Point of Crisis (8 page)

They’d discussed coming to the compound if something happened, but he seemed hell-bent on taking his family to their camp in the White Mountains. After the Jakarta Pandemic, he made some basic modifications to the rustic structure, including a small solar-power setup, enough to run the well pump and a few lights. Alex had convinced him to store a few months of food in the house and keep enough firewood for an entire winter season. The cabin represented a possible refuge if they couldn’t stay in Limerick. Then again, she wasn’t sure if leaving the state was an option anymore. Alex no longer seemed to think so.

He’d woken in a dark mood today, after a long night on the military laptop, forcing his way through morning pleasantries before departing with the Marines. He looked uncommitted gearing up for the trip. She suspected he had uncovered something he wasn’t ready to share. Now he was overdue from his outing. She’d ask Staff Sergeant Evans to give him a call over ROTAC.

Kate washed her hands in the sink and instinctively opened one of the cabinet doors to retrieve a glass for a drink of water. She stopped herself halfway, remembering that none of the glassware or plates had survived the gun battle. She looked anyway. The inside was bare; the shattered pieces thoroughly removed by the teenage cleanup crew that had scoured the rest of the first floor. She guessed that Amy had another set hiding inside one of the plastic storage bins in the basement. Kate spotted a stack of red plastic cups on the kitchen table, next to a pile of paper plates and plastic utensils.

One of the Marines stepped out of the dining room, holding a motion sensor transceiver like it was a dead rat.

“This one is wrecked, too, ma’am. I made a few more adjustments to the sensor perimeter.”

“You guys don’t have to mess with that stuff. Why don’t you grab a plate and get some lunch. I’ll let Staff Sergeant Evans know, so all of you can eat some real food.”

“I’ll take you up on that in a minute, ma’am.”

“You can call me Kate.”

“Yes, ma’am. So, we moved some of the sensors to direct most of the coverage east and north along the most likely attack vectors—same routes they used before. We’ll put an LP/OP lakeside, so we won’t need sensors to the west.”

“LP/OP?”

“Listening post, observation post. Basically, two Marines trying to stay awake all night. With night vision, it’ll be nearly impossible for anything to get across the lake undetected. Plus, we’ll have one of the Matvees next to the house, in a position to cover the western tree line.”

“What about the south?”

“The south is their least likely approach vector. It’s three hundred fifty feet to the trees, across open ground,” he said, pointing out of the dining room window. “They could mix it up in the barley field, but they’d have no real cover. We’ll have two Matvees in a position to watch that sector, plus your husband’s .30-caliber machine gun. Even if someone managed to crawl to the edge of the barley, they’d have another two hundred plus feet to go before they reached the house. That’s what we call machine-gun-assisted suicide.”

“Clever. We’ll have our own rotation in the house, watching the sensors. Sounds like we should be fine.”

“You’re in good hands. We won’t let anything through,” said the marine.

“Thank you. I’m terrible with names,” said Kate. “Corporal?”

“Corporal Derren, ma’am.”

“Sorry about that. Thank you, Corporal Derren,” she said. “Do you have family near Fort Devens?”

“I have a two-year-old daughter named Liz. She’s with my wife in Greenfield. I hope.”

“Alex—Captain Fletcher—said they were sending trucks out to pick up the military families, bringing them to Devens.”

“That’s what Staff Sergeant Evans said. Even if the truck showed up, she might not be there. She has a huge family in Amherst, which isn’t far away. They would have come for her by now.”

“I’m glad to hear that. It doesn’t seem fair that you were sent to Boston without contacting your families.”

“This is just part of the deal for us. Plus, there was no way to contact them anyway,” he said, matter-of-factly. “They don’t have a satphone.”

“We’ll say a prayer for them, Corporal Derren.”

“It’s about all we can do right now,” he said, placing the transceiver on the table.

“I’ll let the chef know we have some more mouths to feed.”

“Thank you, ma’am. I just have a few more things to check and I’ll be out to grab some chow.”

“Thank you for doing this. I’m not going to pretend to know how hard it is for you, being away from your family, but I just wanted you to know that we’ll never forget this.”

Derren nodded, maintaining a stoic façade. This wasn’t fair to the Marines at all, and as far as she was concerned, it was an unsustainable situation. She wouldn’t blame any of them for taking one of the tactical vehicles and driving out of here before the battalion arrived. Kate knew they wouldn’t. She married a Marine twenty years ago, and nothing got in the way of duty, which was why she felt so uneasy about her husband’s provisional position in Lieutenant Colonel Grady’s battalion. The Fletcher family couldn’t afford a shift in Alex’s priorities. Not now.

Chapter 6

EVENT +5 Days

Main Operating Base “Sanford”

Regional Recovery Zone 1

Alex wiped the sweat off his face with his forearm and sighed.
The heat index inside the hangar had to be over a hundred degrees, with one hundred percent humidity. Home sweet home for 1
^st
Battalion. He waited for Grady to answer his ROTAC call.

“I’m in the middle of a briefing, Alex. Did you secure my hangar space?”

“Affirmative, sir. More than enough room for the Marines, vehicles and equipment. I have three conex boxes sitting in one of the hangars.”

“Conex boxes?”

“Maybe conex isn’t the right description. I’m guessing each one is twenty feet by eight by eight, equipped with a biometric scanner.”

“Sounds like a regular-sized shipping container. Stand by.”

Alex shrugged his shoulders at Corporal Lianez, who stood in front of the closest eight-foot-tall gray container pushed against the back wall of the corrugated metal hangar. A few minutes later, Grady responded.

“Alex, I’m sending you two sets of combinations for each container in a text message to your ROTAC. Have one of the Marines show you how to retrieve it. The first set will disable the biometric sensor. The second will open them. I need you to inventory the equipment and post a full-time guard at the hangar. The boxes can’t be locked once opened. Security feature.”

“I don’t have enough Marines to post a 24/7 watch at the airport. I’ll open the boxes when Gunny Deschane arrives from Brunswick.”

“Negative. Gunny is still a few days out. I need to know what’s in the boxes.”

“You didn’t know about the boxes?”

“Alex, I have to go. Inventory the contents and send a detailed report. Do not leave the gear unattended. Out.”

“Did you know they pre-staged the entire RRZ’s load out in secret warehouses near the airport?” asked Alex.

The ROTAC display read “No Lock.”

“Motherfucker,” he muttered.

“Sir?” said Lianez.

“Nothing. Grady’s sending the combinations via text message. I assume you know how to retrieve messages?”

“It’s just like a cell phone, sir,” he said, walking over to show Alex.

“We’ll need to call Staff Sergeant Evans and set up a full-time watch rotation. The boxes can’t be locked once they’re opened.”

“What’s inside, sir?”

“Either the colonel doesn’t know or he won’t tell me,” Alex said, handing the radio to Lianez.

A few minutes later, they had opened the first box, finding the airtight vessel filled with grayish-blue scale MARPAT uniforms, helmet covers, rucksacks, body armor carriers, tactical load-bearing gear—enough to refit the entire battalion. The container emitted a strong disinfectant smell, which he figured was some sort of chemical preservative or pest repellent. Possibly both. Presumably, the uniforms had been packed with no foreseeable use date, so it made sense to protect them for long-term storage.

“Ever seen this camo pattern before?” Alex asked Lianez.

“Negative. Looks like a dedicated urban pattern. Pretty useless in the native environment out there,” said Lianez, pointing to the trees beyond the main runway.

Alex rubbed the material between his fingers, staring deeper into the container.

Unless Homeland wants us to stand out.

He pulled a packet labeled “manifest” from a metal folder attached to the inside of the door and ripped the sealed plastic covering. The first line item on the packing inventory disturbed him: Marine
Corps Combat Utility Uniform, MARPAT: Federal Security pattern. 800 Units. Size adjustable.

Federal Security?
He couldn’t wait to see what was in the rest of the containers. No wonder Grady had hung up on him.

“Does it say what the pattern is?” asked Lianez.

“Negative,” Alex muttered. “Can I trust the two of you to check out the other hangars, without shooting someone? I’ll dig through the rest of this shit,” said Alex, hoping to somehow secure the containers before they returned.

“That’s hurtful, sir. I do have feelings.”

“Nice try. The Marine Corps doesn’t issue feelings, so I know you don’t have any. Just do a quick walkthrough. Make sure we don’t have any squatters. Looks like there’s a small office in each hangar. Close them up when you’re done.”

He held out a ring of keys, which Lianez swiped from his hand.

“Roger that, sir.”

By the time Alex entered the final combination for the second container, the Matvee had sped to the adjacent hangar. The keypad LED turned green, and the hinged front door hissed, releasing its airtight seal. Instead of a disinfectant smell, the second container reeked of gun lubricant.

This should be interesting.

Alex pulled on the heavy gray metal doors, swinging each half hard enough to hit the sides of the container.

“Whoa.”

The box resembled an armory, filled front to back with four sliding weapons racks. A two-foot-wide passage ran down the center of the rows, leading to the rear of the container. Alex took a small flashlight from one of the pouches on his vest and illuminated the darker recesses beyond the racks. Dark green ammunition crates filled the far end, stacked from bottom to top and strapped to the container. He pulled on one of the weapons racks, which eased out of the container on heavily greased tracks attached to the floor and ceiling.

Welcome, Kmart shoppers.

The fifteen-foot-long, reinforced metal gun rack bowed slightly when fully extended, prompting Alex to push it most of the way back into the container. He didn’t want to break the sliding mechanism and not be able to get this rack out of sight. The contents would raise questions. He counted the rifles as it slid inside. One hundred mint condition MR556SDs, counting both sides of the rack. Recognizable by their hexagon-shaped, partially integrated suppressors, each rifle was fitted with an ACOG sight, forty-five-degree-mounted reflex sights for Close Quarters Battle (CQB), vertical front grip and the AN/PEQ-15 Advanced Target Pointer Illuminator Aiming Device.

He directed the light down the next rack, seeing the same rifles.

Why the hell would they need rifles designed to accept specially adapted suppressors? And why would they need two hundred of them?

The third rack contained an even more bizarre choice of weapon. Compact and futuristic-looking MP-7 Personal Defense Weapons (PDW) fitted with reflex sights. The MP-7 fired a unique 4.6X30mm cartridge, capable of punching a hole through a Kevlar helmet at one hundred yards and defeating most Level IIIA body armor at similar ranges. The armor-penetrating projectile gave a concealable, submachine-gun-sized weapon the comparable power of a combat rifle. A thick, cylindrical suppressor sat in the rack next to each MP-7. Definitely not something seen at the Marine infantry level. More like Delta Force or Devgru.

The final rack held a variety of mountable optics, including night vision and infrared scopes. Forty M-27 Infantry Automatic Rifles (IAR) with 3.5X Squad Day Optics crowded the far end of the rolling frame. The M-27 had replaced the Marine infantry fire team’s belt-fed M249 Squad Automatic Weapon several years ago. The IAR was basically a heavier-barreled version of the standard issue HK416, equipped with a bipod. Nothing out of the ordinary here, though the night optics seemed a bit over the top for a unit already carrying night-vision goggles.

Something about the equipment didn’t make sense. It resembled the type of load out he’d expect for a high-impact, special-purpose unit, not infantry Marines repurposed for area security. He was almost afraid to open the third container, leery that he might find something that would force the immediate evacuation of the Limerick compound. He could still pull it off while the bulk of the battalion was stuck in New Hampshire. Head north, away from the epicenter of RRZ control, and slip into Canada. Maybe hop over to New Hampshire and try to link up with Kate’s brother. All options still on the table—for now.

Alex walked to the front of the last container. He felt flushed, almost nervous. Part of him wanted to find something incriminating in the third conex box. Something to give him the excuse he needed to get as far away from this as possible. He knew on a gut level that nothing good could come of the RRZ. If the government didn’t restore limited power and essential services by late November, a scant three months away, nothing short of a one-hundred-mile-long, twenty-foot-tall, electrified fence could keep hundreds of thousands of refugees from swarming north ahead of the winter.

Even with FEMA’s prophetically suspicious pre-staging of supplies, there was no way the government could support massive refugee camps throughout the winter. Not without permanent heated structures, which would take far too long to construct given the scope of the EMP damage. Then again, maybe FEMA had socked away several thousand wood-burning stoves. He doubted it. Once winter hit, the situation would fall apart. RRZ leadership would be faced with some tough choices, pack up and head north—or look for other options. He didn’t plan on being around to implement the protocols the RRZ “Authority” would undoubtedly follow. One glimpse inside these containers told him everything he needed to know about where this was headed.