Up From the Depths (6 page)

Chapter 10

DARPA Facility, Nevada Desert

“Don’t you see? This makes all the difference,” Chambers stated vehemently to Heller. “This could be the start to unraveling all this. The virus manufactures this compound and that in turn makes the infected appear impervious to injuries outside of massive head trauma. But, that’s just the beginning.”

Heller was silent as he thought about what Chambers had just told him as he looked at the data from the memory stick on his laptop.

“I see it but I don’t believe it,” Heller said shaking his head. “You’re sure about this?” he asked looking up at the research scientist.

Chambers nodded and pointed to the data. “It’s all right there.” Heller looked back at the information that was scrolling down his screen.

“This is a lot to take in,” Heller stated as he read the screen.

“I know,” Chambers said pacing the floor in Heller’s small office. “It’s so fantastical that it reads like bad science fiction. What we're seeing at this stage is not reanimated corpses. Oh no. That is not the case at all. What we're seeing is God knows how many mutations beyond the core virus. You see, each person's immune system is different. The virus reacts and changes and that's where we get mutations. I'm no virologist but I can tell that there have been several generations of mutation. The infected we see now are 6th or 7th, possibly even as far as the 12th generation removed from the initial victims. These 'new' infected are different. From the video that was shot by your drones, they seem to gather together and even problem solve to some extent. They're moving to more of a herd mentality. And then there’s the pregnancy issues.”

“How can they reproduce? I mean, they’re like rabid animals. How do they…” Heller trailed off and then made a gesture with his fist, pumping horizontally. “You know?” he asked as he looked at the stills taken from the digital video of the drones when they entered the casinos in Vegas.

“Nature finds a way. It’s rather rudimentary that a species knows how to procreate. And this is what we’re seeing, a new species. I need more tests, more data to be as close to 100% as possible on the results,” Chambers stated.

“Shit, doc. How positive are you right now?” Heller asked, pausing the data stream and looking up.

“99.5% positive,” Chambers said as he stopped pacing. Heller looked at him silently for several minutes before leaning back in his chair and letting out a whistle.

“Sonovabitch. Thanks for breaking it to me gently,” Heller said slowly shaking his head. “So what do we do about it?”

“Containment comes to mind,” Chambers stated. “By any means possible,” he added.

“Shit,” the Air Force officer muttered. He removed his glasses and cupped his face in his hands, taking several deep breaths. Taking his hands away, he put his glasses back on.

“I need to make some calls. This is way beyond my pay grade,” he said trying to inject a little humor.

“Don’t take too long, this needs to be dealt with as soon as possible,” Chambers said.

“I know doc, I know,” Heller said.

“If we continue to allow the infected relatively free roam, they’ll increase their numbers and be able to do God knows what,” Chambers said. “We don’t even know how the virus is passed onto any infants. The placental barrier should stop it but we have no way of knowing if it does. This is already gone beyond anything we know. If these infected are capable of giving birth, live birth, then they can multiply and we’d never know until their numbers swelled to a breaking point. We need to stop this now. By any means possible.” Chambers shook his head. “No one is prepared for this. This is a decision that needs to be made by someone that has the authority to do so.”

“I got it, doc. I’ll take care of it right now,” Heller stated picking up the phone on his desk. "Hey. One more question. If these infected aren't walking corpses, then why do they smell so bad?"

"What?" Chambers asked.

"Lieutenant Willis said they smell real bad. Like a mix between boiled cabbages, open sewer, and spoiled milk."

Chambers thought about that. He had been in a RACAL suit and hadn't been exposed to any smell that Harold had given off.

"To put it bluntly, they've been wearing the same clothes they had on when they were infected. That means they've emptied their bowels, urinated, puked, bled, been sprayed with bodily fluids during an attack and any number of other things since then. They also seem to be a Petri dish for all kinds of bacteria. The samples I have are teeming with all sorts of bacteria. They're not dying off from secondary infections at all," Chambers said.

"Yeah," Heller said. "That’s good to know."

***

Chapter 11

Site R, Raven Rock Military Complex (RRMC)

“Mr. President, General Wilbur at NORAD is on in the Situation Room,” Erwin Grayson, POTUS Security Detail SAC said.

Hamilton Jefferson Wood looked up from his wife’s bedside, bleary eyed, and nodded. FLOTUS, Dana Wood had suffered some kind of de-habilitating episode that the medical staff of Site R had been hard pressed to diagnosis. The medical staff had settled on a diagnosis that was a mixture of extreme stress coupled with anxiety, lack of sleep, and a whole list of other possible causes. Since that time, there had been minimal improvements to her well being. Recently, she had squeezed her husband’s hand and moved her eyes to look at him.

“Inform the Joint Chiefs that I’ll be there momentarily,” Wood said before turning back to his wife. He ran his hand down the side of her face and was rewarded with a slight twitch of her lips that might have been the beginnings of a smile forming.

“I’ll be back, Honey. You just stay here and rest a while,” Wood said as he stood and walked to the door. He paused and looked back; Dana’s eyes followed him to the door. He closed the door behind him knowing that Sergeant Warren would watch over her in his absence.

Outside in the hall, the Secret Service Incident Response Team in full tactical gear watched both ends of the corridor. Wood’s periphery vision caught the glimpse of Marines in their distinctive MARPAT camouflage pattern securing the far ends. The travel time to the Situation Room was short, a few strides through the color coded passageways, a nod to the Marines standing post at the doors and he was inside. On the large, wall mounted LCD screen the image of General Wilbur at NORAD could be seen. The remaining Joint Chiefs of Staff were seated at the table along with Lonnie Packwood and Mike Dunlavy of the Defense Information Service.

“Mr. President,” Wilbur said when the camera picked up Wood’s entrance.

“General.”

“Sir, we have some new information," Wilbur said as the screen split into two separate screens.

"What do you have, General?" Wood asked.

"Sir. We were able to download raw footage from NATO headquarters in Brussels," Wilbur said as the blank section of the screen his image shared came to life. The shakiness was obviously from a helmet camera.

"General, what are we looking at here?" Wood asked.

"Sir. Wait one while we clean this up," Wilbur said. "This is raw footage taken from a MHRS," Wilbur said in reference to the Mission Helmet Recording System that some soldiers wore. "This is all that we've been able to recover. There's a time stamp at the lower right corner and we've verified that this is authentic."

The screen changed to full as Wilbur's image blinked out. On the LCD, soldiers were seen running back and forth at some fence that Wood presumed to be an installation perimeter. The camera swiveled to show the headquarters of NATO and more soldiers moving rapidly. The sound cut in and out.

"...support! We need more support!...fuck...get on it! Right side! By that truck!"

The Joint Chiefs watched as a large civilian truck with infected clinging to the sides, rammed through the fence just yards from the entry gate. Soldiers were seen firing at it. Steam poured from the engine but still the truck pushed forward, wrapped as it were in the security fencing and dragging more infected with it. Weapons fire cut off any more words as a Hummer roared into view, the soldier manning the M2, firing into the truck until it finally stopped. Infected swarmed through the torn fence. The last image of the video was a close up view of infected attacking the soldier who wore the camera. That image was evident from the blood spray and then the angle of the camera. The viewers in the room all cocked their heads to one side as to watch as more and more infected push through the fence and took down the soldiers who valiantly tried to turn back the tide. The screen went blank as the video stopped. Wilbur's image reappeared.

"Mr. President. That's all we've been able to recover," he said. "From that upload, and the time stamps, we've been able to verify that it took place 22 minutes before we lost all contact with NATO."

"Twenty-two minutes?" Wood asked.

"Yes sir."

"My God," Wood said. "In less than a half hour, our command structure in Europe was decimated."

"Sir," Wilbur said. "Based on the speed of that event and the reports we've received from The Rid before they went offline, the standard containment methods won't work. We tried that in New York."

Wood nodded his head. He had read the reports that Chambers in Nevada has sent over. He was well aware of the options available to him. The spread of this infection had to be stopped. By any means available.

"Mr. President, we've reviewed
other
options. Based on the information provided by Dr. Chambers and combined with what we already know plus this footage, strike package options are limited. We still have access to FAE and Thermobaric weapons. According to what we received from The Rid, those munitions would destroy the virus. If we started with the major cities along the eastern seaboard,” Wilbur said his voice impassive. “We could target those areas with the largest numbers of reported infected. By hitting them at their core, we'd prevent them from spreading further. Continuing with that option across the nation from east to west, and focusing on large areas, we’d have all targets serviced within 24 hours. With the limited tanker support available, some of our bombers will have to use auxiliary fields when their mission is complete. I have projections that show that we can achieve target saturation by using these weapons. If we use this option, we can use the remaining ground forces to mop up.”

“What about support? We don’t have a lot of ground force,” Wood said.

“Yes sir. Those forces would be able to use supply depots at existing installations. That’s a two-fold mission option. Once they access those depots, they can also search for survivors at those facilities.”

“That would be beneficial,” Wood agreed. “What about the collateral damage?”

“That could be a problem,” Wilbur said. “Thermobaric would be a scorched earth event. There would be considerable damage to the cities and their infrastructure. Any uninfected survivors would need to seek shelter outside those areas.”

“How would we get the word out to them?” Wood asked.

“Sir that would be something that FEMA would do,” Wilbur said. “They have the ability to access all communications. If they could use that ability, we could limit the collateral damage.”

Wood nodded agreement. He knew that FEMA had a large facility in Maryland, allegedly underground, that had the capability of taking over all forms of communication. But, they hadn’t had contact with that facility in several weeks.

“If we exercised this option, how would we know that the infection was contained or destroyed?” Wood asked.

“We’ll have satellite coverage for most of the locations and there are still some Global Hawks in the air. Both can provide us with BDA. With tanker support for a few select aircraft, we’ll still retain the ability to service additional targets on an as needed basis,” Wilbur replied.

Wood nodded. What he had ordered his Joint Chiefs to do was sickening. But, the alternative, according to the only person they knew who was still alive and actively working on what had caused this outbreak, was to see all life, all uninfected life, cease to exist within a year. That severely limited the options. They had lost contact with the Rid at Fort Dietrich over a month ago. The CDC in Atlanta had gone dark a week prior to the Rid and the WHO in Geneva had dropped off the Net completely. Chambers, a civilian researcher at the DARPA facility in Nevada was all that was left.

“Continue,” Wood said.

“Yes sir. We’ll be stretching our resources very thin but there is no other viable alternative,” Wilbur said onscreen. “In conjunction with those strikes, we have US Navy ballistic missile submarines and surface craft moving into support positions to launch Tomahawks. That would be a second strike option that we can address if there are still viable targets in the zone.”

“Excuse me, General. I was under the impression that we had no contact with our ballistic missile submarines,” Wood said looking at Admiral Romero.

“Sir,” Lonnie Packwood said interrupting before Romero or Wilbur could comment.

“Lonnie,” Wood said, nodding his head towards the former DIS employee.

“Sir, with the time we took to gather intel on the infected, we were able to rig up a low frequency signal that the subs would pick up. It was a long shot but it did pay off. Once we made contact with one, we were able to get them to surface and then using a satellite phone, relay the OP Order. We’ve made contact with eight boomers using that method.”

“Eight?” Wood asked, knowing that there were far more than that at sea. Maybe once this was all over, they could reestablish contact and bring those remaining vessels into the fold.

“Thank you, Lonnie,” Wood said. “Continue General.”

“Thank you, sir. We estimate that a majority of the infected will be eradicated in the initial wave. However, for those cities that have large populations and rapid transit systems that are partially underground or totally underground, the surface bombardment will not have the desired effect. The majority of the structures in those cities have basements, sub-basements, and other maintenance spaces such as utility and waste water tunnels. We have to go out on a limb here and assume that the infected are also in those spaces.”

“I understand, General,” Wood said. “I presume you have some options to deal with that contingency?”

“Yes sir,” Wilbur said then paused. “Conventionally, we’d use what is commonly known as a ‘bunker buster’. But, the majority of those were deployed to SWA prior to this event. Those that remain in CONUS are still at the contractor’s that manufactured them. My recommendation would be to use option Four-Zero-Alpha. You have that file in front of you now, sir.”

“I see,” Wood said, looking down at the file folder.

“Sir, as much as I hate to say this, that is the only viable option available for assured containment and sterilization,” Wilbur said.

Wood looked at the LCD screen in silence. He finally nodded.

“Very well. I agree. General Whitney, General Harrelson, and Admiral Romero, do you concur with NORAD’s assessment of the current situation?” Wood asked. The three general officers looked at each other then at their president.

“Sir,” Whitney said. “I agree with NORAD. The use of tactical nuclear weapons in those areas that infected could have taken refuge underground is the only method to guarantee we stop this from going any further.”

Wood looked at the other officers.

“Yes sir. It’s the only way to be sure,” Harrelson said. “But, what about the collateral damage? There has to be survivors in some of those cities. Probably inside some of those tunnels and basements.”

“Yes. I concur with the findings,” Romero agreed solemnly.

“There will be collateral damage,” Wilbur said. “That’s always been an issue. In this case, the risk of collateral is less than the eventual outcome if we did nothing.”

“I understand your concern about collateral damage. I’ll take full responsibility for that,” Wood said. “General Wilbur, I hereby order you to initiate the Four-Zero-Alpha optional strike package.”

“Yes sir,” Wilbur said. Another officer stepped up to Wood and placed a briefcase on the table. He worked the combination locks, opened the lid and then turned the interior towards Wood. Inside this case, the ‘football’ as it was referred to, were the Permissive Action Links that would allow POTUS to order a nuclear strike. Wood removed a credit card sized object from a shirt pocket, cracked the protective plastic case in half and removed the card inside. He entered his code on the keypad then slid back from the table.

“Admiral Romero, as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and as part of the two-man rule, you need to verify the launch order,” Wilbur said. Romero stood from his chair, walked over to the case, removed a similar card from his pocket, opened it and entered his code.

“Mr. President,” Wilbur said. “I have received a valid authorization for the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Strike will initiate in 22 hours 47 minutes from now. We will be operating under the protocols as outlined in CONPLANS, Four- Zero-Alpha, Section 114-5, sub-section 22, parts F through I, regarding the presence of persistent biological agents. The use of nuclear weapons within CONUS has now been authorized for containment and sterilization.” Wilbur’s image vanished from the screen to be replaced by a digital countdown.

Wood looked at the ashen faces of the men in the Situation Room.

“God have mercy on the American People,” Harrelson said quietly.

***