by JT Sawyer
EMERGENCE
Incursion
By JT Sawyer
Copyright
Copyright February 2018 by JT Sawyer
Edited by Emily Nemchick
Cover art by EbookLaunch.com
No part of this book may be transmitted in any form whether electronic, recording, scanned, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction and the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, incidents, or events is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.
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Prologue
One Day before the Pandemic
Savannah, Georgia
A fierce rain was pelting against the floor-to-ceiling glass panes on the third floor of Roland Whitcomb’s estate as he stood staring past the cusp of his twenty-acre property out towards the obsidian waters of the Skidaway River. He had specifically retreated to his inherited southern plantation to escape the frigid winters of New York, where his corporate headquarters were located, but now it seemed like the entire East Coast from Florida to New England was feeling the wrath of an Atlantic storm.
Whitcomb’s breathing was labored and his exhalations sounded like gravel crunching underfoot. His ashen complexion and frail appearance could cause someone to mistake him for a man slipping over the horizon of ninety, though his eyes contained the fire of someone still clinging tenaciously to his sixty-eight-year-old body. With each breath, he leaned on the silver handle of his ornate cane as if it was a conduit drawing oxygen up from the marble floor.
His personal nurse in the next room oversaw the half-dozen physicians and cardiologists who were on call 24/7 to monitor Whitcomb’s ailing health. A rare genetic disease, Polycythemia Vera, had slowly eroded his heart and circulatory system over much of his lifetime. Even with his wealth and outpouring of funds into cancer research, a cure eluded him, and he knew it was unlikely he would see his seventieth birthday. His twin sister Katherine had always seemed less affected by the debilitating illness and was able to venture out into the world more, seeing to Roland’s financial undertakings and serving as an advisor to his board for Whitcomb Defense Industries. Since childhood, the two twins had been nearly inseparable, separated briefly in their twenties by their short marriages and then returning to the family estate after their father’s passing to take over his defense contracting business. Together, they turned WDI into a formidable competitor, relying on their father’s former contacts coupled with Katherine’s marketing know-how and Roland’s background in financial investment. Roland found in Katherine the sense of family missing in his failed marriage and, over the years, his sister became the bedrock of his increasingly frail existence.
In the past six years, a new development using a weekly treatment that employed a modified dialysis machine had improved Whitcomb’s quality of life, enabling him to stand a few minutes every evening, staring out the window into the inky waters in the distance as he pondered his uncertain future.
The temperature outside was a chilly forty-six degrees, but Whitcomb never felt the grip of the cold on this day—or any day, for that matter. The inside temperature of every room in his luxurious mansion was kept at a consistent seventy-eight degrees, including the garage on the lower level. On his increasingly infrequent business trips abroad for Whitcomb Defense Industries, he went from his heated estate to his limousine to another heated parking garage at his private air hangar, then boarded the temperature-controlled jet before it taxied onto the airfield. When he arrived at his destination, the business venture was conducted entirely on board the jet, in a small conference room at the rear, so he never had to feel the sting of the cold at any time.
If his net worth from all of his stocks, corporate holdings, real estate, private contracting firms, and weapons R&D companies was tallied, he would exceed the net worth of several Fortune 500 firms, though he didn’t publicly seek the kind of recognition extended to the more vigorous-looking billionaires who adorned the covers of Forbes Magazine. His throng of loyal investors reached upwards of fifty thousand, and represented a fiscally elite cross-section of global patrons. The buying power of his company had considerable financial leverage, especially within the European market, where he was the most significant international player.
On most occasions, however, people came to Roland Whitcomb when they sought his financial backing or to finalize a merger. The pre-eminent businessman and investor dealt mostly with oil sheiks representing their nation’s interests, diplomats seeking to sway a certain political party, allied air force units, or Latin American regimes sympathetic to the U.S.
The elevator to his suite opened, and he watched the man in the window’s reflection approach in his usual disciplined walk. Dale Sinclair was his head of security and a former FBI agent. The thirty-seven-year-old seemed out of place dressed in a blue short-sleeved shirt and tan pants, but his garb suited the stifling heat inside the mansion.
“Sir, there is word from our contacts in Asia that the mysterious virus there is connected with the outbreaks here in this country. It’s sweeping throughout China, Taiwan, Indonesia and the Philippines and has a high mortality rate.”
Roland turned his head, his eyes narrowing. “Where is my sister—has she returned yet from Hong Kong?” All afternoon, he had felt a nagging sensation in his soul, wondering if there was something wrong with his sister. It reminded him of the inexplicable anguish he had felt in his youth when Katherine had suffered a terrible accident on her bicycle while visiting their aunt in California. Roland knew she had been hurt even before he received the news from his mother, the physical throbbing in his knees and back coupled with the faint image of Katherine crying had torn through his psyche as if he was standing beside her. It would be the first of many times in their lives that such a connection was triggered, and Roland knew from his own research that such bonds between twins weren’t uncommon.
“The company jet is inbound as we speak. She should be back in the States by midnight.” He cleared his throat, taking a step forward. “Sir, she spoke of feeling under the weather with a mild cold, but suggested it was from jet lag and her work schedule.”
God, I hope she didn’t get sick over there. Roland let out a raspy breath, pressing his hand down on his cane, wondering if his laborious breathing was connected with his ailment or with his sister’s condition. Though he put stock in the belief that twins could sense physical distress in one another regardless of the geographic distance between them, he knew there was no way a virus in one twin was going to affect the other. He had felt that sensation of pain and discomfort enough in his life to know that their beings were intertwined on a cellular level, and wondered if that’s why he had felt more sluggish than usual for the past eight hours. He stared out the window, arching his head up to the sky and reaching out across the Atlantic Ocean with his thoughts. You will be home soon, Kat, and then you’ll be fine. I miss you. He found himself slipping into using her nickname as if they were ten years old again.
“Instruct the pilot to divert to Atlanta, then I’d like you to personally escort Katherine back here. If it is anything serious, my medical staff will be able to handle it better than in some overcrowded hospital.”
Roland felt an odd tingling sensation at the base of his neck, as if someone was dragging a feather across the skin above his shirt collar. He thought he heard Katherine’s voice, as if she was sitting next to him. It was a cry of pain, the deafening sound growing until it filled every recess of his mind.
The echoes were accompanied by a phantom pressure on his cervical region, as if bristly tendrils were weaving their way upward into his skull. He gasped, almost choking on his breath, then his sister’s voice faded, leaving him feeling like part of his soul had just been ripped away. Roland almost teetered over. He lifted his cane, thrusting it back again onto the hardwood floor as he let out an exasperated breath, like a swimmer emerging from a deep lake. He shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck, noticing the physical sensation was gone.
“Sir, is everything alright?” said Sinclair. “Shall I get the nurse?”
Roland calmed his breathing, his eyes refocusing on the reflection of himself in the window. “No, I’m fine. Just get Katherine back here.” He was lying, even to himself, terrified of the sensation he’d just experienced and the fate of his sister, trying to shrug off the bizarre physical sensation as nothing more than the effects of all the medication he was taking.
Sinclair nodded then walked off, leaving Roland in the cavernous room. His eyes continued darting up at the night sky as his mind tried to search the heavens in a futile attempt to deduce his sister’s location. “You will be home soon, Kat. And then I will take care of you—we’ll take care of each other as we always have.”
Chapter 1
Present Day
NSA Building, East Los Angeles
Reisner had been staring at the security monitors for the last twenty minutes, hoping the steel entrance doors on the ground level would hold a little longer until Nash completed lashing up the rope on the roof for their exfil into the alley. Once the route below was clear, they would be descending into a world of uncertainty that made Reisner’s stomach churn like a cement mixer.
The past few hours had seen Reisner’s psyche oscillating between moments of sheer terror followed by sudden relief, and he mentally scrambled to hold on to the latter feeling, however fleeting. He focused on the recent victories which had enabled Selene to extract the critical lung tissue from a former victim of the 1918 Spanish Flu, providing her with some raw material to begin reverse-engineering the deadly virus that had brought the world to its knees over a week ago. Then in the same day, they had arrived at their current location and, with the help of former CIA cyber-expert Andre Pacelle, an imminent computer virus from China was thwarted, preventing the rest of the U.S. from being thrust into the dark ages. Amidst all the chaos and death of the past twenty-four hours, he recalled the softness of Selene’s face and the comfort of her presence, along with how short-lived their time together had been before her departure with Ivins and the others. He, Nash, Porter, and the gruff biker, Blake, were the only occupants left in the building, and he knew their safe haven was about to be breached, leaving them at the mercy of life on the streets. He balled his fists as he studied a grid layout of the surrounding streets. We need to locate another building and get to a roof that Ivins can access once he returns with another helo. But where?
His attention was diverted back to the security monitor on his right as he saw a blur of creatures burst through the hallway after breaching the last entrance in the lobby. “I’ve got movement on the first floor,” shouted Reisner, and he watched in horror as the alpha female and hundreds of drones poured into the building. Porter was in the hallway, his AR fixed on the distant elevator doors and emergency stairwell on the east side of the floor.
Reisner kept peering through the open door into the hallway, then back at the monitor. “They’re swarming through each level like ants, looking for us—it won’t take them long to scour through eight floors and reach our location.”
“The sonic devices won’t do much if they blitz down this hallway. Eventually some of them will get through.”
“Once we get down to the alley, we’ll head west, then get a boat. The coast is less than twenty miles away.”
“Nash should be almost done on the roof, rigging the rope,” whispered Porter. “I just hope that guy Blake is as tough as he looks. Without Connelly and Ivins’ team here, we’re going to be hurtin’ for firepower.”
“I caught something about Blake being the leader of a motorcycle gang. I’d say he’s probably got the stones it’ll take to rappel down the side of the building, along with some shooting skills once we’re on the run.” He squinted, studying another monitor to his right, which showed the back alley behind the facility. “Looks clear down below for now—all those things are filling the lobby and street out front, so we should have a few minutes to make an escape.”
He tapped on the monitor as if trying to jab at the alpha female. “This is pretty amazing—just before she approaches a door, she steps back, sending in two others to open it and step through.”
“Are you kidding me? So, she’s using them as pawns to test the waters ahead.”
“Guess that’s why she’s running the show here—willing to expend her minions to safeguard her own life. Reminds me of some spineless politicians we knew back in DC.”
“Nash better hurry the hell up,” said Porter. “Once we hit those streets, it’ll be a mad dash for a vehicle, then hopefully this guy Blake can lead us west towards the ocean.”
“You still think securing a boat is our best bet?”
“Unless we can locate another helo and you can fly us to the Promised Land.”
“The Promised Land—that’d be where Selene is at?”
Reisner shoved his eyebrows together as he turned towards Porter. “There’s that.”
He shook his head. “So, that’s all you’re gonna say about the lady doc who always gets light-headed when you’re around.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve actually got other things on my mind right now in case you hadn’t noticed—like surviving the next few hours until Ivins gets back here.” Reisner watched the alpha moving up the stairwell of the fourth floor with dozens of drones in tow.
“I’d say our tour here is up.” He slung his rifle and sat down, quickly typing out a message on their plan to Ivins. He figured Ivins would be returning with another helicopter within three hours after taking Selene, Connelly, and the others to the Navy hospital ship GoodWill off the Baja coast. Reisner indicated their tentative plans and direction of travel, hoping it would be enough for Ivins to triangulate a search grid. When he was done, he hit the Enter button and hopped back up. “This will be on a continuous loop, so Ivins and Pacelle should be able to get this broadcast once they find out we’re not here.”
Porter moved a few steps forward as a pounding sound emanated from the distant stairwell. “Our dinner guests have nearly arrived.”
“Yeah, only we’re the ones on their menu.”
The emergency exit door behind them burst open and the surly biker emerged from the shadows, causing Porter to spin around with his rifle levelled at Blake’s chest.
He raised his hand up, his eyes widening. “Easy, bro, your man Nash upstairs says we’re ready to roll.”
Reisner stepped out from the room. He hated to leave such a high-tech facility and evade through the streets, but their options had just run out. There was no way they could hold off an attacking force on the roof for several hours. They only had two sonic devices to help repel the creatures, and if they stayed put they would be surrounded. The rear side of the building was their best chance to descend and try to put some distance between them and the paras. They had to escape and evade through the city, buying time until Ivins returned.
Reisner nodded at them to follow him as he jogged down the hallway in the opposite direction to the one Blake had just come from. Reaching the other emergency exit, he could hear the swell of footfalls in the stairwell, followed by the hauntingly familiar shrill sounds that he had come to detest.
Reisner backpedaled eight feet to the nearest office and then swung open the door, removing a desk chair. He knelt down in the center of the hallway and pulled a grenade from his vest. Reisner laid the chair’s brown leather back on top of the grenade handle, then carefully removed the silver pin. He sprung back to his feet then trotted back with the others t
o the opposite exit, bolting up the stairs.
“With a little luck, maybe we can take that alpha out of the equation.”
“That’d be just fine with me,” said Blake. “She killed a lot of my friends. I sure wouldn’t mind seeing her get cut to fucking pieces.”
Arriving on the roof, Reisner ran up to the far side of the building, where Nash was waiting. Reisner’s jaw tightened as he looked out upon the eerily quiet city, which was partly illuminated by the streetlights below, like watchful eyes staring up from a murky abyss. The numerous skyscrapers seemed more like sleek fingers of brick and glass gravestones, a silent testament to the massive population of people that dwelled here just over a week ago. How could a city on this scale have collapsed so quickly—so many lives lost?
He moved up to the edge of the building alongside Nash, who already had the rope set up for improvised rappelling without a harness using the Dulfersitz method, which involved having the rope between his legs front-to-back, then around his left hip and across his chest before being draped over his right shoulder. Reisner peered down to where the rope ended short of the inky street below.
“This should take us all the way to the bottom, but I could be off a few feet.”
He nodded at Nash and motioned for him to head down. “Blake, you’re up next.”
The biker moved up to the edge, watching Nash disappear into the darkness below. He took a long gulp then bit down on his lower lip. “Never thought I’d regret leaving a federal building before.” Reisner waited for the rope to go slack then hoisted it back up.
“I’m assuming that you’ve never rappelled before, but if I’m mistaken, now’s the time to let me know.”
Blake kept staring over the edge, his lips barely mouthing the words, “Never—only jumped off second-floor balconies of apartments before when I was dumb enough to get tangled up with married chicks.”