A large convoy of citizens was being attacked by what I figured was Ridder forces. The convoy was fighting back well, but Ridder had superior weapons and surprise. They had closed a trap on the convoy, with Ridder behind firing into their lines and a contingent up front blocking their escape. I had seen enough. I radioed back to Nunzio and explained our situation and what I wanted him to do.
“Kot, Nunzio will bring the Big Baby up and engage Ridder with the mini’s and MK19. You and I will provide sniping fire and take out any one who seems to be in charge. Move to a better position to handle the rear group. I will give you three mikes before I take my first shot. Got it?”
“Three minutes is a lifetime for those people. I will be in position in two,” Kot leaped to her feet and took off at a full sprint. She slid to a position like a batter sliding into home to take on the rear force. I sighted down my scope and picked out a man yelling to the others in the Ridder force. I put my reticle on his lower back and breathed. The gun bucked in my hands, surprising me. I saw a puff of red just above the left kidney of the man and watched as he fell. Before he hit the ground, I moved my scope onto another man that looked to be rallying the rest to take charge. I heard another shot to my left and knew Kot was engaging. I sent the man in my sights to meet his God, as I blew his brains all over the man standing in front of him.
Ridder now knew they were being sniped from behind and shifted their fire onto my position. I ignored the first barrage and hit a man as he climbed out of a Rider Humvee. He was dressed in a clean uniform and wearing aviator-like sunglasses. I blew off his left knee and then eviscerated him with my next shot to the gut. I dropped my head and pushed back crawling backwards, hoping to get out of the way of the next Ridder barrage.
A loud, fog horn like sound exploded the air around me. Six quick explosions hit the Ridder group of men and vehicles, as the Big Baby backed into the area next to me. Dead Eye threw a jaunty wave at me as he triggered his minigun walking his deadly fire into the Ridder ranks. I pointed toward Kot, and while DP Two triggered off his minigun toward the rear Ridder guard, Nunzio operated the MK19 and was soon dropping grenades onto the Ridder vehicles. In less than three minutes, we had turned the tide of the Ridder attack and mashed them into paste.
I got to my feet and surveyed the field of battle. I had forgotten the civilians were armed and had been battling Ridder and may not have been happy to see us show up. They had no idea of our intentions. I slid my SCAR behind my back and motioned for Kot to join me. I figured having a woman by my side may help calm the civvies. We walked slowly toward the line of vehicles.
The people stayed behind their cover and were hard to spot. That, is except for Dead Eye who had moved off from the Big Baby and was watching us, through his scope. If anyone fired at us he would remove them from this world in an explosion of light and pain. I raised my hands in the air and stopped twenty yards from the lead vehicle. Kot, being the smart woman she was, copied my moves.
“I am Major Brian Leeder, I work for the new President, Dan Welko. He has ordered all his units to help protect civilians and direct them to American controlled bases,” I bellowed hoping someone would come out and talk to me.
A woman stood up holding a military M4 rifle, barrel pointed to the ground. She was tall, easily six-foot one, her long black hair pulled back in a ponytail that rested over her right shoulder. She wore a motorcycle leather jacket, leather pants, and black military boots. She had a look in her eyes that told me she was more than what she projected.
“Eh, that’s great to hear, but tell me. Why the fuck should I believe ya?” Her Irish accent surprised me.
“If I was anyone else, I would’ve ignored the fact that Ridder was kicking your ass and just drove on by. Instead we stopped, knocked the shit out of them, and came to talk to you. I could’ve easily wiped you and your people out. So how about we take a breath, sit down, and talk?”
The Irish woman turned and pointed to someone behind her and motioned them to come out of their hiding spot. An older black man stood up behind the car he was kneeling behind and made his way out to her. He used a cane, his pump shotgun pointed toward the ground. He gave me a sneer and then broke into a wide grin, showing a mouth filled with a large gap of nonexistent teeth.
“Who the hell you say you are again, bearded boy?” the black man croaked out.
I smiled at him showing him, my full mouth of white shining teeth. “Brian, but call me Sasquatch, everyone else does. This is Kot and the rest of the men up there are part of my team. We are on our way north on a mission for the President, when we came across these assholes in the process of kicking your butts.”
“You a Marine, boy?” the old man asked.
“How did you guess? I was with the 26th Expeditionary force.”
“You talk like a dumbass Jarhead. I should know, I was a Gunny in Vietnam, 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion. Celer, Silens, Mortalis son.”
“Swift, Silent, Deadly. Shit, I looked up to you guys when I was but a still wet behind the balls recruit.”
“Jaysus, are you two blokes done wanking each other off?” The Irish woman intoned.
“Maybe we should let the two Marines have some private time to themselves, while us ladies deal with the real stuff,” Kot threw in.
“Excuse me Ensign?” I looked down to Kot.
“Uhm, I didn’t say anything Major.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think so,” I turned to the Irish lady. “You now know my name Miss, what is yours?”
The woman looked me up and down, flicked her eyes to Kot and then passed her gaze on to me. I had a feeling she had spotted Dead Eye, that put this woman one notch higher with her skill level. “The name is not miss, it is Gillian Downing. If you want to be professional, you can call me Commander Downing of Her Majesty's Government, Secret Intelligence Service.”
“So, an Irish hottie working for MI6? I guess I can die saying I’ve seen everything,” I gave Gillian a conspiratorial wink.
“Thank you for compliment, you sodding Sasquatch. There are a good number of Irish working for Her Majesty.”
“I stand properly rebuked. Now tell me who these people are, and how an MI6 agent is leading them?”
“Well I was on vacation visiting a wee old friend in Oregon, when all this shite happened. First, I had to dispatch my friends when they tried to gobble me up, next thing I know I was fighting an American military patrol who was trying to take me life. I got one call through to my section chief and he warned me of some kind of virus spreading across the world. He ordered me to ignore orders from some group calling itself the Culling Initiative and their lap dogs called Ridder. He ordered me to help save anyone I could and go south, and head to his old mate named General Richards in the US Army. He told me to go to Travis Air Force Base and meet up with the General. I have been collecting more and more of these poor wretches on my journey. Damn Ridder keeps hitting us though. I have lost some damn good people, but all in all, I still have about a hundred, mostly children.”
I nodded my head and she spoke. “Sorry to tell you, but Travis is overrun, we just broke out of the place ourselves with barely our whole skin intact. Richards is dead, his last order was installing a good friend of mine as President. Dan has us fighting Ridder and trying to save everyone we can. If you give me a couple of mikes I will put in a call and see what we can do for your little convoy. By the way, this little thing next to me is Kot, she is as dangerous as a black widow.”
The two women sized each other up, extended hands and shook. “A sister in arms, nice. Come with me hon, I’ll introduce you to our wee group,” the two women walked away with Gunny trailing behind. I waved for Moonie to bring the Big Baby down, then stepped away and pulled my Sat Phone out.
I dialed the number for the Communications board on the Reagan and waited for my call to be routed. A woman told me Dan was busy, but that Kuppers was standing by and would take my call.
“Sasquatch, is that you? Over.”
“Iron Man, goo
d to hear your voice. We just got out of Travis and are now sitting at the I-5 interchange. We just shot the shit out of a Ridder group and ran into a convoy of about a hundred civvies being led by an Irish MI6 chick. Over.”
“Did you just say an MI6 agent? Over,” Kuppers came across bewildered.
“Roger that, we need support for these people. The freeway here is empty, if you can get some Ospreys in to pick them up. Over.”
“Wait one Brian. Over.”
I turned in time to see a lone C-130 circle overhead. I thought that was quick for Kuppers till I realized it was Doc and his posse. I looked around and tried to figure out where they were going to land. The highway was flat, but with the convoy there was not enough room to land. Suddenly the rear ramp dropped, and the massive plane flew with its tires just off the ground. Two pallets slid out along with three Humvees, bouncing once on the road and then slid to a stop. Once they cleared the ramp, the roaring C-130’s props increased in revs blowing hurricane force winds out with its nose pointed up clawing for altitude. I had witnessed a delivery like that once before, although it was two tanks, never small pallets or Humvees loaded with people. That pilot had to be a certified badass.
Two of the Humvees stayed behind to secure the pallets of supplies, while the lead one carefully and slowly drove up to my position. I pointed to Nunzio and the approaching Humvee. “Nunzio, go deal with that. I’m on the bitch box with Kuppers.”
Nunzio gestured to me that he thought I was number one in his book with a middle finger wave and turned to jog over to the Humvees stopping them in their tracks. I put the phone back to my ear just as Kuppers came back on the line.
“We have a mixed squadron of Ospreys and Chinooks nearby. I have radioed them and explained the situation. They are about thirty mikes from you, call sign Arthur, you’re now Lancelot. Over.”
“Lancelot, got it. Did the Seshat arrive back on the carrier with Danielle and the kids? Over.”
“Yeah, they landed an hour ago everyone is fine, good call Sasquatch. Do you need ground support? Over.”
“Got that covered, they just arrived. Over.”
“I figured that was where they were headed when Chun called reporting their mutiny. I’ll cut orders and back date them to make it all legal. Over.”
“Wait, I am a Major of SpecOps. Why do my orders need to go through you? Over,” I gritted my teeth, pissed off at what I knew was the answer.
“You have been removed from command till you return from your mission with the objective intact. Sorry brother, Dan made that direct order. He assigned Chun your position till you come back. Over.”
“I figured as much, Kuppers you better keep a sharp eye out for Dan. I am not sure if he is all there anymore. Over.”
“I read you,” he paused on the line like he wanted to say more and decided against it. “Stay frosty and keep your gigantic ass down, call me if you need anything. I got things to do back at home in the mean-time. Over and out,” the line died in my hands.
I took an extra minute to compose myself, before heading over to greet my old friends. My mind was racing through a thousand different things that, for the life of me I could not grab onto. I stopped at the Humvee and was bowled over to see who was in it. Doc stepped out from the front seat, a cowboy hat squished down on his head, his revolvers tucked into cowboy-like gun belts around his hips. He blew a bubble with his big wad of chewing gum and made his way over to me.
“You said to bring the posse pardner. Now point us at the enemy and watch us bring down some good old Bible fire and brimstone down on their heads,” he bowed his head touching the tips of his fingers to the brim of his black cowboy hat.
As Doc spoke, Cupcake pulled up in another Humvee. Men started extricating themselves from the vehicles. Hase, Howser, Hunter, and Heaven climbed out and took turns hugging me. It was good to see most of the team back together. The third Humvee came roaring up and hard braked to a stop, a hand popped out waving at me from the driver’s side.
As I came up to the Humvee I glimpsed a look inside and saw three people, Apache was behind the wheel, a girl slightly younger than her, but almost identical in looks sat in the passenger side. In the rear sat a big hulking black man, almost my size. I held out a hand to tell him to hold on. I opened the Driver’s door and dropped to my knees. I reached in with my arms and hugged Apache bringing my head in close to her ear.
“I am so sorry I made the call that got you wounded,” I breathed out quietly.
She took my head and pulled it in front of her to see my eyes. She kissed my lips lightly and smiled. “All is forgiven Sasquatch, you made the right call. Can I introduce you to someone?”
She turned my head to the young lady in the seat next to her. The young lady smiled at me and held up a hand wiggling her fingers at me. I had an awful feeling of deja vous wash over me. I know I knew this girl from somewhere but could not place her.
“This is my sister, Dahteste, but we just call her Tess. She was found by one of the patrols leading others through the dessert to safety. When she gave her name and that she was my sister, someone in staff put one and one together and flew her out to me.”
“Hi Tess, have I met you before?”
Tess gave me a smirk and shook her head. “I think I would remember a man your size.”
I pulled my head back out of the Humvee and spotted Apache’s leg in a cast, her other leg in a slight brace. “How are you driving like that?”
Apache looked down to her legs. “Oh, I use the one with the brace for both pedals,” she answered.
I opened the rear door and the black man extricated himself outside. We sized each other up and he stepped into my personal space. “You have something you want to say, you big ass honky?”
Apache gasped and Doc with the rest of the team came over to watch the festivities. “Yes. I do, but I do not think I can speak in enough grunts and squeals for your pea brain to understand,” I growled.
“You better step off little man before I have to tear you into pieces in front of your fan group,” he only stood an inch smaller than me but still had to look up, as close as he was to me.
“Who you calling little? I should just gut you like a fish and move on before you have a chance to infect my friends with your bad attitude and breath,” I sniffed.
The man stepped back and deflated putting his hand to his mouth. “Take it back bitch, I do not have skank breath,” he spoke in a high-pitched girls voice.
The crowd around us gasped and was waiting for a big fight to break out. I let them down though when I reached out and collected the man into my arms in a brotherly hug. “How the fuck, did you get here Johnson? Fuck it, I don’t care, been too long man.”
The guy hugged me back, flexed his legs and arms and dead lifted me off the ground an inch. “I was in Portland on duty guarding the First Lady. As I was walking out of my room to go on duty, my cell rang. A friend, who works in the Pentagon called to warn me of the Wildfire virus and emailed me a document underlining what he had on a group calling themselves the Culling Initiative. He told me to hang on and not go on duty till I heard from my boss. I did as was ordered and sat back down on my bed.” He put me down on my feet and dragged me away from the rest of the team, so we could talk alone.
“As I sat there on my bed stunned, the Director called and informed that the First Lady had already been exposed to the virus and that she would get very sick and try to kill her guards. He ordered me to get out of Portland and go south to California. He said to stay away from Ridder and that they were connected with the Culling Initiative. He said he planned to brief the President and go underground with him and their cabinet to Mount Weather. They were going to hold up and wait for the virus to blow over before they would come out.
I disconnected the line with him and packed my gear. I took one of our souped-up Suburbans and left the city. It fell fast man, I barely made it out with my perfect Nubian ass in one piece. I drove toward Madras, Oregon before the SUV died, and I deci
ded to go on foot, I camped in the high desert for close to a month on my own staying away from civilization. It started getting cold, so I made my way into Klamath Falls and found that place a mess. Dead bodies everywhere, but a bunch of them were still up and moving. I scavenged some supplies and made my way into Nevada. I camped in the mountains as much as I could, only coming into towns to resupply. On one of those trips, a roving patrol picked me up. I never shared my info with anyone, but I was interrogated by that shit kicking cowpoke of yours. He asked if I was Ridder. I informed I wasn’t, took a while till I heard your name. I mentioned I knew you and they quizzed me on your particulars. I told them you were a giant pain in the ass reject. Next thing I knew, they handed me a gun and put me on a plane, and here I am.”
“I want more on what you were told about the Initiative, but not right now. I am glad you are here Johnson, I feel more complete with you around,” I turned when I heard a crowd coming up behind me.
Behind Gillian, in single file line, sixty children ranging in ages from a newborn in the arms of hopefully it’s mom, to eighteen followed her. Around them the rest of the adults with weapons guarded them as they made their way to my band of warriors. I stepped up onto the hood of the Humvee and then felt like an idiot, I was the tallest person around. Everyone turned their heads to me and gave me their attention.
“I contacted command and they are sending a bunch of aircraft to pick you all up. You will be taken to a safe place, receive medical attention, and hot meals. If we can. We want to keep the children in one place and set guards around them. All this noise is bound to bring zombies in,” heads nodded in agreement. Gillian spoke to the old Gunny, and he led the kids away near the buses and cars. The adult guards followed as my warriors stayed where they were, awaiting orders. Gillian caught my eye and motioned with her chin for me to continue.
Zombie Theorem: Dark Times Book Five Page 14