Allegiance (40 page)

Outbreak - Day 16

National Microbiology
Laboratory

Winnipeg, Manitoba
Canada

All twenty-one of the
survivors were assembled in front of Cade as he paced the room, thinking about
what to say first. He stopped and stood still directly in front of the three
scientists, who were each sitting in plush leather chairs taken from the
conference room. Before speaking, he looked over their heads and walked his
gaze across the worry-filled faces of the others, who were mostly lab
assistants and clerical workers.

“I have been sent here
to rescue anyone with experience working with pathogens in a lab environment...
particularly BSL-4—bio safety level 4.”

At this disclosure,
several of the younger people blanched and looked at one another. Cade could
hear the gears turn in their minds as they asked themselves if they were
expendable or not.

“If we
all
work
together and do our part, each and every one of you will make it out of here
alive.” He cringed inside because he knew the probability of that statement
coming to fruition was nearly impossible. He looked over the faces and picked
out the most likely to become fodder for the Zs, and made a mental note to
place them on the inside of the group when they got underway. “The second we
step into the stairwell, you
must
keep quiet, and while we are in there
you
must not
stop moving forward. Everyone on my team has got night
vision devices and will guide us where we need to go, so just keep close to one
another and pretend we are playing follow the leader. It will be
totally
dark, so use the handrail or your neighbor’s shoulder for support. And most
importantly—and this I
cannot
stress enough—
do not stray from the
group
. You’ve already seen your colleagues
turn
in front of your
eyes,” Cade said, pointing to the dead Zs lying in the spreading pool of bodily
fluids. “Once infected a person can turn in
seconds
. I have personally
seen a man hold out for
hours
before succumbing to Omega. But as
all
of you know, it
will
happen eventually. So if you get bit,
I
will
have no choice but to leave you behind.” Cade let his words sink in for a beat
and then said, “Any questions?”

Andy shot his hand into
the air. “If I get bit I want one of you guys to finish me off. I watched my
friends here go through the process... it’s effed up. Turning into one of them
ain’t pretty.” He paused, then realized he still had his hand up and put it
down slowly.

“Remember what I just
told you. Keep your wits about you and all of us will get out of here alive,”
Cade lied.

“Just shoot me right
here,” Andy said, pointing at his temple. He looked over his colleagues and
then settled his gaze on Cade. “’Cause I’d rather die than become one of them.”

You and me both, bro
, Lopez thought as he paced the carpet.

“Just follow our lead,
keep breathing, and don’t panic,” Cade said, trying to assuage the tall man’s
concern. “We
will
get you out of here.”

“Where are you taking
us?” asked another man. The same man who had implied that America had been the
source of the Omega outbreak.

“Colorado Springs,” Cade
said, staring the man down. “You
will
be guests of the United States for
a short time. Then you can go wherever you please,” he lied. It sounded
promising, but it was all he could conjure up.

“I’m not going to
America,” said Mister Conspiracy.

“Anyone who wants to
stay here is more than welcome to,” Cade shot back. “We leave
now
.”

A woman standing on the
periphery, who had been quiet until now, blurted out another question. “Why
can’t we use a flashlight in there?”

Cade tapped the NVGs
attached to his helmet. “The dead are blind in the dark,” he said as the lies
piled on. The truth was the Z bodies had piled up two deep in the stairway and
he didn’t want any of the civilians to see the carnage he had wrought, get
spooked, and start a stampede. Moving them along was going to be a clusterfuck
as it was, and doing so if they were panicky would only make matters worse.
“These goggles will give us the upper hand. You just have to have a little
faith...”

Tice’s voice crackled in
Cade’s earpiece. “We have a window. The landing is clear.”

“Let’s go,” Cade
bellowed. “I’ll take point. Tice and Cross, you two play sheepdog in the
middle. And Cross...” The black-clad Secret Service agent paused with one hand
on his NVGs, looked over and caught Cade’s eye. “You guard the
principals
.”
Cade’s emphasis on the word principals wasn’t lost on Cross, who figured out
that he was expected to treat the trio of scientists no different than
President Clay—and if that meant taking a bite for one of them, he was prepared
to do so.

Tice looked up from the
LCD screen he had been eyeballing. “Landing and stairwell is still clear,” he
said.

Though he didn’t need to
state the obvious, Cade looked at Lopez and said, “You get our six and close
the door behind you.”

“Roger that,” he replied
as he performed the sign of the cross over his tan MOLLE gear bristling with
fully loaded magazines.

Cross took charge of the
civilians, moving them over into the narrow hall near the door, and then he
pulled Mary aside and whispered into her ear. “You and Rita and Virgil have to
stick to me like Velcro. We will be in the
middle
of the pack and that’s
where we have to stay.” He pulled away and locked eyes with the lead scientist.
“
Understood
?” Mary just regarded him with wide eyes and delivered a
subtle nod.

Thick and sweet, the
odor of death invaded the room as Tice opened the door to the stairway.

Outbreak - Day 16

Randolph, Utah

Daymon wheeled the Tahoe
south on 89, following the rural highway as it wove across the border between
Wyoming and Utah, transiting 30 in spots over the one hundred and twelve miles.
They passed through long stretches of flat farmland dotted with nondescript
dwellings and rusted farm implements, while the Bridger National Forest, lush
and green, kept them company off the driver’s side. Daymon negotiated a few
small pileups with people dead and undead festering in the mangled vehicles.
Heeding his earlier mental note, he drove cautiously, head on a swivel, staying
frosty, through a number of small towns with names like Thayne, Grover, Smoot,
and Cokeville. After having passed straight through without having any contact
with other living, breathing humans (good or evil) Daymon was beginning to
relax from the pucker-inducing encounter in Etna. Then, just outside of
Randolph, Utah, he came to the realization that his eyeteeth were beginning to
float and he needed to piss. He slowed as he came to the sign which he presumed
marked the city limits, or at the very least the county line.

“Randolph... population
four hundred and sixty-four. What do you think?” Daymon queried. “Stop and
stretch our legs... get some water?”

“How far to the
compound?” asked Jenkins.

After finding the
correct button on the GPS navigation unit on the Tahoe’s spaceship-like dash,
Daymon waited for the number to display. “Says sixty miles... but I cannot
wait. Can’t tie it off. Can’t pinch it while I drive one-handed either...”

“We get the point,”
Heidi said. “I’m not holding it for you either, so you pick the place.”

He drove for another
mile and pulled into a boarded-up gas station/repair shop called
Tony’s
.
He left the engine running and hopped out of the conditioned air, and was instantly
blasted by a wall of humidity. It had to be in the low nineties, and suddenly
he coveted an ice cold, unnaturally yellow-hued banana Slurpee.
What a thing
to crave
, he thought as he attempted to write his name in urine on the
superheated cement. Not a cold Silver Bullet or a Cadillac Margarita, but a
Slurpee. What
has
the world come to. He smiled inwardly.

As he was in the middle
of one of those two minute,
when the hell is it ever going to end
type
of squirts, someone in the Tahoe honked the horn. He jumped and let go of
himself, peeing on his boots in the process.
Very funny
, he thought. He
glared back at the SUV and noticed Heidi in the midst of throes of laughter. He
thought about throwing her the bird but decided to just be grateful she was making
progress. When he turned to resume his business, he caught some movement from
behind one of the broken-down cars that
Tony
was never going to repair.
He backpedaled and zipped his pants at the same time as a flesh eater emerged
from behind a Ford Econoline Van. By the time he had made it to the Tahoe and
jumped inside, the abomination was making its way around the cruiser’s tubular
grill-guard.

“That’s Tony,” Heidi
blurted out. “Says so on the nametag.”

“Precious, but you
almost fed me to Tony,” Daymon barked.

In the late stages of
decomposition, the creature was one of the quiet stalkers. Daymon had been
seeing more of these lately. He made another mental note to go over some of the
finer points of surviving in the new world with his better half. Of which
honking the horn was not one.

He reversed away from
Tony, slapped the transmission into drive, and powered around the mute
shambler. After consulting the GPS, he said in his best Ralph Kramden bus
driver’s voice, “Next stop fifty-five miles, Logan Winters’s compound.”

Outbreak - Day 16

Logan Winters’s Compound

Eden, Utah

Duncan aimed low and
walked his fire up and to the right. Finger-sized .50 caliber bullets spewed
from the Ma Deuce as the ambush he had just sprung unfolded in slow motion.

In the rear of the
column, the black Toyota he was shooting at lost a headlight in a blossom of
sparkling glass, and then yellow-green coolant gushed from the pierced radiator
and began to pool under the front bumper.

The next two rounds
carved foot-long silver channels in the sheet metal, then punched through and
became lodged somewhere near the firewall. Finally, the last two shells in the
salvo blasted fist-sized holes through the windshield and splattered the
driver’s upper half all over his backseat passengers. By the time the first
burst—lasting little more than two seconds—had left the muzzle and hit down
range, a number of bad guys had bailed from their vehicles.

While Woodland Camo Guy
divided his attention between cutting the barbed wire and watching the rotters
only a car length from him, he was nearly cut in half by a half-dozen rounds
fired from the nearby underbrush. Holding in his guts with both hands, he went
hard to the ground, face first. He screamed and writhed and pushed his toes
against the road, attempting to crawl the short distance to the perceived
safety of the Humvee.

Meanwhile, Logan was
splayed out on his stomach in the grass three hundred yards to the east. The
first vehicle in the column was bracketed in the scope atop his thirty-pound
Barrett M82A1 sniper rifle. His initial shot was low, evidenced by the sparks
and vaporized paint as the round, traveling 2,800 feet per second, pierced the
steel bumper and the body directly behind it before burrowing under a metal
plate next to the rugged vehicle’s wheel well. After the miss, Logan adjusted
his aim upwards, exhaled slowly and drew up the trigger pull. He caressed the
trigger between heartbeats and then whooped when a geyser of steam erupted from
the Humvee’s ruptured radiator. If the .50 caliber round had performed as
designed, he reasoned, there was a good chance the slug had also cracked the
engine block, thus immobilizing the vehicle. He shifted his aim alongside the
vehicle where the motorcycle rider was crouched. He still wore the orange
helmet that all but screamed
AIM HERE
. So Logan did just that. The
wedge-shaped muzzle brake was still dispensing wisps of smoke as he snugged the
rifle to his shoulder. He went through the same breathing routine and then
caressed the trigger. Through the ten-power scope he watched the helmet split
like a robin’s egg. One half flew off towards the fence as the other spun down
the road, spinning like a gaudy top. His eye perceived Chance’s bone, blood,
and brain matter as a spreading pink mist as the near-supersonic bullet
decapitated the dreadlocked kid.

Back in the Hummer, on
the sloping hill north of the ambush, Duncan shifted his aim left, targeting
the vehicle in the middle of the pack. At the same time, across the road on the
compound side, Lev and Phillip raked staccato bursts of gunfire right to left
along the sides of the thin-skinned SUVs.

“I’ve got a couple of
squirters...” said Lev over his two-way, indicating two men who had just
dismounted the second Humvee and were sprinting towards the lead vehicle. “But
they just fucked themselves,” he added as the men came face to face with the
clutch of rotters.

One of the
camouflage-clad men panicked and opened up with his AK-47, chattering out an
entire magazine with no adverse effects on the monsters.

Dressed for war and
clueless
, thought Lev as he
considered euthanizing the pair, but instead sprayed a full magazine into the
occupants of the fourth vehicle.

For a brief moment the
kill zone was dead silent, and then the two men who were just overrun began to
scream. Their cries, carrying up the hill, sent chills dancing around Duncan’s
ribcage and up his spine. In a way, he wished they were on his side of the
convoy so he could spare his ears and put them out of their misery.

Once again the telltale
boom of Logan’s Barrett reached his ears as his brother opened fire from the
hide to the east. The first slug struck one of the buried propane tanks,
causing an explosion that rocked the two Humvees on their springs and slapped
the crotch rocket on its side.

Two more closely-spaced
shots sent one of the canisters spinning heavenward, trailing flames like an
oversize firework.

Down the road, Logan
shifted his aim and—shoulder be damned—unloaded the remaining five rounds into
the other two canisters which resulted in successive explosions similar to the
first.

In the meantime, three
men had exited the black Toyota at the rear of the column; they took cover
behind its open doors and returned automatic rifle fire uphill at the
camouflaged Humvee.

Sounding like angry
metal hornets, rounds sizzled over Duncan’s head and smacked into the plate
surrounding the turret. One errant BB-sized piece of lead caromed off metal and
burrowed under his skin, lodging somewhere above his right ear.
Close
,
he thought as the pain began to spread.

Though the ambush, from
Duncan’s opening kill shot to his being fired upon just now, had happened in a
few short seconds, it still felt to him like half a day had elapsed. Ignoring
the throb in his temple and the warm trickle of blood, he popped his head up,
aimed the M2 at the Toyota’s driver door and squeezed off a three-second burst,
walking it from the door behind the pulped driver to the gas-filler door.
Twenty rounds cut through glass and sheet metal alike with ease. Two of the
three men were killed instantly, shredded by flying lead and shards of glass
and disintegrating body panel. The third man survived the initial onslaught
only to die when the SUV’s gas tank caught fire and exploded.

The middle vehicle, a
silver Land Cruiser, managed to scrape past the Humvee in front and pull a
partial U-turn. The desperate maneuver left his flank fully exposed to Jaime
and Chief, who were tucked into the shadows up the hill.

Although Jaime had
already killed in order to survive, she derived no pleasure in pulling the
trigger on a living person. She aimed for the A-pillar to account for the Land
Cruiser’s forward movement, steadied her breathing like Logan had taught her,
and squeezed off three closely-spaced shots.

The first 5.56 hardball
slug passed through the driver’s neck, severing his carotid, and then shattered
the passenger window. The second round missed altogether. Her third bullet was
a little low. It snapped his clavicle, then caromed downward and burrowed deep
into the driver’s left lung. Mortally wounded, the man’s hands automatically
went to his neck, and all control of the vehicle was lost. His foot
inadvertently floored the accelerator, sending the big SUV plowing through two
lengths of barbed wire before becoming wedged between two stately firs.

“Hold your fire,” Duncan
barked into the two-way. He snatched up his field glasses.
Gonna be a hell
of a cleanup
, he thought as he scrutinized the burning and leaking
vehicles. The orange motorcycle was also ablaze, the intense heat fusing its
aerodynamic fairing to the pavement.

Duncan got on the radio
and asked the group for a consensus on what their next move should be. He had
hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but when the fella started cutting the fence
the line had been crossed. Duncan truly felt he had been left with no other
choice.

Upon Gus’s insistence,
the group stayed in place for another thirty minutes; by then when nothing had
moved, they opened fire on the handful of flesh eaters that remained in and
around the kill zone. When that was done, Chief and Gus set off to track down
the small number of rotters that found their way onto the property.

Duncan walked the road
while keeping a good distance from the black Land Cruiser that was now sitting
on bare rims in a pool of molten rubber.

“Mr. Winters... wait
up,” Lev called out. “I want to talk.”

Slowing his pace, Duncan
ran a hand through his thinning hair, Suddenly he felt at least a hundred years
old. He looked at the row of bodies. A bunch of misguided men who had drawn
their final breaths just minutes ago. He removed his glasses, plucked his
handkerchief from a pocket, and wiped the cordite from the lenses.

“Yeah Lev, what’s up?”
Duncan asked.

“I think we just created
a larger problem.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I looked at the dead
guys. I only recognized a couple of them from the attack on your neighbor’s
place.”

Duncan donned his
glasses and gave Lev’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Well, that’s a couple of
them that aren’t going to bother us again. And the rest are dead by association.
I had a feeling that Chance wasn’t going to be the last sacrificial lamb sent
our way”—he gestured towards the corpses, then went on—“and those inept fools
lying there alongside him pretty much proves my point.”

There was a moment of
silence.

Duncan watched Lev scan
the bodies, maybe trying to come to some type of a conclusion. “Spit it out,
Lev,” he finally said. "What are you getting at?”

“There were a lot of
hard-looking individuals down at the Gudsons. I’ve seen those kind of folks use
some of the same kind of tactics in the
sandbox
. Send invalids, the
infirm... even kids to do their dirty work. Soften the target so to speak. Then
the hardcore jihadis join the fight... the kind that possess a modicum of
discipline, not just the usual spray-and-pray type of jihadist.”

“I would have to agree.
We haven’t seen their A game by a long shot.” Duncan paused to collate his
thoughts. “So we let them have Huntsville
and
Eden for that matter. We
block the road and bolster our defenses. Then we take the helo up and go on a
real foraging mission.”

“That brings me to my
last question,” Lev said with a tilt to his head. “Who made you boss?”

Duncan shrugged. “If you
had any better ideas you shoulda spoken up.”

“Didn’t need to,”
replied Lev.

A fusillade of gunfire
rang out, then echoed into silence.

Duncan didn’t
acknowledge the sharp reports. “And why is that?” he asked. He let his arms
fall to his sides and leaned against the silver Toyota.

“Because, without a
Bradley fighting vehicle at my disposal, that’s the same way I would have set
up that ambush.” He paused before he asked the burning question. “Where’d you
learn that skill set?”

“Contrary to popular
belief, Uncle Sam’s sent fellas off to other wars,” Duncan said. He looked
away, remembering the fallen, and wondered how it was that he was still on this
earth. “And just recently I found myself on the wrong end of a similar ambush
outside of Boise. That one didn’t end well for a few of the survivors in our
group.”

“Sorry to dredge that
up,” said Lev. “And as far as my
boss
comment... no worries on my part.
As far as the rotters go... they are going to be a problem for us for a long
time to come, but the good thing is they’re somewhat predictable. It’s the
humans
I’m worried about, and you and I both know this is only one battle in the
coming war between the remaining.” He turned to walk away, but Duncan grabbed
his shoulder once again.

“I’m not trying to step
on anyone’s toes. As far as I am concerned, we are all equals here. But we are
all going to have to sit down and decide how we want to proceed.”

“What do you mean by
proceed
?”

“If we are ever going to
enjoy any sense of security in our little neck of the woods, we will have to go
on the offensive.”

“Understood,” Lev said.

“Lots of work still to
be done here,” Duncan said, changing the subject.

“Hopefully the fellas
holding down the compound will save us a couple of
warm
ones.”

The men shared a laugh
and went back to work cleaning up their little stretch of 39.

Schriever
AFB

The sun warming her
face, Brook stretched out on a folding chaise lounge she had pilfered from the
Family Resources building.

Raven was blazing around
the cement walkways on her new mountain bike. She would zip by and rattle off
the newest lap to her mom, then disappear from view and reappear from between
another of the Quonset huts moments later, logging yet another notch in her
belt.

“Twenty-three, pretty
impressive!” called Brook as Raven blurred by with Max close behind.

She turned the white
rose over in her hands and wished she knew what tomorrow was going to throw at
her. It was after noon, and she had already tried to hunt down Wilson and the
others and come up short. No matter. They would learn soon enough that today
was a no go. ‘Circumstances that were out of her control’ is what she would
tell them. Not a lie but not necessarily the whole truth either. Since the kids
were not on a need to know basis, this didn’t trouble Brook at all. With the
terrorists still on the loose, Shrill had kept the base on lockdown.
Nobody
was going anywhere
, Brook thought glumly. The thriving metropolis that
Schriever was not, more than assured her that she’d bump into the others sooner
or later.