Apache Dawn, - [little bear else holmelund minarik txt] 📗

Jax moved to block her view.

“It’s back,” she whispered. “The Blue Flu. It’s back…I knew it would come back…”

“Honey, we don’t know that—look, if that thing really has come back, they’d know it,” he said, jerking a thumb at the muted image of a man in a lab coat in front of a hospital in Washington, D.C. “The docs would know it, honey. They wouldn’t be screwing around like they did back then. We know better how to fight it now, right? They have a vaccine for it! Hey—look at me—we’d be getting called back to base, wouldn’t we, if there was some emergency?” He pulled the secure, special-issue cell phone from his pocket and held it in front of her. “See?” he said gently. “No calls.”

She nodded, eyeing the government-issue plastic in his hand. She shook her head. “I can’t go through that again…” she whispered, wiping the tears out of her eyes with the back of her hands. She sniffed loudly. “Not with little Charlie…” She suddenly looked at her husband.

“This is what Kevin called you about, isn’t it?” Aliana said and pointed an accusing finger at the TV. “He works at the goddamn CDC…he would know if that…thing…came back.” She watched some more footage of the helicopter over the hospital in Los Angeles. The camera zoomed in on a couple figures laying prone on the pavement outside the hospital. A group of people crowded around the bodies. “Oh my God.”

“Honey…” Charlie looked over his shoulder at the TV. “I know it looks bad. But all this is just…look, it’s the media trying to hype things up for the election. Right, guys? It’s just—”

“Just what, Charlie? The beginning of another plague?” she cried. She burst into tears and wrenched herself away from Charlie and made for the house.

“No—it’s just speculation! It’s starting to get close to flu season…this happens every year…” The patio door shut and she was gone.

“Smooth, Master Chief, real smooth,” said Cooper with a rueful grin.

“Stow it, civilian,” retorted Charlie with a glare that would have withered mere mortals. He sat down in a chair and sighed, a hand to his forehead. “Allie lost her parents to the Blue Flu. It was pretty rough on her. Her sisters and Kevin, they’re all she has left in the world now. Her whole extended family got wiped out.”

“Jesus,” said Jax.

“You never mentioned that before,” said Cooper in a quiet voice. He sat down next to Charlie. “Sorry, man.”

“Yeah, well…not exactly a good conversation to have over beers, is it?” said Charlie with a dismissive wave of his hand. He unmuted the TV.

“—would say politics has no business in this situation, but apparently, the President is not going to change his campaign schedule for anything,” the anchorman’s voice squawked behind them. “So it seems the question of the day is, if the President isn’t concerned, should we be?”

“Now you say it,” Charlie groaned. “Asshole. Allie needed to hear that thirty seconds ago…”

“That’s right,” said Danielle, the co-anchor. “President Denton landed in San Diego earlier today.” The image onscreen switched to a shot of Air Force One gliding into a perfect landing at a deserted-looking airstrip.

“He’s scheduled to make stops in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Francisco over the next week, and many political insiders now suspect he will try to get some photo-ops to appeal to his base by lending a helping hand at area hospitals…”

As the reporters bantered about the wisdom of political moves, Charlie shook his head. “That ain’t right, man. I know he’s the boss, but damn, that’s low. I need a drink.”

“Someone say something about beer?” called a voice around the corner. A short man with a crew cut of jet black hair carrying an overflowing cooler with one arm strolled around the corner. He wore red flip-flops, Hawaiian-style swim trunks, a towel around his neck, and aviator glasses perched on his aquiline nose. He tilted his head down to see over the rims of the mirrored glasses and grinned, revealing a prominent gap in his front teeth.

“You ladies watching the soaps?”

“Hey, Beaver,” said Cooper with a grin.

“Master Ch—ah…hey, Coop,” replied Michael Holliday. Charlie got a nod.

“Yeah, yeah, it’ll take me time to get used to it, too. Don’t worry about it,” replied Cooper with a wave of his hand. Damn, it really is going to take some time. Retirement. Ain’t that some shit.

“Mike!” called a woman’s voice. “Can you get the gate?”

The dutiful husband put the cooler down and glanced at the TV on his way around the corner. “We heard about all that flu stuff going down in San Francisco,” he called out.

“Yeah?” shouted Jax. “It’s in L.A., too, man.”

Re-appearing with his comfortably plump wife in a one-piece black swimsuit and teenaged daughter, Jessica, Mike set down a bundle of towels and toys for the pool.

His wife waved casually at the others in the shade by the TV, looking past them at the open door. “Hello, boys,” she said with a smile most moms reserve for their children.

“Hi, Joan,” they called out in unison like students greeting a teacher.

“Yeah,” Mike continued, removing his sunglasses. “We heard a little on the radio. They keep talking about how it’s just the seasonal thing. No big deal. Oh, hey, Jax—Swede and Tank just pulled up. If you want to make sure you can get out of here before midnight, you better move your truck.”

“Why you think I need to get out by midnight?”

“Uh, ‘cause you’re such a lightweight?” asked the short, wide-shouldered, well-muscled SEAL.

“Man, I benchpress more than you weigh.”

“All right, guys.” Charlie stood up. “Can you help get the rest of the beer unloaded? Hey Joan, can I borrow you for a second to check on Allie?”

Cooper limped behind Jax and Mike, elbowing each other around the corner when he happened to glance at the TV. He froze.

“…BREAKING NEWS…” flashed across the screen in big, bold flashing letters, designed to gather attention.

“What’s wrong?” Joan asked behind him, sudden concern blossoming in her voice. Cooper noticed her back was to the TV. She peeled off her own sunglasses as she moved into the shade.

“Oh, with all the news about the flu in L.A., Allie’s convinced the Blue Flu is coming back,” Charlie said, ushering Joan toward the house.

“Oh, the poor dear,” she said sadly.

“Yeah, I tried to tell her that if there really was another pandemic, we’d all be called back, you know?”

Cooper turned back to the screen. His heart skipped a beat.

“Well, of course, I can—” Joan’s response was cut short by Cooper’s gasp.

“I’m not the only one seeing this, am I?” He turned up the volume.

“…interrupt, but I’m being told there’s a…Wait. Chuck, are you serious?” The anchor put his hand to his ear, listening to someone off-camera. The box in the corner of the screen showed something that looked pretty amateurish. A shaking image of grass, rotating to trees and sky, before finding buildings.

“There’s a mushroom cloud over Atlanta? You’ve got to be kidding me…Oh…oh my God,” the suddenly pale-faced anchor said.

The small preview image on the screen expanded from the corner. Now it was clear that the shaky, grainy image came from someone’s camcorder. They had been looking at a city skyline in the distance. A mushroom cloud, lit from within to a burning, orange glow, loomed over the city as it clawed its way into the sky. The shockwave had passed, but dust and debris still expanded out from what looked like the downtown district.

Across the bottom of the screen scrolled, “…sensors in Savannah, Georgia measuring spikes in radiation…BREAKING NEWS…beachgoers in Florida report seeing missile launch offshore…BREAKING NEWS…”

“Jesus H…” muttered Charlie. “A sub off the coast of Florida…”

“Did he say Atlanta just got nuked?” asked Cooper.

“Say what?” asked Jax. He and Mike had arrived carrying cases of beer and bags of ice.

Mike slowly removed his aviator glasses. “Son of a bitch.” He cracked a beer and drained it in two gulps. Eyes still locked on the screen, he belched and dropped the can to the ground, missing the trashcan a foot away.

“I…I’m going to go check on Allie. Jess! Come with me, sweetie.”

Mike watched his rebellious daughter follow his wife with a scared look on her face, eyes on the TV. “Well, all it took was a major city getting whacked for her to listen to her mom…” he muttered.

A shrill, desperate ringing sounded from Cooper’s pocket. He frowned and looked at Charlie. Cooper checked the number after he fished the whining phone out of his pocket. It was their deep-shit emergency line. It meant he needed to get his ass back to base, now.

Three more phones added their noise to the first.

“I’d say our shore leave just got canceled with extreme prejudice…” muttered Charlie.

The SEALs looked at each other, then at Cooper.

Cooper frowned. “Screw the retirement party, boys. We’ve got work to do.”

“Hooyah, Master Chief,” replied Jax softly.