Ghosts: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (18 page)

The gecko held out, standing impossibly still until the near
silent craft halved the distance from where it had first appeared between the
natural cut in the rock formation across the vast expanse of desert. Then, as
if the largest flying predator it had ever set eyes on was homing in for the
kill, mister gecko was off. Forsaking the safety of cover underneath the
nearest rock, the scaly rocket zig-zagged across the hot sand towards the canyon
rim and disappeared over the edge. Instead of embracing the notion that it had
fallen to its doom, Cade envisioned the little survivor clinging to the
vertical face and flashing the approaching Ghost Hawk a defiant one-fingered
salute.

Shielding his face with one hand, Cade scooped up his
carbine, shrugged on his rucksack, and walked towards the spot where he last
saw the reptile. He reached the edge just as the stealth helicopter flared and
commenced a rock-solid hover with its flat underbelly level with the mesa top,
but still a hundred feet or so off the canyon floor.

The first thing Cade noticed was the obvious wear and tear
on the bird. Like war paint on an Appaloosa, her black outer skin was dirt
streaked as if she’d been flown through a rain shower and then hovered in a
cloud of dust before drying completely. Around the irregular edges of the many maintenance
panels, the radar-absorbing paint was chipped and peeling. Pencil-thin fingers of
dried ochre-colored dirt streaked the three starboard-side windows. And up
front he saw the cockpit glass was sullied by the greasy remnants of hundreds
of bug strikes.

As the helo sideslipped closer Cade felt the familiar pressure
in his chest from the noise-cancelling rotors cutting the air closely overhead.
Then he got a face full of the foul jet-fuel-smelling exhaust rising up the
canyon wall.

Abruptly the starboard-side door slid back in its tracks and
the crew-chief, wearing a matte black helmet complete with smoked visor and
face mask painted with a wicked set of red teeth, reached a gloved hand out and
called, “Welcome aboard, sir.”

Still holding his breath against the noxious fumes, Cade
hustled the last couple of feet to the edge of the earth, grasped the man’s outstretched
hand, and leapt across the sliver of daylight without a downward glance.

Once aboard, Cade was directed by the crew chief to the
eighteen-inch-wide swath of canvas not so affectionately known as the bitch
seat. Which he didn’t mind. With his back pressed against the bulkhead, amidships
and facing straight ahead, he could see out both sides of the helo as well as a
good portion of the cockpit glass between the two pilots. He registered the
door shutting then moved his gaze around the cabin, pausing for a tick on each
face, familiar or not.

The pilot in the left seat, an athletic-looking African
American man whom Cade hadn’t seen before, cracked a toothy smile under his
visor and flashed a thumbs up. Cade reciprocated while craning to see who was
in the right-hand seat and, judging by the spot-on flying he’d already
witnessed, was prepared to bet his left nut that Ari Silver was strapped in up
there, armed heavily with a number of one-liners and at least a half-dozen
razor-sharp quips.

But he couldn’t quite see without stepping on some toes, so
he panned left and saw Javier “Lowrider” Lopez, his stocky Hispanic friend who’d
been the first to volunteer for the mission. Moving on from the freshly minted
Delta captain he saw a bushy out-of-control beard mostly concealing a face he
thought looked familiar. The man’s eyes narrowed and wrinkled at the corners—like
he knew something Cade didn’t and was waiting for some kind of recognition.
Then Cade read the name tape on the Special Forces sergeant’s MultiCam blouse,
Lasseigne
,
and it all came back to him. Aboard the Ghost Hawk at the tail end of Cade’s
previous mission weeks ago, Lopez had addressed the man as ‘
Lasagna,
’ a
nickname no doubt. Instantly Lasseigne noted the change in Cade’s face and
extended his fist for a bump. “You’re
shit hot,
Cade Grayson. All high
speed, low drag is what they say. I’m Kelly, group ten. Everyone calls me
Lasagna. Met you a few weeks ago in Idaho.” He paused a beat and said real
slowly, “And you lost the beard ...”

Cade nodded and bumped fists. “I remember,” he said. “You
and your guys took it to Bishop’s crew.”

Lasseigne flashed a look that said:
All in a day’s work
,
then pulled a lightweight rucksack from under his seat.

Cade turned and nudged the man sitting on his right. Tanned
as always, dressed in all black fatigues and wearing a pair of black shades
darker than obsidian, Special Agent Adam Cross flashed a smile of recognition.

“Cade Grayson,” he said. “How the hell’s civilian life been
treating you? Minus the dead walking around and all, of course.”

“Just keeping busy crossing T’s and dotting I’s, is all.
You?”

“Clay has reassigned me permanently with your old team.
Griffin here too. We’ve been going nonstop since you killed Bishop.”

And he looked it. Like he’d been running on Rip It and
adrenaline since Cade saw him last. His face was no longer clean shaven and the
blonde hair curling from under his tactical helmet showed the three weeks’
worth of new growth. And though the man was slumped a little, showing fatigue,
perhaps, sitting shoulder to shoulder with him made the half a head advantage the
chiseled Adonis normally had over Cade much more pronounced.

That he was here and no longer at the Cheyenne Mountain
Complex guarding Clay came as no surprise. For Nash had a way of endearing
herself to all of the men in Special Operations, no matter the branch or rank
of the individual she came into contact with. And seeing as how the leaders at Special
Operations Command—SOCOM—had scattered into the wind in the days and weeks
after MacDill Air Force Base in Florida had fallen to the dead, Cade guessed
the petite officer—who, along with General Cornelius Shrill, had been
overseeing current operations—was the one who had convinced the President to
release the highly capable jack of all trades.

But that was none of Cade’s concern so he strapped in and
cast a glance at the man to his left. The MultiCam he wore had no rank or
insignia. Just an American flag and name tape that read
Griffin
. Like
the mythological Greek creature with an eagle’s head and the body of a lion. It
suited the man to a T. His chiseled nose, high cheekbones and dark brown eyes
jived with the former part of the creature. His wiry compact frame was all juvenile
lion, coiled and ready to pounce. But the man was in his early forties—at
least—and Cade swore that he’d seen him before. Perhaps in passing in Iraq or Afghanistan—in
the same garb for sure—but without introduction and minus the name tape. DEVGRU
or Navy Development Group. In layman’s terms,
SEAL Team 6
, Cade decided a
beat before Cross introduced the man as ‘Griff’ and rattled off who they all knew
in common. Information that once Cade cross-referenced in his mind all but
confirmed his earlier suspicion.

Feeling his stomach drop as the helicopter rose rapidly and
banked hard left, putting Green River out the port windows and in clear view,
Cade offered his left fist and bumped knuckles with the fellow Tier-1 operator.
As the craft leveled off, Lasseigne handed Cade a comms set identical to the
ones fielded by the rest of the team. “Freqs are already set,” he said, pulling
a five by seven photo from a pocket which he passed silently across the cabin to
Cade.

Cade stared at the photo for a full minute, committing it to
memory, then folded it in half and slipped it in his breast pocket.

Lasseigne said, “We’re going to be needing our NODs. No
power where we’re going.”

Cade removed his helmet, swapped headsets, and adjusted the
boom mic. He checked his night vision equipment and when he was finished,
powered them off and looked quizzically at Lasseigne. After a prolonged pause,
he said incredulously, “Someplace
has
power?”

Lasseigne smiled. He said, “Springs has juice now.”

“Wow,” was Cade’s reply. “And it’s been totally cleared of
Zs?”

Shaking his head, Lopez chimed in, “President Clay promised
power before the first day of autumn. She never said all the Zs would be gone.
However, the Second ID and a couple of hundred MARSOC guys who made it overland
from Lejeune are taking it to them hard ... making one hell of a dent in their
numbers.”

Cade asked, “And the nuke plants?”

“We shut down the ones near enough to Springs to cause any
problems. Cooper and Fort Calhoun in Nebraska and Wolf Creek in Burlington, Kansas.”

“How about the Eastern seaboard?”

Shaking his head again, Lopez said, “We’re going to have a
slew of China Syndromes on our hands before long. Lost two teams and a bunch of
Rangers and a couple of nuclear engineers trying to shut down the ones nearest
DC. On the ground, in the heavily urbanized cities from Maine to Florida, the
conditions are worse than anyone theorized.”

Cade grimaced and shook his head. Then, resting his helmet
upside down on his lap, plugged his comms wire into the overhead jack and said,
“Comms check.” After receiving a flurry of ‘
copy that’s
’ and seeing heads
nod around the cabin, he said, “Ari ... is that you up there?”

“That you, Wyatt?” replied Ari, feigning surprise. “I
thought Elvira went a little heavy on the stick back there. Did you give up
your pre-dawn PT or something?”

“Or something. I’ve been eating real good,” quipped Cade. “
Elvira
...
that’s what you’re calling this dirty bird now?”

“She works her magic at night and still looks good in the
morning,” said Ari.

Cade saw the other pilot chuckling and shaking his head. The
reaction to the banter got him wondering if the big man had been exposed to
Ari’s entire standup routine yet. Then he decided to add fuel to the fire just
in case he hadn’t. “Elvira needs a bath and a couple of hours in the makeup
chair,” Cade said. “If you ask me ... looks like Whipper’s been slacking. You need
me to go back to Schriever and reaffirm to him
how it works
?”

“You going soft on us, Grayson?” quipped Cross. “Last I
heard Whipper was on his final warning. What’s this crap about giving him a final,
final warning?”

Cade made no response. Didn’t want to stoke the fires too
much before the long flight.

Suddenly serious, Ari said, “We’ve been running nonstop
missions for the last three weeks. Lots of trips back east and south. Can’t go
into it right here and now, but rest assured Whipper and the 2As are taking
great care with all of the SOAR birds. Besides, I want them to stay in the air,
not win best in show at the Concours d’Elegance.”

“Ari’s sugar-coating it. It’s been pretty hairy lately,”
added Cross. “Good to have you back, bro.”

“Given the circumstances, I’m glad to be back working with
you again. Think you can give me a redacted Cliff’s Notes version of the last
three weeks?”

Cross leaned forward and said, “I’d rather let Griff bring
you up to speed. He was there at the start.”

Save for the crew chief who was keeping an eye on the ground
flashing by on the starboard side, all eyes swung from Cross and parked on the
seemingly reserved Navy SEAL.

Griff twisted the boom mic out of the way, leaned in and
spoke loud enough to be heard over the turbine whine and muffled rotor thump.
He prefaced his firsthand account by starting at the beginning and pointing out
how quickly comms had been lost in the Middle East. Blamed it on an unknown
number of EMP devices being popped off over Israel and Saudi Arabia by still unknown
actors. Then he said, “We were pulling a special reconnaissance mission on a
couple of high level AQ types in Karachi, Pakistan when the shit hit the fan.”

Lasseigne asked, “Biters?”

“Not at first. Just after we received confirmation of the
use of EMPs, our local who was highly trusted by the agency started getting agitated.
Totally unlike him. Then his face went white and he ripped off his headset and said
all he was hearing on the police scanner was
adam khor
. He said it over
and over to himself
adam khor, adam khor
while shaking his head and
cycling through all the known frequencies searching for something. Finally, he
pulled it together a bit and said there were reports of widespread cannibalism
in Peshawar, Abbottabad, and Lahore.”

Cade said, “Adam khor?”

“It’s Urdu. Translated it literally means
man eater
.
Then the local said very ominously
‘It’s here,’
mentioned something
about his wife and kids and was out the door.” Griffin shook his head. “No way
of stopping him. He had those crazy eyes. We
had
to let him go.”

The helicopter made a slight course correction and Cross
said, “Griff ... tell em how you got out.”

“Quick as we could,” said Griffin. “Put on our man dresses
and scooted.”

There was a long pause. Five seconds. Ten. Then twenty
slipped by and Cade watched the man absentmindedly kneading the pair of tactical
gloves he’d been clutching. Working them like a set of worry beads as he stared
out the port side window at the slick red rocks of Moab passing by and
radiating an ethereal measure of warmth six hundred feet below the stealth
helo.

Finally Griffin met Cross’s gaze and his jaw took a hard
set. “We were split into two teams of four. Opposite sides of a thoroughfare
where we could cover ingress and egress of the HVT’s safe house,” he said. “We
watched our targets squirt. They sped out of there in a half dozen white Land
Cruisers like their seventy-two virgins were in trouble somewhere and needed
help.” A ripple of laughter went around the cabin. “Five minutes later we got a
call confirming this cannibal thing and were given the details not one of us
could comprehend ... nor believe.
At first
.”