Adam Baker - Impact

FM interference replaced by Hendrix. Churning guitar reverb floated across the dunes. ‘The Star Spangled Banner’. Woodstock. Face-paint peace signs. Get Out of Nam. The ghost of old wars.

A voice cut in. Click of a pre-recorded message interrupting the transmission:

‘You’re listening to Classic Rock, Barstow. We have suspended our normal programming at this time as part of the National Emergency Broadcast System. Please stay tuned for important updates and announcements by Federal Authorities regarding current quarantine regulations and refuge centres in your area. Remember, it is your responsibility to stay informed.’

Another snatch of improv feedback.

Click. ‘You’re listening to Classic Rock, Barstow. We have suspended our normal programming at this time as part of the National Emergency Broadcast System…’

She checked battery levels and switched the handset to transponder mode. The screen flashed BEACON to let her know a homing signal was broadcasting on SARSAT 406.025 MHz.

The sun was getting high overhead. Several hours must have elapsed since Liberty Bell went down. The Vegas garrison would have been manning their comms gear, waiting for the B-52 to confirm target strike. Instead, the plane was out of contact and long overdue. Trenchman should have scrambled a TRAP team a while back. Fired up the Chinook and sent it west. She should be back at the compound by now, lying in a bunk, leg in fresh plaster, sipping Coke through a straw.

Pang of pure grief for all the times she took air con and ice cubes for granted.

Insidious thought:

The boys back at Vegas have a single chopper. They need it. They won’t send it into deep desert to search for a downed plane.

She told herself to shape up.

Hold it together. They won’t abandon you. They won’t leave seven guys to die of thirst in the desert. And they sure as hell won’t forget the warhead.

She inspected her weapon. A 9mm Beretta with a twelve-round clip slung beneath her left armpit in a passive retention holster. She blew dust from the pistol. Function check: she shucked the slide. She dug a plastic bag from her survival vest, wrapped the gun and returned it to her shoulder holster.

This is not adversity. This is not your Great Test. You’ve got a bust leg and you need a drink. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.

A fierce struggle to stand upright. She balanced on her good leg and looked around at surrounding dunes.

An impact crater fifty yards to her left.

She crawled on hands and knees.

She slid into the bowl-depression and dug. She excavated a heavy nylon pack. The ejector seat survival kit. The pack had been strapped beneath her chair and released by barometric trigger as she plummeted to earth.

She brushed sand from rip-stop fabric and pulled zippers.

Emergency gear packed for patrol over the pack ice and sub-zero waters of the Bering Sea.

A life raft and a plastic oar.

An Arctic immersion suit.

Woollen mittens.

A woollen hat.

‘Fucking sweet.’

She rubbed her eyes. Merciless glare. Forearms already cooked red. Couple more hours in the sun would inflict first degree burns. Weeping blisters. Peeling skin.

The guys back in Vegas had looted plenty of supplies from abandoned supermarkets. Cans, water, cigarettes, pharmacy shelves swept clean. She wished they had had the foresight to snatch some high factor sun cream.

She took out the life raft. Rip cord. Gas-roar. Tight-packed polyurethane plumped and unkinked as buoyancy chambers filled with CO 2.

A black one-person raft with a low tent canopy.

Frost dragged the raft to the crest of a dune, oriented it to catch the near-imperceptible breeze, then climbed inside, glad to be out of direct sunlight.

She drowsed in the shade, choosing to conserve sweat until the noonday heat began to abate.

She closed her eyes and breathed slow, worked to induce sleep. No sound but the oceanic diastole/systole surge of pulsing blood vessels in her ear canal.

She felt the raft buoyed by swells. She heard waves lap the side of the boat.

She slept, and dreamed she was adrift on a vast, moonlit sea.

Adrift on a storm-lashed ocean. The blackest night. Driving rain. The raft rode thunderous, titanic swells. She gripped the side of the boat, tried to stabilise the roll, braced for the inevitable capsize.

She jolted awake and shook off heart-pounding delirium. She wiped sweat from her eyes, licked parched lips.

She pulled back the raft canopy.

Mute desert. Cruel, unrelenting light.

She tried the radio. Hendrix and the Emergency Broadcast announcement.

She pictured the deserted streets of Barstow.

Crow-pecked bodies and burned out cars. A dead neon pole sign: Classic Rock FM. An edge-of-town office with a sixty-foot mast.

The abandoned studio running on back-up power. Scattered papers and toppled chairs.

An unmanned production desk: preset sliders and twitching output needles.

An empty sound booth.

‘… We have suspended our normal programming at this time as part of the National Emergency Broadcast System. Please stay tuned for important updates…’

The looped transmission would run until power failed, console lights flickered dark, and Jimi was abruptly silenced.

Selector to BEACON. She set the radio aside.

She flexed her leg. Intense jolt, like a high-voltage shock.

‘Jesus fuck.’

She lay back, waiting for the agony to subside. Pulsing pain, like someone driving a nail into her flesh.

A second morphine shot. Stab. Press.

She closed her eyes and rode a warm rush of well-being. Slow, shivering exhalation.

She tossed the hypo in the sand.

She tore the corner of a water sachet and sucked it dry. She had left her survival vest outside the tented raft. The sachets had cooked in the sun. Hot like fresh brewed coffee.

She ripped open the empty pack and licked residual drops of moisture from the plastic.

The sun had moved from its zenith. Shadows lengthened and coagulated in the depressions between dunes.

She wanted to hear the heavy beat of chopper blades. She wanted to look up and see the belly of a descending Chinook fill the sky.

She reached down and unlaced. A swollen foot prised from her boot. Gym sock peeled away, fraction at a time, teeth clenched against the pain.

She gently rolled the right leg of her flight suit. Her foot and calf were swollen, skin livid and stretched tight. She caressed her shin, traced her tibia with the tip of an index finger, gently probed for some kind of subcutaneous ridge that might indicate splintered bone. Nothing. Maybe her leg had suffered a hairline fracture rather than an emphatic break. Or maybe her leg was intact. Maybe she had suffered some kind of catastrophic sprain that would subside in a couple of days.

She gripped her ankle and checked for a tibial pulse. She flexed her toes. Still got circulation. Still got feeling.

She eased the sock back over her foot. She slid her foot into the boot, barked with pain as she pulled laces taut.

A plastic oar. She broke it over her good knee, and tossed the paddle.

She snapped the shaft in two.

Nylon cord ran around the lip of the raft. A handhold to help a downed airman pull himself into the boat.

She sliced the cord with her knife.

An improvised splint: oar sections either side of her injured shin, lashed in place with nylon cord. Snorts of discomfort turned to a thin, growling scream by the time she tied the final knot.