“Assault rifles.”
“Any heavy weapons? Tanks, artillery, stuff like that?”
“No, ma’am.”
President Glass shook her head.
“That doesn’t make any sense. Why use chemical weapons to steal a few assault rifles?”
“Not a few, Madam President—a few thousand.”
She grimaced. “That’s... bad, but still, why the chemical weapons? Surely, they knew this would draw our full attention.”
“Exactly.”
Her eyes grew wide. “You think that’s what they wanted?”
“I do.”
“For what reason? To frighten us?”
“Maybe. Or perhaps it was meant as a warning.”
“What do you mean?” She didn’t like the sound of that at all.
“Madam President, I believe they may be planning to stage an attack.”
“On what?”
“That I don’t know.” He started to say more but then fell silent.
“Don’t hold back on me now, General. What is it?”
“It’s my job to worry, Madam President.”
“Given the state of our nation, I’d say that worry is in all of our job descriptions. Tell me what’s on your mind.”
“What if they are planning to attack Mount Weather?”
“Here?” she exclaimed. “Why would you think that?”
He took a deep breath.
“As I said the other day, our government is currently held in the lowest regard by what remains of our population.” When she started to argue the point, he held up his hands. “Whether that’s fair or not is beside the point. What matters is that there are people out there who wish to do us harm—to do you harm, Madam President.”
She thought about his warning before replying.
“I trust your judgment, General Carr. If you say we’re in danger, then I believe you. But surely we can fend off any attack they could muster.”
“If they attempt a direct assault, yes. We have four thousand soldiers in the area as well as numerous gunships and armored vehicles. Plus, we could quickly call in what remains of the country’s air support, if needed.”
“Then we’re fine,” she said with a tentative smile.
“I’ll agree that we’re safe enough from a conventional attack.”
“But?”
“What if their goal is not to take over the compound, but only to kill those inside? Preventing them from setting off a few chemical weapons might prove nearly impossible.”
“If they do that, we’ll just retreat to the huge underground bunker beneath the facility. Isn’t that the whole point of having it? They can’t get to us in there.”
“That’s true if we have time to seek shelter. But the attack might occur suddenly, making a tactical retreat impossible. Remember that sarin is nearly undetectable until infection has occurred. By the time the alarm was sounded, it would already be too late for many.”
“Then what should we do? Have everyone carry around gas masks?”
“While that might be prudent, I don’t think it would ultimately prove effective. Using a gas mask requires training. Also, they have to be carefully fitted to each individual.”
“Well, what other options are there?”
“The only way to guarantee your safety is to move you to an undisclosed location.”
“Evacuate?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She stared off at the small window, her thoughts momentarily returning to Samantha.
“Where would I go?”
“There are at least half a dozen highly secure locations. The most obvious would be the NORAD Cheyenne Mountain Complex, near Colorado Springs. Unfortunately, they are having difficulty generating enough electrical power to continue operations.”
“NORAD isn’t operational?”
“No, ma’am.”
“This just keeps getting better and better. Where else?”
“There’s Site R in the Raven Rock Mountain near Fort Detrick, Mount Pony in Culpeper, The Greenbrier in West Virginia, and—”
President Glass raised her hands.
“Okay, enough. I get it. There are other rocks under which I could hide. But that’s why we came here in the first place. Mount Weather has a huge underground complex. I can’t see the point in leaving this hole in the ground only to hide in a different one.”
He fell silent, seeing that she had already made up her mind.
President Glass reached across the table and briefly placed her hand on his.
“I appreciate your concern, General. I do. But I’m not running and hiding. Not from some unknown enemy whose intentions aren’t even clear at this point.”
“I suspected as much. Still, I had to try.”
“Here’s what we’ll do. You work to figure out who’s behind the attack, and I’ll ensure that we take a few extra precautions around here.”
He gave a reluctant nod.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Are we good?”
“One more thing. I think it might be best if we keep this between the two of us.” He glanced at the door to make his point.
President Glass followed his gaze and nodded.
“Okay,” she said in a cautious tone. “This stays between us for now.”
CHAPTER
4
Nakai lowered the M22 binoculars and leaned his head back in the HMMWVs passenger side window.
“Someone’s following us,” he said, trying to talk over the rumble of the diesel engine.
Jeb didn’t bother asking whether he was sure. If Nakai said someone was following them, then someone was following them. He possessed an almost unnatural sense about such things, and that, Jeb suspected, was one reason he was so damned hard to kill.
“How many?”
“One person in a black, or maybe dark-blue, pickup truck.”
“Could it be someone traveling in the same direction?”
Nakai shook his head. “I spotted the truck when we left the center. Whoever he is, he knows where we’ve been and what we’ve done.”
“One man shouldn’t be too hard to clean up.”
Nakai studied his wristwatch.
“We have eighteen hours to deliver these rifles to Lexington. General Hood won’t be happy if we’re late.”
Jeb glanced at his own watch.
“There’s still plenty of time. The drive from here is maybe nine hours.”
“That’s true if this is the only problem we encounter.” Nakai thought for a moment. “Stop the convoy briefly, and leave two men behind to find out who he is and why he’s following us.”
“And then?”
“Leave his body for the dogs.”
Standing at the edge of the overpass, Mason studied the convoy nearly a half-mile ahead of him on I-95. The soldiers had stopped briefly but were once again starting to get underway. Mason had maintained what he believed to be a safe distance for the past twenty miles and doubted that they could have spotted him. Still, they had stopped for no obvious reason, and experience had taught that it was better to be safe about such things. He would take additional precautions for the next mile, as well as drop back a little further in his pursuit.
Navigating a convoy of eighteen-wheelers down a congested interstate was a slow process, and Mason was confident that it wouldn’t be too hard to catch back up. He had no idea where they were headed, but their current course took them straight toward Savannah, Georgia. Unless Savannah was their final destination, they would be forced to detour around the logjam of cars surrounding the city. Unlike Mason, the soldiers had opted to boldly travel the interstate, obviously confident that they were the most dangerous thing on the road.
Mason eased his truck off the overpass and down onto the interstate. He left his foot off the gas pedal, letting the truck coast while keeping a steady stream of abandoned vehicles between him and any would-be ambush that might l
ie ahead. When he was about a quarter of a mile from where the convoy had paused, he swung his truck in behind a burned-out camper and stopped.
Bowie immediately sat up on the seat beside him, the dog’s head nearly touching the roof the cab. As soon as Mason opened the door and stepped out, Bowie hopped down and began sniffing the cars around them.
Mason took a moment to quickly inspect his rifle. During his time as an Army Ranger, he had found that Colt’s M4 assault rifle was a remarkably reliable weapon. Like all firearms, however, it required that the operator keep it properly maintained and ready for action. Other than a few scratches from when he had thrown it to the ground during a firefight in Boone, the weapon looked to be in virtually new condition.
He ejected the magazine and set the weapon on the seat, one round still in the chamber. He pulled another fully-loaded thirty-round magazine from the bed of the truck as well as a roll of duct tape. Flipping the second magazine upside down, he taped the two together. He seated the dual magazine into the M4 and flipped it around a couple of times to make sure there wasn’t any interference on either end. It worked perfectly. He now had sixty rounds at his disposal, enough for most one-man firefights.
“Come on,” he said to Bowie. “Let’s go do a little recon.”
They moved slowly, but steadily, keeping their eyes on the road ahead of them. When Mason got to within fifty yards of where the convoy had stopped, he squatted down behind a silver Lexus. Inside was a woman’s corpse, topped with a mop of long red hair. She had been decomposing for more than three weeks, and her body had burst on the seat into a puddle of dark blood, guts, and human waste. Her flesh was as dry as parchment, and it was splitting open along jagged seams. Bones stained with dried blood peeked out through her elbow joints as the skin began to sag and fall away. The car’s windows were partially open, and a steady stream of black blowflies buzzed in and out.
The rotting corpse was hardly unique. Most of the cars around him had decaying bodies inside, people who had fled the cities when the outbreak reached its crescendo. Flies worked relentlessly to clean up the mess, leaving behind their maggot children to do much of the dirty work. In a few more months, only bones, hair, and cadaver stains would remain of the billions who had perished. Until then, the grotesque horror show would continue.
Bowie propped himself up to peek in through the window. When he was satisfied that there was nothing tasty to eat inside, he dropped back to the ground and walked in a small circle before lying down beside his master. Leaning around the front of the Lexus, Mason took a long moment to study the interstate. Nothing moved, and there were no sounds of life. He shook his head slowly, a little disappointed that his instincts had driven him to take an unnecessary and time-consuming detour.
Bowie tipped his head up and took several deep sniffs, his moist black nose sponging up odors from every direction. Then he looked over at Mason as if to ask, Don’t you smell that?
Mason smelled the air, searching for anything that didn’t belong. There were many odors, human decay and gasoline being the strongest. But there was something else too—a faint hint of cigarette smoke. He caught it only for an instant, but the smell of burning tobacco was unmistakable. He scanned the cars ahead of him, hoping to see a wisp of smoke rising into the air like an ethereal arrow pointing to his enemy. No such luck.
He studied the road for places where someone might hide. There were plenty of cars, most smashed into one another or pushed to the side of the road. While someone could certainly hide inside, the loss of mobility would put them at a significant disadvantage. Professionals wouldn’t do that, he thought. Then he saw it. Three giant concrete pipes sat beside the road in a deep culvert, a small Toyota pinned beneath one of them. Mason could only assume that they had rolled off a tractor-trailer as it plowed its way through the stalled traffic.
The pipes were roughly lined up end-to-end, creating a makeshift tunnel with small gaps between the sections. The heavy concrete pipes were easily eight feet in diameter, making them traversable even when standing upright. It was an incredibly solid defensive position, providing cover, shooting ports between the pipes, and only two ways in or out.
Something dark crossed the gap between two of the pipes.
Mason’s heart quickened. The question of whether or not someone was inside had been answered. Now what? Getting any closer without being seen would be difficult.
There were plenty of places around him to use as cover or concealment, should he choose to engage in a firefight, but none were as good as the pipes. The M4’s 5.56 mm rounds had no chance of penetrating the ten-inch-thick concrete. His best bet was to draw them out. Unfortunately, luring trained soldiers out of a defensive position was nearly impossible. Every infantry soldier knew the merits of putting something bulletproof between himself and the enemy.
A second option, albeit a more dangerous one, was to stealthily approach from one end of the structure. There was enough roadway clutter that Mason thought he could probably low crawl his way to the culvert without being seen. Once there, he could snake his way to the end of the far pipe and pop in like an unwanted in-law. At that point, the pipes would act to trap the men. The biggest unknown was how many men were inside. If there were too many, even the element of surprise might not be enough to win the day.
Fresh out of ideas, Mason decided to give it a go.
“Stay put,” he whispered, giving Bowie a quick pat on his side.
Then he turned away and leaned his M4 against one of the tires. Low-crawling twenty yards on asphalt covered in broken glass without being detected was going to be hard enough. Trying to do it while pushing a rifle ahead of him seemed all but impossible. Next, he lay flat on the ground, head first, with his legs splayed out behind him.
Bowie whined softly but didn’t move.
Keeping his head pressed against the pavement, Mason began to shimmy his way forward. The low crawl offered the smallest silhouette to anyone who might be keeping an eye on the road, but it in no way guaranteed that he would remain undetected. To keep from drawing attention to his motion, he kept his progress slow, advancing only a few inches at a time. He carefully snaked around cars, pausing any time he made a noise. After nearly five full minutes, he arrived at the grassy embankment on the far side of the road. The smell of cigarette smoke was stronger now.
Believing that he was out of their direct sight, he rolled slowly down the embankment to the bottom of the small gulley and into a puddle of cool, muddy water. The first pipe straddled the ditch, with the end lying almost directly above him. He lay there for nearly a minute, listening. The only sound was that of boots scrubbing across concrete. He waited a little longer and was rewarded for his patience with the sound of voices.
“You see anything?” a man asked.
There was no answer.
“Hey, jackass, I asked you a question.”
“If I saw something, don’t you think I’d tell you?” a second man said with a strong New England accent. “Finish your damn cigarette, and look for yourself.”
“Yeah, yeah, a couple more drags.”
Two voices meant at least two men. There could easily be more, however.
Mason quietly slid his Supergrade from its holster. It wasn’t the right weapon for the task, but it was what he had. The full length of the pipes was probably only about fifty feet, well within his range, but if anyone made it out of the end pipe, Mason would be at a serious disadvantage against their long guns.
He glanced over and saw Bowie peeking at him from around the Lexus. The dog would help whether he wanted him to or not. If someone made a run for it, Bowie would give chase. It was in his nature to do so, and nothing Mason said or did was going to stop that.
Mason had no way of knowing whether anyone was looking down at his end of the pipe, and he couldn’t chance raising his head up to get a better look. He would hold the advantage of surprise, and that would have to be enough. Worrying that Bowie might decide to come check th
ings out for himself, Mason decided to move sooner, rather than later. He pushed up and rolled to a kneeling position, swinging the Supergrade into position.
Two men, dressed in black fatigues, stood in the chain of pipes. One man was very close, perhaps eight feet away, holding a cigarette up to this mouth with one hand, and resting the other on an AK-47. His left ear was completely missing, sliced off as cleanly as Van Gogh’s. The second man was all the way at the far end of the pipes. He had an M4 rifle up and ready as he peered out to watch the road.
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