“We're innocent,” Liam said weakly.
“This kid is wanted in connection with bio-terrorism,” the man with the equipment said while pointing to Liam. “This girl is listed as infected, deceased. And this woman—”
The seriousness of the charges affected the men. They stepped back several big steps.
“Damn. This woman is supposed to have offed the President.”
“That figures,” retorted Jane.
“Sir, we are cleared to terminate these three on sight. In fact, someone wrote in some notes. It states several penal codes that will apply if we don't shoot them on sight.”
Victoria moved closer to him, though they were already about as tight as they could be. She looked up. “Thanks for coming for me. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
He didn't care how it would look. He swept Victoria in his arms and kissed her.
There are worse ways to go out.
The kiss was a record-breaker. It was his first since their rendezvous in her dorm room, and it was something he'd been thinking about every minute since. It was everything he'd dreamed, and it made him completely forget the cruel world infected everything except what he had in those final seconds…
The kiss went on longer than he could have hoped. It truly was a good trade, if they had to die.
“Wait just a damned minute,” said the leader at last. “Just a damned minute.”
Liam heard the words and sensed the change. He really wanted to keep on kissing her, but they read each others' minds and pulled apart, together. Her smile and moist eyes encouraged him to look back to the intruders.
“If that's not Elsa, how in the world do we know these people are the threats we see here? Do they look like the world's most dangerous terrorists? This one is just a kid.” Of course, they pointed at him.
“We need more information.” Looking at Liam, he said, “I don't suppose you'd tell us whether this information is true? Are you the most dangerous boy in America?”
Well, it depends on who you are.
Out of his mouth, he professed a much more mundane explanation.
“This Debbie girl asked my girlfriend and me to help her bring elderly people to this boat. We wanted to help. They were being left behind for the zombies to get them.”
“And her?” He pointed to Jane.
“I'm his mother,” she said matter-of-factly. “We live in Cairo, of course, and I chased these two when I thought they had come out on these barges to have sex. You know, being the end of the world and all.”
Liam felt his face flare up in embarrassment. But he couldn't exactly counter her argument without destroying his fabricated story. “Yeah, my mom saved us from doing something stupid,” he said without emotion.
“Sir, there's no way we're going to find four Level 5's in this toilet of a town in nowhere, USA. This has to be a mistake. Our data has been hacked.”
The leader looked around, evidently thinking it over.
Liam rubbed Victoria's back. It was all he could to keep his hands busy because the other one was shaking at his side.
2
“We bag 'em all. Take them back to base. Let HQ sort out the truth.”
Liam let out an audible sigh of relief.
“Sir, we're looking for Marty Peters, my great-grandma. Does your computer have a location for her?”
The computer man looked at the leader, who replied with a curt, “Do it.”
In a few moments, the man quite forcefully smacked his own head. “She's in the system. We now have five of them! We've struck gold.” He pointed to the machine. “It says Ms. Martinette Peters is wanted for involvement in the trafficking of bio-toxins across state lines. We are ordered, and I quote, to terminate her at extreme distance and ensure body and biological remnants are purged thoroughly in a hyper-temperature smelter.” He laughed. “Who the hell writes this stuff?”
“But where is she? Is it in there?”
“Yeah, sure kid. It shows her not far away, in the town.”
He figured she was on the run. She wasn't at the house he'd checked.
The questions were there, but he wanted to know something else. A dark force he suspected was behind all this, no matter what Victoria thought.
“I um, have one more name. My dad. If it's not too much trouble could you look him up? Then I won't bother you again.”
“That won't be necessary, son. He's waiting for us right where we left him.” Jane looked right at him.
“His name is Douglas Hayes. Just tell me where he is, so I know he's OK.”
The computer operator seemed hesitant, but the leader nodded. “One more. That's all I can handle.”
In moments, the man had his answer. His face revealed his surprise before he voiced it.
“Well, thank the lard for good taste. We've cooked a half-dozen doozies. This guy is the worst one of all. A Homeland Security special adjunct in charge of studying the spread of the ZF one dash one zero strain of influenza. It says he infected the lab and escaped with several virulent samples of the virus.” He paused, his eyes continuing to read what must have been a lengthy blotter.
“Good God! Intel says he was part of the division that secretly helped the Patriot Snowball rebels infect D.C. Then he did some work overseas. Finally...oh come on! This can't be true. It says his role in the insurrection was to sanitize the city of St. Louis of all life.”
Secretly, Liam knew at least some of that was true. What about the rest? If they knew what was really happening would they kill them instantly? How did he let himself get dealt into the game, so these men thought his own father was a mass murdering lunatic? What did that make him?
Afraid to know the truth, he had to ask. “And his location?”
“It says he's right here, of course. Cairo. What is this place? A criminal convention?”
Liam felt Victoria turn toward Jane, but no words were passed.
The leader walked up to him. “You three better give me some answers. I'm authorized to terminate you on sight. Do you know what kind of power that gives me?”
“Sir, are you with the Polar Bears?” Liam had to eliminate that possibility.
“I ask the questions. I'll give you five seconds to start talking.”
“Or what?” asked Jane. “How dare you threaten me and my son.”
“Or I drag your ass onto my helicopter, and I drop you in Supermax prison. That might be a fate worse than death, right now. By some miracle, most inmates survived this crisis. Isolated living, I guess.”
“We have rights,” Victoria added.
The man looked at her with the first hint of sadness. “Ma'am I used to work for a special branch of the United States government. I swore an oath to a Constitution which no longer exists. My country no longer exists. It's been taken over by an insider coup. Your rights were stripped by those people. My job now is to take it back. Your rights extend up to and including me shooting you three in the face if I believe for a second you are as dangerous as this computer says you are.”
He got as close as he dared. “Someone had better say something.”
“I'm a Snowballer,” Liam said while thinking of Mom. “My goal is the same as yours—to restore this nation to what it was before. Three weeks ago I didn't know how good I had it. I did nothing but play video games, and I didn't even know about the Patriot Snowball group back then. But I ran into some of them. They told me what the government agents did to them. They told me about all the experiments.” He pointed to the nearby beds. “This place is one of those experimental sites. I'm sure of it. We're here to stop the people responsible for this. Though I admit, we aren't doing a very good job.”
“And the others?”
“We're all patriots.” He was careful not to lie about Jane. He didn't know what she was, other than the wife of the man who shot his girlfriend. Her loyalties remained suspect, even though she was with Victoria. “Victoria and I helped my great-grandma Marty Peters escape from the Riverside Hotel and C
asino in downtown St. Louis. They were doing experiments there with elderly citizens, and they had captured many different specimens suffering from the zombie plague.”
He took a deep breath, adamant he could keep this momentum going.
“And we witnessed the death of an Agent Duchesne, who was part of a government agency called the NIS—National Internal Security. They're the ones who released the plague on the Patriot Snowball. Not the other way around. They knew about the plague long before it came to America. After we escaped, we found more evidence of the creation of the plague down in the Koch Hospital Mine. They did their experiments on bodies of soldiers they stole from the National Cemetery.”
Victoria jumped in. “And I was, uh, working with Liam's dad at Washington University when the NIS destroyed his lab. He'd discovered that some people are infected with the plague and don't even know it. The NIS wanted the plague spread far and wide. They even claimed they used a hidden signal in the tornado sirens to get the zombies to move faster during the first few hours. They're the bad guys, sir.”
The leader stepped closer and looked at Jane with a cold stare.
“My name's Ben, ma'am. Not at all pleased to meet you, but I'll protect you, if I can. I have to ask: do you have any control over your kids? It sounds like they're getting into a lot of trouble,” he said with no irony.
“They've caused me more sleepless nights than you can imagine,” she said with a forced smile.
Ben turned around and waved them all toward the steps.
“I don't believe any of it, of course. But HQ will get to the truth. I'm not coming out of this empty handed.” Then, quieter, “Not again.”
3
While they'd talked, the drones had come to rest on the metal of the hull. The propellers were rapidly slowing.
Near the steps, the leader noticed them and spun around. “If any of you tries anything, I will kill you. Are we clear?”
“Crystal, sir,” said Liam, knowing the answer.
“We've apparently lost control of these drones. I didn't order them to stand down. Jay, check for threats. I'll radio up top. We're getting clear.” He pulled out a radio and called for his flight.
His man went up the steps, then promptly tumbled back down. Dead. A bullet had struck him in the back of the head.
A gun was in Liam's face before he had taken one deep breath after seeing the body.
“Who's with you? Tell me or you're dead!”
He couldn't speak. His stomach was ready to unload, though.
“There's no one,” Jane piped up. “I swear. We came alone. Don't kill him, please,” she pleaded with passing sincerity.
The barrel of the gun wavered.
“Dammit!”
The gun pointed to the floor.
He put up a finger to quiet everyone, then got back on his radio.
“Jolly Roger, this is Crusader One. Abort, abort, abort.”
There was no reply.
“Jolly Roger—”
The whine of the helicopter increased, then an explosion above sent shards of shrapnel through the metal roof of the barge an instant later. A blast of heat poured down the stairwell, into the compartment. Everyone ran deeper into the hold. One big section of the roof buckled inward, as if something heavy had landed on it. The scraping of metal and the repetitive clangs on the outer hull strongly suggested the helicopter had been destroyed.
“It's a damned trap!” Ben yelled. “Get to the other end.” They all ran down the length of the hull. The younger people helped the older set get along to relative safety.
Most of the debris landed about mid-way down the length of the line of beds. A big piece of steaming hot metal struck one of the sleeping bodies. It collapsed part of the bed, and as Liam ran by he was horrified to see it had taken off one of the man's legs. The scary part, he realized, was that the man didn't wake up.
He kept eyes forward. There were others in the area, and he didn't want to know if any of those had been struck. There was nothing to be done for any of them. Right now his priority was Victoria. They ran hand-in-hand.
When they reached the other end of the boat, he was disappointed. There was no exit. He assumed this was because the space was normally used to store coal, or rock, or grain. Not people. The designers never anticipated a second exit would be necessary.
“Ben, are you guys military?” Jane asked.
“We're Secret Service,” he said as he searched the walls and ceiling.
“Secret Service,” Jane repeated. “Is the president around?”
“I couldn't tell you if he was, but we do more than protect the man. We protect the office. Whether you know it or not, you said the magic words. If you know about the NIS and aren't killing us for hearing it, we can more or less assume you aren't NIS.”
Liam thought of Jane. She was, at one time, NIS. How deep did that loyalty run? Was she honest about working against them? She'd outright killed NIS agents with her sniper rifle, but he'd learned to doubt everything with Hayes, and, by extension, his wife.
“The beds! Quick, stack the beds,” Ben ordered. Using two empty beds, they managed to stand high enough to reach the metal barrier over the roof. It was like a series of shallow arches, each about ten feet wide, that were placed one next to the other for the entire length. For all he knew, they were hundreds or thousands of pounds in weight. Ben tried to push one up, but it didn't budge at all. He got up there to help, but the result was the same.
“I think they're bolted together above us,” Ben said with a hint of defeatism.
They came off the bed, and Ben took a seat as Liam came down and stood on the floor. “Polar Bear, huh? I don't suppose you can call them, can you?” He was clearly joking, though Liam probably could call his mom. She was so far away the best he could hope to do was tell her goodbye. Maybe now was the time for that...
“If you're a Polar Bear, that officially makes us enemies of the domestic sort, but I'm going to let you off on a technicality. Currently, I have no idea who is running the country. The Polar Bears seem to be the only people rallying citizens around that Constitution I mentioned.”
“They're not involved in this,” he told Ben.
I'm pretty sure.
“Someone just downed a military chopper and assassinated a good man. No matter who they are, they've got the drop on us. And now we're trapped with all these dead people.”
Ben stood up.
“OK. I don't know what's happening here. If you're part of some elaborate ruse to get us here, I promise I'll make you pay before I'm taken alive. You get me?”
Liam got it. No matter who came down the steps, he might get shot for simply being there.
This time, Victoria pulled him in close.
4
“Liam, I saw Hayes get off a helicopter far up the river. I don't know how, or even why, he'd be here in Cairo.”
Liam and Victoria split off from Ben and his partner and kept their voices low enough Jane couldn't hear.
“That tracking system is pretty impressive. It told me you were in Cairo. I would never have left Forest Park if I wasn't sure you were here.”
“And I would have never left, either, but we were attacked by NIS. They almost killed me and Hayes. They did kill some of the Polar Bears in Hans' house.”
“I know! I found them. And your shirt,” he said with a smile. “I knew you were there.”
“Hayes left a bomb,” Victoria said with a start, though it was clear Liam survived.
“I found it. Poof,” he made a gesture with his hand of an explosion. “I ran out the back door and hid behind a tree. The whole place went up. And...I lost your shirt.”
She hugged him, laughing softly.
“One of the dying patriots helped set it up. Hayes was sure he'd kill this Elsa chick. They have some kind of relationship.”
“You mean like they're in love?” he said with wonder.
“I don't know. I don't think so. She included an invitation to her wedding when she killed
the men in Hans' living room. Like she knew he was coming, and that he would be the one to read it. He said she was trying to get even for killing Duchesne, who was her fiancé.”
Liam looked out over the beds. Ben and his partner had flipped beds on opposite sides of the room and faced the distant staircase. He didn't think it was likely an enemy agent would just walk down those steps like there was no threat down here. If these guys were Secret Service, he imagined they were pretty much the best of the best.
Debbie and the drones remained on the floor, bathed in the daylight coming in from the opening above the steps.
“Why do you think Hayes is here? Why didn't he come with us?”
Liam faced her, but he couldn't say what he truly thought.
Hayes lied about everything.
“I don't know. If he's here, maybe this Elsa person is here? Maybe he hoped to surprise her,” he offered.
Liam called out to Ben. “You said Elsa was wanted for genocide. What exactly did she do?”
Ben set his gun on the side of the bed, which was facing up at the ceiling. He ducked down a little so he could address Liam. “Elsa Cantwell was part of the overthrow of the democratically elected government we had before the last election. We didn't see it as it happened, but once the infection spread across the world...let's just say cybersecurity became a thing of the past. Government secrets were hacked and released in torrents. Old debts were settled. Talented freelancers engaged in brute force attacks with no worry of being caught. None of it mattered because the government itself was fading.”
“Except for you guys.” He thought it was obvious.
“Yes, we have some very talented freelancers, too. And they were more than anxious to hunker down in a government safe house in exchange for the use of their talents. I'd call it World War III, though most people never saw it. What you see out there now is World War IV—the sticks and stones edition.”
“But why go after Elsa now?”
Ben looked at him with sadness. “Do you know what it's like to be the only ones fighting for everyone else? The Marines. Army. Air Force. They're all focused on killing the zombies. We're a relatively small organization. We recently lost a President. Maybe two. Our street cred is mighty low.”
Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 6): Zombies Ever After Page 29