Sure, the team had been in some serious shit a time or two in places that were deniable, but here in the U.S. it was a different matter. The pre-mission brief was short and to the point. Provide overwatch, spot and mark targets if, and when, needed. Then call for extract. Extraction hadn’t happened and they had ended up doing an exfil that was more of a stark fear pucker factor marathon through the Big Apple. Finding secure buildings wasn’t all that hard as most of the uninfected citizens had left or been evacuated. Or had succumbed to the mass numbers of the crazed hordes that wandered the streets. Determining a building was secure enough to stay in for the night was another matter altogether. Ski remembered the overheard briefing that an engineering captain was giving his men. All bridges were to be rigged and only blown under orders when the hostiles were in near contact meaning one thousand meters or less. At the time that order had sounded plausible. Now, after moving through the dead city and seeing the destruction wrought by the infected, those bridges should have been blown right away no matter if there were civilians still on them or not. Screw the infected. Those fuckers moved fast and waiting until they were a thousand meters out was still too damn close.
“Ski,” Pruitt called him over the team radio.
“Go for Ski,” Luzetski replied.
“Same shit as the other street, buses, trucks, cars, whatever was handy has been used to block access to the park,” Pruitt reported.
“No way through at all?” Ski asked.
Pruitt looked at the roadblock in front of him. Razor wire and concrete had been used to reinforce and cover openings between the two city buses that blocked the street that led to Fort Ti’s perimeter. He could see the top of the Hesco barriers behind the roadblock that made up the outer wall to the FOB.
“Not unless you want to crawl over concertina wire and all kinds of other shit,” Pruit replied spying a mailbox that had been cut loose from the bolts that had secured it to the sidewalk and tossed into the pile that made up the roadblock. If he had set up this mess, he would have placed some Claymores in and around with either command detonation or tripwires. Or both. That way the Zulus would pay for every inch they took. Looking closer at the jumbled mess of steel, wire and concrete, there was no way he was going to attempt to go over, around or through that mess. Not even after EOD or combat engineers gave it their blessing.
“Damn,” Ski muttered shaking his head. He reached up and rubbed his forehead, then ran his hand over his face feeling the heavy beard that had grown since they had dropped into the city. How long ago was it? Had to be close to a couple of months now, he thought. He had tried keeping track of days by how many MREs they had gone through but that didn’t work out as well as he had hoped. They had broken down the meal packs to the bare essentials and supplemented them with what they could forage from corner bodegas and apartments.
“OK, we backtrack to 78th and try that way.”
“Copy that, coming back your way,” Pruitt replied then reached over and tapped Jiminez on the shoulder and jerked his head back towards the way they had come. Ski realized that someone, maybe even someone with some tactical sense, had blocked off all the main roads that led to Central Park creating a choke point or fatal funnel that soldiers defending Fort Ti could use to their advantage. The only problem with that was it also funneled any units outside the perimeter into the same path as the infected.
Once his team was gathered be pulled out the plastic coated map that he had been issued before the world went to hell.
“This is us,” he said pointing to an intersection on the map. “This is Fort Ti. We need to retrace our steps back to 78th and try entry along that side of the perimeter. There’s supposed to be some friendly forces in the area according to the ‘Net. We’ll attempt to join up with them and see if we can call for an extract or whatever. If not, we’ll salvage what we can and rendezvous here at this structure.”
“You mean the Museum of Natural History?” Graham asked. The members of Sierra-3 looked at him. Graham saw their looks and shrugged. “I read the travel guide,” he said as if that explained everything.
“Yeah, that place,” Ski replied as he folded the map and tucked it back into a pouch. He surveyed the streets; so far they had avoided the larger concentrations of Zulus by detouring around them or ducking into empty buildings. He toyed with the idea of doing a Thunder Run to 78th but the risks far outweighed the rewards and they didn’t have that much ammunition. If they did that it would like ringing the dinner bell for all the infected left on Manhattan Island. Best to stick with the urban creep. Slow was fast, fast was safe.
“Let’s take ten and see if we can come up with some other options to get to Fort Ti,” Ski said.
***
Chapter 14
Idaho Falls
Jimbo and Berg negotiated the deserted streets with caution. They stayed away from the buildings whose doors were open. It was far easier for the infected to slip out undetected if the door was open. Stopping next to a dust and dirt covered import car, Jimbo pointed to the apartment building he had seen movement at the day before. Berg nodded, removed his glasses and wiped them on his shirt. The apartment complex was a four story building with an open courtyard in the middle. Maybe at one time that courtyard space was to be used for a pool. All the exterior windows on the first floor were boarded up. The complex was nestled between two large, older, brick buildings that might have contained anything from light industrial to office spaces. From the outward appearance of both, they had been empty and boarded up long before the outbreak. Casting his gaze back at the main entrance to the apartments, Jimbo studied the dark brown full size Ford Econoline van blocking the ornate, wrought iron gate that opened into the courtyard. The van had the driver’s side facing in and the tires weren’t flat.
“You see that van?” Jimbo asked quietly.
“Yeah,”
“Looks like they use that to seal off the entrance,” Jimbo surmised.
“Should be another entrance on the side or in the back. Some way to take the garbage out,” Berg commented. Jimbo looked at him questioningly.
“Think about it, if you went to look at an apartment there, you’d come in the front entrance. No one wants to walk by a smelly garbage can or dumpster on the way to your new home,” Berg explained.
“Good point,” Jimbo agreed. “Could be down that alley there,” he suggested pointing towards a gap between the complex and the building next door.
The two young men moved slower now, more from fatigue as calories were burned up from their limited diets. Jimbo had seen how the months of eating what they could when they could had taken a toll on his endurance and everyone else’s. Stopping behind an ancient, rust spotted Toyota, they looked down the alley. Whoever was inside the complex had removed the gates from the service area and mounted them at both ends of the alley with the dumpsters behind for reinforcement. Looking up, they saw boards connecting the roof of the apartment complex with the building next door. The makeshift bridge went right into a large window. The other building had the same height roof so the bridge went right across evenly. They looked at each other then back along the buildings. The ground floor windows and doors were boarded up. All the roofs were connected in the same manner, once you got on the roof of one, you could access all.
“Looks like the only way in is through the front,” Berg observed.
***
Dupont Federal Center, 60 Miles South East of Idaho Falls
“Pump the reserve water into the coolant chamber! Do it!” Spears commanded. The reactor engineer worked feverishly at his console, trying anything to stop the coolant failure.
“General! Reactor core temp is reaching critical mass!” he yelled out. The room became silent as all heads turned towards the engineer, then to Spears for direction.
“General, what do we do?”
“Sir, tell us what to do!”
The voices called to him, he stood there, his mind unable to react to the moment. Finally, he was galvanized into act
ion.
“Evac! Everyone out now!” Spears bellowed.
The rush to the door was an example of pure chaotic herd mentality. Someone tried the controls for the blast door to no avail. In frustration, they began beating on the heavy door. Spears watched as his staff, now a frightened mob attempted to leave the room.
He stood there, slowly turning a circle in the center of the room looking around at the deserted consoles, the flashing lights, overturned chairs, papers on the floor as the screaming of the staff faded from his hearing. His slow circle brought him to face his office door. Ignoring the pleas of the desperate as they beat themselves against the unyielding metal, he walked to his office, closed and locked the door. Still facing the door, he leaned his head against it and sighed as only a tired old man can do.
***
Chapter 15
Idaho Falls
Berg looked shocked as Jimbo stood up from behind the truck and walked out into the middle of the street. He frantically looked around expecting thousands of infected to pour of the building and onto the street. Jimbo took a step closer to the apartment complex then slung his rifle over his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” Berg hissed loudly.
“I’m letting them know that we come in peace,” Jimbo replied as he continued walking. He was almost to the van when a voice called out.
“That’s far enough!”
Jimbo stopped and tried to see where the voice was coming from.
“Tell your friend behind the rice burner to stand up where we can see him,” the voice directed.
Jimbo motioned for Berg to stand up. The other boy nervously looked around but stood up.
“Both of you get over here!”
Berg stumbled then jogged to where Jimbo was standing. They stood there, not knowing what was going to happen when through the windows of the van they saw the courtyard gate open and several people emerge. The driver’s side door opened on the van and the vehicle slowly began to move as it was pushed away from the entrance.
“Get in here before you have half the town down on us!” a gruff sounding voice called out.
They quickly ran behind the van and into the courtyard as the van was pushed back into place and the gates closed.
***
Dupont Federal Center, 60 Miles South East of Idaho Falls
“Bad day at the office, Frankie?” Spears turned and saw Quintana seated at his desk, feet propped on the blotter, a small tumbler of amber liquid in his hand.
“Major? What are you doing here?” Spears asked incredulous at the blatant act of disrespect before him. How dare this junior officer take liberties not granted him. Quintana took a sip from his glass before answering, savoring the warmth in his throat as the single malt scotch went down smooth. He looked at Spears’ sweaty face and slightly disheveled appearance.
“That’s my scotch,” Spears said. “What are you doing in my office?”
“Glad you could join me Frank in these last moments that we have together.” Quintana took another drink, watching Spears reaction.
“Care for a drink? I’m toasting to the end of your command and the beginning of a new world,” Quintana said, as he held up his glass to Spears in a mock salute.
“Are you mad? I could have you stripped of rank, and up on charges of insubordination. I could have you shot,” Spears said as he took a hesitant step towards Quintana, his hand moving to his sidearm. The major remained calm, watching him through hooded eyes.
“Oh, I’m afraid not, Frank. Your command is over right about now,” Quintana said as he brought up his sidearm that had been on his lap out of view from Spears and fired a double tap into the center of Spears’ chest.
The general staggered back at the impacts, looked down at the two bloody holes in his chest, up at Quintana, took a half step forward, his eyes rolled up as he toppled forward to land face first on the plush carpeting, dead. Quintana/Cicero placed his sidearm on the desk, a grin on his face as he finished his drink. Bringing the empty glass to his lap, he clasped it with both hands, tilted his head back and closed his eyes.
“It was a boring conversation anyway,” he said to the room.
***
Chapter 16
Idaho Falls
The group that greeted them inside the courtyard was eclectic to say the least. There was an old man who rode up to them on a motorized scooter, an oxygen tube under his nose that led to a small tank in a pouch mounted on the back of the conveyance. He had a large handgun in a shoulder holster.
“What the hell you two youngsters want?” the old man asked in a strong voice.
“Uh, we, uh,” Jimbo tried to form a sentence but was overwhelmed by meeting other survivors.
The old man looked at him closely, squinting one eye and tilting his head.
“What are you, a retard or something? Can’t form a fucking sentence when someone asks you a question?” he asked brusquely giving Jimbo a hard look. Not waiting for a reply, he looked at Berg. “What about you? You fucked up mentally like your friend here?”
“No,” Berg replied defensively.
“Hey!” Jimbo finally spit out. “I’m not a mental case.”
The old man grinned.
“Close your mouth, boy, you’re catching flies. You two must be part of the group that holed up at the old Rohr factory,” he said.
“Rohr?” Berg asked.
“Yeah, that’s the name of the company that used to be there. They made all kinds of doors. Way before your time,” the man explained standing up from the mobility scooter and ripping the oxygen hose from his face.
“Cindy, take this back to 202 for me,” he directed to a young girl who had been standing in the crowd.
“What is going on here?” Jimbo asked.
“Young man, appearances can be deceiving,” the man said extending his hand towards them no sign of a frail old man that had first greeted them.
“Tom Driscoll. Welcome to Greener Pastures.”
Berg and Jimbo shook his hand, still shocked at how they had been fooled into thinking the man had been an invalid.
“What brings you to this area of town?” Driscoll asked.
“I saw some people on the roof,” Jimbo blurted out. “We came to see who it was.”
Driscoll looked at the teenager then nodded.
“That was us,” he said. “We were patching the roof for Mrs. Harold.”
***
Dupont Federal Center
60 Miles South East of Idaho Falls
Quintana opened his eyes and looked at his watch. Only a few minutes remained and this little corner of the world would be cleansed of the unbelievers.
Deep inside the federal center, the reactor was reaching the final stages of critical mass. The SADM was unbothered by the reactor losing its cooling. It was patiently waiting for the timer to reach zero. Once that happened, several events took place. First, high-voltage capacitors began to charge and small pyrotechnics adjacent to the old tritium reservoirs at both ends of the bomb fired. This was an old method and procedure of detonation based on a proven design but it had its flaws. The electrical impulses reached the detonators simultaneously. Each explosive block had three separate detonators for redundancy and efficiency but none failed to function. At this point, the SADM reached the final stage, an ominous quiet settled over it until a little spark, much like a capacitor firing, sent an impulse through the detonators.
A chain reaction began as the process built on itself, energy waiting to be released as the plutonium core ‘doubled’ on itself, the device exploded with a force of 10 billion billion watts of power, one hundred thousand times the electrical generating capacity of the entire world, and the process had scarcely begun. The levels above the reactor level became part of the reaction, melting down and feeding into the explosion as the reaction traveled at over ten percent the speed of light, 20,000 miles per second. The blast came next as it destroyed the complex from inside out. Had anyone been on the surface, they would have seen a b
ulging of the ground around the center then a sudden suction pulling everything into the collapsing crater. All that remained of the Dupont Federal Center was a cloud of dirt and a large irradiated hole. The energy effect sent out was known as an Electro Magnetic Pulse or EMP.
Even though the blast was underground, the EMP, slightly slowed by its passage through the ground, still traveled for several miles in a radial pattern, destroying all unshielded electronics if anyone were to take notice or had been cooking dinner or watching television. Of course, the only things in the area that might have taken notice of this effect was a small group of infected that were investigating the contents of a body bag that had been thrown into a ravine. The entire cycle from the timer reaching zero to detonation had only taken 8.4 nanoseconds after the signal was transmitted from the timer for the entire process to be complete.
***
Chapter 17
Idaho Falls
Driscoll led Jimbo and Berg into a ground floor apartment. The interior was sparse, only a large table surrounded by chairs with folding chairs stacked along the walls. This unit looked to have been converted into a meeting hall instead of a living space. Driscoll indicated to the table as he took a seat. The boys sat down and looked around the room. Coleman lanterns, candles and kerosene lamps were on shelves, countertops and the table. Driscoll lit the Coleman lantern that was the centerpiece on the table, casting the shadows from the room.
“How you people doing over there at that warehouse?” he asked. Jimbo and Berg looked at each other and were about to answer when the room shook.
“What the hell?” Driscoll asked as the ground vibrated and the windows rattled. The tremor was over in less than a minute. A few people ran into the room but then stopped when the shaking stopped. Everyone had a questioning look on their face.
Up From the Depths: Book 4 Movement to Contact Page 14
