Adam Baker - Impact

He checked his watch.

‘Sundown. We aim to get you in the air before morning. Soon as you return, we pack our shit and haul ass out of here. Let those infected fucks take the compound. Welcome to it.’

‘Where will you go?’

Trenchman shrugged.

‘The war is over. We lost. Earth belongs to the virus. Personally, I aim to find somewhere remote and hold out as long as I can. You folks do as you please.’

Sundown.

They crossed a slipway to hangar seven.

Trenchman fired up a diesel generator wired to an external junction box.

‘We keep the hangar doors closed,’ he explained. ‘Try to stay out of sight much as possible. Don’t want to agitate prowlers out there beyond the wire.’

He opened a side door and let them inside.

Cavernous dark. Pungent stink of aviation fuel.

‘Hold on,’ said Trenchman. His voice echoed.

He threw a wall-mounted knife switch. Arc lights bolted to high roof girders flared to life.

A gargantuan plane filled the hangar. A slate grey B-52. Hulking airframe, wide wingspan, almost as big as a 747.

‘ Liberty Bell . Flown down from Alaska. Spent her twilight years flying stand-off patrols, edge of Russian airspace.’

‘What happened to the original crew?’

‘They went over the wire a couple of weeks back. Happens now and again. Couple of guys get together, figure they stand a better chance on their own. Desertion, I guess. Not that anyone gives a shit. If a bunch of them walk out the front gate, what am I going to do? Shoot them in the back?’

Captain Pinback gestured to the plane:

‘What kind of condition is she in?’

‘We got a Crew Chief. Used to maintain AWACS. Says she’s not in great shape, but it’s not like you’re taking her on a long-haul flight. All she has to do is stay airborne long enough to deliver the package.’

Pinback walked across the hangar. Echoing bootfalls. He approached the nose of the plane, looked up at the flight deck windows. He patted the hull.

‘How long to get her ready?’ asked Trenchman.

Pinback shrugged.

‘Couple of hours for a walk-around. Check her out, kick the tyres. Hour to finish fuelling. Hour or two to load and secure the missile. I’d say wheels up some time around two a.m.’

Pre-flight inspection. Frost and Pinback watched the Chief and his team conduct a nose-to-tail survey.

The names of absent airmen stencilled beneath the cockpit windows:

EMERSON

BLAIR

WALTON

KHODCHENKOVA

TRAINOR

It made Frost feel sorry for the abandoned plane, as if the half-billion dollar war machine had been orphaned.

A three-cable hitch to a power car supplied 205v AC/24v DC.

A fuel truck parked by the wing, hose hitched to a roof valve set in the fuselage spine, just back from the flight deck. Salute and wave for grunts pumping JP8 into the tanks.

The main gear bogies: four balloon tyres on white aluminium hubs, chocked, supporting thick hydraulic actuators.

The Chief knelt and checked tyre pressure.

He moved on and worked through his checklist:

Hydraulic reservoirs.

Accumulator pressure.

Moisture drains.

Pitot survey.

Shuttle valves.

Wing surfaces.

Engine intake/duct plugs removed.

All panels and doors closed and secure.

Frost glanced up into a gear well. She reached up and ran a finger across the hatch. Fingertip black with dust and grime.

‘She’s dying of neglect, sir. Hasn’t been serviced in a long while.’

‘Airworthy?’

‘Barely. A junker. There are wrecks lined up in Arizona boneyards in better condition than this.’

Pinback shrugged.

‘Single sortie. There and back. That’s all she has to do.’

They walked beneath the port wing. Huge engine nacelles, each containing two Pratt & Whitney turbofans. Wide intakes. Fanned turbine blades.

Frost traced a rivet seam with her finger.

‘Corrosion.’

‘Not as much as I anticipated.’

‘Yeah, but what can’t we see?’

They walked the length of the plane.

The bomb bay doors.

The vast vulpine tail.

‘What do you reckon, old girl?’ said Pinback, addressing the aircraft. ‘Want to put on your war paint one last time?’

Briefing.

The hangar office. Frost set metal chairs in a semicircle, encounter group-style. Hancock dragged them to face front, reasserting traditional hierarchy.

Geodetic data, National Recon topographical maps and satellite images pinned to a noticeboard.

Trenchman polished thick-framed Air Force reg glasses.

‘Simple enough mission. Proceed to the drop point. Launch the package. Fly home. Approximately four-hour flight time.

‘Why us?’ asked Pinback. ‘Plenty of delivery systems. Pop a Tomahawk from offshore.’

‘Tactical strike,’ said Hancock. He sat apart from the aircrew, arms folded, aviator shades. ‘Plenty of ships equipped to throw an H bomb big enough to leave a mile-deep crater. But we don’t want to fry southern California. Just want to take out the target, clean and precise.’

‘But why Liberty Bell ? She was a beautiful bird, back in the day. But right now she’s fit for a wrecker’s yard.’

‘Little choice. Original plan was to use a Minuteman RV to deliver the mail. 44th Missile Wing out in Dakota. They tried to fire up a mothballed silo, but the place got overrun before they could launch. You know the score. The world is falling apart. We have to adapt. Use what we can find.’

‘B-2s?’

‘Otherwise engaged.’

‘Subs?’

‘Lost communication. They must be out there, somewhere, under autonomous control.’

Pinback leaned forwards and peered at sat photos. A desert mountain range. Sedimentary rock. Rippling contours. Peaks, mesas, ravines.

‘What’s the target?’

‘Classified. The missile will make the final leg of the journey on its own. You won’t even see the aim point. All you have to do is confirm detonation, then return to base.’

‘What kind of bang are we talking about?’

‘Ten kilotons. Like I say: weapon release fifteen minutes from target. Just take position and watch the show.’

Trenchman turned to Frost.

‘You’re the radar nav, right?’

‘Yeah.’

He handed Frost a plastic disk on a lanyard.

‘Old school authorisation protocol. Dual key, all the way.’

Frost turned the disk in her hand.

‘The arm code?’

Trenchman nodded.

‘Captain Hancock holds the other one. Two minutes from the drop point, you will contact me for final authorisation to proceed. Once you’ve got the Go, your EWO will arm the weapon. Load both codes. Then you’re hot to trot.’

Hancock looked around at sombre faces.

‘Hey. First folks to drop an atomic weapon on US soil in anger. We’re about to make history.’

Trenchman activated the hangar door controls. Motor whine. Clatter of drum-chain. The doors parted, splitting a huge Delta Airlines logo in half. They slowly slid back, revealing the floodlit aircraft.

Light spilled across the slipway. Low moan from darkness beyond the perimeter fence. Infected wrenched and tore at the chain-link, agitated by the sight of light and movement. Some of them started to climb the fence. Gunshots from the watchtowers. Snipers momentarily lit by muzzle flash, eyes to the scope. Rotted bodies fell from the wire, decapitated by .50 cal rounds. They hit the ground, and were immediately trampled underfoot.