District: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (3 page)

Cade quickly stripped down his pair of Glocks—one a full-sized
17, the other a compact 19—and laid out the pieces neatly on the table. After meticulously
cleaning and oiling each individual part, he reassembled the polymer
semi-automatic pistols, snugged them in their respective holsters, and placed
them on the freshly made bunk beside his trusty M4 carbine.

Next, he unfolded a pair of black pants and blouse—both
identical in cut and fit to his MultiCam fatigues—and laid them on the bed by
the weapons. Both articles of clothing were fashioned from heavy mil-spec ripstop
fabric and had rubberized pads affixed to the knees and elbows.

Drawing a deep breath, he sat back down on the folding chair
and, while gently massaging his swollen ankle, quickly went through his mental pre-op
to-do list. Gerber sharpened?
Check
. Fresh batteries in the EOTech
holographic optic atop his cleaned and oiled M4?
Check
. Suppressor
threads cleaned and inspected and can replaced hand-tight onto the barrel?
Check
.
Night vision goggles tested and stowed away, powered down?
Check
. Ankle
one hundred percent?
Not even close
. However, he figured after the long
helo ride east, a little shuteye along the way with a thousand-plus more milligrams
of ibuprofen hard at work on the swelling, once they were wheels down he’d be
able to stow any residual pain in the same compartment his emotions went in
every time he was pulled away from family and friends. Besides, he mused, this
wouldn’t be the first time getting into the shit with the same chronically bum
ankle. To be precise, it’d be the third time, and once the dead came into
play—or, more likely in this case, the bullets began to fly—the adrenaline
would kick in and, as always, pain would be secondary to completing the mission
and coming home in one uninfected piece to his little family.

His routine was battle-tested and had worked before. Why
wouldn’t it this time? After a millisecond’s reflection, the details of the
mission started piling on all akimbo, like a game of Tetris lost on the first
misplayed game tile. So he willed his own inner voice to forget the question.
Ordered it to not even go there. Because if the number of enemy he had seen on
the videos beamed by Nash to his laptop the day before were any indication as
to what he and the team could be facing downrange, he didn’t want to ponder the
big picture. Better to take small bites from the enemy. Hit them head on with extreme
violence of action, spit them out destroyed and mangled, and move on to the
next obstacle.
Best to keep it all compartmentalized;
like his emotions
had to remain.

A woman’s voice calling his name loudly enough to be heard
through the closed metal door ripped him from the battle being waged in his
head.

“Cade!”

Heidi?

“Hear you loud and clear,” he bellowed back. “Be there in a
moment.”

Eschewing the crutches, and risking an ass-chewing from
Brook if she saw him in the corridors without them, he rose and made his way to
the security pod, again testing his
bad wheel’s
load-bearing ability.

Upon turning the corner, he was confronted with the blonde
who had hollered his name. Heidi’s arm was outstretched, a thin black sat-phone
clutched in her small hand. On her face was a smile Cade guessed to be derived
entirely from the satisfaction she must be feeling from having not missed the
incoming call—regardless of who might be waiting on the other end.

Making slow progress toward the offered phone, Cade lifted
his brows and whispered, “Who is it?”

Can’t be good.

“A woman,” Heidi replied, making no effort to lower her voice,
thusly completely destroying any chance of Cade buying a few minutes to think by
having Heidi tell the caller a little white lie.

Waving Heidi off, Cade mouthed, “Tell her I will call her
back,” and began a slow backpedal toward his quarters.

“It’s Nash, I think,” Heidi said, a little louder this time,
all the while flashing a
careful what you wish for
smile and pumping the
hand holding the phone at Cade—universal semaphore for
take the damn call!

Hell!

“Nash … oh, good,” Cade replied loudly, laying it on thick
while at the same time giving Heidi a mild case of stink eye. “Can’t wait to
hear what she has to say.” Definitely a white lie.

Smile fading fast, Heidi relinquished the phone and turned
back to the flat-panel. One ear cocked, she feigned intense scrutiny on the
feed showing Brook and Duncan in the motor pool conversing with Daymon and
Oliver. Someone—probably Jimmy Foley—was working under the Chevy’s hood, only
his backside showing.

Cade’s fingers curled around the phone much tighter than
he’d meant them to. Before putting the handset to his ear, he stole a look at
the monitor and saw the same scene Heidi was presented with: a good old-fashioned
jawing session with Duncan occupying center stage. And that meant good money
was on Brook not coming back anytime soon.

“Cade here,” he said, turning his back to Heidi.

There was a short delay during which he heard only the usual
electronic hiss as his words were bounced up into the stratosphere, relayed through
one of the few remaining military satellites and returned to Earth, presumably,
at Schriever Air Force Base four hundred and twenty-five miles south by east as
the crow flies.

Finally, a female voice said, “
Wyatt
… you avoiding
me?”

Effin Jedi mind reader.

“No, Major,” Cade lied. “Just collecting my thoughts, that’s
all. What’s up?”

Right to the point. Nash said, “Change of plans.”

Cade said nothing. Sweeping his gaze back to the flat-panel
monitor, he slid a folding chair out and took a seat.

“We underestimated the enemy’s speed of advance. When I
finally got real-time satellite reconnaissance back on station, finding them
took some time. When we reacquired, we found that they had split in two.”

“I watched the drone footage,” Cade replied. “Even if it split
… it’d be impossible to miss a column of that size. Especially from orbit
considering the Key Hole’s advanced optics.”

“You know we’re stretched thin in the recon-sat department.
I’ve got one parked over the California/Nevada border watching the Mountain Warfare
Training Center—”

Cade interrupted. “Speaking of Pickel Meadows … how are the
Marines there holding up?”

“Like they should be. Captain Swarr and his boys are kicking
ass and taking names. They’ve got the Chinese battalion fractured and on the run.
Scattered to the wind like a dried-out dandelion.”

“Squirters?” he asked.

“Just the advance element that got by their northern FOB
days ago,” Nash replied, and went quiet.

On the other end of the line Cade heard his favorite Air
Force officer draw in a deep breath. Simultaneously, on the screen in front of
Heidi, he picked up movement on the lower right partition.

Nash picked up after a long beat. She said, “I’m guessing
your undead PLA recon scouts were some of the first wave. Hell, there were so
many beachheads up and down the West Coast, California
and
Oregon, that
we’re just now getting a handle on how many troops they were able to land. A battalion
or two is our best estimate. No doubt the Zs chewed up a good number of them
the moment their landing craft hit land.”

“But?” Cade said.

“Half to three-quarters of them likely made it inland.” Nash
went quiet for a few seconds then said, “We are facing an invasion force on
American soil. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The East Coast will be
seeing landings in the coming days and we don’t have enough active subs or surface
ships to interdict all of the PLA Navy vessels in transit. I’m afraid the West Coast
is nothing compared to what is coming.”

Now Cade went silent as he watched on the screen the woods
surrounding the feeder road disgorge an eighteen-wheeler, its squared-off snout
and wide cab making the surrounding tree limbs and ground-hugging bushes dance
and send airborne the few colorful leaves still clinging to their skeletal
branches. As the sun glinted off the gleaming chrome tank riding out back, Cade
posed his next question—one that he had been eager to ask for some time.

“What about the Pacific Northwest?”

“You mean Portland, specifically?”

“Saw right through me,” Cade admitted. “Yeah … I’m curious
to know how Portland is faring. And to a lesser extent Seattle and the
coastline from Coos Bay on up to Puget Sound.”

“That all?” Nash said, her voice carrying a hint of
incredulity. “I thought I sent you footage of Portland prior to you going off
to Los Angeles. I did thank you for rescuing my girl … didn’t I?”

“The footage of Portland
was
eye-opening,” Cade said.
And it worked at getting me back in
, he thought. “But that was all
captured before the PLA Navy broke through your pickets. About
the
mission to L.A. Are the FEMA hard drives producing the intel you hoped they
would?”

“And then some,” she said. “Using the individual logs of the
rescue birds coming and going from the Long Beach facility we were able to locate
and rescue dozens of surviving HVTs (High Value Targets) before the Chinese Navy
made landfall. Consequently, they’ve been instrumental in getting Springs up
and running.”

“You knew about the PLA fleet
before
L.A.?”

“It was need-to-know, Wyatt. President’s orders. Besides, you,
Ari … the
team
. None of you were in any danger. All of us watching from
the op center had zero confidence that the lead destroyer’s active phased-array
radar could pick up Jedi One.
If,
and I mean a helluva longshot
if,
that
Ghost Hawk somehow
was
painted, the PLA seaman watching the scope would
have thought the blip was a flock of seagulls.”

“Flock of seagulls … so says the
chair force
Major
sitting in her air-conditioned office
behind
the wire and separated from
said destroyer and escorts by eight hundred miles and a formidable mountain
range.” Instantly Cade regretted his words. And as a result of his not
employing his usual
filter
between brain and mouth, there was a long
uncomfortable silence, during which he heard that awful eighties new-wave synth-heavy
A Flock of Seagulls
song,
I Ran
, fire up in his head. Meanwhile,
on the security monitor, whoever was behind the wheel of the semi-truck had
backed it up expertly and left it parked alongside a similar rig containing a
full load of LNG—liquefied natural gas—compliments of Alexander Dregan, who had
undoubtedly sent this rig and the precious fuel contained within the massive
chrome-plated tank.

After a long five-count Nash responded to the criticism in
an even voice. “I’m with you and the men every time you go down range. In fact,
I lose a chunk of my soul when one of you fall. I’d hoped you knew that by now,
Cade.”

“I’m sorry. That was a low blow to your upstanding character.”

“And if you believe the rumors,” Nash quipped, “that was also
a direct hit to my family jewels.”

If only she knew the true extent of the good-natured ribbing
she suffered from the shooters her satellites watched over. Suppressing a
chuckle, Cade rose from the chair, phone still pressed to his ear.

Nash went on, “I don’t want to say more than I have to over
this unsecure line, so I’ll have a brief for you when the bird arrives to pick
you up.”

“And what time will that be?”

Cade looked at Heidi, who was looking at him while he
concentrated hard on what Nash had to say.

Seeing Cade glance at his Suunto and his usual stoic expression
morph to one revealing a hint of exasperation, Heidi wisely turned her attention
back to the action topside. On one partition she saw that the mid-point gate on
the feeder road was closed, as it should be. On the two adjacent panels the video
feed picked up nothing moving near the camouflaged main gate nor on the length
of state route in both directions.
No zombies
. Which was strange,
because something as noisy as a fuel-laden semi barreling down the state route
usually drew in rotting monsters like moths to a flame. As she scrutinized the
video on the middle panes the camera covering the grassy meadow and runway picked
up a new development. One that might put her in the middle of whatever the call
was about. So, hoping to avoid even a hint of confrontation, she tugged on
Cade’s tee shirt and stabbed a finger at the monitor.

In the center pane Cade saw that the pow-wow had broken up
and people were boarding a trio of pickup trucks—the newly arrived tanker
driver among them. He also saw Brook walking towards the camera, which just so
happened to be positioned outside the compound entrance twenty feet to his
left. Seeing this, he hurriedly finished the call with Nash, thumbed the
sat-phone off and put it back up on the shelf—the entire time shooting Heidi a harried
look that could only be construed as:
Let’s keep this between us
. He
hustled back to his quarters.

Heidi began to say something, but was interrupted by a
grating of metal on metal that drew her attention to the inky gloom of the
nearby foyer. There was a clomping of boots on wood and suddenly Brook’s petite
frame was filling up one end of the cramped space.

Breathing hard from exertion, Brook locked eyes with Heidi
for a half-beat before regarding the trio of sat-phones on the top shelf. She
let her gaze linger there briefly, then regarded Heidi.

Wearing a startled look, Heidi blurted, “What?”

“Something you want to tell me?”

A dead giveaway, Heidi’s gaze inched up to the satellite phones.

“Who called?” Brook demanded, her hands going to her hips,
the left inadvertently settling on her holstered Glock.