Dark Days (Apocalypse Z) (19 page)

“Those are Hispano Aviación HA-1112 M1L Buchones!” Broto shouted, not taking his eyes off those small fighter planes.

From the look on my face, he realized I didn’t understand. “After World War Two, Franco somehow secured the plans for some Nazi fighter planes and had them manufactured for the Spanish Air Force. But since the German factories were destroyed in the war, they outfitted them with Rolls-Royce Merlin engines. They patrolled Spain’s African colonies till the late fifties. Now there’re just a few in museums. Two Buchones! Amazing!” he blurted out, his eyes glued to the planes.

Fucking Tank
, I thought, marveling at the German’s audacity. In just a couple of hours, the other team had managed to start those relics that had been gathering dust in the Air Museum. The crowd of Undead was going wild because of the engine noise as those old birds hovered menacingly above them.

“Watch closely,
che
.” Marcelo made room for me beside him at the open window. “The show’s about to start.”

The Buchones made a final turn about a mile from us and headed straight for the plaza with a deafening roar. Only then did I notice that hanging underneath each plane’s wings were the red containers I’d seen the other team laboriously ferry on the airport bus. I suddenly realized what was going to happen.

“NAPALM!” I cried. I couldn’t contain myself. This was gonna be good!

The planes flew very low—around three hundred feet—over the parking lot. On cue, the red containers broke away, did a slow roll, and fell onto the crowd below.

The fuses were activated as soon as the containers hit the ground. Two huge balls of fire and black smoke exploded almost simultaneously. The flames rose to a staggering height and a tremendous explosion echoed across the city.

The helicopter lurched suddenly, as if it’d been punched by a giant fist of air. Prit let out a long stream of Russian words. The fireballs changed into a single, gigantic, orange ball, streaked with dark smoke.
Globs of the gelatinous Napalm splattered everywhere. I had to turn away from the window. Although we were several hundred feet from the fire, the unbridled heat rising from that hell was suffocating. The tall buildings surrounding the parking lot transformed the place into a giant stewpot, concentrating the effect of napalm. The swirling air generated by the heat fueled the flames.

Judging by Kurt Tank’s comments on the radio, he was thrilled with the outcome of the operation. He had every reason to be. There wouldn’t be much left down there.

Those few moments seemed to go on forever, but finally the fireball died down once all the fuel was consumed. The columns of black smoke combined into a single tall column visible from miles away.

“Look at that!” howled one of the legionnaires. “Not a single one is left standing!”

Excited shouts erupted in the helicopter. The huge crowd that had been knotted together in the parking lot just a moment before was now reduced to just a few hundred smoking torches that stumbled around and finally collapsed. The vile blue or green flames the smoldering bodies on the ground gave off blended with the black smoke that blanketed the entire parking lot. The pungent smell of burning flesh stung my nose and made my eyes water. Dante’s
Inferno
couldn’t have been worse.

“Why do they burn like that?” Broto asked Pauli, staring at the charred tapestry. “That’s fucking amazing! They burned to the bone in minutes. Jesus Fucking Christ!”

“Simple,” said the Catalan, as she tightened the straps of her bulletproof vest. “Most of those things have been dead—or undead—for over a year.”

“What does that have to do with it?” Broto was clueless.

“It means,” Pauli patiently explained, “they’re undergoing the process of putrefaction, albeit slowly. The process of decomposition generates—”

“Gases,” I blurted out, suddenly grasping what had just happened.

“Methane gas, mostly. The longer they’ve been in that state, the higher the concentration of gases saturating their body fat. The ones who burned like matches succumbed in the early days. The rest,” she nodded toward the few figures still staggering around, “have only been Undead for a few months.”

I looked down once more at the furiously burning bodies below. Jubilation flooded the cabin in waves, as the helicopter slowly descended. But out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the tense, worried faces of the crew. A few veterans made jokes to take their minds off their fear.

I was hard-pressed to describe what I felt. Fear, mostly. Anguish, thinking about the thousands of lives we’d just cut down. Those things weren’t just rag dolls; they’d been people who’d had a life and dreams and who didn’t deserve to end up like that. And I felt heartsick, thinking that if it weren’t for dumb luck I’d have ended up one of the horde of Undead.

Mostly I was scared.

Panicked.

In just a few moments, those soldiers, who were so young and should’ve had their whole lives ahead of them, would bravely head into that building. Viktor Pritchenko and I knew too well the horrors awaiting them.

28

TENERIFE

Basilio Irisarri was in a foul mood. The look on his face and in his narrow, vacant eyes was homicidal. Lately he’d snarled over and over, “Get my drift, pal?” Basilio didn’t know he had that tic, but it had gotten worse recently. As an idea took shape in his mind, that phrase became a mantra he said to anyone who’d listen.

Things had gotten complicated since that ugly business with the nun. Basilio was already in the hot seat with the higher-ups. He always had trouble with bosses, but this time he was really in the hot seat.

For starters, he was no longer stationed on the
Galicia
. During the internal investigation required by navy protocol, he’d been “temporarily relieved” of his duties. He didn’t mind that part. The
Galicia
was nearly empty these days. The flow of refugees had completely dried up. That damned nun and her pals were the last to be quarantined on that ship.

Basilio had resented standing guard in an empty boat anchored in the middle of the bay. He’d never admit it, but he got the creeps patrolling that gigantic ship in the dark, with only a flashlight, hearing the creaking and groaning of a thousand bulkheads.

On the plus side, he was the first to get wind of any new “business opportunities” in the port. Everyone knew that all the best deals in the black market were cooked up on the docks under the watchful eye of
inspectors and officers. Pull out a few packs of smokes or gold earrings at the right time and a guard would suddenly need to take a piss or the harbor patrol boat would develop engine failure that mysteriously fixed itself a couple of hours later. In that world, Basilio was like a fish in water, a true genius with an innate talent for discovering some juicy deal.

For the first time in his life, things were going well,
very
well, for Basilio. His contacts were coming through after weeks of “negotiating.” He was raking in the booty, gold especially.

The lack of legal tender on the islands was a real pain in the ass, even for the black market, but it was inevitable. With a continent in shambles, there were billions of euros lying around, free for the taking—if anyone dared face the Undead to get them. Many refugees arrived clutching millions of dollars, euros, and pounds they’d found strewn across their home countries. They flooded the local market with useless currency that no government backed. Gold, silver, and precious stones—those were the real currency and Basilio knew how to get them.

But a few weeks before, things had gotten fucked up again. First there was that damned raid that cost him a huge shipment of bootleg rum. Then he got the news that that damn nun was still alive!

Basilio’s methods were crude, but he was nobody’s fool. If the nun was alive, it was just a matter of time before she woke up and told the real story about what happened. Then he wouldn’t have jack shit—no bright future, no black market deals, just a one-way ticket to the cranes in the port and a quick hanging.

So, when he learned through one of his customers (a doctor hooked on the dwindling supply of cocaine), that that old bitch was clinging to life, he realized he needed to come up with a plan.

Basilio was no coward. He had no problem bumping someone off in a dark alley, but sneaking into a hospital full of guards, in broad daylight, to knock off an old woman lying in a crowded hospital room would be tricky. Basilio would have to tread lightly. If the old bitch died in a dramatic way, he’d be the first person they’d suspect.

For several days Basilio considered letting the situation play out. According to his contact, the old hag was in a coma and there was a good chance she’d never wake up. He could get lucky and the nun would kick the bucket.

But the day before, a team had left for the Peninsula in search of medicine. They might bring back some drug that would revive the old bat. On the other hand, with all the Undead around, there was a good chance they wouldn’t make it back. But Basilio couldn’t take that chance.

He finally made up his mind: He’d take care of the nun himself. That thought made him feel a whole lot better.

So the next morning, he disguised himself as an orderly, pushing a wheelchair. In it was Eric Desauss, a wiry, red-haired, freckle-faced Belgian, with a convincing cough. Under a blanket, he gripped a nine-millimeter beretta he’d insisted on bringing “just in case.”

Getting the uniform and the pass was simple, although he’d had to pay Dr. Addict a fortune in white powder. Getting Eric to collaborate was easy, too. An old acquaintance from Basilio’s little world, he’d been diagnosed as schizophrenic. Just the thought of killing the nun gave him a morbid thrill and a painful erection he had to hide under the blanket.

Basilio was having a hard time getting his bearings in that fucking madhouse. Dr. Addict had told him how to get to the nun’s hospital room but had refused to go with him, saying, “I don’t want to know what the fuck you’re up to. I don’t even want to know you.”

Basilio and Eric roamed around the hospital for nearly twenty minutes. Basilio’s bad mood was quickly approaching the red zone, like mercury in a thermometer left on a hot stove. They couldn’t keep wandering around aimlessly. Sooner or later, someone would notice that the same orderly with the same patient had passed that same spot three times—and then they’d be in deep shit.

“Eric, I think we have a problem. Get my drift, pal?”

“You’re telling me. We’ve been in this hallway twice. That guard looked us over real good. Maybe we should come back another day.”

“No fucking way,” Basilio whispered. “I’ve got enough morphine in my pocket to bring down an elephant. They frisk everyone leaving the hospital, including staff. What do you think they’d say if they found the piece you’re hiding under that blanket?”

“We could stash everything here and come back another day,” Eric whined. His enthusiasm was waning.

“There’s not going to be another day. Get my drift, pal? It’s gotta be today. We can’t take a chance she’ll wake up. Hey! Look! We found it!”
Basilio pointed to a sign that said
RECOVERY ROOM
12 with an arrow pointing to the right.

Basilio pushed the wheelchair faster. Before the Apocalypse, that room had been a parking garage for ambulances. Now, the hospital was so crowded, they’d turned it into a hospice with just a coat of white paint and four picture windows on the south wall. The stench of sickness and death was so strong, the two gunmen gagged as they walked through the door. The hospital staff called that room “the Morgue.” Many patients were brought there, but few left it alive. Most often, there was no way to heal those patients; they were the sad ghosts whose lives were cut short. In the old days, they’d have recuperated from their ailments in a couple of days. Now the desperate ill were locked away there so no one had to see them and everyone could go on with their lives, pretending everything was fine. It was way worse than hell.

Fifty beds filled the large room, lined up in two neat rows, with a wide aisle down the center. Most of the beds were occupied, except for a couple whose mattresses were rolled up to let their springs air out. A bloodstain on one of the mattresses made Basilio stop short for a moment. His eyes flitted from bed to bed, searching for the nun’s face among that dying crowd. Finally, he spotted her.

Two nurses in the far corner of the room were leaning over a patient in crisis. One of the nurses hurried out the far door for help. The other nurse had her back turned, so she didn’t see Basilio and Eric stop in the middle of the aisle. The Belgian got out of the wheelchair and pressed himself against the wall, beretta in hand, keeping an eye on both doors.

Basilio wasted no time. He stuck his hand into his pocket, pulled out a syringe filled with morphine and sidled up to the bed where the defenseless Sister Cecilia lay. The sailor-turned-hit-man studied her for a second. In just a few weeks, the old woman had shrunk. With that giant bandage on her head, she looked like an enormous insect in a cocoon.
Sorry, old gal
, he thought as he gripped the saline drip and injected the drug in the syringe he was holding.
Nothing personal. You shouldn’t have gotten in the way…