Z: The Final Countdown

by Bob Mayer

  The two Little Birds with rockets had a more difficult job. They were firing up the barracks buildings nearby as troops poured out of them. As the first armored vehicles began appearing, they switched to those.

  The four Apaches arrived just in time and fired a salvo of eight Hellfire missiles at the armor. Each one was a kill.

  “Balls to the wall,” was Colonel Rogers’s less-than-elegant order to the pilot of his Black Hawk. The other eight Black Hawks holding his main assault force were right behind him.

  “There’s the coastline,” the pilot said. “We’ll be there in four minutes.”

  Next to Rogers, Conner Young held the camera steady, filming Rogers as he barked out commands. She felt very calm, as if she weren’t really there, simply watching a scene play out in a movie. After all that had happened the last several days, she wondered that she could even move.

  The Rangers had blown the two elevators the Ranger way—simply and violently by throwing satchel charges into the shafts, which had landed on the cars eleven floors below. Nothing remained of either—just a gaping shaft. With a steel cable running down the center attached to nothing.

  “Ever fast-rope a steel cable?” Riley asked. Fast-roping was a way of infiltration from a helicopter—using an eight-strand Pilmoor synthetic rope that soldiers grabbed and slid down.

  “We...” The sergeant paused and looked at Riley to see if he was serious. The other man was wrapping a dressing tight around Riley’s forearm, slowing the bleeding. “Sir, I don’t think that will work,” he finally said, looking at the thick steel cable.

  “Won’t know until we try,” Riley said. He grabbed a cushion off the couch in the small foyer that the elevators opened onto, then leaned into the shaft. He wrapped the cushion around the cable, then jumped out.

  He almost lost his grip—he had almost no control of his right arm. He hooked his left all the way around the cushion and cable and grabbed his harness with his left hand as he plummeted down.

  The cushion began shredding and Riley wondered which he would run out of first—cushion or altitude. He hoped the latter.

  A pair of SAM-7—shoulder-fired heat-seeker missiles and thus not affected by the Weasel attack—streaked up at one of the Apaches. The craft exploded in a ball of flame.

  “Shit,” Colonel Harris muttered as he saw the signal for the Apache disappear and heard the pilot screaming before the radio went dead.

  His mood didn’t get any better as one of his analysts called out. “Sir, the SADF convoy is five kilometers from the west gate of the Van Wyks compound!”

  Riley hit hard as the last shreds of the cushion disappeared. He shook his head to clear it and looked about. A letter was painted on the wall next to the doors—B.

  Riley unhooked the sling of the MP-5 and held it. He hooked the stock into the doors and pushed. At the pressure they opened like they were designed to in an emergency.

  Riley rolled into the room, ready to fire. Nothing. Just a short corridor ending at another set of steel doors. He heard a noise behind him and the staff sergeant came sliding down.

  “Fuck, sir,” the sergeant said with a grin. “That was wild.”

  * * *

  One of the Little Birds was hit by ground fire and auto-rotated down. Once it was on the ground, the four men got off and immediately became embroiled in a gun battle with ground forces.

  The Apache pilots were firing wildly now, trying to suppress any SAM shoulder-fired missiles. They would be out of ammunition in another minute at their current rate of expenditure.

  “One minute!” the pilot said.

  Rogers grabbed his M-16 and put a round in the chamber. It was going as they had expected—heavy losses—and they still didn’t have the Anslum 4. And the SADF armored column was knocking at the gate.

  “Two on the roof,” Rogers ordered. “The rest on the ground.”

  Two Black Hawks broke off and gained altitude, heading up to put their men down on the roof. The other six stayed low.

  “Up or down?” Rogers’s pilot asked.

  “Down,” Rogers said. He watched, shocked, as one of the two climbing Black Hawks was hit by a SAM-7 and banked over hard, the pilots trying to keep control, then exploded in a ball of flame as it hit the side of the building.

  Conner held the camera steady, but she could see the bodies inside the helicopter as it slid down the side of the building. She thought of all the young men with the high and tight haircuts smiling and joking as they’d boarded the helicopters on the Abraham Lincoln. The Black Hawk touched down and she jumped off, following Colonel Harris. The chopper was back up and gone just as quickly, the pilots eager to get out of this inferno.

  Riley felt the building shake.

  “What the fuck was that?” The three Rangers looked up as if they expected to see the roof cave in. One had not done so well on the ride down and his hands and forearms had been ripped open. The staff sergeant was bandaging him as best he could, but it was obvious to Riley the man was out of the fight.

  “I don’t know,” Riley said. He pointed at the door. “I need that open.”

  “I got just the right tool,” one of the Rangers said, shrugging off his backpack. “Shaped charges. Burn through three feet of concrete like crap through a goose,” he said lovingly as he held up a conical black object.

  At the main gate to the Van Wyks compound the security guards were inside two Ratel-90 armored vehicles, their main guns pointing down the road. They could hear and see all hell breaking loose inside the compound, but their job was the road, and one thing Skeleton had stressed was to do the job assigned.

  In the faint light of morning, they could see a long dust cloud coming from the northeast. The highest ranking guard stood up in his commander’s hatch and peered through his binoculars. He relaxed when he saw the old South African flag flying from the lead vehicle. Help had arrived as Skeleton had promised.

  Colonel Rogers’s men were pinned down. Two of the Black Hawks were stuck with them in their makeshift perimeter around the headquarters building—too shot up to take off again. One of the Little Birds had joined them on the ground, its hydraulics shot out. The others were gone. Colonel Harris had pulled all helicopters that could still fly out of the fight to avoid more losses.

  A Ratel-90 came nosing up a hundred meters from the building. A Ranger fired an AT-4 antitank weapon and missed. Another AT-4. This one hit and the Ratel exploded.

  Rogers could see a cluster of armored vehicles massing to the south. AT-4s would only do so much. His men were heavily outgunned. As they had been afraid they would be.

  “Steady men, steady!” he called out. “Don’t waste any of your antitank shots!”

  Riley’s head rang from the explosion. He peeked around the edge of the elevator shaft. The steel doors were twisted on their hinges. He ran forward and leapt through into the room beyond, no longer caring if he was met by bullets.

  He skidded to a halt. He was in a large laboratory. A pressure hatch on the far side must lead to the bio-level four lab, Riley guessed. But his attention was riveted on the lone person in the room.

  Pieter Van Wyks was seated at a desk. Between Riley and the desk was a thick clear wall. The old man held up a hand, displaying a device looking very much like a TV remote control.

  “Looking for this?” Van Wyks’s voice came out of a speaker in the ceiling.

  Riley fired a shot at the glass just to check. The round didn’t even make a shatter impact as it just ricocheted off.

  “You won’t get in here that easily,” Van Wyks said. “If you try to destroy this glass with an explosive, I will simply push this button—” the liver-spotted hand twitched—“and the Anslum four is gone. That is what you’re here for, isn’t it?”

  “Why?” Riley said, letting the MP-5 hang on its sling. He signaled for the two Rangers to lower their weapons as they came charging through.

  “Why?” Van Wyks laughed. “Why? Because I could. Because there simply are too many people. The scien
tists whine about it in the newspapers every day. Too many people. Too many mouths to feed. Too much pollution. Too many wars. Too much of everything bad. All caused by too many people who aren’t worth a damn.

  “You do know, of course, that viruses are nature’s defense, don’t you? It was bound to happen soon. Within twenty years, according to the information I was given by the best minds money could buy. Either a virus, or our own man-made scourge, nuclear weapons. I just helped it along a bit.”

  Van Wyks shrugged. “Didn’t quite work like I had planned, but there’s not much I can do about that now. I suppose I will have to negotiate my way out of this.”

  “You’re crazy,” Riley said. “You aren’t going to negotiate your way out of this.”

  Van Wyks turned slightly and pointed. A television monitor was mounted on a bracket. The screen showed the main gate to the compound. “Your force above will not last much longer. Help is just a few minutes away, then I will be back in control. Namibia will be the new homeland. I still have the virus, which means I still have power. Oh, they’ll negotiate, all right.”

  Riley was looking around. The only way into the room Van Wyks was in was through a door made of the same clear material. The latch was solid and looked like it could take a pounding.

  Van Wyks smiled. “You’ve lost.”

  The lead vehicle in the convoy was a quarter mile away. The guards were waving small flags—the old South African flag, from before the change in power.

  The flag flying from the antenna of the lead tank suddenly flew off, the line holding it there cut. Something snapped in the breeze, being held by the man in the top hatch—two pieces of cloth, one in each hand.

  The guard post commander snapped the binoculars to his eyes. The new South African flag and the red, white, and blue of the Americans.

  “Load the gun!” he screamed. The words were barely out of his mouth when there was a puff of smoke from the end of the muzzle of the lead tank. A second later the round hit the guards’ Ratel, blowing the turret off and killing all inside.

  In the second vehicle in the convoy, General Scott slapped General Nystroom on the back. “Your boys sure can shoot.”

  “Let us hope we are not too late,” Nystroom replied, then he began issuing orders over the radio, deploying his forces.

  Riley looked down from the video monitor to Pieter Van Wyks. “No, you’ve lost.” He reached down on his vest and pulled out a small device, the size of a cellular phone that was in one of the pockets. He pressed a button on the back side of it.

  “Got another of those shaped charges?” Riley asked.

  “Yes, sir.” The staff sergeant put down his backpack and pulled out another black conical charge.

  “I’ll destroy the Anslum four!” Van Wyks screeched.

  “Go ahead,” Riley said.

  The Ranger put the convex side of the charge right up to the bulletproof glass opposite Van Wyks’s desk. He began reeling out the det-cord used to ignite it.

  “Stop that! You can’t do that!”

  “He’s doing it,” Riley said. He felt energy draining from his body, and with that loss the return of the fever and sickness. He staggered over to a chair and sat down.

  “I’ll destroy the cure!” Van Wyks screamed. “We can make a deal!”

  “I’ve heard that before,” Riley muttered. He held up the electronic device. “I’m jamming your destruct device,” he said in a louder voice. “You don’t think we wouldn’t be prepared for that?”

  Van Wyks’s eyes got wide. He looked at the shaped charge, at Riley, at the glass door, and beyond it the level four lab. “Please!”

  “Fire the charge,” Riley said quietly.

  “No!” Van Wyks threw down the remote and stood. “No! You can’t! We can make a deal. I have—”

  The shaped charge exploded, sending a cone of heat and force right through the glass and obliterating Van Wyks.

  The concussion knocked Riley out of the chair and into unconsciousness.

  Chapter 22

  Luderitz, Namibia, 17 June

  “What?” Riley blinked, trying to focus. All he could see was a face—Comsky’s hairy face. “Jesus, hell of a way to wake a guy up.”

  “You weren’t asleep,” Comsky said. “You passed out. Lucky to be alive, as much blood as you’ve lost and all else that’s wrong with you,” Comsky said as he slid a needle into Riley’s left arm.

  “What?” Riley muttered. “What’s that?” he asked, nodding at the needle.

  “Anslum four,” Comsky said, expertly sliding the needle out. “We got it. There was quite a bit in the lab. We also found the records that give the process to make it, and we’re sending it out. Back to Angola and to the States.”

  “Conner?” Riley twisted his head. He was still down in the basement of the building. He could see the shattered bulletproof glass and the smear that had been Pieter Van Wyks on the far wall. The door to the bio-lab was open, and people were moving in and out.

  “I’m here,” a woman’s voice to his right said. “I’ve already had my shot.” Conner reached out a hand and touched his forehead as Comsky went to work on his forearm.

  “Shit, Dave, you really fucked this up,” Comsky said, peering through the blood at torn muscle.

  “Great bedside manner,” Riley returned, but his heart wasn’t in it.

  “Where did you get the electronic jammer from?” Conner asked. “The two Rangers who were down here told me what happened.”

  Riley pointed with his good hand. “That’s it.”

  Conner picked it up. “Looks like a cellular phone to me,” she said.

  “I guess that’s what it is,” Riley said. “I grabbed it upstairs when Skeleton told me the destruct was a remote.”

  Conner’s eyes widened. “You mean you—”

  “Van Wyks wouldn’t have made a good poker player,” Riley said. “What’s going on?”

  “You’d be better off asking what isn’t going on,” Conner said. “Let’s see. As Comsky told you, we have the Anslum four. Since the antidote is so perfectly tailored to the virus, it works very quickly. I’m already feeling better and you should in an hour or so.

  “The South African Defense Force has sealed this entire area and disarmed the remainder of Van Wyks’s forces. Apparently General Scott of the Eighty-second linked up with the SADF commander in Namibia and got him to switch sides. If he ever was on Van Wyks’s side to start with.

  “As soon as the threat from Z has passed, the Angolan operation can be completed. You’ll be glad to know your guess about Savimbi was correct. We just heard that he has been confirmed dead in a helicopter that was shot down on the first day. He must have been out checking a village infected with Z and he was shot down on the way back.”

  “What’s the death count from Z so far?” Riley asked.

  Conner shook her head. “We don’t know that. Based on the imagery, at least two thousand Angolans out in the countryside. For the American forces, we’ve had sixteen people die. There are a couple dozen more who are on the borderline where the Anslum four might be too late.”

  “What about here?” Riley asked. “The Rangers?”

  “Not so good,” Conner said. “Forty-two dead. Twenty-one wounded.”

  The numbers were people to Riley. “We have to make sure this never happens again.”

  Epilogue

  Luderitz, Namibia, 17 June

  Riley had no feeling in his right forearm. It was tightly wrapped in white gauze and immobilized. He knew from bitter experience that the pain would come—throbbing and aching. But for now it was all right.

  Bradley fighting vehicles from the 24th Infantry were mixed in among SADF vehicles around the devastated headquarters building for the Van Wyks cartel. Helicopters shuttled in, bringing additional troops and removing the survivors of the Ranger assault.

  Smoke still drifted up from crashed helicopters and the bodies were still there, covered with ponchos and guarded by grim-faced paratroopers. And ther
e was Conner, catching all of it with her camera. Riley watched as she placed it down on top of a destroyed Ratel-90 and stepped in front of it.

  “This is Conner Young, reporting to you from Luderitz, Namibia, where, early this morning, U.S. Army Rangers conducted a daring and courageous assault to secure the cure for the virus that has been ravaging Angola. A virus made by man—a man—Pieter Van Wyks.

  “The why and how of the disease—which we called Z and his scientists called Anslum four—will come out over the next several days. But that’s not the story right now. The story is that a threat to all people was made here. And it was unleashed in Angola. A crime was committed against mankind and this was the response. As it must be in the future.

  “Even those who do not believe in war or politics conducted by force of arms must understand and accept that the threat that became real here will continue to exist. And the only way we can keep it from becoming a reality again is to ensure that future responses will be just as swift and fierce.

  “Men died here. Brave men. Many of them young and in the prime of their life. But what they died for...”

  As Conner continued, a shadow came up on Riley’s side. He turned his head. Quinn had the stub of a cigar in his mouth, watching her. “Nice words,” the Canadian said. He spit out the mangled remains of the cigar. “But words don’t count for much.”

  “No, they don’t,” Riley agreed. “But they’re better than staying silent.”

  Quinn jabbed a thumb at the headquarters building. “Van Wyks opened Pandora’s box,” he said. “I don’t think we can put the top back on.”

  “Pandora’s box,” Riley repeated, “was opened a long time ago. The first time a man picked up a stick and whacked another man over the head. We’ve lived with nukes for half a century. We always knew something like Z was possible. Some might say what happened here was inevitable.” He looked at the smoldering remains of the Black Hawk full of Rangers that had been shot down trying to make it to the roof. “But what is also inevitable, and something no one ever really talks about, is that as long as there are men like Van Wyks, who will invent and let loose something like Z, there are men and women just as determined to stop him. Whatever the cost.”