by Addison Gunn
Du Trieux stood a few feet ahead in the hallway. She’d obviously heard every word, given her expression.
“Making enemies?” she asked, waiting for him to catch up so they could exit the cell block together.
“Only when I have to,” Miller grunted in reply.
4
MILLER ENTERED L. Gray Matheson’s office without bothering to knock.
Lewis stood beside the desk, looking dejected and tired. A pair of binoculars were up to his eyes as he peered out the window. The air outside looked thick with dust, which gave the horizon an ominous red glow. Miller didn’t know how Lewis could see anything through the film caking the window.
The air conditioner that normally hummed by the window sat in the corner, unplugged. The office was as stuffy as a sauna.
Gray sat as his desk wiping beads of sweat from his brow, looking grim.
“What’s the emergency?” Miller asked. “This have anything to do with my being detained?”
Gray’s confusion spoke volumes. “What? When were you detained?”
“Never mind,” Miller said. Turning to Lewis, he asked, “What’s happened this time?”
“The ship’s arrived,” Lewis said, not turning from the window. “The one from North Korea.”
“Harris’s payload.” Miller nodded.
Lewis handed him the binoculars.
Miller took them and searched the East River, eventually spotting the tail end of the ship to the south, past Roosevelt Island. A Paramax freighter, approximately three hundred meters long, sailing away from the compound.
Miller couldn’t see any disturbance from the engines. The vessel floated freely—even crookedly—drifting down river like a ghost ship.
“Where the hell is it going?”
“It went right by us and picked up speed once it passed Ward’s Island,” Lewis said. “No radio response or contact since it entered the Strait of Gibraltar. We’re not sure who’s in charge of the ship, or if there is anybody in charge at this point.”
“Dangerous cargo for a ship to be floating free down the East River,” Miller said. “It had to have steering capabilities at some point. They never could have navigated this far without them.”
Gray nodded. “Can you imagine if the Infected got a hold of that ship? The losses would be catastrophic.”
“‘Catastrophic’ doesn’t do it justice, sir. It would be the end.”
Gray’s face paled. “We can’t lose the cargo, Alex. Harris was a fool to bring it here, but now we have to make sure nobody else gets it. And we can’t send any of the other security teams—they’ll take it to Harris and he’ll blow all of Manhattan to ash.” Gray rubbed the stubble on his face with a soft scraping noise. His eyes were bagged and bloodshot. Miller wondered when he’d slept last. He looked like hell.
Come to think of it, they all did.
“I’ve got sign-off from the board,” Gray continued. “Operation Sea Mink.”
“We’ve only just—”
“You have to secure that cargo,” Gray said. “Whatever the cost.”
Miller turned toward Lewis. “Do we even have a plan?”
The commander shrugged. “Take a chopper and secure the ship. Repair the thrusters and steering. Get that ship back here asap.”
“I want Doyle back.”
“No can do.” Lewis shook his head. “He’s with Dagger squad on a mission outside the compound.”
“You want me to secure a three-hundred-meter freighter with only four men?”
“Yes, and you’d better get moving. You’re in the air in less than an hour.”
“How many men can you spare from Cyclops squad, then?”
Lewis glared at Miller with an expression he suspected meant there was more, but he declined to comment. “None. They’ve been sent outside the compound, too, to clean out a commune of Infected encamped too close.”
“On whose order?”
Gray and Lewis didn’t bother replying. They only shook their heads.
“Besides,” Lewis added. “We can only spare you one chopper. No room for any more men.”
He didn’t like it, but it seemed he had no choice. “Fine,” Miller grunted.
“And Miller...” Lewis said as he turned to leave.
“Yes, sir?”
“You be careful, son. Something happened aboard that freighter. We don’t know what you’re walking into.”
“Understood.”
THE HOT WINDS over the East River stank of dead fish. Miller could just make out large eel-like creatures below the waves, breaching the water’s surface and splashing polluted mist like a rotten perfume.
Beside him sat Morland and Hsiung. Scrunched together in what should have been a four-man chopper, they’d removed the center console in the front to make room for a jump seat. Hsiung, the smallest of them, hadn’t looked happy when she strapped herself in.
Du Trieux and the pilot, a ruddy-faced man who called himself Smitty, sat comfortably in the back row of the attack chopper. He and du Trieux discussed wind current and air flow while the three in the front sat crammed together, giving no voice to their discomfort.
Miller hoped it would be a quick trip. With the additional weight, they’d need to conserve fuel for the return trip.
It was a miracle they’d gotten off the ground at all. Smitty and the launch crew had needed hours to clean out the chopper’s fuel intake and air filters, so they were already behind schedule by the time they got into the air.
The ship, which had been floating just south of Roosevelt’s Island, was now far down the East River near the Williamsburg Bridge, and dangerously close to striking land as the currents grew more irregular. There was no telling how it would get past Governors Island without thrusters.
As the chopper approached the freighter, Miller listened over the headset to du Trieux and Smitty chitchat and gripped the muzzle of the M27 nestled between his knees. It wasn’t until the nose of the chopper dipped and Smitty swore that Miller checked out his window and peered down at the freighter.
There were bodies on deck—and not just human bodies.
Along with the human corpses—at least a dozen of them—there were also several massive walrus-like beasts lying on deck. Some were obviously dead—missing flippers, heads shattered, bleeding rivers of blood which pooled on the deck—while others took a break from gnawing on the bodies to look up at the chopper.
“What the heck are those?” Morland asked.
Hsiung, stuck in the jump seat, couldn’t see, although that didn’t stop her from straining against her belts, trying to get a look. She grunted in frustration.
One of the beasts opened its blood-soaked mouth and bellowed at the chopper. Miller couldn’t hear the noise over the rotors, but the other pinnipeds on deck waved their heads in response and opened their massive jaws, exposing rows of sharp teeth and two enormous tusks that rose from their bottom jaws.
“Let’s call them tusk-fiends,” Miller said.
Hsiung smirked. “Did you just pull that out of your ass?”
“Works for me,” du Trieux said.
“Anybody bring armor-piercing rounds?” Miller changed the subject.
“No,” Morland answered, still looking out the window.
Hsiung shook her head.
“I did,” du Trieux answered from the back seat. “But I didn’t bring enough to share.”
“Alright,” Miller said as the chopper continued to descend towards the freighter’s deck. “Trix, you’re out first. Take head shots with the armor-piercing mag and then swing around so Morland and Hsiung can exit the other side.”
“Copy.”
“I’ll be right behind you.” Miller unlatched his belts and an alarm sounded in the cockpit. “I suspect body shots won’t do shit to these things, given how much blubber they’ve got,” he said. “Head shots and eye shots. You all got that?”
They all responded in the affirmative.
“Okay, Smitty. Take us down.”
“What the hell does it look like I’m doing?” he barked back.
The chopper banked hard to the right and hovered lower. Below, the tusk-fiends scattered. Then, as if thinking better of it, the animals stopped their retreat and surged forward, flopping headfirst in ripples of blubber with remarkable speed toward the helipad.
The chopper was quickly surrounded by the creatures, and a number of the fiends disappeared directly underneath them. Smitty cursed over his headset and pulled back on the stick, raising the chopper back into the air.
By way of reply, du Trieux unlatched her restraints and opened her door, turning the interior of the chopper into a storm of wind and dust.
Taking aim at the creatures on deck, du Trieux hung out the chopper door and took several shots with her Gilboa. The first two grazed a pair of fiends, but she hit the third—a mist of red splattering into the wind as the armor-piercing round struck brain matter. After another two kill shots, she’d cleared a space on the right near the bow of the freighter by the mast head.
“There!” she pointed.
Smitty yanked the stick of the chopper, banking hard and tipping du Trieux in her seat as she dangled out her door.
Du Trieux and Miller exited the chopper seconds after touching down, bullets flying.
The tusk-fiends lurched backwards away from them, while the creatures on the other side of the chopper surged forward. Working her way around the helicopter, du Trieux took shot after shot, wounding some of the pinnipeds—which Miller finished with his M27—and killing others with a single shot through the eye.
Once the deck was sufficiently cleared, Morland and Hsiung exited the bird, swinging around to the back to prevent any of the fiends from running into, and possibly damaging, the tail rotor.
When the onslaught of creatures finally slowed, Smitty shut down the chopper and joined du Trieux and Miller on the right, wounding stragglers with his sidearm and cursing like a sailor with every shot.
As the rotors slowed and the echoes of gunfire ceased, Miller counted the heads of his team and lowered his M27. He’d gone through an entire clip of ammo, but they were all still upright and the fiends had stopped coming. That had to count for something.
Once the main deck was deemed secured, Miller, Smitty, and the team searched the bodies for survivors. There were none. Given the look of them, some hadn’t even had their weapons drawn. It stood to logic that the tusk-fiends had climbed aboard the freighter and surprised the crew. Their bodies were crushed, and most were missing limbs and chunks of flesh, as if the creatures had grabbed them by the arm, and flopped right over the top of them, crushing them under their two-meter-long, multi-ton bodies, and then had a nibble.
After the team swung around the perimeter to remove any more tusk-fiends, they headed up the iron stairwell toward the bridge, but just past the chart room, a different kind of corpse blocked the walkway.
The thing was enormous. Just slightly shorter than the fiends, the animal looked half-hippopotamus and half-dog, with a pronounced underbite. Miller had never seen a creature like it before—although the tusk-fiends obviously had. It looked as if the fiends had torn chunks from this corpse, too.
“Never seen these before either,” Morland said, looking over Miller’s shoulder. “Anybody want to name it before Miller does?”
“It doesn’t look like a predator,” du Trieux said. “But there are bullet holes.”
“Doesn’t have to be a carnivore to be dangerous,” Hsiung said. “Suppose it went after the crew?”
“How about we call it a colossal cow?” Smitty suggested.
All eyes turned toward him, except du Trieux’s, who was having a hard time hiding her impatience. “Can we go around it?”
To backtrack across the deck would waste valuable time, and Miller was already anxious to get to the bridge. The farther the freighter floated downriver, the longer it would take to get back to the compound.
Slinging the strap of his M27 over his shoulder, Miller climbed over the stinking creature. It was blubbery and wet, and with nothing to grasp onto it was slippery, but Miller ungracefully ambled over the corpse and encouraged the others to follow suit.
Once they’d cleared the body, Hsiung announced the name of the animal to the others. “It’s a goliath brute,” she said.
Morland looked confused but du Trieux nodded. “Oui.”
“Works for me,” Miller said.
They continued on, up the last flight of stairs to the bridge. When they arrived, Miller tugged at the steel door, but it was locked. People were visible through the round cracked window, however, so Miller waved.
A short, skinny kid, no more than a teenager, noticeably relaxed as he opened the door. He introduced himself as the first mate and quickly explained in a mix of Korean and broken English what had happened aboard.
From what Miller could understand, the freighter had lost control of its steering and thrusters someplace near Riker’s Island when they’d been thrashed by a group of pseudo-whales. Once the ship was dead in the water, tusk-fiends and goliath brutes had swarmed the deck, taking out the masthead and radio antennae.
The captain had sent a squad to secure the deck, but that had failed. He then sent another squad below to the engine room to check on the engineering team and to repair the thrusters, but they’d lost contact with them almost immediately.
Frustrated, the captain had gone himself with the last squad to secure the cargo hold—but they’d disappeared as well.
The first mate and what was left of the bridge crew had considered abandoning ship, but the pseudo-whales had surrounded the freighter, and getting to the lifeboats through the tusk-fiends and goliath brutes would have been suicide. Instead, they’d barricaded themselves inside with a stash of provisions and hoped help would come, or that they’d strike land, enabling them to abandon ship without touching the water at all.
Miller looked over the frightened bridge crew and chose his words carefully. “With the steering damaged, there’s no point in fixing the thrusters, gentlemen. You’re floating dead out here, and the longer you float free, the farther away from the peninsula you get. I think our best course of action would be to secure the cargo and use the chopper’s radio to request aid for you to evacuate the ship. I don’t see anything else for it.”
The first officer sighed heavily, but looked relieved. He spoke with his crew in rushed Korean, and then in broken English told Miller they agreed.
Miller turned to his team. “First priority is to radio the compound. Smitty, stay here with the crew. We’ll be back.”
Smitty frowned, his pink face growing more crimson. “You’re going back out there with those things? What if you don’t come back?”
“Then wait for the aid to come.”
“Assuming it’ll come,” Smitty mumbled.
“Don’t worry,” Miller said. “Worst case scenario, they’ll come for the cargo and take your body back with them.”
Smitty’s frown deepened. “Nice.”
“What?” the first mate asked, his eyes wide. “He’s joking, right?”
Miller patted the panicking first mate on the shoulder, nearly knocking the skinny kid over.
THE CARGO HOLD was dark, dank, and smelled of blood and oil.
Miller walked down the stairwell, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. Behind him followed du Trieux, Hsiung, and Morland, in that order.
Now that the call for aid had been sent from the chopper, it was time to secure the cargo. With any luck, they could load the missile onto the bird and lift it back to the compound before the aid arrived. Miller wasn’t one-hundred-per-cent certain of who’d arrive when, or if, aid came. If a squad of Harris’s men showed up, things could get complicated.
Miller’s hands slid down the stairwell railing, then quickly dropped off once he reached the first landing. He activated the search light he’d mounted to the side of his rifle, flashing it around him.
There would have been a reason why the captain and his sq
uad had disappeared trying to secure the cargo, and they’d probably had ten men. Miller had four. His palms felt slick with sweat, but he proceeded, allowing the remainder of his team to follow.
The lights in the cargo hold were non-functional when Miller tried to toggle the switch. Overhead, long rectangular fluorescent fixtures hung dark and lifeless.
From what he could see using his mounted light, there was a one-meter-wide walkway, without a railing, that went around the perimeter of the cargo hold. A center catwalk led across the middle to the other side. The pathways were narrow enough to maneuver around the hold, but Miller and his team could only advance in single file.
The walkway itself was clear of debris, but the mouth of the cargo hold below housed crates upon crates—stacked several meters high, reaching up and toward the ceiling and creating a maze-like labyrinth.
How Miller was supposed to find one crate amongst all these others, he had no idea. Not to mention how he and his team were going to get to it once they located it. There didn’t appear to be any ramp or stairs leading down.
A loud crash sounded to the left.
Swinging around, Miller led the group down the walkway and toward the noise. At the tip of the hold, Miller stopped and angled his mounted light down toward the cargo.
Below, a stack of wooden crates had been smashed opened. There appeared to be leafy greens inside. Lettuce, spinach, and some variety of purple kale. A pack of a half-dozen goliath brutes were making a meal of it.
They didn’t take too kindly to having the sharp glare of the lights flashed into their beady black eyes. They growled and, with surprising speed, scattered into the maze of crates like cockroaches.
“Shit,” Miller breathed.
“Over there,” Morland said, shining his light farther into the center of the cargo hold, near the middle catwalk.
With Morland in the lead, they returned from the direction they came.
The bodies of the captain and his crew were strewn along the floor, crunched between crates and crushed into bloody pulp. Some had been disembowelled; their entrails lay splattered against the hold floor.