“Jesus, Rambo.” She gave him an intense stare. “Check this out. Tracks.” The leaves were pushed out of the way. Sand and dirt had been scraped to the sides. Something had been dragged through the ditch into the woods.
“They went this way,” she said, holding her 1911 pointed toward the ground.
Steele bent down trying to read the tracks like an ancient message written in the sand. He could make out a dozen distinct footprints. “At least a dozen people.” He gave her a glance. He already knew what she would say.
She didn’t hesitate. “I’ll grab our packs.”
KINNICK
Golden Triangle, CO
Kinnick watched Hunter as he slurped up chicken soup by upending his bowl. Yellow liquid dribbled down his wild brown beard, running along the whiskers as if they were canyons. He gave Kinnick a wolfish grin as he chewed up the meat and noodles in the broth.
Men and women moved in and out of the cafeteria while the din of plates and silverware clanked in the background. They were allowed full kit in the cafeteria. Kinnick supposed if they weren’t allowed, no one would tell them otherwise.
Kinnick’s men consumed as much of the non-MRE food as they could get their hands on. It was the only taste of civility he had experienced in what felt like forever. He picked at his food, sick to his stomach about what was going to happen to the West Coast.
“What’s got your goat, Colonel? Can’t be too mad about the food. It’s hot. It’s free, and there’s plenty of it,” Hunter said.
Kinnick pushed his bowl in front of the master sergeant.
“Be my guest,” he said with a dismissive wave.
“You sure?” Hunter questioned him with raised eyebrows.
“Take it.” Hunter grabbed the bowl and started to shovel its contents into his mouth.
“A lot more food to go around since Lewis left us,” Hunter said, between bites.
“I’d rather have his SAW pointed downrange than the extra food,” Turmelle said.
“Me too,” Hunter said. “But, I ain’t gonna turn down the extra rations.” Hawkins sat next to Turmelle, quietly eating his food. The man was meticulous even in his eating. His mechanical, robot-like chewing irritated Kinnick.
“What’s the problem, Colonel? You got the egghead and that Jody into the secret mountain base. Humanity’s got a chance. My mission don’t change, but surely your life’s a bit better now,” Turmelle said.
Kinnick met the man’s hard blue eyes. “My life didn’t get better by coming here. My family’s dead. My men have died, and I have to figure out a way to prevent the vice president from nuking the West Coast.”
Hunter choked on his food and went into a coughing fit. He wiped his nose and stared at Kinnick.
“With all due respect sir, you don’t mean nuke, nuke, do you?”
Kinnick gave him a flat look. “That’s exactly what I mean, Master Sergeant. He’s going to pound every city center along the coast with 400-kiloton warheads to eliminate the infection with a heavy dose of fire and brimstone.”
Hunter’s eyes narrowed. “He can’t do that. This is America.”
“He can’t?” Kinnick ground his teeth. “He will. He has promised me that.”
“That’s like using a shotgun to shoot a fly off your foot,” Turmelle said.
“You can begin to understand my reservations,” Kinnick said.
“We can’t let him do that,” Turmelle said, growing excited. His short black curls trembled. “I have family out there.”
The men looked at one another and back at Kinnick as if they expected an answer to their problems.
“I have twenty-four hours to come up with a plan to protect our western flank or the VP is going to do it.”
Kinnick stared at the remnants of the “Skins” Operational Detachment Alpha 51. Each man wore a patch on their sleeves of a skull wearing a wolf headdress, two red arrows behind it. They were on loan to him from General Travis, brought up from Eglin Air Force base. General Travis was dead. They had started this war with twelve men. Now, they were down to three. Kinnick considered them lucky for that. To die was a release from their nation’s never-ending demand of duties.
“Strategic planning is not part of our responsibilities. My job is to teach indigenous folks how to tag ’em and bag ’em and maybe sneak a few kills in when the boss ain’t looking,” Hunter said. Soup continued to run down the long hairs of his beard, flowing down the indents and ridges made by his thick bristly brown hair.
“God has given you a fine set of skills, Master Sergeant, but I need you to think outside your box. We have to figure out a plan to stop roughly sixty million infected from crossing the mountains in our rear and presenting the other one hundred and fifty million from the east coast an anvil to smash us on.”
“What about the other hundred million people in the United States?” Hawkins asked.
“Well, I’m assuming they’re dead, but I’m sure they will find their way up here somehow,” Kinnick said, irritated by the sight of Hunter’s soup-filled beard. “Wipe your beard, Master Sergeant.”
He stared at Hunter’s beard. Little droplets sped down the long hairs, following the curves and outlines made by the coarse hair. Hunter took a napkin, running it along his beard as if he tried to straighten it.
“Did I get it all?” Hunter asked with an unrepentant smirk.
“No. You didn’t, but you just gave me an idea.” Kinnick pulled out a rolled-up map he had taken to study and stretched it across the table, pushing bowls and cups out of the way.
Hunter ran a sleeve across his face and shrugged his shoulders, leaning in.
“Hear me out. The infected are like a river, much like the soup flowing down your beard. It travels down the easiest path. If you block one way, it will flow through the path of least resistance. So find me pinch points. Passes. Anywhere we can hold an enormous force of infected without deploying too many resources.”
“Can they even get through the mountains? They don’t seem too agile,” Turmelle said.
“I’m not sure. Some will make it through, no doubt, but we will assume most will struggle, trapping themselves in the mountains. The parts we have to worry about are established routes through those mountains that they can easily traverse. Highways, tunnels, and passes through the Rockies.”
“So we’re going to dam ’em up?” Hunter said.
“More like push them along until the snow takes care of them for us. Once those passes are covered in snow and no one plows them, the dead will be trapped on the other side,” Kinnick said.
“What about next spring?” Turmelle said.
“If we make it that far, we will deal with it then. Specialist?” Kinnick waved to a broad soldier, a green and tan ivy patch on one sleeve, walking by with a food tray in his hands. His name tag read Rogers. He stopped at their table. “Specialist Rogers. You based out of Carson?”
“Yes, sir. I am.”
“Good. You go skiing around here?”
Specialist Rogers looked a bit uncomfortable. “Yes, sir. Not recently.”
“No need to worry, soldier. When does the season start? When does it usually begin to snow in the mountains?”
“Ah, well, it depends on the year, but I would say by mid-November we usually get enough snow to really hit the slopes.”
“Perfect. Carry on, soldier.”
Specialist Rogers nodded and left.
Kinnick pointed at the map. “We only need to hold the choke points until mid-November and then the snow will do all the work for us. Who knows maybe the snow will kill ’em.”
Hawkins studied the map silently then spoke. “That’s a lot of ground to cover. Exactly how many resources are we thinking?”
“There’s me, you, the master sergeant and ah, Turmelle, maybe a couple of the boys from the squads,” Kinnick said with a weak smile.
The master sergeant laughed. “I love those odds.”
“Sign me up,” Turmelle said, leaning over the map.
Kinnick jammed his index finger on the paper. “Look here. You see this tunnel? The Eisenhower Tunnel. We’ll have to shut that down.” He dragged his finger to Highway 70. “That’s the fastest way through Colorado from the West.”
Hawkins pointed, touching his finger south of the Eisenhower tunnel.
“Independence Pass. And here, Mosquito Pass. And there, South Fork.” His finger touched each pass of a major roadway through the Rocky Mountains.
“And here.” Kinnick jabbed his finger downward, feeling the pain in its tip. “When we block the Eisenhower Tunnel, they will funnel through this way,” Kinnick said. His finger dragged along the map all the way to a single spot. He tapped it with his finger. “What does that say?”
Hunter got his face close to the map. “Dunluce Pass.”
Kinnick’s three men looked back at him. Expectant. Inspire us, they seemed to say. No, they don’t need inspiring. They were used to this. They had gone into the field of battle countless times, always expecting to return.
Kinnick took a deep breath. “That’s the spot.”
Hunter grinned. “You really know how to sweet talk the girls, Colonel.”
“Luckily, it’s only you three stooges I have to worry about.”
“If we can get some token forces in place at the smaller passes, hold them there, and plug Dunluce, we can stop the West Coast infected from breaking through.”
Turmelle jumped out of his seat, twirling his kukri in his fingers like a hibachi-trained chef and then slammed it blade first through the map into the table. Soldiers from a nearby table looked up, considering the operator’s outburst. Their eyes quickly went back to their meals.
Turmelle gave them a wicked grin. “When do we start?”
JOSEPH
Cheyenne Mountain Complex, CO
Dr. Weinroth’s auburn hair lay sprawled across her white pillow like sugar-plum rivers on a field of freshly fallen snow. Joseph brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. White surgical mask straps wrapped around the back of her head pinning her hair down. Thick white bandages covered the bite wound on her cheek. The rest of her was curled in a ball as if she were a little girl nestling into her mother for warmth.
Joseph sat next to the bed, his hands clasped in front of his body. Filled with fear and regret, he had watched her sleep for hours, and his heart hung low in his stomach. You should have saved her. She was afraid and you continued on with the experiments anyway.
She rolled over, her sheets rustling around her. Her eyes opened and creased along the edges. A hand rose to her face and she pushed on the bandages. She let her hand drop onto the covers, and a small voice came out. “I thought maybe it was only a nightmare, but it’s real.”
Joseph didn’t know what to say to console her. “I’m sorry.”
Her eyes held tears but no answers. “Can you hand me my glasses?”
Joseph jumped up for them. His heart raced as he tried to help her.
“They are on the table behind you.”
He quickly walked over, snatched them up, and handed them to her. She took the glasses and placed them on her thin face. Their frames were slightly bent, resting crooked on her face.
“Thank you,” she whispered. Her brown eyes were still brown beneath the lenses, regarding him. They hadn’t yet begun the process of changing colored pigments to white.
“How are you feeling?” he said, sitting down and adjusting his own damaged glasses.
Her mouth moved underneath her surgical mask. “As good as somebody who is infected with a fatal super virus can feel.” Even now, after everything that had happened, she smiled underneath her mask, and it made him feel so much worse than he thought was still possible.
He sighed. “We’ll figure something out.”
Her eyes looked sad. “I’m sure you will.”
Already writing herself off. “We will,” he corrected.
Dr. Weinroth’s eyes closed slowly. “Don’t be foolish. We know what this means. The virus, however slow it changes a person in its original state, is infecting my cells one by one. You shouldn’t be here. You should be working on a vaccine so this doesn’t happen again.”
“I know,” he muttered. He chanced a glance at the door and whispered, “Colonel Byrnes has taken over the research. He’s pushing to begin massive tissue harvesting. Without you and your vote, he will succeed.” Joseph ran his hands up, over, and through his hair.
“Joseph.” He looked up. “Without you there, he will succeed. You know what you’re doing is right. Find a way.”
“I’m going to need your help,” he said. He looked to her for affirmation. She nodded. “Take a look at these first test results.” He handed her a manila folder. She pushed herself upright with her elbows so she was seated. She adjusted her light blue medical gown over her shoulders.
Rebecca flipped open the folder as if she were the doctor and not the patient. Her eyes skimmed down the page.
“This can’t be right,” she said, looking over her mask at him.
“Every test result is the same.”
Her finger poured down the page. “Did you see the genome of this virus? It’s not monkeypox. At least not in its entirety.”
“I know.” He leaned in and pointed at the page. “Look here. These sixty pairs of DNA match the genome of monkeypox. But here.” He pointed again. “And here.”
“Those are entirely different genomes,” she said excitedly.
Joseph couldn’t help but be excited by uncovering its inner workings that were like a puzzle with a billion pieces. “It’s true. We’re looking at a satellite virus. A virus that uses the platform of another virus to pass on its genetic code.” He scootched his chair closer.
She eyed him. “Don’t get to close,” she said.
“I don’t care about that. You have time yet. I need you to hold on. We need your help to unravel this nightmare.” Her eyes judged if he meant what he had said. She knew that he knew she was doomed and that she would rapidly degrade over the next few weeks, maybe even faster.
“Look at the DNA. I know it’s a lot. Try to untangle its evil code. Monkeypox was only a vector to whatever this,” he tapped a finger on the paper, “whatever this thing here was trying to do.”
“I’ll try,” she said. As if her body realized she was making promises she couldn’t keep, she coughed hard into her hand. He watched her squirm in pain with suffering.
“I have a meeting with Colonel Byrnes and the team in a few to discuss our options. I will check in a bit later.” He stood and made for the door.
“Joseph.”
“Yes.”
“You can’t let it win.”
“I won’t,” he said, softly closing the door behind him.
Joseph stepped outside, noting her room number C-3EB before walking away, trying not to think about the monster she would become. His feet padded down the white sterile hallway, unique to this part of the facility, installed with the purpose of making it feel like a lab or hospital and not the deep windowless mountain cavern it actually was.
Joseph stopped at a room with a sign on the wall that read BSL-C1. He pushed the handle down and walked inside. From the first step he took into the room, his senses were pounded by the force of the man already there. Colonel Byrnes sat at one end of the conference table. His hands were neatly folded in front of his body. His ACUs were neat and crisp as if he feared a superior officer would inspect him at any moment.
Heads turned toward Joseph. Dr. Desai peered guiltily down at her hands.
“Sorry I’m late,” Joseph mumbled.
“Dr. Jackowski, thank you for coming to this emergency meeting. How is Dr. Weinroth?” Joseph pulled his chair out and sat down. Dr. Nguyen eyed him through the tiny slits of his eyes and Dr. Hollis appeared adrift, lost in a sea of his own thoughts.
“She’s doing well, all things considered.” Her infection hung over the Mountain Integrated Medical team like a black cloud of locusts. It was only a matter of time before they landed for feeding
on their lush plant-stalk minds and souls.
Byrnes lips pursed. “What happened was very unnecessary.” He took a pile of papers in his hands and stacked them on end. He continued to do so until they were straight and orderly. Joseph envisioned that the colonel was shaking and straightening him out until he had fallen in line.
“Yes, it was. A most devastating accident,” Joseph said.
“Accident. And preventable. Joseph. The team has been in deep discussion about the way forward from here.” I bet you have.
The rest of the team looked at Joseph as if they expected him to give them an explanation of what happened to Dr. Weinroth or some sort of glorious speech about the merits of human life. He gave them nothing.
Byrnes’s head lowered and his eyes narrowed.
“The team believes that we should change tactics to a more aggressive approach, one that keeps the patient in a more comatose state. It will help prevent any further issues.”
Joseph shook his head. “No. We voted before that we should try a less lethal approach. Patient Zero is not like the other infected. The information we discovered only yesterday points us to a satellite parasite-like virus attached to the host monkeypox virus.” He collected himself and sucked in a deep breath. “If we can unlock the genome behind the satellite, we may be able to figure out the riddle behind the epidemic.”
Byrnes nodded. “While this is true, there is much more that needs to be discovered before we can move forward. We need more information now.”
Dr. Nguyen nodded his agreement, his eyes larger than normal behind his thick but small round glasses. “We should move forward with invasive tissue harvesting. Since Dr. Weinroth’s infection, we not only lost an important asset, but it set us back on our research timeline. We don’t have a choice now.”
“We always have a choice,” Joseph said. He quickly scanned the room. They all avoided his eyes like he was one of the deadly infected.
“Dr. Jackowski, the time for half measures is over. He’s only one man. Certainly you can see the higher mortality rates associated with high tissue harvesting mean little compared to the lives of millions,” Dr. Nguyen said.
The Rising (The End Time Saga Book 3) Page 13