Last Man Standing (Book 2): Cordyceps (5 page)

I listen in rapt attention as Vee tells the story, chain smoking with one eye on the road and the other looking out for infected.

"Wow," I say, looking down at the gun in my hand and suddenly understanding why Vee was so precious about it. "So you guys deserted."

She shrugs her shoulders and blows out a plume of smoke. "If that's the way you want to look at it, sure. I don't see it that way."

Warren pipes up from the back of the car. "You have to ask yourself who you really serve. Is it your immediate superior? The President? I don't think it's either. Call me naive, but when I signed up it was to serve my country, not just one man on a power trip. I happily signed on the dotted line and agreed to give my life for the United States. I never agreed to go to war against my own people. None of us did."

Vee nods. "He's right. The way I see it the real deserters are those who stayed. They've abandoned the people they promised to protect, and now they're just following orders." Another drag on the cigarette. Another angry plume of smoke. "It's not like we haven't seen this shit before. My grandpa had to go to Europe to fight a bunch of guys who were just following orders."

I can't argue, but I don't know what to say. I just nod, stay silent, and light another cigarette.

"Edgar was there."

I turn in my seat and see Bishop shifting in his seat. I thought he'd been sleeping, but it seems he was just listening with his eyes closed.

"How do you mean?" I ask.

"Edgar." Bishop repeats. "He was in one of those, umm, camps in Europe. Remember?”

I'd almost forgotten about that. Before he died Edgar had told us the story. I'd only been half listening at the time, since I really didn't want to hear shit like that considering our situation, but he'd told us he came from a little town just outside Kraków, Poland. He was just a baby when the German occupation began, and his first memories were of life in the Kraków ghetto. Sometime around 1942 he'd been moved to Plaszow, then two years later transferred to Flossenburg in Bavaria. By the time the camp was liberated in '45 he was ten years old, his family was gone, and the only things he owned were the threadbare clothes on his back.

"Edgar was our friend," Bishop rumbles, his voice filled with anger. "They hit him in the face with a gun and killed him. They didn't have to do that. He just didn't want to be locked up any more."

Vee turns to me with fire in her eyes. "Doesn't that make you mad? Doesn't it make you want to just reach down their throats and tear out their lungs?"

I nod. "Of course it does. I'm fucking furious, but what can we do? The camp's gone. Everyone's dead."

From the back seat I hear a dull click as Warren slots ammo into his magazine. "No. Hardly any of them are. We only got the guys who guarded the prison. The fuckers who built the place are still out there, probably already planning another. So, first priority," he says, "we find somewhere to sleep, and you can learn how to use that gun you're holding so I don't have to carry your ass across the country. Then we can get you and the big guy to Columbus, and we can blow the fucking lid on what Lassiter's been doing."

"Columbus? What's in Columbus?"

Vee chimes in. "Columbus is the first decent sized city outside the quarantine zone. Most of the big cities have been evacuated, but there's still some media working out of Columbus. Couple of radio stations and what's left of the big New York and D.C. papers set up there after the attacks. We have to at least try. If I know Lassiter he won't give up after just one little setback. He'll set up another camp, then another, then another. He'll kill as many people as it takes to win his insane war, and we owe it all the people in that fucking mass grave to give people a chance to fight back." She maneuvers the car around a pile of wrecks and guns the engine. "So, are you coming along for the ride?"

I look back at Bishop, who nods furiously. "Well, I guess somebody has to take keep old Lennie here out of trouble. I'm in."

"Lennie?" Vee asks. "That's Bishop's name?"

I shake my head. "No, that's not— it's a joke.
Of Mice and Men
? George and Lennie? Alfalfa? Rabbits? Ringing any bells?" I'm met by blank faces all round. "Not a book crowd, huh? OK, fuck it. Let's go take down a President."

Terrence Lassiter emerges from the chapel with an expression of profound calm, in stark contrast to the vein-popping rage he'd felt as he walked in. His visits to the chapel were always invigorating. Even after weeks without feeling the warmth of the sun through the windows of his own church, and even though he hadn't seen his dear family since he'd left the surface, no matter how troubled he felt as he entered he always emerged from his private sanctuary at peace, his resolve renewed.

He'd be the first to admit that the last month had been... trying, to say the least. The vast expansion of his responsibilities had been almost overwhelming, but it was a challenge he'd faced several times before. The first was when he felt the calling to become a minister as a much younger man. Overnight his flock expanded from four - his wife and darling children - to many hundreds. Then, just a few short years later, he'd been called on once again to represent the first congressional district of Arkansas and once more his flock grew, that time to hundreds of thousands.

His promotion to Speaker at the age of 67 was even greater, and he saw it as a chance to speak to an even larger congregation. Not just to the men and women who served with him in the House but to each and every one of the millions of American citizens they represented. After three years in the position he'd assumed it was God's intention that he rise no further. That this would be where he could serve his Lord best.

He'd been wrong. Oh, how he'd underestimated the will of the Lord. He'd never imagined He would bless him with yet more bounty, nor demand of him an even greater sacrifice, but Terrence Lassiter knew in his heart that he was equal to the challenge. He knew he could answer the call, just as he always had before.

He'd never presume to understand God's ineffable motivations, of course, but in moments of quiet reflection over the last few weeks he often wondered if he'd not been cast in the role of Gideon from the Book of Judges. Gideon's tale had always been one of his favorite Old Testament stories, and it had always been a crowd pleaser when he preached it before his congregation.

Gideon was tasked by the Lord to free the Israelites, who had turned away from Yahweh and chosen to worship false gods, from a Midianite army 135,000 men strong. To serve His will Gideon amassed his own army of 32,000, but the Lord said they were too many. With so many men the Israelites might claim that they had been saved not by the Lord but simply by a mighty army, so God instructed Gideon to send all who wished to leave home. 22,000 left, and 10,000 remained.

Still God said this was too many. How could the Israelites be certain that it was God's will that they be saved from the Midianites? Still they may claim it was only Gideon's army that had freed them.

Gideon, eager to bring glory upon God, winnowed down his forces yet further until only 300 remained. He was afraid that such a small force may not triumph against the Midianite hordes, but he put his trust in the Lord. God, always true to his word, allowed those 300 a great victory, freeing the Israelites from their siege.

Lassiter had considered this story many times since he'd found himself thrust into the Presidency, and each time he felt closer and closer to understanding God's wishes for him. Like Gideon, Lassiter had begun with a mighty army. On his first day in office he'd controlled the massed forces of the entire United States military, the greatest fighting force in the history of the planet, and surely the equal to any earthly foe.

God, in his boundless wisdom, had decided that a victory using such awesome power would be insufficient to convince his deniers - not just the Israelites this time, but the many millions of deviants, blasphemers and followers of false prophets around the world, all of whom who failed to recognize the supremacy of God.

And so He saw fit to weaken the forces at Lassiter's command so as to better display that the victory, when it came, would be God's will. First came the loss of Roberts, the Secretary of Defense, who refused to understand the obvious need to research the infection that had overrun the United States. His resolve was weak, and Lassiter had no choice but to banish him to the surface above Site R. Perhaps if he chose to turn to God he may be allowed to live, and Lassiter would be among the first to offer him forgiveness.

With Roberts' departure it seemed prudent to put direct operational control of the military back into the hands of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, men who had spent a lifetime following orders, and who truly understood that painful sacrifices must sometimes be made for the greater good. He assumed they'd understand the need to carry out vital research at Camp One; that the loss of a few thousand test subjects was more than outweighed by the ability to wield such influence over the wider world. Like Roberts, however, these men lacked the necessary resolve, and saw fit to resign their commissions rather than carry out their Commander in Chief's orders. They too were banished to the surface.

More resignations came, and then more, until eventually Lassiter saw that simple banishment was impractical. The civilian traitors were confined to the holding cells of the complex, while the military commanders were justly executed to pay for their treachery.

Finally the bleeding began to stop. When his remaining staff understood the harsh consequences of disloyalty he was pleased to see how quickly they fell in line. Lassiter felt terrible for instilling in them such fear and he'd asked for guidance and forgiveness during many of his visits to the chapel, but he knew that - in time - the men and women working under him would understand that he had been correct, and that they were working towards a righteous cause.

Now, as Lassiter steps through the door of the situation room hidden three hundred feet beneath the surface of Raven Rock Mountain, he reflects that perhaps the Lord may finally consider his forces small enough to score a decisively righteous victory. Without the aid of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs his command of the military is greatly weakened, with only a loyal few remaining to carry out his orders. The traitors have followed in the footsteps of Gideon's 22,000, returning home and forcing the Air Force and the Navy to stand down and reject all orders from his office. Much of the Army remains overseas, effectively stranded and unable to help the nation in its hour of need.

If Lassiter's faith wasn't quite so strong he might consider himself forsaken by his Lord, but - like the angel who appeared to Gideon and assured him that he was carrying out God's work - just as so many were abandoning him an unlikely ally arose to stiffen the President's resolve: Samuel Whelan, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

It was Whelan who found the solution to Lassiter's military crisis, drawing on the vast network of covert operatives that were his pre-war stock in trade. It was he who suggested that the President extend certain promises to those operatives to ensure their loyalty. Promises of cash, of tracts of land in the quarantine zone and, for those military commanders who had remained loyal, a promise of promotion to political office once the crisis was over, to fill the many seats vacated by the cowards and traitors who had fled.

It was Whelan who helped Lassiter realize that the loss of the eastern states presented a tremendous opportunity. That far from a disaster the infection had simply wiped the slate clean on a country that had moved too far from God.

Whelan had been his savior. The President was under no illusions that the crafty, scheming old spymaster was a righteous man and he knew that once this crisis was over he'd need to be justly dealt with, but for now he made a useful if unlikely ally. With his help Lassiter would remake the United States in God's image, and it would be truly glorious.

"Mr. President, there's a problem."

Lassiter's chest swells for a moment at the sound of the term of office, just as it has each time he's heard it over the last month. He allows himself a brief moment of pleasure, then adds it to the long list of sins he'll need to ask forgiveness for on his next visit to the chapel.

"What is it now, Mr, Whelan?" He takes a seat at the end of the long table, several seats from Whelan, and bristles inwardly at the fact that the Director failed to stand with the proper respect as he entered the room. That infraction is added to the bottom of a very different, much longer list.

Whelan turns to the wall-mounted screen, a map of the United States, and presses a button on the intercom. "Can you show me grid seven?" The map immediately zooms in from the overview until the northeast fills the screen, narrows down until Lassiter recognizes New York, then zooms further until he sees the outline of Newark Airport.

"About an hour ago we lost contact with Camp One. Major Armitage failed to make his scheduled check-in, so we repositioned the satellite to see if we could get an idea of what was going on. This is Camp One at 10PM, and this," he presses a key on his console, and the image immediately switches, "is Camp One on the last pass about twenty minutes ago. You're looking at an infrared image to see past the cloud cover."

"Oh, good grief," sighs Lassiter, sinking into his seat. On screen a false color image appears to show a thick column of smoke extending north from the airport, while a dull red spot at the south end of the runway shows the residual heat from what looks like an explosion. "What do we think happened? An attack? An accident?"

Whelan chews his pencil for a moment before answering. "It was an attack. And not by infected, either. We've just received word from a unit sent to investigate that several guards were found dead at the scene. Sniper and small arms fire. And it looks like they took out the generators on site using military grade explosives."

"Traitors," curses Lassiter. "They'll be the death of us. Any casualties?"

Whelan steels himself for the outburst of rage he knows to expect. "Yes, sir. I'm sorry to say our losses were total. It seems the explosion disabled the locks on the holding cells, and a number of infected were released along with the remaining test subjects. The camp was overrun."

Lassiter stares at the screen for a moment, as if trying to pick out the attackers in the image. Whelan remains silent, waiting for the President to lash out at him as if this was his fault, but the usual attack doesn't come. Instead Lassiter simply removes his glasses, kneads the bridge of his nose with his fingers and looks back at Whelan.

"Are your teams in position?"

"Yes, sir."

"And they have the required stockpiles?"

Whelan ponders the question for a moment. "It'll be touch and go. We could use a few weeks to synthesize more, but... yes, I believe they may have enough, Mr. President."

Lassiter stands, pushing back his chair. "We go today. No more waiting. Understood?"

Whelan lifts the phone in front of him to connect to his field control unit. "Yes, I understand, sir. Umm, you have to give the order. I'm sorry, it's just a formality."

"Operation Crop Dust, Mr Whelan. I'm giving you the go order. Make it happen."

At that the President replaces his glasses, turns on his heel and strolls out of the room as if he and Whelan have just enjoyed nothing but a casual conversation. Nobody who didn't understand how Lassiter's mind worked would ever guess that he'd just casually ordered the largest and most ambitious air strike in the history of the human race.