“We can all hope,” Colonel Beaurite says. “And count our blessings there isn’t a Stage Five.”
“Have they determined how long the virusite remains viable after Stage Four?” Brooks asks.
“The new estimates are between seven and ten days, but it keeps changing. I’m beginning to think they have no idea how long it takes for the bug to die after it’s expelled from the host. At least the majority of the threat is passed with them,” he answers.
“So long as the virusite spore from the stage fours doesn’t allow it to go airborne,” Brooks says, unknowingly voicing what a number of their scientists were already speculating.
The colonel remains silent for a moment, choosing his next words carefully before asking, “What’s your personal assessment, Major?”
“May I speak freely, sir?” she asks. Brooks wasn’t asking for permission to speak her mind. She was confirming with her commander if he felt it safe to discuss sensitive details.
“Within reason,” Beaurite replies, smiling pleasantly back at her through the satellite connection. This meant under no circumstances was she to provide specific details, or names, while still sounding believable. Honest but vague.
“I believe at our current troop, equipment and weapons level, we’re in an unwinnable situation, sir,” she says.
“Please continue,” he replies, giving her some room to elaborate.
“At this point, we have over eight thousand detainees,” Brooks continues. “We can’t even get an accurate count on how many may be out there. We’re trying to lock down all the roads leading out of state, but I don’t have enough manpower to cover all the possible exit points and be able to transport the detainees from the roadblocks back here. That includes the requisition of Captain Walkers’ men and the local National Guard troops as you ordered.”
“What are you doing with the people you aren’t detaining?” Beaurite asks.
“Turning them around and sending them home. Even if we’re not officially detaining them, we still can’t let them leave the red zone,” Brooks replies, annoyed by the interruption. “At the rate we’re bringing the detainees in, or they wander here looking for safety,” she continues without waiting. “We’ll be closer to ten when all our sweep and transport teams get back. The stadium holds twenty thousand which we can add another ten thousand to by packing them in onto the field. We can also add another ten if we utilize the entire interior of the stadium instead of the secure sections and a few offices as a command post. But by the end of tomorrow, we’ll have run out of capacity to securely contain the threes and we’ll need to use these other locations. The good news is there will be plenty of room. The bad news is, by then we’ll have forty thousand threes because the majority of them will have turned. Frankly sir, I can’t think of a more unwinnable scenario. I’m officially requesting permission for Sterilization Plan Bravo.”
“What are your plans for executing SP Bravo, Major?” Colonel Beaurite asks after an extended silence.
“As discreetly as the situation allows, sir,” she answers, purposely avoiding any details. Identifying when an officer didn’t truly want an answer, was another skill Brooks had learned early in her career.
“I trust your judgment, Major. At the point you’re left with no other viable options, you may utilize SP Bravo. With discretion,” Beaurite says, knowing this order was signing the death warrants of thousands of innocent citizens.
“Understood, sir,” Brooks replies, satisfied with the latitude his order has given her.
“We’ve had sparse reports of infected in the proximity of the base, Carolyn,” he adds, momentarily breaking protocol with the weight of the information. No one had predicted the virusite would reach that far in such a short time. Was it possible another outbreak had occurred closer to Bolivar? Brooks decided the odds of that were extremely low and rejected the idea before vocalizing the words.
“When, sir? Where?” she asks.
“The first report was a few hours ago but they’ve been coming in more frequently and closer in proximity. The last reported sighting was over ten miles from here, but they appear to be moving our direction and we’ve lost contact with a few towns between your location and the base. It could be because of the jamming equipment we’ve put in place, so I don’t want to jump to conclusions. I’ve set up several surveillance teams around the base at the three-mile mark, but none of them have reported anything unusual. I’d have placed more but with the troops you took with you, it’s left us a little shorthanded.”
Along with the knot beginning to twist in her stomach, Brooks felt a brief pang of guilt for having a significant number of their forces with her rather than protecting Army Base Bolivar. She dismissed the guilt quickly, since it was Colonel Beaurite himself who’d given her the orders and determined the troop levels to be deployed with her. But the churning in her guts persisted. It instantly doubled in size when the warning sirens began to sound across the army base and were broadcasted through the computer’s tiny speakers.
“Is that the air raid alarm? What’s going on there, sir?” Brooks asks.
“Hard to tell,” Beaurite replies, standing from his desk and disappearing from the web camera’s limited view.
Brooks was left looking at the large bookcase placed behind Beaurite’s desk, neatly filled with leather-bound volumes of historical military accounts, ancient and contemporary battle strategies and a full, hardback selection of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series. The colonel’s collection included an edition of The Children of Húrin, which Tolkien hadn’t even completed before he died in ’73 and was edited and published from what was available by his son, Christopher Tolkien in 2007. Good old Chris, making one last royalty grab off Dad’s work. She only knew these facts because the colonel had shared the information with her when this specific tome arrived by special delivery less than a year ago. Whatever was going on, Brooks could tell Beaurite hadn’t left his office because she’d heard a knock on his door the moment he stood to investigate the siren. She could hear him talking to whoever had entered his office. They were too far away from the built-in microphone on his laptop to be able to follow the conversation. While she couldn’t make out what the two were saying, she could tell by Beaurite’s staccato delivery and the one-sidedness of the conversation, it wasn’t about a latrine being backed up or that the cook was out of corn for this evening’s meal. Brooks closed her eyes and listened intently, trying to glean any information she could that might give her an advantage in knowing what was happening back at the base.
“Major,” the colonel said when he came back into view of the camera and sat on the edge of his chair. The sharpness in which he’d said the single word startled her from her concentration. If Beaurite had noticed she’d had her eyes closed while he stepped away from their conversation, he didn’t mention it and now he was back to military protocol and all business. The man who came back into view looked older and more grave in his expression than the one she’d been reporting to a moment ago
“I’m going to have to cut our conversation short and sign off. We have a situation here,” was all he offered.
“What’s happening, sir?” Brooks asks, making one last attempt at discovering what was going on at the base that had been her home for the last five years.
“No time to explain,” he replies. “If everything goes well and this is just someone’s overreaction, I’ll give you all the details when you report back in at zero six hundred tomorrow. And have someone turn that damn siren off!” he adds, shouting to someone off-camera.
“And if not?” Brooks replies.
“I won’t be on the call,” he answers, rising from his chair again.
“One more thing sir,” Brooks says, stopping the colonel a second before he punches the disconnect key.
“What is it, Major?” he asks, not bothering to bend down to the camera and forcing Brooks to finish their conversation with his polished belt buckle.
“Operation Washout. Is it a go, sir?”
Beaurite considers the question for a moment. Placing his hands flat on the desk yet still not bringing his face into view of the camera, his belt replies, “Negative. I want to reexamine that option once you’ve had some time to make a further assessment of the situation there. We’ll talk again at zero six hundred. Beaurite out,” he says, pushing the key to disconnect their link. At the same instant their satellite connection was being severed, Brooks thought she heard the sharp report of distant small arms fire come through her speaker, but then the signal was terminated.
“Damn it!” she spat, slapping her laptop closed.
“Good thing those things are built tough,” Sergeant Pete Nichols says to Brooks from the other side of her small office.
“We’ll see,” she says, glaring at the device and briefly speculating on the repercussions of putting a bullet into it.
“Did you hear that, at the end?” Nichols asks. “It sounded like gunfire.”
“That’s what I thought, too. What do you think is going on?” Brooks replies, rising to her feet.
“Given our current situation and the things we’ve seen, I think we should be prepared for the worst,” he says.
Leaning on her desk with both hands, Brooks studies Nichols’ face before asking, “Are you suggesting we’re not going to be getting any more support from Bolivar?”
“I’m saying we may not be getting any more communications from Bolivar,” Nichols replies. “And it would have helped if the old man had given the green light on Washout before signing off.”
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Brooks says. Walking around her desk, she passes in front of Nichols and to the office door on his left. The door led to a smaller office that separated the one she’d commandeered, from the main hallway, and says, “Corporal Whitaker.”
“Yes Major,” the young corporal answers, jumping to attention. He stood so fast he could have sent the chair he’d been sitting in, toppling behind him. The only thing that stopped the chair from bouncing across the small office, was the wall directly behind it. The only thing that prevented Corporal Darren Whitaker from coming to immediate attention was the heavy desk placed in front of it and that he’d been seated behind. As he snapped to the rigid stance, he slammed his thighs into the old metal desk, shoving it more than six inches from the force.
“Come in here,” Brooks orders, having not given Whitaker a second look since calling his name.
“Coming Major,” he grimaced through gritted teeth from the double charley horses he’d just given himself. Grabbing his notepad, he shuffled quickly into Brooks’ office, certain he’d be sporting deep purple bruises in a couple hours. He could already feel the heat rushing to his thigh muscles, along with the cramping and did his best to stand at attention after entering the major’s office.
“Stand easy, Corporal and write this down,” she begins.
Chapter Four
They rode for miles without speaking as the sun slipped over the horizon. The sky above where the orb burned into the ground turned to a beautiful red that only fall brings, fading to hues of dark purples and black the higher it went. The first twinkling stars began to announce themselves, looking down on the insignificant specks below their growing brilliance. From behind the wheel, Pam glanced in the rearview mirror at Joe, huddled under a thick blanket, trying to keep warm.
Before the three of them had gotten back in the car, she and Dave had agreed it probably wasn’t the best choice for him to continue driving. They both understood the effects of adrenaline on the system and the resulting crash when it was over. Although neither had any experience with it, let alone at the recent levels they’d all had surging through their systems. Even before their encounter with the road pirates, they’d planned to switch soon. Dave had been driving since they’d left Mike and Lynn’s place, his back was killing him, and his right knee was stiff. After the recent events, they’d decided the chances were good he might nod-off in the driver’s seat as they cruised down the nearly deserted interstate. Or just crash due to an inescapable and poorly timed muscle cramp. Needless to say, Pam was behind the wheel and was bringing up the tail end of their tiny convoy. But Dave hadn’t gone to sleep as they’d expected he would. Pam glanced over and saw him wide awake and staring through the windshield. His head turned slightly from side to side, keeping an eye on the road and the surrounding shoulders. Dave was scanning both sides of the tiny highway and then watching Mike’s taillights several hundred yards in front of them. A few seconds later, he’d shift his gaze to Zack’s lights further beyond those and then back to the berms. He repeated this with minor deviations, searching for any signs of threat as he absently rubbed his knee.
“You should try to get some sleep,” Pam said. She had to shout the words over the wind rushing through the busted out rear windows and the car’s heater cranked up to max. They had it on full blast, trying to compete with the frigid air blowing in from the sides, but it did little good.
“I’m afraid if I g-go to s-sleep I’ll die f-from hypothermia,” Dave intentionally stuttered.
“No shit!” Joe shouted from beneath the blanket.
“Are you guys okay back there?” Zack asked over the radio, like he’d been listening in on their conversation.
“No,” Dave answered through the walkie-talkie. “We’re either going to have to find another vehicle or a place to hole up for the night. Either way, we can’t keep doing this much longer. It’s freezing in here!” he said, looking at the outside temp indicator on the dashboard display reading forty-six degrees.
“I told you, you should have paid extra for the heated seats,” Mike chimed in from his car.
Dave fought the impulse to tell his father-in-law to fuck off and asked, “Does anyone have any idea where we are?”
“Somewhere between Cloverdale and Haviland,” Mike answered.
“So, we’re…” Dave replied, letting the question hang there without asking it.
“Within thirty-five miles of the state line,” Mike said.
“Thanks,” Dave said. He turned in his seat to look at Joe, who was taking the brunt of the arctic feeling gale. He knew the temp could and would get a lot colder, eventually. But he also knew, adding a forty to fifty mile an hour wind to it, drove forty-six down significantly. Winters in Ohio were usually measured by the windchill, rather than the outside temp. “How are you holding up?” Dave asked him over the seat.
“I’m freaking dying back here!” he replied without thinking. The two of them went silent, each drawing from the recent memory of Dakota’s face being blasted off and glancing at the smeared blood on the seat next to Joe. “You know what I meant,” Joe adds as Dave turned back around.
He resumed his search of the dark horizon when he saw something ahead of them, lighting up a small section of the landscape.
“What’s that ahead?” he asked.
“I think there’s a car lot or something,” Zack radioed, once again as if he was reading Dave’s mind and knowing the question was intended for him. “They must have a generator or something running those lights. Want us to go check it out?”
“Not alone,” Dave replied quickly. “Take the exit and pull over. Turn your headlights off. But keep your foot on the brake so we don’t pile into you from behind,” he added.
“What are you thinking, Dave?” Mike asked.
“I’m thinking about doing exactly what we’d planned to do. But we’re not going to just drive up and go at it. We’ll all pull off and check it out. See if we can see anything or anybody lurking around,” Dave said, as Zack’s taillights veered onto the offramp and came to a stop. “All those lights have got my spidey-senses tingling.”
“Your what?” Mike asked.
“I’m with you, webslinger,” Zack said, having been raised on comic book and movie references his entire life. “Like whoever’s in there wants to draw people in.”
“Ben says he doesn’t like it either and wants to know if he can call dibs on Venom?
” Mike relayed. “I don’t know what that means, but are you guys saying it’s a trap?”
“Tell Ben to bring it on and yes, it could be a trap, Mike,” Dave replied.
Pam followed Mike to the offramp and parked the battered Rogue behind his luxury SUV. Dave opened his door and got out, still holding the walkie-talkie. They were all parked on the shoulder as Dave looked across the distance separating them from the lot. The offramp they were on continued for another two hundred yards or more and ended at a stop sign. From there it was left or right.
Left would head them off into the dark and he could just make out the road twisting to the right, before it disappeared behind a small forest of out of season orchard trees, nestled between two gradually swelling hills on either side. Dave couldn’t help thinking this was what the contemporary Sleepy Hollow must look like.
To the right and angling slightly away from them, sat the place they’d seen while driving. What they’d originally believed to be a car lot, seeing it from the road and it being lit up like a 7-Eleven, next door to a twenty-four-hour marijuana dispensary, wasn’t. At the center of the paved lot was the large, main building. It looked like it might be made from cinderblocks or possibly full cement walls. It had potential as a fortress, if it wasn’t for the large, plate-glass windows that spanned nearly from the ground to roofline on three sides. It wasn’t a huge building and it was only a single story high. Dave estimated it at somewhere between twice the size of a McDonald’s and half the size of a Walmart. Florescent lights glared through the windows and Dave could see aisles lined with heavy shelving, but he couldn’t make out what was filling them.
The lot surrounding the building was also bathed in light and full of cars on the side nearest the narrow interstate. But on the other side, Dave could see vans, utility trucks, backhoes on trailers, and other large equipment he couldn’t identify without getting closer but could tell were big enough in design to be towed behind a truck. A banner was hung above the line of bright lights that circled the edge of the roof. It read, Haviland Hardware & Equipment/Car Rental – Grand Opening! You need it, we have it! Got a job, we’re your tool. Dave read the sign again and wondered if the words, and car supplier or something similar could be on the end of the banner that wrapped around to the blind side of the building. That would make the last line read more like an advertisement than a demeaning insult, and decided it was poor product branding, either way. Someone had colorfully painted, We’ve got cars!!! on one of the large windows, using every color available in tempera paint to make the jagged rings around the words. The same kind that appeared around Pow and Bam above the thugs getting their asses kicked by Batman. Dave thought the front lot full of cars with For Rent on every windshield was plenty of advertising. Dave decided it didn’t really matter. Maybe they just had a lot of extra paint from doing the signs for the cars they didn’t want to go bad, so they used it on the windows. Conversely, maybe they did the windows first and the signs were an afterthought. Either way, it was the same technicolor rainbow’s worth of color in four different shades and combinations. But all the lettering was the same, only varying in size and color. Encircling the entire shebang was the open field they were parked along the edge of. An open expanse of tall grass, thick with shrubs, bushes, and a few stunted trees. However, the foliage was dense enough that an entire army could be hiding in there, if they kept low enough.
The F*cked Series (Book 3): Mean Page 5