I relayed Apache’s message to Vic and took his spot in line behind Apache. Vic turned and passed the message up and watched as it continued. Apache tapped my knee and moved out, I crouched low like she did, and copied her movements. I tightened up our spacing and stayed as close as I could without climbing up her butt. It took a while but when we made it the landing with the camera, we crawled under it and kept going.
Once we had made it passed, we came upon the concrete ground floor. End of the line that is, when we came face-to-face with a metal door. Apache tested it and found it unlocked. She looked at me and held up a hand showing three fingers. I understood that she was going to go in and follow in three minutes. I nodded my understanding and she touched my cheek, before disappearing behind the door.
When the rest of the team arrived, I instructed them to hold this position. When I had finished counting down the three minutes, I grabbed Brian and we went through the door. We found ourselves in a concrete hallway big enough to drive a truck through. I checked out the hallway walls and found no cameras. I couldn’t decide which direction to go till I heard a soft whistle to my left. Apache clicked her flashlight at me twice. I trotted to her and she gave me her patented ‘good job smile’.
“I have already checked this direction and found a couple of doors with beware toxic signs on them. I think this hallway is circular with all the rooms in the middle. Let’s bring everyone in and send a squad down the other direction and leave one at the door. We should take a couple of guys our way, and see what we can find.”
Brian trotted down the hallway to relay the orders and bring back our team. Henry appeared out of the stairway door with Joseph in tow. I waved them over. When they arrived, I pulled Joseph close.
“Joseph, you have been doing great so far. Have you ever been in here before, or know anything about this place?”
He looked back at me with wide eyes. He met my eyes and shook his head no. I had become pretty good with reading this guy and believed him immediately. I gave him a warm smile and handed him back off to Henry.
“Henry, keep Joseph right here in this alcove until I or someone else from our team comes to get him. Make sure nothing happens to him, he may be the only person alive who can cure this thing.” I pressed the issue.
“You can trust me, Dan, I will guard him with my life.” He turned and wrapped his arm around Joseph and the two melted into the dark against the wall.
Brian brought back the rest of the team and Apache explained to us what she had planned, and how she wanted things run. She would take lead with me right behind her, and then the rest of the team would follow with Brian covering the rear. She took off at a normal pace and I followed in her shadow, using the small steps again but now, I was crouched down slightly, shotgun in hand and against my shoulder, ready to aim and fire.
We stalked another fifty yards till we came upon the first door. Apache made a clenched fist at shoulder height and then dropped down to her knees. I followed suit and noticed the window in the door. She snuck up to the door and checked the handle. It moved, so we knew the door was unlocked. I called up Brian and informed the rest of the team to protect our rear and provide back up.
Brian and I approached the door on the ground, practically crawling on our hands and knees. Apache explained how she wanted to handle entry with her hands and we nodded our understanding. She crawled up to the left side of the door and I to the right side. Brian stayed on his haunches, waiting for the door to open.
I reached out and rested my hand on the handle and watched Apache count off three fingers. When the final finger fell, I pushed down on the handle and once I’d heard the lock click open, I pulled on the handle, opening the door slowly. Apache took the door from me and swung the door wide. I went in and crossed to my left and watched my sector down the barrel of my shotgun. Brian came in down the middle and stood inside the door with his M4 raised high. Next Apache appeared to our right covering her sector with her own M4. The room was a lab, at least, I guessed it was a lab. It had tables with expensive and elaborate-looking machines on them. The good part, was that it was empty at the moment.
I waved in the team and sent Apache back to gather Joseph and Henry. Brian and I checked the two small doors at the end of the room and found that one was an office while the other was a sizeable supply room with refrigeration units and tanks of chemicals. We came out of that last room and found Joseph walking through the lab, examining the equipment and computers. He looked and met my eyes as I came up to his side.
“Dan, I can make this lab work. But I do need to have qualified assistants.” He pleaded.
I laid my hand on his shoulder. “Joseph, look through the lab, I am leaving Henry and two others here to support and protect you. The rest of us will go look for those assistants.” I nodded at Henry and pointed at two soldiers standing by the door. One ended up being Brian’s crush. “You two stay here with Henry and Joseph. Protect both of them, we will be right back.”
They snapped to attention and saluted, I saluted back and collected Brian, Apache and the rest of our team. We left the room and worked our way down the cavernous hallway and on to another door. We repeated the same maneuvers and steps when we made entry. What we found, threw me for a little loop. The room was a giant kitchen, living, and entertainment room. And it was full of people sitting down for dinner. Apache yelled for everyone to put their forks down and to come out slowly to us and then to their knees. I called in the rest of the troops, but left two outside to protect our rear.
We came close to running out of zip-ties, but Brian came through with a whole pack he had placed in his side cargo pocket. I counted twenty-five prisoners. None seemed to be the soldier type to me. Instead, they looked like nerds. Sorry if I offend you, dear reader, by saying that, but really, they looked like nerds. White lab coats, pocket protectors, ties, and every single one of them wore glasses.
I left more soldiers there to watch over our prisoners while Apache, Brian, myself, and the last four men on our team moved down the hallway again. We met up with the other team led by Kuppers, coming up the other side. We all took a knee and discussed our findings. Kuppers informed us that they had found eight more guards and a small armory, along with another identical lab to what we had found, but this one had five female scientists working on something. They had also found a small stairway the led to hotel-like rooms. Obviously, the dorms.
I suggested he bring the scientists to the common area, and let Joseph work through who he thought would be important to his work. He sat down and interviewed each one, using a notebook to record his findings. I stood to one side and watched, as Doc and Apache did the same thing with the guards we had captured, including the ones we had taken down upstairs. Cupcake, Delta and a squad of men volunteered to stay upstairs and man the defenses. They hid the vehicles and the Chief and Henry collected their tribe from the hidden location.
I delved into myself as life went on around me. I felt the losses we had accumulated, since day one of the wildfire that had been released on the east coast. God, that had been close to three months ago now. Since then, I had lost my little Angel, Senshi, Little Jonny and a slew of National Guard troops I had barely had the time to meet before they too were gone. Then it hit me, I’d almost forgot Maggie, the saucy woman that Brian and I had found and I guess, rescued from the forty-eighth floor of the TransAmerica Tower, back in San Francisco. I’d been sure that she and I were starting a small relationship, at least I think she liked me. She died just an hour from safety, had her insides ripped out through her belly. I don’t think anything would have blossomed between us further, since I had found my Julie. But she hadn’t deserved to die the way she did. I felt a tear fall down my cheek, and then a massive hand landed on my shoulder.
I looked back and up into Brian’s bearded face, I found his eyes and he read me, just like that. He steered me away from the people and out into the hallway for privacy. He took me in his arms and gave me a brotherly hug, resting his head on mine.
It took me a while, but I finally found my voice and uttered one word. “Maggie.”
Brian hitched slightly as a small sob broke free. “I feel like we have failed her twice, Boss. First, we allowed her to die and then, we forgot about her. What are we doing, man?”
I pulled away from him and looked into his red face and noticed the tears as they fell slowly down his cheeks wetting his beard. “We are living, Brian. We are taking each day, that we get to wake up to, and we are finally fighting back against the Initiative and their lap dogs, Ridder. Each day we live is an honoring to the ones we lost. I was not crying over our intentions and what we are doing, I am fully aware of what we are doing. I was just angry that I had forgotten about Maggie; she has only us to remember her.”
“Message received Boss. Thank you for the pep talk, I needed it. We will not forget to remember those we lost.” Brian’s small smile was enough to make me feel stronger. We fed off each other better than any friends or brothers ever could.
Kuppers found us a moment later, still in the hallway, talking about our time together and remembering our friends, including Matt and our lost coworkers.
“Gentlemen, what are you two up to?” he asked in his authoritative voice.
“Just talking about old friends. Life seems to be going by a little fast, and we have not had time to remember them.” Brian explained.
Kuppers’ intense look melted from his face. He sighed and leaned against the wall. “Yeah, I’ve been feeling the losses, too. We need to take time tonight, and honor their sacrifices. I am just worried about how many more we will have to lose, before all of this is over.” He closed his eye and took a deep breath, filling his lungs to capacity and holding it for a good twenty seconds before pushing it all out. He opened his eyes and he locked back down on his control, pushing his emotions to the side and becoming the fearless leader once again. “Gentlemen, when you are done, Joseph would like to brief us on his situation.” He walked away without another word or looking back.
Brian looked over at me and hunched his shoulders. I punched him in the bicep and turned to follow Kuppers, I could feel Brian turn and fall into step behind me. When we entered the common space, we found Joseph sitting at the long, cherry wood table with thirteen people behind him, standing with their clipboards in hand.
Joseph motioned for us to sit at the table. I pulled out a seat near him and watched as Brian, Kuppers, Apache, Doc, and Vic appeared and sat down. Joseph cleared his throat and adjusted the collar on his blouse.
“Thank you for coming to this unscheduled meeting. I want to keep you all informed of what we have found here, and introduce my new research team. First and foremost, this facility is one I did not know about. Ridder has been running it to do the same exact thing that we want to do. Unfortunately for them, they are nowhere close to my original strain. They have been working off the old strain that the Initiative had given me. Now that I am here and have all the supplies I need, I believe that with the help of my new team, we should be able to put a serious dent into the Wildfire strain. I will not be able to give you a time-line or an exact guarantee, but I promise we will do our best. We do have a problem, though. Ridder is planning on beefing up the security here and are rolling a pretty large force in here. We have two days before they arrive. And according to my chief assistant, Holly Kivett,” he turned and introduced her. She was tall, almost six feet, with blonde hair that seemed long even tied into a pony-tail high on her head. She was in her late thirties, if I had to guess. “We will be running two teams going at this thing from two different directions. My team consists of Brandy Yassa, Alina Lonescu, Butch Barth, Chris Derouen, Christy Thornbrugh, and Dillon Beefus. Holly’s team consists of Allen Gamboa, Ricky Fleet, Janice Mickolas, Kevin Ranson, Ruiz Bazan, and Damien Corona. I figured you would want to meet the team. The others I couldn’t use, or were not willing to work with us. Do you have any questions?”
I wrote down every name, a short description of them, and who their team leader was. “Joseph, will you be running your teams twenty-four hours? And are there any supplies that you need?” My pen sat poised to write in my notebook.
Holly took the lead on answering my questions. “I am sorry, what is your name?”
“Major Dan Welko.” I answered politely. I added my rank just to let her know I was of a high rank.
“Major Welko, then. We will be running twenty-four hour crews. Half of our team will work days, and the other half will work nights. I will lead the night team and Doctor Hedley will lead the day team. Would you like us to report all findings to you?”
“I wouldn’t understand half of what you’d report Holly. How about you and Joseph meet with me twice a week, and when you hit milestones. If I am not available, Lieutenant Leeder here will take my place and if both of us are unavailable, then Lieutenant Apache will sit in.” I looked down the table and got nods from Brian, Apache and Kuppers.
“Excellent Major. As for supplies, we have no need for anything right now. This facility uses a geothermal generator for power and heat. We have three separate supply warehouses full of food stocks, and the necessary supplies we need to do our research. So as you see, we have everything we need. Oh, and to show good faith, because I know those idiot guards will not tell you, there is a hidden garage in the base. If you open door five-two-five and follow that corridor for two hundred yards, you will come to a security door. The code is Alpha-4-2-Whisky-Zulu-6. That code is also the master override for any secured door in the facility.” She smiled and looked down at her clipboard.
“You scientists were prisoners, weren’t you?” Asked Doc.
Holly looked at the floor and nodded her head yes. “Yes, most of us were working in the Stanford lab at the University and these military wannabes came in and took our research, and then arrested us and sent us here to work with these other scientists they had already imprisoned. We have been here since the first week of all of this starting.”
I looked around at the research team and they all nodded their agreement. “Holly, if you were a prisoner, how is it you know so much about this facility?” I asked suspiciously.
“Because I pay attention Major, I also have a perfect Eidetic memory. I remember everything since when I was a child. Perfect recall.” She said all this as if I was a petulant child.
“I stand properly rebuked. Forgive me, Holly,” I said with glacier patience in my voice.
“No reason for forgiveness. You had no idea, Major.”
Thank God I was able to put the pin back in that grenade, I thought to myself. Brian leaned over and handed me a slip of paper. I read it over and had to hide a smile, he had written “Good job disarming her, Boss.”
“If this is all you have; I will dismiss you to get back to work. But first I want to tell you. You are no longer prisoners. You can leave any time you want. But I will not give you any supplies or a ride anywhere. What I am asking is that you stay here and help Joseph defeat this damn scourge, and give the human race a chance to survive, and a step in fighting back against the powers who try and conquer us and put us on a leash.”
I looked into each person’s eyes and saw understanding and a light which told me they were all in, all the way.
“Major, we understand the situation, and I assure you we will continue to work hard. And with Doctor Hedley on our side, we have a chance at finding a cure. Now if you don’t mind we have a lot to discuss and prepare.” Holly answered.
“Excellent, carry on, and thank you.” I pushed back my chair and prepared to leave. Joseph stopped me with his words.
“What are you going to do with the incoming Ridder forces?”
I put my hands on the table and looked at Kuppers. “We don’t know right now. Just do what you promised me and I will continue to do as I promised.” I turned and walked away, making my way to the door.
Brian caught up as I reached for the handle. “Where are you heading, Boss?”
“I need a nap, then when I wake, I want something to
eat that does not come from an MRE package. Then I want to convene our leaders and go over a battle plan to protect this place. Once Ridder and the Initiative find out where we are, they will not rest till they can dig us out.” With that I opened the door and walked out.
I found an unused room and stumbled in, kicked out of my boots and shucked my uniform off. I fell face first on the bed and was out. I opened my eyes and found myself on the boat, in the bay, with Angel sitting next to me. At least, I thought she was Angel, I had no way to know till she spoke.
She smiled at me and I smiled back. “Hey, Dan. Sorry about not being around last time. Eroquenne took care of you, I hope?”
“You know she did. Or I wouldn’t be here right now. By the way Angel, why am I here? I mean, it is so nice to see you again. We miss having you around.”
“I could see you were having some emotional dilemmas and I wanted to help. If I can help you relax now, then when things go bad, and they will, you will be able to handle things better.” She handed me a cold beer and leaned into me.
I liked the way she worked. I took a sip of the cold beer and wrapped an arm around her. Her presence always calmed me and could help relieve exhaustion and clear my mind. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the gentle rocking of the boat. I loved my little mini vacations to paradise.
“Angel, could you tell me if any of my friends have made it to the island paradise?” I opened my eyes and pointed to the pristine shores and white sandy beaches.
“They are awaiting judgement. So many souls have requested entry that He has been very busy, since the scourge has come. I will put in good words and make sure they have a fair chance at entrance.”
I relaxed a little more and tried to put that thought out of my mind. “Angel, will I need to be judged when it is my time?”
“Everyone needs to be judged before entrance, but I am sure with how much you have suffered, you will have a very good shot.” Angel pulled away and I felt my calm start to slip away with her movement.
Zombie Theorem (Book 3): The End Game Page 17
