Given the chance, he would have picked an alien invasion over a viral outbreak. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. That’s what his mom had always said, and he was simply glad to have a roof over his head that didn’t stink of rotting flesh.
He turned away from the base and thoughts of his parents. They were gone now, but not because of the outbreak. They had died in a car accident several years before. A month later his brother had taken friendly fire to the chest in Afghanistan. His flak jacket had done little to stop the .50 cal round. A closed-casket funeral followed. Then Fitz had lost his legs in Iraq.
He was a survivor, or as he liked to refer to himself, an anomaly. The doctors told him he should have died when the IED blew off his legs. And the truth was, he had. Flatlined four times before some medic brought him back. He’d never forgotten the look on the face of the kid who saved him. It was a mixture of shock and awe.
Fitz was the lone survivor that day; the bomb had killed everyone in his Humvee.
He had come home to a different world, and with his family gone, those first few months of recovery at Walter Reed were mentally and physically grueling. He’d considered ending his life many late nights when the whiskey ran dry and he could no longer taste the cigarettes.
But he never gave up, and now he used his strength to help inspire others. When the outbreak hit, he had been giving a speech at Fort Bragg to wounded warriors just like himself.
Gripping the rifle tighter, he thought about the irony of his situation. After losing his legs, he’d found a new way to help save American lives by preventing vets just like him from committing suicide. Now he once again found a weapon in his hand—a weapon he could operate better than ninety-nine percent of the world’s population.
He stood in the darkness, listening to the breeze and slurp of the surf. A seagull swooped down toward the waves, its gray body shimmering in the moonlight. For a beat he felt like he was on vacation at some exotic island. Fitz caught a glimpse of a blinking red light on the horizon. He quickly shouldered his M24 and scanned the skyline. Holding in a breath, he zoomed in on the sleek object. A chopper filled his scope. The bird was long and wide, with double rotors. A Chinook by the looks of it. And it was in trouble. The military transport craft was flying at a low altitude, jerking from side to side.
Punching the comm, Fitz said, “Command, this is Tower 4. I have a bogey coming in hot.”
“Copy that, Tower 4. Eagle 9 has permission to land.”
Fitz magnified his optics. The nose of the chopper lurched toward the water and then corrected. Something wasn’t right. He watched for several seconds, studying the erratic behavior.
“Command, this is Tower 4.”
Static crackled over the comm. He tried again.
“Command, this is Tower 4. Do you copy? Over.”
A panicked male voice answered. “Eagle 9 reports hostiles. I repeat, pilot reports hostiles on board.” He sounded unsure, like he didn’t quite believe what he was saying.
Had the Variants suddenly learned how to fly? “Come again, Command.”
“Eagle 9 is carrying a load of Variants for research. Pilot reports—” The line cut out and Fitz dropped his jaw in shock as flashes of light lit up the porthole windows of the incoming Chinook. Bullets punched through the side of the craft.
“Oh my God,” Fitz whispered.
A new voice came online. “All towers, this is Major Smith. Eagle 9 has been compromised. Permission to engage target if they cross into home turf airspace.”
Fitz swallowed. Engage the target? Had he heard correctly?
“Command, this is Tower 4. Come again, I missed that last transmission.”
“Tower 4, if bogey crosses into airspace, you shoot them down.”
Fitz ran a hand over his helmet. Now he knew why the FIM-92 Stinger was lying in a case on the ground. The impressive piece of machinery was designed as an anti-aircraft weapon. It would take out a Chinook with ease.
Fitz hit the comm. “Copy that.” He watched the chopper. Its trajectory hadn’t changed. The craft was on a crash course with Plum Island.
Fitz cursed. First night on the job, and he was dealing with a crisis. When Major Smith had handed him his assignment, he had been ecstatic, but shooting down a chopper—even if it had hostiles on board—sent a chill down his spine. He thought of his brother and the friendly fire that had taken his life.
Friendly goddamned fire, he thought. Fitz didn’t know if he could do it.
The bird swooped low and then pulled high like the pilot was trying to shake something. More gunfire tore through the side of the bird.
Fitz rested his M24 against the wall and then reached for the case to the Stinger with urgency. He’d only fired the weapon once, back in Iraq when a suspected insurgent vehicle was racing toward their post. The Honda had burst into a flaming heap of twisted metal. It was overkill, but it ended up saving countless American and Iraqi lives.
Fitz remembered the promise he’d made to Beckham. He had to protect the island. Grabbing the launcher, he hefted it onto his shoulder. He was running out of time. The Chinook flew low over the water, on a crash course with the island.
A missile streaked out of Tower 2. The shot arced across the night and went wide, narrowly missing the tail of the craft and curving out over the ocean.
The radio came to life a second later; Major Smith’s tone was panicked and angry. “All towers, take out that fucking bird!”
Fitz aimed and waited for the sight to line up. He said a mental prayer and then pulled the trigger. The missile joined a trio of other shots that roared through the night. Dropping the launcher, he watched as two of the missiles hit the Chinook. The bird shook violently, orange explosions bursting from the nose and side of the craft.
Shielding his eyes, he braced himself against the wall of his tower as the chopper spun out of control. The rotors whined in protest. Fire rained from the shaking craft. By some miracle the pilot was able to crash-land on the tarmac. The belly hit the concrete with a crunch and then rolled on its side, screeching across the concrete. The rotor blades came apart, boomeranging in all directions. One of the shards whizzed by Tower 4 just as Fitz dropped to the deck. The small box shook and rumbled as more explosions rocked the Chinook.
Fitz pulled himself up and watched in awe. The flaming mess of ruined metal skidded across the runway, sparks and fire trailing the bird, until it finally ground to a stop.
“Jesus,” Fitz said as he took in the destruction. Grabbing his rifle, he glassed the ruined aircraft. Fire streamed out of the cockpit. One of the missiles had peeled the roof back like the skin of an orange, exposing the smoldering interior.
He lined the crosshairs up with the back of the craft. The cargo door was wide open. Another explosion sent a fireball into the air.
Something moved at the rear of the craft.
No one could have survived the crash, Fitz thought, sweeping the gun over the craft. But something was definitely moving. Silhouettes. Three of them.
No, six. Fitz felt his heart racing. He zoomed in on the smoldering bodies piling out of the back of the Chinook.
And then he saw the others.
A dozen of the creatures galloped down the runway toward the aircraft. He hadn’t seen them before, but they must have jumped out of the back when the bird was going down.
Fitz swung his rifle back toward the wreckage. Two of the creatures were still on fire, rolling on the concrete.
The screaming noise of an emergency siren wailed. Major Smith’s voice spilled over the radio, barking orders. Fitz watched as the Variants formed a group and then took off in a mad dash toward the domed buildings. Their bodies jerked as they moved, flickering in the garish light of the burning chopper.
Three seconds passed before the shock wore off. And then Fitz did what he was best at. He raised his rifle and squeezed the trigger.
“Ten missing. Two confirmed KIA,” Lieutenant Gates said with a groan from the passenger seat. “And we’re only half
way to the coordinates for our main attack.”
Beckham and Jensen sat in the backseat of the lieutenant’s Humvee, tense and nervous. Both men wanted to be out on the street with their team, not sitting in the safety of the armored vehicle. But Gates had asked for a SITREP.
The longer Beckham sat inside the cramped, dark interior of the truck, the more he wondered if Gates was actually looking for reassurance. That was something Beckham couldn’t give him. He kept silent, keeping an eye on the street as Jensen and Gates spoke.
Jensen shifted in his seat. He made no attempt to conceal his irritation. “I told General Kennor myself that there were hundreds of thousands of those things unaccounted for. The man didn’t listen.”
The convoy was fucked. They were lucky to have survived the first Variant ambush. If Beckham were in charge, he would have ordered 1st Platoon to turn, run, and call in the Air Force to blow the shit out of the subways, sewers, and every other dark hole beneath New York.
There was a vast network of tunnels snaking for hundreds of miles beneath the city. Like Rome, New York was built on top of old buildings and foundations. There was no way to know exactly where the Variants were without deploying teams. The best thing—the only thing—was to burn it down and salt the earth.
A tremor rattled the Humvee and Beckham watched through the filthy windshield as the Bradleys tag-teamed a CNN Satellite truck. Steam Beast smashed the vehicle onto the sidewalk with grace and Beckham smiled, overcome by a small sense of pride. He still couldn’t believe the young track commander had made it by the tanker a few streets back.
Gates cleared his throat. “Are we sure the Variants are hiding underground?”
Jensen played with his mustache, plucking out pieces of dry blood and flicking them onto the floor. “What do you think, Master Sergeant?”
Beckham thought he wanted to smack Gates in the face. But no matter how hard he hit him, there was no knocking sense into an inexperienced commander. Battlefield smarts wasn’t something you could magically pull from a hat. Even worse were the fuck-ups behind Operation Liberty. General Kennor and his staff had jumped the gun. To make things even worse, the acting president was so desperate to take back the streets that he had gambled with what was left of the United States military and given General Kennor the green light to do whatever he wanted.
Gritting his teeth, Beckham said, “Sir, I have no doubts. Get Central on the horn. Request an extraction and an air strike. They need to drop bombs into every fucking hole in the city.”
Gates shook his head incredulously. “I already told General Kennor. He isn’t listening. He said the other platoons are working their way to their FOBs as we speak. Maybe the Variants are only using the tunnels in Manhattan.”
“That’s bullshit. Sir.” Grabbing the door handle, Beckham clicked it open and tapped the driver seat. “Hold up.”
The Humvee rolled to a stop.
Gates shot him a glare. “Where are you going?”
“If Kennor is going to get us all killed, then I’m going to die with my men, where I belong.”
-18-
The emergency alarm system at Plum Island wailed so loud that Kate had to clap her hands over her ears. It had started seconds after a massive explosion shook the entire facility. She had still been in the conference room, polishing up the report for Cindy and Ellis to look through in the morning, when the first detonation had rocked the post.
The alarm took her back to the evacuation of the CDC headquarters in Atlanta. Plum Island no longer felt like the safe maximum-security facility Colonel Gibson had claimed it to be. Then again, she’d never really believed his bullshit.
The pop of gunfire snapped Kate into motion. She rushed into the hallway. Frightened and confused scientists poked their heads out of their rooms, their features accented by the red glow of emergency lights.
A technician from Chamber 3 stood in the middle of the hall. He grabbed Kate as she passed. “What the hell is happening?”
“I don’t know!” Kate yelled. She pushed past a woman from toxicology and swung the door open to her room. Tasha and Jenny were curled up in the corner.
“What’s that sound?” Tasha cried.
She grabbed them by the hands and then led them back into the corridor. She had no idea where she would take them or what was happening. But they couldn’t stay here. It wasn’t safe. They needed to find soldiers.
The distant crack of automatic gunfire deep in the base made her pause. The noise was getting louder and more rapid. A battle was raging outside.
Kate never considered it before, but what if a hostile force found their safe little island? Not of Variants, but of other survivors. The facility had food, water, and medicine—things people would kill for at the end of the world. The thought terrified her almost as much as the thought of Variants.
A familiar voice emerged from the screams of scared scientists. “Kate!”
Ellis was waiting for her at the end of the hallway. He beckoned to her urgently. “This way!”
Another distant explosion reverberated through the post. Panicked scientists and other civilians cried out, some slamming the doors to their rooms while others crowded the hallway in a wild frenzy. Kate pulled the girls through the mass.
“What’s happening?” she yelled when they reached Ellis.
“Follow me!”
He pushed the door open to the lobby, and they piled out onto the tile floor with a few other people from the hallway. Four soldiers waited near the front doors, their weapons aimed at the glass. Intermittent red light flickered over their stoic stances.
Outside, orange flames licked the night sky. They rose and fell from what looked like the skeleton of a large helicopter. Darkened shapes rushed away from the wreckage.
She gasped when she saw one of them was on fire. “Oh my God,” Kate whispered. The figures continued forward, leaving the burning one behind.
Flashes from machine guns illuminated the armored fatigues of Marines on the edge of the tarmac.
“Variants,” Ellis whispered.
“Hold the line!” one of the Marines guarding the door shouted into his headset.
Tasha let out a whimper, and the man twisted his helmet in their direction. “Get back! Return to your rooms!”
Kate retreated a few steps, but Ellis stood his ground. His eyes were glued to the chaos.
Gunfire lit up the runway. Several of the creatures racing away from the chopper dropped to the ground. But more shapes appeared, charging at the Marines.
The flashes from the rifles vanished one by one, like candles blown out by a strong breath. The Variants overwhelmed the line of Marines and then pushed on into the darkness.
“Move!” shouted the Marine at the front door. He waved his team back to the atrium’s central desk. They shoved a computer monitor and stacks of paper onto the floor and set up their machine guns.
He turned to Kate. “I said get the fuck out of here!”
Kate glanced down at Tasha and Jenny. “Remember that game you wanted to play earlier?”
“Hide and go seek?”
“Yes,” Kate whispered. “We’re going to hide.”
Fitz scoped the runway. He’d taken out three of the Variants himself and the Marines dropped another three before they were overrun. That left another dozen—and they were on their way toward the civilian buildings. He had to stop the monsters before they reached Building 1.
“Why the fuck would they bring so many to the island?” Fitz muttered. It seemed stupid, but he figured the scientists had their reasons. Throwing the strap of the rifle over his shoulder, he grabbed the railing and climbed to the ground. Gunfire cracked in the distance. The reassuring sound told him there were still Marines left in the fight.
Fitz followed the trail back to the base, running as fast as he could on his metal blades. They clicked on the concrete as he moved, filling him with an odd satisfaction. Years ago, when he’d arrived at Walter Reed Medical Facility, he never thought he would walk
again. A couple months later he wasn’t just walking, he was running.
Darkness shrouded him as he made his way across the island. He clung to the shadows and flipped his NVG into place, probing the green-hued path for contacts. The street twisted around the north edge of the tarmac. He slowed to a trot as the glistening pools of blood around the Marines came into focus. He could feel the heat of the fire raging behind him, small explosions still rocking the downed Chinook.
Fitz didn’t stop to check the bodies. He knew they were all dead. The Variants never left injured behind. They would be back, though, after they’d killed everyone on the base. They would return to feed and drag the bodies away. He couldn’t do anything for the dead Marines, but he could still save Kate and Horn’s girls. Fitz spat on the concrete and ran faster.
“Wait up!”
The guard from Tower 3 was jogging behind him. The man was heavyset and panted loudly as he ran. Fitz had met him just hours before but couldn’t remember his name.
“Hurry up, man,” Fitz shouted.
“Where are you going?”
“Building 1. That’s where those things were headed.”
“Shit. No way those things get in.”
Fitz shot the man a look as he ran. “Have you seen the way they move? They’re not exactly easy to bring down either.”
The Medical Corps guard wheezed. “No.”
“Better prepare yourself,” Fitz said.
The other man changed the subject. “What’s your name?”
“Fitz.”
“Cole.”
Fitz filed it away, focusing on the night around them as they moved across the base.
A few minutes later, they arrived outside Building 1. One of the creatures lay in a twisted heap on the concrete steps, clutching a bullet wound on its neck. Blood gurgled from its grotesque sucker mouth. The injured Variant swiped at them with its other hand.
Cole aimed his carbine at the monster’s face, but Fitz pushed the muzzle away.
Extinction Edge (The Extinction Cycle Book 2) Page 20