Adam Baker - Impact

‘We played our part,’ said Hancock. ‘Did our duty. Reason to be proud.’

Noble shook his head.

‘We should have made for Canada while we had the chance. Hit the coast, found a boat, headed for Vancouver Island. You can bet a few other folks had the same idea. The last of humanity. That’s where they will be.’

Frost, from down below:

‘Guys, you better come outside.’

They went outside. They stood beneath the starlit sky. Breath fogged the night air.

Frost held up the sand-dusted flag.

She trained her flashlight on a depression in the sand.

‘Captain Pinback is gone.’

Survival, Evasion and Escape exercise, Thompson Falls.

The forest at night.

Incessant rain.

Frost shared body heat with her instructor, Major Coplin, as they huddled beneath a brushwood lean-shelter.

She shivered. No allocation beyond the standard flight suit and survival gear she would have if she had punched out and parachuted into thick tree cover.

Coplin held out his hand and caught raindrops in his palm.

‘You got lucky. Rain will throw off the dogs. Wash away your scent. Downside: plenty of mud. You’ll leave tracks when you move out tomorrow. Take a lot of ingenuity not to leave a trail.’

She pictured restless German Shepherds pulling at a taut leash chain, waiting for handlers to unclip their collars and send them darting into undergrowth.

‘Has anyone made the full eight days?’

‘Five. That’s the record. Cajun kid. Inbred, banjo-strumming runt. Worked in a chicken plant before he signed. Plucking, beheading. Should have seen him with a knife. He could gut a kill in seconds, make music with that thing. Lad could barely write his name but, damn, he was whip-smart. Know how he beat the dogs? He climbed a tree. Moved branch-to-branch while the hounds scoured the forest floor below him. Got two miles down the hill without setting foot on the ground.’

‘Outstanding.’

‘Managed two days in the Red Room before he gave up his key word. Most guys tap out after a couple of hours. Stubborn motherfucker. He broke hard.’

‘So who are the capture team?’

‘Ex-Delta. Real snake-eaters.’

‘And you?’

Coplin smiled. He pulled up the sleeve of his camo coat to expose his forearm. A faded Hemingway quote:

There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.

‘Tell the truth, you’ve done well to make it a third day,’ he said. ‘Most guys panic. They run through the woods, no plan, no direction. Don’t think to climb in the stream to mask their scent. Get chased down by a German Shepherd soon as their lead time expires. Back in the truck by lunchtime.’

‘Do the capture team use infrared?’

‘They’ve got all kinds of shit. All you got are eyes. Still ought to move at night, though. Best way to see in shadow? Don’t look directly at your target. Look to the side. Probably told you this before, but it’s worth repeating. Centre of a person’s sight is good for colour and focus during the day. At night, peripheral vision is sharpest for shape and movement. Remember that. Might save your ass.’

Frost put up a star shell. Desert lit cold white.

She stood at the top of a dune, survival blanket drawn over her head and shoulders like a shawl.

Hancock joined her. He checked his pistol. Loaded. Chambered.

‘How many of those flares we got left?’ he asked.

‘Plenty.’

They looked out over the Arctic landscape. A three-sixty survey.

‘There should be night-vision gear aboard Liberty Bell , right?’ said Hancock. ‘Standard kit. Monoculars, somewhere on the flight deck.’

Frost shook her head.

‘You saw the plane, saw the state she was in. An antique. Pretty much out of commission. Probably flew Arc Light missions back in the day, bombed the crap out of some Hanoi railyards. She was mothballed. A reserve. Hadn’t been in the air for months. Sitting in an Alaskan hangar collecting dust and webs. Final flight would have taken her to an Arizona boneyard to be chopped. Turned into washing machines or some shit.

‘She’s got no standard inventory. Most of the lockers are empty. Nothing but a bunch of Arctic survival gear.’

Frost contemplated the featureless landscape. Scalloped dunes. Flare light transformed the desert to a vista of rippling dream-forms.

‘No tracks,’ she said. ‘Not a single footprint.’

‘My first thought? Vultures. Wolves. Pinback got snatched while our backs were turned. Something big, with a taste for carrion.’

‘He weighed over two hundred pounds in flight gear,’ said Frost.

‘Just running through the possibilities.’

‘Said you saw two guys standing by the fire. Two. If one of them was Early, who the hell was the other guy?’

‘Not sure what I saw,’ said Hancock. ‘I got one eye. Can’t see too clear. Might have been nothing. Nothing at all.’

‘Maybe there are preppers out here. Kind of remote location a survivalist might build a refuge for himself and his family. Cache weapons and cans during the good times.’

‘But why take Pinback?’

‘Running low on food.’

‘Perhaps he was infected. Dead, but not dead.’

‘Maybe. Maybe he got up and walked. By like I said: no tracks.’

The star shell fell to earth and died. Dark dunes and a starlit sky.

‘Bullshit aside,’ said Hancock. ‘Someone’s out there for sure, watching us, determined to fuck with our heads.’

The lower cabin.

Frost unclipped an insulation pad from the wall, exposing cable runs and pipe work.

She examined pipes. She wanted a section of tubing thick enough, strong enough, to support her weight.

The wrench. She unbolted a four-foot section of inch-thick hydraulic line. She unscrewed restraining brackets and lifted it clear. Residual hydraulic fluid dripped and pooled on the floor.

She measured the pipe against her body, wedged it beneath her armpit, tested it as a crutch.

A good fit.

She sat in the nav seat, unsheathed her knife and began to slit the insulation pad.

Noble joined her.

He shook sand from his hair, slapped dust from his clothes. He looked around the lower cabin, assessed its potential as a defensible redoubt.

He nodded approval.

‘This is good. This is secure. One way in or out. We ought to barricade this opening, though. Block it with a couple of equipment cases.’

He picked up a canteen. He rubbed the cool canister across his face and neck, and set it down unopened.

He gestured to the upper cabin.

‘Not much we can do to block the flight deck windows. The blast curtains could deter snipers, I guess. Deny a target.’

Noble stood at the ragged fissure in the fuselage wall and stared out into darkness.

‘Why don’t they attack? Couple of determined guys could take us out anytime they want. Wouldn’t break a sweat.’

His hand strayed to his shoulder holster. He stroked the polymer grip.

‘Must be toying with us. Psy-ops. Some kind of mindfuck.’

Frost padded the crutch with insulation fabric, and lashed it with cable cut from the sixty miles of wiring that snaked through the conduits and cavities of the plane.

‘Got to keep a little perspective. Easy to go nuts in a place like this. The space. The silence. Easy to fill it with our fears.’

‘Pinback is gone. That’s real enough. And whatever took his body snatched it quick and clean. Didn’t make a noise, didn’t leave a trace. Sure as hell wasn’t Early. Not without help.’