Healers

by Munson, Brad

  He waited for a pause in the shots – and there it was, for just a second. Then he got his knees under him and jumped and rolled to the right. He pulled a flash-bang as he flew and threw it directly between two of the approaching black figures.

  The impact was huge, stunning even yards away, but far worse for the defenders than for Stone’s own men. They flew. They scattered. They screamed. Then Stone’s five men were up and running straight at them, firing continuously.

  They went down. All of them. Most didn’t even have a chance to get off another round; the few shots that did fly at them missed Stone’s men by a country mile. And now they were in a dead run, rushing to the nearer fence as the gathering light of morning gave them the best news of all:

  The defenders had entered from the Admin Building, or near it. They’d come through one of the base’s many security gates, not fifty feet away.

  And they’d left the gate wide open.

  *****

  “How were they found so quickly?” Mbutu wondered aloud.

  Bentley was scowling more deeply than ever. “I’d say their surveillance was better than we’d expected,” he growled, “but their response was so shitty, I don’t believe it.” His steel-colored eyes darted around the Situation Room. “They knew,” he said with cold certainty.

  “Someone told them?” the Vice President said. He sounded genuinely surprised. “Who? Who would do that?”

  “I don’t know yet,” the major said. “But I will. Soon.”

  *****

  “Say again?” Finnegan said. He could barely believe his ears.

  “They breached the perimeter. They’re inside the second fence.”

  “What the hell happened?” The Chairman demanded. He was hunching over his console, nearly on his feet. And these days, Finnegan knew, The Chairman never stood up.

  “I thought you had two squads on them?”

  “Yes!” Chandler said to him from somewhere deep – and safe – inside Edwards. And he said it just a little too quickly for Finnegan to believe him. “He – they – gave them the slip somehow. Got past them. I … I guess.”

  “Put all the defense forces on them,” The Chairman said, teeth clenched. “You understand me? Everyone. They cannot enter the building. They must not.”

  “I understand. They won’t.”

  The Chairman’s scowl grew even deeper. “You have the back-up there?”

  Back-up? Finnegan repeated. What back-up?

  “Y—yes,” Chandler said. “It’s right here with me.”

  “Good. Now get those men in place, Chandler. Whatever it takes, you understand? Whatever it takes.”

  The Chairman threw himself back in his chair so forcefully the springs complained. The look of fierce disappointment and open fear on his face was exactly not the expression Finnegan wanted to see on his Commander in Chief. Not at this moment.

  *****

  Chandler made the calls – both of them – that deployed the last of his men. He would line them up in front of the main doors, make them dig in behind whatever cover they could find there, and bring those bastards down. He would get it done.

  He glanced nervously at the silver, sealed box that squatted in the middle of his office. Back-up, The Chairman had called it. It had been dropped here a week ago on a triple set of parachutes, wheeled into his presence just as instructed, and hadn’t left his office – or his presence, for that matter – ever since. Just as instructed.

  He didn’t want to know what was inside. Besides, he told himself, he didn’t need to. It would never be necessary. He was going to fix this.

  Somehow.

  *****

  Forrest was monitoring the chatter from Stone’s insertion team as his secret C130 made a wide circle over the northern desert, waiting for the call. He didn’t like what he was hearing.

  “We can do this for another thirty minutes or so,” the pilot told him. “Then we either head in or head back.”

  Or keep circling until we augur in, Forrest thought. There’s that, too.

  He ached to open a direct channel to Stone. He could do it at any moment; they both knew that. But no. No. The man was more than competent. He could handle it. He would know if he needed Forrest’s double-edged sword or not, and he’d call for it if he had to.

  In the meantime, goddamn it, he would just have to wait.

  *****

  We’re fucked.

  Stone and his men humped through the open gate into the wide, grassy promenade that led to the Admin Center’s main entrance … where they were stopped cold. Gunfire erupted from half a dozen well-fortified spots along both sides of the wide double doors; RSA troops had dug in long ago, well aware of Stone’s approach since – well, he realized, apparently from the instant they touched down. Or flew over. Or maybe well before that, he thought bitterly. It was pretty obvious: They had sprung a leak, and it was likely to kill them all.

  The five remaining members of his team scrambled for scant cover behind an abandoned combat vehicle, a utility truck, and the low brick apron of the fountain at the center of the expanse. Stone could see they were all pinned down by the defense forces, and he couldn’t even tell how many of them there were. They were too well-hidden and reinforced.

  Stone took a moment to think it through. There weren’t many options. Plans and fly-overs had shown them that the other entry points were locked down and reinforced – this was the only way in. There were no options for flanking maneuvers, no adequate cover in the last deadly fifty yards from the fountain to the front doors. A brutal frontal assault was the only tactic, and one they were bound to lose.

  “Time for Plan B,” he muttered to himself. No one – not even Allen, who was only a few yards away – heard him or would have known what he meant as he touched the comm unit and changed the tac channel.

  “Forrest,” he said. “It’s Stone.” The time for code names and secret phrases was long past. Barely an instant later, the colonel called out a response. “Forrest,” he said. “Sit rep?”

  “Gone completely to shit,” Stone said. A rifle shot ricocheted off the heavy steel bumper that kept Stone half-hidden. He backed up another couple of inches, just in case. “We haven’t entered the structure yet.”

  “Damn,” Forrest said. The roaring of the C15-A’s engines and the moaning from the back of the plane nearly drowned him out, but Stone could hear him clearly enough. “I’ll head back—”

  “No,” Stone said. “Drop your payload fifty yards to the south of this position.”

  “Stone, that—”

  “I know it’s not what we planned. It’s what we have to do. Can you be that tight? Fifty yards, no more, to the south of the main entrance.” It was strangely liberating speaking in such clear and simple language. He really didn’t give a shit if he was being monitored by RSA forces. It didn’t matter anymore, and that felt good.

  Forrest took a beat before he answered. Two beats, really. “Roger that,” he said finally. “Drop in thirty … twenty-five ...”

  “Just do it when you can and head out. We’ll do the rest.”

  “Roger. Take care.”

  It was the last time Stone would ever hear his commander’s voice.

  *****

  Mbutu, along with everyone in the Situation Room at McCoy, was monitoring the exchange. He could see Bentley bristling at the lack of security language; he found it slightly amusing himself. But there was nothing amusing about the message.

  “Payload?” he said to Bentley, frowning darkly.

  “We didn’t – still don’t – know how big the defense force is there. We thought we might need help to hold it once Stone and his men got inside.” He shrugged and shook his head. “But it was supposed to be for after they got inside. Now ...” he sighed “Now I don’t know.”

  Mbutu looked back at the monitor, his mind racing. He
felt his fingernails digging into the flesh of his palms, though he didn’t remember clenching his fists. “Stone knows what he’s doing,” he said, deep and calm.

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “I have worked with him. Many times. I trust him.”

  Bentley huffed and folded his arms. “It’s not like we have a lot of choice,” he said, sounding almost grumpy. “Not this time.”

  The grinding and groaning audible on Forrest’s channel grew higher and more intense. “Ten,” he said. “Five. And … payload deployed.”

  *****

  The payload sounded like a truckload of solid steel tree trunks rolling down a hill. And that isn’t far wrong, Forrest thought as the heavily modified steel box rolled backwards, tipped down abruptly, and disappeared out of the gaping maw at the far end of the Hercules. The instant it was clear, Forrest’s pilot dragged on the yoke and leaned on the throttle, executing a tight turn that Forrest was sure exceeded the wallowing transport plane’s specifications.

  They wanted out of there. Fast. There was no way to know if the RSA had any sort of anti-aircraft weaponry deployed, and Forrest’s C-130 had come in very fast and very slow for the drop. Now they wanted to get downrange as quickly as the old warhorse could carry them.

  For one brief moment, as he cinched his seat belt extra tight, Forrest thanked whatever gods there were that McChord Field, near Tacoma, was one of the assets that had never been lost. It was a huge installation, the long-time home of the equally impressive 62nd Operations Group, a division that ran most of the U.S. government’s large-scale humanitarian relief efforts for decades before Morningstar. Airlifts to natural disasters, air drops of troops in hostile territory – all of it, that was the job of the 62nd, and its vast array of transports and equipment had made it a very quiet, absolutely vital part of the recovery.

  Few knew it was still operational. Even fewer appreciated its importance. And both of the C-130s and Forrest’s horrible payload had come from McChord.

  Forrest’s wiry frame was pushed back in his seat even more roughly than he’d expected as the aircraft accelerated. It took some effort to turn his head and glare at the slightly wild-eyed pilot as he bore down and rushed for home. Forrest didn’t blame him. They both wanted this mission over with as soon as humanly possible, and maybe even a little bit faster than that.

  *****

  The modified container car – Forrest’s hideous “payload” – burst like a rotten fruit when it hit the ground, just as it had been designed to do. The orange walls bowed and then split, and the once-human creatures inside flew and rolled and tumbled out, driven in all directions by the force of the impact.

  Stone was too far away to hear any bones breaking or limbs tearing free, but even if he’d been closer, it wouldn’t have mattered to him. These were no longer humans; they were a threat to humanity now, and injury wasn’t an issue.

  The planners had assumed that nine out of ten of the sprinters they had harvested from the outskirts of Butte, Montana would survive the drop. They were sure the sound of the gunfire from both the defenders and Stone’s team would be more than enough to attract their attention, even mere moments after they hit the ground.

  Almost instinctively, all gunfire from both sides shifted to the sprinters. The sprinters began to fall, stumble, spin away as they were hit, but it wasn’t nearly enough. For every one that slammed into the grass, twitching and hissing, two more came closer.

  Exactly as Stone had expected.

  He jumped to his feet and shouted, “Go, go, GO!” into his comm unit. The rest of the team jumped and ran with him, pounding across the wide, vacant courtyard as fast as they could go, taking advantage of every second of diversion the sprinters had provided.

  Stone saw one of his men go down in spite of it all, more than one round striking him center mass and effectively exploding his chest. Stone didn’t stop. He couldn’t. He could only return fire as he ran and saw another soldier spin away, screaming thinly as he hit the wall of the Center and bounced away, spraying blood. Then they were there, up the low steps, close to the entryway, arriving just moments before the sprinters themselves surged onto the landing and overwhelmed the defenders.

  There were four of his men left – Stone and three others, including Allen. Stone ripped open the glass door and bellowed at his men to get in, get in. Two of them made it.

  Allen refused to go. He backed towards the open door, still firing at the sprinters, hosing them down as they ran straight for him. “You first!” he shouted to Stone as he swept gunfire across the infected one more time. “Go!”

  Stone wanted to argue, wanted to pull him in by the collar, but he could see that Allen had made the decision already, and there simply wasn’t time. He spun, firing himself, bringing down two sprinters that were far too close, then lunged through the open door.

  Allen kicked it shut from the outside. The thick glass was clear, unfrosted, and Stone had to watch as Allen put his back against the door, shouting, “Block it! BLOCK IT!” as he fired until he ran dry. Then he swung the weapon like a bludgeon, and when it broke in his hands he fell, silently, finally, as the sprinters clawed and tore him to pieces.

  Stone used his own M-4 as a barricade, threading it through the inner handles of the doorway’s handles, blocking it shut. It held back the last of the infected from the payload, preventing them from entering the Center and making Allen’s sacrifice meaningless.

  He never screamed, Stone thought wildly as he turned away, refusing to look at the tattered remains of his comrade’s corpse. He never had to. At least so little remained he would never rise. He was dead and gone. For good.

  The floor plan of the Center had been committed to memory long ago. Stone and his two remaining team members – Lopez and Haines, one brown and one black – sprinted across the lobby, down a short corridor, and stopped for just a moment at a locked door that was labeled SECURITY.

  All Stone had was his sidearm. He stepped aside, cleared the way for Lopez, and said, “Take it out.” Two shots from Lopez’s M4 and the door flew open, revealing another short corridor, another door no thicker than the first. It broke after a single blow from the M4’s stock, and they were through that as well.

  The final barrier was tougher. It was going to take a bit of work, but Stone already knew what to do. He knew what lay beyond it: The makeshift satellite control center that had been their goal all along.

  “Almost there,” he said. “Let’s get to work.”

  *****

  Chandler, standing in the center of that satellite control room, felt his knees going weak. He had watched the Army’s incursion team’s approach on the security monitors, one step at a time: Del Gado’s defense, the drop of the container filled with the infected, the final run down the hallways. He had clearly heard the gunfire that shattered the first locked door, and the second. He knew they were waiting just outside, right there.

  What the fuck am I going to do now, he thought, feverishly clenching and reclenching his fists, glancing at the satellite technicians all around him, ready to beg for help.

  He knew the technicians and administrators in this room wouldn’t help. Not one of them. He had lied to all of them as well.

  The Chairman was bellowing in his ear. He didn’t care. The Chairman and the RSA couldn’t help him either, not anymore. But the US Army—

  Maybe he could cut a deal. They were here now; he could convince them the RSA had been blackmailing him, forcing him to do their evil bidding. But it wasn’t his fault. He and his people, they were good Americans, right? They didn’t know.

  He slashed at the keyboard and cut off The Chairman in mid-bellow. “Yes,” he told himself. “I can still fix this.” He began to piece together his story as he walked briskly towards the locked entrance. It would be easy. Easy. He’d open the door, let the last of those government goons inside, explain how he had been forced, forced to�
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  The C4 detonated and blew the reinforced door completely off its hinges. It hit Chandler square in the face and splattered him against the floor. He was more slime and sticky liquid than flesh when the hatch hit the ground with a tremendous, almost musical clang.

  Stone and his two remaining soldier stepped inside. Their target had been acquired.

  *****

  The Chairman was fully on his feet, hunched over his console, shouting at the top of his lungs. “Chandler! Chandler, you fucking son of a bitch!”

  He and Finnegan, along with The Chairman’s silent but wide-eyed trio of security men, had watched the entire assault on the same monitor feed that Chandler had been watching. The moment that orange container had hit and burst open, Finnegan knew it was all over. One way or another, they had lost Edwards.

  He had been proven right.

  They used our own strategy against us, he thought bitterly, remembering how proud he had been of the “weaponized infected” strategy they had used over and over, most recently in the failed attack on Omaha. The U.S. Forces had gone them one better; he’d never thought of air-dropping the sprinters into a battlefield, not that they had the equipment to make that happen. Where the hell did they get those C-130s? he wondered.

  “Chandler!” The Chairman shouted again. “Shoot them! If they get through that door, goddamn it, just SHOOT THEM! You must have a gun in there! You must have a security detail! What happened to all your men? Goddamn it, what happened to all your troops?” He glanced almost involuntarily at the trio of armed men that flanked his own doorway. Finnegan had always assumed that he had three because if one – or even two – of them turned, he’d still have someone left to kill the traitors. And three was more than enough; even a highly trained operative like Finnegan himself couldn’t take down three men so quickly that none of them would have time to react and put the aggressor down first. That kind of action was the stuff of comic books, and Finnegan was no Punisher, as much as he might like to be.