Cobra Z (43 page)

The number of people in the road ahead thinned out, and he put on a burst of speed. That was another thing he noticed about the people around him, the people he passed. They were carrying so much shit with them. Suitcases and backpacks filled with stuff. Didn’t they realise there was no need for this material shit anymore? Your Rolex, your bank account, your share certificates were all meaningless in the world of the undead. Your Porsche and your Aston Martin all worthless, left to rot on roads that would slowly decay and crack through lack of maintenance. What mattered now was speed and the will to survive. What mattered now was being able to leave it all behind and do what needed to be done. Jack didn’t know if he had that in him, but he was certainly not going to give up. He was going to fight, because he had nothing else to do.

12.40PM GMT, 16
th
September 2015, The White House, Washington DC

“We are still getting live feeds from GCHQ, Mr. President, and we have re-tasked several satellites to give us more coverage.” General Roberts, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was briefing a man he didn’t like, but a man he respected. The man the secret service called POTUS had proven to be a competent leader, a man who had been able to make the hard choices. But he wasn’t a man the general would want to sit down and have a drink with, wouldn’t want to spend an evening sharing stories or going fishing with. But that wasn’t really relevant right now.

“Can someone fill me in about this Hirta Island?” the president asked.

“We don’t have much on it, Mr. President,” said the CIA director. “We’ve asked the British for information, but I don’t know if it will be forthcoming.”

“Do we have any intelligence that suggests the British created this, or is this just to blow smoke up my ass?”

“We have nothing, sir,” Johnson said. “And we definitely had no involvement. I can give you that as a cast iron guarantee.” The president looked at him, his eyes searching for deception, seeking the lie that he suspected was there. He didn’t see anything, so either the man was telling the truth, didn’t know the truth, or was a damned good liar. One out of three was terrible odds. Rodney turned to General Roberts.

“How long until the British will be able to give us intel?” the president asked. He was looking at computer simulations showing the entire United Kingdom. The dozen or so people in the room all looked at the same thing. Every minute, the red blobs encompassing several cities grew larger, displaying the reported extent and the computer predictions of how far the infection had spread. That had been a rare job for someone in the Pentagon’s IT department. “
Hi there, we just need an algorithm to plot the spread of a zombie contagion.
”

“GCHQ is outside the initial infected zones, but they are already evacuating. The listening station at Menwith Hill is already silent; it was deemed too close to one of the infected zones.” The general put his hand on the map which joined Bristol to Southampton. “Everyone west of this line is going to be fleeing into the southwest of the country. We need to decide whether we want to help get them out.” The general paused. He looked at the CIA director who was sat next to the president, and then looked back at his commander-in-chief. “Or do we quarantine the whole island and stop anyone leaving?”

“Does NATO have a view?” the president asked.

“Yes. They want to quarantine. Our continental allies are scared of the infection getting onto the mainland. The French are already taking measures to fortify their coast. They say they will shoot down any planes leaving the UK. And the Irish are not happy about our commandeering their Shannon Airport to route all our assets through. They are even less happy about the British evacuating their best and brightest there.”

“Operation Noah, we briefed you on that earlier,” Director Johnson said to the president, who nodded his thanks.

“What would you do, General?” And there it was, the question that only a certain breed of men could make. Did they try and save what they could and risk the infection getting off the island, or did they leave millions to perish?

“We know the infected can only travel by foot,” Director Johnson said, “and we can project how fast they will spread based on that. And the short incubation period works in our favour in that those infected manifest the symptoms quickly.”

“And how certain are we that all the infected cases transform within ten minutes?” the president asked. There was silence in the room as he looked around at them all. The silence was the answer he needed. Nobody really knew anything about the virus. What if it lay dormant in some hosts? What if some who came in contact with it acted like a biblical Typhoid Mary? “So I ask again, General, what would you do?”

“I would salvage what military and government assets we can. Salvage the Royal Navy and the Royal Airforce, and evacuate what’s left of their ground forces, most of which have already abandoned their defence of the infected zones. But I would use Ireland as a containment and buffer zone.”

“And the rest?” the president pressed.

“We don’t have the resources to save but a handful, and that would represent an unacceptable risk of the infection getting off the continent.” The general knew this was the only response that made sense. It was the response of a military mind whose sole job was to defend the integrity of the United States of America. The president sat back in his chair and flung the briefing paper he was holding onto the table.

“Ben,” he said to his White House Chief of Staff, “get NATO on conference call. We are going to implement a blockade of the United Kingdom. Military and government personnel presently en route to Ireland will be able to land. I want the bulk of their military assets salvaged, but it all goes to Ireland. If the Irish kick up a fuss, remind them who has the aircraft carriers. I want the CDC on site at Shannon, and I want a quarantine order implemented by NATO.” He looked at General Roberts. “I want you to contact MI6 and General Marston and let them know if they want to salvage anything, they have three hours to do it. I want that,” the president pointed at the map on the screen, “locked down before I have my lunch with the first lady today.” The president looked at the CIA director. “And Keith, you bring me the fucking heads of the people who just removed my country’s most important ally from the political map. And you do it quickly. I don’t care what laws you have to break and what letters of immunity I have to sign. Bring me these fuckers and do it yesterday.” That was what General Roberts didn’t like about his commander-in-chief. The man was the most ruthless son of a bitch he had ever met. He was even more surprised by what his president said next.

“And if we can somehow use this for our political and strategic benefit, well then we might even be able to use this crisis to our advantage.”

12.46PM, 16
th
September 2015, MI6, Albert Embankment, London

The wind buffeted her coat, but her hair tied back as it was stayed in place. Standing on top of the MI6 building, she looked off across the cityscape, seeing the smoke rising up in the distance from multiple locations. This would be the last time she would see this great city, but honestly, she didn’t think she would really miss it. It was just a city after all. There were others that she would one day get to see again. But her immediate future was Ireland, and that’s where she would be heading now. First out of the infected zone, and then on a flight out of the quarantine zone. Many in the building below wouldn’t get that privilege, duty forcing them to stay behind to try and keep some semblance of humanity going in this death pit.

She turned and walked to the helicopter, climbing aboard. She took the last seat, and ignored the smile of the man who sat across from her, instead putting her attention out of the window that appeared when the side door closed. Men did that a lot. Some smiled, some glared, transfixed by her presence. Others cast her with subtle side glances that they hoped she wouldn’t see, as if they needed just a glimpse of her to somehow survive. But that was men, and she didn’t mind. They amused her, weak as they were. There were very few she encountered who even interested her, and when she did find one of those rare breeds, she made it her mission to break and destroy the mind of that man. How she loved to do that, to take their ego and their strength and twist it.

Of course, she didn’t use her torture skills on these men. No, that she reserved purely for paying jobs. Instead, she used more subtle techniques, making them crave her, making them regret the day they ever encountered her. She knew how to manipulate, make them feel like only they had been able to tame her, and then she slowly ripped them apart from the inside, and in doing so, watched with great amusement as they destroyed their own lives. She was a sociopath, after all. As the rotors began to start up, her thoughts went briefly to the man strapped down to the surgical table in the bowels of the MI6 building. She had returned to him, as promised, his interrogation over. The MI6 men had left her alone in the room, and she had looked at her captive with a wicked smile.

“You did well,” she had said to the naked man, sitting next to him. She ran a fingernail across his chest, and looked at his face. Despite his restraints, he did what he could to avert his eyes from her.

“Look at me,” she had said softly, and when he didn’t, she had gripped his left nipple in between two sharpened fingernails and dug them in harshly. “I said look at me.” He did, they always did.

“I’m leaving, you know, but before I do I have a promise to keep.” Standing up, she walked over to her instrument table and began to pick up the copper needles one by one. Slowly, she walked back over to him and held them in front of his face.

“No, not that. I did what you asked. I told them everything.”

“Yes, I know,” Davina had said. “But you took too long. You should have taken me up on my offer when I gave you the chance. You see I made you a promise about what I would do to you, and I always follow through on my promises.” The next five minutes were spent to the soundtrack of his screams as she slowly reinserted the needles and connected them back up to the electric current.

“I’m leaving you now. I’ve connected you up to an IV to keep you hydrated, and that should allow you to live for at least the next five days. Five days for you to enjoy the stimulation from my little toys. And I’ll be locking the door behind me so that none of those nasty infected can ever get in.” She smoothed his hair across his head. “No, you don’t have to thank me. It’s the least I could do.” With that, she had turned on the power, sending his body into violent convulsions. Davina left him down there to spend his last few days in total mind-rending agony.

12.48PM, 16
th
September 2015, Hounslow, London

Owen Patterson was having the time of his life. So much so that he had to take his pack off and acquire more shells as all the ones in his pockets were used up. This gun was just what he needed, although he had so far been fortunate in that he had not met any infected in groups of more than two. Because the gun only had two shots, and he was still getting the hang of opening the breach and reloading it. It was a bit stiff at times, and Owen found himself wondering when the last time the thing had been cleaned was.

And although he told himself he was killing zombies, he knew that some of those he had shot were not infected. They had just become inviting targets, victims of his blood lust. This was the most fun he’d had in a long time, and he often found himself whooping with joy when he managed head shots.

Loading up his pockets, he put the backpack on again and slipped two rounds into the chambers. Flicking the gun closed, he headed off back down the road, in search of fresh prey. It was fifteen steps later when his luck ran out. He turned a corner into a side street and was faced with a mass of at least a dozen infected. He stopped dead in his tracks, just as they did, looking at him with that dog-like tilt of the head he had seen so many times. They swayed and moved in front of him, an apparition of hell on the streets of Ye Olde London Town.

Owen froze. He had two rounds against twelve of them.
Shit, so this is the end of the party,
he said to himself. “Fuck it,” he said loudly and brought the gun up. That sent the infected off, and they charged him with a howl. At less than ten metres away, he still managed to get both shots off, blasting the face off one and taking another in the hip. But then they were on him. He tried to turn the gun around as a club, but it was ripped from his grasp, and he felt his nose explode as he was punched in the face. Their combined mass brought him to the floor, and they pinned him down, insane faces hovering above him.

“Come on then,” Owen roared. “Do it, do it now.” He struggled with all his might, but hardly moved as they kept him pressed to the tarmac of the road. Then he felt one of them lifting his left arm, bringing his hand up to its mouth.

“
Feeed
,” it said softly, and held his fingers splayed as it bit off his left little finger.

“Oh, you fucker,” Owen cried, and then the hand was passed to another infected who sucked on the wound, its eyes bulging from its sockets with delight. The second infected bit off another of his fingers, one of its teeth cracking off at the gum line with the extent of the force it bit down with. Owen cursed again, and then he felt himself released, and the crowd of infected moved away from him.