Steamboat, New Jackson, Freedom — every town within reach was off the grid, so he’d abandoned the CB for their Harris AN/PRC-117 instead. Cam wanted a helicopter for Ruth and he was prepared to face a jail sentence if necessary. Let the U.S. leadership punish him if there was ever time for it. The important thing was to get her to safety, but first they needed a bit of luck.
Like most of their military hardware, the Harris was something that had been abandoned by American troops whose positions were overrun. Cam regarded it with a mix of old pride and pain. His time in the Rangers had been short but intense, full of the quick, meaningful friendships that were born of relying on each other, and Eric and Greg had continued his training after they went into hiding. Bobbi was still a newlywed or she might have known more herself. Eric had focused more on her weapons training during their courtship. Guns were exciting, so she’d learned to shoot instead of other basics.
“This radio was Z‘ed out,” he said. “That means the encryption software was dumped to keep it from the Chinese, so we can’t hear or talk on the secure net. That’s why it’s so quiet. I guarantee you there are people talking right now. We just can’t hear their transmissions.”
Bobbi pointed at the handset. “But you can still call.”
“No. This radio is only capable of open broadcasts. We can only reach people who are monitoring or broadcasting in the open.”
The Harris was a sixteen-pound chunk of metal intended for use in a vehicle or as a field pack. It didn’t have the strength to contact Grand Lake or Sylvan Mountain directly. It was meant to be deployed as a part of a larger net — and they were in friendly territory. There were signals corpsmen and retransmission stations scattered across the Rockies. He might even be relayed through a plane if U.S. forces had put the right equipment in the air, trying to find stragglers like himself.
Or to kill them.
Cam was paranoid enough to believe that the new plague might have its origins on the American side. The U.S. weapons programs wouldn’t have stopped after Ruth went AWOL, and it wasn’t impossible that the plague zone was limited to this valley. What if, through sheer bad luck, this place had been chosen as a test area? He needed to make it clear who was at risk. They would come for Ruth. He was certain of that.
“The best we can do is stumble onto a frequency that’s being monitored or find two units talking in the unsecure and step on their transmission,” he said. “That’s why this could take awhile. There’ll be units who don’t have any better equipment than we do, but there are hundreds of frequencies. So you need to do this for me.”
“Hey!” Owen called from across the room, hefting a staple gun and a roll of tape. “We’re done except for the door. Are you coming out?”
“One minute.”
“We gotta seal up!” Owen shouted. He was a tall man and among the most visible in the crowd, which included his wife. The village gossip was that she’d miscarried twice, which was why Owen doted on her like nothing else. Cam didn’t want to argue with him.
“Close it,” he said. “I’ll come out as soon as I can.”
The air wouldn’t last. Sealing two huts in plastic was a temporary fix. Ripping down the greenhouses had also left more of their late-year crops unprotected, increasing the likelihood of more insect swarms tomorrow. Meanwhile, the fire ants were still expanding beneath Jefferson. Even if the colony stayed in the ground tonight, Cam knew they could count on dealing with the bugs again after sunrise. The vicious goddamned ants would be excited by the blood they’d spilled.
He switched to another frequency as hammers sounded on the outside of the door. He tried another and another, and suddenly the radio came to life:
“—through Medicine Bow and we need extraction off a hot LZ, over,” a man said very fast before another voice answered, “Roger, Cougar Six Two.”
Jesus, Cam thought.
There were large sections of National Forest called Medicine Bow nearby in Wyoming, and he knew those mountains were peppered with civilian and military camps. Cam didn’t recognize the call sign — Cougar Six Two might have been anyone — but they were American and that was all that mattered.
“Break break break,” he said. “Any station this net, this is Two Echo Two, any station this net, over.”
The first man responded. “Two Echo Two, Two Echo Two, this is Cougar Six Two. Over.”
“Roger, Cougar Six Two, I need you to pass along an emergency message, break. Flash code Revere. I say again, flash code Revere, over.”
Silence. The other man obviously had his own problems. He had been calling for some sort of evacuation himself, but his discipline held. The man said, “I need you to authenticate, Two Echo Two. Over.”
“I say again, flash code Revere. This is Corporal Najarro with the Seventy-Fifth. I need to speak with Major Thrun or the current operations officer in Grand Lake, over.”
His flash code was ancient by military standards. Call signs, encryptions, and communications windows were changed every thirty days. Cam had been out of contact for a year and a half, but Grand Lake would have archives that contained the OPORD mission profile from his last assignment. Grand Lake should know his name, and, knowing him, they should realize who might be with him.
“Roger that, Two Echo—” The background exploded with small arms fire and the man’s voice rose into a shout. “What is your current location, over?”
Cougar Six Two was under attack. Who were they fighting? Could there be enemy forces inside the plague zone or was Cougar defending himself from infected people? Cam spoke with icy control, trying to make himself more significant to Cougar Six Two than the disaster surrounding the other man. “I say again, Revere. Revere. I need you to pass that message ASAP, Cougar Six Two. I’ll monitor this frequency for the next thirty minutes and will come up on this station every hour on the hour for ten minutes thereafter, over.”
The man yelled just to be heard over the gunfire and screaming. “Understood, Two Echo Two! Godspeed. Out.”
“Do you think they’ll do it?” Bobbi asked, and Cam said, “Yes.” He’d seen nothing but self sacrifice from the troops he’d served with.
All they could do was wait. They couldn’t even scan for more transmissions because they had to sit on 925.25. Cam left Bobbi by the radio to help Susan with Brett, who was unconscious now. Maybe that was for the best. She’d done a good job of applying a pressure bandage to their friend’s midsection, and Cam tried to assess the damage. The bullet must have missed the aorta — Brett would be dead already — but it couldn’t have missed his intestines. The bacteria released from his digestive tract was a problem. They didn’t have antibiotics, which meant peritonitis would probably kill him even if he survived the wound itself. Cam nearly forgot everything else. He was among the best medics in the village, but they weren’t equipped for surgery, and opening Brett up would create at least as many complications as Cam could fix. He was still weighing their options when a smooth female voice filled the hut.
“Two Echo Two, this is Arapaho Five, over,” she said. Cam jumped on it, pushing Bobbi aside with a hand slick
with Brett’s blood. “I read you. Over.”
“Authenticate, Two Echo Two.”
“This is Corporal Najarro from Second Platoon, Echo Company, Second Battalion, Seventy-Fifth Ranger Regiment. Over.”
“Roger, Two Echo Two. Send your traffic, over.”
It was enough that Cam was elated. He glanced at Bobbi with his mouth bent in a thin line like a smile. The woman in Grand Lake must have run his ID on a computer. He and Ruth were probably flagged on a dozen programs along with Eric and Greg and other suspected collaborators like Allison.
He still couldn’t believe she was gone. He blurted out, “People are sick, ma‘am. I need a medevac now. Over.”
“Roger, Two Echo Two. Flash code Streak.”
That one simple word sent a chill up the back of his neck. Streak. It meant to change frequencies to avoid being trian gulated by the enemy. If she was concerned about enemy surveillance on the unsecured net, it could mean there really were hostile forces moving in behind the plague…
