Red Hammer: Voodoo Plague Book 4 (21 page)

“Then you have my word that I won’t use these on Russian
troops for four days.  Tell your uncle that he has that much time to either
begin removing every last Russian from American territory, or to place all the
troops and equipment that are here under American command to help knock down
the infected and retake the country.”

After a moment she smiled and nodded her head.  “Agreed, and
I will be sure to communicate your message.  Word for word.” 

She held the box out toward me.

Removing my rifle from where it rested on the cart’s handle,
I held a calming hand up to the Russians when they started to raise theirs. 
Lowering my weapon to hang on its sling, I shrugged out of my pack and placed
it on the cart on top of a bomb.  Removing the boxes of keys from the pack, I picked
out three, then stepped forward and held them out to Captain Vostov.

“Do you need me to show you how to use these things?”  I
asked.

Rain suddenly started pounding on the windshield.  Not a few
drops to warn of what was coming, not even a steady downpour.  Torrents.  Like
someone turned on a fire hose and aimed it directly at them.  Jackson cursed
and hit the brakes to slow down as visibility went from the limit of the
headlights to zero in less than a second.  Dog whined his anxiety as the rain
pounded the roof of the truck with a ferocity that neither Jackson nor Rachel
had ever experienced.

Fumbling for the wiper controls, Jackson finally got them going,
but to little effect.  Now he could see the end of the hood instead of just the
curtain of water on the windshield.  He glanced down at the speedometer,
unhappy they were only going 15 miles an hour but having to slow even further
because he couldn’t see the road in front of them.

“How are we going to find anyone in this?”  Rachel asked,
holding Dog tight and staring at the water being pushed around by the wipers. 
Jackson checked his watch and shook his head.

“How long?”  Rachel had seen him look at the time.

“17 minutes.  At the most.  They’ll leave sooner if they
have everyone loaded.”

“What do we do?  I want to find those girls parents, but we
aren’t going to find anything in this storm.”  Rachel said.

“We’ve got a full tank of gas,” Jackson said after checking
the dash.  “If we miss the train, we drive.  They’re heading to Oklahoma City. 
We just get on I-40 and head west.”

Rachel nodded, not thrilled with the idea of being on their
own for a several hundred mile trek across the country.  She trusted Jackson,
knew he was probably just as capable as John in a fight, but wasn’t sure he had
the same resourcefulness they might need to survive the journey.  Dismissing
the thought, she focused her attention on trying to see through the storm.

“Light ahead.”  Jackson said a couple of minutes later,
leaning forward over the steering wheel to peer through the windshield.

Rachel saw it too.  At first she thought it was a car
approaching with only one weak headlight, but as they slowly drew closer she
could see the light bobbing up and down.  What the hell was it?  She leaned
forward and turned the defroster on high to help see through the glass. 

As suddenly as the rain had started, it stopped.  It didn’t lighten
up or trickle out, it just stopped.  Rachel remembered tropical storms roaring
through the Carolina’s where she grew up, and how bands of clouds would pass
over and bring sudden downpours that would stop just as quickly.  Grateful for
the relief, she could suddenly see clearly and the light resolved into two
figures on the side of the road carrying a flashlight.  One of them was large
and bulky, the other tall but thin.

“No way we get this fucking lucky!”  She said as Jackson
accelerated to cover the final distance to the people walking. 

He slowed as they approached, headlights picking out the two
pedestrians.  It was the girls’ parents!  The woman had a flashlight in one
hand as they walked side by side on the shoulder of the road.  Rachel smiled and
gave Dog a hug in celebration of something being easy for a change.  He
returned the affection with a big, wet lick across her face.

Rachel cranked her window down and leaned out when they were
only a few yards away.

“Am I ever glad we found you!  We’re pulling out ahead of
the storm and your girls were afraid you’d get left behind.”  She called out.

There was no response from either of them.  The brakes
squealed as Jackson brought them to a complete stop, the parents standing a few
feet beyond the right front fender of the truck.  There was enough light from
the headlights to see and recognize them, but little more.  Rachel frowned,
thinking they were scared and didn’t recognize her.  The mother’s name finally
popped into her head and she opened the door and stepped out onto the road.

“Mary Alice, it’s Rachel.  I found your girls…”  She never
finished her sentence, starting to turn to the truck when she realized
something was very wrong.  The instant she looked away, Mary Alice leapt with a
scream, tackling her to the ground and lunging for her throat with bared teeth.

Dog responded instantly, launching off the truck’s bench
seat and slamming into Mary Alice’s side, ripping her off the top of Rachel. 
They rolled across the shoulder and into a ditch full of water, Dog’s snarls
and Mary Alice’s screams loud in the night.  Her husband stepped forward and
reached for Rachel who was already scrambling away. 

When the female attacked, Jackson threw the transmission
into park and jumped out of the driver’s door.  By the time his boots hit the
ground, Dog had already joined the fray and the male was stumbling towards
Rachel.  Jackson ran around the hood of the truck, drawing his pistol.  Coming
up behind the male he fired a round into the back of its head, the body
crashing down on top of Rachel’s legs. 

Whipping the pistol around when he heard a noise, he lowered
it as Dog clambered out of the ditch, blood dripping from his muzzle.  Rachel
was trying to kick the dead infected off her legs and he bent and lifted the
body with one arm and tossed it into the ditch with the dead female.  Extending
his hand he hauled Rachel to her feet and looked around for any more threats.

“What the fuck was that?”  He hissed.  “Another outbreak? 
And when the fuck did they get smart enough to use a flashlight?”

Rachel’s blood ran cold at the thought, but he had asked a damn
good question.  These people had been fine a few hours ago.  Why the hell had
they turned?  And they could use tools now?  Then she thought about the two
little girls.  How the hell was she going to tell them?

“We’ve got to go.”  Jackson said, grabbing her arm and
shaking her.  Rachel nodded and spared a glance at the ditch with the two
bodies before turning back to the truck.

When he saw she was moving, he headed back to the driver’s
side of the truck, climbed in and called Dog.  Dog looked up at Rachel and she
motioned him into the cab, then followed him in and slammed the door.  Jackson
turned the wheel and floored the accelerator, heading back to where he hoped
the train was still waiting.

I had just finished instructing Captain Vostov on how to
enable, set the yield, timer and arm the SADMs when I noticed one of the
soldiers with her turn his head slightly to the side and raise a hand to his
ear.  The universal, automatic reaction to a voice coming over a radio headset
stuck in your ear.  She saw where I was looking and straightened up, watching
him.  He started speaking in rapid fire Russian, carrying on a conversation
with whoever was on the other end.  I checked on Martinez and Scott, who were
also watching him intently.

After nearly two minutes he lowered his hand and turned to
the Captain and filled her in on his conversation.  Or he could have been
discussing the weather in Moscow for all I knew.  They were speaking Russian,
and my knowledge of the language was limited to how to curse someone or tell a
woman I wanted to see her naked.  Hey, I’m a guy.  What do you expect?

“There’s a patrol on the way.  About thirty minutes out.” 
Vostov said to me.  “One of our pilots noticed the infected massed around the
gates you came through and called it in.”

“Thirty minutes means they haven’t started climbing up onto
the mesa yet.”  I said.  “Do you think they’ll come inside?”

“Da.  They go inside.”  One of the soldiers answered in
heavily accented English.

Shit.  We had time to break out and slip away before the
patrol arrived, but the damn infected would just follow after us.  Might as
well put a flashing red light and siren on top of the MRAP to make it easier
for the Russians to find us. 

“How are you extracting?”  I asked Vostov.  She looked at me
for a moment, probably trying to decide if it was a good idea to share that
information.

“We have a comrade who is a helicopter pilot scheduled to
fly a patrol in a few hours.  He will pick us up on the roof.  He is how we got
here.”

“How many hours is a few?”  I asked.  She looked at me for a
moment before checking her watch.

“His patrol starts at 1500 hours local.  Why?”

“You have to be out of here before then.”  I said after
doing the math in my head.  “This whole facility is going to turn into a smoking
crater before that.”

“Pizda na palochke!”  She said in her native tongue.  I
didn’t understand the words, but got the meaning from her tone.

“Whatever than means, I probably agree.”  I said.  “We go
out of here together.  We’ll get you to a safe location and you can wait for
your buddy to pick you up.  I’m sure you have a way to get in contact with him
to change the pick up point.”

She thought about it for a moment before turning and having
a brief conversation in Russian with the two soldiers.  The thing about
Russian, if you’re an English speaker, is that you can’t tell if they’re pissed
off and ready to start shooting at you, or if they’re professing their love for
each other.  The soldier who had spoken in English earlier ended their
discussion with a nod of his head.

“Thank you.  We accept your offer.”  Vostov said to me.

The first order of business was to get the nukes loaded into
the MRAP.  The two Russians took care of that under the watchful eyes of
Martinez and Vostov.  While they worked, Scott and I checked out the big,
exterior doors at the far end of the shed.  We’d gotten in by tripping the
emergency release on the outside, and even though there should have been one inside,
we couldn’t find it.

A steady drumming was coming from the heavy, steel doors. 
Infected outside that wanted to come in for dinner.  The doors were hydraulically
operated, as most things large and heavy are, but instead of rams pushing on
the frames of the door the mechanism was housed in the massive hinges that ran
up each side of the opening. 

“Can you release the pressure and we just push them open
with the MRAP?”  I asked.

“Don’t see a release.”  Scott answered, shining his
flashlight up and down the hinge for the right hand door.  Finding nothing, he
moved to the other side but came up empty there as well.

“There has to be a release.”  He said.  “They can’t do
maintenance without it.  Change the hydraulic oil and you have to open a valve
to bleed out any air that got into the system.”  He was back to the right hand
hinge, climbing up the skeletal framing on the inside of the shed to get a
better look at the upper section of the hinge. 

“You’ve got one minute to find the release, then we’re going
to ram our way through, Tech Sergeant.”  I said.

“Yes, sir.”  He answered, climbing higher up the wall.

I returned to the MRAP and looked in the back.  The nukes
were neatly stacked along one wall of the vehicle and Yee’s body had been
pushed under a bench seat that ran along the other.  The three Russians stood
at the side of the vehicle, watching Scott try to find the release and Martinez
had climbed behind the wheel.

“Can’t we just break through with this big vehicle?”  Vostov
asked.

“I think we probably can, but if we can get the doors to
release I’d feel a whole lot better.  There’s a few thousand infected waiting
on the other side of those doors and if we damage or disable the vehicle trying
to break through, our goose is cooked.”  I answered.

“Goose?”  The big Russian soldier asked, looking at me
curiously.

“Means we’re fucked, Ivan.”  I answered, calling him the
name everyone in the Army uses when referring to any Russian soldier.

“Igor.”  He said and thumped his chest.  I ignored the
impulse to say “Tarzan” and thump mine.

“Got it!”  Scott shouted. 

I turned and watched him perform an aerial ballet, keeping
one foot and one hand on the shed’s frame while extending the rest of his body
out to reach the valve on top of the hinge.  Even from where I stood, the jet
of red oil was visible in Scott’s flashlight when the valve opened.  Moments
later he was back on the floor and dashed to the other side and climbed. 

This valve opened with an audible pop and a veritable flood
of oil shot out, hitting the ceiling and splashing down onto Scott and the
metal cross member he was holding on to.  He was pulling himself back to the
wall to climb down when he slipped.  The hydraulic oil had gone everywhere, and
when he adjusted his grip to take the first step down his hand landed on oil
and instantly slipped off.

He had time for the start of a shout of fear before he
crashed to the concrete floor.  I was in motion before his body hit, Martinez
slamming the MRAP’s door open to follow a half a second behind me.  Scott was
unconscious when I reached him.  Martinez skidded up next to us on her knees
and started to reach for his head, but I stopped her with a hand on her arm.   

“Don’t move him, yet.”  I said.  She nodded and placed her
hands in her lap, concern creasing her face.

Scott was breathing normally, which was the good news.  The
bad news was a broken arm and blood pouring from a wound under his hair where
the scalp had split when his head hit the floor.  I heard boots walk up and
Vostov kneeled beside me.

“Igor is a medic.  If you’ll let him, he’ll help your
Sergeant.”  I looked at her then cranked my head around to look at the chest
thumper who stood behind me with his pack in hand.

“I help.”  He said in his guttural accent.  I glanced at
Martinez but she just shrugged.

Moving aside I kept a close eye on what he was doing.  First
he checked Scott’s eyes, then gently ran his fingers along the back of his
neck.  Grunting to himself he checked the limbs that didn’t have obvious
breaks, finishing his cursory exam by pushing his hands underneath Scott’s vest
and checking his ribs.

“Arm broken and, and…”  He switched to Russian and spat out
what he was trying to say as he retrieved a small first aid kit from his pack.

“His arm is broken.  There don’t seem to be any other broken
bones.  The head wound looks nasty with all the blood, but he doesn’t think
it’s serious since the eyes check out normal.”  Captain Vostov translated as
Igor withdrew a vial of blood clotting powder and sprinkled it into the scalp
laceration.  The flow of blood stopped almost immediately, the powder turning
red and swelling to fill the cut.  Next he applied a thick gauze pad and
wrapped it to Scott’s head with several turns of dark blue medical tape.

Head wound addressed, he moved to the far side and carefully
picked up Scott’s arm.  Using a pair of scissors he cut in a line up the
sleeve, exposing the abnormal bend in the arm.  Probing with his fingers he
grunted and waved me over next to him.

“Hold.”  He placed my hands on Scott’s upper arm, just above
the elbow, grasped his wrist and gave a sudden twisting tug.  The bulge
subsided, the arm looking normal again. 

Igor shouted something in Russian to the other soldier who
quickly shrugged out of his pack and drew a small dagger.  He deftly sliced
open some of the stitching on the back, reached into the opening and pulled out
two flat lengths of aluminum that were part of the pack’s frame.  Each piece
was about eight inches long and a couple of inches wide, flat and no more than
an eighth of an inch thick.  He trotted over and handed them to Igor who formed
them to Scott’s forearm with his thick fingers.

“Hold.”  He said again, grabbing my hand and placing it on
top of the splint he was creating.  As I held the aluminum in place he started
wrapping the arm with gauze, not tight, but tight enough for the aluminum pack
braces to prevent the broken bone from shifting.  Finishing with the gauze he
wrapped the whole thing with more of the blue medical tape, pulled the shemagh
he was wearing from around his neck and fashioned a sling out of it.  Slipping
this over Scott’s head he gently placed his arm in it and made some final
adjustments.

“Good.”  He said, looking up at me and smiling.

“Spasiba, Igor.”  I said, thanking him in Russian and smiling
back at him.

We quickly loaded Scott into the MRAP, placing him on the
bench and strapping him into place.  Using Vostov as a translator I’d asked
Igor how long he thought Scott would be unconscious.  He just shrugged in
response. 

Everyone climbed in and we buttoned up the big, armored
truck.  Martinez was driving as I rode shotgun, the three Russians squeezed
into the back.  Vostov perched on top of the SADMs, pulling her legs up to make
room for Igor’s big feet, her skirt riding up around her hips.  I looked at her
and couldn’t suppress the giggle when I thought about Slim Pickens riding the
nuclear bomb in Dr. Strangelove.  She gave me a dirty look.  I guess it’s not a
good idea to laugh at an attractive woman when her skirt is around her ass. 
Fortunately she was familiar with the movie and saw the humor when I explained
it to her.

“Ready?”  Martinez asked.  She already had the MRAP in gear,
holding us back with the brakes.

“Let’s go.”  I said.  “Nice and easy on the doors.  Just
come up and tap them, then push.  The relief valves are open so they’ll move,
but the oil can only come out so fast.  Can’t push faster than that.”

Martinez let the vehicle idle forward, touching the brakes
and bringing us to a stop just as the heavily armored bumper banged against the
doors.  They pushed open a few inches, then sprang back to smash into the bumper,
rebounding back open a couple of inches as the volume of oil in the system
dropped.  I was glad we had exercised caution.  The doors were so heavy the
impact shook the 14 ton MRAP when they sprang back and hit us. 

She gave it a few seconds, then let us idle forward again
and give the doors another bump.  This time when they rebounded there was a two
foot gap and the infected immediately started flowing into the opening.  There
were hundreds of them waiting for us, and I knew there would be many more than
that waiting at the chain link gate we’d closed behind us.  I heard Martinez’
breathing pick up as the infected started flooding into the opening we were
creating.

“Easy, Captain.  They can’t get in.  We’re fine as long as
we don’t panic and do anything to damage the vehicle.”  I said in a calm
voice.  I could also hear the fast breathing of the Russians behind me and the
occasional curse muttered under someone’s breath.

“Yes, sir.  I’m good.”  Martinez said, sounding a little
more frightened that she was admitting.  That was fine, as long as she kept it
together.

Another bump with the MRAP and the gap widened to five
feet.  I told Martinez to turn off the headlights so we weren’t so visible to
any Russian eyes that might be overhead.  She flipped the switch and let off
the brakes to bump the doors again.  Enough oil must have finally been forced
out of the system because this time they didn’t bounce back against the
bumper.  They opened another couple of feet each and stayed there, giving us a
nice, wide, nine foot gap.

The infected were flowing through the doors like
floodwaters, quickly filling all the open space around us.  Fists pounded on
the armored sides of the MRAP, but we could barely hear the blows through all
the layers of steel.  Females leapt onto the hood and attacked the windshield,
but they might as well have been trying to claw their way through one of the
vault doors below.  Human hands, even enraged human hands, were completely
ineffective against the multiple layers of ballistic glass.

Martinez took her foot off the brake and let the truck start
rolling.  Infected were knocked aside and under the huge tires.  She gave a
little throttle and we bulled through the throng, brushing bodies aside like
dry leaves before a strong wind.  Quickly clearing the infected, Martinez
accelerated across the open parking lot, steering for the gate.  We rounded the
corner of the building, gate ahead and to our left, and she brought us to a
stop.

The gate was still closed, but bowed inwards under the
tremendous pressure of the crush of infected bodies.  The fenced road between
the inner and outer gates was completely packed with snarling and screaming
bodies, the crowd flaring out into and filling the public road that ran through
the area.  I couldn’t even guess how many of them there were, but there was no
doubt this horde was what had drawn the pilot’s attention.