Indestructible: V Plague Book 7 (11 page)

Navy Petty Officer Jessica Simmons slammed the keyboard in
frustration, barely suppressing a scream.  She was part of the cyber warfare
group the Navy had assembled, and was deep in the sub-basement of a heavily
guarded, non-descript building hidden away on Pearl Harbor Naval Base.  She had
been tasked with cracking the encryption that protected the NSA satellites
orbiting over North America that had survived the EMP, and so far she wasn’t
having much luck.

The NSA had layered multiple levels of security into the
software, each one unique.  So far she had identified and penetrated three
levels, and suspected there were at least two more.  Stuck on the fourth level,
she stared at the lines of code in multiple different windows spread across
three large monitors and let out a heartfelt sigh.

“What’s wrong, Simmons?”  Lieutenant Hunt asked from across
the room.  He was looking up from his own terminal, the light from a monitor
reflecting off the lenses of his glasses, making him appear to have computer
code where his eyes should be.

“Nothing, sir.  It’s just that those paranoid fucks at the
NSA really locked these birds down tight.”  She said, leaning back and rubbing
tired eyes.  She’d been working around the clock for nearly two days, trying to
gain access to the command and control functions of the satellite. 

“Go get a few hours of sleep then come back to it fresh,” he
said.  “You’re the one that got past the firewalls China set up for the
Iranians last year.  If you can do that, you can do this, but not if you’re so
tired you can’t think.”

After a few minutes Jessica nodded and pushed herself
upright out of the chair, groaning as her back protested being forced to
straighten after so many hours of sitting.  Stretching, she winced slightly
then leaned forward and pressed a key that locked her station down.  Other than
a combination of her personal password and fingerprint, only two senior
officers in her division providing their fingerprints simultaneously could
unlock it.

Exiting the room, Jessica passed two security checkpoints
before even reaching the elevator that would take her from the sub-basement she
worked in to the surface.  The ride up was fast, another set of armed guards
nodding at her when she exited into the main lobby of the building where she
worked.  A final security point that checked her out of the facility after
scanning her body and personal possessions and she stepped into a beautiful
Hawaiian afternoon.

The sun was bright and it would have been oppressively hot
and humid if not for the trade winds blowing across the islands.  The fresh air
and daylight invigorated her after she got over her surprise that it wasn’t the
middle of the night.  She’d completely lost all track of time and couldn’t
remember the last time she’d looked at a clock.

Changing directions from the path she’d been on that led to
her quarters, Jessica walked across an immaculate grass field and took a seat
on a bench shaded by several palm trees that rustled in the strong wind that
was blowing the smell of the sea to her.  Idly noticing the massive aircraft
carrier at anchor in the harbor below, she looked up when two fighter jets
roared overhead, part of the round the clock CAP – Combat Air Patrol – that the
Navy and Air Force was flying throughout the island chain.

When she looked back down she was momentarily startled by
the tall, ramrod straight man wearing an Admiral’s stars standing at the end of
the bench.  He was watching the same two jets.  Jessica dropped the pack of
cigarettes that were in her hand and shot to her feet, her right hand snapping
up in a perfect salute.

The Admiral returned the salute and smiled.  “As you were,
Petty Officer.  Didn’t mean to disturb you.  Was just looking for some fresh
air.”

“No problem, sir.”  Jessica said, her eyes flicking across
the uniform and noting the man’s name was Packard.  “I’ll be on my way.”

“Nonsense, young lady.  Sit down and enjoy your cigarette. 
In fact, could I impose on you for one of them?  I quit more years ago than
you’ve been alive, but I don’t think dying of lung cancer is something I need
to worry about any more.”  He smiled again and Jessica picked the pack up,
fumbled it open and held it out in his direction.

Glancing around she noticed half a dozen heavily armed
Marines in full body armor spaced out in a protective bubble around the
Admiral.  She handed him a disposable lighter after he’d selected a cigarette
and he surprised her by holding the flame out for her to light up first.  Every
now and then she encountered older, male officers and always appreciated their
manners. 

Not that her generation of male officers weren’t properly
courteous, but there was just something about the way the men of the older
generations treated women.  There was a degree of chivalry, for lack of a
better word, that was missing in the younger generations.  But then she
supposed women had just as much to do with eroding that as men had.

“Thank you, sir.”  She said after her cigarette was lit. 
The Admiral lit his and extended a hand to offer her a seat on the bench.  Once
she was seated he sat next to her, making sure there was a large amount of open
space between them.

“Thank you,” he said, inhaling deeply.  “I’d forgotten just
how much I liked cigarettes.  I guess that’s the point, though.  If you didn’t
like them you wouldn’t keep buying them and the tobacco companies would be out
of business.  Well, I guess they are out of business now.  Maybe it’s not a
good idea to start smoking again when the supply is going to run out soon.”  He
chuckled at his own musings.  

Jessica sat there, smoking, too nervous in the presence of
such a senior officer to relax and enjoy herself.  The man was pleasant and
charming, but it was never a good idea to lower your guard around an Admiral. 
She had no doubt he would remember any little thing she did that he didn’t
like.

“Cyber warfare?”  He asked after a few moments of silence.

“Sir?”  She asked, surprised.  There was nothing on her
uniform to give away what she did for the Navy.

“Not a difficult deduction,” he smiled.  “I saw the building
you came out of.  And I recognize your name, Ms. Simmons.  Just read a report
from Lieutenant Hunt on your progress.  He seems to think quite highly of your
abilities.”

Jessica didn’t know what to say.  She had thought this was
just a random encounter, but now wasn’t so sure.  She took a drag on her
cigarette but didn’t say anything.

“Any recent progress?”  Admiral Packard asked, drawing a
sideways look from her.

“I’m sorry, sir.  I couldn’t discuss this out here, even if
I was aware of what you were talking about.”  She replied.

The Admiral raised his eyebrows in surprise before
laughing.  “So right you are, Petty Officer.  My apologies.  I wasn’t trying to
place you in a compromising position.”

Compromising position.  The two words triggered a thought in
Jessica’s head that quickly headed down a path she hadn’t tried. 

“Sir, you’re a genius!”  She cried in excitement, field
stripping the cigarette and shoving the butt into her pocket as she jumped to
her feet.  “If you’ll excuse me…”

“By all means, young lady.”  Packard smiled as he watched
Jessica race across the grass and through the doors into the cyber warfare
building.  Finishing his smoke he took his time stripping it of the cherry
before depositing the butt in his pocket.  Standing, he looked at the giant
warship sitting in the blue harbor. 

“The two-faced son of a bitch,” he thought to himself,
referring to the Commanding Officer of the Washington, Captain James.  The man
had decided to throw his lot in with the traitorous President and had gotten a
message out that SEALs were on the way to arrest her. 

That little act had resulted in the death of thirteen SEALs
plus the flight crew of the plane they were on when it was shot down by order
of the President.  Captain James was now in the Pearl Harbor brig, waiting for
Packard to decide what best to do with him.  Dismissing thoughts of the
traitor, the Admiral turned and followed Jessica.

He left his security detail in the lobby, passing through each
checkpoint slowly.  He wasn’t normally a patient man, but he understood the
need to thoroughly scan each person entering the building for any electronics. 
It wasn’t only possible; it was a reality that foreign agents had successfully
placed micro-electronic devices on the person of people accessing secure
facilities in the past.

The people had been unaware they were carrying devices into
extremely sensitive installations.  US counter-intelligence had identified
three such breaches in the recent past, two of them simply listening devices,
but the third had been a data scavenger that was able to read and record
everything that was displayed on monitors within a ten foot radius of its
location.  As a result, new security protocols had been enacted and the Admiral
wasn’t about to use his rank to hurry or bypass them.

“Right there, sir!  They just changed positions between
layers.  All I need to do is…” Jessica was staring intently at her monitor,
fingers flying across a keyboard as Lieutenant Hunt watched over her shoulder
when the Admiral walked into the room.

Jessica typed another line of code, paused to read it, then
hit enter hard enough to cause the keyboard to jump.  The monitor went blank
for a moment, then two lines of text appeared with a blinking cursor beneath
them.

“We’re in!”  She cried, banging out commands faster than
Packard could follow. 

Less than a minute later a giant, high-resolution screen on
the wall at the front of the room blinked to life.  An incredibly crisp,
wide-angle image of North America filled the screen.  Jessica looked up and her
face was beaming when she spotted the Admiral.  Calling the room to attention
she started to stand, but Packard quickly told everyone to continue what they
were doing.

“I guess you answered my earlier question, Petty Officer.” 
The Admiral said, moving to stand next to her terminal.

“You gave me the idea, sir.”  Jessica was grinning from ear
to ear.

“Outstanding work!  Can you get me a look at the Oklahoma
City area?” 

“Yes, sir.”  Jessica began typing commands, moments later
the screen zooming smoothly into the middle of the continent.

“Wow!”  She breathed as the image remained perfectly sharp. 
“Those NSA guys have some nice toys.”

Soon they were looking at Oklahoma City, the scale marks
superimposed on the display indicating they could also see a three hundred mile
radius around the city.  At multiple locations scattered around the area were
massive dust plumes.  Packard didn’t need the orbiting camera zoomed any
tighter to know what they were.

“Lieutenant,” he said to Hunt without taking his eyes off
the screen.  “Get me through to Colonel Crawford at Tinker Air Force Base. 
Now.”

The sun beat on my back as I urged Horse to a gallop.  She
was a strong, fast horse and we were probably moving at 25 miles an hour.  The
trail in the grass was easy enough to follow, but I wanted to cover as much
distance as possible before the sun went down.  The marks of the group’s
passage would still be visible at night, but would require a lot more
concentration to make sure I didn’t wander off course.  More focus on the
ground meant less speed, and slowing down was the last thing I wanted to do
right now.

Dog had tried to follow when Horse and I had departed.  I’d
had to stop and send him back.  I would have loved to have him along, but he
wasn’t in shape to keep up.  He had nearly died in his determination to stay at
Rachel’s side and needed more rest and hydration.  Besides, there was probably
only about an hour of daylight left, and I had little doubt that Rachel would
be on my trail as soon as it got dark.

We covered ground quickly, me keeping Horse in the middle of
the path of trampled grass.  I had briefly considered just moving in a straight
line and not following all of the twists and turns the infected had made, but dismissed
that thought when I realized I would have missed Rachel and Dog if I hadn’t
seen her tracks when she escaped.

As we kept pushing east the terrain was slowly changing. 
What had been nearly flat grasslands with occasional low hills was becoming
rolling countryside with larger and larger hills.  There were more trees as
well as I moved into a part of the state that obviously received more
rainfall.  At sunset we came across a deeper depression in the ground that held
a few inches of water. 

The water was clear, rocks and sand forming the basin.  I
brought Horse to a stop and held her back for a few minutes before letting her
drink.  She stepped close to the water and began to dip her head, then shied
away.  What the hell?

My first thought was there was a snake in the area, but I
couldn’t spot anything.  Curiosity piqued, I swung down off her back for a
better look.  First I checked the tracks we were following, frowning when I
noted they veered towards the water, but cut away without reaching it.  Moving
to the edge I looked all around but couldn’t see anything that would spook a
horse, let alone a group of infected.

Kneeling at the edge of the pool I scooped up a handful of
water and held it up to sniff.  There was an odor I couldn’t identify.  At
first it was sharp, almost metallic, but then it changed to something I knew I
had encountered before but couldn’t place.  It wasn’t necessarily unpleasant,
especially if you’re really thirsty, but after seeing Horse’s reaction I didn’t
doubt there was something in the water that would ruin my day.

Shaking my hand, I dried it on my pants and drank from the
supply I’d brought with me.  I shared with my mount, watching the sun
completely drop below the horizon.  I had just resumed my perch on her back
when a pack of coyotes began yipping.  They sounded close, no more than a few
hundred yards away.  Horse’s head came up and her ears swiveled to the same
direction I was looking.

Having grown up in the American southwest, coyotes are
something I’m very familiar with.  They’re a nuisance.  A pain in the ass. 
Both predator and scavenger, they will eat just about anything.  Singly,
they’re not a threat unless rabid.  In packs, they’ve been known to take dogs
and even children.  They are brazen and cunning, but not a threat to a grown
man on horseback.  Unless they’re infected.

That thought sent a surge of adrenaline through my system
and I sat quietly for a moment listening.  The pack was still singing, but it
didn’t sound like they were moving any closer.  Dismissing my fears over
infected animals, I pushed Horse forward to a slow trot along the path left by
the females.  As we moved through the hills I kept a sharp ear out, happy to
hear the coyotes continuing their serenade to our rear.

It didn’t take long to move out of earshot of the pack.  We
had entered an area with larger hills that soared more than a hundred feet over
our heads into the night sky.  The trail wound around each one, sticking to the
lowest ground.  At times it was hard to follow as the grass had all but
disappeared, replaced with hard, rocky soil. 

We reached the largest hill yet, probably close to two
hundred feet tall even though it was softly rounded with gentle sides.  At the
base of the hill the low ground forked and was so dry and rocky I couldn’t see
a mark in the darkness.  Which way?

Swinging down, I went to one knee at the junction, head bent
to look at the ground.  Nothing but hard packed soil and an occasional rock. 
The earth was too hard to take a print or even a scuff from a passing shoe
unless the person walking was trying to leave a trail.  Then I saw a faint mark
on the path to the right.  Katie’s handiwork?

Kneeling over it I looked down at the freshly made gouge in
the dirt.  It was no more than a quarter of an inch deep and two inches long,
but it was there and it hadn’t been there long.  The soil that had been dug up
was still loosely scattered on the path.  There was enough wind in the area to
erase the evidence in a relatively short period of time.

Sitting back on my haunches, I thought about the timelines. 
The group had left the crash sight at approximately sunrise yesterday.  They
had been walking at what Rachel described as a fast pace, so between four and
four and half miles an hour.  Say four for easier math.  Thirty-six hours with
a few stops for water and rest.  So maybe thirty hours of travel time.  That
meant they would have covered 120 miles by now.

How far had I come?  I tried to remember as I squatted there
in the dark.  I’d covered several miles before meeting Joe, then we’d run for
hours before finding the horses.  Our speed had increased greatly once we had
mounts.  In the last hour and a half I’d covered at least thirty-five miles.  I
had to be close.  Within a few miles?  Maybe.  Probably, I decided, standing up
and looking around.

I froze when I saw the two figures silhouetted on top of the
hill to my right.  This one appeared to be slightly higher than the one I stood
next to, and a perfect place to get a view back to the west.  I stayed quiet,
hoping Horse wouldn’t pick this moment to make some sound.  The figures were
unmoving, and only visible as outlines against the starry night sky.  Had they
seen me?

I was below them and it was dark where I was.  Darker than
where they stood, but did that help me?  Were these infected with enhanced
senses?  Or for that matter, were they even looking in my direction?  I
couldn’t tell, unable to see anything other than human forms blotting out the
slightly lighter horizon.

After several minutes of no movement or indication they were
aware of my presence, I slowly lifted the rifle to my shoulder.  My movements
were slow and smooth for concern over alerting them in case they weren’t
already watching me.  Movement in darkness is what will typically give away
your position to an enemy.  The human eye will overlook static objects that
blend with the night, but instantly pick up on motion.

Looking through the night vision scope on the rifle I had a
clear view.  Two females.  The image wasn’t good enough for me to tell if their
eyes were red or not, but I didn’t think there’d be two women just hanging
around in the middle of nowhere unless they were infected.  The good news was
their attention was to the southwest, ninety degrees away from where I was
standing.

I watched for a few more minutes, my suspicion confirmed
when one of them twitched her shoulder up slightly and her head to the side. 
Definitely infected.  But what were they watching?  Shouldn’t be Rachel, Joe
and Dog.  I didn’t think they’d be close enough yet to be visible, plus the
females were looking in the wrong direction.

Five minutes later they were still standing there, the only
movement from either of them limited to the occasional tick that gave away what
they really were.  Muttering a curse I decided it was time to take some
action.  I had no way of knowing if they were about to leave, or were going to
remain standing on top of the damn hill all night. 

If I’d had the M4 rifle with the much more powerful
cartridges, I’d have probably shot them both from my current location.  But I’d
given it to Rachel and all I had was a 9 mm, short-barreled rifle that was
fantastic for CQB.  But the same properties that made it so good for fighting
in enclosed spaces worked against it out in the open.

A short barrel has a pretty significant impact on accuracy
at more than fifty yards, even more so when you’re firing a pistol round. 
There’s not a lot of powder to push the bullet down the pipe.  If you’re
fifteen feet from an enemy inside a building, the lower powered 9 mm rounds are
actually preferable as a military rifle caliber will be travelling so fast it
will probably just punch a tiny hole right through their body without killing
them.

Yes, they’ll eventually probably die from the wound, but the
idea is to put your enemy down quickly, not shoot them and leave them with an
opportunity to start shooting back.  Not that the females were going to shoot
back, but when I fired I needed to put them down instantly.  No chance for a
warning scream that could bring more down on my head, or even for one of them
to escape and bring all of her sisters back to ruin my evening.

Grumbling in my head, I began moving forward, silently
starting up the side of the hill.  I moved slowly, careful with each step to
ensure I had solid footing and wasn’t about to send an avalanche of scree
tumbling down the hill and give away my presence.  It took close to ten minutes
for me to approach to a point where I was comfortable with the Sig’s stopping
power.

Lowering to one knee, I stabilized my body and sighted on
the female closest to me.  Mentally practicing the motions necessary to fire,
shift to the second female and fire again, I took a slow, deep breath.  Letting
it out I squeezed the trigger as my lungs emptied, the Sig not making much more
noise than a soft pop.

I was already swinging the barrel onto my second target when
the bullet impacted the female’s head, her body dropping silently.  The second
one heard the suppressed shot and snapped her focus in my direction just in
time for me to put a round through her left eye.  She fell dead across the
first one I’d killed without uttering a sound.

Staying on my knee, I kept the rifle trained on the females,
watching through the scope.  I was sure I’d made two good head shots, but I
gave it a few moments to make sure neither was moving before I took my
attention off of them.  Swinging around I scanned the area below me.

Nothing was moving.  Horse was standing quietly, appearing
to be asleep.  Failing to spot anything or anyone else, I worked my way to the
top of the hill.  The females were as dead as I’d believed and I didn’t waste
any more time worrying about them.  First I checked the southwest, the quadrant
they’d been watching so intently.  Nothing.  Looking to the east, the
prevailing direction the infected had been travelling, I didn’t like what I
saw.

The hilly terrain changed again.  Spread out as far as I
could see was a series of small canyons.  From my vantage point I could tell
some of them were box canyons, while others narrowed down before opening back
up and connecting with an adjacent one.  It was a fucking maze and exactly
where the females had taken Katie.