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  ‘Best put a lid on that shit, airman.’

  ‘We got beat. Time to be realistic. All that’s left is survival.’

  ‘You are an officer in the United States Air Force. Still bound by oath. Don’t fucking forget it.’

  Noble spoke up, aiming to divert the argument.

  ‘This valley extends a long way south,’ said Noble. ‘Unbroken desert. Certain death. North, east or west: that’s the only real choice we got.

  ‘If we head west, we’ve got a long walk across dunes, then our troubles really begin. We’d hit the Panamint Range. Barren as the moon. Like crossing the Himalayas with nothing but the clothes on our back. And then we have to repeat the trick. Cross Saline Valley and the Inyo Mountains, and onwards into the Mojave. Miles of impossible terrain between us and Edwards. It’s not an achievable journey. Certain death, unless we got lucky, real lucky. Stumbled across an RV or something.’

  ‘And we’d be heading towards the ruins of LA,’ said Frost. ‘Walking into a lethal fallout plume.’

  ‘Well, the journey east isn’t much more enticing. Miles of desert, then we hit the Black Mountains. Not much on the other side. Could make for Vegas, I guess, but it’s probably a smoking crater. Or we could head through the Amargosa Desert which is also, let’s not forget, the Tonopah Bombing Range. Dirt peppered with unexploded munitions. If we made it across the Amargosa, beat thirst, exhaustion, the prospect of getting our legs blown off, we might finally reach Nellis Air Force Base. But we took off from Vegas precisely because Nellis has been overrun.’

  ‘Hangman’s choice,’ said Frost. ‘Want to flip a coin?’

  ‘West,’ said Hancock. ‘We head west. Hike till we find a highway. This is a National Park. There are blacktop access roads running through the hills. All we got to do is find a car, start it up and we’re home free.’

  ‘We got enough water to last about five days, more or less. Journey like that could take a couple of weeks. Our luck would have to make a one-eighty turn.’

  ‘It can be done. Just depends how badly a person wants to live.’

  ‘What about our unseen friends?’ asked Noble, gesturing to surrounding dunes.

  ‘We’re well armed. Once we are out in the desert we’ll have an unimpeded sight-line. Hard to see how anyone could mess with us.’

  ‘Pretty hopeless plan,’ said Frost. ‘But I guess it’s all we got.’

  ‘We’ll leave tonight. Wait till the sun sinks to the horizon and the day begins to cool. Yeah, we’re not in great shape. But if we summon a little determination we should be able to set a decent pace, cover ten, fifteen miles a night. Rest during the day. Take a chute so we got a little shade.’

  ‘We got some Gatorade, a few No-Doz,’ said Noble. ‘Bit of sugar and caffeine might boost us a couple more miles.’

  ‘The will to live. That’s the bottom line. If we set our minds, we can drive ourselves past the point of endurance, past the point at which regular folks would lay down and die. We’ll make it.’

  Hancock got to his feet and began to walk back to the plane.

  Frost and Noble watched him stagger and sway, each calculating bleak odds of making it out the desert alive.

  ‘All that believe-in-yourself bullshit,’ said Noble. ‘Tired of it already. We’re constrained by reality. Can’t cross those mountains on foot any more than we can flap our arms and fly.’

  ‘Where the hell are my tags?’ asked Frost.

  She raked the sand beside her.

  ‘My dog tags. They were here.’

  ‘What do you care?’

  ‘They’re gone, that’s all I’m saying.’

  She stood and kicked at the dune.

  ‘Swear to God, they were right here.’

  Noble looked up. Sky tinged red. Mid morning, but it looked like sunset.

  He walked towards the eastern ridgeline. He broke into a run. Growing sense of panic and urgency. He scrambled the gradient and stood at the crest.

  ‘Get up here guys,’ he shouted. ‘Take a look at this.’

  Frost and Hancock climbed the dune. The three aircrew stood side-by-side.

  A red blur on the horizon. An oncoming wall of dust.

  ‘Sandstorm. Heading this way.’

  22

  They watched, mesmerised, as the dust storm approached. A wall of sand, infernal red, half a mile high. It rolled like a wave hitting the shore, a wave that wouldn’t break, wouldn’t disperse, just kept coming, slowly blotting out the sky.

  ‘Damn,’ muttered Noble.

  The wind rose to a steady moan. It tugged at the fabric of their flight suits. It ruffled their hair.

  The signal fire guttered and died. Burning rubber smothered by driving sand. The column of black smoke rising from the smouldering tyre snatched by the wind.

  ‘How long do you reckon we got?’

  ‘Looks like it will hit in ten, twelve minutes,’ said Frost. ‘It’s a long way off, but moving fast. Look at it. Big bastard. Don’t want to get caught in the open. It’ll flay the skin from your bones.’

  ‘We got the plane, right? We’ll be okay.’

  ‘Better get as much stuff stowed as we can.’

  They hurried back to the plane. Noble supported Hancock, held his arm to keep him upright. Frost limped behind.

  ‘Best head inside, sir,’ advised Noble.

  Hancock leaned against the fuselage and looked up at the sky.

  ‘Seriously, sir. Better head inside.’

  Hancock looked like he wanted to protest, but couldn’t argue with the sense of it. He was a liability. Slow. Disorientated. If he were caught in the open when the sandstorm hit, Frost or Noble would have to risk their lives to save his ass. Better to head to the flight deck. Stay out of trouble.

  He ducked inside the plane.

  Frost turned to Noble:

  ‘Go with him. See if you can reinforce the windows and hatches. Keep the storm out.’

  Frost picked up equipment and supplies scattered on the sand.

  Toothpaste.

  A canteen.

  Remains of the flight manual.

  She gathered an armful of gear and stashed it in the crew cabin.

  She glanced up at the darkening sky. Wind whipped her clothes and hair. She looked east. An oncoming tsunami of sand. She could feel it. A hot magnetic charge. She ran a hand through her hair and felt it crackle with static. Saltating particles pushing an intense electromagnetic field ahead of them.

  The nose section.

  Hancock sat in the pilot seat, tore fresh lengths of duct tape and re-enforced blast curtains covering the broken windows.

  He stood and looked up at the cabin roof. Two vacant ejection hatches patched with insulation blankets.

  He stood on a trunk, pulled the satcom antenna back inside and resealed the hatch frames with tape.

  Noble climbed the ladder to the upper deck.

  ‘How’s it going?’ he asked.

  ‘Not sure how long these taped sections will hold,’ said Hancock. ‘Guess we’ll have to keep up running repairs. Stick them down each time they tear lose.’

  Hancock stepped from the trunk. He lost his balance, fell, hit the wall and slid to the floor.

  Noble held out a hand and helped him to his feet.

  ‘Feel like a freakin’ invalid,’ muttered Hancock. ‘Sick of it. What kind of shape are we in? Did we get everything inside?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Noble. ‘We’re locked down.’

  ‘Temperature is dropping. Soon be cold as a meat locker.’

  Patched windows began to flap and billow. The fuselage creaked.

  Noble slid down the ladder to the lower cabin.

  He and Frost stood at the fissure in the wall, shielded their eyes and looked out at a curtain of driving sand.

  ‘Best close the plane.’

  They slid equipment trunks across the floor, shunted them against the fractured wall and shut out the storm.

  The flight deck.

  Storm winds raged outsi
de. The fuselage shuddered and flexed. Broken struts and spars deep within the war machine’s superstructure ground like fractured bone.

  Noble placed his hand against the cabin wall. Static crack. Blue spark.

  A fine vibration ran through the hull. High velocity granules scouring the aluminium skin of the plane.

  So dark he could barely see. He switched on the cabin lights.

  He lifted one of the blast screens that curtained an unbroken window and looked out at swirling red twilight.

  ‘Nasty out there,’ said Noble.

  ‘Silicosis,’ said Frost. ‘Get that shit in your lungs, well, I’m not a doctor. But you’d catch a real graveyard cough.’

  One of the nuclear blast curtains tore open. The silvered nylon screen flapped and whipped. The cockpit was filled with swirling dust particles and hurricane wind.

  Hancock threw himself into the pilot seat. He shielded his remaining eye from the gale. He pressed the curtain back in place, secured brass popper studs set in the window pillars.

  ‘Get tape,’ he shouted, fighting to keep the screen from ripping open once more.

  Frost fetched duct tape.

  Hancock tore strips and lashed the curtain with a triple layer.

  He sat back. He rubbed sand from his ears and spat dust.

  ‘Check the hatches. See if they are secure.’

  Noble trained a flashlight and inspected the hatch seals.

  ‘Good. So far.’

  A sudden buffet slammed the fuselage. Groaning metal. The cabin gently listed starboard.

  Noble stumbled, then regained his balance like he was walking the deck of a ship in high seas.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Noble. ‘This thing isn’t going to roll, is it?’

  ‘She’s bedded pretty tight.’

  ‘What can you see from the window?’

  ‘Not a damned thing.’

  Frost sat cross-legged on the deck plate, back to the wall.

  She switched on Hancock’s survival radio. Thirty-seven per cent battery. She set it for Acquisition and watched numerals flicker.

  ‘Why bother?’ asked Hancock. ‘We know the score. The world is in flames. We’re on our own.’

  ‘What if someone is trying to contact us? One in million. But what if they were? And we were off air?’

  She sat, staring into the speaker grille, listening to whistling interference. The symphonic storm. Charged particles. Swirling, shimmering waves of electromagnetic interference.

  Song of the desert. A living landscape. Vast. Unearthly. Implacably hostile to human life.

  ‘This is B-52 Liberty Bell, crew in urgent need of assistance, anyone copy, over?’

  She broadcast a Mayday every sixty seconds.

  ‘This is the crew of Liberty Bell, tail MT66, hailing anyone who can hear my voice. Please respond, over.’

  ‘Seriously. Forget it.’

  ‘The storm might work in our favour. Atmospherics. You never know. It might extend our range.’

  ‘Doubt it.’

  Flickering strength-bars. Brief signal lock.

  Frost maxed the volume. White noise merged with raging wind. She retuned. A woman’s voice. Calm, digitised:

  ‘… four, seven, two, three, zero, four, three, nine, three …’

  ‘What the hell is that?’ asked Noble.

  ‘Sounds like a long-range numbers code. Odd to hear on this frequency. Usually broadcast on shortwave.’

  ‘… two, five, zero, zero, zero …’

  ‘What do you reckon it means?’

  ‘Wild guess: blanket instructions for US service personnel overseas. Battleships patrolling the Strait of Hormuz. Arctic subs cruising beneath the ice. Imagine the message cedes command authority. Tells crewmen they are on their own. Better find safe harbour where they can. Head for the southern hemisphere. Australia. New Zealand. Some place like that. Good place to hold up.’

  ‘God bless them,’ said Noble.

  ‘Tough break for the commanding officers.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Those vessels are a radiation hazard. A floating Chernobyl, a floating Fukushima. Reactor-powered engines, nuclear-tipped missiles in the firing tubes. Can’t leave them moored, unmaintained. Death-traps. I guess they’ll drop most of the crewmen in the antipodes, then a skeleton team will sail back north. Scuttle the boats in deep water. Position themselves over an Atlantic trench, then fire a bunch of hull charges.’

  Hancock turned in his seat and watched Frost continue to scan wavebands.

  ‘You know, it’s okay to enjoy it.’

  ‘Enjoy what?’ she asked.

  ‘Doomsday. The enormity of the destruction. We got a front-row seat. Get to witness the dying days of humanity. No shame admitting there is an element of dark exhilaration.’

  ‘Can’t say I ever rubbernecked.’

  ‘Come on. New York in ruins. The mushroom cloud. The falling towers. Admit it. Must have been quite a show.’

  A new voice from the radio. Male, shouting in panic and fear.

  Hancock and Noble sat forward.

  ‘Is that English?’ asked Noble. ‘Can’t make out a word.’

  ‘Think it might be Russian. Some poor bastard in the Vegas suburbs, most like. An émigré, cowering in a cellar. Sick, irradiated, convinced he’s back in Minsk.’

  Frost pressed transmit.

  ‘Mayday, Mayday, we are US Air Force personnel in urgent need of assistance, do you copy, over?’

  The Russian continued to sob and plead.

  ‘He can’t hear you,’ said Hancock.

  ‘Mayday, Mayday, do you copy this transmission?’

  ‘He can’t hear a word you’re saying.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘Might be a ghost signal.’

  ‘A what?’

  Hancock stood and stretched.

  ‘Ever seen a mirage?’

  ‘Saw plenty of thermals yesterday, out in the desert. Shimmering lakes.’

  ‘I saw a bunch back in the day. Rode on a few supply runs between Baghdad and Sadr City. We saw some weird shit out in the desert.

  ‘One time we pulled over to the side of the highway for a piss break. Needless risk, plenty of insurgents, but after a while you get careless. War becomes a game.

  ‘Mid afternoon. Rippling heat. Hot. Hotter than this, but we had air con and water, so we didn’t give a shit.

  ‘So anyway, I was standing in the middle of nowhere, unzipped, looking out over the dunes. Then I saw a car. A white Land Cruiser, riding along, a couple of miles out in the sand. It pulled up. A guy got out. Fat guy. Blue uniform. Looked like a local cop. Acting real furtive. He took a pair of binoculars and checked around. Seemed to be looking straight at us. We waved, tried to get his attention. Trained our weapons, signalled “hands up”. Fucker ignored us.

  ‘He dropped the tailgate, dragged out a couple of heavy garbage bags and dumped them on the ground. Then he got back in the Jeep and drove off, quick as he could. Span the wheels, kicked up a ton of dust, then floored it.

  ‘We drove out to the spot he dumped the bags. You know what? No bags. No tyre tracks. No trace of any kind.’

  ‘Jeez.’

  ‘The guy was real enough. He wasn’t a ghost. Somewhere, out in that desert, he stopped his car and dumped a couple of bags. Might have been over a hundred miles away. But heat played tricks. Refracted his image, projected it miles from his actual position.’

  ‘You think the sandstorm could echo a radio signal?’ asked Noble. ‘Bounce it around?’

  ‘That Russian could be a thousand miles away. Shit, he might even be in Moscow. A big-ass static storm could turn physics on its head.’

  Frost shut off the radio.

  ‘So what do you reckon was in those garbage bags?’

  ‘Glad I never found out.’

  The target dossier protruded from Hancock’s backpack.

  RESTRICTED ACCESS. CO-PILOT ONLY.

  Frost unzipped the vinyl document wallet.

  ‘
Hey,’ said Hancock. ‘That’s classified.’

  ‘Hardly matters, does it, Cap? No secrets worth keeping any more.’

  She thumbed pages.

  The flight-path map. Red dashes across featureless terrain. Staging coordinates.

  National Recon photos. Dunes and a limestone escarpment. Bleak as the Sea of Tranquillity. Each image stamped EYES ONLY.

  ‘Hundred miles to the aim point, give or take. We were so damned close. What the hell were we supposed to bomb, Captain? Was it Chinese Whispers? Bunch of guys passing bad orders down the line without question?’

  Hancock shook his head.

  ‘The mission parameters were very clear. They knew what they were doing.’

  A target image. Desert wilderness, and the centre of the picture, a black redaction.

  Frost held up the picture.

  ‘What’s this? What’s hidden? What are we not allowed to see?’

  Hancock didn’t reply.

  ‘But you were briefed, right? They told you the nature of the target?’

  Hancock crossed the flight deck and took the sheaf of notes from her hand. He stuffed the wad of documents into his backpack.

  ‘Like I said. Classified.’

  23

  The limo swerved between dunes.

  Osborne had the wheel. Trenchman sat beside him.

  ‘I know you want to be a hero,’ said Osborne. ‘I know you want to ride to the rescue. But let’s face it, we can’t travel much further. We were okay back on the salt flats. Smooth driving. Here? We’re going to bog down and stall any minute.’

  ‘She’s a big V8. Good tread, plenty of clearance. She can cope.’

  ‘We don’t even know where we are headed.’

  ‘We know the plane’s target and flight path. That gives us a pretty tight search field. Soon or later, we’ll find wreckage.’

  Trenchman pointed to a level stretch of sand up ahead.

  ‘Stop there, would you?’

  ‘Best if we kept rolling.’

  ‘Stop for a moment. I got to check something out.’

  They pulled up.

  Osborne jumped from the Humvee. Cool air con replaced by desert heat.