“Nah. You think that sick morbidly obese staffer is playing for the bad guys like some sort of double agent?” Steele asked.
“Let’s take care of it before people freak out. Show off a little physical prowess for Crystal, see if we can make her layover a special one.”
“Jesus, you’re a horn dog.”
A man sitting in the back row watched the scuffle carefully from his seat. The flight attendants had the woman’s arms pinned, but she strained her neck outwards, trying to bite them as if she were possessed by the devil. The lady writhed in the grasp of the two older women. It was go time.
Crouching low, he moved fast up the aisle, converging on the fighting party. Better to play the concerned passenger until he had to out himself. He reached down, grabbing the woman’s hand and throwing his weight into an arm bar from behind. The woman’s head slammed into the seat in front of her and she growled under his weight.
Mauser watched his back. Standard contact cover protocol.
The woman was much stronger than she looked. She squirmed and wiggled under his grasp, and he soon felt his hold sliding on her slick clammy skin. He weighed more than two hundred pounds and had immense strength; there was no way this lady should be evading him for an instant. Her other arm broke free and she yanked his shirt toward her. Then another man was there, forcing her head down.
“I’m a Diplomatic Security Agent,” he hissed.
The man was average all around, but Steele appreciated his intervention. The agent held the woman tightly from behind her seat.
“Thanks,” Steele grunted.
“Nixon’s the name,” he replied as they struggled to gain control of the woman.
“Ma’am, remain calm,” Steele shouted. Quietly, he said: “I am a federal law enforcement official. Please cooperate.”
The woman showed no acknowledgement of his authority continuing to jerk her head spasmodically, trying to extricate herself.
“Let’s see if we can get her cuffed up,” Steele grunted at Nixon, as more calls for help sprung up a few rows ahead of them.
Steele glimpsed forward. Now what? Am I wrong? Is this a ruse? Is some terrorist going to jump out of his seat and try to slit my throat?
He refocused, the woman still squirming beneath him. “Ma’am, remain calm,” he yelled again with no effect.
Steele squinted his vision impeded by the low light of the cabin. Two people scuffled in the seats. A middle-aged male staffer had driven himself against the skin of the aircraft, trying to escape the short haired nurse. She clawed through his shirt, her nails raking skin from his chest.
“Please stop,” the man cried out, trying to keep the nurse away from him. He tried to shove her away, but she persistently dug at him like a crazed dog.
“Mauser, will you check that out?”
Nixon gawked at Steele, his eyes wide. “We have to get back. These people are infected. They’ll kill us if you don’t shoot them.”
Steele stared at him as though he were batshit crazy. What the hell is wrong with this guy?
“What do you mean?” Steele asked assertively as the woman continued to struggle in his grasp. Just give up and quit already. She would never escape them on this plane.
“No place to go lady. So you might as well give up.” His words had zero effect.
Nixon retreated backwards releasing the woman. “If an infected person bites you, you’re toast, man. My partner was bitten in Kinshasa, and let’s just say the end result was bad for the both of us.”
Steele continued to eyeball Nixon. “What do you mean bitten?” It sounded to him like Nixon referenced a diseased animal. Precious seconds ticked away as he contemplated whether or not he should trust the man.
Is this guy for real? I have no idea if this guy is a federal agent. He fit the description and had put the right restraining hold on the woman, but he also sounded crazy. Steele’s gut told him the man told the truth. “Mauser, stay back. They’re sick,” he shouted.
Mauser helped Steele and they zip tied her and hauled the woman up, using her restrained arms as leverage. Together they dragged her to the back of the aircraft. Steele kept a hand on her neck as they walked her forward to stop her twisting her head from side to side. Passengers leaned away from the aisle as he pushed her forward. They acted as if she had the plague. People covered their mouths, shying away in fear.
He set the lady face down in the rear galley, as gently as possible. Gotta keep the lawyers happy. She flapped about like a fish out of water. Crystal covered her mouth, cowering in the corner.
Steele put a knee into the center of her back. “Ma’am, I have to control you until you stop trying to bite us. Can somebody get me something to gag her with? Crystal, you got any duct tape?”
She nodded, rummaging through a galley cabinet.
Mauser hopped on his cell phone, radioing the team up front.
The cabin spiraled out of control. Steele turned his body to see the rest of the passengers. The nurse leapt on another man, who watched in horror as the carnage unfolded.
“Somebody stop her,” screeched a woman. Enraged cries carried through the cabin.
Tuning them out, he rounded on Nixon.
“What is all this ‘infected’ talk about? Are these people sick?” Steele asked angrily. If it was an airborne illness like tuberculosis Steele most likely already had it, in more ways than one.
Nixon balked. “Listen, you don’t know what’s going on here. These infected people are incredibly dangerous. You have to shoot them in the head or they won’t stop trying to kill us until we’re all dead,” said Nixon, who paled like he’d seen a ghost.
This guy’s gone off the deep end. “Dude, you’re fucking crazy.” He felt as though he had been thrown into the loony bin.
“Mauser, what’s the word from the front?”
Mauser looked back, cell phone held to his ear. “Wheeler wants us to use extreme caution when dealing with these people. He said the ones that are infected are highly contagious, and they spread the disease through oral transmission.”
“Infected? How do we know they’re infected? Oral transmission? He means biting?”
Mauser smiled. “No idea, but they don’t look like the kissing type.”
“See. She’s infected,” Nixon said, pointing at the woman. Her head turned to the side revealing dead white eyes while her mouth curved in a wicked snarl.
“That’s how this all started. The virus makes them cannibals,” Nixon said, closing his mouth when Steele glared at him.
So everybody’s lost it. Either that or Nixon was telling the truth. Did that mean he was telling the truth about shooting the infected people in the head?
“Come over here and restrain her.”
Nixon hesitated. “You should shoot her.”
“Fucking restrain her.”
Nixon took Steele’s place. How the hell am I supposed to get control of this situation?
Mauser and Steele drew their SIG Sauer P226s, their tactical badges out. The badges swung on chains, resting at the center of their chests like superhero emblems. They moved up to the lavatories, taking stock of the cabin.
The cabin descended into utter chaos. Bloodcurdling screams buffeted the agents. The nurse rose up from behind a seat. Vital red liquid ran down her mouth in a seamless blanket of crimson to her fingertips. Her eyes were dull lacking pigment in the irises, instead a milky hue clouded them. She looked like she belonged on the set of a horror film not on a flight into the United States. She ambled toward them letting out a low moan.
“Ma’am, stay back. Put your hands on your head and turn around. Do it now,” Mauser commanded.
The nurse did not show any comprehension that Mauser gave her direct orders. Ten rows away, she used seats to stabilize herself as she propelled forward to the agents, reaching out with bloodstained fingers.
“Is she drunk?” Mauser asked.
“If she’s drunk, she’s the most messed up drunk person I’ve ever seen,” Steele rep
lied.
Mauser moved his gun into the low ready.
“I can’t do it.” Mauser holstered up and slung out his baton with a fluid sliding motion. Cha-chink.
“You actually carry that thing?”
“I knew I’d get to use it someday.” Mauser widened his stance and squared his shoulders moving into a striking position. Twirling the metal baton, he held it near his ear, ready to strike downward.
The baton was formidable as an intermediate weapon. The sound alone could scare somebody enough to comply with an agent’s commands.
“Stay back,” he yelled. He performed an overhand strike to the woman’s upper arm.
Mauser stepped into his backhand swing targeting her other arm, a non-lethal hit zone. She took the blow like a practice dummy, showing neither pain or annoyance. Unfazed by the strike, she took a wild swipe at Mauser’s face. Dodging backwards, he wielded the baton into the woman’s upper thigh with a loud thwack. She collapsed in a heap.
“Stay down,” he screamed at her. Aggression was a key component of compliance. The more aggressive the better until the situation was under control. She rotated her head up slowly, blood running down her lips.
The nurse crawled to her feet, and with a burst of sudden speed, she lunged for him.
Mauser swung downward at her arms and was rewarded with a loud crack.
Damn. Mauser had a lawsuit coming his way.
He had snapped her forearm like a twig. Her arm bent at ninety degree angle lacking the structure to maintain uniformity. Eerily, she emitted no cry of pain, as if it never happened.
“Jesus,” Steele cussed. He watched helplessly from the back galley. There was no protocol for a situation like this. The woman was impervious to any sort of physical trauma.
Passengers ran down the other aisle. Shit.
Steele addressed them, “Keep your hands on your heads. Move slowly.” The people huddled against one another in the back galley.
“Shoot them! Shoot them! They are killing everyone,” mumbled a man, pointing down the aisle.
Steele was stuck in limbo. Too much happened all at once, and they were losing control. I’m not sure we ever had control. He verged on Jeff Cooper’s Combat Mindset code red – the zone in which he would have to take someone’s life – and if he wasn’t careful he would blast past code red and hit code black, in which he would probably die, frozen in fear, frozen in death.
Steele began losing his auditory abilities as Nixon continued to struggle with the restrained lady on the ground. Muffled cries for help tumbled from side to side in Steele’s head.
The man in the galley kept pointing down the aisle and screaming, and Mauser went down as the nurse tackled him to the ground, his gun still holstered. Before his back impacted the airplane aisle carpet, the crazed woman pounced upon him. Mashing her teeth, she drove her face close to his. Blood and saliva dripped from her mouth onto Mauser’s face. Steele just watched in indecisive horror.
Mauser got his baton up across her neck, pushing her away from his face. “What the fuck, lady?”
Her throat crunched inward, the muscles of her neck the only thing keeping her head attached to her body. Red fingernails met his cheek, her unbroken arm tearing at his face over and over.
“Steele, help,” Mauser barely forced out.
Like a power surge, everything came back. Steele changed his mindset to action. It was time to move with direct purpose. Commands flowed from him like a practiced script.
“Help him. Hold her down,” he yelled. He lined up his sights on the woman’s forehead. A cake shot from less than three yards.
Is this the right decision? Should I take this woman’s life? She has already grievously assaulted other people. She attacked Mauser, but she doesn’t have a weapon. If someone with an infectious disease bites you, is that not an assault with a deadly weapon? A million other thoughts raced through his mind second-guessing his plan of attack.
“Shoot her!” Nixon yelled from behind. “Shoot her!”
There was no time to think. He pressed the trigger evenly, not knowing when the gun would go off, but certain that it would. A trigger press must be smooth and never overly fast. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast, he repeated in his mind over and over.
He had probably shot more than twenty thousand rounds during his career as a counterterrorism agent. These shots had been discharged during multiple scenarios, under varying levels of stress, and during the Tactical Pistol Assessments, as well as Close Quarters Combat Carbine Qualifications for which the CT agents had the highest qualifying standard for federal law enforcement. Other organizations argued that technically they weren’t regular law enforcement so they shouldn’t count, but they had badges. They had sworn oaths. The difference being that their mission was highly specialized for the law enforcement community and was blended with the military, making them highly effective, tactically speaking.
Due to their high standards and willingness to go hot, counterterrorism agents had been labeled wild gunslingers. They were willing to attempt shots from just about anywhere with extreme prejudice and definitive accuracy. But when one had to engage a bad guy through a sea of heads, he knew he couldn’t afford to miss. Steele almost never missed in target practice. Most of the other agents had engaged threats in the field, but Steele had never been put into that situation. This time it was for real. Life and death were mere centimeters underneath the pad of his fingertip.
The woman’s brains blew out the back of her head. Mauser looked shocked as he wrestled with a lighter, now partially headless corpse. He tossed her off him and bounded upright back to his partner, gun drawn.
Steele had just killed another human being. He would have to answer to the scrutiny of the courts for his action, and to the woman’s family as to whether or not he had made a mistake. If deemed a mistake, it would haunt him and his family for the rest of their lives. Even if it wasn’t a mistake, he could still be bankrupt by savvy defense lawyers, an all to common occurrence.
He physically shook it off. Thinking too much about one’s actions could cause hesitation when making future decisions, so he tried to push it out of his mind. Move forward with the mission.
Technically, since he wasn’t a doctor, he couldn’t pronounce a person dead, but with the top part of her head no longer in existence, he was pretty sure.
“She tried to bite my face,” Mauser stated in disbelief. “Seriously bro, this is fucked up.” Mauser scanned the rear of the aircraft.
High-pitched ding-dongs jingled as Mauser’s phone went off, interspersed with the screams of passengers. In the darkness, Steele couldn’t identify clear targets to engage. It was a shadowy nightmare.
“Flight attendant, hit the lights,” he shouted at Crystal, who cowered in the corner. She nodded, tapping a screen on the wall. Nothing happened.
“Nothing’s working. The captain must have it locked,” she said frantically pressing buttons over and over.
“It’s okay,” Steele said. He tried not to think about what was happening out there.
“That was Wheeler. He said they’ve secured the subject, and he wants us to move up to provide support. He said to leave everyone else behind, and to grab Andrea on the way.”
“Why? Where’s Andrea?” Steele asked urgently.
“I don’t know, but she’s not with them.”
Steele felt a spike of adrenaline in his chest. He hoped she was safe, but he feared the worst. “We can’t just leave these people here alone. They’ll get torn apart.”
Mauser’s face strained. “I know, bro. We need everyone to calm the fuck down,” Mauser said, waving his hands in their direction.
A crowd of people had congregated in the back galley including a big Congolese soldier with blood covered hands. This was a tactical nightmare for the two counterterrorism agents.
Mauser spoke loudly: “We need everyone to follow us, single file, up the aisle to the front. We’ll be safe there.”
He glanced over at Steele, who nodd
ed. “We got this.” They weren’t going to let people die. It was inherently built in them to protect.
“I’ll take rear security,” Mauser said.
“You would,” Steele said with a small smile, showing a spark of confidence that he wasn’t feeling. “I’ll lead the way.”
Steele stepped in front of the group and shouted over to Mauser, “Moving.”
“Move,” Mauser replied, acknowledging his request to begin tactical movement.
Steele surged forward. He would have much rather been ‘nuts to butts’ with Mauser in a two-man stack, but the people in between them prevented appropriate tactics. A ‘stack’ was an operating term that law enforcement and military units use to tactically assault and clear rooms and buildings, predominately in urban close-quarter combat settings. The stack allows the best 360-degree coverage of an area and provides for as many guns as possible to be pointed down range at any given time. Ideally, they would have loved to form a stack, but nothing about this situation was ideal.
They both shouted, “Hands up, heads down,” as they moved forward. Compliance was out the window, but this way the passengers wouldn’t jump them thinking they were terrorists. The lights flickered in the cabin but remained off. It felt like a horrible haunted house, only its evil patrons were real.
Steele pulled his flashlight from his waistband shining it left and right. He flashed it intermittently so it would be difficult for anyone to zero in on his location.
“Please help,” someone called out.
“No, please no. Get away,” shouted another.
Steele kept moving forward. He tuned the calls for help and the moans of the dead out of his head.
Steele stepped over a body in the aisle. The mangled corpse stared up at him with glassy eyes. “Body,” he called out to Mauser as he stepped over it. They moved quickly to the first bulkhead.
Quickly, he checked his corners and a hand pulled him toward the wall surprising him. A portly, bearded man in a bloodied suit leaned forward, trying to bite Steele’s neck. Steele rammed an elbow into the man’s throat, an instinctual reaction.
End Time Page 13