Doomsday

18. First Run

Two weeks of intense training was all they had. Slayne would have liked to spend longer, but Carpenter insisted they must find out what happened to the SEAL. “I can’t stress how important it will be to those who come after us.” The entire Family saw them off.

Carpenter climbed to the rampart above the moat and raised his arms to get everyone’s attention. “This is a momentous day. Our first foray into the devastated world. We have no idea what our Warriors will find, but it’s safe to say their travels will not be without peril. We wish them God-speed.” From all sides came cheers and waves.

Slayne wheeled the Hunster over the drawbridge. “This is our first combat op as a team, and it’s bound to be rough. We haven’t had nearly enough time to work together. Follow my lead and keep your headsets on at all times and we should make it back alive and in one piece. Any questions?”

“What was it Kurt Carpenter said we were to call ourselves?” Montoya asked. Slayne chuckled. “Alpha Triad. I wanted it to be Alpha Team or even the A-Team but he thought Alpha Triad had a ring to it. You know how he is.”

At the outset they made good time.

Patrick Slayne did most of the driving. He let Soren Anderson and Robert Montoya spell him, but only for a few hours when he needed sleep so badly he couldn’t keep his eyes open. They took 59 to 11 and followed 11 west to Interstate 29.

Full gas cans in a rack at the rear of the Hunster ensured they wouldn’t want for fuel. For the longest while the roads were empty of traffic. East of the turn to Drayton they spotted a jeep in the distance, but apparently whoever was in it sported them and wasn’t anxious to make their acquaintance. The jeep wheeled off the road and disappeared into shadowed woodland. Here and there were swathes of fallout. In some areas it was thicker than in others. The Geiger counter often spiked, but Slayne assured them that they were safe so long as they stayed in the Hunster and kept on the move.

They turned south on 29. Almost immediately they came across abandoned vehicles and wrecks. Between Oakwood and Warsaw they crested a low hill and Slayne slammed on the brakes. The interstate was completely blocked by a tow of wrecked vehicles placed hood to trunk.

“Someone put them there on purpose.” Soren stated the obvious. In the back, Robert Montoya leaned between the from seats. “Should we turn around and go to the last exit?”

“And waste an hour?” Slayne shook his head and put his foot to the gas pedal. He held his finger over the red button on the dash. “If it’s what I think it is, they’re in for a surprise.”

“They?” Soren said.

No sooner was the question out of his mouth than men with rifles and handguns rose up from behind the roadblock. A tall man climbed onto the roof of a car and raised a megaphone to his mouth.

“You there! Stop and get out with your hands in the air! We won’t tell you twice!”

“Like hell.” Slayne pressed the red button.

The Hunster shook, and a split second later the ground in front of the car on which the man was standing erupted in a shower of asphalt and dirt. The man and his companions scattered. Slayne tramped harder on the gas and the Hunster picked up speed. He engaged the battering ram.

“Make sure you’re strapped in and hold on tight.”

Lead spanged off the vehicle’s body and windshield. None of it had an appreciable effect, thanks to the armor plating and bulletproof glass.

Slayne roared through the opening he had made, doing sixty miles an hour. On both sides men cut loose with a fierce vengeance, but they were soon left in the Hunster’s dust. Slayne chuckled. “I love this baby. She’s everything I’d hoped she would be.” He glanced at the rearview mirror to see if they were being chased; they weren’t.

Soren asked a question that had been preying on him. “If this one is so great, what do we need the other one for?”

“The SEAL? Kurt spent millions developing it. The SEAL has capabilities that even the Hunster doesn’t. And he has very specific plans for how it will be used. Important plans.”

“They must be important to risk your baby and three Warriors,” Robert Montoya said. He was dressed in camouflage fatigues and combat boots. In a flapped holster on his right hip was a Colt Commander .45, while propped on the seat beside him was a Jati-Matic out of Finland, one of the various foreign firearms Slayne had talked Carpenter into adding to the Armory.

“Risk comes with the territory,” Slayne reminded him. “You knew that when you took Kurt’s new Warrior oath.” Slayne wore his dark blue trench coat over the same business suit he had worn the day he retrieved Deepak Kapur in New York City. In twin shoulder holsters nestled twin Mark 23s, the compact models commissioned by the U.S. Special Operations Command but never mass-produced. In a pack around his waist he had spare magazines, two silencers, and a laser spot projector.

“If the SEAL is that important,” Soren broke in, “why did Carpenter only send the three of us? Why not four Warriors? Or even five?”

“Why not all nine?” Slayne rejoined. “That way there wouldn’t be anyone left to protect the Home.” He switched on the map display. “Only having three in each unit was my idea. As I told Kurt, there’s always an extra if a man goes down.”

Soren gazed out the window and saw his reflection. Black neoprene fit as snugly as skin. So did the neoprene boots and gloves. He looked ready to go scuba diving, save for the power belt. Under lightweight and durable black synthetic chain mail was the computerized circuitry that enabled him to recharge Mjolnir. All he had to do was fit the handle into a clamp in the center, which connected to positive and negative electrodes, and throw a switch. An LCD display showed the recharge rate. As a protective measure, the belt was insulated so he wouldn’t be accidentally jolted.

“What I’d like to know,” Montoya said, “is how we can be sure the SEAL is even there?”

“We can’t.”

“Then this whole trip might be a wild goose chase.”

“If it will make you feel any better, think of it as a practice run. We’re the first Warriors, the first Family members ever, to travel outside the walls. What we find will determine Family policy for years to come.”

“I miss my family,” Soren said. He could not stop thinking about Toril, Freya, and Magni.

“Remember what I’ve taught you and you’ll see them again,” Slayne said. “Rely on your shotgun more than that hammer and you’ll live longer.”

Soren offered no reply. He had already made up his mind about which weapon he would use the most. The winds hit them near Spiritwood.

They had pulled off the road to switch drivers and stretch their legs. Soren took Mjolnir, as was his habit. The sky was gray, as usual. Flakes fell but not in any great number. The top of a nearby tree shook, then stopped.

Soren moved to the side of the road, searching for tracks or any other sign of life. A strong wind buffeted him but he ignored it.

“I don’t like the looks of that,” Robert Montoya said.

To the west, the gray was acting strangely. Instead of its usual flat appearance there were swirls and eddies, as there would be in agitated water.

“Odd,” Soren remarked.

The strongest gust yet made the grass bend nearly in half.

“Into the Hunster,” Slayne directed. He didn’t like the looks of it, either. He climbed into the driver’s seat. Soren reluctantly turned. He would have liked a few more minutes to walk around and stretch his cramped muscles.

He had taken another step when suddenly a wall of wind slammed into him and knocked him sideways. He lost his balance and nearly fell.

As quickly as it had struck, the wind died.

Montoya had been thrown against the Hunster so hard, he dropped the Jati-Matic. “Where did that come from?”

“Get in,” Slayne said.

Soren looked up. A peculiar keening filled the air, like the distant wail of banshees, growing louder by the second. “Do you hear that?”

“I said to get in. Now.”

The urgency in Slayne’s tone prompted Soren to move. “I thought I was driving.” Slayne gestured toward the passenger seat. He turned the ignition and was in gear when Soren climbed in. Without delay he headed down the highway, glancing right and left. “I remember a scientist who theorized on the effects of an all-out nuclear war. One of them was what he called nuclear winds.”

“Never heard of it,” Montoya said.

“You should have read more science magazines and less science fiction, Ricco,” Slayne said, using Montoya’s code name instead of his teal name. He had been trying to get them to do the same. “Listen.” He lowered his window several inches.

The keening was now a screech.

Montoya covered his ears. “I don’t like the sound of that, Solo.” He emphasized Slayne’s own code name.

Soren liked it. The wind and the howling made him think of a thunderstorm. Since he was a child he’d loved storms as other boys loved baseball or video games or cars. Maybe that was part of the reason he later took to Thor so avidly. The thunder god was lord of the storm and embodied all that Soren most admired in nature and in life.

Slayne slowed. He had spotted a field and what appeared to be a gully or a wash. Spinning the steering wheel, he floored it.

The screech had become a shriek. The whole sky seemed to be moving with incredible speed. Slayne prayed they had enough time. The Hunster bounced over ruts and plowed through weeds, and then they were at the top of the gully. A glance told him it was wide enough and deep enough, and he plunged on down without braking.

For a few harrowing heartbeats the Hunster canted and threatened to roll, but it leveled at the bottom. He turned the engine off.

Above them, the very heavens screamed.

“What do you expect will happen?” Robert Montoya asked.

The answer came in the form of a windstorm to end all windstorms.

Its roar was fit to burst the eardrums. Dust rose in a thick cloud. The Hunster shook so violently, it was a wonder it wasn’t blown onto its side.

Montoya pressed his face to his window. “Madre de dios. How long will this last?”

“No telling.”

“If this were to hit the Home when people were outside…” Montoya didn’t finish. Soren settled back, Mjolnir in his lap. He ran his fingers over the new metal handle, admiring how well Richter had duplicated the runes on the original. Only now each rune was a stud that controlled a specific function. He couldn’t wait to put the hammer to the test in actual battle. Soren turned to Montoya. Since they had nothing else to do until the wind stopped, he thought it time he learned more about his fellow Warrior. “Where are you from, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I was born and raised in San Diego.” Montoya’s features clouded. “My Madre, my padre, my sisters, my brothers, they’re all gone.”

“You still have your wife.”

“Si. If not for Theresa, I don’t know what I would do. She’s my anchor and my life.” For the first time since they met, Soren felt a fledgling bond. Montoya was housed in E Block, and they had only been thrust together a week ago to prepare for the SEAL run, as Carpenter liked to refer to it.

“What did you do berate the war? I was in construction.”

Montoya chuckled. “I was in the army. Stationed at Fort Riley. When the task force was destroyed, I phoned Theresa and had her fly to Denver. I met her there and we flew on to Minnesota.”

“They let you leave the base?” Soren recalled hearing on the radio that all military leaves had been canceled.

“I’m AWOL,” Montoya said quietly.

“You did what you had to do to get your wife to safety,” Slayne interjected. “If you hadn’t left when you did, you’d have been stranded when all the aircraft were grounded.” Soren discovered that Montoya had been in the First Infantry Division and was rated a marksman. “It will be great to work together.”

“Or die together.”

“Stow that kind of talk,” Slayne growled. “You’re a Warrior now, mister, and Warriors don’t die without my permission.”

Soren and Montoya both laughed, and were promptly sobered by a blast of wind that shook the Hunster down to its axles.

The minutes crawled. Half an hour became an hour and the hour became two. All around them, cyclonic winds raged.

At one point Slayne shifted in his seat to say, “Remember what I told you back at the Home. In the field, use your code names, not your real names. Robert, you should be used to stealth ops. Soren, you were a civilian, so it might help if you started using our code names all the time so it comes naturally in combat.”

“Wait.” Soren had to absorb this. “You want me to think of myself as Thor?”

“Do you have a problem with that?”

Shaking with silent mirth, Soren shook his head. “No, Mr. Slayne, no problem at all.”

“What did I just tell you?”

“Oh, sorry. No, Solo, I don’t.”

Twenty minutes later, as abruptly as the winds had started, they died. In the sudden stillness Slayne rolled down his window. Quiet reigned. The gray sky once again moved at a snail’s pace. He turned the Hunster over and drove out of the gully.

Every last vestige of vegetation for miles around had been destroyed. The grass and weeds had been scoured from the earth. Most of the trees were down.

Not one had any leaves left, or much bark.

“Let’s hope we don’t run into that again.” Slayne drove to the road and continued west. They took 200 to State Highway 83 and crossed the Missouri River at Washburn. Half a dozen times they spotted other people but always at a distance.

“Is it me, or is everyone avoiding the roads?” Montoya mentioned. They saw deer. They saw a few birds. They braked for a black bear that crossed in front of them, but it paid them no mind. A lot of its fur was missing and it kept twitching and jerking as it walked. Avoiding cities and towns, they made it across North Dakota and into Montana. Slayne decided to dare Interstate 94 in the belief that they would make better time. For a while, they did. Then, northeast of Miles City, they crested a low rise and beheld a sight that caused Slayne to stomp on the brake to bring the Hunster to a stop.

A man lay on his back in the middle of the highway. He was surrounded by people—and they were eating him.