First Wave Series Box Set (Books 1-3)

by JT Sawyer

  Chapter 15

  Heavy snow was swirling upon the quiet streets of Montrose, Colorado as the season’s first major snowstorm swept in upon the small mountain town. Logan was in his makeshift office on the lower level of the city-hall building downtown, sifting over the highlighted areas on a wall map of the western U.S.

  From his incident command post in Montrose, he maintained control of eleven teams sweeping the Four Corners states in search of the last missing link in the puzzle—the vaccine to combat the second wave of the virus.

  He glanced over at his desk to a photo of his wife, son, and daughter. Two of them were in a secure location back east. His son, who would have turned thirteen next month, had succumbed to a RAM attack that had struck their neighborhood during the initial outbreak. He thought back to those first excruciating weeks after his son’s death, when his unit had been closing in on the rogue agents responsible for unleashing the virus and the presidential cabinet had gone underground. The shaky intel on the origin of the virus had pointed to a group funded, he believed, by the secretary of biodefense, who had disappeared days before the outbreak. The only lead he had came from security footage at a research facility in New Mexico, which indicated former operative Nikki Rowan was behind rounding up the scientists involved.

  Now, here he was, shut off from the outside world until the storm passed, able only to review reports from the other teams in the field and plan for the next round of searches. Logan had chosen Montrose as his base of operations because of its prior history with the first great pandemic which had swept across the globe in 1918. Back then, even remote Eskimo villages and rural communities were not immune to the disease. However, Montrose was the only town to escape the ravaging effects of the virus that had claimed over 50 million lives. In their foresight, the townspeople had closed off the remote horse trails in the mountains and then threatened to shoot anyone disembarking from the monthly supply train. Their isolation, coupled with diligent security measures, had spared them.

  Montrose was, once more, the only secure town left in the western U.S., and had over two hundred military personnel, first responders, researchers, and a handful of remaining cabinet members in addition to the civilian residents that had survived. The president was still at an undisclosed location in Langley, Virginia, doling out orders to the remaining military outposts. Logan’s division was outside of those protocols, and he had been given free rein to carry out his objectives with whatever limited resources he could muster.

  He studied the map, searing the towns and contour lines of each region into his already overloaded memory. One of his teams had just been completely slaughtered after a recent RAM attack in Santa Fe, near the Los Alamos research facility. He couldn’t afford to have the number of his elite operators further reduced. The video intel from the attack made him shudder—a faster RAM was emerging, the same type he had witnessed firsthand in Kingman and had been getting reports on from other lower-elevation outposts in recent days.

  Whatever was happening wasn’t following the predicted timeline that he had been briefed on during the early days of the virus. The higher-elevation cities seemed to have escaped this recent development, but who could say for sure if that would remain the case.

  The radio monitor on the table behind Logan flashed yellow as static gave way to a woman’s voice on the other end. He pulled his weary eyes away from the wall map and walked over to the metal table, grabbing the receiver and clicking the handle.

  “Go ahead, Lieutenant. What do you have for me?” He turned the volume knob down so no one else could hear the incoming message.

  The woman on the other end replied, “SAT imagery indicates there is a massing of people in and around Flagstaff.”

  “That’s the case with most of the remaining towns around the Southwest. Tell me something that’ll brighten my day next time.”

  “Sir, numbers indicate that there has been significant buildup occurring in the last eight hours, and we’ve also identified the presence of four Blackhawks on the outskirts of the city.

  “Blackhawks, eh?” Logan said, removing his camo ballcap and running a hand through his inch-long blond hair. “Now you’re sweet-talkin’ me. You just blew a shitload of black clouds off my horizon, Lieutenant. Get back to me in ten minutes with numbers of combatants and potential insertion points for my team.”

  “One more thing, sir,” said the woman. “Moments earlier, we also received a red flag that one of our satellites was being retasked—and not by one of our units. The coordinates appear to have been for Flagstaff as well.”

  “Did you kill that link and get the satellite back under our control?”

  “Yes. It was only commandeered for a few minutes before we reacquired it.”

  “Excellent. Get back to me with the intel I requested.”

  Logan swung open the wooden door of his office and strode purposefully down the hall to a makeshift weapons chamber, where two eight-man teams were doing gear inspections. In the corner of the cavernous room, Talia was running through a combatives drill with three unit members. Logan waited until she was done flipping a man onto a floor mat, then summoned everyone over.

  “We’ve got a promising lead with plenty of meat on it. I want everyone saddled up for a cold-weather op in the mountains, once this storm clears out, the day after tomorrow.”

  “Where to this time, boss?” said Talia, who was dragging a towel across her forehead.

  “Flagstaff, Arizona. Looks like Nikki and company have shown their hands.”

  Chapter 16

  While LB flew along the edge of the city, Travis looked at Katy, who was wrapping his wounds with gauze. “What’s the sitrep on the battle so far?”

  “Crawford and his men destroyed one of the four Blackhawks before it was airborne,” said Katy. He’s got the other two, which is why we have this Bell. The other Blackhawk took off and hasn’t been seen since. Crawford and his teams were heading over to the south side of town as that’s where the main army of thugs is concentrated. As to whether the ranchers or the bikers are winning at this point—who can say?” Katy said.

  As LB neared the cusp of downtown, they could see the battle in its entirety. Enrique’s men were spread out on the roofs of every building, shooting down below at either Crawford’s men on the southern flank or shooting at another team moving up to blow the barrier holding the zombies back.

  “Set it down over there,” said Travis, pointing to a helipad on top of the hospital, a mile from downtown. Travis grabbed a new earpiece and tucked the comms in place. After landing, they grabbed their rifles and packs and headed down the stairs, sweeping each level as they descended to the street.

  “Bulldog One, this is Young Pup, do you copy?”

  “Go ahead,” Crawford said, his voice nearly drowned out by automatic weapons fire in the background.

  “We’ve got boots on the ground and are approaching from the north, about one click away.”

  “Copy that. Head down Humphreys Street and fall in behind the library with teams three and four. You’ll know what to do after that.”

  “Roger that. Young Pup out.”

  The roar of gunfire reverberated through the streets, echoing off the half-walls of destroyed homes and storefronts near the hospital. They ran along a gravel road in a back alley for most of the way, then stopped two hundred yards from the library. Travis could see two battalions of fighters squatting behind the cobblestone walls, taking heavy fire from Enrique’s savage mob four blocks away. A few hundred cowboys and fighters were spread out in a half-arc around the southern and western perimeters of downtown. To the east were thousands of zombies held back by the defensive barrier of razor wire and piles of cars.

  Travis quickly studied the building tops and looked for any gaps he might exploit, then turned and saw Clara and a group of ranchers coming up from behind them.

  “Glad you’re in one piece, Travis,” she said.

  “Yeah—just in time for the brass-and-lead festival,”
he said.

  “We need to disable the machine gunners. We’re sustaining heavy casualties, and the team that was supposed to punch a hole in the defensive barrier by the RAMs was killed,” said Clara.

  “It looks to me like there are two main fortified sites with machine gunners, and those are going to be well guarded on the ground level. There is an old courthouse building not too far off, over there, with only a handful of men on the roof,” he said, pointing to the three-story structure a few hundred yards in the distance. “They’re expecting all the large-scale resistance to be from the south and west. If we come from behind, in a small team, we’ll have a chance at securing that location and taking out one group of machine gunners. Once some of those guns are knocked out, the Blackhawk can come in and finish the job.”

  “What do you need from me and my team?” said Clara.

  “Let’s move together, your group and mine. Once we are outside the building, your team will draw fire from the guards near the entrance while my people skirt in around the back of the building and make our way up the stairs to the roof to dispatch the guards.”

  They all performed magazine checks and reloads as needed and then, keeping in a low squat, secreted themselves between the abandoned cars in the street and began making their way towards their intended target in the distance.

  Chapter 17

  Travis and Clara’s teams crept in a single-file line through the rows of vehicles until they were a block from the three-story structure. It was made of hand-hewn sandstone and had a tarnished copper roof. The backside was adjacent to an old woodlot that had most of its trees chopped down. Around the front were a dozen bikers, half of them squatting with their rifles near a dumpster and another batch hunkered down under the arched doorway.

  Travis motioned to Clara to give him one minute to move his team towards the rear and then for her to open fire on the guards in front. Each team split off, with Clara’s positioning themselves behind the engine sections of different vehicles for better protection from incoming rounds.

  Travis snuck along an alley to his left. LB was behind him, followed by Rachel, Becka, and Nora, with Katy in the rear. Once he was twenty yards away from the rear of the building, Travis stopped and knelt behind a massive trash heap. He covered his nose with his shirt, so horrendous was the stench from months of discarded food wrappers, cans, and waste. Peering around the side, he could see three men standing guard outside the back door. It’s always the ones I can’t see that worry me, he thought. Using hand signals, he motioned to LB and Rachel that they would all snipe the guards on his command. A second later, the exchange of gunfire rang out as Clara’s group got busy.

  After they were positioned and sighted in on their respective targets, Travis counted down and then they released their rounds downrange. The criminals fell instantly against the brick wall, the gunfire blending into the noise echoing off the streets from the front of the building, where Clara was engaged. Travis immediately stood and bolted for the doorway. He swept his rifle into the hallway before him, shooting two more men running in his direction. As he and LB leapt up the stairs, six more goons flooded into the hallway below and were met by Rachel and Becka, who began exchanging gunshots, as each woman was pressed to either side of the door, taking turns firing into the crowd. Nora crept up beneath Becka and began firing from a squat, killing the remaining two men, who slumped over the other bullet-riddled bikers in the hallway. Katy stayed back by the trash mound, providing overwatch and scanning the streets from either direction.

  Travis and LB bounded up the staircase. They could hear gunfire coming from on top of the roof as the guards battled Clara’s group. Upon reaching the last step before the roof entrance, Travis quickly surveyed the scene and saw three men firing wildly into the street below.

  He burst through the doorway and knocked off a shot, then pulled the trigger again. By the time the two bikers fell forwards, his third bullet impacted the soft flesh on the last thug’s neck, sending him stumbling a few feet before collapsing over the edge. He and LB rushed up to their location and secured their weapons, inspecting each of the shiny new M4 rifles for available magazines. Travis looked down at the scattered crates strewn about the roof. Three of them were empty. He went up to the fourth and pried open the lid with his tactical knife, the wood groaning as its grip released. Inside was a LAAW rocket launcher.

  LB stared at the contents with wide eyes. “Sure glad I didn’t know about that when I was flying or I would’ve been more white-knuckled than I was!”

  Travis removed the launcher and walked over to the opposite edge of the building. He could see fifty men centered on another hotel rooftop, engaged in a firefight with the Sedona battalion to the south. He studied the enemy numbers and movements briefly, then turned to LB. “That guy on the rooftop, the one with the leather skullcap, he’s gotta be the leader. I saw him in the meadow by the Blackhawks earlier. If we can take him out, then the rest of the dominoes will fall a lot easier.”

  The rooftop bikers possessed three .50 cal machine guns that were raining out destruction upon the ranchers below. Near the edge of the roof was Enrique, who was at the center machine gun, spraying off rounds in a frenzy with his mouth agape in maniacal laughter. Travis pulled the rocket launcher over his shoulder, extending the launch tube and yanking the safety pin. LB moved alongside him and scanned the battlefield below.

  “You’re not gonna be able to take out all those guys and the machine gunners with that thing.”

  “Trust me, after I shoot this rocket, there won’t be much sand left in their hourglass. Radio Crawford and tell him to pull the battalions back. It’s gonna be getting mighty thick with RAMs down below. Besides, even if Crawford can get a Blackhawk in here to mow down the bikers, it may not be enough. The undead are still our best bet for flipping the odds.”

  While LB contacted Crawford, Travis steadied the sights on the LAAW. He centered the crosshairs on a fixed point in the street below, one block past the hotel with Enrique’s men. Travis pressed the trigger and the rocket burst forward, covering the two hundred yard distance in a micro-second. The blast blew open a hole in the perimeter security of old cars and razor wire that had kept the hungry hordes of zombies at bay. Within minutes of the smoke clearing, the creatures began pouring over the burnt metal, making their way through the streets, mauling anyone in their path. Enrique was too busy firing the machine gun to notice the shambling crowd of undead making their way up the three-story hotel to his location, devouring any resistance along the way.

  Travis had dropped the empty rocket launcher and was about to fix his rifle scope on Enrique when he saw a mass of twenty zombies staggering onto the distant roof. By the time the first biker turned and saw the approaching pack, it was too late to dispatch them. Enrique spun around away from the mounted machine gun and withdrew his pistol. He got off a few rounds, taking out two creatures while backing up towards the cement retaining wall, after which three zombies closed in on him. He kept firing, only to tumble over the edge with the undead still attached to him. His body splayed out onto the sidewalk as a mass of hungry freaks tore through his vest and leather chaps.

  Crawford’s battalions were withdrawing, dragging their wounded from their diminished fortifications. Travis could see the zombies clamoring through the streets a few blocks from their location. “We gotta go now—those fucking creatures can’t distinguish the good guys from the bad, unfortunately.”

  They grabbed the remaining weapons off the ground and fled down the stairs. By the time they got to the lobby, the shuffling sound of the undead filled the streets outside. Travis was headed towards the front door, but saw there were too many zombies coming. He yelled out to Clara’s group to disperse. LB was already en route to the back exit, but saw the hallway was choked with dead bikers. They bolted through a side hall, over a tattered red carpet and into an office. LB kicked open the exit door and ran through, followed by Travis. They sped down the street for two blocks, then stopped to catch their br
eath while looking at Katy and the rest of their team approaching.

  “We need to go west and link up with the other units,” said Travis.

  As LB turned the corner of the building, a massive zombie leapt onto his neck, gouging out a hunk of flesh with its soiled teeth.

  Travis shot the balding creature in the head, spraying blood onto the sidewalk beside LB. “No!” said Travis. “Goddammit!” He leaned over and grabbed LB’s arm, and pulled him up and over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, turning and shooting two more approaching zombies. As he ran down the street towards Katy and the rest of his group, he could hear the drone of a Blackhawk, piloted by Dane, circling overhead. Katy and Nora ran up and were helping support LB as they all sprinted away from the downtown corridor.

  They had gained enough distance from the zombies who were now occupied with Enrique’s men in the streets, when Travis rounded the corner of a dilapidated apartment building. Peering around the side, he could see a small bridge that went over a street fifty yards away. He clenched LB around his shoulders and sprinted for the underpass as the first rounds from the Blackhawk were unleashed on the city behind him. The women dove into the tunnel while Travis dropped to his knees and pushed LB’s limp figure into their reach before hurling himself underneath the concrete bridge.

  Two M134D miniguns roared out over the sky, sending a hail of bullets into the crowd of goons and zombies below. During the initial five-second blast, nearly two thousand rounds poured into Enrique’s rooftop armies while brass rained down on the crimson streets. Then Dane’s crew sent another five-second blast into the next band of thugs situated at the rear of the hotel. The sound overhead was ear-shattering, and the death toll was staggering. Buildings and bikers were blasted into a mixture of roof tiles, broken glass, bone, and blood. Dane circled the helo while his crew delivered one more round of minigun fire until the weapons were depleted.