Survivors (47 page)

“All right,” he said. “They’re just milling around right now, but sooner or later they’re going to come this way. There are too many for them not to. We need to find a way inside . . .”

“Right this way,” Allen said. Brewster turned to see Mitsui holding a door open and waving them all in.

“What?”

Allen shrugged. “Right, ask me like I speak fucking Japanese. Get inside, will you?”

The group of four hustled in, Allen closing the door behind them.

A flashlight cut a swath through the darkness, checking the four corners of the basement apartment they were in. Brewster fumbled in his pack.

“What now?” Allen asked.

Brewster gave him a grimace. “I feel like Chuck Heston. Hold on.”

From his pack, Brewster pulled out a hand-drawn map and unfolded it. He laid it out on the back of a couch and smoothed it with his hand. “Okay, okay, we are . . .
here
. Right. Okay. I think we’re good. Krueger cleared this building last month.”

“You think it’s still clear?” Allen asked.

Mitsui sniffed.

“You think shamblers can pick locks?” Brewster shot back.

Allen put up his hands and walked to the street-level window.

“Sure are a lot of them. I bet they don’t have a permit . . . whoops.”

Three heads turned to Allen.

“What does this mean, when you say ‘whoops’?” Mbutu Ngasy asked.

Allen dropped the small drape and turned, putting his back against the wall.

“Douse the flash,” he said, his eyes wide. “Or, don’t. I don’t know, which will bring more attention? There are people out there.”

Brewster killed the flashlight and walked to the window. “Yeah, two dozen or more. Except they’re all dead already.”

“No, I mean people. I think we found the other squad.”

Brewster peeked out. He strained his eyes until he saw movement. “There they are. Quiet bunch. The carriers aren’t even looking at them.”

“That is a nice trick,” Mbutu said.

With a tilt of his head, Brewster said, “Yep. Let’s ruin it. Get ready to run.”

“Run where?” Allen asked, his pitch raising several notes.

Brewster shrugged. “Don’t know yet. Whichever way these guys run? Wait until the deadasses take off after them, then go the other direction.”

Allen stared at Brewster. “That’s your plan?”

One corner of Brewster’s mouth quirked up. “Yeah.”

He held the flashlight out until it was more or less where he’d seen movement in the dark, then turned it on and waved it back and forth quickly, making a strobe of the area.

One or two of the dead turned to look, but they kept on.

“Brilliant,” Allen said.

“Just wait for it. Okay. Mitsui, take my shotgun and put a round in the middle.”

Quickly, the contractor took Brewster’s long gun and racked it once. He waited until Brewster had a finger in his ear, then pulled the trigger, blowing the window and curtain out into the street.

“Duck!”

Return fire came almost immediately, and the group could hear Brewster laughing over the ruckus.

And then they could hear the moans over
that.

Up on his feet, Brewster ran to the door, cracking it open. “They went thataway,” he said, pointing to the right. “So we go thataway. Come on. Back to the Fac.”

Omaha, NE
1 July 2007
2034 hrs_

D
OWN IN
BL4, R
EBECCA
was helping Doc Demilio out of her Chemturion suit.

“They went off and I haven’t heard anything since, but I don’t want to just sit down here and wait.”

Anna nodded. “I know what you mean. We should go up and see what else Thomas has in his armory.” She put down the Chemturion suit and worked her way into a set of coveralls. “I won’t be able to work, knowing that there’s something going on, anyway. Come on. We should grab a radio, too, so at least we can listen in.”

Opening the security checkpoint for BL4, Doc Demilio found herself looking at the wrong end of an M4A1 rifle, held by a stranger in urban camouflage.

“Hello, Doctor,” said a voice from slightly lower, and Anna looked down to see Agent Sawyer slumped down against the wall, holding a blood-soaked bandage against his hip. “This has been some time coming, I think. But I’m so glad to see you again.”

The Doctor put her hands up. Rebecca, unseen behind her, drifted backward into the dress-out area, looking around for a place to hide among the racks of suits and trolleys, the latter still piled high with medical supplies from the previous couple of scavenging runs.

“Sawyer,” Anna said. “You don’t look so hot.”

The agent barked out a laugh. “Well, you should see the other guy. Come on, help me up. Just don’t try anything stupid, or my man here will ventilate a nonessential part of you.”

Gingerly, Anna Demilio walked over to the downed agent and stooped to help him up. He was heavy, but he helped with his good leg enough for her to do it. He began shuffling her toward the door she’d just stepped through.

“All right. Now, we grab your cure and head for the hills. We have a ride to catch back to Mount Weather.”

The Doctor stopped the slow shuffle and looked at Sawyer with incredulity.

“The . . . the
cure
? You came here and did . . . well, whatever it was you did for the cure? Jesus Christ, you’re a monster. A deluded monster.”

Sawyer’s face lost some of its good cheer. “Fuck you, Doc. That cure is the result of research conducted under the authority of and bankrolled by your government, and you will—”

He was cut off by the sudden peal of laughter from the Doctor’s mouth.

“I can’t believe you people. Before yesterday,
there was no cure
. And the only reason we might have one today is all blind fucking luck.” She laughed more, harder, and Sawyer’s face reddened.

His man, on the other hand, paled a bit.

“What are you talking about?” he yelled, pressing in on the Doctor with his rifle raised. “Intel was that you’d developed a cure and ran with it. That’s what . . .” The rifle swayed a bit to a point between the Doctor’s face and Sawyer’s. “That’s what
he
said.”

Krueger was having his own bad day.

After taking out the last of the guerrillas that were plaguing Brewster and Company, a shot
panged
off the side of the handrail at the top of his watchtower. He rolled back smoothly, putting the thick metal walkway and empty drums between him and the countersniper.

This, he thought, this is what it’s all about.

From his pocket, Krueger took a small green memo book and flipped to a blank page. Withdrawing a Skilcraft pen from a pocket on his sleeve, he turned to where the round had struck.

For a moment, he just looked, then started sketching. As he was drawing, a second round popped through an empty drum and careened off the wall of the tower above his head.

“Thank you,” he said, finishing one sketch and starting on another. He lifted up to eye the hole in the drum . . . and the entrance hole.

“Thank you very much.”

Relying on his memory, he went through possible nests in the area surrounding the Fac that would provide a clear shot to his spot on the grain silo. There weren’t many. As he looked out, he crossed two off his mental list right off the bat; he could see them from where he was lying. Given the angle of the hole, those were off the list.

He began scooting his way down the walkway, dragging himself around the side of the tower to the ladder on the other side. The helicopters had, by this time, started their strafing runs, but as long as he was pinned down, there was nothing Krueger could do for his teammates.

Finally making it to where he thought he’d be safe from the countersniper, Krueger got to his feet and ran to the next ladder.

“Checkpoint four. All clear,” said the man with the radio. The next thing to pass through his throat was four inches of steel.

Stone eased through the unlocked and unguarded BL1 doorway, M-16 at the ready. He’d avoided most of the men stationed on the ground level of the Fac; not out of fear, but because he knew he would be no help to the Doctor if he was dead. And this direction was the way he’d need to go, according to Hal. There were three men who had died on his blade, and he kept one ear out for their discovery.

He kicked a spent shell as he passed the room where they’d searched earlier, where the prisoners were, and they started with a horrible racket.

“We’re in here!” one of them yelled, pounding on the door with the flat of his hand. “Hey! Hey! We’re with you guys! We came with Derrick! Let us out!”

Stone put his back to the door and looked up and down the corridor. He kicked back once, and the pounding stopped immediately.

“Just keep it down for now,” he said. “There are more of these bastards skulking around. I’ll be back to let you out after I clear this level.”

“Fuckin’ ay,” the other one said. “RSA forever, brother.”

Stone blew a breath out his nose. “Yeah, that.”

He continued down the hallway, stopping once at the recovery room, grimacing at the mess in there.

“Damn,” he whispered. He kept a close eye on the still forms of both men as he stooped to grab the firearms on the floor in there, a Beretta and a SIG P226. Slinging his M-16 over his shoulder, he continued down the hall with an automatic in each hand.

At the double door at the end of the hallway, Stone stopped, seeing drops of blood on the normally clean floor. They didn’t surprise him, considering the amount of blood coming out of Mason’s room, but he did wonder who the blood belonged to. He followed the trail back to a side room, where he found towels ripped to strips and sodden with the red stuff.

“Not one of ours, then,” he said, deducing that whoever was bleeding that much had been through a grinder with Mason.

Checking the safeties on the automatics, he eased open the double door past BL2 and BL3 and slid through it.

As he climbed, Krueger thought back to the days before Morningstar and shook his head. He would never admit this to any of the others, but he was kind of grateful for the virus, or whatever it was.

No, that wasn’t quite right.

He didn’t like the disease, or what it had done to his friends and the people he’d served with. What it had most likely done to any and all of his family here in the States.