by Dirk Patton
Katie was on her feet before I got to her, holding her hand out to me. As I reached for her I felt the dizziness return. Fight over, the adrenaline was dissipating out of my system and by the time I touched Katie’s hand I had to drop to my knees to keep from falling flat on my face. She knelt beside me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders to stop me from pitching over and Dog trotted up, sticking his bloody muzzle in my face.
42
“We’re going where?” Rachel asked when Scott’s conversation with Captain Blanchard ended.
“Ponca City,” he said, staring at the navigation display to his right.
“Northwest of here,” Joe said, moving to look over Scott’s shoulder. “Why are we going there?”
“Your lab at the University looks like it’s damaged, plus there’s about a billion infected heading for Oklahoma City.” He said, scrolling the map. Finding the small town, he selected it with the mouse and the system generated a route for them to follow. “Irina, new destination on your screen.”
A minute later they all held on as she whipped them through a turn and accelerated along their new route. Swiveling his seat around, Scott faced the two passengers.
“They located Dr. Kanger. He says, with both of you helping, he can engineer a Terminator virus. But he needs the right facility, and with the one at the University out of commission they didn’t have many to choose from. He settled on one in Seattle called…” Scott paused to look at his notes. “The Allen Institute. Ever heard of it?”
“Yes,” Joe said without hesitation. “Paul Allen started it.”
“The Paul Allen that helped found Microsoft? That Paul Allen?” Rachel asked.
“That’s the one.” Joe nodded.
“I thought he owned sports teams.” Scott said. “The Seahawks, right?”
“Yes, but he also spends millions of his own money on biological research. He’s one of the good guys. The Allen Institute is actually the Allen Institute for Cell Science. Cutting edge research and approaches to understanding every different type of cell in the human body. From what I’ve read they’re actually better equipped than the CDC was. Working there means you’re at the top of your field.” Joe explained.
“I still don’t understand what this town we’re going to has to do with Seattle.” Rachel said.
“Tinker’s cut off. They’ve had some problems and the infected are close to breaching the perimeter fence. They’re probably going to fall before the evacuation is complete.” Scott said, pausing long enough to check the nav display. Satisfied Irina had them on their route he turned back to Rachel and Joe, giving Irina a moment to finish translating for Igor over the intercom before he continued.
“Dr. Kanger is onboard an Air Force F-15, being flown to Washington State. There’s already a SEAL team on the way to Seattle to secure the facility and be ready for his arrival. The Navy has a plane on the way to pick you two up, and the closest airport with a long enough runway that is clear of infected is at Ponca City. I’m supposed to get you two there so you can be flown to Seattle to assist Dr. Kanger.” Scott watched Rachel as he finished speaking, expecting resistance from the stubborn woman.
“What about John and Katie? And Dog?” Rachel asked.
“We’re not going with you,” Scott answered. “Once you two are safely in the Navy’s hands, we’re going to find them. The satellite that spotted you is still looking. If he’s out there, it’ll find him.”
Rachel turned and stared at the metal wall a few feet in front of her. She understood enough about how viruses worked that she believed there was a very real possibility that a weapon could be created that would destroy the infected. She also understood that her help wasn’t needed for the actual engineering efforts, rather her familiarity with lab equipment.
But did they really need her? There had to be someone else equally qualified that could fill the role of lab assistant. She looked up at Scott and started to open her mouth, but he was prepared and cut her off.
“Colonel Crawford said to tell you that you don’t have to like it, you just have to do it.” He said. “My orders are to make sure you two get on that plane. It’s not open for discussion.”
“I’m not in the goddamn military! You can’t order me to do something!” Rachel said, anger flashing in her eyes.
“No you’re not, and before the attacks he couldn’t have forced you to do anything. Now? Everyone has a job to do if we’re going to survive.” Scott replied in a calm voice.
Rachel seethed, but held her tongue. She knew Scott was right, but she still didn’t understand why it was so important that she went to Seattle. Then it hit her. Colonel Crawford was protecting her. Joe was important. He had to go. Rachel knew she could contribute, but also knew that anyone who had worked in a hospital lab was just as qualified as she was.
If Crawford didn’t send her to Seattle, she’d be left out on the Oklahoma prairie with millions of infected bearing down on the area. With no way to get back onto Tinker and leave with the evacuees. The same fate that Scott, Irina and Igor were facing. He was doing what he could to save her life.
The anger flowed out of her, replaced by profound sorrow. She didn’t see how anyone left behind could possibly survive once the herds arrived. Scott, Igor and Irina might hold out for a while inside the Bradley, but the prospects for their long-term survival were poor. And what about John, Katie and Dog?
They might be dead already, she told herself. As fucking indestructible as John was, the odds he’d faced going into the caverns after his wife were daunting. Sure, he’d proven he could survive where most would have given up, but she knew that sooner or later his number would come up.
Heart breaking as she thought about him, she hung her head and blinked tears away. Finally she lifted her head, looked at Scott and nodded.
“I’ll find him,” Scott said, eyes locked on hers. “And I’ll make sure he knows where you are.”
“Just tell him I’m OK, and that I hope he and Katie are alright. I don’t want him coming after me.” Rachel said, sniffing back tears and drying her cheeks.
Maybe this was exactly the break and the clean start she needed. As much as it hurt to think about never seeing him again, Rachel knew she would just be a third wheel with Katie back in John’s life. If they were even still alive. If they weren’t, there was nothing holding her here. If they were, then the last thing Katie would want is her hanging around.
And, Rachel had to admit to herself, it was the last thing she wanted too. Always on the outside, watching the man she was in love with as he moved on with someone else. She couldn’t put herself through that. So she’d go to Seattle and work her ass off to help save what was left of the world. They’d either pull it off and she could go start a new life somewhere, or they’d fail, in which case things were just going to keep getting worse until there weren’t any survivors and the infected would rule the planet.
43
They drove for close to two hours, no one talking other than an occasional comment between Scott and Irina related to their progress. Rachel sat in her own silence, in no mood to talk to anyone about anything.
“Sun’s coming up,” Scott’s voice roused her from her thoughts. “We’re approaching the southeastern edge of town.”
“How does it look?” Joe asked, stretching muscles that were cramped from sitting in the tight space and being bounced around like a Ping-Pong ball by Irina’s aggressive driving.
“Quiet,” Scott said with his eyes pressed to the periscope. “Abandoned. At least so far. How many people lived here?”
“Maybe 25,000,” Joe said after thinking for a moment.
“We’ve been passing infected for the past hour that are streaming south towards Tinker, but nowhere near that many. Maybe they evacuated.” Scott said.
“Or maybe they all turned and they’re just sitting around waiting for a bunch of idiots to show up for breakfast.” Rachel said.
Igor snorted a laugh after Irina translated her comment for him. Rachel
looked up at him and couldn’t help but grin. John’s sarcasm had rubbed off on her.
“Nice and easy, Irina. No need to go blasting through town. We’re early. The Navy isn’t supposed to be here for another hour.” Scott said.
Irina said something in Russian that brought a big snort of laughter from Igor, but a moment later the noise and vibration reduced as she slowed the heavy vehicle. Scott chose to ignore her, splitting his attention between the periscope and the navigation display.
“Joe, do you know where the airport is? It’s not showing on the map.” Scott said a minute later.
“Northwest of town.” He said. “Let me see where we are and I’ll tell you how to get there.”
Scott looked around, then nodded and vacated the vehicle commander’s seat. “Just don’t touch that,” he said, pointing at a control station for the Bradley’s weapons.
Joe slid into the seat and looked through the periscope. After a few minutes he climbed down and faced Scott.
“Stay on this road. Soon we’ll cross a river and it will end. Turn left and follow that road to Waverly Street. Turn right and go about four or five miles and you’ll see the airport.” He said.
Scott relayed the directions to Irina as he climbed back into his seat. Soon, Rachel could hear a difference in the sound of the treads on the road surface and she assumed they were crossing a bridge over the river Joe had mentioned. Her suspicion was confirmed when less than a minute later Irina slowed then cranked the Bradley through a left turn.
They hadn’t gone far when Igor said something, adjusting his periscope as he spoke. A moment later the turret whined as he traversed it to aim the chain gun to their rear.
“We’re being followed,” Irina translated.
Scott looked through the rear facing scope, adjusting the optics to compensate for the rising sun. “Two pickups. Loaded with armed men.”
“White or Indian?” Joe asked quickly.
“White. I think. Hard to tell with the sun filter engaged.” Scott said after a minute of watching.
“Igor wants to know what you want to do.” Irina said. “He thinks we should open fire and disable their vehicles.”
“No. Hold fire.” Scott said, thinking. “They’re just following, not doing anything aggressive.”
“Exactly what could they do against us that would be aggressive?” Rachel asked, trying hard to keep the note of sarcasm out of her voice.
“More ahead,” Irina said before Scott could answer. “They’re not blocking the road, but they’re tracking us. You sure you want them following us to the airport?”
Scott didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure what to do, having never been placed in a position where he had to make the tough decision of whether or not to be the first to engage in a fight. Once the call was made he was a fearsome warrior, but he was quickly learning that making the decisions wasn’t nearly as easy as it had always appeared. How the hell did the Major make it seem so effortless?
“Stay on course,” he finally said. “If they give us a reason, we’ll do what we have to.”
“When we were on our way to the casino to get Katie, we had to fight some local cops.” Rachel said. “They were scared and sure we had some vaccine or a way to get some. That may be what’s going on.”
Scott thought about what she said, then shook his head. “We wait until we have to fight. They aren’t doing anything other than seeing what we’re up to.”
Everyone stayed quiet, not arguing with him, but it was clear they didn’t agree. Irina held their speed steady down the perfectly straight road. They passed two more intersections where trucks loaded with men watched them roll through. Igor kept up a steady scan, routinely adjusting the turret to send a message to the locals.
They made a right turn on Waverly, half a dozen heavily loaded pickups trailing in their wake. Two more trucks fell in behind them as they approached the airport. Everyone was tense, sweating as the armored vehicle began to heat from the sun. Scott and Igor were watching to their rear when Irina suddenly swerved and began shouting curses in Russian.
There was a hard impact followed by a grinding sound all along their right side. Scott changed his view, cursing along with Irina when he saw a civilian armored car driving next to them. It had roared out of a side street, striking the front corner of the Bradley before turning to drive next to them as its driver tried to force them off the road.
Igor didn’t wait for orders, rotating the turret and firing a long burst from the chain gun. Civilian armored cars are well protected against the armaments that criminals can get their hands on. They aren’t even close to being able to withstand military grade firepower.
The 25 mm slugs tore through the thick skin of their attackers’ vehicle and chewed up everything and everyone inside. With a twitch of the half-moon shaped steering wheel, Irina bumped the side of the armored car and with no one left alive inside to steer, it was sent careening across the street where it crashed into the front of a small donut shop.
Igor turned the gun back to the rear but the trucks had come to a stop, watching them drive away. He activated the chain gun again, putting a short burst into the asphalt in front of the stopped pickups. The pavement was shredded, chunks breaking free and flying into the air.
“Cease fire,” Scott said. “I think they got the message.”
Igor had already stopped firing, nodding when Irina translated.
44
Marine Colonel James Pointere stood in a large open field adjacent to a runway, facing most of the surviving members of the Marine Expeditionary Unit. He had just come from Colonel Crawford’s office where they had discussed the few options that remained available to them. Only one option, was what Pointere had quickly realized.
Pointere wasn’t a speaker. He knew that. No rousing, motivational speeches from him for his men. Just a no bullshit assessment of what they were facing.
“The infected are pressing in faster than expected,” he began, shouting so that everyone could hear him. His words were punctuated by distant screams and gunfire as the Air Force and several Ranger platoons held the perimeter.
“We’ve lost one of the crop dusters, and the rate at which the locals are turning is accelerating. There’s not enough time to completely evacuate. The second wave just left a couple of hours ago, which means six hours until those aircraft are back and ready to start loading the third wave.”
He paused as a pair of F-15s roared down the runway to his rear. The two fighters leapt into the air, long tongues of flame behind them as the pilots kept them at full afterburner. They were still in sight when two booms rattled every window on the base as they broke the sound barrier.
“That,” Pointere pointed in the direction the planes had gone, “is a scientist on his way to a research facility. There’s a plan to fight the virus and defeat the infected.”
There was a murmur of excited voices and hopeful expressions appeared throughout the assembled Marines.
“But that won’t happen fast or easy,” Pointere said quickly. “Not fast enough to save the people trying to evacuate from this base. That’s up to us.”
He began pacing, looking at the faces of all the Marines staring back at him. “There’s only one way these civilians are going to make it onto planes and those planes get off the ground. That’s if someone stays behind and holds the infected back until the last wave is in the air.”
Pointere stopped, meeting the eyes of several men sitting in the shade of a LAV. Turning, he started retracing his steps until he was centered in front of his men.
“Fox Company in Korea. Khe Sanh in Vietnam. Marines don’t run. We dig in and fight. We hold the motherfucking ground that others can’t!” He roared as choruses of Oorah broke out, loud enough to drown out the sounds of the battle at the fence. With a grim expression on his face Pointere held his hands up for silence.
“I’m asking for volunteers,” he said when the shouts died down. “I’m staying, but I’m not ordering anyone to stay with me. Fi
ghting men will be needed in Nassau. Anyone that wants to go, there’s room on the planes in the last wave. Each of you needs to decide. I’ve made my decision, but I won’t think less of anyone that chooses to evacuate.”
As if coordinated, every single Marine in the field got to his feet and came to attention. After a moment a grizzled First Sergeant took one step forward and snapped up a salute.
“Sir!” He shouted in a booming, parade ground voice. “Request permission for the men of the 20th Marine Expeditionary Unit to join you in defense of this installation. Sir!”
Pointere stood there, looking across the ranks of his Marines, pride threatening to burst his chest. With tears forming in his eyes he snapped to attention and shouted, “Permission granted, First Sergeant!” He returned the salute and was reaching up to wipe his eyes when there was a shout from his left.
“Sir! Request permission for the men of the 5th Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment to join you in defense of this installation. Sir!” Captain Blanchard, leading five hundred Rangers stood at attention, holding a salute.
Pointere looked at the Ranger Captain, smiled as he turned to fully face him before responding and returning the salute. Stepping forward he extended his hand, Blanchard shaking it.
“All your men know we’re not getting out of here?” He asked in a low voice.
“With all due respect, sir, we just couldn’t let you Jar Heads have all the fun.” Blanchard answered.
Pointere laughed and clapped him on the shoulder, turning and calling over a Marine Captain to introduce the two men. Sending them on their way to coordinate the integration of the Rangers with the Marines, he looked around as NCOs began working to get the men organized and ready to protect the base until the last civilian was in the air.
Noticing a Humvee sitting fifty yards away in the field, he held up a hand to shield his eyes from the morning sun. Recognizing Colonel Crawford he walked over, the Colonel meeting him half way.