“We need to get the POTUS and VPOTUS out of here now,” another said.
Mitchell felt a hand tugging his shoulder, but he couldn’t pull his eyes from the pack of Variants. There was something else different about them—something off from the others he’d seen in photos.
One of the monsters glanced up at the camera with its grotesque slitted eyes, as if it could sense being watched. It staggered over, chewing on a chunk of Ralph’s face. The naked creature’s oily skin stretched as it moved, lean muscles flexing. The mounted video camera provided the perfect snapshot of humanity’s ever-evolving enemy. In a span of a minute, the monster’s skin slowly reverted back to the pale, veiny flesh Mitchell had seen before. The beast continued to the doors, feeding as it walked. When it got there, it cupped the piece of Ralph’s flesh against its side and leaned in to sniff the rusted metal. Then it placed an ear to the door.
“Sir! We need to move! NOW!” someone shouted.
Mitchell wanted to tell everyone to shut the hell up, but he remained silent, staring with grim fascination as the Variant turned from the door and discarded the steak of human flesh. It crouched on the ground, pointed at the other Variants, and howled. If Mitchell didn’t know any better, it had issued a command to the pack.
A blink of an eye later, the other creatures had abandoned Ralph’s mutilated carcass and were ramming the back door to Cheyenne Mountain.
-3-
Beckham knelt next to the cross marking Lieutenant Colonel Jensen’s grave. The ceremony had been short, and the men and women who had come to honor Jensen had already dispersed. Beckham had stayed to pay his final, silent respects. He bowed his head, said a prayer, and let his friend go. Not because he wanted to, but because he had to. There was a war to fight, and Jensen wouldn’t want anything to distract the survivors from victory. He had loved his country, loved being a soldier. Carrying on the fight was the best way Beckham could think of to honor his memory.
“I won’t let you down, sir,” Beckham whispered. “RIP, brother.”
Standing, Beckham took a moment to scan the other white crosses jutting out of the soil. Although Jinx’s grave wasn’t marked, he knew exactly where it was.
A hand clapped Beckham on the shoulder. He turned to see Chow with Apollo. Lost in his thoughts, Beckham hadn’t heard them approach.
“You ready, Boss?” Chow asked.
Beckham nodded and reached down to pat Apollo on the head.
For the next hour, the two Delta Operators patrolled the shoreline in the fleeting moonlight. Apollo followed close behind, his fur glistening from his dip in the ocean. Regardless of the second bath, he still had a streak of blood on his beard from the night before that wouldn’t go away.
Dense shadows rolled across the dark skyline. With every step Beckham took, a sinking feeling rose in his gut. He stopped on a ridgeline overlooking the water. The boat they had seen earlier was nowhere in sight, and for the first time in days the bay was void of any derelict ships. They had all either run aground or drifted farther out to sea. Crickets chirped from the bushes ahead, but beyond the sounds of nature, it was eerily quiet.
Beckham scanned the guard posts to the west. Tower 4 protruded from a bluff overlooking the beach. He could vaguely make out the muzzle of Fitz’s MK11. With the Marine covering his back, Beckham felt better about their lack of firepower.
Chow’s radio crackled a moment later. “Ghost 2, Central. Over.”
Beckham recognized Corporal Hook’s sharp voice.
“Ghost 2,” Chow said.
“Report back to Command ASAP.”
Beckham scoped the bay one last time before he followed Chow back to the base. They made a pit stop at Tower 4.
“Fitz, you up there, brother?” Beckham said.
The Marine looked out the window and waved. “Sure am. Got a long night ahead of me.”
“You need anything?” Beckham asked.
“No, I’m good. Thanks, though.”
Beckham looked down at Apollo. “How do you feel about keeping our friend here company?”
The dog’s tail began to wag until it was thumping.
“I’m leaving Apollo here with you. Stay frosty, Fitz,” Beckham said. “As you know, someone’s been casing the island.”
Fitz raised his MK11 into the air. “Oorah.”
Beckham smiled at that and patted Apollo on the head. “Stay, boy. Look after Fitz.”
Apollo craned his head. The dog knew close to one hundred verbal commands and hand gestures. Stay wasn’t one he seemed to like, even if it was to protect Fitz. Beckham could feel Apollo watching him as he continued with Chow through the underbrush. The dog was as loyal as any soldier, and fought just as fiercely.
Back at the base, Major Smith and Horn waited on the landing of Building 5. The Major had an anxious look on his face, but Beckham guessed it had more to do with the lieutenant colonel’s funeral.
“Secretary Ringgold would like to speak to you three. She’s waiting inside,” Smith said.
Beckham eyed Horn’s bicep. A strawberry-sized stain had blossomed across the fresh white bandage wrapped around his muscular arm.
“Did she say what about, sir?” Chow asked.
Smith shook his head. “Nope, but Dr. Lovato and Dr. Ellis spoke with her this morning. She was asking about the VX-99 program. I’m guessing she’s trying to get to the bottom of things.”
Beckham scrutinized Smith more closely as he approached the stairs. Swollen bags rimmed the major’s eyes. They weren’t from lack of sleep, either—they were from shedding tears. Beckham wasn’t the only one on the island who’d been close with Lieutenant Colonel Jensen. His death had hit Smith hard. It had hit everyone hard. And they hadn’t even had the time to mourn him. Hell, they hadn’t had time to mourn anyone. Beckham was just glad they’d been able to lay Jensen to rest. He deserved more than they had given him, but for now it was all they could do.
Smith led them down the hallway to the Command Center. He stopped outside and glanced through the window cresting the door. Secretary Ringgold sat at the war table, sifting through a pile of files in front of her.
An image of choppers descending on the island to arrest Team Ghost rose in Beckham’s mind. He reached for the door handle, anxious to give her their side of the story.
“Be polite, Big Horn,” Beckham said.
“Don’t worry, Boss. The blood loss won’t affect my judgment. I promise.”
Beckham hesitated. “I thought you said you were fine.”
Horn grinned. “I am, man. Doc said I’m good to go.”
Twisting the handle, Beckham nodded. He strolled into the room and stopped a few feet inside to place his hands by his sides and straighten his spine, just like he’d learned when he was a grunt.
“Madam Secretary,” he said.
“Ah, Master Sergeant Beckham.” She looked at the men in turn and said, “No reason to be formal. Come sit down with me.”
“Ma’am,” Beckham said, and reluctantly stepped forward to take a seat. Horn and Chow followed.
Smith remained at the door, his arms crossed.
Ringgold closed the file folder in front of her, pulled off her glasses, and set them neatly on the table. “I’m sorry about Lieutenant Colonel Jensen. I’m told he was a good man.”
Beckham wanted to nod, but kept his features relaxed. She had done her homework, and he liked that about her. It meant she was objective and resourceful. She was looking for both sides of the story.
“You’re probably wondering why I’ve asked you here,” Ringgold continued. She raised a brow and glanced at Beckham. “Then again, you already know, don’t you Master Sergeant?”
Beckham had an idea and wanted to get right to it, but he thought he should play by the rules. He could see Horn and Chow getting impatient, too, so he let Ringgold keep the floor and sent a cautionary eye at his men.
“I’d like to hear about Building 8 and your experiences with Colonel Gibson, Colonel Wood, and General Kennor,” Ringgold said. “I’ve
been in contact with President Mitchell’s staff at Cheyenne Mountain. They know about the altercation that occurred here. I’m assuming General Johnson does, too. Before I reach out to him, I’d like to hear the details from you.”
Beckham’s heart was kicking harder than during a firefight with Variants. The future of everything he cared about depended on the next words that came from his mouth. She wasn’t a crooked politician like Chow had suggested, but despite the fact Beckham had saved her from Raven Rock, he could see in her eyes she didn’t trust him.
Not yet.
Over the next fifteen minutes, Beckham walked Ringgold through the key events of the past five weeks, starting with Building 8 and concluding with the shot that ended Colonel Wood’s life. Ringgold didn’t so much as shift in her chair during the first half of the story. This was a woman who had been grilled on Capitol Hill—a woman accustomed to hearing the very worst of what the government had to offer. By the end, however, her dark cheeks were flushed and a bead of sweat dripped from her brow. She placed her glasses back on, pushed them higher on her nose, and folded her hands on the table.
“Dr. Lovato told me much the same,” Ringgold said. “Although your story is a bit more detailed and graphic.” She let out a sigh and looked to Horn and Chow, then back at Beckham.
“I’m in a very peculiar situation here. On the one hand, I could reach out to President Mitchell personally and request his help. Vice President Black is acting Secretary of Defense and he could have some pull in the military, but with General Johnson at the helm, I’m not sure who we can trust. Johnson was Kennor’s confidant long before the Hemorrhage Virus ever got out of Building 8.”
Beckham wanted to interject, but patiently waited for her to finish. From his peripheral vision, he saw Corporal Hook hurry away from the radio equipment to Smith. They spoke in hushed voices.
After a long pause, Ringgold locked eyes with Beckham and said, “I’ve lost everything. My family. My staff. Every friend I ever knew. But the one thing I still have is my ability to communicate and to read people. I’ve built a career on those two things.”
Smith raised his voice, but Beckham kept his gaze on Ringgold. He remembered the treaty she’d helped negotiate between Palestine and Israel a year back when she’d first been elected Secretary of State. No one had believed she could get it done, but she did, and had helped bring peace to a sliver of land in the Middle East that hadn’t seen it for centuries.
“I saw something in you back at Raven Rock, Master Sergeant. Something that’s rare in men. I’m going to trust my gut on this one and believe your story. But before I contact President Mitchell and lay our cards on the table, I need to know something.”
Beckham waited, his heart thumping so hard it felt like it was going to break through his ribs and plop on the table.
“I need to know if you can protect me here,” Ringgold said.
Beckham considered looking over at Chow and Horn. Instead, he nodded confidently. “I will do everything in my power to ensure your safety, Madam Secretary.”
“Good enough.”
Before Beckham could reply, Smith interrupted.
“About that call to President Mitchell,” he said.
Secretary Ringgold twisted in her chair. “Yes, Major.”
“Corporal Hook just got word from Cheyenne Mountain. They are evacuating. The Variants have found the complex.”
Kate spent the majority of the day with Ellis in the lab that housed the bioreactors. Her only break had been Lieutenant Colonel Jensen’s funeral. Since then, she’d struggled to focus on work. She tried to shake away the thoughts of his death, but every time she tried to concentrate, she saw Wood shooting Jensen in the chest. The shock of it all would come crashing back over her.
Kate walked through the labs to the north end of Building 1. The bioreactors were kept in a room sealed off from the other labs. When Kate had first seen the twelve one-thousand-liter reactors, she hadn’t been sure what to think. It hadn’t taken her long to figure out why they were there. Colonel Gibson hadn’t bought the expensive equipment just in case; he’d procured them to create a cure to the Hemorrhage Virus that Dr. Medford had created—a cure that was never developed.
Shaking her head, Kate went to Reactor 1. She peered inside the small window of the cylinder and then to the monitor. The machines didn’t do anything but keep the cells alive and extract the media the cells lived in. The real machines were the hybridoma cells that produced the antibodies. And they were already churning them out at a remarkable rate. She couldn’t see them growing, but the read-outs from the computer showed something amazing.
“Is this right?” Kate asked.
Ellis typed several commands into the computer connected to Reactor 12. He turned in her direction with a glowing smile behind his visor. “Our modifications to the hybridoma cells seem to be working. The genes we added are successfully producing enzymes that increase antibody production by over three times the normal rate.”
She hadn’t expected it to work so well. In fact, she was almost shocked to hear the antibody production was expedited at this level. The cultures normally took about eight weeks to finish, but the cells inside these bioreactors had been genetically engineered using an experimental technique developed to speed up the production of antibodies. It would cut the time down significantly. They might meet their two-week timetable after all. Heck, at this rate, they might even beat it.
Kate put her gloved hands back on the reactor, leaning in for another look. The faster the antibodies populated, the more human lives they could save. She almost didn’t even recognize the feeling rising inside her—hope. If the other three labs were yielding the same results, then maybe they could all push the timeline up.
“This is good,” Kate said. “Actually, this is excellent. Now we just need help connecting with other labs to expedite antibody production outside the US. Tomorrow morning, I’ll see if Secretary Ringgold has made any progress.”
Ellis nodded and followed her to the exit. They locked the room and walked through the empty labs until they got back to their own.
“Do you mind filing the report and documenting what we did today?” Ellis asked. “I have something to finish up.”
“Sure, thing.” She looked at the clock. It was already past eleven, and Beckham was probably back from his patrol. She didn’t get to say much to him after Jensen’s burial, and she wanted to make sure he was okay.
Kate hurried through the report and double-checked her work before she finally shut off her computer. “All done; I’m heading home for the night.”
Ellis kept his visor pressed against a microscope. “Sounds good.”
She took a step toward the lab exit, hesitated, and said, “Aren’t you going to wrap things up here?”
“In a bit, but I’m going to study these blood samples a little longer.”
“What are you looking for, exactly?”
Ellis pulled his visor away from the scope and swiveled his chair to face her. “Nothing specific. Just studying the samples we recovered from Colonel Wood’s cache.”
Kate thought of Beckham again. He was probably waiting for her in their room. She still hadn’t told him about her pregnancy, and part of her wanted to rush out of the lab. But Ellis was keeping something from her, and she needed to know what.
“Doesn’t sound like you,” Kate said. “You always know what you’re looking for.”
“I’m worried, Kate.” There was trepidation in Ellis’s normally cheery voice, and his smile was gone.
“Worried about what? I thought you would be pleased about the results.”
“I am, it’s just...”
“What?”
“I’m worried that Kryptonite isn’t going to work on the scale we think it will.”
“What makes you think that?” Kate worked her way back to his station and pulled a stool over next to him. She had reservations too, but there wasn’t much they could do about that until the rockets were launched, and for n
ow all they could do was continue forward with the production of the antibodies.
Ellis gave her a sidelong glance. “Besides the fact we haven’t run months of trials and tests?”
Kate felt her features crunch into a frown. “Yes, besides that.”
Ellis was silent for a moment. He stared down at his desk, then back at his scope. “I’m sorry, Kate.”
“Sorry for what?”
Ellis gestured for her to come closer. “For not telling you about this earlier.”
Kate took in a breath, mentally preparing herself for the worst. She pressed her visor against the scope and blinked.
“This is a tissue sample from a Variant in the Florida Keys. A Marine unit extracted it after their team came under attack about four days ago. Wood brought it with him yesterday.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I haven’t had time,” Ellis said defensively. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Kate replied. “Now tell me everything.”
“These Variants were different.”
“Different how?”
Ellis raised a hand. “Before you yell at me, just know I wanted to study them so I could give you better info—”
“Ellis!”
He lowered his hand and let out a deep sigh. “These Variants had gills.”
“Gills?”
“And that’s not all. The Marines claim the Variants set a trap. The Variants in Key West left an injured woman in a street for the Marines to find.”
“Setting a trap requires a level of intelligence far beyond any of the Variants we have studied, Ellis. The report has to be wrong.”
“I don’t think so. I read it over thoroughly, and everything they described indicates the Variants planted that woman there like a piece of bait to lure a fish.”
Kate shook her head. “I don’t...” She stopped herself short of saying she didn’t believe the report. There was documentation from military units across the country about Variants that seemed to display higher levels of intelligence. Some even seemed to lead battles or hunting parties. But planting a trap?
“There’s more,” Ellis said. He leaned over to his computer and keyed in his password. When the monitor activated, he moused over to a file. “This was taken five days ago at a Navy installation in Antarctica.”
Extinction Evolution (The Extinction Cycle Book 4) Page 5
