Dead Storm: The Global Zombie Apocalypse

by Nicholas Ryan

  “You think the President is over-reacting?”

  “Absolutely,” Buttersworth smiled, arrogant and confident. “I’d stake my reputation on it. The NK Plague will burn out long before it reaches the heartland of China. And what will we have when this government-manufactured scare tactic fades? We’ll have a wall – an expensive reminder of President Austin’s fear and panic on the world stage.”

  Chapter 5:

  THE OVAL OFFICE

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  President Patrick Austin sat behind his desk and stared blindly out through the windows at a view of the Rose Garden. Fatigue and exhaustion had eroded the set of his features, leaving them blurred and misshapen. The great burden of responsibility seemed to sag his shoulders like a crushing weight. His eyes were tormented, swimming with dark pools of despair.

  Vice President, Lincoln Hallmeyer, sat pensive and motionless on the sofa, staring across the Oval Office at the fireplace. He was bleary-eyed and tentative, unsure of the President’s mood, and reluctant to break the tense, fraught silence.

  The two men were not friends. Hallmeyer was the former New Jersey Governor, plucked from relative obscurity and thrust onto the world stage by Patrick Austin in the run up to election because party polling suggested the President’s forthright, blunt approach to politics needed to be balanced by a running mate who could mollify the social conservatives. Hallmeyer was short in stature with the bland unremarkable features of a balding everyman – yet he had been a loyal and dutiful politician during the pair’s tenure in office, performing the ceremonial functions of his role with dignity and diligence.

  Finally, President Austin drew himself out of his chair and came to sit on the sofa opposite his Vice President. It was the first time Hallmeyer could recall being alone with Austin in such a raw, intimate moment. He stiffened uncomfortably. President Austin scraped his hand across his brow to massage the tight tension pounding behind his eyes.

  Austin’s voice was pitched low and personable. “Linc, I honestly don’t know what to do,” the President confided. “I’m torn between the compassionate gesture of trying to help those victims on the plane, and the danger of allowing the aircraft to land.” His chin sank onto his chest and he let the waves of fatigue overwhelm him. There was complete silence in the room. Hallmeyer watched with professional pity – this was not his own decision to make. The fate of the people aboard Flight 553 rested entirely on the President’s shoulders.

  Austin opened his eyes reluctantly, like a man waking from a nightmare. His gaze was haunted. “All the evidence we have seems to suggest the passengers aboard the plane have contracted the violent infection that is breaking out across South Korea, and as yet, we don’t even know what we’re dealing with, or the impact that North Korea’s biological weapon will have. Letting the plane land could introduce the virus to mainland America. I could be opening up a Pandora’s box we don’t have the ability to close again.”

  “Mr. President,” Lincoln Hallmeyer spoke softly, “may I speak freely?”

  Austin nodded. “Linc, I want your opinion.”

  Hallmeyer seemed touched by the President’s tone; the revelation of a friendship and respect he had not been aware of. He paused for a moment, fixing the President with honest eyes.

  “Sir, I know this is the hardest decision you are likely to make during your presidency. I understand what’s at stake: making a choice between the lives of the people aboard that aircraft and the possible risks if the plane is allowed to reach America. I also know you’re a good man – and that makes a decision like this even more difficult. But I believe the greater good is an issue that can’t be ignored at a time like this. Four hundred lives are a tragic price to pay for the welfare of our country, but the risk of allowing the plane to land is simply too great. We can’t allow the question to be ‘what’s best for those people on the aircraft’. The question is ‘what’s best for the safety and security of all America’.”

  Austin grunted, a sound like taking a heavy punch to the heart. In the back of his mind lurked the politics of the crisis. Would the media and the public crucify him for sanctioning the destruction of an aircraft full of American citizens and diplomats?

  Vice President Hallmeyer went on, keeping his voice reasonable and respectful. “Sir, if you were to be struck down by a heart attack right now, I would assume the role of President. And as the Commander in Chief, my first order would be to shoot Flight 553 out of the sky to ensure the complete destruction of the plane and every person on board.”

  Austin gaped, stunned. “You would give that order, Linc?”

  “Yes, sir. Immediately.”

  “Without hesitation, or consideration of the personal or political consequences?”

  The President searched the man’s eyes looking for signs of jealousy or malevolence, for conceit or cruelty, and saw only patriotic resolve in Hallmeyer’s determined expression.

  “Yes, Mr. President, I would.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s what America needs, sir. It’s what we were elected to do. We’re guardians of this office, and guardians of the people. We serve them all.”

  Austin pushed himself wearily to his feet and paced across the floor, head down, shoulders hunched and hands clasped behind his back. This room was the seat of Western power; the blue carpet woven with the presidential seal, the flags, the high-backed colonial chairs were all iconic symbols of influence recognized across the world. Now, suddenly, the room felt like a prison cage from which he could not escape.

  Hallmeyer cleared his throat discreetly. The President stopped in mid-stride and glanced sideways.

  “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today,” Hallmeyer gently quoted Abraham Lincoln.

  President Austin closed his eyes and drew a heavy breath. His mouth was twisted out of shape, wrenched with anguish.

  “Thank you, Linc,” he croaked, his voice rough and choked with grave emotion. “Give the orders. I want Flight 553 shot out of the sky and the aircraft completely destroyed.”

  25,000 FEET

  100 MILES NORTHEAST OF

  THE COAST OF JAPAN

  The two F-16 Vipers streaked aloft in tactical formation, line abreast, and nearly two miles away from each other, clawing at the sky for altitude.

  Supa looked up at a majestic array of thunderheads that soared into the sapphire blue heavens. The cloudbanks had been carved into wondrous avalanching shapes of silver and grey fantasy, separated by bruised purple crevasses where the sunshine did not reach. It was a scene of ponderous grandeur that was wasted on the young pilot. He leaned forward against his shoulder straps and scanned the sky. Tight apprehension, like a delicious kind of dread, tingled and slithered in his guts.

  The details provided to Samurai flight once they were airborne had been scant. Bernard and Arnold still had no idea what threat they had been scrambled to intercept or where exactly it was. Supa was sure it would be yet another wayward Russian bomber, but as the seconds of silent uncertainty drew out, his uneasiness increased until it turned into an ominous sense of foreboding. There was no reason for his nagging disquiet – but still it persisted.

  The Supervisor of Flying at Misawa directed the twin fighters to take up a course of 060 degrees and contact ‘Red Crown’; the call sign of the US Navy’s Command and Control element, based on an Aircraft Carrier Battle Group in the North Pacific.

  Red Crown proved worryingly abrupt, only relaying the general location of the aircraft they were going to intercept, and then revealing a SATCOM channel they were to switch to.

  “Standby for a message from ‘Jeremiah’,” Red Crown said curtly.

  Lance Bernard frowned. He felt a tiny prickle of premonition run down his spine.

  “Who the fuck is Jeremiah?” he asked Arnold over the fighters’ discrete VHF radio frequency.

  “I have no idea, dude,” she replied.

  Both pilots flipped through the stack of “plastic brains” they had s
trapped to their thighs; page after complex page of radio frequencies, code words, call signs, navigation points, maps, decision trees – all the relevant information they might conceivably need during a frantic intercept scramble.

  Neither pilot could find the call sign ‘Jeremiah’.

  Spike had seen this sort of thing before throughout her combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. It was possible their copies of the information just hadn’t been updated with the call sign. She figured ‘Jeremiah’ was most likely a duty officer at one of the joint air defense bureaus. It could be a USAF General with PACAF or maybe NORAD. It might conceivably be a Navy Flag officer, somewhere, but it really didn’t matter at this point. That they couldn’t readily identify ‘Jeremiah’ was not a concern… but it was unsettling.

  An alert scramble was a high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse that might have international ramifications. Even a highly experienced officer like Lieutenant Colonel Spike Arnold didn’t have direct authority to use the bristling menace of missiles tucked under her wings on another country’s aircraft. There were lengthy Rules of Engagement regulating how to intercept civilian and military aircraft types, positively identifying those intercepted aircraft, and under what specific conditions that force could be used against them. The fighter jets were just the pointy end of a long stick being wielded by someone higher up the chain, thousands of miles away.

  “Samurai One, Red Crown. Bogey is BRAA 075, 320 miles, thirty-five thousand,” the Navy controller from the Aircraft Carrier Battle Group cut through the tense silence at last, pointing out the direction, distance, and altitude of the as-yet unknown aircraft to the F-16s.

  “Samurai One, copy,” answered Supa, and then in a forced fraud of calmness asked, “Can you tell us what the target is yet?”

  A few more interminable moments of heavy silence filled the radio frequency before Red Crown finally replied. The voice was remote, scrubbed of any emotion. “It is an airliner. A 747. That’s all I am authorized to tell you. ‘Jeremiah’ will have more.”

  “Samurai, check right 075,” Supa told his wingman over the VHF radio, “One is coming back to MIL power to save gas, reference .9 Mach.”

  Spike mirrored the maneuver and pulled her throttle back out of afterburner.

  “An airliner, eh…well, that’s an interesting twist,” Spike said conversationally. “I didn’t see that coming. I thought it would be another Russian Bear.”

  “What the hell do they have us launching on airliners for?” Bernard’s voice was sharper. The news that they were hunting an airliner had not allayed his misgivings. His subconscious mind flashed with the horrific possibility that they might be involved in another 9/11-type hijacking. He felt his skin crawl as though it were infested with the loathsome little insects of his fear. His heart seemed to miss a beat, then began to race wildly.

  “Couldn’t tell ya that, One,” Spike maintained her casual tone to carefully conceal her own rising angst. Like Arnold, the mention of an airliner had reflexively jolted her mind back to the darkest day in America’s history. Spike had been a young pilot on September 11, 2001, and had already been through the torturous mental challenge of evaluating how she might be able to launch a missile at an airliner, taking responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of passengers on board. The words of her base commander on that fateful Tuesday morning echoed through her head, like the haunting voice from a relived nightmare. “You’re not killing innocents, Spike – they’re already dead,” her commander during the twin towers crisis had said gravely. “Your responsibility is to make sure they don’t take any more innocents with them.”

  With the 747 still more than three hundred miles away, the F-16 radar was not powerful enough to yet begin the process of identifying and tracking the target airliner. Supa’s voice cut across the fraught silence.

  “I hope they’re not expecting us to chase that thing down,” he spoke with quick agitation. “It’s three hundred fucking miles away – we don’t have the gas for that.”

  “Yeah, I have no idea how that’s going to work out.”

  “Okay, Two, let’s come up on SATCOM frequency, uh….” Supa looked down at the matrix of radio frequencies on his knee and bit his lip. In order to keep from announcing the numeric value of the radio channel over the airway that might reveal information to eavesdropping adversaries, each radio frequency had been assigned a color and a number. After a few seconds searching, Bernard found the one he was looking for.

  “Samurai push Orange Five.”

  Punching the numbers into her jet’s up-front control panel, Spike set the SATCOM channel.

  “Samurai Two is up.”

  Supa keyed his microphone switch and paused for a final ominous moment before transmitting.

  “Jeremiah, Samurai One.”

  Several seconds passed. The SATCOM channel echoed and hissed as if the transmission was being routed through an antique telephone exchange. Eventually the two fighter pilots heard a response, very faint at first but becoming clearer.

  “Samurai One, this is Jeremiah. Authenticate Charlie Mike.”

  Among the pilot’s reference paperwork in the cockpit was a small book containing classified codes used to authenticate the disembodied voice on the other end of the radio. Such authentications worked for both involved parties to ensure the validity of each other; Bernard had expected Jeremiah to authenticate him, and had Jeremiah not initiated it, Bernard would have instinctively become suspicious. Moving through the matrix in the book, Supa found the box marked “CM”, and made the appropriate reply.

  “Samurai One, I authenticate ‘Hotel’.”

  “Good copy, Samurai.”

  “Jeremiah, Samurai One, we aren’t familiar with your call sign…can you please state who you are and what your position is?”

  “Samurai One, this is General Lawrence Knight, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I am speaking to you from the Situation Room at the White House in Washington DC. Standing alongside me are the Secretary of Defense and the Vice President of the United States.”

  Bernard flinched with a shock of incredulity. Something cold and clammy ran down his spine. He wasn’t sure how to respond – he had never even met a 4-star General before. He remained silent and kept listening, chilled with dreadful fascination.

  “Samurai, we have a dire situation at hand. The aircraft you are intercepting is an airliner, an EOA Airlines 747-400 that originated out of South Korea, and is carrying a deadly and highly infectious virus on board,” the General paused for a moment to let the gravity of the situation sink in. “The passengers and crew didn’t know it when they boarded, but the aircraft has essentially become an airborne biological weapon of mass destruction. Ever since being notified of this situation, we here at the Situation Room have been consulting with the top medical experts in the world, as well as the leadership in South Korea, Japan, and elsewhere, and they are all in agreement that we cannot allow this aircraft to land anywhere. We are in the process of turning the aircraft around, so it should be heading back toward you soon. Red Crown is already coordinating for you to meet up with a tanker to refuel, and there are also F-22s scrambling out of Elmendorf in Alaska in case the aircraft deviates from its new course.”

  The F-16 pilots had barely breathed as they listened.

  “Oh my God!” Supa whispered. A great cold fist of dreadful loathing wrapped itself around his heart and squeezed, so that for a moment he could not breathe.

  “Samurai One, I’m now going to hand off the radio to the SECDEF, who is going to pass to you the official order.”

  After a few moments of appalling stillness, a new voice began speaking over the SATCOM channel.

  “Samurai One, this is Special Order Number 2019-01. In the interest of preservation of the National Security of the United States, you are hereby authorized ‘Weapons Free’ to kill or destroy EOA Airlines Flight 553, a US-registered 747 N869EA, by use of whatever means necessary. This message is signed and authorized by the President of the Uni
ted States,” the Secretary of Defense said gravely, completing the transmission by declaring the time and date of the order.

  “Holy shit,” Bernard gaped. A brew of confusing wild emotions overwhelmed him. He sat stiffly in his seat, his body racked with tension and his stomach churning with oily sickness.

  “Samurai, do you understand the order you have been given?” A third voice came on the radio, sounding dry and desiccated and sterile. “This is Vice President, Lincoln Hallmeyer. I just spoke to the President minutes ago and he authorized this action. We all pass along to you that we have the utmost confidence in your ability to successfully carry out this order. You have to know that you will be saving literally millions of American lives through this action. You cannot allow this aircraft to continue, and you cannot allow anyone on board to survive.”

  “Jeremiah, Samurai One, no questions,” Supa said. His voice had turned heavy and flat with dismay. “We understand the order.”

  “Samurai, this is General Knight again,” The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs came back on the radio one final time. “Once you have accomplished your task, you need to pass along the precise coordinates and time of the shoot down to Red Crown. Take note of what you see in the airplane and pass that information along to them, too. Good luck.”

  “Samurai One, roger.”

  DIAOYUTAI STATE GUESTHOUSE

  HAIDIAN DISTRICT

  BEIJING

  President Lin Xiang stepped quietly out through the front door of his villa and was greeted by two silent, serious-faced members of the Security Bureau’s Unit 57001 who stood holding submachine guns. Xiang ignored the men.