Read Online Fulcrum: V Plague Book 12 by Dirk Patton - Free Book Online Page B

to keep them bogged down for a while.”
    “Make it happen,” Blanchard said.  “Captain Forest is
in command until I get back.”
    “Yes, sir,” Drago said.
    He and Chico turned away and headed down the steep slope. 
Within seconds, they had completely disappeared in the thick foliage.
    Blanchard looked up as Pointere was helped into the
helicopter by a crewman.  He’d been winched up once the fast-rope was clear. 
The steel cable immediately started back down to pick up the next passenger.
    “I have to go up that?”
    The Governor stepped forward and grabbed Blanchard’s
arm.  The Colonel calmly reached over and removed his hand.  The
cable had made it back to the ground, and the SEAL officer stepped into the
harness and twirled his hand at the watching crewman.
    “No,” Blanchard said.  “I’m sure there’s a vehicle
coming.”
    The man looked at him in surprise, his mouth hanging open
for a beat.
    “I was promised I’d be taken to the shelter,” he
shouted.  “I demand you take me with you!”
    “Military only in the aircraft,” Blanchard said, stepping
forward to snag the harness swinging at the end of the cable.
    “Admiral Packard will hear about this!”
    The Colonel bit back a less than respectful response as he snugged
the harness around his hips, grabbed the cable with one hand and twirled the
other. 
    “What was that all about?”  Pointere asked when
Blanchard stepped into the Black Hawk.
    “Threatening to call the Admiral if I didn’t bring him with
us.”
    “Fuck him,” the SEAL said.  “Goddamn politician!”
    “Should have brought him,” Pointere said.
    “You serious?”  Blanchard and the SEAL both asked in
surprise.
    “Sure.  We could have thrown his ass out the door, over
the ocean, and told everyone he slipped.”

12
     
    “What else can we throw at them, Captain?”
    Admiral Packard was standing in Pearl Harbor’s CIC, feet
spread as if he were astride the heaving deck of a ship at sea.
    “Sir, we’ve got two Coast Guard cutters and an Arleigh Burke
class destroyer that’s barely sea-worthy.  Other than that, everything
still floating is too far away to reach us in time.  The bastards truly
caught us with our pants around our ankles.”
    Packard nodded, glaring at a massive display that showed the
current position of every American ship on the globe.  Well, the best
guess current position.  Since the Russians had begun jamming their
communication signals, the CIC was no longer getting a constant feed from every
Navy asset that was in service.
    Arrayed across the screen, and still over a thousand miles
to the northwest of Oahu, was the Russian fleet.  And there were a lot of
ships.  A squadron of Marine pilots had flown a daring reconnaissance
mission, all but one of them falling prey to the CAP being flown over the enemy
armada.  The final man had managed to evade and escape, making it most of
the way back to Hawaii before running out of fuel.
    He’d punched out of the aircraft and been picked up by a
small Coast Guard boat.  The crew had taken the 25-foot craft, intended
for use in the protected waters of bays and harbors, over two hundred miles out
into the open ocean to retrieve the downed pilot.  His report on the
positioning of the fleet, and observed speed and heading, was the basis for the
plotting of the enemy on the display.
    “How long until Falcon flight is over their fleet?”
    “Estimated thirty minutes, sir.  We lost comms with
them as soon as they were out of line of sight.”
    “Any progress on finding the source of the jamming?”
    The Captain shook his head.
    “No, sir.  Our senior engineer’s best guess is it’s
orbital.  But we can’t pinpoint a satellite if it is.”
    Packard took a deep breath to compose himself. 
Frustration threatened to overwhelm him, but he managed to push it aside. 
For a commander who had always been able to depend on instant communications
and satellite surveillance, the situation he found