Apache Dawn: Book I of the Wildfire Saga (80 page)

The looks on their faces made people he had lived with for a decade look like strangers—they appeared completely alien to him on this cold, bloody night.
 
They were consumed with rage.
 
Most of the people he knew did not recognize him, dressed as he was in camo and face-paint.
 

War paint,
he told himself.
 
The Shawnee are going to war one more time.
 
Denny was swept up in the river of people and carried toward the firefight.

Cleanse the land, Little Spear,
whispered Grandfather.

C
HAPTER
32

40 miles west of Boston, Massachusetts.

22,000 feet over Worcester.

C
OOPER
WOKE
UP
WHEN
he felt a firm grip shake his shoulder.

“It’s go-time, LT,” yelled Jax, a big grin plastered on the man’s face.

Cooper nodded and sat up, taking quick stock of his surroundings on the rumbling C-130.
 
He and the remainder of his Team were in the cavernous cargo area, bathed in red light.
 
The cargo crew was securing themselves by the rear hatch.
 
His own men were still in their seats, examining gear and parachute straps one last time.
 
He put on his high-altitude jump helmet and watched as the others followed suit.
 

Cooper took a deep breath and nodded again.
 
He watched as the cargomaster hit a button and the flashing red light started blinking overhead.
 
The rear hatch began to lower sedately, letting in the howling, cold wind as the opening grew wider and wider.
 
Cooper watched the dark hole grow in size as the big cargo ramp dropped out of sight.

The red light turned green.

“Let’s go, ladies!”
 
Cooper stood up and hobbled his way aft toward the opening.
 
His gait was made awkward by the parachute, the gear, the weapons, the High-Altitude/High-Opening jump gear and oxygen tank, all strapped to his body.
 
He prayed his knee didn’t lock-up before he made it to the ramp.
 

A quick glance over his shoulder confirmed his SEALs were lined-up right behind him, moving like their namesakes in an odd wobble-shuffle toward their date with the open sky.

Cooper stood at the edge of the ramp and switched on the latest-generation heads-up-display inside his helmet.
 
In the upper-right corner of his field of view, he saw the rest of his team behind him through the rear-facing camera on his back.
 
Altitude, windspeed, air temperature, O2 levels, and GPS coordinates were displayed on the left side.
 
He moved his eyes to the far left of the helmet and the screen switched to night-vision.
 
I love these things.

“Radio check,” he shouted over the muffled roar of the wind.

“Two
,” said Charlie.

“Three
,” said Jax.

“Four
,” replied Swede.

“Five
,” muttered Mike.

“Six
,” said Sparky.

The cargomaster slapped Cooper on the shoulder and gave him the thumbs-up.

Cooper nodded.
 
The little rear-view screen showed Charlie’s insect-like head nod to the cargomaster as his XO stepped up in-line.

One more step.
 
Cooper closed his eyes and savored the moment.
 
The start of a new mission.
 
Everything was green.
 
Everything was before him, the past was gone.
 
His head was clear, his mission was clear, his world was focused.
 
He was ready.

Please let my leg hold up on the landing…

He leaned forward and fell out the back of the plane, grinning like a schoolboy at the familiar feeling of free-fall.
 
The roar of the plane vanished in a heartbeat, replaced by the roar of the wind as it screamed past his helmet, trying to freeze him as he approached terminal velocity.
 
It was one of the perks of his job he would miss the most when he retired.
 
The complete freedom, the near weightlessness, the odd sensation in his stomach that told him he was in free-fall.
 
He loved it.
 

He watched the mission timer on the left side of his screen. When the little green clock ticked over to fifteen seconds, he pulled the D-ring on his chest and braced for the jolt of the main parachute unfurling above him.
 
With a muffled
snap
, the ‘chute filled with frigid air and halted his uncontrolled descent.

The voice of the wind softened to a gentle whistle as he watched his airspeed slow and his rate of descent drop into the controlled stage.
 
He flicked his eyes to the right and watched the rest of his team deploy right on cue, one after the other.
 
He could just barely make out the the dark shape of the C-130 as it turned against the star-field and disappeared from sight in the distance.
 
When Mike’s ‘chute opened and Cooper was confident his entire team was secured and on target, he turned his attention back to the ground, still thousands of feet below.

Worcester was already falling under his feet and moving behind the SEALs.
 
The darkened city was a large, black hole in the landscape below, marked by a few random points of light.
 
The mission briefing had revealed that the locals would likely be burning fires in backyards.
 
Power was sporadic across the region, due to workers falling ill iwht the rapidly spreading influenza.

As far as he could see at this considerable height through the light clouds below him, there were dark green fields and darker green forested areas—all interconnected by the black ribbons of roadways.
 
Everything was calm, everything was quiet, everything was dark.
   

“
One, Four.
 
Check your two o’clock low
.”

Cooper frowned at the break in radio silence but looked where Swede had directed.
 
He flicked his eyes to the far right of his HUD and the rear-view screen cycled to a map of their area of operation.
 
The glowing green dots represented his team, the blue triangle was Cooper, himself.
 
They were passing over the intersection of Interstates 495 and 95.
 
He noticed on the map that two o’clock low corresponded to the darkened city of Framingham.

Looking back down at the ground, he saw what had attracted Swede’s attention.
 
A line of vehicles, tiny little specks down below on I-495, led by the lance-like beams of their headlights.
 
There were twelve vehicles, all traveling on the interstate at perfectly maintained spacing.
 
It was a military convoy, and they had just left Framingham in flames.
 
It looked like half the town was on fire.

The Germans are ranging out of Boston.
 
Must be a retaliation raid or something…
 

“Copy that, Four.”

Cooper made a mental note to remember the convoy roaming around behind them when they landed.
 
He squinted his eyes and looked forward at Boston, nearly straight ahead and at the far edge of his vision.
 
He glanced at the distance-to-target number on his HUD: 25 miles.
 
The number was dropping quickly.
 
His altitude was down to 16,000 feet and falling.

He lost track of Boston in the distance as he dropped into some thin clouds and his vision went white.
 
It was an eerie sensation, knowing that your body was falling out of the sky—hanging by just a few threads connected to a billowing sheet of silk thousands of feet above the ground, surrounded by clouds and the nocturnal darkness.
 
Without the advanced tactical night-vision built into his HAHO rig, Cooper would have been completely blind.
 
He looked around and could barely see his hands and feet—then suddenly he was through the cloud deck and burst into the night once more.

The ground below sprung into sharp clarity, so that he had a much better view than when he had been above the clouds.
 
In the distance loomed Boston, a giant black hole on the edge of the starlit ocean.
 
A ring of lights were visible—even at a distance of nearly 20 miles—fires and spotlights that ringed the besieged town.
 
It appeared the largest concentration of lights were clustered due west of Boston and located, according to his map display, around Newtown.
 
That had to be the German base.

Random flickering of lights down below gave away the position of people trying to survive the crisis.
 
Cooper could see as he through 10,000 feet, that whole neighborhoods had made huge bonfires so entire blocks could share the light and heat.
 
It was truly a desolate scene below—there were no visible indications of cars or trucks moving about, no houses with lights, nor a single strip mall.
 
It was as if he had traveled back in time two hundred years, back to a time when the only light was provided by a candle or a torch.

As they passed through 5,000 feet and came within ten miles of their landing zone, Cooper continued to keep a wary eye on the sky for German aircraft and drones.
 
His night-vision enhanced HUD showed no aerial threats yet, but he was still cautious.
 
The last thing they needed was to be spotted by a damn drone or some Luftwaffe pilot flying CAP over Boston.

The great northern city grew ever larger, filling his green-tinted HUD.
 
He could make out skyscrapers and the downtown district now, out on the wide peninsula in the Bay.
 
There were lights in many of the windows of the bigger buildings.
 
He could see fires burning in the streets and groups of vehicles prowling the outer fringes.
 
It looked like a restless night.

They sailed, silent as a whisper, over the I-95 loop where it intersected U.S. 90, the Massachussetts Turnpike, heading into the heart of the city.
 
The Germans were just below them now; he could easily spot their sprawling base.
 
It was the large area full of heavy equipment, neatly parked rows of half-tracked vehicles and what looked like tanks and a few planes as well.
 
There was a stream of lights heading overland from the port, where he could see dozens of large ships anchored offshore.
 
Cooper frowned as he realized their resupply effort was in full swing.
 
At that instant, he saw a large cargo plane lift off from Logan International. The huge plane and started to claw its way into the sky, heading east over the Bay toward Europe.

He scanned the approaching ground—now just a few thousand feet below—watching roads and neighborhoods roll by under his boots and bags of gear that were strapped to his body.
 
He could see burning buildings, flattened homes, swaths of whole neighborhoods that were just ugly, charred black smears instead of homes and businesses.
 
The rioting and unprecedented repression by the Germans in response had left battle scars all around the outskirts of Boston.

At last he was able to spot their primary landing zone, John F. Kennedy Park, just on the north side of the Charles River, about as close as possible to Harvard’s campus, where the good Professor was reportedly living.
 
Instead of the darkened grass and trees he expected, Cooper spotted lights and movement.
 
There was a group of people walking around with flashlights and a number of vehicles on the outskirts of the park.
 
A German forward operating base?
 
Or a checkpoint?
 
The Park was conveniently located adjacent to the John F. Kennedy Street Bridge that linked Cambridge to Allston.
 

Well, that’s not going to work.
 
Damn park is crawling with Germans.

He keyed his mic: “All units, abort primary LZ, repeat, abort primary LZ.
 
Follow my lead to the alternate.”
 
He listened to a series of clicks as his men checked in by breaking squelch and acknowledged the change in plans.