That was the right call, and Steve knew it. He’d been hoping the first wave would overwhelm the human soldiers, but they were too well trained and too well armed.
“We don’t have many of those M72s, General.”
She nodded again. “Yes, Emperor. However, I’m certain the humans detonated all of their Claymores, and they have to be running low on ammunition. Our fast ground attack should breach their perimeter if we can clear out the snipers.”
If the second wave didn’t work, Steve’s only option was to launch the third wave. That wave was supposed to be his containment wave, the troops that would kill anyone — Converted included — that came out of the hotel.
He didn’t have time to think it through. The humans could send more helicopters at any moment, and his people had used up most of the Stingers.
The humans were running out of ammo, but so were the Chosen Ones.
He raised the binoculars. “General Brownstone, launch wave two.”
A MAN’S WORD …
Paulius ejected a spent magazine, popped in a fresh one. The enemy had fallen back, but they were still firing. He’d found new cover behind a white delivery truck. Bullets smacked into the metal body so fast it sounded like an off-rhythm drummer experimenting with a new song.
One Ranger lay dying to his left. Another to his right was already gone, or he would have screamed from the flames that engulfed his chest and arm.
An explosion came from the towering hotel above and behind him. Paulius looked up to see a cloud of thin smoke billowing from the fifth floor, window shards tumbling down to the street below. He saw a second explosion — a there-and-gone fireball blowing out a cloud of spinning glass, shredded insulation and torn metal.
He thumbed his SEAL channel.
“Overwatch, displace, rockets targeting fifth floor!”
Another explosion hit the hotel, farther to the right; three smoldering holes gaped wide, making the building look like a tree chopped at the base that might topple over and crash into the street.
The interior perimeter suddenly lit up with hard-hitting snap explosions that cast out waves of dirt and snow. Paulius threw himself face-first to the pavement — there wasn’t much one could do against a grenade volley but lie low and pray.
A machine gun barked. A man shouting “Here they come again!” drew Paulius’s attention back to the street.
He stayed on his belly, aimed his M4 under the truck, found his first targets: a pair of kids — kids, dammit — sprinting forward, each holding a kitchen knife. He took them out, two shots for the first, three for the second.
And then, Paulius saw something that his eyes couldn’t immediately process: a taxi, sliding sideways toward the perimeter, toward him, smashing bodies aside, tires pushing up little waves of red slush. There was something behind that car.
Something big.
“All units, concentrate fire on that taxi!”
The taxi’s doors blossomed with new holes as Rangers and SEALs alike focused their fire, but the vehicle was moving too fast — it was too late to stop it.
Paulius dove away from the delivery truck a moment before the cab crashed in. The truck toppled, smashed down on its right side. A Ranger who had been using the truck for cover didn’t make it clear; the heavy vehicle crushed his left foot, trapping him.
Klimas rolled to his feet, came up ready to fire — and for the first time in his military career, he froze.
A monster. Eight feet tall, shoulders and chest rippling with thick coils of muscle. Molotov firelight played off wet, dark-yellow skin. Open sores dotted the body, some trailing visible rivulets of pus. The wide neck supported a huge, heavy-jawed head topped with spotty patches of tight, curly black hair. The face seemed toylike compared to the oversized body. Its mouth was full of long, thick teeth that could easily rip flesh from bones.
And sticking up from behind each clenched fist, a long, jagged, pointed arc of bone.
The trapped Ranger rolled to his back, stared up at the monstrosity only a foot away. The Ranger screamed.
The yellowish beast raised a bare foot, drove it down into the Ranger’s stomach. The soldier’s screaming stopped. His hands weakly gripped the long leg, then his fingers slid away and his arms fell limply to the wet pavement.
The monster leaned down and roared.
Klimas heard the telltale thoop of a grenade launcher. An explosion knocked the massive creature back, splashing his bloody entrails in a long streak across the white top of the overturned truck.
Gunfire brought Paulius out of it, gunfire aimed at him — a man and a woman sprinting around the delivery truck, the man firing a rifle, the screaming woman aiming a shotgun.
In less than a second, Klimas hit them each twice. The man dropped hard. The woman landed face-first and slid across the packed snow. Klimas fired twice more, aiming for her head, but his shots hit her back instead. As she slid, she raised the shotgun one-handed, screamed “asshole!” and fired.
He felt the blast smack into the left side of his chest and belly, felt a dozen needles dig deep as some of them found ways around the gaps in his body armor.
She slid to a stop. He put a bullet in her head, then looked up.
A dozen more hostiles poured in around the truck. Two of them tackled a fleeing Ranger. Another Ranger lay on the ground, screaming obscenities at the three people on top of him, one biting his face, another stabbing a knife into his right thigh over and over again. And just beyond the truck, Paulius saw two more of the yellow monsters rushing in fast.
His position was being overrun.
I promised Feely I’d get him out, and if I don’t save him and Mitchell, then all this is for nothing.
Paulius turned and ran, tossing a flash-bang behind him. Up ahead, smoke billowed out of the hotel’s entrance.
“All exterior SEALs, fall back to the hotel! Our mission is to get the civilians to safety. Someone find me another way out of that building!”
EVERYONE LOVES A PARADE
Steve Stanton really, really wanted to ride on Jeff’s back, like Hannibal riding an elephant into battle, but that was a bad idea; there were probably still a few human snipers left in the Park Tower.
So instead of riding in glory, the emperor of Chicago walked toward the hotel. He walked slowly, and far back from the still-advancing second wave. Steve stayed a few steps behind Jeff so the bull’s wide body would block any stray fire.
Hundreds of bodies lined the streets, victims of mines, snipers and grenades. Where dying flames didn’t burn, the pavement ran red with blood.
As Steve advanced, his third wave came out of hiding. They slid out of cars, stepped out of doorways, all carrying weapons that had yet to be fired. They walked toward the hotel. There were thousands of them, so many and so thick it looked like a well-organized parade.
The third wave included most of the Converted who had been soldiers in their former lives. Each of them managed ten civilians. The soldiers communicated via hand signals, runners, cell phones, and most also had some form of radio or walkie-talkie that the scavengers had found in electronics, toy and sporting goods stores. Where the first wave had been cannon fodder, as had most of the second, the third wave was an organized combat force.
General Brownstone had gone up ahead to get a closer look. She jogged back toward him.
“General, have we entered the hotel yet?”
“No, Emperor,” she said. “The human perimeter is collapsing and the building is on fire, but there is still resistance. Shouldn’t be long now. The third wave is already setting up the containment ring — nothing is going to get out of that hotel alive.”
Containment. That was the key. They’d kill Cooper Mitchell, then kill his killers and — God willing — forever wipe out his horrid disease.
Steve checked his phone: 4:19 A.M. The battle had taken only nine minutes. In warfare, apparently, things happened fast.
He pulled his coat tighter and watched the hotel burn.
REUNITED
Gunfire. Flames. Yelling and screaming, the sounds of panic, of fury, all barely audible over a high-pitched ringing.
Tim lifted his head. His body felt numb.
Cooper Mitchell struggled to his feet. The man looked terrified and shell-shocked. Clarence was still down, unconscious. His gas mask was gone. A long piece of metal jutted out of his shoulder blade, blood trickling from his CBRN suit.
The sight of that blood brought Tim out of it. He pushed himself to his knees, scrambled across the rubble to Otto’s side. The shard hadn’t penetrated that far. There wasn’t time to do things properly, so he grabbed the shard and yanked.
Clarence twitched, moaned and rolled over.
Tim looked around for a bandage, a towel, anything remotely clean to press on the wound. Gunfire and the explosion had shredded his medical supplies, scattering them all across the burning lobby.
He helped Clarence sit up, waved Cooper over. Cooper stumbled toward them. Tim grabbed the man’s hand and pressed it against Otto’s wound.
“Keep pressure here,” Tim said. “Press hard.”
Clarence’s lip curled up, his eyes scrunched tight in pain.
“My weapon,” he said. “Someone find my weapon.”
Tim heard a shout above the unending din, a single word: grenade!
Something exploded across the lobby, close to the front door. A Ranger fell back crying out in agony. Tim stood and started toward the wounded man, but Klimas sprinted through the doors and cut Tim off.
“Feely, run! Take the package to the stairwell, move!”
Tim reached for Cooper, then saw Otto’s pistol on the floor. He snatched it up, shoved it into Otto’s hands, then pulled Cooper toward the stairwell door at the rear of the lobby.
Tim looked back, saw Klimas lift Otto to his feet and push him toward the stairwell. The SEAL commander suddenly wheeled, fired at three men who ran through the entrance: pop-pop, slight turn, pop-pop, slight turn, pop-pop. The three men fell to the floor.
Another explosion hurled shards of metal, stone and wood across the lobby.
Cooper reached the stairwell door first. He pulled it open as Tim rushed through and stepped on the landing. Otto reached the door, pushed Cooper inside hard, then held the door open with his body. He aimed out into the lobby and started firing his pistol.
“Klimas,” he screamed, “come on, get in here! Feely, take Mitchell upstairs!”
Tim again grabbed Cooper’s arm.
“Come on,” Tim said, then started up the steps.
And stopped cold.
One landing up stood Margaret Montoya.
Tim stared at her for a long second. She stared back. Both of them were too surprised to move.
Margaret reached for the gun strapped to her right thigh.
Save Cooper save Cooper save Cooper
Tim slid his body in front of Cooper, put his hands down and back, hemming him in.
Margaret raised her pistol, pointed it at Tim’s face.
Tim wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn’t — they stayed locked wide open. He wondered if his brain would be able to process the muzzle flash before the bullet ended his life.
Clarence stepped in front of him, his weapon aimed at his wife.
“Margaret! Put it down!”
Tim saw her face change, instantly morphing from a hateful, snarling-eyed visage to a soft expression of love and concern — like someone had flipped a switch.
“Clarence,” she said, “Tim is lying to you. I’m not infected, he is. Kill him before he kills us.”
The heavy stairwell door slammed open. Klimas came through, his weapon up and aimed at Margaret in a fraction of a second.
“Otto,” he said. “You got this?”
“I do,” Clarence said.
Clarence’s aim didn’t waver. Neither did Margaret’s.
Klimas turned, opened the stairwell door a few inches and fired into the lobby. He yanked a grenade out of his webbing, pulled the pin, underhand-tossed it through the small gap, then slammed the metal door shut.
Tim heard the grenade explode, heard men and women screaming in agony.
An army of psychos and monsters were closing in from behind. An armed and infected Margaret Montoya blocked the only escape. If Clarence Otto didn’t shoot his wife, Tim was going to die one way or the other.
SHARPSHOOTER
Cooper Mitchell was standing right there. Right there. Margaret had checked her suit, it was safe, had to be safe, the Antichrist was just a half-flight down and she couldn’t die not now, not now, not when her people were coming.
Clarence stood in front of Tim, who stood in front of Cooper Mitchell. The look in Clarence’s eyes: pained, yet committed to doing his job. He wanted to believe she wasn’t infected.
“Margaret,” he said. “Put it down.”
Why hadn’t she just fired right away? She’d frozen, surprised by Tim, shocked to see her target right in front of her. She’d missed her chance.
“Clarence, listen to me,” she said. “Honey, Tim is one of them. Why do you think he told everyone I was inf—”
A crack sound echoed through the stairwell as something slammed into her hand. Her pistol clattered against the wall, then hit the concrete floor. She took a step back, looked at her hand … blood, spurting all over her CRBN suit … her index finger … gone.
She staggered, slumped down the wall.
But he didn’t shoot, I was looking right at him …
Clarence ran up the stairs toward her. Down by the landing door, she saw Klimas, his rifle pointed at her.
A curl of smoke drifted up from the barrel.
HUSBAND AND WIFE
Clarence grabbed Margaret’s pistol to secure the weapon, but there was no need — Klimas’s single round had blown the trigger clean off, snapped the guard into two jagged metal pieces.
He grabbed his wife by the shoulders, righted her.
“Margaret! Are you okay?”
A stupid thing to say. Her finger was gone She was bleeding all over the landing.
He heard voices, both in his headset and from the people around him. He heard Klimas urging Tim and Cooper up the stairs, telling them to head to the eighth floor, heard feet hitting concrete.
Margaret looked stunned. Blood spurted from her finger stump. Clarence holstered his weapon, knelt before her and grabbed her right wrist.
“Hold on, baby, this is gonna hurt.”
He squeezed down on the stump. Direct pressure. He had to stop the bleeding.
A man ran past behind him, then another.
Margaret looked at him. No sense of pain in her eyes, just a dull shock. Shock … and hate.
“Otto, get out of the way.”
The voice of Commander Klimas.
Clarence turned quickly, keeping his body in front of his wife.
The SEAL commander had his weapon pointed slightly off to the right so it wasn’t aimed directly at Clarence’s chest.
“Otto, get out of my way.”
Clarence held up his hands. “Please, don’t do this.”
She couldn’t be infected. It just wasn’t possible. She was the mother of his child.
Klimas stepped to his left, trying to find a shot. Clarence lunged right, cutting off any angle.
Clarence didn’t even see the rifle butt come up before it slammed into his chin — not hard enough to do serious damage, but hard enough to knock him aside.
The rifle butt snapped back to Klimas’s shoulder, the barrel aimed at Margaret’s face.
Tim Feely screamed down from a half-flight up. “No! We need her alive. Trust me on that.”
Clarence again put himself between Klimas and Margaret.
The SEAL’s lip curled up in frustration. He lowered the barrel.
“You better be right, Tim,” he said. “Fuck. Let’s move.”
Something big slammed into the stairwell door, hard enough to bend it inward.
Klimas turned, fired three shots through the metal door.
He reached behind his back, then tossed two things onto the concrete landing next to Clarence.
“Look at her magazine,” Klimas said. “If there’s only one round gone, that’s the bullet she used to kill Bogdana. Then the decision is yours. We’re going to the eighth floor where there’s a way out. We’re not waiting for you.”
Klimas sprinted up the steps.
Clarence looked at what the SEAL had dropped — two zip strips, one grenade.
He felt hands fumbling for his weapon.
He turned instantly and did something he had never thought himself capable of doing: he hit Margaret.
A short left to the jaw, snapping her head back. She let out a moan, sagged weakly.
Bullets tore through the dented metal door, kicking up puff-spots of concrete when they sparked off the cinder-block walls.
Clarence’s left hand grabbed the zip strips and grenade, shoved them into his pocket even as his right drew his Glock. The door rattled once from someone hitting it, then bounced open.
He fired three times at the first movement. Bodies ducked away, leaving the door to automatically swing shut.
Her weapon … her magazine.
Clarence grabbed the ruined pistol and shoved it into his empty thigh holster. He reached behind Margaret’s back, lifted her and tossed her over his shoulder even as his feet carried him up the concrete steps.
His legs drove him to the next landing. Behind him, he heard the first-floor stairwell door slammed open, this time from something bigger than just a man.
A roar, an inhuman sound that echoed through the enclosed stairwell.
Clarence bounded up the stairs, taking them two and three at a time despite Margaret’s extra weight.
He heard footsteps behind him. Footsteps and a deep, giggling growl.
Careful to keep Margaret on his shoulder, Clarence shoved his pistol into his webbing belt, then pulled the grenade Klimas had given him. He squeezed the handle, lifted the grenade to his mouth, bit down on the pin and twisted his head to yank it free.