Heads around the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs nodded sagely. General Knight flicked a questioning glance sideways at Jim Poe. He agreed.
Through the monitor in his office, Admiral Bly saw the approval to his plan in Washington and breathed a small silent sigh of relief. He went on with a question of his own.
“Sir, what is the ROE regarding any vessel that approaches the blockade?”
“Aggressive,” Jim Poe answered the question that had been directed to the General sitting beside him. “In fact the President is adamant about this, Admiral. The Rules of Engagement cannot have any provision for compromise. Every vessel approaching the blockade line must either be turned back to its destination… or sunk.”
“Sunk, sir?”
“Without hesitation,” Jim Poe’s voice turned steely with his resolve. “We cannot risk one single infected person aboard a ship reaching US territory. Nor should any commander operating the blockade authorize inspections of any suspect vessels. If the ship does not respond to radio or loudhailer instructions, your commanders must immediately take measures to maintain a safe distance and sink the vessel.”
Chapter 7:
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON D.C.
The phone call to the Oval Office was from an internal White House line, and the voice familiar. “Mr. President?”
“Yes, Walt.”
“Can you find five minutes for me? I think I’ve found the man we’re looking for.”
President Austin sat back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. He had a meeting with Virginia Clayton scheduled, but that wasn’t for another thirty minutes. “Sure,” the President said. “Let’s do it now.”
“I’ll be right along,” Walter Ford hung up the phone.
USS RONALD REAGAN (CVN-76)
SOUTH CHINA SEA
Just an hour after landing onboard the aircraft carrier, the Intel team was set up and ready for war.
Tables had been joined end to end to form a long counter, covered by a bank of flat-screen monitors that had been transported in the packing crates. The steel floor was strewn with a chaos of snaking cords and cables. In front of the bright glow of the screens, the four-man crew sat, hunched over their laptops. The room filled with a warm hum, and the air became stifling. It was the kind of dark, windowless sweat box environment the team were accustomed to.
Same shit, different location.
Tony van den Berg sat at one end of the counter with Pete ‘Pig’ Arvidson at his side. Arvidson was a blonde-haired narrow-shouldered computer geek who wore thick-lensed glasses. He had come to the team from the Air Force where he had once been a tactical controller. On his laptop he was switching through six sophisticated secret chat windows that allowed him direct classified communication with most of America’s intelligence agencies. He was van den Berg’s right-hand man, chatting his instructions for maneuvering and operating the bird through a separate computer window to the sensor operator and Reaper pilot who flew the drone from a Nevada Air Force Base.
In front of the central monitors, Kate Geer was a petite dark-haired woman from Georgia who had come to the team from the DIA. She had a plain face, a cynical smile, and the kind of foul mouth that would make any sailor blush. She was impulsive, vivacious, and deeply committed to her work. She was the team’s researcher, dogged and determined with a pedantic attention to detail. The sources at her disposal went far beyond the information available to the public through the internet. For Kate, every dark corner of every US Intelligence file was at her disposal.
At the far end of the counter, Gus ‘Grover’ Higgins wiped the dust from his hands and mopped his brow. His shirt was sticky with sweat. He was the team’s tech wizard; he tied all the cables together and made the lights blink and flash. He also had a fascination for maps. He had come to the team through Army Intelligence, passing the grueling selection tests with the highest scores ever recorded by a candidate. He was a quiet, painfully shy young man, with lank brown hair and a long drawn face. He reached for a Coke, then patched his own laptop into the network.
“Up and running, man,” he said.
“Nice work, Grover,” van den Berg checked his watch. “Where’s our bird?”
“Reaper time to target area is two hours.”
Van den Berg let that information go without comment. He guessed the UAV was currently flying across the Sea of Japan. The Reaper was unlike any ‘drone’ sold commercially. It was a sophisticated piece of military hardware – thirty-six feet long with a wingspan of over sixty-five feet, capable of flying at over three hundred miles an hour and reaching fifty thousand feet altitude. It was a multi-million dollar piece of cutting-edge hardware capable of covert surveillance and lethal remote-piloted missile strikes.
Drones like the Reaper were the new frontier of twenty-first century warfare where battles were fought and won in dark rooms far removed from the actual conflict.
Van den Berg focused his attention on several of the other monitors where Kate Greer had begun displaying intelligence files. From the corner of his eye, he watched her work at her laptop; her lips pursed and her brow furrowed in concentration. She was stacking files and images into digital folders, ready for discussion. On the screen of her computer were three unopened files: ‘Team’, TBC, and ‘Trash’.
“You got something yet, Kate?”
There wasn’t a minute to waste. The intelligence gathering process was the great unknown of their work. The less information they had to go on, the harder it would be to find their target, and the more dangerous any rescue mission would become.
“Yeah,” Kate said without looking up. “Wait a sec. Let’s start with this little fucking gem.” She tapped a couple more keys on her computer, and the contents of a file flashed up on one of the center monitors. It was a State Department Report, filed by an American Embassy staffer in Tokyo. The report was dated 1998 and had been authored by someone operating under the initials T.P.P.
Attached to the report was a floor plan diagram.
“Apparently someone from the Tokyo Embassy visited the Nasu Imperial Villa for a reception. This is his report, complete with a floor plan of the building and descriptions of each room. There’s even an attached guest list if you want it.”
“Bingo,” van den Berg allowed himself a smile. “Put it in the ‘Team’ folder for the briefing.”
“Sure. Do you want photos?”
“Have you got any?”
“Of course.” Four photos appeared on the main monitor showing a house that was much more modest than van den Berg had expected. It was a two-story building with lots of high windows and a covered arched carport over the front doors. In the bottom corner was a sepia image, grainy and faded with old age. It showed Japanese soldiers in uniform standing beside a gateway in a high stone wall, with the residence in the background.
“Is that wall still standing?” van den Berg pointed.
Kate shrugged. “I can’t date the photo. I don’t know.”
“It’s not,” Gus Higgins said from the end of the counter. He was hunched over his own laptop using a sophisticated military mapping program. He put a snapshot image on a screen. It was a highly detailed satellite-like view of the Villa. The image was black and white. Signs of where the wall had once stood still showed as light grey lines on the discolored grounds surrounding the building.
“Okay,” van den Berg nodded. “Let’s get all that into the ‘Team’ folder.”
“And this is the target, Emperor Akihito. The photo was taken before he abdicated,” Kate splashed another image on to a monitor. The picture showed a bright-eyed elderly man with grey hair and grey bushy eyebrows. In the photo, the man looked small and frail, smiling impishly as he waved to an adoring crowd of onlookers in an ill-fitting suit.
“Leave it up,” van den Berg gestured at the photo. “But put a copy in the ‘Team’ file. Are there any photos of the aide that sent the radio message? Is there a household staff? Does he have someone at his side all the time?”
>
“Fuck,” Kate growled. “I’m not a motherfucking psychic, Berg,” she hissed. “Give me time. I’m looking into it.”
She stopped typing for a moment and fished hairpins from her pocket. She piled her hair atop her head in an untidy bundle then stabbed the pins into the mess to hold it in place. She was still muttering to herself under her breath. Van den Berg ignored her. He snatched up a can of Coke. Caffeine was the only way he could keep himself awake. None of the team had slept or bathed for days.
“Pig, we need a transcript of the original message. I’d also like a voice stress analysis. In fact let’s get the transmission completely dissected. Background noise, forensic enhancement… ask our Intelligence partners to run it through their systems.”
“On it,” Arvidson said. He opened the chat boxes on his laptop that gave him direct encrypted access to the FBI, NGA and NSA. He fired off the request and then checked his watch. “The bird should be crossing the coast of Japan.”
They turned on the live camera feed from the Reaper, displaying the images it captured on the two central monitors. Across the bottom of each screen flashed the UAV’s current altitude, speed, and a rundown diagnosis of the drone’s onboard systems, all in the green. The Reaper crossed the coast of Japan over the west coast city of Kashiwazaki at twenty-two thousand feet, cruising at two hundred and fifty miles an hour.
“Take her down, Pig. Make altitude four thousand feet.”
Beside him, Pete Arvidson opened the chat box to Nevada and messaged the Air Force pilot from the 42nd Attack Squadron who was operating the drone from Creech AFB. On the screen, the display began to change as the bird descended. The Intel team didn’t normally operate at such low levels. In the vast deserts of the Middle East, on the trail of extremist terrorists, low altitude meant the risk of detection. That wasn’t the case over Japan.
Everyone was dead.
The UAV continued flying on an arrow-straight course across Japan towards its pre-set destination co-ordinates over Nasu. As it flew on, the ghastly devastation of the plague revealed itself in a gruesome stream of unending horror. Apartment blocks were burning infernos, the highways littered with wrecked, burning and abandoned cars. Bodies lay on the ground like specks of thrown litter. Vast tracks of mountainous woodlands were on fire, sweeping through small towns and leaving just blackened broken ruins and charred bodies.
“Fuck…” Kate breathed, more awed by the devastation than appalled.
Tony van den Berg was grim faced, frowning as the Reaper skimmed above the apocalyptic carnage.
“Z-1,” van den Berg said, relaying the order to zoom the drone’s lens closer. “And reduce speed to one hundred.”
The image on the screen suddenly came into greater, more gruesome detail. The team could see bodies lying in high holocaustic mounds as if they had been dumped together like piles of trash. The corpses lay near a bridge that had collapsed into a river. Cars had crashed off the embankment into the slow running water.
Closer to Nikko they saw the ruins of a train that had derailed and plunged down the face of a mountain crest, taking hundreds to their screaming deaths.
“Fuck…” Kate said again.
“Yeah, fuck…” Pig looked up from the communication feeds scrolling down his chat boxes and gaped in horror.
Everyone in the team was hardened and accustomed to the death and destruction caused by a missile strike, or a helicopter-borne raid from their crew of Delta operators. But they were isolated events against isolated enemy combatants; moments of contained explosions and fury.
What they were witnessing on the flat-screen monitors was devastation on a scale so vast that it numbed them into a hollow traumatic silence.
“Z-out,” van den Berg croaked. “And tell Nevada to take the bird up to ten thousand feet. I’ve seen enough.”
BEIJING
PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
When the meeting had been called to order and all the members of the Politburo’s Standing Committee were comfortable in their seats, Defense Minister Yao stood. He looked visibly shaken, the skin around his cheeks sallow and sunken. He licked dry cracked lips.
“Comrades, the 16th Group Army has been over-run by the infected,” he said. “Our troops have taken heavy casualties around the city of Dandong, including the loss of almost a hundred front-line tanks and heavy vehicles.”
There was a soft gasp of astonishment from the gathered men, followed by an exchange of startled, worried looks. The faces around the long table eventually turned back to the Minister responsible for Defense and became accusatory.
“How is this even possible?” one of the Politburo Members demanded harshly. The room was darkened, the air filled with tendrils of pungent cigarette smoke that curled and writhed against the ceiling. There were just a few wall lamps lit, giving the meeting a somber tone, befitting that late hour and the shocking news.
“We were told that the infected were unarmed. They were nothing more than a horde. How could we lose armor?”
Minister Yao wrung his hands. “All that you were told is true, Comrade,” he explained. “But the infected number in the many millions. They poured across the river like an unstoppable tide. Our tanks and armored vehicles were in the streets of the city. They were unable to use their weaponry to full effect, nor able to use their advantage of speed. The undead swarmed through the city and simply overwhelmed our positions before we could maneuver.”
There was a collective riot of voices as several of the Politburo began speaking at once. The tone was bitter. President Lin Xiang let the clamor of shouts wash around the room for several minutes, and then thumped his fist on the table.
“Enough!” It was rare that the man raised his voice. In public he was the stern face of Chinese leadership, but in these meetings he was more a facilitator than leader. In reality his strong man image was a façade, propped up by the iron will and hard line of Politburo members such as Yi Dan, who operated behind the scenes and out of sight.
“We must decide what we are to do next,” the president urged the assembled members. “There will be time for recriminations if China survives. At this moment we must look to the future, not dwell on what has happened that cannot be changed.”
The discontent around the room rumbled to sullen seething. In the silence, Minister Yao went on.
“General Guo Lingfeng commands the Shengyang Military Area. He is one of our most experienced leaders. It is he who reported directly to me. In light of the Dandong debacle, the General believes we must adopt new tactics against the undead enemy. He has made recommendations that I wish to present.”
“Go on,” the president nodded his head gravely.
Yao looked down at his notes. “The General believes we must abandon attempts at a running fight to slow the progress of the undead, and instead that we should marshal all our forces to defend a line between Jinzhou on the coast and Tongliao to the north. Along this line, we should gather all available artillery and men behind prepared fortifications with the intention not of delaying the undead hordes, but stopping them completely. The plan also calls for the cooperation of our air force bombers and ground attack fighters and helicopters.”
Without another word the Minister unfolded a map and laid it across the polished tabletop. The Politburo members came out of their chairs to peer, like vultures inspecting a fresh carcass.
The Minister had drawn a line with a marker pen to indicate the General’s proposed line of defense.
“What about the city of Shenyang?” one of the Politburo members asked, aghast.
The proposed defensive line followed secondary roads as it dog-legged towards the Inner-Mongolian city of Tongliao. Shenyang was on the wrong side of the line.
“The entire city of Shenyang and all inhabitants east of that line must be immediately evacuated,” Yao said.
“What?”
“Why?”
“So that our army and air force can fight the undead on ground more favorable to our weapons,”
Yao explained patiently. “Dandong taught us that we cannot defend cities, nor can we fight this enemy at close quarters.”
Gradually the fear in the room was giving way to accusation and hostility. Voices became harsh, tempers frayed. The humiliating defeat of the Army was beginning to sting nationalistic pride.
“We have enough troops! We should launch an immediate counter attack!” a voice spoke from the far end of the table.
For long seconds no one in the room spoke. And then Yi Dan addressed the room.
“Comrades, Minister Yao proposes that our Army retreats almost three hundred kilometers and create a new defensive line that will stretch several hundred kilometers long. This in itself is not necessarily objectionable; I for one understand the strategy our Generals wish to employ. They want to hit the undead from range and height in open space where the enemy cannot come to grips with our forces – where our defenses cannot be overrun.” Yi was nodding as he spoke. He had everyone’s attention. “I will support this decision, but there are conditions,” he warned… and then lapsed into silence.
“Go on, Comrade,” President Xiang urged him. They were all looking to him for decisive leadership. This chaos was unfamiliar to them all. They had lost control – and it filled them with fear.
“First, we must not make the mistake of evacuating those who are beyond the proposed defensive line. They cannot be saved.”
“What?” Even president Xiang was aghast. “But Yi, surely – ”
Yi Dan held up his hand. “The disease will spread, Comrades. It is the only thing we can be certain of. Despite the imposition of Martial Law, the contagion will be passed from one to another. As the undead surge towards Shenyang, so will many millions more be infected. But if we evacuate those in the path of this contagion, how many of the disease carriers might slip through our defense and attack us from the inside? It takes but one to be infected for the disease to spread rapidly,” he reminded the room. “Any evacuation plan means inviting the wolves to move freely within the very flock of sheep we would seek to save.” He shook his head, adamant. “No. The infected area must be amputated – severed from the rest of the body. The line of proposed defense must be a clean cut.”
Dead Storm: The Global Zombie Apocalypse Page 22