Legion: V Plague Book 19

by Dirk Patton

  “Look at that,” she breathed a few moments later.

  She reached out and traced a long straight line that was also glowing white.

  “Infected following the freeway,” I said softly, a thrill of misgiving passing through me.

  If Dog and Joe were caught out in the open as a herd was passing through, they were in real trouble. Dog could outrun even the females, but I knew he wouldn’t leave Joe. He’d stay at his side and die fighting before abandoning him for his own safety.

  “This is the area where that Hind gunship was patrolling,” Martinez said warningly.

  “Then you’d better be careful.”

  “You’re funny,” she groused, then glanced at Mavis to get her attention. “Go strap in, honey. We’re going low and the ride’s probably going to get rough.”

  “Just find Dog,” she said before disappearing out of the cockpit.

  “Just what the hell is going on with her?” Martinez asked as she pushed the yoke forward to descend.

  “Too long of a story. Just trust me. I’ve seen some shit that you wouldn’t believe.”

  Martinez looked at me for a moment, then nodded and focused on flying as we leveled out. There was enough moonlight to tell we were skimming the desert floor and I forced myself to not look at the ground speed indicator. Instead, I kept my attention on the thermal scanner, hoping to spot the lone four-legged creature out of what had resolved into thousands of infected.

  “There’s no way to find him in that,” Martinez said after looking at the screen.

  I hated to admit it, but I agreed with her. Not that dogs don’t present a drastically different form than humans but identifying one unique shape out of thousands was all but impossible.

  “Ideas?” Martinez asked.

  We had overflown the bulk of the infected and she gained a small amount of altitude before banking into a turn that would line us up for another pass.

  “Maybe slower,” I said. “Put us into vertical flight mode. Maybe if he hears us...”

  “If we’re in vertical flight and that Hind shows up, we’re a sitting duck. This thing isn’t as agile as a helo.”

  “Gotta take the chance.”

  She hesitated for a few moments then shook her head as she transitioned the engine nacelle positions so we could hover above the herd.

  “Hope your luck holds out,” she mumbled.

  I was glued to the screen, desperately trying to see anything that didn’t look human. Martinez held us in a stationary hover over the largest concentration of infected, slowly rotating the aircraft to pan the thermal sensor.

  “Let’s try night vision,” she said after completing a three-sixty scan.

  I nodded in agreement. Thermal is the best option for finding anything with body heat at night, but it has its limitations, especially at a distance. Multiple forms that are close together tend to merge into one large signature that you have to confirm isn’t your search target. But night vision simply amplifies the available light, allowing you to see in greater detail.

  When Martinez switched systems, I stared in surprise at the infected who were staring up at the noisy Osprey.

  “Chingados!” Martinez muttered.

  “Fuck me. Those the children?”

  For as graphic as Rachel’s description had been, it didn’t do justice to the nightmarish vision below us. Hundreds of them stood in place, heads tilted back to watch us, and I could imagine the hisses and screams that were coming from the hideously fanged mouths.

  “Find him?” Mavis asked from behind me.

  “Still looking,” I said without taking my attention off the screen. “You’d better go strap back in.”

  She didn’t answer and I knew she didn’t leave because I could feel her presence, looking over my shoulder.

  “This isn’t working,” Martinez said several minutes later.

  We’d made two complete scans of the area, moved to a different spot and repeated. I turned to look at Mavis, intending to ask if she had any way to tell where we should look, but she was gone.

  “What the hell?” Martinez blurted.

  A red light on the overhead was glowing steadily, accompanied by a raucous buzzer.

  “What?”

  “Someone opened the ramp!”

  A bad feeling ran through me and I jumped up, racing out of the cockpit. At the rear of the aircraft I saw Chief Strickland lunge for Mavis who was at the edge of the lowered ramp. She leapt an instant before his hands closed on empty air. Without thinking, I surged forward, jumped over Strickland’s prone form and threw myself through the opening.

  62

  Igor moved silently through the dark, empty streets. The chain was coiled into a loop and held tightly, ready for use at a moment’s notice. As he walked, his senses were on high alert, but his mind was playing a continual loop of the final seconds of Irina’s life. He could still feel her last breath on his face.

  The sound of an approaching vehicle reached his ears. Instead of moving off the road and concealing himself, he simply came to a halt and stood on the centerline of the pavement. Waiting. Feeling rage course through his chest and radiate out into his limbs.

  His grip on the chain tightened in anticipation of a fight. He was beyond caring about himself. Was unconcerned over the certainty that whoever was coming was armed and probably not alone. He would gladly kill two, or three, or however many there were.

  An American made Humvee slowly rolled through an intersection a block ahead but didn’t turn in his direction. He recognized it as a patrol and instantly began pursuing the vehicle. Cutting through alleys and behind small houses, he ran hard, tracking its location by sound. The rattling engine was loud in the abandoned streets, echoing off buildings and leading him to his quarry.

  He was paralleling the patrol’s path now, sprinting through a pitch-black alley. When he heard the Hummer slow, he angled for his target and hurtled a low fence. Emerging from the darkness between two houses, he ran harder. The vehicle was twenty yards away, idling down the street.

  It was a very warm night and the windows were down. Inside were three soldiers, smoking and talking as they killed as much time as possible. Igor closed the distance at a forty-five-degree angle to the driver’s side, behind the occupants’ sightline and hidden from the mirrors.

  The driver was talking, telling a story about a girl he’d met in Ukraine when Igor suddenly appeared outside his window. Bringing up his fist with the chain balled around it, he hit the man so hard he felt his face collapse. Tearing the door open, he ripped the unconscious driver out of the seat and leapt into the Hummer. It was still moving and bounced once as it rolled over the soldier’s head.

  The two remaining occupants had frozen in shock when Igor attacked their driver, seemingly out of nowhere. When he suddenly appeared in the Humvee with them, they began tearing at their rifles, trying to bring them around to kill the horrifying beast. But trying to wield a rifle against an attacker who’s inside a vehicle with you is all but impossible. They are way too close.

  Igor smashed a chain wrapped fist into the front passenger’s face, knocking the man out of the fight. Whirling, he grabbed the barrel of the backseat passenger’s weapon and twisted. The soldier’s finger was already on the trigger and the AK rifle chattered through a full magazine.

  Releasing the weapon, Igor grabbed his collar and dragged him over the seat and out through the open door. The soldier, unable to match Igor’s strength, flailed and kicked in an effort to break free. Igor slammed the hapless man against the side of the Humvee with enough force to cause it to rock on its suspension. He followed with a tap from the chain, stepping back when the soldier’s eyes rolled up in their sockets as he collapsed to the pavement.

  Letting the chain slither out of his hand until it was hanging from the manacle he still wore, he brought his arm back then whipped it forward. The heavy iron links whistled through the air, then the soldier’s skull split open from the impact.

  Without a second look
at the man he’d just killed, Igor hurried around to the passenger side and dragged the last man out onto the road. He regained consciousness in time to see Igor’s chain wrapped fist a split second before his head was shattered.

  Igor methodically stripped the three men he’d killed of their weapons and ammunition, piling it all onto the Hummer’s passenger seat. Getting behind the wheel, he paused when a paper on the dash fluttered. It was a map of the metropolitan area with large swaths of the northern parts of Phoenix and Scottsdale highlighted and labeled as safe zones.

  He peered at it intently for several minutes, noting there were also patrol sectors beyond the safe zones. Several massive estates on the far northern edge of the city were noted, but without any details on who had taken up residence in them. But it wasn’t hard to make a guess on which one Barinov had chosen. There was one home that sat on over forty acres that was noted as a no-go area.

  Putting the map aside, Igor drove until he reached a major intersection. Coming to a stop, he checked the road signs then spent several more minutes finding his current location on the map. Tracing a route to Barinov with his finger, he left the map in his lap and pointed the Hummer to the north.

  63

  I hit the ground hard and rolled, coming up onto my feet and drawing my knife. Looking around, I saw that I was surrounded by the infected children and those terrifying teeth were on full display as they hissed and screamed. It took me a few moments to realize they weren’t charging in to shred the flesh off my bones. Despite the aggressive displays, they simply watched me.

  “They won’t hurt us.”

  Startled, I whirled to face Mavis.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I snapped.

  I was upset. She’d scared the hell out of me and the words and tone of voice came out without a second thought. When I saw her reaction, my anger quickly cooled.

  “I knew they wouldn’t attack us. Just like Nicole is safe,” she said in a small voice.

  “The infected will still attack me,” I said, keeping the blade up and turning a slow circle.

  “Not these.”

  “How do you know that?”

  As we were speaking, the ranks of children surrounding us were growing. I could no longer see the back of the crowd. A thrill of fear passed through me. If they did attack, Mavis and I would die horribly.

  “I know things,” Mavis said as if that explained everything.

  I took a deep breath but couldn’t look away from the infected. I was afraid if I did, they would suddenly rush in and attack us.

  “Dog’s that way,” Mavis said.

  It took me a few seconds to muster the nerve to glance at her. She was pointing toward a low, rocky hill that stuck up from a veritable sea of bodies. I don’t know how she could possibly know he was there but didn’t see the point in asking only to get another of her cryptic answers. We were going to have a long talk one of these days.

  The Osprey passed slowly overhead, the huge rotors kicking up a maelstrom of dust around us. I was confident that Martinez was watching and glad she hadn’t opened up with the belly mounted minigun. Maybe that wouldn’t have spurred the kids to attack, but I sure as hell didn’t want to find out the hard way.

  “Okay,” I said slowly. “How do we get him?”

  Mavis slipped her hand into mine and took a step in the direction of the hill. I didn’t budge, not wanting to draw any closer to the infected.

  “Just like the bats in Australia,” Mavis said, tugging to get me to follow.

  I glanced down at her, remembering how the little flying beasts had allowed me free passage while nearly killing Lucas. With more than a little reservation, I let Mavis lead me forward.

  As we approached the mass of tightly packed bodies, they began shuffling around until a narrow path opened. I didn’t want to go in there, in fact would have preferred just about anything else, but Mavis didn’t hesitate. Heart pounding, I followed, and we progressed steadily. The kids cleared the way then closed ranks once again when we passed.

  “They haven’t attacked Dog and Joe?” I asked softly as we neared the hill.

  “They didn’t know they were there,” Mavis explained. “Now, they won’t. Not as long as we’re here.”

  I didn’t question that. Not after my experience with the bats. I couldn’t begin to guess why I’d been able to control them, nor could I understand why Mavis and I hadn’t been torn to ribbons the moment we set foot on the ground. Then we reached the base of the hill and I could make out one human and one canine form silhouetted against the night sky.

  We climbed the hill quickly, but not without me frequently checking behind to make sure the infected weren’t following. They seemed content to stand at the bottom of the slope and watch.

  “How the hell did you do that?” Joe asked when we reached the summit.

  Mavis ran to Dog and threw her arms around his neck. His whole body was shaking as he wagged his tail for all he was worth.

  “How ‘bout we get the fuck out of here, first?”

  I looked up at the hovering Osprey and gestured. Immediately it spun around and descended until the lowered ramp was a foot off the ground. Mavis and Dog raced aboard. Joe followed, moving like an old man from his injuries. Taking a last look at what I estimated were several thousand infected children, I jumped aboard and slapped the button to close the ramp.

  “That’s about the craziest thing I’ve ever seen,” Strickland said with a grin. “Guess the stories about you are true.”

  I grinned and shook my head, making my way to the cockpit. Martinez already had us climbing and I could feel the thrum of power as the Osprey accelerated.

  “Little warning next time would be nice,” she said when I slipped into the seat next to her.

  “You should be used to it.”

  “Pinche cabron,” she muttered under her breath.

  “Kiss your boyfriend with that mouth?”

  “He likes it dirty.”

  I shook my head in surrender.

  “So, what now?” she asked.

  “Get Igor and Irina then kill Barinov.”

  “I’m good with that, but got any suggestions on where to put this thing down without drawing any attention?”

  I thought about that for a few minutes. Remembered what I’d seen and been told about where the Russians were concentrating in the metro area. We wanted to be far enough away to arrive without being noticed, but still close enough to make it into downtown and break our friends out while we still had the cover of darkness.

  “Airport on the southeast edge of the city,” I said. “Used to be an Air Force bomber base. Probably forty miles away from where the Russians have set up shop.”

  “Okay, how do I find it?”

  “Circle south and we’ll come in over the desert. Think you can fly low enough to evade their air defense radar?”

  Martinez slowly turned her head, giving me a look that said I was an idiot.

  64

  Ten miles from the entrance to Pearl Harbor, the Russian submarine Alrosa hovered a hundred feet beneath the surface. The boat was a decades old design known to NATO as a Kilo Class. It was powered by an electric motor driving a pump-jet propulsion system and unless moving at speed was nearly undetectable.

  Utilized primarily in shallower coastal waters, it was perfectly suited for its role of anti-shipping and anti-submarine operations. With its ability to remain all but silent as it patrolled the approaches to a bay or harbor, it could quite effectively shut down all traffic in or out.

  The only limitation was a massive bank of batteries that had to be recharged periodically. To accomplish this required the submarine to come up in the water to just below the surface and deploy a snorkel so its diesel engines could be started. This was when the boat was at its most vulnerable to detection and barring emergencies was only done after a long and thorough search of the area for enemy vessels.

  But this particular Kilo still had over seventy percent of its battery charge. Hovering
stationary in the water meant the propulsion system was shut down and all that was drawing electricity were the environmental systems, dimmed lights and the computers that ran the sonar.

  The Alrosa had arrived on station in Hawaii’s Mamala Bay slightly more than twelve hours ago after a sprint from Russian controlled San Diego Bay in southern California. Before sailing, the captain had paced like a caged lion, waiting impatiently for word that the American satellites had been blinded. There was no other choice as the boat couldn’t make the journey out into the Pacific Ocean if it was submerged. At best, the batteries would have lasted the first four hundred miles.

  Once the ground-based laser array was functioning and defeating the American satellites’ ability to see everything going on in North America, the Alrosa set sail for Hawaii. Since a submarine can travel faster when submerged, the captain ran on batteries as much as possible, only surfacing and starting the diesels when they were about to run out of power.

  As they approached the islands, the boat was slowed to a stop to allow the engines to top off the charge. When not one more amp-hour of electricity could be stored, the diesels were shut down and the Alrosa slipped beneath the waves.

  Running at less than five knots, the sub was a ghost in the water. Several SOund SUrveillance Systems, or SOSUS arrays had been placed by the United States Navy on the sea floor around Hawaii, but all of them failed to hear the passage of the stealthy Kilo Class sub. Slow and quiet, it slipped past all of the detection and defensive systems intended to protect Pearl Harbor. Finally, twelve hours ago, it had arrived on station and shut down all non-essential equipment to save power. Now, as darkness fell over the island of Oahu, the skipper ordered the boat to the surface. It was time for the Alrosa to complete her mission.