Chapter 52

 

Twenty-five miles south of the T in the road where Tara had been dumped, former Army aviator, Wade “Griswold” Clark, was piloting an Ohio Army National Guard UH-72A Lakota over a mostly dark section of Santa Fe proper.

Based on the civilian Airbus EC-145, the Lakota was similar in size and maneuverability to the helicopters the forty-eight-year-old son of a Texas oil baron had flown for the Manhattan, New-York-based charter outfit where he had most recently worked. This particular helicopter had been specially modified for a multi-mission role that included search and rescue and VIP recovery.

While not as cushy as the rides the elites Clark had been rescuing were accustomed to, not one of his customers had balked at boarding her. Being surrounded by ravenous dead was indeed a great socioeconomic equalizer.

Positioned lengthwise on the right side and accessible via the clamshell doors at the rear of the helicopter was a single stretcher.

On the left side, loomed over by a sliding door fitted with a large rectangular window, were three adjoined forward-facing seats. Across the aisle and separated by the cockpit pass through was a pair of rear-facing seats.

In the left seat up front, helmeted head tracking something off to the helo’s right, Sarah “Country” Rhoads gestured with a gloved hand to where she was looking. “Santa Fe Regional must have been a major shit show at the end.” Employed by the same charter outfit as Clark at the onset of the Romero virus, forty-two-year-old Rhoads had been lured away by Clark to do contracting work for the DoD. Having flown alongside Clark in the sandbox during the early days of the war in Afghanistan, back when the rubble pile that had been the Twin Towers was still smoking and the full-scale invasion of Iraq had yet to happen, the promise of triple the pay and adrenaline-pumping missions was impossible for Rhoads to resist. It was the third time over the last five years that Rhoads had followed her former commander on to bigger and better things. First, it had been flying geologists in and out of Alaska. Checked some bucket list items during that two-year contract. Considering how fast Manhattan had fallen, with the bridges and tunnels being blown in order to contain the undead, she considered her abrupt departure from her former employer the best decision she had ever made.

Now, having just come from Army Aviation Facility 1 in Columbus, Ohio, where a frantic return to base call saw them do just that, only to find the facility in much worse shape than Santa Fe Regional, they were both suddenly out of a job.

“You have the bird,” Clark drawled. “Let’s make a quick orbit over Santa Fe Regional. See if we can get anything moving on the FLIR.”

“Copy that,” Rhoads replied, “I have the bird.”

Theoretically, the “bird” belonged to the United States Government. At the moment, barring further instruction from either the DoD or Department of Homeland Security, the “bird” was in their collective care.

Whereas the Airbus AS365 Dauphin they flew in their previous lives could be called the Cadillac Escalade of helicopters, the Lakota was more Ford F-150. Utilitarian and reliable, the Lakota—most often utilized as a medevac asset—was rumored to replace the venerable Kiowa Warrior.

While not as fast or comfortable as the Dauphin, the unarmed Lakota was far superior where communications, navigation, and sensor capabilities were concerned.

Hands flashing over the glass cockpit’s touchscreen while the helo banked to the left, Clark brought the Advanced Targeting Forward Looking-Infrared pod (FLIR for short) online and spun it around in its nose-mounted gimbal.

As Rhoads started the wide clockwise orbit, the bird slightly nose down and listing a few degrees to the right, Clark kept the FLIR pod trained on the ground a thousand feet below. The moving black-and-white imagery picked up by the high-tech optics suite and beamed onto the cockpit display revealed only the static hulks of passenger jets and a pair of helicopters. Scattered among the aircraft, most of them boxy and low-to-the-ground, were a myriad of wheeled vehicles used to transport baggage, in-flight meals, and move the airplanes about the tarmac.

Their cadaverous bodies presenting like gray ghosts against the dark, cold background, no less than a hundred dead things patrolled the tarmac, runways, and grassy infields where the sprawling quarantine facility had been thrown up.

“The dead own this one, too,” Clark stated soberly. “Next stop … Trinity House.”

Being one of the more junior, but not necessarily less experienced aviators at her previous job, Rhoads instinctively offered the controls back to Clark.

Though Clark had transitioned out of Army aviation ahead of Rhoads, and had done so at a higher rank, in his eyes they were equals. “Keep her,” he said. “Take us to the waypoint. If the work on the LZ is not finished, I’ll scan the ground for an alternate.”

“Copy that,” Rhoads said as she fed the twin turbines more juice and broke from the racetrack orbit. As she upped the Lakota’s airspeed to a tick under eighty knots, the ground below—as seen through her four-tube night vision goggles—resembled a turbid green river as scrub, cactus, and the occasional building flashed by. Off to the right, on the periphery of her field of vision, was a cluster of buildings that caught her attention. “What’s over there?” she asked, pointing in the general direction.

Panning and zooming the camera, Clark said, “Looks like a prison. Fencing topped with concertina. Lots of zekes in the yard and parking lots. Yeah … gotta be a correctional facility.”

“Sucks to be them,” Rhoads stated.

“Definitely, with Romero still burning across the country,” replied Clark. “Doesn’t look like anyone could have made it out of there alive.”

Rhoads said, “Would you stick your neck out to save a bunch of felons?”

“Point taken.”

Bringing the Lakota up to one thousand feet AGL, Rhoads said, “Fifteen mikes out. Any way you can give them a heads up that we’re en route?”

“Negative,” Clark said. “They’re aware I’m coming today. But that’s it. Haven’t been in contact with Lee since cell service went tits up.”

Rhoads was one of the “boys” in and out of the cockpit. Clark had never seen her blush. Doubted anything he could say would ever bring color to her cheeks.

Rhoads said, “That’s a helluva wide-open window, Grizz. What are you, the cable guy?”

Clark chuckled. Both at being called Grizz—the abbreviated version of Griswold–and his memory of that old comedy flick.

Rhoads said, “Five minutes out,” and started grabbing more altitude. Viewed through the NVGs, the peak rising over the general area her waypoint was taking them looked like the top of a poorly executed serving of soft-serve ice cream. The top was rounded, with a sharper, secondary peak sprouting, like a conjoined twin, from the peak’s eastern flank. To the left of the peak, southwest of the tree line, was a rambling structure. Equidistant to the two points, glowing like an angel’s halo, was the landing zone.

“One o’clock,” Clark said. “Lee came through.”

Rhoads said, “What’s it lit up with? Tiki torches?”

“Can’t be sure, “Clark replied. “But whatever they’re using, it works for me.”

“Looks like a burning ring of fire.”

As the helo drew nearer, two things became evident. First was the pair of headlights moving down the hillside’s southern flank. They belonged to a large pickup truck wheeling downhill toward the road west of the peak. It was speeding, taking the curves like the police were hot on its tail.

Second was the change in the “ring of fire.” As the helo came in from the south and banked to the east, the circle of lights morphed into an upside-down teardrop.

Rhoads asked, “Think the cone’s going to be in the clear?”

Clark nodded. “Affirmative. I was expecting to arrive here in the Dauphin. So I tasked them with expanding the LZ. Worked in a ten-foot buffer for us, too. From the looks of it, they went above and beyond to make extra room for the tail rotor.”

Flaring the Lakota, Rhoads said, “I have movement.”

Clark rotated the FLIR pod, bracketing the forms on the active matrix LCD. Zooming in, the two people—or at least the parts of them not covered by clothing—glowed white-hot against the ragged tree line behind them.

Rhoads bled airspeed and altitude as she brought the Lakota in from the west. With the skids maybe a hundred feet above the ground, high-intensity landing lights bathing Trinity House in a huge passing blue-white cone, she threaded the Lakota expertly through a pair of tall trees. Having “split the uprights,” she dropped them down into the elongated end of the LZ, flared hard, then settled the bird atop the uneven patch of recently cleared ground.

Clark bumped fists with Rhoads. “Like you wrote the book on tight LZ landings.” He looked off to his right. “Who do we have here?”

Two forms glowed green in their NVGs.

Rhoads said, “One woman, one man.”

Clark said, “Those aren’t the Rikers. The guy fits the description of their friend, Benny.”

Rhoads asked, “What do you want to do?”

“Keep her hot.” Clark grabbed a suppressed H&K MP-5 submachine gun from the floor behind his seat. “I’m going out to communicate.”