Fortunately, Griff had a lot more experience with it.
He shoved past the agents and found the button on the console on the president’s desk. The one hooked up after 9/11. He pressed it.
Hardened security screens composed of rolled homogeneous armor slammed into place over the windows. They would take anything up to a direct hit by a Hellfire missile.
Griff hoped they’d be enough.
THE AGENTS IN THE ROOM looked to Haney, the most senior man on shift. They were anxious, confused—and scared. They were trained to deal with every possible threat to the president and they were scared.
Outside the Oval Office, an alarm began to wail. The White House was never left undefended. A Counter-Assault Team was on duty at all times. They carried enough weaponry to repel a full-scale terrorist assault.
Griff knew they didn’t stand a chance. The dead men would keep coming. It was built into them. They would find an entrance and seek out the life inside the building and snuff it out. It was all they knew.
Gunfire echoed through the building. The Oval Office’s walls shook as someone fired what sounded like a grenade launcher.
On the other side of the room, Haney was speaking into the mike at his cuff. He was trying to be quiet, but Griff could hear him well enough. Sheer panic.
Then something came over Haney’s earpiece, loud enough that the agent had to tear it out of his head. The other agents, all tuned to the same channel, did the same.
A very tiny scream wailed from the earpiece as it hung from Haney’s collar. Then it died away completely.
Haney picked up the phone, trying to reach someone outside to get a report.
He shook his head. No answer.
The sound of splintering wood and tortured metal reached them from downstairs.
They were inside.
Both Haney and Griff looked at the Oval Office door. It did not have the steel shutters. The thinking was, if someone got that far, the president would already be long gone. It had heavy bolts to keep it shut. But they wouldn’t last against the creatures.
Haney turned to Griff. “What’s the plan?”
Griff noticed he’d gone from a lunatic to a prophet in less than five minutes. And Wyman didn’t look at all happy anymore.
“Stay here. Wait for Cade,” Griff said.
Agent Haney looked to the president. “Sir?”
Curtis took a long moment. Griff could see the struggle in his face.
He knew, as well as anyone in the room, that going out to face those things was as good as suicide.
But his family was on the other side of the screens.
He addressed Griff. “There has to be a way to stop them.”
“Not by us, sir. This is way above our pay grade.”
Curtis thought for a moment. He looked at Haney.
“Bob,” he said. “I’m going to ask you something. It’s not an order. It’s a request.”
“You’re not leaving this room, sir,” Haney said.
“I need to make sure my family is all right.”
“No, sir. You’re not going.”
“God damn it, Bob—”
“But I am.”
They heard more glass and wood breaking. Above them, the ceiling shook as if the building was hit by a quake.
Haney pointed at the other agents. “Patterson, Roy, Spencer, you’re with me. We’ll run for the weapons cache, then into the Residence,” Haney said. He looked at Griff. “You’re not fast enough. No offense.”
The ceiling shook again, and plaster dust rained down on them. “None taken,” Griff said.
“You stay here with Terrill.” Haney turned to Terrill, the youngest man in the room, a rookie agent. “Terrill, the president’s life is in your hands.”
Haney took his backup piece from an ankle holster, as well as his spare clips, and gave them all to Griff.
Patterson and the other agents formed up on Haney and prepared to head out the door.
Wyman noticed. “What are you doing? You’re not leaving us?”
“Mr. Vice President, you’re safer here,” Haney said.
“You can’t leave us,” Wyman said. “You have to stay and protect us!”
“You’ve got Agent Griffin and you’ve got Agent Terrill,” Haney told him.
Wyman wasn’t listening. He clutched at Haney’s arm as the agent turned to go. Haney looked down at his hand.
President Curtis peeled him away.
“Bob,” he said again with a quiet force. “I cannot ask you to do this.”
Griff could practically feel the weight of the president’s gaze.
“You don’t have to, sir,” Haney said. He shook the president’s hand. “It’s been a pleasure and a privilege.”
Then he sprinted out into the hallway, along with the rest of the agents.
Griff slammed the door shut and then threw the security bolts.
It wouldn’t be enough. Griff grabbed a heavy chair and laid it down at the doorway. Then a table, then another chair.
“Give me a hand,” he said to the rookie. “My back can’t take what it used to.”
Terrill jumped up and took the other end of a couch that was a favorite of Lady Bird Johnson’s. He and Griff dragged it onto the makeshift barricade.
“You think this will stop them?”
“Hell, no,” Griff said. “I’ll be happy if it slows them down.”
The look on the rookie’s face told Griff that wasn’t the answer he wanted.
THE MARINE LOOKED UNCOMFORTABLE. “Sir, I’m sorry. I haven’t gotten any clearance from the White House.”
He stood in front of Marine One, the presidential chopper, on its pad at Andrews Air Force Base. Fueled up, ready to go at a moment’s notice. Currently not going anywhere, because the guard blocked Cade and Zach from getting inside.
“Look, you know who we are, just get us off the ground and radio ahead for permission,” Zach said. “I am a deputy director at the White House—”
Zach reached for his credentials in his suit jacket—and then remembered they were probably in a Ziploc baggie near the holding cell in California.
“I’ve got orders to keep you here, sir. I’m sorry.”
“Orders? From who?”
“Wyman,” Cade muttered. The marine didn’t hear, or didn’t care if he did.
“I have my orders, sir. Please step back.”
The marine’s face was a blank wall. Zach had no idea how to get around it.
The marine’s radio snapped to life. “We have a call from the White House, something’s going down, prepare the chopper . . .”
Zach was going to say something to the marine when Cade ended the debate. He reached across Zach, grabbed the marine by his belt and flung him backward.
Cade was in the pilot’s seat by the time the marine landed a dozen yards away.
“Get in,” he ordered Zach.
Cade flipped switches, and Marine One’s engines began to spin up. In the distance, the guard struggled to his feet, fumbling for his sidearm.
“Cade, he’s getting up.”
“Marines are tough,” Cade said.
“Cade . . .”
Cade ignored him, still working at the controls.
“Cade, do you know how to fly this thing?”
Zach was answered with a lurching takeoff just as the marine began shooting.
If he hit anything, Zach couldn’t hear it over the engines and the rotor.
The marine was still shooting as they turned away into the night, gaining speed.
SIXTY-TWO
It was only thirteen miles from Andrews to the White House, so Zach knew the chopper ride couldn’t be taking as long as it seemed. Voices over the radio shouted at them. Then other voices shouted over those.
“Four, repeat, we have four confirmed intruders at the White House, we’re trying to—holy shit, that can’t be—holy shit—”
A scream, then static.
Cade switched it off.
Z
ach saw the White House through the windscreen, bright and tiered like a wedding cake in the lights. It looked strangely peaceful.
Cade put the chopper into a steep dive.
Zach looked over at him. Cade’s lips were drawn back, his teeth exposed. His eyes were bright. It took Zach a split second to recognize what he was seeing.
His guilt was gone. This is what he was made for, Zach suddenly realized. On the hunt, up against something that might present a challenge.
Off his leash. Kill or be killed.
Cade was happy.
THE AGENTS GOT down the stairs and into the Secret Service room. More gunfire erupted, this time closer. Then screams and then sounds that were sickeningly wet.
Haney and Patterson overturned a file cabinet and opened a panel hidden in the wall, revealing a steel door behind the clean white wood. Haney’s hands shook as he entered the combination into the keypad.
It took two tries before the locks disengaged with a heavy thump.
The agents began sorting through the cache. Kevlar vests—no time. And those things didn’t have guns. Automatic weapons—M16s. One each. And two AT4s. Shoulder-fired anti-tank rockets. These were the CS versions, specifically designed for close-quarter, urban warfare. They came with only one round apiece.
It would have to do.
Haney took the incendiary and its firing tube, a deceptively small, light cylinder. He handed the other to Patterson.
“I’m going to the Residence,” he said.
Patterson frowned, but nodded. No time to argue. The other agents were checking their rounds, stowing their spare ammo.
Patterson and the other two agents headed toward the West Lobby. Haney, alone, ran past the press corps offices, toward the main residence.
THEY LANDED HARD ENOUGH to send Zach halfway to the ceiling of the chopper. The seat belt yanked him back down again. His ribs and his other injuries screamed in pain.
Cade was moving, unlatching himself.
“Cade,” Zach said.
“The president’s family,” Cade snapped. “Go. I don’t have time.”
He was out of the helicopter then, sprinting for the buildings.
Zach, moving much more slowly, unstrapped himself from the restraints and got out, jumping several feet to the ground. His body reminded him of every injury as he hit the manicured lawn.
Cade was at the West Wing already, not looking back.
Zach thought about the president’s family. And he thought about Candace.
He forgot his pain. He turned and ran as fast as he could for the White House.
SIXTY-THREE
Cade smashed through the rear entry of the West Wing’s ground floor—directly into the Secret Service office.
The White House stank of rancid meat. It overwhelmed his senses, muddled everything like a fog would hide a landscape. Too much death, too much fresh blood.
Cade had to rely on his ears. He could hear footfalls on carpet despite the other sounds.
The lobby.
Cade was there in seconds. The marine guards who ordinarily stood watch at the door were already dead, their dress uniforms in tatters, their blood painting the floor and walls.
Three Secret Service agents were doing all they could against the thing that had killed the guards. They had their weapons up, firing round after round.
It all seemed to happen underwater to Cade. His perceptions were working as fast as possible. The bullets looked like lazy bumblebees, floating in the air.
The bullets didn’t even pierce the creature’s hide. The bullets kept coming, the agents firing wildly, until, one by one, their guns clicked empty.
The creature still stood. It then moved its mismatched limbs and overgrown torso and advanced on them. Dead eyes fixed on the agents.
It was within a dozen feet of the stairs to the Oval Office.
Cade leaped, hurdling over the heads of the agents in one move, hitting the creature as hard as he could.
It rocked back but not very far. Then it swung at him, nearly tagged him.
He barely rolled clear. Its fist left a crater in the floor. Faster than he remembered. Konrad had installed upgrades.
The agents were behind him now, staring, frozen in place.
“Humans, out!” Cade bellowed.
Their leader—Cade knew his name, it was Patterson—seemed to wake up. He shouted the order for retreat.
“Get out!” he screamed. “Go! It’s just the monsters now!”
Cade almost smiled at that.
He steeled himself and then threw himself back at the creature.
SIXTY-FOUR
Zach collided with the Secret Service man as he entered the Residence.
The agent put a gun to Zach’s face but didn’t fire. His eyes went wide with recognition.
“Barrows? What the hell are you doing—”
That was as much as he got out before the doors behind them blew apart.
Another one of the things. Dead skin hanging off overstressed muscles, the corpse barely able to contain all its power.
And they moved a lot slower in the movies, Zach thought sourly.
He and the agent—Haney, that was his name—ran.
Zach slammed the doors of the Diplomatic Reception Room.
“Where the hell are the CAT teams?” he yelled.
Then they both looked around and saw the answer.
Corpses. But these ones weren’t going to get up again. They looked like they had been ripped apart. The hall where the president greeted foreign leaders had been turned into an abattoir. Bits of human flesh and blood spread out over the wallpaper selected by Jackie Kennedy.
“We have to get out of here,” Zach said, pulling at Haney’s arm.
“You go,” Haney said, slinging a metal tube off his shoulder. “I’ve got to get the president’s family.”
“No, listen—”
“Go ahead and run, Barrows,” Haney shouted at him.
Zach wanted to scream back, That’s not what I meant . . .
Then it was too late.
Because Zach was right. The creature behind them couldn’t have done all this. It was headed in the opposite direction.
There was another one. And it was in the room with them.
SIXTY-FIVE
Lance Corporal Ryan Garcia wondered idly if he was in Hell.
His last clear memory was of kneeling in front of a video camera while some Jihadi asswipe screamed at him. He’d known what was coming. He’d known since he and the other members of his patrol were taken from their vehicle after the IED went off in Sadr City.
More screaming. Garcia had been heavily sedated to ensure he wouldn’t ruin the terrorist’s home video. All he felt was irritation. He just wanted the guy to shut up.
The screaming reached a crescendo. He understood the words “Death to America!” Then: nothing.
Now he seemed to drift in and out of consciousness, like waking up to the blare of the clock radio only to hit the snooze button again. Something like that.
His body—well, it didn’t feel like his body, but it seemed to carry him—was moving. There was pain. A lot of pain. It only eased when his arms and legs lashed out against the dim figures in his path.
Again, he didn’t feel like he was doing any of this. Like a dream, it was just happening to him. He could feel the pain as it coursed through his head, but everything else was like grabbing at shadows.
He knew, in some sort of abstract way, that there was a large white building in front of him and he was headed toward it. It felt like he was on rails. None of this seemed to have anything to do with him. Not really.
The shadows kept getting in his way, but they didn’t slow him down. He was sort of curious what kept happening to them.
That was all he got before he sank back down into the dark.
IN THE WEST WING, Cade watched as the creature moved toward him. Still headed for the stairs.
He’d already hit it as fast and hard as he could. It had barely
staggered.
Weapon, Cade decided. I need a weapon.
Nothing nearby would work. The creature was too durable for small-arms fire. Anything he could tear from the walls wouldn’t be any better.
It came to him, and he wondered why it took him so long.
The creature was a few feet away. Cade braced himself for the blow. The creature flung out one of its fists, aiming for the annoying thing that wouldn’t break as easily as the others.
Cade caught the arm, turned and twisted it, in a move that looked like judo. Only instead of flipping the creature, the move tore the arm free at the shoulder, ripping out the joint.
The creature stopped. Cade wondered if they felt pain.
If so, then this was going to hurt. A lot.
He swung the arm like a baseball bat. Infused with whatever miracle potion Konrad had made, it was just as strong as the creature.
It cracked across the Unmenschsoldat’s skull, twisting it at an unnatural angle.
Unable to see straight, it began to walk in a small circle.
Cade swung again. And again. And again. And again.
THEY COULD HEAR the unholy din from the floor under their feet. The sounds of gunfire, then noises like Griff imagined dinosaurs must have made while fighting.
Through it all, the men in the Oval Office remained quiet.
The young agent—Terrill, Griff reminded himself, the kid’s name was Terrill—stood, panicked, by the president. As if he could shield Curtis with his body alone.
Curtis sat in his chair, lost in thought. Ostensibly the most powerful man in the world, he could do nothing to save himself or his family.
Wyman sat in one of the couches, muttering to himself, shaking violently. Griff wondered if he was having a seizure. He walked over to the vice president.
A few steps closer, he could hear what Wyman was saying, over and over.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen yet . . . This wasn’t supposed to happen yet . . . I was supposed to know . . . It wasn’t supposed to start . . .”
Christopher Farnsworth - Nathaniel Cade [01] Page 29
