Recovery: V Plague Book 8 (24 page)

We were
passing through the mountains, approaching Salt Lake City, when the satellite
phone began ringing.  Katie picked it up and looked at the screen, frowning.

“Blocked
number.”

“Go ahead
and answer.”  I said.

She pushed
the button to accept the call and after a pause there was the hiss of an open
circuit.

“Yes?”  I
said.

“John. 
Lucas.”  My friend said.

“Hello,
mate.  What’s the word?”  I asked, glad to hear from him.

“That matter
you called me about is taken care of,” he said.  Just like me, he was used to
being very circumspect when speaking, but who the hell was left to overhear and
care what he was talking about.  Old habits die hard, I guess.

“Was I
right?”  I wanted to look at Katie to see how she was reacting but the mountain
road at night, at high speed, was taking every bit of my attention.

“It appears
so,” he said then paused.  “Can we speak freely?”

“Katie’s
with me,” I said.  “And there’s a good chance Pearl Harbor is listening in, but
they already know what’s going on, so go for it.”

He was quiet
for a minute before continuing.

“OK then. 
This wanker had gone off the deep end.  He’d murdered his co-worker and stuffed
the body in a closet.  And he’s definitely been in touch with the third party
we were concerned about.  He had set up a feed for them from one of your
internal networks.  No idea what they were watching, it all looks encrypted
now, but the feed was still live when I got to him.”

“Son of a
bitch,” I said, then realized something.  “Lucas, if I remember right you know
about as much about the tech shit as I do.  How do you know there was a feed
set up for the Russians?”

“I’ve got
some friends who came along for the party,” he said in a tone that told me he
wasn’t going to expand on the topic, but it still told me all I needed to know.

“What about
the subject?  What’s his status?”  I asked, this time sparing a glance at
Katie.  She was listening intently, staring straight ahead through the
windshield.

“He’s having
a conversation with some blokes I’m acquainted with,” Lucas said.  “He won’t be
causing you any more problems.”

“Lucas, I
don’t know how to thank you.”

“No thanks
necessary, mate,” he replied.  “Anytime.  You know that.  So, are you about to
wrap up whatever you’re dealing with?”

“I hope so. 
I’ll know in a few hours.”  I didn’t have a problem telling him what was going
on but it was a very long story and there wasn’t time to tell it right now.

“Right,
then.  I’ll ring off and let you get on with it.  Don’t forget my offer.  I’ve
got more land than I know what to do with.  Plenty of room if you can find your
way.”

“Thanks,
Lucas.  For everything.”  I said and ended the call.

“You OK?”  I
asked after several minutes of silence.

“Yes, I’m
fine.  I had just been hoping we were wrong about Steve.  He was a good man. 
Once.”  She replied, staring out the side window at the dark countryside rushing
past.

I almost
said something, but decided to let it go.  There was nothing I could add that
would be productive.  I didn’t even know the guy, only ever having met him once
when he showed up on our doorstep late one night wanting to talk to Katie.

  I’m not
the jealous type and wouldn’t have thought twice about a visit at a reasonable
hour.  But showing up at my door at 11:30 on a Tuesday night is not a good way
to endear yourself to me.  Katie had talked him down and sent him on his way
before I bounced him into the street. 

We drove for
a few more miles, the curves in the road ending as we started a long, straight
downgrade.  I opened up the Charger and we surged forward, the speedometer
swinging to nearly 150 with the help of gravity on the downhill stretch.  Katie
seemed to be lost in thought and I was focused on the road ahead.

I cut my
eyes up to the mirror and she turned and looked into the backseat when Dog
whined.  There were two more quick whines and I could feel him bumping into the
back of my seat.

“What’s
wrong with him?”  I asked, already lifting my foot off the gas.

“Dreaming,”
she smiled.  “He’s running like hell right now.”

I smiled and
put the accelerator back to the floor.  For five minutes Dog was lost in a
dream world.  Whining, legs twitching, feet slapping against the seat backs,
even barking a couple of times.  Then he let out with a low, mournful wail that
for some reason was the funniest thing I’d heard in a long time.

It started
as a chuckle that quickly became gales of laughter.  A moment later Katie
joined me and I had to slow the Dodge for fear of losing control.  Our mirth
must have woken Dog who a few moments later stood up in the back seat, shook,
sneezed and thrust his head between us for attention.

The sat
phone rang while Katie was scratching his ears and he snorted when she took her
hand off his head.

“It’s
Jessica,” she said as she accepted the call.

“Sir, you’ve
got a group of infected wandering across the pavement two miles ahead!”  She
said as soon as the connection was made.

I hit the
brakes, hard, our speed quickly bleeding off.  Flipping the switch to kill all
of our external lights I hoped we’d shut down before being noticed.

“Have they
seen us?”  I asked, coming to a complete stop in the middle of the freeway.

“Females
coming your way, and there’s too many to push through with the car.  I’m
looking for an alternate route.  Hang on.”

Katie and I
exchanged looks and once again I was thankful for the young woman sitting in
Hawaii. 

“Two miles
behind you is an exit for US Highway 89.  Take that north into Ogden and you’ll
be able to get onto I-15 in a few miles.”  She said.

Turning the
lights back on I shifted into reverse and hit the throttle.  The Charger shot
backwards, gaining speed.  Letting off the gas and yanking up the parking brake
I spun the wheel.  As the rear tires locked up the front swung, pivoting
around, completing a sliding 180-degree reverse turn.  Releasing the brake I
nailed the throttle and roared back east towards the exit. 

“Enjoyed
that, didn’t you?”  Katie asked as she slowly released her death grip on the
grab bar mounted to the dash in front of her.

“Sir?” 
Jessica asked.  She was still connected.

“Nothing,
Jessica,” I said.  “Just some sarcasm from the passenger seat.  Any luck on an
outfitter or am I stopping here in Ogden?”

“I haven’t
had any success, sir.  I think you had better stop.  Should I text the
directions to your sat phone?”

“Yes, do
that.  And what’s the infected population around the mall like?”

“It’s still
heavy.  Software is counting 384 visible to the camera.  Of course there could
be more that I can’t see, just like at the truck stop.”

“Understood. 
What’s the status on the Bradley and Idaho?”

“Still
limited to thermal in Idaho and no change since we last spoke.  I’ve got the
archival footage but I’m having problems getting it to load properly so I can
view it.  That’s why I didn’t give you more warning about the infected on the
freeway.  I was working on it.”

I saw the
exit coming and just to tweak Katie I didn’t slow down and make a gentle turn. 
Pulling the brake I cut the wheel, spinning the car around before thundering
forward and down the ramp.  At the bottom I made a sliding right to head north
on US 89.  As soon as we stabilized on our new course Katie punched my arm.  Hard.

“Nice
driving, sir.”  Jessica said a moment later.  “Hope you don’t blow a tire with
all that fancy maneuvering.”

I looked
over at Katie and she was beaming that someone else had chastised me for a
change.  How she managed to keep her mouth shut, I’ll never know.  Realizing
the two women were right and I had been acting like a foolish teenager, I
grinned sheepishly and rubbed my arm where Katie had hit me.

“I hope not,
too.”  I said, still massaging my arm.

We drove
north into Ogden on what had once been a rural US highway.  It had been gobbled
up by urban and suburban sprawl, widened repeatedly, turn lanes and traffic
signals added and lined with businesses of every stripe.  Now it was just like
any major arterial route in any large city.

But there
wasn’t any traffic and no power for the stoplights so I blasted along at close
to 100 miles per hour.  A year ago if I had driven like this on this road I
would have had a dozen cops behind me, a police helicopter in the air and been
the subject of most of the evening news broadcasts across the country.  Now I
was just trying to survive and save someone that I wasn’t even sure was still
alive.

“The mall is
five miles ahead,” Katie said, interrupting my musings.  “What’s your plan to
get inside the store?”

“Depends on
what we find when we get there,” I said.  “If it’s only males we’re going to
fight our way through.  Females, I’m thinking a loud distraction.”

Katie
nodded, rubbing Dog’s neck.  He had picked up on our elevated tension and knew
something was up.  Alert, he kept his head pushed through from the back so he
could see what was happening.

As we
approached the mall I had to slow.  Infected began appearing on the road in
small numbers and I didn’t want to smash into one and damage the front of the
car.  Even a slight aerodynamic change could cause a lot of problems when our
speed began exceeding 80.

The road
began to curve to the west as the ground on that side dropped off slightly,
then we emerged from a thick stand of trees and spied the sprawling mall to our
left and below us.  There was nothing special about it, just another massive
collection of stores surrounded by acres of asphalt.  Wanting to get a good look
I pulled to a stop by a low guardrail.

There were a
lot of figures just standing in the parking lot.  From my vantage point I
couldn’t tell if they were males or females, nor did I have any idea why they
were just standing there.  Conserving energy and waiting for a fat, juicy snack
to show up?  Maybe.

“There,”
Katie said, pointing.

Following
her extended hand I saw an exterior entrance to a Dick’s Sporting Goods.  I was
thankful we weren’t going to have to go into the mall proper, and might very
well have abandoned the location if we had.  Too many hiding places for
infected and too easy to get trapped.  Not that the store would be any better,
but at least it had been built on a corner and there were two exterior doors at
ninety degree angles to each other.

“That’s too
many to fight through,” Katie said quietly.

“Agreed,” I
said, checking the mirrors and looking around to make sure there weren’t any
infected in the immediate area before I stepped out.  “Time for a distraction.”

I shifted
the Dodge into park and stepped out, opening the rear door when I stood up. 
Dog jumped down, ears up and a growl coming as soon as he caught scent of the
infected.  He looked around and not seeing anything close enough to attack,
headed for the guardrail and gave it a good sniff before lifting his leg.

There were
close to a hundred vehicles scattered around the parking lot below me.  Most
were cars, but there were a few pickups, one large motor home and one of the
giant city busses that bend in the middle so they can make tight turns.  Katie
stepped out and came to stand next to me, looking down at the parking lot.   

Leaning in
to the car I retrieved the Russian grenade launcher and the bandolier from the
back seat.  Opening the cylinder I inserted two high explosive grenades into
the empty chambers from when I’d fired the weapon in Dodge City.  The cylinder
is spring operated and I rotated it as I loaded in the new shells, resetting it
for full rotation.

My first
target was a large Chevy pickup, parked on the far side of the bus from the entrances
to Dick’s.  I hoped to draw them around beyond the larger vehicle, which would
screen their view of the store.  Raising the launcher, I aimed, adjusted a
little high to compensate for the distance and pulled the trigger.

There was a
thump and I tried to track the grenade’s flight with my eyes but it was too
dark.  A couple of heartbeats later there was a large explosion when it struck
the asphalt a good ten yards short of the Chevy.  Hey, it’s not like aiming a
rifle.

All around
the parking lot infected began moving in the direction of the blast.  There
were more females than I had expected as nearly half of the static figures
suddenly began sprinting towards the sound.  Adjusting aim I fired again.  Even
though I couldn’t see it I pictured the parabola the grenade followed, its path
ending in the bed of the pickup.

I don’t know
exactly where the shell did strike the Chevy, but I hit it, the blast lifting
its side into the air a split second before the fuel tank ruptured and
detonated.  The explosion was truly impressive.  Flaming fuel was scattered for
thirty yards in every direction as a ball of roiling fire consumed the vehicle
and climbed into the night sky.  A wave of hot air washed across my face.

“It’s
working,” Katie said, watching the infected move as one towards the violent sights
and sounds of the explosion.

I waited,
giving time for the small herd to collapse in on the area of the burning
truck.  They passed the city bus then crossed open asphalt before flowing
around the motor home, which was being charred on the side closest to the
burning Chevy.  The fire was intense and the females stopped at a safe
distance, beginning to cluster next to the RV.

The males
continued forward, apparently unaware that they were walking to their death. 
One after another they stumbled on, ignoring the fire that began to consume
their clothing and flesh.  Crawford had told me about seeing the same thing at
Tinker when males kept walking towards burning jet fuel until they were killed.

Shaking my
head in amazement I adjusted my aim to the motor home, which now had at least a
hundred females standing within only a few yards of it.  They appeared to be
mesmerized by the fire as they were just standing there watching.  Grinning, I
pulled the trigger twice and sent two grenades rocketing towards them.

The first
one punched through a side window, detonating inside the living area of the
RV.  The whole vehicle shook when it went off then the second one arrived.  I
couldn’t tell where it struck but it added its force to the already expanding
blast.  The motor home disappeared in a giant fireball that instantly consumed
all the infected within a large radius.

I checked
the parking lot in front of Dick’s, happy to see it clear of everything other
than a few slow moving males.  They were focused on getting to the sounds of
the exploding vehicles.  Turning back I saw that most of the females had been
outright killed in the initial blast, the rest scattered across the asphalt
with gruesome injuries. 

More were
coming from the opposite direction and wanting to keep them busy I picked out
two more vehicles even farther away from our destination and lobbed a grenade
into each.  They both erupted, spreading more burning gasoline and killing any
infected unlucky enough to be within twenty yards.

I took a
moment to reload the launcher, this time selecting fragmentation grenades, which
are designed to cause maximum damage to the human body.  Tossing it into the
back seat I got Katie and Dog into the car and headed for the exit ramp in
front of us that was clearly marked as mall access.

Driving
without lights I kept the speed down to make as little noise as possible.  Even
though I’d just taken out most of the infected that had been hanging around the
parking lot, I’d made a hell of a lot of noise in the process.  I didn’t think
for a second that there weren’t more in the area that were already zeroing in
on the blasts.