That was a good point. Steve was glad he hadn’t shot the scientist.
“Whatever group takes out Cooper Mitchell is to kill themselves immediately,” Steve said. “They will go straight to heaven. They will be heroes. Now move. And send someone in here to clean up this body. Tell them to bring a mop.”
ALL THE MARBLES
It made Margaret’s skin crawl to be so close to them.
She, Clarence, Tim and Commander Klimas were packed into the same mission module where they had teleconferenced with Murray and Dr. Cheng. Margaret and Clarence sat on one side of the table, Tim on the other. Klimas stood in front of a screen that showed a map of Chicago.
He pointed out the landing area on the city’s coast. “My team will OTB to Lake Shore Park on the city’s east side and secure it as a landing zone.”
Tim raised a hand. “OTB?”
“Over the beach,” Klimas said. “The phrase covers the various methods we use. Sorry, I’ll try to make the rest of this more civilian-friendly. We also have air support from two Apaches, three Predator drones, and — believe it or not — a B2 bomber.”
“A B2?” Clarence said. “That’s kind of overkill, isn’t it?”
“Not if we find the Converted gathering en masse,” Klimas said. “It’s loaded with five-hundred-pound JDAM bombs, could take out a lot of them at once.” He paused, cleared his throat. “It’s also got, ah … well, it has a nuke.”
They would never learn. Margaret knew the nuke had delayed things in Detroit, but the current situation showed that her kind could not be stopped. When the Converted rebuilt, they would just steer clear of any radioactive craters.
Klimas again pointed to the map.
“Once my team secures the LZ, Chinook helicopters will deliver the Ranger company, which is under the command of Captain Percy Dundee. We will then move about a half mile west to the Park Tower Hotel. SEALs lead and Rangers support by leapfrogging blocking positions at major intersections. If Cooper Mitchell is at the Park Tower, we grab him and get him out. We’ll have close air support for the entire operation. Apaches will fly low and loud to intimidate the bad guys, and take out any organized force that might come to meet us. Easy as pie.”
The video from Cooper Mitchell had changed the game. Margaret knew it was the real thing from the moment she’d seen it. He had the hydras — and from the looks of that video, they were far more contagious than she had thought. The Antichrist had risen again.
She had to find a way to kill him. If Klimas was successful, if he brought Cooper Mitchell out alive, then Margaret had no doubts of what would come next: in a few weeks, she and all her kind would be dead.
Clarence squirmed in his chair. “Why come in from the water and cross all that territory on foot? Why not take a Seahawk and drop in right on the hotel? I’ve moved through a half mile of urban terrain while under fire — it’s risky, we’ll lose people.”
Klimas touched icons on the screen, zoomed the view in to a forty-five-degree angle that showed towering buildings. Margaret instantly saw the problem with Clarence’s plan.
“Skyscrapers make for a lot of places the enemy can hide,” Klimas said. “If the enemy is armed with something big enough, they can hit the Seahawk on the way in or on the way out. Lake Shore Park is a more secure place to land. Trust me, Agent Otto, SEALs and Rangers can get to that hotel in a hurry.”
Margaret had seen those SEALs in action. Brave, smart, deadly, they moved without hesitation. She didn’t know what type of resistance her kind would put up. Were the Converted in Chicago unified at all? Reports had come in from cities all over the world about organized bands, some the size of small armies, but there had been no such sightings in Chicago. As far as anyone knew, the city was in total chaos. If that were true, the SEALs might very well walk in, grab Cooper Mitchell and walk out.
She couldn’t let them succeed. She needed to make sure Mitchell died. And while she was at it, she had an opportunity to eliminate another major threat: Tim Feely.
He was the brain behind the inoculation effort. If not for his work, her kind might already have taken over. Feely was too smart, too creative, and had too much knowledge of her former research. This trip would be the perfect opportunity to get rid of him.
Margaret stood. “I have to go with you. So does Tim.”
Tim sat straight upright, looked at Margaret as if she was pointing a gun at his head.
Clarence stared at her in disbelief. “This is a high-risk operation. We can’t be ferrying civilians.”
Tim nodded. “Yeah, what he said. Oh, and also? Like fuck I have to go with you. Why would you and I go in, anyway? The SEALs grab this guy, bring him out, we draw the hydras from his blood, replicate them, and boom — we win.”
“There are environmental factors to consider,” Margaret said. “Mitchell’s video indicates that the infected are dying, but we don’t know that he’s responsible for that. The sickness could be caused by something in that building’s water supply, or in the air. If we bring Mitchell out only to discover that he’s not the vector, we’ll have wasted time and risked lives for nothing.”
The three men in the tiny room looked at one another. Klimas didn’t seem surprised; he was ready to back almost anything she asked for. Clarence, however, wasn’t buying it.
“We can’t risk you,” he said. “We’ll keep you in constant visual communication. The SEALs get Mitchell, they get samples from the dead bodies in the video, from the water and air, whatever else you want. Then they get the hell out.”
She slapped the table. “Don’t be stupid, Clarence. There’s no guarantee Mitchell will be there. If he’s not, we’re left with those bodies. If the cause of death is something other than the hydra strain, tissue samples collected by untrained soldiers might not show us what did the damage. We need to examine the bodies where they died.”
Clarence shook his head. He looked like he was losing control. “There’s no way I’m letting a pregnant woman go on this mission.”
Klimas and Tim stared at her. Their expressions changed instantly — with one word, she was suddenly fragile, a thing to be protected. Her strategy to hook Clarence had backfired.
She couldn’t let him win.
“My body,” she said quietly. “My choice.”
Clarence crossed his arms. “Our child.”
Margaret gathered herself, tried to remember what her weak, altruistic former self might have said. She concentrated hard, held her eyes open until they started to sting … she forced out a single tear.
“Wake up, my love. This isn’t some men’s rights debate. If this mission doesn’t give us a weapon, we’ll all be dead long before I could give birth. Don’t you get it? This is the end of the world.”
Klimas nodded. “She’s right. This is for all the marbles. We need her expertise. If she wants in, she’s in. Margo, how much time would you need on-site?”
Good question. If they found Mitchell, she needed enough time to kill him while not drawing attention to herself or exposing herself to his disease. She also needed enough time to kill Tim and not get caught doing it. She was willing to sacrifice herself to murder the president, but not to take out Tim Feely.
“At least overnight,” she said. “Once we locate Mitchell, we test what we can while he’s still in the same environment. We have to be sure.”
Klimas’s jaw muscles twitched. “Then we’re no longer looking at a grab-and-go. We have to change the entire operation.”
She nodded solemnly. “Then change it, Paulius. Whatever it takes.”
Clarence stood. His body vibrated with anger.
“Klimas, are you kidding me? You think you’ll last overnight in that place? As far as we know there’s a hundred thousand Converted in the downtown area alone!”
Three quick knocks at the door, then it opened. The little SEAL with the horrible mustache peeked in.
“Commander, we’re approaching the disembarkation point.”
“Understood,” Klimas said. H
e faced Clarence. “My decision is made. Margaret is coming.”
Clarence slowly sat back down. He had lost and now had to contemplate his wife — whom he had abandoned — and his nonexistent unborn child going into hostile territory where the hostiles in question ate people. Margaret hoped he felt as miserable as he looked.
Klimas turned back to the screen. “The SEALs will still secure a landing area, as planned. The Ranger company will come in next. Once the LZ is secure, a Seahawk will bring in Doctor Montoya, Agent Otto and Doctor Feely.”
Tim waved his hands. “Whoa, tough guy. Margaret wants in, that’s fine, but I’m out. You get me? O-u-t, out!”
Feely was the final piece of the puzzle. Margaret had to get him to come along. What would push his buttons?
“Don’t be a coward, Feely,” she said. “I need you with me.”
Tim shook his head, hard. “Fuck that. I’ve done my part!”
Margaret leaned across the table and slapped Tim’s left cheek as hard as she could. The sharp crack sound filled the mission module. Tim stared, mouth open, eyes wide.
“You’ve done your part? The world is crumbling around us. We have one last opportunity to kill this thing.”
He stood, hand still on his cheek. “I get paid to work in a lab. I don’t get paid to ride a helicopter into the goddamn apocalypse. I’ve been shot at, almost drowned, and the last ship I was on got blown up by a missile. I’m not keen to add cannibalism to the list of threats on my résumé, understand?”
He turned toward the door.
Margaret was trying to think of another angle when Klimas gently put his hand on Tim’s chest, stopping the smaller man from leaving.
“Hold on, Doctor Feelygood,” Klimas said. “I know you’re scared. So am I.”
Tim huffed. “Ha. In this category, it’s a safe bet that mine is bigger than yours.”
Klimas smiled. “You’ve got me there. The SEALS get paid to do things like this, but we don’t get paid to fail. If your presence increases our chances of succeeding, that’s more important than your fear. That’s more important than you. Everyone dreams of being a hero, Tim — this is your shot.”
Tim shook his head. “I don’t want to be a hero. I want to live. Margaret had it right — I’m a coward. It’s what I’ve always been and what I’ll always be.”
“I’ll get you out,” Klimas said. “You have my word that I’ll get you out safe. I know how much you respect Margaret. She wouldn’t put you in danger on a whim.”
Tim’s resolve seemed to waver. He glanced at her.
Margaret looked down, did her best to appear contrite. “Sorry I slapped you,” she said. His ego, the same ego that made him demand the yeast be named after him … that was his hot-button, she had to play to that.
“Tim, we’ve become a great team,” she said. “If I had all the options in the world, I’d still pick you, but I don’t have any other options. I can’t do this without you.”
Tim chewed at his lower lip, forgiveness already visible in his eyes. She almost had him.
He turned back to Klimas. “You gave your word. Does that mean the same thing it does when guys in war movies say it?”
“It means far more,” Klimas said. “If anything comes near you, I’ll kill it. I’m taking you in, I’m bringing you out.”
Tim stared at him for a few more seconds, then looked down. “Shit,” he said. “Okay, I’ll go.”
Margaret smiled.
In just a few hours, she could remove Cooper Mitchell, Tim Feely, then slip away to join her kind.
“Two more things,” she said. “First, we still don’t know the full impact of a hydra infection. Cooper Mitchell has them, but as far as we know they’ll eventually kill him. Therefore, no one approaches Mitchell — and I mean no one — unless they are wearing full biological protection.”
Going in was risky to start with. If she couldn’t find a way to murder Tim and Clarence, she didn’t want them coming back infected with a vector that could kill her.
She looked hard at all the men in the room. “Agreed?”
They all nodded.
“I’ll make sure of it,” Klimas said, his voice thick with that sickening you can count on me tone. “And the other thing?”
“I’m not going in there unarmed,” Margaret said. “Would someone give me a crash course on how to shoot a gun?”
CASCADING FAILURE
Murray didn’t remember the first time he’d seen the image of a mushroom cloud. He’d been two years old when a bomb named “Little Boy” had struck Hiroshima: at the time, he’d been far more concerned with his Lincoln Logs than with world-changing events.
Sixty-five years later, he’d seen his second, this one over Detroit.
Two days ago, he’d seen his third, then his fourth.
And now here he was in the Situation Room — the air thick with the scent of unwashed bodies, food and fear — watching his fifth and his sixth.
Vice President Kenneth Albertson sat in Blackmon’s chair, his hand gripped white-knuckle tight around a steaming cup of coffee. He had all the trappings of a career politician: white, male, six-two, a full head of dark-blond hair (stylishly graying at the temples), perfect charcoal suit, red tie. Every time Murray looked at him, he thought that the right lipstick could make any pig seem competent.
The vice president said nothing. He wasn’t alone in that reaction; a room full of people stared at the split-screen image of two mushroom clouds billowing up over dying cities. Movers and shakers, heads of shadowy departments and bit players alike, they all appealed to the irrational, illogical parts of their brains, hoping or even praying that their eyes deceived them.
Had Novosibirsk been the opening act? Was Murray watching World War III unfold?
“Xining, on the left,” said some nameless assistant, there to stand in for one of the Joint Chiefs. “The right side is Lanzhou.”
Murray didn’t know those places. They looked big.
“How many?” he said. “How many people?”
“Uh, checking,” the assistant said. “Xining has, or had, before all of this … two-point-two million.”
The size of Houston, a little bigger.
“The other one,” Murray said. “Lanzhou? How many?”
“Lanzhou has … Jesus.” The assistant looked up, face ashen, drenched with despair. “It had three-point-six million.”
Another Los Angeles, or maybe Chicago if you include enough suburbs.
Albertson’s shaking hand raised the shaking mug to his lips. He took a sip. Only a little coffee spilled onto the table.
“Was it the Russians?” he said. “Why didn’t we see these missiles when they launched?”
Admiral Porter rested his elbows on the table, hands pressed against the sides of his head. Even he, the stoic one, was worn down by the nonstop horror show.
“There wasn’t a launch of any kind,” he said. “That means the bombs had to be driven in. It wasn’t the Russians this time — the Chinese nuked themselves.”
Murray knew what those words meant. If the Chinese were desperate enough to bomb themselves, they wouldn’t think twice about launching missiles against another nation.
The screen suddenly switched to an image of Blackmon. She had been sleeping aboard Air Force One. She wore red pajamas. Her hair was a tangled mess. Eyes narrowed by fatigue-fueled rage, she stared out, locking eyes with several people in that spooky, I-see-you-and-you-see-me connection enabled by the screen’s telepresence.
“Tell me,” she said.
Albertson stood. “Madam President, we—”
“Not you,” she said sharply. The face on the screen turned, locked eyes with Murray. “You, Longworth. I want to hear it from you.”
Murray felt all the eyes of the Situation Room upon him. Blackmon should have heard from her next in line, Albertson, or at least from Admiral Porter.
“Uh, sure,” Murray said. “I mean, yes, Madam President.”
“I want straight, simple la
nguage,” Blackmon said. “Out of everyone there, you do that best. And if you need to curse to get the point across, I don’t really care anymore.”
Murray nodded. He recognized the look in her eyes, the anxiety at not being front and center, the desperate need for accurate intel. He again flashed back to his days in Vietnam, when he had been the one forced to make every decision and give every order. Men had lived and died based on what he told them to do. Back then, he’d relied on Dew Phillips, his top sergeant, to provide no-bullshit information, to help make those impossible choices.
Now Murray was playing that role to the president of the United States.
He quickly gave her the bad news, using the comparisons to Houston and Los Angeles so she understood the scope.
When Murray finished, Blackmon closed her eyes. Her lip quivered slightly. Murray hoped the president of the United States wasn’t going to cry, because that would just be too goddamn much for him to take.
“Why, Murray? Why would the Chinese do this?”
“Those cities must have been overrun,” he said. “Far beyond any hope of saving them. If this was an act of the Chinese government, I assume the goal was to kill as many of the Converted as possible before they could radiate to surrounding areas. If the government has fallen and the Converted detonated the nukes, then … well, I’m not sure those motherfuckers really need a reason.”
Blackmon nodded. The lip quivered a little more.
“Any word from Beijing?”
“None, Madam President,” Murray said. “If anyone is in charge, we don’t know who it is.”
Blackmon sat up straighter. She sniffed in sharply, regained her composure.
“All right,” she said. “If anyone there is still watching us, waiting to see how we’ll respond, we have to let them know that the United States of America is still ready to defend herself by any means necessary.”
She looked away from Murray, took in the whole room.
“Admiral Porter, take us to DEFCON 1.”
A GOOD DAY FOR A SWIM