Containment (2 page)

Once on the ground, he ordered a contingent of soldiers forward to stall the attackers. He needed to make certain that he had the necessary time to implement his plans. As a precaution, he was having engineers wire the bridge with explosives. If they couldn’t stop the torrent with firepower, then they could take away their lone avenue for advance. The blocking force was rushed forward and told to hold at all costs. They needed to have enough time to organize the defense and prepare the bridge for demolition. If the uprising couldn’t be stopped at the bridge, then the colonel wasn’t quite sure where it would be able to be contained.

He was just getting over to the mobile command vehicle when a young junior officer appeared with a wireless headset. “Sir. It’s the governor, sir.”

The colonel nodded and took the headset. “Sir, this is Colonel Frost.”

The governor’s voice was strained and worried. “How bad is it, Colonel?” he asked bluntly,

A pregnant pause followed. The colonel scanned the control center that hopped and buzzed with the intensity of a beehive. The activity to the untrained eye would perhaps seem random and chaotic, but to the colonel it was purposeful and orderly. Multiple radios chirped and hummed as reports came in from all over the adjoining military installations. The details and the locations varied but the consistent message they all delivered was the need for help and evacuation. Most of the reports, the colonel surmised, were not good as control continually slipped further and further out of reach.

“Well sir, I’m not entirely sure yet how bad it is, but I can say that it will take extreme measures to get things back under control. We are organizing a defensive line at Knik. At this point, we’re not entirely sure what is happening to be perfectly frank, sir. Richardson is a complete loss. I believe Elmendorf is too.”

“Are the dissidents targeting the military installations specifically? Could it be extremists trying to cripple our infrastructure?”

“Sir, the...disturbance moved into Elmendorf and Richardson because civilians from Anchorage ran there for protection. It appears that all of this started in Anchorage and just followed the people. I’m afraid that Anchorage may be in as bad a state as the military bases, sir.”

“What are you suggesting, Colonel?”

“I’m not suggesting anything, sir. I’m merely pointing out that I think that this all started in Anchorage and is just spreading.”

“Can you stop it, Colonel?”

The colonel...the warrior, wanted to growl to the politician that he and his soldiers were capable of anything. He was on the verge of doing just that when he looked around at the nervous and scared faces that were running about all over the makeshift command post. Men and women, some young and others not so young, were doing their best to get a handle on the events that were unfolding just up the road. There were some sitting quietly being treated for seeping, horrible wounds to their arms, hands, and even faces. The sedatives to calm their fears and lessen their pain had stolen whatever fire had been in their eyes before.

The colonel took a deep breath and then began, “Sir, I’m not even sure what ‘it’ is that needs to be stopped. There were things happening over there that I can’t even begin to describe to you. Atrocities, really, being committed by what appeared to be normal people driven to some state of insanity. I don’t know really what is going on. What I can say, though, is that we are going to stand strong here along the Knik and—”

“Colonel, use whatever means you deem necessary to hold your line. Do you understand?”

“Sir, I would like clarification on what exactly you mean by that if I may.”

“Colonel, before we lost contact with the civil authorities in Anchorage, the ranking officers communicating with my staff here in Juneau told us that there were mass atrocities being committed. We can’t allow this to spread. You have my full support in whatever decision you make to stop this but I want it stopped. Do you understand?”

“Sir, are you authorizing me to use—”

“You use what you feel you have to use to stop this. We have to regain control and if it requires bringing down the fires of hell, well you do it then.”

“I understand sir. I have limited resources at my disposal, but I think what I have will certainly discourage them.”

“Good. We’ve contacted Eielson and authorized them to scramble some support for you as well. Those jets should be arriving soon. Use your discretion as to how to use them. Keep me updated, colonel. I am getting on the phone with the President right now. I only hope that you are successful so that we can focus on sorting this mess out and putting things back to right again.”

“Yessir. We will do our best, sir.”

“Colonel, I don’t want just your best. We
need
you to be successful. This isn’t about politics or careers here. This is about survival and you are our last best hope for that. Do you understand? You are all that remains between the people of this state and whatever is happening in Anchorage. We are all counting on you and your men to stop this.”

The colonel was nodding and looking back at the soldiers around him. He took a deep breath and said simply, “You can count on us, sir.”

“Thank you, Colonel. I hope to be able to sit down with you when this is all over and hear about how you solved this problem for all of us.”

The connection was broken and the colonel took off the headset, handing it back to the young man still standing at his side. He looked again at the wounded people being treated. The young officer anticipated the question that was forming and said, “Sir, our medical staff—what’s left of it that was able to be evac’d—are treating the walking wounded here, sir, and the more serious cases are further back.”

“How many so far?”

“Of the most serious cases, a couple of dozen, sir. The less severe injuries, I’d estimate double that number.” The young man wanted to say more but stopped himself short.

“What aren’t you telling me, son?”

“Several of the medical staff have pointed out that most of the injuries appear to be...well, bites, sir. And the bites appear to be extremely susceptible to infection.”

Bites?
Bites?
Jesus, that’s right. Those...people, for whatever reason, attacked on sight, but they did so without the most basic of arms. He became keenly and suddenly aware that he hadn’t seen a single weapon in the crowds. There were no guns, no knives, not even any rocks. He shuddered involuntarily at the implications. It was unthinkable.

“Bites? Are you sure?”

“Yes sir.”

“Okay son. Why don’t you try and raise the governor’s office again and pass that along. If they’re going to figure this mess out, they’ll need all the intel they can get.”

“Yes sir. And what are we going to do, sir?”

“We’re going to do what soldiers do best.”

From off in the distance, the unmistakable chatter of small arms fire suddenly began to filter into the impromptu military camp. “Those boys up there are going to need some help,” the colonel said. “Let’s get a couple of choppers up there with some firepower and see what we can do.”

Almost at once, a pair of Blackhawk gunships roared overhead and made their way toward the fighting. Not able to sit back himself, the colonel found another helicopter and did his best to join his men, who were even then fighting for their lives on the ground.

The battle at the roadblock was virtually no different than those that had been fought all over Anchorage. The two hovering helicopters loosed a barrage of rockets and a shower of machine-gun bullets into the attacking horde, but even those measures had little to no impact. He watched helplessly as his men, disciplined and brave, fought and then, one by one, were overpowered and butchered where they stood by groups of the vile attackers.

A single armored Humvee with a small group of survivors sped away from the disaster before it was too late. Colonel Frost instructed his pilots to lay down whatever cover fire they were able to try and put some distance between his fleeing soldiers and their pursuers. He watched from his hovering perch as high caliber bullets tore into and through flesh to no avail. The people below didn’t seem to even register that bullets had just passed through them. This was more than just adrenaline or some external chemical or drug affecting this behavior. What was happening was unreal and unimaginable, and yet he was witnessing it. There was no denying it.

Seeing that these efforts were largely futile, he ordered his pilots to return to the Knik base. It didn’t appear that he had any options left other than to allow the incoming jets from Fairbanks to blanket the entire area in fire and death. To him, these people below were still Americans; the same people he had sworn to defend and protect from exactly the thing that he was ordering done to them.

Over the radio, he was connected with the pilots in the squadron of jets that were just beginning to appear on the distant horizon. He issued the order to use any and all ordinance on the crowd advancing through the valley.

And then from a safe distance, the colonel watched as the entire road and all that was on it was engulfed in a sea of seemingly liquid fire that spread out like a searing yellow and black flood. The flash was blinding and the delayed roar of the explosion was deafening even over the clamorous growl of the helicopter’s turbines.

The colonel bowed and shook his head. He was a warrior, but never in his career, or even in his lifetime would he have imagined that he would be calling down such horrible death on such a target. He wasn’t a praying man, but he found himself asking for forgiveness from above. He knew that there were “bad guys” in that crowd below but he also knew that there were women and children and who knew what else. Was his wife down there? His son? Had they just been incinerated along with everyone else? Maybe this would be enough to end it all so that they could begin sorting out the good from the bad and then figure out who was responsible for this insanity that had cost so much.

He was lingering in those thoughts when his radio headset began to squawk. It was the pilot of his helicopter. “Sir, it doesn’t appear to have worked, sir. They’re still coming.”

“
What?!?”

He looked out then and saw that, even through the flames that were still melting the paved roads of the Glenn Highway, the rioters, the attackers, the terrorists or whatever they were to be called were still moving forward. It was as if the attack—the deadly fire that had swallowed hundreds of people in a single instant—had not even happened. They were showing no signs of stopping or even slowing. Through his binoculars, he watched as dozens of them appeared through the conflagration with flames still licking at their clothes and hair. They made not the slightest effort to extinguish the blaze that flickered and burned over their bodies. Smoldering and blackened, they continued their trek toward the bridge, swirling black contrails in their wake.

The bridge.
He had to know if the bridge was ready for demolition. “Connect me with the command post.”

“Yessir.”

After a pause, with the colonel still watching the horrible parade as it advanced, the pilot was back on. “Sir, I don’t seem to be able to raise command.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sir, just that. The line is open, but I’m not reaching anyone.”

“Get us back over there, son.”

“Yessir.”

It took only a few brief moments in the fast moving aircraft for them to be over the newly formed command post on the north side of the Knik Arm Bridge. When the colonel looked down, his heart nearly skipped a beat. Below him, the scene resembled what he had left at Fort Richardson. People, soldiers, were running in every direction. Some appeared to be fleeing while others appeared to be pursuing. There were also bodies lying all over the area. There seemed to be a large concentration of them near the critical care unit that had been established to treat the worst cases. And then he saw it. A row of black, zippered bags lying side-by-side behind the unit. Body bags. But not all of them were still. There were several that had something inside that was struggling to get out. They writhed and squirmed like fetuses trying to be born from inside the black, rubbery wombs.

“Oh dear God.”

“Sir, what do you want us to do?”

“Get me on the radio with those pilots.”

“You’re on, sir.”

“Pilot, do you have anything left to bring down that bridge?”

“That’s an affirmative, sir.”

“Then bring it down. We’ve got to do what we can to stop this.”

“Are you asking us to destroy that bridge, sir?”

“That’s affirmative.”

“Roger that. We are targeting the bridge.”

The colonel and the pilots of his helicopter watched as the spans that constituted the Knik Arm Bridge were laid to rubble. There was less fire with this explosion but definitely more smoke than with the napalm bursts on the roadway. One of the jets targeted the more distant railroad trestle for good measure and brought it down in a flash of rising smoke and water. And from the south, getting closer and closer, there seemed to be no stop to the tide of maniacal humanity that pressed ever forward.

When they reached the concrete and steel ruins of the bridge, they merely continued. Those that could find easy footing crossed and those that couldn’t fell into spaces and gaps in the span until those spaces and gaps were filled full enough with still twisting and squirming bodies to allow others to cross atop them.