Chapter 5

Not long after that, Cindy stopped dead in her tracks. "I smell water," she said. "This way," and she led the way off at an angle to the route we had been taking. Sure enough a few yards away there was an old stock tank kept full by a decrepit windmill. I checked the water, then filled our canteens. Supper was beef jerky and dried corn. We couldn't risk a fire. I sat with my back against the windmill with my H&K in my hand, Cindy lay on the ground beside me, using my thigh as a pillow. I stroked her hair and sang softly to her until she went to sleep.

That day we stayed near the stock tank, taking turns bathing and generally readying our gear. By my estimate we were about 30 miles from our goal. I didn't want to think about what would happen if I was wrong and General Hamilton wasn't there. We left at dusk. In the desert, traveling at night is always the preferred way to go.

It took us two nights travel to get to Nellis. Sure enough, there was all kinds of activity there, Vehicles of all kinds and people were everywhere. There were fighters and a few bombers on the tarmac and even a few of the old Huey Cobra attack helicopters. And off to one side, a lone Apache gunship with 5 stars painted on it. That would be Hamilton's private toy, I thought to myself.

As we eased deeper onto the base, Cindy's keen senses kept us from discovery numberless times. I followed her lead, letting her guide me around mines, tripwires and other assorted nasties. I shook my head. The girl was a born Ghost.

Finally we eased under a barracks building to wait out the heat of the day. I unlimbered my binoculars and scanned the area.

Then I saw something that made my blood run cold. There was something familiar about one of the women talking over by one of the hangars. I focused on her and cursed silently. Angela.

There were a few female Ghosts back when I had been active. Officially they were called The Furies. The rest of us Ghosts called them Hell Bitches. Cold as ice, never showing any emotion, they were efficient killing machines. They would often seduce their way onto an enemy base, leaving a trail of corpses behind them.

Angela was one of the worst of the bunch. There was one mission that we were on together. The target was a Syrian colonel. A simple hit and git mission. Not for Angela, she came up with a refinement all her own. While I was off icing the Colonel and his mistress, Angela went to the nearby school and entered the dormitory building. When she came back, we had to hurry to make the pickup point on time, so I didn't get a chance to ask her what she had been up to.

It was the next day that I found out that she had held each child down with her hand over their faces and used the knife in her other hand to disembowel them. Every kid in the place was killed. After that, she became Hamilton's personal attack dog and some said lover as well. If she was here, so was Hamilton.

I eased back further into the shadows under the building to wait for nightfall. All I had to do now was find out where Hamilton was and then it would be a simple matter to kill him. Getting away would be the trick.

I pillowed my head on my pack and let myself fall into a semi doze. Cindy used my belly as a pillow and was asleep in seconds. All too soon it was coming on evening, and it was time to move before the K-9 patrols came around.

As soon as we eased out from under the building however, things started to go to hell in a big way. I stood up and found myself face to face with Angela. She and I reached for our knives at the same instant. Dear God she was fast, much faster than I was. She had her knife out and moving before mine even cleared the sheath. Cindy was fast too. Still lying on her side on the ground, she sank her fangs into Angela's left calf muscle, gripping the leg with both hands. The sudden shock of pain made Angel pause for just a moment. That was all the opening that I needed. I didn't dare try to take Angela alive. For one thing, she was a far deadlier fighter than I was. Trying to get information out of her would be futile. So I struck for the kill. The knife came up, striking her just under the solar plexus, angling up toward the heart. I felt the momentary slight resistance as the blade punched through her shirt and skin, then the blade slid through her muscles and organs with a wet, tearing sound. I felt the knife twitch for a second as her heart beat once around the steel piercing it, then I twisted the hilt of the knife and yanked it out of her. The blow had knocked the breath out of her, and she died with a look of shock and amazement on her face. I lowered her to the ground as Cindy scrambled to her feet, wiping the blood from her face with her sleeve. "Yuck." She said softly but with feeling.

I rolled the corpse under the building where he wad been hiding. "Come on," I told Cindy. "The patrol dogs are going to smell the blood and all hell is going to break loose." I had a faint idea where to find the general, but Nellis was just too big to get there, find him and kill him before the alarm was raised when the security patrols found Angela's body. Shit.

"Back to the flight line," I whispered to Cindy. She nodded. We made out was back to the flight line, keeping to shadows and moving as silently as possible. The desert night was warm, bit {but} I still felt cold as I strained to hear the first hint of an alarm being raised.

Cindy and I crouched near a FB111 sitting on the tarmac a dozen yards or so from Hamilton's Apache gunship. I could hear the voices of the crew working on the chopper and arming it. "C'mon you guys, hustle your butts here. If this bird ain't ready to go the instant the General arrives, it'll be our asses get fed to his pet monsters."

"Lighten up Parker," another voice said. "The bird'll be ready. It ain't my fault that the General flies this thing like a ham-handed chimp." "Yeah Chief," chimed in someone else. "The General gets to showing off for that ice bitch of his, and he comes back with the chopper all fucked up. Hell, it's a miracle he got back here last time." The crew Chief sighed. "Yeah, I know. But do any of you want to tell the ice bitch that her boyfriend has to wait to go play with his new toy?" There was a chorus of "No Chief." And a renewed business as the men got back to work.

Cindy moved off so quietly that I didn't even notice she was gone for several minutes. When I did notice I cursed myself for getting too wrapped up in the ground crew's conversation. Cindy slipped back up beside mea few minutes later. "I went to listen to the guys in the big hangar over there." She jerked a thumb over her shoulder to one of the biggest hangars on the base. "They 're bitching about having to load nukes on the biggest plane I've ever seen."

Oh shit. That could only mean that they were going to hit our new homesteads. Even as spread out as we were, it would only {take} one good-sized nuke to be sure of getting all of us. No way I could let that plane take off.

I let Cindy lead me over to the hangar. The main doors were partly open, and it wasn't hard for us to slip inside unseen and hide among some boxes along one wall.

There was a B-52 sitting alone in the middle of the vast room with men swarming over it like ants. "I don't see what the fuss is about some damn group of farmers out there." One guy was saying. "It's that same group that wiped out the colonel and his crew," said someone else. "Good riddance," came back the first speaker. "That was one seriously sick bastard, and his buddies weren't a lot better. You saw what they did in Oakland to that commune." Someone spat and said, "True enough, but as long as I have a place to sleep that's safe from the monsters and 3 meals a day, I ain't gonna complain too damn much."

Cindy was bristling at the men's words, and I laid a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. She hugged me and stayed quiet, watching the men with an unwavering gaze.

I took out a small notepad and pen and scribbled a quick note telling her to stay put while I went outside and took care of something. She read the note, nodded and hugged me again.

I slipped out of the hangar and made my way to the FB111 again just in time to see the ground crew packing up their tools and moving off. As soon as they were far enough away, I slipped up to the Apache and scrambled atop it. I spent a few minutes arranging a nasty little surprise for the General, then slithered down the side of the aircraft and headed for the hangar again.

I had just slipped inside and found Cindy again when I heard a jet engine spooling up outside. 'Someone's going on an early flight. ' I thought. There was only the one engine started when I heard the whine of the jet go up and the noise started moving away. F-16 I thought. That could be a problem if we had to fly out of here.

Try as I might, I couldn't see any way to get to the plane in the middle of the hangar without being seen. Then it hit me, I didn't have to get there unseen. All I had to do was get there as someone they were expecting.

Cindy and I made out way to the offices in the back of the hangar and slipped into one. As I suspected, there was one of the huge coffee urns there, along with a wheeled serving tray and a supply of cups etc. I soon had the coffee going and started putting cups etc. on the tray.

Cindy watched for a moment, then she started grinning. "Gonna give them a little wake-up call huh?" I winked at her. "Yup."

I used the sink to clean Angela's blood off my hands and arms, then rooted around until I found a set of fatigues in roughly my size. There were corporal's stripes on the sleeve. 'Perfect' I thought. Cindy came up with a stained white apron from somewhere and I slipped it on over the fatigues.

The coffee was done and I moved the urn to the trolley. Then I whispered to Cindy to wait until everyone was looking at me before slipping out to wait for me in an outside hiding spot. She nodded and moved to stand beside the door.

I left most of my weapons with Cindy. All I kept was my pistol tucked inside my shirt and a single grenade that I stuffed into a pocket. I opened the door quietly and pushed the trolley on through headed directly for the plane.

I was nearly there when someone noticed me. The crew chief came over and looked me up and down suspiciously. "What the hell are you doing here?" I shrugged. "Hey, I'm just doing what the ice bitch told me to do." "And what's that?" he asked warily. "She said to bring you guys some coffee." I replied.

"She said she wanted you guys wide awake and alert so there won't be any fuck-ups with the nuke loading." "I'd better check on this," he muttered. I gave him a cheerful grin. "Go ahead. It won't be my ass that gets fed to the general's pets for interrupting him and his ice bitch in the middle of their pre-flight orgy." The crew chief grunted at that and waved me on toward the plane. "Hurry up then, we don't have a lot of time here."

I waved him a salute and pushed the trolley under one of the big bomber's sagging wings. "Coffee for anyone who wants it!" I called. This announcement was greeted with glad cries from the working crew, and they soon clustered around the trolley for their caffeine boost.

"Is there anyone else?" I asked. "Yeah, Connors didn't bother coming down from doing her nav system checks," said the crew chief after scanning the crowd around the trolley. "No problem," I said cheerfully. I filled a cup with coffee and picked up some packets of creamer and sugar. "I'll just take hers on in if that's OK." The chief just waved me on, so I climbed up through the open access hatch in the belly of the bomber. I carried the coffee up forward to the nav station where a rather cute blonde sat muttering to herself as she ran system diagnostics. "Here's some coffee," I said. Connors almost jumped out of her skin when I spoke. "Goddamnit!" she snapped. Don't sneak up on me like that!" The she looked closer at me. "Who the hell are you?" I handed her the coffee and the packets. "I'm the guy who got stuck with coffee detail by the ice bitch." She rolled her eyes. "Someday someone's gonna ice that cunt and her psycho boyfriend, and I'm gonna party for a week." "Yeah, I'm not too fond of those clowns myself," I said with a straight face.