Free Red Hammer: Voodoo Plague Book 4 by Dirk Patton

enough
that I wondered how I had slept.  I’d have to get him and Dog together to see
who was louder, I thought, then remembered I didn’t even know if Dog was alive
or not.  The thought soured my mood, more than it already was, and I climbed to
my feet with a groan.  I may have stayed in shape, but my knees, back and
shoulders weren’t as young as they used to be.  Working the sore joints, I
thought about kicking Jackson and telling him to get his ass up and moving but
didn’t see the point.  Let him sleep while he could.
    Wandering out into the bright Arkansas sunshine I wished for
a pair of sun glasses as I headed for the trench some of the Rangers had dug on
the far side of the runway to serve as a latrine.  Business complete, I set out
in search of the Colonel.  I intended to ask him to send out another helicopter
to search for Rachel, and if he wouldn’t I was going to slip away and start
looking myself.  Of course, I didn’t have a clue where to start, but that
didn’t matter. 
    Trudging across the hot tarmac towards the control tower I
had time to think.  In my heart I knew I wasn’t going to desert to go look for
Rachel.  I was many things, but no matter how good the reason I wasn’t a
deserter.  Men were fighting and dying.  Brother soldiers who most likely had
someone they cared about who was missing, too.  I knew I’d be fighting until I
was dead, or we won, and winning wasn’t looking like it would get very good
odds in Vegas right about now.
    Reaching the base of the control tower I returned the
guard’s salute, pulled the door open and stepped into blessed, nearly orgasmic
quality air conditioning.  I had forgotten that the FAA required emergency
generators for any airport with a controller assigned.  Apparently the Colonel
hadn’t as I could faintly hear it purring away, providing power to the
building.  Climbing the staircase to the upper level I found Crawford seated at
the same folding table I’d eaten dinner at the previous evening.
    In the far corner of the room sat a folding cot, a thin Army
issue blanket folded into a perfect square sitting precisely in the center. 
Crawford looked freshly showered, shaved and wore a crisply pressed uniform. 
He was drinking a cup of coffee from an Arkansas Razorbacks mug, satellite
phone pressed to his ear.  He looked up when I walked in and waved me into a
chair on the opposite side of the table.  Before sitting, I looked around for
the coffee pot, but couldn’t spot one so sat down and enjoyed the cool air
blowing out of the ceiling vent directly over my head.  Crawford wrapped up his
call and hit the end button on the sat phone. 
    “Before you even ask, I’ve got two Black Hawks out looking
for her.  Well, not just looking for her, they’re also scouting for Russians
and infected, but I put a Ranger on each bird and tasked them with looking for
her specifically.”  He noisily slurped some coffee and picked up his reading
glasses and the legal pad with the interrogation notes.
    “Thank you, sir.”
    “Don’t like to leave anyone behind.”  He said.  “That was
Admiral Packard and his staff I was just talking with.  Briefed them on what
you got out of our prisoners last night.  They still have access to our
satellites, and are re-tasking several of them for surveillance of the US. 
What we do know is that the Russians have taken Malmstrom Air Force Base in
Montana, Ellsworth in South Dakota and Kirtland in New Mexico.  Malmstrom gave
them access to our Minuteman III inventory of ICBMs.  They’re consolidating
their hold on us and we’ve got an idea to ruin their day.”
    “I’m all ears, sir.”  I said when it was obvious he was
waiting for me to respond.
    “SADMs.”
    At first I was sure I hadn't  heard him right.  SADM stands
for Special Atomic Demolition Munition.  In plain English, a nuke that fits in
a back pack.  I had trained on these devices at one point in my military
career, preparing to carry