The center bomb bay doors swung open and the rotary launcher immediately started pumping out long, finned cylindrical objects, which for a moment seemed to fly in formation with the rapidly ascending bomber before slowly pulling away in their own preprogrammed flight paths.
When the last of the eight objects was dropped, the bomb bay doors slammed shut and the Bone continued its looping flight path until it was flying inverted, its curved gray back facing the ground. The pilot returned the engines to military power, and the big bird of prey rolled back to level flight, heading away from the target area.
Inside each of the eight objects, a GPS receiver passed tiny course corrections to the fins, keeping the objects on course toward the release point.
Side panels were blown from the eight objects as they began their descents, each releasing five smaller projectiles that immediately maneuvered toward their own GPS targeting coordinates on the surface. Radar altimeters in the nose of each of the objects constantly pinged the ground, measuring their exact altitude. At a preset height just moments before impact, tiny rocket motors fired, adding the right amount of momentum to slam the hardened projectiles into the plowed farm fields, each sliding to a stop at a predetermined depth in the exact point on the ground they’d been programmed to hit.
In a matter of minutes, a geometric grid of ground imaging radar sensors had been precisely planted throughout the area where the things had gone to ground. Singly, each object could map one small part of the picture; employed en masse, they could analyze a large area of underground terrain.
Fifteen minutes later, the first high-fidelity underground images popped up on screens in the NMCC.
The things were there.
And they were deep.
CHAPTER 26
“Mr. President, they’re located roughly two hundred feet below the surface.”
“Can we reach them?”
“Not with conventional weapons, sir.”
General Smythe’s statement hung in the air like a stale fart. It wasn’t what the president wanted to hear. Not yet.
Every president since Harry Truman had lived with the possibility of having to order the use of nuclear weapons. Most had taken it very seriously. Others—some who couldn’t even remember where they’d left their launch codes, according to the press—had treated it as a nonpossibility or a necessary nuisance. Regardless of who the president was, however, that single, ultimate decision floated over each of their heads like a big, black radioactive cloud. It was always there. Always. Dripping little acid raindrops on their sanity in the middle of the night when there was nothing else but silence.
President Andrew Smith didn’t have to face the mind-numbing threat from a hostile communist giant like many of his predecessors had, where the decision to unleash America’s nuclear arsenal would be a final, ultimate act of mutual destruction. He did, however, have to face the possibility of unleashing nuclear weapons in response to a massive terrorist attack on the United States. It was the scenario of the times.
The attack against Cleveland was the closest he’d come to authorizing their use. The terrorist group that perpetrated the attack was known. Their base of operations was known as well. For a time, they presented a clearly defined target.
He’d listened to his advisors. Some were against using nuclear weapons, others were for it—the most vocal being his national security advisor. She’d nearly swayed him—her arguments made an awful lot of sense at the moment. Strike with an iron fist . . . No one would dare attack us again like this . . . We have to make an example of these bastards!
She’d said what he felt.
Watching the footage of American citizens—his citizens—dying before his eyes in such a disgusting, horrible manner made his blood boil like never before.
Mr. President, you have to strike!
He was the president.
Strike!
The decision was his, and his alone.
Sir, you must act now!
He’d learned that a decision made in anger was almost always unwarranted, and sometimes just flat wrong. As a young naval ensign, when one of his sailors would make a stupid mistake, he would step back from the situation and get control of his emotions before acting. He was tough, but fair. It was a character trait he’d developed early and employed often. He would, and sometimes did, drop the hammer when he knew it was required. But this particular hammer was more massive and destructive than any other hammer he’d ever used. With it, he could crack the earth itself. It could not be wielded by emotions. It had to be wielded by reason.
In the end, the strike he ordered had employed conventional weapons. And it had been effective.
This, however, was a totally different situation. Hundreds of thousands of American citizens had been brutally slaughtered by an enemy that so far seemed unstoppable. Killing them on the move had been a failure. Now, they were fixed in place. Their locations were known.
With every tick of the clock, the president knew time was running out. Every second that passed could be bringing them closer to the moment when the things would emerge from their underground hiding places to ravage his nation again.
He knew he couldn’t let that happen.
“Are they moving at all?” Andrew asked.
“No, sir. The underground images we’ve received show they’re staying put. For now,” Ray Smythe added.
Andrew stared at the plasma screen in his situation room, showing a multicolored image of thousands of oval objects highlighted against a dark background. “What am I looking at here? Are those objects the—”
“Yes, sir. As far as we can tell, the things are encased in some sort of . . . cocoons.”
“Cocoons?”
“Yes, sir. We’re analyzing the data right now, but the initial reports seem to suggest the things have enclosed themselves in some sort of thick casings. We don’t know yet if it’s a protective measure they’ve taken because of the bombing or if it’s something else.”
“What are these casings made of?”
“The report says it’s biologic calcification.”
“In English, General.”
“It’s bone, sir.”
“Bone?”
A pause. “Yes, sir.”
Andrew Smith knew that bone could be broken. He had the steel screws in his leg to prove it. “Are any of the objects close enough to the surface to dig out?”
“Sir, most of the objects are stratified roughly one hundred ninety to two hundred thirty feet underground. There are a few less than one hundred fifty feet beneath the surface, but digging them out would be a time-consuming endeavor. With all due respect, sir, I’m not very comfortable with the thought that time is on our side. If they should emerge at nightfall—”
“I hear you, General.”
Jessie, seated to the president’s left, spoke. “Mr. President, I think General Smythe makes a good point. If they emerge before we have a chance to complete the evacuations, we could be facing another night like last night.”
“We don’t know if they’re going to emerge. We don’t know if they’re going to stay there for an hour, a week, or a goddamned month, for that matter.” The president paused. “But I do agree if they were to emerge right now, we’d be hard-pressed to keep them from doing what they did last night. What’s the status on the evacuations?”
“It’s not going smoothly, Mr. President,” Hugo McIntyre said. “The highways out of each of the threatened cities are hopelessly snarled. We’re losing a lot of people just trying to get them away from the immediate area.” He looked down at the surface of the table in front of him, as if looking for a better answer hidden in the highly polished mahogany. Only his reflection stared back. “If they were to emerge tonight, we’re in a better situation than we were just twelve hours ago, but it’s not good, Mr. President.” He didn’t know what else to say.
“Hugo, you’ve got to get those people out of there. Period. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
The president turned his attention back to General Smythe. “Ray, is there any motion whatsoever? Inside the casings?”
“No motion, sir, but we’ve detected sounds. Faint, but audible. We don’t know what to make of it yet.”
“Okay, so we can assume since they’re making noises, they’re alive and well inside these casings. We don’t know if they’ve encased themselves in these things as a protective measure or if it could be something else.” The word the general had used initially to describe the casings—cocoons—made the president’s blood run cold. “You said cocoons, General. Is that what you’re supposing these things are?”
“Uh, no, sir. It was just what came to mind when I first saw the images, and—”
“If they are cocoons—which is a possibility that’s just as reasonable as anything else right now—then we must assume they’ll emerge again. Our task, ladies and gentlemen, is to kill them right now, before they have the chance to come back to the surface. I need to know how. Have we analyzed any of the bodies yet?”
“Sir, we’ve flown the first bodies we recovered to the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, some of the rats, and one of the peop—humanoid things. Initial field tests by the CDC on the bodies revealed traces of a level 5 contamination—a biological warfare agent present in the tissue. The Vanguard team will be doing the full analysis.”
Andrew had learned of Vanguard shortly after assuming office. They’d played a major role in the ongoing war on terror, pinpointing sources of chemical and biological weapons, helping trace possible locations of production, and developing countermeasures designed to keep the armed forces, and the American public, safe.
“You’re telling me that this whole event was the result of a biological warfare agent? Why didn’t the sniffer teams detect it? And why the hell am I only hearing about this now?”
“Sir, the traces were minuscule enough to prevent detection by the sniffer teams. There were also other substances present in the tissues that the CDC couldn’t identify. I’m being told the level 5 traces are just one piece of a puzzle that still needs to be put together—the CDC can’t put the puzzle together by themselves. Dugway can perform a more thorough analysis.” Ray Smythe paused, his face showing an uncharacteristic degree of frustration. “I believed you’d been made aware of these findings, Mr. President.”
“No, General, I was not.” Andrew took a deep breath and calmed himself. He knew information flow didn’t always work as advertised in rapidly evolving situations such as this. Most of the time, the information he needed would make it to his level, but sometimes, someone dropped the ball. He knew ripping into the general would serve no purpose—Ray Smythe was a fine officer who knew what his president needed to know. He’d obviously sent the information up the chain, and that particular ball had simply been dropped. Now was not the time for a tirade. “I want to hear the results as soon as they come in.”
“Yes, sir.”
“One more thing, Ray. I want one of those casings. I don’t care how you get it, but I want it dug up, cracked open, and taken apart molecule by molecule until we can determine exactly what we’re up against. And I want it fast.”
“Yes, sir.” Smythe paused for a moment, formulating a course of action. “Sir, we could use penetrating munitions—bunker busters—to get close to the most shallow of the objects, but we’ll still have to do some digging to get to it.”
“Your call, Ray. Just get me one of those casings.” The president knew he was taking a risk. It was going to take time to analyze the bodies, and it was going to take even more time to get to one of the casings. In his gut, he knew it might be time wasted if the things emerged before they’d figured out a way to kill them while they lay deep in the ground.
Jessie spoke up again. “Mr. President, we can kill them now. We have the weapons that will do the job.” She sounded oddly impatient.
The voice of Vice President Allison Perez filled the situation room, transmitted from NORTHCOM. “You’re suggesting the use of nuclear weapons, Ms. Hruska, on American soil?”
Jessie turned toward the image of Allison Perez staring at her from another plasma screen. The national security advisor’s eyes flashed bright green, full of fiery determination. “Yes, Madame Vice President. That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”
CHAPTER 27
It was three o’clock in the afternoon when the C-21’s wheels barked on the runway at the Dugway Proving Ground.
Carolyn slept for most of the flight from Offutt and felt remarkably better than just a few hours before, which, considering she’d barely escaped being eaten alive by a rampaging horde of monsters—not once, but twice—and survived a horrible helicopter crash, was a darn good way to feel. All in a day’s work, she thought. Yeah, right.
She peered out of the small cabin window and saw General Derek Rammes standing next to a Humvee parked at the edge of the ramp. She could tell by the look on his face that she was going to have a lot of work to do. And fast.
“That must be General Rammes?” Garrett asked.
“Yes, that’s him. He’s the director of—” She caught herself before saying it. Even the term Vanguard was classified, and she didn’t know if Garrett was cleared to hear it, much less know what the team actually did hundreds of feet under the Utah scrub brush.
He completed the statement for her. “General Rammes is the director of BSL-4 Vanguard. It’s okay—I was in-briefed when I was ordered to bring you here. I’m cleared.”
“Sorry. Security, don’t you know.”
“Yeah. Loose lips sink ships.”
“Something like that. You’d be hard-pressed to find a ship out here.”
“Gotcha. Not a very attractive place,” Garrett said, taking in everything the surroundings had to offer, which didn’t look like a whole hell of a lot.
“It grows on you,” Carolyn said.
“Yeah, well, so does moss if you sit still long enough. Looks like he’s waiting for us. We don’t want to keep a flag officer waiting any longer than we have to. Let’s go.”
The pilot lowered the jet’s small stairway, which doubled as the cabin door, and Garrett snapped a sharp salute as he approached General Rammes, Carolyn just a step behind. Rammes was short, stout, and built like a bulldog. “Sir, Colonel Garrett Hoffman, reporting as ordered.”
Derek Rammes returned the salute. The two men shook hands. “Colonel, it’s good to see you. I know what happened at Kansas City. Your boys put up a good fight.”
“Yes, sir.” Garrett looked at the ground, the feelings of guilt he’d been trying to ignore sweeping over him again.
Rammes knew how the younger officer felt. “I’ve lost troops before, too, Colonel. It’s never easy. Soldiers die in wars. Innocent people under your protection die, too. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do to prevent that. But now that you’re here, and now that Carolyn is here, you’ll have a chance to help us figure out how to kill those goddamned creatures. You can get your vengeance, son.”
“Hooah, sir.”
“Hooah is right, trooper.”
Carolyn had heard soldiers say hooah before, but never really understood what it meant. To her, it sounded like getting sucker-punched in the stomach.
Rammes turned to Carolyn. “Thank God you’re alive. I’m sorry to hear about the other members of your team. They were all fine individuals.”
“Yes, General. They were.” The vision of Matt’s head being torn from his shoulders flashed through her mind once again, as it probably always would. It had been so utterly horrible.
They all climbed into the Humvee and sped away from the ramp toward the entrance to the Vanguard complex.
Speaking loudly to be heard over the noise from the speeding Humvee, General Rammes said, “We’ve got two of th
e ratlike creatures and one of the humanoids. The CDC discovered a level 5 in the blood and immediately sent the bodies here.”
“A level 5?” Carolyn asked. Her hunch suddenly became less of a hunch and more of an actual theory.
“Level 5. Small traces, but it’s there. We’re trying to identify it right now. There’s a lot of other crap in the blood that we’re trying to nail down as well, but none of it’s identifiable.”
Carolyn knew level 5 was the code word assigned to only the worst of the known biological warfare agents currently catalogued. Ebola, Marburg, smallpox . . . all level 4, and quite deadly, but science had devised even more horrid things. Level 5 meant the agent had been weaponized, changed at the genetic level to increase its effectiveness. The Vanguard complex was the only BSL-4 facility in the country cleared to handle level 5 material. The thought of that type of agent loose in the environment—regardless of which specific agent it turned out to be—chilled her to the bone. It was all nasty stuff. And that was a severe understatement.
As the Humvee screeched to a stop in front of the entrance to the Vanguard complex, Carolyn said, “General, I think I know what it is.”
“You know what what is?”
“The level 5. I know what it is.”
CHAPTER 28
Small wisps of smoke rose from the charred earth of the blast crater formed by the massive explosions from a series of high-explosive bunker-buster munitions dropped from a trio of F-15E Strike Eagles (affectionately called Mudhens) from Seymour Johnson AFB in North Carolina. It had been a very spectacular way to dig a hole. A big one, at that.
The Mudhens had been able to blast away roughly one hundred feet of prime Nebraska farmland, leaving the mining crews with a much easier task: to burrow the fifty-or-so feet that remained to the shallowest casing. If the explosions had reached any deeper, the ground shock might have shattered the casing, or worse, blown it into a thousand bits.
A young Army major stumbled over to the drilling supervisor, nearly losing his footing on the jumble of rocks and loose soil lining the surface of the crater. “How long do you think it’ll take?”
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