The M119 was of British design and had quite a unique way of being used. The right wheel had to be removed when emplacing the piece then reinstalled. Unlike the older artillery pieces, this was quite different. For road travel, the barrel was moved to the six O’clock position and that required the right wheel to again be removed and reinstalled. To Ackley, the whole concept of removing and replacing a wheel to get the barrel aligned was too much like masturbation without the reward. Whoever thought of this concept was someone who could sell ice cubes to the Inuit in the far northern reaches of the Arctic Circle. It didn’t make a lot of sense as modern artillery was more a shoot and scoot procedure because the advanced science of counter-battery fire was now a serious threat. That threat was non-existent in this changed new world and it was pretty unlikely that if they had to evacuate Cascade for any reason that they’d be spending time configuring artillery pieces for road travel.
A fairly unpleasant aroma announced the arrival of Shorty, Cascade’s mechanical genius. Ackley turned and looked at the short, rotund man who wore a heavily stained CAT baseball cap tilted at an angle. His coveralls had been a dark blue at one time, now they were covered in grease, oil, hydraulic fluid, spilled beverages, and slopped meals.
“That’s close enough, Shorty,” Ackley said, his eyes starting to water from the heavy stench of body odor. “You fix that trailer yet?”
Shorty, no one knew his last name and he wasn’t offering, turned his head to one side and spit a stream of brown tobacco juice then used the back of his hand to wipe the dribble from his mouth.
“It’s as fixed at its going to get,” Shorty said. “I done told Martin and them other boys that they need to start shopping for a new one. This one is about fixed at its going to get.”
Ackley thought for a moment, there were all kinds of cargo trailers at Lewis. But, only Martin’s Unimog and the military vehicles had the correct hitch attachment to use them. But, there were several trailer sales outlets inside their forage circle and those usually contained a large selection of cargo trailers. He’d mention that to Martin at the next meeting.
“What those boys building over there? Looks like a big ass circle jerk,” Shorty said, peering around Ackley to look at the artillery piece. “That sure is a right mighty big gun,” he said, punctuating his sentence with another ejection of tobacco juice and a wipe of his hand across his mouth.
“You think they need any help over there?” Shorty asked his use of the word help came out as ‘hep’.
“They got it under control,” Ackley said.
“That’s a real pretty gun for sure,” Shorty said before he turned and walked back to his shop. Ackley was glad that the town had someone of Shorty’s skills but being in his presence was a whole different experience.
Ackley’s two-way radio crackled, announcing that the last forage run to Lewis was leaving in thirty minutes. He turned from the crew working on the M119 and headed in the direction of the East Gate where the convoy was forming. He wanted to make sure the forage team knew to look for water filtration equipment and supplies. There was a serious need to prevent waterborne illnesses. He had seen what Guardia and Cholera could do and it wasn’t a pleasant sight. On the plus side, the walk would help clean out his nasal passages.
***
Chapter 10
DARPA Facility, Nevada Desert
“Don’t you see? This makes all the difference,” Chambers stated vehemently to Heller. “This could be the start to unraveling all this. The virus manufactures this compound and that in turn makes the infected appear impervious to injuries outside of massive head trauma. But, that’s just the beginning.”
Heller was silent as he thought about what Chambers had just told him as he looked at the data from the memory stick on his laptop.
“I see it but I don’t believe it,” Heller said shaking his head. “You’re sure about this?” he asked looking up at the research scientist.
Chambers nodded and pointed to the data. “It’s all right there.” Heller looked back at the information that was scrolling down his screen.
“This is a lot to take in,” Heller stated as he read the screen.
“I know,” Chambers said pacing the floor in Heller’s small office. “It’s so fantastical that it reads like bad science fiction. What we're seeing at this stage is not reanimated corpses. Oh no. That is not the case at all. What we're seeing is God knows how many mutations beyond the core virus. You see, each person's immune system is different. The virus reacts and changes and that's where we get mutations. I'm no virologist but I can tell that there have been several generations of mutation. The infected we see now are 6th or 7th, possibly even as far as the 12th generation removed from the initial victims. These 'new' infected are different. From the video that was shot by your drones, they seem to gather together and even problem solve to some extent. They're moving to more of a herd mentality. And then there’s the pregnancy issues.”
“How can they reproduce? I mean, they’re like rabid animals. How do they…” Heller trailed off and then made a gesture with his fist, pumping horizontally. “You know?” he asked as he looked at the stills taken from the digital video of the drones when they entered the casinos in Vegas.
“Nature finds a way. It’s rather rudimentary that a species knows how to procreate. And this is what we’re seeing, a new species. I need more tests, more data to be as close to 100% as possible on the results,” Chambers stated.
“Shit, doc. How positive are you right now?” Heller asked, pausing the data stream and looking up.
“99.5% positive,” Chambers said as he stopped pacing. Heller looked at him silently for several minutes before leaning back in his chair and letting out a whistle.
“Sonovabitch. Thanks for breaking it to me gently,” Heller said slowly shaking his head. “So what do we do about it?”
“Containment comes to mind,” Chambers stated. “By any means possible,” he added.
“Shit,” the Air Force officer muttered. He removed his glasses and cupped his face in his hands, taking several deep breaths. Taking his hands away, he put his glasses back on.
“I need to make some calls. This is way beyond my pay grade,” he said trying to inject a little humor.
“Don’t take too long, this needs to be dealt with as soon as possible,” Chambers said.
“I know doc, I know,” Heller said.
“If we continue to allow the infected relatively free roam, they’ll increase their numbers and be able to do God knows what,” Chambers said. “We don’t even know how the virus is passed onto any infants. The placental barrier should stop it but we have no way of knowing if it does. This is already gone beyond anything we know. If these infected are capable of giving birth, live birth, then they can multiply and we’d never know until their numbers swelled to a breaking point. We need to stop this now. By any means possible.” Chambers shook his head. “No one is prepared for this. This is a decision that needs to be made by someone that has the authority to do so.”
“I got it, doc. I’ll take care of it right now,” Heller stated picking up the phone on his desk. "Hey. One more question. If these infected aren't walking corpses, then why do they smell so bad?"
"What?" Chambers asked.
"Lieutenant Willis said they smell real bad. Like a mix between boiled cabbages, open sewer, and spoiled milk."
Chambers thought about that. He had been in a RACAL suit and hadn't been exposed to any smell that Harold had given off.
"To put it bluntly, they've been wearing the same clothes they had on when they were infected. That means they've emptied their bowels, urinated, puked, bled, been sprayed with bodily fluids during an attack and any number of other things since then. They also seem to be a Petri dish for all kinds of bacteria. The samples I have are teeming with all sorts of bacteria. They're not dying off from secondary infections at all," Chambers said.
"Yeah," Heller said. "That’s good to know."
***
Chapter 11
Site R, Raven Rock Military Complex (RRMC)
“Mr. President, General Wilbur at NORAD is on in the Situation Room,” Erwin Grayson, POTUS Security Detail SAC said.
Hamilton Jefferson Wood looked up from his wife’s bedside, bleary eyed, and nodded. FLOTUS, Dana Wood had suffered some kind of de-habilitating episode that the medical staff of Site R had been hard pressed to diagnosis. The medical staff had settled on a diagnosis that was a mixture of extreme stress coupled with anxiety, lack of sleep, and a whole list of other possible causes. Since that time, there had been minimal improvements to her well being. Recently, she had squeezed her husband’s hand and moved her eyes to look at him.
“Inform the Joint Chiefs that I’ll be there momentarily,” Wood said before turning back to his wife. He ran his hand down the side of her face and was rewarded with a slight twitch of her lips that might have been the beginnings of a smile forming.
“I’ll be back, Honey. You just stay here and rest a while,” Wood said as he stood and walked to the door. He paused and looked back; Dana’s eyes followed him to the door. He closed the door behind him knowing that Sergeant Warren would watch over her in his absence.
Outside in the hall, the Secret Service Incident Response Team in full tactical gear watched both ends of the corridor. Wood’s periphery vision caught the glimpse of Marines in their distinctive MARPAT camouflage pattern securing the far ends. The travel time to the Situation Room was short, a few strides through the color coded passageways, a nod to the Marines standing post at the doors and he was inside. On the large, wall mounted LCD screen the image of General Wilbur at NORAD could be seen. The remaining Joint Chiefs of Staff were seated at the table along with Lonnie Packwood and Mike Dunlavy of the Defense Information Service.
“Mr. President,” Wilbur said when the camera picked up Wood’s entrance.
“General.”
“Sir, we have some new information," Wilbur said as the screen split into two separate screens.
"What do you have, General?" Wood asked.
"Sir. We were able to download raw footage from NATO headquarters in Brussels," Wilbur said as the blank section of the screen his image shared came to life. The shakiness was obviously from a helmet camera.
"General, what are we looking at here?" Wood asked.
"Sir. Wait one while we clean this up," Wilbur said. "This is raw footage taken from a MHRS," Wilbur said in reference to the Mission Helmet Recording System that some soldiers wore. "This is all that we've been able to recover. There's a time stamp at the lower right corner and we've verified that this is authentic."
The screen changed to full as Wilbur's image blinked out. On the LCD, soldiers were seen running back and forth at some fence that Wood presumed to be an installation perimeter. The camera swiveled to show the headquarters of NATO and more soldiers moving rapidly. The sound cut in and out.
"...support! We need more support!...fuck...get on it! Right side! By that truck!"
The Joint Chiefs watched as a large civilian truck with infected clinging to the sides, rammed through the fence just yards from the entry gate. Soldiers were seen firing at it. Steam poured from the engine but still the truck pushed forward, wrapped as it were in the security fencing and dragging more infected with it. Weapons fire cut off any more words as a Hummer roared into view, the soldier manning the M2, firing into the truck until it finally stopped. Infected swarmed through the torn fence. The last image of the video was a close up view of infected attacking the soldier who wore the camera. That image was evident from the blood spray and then the angle of the camera. The viewers in the room all cocked their heads to one side as to watch as more and more infected push through the fence and took down the soldiers who valiantly tried to turn back the tide. The screen went blank as the video stopped. Wilbur's image reappeared.
"Mr. President. That's all we've been able to recover," he said. "From that upload, and the time stamps, we've been able to verify that it took place 22 minutes before we lost all contact with NATO."
"Twenty-two minutes?" Wood asked.
"Yes sir."
"My God," Wood said. "In less than a half hour, our command structure in Europe was decimated."
"Sir," Wilbur said. "Based on the speed of that event and the reports we've received from The Rid before they went offline, the standard containment methods won't work. We tried that in New York."
Wood nodded his head. He had read the reports that Chambers in Nevada has sent over. He was well aware of the options available to him. The spread of this infection had to be stopped. By any means available.
"Mr. President, we've reviewed other options. Based on the information provided by Dr. Chambers and combined with what we already know plus this footage, strike package options are limited. We still have access to FAE and Thermobaric weapons. According to what we received from The Rid, those munitions would destroy the virus. If we started with the major cities along the eastern seaboard,” Wilbur said his voice impassive. “We could target those areas with the largest numbers of reported infected. By hitting them at their core, we'd prevent them from spreading further. Continuing with that option across the nation from east to west, and focusing on large areas, we’d have all targets serviced within 24 hours. With the limited tanker support available, some of our bombers will have to use auxiliary fields when their mission is complete. I have projections that show that we can achieve target saturation by using these weapons. If we use this option, we can use the remaining ground forces to mop up.”
“What about support? We don’t have a lot of ground force,” Wood said.
“Yes sir. Those forces would be able to use supply depots at existing installations. That’s a two-fold mission option. Once they access those depots, they can also search for survivors at those facilities.”
“That would be beneficial,” Wood agreed. “What about the collateral damage?”
“That could be a problem,” Wilbur said. “Thermobaric would be a scorched earth event. There would be considerable damage to the cities and their infrastructure. Any uninfected survivors would need to seek shelter outside those areas.”
“How would we get the word out to them?” Wood asked.
“Sir that would be something that FEMA would do,” Wilbur said. “They have the ability to access all communications. If they could use that ability, we could limit the collateral damage.”
Wood nodded agreement. He knew that FEMA had a large facility in Maryland, allegedly underground, that had the capability of taking over all forms of communication. But, they hadn’t had contact with that facility in several weeks.
“If we exercised this option, how would we know that the infection was contained or destroyed?” Wood asked.
“We’ll have satellite coverage for most of the locations and there are still some Global Hawks in the air. Both can provide us with BDA. With tanker support for a few select aircraft, we’ll still retain the ability to service additional targets on an as needed basis,” Wilbur replied.
Wood nodded. What he had ordered his Joint Chiefs to do was sickening. But, the alternative, according to the only person they knew who was still alive and actively working on what had caused this outbreak, was to see all life, all uninfected life, cease to exist within a year. That severely limited the options. They had lost contact with the Rid at Fort Dietrich over a month ago. The CDC in Atlanta had gone dark a week prior to the Rid and the WHO in Geneva had dropped off the Net completely. Chambers, a civilian researcher at the DARPA facility in Nevada was all that was left.
“Continue,” Wood said.
“Yes sir. We’ll be stretching our resources very thin but there is no other viable alternative,” Wilbur said onscreen. “In conjunction with those strikes, we have US Navy ballistic missile submarines and surface craft moving into support positions to launch Tomahawks. That would be a second strike option that we can address if there are still viable targets in the zone.”
“Excuse me, General. I
was under the impression that we had no contact with our ballistic missile submarines,” Wood said looking at Admiral Romero.
“Sir,” Lonnie Packwood said interrupting before Romero or Wilbur could comment.
“Lonnie,” Wood said, nodding his head towards the former DIS employee.
“Sir, with the time we took to gather intel on the infected, we were able to rig up a low frequency signal that the subs would pick up. It was a long shot but it did pay off. Once we made contact with one, we were able to get them to surface and then using a satellite phone, relay the OP Order. We’ve made contact with eight boomers using that method.”
“Eight?” Wood asked, knowing that there were far more than that at sea. Maybe once this was all over, they could reestablish contact and bring those remaining vessels into the fold.
“Thank you, Lonnie,” Wood said. “Continue General.”
“Thank you, sir. We estimate that a majority of the infected will be eradicated in the initial wave. However, for those cities that have large populations and rapid transit systems that are partially underground or totally underground, the surface bombardment will not have the desired effect. The majority of the structures in those cities have basements, sub-basements, and other maintenance spaces such as utility and waste water tunnels. We have to go out on a limb here and assume that the infected are also in those spaces.”
“I understand, General,” Wood said. “I presume you have some options to deal with that contingency?”
“Yes sir,” Wilbur said then paused. “Conventionally, we’d use what is commonly known as a ‘bunker buster’. But, the majority of those were deployed to SWA prior to this event. Those that remain in CONUS are still at the contractor’s that manufactured them. My recommendation would be to use option Four-Zero-Alpha. You have that file in front of you now, sir.”
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