by Mike Fosen
Slow Burn
Part 1 Mike Fosen & Hollis Weller
Prologue
Epilogue
Part 1
Mike Fosen & Hollis Weller
A PERMUTED PRESS book
published by arrangement with the author
ISBN (trade paperback): 978-1-61868-110-2
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-61868-111-9
Slow Burn copyright © 2013
by Mike Fosen and Hollis Weller
All Rights Reserved.
Cover art by Roy Migabon
Published at Smashwords
This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.
For when the zombies come…
Prologue
May 27, 1989
Koltsovo, USSR
Aleksey Volkov swore as his small Oka automobile hit another pothole, spilling coffee all over his lap. The heavy rain made it difficult to navigate the crumbling streets at that time of night.
The roads have gotten worse, he thought in dismay as he swerved around yet another large crater in the road. My country is falling apart before my very eyes.
Hell, his car was an example of that as well. In America, the scientists were rich and owned Cadillacs while he drove this piece of shit. If the Soviets could not afford to fix their roads and pay their brightest people as the Americans did, how could they possibly compete?
Aleksey was driving too fast, and he knew it. He had been passing vehicle after vehicle in the unsafe conditions and nearly clipped a pedestrian a few miles back. However, when you are awoken by your boss at three in the morning and are greeted by a terrified voice telling you there has been an incident and you need to report in immediately, you move quickly. Especially when you work for the Vector Institute, and you have been assisting your boss on a top secret biological weapons program for the military.
“This isn’t good!” Aleksey had told his wife after hanging up the phone to get dressed. “I’ve never heard him like this, it’s gotta be bad.”
As he passed the edge of town and the large concrete building he worked in came into view, Aleksey again grimaced in disgust. My people rarely build anything beautiful,” he said aloud. “The buildings are always massive and dreary looking.”
The Vector Institute, where he worked as a research scientist, was the Soviet equivalent of both the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Army Biological Weapons Center. It had state of the art research facilities and capabilities for all levels of biological hazard and CDC Levels 1-4. It was also one of two official repositories for the now-eradicated smallpox virus.
Aleksey and his boss, Dr. Ulyanov, had been working on the Marburg Virus, named after a town in Germany which suffered an outbreak in 1967. With effects similar to the Ebola Virus, it was a terrifying sickness that quickly consumed the body. The symptoms included jaundice, rapid weight loss, delirium, and multiple organ failure. External hemorrhaging from body orifices, including the sweat glands, was also common and terrifying to watch. The disease was contagious and transmitted by saliva and other bodily fluids.
During the brief conversation, Dr. Ulyanov mumbled something about injecting pigs and an “accident”, which made Aleksey fear the worst.
He must have accidently infected himself, Aleksey first thought, and if that’s true, this project is finished. To be so careless with such a dangerous virus strain is inexcusable. The KGB investigation will end me as well.
As he pulled into the parking lot it appeared that his assumptions might be correct. Several large armored personnel carriers were parked in front of the main entrance. As Aleksey parked and hastily exited his vehicle, he grimaced from the rain and cold; he hadn’t dressed properly for the weather in his rush out the door. He cursed the Motherland. “The end of May and it’s still fucking freezing!”
Several soldiers, complete with gas masks, bio gear, and assault rifles at the ready, were standing guard at the doorway and gripped their weapons tightly as Aleksey approached. Aleksey was certain the gas masks were overkill; the facility had state of the art safeguards against exposure to the outside.
”We have so much lethal shit stored here,” he reminded himself under his breath, “that if any of it ever got out, it would kill us all.”
“This area is off limits!” the larger soldier in the group commanded, interrupting Aleksey’s train of thought. “Nobody gets in without permission!”
Aleksey disdained the dumb conscripts that made up the bulk of the military, and he merely flashed his credentials as he tried to push past the guards into the building and out of the rain.
The next thing Aleksey felt was the wooden stock of the largest guard’s rifle across his jaw followed by a hard landing on the concrete sidewalk. He could taste the blood coming from his mouth as it mixed with the cool water on the sidewalk, and Aleksey had to turn his head to the side to avoid drowning in a small puddle of water that had pooled on the sidewalk. He now felt the large soldier’s heavy boot on his back, making it even harder to breathe. His night had just gone from bad to worse.
“Look at that little worm,” another guard laughed while kicking Aleksey violently in his ribcage. “Just who does he think he is?”
“I’m Aleksey Volkov,” he gasped, winching in pain. “Get me to your superior officer; this is a matter of national security.”
“They better know who you are up there, little man,” the guard threatened, his voice muffled by the gas mask, “or I’ll shoot you myself.”
Aleksey had a few threats of his own he wanted to shoot back, but kept his mouth shut and tried to catch his breath instead.
Fifteen minutes later Aleksey sat at a table in his office holding a towel to his busted lip. A couple of his teeth felt loose.
I hope they don’t need to be pulled,’ he thought in dismay. The dentist in this town was worse at his job than the men who fixed the roads.
In the chair where his boss would normally sit was a large Colonel who looked like he had been up all night as well, and was not very happy about it.
“Well, it looks like your work has paid off,” the Colonel said wearily.
“But not for Dr. Ulyanov,” Aleksey replied smartly.
“He got careless,” the Colonel said. “He infected himself while injecting some pigs for a test, but the results are most impressive. I will spare you the details, but he is already dead. You are now the senior man on this project, comrade, and we want to see this through. You will examine Dr. Ulyanov’s body, isolate this new strain, and continue with his work.”
This caught Aleksey off guard. Perhaps they were so impressed with the results that they had overlooked Aleksey’s misappropriation of funds to supplement his meager existence. The Colonel then pulled a journal from a drawer and dropped it on the desk. It was sealed in heavy plastic, and as Aleksey picked it up, he could see it had belonged to his former boss and was covered in star-shaped blood droplets.
“Be careful with that,” the Colonel said. “He was sweating blood when we arrived and left quite a mess. The lower level is still under quarantine but should be cleared by morning. I’m sure there will be something of use in that journal, however.”
Aleksey couldn’t believe his luck. They needed him, wanted him, and that for once made him an important man.
“I’ll need a new assistant, and a raise.”
The Colonel scowled in response. “Not going to happen. There are cutback
s everywhere right now. There’s only so much to go around and you’re lucky to still be in business after this mess. But you will finish this; it’s a matter of national security.”
“And if I refuse?” Aleksey asked, already knowing the most likely answer.
“I hand you back over to my men outside, and the world never finds out about any of this,” the Colonel answered coldly.
Aleksey believed him.
1
Present Day
August 18
Matamoros, Mexico
Capt. Matvei Volkov was still trying to put to rest the feeling of dread that had been creeping into his gut. Everything had just been business up to this point, and Matvei had made his life's business one of warfare and killing. Now face to face with the end result of his plan, the horror he was about to unleash on all of humanity was finally sinking in.
"There is no longer any turning back," Matvei said to the guard standing next to him. "It is now just a matter of time, and our world will never be the same again."
At 6’2”, 225lbs, and dressed in his usual Russian Para Brown VSR camouflage uniform, Matvei was an imposing figure. He was also a hard man who had seen and done things in his past that would have broken most others. Even past actions he was not proud of failed to hang on his conscience for long.
The past is the past was a motto that Matvei lived by. “You can’t change it so why worry about it?”
Hardened by battle, Matvei learned to never second guess himself in the field, as hesitation often meant death. Now, as he watched several families loaded into trucks for the drive north, he reminded himself of his own motto. Mothers were carefully handing off their small children to outstretched arms in the back of the trailers before being lifted in themselves. Dozens of trucks had already left while the rest were loading their human cargo now.
“Man up, you fucking pussy,” Matvei muttered to himself. "It is done.”
Matvei fished a cigarette from the pack in his breast pocket and lit it with his lighter, exhaling a long smooth drag. His right hand reached for and instinctually came to rest on the butt of his holstered HK USP .45 while he smoked the cigarette with the other. Both the heavy weight of the loaded pistol and calming effect of the cigarette smoke gave him solace as he reflected briefly on the many events in his life that had led him to this place and time.
Born in Koltsovo, Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia, to poor parents who worked in a large armament factory, Matvei entered the Army after the war in Afghanistan had wound down. He was a natural soldier who craved action and a born leader who commanded respect by his mere presence. Matvei got a commission as a Lieutenant and fought in the first Chechen war with the Russian Army around the capital city of Grozny from December 1994 to February 1995 and then again during the second conflict, from October 1999 to February 2000. The fighting was brutal, and Matvei soon became callused to the looting, rape and torture that was all too common during both conflicts. He became immensely popular among his men due to his personality and leadership style, and this was noticed by his superiors. They also noticed that he got things done in the field, and they were often looking for results at any price. Matvei soon received a promotion to the rank of Captain and was eventually transferred to the 76 Guards Airborne Division. As his luck would have it, Matvei saw more action, leading his battalion of paratroopers during the war with Georgia over South Ossetia in August 2008.
However, this time around the Russian Army knew that the rest of the world was paying them a bit more attention than they had during the Chechen Wars, and the top commanders were less than pleased with some of the atrocities committed by the men under the command of the now Capt. Matvei Volkov. Matvei resigned from the army under threat of prosecution for war crimes and returned home to Koltsovo just in time to watch both of his parents die within months of each other from leukemia, most likely a result from their work in the defense plants. Matvei looked for work in the civilian sector, but there was nothing to be had, and his discontent grew. The “Arab Spring” was still burning in the Middle East, but that wasn’t his fight, and they weren’t the type to pay mercenaries worth a shit. The final tipping point was when his Uncle Aleksey became ill. Matvei always looked up to his uncle, and it was Aleksey, in fact, who had pulled some strings and got Matvei into school at the prestigious Malinovsky Military Armored Forces Academy, which once bore the name of Stalin himself.
Aleksey died at home in bed from lung cancer, but before he passed, he shared a secret with his favorite nephew. Matvei carried that secret aboard a cargo ship bound for Mexico, along with four of his most trusted men. He would never get through customs with what was contained in that briefcase. They were heading to the “New World” for the same reasons as countless others had, looking for opportunity. Their plan was slightly different, however. The drug war was again heating up, and there was always a place for men with his specific skill set. And the pay? Well the pay was excellent.
Matvei hired on with the cartel based in Matamoros in the Mexican State of Tamaulipas, across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas. His ruthlessness and effectiveness moved him swiftly up the ranks of the Los Zetas, the mercenary army of the cartel. The fighting with other cartels and government forces along the U.S. border was nearly as fierce as Chechnya, and when it was done, Matvei helped secure vital trafficking routes into the United States for both narcotics and human cargo. The money to the cartel was again pouring in, and Matvei was rewarded by seeing his power and influence on the rise. Things were finally looking up for Matvei, and the briefcase from his uncle became an afterthought.
Shortly thereafter, troubling trends started to emerge in the United States. The Arizona Immigration Law, once challenged by the Federal Government, finally went into full effect after the passing of a heavily debated bill including comprehensive immigration reform. Other states, including Alabama and Texas, then began enacting similar laws, and several political candidates were campaigning and winning in the polls on the notion of a secure border. The American people wanted a stop to the illegal immigrants, drugs and violence that were continuing to leak across the Rio Grande. Matvei himself tried to limit the violence to Mexico but had met with mixed results. He knew that if the United States decided to really crack down on the cartel, it could get ugly real fast. Results could soon be seen almost immediately in both the United States and Mexico. As the border began to be properly secured, it became much harder to traverse, with more and more shipments north becoming confiscated. On the street, the price of the cartel's products was on the rise due to limited supplies of it and the accompanying sex slaves. Profits plummeted while costs soared.
A new string of wins by “Tea Party” candidates in the following elections only escalated the matter, and by the following spring, it looked like serious reform might actually happen. Security was on everyone’s agenda after successful terrorist attacks in Boston and Los Angeles. The current administration in the White House even got onboard after a violent skirmish between the cartel and the Border Patrol left three agents dead and several others wounded. The public outcry was so great that the president outlined a new proposal consisting of a large National Guard presence along the entire border. The cartel was now facing a serious threat to its main source of customers, money and power.
The final straw was when Matvei began hearing reports from his own intelligence officers of covert U.S. military action against the cartel in Mexico itself.
“They got Bin Laden,” he joked, “so why wouldn’t they take a shot at us?”
The media was left totally in the dark of course, and Matvei was sure that it would be considered illegal action. The country had grown weary of scandal after scandal involving either the IRS or other questionable surveillance programs. However, that didn’t change the fact that Special Forces units were conducting a successful campaign against cartel drug manufacturing facilities, distribution centers and security installations. They had the advantage of complete air superiority, satellites, and the ever prese
nt Predator UAV's. Matvei himself was nearly killed twice. The first attempt occurred while he was in a vehicle convoy that was attacked by a UAV with a missile, taking out a top cartel boss that was riding in the vehicle directly behind Matvei’s. The second occurrence was when a small cartel retreat was attacked by a helicopter-borne assault only minutes before his scheduled arrival for a security meeting.
This was when Matvei, after much internal deliberation, played his uncle’s hand. Matvei convened a top secret meeting of the bosses and made his proposal. In exchange for a top place in the cartel’s power echelon, Matvei would produce a weapon that would bring the United States to her knees. In the power vacuum that would follow, the cartel could move in and set up shop, becoming a world power in a matter of months. The top bosses sat in stunned amazement as Matvei laid it all out for them.
He spoke of his Uncle Aleksey and the work he had done at the Vector Institute in the area of biological warfare. He spoke of the Marburg virus and hemorrhagic fever. The initial work with the weaponization of the virus, Matvei explained, had been done by a Dr. Ulyanov, who accidentally caught and subsequently died from the virus. The autopsy of Dr. Ulyanov’s body showed that the virus had mutated and was now even more lethal. This strain, known as “Variant U” became weaponized by the Soviet military in 1990. The program was cancelled in 1992 after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Aleksey had become very bitter over the way he had been treated under the Soviet Empire, and viewed his work as his personal property. He carried on the work in private. He was nearly caught after securing several vials in a modified lunch cooler prior to being escorted off the property. Aleksey had to bribe several of the soldiers, one of whom almost reported him and would have had he not had a young wife and two hungry babies to feed at home. In the collapse of the Soviet Union, so much military hardware went missing that the few small vials were never missed. They were having a hard enough time accounting for all the nukes.