Red Hammer: Voodoo Plague Book 4 by Dirk Patton Page B

females are fast as hell.  They don’t tire.  I
imagine they’d run at a sprint until their heart exploded, but I’ve never seen
one get to that point.  You won’t outrun them.  You won’t outlast them.  No one
will, no matter what kind of shape you’re in.  If you find yourself being
pursued, find a defensible position and start killing them.  That’s your only
option.”
    I looked at each of them in turn.  Sergeant Scott met my
look, steely resolve in his eyes.  I saw the same thing in Martinez and Yee and
decided I had a good team to go in with me.  I was opening my mouth to ask where
the mess hall was when a strident alarm began blaring.  Martinez dashed to a
phone hanging on the wall next to the door and snatched the handset off the
cradle.  Apparently listening to an announcement, she stared intently at the
floor with the phone held tightly to her ear, slamming it back in place after
about 20 seconds.
    “Russian air raid,” She said in a surprisingly calm voice. 
“Our CAP is engaging them 100 miles to the west, but there’s more of them than
there are of us.  We’re going now!”
    She ran to the tables, and with the two Sergeants helping,
started stuffing equipment into waiting duffel bags.  Stepping over I joined in
and soon we had eight very large and heavy duffels ready to go.  Each of us
grabbed two and Scott led the way outside and around the building to where an
AF pickup was parked.  We tossed the bags into the truck, Scott and Yee piling
in on top of them as Martinez jumped behind the wheel and I joined her in the
cab.
    The alarm was louder in the open air and she didn’t hesitate
to floor the accelerator as soon as the truck started, leaving twin, black
patches of rubber on the concrete.  Driving fast, she swung onto a road that
paralleled the runways and quickly pushed our speed to over 100 miles an hour. 
Next to us on the runway, a pair of F-35s screamed into the sky, quickly
followed by two more.  Ahead, I could see more F-35s lining up for takeoff,
waiting behind half a dozen F-18s that were already starting their takeoff
roll.
    As Martinez drove I watched fighter after fighter leap off
the runway and into the air, pilots immediately going nearly vertical to gain
altitude as quickly as possible.  Beyond the sortieing jets were several
massive hangars.  A couple of them had the tail sections of cargo planes
sticking out as the aircraft were having maintenance performed on them, but the
three largest hangars were buttoned up tight, each with its own chain link
fence topped with coiled razor wire.
    Martinez pulled out a small, hand held radio and spoke
briefly into it.  Moments later I saw the doors of the closest high security
hangar crack open and two figures ran across the large apron.  The rolling gate
in the fence started moving and Martinez pointed the front of the truck at the
opening.  I’m pretty much a fearless driver, but don’t do well when someone
else is behind the wheel.  It took every ounce of my self-control to not scream
at her that we weren’t going to make it.  The gate was opening much too slowly
and we were going way too fast. 
    Somehow, we did make it, roaring through at over 100 miles
per hour.  If there was more than two inches of clearance on either side of the
truck I’ll eat my beret.  Fucking pilots!  Approaching the hangar doors, which
were still trundling open, Martinez braked sharply and cut our speed to a sedate
pace as she drove into the cavernous building.  She made a sharp right before
coming to a screeching halt, parking the truck out of the way of the menacing
looking plane that sat in the middle of the hangar.  I’d never seen a stealth
bomber up close before.

14
     
    It turned out that the bomber wasn’t even officially an Air
Force plane yet.  It was a prototype of the next generation stealth bomber, the
replacement for the B2, that had been undergoing performance testing when the
attacks happened.  Now it had been