They waited a full second but nothing dead or living exited the trailer.
So Lopez said, “Going in.” He mounted the metal fold-down steps one at a time, slowly, and leaned in, cutting the corner by degrees, M4 leading the way.
Cade watched Lopez hesitate momentarily. Then a bright cone of light lanced from the tactical light affixed to the entry man’s carbine. The light spill walked right as Lopez’s head and upper torso torqued in that direction. Then the stocky Delta operator moved left and out of sight and the doorway went dark again. A beat later Lopez reemerged and motioned for Cade to join him.
The windowless RV was much more plush on the inside than Cade would have guessed. In fact it was quite opulent, by cousin Eddie Griswold’s standards. There were multiple flat panel monitors along the driver’s side wall and six expensive-looking leather and fabric office chairs fronting them. The floor covering was several notches in quality above the usual AstroTurf-like carpet in most Winnebagos. The walls were a gray Formica, or its modern equivalent, and placed at intervals underneath a real wood counter running along the same wall as the monitors were three networked computer towers.
Without a word, Lopez let his carbine dangle from its sling, yanked the three black CPUs off of the shelf, opened them up and quickly harvested their hard drives.
While Lopez was filling his nylon sack with computer hardware and thumb drives, Cade poked his head out the door and looked right and saw that a number of the dead had doubled back and were steadily cutting the distance to the awaiting helicopter. A tick later, in his headset, Cade heard Cross say “Engaging” and saw the first burst of gunfire lance from the SEAL’s compact HK-MP7.
Ducking back inside, Cade heard a dry rasp and the rustling of fabric against fabric emanating from behind a blackout curtain to his right. Sliding the heavy hanging partition aside with the stubby suppressor revealed a lone zombie belted in behind the steering wheel and disturbed the shiny black carpet of flies feasting on it.
Cade let the curtain down and said, “Looks like someone left their FEMA co-worker here to turn all by his lonesome.” He turned to Lopez and went on, “Question is ... why didn’t you put it down?”
Lopez threw the half-full bag of computer parts over his shoulder and replied, “It’s no threat to us.”
Cade said, “It’s a threat to the next person who stumbles upon it.” He drew his Gerber and parted the curtain a foot or so, releasing a buzzing squadron of tiny carrion feeders. He leaned between the heavily upholstered captain’s style chairs, stared into the dead thing’s clouded eyes and saw just hunger and want. Nothing to summon even an ounce of remorse for what he was about to do. Sure the bloated corpse had once been human. Sure it had suffered horribly on its first death judging by the hunk of meat missing from its neck and the dozens of raised purple bite marks disfiguring both arms. But the hissing thing was a threat nonetheless. So Cade put it to sleep, burying the dagger into its temple all the way to the hilt.
“Clear,” called Cade with a trace of sarcasm in his voice, a veil of flies dipping and diving around his head. “Please don’t let that happen again.”
Forgoing the folding steps, and batting the insects away, Lopez leaped to the ground and said over his shoulder, “You clear the next one then.”
And that’s what Cade did. With brief volleys of suppressed gunfire sounding behind them, the pair approached the task of entering the second RV in reverse order from the first. Cade got the door while Lopez covered the doorway. Cade counted down and flung the door open and instantly a pair of zombies in FEMA hazmat suits stumbled out and into a lethal hail of 5.56 NATO hardball.
Cade brushed a quarter-sized scrap of hair-covered skull from his shoulder, put his back to the cool aluminum skin and listened hard.
Nothing.
So wiping droplets of blood from his ballistic glasses with a sleeve, Cade thumbed the switch activating his tactical light and mounted the stairs. Once inside, he found the layout the same as the first. Same monitors and chairs and flooring. Same trio of computers, and he had their hard drives extricated in no time. As he rose from kneeling and turned towards the door, two things happened. He heard Lopez say, “We gotta go.” Then a stream of hot spent brass arced through the doorway and pinged noisily off the wall and ceiling and struck him about the head and chest.
“Coming out,” he said into his boom mike. Then, with his M4’s business end leading the way, he was out the door, down the steps, and immediately saw Lopez in the midst of swapping magazines.
Cade looked over his left shoulder and, near the Ghost Hawk, saw the other three members of his team tightened into a rough semicircle. They were nearly back-to-back and throwing volumes of lead downrange into an advancing horde numbering in the hundreds and inexplicably consisting of mostly kids. Simultaneously Cade heard Lopez say “Mount up,” and the Osprey’s shadow was darkening the ground around them all as it passed overhead trailing hurricane force winds and dumping a waterfall’s worth of spent brass in its wake.
Emptying a magazine, all thirty rounds, in controlled single shots while making them count as he’d been taught in basic, Cade followed Lopez, who was curling around behind the other shooters and tapping each on the shoulder as he passed.
Doing the same, Cade hauled himself into the cabin and met the door gunner’s gaze. His visor was up and there was a glimmer of primal fear in his eyes. Then Cade noticed the big man’s gloved hands kneading the minigun’s scuffed metal grips.
Finally Cross and Griffin were on the move with Lasseigne on their six.
The three operators covered the distance in a loose knot, firing as they moved. Brass was flying in glittering arcs and the soft pops of skulls bursting could be heard over the soft rotor thrum.
As the smaller and therefore much faster members of the undead noose closed around the operators, Lasseigne covered Cross and Griffin while they broke for the open door and log rolled across the cabin floor to safety.
After seeing the men leap inside and with only five feet to go to the chopper, Lasseigne’s magazine ran dry and the bolt locked open. With no time to access his chest rig and rip free a fresh magazine he instead flipped the carbine around and backpedaled, all the while bashing zombie skulls with the rifle’s buttstock. Teeth gnashed and gnarled fingers were tearing at the lone operator’s uniform as he made it to the door. Prying a snarling Z’s bony fingers from his forearm, he felt gloved hands grab him from behind and suddenly he was light on his feet and in the next instant impacting the chopper’s deck with a heavy wind-robbing thud.
Cade let go of Lasseigne’s left arm, leaned over top of the shaken operator and, shutting out the rising crescendo of wails and moans, slammed the cabin door closed.
“Bastards were waiting for us,” stammered the crew chief. “They were in the tents. Didn’t come streaming out until you and Lopez were inside the second RV.”
As the turbine roar increased, as if validating the crew chief’s statement, a mad flurry of white palms hit the starboard fuselage. Tinny-sounding pings were followed by the hair-raising peal of nails raking the outer skin. Then a number of gaunt faces mashed against the Plexi, their rheumy eyes regarding the soldiers inside hungrily.
Haynes was looking out the starboard side door glass. Calmly he stated, “The Zs are going to get our tail rotor.”
Without thought behind his actions, Ari rotated Jedi One-One to the right so her tail boom was sticking out over the seawall, nothing but water below it.
Before Cade was back in his seat against the bulkhead two things happened. Ari pulled pitch and the helo leapt from the blacktop, and a loud tearing sound filled the cabin as the crew chief let loose with a split-second burst from the minigun. Normally rated at six thousand rounds a minute, the electric-assisted Gatling-style gun spit a hundred and sixty lethal missiles in the fraction thereof. The rounds scythed into the Zs chest-high and screamed out the other side and, still packing quite a kinetic punch, a number of the bullets entered the RV’s gas tanks,
touching off a huge fireball.
“That was close,” said Lopez as his stomach reeled from the rapid launch and a flash of orange from outside lit up his face. “You could have warned us sooner.”
“Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, friend,” answered Ari, finessing the controls while applying enough power to get them clear of the rising roiling cloud of black. “In all seriousness, you got the same lead time ... neither me nor Haynes saw them initially. You have the Osprey driver to thank. Ripley saw them streaming out of the tents and warned us immediately. Then broke her own hover and her gunner started lighting them up.”
Watching some of the dead advancing dumbly for the dancing flames while others had stopped in their tracks and were looking skyward got Cade to wondering why their behaviors had become so varied and unpredictable since Z-Day.
He processed that for a second and proffered, “It’s not the first time she’s acted as savior. Remember Operation Slapshot ... all the dead at the NBC?”
Nosing Jedi One-One north by east, Ari said, “Worst day of my life. Thanks a lot, Wyatt. I had purged that from my memory. Had being the operative word.”
Cade said nothing. Watched the unintentional self-immolations taking place on the ground until the forms might as well been ants burning under a magnifying glass.
Cross said, “That was no easy day. I’m going to buy her two drinks when we get back to Schriever.”
“Not if I get to her first,” said Griffin, buckling in as the G-forces pressed him into his seat.
Cade clicked his belt and said, “What happened back there, Lasagna?”
The bearded operator was rubbing his forearm. He stopped and looked at Cade but was unable to come up with the words.
“Failure to fire?”
“My mag went dry and they were on me before I could reload or switch from primary to secondary.”
“Well you improvised, that’s for sure,” said Cross.
Nodding agreeably, Griffin said, “And you didn’t even have to holler corpsman. I’m very impressed.” He unzipped one of the pouches on the medical kit hanging from his MOLLE gear. Dug in there for a second. Looked up and added, “The way you were swinging that rifle of yours at those things ... it’s probably a biohazard now. Better take a minute to clean it.” He tossed an alcohol swab across the cabin, which Lasagna snatched from mid-air with one hand. The SF soldier peeled the packet open and set to removing hair and bone and generally disinfecting his carbine’s polymer SOPMOD buttstock.
Cade fished the sat-phone from his pocket and thumbed it alive. Once the screen refreshed and he saw there were no new messages he was hit with mixed emotions. On one hand he was grateful. On the other he felt a measure of worry building. The former because no update from Brook presumably meant Raven was holding her own. The latter because Beeson didn’t cut corners and should have passed the message to Duncan by now. And given his troubled friend’s growing propensity for the drink, even if the message had made it to him, the lack of response could mean that he was in no kind of shape to fly the Black Hawk back to the compound anyway.
Pushing the baggage he couldn’t control from his mind, Cade inched forward on his jump seat and, straining against his belt, watched the concrete jungle glide silently beneath Jedi One-One.
Chapter 48
“The lead mechanic tells me that bird of yours has been ridden hard and put away wet. She’s going to need some extra TLC before she’s good to go.” Beeson removed his black beret and plopped it on the desk blotter. Leaned back in the old-school wooden office chair and, with the seventy-year-old fasteners creaking and groaning, put his boots up on the corner of his equally rustic desk. “I gather she’ll be airworthy in a few hours.”
Duncan chewed on the prospect of spending another minute here, let alone a few more hours. Then he realized the creep of alcohol withdrawal he was feeling now would soon manifest itself in the form of tremors and shakes that would not go unnoticed. He shifted in his chair, thinking through his options. The PX was dry. As were the three uniformed guards at the gate, because no matter how he cajoled or what he offered up in trade not one of them would take it upon themselves to get him a bottle or point him in the direction of one. So an hour spent walking around the base and now he was here with nothing to show for it. And to add insult to injury there was a bottle of Scotch or the American or Canadian equivalent just a few feet away from him. Feeling a little self-conscious of his new glasses, more so due to their garish color than the abnormal size of the prescription lenses, he took them off and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Are they uncomfortable?”
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” drawled Duncan.
“I like ‘em,” said Beeson.
Duncan thought: Bullshit. You’re busting balls now. Feeling me out for an intervention.
“Things look better on you than those aviator glasses all the SOAR boys wear. And you and I both know they wear them just to let us ground pounders know who they are.”
“So being cocky is a bad thing?”
“Not at all. That’s how they perform flawlessly while riding the razor’s edge and keep coming back for more,” explained Beeson. “They say Night Stalkers never quit.”
Cut to the chase, thought Duncan as his gaze wandered to the unopened bottle of booze sitting on a shelf behind the reclined base commander. He sat up straight and said, “Tell it to me straight. Will our bird be ready for launch before dark?”
“Can you stay the night if it isn’t?”
“I’ve got a feeling Cade isn’t going to make it back to the compound from his mission tonight. That would leave us a little thin in the Delta operator department.”
“Mission?”
Duncan’s eyes locked with Beeson’s; then, as if someone was working him like a hand puppet, his gaze inexplicably, almost of its own volition, again shifted to the booze on the shelf.
“You got a lazy eye and a hearing problem, son?”
Duncan couldn’t believe his ears. He thought: Son? Maybe the graying and semi-paunchy commander has five years on me. But son? That’s pushing the edge of the envelope.
“Eyes, ears, and now problems of the mind, huh, Duncan. Do I need to get you drunk to get you to elaborate on this mission?”
Duncan eyed the booze for another second before declining the drink, and when he did it took immeasurable concentration to make his mouth open just so he could croak out a none too convincing, “No.”
“Then lay it on me. I’m sure my security clearance will cover whatever cloak and dagger stuff is going on.”
Duncan turned his chair so the bottle wouldn’t be in his direct line of sight. Then, looking at the wall full of framed certificates and business licenses bearing the airport’s former civilian moniker, he recounted the mysterious call to Cade’s sat-phone. He spilled about Cade setting up the man-portable satellite dish and relay unit and then consequently receiving some sort of transmission. He paused for ten long seconds and added, “But I think you know all about it and you’re just playing dumb with this good ol’ boy.”
“What makes you say that?” asked Beeson.
Hell of a poker face this guy has, thought Duncan. But he said, “Cade had me drop him off on a mesa in the middle of the desert eighty plus miles from here ... by himself. That was the first thing to set off my bullshit alarm.”
Beeson didn’t answer to that. He just ran his fingers through his close-cropped hair, all the while staring at Duncan.
“Those two aircraft that launched after we came in. I watched them heading eastbound through my binoculars. Only they should have flown a little farther towards Schriever before doubling back.” He snatched up his glasses. Put them on, insecurities be damned, and added, “I know what I saw.” Then he fixed a steely gaze on Beeson until the commander took his feet off the desk, leaned forward in the creaky chair, and threw his hands up in resignation.
Beeson said, “Nash isn’t going behind the President’s back on this one. But
it’s supposed to look that way. Let’s call it what it is. An under-the-table deal.”
“I’m not following.”
“President Valerie Clay never served, so she really doesn’t understand the leave no man behind concept. Same with President Odero ... he couldn’t comprehend or he didn’t want to believe what the Joint Chiefs were telling him had to be done to stop Omega. So Nash made an overture to the President from that angle. Then I heard she added a little wrinkle. Something to sweeten the pot.”
“And the President bit?”
“Nash has her by the short hairs. Nobody is better at what she does than Nash. If you had need-to-know clearance we could crack that bottle behind me and I could tell you stories I wouldn’t expect you to believe.”
“So ... we’re talking plausible deniability. In case the thing goes sideways.”
“Roger that,” Beeson conceded. “Once a politician, always a politician. And I had the two birds make that feint to keep the tongues from wagging here on base.”
Duncan wasn’t surprised about all of the attached strings. He’d served in Vietnam. The politicians lost that war. He paused for a beat in thought, then said, “So where are those birds taking Cade?”
Obviously anticipating the question, Beeson immediately said, “Do you have an hour?”
But before Duncan could answer, a look crossed Beeson’s face. Raised eyebrows. Pursed lips. And a dead giveaway wag of the head followed by a couple of choice curse words muttered under his breath. He pulled open the top desk drawer and came out with a slim black item. He extended a stubby antenna and powered the thing on. He worked a button, cycling through the messages and then saw the first three words to the one sent by Cade and, hoping his transgression hadn’t put anyone’s lives in jeopardy, handed the phone to the man across from him.
Chapter 49
Brook closed the door to her quarters and froze there, listening hard. Once she detected the distinctive metal-on-metal rasp of the inside lock falling into place, she turned on a heel and stalked down the corridor and into the security container. She squeezed behind Seth, reached over his head and plucked the pair of ultra-long-range CB radios off the shelf. She verified they both held a full charge and set them to the same frequency. She handed one to Seth and stressed to him, seeing as how Cade and the others were still incommunicado, how important it was to monitor the radio and sat-phone closely while keeping his eagle-eyes glued to the entrance.
Ghosts: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse Page 25
