Z: The Final Countdown

by Bob Mayer

  “I assumed it was for control,” Bentley said.

  “Control of what?”

  “Control of the workers.”

  “You need a killer virus to control them?”

  “I do not know Mr. Van Wyks’s mind. But, to control life and death, is that not the ultimate control?”

  Ovamboland, Namibia, 17 June

  A long dust cloud marked the line of vehicles heading south. General Nystroom stood in the track commander’s hatch on his personnel carrier and looked up and down the long convoy of armor and trucks.

  He knew he was at a crossroads, but he didn’t understand the situation. Always before he had been able to negotiate a careful path in an uncertain world by projecting the agendas and goals of the parties involved and balancing them against reality. In his opinion, most people failed because they tended to get so caught up in their own perspective or agenda that they failed to see when their personal view was not in congruence with the reality of the situation.

  The Angolan mission was on hold, that was for certain. This disease—Z—that was breaking in the news media and causing the Americans to isolate their troops on the ground was an unexpected factor.

  Nystroom knew that army headquarters at Silvermine was heavily infiltrated by officers who owed more allegiance to Pieter Van Wyks than to the government in Pretoria. That was true even when whites ruled there, and was doubly so now. Further, a significant number of officers on his staff held the same allegiance.

  With every mile his SADF convoy traveled south, Nystroom saw decades of adroit maneuvering on his part unraveling. Reluctantly he climbed down from the hatch, closing the heavy metal on top and sitting down in one of the jump seats inside. He leaned back and closed his eyes. There was nothing he could do now but follow orders.

  South Atlantic Ocean, 17 June

  Aurora crossed time zones so quickly that there was only one clock on board that they used for reference—Greenwich Mean or, as it was called in the military, Zulu time.

  The RSO had a display of southern Africa up on his computer and was calculating the best avenue of approach. “It’s a bit over four hundred kilometers south of Walvis Bay,” he told the pilot. “Almost a thousand north of Cape Town, so it’s not exactly in a crowded space. Let’s do two runs. Come in from the northwest, doing a left look along the coast, then racetrack counterclockwise over the ocean and come back twenty kilometers inland, doing another left look toward the ocean. We should get everything like that.”

  “Just program it,” the pilot said. “What about air defense?”

  “Unknown. According to the computer the whole area is under private control.”

  “Private?” the pilot repeated. “Then we won’t have to worry much about interdiction. We should get a good look. I’ll descend to ten thousand when we make the run.”

  Eleven minutes later the pilot reduced airspeed as the coast of Africa rapidly approached. The surveillance pod was extended and they raced down the coastline at fifteen hundred miles an hour, the pod gathering in data. From what they could see in their rapid transit at ten thousand feet, Luderitz was a small port city in the middle of a desert that extended right up to the water.

  As the pilot made a four-hundred-kilometer-diameter circle over the ocean for their second run, the RSO ran the video back at slow speed. “I think this compound just south of the city is what the intel dinks want.” He froze the frame and the pilot spared a glance down.

  Four sets of fences surrounded a ten-kilometer-square enclosure. Centered in the enclosure was a tall building. There were numerous other buildings, all one or two stories. Rail lines led in and out, and there was even a small airport on the inside.

  They made the second run without incident and the RSO immediately forwarded the information by SATCOM back to the Pentagon.

  South Atlantic Ocean, 17 June

  Lieutenant Vickers had had to compute their flight direction based on where the Abraham Lincoln would be when they got over the ocean, as opposed to where it was when they took off from Cacolo. Since receiving the order from General Cummings over three hours ago, the Lincoln and its supporting task force had been steaming south at flank speed and had already covered over two hundred and twenty kilometers.

  Vickers had to double-check every calculation because it was difficult to concentrate. Her head throbbed and she could see the beginning of a red welt creeping out from under the sleeve of her flight suit, along her wrist.

  “I sure hope this ship is where it’s supposed to be,” O’Malley muttered, watching the fuel gauges. “We don’t have enough gas left to get back to dry land if it isn’t.”

  “It’ll be there,” Vickers said. “I’ll get them on the radio for final vectoring.” She dialed up the proper frequency and pressed the send button. “Striker Air Control, this is army helicopter Six Four Zero. Over.”

  “Army helicopter Six Four Zero, this is Striker Air Control. Over.”

  “Striker, request final approach information. Over.”

  “Roger, Six Four Zero. We have you on our screens. You’re forty kilometers east of our location. Change heading to two zero six degrees. Over.”

  “Two zero six degrees,” Vickers repeated. “Roger. Over.” O’Malley made the slight adjustment in their direction.

  Striker Air Control had more for them. “Six Four Zero, we’re moving at flank speed, thirty-five knots. That’s just about forty miles an hour for you land people. Keep that in mind when coming in for your landing. Over.”

  Vickers smiled. “Striker, this is Cruiser One on board Army Six Four Zero. I know a little bit about knots and landing on a carrier. Over.”

  A new male voice came on the radio. “Cruiser One, this is Striker Six. Glad to have you coming back to join us. Over.”

  “Glad to be coming back.” Striker Six was the air wing commander on board the carrier—Vickers’s boss.

  O’Malley had them moving at two hundred and fifty kilometers per hour, so Vickers knew it wouldn’t be long before they saw their destination.

  “There,” she said. “Straight ahead. Home.”

  “Damn,” O’Malley said. “I didn’t realize it was so big.”

  The carrier grew as they got closer, soon filling the entire horizon. Over four football fields in length, the Lincoln was the most modern carrier in the navy’s arsenal. Its deck was crowded with not only navy jets but also a contingent of army helicopters—part of the joint packaging system the Department of Defense had come up with for carrier task forces to face the new threats of the late 1990s.

  Since the Lincoln was where Vickers had been launched from, she knew that on board was the army’s 1st Battalion, 75th Rangers, and pilots from the elite Task Force 160, who flew the specialized helicopters they had taken on board.

  She had been impressed—as the other navy people had been—on the cruise over from Norfolk, with the Rangers. They looked hard and they had trained continuously, live-firing their weapons off the deck of the ship at targets thrown overboard. They’d conducted air assaults back onto the deck of the carrier, rappelling in from the 160’s helicopters, both day and night.

  Vickers’s memories were cut short as they received their final approach information. “Army Six Four Zero, this is Striker Control. We have cleared the forward flight deck for you. Over.”

  Vickers pointed at the orange panels laid out. “There,” and O’Malley nodded. The warrant officer maneuvered them into position and slowly descended, while matching forward speed with the ship’s. When their wheels touched down on the flight deck, two crewmen dressed in NBC protective suits ran forward and secured the helicopter to the deck with chocks and chains, then just as quickly ran back to the edge of the flight deck.

  Vickers felt like they were on display, crewmen lining the flight deck and on the ship’s island looking down, staring at them.

  “Six Four Zero, keep all personnel on board. The ship’s XO will be out to speak to you in a minute. Over.”

  “Roger,” Vicke
rs said as O’Malley shut the engines down.

  Vickers climbed out of the copilot’s seat and joined the others on the flight deck on the side of the chopper.

  Riley was pleased that they had finally arrived. Sergeant Oswald was unconscious and Comsky had spent the flight hovering over him to make sure that he didn’t choke on his vomit. Trent was also unconscious and he had begun the black vomit. Comsky didn’t give the mercenary long before he crashed.

  Riley stepped onto the flight deck and looked about. After a couple of minutes two men—both in NBC suits, one army-green and one navy-blue—came forward, walking across the deck.

  “I’m Commander Owens,” the man in the blue navy suit announced, “and this is Lieutenant Colonel Rogers, commander of the First Ranger Battalion.” He looked at Lieutenant Vickers. “Welcome back.”

  “I wish it was under better circumstances,” Vickers replied.

  Riley introduced himself, then the others, including an explanation of who Bentley was.

  “I’m afraid you are going to have to stay out here,” Owens said.

  “This section of deck has been isolated, and no crew member is to come within forty feet of your location unless suited.”

  “What’s wrong with them?” Colonel Rogers asked, pointing at Oswald and Trent, who were lying on the floor of the helicopter.

  “They’ve got Z,” Riley said. “We all have it. He’s just the most advanced among us.” Riley pulled open his shirt, exposing a spider-work of faint red welts across his chest. “These will get worse within the next twenty-four hours, then blisters will form. That’s the primary way the disease is spread.”

  “Jesus,” Rogers said. “Is there anything my medics can do to help you?”

  “Our medical sergeant, Sergeant Comsky, is taking care of us as well as he can,” Riley said. “He’ll radio over a request for whatever medical supplies he needs.”

  “Anything we can do or supply, just ask,” Rogers said.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “We’re sixteen hundred kilometers north of Luderitz,” Owens said, laying a chart down on the flight deck. They all gathered around. “Right now we don’t have any word on possible operations from the Pentagon.”

  “I have the information you forwarded on where the cure is stored,” Colonel Rogers said. “A surveillance over-flight was conducted not too long ago, and we should get some idea of security at the site.”

  “How long until we’re in range?” Riley asked.

  Colonel Owens pointed at lines drawn on the map. “We will be four hundred kilometers offshore to the north of Luderitz—within helicopter striking range—by zero four thirty Zulu tomorrow morning.”

  “We’re going in then,” Riley said.

  Owens looked up from the chart in surprise. “Excuse me?”

  “Regardless of what the Pentagon says, we’re going in,” Riley repeated. He pointed at Oswald. “We’ll all be like that by tomorrow evening. We have nothing to lose. Bentley says the cure is in the main building in the Van Wyks compound. It’s our only hope.”

  “We’ll be getting imagery soon of the Van Wyks compound,” Colonel Rogers said. “I’ll make sure you get a copy.”

  “I can’t have anyone going off half-cocked,” Commander Owens said. “We have to wait for orders.”

  “What are you going to do?” Riley asked. “Arrest us? Lock us up?”

  “I won’t allow your helicopter to be refueled,” Owens said.

  “Then you’ll have to shoot us to stop us from refueling it ourselves,” Riley said.

  Owens held up his hands. “We have until tomorrow morning. Let’s see what the Pentagon comes up with by then.”

  Chapter 19

  Pentagon, 17 June

  “What makes you so sure the Van Wyks cartel is behind this disease, other than the word of this man you picked up in Angola?”

  Colonel Martin no longer rated a seat at the main table. Besides the various chairmen of each service, several representatives from the White House and Congress were present, including the vice president and the national security adviser, who had just asked the question.

  Z was no longer a hidden topic. SNN had the outbreak as its lead story every half hour. The fact that Z was man-made, and that the Van Wyks cartel was the culprit, was still a secret—one of the few advantages the planners still had.

  “We’ve backtracked that booster,” General Cummings said. “It’s Russian and was launched in Russia, but the payload was commercial. More than half of the payloads the Russians put up nowadays are for pay.

  “The satellite that was the payload was owned by a European communications company. It wasn’t easy, but the Defense Intelligence Agency has dug through the layers of ownership. It might not be provable in a court of law, but the company that bought the rocket space is a very distant subsidiary of the Van Wyks cartel.

  “We’ve also checked the three previous missions that Bentley talked about. We have those on record, and Van Wyks had an involvement in each one.

  “There is no doubt that the mercenaries Bentley was working with were communicating back to the Van Wyks compound in Namibia. We tracked those satellite transmissions with no room for error.”

  Cummings checked another piece of paper. “Major Tyron, one of Colonel Martin’s men on the ground in Cacolo, confirms that Z was in that device that was recovered off the booster by Bentley. He also confirmed that it is a sophisticated mini-remote-controlled laboratory used to manipulate virus DNA and RNA under zero gravity. We cannot pinpoint the manufacture of the device, but the CIA has given us information that the Van Wyks cartel has recruited epidemiologists from the National Institute of Virology in Sandringham, South Africa.

  “We have people checking on equipment needed to construct a biosafety level four facility to see if any was bought by a Van Wyks subsidiary. That will take some more time.”

  Cummings put the paper down. “I believe we have enough evidence—maybe not enough for a court, but enough with people dying over there in Angola—to believe without a reasonable doubt that Pieter Van Wyks was behind this.”

  “Why?” the vice president asked.

  “Sir, we don’t know that,” Cummings said. “We may never know that.”

  “What about the place where you think this cure—Anslum four— is?” the national security adviser asked. “Can you get in there?”

  Cummings pointed at one of his officers. “My intelligence officer has prepared a briefing on that. Go ahead, Dan.”

  “It doesn’t look good, gentlemen.” The G-2 used a laser pointer on the large blow-up of the Van Wyks compound. “The security inside the target building is unknown. The outer security is the equivalent of an armored cavalry regiment.”

  “Lay it out for us from outside in,” General Cummings ordered.

  “The port of Luderitz is capable of handling landing ships, such as those carried by the Guam—the amphibious assault vessel accompanying the Abraham Lincoln task force. The problem with that is that it will be daylight by the time the Guam arrives at the port. A daylight assault by sea is not advisable.”

  “Waiting another twenty-four hours isn’t advisable,” the army chief of staff rumbled. “I’ve got three hundred and sixty-two confirmed cases of Z in the Eighty-second. Twenty-eight among the Special Forces. Sixteen among other assorted support personnel. Of those four hundred and six confirmed, at least a hundred are getting close to being in the acute phase. Which means death within forty-eight hours.”

  “We understand the time pressure,” General Cummings said. “Go on.”

  “There are at least twenty tanks, sixty armored personnel carriers, and several hundred wheeled vehicles available to the Van Wyks paramilitary forces. This reduces the probability of an air assault force being successful.”

  “With proper air support we might be able to do it,” the army chief of staff said.

  “There are also extensive SAM sites, ranging up through SAM-15s, throughout the compound and covering the h
arbor and rail lines. We estimate a helicopter force would take extensive losses, even coming in under cover of darkness.”

  “An air preparation could reduce that SAM threat significantly,” the air force chief said.

  “And lose us the advantage of surprise,” General Cummings noted.

  “There’s something you are forgetting.” Colonel Martin felt impelled to speak.

  Cummings held up his hand. “I know what you are going to say. They have Z, correct?”

  “Yes, sir. If we lose surprise, Van Wyks will destroy the Anslum four, the vaccine, and probably any evidence that he was behind the virus in the first place.”

  “And any forces we send in face the threat of biological contamination,” General Cummings added, turning to the vice president and national security adviser. “It’s like a hostage situation except that if we don’t succeed in getting the hostage—the Anslum four—out intact, our assaulting forces will all die from infection.”

  “You have yet to give me any options,” the national security adviser noted.

  “We have three options,” General Cummings said. “One is to wait until our amphibious units are in position—the day after tomorrow—and conduct a joint seaborne and air assault on Luderitz and the Van Wyks compound, preceded by a thorough air strike to destroy both SAM and armor. The advantage of this option is that it will result in the least casualties during the actual assault. The disadvantage is that we lose surprise and it allows Z to run its course for another forty-eight hours.

  “The second option is to attempt an air assault early tomorrow morning as soon as the Abraham Lincoln is in helicopter range. The danger in that course of action is that the assault force will face heavy SAM attack on the way in and then will be outgunned on the ground and face armor forces without adequate defenses. The advantage is that it will maintain surprise and it is the quickest option in attempting to seize the Anslum four.

  “On both of these two options, we have the additional problem of a high chance that the assaulting forces will become infected with Z, and if the assault fails to gain entry to the underground vault before it is destroyed, they will not have the Anslum four.