by Spell, David
She threw Jimmy the keys to her SUV and called Chuck to check his status. He said that Luis’ Suburban had taken some hits but it was drivable. Since she was closer, Rebecca said they would go pick up Andy and Scotty at the hospital. The plan was for them to all meet at the office for a quick debrief before heading home.
Rebecca let the two men sit up front and she got in the back. She called Andy to let him know they were coming to get them.
“We were beginning to think that you'd forgotten about us over here,” said Andy. “These things are showing up at the hospital. Scotty and I have shot three and one of the security guards used his flashlight to smash the skull of another one.
"The hospital staff has put restraints on several people. We'll see if that helps. And, neither one of us even have a shirt on. This is like a bad Tarzan movie or something. Thankfully, the security guys here at the hospital loaned us their jackets. I think Scotty actually enjoyed running around and fighting zombies bare-chested.”
Johnson could not help but laugh out loud. “Thanks, Andy. That's the only thing that I've heard today that was funny. We'll see you in a few.”
She told Eddie and Jimmy what Andy had said. They both snickered at the idea of Scotty looking like Rambo fighting zombies without a shirt on and Andy wearing only a hospital gown.
The local police departments had been getting 911 calls for the last few hours in the surrounding areas. A number of people who had been bitten at the Arbor Place Mall, at Six Flags, and at the stadium did not want to go to the hospital. Instead, they went home and treated the wounds themselves.
Antibiotic cream is great for cleaning the wound and for protecting against infection. It had no affect at all on the virus that had already entered their bloodstream. Family members and friends saw their loved ones transformed into murderous monsters. Entire families were killed as some of those people reanimated as zombies.
The police response times were slow because so many officers were at the different crime scenes. By the time an officer arrived, he or she often found themselves confronted by one or more of the creatures. Officers were hesitant to shoot unarmed people and in several cases, police officers were infected by being bitten and the cycle continued.
Westside Hospital, Emergency Room, Saturday, 0245 hours
Fleming and Smith had already given their statements to one of the local police officers in regards to the shootings at the hospital. Normally, several detectives, and in this case, FBI agents as well, would have responded to this type of crime scene but they were all assisting at Six Flags, the mall, and the Braves Stadium. The bodies of those killed at the hospital were being stored in their morgue until the Medical Examiner could retrieve them. Several other wounded and infected people had been brought in. So far, none of them had turned.
When Rebecca and the other two officers arrived, Andy and Scotty walked them through the scene in the ER and outside. Eddie and Jimmy had given Scotty and Andy their kevlar jackets so they could give the coats they were wearing back to the security guards. Scotty could not quite get Eddie’s jacket on so he just draped it around his shoulders.
The four men were talking near the ER exit. Scotty was telling them how he had very smoothly gotten Paramedic Emily Clark’s phone number. He had called the number and gotten her voicemail. He was just happy because she had given him her real number and not a made-up one like Andy had suggested. He left her a short message, thanking her for taking such good care of him after he had gotten shot and promising to call her again over the weekend.
Rebecca was further down the hall talking to Doctor Schuler, a representative from the CDC Emergency Management Team, and a couple of the nurses. The nurse who had been bitten earlier was in the next room down. They had cleaned her wounds where she had been bitten and an IV of strong antibiotics was being pumped into her system.
She had also been given a CAT scan and they could see that she had sustained a concussion. The doctor had sedated her and she was under observation. Heeding Andy’s advice, they had put restraints on her wrists.
At some point, the virus had done it’s dirty work and the nurse had turned into a zombie. She was a big woman. The virus enhanced her natural strength and she began pulling on the restraints. They began to loosen under the tension. One of them broke and the other became so loose, she simply pulled her hand free. She stood and the IV fell to the floor with a crash. The infected nurse began walking into the door. Noise was coming from outside. She was attracted to the noise.
Doctors and nurses are trained to help people. They are not trained to think in terms of danger. A young nurse was walking down the hall and heard the bumping at the door. Thinking that someone needed help, she pushed the door open.
Rebecca and the group that she was talking to heard a scream from behind them. They turned to see hands pulling the nurse into the room. The cry of fear got louder.
Jimmy heard the scream, too, and saw Rebecca turn around quickly and draw her Glock. He started towards her but was at the other end of the hallway. She stepped towards one of the examination rooms and raised the pistol. A gunshot echoed down the corridor. The other three officers launched themselves down the hallway to help.
The younger nurse was on the ground. She crab walked out of the room. When the zombie nurse had grabbed her and tried to bite her, she had dropped to the floor. Rebecca had fired as soon as the girl dropped out of the way, hitting the zombie in the forehead. She fell onto her back just inside her room.
Several of the bystanders grabbed the young nurse and checked her for injuries. She was unharmed but traumatized. She reached for Rebecca and hugged her.
“Thank you for saving my life,” she said.
Chuck and Luis got to the hospital fifteen minutes later after Eddie had called and let them know about the additional shooting. There were two marked police cars parked near the ER entrance. Eddie, Jimmy, Andy, and Scotty were all standing outside talking. Cops have been doing that as long as there have been cops, thought McCain. Standing around at the end of a shift and telling war stories.
“Hey, Chuck,” said Scotty. “Did you get to ride any roller coasters at Six Flags? I know Luis couldn’t ride anything. He wasn’t as tall as the little man’s hand.”
Everybody laughed. Luis let Scotty know that he thought he was number one. It was good to let off a little steam.
“Scotty, you know you look like a homeless guy, right?” said McCain. “You need to start carrying a change of clothes with you so you'll have something to wear the next time you get shot. So, where's the boss?”
“She's giving her statement to the police,” said Eddie. “These two guys,” motioning at the police cars, “are handling the whole thing. They are taking pictures of the scene and getting statements from all the witnesses and, of course, Rebecca. One of those officers told me that they're being assigned to stay here for the rest of the night in case any more of our zombie friends show up.”
“Is Rebecca ok?”
“Man, you should've seen her,” said Jimmy. “This big nurse turned into a zombie and grabbed this little nurse and was getting ready to put the bite on her neck. The boss drew and put a round into zombie nurse’s forehead in nothing flat. It was good shooting.”
“And she did a great job clearing that mall with us,” said Eddie. “She and a young, off-duty, Fulton County officer, Chris. We loaned him a rifle and Rebecca handled hers like she'd done that a time or two. We shot twenty-six Zs and I bet she shot eight or ten of them. I was impressed.”
‘She looks like a model but was as tough as nails and was pretty good in a firefight,’ Chuck remembered hearing that special forces sergeant say.
Chuck nodded. “What's the plan now? It's pretty late. Are we still going to the office for a debrief?”
“No. After this last shooting, she told us to go on home and we would debrief on Sunday,” said Eddie. "She said we need to come in Sunday morning at 0800, ready to jump back into the fight."
“What did the doctor s
ay to you guys?” Chuck asked Andy and Scotty. “How long are you going to be out of work?”
“Out of work?” asked Scotty. “Why would we be out of work?”
“Well, you got shot today, for one thing.”
“Oh, that. The doctor had just finished patching us up when the zombies started invading the hospital. They never actually discharged us. I think in all the excitement, they forgot about us,” said Smith.
“Andy, you probably need some time off. How bad is your wound?”
“Chuck, this is nothing. I've hurt myself worse shaving. I'll be fine. Me and Scotty will be in on Sunday. We haven’t given any kind of statement for the shootout on the interstate. Those officers at the scene said someone will contact us on Sunday or Monday. But if you guys are going back out on Sunday, we'll be with you.”
McCain nodded. These men were true warriors. It would take more than the minor wounds they had taken to keep them out of the fight.
“If you guys want to head on home, take one of the Suburbans and I'll wait for the boss.”
“That sounds like a plan,” said Eddie, winking at the rest of the officers. “Right, guys?”
The men all gave knowing smiles and said, “Yeah, that’s a great idea."
"Thanks for taking one for the team, Chuck,” said Jimmy, smiling at him.
He found Rebecca sitting with an older, chunky, uniformed officer in a small office. His belly hung way over his gun belt and his hair was greased over to the side. She was telling him what had happened and he was recording it on a small recorder. They couldn't see Chuck so he just stood back and watched. When her statement was finished, the officer turned the recorder off.
It was clear that he was working hard to impress Rebecca with his charm and good looks. He even offered to give her a ride home, which she declined. He handed her a card that had his personal cell phone number on it and said, “If you need anything, anything at all, just give me a call.”
She thanked him and stepped out into the hallway. When she saw Chuck watching them, her eyes lit up.
“Hey, you,” she said. “What a day, huh?”
The portly officer came out of the office and saw Rebecca talking to Chuck. Chuck stared at him until the man remembered that there was somewhere else he needed to be.
“Who's Officer Sexy?” he asked.
She smiled. “He's very sexy. He gave me his phone number and told me I could call on him for anything.”
Chuck just shook his head and smiled. “Well, I'm sure I don’t have as much going for me as that guy, but can I offer you a ride?”
“That's the best offer I've had since a nice man made me breakfast yesterday.”
“Was that just yesterday? That seems like it was a week ago. Yeah, you're right. What a day.”
“Where are the other guys?”
“I sent them on home. There was no sense in all of us standing around.”
She nodded and smiled again. “Very sneaky, Mr. McCain. I bet those guys had no idea that you just wanted to drive me home by yourself.”
“No, they’re pretty smart. I'm sure I'll pay for my indiscretions later,” he laughed. “Cops can be pretty ruthless. But some things are worth the price."
CHAPTER NINE
Coming Clean
Interstate 285, Saturday, 0330 hours
Traffic was light as Rebecca and Chuck caught each other up on all that had happened after they had separated on the highway the day before. She told him about the terror inside the Arbor Place Mall and about the equally chaotic parking lot. He recounted for her the horrible scenes that he had witnessed inside Six Flags Over Georgia.
“Eddie and Jimmy said you were a bad…I mean they said you really handled yourself well,” he said.
“Oh, yeah? Well, all that training paid off. Those guys are amazing. You know these two teams are some of the best guys that I've ever worked with.”
“I would have to agree with you,” said Chuck. “Did you see much action in Afghanistan?” A shot in the dark, he thought.
A pause. “What makes you think I was in Afghanistan?” she asked. She had known this moment would come eventually.
“I thought that you said something about being there with the State Department.”
“You're a really bad liar, Chuck.”
They stared at each other. “So, tell me what's on your mind,” she said.
The last thing that he wanted to do was to make her her mad at him or have her tell him to mind his own business. At the same time, he wanted to know the truth. What they were investigating was becoming bigger and more deadly everyday. They had lost one man and had had two more wounded. He wanted to know what they were really involved in.
McCain took a deep breath. “When I was in Afghanistan, working with the special forces, I overheard some of the guys talking about a beautiful, tall, blonde CIA agent. They said, ‘She looks like a model but was as tough as nails and was pretty good in a firefight.’ They were talking about you, weren’t they?”
She looked out the window. She had already decided that when he asked, she was going to come clean with him. Chuck was a tough one to keep secrets from. He was just too smart for her to continue trying to lie to him.
“I've worked for the CIA for twelve years. For ten of those years, I've been a field agent. I was stationed in DC but I traveled the world working on different types of assignments. Most of my jobs were in Europe and South America. It was challenging, fun, and not very dangerous.
“Then I got a new boss a couple of years ago. I'd heard some stories about him, about how he liked to prey on the young female agents, offering to help them in their careers in return for a few “favors.” He assigned me to his office, supposedly to help him manage other agents.
“In reality, he was just hoping that I'd be willing to do some things for him and to him to help my career. I managed to stay out of his way as much as I could but one day, it was just him and me in the office. He put his hands on me and told me how much he wanted me.
“I played along until he dropped his pants. Then, I kneed him in the groin and smashed his face into the desk. I grabbed my stuff and left. The next day I had new orders. I was being sent to Afghanistan.”
There was no way to countermand the orders. Rebecca knew that she had to go where she was sent. She also had no recourse for her boss’s unwanted advances. There was no evidence other than his bruised body parts and his bloody mouth from hitting the desk. He told everyone that he had slipped in the shower. It was just her word against his.
Johnson was scared. Afghanistan was not a place for women. It was one of the most backward countries in the world and women there were little more than property. What could she really hope to accomplish on this assignment other than staying alive?
She called her retired special forces step-father and told him about her new assignment. She said she wanted to get some extra training before she left. He gave her the number of a Navy SEAL turned firearms and tactics instructor.
Rebecca took thirty days of vacation before leaving for the Middle East and hired Roy Murphy to train her. It was expensive but it was worth it. Roy built on the foundation that she already had from her CIA training. He focused on her pistol and rifle skills and her tactics.
Having spent quite a bit of time in Afghanistan himself, he was the perfect instructor for her. Rebecca shot and shot and shot some more. After her intensive thirty days with Roy, she felt much more prepared for her new assignment.
She was the only woman assigned to the field office in Afghanistan. And, of course, the male agents all tried to lay a claim on her. She nicely, but firmly, told them that she did not date her co-workers.
The Station Chief began giving her assignments. Most of them involved meeting with people who claimed to have information about weapon caches, information on people who were working with ISIS, and requests for political asylum. Whenever she left the compound to conduct an interview, two or more security contractors would go with her. They were responsib
le for keeping the agents safe. These were good men and most of them had a background as SEALs, Special Forces, Delta Force, Rangers, or Marine Spec Ops.
Information and reports began trickling in about a new bio-chemical weapon that the terrorists were starting to use in Afghanistan near the Iranian border. Since she was the new girl, Rebecca was sent to interview witnesses who told her crazy stories of dead bodies coming back to life and then attacking people. When she showed her reports to the Station Chief and her fellow agents, they just laughed.
She didn't know if she believed these people or not, but one thing was sure. The people whom she had interviewed believed what they had seen. She had looked into their eyes and knew they were convinced that they had seen dead bodies reanimate and rip people apart with their hands and their teeth. And the number of these kinds of incidents kept increasing.
Johnson’s step-father had told her that if she really wanted to know what was going on, she needed to talk to the special forces teams that were working in the area. She got the information from her Station Chief about the green berets in the area and then sent the team leader a message. Rebecca asked him for a meeting at one of the CIA’s safe houses. She felt that a meeting on neutral turf might be the best thing for both of them.
Rebecca and her two security contractors arrived at the house early. She made some coffee and waited. The army SF captain and his team sergeant arrived. They were both wearing jeans, pullover shirts, and vests to conceal their pistols and hold extra magazines. They were also carrying their M4 rifles.
The soldiers were clearly wary of her. What was the CIA going to ask them to do now? The relationship between the special forces teams and the CIA was tenuous at best. The soldiers often received orders for missions that were initiated by the CIA. The Agency only contacted them when they needed something. The SF guys seldom felt that they were a part of the team.
