HOT ZONE: A Post-Apocalyptic Pandemic Thriller (The Zulu Virus Chronicles Book 1)

by Steven Konkoly

  Chang cursed under his breath, unsure what to do, until a crazy idea hit him. Bat-shit crazy as some might say, but entirely possible and relatively risk-free. Even if it didn’t work, he was no worse off than he was right now. He had to give it a try. If it worked, Greenberg’s new friends might be able to make some sense of who was behind these attacks.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Sitting against a thick tree trunk in the forest a few hundred yards north of his house, Chang monitored the four-person team with his smart phone. After gathering together briefly, three of them sprinted for the nearest cluster of ornamental grasses while the remaining team member walked toward the back patio—holding the tablet by his side. Based on the soldier’s interaction with the rest of the team and his willingness to approach the house alone, he assumed this was the team leader. Chang studied him carefully as he continued toward the house, neither of his hands touching the rifle slung across his chest.

  Who the hell were these people? At first he had assumed they were some kind of assassination team, but now he wasn’t sure. They didn’t act like one, or how he expected one to act. Then again, what did he know? Four heavily armed assassins probably wouldn’t consider Chang any kind of threat, and maybe that was what he was seeing reflected in their attitudes. Either way, he wasn’t going anywhere near the house. Not until his trap was sprung.

  Hands slippery with sweat, he quickly navigated to the security system control panel and disabled the exterior, motion-sensor-activated lights. Next, he shut down the home’s positive pressurization system and remotely unlocked the mudroom door facing the rear of the house, leaving the sliding doors locked. Chang didn’t want to make it too easy or obvious. If he did this right, not only would he get his house back, he might get some answers.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Larsen reached the edge of an elaborate stone patio, a point where the motion detectors couldn’t possibly miss him. He could see the sensors attached to the lights. It was starting to look more and more like Chang hadn’t been here for a while. Why else would you leave the exterior lights off? At the sliding door, Larsen kneeled and looked inside, cupping his hands around his face. The interior was completely dark except for moonlight entering from the floor-to-ceiling windows. He lowered his night-vision goggles and pressed the front lens opening against the glass, forming a seal with the rubber.

  He had a clear view to a kitchen, seeing nothing out of place on the spacious kitchen island or counters. Everywhere he looked was the same. Like nobody lived in the house, or whoever lived there was a meticulous neat freak. Larsen tried to move the patio slider, unsurprised when it didn’t budge. He looked down the side of the house toward the garage, seeing a door without a window just beyond the patio.

  “Dix, move the team up to the house. I don’t see any signs of life inside. I think we’ll pop open the door by the garage.”

  “Copy. Moving the team up.”

  Larsen walked along the house, stepping down off the patio and approaching the door. He crouched next to the entrance and waited for the team to arrive, examining the nearest light fixture. This one was different than the others. He stood up to get a better view, surprised to see a camera installed above the lights. The camera was pointed right at him, which made sense, since it covered the back door. He wondered if the cameras were deactivated, too. The team arrived in a tight formation, stacking up along the stone wall behind him.

  “No window?” said Dixon, staring at the door with a perplexed look.

  “I know. It’s a little strange,” said Larsen. “But I don’t see any windows on the garage, either. It doesn’t matter. We’ll keep kicking doors down until we get inside the house. Be absolutely sure it’s empty. If this isn’t a drill and something really fucked is going on out there, Chang could be playing it really safe. Making it look like he’s not here. We have to assume he’s here until we determine otherwise. Peck, you want to do the honors?”

  “Fuck yeah,” said Peck, standing up and moving next to him.

  Larsen shifted his rifle into the ready position and nodded at Peck, who stepped in front of the door and gave the kind of front kick that could cave a man’s chest in. The door, however, didn’t budge, and Peck toppled into the bushes behind him.

  “Motherfucker!” yelled Peck. “That door is solid steel. Jesus!”

  “Shhhhh,” said Dixon. “Quiet the fuck down.”

  “What does it matter?” said Peck, getting back to his feet. “Nobody’s home.”

  “You want to hit it again?” said Larsen. “Or are we looking at a demo charge? You hit that thing harder than hard, and I didn’t hear it give at all.”

  “It didn’t,” said Peck. “It’s solid as fuck.”

  Larsen tapped the door with the barrel of his rifle, immediately understanding the problem. Peck was right. It was metal, and not the kind of hollow metal doors they used in new home construction these days. This was solid metal.

  “Brennan, blow it open,” said Larsen.

  Brennan slid along the group and crouched next to the door, making a quick assessment.

  “I think you’re looking at multiple deadlocks on this side,” said Larsen. “The door didn’t budge at all when Peck hit it.”

  “Might be easier to break one of the glass sliders, honestly,” said Brennan. “Sure as hell would be a lot quieter.”

  “Peck?” said Larsen.

  “It would be my pleasure,” said Peck, taking off in a dead sprint.

  “Dix, make sure he doesn’t cut himself,” said Larsen.

  They trailed Peck and Dixon, catching up when Peck stopped long enough to wrestle loose a softball-sized piece of smooth decorative stone from a granite slab display. Larsen was thinking more along the lines of hitting the glass with a rifle stock, but he supposed this would work, too. Peck picked up speed again and hurled the stone like a shot put at the patio slider. When it bounced off the glass and thudded across the patio, leaving little more than a scratch on the glass, they all stood there for a moment—completely baffled. Larsen knew what was coming next.

  “Time for the heavy artillery!” yelled Peck, raising his rifle.

  “Stop!” said Larsen. “Do. Not. Fire. You’ll kill one of us or yourself with a ricochet.”

  “Why the fuck does this house have bullet-resistant glass?” yelled Peck, still aiming at the slider.

  “Safe your weapon,” said Larsen.

  “It is safe,” said Peck. “As long as I’m not pulling the trigger, it’s fucking safe. What the fuck is this?”

  “Let’s get back to the door,” said Larsen.

  “I mean, who the fuck has a bulletproof, solid steel door constructed house?” said Peck.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Larsen. “We gain entry, and we search high and low for Mr. Chang. My guess is he’s not here.”

  Back at the garage door, Brennan started to unpack her explosives kit.

  “What if we can’t demo the door?” said Dixon.

  “Don’t say that,” said Larsen.

  “Seriously, though.”

  “Then we report the situation and take up positions around the house. Keep the place secure,” said Larsen, grabbing the doorknob in front of him for no real reason. “Nobody said this would be straightforward.”

  He turned the doorknob effortlessly and pushed the door inward, shaking his head as it swung open. That bad feeling vibe was back—a lot stronger this time.

  “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” said Dixon.

  “Fucking idiot forgot to lock the back door,” said Peck, walking carefree toward the opening.

  “Peck!” said Larsen, putting an arm across the door to stop him. “Chill the fuck out.”

  Peck shot Larsen a murderous glare, slowly stepping back from the threshold of the house.

  “We clear the house as a full team. Safeties engaged,” said Larsen. “We’ll clear the second level first and work our way down. Stack up, Brennan, Peck and Dixon. Watch your sectors.”

  The
y entered the house and stopped in a small slate-tiled room with cubbies for shoes and a row of hooks for hanging jackets. A long bench took up the wall just inside the door they’d opened. The room was empty besides the furniture.

  “What’s up with that door?” whispered Larsen.

  While Dixon examined the door, Larsen took a few more steps into the room. A bathroom with what looked to be a half shower was located next to the door leading to the garage. He couldn’t see into the house from the room; a wood-paneled door blocked his view. Could be a titanium-reinforced door for all he knew. The house seemed to be full of surprises.

  “You ain’t gonna believe this,” said Dixon.

  “Peck, watch the door to the house,” he said, pointing Peck in the right direction. “Brennan, clear the bathroom.”

  He slid by the two operatives and joined Dixon at the door.

  “Watch this,” said Dixon.

  He turned the latch on the inside of the door, above the doorknob, and six four-inch-deep-by-one-inch-thick bolts smoothly extended past the edge of the door. He examined the metal doorjamb, finding six steel-reinforced slots. Dixon reached around the outside of the door and turned the doorknob, returning the slots to their original positions flush against the edge of the door. The system was power driven, not purely mechanical, from what he could tell. Larsen didn’t know what to make of it. The lock seemed disabled now. He looked around for a keypad, finding nothing.

  “Bathroom clear,” reported Brennan.

  “Copy that,” said Larsen, grabbing Dixon’s arm. “Jam the door open.”

  He didn’t like the idea of motorized locking mechanisms. If something went wrong, they could get trapped inside the house, especially if every door was constructed like this. They certainly weren’t shooting their way through the windows. He was starting to seriously wonder who they were dealing with here and if the mission change reflected a legitimate danger to his team.

  Once Dixon had wedged a flare under the door, pressing it against the wall, they continued the search. Keeping Peck in place watching the entrance to the main part of the house, he moved the team to the garage. Just inside the door, they located a biometric scanner and a keypad, which presumably prevented access from the garage. Like the door they’d used to enter the house, the garage door featured the same bolts and locking mechanism.

  They found two vehicles inside the garage. A BMW convertible and a Toyota 4Runner. The third garage bay housed a serious riding mower. They scoured the garage for Chang, coming up empty, as he expected. On the way out of the garage, Dixon grabbed him by the arm.

  “Engine’s warm,” said the former Marine staff sergeant.

  Larsen pressed the exposed skin on his wrist to the hood, feeling the warmth. The vehicle hadn’t been used minutes ago, but it had definitely been used within the past couple of hours. This changed everything. Or did it? They had been sent to secure and protect Eugene Chang, and there had never been any reason to assume he wasn’t here.

  Shit! He wasn’t in the house! That was why the back door was rigged to open from outside? He’d left for some reason, but he hadn’t gone far. Or did he somehow get word that a team was coming for him? Maybe he was watching them from the forest? Or he left the door open to lure them into an ambush? Too many variables had crept into the equation at this point, along with far too many assumptions.

  It was time to start eliminating variables, the easiest one being the house.

  “We clear the entire house. If we don’t find Chang, which I suspect we won’t, we’ll lie low and wait. My guess is he’s outside,” said Larsen.

  Dixon nodded, along with Brennan, who whispered, “What about Peck?”

  “Keep this between us right now,” said Larsen. “He’s itching to shoot something. We clear the house first.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chang watched the team methodically clear his house, room by room, starting with the upstairs. From what he could tell, they were good at their job. They’d discovered that his 4Runner was still warm from the aborted trip to the airport. They’d spent enough time examining the back door to figure out that the locking mechanism had been deactivated, though he was pretty sure they didn’t understand how the system worked. They’d closed it before moving out of the mudroom, leaving some kind of device on the floor. He assumed it was a motion sensor, which meant they suspected he was outside the house.

  They were probably sweeping the house so they could claim some secure space, and man, were they taking their time. Time he didn’t have. If his plan at the house didn’t work, it was back to slogging it toward the airport—and a very risky plan that required skills he didn’t possess. If the house plan worked, it would buy him time and possibly a way out of this that didn’t require him to spend the rest of his life as a fugitive. The team in his house didn’t look like an assassination squad. If he could talk to them, he was sure he could work something out.

  He fumbled with the phone to switch camera views, almost dropping it, as they gathered in the hallway next to the L-shaped staircase descending into the great room, careful not to move the camera. He’d almost blown it when the team leader scurried from the patio slider to the garage door. The camera had followed him the whole way, fortunately pausing in a natural position watching the back door. Originally, it had been pointed outward, guarding the expansive clearing behind the house.

  The team moved in unison down the stairs, their rifles covering every direction. They were definitely spooked. Prior to encountering the solid steel back door, they hadn’t paid much attention to their weapons. When the team reached the great room, they cleared the obvious hiding spaces, making their way to the adjoining office, where they spent a considerable amount of time searching the bookcases and cabinet drawers below them for secret passageways—he presumed. When they exited the office and started for the unexplored areas across the great room, he broke out in goose bumps. If they continued searching the house using the same tactics, there was no doubt his plan would work.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The search had been textbook so far, everyone doing exactly what they were trained to do. Interestingly, they had found no signs of anyone having been here for a long time. No ruffled bedcovers. No water in the showers. No water in the sinks. Empty trash bins. Whoever had driven the 4Runner back hadn’t spent much time in the house.

  They moved through the kitchen, Larsen opening all of the under-counter drawers to find the garbage. He discovered a dual trash bin drawer containing two empty water bottles in the recycling bin and a microwave burrito package in the other. He removed the frozen burrito package, noting some condensation on the inside of the package. There was no doubt someone had been here, and he was starting to suspect it might not be Chang.

  He wasn’t sure why, but the bare-bones pattern of use they’d uncovered didn’t fit the mold of someone that spent a considerable amount of time maintaining the grounds outside the house. The riding mower had told an interesting story, leading him to other discoveries.

  The mower showed frequent use, a thick layer of grass collected on the outer edge of the blade cover. The gas-powered weed trimmer showed similar wear and tear, the strings worn down to a few inches and in dire need of replacement. The garden tools looked well used, a few of them still caked in dirt, and several yard waste bags sat filled with dried leaves, signs of a final spring cleanup. From what he could tell, none of the flower beds or bushes held any leaves left over from fall.

  Whoever lived here did their own yard work, suggesting a far more frequent and permanent presence than two water bottles and a frozen burrito. For a moment, he had the most paranoid thought that an assassin might have arrived earlier, somehow given the codes necessary to enter the house and make use of the SUV to search the surrounding communities for Chang. He dismissed it as far-fetched until it suddenly dawned on him how bizarre his own job and mission would sound to anyone outside the program. As far as he was concerned, anything was possible in this world.

&nbs
p; A few closed doors remained, one of which likely led to a basement, although he hadn’t seen any windows or window wells that would suggest a lower level. Given the vast square footage of the house, he wouldn’t be surprised to discover that the house had been built without one. He couldn’t imagine a single person needing any more space.

  They moved out of the kitchen and entered the central foyer, stopping at the first door. Brennan pulled the door open, revealing a staircase leading to a basement. So much for his original theory.

  “Wedge the door,” said Larsen.

  Brennan removed a small security wedge and jammed it under the door. The wedge could withstand several solid hits before dislodging. Two hits and it sounded a high-decibel alarm. He would have left one in the mudroom door, but there was no space between the door and doorjamb. With the wedge in place, he signaled for Dixon to lead the team through the final unexplored door, his mind busy trying to piece together the scattered puzzle he’d encountered since hitting the drop zone.

  “Eric, you need to see this,” he heard through his earpiece.

  Larsen walked through the door, not sure what to expect. What he found took him completely off guard. It was the last thing he thought he’d find in this house, but it suddenly made perfect sense. The bullet-resistant glass. Impenetrable doors. Sophisticated security system. Solar panels. And now a room stacked with food, water, medical supplies and survival gear. Chang was some kind of high-end doomsday prepper on top of whatever else landed him in the CHASE database—at the receiving end of a CAPTURE/KILL order.

  He stood in place only a few feet into the room, unsure he wanted to go any farther. A vault-like door sat against the wall to his right, easily four times as thick as the back door to the house. If that thing closed and locked, they’d never get out of here. No. He’d stay right here. In fact, he’d drag one of the fifty-gallon plastic bins off the shelves and block the doorway.