Plague War (Book 3): Retaliation

by Hodge, Alister

  Her heart rate was another matter altogether. It was slow. At thirty beats a minute, it chugged along at a pace Harry had not seen in anything other than elite sportsmen. And he thought he now knew the reason why.

  Shaking his head in wonder, he moved quietly away from his cousin to look for the twentieth time at the same slide. Ten feet away, an electron microscope was loaded with a slide of Steph’s cells. Smeared with cells aspirated from a leg muscle, Lysan virus was present in the cell and mitochondria. However, when a second slide containing neural tissue taken from her ulna nerve was viewed, he found something extraordinary. The nerve cells were empty of Lysan plague virus.

  Something had altered the virus, stopping it from hijacking a ride along the nerves of her body or to penetrate the cells of her brain if transported by her blood stream. And the only rationale that Harry could come up with was that the Hydrochloric Acid of her stomach had slightly altered the virus she had been force fed, damaging a particular protein in the shell of the virus.

  Steph’s physiology still struggled due to the alterations to general cellular function that slowed metabolism and vitals, but she had survived this far due to the protection of her brain from the virus.

  The page of findings in Harry’s hand began to tremble as his pulse quickened and adrenaline surged at the ramifications. Steph could be the missing link, the factor that could provide the answer of keeping Lysan Plague out of the brain of bite victims, stopping them from progressing down the path of seizure and death. If this was combined with the successes of Mito1 in blocking movement of the virus into general cells, they would have... Harry was tentative to even voice the words in the privacy of his own head. They would have a cure.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chris drummed his fingers on the steering wheel impatiently, ignoring the dirty looks he gained from pedestrians as he blocked a disabled parking space with his van, motor idling. Half a block ahead was the entrance to the station where half of the state’s police men and women were holed up completing a tabletop disaster exercise.

  He wanted the game to start. Wanted to hear the screams, see the smoke and terror unleashed that he’d been dreaming about for weeks. On the dashboard of his van, the digital clock showed 5.30PM. Surely the bastards must be getting hungry inside?

  The cleaner mopped a prickling of sweat off his forehead and grimaced. Nervous sweat soaked his armpits and a tremor had kicked off in his hands that he couldn’t still. He was cursing himself for getting involved with the Patriots, but it was too late to back out.

  ‘Hey, Rat-Face.’

  The cleaner bristled at the nickname bestowed upon him by the police officers. It hurt even more because he knew the name stuck because of how aptly it described his features. Nature had seen fit to allocate him a long nose and rodent-like narrow face that would make even a mother wince. The cleaner turned around to see who had called him, his movements furtive like he was afraid of being hit.

  ‘We’re hungry. Stop stealing the pizza and bring it out to the people that it was bought for,’ said a middle-aged cop with greying hair. The cleaner nodded, not trusting his voice. The cop gave him a look of poorly hidden disgust and walked away, leaving him alone once again in the kitchenette.

  On the bench in front of the cleaner were two stacks of pizza boxes. He took one more slice of pepperoni and scoffed it down, sticking his middle finger up in mute defiance at the empty doorway where the cop had stood. His gut roiled with nerves, but with a fridge bare of food at home - if he didn’t eat now, he wouldn’t eat at all today. Finished, he cuffed away the crumbs from around his mouth, picked up one stack of pizza boxes and dumped them into the waste bin. From beneath the bench he pulled out a different stack of boxes and heaved them up onto the table. It was heavy, much heavier than merely ten pizzas should be. But that was because it didn’t hold food. The outside of the package had been made to look like a stack of pizzas, but really, it held ten kilos of explosives surrounded by nails and ball bearings. It would be the first of three bombs to decimate the interior of the police station. The others were packed into dummy computer hard drives that he had placed innocuously under two different desks, hiding them in plain sight the day before. These bombs were positioned at the rear of the building, and would block any escape routes other than onto Liverpool Street at the front.

  The cleaner carried out the first stack of real pizza boxes, allowing the crowd to get stuck into their free meal until he knew they were properly distracted. With the room’s attention drawn elsewhere he returned for the second stack. This box he placed near the rear of the room, then he quickly scurried for the front of the room and exit. Keeping his head down and eyes forward, he struggled not to break into a run. As soon as the lid was raised from the box, it would trigger the bomb. And when that happened - he had no desire to be around.

  A young police officer, down from a Launceston station for the day swore mildly on seeing the last pizza box was empty. He looked around, then smiled as he noted an untouched stack sitting on a table at the back of the room. Keen to continue filling his gut, he eased through the milling cops in the conference room until he was in reach. As he lifted the lid on the first box in the stack, his brow creased in mild confusion. Instead of pizza, there was only a note of paper with handwriting. A message was scrawled in narrow letters, the police officer pulled out the paper, reading:

  ‘You pigs are gonna squeal’

  He looked back from the paper in his hand to the box, where a digital display flashed from one to zero. His breath caught in his throat and balls clenched up hard to his gut.

  ‘What the f...’

  Chris’s attention perked up as he saw his contact exit the front door of the police station. Once outside, the cleaner took off at a sprint in the opposite direction. He’d got no more than ten metres when the first bomb exploded. Even at his distance, Chris felt a tremor through the ground, and smiled as he saw the cleaner fall flat on his face. The man stumbled to his feet and ran once more, blood streaming from a newly smashed nose. Chris picked up a mobile phone from the dash and dialled the other two bombs, setting them off in quick succession to block the rear exits. Dual explosions pleased his ears and he ditched the phone into the passenger footwell. He stamped his foot on the accelerator, spinning the wheel to pull out onto the street. With few people able to afford petrol to run their vehicles in recent months, the road was empty. Chris accelerated as fast as the van would allow before squealing to a stop, a smear of rubber left on the asphalt as he parked directly in front of the police station. Dust drifted from the front doors, billowing outwards as the first survivors exited through Chris’s chosen route. Blood mixed with grime on some faces. The survivors looked stunned, not yet fully comprehending that they were on the receiving end of a terrorist attack. No one paid Chris’s stolen van a second glance. He grabbed the phone off the floor again, exited the driver’s door and took off back in the direction he’d come from at a brisk walk. With cap pulled down and jumper hood up to block his features from any CCTV cameras, he walked a block before risking a glance behind him again.

  The street before the police station was now packed with survivors. Bodies lay on the road where mates and colleagues had dragged them. Screams of agony caused by ragged wounds and bellies full of metal reached Chris as music to his ears. He saw one police officer holding his own amputated arm in his remaining hand. The first responders were now arriving, sirens of approaching ambulances deafening as they screamed past Chris toward the scene of devastation. Staff had also emerged from the Royal Hobart Hospital opposite, pushing trolleys to scoop patients onto, lugging disaster emergency packs onto the street.

  Atop a black set of clinical scrubs, Chris recognized the bob of Julie’s ponytail as she ran onto the street to help alongside her colleagues. She went from one huddle of survivors to the next, and Chris felt a pang of guilt at the next stage of his plan. He watched as Julie continued through the thickening crowd, a mix of police, paramedics and emergency departme
nt doctors and nurses.

  And then his anger bloomed, resolve hardened. He saw Julie embracing a police officer. Dane held her in his arms, comforting her as she sobbed tears of relief at the survival of her boyfriend. He drew the phone from his pocket, and dialled the number of his last bomb, the one that inhabited the entire hold of the van he’d parked before the police department. The van that was now in the centre of a crowd made up of his own countrymen and women.

  Chris ducked back around the corner of the building and pressed call. The blast was horrendous, making the first three seem no more than a child’s cap gun. A vast cloud of dust billowed up the street. For a time, there was no sound other than tinnitus whine in his ears. Chris realised that he was on the ground, although he could not recall falling. He pushed himself upright, stunned by the ferocity of the bomb he had created.

  On hands and knees, Chris crawled back to the corner to see what was left. His mouth dropped as he stared toward the police station. There was nothing left of the van, or of the crowd surrounding it other than a smear of crimson amongst the rubble. Chris flinched as a huge section of the police building broke free, smashing onto the street to add to the devastation. The buildings to either side of the road looked like something out of war-torn Aleppo before the global outbreak of the plague had taken precedence over civil war.

  Chris coughed, spitting brick dust from his mouth. He drew his shirt up to cover his mouth and nose as he backed away from the corner and regained his feet. A smile kinked the corner of his mouth as he started a slow jog toward the get-away car he’d parked a few blocks distant, satisfaction starting to overwhelm all other emotions. Surely his dad would now elevate him amongst the party and make him the deputy leader; father and son leading side by side. And then there was the icing on the cake – never again would Julie look at him with contempt. She’d be rotting in hell along with her arrogant cop boyfriend.

  Yes, it was one hell of a fine day.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Mark sat in his room behind the town hall, checking through a list of topics to cover during the upcoming town meeting. Mark had buried himself in work after sending Steph to Geelong for treatment. Knowing he was powerless to further influence any outcome for his girlfriend, he had sought to block thoughts of worry through constant activity. Now that he had pulled the teeth of the Spartans, support for his platoon had increased, with buy-in obtained from farms that had previously shunned their presence. He knew it could have gone either way. Every man and woman in the yard that day had heard the order he’d given his soldiers. If Vinh hadn’t blocked him, he would be a marked man, an officer responsible for a modern-day war crime. That the released men had not sought to dissuade their families from supporting his platoon was a piece of luck he was not willing to examine any further. He was just grateful that it had occurred.

  In reality, an axe still hung over his neck, however unlikely it was to fall. He had executed an unarmed man before his rage had burnt out, and it would only take one complaint to launch an examination into the episode. If any such complaint was launched, he thought it unlikely to originate from any of his squad. Since the re-introduction of capital punishment, military justice was meted out with cold brutality to civilians and soldiers alike. In a country stripped of any other form of law enforcement, there was no other option. The original surviving members of the Spartans had found that out the hard way, Mark having received an order from Geelong to oversee their execution the prior day. Many residents of Cob Hill had wanted to see the men dance below a noose in public for damages wrought during their time in power, but Mark had refused their demands. Execution for a crime committed was one thing, but turning the activity into public entertainment denigrated all involved and was something he wouldn’t countenance.

  He had questioned himself about his own actions that day. Searching for any kernel of guilt, he’d come away clean. Considering every other Spartan had received a death sentence, he rationalized that he’d only lessened the man’s life by a few days. Mark knew it did not excuse what he’d done, but nor would it keep him awake at night. In a world where good people died every day, the death of a mongrel did not stir any remorse in a heart necessarily hardened to survive.

  Mark’s head turned to the side, his attention pulled by a knock at the door. His new Corporal opened the door and stuck his head through. On losing Steph, he’d elevated Victor into the role. After risking his neck to bring Mark the bulldozer back in Melbourne, he’d taken his offer for a transfer into his platoon.

  ‘The room’s full; are you ready to kick things off?’ Victor asked.

  Mark glanced down at the list once more, then folded it and shoved the paper into his pocket and stood. ‘Yeah, I’ll be right out. Did many show up?’

  A half-smile kinked one corner of Victor’s mouth. ‘I reckon there’s enough to make it worthwhile.’

  Mark raised one eyebrow in mute question as he stood and walked to the door. Looking out into the hall, he found there was standing room only. ‘Jesus, you’re not wrong about that,’ muttered Mark. He figured the hall must hold representation from not only each surviving farm about the town, but also the greater area.

  ‘Word’s got around, Boss. People are starting to believe that the tide’s about to turn. Positivity’s growing, to the point that they’re thinking the army might be able to eliminate the Infected. At minimum, they want to learn how to take back control of their own properties and stop living in fear each day. You’ve won them over, Mark. I reckon they’ll consider pretty much anything you ask.’

  ‘Good. Because once their farms are up and running, I’ll be asking a damn sight more of them.’

  ‘What, are we going to start enforcing conscription?’

  ‘Damn right we are,’ Mark said, his tone blunt. ‘Food was only ever half the equation. We need men and women to fill the army’s ranks if we’re to win back the state capitals.’

  ‘Do you want me to start a recruitment drive tonight as well?’ asked the Corporal.

  ‘Fuck, no,’ said Mark. ‘Baby steps, Victor. I don’t want to scare them off just yet, but I’ll be damned if I’m leaving town without a truck full of new soldiers. We get their farms running, they fill my quota of recruits. That’s the deal as far as I see it.’ Mark squared his shoulders and walked out to address the crowd.

  ***

  Mark stood to the side, taking a swig of water from a glass as the last of the people filed out of the hall. His sign-up sheets were filled with signatures of those farmers committing to the program of ‘farm modification’ and food supply. Each contracted person had left the hall with plans on how to build Carrier holding pens in each paddock, along with step-by-step methods for field clearance and the subsequent surveillance techniques to protect workers during planting and harvesting.

  Now that Mark had fitted out Joel Tipper’s farm and proved it could function again, his platoon’s role would shift to a more consultative model to support the farms make their own changes. They would still contribute labour, however, with the sheer weight of work needed, much would fall to the farms themselves to complete. And that was how it needed to be if they were to become self-sufficient and capable of providing their own security.

  ‘Hey, Boss!’

  Mark put down his glass and looked over to Vinh who was standing beside their communications set up in one corner of the hall. He held up an earphone set for him to take. ‘We’ve got new orders. Major Barry wants you on the line.’

  Mark walked over to his Sergeant, took the offered earphone and mike set and put it on, unsure what to expect. He closed his eyes, concentrating on the Major’s words to ensure he missed nothing, however he needn’t have bothered. The order was short and to the point. With a distracted flick, he tossed the earphone set back onto the table.

  ‘Well?’ asked Vinh. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘We’ve been recalled to Geelong for redeployment,’ Mark said after a pause, the ramification of the Major’s words still sinking in.
>
  ‘Redeployment?’ asked Vinh, looking mildly confused. ‘To where? Our job here’s nowhere near finished.’

  ‘We won’t be fighting Carriers, Vinh,’ Mark said. ‘We’re headed to Tasmania.’

  Vinh’s face paled at his officer’s words. ‘You mean...’

  ‘Yeah. General Black’s got tired of waiting. Either they join the effort to clear the mainland of plague, or... it’s civil war.’

  ***

  Mark took one last glance backwards at the town as they drove onto the highway, headed for Geelong. The sun, yet to breach the horizon when his soldiers had filled the trucks thirty minutes prior, now bathed the landscape in an orange glow as it banished the night. Mark sat in the last vehicle of the convoy, armoured trucks at front and rear protecting a small bus filled with recruits in the centre. Word of their departure had spread rapidly the night before, and a delegation of men had arrived at the hall past midnight. Almost every surviving man that had been pardoned for involvement with the Spartans had decided to enlist rather than stay. Despite common knowledge that the men had been given little choice in joining the outlaw bikie group, they’d nevertheless found themselves virtual pariahs after the club’s destruction. Some of them saw a chance of redemption by joining a legitimate fight against the Infected, others just wanted to reach a place where none would know of their history. Mark didn’t give two shits for their rationale. As long as they could hold a rifle and shoot straight, they would serve the army’s need.