by Z. A. Recht
“As for us, here at Suez, we’ve got a tough job too,” Sherman went on. “We’re the vanguard, gentlemen. This is the only land-based link from Africa to the rest of the world. Gibraltar comes running in a close second, and we’ve got a similar garrison stationed there. Assuming the carriers are brave enough to test the waters and try to swim across, it’ll be our job to hold them at any and all costs.” Here General Sherman paused. The two officers looked up at him expectantly. He went on, “And, gentlemen, I do mean at any cost.” The pair nodded. “I just want to make that abundantly clear. If your own child was scratched by one of those things, I would expect you to kill that child without hesitation. If your own dear mother showed up and tried to get you to stop, I’d expect you to kill her before turning back on those carriers. Nothing—and no one—is to interfere with the defense of this canal. The penalty for interference is death. No court-martial. No juries. No trials. You shoot the person or solve the problem, no questions asked. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” both echoed in unison.
“Good,” Sherman said. “Now look here. We’re entrenching along our side of the canal. We’re putting up razor wire along the shore on both sides—that ought to slow them down and let our sharpshooters take ’em out. We’ve got demo boys laying down minefields beyond the wire nets—early warning, if you will. There are nine artillery batteries ready to fire to the east of us. If any of your boys spot a group of carriers coming at a distance, call in death from above.”
Sherman turned his back on the map, facing the canal. A group of refugees was just debarking from one of the ferries. He watched them, puffing on his cigar, before continuing, “We’re working with worst-case scenario situations. Assuming the carriers somehow breach the canal lines and get across the water, we’re setting up two more lines of defense we can fall back on. The Corps of Engineers is setting up a system of trenches two miles east—defense line one. Beyond that is the First Cavalry—defense line two—consisting of fast attack helicopters and Abrams main battle tanks. Defense line two is a last-ditch, all-out assault. If the enemy gets that far, we’re probably already fucked. There are no fences, no wires, no trenches past the canal and line one—just armor and ammo.” General Sherman turned back to the two officers under the pavilion. “But we don’t have to worry about defense lines one and two. Why? Because we’re not letting the damn infection get carried across this canal.”
The two officers nodded silently. Colonel Dewen’s radio squawked. He mumbled an apology and clicked the handset.
“Echo Lead, reading.”
The voice over the radio was slightly garbled, but the words came through clear enough.
“Sir, Echo Two here. Demo set and primed at El Qantara. Echoes One and Three reporting same, over.”
“Roger. Hold position and wait for further instructions, over.”
“Roger that, sir. Echoes One through Three holding for orders. Out.”
Dewen released the handset and turned to the General.
“The bridges and tunnel are ready for demo, sir,” he said, grinning slightly.
“I heard,” said Sherman. “Let the men know we’re about to light up the night.”
Commander Barker picked up his own radio and began talking, telling his barge captains to hurry under the railway bridge before it came crashing down. Dewen was on the horn ordering troops near the bridges to move away and take cover. The process took a few minutes, but the two officers finished shortly and nodded to Sherman, who took the radio from Dewen.
“Gentlemen, let’s blow up some bridges,” he said, allowing himself a rare moment of mirth. Barker remained impassive, but Dewen grinned—the man honestly enjoyed explosions. It was one of the reasons he had chosen to become an infantry officer in the first place. Dewen lifted a pair of binoculars from around his neck and raised them to his eyes, looking in the direction of the railway bridge. Even five miles away, the outline of it was distinctly visible in the night.
Sherman clicked the handset, paging the demo teams.
“Echo Two here.”
“Echo Two, this is General Sherman. You are green to go. I repeat, you are green. Give us a count and fire when ready, over.”
“Yes, sir!” came the reply. In the background of the transmission, Sherman, Barker, and Dewen could hear Echo Two shouting commands to his men before turning his face back to the mouthpiece of the radio. “Charges primed, safeties off, blowing in ten. Nine. Eight. Seven . . .”
“Here’s to containment and a carrier-free Middle East,” Dewen said, still looking through his binoculars.
“ . . . Three, two, one. Mark.”
The night vanished in a brilliant white-hot flash of light. It lasted no longer than a second, and when it faded, the officers under the pavilion could see the roiling orange and black flames that marked where the world’s longest railway bridge had just been. The light from the flames illuminated flying metal debris shooting high into the sky. Then the noise hit them, a deep, basic rumbling that first shockwaved through the camp, then shook every item that wasn’t bolted down.
Finally, the fire receded until only licking tongues of flame were visible, and the noise vanished entirely.
The radio squawked.
“Echo Two here. Demolition successful. All objectives destroyed. Out.”
The entire continent of Africa was now completely contained. Any plane that tried to fly off the landmass would easily become prey for the Superhornets patrolling the airspace.
Any boat that tried to steam out of the area would be sunk by one of the dozens of destroyers, frigates, and attack subs that prowled the waters.
And any vehicle that tried to make its way to the relative safety of the uncontaminated Middle East would find that all three Suez crossings were now nothing more than smoldering piles of rubble.
The largest maximum-security prison in the world just had its grand opening.
Inmates?
Just one.
Its name?
The Morningstar Strain.
Electronic Mail Window
From:
Anna Demilio
To:
Francis Sherman
Date:
January 03, 2007, 09:14:45
Subject:
UPDATE
General,
The shit’s really starting to fly over here in Washington. The Dems are accusing the Reps of covering up the initial outbreak. The Reps are saying the Dems are holding America back by trying to place blame instead of helping. The Dems counterattack by saying the Reps are too busy shouting down the Dems to be doing anything productive anyway. And so on and so forth.
Nero’s fiddling and Rome’s burning.
I can tell you that both parties aren’t doing jack to help out anything. I went on national TV a little while ago and had Senators dictating my answers to me the whole time. I really wanted to just tell the truth—especially about the dead victims returning to life. But the reporter never asked me directly, and I was ordered not to say anything I didn’t have to. Then, right at the end, she asked if I thought America would be contaminated. I really wanted to tell her I thought there was a good chance of it happening, but there was basically a gun to my head. Not literally, but there were guns in the room, and they could have theoretically been pointed at my head if I’d said that. I feel like shit, Frank. I’m lying to the entire country.
I called the journalist who interviewed me a few hours after I finished. She’s just as pissed as I am. Seems she had a gun to her head, too. We’re collaborating on getting the truth out. I know the government really doesn’t need any more pissed-off idealists shooting their mouths off right now, but the people have a right to the truth, don’t they?
Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to. Research is revealing absolutely nil in the way of progress. We’ve hit a few stumbling blocks in the genetic encoding of the virus, but we’re working overtime on it.
How’s the desert?
I hear the sun’s nice out there.
Lt. Col. Anna Demilio,
US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease
/end
Quick Reply
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From:
Francis Sherman
To:
Anna Demilio
Date:
01.03.07 - 13:51:21
Subject:
Re: UPDATE
Anna,
The desert blows Cong chunks. There’s sand everywhere—and I do mean everywhere—and there’s an infinite number of refugees to look after. We’ve got an army here in the desert, almost a quarter million troops from all over the world, but a quarter million soldiers to eight million refugees isn’t a nice ratio. We’re low on food, water, and supplies, and the natives are restless.
We’ve got the area nice and cordoned, but we just don’t know what to do with all these people. Our biggest worry is that some of them may be infected, so we’ve had to quarantine all of them in camps. We’re already being called Nazis. I guess it doesn’t matter that the Israeli military is just as gung-ho about keeping the civvies contained as we are; we’re simply Nazis for putting them behind barbed-wire fences and keeping our eyes on them. We’ve got medics clearing refugees, but it’s a slow process. As we clear them we let them out of the camps and they’re free to go, but it’ll take months to check them all, and if any are infected, we’ll know within a couple more days.
Despite being undermanned, undersupplied, and outnumbered, we’ve got a great team here. I’m getting my hands dirty along with everyone else at Camp Forty-Nine near El Ferdan. I’ve met a lot of great people. You know Colonel Dewen, of course. He’s busy keeping the Army grunts in check. Commander Barker has been a godsend. He’s made sure every refugee had a ferry to board for the past week.
Then there’s a girl named Rebecca Hall I just met two days ago. She’s a medic with the Red Cross, and a damned good one. She was at Cairo, and I had dinner with her last night and got her to tell me her story. Can you believe she actually went almost a day without water in this damned desert heat looking after civvies before she finally dropped from exhaustion? If I can find a medal for that, I’ll see she gets one. She’s got a lot of good insights into the disorganization that took place in Cairo and elsewhere. I’ll be faxing a memo to the Pentagon with her thoughts soon.
We’ve got a functioning airbase here at El Ferdan now, thanks to the Corps of Engineers, and we’ve even got civilian inbound planes from airstrips in Africa. We’re pulling survivors out every minute by land, sea, and air. I met a fellow named Mbutu Ngasy today who’s taken over running our makeshift control tower—seems he was one of the first people to run across carriers of Morningstar, if his story is to be believed. He’s a damn impressive physical specimen, too. When I first saw him he was hopping out of a Cessna with three full packs of gear and two children sitting on his shoulders. When I get that medal for Rebecca, remind me to get one for him, too.
Mbutu says at first the police thought the problem was cannibals, due to the bite and scratch marks the carriers like to inflict. That makes sense, and explains why they didn’t react quicker to the threat down in Mombasa. We haven’t had any contact with that city in a while. Mbutu brings news:
Mombasa is a graveyard. No burning, looting, or pillaging, he says. Just death, and lots of it. Apparently a man was bitten near his airstrip in Mombasa and turned at the hospital, infected a few more, and so on and so forth. It’s amazing how many macabre stories you get out of these survivors.
Anyway, I’ve got to go, Anna. Millions of refugees are waiting for lunch, and we don’t even have enough MRE’s to feed ourselves.
Lt. Gen. Francis Sherman
US Army
P.S. - I’ve been promoted.
Electronic Mail Window
From:
Anna Demilio
To:
Francis Sherman
Date:
January 03, 2007, 18:01:34
Subject:
Re: Re: UPDATE
General,
Or should I say Lieutenant General? Three stars, eh? Congrats. Hope you’ve got enough spunk left in you to get the fourth.
A young, attractive girl who’s also a medic and is into telling war stories? You sound like you’ve got a crush, Frank.
A strong, tall, African man who’s into saving children and surviving outbreaks? Ooh. Be still, my heart.
Lt. Col. Anna Demilio
US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease
P.S. - I still haven’t been promoted.
/end
El Ferdan
January 5, 2007
1522 hrs_
THE SUN WAS beginning to set and the sky was a brilliant hue of orange. Things had settled down along the canal as the soldiers dug in and waited. Here and there came the distinctive pop of an M-16 round being let loose from the confines of a chamber. Carriers kept approaching the canal, one or two at a time, and were systematically put down before they even reached the line of landmines protecting the far bank. The sharpshooters were chuckling amongst themselves, placing bets and taking turns shooting at the infected as they approached.
Some were easier targets than others. Every third or fourth carrier shambled slowly across the sand, dragging its feet and looking more worse for the wear than most of its companions.
The remaining three-fourths of the infected proved harder targets. As soon as they drew within sight of the entrenched soldiers across the canal, they broke into a full-out run, arms outstretched, teeth gnashing. These carriers usually took several attempts to hit, and it was not uncommon to hear a curse ring out directly after a missed shot, and see money change hands. Though gambling was technically against regulations, General Sherman couldn’t bring himself to put a stop to it. Hell, he’d participated in more than a few games of craps in his day—why rain on the soldiers’ parade?
“There’s three more,” said Rebecca Hall, looking through a pair of binoculars. She was languidly stretched out in the sand, back against a crate of MRE’s.
“Where? Oh, I see ’em, just past that dune, there,” said General Sherman, looking through his own pair of binoculars. A shot rang out and one of the carriers fell to the ground, twitching. One of the sharpshooters had drilled the figure dead-on. Sherman grinned. “A fine hit! A palpable hit!”
“What?” asked Rebecca, lowering her binoculars and fixing the General with a curious gaze.
“Nothing. It’s from Shakespeare,” said Sherman, still grinning.
Rebecca and the General had formed a fast friendship. It was an odd pairing—one, a three-star General who had seen combat spanning four decades, the recipient of almost every military decoration the United States offered, and a commander of armies. The other, a twenty-two year-old young woman fresh from college with almost no real-world experience other than ideals, hopes, dreams, and a little white armband with a Red Cross. The General felt as if he’d gained a daughter, or at least a pupil. The medic felt as if she’d gained a mentor.
“Oh, and I wouldn’t know anything about Shakespeare, is that it?” Rebecca asked.
“Not as much as I know. An old general has to have hobbies.”
“Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him—”
“Hamlet,” said Sherman.
Rebecca felt challenged. “All the world’s a stage, and—”
“All the men and women merely players.”
“Dammit, General! Alright, how about . . . Cry Havoc! And let—”
“—Slip the dogs of war. Julius Caesar. Third act, first scene, specifically. Don’t try to test your elders, Rebecca. We’ve had a lot more time to memorize the lines of a dead playwright than you have,” said Sherman, again chuckling.
“Ever read Heinlein?” mumbled Rebecca.
“Who?” asked a distracted Sherman, looking throug
h his binoculars at the remaining carriers.
“That’s what I thought,” said Rebecca, a touch of triumph in her voice. A second shot rang out and another carrier fell to the ground, kicking up a small cloud of sand. “It’s really too bad these are shamblers. I’d like to see your sharpshooters have a little challenge.”
The soldiers and relief workers had taken to calling the slower carriers shamblers after their hesitant, swaying walk. The faster carriers were being called sprinters. All in all, they estimated they’d shot about a hundred shamblers and sprinters in the past few days.
“I wonder why some are slow and others are fast,” Rebecca commented.
General Sherman glanced at her from behind the lenses of his binoculars, but said nothing. It was true he could reveal what he knew about the Morningstar Strain and the positive proof they had of clinically dead bodies reviving, but he chose not to burden Rebecca with the knowledge.
As it stood, the only people who knew about that aspect of the virus were the powerful elite and whichever refugees from the continent had witnessed one of the deceased victims reanimate. Sherman had already lassoed several of the soldiers and workers who had heard the stories from the refugees and told them to keep it under wraps, and to spread the word to the refugees to do the same. He knew there was no way to keep it secret forever—or even for much longer. The survivors of the contamination of Africa weren’t under anyone’s orders. Tongues would wag.
“It doesn’t matter,” he finally said. “It’s an entire continent. They’ll probably just keep coming like this, in scattered groups. They’re mostly mindless, I think. Probably just wandering around. We’ll just keep ’em contained and let ’em starve to death.”