Impact Read online

  Downside: the bomb might be damaged. Radiotoxic spill. The core assembly might be split open, projecting lethal gamma radiation. He might reach the wreckage and find himself walking among scattered fragments of fissile material. Sub-critical chunks of plutonium, plutonium oxide, uranium tamper. A calculated risk. If he stayed within the vicinity of the fuselage he would catch a dose, but any incoming SAR team would surely find him.

  It was his best shot.

  He kept walking, because it was better to act than sit on his ass.

  ‘Three hundred thousand Yankees

  Is stiff in southern dust.

  We got three hundred thousand

  Before they conquered us.

  They died of Southern fever

  And southern steel and shot,

  I wish there were three million

  Instead of what we got.’

  8

  West Montana. A forest clearing. Frost huddled beneath rain-lashed tarpaulin. Water dripped from leaves and branches. The ground turned to mud.

  She shivered and rocked. Exhaustion put her in a weird, dissociative state. She looked down at her hands. They seemed to belong to someone else.

  Major Coplin crouched over a brushwood fire and brewed nettle tea. He folded leaves into a mess tin and stirred with a knife.

  A week-long SERE exercise: Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape.

  Major Doug Coplin, her instructor. SEMPER PARATUS on his forearm, and a three-day beard. Taciturn loner. She wanted to ask him about the fingers missing from his left hand, but his manner didn’t invite conversation.

  ‘Got to adapt your thinking to your environment,’ he said, watching water simmer and steam. ‘That’s the key. Example. People habituated to arid terrain can sniff out water. They become alert to the scent of oasis vegetation. Yucca, cacti, carried on the desert air. So use your nose. Use every sense you got. And above all, use you head.’

  Rippling heat haze. Endless desert.

  Frost limped through dunes leaving a meandering trail of step-drag footprints in the sand.

  She stopped and sniffed the air. An unplaceable scent carried on the breeze.

  Brief, olfactory misattribution. Flowers. The heart-tugging hope of a verdant, tree-fringed oasis.

  The aroma soured and grew strong. Burning plastic. Spilt aviation fuel. Ruin and incineration.

  A column of black smoke unfurled behind a distant rise.

  A steep gradient. The last of her strength. Crawling on hands and knees, weak with thirst and exhaustion.

  She reached the summit, lay face down and regained her breath.

  She slowly lifted her head, face dusted with sand.

  The plane:

  Liberty Bell. The massive, shark-grey B-52H lying crooked on the sand.

  Heat rippled from the long, windowless fuselage, the sweeping, vulpine wingspan.

  A deep gouge behind the plane. An impact trench wide as a six-lane highway.

  An uncontrolled descent would have resulted in a nose-dive. Nothing left of the plane but an unrecognisable ball of super-compacted metal at the bottom of a deep impact crater. But the fuselage was largely intact.

  Pinback’s roof ejector port was still in place. Maybe his seat failed. Had to bail through the lower cabin floor. Or maybe he stayed at his station. Fought for control as the plane fell out of the sky, two remaining turbofans locked at maximum thrust. Jammed the throttle quadrant, wrenched the control column, pulled the plane out of a stall and brought it level enough to achieve a rough crash-landing. Nose slam, then a long, shuddering belly-skid. Three-hundred-ton airframe scything a succession of dunes before coming to rest.

  Frost struggled to her feet and surveyed the wrecked war machine below her.

  The tail had torn off.

  Three of the four propulsion pods had been ripped from the wings. One of the detached engines lay half-buried to the east of the crash site. Flames licked between turbine blades. Acrid smoke.

  The wing tanks had burst. JP8 aviation fuel leaked from split panels, leeched into the sand, stained it black.

  Cupped hands:

  ‘Hello?’

  No sound but the steady pop and crackle of the burning engine.

  ‘Anyone?’

  Her shout turned to a cough. Parched throat. She fumbled a water sachet from her vest, tore and drank. She squeezed the plastic envelope dry and threw it aside.

  She slid down the dune in an avalanche of dust and limped towards the plane.

  She hobbled across the sand towards the gargantuan, sand-matted hulk.

  She threw herself down in the shadow of the nose, lay beneath sortie decals and caught her breath.

  Merciful shade. The intense, skin-searing pain of direct sunlight suddenly, blissfully, withdrawn.

  She lay a while, fighting sleep. Lame, exhausted, dehydrated. All she wanted to do was rest.

  Coplin turned a couple of rabbits on a twig-spit. Cooking flesh sweated grease. Flame-licked fat popped and boiled.

  ‘Gonna be a cold night. Tempting to throw on a couple more logs. But like the man said, white folks build a big fire and sit away from it. Indians build a small fire and sit close. Conserves effort. Conserves wood.’

  He probed the meat with the tip of his knife.

  Frost drowsed in her poncho, lulled by the steady drum of rain on tarpaulin. She chewed a twig to dull hunger pangs.

  ‘Ain’t nodding out on me, are you?’

  She shook herself alert and rubbed her eyes.

  ‘Adrenalin is a drug like any other. Person builds a tolerance. You got to keep your shit together, girl. Wire-tight, until the mission is done.’

  She got to her feet.

  Headrush. An uncontrollable shiver. One-twenty in the shade, and she had the chills. Onset of heatstroke messing with her ability to regulate internal temperature. She made it to the plane just in time. Another couple of hours spent stumbling across open desert would have meant delirium and death.

  Lengthening dune-shadows. Heading into afternoon.

  She looked up. The flight deck fifteen feet above her head. A couple of the polycarbonate windows smashed from their frame, leaving skull-socket vacancy.

  ‘Hey. Hello?’

  Pause.

  ‘Anyone up there?’

  Deathly silence broken by a gunshot.

  She threw herself against the plane, turned, and snatched the pistol from her shoulder rig.

  Trembling hands. She scanned the dunescape, tried to locate hostiles.

  Pop and spark from the burning engine. Components within the turbine stack combusting like firecrackers. Each retort puffed flame through titanium blades.

  She reholstered the Beretta.

  She began to walk the length of the plane, nose to stern.

  No way to get inside the aircraft. Under normal circumstances the crew would enter the plane via a ladder-hatch in the underbelly, forward of the landing gear. But the crash had put the hatch out of reach.

  She ducked beneath the massive port wing. Fetid cave-dark. Hand clamped over her mouth and nose. Aviation fuel dripped from fractured wing plates. Metal already streaked with oxidisation. Overwhelming stench of JP8.

  Out into daylight. She straightened up. A backwards glance. The mid-wing spoiler panels were raised. Air-brakes deployed to create maximum drag. Someone had tried to slow the plane at the moment of impact.

  She reached the rear of the aircraft. Ripped and ragged metal where the tail had been torn away.

  Twisted spars. Trailing cable. Fluttering foil insulation. Central crawlway crushed flat.

  A crash trench behind the plane. An avenue of raked sand flecked with wreckage.

  The foreground: an undercarriage quad bogie ripped from a wheel well. Four huge balloon tyres on aluminium hubs. The stumps of piston actuators. Frayed hydraulic line.‘Anyone?’

  Oppressive silence.

  Maybe she was the sole survivor. Maybe the rest of the crew died on impact, or expired as they wandered, lost, through the desert.
>
  Sudden, gut-punch anxiety. A child’s pre-verbal fear of abandonment. What if the rescue team had already come and gone? Picked up survivors and returned to base, leaving her marooned in the desert.

  Frost, LaNitra. Written up MIA presumed KIA.

  Shrill note of panic in her voice:

  ‘Can anyone hear me?’

  Dear God, don’t let me die here alone.

  … above all, use you head.

  She thought it through.

  No footprints.

  The dunes surrounding the plane were pristine. The rotor-wash of a heavy rescue chopper would have churned a shitload of sand, left a visible LZ.

  And the body of the plane was pretty much intact. If a TRAP team had touched down at the crash site, they would have cut open the central fuselage to retrieve the warhead.

  Liberty Bell had sat neglected, silent and still, since the moment she hit the ground and came skidding to a halt.

  Relief quickly soured to strength-sapping fatigue. She was tempted to shoot-up and sleep in the shade.

  Better conserve morphine. Hold out until nightfall.

  She stepped out of shadow. Sun hit with skin-blistering force. She flinched from harsh light like she had taken a slap to the face.

  She walked the starboard side of the plane and headed back towards the nose.

  She leant on the hull for support but snatched her hand away. Metal hot as a grill plate.

  The starboard wing. Three thousand square feet of aluminium alloy shimmered heat. Ruptured tanks dripped fuel.

  The aircraft’s remaining engine pod bedded in sand.

  She ducked beneath the wing.

  Dust saturated with JP8. A stinking, petroleum quagmire. Her boots bogged down, sucked like she was pulling them from deep mud.

  She reached the nose.

  She craned to see if someone were in the pilot seat. Dark, sand-occluded polycarbon.

  A vertical rip in the aluminium skin of the plane. Popped rivets and buckled panels. She examined the fissure. A shoulder-width tear in the fuselage that would, with effort, allow access to the crew compartment.

  She gripped torn metal and pulled herself inside.

  The split-level crew compartment.

  Lower cabin: navigator, radar navigator.

  Upper cabin: electronic warfare officer, tail gunner, co-pilot, pilot.

  Frost let her eyes adjust to the dark interior of the plane.

  Low ceiling, tight walls. The place stank of smoke and cooked metal.

  Multi-function displays seared by shorting electronics. Exposed circuits. Smashed scopes. Roped cable hung from a conduit.

  The few sections of wall that were free of instrumentation were quilted with soot-streaked insulation pads.

  No crew seats in the lower cabin. Both Frost and Guthrie had blown floor hatches and ejected from the plane.

  Frost gripped the lip of her radar navigation console. An internal fire had caused the central sweep-screen to sag and melt bowl-shaped.

  A silver coin tacked to the radar panel with gum. Kanji courage symbol on the obverse, ALWAYS ON THE BATTLEFIELD stamped on the back.

  Membership token of an off-campus dojo she joined during her years at UA, Tuscaloosa. An austere fight-space above a laundromat. Crash mats. Punch bag.

  A poster pinned to the wall. Jim Kelly throwing a high kick. And next to it, fourteenth century bushido text hung in a clip-frame:

  It is related that a famous warrior known as the master archer used to have a sign on his wall with the four words he applied to everyday life: ‘Always on the battlefield.’ I note this for the edification of novice warriors.

  She peeled the coin from the switch panel, rolled it finger to finger, and put it in her pocket.

  The interior of the fuselage was furnace hot. Frost dropped her survival vest, carefully pulled off her boots, and squirmed out of her flight suit.

  She took the authenticator lanyard from around her neck and dropped it into her boot.

  Grey, PX-issue underwear.

  She tipped a wall-mounted drop-seat. Vinyl padding hot against her thighs. She sat as still as she could, tried to slow her metabolism, allow a little yogic calm to lower her body temp.

  She looked around.

  Floor detritus. A packet of moist towelettes. Hand-wipes that used to hang in a wall pocket next to the plane’s fold-down urinal.

  Desert dust wiped from her arms, shoulders and face.

  She wrapped one of the towelettes round her little finger as an improvised Q-tip and cleaned sand from her ears.

  A locker to her right. A folded flag. A couple of two-quart canteens.

  ‘Sweet mother Mary.’

  She hurriedly unscrewed a cap and drank deep, panting between gulps.

  That’s enough. No point guzzling everything you’ve got. Might trigger some kind of cerebral oedema.

  She set the canteen aside.

  A wall-mounted trauma bag, big as a parachute pack, to her left. The WALK: Warrior Aid and Litter Kit.

  She flicked the release clasp. The bag hit the floor.

  She slid from the seat, sat beside the kit and unzipped side pockets. Wads of sterile dressings. Airway tubes. Surgical tape.

  Trauma shears.

  She snipped the paracord lashed round her leg. Cord unravelled. The improvised splint fell away.

  She let her leg rest a while.

  Lying on slip-tread floor plate. Sun shafted through the fissure in the cabin wall. She watched light inch across the deck.

  The fuselage creaked. Metal flexed and contorted as the wreck baked in merciless day-heat.

  She cleaned her fingernails with the tip of her knife.

  Maybe she should get some sleep. She set the knife aside and closed her eyes.

  Thud.

  Movement in the upper cabin.

  She sat up.

  ‘Yo?’

  Her voice hoarse and loud in the confined space.

  Craning to look up the ladderway into the cabin above her.

  ‘Pinback? Hancock? That you?’

  She tried to stand. Fierce pain. She winced and fell to the floor.

  She dug into the trauma pack, found an immobiliser and clamped the stainless steel brace round her injured leg. Nylon tethers hung slack.

  She put a webbing strap between her teeth and bit down.

  Fuck it. Morphine.

  Jab. Discard.

  She took deep breaths and mouthed a silent three-count.

  Brutal double-wrench. She pulled the splint-straps tight.

  She crouched on the deck lost in white pain. It flooded her senses. Overwhelmed her vision like oncoming headbeams. A buzz-saw shriek in her ears.

  She waited for the opiate to hit.

  Knife-thrust agony diminished to a dull burn.

  She grabbed the canteen and took a swig. She poured a splash of water over the back of her head.

  She gripped the ladder and pulled herself upright. Knees and palms branded with the chevron tread of the deck plate.

  She looked up through the hatchway into the flight deck above.

  ‘Anyone there?’

  Pause.

  ‘It’s me, Frost. Anyone up there?’

  No reply.

  She pulled herself up the ladder, executed an arduous hop-climb to spare her injured leg.

  The upper cabin.

  She rolled onto deck plate, gripped the EWO situational display for support and got to her feet.

  The blast screens had been lowered. Each curtain fringed by a halo of daylight.

  Banks of dead instrumentation.

  Scintillating motes of dust.

  She looked up. Open sky. Sunlight shafting through vacancies left by two jettisoned roof hatches.

  The back-facing Electronic Warfare chair remained in position. The seat rockets must have failed. Lieutenant Noble, the EWO, would have followed a well-drilled back-up procedure. He would have unhitched, slid down the ladder, dropped out a vacant floor hatch and been snatched away by t
he airstream.

  The co-pilot seat had fired. Hancock propelled clear before impact.

  The pilot seat was still in place.

  She could see the arm and shoulder of a flight suit.

  ‘Pinback? Can you hear me?’

  She released her grip of the Warfare console and limped towards the pilot seat.

  Captain Pinback. Crazy bastard rode the plane during its terminal descent. Fought ’til the end. Stayed aboard the smoke-filled, depressurised flight deck. Didn’t want to abandon the aircraft, the weapon.

  ‘Captain?’

  A gloved hand twitched and clenched.

  She circled the seat, kept her distance, held the bracket rails of the now-absent co-pilot chair for support.

  ‘Cap?’

  She reached for her shoulder holster, realised she’d left the pistol below.

  Pinback sat slumped in front of inert, fire-streaked avionics, his face veiled by his visor and oxygen mask.

  Frost tentatively reached forwards.

  Pinback took a shuddering breath.

  She jumped back.

  A gasping, heaving convulsion.

  ‘Cap? Hey. Daniel. Can you hear me?’

  Tentative approach. She reached out a hand and slowly lifted his visor.

  He raised his head, groggy like he was waking from deep sleep. Blue, unclouded eyes. Free from infection.

  He stared at her face, struggled to focus.

  ‘Christ. Can you hear me? Can you talk? How bad are you hurt?’

  Right arm folded across his belly. He lifted it aside. He was sitting crooked in his seat, lower body twisted like he’d been cut in half and jammed back together at a weird angle. Shattered spine.

  ‘Jesus. Hold on, Captain. Just hold on.’

  9

  Pinback pawed his shoulder, tried to reach his sleeve pocket. Wild eyes. Contorted face. Feverish pain.

  ‘Hey,’ said Frost. ‘Let me.’

  She unzipped the pocket, uncapped a syringe and jabbed his shoulder.

  She released his oxygen mask.

  ‘Breathe slow. Let the dope do its work.’

  Convulsive breaths began to subside. His head drooped a little.