Apache Dawn: Book I of the Wildfire Saga (28 page)

“Great, where’s the vaccine?
 
We’ll go get it for you,” offered Charlie.

The two doctors looked at each other and shared a sad expression.
 
“I’m afraid you can’t, son,” said Dr. Honeycutt.
 
“It was in Atlanta.
 
All
of it.”

“Of
course
it was,” said Charlie.
 

“El Segundo is still our best bet, then” said Cooper.
 
He pointed at the docs.
 
“Get him ready to move as soon as you can.
 
We’ll secure transport.
 
We need to be out of here,
pronto
.”

“Son,” said Dr. Honeycutt, putting his hands into his lab coat pockets and adopting the air of the professor.
 
“I think—”

“Doc, don’t give me that ‘son’ bullshit,” he waved a hand at his SEALs.
 
“I did
not
lose half my men to those North Korean
fucks
and then fight our way to the President—only to sit here and watch him
die
.
 
We’re going to have the whole Goddamn North Korean army screaming for our heads and tearing this building apart, shortly.
 
We will not—I repeat, WE WILL
NOT
be sitting in this basement wringing our hands when they get here.”
 
The older doctor straightened his back as if slapped in the face.
 
Cooper noted with some pride that Dr. Alston tried to hide a grin.
 

“Now,
you
do what you have to do—do what you
can—
to keep the President stabilized.
 
My men and I are going to do everything
we
can to unfuck ourselves and get us
all
to safety.
 
Wherever
the hell that is.”

“You can’t just move him−” started Dr. Honeycutt.

“Doctor,” Cooper said in a deathly quiet tone.
 
“If I have to, I will throw the President of the United States over my shoulder and carry him on my back to safety.
 
My mission is to get him the hell out of Dodge and I
will
complete my mission.
 
Do I make myself clear?”

C
HAPTER
12

Glacier National Park, Montana.

MacDonald Creek Valley.

S
TAFF
S
ERGEANT
G
ARZA
POINTED
up. “There,” he said.
 
The blinking running lights of the helicopter overhead glittered through the snow blowing in Chad’s face.
 
The reunited squad of Rangers clustered around him in a defensive perimeter and waited for the big helicopter to land.
 
“Captain, I got visual!”

The Captain nodded and shouted into his mic: “Anvil, what the hell’s the matter? Land that thing!”
 

 
Chad had been provided a small headset to communicate with the Rangers while they were trying to exit Glacier National Park.
 
He could hear the pilot squawk back a reply: “
Negative, Hammer 2, Actual...uh...we still can’t swing it....we have...uh...wind shear at a hundred feet is vicious and it took too much fuel to get in here.
 
I’m bingo fuel again.
 
If I land, I don’t take off.
 
I’ve marked your location, we’ll be back again when the winds die down
.”

“Damn it!” said one of the Rangers.
 
"He just got here!"

“Anvil, Hammer 2, Actual.
 
What the hell?” asked the Captain.
 
He frowned at the lack of response from the helicopter.
 
“Thanks for the attempt," he said, sarcasm dripping from his voice.
 
"We’ll meet you at the emergency LZ,” yelled the Captain over the noise of the storm and the helicopter.

“
Hammer 2, Actual, roger that.
 
Hunker down, we’ll refuel and get you outta there in the morning.
 
Raptor out
.”

As the helicopter gained altitude the lights winked out and they were all left in total darkness again.
 
The storm that had enveloped them yesterday showed no signs of letting up.
 
The sun had set an hour earlier and it was black as ink.
 
Chad did not want to spend yet another night out in the wild with nothing but a crudely made lean-to as shelter.
 

The Rangers huddled around Chad and took a knee, facing out.
 
Captain Alston watched the sky where helicopter had been.
 
“Anybody else think that pilot was lying?”

The big Ranger grunted.
 
“Doesn't seem any worse now than it did when they dropped us off...”
 

“Mr. Huntley, is there any shelter around here?” yelled the Captain.
 
“I don’t think I need to express to you how important it is for us to get warm…”

Chad shivered and thought.
 
He was so tired, his mind seemed full of mush.
 
“Can you show me exactly where we are on a map?”

The Captain nodded and pulled out a small GPS unit with their location marked on a topographical map of the area.
 
Chad examined it a bit then nodded.
 
“Yeah!” he hollered over the storm.
 
They were about a mile west of where he thought they were.
 
He shook his head at the idea that someone as familiar with the local terrain as himself could so easily be lost so quickly.
 
It was a hell of a storm.
 
This early in the year…it promised to be a bad, brutal winter.

“About half a mile north, up that slope,” Chad said, pointing at the colossal southern flank of Mt. Vaught.
 
“It’s just a way-station, really—but it’ll get us out of this mess!”

“Let’s move, Rangers.
 
Garza, take point.”

“Hooah!” barked Garza as he stood, then moved out in the direction his Captain was pointing.

Chad stood up, but was immediately grabbed by three different sets of hands and held in place.
 
“Hold up, sir,” someone said.
 
Chad could only watch as Garza’s ghostly form disappeared into the snow ten feet away.
 
“Okay, now we move.”

The squad followed just behind Garza, holding formation in a loose circle with Chad in the middle.
 
Two of their number were detached to follow slowly behind, to discourage any North Koreans still following them in the storm.
 
The Rangers had wiped out the entire group of men that had been hunting Chad yesterday, but the Captain was not completely convinced that there weren’t more of them in the woods.

After another hour-long slog through the deepening snow, fighting against the wind, and feeling their way through the dark, they finally made it to the little way-station cabin.
 
It was halfway up the southern slope of Mt. Vaught, right where Chad had said, tucked in a little ravine.
 
There was no obvious path and the approach from the south was blocked by a little cluster of pines and a snowbank.

“Looks more like a
shack
,” muttered one of the Rangers.

“Deuce!” barked the Captain.
 

“Sir!”

“Scope it out.”

“On it.”

“I’m sure it’s empty…no one uses this thing in the summer, let alone now.
 
And with this storm, who the hell would be up here?” said Chad bitterly.
 
They were only a few yards away from being able to get out of the storm and start to warm up.
 
All he wanted to do was lay down by a fire.

“Didn’t expect to find any North Koreans shooting at you in your own park either, did you, sir?” asked the Captain.
 
“As long as I’m in charge, we do it by the book.”
 
And that was that.

Eventually, Donovan radioed back that the shack and its surrounds were clear.
 
“Let’s go,” said the Captain.
 
Chad thanked God and quickly stood up, stomping his feet in the snow a bit trying to get his cold blood flowing enough to drag his ass into the way-station and start a fire.
 

Once inside with the thick wooden door shut, the relative silence was deafening.
 
After nearly two days of hearing the wind howl and feeling snow sting his face, the absence of those abuses was jolting.
 
He stood there in the cramped, cold, and dark cabin and closed his eyes.
 
At last some of the tension began to melt from his body.
 

“Tuck, you and Deacon dig in and watch the perimeter,” said the Captain, removing his helmet and face mask.
 
“Three hour shifts.
 
I’ll take next watch with Garza.”
 

“You got it, boss,” said the Ranger named Deacon.

“Here, take the thermal,” said Donovan and tossed his rifle to Deacon, who swapped for his own M4.
 
Chad noticed an odd-looking scope on the rifle Donovan had given away.

When the door shut again, the remaining Rangers began removing helmets and facemasks.
 
Chad was glad to see there actually were human faces under those masks after all.
 
The men who stood looking at him were all hard-faced individuals with short, close cropped haircuts and sharp eyes.

“That’s better,” sighed the tall one with red stubble on his head. He removed his gloves and offered an outstretched hand.
 
“We never got to be formally introduced out there…I’m Captain Derek Alston.”

“Chad Huntley.
 
But you already knew that…”
 
Chad felt foolish.
 
They shook hands.
 
The Ranger’s grip was firm and solid, his piercing blue eyes locked on Chad’s as they greeted each other formally.

“That there is Sergeant Garza,” Captain Alston said with a nod toward the short, olive skinned man with a close-cropped Mohawk.
 
Garza flashed a grin and began dropping his gear.

“I’ll get us some heat—there’s a woodstove in the corner,” said Garza.

“Over here we got Corporal Daniel Donovan—”

“Call me Deuce,” said the bull-necked soldier in a deep voice.
 
“Everyone else does.”
 

“And this here is Zuka.”

Chad noticed that ‘Zuka’ was the shortest member of the squad.
 
When he pulled his helmet off, his Japanese heritage was obvious.
 
Slightly almond-shaped eyes, jet black hair in a short-cropped brush and a slightly tan skin.
 
“The name’s Preston Onizuka.
 
Everyone calls me Zuka, though.”

Garza quickly added, “No one calls him Preston.
 
He looks small, but that little
hijo de puta
is half-ninja.
 
Don’t fuck with him,
esse
.”
 
Garza laughed.

Deuce walked past Zuka and laughed, more of a rumble than a chortle, slapping the short man on the back of the head.
 

“I know where you sleep, bitch,” said Zuka with a scowl.
 
His face split into a grin a half second later as his comrades laughed.

Captain Alston squatted on the wooden floor of the cabin and shrugged out of his pack and gear. His rifle leaned against the wall within easy reach to the left of the door.
 
He eased back against the wall and stretched his long legs with a sigh.

“I—have made—
fire!
” called out Garza from the woodstove, hands raised in self-praise.
 
Chad saw the warm glow of the fire from inside the open door.

“Cook me up a steak and I’ll be impressed,” muttered Deuce.
 

“Won’t be long now, we’ll get this place nice and cozy,”
 
Garza said as he looked around the meager cabin.
 
“Not much here though.
 
We got plenty of wood for the stove, but I got nothin’ else, Cap.”

“All right then, guys, we need some chow.
 
Think you can whip up something Donovan?”