Oliver’s eyes went wide. “Says the guy who blazed up with me on the ski hill the other day.”
“The rotters were not a threat that day. Quit trying to make your baptism by fire about me.”
Speechless, Oliver shook his head slowly side to side.
Daymon went on. “Smoking when you need to be sharp is the least of your problems. Your playing up your prowess against the dead could have gotten any number of us killed. If you lie to me or anyone else again—.” He went quiet. Figured he’d let Oliver’s active imagination finish the threat for him. Probably way worse than anything he could conjure up.
***
Five minutes after Oliver had received his final warning, all three trucks were barreling down the final quarter-mile of feeder road with the outer and inner gates closed and locked behind them.
Daymon slowed to walking speed prior to entering the clearing, swung a wide looping turn and nosed the Chevy in next to Duncan’s white Dodge pickup. As he set the brake and silenced the engine, his attention was drawn to the activity near his RV. Under its deployed metal awning, Tran stood before a pair of stainless-steel propane-fired barbecue grills. Moving what was likely venison around one grill with the fork in his left hand, while at the same time busy flipping what looked like potatoes on the opposite with the pair of tongs in his right, Tran’s culinary performance was more Benihana chef than backyard burger flipper.
Raven and Sasha were huddled together under a blanket on one of the folding chaise lounges that had been secreted in a cubby beneath the RV. On a folding chair set up next to the girls, dressed for an arctic storm in a wool-lined jacket and matching boots, Glenda was opening cans of something with a handheld opener.
“We got back just in time,” Oliver said, shouldering open his door. “Suddenly my appetite has returned.”
Chapter 40
Schriever AFB
3:01 p.m. Mountain Standard Time 4:01 p.m. Central 5:01 p.m. Eastern
After the lengthy aircrew briefing, which consisted of handing out call signs, going over building diagrams, and explaining why certain ingress and egress points had been selected, Nash started a color image moving on the largest of the five displays behind her.
It was obvious from the angle that the image was recorded by a satellite holding a fairly steady position over the target. Though it was captured from an incredible distance overhead, the detail was exquisite. The beltway running around the nation’s dead capital was choked with cars and teeming with dead. So many dead traveled the expressways and tollways that a channel was created between the vehicles. Cade had seen what the unyielding forward march of a mega herd could do. Firetrucks and tractor trailers were nothing against the surge of frigid flesh. The passenger cars and trucks and their human cargo fleeing D.C. had fared no better than their counterparts fleeing Denver.
“It’s total gridlock for five miles in every direction,” Nash said, sounding like a person indifferently narrating a public service announcement meant to get people out of their cars and onto public transportation. “Belowground is more of the same. Panicked engineers trying to flee stations filling up with newly turned citizens pancaked their engines into stalled-out train cars. Metrorail likely won’t be running again in my lifetime.”
The image on screen flickered and suddenly Cade was staring at the target building. The same structure he’d seen from the air during a joint services training mission years ago. It was all reflective glass and nearly cube-shaped.
“The lone road leading into and out of the target will have to be secured before Anvil Team enters the building. Which can’t happen until the grounds around Building Alpha are cleared of Zs.”
The satellite capturing the footage was clearly moving away from the target. Suddenly its optics zoomed in a few stops and the situation on the ground was crystal clear.
Rarely did Cade’s heart skip a beat. However, this was one of those times. That the previous had happened ten minutes prior when Nash broke the news about the antiserum’s newly discovered propensity for failure was not lost on the operator. The reason for this particular cardiac gymnastic move was milling around the building’s west and north perimeter in real-time on the HD monitor. The dead things were packed in so tightly to the building that they’d snapped off fixed bollards and pushed massive planters, a handful of cars, and dozens of what looked to be two-thousand-pound Jersey barriers up against the building’s glittering lower façade.
Dozens more Jersey barriers were scattered like gray Lego blocks about the cement plaza and vast expanse of dying or dead grass. Most were toppled on their sides, the yards-long dark gouges trailing them in the soil a testament to the sheer numbers of dead that had been there during what had to be a long siege which the incredibly patient Zs most likely won. Time waits for no man, Cade thought as the camera lens miles above the once great state of Maryland panned over the hundreds of vehicles sitting idle in the multi-acre lots. And to add insult to injury that was the near total destruction of the once-beautiful adjoining landscaping, hundreds of Zs, their shadows long and gangly in the late evening sun, trooped about among the gleaming sea of glass and metal with seemingly no rhyme or reason to their movements.
Nash hit a button on her wand and the screen went dark. “That, gentlemen, is going to be a tough nut to crack.”
Cade sensed movement in his right side vision. He swallowed hard and took his eyes off the darkened monitor, the image of the Zs packed in like sardines burned indelibly into his mind. It was the SAS operator beside Cross who had raised his hand. So polite, the British, Cade thought.
“Yes,” Nash said. “What is it, Nigel?”
In unison, Cade, Griff, and Cross shifted in their chairs and stared at Axelrod.
“With all due respect, ma’am,” he said with a full-blown accent not much unlike Agent 007 of movie fame. “Is there a reason we can’t infil via the roof?”
“Good question,” Nash said, parking her arms on the podium before her. “And that reason is—”
“That campus held forty thousand people on a normal day,” Cade said, stealing the major’s thunder. “The building you’re looking at was probably home to a couple thousand of them. Even on a Saturday I’d guess the skeleton crew would consist of a thousand or more.”
“Bingo,” said Nash, drawing the operator’s attention her way.
“There have got to be twice that many autos in the surrounding lots,” Nigel pressed. “Which would explain the crush of dead things bandying on about the grounds. Which begs the question, ma’am … how do we get infilled by helo and sneak in on the ground floor?”
Nash pushed off the podium and walked around front of it. “I’ll throw a question back at you, Nigel. Would you rather fight your way through sixteen floors of who knows how many undead government employees, or six?”
Simultaneously, Cade, Griff, and Cross said, “Six,” and looked to Sergeant Axelrod for a reaction.
“Settled,” said the SAS shooter, folding his arms across his chest.
For most of the engagement the Rangers had remained silent, to a man watching the conversation as if it were a tennis match, heads craning back and forth, eyes landing on the officer in charge of the briefing, then falling back to the team that would be going inside the belly of the beast.
Finally, a forty-something Ranger with an impeccably cut high-and-tight haircut cleared his throat.
Nash craned to see his nametape. “Yes, Lieutenant Nolen, what is it?”
“You set us down ahead of the D-Boys and we’ll clear ‘em a path through those things,” he said, brimming with confidence and the usual can-do-attitude Rangers are known for. “We’ll breach a hole all the way to Hades for them if needs be.”
“I have no doubt about that, Lieutenant,” Nash said. “But we’re going to need you and your men to watch the team’s six. The mechanical problems Whipper is dealing with have changed the timeline so that it appears we’ll be cutting it much closer to the bone than we’d planned. You can breach
a hole to Hades and send the PLA there if you make contact.”
Causing Cade to smile for the first time since bad news darkened his doorstep, a chorus of “Hooahs” filled the room.
Once the cheers died out, Nash shushed the residual murmur.
“I don’t care how you eventually get inside the target. Just know that we have intel from captured PLA personnel that leads us to believe they are also trying to get to Target Alpha. If they beat us there they’ll be able to access the same cell tower records that helped us find Two Guns and a host of other high level government officials who went dark early on. We’ve been busy running rescue ops since the Long Beach Port mission, but have barely made a dent in the list of survivors found on the hard drives your team rescued.
“If the PLA are able to breach the system, download the data, and break the encryption they’ll be privy to the exact location of every one of our people who went to ground after the fall. If we don’t succeed tomorrow, gentlemen, the Chinese, though their motives aren’t entirely clear, will likely begin a slow war of attrition akin to a systematic series of amputations that I’m certain will ultimately deliver them here to our door.”
After pausing to let that sink in, Nash wrapped up the briefing by going over the finer points of entering the target building from the ground level. Next, she handed out diagrams of the half-dozen subfloors underneath the building. Finally, before releasing the twenty-eight men to assault the mess hall, she said, “And gentlemen, I’ll leave you with this … the monkey wrench I know you’ve all been waiting for. You may come into contact with survivors somewhere in the bowels of the building. How many? I have no idea. Who? I have no idea. We are not in contact with them. However, someone has been keeping the lights on and the servers humming along down there. Which is a good thing, because if you do come across them, your job of downloading terabytes of information should go off without a hitch. Questions?”
Just the soft tap-tap-tap of fingers striking computer keyboards.
“OK,” she said, stepping away from the podium. “Bravo and Charlie Teams are dismissed.”
Cade remained seated until the Rangers filed out. While he waited, he folded the handouts and tucked them away in a pocket. Once the cacophony of voices died down, he leaned forward, extended his hand, and introduced himself to Nigel Axelrod.
“Pleasure’s all mine, mate,” the SAS sergeant said. “Everybody calls me Axe.”
“Grayson or Wyatt works for me,” Cade said. “Are you the computer specialist Major Nash alluded to?”
“That’d be me,” Griff said, working his fingers through his beard. “Nigel does locks real good. Almost as good as Lopez.”
Cade shot Griff a raised brow look. “Why didn’t you let on during the L.A. mission?”
“Just following the don’t ask, don’t tell,” Griff said with a wink. “You didn’t ask … so I didn’t tell. Anyway, figured anyone with a pulse could pull hard drives and police up memory sticks, thumb drives and the like.”
“And we did … losing Lasagna in the process.”
“I was out there shooting alongside the man,” said Griff. “He got the short straw. Sucks. But it couldn’t be helped.”
“When it’s your time …” Cross said agreeably, “it’s your time.”
“He’s in Valhalla waiting for us,” Axe stated. Then, turning the direction of the conversation back to the mission, added, “Is she pulling our bell-ends? Ground level entry … really?”
Cross plucked his MP7 off the floor next to him and rose from his chair. “Wyatt, you should know.”
Cade said, “She’s not pulling anything.”
“Not good,” said Cross. “Because Axe here hates the Zeds—his special name for them—almost as much as Lopez does.”
Nash put a hand on Axe’s shoulder, causing him to jump. Looking up at him, she said, “If I was pulling your … bell-end, you’d damn well be aware of it, Axelrod.” She smiled. “But if you men want to fight through twenty or more security checkpoints and breach three times as many doors on your way to the prize… go ahead. You have Ari deposit you on the roof and when you get stuck after going down three of four floors”—her smile broadened—“you can call your Ranger QRF force. Have them go in on the ground and come save your butts.”
“Ground floor,” Cade, Griff, and Cross said nearly in unison.
Sensing the major’s need to talk to Cade, Griff rose and elbowed both Cross and Axe. “C’mon’ my little surfer twins. Chow awaits.”
Leaving Nash and Cade alone, Cross, Axe and Griff filed out of the room behind a handful of 50th Space Wing personnel.
Nash watched the light from the hall diminish and once the door sucked shut sat on the chair next to Cade.
“How’d she take it?”
“As expected,” Cade replied. “With a stiff upper lip.”
Nash sighed. “Figured as much. It’s not a death sentence until the symptoms manifest. I just wanted her to be aware so she can watch for any changes in her physiology. How are you taking it?”
“I’ve already shoved it down into the dark well behind my heart. Figure I’ll hash it over later.”
Nash said nothing.
“Thank you,” Cade said. “Telling me was the right thing to do. The only thing to do.”
Nash remained tightlipped, tears forming in her eyes.
Cade placed a calloused hand atop hers, squeezed once and rose. He scooped up his carbine from the chair and made his way out of the room without uttering another word.
Chapter 41
3:45 p.m. MST
Clearly not happy to have been cooped up in the F-650 during the return trip, the second Jamie opened her door Max jumped over the seatback and sprang off her lap and into space.
The hairy missile hit the ground running, claws and paws kicking up a spray of dirt and grass, and rocketed across the clearing on a collision course with the throng of survivors. Easily overtaking Oliver, who seemed to be taking his time making his way to the RV, the Shepherd didn’t hit the brakes until he was almost on top of the two girls sharing a single reclining lawn chair under the awning.
After ducking the sudden salvo of airborne soil, Raven threw aside the blanket and rolled off the reclining chair only to find herself on the receiving end of a blast of warm dog breath and sloppy licks to the face.
Brook, who was standing on her toes and waving Lev and Jamie over, saw Max accosting her girl and knelt to his level to scratch his ears.
“He’s a bundle of energy,” Raven said. “Aren’t you, boy?” She wiped the slobber from her face and joined her mom in showering attention on the dog that had adopted the Grayson family back at Schriever in September. Now nearly November, and in an entirely different setting—trees and mountains, versus concrete walkways and airplane hangars—the multicolored pooch seemed to have adapted just fine and seemed to have adopted the entire Eden group as his pack.
Brook rose with a grimace and looked to Sasha. “Why don’t you and Raven take Max down to the end of the runway and throw a ball for him. I’ll call you when dinner is ready.”
“Almost ready,” Tran called over his shoulder.
“Go,” Brook said, the underlying sense of urgency in her voice lost on the girls.
Tran motioned at the girls with the greasy barbecue tongs. “Don’t go too far,” he said in his sing-song voice.
The obvious dig at the unsanctioned excursion that almost got Raven and Sasha killed and saw them punished with ninety days dishwashing duty was not lost on the girls.
Raven pursed her lips and glared at Tran for a beat. Finally, she said, “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll stay where you can see me.”
Also regarding Tran with contempt, Sasha rose and tossed the blanket unceremoniously onto the lounge chair. “And I won’t lead her astray.”
“Bird’s her own keeper from here on out,” Brook said. “After what nearly happened the other day, I can’t see either one of you girls making those kinds of bad decisions ever again.”
Raven took the items and started walking toward the airstrip. Once she made the first of the two parallel packed-dirt tracks, she turned a hard right and sprinted away with Sasha close behind and Max bounding excitedly through the narrow strip of tall grass growing up between the beaten-down tire tracks.
Brook watched the girls go. When she turned and cleared her throat to quiet the soft conversation, the air of confidence and total control she always displayed in front of her daughter was gone. In its place was a deer in the headlights stare. Her shoulders were rounded. And more pronounced than it had been in days, the stiffness and lack of range of motion in her right arm made her seem frail and aged beyond her thirty-five years.
After exchanging a knowing look with Duncan, she let her gaze walk over the assembled survivors. Everyone save for Cade, the girls, and Seth, who was currently watching the cameras, was present.
Sensing something was amiss, Glenda rose and came to Brook’s side, steadying her more with her presence than any kind of physical act.
Oliver, Daymon, and Foley were already seated—the latter two chatting quietly between themselves prior to seeing Glenda’s silent gesture. A half-beat later they were mute and waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop.
In the process of arranging camp chairs of their own, Lev, Jamie, Taryn, and Wilson also froze and turned their undivided attention to Brook.
As if on cue, the steady hiss of the barbecue grills died to nothing and Tran quietly closed both of the gleaming lids to keep the early evening chill out.
In the next half-beat, shattering the still that had fallen over the clearing, the door to the RV hinged open with a clatter and Heidi came bounding down the retractable stairs.
“There’s my man,” she called, plopping down on Daymon’s lap and nearly pitching them both head over heels in the already unstable folding chair.
District: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse Page 23
