Reaping The Harvest (Harvest Trilogy, Book 3) (43 page)

“God,” Kurnow whispered.

Boisson snorted. “God’s got nothing to do with this. So what’s the story on these trucks?”

“This one’s carrying avgas,” Kurnow said, looking at some of the markings and the control console. “We can’t use it.” She hurried to the next truck. “This is it! Jet-A. It’s not military grade fuel, but it should work, and the tank looks like it’s nearly full.”

“It had better work. It’s all we’ve got.” Boisson took a close look around the vehicle. “Best of all, I don’t see any larvae sticking to it.”

Kurnow opened the driver’s door. “No keys. They must be in the FBO office.”

“FBO?”

“The fixed base operator. They own the trucks and service the planes that come here.” Kurnow pointed to the building next to the trucks. “Come on.”

“Angie,” the other agent, Mason Juilliard, called out as he raised his rifle to his shoulder. “We’ve got company.”

A small group of harvesters were coming toward them, bounding from open ground onto the concrete at the southern edge of the apron.

“Shit,” Boisson cursed. “Kurnow, go find the keys! We’ll take care of our visitors.”

Kurnow paused, staring at her.

Boisson shoved her in the direction of the FBO office. “Go!”

***

Kurnow ran for the office door as Boisson and Juilliard opened fire. Glancing toward the harvesters, she saw them leap and dodge through the tracer fire, using the corporate jets for cover as they came closer.

She ran faster, slamming into the door when she lost her grip on the handle and it failed to open. For a moment, she thought it was locked. Grabbing it firmly with her shaking hand, the handle turned easily and the door opened.
 

Stepping through, she shut the door behind her and leaned against it for a moment, safe in the darkness, her heart hammering in her chest. Her heartbeat sounded even louder than the gunfire coming from outside.
 

Come on
, she told herself.
You can’t waste time
.

Making her way behind the main counter, she found a key box fastened to the wall. It had been left open. Glancing at the desk, she saw a box of donuts, half of which hadn’t been eaten, and a half-full (or half-empty) cup of coffee. The coffeemaker had a full pot. It was off, as power to the airport had been cut off, but the switch was still on. Whoever had been here had simply left. They’d gone in such a hurry that no one had bothered to close up or shut anything off.

She returned her attention to the key box. The keys were labeled, but she wasn’t sure which one went to the truck with the Jet-A. With a shrug, she took them all and stuffed them into one of the cargo pockets of her flight suit.

That’s when the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end and a trickle of electric current ran down her arms to her fingertips.
 

With her breath catching in her throat, she turned around to find a dark shape crouching on the counter behind her.

She brought up the Desert Eagle Ferris had given her, but it was too late. Far too late.

***

“Damn it! Out!” Boisson dropped the empty magazine from her weapon and slammed in a fresh one. She only had two more. “These damn things are getting smarter.”

Between them, she and Juilliard had only taken down two of the eight harvesters that had found them. Of the six that remained, two were playing hide and seek behind the corporate jets on the southern end of the apron, while the other four had disappeared to Boisson’s left around the back of the FBO buildings, no doubt hoping to flank them.
 

“Kurnow!” She shouted. “Hurry the fuck up!”

One of the two harvesters by the jets was transformed into a torch as the tracers from her own weapon and Juilliard’s caught it in a crossfire.
 

The other one gave up the ghost and ran behind the building, following the others.

“
Kurnow!
”

“Coming!”

Kurnow emerged from the FBO office and ran toward her.

“About time,” Boisson said. “Did you find the keys?”

“Yeah…” Kurnow patted one of the pockets of her flight suit. “Yeah, they’re right here. I brought all of them.”

“Good. Because we’re taking two of these trucks.”

“Right. Okay.” Kurnow opened the door to one of the trucks and was about to climb inside.

“Why don’t you take the one with the Jet-A,” Boisson told her. “I’ve got plans for the gasoline.”

“Sure. Let me find the key for it.” After trying a few, the engine growled into life and Kurnow hopped down.

“Juilliard, go with her and watch our asses,” Boisson said. “Now let’s get the hell out of here before those things get in behind us.”

The agent nodded and joined Kurnow in the cab of the truck with the Jet-A fuel as Kurnow started the engine.

Boisson climbed up into the cab of the gas truck and slammed the door closed. She’d driven heavy vehicles before in the Marines, and this one wasn’t that different. Putting it into gear and releasing the brake, she jammed down on the accelerator, heading toward the taxiway that led to Runway 32 and then back to the Air Force section of the airport, careful to avoid the larvae oozing across the concrete.

Kurnow followed close behind.

***

“Okay, baby,” Ferris whispered, “here we go.”

With his hand firmly on the four throttle levers, he eased them forward and released the brakes. The cockpit felt absurdly lonely without a copilot. He was confident he could fly the plane alone, but he missed having an extra set of hands, eyes, and a brain to handle the plane.

The engines rose in pitch, and as the plane began to roll forward, he eased back slightly on the throttles, balancing the thrust against the plane’s inertia. Except for rapid scans of the instruments, his eyes were fixed up ahead on the narrow strip of asphalt that separated him from the main taxiway.
 

The three agents were making their way along the taxiway to the north, flaming any larvae they found. They’d have to clear about four thousand feet of taxiway, plus nearly ten thousand feet of runway. As one of the agents bent down and blasted another larva with his makeshift hair spray flamethrower, Ferris couldn’t decide if he wanted to laugh or cry. They’d never clear the runway in time.
 

“Shit,” he cursed as he gently applied the brakes. The plane had picked up more speed than he’d intended. His sphincter puckered as the nose gear passed over the huge yellow X, and he felt like he was violating a law of nature by ignoring it.
 

Looking ahead, he began to sweat as he saw just how narrow the asphalt strip was. The minimum safe runway width for the plane was seventy-five feet. The connector to the main taxiway was maybe twenty.
 

He tightened his grip on the throttles as the nose gear thumped from the concrete apron to the asphalt connector.
 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the three agents turn to watch.
 

He caressed the brakes, slowing ever so slightly as the main gear moved to the connector with another set of thumps. The plane was arrow straight down the center of the asphalt strip…

The starboard side suddenly dipped down and the nose began to slew to the right. He brought up the power in the starboard engines and eased the nose wheel left. More…more…more…

With a sudden heave, the plane began to move again, and he had to quickly bring up the power in the port engines to compensate.
 

“Come on, baby,” he whispered as the plane juddered and bounced. He knew the asphalt must be collapsing under the mains, sinking into the ground. He eased the throttles forward even more. It was a risk, but he couldn’t let the plane get stuck.
 

The main gear began to sink even deeper, nearly bringing the plane’s forward movement to a halt.

Gritting his teeth, Ferris pushed the throttles forward to the stops. It was all or nothing now.
 

“Come on, goddammit! Give me another hundred feet!”

As if it were fighting its way out of a mud bog, the plane moved forward slowly, ever so slowly, then finally surged forward.

Ferris pulled back on the throttles as the nose gear crossed over onto the main taxiway, then throttled back more as the mains followed. Turning the plane hard to the right, he centered the nose on the taxiway and moved up to where the agents stood waiting.
 

“Goddamn,” he sighed, wiping his sweaty forehead with his sleeve.
 

Looking out the windscreen, he saw not one, but two fuel trucks racing toward him on the taxiway from the main passenger terminal area.
 

“There’s some good news for a change.” Overcoming a sudden dreadful certainty that they wouldn’t start again, he shut down the engines.
 

A voice erupted from his headset, startling him. “Ferris, this is Richards, come in.”

“Ferris here, over.”

“What’s your status, over?”

The truck driven by Kurnow slid past the tip of the port wing and parked close to the fuselage. “I can confirm the plane should fly. The engines work, at least. Boisson found us some fuel, which we’re going to start pumping in soon. The big problem is going to be clearing the taxiway and runway of any larvae.”

“What’s so tough about that?”

Ferris rolled his eyes. “We’re only talking about clearing maybe, oh, ten or twelve thousand feet, and I’ve got three feebs with cans of hairspray and lighters to do the job.”

Richards was silent for a moment.
 

Dumb-ass
, Ferris thought as Boisson, who was driving the second fuel truck, turned to face the same direction as the plane along the taxiway, bringing it to a stop about a hundred yards ahead of the plane.
 

“Is there any chance you’ll have it cleared soon?”

“I don’t see how, Carl. We can’t afford to miss a single larva, and that’s nearly two miles for these guys to cover…”

Boisson got out of the fuel truck and trotted off to the side of the runway. She waved to the agents and shouted something. They didn’t seem to understand, and she shouted again. They dropped prone to the ground.

Then she turned to face the truck and raised her rifle.

Ferris had forgotten the mic was still open to Richards when he exclaimed, “Holy shit!”

***

Like most other people who owned a television, Boisson had seen her fair share of action shows. She’d lived one most of her adult life, first in the Marines, then in the FBI. She’d done a lot of crazy things but nothing as insane as what she was about to try.

The idea had come to her while Kurnow had been digging around for the keys to the trucks. A tanker full of gasoline was just full of lethal potential for burning the larvae clear. That was why she had decided to take it. The only problem had been how to put it to good use in clearing the runway. Just opening the valves and letting it spew out the back wouldn’t work, because Ferris would need a clear path that was a good thirty or more feet wide to keep his precious landing gear clear of any oozing horrors, and the valves on the truck would just leave a track of gas behind her. At best, she’d have to make three passes along nearly two miles of taxiway and runway. Having someone try to spray fuel through the hose had the same problem.

So she came up with a more creative solution.
 

After reaching the edge of the runway and putting some distance between herself and the tanker, she turned to the agents who’d been clearing the way for Ferris. “Get your asses down!”

They looked at her, confused. “What?”
 

She raised her voice to a bellow. “Get your asses down on the ground!”

They dove for the runway when she turned and took aim with her rifle at the gasoline-filled fuel tank. She’d seen countless films and shows where cars or even tankers just like this one blew up when struck by a bullet, but she’d also read that gasoline in liquid form wouldn’t burn. It was the vapor, gasoline mixed with oxygen, that was flammable. She’d loaded her weapon with the single magazine she carried that contained standard bullets, rather than tracers. They were almost useless against harvesters, but she’d been in enough spots where having something that didn’t set fire to everything was handy.

One of her men shouted, “Boisson, are you insane?”

Smiling at the thought, she pulled the trigger.

She was almost disappointed when the tanker didn’t explode.
 

Instead, the bullet lanced through the metal tank about a third of the way from the bottom on the driver’s side. As she’d hoped, a stream of caramel colored liquid shot out to the side under pressure from the weight of the thousands of pounds of gasoline inside the tank.

Moving quickly to the center of the runway behind the truck, she put a hole in the rear of the tank, then one in the far side.
 

Nothing exploded. The streams didn’t perfectly cover the tracks the KC-135’s landing gear would have to take, but they came close.
 

“Close enough for government work,” she said. Slinging her weapon, she called out to her men. “As soon as I’m a few hundred yards ahead, light this shit up!”

To the west, she heard the sound of LAV cannons and heavy machine guns firing.

She hopped into the cab and started the tanker forward, careful to keep the truck in the center of the taxiway unless she had to dodge a larva. Watching in the rear view mirror, she saw her men move forward and with visible reluctance set fire to the gas.

“Shit,” she said as the gasoline trails lit and the flames raced after her. “Guess I’d better go a little faster.”

BOISSON

“Holy shit!”

“What the hell’s going on?” Richards demanded.

“That lunatic Boisson just fired a rifle at a tanker truck. Jesus! She shot it again. What the hell…”
 

Richards was just about to key his mic again when Ferris continued, “All right, Boisson is a suicidal maniac, but she’s a goddamn genius. She poked some holes in the tank on the truck so it’ll spray gas all over the runway. I think…yeah, she’s going to drive ahead of me, letting the gas burn off any larvae that are in the way.” He paused again. “Oh, my God! She just had the agents light up the streams of gas! She’s a fruitcake!”