Allegiance (35 page)

Outbreak - Day 16

Southwest of Winnipeg, Manitoba
Canada

Give or take a tenth of
a mile, Oil Can Five-Five was right where it was supposed to be.

Apparently the GPS
birds are still talking to each other,
Ari thought to himself. He had a feeling that his days
of flying without a modicum of worry, being able to rely upon the information
being provided by these wonders of technology, were coming to a close.
Was
there anyone alive at Cape Canaveral?
he wondered. Because sooner or later
the satellites that nearly every piece of equipment in the United States
arsenal relied on for navigation, communication, and targeting were destined to
fail. Orbits decay, and without aerospace engineers to design and build new
birds and the necessary heavy lift capabilities to throw them into orbit, the
prospect of navigation by compass and sextant was very real and probably in his
immediate future.

“Jedi One-One coming to
drink,” Ari said into the comms as he maneuvered his ship into the refueling
tanker’s slipstream.

“We’ve got you covered
One-One. But that’ll be two beers for each of my crew,” the Herc pilot replied.

“Roger that,” said Ari
in an agreeable tone. “But if I’m buying you a beer, at least tell me your
name.”

“Lieutenant Dover,” the
pilot replied. “Ben Dover.”

“Well Lieut... should I
call you Benjamin or Ben?” Ari asked without missing a beat. He then gazed to
the left at Durant, and wide grins broke out behind their boom mikes.

“Ben,” the pilot drawled
matter-of-factly.

Either the Herc driver
had already heard his fill of wisecracks concerning his name, or he didn’t know
the SOAR pilot’s reputation as a ball breaker.
Probably a combination of
both,
thought Cade as he caught Gaines eye.

Both men smiled.

Covering his boom mike
with a gloved hand, Cade leaned across the cabin. “Hey— Agent Cross... is
Ripley this loose on Marine One’s comms when the boss is aboard?”

Cross shook his head.
Pantomimed zipping his lips and throwing away an imaginary key.

“I heard that,” Ari shot
back into the shipwide comms.

Now, with a fully loaded
fuel tank, the Ghost backed away from the refueling boom and climbed away to
the port side of the Herc, where Ari flashed another thumbs up before reforming
up next to the loudly droning Osprey.

Cade watched as the last
link to the Desantos era busied himself with his M4. Lopez checked the
batteries in the laser pointer affixed above and behind the suppressor. Then he
took a microfiber swab, and for the third time in as many hours meticulously
cleaned the lenses of the Eotech optics mounted atop his weapon’s upper
receiver. First he polished the flip-away 3x magnifier, a cylindrical scope
about three inches in length which sat behind the square-topped holographic
sight. Then he carefully wiped the imaginary accumulated dust from the latter,
which had a floating red dot on the lens and was optimal for close quarters
combat. The large lens, allowing for super-fast target acquisition, could be
brought on target with just one or both eyes open—and whatever the operator
trained that red dot on, his bullets were sure to strike. Ignoring the banter,
Lopez seemed lost in his own world, no doubt perseverating over the multitudes
of
demonios
he would soon be facing.

The entire Delta team,
including Tice, who was their honorary member, was equipped similarly with
anti-ballistic body armor, tactical helmets, knee and elbow protection, and to
guard against bites to the hands and fingers they all wore tactical gloves that
were constructed of thick Nomex fabric complete with Carbontek molded knuckle
caps.

Each operator carried a
suppressed M4 with identical optics, laser pointers and drop-down fore grips.

Agent Cross had the
ubiquitous Secret Service suppressed MP7 dangling under his arm, as well as a
semi-automatic sidearm strapped to his right thigh.

Suddenly Durant’s voice
boomed over the comms. “Ten mikes out,” he said. “Once again good ol’ Nash has
worked her magic. Heads up, I’m patching through a satellite feed.”

“Real-time?” asked
Gaines.

“Roger that, Sir,”
answered Durant flatly. “Wait one.” A half a minute passed and he added, “OK,
it’s coming up on the cabin monitor.”

The LCD flat-panel,
which was inset into the Ghost Hawk’s aft-facing bulkhead, glowed blue for a
few seconds before the real-time image being beamed down via one of the 50th
Space Wing’s remaining Key Hole satellites splashed onto the screen. The
billion dollar Air Force bird was currently parked in a geostationary orbit
over downtown Winnipeg so that the KH-12’s powerful cameras were always trained
on the Delta team’s target.

As soon as the image hit
the screen and the optics zoomed in closer, the resolution sharpened and the
situation on the ground became crystal clear.

Lopez whistled. Then he
said, “You’ve gotta be kidding me. Looks like Custer’s last stand down there.”

The static image they
were looking at could only be described with two words: catastrophic failure. A
dozen abandoned military vehicles were spread out around the eight-block
perimeter just inside of the breached fence lines.

Another dozen ringed the
center plaza of the National Biological Laboratory’s campus. The facility was
Canada’s answer to the United States’ CDC in Atlanta, and was equipped with
laboratories ranging from biosafety level 2 on up to level 4, the highest,
which were designed with multiple safeguards in order to contain the deadliest
microbial killers known to man.

Looking a little bigger
than ants as seen from space, wandering Zs choked the streets across the entire
city. The facility suddenly appeared closer as the camera zoomed in a few stops
and more details emerged. Dozens of living dead moved about the manicured
grounds inside the perimeter fencing. And sitting idle in the central plaza, a
dozen APCs—low-slung six-wheeled armored personnel carriers with turret-mounted
cannons—were also surrounded by wandering throngs of flesh eaters. Some kind of
boxy tracked vehicle occupied a grassy knoll that rose between four reflecting
pools containing brackish water and splayed-out bodies of what looked to be
dead Canadian soldiers. That the track bristled with multiple whip-like
antennas meant it was most likely the command vehicle in which the highest
ranking officer would have overseen the ground operation.

The desert tan APCs sat
adjacent to sandbag emplacements, complete with heavy machine guns deployed
facing outward with their lines of fire following the cement pathways that
radiated away from the knoll, like spokes on a wagon wheel.

Cross piped up, “How did
Nash come to the conclusion there are still live bodies in the facility?”

“Right here,” Gaines
said. He leaned in and touched the display, pointing out a few small white
squares hanging off the side of the third story of one of the glass and metal
buildings. “You can’t see it so well here because of the angle, but in the
footage Nash showed me you could clearly tell that these are sheets of some
sort hanging from these windows. The messages on them were enough to make this
mission more than just a shot in the dark... one of the messages read:
ALIVE
INSIDE
. Another read:
HELP US
. That alone was enough to convince
me.”

“How do we know that
those sheets didn’t go up there on Z day and the people lobbying for our help
aren’t already dead and gone?”

“Because,” Gaines said
evenly, “the one with
ALIVE INSIDE
painted on it also had yesterday’s
date on it.” He let the fact sink in for a beat.

“Good enough for me,” Cross
replied. “Still think we can go in through the roof?”

Cade fielded the
question. “The general and I went over that with Ari and Durant after the
briefing. The Osprey is going to have to find a standoff location because that
noisy beast will let every Z from BC to Quebec know that we’re here.”

“And the team? How are
we getting in?” Cross pressed.

“Ari thinks he can infil
and exfil from the roof provided there are no more than three survivors we have
to transport... which I think is highly unlikely.”

Gaines nodded in
agreement.

“If those are the
parking lots for the building,” Tice said, alluding to the expanse of blacktop
northeast of the plaza where the sun was dancing off of glass and sheet metal,
“there had to be a lot of people inside there when the shit hit the fan.”

Cade nodded but said
nothing.

“Five mikes,” Durant
said over the intercom as he looked back and flashed an open hand for a visual
cue.

“As soon as I get eyes
on the target I’ll know if I can put this bird down or not. Worst case scenario,
you five have to work for it,” Ari said.

“Four,” Gaines said
calmly. “Captain Grayson is running the show. I’m going to be the eye in the
sky.”

“Copy that,” replied
Cade.

Cross leaned over,
looked Cade in the eye. “Did you know about this, Captain?”

“Not until two seconds
ago.”

“You’re OK with that?”
said Cross through gritted teeth.

“It’s my job to
improvise. In fact, it’s something I learned from a man who is no longer with
us.”

Lopez performed a quick
sign of the cross and pointed towards the helo’s roof and heaven beyond.

After a few long moments
of uneasy silence, during which time all eyes were riveted on Cade and the
President’s man, Cross broke out in his big surfer boy smile. “Just busting
your balls, Delta. I’ve got your back.”

“I had no doubt about
it,” replied Cade coolly. He looked toward the ground. It was rapidly
approaching, and he could see a muddy body of water running serpentine through
residential areas south and west of the downtown core where the target was
located. Why anyone would build a level 4 facility in the middle of a city of
roughly four hundred thousand was beyond his comprehension.
Hell
, he
thought,
a level 2 or 3 in the city was still asking for trouble.

Cade felt the helo
change course and track around to the east. The river below merged with another
turbid vein of dirt-laden water. Then the five-story main building that housed
the level 4 containment lab in its basement loomed through the portside glass.

Major Ripley had already
ruled the roof out as a landing zone for the Osprey due to the upthrust
air-scrubbing apparatus and HVAC gear scattered about.

Jedi One-One, however,
needed a flat spot the size of a postage stamp compared to the other ship.

“I was afraid of this,
gentlemen,” said Ari over the comms.

“What is it?” Gaines
asked.

“The rooftop to your
target
is not
flat. It’s stepped and the terraces will get in the way of
the rotor blades. And every edge where I’d usually rest a wheel to let you door
kickers out is protected by concertina wire. Can’t risk getting the bird
snagged.”

“Fast rope it is,” said
Cade, taking charge. “Let me help you, Hicks.”

With Lopez and Cade
pitching in, the two ropes, one port and one starboard, were attached, coiled,
and ready to go.

As the near-silent helo
cut an arc around the back of the cluster of buildings, sunlight blazed off of
a glass-enclosed skywalk. Constructed entirely of white tubes, it was flat at
the bottom and both sides angled in and joined at the top creating a very
lengthy triangular passage linking the main building and the parking lot to the
east.

“The fencing around the
parking lot is compromised,” Durant noted. “And what I presume is the main
guardhouse looks to be unmanned.”

“Roger that,” replied
Cade.

As Ari pulled the Ghost
into a silent hover at a hundred feet AGL, just over the tree-lined northern
perimeter, Cade spotted the white sheets Gaines had pointed out fluttering
against the glass and metal background. “Camera,” he said to Tice, who promptly
handed over the Nikon.

Cade manipulated the
focus ring and the shutter stuttered as he fired off thirty frames. He looked
briefly at the mammoth LCD screen and then passed the camera to Gaines.

“Good intel from Nash,”
Gaines said, nodding subtly. “Someone’s written today’s date up there.”

“Indeed they have,” Cade
answered. He shifted his attention to the parking lots near the outlying
buildings scattered about the grounds, searching for a suitable rally point. A
place where both aircraft could land in the event there were more survivors
than the Ghost Hawk could safely accommodate.

Durant’s voice filled
the comms. “I’ve got movement. Third floor, three windows over.”

“Taking us closer,”
intoned Ari as he side-slipped the helicopter toward the building, keeping the
port side of the bird level with, and parallel to, the bank of windows. “Looks
like they had to break a few windows in order to hang those.”

Looking at the ground,
Cade noticed a half-dozen battered filing cabinets lying amongst sparkling
shards of safety glass that used to reside in the metal frames above. Files and
papers began to blow from the open drawers and were propelled into the air by
the down-blast caused by the whirring rotor blades.