Breaking Danger

  It was no longer beautiful. The lights along the Golden Gate Bridge were dark. The bridge was barely visible as a structure against the smoky sky. A fire was raging out of control along the Marin Headlands. The city skyline was dark, as was Alcatraz.

  Dark, all dark.

  “Sophie!” Jon barked. “Faster!”

  Oh God! The leading edge of the swarm was at Bistro Boudin, rippling down the street toward them, a solid wall of enraged humanity.

  Jon grabbed the handrails of the closest vertical steel ladder and descended without touching a stair. At the bottom he looked up. “Jump. I’ll catch you.”

  Sophie looked to her right, at the crazed line of infected running full tilt, their screams echoing in her ears and didn’t think twice. She jumped.

  Jon caught her deftly, swung with her in his arms, and deposited her on the deck of the nearest fishing boat. It was old, dilapidated. The Summer of Love painted on her side.

  “Checking fuel,” Jon shouted. “Get ready to jump to the next one.”

  He did something to the engine and it sputtered to life, but he took one look at the fuel gauge, grabbed her hand, and jumped to the next one, their boots thudding loudly on the deck.

  Jon disappeared into the pilot’s cabin and a few seconds later there was the powerful roar of an engine; she could feel the shudder beneath her feet. “Fuel tank full!” Jon shouted from within the cabin. “Can you cast off?”

  Yes, she could. She’d had a boyfriend who was a sailor, and though she couldn’t sail herself, she’d learned to make herself useful. Sophie hurried to the bow, reaching over to grab the rope and screamed as a grimy hand caught hers. She barely had time to hear the angry snarl of a nonhuman voice when the man’s head exploded.

  “Sophie! Get back!” Jon screamed.

  She jumped back and tripped over a bucket. Horribly, another man fell to the dock level from above. And another. And suddenly the narrow ledge was full of infected, hands outstretched. Up on the street level, crazed, maddened faces were snarling down at her, writhing to try to get down. None of the infected could handle the ladder so they were simply throwing themselves over the railing down to the dock. Some died in the fall, but the dead bodies cushioned the next who threw themselves over. A writhing snarling mass of violence. The noise level was deafening.

  She couldn’t get to the rope, the infected were scrambling to get to her, growling and grasping. If she went for the rope, they’d grab her. but they couldn’t leave without unmooring the boat. The boat rocked as an infected tried to jump on, lost his footing and fell into the sea. He sank like a rock.

  Jon revved the engine, ready to take off like a rocket if she could just get to where that damned rope anchored the boat. But there was no way. The stanchion was now hidden in the boiling mass of the infected, the rope disappearing between the legs of a blood-covered man in a once-elegant suit howling and snarling at her.

  She was paralyzed, looked around for something, anything, that would allow her to cut the rope. It couldn’t be a knife because she couldn’t saw through the rope. It would take too long, they’d grab her. It had to be something like a hatchet . . .

  The rope parted suddenly, as if an invisible hand had swung that hatchet, severing it in one blow. What happened? Then one monster’s head exploded, then another. She glanced back to see Jon aiming and shooting precisely with one hand, while starting to back the boat out of the tiny harbor.

  A thud to her right and she screamed. An infected. A lithe young man, hands out in claws, inhuman sounds coming from his throat.

  Jon blew the young man away, then another who’d jumped aboard. A stream of infected jumped on the other boat then tried to jump to theirs, clearly unable to judge distances. It was like a waterfall, a waterfall of humans pouring into the ocean. But another young man, an athlete by his build, made a spectacular leap, catching onto the gunwale, starting to haul himself in, screaming all the while.

  One well-aimed bullet, the screaming stopped, and the man fell back, sinking into a pool of red.

  They backed away quickly, beginning the turnaround to head out to the open sea, when Jon took careful aim at the boat next to them. “Cover your head!” he screamed and shot into the boat. Immediately it exploded, fuel spilling over the infected, lighting the dark afternoon sky with a nightmarish view of burning infected, those right behind the columns of burning, living flesh pushing them into the water to get a chance at killing her and Jon and catching fire themselves.

  Then Jon got the boat turned around completely and throttled the engine wide open. The prow lifted, they skirted the tourist boardwalk behind them and then headed toward the open sea.

  Sophie sat on the deck, exhausted, trembling, and watched the burning creatures until Jon turned a corner around a pier and they disappeared from sight.

  The screams could still be heard, though, becoming fainter and fainter as they headed northwest.

  When she felt her legs could carry her, Sophie went into the pilot’s cabin and watched Jon pilot the boat. His movements were fast, precise, the boat steady. He clearly knew what he was doing. It was as if he sensed her presence by a change in the air molecules. He turned, one hand on the wheel, one arm outstretched.

  With a sob, Sophie stumbled to him, burying her face against his shoulder. He’d somehow had time to divest himself of the vaccine case and his backpack. They were stowed neatly in a corner.

  Jon was headed for the Golden Gate Bridge and then the wide Pacific beyond it. To their left, the city burned. Columns of fire had merged and entire city blocks were aflame. Every once in a while a distant boom sounded.

  A great city, brought to its knees.

  Finally, finally, the huge empty horizon stretched in front of them. The ocean. Jon steered them north.

  Neither spoke until the sounds of the dying city could no longer be heard.

  “We made it,” Sophie whispered.

  He kissed the top of her head, hugged her more tightly to him, steering one-handed.

  “We made it.”

  Chapter 9

  Jon cast a worried glance at Sophie, huddled shivering in a corner. Her head was on her knees, hands tucked under her arms in a vain attempt to hide from him the fact that they were trembling.

  Hell. There was nothing to be ashamed of. They’d just come out of something worse than a firefight.

  For all the tight situations he’d been in, outnumbered and outgunned, Jon had never faced a battle like that before. In every other firefight, he’d been combating humans and he could understand even the worst scumbag. These infected—they had no sense of self-preservation. It was terrifying to see them throw themselves into the water, hungry to attack, and then sink to the bottom. To see them throwing themselves over the parapet, landing as a heap of broken bones on the small pier, had unnerved him. It went against the human grain. They couldn’t think, couldn’t reason, so you couldn’t outwit them in any way. They were absolutely terrifying.

  He was fucking spooked too.

  Sophie had been as brave as any warrior. She was untrained—a scientist for fuck’s sake—and yet she’d outshone many a fellow soldier, never losing her nerve under hair-raising circumstances.

  They’d done it, but now Sophie needed a little care, which he was more than happy to provide. They’d lucked out with this boat. It was a working fishing boat, but its owner had tricked it out with every modern enhancement. It had excellent radar, so he had no fear of running into other boats, and it had the latest type of autopilot. He could leave the helm and tend to Sophie, and know they wouldn’t be running aground or ramming another boat. The system was very sophisticated and would move around any obstacles.

  He was going to travel up the coast until he was more or less at the same latitude as Mount Blue. It was going to be hard to make their way overland. The infected were everywhere, even if not as concentrated as in San Francisco. They needed to find a vehicle and try to make their way on roads that were clogged with stalled cars.

&nbs
p; On the way down in the helo, he’d found very few roads with clear stretches and without abandoned cars, so it would have to be a vehicle with off the road capabilities. God, he wished he had one of their hovercars, little miracle cars that could be driven either in wheeled vehicle mode or hovercraft mode. But he didn’t.

  He’d have to try to find an undamaged four-wheel drive with a full tank of gas and/or a fully charged engine. Not easy, because there weren’t going to be functioning charging stations, and there weren’t going to be gas stations anywhere on the route to Haven.

  But that was for after they landed. First things first.

  The galley was well equipped. It had all the fixings for a traumatized young woman. He hunkered down next to Sophie with a steaming cup of tea, a good finger of excellent whiskey in it. She looked at it then at him, deep blue eyes sad and lost. She made no move to reach for the tea, though she obviously wanted it.

  Very gently, Jon pulled one of her hands away, put the cup in her hand, then placed his hand under hers. It was trembling. No way would he allow that hot tea to spill on her. He had her hand. He watched as she sipped, coughed.

  “This is the second time you’ve done this. I like whiskey,” she said. “Too bad you put tea in it.”

  “Drink,” he said.

  She did. By the time she finished the cup, color had come back into her face and her hands no longer trembled in his.

  He searched her eyes. “You okay?”

  She didn’t even try to misunderstand. “That was so scary,” she whispered. “I thought we weren’t going to make it. If you hadn’t been so fast with that gun, we wouldn’t have. It was so close!”

  She was spooked. He had to help her with this, otherwise she’d play those scenes over and over again in her head. He knew hardened warriors who suffered from PTSD from less harrowing experiences. Jon took her chin in his hand, keeping her focused on him. He had to convince her now and it had to stick. “We made it. It’s in the past. Over. The infected can’t touch you now and that’s what counts. Wipe it from your mind. Close only counts in horseshoes—”

  “And hand grenades,” she added with a faint smile.

  Jon looked at her carefully. What he wanted to do was grab her up and hold her tight, for her and for himself. He’d been scared shitless that he’d lose her back at the pier. If he grabbed her and held her she’d understand that he’d been scared and that wouldn’t do. So he merely bent to touch his lips to hers. Soft lips that opened under his . . . Oh yeah.

  The comms unit beeped. He pulled back, looked at Sophie with a raised brow, and she nodded. He set it to hologram and speakerphone so communicating wouldn’t be just over his ear unit. She had every right to hear the intel. They were lovers, but they were also teammates on a dangerous mission. You don’t hide intel from a teammate.

  Mac and Nick were in the foreground. Jon could see Catherine and Elle working in the background with people he didn’t recognize.

  “Helo’s down,” Jon said.

  “Yeah.” Mac’s basso profundo voice was grim. “We saw the whole thing. That was quick thinking, making for the waterfront. We’re glad you got out. Elle nearly had a heart attack.”

  Nick nodded. “Yeah, we had some tense moments there, bro. Luckily, you paid attention to my sterling soldiering advice.”

  It was a running joke, to the extent that Nick was able to joke. They were of equal abilities. Nick was a slightly better shooter and Jon was sneakier, better at lying, better at strategizing. But they were both more than mission capable.

  Jon let the snark slide. “Well, we could use some advice right about now. Do you have us up on screen?”

  “Oh yeah,” Mac said. “And we’ve got your waypoints mapped out. And something else.” Mac turned behind him and beckoned. A middle-aged guy stepped forward. Plaid shirt, chinos. Balding. Thin intelligent face. Unusually, he wore glasses. Most people had their eyes corrected with surgery. Wearing glasses was definitely a retro statement. “Jon, meet Jason Robb. Jason’s one of our refugees and he’s got some intel for you.”

  Robb’s face filled the hologram. “I watched on screen as your helicopter blew up and you guys escaped. Really impressive, man. It’s my understanding that Dr. Daniels and you are carrying a vaccine. Everyone’s rooting for you, son.”

  Jon nodded. It was nice that people were rooting for him, but he needed a little more than that. They were streaming north, but once they made landfall they were going to be in a shitload of trouble.

  “We’ve been looking at the maps,” Mac said. “The best place to make landfall is around Eureka, where there’s a straight line over to us here at Haven.”

  Jon kept quiet. Robb might be a newbie at this but Mac and Nick weren’t. They knew damn well how difficult making landfall and making their way east to Haven was going to be. It was almost a suicide mission.

  “That’s where I come in,” Robb said, pushing his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose. “I run—I ran a sort of fancy B & B about twenty miles south of Eureka, near the Humbolt Bay Refuge. Right now, the drones show no infected in the entire Refuge itself. My B & B has a wall around it and is open only to the sea. We have a pier you can dock at. Let me show you. These are stored images because Google went down about two hours ago.” He tapped on a tablet and aerial views came up of a stucco compound, landscaped gardens around it, a bright blue oval that was a swimming pool, surrounded by adobe walls. Sure enough, a small wooden finger jutted out from the beach. A pier.

  “So we were thinking of you and Sophie holing up there during daylight. The Redwood Highway is free of obstacles nearly back up to Eureka and you can head east here.” Nick’s finger traced up the Redwood Highway to a point two miles south of the city. “There’s a pileup here, so you’ll have to leave the road.”

  “I have a four-wheel drive in the garage,” Robb said. “It’s a hybrid. A Lynx. I don’t know whether the charger is working or not, but even if the electricity is down, it should have had time to charge before it went offline. And the LPG tank is full. I don’t know if it can carry you all the way over, that depends on how many detours you have to take, but with some luck you can siphon some LPG from abandoned hybrids if you have to. I think all the charging stations are down. The Lynx’s real hardy. You can go off road. The only problem is that they tell me you should drive after sundown, without headlights. I don’t know how you can do that.”

  “You still night vision capable?” Mac asked.

  “Yeah.” His NV goggles were still fully charged. It would have been a nightmare driving off road for 250 miles in the dark. Even with NV it was going to be almost impossible.

  But impossible was what Ghost Ops used to do for breakfast. And the stakes were higher than any mission he’d ever been on. He had a beautiful woman to keep safe and a vaccine that could save millions to deliver. He was going to get them safely to Haven. No question.

  “So, Mr. Ryan,” Robb began.

  “Jon.”

  “Jon. The main house is open on the beach side. You’ll move past the pool and pool house, then there are steps up to a patio. There’s a security system. The code is montecarlo2015.” He glanced sideways, his face softening. “Montecarlo is where I met my wife. Once you’ve punched in the code, go inside and then punch in mylove to set the security system again.” Even in the hologram, Jon could see the man’s cheeks turn pink. Mac looked away, lips tight against a smile, and Nick rolled his eyes behind the man’s back.

  “If the electricity has gone, what then?”

  “We have a generator guaranteed to run for ninety-six hours if the mains go off; we never went full solar. But if something has happened, if you can climb, get up to the second story and go in through a window. The second story is where the four guest bedrooms are, and we switched the security off. Damned things went crazy every time a guest opened the window for some air. Even if the fridge and freezer are no longer working, there’s food that should still be good. We get our water from an artesian well, run by a very smal
l solar generator, so you’ll have plenty of running water, hot and cold. Use anything you want in the house, take anything you need. The welcome and safety we’ve received here—well, I couldn’t thank you and your friends in a thousand lifetimes. Everything in the house is yours.”

  Jon dipped his head. “Thank you. The vehicle?”

  Robb grinned in pride. “Brand-new. Top of the line. I keep it fully serviced. To open the garage door, press the remote in the tray between the seats. It opens the gate in the outer wall too. These guys here seem to be really well organized, but if you can, bring some of the food we’ve got stocked. Flour, bags of dried fruit, things that won’t spoil. Oh, and if it’s not too much trouble, my wife, uh, she’d really like a big pink cashmere shawl that’s draped over a chair in our bedroom. She’s really attached to that shawl. I gave it to her for our fifth wedding anniversary. You guys seem to have the only intact communication system in California, so if you have any problems, just get me back online. No problem.”

  “You’re very generous, sir—” Jon began.

  “God, no!” Robb lifted his hands in horror. His eyes were suddenly glassy with unshed tears. “Don’t thank me! This place has saved our lives. Everyone has shared generously. I couldn’t possibly pay back what I owe you. So consider that house yours for the duration.”

  Responding to a touch on his shoulder, Robb moved away, the camera automatically adjusting its focus to Mac and Nick.

  “So,” Jon said. “Sitrep.”

  Mac and Nick separated and there he was, Captain Lucius Ward. The man Jon had loved like a father. The man who’d put together the Ghost Ops team and made them tighter than brothers. The man who’d nearly broken him when Jon thought the captain had betrayed them. He hadn’t. How could they have ever thought that? That the captain could betray them? He’d have died first and he almost did die. When the intel Catherine had brought them—that the captain and three of their teammates were being held in one of Arka’s research facilities, and they’d gone down to rescue them—the four men they’d rescued had been as close to death as Jon ever wanted to see.