“Sadism had nothing to do with it. We’re doing this in the interests of science.”
“Tell me about it,” said Halverson cynically.
“We’re trying to determine how to kill the flesh eaters.”
Bewildered, Halverson shook his head. “I don’t follow you. Spit it out.”
“We want to find out if the flesh eaters will die if they eat human flesh contaminated with radiation poisoning, and, if so, how much poisoning is needed to kill them.”
Halverson simply stared at Guzman. The entire room fell silent.
At last, Halverson found his voice. “You fed our guys to the flesh eaters? Is that what you’re telling me?”
Aghast, Swiggum said, “And they locked me up as a criminal. What a joke.”
“Don’t take this personally,” said Guzman. “These are experiments conducted in the name of science.”
“Don’t take it personally,” mocked Swiggum. “You’re feeding us to the zombies and we’re not supposed to take it personally?”
“We need to know how to kill the infected creatures.”
“A shot to the head’ll work every time,” said Halverson.
“And it’ll work with you, too,” said Swiggum, leveling his MP7 at Guzman.
“But we need to have more methods of destroying them at our disposal,” said Guzman. “You don’t understand the gravity of the situation. We’re at war with these creatures. It’s either them or us that’ll inherit the earth. We need to eradicate every last one of them.”
“I’m with you on that, but your methods are obscene. Feeding living human beings to flesh eaters to see what happens? That’s beyond the pale.”
“It wouldn’t be so morally disgusting if you had killed them first before feeding them to the creatures,” said Swiggum. “You let the creatures tear them apart and eat them alive, for the love of Christ.”
“You should talk about morals,” said Guzman in revulsion. “You’re an armed robber. And you know as well as I that the creatures don’t eat dead human flesh.”
“I don’t care what either of you say,” said Victoria. “Whether you killed them before or after you fed them to the zombies, it’s appalling. How dare you call the act of murder science?”
“Science is neither good nor bad. It’s beyond morality. Whatever we transhumanists do is beyond morality. You cannot judge us.”
“Your father in the Waffen SS probably thought like that, too,” said Halverson.
“I can’t believe we’re even having this discussion,” said Swiggum.
“I don’t have to explain my actions to any of you,” said Guzman. “I’m a transhumanist. We’ve evolved past ordinary humans like you.”
“I don’t know what you been smokin’, buddy,” said Swiggum and blew out his cheeks.
“What’s this all about?” said Halverson.
“Your mind is too small for it to comprehend what this is about,” said Guzman.
Halverson glanced at the bank of CCTV monitors on the wall. One monitor was showing flesh eaters shambling through a hallway. He hoped Guzman didn’t pick up on it. The less Guzman knew about the escaped creatures, the better, Halverson decided. He attempted to keep Guzman’s attention focused on their discussion.
“Try me,” said Halverson.
CHAPTER 71
“I’m waiting,” said Halverson.
“It’s a long story, but you deserve to know it before you die,” said Guzman.
“That’s funny,” said Halverson, glancing at the MP7 in his hand. “It looks like you’re the one who’s gonna die.”
Guzman ignored him. “We at Orchid are a group of transhumanists that want to better the world.”
Swiggum made a show of yawning. “How long is this lecture, Professor?”
“As long as it takes. We helped finance the creation of the so-called zombie virus at Erasmus Medical Center.”
“So did the CIA.”
“We had help, but we put up the lion’s share of the money.”
“You sound like you’re bragging,” said Halverson. “That’s the same plague that wiped out the world’s population.”
“It wasn’t supposed to do that.”
“I guess not.”
“It was only supposed to wipe out three-fourths of the population.”
Halverson did a double take. “What?”
“It was supposed to have a 75 percent kill ratio, not 100 percent.”
“What’s the point of decimating the human race?” said Halverson, flummoxed.
“That’s why we released it.”
“Am I hearing you right? I thought it was an accident. You’re saying it was deliberate?” Halverson could not believe it.
“We released it deliberately at Erasmus. We don’t do anything by accident.”
“Why kill everybody off?”
“The world’s overpopulated.”
“Not anymore.”
“It was overpopulated. There were over 7 billion human beings on earth. The world can only sustain 1.5 billion. Do the math. A cataclysm the likes of which the world has never seen was inevitable unless we took action by eliminating about 5.5 billion individuals.”
“You ended up killing more than that.”
“If we hadn’t intervened, civilization would have collapsed with bloody turmoil, riots, mass starvation, wars, and pogroms the order of the day. We offered a humane alternative.”
“Death by plague is humane?”
Guzman looked annoyed at Halverson. “It was better than the alternative.”
“I hate to tell you this, but you wiped out way more than 5.5 billion. More like 7 billion.”
“That was a miscalculation.”
Halverson snorted. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“That was when we decided to nuke the world to cleanse it of the plague.”
“You decided to do that? I thought it was our government.”
Guzman smiled cryptically. “We have members in all of the major governments of the world.”
“Let me get this straight. You corrected your mistake of infesting the world with plague by blowing up the world with A-bombs. Is that about it?”
“We had to eradicate the plague to make the world inhabitable.”
“You think the world’s inhabitable now?”
“Not at the moment. It will be when the radiation level outside drops. Then we can rebuild civilization—a far better one than the one we replaced.”
“What a crock!” said Swiggum.
“So this is how the world ends?” said Halverson.
“No,” said Guzman. “I plan on taking over Orchid and the world.”
“I can’t wait,” said Swiggum, a sarcastic grin on his face.
“How?” said Halverson.
“Remember you asked me whether this was Area 51?”
“How can I forget?”
“You were right. This is Area 51, and it’s equipped with Minuteman missiles armed with nuclear warheads that are aimed straight at Mount Weather.”
“You said you have fellow members in our government,” said Halverson, puzzled.
“They made the mistake of thinking they rule me, when actually it’s the other way around. They’re about to find out their mistake when I launch the missiles at them.”
“Then you, the billionaire drug dealer, can rule the world all by your loathsome self, the great humanist,” said Halverson.
Guzman glowered at Halverson.
“All you’re gonna rule is a wasteland with nobody in it except zombies,” said Victoria.
“Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven, huh?” said Halverson.
“Milton with his silly take on Satan,” said Guzman. “What did Milton know? He was a blind man.”
“He knew better than to wipe out the world with plague.”
“In fact, it will be a better world when it rises from the ashes like the proverbial phoenix with me at the helm.”
Swiggum burst out laughing. “You nee
d to be locked up in a padded room.”
“You think?” said Guzman and ducked under the kneehole in his desk.
MP7 in hand, Halverson sprang around the desk.
Guzman was gone. He had disappeared through the floor’s clandestine steel trapdoor that even now was sliding shut to cover his escape.
“Sneaky sumbitch had a bolt-hole,” said Swiggum, joining Halverson behind the desk.
Halverson reached down to jam his MP7’s muzzle between the doorframe and the trapdoor as the door was whooshing shut, but he was too late. The door snapped shut with a harsh clang.
Halverson jerked to attention at a loud rapping on the door to the room.
“What’s that?” said Swiggum, slewing around on his heel to face the door.
“Oh no!” exclaimed Victoria.
“What?” said Halverson, looking at her.
He found her gawking at the CCTV screen that showed the corridor outside the room. Armed guards were gathering en masse outside their door.
“Looks like we stepped into a trap,” said Swiggum, checking out the image on the CCTV screen, his face falling. “That prick Guzman.”
Even as Swiggum’s and Victoria’s wide eyes were riveted on the grainy black-and-white image of the soldiers converging outside the door, Halverson was scoping out another screen in the bank of CCTV monitors. The screen showed the hall that led to the entrance to the blast shelter. He could make out a pack of flesh eaters traipsing down the hall, roaming near the entrance. He figured they were the same ones he had released from the decontamination room.
The door handle jiggled as one of the guards outside tried to open the locked steel door to Guzman’s room.
“Open up!” he hollered.
“I don’t like our chances,” said Swiggum.
CHAPTER 72
Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center
Face grave, CIA Director Slocum entered the Situation Room and searched the faces of Cole, Paris, and Byrd, who were seated around the large conference table that occupied the center of the room.
“This must be pretty important,” said Slocum.
“Take a seat, Ernest,” said Cole, dispensing with the amenities.
Slocum realized from Cole’s brusque tone that heads might be about to roll. Sitting down he hoped his would not be one of them.
“General Byrd has admitted to us that he’s a member of the Orchid Organization,” Cole went on. “Let me get down to brass tacks. What about you?”
Cole bored his eyes into Slocum’s.
Slocum was wary of this line of questioning. “Why is this important, Mr. President?” he asked, stalling for time to frame his answer.
“Answer yes or no,” Cole shot back.
“Why is this relevant?”
“Don’t give me any of your legalese doubletalk. This isn’t a courtroom. It’s relevant because I say it’s relevant. I’m asking you a direct question.”
“I used to be a member, Mr. President, but what’s that got to do with anything?”
“Did they throw you out, or what? Explain.”
“Nobody threw me out. I quit.”
“Why?”
Slocum commenced squirming in his seat. As director of the CIA he wasn’t used to getting grilled. It was usually the other way around, and he preferred it that way.
“I didn’t like the direction they were headed in,” he said.
“Why didn’t you tell me about your membership in this group?”
“I didn’t think it important. I’m not in it anymore, anyway.”
“General Byrd is also a member of Orchid. Did you know that?”
Slocum scratched his head, loath to answer.
“Well, did you know or not?” persisted Cole.
“Yeah, I knew. But what’s the relevance—”
Cole held up his hand, cutting off Slocum. “Stop with the legal jargon, already. I told you before.”
“What General Byrd does is his business. How does that reflect on me?”
“I just wish you had told me about what you know about the Orchid Organization before we got to this stage.”
Slocum was all ears now. “What stage?” he asked, leaning forward in his seat.
“Your deputy director of NCS was murdered.”
“What!”
“On the NSA floor.”
“He hasn’t even got access to it. How did he get there?”
Slocum could not make heads or tails of what was going on.
“He coldcocked Tony here and used his NSA key card,” said Cole. “I don’t want to rehash this again.”
Slocum glanced at Holmes, who was stroking his bruised chin with two fingers. “I had no idea.”
Slocum faced Cole again.
“I’ll be point-blank with you, Ernest,” said Cole, holding Slocum’s attention with a steady gaze. “I have reason to believe you were involved in the murder.”
“No way!” exclaimed Slocum, taken aback. “Why would you even think such a thing?”
It was Paris’s turn to answer. “We believe that the Orchid Organization was involved in what amounts to the assassination of Scot Mellors. They found out that Mellors was onto some kind of skullduggery they’re up to, and they had to stop him.”
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“You were a member of Orchid.”
“Were is the operative word.”
“You must have something in common with them or you never would have joined them,” said Cole, squinting at Slocum.
Slocum sighed loudly, flapping his cheeks. “They want to make the world a better place to live. So do I. To that I plead guilty.”
“Then why’d you quit?” said Paris.
“I didn’t like the way they wanted to go about changing it.”
“We’re listening,” prompted Cole.
“They were heavy into chemicals.”
“Chemicals?”
“Helping humans to evolve with the use of chemicals and science.”
“Transhumanism?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell us what you know about the apocalypse equation.”
Slocum shrugged it off. “That was a master’s thesis written by a member of the Agency when they attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.”
“Did you ever read it?”
“Yeah. It was nothing. I can’t even remember it,” said Slocum, gesturing with his arms. “What’s the big deal with it?”
“Try to remember, Ernest. This is important.” Cole drummed a tattoo on the tabletop with his fingers, his patience wearing thin.
Shutting his eyes, Slocum frowned in thought, trying to recall the gist of the article. He covered his mouth with his hand.
“It was outlandish,” he said, opening his eyes. “If I recall correctly, it proposed the theory that the world was overpopulated and we had to start dealing with it immediately or the world would collapse into anarchy. Some mumbo jumbo like that.”
“How did the writer say we should deal with it?” said Cole, leaning toward Slocum, hanging on every word.
“He said we needed to reduce the population.”
“Go on. How?”
“Believe it or not, the writer advocated the use of biological warfare and limited nuclear attacks in order to thin out the population.” Slocum closed his eyes and pressed his eyeballs with his thumb and ring finger, remembering. “Basically, he wanted to kill off six billion humans.”
The room fell silent. Cole’s breath caught.
“The only ones that would be saved would be scientists, politicians, doctors, captains of industries, IT boffins, and the like,” Slocum went on. “They would be herded into massive bomb shelters. Everybody else would be targeted for extinction.”
“Is this on the level?” said Cole.
“You asked me what was in that thesis, so I told you. It was off-the-wall malarkey. You can see why I forgot about it. Nobody could take it seriously.”
Throughout the discussio
n, General Byrd had said nothing, his face impassive.
Having been alerted by the president before Byrd had entered the room, Paris had been checking on Byrd periodically to pick up on his reactions to their conversation.
“To anyone with half a mind it made a great deal of sense,” said Byrd, breaking his silence.
“Then you read the paper, too, General?” said Cole.
“Everyone in Orchid read it. We’re committed to doing anything we can to save the human race from extinction.”
“Then we’re both on the same page.”
“No, we’re not. You don’t have the cojones to take action. We do. If we have to spread the plague, we’ll spread the plague. If we have to nuke the world, we’ll nuke the world. The bottom line is we have to save humanity.”
“You infected the world deliberately?” said Cole, pulling back in his chair, flabbergasted.
“More humans died than we had planned on.”
“Was Ernest in on this?”
“No. He’s as weak-kneed as you are. This is all about balls. You two have none.”
Whipping out his Glock 17 from his holster at his waist, Byrd bolted to his feet and trained the muzzle on Cole’s face.
“Think about what you’re doing,” said Slocum, fixing his eyes on Byrd. “You’re holding a gun on the president of the United States.”
“Correction. I’m holding a gun on a pussy who’s afraid to take action. I’m taking over.”
Paris was gripping his pistol underneath the tabletop. He swung the pistol out from under it and, aiming at upper body mass, shot Byrd twice in the chest.
Bewildered, Byrd clasped his chest, which sprouted blood in his uniform. He could not believe he had been shot. He looked down at his chest and saw blood diffusing through his jacket. He toppled to the floor with a thud.
“The coup is over,” said Paris, leering down at Byrd’s body.
“Are you sure?” said Cole.
“What do you mean, Mr. President?”
“Byrd wasn’t the only member of Orchid. More than him were involved in this junta.”
“He was the only member of Orchid that I know of who was in what’s left of our government,” said Paris.
“That you know of,” said Cole. “The fact is, gentlemen, we must accept the fact that there are more conspirators out there in bunkers spread around the country and that they pose a threat to our continued existence.”
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