Designated (Book 2): Designated Quarantined

by Cooper, Ricky

  Davies cast a worried eye over the stacked boxes, numbers cycling through his mind as he tallied it all together. 'Right, well, that's not going to be enough, but one thing they drill into you is to make do with what you've got.'

  Davies turned and moved back to the billowing canvas tent that sat fat and square in front of the white granite building. He stepped around a collapsible table and pulled his knife from the sheath on his chest, using it as a pointer.

  'I want your best shooters at these positions.'

  He pointed out six different locations throughout Trafalgar Square; Drapper and Mackleroy nodded as they called in their men and pointed out each position. Watching as the stern-faced officers each nodded in turn and took off at a lopping run towards the buildings around them, Davies couldn't help but feel a faint sliver of hope bloom within him, despite the overbearing finality of their situation. Looking to the Marine, John nodded, drawing the man's attention and jerked his head in the direction of the vehicles.

  'We need the heavy shooters set up at every intersection and junction to give us as much opposing firepower as possible. You and I both know these barriers aren't going to hold forever, but, we can drag them out as much as possible by carving those bastards a new hole with the fifties and Gimpies on the Land Rovers.'

  Tapping the map again, he motioned with his knife to the corresponding places about them. 'I want claymores and anti-personnel mines every twenty feet in concentric circles, starting four hundred feet in front of the vehicles then pulling inwards to a central cordon around the main barricade, the last line pulled in tight in front of the bags; that will give us a last-ditched breather.

  'Remember to string them at head and chest height, where possible, in a slight downward gradient. We know that what we're facing were once civvies and the like, but now, they're just another tango, so it's kill shots only. You know what the A box is, right?'

  The corporal nodded his head as he started to tremble slightly. Davies sighed as he watched the police commanders shake their heads.

  'If you draw a capital A from the top of my head with my shoulders and collar bone as the line in the middle with the sides of it passing through my shoulders and down my arms, that is your A box. Any shot in there is a guaranteed kill shot; you will ether drop them instantly or hydrostatic shock will liquefy their organs and do it for you.

  'So A box only. Okay, we need to conserve the ammunition; if your gunners start laying suppressive, pull'em out and get a fresh shooter in. We're looking for body count, not force suppression. The Infected will not stop for the man next to them and they definitely will not give two shits if you blow the git in front of them to pieces. A couple may stop and pull the carcass apart, but the rest will keep coming. At no point are we to let up. If the barrel overheats or the gun jams, get rifles in there in its place and another man in to clear it and make ready. At no point are we to stop firing.'

  The corporal looked scared out of his mind. His face was beginning to turn ashen, and if Davies left it any longer, he could easily see him losing the command element. John could not, and would not, let that happen. For a soldier of rank to lose face in front of his men in such a manner would destroy any and all respect they had for him. In a situation like the one they faced, he needed the full support of the men under his command if anyone was to make it out alive.

  Taking him to one side, Davies put a comforting hand on his shoulder, his gloved fingers closing slightly as he drew the man's eyes to his own.

  'Listen, bravery is being the only one who knows you're scared, and right now I can see you got it in spades. Trust me when I say this; we're all scared out our bloody minds right now, every last one of us, but we have a job to do. If we get only one civilian out of here, we have done our job; that one person could mean the difference between us winning this thing or going out like a candle in a storm. It doesn't mean we won't be scared shitless as we do it as long as it gets done.

  'Then after that, what's there to lose? You signed up for the service knowing that dying was part of the deal. We all know it; we pledged to serve the crown and all it encompasses. That means every man, woman, and child, no matter who they are.

  'The only difference here is you can choose how you go out. Do you get what I mean, mate?'

  The corporal nodded, looking calmer, the colour slowly returning to his face, but both of them knew he was just as petrified as before.

  'Good. Now go on, get going and brief your boys. You're a corporal for a reason.'

  The trooper seemed to swell inside his uniform and took off at a flat sprint to his unit on the far side of the square.

  'Baxter, Hamilton, head over to the boys on the landys and fill 'em in, but make it quick; I've got a feeling we ain't got long.'

  ****

  A nervous tension settled over the men, the stench of pulsating static souring the air. John watched the sky darken, casting the world in a monotone grey as clouds enveloped the sun. Davies winced as his back shivered with pin-like lances of pain as he hefted the last sandbag into place and took position.

  The world around him erupted into a torrent of terrified screams, the mingled voices of men, women, and children flowed together like sand through his fingers as a flood of survivors drenched the square.

  Davies stabbed his hand in the direction of three running police officers as he all but screamed at them over the tumult of noise that raged about him.

  'Keep them away from the pad otherwise the birds won't be able to land.'

  His words vanished as the world around them was crushed into silence as the sky split apart. A white, arcing bolt of lightning snapped to the ground, lighting up the thoroughfare.

  'Oh, dear mother of god,' Davies heard one of the police officers mutter as he watched the light bounce off the windows, illuminating the roadway like stadium arc lamps.

  They stood, still and motionless as the heavens pounded down upon them, the floor beneath them alive with swirling vortex of detritus and offal spilling from their bodies. A lone figure stood before the pack, its eyes glittering in the light cast off by the raging maelstrom above.

  Raising his gore-soaked hand, sallow cracked skin stretching over the extended digits, he began to scream. Battered trainers pounded the rain and blood drenched streets as he cast his red-tainted hands forth, the charge of the Infected swallowing him whole as they slowly answered his call.

  Davies swallowed, glad no one could hear his heart pounding in his chest as he watched them descend. Their guttural cries of lust-filled hunger soaking into them all.

  John's mind swirled as a passage rose to the forefront, its words swimming free as one of his father's favourite poems burned its way through him, the words echoing in his head as he watched the Infected edge closer to the outer cordon.

  Half a league, half a league, half a league onward, all in the valley of Death rode the six hundred. 'Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!' he said: Into the valley of Death rode the six hundred.

  The Tennyson quote slipping softly from his lips as he lifted the detonator and squeezed. Bodies vanished in a flash of glittering ball bearings and shrapnel and still they ran. In a hail of blood, bone, and searing metal, they ran. Circle by tightening circle, they closed upon the defenders of Trafalgar Square, the advance never slowing as a noose of their creation closed around the defenders' throats.

  The chattering guns of the men manning the vehicles filled the air as the undulating wall of bodies drank in the hailstorm of copper and lead and yet still they ran. To a man, the defenders knew with certainty that they were on the upswing of death's scythe and the reaper stood, waiting for his call.

  Davies looked about him, a smile tugging at his lips as he saw that despite the cold grip of death's hand tightly enclosing around them, not a single man or woman flinched from their post.

  The impact was ungodly as the ravenous charge collided with wall of shields, the dull crack of steel and wood on bone and flesh filling the air as the officers began their slow
walk backwards. Fists soaked in gore and brain matter rose and fell as the Infected paid in full for every centimetre claimed.

  As the last officer cleared the barricade, Davies yelled, his face set in a feral snarl as he screamed out his final command.

  'Pin 'em to the fucking wall.'

  Baker stared at the PDA on his forearm as he scanned the scrolling data feed. A rising tickle of fear wormed its way along his spine as he drank in the luminous green lettering that skated over the scratched and grazed screen.

  Roberts pulled his hand away from the side of his head as he approached Baker, a tinge of urgent panic coating his voice as he spoke. 'Boss, Team Two has reached evac point Delta. Civilians and other personnel have made safe entrance to the site, but it's under heavy assault from the Infected. Davies has said he's done what he can to shore up some sort of defence there but wants to know the ETA on the evac choppers.'

  Baker sighed in resignation, a sense of inevitability boiling within him as he spoke. 'Get on to Lincruster and the air wing. Tell her to get three Chinooks in there on the double. If they give you any grief, tell them I'll fucking shoot them myself if they don't get airborne with the next six minutes.'

  Roberts nodded and radioed through to the air wing. Hefting his rifle, Baker looked at the others.

  'Right, now what.' Baker stood for a moment as he tracked back through the data feed for anything of use, his eyes widening slightly as he stared at the flashing report heading.

  'Roberts!'

  Dean spun on his heels as he looked round at Baker, giving him the thumbs up as he finished off the radio message. 'Yeah, boss?'

  Stepping closer to Baker, he looked at him enquiringly.

  'Get a chopper to our location now!'

  Baker scratched at his stubble-coated jaw, the itch of new growth grating at his already frayed nerves. 'Right, ladies, listen up; we've got a slingshot mission to do. We head from here to Number 10 and see if the Prime Minister is still on site. Downing Street was locked down just before the Palace but has since gone dark; no one on the ground can get to it.

  'From there we head to the Square and pick up anyone left—if there is anyone left. We make it quick and clean on the ground and get in and out. Our boys are waiting for us and are sitting in a world of hurt, so if the PM is a wash, then we bug out and move on; I don't want anything to hold us up.'

  The six men in front of him nodded as Roberts called in the helicopter. The Bell 212 landed with a spray of dust and broken glass, and within forty seconds of its skids kissing the war-torn tarmac, they were making their way to Downing Street, Baker's sense of trepidation and unease growing the closer they got.

  Baker shifted from his seat, half stepping from the open door of the helicopter, his foot resting on the diamond printed steel of landing skid; with a nod of his head, Baker watched as a dozen small drones floated from the doorway of the hovering helicopter before zipping towards the open gloss black door, its copper numbers dulled with the clotted and drying blood of the dead officer who lay in a crumpled heap over the concrete steps.

  Derek leapt from the helicopter as it stopped three feet from the body-strewn roadway. The thumping of feet rising around him as the helicopter rose into the smoke-laden sky, sending a shaft of heated air collapsing down upon them like a mountain of snow. Fisher knelt, grit, glass, and shattered brickwork grinding against the hardened plastic plates covering his knee and shin as he stared into nothing.

  The images from the tiny quadro-copters shimmered across the head-up display (HUD) in front of his eyes, the world about him bathed in a cool, blue light as he dropped to a knee next to Derek.

  The hardshell pack on his back pressed down on him as it slowly rolled itself shut, the soft whine of its electric motor barely breaking the slowly enveloping silence.

  'Find anything?'

  Fisher shook his head. 'Nothing but bodies. Before you ask, the drones have mapped out the building and the bodies are marked.' Fisher tapped at the touch screen pad on his arm, a soft beep echoing in his ear bead as he finished. 'Map should be on your HUD now.'

  Baker nodded as he scanned the image quickly before sending it to the top left corner of his visor. 'Right, floor by floor. The drones aren't infallible; I want this place cleared top to bottom.'

  They nodded, moving forwards, their feet carrying them up the small set of steps to the open doorway. Turning to the left, Roberts stepped forwards, his booted foot rising as he kicked the door through. Spinning to the right, he moved out of the way of the door as the rest entered, rifles raised. A unanimous, call of 'clear' bounced through the open mic they all wore round their throat as Derek took point.

  Room after room, floor after floor, they moved as one, their voices echoing in the still air around them as they came to the final door.

  Its solitary form sitting in its frame, hanging like a gangrenous wound, Baker's breathing rasped in his ears as his feet carried him over the threshold.

  Derek silently cursed as he stared at the desk, the dull glow of daylight slanting through the dust-laden air, its cold white beam encircling the desk as the rest of the team slipped through the door.

  Collins was the first to shatter the silence that had swallowed them all, his solitary words echoing their thoughts as he shook his head.

  'Damn it.'

  The Prime Minister lay still, his skin sallow and waxen as he hung, bent backwards over his desk. His slowly clotting blood dripped in a steady, rhythmic beat from the gaping hole in his throat. The white shimmer of cartilage and bone glittered in the sunlight, wet flesh framing his torn oesophagus.

  The black uniform on the creature atop him saying more than any of them needed to know. Baker stepped forwards and pulled the body off the corpse of the Prime Minister. A dull thump echoed as it hit the floor, its head clanking slightly as the long swan-handled letter opener that hung from its eye socket struck the oak floorboards.

  Baker's hands danced through the Prime Minister's pockets, searching for the small plastic-coated sheaf of card. Its cold countenance settling into his gloved palm as he pulled it from the pocket of the man's stained suit trousers.

  'Okay, let's get out of here. No point hanging around; we have what we needed here and he certainly ain't going anywhere in a hurry.'

  Sharpe chuckled darkly as he pulled a phosphorous grenade from his hip pouch and tossed it onto the desk, thick black smoke billowing moments later as the bodies began to burn.

  'Last man out.'

  Sharpe's words echoed through the slowly burning building as he stepped through the front door and into the frigid winter air.

  26

  Trafalgar Square

  Screams and wails filled the air as the petrified civilians cowered behind the barricades, their huddled forms clustered behind the slowly dwindling line of men and women.

  Davies stared as they fell around him, the chatter of gunfire and screams of fear fading from his ears as another magazine slipped empty into the pouch on his stomach.

  He dragged a full magazine free as bloodstained hands clawed at him, a hailstorm of boiling lead and copper driving it back as its falling form was crushed beneath the ranks of onrushing Infected.

  His weapon bucked against his shoulder as the bolt shot home, sending another spear of anger into its boiling breach. The heat haze of red-hot steel shimmered around the muzzle, distorting his vision as he squeezed the trigger.

  Hundreds lay dead at the edge of the barricade, their torn and twisted forms spattered with the gore of a hundred more as they continued to throw themselves against the beleaguered defenders.

  'Contact left,' Baxter screamed as the vehicle beneath him rocked, its groaning form teetering on its springs as hands and feet clawed for purchase on its metal skin.

  He twisted to and fro, dragging the thumping weapon in his hands across the soft yielding backs of the people he had once sworn to protect. Even as they fell, a dozen more drove forwards, their feet crushing their still clawing forms into the gore-smeared roadw
ay as hot, twirling cylinders of brass rained down upon their heads.

  ****

  Joshua smiled as he stood on the rooftop watching the scene below him, a glimmer of red-tinged teeth showing as he watched Davies teeter forwards, clasping hands, and snatching fingers pulling him across the top of the barricade.

  His eyes widened as he saw John's feet leave the floor. A snarl of rage left his lips as he watched a black-clad figure draw him away, tongues of fire leaping from the weapon in his hand as he pulled Davies upright.

  The photograph in Joshua's hand crinkled slightly as he shook with anger at the sight below. The undulating horde of his kin beginning to wane in its efforts as the withering hailstorm battered their assault.

  'They are more resilient than I gave them credit for. Being locked in that box for so long must have dulled my mind more than I thought it had.'