The Dying of the Light (Short Stories): The Walker Chronicles (Tales From The Dying of the Light) (5 page)

“But, well, sir, isn’t that kind of the point?”

“Of Unit 73, you mean?” When the corporal nodded, Moretti leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk. “You’re sharper than you look, Mr. Maxwell.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Yes, this will get buried under the rug, and no one but us will know about it until… well, whenever the problem becomes to big to ignore, though let’s hope that’s not for a long,
long
time. And when that day comes… well, I’ve got some ideas. You know, Hitler’s got a bunker under Berlin?”

“So I’ve heard, sir. Seems like a good idea, having a hidey-hole you can retreat to in a pinch.”

Moretti eyed the young man once more, weighing a clearly important decision. “What are you doing after the war, son?”

“Well, sir, I’ve been thinking about that piece of land in the middle of nowhere, like you suggested.”

“Horrible thought, isn’t it? Being so far from the action?”

Maxwell grinned. “That’s exactly what I was thinking, sir.”

“I’m glad. So that’s settled then. You’re in. But bear this in mind, when you’re in, you’re
in
, son. There’s no backing out. You’ll be with me the whole way; I need someone I can trust. What do you say?”

“I say, what did you have in mind, sir?”

“Good man. Now, let me show you something I’ve been working on for a little while now,” Moretti said, pulling a large, rolled up paper tube from the shelf behind him and spreading it out on his desk.

On the map of the US were ten clearly-marked locations, spread across the country. Maxwell’s eye caught on one near his hometown of Tacoma, Washington marked ‘N
^o
1 - Mount Rainier’ and he looked back up at the colonel.

Moretti tapped the map with a finger. “I want to talk to you about Project Phoenix.”

Blood and Sand

Over the Gulf of Sidra
Mediterranean Sea
August 1981
Z-Day - 30 years
1845 Hours Local Time

The bullets ripped along the wing, through the fuselage, and into the rudder, jarring him in his seat and causing the A4 Skyhawk to yaw sharply to starboard. He didn’t need the now useless controls to tell him the jet was doomed.

“Splash one,” he heard his wingman call. “Blue Eagle 102 is hit. Skip, come in.”

John ‘Skip’ Barker looked out over the azure waters of the Gulf of Sidra, the setting sun in his eyes. In any other situation, it would be a breathtaking view.
Of course I’d be hit and frozen headed straight toward land
, he thought.
This shouldn’t be happening. I shouldn’t be here; I should be at home, meeting my little girl for the first time
.

“Handbook, 102 is hit and going down. I have no control. Repeat, Handbook, Blue Eagle 102 is at zero control and going down.”

“Roger, 102,” came the reply from his ship, the USS
Forrestal
. “Scrambling SAR now.”

He checked the systems yet again, hoping against hope that he was wrong, that the rounds from the Libyan Su-22 hadn’t taken out both his aileron
and
the rudder… but there was no arguing with the lack of control he had; his ride was shot, literally, and it was going to take him down with it. The broken and fused rudder assembly on his A-4 Skyhawk had forced him into a south-by-southwest course, and with no way to turn, he was stuck heading over Libyan territorial waters.

Better to ditch. Just have to hope the SAR boys can get to me before the bad guys
.

His training had long since taken over by that point, and his conscious mind barely registered his communications with the carrier and his wingman, letting them know he was bailing out — ejecting over the Gulf.

God help me
, he thought, and yanked the seat firing handle. In the span of a few heartbeats, the canopy breaker smashed the cockpit above him, the catapult launched him upward, and the rocket fired, propelling him away from the dying Skyhawk. He expected the metaphorical kick to the gut that came with such rapid acceleration, but it still took his breath away, leaving him gasping into his mask and holding tight to the straps.

A few tenths of a second later, the seat-man-separator motor fired, and he watched as the seat fell away, leaving him to jerk again as the drogue parachute opened above his head, slowing and stabilizing his descent toward the water, followed by his main chute opening. He felt the downward tug of his survival pack, and looked up as he saw his wingman circle at a safe distance, no doubt reporting his position.

Judging from his distance to the shore, he was well within Libyan waters, or would be shortly. Now that the sun was going down, his chances of being rescued by SAR operations from the carrier were slim. Assuming the Libyans didn’t get to him first. The carrier was already scrambling the rescue personnel, but it would still be some time before they arrived, and sunset was the worst possible time to try and locate someone on the water, given the reflecting sun. From what he could see up here, it didn’t help that the currents seemed to be heading inland at the moment.

Of course, those currents did explain the fishing trawler headed his way as he prepared to splash down in the cold water. About twenty feet off the water, he hit the quick-release for his chute, and dropped like a rock. His survival pack hit first, and he had about a second to brace for the impact before the water closed over his head. He heard the automatic inflation of his survival raft, and clawed his helmet off, reaching for the sun and, more importantly, oh-so-necessary fresh air.

As he popped to the surface, he saw the raft bobbing next to him, the survival pack still tethered to his harness by the lanyard. He hoisted himself over the side, splashing into the inflatable craft and coughing up what felt like a few lungfuls of salty water. His emergency beacon had automatically been activated, sending out its radio-pulsed SOS, along with the flashing strobe. He quickly covered the beacon, not wanting to attract attention from the fishing trawler, hoping it would pass him by in the gathering dusk.

Unfortunately, his luck was determined to continue its current trajectory, and within fifteen minutes, the boat had pulled alongside, a spotlight shining down on him and the fishermen yelling at him in Arabic, gesturing to him to get out of the raft and into the boat.

His choices were few: stay in a flimsy raft and hope that the SAR crews were authorized to violate enemy airspace to retrieve him, or go with the fishermen, hoping that he would somehow be rescued.
It’s a shit sandwich either way you look at it, son
, he thought.
Still, better to be off the water, especially at night
.

He looked out to sea as he climbed aboard the trawler with the help of the men, but the carrier was far too distant to see. The men pulled his raft aboard as well, handing him the survival pack. He bowed his head in thanks, murmuring one of the few arabic phrases that he knew: “
Shukran
. Thank you.”

The burliest of the men, probably the captain, grunted and threw him a dirty, stained jumpsuit. He spoke without expression in rapid-fire Arabic, indicating that Barker should wear it, pointing to the patches and insignia on his arms and flight suit and shaking his head. An argument sprang up between the captain and one of the younger men aboard, who glared at Barker with unconcealed hatred while he argued. The captain answered him calmly, and when the young man continued to raise his voice, the captain just as calmly backhanded the younger man across the face, staggering him into the boat’s gunwale.

Naturally, this only caused him to glower even more at Barker, but he broke off and went toward the front of the boat when the captain grumbled a command his way. Shaking his head, the captain turned back to the pilot, studying him. Barker was not a small man, but this fisherman towered over him by a good six or eight inches, with arms the size of trees and a beard… Well, it would’ve done Paul Bunyan proud.

“You…” Said the captain, in broken English. His mouth moved as though he was tasting the words before saying them, clearly an unfamiliar situation for him. “Sit. Here. You sit here,” he said, pointing to a crate just inside the wheelhouse, barely big enough to sit on. The captain motioned again to the jumpsuit, then to the crate, and Barker got the message.

“Yes, sir,” he said, pulling the wide legs of the jumpsuit over his boots and trying to ignore the smell of the clothing’s former owner — or owners. To his credit, he only gagged a little as the smell wafted up, and he zipped it shut.
Voila
, no more American pilot. Just a white man in a dirty jumpsuit.

The other men snickered, eventually heading back to their work, but one of them threw a stocking cap his way, and he was grateful. The breeze off the water, combined with still being mostly soaking wet, had him pretty chilly. Hopefully, he’d dry off before they hit land, and he spent the next half-hour trying not to think about what would be coming next.

USS
Forrestal
1935 Hours

The search-and-rescue helicopter finished up its second pass over the location reported by Commander Barker’s wingman, and the ship’s executive officer, Tom Sanders, took the report from his radar operator, repeating it to the ship’s captain, Clarence Armstrong.

“Negative contacts, skipper. They’re not seeing him out there. Should they come around for another pass?” asked the XO.

The captain stared at the screens before him, hands clasped behind his back, deep in thought. “Where are we with the radio beacon?” he asked, turning to his communications officer.

“We’re having trouble localizing it, sir,” the young man said. “Some sort of interference, possibly sunspot activity, sir.”

“Sunspots? But it’s…” Said Sanders.

“Pardon me, sir,” continued the comms officer. “But the day or night cycle here on Earth makes no difference. We’ve been noticing some increased radio interference over the last few days; I mentioned it in my report, sir.”

“Can you find our man, sailor, or can’t you?” asked the captain.

The comms officer swallowed hard. “Yes, sir, I can. It’s just going to take a little longer.”

“Then stop talking to me and get to it. Dismissed.”

“Yes, sir,” said the officer, and started to leave, then turned back. “Sir? I can tell you this: the signal appears to be headed toward shore, sir.” With that, the comms officer left the compartment.

The captain turned to the XO. “Stand down from SAR operations. Get me Captain Batzler on the
Nimitz
. I’ll take it in my quarters.”

“Yes, sir,” said the XO.

“And Tom…”

“Sir?”

“Wake up Major Maxwell and his men. Have him meet me in my quarters.”

“Yes, sir,” said the XO as the captain left the compartment.
I wish to hell I knew why those guys were on my ship
, he thought.
Creepiest sons of bitches I’ve ever met, and all very hush-hush
. He shook his head; it didn’t matter. He had other things to worry about.

“Get me the
Nimitz
on a secure channel,” he said to one of the ensigns that clearly didn’t have enough to do. “Stand down SAR.” He glanced at the monitors showing the flight deck, where the sun was finally slipping over the horizon.

Don’t worry, commander
, he thought.
We’ll bring you home
.

El-Harab Fishing Village
2045 Hours Local Time

Barker looked around the interior of the small home he’d been brought to by his rescuers. No different than he’d imagined a poor Libyan house would be like, it had stone and brick walls that were crumbling with age and haphazard construction. It was small, maybe three or four rooms at a guess, but not bad; he’d slept in worse places during SERE training years before.

After arriving on land and making their way into the village, he’d shuffled through the door along with the other men, pretending to be celebrating a good catch, and hadn’t seen much of the village or anything else, for that matter.

The home was small, and he could smell the tantalizing aromas of something cooking in another room. His host, the trawler’s captain, had left him in the front room to talk with the other men and his sons while he went to explain things to his wife. Or so Barker thought, given the man’s poor English. None of the other fishermen spoke even that much, and his Arabic had been exhausted with the ‘
shukran
’ he’d used when given the jumpsuit. They continued to try, but at this point his caveman brain had taken over and he couldn’t get past the delicious smells coming from the kitchen.

Fortunately, his host had finished discussing the matter, and soon his wife and daughter were passing plates among the men seated on the floor. Barker had no idea what the food was called, but it smelled and looked delicious. The trawler captain motioned to Barker to eat, pointing at the plate of dough and sauce, saying
bazin
. Whether that meant food, or was the name of the dish, Barker was beyond caring.

After the meal of
bazin
,
asida
, and a thick black tea, everyone left, and the captain sent his family out of the room. Barker and his host sat back on the elderly chairs in the living room, drinking a strong mint tea that Barker thoroughly enjoyed. Though he was anxious to get back to his ship, he knew his best chance of that happening was in the morning, when the trawler went back out to sea, and now was as good a time as any to broach the subject.

“John,” Barker said, sitting a little straighter and pointing to himself. After a pause he pointed in the general direction of his host, not wanting to appear rude.

The man nodded. “Tareq,” he said, pointing to himself. “Tareq Warfalla.”

Barker smiled. “John, John Barker. Hello.”

“Hello, John,” said Tareq, though he didn’t smile.

“Tareq, why are you helping me?” he asked.

The other man looked thoughtful for a moment, and Barker wondered if he’d understood, but then Tareq spoke in his halting English.