Anvil (15 page)

He could
just make out the low, stone building at the limit of his goggle’s range. 
Looking slightly to the left he made note of two large, multi-story
structures.  Dorms.  Within a stone’s throw of the lab.  And
according to thermal satellite imaging, they were full of infected.  He
just hoped they were the men’s dorms.

The SEALs
moved silently across the road and into the near total darkness of a heavily
forested area at the base of the hill.  Two of them fired in near unison,
taking down a duo of infected males that were standing next to a large maple
tree.  They continued moving, nearing the edge of the trees when the point
man halted them with a raised fist.

He was known
to have the best hearing of all of them, by far, and it was nearly ten seconds
later before the rest heard the sound of approaching rotors.  Four Russian
Havocs, and they were coming fast.  Without the constant hum and roar of
an urban environment to mute them, the noise of the helicopters bounced off the
surrounding buildings, growing louder until the machines screamed
overhead.  They were heading east and were in one hell of a hurry.

Resuming
their forward movement, they came out from under the trees and onto a rain
slicked, sloping lawn.  Fifty yards up the slope was the edge of the
parking lot for the nuclear physics lab.  The building wasn’t visible from
their location, and remaining in their diamond movement pattern they carefully
climbed the hill.

Rain was
falling steadily, masking any inadvertent sounds they might have made. 
But it also covered the swift footfalls of the small group of female infected
that charged out of the trees when the men came into view.  The SEAL
responsible for their right flank security spotted them immediately, calling a
warning as he began firing his rifle.

The females
were close, inside twenty yards when they came into the open, and they were
sprinting.  The man got off three fast shots, killing two of the females,
before the remaining five slammed into the group.  The other SEALs had
turned at the warning, but the attack was so fast that none of them were able
to get a shot off before the infected were at hand to hand combat range.

Sam killed a
young woman with his knife as Gonzales snapped another’s neck with his thick
hands.  The SEAL on the right flank had been unfortunate enough to have
two females tackle him to the ground and one had succeeded in locking her teeth
on his throat and tearing it open.  He lay on the ground, legs twitching
as blood fountained out of his damaged artery. 

The SEAL on
the rear rolled down the slope and disappeared into the trees, a female at
least as large as he was embracing him as if they were lovers.  Sam killed
another infected with a quick knife thrust to her heart, turned and raced down
the hill as Master Chief Gonzales battled with the final attacker.  She
was small, no more than five feet tall, and Gonzales met her with an extended
arm and open hand.

He grasped
her neck as she charged in, lifting her off her feet.  Twisting his hips,
he gripped one of her flailing legs and raised her over his head. 
Turning, he drove the female into the ground, head first, her neck snapping
like a twig from the brutal impact.  Glancing in the direction his two
surviving team mates had gone, he took a moment to scan the area for other
threats.

The sound of
a suppressed rifle came from the trees and a moment later Lieutenant Sam
emerged.  Meeting Gonzales’ eyes, he shook his head.  The Master
Chief cursed silently as he turned and continued scanning their
surroundings.  Their first encounter with a small group of females and
they lost half the team.

“We’ll get
them on the way back,” Sam mumbled.

He was
referring to the bodies of their two fallen brothers.  Gonzales didn’t
like leaving them laying on the ground even to complete their mission, but losing
teammates was nothing new and they didn’t have any other choice.  With a
nod, he turned and began climbing the slope again.  Sam stayed five yards
behind him and kept a close eye on the trees at the bottom of the hill.

They reached
the parking lot without further attacks.  Pausing at the edge of the
pavement, both men dropped to a knee to perform a careful scan of their
target.  The stretch of asphalt wasn’t large, no more than fifty yards
across.  At the far edge squatted a sprawling, two story building
constructed of brick.  There were no windows visible on the front, only a
pair of glass doors protecting the entrance.

Sam already
knew they were ballistic glass and only opened into a small vestibule.  Inside,
a small security desk took up nearly half the space.  It was set up for
staff and visitors.  They would check in before being buzzed through a
heavy steel door. 

There was
only one other entrance or exit from the building, a large rolling door at the
loading dock on the back wall.  All other doors had been sealed, the
Department of Homeland Security citing national security reasons to ignore the
fire codes that required emergency exits.

Of the two
entrances, they had decided access through the front would require less time
and explosives.  The glass doors were controlled by powerful
electro-magnets.  The hope was the electricity had been off to the
building long enough for the backup generator that came on automatically in the
event of a power failure to have run out of fuel.  There were battery
banks to bridge the gap between loss of power and restoration from the
generator, but they lasted for fifteen minutes at best.

The two
SEALs dashed across the parking lot, heads swiveling as they watched for
infected.  Reaching the glass doors, they paused as the Master Chief tried
to see through them with his night vision goggles while Sam turned and watched
their backs.  He couldn’t see through the glass and would have to clear
the vestibule the hard way.  Grasping the steel handle, Gonzales gently
tugged, testing the lock. 

The door
moved easily, and he pulled it fully open.  Bracing it with his shoulder
he looked into the small space, rifle tracking in sync with his eyes. 
Nothing moved, but the stench of a rotting body made him grimace and breathe
through his mouth. 

The corpse
of a security guard was half behind the armored desk.  It had been there a
while, the torso having swollen from the gasses of decomposition, eventually
rupturing and spilling putrid fluids across the floor.

“Clear,”
Gonzales mumbled, moving into the vestibule.

He ignored
the corpse and stepped up to the steel doors guarding the interior of the
building as Sam came in behind him and silently pulled the glass door
shut.  Using a thick, nylon flexi-cuff, he secured the doors by looping it
through the handles and pulling it tight.  Nothing would get in, and to
get out all they’d have to do is quickly swipe a sharp knife across the cuff
and it would part and release the doors.

“Too quick,
LT,” Gonzales said when he saw what Sam had done.  “Gotta blast and we
don’t want to be in here when the C-4 goes boom.”

“Shit,” Sam
muttered, drawing his knife.

Cutting the
nylon, he pushed the door open and stepped through, keeping watch while the
Master Chief worked.  He had prepped his breaching charges before they
left the institute and it was only a matter of a few moments of work to locate
where he wanted to attach them, then insert the detonators.

“Ready,” he
said when he pushed back out into the rain with Sam.

The two men
moved to either side of the glass doors and placed their backs against the
brick wall.  Gonzales activated the remote trigger, lifted the protective
gate that covered the “fire” button and pressed it with his thick thumb. 
There was a low crump of sound and the two glass doors pushed open a foot from the
pressure wave.

Gonzales
grabbed one of them before it could swing shut and slipped back into the
vestibule.  It only took a moment to verify the locking mechanism had been
blown out of the steel doors.  He called the all clear to Sam and stood
waiting by the breached entrance as the Lieutenant put a fresh flexi-cuff on
the glass doors.

When the
outer doors were secure, the two SEALs stacked up and carefully pushed the
large steel door on the right open a few feet.  Nothing leapt at them and
Gonzales kept pushing until it swung fully open.  At a tap from Sam he
moved, the Lieutenant tight against his back until they were through the
opening.  Separating, each man scanned a large lobby, seeing nothing
alive. 

Satisfied
the immediate area was clear of threats, the Master Chief led the way to the
closest door.  He had no idea where they were going, but they had to start
somewhere.  Reaching the door, which was made of a thick slab of laminated
wood, he noted the dark keypad that restricted access. 

“Nuclear
physics lab, right?”  He mumbled to Sam.

“Yeah, why?”

“Just
wondering if they had any experiments going when the shit hit the fan. 
You know, uranium or plutonium or some nasty shit that’s going to zap us as
soon as we walk in.”

“Afraid of a
little radiation, Master Chief?” 

Sam noticed
the sweat beading the man’s brow.  Then realized he was sweating
too.  He knew enough about radiation exposure to scare him.  All
things considered he’d rather go back outside and fight a whole herd of
infected.

“Just
thinking about the cojones, sir,” Gonzales said, reaching out and pulling the
door open.

A long
hallway stretched out ahead of them.  Several doors were spaced along it
at uneven intervals.  Not seeing any threats, they moved into the hall and
Sam kept a hand on the door so it closed softly. 

There were
no decaying bodies in the area and both men breathed deeply even though the
smell of rot had clung to their clothing and come into the untainted air with
them.  Hugging opposite walls, they moved deeper into the building, the
soles of their boots nearly silent on the polished tile.

For a
moment, Sam had forgotten they were in a university, not a government
building.  He was pleasantly reminded when they came to the first door and
after clicking on a small flashlight he was able to read a plaque that clearly
labeled the room’s purpose.  Government and military buildings typically
only assign a number to a room, and if you don’t know what you’re looking for and
don’t have a directory, you’re screwed.

There’s good
reason for this.  It helps with keeping the facility more secure. 
But it’s a bitch if you don’t know your way around.  A university, on the
other hand, has a new batch of students showing up every year and those
students need to be able to find their way around.  So buildings, rooms
and offices are normally well labeled.  And that was the case here.

The first
door was a private office for the lab director.  No need to even open the
door.  Moving on, they cleared three restrooms, one for men, one for women
and one for families.

They passed
another office, a lecture hall and two storage rooms.  Forcing the doors
to the storage, they made a quick scan of the contents but quickly moved on
when all they found were office and classroom supplies.  The hall ended at
a blank wall and they went back to the lobby, carefully entering in case
anything had shown up while they were out of the area.

Three more
doors opened off the space, two of them leading to identical looking hallways,
the third to a staircase that accessed the second floor of the building. 
They checked the other two halls, only finding more offices and several large
lecture rooms.  No labs.

“Upper
floor,” Sam mumbled as they moved back into the lobby.

Gonzales
nodded and they moved into the stairwell.  Climbing slowly, they moved
sideways, rifles up and trained on the second floor landing.  Passing through
the door at the top of the stairs, they entered a large vestibule with two
doors opening from either side.

“We’re in
the right spot,” Sam pointed at both doors.

He used his
light to read the plaques bolted to the wooden surfaces.  The signs read “
Fission
Research Labs
”.  Beneath it was a prominent radiation hazard symbol
and another sign that stated “
TLD BADGES REQUIRED BEYOND THIS POINT
”.

Gonzales
nodded.  He was familiar with dosimeter badges worn by people who work in
proximity to radiation, such as an X-Ray tech in a hospital or anyone working
near the nuclear reactor on an aircraft carrier.  The badges were used to
monitor a person’s cumulative exposure to radiation over a period of time.

 “Good
lock,” he mumbled, dropping to a knee in front of the left hand door and
reaching into his pack for a breaching charge.

Sam checked
the other door while Gonzales worked.  The right side door was also
secured with an additional label that read “
Materials Storage
”. 
When he reached out and tried the handle there was an immediate thump from the
far side of the door, followed by loud pounding.

He jumped
back, his rifle snapping up as he moved far enough away to fight if something
came through into the vestibule.  Gonzales had stopped what he was doing,
spinning and raising his rifle in response to the sounds.  When it became
apparent the door wasn’t going to open, Sam told him to continue with his work.

“Ready,” the
Master Chief said a moment later.

Sam turned
to take shelter from the blast in the stairwell, pausing when he heard more
than thumping coming from the far side of the door.  He took a step
closer, turning his head to align his ear and hear better.