Red Hammer: Voodoo Plague Book 4 (16 page)

The vault was about the size of a large self-storage unit. 
Roughly 20 by 15 feet.  Looking around with my flashlight I found a switch on
the wall next to the inside of the massive door and flipped it on.  Overhead
fluorescent tubes buzzed to life, bathing the space in a cool light.  Along the
side wall of the room were five stacks of crates, each stack two high.  The
crates were three feet tall, about 18 inches across and deep.  Using the blade
of the Kukri, I pried one of them open and looked inside. 

There it was.  An innocuous looking, oversized, olive drab,
canvas backpack.  Just like I remembered from training so many years ago.  Reaching
into the crate I tugged open a flap on the top of the pack.  Under was a small,
red LED screen.  I had once been told the screens for the SADMs had been
cannibalized from prototype Texas Instruments calculators the military was
evaluating in the 60s, long before the first electronic calculators had come to
market for the average consumer.  Well, the average consumer that could afford
a $300 device that did nothing more than four basic math functions when it was
released in the very early 70s.

Below the screen was a small, mechanical keypad that looked
like it had been stolen from an old touch tone phone of the same era, next to
that a brass lock.  The device required a key to enable it before a user could select
the yield of the detonation and set the countdown timer with the keypad.  The
lock had three positions; off, enable, and activate.  To use the bomb I’d need
to turn the lock to enable, punch in the number of minutes until detonation,
then turn the lock to activate which would start the countdown.  An extremely
simple system.  No command authority codes required.  As long as you had the
key, you were a nuclear power unto yourself.

The key was going to be the next hurdle.  These devices
might be old technology, but they had been constructed so that if you opened
them up and tried to bypass the key, the trigger that fired the bomb would be
permanently disabled.  That was pretty much the limit of the security built
into them.  Of course, there was also the possibility that the batteries were
dead.  We were banking on the probability that the devices had been maintained
since they were sitting in storage at the lab where they had been built, but
until I could get my hands on the keys there was no way to know.

Each bomb had its own unique key, and the inventory records
showed the keys were locked in a vault XX which I now knew was at the opposite
end of this level.  If I hadn’t spent time in the military I would have been
shocked at the minimal security measures being taken to protect nuclear
weapons.  Chain link fencing, mine fields and a few armed guards wouldn’t stop
a well-trained team determined to reach the vaults.  I used to be friends with
a SEAL whose team was tasked with testing the Navy’s security.  

On several occasions they had managed to penetrate a variety
of environments; armories, submarines, aircraft carriers, and walk right up to
nuclear warheads.  They had left large, round, yellow smiley face stickers on
each device they had successfully accessed.  Needless to say, they weren’t too
popular with the Naval commanders in charge of the facilities they had
breached.  What had always frightened me was the thought that if it was that
easy in the US, where we actually paid attention to security and had well
trained guards, what was it like in places like India or Pakistan?

The sound of a suppressed rifle firing in the hallway
brought me back to the moment and I stepped to the hole in the wall.  Martinez
was right outside the opening, rifle pointed back toward the elevators, a small
wisp of smoke rising from the suppressor screwed onto the end of her barrel. 
She saw me out of her peripheral vision, but didn’t turn her head.

“Two males.”  She simply said. 

“OK, I’m coming out.”  I said over the radio.  “We’re going
to move to the next vault to get the keys before we hump these things
upstairs.”  Perhaps I should have retrieved the keys first, but I had wanted to
make sure the SADMs were actually here before I bothered with them.  Now that I
knew they were, they could sit right where they were until I had the keys
securely in my possession.

Martinez moved a couple of feet to give me room to step
out.  Down the hall were the two infected she had killed.  Scott was
maintaining watch in the other direction and the doctor was between them,
huddled against the wall.  At least she had her rifle up and across her chest. 
I reminded her not to fire unless told, then headed for the other vault.  The
rest of my small team fell in behind me.

I shot another male as we moved to the far side of the
level.  He had stepped out of a maintenance closet with an open door as I
approached, snarling and lunging in my direction.  Dr. Monroe had let out a
small cry just as I pulled the trigger, coming forward to stand next to me when
the infected fell dead to the floor.

“Know him?”  I asked in a quiet voice, rifle trained on the
dark doorway he had just come through.

“That’s Dr. Ben-Jarvis.”  She said.  “He’s the assistant
director of the facility.”

I glanced down at the body and noted the key card hanging
from a lanyard around the man’s neck.  Moving past the body I cleared the small
closet then pointed at the key card and whispered for Martinez to take it.  She
bent down and sliced the lanyard with her dagger, slipping the card into a
pocket on her vest.  We kept moving, turning several corners in what was
quickly becoming a maze, finally coming to vault XX.  It was the same set up as
the first vault we had breached, including the dual combination dials on the
heavy, steel door.  I repeated the process I’d used to breach the first one and
a few minutes later squeezed through the ragged hole in the wall.

This vault was much larger, at least 30 feet wide by more
than 50 feet deep, and was nearly full of stacked crates of all different
sizes.  The ones closest to me were stenciled with black spray paint, and the
most current date I saw was January of 1964.  In the back, my light played
across a wooden crate large enough for both Scott and I to stand comfortably
inside at the same time.  On the face of the crate was a faded but clearly
recognizable black swastika.  What I wouldn’t give to open that up and see what
piece of technology we’d captured from the Nazis and brought to Los Alamos for
evaluation, but I wasn’t here to sight see.

Where the hell would they store the keys?  I scanned with my
rifle mounted flashlight and spotted a small safe set in the wall immediately
adjacent to the main door.  Walking over I dug out the paper Captain Blanchard
had given me, but there wasn’t any notation of a safe or what the combination
might be.

Shrugging out of my pack, I dug out two small chunks of C-4
and molded them around each of the safe door’s exterior hinges.  Inserting
detonators, I climbed back out through the hole I’d cut in the wall and moved
away from the opening.

“Fire in the hole!”  I warned the rest of the team a moment
before pressing the trigger. 

There was a loud crump from inside the vault.  I felt the
vibrations in my feet and dust drifted down from the ceiling.  Back in the
vault I found the door to the safe completely blown off its hinges and lying on
the floor.  Shoving it aside with my boot I looked inside.  Two stacks of
small, black boxes waited for me.  Grabbing one of them off the top I opened it
and looked inside.  A large, tarnished brass key was securely held in a foam
cutout, a five digit number clearly stamped across it.  I knew that number
would correspond to one of the SADMs in the other vault.  

Scooping all of the boxes into my pack, I took another look
around the vault before leaving.  All of the crates were stenciled with an
inventory code and a date which I assumed was the date they were packed.  Still
seeing nothing less than 50 years old, I shouldered the pack and went back to
the hallway.  Martinez and Scott were keeping watch, both of them on a knee
with their rifles up and ready.  Dr. Monroe stood peering into the dark vault,
waiting for me.

“Find what you needed?”  She asked, stepping aside as I
pushed through the hole.

“Good to go.”  I said, answering her and letting the team
know it was time to move.

“What are you going to do with those bombs?”  The doctor
asked.  I paused a moment to look at her, trying to determine if I was about to
have a problem.  I couldn’t read her expression.

“Not now, Doctor.”  I replied.  “We need to get out of
here.”  I started leading the way back to the first vault.    

We reached it without encountering any more infected.  I
took a moment to shine my light through the hole in the wall to make sure there
weren’t any surprises waiting, then turned to my team.

“Martinez, you’re on guard.  Have the doctor watch your
back.  Scott and I are going to hump these to the elevator.”  When Martinez
nodded and grabbed the doctor’s arm to give her instructions, Scott and I moved
into the vault.

Each device weighed 98 pounds with its pack.  The crate
probably added another 15 or 20, so we took a few minutes and quickly uncrated
all of the bombs.  Picking one at random, I pulled its top flap open and read
the code stamped into the brass under the keyhole.  It only took a moment to
find the corresponding key.  I wanted to make sure these things were ready to
go before we carried all of them up to the waiting MRAP.

Matching key in hand, I inserted it into the lock, took a
deep breath and turned it ninety degrees to the right to enable the trigger. 
There was a loud click from the mechanical lock, then a faint high pitched
whine from the primitive electronics within.  The LED screen lit up after a
long moment that seemed even longer than it was, displaying three zeroes.  Now
came a two-step process.  First, set the yield from 0.1 up to 1.0 which
represented kilotons of explosive force, with 1.0 equaling 1,000 tons of TNT. 
Next the timer could be set for a maximum of 999 minutes, or just over 16 and
half hours.  Sounds like plenty of time to get away, but making a successful
and stealthy getaway is not a fast process.

I was holding my breath and when I glanced up at Scott I
could see he was too.  We were one button press and one key turn away from
detonating a nuclear bomb.  Not a trivial thing.  Still not breathing, I turned
the key back to the left and the display went dark when the lock clicked into
place.  Both of us let out a long sigh as I returned the key to the cutout in
its box, placing the box back in my pack.  The first random test passed, I
decided we’d assume the rest were operational and get the hell out of there
without testing them.

Two shots from an unsuppressed rifle startled me.

“Martinez.  Report.”  I called on the radio, Scott already
moving toward the opening.

“Two males came around the corner and Doc took them out.” 
She answered, the surprise evident in her voice.

“Copy.  We’re coming out.  Movement to the elevator. 
Ready?”  I responded.

“Ready.”

I bent my knees to squat and grabbed the strap of a bomb in
each hand, straightening up and moving aside for Scott to grab two more.  In
the hall Martinez was ready to lead the way, having positioned the doctor to
bring up the rear.  Scott and I walked between them, bombs swinging from our
hands and banging our shins as we walked.  We reached the elevator without
incident and Martinez thumbed the call button, the doors sliding open with the
double, dinner bell ding. 

Four bombs stacked in the elevator, we headed back to the
vault, me leading this time.  Rounding a corner I stopped as two females stepped
into the hall a dozen yards away at the next intersection.  They froze when
they saw me, but I’ve had enough of the damn smart ones.  My rifle was already
up to my shoulder and I snapped off a shot that dropped the one on the left. 
The other leapt out of sight into the hallway they had just come down and I
sprinted forward.  I didn’t want to leave her running around lose somewhere
behind us, waiting to attack.

By the time I reached the turn, she was out of sight and I
pulled up to a stop.  For all I knew there were more of them and she wanted me
to come charging after her, right into an ambush.  I may not be the brightest
bulb in the chandelier, but I’m not that dim.  The others caught up with me and
we started moving as a group again, rifles up on high alert.

When we reached the vault I exercised a great deal of
caution before entering, but the room was unoccupied.  Again leaving Martinez
and the doctor on guard, Scott and I entered the vault.

“Major, how much shit do you think is in this facility that
the Russians could use against us?”  Scott asked, voicing a thought that had
been going through my head.

“Probably a lot.  The rub is, how much shit is in here that
we could use against them?”  I had been contemplating setting the timer on one
of the nukes and leaving it behind to destroy the facility and everything in
it.  But, and there’s always a but, what if I wound up destroying something
that could give us the upper hand?  That would mean there had to be someone
left alive and uninfected that could tell us what it was and where it was.  It
also meant someone would have to make another trip in here to retrieve it. 
Then there were the infected and the large presence of Russians only 70 miles
away.  Fuck it.  This was our one shot.

  Grabbing one of the bombs I moved it to the far side of
the vault and lifted the flap.  Finding the correct key in my pack I inserted
and turned it to enable.  Click, whine and finally the screen lit up. 
Surprised my hand wasn’t shaking, I punched the 1 key followed by the star key
then the 0 on the key pad, the screen now reading 01.0.  I pressed the pound
key and the bomb beeped softly once, the screen flashing then resetting to all
zeroes.  Pressing the 9 key three times changed the display to read 999, then
another press of the pound key.  This time I received two soft beeps, and the
screen started alternately showing the two settings, switching between 01.0 and
999 every second.  With a deep breath I rotated the key another 90 degrees to
the right and pulled it out of the lock.  No beeps, but a flash of the screen
and a solid display of 999.  In the top right of the display a small, red dot
started pulsing once per second, counting down the time to detonation.

“Looks like you know what you’re doing.”  Scott said,
staring at the display.

“Ever hear of the Cold War, Tech Sergeant?  There was a two
year stretch when Reagan was President that everyone expected we’d be using
these in Western Europe, BEHIND Russian lines.  Maybe that would have been
better than what we’re dealing with now.”

Folding the flap back in place I hid the device amongst the
discarded crates.  I didn’t really expect anyone to stumble across it before it
went off, but at the same time didn’t think it wise to leave it out in the open
and visible.  Hopefully, if the Russians did happen to visit the facility, and
actually found the breached vault, they would look in and see the trash and not
look further.  That is if they weren’t too occupied with the problems I was
getting ready to bring them.  Even if they found it, I doubted they had the
technical personnel with them that would be able to bypass the bomb’s security
measures and disarm it.

“That timer may say 16 and a half hours, but let’s get the
fuck out of here!”  I said to Scott, picking up another two bombs.

“No shit.  Sir.”  He said under his breath, grabbing two
more and following me out into the hall.

It didn’t take us long to make the final trips and get all
the bombs loaded into the elevator.  Now I had a decision to make.  Did we all
pile into the elevator and ride up with the nukes, or did we send the car up
and take the stairs.  I’ve never been a fan of putting myself into a confined
position that I may have to fight out of, so I decided on the stairs.  Reaching
inside I hit the button for the ground level, stepping clear as the doors slid
shut.  Martinez used the key card she’d taken off the infected I had shot,
tripping the lock on the stairwell door.  She pushed the door open with her
foot, rifle up and ready, but the stairwell was empty.

We all moved through the door, Scott holding it so it closed
softly behind us.  The stairs were poured concrete with metal handrails, and
when I leaned into the center I could look all the way up and down.  I
cautioned everyone to watch their rifle fire.  Bullets would bounce off the
hardened concrete and ricochet around the stairwell. 

I had a degree of trust in Martinez and Scott, knowing they
had been trained, but I really didn’t feel like becoming the victim of friendly
fire so I made Dr. Monroe hand me the magazine out of her rifle and cycle the
action to clear the round in the chamber.  She might know how to shoot, but
that didn’t mean she would make the right decision when it really mattered.

Loading the lose round into the magazine and tucking it into
my vest, I happened to look at the narrow window in the door we had just come
through.  The female infected who had escaped earlier stood with her face
pressed to the glass, watching us with her blood red eyes.  Her lips were
peeled back, revealing blood stained teeth, and occasionally her tongue would
dart out of her mouth and lick the glass.

“Doctor, any way to open that door without a key card?”  I
asked.  The others noticed the female and Dr. Monroe gasped and stepped behind
me.

“Not unless you have a traditional key.”  She answered.

Nodding, I glanced around to make sure everyone was ready
and started climbing the stairs.  We hadn’t even reached the next level’s
landing when the lights flickered.  Uh oh.  I started running up the stairs as
fast as I could move and still keep an eye above us for any threats lying in
wait.  Behind me I could hear the rest of the team following, then as we
reached the landing at the third sub-basement the lights flickered again,
staying off for almost two seconds this time.  Just before the lights came back
on there was a loud bang from the stairwell below us, just like a heavy metal
door being pushed open and slamming into a concrete wall.

Stopping on the landing I leaned out and looked down, but
couldn’t see anything.  I couldn’t hear anything either, but that didn’t
necessarily mean much.  The females can move pretty quietly when they want to.

“Hey, Doc.  I thought you said there was no way through the
door without a key card or a key.”  Martinez said, leaning over the rail and
aiming her rifle at the stairs below us.

“Or a power outage.  The door locks are magnetic. 
Electromagnets.  No power, no lock.”  Dr. Monroe answered, sounding a bit
sheepish as well as frightened.

A few seconds later the lights went out and didn’t come back
on.  Moments after that there were two more bangs below us and another above
us.