Blue Plague: Hope: Book Seven

by Watson, Thomas A

  Throwing his head back, Jake laughed. “Then why was that every teams’ main goal that you sent down here? To find out what’s in the magic bullets?”

  “It seems you were very persuasive in getting information,” Fulton said, narrowing his eyes at Jake.

  “No, my sisters were. I had to come meet you,” Jake snorted. “They asked nicely and one of your men said some very spiteful things and they threw him in a wood chipper. After that, your men answered any question they were asked very politely.”

  “And you call us uncivilized in our actions,” Fulton snapped.

  “Hey, we don’t hold people against their will, rape, and murder inside our walls. Everyone is there by choice and has a voice,” Jake said with a fake smile. “I’m sure you saw the broadcast of our two rapists during Christmas. Justice is swift and final, but it is justice that all answer to, including my father.”

  “So I take it, I must report to the General that you will be attacking?”

  “Unless you pack your shit up and leave, without the hostages, of course,” Jake nodded, dropping the fake smile.

  “May I, sir?” Taltson whispered to Fulton and he nodded. “If you attack I promise you, your losses will be grievous. We will wage unrestricted guerilla warfare. You may be victorious in the end, but your population will revolt from the losses.”

  Jake looked at Gene and waved his hand at Taltson and Fulton. “And these fuckers served in our military?” he asked.

  “Jake, we didn’t always keep the best and brightest around,” Gene sighed. “You can’t threaten like that, Taltson. Guerilla warfare won’t work because there is shit all over the countryside that wants to eat your ass. If you make noise, they eat your ass, if they see you, they eat your ass. It was really easy to track your teams because of this. And about our population, the only way they would revolt is if we let you stay. Most at Hope have lived like those you are holding, and they won’t ever be captured again.”

  “Major,” Fulton snapped. “Please wait outside.”

  Fulton looked at Gene, “With your permission, of course.”

  “Shit, I didn’t like the cocksucker when he was a lieutenant,” Gene huffed. As Taltson left with one of the guards, Jake motioned to one of the troops who headed to the back and carried back two tool bags.

  Fulton looked at the tool bags with wide eyes and jumped when the young man dropped them beside Jake. “A present my Dad gave me,” Jake sighed.

  “I’m under a flag of truce,” Fulton said, swallowing hard.

  “Oh and you will be treated as such, but this is to let you know I can start right here if you try anything,” Jake said as Gene leaned over.

  “If they try something, it’s my turn, damn it,” he whispered harshly.

  “Gene, my bags are already here,” Jake whined and Fulton started fidgeting in his chair.

  Sitting back, Gene huffed, “We flip for it then.”

  “Fair enough,” Jake said then looked at Fulton with a grin. “Anything else?”

  “Um,” Fulton said, glancing at the bags out of the corner of his eyes. “If that is the message Bruce is delivering, I need to hear it from him. Those were my orders.”

  “Okay,” Jake said and Fulton breathed a sigh of relief. “Communication, could you get my Dad?”

  “He won’t come here?” Fulton asked with sweat beading on his face.

  “No,” Gene smiled as Jake leaned over, tapping the table screen and new pictures pulled up.

  “We have your sniper teams,” Jake smiled.

  “They were in place to provide me protection,” Fulton snapped and tried to stand up, only to have a guard push him back into his chair.

  “Bullshit,” Gene snapped. “That’s why it’s my turn. Jake got to use his bags on them.”

  “Okay,” Fulton said, holding up his hands. “If the negotiations didn’t go our way, we were to signal to the snipers to have them attempt to take out Bruce.”

  “You really expected they would?” Gene asked surprised.

  “I didn’t,” Fulton said nervously. “Can I have some water?”

  Gene looked over at one of the guards and nodded. “Fulton, fighting us is your annihilation,” he said and the guard handed Fulton a bottle of water. “Just leave, like we said, without the hostages.”

  Draining the bottle, Fulton nodded and was about to speak when one of the technicians spun around from his console on the wall. “Jake, David is requesting you on the radio,” she said.

  Reaching back, Jake took the microphone, “What is it, David?”

  “These stupid fucks here don’t know shit!” he bellowed and they could hear gunfire in the background, unsuppressed gunfire. “The blues are starting to get thick and I know you can hear them shooting.”

  “Have they attacked you?” Jake asked and Fulton closed his eyes, saying a prayer.

  “Negative, they are holding half a mile away like they were told, but have asked if they could pull closer to us and I told them hell, no,” David called back.

  “Are they being threatened to be overrun?” Jake asked.

  “I’m fucking surprised they made it down here!” David yelled back. “Only a few of their men have suppressors, but everyone is shooting. We will have blues in strength before long.”

  “Are you being pressed?”

  “Hell, no. The blues are running past us to all the noise,” David laughed.

  The door opened and a guard stuck his head in. “This guy you put out here wants to come back in.”

  “Okay,” Gene said and Taltson started up the stairs with a radio, only to have the guard yank it out of his hands and toss it to another guard outside.

  “Colonel, the men are facing significant numbers of infected,” Taltson said with wide eyes.

  “Give me drone feed from the area,” Jake said over his shoulder and the table monitor blinked. An aerial view of military trucks lined up on the road and in the far corner, a similar group of MRAPs were pulled in a defensive circle with four Abrams tanks across the road. All across the countryside, blues were sprinting to those strung out on the road and flashes of gunfire could be seen from all the vehicles on the road.

  “That’s not even ten thousand blues,” Jake scoffed.

  “We don’t have magic bullets!” Taltson shouted and a guard moved up behind him, punching him in the kidney. Taltson dropped to the floor and curled up in a ball.

  “Oh, I forgot to say, don’t yell,” Jake smiled. “But we killed over thirty million before we sold our cow for magic bullets, so what’s your problem?”

  “Bruce will be on screen in a few seconds,” a man called out.

  “Put it on the screen beside the door, so I can keep an eye on the road,” Gene said and a fifty-inch screen mounted on the wall beside the door blinked, showing an empty office. “Um, where’s Bruce?” Gene asked.

  “I was told he was coming,” the man said grinning.

  “God damn it, Mike! They are lying!” they heard Bruce scream from the monitor, but only saw an empty room. “I know it’s here!”

  “Glad I didn’t go with him,” Gene chuckled.

  “No shit,” Jake said.

  “Bruce, we will continue to search, but nobody knows!” Mike bellowed and they saw a leg fly through the screen.

  “Fuck, he’s strong!” they heard Ted shout.

  “Will you hold his damn legs!” Carl shouted.

  They could hear fighting off screen and would catch glimpses of camouflaged clothing from the right on the screen for split seconds. “EEhhhhaaahh,” Bruce screamed. “Ted, quit biting me!”

  “Then quit kicking me!” Ted shouted.

  Slowly, a mass of bodies came on the screen. Carl had Bruce in a full nelson, Mike had Bruce in a headlock and Ted was carrying Bruce’s legs as Bruce continued to struggle. “Give me my knife back and I’ll make that fucker tell me where they hid it!” Bruce shouted.

  “Bruce, he’s still on the floor laughing,” Mike grunted, tightening the headlock.

&
nbsp; “That’s because he knows where the UFO is!” Bruce screamed, getting one of his legs lose and kneed Ted in the face. Ted let go of Bruce’s legs, stumbling back while grabbing his mouth and Bruce pushed back against Carl and Mike.

  Ted charged back over with an open mouth and dropped down, biting Bruce on the right thigh. From the scream Bruce let out, it must have been a very hard bite. “Ted, I know where you live!” Bruce screamed as Ted grabbed his legs again, lifting them off the floor.

  “I feel like I’m babysitting,” Mike said, looking at the camera.

  “Bruce!” he shouted and Bruce kept fighting. “If you don’t stop we are leaving and you can’t even search for it because I’ll blow this place up!”

  Instantly, Bruce quit, “I’ll prank your ass every day until I die.”

  “Bruce, Jake called you, so talk,” Mike said as sweat rained off his face.

  “Okay, let me go.”

  “Fuck, that,” Mike said and pulled Bruce over to the camera and rotated his headlock, so Bruce was looking at the camera.

  “Jake, you see this? They are helping these scientists here hide the UFO from me,” Bruce said and they could see several abrasions on his face.

  “Dad, they want to hear it from you about our proposal to them,” Jake said, shaking his head. “Dad, you’re really embarrassing me.”

  “It’s here, I know it,” Bruce snapped then moved his eyes, looking at Fulton and Taltson. “They are on the command group and I agree with what they say. I just wanted to attack your asses, but got overruled.”

  “Er, um,” Fulton stuttered looking at Bruce. “So we are to leave or be wiped out, is that correct?”

  “Hey, they give you a choice, I wasn’t,” Bruce snapped and cut his eyes toward Mike. “Okay, I talked to them, will you let me go?”

  “No,” Mike snapped.

  “Mike,” Gene chuckled. “I suggest rope.”

  “We tried that and handcuffs, but Bruce was out in minutes. It’s like trying to restrain a five-year-old,” Mike huffed.

  “That, and can hit like a mule,” Carl shouted and they looked at him, seeing his right eye swollen.

  “Dad,” Jake said with a sigh. “They could’ve moved it. That isn’t the only top secret base.”

  Bruce’s struggles ceased as his mouth fell open. “How many more do you know of?”

  “Six more,” Jake said.

  “And you just tell me now?!”

  “Sorry, Dad, but we’ve been busy,” Jake said. “Daddy Mike, we’re done.”

  “Have you called Angela and Stephanie?” Gene asked.

  “Yes, and they said they weren’t coming,” Mike snapped then looked down at Bruce, feeling Bruce still wasn’t fighting. “Bruce, I have a Taser and I swear, you will feel it if you don’t stop.”

  “Didn’t you hear Jake? It might not be here! These fuckers should at least know where it’s at!”

  “Thank you, Mike,” Gene said and looked over his shoulder. “Kill the feed.”

  The screen went blank and Fulton turned around, looking very confused. “What was that about?”

  “Don’t ask,” everyone in the command vehicle said together.

  Nodding, Fulton looked from Jake to Gene. “I hope you realize, we can’t make a trip to South America.”

  “Not our problem,” Jake said, looking at the table screen. “I have to agree with David. I’m surprised you made it here,” he said, seeing the blues getting within a hundred yards of the line of vehicles.

  The lead vehicle suddenly took off as a blue jumped on the hood, heading for the circle David had set up. “That was a mistake,” Jake said and heard David on the radio, telling the vehicle to stop once.

  Five seconds after the warning, a huge flash erupted from one of the tanks. The MRAP exploded, drifting off the highway. “Let me tell my troops to pull back,” Fulton begged, looking at the screen.

  “Bitch, you aren’t staying with us,” Jake snapped.

  “I’ll find a way to rejoin them,” Fulton said, staring at the screen as the blues closed in.

  Jake passed the microphone over. “Tell the dumbasses to pull side by side so they aren’t stretched out. I’ll send my choppers to make a few passes.”

  As Fulton called over the radio, Jake nodded at the man sitting in flight control then looked at Gene. “I really shouldn’t do this.”

  “Nah, we will need something to keep Bruce occupied,” Gene said, watching the table screen.

  “Shit, Dad will wipe these pussies out in a week,” Jake snorted as the ground around the line of vehicles suddenly lit up from bullets striking. Several explosions flashed in the trees beside the road as the vehicles pulled side by side.

  With the group close together and with the help of the choppers, they slowly pushed the blues back. “Thank you,” Fulton said, passing the microphone back. “Taltson, wait outside,” he said.

  Taltson walked out with his guard and Fulton looked at them. “Just to warn you, they will use the civilians as shields,” he said.

  “And you wonder why we won’t welcome you with open arms,” Gene chuckled.

  “Colonel, it won’t be a cakewalk. Please just allow us a hundred-mile area around our encampment. We will stay put, I can assure you,” Fulton said, wiping his brow.

  “Of course you would, until we beat the blues down,” Jake laughed. “As you can see, we’ve been fighting them a long time and know how to win against them. They still pose a threat to us, but not as much as they do to you.”

  “Tell you what,” Gene said, leaning way back in his chair. “You let the hostages go, and I’ll convince Bruce to help clear you a path to South America but once there, there is where you’ll stay.”

  Jake nodded, “Yeah, I will help convince Dad on that.”

  “Davenport will never agree to it,” Fulton said, but had hope on his face.

  “If he does, we get to clear each person you take,” Jake said, looking at the screen and watching an Apache make a gun run. “Hey, that’s enough help,” he said over his shoulder and air traffic called off the choppers.

  “I will present your terms,” Fulton said standing up. “And what of the teams you captured?”

  “Hey, that is considered an attack and they will be dealt with,” Jake said, then looked down at his tool bags.

  “I’ll inform the general,” Fulton said with a nod.

  As Fulton turned to the door, Gene laughed. “Fulton, your boys will be low on ammo, so you better haul ass back.”

  Not responding, Fulton just walked out. When the door closed, Jake pulled out a black box with an antenna flipping a switch. He sighed, seeing a flashing red light as it beeped. Getting up, he walked around the table and waved it around, then moved to the chair Taltson was sitting in.

  “Amateurs,” he said, feeling under the arm of the chair and pulled what looked like a computer chip with a wire. Pulling out a metal box, Jake dropped the bug in and closed the lid. Looking at his detector, he smiled, seeing the flashing stopped.

  Gene shook his head in disbelief, “That took balls,” he said.

  “They watched too many Bond movies when they should’ve watched Bourne,” Jake said, then turned to one of the technicians. “When they are dropped off, tell David to pull back. We are heading home.”

  Gene looked down at the tool bags, “Think we will ever have to use them?”

  Shrugging, Jake sat back down. “Hope not. Dad has put the fear out there but if we do, we will.”

  “Did Danny and them really throw one in the wood chipper?” Gene asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Jake nodded. “And Buffy kept turning the chipper on and off as it sucked the guy in.”

  “Just what the hell did the man say to them?”

  “He called them little whores and told Buffy to suck his dick,” Jake said. “Momma Nancy had to come out and pull Matt off the guy first.”

  “Are we putting the rest on shit detail?” Gene asked a little worried. “Most of the hardened criminals on shit detail h
ave been killed off trying to escape, and we don’t need to waste manpower guarding them.”

  “Naw, we ain’t doin’ that shit,” Jake grinned. “We have bait to catch some blues now.”

  Chapter 22

  It was three days later and Bruce was standing out on the east walkway of the wall around the base, looking back into Hope. Vehicles were pulling in lines getting ready to move out. The hundred acres they were using as an assembly area was getting full rather fast.

  After returning back, Gene reorganized the units. Squads were staying ten strong and five squads still made a platoon, but Gene broke five platoons into companies. Before this, how many platoons they needed were just divided into teams. Sometimes as many as ten platoons in a team.

  It was more orderly, but Bruce didn’t really care. They were still going to war.

  The rows below him were by companies with five companies forming a battalion, twelve hundred and fifty troops strong. Then, five battalions made one regiment of sixty-two hundred.

  As of now, Omega had three regiments and Gamma had two, giving them one division thirty thousand strong. This was only the fighting force because the support elements were half the size of the unit it supplied. When you counted air assets, half of the population was in the fighting force.

  Scavenging groups were still out picking up people but for the first time, they told people to head to them or more precisely, to head to the new base in Alabama. The next base was already under construction in southern Missouri.

  Since the walls were already built there, they just had to be loaded on a train and hauled to the area. As the area was leveled out, the walls were put up and by tomorrow, the walls would be around the plot of land that would serve as their northern base. It still had to have buildings and gates, but they were still building structures in the east base in Alabama.

  “Don’t you love to see that kind of power?” Gene said, walking toward him on the walkway.

  “Have to say, it does look better than my first group of Omega,” Bruce chuckled.