And his face reddened with shame.
But then this self-recrimination was interrupted by the unexpected sound of gunfire, muted but still percussive.
He spun back around – but couldn’t see anything out the far porthole. He felt the urge to run and try to help Sarah. But of course there was no getting there. Between her and him was a companionway full of running death. Staring wide-eyed across the open air, he finally saw a figure walk by the far porthole. As he pressed himself up against the glass, he saw two figures walk back by in the opposite direction. He thought one of them was Sarah, but couldn’t be sure.
He opened his mouth to shout at them.
But then his throat closed up and he swallowed the shout – as he sensed more than heard something behind him. When he turned around in place, it was only a few feet away. And it was a Zulu, a walker, lurching toward him at a hobbled pace.
It had to be a Zulu, a slow one.
Otherwise, he would already be dead.
* * *
As Park stared saucer-eyed at the diseased, angry abomination lurching straight for him, locked on, hungry, jealous, lustful… now, in his mind, time dilated out for him, too. Suddenly he had time to ponder his circumstances. And for some reason what occurred to him was:
This could be it – for life in the universe.
If he went down, maybe humanity didn’t make it.
And maybe humanity was the only game in town.
And in that instant, he couldn’t tell for sure whether he was more scared by this, the existential danger to all human life on Earth, possibly all intelligent life in the universe – or else by his simple, personal, primal fear of being grabbed, clawed, infected… devoured…
No, scratch that, he did know.
He was much more terrified for himself than for humanity. It wasn’t noble, but there it was. Right now, he was experiencing a primal, visceral terror that screamed from every one of his individual cells.
He had to get out of there. There was just nowhere to go.
But then he was out of time, and out of space. It was on top of him in the cramped landing. And as he steeled himself, raised his foot high, and put his boot into its chest, he knew he was only buying himself a few seconds. This latest dead sailor tumbled backward, hit the bulkhead by the ladder, and fell forward on the deck.
And Park had a sudden and emphatic appreciation, one that would never abandon him his whole life, for big, thick-soled, steel-toed, shit-kicking boots. Suddenly it was obvious how awesomely superior they were.
Never again with the loafers.
And as he watched the Zulu scrabbling on the ground and trying to right itself, Park braced his body, and lowered it down into a slight crouch, like a cornered animal, which is exactly what he was.
And in this handful of seconds he had bought… what happened was that the small, previously strangled voice, the one that had started to come back to him during the first attack, but had faded out, extinguished by his own mind overloading and shutting down… now it returned, quiet at first, but crescendoing in volume until it was a shout inside his head.
And what it said was:
Whatever happens, keep moving and thinking. Countless millions have spent their last moments on Earth paralyzed by confusion. Don’t be among them.
These words faded out again, but not before leaving their mark on him. And this mark was indelible. He knew now: he was somehow going to have to think his way out of this.
No, he corrected himself. I’m going to have to OPERATE my way out of this.
Then the sound of the operators’ voices was replaced by a vision. Simon Park looked back in his visual memory, to nearly an hour earlier, when he and Sarah had been led down into this dark labyrinth by the previously lively Dietz… and he remembered what he had seen on the wall inside the short companionway, right behind the hatch against which his back now pressed.
A fire/damage control station.
With a motherfucking ax.
* * *
There was only one small problem:
It was locked inside the corridor with the runner.
Park stepped forward, kicked the Zulu while it was down – it had been rising to its knees, and now sprawled face-down again, hissing more angrily and seeming more determined – then turned and stole a glance through the porthole. The runner was still down at the far end. Instantly, Park worked the mechanism, swung the hatch open – and saw the Romeo turn, wind up, hiss, and take off straight for him like Usain Bolt out of spring-loaded starting blocks.
He knew this next bit was going to take some arterial ice water. He stepped inside, turned ninety degrees and showed his side to the hurtling threat, opened the plexiglas cover on the fire station, unclipped the ax, stepped back outside, and pulled the hatch shut and dogged it.
The runner smashed into the other side, its blue-tinted white face, with spiderweb black veins and cloudy and ulcerated corneas, smushed up against the porthole glass.
Park pondered the fact that if he had fumbled any part of that operation, if he had wasted a fraction of a second, he would now be rolling around with the runner, fighting for his life, but only putting off the inevitable – infection and undeath. But he didn’t ponder this long, because the Zulu behind him had now grabbed his leg and was bringing its head forward to bite. In fact, it did bite – right into the solid leather of the boot’s neck, where its teeth were stopped cold.
Park spun and brought the ax down lengthwise across the top of its head, and the back of its neck. The blade cut cleanly. Brainstem cleaved in half, the creature lost its unholy animation and went limp at his feet, face down – both its hands still locked around Park’s bad-ass Bates DuraShock boots.
And he realized he now barely had the strength even to hold the ax. His left arm had been peppered with buckshot and was nearly numb, not to mention acutely lacking in strength. He let the polished wood handle go, and the ax fell over to the side, clunking onto the deck.
It didn’t matter.
He had kept his grip when it counted.
Closer
JFK, Flag Bridge Briefing Room
“Jesus, Commander,” said Fick. “You look like sandblasted shit. Shouldn’t you be in bed?”
Drake shook his head tiredly. It wobbled a little on his neck. “I’m fine. I just got creased.” He rubbed his upper arm.
“Plus blown up,” Handon rumbled. He personally thought Fick had a point. “Let us take this one.”
Fick just shrugged, as if to say, Welcome to the I Just Got Blown Up Club.
Drake ignored all this. He was all hopped up on painkillers, most of his body was stiff as hell, and he had bandage pads taped over minor burns and a couple of small shrapnel wounds. But he also had a fresh uniform on, a new side arm – his had gone over the side into the south Atlantic – and a hot cup of coffee, so things weren’t so bad.
But, mainly, he needed to be here.
He probably could have handed over command to Abrams for a few hours, or a day. But he wasn’t going to. If he keeled over or passed out, Abrams could take it. Right now, he was running this briefing – which included, in addition to Handon and Fick, Master Chief Shields and the two surviving and uninjured Brits from the plane: the bearded pilot, and one of the three bioscientists whom the pilot had been charged with transporting there.
Who was also the only one of the three still on his feet.
Drake addressed his own people first, nodding toward the scientist. “Gentlemen. This is Professor Nigel Close, OBE.” Handon knew these letters stood for “Order of the British Empire.” Which meant he had been knighted by the Queen somewhere along the line.
He was small and slightly potbellied, mid-fifties, with very thin white hair swept to one side. He looked like an Oxford don – which was exactly what he was – and when he spoke, he sounded precisely like one, too. From the tone of his voice, he was currently a very cross don, and he didn’t waste any time before sharing his displeasure.
“Now look h
ere, Commander,” he said, addressing his words to Drake. He seemed to regard the others as below the top of the food chain and thus a waste of his ire. “From the very start, I was adamant that you bring this Dr. Park and his research results directly to Britain.”
Drake took a deep breath. He could see which way the wind was blowing – hell, he could feel it on his face. Keeping his voice level, he said, “You’ve already received all of his research data. We sent it across to you first thing.”
Professor Close said, “Yes, but without the man, it’s difficult in the extreme to make sense of his work. It’s all almost totally undocumented.”
Handon spoke up – though he figured he was going to regret this. “Documentation wasn’t a top priority for Simon until recently. When we found him, he thought he was the last man on Earth. Never mind the last working microbiologist.”
“Yes, well never mind that,” Close said. “He could have explained it all to us himself if only you had brought him back. But you have declined to do this. And so now…”
Drake swallowed. I hate this job, he thought.
“And so now, instead, I agreed to bring the mountain to Mohammed, as it were. And I fly our very top people here, along with a whole lot of irreplaceable lab equipment, on a very long and uncomfortable aeroplane journey. And within seconds of our arrival, my people are gunned down like dogs – and our equipment pushed over the side to the bottom of the bloody ocean! So I must beg your pardon if the United States of America and its navy have not thus far inspired an enormous amount of confidence.”
An awkward silence ruled the room for a couple of beats.
Fick broke it. “Damn, Professor,” he said, leaning across the table and staring into his face. “Those glasses of yours are like pickle jars. When you look at a map, can you see people waving at you?”
“You secure that shit, Fick,” Drake snapped. With all of the problems he had right now… Oh, fuck it.
“Professor Close,” he said. “We profoundly regret what happened. You and your people were attacked by a mutineer. It was a bolt from the blue. And we’re doing everything we can to ensure that nothing remotely like that happens again.”
Close was still staring coolly across the table at the big, slightly slack-faced Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant. He said, “I don’t suppose your security inspires much confidence, either. It was only due to luck that the lead researcher was spared. Namely, me.”
Handon, keeping his silence, glanced across the table. He’d already been told that Close was the head of the entire research effort in the UK. And like a lot of very smart, very successful people, his ego took some managing.
And Handon knew something else: it hadn’t been by luck that this guy was spared. It had been because of the Sikh pilot, and his perfect response to a very unexpected contact. Who was this guy? He clearly had tactical skills and instincts beyond that of a pilot, even a combat pilot or special-ops aviator. For now, the big man stood easily, and seemingly happily, over by the hatch, not really part of the meeting. More as if he were on executive protection duty.
And he was actually wearing that scimitar now, hanging regally from his belt. Handon shook his head, impressed despite himself.
Drake went on. His speech, Handon now noted, seemed slightly slurred. It was the painkillers, no doubt. “I’m told your colleague, the one who wasn’t killed, is going to pull through. He’s getting the best possible care. And as for your equipment… that was also very regrettable. But my crew took the actions that were required. Because if we had lost this vessel to explosion or fire, we would still have lost your lab equipment – along with everything else we have, ourselves included.”
The professor seemed to back down slightly, and finally to accept this. He also looked around the cabin and deflated further. “I’m sorry. I’m usually… a bit more good-humored than this. I’m just a bit…”
Scared, Handon thought. The man was terrified, and had every right to be. And this was his response to it.
Close perked up. “Can’t you send someone into the water to recover the equipment?”
Drake looked to Shields. “Chief?”
The Master Chief shook his head. “No, we currently have zero capability for deep-water salvage, or any kind of undersea recovery, really. Definitely not at anything like the depth we’re sitting over.”
“There’s nothing that could be done?” the scientist persisted.
Fick jumped in. “Well, sure, we could toss the ship’s anchor over the side and just go trawling up and down.”
“Really?”
Shields cut Fick off. “No, not really. The seabed in the middle of the Atlantic’s longer than our anchor chains.”
“But what if they were longer?” Close asked, intrigued.
“What if?” Fick asked. “What if grasshoppers had machine guns? Birds would be fucked!”
Drake looked across at Fick tiredly. He tried to decide whether to banish him from the meeting. The Marine definitely had other shit to do. Come to realize it, Drake suddenly thought, that’s why he’s being such a dick. He WANTS to be kicked out. Smart Jarhead…
“What about the strike group’s sub, the Washington?” Handon asked. “Can it descend to that depth?”
“Safely?”
“Yeah.”
“No,” Drake said. “They could get down there, though their captain would only do it under protest. But they couldn’t send divers out at that depth.”
“And even if they could,” Shields added, “there’d be no way to bring any of the salvage back up. Plus…”
Drake looked at him tiredly. “What else?”
“Plus the sub is almost a thousand miles behind us now, sir. They’re still playing catch-up.”
“Oh, yeah.” Drake shook his head slightly to clear it.
“You sure you’re feeling well enough for this, sir?”
Drake had to restrain himself from telling him to fuck off. Not least because there was absolutely no way he could do without the man. Also, he increasingly wondered if anybody was ever feeling well enough for everything that had to be done around here every day…
The hatch to the briefing room opened briskly. In walked an alert-looking NSF guy, carrying an assault rifle.
Behind him were Sarah Cameron and Dr. Park.
Both were wearing blue jumpsuits.
And Handon knew for certain that wasn’t what Sarah had put on when they got up that morning.
* * *
“What happened to you?” Park asked the banged-up-looking Drake.
“I just got creased,” Drake said tiredly, again. “It’s nothing.”
Park didn’t look reassured. “Until it gets infected! Are you not worried about germs yet?”
Drake ignored this, quickly introduced Park to Professor Close, and then shuffled the two of them off – along with the armed NSF guy – so they could coordinate and get to work down in the lab.
After that, Sarah gave those who remained the short version of the close call she and Park had belowdecks. Then she asked Drake to call up ship’s blueprints, flipped to the lowest level, and scrolled to the stern, pausing at Stores.
“I’m not saying your ship is crawling with them,” she said, gazing down at a map display on the tablet computer. “But I wouldn’t exactly call it secure, either.”
“What are we looking at?”
“You’ve got destroyed ones here… and here…” she said, pointing, Drake and Fick following her finger. “And a live one, trapped in this companionway here.” She looked up at Drake. “And we need to keep it alive. Park needs a virus sample.”
Drake nodded. “Well, that’s some good luck, anyway.”
Sarah refrained from sharing her sense of how good their luck had or hadn’t been. Going back to the map, she said, “I’m afraid you’ve also got a dead hospital lab technician… in this compartment here. Depending on how much of him is left, he might be back up by now. Dr. Walker knows about it. He was one of her people.”
Gunny Fick straightened up. “The capture shouldn’t be a problem. I can’t say we’ve done a ton of that, but we’ll work it out.”
Sarah looked up at Fick. “Be careful. It’s a runner.”
Drake looked at Fick. “How did these get missed?”
Fick straightened up and sniffed. “My guess would be they got infected by splashback in the battle, started feeling bad later… then slunk off to avoid a bullet in the head. They might have even been listed as MIA in the battle, when they didn’t show up for their next duty.”
Drake just sighed. He didn’t suppose there was much point in issuing orders to protect themselves from those infected but not yet turned. There was no incentive you could provide, no order you could give, to someone who was already dead on his feet.
At the same time, he couldn’t risk losing the ship.
“We’ve got to do a full sweep. The risk of another serious outbreak below decks is too great. And we might not survive the next one.”
Fick mumbled, “Maybe we can get another mutiny to go along with it. Blow another hole in the boat.”
Drake ignored this. “Can your guys take the sweep? Coulson and two fire teams, maybe?”
It looked like it physically pained Fick to turn down a mission. “Coulson and his men are prepping for the scavenging op in Saldanha Bay. And since the objective of that mission is supplies for the Somalia mission…”
Drake finished the thought for him. “Then that makes Coulson’s mission a critical-path task.” Fick nodded.
Handon spoke up. “I’ll take it. My team can do the sweep. Or else we’ll take over the scavenging op, and free the Marines up for that.”
Fick shook his head slowly. “No way, Handon. You just hold the horns. We’re fucking this goat.” But what he really meant was that Alpha had to get, and stay, healthy for Somalia. He looked over to Drake. “Let’s let NSF do it. They’ve got the people, weapons, and skills for this type of bug hunt.”
Arisen, Book Six - The Horizon Page 19
