Down below, like partiers leaving the clubs at closing, Zs were staggering down the sidewalks and streets and caroming off of palm trunks and inert vehicles.
Putting words to Cade’s thoughts, Lopez said, “Place hasn’t changed much. I wonder how Ronnie’s old stomping grounds look.”
“All the guns in Compton and Inglewood,” said Cross. “No way the Zs stood a chance against ‘em. I bet there’s BBQ shops still cooking brisket in drum smokers.”
Yet another good man gone too soon, thought Cade, trying to tune out the banter. Like Mike Desantos, Ronnie ‘Ghost’ Gaines had pretty much died in Cade’s arms too. Bled out real quick after the helo crash in South Dakota.
“One of you needs to do it before we set down,” said Ari over the comms.
“Enough small talk,” said Cade. “Should be Lopez ... but we’re all volunteers here. So who’s going to step up? Who knew him best?”
Nothing.
There was a long stretch of silence. Fifteen seconds during which Cade felt the helicopter start to bank right and then watched Lasseigne fighting gravity as the bird carved out a big chunk of sky leaning hard to starboard. When the craft finally righted, the SF operator’s helmeted head lolled right and banged against the bulkhead and instantly his bound hands were up and pale fingers groped the air in a futile effort to get ahold of Cross and Griff. Through the cockpit glass Cade saw the downtown skyline and Dodger Stadium materializing, slowly, like an oncoming car emerging from a distant heat shimmer. Then where the automobile-choked 110 Freeway took a slight right-hand bend, Los Angeles Stadium came back into view. And even from this distance, thanks to the lack of airborne particulates, he could see clear as day the numbers on the field and, sitting smack dab on the fifty-yard line, the Osprey with its slow spinning rotors.
Knowing they had little time to spare before they reached their final objective, Cade decided to heap the unenviable task upon himself. He’d met the guy once before and the Special Forces sergeant deserved no less than a quick release from his dead body. So Cade unbuckled from his seat and unsheathed his Gerber. He retracted the smoked visor and peered into Lasseigne’s rapidly clouding eyes. And as the undead man strained and his teeth snapped out an unnerving cadence behind the painted facemask, Cade raised the dagger and poised its tip an inch from one of the undead operator’s wildly roving eyes. “I’m sorry, friend,” he said. Shifting his weight forward, he plunged the blade in and, with a copious amount of blood sluicing around the hilt, twisted his wrist once or twice for good measure.
Cade extracted the blade and placed the visor in the down position. He left the zip-ties on. No feelings left in the empty shell to hurt. He arranged the dead man’s limp legs so they were out of the way, then returned to his own seat, heavy of heart.
After buckling back in, he said, “A moment of silence for our fallen brother,” and bowed his head.
Ten long seconds ticked by then the team raised their heads one at a time. The SEALs peered out their respective windows.
Lopez performed the sign of the cross, his lips moving as he uttered a final prayer for the dead warrior.
Cade stared at the lifeless body for a second then filed all of his feelings away. He reached in a pocket, ripped open the square of foil with his teeth, and went at his dagger with the alcohol swab.
While Ari and Haynes made plans for their next-to-last aerial refueling, the crew chief unbuckled and moved across the cabin. Cade watched the sergeant reach into a recessed cubby, come out with an American flag, and then was caught off-guard when it was offered to him without a word out of the crew chief.
Also saying nothing, Cade took it with both hands. It was folded tight into a triangle. Three long equal sides with a handful of stars floating on a field of blue showing. He found a grommet, pulled a corner, and unfurled Old Glory.
Lopez removed the fallen soldier’s dog tags and pocketed them. Then he watched in silence while Cade wrapped the upright body in the flag, being careful to tuck the ends in just so.
The crew chief turned away first. Returned to his vigil near the starboard hip window, silent, eyes on the lookout for ground fire that would probably never come.
***
It was quiet inside the cabin for a long minute and then Ari said, “Watch the monitor.”
The screen on the bulkhead went blue for a millisecond. Then an image splashed on the screen. “Four Palms Apartments. Nadia’s off-campus abode,” Ari said. “That’s the Santa Monica Freeway north of it. And to the east is the 110 Harbor Freeway; that’s what we’re following now.”
A tick later, someone, probably Haynes, manipulated the FLIR pod and the building’s roof snapped into view. There were no bulky AC units or vents to speak of. Just a single ridge running its entire length with red clay tiles falling away at a steep pitch on both sides.
Griffin said, “There’s no stairway access to the roof. No skylights. And it looks like there’s too much of an overhang to rappel off and go in through a window.”
“You’d be a dangling treat in front of them anyway,” said Griffin. “Hell, there’s not even so much as a satellite dish to anchor to.”
“At only six stories,” Lopez said. “I was half-expecting this.”
Ari cut the helicopter’s airspeed and started a slow orbit of the building.
“Courtyard looks to be out of the running,” said Cade. “With those tall palms and their wide fronds I doubt if even Ari can get us close enough to rope in.”
“One block south by east,” said Cross, who, thanks to time spent on Secret Service advance teams, had a great eye for detail and was an expert in identifying areas of opportunity. Some chink or another in the layers of protective armor around the principal. A vulnerability. Most notably, anywhere a threat to the person he was tasked with protecting might ingress and egress. “Zoom in east of the building. On the crossing over the 110 ... if that’s what I think it is, then we’re golden.”
Griffin was checking his weapon. He paused and looked up and said matter-of-factly, “As long as we don’t get trapped up there.”
Lopez said, “Can you put us in there, Ari?”
“I can put you in the bed of a moving pick-up if you want me to.”
“Settled,” Lopez said. “There’s our ingress point then. Show us the back of the Four Palms first.”
“Copy that,” said Ari.
The image on the screen grew larger and began a slow and lazy counterclockwise rotation.
A quick look told Cade that the off-campus apartment was a for-profit venture meant to appeal to those intent on independence by any means necessary. Just looking at the hemmed-in property he could almost hear the whoosh of passing cars in his imagination. Noisy place. Hard to rent to just anyone, he thought. Perfect for young people prone to making noise of their own.
The building was shaped like a geometric boomerang. No soft curvature. Just hard angles and lots of windows and a liberal coating of pastel orange paint. There was a fenced-in courtyard with a rectangular swimming pool, its murky green water a far cry from the crystal blue one would expect to see. And hampering their insertion by fast rope, four majestic palms rose from tired landscaping to bracket each corner of the swimming pool.
There were glass doors off the courtyard and a pair of solid doors with no outside handles on the west side opposite the pool.
As the helicopter kept up the distant orbit the rear of the building came into view. Under the building’s vertical spine was an entrance to what looked to be an underground garage; however, from the angle and low light Cade couldn’t see whether it was gated or not. Above ground was a parking lot with enough spaces to accommodate maybe twenty vehicles. Miserly by L.A. standards. But impressive considering that most of the nearby dwellings didn’t have any off-street parking.
The helo slowed and sideslipped and instantly the insertion point Cross had identified was just below them.
With Ari expertly holding the Ghost Hawk in a steady hover, the crew chief hauled open t
he door and a blast of hot-carrion-and-kerosene-tinged air slapped Cade full on in the face. Through his side vision he saw Lopez kick the thick nylon fast-rope out his side door. Then as the crew chief deployed the second rope, Cade checked his gear again out of habit. Satisfied, he watched the coils at his feet unspooling over the metal sill and then quickly walked his gaze over the maze of unmoving vehicles on the sunken eight-lane freeway sixty feet below. He thought: Focus on the landing, not the dead. He mouthed to the crew chief, “I’m good to go.”
Once the pair of ropes unfurled completely Cade felt the crew chief tap his shoulder. He nodded and gripped the rope with gloved hands and stepped into thin air. In the next instant his palms and fingers were heating up from friction as gravity yanked his hundred and eighty pound frame—encumbered with an extra forty pounds of gun, gear, and ammo—the thirty feet from the helo’s open door to the narrow elevated walkway below.
The moment his boots hit cement he released the rope and, in one smooth motion, sidestepped a handful of feet, took a knee, and swung his rifle into a ready position.
Looking the length of his carbine, Cade trained the red holographic pip on a point near the east end of the elevated pedestrian bridge where the walkway curled out of sight. Seeing nothing there, he called out, “East ramp is clear.”
A tick later Cade heard the hollow thud of Cross landing on the same spot he had just vacated. And then Lopez was on the comms and calmly calling out, “We’ve got Zs inbound. Nine o’clock underneath the west entry ramp.”
Then, also over the comms, there was a grunt followed by the unmistakable sound of someone gasping for breath.
Cade glanced over his shoulder and saw the Navy SEAL, Griffin, lying on his left side and just in the process of righting himself. And as the fast-rope jerked and bobbed in the rotor wash over the fallen man’s head Cade quickly deduced that on the way down Griff had brushed the spikes atop the bridge’s protective fencing. Confirming the hunch, he noticed that the operator’s MultiCam blouse was torn and showing through the yawning hole in the fabric was a horrible six-inch gash running down from his right shoulder to just above his tactical elbow pad. Dark crimson blood spilled from the wound, instantly misting as the fabric and jagged tear in the skin flapped wildly in the down blast.
Lopez moved quickly to assess the wound. A beat later he looked skyward and flashed a thumbs up to the crew chief looking on.
In the next instant the crew chief had pulled the pin on the starboard fast rope and it plummeted by the skywalk and landed audibly on the vehicles below. A half-beat later the port-side rope also fell, but instead of joining the other on the 110 it got hung up in the same run of security fence that had just taken a bite out of Griffin.
With the Ghost Hawk peeling away, Cade hustled west and formed up next to Cross, who was on one knee and training his carbine on the nearby ramp where anything approaching would initially emerge.
“How bad is it?” Cross asked.
“Just gotta rub some dirt on it,” Griff said, grimacing.
Cade kept his eyes and weapon trained westward while Lopez tended to the injured SEAL. Every couple of seconds he would check their six to the east. And every thirty seconds or so he would say, “All clear.”
Two minutes after roping from the helicopter, with a cacophony of moans and groans rising from the freeway below, Lopez had the unlucky SEAL’s bicep wrapped in three layers of gauze and secured with white tape and was zippering up the corpsman’s med-kit.
Cade turned his attention to Griffin. Looked him in the eye. “Good to go?”
Griffin said nothing. Instead, his eyes widened and he calmly scooped up his suppressed carbine and nodded west.
Woodruff
A quick rap on the back door followed by a long hard listen had Chief and Brook convinced that there was nothing dead banging around inside the ground floor.
So Chief felled the wood core door with one kick from his lug-soled boot. Then, carbines leading the way, they quickly cleared the lower level starting with a nearby bathroom and small storage closet adjacent to it.
A quick check of the closet revealed only toilet paper for the bathroom and a myriad of cleaning supplies and a good amount of disinfectant wipes, no doubt used to clean equipment or mats of sweat and tears after strenuous rehab exercises.
Moving on, they entered a wide open twenty by forty foot room awash with natural light spilling in through a pair of windows bookending a floor-to-ceiling wall-length mirror on the left wall. Parallel to the mirror was a freestanding piece of equipment with a pair of adjustable wooden ballet-style grab bars. The floor was tiled with light green squares and in front of the mirror was a row of thick blue mats secured together by strips of hook and loop tape. In one corner near the front door was a pair of yoga balls, large and neon green. Nearby was a dark brown medicine ball, smaller and partially squashed and no doubt much heavier than it looked.
Like the items sold in the Scandinavian furniture stores, floor-to-ceiling cabinetry finished with a faux oak laminate dominated the wall on their right. And inside their doors, some of which had been hanging open, Brook found dozens of individual drawers and plastic storage boxes—none of them labeled with any kind of consistency. Without counting, she guessed there had to be twenty or thirty of them in each of the ten cabinets.
“I’ll start left,” Brook said. “You work your way over from the right.”
Chief said, “And we’ll meet in the middle.”
“Remember ... we need a syringe and needle.”
***
Ten minutes later, after rifling through every drawer and cupboard and cubby and bin, the floor was littered with glossy handouts detailing every therapeutic exercise imaginable. Colorful tangles of rubber resistance bands were heaped where they’d been thrown. Dozens of handheld therapy balls made of highly pliable Nerf-like foam, near bullet-proof hard rubber and everything in between lay on the floor wherever they’d come to rest.
Brook slammed a door, sending a trio of rubber balls bouncing away. She looked at Chief and said, “Nothing. Not even a pump and needle for the effin yoga balls.”
“That would work?” asked Chief, his brow scrunched up.
“No ... I’m just frustrated. That’s all.”
Chief picked his carbine off the padded floor and straightened up. He moved close to Brook and placed a finger vertically to his lips. Cocked his head and looked at the ceiling. A tick later he gazed at the short flight of stairs at the corner opposite the room from the front door. The narrow treads rose up several feet into the gloom to what was likely a landing at the back wall where the only way to go from there was to the right and up.
Nodding, Brook went quiet and jabbed a finger at the ceiling and then pinched her earlobe. “I heard it too,” she mouthed. Then she pulled out the two-way radio and made sure the volume was turned low.
Chief motioned for her to follow and picked his way quietly through the mess of their own making. He ascended the stairs, keeping his feet wide and placing them where he imagined they were nailed to the solid wood stringer underneath.
With a minimal amount of noise the pair made the first landing and paused there while Chief thumbed on the tactical light affixed to his carbine. Gripping the stubby foregrip and snugging the rifle in tight, he took the remaining dozen stairs in the same fashion as the others, but for expediency, two at a time.
At the top of the stairs the cone of light lancing from Chief’s rifle illuminated a wooden door with five inset horizontal panels and a rubbed oil knob set on the right. The striker plate looked original to the building and it appeared he would be needing either a skeleton key or most likely—seeing as how kicking in a door is virtually impossible with no handrails to hold on to and only an eight-inch tread on which to stand—a couple of rounds from his carbine.
But first things first. Chief put his ear to the door and heard nothing. Then he tried the handle, and lo and behold it turned. So he pushed in a bit and felt the heavy wooden door catch on th
e sill and make a grating sound before finally swinging inward freely on its hinges. He held it in a partially closed position and looked down the stairs at Brook and held up his free hand, three fingers splayed out like a pitchfork, and began ticking off a countdown.
On one he shouldered the door open, pivoted right, and brought his rifle to bear. Half-expecting to come face-to-face with a rotter, he instead found himself alone in a long hallway and squinting against the sun pouring in from a distant gabled window. Equidistant from the stairs and window on the left hand wall was a closed door. On the right wall were two doors, evenly spaced, and also closed. The walls were bare and the ceiling came to a point far above their heads. Definitely some kind of a renovation happened here, thought Chief.
When Brook closed the door behind her two things happened. Again she heard the same wood-on-metal squeal and then the radio in her pocket vibrated against her thigh. It went on as she watched Chief pad to the front of the building and duck his head through the curtains over the window then crane left and right, surveying the street through the wavy glass.
At the end of the hall Chief hinged up at the waist, turned around, and said, “We have to hurry. Same thing as before. You get the left. I’ll get the right.” Training his rifle on the nearest door, he tested the knob and found it unlocked. Pushed it inward and stepped forward while walking the cone of light about the shadowy interior. The curtain was drawn on the window facing him and allowed only a thin bar of diffuse light. Below the sill were cardboard boxes brimming with paperwork. Strike one, he thought as the spill illuminated a personal computer, monitor, and printer all perched on a desk pushed against a wall to his left.
As Chief disappeared into the first room Brook answered the radio and learned that a small herd was heading their way from the north. About a hundred of them. Figure you’ve got five minutes, max, Wilson said.
Calm before the storm, Brook thought. She padded across the creaking floorboards and stopped in front of the lone door on her side of the hall. She smelled the faint scent of carrion seeping around the door frame. Held her breath and placed her ear against the door and listened hard. There was a barely audible rustle and the same squeaking she’d heard from downstairs, only the responsible party was no mouse.
Ghosts: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse Page 28
