Robert Christian jerked awake. Whoever said “prayer works, worry doesn’t,” he thought bitterly, didn’t know what the hell they were talking about. Because his prayer hadn’t been answered. The A/C was still belting out cold air and the lopsided ball bearing was still as noisy as ever.
Abruptly the door opened and in walked someone he hadn’t seen since the very first session. The man was taller than the others, a little over six feet, and looked like he would be at home on a surfboard, not working security for the new President of the United States.
“Hi Robert,” Special Agent Cross said.
Christian said nothing. He bowed his head, letting his chin rest on his chest.
“One more time,” the man asked. “What was the real reason for the dead drop?”
“I told you. They didn’t know each other... never met. The drop was so Francis could receive information pertaining to the President’s comings and goings.”
“And that’s why they didn’t meet face to face?”
Tired of hearing the same question posed from a different angle, Robert Christian threw his hands into the air. They made it only eight inches from the table top before the links tightened, and like a dog that’s reached the end of its chain, they crashed back down with a hollow thud.
“It’s how Francis always operated,” he stated. “Safer that way, he said. He almost always worked autonomously. This time was going to be the exception to his rule. Unfortunately, before they could meet face to face and set up the hit, Francis had his episode and went rogue. I don’t know what happened because I wasn’t here. And I’ll say this for the last time...”
Cross brought a closed fist down on the table. “I’m calling the shots,” he spat. “I’ll let you know when you are done talking. What was Francis’s mission?”
The prisoner sat up straight, regained a semblance of composure, and continued where he had left off. “The President was the target.”
“So, Francis or Pug, or whoever he was at the time,” Cross intoned. “He was coherent long enough to set up the dead drop before he went... I think rogue is how you put it earlier?”
“I wasn’t here,” Christian said again.
“That other thing—infecting the civilians. That was Elvis’s doing?”
“Entirely his idea. I gave him the go ahead, though.”
“I appreciate your honesty. Who else did you say was here with Elvis?”
“Just Francis.”
“And after Francis went rogue, Elvis was your only remaining asset.”
“Yes. Put me on a lie detector if you don’t believe me.”
No need. I believe you, the interrogator thought to himself. “I have one final question to ask you,” he said. “And if I don’t like the answer...” he nodded towards Christian’s gnarled hand.
“Oh, again with the fingers. Since your friend already ruined my pinky... how about we go down the line. Break these two.” He wriggled the index and middle finger on his right hand, and nearly passed out from the pain.
The A/C unit made one last coughing sound and then shut down.
Silence.
“You want a drink?” the blonde-haired interrogator asked in a nonchalant manner.
The question hit the prisoner harder than any blow. He straightened up. Could taste the scotch hitting his tongue. Burning his throat. Warmth coursing through his limbs. Every response subconscious, and Pavlovian in nature. The uncontrollable shakes began instantly.
The interrogator produced a fifth bottle of some type of Scotch that was far from upper shelf. He poured a half an inch of the amber liquid from the bottle into a white coffee mug, and placed the bottle on the table. He pushed the well-worn mug forward until it sat on the outer threshold of the prisoner’s reach.
Christian lunged for the offering but came up half an inch short.
Cross regarded this with satisfaction though he didn’t let it show.
Christian dipped his head to meet his hands and proceeded to massage his eyes behind drooping eyelids.
“I’m not a bad guy,” Cross said. “I’ll let you have the contents of that mug if you tell me who Elvis was working with.”
Looking the interrogator in the eye, Christian exhaled sharply. “Only Elvis knows, and that is the truth.”
Cross lifted the mug off the table. “You want this?”
“I need that,” Christian answered, his voice wavering. Then the shakes hit hard. In fact, his detox had begun minutes after the soldiers had shanghaied him from Jackson Hole.
Excluding the multiple interrogation sessions at the hands of rough men who claimed to be President Clay’s personal security detail, he had spent most of his time shaking, vomiting, and begging anyone within earshot for a drink.
Breaking up the routine, the President had visited him twice. The first time she strolled in had been mere seconds after his arrival. And that was when he spilled his guts about the ex-Presidents and their involvement in his Guild. When the President finally left the room, he was rewarded for the information with a two count pour of some sort of rotgut Scotch. By his standards, any spirit aged less than fifty years was unacceptable. Still, he greedily consumed every drop.
By the second time the President came calling, he had already blown his wad of information. Even after the other interrogator mangled his finger, there was nothing in his hazy memory left for him to add. In fact, the two weeks before the United States fell to the dead were a blur of black tie parties, fundraisers with politicians past and present, and booze—lots of booze. A never-ending torrent of the only thing that made him feel less the failure for not seeing his dream of a one world government come to fruition. He wasn’t getting any younger, and with the Internet Age his old ways of doing business were becoming more difficult. It had become too easy for Joe Blow to access personal data via the Freedom of Information Act and see developing patterns in banking and influence peddling and then connect the dots. Before the fall, there had been conspiracy sites devoted to picking apart the Guild. He had even sent Francis to quiet the worst offenders among the ranks of bloggers. A handful of them had disappeared as a result of their meddling, and Francis was the only one who knew where the bodies were buried.
The two weeks following the fall had been heady times. For if he thought there were no rules before, now with FEMA and the federal government fighting to contain the Omega outbreak, and local and state governments also finding themselves massively overwhelmed, that left nobody to stand against him and his twisted vision of a New America. The timing had been perfect for him to make his move when he did. And all had gone to plan except that he had underestimated the true nature of the dead. They had become wildly unpredictable, moving in large numbers, herdlike. The government hadn’t been forthright with their initial assessment of the Omega virus. Its high virility and the nature in which it was transferred helped to swell the ranks of the dead exponentially with each passing day. So he circled the wagons in Jackson Hole, hoping to let the virus run its course and the dead to rot and eventually become nothing but environmental biohazards that would merely need to be cleansed from the countryside. In the end, he didn’t have the patience to wait for Omega to run its course. Nor could he go a moment without a drink. Those two character flaws proved to be his downfall. In an inebriated state, he decided to send Francis to Colorado Springs to eradicate the new President, Valerie Clay, the former Speaker of the House whom he loathed, and was the only person he thought who truly stood in his way. And that decision, which was the result of years of having everything his way, set forth the chain reaction of events which resulted in him being in this cold room begging for a drink of ten-dollar scotch.
The interrogator nudged the mug incrementally, torturing the prisoner with anticipation until it crossed the invisible line of demarcation on the table top that Christian had burned into his memory. Finally able to grasp the handle, he shakily brought the mug to his lips, then downed the contents in one quick motion.
“I hope you savored that,�
� the man said with a smile. Because it’s your last, he thought grimly. Then he stood, grabbed the bottle and left the room without a backwards glance.
The door banged shut and as if on cue, the A/C belched to life.
Chapter 29
Outbreak - Day 15
Near Winters’s Compound
Eden, Utah
P.J. stood just inside the first row of trees, knee deep in a natural hedge of scrub oak that delineated the forest from the softly undulating grass field unfolding before him. He looked at the ground directly in front of him. A good expanse had been trampled. More than one person did this, P.J. told himself. A large circle stood out from the rest, matted and crushed. He had no doubt that this is where Chance had set up shop. His gaze flicked over flattened grass. There were no obvious signs of a struggle. No blood. No shell casings.
Where the fuck are you, Chance? Dad told you to stay put until I got here, he thought. As he stood there trying to decide what to do, he suddenly wished he had inherited the same genes Chance had. Sure, the size was wasted on the dolt, but considering the alternative, he was fairly content with being smart and small.
P.J. took after Dad, who wasn’t the biggest hombre in the valley. Years of being on the wrong end of mean-spirited taunting, hazing, and later on good old fashioned whippings at the hands of the bigger kids in high school had hardened P.J.’s hide. A hell of an asset to have in times like these.
Somewhere above his head a birdsong played out, a soft warbling that gave him an idea. He pursed his lips and whistled three times. Short trills, close together. To a normal person the calls were no different from the real thing. But if Chance was anywhere nearby, he would decipher them for what they really were: a secret code shared between them and one of the few rare things they held in common. Growing up they had relied on the unique call to warn each other when Dad was drunk. A clever defense mechanism devised by two young kids to avoid the belt, boot, or during the worst of Dad’s benders—bruises and broken bones.
The fake bird call didn’t slip by Jamie unnoticed. And when it came again, she focused on the spot, twenty yards to the west, where they had overpowered the dreadlocked kid. Dressed head to toe in woodland camo, a kid, or young man, she couldn’t tell because of the baggy fatigues and drooping boonie hat, was standing very still just outside of the sun’s reach. A pair of black binoculars were pressed to his face, and some sort of rifle was propped next to one of the gently swaying conifers.
The figure called out one more time, with the same three short trills, and before she could get on the radio to hail the compound he had backed slowly into the forest and was gone from her sight.
***
After the three warning calls had gone unanswered, P.J. had finally decided discretion was the better part of valor. Truth be told, he was scared as shit. He held an opinion that the folks Chance had been sent to watch were way above their league. It wasn’t an educated guess. It was something in the air. Like a sixth sense he supposed, trying to tell him something. Suddenly he felt another sensation. He was being watched. No doubt about it, he thought as he hefted the Romanian AK-47 and retreated deeper into the shadows.
Ten minutes later he was back at the forest road where he’d left the silver Land Cruiser he had pilfered brand new off the lot on day three of the outbreak. It was parked bumper to bumper with the black 4Runner Chance had taken from the same lot.
He paused in the tree line and tried the bird call one final time.
Two or three minutes later, after no reply, P.J. hopped in his eighty thousand dollar ride, turned on the gravel road and headed west, a billowing trail of dust the only evidence he’d been there.
Jamie parted the trees just as the engine noise and scrabbling tires were receding out of earshot. Though neither she nor Jordan had gotten a good look at the kid or the vehicle he’d left in, the black SUV sucking in the sun directly in front of them was rather intriguing.
“Call it in,” Jamie said to her protégé.
Jordan hailed the compound and reached Seth, who was pulling a stint in the communications container. She relayed all of the pertinent information, and after a moment or two their instructions came back: Don’t touch the truck, and get back to the road. Gus and Phillip were coming up to relieve them.
With that, the two women became one with the trees, and with the brush grabbing at their ghillie suits, trudged the quarter-mile back to the sloped clearing.
Chapter 30
Outbreak - Day 15
Schriever AFB
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Creeping steadily towards an inevitable merger with the craggy Rocky Mountain range to the west, the relentless sun had dropped another hundred degree day on the airmen and soldiers tasked with guarding Schriever’s main gate.
A single bead of sweat ran down the bridge of Staff Sergeant Leeland’s nose and curled over the tip, wobbling there subtly but refusing to fall. He ignored the urge to take a swipe at it and instead kept the binoculars trained on the lone truck barreling along the northern fence line. The jittery tan vehicle he was tracking looked like it was being pursued by an angry ochre snake. Shimmering heat waves further distorted the image, adding to the illusion that the vehicle was breaking some kind of land speed record on the Bonneville Salt Flats. Soon the roar of the engine had alerted all of the guards, sending them sprinting from the guardhouse towards the gate, carbines held at the ready.
As the truck rapidly closed the distance, the two guards in the tower swiveled their Browning machine guns in its direction, gaping black muzzles eager to hurl massive .50 caliber armor-piercing rounds at it if the need arose.
Donaldson fine-tuned the Bushnells, bringing the driver and truck clearly into focus. “Stand down,” he called out. “It’s Captain Grayson returning. Stand down everyone.”
Without missing a beat, the soldiers lowered their weapons and backed away from the double gate as it rolled open on big rubberized wheels. A murder of crows exploded from the pile of zombie corpses piled a dozen yards from the entrance as the F-650 shot through. The gate was already closing behind the rig before its rear bumper had cleared the threshold. The entire operation appeared choreographed, like it had been performed hundreds of times.
“Corporal Mouton,” Leeland bellowed. One of the soldiers near the guard house looked up but made no reply. “Get on the horn and see where that Dead Sled is. I want those rotten Zs out of here five minutes ago.”
“Yes Sir,” replied the soldier.
A few seconds later, Leeland had descended the stairs and was approaching the Ford on the driver’s side. Cade powered down the window, grimacing from the squelch it made as the fine powdery dust invaded the window channels. The staff sergeant threw a crisp salute Cade’s way. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, Cade broke a couple of laws and returned the salute. He didn’t have the heart to tell the eager staff sergeant that he was no longer in the Army, and neither was he a captain, thus the age-old courtesy was no longer necessary.
“Welcome back Sir,” Leeland said as his right arm fell back to his side. “Looks like you need to take this thing through a Water Works. It’s a shame they are all closed down.”
Cade presumed Leeland was referring to some local car wash chain, but didn’t ask for clarification. “No... she needed a little camouflage anyway,” he replied.
Leeland chuckled at the joke. “Where did you go—and what’s it like out there?” he pried. There was a certain urgency in his voice. Like everything he heard on the base had to be taken with a grain of salt. “I’m going stir crazy stuck inside here. Watching people come and go.”
By now, just like they had when he’d left earlier in the day, the guard detail crowded around the dirty truck. “Nothing has changed much out there,” Cade called down from the cab, loud enough so everyone could pick it up. “I just wanted to put this girl through the paces. Do a little off-roading.”
“What’s the verdict. Is she mission capable?”
“More than you kn
ow,” Cade said, adding a conspiratorial wink.
Leeland grinned ear to ear. “Copy that, Sir.” He fished a hand in a cargo pocket and retrieved the white envelope Cade had given him hours ago, then strained to full extension handing it up to the former Delta operator.
“Thanks for hanging on to this for me Staff Sergeant,” Cade said with a deliberate nod.
“Any time, Sir. Permission to speak freely, Sir.”
Cade nodded again. Said nothing.
“Are things getting better out there?”
“A little better, Staff Sergeant.”
The same big grin returned to the guard’s sun-bronzed face. “So maybe with a little luck we’ll have the dead cleaned out of downtown Springs before winter, and all of the Water Works opened by spring.”
“You soldiers from the 4th ID—Fourth Infantry Division—have done most of the heavy lifting. Colorado Springs will probably be cleared sooner than you know,” Cade said. But If I were you, I wouldn’t get my hopes up too high, is what he didn’t. He’d leave the telling of the hard truths up to the man’s immediate superior. He looked at all of the heads bobbing in total agreement.
A little boost to the morale never hurt anyone , he thought to himself.
Chapter 31
Outbreak - Day 15
Jackson Hole, Wyoming
Tran had no idea why the zombie had ignored him up on Butte Road, but he was grateful all the same. Why the thing had gone back to feeding on the moose instead of setting the whole clutch chasing after him was a mystery he had been turning over in his mind every agony-filled step of the way since he’d crossed the road.
The lower third of the towering peninsula which the mansion commonly referred to as the “House” lorded over proved easier to navigate than the part he had tumbled down. The pitch had lessened and the underbrush thinned out dramatically. With the afternoon sun boosting his spirits, and eager to get out of the woods and onto flat ground so he could assess his injuries, he quickened his pace from a steady limp to a sort of old person’s shuffle. Soon the forest and undergrowth gave way to knee-high grass, and not twenty feet in front of him a sturdy looking fence strung through with horizontal strands of rusty, barb-filled wire halted his forward progress. Twisted from years of seasonal change, and held upright by hard volcanic soil, the multiple gray posts spaced roughly ten feet apart appeared to run the entire length of the Teton Pass Highway. He looked right—the road stretched on straight as the ridge on a wild boar’s back. To his left the shimmering blacktop met up with I-189 before curling off left to downtown Jackson Hole; a right turn would take him to Hoback Junction and the Snake River crossing.
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