Undead

by Ryan W. Aslesen

  Max bailed last. The plane’s warm jet wash buffeted him briefly only to be replaced by the icy chill of the ambient air as he righted himself and prepared to deploy his chute.

  The half moon and blanket of stars provided enough light to see for miles through the NVGs. He knew they were about eight kilometers from the coast and would cross into North Korean airspace just north Hongwon, a small coastal town. Air Force meteorologists predicted a strong east wind prevalent in the upper atmosphere that, if it held, would be of great assistance in reaching the compound far inland.

  Four black parachutes had bloomed open beneath him. Number five should have been Delorn but turned out to be Koontz, who had likely popped his too early due to nervousness. Just don’t panic. Max pulled the ripcord; the harness arrested him roughly as the chute popped open with a whip-like snap. He got his bearings and looked down. The first five jumpers had stacked up successfully, each about a hundred feet above the man below him. Koontz floated about two hundred feet above Delorn, and Max was damn near on top of him. He took hold of the chute’s toggles and maneuvered to Koontz’s side. Already the kid was braking hard. Just hang in there, we got a long way to go.

  Max watched Heinz navigate below him as they drifted over the coastline into North Korea, over a few scattered lights down in Hongwon. The relentless east wind had hold of them now, and Heinz had the skill to make the most of it. Max consulted the altimeter clipped to his harness: 37,200 feet. They glided west. Their second waypoint, a reservoir, lay dead ahead a few kilometers off.

  Heinz had played it textbook so far. Definitely knows his shit.

  Past the reservoir they crossed a range of rugged hills topping out at around three thousand feet. A broad valley in the distance carved a swath through the hills, and Max saw a few lights burning in Sinhung, a principle town in the region. Beyond the valley lay the Hamgyong Range, their ultimate destination, a line of jagged black peaks sawing the horizon. Few lights were visible past Sinhung, and no prominent landmarks to utilize as waypoints.

  Heinz navigated by GPS now.

  Max’s altimeter read about twelve thousand feet, his fingers were numb from the cold and being elevated over his head. He kept his eyes on Koontz, who was losing altitude fast, now almost on level with Delorn. Though he could do little for him at this point, Max descended more quickly to keep up.

  “You’re too damn low, Koontz,” Heinz said. Though the wind still blew stiffly, comm wasn’t as bad as before.

  Max replied, “He’s braking hard, but he might hit first.”

  “You’re supposed to be on this shit, Ahlgren.” Zuckerberg knew damn well that he could do nothing to arrest Koontz’s descent.

  Max refused to respond.

  “Stick by him, Max, final approach,” Juno said.

  Koontz assured them, “I’m good.”

  “Then stay the fuck up there!” Heinz roared.

  Max passed Delorn and came level with Koontz. He couldn’t see his face, but knew the man wore a look of strained anguish as he pulled hard to slow his descent. Max stayed with him as ordered. Moral support meant jack shit in Max’s opinion, but it was all he could offer Koontz at the moment.

  “Objective over the ridge. Radio silence,” Juno said in the calm tone of a commercial airline pilot pointing out landmarks to passengers. At least she was handling her shit so far.

  The compound came up fast, Heinz and Juno were about to land on the roof of the two-story building by the time Max got a visual. He and Koontz had passed West and were following Zuckerberg in. At this altitude, over a mile high, the winds grew capricious as they blew steadily across the mountain peak.

  Adrenaline pumped into Max’s bloodstream as he dropped the last two hundred feet. He saw the guards atop the building: one at the far end who stood looking out over the valley below and another walking around the side of a huge steel air conditioning unit. Neither looked to the sky or gave any impression they’d seen the team approaching from above.

  Heinz hit the roof first, a perfect landing far from the air conditioner and the clutter of deck chairs around the empty pool. He rolled once, drew his pistol and came to a kneeling position. One silenced muzzle flash and the guard at the roof’s edge, who turned when he heard Heinz land, toppled over the side, his chest cavity blown open by one of the explosive rounds.

  Max had wondered how loud the detonation would be in actual flesh as opposed to foam rubber—much quieter as it turned out, a mere thud like a sledgehammer smacking a side of beef. He knew from training that bullets which missed and struck a hard surface produced a loud report, but stealth remained on their side for the moment. That’s one.

  Their luck deserted them in the next instant. A fickle gust of cold mountain wind grabbed Zuckerberg’s chute about twenty feet above the roof and blew her toward the edge. She pulled frantically at the toggles to right herself but went over the side of the building. Her chute snagged on a vent pipe at the roof’s edge, and she came to rest halfway up the side of the building, dangling from her parachute lines.

  Max had more important matters to worry about than Zuckerberg hanging there like a bitchy marionette. Koontz drifted in for his landing, about fifty feet in front of Max and moving way too fast. He’s gonna break a fucking leg. Then Max saw what he was up to—directing his falling body and bomb straight down to land precisely on top of the second guard as he raised his rifle skyward. After uttering one pained oomph! the guard crumpled beneath over three hundred pounds of man and gear. Whether the guard stood again would be up to Koontz.

  Since Koontz appeared to have his situation under control, Max steered away at the last second and landed closer to the roof’s edge, about ten feet from the pipe that snagged Zuckerberg. He rolled, came to his feet, and popped the buckles on his parachute harness and rucksack, freeing himself. He ripped off his oxygen mask and cast it aside as he ran to the pipe.

  He found Zuckerberg climbing up her parachute lines to the roof. She had about five feet to go but was struggling despite her phenomenal conditioning. The strain of climbing thin parachute lines while burdened with a hundred pounds of equipment could enervate even the strongest person. Max hooked the toe of his left boot around the vent pipe and leaned over the edge.

  “I got this,” Zuckerberg said.

  “Hand,” Max ordered as he thrust out his left arm.

  Zuckerberg shook her head once in frustration before extending her right arm upward. Max locked onto her wrist—made sure he squeezed really hard—and started helping her to the roof.

  He glimpsed movement on the ground from the corner of his eye: a guard emerging from an alley between two outbuildings about forty feet away. Shit! But he’d grabbed Zuckerberg with his left hand for just that reason. He reached back with his right hand and drew his Glock, leaving all his mass and part of Zuckerberg’s now supported only by his foot curled about the pipe. Tendons in his arm and back strained under the weight.

  The guard saw Zuckerberg dangling there—kind of hard not to see—but Max got off a single shot before he could raise his rifle. Blood and viscera erupted when the bullet struck him in the throat and exploded within. The round nearly decapitated the guard; his helmeted head remained attached to his body by a few tendons and shreds of his spinal cord.

  Max holstered his pistol and finished hauling in Zuckerberg. She shook free from his grasp as soon as she could get a hand on the ledge. Juno and Heinz arrived as she swung onto the roof.

  “Good?” Heinz whispered to her. He sounded like a father assisting his daughter after she’d skinned her knee on the playground.

  These two will need to be separated.

  “Yeah,” Zuckerberg said.

  Thanks to Max... But he expected no gratitude from Zuckerberg, and unlike her landing she didn’t disappoint. As much as he longed to rub in her failure, he refrained. Shit happened in battle. If he had a dollar for every time he’d saved someone’
s skin, he would still be poor, since he’d been saved more than a few times himself. Just know that you owe me one.

  West’s voice crackled through the headset. “Two down, clear up top.”

  “One dead on the ground, east side,” Max said.

  “Assemble at the air conditioner,” Juno ordered.

  The four of them jogged over and formed up in the shadow cast by the massive unit, which stood close to the ladder leading down from the roof. West met them there, followed by Delorn and Koontz about thirty seconds later.

  “The fuck happened to you?” Zuckerberg asked Delorn, who was soaking wet.

  “Landed in the pool,” Delorn said, shaking his head.

  Max guessed the empty pool must have collected a bit of rainwater. “Get geared, people.”

  The team unloaded their jump rucksacks and left them there along with their masks and oxygen bottles. They readied for action and quickly checked one another to ensure nothing was amiss. Max removed the electrical tape he had used to help secure the spoons of his hand grenades during the jump and then helped Delorn shrug into the flamethrower’s backpack tanks.

  “You land in that pool for a reason?” Max asked.

  “Dropped in high and fast. Saw the water and said fuck it, best chance not to break a leg.”

  Max said nothing regarding that. At least you made it. Somehow, we all did. He looked them over as a group when they were through gearing up. Good enough.

  “Still one more out there,” Max said to Juno.

  “We cover each side of the roof and wait for him to appear.”

  Max and West positioned on the north side of the building and began scanning the streets between several low outbuildings, all of block construction, that housed the facility’s various support activities. Five minutes passed like an eternity without a word or action from anyone. At around the eight-minute mark Max heard a lone click that seemed to echo across the entire complex.

  Max spotted him quickly enough: a lone guard exiting a tiny building about fifty meters away, perhaps a tool shed. He had his rifle slung across his back and held a burning cigarette in his hand. Complacency, one of the many enemies of discipline, often affected guards stationed at such facilities, the product of never seeing any action and thinking that they never would. The guy probably snuck into the shed for a smoke break to avoid surveillance cameras. He expected the guy would be professional enough to toss the cigarette immediately once outside but was astounded when he opted for one last drag.

  Idiot. Max put the red dot of his rifle’s reflex sight on the guy’s face just as the cigarette went red hot, then fired. His head blew apart in a misty puff of pinkish goo. “Got him,” he said into his headset. How long before someone notices these guys are missing?

  “Good shot,” West said.

  The team assembled by the ladder, descended to the ground, and moved to the closest window. A quick look inside the dark chamber beyond revealed a high-ceilinged room with several rows of upholstered chairs facing a podium atop a small stage. From the wall above the podium, a chubby, larger-than-life Kim Jong-un directed his benevolent gaze down upon the empty chairs. Delorn produced a glasscutter and a suction cup and got to work breaking in.

  Max pulled Juno aside and whispered, “This is too easy. Those guys were B-team at best.”

  “Agreed. Our informant led me to believe the guards were elite.”

  “He’s a scientist, he wouldn’t know.”

  “Perhaps they were just complacent?”

  “Could be. Or maybe they were the shitbags in the unit.”

  “You’re implying a trap?”

  “Maybe. This doesn’t feel right. My guess is the real troops will be downstairs waiting for us.”

  “And down there, they’ll be the least of our worries.”

  Max thought of test subject six and nodded. They were committed at this point. Even if they wanted to scrub the mission, it would be fraught with danger infiltrating back to the coast, and Max knew this may be their only opportunity to destroy the virus, once and for all.

  12

  Delorn proved a skilled cat burglar. They stood inside the room in less than two minutes. The order and symmetry of the space, obviously a briefing room for party officials, struck Max immediately: five rows of five chairs each, all the furniture streamlined and padded with upholstery he assumed to be blue. The long, opposing walls registered a lighter shade of blue and featured murals of happy communist children playing under the watchful eye of not only Kim Jong-un, but a pantheon of dead North Korean leaders gazing downward from a sky full of white clouds. Symmetry was evident even in the murals; one wall featured only girls, the other boys.

  They moved quickly through the room to a pair of mahogany double doors. “Take point, Max,” Juno said. They formed up in marching order: Max, Juno, Heinz, Zuckerberg, Delorn, Koontz, and West.

  Max didn’t like it; he wanted Heinz and Zuckerberg separated. “Switch places with West, Zuckerberg. I want you guarding our tail and that bomb.” Sound logic, considering she carried the only machine gun.

  “We need the firepower near the front,” Heinz insisted.

  Max looked at Zuckerberg, who didn’t appear ready to comply. “To the rear. Now.”

  She did not verbally protest but shook her head in resignation as she took the rear.

  Satisfied with the order, Max pushed open one of the doors for a peek outside. A hallway ran left to right. NVGs were not necessary as dimmed lights illuminated the corridor every twenty feet or so. The paint job reminded Max of a maternity ward: mauve walls with two darker purple horizontal stripes, the floor covered in white linoleum tiles. To the left, the corridor ran into the distance for nearly the length of the building, lined with closed doors every fifteen feet or so. The hallway emptied into a spacious open area about thirty feet to the right. Probably the lobby. Max led them right in hope of quickly locating the elevator to the lower levels.

  The lobby was a simple yet grandiose room with a vaulted ceiling that stretched to roof height. A heavy revolving door to the left opened onto a porte-cochere. Straight ahead hung another ubiquitous portrait of Kim Jong-un, this one some ten feet high, situated over a dormant ornamental waterfall that drained into a pool ringed with blocks cut from natural stone. Cool colors again dominated: light-green walls above a carpet of darker green.

  As they rounded the corner, an empty security-screening checkpoint stood in front of them. Similar to what would be found at an airport terminal, there were two rows of metal detectors and an X-ray machine, separated by roped stanchions. There was a small glassed-in guard hut built into the middle of the screening area, but it sat conspicuously empty. Beyond the screening area lay a split staircase that climbed to the second floor, the two flights flanking a single large stainless-steel elevator.

  Double doors carved from teak or perhaps mahogany granted access to the second floor atop the landing. Nerve center. Taking out General Moon and his cronies was not their objective, however, so Max moved to the elevator and punched in the numeric code provided by their informant. The doors slid open on a teal interior. The team crammed inside, a compact jumble of gear and weaponry.

  West reached up with his rifle butt and smashed a tiny security camera situated in a corner. Prudent but unnecessary. They know we’re here.

  Riding in an elevator in such close quarters was far from tactically sound, but with apparently only one point of access to the lower level, they didn’t have much choice. When the doors closed Max said, “Not many options here.” He pointed to the single button on the panel and the unintelligible Korean characters identifying the lone destination.

  “Main laboratory facility,” Juno read. She pushed the button.

  With nary a jerk, the elevator began to descend. It hit full downward flight a couple of seconds later, so fast it reminded Max of the turbo elevators on the spacecraft. His ears po
pped, and the others also felt the rising pressure of descent. Koontz grunted once and winced. He was already sweating profusely, and Max figured he might be feeling residual effects from the jump compounded by the stress of rapid descent beneath the earth.

  Delorn wore a nervous smirk and looked ready to say something. A glower from Max kept him quiet.

  After about ten seconds the elevator slowed to a stop. Rifles at the ready, Max and Juno quickly cleared the doorway and stepped into the hall, the rest of the team following suit. The doors had opened on an antiseptic white world at one end of a long hallway. Gleaming tiles—institutional linoleum on the floor, smaller ceramic panels on the walls—stretched off into the distance, punctuated by irregularly spaced doors. The lights here, each bulb housed in a wire-mesh screen, burned far brighter than on the upper levels, and the white tiles magnified their effect.

  The team began a room-by-room search. The code provided for the lower levels opened every door. They cleared a small classroom, a lab with an observation chamber that resembled a huge fish tank minus water, a theater, and an empty guardroom with an equally empty rifle rack, and a steel desk of empty drawers.

  The deserted post only fueled Max’s suspicion that they were walking into a trap. They encountered no one. Max assumed, by this stage of the operation, they should have had to contend with some sort of additional security or staff.

  Though nobody said so, they had all figured out what was going on. Max could tell by the foreboding looks on their faces. All but Zuckerberg, who wore a smile as they cleared the rooms. Keep feeling invulnerable. It can’t hurt. Max had plans for Trisha Zuckerberg and her SAW, but not on this level.

  They found another elevator about halfway down the hallway in the right wall. “Keep moving. Secure the floor,” Juno ordered.