by Dirk Patton
“Then what are you going to do?”
I took a few seconds, lighting a cigarette as I thought.
“Only one thing I can do. I’m going to do what she wants.”
“She’ll kill you when she gets what she wants. You know that, right?” Lucas asked.
“Better me than Rachel or Mavis.”
I looked around at the rest of the team who had stopped when I had.
“Okay, listen up,” I said in a loud voice.
They all stared at me in shock when I finished filling them in on what was happening.
“You sure the Admiral’s gonna be okay with this?” Drago asked.
“Didn’t run it by him, and don’t plan to.”
56
“Sure you won’t let me go in with you?” Lucas asked. “You know this bitch is slippery as hell. Might not be a bad thing to have some backup she don’t know about.”
We were aboard the hypersonic transport for the short flight to Southern California. Vance was taxiing to the runway where he’d turn us into the wind for takeoff.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Got no clue what she’s got up her sleeve, but no reason to put you at risk. Besides. There’s something else you can do for me.”
“What’s that?” he asked with a frown.
I outlined what I had in mind as the big plane took to the air.
“Aye,” he said when I was finished. “I can do that. They know?”
Lucas hooked his thumb in the direction of the cockpit.
“Nutcracker and Martinez?”
Lucas nodded.
“Yeah. Already talked to them. Both are on board, even if she isn’t too happy.”
“Then consider it done, mate.”
I thanked Lucas and moved to speak with Drago.
“You should take someone with you,” he said before I could even sit down.
I shook my head as I dropped into a seat.
“Everyone’s busy,” I said. “Lucas and Vance are heading for Hawaii as soon as the Stealth Hawk is unloaded. It’s going to be up to the you, Chico and Johnson to pull that SEAL out. Once you’ve got him, Martinez will get all of you back to Mountain Home. Someone’s gotta be close in case Nicole needs support.”
He nodded, but kept his mouth shut even though he was clearly unhappy.
“Spit it out, Sergeant. What’s up?”
He looked at me a beat, then sighed as he began to speak.
“Just got a bad feeling. Seems all we’re doin’ is reacting to the goddamn Russians. It’s like they’re one step ahead at every turn. How you suppose that is, sir?”
I looked into his eyes, clearly understanding his meaning.
“I’m afraid it’s probably what we’re both thinking,” I said. “That’s why I’m sending Lucas to Hawaii and not making a call. At the moment, I trust the people on this plane, and that’s it.”
“Copy that, sir,” he said, nodding.
Sooner than seemed possible, Vance’s voice came over the speakers, letting us know we had almost arrived. Clapping Drago on the shoulder, I got to my feet and went forward, crowding into the cockpit.
“That’s Edwards,” Vance said, pointing at a spot on the windscreen.
Well, as I’d learned, it wasn’t actually a window. Instead, it was a panoramic image on a video screen that could be toggled between thermal, night and normal vision. Currently, Vance had it set to thermal and we could clearly see a pair of helicopters and a small jet that looked like a Gulfstream on the ground. All the engines were still warm and there were also several vehicles in motion.
“They haven’t detected us?” I asked.
“Seriously?” Vance snorted. “A little bit ago we passed within five miles of one of their airborne surveillance birds. Could’ve snuck up behind the bastard and he wouldn’t have known we were there until I shoved my finger up his ass.”
“I really don’t want to know what you do on your personal time, Nutcracker,” I said, trying to rid myself of the image he’d just painted.
“Learned it from you knuckle draggers,” he shot back. “Heard that’s how you keep warm when you’re sharing tents.”
I shook my head and put my hand on his shoulder, waiting for him to look up.
“Thank you for helping,” I said.
He held my eyes for a beat then looked away in obvious embarrassment, which surprised me.
“No big deal,” he muttered, then cleared his throat. “You’d better get ready. I’m slowing and descending to ten-thousand. There’s no signal in back, so just go when I lower the ramp.”
I nodded, wanting to leave with something witty and sarcastic, but couldn’t come up with anything worth saying. Patting Vance’s shoulder, I headed into the back with Martinez trailing me. Lucas was waiting for me, holding up a parachute pack.
“You sure about this?” she asked. “She made a mistake last time that she won’t repeat. Once she has you...”
I shook my head.
“Lucas will get it done. But this is the second time she’s gone after my family. It’s time to put an end to this, once and for all.”
She looked at me for a long moment before wrapping me in a hug and kissing my cheek.
“You just make sure you come back,” she whispered in my ear. “I’m looking forward to being Auntie Jen, but not if I can’t hand them to you when their diapers are full.”
Despite the circumstances, I grinned as I stepped back out of the embrace. Didn’t know what to say. Before it could get awkward, she smiled and went back to the cockpit.
“Let’s get you strapped in,” Lucas prompted, stepping forward with the parachute.
I slipped it onto my back and began cinching down straps.
“No weapons?” he asked. “You’re fuckin’ nuts.”
“Plenty down there,” I said. “If I need one, I’ll take it away from someone.”
He grinned and shook his head.
“Just keep yourself alive.”
“And here I didn’t think you cared.”
“Self-interest, dick head. Something happens to you, Ziggy and I gotta take Rachel in. That means two more kids. Your kids. Any idea how fuckin’ hard headed and difficult they’re gonna be?”
I grinned as I tightened my helmet’s strap and adjusted a set of goggles.
“Worse than you?”
“Well, maybe not,” he said with a chuckle. “Just walk out the other side of this, mate. You do your part and I’ll do mine. We can compare our obnoxious brats over a stubby once we’re settled in Arizona.”
We looked around when the rear of the plane began to open, the roar of rushing wind hitting us like a physical presence. Lucas grabbed on to a safety line secured to the bulkhead and gestured at the darkness beyond the end of the ramp.
After a final check of the straps holding the chute to my body, I met my friend’s eyes and shook his hand. We didn’t need to say anything, a single nod from Lucas all it took to reassure me he’d make sure everything worked out. Dropping his hand, I turned and hurried to the ramp, picked up a little speed and launched myself off the end into the dark sky.
57
A strong wind was blowing when I exited the aircraft, immediately pushing me to the east. But jumping from ten-thousand feet doesn’t give you much time in the air to be carried off course so it wasn’t something I was concerned about. Turning my body, I angled down to reduce my profile and increase the rate at which I was falling.
Below and to my left I could clearly see the Russian activity at the desert air base. The enhancement to my vision, courtesy of the virus, let me see nearly as well as if I were wearing a set of night vision goggles.
Making a slight course adjustment, I checked the altimeter strapped to my wrist. I was already under three-thousand feet and it was unwinding in a hurry. At two- thousand, I flattened myself out, slowing the descent. At one-thousand, I reached behind my back and grasped the pilot chute, pulling it free as I passed through six-hundred.
The pilot flutt
ered briefly before it filled with air, then there was a tug as the main canopy was pulled free of the pack. There was that moment when you’ve deployed your chute but are still in freefall. An instant of anticipation before it fills with air and snaps you upright. A second later, when I should have been dangling beneath the canopy, there was only the sound of fabric flapping in the wind.
“Fuck!” I growled as my heart rate shot up.
I didn’t bother looking up. There wasn’t time. For whatever reason, the chute hadn’t opened properly and there was no time to worry about what might be the culprit. Forcing myself to not waste even an instant checking the altimeter, I grabbed the handle attached to the riser and yanked it for all I was worth.
This cut away the main canopy and its risers and without wasting a second, I pulled hard on the handle to release the reserve. I felt it deploy, then my fall was suddenly arrested as it filled with air. Glancing down as I snatched the riser’s toggles, I grimaced and pulled hard in an effort to slow down, but the ground was coming too fast.
Less than three seconds later, my boots hit the sand. Legs buckling, I tried to roll with the impact but was being pulled in the wrong direction by the parachute. I wound up face down as the canopy collapsed over me with a soft hiss of slick fabric.
For a few seconds, I just lay there. Infected or not, that fucking hurt. A limb at a time, I tested my body for injuries. After nearly thirty seconds, I decided that somehow I’d managed to avoid breaking anything. But as good as that news was, there was something else I’d learned. I was face down in a patch of cactus. Of fucking course, I was.
With a muted groan, I began trying to extricate myself from the cactus, but every movement only made things worse. Getting pissed, I finally bit the bullet and rolled until I was on clear sand and looked down at myself. I looked like I’d been trying to hug a porcupine.
Standing, I bundled up the gently flapping canopy and shoved it beneath some rocks. A few minutes were spent pulling cactus needles and I counted myself fortunate. Most of the forest that was protruding from my body had failed to penetrate my clothing. That was the good news. The bad was the ones that had pierced my flesh and broke off beneath the skin rather than come out. Fortunately, the virus would protect me from developing a dangerous infection.
Mood even worse than it had been, I finally took the time to look around. I’d landed about half a mile away from the Russian activity. Apparently, they’d failed to notice me, which was mildly surprising. They should have had sentries posted and if they were doing their jobs... well, let’s just say I hadn’t made one of the stealthiest arrivals of my life. Not even in the top ten.
Circling around an even larger cactus patch, I moved toward a small grouping of buildings where the Russians had set up. A pair of Hind gunships squatted on the tarmac, dwarfing a small executive jet. Its presence was a pretty good indication that Viktoriya was already here and waiting for me.
I was even more surprised that despite her presence there wasn’t any perimeter security. The idea of sneaking in and snapping her neck before she knew I was there briefly flashed through my mind. It took no small amount of will power to tamp it down. Even if I succeeded, there was no way to know if the snipers in Hawaii were under orders to kill Rachel if they didn’t hear from Viktoriya on a regular basis. I needed to let things play out until I received Lucas’s signal that my family was safe.
So, like a good little boy, I trudged forward without making any effort at concealing my presence. I transitioned from sand to asphalt without being noticed. It wasn’t until a pair of Russians stepped out of a building for a smoke that I was seen. For an instant, they stared at me in shock, then one of them began yelling as the other drew his sidearm and screamed at me in Russian. I couldn’t understand what he wanted, but when I stopped and held my hands out to the side he seemed to be satisfied.
Half a dozen troops appeared on the run, encircling me with their rifles pointed at my head. I looked around, surprised to see that they were actually afraid of me. What the hell? There was no way the Russians could know what I was able to do as a result of being infected. Or was there? I had no idea how much Viktoriya had learned about me while she was in Hawaii.
After what seemed like several minutes, there was the loud squeak of dry hinges from the direction of one of the buildings. I turned my head to see Viktoriya emerge into the night. She approached quickly and stepped through the line of soldiers, barking something in Russian. They all looked surprised, but slowly lowered their weapons as she came forward to stand a foot in front of me.
She was wearing Russian camouflage utilities bloused into shiny paratrooper boots. The uniform had been severely tailored to fit every curve, reaffirming the woman’s vanity.
“I was not expecting you so soon.”
She placed an index finger on my chest and slowly traced it down the front of my body.
“I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop in early.”
“Humor!”
She widened her eyes dramatically and graced me with a brilliant smile. We stood like that for a few moments, staring at each other.
“I do not like what your humor means,” she said, her face morphing into a frown. “It would be most unwise for you or your friends to attempt anything.”
“I’m here,” I said with a sigh. “Alone and unarmed. Now, what is it you want?”
She watched me so long I almost repeated myself. I couldn’t tell if this was a game she was playing to buy time for something, or if she really thought she could divine any bad intentions simply by looking at me.
“Follow me,” she finally said, spinning on a heel and marching away.
After a moment, I fell in behind her. The soldiers quickly stepped back a respectful distance, tracking each of my movements with their rifles. Viktoriya ignored all of this, opening the door she’d come out of and holding it so I could enter first.
With a mental shrug, I stepped through into a brightly lit room that had been set up as a medical suite. Two large exam chairs sat in the middle of the floor, equipment around them and chrome IV stands to the side. A pair of men in white coats looked up when we entered.
On the wall faced by the seating was a large monitor. It was displaying the image from one of the shooter’s scopes. Rachel and Mavis were seated at a table in our quarters, playing some sort of board game. The shooter was obviously at a great distance and the view was through the glass doors that let out onto the lanai, but the crosshairs were steady on Rachel.
“I get the message, loud and clear. Now, what do you want?” I asked, turning to face Viktoriya.
“Nothing much,” she said with a smile. “Only your blood.”
58
Nicole took a long drink of water, steering the UTV with one hand. Around her, a sea of females continually moaned in what individually would be an almost inaudible series of notes. Combined, their voices were a constant roar of white noise, not unlike the sound of the surf crashing on a beach.
She had been amidst the infected for hours and despite her fears, none of them had shown even the slightest aggression towards her. Now, she wasn’t exactly comfortable, but she’d managed to relax. Somewhat.
There had been time to think as she marshalled and began leading the infected to the south. Time to wonder if the females really had turned to cannibalism, consuming the males to survive. It was her theory, and a plausible one, but her scientific background didn’t allow her to accept it as fact without proof. Sure, she’d not seen a single male since arriving in Utah, but there could just as easily be another explanation.
Looking at the females surrounding her, she mentally cataloged their physical appearance. All seemed healthy, despite the filth covered rags that were the remains of the clothing they’d been wearing at the moment of infection. None were obese, or even slightly overweight. They appeared... she struggled for the right word, finally seizing upon supple.
They reminded her of apex level predators. Immensely strong and fast, yet w
ith enough body fat to smooth out the skin stretched over their muscles. Fat that provided energy and kept them going in between the times they were able to eat. Whatever it was they’d found to consume. With another shudder, she shut down that line of thought and focused on the road ahead.
Despite the perfectly good four-lane freeway she would follow for the next several hundred miles, she took the time to check a compass and find her position on a paper map. She’d already known where she was, but her ordered mind felt better after completing the simple exercise.
The sudden beeping of her satellite phone surprised her, immediately sending her heart rate up. A ripple passed through the herd in her immediate area as the females responded to her body’s involuntary release of hormones. Snatching the device out of its mounting cradle, she answered with a tentative voice.
“I’m coming to get you, babe,” Master Chief Gonzales said.
She could hear the roar of aircraft engines in the background.
“What?” she asked, completely unprepared to hear her lover’s voice.
“It’s time to pull you out. I’ll be overhead in a helo in five minutes.”
“What?” she asked again in confusion. “You’re here? What happened?”
“I’ll explain once you’re aboard.”
“What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Hawaii. Where’s John?”
“Something’s happened,” Gonzales said smoothly, “and he’s dealing with it. That’s why I’m here. Now hang tight. I’m almost there.”
“What happened?” she asked, frowning in concern for the team she’d inserted with.
“Can’t talk about it on the phone, babe. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”
He broke the connection, leaving her to stare at the handset in worry. A few seconds later, her enhanced hearing picked up the heavy thump of a rotor approaching fast. The females instantly grew agitated, all looking at the southern sky as one and raising their voices into a snarl.