by Spell, David
“Follow the van or go to the help call?”
“Do a u-turn and let’s stop that van. If that’s the bad guys, we need to get them. There’ll be plenty of cars showing up on the scene over there.”
James nodded and did a sudden u-turn in front of oncoming traffic, eliciting the blare of car horns. The black and white accelerated, trying to catch up to their target. It was several car lengths in front of them, but made a sudden right turn down a narrow side street. The suspect vehicle was still too far away to read the license plate.
“That’s a dead end!” Peter exclaimed. “It’s not even a street. It’s the entrance to Santa Monica High School.”
“This is about to get even better,” Malloy muttered.
“1 Adam 15 to dispatch,” Reed transmitted. “The suspect vehicle is pulling into the Santa Monica High School on North Van Ness. We’ll be initiating a felony takedown.”
“10-4, 1 Adam 15.”
“Omer, that police car turned around and is following us!” Samer announced, peering into his side rearview mirror.
“Turn down that side street up there,” Deniz ordered, clutching the rifle in his lap. “Marquette and Kimani, get ready. We may have to fight the police.”
“That’s my favorite hobby- killing pigs,” Walters grunted, grabbing his shotgun.
Davis clutched his AR-15, a nervous grin on his face.
“This is a dead end!” Ali exclaimed. “It looks like a school.
Suddenly, flashing red and blue lights came on behind them from the LAPD cruiser.
“Perfect,” Omer said. “Pull around towards the back. As soon as you stop, we all jump out and start shooting. Don’t give them a chance to react. Kill them quickly! Everybody clear?”
The black Durango’s engine roared as Special Agent Toney raced towards 1 Adam 15’s location. None of the responding LAPD officers had said it, but Chuck knew that the virus had been released. There had been so many of those kinds of 911 calls when the bio-terror weapon had been deployed on the east coast.
To the uninitiated, it just sounded like a crazy or drunk person attacking random people. One bite, however, would lead to infection and the creation of another zombie. McCain just hoped all the local and federal cops could react quickly enough to contain the outbreak.
“How much further?” Smith asked from the backseat.
“Maybe five minutes.” the FBI agent answered.
“Hey, Scotty,” Chuck called over his shoulder, “hit up Eddie and Tu and make sure they’re clear on what’s going on. Get everybody moving towards that call. We need every gun that we’ve got over there on Santa Monica now!”
McCain hit the call button on his phone for Thomas Burns.
“How bad is it?” Burns asked without preamble, also listening to LAPD’s radio traffic in the command center.
“We haven’t made it to the scene. Another beat car is trying to pull over a white van that was leaving the area. We’re going to check on them and then head over to Santa Monica.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Get the National Guard released,” Chuck said. “If it turns out this isn’t related to the virus, I’ll take responsibility but in the meantime I want to try and get that area sealed off. If people have been infected over there, we need to shut down at least a two block radius.”
“Just two blocks?”
“For now. If we have enough manpower, shut down three blocks. My guess is that if we’ve got new Zs on Santa Monica Boulevard, there’ll be plenty of victims in the area to keep them occupied. We’ve got to stop this thing right now! Also, make sure that Air Force drone is overhead. The suspect vehicle just pulled into the Santa Monica High School. I want the drone overhead until we clear that call, then send them to the other scene. It would be great if LAPD could get a helicopter over here.”
“Okay, let me get to work.”
“Thanks, Burns. I’ll update you ASAP.”
Screaming broke out over the police radio. “1 Adam 15 to dispatch, shots fired, shots fired! Officer down! I need an ambulance and backup!”
The unmistakable sounds of gunfire crackled over the keyed up microphone.
“I’ll handle the commands over the PA after they stop,” Pete told his partner, reaching over and activating their flashing lights.
“Okay, I’ll cover them with the rifle,” Malloy confirmed. “If there’s a bunch of them in the van, let’s just get ‘em out and prone on the pavement until we get some more people here.”
“Good idea.”
The fleeing vehicle pulled around the front of the school and sped towards the rear, brake lights coming on as the van stopped on the far side of the abandoned student parking area. Pete could now read the California license plate and called it in to the dispatcher.
“Get ready in case they bail out and run,” Reed told his partner.
James stopped three car lengths behind the van, giving themselves more distance than normal in case things went bad. He threw the gearshift lever into park and grabbed the department issued Smith and Wesson M&P AR-15 from the rifle rack between the seats. Both officers quickly pushed open their doors and were exiting the police car when all the doors on the van flew open.
“1 Adam 15, use 10-0. Be advised that tag is returning stolen. Stand by for confirmation,” the dispatcher alerted them.
The officers had no chance to respond to the radio traffic as gun fire erupted and bullets plastered the front of the cruiser. Malloy quickly pulled back the charging handle and let it go forward, chambering a round for his rifle. A grunt of pain came from his right and he glanced over, looking for his partner. He wasn’t there. Where did Peter go? James wondered, fear stabbing him in the gut. Malloy raised himself slightly so that he could see out the passenger door. His partner lay unmoving next to the patrol car.
“1 Adam 15 to dispatch,” he transmitted, “shots fired, shots fired! Officer down! I need an ambulance and backup!”
The former Marine hurriedly turned his attention back to their assailants and began pulling the trigger of the AR as fast as he could, his combat training and experience kicking in. The police car’s windshield cracked and shuddered under the number of impacts, the window on the driver’s door exploded, showering him with glass, and smoke began to billow out from under the hood of the Crown Vic. James knew he needed to move but there was nothing but open space around them. The nearest cover was at least fifty feet away.
Several rounds smashed into Malloy’s door, the muzzle flash coming from next to the driver’s side of the van. Something slammed into his chest, stunning the officer and taking his breath away. A small man with a beard was advancing towards the police car and shooting. The officer squeezed off two quick shots at the gunman, now just thirty yards away, and was rewarded with seeing him crumple to the ground. James shifted his aim into the back of the van and continued to fire at the muzzle flashes from inside. A scream filled the night air and the gunfire paused for a moment.
“Let’s go! We need to go out of here!” a voice yelled from the far side of the suspect vehicle. James was surprised to hear the Midwestern accented English, not the Middle-Eastern accent that he would have expected from terrorists.
Up ahead, a figure moved around the front of van and crouched over the one that the officer had shot. Malloy brought the AR up and squeezed the trigger. Nothing. It had locked open, the thirty round magazine empty. Rather than reaching for another rifle mag, the officer drew his Glock Model 22 .40 caliber pistol and began to fire.
Thirty yards is an extremely long range for a handgun but the combat veteran was an above average shot. The kneeling figure grunted and fell to the pavement next to the other body. Relief flooded Malloy’s mind. I need to check Pete, though, and there could still be more bad guys in the van. And I need to see how bad I’m hit, he thought, his chest starting to pulsate with pain. The officer pushed himself to a crouch, turning towards the rear of the cruiser.
A searing pain suddenly tore through Jame
s’ left arm, the impact of a rifle round knocking him to the asphalt, his arm hanging at an odd angle. The Marines had trained him to survive against overwhelming odds and Malloy dragged himself behind the cover of their vehicle, just catching a glance of the last person he had shot staggering to his feet and firing several more times at the police car before climbing into the driver’s seat of the van. The vehicle turned around and roared out of the parking out. James managed to raise his pistol and fired several rounds into the side of the van as it sped past him.
James knew that he was hit bad as the blood pumped out of his wounded arm. The bullet had struck him on the outside of the bicep and he wasn’t able to move the appendage. He desperately wanted to check on Peter, but knew that he had to fix himself first, as he’d be no good to anyone else dead or unconscious. The tourniquet was inside his uniform shirt, attached to his body armor, and in seconds he was cinching it down tightly above the wound, gasping in pain.
The wounded officer tried to stand but his legs wouldn’t hold his weight for some reason. He felt blood trickling down the inside of his soft body armor on the left side of his chest, unsure of how serious that wound was. You’re all messed up, Malloy, he told himself. Instead of walking, he crawled around to the passenger side where his friend was lying facedown.
“No, Peter, no!” James stammered, seeing the pool of blood around Reed’s head.
A bullet had struck the officer just above his right eye. Additional rounds had hit him in both the legs and torso. Malloy frantically felt for a pulse, knowing it was too late. He grabbed his friend, rolled him over and attempted CPR. With only one functioning arm, however, it was a losing battle. James tried to get Reed’s body armor off so that he could perform chest compressions, but his own loss of blood left him without any strength.
Headlights swept over the parking lot as another vehicle roared towards the school. Backup or the bad guys coming back? Malloy wondered, reaching for his pistol. The bright lights illuminated the wounded and the dead LAPD officers, as well as the dead terrorist. James tried to focus as he heard the sound of doors opening and feet hurrying his way.
“Federal agents, officer. We’re here to help you,” were the last words Malloy heard before drifting into darkness.
What had started off so well had quickly dissolved into a disaster. Omer had bailed out, targeting the officer on the passenger side of the cruiser, his first burst from the M4 dropping the cop. Two additional blasts struck the infidel after he had fallen facedown on the asphalt. That other officer, though, had been a problem. He had cut loose with his rifle, preventing the two men in the back of the van from exiting or even making accurate shots through the rear doors.
Samer had fired his AK at the remaining cop hiding behind the driver’s door. Somehow, the pig had managed to return fire, two of his bullets striking Ali in the center of his chest, likely destroying his heart. Before the operation, Deniz had encouraged his friend to wear body armor. Samer had turned him down, saying Allah’s will be done.
The cop with the rifle had also managed to hit Kimani, who was currently groaning in agony in the rear of the van with Marquette attempting to staunch the flow of blood from his friend’s abdomen. The round had penetrated just above his belt line.
Thank Allah, I was wearing body armor, Omer thought, his right side still throbbing from the impact of the police officer’s bullet. He had assumed that Ali had killed the second officer. As Deniz knelt to check his friend to see if he was still alive, however, a shot struck him on one of the side panels of his heavy vest. It took the breath out of him and knocked him down but the terrorist was able to return fire before diving into the driver’s seat of the van and escaping. The pig even managed to put several rounds into their vehicle as they fled.
Deniz raced out of the parking lot and turned right onto North Van Ness Avenue, not sure where he was going, but knowing that they needed to get out of the area. The groaning from the back had stopped, Omer realized.
“How is he, Marquette?”
The sound of flesh smacking flesh came from the back of the van.
“Wake up, Kimani! Come on, man. Don’t be playing!”
“Marquette! How is he?”
After a minute, the tall, muscular African-American came forward and sat in the passenger seat, wiping his bloody hands on his black cargo pants.
“He’s gone, man. He’s gone.”
Santa Monica Boulevard and North Western Avenue, Los Angeles, Sunday, 0030 hours
Eddie Marshall and his agents from Atlanta had been pleasantly surprised with the CDC Enforcement Unit in LA. The sixteen agent operation was the second largest office after New York. While the LA CDC team had a lot of officers, the reality was that they had not seen any significant action due to the zombie virus since the very beginning of the crisis.
In the early stages the virus was released via prescription drugs tainted with the bio-terror weapon, then mailed throughout the nation. Quite a few had ended up in LA and there had been a number of infections. In many cases, the LAPD had been the ones to confront the Zs.
A few of these deadly prescriptions had led to three entire neighborhoods becoming graveyards. Hundreds had died before the CDC Enforcement Unit was able to get the situation under control. With federal and local law enforcement working together, within six weeks the spread of the virus had been stopped before it could infect the entire city. After that, thankfully, the west coast had remained relatively untouched.
The CDC agents from the east coast had been too busy fighting their own war to keep up with what was happening on the west coast. Now, the teams were working side-by-side, attempting to stamp out this renewed attack in LA. Eddie held onto the handle over his head in the passenger seat of CDC’s Suburban as they rushed to the scene of the possible bio-terror attack. The driver, Brian Ross, was the OIC of the Los Angeles CDC teams and, in Marshall’s mind, was the stereotypical Southern Californian. Brian was six feet tall with blond hair, blue eyes, a shiny smile, and a great tan.
Eddie had been shocked to find that Ross wasn’t even from California. He had grown up in rural Pennsylvania before joining the ROTC program at the University of Pittsburgh. Upon graduation, the young man had entered the Army, where he attained the rank of captain in the elite 101st Airborne Division. Brian’s lifelong dream, however, had been to become an FBI agent, so after ten years as a Screaming Eagle, he left the Army to become a G-Man.
Ross had never really fit in with the Bureau and was considering transferring to another federal agency. He had heard rumors of a startup law enforcement wing of the CDC. Getting in at the ground level of a new organization intrigued him and he had been one of the first CDC agents hired on the west coast.
Brian and Eddie had paired their teams up, spreading them around the vast city. There was no way to know where or even if the terrorists would hit. The plan was for everyone to ride until 0400 hours before heading back for a few hours sleep.
Now, the Suburban was roaring towards the scene where the two men fully expected to see the results of another bio-terror attack. Ross and Marshall were only fifteen minutes away when the help call from LAPD came over the air. Eddie was torn between knowing they should head for the center of the crisis, but also wanting to go back up the officers involved in the shooting. He heard Chuck advise that his team was enroute to that location. They should be OK, Marshall thought. He’s got Scotty, Eric, and that HRT agent with him.
The closest CDC agents to Santa Monica Boulevard were Jimmy Jones and one of Brian’s team leaders. What was her name? Jenny? Julie? Eddie was operating on little sleep and a lot of coffee. While he couldn’t remember the woman’s name, he did remember that she had served on the Los Angeles Sheriffs SWAT Team for eight years before being recruited to the CDC. Whatever her name was, she had told Brian that they would be onscene in five minutes. Somehow, Jimmy always ended up in the middle of everything, Eddie thought.
All the other feds were coming from different parts of the city. Marshall
imagined them racing, pushing their SUVs to the limit, navigating the always heavy Los Angeles traffic. The question now was, could they put a stop to the outbreak before it spread throughout LA?
CHAPTER TEN
To Live and Die in LA
Hollywood Freeway, Los Angeles, Sunday, 0045 hours
When McCain’s team had arrived at the scene of the shooting at the high school, Scotty quickly transitioned into the role of combat medic. The former Ranger took charge of the scene, focusing his attention on Officer James Malloy. He directed Eric and Jason to check the body, which they presumed was one of the terrorists, lying almost a hundred feet away in the large parking lot. Smith had Chuck look for vitals on the other wounded officer, even though he appeared to be dead.
Scotty checked the tourniquet Malloy had applied to his own arm, making sure it was in the proper position to stanch the flow of blood. Smith continued the assessment of his patient, finding another wound on his left side. The bearded man gently cut away the navy blue police shirt and removed the soft body armor. A small, bleeding hole was visible on the officer’s rib cage.
Smith continued his examination of the injured man, looking for an exit wound. Not finding one, he focused on getting him stabilized, checking his pulse and breathing. His heartbeat was weak, but the pulse was there and he was breathing without difficulty. The gunshot to the side, however, had Scotty worried. There was no telling how badly the officer was bleeding internally. Sirens could be heard in the distance. I hope they’re coming here, Scotty thought. We need to get this cop to the hospital fast!
Toney was on the phone with 911, confirming that an ambulance was enroute as Gray walked back over to where Smith worked. “One tango, KIA. I think he’s the one on the BOLO: Samer Ali.”