“If Gabriel’s blood gives us what we need, I think we can save ourselves a lot of hassle and remove the immune from the equation.” Jee was shocked, even though she knew what was going to be said. The callous way Schmidt was willing to just have them killed was unthinkable to Jee.
“You can’t just kill them,” Jee insisted.
“Doctor Lee, you really do disappoint me. I expected better from someone with your stellar reputation. All you have done since coming here is complain and cause disruption. It really is most unseemly.” Schmidt turned away from Jee and looked at the screen showing Lizzy and Reece.
“I’m a doctor, it’s my duty to have the welfare of my patients as my highest priority.” Schmidt didn’t try and hide her displeasure at the words.
“You need to be careful,” Schmidt said without looking at Jee, “any more of that, and we won’t have any use for you either.”
***
Gabriel’s identity had almost slipped through the intelligence net. Brought to USAMRIID, his biometrics had been scanned and put into the system that was creaking and close to imminent collapse. With so many intelligence personnel having been removed from the equation by Lazarus, the various US intelligence agencies had no option but to combine forces. Their petty inter-agency rivalries were pretty much forgotten as the US government scrambled in an attempt to survive. The United States was one of the few affected countries that hadn’t undergone a complete collapse of its society. Partly that was due to its size, but partly that was due to how well prepared the military and the command and control structures had been. The lessons from 9-11 and Katrina had been learnt. Still, both coasts had all but been lost to the undead, the hordes there already moving inland, many bringing the further danger of radiation with them.
Word had just aired that Las Vegas had fallen, much of the Strip on fire as the hotels there were stripped of the living. Despite the timely actions of the state governor and the National Guard, Dallas was also lost to the growing zombie armies. Houston was a calamity, the hurricane hitting it hard enough to disrupt the military operation there. Even the most prepared couldn’t battle two disasters at the same time.
When Gabriel was put into the system, it was flagged up at the DIA. One of the things Mother’s journal had contained was the identities, past and present, of all the assassins she had ever trained with a whole history of her part in the Soviet Illegals programme. Gabriel’s face was in there, and Carson was high enough up in the food chain to be written in on who Mother was and what Gabriel represented. The Major was thus well aware of the assassin’s capabilities. All this he told Schmidt, including the highlights of Mother’s interrogation.
Gabriel was transferred to a white room with a white metal table in the centre. The chair was the same colour, hard and unforgiving, bolted down to the floor just like the table. His hands were still behind his back, painfully so to restrict his movement. Carson sat across from him, the Major’s face passive. He had interrogated people before, and he knew that torture would be useless here. Carson could see the truth of that in Gabriel’s eyes.
“You are an anomaly it seems,” Carson said.
“Oh, in what way?”
“We know you work for Gaia. The British and the Defence Intelligence Agency sent us all the information they had collected, so we also know you have likely been vaccinated against Lazarus.” Gabriel kept a poker face, but he was surprised they knew about that.
“That’s an interesting deduction,” Gabriel said.
“There’s no point denying it. Your British counterpart, Azrael, gave up everything he knew. The British team who captured him got that information, and the woman you call Mother has confirmed as such in her interrogation.” Why did everyone seem to know about Azrael? How had his cover been so dramatically uncovered?
“I’m surprised Mother is being so talkative.” Actually, Gabriel wasn’t, although he was surprised she had allowed herself to be captured. Had that been another betrayal by Gaia? No, Mother knew too much. Father and his ilk would protect the organisation even if it no longer respected the woman who had founded it. If Mother had been found, it would be down to intelligence work, not betrayal.
It did add a further complexity to the equation. The organisation he had worked for had been discovered and was in danger. Was he willing to allow that, even with the way Mother had been abandoned? No, he wasn’t.
“We can be very persuasive. I hope there is no need to try and prove that with you.”
“No,” said Gabriel. “Any allegiance I had to my organisation is conflicted. I don’t even know what it is you think I can tell you?” At no time did Gabriel lie, because he knew the truth of a room like this and the technology that was scrutinising him. That was why they had risked moving him from his cell.
“When did you receive the vaccine?”
“A courier delivered a vial for self-injection to me roughly a year ago. I was exposed to Lazarus in the tunnels during my escape from New York. Although I was very sick, it seemed to protect me.”
“How were you exposed?” Carson asked.
“A rat.”
“Seriously?” Gabriel nodded. “Do you know where we can find samples of the vaccine?”
“No,” said Gabriel. “I was a foot soldier. I had no operational knowledge.” Carson watched the man’s face. The answer was believable.
“Have you experienced the dreams about the desert?” This was a question Doctor Lee had begged him to ask. She had a notion in her head that only the naturally immune were affected by the nightmares.
“No,” Gabriel said again.
“Apparently your counterpart, Azrael, does.”
“I have no idea what any of that even means.” It was true. Gabriel was a good assassin, but much of his imagination had been stripped from him by his rebirth. The only thing he had needed to do was kill and avoid detection.
Carson looked at the device that sat before him on the metal table. There were several cameras monitoring Gabriel’s physiological responses. The room was fitted with an updated form of lie detector developed for the NSA, much more accurate than the conventional polygraphs that were now considered outdated and unreliable. The device Carson held, similar in appearance to a smartphone, told Carson that Gabriel wasn’t lying. Carson’s own intuition backed that up.
“Does it worry you?” Gabriel asked.
“Does what worry me?”
“Being down here, so close to the virus?”
“No. The virus is secure. This facility was designed long before Lazarus. Nothing gets in, and nothing gets out.” Carson didn’t share the fact that the lower floor had a failsafe, that it could be sterilised of all life in the event something breached containment. If the Prometheus protocol was ever implemented, nothing would survive. Carson was sure such an event would never happen though.
There was nothing more that Gabriel could tell him, but Carson was certain that the Professor would have a lot to ask him. There was a problem for the guards, however. Already, Gabriel had picked the locks to his handcuffs. He continued with the ruse of his restraint because it benefited him to do so. Carson thought he was interrogating the prisoner, but the questioning was a two-way street. Carefully, Gabriel shifted the handcuffs off his wrists, putting both loops in his right fist as a makeshift knuckle duster. He had to time this right because the Major and his men would not be easy to incapacitate. This was it, the one chance he would likely be given.
“Are we done talking?” Gabriel enquired.
“For now,” Carson said, standing. “Open the door,” came his command, the two soldiers entering, Carson stepping outside. The soldier with the stick and loop stayed in the door ready to ensnare his prey, the second soldier moving behind Gabriel. When he had been brought to this room, the man with the loop had basically guided Gabriel into the seat, keeping the loop around his neck while the second soldier interlocked his handcuffs with the specially designed chair. The loop hovered near his head as the second bent down slightly to undo
the handcuffs.
But they were already undone. Gabriel rose from his chair as fast as he could, catching the unsuspecting soldier’s chin with the top of his head. It was a devastating blow. The first soldier tried to trap him, but Gabriel easily dodged the loop, moving away from the chair, turning and pushing the second soldier backwards into the wall. The fist with the handcuffs came up hard into the nose, shattering most of the maxilla, virtually incapacitating him. Gabriel followed that up by pushing himself into the soldier, the other hand reaching for the holster, the gun coming free.
The second soldier was conscious despite the blows he had received, but only just. Still, he managed to stay on his feet, and Gabriel pulled him around, creating a human shield as he brought the newly acquired pistol up. The shot Gabriel fired struck the first soldier straight between the eyes, the blast ringing dangerously in his ears. The first soldier fell dead, the pole dropping, his sidearm only halfway out of its holster before the bullet struck him. Collapsing where he stood, the first soldier slumped in the doorway, stopping any chance of it closing.
Carson reacted faster than Gabriel would have hoped. The Major had his own gun out, firing through the open door at the assassin, the bullets striking deep into Gabriel’s human shield. None of the bullets penetrated. With silent intent, Gabriel propelled the soldier he held before him past the table, the shields usefulness failing as the legs holding it up began to buckle. His own gun fired once, twice, both bullets missing Carson as the Major dived out of the way, down the corridor in which he stood.
All that had taken less than five seconds.
There would be more soldiers, which was to be expected. This was a military base after all. Gabriel had no illusion of what the end result of this was going to be. There was just no way he was going to permit himself to be incarcerated a second longer. This was a do or die moment, something he had prepared himself for all along, ever since he had awoken naked to find the knife he held thrust deep into the bowels of a woman who was a stranger to him.
His captors had been complacent, not really appreciating who Gabriel really was even with the evidence before them of his abilities. With luck, that would be their undoing.
25.08.19
Manchester, UK
Brian burst through the bedroom door. He expected to find Clay dead, but there he was alive and well, standing by the window.
“Took you long enough, Brian,” Susan stated. She was stood away from the door now, and she didn’t turn round, her eyes fixed doggedly on the man who had abused her. Brian could have taken her then, could have shot or tackled her, but he didn’t do either. It seemed only fitting that she be allowed whatever revenge she felt was owed her. That decision ultimately saved his life…for a time at least.
“Shoot the bitch, Brian,” Clay demanded. Clay’s hands kept wanting to slip away to his back where the gun rested, but there was too much risk that the mad woman would shoot him. Clay could see it in her eyes, the determination and the willingness to do whatever was required.
“Yes,” Susan agreed, “shoot the bitch Brian and sign your own death warrant.” A cry came from the forecourt outside, one of Clay’s men being felled by an undead who had managed to get over the wall. The defences were crumbling, it was only a matter of time now before the undead made it into the compound in significant numbers. Brian stepped further into the room.
“No,” Brian said, “that’s not going to happen.”
“He always did have a soft spot for me,” Susan said to Clay. Already red, Clay’s features became more infuriated.
“This is a betrayal, by both of you,” Clay insisted. Ignoring Susan, Brian walked past her and over to the window. The men were backing away from the gate, too many zombies now piling over it and the wall. The dead were climbing over each other to get inside, so rabid was their assault. Another of Clay’s men was felled, the zombies ripping the body to pieces with a ferocity Brian found hard to comprehend. Brian watched in amazement as a bloodied arm was flung almost casually into the air, a zombie snagging it in its fingers as it fell back down to Earth. The zombies weren’t here to eat and consume, they had come to destroy…but they would take a nibble here and there when the opportunity presented itself.
“You betrayed yourself, Clay,” Brian said. Stepping behind his ex-boss, Brian pulled up Clay’s shirt and pulled the gun from its holster that he suspected to find there. Susan watched everything with an amused curiosity. “You won’t be needing that anymore.”
“I trusted you, Brian.”
“And you were right to,” Brian responded. “But you abused that trust. It’s over for you now. Anything that happens here is solely down to you.”
“I’m going to kill you both for this,” Clay threatened.
“No, you won’t,” Susan said. “What you will do is tell me where those vials are. The undead will be here soon, and I can assure you they are very hungry.”
“Susan, just shoot him so we can leave.” Brian still thought she was here for some sort of revenge. He stripped Clay’s gun of its bullets and threw the revolver on the huge bed that dominated the room.
“Shoot him? Leave? I’m not going to do either.”
“But the zombies are nearly…”
“Yes, I know. The big bad zombies are nearly here.” Susan suddenly brought her hands up to her face in mock fear. “They are here because I called for them. You still don’t understand, do you Brian?” The look of confusion on both men’s faces was almost comical to her. Brian clearly thought she was mad. Whatever Clay was thinking, she couldn’t even start to try and decipher. At least the big bad crime boss didn’t piss his pants.
“But you will,” Susan said, “you will understand all of it.”
***
Bulldog stood at the main door to the mansion, men running towards him. The tower by the main gate began to fall, over a dozen undead trying to scale it, its construction no match for that onslaught. The tower fell backwards, toppling over onto the ground, the man on it being flung onto the top of the mess tent which crumpled below him. At the back of the fleeing men, another of Clay’s goons was ripped asunder.
Everybody had expected the gate to hold, the zombies so far climbing over it. But with the numbers now present, the moorings that held it in the ornate stone either side began to give way. With one mighty push, the mass of undead destroyed the gate, their numbers tumbling through to the interior of the compound, some getting trapped beneath it. It was like a dam breaking, dozens pouring through. No amount of bullets from the gun Bulldog held could even come close to stopping that.
They were done for.
Men ran towards him, consumed by fear. One man who Bulldog knew well ran in his direction, bleeding from where he had been bitten on the neck. The man didn’t make it, Bulldog doing the only thing he could do, shooting the injured goon in the face. They couldn’t let the virus get into the house. Bulldog’s guts churned with the trauma of what he had been forced to do.
There were still more men out there, chased now by the undead, having left their defensive positions too late. Bulldog waited as long as he could, but it soon became clear that he had no choice but to close the door on them, condemning people he knew to a fate they had all hoped to avoid. The door locked securely as he twisted the lock, the first of the abandoned men hitting the other side shortly after.
“Bastard,” the muted cry came. By the side of the door was the mansion’s security control panel, and Bulldog hit the panic button. No alarm went off, because that would never have deterred anyone in a position to attack the house. Instead, thick metal shutters began to descend across all the doors and windows. The front door shook as decaying fists hit it now, the shrieks of the men trapped outside quickly dying as they were pounced upon by the horde that demanded the price of human flesh.
From the main kitchen came the sound of breaking glass, and Bulldog sent two men to check what was happening there. The assault on the thick wood of the main entrance was replaced by bodies hitting the securi
ty shutters as they added another barrier to entry. Bulldog was safe, but for how long?
“Check all the downstairs windows,” Bulldog ordered. If all the shutters got down, then they had a chance of making it through this. He kept telling himself this, even though he didn’t really believe it. The surviving men looked around warily, worried that one or more of those present might be bitten and thus pose a threat. No wounds were obvious, which was a relief.
One of the minions sent to the kitchen came back to Bulldog.
“They broke one of the windows, but nothing got through. The shutter didn’t come down properly on that window, so we pushed a cabinet in front of it.”
“Shit,” said Bulldog. Where the hell was Brian? And more importantly, where the hell was Clay?
Something had indeed breached the defences though. The two rats scuttled along the skirting board of the kitchen and into the main hall, unseen by the much larger humans. They both slipped behind an ornate grandfather clock and waited.
The virus was inside the house. Susan’s fun had clearly only just started.
***
“That’s inconvenient,” Susan said. She was stood in Clay’s bathroom looking at the shuttered window. “Very inconvenient.”
Clay was standing in the shower, his arms now secured to the manacles that he had originally planned for Susan. He had resisted at first, but with Brian present and a gun aimed at his crotch, Clay had reluctantly let himself be manhandled. The case with the remaining two vials of XV1 rested open on the sink, Clay having told them where his safe was and the combination needed to open it. Susan kept promising to keep him alive, and for Clay that was enough. She would follow through on that promise, but it wouldn’t be to Clay’s benefit.
For the first time, Brian realised that Clay’s bravado and menace were all illusions based on the organisation he had built around himself. It struck him that he could never remember Clay being in a situation where the crime boss was in any real danger. Clay was more than willing to personally end the lives of those who crossed him, but that was on men who were tied up and who had already been broken. Most of the dirty and dangerous work he got others to do. It hadn’t always been like that, you understand. After all, Clay had worked his way up from the streets. In his youth, he’d even been an accomplished bare-knuckle boxer. The man had changed as age and wealth had corrupted him. Now he was soft and decidedly mentally unbalanced.
The Lazarus Strain Chronicles (Book 4): The Dead Page 17