A Pound of Flesh: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (41 page)

The guard stopped beating on the door and
pivoted incrementally on one foot, his right arm holding the Glock
near his leg. “You fucking with me Ian?”

Finger tense on the SCAR’s trigger, Cade
barked. “Drop the pistol... now.”

Cliff squinted at the blocky silhouette, and,
forgetting to drop the pistol, raised his arms.

With a soft report two silenced rounds left
Cade’s SCAR. The first bullet entered the man’s open mouth, struck
his mandible bone, caromed slightly left and down severing his
internal carotid artery, while the second 5.56x45 mm round hit
squarely between his eyes. The resulting kinetic energy hinged him
backward and spun his body to the carpeted floor, face down and
dead.

Cade stepped over the bloody corpse to take
stock of the door. He called Maddox forward where they conferred
and agreed the door had a steel core, and since it was locked from
the inside could not be breached quietly.

Builders of mansions typically used the best
materials money could buy, Cade thought. And this door was no
exception.

“Stand back,” Maddox warned as he fired a
tight pattern of slugs into the door and frame around the handle,
then in one fluid motion kicked it inward.

Moving like mercury the team swarmed the
room.

Each operator had taken down hundreds of
rooms in this manner, both under fire and nice and quiet and serene
like this one.

Lopez crossed the room, opened the French
doors and checked out the veranda, calling “Clear,” a second
later.

Tice rushed through an open doorway which he
guessed led to the master bathroom. And after probing the immense
spa-like suite he yelled, “Clear.”

The final “Clear,” emanated from the
cavernous walk-in closet a moment before Maddox stepped back into
the master bedroom.

Cade stood at the foot of a four post bed
that had to be a king plus if there was such a thing. A lone figure
lay still underneath covers that through his NVGs looked like some
kind of shimmering alien fabric. He clutched a corner of the
bedspread and yanked hard. The satin sheets slithered to the floor
exposing a frail looking man who Cade guessed had been playing
possum to avoid detection.

Lopez removed a glove and checked for a pulse
while Cade kept his SCAR aimed on the unmoving man.

“Is he alive?” Cade asked as he removed a
handful of photos from his breast pocket and began comparing them
with the man’s face. Though the pictures that Nash had provided at
the briefing were several years old, the likeness was
unmistakable.

“He’s alive... but it looks like he has
self-medicated,” Tice said, holding up a pill bottle. “Ambien...
some kind of sleeping pill.”

“That’s not all,” Lopez said, indicating the
empty champagne bottles.

“Wake him up,” Cade said impatiently. Then he
went about the business of getting them a ride home. “Jedi One-One
this is Anvil actual, how copy?”

After a second of silence Ari Silver’s voice
crackled in Cade’s earpiece and said, “Copy that Anvil actual. We
will be wheels up in one mike. How about those SAMs?”

“Benedict Arnold is in custody and all arrows
are broken. I repeat arrows are broken,” Cade said, speaking in
code and letting Ari know that they had Robert Christian in custody
and that the Patriot batteries had in fact been destroyed.

Chapter 47

Outbreak - Day 12

Jackson Hole, Wyoming

The House - 3:01 a.m.

Lucas swept the flashlight beam over the pair
of generators. “The gas lines have been cut,” he whispered.

“On both of them?”

“Yes. And some of the wires have been
tampered with,” Lucas added.

“Ian said that
bitch
Clay wasn’t going
to let Robert Christian get away with sending saboteurs and
assassins into Colorado Springs. Like stirring up a hornet’s nest.”
He cursed under his breath. “I bet there’s a division of Marines in
the valley.”

“Get a grip Liam. Did you hear air transports
or troop helicopters?”

“No.”

“Then how in the hell does a Division of
anything get into this valley?” Lucas asked.

Silence.

“No doubt we’re dealing with a small group of
Special Forces. What we need are the night vision goggles.”

Liam wore a pained look. “Carson pulled rank
and took every pair with him to Minot.”

“That was days ago. He left nothing
here?”

Liam shrugged.

“The M-60?” Lucas queried.

Liam replied, “It’s in the garage in the back
of the H2.”

“Get it and fall back to the guest house.
We’d be stupid to engage a team of shooters on their terms.”

“What about Cliff and the guys in the
mansion?”

“They’re on their own,” Lucas said, shaking
his head slowly. “I’m saving my own skin.”

“Amen brother,” Liam said as he set out to
get the big gun.

***

Miner’s Butte SOAR Loiter - 3:01 a.m.

“Kick the tires and light the fires,” Ari
said as he tightened his harness and ignited the turbines. “We have
a paying fare, gents—and they’re bringing baggage.”

The rotors spun slowly at first then spooled
up, transferring minute vibrations through the airframe.

Ari pulled pitch and rocketed the Ghost Hawk
into the crisp night air.

Durant, sitting in the left seat, input the
GPS coordinates Cade had relayed to him and brought up the exfil
point on the topo map. “The butte juts to the north fifteen hundred
AGL. The mansion is on the north end of the finger.”

“Copy that,” Ari answered. Then tearing his
eyes from the green glow of the burning SAM sites he looked aft and
said, “Warm up the mini, Hicks.”

***

The House - 3:01 a.m.

Cade snatched a crystal vase off of a side
table which was flanked a couple of overstuffed chairs, and tossed
the silk flowers on the carpet. “Flex-cuff Sleeping Beauty,” he
hissed as he went into the master bath.

A minute passed before he returned, carrying
the vase filled with cold water.

The second the water hit the prone man he
jerked awake, straining against his bonds, then rolled off of the
bed hitting the ground with a hollow thump.

Cade put a boot on the man’s boney ankle,
then knelt down making sure that his knee was strategically placed
on a softer more delicate area.

The man grunted and writhed, obviously in
extreme pain.

Thrusting the picture Daymon had given him
into the prone man’s face he barked, “Where is this woman?”

A sly grin spread across Robert Christian’s
face.

Putting all of his weight behind the knee
Cade asked slowly and forcefully, “Is she still here?”

Teeth clenched in agony the old man sneered
and said, “You’re too late Sir Galahad... she’s gone.”

“Tice... Maddox... take this photo. See if
you can find her. I want all of the rooms in the upper floor
searched,” Cade said, thinking that the bedrooms were the most
likely place for the dirt bag to keep his concubines.

Looking down at the prisoner, Lopez shook his
head then turned his gaze towards Cade.

“I promised,” Cade said in a low voice.

No, you compromised
, Lopez
thought.

“Give me a hand,” Cade said as he pulled the
prisoner to his feet.

Together the two operators hustled him
through the French doors onto the veranda.

Cade roughly shoved Christian onto a teak
chaise lounge chair. “Don’t move.”

“I’m declaring diplomatic immunity,” Robert
Christian blurted, “and as President of New America, a sovereign
nation—”

Lopez removed a sweat stained bandanna from
his cargo pocket and shoved it deep into the man’s mouth. “Saddam
Hussein tried that angle when they caught him in Tikrit... and look
where it got him,” he said, miming hanging himself with an
imaginary noose.

“Nothing,” Maddox stated as he walked in the
door, having just returned from searching the rest of the upper
level.

“We must have cleared fifteen rooms each with
its own commode.” Then closing the door behind him, Tice added.
“How many shitters does one man need?”

As if in response to his question automatic
rifle fire raked the door, pinging off of the steel core and
sending shards of wood from the casing rocketing into the master
suite.

“Taking fire from the hallway,” Maddox calmly
stated.

After another volley the firing stopped.

Stalking from the veranda into the suite,
Cade leveled his SCAR and fired a pair of full auto bursts into the
drywall to the left of the door. Screaming ensued from the hallway.
Then pleading. Cade emptied his SCAR into the wall near the
floor.

The screams ceased.

“Maddox, you cover the door,” Cade said as he
made his way out onto the veranda. Then, sensing the low timbre hum
of Jedi One-One, he activated an IR strobe and placed it on the
roof’s edge to mark their location. The device, which flashed
brightly in the infrared spectrum, could only be seen with the aid
of night vision goggles.

Durant’s voice crackled in Cade’s earpiece.
“Jedi One-One to Anvil actual, I have eyes on you. How copy?”

Craning his head to get a visual on the Ghost
Hawk, Cade answered, “Good copy. Are you ready for a tricky
exfil?”

“I was born ready,” Ari stated as he deployed
the landing gear and banked the helo gently while glancing over his
right shoulder. In the distance fires raged bright yellow and green
in his NVGs as the burning Patriot battery lit up a good portion of
the elk refuge. “Good job negating the air defenses,” he added.

“Least we could do,” Cade replied. “You’re
going to have to perch one wheel on the deck rail.”

“Just like the Hindu Kush,” Ari said,
referring to the desolate high altitude mountain range in
Afghanistan that he had regularly ferried SF operators in and out
of during his deployments there. “Rock pinnacle... wood deck...
what’s the difference.”

Cade watched the hulking chopper as it
approached and soon the thrumming Ghost Hawk’s rotor wash was
whipping the surface of the infinity pool to a glowing froth.

The starboard wheel kissed the deck and the
door slid back revealing the Hawk’s dimly illuminated interior.

Cade walked the prisoner ahead of him, and
with a helping hand from Lopez forcefully threw the billionaire
President wannabe into the open door head first. He glanced right
and noticed the reassuring silhouette of Sergeant Hicks manning the
deadly mini-gun. “
Go, go, go
,” he yelled over the comms.

Tice jumped in first and took a seat at the
aft bulkhead.

Cade covered the French doors as Maddox
climbed aboard.

Once everyone was onboard the helo Cade
joined them, closed the door and strapped in on the port side.

Ari increased power, putting a couple of feet
between the wheel and the deck, then retracted the gear. “No bad
guys on the loose?” Ari asked Cade, immediately regretting his
words.

Green tracers erupted from the large house a
few hundred yards northeast of the swimming pool. The glowing
bullets ripped through the night air barely missing the helo’s
belly.

Ari glanced right and slid Jedi One-One
sideways and away from the mansion to give Hicks a clean angle on
target.

“Engaging,” Hicks said. The gun’s electric
whine filled the fuselage as he let loose with a three hundred
round burst. The tracers chewed up the house leaving only tattered
curtains where the upper story window used to be.

“Good shooting Hicks,” Lopez said,
high-fiving the usually reserved crew chief.

As the wheels seated into the fuselage with a
dull clunk Ari pulled pitch and then skimmed the Ghost Hawk over
the infinity pool before diving towards the valley floor below.

Cade glanced out the window and watched as
tracer fire probed the night sky then disappeared when the mansion
left his line of sight.

Ari’s voice crackled over the comms. “Before
you all start popping the party favors I have some bad news
courtesy of First Sergeant Whipper.”

“What now?” Cade interjected.

“His tanker pilots have foraged enough fuel
to last a week or two... but…”

“Why is there always a but?” an exasperated
Tice asked.

Continuing, Ari said, “Oilcan Five-Five took
off a few minutes ago from Schriever and
was
going to
rendezvous with us near the Utah border, but they had to RTB
(return to base) because of a faulty fuel line.”

Tice chimed in again. “Pretty ironic huh...
big old Herc gets grounded because its engines can’t get enough
fuel.”

Shaking his head at Mr. Murphy’s poor sense
of humor, Cade asked, “How soon until Whipper has another tanker
fueled and wheels up?”

“That Hercules was the
only
bird left.
The other tankers went back out to suck the tanks dry at Altus AFB
in Oklahoma,” Ari said. “I’m going to have words with Whipper when
we get back. And odds are Nash knew nothing about it.”

“Talk about putting all your eggs in one
basket,” Tice said bleakly.

“It’s your fault Spooky,” Lopez said. “You
jinxed us Mister W
hat Could Go Wrong
?”

“Bottom line... we’ll need to refuel at the
Jackson Airport or chance Grand Junction again,” Ari said, then
returned his full attention to his beloved Ghost Hawk.

***

Teton Pass Highway 22 - 3:07 a.m.

Lu Lu labored to conquer the ten percent
grade of the Teton pass highway.
Girl’s way past due for a tune
up,
Daymon told himself for the umpteenth time since the start
of summer.
Fuckers probably ate my mechanic
, he mused.

Suddenly an overwhelming feeling of loss
washed over him as the memories of the past—before the dead began
to walk—came flooding back. Would he be able to find someone to
take Heidi’s place? No person on the planet could fill her size
nines, of that he was certain. He thought about going into his
wallet for her picture until he remembered that Cade had it.