Run (Book 2): The Crossing (15 page)

23

Rick and Teems were staring at dusty old computer monitors in a computer room in the secret facility they had located. It looked as if the computers hadn’t been touched in years. There was a huge screen over the monitors and smaller ones throughout the room. Chris Rawding, the resident computer geek, had been summoned and was on his way.

The underground installation they had found was fairly sizable, perhaps three times the size of the depot above. There were numerous doors and several tunnels that led to who knows where. Some of the doors were locked, but most were open, and even ajar. The Rock Steady’s were exploring, and exclamations could be heard here and there. In one of the huge rooms were racks and racks of military MREs, meals ready to eat, and on others were older K-rations. Dozens of fifty-five gallon drums filled the rest of the room, and when one was opened, Teems said it smelled like a swimming pool. “Preserved water,” Rick told him. “Probably good forever, although I bet it tastes like you’re drinking out of a Jacuzzi.”

There was a sleeping area with twenty bunk beds, the smelly mattresses rolled up and tied together with wire. A bathroom with community showers done in yellow tile was found near the sleeping area, and a workout room next to that with an ancient but functional Universal machine and some free weights. The other rooms were as yet to be explored or locked.

Chris showed up, awe on his face when he saw the banks of computers. “Those are old Micral P6’s!” he shouted. “Nobody’s seen one of those in forty years!” He looked around some more at the large screen and the radio equipment in the corner. Slowly he turned to Rick and Teems, “Do you know where we are right now?”

“No, that’s why we called you. We figured you’re our nerd and would tell us what all this is.”

Chris swallowed hard. “This is your basic nuclear missile silo. It looks abandoned, and I doubt these rigs,” he pointed at the computers, “will even fire up, but this is a missile silo!”

His obvious excitement was making Rick smile. “We got you kid, it’s a silo. Why is that so wonderful?”

Chris looked at him like he had three heads. “Rick, if there was say, oh I don’t know, a horrible plague of some kind, the safest place on the planet would probably be NORAD. After that, it would be a missile silo. This place probably has food and water for up to twenty people for thirty years if they didn’t remove it! Not to mention escape tunnels, and a nuclear missile!”

“This place looks kind of…unused…don’t you think they would have removed all the weapons and the missile?”

“Yeah! The military would have removed the warheads, and weapons, but left everything else. They probably plowed over the launch tube, and there are cornstalks over it now. There are probably two or three other silos attached to this one, each capable of sustaining two dozen or so people for years. This place is perfect for your group, Teems! Once we figure out the locks on the doors, a million of those things couldn’t break in. They could wander all they want up in the depot, but they could never get down here.”

“Well, that’s good news. The thing is, we tend to move around a lot. Nomad-like, you know what I’m saying?”

“Teems! Do you know what
I’m
saying? This place is impregnable, probably stocked, and safe. You’re on motorcycles. I’ve never heard of an armored Harley, so the first time you come over a hill or around a corner into a swarm of those things, you’re history. You’ve got kids, stay here.”

Rick was still smiling. “Kid’s got a point, Teems. You might want to hole up here at least for the time being.

Danny showed up and called to his father. “Dad, can we play now?”

“You shouldn’t be down here yet, buddy, we haven’t cleared it.”

“But Mr. Calvin said it was okay. He said that there was nobody but us down here.”

Teems and his son continued to talk while Chris looked under the tables and benches and pored over the computers. Here and there the computer whiz would give short exclamations, and he was deep into his search of the area when Anna came in looking for Rick.

She pulled him aside and spoke in low tones while the others were busy. “Rick, we’ve got trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“The kind that rolls in with two tanks and a very familiar armored vehicle. There’s a school bus and some other vehicles as well.”

Rick put his fingers through his hair. “Jesus, a tank?”

“Looks just like the one we saw outside of Salt Lake, and it’s coming up the road now. There’s another tank thing with it too.”

There were shouts inside the complex now, and Teems told his son to stay with Chris. By the time Rick and Teems got to the roof, the school bus, a blue Chevy Cavalier, two Humvees, and the LAV were already parked in the depot parking lot. The tank was rolling in. Men in black camo were exiting the Humvees with their hands on their heads. The back of the LAV opened, and Seyfert, Androwski, and a man Rick didn’t know got out. Ed and the other bikers got out of the Humvees.

“Rick,” Seyfert shouted, “we need Doc. Dallas and Stark are busted up! Hurry!” Two men Rick didn’t know moved Dallas from the LAV to the ground in front of the depot door. Rick hurried downstairs and grabbed the doctor on the way. He told Teems to shut and lock the door, and not to let anyone in without his okay.

The doctor looked at Stark first, and concluded that the SEAL suffered from multiple contusions and abrasions, possibly a concussion and maybe a broken jaw. “Basically he had the shit beaten out of him,” were his words.

Dallas was in worse shape.

“I told this man not to take any whacks to the head. What happened? He looks like he was on the losing side of a bar fight.”

“He was interrogated by one of my underlings,” the shorter man said. “That particular problem has been rectified, but others have arisen, I’m afraid.”

Rick narrowed his eyes. “Who are you exactly?”

“We can discuss those formalities soon, but we should get inside. A sizable force of undead were almost upon us at the checkpoint, and they most certainly will follow our engine noises, not to mention any undead presence in the general vicinity of this facility. I believe your friends have vetted me already.”

“He’s on our side, Rick,” Androwski agreed. “Or if he isn’t then we’re all screwed anyway.”

24

The depot had ample room for all the vehicles as it had been devoid of any farm equipment. Once they were parked inside, and twenty six new family members from the school bus were introduced, the new man told an interesting story.

The Triumvirate was nothing more than three men with power. Bourne, Brooks, and Recht. Bourne had the military personnel and most of the equipment, as he was a colonel in the US Army. Initially, his mission was to contain the spread of the plague by destroying highways and off ramps using explosives and heavy machinery. That had failed. Command had then decided on a new tactic, and the mission parameters changed to the fortification and holding of Lincoln, Nebraska against the undead menace at all costs. There had been significant success at first, then contact with command was lost, as were supply routes and reinforcements. Short on fighters, equipment, and food, Bourne had resorted to asking the locals for help.

He came across a group of about two thousand people holed up in Cornhusker Stadium following a televangelist by the name of Zachary Recht. Recht had an unbelievable hold on the people of the mid-west before the plague, but now his grip had been solidified. People thought he was the second coming. Literally. Bourne soon found out that whatever Recht asked of his people, they did it. They did it without question, and Bourne realized that he could get things done with this man in charge of the civilians. A week after Bourne met him, Recht had his own security squad armed with submachine guns, and he had converted a luxury box in the stadium to his own private penthouse, complete with kept women. Apparently his sexual proclivities leant toward the weird, and he had more than enough women willing to further said depravities. He and all his followers believed that the undead were sinners who hadn’t or wouldn’t repent, and he referred to them as
The Fallen
. His daily sermons had an odd effect on many folks, and even the most devout atheists were soon in his camp. He also walked almost daily through the tent-city that was the inside of the stadium, personally ministering to the sick or injured, or giving spiritual guidance to the faithful and unfaithful alike. The people loved him.

One final supply chopper had landed in the stadium, and that chopper had contained a bona fide Superman. Brooks. This man was a CIA asset of the most unpredictable kind, and came with all kinds of wonderful toys. Satellite links, locations of weapon caches in rural Nebraska towns as well as in Lincoln and nearby other cities, and security codes to almost every covert installation in the mid-west. The man was a genius with everything from fixing the plumbing at the stadium, to hacking the security system on an A10 Thunderbolt attack jet, to killing undead with his bare hands without so much as a scratch. He was the kind of guy that knew everything about everything, and was
always
the guy who could kill everyone in the room. He even had a military airfield at his disposal. The only problem was he was an evil, sadistic bastard. He had no compunctions about killing anyone who he thought posed a problem of any kind, and people who so much as disagreed with him tended to go missing, or were found stumbling around with their throat cut or even worse, with no visible wounds at all, looking for someone to eat. He was a master at interrogation, and could get information from most people without torture, but he enjoyed the torture so much that he would often “interrogate” someone for days without asking any questions.

After they had fortified the stadium, the three men got to talking, and they formed an alliance.

Bourne controlled the fighters and military equipment, Recht the people, and Brooks knew everything. There was no more government as they knew it, and supplies were not coming in anymore, so something needed to be done. Forays were organized into the city proper to gather equipment, supplies, and more people, which they had found in droves at first, and then they started to dwindle. As the survivors waned, the undead waxed, and soon there were fifty thousand undead beating against the walls and fortifications of Cornhusker Stadium. Weapons and ammo were running short, so a plan was made. Bourne would train soldiers, Recht would provide morale, and Brooks would procure everything they needed and provide “security.” In two weeks, the undead population outside the gates had grown to almost eighty thousand, and in four weeks the soldiers, equipment and training had reduced that number to stragglers that came out of the city or the surrounding countryside. The gates to the stadium were opened, but remained well-manned, and teams had begun to scour the city in earnest.

One day, Brooks and his team had come back driving an eighteen-wheel semi-truck full of goodies, not the least of which were black BDUs. Hundreds of them. Recht thought that the community should have a name, and he went religious, but Brooks was a huge fan of Roman history, so he came up with The Triumvirate. Recht loved it. It didn’t focus on a place, or even on a government, but on a ruling class of people.

It was then that things started to go awry. An officer close to Bourne, Major Cushing, discovered that there were people going to see Recht that didn’t come back. Mostly men, whose female partners Recht had taken a fancy to. The evening after Cushing had told Bourne about his discovery, Cushing had gone missing. After a search conducted personally by Brooks turned up no trace of the major, one of Cushing’s men had come to Bourne with a cell phone. Cell phones hadn’t worked in about a week. This call came from the wife of Major Cushing, who worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Cushing told Bourne exactly what Rick’s ex-wife had told Rick’s group, down to the last detail. Bourne said he would get there as soon as possible, and Dr. Cushing told him that a colleague would try to phone her husband in California to try to get him to rescue them as well. Apparently, the man was capable. A second phone call confirmed the contact between MIT and a military group containing SEALs, who had fortified Alcatraz. The group would come for the scientists, but they were a long way off. Bourne had to move fast.

The problem was that Recht now had a huge security staff, all were undyingly loyal, and all had P90 submachine guns supplied by Brooks. Recht strutted around like the President at a high-school commencement with personal security and snipers in the stands. He had become untouchable, and started to flaunt his religious superiority.

The radio broadcasts had started soon after, and people came in droves. In another two weeks, the population of the enclave had grown to nine thousand. Then the checkpoints started. At key locations on both interstates and rural roads, soldiers waited for travelers, and stuck them on buses all headed to Lincoln, whether they wanted to go or not. Refusal meant serious consequences.

Anyone bitten was executed on the spot, children included, and those who refused to be inspected were beaten into submission and inspected anyway. More often than not, these people, or anyone else who didn’t conform, had “bites” in undisclosed locations, and were put down immediately.

When Bourne had gone to Brooks and Recht to speak to them about the executions, they told him that while he was in charge of the military, Brooks was in charge of security, and he could conscript whomever he chose, including Bourne’s men. It was then that Bourne realized these men didn’t need him anymore, and the gold stitching on the BDUs might just have two IIs instead of three in the near future.

That night when he picked up his volume of
The Art of War
, (which he read passages from every night), a transmitter had fallen out of the worn spine. A bug. The colonel found two more in his room, one in a light switch, and one under the desk, both in his luxury box. There were probably ten more he couldn’t find.

The next day, Brooks was waiting for him when he woke up at 0430 hrs. Brooks was sitting across from his makeshift bed reclining in a chair reading Bourne’s copy of
The Art of War
. He called out, and two of Recht’s men came in shortly after, both with submachine guns. They were to be the colonel’s security detail, and he wasn’t to go anywhere without them anymore. Bourne had just received his first order from someone other than a general.

When the call came in from Captain Brady, who had been under Bourne’s command, that they had detained elements of the military complete with armored transport, Bourne knew he could use this opportunity to bug out. He brought his most trusted man, Gunny Barry Steele, and seven others -including his security detail- with him on a Blackhawk helicopter to intercept and question the detainees.

Brady had always been a little over the top, but Bourne thought he was loyal, until Brady had started working with Brooks over the last two weeks. Bourne was certain he was in on the disappearance of Cushing, as Cushing stood in his way on the military hierarchy. So did Bourne.

Bourne was not a murderer, but there was no way Brady could be allowed to report back to Brooks. He had to go.

He planned to rendezvous with the military elements that had been detained, and conscript them if necessary. When Bourne found out that Seyfert was a SEAL, he took a chance, dropped non-integral information and was instantly rewarded. He now had mission capable soldiers at his disposal, or so he hoped. They were even on the same mission.

Immediately prior to leaving for the depot, the colonel had the Blackhawk destroyed, hopefully with any of Brooks’ transmitters aboard. Every one of the men at the checkpoint had agreed that they didn’t want to go back to the stadium, back to Brooks and Recht, so they all came with the colonel.

“So here we are. The real question is, do you trust me enough to combine forces and go get those scientists, or do we split up? Either way, I’ll see you in Boston if any of us survive.”

Barry Steele was an intimidating man. At six foot nine and almost four hundred pounds of muscle and sinew, he scared the average MMA fighter with his size alone. Most doorways barely fit him, and three of the extra-large black BDUs that Brooks brought in had been needed to tailor the big man’s Triumvirate uniform. When he got out of the tank after parking it in the depot, everyone stared. He was used to it, and shrugged it off. When the tiny boy named Stevie came up and asked if he was a giant, he got down on his haunches, looked in Stevie’s tiny face, and said yes.

“I’ve never met a giant before. Can I ride on your shoulders?”

Barry stood. “Nobody’s ever asked me that before.”

“So, can I?”

Scooping up the boy, Barry lifted him until his small legs were on either side of the soldier’s massive cranium, and then he proceeded to walk around. In ten seconds, every kid in the depot was begging for a turn, and when they had all received a ride, Barry showed them the inside of the Abrams and the Bradley.

While the big gunnery sergeant kept the kids busy, the colonel and most of his soldiers, the SEALs, Rick’s group, and Teems were planning the rest of their trip to Boston. Dallas was awake and the doctor was ministering to him, but Stark still hadn’t regained consciousness. Calvin and one of the army engineers had gone up to the roof and were installing a fifty caliber heavy machine gun, and the other new-comers were making themselves at home, and figuring out a work schedule. Many of the civilians on the bus hadn’t wanted to go to Lincoln in the first place, and the ones who had come looking for it all decided that the place they were in now was probably safer.

Bourne was impressed with the installation, but soon had an epiphany. He looked at Teems and said, “It’s a fair bet that Brooks knows about this place.”

“How could he know about this?” the biker said, spreading his arms. “We just stumbled onto it today.”

“The man just knows. He knows everything, that was his job, and apparently he’s the best at it. I’m torn between thinking you won’t find a safer place than this, and that it might just be your tomb.”

“We can fight.”

“He won’t come knocking at the door. He’ll send scouts, and when they report back to him, he’ll send a small army. Or a large one.”

“We can hold this place forever.”

The colonel was skeptical. “I hope so.”

Bourne was marking a road atlas of the US with red marker. The marks were where roads and throughways had been destroyed at the outset of the plague to curb the spread of infection. The colonel looked alarmed when there were shots from outside, but Teems told him that it was probably a few rotters that had gotten too close to the depot, and the snipers were taking care of them. They continued to talk and the shots went from sporadic to continuous. Then the fifty cal opened up and Bourne’s engineer called on the radio.

The colonel looked at the people with him in turn. “We may have a problem.”

Everyone looked nervous. “What it is?” demanded Teems.

“Let’s get to the roof to confirm.”

The fifty cal was very loud as they climbed the stairs to the second floor catwalks. Looking out one of the office windows, Rick could see that they might just be in serious trouble. It would seem their secret was out, as hundreds of zombies were again pouring out of the corn heading for the depot. The main body of the horde was just starting to reach the killing field of the fifty caliber machine gun and dozens were on the ground either not moving or missing body parts and crawling toward the sanctuary.

Bourne went into high gear as he made it to the roof. “WILCOX! Lay off the fifty until they’re bunched! Anyone with a rifle get to the roof and defend! Pick your targets, head shots only! Barry! Where’s Barry?” The colonel spun around and the giant man was behind him. “Barry! Get in the Abrams with Richards and Monahan and get it out of the depot. Use the treads, but don’t fire the main gun. You’ll have to hurry so we can get the door closed before they reach the other side of the building.” The man kept firing off orders to others he had just met, or barely knew, and they jumped to follow him. Rick thought of his friend submarine commander McInerney back on Alcatraz. Both men commanded authority, and Rick was amazed that Bourne was able to remember the names of the colonel’s new recruits.