He stood paralyzed as the rain dripped down his face.
* * *
“Gergle bitsa-bum,” Josie cooed quietly and at a high frequency, pointing up at Luke in concern with her tiny hand and tinier index finger. She was still draped in the thin little blanket she’d been wrapped in when her mother gave her to Aiden and Luke’s mum, Rebecca, and was now making little noises that had the shape of speech, but didn’t include any actual words. Her concern for the six-year-old boy beside her, though, was real and impossible to disguise.
“I want Mum,” Luke cried quietly.
The younger brother wasn’t really old enough to internalize that their mother was dead – bitten and then shot down in the runner invasion in the canteen. He was still carrying her purse over his shoulder, with the box of bullets and spare magazine for the pistol Aiden had retrieved from her body. Aiden was old enough to understand what had happened – and he was even just old enough to know that his brother wouldn’t be able to. But he didn’t know how to explain it to him, or even how to try. So he just said, “What would Dad tell us to do?”
Luke sniffled and wiped his nose with his sleeve. “To keep our heads and look after each other.”
“Right. So that’s what we’re going to do.”
Luke had gotten tired carrying Josie so he had put her down, and now she walked on her own, the smaller boy holding her hand. Aiden figured she’d tire out quickly that way, but for now she seemed happy making her occasional cute little sounds. She was quiet enough that Aiden didn’t worry about the noise, for now – and didn’t know how to stop her, anyway.
In any case, he couldn’t hold both her and the gun. The three of them were moving through the sealed-off section of prison, where they’d been locked in, its cold concrete and steel corridors lit only by dim floor-strip lighting. They were trying to find a way out, so far with no success.
Aiden only knew they couldn’t go back the way they had come.
They had only barely escaped the massacre in the canteen and kitchen. And their mother… well, now Aiden knew he still couldn’t afford to think about her. He knew he would collapse into tears and uselessness just like his younger brother, and could already feel himself on the verge of it. And none of them could afford that. Instead he adjusted the grip on the gun and led them forward slowly and quietly.
The gun was the SIG P220 that Dad had given Mum to protect them with. And it was one that Aiden, and even briefly Luke, had shot with Dad at the range. He knew it held eight rounds, he knew what all the parts did, and he knew how to handle it safely. And he could hold it properly, use the sights, and shoot with reasonable accuracy, despite his relatively small hands, and the noise and recoil.
He could still remember their parents arguing about whether the boys should be taught to shoot it. “Isn’t that crazy?” their mother had said. “Shouldn’t it be a twenty-two or a pellet pistol or something to start?”
“No,” Dad had said firmly. Conner Ainsley was a captain in the SAS, and then in USOC, and he didn’t mess about. “They’ll begin as they mean to go on. They get the real thing now. And never rely on a handgun in any caliber that doesn’t start with a four.” Then Dad had smiled.
Aiden missed him so much. But he knew what his job was now – to survive, and to protect his brother, and protect the little girl. And he knew Dad would expect him to.
Some type of noise up ahead made him stop in his tracks. He could see a shadow, a darker splotch in the darkness moving ahead – and he knew from the way it moved it wasn’t human. He turned and hissed in his brother’s ear.
“Zulus.” It was Dad’s term. The correct one.
Aiden picked up the girl and carried her back down the hall and around the first corner, pushing Luke ahead, finally shoving them all into a darker alcove off the hallway. The three children hunkered down and made themselves small – and quiet. Aiden was terrified the little girl was going to keep making her baby-talk noises, but when he looked at her in the near-dark, she looked right back at him – eyes wide and shining, and mouth firmly shut. It almost seemed like she somehow knew to be quiet when they were hiding.
Aiden heard shuffling, scraping steps in the main corridor.
And he waited for them to pass.
* * *
Both Kate and Baxter looked up from their racks as two RMPs staggered by, carrying what looked like a dead body. Wordlessly, the two teammates got up and exited their billet, in time to see the RMPs ferry it into the next room over. Kate went in after them, Baxter standing in the doorway, and saw them put down not a dead man, but a sleeping one – an exceedingly dirty young British soldier in a maroon beret – laying him out on one of the two beds.
“What the hell happened to that guy?” Kate asked.
Shoving the soldier’s feet up on the cot, one of the RMPs turned and answered. “I gather he’s the sole survivor of the campaign in the south.”
“Jesus,” Kate said. She looked back at Baxter. “We’ll take care of him.” The RMPs nodded, pushed past her, and left. Kate propped the young man’s rifle in the corner – a nice-looking designated marksman rifle – then knelt down and started getting his boots off. He looked like he’d been through the wringer, in both directions, twice. He also looked like he needed to sleep for about a hundred years. Baxter came over and started getting the kid’s vest and body armor off him.
As they worked, they heard a great clomping sound approaching down the steel grate that passed for a floor in the hallway outside. Turning, they saw Predator and Juice galumph by, looking exhausted themselves. Juice saw them and waved vaguely as they passed the doorway.
Kate looked to Baxter. “You notice their mag pouches were full? My guess – they came straight from the armory. Refitting and re-arming before anything else.”
Baxter nodded. “Yeah. And while they looked like shit, their weapons were pristine.” He was taking another lesson from the operators, hardly his first. He said it aloud. “Take care of your weapons and gear first, only then yourself.”
“No,” Kate corrected. “First your teammates. Then weapons and gear. Then yourself.”
When the two had made the young soldier comfortable, and also made sure he was still breathing, they went back to their own billet, which was between that one and Juice and Pred’s. By the time they did, Baxter looked up, trying to identify some terrible grinding, rumbling, ripping noise.
“What the hell’s that?” he asked.
Kate smiled. “Take a guess.”
“No way,” Baxter said. But then he recalled that Predator actually was about the size of a lumber sawmill, so maybe it was possible that noise was his snoring. He sighed. “Well, I guess if those two are taking it easy, we can justify it for now.”
Kate shook her head. “Believe me, they’re not taking it easy. They’re ensuring operational efficiency. Always sleep when you can – because later you probably can’t. And they know what I told you earlier – this thing isn’t over. And we have to be ready.”
Baxter nodded, sobered.
Kate smiled and said, “And I also wouldn’t put us in the same category as those two. You don’t make Hector and Achilles stand watch, if you’ve got other guys to do it. You save them for when Troy’s about to fall.”
Baxter smiled. “More like Hector and Boagrius.”
* * *
The JOC was pretty much exactly like Jameson remembered it, unfortunately. Maybe a few more unlucky conscripts at stations. One big difference was who was in command.
“What happened to the Coldstream Guards?” he asked Second Lieutenant Miller, shaking his hand with genuine fondness. He knew Miller had been through a lot – been through it all really – and was still standing his post. Then again, Jameson thought, he hasn’t been through what One Troop has…
“Decamped,” Miller said. “Returned to their unit.”
“Who’s that then?” Jameson asked, pointing through the shot-out glass of one of the commander’s offices that fronted the JOC. It was two down f
rom what had been Colonel Mayes’s office. But after the Colonel’s machine-gun-powered bloody last stand in there, Jameson figured no one would use it ever again.
“A USOC major,” Miller said. “Maybe.” Jameson gave him a look but didn’t say anything. “Also, she’s American.” Jameson still didn’t say anything, but his look got worse.
He left Miller there and showed himself in, stepping to the doorway and knocking on the doorframe. When Ali looked up, he announced himself: “Major Jameson – OC, One Troop, Forty-Two Royal Marine Commando.”
Ali waved him in. But, instead of introducing herself, she just said, “It was your team that extracted the Kazakh, from Moscow.”
“Yes. And the bag of jumbled scientific parts your scientist wanted before that, in Germany.”
Ali nodded, her eyes twinkling slightly. They seemed to say: Okay, so we’ve both been around the block lately. “You lose Marines on those missions?”
“I’ve lost men everywhere.” Jameson paused, then gave in to a temptation that, like most of them, he knew should be resisted. “You were posted to the American carrier?”
“Some of the time.”
Jameson let it rest there. His implication was clear enough – it had been the Americans who had ordered One Troop off on those two missions, both of which had been costly almost beyond Jameson’s ability to accept or bear. But, at the same time, he knew none of them had time to sit around grieving for their losses right now. Those missions had been dictated by critical operational requirements, vital to saving anything or anyone left. They’d had to be done.
And there was no one else to do them.
And, like everyone else, Jameson didn’t have to like his assignments – he just had to complete them. But no one liked losing people under their command. And no one ever got used to it. Seeing the woman’s expression deepen with a trace of sympathy, it was obvious she got this too – all of it.
She said, “Well, thanks to you and your Marines, we’ve got not just a working vaccine, but an effective bioweapon for fighting the dead. And we’ve almost got a weaponization strategy.” Standing up, she said, “Come on – the Kazakh brain-trust is down in Bio working on it now, and I need to go and check on it. And him.”
Jameson nodded and followed her out.
As they exited, he could hear her speak into her personal radio. “Homer, can you meet us at Bio?”
“Copy, wilco,” a voice come back.
Finally, as they passed through the JOC, Jameson could see Miller standing in the center of the room, obviously listening to radio traffic on a headset, not speaking – but wearing an incredulous and disbelieving expression.
Just another glorious day in the damned JOC… Jameson thought. And he didn’t give it another thought.
At least they were getting out of there.
Save Us All
CentCom – JOC
Miller had been sitting at his station in the JOC when the radio call came in – and it initially made him smile out loud. It was from the fuel mission, the two men carrying out the critical task of scavenging aviation fuel, so they could potentially have a shot at air-dropping the vaccination kits, should they be lucky enough to produce any. And the first report from the team leader, the Sikh soldier, was excellent. Good news was pretty thin on the ground lately, and definitely welcome.
Miller spoke into his headset. “Max One, say again your last and confirm.” Their call sign was evidently a Mad Max reference, due to their mission of fuel scavenging.
“Max One confirms: first mission objective achieved. We have the fuel tanker truck.”
Miller had been prepared to eat his smile. But he kept it on his face. The small team’s first tasking had been to get to the Royal Logistics Corps base in nearby Sutton. The transport squadron based there wouldn’t have aviation fuel, but they’d definitely have a big fuck-off tanker truck to haul it in. Getting the actual fuel would be their next stop. Halfway done! On the other hand, that next stop was Battersea heliport, also in south London, but right up against the banks of the Thames.
And the Thames was filling up with dead.
“Max One, what is your ETA for second target site?”
“Ah, well, yes – slight wrinkle there, CentCom…”
As Miller listened to the Sikh describe this wrinkle, he stood up, walked to the center of the JOC, and felt his smile not so much melt away as melt down. When Ali and Jameson marched out through the room, Jameson seemed to clock his expression. But he didn’t even look surprised.
Like it wasn’t even worth asking about.
* * *
“But don’t worry, Lieutenant,” Noise said into his throat mic, still smiling himself, but nonetheless raising his voice more and more as he spoke. As he finished his in-depth sitrep, he was having to be heard over quite a lot of ambient noise.
First, there was the angry grinding of the big truck engine, as his young and extremely wide-eyed RMP attachment sat in the cab, trying to get it to turn over, on what could not be described as a healthy battery. The 6x6-wheeled all-terrain hauling tractor of the Oshkosh close-support tanker had a 12-liter Caterpillar engine, which could produce over 450 horsepower. But only if it started, which wasn’t currently happening, and didn’t seem all that likely to anytime soon.
There was also the splashing of 20,000 liters of diesel fuel pouring out of the tanker itself, as they emptied it for their own particular use. The drainage grates in the floor of the garage were trying to cope with the high rate of flow, but failing. Noise’s boots, thankfully Gore-Tex lined, were already half-submerged in diesel. He said a prayer of thanks to Ik Onkar that diesel had a much higher flash point than petrol.
Another of their very many blessings.
Finally, there was the raucous banging of the hands and faces of dead Zulus, Romeos, and Foxtrots – on every external surface of the corrugated tin motor garage. Including the roof. There were definitely Foxtrots up on the roof now. The whole structure actually seemed to be rocking, like the two men inside were weathering an undead hurricane. But the garage was doing an excellent job of keeping them out. Someone had shown real foresight in not putting windows in this thing.
It was all most excellent.
“Do not worry,” Noise repeated to Miller. “We will be on the move shortly!”
He drummed his fingers in a relaxed manner on the receiver of his AA12 combat shotgun, which he had as yet had no need to fire. His smile undimmed, he nodded at the RMP in the cab of the truck. The young man looked back at him, wild-eyed – and expectant, as if he was wondering when the hell Noise planned to use that thing. Plus totally freaking out.
Tsk, tsk, Noise thought. By conquering your mind, you conquer the world…
But he knew that sometimes motivational quotes from Sikh gurus were not needed, and concrete assistance was better. So he kept his mouth shut, and instead moved to help get the truck started.
The fuel was about to be up over his boot tops anyway.
* * *
“Aliyev,” a voice said, stalking up on him briskly from behind. The Kazakh flinched even before turning, recognizing Ali’s voice. He then slid down the edge of the table away from her. He saw another soldier with her, one with blond hair, whom he didn’t recognize – but then he also saw the Royal Marine Commander, Jameson.
The one who had rescued him from Moscow.
As Aliyev backed away, Jameson looked from him to Ali, as if wondering what the hell that was all about, the uneasy vibe between the two. But, then again, he also looked too tired to care that much. Nonetheless, Aliyev was vaguely reassured to see him. He figured that Jameson, having sacrificed so much to save him, was unlikely to let Ali kill him now.
“I am glad you’re here,” Aliyev said, fearing he didn’t really sound all that glad. He looked around and smiled. By now, the reclamation of Bio was complete. All the carnage and chaos from the runner invasion had been cleared away. Even better, the paintball supplies recovered by the two giant commandos – rifles, air tan
ks, and cases of paintballs – had been wheeled in, then stacked up or laid out on a table in a small open area of the lab, up against one of the walls. This was where Aliyev had been working.
He started to gesture behind him at the table, but Ali cut him off, nodding at the culturing tables on the other side of the room. “Where are we with the MZ?”
Aliyev switched gears, walking them all in that direction, still keeping some space between himself and Ali. “It’s pretty much as I told you before. Culturing is an exponential proc—”
Now Jameson cut him off. “Can we infect and kill the dead or not?” Of course that had been the whole point of getting Aliyev out of Moscow in the first place. Jameson obviously thought sooner would be a lot better than later.
Aliyev reset. “It is as I explained earlier. The MZ is a bacterial pathogen, and culturing it is an exponential process – the amount we have doubling every forty-five minutes or so. Four cells become sixteen become two hundred fifty-six. And the process was slightly interrupted by all of us here almost getting our asses eaten for us by the dead-guy Olympics hundred-meter-dash champions that somehow got in earlier.” He paused to see if he had overstepped.
Probably. Fuck it.
“So if we take even a small amount out now, early in the process, it exponentially decreases the amount we have later on. Instead of starting with four cells, we start with two. And so two becomes four become sixteen – sixteen instead of two hundred fifty-six, at the same point in time.”
“And at that same point in time,” Jameson said, sounding not much more interested in Aliyev’s explanation than he was amused by his banter, “we’re all going to be fucking dead.” Aliyev opened his mouth to try again, but Jameson cut him off. “I’m not arguing with you, mate. I’m telling you how it is.”
“Okay – what’s your recommendation?” This was the blond soldier Aliyev didn’t know. Despite being heavily tooled up, he seemed friendly – even smiling, unlike Ali or Jameson. Aliyev saw an insignia on him that featured an eagle, but also had an anchor, and he wondered if the man was really a sailor. “When do you think we should deploy it?” Homer asked.
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