Her voice trailed off as she realized she still hadn’t accepted their fate. She’d been lying to herself for months, but in her heart there was still a flicker of hope.
Ellis dipped his helmet. “I’m…I’m sorry, Kate. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just haven’t ever seen anything like it before.”
A chirp interrupted the slaughter on screen. Kate and Ellis both turned toward her laptop. The biometrics report from the night before had finished running.
“I’m sorry, Kate,” he said again.
She ignored his apologies. He didn’t have anyone left. It had to be hard being alone. But the insensitivity of his comment, like he was almost happy to see how the Reavers had evolved…
“I’m going to check the data,” Kate said. She got up from his station and moved to hers. After typing in her credentials, she clicked on the report.
REPORT FROM PARIS, FRANCE
10.19.15
PREVIOUSLY UNIDENTIFIED SPECIMEN
RUN AGAINST 300 MILLION OTHER SPECIES
CONCLUSION: NEW VARIANT SPECIES
“What’s it say?” Ellis said.
Kate turned to look her partner in the eye. “It says the French have discovered an entirely new species.”
“The Reavers?”
“No,” Kate replied. “Something even worse.”
-9-
President Ringgold watched the video feed from SZT 15 with a growing sense of horror. It was almost too much to process. Lieutenant Flathman and his team were pinned down by mysterious helicopters, which was bad enough. But the real mystery was where all the people had gone. She’d looked in vain for her cousin, but there was no sign of Emilia.
There was no sign of anyone.
Not many people knew her cousin had been at SZT 15. But then again, most of her staff didn’t know anything about their president’s personal life. They didn’t know she had grown up in Harlem in an apartment building infested with bed bugs and drug dealers. They didn’t know, because she didn’t tell them. She had never wanted to use her past for political gain, but she wasn’t ashamed of it, either. By the grace of God and a hard work ethic, she and Emilia had escaped hell. Now Ringgold feared she had inadvertently condemned her cousin to an even worse fate than the one they’d escaped.
There’s always hope.
She had reassured Dr. Kate Lovato of that many times, but Ringgold wasn’t sure she believed it anymore.
She drew in a discreet breath, palmed the table, and stood. Across the room, General Allen was whispering something to Johnson. Neither of them looked happy.
“We have an incoming video message from an unidentified source,” Allen announced.
“How’d they get this frequency?” Johnson asked.
Allen shook his head, unsure. They both looked at Ringgold, and she nodded for them to proceed.
The main screen divided in two. To the left was Flathman’s feed from the ground, and to the right was a man with sun-reddened skin and a head of graying hair. He’d been bound and forced onto his knees, but his gaze was defiant.
Johnson’s mouth hung open. Ringgold had never seen him so shocked.
“Dear God. Is that Admiral Humphrey?”
“Yes sir,” Allen confirmed. “The video is from the George Washington.”
The camera panned to the right to show a soldier dressed in black fatigues. He sat in the captain’s chair, one leg crossed over the other. He nonchalantly nodded at someone out of view.
Ringgold flinched at the crack of gunfire from the wall-mounted speakers and brought her hand up to her mouth as the admiral crashed to the floor, part of his skull blown off.
“Jesus Christ,” Allen said.
Johnson took another step toward the screen, his hands balling into fists. “No!” he yelled, his usual calm failing in the face of such an atrocity.
The man in black uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, providing a view of dark brown eyes, short-cropped gray hair, and a face pock-marked with acne scars.
“Jan Ringgold,” the man said, raising his eyebrows. “It’s about time we met.”
Johnson reached for Allen’s headset.
“You’re speaking to the President of the United States,” Johnson said. “Identify yourself.”
The man shook his head and leaned back in the chair. “Not my president. You don’t recognize me, do you, Johnson?”
Johnson didn’t reply, just glowered at the screen.
“Lieutenant Andrew Wood of the ROT. Resistance of Tyranny, if you’re wondering what the acronym means. You knew my older brother, Colonel Zach Wood. But that’s not important right now. What’s really important is what I’m about to say. So listen up. You too, Jan.”
Ringgold grabbed a mic from the table. “I remember your brother,” she said. “And I remember what he did on Plum Island. You don’t want to follow in his footsteps.”
“I have control of the USS George Washington,” Wood said, continuing as if she hadn’t spoken. “You’ve had a real hard time holding onto it, haven’t you, Jan?”
Johnson went to speak, but Ringgold raised her hand to silence him.
“What do you want?” Ringgold asked.
Wood paused for dramatic effect, seeming to enjoy his captive audience. “I want the presidency.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Ringgold said sternly.
Wood nodded once, then flashed a smile that vanished so fast it could hardly be considered one. “I figured you’d say that. So I’m going to show you something that might make you reconsider. Take a look at SZT 15. You’re not the only one with choppers in the vicinity.”
Her gaze flitted to the left side of the screen, where Flathman was still hunkered down.
“Pay close attention to those FEMA semi-trailers. Have your lackey come out for a better look,” Wood said. He crossed his legs again and folded his hands on his lap, waiting.
Allen gave the order, and Flathman crawled out from under the truck and focused his cam on the trailers. All at once the lift gates opened and figures stumbled out.
Flathman retreated as the streets came alive with movement. Hundreds of men and women with duct tape over their mouths and hands staggered into the street, blinking and unsteady like they had just woken up from a nap.
“This might take a few minutes,” Wood said. “Those people have been sleeping for a while. They’re going to be very hungry.”
Some of the civilians broke their bonds immediately and raised their hands to the sky to shield their eyes from the sun. A few others snapped their restraints to crouch in the street, hissing and snarling. But the majority dropped to all fours. Free now, most of them skittered away and leapt to the walls of buildings, the tops of cars, and the metal fences surrounding the safe zone.
Allen looked up. “Flathman’s asking for orders.”
Johnson exchanged a glance with Ringgold, but she was too stunned to reply. Flathman raised his gun and opened fire a second later. On his right, the two other soldiers did the same.
Emilia, I’m so sorry. She scanned the diseased faces for her missing cousin and then shook the shock away. She had to do something.
“Tell Raptor 1 to get in there and pick those soldiers up right now!”
Johnson nodded at Allen, who relayed the message. Flathman looked up at the sky as Raptor 1 emerged over the SZT wall. The pilots dipped toward his position, but as soon as they did, the AH-6 Little Birds fired on them with chain guns. The rounds punched through the windshield and troop hold, sending the chopper whirling out of control.
For a moment Flathman just stood there, staring, his camera focused on the falling Black Hawk. It hit the SZT wall a moment later, and a massive explosion bloomed across the screen.
“No,” Ringgold whispered. “This isn’t happening.”
Flathman’s screen vibrated. He was running again, but everyone in the room could see there was no escape. The creatures were too fast, despite having been under sleeping gas or whatever it was Wood had used to sedate them. The
y prowled on all sides, clawing, and testing him as he fired burst after burst to fend them off.
Wood let several moments pass before he spoke again.
“Jan, as secure as you claim your SZTs to be, it was remarkably easy to compromise this one,” he said, shaking a finger. “Actually, that’s a lie. We had a little trouble at first. We tried to sneak in the Hemorrhage Virus by infecting some poor bastard we captured living outside the walls like we did at Plum Island. Sometimes you just have to offer an incentive to get people to do awful things, like threaten the lives of their loved ones. Like your cousin, Emilia Ringgold. Such a distinctive last name. When I saw it on the official census, I just knew I had to meet her. But I digress. At SZT 15 all we had to do was bait Mayor Kaylor.”
Ringgold felt her hands shaking. She knew Kaylor, had thought him to be a good man.
“It didn’t take much to get him to let us in. A few favors and a promise of a seat in my cabinet. By the time the guards knew what was happening, we had them surrounded. Didn’t even fire a single bullet. Then it was just a matter of getting everyone inside those trailers. Didn’t turn out real good for Kaylor though. It was pretty easy getting under his skin, so to speak.”
Ringgold now realized it had been Kaylor hanging from the radio tower. She closed her eyes for a moment but forced them back open to face the monster in front of her.
“Now that I have your attention, I’m going to tell you again, one more time, what I want. There are about seventy-five more SZTs, and I have more than enough vials of the Hemorrhage Virus to take them all down. Not to mention two destroyers. I think I’m going to rechristen this one the Zach Wood. What do you think?”
Ringgold wanted to reach into the screen and rip Wood’s arrogant smirk off his face but she spoke in the calmest voice she could manage. “Why? Why are you doing this? To avenge your psychotic brother?”
Wood wagged a finger again. “You don’t get it, do you, Jan? You gave us no choice but to use guerrilla warfare tactics.” His voice rose into an angry snarl. “You took the presidency by murdering our military leaders, including my brother, and then rewarded the man who killed him with a goddamn medal.”
“This isn’t guerrilla warfare. This is terrorism,” Ringgold snapped back.
Johnson glanced in her direction, shaking his head subtly. He was warning her to back off. She felt her legs wobbling, but she remained standing.
“Everyone but Johnson get out,” she said firmly.
The list of people she trusted had three names on it: Dr. Kate Lovato, Captain Reed Beckham, and Vice President George Johnson. And the first two were hundreds of miles away. It took a minute for everyone to leave the room, but as soon as the door shut, Ringgold brought the mic back to her mouth.
“The United States of America has never negotiated with terrorists in the past, and we’re not going to start now. I don’t know what kind of sick game you’re playing, but you won’t win. We will find you, and we will stop you. Just like we stopped your brother.”
“You can try, Jan. I’m counting on it, actually. But if a single aircraft comes within striking distance of my growing fleet, I will launch every missile on board at your precious SZTs.”
Wood winked at the screen, and the feed fizzled off.
Johnson pounded the table with a fist as Ringgold sank into her chair.
Flathman’s screen continued to jolt violently as the lieutenant ran. The man on his right was tackled to the ground by three infected that ripped at his flesh with razor-sharp claws. The smallest of the three—he must have been a child, Ringgold realized—clamped sucker lips around the soldier’s neck and tore away a ribbon of meat.
She had seen many people killed by the monsters, but she had never seen a child feed. Flathman raised his rifle, but instead of killing the creatures, he shot the soldier in the head to end his suffering.
The beasts crawled over the limp corpse and tore into the flesh. Flathman sprayed the monsters with bullets as he ran. Ringgold had to force herself to look away, terrified that she would see Emilia with wild yellow eyes and misshapen features.
“What is ROT?” she asked. “Who the hell are these people?”
Johnson took in a long, deep breath. “When Lieutenant Andrew Wood left the Medical Corps, he became CEO of a private military contracting company about the same time his brother Colonel Zach Wood was working with Colonel Rick Gibson on refining the VX-99 program. I don’t know a lot about ROT, but I do know they had a bunker with a lot of vehicles, aircraft, supplies, and weapons.”
“But how did they capture the GW? And which destroyer is he talking about?”
Johnson shook his head. “I’ll get Allen working on this to see if we’re missing any other ships. As for how Wood captured the GW…probably the same way he got Mayor Kaylor to open the doors in Chicago.”
Ringgold couldn’t believe what she was hearing, but she did know what she had to do next. She stood again and looked at the flag for a moment, gathering her courage.
“Send the message out to all of the SZTs to raise their security alert to level red. And get me the best special forces troops you have left. I want Wood tracked down and neutralized,” Ringgold said. She could think of a couple of men on Plum Island who would be able to get the job done, but Beckham and Horn were retired now.
Back on the main screen, Flathman was running hard, pausing only briefly to fire into the mob behind him. One of the creatures, a large half-naked male, leapt onto a car hood. It chewed at its own chubby arm, ripping off a piece that stretched out in a web of tendons and flesh. The lieutenant shot the creature in the stomach and then fired on a smaller female Variant skittering across the side of the embassy building. It fell onto the top of one of the cages and twisted fiercely in the razor wire.
A flash of motion came from the left, knocking Flathman to the ground. Ringgold brought her hand around her mouth.
“Get up, Lieutenant,” Johnson said.
Flathman did just that, but his helmet remained on the ground—and with it his camera. Side by side, Ringgold and Johnson watched the lieutenant dart down the street. His tennis shoes pounded the pavement and he held onto his Chicago Cubs hat with one hand as he ran. He did not look back.
There was a knock on the door that made Ringgold flinch. Flathman rounded a corner and vanished from the feed as she turned to see General Allen peeking inside the room.
“What is it?” she asked.
Allen stepped into the room. “We just intercepted an SOS from Commander Rachel Davis of the GW. She’s alive, Madame President, and she’s going to try to take the ship back. But she’s saying there’s a second ship already leaving the area.”
“The other destroyer,” Johnson said. “That’s how they were able to capture the GW.”
Allen nodded. “It’s the Zumwalt, sir. I just listened to the transmissions. Wood hailed the GW, pretending to be friendlies. Humphrey had no idea what was coming. Wood also had AH-6 Little birds in the area.” He paused and then said, “If the Zumwalt goes off radar and they escape, then we have more than just the GW to worry about…”
Johnson dipped his head in defeat. “Guess we know where the stealth ship vanished to all those months ago. These ROT bastards have been planning this for a long time.”
Commander Davis moved on all fours in the dense grass along the shoreline. Diaz crawled to her right, and a few feet ahead, Black’s thick Mohawk cut through the torpedo grass like a shark fin through water.
In the distance, heavy smoke streamed out of the city. Davis coughed into her hand, wishing she hadn’t removed her CBRN suit. But she’d had no choice. The white suits made them stand out like ghosts in the night, and it wasn’t just the monsters hunting them now.
The buzz of a helicopter sent Davis to eating dirt. She flattened her body in the mud and craned her neck to the sky. Two AH-6 Little Birds shot overhead with soldiers clipped to the sides. One of the men pointed in her direction, and Davis quickly averted her gaze.
They had ma
naged to evade the patrols all morning, but with the sun up it was only a matter of time before they were spotted. She was lucky Diaz had been able to get a call through to President Ringgold about the ambush with their satellite phone. As a communications officer, the lance corporal always carried it with her into the field.
Davis kept her head down as the choppers circled. She still didn’t know much about this ROT, but she could see they were well trained and well equipped. Plus, they had her ship and a stealth destroyer.
As soon as the birds passed over, Davis got back up and continued crawling. The GW was still anchored, but the sleek gray body of the Zumwalt was long gone. She had watched the ship sail hours earlier. There was no telling where they were now.
This is your fault, Rachel. You should never have left!
She had let her guard down. Part of her had thought rescuing those children might help relieve some of the pain from choosing her duty over her family at the start of the outbreak. Nothing could bring Blake and Ollie back, but maybe if she could save just one more person…
Gritting her teeth, she fought back the painful memories. Her weakness had killed brave men and women on her ship. She had fallen right into ROT’s trap. Now she was on the run in a city still burning from the missile strikes she had ordered. If that wasn’t bad enough, there were men and monsters prowling the streets, hunting for her team.
Quick and steady. Keep it quick and steady.
If there was one thing she had learned in the past seven months, it was that she was never out of the fight. Even now, with enemies closing in from all directions she retained her killer instinct.
The Little Birds finally abandoned their search. Black slowly rose out of the torpedo grass and waved to Davis and Diaz from the muck. He waded through knee-deep water, then ran up an embankment toward a bar called Bayou Joe’s. Docks with boat slips emerged to the west. She eyed the ride she’d chosen to get back to her ship, but first she needed a diversion.
Davis and Diaz ran at a crouch toward Black. He propped a shoulder against a tree with a base that was twisted like a Twizzler. Slowly, he moved around the side and aimed his SAW toward a gravel road. Diaz took a knee and sucked down the rest of her water bottle. She dragged a sleeve across her lips and said, “What’s the plan, Commander?”
The Extinction Cycle (Book 6): Extinction Aftermath Page 14
