James Huston - Fallout

“What?” Vlad grimaced, waiting for whatever it was, which he knew would be unpleasant.

“I cannot tell you exactly. Both because there may be someone listening, which I doubt, and also because your ability to help will be fluid, changing, responding to the moment—”

“Get to the point!” Vlad raged.

“Don’t ever yell at me,” Gorgov growled, then waited to see if Vlad was going to respond. He continued, “Something is going to happen soon. When it does, you will know what you are to do. It will be bad for the United States. Your job is to make sure it happens without interference.”

“What bad thing? What are you talking about?”

“You will see.”

“Why me? Is it going to happen near here?”

“It is going to happen right there. Right where you are.”

Vlad shifted the phone to his other ear and peeked outside in the darkness at the base. Everything was quiet. He had no idea what Gorgov was talking about. “What exactly? Tell me!”

“No. But you will see, and soon. And it will be clear to you what you must do. Then… you simply do it. That is all. And if you don’t… well, then very bad things will happen. You don’t want that, do you?”

“I cannot help you if I don’t know what you want!” Vlad exclaimed.

“Yes you can, and you will. You will see. Do svidaniya,” Gorgov said, and the line went dead.

Brian struggled against his MS as he fought his way up the unending hill of the StairMaster in the immaculate gym at the south end of the second deck of the hangar. All the pilots were required to keep track of their workouts lifting weights. It had long been recognized that muscle mass helped resist the G forces encountered in flying jets. Although the Navy didn’t require a particular workout regimen, Luke did. And he checked the records every week. Brian always had the fullest sheet, the one who’d spent the most time in the gym, fighting the demons that were wrecking his body.

Luke walked in, ready to start his early-morning workout. They were the only two in the gym.

Brian immediately slowed his climbing. He motioned to Luke. “You got a second?”

“Morning, Brian. Fine, thanks. How about you?”

“Sorry. I was thinking about some things when you walked in.”

“What’s up?” Luke replied.

“I’ve been thinking about Vlad.”

Luke looked at Brian. “What about him?”

“We don’t really know all that much about him.”

“You’re just a suspicious guy. First it’s the Paks, now it’s Vlad.”

“Seriously.”

“What?”

“I don’t think we got the straight story on why he left the Russian Air Force.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I finally dug into his records. They’re silent on why he left. They just stop.”

“How do you know?”

“I had the records he left with us retranslated. I didn’t want to just accept the version he gave us. The translator I found in Vegas used to be in the Russian Army. He said they would never just end like that. They always put the reason. Either discharge or retirement—whatever. Vlad has kept some pages from us. We don’t have the whole thing.”

Luke frowned. “Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know.” Brian stepped off the StairMaster onto the deck and stood motionless while his legs regained their stability.

“Did I tell you that Dr. Thurmond said he smelled alcohol on Vlad’s breath when he flew with him?”

“Seriously?” Brian asked. Luke nodded. “What if he was grounded? What if he was dangerous? What if he’s got an alcohol problem? And he’s flying as an instructor?”

“The guy’s a good pilot. I’ve flown with him, Brian. He really knows what he’s doing. He’s a tremendous asset to us here.”

“He’s sure in tight with the Paks.”

“Tight?”

“Yeah. He’s given every one of them a flight in the two-seater. I’ve seen him out there showing them the MiGs. It just seems over the top.”

“He was supposed to. We agreed to that.”

“I know. But I was thinking about the missile shoot when you came in.”

“What about it?”

“It’s tomorrow morning. Vlad is getting MAPS to load them up this afternoon. Doesn’t it trouble you just a little that we have a Russian MiG pilot here, and Russian MiGs, and a bunch of foreigners who’ve just learned to fly them, and we’ll have four of them loaded up with live missiles? What if they decided to grab the MiGs and go shoot down an airliner?”

Luke froze. “Shit, Brian. Where’d you get that? You been staying up too late watching horror movies?”

Brian wiped the sweat dripping off his chin. “Probably. I’m just saying, if it were me? I’d move the MiGs with missiles off the regular flight line to the back hangars with security around them. Better to be safe.”

Luke tossed his towel on the seat of the biceps machine. “I don’t know, Brian. Sometimes I think you’re paranoid.” He thought as he prepared to begin his workout. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.”

“It would give me a little more peace of mind.”

“Fair enough.”

The young guard sitting in the large guardhouse behind the high chain-link fence had been there almost every night since the base opened. It had sounded like an easy, exciting job. A guard in the middle of the beautiful Nevada desert at a new fighter base with privately owned jets. It had in fact turned out to be quite boring. As he was the most junior guard, he’d drawn the worst duty. Since he’d started his job as the night watchman at the main gate three weeks before, not one car had come through the gate. Not one person, not one pickup truck, not even a coyote. He’d seen some deer cross the road in front of the gate on the second night, but nothing even as exciting as that since then.

He wasn’t allowed to watch television, so he spent most nights listening to the radio, to a show broadcast from a man’s house in the middle of the night, and transmitted to the world. His name was Orel Spellman, and he dwelled in the belly of the night talking in hushed tones of conspiracy to those who were still up, alerting them to the growing evidence of UFOs and the government conspiracies to hide them. Orel was really on a roll tonight. The guard was listening so intently to the radio that he was actually staring at it.

Four white trucks drove down the dark, deserted moonlit road just north of the guard. They hadn’t seen another car or truck for twenty minutes. It was the darkest, loneliest part of the night in the darkest, loneliest corner of the United States. The nearest Nevada Highway Patrol officer was 130 miles away at a rest stop investigating a pungent smell coming from one of the trash containers.

The lead truck stopped in the dirt on the side of the road until the other three trucks caught up, stopped behind it, and extinguished their lights. They knew exactly what to do. They’d practiced it so many times the plan had grown stale, but now that it was under way their enthusiasm returned. The driver of the lead truck, the one with the beard, watched the digital clock on the dash. They were five minutes early. The other drivers sat motionless with their hands on the steering wheels. Two more men sat to the right of each driver.

Several of the men put on night-vision goggles and adjusted the focus. They wore dark clothing and latex gloves. Each had an AK-47 in his hands.

As the digital clock changed to exactly 4:00 a.m., the lead truck pulled back onto the road. The other three followed carefully, swaying back and forth from their heavy loads. They turned south off Highway 6 at the missile with the sign underneath that announced the Tonopah Test Range Road.

They drove the twenty miles together with their lights off. The lead truck turned on its lights as it rounded the one curve in the long road, two miles before the gate, careful to control his speed. The other three trucks waited at the curve, trying to stay out of sight. The man to the right of the driver removed his night-vision goggles and scanned the base through a high-powered night-vision rifle scope, looking for any additional security. The security at the gate was obvious, but he could see no other movement on the base at all. He looked for the roving jeep security patrol he knew was there but couldn’t see.