Frozen (Final Dawn Book 10) Page 5

  Mayor Al was a proud man. He loved to brag of his past exploits, even when he had to embellish them to make them sound better than they really were.

  He liked to think of himself as the equal to any man, and better than most.

  He didn’t want it said that he couldn’t handle a job that Marty could.

  And so it was that Marty was granted a temporary leave of absence. And that Lenny was going with him.

  Oh, it wouldn’t be long. Any day now the snow would start to fall or an ice storm could blow in. And that would mark the beginning of the end, at least for the Junction group’s gathering operation. For as soon as the roads were no longer passable, they’d shut down their operation and seal themselves into their mine.

  Much as Marty and the others had sealed themselves into the prison.

  But by giving the group a hand and two additional drivers, they could add at least four additional loads to their daily tally. And those additional trailers could well be the difference between life and death in the mine. Because if the freeze went on longer than expected… if they ran out of food or water before the thaw came, it would be tragic indeed.

  If they came very close to making it before running out and starving, it would be even more so.

  And if Marty could have made the difference by throwing a few extra trailers into the mix, and chose not to do so, he’d never forgive himself.

  Lenny didn’t have to go along. Marty didn’t tell him to, or even try to persuade him.

  But then again, Marty knew he wouldn’t have to.

  Lenny worshipped Marty as a kid might his big brother. And Lenny was a follower. As soon as he heard of Marty’s decision he asked, without a moment’s hesitation, “When are we leaving?”

  “Tomorrow morning at first light.”

  Lenny found humor in that.

  “Marty, the skies aren’t light, even in the daytime.”

  “Okay, smart aleck. How about when the sky becomes a lighter shade of brown?”

  Marty didn’t tell Hannah or the others at Junction of his plans.

  For one thing, he was low key. He kept a low profile and hated being the center of attention.

  He was everything that Mayor Al wasn’t.

  Marty knew that if he announced his plans over the radio, that Hannah and Sarah and everyone else within earshot would start crying.

  They’d start thanking him profusely, gush on and on about what a great man he was, and call him a hero.

  “I’m not a damn hero,” he’d have to tell them. Probably several times. “I’m just a trucker trying to help out some friends.”

  But they’d continue to heap praise upon him and shine a spotlight on him.

  He didn’t want that. He’d just show up with a load, with Lenny behind him in tight tandem, and surprise them with it. The women would all rush up to him and hug him, and maybe even kiss him.

  Then they’d drop it and welcome him into their ranks. Where he could be just another trucker on a critically important mission.

  Truckers had always been the lifeline which kept America alive. That was a role Marty was comfortable in filling.

  As long as they didn’t call him a damn hero.

  -13-

  In San Antonio a different kind of crisis loomed. A war was on the horizon.

  An entire class of people had been deceived. Then they were left to die.

  And they weren’t very happy about it.

  On her last visit to Wilford Hall Regional Medical Center, just before she received her all clear from her doctors, Hannah and Mark had tried to warn them about Cupid 23.

  Dr. Tim Wilcox was incredulous.

  “You can’t be serious. Please tell me this is some kind of sick joke. A stupid prank.”

  “It’s neither, Doc. At worst it’s just a silly woman being paranoid. I’ll leave it up to you to decide, and you can base your actions on whether or not our arguments have merit.”

  Dr. Wilcox was one of Hannah’s primary physicians. He was abrasive, short tempered and hard-headed. But he knew his stuff and wouldn’t take flak from anyone.

  The other man who’d helped bring her back after her helicopter crash was Dr. Morris Medley. He was a good and gentle man. He reminded Hannah of her own father. She liked him a lot, and spent a lot of hours during her recovery talking with him about anything and everything.

  Mark said, “There’s something else you guys need to know as well. Perhaps something even more disturbing than the possibility of a second strike itself.”

  “Really?”

  Mark laid out everything for the doctors. How they’d lost a quarter of their livestock to Colonel Montgomery’s animal sharing program. How they’d contributed from their stock of seeds for his growing operation.

  How they’d been told their generous contributions to the cause were saving lives in San Antonio.

  And how they’d discovered the residents of San Antonio weren’t get any help at all.

  Mark laid out his suspicions, including the long line of cement mixers ready to pour concrete on a project which was supposed to be doing nothing more than collecting soil.

  How Joel, one of the military’s own, backed up their suspicions by saying that side of the base was strictly off-limits. That whatever they were doing there was highly classified.

  “Well, that much is apparently true anyway,” Dr. Medley said. I’ve been here for three years and I’ve never heard of any such growing operation, or any construction project, going on over on that side of the base.”

  Dr. Wilcox had been skeptical, but tried very hard to poke holes in the couple’s account and couldn’t.

  Now, several days after the world suddenly went cold again, the doctors finally saw that everything Hannah and Mark warned them about was true.

  On the day Cupid 23 struck the earth and the smell of earth permeated anything and everything, Dr. Wilcox had gone to the base commander, a two-star general named Swain, to receive guidance.

  “I need to know which wings of the hospital to close down. Which ones to cordon off. Which ones we can transfer personnel out of and into the Emergency Medicine Department.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the general’s adjutant said. She was a young Captain, pretty but not very smart, and still unaware she’d been played.

  “I haven’t seen him since the first reports of a strike started coming in. I drove over to his quarters, and he and his family are gone. They seem to have disappeared.”

  Wilcox’s radio calls to the 17th Air Force went unanswered, as did his calls to the Air Education and Training Command, Headquarters U.S. Air Force and the Pentagon.

  It seemed that Major General Swain wasn’t the only one who’d disappeared. Most of the top military brass did as well.

  And Dr. Wilcox knew exactly where they went.

  On any military base, colonels hold high sway. Many are compassionate, many are brutal dictators. But all have the power to make or break anyone beneath them.

  Put a group of twenty such colonels together and they make a formidable force.

  Dr. Wilcox was a colonel. And though not well liked among the enlisted ranks because of his brashness, he was an excellent leader.

  Dr. Morris Medley was a lieutenant colonel, a grade below Wilcox. But he too was an outstanding leader.

  On the day they’d discovered their leaders had abandoned them to fend for themselves, they understandably weren’t very happy.

  And they decided to take action.

  Joint Base San Antonio had been decimated after Saris 7, like every corner of the rest of the world. Their corps of colonels, which once numbered over a hundred, now rested at twenty. It was a mix of Air Force and Army officers, with one colonel from the United States Marine Corps thrown in for good measure.

  As it happened, Dr. Wilcox had seniority over every other colonel, including Swain’s deputy.

  In the absence of General Swain, Wilcox was in charge.

  He’d called a meeting of the colonels at the Group Conference Center to relay sensitive information and discuss strategy.

  “I don’t know how much of this has gotten around. I don’t know how many of the rumors have gotten convoluted and screwed up. For the benefit of those of you who are still unclear, I’m going to give you the straight poop. And I don’t want any of this to leave the room. I know we’re all the same rank, but I’m telling you… don’t cross me on this. I can be a bigger son of a bitch than any five of you put together.

  “The brass has abandoned us. They’ve left us to die. All of us, from the men in this room to the lowest airman out there trying to round up blankets and firewood. What’s worse, they’ve left our families to die as well. I signed up to die for my country if the need called for it, and so did you. But our families and loved ones… they didn’t sign up for this. And that’s why we’ve got to take action.”

  Wilcox looked from face to face.

  None of them said a word.

  But he had their full attention.

  -14-

  “Two years ago a bird colonel by the name of Montgomery came here from 8th Army Headquarters.

  “He was on orders from the Army Chief of Staff. His orders were top secret and he was told he had HQ authority to take control of any resources he needed to accomplish his mission.

  “He started by taking control of seven of the hangars at the former Kelly Air Force Base, as well as eighty acres of land on the far side of the hangars.

  “He installed security fences around the entire complex and put in place a security system rivaling the Pentagon’s own.

  “He instructed his people to tell anyone who asked they were on a survey project. He himself told people he was running an operation to feed the survivors of Bexar County. He used that as justification to seize surviving livestock and seed stores from many of the area’s farmers and ranchers.

  “I’ve heard reports that those who challenged him were shot dead, buried on their own land, and their stock was taken anyway.

  “Apparently he had quite a growing operation going on out there, right under our noses. The livestock he took and bred numbered into the thousands. And it wasn’t just cattle. It was swine and poultry as well. He turned several of the hangars into greenhouses and was growing substantial amounts of food as well.

  “If he really used the food to feed Bexar County’s survivors, he’d have had enough to do a pretty good job of it.

  “But that wasn’t his real intent. His real intent was to butcher the livestock and to freeze the meat. To stockpile the crops. To put it all aside to feed a second wave of Washington insiders and politicians and their families.

  “It turned out they had two related operations going on at the same time. The first one was the growing operation. They were a little bit more liberal about releasing information on that one. They bragged about it and told some folks from up north about it.

  “The second operation was a construction project. A big one. They built an underground bunker. I don’t know the dimensions of it, but it was described to me as huge. Probably big enough to house several hundred people.

  “They knew all along the second meteorite was coming. And they did exactly what they did the first time. They told the regular citizens to go to hell and protected their own.”

  One of the other colonels said, “Oh my God. It’s President Sanders’ bullshit all over again. Just a different crew on a different day.”

  “Exactly. Any questions so far?”

  “Yes,” another asked. “Pardon me for being so skeptical. But how in the world could they keep something that under wraps? I mean, the logistics part of it must have been enormous. And the personnel… if you employ that many personnel on a top secret project, the word’s gonna get out. Somebody’s gonna talk.”

  “Montgomery knew his business. That’s probably why he was hand-selected. He knew how to do it.

  “One of the first things I believe he did was visit General Swain and bring him on board. He apparently told Swain the meteorite was coming, and the only way he could secure the survival of himself and his family was to play ball. Not to buck him, and to give him carte blanche over all the base’s resources.

  “Then he took control of the area’s airspace. Not just over Joint Base San Antonio, but the whole city of San Antonio. He had the Pentagon declare martial law over San Antonio International Airport, saying that all the aircraft fuel was damaged by the long freeze. That’s why all the airlines stopped flying two years ago. Everybody assumed the airlines all shut down because most of their personnel died or left the area. And that was plausible. But even civilian pilots weren’t allowed to fly their own light aircraft anymore because he had all the runways blocked with heavy equipment.

  “Once he had control of the air, only his helicopters were flying. They patrolled the area twenty four seven watching for anybody coming close and stopped them long before they got there. Nobody could see anything from above. Nobody could get through their security net. From that point on it was easy to hide everything.”

  “My God, Colonel Wilcox. You’re accusing Pentagon brass of high crimes. Not to mention our own base commander. What you’re saying is treasonous, unless you have proof. Do you?”

  -15-

  Wilcox wanted to lash out at the man. In a rare display of restraint, though, he held his tongue.

  And his temper.

  He went on.

  “One of those folks Montgomery told became a patient at Wilford Hall after Montgomery’s helicopter went down in heavy woods. That’s how we found out about the whole thing. She had actually been there.

  “I don’t know why he chose to tell them about his food growing operation. Maybe he was just proud and wanted to show off. I understand he was a braggart. Maybe he was infatuated with her. I don’t know. But they were given a tour of the livestock areas and the greenhouses.

  “They were told that all the food was being taken to San Antonio to keep the survivors alive. And most people would have accepted that at face value, thought Montgomery was saving lives, and commended him for his efforts.

  “The trouble was, when their helicopter lifted off from the helipad in front of the greenhouse hangars, it went high enough for them to see the bunker under construction way off in the distance.

  “They said they asked Montgomery about it and he seemed agitated. He said it wasn’t a construction project. It was a digging project. That all they were doing was digging deep soil from the ground to use in their greenhouse planting boxes. That the deeper the soil the richer it was, the more packed with nutrients.

  “They accepted his word, not knowing any better. It was only later they began to question him. And to ask why a project to collect dirt would require twenty cement mixers lined up and at the ready.

  “Later they found out that the people of San Antonio weren’t getting any meat or produce at all from Colonel Montgomery. And when the helicopter went down and the girl became my patient, she got to know the only other survivor pretty well while they were recovering.

  “He was an enlisted guy. An aircrew member. He was kept in the dark, but revealed to her that the so-called digging project was always pouring concrete. He said the line of cement mixers they saw wasn’t just a one-time thing. That they were there pretty much daily.”

  The skeptic shook his head.

  “What you’re doing, Colonel Wilcox, is adding two and two together and coming up with seven. You’re seeing a few things you don’t understand and applying your own conclusions to them. What you’re doing is inciting mutiny, and trying to get us to sign on as well. What you should be doing is trying to find out what happened to General Swain and his family. Have you even thought about opening an investigation into their disappearance?”

  At the opposite end of the table another colonel banged his fist upon the tabletop.

  “Shut up, Landry. If you don’t want to be here, then there’s the door. Get the hell out. Let this man speak. What he’s saying is starting to make sense. Give him a chance to finish before you start making your own miscalculations.”

  Wilcox continued.

  “That woman… the one who took the helicopter tour with Colonel Montgomery and survived the crash… she came to me before the second meteorite hit. She predicted the second strike, and said the world would freeze again.

  “I didn’t believe her at first. I thought she was hallucinating because of her head trauma. The truth was I didn’t want to believe her.

  “I should have known better. I knew ahead of time who she was. I recognized her from her TV interview several years ago. When the announcement was first made about Saris 7. She’d given an interview to a local news station to blow the whistle on NASA and the federal government’s efforts to hide the truth about Saris 7. That interview was played constantly on all the cable news networks in the days leading up to the first strike. Do you all remember her?”

  A few heads nodded.

  “Her name back then was Hannah Jelinovic. She’s married now. Her new name is Snyder. But she’s the one who blew the whistle on the whole Saris 7 thing.

  “I should have believed her about the second meteorite based on that alone. But I didn’t want to believe we had a second freeze coming.

  “And I sure as hell didn’t want to believe that our own government was betraying us again, right under our noses. Or that General Swain might be involved, because he had to have known about it.

  “So I brushed her off. I shouldn’t have done that. Now that her prediction about the second strike has come true, I have no more reason to doubt her other contention.

  “I firmly believe that beneath a field on the far side of Kelly’s old airfield is a massive bunker. And I believe it to be inhabited by all the Washington insiders, including high-ranking Pentagon officials and their families. And I believe General Swain and his family are in there too, as a reward for his playing ball with Montgomery and not exposing him.”