Dead Storm: The Global Zombie Apocalypse

by Nicholas Ryan

  President Austin hung up abruptly.

  “That didn’t go well…” Walter Ford understated after a long silence.

  President Austin slumped deep in his chair.

  “The New Zealand Navy is miniscule,” Lincoln Hallmeyer said dismissively, trying to soften the blow of rejection. “A couple of frigates and a few patrol vessels…”

  President Austin grunted. New Zealand’s involvement in the South China Sea would have been an important political statement to the Chinese government, presenting a united Pacific nations front against any attempts to move south. Without the Kiwi’s, the military force was still significant, but the political clout diminished.

  The Chinese would notice…

  ZAMIIN-UUD BORDER CROSSING POINT

  MONGOLIA-CHINA BORDER

  General Apalkov sat on a camp chair under the shade of a canvas awning and waited for the revving engine of a nearby BTR-80 to stop. “How much do you know about the way the military fought the plague in South Korea?”

  “Probably no more than you, General,” Nathan Power conceded. “But even that’s enough to realize that conventional tactics won’t work against the infected horde charging towards you.”

  “Bad leadership,” Apalkov said with arrogant bombast, “does not mean bad tactics were used. You should not confuse the two, American.”

  “I understand tactics and leadership.”

  “Good,” Apalkov rubbed his hands together like he was trying to use them to start a fire. He was excited, gleefully anticipating the prospect of a battle. No military exercise – no matter how authentic – could ever replicate the sheer euphoria of real combat.

  He turned to one of his aides, a thin bookish man wearing a pristine uniform. The officer had a pale face the color of bread dough and a bloodless slash for a mouth. “Sechin! You’ve been monitoring the world news reports on the radio. What do you know about the infected?”

  The aide considered the question and decided this was not the time or place for placating the General’s ego.

  “The Chinese were routed and overrun easily,” he said. “Each time they fought from prepared defenses they were overwhelmed.”

  Apalkov sat before a folding table with a map of the terrain and a platter of cheese, cold sausage and bread.

  “So they must move quickly…” he frowned with thought over the marked dispositions of his troops.

  “No, General,” Nathan Power said. “It’s like I told you. They move in massive numbers and they are relentless. They’re like an ocean wave. Everything in their way gets swamped.”

  Apalkov gave no sign of hearing the American. Instead he continued to study the map while he filled his mouth with food from the plate. The problem with fighting on a battlefield of flat featureless terrain was that there was nowhere to anchor his flanks. His entire strategy relied on meeting the undead head-on, blunting their momentum with the entrenched infantry and then turning them back into China under a crushing salvo of artillery fire. Once the infected had begun to retreat, the helicopters would swoop to turn the defeat into a route.

  Now, secretly, Apalkov began to wonder about the validity of his tactics.

  “Sechin, order the armor and APC’s forward from Zamiin-Uud’s railways station. I want them behind the infantry lines but ready to sweep around the flanks if the enemy tries to overlap us. Understood?”

  “Yes General.”

  “And bring the rest of the reserve division forward, I think. They’re too far behind the lines to be effective. Once we have these infected bastards on the run, we’ll need to crush them. Those reserves are my iron hammer. Bring them forward, so I can use them when the time comes.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  General Apalkov sat back with a satisfied sigh and clapped his hands over his bulging stomach. With the matters of warfare attended to he was suddenly hungry. He glanced over his shoulder, searching through the array of headquarters vehicles like he was looking for a lover.

  “Sechin, fetch my cook. I’m hungry, man.”

  The aide scurried away to carry out the General’s instructions and to fetch his personal cook who had been brought all the way from Khabarovsk with the rest of the army.

  “I fought in Chechnya, you know,” the Russian General regarded Nathan Power from behind flat, cold eyes. “And South Ossetia… and the Ukraine. I know the Russian soldier. I know how to best use our weaponry. I’m not a fool, American.”

  Power’s face remained expressionless. “Sir, the only Generals with experience fighting the infected are all dead. All I’m suggesting is that you learn from their failures.”

  The space between the two men crackled with tension. Apalkov narrowed his eyes, sensing a concealed rebuke in the American’s comment. They were like two dogs circling each other.

  The aroma of food broke the spell.

  Apalkov looked up and caught sight of his cook. The General’s expression softened with appreciation.

  “What have you brought me?” Apalkov sniffed the air. The cook was a Russian corporal. He set a platter on the table.

  Apalkov frowned. “Stroganoff?”

  “My apologies, General,” the cook’s voice sounded simpering. “But our supplies are still far behind the army. This was the best I could do.”

  Apalkov screwed up his face, his mood sour. He snatched up a fork and prodded the food like he was poking a dead body.

  “Tonight,” the General thrust a menacing fist at the cook. “I want dressed herring, or else you’ll spend the rest of your miserable life counting trees in Siberia. Understand?”

  The cook swallowed nervously. “Yes, General.”

  “And I want plenty of grated carrots this time,” the General admonished. “Don’t forget.”

  “Yes, General.”

  Apalkov grunted. “Now, piss off. I’m hungry and your ugly peasant face is turning my stomach.”

  The General attacked his food with gusto, chewing with his mouth open, oblivious to the rising activity around him. A ripple of consternation swept around the headquarters and officers began huddling with their heads close together, voices hushed. Finally a Colonel of the Army approached the shaded awning. He noticed, with relief, that the General had almost finished his meal.

  “Sir,” the Colonel saluted crisply, “the enemy has been sighted.”

  Apalkov’s bushy eyebrows moved like small furry creatures on his brow. “They’re here?”

  “Yes, sir. We can see their dust on the horizon.”

  Apalkov leaped up from his chair. He punched Nathan Power in the shoulder, the tension between the two men suddenly forgotten. “Come on, American,” his gruff voice boomed with anticipation. “Let me give you a lesson on how superior our Russian tanks and soldiers are.”

  BRUSSELS

  BELGIUM

  Through the tinted windows of the black armored BMW, General Amos Bram watched the Belgian countryside flash by, his thoughts clouded with misgivings about the ominous spread of the NK Plague. Ahead of the staff car, leading the way, were two Belgian military police motorcycle outriders, their sirens wailing and lights flashing as they cleaved a path through traffic towards Brussels.

  The General was dressed in full uniform, sitting stiffly. On the back seat beside him were notes from the morning briefing. He picked at one of the folders but couldn’t absorb the words. The dry prose of each report was no match for SACEUR’s imagination, or the graphic horrors he had seen on the television news services. He felt restless; claustrophobic. He had spent his entire adult life serving in the US military. His instincts told him the storm of death brewing on the horizon would define the future of mankind.

  The car swept up to the main entrance of NATO Headquarters on the Boulevard Leopold III, and the driver braked in front of the vast glass edifice. The two motorcycles peeled off and disappeared into an underground parking station.

  A member of the General’s liaison team stood on the sidewalk waiting for him. Bram got out of the car and straightened his un
iform, staring up at the flags of the twenty-nine member nations that guarded the building’s imposing façade. They cast a bright fluttering splash of color against a leaden grey sky.

  “Sir, follow me please,” the waiting man said. “The Secretary General is expecting you. He’s in his conference room.”

  THE SOUTH CHINA SEA

  Northeast of Riau Island, the US Seventh Fleet had spread out across several hundred nautical miles of ocean, the flotilla centered around the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan CVN-76 and USS Blue Ridge LCC-19 – the amphibious command ship crammed with electronic equipment that carried the fleet’s flag. Radiating out in layered defensive perimeters around the two central vessels were two Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers, over a dozen Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, and a silent, secret picket of nuclear-powered submarines. High overhead, surveillance aircraft criss-crossed the sky and fighter jets flew constant combat air patrols. It was a formidable projection of US military might, soon to be joined by an Australian destroyer steaming at full speed from the Philippines.

  Two more US destroyers were the vanguard, sailing almost a hundred miles north of the flotilla, feeling their way towards the Spratly Islands. The two ships were fifteen nautical miles apart, operating like a cat’s whiskers; sensitive probes that would provide an early seaborne warning of the approaching Chinese armada. It was a delicate operation and tensions were high. Warships in the US fleet had lit off every piece of electronic equipment they carried; surface search and air search radars burning like Christmas lights to announce their location to enemy ships hundreds of nautical miles away.

  The Americans were taking no chances, announcing their presence and location to avoid spooking the Chinese.

  Similarly, the vast armada of Chinese warships was clustered around the flotilla of commercial ships and luxury cruise liners that carried the leadership and refugees from the mainland. Every vessel in the Chinese East and South Sea Fleets was part of the umbrella, poised on high-alert.

  Several nautical miles further south, a Chinese Surface Action Group of Luyang II-class destroyers worked in a pair; one warship with her radar burning, but the other silent and cloaked, cruising quietly in the shadows, unnoticed and undetectable.

  Inevitably, the two scouting elements of both navies closed on each other…

  *

  “US Navy warship, this is Chinese Navy warship Yalou. You are on a dangerous course. If you don’t change course immediately, you will suffer consequences. You have entered Chinese territorial waters, and you are acting in a provocative manner. Leave these waters immediately. China has irrefutable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands and the territorial waters around them. Over.”

  Commander Zhao Zongxun aboard PLAN destroyer Yalou DD 178, narrowed his eyes and listened carefully to the words of his radio talker as the junior officer made the announcement. Zhao wondered if he should put the ship’s helicopter into the air. The American destroyer at the top of his display screen had just moved within fifty nautical miles of Yalou. Was the American ship operating alone… or might one of the deadly US nuclear-powered submarines be operating in the same sector? Zhao gnawed his lip. His Luyang II class destroyer had a Kamov Ka-28 ASW helicopter parked in the ship’s stern hangar, but Zhao was reluctant to bring the aircraft into action unnecessarily. He checked his tactical display. The destroyer covertly following his ship trailed six nautical miles astern, sailing in his wake, and emitting no telltale signature that would warn the approaching Americans of her presence.

  Zhao grunted, then made his decision.

  He would see how the American reacted to his ship’s warning. There would still be plenty of time to dispatch the helicopter once the American captain responded to his demand and the enemy’s intentions became clearer.

  *

  “Chinese warship Yalou, this is US Navy warship Hacksaw, we are conducting freedom of navigation operations in international waters and will continue to do so. Out.”

  Commander Tim ‘Tiny’ Benbow aboard USS Hacksaw DDG 142 slammed the handset back into its cradle and turned to his XO on the bridge of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer; his face creased into a frown of deep concern. He was a tall, wiry man with a darkly suntanned face and calm intelligent eyes.

  “Did you hear that?”

  Executive Officer, Guy Prince nodded. “The Chinese are fired up.”

  “You can say that again,” Benbow stared out through the ship’s bridge at the endless miles of blue-grey ocean as if he might see the enemy destroyer on the horizon. “They’ve ratcheted up the language. It’s the first time I know of where the Chinese have threatened ‘consequences’.”

  “Do you think they’re serious?”

  Benbow sighed. “XO, I don’t know any other way to interpret a message like that, and I’m not the kind of guy to take chances. I’d rather be safe than sorry.” Instinct and experience told Benbow that he needed to bring Hacksaw to a higher level of combat readiness. He turned to a young lieutenant who was officer of the deck. “OOD, set Condition II Air.”

  A few seconds later, the order began broadcasting over the destroyer’s loudspeaker system.

  ‘Set Condition II Air. Set Condition II Air. Make readiness reports to DCC.’

  Condition II Air is one of the US Navy’s penultimate levels of shipboard combat readiness – one stage below the call to General Quarters. Condition II Air added additional manpower resources to the ship’s Air Defense combat stations without putting the entire crew at General Quarters. Coupled with Modified Condition Zebra, which had been set on leaving port, the ship was set in a posture of readiness for possible attack.

  Benbow stayed on the bridge and listened to the readiness reports as they were announced from his department heads. He grunted, satisfied, but unwilling to show any visible expression of contentment.

  Benbow picked up his other headset. “TAO, prepare the combat systems for possible attack.”

  The TAO replied, “Aye aye, sir.”

  At forty-seven, Benbow had a reputation for being an old-school ‘grumbler’. He had twenty years of service under his belt, coming through the Naval Academy at Annapolis before distinguishing himself as one of the Navy’s most tactically innovative frigate commanders. USS Hacksaw was his second destroyer command.

  “Okay,” Benbow balled his fists and stuffed them into the one-piece blue uniform coveralls he wore, balancing easily on the balls of his feet against the constant pitch and roll of his ship. “The next move is up to the Chinese.”

  NATO HEADQUARTERS

  BRUSSELS

  SACEUR stepped into the Secretary General’s conference room and was surprised to find NATO’s Chairman of the Military Committee waiting for him.

  Jean Laurier was a former Canadian Air Force Chief of Staff – a genial man with a big booming voice and a crushing handshake. He was a fitness fanatic who still jogged for miles every morning and never touched alcohol. Laurier had a head that seemed too large for his body, dark close-cropped hair, and intelligent eyes.

  “Welcome, Amos,” the Canadian broke from a huddle of aides and came striding across the room, his hand extended.

  “Jean. Good to see you again. I wish the circumstances were happier.”

  Laurier’s eyes lost their twinkle and his expression turned grave. “I’ve been following the news services and the intelligence reports closely. I still can’t believe it – I can’t believe Kim Jong-un would release biological weapons, and I’m horrified at how quickly this infection is spreading. The images on the television…” he broke off and glanced over his shoulder. There was a TV in the corner of the room broadcasting twenty-four hour coverage of the global apocalypse in an endless parade of nightmare scenes from across Asia.

  “It’s unlike anything we’ve ever imagined,” General Bram said. “It’s worse, perhaps, than a nuclear holocaust. Nothing survives, Jean. Everyone in the path of the undead is either killed or infected. Almost a third of the earth’s population has already bee
n wiped out.”

  “And we’re next…” Laurier said with heavy dread. “If the Russians can’t hold back the tide of infected, they will spill across Europe unchecked – unless we can come up with a way to fight back.”

  “Is that what I’ve been summonsed for?” General Bram looked up sharply.

  The Chairman of the Military Committee said nothing. His role in NATO was to advise the NAC on strategy in his capacity as the senior military spokesman for the alliance. He was loath to preempt anything that might be said during the meeting.

  Before SACEUR could repeat his question, two dark-suited aides flung the doors of the conference room open, and the Secretary General of NATO swept into the room. His eyes settled on the imposing uniformed shape of General Bram and he smiled, despite his sense of deep despair.

  Konstantinos Korvelis was a former Deputy Prime Minister of Greece, a dark haired man with an olive complexion and a neatly trimmed beard. He had dark eyes and bushy brows. He reminded Amos Bram of a gypsy.

  “General Bram,” Korvelis spoke accented English. “Thank you for your prompt attendance.”

  The relationship between the two men was cordial and polite, but not personal. Bram and the Canadian Chairman of the Military Committee were men of the same world. Korvelis was a career politician. It was a void between them that neither man had ever made the effort to bridge.

  “My pleasure, sir,” Amos Bram said stiffly. Korvelis had been Secretary General for almost three years. His NATO tenure had been widely praised by observers. He was a strong leader and well respected by all the North Atlantic Council members.

  “You have received the latest briefings on the spread of this abominable contagion?”