Anvil

by Dirk Patton

  “Can you get to him?” I asked.

  “Maybe. Probably. Why? Knocking off the tosser while he’s in custody isn’t a wise career move,” Lucas said with a chuckle.

  “Career move? You back with the Regiment?”

  “I am, much to my missus displeasure. But you didn’t call to hear about my domestic woes. What do you need from him?”

  I explained in as brief a version as possible what was going on and what I needed from Steve. There was silence from the other end for a few moments when I finished speaking.

  “Bloody hell, mate. This is a tall order. If he figures out there’s something we want from him, and he’s a smart little fuck so he’ll pick up on that right off, it’s going to be tough to get it out of him.”

  “I know you better than that, Lucas,” I said, remembering some of the things I’d seen him do in the past.

  “Sorry, mate. This isn’t the middle of Africa. He’s in official custody and it’s going to be hard enough just to get to him. There’s no way I can persuade him to cooperate without having something to offer in return. Not unless I want to wind up in the cell next to his,” Lucas said, sounding genuinely sorry.

  “What if it was your wife, Lucas?”

  I sincerely hated playing that card. It wasn’t fair. Not even by a long shot. But this was the only chance I had to make sure Katie was found. The odds were stacked against her ever being anything other than a raging infected, but if I could at least make sure she had a shot at treatment…

  “There’s more you’re not telling me,” Lucas said after a long silence.

  He was right. I hadn’t told him anything about the Russian threat to nuke the last surviving Americans if I didn’t hand myself over. If I had the opportunity to search for Katie myself, I wouldn’t put him in the position I just had.

  “I’m sorry Lucas,” I said. “They’ve delivered some non-negotiable terms and I’m trying like hell to keep Hawaii from being nuked off the face of the Earth.”

  “What do you need from him?” He asked after a very long pause.

  I told him exactly what was needed and what to do with the information when he had it. He still had the direct line to Jessica saved in his phone and I made sure he also had Colonel Blanchard’s number.

  “I’ll start working on it right away,” Lucas said after an uncomfortable silence.

  “Thank you for doing this,” I said.

  There was a long pause, then Lucas settled for just saying good bye.

  “Good bye, Lucas,” I said and broke the connection.

  I handed the phone back to Colonel Blanchard who had heard my end of the conversation.

  “Can he pull it off?” He asked.

  “If anyone can, he can,” I said.

  Turning away, I walked back to where Rachel and Irina were seated on the ground next to the fire. It was snowing again and they had both scooted closer to the heat. I sat down between them and filled them in on what was going on.

  “Both of you should go to Australia. Soon,” I said. “I’ve got some leverage at the moment and I’m going to call Admiral Packard and make sure you’ve got transportation. A friend of mine named Lucas Martin will take you in. He’s on a big spread in South Australia and has plenty of room.”

  “I’m not leaving…” Rachel started to say, but I cut her off with a raised hand.

  “There’s nothing left here for you,” I said, looking at her first before turning my head to gauge Irina’s reaction. “The country is lost. If you evacuate to Hawaii, you’ll always be living under the threat of a Russian nuke. For some reason, Australia has been spared. That could change tomorrow, but for now it’s the last safe place on Earth.”

  We argued for several minutes, Rachel raising several different objections. None of them swayed my position. Sure, she could go to Hawaii, but how long before Barinov decided to eliminate the last vestiges of America? I was aware of some of the things he’d done as President and didn’t disagree one bit with Irina’s assessment.

  Leaving the warmth of the fire, walking away and ignoring Rachel’s renewed argument, I found Blanchard and asked for him to put me in touch with Admiral Packard. He didn’t ask why, just turned to an aide and nodded. Several minutes later the man handed a sat phone to me and I spoke to Packard, explaining what I wanted.

  He immediately agreed to put the two women on a flight. I thanked him, grateful that he hadn’t thanked me for voluntarily surrendering to the Russians. I didn’t want his thanks. I just wanted it to be over with.

  27

  “All clear?” Lieutenant Sam asked over the radio.

  He was speaking to the most junior of the SEALs who was sitting in the buildings security office, monitoring multiple screens which were receiving security camera feeds from the exterior. The man double checked everything in view, switching to several other cameras to perform a final survey of the area.

  “Clear. Good to go,” he said, continuing to click through the system.

  A moment later four figures stepped through a steel security door. They immediately spread into a diamond formation, rifles up and ready as they ran across a broad, sloping lawn. It was dark, and a cold, steady rain made it even darker and masked the sounds of their footfalls on the soggy grass.

  At the bottom of the slope was a long dock with two boats tied to it. One was the creaky cruiser that had been taken from the marina near the locks when the SEALs RIB had been damaged while bringing Dr. Kanger to the facility. The other was a sleek, thirty-foot, luxury runabout with inboard engines. It had lots of teak and shiny details. There was a bet amongst the SEALs that it had belonged to Paul Allen.

  They had performed an exhaustive search of the research institute, failing to find the keys for it, but hotwiring a boat was all in a day’s work for them. Reaching the dock, three of the men remained on it, spread out and keeping watch. While they scanned the area with their rifles, Master Chief Gonzales jumped aboard and set to work. Two minutes later a starter whined and the motors rumbled to life.

  The three SEALs on the dock collapsed their formation and stepped onto the boat. The last one to board, Lieutenant Sam, released the ropes that held the craft tight to the shore. With one foot he reached out and gave a small shove, pushing the boat a few feet out into the lake.

  The first two took up station at either corner of the stern, rifles pointing out. Sam stretched out on the bow, rifle facing forward. The Master Chief notched the throttle forward and steered for open water.

  They were moving north on Lake Union, a small lake surrounded by the urban sprawl of Seattle. The area had been lit after the Russians moved in and restored the power grid. One of the targets of the Tomahawks fired by the Navy had been the dams in the mountains that provided hydroelectric power to the city. The attacks had been successful, denying the occupying enemy access to electricity and plunging the city back into darkness.

  The SEALs were equipped with night vision and weren’t hampered by the lack of light. They watched as the shoreline slipped by. Marina after marina, some almost empty of boats, others with every slip occupied. A large community of floating houses appeared on their right.

  The SEAL responsible for watching that area reported that he could see multiple infected moving on the docks the houses were moored to. They were reacting to the muted sound of the boat’s motors, but were unable to spot the small craft which was running without lights.

  It didn’t take long to reach the northern end of the lake, which forked like the top of a Y. The left would take them back to the locks and Puget Sound. The right arm was the one they wanted, the water narrowing into a broad canal as they turned to the east. Ahead, Sam could make out the massive double decked bridge of Interstate 5 that soared nearly two hundred feet above the surface of the canal.

  Approaching slowly, he called a halt when an object flashed in his night vision goggles, impacting the water with a loud splash. Whatever it was had come down only a few yards to their front. Boat bobbing in place, he looked up at the
massive steel structure but didn’t see anything or anyone. He checked with the two SEALs watching their flanks, both reporting all clear.

  Making another scan of the bridge and shoreline to either side, he still didn’t spot anything concerning. Motioning to Gonzales, he adjusted the position of his rifle against his shoulder as the boat began moving forward again. They slowly approached the bridge and Sam frequently looked up to check the steel trusses far above his head.

  They made it under the bridge without anything else falling into the water. Another older and much smaller bridge appeared in Sam’s night vision as they made a bend to the right. This was a drawbridge and appeared to have been built to carry local, neighborhood traffic.

  The canal narrowed even more. Dikes had been placed in the channel to direct boat traffic through a small space directly beneath the portion of the bridge that would raise to allow tall-masted sail boats and larger ships to pass.

  It was only wide enough for a lane in each direction with low rails on each side. Along the rail facing the approaching SEALs, nearly twenty infected males bumped around trying to locate the source of the sound their motors were making. The Master Chief backed off on the throttle without being told, speaking softly so his radio would let him communicate with the Lieutenant.

  “Wanna bet that’s what that big ass splash was? One of them fuckers coming off the bridge?”

  “No bet,” Sam answered.

  He was concerned. Even though this new bridge was less than fifty feet above the water, if one or more of the males came over the rail and landed on them it could seriously damage their boat or even sink it. He looked over his shoulder when there was another loud splash from behind.

  Night vision let him see the disturbed water where what he now believed was an infected body had fallen. Turning back to the front, he noted that the males were growing more agitated. They pushed up against the railing, which was no more than waist high for most of them.

  Looking around and assessing the situation, he wasn’t happy. They were going to have to motor under the bridge and hope a two-hundred-pound body didn’t slam into them or their boat. They were more than capable of swimming to shore and completing the mission on foot if the boat sank. But the more time they spent on the ground, the greater the chances of running into a large group of infected. Or maybe even worse, a Russian patrol.

  “Sit tight,” Sam said quietly, sighting in on a shaggy haired male that was leaning over the rail and waving his arms.

  Even though his rifle was suppressed, it still made more sound than he liked when he fired and killed the infected. Sam methodically worked his way down the row of infected, taking his time and placing each shot right where he wanted it. Every time he pulled the trigger a male fell dead to the steel lattice of the bridge deck. When the last one dropped, he kept his rifle aimed at the railing for several moments before telling Gonzales to get them moving.

  The boat surged forward, the SEAL at the controls giving it more throttle than he had so far. He wanted to get them under the bridge as quickly as possible before more infected arrived. Sam stayed frozen in place, rifle trained and ready to fire in the event another male showed itself. He detected movement, raising his weapon to a steep angle to keep the muzzle aligned with the target area.

  Another male appeared and Sam fired instantly, raising up more and shifting left as two more heads popped up. He fired, killing the first one, and was shifting to the second when there was a flash of motion several yards to the side of the pair. A sprinting female screamed as she hurdled the rail.

  Sam turned and snapped off two shots, but couldn’t tell if they hit home or not. The Master Chief cut the wheel, his quick reaction all that saved them from the falling body. As the boat turned, carving into the water, the female missed, except for her head. It struck the railing only inches from where Sam lay.

  Stainless steel bent and fiberglass splintered from the impact, her skull exploding like an overripe melon and splashing hot blood and brains into Sam’s face. Gonzales whipped the boat back into a straight line, cutting their speed as soon as they cleared the bridge. Sam pulled his night vision goggles off, spitting and cursing.

  “You OK, LT?

  “Got the bitch’s blood in my mouth,” Sam spat over the rail. “Keep going, I’m fine.”

  The Master Chief gave his boss a look before turning his attention back to driving the boat. The channel widened some and ran straight for a short distance before curving to their left and narrowing to less than a hundred feet. Another bridge spanned the perfectly straight canal. Beyond, the water opened out into Lake Washington, but he cut their speed to idle when he saw movement on the bridge.

  “What’s up?” Sam asked, still rinsing blood off his night vision goggles so he could see.

  “Another bridge and there’s movement along the rail,” Gonzales said.

  “Full throttle,” Sam ordered. “You know how hard it is to hit a fast moving boat. We’ll be through before they can even come over the rail.”

  The Master Chief shook his head, grinning, and slammed the throttles to the firewall. With a bellow of power, the engines spun the propellers up to full speed and the boat leapt forward. The other SEALs had to grab on to anything within reach to keep from being thrown out of the craft by the sudden surge of acceleration.

  They roared safely beneath the bridge, Gonzales cutting power as they came out on the far side. Sam donned his freshly cleaned goggles and looked behind them. There were several large splashes as infected fell into the water in their attempts to reach the boat. He exchanged glances with the Master Chief then nodded, telling him to get them moving again.

  Speed had been their friend to safely pass beneath the bridge, but with speed came noise. As they continued to transit the narrow canal, both SEALs who were watching their flanks reported female infected on the shoreline, following them.

  “Engage targets,” Sam ordered, knowing the excitement of the females would draw more to the area.

  The two men started firing, aiming as carefully and accurately as their Lieutenant had when he cleared the bridge railing. By the time they reached the area where the lake opened out, both were reporting that all targets were down.

  The boat made a sharp left, heading north and hugging the shoreline of a small island. Gonzales cut the speed to just above an idle when a second, slightly larger island appeared to port.

  It only took a few minutes to reach the north end of the island and a small channel that cut between it and a broad peninsula that stuck out into the lake like a fat thumb. Shutting down the motors, he hand signed to the rest of the team that they were switching to silent. Sam remained prone on the side of the bow deck as Gonzales grabbed a long handled paddle and moved to the point of the bow so he could reach water on both sides of the boat.

  Sam and the other SEALs kept a constant scan going, looking for any threats as the Master Chief carefully stroked with the paddle and brought them into the small channel. It was so narrow that branches from trees growing on the adjacent shorelines occasionally brushed the widest parts of the boat’s hull. Ahead, the water ended in an indistinct line that was characterized by a dense growth of tall reeds.

  He kept them going, letting the momentum of the boat push into the reeds until resistance brought it to a stop. Reaching out he grasped a handful of the tough plants, holding them in place. Sam raised to his knees to see over the foliage, slowly scanning back and forth. Nothing moved and after a moment he gave the all clear signal. Tying the boat to the reeds, Gonzales raised his rifle and slid over the edge of the bow.

  The cold water reached his chest before his boots came down in thick mud. Sam joined him and they pushed a few feet into the forest of reeds before stopping and waiting for the rest of the team. Single file, the Master Chief led the way forward. The lake bottom sloped up sharply and in less than five yards he reached the end of the concealment of the thickly growing plants.

  Pausing, he scanned, saw nothing moving and continued acro
ss a narrow strip of mud and onto an overgrown green lawn. The SEALs behind him quickly moved into the open, again stepping into a diamond formation. Each had an area of responsibility as they moved.

  On Lieutenant Sam’s order, they moved together, climbing a gentle slope. Reaching the crest, the land flattened in front of them. A large parking lot with a scattering of abandoned vehicles was directly to their front. Beyond the lot was a large sports field.

  Careful but fast movement brought them across the parking area, then each of them scaled a low fence that defined the edge of the field. Back in formation, they cut diagonally across the artificial turf, reaching the far edge and climbing over another fence. Ahead was a massive parking lot that extended farther than their night vision could see.

  They set off across the asphalt, occasionally adjusting direction to give an abandoned vehicle a wide berth. Following the pavement north, it was almost ten minutes before they came to the exit they were looking for. Stepping through and beyond a row of trees, Sam looked at the hill to their front where the physics laboratory was located.

  He could just make out the low, stone building at the limit of his goggle’s range. Looking slightly to the left he made note of two large, multi-story structures. Dorms. Within a stone’s throw of the lab. And according to thermal satellite imaging, they were full of infected. He just hoped they were the men’s dorms.

  28

  The SEALs moved silently across the road and into the near total darkness of a heavily forested area at the base of the hill. Two of them fired in near unison, taking down a duo of infected males that were standing next to a large maple tree. They continued moving, nearing the edge of the trees when the point man halted them with a raised fist.

  He was known to have the best hearing of all of them, by far, and it was nearly ten seconds later before the rest heard the sound of approaching rotors. Four Russian Havocs, and they were coming fast. Without the constant hum and roar of an urban environment to mute them, the noise of the helicopters bounced off the surrounding buildings, growing louder until the machines screamed overhead. They were heading east and were in one hell of a hurry.