“No, you old fool, the bomb drop. They bombed the base, blew it to hell.”
Buck’s arms went slack as his eyes focused on Rogers. “You mean,” —he stopped and shook his head— “No… I heard an explosion last night; hell, it shook the cabin. But… no, that was just the zoomies on a run… it couldn’t have come from that far away. Would have to be a nuke to feel a bomb’s blast from that far away.”
“Buck, something hit us. The globes—or whatever they are—they dropped something on the base. Something big.” Rogers paused to look back at Jacob. “We barely escaped the blasts ourselves.”
“No, that can’t be,” Buck said, moving back to the chair and dropping into the seat. He reached forward, searched between the bits of stacked wood, and retrieved a corked bottle. He removed the cap and took a long sip. “How bad was it?”
“We didn’t go back to see,” Rogers said. Changing the subject, he pointed at the helicopter. “Is it ready to go?”
Buck rolled his shoulders and focused his eyes on the single Blackhawk. “It’s topped off if you need to go for a spin, but… the other birds haven’t returned. I don’t have a left-seater, and no gunships. They recalled the chinook back to the base for maintenance yesterday… guess you explained why they haven’t—”
Cutting him off, James stepped away from the porch and looked up the trail in the direction of the hilltop. “We need to keep moving if we want to get back before sundown.”
Rogers nodded in agreement and turned back to Buck. “Get sobered up; we’re patrolling up to the ridge. I need to check out the arms cache. Oh, and we saw fire in the village on the way in. You know anything about it?”
Buck shook his head no, removing his hat and dragging an arm over his forehead.
“Well, I want to know why it’s burning.”
“Well, hell, I’m sober now; maybe I’ll tag along and have a look myself.”
“Buck, I don’t have time to argue with you. Get the bird ready to go, okay?”
Buck pulled his head back and nodded. “Can do.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
The trip to the top of the hill went without incident. They found the tower and cave entrance unguarded and unoccupied. Partially concealed by tall grass, the cave doors were sealed tight by steel bars going deep into the rock, broad hinges welded to the plate steel, and a cipher lock dead center. The cave wasn’t well hidden; most of the structure protruded from the rock at the base of the hill, and fresh earth had been piled at the sides where it met with roughly poured concrete. Jacob walked past the doors and saw a large stack of discarded steel shelving, as well as other equipment cabinets.
“What is this place?” Jacob said.
Rogers stepped to the cipher lock and opened a plastic cover, revealing the face of the keys. “Used to be a maintenance locker for the radio and the phone company's use. They kept their computers and cell stuff in here. Some of it still is here. When the Army took ownership, they gutted most of the old, unusable stuff and reclaimed the floor space. There’s a generator in the back, and most of the batteries are still good.”
Jacob looked at the entrance; he could see the welds were new. He pounded on the door, feeling the heavy plates thump without an echo. “Why so much security up here, out of the way?”
James skirted past them with Duke at his side, stopping near a large boulder and dropping to his rear. “The bean counters at the base insisted on it; guess they were worried if the militias knew about this cache, they might try and grab some. We have people defecting from the units every day, so secrets are hard to keep,” James said. He turned and looked at Rogers. “How we gonna get inside?”
Jacob stopped and glanced back at the lock. “You don’t know the combination?” he asked incredulously.
Rogers sighed and dropped the plastic cover, letting it fall over the key pad. “Only officers had it. Marks had it, but…” Rogers paused and shoved a hand into his pocket before looking back at the worried face of Jacob, “now I have it.”
They grew quiet, remembering their fallen commander. A gunshot echoed from over the hill. Rogers’ head lifted as he looked toward the summit. He stepped around the cave’s bunker-like door and climbed up the steep face to the top of the hill. Pausing at the top, he crouched low so that he wouldn’t skyline himself against the sun. He turned and looked out along the far side. He crept ahead, focusing on something far in the distance, and then moved away. Jacob scrambled up behind him.
A cool breeze hit him in the face. He looked down into a long, green valley covered in thin trees. At the end of the valley, Jacob could barely make out the shapes of homes and other structures. Focusing on the center and far side of the village, he spotted a thin stream of black smoke.
“That the same village we passed on our way here?” Jacob asked, although knowing the answer.
Before Rogers could reply, they heard more sounds of gunfire—not just random shots, but open combat, automatic weapons fire joined by the thumps of distant explosions. Duke edged past them and stretched forward, his tail tucked and ears going ridged. He let out a subtle whine as James lifted his rifle and used the scope to look into the distance.
Joining the sounds of combat, an unfamiliar metallic clang echoed—like the smashing of metal drums—followed by a high-pitched voomp, voomp, voomp. Finally, a bright flash of light and a deafening explosion caused the ground to shudder. There was no shockwave, but the men could feel the heat of the light on their faces. The gunfire slowly diminished, and more smoke filled the distant skyline.
The village was in flames now, the black smoke being defused by a thicker cloud of gray
