The president stared at the Commandant for a long moment. The old man returned a steely, unblinking gaze. Eventually, the president turned away and looked at the large screen behind him, depicting a map of the world.
I need to think on this…it’s time to shift gears.
“What’s the situation in Scotland?”
Papers shuffled, briefcases opened, throats cleared as his cabinet struggled to catch up with the president’s meeting agenda. He’d shelved the Korean problem and opened the Council again.
“We’re still waiting on official statements from Downing Street,” Strettall said, “but other foreign offices are suggesting it’s a terror attack.”
“What do you think over at Langley, Adrian?”
“We’re not sure what we’re seeing,” said Director Stylau. “It’s a confusing picture on the ground. Lots of civilians, bodies in the streets…we saw photographic evidence of a gas cloud…but…” He spread his hands. “All comms are disrupted. We have the local office sending someone to check it out, but whoever did this knows their stuff. We’re essentially blind.”
“Why are the Brits sitting on their thumbs?” asked the president. “Something doesn’t pass the smell test here, people.”
“I can’t get anywhere,” moaned Strettall. “Total stonewall.”
“Maybe the British are softening their long-time alliance with us?” asked the Secretary of Defense.
“What about those assets we spoke of?” the president directed toward Admiral Bennett.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs smiled. “They’ll be on-scene in less than half an hour, sir.” He opened a folder and pulled out an 8 x 10 glossy photo of a sailor standing in front of the American flag. “We’ve figured out who the security detail is for Senator Tecumseh. You may recognize this man.”
“Isn’t that the SEAL that killed Reginald Tillcott?” asked Director Stylau.
“Negative, he’s the SEAL that let a Council operative kill Tillcott,” Bennett replied in a clipped voice, as if knowing full well the Director was being coy about rubbing that little fact in his face. “But he’s also the one who led the charge that brought down Tillcott and most of the Council with him in the first place.”
“Who is this?” asked Secretary Strettall, leaning over to see the photo.
Admiral Bennett grinned. “Cooper Braaten.” He looked at the president. “We couldn’t hope for a better man to be down there on the ground with Senator Tecumseh. If the senator’s alive, Braaten will keep him breathing come hell or high water. I guarantee it, sir.”
40
Tightening the Noose
Jayne ignored the body of the castle’s lieutenant governor on the bed behind her. He’d been fun while it lasted, but his heart just wasn’t in it. She smirked at her own snark and glanced in the mirror. Poor bastard. His genes just couldn’t handle the virus. She shrugged. There were always the outliers. Science wasn’t perfect.
She unzipped her gown and let the torn, sparkly material puddle at her ankles. Shredded as it was, her dress was worthless, so she left it where it lay and slipped on some more practical cargo pants and boots, followed by a close fitting, long sleeve top. She didn’t have time to go crazy with her outfit; she had to get the senator and get out before the Americans arrived.
Jayne checked her watch. Which is in about 20 minutes if my contact was right.
The gunfire echoing outside in the castle was music to her ears. The last of Gregor’s men were sweeping the castle. They knew where she was thanks to the GPS locator in her phone, and would come to her through hell or high water. Or infected. At the rate they were chewing through the surviving cops and military in the castle, there wouldn’t be anyone left to pick up the pieces after she evacuated.
The British were playing it safe and cordoned off most of Edinburgh, but they were operating under the assumption that the gas attack had spread—she wasn’t quite sure what they were thinking and didn’t care. They were staying back—which is what she payed so much money for—and that’s all that mattered. In a few more minutes, she’d be on her way back to France.
And if the king happened to disappear…
Jayne frowned. She stopped that line of thinking; it lead to dangerous places. Places she wasn’t ready to go to…yet.
She peered out the window as she tied her hair up in a tight bun on the back of her head. Several people, some soldiers, a cop, and two dressed in scrubs, ran down the street toward something around the corner. Automatic weapons fire in controlled, precise bursts rattled out after the people rounded the corner. A man dressed in black fatigues stepped around the corner, signaled to his partners and continued walking down the street.
He wore a black neoprene mask over his face painted like a grinning skull. Four more appeared behind him, all sporting AK-47s of one type or another. The distinctive rat-tat-tat-tat gave them away before they emerged from behind the building, but the banana magazines confirmed what she already knew.
A radio on the dresser broke squelch and her earbud beeped. “We’re here.”
She adjusted the fit of her assets in the mirror, then nodded. “I’ll be right out.” Jayne holstered a pistol in her belt, then picked up a black duffel of her personal effects.
“Unit Two reporting someone left the chapel, armed with a knife. Looks American. Should we take him out?”
Jayne slapped the radio as she threw open the door to her room. “No—he’s not important, just a bodyguard. The senator is in there, though—he’s got to be. Lock it down. I’m on my way.”
“Da.”
As she stepped outside the Governor’s House, she paused, looking down at the two guards who lay entwined like lovers on the first step. The younger one, a fresh-faced kid really, looked up at her with wide, scared eyes.
“Please help me…”
She pouted. “Sorry, dear, I’m a bit busy.” Jayne stepped over the bloody mess at her feet and stalked down the steps. “Get someone to get his highness out of the Governor’s House. Second floor, the Davidson Suite. We’ve got 20 minutes, people. And don’t forget those cameras.”
“Roger that. Unit Three is on the move. The cameras are already packed and ready.”
She pressed her hand to her ear, keeping the earbud in place. “Excellent. I want all available units to converge on St. Margaret’s Chapel—our target is inside. Repeat, everyone to St. Margaret’s Chapel.”
She smiled as she stormed down the street, the duffel bouncing pleasantly against her backside. It reminded her of the lieutenant governor…
41
Traitor
Cooper took a moment to take stock of the situation. The gunfire echoed and crackled constantly, coming from both behind and in front of him. He couldn’t tell if whoever was shooting was inside the castle or working their way to the castle, but he didn’t want to stick around long enough to find out. Seeing that the coast was relatively clear—other than a few bodies laying in the street—Cooper scrabbled to the edge of the little escarpment, and slid down the damp, grassy hill to the pavement below. He landed with a curse, picked himself up, and prepared for hand-to-hand combat.
Behind him, down the long road toward the main portcullis, the Argyle Gate stood guard. The bodies of the two cops still lay in the street. The third—the one who’d originally been knocked down and almost shot—was missing.
Cooper frowned. “That means there’s at least one of you crazy bastard’s out here…” He turned away from the Argyle Gate and jogged southwest, toward the remnants of the makeshift infirmary. Several of the tents had been knocked down during the struggling and fighting, their ripped green canvas sides flapping in the breeze. Gurneys, supplies, tables, and equipment lay strewn everywhere. Mixed in between the bloodied materiel, several patients lay staring up at the sky or crumpled over on the ground where they were murdered by their physicians.
This is a goddamn nightmare.
Not wishing to look a gift horse in the mouth, Cooper ran past the deserted infirmary a
nd made a beeline for the Governor’s House. The front door was open, and both guards lay heaped on the steps. The first was still breathing, a ragged sound coming from his chest with every movement.
“Please…” he wheezed. The man reached a feeble, blood-slicked hand toward Cooper.
Cooper looked at him. He didn’t seem infected, but he couldn’t be sure, there was so much blood. “I’m sorry,” Cooper whispered.
The man nodded in understanding. His eyes turned on Cooper’s knife and he smiled. The bloodied hand reached out and slapped at Cooper’s arm. “Help me…” The man gurgled blood on his lips. He closed his eyes. “End it…”
Cooper felt a momentary knot in his chest as he looked down on the dying man. Someone’s son, maybe someone’s father—just a kid really—standing guard duty at a national monument. Then Jayne infected the town and made his comrade kill him. Cooper closed his eyes, let the man pull his knife hand over the wounded soldier’s chest, then fixed his other hand over the knife hilt. He opened his eyes and looked down at the dying soldier. “This is what you want?”
The man tried to speak, but couldn’t. He nodded.
I can walk away and you’ll be dead in a matter of minutes…
Cooper couldn’t do that. There was something about seeing a brother in arms bleed out. He was suffering. There was something Cooper could do to help. Cooper closed his eyes again and leaned over the knife, letting his body weight assist the man as he tried to pull the blade down into his own chest. With a sickening squelch, the knife pierced the man’s chest, scratching off a rib before plunging straight into the struggling heart.
Cooper opened his eyes to see the young soldier’s own eyes widened and his mouth open in a silent scream of pain. A girdle of blood bubbled up out of his mouth and spilled down his cheek, his body went stiff and then relaxed. Cooper gently closed the young man’s eyes and asked whatever God might still be watching over him to help guide the soldier to his final guard post.
After pulling his knife free and cleaning the blade on the body, Cooper stood and stared through the open door. Somewhere in there, the senator’s chief of staff was likely cowering behind a door, pissing himself with fear.
He frowned. After helping the soldier commit suicide, after seeing the chaos erupt in Edinburgh, he was in no mood to deal with Eli’s bullshit. He stepped over the dead soldier and entered the house, determined to get the troublesome chief of staff and get back to 13. He’d never failed a mission yet, and he didn’t intend to start doing so now.
It took him several minutes to clear the first floor with its dozens of rooms, all of them either empty or occupied by dead, mutilated bodies. Blood and broken glass and debris littered the floors. The last room on the first floor held the remains of three people, two soldiers and a woman. Blood had streaked across the walls and even the ceiling as the three people had torn themselves to pieces.
Cooper almost threw up at that scene. He’d seen some sick shit in his time in the Teams, serving in every shit hole imaginable around the world, but never in his wildest dreams had he witnessed the depravity and exultation of gore that he was seeing in Edinburgh. He knew Jayne was a sick twisted bitch, but this took things to a whole new level. If she was allowed to do this on a large scale around the world, it would make the effects of the Pandemic look like a sad joke.
He added stopping her to his list of things to do.
Cooper bounded up the stairs at the end of the hall and began his methodical search of the second floor rooms. When he knocked on the third door on the left, which sported a gilded plaque outside claiming it to be the King David suite, he heard a muffled yelp and movement.
“Eli? Is that you?” he whispered. Cooper nervously glanced up and down the bloodied, velvet lined hallway. Without a firearm, he felt naked. Cooper gripped the knife tighter in his hand and switched it back to a traditional grip. Almost naked.
The door opened, stopped by a gold security chain after the first inch and a half. A boy’s face appeared and looked up at Cooper, blinking in surprise. “Eli? No,” the well-heeled British voice said. “Who might you be?”
“Well, I ain’t fuckin’ housekeeping.” Cooper turned to leave, then thought twice about abandoning a kid in this nightmare. “Shut the door and stay inside, kid. You’ll be safer here than roaming around anywhere else.”
“Wait! Don’t leave—what’s going on out there?”
Cooper sighed. “I don’t have time to explain, kid.”
“I heard quite a lot of fighting out there…is that gunfire?”
“Sure is. Now shut the door, and wait for the authorities. Trust me, you don’t want to go wandering around outside.”
“Good heavens no. My men will come to me.” The door shut and Cooper heard the click of the lock.
My men will come to me? What the fuck?
Shaking his head at the absurdity of it all, he moved down the hallway and kicked in the next door when no one answered. That room was blessedly empty. The second-to-last door at the end of the hall yielded Cooper’s prize. Eli sat huddled on the bed, his back against the corner, holding a pillow in front of him. He all but screamed like a girl when Cooper kicked the door in and swept the room.
“About fucking time I found you,” he muttered.
“What are you doing here?” the staffer shouted.
“Be quiet!” Cooper hissed. “They might hear you…”
“What the hell is going on out there? What’s with all the gunfire?” Eli continued in a too-loud voice.
Cooper walked over and pointed the knife at him. “Goddammit, I said be quiet. You’ll draw the infected to us like—”
“Zombies?” Eli said with a wry smile.
“Yeah…like zombies.” Cooper narrowed his eyes and stared at the staffer for a moment. “What the hell drugs did they put you on?”
Eli’s face broke into a goofy grin. “I don’t know, but it’s some really good shit.” He lifted the pillow and threw back the cover, exposing his naked body. “See? I don’t feel a thing!” he said, moving his injured leg.
“Oh, come on,” Cooper muttered, shielding his eyes and looking away from the hairy mass of flesh on the bed. “I don’t need to see that shit! Get some fucking clothes on. I’m getting you out of here.”
“Why would I want to leave? It’s nice and warm in here…” Eli complained.
“Because any minute now, some crazy son of a bitch could come through that door and want to chew your face-off. How’s that?”
That thought seem to sober up the senator’s chief of staff. He nodded. “I see your point. Give me a minute.”
Cooper moved back to the door and peeked out into the hallway. It was still deserted, but the gunfire outside was growing exponentially louder. It sounded like they were definitely inside the castle. He need to get moving. Eli grunted and struggled in the closet before emerging a few moments later, sloppily dressed in bloodied scrubs and an Oxford University sweatshirt. Cooper arched an eyebrow.
“You you went to Oxford?”
Eli blinked, then looked down. “Is that what it says? Everything looks all mixed up to me right now…” he said with a drunken chortle.
“Just what I need…” Cooper grabbed the man’s fleshy, pasty arm and dragged him out into the hallway. “Now listen up—be quiet, and I’ll get you out of this alive. But if you start making noise—”
“Get your hands off me!” he yelled indignantly, jerking his arm away from Cooper.
A door at the end of the hallway opened and a man staggered out, his hands crusted with dried blood. He turned and looked at Cooper, then his eyes opened wide and he yelled, charging down the hallway.
“Like that. Dumb son of a bitch…”
Eli turned and saw what was happening and shrieked. He stepped into the doorway, tripped, and tumbled backward out of sight into his room.
Momentarily free of the distraction Eli created, Cooper sidestepped the infected man as he bum-rushed the former SEAL, then swung the knife back and conked
him on the back of the head with the knife’s handle. The man grunted and went face first into the carpet with a crash. Another door opened and a soldier stepped out, holding an H&K SA80A3 rifle with its distinctive behind-the-grip magazine.
“Fuck me!” Cooper muttered, as the soldier screamed incoherently and shouldered his rifle. Cooper had just enough time to fling himself backward into Eli’s room before the soldier opened fire, ripping the doorpost to shreds.
He fell on top of the squirming politician with a crash, showering them both with splinters. The deafening roar of the rifle echoed down the hallway. Cooper looked out the door, expecting the soldier to come around the corner at any second, but instead saw the man who’d tried to come after him barehanded run past the doorway, heading the other way. Two more shots popped down the hallway and then Cooper heard what sounded like a dogfight: lots of grunting and growling, snapping and punching.
He got up and helped Eli to his feet, then took a quick check down the hallway. The two men were fighting over the rifle, neither one able to get an advantage over the other, but the unarmed man had been shot twice in the leg. Blood stained his pants and dripped on the carpet, but he didn’t seem to notice.
Jesus…is this what we're up against?
“Bastard!” the one with the rifle yelled. He drove an elbow into his opponent’s face and briefly gained some breathing room. The other man yelled and reached for the gun, but the soldier was quicker and fired two shots, center mass. The unarmed man gurgled something incoherently and fell to the floor on his back, arms spread wide.
Cooper turned to Eli. “Okay…just stay quiet. I’m going to shut this door…or what’s left of it, and we’ll wait for the soldier to leave.” He turned and put his hand on the door frame, but before he could shut it, Eli barreled into him from behind.
Caught off guard, Cooper went flying forward and slammed face first into the wall across the hallway. As he turned, he saw two things: the soldier at the end of the hallway was looking up from the body in front of him and snarling at Cooper, and Eli’s face as he stood in the doorway.
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