“One in 1,296. I am very lucky tonight.”
“Or you are very cheaty tonight.”
“You have already accused me of cheating, and we swapped our dice. Perhaps you think we Chinese have supernatural powers to add to our famous inscrutability.”
“I think perhaps you have very fast hands.”
“Now you mistake me for Jackie Chan.”
“And you mistake me for a gullible fool. I do not know how you did it, but I want my money back.”
“Do you really want to know how I won? It is because you are so very scrutable.”
“That is not even an English word,” Kuzkin said. “If you are going to insult me at least do it in proper English.”
“Must I point out that ‘cheaty’ is not a word either?”
Carter wiped the fingernail gunk from the pass onto the side of his chair and stood up to stretch. “Sometimes the gambling gods smile upon you from up on high. Sometimes they use that height to crap on your head. Just give the general his damn money.”
Kuzkin looked as though he was going to continue arguing and barfing up Chinese stereotypes. In the end, he crumpled up his last hundred-dollar bill and tossed it across the table. “Do not be so quick to spend it. We still have to play Tiger Has Come.”
“Not tonight, gentlemen,” Carter said. “My bed is calling me.”
Kuzkin resorted to mumbling in Russian as Zhang stuffed the handsome pile of bills into his pocket with some difficulty. Carter was on his way to the door, already imagining sliding between the sheets, when a harried-looking aide burst in.
“We have a major problem, sirs,” he said after a quick salute. “Intel has picked up an e-mail revealing every detail of the attack.”
Even though Carter was red-eyed from exhaustion and cigarette smoke, he snapped into professional mode. “Did they block it?”
“Only partially, sir. It’s still gone to thousands of newspapers and bloggers. The first stories are just starting to pop up.”
“Any reaction from the zombies yet?”
“No, sir.”
“I take it the presidents have been alerted?”
“Yes, sir. A crisis call will commence shortly.”
Carter turned to his colleagues. “Thoughts, gentlemen, beyond, ‘This is a huge pain in the ass’?”
“Nothing has changed,” said Kuzkin, who’d put aside his petulance and, like Carter, was all business. “They will know, but what can they do? We go ahead as planned.”
“Not true,” Zhang said. “We can’t use the nerve gas now. They will not go near any aid shipments.”
Kuzkin wrinkled his nose. “That is disappointing. We needed to use up our stockpile before the expiry date. I suppose we can drop it on Dagestan when everybody is looking at Britain.”
“It goes further than the nerve gas being a goner,” Carter said. “They’re going to try to minimize the impact, bunker their leaders, move strategic assets. The first wave won’t be as effective, which will mean more grunt work later.”
“Then we must move the attack forward so they have less time to prepare,” Zhang said.
“I agree,” Carter said. “The bombs are pretty much ready to rock, so it won’t be too difficult to shuffle things forward.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for the presidents to make a decision?” Kuzkin asked.
Carter shook his head. “They won’t cancel, not when the fate of humanity’s at stake. I guarantee you we’ll soon get a call telling us to get our asses into gear. We need to be ready. I figure we can shave three days off the schedule with some rejigging. It might be a bit slapdash, but it’s better than giving the zombies time to hide under every rock they can find.”
“There is one other issue,” Zhang said. “We have not been able to track their second nuclear submarine yet, and now we have less time to do so.”
“We always knew it would be a gamble,” Carter said. “Here’s hoping the gods are smiling on us and unbuckling their trouser belts over Britain.”
“And what if they are not?” Kuzkin said.
“At most they should only be able to get off a few missiles, so our defense shields should take care of the warheads before they reach Washington, Beijing, or Moscow. Given the short distances involved, it’s the Europeans who have to worry the most. Just don’t plan on taking the kids to Disneyland Paris in the next few days and you should be fine.” Carter turned to his aide. “Get our people in here and scare up a pot of industrial strength coffee, more cigarettes for General Zhang, and a big box of Adderall.”
“Where would I get Adderall, sir? It’s a prescription medicine.”
“Break into the pharmacy, and if anybody asks, tell them it’s a matter of national security. If we don’t wake ourselves up we’ll end up bombing the UAE by mistake, and I think we can all agree we need their oil. Now let’s get to work.”
TWO DAYS TO EXCISION
25
When Tony walked in to the reception of the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Tim was waiting for him with a smug upward tug to his lips. It was just after 7:00 a.m., the only slot Tony could find in another busy day trying to pull Britain back from the brink it seemed determined to topple over. Tony was a bit confused as to why they were in a hospital. He’d expected to be told to come to the zoo, although he supposed it may just have been a question of having the right facilities for delicate brain surgery.
The earliness of the hour might have explained why Tim seemed remarkably compos mentis. He probably hadn’t had much time to munch his way through half a box of tranquilizers yet. Tim had called late the previous evening to tell Tony they’d carried out their first operation. Even though he harbored an entire flotilla of doubts about Tim’s usefulness, the glowing report card Tim gave himself made Tony wonder if he’d misjudged the scientist. If it really had worked, they could present their data to Piers to show there were options to control the virus. Again, this would hopefully buy them some more time: they had a long way to go from animal testing to proving it could work in humans, but it would at least show there might be a surgical option.
Tim led him through a maze of corridors and swung open a door.
“Ta da!” he said.
Inside the room was a row of white beds, all empty save for one, upon which sat a man with a pinched, hard-life look about him. Old scars on each cheek, which looked like the product of a Stanley knife, gave his face an unpleasant symmetry. A fresher scar punctuated by stitches ringed his shaved scalp.
“Sorry, wrong room,” Tony said.
The occupant continued to stare at the floor.
“No, this is the right room,” Tim said.
“Where’s the monkey?”
Tim looked puzzled. “What monkey?”
“The monkey you did the surgery on.”
“Ah,” Tim said, and giggled. “I think we may have got our wires crossed. We don’t have any monkeys left. They’ve all been eaten. We went straight to human testing.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Tony said, his head starting to throb. “You did this to a person?”
Tim held up his hands. “Don’t worry, we didn’t just pull somebody off the street. The subject is Ralph Bertram. He’s a high-ranking lieutenant in Blood of Christ, probably one of the most violent men in the country. Before the virus, he was serving life for three counts of murder in a gangland killing, which involved a turf war, a hammer, a chainsaw, and a large bath of acid. He, well the whole prison actually, broke out during the unpleasantness, and he joined up with Archangel’s lot. He got caught when Blood of Christ burned down a mosque. He was jumping up and down on a burning man’s face when our boys arrived. They had to shoot him twice to get him to stop. Even when they brought him here with a bullet in his stomach and one in his shoulder, he still managed to bite off a chunk of a nose, break two arms, and dislocate a testicle.”
Although Tony felt like slapping the nervous grin off Tim’s face, what was done was done. And he supposed that a suc
cessful human test would seem more credible, although significantly more immoral. “Fine, so he’s a very bad man.”
Tim grinned. “Was.”
Tony entered the room and approached Bertram. “Shouldn’t you have a bandage on that?” he said, indicating the ugly scar.
“He doesn’t care. Watch this.”
Tim leaned in until his nose was almost touching Bertram’s. “You were a very naughty boy, weren’t you?”
Tony flinched as Tim delivered a stinging slap to one scarred cheek. Bertram turned his face to the side. Tim proceeded to drum the top of his scalp, pinch his nose, give him a Chinese burn, and, as a grand finale, punch him in the stomach. Bertram doubled over. When he sat up again, drool was slicking his lips. His eyes were blank and uncomprehending.
“Are you sure you removed just the amygdalae?” Tony said.
“We may have accidentally sliced out a teensy bit of other brain tissue,” Tim said, holding up his thumb and forefinger. “But we definitely got the peanuty bit.”
The rage woke up fully, stretched a bit, and seized hold of Tony’s brain. Tony was gripped by an image of startling clarity, in which Tim’s eyes bulged behind his large glasses and his mouth produced a rattling squeeze as Tony’s hands encircled his throat. He should have known better than to get his hopes up.
He poked Tim in the chest. “You’re a complete and utter fucking idiot.”
Astonishingly, Tim looked surprised. “Why? This is a clear success.”
“A success? Did you operate with an ice-cream scoop? Look at him: he’s a vegetable.”
“Aha! Have you ever heard of anyone being killed by a vegetable?”
“If I had a carrot, I’d demonstrate just how vegetables can kill people by stabbing you in the eye with it. Do you honestly expect me to present this drooling mess to the world as our solution to the problem?”
“It’s just our first effort. We can refine it.”
“No, Tim. We can’t. We don’t have the time, and it’s abundantly clear you don’t have the capability. You’re fired.”
For the first time since Tony had known him, Tim’s features tightened into a scowl. “You can’t fire me. I’m your chief scientist.”
“You’re not a scientist. You’re a clown without the makeup and red nose. I’d be better off hiring this guy.”
Tim took a step back, and Tony thought he was about to slouch away. Instead, he threw out an arm in a half punch, half slap that caught Tony on the upper arm. Spock was nowhere to be found as Tony hauled out his bulky satphone and smacked Tim upside the head with it. The scientist fell backward, landing in the lap of his lobotomized patient. Tony advanced, the phone held high, his arms thrumming with the desire to finish the job. The buzz of the device snapped him out of it. He left Tim sprawled across his intellectual equal and stormed out into the hallway to answer the call.
“This had better be good news,” Tony snapped down the line.
There was a moment’s silence, before Glen’s voice came through. “I’m afraid not,” he said. “Where are you?”
“With Tim, wasting my fucking time.”
“Get back to Number Ten, right now. There’s something you have to see.”
“Can’t you just tell me?”
“It’s better you see it for yourself.”
* * *
The story was everywhere: in every newspaper, on every blog, across every social media platform. Tony read as many different versions as he could, searching for some kind of inauthenticity that would flag it up as the product of an overactive imagination. It was an act born of desperation. The story rang true in every way, from the way it tied in with what he believed was going on behind the scenes to the descriptions of the resistance group, which he knew for sure existed. It also cleared up the mystery of the helicopter on the East Coast, although the Glasgow incursion remained unexplained.
It was strange that this journalist, once so keen to make a bonfire out of Britain, had changed her tune. From the impassioned nature of the article, she clearly believed her story would make a difference—and there was no doubting the significance of an uninfected woman living alongside the infected with no bloodshed. It showed there really was hope. Yet Tony knew it would achieve the square root of fuck all. Public pressure only went so far. When a government had made up its mind, it was usually too late. Anyway, a quick browse showed him the response was muted. The campaigning group Avaaz had put out a call for petition signatures, as it always did, but elsewhere in editorials and social media there didn’t seem to be a groundswell of support for the attack to be halted. People clearly knew it was in their interests to have the infected killed. They would wait until after the genocide to condemn it, when it was safe. Secretly they would know they were complicit, but that wouldn’t help anybody in Britain.
Only one aspect of the story gave him hope, but it was short lived. This young girl was immune, and he almost convinced himself that would provide a reason for the attack to be called off. Then he thought it through. They would only need a cure if the virus spread, and killing everyone would take care of that threat. Trying to extract the girl would be a risk for them; they didn’t even know if she was truly immune or just asymptomatic. Nobody would take any chances. Even if they brought the girl in themselves, he would have to reinstate Tim or find somebody else to analyze her blood and synthesize a cure. That was an exercise in futility.
Glen sat behind him while he read, and Tony could sense he was champing at the bit. During Tony’s time in front of the computer, Piers called eight times. Tony ignored each call. He needed to be sure he could talk calmly when the time came. It would take some doing. He was tempted to ponce a tranquilizer, but knew his mind had to be clear. Finally he sat back, rubbing his eyes and trying not to show his fear. The first thing he did was send a driver to take Margot and Vanessa to the bunker at Northwood. Until he knew they were as safe as possible, he wouldn’t be able to think straight. The next time Piers called he picked up.
“I know it looks bad,” Piers said, “but let me assure you this is utter fiction. This journalist has taken all the ill-informed rumors swithering around and bundled them into a story.”
“That’s an interesting defense. This is the same woman who got the story out the last time. Seems to me that she has a track record of exposing your little plots.”
“I admit she was right once. That doesn’t mean she’s right again. She was probably missing all the attention of a big scoop and decided to get her name in the headlines again.”
“That’s weak. Why would she ruin her career making something like this up?”
“Ask her. I can categorically state that this is false. And this Jack Alford character, he was a notoriously flaky nobody. He wasn’t privy to that kind of information.”
“If he was such a low-level flunky, why’d they abduct him and dump him in Scotland?”
“You know what our American cousins are like. They get a bit keen.”
“So you’re admitting that part of the story is true?”
Piers, the dumb shit, fell silent when he understood he’d been trapped. “Look, we’ve been preparing for any eventuality. But we’ll take no action unless it’s in response to aggression from your side and is authorized by the UN General Assembly.”
“Tell that to Saddam,” Tony said. “If you can dig him up and get the worms out of his ears.”
“That was different. You actually do have WMDs, and we know that any hostilities started by us could prompt you to use them.”
Piers’s use of “WMDs” instead of “nuclear weapons” caused a brief moment of panic, which subsided quickly. If they knew about the missile development, they would have blown it up by now. Again, he desperately wanted to make his threat, but knew he needed to be smart. He took several deep breaths, assumed his best Spock voice, and spoke slowly down the line. “I believe you.”
“What?” Piers said.
“I know you’re a cretin, but I believe your bosses are smart enou
gh to know what would happen if you came at us. Let me assure you that we won’t do anything rash in response to this story. We’ll only act in self-defense.”
Piers’s sigh of relief was so loud that it distorted the speaker. “That’s good to hear.”
When Tony hung up, he got Amira on the line and filled her in.
“We need to draft a statement,” she said.
“Are you almost at the camp?”
“Be there in a few hours.”
“Right. Once you’re there, write up a press release saying that while we’re disturbed at the media reports of an impending attack, we have been assured by the international community that they have no basis. Bring out the spiel about us being committed to a peaceful solution, blah, blah, blah. And then get that video out pronto, so it looks like we’re still trying to prove ourselves. That might buy us the time we need.”
“The time we need for what, Tony?” Amira said, her voice flat.
Just as he’d wanted to tell Piers about the missile, Tony now felt the need to tell Amira he wouldn’t fire it. She wouldn’t have a chance to see Glen again before it was ready, so it would be safe to do so. However, Glen was still standing behind him so he kept quiet. He would call her later when he had some privacy. “They’re going to kill us all, Amira.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“You’ll find the journalist who wrote the story there. Ask her if she made it all up.”
“But…”
“No buts, Amira. Just do it.”
He cut the line to avoid further discussion and turned to Glen, who was tapping his foot furiously. “How long until we’re ready?”
“Five days.”
“Make it two,” he said, feeling like Captain Kirk talking to Scotty. “They were supposed to be attacking in just under a week, but now they know we know, they’re probably going to move faster. We need to do the same.”
A grin split Glen’s face. “Then we’ll go ahead?”
“Just get it ready,” Tony said. “I’m coming up to oversee this personally.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
World War Moo: An Apocalypse Cow Novel Page 23