“—omebody get a damned headset on Jameson.”
Then the same Marine came running back up the aisle and stuck his upper body up into the flight deck. And now Liam could hear the female pilot, not only across ICS, but actually shouting at high volume directly out of the cockpit.
“What the fuck do you mean he’s not on the aircraft!?”
Two-second pause.
“Yeah, no – course we’re not fucking leaving.”
Liam lurched violently into Amarie as the whole helo banked around them, centrifugal forces hurling everyone into everyone else, or else into a bulkhead.
As the Chinook straightened up again, then accelerated like a big, blind, twin-rotor bat out of Hell, Liam was finally able to sit up, unstrap himself, and lean out into the center aisle so he could look out the front windows – and he could immediately see that cursed, terrifying, overrun building they’d only just escaped from coming up again, fast. They slowed as they approached the top level on the same side, the south – but there were still living and dead pouring out of the smashed-out windows there, like a flesh waterfall, so the helo turned and circled all the way around to the north side.
This time they also climbed a few feet higher, so they hovered over an even steeper section of the tapering arc of the building, and Liam heard firing. Turning to the rear, he could see Marines shooting down from the lowered ramp, and heard the sound of shattering glass. Then, without hesitation, the two Marines closest to the edge simply squatted down – and hopped off and out of sight. They were followed by two more Marines, then two more – and in twenty seconds there was no one left on board but Tunnelers.
Just a bunch of civilians – and Liam.
Every Marine in One Troop, without pausing a single second, had poured himself back into the cauldron they had all just miraculously escaped from. They were going back to get their commander – the man who’d been left behind. And when Liam realized that group of rescuers also included Elliot, the young Para, and the only other British Army soldier in the group, he grabbed his weapon, squeezed Amarie’s arm a last time, ran to the back ramp…
And he leapt down to join them.
* * *
“Where the fuck did you leave him!?”
This was a newly revived Croucher – very much animated and alert now – holding Elliot by his vest with an iron grip and shouting into his face from six inches away, while the rest of One Troop pushed out a security perimeter around them on the north side of the floor. Luckily, most of the occupants of the defunct restaurant were still mobbing the side they had last been on, the south. The living had flocked there to try to get on the helo, and the dead had followed and now had them hemmed in. Still, nowhere on this level was a particularly safe place to be. And Croucher could see there were still a lot of bodies – living, dead, infected, who knew? – pouring up out of the stairwell in the center.
They weren’t going to have a lot of time for this. Some of the dead had already heard the helo and crashing glass, and were coming for them. Marines cut them down with disciplined volleys of fire. Croucher knew nobody’s ammo situation was terrific – not after the escape from the Wall, the fight down on the street, and the first battle up here.
“WHERE IS HE!?” Croucher repeated, bellowing and shaking a numb and unresponsive Private Elliot.
“I’m not sure,” the young Para muttered, looking somehow already dead. “He was right behind me. He disappeared.”
Simmonds wheeled on both of them, rifle half raised, wide eyes scanning around, but gesturing downward. “That dodgy fucking floor! Had to be! He must have fallen through.”
Croucher squinted at him, unconvinced.
But casting around the room again, he sure as hell didn’t see the major anywhere up here. Jameson also wasn’t responding to radio hails. And no one in their expanding perimeter had reported any sight of him.
“Okay, fuck it,” Croucher finally said. “We gamble. First squad on me!” he shouted, pushing forward and leading the way toward that center stairwell. They’d just fight their way down one level – somehow – and see if Jameson was there.
But as soon as the stairwell came in sight, Croucher realized executing that plan was going to be impossible, if not harder. His hand went to the grenades on his belt, but then he stopped. It wasn’t even that blowing up a crowd of civilians was too much for him to stomach. No, the hell with them, they were probably infected anyway, and they were definitely in his way. He’d rocket a whole Sunday church congregation if that’s what needed doing to rescue his commander.
No, it was simply that the stairwell was too damned crowded. And while the explosions in the confined space might kill all the living and destroy the dead, they’d be unlikely to clear out all the meat. The steel-walled stairwell would still be intact, still jammed with bodies – and filled with infectious gore. No, it was a shit plan. They were going to have to go around – somehow. So Croucher simply scanned the floor until he found another section of that exposed ceiling panel, pulled his rifle in to his body, put his boots together…
And he jumped through.
The thin panel gave way like craft paper and he dropped twelve feet to the floor below. The hard landing stunned him, but he regained his feet in the dust and dark and got his weapon-mounted light on, panning it around – then looked up with a start and cleared out fast…
Because two other Marines followed him straight down, wasting no time in dropping nearly on his head. With these two in support, he pushed out, starting to clear the level – but quickly saw light coming in through another hole in the ceiling, twenty meters to the north. When he moved to that spot, there he was, large as life: Major Jameson, lying on the ground on his side, covered in shredded ceiling panel and plaster dust. He wasn’t moving, but he was breathing, and when Croucher shook him, he started to come around.
“Major! Can you hear me!”
Jameson just coughed and nodded.
By the time Croucher had him on his feet, the other two had found a table and dragged it under the first hole. Croucher boosted Jameson up onto it, and the top halves of Marines hung down from above, strong hands grabbing their troop commander everywhere they could get any purchase, and hauling him up out of the hole.
As if he were ascending into the light.
Croucher boosted the other two up, then finally followed, and when he crawled back out and regained his feet, already worrying about how the hell he was going to get the half-dazed Jameson to leap across ten feet of open air to the Chinook… he smiled out loud at the most glorious sight.
While the rest of One Troop hunched and fired, holding a perimeter, four Marines with their rifles slung ran forward, legs stomping woodenly with the weight they bore: it was the entire fucking bar-top, twenty-five feet long if it was an inch. Picking up speed as they approached, they smashed out another triangular window with its end, hurling it half the distance, then shoving it the other half, out onto that lowered rear ramp, as Charlotte once again dropped into a hover outside, presenting the ass of the aircraft to this welcome violation.
“Any damned fool can be uncomfortable!” Croucher shouted at Jameson, putting his arm around the man’s shoulders, and pulling him into a headlong run. And barely needing to coordinate any holding action, every Marine in One Troop simply hauled ass across this improvised but surprisingly solid extended loading ramp. When Charlotte pushed power and pulled away, the bar-top simply fell away into open air, a couple of runners dashing out onto the far end, legs slipping down the tilting surface, it and them twisting and tumbling into free fall, picking up speed on their flight to the ground far below.
Slapping both Jameson and Simmonds on their backs, Croucher stuck his head over the edge of the ramp and watched the huge piece of wood fall, hoping it didn’t crush anyone down below.
Then again, he thought, I don’t really give a shit.
Because they had their commander back. And now they could all really get the hell out of there – for good. The adrenalin
e and elation were so giddying that Marines laughed and leapt all around, slapping backs, hugging, shaking hands.
Barely getting out alive was good fun.
* * *
As they flew away, there was only one person on the Fat Cow not ecstatic and celebrating.
And that was Private Elliot Walker of the Paras.
He slumped down to the deck and tried to melt away into a section of bulkhead, but there was nowhere to hide in the cramped cabin. So he just took off his helmet and pressed his head against the cold steel, trying to pretend he didn’t exist – and trying to figure out what was happening to him. Somehow, he was now not only failing to save any of the people he was responsible for.
He was actively abandoning them.
He had left Jameson back there to die. And now he had to somehow live with the shame of it.
What the hell is happening to me…?
And why was he even alive at all? It still made no sense.
When he climbed to his feet and peered out the porthole glass and down below, he could see London spooling out beneath them as they blasted over it – and he could make out the great tides of running bodies, both living and dead, flowing through the darkening channels of the city streets. London was burning – swarming, teeming, falling into chaos.
And being overrun.
Elliot figured he wouldn’t have to live with his shame long.
Probably none of them would.
Evil Eye
CentCom – Biosciences
The tactical light on Aliyev’s Benelli finally flickered out.
He and Park, and the rest of the surviving Bio staff, huddled in the dark, the noise of their own breathing roaring in their ears – straining to listen for sounds of their approaching doom. Any more dead in there were sure to finish them, in a bloody melee and grapple they couldn’t win – getting infected or becoming lunch the only likely outcomes. The sole light in the room was also the only sound – the crackling and sparking of the electrified shelving unit blocking the door.
And then that door knocked.
“Doc! You in there?”
Park rose, recognizing the voice instantly, and shouted in response. “Don’t come in! Electrical hazard!”
There was no more than a twenty-second delay before Juice’s voice came back. “How ’bout now?”
Blinking, Park realized the sparking and buzzing had ceased. Before anyone could stop him, he went and checked by putting his hand on the bare metal. Nothing happened.
“Good to go!” he shouted at the door, then moved to start dismantling the barricade, the hackles on his neck urging him to move faster, to not get taken down from behind in the last ten seconds before they were rescued. And then he realized it wasn’t just his imagination. He could hear thumping footsteps behind him in the pitch black, running at his back, and just beneath that, inhuman gasping noises…
But Pred and Juice didn’t need his help, and simply shoved aside the barricade and shelving themselves as they bashed open the door and blasted in, weapon-mounted lights sweeping the darkness ahead.
“Down!” Juice shouted, and Park didn’t need to be told twice. Rapid suppressed firing at even intervals cut the air over his head for two seconds, then stopped. One of the cones of lights lowered, and a big hairy hand helped him up.
“You okay, Doc?” Juice asked intently, holding and not lowering his weapon with his other hand.
“Good to go,” Park repeated, in a normal speaking voice now, climbing to his feet. Looking behind him in the long cone of light, he could see two new bodies laid out in the main aisle – less than fifteen feet away from where he stood.
But then he turned toward the door again, and squinted in confusion as Pred pushed farther in – holding a small child cradled in one arm. Spotting Aliyev nearby, Pred handed him the child. Unable to do anything but take it, Aliyev clearly hadn’t the vaguest idea what to do with the thing, or even how to hold it. He looked like a monkey who’d just been handed an oscilloscope.
“The rest of the complex is clear,” Juice said – and, hearing this, the remaining lab staff went streaming out the open door into the lit area beyond. “What have you got in here?”
“There’s at least one other – a Foxtrot. But it’s been shot in the head, and acting weird.”
“Weird how?”
“Um. You’ll see.”
“Don’t suppose we can just seal this place up?”
Park shook his head. “No. The vaccination kits are too valuable. We can’t leave a Foxtrot loose in here with them – never mind one gamboling around in an even more fucked-up way than usual.”
Juice just laughed and shook his head. “Okay. Don’t worry, we’ll deal with it. C’mon, buddy,” he said, motioning to Pred. “One last room to clear.”
Albeit a very big one.
* * *
Sarah kept her rifle trained on the single door, which was barely five feet in front of her. She had Handon wheeled into a tiny examination room – one way in, one way out – and it was small enough she’d had to shove the exam table to the side to make room for the bed. It didn’t matter.
This was a position she knew she could defend.
And then the door handle jiggled.
She raised her rifle the last few degrees to point it at chin height, pulled her stock in tighter, and eased her finger around the trigger…
The door swung open in a flash.
Behind it stood two figures, rifles to shoulders. It was Ali and Homer. She faced in, he was turned and covering their rear.
Sarah exhaled and eased off her trigger.
But then, very unexpectedly, her adrenaline and cortisone levels spiked again, as she and Ali locked gazes. The look in Ali’s eyes said it all, and Sarah could read it perfectly.
You had ONE fucking job.
And that had been to protect Dr. Park – the most important man on Earth. And instead of being on station and doing that, Sarah was here, doing this. She had abandoned him. She had abandoned her post. Sarah could see and feel Ali thinking all of this, and it was like the judgment of the God of the Old Testament falling on her. Before either could speak, Ali’s radio went – on the same channel Sarah’s was tuned to.
“Ali, Juice.”
“Send it.”
“Biosciences is secure. We got here with no time to spare, but Doc Park’s okay.”
“Thank God for that,” Sarah said out loud, before she could stop herself. She immediately regretted it. The implication was way too obvious: Not thanks to her.
Ali’s face was a goddess death mask. But she just spoke into her radio. “The vaccine and MZ?”
“Both intact.”
“Copy.”
At this point, Homer turned and entered the room. Sarah looked imploringly at him, but he looked away. She knew he never judged people. But that virtue was being tested right now. And he also couldn’t fail to perceive the lethal vibe between Ali and Sarah, in the middle of which was the last place any sane person, or SEAL for that matter, wanted to be. So he was staying out of it.
Fick came across the channel, hailing Ali.
“Send it,” she said.
“Yeah, the invasion’s basically contained.”
Ali’s face shifted from lethal to annoyed. “What’s ‘basically’?”
“There are still some dead in an unused wing of the prison, but they’re sealed off and locked in. And I don’t want to risk people I can’t spare to retake areas we don’t need.”
“Roger that.”
“Also, the canteen’s a no-go.”
Ali snorted. “Fuck the canteen. This thing’s going to be over before we have time to get hungry anyway.”
“Yeah. If any of us live, I’ll take everyone out for a nice dinner at Red Lobster. My treat.”
Ali almost smiled. “Solid copy on Red Lobster.”
“Otherwise, we’re getting no reports of any dead moving anywhere, including in the main complex. I’ve got guys out sweeping the Common – if there
are any left wandering around out there, we’ll find them.”
“Or they’ll find you.”
“Exactly. Anyway, this thing’s over. And we won.”
“Good job. Out.” Ali looked down at Handon. “He okay?”
“I think so,” Sarah said.
“Have him checked out. Med staff are outside. This wing’s secure.” She shook her head, turned, and exited.
It was over.
And Sarah had fucked up again.
She’d finally sorted out her loyalties to Handon, and thought she finally had her priorities straight. But then, as a result, she had totally lost mission focus – almost costing them everything.
She just seemed to keep getting it wrong.
* * *
“This is some bullshit.”
This time it was Juice saying it, borrowing Pred’s line from the paintball arena. Somehow, they’d managed to swap roles. Now Pred seemed pretty okay with whatever was happening, easygoing even. And it was Juice who was vaguely cranky.
"You gotta be kidding me,” he added, panning the beam of his Surefire GX2 tactical light across the yawning darkness. “Don’t these damned things ordinarily chase you?” The two of them were moving through the sprawling and blacked-out aisles of the vast warehouse, trying to hunt down the Foxtrot that Park had clipped in the head.
But it just kept running away from them.
They’d already made a bunch of noise and light to draw any others who might be in there. There weren’t any. There was only this one – and every time they spotted it, it took off like a rabbit, and they couldn’t seem to corner the damned thing.
Swiveling to clear an aisle to the right, Pred smiled. “Hey, it’ll be a great story for the team room – the one about the dain-bramaged Foxtrot. One for the ages, man.”
Clearing left, unamused, Juice muttered, “Thought I’d seen everything. Obviously I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.”
But, never one to be all that psychologically complex, Juice knew that what was manifesting in him as crankiness was really just worry – concern for his friend. Not about Pred’s soul, now. But about his physical survival. He didn’t want the big man getting killed or infected, saving some random blonde female person. Not this late in the game.
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