Indestructible: V Plague Book 7

by Dirk Patton

  24

  “Sir, you need to look at this.” Petty Officer Simmons called out to Lieutenant Hunt.

  Unfolding his lanky frame from behind his station he strode across the room and leaned over her shoulder to view the monitor. “See what, Simmons?”

  “The NSA satellites, sir. I’ve been poking around and what we thought were two are actually six. There’s two over North America, one over Western Europe, one over Russia and two more over Asia.” She said, pointing at a node map laid over an image of the globe.

  “And that’s not all,” she continued. “As I got deeper into the OS (Operating System) I started finding things I didn’t understand at first, but I do now. These aren’t just imaging birds. There’s a full ELINT (Electronic Intelligence) suite on board and it’s real Sci-Fi shit. Sir.”

  “Explain,” Hunt said, leaning closer for a better view of the computer code displayed on two of the monitors.

  “First, there’s the imaging enhancers. It was obvious these birds have top tier optics on board, but the software processing the pics is light years ahead of anything I’ve ever seen. Here, look at this.”

  Jessica brought up a live image on a different monitor. Hunt looked at the screen, recognizing the Oklahoma City area they’d been looking at to monitor the herds approaching Tinker Air Force Base. With a couple of mouse clicks, Jessica zoomed the image in on a group of abandoned cars.

  The picture was crisp and clear even though it was night in Oklahoma. He was easily able to discern the make and model of each vehicle and could also read the license plates that were oriented properly to the camera angle.

  “Yes, it’s good,” he said. “But I’ve seen nearly the same quality for several years now, this is just a better resolution.”

  Jessica smiled, used her mouse to draw a rectangle on the screen and clicked a series of keys. There was a momentary delay, then the image began zooming. And kept zooming until the windshield of one of the cars filled the screen. Drawing a smaller box with the mouse where the windshield met the vehicle’s dash, Jessica hit two more keys and sat back with a barely suppressed grin as the display continued to zoom without losing any resolution.

  “Holy shit!” Lieutenant Hunt said a few moments later when he could clearly read the VIN number stamped into a small metal plate attached at the front edge of the dash. He knew the letters and numbers were no more than half an inch tall.

  “Yes, sir.” She said. “But that’s just the beginning. I’ve already tapped into the Russian military’s C2 (Command and Control) system; just don’t understand what the hell they’re saying. I suppose the NSA had some super computer that would translate for them in real time. And get this!”

  Jessica switched screens again and brought up the satellite’s menu. She clicked through a couple of layers then pointed at the screen.

  “Are you serious?” Hunt breathed. “Facial recognition via satellite?”

  “Yes, sir. And not just facial recog, but facial search. Load an image and put the system on auto and it will scan every face within view of its camera until it finds a match.”

  “I need to brief Admiral Packard on this. No, you need to brief him. I’ll get word to his aide and see if he can come over.” Hunt headed for his workstation, pausing and turning back to look at Jessica. “Did you finish working the calculations on the herds for Tinker?”

  “Turned it over to an Army Captain that’s on the ground there in Oklahoma. He seems to know what he’s doing, and he has access to the system. And just so you know, there’s a whole lot more buried in here that I haven’t figured out yet.”

  “That’s fine. Keep working on it and also let’s use the other North American bird to get eyes and ears on the Russians that are occupying those Air Force bases. We need to know what they’re up to. Malmstrom, Ellsworth and Kirtland. Also, let’s start sucking up everything that’s going over their C2 as well as get focused in on the Kremlin.” He said in an excited voice.

  “Aye, aye sir!” Jessica said, her fingers flying over the keyboard.

  25

  I sat and watched the female for close to half an hour. In that entire time the only movement she made was the occasional tick that seemed to be an involuntary effect of the virus. Otherwise, she was as still as a statue just staring out into the canyon. If I hadn’t come in quiet and in the darker shadow of the far wall, she’d have seen me well before I knew she was there.

  It was time for me to make another decision. Did I take the female out and move inside the cave, or did I pull back and wait for Rachel, Joe and Dog to arrive. Going into a close environment I would have liked to have Dog with me, but there was a lot to be said for going in alone.

  It was going to be dark inside, and fighting in close quarters with no light is not something you typically want to do with a rookie. Sure, Rachel had learned to fight and shoot, and I was pretty sure Joe was better than acceptable with a rifle on the open prairie, but there’s a world of difference once you walk into a tight space.

  Reaction times have to increase to compensate for the decreased range at which you find yourself facing an enemy. If you haven’t trained with someone, over and over, mistakes can and will be made that could easily result in a friendly fire accident. I know I didn’t want to shoot them and sure as hell didn’t want to get shot.

  The last thought made my decision for me. I was going in alone. I’d be able to move quieter and faster. Clearing my mind, I rested the scope’s reticle on the female’s head. Halfway through the exhale that would have ended with me pulling the trigger I caught my breath at the sound of a rock skittering across the ground at the entrance to the canyon. The female snapped her head to look in that direction, stepping slightly out of the cave entrance to see what had made the noise.

  Traversing the rifle, I looked up the canyon and after a couple of moments spotted Rachel, Joe and Dog. To be precise I could see two human and one K9 figure. I was too far away for night vision to let me see any features, but it was them. They had frozen in place after making the noise and I only watched them for a couple of seconds before swiveling back to check on the female.

  She had moved farther out into the canyon and was stalking along the base of the far wall in their direction. Out of options, I sighted on her head again and pulled the trigger. The small rifle spat out the bullet without much noise at all, a moment later the subsonic round punching through the infected’s skull. She dropped to the hard ground without a sound.

  I checked the cave, but no other females had appeared to investigate either the noise or the absence of the sentry, so I stood and carefully made my way towards the entrance to the canyon. Dog smelled me before Joe and Rachel were aware I was there, his tail going into motion as he trotted forward to greet me.

  Reaching them I held my hand up as a signal to stay quiet and led the way to an adjacent canyon. After a careful scan with my night vision scope I was relatively satisfied that there weren’t any infected in the immediate area.

  “Found them,” I said in a low murmur.

  “Where?” Rachel asked.

  “That last canyon, about half way in there’s a cave. There was a female guarding the entrance that I shot when you guys kicked the rock.”

  “Sorry about that,” Rachel said sheepishly.

  “Are you sure it’s just a cave?” Joe asked, moving closer so we could talk without having to raise our voices. “There’s a huge system of caverns underneath us.”

  “Ahh, fuck me,” I said. “How big?”

  “Not sure,” he shook his head. “They aren’t well known. We’re on Osage land and the tribe knows about them, but I’m not sure any outsiders do. For the most part we stay away from them, but every few years there’s some kid that thinks he’ll impress a girl by going in and exploring. Some of them come back, but a lot don’t.”

  Caverns actually made more sense than just a cave. Why come all this way for a cave? But caverns, now that would make an outstanding hiding place for the infected. Their enhanced sense
s would help them move around in the dark, and they probably had a pretty good sense of direction.

  Then I wondered how long they’d been hiding here. Because they were different I’d assumed they had recently turned, but they’d been infected long enough to find this place and come to feel it was a safe haven. Now I was really wondering what the hell was going on.

  “Big or not, I’m going in.” I said. “You two need to head back out into hill country. These canyons would be a bad place to get trapped by infected.”

  “That’s not a good idea,” Rachel said. “You don’t know how many females are in there. There may be a whole lot more that weren’t in the group that captured us. You could be walking into a whole nest of them.”

  “Then they’re going to have a problem, because I’m not leaving Katie in there.” I said.

  “How do you know that’s where they took her?” Joe asked. “Their trail faded out as soon as we got into the canyons. The female you saw could be part of a different group for all you know.”

  “What are the odds of there being another group all the way out here in the middle of nowhere?” I asked sarcastically.

  “Pretty good, actually.” Joe said, un-phased. “There’s an Osage town about ten miles to the north. Something like five thousand people, and I know for a fact none of them received the vaccine. Robert and I didn’t make it this far east when we were giving inoculations.

  Well if that wasn’t just fucking perfect. I wanted to scream with frustration, ready to charge headlong into the caverns and lose myself in a bloody orgy of killing infected. But that wasn’t the right way to go about this and rescue Katie. This wasn’t about my need to vent some anger; this was about getting her back.

  “OK, so if these aren’t the ones, where did they go?” I asked.

  “I didn’t say these weren’t the ones,” Joe answered patiently. “I simply pointed out that they might not be.”

  “You’re about as helpful as a case of the crabs,” I growled, patience almost gone.

  Rachel picked up on my mood and placed her hand on my arm. My first impulse was to shake it off, but I knew she was only trying to help. Taking a deep breath I looked away and slowly blew it out.

  “Well, unless either of you have a better suggestion, I have to go in. Without any tracks or evidence to the contrary I can’t just move on. Either she’s in there or she’s not. The only way to know for sure is for me to go in.” I looked a challenge at each of them, but neither had a response.

  I spent a few minutes preparing, finally succeeding in convincing them to go wait in the hills. Making sure I was well supplied with ammunition for the Sig, I shed my pack. Joe offered up his canteens so I would have water. Gratefully accepting them I checked both my Kukri and Ka-Bar as I planned that they would be my primary weapons once inside. Silence and stealth would be my friend.

  “Don’t suppose either of you has a very long ball of string do you?” I asked, worrying about how I would find my way out if I had to go very deep into the caverns.

  Both of them shook their heads. I scratched Dog’s ears and wrapped my arms around Rachel when she stepped into me. She hugged me, hard, gave me a quick kiss and stepped back. I nodded to Joe, who looked thoroughly confused about exactly what and with who my relationship status was, turned and moved back toward the canyon with the cavern entrance.

  26

  Moving back to the canyon I swung wide to come down the far wall in the same dark area that had kept me hidden from the female sentry. I paused to check on her body through the night vision scope, but it was still in exactly the same position in which it had come to rest when I’d shot her. Continuing my slow and careful stalk, I stopped when I was directly across from the entrance.

  Taking a long look with the scope, I could tell that after only a few feet there was a solid rock face. Adjusting my location slightly I got an angled view and saw that the path turned to the left, and that’s where my sight line ended. Suppressing my impulse to rush in, I took the time to scan the surrounding canyon for infected.

  A slow, careful survey yielded nothing I needed to worry about. Another check of the entrance and I was ready to go. Well, mostly ready to go. Few things could have convinced me to go into underground caverns. Katie was one of those few things.

  I’ve know guys that were tunnel rats in Vietnam, and more guys that chased Al Qaida in the caves of Afghanistan. I’ve heard their stories and have fought in enough different environments to understand that the odds of successfully finding my wife and getting both of us out alive were pretty damn slim. Nearly anorexic.

  Pushing these thoughts aside, I let the anger bubble up in my guts and started moving towards the entrance. The rifle was slung tightly on my back and I had a blade in each hand. Even suppressed, I didn’t want to use a firearm in the cave and alert everyone to my presence. Cold, sharp steel will kill just as effectively at close range, and a whole lot quieter as long as I didn’t give one of them time to let out a scream.

  Just inside the entrance I paused to listen before stepping around the turn. Cool, damp air flowed out of the cave, caressing my skin and bringing me the smells of human waste and an underlying muskiness that could only come from mold and fungus. Not at all unexpected for a cave.

  Airflow told me there was at least one other entrance, somewhere, and these openings allowed the caverns to breathe. This entrance had to be the lowest one. Cold air sinks and will flow out as warmer air surrounding a higher opening is pulled in.

  Hearing nothing, I stepped forward and looked around the turn. Nothing but the feeling of a large, open space, and darkness. I already couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, and hoped that the changes the virus had caused to the female’s senses didn’t allow them to see in the dark. I chided myself as soon as I had the thought. That was bad, B-movie bullshit.

  A virus isn’t going to change the spectrum of light that the human eye detects. It can, however, enhance what senses are already there and I knew from experience that the infected had near-superhuman hearing. Was that how they moved around in here?

  As I’d stood there, thinking about sensory enhanced females, my eyes had fully adjusted to the darkness. It had been night outside, but there had been some weak moonlight and starlight to see by. Exponentially darker in the cave, it had seemed perfectly black when I’d first entered, but now I realized I could see a very faint glow ahead.

  At first I thought it might be a campfire that was deeper inside the cavern, but as I looked around I could see patches of something on the rock walls that was glowing. Maybe not glowing, exactly, more like phosphorescent. There was a bluish-white hue to the light and I could now see large patches of it on the walls.

  The pale light gave me a perspective. The chamber I stood in was large, roughly circular and with a high ceiling. The fungus or lichen or mold or whatever it was that was glowing didn’t extend more than a third of the way up the walls. It was heaviest near and on the perimeter of the floor, slowly fading to nothing about ten feet off the ground. It was only growing in the coolest, dampest areas.

  Thankful for the light, I began silently stalking across the chamber floor. It was covered in loosely packed sand, which gave me another clue. Water ran through here when it rained, carrying and depositing soil as it flowed. I didn’t think this cave would be a good place to be when it was storming and the canyons began filling up with runoff from the surrounding hills.

  Ahead was a narrow opening, and the jumble of tracks on the sandy floor headed directly for it. Following them, I spotted two females. Both were lying on the ground, just to the left of the natural doorway. Asleep? Had to be. One was on her back, arms splayed out, the other about four feet away on her side, facing the wall.

  I didn’t break stride, continuing on, making sure I had a firm grip on both of my weapons. Creeping between the females, I dropped to a knee and simultaneously stabbed down with each hand. The one on her back received a blade through the front of her throat at the notch formed by her collar
bone. I stabbed directly into the other’s brain stem at the back of her exposed head. Both died in their sleep without a sound.

  Wiping the blades on their ragged clothing, I stood and stepped to the opening. The air was cooler here and the light producing organism was growing in larger and thicker patches. The next chamber was almost brightly lit compared to the one I’d just crossed, and a quick peek revealed it was much smaller and empty. Just more jumbled tracks crossing to another door that looked like it would be a tight squeeze for my shoulders.

  Moving through the natural doorway I could just detect a low frequency roar. Pausing, I listened intently, but it was a constant sound that I couldn’t identify. Crossing the chamber, I approached the next passage at an angle, happy to see it was even better lit, but unhappy to see that it was low, narrow and snaked deeper into the ground.

  Taking a breath I bent my head and continued on, shoulders brushing each wall and sending a shower of light drifting down to the soft sand I was walking on. The passage twisted and turned, and at one point I had to walk sideways and bend my knees to keep going. As I moved, I wished for a helmet. My head was bare and if I ran into a low spot in the rock ceiling, even at a slow walk, it could do some damage.

  But I didn’t have a helmet. Reminding myself to be cautious, I pushed on, noting the floor was beginning to slope down as I progressed. The sand was still nothing more than a jumble from passing feet and I had no idea if I was only dealing with the small group that had taken Katie, or if Rachel’s concern over a “nest” was going to become a reality.

  The passageway finally leveled out and opened up. I found myself in the largest chamber yet. Half a dozen females were scattered around the area, all apparently asleep. Stalking forward I hoped they were sleeping as soundly as the ones I’d already dispatched.