The disease might have kept right on spreading too, had not an E-9 made a rapid, accurate assessment of the deteriorating situation.
Eleven hours after the first case was reported at the base, the sergeant, acting on her own initiative, triggered the base-wide biochemical alarm that sent all personnel scrambling for their antiexposure gear. It was potentially a court-martial offense, though the odds were better that the sergeant would
be nominated for a Medal of Honor. Certainly, she had the votes of Sivigny and the other Air Force personnel who had heard the story through the base grapevine—and who were still, on this third day of the bioalert, without symptoms of the killer flu. As long as they stayed inside the minienvironment of their exposure suits, they would be safe.
At least for another day,
Sivigny thought, feeling his stomach rumble once more.
Four days was about the limit for living inside the rubberized cocoons. Even under the Florida sun, one could stay hydrated well enough, using canteens of chemically sterilized water sipped through the gas mask’s built-in straw. But there was no way to eat without removing the gear. And as for waste evacuation—
Well, don’t stand upwind when people finally get the word to strip these damn things off,
he thought.
Still, though many parts of the base were paralyzed, the sergeant’s gutsy move had kept much of Eglin operational—including Duke Field, where the fighter jocks went to work, and here at Hurlburt Field, where Special Ops spookies like Sivigny did their usually covert thing.
Well, we’re pretty much out in the open this time,
Sivigny told himself. He, like all the other pilots the flight surgeons had certified as still healthy enough to fly, had listened closely to the mission briefing of an hour before, and not just because their cumbersome exposure gear made it harder to hear. Aside from the specifics of altitude and distribution headings, there was little that the President had not already announced to the nation, as well as the world at large.
Except,
he reminded himself,
for that one little detail.
It had come, of course, at the shank end of the briefing. The briefing officer, a major general, had paused to emphasize his gas mask–muffled words.
“You will release weapons”—it had sounded incongruous to Sivigny, hearing the term used in what was officially being touted as a mission of mercy—“at an altitude no higher than
one hundred feet. At that altitude, your aircraft will be well within range of small-arms fire,” he said. “After the fiasco in Russia, people are understandably sensitive about aerial spraying of any sort. You can expect ground fire. It will at times be intense, particularly over population centers.”
One of the pilots in his section, a captain who flew the big Hercules transports and looked to Sivigny too young for the rank, had raised his hand.
“If people are going to be
shooting
at us, sir, do we have clearance to evade?”
“Evade, hell,” said one of the fighter jocks from Duke, loud enough even through the rubber of his mask for the room to hear. “How about shooting
back
?”
When the laughter had subsided, the two-star had shaken his head, a hard negative.
“No evasionary tactics—not on the target runs,” the General said. “You’ll all be flying a tick above stall speed on your approaches. Go evasive, and you’ll likely spin in.” He had tried a cheery tone that, to Sivigny and the other fliers, sounded extremely pallid. “Suck it up, people. Fly the mission, take the ground fire. Any other questions? Thank you. Be prepared for takeoff as soon as the VIX is loaded in your aircraft. And good luck.”
As one, the room rose to its feet and saluted.
As Sivigny gathered his notes and charts, an officer appeared at his side. It took Sivigny a moment to recognize the mission intelligence officer, his visage made insectlike by the goggle eyes of the mask. Like Sivigny, Chuck Mason was normally tasked to the Special Operations squadron.
“You’ve got the Tallahassee segment of the ring, Pete,” Mason said, his voice pitched low. “Be advised that the situation on the ground is highly volatile, understand? Rioting, buildings burning. It’s like an armed insurrection down there—probably everything from the Aryan Brotherhood to Greenpeace is packing heavy iron. It’s out of control, is that clear?”
Taken aback, Sivigny tried to treat it lightly. “That about covers the whole damn state, doesn’t it?”
“It’s worse where you’re going,” the intelligence officer said. “I don’t know if you’ve heard. Civilian electricity’s out in a number of areas inside the Quarantine Region, including the state capital. The militants and the crazies are blowing up transmission towers, for God’s sake.” He looked around, as if he was speaking out of school.
“Thanks,” Sivigny said. “I’ll watch myself up there. I got the message about the small-arms fire.”
His informant shook his head ominously.
“Small-arms fire, hell. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. A Florida Highway Patrol aircraft tried to drop leaflets over Tallahassee this morning. The aircraft went down, Pete—right after the pilot reported that somebody was shooting the hell out of his plane. An A-10 flew over on a low-altitude scouting mission about a hour ago. It got holed pretty badly, barely made it back. Fifty-caliber rounds, at least; maybe even forty millimeter—they’re not sure. It must be mobile, ’cause we can’t pin down a location. But anything that flies over the city is taking fire from it. Pete, somebody down there found themselves a damn big machine gun, and figured out how to use it.”
Sivigny pushed the big plane down the runway, watching the ground-speed indicator ease well past V-one before he rotated off the runway. Compared to some loads he had carried, the VIX and its accompanying apparatus were a negligible addition to the takeoff weight; still, there was no need to hot-dog—not with twenty-two canisters of virus affixed to tubing the length of the fuselage.
He passed over Highway 90, which separated Hurlburt from the military housing south of the field; today, no children looked up to wave from backyard swing sets or wading pools. Still climbing in the bright sunlight, he passed over the
thin strip of sugar white beach and above the impossible green of the gulf before banking left on a northeast heading.
Pete Sivigny had always displayed a light touch on the yoke, taking a secret pride in the delicacy with which he had trained himself to handle the huge bird even under difficult situations. It was a skill that had come in handy during covert operations in which he had been involved. He had been shot at from Iraqi antiaircraft emplacements, successfully dodged a SAM in a little-publicized incident near Afghanistan, and had his Hercules holed by a dozen heavy-caliber rounds over the high jungle of Peru.
In none of the instances could Sivigny remember being frightened, or even experiencing an increased pulse rate; he did not anticipate a flight over Tallahassee would be an exception. Even wearing the bioprotection equipment—a requirement that he had heard the F-15 jocks loudly bemoaning—did not constitute a significant problem for the Hercules pilot. Maybe the coveralls were heavier and stiffer than the usual Nomex flight suits; so what? But gloves were gloves, and Sivigny found the mask that covered his face less bothersome than the night-vision apparatus he was often required to don while on a mission.
Besides,
he thought,
when was a pilot ever supposed to feel comfortable? For damn sure, not at a time like this.
Not on a combat mission.
Three Miles NNW of Tallahassee, Florida
Altitude: 4,700 Feet
July 24
“Holding pattern? The hell do they mean, ‘holding pattern’?”
The voice of the crew chief was outraged. They had reached their rally-point coordinates in less than fifteen minutes of flight time—on schedule, maybe even a little ahead of it. The sergeant knew well the potential of what the aircraft carried in the nylon harnesses he had helped affix to the cargo bay bulkheads; the sooner they jettisoned the damn stuff, the sergeant felt, the better it would be for all concerned. Particularly himself, and the aircraft he considered his personal property.
Sivigny was not happy with the delay, either. But it is a time-honored tradition in the military that important bitching goes upward, following the chain of command all the way up to the gold-plated imbecile who issued the order initially. For that reason, the pilot’s tone was mild and conciliatory when he keyed the intercom to reply.
“Relax, Chief. Don’t you enlisted personnel get paid by the hour anyway?”
His copilot for the mission, a lieutenant, grinned behind his rubber mask.
Patrick Mayo had not previously flown with Sivigny, but like the rest of the squadron he had heard all of the stories. Distilled, they said this: Pete Sivigny ate fire for breakfast, crapped smoke and sparks, and flew the big Hercules like it was an extension of his body. He had also flown more black ops than anybody else in the service, and it was rumored that had he shown any inclination toward retirement, the resulting security concerns would have forced the CIA to shoot him. If they could.
When Sivigny’s usual backup pilot had been dropped by the virus’s initial onslaught, Mayo had jumped at the chance to fly left-hand seat with him. Now Mayo’s biggest concern was to avoid doing something that might forever mark him as a hopeless rube in the eyes of his idol.
“Give me a fuel status, Mayo.”
The copilot jumped, Sivigny’s voice snapping him to attention. He scanned the control console, and did a quick cross-check against the notes he had scribbled on his thigh pad.
“Twenty-seven hundred pounds, WATO,” Mayo said, “current fuel at two-six-oh-oh-niner.”
What did the guy expect?
he thought but did not say.
Weight at takeoff had included a full load of Jet Fuel-1; a ninety-mile flight couldn’t cut much into it, not yet.
“Thank you.” Sivigny looked out at the vivid blue of the Florida sky, accented only by the occasional puff of cloud. The delay was no problem; with his current fuel load, he could stay up here all day, if need be. That was, after all, why you flew with topped-off tanks.
But Sivigny could not push Chuck Mason’s warning from his mind. He had no fear of ground fire, but no one who has ever taken heavy-caliber rounds at low altitude failed to acquire a healthy respect for it. His bird was not designed to be agile; at the slow approach speed mandated by the mission orders, the controls would be mushy as last week’s cantaloupe.
And if some mutt on the ground gets in a lucky shot, a full load of kerosene makes for a pretty impressive fireball on impact.
Sivigny shook the thought from his mind and focused on his flying. Whatever the reason for the hold, at least it would let him burn off a few extra gallons of fuel.
Montgomery, Alabama
Ilya lounged in the deep cushions of his chair, idly thumbing through a magazine he had found somewhere. Occasionally he would stop, holding the opened page up to the light. Once, he whistled appreciatively, and Beck looked up from the chair where he too waited, though with far less patience.
“Playboy?”
Ilya held up the magazine; it was a copy of
Motor Week.
“You have discovered my secret,” he said. “I have a particular weakness for Saab automobiles—the turbocharged models, of course. Tell me, do you own a vehicle?”
Washington, D.C.
The telephone at Carson’s elbow buzzed discreetly. He picked up the receiver, then listened for a few moments before turning to the man slumped behind the large desk.
“Still nothing to report from Russia, Mr. President,” Carson said.
“Putin must know who the conspirators are, for God’s sake. What the hell are they doing over there?”
“It’s better if we don’t discuss it. That way, we both maintain plausible denial, if we’re ever questioned about it in an impeachment hearing.”
The President glared at the ceiling of the Oval Office. When he spoke, his voice was low and furious.
“I don’t have to ask, do I? Hell, I did everything but tell him to do it.” He slammed a fist onto the desk, hard. “Jesus.
The president of the United States encouraging the president of Russia to torture information out of his countrymen. What the hell have I become?”
He did not expect an answer, but Carson provided one anyway.
“With all due respect, you’ve become what you’ve been since all of this began,” Carson said evenly. “A man who is running out of time.”
Montgomery, Alabama
“You are a
teacher,
then?” Ilya’s voice was dubious. “This is truth?”
Beck nodded. “Is that so difficult to believe?”
Ilya shrugged. “It is just that I do not encounter many teachers in my line of work. At least, not in some years.”
Beck raised his eyebrows in polite inquiry, not fully believing that the conversation was taking place.
“In Chechnya,” Ilya said. “With the guerrilla bandits there. Teachers were often officers in their ranks. Occasionally, we would capture one alive.”
He shrugged, a gesture that to Beck seemed almost apologetic.
“And I would be summoned.”
Washington, D.C.
Once again, Carson hung up the telephone. He looked up at the President and shook his head wordlessly.
For a few seconds, the President sat unmoving, his eyes focused somewhere beyond the far wall of his office. Then his jaw hardened.
“Order the planes in,” he said, still not looking at anything in particular. “They are authorized—by direct order of the commander in chief—to release the VIX. Now.”
Approach Path,
Above Tallahassee, Florida
“Roger that,” Sivigny said. He keyed the intercom that connected him to the crew.
“Okay, folks,” he said. “We’re back in business and good to go. Chief, final check the dispersal system and let me know when you’re green light. I will arm the aerosolizing system when we’re thirty seconds from weapons away.”