“What on earth do they do for a living to afford something like this as a toy, – a plaything?” She said, frowning her disapproval.
“Nothing legal, that’s for sure.”
Luke smirked and held up a kilo of cocaine. “Look at this. There are probably twenty kilos of it. All the inland waterways make Florida so hard to patrol. This area has been a haven for smugglers since the days of the pirates.” He opened the engine cover and rummaged around, eventually found the fuel line, yanked it out and grinned.
Up in the cabin, Sophie switched on the gas rings of a portable stove, and then rigged up a cigarette lighter as Luke had shown her. She was about to close the door behind her when Luke pushed her back in. “Listen?”
She strained her ears and heard the distant sound of helicopter rotor-blades, and moments later, four Chinook helicopters hovering low overhead, then she remembered the impending explosion. “The gas,” she said.
“Wait,” he said, and then sighed as the choppers passed overhead in towards the trailer park. “Let’s get out of here.”
They disembarked from the cruiser and leapt onto the dirt bike, the rear wheel spewing up gravel in Luke’s haste to get away.
10:00 AM
The choppers prepared to land in a straight-line formation on the street outside the burning trailer park. The side doors popped open and soldiers emerged wearing camouflaged biohazard suits and climbed down before the choppers had landed properly.
A man of military bearing, wearing sunglasses stood with his hands on his hips and stared at the devastation. A growl emitted from deep within his throat.
The pilot of the following chopper recognized the man and choked. “That’s Jumpin’ Jack Malloy!” he exclaimed in surprise as they approached him.
“Jesus Christ!” said the co-pilot.
“Close enough. Although he was the last man to come back from the dead.”
“I thought General Malloy perished in the HQ bombing?”
“No such luck,” he moaned as they grouped around the general awaiting his orders.
The general snapped a sharp salute, which the enlisted men returned. “Who’s your highest ranking officer?”
“That would be me, General,” said a sergeant major, pushing through the mob. “What can I do for you?”
“I need your men to sweep this area for terrorists.”
“Begging your pardon, General, how do you know it was terrorists?”
The general glowered at him, and the sergeant major visibly quaked. “This is clearly the work of terrorists. If you were observant, son, you would know that the intensity of the blasts suggest that these trailers had been full of gas before they were destroyed. And a nearby house on the river was also reduced to rubble by a deliberate act of terrorism.”
“What does HQ say about this use of manpower?”
“There is no HQ, son. I’m HQ until further notice. Now, are you going to disobey anymore orders?”
“But we are needed -”
The boats erupting less than a mile away ended the argument as a column of thick, black smoke reached up into the scorching hot sky. The general whipped off his sunglasses and glowered at the sergeant major. “Why are you still here? Get after them!”
__________
The luxury cruiser exploded and the ferocity of the blast wave blew Luke and Sophie clean off the motorcycle. Sophie stirred, checked herself over, wriggled her extremities and although battered and bruised she knew that at least no bones were broken.
The tumble stunned Luke. He massaged the shoulder that took the brunt of his spill, and counted himself lucky that he did not have the dirt bike up to full speed or their fall might have been a different story. Sophie looked at him with a worried expression on her face and he stuck up his thumb to reassure her that he was OK. He stood gingerly, testing the weight on his ankle. She limped over to Luke who tugged the dirt bike upright and started it. “Come on, we better get out of here,” she hopped on the back and the motorcycle sped away spewing up dirt behind the wheel.
11:00 AM
The Pentagon war room was in utter chaos. The digital revolution had made information instant and copious. No slow drip of intelligence like in the past, where they had time to assess the material. Now the intel was instantaneous and demanded attention. The back-room analysts could not cope with the overload, and accurate information was in short supply as the intelligence passed to the Joint Chiefs of Staff conflicted. The chiefs yelled at each other like school-kids, each wanted their branch seen to have discovered the answer, or failing that, and equally as important, that their branch of the armed forces did not face the blame, or seen on the wrong side when this was eventually over.
Each Chief of staff sat on the fence and agreed with each opposing argument, but above all else, agreed with the wet-behind-the-ears newly installed President, who got more and more paranoid by the hour.
President Hamilton Parker’s face showed signs of fatigue not the usual shiny, smiling visage he showed to the public, but lined, creased with worry and in need of a shave with a growth of stubbly gray hair. He cleared his throat, and tried to get the discussion back into some form of order.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen, silence please,” he yelled from a video-link above their din. “Be seated and let me tell you where we’re at.”
Vice-Admiral Reed butted in. “Mister President, what have your advisors’ made of the data we sent over to the White House?”
“Damnit, we’ve not had time - half my staff didn’t turn in today.”
“That’s odd?”
“I expect they wanted to start the holiday weekend early,” he said with a shrug.
“That does not sound like White House personnel. They would have fought so hard to get a position on the staff. I don’t think they would jeopardize that by playing hooky,” the vice-admiral said. His companions nodded their agreement, suddenly the vice-admiral’s face dropped. “You don’t think it’s the -”
The President waved away the notion, and cleared his throat again. “No, no, Washington is safe, all the hospitals are on red alert, and we have the police doing ‘unofficial’ random stop-checks. No, we’re clean. My guess is they’re fleeing north, or aboard to get away from this thing. Goddamn cowards . . .” He paced around his desk deep in thought, and then seemed to remember that they were there on his video-link screen, “Where was I . . .?”
“Are you feeling alright, Mister President, are you getting enough sleep?” the vice-admiral asked.
“Who has time to sleep?” He threw his arms up in the air. “Not me, that’s for sure. I wanted to ask my physician for something to help, but he hasn’t attended today.”
“Doctor Crawford’s not shown up? That’s not like him. Have you tried to contact him?”
“He’s not answering,” he said dismissively. “Can we get back to the matter in hand?”
Quinn Martell is still in DC, shall we send him over?” said the vice-admiral.
“The surgeon general’s in DC? Why?” He acted jumpy, and then his mind seemed to wander off.
“Shall I send him over, Mister President? Protocol states that a physician should be at your side at all times?”
“That’s right, I’d forgotten, what with all the pressure on me.” His voice trailed off, then. “Right, where were we?”
“Shall I send for him, Mister President?”
“Yes, yes,” he said. “Do that, fine. Now, we must get back to the situation in Florida. Has anyone heard from General Malloy? Has anyone made contact yet?”
“We’ve sent another team down there, Mister President,” Vice-Admiral Reed said. “To set up mobile command, further north this time.” An interactive map filled each man’s monitor. “Miami and the surrounding areas are lost . . .” He let the fact sink in, before continuing. “We’re going to pull right back and set up the command center near Lake Okeechobee.”
Once again, there was a murmur from the assembled men regarding the chaotic mess in Florida. Each m
an knew the enormity of the situation, but Vice-Admiral Reed was the first to admit the crisis was out of control. He laid it on the line, and told them how bad things were.
“When was somebody going to tell me this?” the President asked with menace in his voice as he paced the Oval Office disappearing and reappearing on the screen while he wandered.
Vice-Admiral Reed used his cell to call Quinn Martell. He gave him instructions to hightail it over to the White House as soon as possible. He filled him in on the latest information, and reminded him that it would be within his power and in fact, his duty, to section President Parker if necessary. He quoted the relevant amendments and paragraph numbers that gave him the authority to do so, which would then give leadership to the more even-keeled Speaker of the House.
“OK,” said President Parker. “You’re trying to tell me that the might of the US army, navy and air-force can’t handle the situation and we are retreating like cowards?” He clearly did not approve.
“A tactical maneuver, Mister President, it would be prudent to use our troops on the ground more efficiently. From what I can understand – and I’m only getting fragments at the moment - but it appears that a band of vigilantes are blowing things up to distract -”
“Blowing things up?” the President said aghast. “Like what?”
“So far, erm, a house, some boats, a trailer park -”
“And we can’t catch them?” He threw his arms in the air again in disgust.
“Our guys on the ground have to investigate, sift through the evidence, look for clues, it’s all too time consuming, sir. We’re running around south Florida like headless chickens. Meanwhile we need to strengthen our road blocks, and have more troops guarding the perimeter, we’re spread too thinly.”
“While I agree that makes sense, we still need to find the terrorists, and this latest development has all the hallmarks of guerrilla attacks, wasting our time chasing after ghosts,” he paused for the longest moment. “OK, here’s the deal. We’ll pull back the troops to a safe distance, double up the perimeter, double up the patrols, and send in more airplanes and drones to track those traitors. We’ll use the precision of our superior technology to catch these bastards.” He smiled for the first time in ages and finally felt like he was back in control. “Then we’ll send in an elite forces squad with the sole aim of eliminating Doctor Garcia and her accomplice.”
CHAPTER 31
12:00 MIDDAY
Captain Phillips of the aircraft carrier USS Thomas Jefferson decided to see the calamity with his own eyes. He skippered the navy launch rescue boat, on the search for the missing craft from the previous evening, along with crewmembers Gomez and Lieutenant Harvey. They wore the heavy orange hazmat suits for their protection.
Captain Phillips, a rugged war-horse stood at the helm and directed the craft into the entrance of the Intracoastal Waterway river following the route that his launch crew had taken the night before, chasing the renegades.
“You sure this is right, crewman?” the captain’s voice sounded metallic through his mouthpiece.
“Aye-aye, Captain. We were tracing them, they went up this inlet to the inter-coastal highway and then we lost contact.”
“What time was this?”
“2200 hours, captain. Then we lost them,”
The captain snorted his derision. “Gone AWOL, more like. You wait until we catch up with those no good bums.” He looked left and right as the naval craft chugged into the wide mouth of the river. He turned the craft and kept up his vigil, as did his two companions.
After a moment, Gomez pointed and shouted frantically. “Captain, look!” He pointed at the smoldering remains of the naval launch.
“Damn those no-good lazy bastards! I’ll have them court marshaled for destroying navy property.”
“I don’t think they went AWOL, Captain.”
“Why not?” he asked nastily.
“Because, that looks like one of them over there.” He pointed at a body floating between two moored speedboats. The captain maneuvered the craft near to the corpse. Gomez leaned out of the craft, which was extremely difficult as his hazmat suit restricted his movements. He grabbed the body under the shoulders, to get the best purchase, put his foot on the edge of the craft preparing to take the weight, then heaved.
The upper torso of the sailor shot out of the river covering them all in water, then straight up over the top of Gomez’s head where he let go of it in surprise, it sailed over them all and splashed back into the river.
“What in God’s name are you doing, crewman?” the captain asked.
“Didn’t you see it, Captain? It’s only his head and shoulders.” Gomez looked nauseous and went to retrieve the body. He splashed the water towards the boat to bring the corpse closer. The body turned in the water and bobbed towards the boat.
Even the battle-hardened captain recoiled at the sight of the head, which various marine life had nibbled, leaving two black cavernous holes, where the eyes should have been. “Get it in the craft, we’ll identify him and see that he gets a proper burial.” He looked heavenward and said a few words of prayer silently to himself.
Gomez and the lieutenant dragged the man’s upp+-er torso into their boat. Gomez had to fight with himself not to puke as he handled the corpse, severed below the rib cage. The ribs shone brightly in the morning sun, internal organs fell from the body into the craft as they hauled it in.
“He’s been gotten at by ‘gators,” the captain said casually. “I’ve seen these bite marks before. This is a timely reminder that the waterways of Florida are not safe.”
Gomez gulped and looked into the murky river trying to see this silent enemy. “I thought all the alligators were in the Everglades.”
“They are everywhere,” the captain replied. “It’s common for an odd ‘gator death this far down, a couple a year usually. But now, without all the noise of the boats and tourists maybe they’re getting braver and trying out new territories,”
The lieutenant pointed at a limb floating in the water near them, he reached out to get it, then suddenly pulled his arm back in as if he expected the snapping jaws of an alligator to spring from the water. He waited until the craft was upon it, then quickly snatched the leg and hauled it aboard.
Gomez gagged once more, and could tell that it too had a clean bite mark in it. “Would an alligator attack the crew?” he asked to cover his nausea.
“No way. The renegades somehow overpowered them and left them as ‘gator food.”
“Does this leg belong to that torso, or is the leg all we’re going find of this sailor,” Gomez asked.
“That leg does not belong to that body, sailor. I’d say this leg is Chinese, certainly oriental.”
“Chen,” Gomez said flatly.
“Captain?” the lieutenant called his attention with hope rising in his voice. “I think there is another one over there on the lawn behind the cruiser. I think its breathing - I think he’s still alive!”
The captain steered the naval craft to where the lieutenant had indicated, and they disembarked slowly, so as not to dip their feet into any part of the river after seeing the damage the mighty jaws of an alligator could inflict. Gomez flipped the person over. “It’s Matthers, Captain - he’s still breathing.”
The lieutenant bent closer. “Can you hear me Matthers? You’re safe now, wake up.” He did not respond. “He’s trying to say something.” He leaned in closer to Matther’s mouth, but could not understand him. “I can’t hear him coz of this damned helmet.”
He went to take it off when the captain grabbed him roughly by the wrist. “Do not remove your helmet.”
“I can’t hear him, Captain.”
“That’s an order, sailor.”
The captain bent near to Matthers whose eyes started to flutter. “Help me. . .” he croaked. “I need water . . .”
The captain hooked his arm under his head and raised him up. “I need you to look at these photos, it’s imperative to our mission th
at we capture the terrorists. Was this person involved?” Captain Phillips held up a headshot of Sophie. “Was she the terrorist that did this?”
Matthers eyes focused on the photograph, but then he looked as if he would pass out again. The captain shook him, “Matthers! Look at the photo, that’s an order. If she was involved nod your head.”
Matthers stared at the photo for the longest time, and then almost imperceptibly nodded.
“I knew it,” said the captain. “Now we have some solid proof. I’ve got to speak to the ship so they can let high command know.” He hopped back onto the craft and picked up the radio.
Matthers tugged on Gomez’s sleeve, but he still could not hear through the plastic visor of his helmet. “What? What you saying? Can’t you speak louder?” Gomez begged.
Matthers beckoned to Gomez, who looked around shiftily then quickly whipped off his helmet, leaned down to Matthers who said; “Tell your sister . . . that I love her . . .”
Gomez swiftly donned his helmet. “You can tell her yourself, buddy, because you are going to make it.” He smiled at his friend and fiddled with the catches of his helmet.
The captain turned sharply and almost caught him. “Did you take your helmet off?” he asked in disbelief.
“No, Captain, not me. Getting hot is all,” he lied weakly.
“Come on we’ve got to go,” the captain ordered.
“Aren’t we taking Matthers, Captain?”
“Don’t question orders, boy.”
Gomez was not about to give up on his friend. “What about, Matthers?”
“He’s a plague victim, you’ll deal with him the same as anyone else suffering with the Black Death,”
“He’s one of our own, sir.”
“You know what to do, Gomez.”
“W – What do you mean, Captain?” Gomez asked, with a quaver in his voice.
“He’s been exposed. He’s a darkie. Dispatch him.”
The Doomsday Infection Page 21