The Zone: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Infection Chronicles Book 1) (11 page)

“What about weapons?”

“We have a few guns, but not enough. Not enough to do what needs to be done.”

“What needs to be done?”

“Look around. What do you see?”

Steele looked over the basement. He saw dirty, tired faces. Weathered and worn from months of barely surviving. Most of the faces were men. About twenty of them. A precious few women and children were left.

“You are not the only one who has lost someone. Raddick has taken most of our women,” Xavier said. “You can help us get them back.”

Steele sighed. “I can’t.”

“What do you mean, you can’t? Call in additional support.”

“There is no additional support. This was an off the books mission.”

“Even so, I can’t imagine that you are just going to leave that little girl in Raddick's possession?”

Steele was silent a moment. He thought back to five years ago—when he was assigned a security detail to the
democratically
elected Syrian President. The new government was installed after the fall of the dictatorship. It was the third Syrian war in so many decades, and the new regime faced heavy opposition from insurgents. As part of their plan to assassinate the President, Steele’s daughter was kidnapped. But the ransom wasn’t money, it was murder. Steele was given the choice—kill the President, or Madison dies.

Steele organized an unauthorized rescue mission. It failed. It cost Steele his daughter, his marriage, and his career. He carried a lifetime of guilt on his shoulders. It made his physical pain pale in comparison. 

Steele snapped out of the past. “Tell me about Raddick's stronghold.” 

“Raddick has about a hundred men. All heavily armed. As you know, he’s got RPGs, armored personnel carriers, he’s even got a tank. The only thing he doesn’t have is an aircraft. You guys have done a pretty good job of shooting those out of the sky as soon as they go up.”

“How did he come into power?”

“Raddick bought the old rice silos on the east side of town maybe ten years ago. Everybody thought he was crazy. Converted it to a survivalist compound. Underground bunkers with six feet of concrete. Solar powered. Grows his own food, has a rainwater collection system, and even makes bio diesel. Practically setup his own kingdom. There’s a secured perimeter wall and plenty of guards. Every now and then the news would run a feature on him. He was just waiting for the end of the world, and he was ready for it. His people follow him like some kind of religious leader. It was a doomsday cult, and doomsday actually came. He thinks they are going to be the ones to repopulate the world.”

Steele scoffed. “Hasn’t anyone told him this is the only city affected?”

“Do you really think you can keep this virus contained?” a voice in the crowd snarled.

“There have been no cases of infection outside of the quarantine zone,” Steele replied.

“And how long do you think that’s going to last?”

Steele’s face tensed. He didn’t even want to begin to think about the virus escaping containment.

The man behind the angry voice stepped forward. He was a nerdy guy with thick black glasses and pasty white skin. 

“Major, this is Finn,” Xavier said. “You’ll have to excuse his angst, we’re all stretched a little thin.”

Finn scowled at Xavier. It was clear he didn’t want anyone apologizing for him. “You don’t think a virus like this just happens, do you?”

Steele said nothing. 

“It was made,” Finn said, irate. “By your kind. It’s a goddamn weapon.”

“That’s enough, Finn,” Xavier said.

The kid had a point, Steele thought. Why drop a bomb on an enemy when you could release a virus like this? The entire population would be decimated within weeks. Too much collateral damage though. And how would you stop it? But if it was a weaponized virus, surely there was a cure?

Perhaps there was. Sitting in a vault somewhere. Steele imagined scientists in white lab coats splicing genes, creating superbugs. If this was the product of a lab, somebody was in deep trouble. Even if they had a cure, no way could they admit responsibility. Too costly. The lawsuits would bankrupt even the largest of corporations. It would have to be covered up.

Genomedyne was the largest defense contractor. They built the tanks. They built the aircraft. They even manufactured the fatigues Steele was wearing. They provided medical equipment and pharmaceuticals. You name it, they supplied it. If this was a weaponized virus, you could be sure they had a hand in developing it.

Steele was never much for conspiracy theories. He liked to keep things simple. Someone told him to kill, and he did it. He never much concerned himself with the reasoning behind the orders he was given. Best to go into battle with a clear head and a clear objective. Start wondering why you are there, or what you are doing, and things are more apt to go wrong. 

 Steele figured that by now Z-SOC would be aware of the downed CAV. They would send a recon vehicle to assess the damage and see what happened. But they weren’t going to rescue any survivors. As far as Z-SOC was concerned, anything on the ground in the containment zone was either a threat, infected, or both. 

Steele reached into a pocket and pulled out the black cartography disc. He set it on a table and activated the display. The beam projected a 3D virtual screen. He swiped through the menu and pressed a few buttons—a map of the surrounding area appeared. “Where exactly is Raddick's location?”

“PARKER, GIVE ME an inventory,” Steele commanded.

“I was able to salvage three assault rifles from the CAV and twenty magazines. I’ve got six thermal grenades, four proximity mines, and two cartridges of S9.”

“Not really enough to assault Raddick's stronghold,” Steele said. 

Parker glanced around to make sure no one was in earshot. She and Steele were about as alone as you could get in a shelter full of survivors. “Are you sure that’s the smart thing to do?” she whispered.

“No, it’s not the smart thing to do. But we’re not leaving Chloe behind.”

“Sir, a rescue mission compromises the primary objective of this operation.”
 

“And I figured you for the compassionate one.”

“Right now you and I still have an opportunity to walk out of here with a lot of money. Do you really want to throw that opportunity away?”

“You and I? What about Delroy?”

Parker shrugged. “He’ll slow us down.”

Steele looked stunned. 

“You were the one who said we don’t get involved with the refugees,” Parker said.

“Things change.”

“Tell me… what do you think the odds are of successfully raiding an enemy stronghold guarded by a hundred men, rescuing Chloe and the refugees? And Xavier wants us to escort them to the containment wall and escape the quarantine zone?”

“I’m not a statistician, but I give it a one in ten chance of success,” Steele said. 

“I’m not a statistician either, but those odds suck.”

“I gotta live with myself.” Steele’s eyes blazed into her. “You want out. Fine. Grab a bag and go. I won’t stop you. Hell, I don’t think I’d even hold it against you.” 

Parker cowered and swallowed hard. She was silent a long moment. Steele never broke eye contact with her.  

“No. If you’re in, I’m in. You’re the chief,” she stammered.

“You sure? Cause I don’t want you disappearing when I’m counting on you.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. We get Chloe. Then we get out of here.”

Steele peered deep into her green eyes. Combat was like truth serum. You found out very quickly what someone was made of. Could he still count on Parker, he wondered? 

“I’m going to scope out Raddick's outpost. You coming?” 

Parker nodded.

Steele rounded up his gear and some ammunition and they set out.

The angry sky clamored, and rain pelted down. The two snaked their way through the slick streets. Xavier had vehicles stashed nearby. But they had better odds of traveling undetected on foot. And gas was always at a premium.

It took thirty minutes to get near the compound. An abandoned steel scrapyard, half a click away, offered a good vantage point to survey the outpost. Steele shimmied his way up to the top of a large conveyor which towered four stories into the air. It gave him a nice, clear view.

He sat there for a while—watching, observing, analyzing. Detailing the strengths and weaknesses. Looking for their Achilles’ heel. But the compound was solid. The perimeter wall was three stories high, rimmed in razor wire. There was a lookout tower on each corner. 

The main entrance had two massive steel double doors, large enough to drive a semi truck through. Two turret towers guarded it.

In the hour that he watched, it was mostly quiet. There was the occasional crack of a rifle blasting an approaching lurker—done more out of boredom than necessity. Nothing was getting over those walls. Nothing was getting through the front doors.

Steele noticed the lurkers were able to get relatively close to the wall without tripping any proximity mines or claymores. Even if Raddick had previously mined the fields, they sure weren’t mined now. They would have been detonated long ago. A constant influx of lurkers would have tripped proximity mines around the clock. From what Steele knew of Raddick, he seemed like a calculated guy. Not the type of guy to waste precious resources on what was essentially a non-threat. And lurkers mindlessly bouncing against the compound wall wasn’t a threat.

But Raddick was about to have bigger problems than lurkers. Taking down two CAVs in so many days was bound to incite retaliation. It would only be a matter of time before Z-SOC tracked these guys down. 

Z-SOC had been focused on containment, for the most part. Command didn’t really care what was happening on the ground. But they kept a close watch on the skies. Lots of aircraft remained in the containment zone. And lots of refugees tried to pilot them out. There was a flurry of unauthorized flights in the no-fly zone during the first few weeks of containment. Now, it was a rarity. Everything that went up was shot down.

Steele reached into a pocket and pulled out a bumble drone. It was slang for the UAV 297 Mark II. It was a small drone the size of a bumblebee. Fitted with a 48K camera with a Zikor lens and optical zoom. The resolution was so high that you could read the numbers on someone’s wristwatch from 5 miles away. It could be remotely piloted from any mobile device. It could also fly a series of preprogrammed smart-patterns based on GPS location data. Just program in a target, and it would run a recon mission—virtually undetectable.

It had no radar cross-section, to speak of. The engine made no noise. And its preprogrammed flight missions were set to simulate the movement of a bumblebee, or wasp. It was an excellent assassination tool as well. A stinger could inject a lethal toxin, eliminating the target quickly and efficiently. 

The incredible optics made the drone an exceptional geo-mapping tool. Hundreds of thousands were deployed to scour every nook and cranny of the globe. It’s why Z-SOC had access to such detailed maps of interior structures. But the drones didn’t collect information on below ground structures, due to an error in the code. It’s why Ferris’s bunker came as a surprise. 

Steele didn’t like surprises. Especially on the battlefield. The battle is won before it is fought. A  drone was going to come in handy. Map data on the servers could be six months to a year old. Steele wanted fresh intel. But drones didn’t like the rain—a heavy drop could significantly alter its trajectory. The rain wasn’t letting up, and Steele  was growing impatient. He programmed in the location of the compound and launched the drone. He hoped it would come back in one piece, with usable data.

The drone zigged and zagged through the sky. Steele watched a stabilized aerial view on his mobile device. The compound was massive. More so than he initially thought. It was like a little village. It had an extensive garden, and the compound looked completely self sustaining. Rows and rows of vehicles and military equipment—APCs, and even a tank. The drone counted 37 individuals above ground. It was programmed to automatically cross reference facial features against the
Shadow Net
database. But the facial recognition software did not detect a match for Chloe.

Shadow Net
, was the government’s extensive surveillance program. It kept detailed records on everyone—not just suspected terrorists. It was highly controversial, and illegal. It didn’t
technically
exist. Steele wasn’t a fan of the Orwellian nature of current surveillance programs. But he hoped this might help him find Chloe.

In the center of the compound, Steele saw what looked to be an entrance to an underground bunker. Chloe must be somewhere underground. 

Not only would Steele have to penetrate the defenses of a heavily fortified complex—he’d have to get into the underground bunker as well. Then once inside, liberate Chloe and countless other hostages. It seemed an almost impossible objective. But Steele had a plan. 

THE MASSIVE METAL doors of the compound swung open, and the black 4x4 sped out. Steele’s eyes narrowed as he watched. His face tensed, seething at the sight of the Vantage 250. They took Chloe, and he wanted revenge.