Anvil

by Dirk Patton

  As I took my next step, a low whine started from over my head. Looking up, I saw steel louvers in the ceiling open as the whine quickly spun up to a loud roar. I felt a strong current of air blow across my body, and cursed again when realization dawned on me.

  “What the fuck is that?” Chico asked, looking around with his rifle up.

  “Ventilation fans,” I shouted. “Clearing out the inert gas so people can come back in. We’ve got to move!”

  I wasn’t positive that was what was happening, but it made sense. The fire suppression system was automated. It flooded the interior atmosphere with inert gas to extinguish the flames. There was probably a timer that would turn on fans to suck in fresh, outside air to clear out the gas once enough time had passed.

  I spared a glance at my watch. Eight minutes. More than enough time to ensure the fire was out. Now, the system was restoring breathable air so it was safe to come back into the building.

  We moved as fast as we could on the treacherous footing. TJ was on point, leading us out of the IT cubicle farm and down a long hallway. Far ahead was a steel door with a large blue sign attached to its face. I couldn’t make out what it said, but it was in the right place to be the stairwell entrance I’d seen on the building schematic.

  Far ahead was a relative term. It was probably no more than fifty yards to the exit, but we were moving so slow that it barely felt as if we were making progress. Another glance at my watch as the air in my mask began to be difficult to breathe. Ten and a half minutes since TJ had activated the system. Two and a half since the fans came on.

  I wanted to rip the mask off and breathe fresh air, but the ventilation system was still roaring over my head and a strong flow of air was rushing past me. With no idea how long it took to clear out the inert gas, I wasn’t willing to take the chance. Struggling and cursing, I kept moving, returning the favor when Drago misstepped and went down.

  As I pulled him up, the pre-recorded voice stopped in mid sentence and the alarm went silent. We shouldn’t have, but all of us paused. A moment later a new recording began playing as the fans started to spool down.

  “Atmosphere is clear and safe to breathe. No fire detected.”

  The fans spun down, the metal louvers closing with loud clicks. The automated announcement was on a loop, loud in the suddenly quiet building. Reaching up, I loosened a strap and cracked the mask an inch away from my chin. Taking a cautious breath, I gagged and nearly threw up inside the mask.

  Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of infected had died inside the building. Death is not the clean, sterile passing often portrayed on TV and in movies. When the body ceases to function, muscles relax. And it’s muscles that control bladders and sphincters. The overwhelming stench of human waste was indescribable.

  Slapping my mask back in place, I looked to TJ who had extras dangling from a strap on his pack. I gave the team a quick warning over the radio, and fresh breathers were passed around and put on. Everyone held their breath as they changed, even though the air was technically safe to breathe.

  As I was tugging the straps for my new mask tight against my head, I began hearing infected screams. There weren’t close, yet, but the females in the parking lot were coming into the building. I had no idea if they’d be able to find us easily. Certainly doubted they’d be able to track us by smell, but didn’t really care. It was time to get the hell out of here.

  52

  We reached the door at the end of the hall after what seemed an interminable amount of time. The screams behind us steadily drew closer as we moved, motivating us like nothing else could. Getting caught in the open wouldn’t be good. With the tricky footing, it would be damn difficult to fight off an attack and make our escape.

  Once at the door, it took way too long to clear out dead females so it could be opened. The hallway was packed tight, and we had to pull bodies up and stack them out of the way. This was more difficult than it sounds. As soon as a corpse would come free, those around it would flop into the freshly vacated space.

  Soon we were all cursing, sweating heavily as we worked. Breathers had to be changed again, and I got a snoot full of the horrid, cloying sewer smell when I was swapping mine out. Even with a new mask and fresh oxygen flowing, the stink stayed with me, trapped in my sinuses.

  Handling corpses absolutely sucks. It drives home the term “dead weight”. A 140-pound dead body is more difficult to move than a live one. Every joint is loose, flopping and shifting as you lift. It reminded me of a summer job I had in high school, working in the oil fields near Odessa, Texas.

  At the time, the massive drill bits were kept from overheating by injecting mud into the hole. That mud was packaged up at another location, put into large burlap bags and stacked on a flatbed truck. My job was to unload those hundred pound sacks of mud, one at a time, when the trucks arrived.

  Picking up one of those wasn’t unlike trying to pick up a corpse. As soon as you think you have a good grip, the mass shifts. You react to the change and the fucking thing shifts again. Finally, you get pissed off and just throw it, hoping it lands where you want it. Sometimes it does, and sometimes you have to move it again.

  And doing this with a bad shoulder wasn’t helping my disposition. By the time we had cleared enough bodies for Chico and I to stand on the floor, I was in the mood to face the infected with nothing but my bare hands. The rest of the team wasn’t in any better frame of mind, but we kept our frustration to ourselves and worked without pause as the screams drew closer.

  Chico and I were using our backs and arms to support the edge of the mass of corpses, feet braced against our exit door. Still on top, Drago was pulling out one female at a time, passing the body on to TJ who had taken to rolling them like logs. He had built a stack a few feet back down the hall. I could hear the females hunting, screaming to each other, and not being able to see the direction they would come from had ratcheted up my tension.

  “That’s enough,” I grunted in the exertion of holding back the wall of dead.

  Drago dropped into the small open space a moment later. He helped hold as Chico and I shifted to make room for him to pry the door open. It was a slow process to shift around and not let an avalanche of bodies bury the area we’d worked so hard to clear.

  “Contact!”

  I heard TJ’s voice on the radio an instant before his suppressed rifle began firing.

  “Hurry,” I hissed to Drago, throwing myself against the wall of ever shifting bodies.

  TJ was firing single shots, well spaced, so I didn’t think there were a lot of females approaching. Yet. But they were screaming and others would be flooding into the hall in response to their calls.

  I turned to get a better angle and make room for Drago to work. My face was pressed against the chest of a dead female as I leaned into the constant pressure, and I was thankful for the plastic mask that covered my skin. Behind me I heard the sharp bang of Drago forcing the pry bar into place, then his grunt of exertion.

  “Let’s go!” He shouted as I felt the bottom edge of the now open door bang against my foot.

  No one moved. I was waiting for Chico, who was waiting for me. TJ was continuing to fire, the rate picking up significantly. For fucks sake, we must have looked like the Keystone Cops.

  “Chico, go,” I shouted.

  When he moved, the whole wall shifted, threatening to inundate me. With a scream of effort, I pushed. My hands began slipping, then disappeared in amongst the bodies. An arm fell free, flopping against my head and coming to rest on my shoulder. I could feel the mass of corpses beginning to shift without the second point of resistance Chico had provided.

  “TJ! Move your ass!”

  I screamed at the young Ranger as another arm came free and the corpse directly in front of me slipped a few inches. My face was no longer pressed against her chest. I was now face to face with the bitch, only a thin layer of plastic between us.

  TJ fired several long bursts, then I could feel the vibration from him moving a
cross the top of the pile. He bounced off me as he jumped into the open space. The screams sounded like there were females right over my head, but I was hesitating. I was afraid to release my hold. Worried the mass would collapse towards me so fast that I’d be trapped under its weight.

  Drago solved the problem for me. Reaching out, he grabbed onto each edge of my vest at the arm holes. Chico had his arms wrapped around Drago’s waist and TJ was locked onto Chico’s belt. The three of them pulled in unison and I was yanked backwards through the open door.

  I wound up on top of a pile, Drago and Chico beneath me. TJ had sidestepped our falling bodies and was reaching to close the door as the wall of corpses began to tumble towards us. As TJ’s hand wrapped around the door handle, a live female appeared and launched herself forward with a scream.

  She impacted TJ squarely on the chest. The back of his legs came up hard against my hip and he fell backwards over me, the infected riding him to the floor. More females were screaming and I saw movement in the hall as I tried to extricate myself from Drago and Chico. Two more females were leaping, but the door was closing.

  TJ’s hand had pulled it slightly as the female struck him, starting it swinging on its hinges. As the females were preparing to leap, the wall of dead infected that was no longer being supported suddenly broke free and tumbled against the door, slamming it closed with a resounding boom.

  There was no time to celebrate as the female that had come through and attacked TJ screamed right behind me. Finally getting my feet under me, I turned just in time to take her charge. I was slammed against the door, which thankfully didn’t budge.

  The female was tearing at me, her face lunging forward as she sought a mouthful of my flesh. I had a forearm up and against her throat, levering her away as my free hand fumbled for my knife. Before I could find it, her head was violently snapped to the side as Drago hit her with the iron pry bar.

  Her skull broke open with an audible crack, her limp body flopping to the side. Drago looked at me a moment, breathing hard, then ripped the mask off his face. Wiping sweat out of his eyes, he took a deep breath, held it a moment, then grinned.

  “Thanks,” I said, removing my breather.

  “Hey! TJ!”

  Drago turned and I moved past him. Chico was kneeling over TJ who was on his back and not moving. I dropped to the ground on the other side and looked over the Ranger’s body, not seeing any injuries.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Drago asked, bent over my shoulder.

  Chico had two fingers on TJ’s neck, feeling for a pulse. After a long wait he withdrew his hand and looked up at us, shaking his head. Fuck! Reaching out I did the same. Not that I didn’t believe Chico, but I needed to feel for myself.

  There was no pulse, and when I lifted his eyelids I could see that his pupils were fixed and dilated. Chico grunted, looking at the floor right next to TJ’s head. Blood was slowly pooling, soaking his tightly cropped hair. He looked a few inches above the dead Ranger’s head and pointed at a smear of hair and blood on the front edge of the first step leading to the roof.

  I slipped my hand under TJ’s neck and gently worked it up the back of his skull. There was a large depression and his scalp was split open. That’s where the blood was coming from. Removing my hand, I sat back on my haunches and cursed long and loud. When the female had hit him, he’d tripped and fallen back, his head cracking open on the steel covered edge of the step.

  If we hadn’t needed to wear the breathers, he would have had a Kevlar helmet with his night vision goggles on his head. It would have protected him. He would still be alive. Goddamn it, I was tired of this shit!

  53

  Chico carried TJ’s body up the stairs, gently laying him on the roof next to the helipad as we waited for the Black Hawk to pick us up. It wasn’t a long wait, and the constant screams from the ocean of females packed into the parking lot faded into the background as I thought about what was to come.

  Glancing at my watch, I did the math and realized that after the nearly ninety-minute flight it would be close to time for me to surrender to the Russians. Time for me to remind Colonel Blanchard of his promise to find Katie and get her to Seattle. Unfortunately, I’d probably never know what happened to her. I didn’t expect to survive long once I was in Moscow.

  Watching the Black Hawk approach, my thoughts turned to Rachel. I missed her. She had become a part of me, and if things had been slightly different… I shut down that line of thought, standing and helping Chico hoist TJ onto his shoulder.

  We rushed forward as soon as the landing gear touched the roof. TJ went in first, the door gunner reaching out and helping so the fallen Ranger’s body was placed gently on the deck. Drago and Chico followed, then I climbed up and flopped down on a web sling. We were airborne an instant later.

  The flight was long and no one was in the mood to talk. I was lost in thought. Chico sat on the deck, cradling TJ in his arms. Drago sat next to him, his big hand on Chico’s shoulder. They stayed that way for the entire time it took us to reach our destination.

  I had expected to be taken back to the front, surprised when I saw we were landing at what looked like a small, civilian airfield. Stepping out, I waited as Chico and Drago lifted TJ’s body clear of the helicopter. There wasn’t an ambulance or morgue detail waiting for us. That didn’t happen any more.

  “Take him to that hangar,” I said softly, pointing across the tarmac. “We’ll figure out how to honor him properly.”

  The two Rangers nodded, Drago reaching out and placing a hand on my shoulder. We locked eyes for a moment, then I looked over at Chico. He stood there, holding TJ in his thick arms like a child. After a moment he turned and began slowly heading for the hangar I had pointed out. Drago dropped his hand and followed.

  I watched as they walked away, turning when a Hummer pulled to a stop behind me. Colonel Blanchard stepped out and walked forward to greet me. I shook his hand, then realized I should have come to attention. Oh well. If he wasn’t going to make a big deal out of it, neither was I.

  “Congratulations, Major,” he said.

  “Thank you, sir. But we lost three good men making it happen.”

  I knew Blanchard didn’t need me to remind him. He was just like Colonel Crawford. Every Soldier in his command mattered to him. To him, they weren’t expendable pieces for the chess board, even though in reality we all knew that’s exactly what we were.

  “What’s the word from Pearl?” I asked.

  “Not good,” he said, shaking his head. “Admiral Packard wants to speak to you.”

  I nodded, not looking forward to the conversation.

  “Remember your promise to me,” I said, facing him squarely and looking into his eyes. “Find my wife and get her help.”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Blanchard said. “I’ve already got patrols out searching her last known location. No luck so far, but as soon as her beacon gets activated we should be able to zero in on her.”

  I nodded, waiting patiently as he pulled out a sat phone and hit a speed dial key. He identified himself when the call was answered and a moment later held the handset out to me.

  “Major Chase,” I said when I lifted it to my ear.

  “Major, Admiral Packard. Job well done in Utah.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “We’ve had a small problem, Major. The software that was copied over from the servers in Salt Lake City corrupted when it was loaded. A critical, hidden encryption file was missed. It’s been downloaded and the system is being rebuilt, but we aren’t going to be ready before the deadline for your surrender.”

  Fuck me. Of course we weren’t. Nothing ever went the way it was supposed to.

  “Sir, how firm do you think the Russians are on that deadline?”

  “Admiral Chirkov just called to remind me that we have thirty minutes. We’re monitoring Russian C2 traffic and the order to prepare to launch has been issued. Unfortunately, they’re very serious.” C2 stands for Command and Control.


  “How long until the software is ready?” I asked.

  “Four hours. Minimum.”

  “Well, sir. I guess that doesn’t leave me with a whole lot of options, does it?”

  “No, Major. It does not. But let me be clear. I am not ordering you to do this. I will understand and fully support your decision if you decide not to surrender.”

  “Sir, I appreciate that, but you know as well as I do that there’s no other way to stop the Russians from wiping Hawaii off the map. Just tell me one thing. Will the deaths of the men I lost in Utah and my surrender be worth it?”

  There was silence on the line and it only took me a moment to realize the Admiral wasn’t going to answer. He’d probably already said too much on the phone, even if the signal was encrypted, and wasn’t going to say any more.

  “Understood, sir,” I sighed. “Have you given any thought to my request about Petty Officer Simmons?”

  “Investigators found evidence that the man she killed was a Russian agent. They also discovered three others working here in Pearl that he had recruited. I have a hard time charging someone with the murder of a man that I would have stood up against the wall and shot in the head. As far as the rest of it, I agree with you that she made a mistake. One which I’m hoping she has learned from.

  “She will not be facing any charges, but will have her security clearance revoked, demoted in rank and placed on restricted duty until further notice. But, I have a feeling she’ll be back on top of the heap in no time. She really is a remarkable young lady.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  I was genuinely surprised. Packard had everything he needed, evidence wise, to charge and convict Jessica. The fact that he was willing to take circumstances into account spoke volumes about the man in the uniform.