by D C Alden
Mike had cursed the technology. It still wasn’t fit for purpose.
The security suite was located three levels beneath the airport’s main terminal. It was past two in the morning and Mike and his team occupied a large, windowless conference room alongside a couple of dozen of Munich’s finest and a team of German intelligence agents. Cooperation was a necessity, and Mike was conferencing with his German counterparts when Lucas’s voice barked across the room.
‘There she is! Look!’
Lucas was sat in front of a bank of monitors, working a mouse as he trawled through hours of footage. One of his legs was handcuffed to the table, and he was being shadowed by Pat Flynn and Ty Miller. Now he bounced excitedly in his chair, his finger jabbing at the screen.
‘Look!’
Everybody in the room gathered around Lucas’s desk. Mike leaned in closer. On the main screen, frozen in time, a couple sat side-by-side on a bank of seats. They were a nondescript couple, dark clothing, standard roll-on hand luggage, magazine and newspapers on the seats beside them. She was leaning on his shoulder, her hair cut fashionably short, her arm linked through his. He looked like a librarian, or a low-level civil servant. He wore round glasses and a dark polo neck top. He sat straight-backed, one leg folded over the other, a mobile phone in his hand. There was nothing notable about either of them, which made them serious players.
‘I’ve never seen him wear glasses,’ Lucas observed, his finger tapping the screen. ‘He’s trying to look all serious, you know, like a businessman or something.’
‘You’re absolutely sure it’s them?’
Lucas nodded like an excited child. ‘Absolutely. I’d stake my life on it.’
‘You just did,’ Mike told him. He straightened up and spoke to the senior German intelligence officer. ‘I need to know their cover names, passport numbers, destination, flight numbers, departure, arrival times, potential transfers, the works. Everything you can give me.’
The German intelligence officer, a thin, austere agent in a dark suit and tie, offered Mike a curt nod. Then he turned and barked several orders in rapid-fire German. His troops scattered like mice, some settling back in front of their computers while others headed for the door.
It was a waiting game now. The footage was thirty-six hours old. Philip and Marion could be anywhere in the world, and that frightened Mike. He felt the satellite phone in his pocket vibrating and he walked to a quiet corner of the room.
‘Go ahead.’
‘Mike, it’s Stan. I’ve got a company Citation inbound to your location, ETA two-seven minutes. Fastest wings I could get you at short notice. It’ll be waiting for you at the General Aviation Terminal — ’
‘Stan, we found them. Lucas made a positive ID in the departure lounge. They’ve got a thirty-six hour jump on us. The locals are nailing down the flight information now.’
‘Get it to me asap,’ Lando ordered. ‘I’ll kick it up to the Director, get the diplomatic wheels spinning.’
‘Roger that. We’ll head to the GAT now, wait for the transport. What about the Brit?’
’I’ve got a team inbound from the consulate in Munich. They’ll meet you at the GAT and take custody.’
‘Roger that.’ Mike ended the call and pocketed the phone. As he crossed the room, he gave Billy Finch a nod. The SEALs got to their feet and Mike pointed at Lucas.
‘Get him up. We’re moving.’ He turned to the German agent. ‘We have transport inbound to the GAT. Call me the moment you have anything.’
‘Of course,’ the German answered. He shook Mike’s hand and then the Americans were moving.
Bug Zapper
Philip cracked open an eyelid and saw the rising sun streaming through his hotel window.
He felt exhausted, empty, but at least he wasn’t throwing up any more. The diarrhoea appeared to have stopped but his stomach still cramped and gurgled. He cursed his stupidity for the hundredth time. What idiot buys food from a street vendor in Mumbai? You’re getting old, he chided himself, and this the most important mission of your life.
The room spun as he sat up and swung his legs off the bed. His sheets were soaked in sweat but he felt the fever had passed. Maybe it was the vitamin shot. The hotel doctor had administered it before relieving Philip of five hundred dollars in cash from his wallet. It was tantamount to theft but Philip didn’t care. All that mattered was getting the mission back on track.
He tottered to the bathroom on weak legs, bracing himself for a tableau of squalor. He wasn’t disappointed. His waste was splattered on the floor and around the toilet, and Philip reeled with nausea. He stepped into the shower and let the warm water run down his body as he held onto the wall. He soaped himself clean several times, then used the flexible head to wash down the toilet, sink and floor.
After a liberal use of spray bleach around the whole room, Philip stripped his bed and lay back on the bare mattress.
The virus —
He hurried across the room to the small refrigerator. He yanked it open and saw the clear plastic container with the viral pouches within. He breathed a sigh of relief and flopped onto the bed. The light-fingered doctor could’ve taken those too, and then where would he be? Philip imagined being trapped in a city gone to hell and unable to escape. Immune he may be, but an infected person could easily kill, such was the level of rage.
He propped a pillow behind his head and reached for his phone. He dialled the number and waited.
‘Hello?’
‘I’d like to book a trip to the elephant caves,’ Philip said.
There followed a few moments of silence on the line, then a heavily-accented male voice said, ‘Your name?’
‘Visser,’ Philip told him, giving the name on his Dutch passport.
‘I’ve been waiting for your call, Mister Visser.’
‘I’ve not been well. I’ll need to push back another twenty-four hours at least. I’ll call tomorrow to confirm.’
‘Tomorrow, then,’ the man echoed, clearly disappointed.
‘I’m obliged to you.’
Philip ended the call, then sent an update via text message to Arizona. He apologised for the delay, assuring his employers things were back on track.
He picked up the hotel telephone and ordered bottled mineral water and two packs of plain crackers. He needed to eat, but it was all he could stomach right now. The experience reminded Philip how much he hated the Third World, the abject poverty, the virulent diseases, the mortality rate, and the stench of decay that permeated the developing world. He despised the widespread corruption, the slavish and backward devotion to barbaric religions and animal gods, and their sheer inability to drag themselves out of their self-inflicted mess. They were children, and like all children they needed discipline and supervision.
Philip was looking forward to the realignment of power, to the culling of humanity, knowing it was necessary and longing for the day when he would wake up to a world that was run by a single, civilised government, one no longer bound by the shackles of international diplomacy, political correctness and historical guilt. A brave new world, orderly, prosperous, obedient. As it should be.
He stared up at the ceiling, soothed by the rhythmic ticking of the air-conditioner. He would wait for room service, drink more water and attempt to eat a couple of crackers. Then he would sleep.
When he rose the next day, he would be ready for the Pakistani.
The door was bolted from inside and barricaded with a heavy glass-fronted fridge. The lights were switched off and the bug-zapper threw a cold blue wash over the restaurant kitchen.
Ray, along with several other staff and diners, were pressed together beneath a couple of stainless steel preparation tables. His knees were drawn up to his chest, his body squeezed against the others. There were two kids amongst their number, and their terrified whimpers drew frightened looks and whispered warnings from their parents.
Ray didn’t blame them. The noise outside the barricaded kitchen doors would make anyone’
s blood run cold. He checked his watch — less than thirty minutes since he’d walked out of the IMAX. Everything had happened so fast Ray barely had time to catch his breath.
After his odd and frustrating encounter in the IMAX he’d headed back through the mall, deciding to console himself with a decent steak and a beer. He’d veered towards the Tex-Mex restaurant he’d passed earlier and took a table inside. He was sipping a cold beer when he’d heard the commotion. He turned towards the IMAX entrance and saw people spilling through the doors and scattering across the concourse. Some were hurrying away, looking over their shoulders, tugging at the arms of their frightened children. Others were running fast, pounding past the restaurant, pumping arms, colliding with others. Then he’d heard screaming, a mixture of fear, pain and anger, echoing across the mall. They kept coming, streaming past the restaurant, pushing, shoving, like a herd of frightened deer.
Then he saw the woman.
She was twenty yards away, a young woman, blond, pretty — and covered in blood. She stood still, her head snapping left and right, then she looked right at Ray. Her eyes were cold and dead, and Ray swallowed a frightened yelp. Then she was running towards him, a scream of rage tearing from her throat. Ray’s limbs were frozen. The woman had almost reached the restaurant when a fleeing group of shoppers cut across her path and she crashed into them, knocking them to the ground like bowling pins.
Deafening gunfire echoed through the mall, snapping Ray out of his inertia. He backed away, deeper inside the restaurant. People around him were scrambling in every direction, knocking over chairs and tables. Food squelched under his shoes. This was Baghdad, Ray realised. This is what it must have been like.
He heard glass breaking and more gunshots. The noise was incredible, and terrifying. He heard more screams. No, not screams, more like the howls and screeches of wild animals. A pack of bloodied and infected people scrambled past the restaurant, knocking over tables and chairs, chasing down their victims. Any moment now one of them would spot him.
He turned and ran for the kitchens, and collided with a young family. He tried to steer them towards the double doors nearby but the man shoved him away, his face confused, frightened. Ray grabbed the kids’ arms and dragged them into the kitchen. Mom and dad were right behind him, screaming, clawing at Ray’s shirt. A huddle of chefs and waiting staff looked at them with wide eyes as they barged through the door. One of them, a Latino in his thirties, dragged them in and dropped the door bolts. Then he’d hit the lights.
‘Help me, quick!’ he gasped, wrestling with a tall, glass-fronted refrigerator. Ray and a couple of others helped him move it in front of the doors. ‘Everyone, out of sight, now!’
They scurried beneath the food preparation tables. Ray’s chest was heaving, his throat raw. He was badly out of shape.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ She was crouched underneath the adjacent table, a young lady in chef’s whites, her face almost the same colour as her tunic.
‘Quiet!’ hissed the Latino. He had a gold name badge above his left breast pocket.
‘Felipe, right?’
The man shifted around and looked at Ray. Beads of sweat dotted his smooth face, but he looked pretty much together. He certainly had smarts enough to seal the room and knock the lights off.
‘I know what this is,’ Ray told him. Now everyone was listening, staring at Ray, hanging on his next words. ‘Remember that thing in Baghdad? The virus?’
Felipe’s mouth dropped open. ‘You think that’s what this is?’
Ray nodded his head. The noise spiked as people cursed and whimpered. The two kids he’d dragged inside were crying, their mother clutching them together, her own sobs competing with theirs.
‘We have to be very quiet,’ Ray warned, raising a finger to his lips. ‘We’re safe as long as we’re quiet.’
‘Not if they get in here,’ said the kids’ dad.
Ray turned back to Felipe. ‘Is there another way out of — ’
The kitchen doors shook with considerable force. The refrigerator wobbled.
‘Open the fucking doors!’
The voice boomed around the kitchen, a man’s voice, obviously terrified.
‘What do we do?’ The girl again.
‘Leave the motherfucker out there!’ It was the guy next to Felipe, a skinny African-American in soiled chef’s whites and a red bandanna wrapped around his head.
The doors shook again. Something fell to the ground and smashed.
‘Let him in, for god’s sake,’ pleaded a middle-aged lady, black streaks of mascara painted down her face.
‘We let him in, those crazy fuckers could get in here too. Is that what you want?’ Leon snapped at her.
‘Pipe down, all of you!’ Ray crawled out from under the table and very slowly peered over the edge. The refrigerator had blocked out the doors’ round windows, except for a half-moon of glass. The man was peering inside. His eyes widened.
‘I fucking see you, man! Let me in! Please!’ He pummelled the door with his fists.
Ray ducked back down. ‘We have to help him,’ he told Felipe. The restaurant manager shook his head.
‘No chance, man.’
‘That’s right,’ agreed Leon. ‘No one’s doin’ nuthin.’
Ray opened his mouth to answer when an ear-splitting scream filled the kitchen. Ray risked another look and saw a melee’ of arms and bloodied faces. The man was still screaming, in pain, in desperation. The doors buckled. The refrigerator wobbled violently, the door swinging open. Chilled goods spilled to the ground. Wild, bloodshot eyes filled the half-moon. Ray ducked back down.
‘We need to get out of here,’ he told them. They were all looking at him now. They needed reassurance, leadership. Ray was unsure whether he was up for the job or not, but right now he didn’t have much choice. ‘Is there another way out?’
‘There’s a service corridor out back,’ Felipe told him, pointing across the kitchen. ‘It leads to the loading bay.’
‘There’s a security booth out there too,’ Leon added. ‘We can hide in there. They got guns and radios — ’
’To hell with that!’ blurted the kids’ dad. ‘I say we get as far away from this place as possible.’
Mascara woman gasped. ‘Dragging those poor babies with you? Are you insane?’
Then a thought hit Ray. He jammed his hand in his pocket, pulled out his phone. No signal. ‘Somebody call nine-one-one,’ he told them.
Everyone tried. No one else had a signal either.
The doors shook again, and more hands pummelled the wood like a deafening, discordant drum beat. Maybe it was because they’d seen Ray, or maybe it was the smell of food. Either way they had to get out of there. It was Leon who stated the obvious.
‘Those doors ain’t gonna hold. Let’s get the fuck out of here while we can.’
Ray nodded. ‘He’s right, but we should try and shore up that barricade. Once they see us they’ll go nuts. They’re clever too. They work stuff out.’
‘How the fuck d’you know?’ Leon asked, his eyes narrowing.
‘It doesn’t matter. The fact is we have to buy ourselves time. I suggest we try and shore them up with something, give the others a chance to get to the security post.’
Felipe nodded. ‘Sounds like a plan.’
Ray took a headcount. There were fourteen of them, five guys, seven ladies and the two kids. This was no time for an equality debate. The guys were all bigger, stronger. It might just keep them alive. They thrashed out a rudimentary plan beneath the table, but the kids’ dad wasn’t buying it. He was getting his family out, and that was final. No one argued.
Ray looked around the shadowy faces and forced a confident smile. ‘Ready?’ He was met with silent nods and wide eyes. ‘Okay, let’s do this.’
Slowly and quietly they eased themselves out from their hiding place. There was no cover between the tables and the entrance to the service corridor. When they moved, the infected would see them.
Everyone
crouched, like sprinters waiting for the gun.
‘On the count of three; one, two…three!’
Ray scrambled to his feet and the group split, the guys scrambling towards the freezer chest, the others to the back of the restaurant. The infected howled and the doors rocked beneath the onslaught. Bloody fingers squeezed through the gap as they manhandled a long freezer chest and jammed it against the glass-fronted refrigerator, adding significant weight to the barricade.
‘Let’s go,’ Ray commanded.
The howls of the infected chased them through the staff area towards another door plastered with security signs. Felipe threw it open, disappearing to his right. Ray was the last man out and followed the others down a long corridor with cinderblock walls. Ray’s lungs started to burn. Screaming echoed along the corridor and suddenly Ray cannoned into Leon.
They’d stopped.
Ray saw they were twenty yards short of another set of double doors, solid ones with hazard signs and metal kick plates. A CCTV camera pointed down towards it, and beyond that door, the screaming intensified.
‘Oh shit,’ he heard Felipe whisper.
And then the doors flew open.
Ray saw the father, his neck soaked with blood, his family no longer by his side. The young girl in chef’s whites pushed past him, snarling, crimson blood soaking her tunic.
Ray put a hand to his mouth. ‘Jesus Christ — ’
The boy squeezed past his father’s legs. He wailed an awful, animal scream, then he ran towards them on chubby, bloodied legs.
Leon turned and shoved Ray against the wall.
‘Move!’ he roared, then they were all running back the way they’d come.
Ray’s shoes pounded the concrete, their stampede echoing off the cinder block walls. He passed the door to the restaurant and glimpsed arms and legs squeezing through the failing barricade. He heard snarls and grunts behind him, and the rumble of chasing feet. The only thing that would keep him alive now, and stop him turning into one of those monsters, was speed. Ray couldn’t remember the last time he’d run for anything.