The Survivors Ch 06

I took my time getting ready for this trip. I had no idea how ling I was going to be gone this time.

If I came back at all.

To tell the truth, that pony nuke back in Montana had scared me a bit. Just knowing that someone wanted me dead that badly was a little unnerving.

I wasn't scared for myself, but I couldn't shake the vision of Hamilton ordering a nuke strike on our little farm community.

I made my preparations to leave as unobtrusively as I could.

Vick and Melissa knew that I was going of course, as did Vicki's husband Jack. But I was trying to keep as low a profile as possible for now.

"How are you going to find General Hamilton?" Melissa asked.

I grinned at her. "A guy like him is never hard to find. All I have to do is look for lots of activity. He'll be somewhere nearby."

She hugged me tightly. "I'm scared," she whispered." "Me too," I replied. "But we both know that I have to find him and find him before he finds us. For all I know he has the launch codes for a silo somewhere, and might decide to use them."

She shivered in my arms. "That would be just like that paranoid bastard." She agreed.

Melissa pulled back a little and kissed me fiercely, and then she turned and went outside to check on our sons.

Vicki came up to me with Cindy in tow. "Dad, I want you to take Cindy with you when you go."

I turned to face her. "Say what?"

"I am getting worried about her," Vicki said.

I have been hearing some talk, and I think she'd actually be safer with you than here for right now."

I felt the Ghost rise up in me again. "Who dares?" I rasped.

Vicki took a step back in spite of herself. "Nothing concrete. Mostly just whispers and she's been getting a lot of dirty looks from some of the women lately. And it would be all too easy for an 'accident' to happen."

I took a deep breath to calm myself and forced the Ghost back down, but it didn't quite all go away.

"You have about a week," I told Vicki. "Get her checked out on the MP5K and find a handgun that she can shoot comfortably enough to get good with it. A 22 or maybe a .38."

Vicki nodded. "Right," she said. Turning to Cindy she smiled tenderly down at the Changeling child. "Come on squirt. We have a lot of work to do and not much time to do it in." She took Cindy's hand and led her out of the room.

I went and sat down in a rocking chair and thought dark and evil thoughts about anyone who would threaten a child as sweet as Cindy. I realized that I had become quite fond of her in the months that I had been around her.

I heard a shout, and then a burst of autofire outside, and I was out of the chair with my gun in my hand before the echoes had died away.

When I went through the door low and fast, I saw Jack standing there with an Uzi in his hand.

There was a very dead body a few feet from him, a large revolver a few inches from one out flung hand.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I'm not entirely sure," replied Jack, "I was looking for Vicki and saw this joker taking aim at Melissa and the kids. So I yelled at him to drop his gun. He turned and I shot him."

I took a closer look at the dead man.

No one I knew.

"Who the hell was he?" I asked.

Jack shrugged. "Hell if I know. I don't recognize him."

My blood went cold. An infiltrator.

"Get everyone together for a meeting ASAP." I told Jack. "Priority 1,"

He nodded and took off at a dead run.

Melissa had scooped the boys up and headed for cover when the first shots sounded. Now she came over, leaving the boys hiding in cover. "What's going on?" she asked worriedly.

"We got problems," I told her. "Get he boys inside, and if you see anyone you don't recognize, shoot them."

She pulled her 9mm and went to go collect our sons.

When everyone had gathered, I stood on the porch and addressed them.

"Folks, we have a new problem. Those same bastards that burned out Carltown sent an assassin after Melissa and me today. Jack was able to stop him before he could strike, but it was a narrow escape."

I looked around at the gathered crowd.

"There will likely be more of them showing up. So I am going to take the war to them."

There were murmurs at this announcement. I held my hand up for silence and the mutters died away.

"While I am gone, Melissa, Vicki and Jack will be in charge. Obey them as you would me, and we just may make it out of this in one piece. For now though, if you see anyone you don't recognize, kill them. Don't wait to see if they are friend or foe, if you don't know them, shoot to kill."

I dismissed the crowd and took my family back inside.

"No time for training," I said to Vicki. "Issue Cindy a knife, MP5K and a simple .22 revolver. Make up a field pack that she can carry. We leave tonight."

Melissa looked on the verge of tears. "So soon," she quavered.

I took her in my arms and relished the feel of her body against mine. "I can't wait until another infiltrator shows up," I told her. "Next time we might not be so lucky,"

"At least take a few men with you," she pleaded.

I shook my head. "No, they would only get killed, or worse, get me killed." I sighed. "This is something that Cindy and I have to do alone. Together we have a decent chance to survive and to nip this shit in the bud."

Melissa was silent for a long moment. "When will you leave?" She asked at last.

"Tonight," I said.

She took my hand and tugged me toward the stairs that led to the bedrooms upstairs, "Then let's not waste any more time talking."

I wasn't about to argue.

As it turned out, Vicki, Jack, Melissa and a mechanic named Paul accompanied Cindy and me as we left around midnight.

Our immediate destination was a small airport just outside of what had been the town of Alliance.

We arrived around dawn, and waited for full daylight.

Once the sun was well up, we left the truck and did a careful recon of the airport.

There were only a handful of Changelings, and we soon had them wiped out.

As I had hoped, most of the small aircraft there were still in decent shape, and it didn't take John long to get an elderly Piper Cub running and ready to go.

Once the plane was ready, we topped off the fuel tanks.

I loaded the supplies and Cindy aboard the Cub and turned to get one more kiss from Melissa while Cindy was saying her goodbyes to Jack and Vicki.

"Come home safe to me," Melissa said softly.

"I will," I assured her.

"You'd better," she smiled bravely through her tears.

Vicki hugged me and Jack and John shook my hand before I climbed into the Cub.

"I'm gonna try to get a couple more of these planes up and running," John said. "Vicki and Jack can fly them back to the farms, and I'll drive back with Melissa."

Be careful and leave at least an hour before dusk, whether you are done or not." I said.

John nodded and headed back into the hangar with Melissa trailing him to act as a lookout.

"Mike, I put a few clips worth of some special rounds I loaded for your trip. They'll go through body armor like it wasn't there." Jack said. "But use them carefully, you only have a couple hundred rounds of them. The rest of your loadout is standard hollowpoint and FMJ mix."

I thanked him and closed the door.

Moments later, Cindy and I were taxing down to toward the runway.

Once airborne, we circled the airport once, and then I pointed us into the sunset and eased the throttle back a bit for maximum fuel economy.

Cindy was looking out the window on her side, absorbed in the view of the countryside 5000 feet below. I wished I could have been so relaxed.

We flew on roughly west-southwest until we passed what had been Cheyenne.

There was nothing left of the former capital of Wyoming but burned out rubble.

"What happened here?" Cindy asked.

"No idea love," I replied. But I had a suspicion that General Hamilton's boys had been responsible.

I was watching the fuel gauge carefully.

If we didn't find a place to refuel, we would be hoofing it the rest of the way,

Down below and just ahead, I saw a small truck stop just of the interstate,

I buzzed low over the building to check for signs of Changelings.

Sure enough I saw a dozen or so of the shaggy figures, but they were acting most unlike any Changelings that I had ever seen.

Instead of gathering outside aggressively, these scattered in blind panic, running off into the scrub brush as if the devil himself were after them.

Another look at the gas gauge told me I had to land, and right now.

I swung us into the wind and put down easily on the frontage road.

I taxied as close as I dared to the pumps with my H&K held ready.

Cindy had her own subgun out and ready, although I had little confidence she would hit anything except at point blank range.

I exited the airplane, followed by Cindy, lugging a 5-gallon gas can in her free hand.

I watched nervously, trying to look in all directions at once as Cindy pried the cover from one of the underground gas tanks.

She fed a siphon hose down the hole and started cranking away on the handle of the siphon. The other end of the hose was in the gas can. Once she had filled the can, she carried it over to the plane and poured the fuel into the planes tank.

It took her 8 trips before the plane was full.

"All done Grandpa." She said.

I eased over toward the building itself to where I could peer inside.

There were plenty of signs that the Changelings had been laired up here for quite some time.

But there were a few empty 5-gallon gas cans still among the debris.

"Cindy honey, " I said. "Slip in there and get as many of those gas cans as you can carry."

She slung her MP5K and entered the building. I trusted her keen senses to warn her if any Changelings tried to come in through the back, and I concentrated on what I could see to the front and sides of the building.

Cindy came out of the building with a dozen cans she had tied together with a length of electrical cord through the handles.

Smart girl.

She carried the cans over to the siphon and proceeded to fill them with gas.

As she finished with each one, she carried it to the Cub and stowed it as far back as she could. When she was done, She climbed into her seat and waited for me.

I paused a moment, but there was no sign of the Changelings returning.

Most curious. They should have been swarming all over the plane as soon as we hand landed.

I got back into the Piper and started the engine. As soon as I could, I taxied out to the frontage road and took off straight ahead.

As we climbed, I was remembering the mountains ahead. There was always the pass by Laramie, but if General Hamilton were operating in this area, he would have that bottleneck guarded.

And the last thing I needed was for him to figure out that I was coming his way.

I swung us to the Northwest and headed for a pass I dimly remembered from maps I had seen long ago, and I cursed myself for not having boned up on the geography of the area while I had the chance.

The flight through the mountains was harrowing, and we nearly ended up slamming into the side of a mountain a few times.

Only the full moon gave us enough light to see by. Otherwise I would have put down somewhere and waited for morning.

The Cub was heavy and sluggish with the weight of all that extra fuel in the back, and it was tail heavy.

I kept the speed just a couple of notches above stall, and we wended out way through valleys and up over passes whenever possible.

The Cub was mostly wood and fabric, but all those gas cans in the back would give us a radar signature that not even a moron could miss. So we stayed low and slow, keeping as low a profile as possible.

Cindy seemed to be enjoying the ride, not flinching even at the close escapes. I doubt she knew just how close a few of them were.

We finally broke out of the mountains about dawn, and it was time to set the plane down and refuel.

I landed us on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, and it only took a few minutes for me to check the oil in the engine while Vicki poured the gas into the planes fuel tank.

We were off the ground again in less than 20 minutes.

This time I stayed just high enough to clear power lines and trees, hedgehopping toward Salt Lake City.

For hours, every farm or small town we overflew had been burned out and destroyed.

Someone wanted to make damn sure that there was no shelter or anything else useful left for someone to use.

It also meant that there were likely very few surviving Changelings in the area.

I felt my intuition stirring, and I landed on the next flat stretch of road I saw.

"Cindy," I said. "Put the rest of the gas into the tank and then get rid of all the gas cans except the plastic one."

To her credit, she didn't ask why, she just did it.

While she was busy, I moved a couple of yards away into the brush and relieved my bladder.

When I was done, I let Cindy use the bushes, and then we climbed back aboard the Cub and I took off.

Without all that extra weight in the back, the Piper handled responsively.

I took us up to about 9,000 feet. As far as I could see, nothing more advanced than a few now wild horses and cattle were moving below.

I took us up as high as I dared. The Cub didn't have oxygen, so that limited us severely.

As we flew on, I taught Cindy to take the controls and hold us nice and steady.

She soon caught on and was able to keep us in a stable turn at will.

We had been eating from the lunches packed for us by Melissa and Vicki, since I knew that what we didn't eat we would have to leave with the plane.

"What are we going to do when we find them?" Cindy asked suddenly.

"I am going to kill as many as possible," I said. "But the one we absolutely must get at all costs is General Hamilton."

"Why him?" she asked.

"Because he is the one who released the Hellbug and made the Changelings. And he is the one who sent the men to kiss us at Carltown." I replied.

She bared her teeth in a silent snarl. "Then I want to be there when you kill him."

I looked at her for a long moment.

"Cindy. You know that we may both get killed on this mission."

She nodded,

"If I get killed. Do not try for General Hamilton yourself. Instead, get away and make your way back to the farms and tell Melissa what happened. She'll know what to do."

The little Changeling leaned her head on my arm and cried.

There was definite activity around Salt Lake City.

There were trucks and tanks and helicopters everywhere.

I made sure to stay well clear and as high as possible to avoid detection.

However the soldiers down there were concentrating on killing anything that moved on the ground and setting fire to every damn thing that would burn. No one would be looking for us way up here.

Then I saw a glint in the sky ahead.

It was at least 20 miles away and crossing from left to right. And it was a lot higher than we were.

The bastard had air support.

I should have expected it. But for so long we had been the ones in the air that I had forgotten that what we could do, others could as well.

Then I saw another distant speck, closer this time and heading our way. "Hang on!" I said and put the piper into as steep a dive as I dared.

Against jet fighters, our only chance was to get low in a hurry and stay there.

When we passed 1000 feet I pulled back on the stick as hard as I dared. Too little and we would make a nice hole in the ground

Too much and the wings would snap right off.

As it was we leveled off about 30 feet off the ground and traveling way too fast for an old ragwing like the Piper Cub.

But there was a chance that we hadn't been seen, a piper cub is a small aircraft, and we had had the sun behind us.

I made a series of S turns to check our tail, but saw nothing.

Either we hadn't been seen or else the dive and the low flight lost them.

I knew that General Hamilton liked Nellis AFB out in Nevada. He had talked about it many times when he would stop by to give us our orders.

His idea of being 'one of the boys' was to rattle off a few inane thoughts and then sit there and grin.

I wonder if her knew how much we despised him.

I checked the compass and adjusted course to head for Las Vegas.

The plane gave out about 100 miles shy of our goal, and I stretched the glide as far as I could before coming to a rather bumpy landing out in the desert.

Cindy and I pulled a camouflage net over the Cub after pushing it into a thicket of mesquite.

The longer it took them to find it from the air, the further away we would be.

"Grandpa?" Cindy said as we hiked into the desert evening. "When will we stop to sleep?"

I thought for a moment. I was used to going 2 or 3 days without sleep, but Cindy couldn't stand that kind of pace.

"We'll stop here in about an hour," I said at last. "I want another couple of miles between us and the plane before we stop."

"OK grandpa," she said and took my hand as we hiked on.

Not long after that, Cindy stopped dead in her tracks. "I smell water," she said. "This way," and she led the way off at an angle to the route we had been taking.

Sure enough a few yards away there was an old stock tank kept full by a decrepit windmill.

I checked the water, then filled out canteens.

Supper was beef jerky and dried corn. We couldn't risk a fire.

I sat with my back against the windmill with my H&K in my hand,

Cindy lay on the ground beside me, using my thigh as a pillow. I stroked her hair and sang softly to her until she went to sleep.

That day we stayed near the stock tank, taking turns bathing and generally readying our gear. By my estimate we were about 30 miles from our goal.

I didn't want to think about what would happen if I was wrong and General Hamilton wasn't there.

We left at dusk. In the desert, traveling at night is always the preferred way to go.

It took us 2 nights travel to get to Nellis.

Sure enough , there was all kinds of activity there,

Vehicles of all kinds and people were everywhere. There were fighters and a few bombers on the tarmac and even a few of the old Huey Cobra attack helicopters. And off to one side, a lone Apache gunship with 5 stars painted on it.

That would be Hamilton's private toy, I thought to myself.

As we eased deeper onto the base, Cindy's keen senses kept us from discovery numberless times.

I followed her lead, letting her guide me around mines, tripwires and other assorted nasties.

I shook my head. The girl was a born Ghost.

Finally we eased under a barracks building to wait out the heat of the day. I unlimbered my binoculars and scanned the area.

Then I saw something that made my blood run cold.

There was something familiar about one of the women talking over by one of the hangars. I focused on her and cursed silently.

Angela.

There were a few female Ghosts back when I had been active,

Officially they were called The Furies.

The rest of us Ghosts called them Hell Bitches.

Cold as ice, never showing any emotion, they were efficient killing machines.

They would often seduce their way onto an enemy base, leaving a trail of corpses behind them.

Angela was one of the worst of the bunch.

There was one mission that we were on together. The target was a Syrian colonel. A simple hit and git mission. Not for Angela, she came up with a refinement all her own.

While I was off icing the Colonel and his mistress, Angela went to the nearby school and entered the dormitory building.

When she came back, we had to hurry to make the pickup point on time, so I didn't get a chance to ask her what she had been up to.

It was the next day that I found out that she had held each child down with her hand over their faces and used the knife in her other hand to disembowel them

Every kid in the place was killed.