Beckham recalled the day they had moved SOCOM from MacDill Air Force Base to the Zumwalt Class Destroyer launched shortly before the Hemorrhage Virus ravaged the world. It had been recommissioned as the USS George Johnson to honor the Vice President that was killed not far from where they all sat right now.
Across from the Brigadier General was National Security Advisor Ben Nelson, wearing his staple red tie. He ruffled through a briefing. Vice President Dan Lemke sat at the opposite end with his Chief of Staff, Elizabeth Cortez, behind him.
Ringgold’s Chief of Staff, James Soprano, rested his back against a wall, gripping a folder under his arms.
“Looks like you’ve been hitting the gym,” Beckham said to ease the tension.
Soprano smiled. “When you’ve got a free personal trainer who doesn’t let you skip a day, these things happen,” he said, jerking his chin at Cortez.
Her face broke into a grin. “You skip plenty of days.”
Cortez gestured to two of the empty seats where nametags had been set out for Beckham and Horn. They sat in their respective seats. Cortez continued to stand, glancing occasionally at the door. Even as she stood, she continued tapping her right foot against the floor.
The door opened and President Ringgold stepped in, prompting General Barnes to stand and offer her his chair in front of the laptop.
“That’s okay. You sit, General,” she said politely. “I’ll take my usual spot.”
Ringgold sat next to Lemke. Soprano handed her a folder before retreating back to his spot at the wall.
“What’s our status?” Ringgold asked.
“We have SEAL Teams 2 and 3 deployed in Operation Snake, with Delta Force Team Ghost on standby,” Barnes said in his gruff voice. “Ghost just tracked down and killed an Alpha at Ellicott City. Saved a prisoner too.”
“That’s our boy, Fitz,” Horn said.
Beckham had a feeling Ghost wasn’t going to get much downtime to celebrate the small victory. The SEAL Teams were both filled with talented men, but many of them were new and lacked the experience that Fitz and his team had under their belts. He wouldn’t be surprised if Ghost was called off standby and deployed in the operation.
“Turkey River went offline approximately twenty-one hours ago and, so far, drone footage has not given us much to go by,” Barnes continued. “SEAL Team 2 will land in approximately ten minutes, but SEAL Team 3 will take approximately one hour to reach Outpost Rapid City.”
“And the emergency alert system?” Ringgold asked.
“Activated as soon as we got word about Rapid City,” said Nelson. “Every outpost and city in the safe zones will be on lock down until we figure out what’s going on.”
Beckham thought of his family back at the outpost in Portland. He wished he had the chance to tell Kate this was coming so it didn’t scare Javier or Tasha and Jenny.
“Bringing up footage from SEAL Team 2,” Barnes said. He pushed his headset back into position, talking to General Souza.
The wall-mounted monitor fired to life, splitting into a dozen boxes from the helmet-mounted cams of the SEALs.
“Here we go,” Barnes said. “SEAL Team 2 is one minute out from the LZ.”
“Do we have any new drone footage?” Lemke asked. He flipped through his briefing folder. “These images make it seem like the entire outpost just vanished. Three hundred people don’t just—”
“Three hundred and four,” Ringgold corrected.
“Yes, that’s correct,” Barnes said. “Three hundred and four people don’t just vanish.”
The Black Hawk carrying SEAL Team 2 crossed over a patchwork of crops and lowered into the compound. The pilots set down in an open area, disgorging the SEALs into the darkness of the night. Their cameras with night vision goggles provided a green-hued view of the agricultural community as the team split up to search for the residents.
Beckham scanned the screens one by one, looking for any sign of bodies or blood or a battle. Anything to indicate what had happened. But all he saw were empty buildings. A school. The post office. Two trading posts. The barracks and offices.
All empty.
Another team moved to the barns and livestock pens located just outside the walls of the main compound. A series of ribbon wire fences looked intact but several of the SEALs stopped at the edge to look through the chain links.
“We got something,” Barnes reported, looking up.
He put a palm over his headset to listen.
Beckham strained to see, but there was definitely something on the other side of the fences. Several craters dotted the terrain from what must have been exploded land mines.
“They found the remains of several soldiers, Madam President,” Barnes reported. “They’re on screen seven.”
Beckham was already looking at that screen. The SEAL directed his helmet cam at a crater, roving it back and forth before stopping on what looked a lot like mangled human limbs and a torso.
“The militia soldiers there got caught in the minefields, but not Variants?” Nelson asked.
“Actually, the SEALs think the Variants tossed the soldiers in the minefields,” Lemke said. “There were claw marks on the corpses and tracks indicating such.”
“Something doesn’t add up here,” Nelson said. “The beasts aren’t normally that smart.”
“Have the other SEALs found anything else?” Ringgold asked.
“Negative, Madam President,” Barnes said. “Not a single body.”
“What about the livestock?” Beckham asked.
Barnes asked over the comms, and came back with an answer a moment later.
“Gone,” he said. “No bodies. No bones.”
Beckham used his prosthetic hand to brush the hair back into place on his head, his new nervous tick. Something about it calmed him and helped him think. But it didn’t help him make sense of what he was seeing on the screens.
“The Variants took all of them without even stopping for a snack?” Nelson asked. “I’ve rarely heard of monsters with that kind of self-control.”
“You’re right,” Horn said, speaking up for the first time. “Normal Variants wouldn’t do this.”
“We must be looking at some kind of twisted Alpha,” Beckham said. “Maybe even something else leading them, keeping them under control.”
“And there’s only one team that can track down whatever—or whoever—is responsible,” Horn said.
He glanced at Beckham who agreed with his friend.
“If SEAL Team 2 doesn’t come back with anything else, I’d highly recommend deploying Team Ghost,” Beckham said. “They have experience with all kinds of Alphas. If anyone can get to the bottom of this, it’s them.”
Barnes looked to the President for her approval, and she gave it with a nod. She got up from her chair and walked over to the screen as SEAL Team 2 continued the search.
“Yes…” Barnes said into his headset. His features suddenly darkened, and he squinted so hard his forehead turned into a valley of wrinkles. “What… Another one?” he said.
Ringgold turned to look at the General. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
Barnes swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Madam President, General Souza just got word that Outpost New Boston in Massachusetts is reporting a raider attack.”
He paused and put his hand over his headset again to listen.
“Christ,” Barnes grumbled. “Outpost Portland, Maine, is also under attack.”
Beckham’s veins turned to ice. He shot out of his chair. “What? How is that possible?”
Images of Kate and the children slammed through his mind.
“We have to get home,” Horn said, already moving toward the door.
Beckham turned to follow Horn, then stopped.
A dozen thoughts spun through his mind.
He wanted to believe that people like his neighbor Jake could defend the island and that the safe zone’s defenses were prepared for something like this. But between the images they’d just seen of Outpost Turkey Rive
r and the reports coming in from other outposts, reality was much more grim.
He couldn’t help but think these events were connected.
Were they dealing with a massive coordinated Variant and human threat for the first time since the end of the war?
Beckham hesitated. He needed to know more before bailing.
“Boss, come on,” Horn urged.
“Hold up,” Beckham shot back. He looked to Barnes. “What does General Souza know so far about Portland?”
“Only that they called in an SOS sparked by a raid,” replied the General.
“Reed, we can’t stay here.” The muscles in Horn’s jaw moved as he gritted his teeth. “Got to get back there, man.”
“Permission to leave, Madam President,” Beckham said.
“Get a chopper fired up,” Ringgold said to Soprano. The COS rushed through the door, already conveying the president’s order to someone outside the situation room.
Beckham and Horn followed her out, Ringgold shadowing them. She stopped just outside. The pain in her features told Beckham she felt partly responsible for this.
But this wasn’t her fault.
She had done everything she could to rebuild and protect the country, and Beckham couldn’t sit idly by any longer in retirement on an island away from the fight.
It was time to get back into the game.
If it’s not already too late, he thought coldly.
***
The custom blue jet circled over S.M. Fischer’s ranch and the oil fields in Northern Texas, about ninety miles north of Amarillo. Fischer Fields, his business and his empire. This was home. Always had been, always would be. Passed down through his family, back during the prewar days, it had reached values in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
His wife had loved it here. She had always dreamed of the day he would retire. Enjoying riding horses together along the creeks and trails cutting through their property and ending the days on their porch enjoying the glory of a Texas sunset. But it was not to be.
She had passed from cancer two months before the Hemorrhage Virus.
Now it looked like Fischer would never retire. While he missed her, he was almost glad it had happened before the chaos. If she had survived any longer, she would have risked being torn to pieces or turned into one of those beasts. To Fischer, that was a far worse fate.
Her death to cancer hadn’t exactly been peaceful, but at least he had been there holding her hand while she passed in her sleep.
God, did he miss her.
He drowned out the memories by finishing his third beer while the pilots waited for the all clear to land. Another Variant attack had kept them in the sky, and Fischer was anxious to get on the ground.
At ten thousand feet, he couldn’t see much of his forty thousand acres of land, especially at night. But in the blanket of darkness below, several geysers of orange flames punctuated the black, spewing columns of smoke that reflected the light of the fire.
Fischer’s gut twisted painfully. He was no stranger to a hellish sight like that.
“Oil well fires! What in the Sam Hill is happening down there?” Fischer asked.
The two bodyguards that had accompanied him to the Greenbrier sat in leather chairs across the cabin. Tran and Chase had both been with Fischer since the war and had never failed in protecting him.
Chase disappeared into the cockpit for a moment, then reemerged. “Sounds like there have been Variant attacks on multiple wells. They went after the engineers again, and our teams are having a hard time capping the wells.”
“Second time in a month,” Fischer said, finishing his comment with a blue streak of curses. He tried to be a gentleman in most cases but, damn, this was pissing him off.
Using a bottle opener, he twisted off the cap of another beer, wishing it was the head of a Variant. He took a long swig and studied the bottle—another product made at his ranch just like the juicy hunk of steak in front of him.
This hadn’t been the first attack on his ranch, and he knew better than to think it would be the last. The Variants were getting more brazen in their efforts.
He was getting tired of losing men and, more importantly, money.
Tipping back the bottle, he took another long swig and then put the bottle down. He caught Tran giving Chase a knowing look. They were right. He should have his senses together.
Three beers gave him a buzz, but anything more could be a detriment to decision making. He looked to Chase and said, “Tell the pilots I want on the ground as soon as fucking possible.”
The thin African American man stood again and made his way back into the cockpit. Tran swiveled his leather chair to look out the window.
“These attacks have to end,” Fischer grumbled. “We’re wasting time capping oil wells when we should be drawing oil up. These filthy, diseased animals are costing us too damn much.”
Tran turned away from the window to face his boss. “I thought President Ringgold was going to send more boots to protect the fields.”
“She did, but I don’t need two dozen greenhorns.” Fischer took another swallow of his beer. He knew he shouldn’t, but he was too damn mad. “I need an army to clean the varmints out once and for all. Perhaps General Cornelius will make me an offer I can’t refuse.”
Tran simply nodded, and Fischer considered asking him his opinion. Most men in his position wouldn’t bother listening to hired muscle or soldiers. But Fischer had built his empire by analyzing the opinions of many, from the engineers that worked on the wells to the president of the country.
So far, those opinions weren’t helping much.
“Who do you support?” Fischer asked.
Tran shifted uneasily in his chair, apparently caught off guard by the sudden change in topic. Fischer had seen him less nervous when facing Variants.
“It’s okay, son, you can talk to me freely,” Fischer assured Tran.
“I don’t support nuking the cities, sir, but I do support eliminating the Variant threat, especially down there. These attacks are growing more brazen, and I fear the creatures are starting to get stronger instead of weaker.”
“Valid assessment,” Fischer said. He looked back down at his steak. It was getting cold, and he wasn’t going to waste a good sirloin. Meat of this quality was a luxury that only a few men in this country could afford.
While the plane continued to circle, he cut into the seared meat. The red inside practically bled. He took a bit of the rare steak and relished the taste like the Variants might savor the taste of human flesh.
Chase returned from the cockpit. “Sir, we need to wait a few more minutes for teams to secure the tarmac for our landing,” he reported. “Apparently, one of those Variant packs is near your ranch.”
“What’s so damn hard about clearing out two little packs?” Fischer said.
“They’re both camouflaged,” Chase replied. “Our teams are finding it more difficult than usual to track them down. We’ve deployed dogs and hunter-killer teams, though. Shouldn’t be much longer.”
Fischer put his fork down, his appetite ruined. He wiped food out of his bristly mustache with a napkin, and prepared for landing.
Ten minutes later they had the all clear, and the jet began its descent. Fischer looked out his window to search for the flames he saw earlier. Sure enough, the well fires still burned, the deep stores of oil being lapped up by tongues of fire.
The flames might as well have been burning dollar bills.
But how could a Variant start a fire? They had attacked the wells plenty of times, but the wells had never burned like this. Not two at once.
He doubted common Variants had the smarts for starting fires like that. Maybe his men had really screwed the pooch on this one. Or maybe it was something else.
As the jet lowered toward the tarmac, Fischer thought of his meeting with President Ringgold. She had promised him more men to patrol the oil fields. But a handful more of guards wasn’t going to stop the beasts.
When
your cattle were being stalked by a pack of wolves, it wasn’t enough to wait around at night in hopes you might scare them from dragging a cow away.
No, you went straight to the source. Straight to the wolf’s den. You slaughtered every one of them so not a damn one of those dogs came back to bother you or your cattle.
What he needed was an army of hunters. Someone who could be on the offense instead of pressed against the ropes the whole time.
This had to end.
The tires touched down with a jolt. As they slowed, Tran and Chase both unbuckled and moved to the cabinets to grab their rifles. They palmed in magazines, pulled back the bolts to chamber a round, and then advanced to the door.
One of the pilots stepped out of the cabin.
“Sir, your teams have taken down one pack and captured what we think is an Alpha…” he said.
Just as Fischer thought. More than just common Variants.
“It’s alive, sir, but barely,” the pilot continued.
“Bring it to the tarmac,” Fischer said. “I want to see this ugly son of a bitch that’s been terrorizing my fields.”
“Sir, I’d highly advise against that,” Chase replied.
“This is an Alpha,” Tran reminded Fischer. “They’re extremely dangerous even when injured.”
“I know what it is,” Fischer shot back. “I want to see it, and I want to finish it off myself.”
“Okay, sir,” Tran said with a shrug. “But please stay here until we can secure the area.”
Chase opened the cabin door and walked down a ramp to the tarmac. Tran remained in the opening, rifle shouldered.
Fischer pulled out his handgun, his father’s old chrome .357. He’d added a new engraving to the barrel.
Monster Killer.
Maybe it was a little corny, but Fischer wasn’t one to mince words. Monster Killer was what the weapon was, and killing a monster was what he was about to do.
Pulling back the hammer with a click, he prepared to meet the beast terrorizing his men and fields tonight. Not some pesky, diseased beast, but the king of the pack.
A few minutes later, Chase returned with his rifle cradled. “Okay, sir, it’s safe to come out.”
Fischer followed his men down the ramp. Several Humvees and multiple pickup trucks were parked on the tarmac with the red, double F logo of his oil company.
Extinction Cycle: Dark Age Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 7