Armageddon

Chapter Twenty One

Executive Office, Pima Air amp; Space Museum, Tucson, Arizona

The sound of R-3350 engines starting up woke Daniel J. Ryan, Executive Director of the Pima Air and Space Museum up from an exhausted sleep. For weeks it seemed as if his whole museum had become a research center, digging out old documentation that allowed the aircraft stored at the AMARG boneyard down the road to be brought back into service. His prized restoration experts had suddenly found themselves wearing Air Force Blue uniforms and preparing aircraft to go to war again. AMARG was slowly beginning to empty as the aircraft capable of being returned to service were brought back to operational status and the rest were stripped of what parts they had left.

He got off the couch in his office, hearing the whine of the R-3350s outside pick up in volume. He shook his head and headed for the executive bathroom, his mouth tasted foul after what had passed for a night’s sleep and he desperately wanted to clean his teeth. He checked his tinfoil hat was on safely, a gesture that had almost become a reflex amongst the human population over the last few weeks, and then headed for a shower and a shave. Half his job involved being the public front for the museum, and that meant looking well-groomed whenever he could. His wife was bringing him freshly-pressed clothes over each day and he couldn’t let her down by not shaving. Even though the R-3350s were making his mirror shake and his hand unsteady.

Finally, he was ready to face the coming day and he went back to his desk. He’d pulled a cup of water from the dispenser and the R-3350s were causing concentric ripples on the surface. He looked at them for several seconds before the significance sank in.

Ten seconds later he was out his office door and running for the flight line, shouting “Hey, bring my B-29 back!”

Flight Line, Pima Air amp; Space Museum, Tucson, Arizona

“I’m sorry Sir, technically the aircraft still does belong to the Air Force and we’re repossessing it. We’ll be taking your KB-50 as well, as soon as we can get it flyable and converted back to a bomb carrier. And, of course we will be taking all three of your B-52s.”

“But these are museum pieces….” Ryan spluttered, aghast at the thought of Pima’s superb collection of aircraft being dismantled.

“They can still perform useful roles Sir. If its any consolation, the Commemorative Air Force and the New England Air Museum are losing their B-29s as well. Not to mention Wright Patterson losing Bockscar and the Smithsonian parting with Enola Gay. There’s more than 20 others as well, although there are only five B-50s and they’re in pretty rough condition. Except yours of course, Still, we should have enough to make up a mixed B-29/B-50 group by the time we’ve finished.”

“But they’re obsolete.” Ryan’s voice was weak.

“Not so much so Sir. They still haul bombs and are fast enough, and fly high enough, to keep out of harpy claws. And we’re not sure how well jets will adapt to the conditions in hell so we’re hedging our bets.” Behind him, there was a roar and the B-29 took off, heading for its new operational base. Ryan could barely stop himself crying.

“What else are you taking?”

“Oh, not much Sir. Your F-111 and your A-10 of course. You’ve kept the planes here in superb condition, I must say. We may want some others as well, depends what we can find elsewhere. We don’t want lots of single aircraft but if there are enough to make up a small group…”

“I suppose you’ll want our replica Wright Flyer?” Ryan spoke bitterly.

“No Sir, not under current plans. But we would like to talk to you about your B-36.”

Executive Office, Alexander Arms Corporation, Radford Arsenal, Virginia

“Mister Alexander Sir, it’s a Colonel Matthews from the Defense Logistic Agency.” Alexander’s secretary sounded urgent.

“Put him through then Jeanie.” There was a click on the line “Bill Alexander here.”

“Mister Alexander, its Colonel Matthews here from the DLA. If you haven’t heard already, you will be fairly shortly, our M16s and M4s aren’t showing up very well in Iraq. Don’t have the stopping power to finish off a baldrick. So, we need to change approach fast. You’re making. 50 Beowulf M16s for the Coastguard, well, you can start expanding that production line right now. We need you to start mass-producing. 50 Beowulf upper receivers with a 24 inch barrel right away. We’ll issue them and mate them with in-service lower receivers. We’ll be faxing you the paperwork later today. Take this telephone call as authorization to start work.”

“How many?”

“Our initial production target will be one million sets of parts needed to convert in-service weapons. For your information, the new rifle will be the M16A6 and the M4A5.”

The room was swimming around Alexander’s eyes. “We’re a small company, there’s no way we can make that number of rifles. And the ammunition.”

Matthews sounded more than slightly irritated. “Then license other producers. Talk to Ordnance, they may have facilities you can take over. Listen man, this country is awash with weapons producers, if you can’t meet the production targets, make some arrangements. Our boys have died out there because their rifles didn’t do the job. And you know where they go when they die. You’re a manager, so get the lead out of your pants and start managing. Don’t make us write more letters to mothers telling them their kids died because they didn’t have the tools they need. Understand?”

Alexander didn’t have a chance to answer before he heard the telephone bang down. He stared at the receiver in his hand for a long moment that was only interrupted when his fax machine started to spew pages out. “Jeanie? Get me a list of all our subcomponent suppliers, we have to jack production up soonest. And get me the heads of Bushmaster, DPMS, Olympic Arms, Colt, FN and any other rival you can think of.”

Headquarters, Boeing Military Aircraft Division, St Louis, Missouri.

The voice as impossibly British. “I say, is that Mike Graham, T-45 project manager?”

“It is. To whom am I speaking?”

“Sorry, old chap. James Kendrick here, Hawk 200 Project Manager at BAE Systems. We’ve had some calls from our respective governments asking us to put our heads together and come up with a new aircraft for our forces.”

“Excuse me, I’ve heard nothing of this.” There was a ‘ding’ on Graham’s computer indicating a top-priority email from corporate HQ in Chicago. He read it. “My apologies, I’ve just been told.”

“No problem. Everything is screwed up. Anyway, basically the RAF want a cheap, light fighter to make up numbers, the Navy want one for their carriers and your chaps want some for everybody. So, our governments have decided to combine your T-45C trainer with our Hawk 200 light fighter and produce a single-seat, radar-equipped fighter for everybody. My bosses think it’s a pretty good idea, one that should sell well. So, we need to get cracking. Can we arrange for our design team to come over there?”

“Sure, or would you prefer us to come over to you?”

“Really, we’d rather come to you if you don’t mind. Have you ever tried to get a decent steak in Britain?”

Fort Bragg, North Carolina

Blasted rock, pools of mud and other less wholesome liquids, gauzy wisps of orange fumes, the odd crucified body; Hell wasn't anything pleasant to look at, even through a window. Standing in front of that window was an Army officer facing out towards a room occupied by a mix of civilian and military engineers along with a sprinkling of figures in Air Force, Army, and Marine uniforms. As the last straggler slipped through the door set in the far wall, he began to speak.

"Gentlemen, ladies, my name is Major Warhol, and welcome to Section Twelve of DIMO(N). I'm sure we'll be assigned a mouthful of an acronym soon, but for now we've just been calling it the Hell Lab." He stepped to one side and waved an arm at the window behind him.

"To get straight to the point, sooner or later we're going to have to fight in Hell, and from what limited intel we've gathered so far, it's a hell of an environment." He winced slightly at the awful pun, then shook his head with a sheepish smile before continuing, "It's going to do a number on our gear, and long-term exposure isn't going to do humans any good either. That's where we come in. We've put together a mock-up, our own personal Hell-in-a-jar based on the intelligence we've received so far, and we're going to be testing our gear in it. That's for the servicemen among you. The rest of you," he nodded towards one of the engineers closes to the window, "are here to fix whatever doesn't work, or failing that, to devise something new to fill a gap where our existing equipment doesn't cut it. We've got five other rooms like this one, with different speculative environments, and we'll be updating all of them as we learn more of the makeup of Hell. At the moment, we’ve only got actual data on one part of hell, one segment of the 5th circle. However, it looks like Dante’s Inferno was a pretty accurate description so, until we know more, we’re working on that basis. We’ve got people here digging through other old records as well so we’ll refine the picture as we go. Across the hall, there's another team that'll be doing the same with Heaven once we know something about it."

He singled out a lone man in a suit with a nod, "Agent Carson accomplished the only strike mission so far into Hell, albeit remotely. He's at your disposal for questions, and the CIA was kind enough to send the Predator he used for the strike along with him." Carson’s lips cracked in a wry, sardonic smile. He’d sat behind an operator’s terminal and sent in a drone but that made him a celebrity. "I'm told we're free to disassemble the Predator, but the Agency would like Agent Carson back in one piece. Or at least, if we do dismantle him, can we number the pieces so The Company can reassemble him. Also, please remember, he’s a star on the war-bond sales pitches."

A chuckle ran around the room, accompanied by a snort from Carson himself. Major Warhol let the room settle for a few seconds before he started back into the briefing, "Air Force types, the wind tunnel's still under construction, but once it's up, you'll have down-checked aircraft of more or less any make you need in the hangars on-base to test in a Hell-condition wind tunnel. Sorry to give you the castoffs, but we're short there as it is. Some of the birds are types we don’t have in the inventory any more but we’ve repossessed from museums. Feel free to test those to destruction. Infantry, there's a target range with variable-density cloud generators to simulate atmospheric conditions. Armor, you're going to be a bit limited for a while, we're not going to have room for a half-dozen large-scale Hell-jars for you to play with, and the one we will have won't be finished for a week or two."

Warhol signaled with his hand, ordering a guard to open another door. A group of a dozen Arabs filed into the room, dressed in loose white robes. A rustling murmur passed through the briefing room's other occupants as they turned to look at the newcomers, several frowns flashing into place. Before anything could get out of hand, Major Warhol's voice called out again, louder at first to cut through the whispered speculation,

"I’d like to welcome Abdullah Rashid, formerly one of the Iraqi insurgency leaders, and now head of the DIMO(N) S12 insurgency team. I know!" he shouted, cutting through a rising babble of voices, "That many of you will be uncomfortable working with him and his men, but the fact remains that the Iraqi insurgents have had quite a lot of experience in running insurgencies recently and their people fought alongside ours in Hit. We’re allies now." His lips quirk in a thin, humorless smile, "And there’ll be others joining us as well, including some explosives experts from the Provisional IRA. They are probably the best on the world at their particular art, they should be, they fought the British for long enough. If I hear of them being frozen out of discussion here, I'm not going to be a terribly happy man, and none of you want that. These teams will be focusing on the best ways to manufacture explosives, weapons, IEDs, anything they can think of that can be made and used in whole or in part using Hell-native resources and conditions."

Warhol surveyed the assembled men and women for a few more seconds, and then nodded to himself,

"Alright, dismi-actually, one thing I forgot. Everyone, if you'll please inspect the walls."

He waited for a few seconds for people to turn and look, Scattered around the walls of the room at regular intervals were glass-fronted cabinets loaded with shotguns and submachine guns, On each one was printed in tall, red letters, 'IN CASE OF BALDRICKS, BREAK GLASS.' Another chuckle ran through the room, albeit a somewhat nervous one.

"We don't know the limitations of the Baldricks' teleportation and portal abilities yet, so we're going to assume they could pop up in here. Familiarize yourself with the locations of the emergency arms cabinets, and with the weapons. There's an earth-environment firing range on base, feel free to avail yourself of it if you want to brush the rust off; I'd hate to lose any of you to something as silly as a lone baldrick raider Dismissed." He pauses for a moment, then grins, "And I mean it this time. Break into teams and let's start figuring out how to raze Hell."

The Oval Office, The White House, Washington DC

“My fellow humans.” President Bush looked into the camera and gave a careful, friendly smile. The truth was that he was actually feeling reasonably happy at this point, his approval rating had gone over 50 percent for the first time in years. “You have all been following the events in Iraq where allied forces have engaged a baldrick invasion army estimated at over 400,000 strong. Much of the fighting has been obscure due to the area it has covered but now, I am able to give you some accurate information on what has taken place.

“The baldrick army has been defeated, not just defeated but destroyed. Our troops and those of our allies, most notably the Iranians under General Fereidoon Zolfaghari and the British under Brigadier John Carlson have beaten back the enemy and inflicted enormous losses upon them. We believe that the total of their dead is in excess of 300,000, a number that is rising hourly as our forces pursue the defeated enemy back to the very mouth of hell.” Bush looked down at his desk briefly, the retreating enemy hadn’t yet encountered the blocking force that was between them and safety. That was a nice surprise that was waiting for them.

“Our own losses so far are just over 600 dead. Most of these were suffered in the battle for the town of Hit. There, a brigade of the Tenth Mountain Division held the town against an overwhelmingly powerful force of baldricks and drove them back, fighting room to room in the process. In doing so they proved that not only do our armed forces have superior equipment to our enemy but our men are better trained, braver and more resourceful than their baldrick counterparts.

“Now, however, we must look to the future. We have learned that the force that struck us represents only a small portion of the forces that the enemy has available to him. Beyond that, we know that the forces of Yahweh still exist and must be numbered on the list of our enemies. Already, we have killed one of them, one responsible for an atrocious massacre carried out against defenseless civilians in the peace of their home. Our forces have achieved wonders, General Petraeus has won a victory that will forever place him amongst the Great Captains, but this is not enough.

“We must mobilize for war. Our armed forces depend on armored vehicles for their mobility and for defense against baldrick attacks. Those armored vehicles need fuel and the battles over the last few days have shown how much they require. We must give them priority for supplies of gasoline and diesel fuel. Accordingly, I have given orders for fuel rationing to be instituted here in the United States. Each licensed driver in a family will be allowed to buy no more that twenty gallons of automobile fuel per month. Government help will be provided for car pooling and other requirements. There is a crying need for more vehicles to carry the supplies needed to our troops. Therefore, most private automobile production in this country is to be converted to military use. Heavy truck plants will, of course, be converted to produce military trucks. Car and SUV facilities will be converted to produce light armored cars or aircraft depending on their level of technology. The only exception to this will be factories producing electric cars or small commercial vehicles. We have talked much about replacing gasoline-powered automobiles in our society. Now, our hand has been forced.

“In the last two days, 600 of our men and their allies have sacrificed everything they had for us. They gave their lives, knowing what awaited them beyond death. Now, we must match their sacrifice and bend every will, every nerve, every muscle in a great national crusade that will see our enemies driven into the dust and humbled. Thank you all, and good night.”

President Bush turned off the microphones and stared at the office wall. He’d just told the American people that they couldn’t drive around any more they way they used to. Ah well, it had been nice being popular again for a while.