by JT Sawyer
Nash walked alongside Reisner as the two headed to the helicopter. “You’re the college guy—what does Atropos stand for?” said the lithe operator.
Reisner smirked at his friend. “You’re Greek and you’re asking me?” He shook his head.
“With a name like ‘Nash,’ only half of me is Greek.”
“Atropos—sounds like a name Siegel would give a pet project of his. The word refers to one of the three Fates in Greek mythology. There were these three women who determined your fate from birth. Clotho was the woman who spun your fate; Lachesis dispensed it; and Atropos cut the thread, determining when your life ended.”
“Well, aren’t you the scholar.”
“My old man used to tell me and my sister all the stories about Ulysses, Achilles, and all the Greek gods—when he was around long enough to give a shit about us.”
Nash gave a slow nod while adjusting the tactical vest around his suit. “You said you met Siegel once in person, right?”
“Yeah, two years ago, at a benefit for the families of fallen agents. He was the kinda guy who was born for a political appointment. I doubt he’s spent much time in the trenches as an operator though. He came up from the intel side.”
“So that’s why he’s so hands-off with his agents and with teams like ours. I mean, Langley was only a short drive from the airfield—he couldn’t brief us in person about something of this magnitude?”
“Siegel’s always been a meeting-happy bureaucrat. That’s the difference between him and Runa.”
“You mean the difference between a bullshit artist and a straight-shooter.”
Reisner nodded his chin up in appreciation of Nash’s honest assessment. He tossed his gear bag into the helo, then waited for the rest of his team to board. He took a deep breath and gazed up at a row of cottony clouds lined up like a locomotive along the western horizon. Even though the sky looked peaceful, he knew there was a potential storm brewing on another scale. He suspected that whatever was on the Atropos might hold the key to the mysterious illness unfolding around the globe. Reisner hoped he was wrong.
Chapter 9
After they had flown a hundred-sixty miles southwest of Manila, a conglomeration of tiny islands rose up from the South China Sea. Some were no more than fingers of volcanic rock jutting upward, while others were a few miles long, with white sandy beaches and thick groves of palm trees. Reisner’s attention was focused on his tablet, where he was studying the ship’s layout that Siegel had provided. When he was through, he passed the device around while instructing everyone on their roles and evacuation protocols along with memorizing the security codes for the lab.
Dominguez motioned with his hand to the right. “Those are the Spratly Islands. The ship should be to the southeast of that larger chain of islands.”
Reisner looked down at his GPS unit. The coordinates indicated the ship was only eight miles away. He waved his gloved hand in the air. “Alright, let’s saddle up. Get those masks on and double-check each other.”
The Huey was three minutes out from the ship when they finished. The Atropos was anchored in the inlet of a small cove, resembling a warped horseshoe. The rear deck had a single helipad, and Reisner could see the outline of a UAV drone cloaked under a dappled gray camouflage tarp. To the untrained eye, it would appear to be nothing more than an elongated cargo container, but Reisner had spent enough time poring over satellite images of hidden armament over the years that his subconscious quickly delineated the shape.
As the Huey set down, Reisner looked over at Nash. Next to Reisner, he was the most experienced operator in the group, and both men gave a knowing glance at each other. They had inserted into volatile regions before too numerous to count, but this time felt more ominous.
He looked around and gave a thumbs-up to the others, repeating his instructions from earlier. “Bravo Team is Nash, Porter, and Byrne—you’ll go aft and starboard and secure the data from the drone. I’ll take Alpha Team port and forward to the command center and retrieve anything still intact in the command center. After that, we will all descend together into the lower levels to the lab. I want to be in and out of here in thirty minutes.”
Everyone nodded, racking their rifles and keeping them at a low ready while preparing to hop onto the deck. The pilot touched the Huey down and Reisner jumped out first, with Connelly and Dominguez following behind, while Bravo Team leapt out the other side.
Even through the suit, Reisner could feel the oppressive heat pushing against the fabric, his body temperature spiking with each trot forward. As he moved, he saw numerous streaks of blood on the elephant gray decking. The wall to the right had a slather of crimson handprints that trailed on for several feet before disappearing. What the hell happened here?
He quickly moved along the gangway, passing by closed doors until he arrived at the steps leading up to the command center. He motioned for Connelly to cover him as he ascended, while Dominguez swept his rifle back in the direction they had just come.
Reisner moved cautiously up the steps, feeling the restricting effect of the protective garment over his boots. He kept his Tavor aimed at the side entrance while scanning the blown-out windows for any movement. The framing was bent outwards, like contorted steel fingers reaching upward to the heavens, and Reisner figured it was the result of a grenade or a small charge from within.
Upon cresting the landing, he spoke into his earpiece for Connelly to ascend and for Dominguez to remain in position. Once she was behind him, he gave her a three-count with his fingers, after which they swiftly entered the command center.
It only took a second to clear the room, given how the interior had been gutted from the explosion. He could see the epicenter of where the blast had occurred, most likely a grenade, as he had suspected, given the fine shrapnel segments embedded in the walls in a defined radius around the room. He knelt down to examine a jumbled mix of radio components and console parts on the floor to the front. Reisner used the barrel of his rifle to sweep aside the mess and discovered a human ear and several teeth.
Where’s the rest of the body? He traced the outline of a blood trail that led past him through the rear entrance, then down the hallway.
“Did the skipper crawl off?” said Connelly.
He stood and scrutinized the signs on the floor, noticing the faint imprints of bare feet on either side of the trail. “No, looks like someone dragged him off.”
She turned and gave him a concerned stare. “There’s glass everywhere. Who’d be walking around in bare feet up here?”
“Good question.” He motioned to her to check the front desk while he rummaged through the rest of the debris. “See if you can locate the captain’s logbook or any flash drives—maybe something survived the blast.”
Connelly gave a faint grunt of satisfaction as she knelt down and removed something wedged between the steel cabinet and the main console.
“How about a laptop?” She inspected the partially open device, whose sides were slightly dented. “Hopefully it’s still functional.”
She placed it on the desk, sliding some charred manuals out of the way with her gloved hand.
“Be careful you don’t risk tearing your suit open. We don’t know what we’re dealing with here yet.”
“Copy.”
Connelly turned on the laptop and then looked at Reisner when the password screen emerged. Reisner recalled the two passwords Siegel had provided him with. One was for accessing the command center and the other for the lab. After Connelly entered the code, she ran through the last entries and clicked on the videologue.
An image of the commander talking into the camera appeared. His face was dripping with sweat and there were several blood droplets on his face. He was shouting above the din of automatic weapons fire in the distance.
Chapter 10
Reisner stared into the terrified face of the image on the laptop as the commander of the Atropos began frantically speaking. “This is Commander Richard Jamison. Our comms are d
amaged and I am recording this message in the event I don’t make it through the night.” He paused to glance over his shoulder then continued. “We are under attack from within. At least a third of the researchers from level 3 are infected and have begun slaughtering my men. I have primed the halon gas to be released to drive these things out from the lower level, where we’ll have a better chance of killing them off.”
He glanced to his right as several people ran through a distant intersection in the passage at the rear of the command center. A second later, a shirtless figure burst past, its hands clawing at the nearest crew member. The sound of gunfire erupted again, followed by screams.
Jamison’s face turned white and his eyes darted back down the corridor. He reached for a grenade on his vest while continuing to talk, muttering to himself. “These things can’t leave this ship.”
He stood with his back pressed against a table opposite the open entrance to the bridge, whose steel door appeared to be bent in the frame. He slammed his fist on the red intercom button on the wall.
“Mallery, Castile—anyone, report in. What’s happening?”
He repeated the same words but only static ensued. Jamison moved to a control panel and typed in three numbers on the keypad with his trembling fingers, then he grabbed a gas mask from the wall. A hissing sound emanated from the overhead vents, followed by a purple mist pouring forth.
As he reached back for his pistol sitting on the desk, the sound of a window shattering to his right could be heard, followed by a person in a white lab coat tackling Jamison. The laptop was knocked off the table, landing on the other side of a steel cabinet. Only the ceiling showed on the screen as Jamison could be heard shrieking. A second later, an explosion erupted, sending fragments of metal and body parts up in the air. A high-pitched sound echoed throughout the burning room, followed by the swish of something being pulled along the floor.
Reisner gripped the edge of the table. He felt a vein in his neck throbbing. He’d seen a lot of horror in war-torn regions over the years, but nothing as chilling as what had just unfolded on the screen. He blinked hard, realizing that he and his team had just dropped into the same hell that had brought down the crew of the Atropos. They didn’t die from a virus as Siegel alluded—they were somehow turned into homicidal maniacs.
Just as he was about to radio Bravo Team, he heard the sound of Dominguez yelling at someone down below.
Chapter 11
“Stow the laptop in your shoulder bag and let’s go,” he yelled at Connelly as he made his way outside and back down the steps towards Dominguez.
Reisner made it to the bottom and heard the clatter of feet moving from behind some cargo containers at the front of the ship.
“Contact, aft,” yelled Dominguez as three figures began staggering towards them. “They just came out of nowhere.”
He and Dominguez stood side by side as three men with blood-stained clothing came to a standstill twenty yards away. Their skin appeared translucent and reminded Reisner of the exoskeleton of a desert scorpion. The men were wearing the blue pants typical of security guards, and each had ribbons of blood spooling out from their bulbous lips.
The tallest figure at the rear began clattering its teeth, and then focused his gaze upon Reisner while emitting a bird-like sound. The other two men began shuffling forward, their bodies hunched and their hands clawing at the air in front of them. Their eyes looked glazed over compared to the rear guard, whose gaze remained transfixed on Reisner. If they were infected with some pathogen, it was unlike anything Reisner had ever heard about.
“Stop right there and back the fuck up,” said Dominguez, who kept his rifle leveled forward.
Reisner watched the two guards increase their wobbly gait, their mouths hanging open while a faint shrill noise emanated from their lips. The rear figure began moving, his body seeming more coordinated than the others, his facial expression taut and unflinching while his torso remained upright.
“Stand down,” said Dominguez.
Reisner centered his rifle sights on the guard to the right. “There’s no point. These guys are too far gone from whatever they were exposed to here. And I’m guessing that blood on their lips isn’t self-inflicted.”
Reisner let loose the first rounds and dropped the lead figure with two shots to the face. The skull splintered apart, sending bone fragments and gray matter onto the deck. The second man hardly noticed his colleague drop and continued forward with his determined shuffle. Dominguez placed two rounds into the forehead, which sent the reeling attacker over the edge, into the ocean.
The third guard immediately moved in a weaving pattern, springing off the side of the wall then into the air, its hands spread open like an attacking tiger. Reisner and Dominguez both fired simultaneously, but its sprinting movements caught them by surprise and their rounds plinked off the gray walls. Another volley of rounds sliced through the side of the maniac’s skull, exiting out the jaw, as Connelly had entered the fight from her perch on the landing above. The limp figure slid to a halt a few feet from Reisner.
“What the hell—what was he jacked up on?” said Dominguez.
“Shit, what did Hayes unleash here?” said Reisner as he leaned forward to examine the dead guard. He saw a flurry of white worms exit the mouth and begin crawling towards his boot. He gasped and backpedaled, staring at the wriggling mass.
“What is that?” said Dominguez.
“I don’t know, but let’s not stick around to find out.”
Connelly joined them at the bottom and they retreated back along the pathway while Reisner radioed Bravo Team to watch their six and to regroup with them at the stairwell leading down to the lab.
Rounding a stack of crates, Reisner saw Nash and the others ahead, near the entrance to the lower level.
“Looks like we’re not the only ones on board after all,” said Reisner.
Nash raised his eyebrows. “Pirates?”
“No, they were crew members, only they…” He paused, taking a deep breath. “They looked like they’d been rotting in the sun and were crawling with maggots.”
“I thought there wasn’t anyone alive,” said Byrne.
“These guys didn’t resemble anything I’d call human—not even the way they moved,” said Connelly, who was still covering the passage heading from the command center.
“So, were they infected with something? I thought thermal images didn’t show any signs of life on board,” said Porter.
“Look, I don’t know what we just killed, but let’s get what we came for and get the hell out of here,” Reisner said.
Nash nodded over his shoulder to the location of the drone. “Negative on the data files. The seal was broken on the compartment and everything was gone.”
Reisner shook his head. “This just keeps getting better.” He peered again into the open hatchway that led down into the stairwell. “My team will take point and you follow up the rear. Once we get to the third level, we’ve got a series of smaller labs to bypass before we get to the main lab. You split off with your team into the lab while Alpha Team makes its way to Hayes’ office. Porter, I want you staying topside here and covering the entrance.”
He walked a few steps forward, trying to hear past the muffled sounds from their respirators. “And everybody stay sharp—there was a crew of eighteen on board and we just whacked three of those things, so who knows what resistance we may encounter below.”
As they descended the steps, everyone turned on the rifle-mounted flashlights on their suppressed Tavors. Reisner’s mind refocused on the route ahead while his heart was racing. He had been on countless incursions on foreign soil, but this mission made him feel like he had stepped into a much more terrifying world of unknowns. A stream of perspiration trickled down from his forehead, and he tried to ignore the feeling he was sealed inside a mobile sauna that hampered his vision and hearing with every step.
He bypassed the second level, stepping through a vault-like door that was ajar. Arriving at th
e third level, he saw that another door had already been opened, the keypad still flashing. On the landing below were two bodies clad in wetsuits whose surfaces were beaded with moisture. The dead men looked to be in their late twenties, and their skin appeared to be a normal texture compared to the other crew members they had encountered earlier.
Reisner moved closer and squatted to examine the corpses. The men had large chunks of flesh missing from their throats. Lying in the pool of blood were their HK pistols, both of which had their slides locked back amidst dozens of empty brass casings.
“Looks like these guys bled out, but that’s not the worst part,” he said, staring at their faces then glancing back at the rest of his team. “Pretty sure these are Chinese operatives.”
He exhaled deeply, mulling over the implications as Byrne moved up beside him. “Where did these guys come from? I thought Siegel said that no one had breached this vessel from outside?”
“I’ve got a few questions myself for Siegel,” he said.
“Swift boat or maybe a sub,” said Nash from the hallway.
Reisner removed his cellphone and snapped pictures of their faces. “Probably a six-man team. Guess that explains what happened to the drone intel.”
Connelly tapped her boot against one of the dead operatives. “This guy isn’t even stiff yet. They must have boarded the ship within the past few hours.”
He stood up, shining his weapon-mounted flashlight down the dark corridor ahead, but didn’t see any other bodies, though there were swaths of bloody drag marks leading into the distance, where the main lab was supposed to be located. Wonder if the rest of the agents made it off the ship? Maybe the drone intel is still here.
He continued moving forward, the passage feeling like it was constricting with each step he took. They walked by four smaller labs, which were in shambles, their observation windows shattered and wires hanging from the ceiling. The walls were riddled with bullet holes and there were streaks of blood interspersed with the damaged medical equipment.