Designated (Book 1): Designated Infected (14 page)

'And if I heard that right there should be three
Infected round the corner here, you want 'em?'

Richard 'Splinter' Sharp Shrugged.

'Orite then, I was getting a little restless.'

Sharp jogged ahead his gun pressed loosely to his
shoulder, sixty seconds later Hooper walked round the corner to see
Sharp stood amongst three unconscious Infected.

'Come on then ya lazy git took ya long enough to get
here, I reckon we got another three hundred meters then we hit the
RV, fancy a run?'

Hooper Shrugged, 'guess so, not much else to do, could
use a bit of exercise.'

Both SAS troopers took off at a dead sprint towards
their rendezvous point under the watchful eye of the two Instructors.

A
technician watched the two men move off screen as he turned to face
Colinson, the wire-thin Lance corporal by the name of Hendrix
motioned sharply catching Colinson's attention.

'Sir,
shall I release any more into Sharp and Hooper’s target area?'

'Negative Lance Corporal, no point they would just drop
them as easily as the rest, we've hit gold so far with these men,
except for the slip up with the two PWRR boys all have passed with
flying colours, let them pass unhindered, they've earned it, and
Lance corporal,' the young military technician looked up expectantly,
'don't call me sir I work for a living.'

'Yes Captain.'

14

The remaining two teams of Special Forces troopers
cleaned their zones with the accuracy of master surgeons, making
their rendezvous points a full four minutes ahead of schedule.

Davies
and Clarkenwell strolled out of the building with Clarkenwell
grinning from ear to ear. Stopping next to Hooper and Sharp the two
soldiers glanced at the new comers.

'What the hell got you so happy?' Hooper quizzed the
still grinning Clarkenwell. Throwing a thumb over his shoulder he
pointed at Davies.

'Daft git fell through the wall at the end of Corridor
D, straight into the arms of a Infected. Dumb shit screamed like a
girl, arms going all directions bawling like a newborn, ahhhh get it
off me get it off.'

Clarkenwell chuckled as he re-enacted Davies panicked
thrashings.

Davies shoved his mate between the shoulders sending him
sprawling on to his face.

'Yeah yeah, conveniently forgot to tell them, you're the
one who shoved me through it, ya Prick.'

Clarkenwell picked himself up and laughed, rejoining the
group, Hooper turned to see Collins and Roberts exit the building two
minutes later.

'Oi oi here come the puddle pirates, how did our two
Soggy Bollocks Squad brothers do then.'

Collins flipped them off gaining raucous laughter in
response, 'Not bad, bit bored towards the end though; what about you
lot?' Roberts quizzed the four SAS men, 'same here, although Davies
here took a side trip', Roberts cocked an eyebrow at the statement.
'through a wall.'

Both SBS men cracked a grin ambling over to stand with
the rest of group. Hamilton and Jones watched the group as they drew
closer to the others, a sharp cry of indignant disgust caused all to
turn and face them.

'Fuck me, what is that smell?'

Hamilton blushed a slightly pinkish hue as he looked
down at himself, 'ugh that would be me, Infected kinda went pop when
Jones slotted it, must have been a bit over ripe, sorry.'

'Don't apologise Hamilton, sign of weakness, at least
that's what I was told.' The twelve men looked up to see Staff
Sergeant Baker and Sergeant Kingsley walking towards them, pint
glasses held in their hands.

'I think, and correct me if I am wrong Mister Kingsley
that all these men have done extremely well, if not a bit too relaxed
in some cases.'

Baker looked pointedly in the direction of the special
operations soldiers, then grinned setting his glass down on the drill
square's grit laden surface.

'Well,' he smiled as he clapped his hands together, 'we
have a soft session next. If you would kindly make your way to
classroom D in the block to my left, we will run through some of the
more clinical aspects of our job here. Then it will be on to phase
two.'

Baker almost retched as Hamilton passed within a few
feet of him. 'Hamilton not to close mate, jeez that stinks. Showers
are that way, head there first and incinerate the clothes when you're
done, we'll furnish new civvies for you.'

****

Baker stood in front of the gathered men as they relaxed
in the chairs dotted about the room.

'Okay lads, time to get down to the science of our
vocation. A few years ago when Broadhead was still very much a
fledgling unit a situation arose. We were first officially tasked
with the capture and elimination of high ranking terrorists in Iraq
and Afghanistan, although this was just a smoke screen for the press;
not that we didn't actually do the job, it just wasn't that high on
our list of priorities.'

Several of the men looked severely puzzled at Baker's
words, ignoring the questioning glances, he ploughed on.

'The
pathogen, that we have simply termed “The Virus,” not
very creative I know but it suits our purposes, first reached our
ears in early two thousand, a mystery plague was sweeping through
northern Asia and was quickly spreading down through eastern and
western Asia and most of the Middle East. So we went in to try and
back track it to the source; it turns out our Russian counterparts
were doing the same thing with the Americans carrying on through more
covert
channels.'

Baker stopped and picked up a glass of water buying
himself a few seconds to reorganise his thoughts as he drank.

'Well you have all probably heard from one person or
another of the incident in the Abu Naji base back in 2001.'

Most of the men in front of him nodded their ascent
while others looked more than a little puzzled.

'That
was when we were officially called in and sanctioned, before that we
had been hopping from zone to zone inspecting and eliminating all
that showed signs of the infection. Anyway to cut a long story short,
we ended up in Russia at a deep research facility they had set up to
investigate the effects of the pathogen on the human body. The head
of the department was a doctor called
Anastasia
Stanislova, a brilliant biochemist and biological researcher, who
through more luck than judgement ended up being one of the people we
pulled out of the Russian facility.'

Baker once more reached for the glass and drank a small
mouthful letting the cold liquid wash away anything that had been
worming its way to the surface.

'Well; it's her research into this virus that has
granted us a small measure of understanding as to what we are up
against.'

Baker pulled a small remote from his pocket and strode
to the back of the class room as Kingsley killed the lights. A soft
whirring filled the room as Davies, Sharp and all the other recruits
focused their attention on the screen ahead of them.

'What you see here are several images drawn from Doctor
Stanislova's files, we have gone through them and checked and
re-checked everything against our own studies and field notes and can
find nothing, that disparages, or disproves, anything she has thus
far found.'

Baker clicked a button pulling up another image.

'This is a digital shot of a test subject's blood work,
below it is a non Infected sample, what is the first thing you
notice'

Davies was the first to speak as he studied the image.

'For one boss the small black, parasite things attached
to the red cells, and another would be the disproportionate number of
platelets in the Infected sample.'

Baker smiled pleased with the fast uptake of the soldier
before him. A murmur of agreement ran through them all as Baker
changed the image.

'This is a sample given to us from an incident in Africa
two years ago, what's changed.' Davies and every one stayed mute
unable to comprehend what was before them. 'Thought that would throw
you off, and before you ask yes that is human blood, well it was any
way.'

The image before them was a mass of Black and green
cells the parasitic organisms floating freely latching onto
everything in their path. Davies watched fascinated as the
microscopic parasites moved through the cell walls like a finger
through wet rice paper.

'We were lucky here; the sample was obtained by the
second Broadhead team and a small contingent of American agents from
Division Thirty-Six. What you're watching is a live feed from the
research department, the particles floating in the blood seem to be
something akin to a parasite and thus far all attempts at eradicating
it have failed. They latch on to the host's red cells and use them as
a transport system to ferry them through the host's body. They infect
everything from the internal organs and the cardiovascular system
right through to the cerebral system and even basic motor skills;
only cure we have found so far is a bullet to the head and a bath in
white phosphorus or carbolic acid.'

Davies turned in his chair glancing over the back of it
at Baker.

'But why the change in the cell colour'

Baker smiled as he clicked forwards and pulled up an
image of Stanislova's research notes.

'Seems the good Doctor thought of that when we showed
her the sample a few months back, she thinks that the parasite or
what ever the hell it is multiplies inside the cells killing them in
the process. She also found them prevalent in every other bodily
fluid she tested from saliva to semen. Seems that as long as it's
liquid and has a living cellular structure they can live in it.'

Sharp spoke up for the first time since the lesson had
begun.

'But wouldn't that eventually eliminate the host?'

Baker nodded subconsciously before replying.

'Yeah it would, and unfortunately for the person
Infected it does, although it varies from person to person. My
American contacts have been conducting tests of their own although
they won't tell me what they have found explicitly; they have
indicated that an Infected can last from a few hours to upwards of
several years if the host has A) enough food available and B) a
strong enough immune system and constitution.'

The room fell silent once more, the whirring of the
machine pervading everything as they all digested the information
being given to them. Mariani was the first to break the settled
silence making more than one member jump at the sudden intrusion.

'So there is no cure what so ever?'

Baker's eyes dimmed slightly as he heard the question.

'No, none.'

Mariani nodded as he turned back to the note pad resting
on his knee and carried on writing.

15

The
Village

'You will all be dropped by helicopter into a small
village not far from here with nothing more than a set of fatigues,
boots, a knife of your choice, one hundred rounds of ammunition in
thirteen round magazines and a Browning automatic pistol.

'Your task is to survive three full days in the town,
there are a total of one thousand three hundred and fifty Infected
spread throughout the area, again they are toothless but unlike the
previous exercise their hands are not bound; also a point to note is,
that you will be dealing with several stages of Infected. I am
permitted to tell you that the newer Infected are faster stronger and
more agile than the older ones. Several have shown high levels of
cognitive processes so keep the doors locked lads, they may be dying
but they are not stupid; well most of them aren't.'

Baker watched them intently as they mulled over the
implications, the nagging sensation was cutting a path through his
skull with full force as he watched an extremely unnerving grin bloom
over Sharp's features. Shaking the feeling of unease off he carried
on talking, his gaze bounced from each man as he clapped his hands
together to gain their undivided attention.

'How you play this is up to you; you will be inoculated
when you receive your kit. The jabs will cover any and all diseases
that could possibly be present in the operational area, but remember;
we cannot vaccinate against the Infected themselves. So, please be
careful won't you; I can do without the paper work.'

The men all laughed as Baker stopped for effect, he
watched as Sharp raised a hand to catch his attention.

'Staff,
what about water, food and all that, I know you won't starve to death
in three days but we need at least the basic ration allotment to stay
battle worthy, that's S.O.P for rapid drop ops.' Baker nodded, 'I
fully agree don't get me wrong, but this is designed to test you in a
full fight or flight survival situation using only what you
theoretically could scrounge up from say police stations, abandoned
barracks etc, all food and water is to be secured on site, this is
not a fully fledged military deployment simulation.'