Free Red Hammer: Voodoo Plague Book 4 by Dirk Patton Page A

them into the Soviet Union if the President ever
decided it was time.  But that was a lot of years ago.  Technology had made
them obsolete, or so I thought.
    “We still have some?  Weren’t the last ones built in the
70s?”  I asked.
    “60s, to be accurate, but you know the US Government. 
Nothing ever gets thrown away, just stuck in storage and forgotten about.”
    “Will they still work?”
    “Admiral Packard checked with his staff that maintains the
Navy’s nuclear arsenal and they assured him that the devices will work as well
today as when they were built.  Sounds like they have a pretty long shelf
life.”
    “So, what’s the catch?  If I’m remembering right these
things are variable yield, from 10 tons all the way up to 1 kiloton.  Couple of
these at each base they took over, cranked all the way up and there’s a lot of
fried Russkies.”  I asked with a sinking feeling about where he was going with
this.
    “That’s our thought.  Do you still remember how to adjust
the yield?” 
    “Yeah, I do.  Once you’re shown how to operate a nuclear
bomb it’s not something you tend to forget.”  I said with more sarcasm than I
probably should have when talking to a superior officer, but at the moment I
didn’t really give a shit.
    Crawford ignored my tone and continued.  “The problem is
there’s only three locations we can identify where these are in storage.  The
Navy had some at Little Creek in Virginia and at Coronado out in California.  Unfortunately,
no one can find any records to confirm they’re still there, or even exactly
where they are on the bases, and there’s not someone to call up and ask to go
check.  The third location, and we have found inventory records from less than
a year ago, is Los Alamos.”
    I looked at him and stayed silent.  I knew what was coming,
and I wasn’t going to help him.  The room was quiet other than the rush of cool
air from the air conditioning vents and a large analog clock ticking away on
the wall over the north facing bank of windows. 
    “I need you to lead a team into Los Alamos and retrieve the
devices.  Records indicate there’s ten of them in storage.  Captain Blanchard
has all of the details you’ll need.”
    I knew I was going to accept the mission before he even
asked.  Yes, asked.  Crawford was a good officer, a good leader.  He could have
ordered me to go, but that wasn’t his style.  He knew me well enough by now to
understand that he didn’t need to order me to do anything.  Just explain to me
why it needed done.  I’ve always been a soft touch that way.

12
     
    The two little girls were named Lindsey and Madison, Madison
the younger.  Rachel’s guess of their ages had been close.  Madison was seven
and Lindsey ten, almost eleven as she proudly announced.  Their parents owned
the small gas station, the only place to buy gas for forty miles in any
direction, Madison assured her.  They had only lived in Arkansas for a few
months, their parents having sold everything they owned to come up with the
money to buy the business from a distant relative.  The girls missed their
friends, but said their mother was very happy to have left the crime in their
Memphis neighborhood behind.
    They huddled with Rachel in the back of the office area, Dog
lying protectively between them and the door.  He was close enough for the
girls to touch him and both kept a hand on his back, gently rubbing.  Tired,
but unable to sleep, Rachel got them talking about what had happened to their
parents.  While they talked, she kept an eye out the glass front of the office
even though it was too dark outside for her to see anything.  She trusted Dog
to warn her if there was any danger.
    Shortly after the attacks, the local Sheriff had come around
and talked to their daddy.  They weren’t able to hear the conversation, but
when the man left their father was very upset.  He used a lot of bad words when
he was telling their mom about what the