Zombie War: An account of the zombie apocalypse that swept across America (38 page)

I reached into my bag for my notebook, and flipped back the cover to a new blank page. The President didn’t change his relaxed posture. He didn’t stiffen, and he didn’t suddenly become wary or guarded. It felt like a friendly chat rather than an interview with one of the most powerful men in the world.

I glanced at President Mace. He inclined his head. “Go for it,” he invited me. I could feel my throat tightening. Suddenly my mouth felt dry and stuffed with cotton wool. I took another deep breath, and then blurted out the first big question.

“Do you have any regrets about ordering the attack against Iran?”

“No,” the President said. He fixed me with his eyes as a way of letting me see the truth of his words. “The Iranian government was behind the zombie terror attack against America. Of that there can be no doubt. They created the virus and they unleashed it on our unsuspecting citizens. They purposely set about inflicting the most damage to our country they could. They wanted America destroyed. It was only the fast, heroic actions of our military that prevented the entire nation being over-run.” He sat up suddenly in his chair, drawing himself upright, his shoulders squared, the etched lines of his face changing his expression so that his features became grave and his bearing Presidential. “The fuckers deserved everything we threw at them,” he said bluntly. The words seemed to boom around the room, bouncing off the walls like an echo. I blinked. President Mace went on ominously.

“There was a time not so long ago when America turned the other cheek. We became too tolerant. We didn’t do enough to enforce peace around the world – we didn’t attend to the tasks that we, as a nation, were obliged to, given our great wealth and strength,” Joseph Mace said, suddenly launching into a speech filled with passion. “That lack of attention cost us credibility and respect. Respect,” he said again for emphasis like it was a cornerstone word and a foundation for all he believed. “Well all that has changed now,” the President declared. “It’s not about politics. It’s not about whether the President is a Democrat or a Republican. The days of party politics in America have disappeared because we can’t afford the luxury of divided opinions and hesitation. From these days forward we need to rebuild the nation, and we need everyone pulling the same weight and fighting for the same causes.”

“An end to politics?” I quipped. “That doesn’t seem likely, surely?”

“It’s already happening,” President Mace declared. He shifted in his seat again and then his eyes bored into mine. “Right now we don’t have time for politics, so I am inviting the opposition to nominate a suitable candidate to fill the role of Vice President. It is my plan to see America through this crisis through joint government, with representatives of both sides of the political spectrum making the decisions for the nation as we go forward.”

I wrote everything the President said dutifully. I wasn’t sure about the ideology or the legality of a joint government proposal… but the concept was one the people of the nation would probably encourage. But the fact was that Americans were too concerned with the day-to-day survival of their families to care what the politicians in Washington were doing. The nation was in economic tatters. Food and fuel shortages dominated daily existence. Since the FAA had grounded all flights during the early days of the outbreak, people had become isolated and almost tribal within their small communities. We were all Americans, but the things that had bound us together had been abandoned for those things we needed merely to survive.

I wondered if this President’s term would be defined by the zombie outbreak, or by his ability to somehow steer the country through the crisis. Would he be the last President?

“No,” President Mace declared with complete conviction. “The zombie outbreak crippled us, it hasn’t killed us. Right now the infection is contained within the abbreviated borders of Florida. That has come from over twelve months of military conflict, and it hasn’t been for nothing. There is every reason to believe that one day, Florida will once again be American soil. We’re through the worst of this apocalyptic crisis. We’ll go forward from here.”

I realized then that it didn’t matter what I believed about the President’s bi-partisan political plans, or even whether I believed that Florida might once again become a populated state of America.

He believed it.

And he had the power to affect the changes.

“Sir, was there ever thought given to considering a limited nuclear option against the Iranians? I mean… our government’s stated policy concerning a response to the use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States has always been a retaliation of equal severity.”

The President nodded as though he was conceding the point, but his gaze remained level and unwavering. “I thought about it,” he admitted. “I thought long and hard about the use of tactical nuclear weapons. We certainly would have been justified in taking that course of action. In the end, those around me persuaded me that an equally effective option was to use conventional weapons and a more ‘surgical’ approach to eliminating Iran’s capabilities to function at every level of government as well as economically.” The President’s eyes never left mine. He wanted to make his message clear. “The people of Iran were not involved in the terrorist attack. This was State sponsored terrorism, and our target was specifically those who were behind the evil plot, and those capable of prohibiting our revenge. The only reason I did not proceed with a limited nuclear option was the social collateral damage. Millions of innocent people would have been killed.”

I looked up from my notebook. “So the fear of a Russian or Chinese response to a nuclear strike was not something you factored into the decision not to nuke Tehran?”

“No,” President Mace said, almost dismissing the question with a growl. “We would have stared them down and taken them on if they so much as made a sound of protest. We didn’t start this terrible, tragic episode in the world’s history, Mr. Culver, but we still have all the resources we need and the determination to finish it, no matter who comes at us. We will be the last one standing. I think our Soviet and Chinese friends have a new respect for our position and attitude.”

“Where do you see America right now?” I asked. “I mean our station in the world?”

President Mace tilted his head thoughtfully as he considered the question. His lips were pressed tightly together and I could see tiny etched lines form around his mouth as he concentrated.

“We’re alone,” he said bluntly after a few more seconds of silence. “Essentially we have been cast adrift on the seas of uncertainty by the global community. They want to know if we’re going to sink or swim before they tie their boat to us again.” He spoke matter-of-factly, but I sensed an undercurrent of bitterness. “The only measurable support we have had is from the British and the Australians – allies that have stood with us since the Second World War. But what can they do?” he shrugged. “Australia’s support is an open provocation to the Chinese who have just invaded Taiwan and have troops on the border with South Korea. The British have always stood shoulder to shoulder with us, but in doing so they risk the wrath of Russia if they move deeper into Europe. Everyone else has abandoned us, or fallen mute.”

“Are we vulnerable, sir?”

“In what way?” the President became wary. The question was vague and he was too experienced merely to answer without first seeking clarification.

“Vulnerable to attack from the Russians or the Chinese?”

President Mace shook his head. “No,” he said. “We still have a fearsome nuclear arsenal and a military that has the advantage of intense combat experience. Neither the Russians or the Chinese would dare to directly attack us.”

“Are you certain? Both the Russians and Chinese have been very aggressive since the zombie outbreak has restricted our influence globally.”

The President nodded. “That’s true,” he conceded. “But Moscow and Beijing still believe we’re going to fall. They still believe the zombie infection will break out across the containment line, so they don’t
need
to attack us. They’re waiting for us to implode…” his voice lowered and then tailed off into a moment of silence before he fixed me with his eyes. “They’re wrong, Mr. Culver. I’m right,” The President of America declared. “We’re going to come through this, and when we do, we’re going to be meaner and tougher and stronger than before. That’s what I believe.”

He made me believe it too.

EPILOGUE:

Operation ‘Fire Cauldron’.

America’s Revenge…

WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM:

As a room it was…. underwhelming.

I set my notebook down on the tabletop and pulled out a chair. The uniformed man standing in the doorway glared at me.

“Do you know what this room is?” he asked. He had a voice that sounded like his throat had been sandpapered, or coarsened by years of heavy smoking.

I nodded. “The Situation Room.”

The officer shook his head. He was Brigadier General Bartholomew ‘Bart’ Cowlishaw, the Assistant Commanding General of the Joint Special Operations Command. “There are several conference rooms,” he corrected me. “This is the small one. It’s also the room where one of our former Presidents and his national security team watched live feeds during ‘Operation Neptune Spear’ back in 2011 when operators from SEAL team 6 killed bin Laden.”

I raised my eyebrows, overcome with a new sense of reverent respect. “I saw that photo,” I admitted. “The one with the President and the rest of his staff watching a monitor.”

The Brigadier General nodded. He was immaculately uniformed, and smelled faintly of after-shave. “That’s the same monitor,” he said, nodding at a dark screen mounted to the wall at the end of the room where we were standing. “And this is the very same room our current President and his team watched live feed of Operation ‘Fire Cauldron’ when our soldiers went into Iran and destroyed their leadership in reprisal for the zombie terror attack.”

I was impressed. Genuinely. This small cramped room had been the center of two defining moments of America’s recent history. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” the Brigadier General said. “I was here.”

He fiddled with something in his hand and the dark screen of the monitor came to life with a crackle like static. Cowlishaw gestured. “Sit down,” he said gruffly. “You’re about to see what the President and everyone else in this room watched.”

I dropped into a chair. I reached down for my carry bag, and then remembered it was in a plastic tray beside a metal detector on the other side of the door. I cleared my throat awkwardly.

“Do you have a pen?”

The Brigadier General looked at me like I had committed some treasonable offense. “Excuse me?” he asked without it sounding anything like a question.

“A pen,” I said apologetically. “Mine is in my bag…” I flicked a glance beyond the doorway. Cowlishaw made a face like he had just inhaled smelling salts. He sighed. He had a pen in his shirt pocket. He slid it across the table to me the way a bartender in a western movie slides a beer along a countertop to a thirsty cowboy. The sound was jarring in the oppressive silence. I clamped my hand over the pen and smiled weakly. “Thanks.”

I turned my attention to the monitor. The screen was filled with hissing swirls of static. “This footage was captured by drones that followed our strike teams into Iran,” Cowlishaw explained. “Some of what you will see is the attack against the bunker in Tehran where the Iranian leadership were ensconced. Other footage will show you our attacks against the oil fields and Iranian military installations. I suggest you make notes. The edited film will run for six minutes. If you have any questions… tough.”

I turned my head in time to see the Brigadier General leave the room. I heard the door lock behind him and then a series of bright flared flashes of light in the corner of my eye tore my attention back to the unfolding drama on the large screen.

I sat transfixed. In eerie black and white images I saw the blast of several explosions, each one a brilliant flare of white against the grainy grey silhouettes of buildings and vast structures. I saw the ghostly grey shapes of helicopters, silent on the screen as they hovered, and dark running men spilled from their bellies. I saw figures fall, saw soldiers running. I saw death and gruesome, clinical destruction, devoid of sound, but somehow all the more compelling and shocking because of the silence.

Finally the screen went black. I heard the door behind me open just a few seconds later. Brigadier General Cowlishaw’s face was set and grim. He had a sheath of dog-eared folders in one hand.

“That…” I shook my head. I was a journalist but I was at a loss for words. “…what I just saw… was brutal.”

Cowlishaw nodded. “Operation Fire Cauldron was not an action planned just to sever the head from the monster,” he said coldly. “We decapitated the head, then the arms, and the legs. We dismembered the beast so that it will never, ever rise to threaten America again. Iran – as the world knew it just over a year ago – is gone for good.”

I nodded. I glanced down at the notes I had written. “I’d like to interview some of the men who participated…”

“No,” Cowlishaw said bluntly. “That’s not going to happen. Everyone you want to speak to is on operational duty in various parts of the world. They are unavailable.”

I frowned. “You don’t know yet who I wanted to speak to.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the Brigadier General said like there would be no discussion. “It’s non-negotiable.”

I took a deep breath. I wondered if Cowlishaw knew I had already interviewed the President. I opened my mouth. Cowlishaw narrowed his eyes like he was daring me to protest.

“This is all you will get,” he said after a few tense moments of prickly silence. He slid the folders he was holding across the desk to me. “There are reports from the bombers, the special forces teams, 160
th
SOAR pilots and the Navy. Read them. Write your own account. You have four hours.”

“I beg your pardon?” I came out of my chair. “I don’t understand.”

Cowlishaw shrugged. “It’s simple,” he said. “You have four hours in this room with those reports. Write an account of the operation.”

I shook my head. “But it will be fiction,” I protested.

Cowlishaw narrowed his eyes. “It will be fiction based on fact,” he corrected me. “It’s either that, or you have no story.”

OPERATION ‘FIRE CAULDRON’:

ACROSS IRAN

They came out of the night without warning – three B-2 Spirit bombers, their two-man crews weary from the twelve hour flight from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.

The pilots were grim-faced. This was a ‘no-mercy’ mission.

This was a war of revenge and retribution.

The target for the B-2’s was the Iranian underground bunker that satellites and intelligence had revealed beneath the Embassy district of Tehran.

They were armed with 30,000-lb GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators, 20-foot long GPS guided bomb capable of penetrating over one hundred feet of concrete before exploding. The pilots dropped the Bunker Busters in sequence – placing the second bombs from each aircraft into the hole created by the first to ensure double penetration depth.

One bomb would have been enough. With six of the massive bombs raining down on the underground command bunker, the devastation was assured to be catastrophic.

The ground erupted as though the surrounding city had been torn apart by an earthquake. From the cameras in the circling unmanned drones, incandescent white flashes blotted out the relayed infrared footage to the White House Situation Room. When the flashes died away, the air above the capital was filled with roiling billows of thick smoke and a debris cloud of dust.

Just a few minutes after the bunker had been hit, the silhouettes of four Black Hawk helicopters appeared in the bottom right corner of the screen. They seemed to glow ghostly green on the monitor. The helicopters hovered above the rubble and then dark running figures spilled from the bellies of the beasts as operators from SEAL Team 6 roped down to the ground. The men moved quickly, wraith-like apparitions.

As the survivors of the massive Bunker Busters clambered bleeding and torn from the wreckage, the SEALs opened fire.

This was a ‘no-mercy, take-no-prisoners’ mission.

The B-2 Spirit bombers turned for the long flight back home. As they left Iranian air space their flight path took them past sixteen inbound B-52 bombers, on their way to oil refinery sites within the vast Iranian deserts. Further to the south, more B-2 Spirit bombers were flying in tandem teams towards Iran’s five main nuclear facilities.

Apart from the men of SEAL Team 6, there would be no boots on the ground. This wasn’t a war of conquest – it was a war of decimation.

The strike force of ten B-2 bombers out of Diego Garcia broke into pairs and turned onto final course settings for their targets. Armed with more of the massive Bunker Busters, two of the bat-winged stealth bombers attacked the heavy water plant near the eastern town of Arak. Another duo of B-2’s dropped their payload of bombs on the Bushehr nuclear power station. Even before those guided bombs were released, two more of the US bombers were targeting the Gachin uranium mine in the south. Twin teams of B-2’s also destroyed the Isfahan uranium conversion plant, and the Natanz uranium enrichment plant. Within the space of less than an hour, Iran’s nuclear program had been sent back to the dark ages.

The B-52’s picked up their escort of F-18’s and flew on to their targets. The Fighters had been launched from the flight deck of a 5
th
Fleet carrier stationed in the Gulf. The giant bombers of the American Air Force flew missions throughout the dark night, destroying missile base targets at Bakhtaran, Abu Musa Island, Bandar Abbas and Imam Ali.

Iran’s extensive surface-to-air missile assets were obsolete against the incoming attacks. Most were easily rendered useless by the American electronic warfare and defense suppression weapon systems. The American fighters and bombers had freedom of the skies as they pounded the Iranian defense installations. F-15 fighters from Al Dhafra in the United Arab Emirates flew missions around the clock, while the Iranian Air Force was left floundering. It had been critical to the Americans to swarm the skies and seize air superiority with fighters because several of Iran’s air bases were located within minutes of key targets.

But the Iranian Air Force was no match for the advanced US fighter jets. The best the Iranians could put into the air was a small number of Su-24’s and MiG-29’s, but with avionics that were less advanced than the Russian versions. It was a critical weakness that the Iranians were unable to overcome. Their inability to respond to the US air strikes meant most of the country’s fighters were destroyed in their hangars.

A hail of Tomahawk missiles rained down on key military and political locations within Tehran, fired from US Destroyers patrolling the gulf. Air raid sirens wailed like mournful laments and citizens scurried into shelters, or clung to their loved ones and cowered in the dark corners of their homes as the missiles continued to fall and the destruction seemed without end.

As dawn came the following morning, the sun rose behind a pall of black smoke hanging across the Middle East, drifting like a black haze.

Beneath the smoke, Iran lay in ruins. The entire nation’s religious and political leadership had been destroyed in the bunker below Tehran. The nation’s nuclear facilities resembled the craters of a lunar landscape, and – while elements of the Iranian military still remained – the Air Force and key Army installations had been decimated.

The B-52’s returned just after sunrise. They flew unchallenged beneath the protective shelter of their fighter escorts, and bombed the Iranian naval base of Bandar-e Abbas, as well as commercial shipping harbors along the Iranian coastline.

In less than twelve hours, Iran and everything the nation had grown to be, had ceased to function.

The evening after the attack on Iran, the President of the United States, Joseph Mace, broadcast an address to the American nation. It was televised from his desk at the Oval Office, and repeated through the Emergency Alert System.

My fellow Americans. The events that unfolded over the past many months almost tore our great country apart and brought us to our knees. The zombie apocalypse that swept across the southern states of our great land killed millions of people and attempted to destroy our way of life, our trust for one another, and our faith in God.

It tested our military as no other conflict in the history of this nation has done. It turned our fighting men and women against those who had once been our brothers, sisters, sons and daughters.

The zombie apocalypse was not just an attack on our people but also an attack on our freedom – that right which we cherish most dearly.

For many months during the terrifying spread of the contagion we lived under the assumption this diabolical disaster that had befallen us was just that – a natural disaster. During these trying times, we struggled to survive; we struggled to adapt and to carry on in the face of fear, the face of doubt, and deprivation.

Today I am happy to announce we have won our battle. We rose above the threat that challenged us. We showed the true grit for which we, as Americans, are admired and respected by all the free nations of the world. We did not surrender. We did not go meekly into the darkness. We stood up. We fought back.

And, we won.

I can now reveal to you we have discovered new evidence proving this event was more diabolical than we could ever have imagined.