Chapter 30
As the boat sped away, entering the
waves of the main current, Carlie eased her rifle down. She turned around and
felt the moist wind upon her cheeks as her blonde hair blew adrift. The sun
felt good on her face but she forced away any feelings of comfort and held firmly
onto the railing, thinking about Jared’s notion of disappearing somewhere else
in the world. Her entire life from childhood until now had been one of constant
responsibility, following orders, and getting the
job
done. She wondered
what it would look like to not have anyone else’s life teetering on her
decisions.
She stared down at the waves and then
looked at the distant horizon of buildings then swung her head back to Jared. “You
wanna tell me why we’re headed south when the helo is probably back in the
other direction?” said Carlie.
“You see that restaurant on stilts that
juts out from the cove up ahead?” Jared said, pointing to a structure on the left.
“What about it? You getting a hankering
for some crawdads?”
“That’s my uncle’s place that I told you
about. All I need is five minutes inside and we can be on our way.”
Carlie looked back up the river and
scanned the skyline. “As there’s no sign of the Blackhawk and that building is
just up ahead, you’ve got your five minutes but…” she grabbed his vest firmly, “I’m
not going on a wild goose chase. If you’re not back in time, then I’m leaving
without you.”
“You always talk in such endearing terms
to guys you like?”
“That’ll be the day.”
“I’d prefer night, actually—a nice
candlelight dinner…I’d cook, of course,” he said, grinning.
She released her grip on him, noticing
the way the wind ran through his thick hair. “You just keep dreaming, Jared.”
He swung the boat to the left and veered
towards a small cove where a three-story structure hung out over the water.
“That’s it right there. I’ll secure the
boat under the main deck and zip up to the top floor.”
As he approached, they both studied the
outlying property for any movement. The structure was built partly on land with
the rest on thick, moss-encrusted beams that jutted out over the water.
Majestic oak trees sprawled their limbs over the unkempt lawn around the front
and sides of the restaurant. Jared slowed and turned off the engines while
drifting under the building, maneuvering between the beams before stopping at a
small deck with stairs.
He grabbed his pistol and pack while
stepping out of the boat. “Be right back before you’ve even begun to miss me.”
“Ah, leave those with me,” Carlie said.
“What?”
“The boat keys that you stowed in your
pocket.”
“Oh, right—no problem,” he said, handing
them to her.
Jared moved up the stairs quietly and
disappeared onto the platform up above.
Carlie stood on the dock with her M4 in
a low-ready position, scanning the surrounding property and parking area to the
left. The sound of crickets filled the moist air and she marveled at the
shrouds of thick moss hanging off the nearby oak trees which gave off the smell
of newly tilled earth.
She heard the vibrations of Jared
bounding on the floor upstairs and a few minutes later saw his form emerge from
the stairwell. He jumped from the last four steps onto the dock and rushed
towards the boat. “I got what I needed, now let’s go. There’s a bartender and
waitress headed our way and it looks like they haven’t eaten in a while.”
As they jumped in the boat, Carlie fired
up the engine and backed out from between the foundation poles just as the two
creatures were waddling down the stairs.
“You need me to drive?” said Jared,
clutching an antique timepiece in his hand.
“Look where that got us. I think I’ll
stay at the helm from now on.”
As she piloted the boat back out of the
cove and into the Mississippi, she caught sight of a black speck floating
across the cobalt blue sky. She shoved the throttle forward and sped up, racing
towards the movement.
“And just in time,” said Jared. “There’s
the airborne cavalry to the rescue. I couldn’t have planned this operation
better myself.”
“Eeek—I just cringe at the thought of
you planning a mission.”
“I’ve planned plenty of high-stakes
‘missions’ before—just don’t expect me to ever brief you on them.”
Carlie smiled and shook her head. “Yeah,
well your knowledge on breaching security systems came in handy back on that
freighter. Otherwise we wouldn’t have gleaned the information we did in there
and gotten that laptop so quietly.”
“Glad you think so—that means you won’t
be pissed that I swapped out the laptop from your pack into mine back at the
boathouse,” he said, reaching into his backpack for the encased device.
“You slippery son of a bitch.”
“What? I just needed some insurance in
case you changed your mind about our deal.”
Carlie scowled and swung the steering
wheel hard to the left, unbalancing Jared momentarily.
“You gonna tell me what’s so important
about what you’ve got in your hand?”
Jared stuffed the item in his pocket and
then turned his head forward. “Listen, I upheld my end to get you to the
freighter and provide info on the city layout. The rest don’t concern you.”
“The hell it doesn’t, especially after that
stunt.”
He squinted at the horizon and then
slowly turned towards her, his lips forcing out the words. “It belonged to me
when I was little, alright.”
Carlie saw Jared tapping on his ear mic.
“Hang on, I can hear something coming through on my radio.”
“Boyd, is that you? We are a mile out
from your position, over,” he said.
“Everything good,” Carlie said, looking
at him intently.
After nodding at the response in his
earpiece, he leaned towards Carlie. “They’re headed this way. Sounds like everyone
is on board and safe,” he said, looking at the skyline ahead.
She could feel Jared studying her face
for a moment. “So, no hard feelings, boss?” he said.
“In case the new reality of our world hasn’t
fully taken root inside your brain, I need everyone on my team squared away and
thinking about the big picture, not their own petty desires. Pull that shit
again and you’ll find yourself adrift for good—you got it?”
He rubbed the back of his neck and gazed
at the advancing Blackhawk. “Got it.”
As they approached, the helo descended twenty
feet above the boat and the side door slid open. Carlie eased the throttle back
as the boat slowed. A folding ladder unfurled and dropped within a few feet of
the stern. Boyd and Shane were on either side waving them up. Carlie gave the
thumbs-up sign after which she motioned Jared to begin his climb.
He swung his arm out and grabbed the
rope ladder as the boat gently bobbed back and forth.
Carlie looked back at the river to her
rear and at the shoreline. The boat undulating in the current matched her own
unsettled mindset. She glanced up at the helo where Jared was nearly on board
then back out along the river. She wondered if her brother was still alive in
San Diego and how she would risk everything to see him once more. Except that duty
called yet again and she found herself pulled along by the invisible thread of
responsibility that had always propelled her life forward.
Shane was shouting at her to ascend as
the rope ladder dangled beside her. Carlie slung her rifle before grabbing onto
the ladder and pushing off the deck, watching the boat drift away in the
current.
Chapter 31
Texas, Barksdale AFB
On the flight back to Barksdale Air Force
Base, the group debriefed amidst the din of the rotors. Carlie was pleased by
Boyd’s diligence but could see he was distraught over the loss of two of his
men and kept directing angry glances at her during the return trip.
An hour after returning to the base and
relaying the pertinent intel to General Adams, she walked down to the
conference room where she told her two teams to meet her. Shane and Amy were
sitting on the edge of the table, each finishing off a bowl of rehydrated chicken
goulash they had obtained from the commissary.
“So you gonna fill us in on what went on
with you and Jared back on your little detour?” said Shane.
“It’s not even worth talking about.
Besides, we have more pressing matters—again.”
Carlie saw the rest of the group file in
through the doorway and take up chairs around the oval table. She walked around
to a large whiteboard and leaned both hands on the table. “I know you’re all in
strung-out shape from current events but General Adams needs us for another
mission. This time in Cuba.” She paused momentarily, reflecting on the gravity
of the location she’d mentioned and allowing for the verbal dallying she
expected at the announcement.
“Cuba—are you fucking kidding me?” said
Boyd. “I just lost a couple of my men back there in the city because that
mission went sideways.”
“Those deaths are…unfortunate,” Carlie
said. “I know how difficult it can be losing your fellow team members.”
“I don’t want a eulogy here. I’ve stared
down death before. I wanna know what your playbook says about keeping our asses
off the line in the future,” he said, slouching in his chair.
Carlie wanted to reach across the table
and blast Boyd in the jaw with a right hook. She had seen his type before, when
she was working her way up through the Secret Service—the old mentality that
women had no place on the front lines. That they should still be subservient to
a male boss bent on keeping them in the shadows unless there was a need for
other
office duties to be performed. Even with the world falling apart she couldn’t
believe she was having to deal with such outlandish sexism.
“Boyd, sit at attention,” she said as he
corrected his posture. “What’s in my playbook will be discussed when I deem
it’s necessary. Now, I don’t have time to hold your hand and walk you through
the big-boy rules of how to get along with women which you must’ve learned
exclusively from reading Penthouse Magazine or hitting on underage newbies at
the local bar who were impressed with your firewatch ribbon and the fact that
you could go three months without disciplinary action.” She walked around the
table so she was directly across from him.
“You may not like having me as your CO
and, frankly, I don’t give a shit, but you will follow my orders or I’ll leave
your ass here to sweep out the flight hangars.”
Boyd was tapping his fingers on his pant
leg and his face was tense.
Carlie leaned in close. “The next time I
want your opinion, Sergeant Boyd, I’ll give it to you. Is that clear?”
“Yes, it’s clear,” he mumbled, his face
turned slightly away from her.
“Is that clear!” she said, resting her
hands on the table and keeping her gazed fixed on him.
“Yes, ma’am. Crystal clear,” he said
slowly, lowering his eyes.
She walked back around the table,
noticing that the rest of the room sat upright at attention despite their
fatigue. Boyd’s three remaining men held her in polite focus and everyone else
was silent.
“Now let’s get back to the matters at
hand, for crying out loud.”
As Carlie went back in front of the
whiteboard, she grabbed a dry-erase pen and let out a silent exhale then began
inscribing images and geographic markers on the board.
“Here’s what I know so far from speaking
with General Adams and Doctor Efron. The island of Nuevo Gerona off the coast
of Cuba was rumored to once be the temporary containment site for an early
Soviet bioweapons program. The good doctor has suggested that someone may have
located a remnant weapons cache. We need to get boots on the ground there and locate
any clues that may point us to who is responsible for this outbreak and obtain any
leads on a possible cure.”
Carlie continued drawing out a diagram
of the island and surrounding points of entry.
“We will fly from here to the
USS
Farragut
, a Destroyer in the Gulf of Mexico that will link up with us off
the coast near Galveston. They will get us within range of the island after which
we will insert with Zodiac inflatable rafts to the beach or possibly helos. By
the time we arrive near Cuban shores, we should have intel from General Adams
about potential sites on the island.”
She turned towards the group. “What
questions do you have?”
“Do we have any resource intel on
numbers of creatures or hostile patrols in the region?” said Matias.
“At present, there are low numbers of
creatures on the island as there wasn’t much of a population there to begin
with. And if Jared is correct on that place being the center of the Santa Ria
smugglers, then any existing patrols will be heavily armed.”
“If the Santa Ria goons are the delivery
boys then who is pulling their strings—who orchestrated this whole thing since
it was beyond the smugglers’ capabilities?” said Shane.
“Well, the presence of those Russkie medals
kinda points the finger in the right direction, doesn’t it?” said Jared.
“Maybe, maybe not,” said Carlie, pacing
back and forth at the front of the large table. “After Cuba established
diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union in ’59, they became increasingly dependent
on their new benefactors to supply them with funding and military support
during the Cold War.”
“Well, as much as I hate to set foot on
Cuban soil, it’s good that we’re going because I don’t think we’re gonna get
any answers here with what little we have,” said Shane.
“I know that things have changed around
the world, but what are the rules of engagement with local resistance, since this
is Cuba?” said Matias.
“We have the green light to remove any
resistance we encounter.”
The group all shot stares at each other
and then back up at Carlie. “This is an intel recovery so let’s keep things low
profile while we are there and hopefully it won’t come to personnel
elimination.”
Matias leaned forward, clasping his
hands together on the table. “Has there been any information recovered yet from
that laptop that was obtained on the freighter?”
“No, it’s encrypted. Interestingly
enough it’s an OGA encryption,” Carlie said.
Jared looked around at the others who
seemed unfazed at the expression. “OK, I give; what the hell is
OGA
?”
“
Other Governmental Agency
, which
is another term for the CIA,” said Shane.
“So, zombies, Russians, smugglers, and
now spooks—that’s great. Excuse my ignorance but don’t you feds all work
together and fall under the same umbrella? Can’t you just dial up your agency
contacts in their secret lairs and get this laptop cracked open?”
“First tip, hillbilly, is to never lump
the special operations community together with the CIA,” said Matias. “Second,
they don’t ever do intel sharing unless it’s about something that could bite
them in their own ass. They’re a closed agency who rarely share intel with
other operational groups outside of their own, and then only begrudgingly.”
Jared leaned back in his chair and put
his hands behind his head, getting ready to respond, but was interrupted by Amy
who was sitting beside him. She leaned in closer to whisper in his ear, “This
is the part where you skip the smart-ass comeback and just shut up.”
Carlie folded her arms and looked at
Shane. “You’re in charge of weapons prep. Anything you suggest we bring beyond
the norm?”
“Rocket launchers, pistol and rifle
suppressors, plenty of C4, claymores, and, of course, our new silent partner—machetes.
I’ll have it all assembled in the hangar before we pull out. And don’t forget
to grab a headnet and plenty of insect repellent from the supply depot here.
The jungle has some unforgiving ‘wildlife.’”
“If there aren’t any further questions,
I want everyone ready to depart at the rear hangar in four hours,” Carlie said,
looking at each member before they dispersed. When they were all gone, she turned
her back to the door and sat back in a chair, massaging her temples.
Why
couldn’t this have ended in New Orleans? How many more legs of this search will
there be?
She continued rubbing her forehead, trying to release the tension
and wondering when they would be back on U.S. soil again.