900 Miles: A Zombie Novel (30 page)

Prologue: Three Years Ago

It always seemed to be raining whenever Bob returned to the States from Afghanistan. The rain pounded on the bar's roof and wicked thunder rattled the dusty window. There didn't seem to be enough beer to drown out his latest near-death experience; he could still hear the gunfire and the war cries of his two best soldiers, who nearly earned themselves vainglorious deaths.

The bartender was kind enough to place another beer in front of him before he could ask. The handful of patrons who sat disconsolately apart from each other
, drank grudgingly and watched the evening news on the old television set above the bar. The joint was almost as old as Bob was, and that was damn remarkable.

Afghanistan
. Miles and Vega, those two shitheads, nearly got themselves shot to pieces for being damn stupid. Would have served them right, even if they were the best mercenaries Bob could find. If he lost them, it would be more difficult to put together a crew that could take on the higher paying grunt jobs out there in the desert. More than once, he thought about asking them to help him find Traverse, the bounty job that never seemed to end. He gave up on the job a year ago. His sex-fiend partner, Nick Crater, never stopped hunting the bastard across the country.

Now, he waited for Crater, because they apparently had a break in the manhunt.

Bob impatiently checked his phone. It was like Crater to keep him waiting, but Bob had shown up early to get a head start on his drinking. He had lost a bit of weight out in the desert, so he had some room in his waistline to spare.

When Crater finally showed up, Bob was immediately annoyed. It had been a few months since he
last saw the slender, paranoiac soldier with the perfectly shaved head, but he could tell Crater was in one of his moods; he kept looking over his shoulder and surveyed the entire place a little too obviously, a sign that he was ready for a fight.

Crater slapped him on the back, "Nice tan, old man! Did your beard get a little longer?"

Bob ignored the stupid comment. Crater slapped his hand on the bar and demanded a beer from the bartender. "Hope you're not drunk yet, Bob. We're going to have a whole lot of celebrating once tonight's over. I found him."

"Heard that before," Bob didn't look up from his beer.

"You quit on me, and I brought you back in because I figured you could use the payday. I could do this myself, you know. Traverse won't know what hit him."

Bob shook his head. He was done chasing ghosts. Jim Traverse had proven to be the white whale of wanted men. He was a former Delta Force operative turned rogue, and people at the Pentagon were willing to pay a pretty penny to whoever could bring him in alive. There were several teams scouring the earth for Traverse, but nobody came close. Bob had wasted enough of his time. He was picking up more and more contract jobs out in the desert; with Miles and Vega on his team, it was getting easier to collect big paydays, as long as those idiots didn't get themselves killed.

"Don’t need the money," Bob said, "and neither do you. Black Ops has paid you well. Why don't you retire?"

"Why don't you?"

Bob sipped his beer.

Crater was insistent, "Look, we can bring this guy in. He's here, in
Detroit. That's why I wanted you to meet me here. I don't know what the hell he's doing, but he's making himself obvious. He's hiding in plain sight out in the suburbs."

"You don't even ask me how it went in
Afghanistan? Where's your manners?"

Crater laughed. "Pardon me, your highness. How'd it go? You bang any hairy Arabic women? That's your favorite flavor, isn't it? What about these new people you got on your crew
… I heard about that woman. She's a bit trigger happy, ain't she?"

He knew what Crater was after. Vega was a pretty enough girl, and Crater was a depraved man with little interest in social conventions. When they had gone on missions together in the desert, during Operation Desert Storm in the 90s, Crater made it known that he didn't believe in the rules of engagement. He called innocent women, the 'spoils of war.'

"Everyone knows about Vega," Crater continued. "Why don’t you at least introduce us?"

Bob sighed. "Why don't you find some other rock to crawl under? I got something important to do."

"Something important? You're sitting on your ass!"

"Like I said."

Crater downed his beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I already called in the cavalry. We've confirmed his position, and I have choppers on standby. This is it, old buddy."

Bob grabbed a fistful of beer nuts and shoved them into his mouth. "Whatever you say. Have yourself a good time."

Crater wasn't going to take no for an answer. "You can have yourself a heart attack after we bag Traverse. Why would you quit now? We’ve got him dead to rights."

"You forget who he is?" Bob asked him. "A hand-to-hand specialist. The guy would scare the shit out of Chuck Norris. Can't be killed."

"I've read the fucking dossier a thousand times. Got it memorized. He flipped after a mission in Egypt, threatened the Pentagon in his report, and went AWOL. He's wanted alive, Bob. Look, pay your bill and let's go. I got our gear in the trunk. We do it now."

Bob really didn't have anything better to do, and he had a few beers in him. If he caught Traverse, it would wipe the bad taste out of his mouth from the whole
Afghanistan fiasco. What else did have to do until the next job came along? He thought about visiting his son, but years had passed, and he always had these thoughts. It was something he would inevitably put off, and he knew it. The money he had was going to be spent right here in Detroit on booze and strippers until the next contract came in. He knew it, and Crater knew it, too. Like any other merc, he owned nothing, not even a Social Security number. The only thing he could look forward to was another mission.

He had done everything in his power to erase Traverse from his mind. The former commando devolved into a depraved killer after coming back from
Egypt, and he left a trail of mutilated bodies wherever he went. Traverse killed without any discernible pattern, and he killed at will, women, children, men, the elderly, and the young. Bob always thought the man was the perfect example of a soldier who was supposed to have died on the battlefield, and sought his violence in the homes of innocents.

A man like that was a menace to society.

"I gotta take a piss," Bob said. "Wait in the car."

***

Bob didn't hate rain. No matter what the mission was, it had to be completed despite whatever elements might interfere. He had operated in sweat
sapping desert heat and in sub-zero frigidity; the weather could always be worse than what it was.

He hated listening to Crater blabber on about all the girls they had met in
Brazil years ago when they thought Traverse had fled to South America. They had been wrong, of course, but as Crater reminisced about their prolonged hunt of the man who refused to be found, Bob wondered how he would feel after they finally caught their target. He had dedicated seven years to Traverse's trail, and now, in the middle of a thunderstorm, it was going to be over once and for all. At last.

The only thing Bob truly hated was an incomplete mission, and the Traverse episode always bothered him. Why had the man gone AWOL? Parts of the report were incomplete: Bob didn't know what Traverse discovered in
Egypt, nor was he aware what the original mission was. Just as mysterious, were the words the legendary commando had shared with the Pentagon after he came back. Ultimately, it didn't matter, but it troubled Bob only because he always believed a soldier escaped from the travails of battle by seeking another mission. War was the only escape from war.

Crater wouldn't shut up. The rain made it difficult to see the road ahead and the brief flashes of lightning revealed standing water on the overpasses. It was one hell of a storm.

They weren't going to bring in any outside help because they had seen it fail before. Traverse had slipped right through their fingers as soon as the police showed up. This time, they were going to go in quietly, as they were supposed to. It was a clandestine operation, one that required both professionalism and patience. They would confirm the target and attempt to neutralize him while additional support rolled in.

The entire neighborhood had already been scouted, and they were going to move in through the yard behind the house where Traverse was staying. Crater had paid off the family to stay the night somewhere else after he interviewed them and carefully did some recon of his own. Of course, Crater pulled in money from some suit
wearing monkey to take care of the family. 

They pulled up on a suburban street in
Detroit, one of the few where the lawns were still mowed and the people paid their bills. It was an old neighborhood close to the Grosse Pointe border. Tree branches hung low over the narrow street, and all the homes had been built close together, their driveways barely wide enough for one car.

They got out, quietly opened the trunk, and suited up in the rain. Bob assumed they were parked at least a block away from where Traverse was located; Crater was a professional. They slipped their night gear on, which included black tights, night-vision goggles, light Kevlar, Berettas, and combat knives.

Crater dialed in the air support to evac their target as soon as they could confirm the target's position. Crater and Bob were never supposed to be able to bring Traverse in on their own: an entire team of commandos was needed, but first, the target had to be located, and he had to be inert. 

"Showtime," Crater announced.

Bob didn't ask about their plan; he was getting careless, and he allowed Crater to take the lead. He trusted him because he'd been dragged off his bar stool in the middle of a binge to apprehend the man they had both been chasing for far too long.

Crater eagerly led him across the street through puddles of rainwater. The mission was truly on, and Bob realized that he might actually capture Traverse. Finally, after all this time, the hunt was coming to an end.

An unexpected excitement bloomed within his chest as they walked through a darkened yard. For once in his life, he believed that something good was going to happen to him. 

Lightning crashed through the night, and both men stopped in their tracks. They crept through the yard in their gear and spied the house where Traverse might have been waiting for them. Bob could feel his heart slow and his muscles tense up. The house was completely dark. How could he let them get the drop on him now, after all this time? It wasn't right. No. Traverse was waiting. He knew
…

Bob turned around sharply and found that Crater was twisted backward, his hands clasped around his foe's arm. Traverse held Crater's own knife at his throat.

"Hey there, Bob," the former commando said casually. "Why don't you boys come in and have a beer? The police will be here soon. I figured maybe we can sit down and have a little chat before they arrest me."

"Arrest you?" Bob kept his Beretta trained on the shadowed man.

"It will be much easier to explain if you just come in," Traverse said. "I was waiting for you, Bob. This is all part of the game, I assure you. Drop your false sense of bravado—you can’t win. It would be best if you killed me outright, but you won't, because that's not in the contract. It's a rather old contract though, isn't it?"

"I'm a merc," Bob said. "I'll pick up another job."

"Sure. But the people who employed you to bring me in will be disappointed. They will have you and your friend erased. You know this. I'm far more important to them alive."

"You're fucked," Crater choked. "We got you this time. Got the whole block on lockdown."

Traverse chuckled. "I'm counting on it."

Bob didn't like the feeling of helplessness. He was a man of action, and Traverse had him dead to rights. More than anything, he wanted to take a good look at the ex-soldier's face. He wanted to see the man who had eluded him for so long, so easily.

"Your beer better be cold," Bob grumbled.

"I'm glad you see things my way," Traverse said through the rain. "Go on inside. This house will suit us, I think."

"You don't live here," Bob stated the obvious, because he was afraid of the truth.