When the Future Ended (The Zombie Terror War Series Book 1)

by David Spell

  “Don’t touch the black girl. The boss will like her. The white girl is mine first and I’ll take care of the guy.”

  Neither of her friends understood what was said, but they had almost reached the humvees. Before Washington could shout a warning to her friends, the leader’s rifle came up and a loud shot startled her. Jerry screamed and fell to the pavement clutching his chest. The two women instinctively turned to run but strong arms grabbed them, dragging them towards the pickups.

  Their captors spun them around and forced the two women to watch as the man with the tattoos walked over to Jerry and fired a shot into his head. Tina screamed, Janelle cried, the gang members laughed as the leader walked towards them, smoke still curling out of the end of his rifle.

  He took his time letting his eyes rove over both of his captives’ bodies. “You run, you fight, we kill you. You belong to cartel now. Comprende?”

  Both of the girls managed to nod their heads and were each dragged into the back of separate pickups. The criminals had orders not to hurt or rape either woman, their commander designating the white girl for himself and the black one for the big boss. That didn’t keep the gangsters from ripping their shirts open and groping them as they made their way back to their headquarters.

  Janelle lost count of how many times she had been violated and abused since their capture. The greasy cartel leader had forced himself on her that afternoon, keeping her locked in his apartment for over a week, raping her repeatedly. When he had tired of her, he had sent her to the ‘pool’ where the rest of the captive women were kept on the ninth and tenth floors.

  After being sent to join the other sex slaves, she had been used and abused several times a week. The captives were there for the cartel soldiers’ use and those animals used them a lot. Janelle had finally grown immune to the sounds of the other girl’s cries or screams. She had only tried to fight back once when one of the scumbags pulled her into a bedroom and began molesting her. He had beaten her and then held a knife to her as he raped her, threatening to cut her throat. In hindsight, Janelle wished that she had kept resisting so that he would have killed her.

  Washington had become friends with several of the other captives, their common plight creating bonds of dependence. Melissa, the girl to whom she had grown the closest, had been beaten to death several nights earlier by the man she was supposed to be treating. She had learned his name: Jorge Quintero, the second-in-command.

  He had shown up drunk, like most of their captors did, and dragged Missy into one of the bedrooms. A few minutes later her screams shattered the night and the sound of fists striking flesh lodged in the pit of Janelle’s stomach. She had rushed out of the room she shared with five other women, knowing it was useless, but feeling that she had to try to do something.

  The Rat, the nickname the girls had given one of the guards assigned to them, stood outside the bedroom door where the sounds of the beating intensified. Washington and two other girls approached but the Rat looked at them, shaking his head, and raising his weapon. When the three women didn’t leave, the guard racked a round into the shotgun and leveled it at them.

  Janelle felt completely impotent, angry tears streaming down her face. She clenched her hands into fists so tightly she could feel the fingernails digging into her palms. Her friend was being brutalized and there was nothing that she or anyone else could do to stop it. This wasn’t the time to make a stand, but it was the moment in which she vowed that she would kill Quintero and as many of the others as she could before they killed her. When she found out later that Missy was dead, Washington cried herself to sleep.

  Late the next afternoon, one of the few guards with any English, Pedro, asked if any of the prisoners had medical training. The women merely stared at the floor, none wanting to help their captors in any way. Behind his back, the women called him Snake because of his beady eyes.

  The guard left but returned twenty minutes later. This time, he asked for anyone with medical training, promising them extra food and that no one would have sex with them or hurt them while they treated a patient. Washington’s hand went up.

  “I have some medical training.”

  Several of the other girls looked at her with surprise. Why would she offer to work with the men who had caused them such pain?

  “Bueno,” Snake said, motioning towards the door.

  Pedro got into the elevator with her, pushing the button for the forty-ninth floor. The young woman had no idea what she was volunteering for, but she hoped that it might provide her with an opportunity to strike back. She was led into an apartment where four other Mexicans sat drinking beer in the large living room, their rifles laying beside them.

  Snake nodded at one of the bedrooms, sudden fear filling the woman’s heart. Maybe it was a trick, Janelle thought. She quickly put that out of her mind. If they wanted her, they could have raped her downstairs, just like all the times before. Snake had forced himself on Washington twice before, not that she was keeping count.

  Antonio Corona sat in a chair beside the bed, staring at a motionless figured covered by bloodstained white sheets. His eyes recognized Janelle as Snake led her into the room.

  “She said she has medical training, Jefe,” he said in Spanish.

  Corona nodded, staring into Janelle’s eyes. “You nurse?” he asked in halting English.

  “No, I was in school to be an EMT, an emergency medical technician.”

  The cartel leader didn’t understand so Washington rephrased her answer.

  “I was training to work on an ambulance.”

  “Ah, bueno. Jorge hurt very bad. You check him?”

  Janelle had to swallow her revulsion and forced herself to answer calmly. “Of course. How was he injured?”

  “No sé. He in big fight. Maybe grenade or bomb.”

  She nodded. In reality, she could care less how the animal had been hurt, but she needed to play her part well. God or fate or luck had given her this opportunity. One way or another, she would kill Quintero, and if the opportunity presented itself, she would take out Corona and as many others as she could before they managed to kill her. She had to bide her time for a few days and get them to let their guard down.

  “I need to examine him,” Janelle said, walking towards the bed.

  Antonio stood up and grabbed her by the left arm, putting his face close to hers. “We watch you. If you hurt Jorge, your death will be long and slow. Entiende?”

  It took every ounce of self-control not to try and scratch out the animal’s eyes. Not yet, she told herself. Make your death count. Take some of them with you.

  “I understand,” she answered, looking down and trying to appear subservient.

  The cartel leader released her arm and watched as she pulled the sheet back, exposing a sleeping or unconscious Jorge. He was on his stomach, clad only in his boxers, several open wounds visible on his back. Blood oozed out of two of the most serious ones, dried blood surrounding the others, and she noted injuries to the back of his head.

  Washington took a deep breath, forcing herself not to gag. There were cuts and scrapes on the Mexican’s shoulders and elbows. Corona had Snake help her turn Jorge over so she could check his front side, also. His left eye was swollen and dried blood covered his face and ears, plus both of his knees were gashed open.

  She pulled one of the eyelids open, unable to see the pupil in the unlit room. “I need some light to check his eyes.”

  Antonio handed Janelle a small flashlight. The generator was now only being operated a few hours a day to conserve fuel. When she shone the light into the injured gangster’s eyes, she saw that the pupils were dilated and didn’t react to the light. Those were two of the primary identifiers for a concussion, she remembered from one of her courses before she had dropped out. She also noted the dried blood around Quintero’s ears.

  Washington handed the flashlight back to the cartel leader. “He’s got a brain injury, but I can’t do anything about that. He may wake up today, tomorrow, or n
ext week. I don’t know. All I can do is clean and bandage his wounds so that they don’t get infected. It also looks like his eardrums have burst. He may have lost his hearing, temporarily or permanently. We won’t know until he wakes up.”

  The words ‘brain injury’ had the desired affect on Corona, stunning him into momentary silence. “Is he going to die?” he asked quietly.

  I sure hope so, the young woman thought. I just hope I’m the one to kill him, and if I’m lucky, you, too.

  “I don’t know. I can monitor his condition, but I need a first-aid kit if I’m going to take care of his wounds.”

  Corona yelled to one of his guards in the other room to go and find a first-aid kit. This was followed by the sound of a door opening and closing. He stared at Janelle for several minutes.

  “You stay here, in other bedroom, close to Jorge. Pedro will sleep on couch in living room,” he said, nodding at Snake. “No one will hurt you, but you take care of him,” pointing at Quintero.

  Two of the holes on the wounded man’s back were deep and needed stitches. Washington didn’t trust herself to sew him up. It was all she could do to keep from throwing up every time she changed his bandages. She suspected that there was possibly something inside his back. What was the word she had heard in class? Shrapnel? Metal fragments, maybe? Janelle was no surgeon and didn’t intend to learn on this scumbag.

  Jorge had regained consciousness the night before, but his brain had really been scrambled. He babbled incoherently in Spanish, calling for Antonio. Pedro aka Snake, had alerted the guard stationed outside the door to go get the boss. A few minutes later Corona arrived, a concerned look on his face.

  The cartel leader tried to talk to his lieutenant, but Quintero mumbled about helicopters, bombs, explosions, and zombies. After a few minutes, the wounded man fell back into unconscious.

  Tony the Tiger turned to Washington. “He say something to you?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand Spanish,” she lied. “It just sounded like he was calling for you.”

  The gangster sat with his friend a while longer and Janelle went back to bed. She actually found herself smiling at something she had heard Quintero say before the boss had gotten there.

  “The American military is coming. They’re going to kill us all.”

  That thought actually gave the young woman a sense of hope for the first time in months.

  Dobbins Air Force Base, Marietta, Georgia, Tuesday, 1030 hours

  Chuck walked out of the indoor firing range, happy with what he was seeing. The SEALs were up at the moment, working through some room clearing drills, clearly the right ones for the job that McCain had in mind for them. The range had been set up like a shoot house, allowing the Marine range officer to change up the scenarios each time a team went through.

  The ops plan left the individual units intact and allowed them to focus on their strengths. The CDC agents were tasked with recovering the virus and taking out any cartel members who got in their way. One of the women who had been rescued by the SEALs in El Paso, the one who understood Spanish, told them that she thought all the extra weapons were stored on the twenty-fifth floor. Chuck was hoping that the vials containing the bio-terror weapon would be there as well.

  She also knew that the two cartel leaders occupied the forty-ninth and fiftieth floors. The rescued hostage couldn’t be any more specific than that. The CDC team would just have to start at the top and work their way down until they found the cartel’s armory.

  The SEALs and SAS would be inserted by helicopter a few blocks away. The Navy commandos had been given the job of locating and securing the hostages on the ninth and tenth floors. After the women were safe, the SEALs would consolidate them all to one floor.

  A few of the warriors would stay to protect them, letting the others go to continue searching the building and engaging cartel members. They would be working their way up, searching the building for hostiles. The SAS would enter the building with the SEALs, but would start at the bottom, working their way up floor-by-floor hunting for bad guys.

  The National Guard troops would eliminate the gangsters guarding the vehicle depot at the corner of Peachtree Road and Piedmont Street. After the parking lot was under their control, they would leave one of the hummers and three soldiers there and would tactically deploy their other two vehicles on the back side of the cartel’s HQ.

  Drone footage had shown a two-vehicle patrol of cartel soldiers always cruising the area. Plan A called for the patrol to be taken out by the unmanned aircraft. If that wasn’t practical, Plan B involved the National Guard troops or the Marines engaging the gangsters when they tried to get into the fight. Lieutenant Colonel Clark would also be the assistant mission commander, ready to take charge if something happened to McCain.

  The Marines would deploy in two Light Armored Vehicles to the front side of the high-rise building. The LAVs were armed with a 25mm cannon and an M249 machine gun, and the three person crews for the LAVs had jumped at the chance to be part of the operation. The goal of the National Guard and the Marines was to form a loose perimeter around the cartel’s headquarters, preventing any of the gang members from escaping.

  For the last five days, the training had been intense. They had started at 0800 hours with one group in the range, the other groups practicing helicopter or vehicle insertions, or doing walk-throughs in one of the large aircraft hangars. After lunch, they met as a group, studying satellite maps, discussing strategy and contingencies, and looking for ways to reduce any chance of friendly fire.

  After that, the individual units split off and went over their own part in the operation. Redundancy is the best way to prevent mistakes and they went over the plan again and again, making sure each operator knew their role, as well as their teammates’. As the mission commander, McCain led the group meetings. When the smaller groups met, he wandered around listening, learning, and answering questions.

  The two CDC elements would infiltrate together, Tu leading the men from Washington, D.C., and Andy leading those from Atlanta. Chuck would be in Major Singleton’s Pave Hawk directing the action and monitoring radio traffic. Two additional helicopters would be overhead providing support to the operators on the ground. A fourth Pave Hawk would be in the area, acting as the medevac in case anyone was wounded. The Air Force reserve crewmembers were paramedics in their civilian jobs and had also received extensive combat first-aid training.

  Admiral Williams’ bodyguards, Tim and Tom, would drive in with the Marines. They would be the only troops that McCain had in reserve. The former Delta operator and the former SEAL Team Six member would stay with the Marines in front of the building, available to deploy wherever they might be needed.

  McCain glanced down at the ops plan in his hand, amazed at the amount of experience and skill they were taking into this mission. We might just pull this off, he thought, pulling open the door to the administration building.

  Chuck found Admiral Williams seated behind a desk, his head against his chest, napping in the small office he had been provided in the air base’s admin building.

  “Hey, Boss, you got a minute?”

  The older man jerked awake, looking up at McCain, embarrassed that he’d been caught sleeping.

  “Of course. I’m sorry. I must’ve fallen asleep reading these reports.”

  “No problem, sir,” Chuck said, with a smile. “If anyone deserves a nap, it’s you. I just wanted to let you know that I think we’re ready.”

  The admiral yawned and nodded. “That’s good news. I watched some of the training yesterday and I was impressed. Everybody looks sharp. When do you want to go?”

  “What about tonight? Let’s get it over with. Cancel the afternoon training and let everybody get a nap. I think 0400 hours is a good time to hit these bastards. Send the hummers and the LAVs out at 0300 and have them in position. Launch the birds at 0330, and start killing bad guys at 0400.”

  Williams grunted. “If you think the group is ready, you have
my permission to proceed.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  He started to turn but something occurred to him. “Admiral, one more question. Why did you pick me to lead this operation? Colonel Clark has much more experience with these types of missions. Even several of our CDC agents have much more spec ops experience than me.”

  The admiral stared at the younger man for several moments before answering. “After the mission, Mr. McCain. Ask me that question after we wrap this up and I’ll give you the answer.”

  Chuck nodded and went to let the men know that it was game on.

  Dobbins Air Force Base, Marietta, Georgia, Tuesday, 1330 hours

  McCain strode to the front of the room, conversations slowly coming to a halt as the warriors waited to go over the operation plan again.

  “Gentleman, this will be our last meeting,” he said, letting the words hang in the air for a moment. “We’re going in tonight. We’re as ready as we’re gonna be. I just came from the drone operations center and the cartel is up to something. They’ve beefed up their patrols and added a few extra guards around their HQ. Maybe having twenty of their guys killed by Hellfires got their attention.

  “We’ll go over the ops plan again and then you’ll have the afternoon to clean weapons, check your equipment, and get some sleep. 0200 hours will be our wakeup time, the hummers and LAVs will be out the gate at 0300. The helicopters will launch at 0330 and we’ll commence the assault at 0400 hours.

  “Before we go back and review everyone’s responsibilities for the hundredth time, let me mention a couple of things that we haven’t talked about. First of all, the admiral has assured me that each assault team member and support team member will be given a full Presidential Pardon. Hopefully, we’ll never need them, but I’ve been a cop for a long time and I’ve seen too many officers hung out to dry for doing their job.”