With the weapons fire that was imminent, they needed to be able to talk to each other.
“Switch to VOX,” Holroyd said, as he knew that there wouldn’t be time to press and hold the transmit button when the action started. If they could contain the infected to the Logistics Center it would give them more room to maneuver. If they were pushed back into the Old Madigan area or onto the main post, space was limited and they’d end up with only a few vehicles being able to engage as the roads were narrower and still contained the barriers that had been put in place during the first few hours of the outbreak.
“Warpig approaching,” Upton reported.
Holroyd strained to see where the main gun truck was. He caught a glimpse of the mobile weapons platform as it stopped at the gate that divided the Logistics Center from the Old Madigan complex. Every weapon onboard was firing back into the Log Center as the other trucks slipped past and formed a cordon. The modified 1078 LMTV rolled through the gate last, weapons smoking and steaming as the cold rain pelted the hot metal. Holroyd’s vehicle had stopped in the parking lot of the old recreation center. Through the rain, he could see the men in the back of the Warpig reloading. The thunder of weapons fire vibrated the MATV as the other trucks went online. Tracers streaked out into the rain as the trucks rocked back on their springs. The gunners swept the area back and forth laying down suppressive fire that chopped up the infected as they attempted to squeeze through the gate to Old Madigan.
Holroyd watched, amazed and with some mild shock, as the infected threw themselves into the wall of death that was being sown. The front of the tainted mass literally evaporated only to be replaced by those behind it in a seemingly never-ending push.
“Break, break. This is team leader. All units standby,” Holroyd said. “Disengage and fall back to Rally Point Charlie. I say again, Rally Point Charlie.”
He received a confirmation from each truck captain and then motioned to Sullivan who nodded and accelerated out of the parking lot. Each truck began slowly moving away from the Log Center gate until one by one, they disengaged contact with the enemy, sped up and followed Holroyd out of the area and towards main post.
***
Chapter 27
Safeguard, New Mexico
Frank Durst tightened the last bolt that secured the winch to the frame of the SOTV. He straightened, stretched and looked over at Stone who was sitting in a folding lawn chair sipping a beer. Glancing over to where Burnett worked, he watched as she tightened down the mounting bracket for the last overhead light. She was perched on a small step stool and stretching to tighten down the bracket. Durst looked at her body. She was lean but had curves. He was staring at the expanse of skin exposed at her waist as her shirt had ridden up with her hands above her head. She caught his eye and smiled. Durst returned the smile then walked over to the rolling tool cabinet and replaced the wrench. Wiping his hands on a rag, he looked over at Stone who saluted him with his can of beer as he swallowed some pain pills for his leg.
“About time you two finished up. I was down to my last beer,” Stone said, taking a large gulp then belching loudly. “I’d had that done,” he glanced at his watch, “Forty-five minutes ago.”
“You could have helped,” Durst said. Stone looked at him.
“I could have. But, then you wouldn’t have learned how to do it yourself,” he said. Durst shook his head in amazement as he walked over to the cooler that sat on the concrete floor of the garage and lifted out a cold, wet can of Pepsi. He popped the top and guzzled down half the can then wiped his brow. Burnett approached and reached into the cooler for a 7-Up. She popped the top and drank slowly watching the interaction between the other two occupants of the large building.
“You think I need to inspect your work?” Stone asked as he finished his beer and crumpled the can.
“No. Not if you want to get out of here before dark,” Durst said. Stone nodded, grabbed his cane and levered himself up out of the chair. He walked in a small circle around his chair loosening up his leg muscles that had cramped while he had sat for so long. Once he had flexed his leg enough, he walked over to the SOTV and slowly walked around it.
“Looks good to me,” he said before heading for the door. “C’mon, I ain’t got all day. Go grab your shit and let’s get out of here,” he said as he opened the personnel door and walked out into the harsh sun. Burnett and Durst hurried after him.
Elsewhere within the vast Safeguard facility.
“John!” Cassie called out as she entered their shared room. Mecceloni stuck his head out the bathroom, half his lower face covered in shaving cream.
“What?”
“Stone is heading out,” she said.
“What?”
“I just came from the dining room. Stone, Frank, and those two nurses from Cannon are heading out,” she said.
Mecceloni quickly looked back at his reflection in the mirror and shaved, rinsed his face, patted it dry and stared at the face in the mirror. Shaking his head, he left the bathroom and grabbed his pants that were on the back of a chair.
“Let’s go,” he said. “Grab your gear. We’re going with them.”
Cassie stood there and watched Mecceloni zip up his pants then sit in that same chair and lace up his boots.
“C’mon! We’re going with them,” Mecceloni said.
“Shit,” Cassie said before she moved to grab her tactical load bearing vest and P90. Mecceloni had already shrugged into his vest and was checking his rifle by the time Cassie had changed into her boots.
“Shake it, baby. We got to go,” he said as he walked to the door and looked back. Cassie slid into her vest then grabbed the belt that contained her HK P45C and spare magazines on one side and the drop down magazine holder for the P90 on the other.
“Coming. I’m coming,” she said as she hurried after Mecceloni trying to buckle her belt. She saw him already at the elevator and jogged to catch up. The car arrived just as she did and the doors opened. They both stepped inside for the short ride to the surface. Cassie buckled the belt around her waist then snapped the buckles that held the holster to her thigh duplicating that action for the magazine holder on her other leg. As the elevator doors opened, she was zipping up her vest and then tying her hair into a pony tail.
“What about Woody and Sharon?” Mecceloni asked, as he paused at the door.
“They said they wanted to stay here,” Cassie replied as she patted her pockets for her sunglasses. Mecceloni nodded then hit the door release. She had just enough time to slip on her sunglasses before he opened the exterior door and exited. The blast of warm air hit her and took her breath away. She was still not used to this weather even though she had been living in Las Vegas for several years. Cassie hurried after Mecceloni and caught up with him as the Quonset hut roll-up door opened. She stepped to one side as the rumble of a diesel engine reverberated against the corrugated sheet metal and a tan colored, four-door somewhat odd looking pickup exited. The passenger side door opened and Durst stuck his head out.
“The Cut-Vee is all fueled up. We’re heading to a food distribution warehouse,” he said. “Follow us.”
Mecceloni watched the pickup move towards the main gate then walked inside and started up the CUCV. Cassie waited until he had pulled it outside before she hit the door closure switch and hopped inside. He already had the air conditioning on high to chase the heat out of the interior. As they followed Stone out the main gate, Mecceloni slightly shook his head and muttered.
“Goddamn cowboy,” he said. “Just has to play with his new toy.”
The two vehicles rolled along the access road to Safeguard then turned onto the highway. Stone sped up and started to pull away from Mecceloni before Mecceloni accelerated and matched his speed. Instead of following the highway into Clovis, Stone slowed, turned off the paved road, navigated through the ditch and onto a frontage road. Mecceloni followed him as Stone again turned off the frontage road and onto a dirt road. Mecceloni looked in his mirror. Both vehicles were
leaving a trail of dust that a blind man could follow.
“Where the hell is he going?” Cassie asked.
“Shit if I know,” Mecceloni said.
Stone followed the dirt road until he turned off and drove up a shallow rise and stopped. The CUCV pulled up alongside him and parked. Below them was a large warehouse surrounded by a high chain link fence. Several semi-trucks were lined up inside the fence, some in staging areas and some in stalls awaiting their drivers. A dozen trailers were backed into the loading bays of the building. Durst opened the passenger side door and motioned towards the building before closing the door. Stone slowly backed up, turned back onto the dirt road and followed it down the hill before going overland again. He pulled up onto the two-lane road that ran perpendicular to the warehouse and stopped again. Mecceloni followed him and parked beside him, both vehicles facing the truck entrance. Durst opened the door and got out. Behind him, Burnett exited from the rear passenger seat and both of them brought their rifles up. When Burnett and Drewett had left Cannon, all they had were their M9s. Since their stay at Safeguard, Stone had made sure they had M4s and Mecceloni had run them through a remedial refresher course. Moving slowly and scanning the area for infected, Durst and Burnett approached the gate and stopped. While Burnett covered him, Durst studied how to open the gate. There was a small guardhouse that drivers would stop at to check in and out of the facility. That building probably controlled the gate. If there was still power going to the warehouse, unlikely, then all they’d need to do was scale the fence and open the gate from the inside. Durst moved back to Burnett then faced the vehicles and shook his head. Stone revved the engine and moved forward. Durst tapped Burnett on the shoulder and indicated that they should move out of the way. Stone eased up to the gate and slowly crept closer until the bumper made contact. He downshifted to 4-Low then gently applied pressure to the accelerator. The SOTV moved forward against the gate, the engine rumbling until the wheels of the rolling gate popped off its track and the gate opened just enough for one person to slip inside. Stone backed away and Durst slid into the gap, rifle up and ready. He scanned the vast parking area before he motioned Burnett inside. Once she had slipped in, he let his rifle hang by its sling and crouched down by the gate opening mechanism. There was a key lock on the outside and the two openings that the chain drive went into but these apertures were too small for him to stick his hand in. A crash of glass breaking made him start and look over to Burnett who was using the butt of her rifle to clear away shards of glass from the broken window on the door of the guardhouse. She reached inside and opened the door. A few minutes of searching and she retrieved a small key ring and an odd shaped handle. Walking over to Durst, she gave him the keys. Durst grinned and shook his head as he used the smallest key on the ring to unlock and open the access cover. He switched the gate motor transmission to neutral then handed back the keys in exchange for the handle.
“Can you get the wheels back in the track?” he asked Burnett. She looked over at the gate.
“Yeah, no problem,” she said then walked over and grabbed the fence and lifted. Sliding the gate a little, she managed to get the wheels centered on their track then stepped back and gave a thumbs up to Durst. He inserted the handle and began cranking the gate open. Slowly, the rolling gate opened enough for Stone to drive the SOTV inside followed by Mecceloni. Repeating that same evolution, Durst cranked the gate closed. Breathing heavy from both the exertion and the heat, Durst walked over to the SOTV.
“Now what?” he asked after opening the door.
“Now, we go shopping,” Stone said. “See you at the door.” Stone sped off heading for the driver’s check-in door. Durst watched him drive off before he turned to Burnett who grinned then started walking towards the building.
“You shouldn’t be outside yet,” Drewett said from the back seat of the SOTV. “You need to heal.”
“Too late now. We’re already outside,” Stone said. Drewett glared at the back of his head then checked her rifle and medical pack.
Mecceloni carefully looked at the trucks parked in the lot as he and Cassie drove past them. They all had a layer of dirt on the windshields and trash piled up by the tires. A few of the trucks had flat tires. The majority of them had some kind of shipping company logo painted on either the tractor and the trailer or both. Several were obviously independent truckers presumably contracted to transport the company’s trailers. One semi stood out from all the rest. It had a garish paint job on the extended sleeper behind the cab of a winged Pegasus in flight against a black background filled with lightening strikes.
“You see that?” he said as they drove by.
“Yeah. Kind of cool,” Cassie said.
“That’s what’s called a condo. That sleeper is larger than all the rest. The tractor has an extended wheel base to accommodate the size,” Mecceloni said before speeding up and following Stone. An idea started forming in his mind. Maybe it was time to start looking outside of Safeguard. There had to be other locations that had been bypassed that had come through all this relatively unscathed.
St. John had a lot of supplies back at Safeguard but those supplies were finite. If this facility was untouched then there was a good chance they could max out their storage areas. Maybe if there was time, he’d go through the trucks and see if there were any notations on any bills of lading that were from other such distribution centers.
***
Chapter 28
DARPA facility, Nevada Desert
Ronald Chambers viewed the real time imagery sent back by the Global Hawk. The view on the LCD monitor was of a residential neighborhood on the outskirts of Las Vegas. The image showed thousands of dead birds littering yards, streets, rooftops and cars. A knock on the door interrupted him.
“Hey doc, I see you’re getting the feed,” Heller said stepping inside the room.
“This is not what I expected,” Chambers said shaking his head.
“I’m sorry doc, that’s the best high definition cameras we could find,” Heller said misunderstanding Chambers’ statement.
“No, that’s not it. This is all wrong. My theory is all wrong,” Chambers said. Again, he thought to himself. I’m not a damned epidemiologist, he thought. What do I know about viral vectors?
“What?” Heller asked.
“I theorized that the scavenger birds avoided the bodies because of some kind of pheromone. This,” he said indicating the image on the screen. “This proves it wrong.”
Heller stood there looking at the images on the screen not knowing what to say.
“I was so wrapped up in postulating a theory based on insufficient evidence,” Chambers said.
“But, isn’t this a good thing?” Heller asked. “The birds are dead so they can’t spread the infection.”
“Yes, it’s a good thing but it doesn’t explain why the infection killed them.” Chambers studied the monitor. “I need to bring some of those back to study. And we need to find out where all the other animals have gone. If they can sense something we might be able to use that in some way to benefit us. And while you’re at it, find a goddamn ornithologist, virologist and epidemiologist.”
“Okay,” Heller said, stretching out the word. “I’ll get one of the brain trust to send HUEY over there,” he said as he turned to leave the room.
The mention of a new name made Chambers give Heller a questioning look.
“HUEY?”
“Yes,” Heller said turning back to face Chambers. “HUEY is one of the specialized units we were developing for bomb disposal. He has several umbilical arms that are highly functional and an airtight containment cage for chemical devices. Perfect for this type of work,” Heller explained.
Chambers shook his head; in the time he had spent in the installation, he was constantly amazed at the new items or programs that seemed to appear weekly if not daily. The children, or rather gifted young adults or Geeks and Phreaks as they liked to be called, anthropomorphized their robotic creations to a point where t
hey were referred to by name and treated like living entities. Chambers shook his head at that.
“Doc, if you don’t mind my saying, maybe you should take some time off,” Heller said.
Chambers quizzically looked at the young Air Force officer. He had been thinking about why the birds had died and staring at the video feed.
“Yes,” Chambers nodded. “Maybe I should take a break.” He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. There were a number of different species of bird present. The majority were the obvious scavengers. The others were a puzzle to him. He was no ornithologist but he did know that larger birds did tend to prey on smaller ones.
Heller watched Chambers then turned and quietly left the room.
Chambers was making some notes and organizing the files he had opened when movement on the screen caught his eye. Something large, maybe a hawk, had just landed on a power pole. He adjusted the gain to zoom in on the bird. Definitely a hawk. Not sure what kind, but the size and beak structure put it within the hawk family. He studied the bird as it looked around at its fallen brethren before it opened its wings and flew off. He quickly adjusted the controls to keep the bird in view but lost it as it disappeared under a freeway overpass. Chambers made a note for one of the land drones to search that area. It was possible that there was a nest under that overpass. Maybe if he could get some samples from that nest, he would be able to tell how far the virus had mutated and why that particular bird wasn’t affected. The initial filovirus was adaptable, it was within the realm of possibility that it could have mutated to a point where animals would be immune. He chided himself for not looking at that. Any virus mutates after several generations. He had forgotten his basic biology. Viral mutation is what created the influenza vaccine each year. He snorted. Every year, Big Pharma announced they had some new flu vaccine and the gullible public ran off like mindless sheep and paid for a live viral load injection thinking that it would prevent them from getting sick. It was ridiculous to think that some flu virus from the previous year, mutated under laboratory conditions, would in any way, prevent a person from getting sick the following year. The odds of that happening were far greater than winning the Powerball lottery.
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