Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 14): Home

by Chesser, Shawn

  Like a well-oiled machine, upon seeing Cade swing his weapon away from covering their left flank, Griff automatically turned, crouched on the escalator, and hovered the EOTech’s red reticle just above the chrome handrail, where anyone hearing their approach would likely show his face.

  At the top of the escalator, Cade was again presented with three options. Straight ahead was the Traveling Exhibition Hall. Seeing as how it looked to have been between exhibits before the dead began to walk, and showed no signs of having been used since, sweeping through the room to clear it would burn time they didn’t have to waste.

  Left of the second-floor landing was a wide-open room full of exhibits. Above the entry, Natural Sciences Hall was spelled out with large three-dimensional letters.

  Behind them and to the right, its double doors shut tight, was the Science Playground. It was well known to Cade. He had watched over many a play session behind those doors. Waited patiently for Raven to tire of playing with sand, or water, or blocks. It was in the nearby Discovery Lab—a windowed room within the Science Playground—that Raven had learned how to produce knockoffs of Silly Putty and Play-Doh.

  The music was coming from somewhere inside the Science Playground, where Feather’s inside man said the young general took his women.

  Outside the doors to the Science Playground was a folding chair. An ashtray sat on the floor beside the chair. Perched on the edge of the ashtray, a thin ribbon of smoke curling off the dying cherry, was a half-smoked cigarette.

  In his head, Cade saw the hall beyond the Science Playground. After a short, straight run, it curled right and continued on for a few feet to the upper floor restrooms. No doubt that was where the cigarette’s owner had gone off to.

  Using hand signals, Cade tasked Griff with covering the top of the stairs and the entry to the Natural Sciences Hall.

  With Griff watching his six, Cade went into a combat crouch, turned the corner, and walked swiftly toward the Science Playground. While Jinlong may have recently summoned the guard into the room, Cade thought it more likely that nature had called.

  After a quick peek around the corner at the end of the hall, Cade continued on, a blur of black merging with the shadows.

  At the bathroom alcove, Cade had to choose a door: Men or Women? If the guard had a headlamp or flashlight, no evidence of it was showing around either of the door edges.

  Listening hard didn’t offer any clues.

  Going with the odds, Cade pushed through the door labeled Men. At once he saw a bubble of light hovering above one of the toilet stalls. In the white-tiled bathroom, viewed through the color NVGs, the light presented as a miniature sun.

  Squinting against the glare, Cade said in Mandarin: “Bad fish?”

  From the stall, a deep voice: “Huh?”

  Cade moved a few feet to his left, aimed the MP7 to where a seated person’s chest would be, and gently pushed on the door.

  Locked.

  In Mandarin, the guard said, “Go away, Zhao.”

  Stretching to full extension, Cade stuck the MP7’s lethal end over the top edge of the door, bent his wrist so the suppressor was at a forty-five-degree downward angle, then quickly pressed the trigger two times.

  There was a gasp and then silence. A tick later a blood-spattered roll of toilet paper came bouncing out from under the door.

  Speaking into his mike, Cade said, “Tango down. Coming out.”

  Though Cade wanted to storm into the Science Playground and stop Jinlong in the middle of whatever deviant act he was engaging in, President Clay’s man was being tortured one room over. Cade had been there. Though most of the memories of what he had gone through in that Utah farmhouse were hazy, sometimes, when he was still, he would relive the agony of it all. The white-hot pain of having blows rained down on his face. The gut-wrenching lightning bolts that had shot up his arms and legs as he lost each nail to a vicious tug of those rusty pliers.

  No matter how much Cade detested seemingly untouchable men like Jinlong—cowardly men who preyed on the weak—his first order of business was to keep one of his own from having to suffer even one more second at the hands of the sadist who had arrived with the Chinese President’s son.

  Cade and Griff didn’t wait outside the Natural Sciences Hall. They rolled right in, Cade on the left, Griff the right, MP7s covering their respective slices of the pie.

  At the rear of the hall were three rooms: Life Lab, Earth Lab, and Paleontology Lab. The latter was where Feather said Li Fan did all of his dirty work. The tools were already there, so it made sense to Cade.

  Keeping alive Feather’s streak of solid intel, the Chicom interrogation specialist was indeed in the building. Not only was he standing in plain view and framed fully in the Paleontology Lab’s floor-to-ceiling windows, in person, the toad-faced man matched perfectly the photo General Nash had included in the envelope hand-delivered to Cade at Penrose.

  The entire room was bathed in the harsh white light from a gas lantern. It flickered subtly, causing the shadows on the wall to twitch. Though he couldn’t hear it, Cade guessed the lantern was putting out that hollow whooshing noise that always signaled s’mores hour on their family camping trips.

  Cade saw that Fan wore the same camouflage uniform as the soldiers downstairs. On his head was a helmet with a flip-down splatter shield. The man’s black rubber gloves ended mid-forearm. Wrapped around Fan’s ample waist and tied off out back was a yellow, ankle-length apron. Each time the man made any kind of movement, the flickering glow of the lantern played off its blood-streaked surface.

  Two other men were inside the room with Fan. Both were well over six feet tall, which meant they eclipsed the little sadist by nearly a foot.

  One man stood on the left side of the room, maybe half a dozen feet from Fan’s workspace. The other man was back to the window and appeared to be operating a video camera mounted on a tripod.

  Strapped to a chair in the center of the room, face a mess of pulped flesh, was the man the entire mission revolved around. While rolling up the commie president’s kid would be one helluva coup for the intel folks, it was nowhere near as important as rescuing the man who’d been recruiting and training the small bands of men and women responsible for dozens of hit-and-run attacks on the Chicoms. Having been in sporadic contact with Springs for only a couple of months, the tough-as-nails freedom fighters operated all the way up the West Coast, from Long Beach to Seattle.

  That the resistance called themselves Wolverines was not lost on Cade. Nor was it lost on the Chinese Special Forces, who had been hunting them nonstop since late February, when temperatures buoyed and the mountain passes finally started showing the first signs of opening up.

  Army Lt. Colonel Ret. Remember “Alamo” Baker was a modern-day Colonel Andy Tanner. He considered the Chinese his Soviets, and this was his Red Dawn. Named after American Revolutionary War hero Remember Baker—a famous member of the Continental Army’s Green Mountain Boys—the retired colonel was known as a hard-charger in the War on Terror. Wounded by an IED in Mosul, Iraq, he was retired and living in Washington state when the dead began to walk.

  The closer Cade got to the room, the stronger the coppery odor of spilt blood became.

  Though Cade had already made it clear to Griff the interrogator was to be taken alive, from across the open doorway, he mouthed “Alive” to the SEAL.

  Acting on a visual cue from Cade, Griff rose from behind the picture window, aimed the MP7 at the back of the guard’s head, and, from point-blank range, snapped off two quick shots.

  Chapter 77

  At the same instant Griff was breaking the plane where the window seated with the lower sill, Cade was also rising from his crouch. He didn’t hear the two shots so much as he felt the expanding gasses and shockwave from the back-to-back discharges. MP7 tucked in tight, glass and brain matter striking the floor all around, he quick-walked through the doorway, Guard Number Two in his sights.

  The guard’s mouth was a silent O when Cade pressed t
he trigger, literally swallowing the first 4.6 mm round. The guard’s head was hammered back, which as fate would have it, exposed to the second round a whole lot of important items located underneath the man’s chin.

  Just as the cloud of blood and splintered teeth erupted from where his right cheek used to be, the follow-on round punched a small hole in his neck, shredding trachea and severing his carotid artery. The resulting stream of crimson looked like something coming from a sprinkler. As the man fell to his knees, hands instinctively going for the gaping wounds, the blood kept coming in powerful spurts attuned perfectly with the final frantic beats of his heart.

  Already wearing the blood of a true patriot, Li Fan caught a face full of his comrade’s hot, sticky blood. Face shield clouded with dark red runners, the little man dropped the pliers he was holding and, with both hands, ripped the helmet from his head.

  Seeing the pliers fall and Fan’s hands begin their upward sweep, Cade strode forward and pressed the MP7’s hot muzzle to the man’s neck.

  Fan flinched and cursed in Mandarin as the hot steel branded a half-inch crescent onto his skin.

  Ignoring the reaction, Cade said, “Sishén?”

  The interrogator’s eyes went wide.

  Face a mask of restrained anger, Cade said in English, “Thought so.”

  Already in the room and tending to Baker, Griff said, “He’s alive.”

  Cade zipped Fan’s arms together behind his back. Regarding Griff, he said, “See if the colonel will respond to smelling salts.”

  While Griff dug into his individual first aid kit, Cade was saying “Alamo” over the comms. It was the predetermined code word to let the Air Force captain manning the radio at the Peterson TOC know that Baker was alive and in friendly hands.

  As soon as Griff waved the ammonia inhalant under Baker’s badly broken nose, the man jerked awake. Though the retired colonel was in his late fifties, his build was that of a man a decade and a half younger. Also belying his true age, he was blessed with a full head of jet-black hair. That it was shorn real close didn’t surprise Cade.

  “Colonel, can you walk?”

  The colonel’s eyes fixed on Cade. Through split lips, he said, “My nose is busted, not my legs. And last I checked, a fella doesn’t need fingernails to walk.”

  Cade said nothing as he sawed through the paracord binding the colonel’s wrists and ankles. Helping the man up from the chair, he said, “Wait one.” Regarding Fan, he asked in Mandarin, “Jinlong … how many are guarding him?”

  Fan smiled but said nothing.

  Grabbing the man’s face one-handed and plunging a thumb into his right eye socket, Cade repeated the question.

  The smile faded and Fan went up on his tiptoes. Still, the man remained silent.

  Dragging the Gerber out, Cade moved the tip of the blade toward the man’s darting eye.

  “I speak English,” Fan said. “Studied at Columbia in New York.”

  Save for a slight lisp, Fan’s English was near perfect.

  Cade said, “I know you do. Jinlong’s guards … how many and where?”

  Fan said, “One inside. Two at the gate.”

  Sheathing the Gerber, Cade regarded Griff. “Gag him and bring him with.”

  Reaching a bloody hand out to Cade, Baker asked for clothing, boots, and a weapon.

  With no hesitation, Cade stripped the requested items from one of the dead guards. He put the pants, shirt, and boots on the floor by the colonel. “Clothes are XL. Looks like the boots are size nine.”

  Buttoning the shirt, Baker said, “Boots are small … but better than nothing,” and started loosening them up, wincing each time the laces whipped across his fingertips.

  Cade set the Chicom bullpup rifle, semiautomatic pistol and mags for both on the floor next to Baker. “We have two friendly shooters on overwatch outside, and air is on the way.”

  Already press-checking the polymer pistol, Baker said, “Copy that. I’ll follow your lead.”

  On the way out, Cade took the guards’ two-way radios, the tape from the video recorder, and a small leather-bound notebook he found on a nearby table. Handing a radio to Griff, he said, “Your Mandarin is better than mine. Anyone calls, bullshit ‘em as best you can.”

  Griff nodded, then shoved Fan out the door ahead of him.

  OMSI Science Playground

  The Chinese pop music had just ended when Cade and Baker pulled open the set of double doors.

  The interactive displays once placed around the warehouse-like space had all been pushed to the side. In the center of the room was a canopy bed. It was a four-poster and looked to be a king-sized item, if not larger. Someone had gone to considerable trouble to get it in here. Where the PLA soldiers had gotten it from, considering OMSI was in the industrial part of town, was a mystery to Cade. A number of studded leather-items—cuffs and collars and such—hung on the end of chains secured to the exposed overhead heating- and air-conditioning ducts.

  Candles burned in bottles set around the bed. Their flickering, baleful yellow light illuminated both General Jinlong and the naked woman on the bed.

  Caught naked and prancing around the bed’s far corner, a cognac snifter in one hand and semi-hard member clutched in the other, the general let out a surprised yelp.

  Cade said, “Sun Jinlong?”

  The man’s eyes narrowed.

  Jackpot, Cade thought. In Mandarin, he said, “Do not move.”

  Baker jammed his pistol into his waistband. “Cover him.” Then, thrusting a bloody hand toward Griff, he said, “Flex cuffs … I’ll truss the little fucker.”

  Baker swept the general’s legs from under him, put a knee on his narrow chest, and proceeded to zip-tie his hands together.

  While Griff searched the general’s uniform for intel, Cade crept to the bed, MP7 aimed at the teen girl.

  In English, Fan said, “She’s dead. The general likes them obedient and at room temperature.”

  Dragging his Sig from its holster, Griff approached the general. “You sick fuck,” he spat. “I ought to shove this up your ass and double-tap your liver.”

  “Don’t,” Cade said. “He’ll get his later.” After checking the young brunette on the bed for a pulse, he sighed and turned toward the thirty-three-year-old rising star in the PLA’s newly minted Continental Assimilation Force. “We’re taking a ride.” Stuffing the dead girl’s panties in the general’s mouth, he added, “Griff, break Major Fan’s nose.”

  After pistol-whipping the interrogator across the face, Griff said, “Copy that,” and holstered his Sig.

  Over the comms, Cade said, “Baby Bird is caged. We’ll be exiting through the middle fire exit, second floor … three-foot mobiles in tow.” Yanking the naked general to his feet and shoving him toward the emergency exit at the rear of the room, Cade said in Mandarin, “You anger me, I will cut your penis off.”

  Chapter 78

  The fire-exit doors opened up to an elevated open-to-the air stairway. Shielded from view by the upper boughs of the picket of mature trees planted along OMSI’s rear wall, Cade crossed the landing, then attacked the stairs two at a time. Struggling to keep up, Jinlong fell and left good-sized bits of flesh from both knees on the serrated metal treads.

  “Come on,” Cade growled, again jerking the smaller man to his feet.

  The stairs doubled back twice, then spit the five of them out in an enclosed area crowded by two industrial-sized garbage bins and a trio of recycling bins. Bi-fold doors to the parking lot were closed and, though Cade couldn’t see beyond the bins pushed up against them, he guessed they were locked from the inside. Next to the dual doors was a man-sized door fitted with a panic bar.

  After leaving Baker in the enclosure and holding the prisoners at gunpoint, Cade informed all involved in the operation that he and Griff were about to step out into the open. In response, Ari came on over the comms with word that the Jedi flight was inbound and less than two minutes out.

  “Jedi One, Anvil Actual. Good copy,�
� Cade replied. “We’ll have sterile airspace in one minute. Over and out.”

  Thankfully the panic bar was not locked. Seeing as how there was no power going to the building, Cade wasn’t worried about an alarm sounding.

  Pushing through, with Griff on his six, Cade paused long enough to regard the rebar-reinforced gate roughly fifty yards to his left. Two men dressed in civilian clothes stood near the point where two halves of the gate came together.

  The men carried exotic-looking submachine guns. They also seemed more situationally aware than the others they’d encountered so far.

  Jinlong’s guards, thought Cade.

  Sitting on folding chairs set up beneath a tarp attached to OMSI’s brick wall, three uniformed soldiers were playing some kind of a game that incorporated domino-like tiles.

  Drawn by the generator noise, nearly a dozen moaning Zs were crushing their wraith-like forms against the gate. Though they were staring the meat from the bones of the nearby guards, they were being ignored.

  Over the comms, Cade said, “Overwatch Alpha, Anvil Actual. How copy?”

  “Angel Alpha … solid copy,” replied Cross.

  Cade said, “Do you have eyes on the seated tangos?”

  “Affirmative.”

  Cade said, “Angel Bravo, Anvil Actual. How copy?”

  “Angel Bravo, solid copy,” replied Nat.

  Cade said, “We’re moving in ten. Be ready. If we disturb the hornet nest, I want you to light them up. Over and out.”

  A single break of squelch after Cade signed out told him that Nat understood fully.

  Counting down from seven, Cade shouldered the MP7. At two, he felt Griff place a palm flat on his shoulder—a silent message that he was good to go.

  At one, already on the move for the HQ-9’s Command and Control trailer, Cade heard the familiar clatter of weapons and thuds of bodies hitting the ground. A beat later, a soldier who’d been sitting at the table managed to get to his feet and call out something in Mandarin. Whatever he was trying to say was instantly rendered indecipherable as a bullet fired from Cross’s MSR cleaved through the man’s throat.