”
Horsley laughed. “The only way we’ll survive is if we win, and if we win, all these specialized vehicles we’ve made will be worth a pretty penny.”
Hymie burst out laughing. “He’s right, you know.”
“How’s your intel going?” Blumenthal asked. “Seeing any new targets.”
“Funny you should ask,” Bailey quipped.
“We’ve got intel on the real UN base,” Whitaker said. “The location, the layout. It’s overstuffed with UN Peacekeepers at the moment, since they’ve all fled inland.”
“Real UN base?” Terry asked.
Derrick leaned towards the phone. “Remember the attack we were involved with at the abandoned Auto Mall?”
“Yeah, you said it was a trap,” Terry said.
“It was, for the most part,” Derrick said. “There were a few enemy folks stationed in a building across the street, but they trucked in fighters to the Auto Mall. It was never a base, we got bad info from an enemy spy.”
“So where’s the real base?” Blumenthal asked.
“Just east of Bensalem,” Derrick said. “I’ve started looking at it. Five industrial buildings, two of them part of an abandoned aerospace plant. It’ll be a dangerous mission, but doable with our new hardware.”
“Would the Apaches be involved?” Blumenthal asked.
“Probably,” Whitaker said, “and we’ve got a line on some AC-130 gunships.”
“Whoa, those things are crazy,” said a younger man, sitting three down from Blumenthal.
“That’s my kid, Kendal,” Blumenthal said. “My oldest brother was on an AC-130 back in the mid-2000s. Potent weapons, although they’re getting a little old now.”
“Is your brother part of the team?” Hymie asked. “Maybe he could help.”
“Naw, he didn’t make it out of the theater,” Blumenthal said. “Killed by an IED, after surviving a lot of sorties in the gunship. Life sucks sometimes.”
“Sorry,” Hymie asked.
“What timeframe are you thinking for the attack?” Terry asked.
“It’s got to be soon, tomorrow or the day after,” Whitaker said. “We want the place to be chock full of scumbags when we hit them. We’re getting some help, though, because that EU Taskforce has paused their trip down the coast.”
“What about Islamists?” Terry asked.
“None around, and apparently the UN hasn’t told them about this base. They view the RFID chips as a problem.”
“They’re probably right, from what I’ve heard,” Blumenthal said.
“They are right,” Whitaker said.
“You’ve got those apps?”
“No, but we know people who do,” Derrick said. “That’s all I can say at this point. We’ll try to get some for our team.”
“Nobody will talk about them online,” Kendal said. “If you bring up the subject, people call you a moron and make like there’s no such thing.”
“That’s smart at this point,” Derrick said. “Hopefully we can get that capability eventually. It would be a game changer for us.”
“Yeah, if we’d had that before the attack on the Apache base, we’d have four or five more birds, and a larger ground crew,” Whitaker said.
“So you were hit hard by Islamists?” Blumenthal asked.
“Yeah, they walked in through the forest, caught us off guard. Some had Stinger missiles, knocked two of our choppers out of the air.”
“Interesting, I figured it was mostly UN,” Blumenthal said.
“The UN sent the largest group, but they came in on the road as we had expected.”
“So what are our next steps?” Terry asked.
“I think a few of us should sneak over to the base and poke around,” Pat said.
“If they catch us, that will spoil the whole thing,” Whitaker said.
“Wait a minute, guys,” Derrick said. “The source of the intel is gonna send us more data, remember? We should have it any time now. Let’s look at that first, it might be detailed enough that we won’t have to go there before the attack.”
“That sounds good,” Terry said.
“Yeah, we’ll clear our calendar for the next few days, just tell us when,” Blumenthal said. “Anything else we need to talk about?”
“I don’t think so,” Whitaker said. “We’ll be talking again as soon as we get this data, it won’t be long.”
“All right, we’ll talk to you guys later,” Blumenthal said.
Whitaker ended the call. “That guy is tall.”
“Yep,” Derrick said. “He’s got a good squad, too, and he has the ability to bring a lot of people into the fight. He had forty people at that depot in about twenty minutes.”
Whitaker looked away from his PC. “I got the email from Salvatore. I’ll put it on screen.”
The others quieted down as the document opened before them.
“Whoa, look at the detail of the photos,” Pat said.
Hymie nodded. “We don’t have to go there first.”
The team went over the data, then called Blumenthal back and went over it with his team. They planned the attack for the next day, after dark.
***
“Maybe it’s time to slow production,” Rico said, plopping down in a chair next to the table, Duffy joining him.
“We’ll see action again, you know. Remember how many Islamists are around.”
“I know, but we’re having problems keeping these things hidden in the meantime.”
Duffy sighed. “Okay, you have a point. We’ll discuss it with Hank and Crank when they get back with lunch.”
“I’m gonna tell Wick and Chippy you said that.”
Duffy burst out laughing. “Yeah, the names I called them are so much worse. What are their real names, anyway?”
“Never asked. Probably Harold and Chester.”
The two men laughed as the front door opened, Wick and Chippy coming in with bags of food, Kenny and Duce following them.
“Hey, didn’t expect you two,” Duffy said.
Duce smiled. “You guys are doing too well. We can’t hide anymore blockbusters.”
“Yeah, thirty-three is a lot,” Kenny said. “We still need drivers for four of them, too.”
“We were just talking about that,” Rico said. “I’m okay if we slow down for a while. You got the tripod versions distributed?”
“Yeah,” Kenny said. “Not sure what to do with them yet.”
“We don’t know what the next attack is gonna be like,” Duce said. “Everybody’s nervous, waiting for the other shoe to drop. You know that New City Hall and NYPD Headquarters are shuttered, right?”
“Heard,” Rico said. “Don’t blame them, those are known locations, and that new weapon can get into bunkers.”
“Where’d you hear that?” Chippy asked.
“Couple of message threads, where they were talking about the aftermath in Halifax,” Rico said. “I’d like to know why that taskforce stopped.”
“I’d like to know why we don’t send our navy up north to wipe them out,” Wick said.
“We don’t have enough ships around,” Rico said. “Too many of them are in the Pacific, and the canal is still busted.”
“There’s a bunch in Europe, though,” Duce said. “We ought to bring them home.”
“I suspect we are doing some of that,” Duffy said. “Also heard we’re working on the Panama Canal.”
“What ever happened to the southern EU Task Force?” Wick asked. “I read that they were on their way up from South America, and were going to stop and damage the canal again.”
Kenny’s phone rang. He got up from the table, walking away with it to his ear, rushing back a second later. “One of our guys stumbled onto a UN base. Thinks we might be able to take them on.”
“Where?” Duffy asked.
“Just a second,” Kenny said. “I’ll put him on speaker.” He put the phone on the table and hit the speaker button. “Hear me, Satch?”
“Yeah, man,” Satch said. “Who’s there?”
“Rico, Duffy, Wick, Chippy, Duce, and me.”
“Okay, I got Dougy here with me, and Kent.”
“Good,” Kenny said. “What are you seeing?”
“UN creeps and a few Islamists, at the triangle, Franklin Street, Leonard Street, and Varick Street.”
“Are you nuts? That’s in the hot zone,” Duce said. “What the hell are you doing that far south?”
“We’re scavenging,” Satch said. “Lots of good stuff to pick up. It’s not that bad here now. Dougy got hold of some RAD strips. They say we aren’t in the dangerous zone.”
“Where are you now?” Kenny asked.
“In an abandoned building across Franklin. We could hit this place from three sides.”
“I’m surprised buildings there are standing,” Duffy said.
“The windows are blown out above the fourth floor,” Satch said. “Pretty much everywhere around here. I can see rubble a few blocks south.”
“How old are these guys?” Rico asked. “Being down there is liable to make them frigging sterile.”
Satch laughed. “I been snipped already. We’re all in our mid-fifties.”
“Great, so the little swimmers won’t suffer, but you’ll die in five years from cancer,” Rico said. “You guys are nuts. It’s not worth it to start trouble down there. We can only run away one direction if we get into trouble.”
“We thought that at first,” Satch said. “Then we started to ask ourselves why are they here?”
“Let’s send the location to Mayor Fine’s office,” Duffy said. “Might be some critical infrastructure there.”
“Shit, you guys are right,” Duce said. “How many people you seeing there?”
“We’ve been here for a few hours, seen several UN sedans coming and going, and now we’ve got vans showing up. They’re letting people out and then splitting.”
“I’m pretty sure I’ve seen one of them vans more than once,” said a voice off to the side.
“Who was that?” Duce asked.
“Kent, he’s watching out the window… or where the window used to be.”
Duffy got on his phone, punching in the Mayor’s office. The phone rang several times and went to voice mail.
“They ain’t gonna be there, they moved out,” Rico said. “Remember?”
“Oh shit, that’s right,” Duffy said. “How do we get ahold of those guys now?”
“Hey, I’ll call Officer French,” Wick said. “He was at UN Headquarters when we were doing all that remodeling.”
“Oh yeah, I remember that guy,” Kenny said. “Perfect, call him.”
Wick walked away from the table with the phone to his ear.
“What do you want us to do?” Satch asked.
“If you aren’t glowing in the dark yet, stick around and watch. Keep track of how many show up.”
“Okay, we can do that,” Satch said. “Talk to you soon.” The call ended.
“Just when I thought I was done, they pull me back in,” Duce said.
“That was the worst Pacino impression I’ve ever seen,” Rico quipped.
Wick came back over. “Got Officer French. He’s passing the info to Chief Harvey. He was concerned about the radiation down there too.”
“All the more reason we need to know what they’re up to down there,” Chippy said.
***
Captain Schroeder sat on the bridge, watching the seas as they picked up.
“Getting a little choppy,” Zander said.
“Nothing these boats can’t handle.”
“True. Think this attack is going forward?”
Captain Schroeder shrugged. “We’ll be defeated by cowardice, just like we were in the last century. Twice.”
“It was more complicated than that, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, I suppose, Zander. How old are you?”
“Thirty-one, sir.”
“So you had to deal with propaganda at school, then. About the twentieth century.”
Zander nodded. “The change only happened four years ago, sir. I’m not sure it was the right thing to do. There have been more radical groups springing up.”
“You have a problem with this?” Captain Schroeder asked.
“Don’t you? Genocide and conquest aren’t a good use of our time. They’re corrosive to humanity.”
Captain Schroeder chuckled. “Nobody thinks there weren’t regrettable excesses. Beyond that, our society has been punished enough. France isn’t ashamed of Napoleon. England isn’t ashamed of Queen Elizabeth. Hitler was just more recent.”
“As I said, it’s more complicated than that,” Zander said. “I don’t’ want to discuss this with you; we disagree, and I don’t want that to impact my career.”
Captain Schroeder burst out laughing. “We probably won’t survive this war, you know. And don’t worry, I won’t seek punishment because we disagree on history.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“One thing to consider, Zander. Hitler was fighting communism. He went overboard, but at the core he was correct.”
Zander smiled. “You aren’t going to give this up, are you?”
“It’s just idle conversation. Do you disagree?”
“That among Hitler’s enemies were the Communist Party in Germany and the USSR? No, I don’t disagree, that’s common knowledge. If we’re going to take this further, why are you working for the EU? The politicians have become more and more like the communists.”
Captain Schroeder turned towards him, a twinkle in his eye, his mouth in a crooked smile that smacked of evil. “Who said I support the politicians?”
Zander broke into a cold sweat. “You’re going to disobey their orders, aren’t you?”
“Don’t put words into my mouth, Zander. Sometimes we do that which we disagree with, out of duty to our country.”
Zander looked at him quietly for a moment, then looked away.
“I followed the EU High Command’s instructions to break off the attack, did I not?”
Zander turned back towards him. “Yes sir, you did.”
“You need not worry. I know how to follow orders, regardless of my personal opinion, as do you. Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.”
“It’s fine, sir,” Zander said.
“I’m going to my stateroom for a while, Zander. You have the bridge.”
Zander nodded, watching him leave, wishing there was an escape.
***
Mayor Fine came into the intel room with Chief Harvey. Penko was at one of the PCs. Albena had just gone for a snack.
“Hi, Penko,” Chief Harvey said. “Can you check something for me please?”
“Sure,” Penko said.
The Chief handed him a slip of paper with the names of three streets on it.
Penko looked at it. “Franklin Street? Isn’t that in the hot zone?”
“It is,” Chief Harvey said. “A few Blockbuster pilots are down there scavenging. Noticed UN activity in the triangle between those three streets. We were wondering if there’s a reason they would go there. Sensitive infrastructure, for example.”
Penko took the slip of paper and turned to his PC, typing for a moment, displaying a map on the screen, zeroing in on the triangle. “I’ve been here before. There were two clothing stores there. It’s got cavernous underground parking, services the entire triangle.”
Albena came back in with a coffee and cookies. “Uh oh, something going on?”
“They want me to look into this area,” Penko said, pointing to the screen.
“Shit, that’s in the hot zone,” Albena said.
“Just check it out, and let us know,” Chief Harvey said. “I need to get back to a meeting.”
“And I’ve got one starting,” Mayor Fine said. They both left the room.
“We’ve got people poking around in the hot zone?” Albena asked, sitting in front of her PC.
“I’ve read some comments on message boards,” Penko said, eyes glued to his screen as his fingers raced over the keyboard. “The boundary areas aren’t showing as much radiation now, but it can vary depending on the wind.”
“Sounds like Russian Roulette to me,” Albena said. “Why would anybody want to go down there?”
“Free stuff. Hmmm. There are some missing records in the municipal infrastructure databases. Who has access other than us and Mayor Fine’s administrators?”
“Missing records?” Albena asked, getting up, looking over his shoulder. “You’re right, something is going on.”
