The Nightmare begins

Chapter Forty

Captain Reed sucked on the empty pipe in his mouth, glanced one more time over the shoulder of the radio operator and turned on his heel and started through the doorway. He strode down the narrow basement hallway and up the stairs two at a time to the main floor of the house. He could hear through the open doors to the library the voice of Colonel Darlington, calm, collected, and the raving of Randan Soames, the paramilitary commander. Soames was shouting, "Over a hundred of my men were killed by them gawd-damned commie bastards, colonel—and you want me to calm down!"

Reed knocked on the door, then entered without waiting to be bidden to do so.

Soames was starting to speak and Reed cut him off. "Colonel—I just checked down in the radio room personally. The frequency for the Harrier is open, and if Lieutenant Brennan were aboard, he'd be picking us up—I ordered a shutdown on that frequency. I figured the Russians could try and use it as long as we keep it open to get a fix on us. I think they got Brennan and captured the president."

Soames was still talking, as if, Reed thought, what he had just said had no meaning. "They got more than a hundred of my boys while they was attackin' this gang of renegades up on some damned plateau out there in the middle of the night in a gawd-damned rainstorm. Just come down in their helicopters nice as they pleased like they owned the whole damned place."

"They do, for now at least," Colonel Darlington said, knitting his fingers together and glancing to Reed.

Reed said to Soames, "Sir—haven't you heard what I said? I mean, the loss of your men is important, it's terrible—but they must have nailed President Chambers, when he landed in Galveston!"

"We can get a new president," Soames said quietly, "No—we can get this one back," Darlington said. "I've been considering this, and I think Captain Reed and the others would agree with me. It's time we showed the Russians we can still fight. According to what's left of military intelligence in the Galveston area, the Russians have taken over one of our top secret air bases down there—I worked there for a time. The underground complex is hardened and would have protected anyone inside from a neutron air burst. They would have been trapped there until the Russians landed and by then it would have been too late. That air base is probably being used by the Russians right now—probably where they have Chambers. Probably got a couple hundred of our airmen imprisoned there too—wouldn't have had the time to get 'em out to a detention center, or the equipment free to do it with."

"You want to make a strike, sir?" Reed stuffed tobacco into his pipe and looked at Darlington.

"What do you think captain—your boys on the ground, some of my people in the air in some more of those Harriers—could we do it? Get in and get Chambers out, maybe free our boys—hurt the Russians a little and let 'em know we're still alive and kicking? Soames' men could back you up—he's got the numbers on his side there."

"We could land about seventy-five miles from there, then push in."

"Closer than that—I can get you within twenty miles of the base. You want to try it—they're your men. Reed?"

Reed looked at the air force colonel and nodded, striking a match to his pipe.

Soames was still muttering about the "gawd-damned commies."