“This radio was Z‘ed out,” he said. “That means the encryption software was dumped to keep it from the Chinese, so we can’t hear or talk on the secure net. That’s why it’s so quiet. I guarantee you there are people talking right now. We just can’t hear their transmissions.”
Bobbi pointed at the handset. “But you can still call.”
“No. This radio is only capable of open broadcasts. We can only reach people who are monitoring or broadcasting in the open.”
The Harris was a sixteen-pound chunk of metal intended for use in a vehicle or as a field pack. It didn’t have the strength to contact Grand Lake or Sylvan Mountain directly. It was meant to be deployed as a part of a larger net—and they were in friendly territory. There were signals corpsmen and retransmission stations scattered across the Rockies. He might even be relayed through a plane if U.S. forces had put the right equipment in the air, trying to find stragglers like himself.
Or to kill them.
Cam was paranoid enough to believe that the new plague might have its origins on the American side. The U.S. weapons programs wouldn’t have stopped after Ruth went AWOL, and it wasn’t impossible that the plague zone was limited to this valley. What if, through sheer bad luck, this place had been chosen as a test area? He needed to make it clear who was at risk. They would come for Ruth. He was certain of that.
“The best we can do is stumble onto a frequency that’s being monitored or find two units talking in the unsecure and step on their transmission,” he said. “That’s why this could take awhile. There’ll be units who don’t have any better equipment than we do, but there are hundreds of frequencies. So you need to do this for me.”
“Hey!” Owen called from across the room, hefting a staple gun and a roll of tape. “We’re done except for the door. Are you coming out?”
“One minute.”
“We gotta seal up!” Owen shouted. He was a tall man and among the most visible in the crowd, which included his wife. The village gossip was that she’d miscarried twice, which was why Owen doted on her like nothing else. Cam didn’t want to argue with him.
“Close it,” he said. “I’ll come out as soon as I can.”
The air wouldn’t last. Sealing two huts in plastic was a temporary fix. Ripping down the greenhouses had also left more of their late-year crops unprotected, increasing the likelihood of more insect swarms tomorrow. Meanwhile, the fire ants were still expanding beneath Jefferson. Even if the colony stayed in the ground tonight, Cam knew they could count on dealing with the bugs again after sunrise. The vicious goddamned ants would be excited by the blood they’d spilled.
He switched to another frequency as hammers sounded on the outside of the door. He tried another and another, and suddenly the radio came to life:
“—through Medicine Bow and we need extraction off a hot LZ, over,” a man said very fast before another voice answered, “Roger, Cougar Six Two.”
Jesus, Cam thought.
What if the nanotech isn’t just in this valley? Where do we go?
There were large sections of National Forest called Medicine Bow nearby in Wyoming, and he knew those mountains were peppered with civilian and military camps. Cam didn’t recognize the call sign—Cougar Six Two might have been anyone—but they were American and that was all that mattered.
“Break break break,” he said. “Any station this net, this is Two Echo Two, any station this net, over.”
The first man responded. “Two Echo Two, Two Echo Two, this is Cougar Six Two. Over.”
“Roger, Cougar Six Two, I need you to pass along an emergency message, break. Flash code Revere. I say again, flash code Revere, over.”
Silence. The other man obviously had his own problems. He had been calling for some sort of evacuation himself, but his discipline held. The man said, “I need you to authenticate, Two Echo Two. Over.”
“I say again, flash code Revere. This is Corporal Najarro with the Seventy-Fifth. I need to speak with Major Thrun or the current operations officer in Grand Lake, over.”
His flash code was ancient by military standards. Call signs, encryptions, and communications windows were changed every thirty days. Cam had been out of contact for a year and a half, but Grand Lake would have archives that contained the OPORD mission profile from his last assignment. Grand Lake should know his name, and, knowing him, they should realize who might be with him.
“Roger that, Two Echo—” The background exploded with small arms fire and the man’s voice rose into a shout. “What is your current location, over?”
Cougar Six Two was under attack. Who were they fighting? Could there be enemy forces inside the plague zone or was Cougar defending himself from infected people? Cam spoke with icy control, trying to make himself more significant to Cougar Six Two than the disaster surrounding the other man. “I say again, Revere. Revere. I need you to pass that message ASAP, Cougar Six Two. I’ll monitor this frequency for the next thirty minutes and will come up on this station every hour on the hour for ten minutes thereafter, over.”
The man yelled just to be heard over the gunfire and screaming. “Understood, Two Echo Two! Godspeed. Out.”
“Do you think they’ll do it?” Bobbi asked, and Cam said, “Yes.” He’d seen nothing but self sacrifice from the troops he’d served with.
The only thing that’ll stop him from relaying our call is the plague,
he thought.
All they could do was wait. They couldn’t even scan for more transmissions because they had to sit on 925.25. Cam left Bobbi by the radio to help Susan with Brett, who was unconscious now. Maybe that was for the best. She’d done a good job of applying a pressure bandage to their friend’s midsection, and Cam tried to assess the damage. The bullet must have missed the aorta—Brett would be dead already—but it couldn’t have missed his intestines. The bacteria released from his digestive tract was a problem. They didn’t have antibiotics, which meant peritonitis would probably kill him even if he survived the wound itself. Cam nearly forgot everything else. He was among the best medics in the village, but they weren’t equipped for surgery, and opening Brett up would create at least as many complications as Cam could fix. He was still weighing their options when a smooth female voice filled the hut.
“Two Echo Two, this is Arapaho Five, over,” she said. Cam jumped on it, pushing Bobbi aside with a hand slick
with Brett’s blood. “I read you. Over.”
“Authenticate, Two Echo Two.”
“This is Corporal Najarro from Second Platoon, Echo Company, Second Battalion, Seventy-Fifth Ranger Regiment. Over.”
“Roger, Two Echo Two. Send your traffic, over.”
It was enough that Cam was elated. He glanced at Bobbi with his mouth bent in a thin line like a smile. The woman in Grand Lake must have run his ID on a computer. He and Ruth were probably flagged on a dozen programs along with Eric and Greg and other suspected collaborators like Allison.
He still couldn’t believe she was gone. He blurted out, “People are sick, ma‘am. I need a medevac now. Over.”
“Roger, Two Echo Two. Flash code Streak.”
That one simple word sent a chill up the back of his neck. Streak. It meant to change frequencies to avoid being trian gulated by the enemy. If she was concerned about enemy surveillance on the unsecured net, it could mean there really were hostile forces moving in behind the plague ...
We’d
bet
ter hope they miss us,
Cam thought, shifting his eyes from Bobbi to the other men and women in the hut. They couldn’t hold the town against enemy infantry.
He went up two bands as he’d been taught. “Arapaho Five, Two Echo Two,” he said on the new channel.
The woman in Grand Lake didn’t waste a moment, either, resuming their conversation in knifelike bursts. “What is your current location? Over.”
“We’re eighteen clicks southwest of Wackyville.” That was Morristown’s unfortunate nickname because so many of the people there were cultists, and Cam said, “Are you familiar with this area? Over.”
“Affirmative. Over,” the woman said, as Cam heard a snatch of a man’s voice behind her.
“—they get so close?” the man said.
“Ma‘am, I’m not alone,” Cam said urgently. “Two Echo Two is still together. Do you understand me? The gang’s all here and I need that chopper now. Tonight.”
“Can you maintain your position? Over.”
“Ma‘am, we have wounded and a lot of people sick. Over.”
“You need to hunker down, Two Echo Two, because everybody’s in the soup right now. All air assets are committed. Sit tight. I’m going to get you that helicopter, but I need a little time. Over.”
“Are you”—he almost couldn’t say it—“Are there people sick there, too?”
“Monitor the radio, Two Echo Two. We’ll patch you into our pilots as soon as we have an asset available. Over.”
“Oh, shit.” Cam stared at the handset without hitting his SEND button.
“Two Echo Two?” the woman asked. “What are you using for far and near recognition signs, Two Echo Two?” she asked, but Cam had already stood up and turned away from the radio with a cold, fresh sense of rising dread.
Bobbi touched his jacket. “Cameron?”
He couldn’t meet his friend’s eyes. What could he possibly say? He knew a Black Hawk would need most of an hour to cross the distance between Grand Lake and Jefferson—much longer, if Grand Lake was in chaos itself. He’d hoped to get them into the underground bunkers in Grand Lake, but that might be impossible if the surface of the mountain was crawling with infected people.
“Two Echo Two!” the radio said. “Two Echo Two, do you copy?”
Cam knelt and picked up the handset again as if it weighed a hundred pounds, uncertain it was worth the effort. Whoever had launched the plague, whatever the nanotech did, she wouldn’t tell him on an unsecured transmission. She might not even know.
“Just get here as fast as you can,” he said.
5
In the blue light
of the display screen, the colonel’s face was ghastly pale. The effect was supernatural. The light transformed his round features into something lean and monstrous, creating shadows like a mask. He used it well, turning to grin at the four technicians beside him. He knew his teeth shone like fangs because Dongmei’s pretty mouth glowed in the same way when she matched his expression.
They were all afraid. He wanted to harness that energy. As a senior officer, Colonel Jia Yuanjun had been trained to browbeat his troops if necessary, driving out weakness, but not every situation called for blunt force. These four were among his select. More importantly, they were right to be nervous, so he’d planned to redirect that adrenaline, binding them to him with aggression and pride. Everyone in the blue light of the flatscreens was very young for this task. They were so lost, too, here on the other side of the world from their home. Colonel Jia was only thirty-two, less than ten years older than any of his technicians—but like their fear, their youth could also be an advantage. Their hormones ran healthy and strong. That was another reason why Lieutenant Cheng Dongmei was present. Dongmei was the only female in the room, and, in fact, one of just eleven women in the entire battalion.
She was smooth-skinned and elegant even in her tan jumper and with her black hair cropped as short as the men’s. The red Elite Forces patch on her chest curved along the top of her breast. Her gun belt flared from her hips, accentuating the hourglass of her waist. Colonel Jia did not want Dongmei for himself, for reasons that he could never tell anyone, but he was not above using her to drive the others.
He spoke in Mandarin, the dialect of the ruling Han. “If these signals are correct, it’s spreading even more quickly than we’d hoped,” he said.
“They are correct, sir,” Huojin said.
Jia swung on him. “Your sector shows the most gaps! Why?”
“The wind is not as strong in northern Colorado as it is elsewhere tonight, sir,” Huojin said. “Perhaps the weather predictions could have been better.”
Jia nodded, concealing his pleasure behind a stone face. Huojin was the only one in his team who was not Han. Huojin was nearly full-blooded Yao, one of China’s many ethnic minorities, a distinction that had become even more significant since the loss of three-quarters of their nation’s populace. Jia often put him on the defensive even though Huojin was his second best data/comm technician. That constant tension, like the presence of Dongmei, helped everyone in the group as they strove to outperform each other.
“The weather is ideal,” Jia said, rebuking Huojin. There would never be a time when the wind carried evenly from British Columbia to New Mexico. Then he relented. “Your dispersal patterns are adequate given local conditions.”
“Sir,” Dongmei said, “I still have one fighter southbound from Idaho with two bomblets onboard. Shall I route him toward Colorado?”
“Hold your fire,” Jia said.
Their attack had been painstaking, because they’d possessed only ninety-three capsules of nanotech to spread up the entire length of North America. Jia wanted to keep any reserves as long as possible. In truth, Huojin’s sector appeared to be no less saturated than the others‘, especially given the innumerable valleys and basins hidden within the Rockies.
Huojin was operating with another handicap. The military installations in Utah had prevented overflights farther east, shielding Colorado from the border patrols they’d used to seed the mind plague elsewhere. Reaching into Montana and Wyoming had been equally problematic, so hours ago they’d detonated thirty-four of their capsules high in the atmosphere, allowing the nanotech to sift down toward the areas where the Americans maintained the core of their Air Force and government.
