District: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (45 page)

The TOC at Schriever was a beehive of activity. Airmen and
women of the 50th Satellite Space Wing sat hunched over their workstations,
some banging away at their keyboards sending instructions to their birds
orbiting high above the United States, while others sat, eyes riveted on images
splashed on the humongous monitors to their fore.

The color image on the sixty-inch plasma display at the
front of the room was of a tributary of the Chesapeake. Three warships sat at
anchor off a curving white stretch of zombie-covered beach while a landing
craft of some type, a white wake spreading slowly from its bow, motored away
from the gray vessel nearest to shore.

On the smaller screen near where Nash stood, rendered in
black and white, was an overhead shot of open ocean complete with white caps
and angry rollers giving off intermittent puffs of spray.

“Five steps in on Two,” Nash said.

An airman nearby repeated the order, hit some keys in front
of him making the image on the smaller screen change, the waves and spray
becoming more noticeable as they contrasted against something sleek and shiny.

“Eight steps on One,” she ordered.

Again the verbal confirmation and key tapping which resulted
in the color image on the main screen going slightly grainy as everything on it
grew larger.

On the top right corner of the screen were the three
motorcycles the men and women of the 50th had been tracking for the better part
of an hour. Using four separate satellites, each one handing off the job to the
other as it passed out of range, they were able to follow their movement from
an overpass south of Fort Meade all the way to where they were now. Tiny as
ants in relation to their surroundings, the three soldiers dumped their bikes
on the beach and sprinted for the approaching landing craft.

A ripple went through the dead crowding the beach as what
looked like several hundred of them reacted in unison to the rendezvous taking
place a short distance northeast of them.

Looking rested compared to Nash and Shrill, both of whom had
been awake for more than thirty hours, the President rose from her chair and
stood next to Nash.

After doing a quick mental calculation that took into
account two converging objects both moving at different speeds, Nash nodded to
the President. “On your command.”

Her face conveying not one iota of emotion, President Clay
said, “Do it.”

Acting on the verbal command, the same airman responsible
for changing aspects and magnification on the moving satellite images spoke
into the red handset pressed to his ear.

On Screen Two the water directly above the sleek object
churned and the image was momentarily wrought blurry. In a sort of ripple
effect walking left to right on the screen the action was repeated sixteen
times, once every couple of seconds, and then suddenly the ocean was back to
normal, the sleek object having disappeared entirely.

The President turned to Nash. “What now?”

On the larger screen, the motor launch had seemingly
swallowed up the three men and was already backing away from the encroaching
zombies.

“Now we wait,” said Nash.

“And root for the landing craft,” added Shrill, as the color
image on the screen became distorted, flattening somewhat and seeming to
stretch at the edges.

“Pass it off to the next bird,” Nash said, her eyes never
leaving the bank of screens above the dais.

“Passing to KH-11 Misty,” she heard a disembodied voice say.

Suddenly the image on the center screen switched to one
being taken from a slightly different viewing angle. Nash picked up the landing
craft and saw that it had turned itself around and was steaming away from
shore, the water at its stern frothy and white.

Now we wait.

Standing on the bridge walkway of the destroyer
Lanzhou
,
Rear Admiral Qi watched the jiangshi milling about on shore through a pair of
high-power binoculars. A slight offshore breeze ruffled his wispy gray beard,
bringing with it the gut-churning stench of death. The dead were packed mostly
into a strip of white sandy beach near where the expeditionary force had gone
ashore. Since dropping anchor in the early morning hours and ferrying hundreds
of soldiers and a dozen vehicles from the amphibious transport dock
Kunlan
Shan
to shore via four incredibly noisy LCAC hovercraft, their numbers had
exploded exponentially, going from hundreds to thousands in the span of a few
hours. So Qi had ordered the handful of sailors to pull the LCAC from shore and
loiter in case the expeditionary force faced stiff resistance inland and was forced
to another beachhead somewhere up or down the waterway for emergency
extraction. But that had not been the case. The aptly named Tiger Force had
found inroads to most of the rural areas—if cities full of box stores and strip
malls dare be called rural—and had made good time prosecuting the PLA Navy’s
first ever incursion deep into the eastern half of the United States. However,
when word had come that the Tiger Force went radio silent and all attempts to
contact them had gone unanswered, Qi had ordered all four LCACs to pull anchor
and return to the
Kunlan Shan’s
well deck to be stowed for travel.

A young officer approached. “Admiral Qi,” he said, saluting,
then standing stiffly at attention.

“Yes, Lieutenant Shou?”

“The Cobra force is returning.” Eyes downcast, he added,
“But they are only three.”

Acceptable
, thought Qi. “Send the motor launch. Have
them wait off shore to the south and sprint north as soon as Zhen and the rest
of his team makes the agreed-upon extraction point.”

The lieutenant nodded and returned to the warmth of the
bridge.

Returning the binoculars to his eyes, Qi saw movement in the
ranks of jiangshi. Barely perceptible at first, but soon the entire mass of
them were turning north in unison. No longer were the pale faces fixed on the ships
off shore. Now the whole lot of them were moving almost as one toward the
sounds made by the approaching Cobra team.

Panning the binoculars right, Qi left the marching jiangshi
behind and focused his attention on a spit of land a quarter-mile north where
the tree line seemed to merge with the dark green water.

A minute passed and still the dead were moving up the shore,
a good number of them forced into the water where they fought to remain upright
and continue their march. The hardy grasses near shore were trampled flat.
Smaller trees in the way of the unstoppable surge of flesh and bone were bowed
down under the press, some snapping off entirely leaving behind upthrust
splintered trunks.

Barely two hundred yards separated the jiangshi from the
spit of land by the time Zhen and his men, loaded down with heavy packs and
still carrying their bullpup rifles, emerged onto the narrow half-moon of sand
in view of them.

Shifting the binoculars again, this time beyond the end of
the jiangshi column, Qi picked up the noisy motor launch racing south to north
toward Zhen and what remained of his team. It was hugging the shoreline and
creating a frothy wake that was making it difficult for the struggling jiangshi
to stand.

The launch reached the spit just as the team of commandos
began to engage a group of jiangshi that had no doubt followed them from where
they had ditched their motorcycles on the far side of the beach. Fire lanced
from their rifles and jiangshi fell in droves as the three men waded into the
surf, the taller Captain Zhen in the lead.

Qi drew a deep breath as the backpacks containing the
electronic devices filled with sensitive information were finally handed off to
a seaman aboard the launch. Only once the team was aboard and the launch was
spinning away from the knot of jiangshi that had pursued the team into the
water did he exhale.

Qi waited until the launch was a hundred feet from the
Lanzhou
then went inside the bridge where it was warm. Celebration was in order, and
who was going to tell him he couldn’t do it on the bridge? He pulled the cigar
Zhen had given him from his breast pocket. Ran it under his nose, enjoying the
earthy smell of one of Cuba’s finest. “Corporal Meng,” he barked. “Fetch my
finest spirits from my stateroom. Warm it first.”
Who knows
, he thought,
smiling.
Perhaps the entire bridge crew will get a taste of the exquisite
elixir.

“Admiral. I’m picking up multiple low-level contacts
inbound, due south, two kilometers, four hundred sixty knots,” said the officer
manning the over-the-horizon radar display.

Two kilometers
, thought Qi, his gut clenching. He
quickly did the math and came to the conclusion that even if the bogeys were
closing at subsonic speed, he had less than fifteen seconds to act. But instead
of immediately issuing orders, he burned three seconds getting over the river
of denial created by his own hubris.

A couple of hundred yards off the
Lanzhou’s
starboard
side,
Yulin’s
running lights went out and a half-dozen HQ-16
medium-range air defense missiles spewed from her vertical launch cell mounted
amidships.

Qi was issuing orders when a frantic call came in telling
him the rest of his small fleet ninety miles to the south near Norfolk,
Virginia was also under attack.

Submarine-launched Tomahawks
, he thought to himself as
two things happened simultaneously. First, the
Yulin’s
port-mounted Type
730 autonomous close-in weapon systems—a seven-barrel Gatling gun capable of
firing fifty-eight-hundred 30mm rounds a minute at inbound threats out to three
kilometers—went active, spewing rounds at an unseen enemy, the orange-white
fire lancing feet from the barrels impossible to ignore. Then there was a
blinding flash off in the distance as the 730 destroyed an inbound threat. A
split second later the
Kunlan Shan
was struck just above her waterline.

A thunderclap rolled over open water, rattling the
Lanzhou’s
bridge windows. Qi took a seat, waiting for the inevitable even as his crew
followed orders to get away from shore and deploy countermeasures he knew were
too little, too late. He’d been fixated on the brass ring and had discounted
America. Even in her darkest hour she had proven to be a worthy opponent.

More flashes of light, this time coming from
Yulin
as
she fired another salvo of outbound missiles. Then there was a trio of explosions
as a pair of incoming missiles struck her simultaneously, igniting her
magazines in the process.

Qi felt the
Lanzhou
shudder and begin to move in
reverse while swinging to port. An easy thing to do in open water. In the
narrows she was currently in, not so much. Mid-turn, a flurry of HHQ-9 anti-air
missiles leapt from the
Lanzhou’s
vertical launcher, making him squint.

We may just live to see another day
, Qi thought as a
trio of explosions lit up the horizon like New Year’s fireworks.

“Zhen is aboard,” called Corporal Meng, a phone handset
pressed to one ear. His eyes darted to the radar officer’s screen and the
handset fell from his grip. A second later there was a tremendous explosion and
he was ripped into by a thousand shards of glass. A millisecond later, before
the pain from the damage caused by the shrapnel could register, he simply
ceased to exist as a wall of fire infiltrated the bridge, incinerating Rear
Admiral Chan Qi and everything else in its path.

60 Miles West of Washington, D.C.

“Night Stalker Airways always strives to bring you, the
customer, the best in inflight entertainment,” said Ari in a cheesy voice.
“Tonight’s feature is brought to you by the folks at 50th Space Wing Studios.
Directed by Major Freda Nash and produced by President Valerie Clay, Chesapeake
Chum has received the highest Rotten Tomatoes score of the month. So sit back,
relax, and enjoy.”

Cade’s hand hadn’t left the raised outline of the satellite
phone in his thigh pocket since the Ghost Hawk whisked him and his team out of
harm’s way thirty minutes’ prior. As he watched the pre-recorded footage roll
on the cabin flat-panel, his mood remained guarded. He saw the tiny figures
dismount the three motorcycles. Recognizing the full packs worn by the soldiers
and seeing them make it to the awaiting launch only soured his mood further.

Seeing the launch slip by a smaller frigate and reach the
gray destroyer made his eyes narrow and temples throb.

“Wait for it,” Ari said, over the comms. “USS Georgia was
nearby. She’s one of the newer converted Ohio Class subs. Lady has claws.”

Axe leaned forward in his seat, eyes glued to the panel.

The missiles, just streaks of gray against the dark water,
streaked in from the right. Simultaneously two of the three ships launched
missiles of their own and there were multiple explosions—just blooms of light
as seen from space—and the three ships were momentarily blurred from view.

“Miss Georgia just redefined close,” Cross said, smiling at
Axe. “No way the guys on the launch could have survived those kind of danger
close explosions.”

Don’t bet on it
, Cade thought, dwelling on his many
experiences with danger close air support.

When the light flares dissipated on screen the previous
image had been altered irrevocably. The larger of the three ships—an amphibious
transport by the looks of it—was afire, its stern jutting skyward at a shallow
angle. Farther out into the waterway, flammable liquid floating on the surface
was burning.

The destroyer was sunk, that much was clear. Gaping holes
were visible in her starboard side which was presenting itself to the
eye-in-the-sky satellite. Her bridge and masts were completely submerged. The
helicopter hangar was still closed, suggesting nobody aboard had escaped via
the helicopter normally stowed there. Nearby, all that was left visible of the
smaller frigate was a black slick of oil, fire beginning to lick at its edges.
Soon to be consumed by flame or the dead waiting on shore, man-sized figures
bobbed on the surface.

“Utter destruction,” crowed Griff, offering high-fives all
around.

Declining the overture, Cade peered out the port-side glass
at the approaching dark band of night to the east.

“What’s the matter, Wyatt,” Ari asked, “cat got your
tongue?”

Busy working the buttons on the cargo pocket the phone was
in, Cade said nothing.

“Sixteen Tomahawk cruise missiles,” said Axe. “That’s a bit
of overkill, don’t you think?”

“Hell no! That’s a strongly worded message,” Cross quipped.

“Don’t tread on our soil in an easy to understand language,”
added Griff as he peeled off his tactical helmet.

Ignoring the banter, Cade thumbed the phone on and held his
breath as the screen lit up. It took a two-count to refresh, and once it had,
he saw that he had an SMS message from Duncan and instantly his stomach sank.

No gnus is good gnus
, had been his mantra at times.
It came from some old live-action cartoon he’d watched as a kid. He’d never
researched what a gnu was, and never planned on it. This time Murphy had thrown
a wrench into the mix, and he was about to find out how effed up things really
were back home.

After opening the message and reading it, he knew the ride
home was going to be a difficult one, the two accomplished missions
notwithstanding.

As the flat-panel on the bulkhead went dark, Cade took one
last look at the countryside below, then closed his eyes in hopes he’d wake up
to find that all that had happened from that day in July when he’d dropped
Brook and Raven off at Portland International Airport would have been just one
continual nightmare.