Allegiance (36 page)

By the time the quiet
helicopter had moved in close, the sheets had been pulled inside, and a number
of people stood waving their arms in front of the three broken panes, obviously
very happy with the prospect of being rescued.

“How many?” Ari asked as
he fought against the rising rotor wash to keep the helo steady.

Durant answered.
“Thirteen on first count.”

Gaines confirmed the
number. “That’s what I got... lucky number
thirteen
.”

Just as Ari was about to
pull pitch and move away from the building, he noticed one of the survivors, a
tiny Asian lady, furiously scribbling away on what he guessed to be a dry erase
board. “Someone get eyes on the small woman in the middle window. She’s working
on a message for us.”

“Copy that,” Cade said.
Once again he relieved Tice of the Nikon. “You can back her off, Ari. I’ve got
the Spook’s camera.”

As Jedi One-One peeled
away from the vertical face of the building, Cade trained the camera’s
telephoto lens on the dry erase board the woman was holding aloft.

“What’s it say?” Tice
asked, sounding anxious.

“You don’t want to
know.”

“Tell us, Captain,”
Gaines said sharply.

“OK, you asked for it,”
said Cade in an
I told you so
voice. “Floors one, two, four and five...
overrun
with infected
. Her words, not mine.”

“No bueno,” Lopez said.
“You were right, Wyatt, I didn’t want to hear that.”

“Hold on. She’s
erasing—” Durant said. “Looks like she’s writing something else.”

“Come on lady,” Cade
said. He had the viewfinder pressed to his eye and he could see that the rest
of her coworkers shared his sentiment. They looked like they’d run a marathon a
day since this event popped off.
No doubt
, Cade thought,
that these
people were the ones working around the clock to find a cure before the place
fell to the dead.
And after it did, human nature probably kicked in and
people fled the building in order to save themselves. Then, like falling
dominos, once the panic had started it was hard to contain and nearly as
infectious as Omega. He’d seen the same type of aftermath everywhere he’d been
since Z day.

He fought against the
bobbing of the chopper to keep the ungainly foot-and-a-half long telephoto lens
locked onto the woman. Finally, mercifully, she finished scribbling.

“OK. Message to follow,”
said Cade as he read the chicken scratch. Then he relayed his interpretation of
the message. “In not so many words she’s telling us they are trapped in the
large conference room on the northwest corner of the third floor. There are Zs
in the stairwells and roaming the third floor. She indicates they are trapped.”

“Madre,” Lopez said
under his breath.

A few expletives echoed
in the cabin and over the comms as the rest of the team came to grips with the
daunting task ahead of them.

“Fix your NVDs—night
vision devices—and lock and load
gentlemen
... means you too, Tice,” Cade
said as he unplugged his flight helmet and swapped it out for the low-rise
tactical helmet, on which he had already affixed a pair of the newest
generation night vision goggles. When flipped into the down position, the four
stubby stocks would protrude forward in front of the operator’s eyes, making
him look like something straight out of a sci-fi movie.

The rest of the four-man
team swapped out helmets, checked their weapons, and cinched them down to their
chest in anticipation of the rapid fast rope descent to the rooftop.

Cade looked at the men
and smiled inwardly. He wished they had more time to get used to working
together, but these were extraordinary circumstances that called for a lot of
flexibility. The unit had lost a lot of dedicated shooters over the last two
weeks, so he supposed he should be grateful for the guys he had.

The smell of death and
hot exhaust instantly assaulted the cabin as Hicks wrenched open the
starboard-side door and readied the fast rope.

After one quick final
gear check, Cade pointed up with an index finger and bellowed to be heard over
the turbine whine. “Take us to the roof, Ari.” Then, as he gripped the anchored
nylon rope in his gloved hands, he received a slap on the shoulder from the
general.

“Go get ‘em Grayson,”
said Gaines as he reached for the door latch on the port side.

Cade took some calming
breaths, gazed at the mirrored building, and observed his own reflection as the
helicopter rose to the rooftop.

Outbreak - Day 16

50 Miles South of
Victor, Utah

Tran recognized the
woman in the passenger seat and the man to his left, but he had never seen the
driver before, and given the African American man’s exotic looks, if he had, he
was certain he wouldn’t have forgotten the encounter. He remained watchful and
silent as the Tahoe ate up fifty miles of blacktop. In fact, everyone in the
SUV seemed more than content to keep their thoughts and words to themselves.

He tore a strip from his
tartan pajamas and wet it with a splash from one of the bottled waters.

Daymon peered in the
rearview mirror. Scrutinized what his new passenger was up to and decided to
break the silence. “I’ll tell you a little known secret, Tran my man.”

After making little
progress at wiping the congealed blood from his face, Tran met Daymon’s eyes
and hitched his brows as if to say:
Let’s hear it
.

“Fact... the only
natural thing known to man that breaks down blood is... drumroll please...
saliva
.”

“Bullshit, Daymon,” said
Jenkins.

“Try it, Tran,” said
Daymon, shooting a quick glance towards the man.

“Keep your eyes on the
road,” Heidi said sharply.

“There is one catch. It
has to be
your
saliva. I guess it has something to do with the enzymes
in your own spit that breaks down your own blood.”

There was a minute of
silence as the Tahoe bounced along 89 South with the sun punishing everything
outside of the air-conditioned ride.

Tentatively at first—as
if he thought he was the butt of a cruel practical joke and didn’t want anyone
to know he’d been had—Tran spit on the tartan scrap and dabbed at his face.
After a few minutes, he looked at his reflection in the window and said, “Works
great. Thanks.”

After that brief
exchange, the floodgates opened. Tran explained his lengthy relationship with
the billionaire. His voice grew soft when he began to describe the events that
followed after the Omega outbreak, and how his boss’s behavior and demeanor had
changed overnight. He mentioned his friend Fredrick and how Christian had
killed the man for the smallest offense. Tears filled his eyes and he choked up
when he apologized to Heidi for not doing anything more to help her and the
other girls who had been kidnapped, drugged, and taken advantage of at the
House
.

“It wasn’t your doing,”
said Heidi. “It was a guy named Bishop, the brothers Lucas and Liam, and a
little runt named Francis who kidnapped me from the bar.”

Glancing at Tran in the
rearview, the gears began to turn in Daymon’s mind. And as he processed this
new information, he resurrected the plan for revenge that Cade and his team of
Army men had cut short just three days prior. Only now he set his sights set on
a new target, and as the road clipped by he vowed silently to himself that he’d
make Ian Bishop pay for kidnapping Heidi or he would die trying.

Tran dabbed at the deep
fissure on his forehead, wincing as he did so. “Bishop abandoned Robert and a
bunch of us at the mansion,” he said.

Jenkins turned in his
seat towards Tran. “What happened back there... at the torched house near where
we found you?”

“They deserved what they
got,” Tran said without showing remorse.

“Ruthless... you burned
the place down around them?” Daymon pressed.

“I don’t know how that
happened,” answered Tran in a funereal voice. “I let the demons in the house.
That’s all.”

“You did what?” said
Jenkins incredulously.

Tran described in detail
his flight from the mansion in Jackson Hole beginning with the explosions in
the elk refuge, how he had found the keys in the Scout’s ignition, and how the
dead had all but ignored him. Finally he detailed how he’d led the dead to the
house, where, because of the yellow Hummer in the drive, his gut told him the
brothers were.

“You should write a book
about that shit,” exclaimed Daymon.

“Who’s left to read it?”
Jenkins quipped.

“I wasn’t being
literal...” Daymon didn’t have time to finish the sentence. To keep from
plowing into one hell of a roadblock, he mashed the brake pedal to the
floorboards and stopped the big rig in a fashion that would have made the
writers at
Road & Track
proud.

Smoke from the burning
rubber wafted over the truck as it rocked on its springs.

“I told you to watch the
road,” chided Heidi.

Wide eyed, Daymon looked
back at Jenkins. “Effin great brakes on this thing,” was all he could think of
to say. His mouth hinged open as the smoke dissipated and the odds they faced
became evident.

Outbreak - Day 16

Schriever AFB

Colorado Springs,
Colorado

“Stay away from the fence,”
Brook called out to Raven.

Still wobbly on the new
and much bigger bike, Raven risked taking one hand from the handlebars to wave
an acknowledgement to her mom. Just then Max darted by and took a playful nip
at the bike’s knobby rear tire.

“She’s just like Cade,”
Annie said quietly. “That’s a fearless kid you’ve got there.”

“She’s been real
resilient. I even had her shooting Zs again yesterday. Seemed to be no
problem... and that kinda scares me,” Brook said, wiping a tear. “Truth is, I
want my innocent little
bird
back.”

“My girls are
oblivious
,”
stated Annie. “Then again, they are much younger than Raven. You know the last
couple of nights they’ve slept straight through. I think it’s good that they
are letting their guard down a little. It’s a direct result of being inside
here... behind the wire. Provides them a tangible sense of security.”

The perfect opening
presented itself, so Brook seized it. “Why don’t you and the girls come with us
tomorrow. Cade knows about this compound full of likeminded people just outside
of Eden, Utah. May not be as much security as here, but it’s not as close to a
city the size of Denver either.”

“Thanks for thinking
about us, Brook. I’m sure Cade...”

Putting a blanket on the
conversation, a large gray transport plane with Air Force markings roared down
the distant runway and crawled into the sky. Jet engines working hard against
gravity, and trailing black exhaust, the aircraft banked left and took on an
easterly heading.

Both women watched in
silence until it was a distant speck on the horizon.

The kids, who had also
been frozen by the spectacle, resumed their game of tag as soon as the rumble
had dissipated.

“As I was saying, Cade
does not have to honor the pact he and Mike had. That was between them, so you
needn’t feel guilty.” Annie’s face tightened and her brow crinkled. “Me and the
girls will be
just
fine here. Besides... I want to protect their
innocence for as long as I can.”

“The invitation’s open
until we drive through the gate. And there may be a couple of young adults and
a girl a little older than Rave coming with if I can talk Master Grayson into
it. I spent a couple hours talking with the kids... I guess I’m aging myself
when I call them
kids
, but they’re full of so much hope. I couldn’t
imagine being fifteen years younger than I am now and being stuck inside of
here. It’s just not my idea of
living
.”

Annie said nothing.

As they enjoyed the
peals of laughter and the occasional yelp out of Max, both women gazed across
the field, pondering their future.

Brook finally broke the
silence. “Are you
sure
you want to stay at Schriever?”

“I’m positive,” Annie
said, her voice cracking. “This way we can be close to Mike—the girls can visit
him any time they want,” she added, pinning a strand of graying blonde hair
behind her ear.

There was another long
moment of silence.

Brook turned and,
probably for the last time, embraced her dear friend. “Time for a color,” she
said in a low voice as she stroked Annie’s shoulder-length hair.

Annie pulled away
slightly and stared at Brook straight away. “Time for a
frickin’
spa
treatment,” she replied as she shifted her gaze and tracked her twin daughters
as they bounced through the brittle grass.

“And a mani-pedi,” Brook
added jokingly.

The ice was broken and
their conversation morphed to the mundane. At least as mundane as talk can be
with a dozen hungry Zs clutching the fence a hundred yards away.