by Dirk Patton
Muting the TV, I dropped the remote on a sofa and turned another circle, freezing when movement outside the windows caught my eye. A female. Definitely infected. Her face and chest were slicked with bright red blood that was still wet enough to drip from the point of her chin.
She hadn’t seen me. Didn’t know there was a tasty meal in the lobby of the building she was prowling around. I counted myself lucky as I had no idea how tough the glass that was the only thing separating us actually was. Hopefully it was ballistic rated for Barinov’s home, but I didn’t want to find out the hard way.
Remaining as still as a statue, I watched her slowly move across a patio, weaving between the tables set up in case anyone wanted to dine al fresco. I’d learned a lot of hard lessons since that long-ago day in Atlanta, and one of the most important ones was to not get trapped in a building by a group of infected. Once they know you’re there, they don’t give up. If you don’t have the cavalry coming to rescue you, the only option is to fight your way out. I didn’t think there was any cavalry left and my only weapon was a ten-inch butcher knife.
Nearly two minutes passed and I was starting to grow concerned that the bitch wasn’t leaving. What was holding her attention? Was she aware I was somewhere in the area, just not sure where? As I had these thoughts, her head suddenly snapped around to look away from the windows, then with a chilling scream she leapt a hedgerow and disappeared.
Slowly exhaling, I glanced at the TV but there didn’t appear to be any new information. Turning another slow circle, I looked for anything I might have missed that could help. And saw nothing. With a deep breath, I started another, slower search of the entire area, keeping close check on the windows in case the female returned.
I found nothing that could be a better weapon than the knife in my hand, and certainly nothing that could help me force one of the doors. Then I stopped in my tracks, realizing how stupid I was. Just like I got around the massive vault doors in Los Alamos, I could chop my way through the drywall on either side of a locked door.
Hurrying to the closest one, I raised the knife and stabbed. It easily penetrated the wall. For about two inches. Then it came up against something solid that sent a vibration all the way up my arm. What the hell?
Creating a small hole with the blade, I thrust my fingers through, tearing chunks of wall away to reveal what was behind. Solid concrete. Stepping away, I took another look at the area and realized my mistake. There was a central shaft in the building, made of poured concrete, that held the elevators, stairs and apparently the pair of rooms I wanted to access. I wasn’t hacking my way through.
Another thought occurred and I moved to one of the sets of elevator doors. I ran my fingers along the seam where they met, then inserted the tip of the blade and pushed. With some effort, it slipped through to the hilt. Now, with a little leverage, maybe I could pry them apart far enough to trip the release. Taking a breath, I began applying pressure, slowly ratcheting it up when the doors didn’t so much as wiggle.
Without warning, the knife snapped, leaving me holding nothing more than a useless handle. I could see the broken edge of the blade, wedged in the seam, but the doors remained tightly closed. Frustrated, I almost threw the knife hilt across the room, stopping at the last instant. Announcing my presence in the building to the infected by making a loud racket for no good reason wasn’t the best of ideas.
3
Forcing myself to take a few slow, calming breaths, I checked the windows and began another circuit of the area. I stopped when I saw a phone resting on a table near the TV. I’d seen it before, dismissing it when I couldn’t come up with an idea of how it could help. It still wasn’t a tool that would get me through the door, but I rushed to it anyway.
Lifting the handset, I was relieved to hear a dial tone. It took a few seconds for me to remember the number for the phone Lucas had bought in Sydney, then I quickly punched it in. After a long pause, I was starting to fear the worst, then it started ringing. And kept ringing. And ringing. I was about to give up when there was a click and the rushing sound of road noise from inside a moving vehicle.
“Aye?” Lucas answered cautiously.
He was alive! He’d gotten away from the city in time!
“Should’ve known you’d make it out,” I said, grinning.
“Bloody hell, mate!” he shouted. “You’re okay? What the hell happened?”
“I’m okay. Don’t know what happened. They just left!”
“They left? What the hell are you talkin’ about?”
“They fucking left!” I said with emphasis. “Got Rachel inside. Couple of hours go by, then a whole fleet of helicopters show up and every goddamn, swingin’ dick Russian climbs aboard and they leave. Then the gas is released.”
“Where are you? You safe?”
“I’m in Barinov’s building. Secure for the moment.”
“How bad are things there?” he asked.
“Bad enough. Infected runnin’ around outside. Saw a news report that every big city got hit, so it’s gotta be bad everywhere.”
“Hearing the same thing on the radio,” he said. “We’re good out here and can avoid any areas that got hit. But, bloody hell! What are you gonna do?”
“Nothing I can do. I’m unarmed and I’m stuck. Besides, this is the chemical agent, not the virus. I can’t go outside. The vaccine won’t protect me.”
He was quiet for a couple of beats before asking another question.
“What about Rachel? She okay?”
The fear for Rachel’s safety that I’d been suppressing suddenly washed over me, making the hand holding the phone start shaking. A cold, hard lump formed in my chest and I couldn’t speak for a few moments.
“John? You still there?”
“I’m here,” I managed to choke out. “They took her, Lucas. That goddamn motherfucker walked within twenty feet of me and he took her with him. And there wasn’t a fuckin’ thing I could do about it.”
“Why the hell would he take her with him?”
“Only thing I can figure is that he still thinks she’s the dominatrix he called. Probably knows he won’t be able to find one wherever it is he’s going, so he’ll just bring his own. And he’ll figure out real quick that she doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing. I need you to find her. Find out where they went and get her back. He’ll kill her…”
I had to pause as several emotions caused me to choke up.
“I’ll do what I can, mate. If I can get her, I’ll get her. But what about you? You can’t stay there forever.”
I cleared my throat and took a deep breath before responding.
“The people infected by the nerve agent will burn themselves out in a couple of days. Without the virus to enhance their bodies, it’ll kill them. I’ll give it forty-eight hours, then I should be able to walk out the front door. I’ll find some transportation and get out of the city.”
“Look, mate. I’ve still got friends in the ADF. I can get a chopper to you. Pick you up on the roof.”
My heart leapt at the idea, but reality reared its ugly head.
“I can’t go outside, Lucas. If there’s even a drop of the nerve gas on the roof and I come into contact with it, I’m fucked. It goes inert in the environment after two days, so I’m stuck. Don’t worry about me. Just find Rachel!”
Lucas was quiet for a moment before sighing. I understood his feelings. My first instinct would be to help him. But I was safe, at least for the moment. Rachel was what mattered.
“You got the number for my compound? The sat phone?” he finally asked.
“I’m working off memory. Hold on.” I put the phone down and raced into the kitchen manager’s office, grabbing a pen and piece of paper. Something caught my eye as I ran through, but I was in a hurry and rushed back to the phone. “Okay. Go ahead.”
Lucas gave me the number and I was glad he’d asked. It was a couple of digits off from what I remembered.
“Call when you can leave the building,” he sa
id. “If I’ve got a lead on Rachel, I’ll be gone, but Ziggy will answer.”
“Thank you, Lucas,” I said, trying to keep the emotion out of my voice.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he said. “This big fur ball of yours has got some wicked gas. We’re having to drive with the windows down. You owe me, mate.”
Despite the circumstances, the thought of Dog gassing him out made me smile. We wrapped up the call and, feeling better about Rachel’s chances, I relaxed a notch. I knew Lucas. There was nothing I could do that he couldn’t. And just because it wasn’t me didn’t mean her chances were one bit less. But it would still be better if it was me.
Folding the paper, I shoved it into my pocket and returned to the kitchen. Bending, I looked at a large, steel canister I’d noted each time I’d checked the area. But until now, the label hadn’t caught my attention. Hoisting it onto a prep table, I stared at it. Liquid Nitrogen.
What the hell was it doing here? In a kitchen? I thought about it for a few moments, then decided it didn’t matter why it was here. Was there really some in there?
Checking, I found a pair of protective gloves and safety goggles. With them in place, I broke the seal and removed the lid. Frigid smoke flowed out of the opening. Quickly capping the dewar, I searched until I found a heavy sharpening steel and a meat hammer. Shoving them into my belt, I grabbed the canister and headed out.
Reaching the door I’d been trying to figure out how to open, I set the dewar on the floor and paused to think about how I was going to do this. Liquid nitrogen is something like negative three hundred degrees and will freeze steel, making it brittle and easily broken. But it’s got to stay in contact long enough to do its job and I didn’t know how to make that happen on a vertical surface.
Running to the kitchen, I collected some towels and hurried back to the door. Shoving them into the crack between the door and the jamb at the bottom edge of the security plate, I removed the lid from the dewar and slowly poured the boiling liquid nitrogen onto and behind the piece of metal. I probably should have saved some if all I was doing was breaking into a broom closet, but I emptied the container.
Setting it aside, I brought out the heavy sharpening rod, looked at the frosted steel and gave it a good smack. And, nothing happened. I hit it again, but all it did was bounce off. Changing tactics, I put the point of the rod against the plate, drew back with the meat hammer and hit the hell out of it.
The security plate snapped in half, falling away to clatter on the floor. I wasn’t happy about the noise I was making, but the locking hasp was now exposed and I was pleased to see it just as frosted as the plate had been. Working the rod into the gap and holding the point against the frozen bolt, I delivered another sharp blow, breaking it in half.
Discarding the tools, I jerked the door open and looked in. It wasn’t an armory. It was a security office. A couple of computers on a desk and a dozen monitors on the wall with static images from in and outside the building. But I didn’t care about the screens. A key card clipped to a long lanyard lay next to one of the keyboards.
Snatching it up, I hoped that security would have a master key as I dashed to the next locked door. A swipe of the card and the lock released. Pulling the door open, I breathed a big sigh. The room was small, ten feet on a side, but it was packed full of Russian made weapons with crates of ammo stacked in the center of the floor.
4
Lucas tossed his phone into a cup holder in frustration.
“What’s wrong?” Natalie asked.
She was curled up in the passenger seat. Dog had taken to her and was pushed forward, resting his chin on her leg. She absently scratched his head, unaware he’d never let her stop now that she’d started.
“No answer anywhere I call. ADF, the barracks in Swanbourne, even the personal cell numbers I can remember. Shit’s fallin’ apart fast.”
Natalie understood about half of what he meant, but kept her questions to herself. She’d listened to the radio in horror as news of the gas attacks began to unfold. It wasn’t lost on her that she was alive and safe thanks only to the people who had broken into her apartment.
“How long to your place?” she asked for something to say.
“Gonna be a while. Know where Coober Pedy is?”
“Spent the night there when I was moving to Sydney,” she said. “But I don’t really remember where it is.”
“Long fuckin’ way. Especially in this piece of shit.”
Lucas’s initial destination had been the private airfield where he’d left his plane, but the chaos descending over the Sydney area was so rapid, he’d decided it best to get out of the area as quickly as possible. Bouncing his fist off the steering wheel, he glared at the speedometer. Despite the accelerator firmly pressed to the floor, they were barely making eighty kilometers per hour.
“That other guy, and Rachel, too. They’re Yanks. Right?”
Lucas nodded.
“Any Yanks you can call?”
“Bloody hell,” Lucas said when realization dawned on him.
Snatching the phone, he punched in his home number. He’d already talked to Ziggy to let her know he was safe and on his way home. But he hadn’t thought about John’s guardian angel in Hawaii. She’d put several calls through to him and he was sure the number would still be in memory.
Ziggy answered in a mild panic. She’d been sure he was calling with bad news, a sob of relief escaping when he told her what he needed. It only took her a few seconds to read the number off and Lucas repeated it out loud as Natalie scrawled it on the palm of her hand with a pen from the glove box. She repeated it to ensure she hadn’t made an error.
“That doesn’t sound like Rachel,” Ziggy said over the phone.
“The bleedin’ Russians took Rachel.”
He hadn’t talked to Ziggy since getting details from John. She had a hundred questions and he did his best to answer them, but was impatient to get on the phone with Jessica.
“So, who’s the sheila?” she asked before he could disconnect.
“Girl we needed to help us. Couldn’t leave her behind. She’d be dead now if I had. I’ve really got to ring off, babe. I’ll call you soon.”
“She’d better not be too pretty or your arse is in a sling,” Ziggy said, then killed the connection.
Lucas shook his head, knowing his wife was only messing with him. Mostly. But he’d definitely receive a grilling when he pulled up with Natalie.
She read the number off her palm and he punched it in. Waiting for the call to connect, he realized he needed to get his hands on another satellite phone as soon as possible. There was no telling when the cell system would go down without anyone in the cities to maintain it or respond to problems.
After what seemed an excessively long time, he heard a ring, then his call was answered.
“Yes?” a female voice asked guardedly.
“Jessica, right? Lucas Martin in Australia. We’ve talked a couple of times.”
“Are you clear of the city?” Jessica asked, her tone immediately changing to one of concern.
“Aye, I am. But John is stuck.”
“I know. I’ve been watching.”
“What the bloody hell happened? He said they never touched Barinov!”
Jessica hesitated before answering in a low voice.
“We intercepted a call. The Russian teams that were there to take him out? Well, one of them’s got a traitor in their midst. He gave them up. It looks like Barinov decided to cut his losses and leave Australia with a little parting gift on the way out of town.”
“Son of a bitch!” Lucas snarled.
For a few moments, he was too angry to continue with the conversation. Slowly, he brought himself back under control. It was time to help the people he could.
“Listen, the Russians took Rachel. I need to know where they went.”
“They did?” Jessica asked in surprise. “Are you sure?”
“That’s what John told me. Said Barinov walked within tw
enty feet of him on the way to the evac chopper and had her with him.”
“That was Rachel? Oh, my God! I didn’t recognize her dressed up like that!”
“That’s okay,” Lucas said hurriedly. “Where’d they go?”
“They’re at RAAF Base Wagga. But they’ll be long gone before you can get there.”
“What? How do you know where I am?”
“Cell signal,” Jessica said, not feeling the need to provide a better explanation.
“Whatever. Why would they be gone before I get there?”
“It looks like a short stopover. The helos went straight there from Sydney. Big transport aircraft started landing a few minutes ago. Maybe they’re going somewhere else in Australia, but the consensus here is that they’re on their way to the US.”
“Is Rachel still with them?”
“I’ll have to check now that I know what to look for. That’s going to take a while, but…”
“What?” Lucas asked, concerned.
“Stand by,” Jessica snapped.
Lucas pressed the phone harder against his ear, listening to the rapid-fire sounds of a keyboard and Jessica’s soft breathing.
“Australian Air Force is attacking!” she suddenly shouted into the phone.
“What?”
“They’re engaging the Russian CAP and a couple look like they’re on a bombing run. Look, I’ve gotta go! I’ll call you as soon as this all plays out!”
She didn’t wait for an answer before breaking the connection.
“What’s going on?” Natalie asked, sitting up and earning a protest from Dog when she pushed his head aside.
“Russians went to the air base at Wagga Wagga. Getting ready to leave and our boys just showed up to kick their asses!”
Lucas hit the brakes, swinging onto the shoulder and making a sweeping U-turn.
“What are you doing?”
“Going to Wagga Wagga,” he said. “Maybe the fly boys can keep those bastards on the ground long enough for me to get to Rachel.”