CANNIBAL KINGDOM

by John L. Campbell

  “Combat knives,” he whispered. That got their attention. “We need to move. There’s four of them, and if they don’t go away in the next minute we’ll have to take them. One each.”

  “Four what?” one of his soldiers asked. Donny thought it was Akins. “Four of our guys? You want us to knife them? No way!”

  Donny stared at the shadows. “You all learned hand-to-hand techniques. Remember your training.” It occurred to him that the average soldier received maybe one afternoon of hand-to-hand knife training in basic, and if they were lucky, another day of it in infantry school. Too bad, there was no other option.

  “I’m not killing one of our guys,” another whispered.

  “They’re not our guys anymore,” Donny said, trying to keep his voice down. “They’re killers now, and they’d kill you in a second. We need to go through them.”

  “Uh-uh,” said PFC Vaughn. “Let’s go around.”

  “Or we could just leave. I’m for running for the fence.” Jones this time.

  Donny pointed at them. “You men will keep quiet and follow my orders.”

  “Or what?” said Akins. “Are you going to Article-Fifteen us if we don’t?

  The lieutenant wanted to rage at them, wanted to threaten to have them shot. He took a second, then a deep breath and whispered, “If we don’t get to the armory, none of you are going to live long enough to be brought up on charges.” He gestured to the road. “They will see to that.”

  After a long moment he saw heads nodding in the darkness. He was past caring. Preparing to charge into even odds, knives against teeth, he gripped the handle of his combat knife and looked back around the corner of the barracks.

  The pool of white cast by the streetlight was empty, the four figures now gone. That was even more unsettling.

  “Follow me,” Donny ordered, running into the street.

  They did.

  They were armed now, each of them carrying a loaded M4 assault rifle, except for PFC Vaughn who had a SAW, a Squad Automatic Weapon, the infantry light machine gun. Donny also carried a nine-millimeter pistol, and all of them were loaded down with as many magazines and belts of ammo for the SAW as they could carry. Fragmentation grenades had been distributed among them as well.

  The run to the armory, as tense as it had been, was without incident. They’d heard the echoing, non-laughter in the pine-scented night air, but no ghastly comrades had come at them out of the darkness. The red key card from the XO’s envelope had gotten them inside, and while the men armed themselves, Donny had taken the time to scan the laminated documents that had come with the key card. He found it an enlightening read.

  It was called a Continuity Bunker, and now things were making more sense to Second Lieutenant Donny Knapp.

  The actual Feather Mountain, a former missile silo complex, had been transformed into a hardened shelter for the President of the United States, Cabinet members, Congress and senior government officers; a place of refuge in the event of war or national disaster, natural or otherwise. A place where a working government could be maintained. The documents stated that it was one of three spread across the country. The others (assumingly identical or nearly so) were located at Apache Flats, New Mexico and Mount Avalon in Washington State. Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado, mostly mothballed except for some communications people, was an alternate site.

  Now the ridiculously long runway made sense as well. It was designed for Air Force One.

  The reason for a constant training rotation of infantry units on the base fell into place as well. It meant that at any given time there would be from one to two companies of troops present, able to shift roles into that of a defensive force if Bank Vault – that was the activation code word he’d found in the orders – went live. This force was to be further supplemented by armor and mechanized infantry coming out of nearby Custer.

  And where were those guys, Donny wondered?

  His thoughts went back to the airfield. Were the President, Joint Chiefs and God knew who else inbound at this very moment?

  “We need to hurry up,” he told his men, then moved them quickly across the street to the supply building. They seemed calmer now that they were armed; the terrors of the night weren’t as threatening when you were packing an assault rifle. For Donny, the darkness was no less forbidding than before. He feared the threats he couldn’t see more than those he could put a gun sight on.

  The door to the supply building was locked, so they forced it. A scream from inside nearly triggered a burst of gunfire and ended a life, but Donny was able to yell “Hold fire!” before that happened. In the darkness they found a young, unarmed black woman in uniform, her hair pulled into a tight bun and holding only a flashlight that shook in her hands.

  “C-corporal W-woods,” she said, saluting the lieutenant who’d just broken in. She explained that she’d been the only one here when everything started to happen, and had shut off the lights and locked the door. “I saw things out the windows, sir,” she said unsteadily, looking across the room as if some horrid thing might have its face pressed against the glass at this very moment. “Things…soldiers, killing each other.”

  Donny nodded, looking her over. Compact, in good physical condition, shaken but not coming apart, and a corporal. He needed an NCO who outranked his borderline-mutinous troops. She would have to do. “Supply clerk?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well you’re combat infantry now, Corporal.” She didn’t flinch, and he liked that. “We’re going to need some gear.”

  Woods took them into the back of the building, a small warehouse filled with shelves holding everything from rain ponchos and night vision goggles to clean socks and skivvies. They geared up with packs and MREs, trauma kits, flashlights and spare canteens, then replaced whatever helmets, body armor and gloves that had been lost or discarded in the forest. Donny looked for a CNR (combat net radio), couldn’t find one, and asked Woods about it. She said they had all been issued to the red and blue teams for their war games. Of course, he thought. Then it was back across the street – still no sign of hostiles – to get Cpl. Woods her own M4 and ammunition.

  “We’re heading back to the airfield,” he told his squad as soon as they were ready. “Jones has the point. Watch your spacing and pick your feet up.”

  “Rules of engagement?” asked PFC Vaughn.

  Donny snapped the charging handle on his M4. “If it’s coming to kill you, kill it first.”

  -24-

  DEVIL DOG

  Ohio – October 29

  The small hours of the morning, and a three-quarter October moon looked coldly down upon a world rapidly changing. Wind caused dead leaves to skitter across the pavement and swirl out into the night. The air had a fall smell. A dead smell.

  Backed into one of several stalls in an open-faced garage behind a mom-and-pop gas station, the Secret Service CAT Suburban was just another shadow in the darkness. In the passenger seat, one of the two men had his eyes closed, head resting against the side window. The other was awake and watchful.

  Agent David King sat behind the steering wheel, looking out at the night with a P90 SMG cradled in his lap. Nothing moved other than blowing leaves, and no headlights traveled the road on the other side of the little gas station. The Suburban’s dashboard radio was turned off; David didn’t want to drain the battery, and wouldn’t run the engine for fear of the white plume the exhaust would make in the cold air, something to draw attention to a vehicle that wasn’t supposed to be there.

  He looked over at the man beside him, who was now wearing a blue, zip-up fleece instead of a suit jacket, and an Ohio State Buckeyes cap pulled down low over his eyes. With one exception, they hadn’t stopped moving from Cleveland until this place. David’s only concession had been to pull over behind an abandoned Range Rover – its doors were standing open and a bloody palm print smeared a side window – to do a quick search. He’d found a few bottles of water, along with the fleece and the cap, insisting the President put them on
in order to blend in better.

  David looked back out the windshield, grateful that the President was sleeping. It had been a long, stressful day, and he knew the man was exhausted not only by the ordeal at the plaza and the nightmare at the airport, but also from worry for his family and country, two things he was supposed to protect above all else. David was himself trying to process the horrors they’d seen. Being immersed in crisis and duty had kept it at bay, but now that it was quiet, the magnitude of it all was creeping in.

  Getting out of the city…he was amazed they’d been able to do it. Cleveland Hopkins International Airport was on the west side of the sprawl, the opposite direction of where they needed to go. Under normal circumstances it would have been a straight shot east on 480, but that hadn’t been the case. Before ever reaching it, David had seen that the highway was filled with stopped vehicles and pedestrians, and so he’d been forced to weave along the side streets, constantly turning, blowing intersections and scraping against cars and even the sides of buildings as he bulled his way through. Often he’d found the way blocked by an accident, stopped traffic, a car fire or a hungry mob, and he’d been forced to backtrack.

  Frequent glances at the gas gauge added to his tension. An armored, full-size Chevy Suburban was not fuel efficient, especially in stop-and-go traffic occasionally punctuated by bursts of acceleration.

  Sometimes the dashboard radio crackled with scattered transmissions, but none from a source David trusted, and so he left it alone. As they traveled they saw what was becoming of Cleveland, Ohio; civil breakdown and confusion, unchecked fires and death. At one point they’d driven past a stopped, white church bus with dozens of young, frightened faces pressed against the glass. President Fox had made a noise deep in his throat and touched the passenger window as if reaching out to them, but David drove on without stopping, his stomach in a sick ball.

  Abandoned police cruisers and empty ambulances, dropped luggage and overturned strollers, bodies…so many bodies…and running mobs of people, some screaming, some bloody and hunting. Figures thumped against the side of the CAT vehicle, pounding the bulletproof glass and then sliding away. Some went under the tires with a crunch, making David grit his teeth. He kept going, and the President didn’t tell him to stop.

  It felt like a crawl, moving east through the outer neighborhoods, and the odyssey stretched into the evening and beyond as the sun went down. Even before they were out of the city, the agent briefly thought about heading for Youngstown – there was a military base there that could provide shelter – but it would take them too close to Akron. That would mean more of this, and there was no guarantee the base would be secure. He’d seen soldiers running within those murderous packs, too. No, the order to execute Bank Vault had gone out, and that was what he would do. Roughly two hundred miles to the hardened shelter at Feather Mountain – an extraction that would normally have been done by air (accompanied by a heavy team of agents bristling with weapons) – now to be accomplished in a lone SUV soon to run out of gas.

  A voice from the passenger seat snapped him out of his thoughts. “Thanks for letting me sleep. Where are we?”

  “Just off Route Six,” David said, “east toward Chardon. Farm country.” Originally he’d planned to head for Interstate 90, go northeast along the lake and into the westernmost tips of New York and then quickly down into Pennsylvania, but that way would take them through Erie, and he wasn’t going to intentionally enter a city of any real population if he could avoid it. Cross-country by way of county roads would be slower, but it would mean encountering fewer people, and at this point, everyone but the two men inside the Suburban was a threat.

  Garrison yawned and stretched, sat and looked out the windshield for a while and sipped at a bottled water. Then he offered a second bottle to his bodyguard. “How long have you been with the Service?”

  “Twenty years tomorrow,” said David. “My retirement was supposed to start when we got back from Cleveland.”

  “I hope you’ll stay on for a bit longer,” Garrison said with a soft chuckle, nodding toward the world outside.

  It made David smile. “Of course, Mr. President.” Then, “Are you cold, sir? I can run the heater if you like.”

  “Aren’t we almost out of fuel?” A nod in return, and Garrison shook his head. “Nights in Iraq got a lot colder than this. People don’t realize how cold the desert can get.” He smiled. “I can take it. I was a Marine a lot longer than I’ve been a politician.”

  “For what it’s worth,” David said, “none of us in the Service have ever thought of you as a politician.”

  Garrison nodded his appreciation. They were quiet for a while, both of them watching the night. Then Garrison looked at the agent and said, “I’m deeply sorry about your wife.”

  David was caught off guard, and he stumbled on his words, a sudden knot of emotion in his chest. “Mr. President…thank you…I…how did…?

  “The Director told me about it when it happened. I recognized your name when you pulled me out of the limo.”

  David looked down. “I got your card. I just thought…”

  “That one of my staffers wrote it?” Garrison shook his head. “I get it. No, that was me. I wanted to go to the funeral, but they had me in Prague for that peace summit. The least I could do was write a few words. I can’t imagine what it was like for you.”

  “It meant a lot, sir.” Was like? Still was like. David seemed to hear Emily’s scream everywhere, and the memory of seeing her falling, falling and hitting like a rag doll, was on a continuous loop in his head. He hadn’t shared that with the shrink during his Service-mandated counseling sessions. What would be the purpose? Could the shrink take away those memories? The shrink was surprised that David wasn’t angry, but that part was simple. When he was being honest, he knew it was a terrible accident, no one’s fault. The lawyers had seen it differently, however. Manufacturer’s defect and improper inspection and maintenance. Gross negligence on all counts.

  The result? A zip line harness that separated from the cable in the center of an open space eight decks high, on a cruise ship in international waters. It was supposed to be a vacation filled with fun and romance, one last attempt to salvage a marriage that was about to end, to choose her over the job. David was hopeful that it would work, wanted it to work because he still loved Emily very much. It might have, too. Now he would never know.

  The lawsuit settlement had been substantial, permitting David to stop working entirely if he’d wanted. He didn’t. It guaranteed that even without his government retirement he would be able to live comfortably for the rest of his life. Again, not what he was looking for. But it had purchased the cabin and property in Alaska outright, giving him a place where he could retreat (hide) from the world in quiet and privacy after the conclusion of a long career.

  Private. Yes, and again, when he was being honest with himself, that remote cabin ensured that he wouldn’t disturb anyone when the void left by the passing of his wife and career became too much to bear. No one would hear the gunshot when he finally put the muzzle in his mouth.

  “I couldn’t…” David fought the emotion. “I should have done something.” He couldn’t meet the President’s eyes.

  “You can’t protect everyone, David,” Garrison said. “Sometimes things just happen.” The man’s voice cracked at that, and David looked up to see the president turn away, wiping a palm at his eyes and clearing his throat.

  “Sir…”

  Garrison looked back. “Your turn to get some sleep.”

  “Mr. President, I’m fine. I-”

  “You’ve been up since before the sun, I’m sure, and today has been just as hard on you. This is an order from your Commander-in-Chief. You’re no good to anyone if you’re exhausted, so catch a few hours. I’ll wake you if there’s trouble. Now give me a quick tutorial on that SMG.”

  Before today, the idea of a Secret Service agent handing a loaded weapon to the President of the United States was unthinkable (as if P
OTUS might suddenly decide to kill himself) and would be an absolute career-ender. But things were different now, and so he followed orders and handed over the weapon. The President was no stranger to firearms, so instruction didn’t take long. The P90 SMG was an odd but elegant bullpup design where the trigger was forward and the magazine and action was to the rear. It was ambidextrous, stubby and curved, with a fifty round magazine of 5.7 x 28mm rounds that loaded horizontally along the top of the stock. The empty casings ejected straight down instead of to the side. The weapon combined a high rate of fire and the punch of an assault rifle into a small, concealable package, something easily hidden beneath a jacket and able to be pulled quickly without fear of snagging. David had found it clipped muzzle-down into a fast-action bracket beside the CAT vehicle’s driver’s seat, along with four full magazines.

  A shadow moved beyond the hood of the Suburban, a mongrel Shepherd mix without a collar. Both men wondered for an instant if animals could be infected too, but quickly dismissed the worry. There had been no sign of that, and infected humans were concern enough.

  “Mr. President, promise you’ll wake me before you engage anything.”

  “Get some rest, Agent King.”

  David folded his arms, leaned into the corner and closed his eyes. He knew there was no way he’d sleep. Within ten minutes however, he was breathing deeply, quickly descending into dreams that would be tormented by fear, loss and failure.

  In the seat beside him, the man now keeping watch knew what that was like.

  COLLAPSE

  -25-

  TAPAK’S DARK GIFT