by Spell, David
After kneeling beside the dead officer, feeling for a pulse, and observing the gunshot wound to his head, McCain sighed, stood, and made eye contact with Smith. He merely gave a slight shake of the head.
We’ll mourn him later, Smith thought, continuing to work. Now, I’ve got to keep this one alive. Scotty leaned over his patient, picking up his now shredded uniform shirt to read the nameplate.
“Officer Malloy, you’re going to be fine. My name’s Scotty and I’m a paramedic. The ambulance is on the way and we’ll have you at a hospital in a few minutes.”
The unconscious officer didn’t respond, but Smith understood that he could still hear, even in his tenuous state.
“Burns to McCain, Burns to McCain,” their earpieces all crackled. “The drone is following the suspect vehicle. They just turned onto the Hollywood Freeway. Can you intercept?”
“We’re leaving now!” Chuck responded. “Keep us updated.”
Toney and Gray were already sprinting for the Durango. McCain looked down at his friend and shrugged.
“Sorry, Scotty, but we’ve got to go!”
Smith hated to miss taking down terrorists but at the moment, his job was to keep Officer Malloy stable until the ambulance arrived. The muscular man sighed and nodded.
“Good hunting, Bossman. I’ll catch up with you later.”
In seconds, the three feds had jumped back into the SUV and were speeding to catch up with the suspects. Traffic had finally begun to lighten up a little and Agent Toney was pushing his Durango for all it was worth as they attempted to overtake the getaway vehicle which was several miles ahead of them on the Hollywood Freeway. It was obvious that the terrorists were trying to flee the city after releasing the virus and getting into the shootout with the LAPD officers.
Omer’s goal now was to just get out of Los Angeles. If they could get clear of the city, they would head for the border. The van would need to be abandoned ASAP and they would need to steal another vehicle. And, of course, there was the question of what to do with Kimani’s body, although I-5 between LA and San Diego was a straight shot with open stretches of highway where they could stop and dump the corpse.
Marquette had not spoken since telling him of his friend’s death, just staring out the windshield, continuing to wipe his hands on his pants.
“Marquette, get the maps out. I think we want to get on Interstate 5. Is that correct?”
The muscular black man gave no evidence of even hearing him, continuing to look straight ahead.
The signs on the side of the six-lane divided highway answered Deniz’s own question. The interchange with I-5 was just two miles ahead. Suddenly, flashing blue and red lights came on behind them.
Omer gasped with surprise. Where had they come from? How did they track us? He pushed the accelerator to the floor, but the van had seen better days and its top speed now was just seventy miles an hour.
“The police are behind us, Marquette! Snap out of it! Do you want to go back to prison for the rest of your life?”
Slowly, the big felon turned and stared at Omer, the intensity of his gaze scaring the former FBI agent.
“You gonna try and outrun them or are we gonna fight?” Walters snarled.
“I’m going as fast as I can. There’s no way we’re going to outrun them.”
“Then let’s kill them.”
Marquette climbed to his feet and moved to the rear of the van, grabbing his shotgun and checking its load. He also made sure Kimani’s AR-15 was fully loaded. A sudden impact slammed the terrorist into the side of the van and to the floor, stunning him as the vehicle was shoved to the right. Another jarring crash brought them to a stop.
Chuck had stayed in contact with Thomas as he directed them towards the fleeing terrorists. The drone pilot was not on the same radio frequency so everything had to be relayed from Burns to McCain. The big man had asked twice for verification that this was really the suspect’s van the drone was following. The pilot assured them that it was. He had just gotten into position over the high school as the shootout between the two police officers and the terrorists had ended and had stayed over the perp’s vehicle for the last fifteen minutes.
Jason was driving without any of his emergency equipment activated, not wanting to alert the bad guys that they were being pursued until the officers were right behind them. Toney cut in and out of traffic, changing lanes and swerving around slower moving vehicles. The white van was now two cars in front of them. A sign indicated that the 4th Street exit was coming up in a mile.
“Want to try and take them there, near that bridge?” Chuck asked, pointing at the sign.
“Sounds good. If we have to shoot it out, the embankment under the bridge will give us a good backdrop.”
McCain had requested LAPD or California Highway Patrol units to assist them. The scene over on Santa Monica Boulevard was still active, however, and sounding worse by the moment. Every available officer was being sent there in an effort to block off the area and eliminate the new zombies.
“I’ll turn on the lights and see if they stop. If he tries to run, I’ll PIT him.”
“Good times,” Eric commented from the back, clutching the rifle with his right hand, his left grabbing the handle over the door to brace himself.
Chuck advised the LAPD dispatcher of their location at the Hollywood Freeway southbound at 4th Street. Agent Toney flipped on his grill-mounted blue and red strobe lights a quarter mile before the exit. McCain expected them to get off at 4th Street. Instead, the van had accelerated slightly, continuing south on the highway.
When it was obvious that the terrorists weren’t going to stop, Jason expertly slipped into position for the precision immobilization technique. He accelerated until the front end of the Durango was aligned with the left side rear tires of the van. Just as they passed the exit, a metal guardrail appeared on the right shoulder.
In a normal PIT maneuver, police officers do not engage at speeds over forty miles per hour. The officers are taught to use a gentle shove on the suspect vehicle to cause it to spin around and lose control so that the bad guys can be quickly taken into custody. Here, however, the perps were traveling at seventy miles an hour. The HRT member had also been trained on how to immobilize fleeing criminals at high speeds.
“Hold on!”
Jason jerked the steering wheel to the right and accelerated, slamming into the GMC, shoving it onto the shoulder and into the guard rail. Both vehicles came to an abrupt stop in a crunch of metal and sparks. The Durango’s air bags deployed, filling the interior of the SUV with smoke. The federal agents immediately sprang into action, shoving the airbags aside, exiting with their weapons up and ready.
Toney crouched behind the limited cover of the driver’s door, sighting between the doorpost and the body of the Durango. Gray stood behind the FBI agent, taking a step to his left so he would also have a clear field of fire. A figure suddenly burst out of the driver’s seat of the van, firing a rifle on full-auto, advancing towards the Marine and the FBI agent.
Eric heard Jason gasp in pain as both feds fired at the threat. Something warm and wet hit the former MARSOC operator in the face as a bullet buzzed by his right ear. Toney’s Springfield Armory 1911 pistol and Gray’s suppressed M4 sent a stream of death downrange, slamming into the shooter who somehow managed to stay on his feet, firing at the officers. Eric raised his point of aim slightly, hitting the terrorist twice in the face, killing him instantly.
McCain had exited on the opposite side of their SUV, moving cautiously towards the passenger side of the van, his rifle locked into his shoulder. As he peered around the rear of the suspect vehicle, a large figure rushed him from the sliding door, a shotgun in his hands. McCain just managed to slam his rifle into the muzzle of the shotgun, knocking it to the side as it roared, the buckshot narrowly missing the officer.
The black man immediately swung the hard plastic butt stock of the Remington at Chuck’s face, but years of martial arts training, honed by violent arrest
s on the street as a police officer, along with fourteen professional MMA fights, had kept McCain’s reflexes sharp. He was just able to duck under the vicious blow which glanced harmlessly off the top of his kevlar helmet. Chuck was too close to get his M4 back into the fight so he released it, letting the rifle hang from its sling, and fired a straight left punch that caught Walters squarely in the face. McCain felt the blow all the way down to his feet, having knocked out professional MMA heavyweights with similar strikes. The muscular man in front of him staggered but did not go down. He’s easily as big as, if not bigger, than Scotty, McCain thought, ready to go back on the offensive.
Marquette was hurt, but still dangerous as he reached out with his left hand, attempting to grab Chuck by the throat. He dropped the shotgun and swung a haymaker right fist at the federal agent’s face. The police officer continued forward with his own attack, viciously stomping his front heel into the criminal’s left knee and launching a right ridge hand into his throat. The two blows from McCain caused the thug’s big punch to only hit the fed’s shoulder and miss his head. A sickening crack from Walters’ knee elicited another painful groan even as he managed to get a hand around McCain’s throat. The ridge hand missed Marquette’s trachea, but still caused him to gag and cough as he tried to choke the big cop in front of him.
Rather than resisting, Chuck stepped in even closer, lowered his head and slammed the helmet into the terrorist’s face, flattening his nose in a spray of blood. McCain grabbed the suspect in a body lock, reaching around him and clasping his hands just above the assailant’s hips, then sliding his right foot behind the bad guy’s injured left leg and lifting him off his feet. Chuck spun clockwise and dropped the terrorist hard onto his back, driving a shoulder into his chest, and expelling the breath out of his lungs, Marquette’s head slamming onto the shoulder of the highway.
Without slowing down, McCain pulled himself into the mounted position, dropping three powerful elbows onto the suspect’s face, opening a gash over his right eye. Marquette had finally quit fighting as Chuck rolled him onto his stomach in an attempt to handcuff him. Suddenly, Walters began trying to shake the officer off of him, throwing his own elbows backwards at the cop’s head.
Chuck managed to avoid the heavy strikes, slipping his right arm around the suspect’s neck and sinking in a rear-naked choke. McCain’s left hand pressed against the back of the huge man’s head while his right rested on his own left bicep. McCain squeezed counting to ten before releasing the choke, Walters having gone limp in his arms. He considered squeezing until the terrorist was dead, but knew that if he could take one of them alive, they could interrogate him for valuable intelligence. Footsteps sounded from behind him.
“Chuck? Are you OK?” Eric asked, rounding the rear of the van, the flashlight on his rifle lighting up the scene.
“Yeah, I’m good,” he panted. “Come handcuff this bastard for me.”
McCain released the suspect, shoving him away. Gray moved in, quickly handcuffing the perp’s hands behind his back. Eric expertly searched him, removing a pistol and a knife from Marquette’s waistband.
“Where’s Jason?” McCain asked, slowly climbing to his feet.
“He’ll be alright. He caught a couple of rounds: one in the vest and another tore a chunk out of his trap. He stayed in the pocket and kept shooting, though. That boy should’ve been a Marine. The other tango’s KIA. His head is pretty messed up but I’m pretty sure it’s our rogue FBI agent.”
Marquette Walters started to stir, struggling against the handcuffs, blood from his cut eye, broken nose, and a gash on the back of his head dripping onto the ground.
“Man, I hate I missed this,” Gray commented. “I’d have paid to watch this fight on pay-per-view.”
Santa Monica Boulevard and North Western Avenue, Los Angeles, Sunday, 0140 hours
The entire area was awash in flashing red and blue lights from the hundred-plus police cars and military vehicles closing off a three-block radius. Both marked and unmarked LAPD, LASO, and CHP units formed barricades, not letting any traffic in and carefully checking everyone who was leaving. LAPD Commander Jack Grimes had established a command post five blocks west on Santa Monica in a strip mall parking lot. A number of ambulances were also onscene, waiting until they were needed. Just behind the strip mall was the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, the final resting spot for many of Los Angeles’ most famous celebrities.
Currently the graveyard was providing additional parking for responding police and National Guard vehicles, their occupants attempting to prevent the rest of the city from becoming a burial ground. Gunshots popped all around the area, their reports mingled with car horns from angry motorists, along with the steady hum of approaching sirens. Overhead, two helicopters circled, one from the highway patrol, the other from the LAPD, shining their spotlights on targets inside the perimeter to help ground units find the newest zombies.
The Los Angeles media was out in full force covering the breaking story of zombies in LA. They had been relegated to a large parking lot two blocks west of the CP. Four officers were assigned to make sure they didn’t try to get any closer to the action. The LAPD’s Public Information Officer was making regular trips between the command post and the media holding area, giving them updated information every half hour.
Commander Grimes glanced around the CP. It’s starting to fill up again, the fifty-two year old thought, running a hand through his thinning salt-and-pepper hair, noting at least twenty officers standing around talking. He had already cleaned it out twice, ordering the lingerers into the fray. Incidents like this brought out the best and worst in people, Grimes understood. Everybody wanted to come and hang out in the command post, but not every cop wanted to be inside the perimeter, locating and shooting Zs. Even that deputy chief had eventually scurried away.
The incident was being handled like an active shooter call. The commander had put Lieutenants Diaz and Choi in charge of forming arriving cops into four-officer response teams, giving them an area of responsibility, and sending them in. Jack had had three officers actually refuse to enter the scene.
A female sheriff’s deputy from the LASO was the first one to turn tail and run. When Lieutenant Choi had attempted to put her on a team, she had demurred, saying she would prefer to help guard the perimeter. When the lieutenant had made it clear that she was needed on a team, she told him that she needed to get something out of her car. Two minutes later, she was accelerating in the opposite direction. Grimes would pass her name along to the SO’s chain-of-command whenever he got the chance, not that it would do any good.
The other two sorry excuses for cops worked for the LAPD. One of them was even assigned to him at the Central Precinct. What kind of police officer ran from a crisis? Jack fumed. Why even become a cop in the first place? Both of the LAPD officers, a male and a female, had immediately been relieved of duty and disarmed for failing to follow Lieutenant Diaz’s orders. It was probably overkill to take their guns away, but Jack planned on starting the termination process by the end of the week.
“Choi, Diaz!”
The two lieutenants had asked him several times for permission to enter the perimeter and help out. The commander had denied their requests, needing their help in the CP. And, if I can’t go, neither can you, he thought.
“Yes, Commander?” Diaz looked up from the map spread over the hood of a black and white.
Grimes pointed at the lingerers. “Can you guys form them up into teams and send them in?”
“Yes, sir,” Choi nodded with a slight smile.
The National Guard’s CO, a major, had just left the CP to check the positioning of his troopers. The Guard personnel did not have the level of training the local and federal officers had and were being used to secure the outer ring or were being paired with cops. Grimes did borrow four of the soldiers to provide security for his command post. The three men and one woman stood with their weapons ready in case any of the infected managed to slip past everyone else.
> Even those two CDC commanders had gone in to fight, Jack thought, admiringly. Grimes had met Ross once before and knew that he was over the entire Los Angeles CDC Enforcement Unit. That big black guy with him was in charge of the Atlanta office. Jack didn’t understand the federal government’s ranking structure but he was pretty sure that if you were the OIC of a city, you were exempted from having to run into a zombie-infested area. Instead, they had suited up, saluted Grimes and entered the fray.
“Real cops,” the commander muttered to himself.
“Sir?” Sergeant Ezra Cummings asked.
“Nothing, Sergeant. I was just talking to myself. How are we doing?”
“The Chief called wanting an update. He’s on the way. Deputy Chief Pryor was coming but she’s diverting to the shooting scene at the high school. Captain Vargas is already there. Captain Kennedy went to the other shooting scene with the feds out on the Hollywood Freeway. Can I please give you your phone back now, Commander?”
“Just hold on to it, Ezra. You’re doing a great job.”
The sergeant sighed and slipped Grimes’ police-issued cell phone back into his pocket. The last thing Jack wanted to do was to talk with the brass. Instead, he had handed the phone to Cummings with instructions to tell whoever called that the commander was busy commanding.
Yes, Grimes realized that he was also considered brass. In his heart of hearts, however, he was still just a street cop who somehow got promoted and now oversaw the Central Precinct. Several new teams of shooters moved past the command post towards the action, thanks to Choi and Diaz. Jack looked around for his secretary. Until someone of higher rank arrived to screw things up, the commander kept two lieutenants, a sergeant, and a corporal as his team in the CP.
Corporal Michelle Peterson stood off to the side next to her cruiser, three walkie-talkies, a map, and a yellow legal pad in front of her on the hood. She gave a weary smile as Grimes approached.