Operation Northwoods (2006) by James - Jack Swyteck ss Grippando Page B

hoped there were more. Once again, the heat was on him like a blanket, but even more stifling was the noise all around him--radios crackling, sirens blaring, men shouting. Loudest of all was the inferno itself, an endless surge of flames emitting a noise that was peculiar to fires this overwhelming, a strange cross between a roaring tidal wave and a gigantic wet bedsheet flapping in the breeze.
    "Watch it!"
    Directly overhead, a stream of water arched from the turret of a massive, yellow truck. It was one of several three-thousandgallon airport rescue and firefighting machines on the base, capable of dousing flames with 165 gallons of water per minute. It wasn't even close to being enough.
    "Coming through!" A team of stretcher bearers streaked past. Major Jorgenson caught a glimpse of the blackened shell of a man on the gurney, his arms and legs twisted and shriveled like melted plastic. On impulse, he ran alongside and then took up the rear position, relieving one of the stretcher bearers who seemed to be on the verge of collapse.
    "Dear God," he said. But his heart sank even further as the lead man guided the stretcher right past the ambulance to a line of human remains behind the emergency vehicles. The line was already too long to bear. They rolled the charred body onto the pavement.
    "Major, in here!"
    He turned and saw the fire chief waving him toward the side of the fire truck. An enlisted man stepped in to relieve his commanding officer of stretcher duty. The major commended him and then hurried over to join the chief inside the cab, pulling off his mask as the door closed behind him.
    The fire chief was covered with soot, his expression incredu- lous. "With all due respect, sir, what are you doing out here?" "Same as you," said the major. "Is it as bad as it looks?" "Maybe worse, sir."
    "How many casualties?"
    "Six marines unaccounted for so far. Eleven injured." "What about detainees?"
    "Easier to count survivors at this point."
    "How many?"
    "So far, none."
    The major felt his gut tighten. None. No survivors. A horrible result--even worse when you had to explain it to the rest of the world.
    The fire chief picked a flake of ash from his eye and said, "Sir, we're doing our best to fight this monster. But any insight you can give me as to how this started could be a big help."
    "Plane crash," the major reported. "That's all we know now. Civilian craft. Cessna."
    Just then, a team of F- 16s roared across the skies overhead. Navy fighter jets had been circling the base since the invasion of airspace.
    "Civilian plane, huh? It may not be my place to ask, but how did that happen?"
    "You're right. It's not your place to ask."
    "Yes, sir. But for the safety of my own men, I guess what I'm getting at is this: if there's something inside this facility that we should know about ... I mean something of an explosive or incendiary nature--"
    "This is a detention facility. Nothing more."
    "One heck of a blaze for a small civilian aircraft that crashed into nothing more than a detention facility."
    The major took another look through the windshield. He couldn't argue.
    The chief said, "I may look like an old geezer, but I know a thing or two about fires. A little private plane crashing into a building doesn't carry near enough fuel to start a fire like this. These bodies we're pulling out of here, we're not talking third-degree burns. Upward of eighty-five, ninety percent of them, it's fourth- and even fifth-degree, some of them cooked right down to the bone. And that smell in the air, benzene all the way."
    "What is it you're trying to tell me?"
    "I know napalm when I see it."
    The major turned his gaze back toward the fire, then pulled his encrypted cellular phone from his pocket and dialed the naval station command suite.
    7:02 a.m., Miami, Florida Jack increased the volume to hear the rapid-fire cadence of an anchorwoman struggling to make sense of the image on the TV screen.
    "You are looking at a live scene at the U. S.