Before they could take a full step, the woman with the hammer called, “Tommy Jr., you need to go potty? Mommy’s coming.” She moved to the back of the station wagon. The Humvee, stenciled with Military Police and Ohio National Guard markings, didn’t try to back away from where it had wrecked the air dispenser. The agent and the President saw that the front passenger window was splashed red on the inside and pocked with a pair of bullet holes, a uniformed body slumped against the glass. They heard the driver’s door creak open, and a moment later a young, female MP in uniform staggered around the back end of the vehicle, one hand clutching a pistol, the other holding her forehead. She squinted at the two men.
“Move! Now!” barked Agent King, and Garrison backed up to the gas station door.
“Potty time,” sang the young mother with the bitten arms, popping the rear hatch of the Taurus wagon. Tommy Jr. was on her in a second, snarls and screams mixing as the two of them went to the pavement in a savage tangle.
The people on the road stopped moving and stared.
The female MP staggered toward King, peering at him with glassy eyes, shaking her head and raising the handgun.
“Stand down, soldier!” David shouted.
The MP took another step, aimed the pistol…
David King cut her down with a short burst from the P90. Out on the road, refugees ran at the sudden gunfire, dropping possessions and scattering into the far field or running up the road. Cars that had been creeping among the foot traffic suddenly accelerated, dodging the running people (not completely successfully) and putting distance between themselves and the gas station.
In the doorway behind his bodyguard, Garrison Fox watched in anguish as a bloody three-year-old finished disemboweling his mother, then ran on little sneakers toward the lone Secret Service agent. A short burst of automatic weapon fire ended it, and only then could Garrison look away, knowing he’d be forever haunted by the image of that rabid little thing being hurled to the ground by high-velocity bullets. Haunted by everything he’d just seen.
Agent King came to him. “Mr. President, we have to move.”
It made sense to switch to the Hummer. It was fully fueled, the CAT vehicle was not, and the fuel wasn’t compatible; diesel in the Humvee, unleaded in the Suburban. Agent King wasn’t happy about it. The CAT was armored and had comms that could reach out to USSS in Washington…although there had been complete radio silence since they left the airport, despite repeated calls. And there was the small matter of the turret-mounted mini-gun. David admitted that he couldn’t drive and shoot (the incident at the airport had been a unique situation) and he’d be damned if he’d have his President standing and gunning away in the turret as the perfect target while he chauffeured in safety.
As a concession, the Secret Service agent removed the firing bolt from the mini-gun and threw it into the weeds as far as he could, then dumped the weapon’s belted ammunition in a barrel half-filled with recycled motor oil behind the garage. No matter what was happening, it just wasn’t okay to leave a fully functioning, full-auto mini-gun sitting around where anyone could find it.
David transferred a black nylon bag of gear and weapons from the Suburban to the Hummer, as well as an identical bag containing flash-bang grenades, a trauma kit and a small cooler containing two liters of O-negative blood, the President’s type. Garrison removed the head-shot body (the dead female MP’s partner) from the vehicle’s passenger seat himself and set him on the pavement, handling the fallen soldier as gracefully as he could.
The CAT vehicle had a spare bullet-proof vest, and David insisted the President put it on over his fleece (it was too bulky to fit under), however he lost the argument when it came to weapons. Garrison Fox now wore a dead MP’s pistol belt, and rode in the passenger seat with a loaded, Ohio National Guard M4 assault rifle standing up between his knees.
“Don’t worry, Agent King,” he said, tapping the rifle, “we’re old friends. And if I do any shooting it will be because you can’t.”
Difficult logic to argue with, and David admitted to himself that it was better to have two shooters than one, especially if the other guy was combat-tested. “Copy that, Colonel,” the agent said, acknowledging his Commander-in-Chief’s former job, making the President smile and point at the road.
They got back onto the eastbound county road, but soon came upon the tail end of the refugees that had run at the sound of gunfire. Slow moving vehicles and people stretched out before them across a long flat space and up over the next hill, and at a few points along the road, fights appeared to be breaking out, joined by the distant pop of gunfire. Both men knew what that meant; the infected were turning, and then turning on their fellow refugees. Route 6 was no longer a safe option.
David put the all-terrain capabilities of the wide, military vehicle to good use and took them overland, bouncing across recently harvested fields. The GPS in his cell phone was still working – they were still many hours from Feather Mountain – and they soon found a deserted country road headed in the general direction they wanted to go.
The radio in the Hummer, which should have at the very least connected them with a National Guard company headquarters, was silent except for and occasional faint and garbled transmission. Ghosts in the machine.
Riding shotgun and watching the hills of Eastern Ohio roll by, President Fox allowed himself to sink into his thoughts. He wasn’t pondering his own situation or even the safety of his family (for the moment, at least) but brooding on the condition of his country, a responsibility that had superseded personal concerns from the moment he took the oath of office. The image of a road choked with refugees, here in the American heartland, was impossible to shake. He knew it was a scene that would be playing out across the nation, his own citizens forced to flee their homes and go…where? They were hoping for, and had every right to expect, at least some kind of organized, intelligent response to the crisis from their government. Given the frenzy and speed of the pandemic however, it was clear that their government had failed them.
I failed them.
No, even POTUS had no control over viral infection.
You could have mitigated the damage, slowed it down, been better prepared.
The logical side of him pointed out that closing schools and the stock market, imposing travel bans and declaring martial law would have had little to no effect. But his heart, the source of his powerful sense of personal responsibility, refused logic’s argument.
Your fault. It’s your fault.
But the best-made contingency plans and even medical science couldn’t have predicted this. Viral cannibalism. Garrison didn’t realize he was slowly shaking his head as he watched farm country slide past the crimson, bullet-pocked window.
He thought about Dr. Rusk at CDC, about the researchers at USAMARIID, the Army’s counterpart to Atlanta, about the scientists at the Pasteur Institute and other facilities across the globe. Were they finding any answers? Any hope? Were any of those people still alive? He needed information, and nearly shook in his frustration at the lack of it.
He thought about his government. With the President missing or dead, who had stepped up to lead? The presidential succession plan was relatively clear, though never actually put to the test. Who was acting President? Someone had to be, they couldn’t all be dead or out of position, could they? Garrison ran down his mental list of positions and people in order from top to bottom. He knew who he’d want to be in charge, but the thought of some of the others as POTUS – even on a temporary basis – made him cringe inwardly. They were people selected for their political muscle or job proficiency, but never even considered for the ridiculously unlikely event their number would be called. Not for the top spot in national leadership.
Again, he needed information, and it didn’t appear to be coming anytime soon. There was no shortage of horror, though. He was presented with that at every turn.
Feather Mountain, a secure facility supposedly safe from chemical or biological threat…a pla
ce where he would find information and professionals to help him begin trying to get hold of a country spinning out of control. They had to get there if he were to have any chance of saving his fellow citizens…or the world.
When the Hummer passed a silver-eyed farmer on his hands and knees at the gravel shoulder, face buried in the open belly of a woman in a flower-print dress, President Fox closed his eyes and thought about his family.
-30-
FEATHER MOUNTAIN
Western Pennsylvania – October 29
Joshua Rowe awoke to darkness, disoriented until he saw the soft blue glow of a digital clock over the doorway. It read 08:05. Two hours later than his normal time to rise, but then it had been close to four-thirty in the morning before he’d finally allowed himself to go to bed. Less than four hours of sleep, but it would have to do. He hadn’t wanted to sleep at all, to leave the mountain’s nerve center of communication and information, but even generals in a crisis needed rest. Exhausted leaders made poor decisions, and in the military that translated to people getting killed. The wrong people.
He turned on the lights, illuminating a small, spare room that served as quarters for a senior officer. At least it had its own adjacent latrine and shower. Rowe wasn’t a man who needed luxury. He’d slept in his fatigues so he pulled on a fresh undershirt and an olive-green wool sweater, splashed water in his face and laced up his combat boots. The pistol belt went on last, and he checked the weapon to ensure he had a round in the chamber.
People had gone missing within this maze of rock and steel, and after what happened around 1:00AM, he could no longer consider Feather Mountain to be a secure facility.
All through the previous evening and well past midnight, General Rowe and his team had watched the nation and the world come apart through satellite imagery. Cities were burning at home and abroad, aircraft were falling from the sky, the power grid was starting to fail, leaving entire states blacked-out. Communication was failing too, and with it went any kind of coordinated response to the crisis.
Communication, Rowe thought, leaving the relative warmth of his small quarters for the chill of the subterranean corridor bored through the rock outside.
It had come down to communication, and not necessarily the systems themselves, but the people who ran them, who were responsible for carrying out the strategies developed pre-crisis that would protect life and provide the essentials; shelter, food and medical care. FEMA was attempting a massive response, with thousands of moving parts, but couldn’t get off the ground because the people tasked with moving supplies and setting up shelter points were often unresponsive; missing, dead or preying on their fellow man. It was a dynamic being repeated across the country, as emergency plans at both state and local levels failed as well. Only a few shelter points had been successfully established in different states, but these were at risk of being overwhelmed by too many refugees or collapsing from within as the infected inside their perimeter suddenly turned.
The views from the satellites cruising high above the U.S. showed people streaming away from population centers in every direction, like ants evacuating a hill that had been kicked open by a cruel child. There was no way to calculate the death toll at this point. The only certainty was that it was staggering, and still on the rise. The internet, where it was still working, carried the same messages being repeated over and over; fear, despair, horror.
Rowe checked the corridor in both directions, one hand resting on the butt of his pistol. Hooded, overhead lights created pools of white and shadow that marched down the length of the passage. The general watched and listened.
The American military was faring only slightly better than the civilian population. Their ranks were no less susceptible to outbreaks of madness than any other group of people, although the ready presence of weapons made it somewhat easier to put down sudden, violent eruptions of turning soldiers. Not in every instance, though. And gunning down their comrades was taking its own psychological toll on the surviving troops. Many of those lost were members of the officer corps, leaving men leaderless and without orders. Regardless of the exact nature of the collapse, the end result was that with each passing hour the availability of combat-effective troops was plunging, with some units – in one case an entire battalion – evaporating altogether.
The Navy was suffering from what could only be classified as infection-fueled mutinies, with entire ships being lost or disabled at sea. The only untouched part of this branch was that small group of submarines that had been submerged since before the outbreak, something that had prevented Trident from entering their sealed, little worlds. Hearing what was happening above the waves, those sub commanders had no intention of surfacing any time soon.
Even harder hit was the Air Force, its bases quickly becoming non-operational due to losses in ground personnel and pilots. Aircraft that were flying suddenly weren’t, as their pilots turned and were no longer capable of (or had the desire for) the concentrated thought required for the complexities of flight. Fighter pilots who did manage to land were often met by ground crews whose only desire was to pull them screaming from their cockpits.
And of course, Rowe thought, there’s the small matter that the President is missing and we have no government.
The general made his way to the left, boot heels echoing in the silence. He could have called for an escort, but he was armed, unafraid to use his weapon, and frankly he didn’t think the comm center could spare the personnel. Joshua Rowe had been a warrior for a long time, and he could take care of himself. He was more worried about the safety of those under his command and the nation as a whole than he was about his own mortality.
He stepped into one of the large, domed chambers where many passageways came together in a hub, stopping before a bank of elevators set in one wall. The distant hum of machinery answered when he pressed the button, and as he waited he turned in a slow circle, watching the corridor openings.
A high-pitched giggle floated from one of them, though he couldn’t tell which, or how far away. The handgun came out of his holster. Another giggle echoed through the open space, possibly from a different direction this time.
Members of the general’s team had gone missing. It looked like he’d found some of them.
Or they had found him.
A shadow darted in one of the openings, off to the right in his peripheral vision, accompanied by a quick scuffle of boots on polished stone. The general spun and raised his pistol, but there was nothing there. Another shuffling sound, this time to his rear, but when he turned, ready to fire, the passageways – at least as far into them as he could see depending on the angle – were all empty.
What about inside the shadows? Something could easily be crouched in one of the dark patches, unmoving and unseen.
A low growl bounced off the rock walls, impossible to pinpoint, and another blur of movement caught the corner of his eye.
I’m being hunted.
Rowe heard the elevator doors slide open behind him, then felt a hand grip his shoulder. He whirled and brought up the pistol, hesitating just a fraction of a second before blowing the head off his very startled Army surgeon.
“Oh, Christ!” the doctor gasped. “I was coming to wake you, sir, I-”
Rowe pushed the man back into the elevator. “We’ll talk inside, Colonel,” he growled, turning and keeping his sidearm trained on the domed room until the doors were finally closed and the car began to move.
It had begun last night, just before midnight. A member of Rowe’s team, one of the IT people, had gone into a room adjacent to the comm center to get something or other. Engrossed in what was happening on the video screens, no one had noticed his hour-long absence. When he returned, racing into the big room like a raving beast, he’d attacked one of the female biohazard specialists, biting her arms, neck and face as she’d tried to fight him off. Rowe had ended the attack personally with a single nine-millimeter bullet to the side of the IT tech’s head. The girl was now in medical, loaded up
with antibiotics and a strong sedative.
The doctor Rowe brought with him had pulled the general aside and spoken softly. “This is only going to be the first,” he said. “The mountain was probably free of Trident until we brought it inside. By now we’ll have passed it on to everyone.”
“What about the decontamination process when we arrived?” Rowe demanded.
The doctor shook his head. “That can’t clean off what’s inside us.”
Both Rowe and the Army physician knew the infection status of their own team, the data compiled before they jumped off. The general, his surviving IT tech and the girl who’d been attacked were immune. The doctor and a communications specialist were in remission, and the rest showed complete contagion. That was the at-risk group, and the IT tech that’d attacked was part of that group. They’d all known the risk, but couldn’t have predicted how soon, or how suddenly the infected would succumb.
The general found the captain in charge of the facility and told him to take three men to the armory. Everyone was to have a rifle as well as a sidearm. The captain acknowledged, took one of his men and Rowe’s two security specialists, and left the comm center.
They never came back, and hadn’t been heard from since they went out the door.
The captain’s team had taken all the rifles, and Rowe wasn’t going to risk more staff to go look for them armed only with pistols.
Until fatigue forced him back to his quarters, General Rowe had stayed in the communication center, listening as more and more units failed to report in, or watching on screen as the country and the world slipped into anarchy.
Now, after that chilling encounter outside the elevator, he was back in the big, circular chamber with walls of screens and rows of consoles, his XO catching him up on the events of the last four hours. The man had dark circles under his eyes, and looked so tired his hands trembled.
CANNIBAL KINGDOM Page 25