“No.”
“Why not?”
“Whenever one of our field operatives is killed, we in the Agency investigate the murder ourselves. We don’t allow anyone else to investigate lest they uncover and leak eyes-only intel vital to national security.”
“Especially in this case, since Coogan was somehow privy to the Rotterdam experiments,” said Cole, completing Slocum’s thought.
“Exactly.”
“But why was he killed here?” said Cole, thinking out loud. “I could understand his getting shot in the field by an enemy agent, but why here in his own country and in this bunker?”
Slocum closed his eyes as if in pain. “I can’t even speculate at this point. We’ve only just begun our investigation.”
“That brings us back to square one. Does anybody else know?”
“Know about Coogan’s murder?”
“No. Does anyone else know about our involvement in the Rotterdam experiments?”
Slocum wasn’t sure how much he should tell Cole. Slocum decided to couch his words with care.
“Apparently, Coogan was talking on the phone with someone at the time he was shot,” he said.
“How do you know that?”
“When he was found, his phone was off the hook.”
“And that’s a problem because?”
“Because he may have been telling the person on the other end of the line about Rotterdam.”
“Why do you think that?”
“We found an e-mail on Coogan’s computer that contained an attachment of a video of lab technicians going berserk and cannibalizing people at Rotterdam. According to his computer, the e-mail arrived five minutes before Coogan placed his phone call. We checked his phone records.”
Cole tilted his head up and rolled his eyes. “Does it get any worse?” he asked no one in particular. He faced Slocum. “Who sent the e-mail?”
“Why?”
“Whoever e-mailed that video must know about our involvement with Rotterdam, or why would they send it to an Agency operative?”
Slocum hemmed and hawed. “Not necessarily.”
“We can’t take any chances. Find the sender and vet him.”
“We haven’t been able to trace who sent it. They used Onion Router to hide their identity.”
“Onion Router?”
“The Tor anonymity network. They bounce the e-mail all over the world before delivering it. That way we can’t trace the source.”
“Shit.” Cole started pacing in a fit of pique. “How many other people did this Coogan tell?”
“We don’t know, sir.”
“Why would he tell so many people?”
“He couldn’t have told many people. He didn’t have enough time. He was shot soon after he received the e-mail.”
“He still could have told someone.”
“We don’t know for sure that he told anyone, but we do believe he told the person at the other end of the phone line at the time he was killed.”
“How do you know who Coogan was talking to?”
“Caller ID. He was another one of our black ops agents at NCS. He’s a buddy of Coogan’s and he was using his encrypted Agency satphone.”
Cole stopped pacing and braced Slocum. “And who is that person, Ernest?”
“His name is Chad Halverson.”
“Bring him here so I can talk to him.”
“I wish I could.”
“Which means?”
“Which means we don’t know where he is. We believe he’s somewhere in California, but we haven’t been able to contact him.”
“Call his satphone.”
“It’s not working.”
Cole glanced at the TV screen. “California is lost to the plague.”
Slocum nodded. “He’s probably dead by now.”
Cole searched Slocum’s face. “But what if he isn’t?”
“We have Predator drones combing the area for him in California. If he’s there and still alive, we’ll find him.”
“Make sure you do.” Cole adjusted his four-in-hand. “He mustn’t tell anyone about the Rotterdam connection. He has to be debriefed. Bring him to me as soon as you have him.”
“California is overrun by the infected,” said Slocum. “We have no men stationed there that can bring him here. That’s why we’re using drones there.”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” said Cole, turning away from Slocum and making for the door.
“It would be better for all of us, and for the country, for that matter, if he was already dead.”
Slocum picked up on Cole pausing for a second before he reached the door and cocking an ear toward Slocum as he heard Slocum’s words. But Cole kept his own counsel and continued toward the door.
CHAPTER 10
Southern California
Halverson rode his horse down a buckling sidewalk that skirted a car-congested street that ran along a block of apartment houses. He saw no signs of life—only relics left behind by the deceased residents, such as the carcasses of parked, fire-gutted cars abandoned on the street.
Up on his right a black and yellow neoprene wet suit hung over the parapet of a Mediterranean-styled pink stucco apartment’s balcony, left by its owner to dry out in the sun. Behind the wet suit an ivory surfboard stood upside down, its skeg on top faced outward, canting against the outer wall of the balcony’s apartment next to the sliding glass windows that reached to the floor. The surfboard gleamed in the implacable rays of the early afternoon sun. Beside the surfboard stood a barbecue covered by a tarp.
The surfer-tenant of the apartment would never return home for another barbecued steak, Halverson knew.
Halverson started in his saddle. He heard an aircraft flying above. Craning his neck toward the sky, he could discern the distinctive awkward white shape of a Predator drone flying in his direction. It reminded him of a flying spoon.
With his heel he kicked his horse’s flank to prod him into a gallop down the sidewalk and around the corner of the block onto a street lined with boutiques. Halverson rode his horse under the marquee of a kitchenware store that displayed shelves of various cooking utensils behind its plate-glass front window.
He reined his horse to a stop under the marquee, sheltering him from the nosy drone. He couldn’t allow the drone’s cameras to see his face. They possessed facial recognition software that would recognize his visage. If the drone ID’d him, it would launch a Hellfire missile at him like a previous drone had done in Santa Monica, Halverson knew.
For some reason that Halverson could only guess at, the drones were programmed to kill him. He didn’t have to go out on a limb to figure it had to do with the intel that Coogan had related to him over the phone before Coogan had been murdered. By becoming the repository of Coogan’s classified top-secret info Halverson had at the same time become a liability to the government, which didn’t want anybody to know it had been involved with the creation of the zombie virus in Rotterdam.
Victoria and Emma rode around the corner into view and trotted their horses toward him.
It didn’t matter if the drone spotted the two women, Halverson knew. Their faces meant nothing to the drone. It wasn’t programmed to find them and it would leave them alone—unless it filmed them with him.
“What’s the big rush?” asked Emma, riding up to the marquee with Victoria.
“The drones around here are programmed to kill me,” answered Halverson.
“Really?” said Emma with amazement, finding it difficult to get her horse to halt. “Who would want to kill you and why?”
She turned her head around and started babbling baby talk over her shoulder to her imaginary child in its papoose.
“I don’t know,” Halverson lied.
Neither Victoria nor Emma knew his real profession as a CIA black ops agent and he wasn’t about to tell them now. He was still trying to dope out what to do—if anything—with the intel Coogan had imparted to him. It was obvious somebody in the government di
dn’t want him to disclose to anyone the CIA’s funding of the Rotterdam experiments.
The drone rumbled away into the distance.
“Makes no sense,” said Emma, turning forward.
“Nothing makes sense these days,” said Victoria, her horse snorting and flaring its nostrils beside Emma’s mount. “Just look around you. No more people. Just a ghost town with cannibals skulking around it.”
“We’re down the rabbit hole, all right,” said Emma, surveying the block.
“More like down the tubes.”
At that moment two men swaggered out of a bar across the street toward them. One of them was a fat man well over three hundred pounds with a shapeless putty face. His companion was short and stocky with a scruffy face and was wearing a black headband around his close-cropped head.
Putty Face wore blue jeans with three-inch cuffs, an off-the-rack polo shirt, and flip-flops.
Headband wore a maroon T, jeans, white jogging shoes, and a black backpack.
They were moving slowly and stumbled now and again weaving between the cars parked on the street, noted Halverson, studying them as they advanced on him. He tensed in his saddle and made ready to reach for his gun.
“Are they creatures?” asked Emma, biting her lower lip, eyes fixed on the two strangers.
“Either that or they’re drunk,” answered Halverson. “They did just come out of a bar.”
“Hello,” said Putty Face. “What are you two talking about?”
Halverson relaxed more or less. They weren’t infected. The infected couldn’t talk. But there was something about the two that rubbed him the wrong way. Maybe it was because they had been drinking.
“We didn’t know there was anybody else around here,” said Halverson.
“Neither did we,” said Putty Face, coming to a halt near him and gazing up at him.
Putty Face wasn’t sloshed, just tipsy, decided Halverson. The guy wasn’t slurring his words or wobbly on his feet, just a little unsteady.
“Any of those things here?” asked Halverson.
“Those frigging flesh eaters whatever they are, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“Not on this block or we would’ve left by now.” Putty Face changed the subject. “Where’d you get the ponies?”
“At a police station.”
Halverson caught Putty Face’s cohort Headband staring at Victoria.
“We could use some horses,” said Putty Face. He looked around him at the blocked road. “Cars are no good around here.”
“The station’s not far from here,” said Halverson.
“Any more horses there?”
“Yeah.”
Putty Face sidled up to Halverson’s horse and started stroking the horse’s muzzle. “I like this horse.”
“So do I,” said Halverson.
He didn’t like the direction their conversation was taking. Putty Face was giving off bad vibes that Halverson was picking up on.
“Could he hold both of us?” said Putty Face.
“No.”
“You think?”
“No chance.”
“Then how am I gonna get to the police station?”
“The same way you came over here.”
Putty Face cracked a smile. “You’re a funny guy.” He squinted up at Halverson. “You know that?”
Halverson said nothing, face motionless.
“I really don’t want to go to the police station,” said Putty Face.
“That so?”
“Where you three headed?”
“East.”
“That’s where we came from. It’s crawling with the brain eaters.”
“So’s the west.”
“And the north,” added Victoria, who was becoming annoyed with Headband’s staring at her.
Halverson felt the tension in the air.
“Maybe I could hitch a ride on your horse,” Putty Face told Victoria.
“I don’t think so,” said Halverson.
“Can’t she talk for herself?”
“These horses can’t hold a lot of weight,” said Victoria.
Putty Face sneered at her good-humoredly. “That your way of calling me fat?”
“I didn’t say anything about you.”
“Pretty obvious what you were implying, but don’t worry about it. I’ve been called worse.”
“She didn’t call you anything,” said Halverson.
“Who asked you?” said Headband, mouth hanging open, eyes squinched against the sun as he gazed up at Halverson.
Halverson figured it was time to put an end to this conversation. “We better be getting on. We have a long way to go.”
He maneuvered the reins in his hands as his horse became restless.
“Where’d you get the gun?” said Putty Face, eyeballing the MP7 slung over Halverson’s shoulder. “At the police station?”
“No.”
“Well?”
“It’s mine.”
Putty Face screwed up his face. “You a cop or something?”
“I’m a journalist, if it’s any of your business.”
“No need to get testy,” said Putty Face, bringing up his hands and waving them in front of him, palms outward. “We’re just friends making conversation.”
“Looks like some fancy-ass submachine gun like they use in Special Forces,” said Headband. “Where would a hack get his hands on a gun like that?”
“Does it work?” Putty Face asked Halverson.
“Want to find out?” said Halverson.
Putty Face guffawed. “There you go with the jokes again. You’re a laugh riot.”
Halverson wasn’t smiling. Out of the corner of his eye he was watching Putty Face’s hand. It was reaching furtively behind his back.
CHAPTER 11
“I used to be in the army,” said Headband.
“Whose?” said Halverson, keeping watch of Putty Face’s arm, which had stopped moving toward his back.
Headband glared at Halverson. “The more you talk, the less funny you get, you know?”
“He’s just joshing,” said Putty Face, sizing up Halverson.
Emma chose that moment to glance back over her shoulder and start talking to her baby Millie. “Everything’s fine, Millie. We’ll be leaving soon.”
Putty Face and Headband looked as one at Emma.
“Who’s she talking to?” said Headband, bemused.
“I don’t know,” said Putty Face. “I don’t see anyone behind her.”
“Leave her alone,” said Victoria.
“Nobody’s talking to you, Bambi,” said Headband.
“My name’s not Bambi.”
“What’s with you?”
“Nothing. Just leave her alone,” said Victoria.
“What’s wrong with her?” Headband nodded at Emma. “Is she cuckoo?”
“She lost her child to the plague.”
“Hush, Millie, and take a nap, sleepyhead,” Emma cooed behind her.
Headband burst into laughter. “She’s a psycho.”
Emma frowned at him. “You’re making too much noise. Millie can’t sleep.”
“There ain’t no Millie, whacko. Wake up and smell the coffee.”
“Will you shut up,” Victoria said. “Leave her alone. She’s just stressed out.”
“Like the rest of us aren’t, huh, Bambi? But we’re not going loco on account of it.”
“It’s time for us to leave,” said Halverson.
“You’re all a bunch of pussy nutcases,” said Headband. “You don’t deserve those horses. They’re not yours, anyway.”
“That’s right,” said Putty Face. “You admit you stole them from the police station. We have as much right to those horses as you do.”
“My balls are bigger than both of yours combined,” said Victoria.
Headband guffawed.
Putty Face smiled. “Then you’d better get a wheelbarrow to haul them around in, Bambi.”
“Why?” said Headband.
/>
“Because you’re about to lose ’em,” Putty Face told Victoria.
“Yeah,” said Headband with a smile.
He snatched Victoria’s foot and tried to yank her off her horse.
Grimacing, she kicked at Headband and strengthened her grip on the saddle’s pommel.
“Let her go,” said Halverson.
He shrugged the MP7 off his shoulder and trained the muzzle on Headband, finger on the trigger, all the while keeping track of Putty Face’s arm that resumed stealing backward.
Headband froze at the sight of the MP7 in Halverson’s hand then released Victoria’s foot. “You wouldn’t shoot an unarmed man, would you?”
Putty Face’s hand snaked forward, a pistol in it.
Halverson whipped his MP7 toward Putty Face and shot him in the head before Putty Face could get off a shot. Putty Face dropped like a rock, head cracked and bleeding, brains spilling out of the hole in the back of his skull and sliding down his back.
Headband bolted toward Putty Face’s pistol that had dropped to the sidewalk.
Halverson shot him through the headband the better part of two feet from Putty Face’s automatic just as Headband was extending his arm to reach for the crosshatched grip. Headband sprawled on his stomach on the sidewalk, a baseball-sized hole in his occipital bone where Halverson’s 4.6 x 30 mm round had exited. A chunk of bone with hair on it skimmed over the sidewalk and spun onto the street behind a Honda’s rear fender.
Emma sobbed at the sight of the dead bodies and tried to calm her baby.
“Why’d you have to kill them?” Victoria demanded, confronting Halverson.
“He had a gun,” said Halverson.
“You should have just wounded them.”
“Wounding the guy with the gun wouldn’t have stopped him from shooting us.”
“You kill people like it’s nothing.”
“Those two had trouble written all over them,” said Halverson, slinging his MP7 back onto his shoulder.
“How did you get to be such an expert?”
“If somebody tries to shoot me, I’m shooting first.”
“You’re a little too good at killing people, if you ask me.”
“I’m not asking you.”
“Are you some kind of gangster?” She locked her eyes on his.
“I told you I’m a journalist.”
Zombie Apocalypse: The Chad Halverson Series Page 87
