by W. J. Lundy
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Divided We Fall
By W. J. Lundy
V7.24.2015.01
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Divided We Fall
© 2015 W. J. Lundy
Cover Design by Andres Vasquez Junior
Editing: Terri King, Sara Jones
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Some places, especially military locations and facilities are intentionally vague or incorrect in layout and security perimeter. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental. All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.
* * *
Dedicated to the American Warfighter.
“Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all! By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall!” John Dickinson, July 1768
PROLOGUE
The nightmare woke him from his sleep; the sound of his own screams as he called out his wife’s name… always her name. He turned in the bed to search for his smart phone. It no longer worked, not for making calls anyway, but he still used it to check the time and keep track of his notes… to see the photos of his girls, read old messages from her. Finding it tucked underneath him, he pushed a button and lit its display—02:30. He had only slept for an hour. He reached for the nightstand and turned on the touch-activated lamp, filling the room with a warm light. Looking at the other bunks, he could see that he was still alone. No one else checked into the lonely hotel hundreds of feet under the rock.
He had fallen asleep on top of the bedding, still in his uniform, having only taken off his shoes and jacket before sleep found him. He moved to an upright position and sat drearily, staring at the floor. He felt far older than his forty-two years. The months and days without sunlight were taking a toll on him—the chaos and the moving, the running, and of course, the fighting. The thought of it all caused him to steal a quick glance at the Glock in the shoulder holster resting over the back of a chair near his bed.
A strobe light began flashing above the door. He’d become familiar with the light. It’d been going off almost constantly since they’d arrived at the bunker complex in Colorado. It meant they were at the blast doors… survivors, infected, attackers… who knew? It didn’t make much difference to the security teams. The first move against the steel bunker doors had been by locals. Not criminals, not militias, not even the hate groups; mostly just average civilians—now refugees in their own country. The bunker was not a secret in the nearby town. Secrets were hard to keep these days. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, this bunker became common knowledge; a television documentary had even featured the site years earlier.
When the barricades broke and the roadblocks failed, hundreds, then thousands, of civilians made their way up the mountain pass. They occupied the road, pounding on the doors and begging for refuge. The Air Force provided as much assistance to them as they could; food drops had been made and they set up tents to try to shelter them. They even allowed some inside… those with special skills like doctors and engineers. The overall situation considered manageable, the approach road to the bunker converted into a survivors’ camp.
That all changed when the first sightings of the infected reached the base of the mountain though. The bunker’s command team ordered in all available air assets and even sent some of the security teams out beyond the perimeter to assist the state troopers. Holding the pass turned out to be impossible for the under-equipped law enforcement types. Wave after wave of them poured into the valley. Air National Guard combat planes provided close-air support, dumping everything onto the approaching enemy, but for every one killed, ten more of them were drawn into the valley.
The people at the bunker entrance began to panic as the sounds of the fight drew closer. Civilians rushed the outer fences and pushed through the gates; most of the security guards refused to fire on families—families looking for nothing but safety for their children. Several civilians managed to make it past the blast doors before the automated triggers closed and sealed them. Still, thousands more had not. The military inside all sympathized with the refugees. So many of the soldiers had no idea where their own families were, and they could not help but wonder if they were in the crowd beyond the heavy blast doors.
He stood in the control room when the infected finally broke through the final defenses. The guards used spotlights to try to blind them and slow their advance. It did not work; the Primals—as they would come to call them—found their way through and made their way up the mountain. The external closed-circuit cameras captured everything. Pockets of soldiers who held the lines outside—refusing orders to fall back to the bunker—chose to make a last stand in front of the civilians and formed a meager perimeter around the survivors.
The colonel watched, terrified, as state troopers and security guards came crashing through the woods ahead of the advancing monsters and ran through the crowd of civilians in a fast retreat. Shouting warnings to run, they caused further panic in the crowds. Realizing early on that the bunker’s gates were never going to be open to them, some ran beyond it and farther up the mountain. The remaining civilians pushed themselves against the doors, crushing each other under their own weight.
The enemy calls started; distant at first, but soon the high-pitched screams were so loud they drowned out the outside speakers. Loose pockets of armed men tried to fight; they stood their ground but were quickly overwhelmed. The Primals flooded their simple defense and mixed in with the civilians, slashing and attacking everything. The rage-filled figures cut through flesh with dulled teeth. Amongst the chaos, his eyes focused on a lone Marine who fired his rifle directly into the charging mass. When his weapon failed, without hesitation, he jumped the barrier and used his rifle as a club. The Marine knocked one down with a blow to the head then used a KA-BAR to take out another. Soon the Marine disappeared in a massing flurry of bodies.
The colonel turned away from the video feed, refusing to watch anymore. He spun his chair toward a wall and prayed for his own family in Virginia. He had lost contact with them after the first of the barricades and safeguards were in place. Now he second-guessed himself constantly for not breaking his orders and going to his family. What kind of father does not put his family first? He had abandoned them in their greatest time of need. His last contact with his wife was a simple text message: orange—a prearranged code word signaling her to gather everything and head to his father’s house in West Virginia. He never received a reply.
After 9/11 and his posting to the Pentagon, his clearance elevated and he became privy to the threats the world really faced. He discussed contingency plans with his wife, and they developed a strategy to get her and the kids quickly out of the area in case of an emergency. Different words for different directions or contingencies: black, lock the doors and go to the basement; orange, head for the mountains; blue, meet at a storage building near the coast; white, drive west and stop for no one. They kept a bag packed on a shelf in the garage and a safe with a loaded pistol in the trunk of the SUV. He programmed rural routes into the vehicle’s GPS, avoiding the interstates under each color. She should have easily made it to his father’s home outside the city limits, far off the grid and located in the high country. They would be safe there, he reassured himself, because most of the attacks were against cities or high-population areas.
She knew he would find his way there as soon as he could after things died down or once they contai
ned it. He had hoped that when everything settled, he would somehow be able to leave for a couple days and check in on them. However, things never died down; instead, they escalated. Defensive lines and cities fell, the borders sealed, air traffic froze, and highways closed or were congested beyond use. Nobody knew how to fight this enemy. The government reacted slowly to the early reports. Small attacks—probes of two and three against rural locations or on terminals at airports; crazed men and women who came out of nowhere and attacked without mercy—soulless faces that showed no remorse in their killing, never halting their attack. State governments began to clash with the decision making of the President. Most of the federal troops abandoned their posts, and everything quickly fell into chaos. Without troops to hold back the waves and organize the withdrawal, everything spiraled out of control.
The Pentagon was surrounded by remnants of the old guard in a final defense when he had been ordered to leave. He could hear the fighting from his office deep inside the building when an Air Force sergeant burst through his door and handed him a shoulder holster containing a Glock. He took a family photo from a picture frame and folded it into his wallet before following the sergeant into the hallway. With the outer rings of the building compromised, parts of the Pentagon had been intentionally set ablaze to slow the Primals' advance. All was lost and the defensive operation became an evacuation.
All essential personnel moved to the large courtyard in the center of the Pentagon. The defenders prepared final protective lines. Guards desperately used C4 and detonation cord to knock down trees and create a landing zone for the swarms of aircraft orbiting overhead. Escorted by soldiers, he rushed through the maze of barricades and quickly boarded a USN SH-3 helicopter. With little fanfare, a crewmember pushed him into a seat and closed the door. As the helicopter climbed into the air, he could see the tracer rounds zip across the courtyard as the things broke through the south side. His helicopter climbed higher into the dark clouds of black smoke, and he lost site of the building below him.
He strained to see out of a portside window. The capital below swarmed in flames as people cowered in the streets. On the National Mall, armored vehicles sat stoically at barricades with guns thumping, trying to hold back the waves of attackers. Twisting streams of tracers arced down city streets and into apartment buildings. His mind could not process the sight before him. The briefings described the chaos outside—the troops on the ground had dubbed it the Meat Grinder—but seeing it was far worse. As the SH-3 helicopter joined an aerial convoy of several others of varying makes, civilian and military alike, he lost sight of the burning city below.
The strobe light mounted above his door stopped flashing, pulling him from his thoughts. He quickly put on his shoes and stood facing the mirror; he saw a face that he had not shaved in days and gray, matted hair in need of a cut. The dark circles resting under his eyes made him look as if he lost a fight with a very big stick. Shaking off the feelings of despair, he slipped on the shoulder holster and put on his jacket. He began to move toward the door when it pulled out and away from him. A uniformed enlisted man burst through the threshold then stopped, looking startled to see him dressed and on his feet.
“Sorry to disturb you, Colonel Cloud; General Reynolds is asking for you.”
CHAPTER 1
Combat Outpost Savannah
“Winter is on us.”
“Yeah,” Brad answered, not looking back. Standing at the farthest end of the outpost, high in the south-facing tower, he could see beyond the cleared fields of fire and into the abandoned homes of Savannah. He looked down the rows of empty streets at abandoned cars and overgrown yards. Occasionally, a Primal would move out of cover but just as quickly vanish into the shadows. The things had become aware. Like any apex predator, they started to adapt to the food chain and their local environment. They would still venture near the outpost, attacking patrols outside the wire, even massing when they detected weakness, but normally staying out of range of the outpost’s towers and guarded gates during daylight hours.
The constant threat made life within the camp grueling, especially on the many civilians and families inside, not used to the high-tempo lifestyle. The Primals were still deadly and would often make probing attacks against soft spots under the cover of darkness, occasionally breaking through the defenses and sometimes even managing to find themselves inside the camp. These attacks were always shut down quickly with a well-disciplined guard force. Still, the nocturnal pack hunters were unpredictable in the size and shape of their assaults and forced the camp to maintain a grueling state of readiness.
Rigid steel and concrete walls, braced up with compacted soil, ringed the Savannah outpost. Evenly spaced along the outpost’s perimeter were tall watchtowers. At one time, they all were occupied and often still were in times of emergency or heavy Primal activity. Currently, the only areas manned around the clock were the towers in strategic positions—along highways, gates, or in certain areas of overwatch. Roving guards heavily patrolled the areas between the towers and other void areas, checking for breaks in the wire or other indications of a Primal attack.
Brad and Brooks had begun making a habit of running the trail that ran along the inside of the post’s perimeter every morning. Often they would stop at one of the abandoned towers and use the high vantage points to learn the lay of the land. Brooks made diligent notes, logging avenues of escape and the best areas of defense in case they were overrun or had to bug out in a hurry. He kept his hand-drawn maps in a fanny pack he wore on his hip. He took inventory of the emergency provisions stored in every tower they visited.
Not looking up from the sketching on his map, Brooks said, “You know it won’t be easy.”
“What in the last few months has been easy?” Brad responded. He walked away from the tower window and plopped into an old office chair. “The Rangers said we can use one of the birds to get back to Sumter—”
“And then what? You gonna walk all the way back to the ’stan?” Brooks asked.
Brad tossed an empty water bottle at the wall and stood. “What are we supposed to do? Leave them out there?”
Brooks shook his head and got to his feet. Grabbing his MP5, he slung it so that it hung over his back and prepared for the final leg of their run. “I’m just saying, we lost a lot of good people to get this far. How do we know they ain’t better off where they’re at?”
Brad stared far into the distance and pointed at a dark column of smoke climbing above a distant patch of green forest. “How long’s that been there?”
“Started this morning,” Brooks said. “Boys are saying an electrical storm started it; gets any bigger, could be a problem for us.”
Brad moved closer to the open side of the tower while looking intently at the smoke on the horizon. “Damn, if the wind is just right, that would burn right up to the walls.”
“Yup, and anything of value in the city, starve us all out,” Brooks said.
Adjusting his shoulder holster, Brad pulled his sweatshirt down tight around his waist and moved to the ladder. “Could get out of control really fast…”
“You want to check it out? We could get a vehicle from the motor pool. I’m bored to death locked in garrison, anyway,” Brooks said.
Brad grinned; the garrison life—threats or not—had become a bore, even though it allowed his injuries to heal. He wanted to get back outside to do his job, not post maintenance. The Rangers allowed them to leave the outpost on their downtime, but for the most part kept them assigned to limited duties and work parties, without allowing them on the daily combat patrols. He stopped and looked back at Brooks, speaking as he climbed down the ladder. “Let’s go.”
At the bottom, Brad turned and ran across the post instead of following the path. The outpost contained all of Hunter Airfield, forest, and open ground. The old post fences, raised and reinforced, and areas of only chain link fence pushed back to meet highways or other natural barriers. The outpost was now completely self-contained, with more than eno
ugh room for the camp’s inhabitants. The post walls were a priority, and everyone spent a fair share of time on the daily work parties that improved them.
Brad briefly looked back to see Brooks reach the bottom and begin to follow him. Brad picked up his own pace to try to stay ahead. He turned onto a narrow trail leading to the barracks, nodding to a pair of armed soldiers guarding the gate as he passed. Brad and the team could have taken their choice of any of the vacant homes located in the housing areas; instead, they chose to live in the large barracks building located near the center of the outpost. Not only to remind them that their situation was not permanent, but also to remain close to one another.
He slowed at the barracks building, which were three stories tall and surrounded by uncut grass. Boards covered the first floor windows and a thick coil of razor wire wrapped around the building’s foundation. Not only did they secure the outer perimeter of the outpost, there were several areas within also covered and divided by fences. Each inhabited building was barricaded and secured by another pair of soldiers, who stood watch on the stoop of the barracks’ entrance.
Brad eased into a jog then a walk as he turned to wait for Brooks. He grinned as he watched his friend pass onto the concrete walkway and move forward to meet him.
“You’re getting faster, Army,” Brooks said.
“Bro, I think you’re getting slower—”
The door at the top of the steps leading into the barracks flew open, slamming against the handrail. The guards on the stoop quickly separated to make room for a group of soldiers in full kit rushing out. Brad reached out and grabbed a private. “What’s the hurry?”
“There’s a fire. Somewhere out past the city limits; sending out a patrol to check it out,” the private said.
Brooks looked at Brad and smiled, shrugging his shoulders, and then turned to face the soldier. “Could you all use a couple extra hands?”