Standing the Final Watch Read online

  “Base Prime, sir. Or simply Prime.”

  “That sounds like a surgical ward. We’ve got to come up with something better. Who’s in charge of getting this place up and running, Walling?”

  “The commanding officer, sir. That is, you. Before you woke up, it was me.”

  “Me? I don’t even know where the latrine is. Which I need to find soon, by the way. How long is this Deployment Plan A supposed to take to implement?”

  “Estimates are a week, sir.”

  “Walling, as of this moment you’re Officer in Charge of Deployment Plan A, and you have three days, not a week, to get me a detailed order of battle. I need a briefing in two hours, what it is, what you’ve done, what remains to be done, and when I can expect it done. You have my authority to do whatever is necessary to complete this deployment, and if anybody gives you any crap, have them see me. You report to me and only to me. Whatever your previous assignment was, make sure it’s filled. Tell all officers at colonel and above that I want a staff meeting in three days at 1800 hours. If I have to order us into battle in three days, I want to be ready. Clear?”

  Captain Walling’s wonder showed on his face. “Clear, sir. Thank you for your trust.”

  “Don’t make me regret it. Oh, and Captain? As of this moment you’re a bird colonel. Are there any other officers who you need to help you get this show on the road?”

  “Th-thank you, sir! Ummm… Lieutenants Noshimura and Jackson have been standing watch with me. Both are superb officers who know every detail of the base as well as I do.”

  “Fine. Make one a major and the other a captain. Handle it with personnel later. Do whatever it takes to get this thing going, Colonel, and I’ll see you in two hours. Oh, and one more thing. As soon as General Fleming is squared away, bring him here immediately. Understand? Wake him up, give him some clothes, and get him up here.”

  Dazed, Walling saluted and turned, almost running into a corporal. Angriff smiled as he watched Walling head for the elevators. Then he surveyed his new kingdom. “Sergeant!”

  The sergeant who had called for attention earlier looked up, then dropped some paperwork and came at a run. Over six feet tall, he looked Angriff in the eye. “Yes, sir!”

  “What’s your name, Sergeant?”

  “Schiller, sir, John C.”

  “Sergeant Schiller, are you assigned to my headquarters?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ve been awake for eleven months, sir.”

  “Good. Show me around this crystal palace. Let’s start with my office. Oh, and we’ve got a strike mission out. I want an update. Better yet, loop me into the comm. network. And get me some coffee.”

  Chapter 15

  There is no stone to mark my place,

  Weep not for me, though there is no trace

  Of the works I did upon this Earth,

  I am with the One who knows my worth.

  From a 5th century sarcophagus found near Capua, Italy

  June 18th, 0355 hours

  Lying on the rocky soil looking at the sky, Tompkins was grateful that the stars overhead kept vigil with him, old friends on this last night of his life — so bright and clear in the cold sky that not even the luminescent moon could wash them out. Unlike his native Alabama, when the sun set in the high desert the temperature plummeted and the chill seeped into his body. His feet went numb, hunger pains gnawed his stomach, and exhaustion made him feel every bit the old man his age said he was. But staring at the familiar constellations reminded him of his long-ago boyhood.

  Growing up had been different for Dennis Tompkins than for his classmates. His parents had not let him play with the video games his friends grew up playing. He did not own a computer until enrolling at Kennesaw State, and Johnny Tompkins never bought his son a cell phone. Tompkins’ father had not liked the modern world, said twenty-first century civilization had a foundation of sand, and that some day it would all crash when the power went off. He insisted that young Dennis learn the ways of the woods, how to shoot a gun and how to survive in the wilderness without one, how to fish without a rod and build a fire without flint or matches, all against the day when civilization would end. He made Dennis learn astronomy, where the stars and planets were in the night sky in each season and how to navigate by them. And how to enjoy them, too, lying in a field of cool green grass under a bright summer moon while fireflies floated under the trees, marveling at the silver beauty of the glittering universe overhead.

  Dennis’ friends all made fun of his father, however, they called him Dr. Nutjob and Bigfoot and other cruel names, the way only preteen boys can. One day, Dennis became so embarrassed he skipped school. When the school called to ask where he was, his father found him huddled on his bed, knees pulled close to his chest. He’d worried he’d get a whipping. Instead his father and mother pulled him out of school and began home-schooling him.

  In the end, Johnny Tompkins had been right. Civilization did crash and all of Dennis’ friends who’d spent so much time playing with their electronics were long since dead. He’d outlasted all of them.

  Every one of the skills Johnny Tompkins taught young Dennis had been necessary to keep him alive for fifty years after The Collapse, but no skill would save him now.

  Most of his men and the rescued women and girls had drifted off to sleep, but on the last night of his life Dennis Tompkins could not have slept if he’d wanted to. Tense and alert, with senses keyed to his environment, he listened for signs of infiltrators. The distant flutter of bats startled him as they entered the small cave in the cliff face as sunrise drew near. Night sounds quieted in the chill of pre-dawn. Sniffing, he smelled sage, dust, and the faint, sour scent of unwashed men, both his and those on the canyon floor below. And his vision was much sharper than he expected… the imminence of death could do that.

  The sleepers were lumps in the moonlight, huddled together behind the stone wall. The trucks were ghostly outlines near the cliff’s edge. The radio lay by his feet, but his rifle he never let go.

  He jumped at a loud click. It sounded like a stick cracking, or maybe a rock giving way underfoot. He spun around and aimed where the ramp emptied onto the plateau. Sighting down his rifle, he wished for a night scope. Were they sneaking up during the night after all? Despite the moonlight, he couldn’t see anything. He tried to control his breathing but found himself panting instead.

  The screech of a prairie falcon startled him. And then a voice came from behind, a voice he had never heard before.

  “Will the unidentified United States military unit who broadcast the activation code earlier tonight please identify yourself? I repeat, to the unknown United States military unit who made an earlier broadcast, please identify yourself.”

  Tompkins trembled, raising goose bumps on his arms and legs. He stared in disbelief at the voice’s source — the radio, which hadn’t spoken for more than forty years.

  Gingerly, as if the battered metal rectangle housed a rattlesnake, Tompkins reached down and picked it up. The loud voice had awakened his men. In silence they crawled nearer, keeping their heads below the lip of the wall. Was it some sort of trick?

  Tompkins keyed the mike, not sure what to say. “Hello?” His hands shook.

  “Is this the American unit who broadcast the overtime activation code?”

  “Yes.”

  “Skip, is that real?” said Hausser.

  “Ssh!” he said, with the mike key off. Depressing it, he said, “Yes, I broadcast the code. Who is this?”

  “Please identify your unit,” the voice said, through a lot of static.

  “Unit? What unit? What are you talking about?”

  “If you are a United States military unit, please identify branch of service, call sign, situation, and unit strength.”

  “We’re not a unit. We’re just a few survivors, and when the sun comes up we won’t even be that.”

  “You used highly classified United States Army codes. Where did you get them?”

  “From the U.S. Army, wh
ere do you think? Look, whoever you are, we’re just a bunch of guys who were in the army and got together when it all went to shit. And right now we’re surrounded by Sevens who want to splatter our brains all over the rocks when sunrise gets here, unless you’re the Sevens, in which case come and get us. We haven’t heard from anybody in more than forty years and suddenly you’re on the radio demanding to know all about us, but I’ve got a better question — who the hell are you?”

  “Stand by, please.” There was a short pause. “Please define Sevens.”

  “Sevens are the Caliph’s men, the ones trying to kill us. Enemies.”

  By this time most of the women and some of the children were awake and within earshot, while his men huddled as close as possible. Thibodeaux forgot the danger, stood, and walked in circles, holding his pursed lips and listening. No telling how much longer the battery would last.

  The disembodied voice clicked back to life. “We have a radio fix. Help is on the way to your location, ETA forty minutes. What is your exact situation?”

  The thought again crossed Tompkins’ mind that this could be some sort of trick, but then, their situation could not get any worse. With nothing to lose, he explained who he was and how they’d found themselves trapped on a flat plateau left over from the Old Days, and why two hundred heavily armed terrorists would storm up the ramp in less than half an hour. The voice promised to hurry the help as much as it could, but they would have to fight off their attackers until it got there.

  The radio’s battery began to fail and the voice faded. Tompkins turned up the volume to maximum hoping to get one final answer.

  “Our battery’s shot but you still haven’t told me who you are. Who the hell am I talking to?”

  “This is Overtime Prime.”

  “That doesn’t tell me a damned thing. What or who is Overtime Prime?”

  With the volume all the way up, the reply burst from the little speaker despite the weak battery. This time, it was a new voice, deep, gruff, and commanding, the voice of somebody in charge, and some part of Tompkins’ brain recognized it. He had heard that voice before, a long, long time ago.

  “Who are we? Hell, son, we’re riding to your rescue; who do you think we are? We’re the United States Cavalry!”

  Tompkins shouldered his M16 and glanced down the sight. The edge of the plateau appeared as a jagged line a hundred yards from the low rock wall they’d built. Sharp stones dug into his knees, but he dared not rise to relieve the pressure. In the lightening sky he would make an easy target.

  “Cavalry better hurry up, Skip,” Thibodeaux said. “Else they’ll be rescuing dead men.”

  “They’ll be here when they’re here. If they’re really coming. For all we know they’re riding horses. In the meantime, we get to have some fun.” He forced a smile, but in truth Tompkins had decided it had been a trick, a ruse of war. Hell, it had to be! But if by some miracle they had found a long-lost United States Cavalry unit…

  A head poked over the lip of the plateau and squeezed off a shot, which missed. It was time to fight.

  “Mama Powell, everybody, no matter what happens, keep your heads down. All right, boys, they’re coming. Time to earn your pay!”

  With the sky getting brighter by the minute, details became visible. Fingers rested on triggers and eyes scanned the rocks for targets, and despite lack of sleep the six old men crouched behind the wall, ready to fight and die.

  Without warning more than a dozen men rose at the plateau’s far end and opened fire with automatic weapons. It was suppressing fire, designed to spray the low barricade so nobody could shoot back. Tompkins and his men returned fire anyway, but aiming was hard as bullets splattered against stone, sending rock chips flying as shrapnel.

  During a brief lull Tompkins risked raising his head and saw two men stand up and start running toward him. Taking aim, he squeezed off two short bursts. His rounds hit both men, who fell backward as if swatted by a giant fist. He slid back behind cover and heard bullets whiz overhead.

  As enemy fire increased, he stuck his M 16 over the barricade and fired blindly until the magazine was empty. When he pulled the gun back his hands were bloody and torn where splinters had cut them.

  “Can’t hold ’em, Skip!” Thibodeaux yelled. “There’s too many!”

  Tompkins slipped in a full magazine. “You first, John!”

  Their eyes met, and Tompkins pointed at him. Instead of firing blindly above the rocks, Thidodeaux rose and squeezed off aimed shots, drawing return fire from dozens of Sevens as they poured onto the plateau. A bullet struck his left shoulder and knocked him back, but he kept firing with one hand.

  “John!” Infuriated, Tompkins rose and found no shortage of targets. Fire discipline was overcome by events and he held the trigger down, spraying the mass of men running right at them. Several went down, screaming. When his gun ran dry he slipped behind the rocks and glanced down at Thibodeaux, who, while in obvious pain, otherwise looked all right. His faded green shirt had turned red.

  “Flesh wound,” he said. “I’m okay, Skip.”

  Panting and sweating in the chill of early morning, Tompkins slipped in his third to last magazine. Through a small hole in the rock barricade he checked how close the enemy had gotten and, like a wave, twenty men charged the wall at fifty yards distance. Swallowing, preparing to rise up and shoot until either he died or they did, he took one last look through the tiny opening.

  The running Sevens disappeared in a tornado of dust, like a vortex had descended from Heaven and spun off body parts and blood. Shocked, without thinking he stood and stared as men were tossed and jerked around, and chunks of flesh and bone flew as if a giant piñata filled with meat had burst overhead. Slabs landed all over the plateau.

  Only then did his mind register the heavy thump of a helicopter’s rotors and the long-forgotten zipping sound of Gatling guns. A massive machine hovered in mid-air like a giant prehistoric insect, and through the canopy glass he could just make out the helmets of the two pilots. Painted on the helicopter’s side was a large white star. The pilot stuck his hand out the side window and turned his thumb up, and the old man felt tears welling in his eyes.

  “Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit,” he said.

  Chapter 16

  When you shoot, shoot to kill. When you attack, attack to destroy.

  Nick Angriff

  June 18th, 0427 hours

  Dawn painted the tops of the mineral-rich peaks flanking the valley in shades of orange and pink. Where the shadows of night held sway the slopes drained of color, from the bright hues near the top, to brown and then black. The last javelinas and packrats sniffed the desert floor for scraps left behind by the owls and bobcats.

  Without warning, a strange vibration put every creature on alert. The animals made for safety in treetops and underground warrens. A storm bore down on them, coming fast, unlike anything they had ever known.

  Racing down the valley at one hundred feet, the two AH-72 Comanches ripped through the dawn air as the huge rotors propelled them north at more than two hundred knots, spraying dust and rocks in their wake. The rumble of the massive engines echoed from the ridgelines and the air itself pulsed with energy. The Comanches stayed in the valley between the two ridgelines because the cold and heavy night air close to the ground offered a more stable flying platform. No thermals rose from the prairie yet, as they would by midday when the sun scorched the arid soil, and the two helicopters were steady in their pilots’ grip. Plotz and Arnold flew in the wingman’s position, thirty feet to Randall’s right and fifty behind.

  “Ripsaw Two, this is Ripsaw Real. You take the ridge and see what you can do to keep the shitheads off our people. They could be breathing heavy, so watch your aim. I’ve got the valley. You heard the CO. No mercy. Vaporize the fuckers.”

  “With extreme prejudice,” Plotz said.

  The Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) picked up multiple signatures on the valley floor ahead, but the dawn washed out most
of the screen. It did not matter; within seconds they made visual contact.

  Smoke funneled upward near an outcropping of the ridge and Randall knew they had found their target. They could not tell if the trapped Americans had been overrun or not, but things appeared desperate. Randall firewalled the throttle, turned the FIRE switch to ARMED and flipped the gun-sight screen down over his helmet’s faceplate. The valley came into sharp focus. Vehicles of all shapes and sizes clustered around the rocky outcropping. Dozens of men milled around the vehicles.

  “Ripsaw Real, I’ve got Ali Babas on the plateau and closing on some sort of barricade. Time to second wife.” Alisha Plotz veered left in a long arc, closing on the ledge at two hundred miles per hour.

  “Roger that, R2. Prime, this is Ripsaw Real. Have visual on multiple vehicles in the valley, many burps. Am commencing attack run.”

  “Roger that, Ripsaw Real.”

  Randall focused on his target. “All right, Bunny, let’s ruin somebody’s morning.”

  Randall pushed the music note on his control computer screen and selected song number twelve. He had dreamed about this moment, this song, the very rightness of the whole fantasy, pictured it over and over in his mind, and now it had come to life. A thousand times he’d imagined the Forward Targeting Sight centered on a cluster of burps while he depressed the trigger, and now it was happening. Then the music started. Two hard drum notes, two more with a kick drum and repeated three more times, followed by a grinding guitar, and the singer’s voice asking if Randall knew his enemy.

  Bobbing his head as the vocals screamed through his headphones, Randall squinted into the gunsight and sang along. He had no damned idea who his enemy was and he did not care. He intended turning them into jelly using a storm of fifty-caliber American get-fucked.

  Paco Mohammed paused with a mouthful of goat jerky. In the distance was a weird whop-whop-whop, fast and unlike anything he’d heard before. It was like the wind, but also not like the wind. Electric fingers jolted his spine with a primitive fear he could not explain.