Fall Back

by Riley Flynn

  “Sounds an awful lot like what we saw in Atlanta,” said Ruben. Jax could hear the smugness in his voice. “And Stuttgart, for that matter.”

  “Same with the Springs,” said Campbell. “Guys were dropping like flies at Schriever right before I left. The infirmary was busting at the seams because there weren’t any beds at the hospitals in the city.”

  As he tucked into his food, Jax glanced at the third finger of each man’s left hand. Neither of them were married. He’d done a head count of Echo Company in Stuttgart before he left, and the four men who hadn’t shown up at the airport were the four members who had families in Germany. Everyone who was here in Cheyenne was single.

  That might mean nothing, he told himself. Or it might mean something. If command expected things to get ugly, it would make sense for them to send in men with less to lose.

  Or maybe this place was making him paranoid.

  “Any idea when orders will be coming down, sir?” Campbell asked. “All we were told is that Col. Archer is in charge until further notice.”

  Jax shook his head. “Tomorrow, maybe. Archer’s been surrounded by brass since we got here; he’s probably still wrapping his head around things, same as us.”

  Lee chimed in. “I’m betting some of the work will be hauling away all those abandoned vehicles on the roads. Must’ve been a hundred of ‘em on the way here from the airport.”

  Jax had seen them. He wondered what the hell went through people’s heads; you think you can drive away from a virus? And from what he’d seen since they got back stateside, gas was as precious as gold these days. He didn’t know what their orders would be, but he was sure it would go far beyond just towing vehicles from the side of the road.

  Ruben’s eyes flicked above Jax’s head; he turned around on the bench to face the large video screen that had been set high up on the wall behind him and saw the haggard face of their commander-in-chief. Much like Archer, Terrence Fletcher seemed to have aged years since the last time Jax had seen him, and it made his guts twist. He wasn’t Fletcher’s biggest fan, but he respected the office. It was obviously weighing heavy on the man.

  The signal was far from clear; Fletcher’s head kept breaking into blocks of black pixels and then reforming. Somewhere out of sight, someone hit the volume button.

  “Finally,” said Ruben. “Maybe we’ll get some answers here.”

  “That’s Air Force One,” Campbell said, eyes narrowed. “He’s on his way here from Edwards, I bet.”

  Jax held up a hand to silence them. “My fellow Americans,” the president said in scratchy audio that wasn’t fully synched with the video. “It is with the heaviest of hearts that I address you this evening…”

  ***

  No one spoke for a long time after the broken signal ended. There were large chunks that had been lost in the transmission process, but the message was clear: America was under martial law, and the National Guard was mobilizing.

  Jax noticed Lee and Campbell looking at him expectantly, clearly waiting for something from the senior officer in the room. What the hell was he supposed to say? He’d been sitting beside them when the president made the direst proclamation in the nation’s history. He didn’t have any clearer view of the future than they did.

  “Jesus,” Ruben breathed. “National Guard rule. Never thought I’d see the day.”

  “That doesn’t explain what we’re doing here,” said Campbell. “We can’t do much for the Guard from Cheyenne. And what about the rest of the forces?”

  “I’m a marine,” said Lee. “The Guard is army and air force. What am I doing here?”

  “Maybe that’s what Archer and the rest are here to figure out,” said Jax. “There’s never been a domestic response like this before; I imagine there are massive logistics to be figured out.”

  “And Echo is here for logistics?” Ruben asked. “We’re counter-terrorism specialists.”

  Jax’s frustration finally broke through his veneer. “I don’t fucking know!” he barked. “Is that what you all want to hear? Fine, there it is. I don’t fucking know.”

  The three men avoided his gaze as the ones in the kitchen hurried to look busy. Jax felt ashamed at losing it like that, but the stress of the last three days was starting to eat through his soul—and the lining of his stomach, judging by the growling pain that had been building there.

  “Look, I—” he began before he was cut off by the squawk of the radio on his hip. They’d been using walkies since they got here, since they weren’t able to rely on cell service.

  “Booth!” It was Archer’s voice.

  Finally, Jax thought as he unclipped it from his belt and held it to his mouth.

  “Booth here, sir. Awaiting orders, over.”

  “Command center. Now.”

  “Yessir.”

  He replaced the radio on his hip and leapt from his seat. As he strode toward the exit to the mess, he glanced back at the men.

  “Looks like orders are on their way, gentlemen,” he said. “Be careful what you wish for.”

  Chapter 5

  Marcus Chase looked at his fingernails in the glare light of the fluorescents that ran the length of the ceiling in the room that now served as a makeshift stockade. Ever since he was a young teen, they’d covered little more than two-thirds of the skin at the tips of his tapered fingers. He was a chewer, making a regular meal of the ragged strips of dead cells whenever they got more than an eighth of an inch past the quick.

  Now, though, they were long. Practically luxuriant, compared to what they’d been for the past fifty-some years. For a brief moment, he wondered what they’d look like painted and buffed. Then he chuckled and shook his head.

  His entire life he’d been a worrier, constantly running through every possible scenario in his head, feeling every possible outcome. In addition to ragged nails, the trait had resulted in one of the most distinguished careers of any military man in American history. He’d retired a full general before being named Secretary of Defense by Terrence Fletcher some seven years earlier, to acclaim from both sides of Congress.

  These days, though, he no longer questioned himself. Maybe it was the death sentence he was living under; maybe it was just that he was sure that what he was doing was the right thing. Whatever the case, his nails had finally grown out.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have a Tylenol, would you?” he said softly to the soldier who stood ten feet away, a hand propped on his holstered weapon and a nervous look on his face. “You did a number on my skull when you brought me in here. Nice job, by the way.”

  The soldier glanced up at a closed circuit camera mounted over the locked door of the makeshift cell.

  “I told you, son,” said Chase. “It doesn’t work. Outside of the radios, there’s not much comms tech here that does work anymore. Sit down, if you want; we probably have a good ten minutes until he shows up.”

  The soldier looked confused and stood his ground.

  “Suit yourself,” Chase said with a shrug. “Private Peterson, right?”

  The younger man nodded uncertainly.

  “I know we don’t really know each other, but it just seems weird for us to sit here and not talk, given the—I don’t know, personal nature of what’s about to happen.”

  Peterson blinked several times before finally walking over to the table where Chase sat with his hands cuffed in front of him. He didn’t sit, but he did stand at ease.

  “That’s better,” said Chase. “You were making me nervous.”

  A chuckle escaped the soldier before he clamped down on it.

  “Go ahead and laugh,” said the older man. “Might as well. The Secretary of Defense is sitting here facing a treason charge for sending drones to shoot down the President of the United States. I can’t imagine anything more ridiculous, myself.”

  Peterson cleared his throat and Chase noticed a patina of sweat on the soldier’s upper lip.

  “How’re your symptoms, son?”

  “Not bad yet.”r />
  “They get a lot worse a lot quicker than you expect,” he sighed. “But at least you won’t suffer through that. And you know your wife and kids are safe. That’s about all anybody can hope for, given what’s to come in the days ahead.”

  “Yessir.” Peterson’s gaze was far away.

  “I’m curious: How much did they tell you? About the situation, I mean? About why we’re doing this?”

  The soldier shrugged. “Enough, I guess.”

  “And do you agree with the reasoning? Or did you just go along for your family’s sake?”

  Peterson shrugged again. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re wrong, sir.”

  Chase nodded. “You want to hear something stupid?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Believe it or not, I’m naturally immune. Last blood test, I still didn’t have any signs of Eko. One of the first exposed, ground zero when the North Koreans let it loose, and still nothing. Everyone else who was with me in those days is already dead. Well, there’s one other whose fate I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure he’s gone by now, too.”

  Peterson’s eyes narrowed. “That’s crazy.”

  Chase let out a papery laugh.

  “It’s a real motherfucker of a joke, isn’t it?” he said quietly. “Everyone’s dropping from the virus, and the one guy who isn’t has an inoperable, golf-ball-sized tumor pressing down on his cerebellum.” He chuckled again. “At least I don’t have to worry about it punching my ticket.”

  The soldier looked him in the eye. Chase nodded.

  “On that note,” he said. “I suppose it’s time, isn’t it?”

  “Yessir.”

  “All right, then.”

  Chase stood—he was a good six inches taller than his guard—and held out his cuffed wrists. Peterson took a key from his belt and unlocked one cuff. Then he took his sidearm from its holster and handed it to the older man.

  “It’ll be quick,” said Chase. “I promise.”

  Peterson nodded, his eyes on the wall. “Yessir.”

  Chase positioned himself behind the guard and draped his left arm across his chest. His right hand hefted the sidearm, a coppery-grey SIG Sauer.

  “Nice weapon, the SIG. I was always a Beretta man myself.”

  Before Peterson could answer, the knob on the door to the makeshift stockade started to turn. Chase clamped his forearm around the soldier’s throat and pressed his lips against his ear.

  “Showtime, son,” he hissed. “Remember: Your country owes you a debt of gratitude.”

  Chapter 6

  Jax tried to hurry down the corridors without looking like he was hurrying, which wasn’t easy.

  Archer had ordered him not to draw attention to himself as he made his way to the room where the Secretary of Defense, Gen. Marcus Chase himself, was being held under guard on charges of treason after readily admitting to using two experimental drones to shoot down Air Force One with all aboard. Jax was going to begin preliminary interrogation to find out why.

  His own words came back to haunt him: Be careful what you wish for.

  He was still reeling from Archer’s revelation that President Fletcher had been killed just minutes after the broadcast from AF1 had ended. The colonel had looked on the verge of a nervous breakdown as he passed along the news. Around them, generals and other colonels from both the army and the air force milled about the command center, reading printouts and looking at screens.

  Orders had come down directly from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Marine Gen. Geoff Benton: Get answers out of Chase at all costs.

  “I want you in that room with him,” Archer had told him quietly. “I told these people that no one would have a better chance of getting answers from Chase than you. You’re discreet and you’re good at—well, at getting answers fast.”

  Jax was both of those, but at the moment, he felt like a blindfolded baby crawling around the rim of a shark tank.

  “Chase has to be out of his head,” he said. “The man has a Medal of Honor. He campaigned for Fletcher, for Christ’s sake.”

  Archer nodded, frowning. “And yet he walked right into this room and told everyone he’d just shot down Air Force One. He put his hands out to be cuffed. His guard detail said he went peacefully, even though one of them gave him a cuff to the head on the way to his room.”

  Jax shook his head. “Could it—I mean, is it possible that it’s…Eko?” The thought made his stomach turn. The situation they were facing was impossible enough without the fear that Eko victims were going to start losing their minds.

  “That’s just it,” said Archer. “He’s clean. No sign of infection at all. There’s scuttlebutt about a possible brain tumor, but if he had one, he would have been bound to report it to the president. That’s why we need answers. Are you up to the interrogation?”

  Jax ran a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. “Yes, sir,” he said quietly. “But first… I may be overstepping my boundaries here, but I have to ask: What the hell is going on here at Cheyenne?”

  Archer scanned the room. “We’re making ad hoc decisions together until Colton Raines gets here.”

  “The vice-president is coming here?” Jax’s eyes widened.

  “He’s likely the president by now. Emergency swearing in on board Air Force Two right after it left Washington.”

  “But why Cheyenne?” He caught himself. “That’s above my pay grade, sir. I apologize.”

  Archer leaned in and lowered his voice even more. “It’s a fair question, but you’re not going to like the answer. The consensus in this room is that the National Guard scheme is just palliative.”

  “Palliative?”

  “The members weren’t vaccinated, and now there’s no X-57 left. No means of making any more. Once the CBRN suits run out, the guard will start to die alongside the general public. We haven’t been getting the full story on Eko. The mortality rate is far higher than we first believed. Those fucking Koreans opened Pandora’s box, Booth, and we’re left to deal with it.”

  Jax tried to grasp what it all meant, but his brain wouldn’t allow him to make the leap. Surely it wasn’t as bad as all that. The world still made sense—didn’t it?

  The defense secretary just killed the president. How much sense does that make?

  “What are you saying, sir?”

  Archer was whispering now. “I’m saying that I believe Echo Company was brought here to protect this base from whatever might be left when this country is done tearing itself apart. Once Raines gets here, Cheyenne Mountain is going to be the seat of government for the foreseeable future, God help us all.”

  ***

  The young corporal stationed outside the stockade room saluted as Jax approached. He returned it and dismissed the soldier.

  “Sir?”

  “Orders from Col. Archer. Keeping ears to a minimum.”

  The corporal looked a bit confused but nodded his understanding and strode off down the corridor. Jax couldn’t blame the kid; he was guarding the door of a prisoner whom many of the people in this base had considered a personal hero. Jax supposed they still did, since news of what he’d done wasn’t general knowledge yet. They would know soon, though not in the way Jax expected.

  He had idolized Marcus Chase as a young man himself. The guy’s story was a Hollywood screenwriter’s wet dream: He grew up on the mean streets of Baltimore, discovered ROTC at community college, which got him a 2nd lieutenant commission when he signed up in the army. Over four decades, he’d worked his way up to command roles, then strategic ones, and finally to politics, first as national security advisor, then as SecDef. He’d earned points among the public and the pundits for offering the civilian president a guiding hand through the foreign policy minefield that had emerged after the U.S. economy took its long nosedive.

  And then he’d murdered the man. The President of the United States. His friend. Because apparently the world just wasn’t quite fucked up enough as it was, with the Eko virus and whatever the h
ell was going on with computers. Shit was well and truly going sideways.

  Jax took a deep breath and turned the knob of the featureless white door. It opened to reveal the last thing he would have expected: Chase was holding a service pistol to his guard’s right temple.

  Adrenaline slammed through Jax’s system as his right hand went reflexively to his own sidearm and his left went up in a calming gesture.

  “Mr. Secretary,” he heard himself say. “You don’t want to do that.”

  Chase fixed him with a wide stare as his grip tightened around the guard’s throat. “You don’t see them,” he hissed. “They’re here. Don’t spook them.”

  “It’s my fault,” the guard gurgled. “He said he had to pee…”

  “SHUT UP!” Chase bellowed, digging the SIG’s barrel into the guard’s temple. His voice dropped to a whisper again. “They’ll see us.”

  Jax’s heart jackhammered in his chest. He’d faced plenty of insane circumstances in combat, but never something like this. He was an interrogator, not a negotiator. He took a tentative step into the room.

  “Don’t,” Chase said in a warning tone. “Just don’t. Friendly isn’t coming. The juice is loose.”

  “No, sir,” Jax said, desperate to keep the conversation going. “Friendly isn’t coming. But we’re going to be okay. It’ll all be okay if you just put the gun down.”

  The guard choked a cough as Chase pulled him farther into the room.

  “He’s… lost it,” the guard croaked. “FUBAR…”

  The SecDef’s eyes danced wildly, then stopped to bore into Jax’s.

  “The times, they are a-changing…” he said as he let go of his grip on the guard. The younger man stumbled to his left as Chase’s arm straightened out and placed the SIG’s barrel against the guard’s temple again.

  Jax let battle-hardened instinct take over, allowing his right hand to pull the sidearm from his holster and aim it at Chase’s sternum.