Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (Escaping the Dead) (5 page)

Both men carried huge
packs and an assortment of weapons.  The chatty man carried a large scoped
rifle and he had a suppressed MP5 strapped to the top of his pack.  His
partner carried a scoped M14 and also a silenced MP5 and they both had large
hand guns on their hips. They wore dark patterned cargo pants, and large dark
and tan splattered hooded jackets—they definitely blended into the terrain here
in northern Afghanistan.   The man saw the pot and asked if they had
any more.

“Tastes like shit,”
answered Brad “but suit yourself.”

Méndez smiled, reached
over to stir the coals on the fire, and started to open a couple cans of the
Afghan slop.

“So you care to make a
proper introduction now?” Brad asked.

“Yeah, sorry about
that,” he laughed.  “I’m Chief Sean Rogers.  This is my partner Petty
Officer Brooks.  We really
are
SEALs,” he smiled “but we sure as hell
ain’t in any condition to get you all out.”

“How did you get
here?  What are you doing all the way up here?” Eric asked. 

The Chief began to
speak, “Well, we been up here for a week now.  We started about a hundred miles
from here; been in the city for three days now.  You guys were smart to
hold up here.  There ain’t shit but bad news out on those streets.”

“We saw your army brothers
last night making all that noise.   It was real John Wayne of them
picking that fight, but also really fucking stupid.    We have
been watching you guys, trying to make sure you weren’t fucking stupid
too.  We don’t like to make camp with stupid people.” Sean paused to open
the can of energy drink and he gulped it down, spilling some on his
beard.  “That shit done yet?” he asked digging a canteen cup out of his
pack and handing it to Méndez.  Brooks dug out a similar cup and handed it
over; Méndez poured the contents of the pot between the two cups and handed
them back.

“Damn, you weren’t
lying!  This does taste like shit,” Brooks said, and all the men laughed.

“So Chief, you were
saying how you got here,” Brad said.

“Oh yeah.  Well, we
were a ways north of here in Teremez doing a little recon and trying to close
out some leads, when we were told our pick up was going to be delayed. 
Later we were told it was canceled and we should try and make our way to the
base at Hairatan.  And yeah, that’s pretty much when the world went to
shit,” Sean answered.

“Wait a minute” Brad
asked. “Teremez? You were operating in Uzbekistan? And what do you mean the
world went to shit?  This thing is everywhere?”

“Well Sergeant, I guess
I can’t say for certain, but we know for a fact things are bad out there”.

“Fuck yeah they are!
Brad yelled, “I lost my entire company yesterday, so will you stop fucking
around and tell us what’s going on!”

“Stand down Sergeant! 
You think you are the only one that has lost people this week?  I went to
Teremez with six men; Brooks is all that I have left.  If you’ll sit back
down, I’ll try and explain.” Sean scooped a mouthful of the slop, swallowed,
then continued.   “About 2 months ago we lost an embassy in Yemen,
you may have heard about it,” Sean said.

“Oh yeah, that was
fucked up!  They got rushed by protestors; the ambassador was killed.  Al Qaeda
right?” Eric added.

“Well something like
that,” Sean answered. “What the people don’t know is that we had four former
SEALs assigned to protect that ambassador, and a contingent of Marine
guards.  Now what sort of protestors can take down that kind of muscle?”

“What are you getting
at Chief?” Brad asked.

“Well Sergeant, we now
believe that was a test shot.  We think the crowd in Yemen was infected. 
They tore through the embassy residence, walked through a wall of gunfire, and
took everything out. The reason CNN showed the smoking rubble the next day and
blamed it on mortars and rockets is because the Marine commander onsite ordered
a C130 gunship to rain fire on his own position.  He knew the ambassador
was already dead and he had watched one of his men turn in the three hour
battle.  That Marine Captain stopped the spread,” Sean said.  He
paused to take another huge gulp of his energy drink.  And he explained
what they found.

“We aren’t sure where
it comes from, but we know that Al Qaeda found a way to make a weapon out of
it.  The nerds at the CDC call it primalis rabia or primal rage.  It
affects the brain, somehow protects it.  You can stop the heart.  You
can shoot them through the lungs and the brain will still function for
hours.  It spreads through blood.  A spit in the eye won’t do it, but
get infected fluids into your blood and you’re screwed.  Once a victim is
infected, he slips into a coma, and then gets a fever.  The heat of the
fever seems to cause irreversible brain damage, then for reasons they can’t
figure out yet, the brain reboots.  When the victim wakes up they are
feral.

The longer the person
is infected the harder they are to bring down.  Recently infected ones can
still be killed with a shot to the heart.  Those infected for over 48
hours, good luck, only extreme trauma to the body seems to bother them. 
After 96 hours, the brain is fully protected and nothing will kill them but a
critical brain hit.  They move in packs likes wolves, and they will attack
on sight.

The attack in Yemen put
them on our radar.  But we still didn’t know how to react until twelve
days ago.  A man code named Asim walked into a field office in
Pakistan.  He said that there was a major global attack planned by the
Sons of Bin Laden.  Asim carried a special ink pen, but instead of ink it
contained the virus.  It was a brutal method of transmission.  All
you do is stab yourself with the pen, click the button, and bam! You are
infected.  In the lab it took anywhere from 2-6 hours for the victims to
reboot.  Asim said there were over one hundred pens made and distributed
globally.  He only knew the locations of those in his cell and he gave
them up.  He was supposed to walk into a crowded mosque in Karachi and
infect himself, then wait for it to take hold.  Asim came to us instead.” 

“What happened next?”
Brad asked.

Sean continued, “Well,
my team was sent into Teremez.  Asim had fingered two members of his cell who
had orders to infect themselves simultaneously on different edges of the
city.  One tango at the airport and another tango at a popular park. 
We setup and staked out both locations, but things got difficult; things went
wrong.  I went with Brooks to the park, we watched for Tango One all
afternoon.  We had a good description of him but everyone that day seemed
to look alike.  Toward the end of the day, we spotted a suspect and took
him down in a men’s room.   We found the pen on him. Tango One didn’t
want to answer our questions.  We needed to know how to find Tango Two.
 He didn’t want to cooperate so we quickly eliminated him from the
equation and turned our attention to the airport.

The rest of my guys
were set up in the international terminal.  They just had too many
suspects.  They tried to find people sleeping or in the coma phase, but no
dice.  It happened quickly and without warning.  In the smaller
terminal Tango Two went crazy.  They heard it over their police
scanners.  The local police were responding and by the time my men got
there, they had already put down Tango Two. 

But there lays the
problem.  Tango Two managed to scratch, bite and claw a number of people
before he went down.  We didn’t even know how many because a number of
them fled or went home after the incident.  The Uzbek police thought they
were dealing with just another insane person and didn’t buy our story.
 Even when we notified Interpol they didn’t care to listen.  The
Uzbeks were more concerned about us operating in their border than a possible
epidemic about to explode on them.

So victims go home,
they feel sick, they go to bed, they wake up, and they attack their families,
neighbors.  Simultaneously all over Teremez, we were tracking at least
fifteen outbreaks; by morning we heard of ninety more, then it just snowballed
from there.  By the second day the city was in flames.  We called for
extraction, but they told us we needed to hang tight.  See, Teremez was
just one attack; this was going on everywhere and somehow it had even gotten
into a few of our larger bases. 

Bagram and Kandahar
were lost quickly and within twelve hours we had a complete loss of combat
readiness in theater.  All bases were locked down, NATO recalled all of
its troops, the US followed suit.  That was chaos in itself, there just
weren’t enough birds to move them, and with that they were battling the primal
virus at the same time.  Gentlemen, it’s pretty safe to say it was a huge
cluster fuck.  We stayed in contact with Kabul through that first night, but
they were in bad shape and we eventually lost comms.  The last message to
us was to try and make it to the border.”

“What about your
men?  Where is the rest of your team?” Eric asked.

“Dead.  Getting out of
that city was hell.  It’s not like here, this place is small.  Teremez on day
two?  You’re talking close to a hundred thousand of those fucking things
on the streets,” Brooks said.  “Chief and I got separated from the
team.  We were providing over watch while they moved on ahead.  They
were surrounded and quickly overrun. It’s a fucked up world out there. 
They didn’t have a chance; in numbers it’s like fighting a tidal wave”.

“What about the States,
Chief? What’s going on at home?” Brad asked.

“We don’t know.  Honest
answer? Last update we got, there were no attacks in the US, but Mexico and
Canada were nearly lost.  Moscow, Paris and London all got hit hard. 
Germany was attacked but they were holding,” answered Sean. “Our sat phone died
two days ago, and our radios haven’t worked in three.  Boys, we are in the
dark,” Sean said.

Brad told the SEALs
their story, how they lost communications during their patrol to the village,
about the mobs, how they had barely escaped and made it Hairatan.  
“So what do we do Chief?  What was your plan B?” asked Brad.

Sean let out a sigh
“Plan B? Shit son we are already on plan C, hell we are off the page”. 
They were interrupted by the sounds of gunfire and they all climbed the ladder
to the roof.  The small car was back, repeating the acts of last night. 
They watched it stop while two men jumped out and fired away at the mob until
it was within fifty meters, then they jumped back in their car and sped away.

“Ha!  That’s just
Junayd, don’t worry about him,” chuckled Brooks.

“What’s so funny?” Brad
asked.

 “Oh Junayd, he’s a
local Taliban boss.  We bumped into him crossing the river.  Well, we
saved his ass actually.  We gave him our car and those rifles he’s using,”
said Brooks.  “He is determined to take back his city.”

“You armed the
Taliban?” questioned Eric.

“Hell yeah we did, if
they are keeping the primal bastards busy then they stay the hell away from us,
and the enemy of my enemy is my friend right?” answered Sean.

“What about the other
army unit, SFC Turner and his guys,” Cole asked.

“Yeah, they are out
there.  We watched them escape, but for some reason they don’t like to lay
low.  Not sure how long they will last without instruction,” Said Sean.
“They took up residence in a two story building on the edge of the city. 
I’m sure they aren’t as comfy as you all are in here.”

“Well then we need to
get to them, we can’t leave them hanging out there, Chief,” said Brad.

“Tomorrow son,
tomorrow.  But for now?  Chief needs his sleep.  Besides them things are too
active at night, we would never make it.  So how bout you guys show us
where we can bed down,” said Sean.

The next morning they
did maintenance on their vehicle and equipment.  Cole and Henry made a run
to the shipping containers to resupply their stash of Afghan slop and energy
drinks.  Brad showed Sean the supplies they had on hand.  “You guys
have done a good job here Sergeant, you probably have more ammo then anyone
within a hundred miles,” Sean said.

“Well we took
everything we could.  We have a few extra weapons too, but the MRAP is our baby
right now.  I don’t think we would have escaped the mob at Bremmel without it,”
replied Brad.

“Yeah she’s nice, but
she’s loud and will attract attention.  I’m surprised you didn’t get a mob
following you right into this fence; you guys got lucky.”

“So what’s the plan to
get SFC Turner and his guys?” Brad asked.

“Well first, put this
on your M4,” Sean said as he handed Brad a threaded suppressor for his rifle.
“They are attracted to noise, this will help.”

They waited until the
sun was high in the sky; that’s when the crazies were the least active. 
Brad left Méndez in charge of the men and the warehouse before he moved out
with the SEALs through the compound gate.  They were fast, and quiet. Brad
was in great shape but the SEALs made him feel like a bumbling idiot as he
struggled to keep up with them.  They hugged the walls of the buildings,
ducked behind abandoned vehicles, and sometimes tucked into alleys to avoid a
wandering primal.  But the Chief was right; they were less active during
the hot mid-day than they were at night.

As they turned a
corner, Brooks put his fist in the air and a finger to his lips.  Brad was
thankful for the new suppressor attached to his M4 as both Sean and Brooks had
readied their silenced MP5s in anticipation.  Sean took a knee, leaned into a
stone wall, and tried to make himself invisible.  A group of five crazies
were staggering down the street towards them.  They were moving slower
than they had the past two days; Brad wondered if that was a symptom.  Did they
slow down as they aged?  The primals stumbled at a curb and looked like a
pack of drunks as they navigated themselves over it. Without warning, Brad
heard the clacking of metal on metal from the SEALS guns, and all five of the
infected dropped to the ground.  Brooks whispered, “Clear!” and they
started moving again.  Brad was amazed at the efficiency with which the
SEALS could unleash violence.

They rounded a corner
and tucked into a tiny store.  Brooks made sure the room was clear, and then
they huddled near the window.  “It’s that two story building right there,”
Sean pointed.

“Well, what are we
waiting for?  Let’s go,” Brad said.

“We will but we need
you to go first.  Make sure they aren’t all hopped up and shoot us,” added
Brooks.

“Oh, good plan I
guess,” said Brad.  “So, you just want me to walk over there and say
‘Hi’?”

“Yeah but the tricky
part is to do it quietly, so you’re not seen or heard by the primals, and also
be careful not to spook your army boys into whacking you,” grinned Sean.

Brooks opened the
storefront door and gave Brad a thumbs up, “Good luck,” he whispered. 
Brad just nodded and made his way to the street; he could see the two story
building had all of its windows covered with heavy drapes.  He looked to
the left and right and saw no one.  He walked into the center of the
street, held his hands and rifle over his head, and waved them up and
down.  But there was no response from the building.  He watched the
windows and saw no movement.  The edges of the roof revealed nothing, so he
moved to the front door.

He stood by the door
listening and heard nothing.  “Fuck it,” he whispered to himself.  He
reached up a hand and knocked on the heavy wooden door.  He heard nothing
so he knocked again.  Hearing nothing inside, he turned to signal the
SEALS as the door crashed open and a large man with a knife dove at him. “No,
No, No, No,” Brad yelled.  The man stopped his assault with the blade just
inches from Brads face.

“What the fuck are you
doing creeping up on us like that?!” shouted the soldier.  Brad recognized
him as one of the privates from third squad. 

Before he could answer,
the SEALs had rushed across the street and grabbed them, “Gentlemen?  Perhaps
we should have this conversation inside?  You boys have already made enough
noise,” Sean said.  They all tumbled through the doorway and Sean closed
the door behind them.

Brad found himself
sitting in a long hallway with doors on both sides and a set of stairs leading
up at the end.  “Oh hey!  It’s you Sergeant Thompson!  Sorry about that
man, I thought you was one of them things.  I wanted to shut it up before he
called his buddies,” said the private.

“Where is everyone
else?” asked Brad.

“Oh yeah, they’re all
in the basement.  We been sleeping during the day and we all stand watch at
night when they go nuts out there. If one of you wants to watch the door, I’ll
take you down there,” answered the private.  Brooks nodded to them and
dropped his pack, Brad and Sean followed the private down the hall to a heavy
steel door.

He knocked on the door
and after a minute there was a noise inside and the door cracked open. 
“Hey Jones, what you need man?” said the guard. 

“We got company.  Its
Sergeant Thompson, he just showed up knocking on the door”. 

The guard swung the
door open and shook Brad’s hand, “Good to see you Sergeant.  We thought you all
were dead.  Come on down, Sergeant Turner is going to want to talk to
you,” said the guard and he led them down the stairs.  The cellar was
dark and damp, there was very little light, only what came in through the floor
boards upstairs. 

They made their way
into a damp room. Brad saw soldiers sleeping on the floor, and a small area
setup as a latrine.  They wound through the dark cellar to a smaller
entryway.  The soldier knocked on the door frame and he heard a grumble
from inside.  “What is it,” called the voice.

“Sergeant Turner?
Sergeant Thompson and some men are here,” answered the soldier.

“Huh?  What the hell?”
a flash light came on, illuminated the space, and shined into Brads face. 
“Well I’ll be dammed, it is you!  Come on in man.  Have a seat,” said Sergeant
Turner.

Turner lit a small gas
lantern and the men made their way into the small room.  It was sparsely
furnished; nothing but a small table with a map laid out on it, and a handful
of chairs.  Brad and Shawn made their way to the table and took a seat, as
Turner hurriedly put on his boots and met them.  “Damn Brad, it’s good to
see you brother! I thought you guys were dead,” Turner said as he slapped him
on the back and took a seat next to him. “So who is your friend? Where is the
rest of your crew?”

Brad explained the
SEALS and that his men were back at the warehouse.  He told him how they
had followed them to Hairatan, and how they had watched their battle the
previous night.  “Shit, yeah that was bad.  One of the kids got scared and
popped that damn flare, and then things went to shit.  We lost Smith over it,
but we got lucky, the rest of us made it,” explained Turner.

“Hey guys, I don’t want
to be a dick and spoil your reunion, but we only have so much mid-day left.  We
need to pack up and get moving,” said Sean.

“Moving? Move where? 
We’re pretty secure in here; I don’t know that we will be moving.” quipped
Turner.

“Really Sergeant?”
snapped Sean, “Low on ammo, your guys are shitting in buckets, I don’t see much
in the way of food or water, and your hiding in a cellar. Your soldier has
managed to secure a compound; he has a trailer full of guns and bullets to
match, a shipping container of food, running water and flush toilets, but suit
yourself.  We will be moving in fifteen minutes”.

“Whoa!  Hold up Chief,
I didn’t say we wouldn’t go.  And besides, you make a good point; those buckets
are starting to smell the place up.  Give me some time to get the men organized
and we will meet you in the hallway upstairs,” answered Turner.

Sean and Brad moved
back up to the hallway and briefed Brooks on the move back to the warehouse.
“I’m not a fan of your Sergeant Turner,” Sean said to Brad. 

“Don’t be too hard on
him Chief; he’s kept these guys alive for this long; that’s got to count for
something.”  The five soldiers came up the stairs in full packs.  They
looked beaten and tired, but they said they were ready to get out of the
confined cellar.  Sean briefed them on how they would move back.  There
were five of them, so they would move in three teams.  Brooks would take
point with one, Brad had middle with two more, and Sean would pick up the rear
with the last of them.  Sean told them he wanted no firing.  If they had
to take shots, do it with the suppressed weapons.

“Shit we don’t have any
silenced guns,” said one of the soldiers.

“Here,” said Brooks
handing the soldier a Ruger MKII with a suppressor from his pack.  “It’s
small but it’s easy to shoot and will knock them down if you get them in the
nugget.  Make sure you hit the head,” said Brooks.  Chief reached into his
pack and handed his own MKII to Turner “I’ll be wanting that back Sergeant,” he
said with a smile.  Once the men familiarized themselves with the pistols
they slowly stepped out the door and made their way into the hot street. 

Brad followed them into
the street and hugged the wall.  He had two soldiers right behind him and they
mimicked his movements.  He waited for Brooks’ team to bound past the
corner, then Brad bounded forward, looking back to watch Sean and his men fill
his previous position.  They moved quickly and quietly through the city,
until they saw Brooks’ fist shoot into the air.  Brad and his men dropped
to the ground and looked for cover.  Brad listened intently for a sign of
what was going on up ahead.

He heard the
clack,
clack
of Brooks’ MP5, then the sound of the MKII.  Brad took a knee
and looked forward as he saw both men walking backwards toward them and firing
as fast as they could.  Brad got to his feet. He looked through his scope
and spotted a group of 15 to 20 coming at them from the alley way.  Before
he could pull the trigger Sean had already brought his group forward and he was
taking quick aimed shots; thinning the number of the pack headed at them. 
Turner faced a building on the street and pried its door open, then turned and
provided covering fire while the men dropped inside.

Sean and Brooks were
the last ones in, and they quickly barricaded the door.  The pounding and
screaming from the outside was deafening.  “Find another exit!” Sean
yelled to Brad as they kept piling objects against the door.  Luckily the
door opened out, so the things were pressing it shut as they piled against
it. 

Brad ran down the long
hallway and kicked in an apartment door, as he stepped inside two crazies came
at him from a bedroom.   Brad fired at them from the hip with his M4,
hitting the first high in the chest turning it sideways while the second came
crashing into him, both of them falling to the ground.  Brad was fighting
to keep its head and snapping jaws away from him, while the thing scratched and
clawed at his body armor.  One of the privates followed Brad into the room
and quickly ended the crazy with a soccer kick to the head, knocking it loose
from Brad. Turning, he then terminated the other one with a burst to the skull
from his unsuppressed M4. 

The noise of the
soldier’s rifle made Brad’s ears ring, but he pushed through the small
apartment and saw a window.  He broke the glass with the butt of his rifle and
peeked outside.  The window opened into an alley on the side of the
building.  There didn’t appear to be a safe way out, but the building across
from them had a fire escape with the ladder extended.  

Brad huddled the men
into the apartment, and told them to get out the window and up the ladder
across the alley.  He ran back into the hall to find Sean and Brooks
finishing the barricading, and booby trapping of the door with a claymore mine
and trip wire.  Brad led the SEALs to the apartment, and out the window.

 As he suspected
the alley was a dead-end.  The open end pointed back to the street where the
mob had gathered, but it was also empty.  They quickly made their way to
the ladder and climbed as high as they could, then pulling the ladder up behind
them.   Following the rest of the soldiers up the ladder they pulled
themselves over the top rung and onto the building’s roof. 

As Sergeant Turner was
making his way to them, he announced that the roof was clear and the access
door was secure.  With a thundering clap they heard the improvised
claymore explode in the building below them.  The explosion blasted and
partially collapsed the building and blew a cloud of dust into the street out
front.  “Well I think they know we’re here now,” Sean said with a
smile.  “No worries though, I don’t think anything saw us climb this
ladder.  If we lay low, they should go back to their nests—in a day or two,”
Brooks said.  Brad frowned at the statement, especially with the sun still
high in the sky and his camelback only half full.

Just as Brad was beginning
to think it was going to be a long night they heard the report of AK47s coming
from down the street.  Brad looked up and over the edge of the roof and
saw the small white car.  Two men in Arab garb jumped out and were shooting at
the mob in front of the destroyed apartment building.  When the mob would
get too close, they would jump back in the car, drive further down the street,
and do it again; effectively leading them away from Brad’s position.