Shadows of Ash (The Nameless Book 2)

by Adrian J. Smith

  “Copy. Speed it up. Yamada’s men are losing.”

  “Wilco.”

  They paused at the door and peered out. The former prisoners had disappeared, leaving a trail of carnage in their wake. The commandos all had their necks broken, like the first two they’d encountered. In addition, their arms were missing, and their intestines were pooled on the floor like a major operation had been underway before being disturbed. Blood coated the floor in thick puddles, and splashes of the plasma had flicked up the walls in long, arch-like spatters. The air was heavy with the stench of iron and excrement.

  It didn’t take long to reach the blast doors. All they had to do was follow the line of dead commandos. Some had their heads bashed in, brains and skulls crushed from huge blows. Some had their necks snapped, like they’d seen before. Some had been impaled on their weapons, usually the rifle entering beneath their genitals and exiting through their mouths. These ones were still alive and gasping for air, desperately trying to remove the guns with feeble swipes of their hands. Others had been sliced open with nice clean cuts from navel to sternum, their organs removed and crushed. As horrific as the scene was, Ryan took notes. The prisoners they had freed had been experimented on for God only knew how long. Treated as mere playthings. He didn’t blame them for exacting vengeance.

  “Where did they go?” Cal said, swinging from left to right. The semi-circular blast doors – to fit the corridor – were directly ahead of them, with nowhere else to go. They were gray, like everything else, apart from the painted red stripe in the center.

  “Not our problem. We’re here for Takeshi and Ando.” Ryan flicked the cover off the security panel and pulled the key Yamada had given him from his pocket. It was a weird-looking key. Long and cylindrical, made from gold, and when you pressed the button on top of the grip, tiny SIM-card-like panels opened.

  Ryan inserted the key into the slot and waited for the beep before pressing the button. The panel hummed and the lights changed color from yellow to red. Next, he entered the four-digit code three times. Once forward in sequence, followed by twice backward. The panel changed color from red to green.

  Deep inside the door mechanism, reinforced steel bolts, each the size of an average human – so he had been told – slid back with a clank.

  “Alpha team inside,” Ryan said into his comms.

  “Copy. Booth. Move up. Alpha, advance.”

  “Wilco.”

  The blast doors opened painfully slowly, inching their way across the corridor as if they had all the time in the world. The passage beyond was silent and dark. Cal slid past Ryan and went left.

  Ryan didn’t like it. Silent and dark wasn’t good. A bad feeling began to gnaw at the back of his brain. The warning part. The part honed over thousands of generations, passed down through the years.

  Danger.

  Ten

  Washington, USA

  Avondale had been true to his word and led Director Lisa Omstead and Doctor Monica Johnson to Fort Lewis, now known as Joint Base Lewis McChord. Part Army, part Air Force, it was the most-requested duty base in the Army. Lisa could see why. Mount Rainier towered above like a lonely sentinel.

  The last few miles had been a tortuous drive through checkpoint after checkpoint. Black Skulls had attacked and attempted to bomb the airfield only to be chased away and annihilated by Munroe’s men, but it put everyone on edge. Lisa and Monica were waved through each time with curt nods.

  Most of the soldiers were wearing protection suits and gas masks and made the two women don their own. “General’s orders, ma’am” was the only explanation given.

  Once they were inside the base proper, they were directed far to the right and back. Here, bodies of the Rabids had been stacked into piles and were being burnt. Munroe had acted fast, setting up a perimeter and keeping it secure. They passed the hangars and equipment warehouses. Trucks were parked up, the drivers milling about. They seemed to be waiting for something. Orders?

  Munroe was waiting outside the small lab building, arms folded across his broad chest. He wore a protection suit but had pulled the hood and mask off. The late afternoon sun glistened off his shaved head.

  “Director Omstead,” Munroe said with a nod. “When this shit went down, I thought if anyone had survived it would be you. Stubborn, fortuitous. Smart as a whip. Cordwell?”

  “He didn’t make it, sir,” Lisa said.

  “Pity. Good soldier that one. What happened?”

  “Black Skulls attacked us. He protected our retreat.”

  “Black skulls?” Munroe frowned.

  “The soldiers wearing black. They have a skull sigil.”

  “We fought some men wearing black fatigues, but they had no markings. These had a skull sigil?”

  “On the right shoulder, yes.”

  “Special ops?”

  “That’s what I want to find out.”

  “A real shame about Cordwell,” Munroe said. He turned to the sergeant on his left and gestured at Lisa. “This woman here, Sergeant. Take a good look. One of the toughest sons of bitches I’ve ever known. She and her team slogged for over two hundred clicks through camel shit-encrusted sand. Scorpions, spiders the size of your head. All the way chased by Iraqi bastards wanting revenge. You take a good look, son. That’s a leader. That’s a soldier.”

  “Nice to see you too, General. This is Doctor Monica Johnson, formerly of the CDC,” Lisa said.

  Munroe beckoned them inside and shut the door. It locked with a hiss, leaving the sergeant and another soldier outside standing guard.

  “Nice to have you on board. What do you make of all this, doctor?” Munroe said as he led them deeper into the building, down a short hallway and into a lunchroom. The building housed two small labs for running blood, urine and stool samples, and a few exam rooms like those found in a doctor’s office. Obvious signs of struggle were evident: equipment knocked over, and a couple of the tables still had an ashy residue. The general pulled out three chairs and they sat down.

  “Doctor?”

  Monica shook her head, removed her mask, and took a deep breath. “I’ve been a virologist my entire working life. What’s happened isn’t acting like any virus I’ve ever seen or studied. It had no incubation period, no start. It just happened.” She clicked her fingers. “Like that. Bang.”

  “What can you tell me of this Mortis virus in Africa and Europe?”

  “Not much. Mortis is neither viral nor bacterial. I know that.”

  “Nothing weaponized?” Munroe glanced around, his eyes flicking to the door. “Like that Ebola scare in fifteen.”

  Again, Monica shook her head. “Thanks to LK3, we managed to get some samples of Mortis a few years back in Romania. I was at the CDC then. The best minds couldn’t work it out. We found no trace of either a virus or bacteria. No trace of anything toxic at all.”

  “So what killed the victims in Romania?”

  “No idea. For that, we needed to perform an autopsy.”

  “Best guess. In your professional opinion?”

  “In my opinion? Okay. Strictly speaking, I would need my notes to refresh my memory, but the tissue samples I did examine looked frozen. Like they do to peas to keep them fresh. Snap frozen. It was like that. The cells had been snap frozen, killing the tissue, turning it gray and black. I would say the victim died as a result of his whole body freezing suddenly.”

  Munroe stood and paced around, his hand on his chin, rubbing over the stubble of his three-day-old beard.

  “What’s your take, Omstead? From what you’ve seen.”

  “Sir. I’ve seen some strange events in my time, both in the Army and with LK3, but the events of the last few days…” Lisa sighed. “I don’t know. People driven insane and sucking the fluid from the spine. Militia dressed in black, killing innocent civilians. Foreign fighter jets flying in American airspace. I’ve been involved in disaster prep teams, brainstorming scenarios on what could happen. Ways the world could end. How to ensure the survival of humanity. But
not in our wildest nightmares did we ever come up with this.”

  The general nodded. “You think this was organized?”

  “It sounds bat-shit crazy, but it’s the only logical explanation. Like Monica said, it can’t be a virus. Too instantaneous. Victims dying and turning to ash. Others swelling and some shrinking. Those rabid freaks, maybe? That’s why we brought a specimen. No way it’s a virus. No. This is something else.”

  Munroe stopped his pacing and looked from Lisa to Monica, smiling. “Good. Come with me.”

  They followed the general outside, down a concrete path and into a larger brick building. Guards were posted at the outside entrance and a further pair stood at an internal set of doors. Munroe waved them aside.

  The Joint Operations center was full of activity. Desks with computer monitors crowded the central space, with staff in uniforms glued to their screens. The far wall was covered in screens, all showing different camera views and computer graphics. Field positions of active operations. The sergeant on duty saluted.

  “At ease,” Munroe said.

  He took Lisa and Monica toward the back of the room and onto a raised level. Even here there were signs of fighting. And though it had been cleaned away, grime from the ash remains was scattered about.

  Munroe turned. “After the event, and when we’d finished off the suckers, I followed protocol and reported in. As you know, we found nothing. No one answered at the Pentagon, Langley or the White House. Slowly, forts and bases reported in. Sporadic, but at least they were coming in. Heavy casualties from all reports. We’re getting drones in the air now and starting sweeps of the state. We have no access to satellites presently. Radio communication is all we have left, and you know how glitchy that can be.” He grimaced. “Corporal, play them the Beale recording.”

  There was a short belch of static over the speakers next to the monitor.

  “…Munroe. What the hell is going on? I’ve got heavily armed unknown hostiles attacking. Ground and air. Black fatigues, German weapons. They’re bombing us to shit. Caught us completely by surprise. Radar is down, everything…”

  Lisa breathed deep. Beale Air Force Base was an obvious target. Home to reconnaissance and intelligence squadrons, Air Defense Command, missile warning systems, refueling. It was exactly the right play by whomever the enemy was. Take out the main command posts and cut communications. There was no need to ask Munroe what he thought, the creases in his forehead told her.

  “Corporal, play the others,” Munroe said.

  More recordings from bases and forts across the continental United States. Same panicked calls. Same sounds of fighting before everything went quiet.

  “Anything from overseas?” Lisa asked.

  “We’re dark. Someone flipped a switch and it’s not coming back on for the moment. I have my best technicians working on it as we speak.”

  “Not even on the military satellites?”

  Munroe shook his head. “We’re locked out. None of our codes are working. I’ve appealed to Secretary Ward for assistance. You know his response?”

  “They’re working on it. Which means…”

  “Don’t ask,” Lisa and Munroe said together, smiling at each other. They knew the drill. Been there, done that. Seen it all.

  What little staff were left at the Pentagon would be scrambling to secure Ward and anyone else left there. Keep them safe. Establish a chain of command, organize civilians, maintain law and order.

  “We’re all agreed that it was a coordinated attack?” Lisa said.

  Munroe and the corporal nodded. Monica stared around the room, watching the buzz of activity.

  “Doctor Johnson?”

  “I’m just thinking all this through,” Monica said. “If it was planned and coordinated, the level of organization is astounding. First, they had to invent whatever it was that caused the combusting. Distribute it. Move everyone into position. Know which bases to attack and execute the plan – all without a hitch. Maybe the suckers were not foreseen. But that level of organization means a lot of people – hundreds if not thousands. And they all managed to keep their mouths shut? Without any agencies finding out. That’s why the ‘moon landings were a faked conspiracy’ is so ridiculous. As if four hundred people conspired together to fake it. Fifty years on and no one has spilt the beans. It’s absurd.”

  Lisa grimaced. Normally, at this point, she would nod her head and offer some form of agreement. Play the game, keeping her aces up her sleeve. But now, there was no game to play. Someone had entered and killed nearly everyone. The game was over, or was it? She couldn’t be certain of anything anymore. Her father’s voice echoed in her mind. Find one solution and move on, step by step until you defeat the problem.

  She pulled back her shoulders and looked at General Munroe and Monica. “I can fill you in on what little I know – but not here.”

  Munroe stayed silent for a few seconds before he waved them outside, along a concrete path to the medical facilities and back into the lunchroom.

  “What is it, Omstead?”

  Lisa shuffled in her seat and stretched her tired legs. “Six months ago a NASA deputy director died while visiting a dominatrix. Nothing suspicious – a heart attack. It was kept out of the press by the White House as a matter of national security. Again, nothing unusual there. This happens a lot more than you think. There are staff to deal with this kind of problem. A couple of weeks later, an anonymous person claims they have government secrets to sell to the highest bidder. Once again, as I’m sure you realize, this sort of thing happens all the time. It turns out the deputy director had his laptop with him, and the dominatrix decided to remove the hard drive to try to make some cash. I was asked to investigate it and fix the problem, which my team did. No sooner did we secure the hard drive the CIA swooped in and took it. No harm, no foul. We did our job, pat on the back, on to the next mission. Like you’re thinking now, so what? I thought the same. My computer guy saw some of what the dominatrix was offering. She had no idea, but he did. Satellite codes. A few, not many.”

  “Huh?” Munroe said.

  Monica was frowning but said nothing.

  “Right. Naturally, the back of my brain is screaming, something isn’t right. Something was nagging me. Three years ago LK3 received a tip-off about a satellite installation, telling us it was being used for other reasons. So I put my best team on it. I lost a valued member that day and another retired because of it. But both the police and FBI could find no evidence of wrongdoing. The official line was that my team member died in a hiking accident. The other members of that team kept on investigating, ears open, that kind of thing. Then a couple of months ago we hit the jackpot. A general was selling satellite codes, and last week the FBI intercepted a truck filled with girls destined for some perverted sex ring. One girl, Harriet, told stories of a place high in the mountains where she had been experimented on. She described the same satellite installation. Naturally, we were set to investigate, but our HQ was attacked. A few days later, bang.”

  “Huh,” Munroe said again. He stood up and began pacing, his hands clenched into fists. “Omstead, I’m recalling you to active duty. Secretary Ward has ordered me to coordinate recovery operations for Washington State. I’m sure you saw the trucks. Select a small team from what few soldiers I have. I can spare you three.”

  “General?”

  “Recon. Find out who these Black Skull bastards are and where they’re operating from. I’ll provide you with whatever gear you need, but I want you in mufti. Take as much as you can because you can’t be seen returning. You report only to me. Understand?”

  “Got it.”

  “Doctor, the specimen you brought is waiting for you in Exam Room Two. I want an autopsy report on my desk by zero-nine-hundred. I want to know what the bloody hell is going on with those suckers.”

  “Okay. I’ll need some staff.”

  “I’ll see what’s available. I have two medics for the whole base. There are sleeping quarters in the back. Guards ar
e on the doors.”

  General Munroe left Lisa and Monica in the small lunchroom.

  Monica stood and smoothed down her clothes. “I better get started then.”

  Lisa handed her the vial of Harriet’s blood. “Test this, but don’t say anything to anyone.”

  “All right.” Monica sighed. She left, her shoes squeaking on the linoleum.

  Lisa glanced down at her hands. She had retired from the Army a long time ago and had long thought those days behind her. She should be exploring the country in an RV with her husband, not chasing bad guys. Guilt washed over her for not telling Munroe everything, but old habits die hard. She headed for the sleeping quarters, a million problems buzzing in her mind.

  Eleven

  Portland, Oregon

  Where do you see yourself in five years? One of the most cringe-worthy questions interviewers liked to ask, from school administrators to prospective employers. Zanzi hated it the same way some people flinched when they heard the words moist or panties.

  Where do you see yourself in five years? How does one answer that? In a big house with kids and a husband? Working here at this amazing company while you slowly suck all the joy from my life?

  She and her friends used to tease each other with that question in college. Answering it became a game: who could come up with the most outlandish response? Like the four Yorkshiremen skit Monty Python did.

  Zanzi, where do you see yourself in five years? “Running a tattoo parlor that secretly draws supernatural symbols into the tattoo so the dark lord can take his rightful place on the earth.”

  That had won her the Best Response Award at the end of the year. She smiled, thinking of it. Looking out at the rising sun, knowing what was out there, she couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps the devil had come. Never would she have imagined this five years ago.

  She shivered and sipped her green tea. She loved this time of day. It was almost sacred to her. Like her mother, Cal, she was an early riser. Up with the birds. In happier times they had often sat on the porch, drinking tea, silent, just watching the world wake up.