Pleased she had ferreted out that Buck was in fact a Delta, just like her dad, she wished him well and set off back toward the BERR building, hoping to chat with whoever was in charge of paint procurement.
Chapter 24
Las Vegas
Reaching the north end of the initial search box, Ari downed a five-hour energy drink, settled into the comfy wool seat cover Duncan had recovered for him, and nosed the helicopter east.
On the helo’s port side, Treasure Island Hotel and Casino’s full-size galleon sat in silent repose atop an expanse of oil-slicked water clouded with blooms of green algae. Once engaged in a constant state of mock battle, the wooden ship now looked forlorn, its multiple cannons silent and streaked white with bird droppings.
Ari took his eyes off the casino attraction and initiated the search on a southern tack that had them riding over a dozen or so hotels bordering Las Vegas Boulevard.
A minute after beginning the search, they reached the south end of the first leg of the pattern and were afforded a second viewing of the Bellagio as well as a good look at the mega-horde. It was hard to miss, even from several miles out. And from the looks of it, the column hadn’t made much progress since they wrapped up their tagging op.
“We still have plenty of time to go boots on the ground if it comes to it,” Haynes said.
“Copy that,” responded Ari as he banked Jedi One hard left and gained enough altitude to afford the FLIR pod an unimpeded view of Caesar’s Palace as well as the surrounding hotels and side streets.
Holding Jedi One in a solid hover, Ari glanced at the screen and saw that Caesar’s had received the same chain-link and Jersey-barrier treatment as the Bellagio. However, Caesar’s perimeter looked to be intact. Dead giveaway was the solid run of fencing with no breaches and that the grounds were free of walking dead and the fountain pools contained no festering corpses.
Over the comms, Lopez said, “I just picked up on some movement on the portico below the Caesar’s sign.”
Griff said, “You mean the sign that goof Alan was holding onto for dear life in the movie?”
“I don’t know about that,” responded Lopez. “But I’m certain there’s someone hiding in the shadows.”
Haynes announced he was zooming on the portico and going thermal with the FLIR. A tick later, both of the helo’s screens went black for a split-second. When the new image popped up, there was a distinct human form where only shadow had been.
The form was represented by orange and red and yellow and was swaying nervously from side to side.
“That’s a person, all right,” Ari said agreeably. “And he’s armed with some type of handgun.”
Haynes said, “I concur. Shall we make contact?”
Ari said, “Affirmative. I want to do the talking.” He peered into the troop compartment. “Skipper, you need to be ready on your gun. Lopez, volunteer someone to man the port side minigun. Axe, you get set up behind that rifle of yours.”
“What do you want me to do?” Cross asked.
Ari said, “Keep eyes on our breather. Watch for muzzle flashes. If we do start taking fire, note the location and start a play-by-play so our gunners can return fire.”
Not quite the glamorous job he’d envisioned, Cross thought as he cozied up to the port-facing window.
Meanwhile, Lopez had opened the cabin door for Axe and moved gear around so the SAS man had room to work. Next, he deployed the port-side minigun and took it by the handles.
After hearing a trio of voices confirm they were ready, Ari started the helo creeping forward. As he did so, he slowly dropped the bird to an altitude that put them eye to eye with the stocky man on the covered patio.
“Be advised,” Cross warned, “the tango sees us. He’s coming forward, now. Be advised: His weapon is down. Repeat … weapon is down.”
“Copy that,” Lopez responded. “I have him painted.”
“Cycling out of thermal,” Haynes said. “Three times magnification coming online.”
The second the feed refreshed, Ari flicked his gaze to the new image appearing on the glass cockpit. Voice rising in pitch, he said, “I can’t believe who I’m looking at. First person who confirms my hunch gets himself a case of beer when we return to base.”
Incredulous, Haynes said, “No way that’s him. I agree he looks a lot like—”
“That’s him, mates,” Axe interrupted. “I have him in my crosshairs. And from the looks of it, he’s not fallen victim to the apocalypse diet.”
“Damn,” said Cross. “You’re right. He’s looking fit. What was his old fighting weight? Two, maybe two-thirty?”
“He could be pushing three hundred pounds for all I care,” Axe declared. “There’s no mistaking that face tattoo. Ari, you can go ahead and make that case Adnams Bitter if you can find it. Guinness, if you can’t.”
“Closing,” called Ari. “Watch his hands. No doubt they’re still pretty damn fast.”
“That’s a given,” Lopez said. “What are you going to do?”
“Communicate,” Ari said. “Switching to personal address.”
As Ari brought the Ghost Hawk broadside to the portico, the former Heavyweight Champion of the World wove between a phalanx of planters full of dead flowers, then stepped up to the waist-high stone railing.
The helo’s rotor wash whipping the dead plants into a frenzy was also playing havoc with the champ’s silk pajama bottoms.
His voice amplified and coming from a flush-mounted external speaker, Ari said, “I’m going to need you to holster your weapon, Mike.”
The man smiled, exposing a picket of gold teeth. Running a palm over his bald pate, he holstered his pistol. Smile fading, he placed both hands on the cement railing and looked a question up at the hovering helicopter.
“Do you require assistance?” Ari asked.
“As if Iron Mike needs help surviving the zombie apocalypse,” shot Axe. “He can probably punch his way through a herd of zeds without breaking a sweat.”
Iron Mike shook his head.
“Have you seen anyone pass through here?”
The champ nodded enthusiastically. Then he released his grip on the rail and held up two fingers.
Haynes zoomed the FLIR camera in on Tyson’s head. “Anyone good at reading lips? He’s saying something and pointing at the ground.”
Cross said, “I got it. He’s saying there’s a pair of riders downstairs. Not sure if he means inside the building, though.”
Ari thanked the champ over the PA as he applied pitch and powered the helicopter away from the casino. Then, speaking over the shipboard comms, he said, “I’m going to bring her around the building real close to the deck.”
Haynes said, “Want me to search the lobby for heat sigs?”
Ari said, “Affirmative, High Tower.” Addressing Skipper, he added, “I’ll leave you a good aspect for the starboard gun.”
Lopez set Axe up in the open starboard door with the explicit order to drop any squirters. “Try not to kill them,” he implored as the helicopter reached the end of its clockwise orbit and began to descend.
Ari hovered Jedi One over an intersection cloaked in the shadows of two opposing buildings. From the standoff position, roughly a block and a half south of Caesar’s Palace, the scope of view was narrow, leaving just the most important slice of the white building showing in the distance.
“Thank God the fountain’s not working,” said Haynes as he worked the FLIR controls. “It’d make a visual search of the valet area and lobby impossible. And I’m not so sure thermal would pick out anything through the spray.”
Under the nose of the helicopter, the pod housing the advanced optics suite panned slowly left to right. Directly below the pod, maybe a dozen feet clearance between the helo’s nose and the tips of their straining fingers, a crowd of walking corpses was gathering.
“Stepping up magnification,” Haynes said.
On the starboard minigun, Skipper was at high alert. It’d only take one missile fi
red from the shadows to ruin their day. Whereas Ari had had lots of room to maneuver evasively and dispense flares the last time they’d come under fire by a heat-seeking Chinese missile, here, with nowhere to go but up, the helo was pretty much a sitting duck. Gloved fingers kneading the weapon’s grips, he said, “I have a wide field of fire. All clear visually.”
“Copy that,” Ari said. He glanced at the screen and saw the covered drive he remembered from the movie. It looked to be all marble, or maybe it was plaster painted to look the part. Beside the hotel’s closed glass doors was a valet stand. Behind the doors the lobby was nothing but a black rectangle devoid of movement and detail. He thought, Anything could be hiding in there. He said, “Go to thermal.”
Haynes said, “Going to thermal.”
The once pitch-black screens in the cockpit and troop cabin came to life with a flash of warm colors. Anyone watching the change saw four distinct heat signatures inside the lobby. Two were vertical, man-shaped blobs made up of yellow, orange, and red. The other two were horizontal to the floor and consisted of two distinct hot spots glowing at different intensities.
“We’ve got two tangos,” Haynes warned. No sooner had the words crossed his lips than his screen erupted with twin blooms of red. Directing his gaze out the cockpit glass, he saw the gunfire directed at them as star-shaped orange and red winks of light. “Taking fire,” he bellowed.
“Weapons free,” Ari called even as he was pulling pitch and applying pedal.
In reaction to Ari’s input, the turbines shrieked and the ship began a slow counterclockwise rotation. Skip’s “Copy that!” was nearly drowned out as the minigun, belching fire, sent a lethal lead storm downrange.
Chapter 25
While Raven had been inside Lola’s place, a small line had formed on the steps of the BERR building. Bypassing the majority of the people, Raven stopped on the covered landing and commanded Max to stay there.
With the people at the head of the line looking on bitterly, Raven entered the building through the revolving door, crossed the soaring marble-appointed atrium, and took the stairs to the second floor.
Located in a rectangular room on the BERR building’s north side, the Department of Reclamation, with its waiting room full of cheap furniture and year-old magazines, was no different than the handful of government concerns Raven had visited with her mom and dad before Omega had rendered most of them irrelevant.
As indicated by the writing etched on the brass plaque on the entry door, this particular space was formerly home to the Colorado Division of Youth Corrections. Nothing inside the drab rectangular room led her to believe correcting Colorado’s youth was an easy job. Posters set at intervals on the walls featured happy shiny people spouting slogans that, at this point in a delinquent’s journey, Raven felt amounted to too little, too late. By the time one had contact with the law and ended up here for adjudication, how real of an impact could a bunch of PSAs have on their future?
Not much, was her guess.
In the spaces between the former tenant’s messaging, someone had taped up posters reminding visitors of rules that at this stage in the survival game, should already be common knowledge to anyone who had come this far since that Saturday in July when the world changed forever.
One poster read Be Sure It’s Dead — Put Two In The Head. Another: When In Doubt: Scramble The Brain. A third bore the grim message: BITTEN? — A.C.T. FAST — AMPUTATE - CAUTERIZE - TELL.
Shifting her attention from the walls to the dingy orange chairs set out haphazardly around the room, Raven noted that the half-dozen people already waiting to be seen by the thirty-something with the high-and-tight cut in the wheelchair were all spread out around the room.
The government worker, who seemed to be holding down the fort all by himself, was a blur of motion as he made his way to a far cabinet, filed some papers, slammed the drawer shut, then retook his post behind a waist-high counter fronted by a thick pane of ballistic glass.
After adjusting the laptop hinged open in front of him, the man bellowed, “Eighteen,” and walked an expectant gaze over those seated about the waiting room.
Tearing a numbered paper chit from a dispenser, Raven chose the seat farthest from the door, where she could see anyone new as they entered, yet also keep an eye on the people waiting to be called ahead of her.
***
Fifteen minutes into the June 2011 issue of Seventeen magazine and quickly tiring of reading about long-dead celebs who had no clue of the meat grinder they’d soon be facing, Raven heard her number called.
Taking one last look at the glossy full-page spread on which a pair of teen heartthrobs were standing hip-to-hip and smiling as if the world was truly their oyster, she tossed the mag aside, then rose and adjusted her gun belt.
While civilian establishments still reserved the right to exclude open carry, inside the walls of the new capital the Second Amendment was alive and well. Furthermore, due to the extraordinary circumstances brought on by China’s sneak attack on several American cities, and the rapid nationwide spread of the virus they had introduced into the population, gone were all of the other stringent rules pertaining to when and where one could exercise their 2A rights.
Taking a circuitous route through the room that had her walking by a huge fish tank thick with green algae and putting off an odor that would gag a maggot, Raven made her way to the window, coming in at an angle that let her see the clerk, yet remain in his peripheral and out of sight. He was wearing a MultiCam blouse and matching pants. Though he wore black chevrons pegging him as a sergeant, and the name tape on his chest read Chambers, Raven knew he preferred to be called Brian.
Swallowing hard as she stepped before the window, Raven silently petitioned God to forgive her for what she was about to do.
Seeing a shadow fall across the counter in front of him, Sergeant Chambers glanced up from the paperwork he’d been looking over. Expression taking a sudden turn from half-way-welcoming to one that all but screamed Not you again, he said, “You were here less than a week ago, Miss Grayson. I doubt your paperwork is anywhere near to landing on the Arbiter’s desk. It’s not that we don’t care … it’s just that we don’t have the manpower we need to move these things along.” He paused and lifted his hands into a position of surrender. “I’m doing all I can for you. I promise you that.”
Duly noted, thought Raven. But that wasn’t why she was here.
She said, “I know you’re not a miracle worker, Brian. I have other business. If you’re interested, that is.”
The miracle worker statement had caused Brian to bristle. Though he was confined to a wheelchair, he was still the man all things in this department had to go through. He rolled his chair back a foot or so and crossed his bulging arms over his chest. “I may be interested. What kind of business?”
“Spray paint,” Raven said. She had uttered the two words in a manner that allowed them to be interpreted as either an answer or question.
Leaning forward, brows coming together, Brian said, “You have some for me?”
She nodded. A lie.
“I struck the motherlode over in Yoder.” Another lie. “And it’s probably enough paint for the clearing crews to tag half the houses in Aurora. How many cases will you take and how much is the bounty?”
“Speaking of bounty,” Brian said, “Kim from Eradication was bragging on you the other day. Said you brought in more ears from one trip than most adult cullers bring in after a week outside the walls.”
Nodding, Raven said, “Praise doesn’t pay the bills. How much paint can you use and how many credits is it worth to you?”
As if he’d just been delivered a dose of bad news, Brian slumped in his chair.
“What is it?” Raven asked, voice full of manufactured concern.
Speaking slowly, Brian said, “What color is your paint?”
“Six cases of glitter-infused gold, six of teal, and a couple of cases of canary yellow.”
Brian’s head began a slow si
de to side wag. “People way above my pay grade say that red, black, and white are the only acceptable colors. Bring me those and we’ll talk.”
“This is Aurora we’re talking about,” Raven said. “Your boss isn’t going to leave the walls and risk being irradiated just to check on what colors his men are using to mark those doors.”
Still shaking his head, Brian said, “Can’t use it if it isn’t regulation. It’s just how the Army works.”
Leaning toward the glass, Raven said, “All right then, Sergeant Chambers. Where do you unload the stuff you get in that isn’t regulation color?”
“Aside from your dreadlocked friend, who took all the puke green off my hands, the tattooists are my main customers. They snap it up as soon as it comes in. Hell, I couldn’t keep it on the shelves if I had shelves to put it on.”
Feigning a look of disappointment, Raven thanked Brian for letting her pick his brain.
After apologizing for his initial assumption, he said, “How is your dad doing? Is he adjusting to life in the slow lane? Took me a couple of months to come to grips with the fact that I’d never fast-rope from a helo again.”
“He’s a fighter,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll be back to fast-roping from helos in no time.”
“We’re all pulling for him,” Brian said.
Nodding, Raven took a step toward the door. Then, just as Brian was calling the next number, she turned back and asked him who was in charge over at Reclamation.
“Ask for Trudy DeAngelo. She’s short with dark hair. A real spitfire. Kind of like you, only thirty years older. Trust me, you’ll hear her before you see her.” After acknowledging the new person forming up to his window, Brian craned and added, “Tread lightly with her, Raven.”
Thinking, I most certainly will, real lightly, Raven stepped back into the hall, a sly grin forming on her face and the initial elements of a plan caroming around inside her head.
Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 14): Home Page 14
