Chapter 21
Forty minutes later, Carlie followed
Jared out of the rear entrance of the aquarium along a little-known route that
skirted along the riverfront park and adjacent buildings. She could see the
massive freighter jutting halfway out of the river like some misplaced steel log
that had washed ashore. The front had slammed into the lawn, cutting through a
wide swath of dirt and burying its hull atop vehicles and various obliterated concession
stands. She could hear the lull of waves from the Mississippi careening against
the rear of the freighter, which hung out into the current.
Once they approached the wrecked ship, Carlie
stopped to study the SAT imagery on her handheld device. Matias covered their
rear with his suppressed MK4 rifle. Shane came up alongside her and surveyed
the layout of the route ahead. The smell of the ocean and rotting corpses hung
in the air like a heavy theater curtain. Once she confirmed the surrounding
area was clear, she tucked the device back in her vest and continued behind
Shane through the narrow walkway that led between a mangled building and the
location of the freighter ahead. A few dozen palm trees, severed at their
trunks, lay across the front of the hull and the pulverized remains of an
ice-cream store faintly showed under the bow.
A single column of metal scaffolding was
in place against the left center of the ship alongside the name,
La
Sabrina
.
Shane raised his fist and the group came to a halt. “I want this ascent to be
quick but quiet. This type of rickety set-up can be prone to making a lot of
noise so float up and over it like the fucking wind.”
Boyd and his men had spread out along
the parkfront, concealing themselves amongst derelict vehicles or toppled
structures.
Once Shane had led them onto the deck of
the boat, he proceeded along the narrow walkway between the edge and the stacks
of damaged storage crates that lined the center.
In the moonlight ahead, he caught a
faint movement and motioned the group to stop and conceal themselves against
the sides of the containers. Shane saw three disheveled figures in brown
coveralls shambling along the walkway towards them.
Dammit, no way to bypass
these shitbirds
, he thought, raising his suppressed rifle. He dispatched
the first two, which collapsed onto the steel deck, but the third one spun
sideways from the headshot and tumbled over the edge, landing on a vehicle
whose car alarm began sounding. “Fuck me—what are the chances of that?” he
muttered under his breath as he turned over his shoulder to look at Carlie,
whose eyebrows were raised as high as his.
Shane heard the faint sound of
suppressed gunfire come from street level as Boyd’s men sent several rounds
into the vehicle below, causing the nighttime to return to its former silence.
“Let’s hope that alarm didn’t have time to draw over any creatures,” Shane
said.
“You mean Broccoli-Faced Mutants or BFFs,”
whispered Jared.
“Shut it already with that shit,” said
Shane.
“This hillbilly don’t know when to be
quiet,” said Matias.
“Can we keep moving for crying out
loud,” whispered Carlie.
Shane stepped over the splayed-out
corpses and proceeded along the lengthy passageway until he reached a steel
door that was ajar. He swept his rifle inside.
“Alright, everybody mask up,” Carlie said,
pulling a biohazard respirator mask out from its bulbous nylon pouch attached
to her belt. Once everyone was ready, Shane led them down the stairwell.
After descending three flights, they
reached the cargo hold on the lowest level. Part of the ship’s rear hull that
was still below water had made the metal hallway walls cool to the touch and
caused light beads of condensation to trickle down. Reaching the rear bay door,
Shane slowly turned the L-shaped iron handle but found it wouldn’t budge. He
panned his flashlight over to the right and saw a numeric keypad.
“Carlie, hold your light on this
security device while I get out a small charge to blow the thing.” As he went
through his left vest pocket to remove a section of plastique breaching putty,
Jared stepped past him.
“Hold on, Sheriff—this is a DN61 security
keypad that could be opened by a second-rate thief in ten minutes, which means
it’ll take me a few seconds. Besides, I value my hearing,” he said, looking at
the explosive material in Shane’s hand.
“Alright—be my guest,” Shane said,
shaking his head and stepping aside.
“Nurse—scalpel, please,” he said,
motioning back to Amy for the multi-tool on her belt. She frowned and handed
him the implement. Jared deftly manipulated the screwdriver on it to remove the
keypad lid. After extracting two wires from a bundle of tangled lines, he
stripped off the ends with the pliers.
“Steady your legs, folks—in case they start
trembling at such wizardry,” he said as he twisted the two wires together. The
metal gears inside the lock mechanism grated against each other as the large door
sprung open.
Chapter 22
“Sarge, I got a shitload of tangos
moving in along both sides of the freighter,” said the voice of the distant
rooftop sniper into Boyd’s earpiece.
They must’ve heard that car alarm go
off. Looks like Carlie already screwed the pooch on this op.
“Copy that,”
Boyd said, squatting behind a row of empty blue barrels. “I can hear ’em moving
in. What numbers are we looking at?”
“Upwards of a hundred at least,” was the
response.
Hopefully Carlie and company will be out
in the next few minutes or they’re gonna have to find an alternate route out.
Boyd trained his
night-vision scope on a cluster of approaching creatures that were shuffling
along the port side of the freighter with their heads upturned, sniffing the
air. The other five members of Boyd’s unit all began reporting in about
significant movement creeping in towards their location. They were spread out
around the bow of the ship in a half-arc and thirty yards apart from each
other.
“Hold steady, boys.” As the horde of
incoming creatures increased, closing in on their location like a flood of
rainwater rushing down a hill, Boyd issued the retreat order. As he started
silently backpedaling, he saw a cluster of creatures heading in his direction.
Boyd paused to peer through his scope. He noticed the mutant was dressed as a
security guard and had a bronze nametag. Boyd centered his rifle’s red dot on
the head. “Sorry, Richard, you meatbag,” he said mordantly while firing a
round. Behind the crumpled body, he saw four more creatures moving towards him.
“I’ve got inbound tangos headed my way. It’s gonna get ugly down here real
fast,” he said, steadying the red dot on the lead creature’s head and
dispatching it.
Chapter 23
Stepping inside the chamber, Carlie
swept her M4 from side to side. The bow-shaped room was eighty feet deep and twenty
feet wide. Inside were two dozen wooden crates with Spanish inscriptions and two
empty bird cages. She crept up to the first stack and saw a body lying sprawled
out on the chrome-colored floor. It was a portly man in his thirties who had
been shot through the head. His face had the sagging features of the other
creatures. On his left wrist was a gold watch with a tattoo of a red stingray above
it. The man’s boots were made out of an unusual hide with scaly ridges running
down the middle. Beside him was a black canvas backpack. Carlie squatted down
and pried open the pack, removing a ruggedized laptop in a waterproof Pelican
container along with some spare pistol magazines. She stuffed the computer case
in her own pack and then reslung it on her back while continuing to survey the
room.
“My comms are down—how about yours?”
said Matias.
Shane tapped his earpiece. “Yep, same
here. This is probably a double-walled hull so we’re gonna run silent until
we’re outta here.”
After they had finished clearing the cargo
hold, she swept her rifle’s flashlight back along each crate then motioned
Shane to help her pry off the lids. Lowering his weapon, he removed his fixed
blade and cracked open the top of the first rectangular crate. Inside was contraband
tequila and ornately decorated boxes of cigars.
Carlie walked over to a rectangular
crate that was stamped with the words, “Medico Importante” on the sides, which
she knew was probably a poor attempt to disguise the contraband inside. It
resembled the photo that General Adams had shown her.
Shane slid the heavy lid onto the floor
and then they swung their flashlights into the interior of the six-foot-long crate.
Inside, amongst the copious amounts of bubble wrap, was a smaller container
with the four silver military medallions and items she had seen in the photos
back at White Sands. The noisy exhalations from their biohazard masks stopped
abruptly as Carlie cautiously handled the antiquated items, studying the
Russian inscriptions. Standing in the murky confines of the hull looking at the
cultural remnants from another era made her feel like she had entered an
alternate reality.
“How the hell does something like this
end up here on our shores—I mean, these are old Soviet medals and patches
associated with the former bioweapons program out of Kiev,” she said as the
others gathered around her. Carlie flipped over a tarnished medallion to examine
the inscriptions again. “That program began during the early days of the Cold
War—nearly 50 years ago.” She removed all the items and put them in her vest
pocket.
“Wonder if Homeland Security knew what was
happening here before it was too late?” whispered Matias. “Strange that we
didn’t hear about the virus spreading until it had already crossed state lines
in numerous areas.”
“Would you reveal to a terrified region
that a contaminated ship from Cuba had run aground on our shores?” said Shane.
“This had to be a media blackout maneuver by one of our government agencies.
They probably didn’t know how this thing got started any more than we do.”
Carlie took out her phone and snapped
several photos of the entire storage container. As she moved towards the exit, she
noticed Jared had moved beside the dead body on the floor. “You alright?”
“This guy—he was a smuggler from Nuevo
Gerona, the island just off the southern coast of Cuba.”
“How’s that?” said Shane, who had moved
alongside him.
“His boots—they’re made entirely of stingray
hide and damn pricey for one thing, plus that stingray tattoo on his wrist…only
the Santa Ria smugglers have those—it was their trademark,” Jared said while
slowly standing. “Word is that the Santa Ria black marketers controlled all of
the high-dollar contraband coming in and out of Cuba. I’m not just talking about
cigars and rum but weapons, designer drugs, endangered species, and even human
traffic on occasion.”
Shane and Matias both gave each other sideways
glances. “As I recall from my DEA colleagues working the U.S.-Caribbean
smuggling routes, the Santa Ria cartel specialized in a very high-end drug
known as
chiva
, a black tar heroin brought over from Southeast Asia. I
didn’t think they ran their operation in Cuba though. How is it you know so
much about them?” he said to Jared.
“Stories, mostly—some guys I used to run
with in New Orleans had had a few dealings with their southeastern distribution
network here but that was well over ten years ago.” Jared stood up and walked
over to one of the crates and removed a handful of cigars and shoved them in
his vest.
“Nuevo Gerona—there’s not much on that
island,” said Carlie. “That place is mostly jungle and black sand beaches with
a small population—the perfect place for low-profile activities during the
Soviet Cuba era.”
“Or pirates trying to hock some war
relics, it seems,” said Jared.
“We’ll hash the rest of this out when
we’re airborne again. I need to relay these photos back to White Sands and find
out what’s on this laptop. These are the two main items we came for, especially
the laptop, which I wasn’t sure would even be here. It probably contains the shipment
manifest and a more specific point of origin for this ship,” said Carlie.
“The sun will be up soon,” said Shane,
glancing down at his watch.
As they left the cargo hold and entered
the stairwell, Carlie could hear faint shrieking voices coming from above and
then choppy sentences filtering in through her earpiece. “Sounds like Boyd’s
got company outside. Everybody double-time it.”
Chapter 24
As they crested the stairs leading to
the deck, Carlie saw nearby muzzle flashes along with the faint sound of
suppressed gunfire echoing off the streets below in every direction.
“Your egress route has been comprised,” shouted
Boyd into Carlie’s earpiece. “We are falling back two blocks to the roof of the
casino. The stern of the ship near the river is clear so haul ass now. I’ll
send the helo to you after my team has been extracted.”
Carlie was already headed to the rear of
the ship and had unslung a coil of rope from her pack. As the rest of the group
arrived on her heels, she deftly tied a bowline knot around the guardrail and
flung the rope over the edge. The end landed in the water, forty feet below.
“Why can’t the Blackhawk just pick us up
here?” said Amy.
“The same reason we couldn’t land here—nowhere
to set down with all the damage to the surface of the deck,” said Shane. “For
now, we’ll rappel down to the river, swim across, and lie low until the helo
arrives.”
Shane looked at Amy and Jared. “Either
of you ever rappelled before?”
“I have but it’s been years,” said Amy.
“I’m half spider and the other half
billygoat, so what do you think?” said Jared.
“I’ll take that as a yes given your line
of work,” said Shane, hastily securing the buckles on his vest and backpack.
“Secure all your shit, sling your rifle, and follow me down.”
Shane wrapped the rope around his leg,
then back around the front, and crossed it in front of his shoulder. “Without
harnesses, we’re going old-school so descend slowly, making sure to slow your
movement at least twice by bouncing your boots along the hull and you won’t fry
your crotch or your hands,” he said as he climbed over the edge and disappeared
below the hull.
“Amy, you’re next,” said Carlie, who had
slung her rifle and was waiting for the rope to go slack so she could affix it
to Amy’s body. Just as she felt a tug on the rope from Shane, she heard the clamor
of movement on the deck near the scaffolding. Half a dozen creatures had
climbed on board and were greedily sniffing the air for signs of them.
“I got this—you all get below,”
whispered Matias, who began moving along the walkway in a crouch with his rifle
trained forward.
After Amy was on her way down, Carlie
yanked Jared forward by the straps of his pack. “You’re next, hotshot,” she
said while maneuvering the rope under and around him.
He peered over the edge into the inky
water below and took a hard swallow. “You know, my granddad used to tell
stories about a sixteen-foot alligator that roamed the old Miss. Sure as hell
hope that he was the lyin’ son of a bitch we all took him for.”
The sound of Matias’ rifle began ringing
out in controlled bursts as he began dispatching creatures at the juncture of
the scaffolding.
As Carlie sent Jared on his way down,
she turned and ran back towards Matias and began shooting alongside him. The
first rays of dawn were shooting across the sky as his body count rose. “Let’s
go,” she said as they both began backpedaling towards the stern while shooting.
As they neared the rope, she could hear the sound of the helo landing on the
roof of the casino hotel in the distance.
“Here—get your ass out of here,” she
said, shoving the rope into his chest.
Matias took another shot at a nearby
creature beyond Carlie’s shoulder and then slung his rifle. She leaned on a
stack of wooden crates and began surgically removing the incoming horde, which
numbered over fifty creatures, as they shoved each other out of the way to get
to their intended prize. Carlie squeezed the trigger repeatedly, watching each creature
hurl backward as their heads shattered in clouds of red mist. Wave upon wave of
the undead poured forth over the tangled corpses on the soiled deck. Carlie
heard a rumbling sound and realized it was her own voice, elevated into a
predatory howl of fury as she rapidly fired off rounds into the growing horde
of flesh-eaters.
With her M4 barrel smoking, she slapped
a fresh magazine into her rifle and continued the assault, only stopping to tug
on the rope behind her to check for slack. As she did, she saw the heads of
several mutants explode, the work of a distant sniper.
Thank God Boyd is reliable
under fire,
she thought
.
With a rapid burst of gunfire from her M4 she
killed five more creatures within thirty feet of her then yanked the rope. Her
heart raced even faster as she pulled the rope up and began wrapping it in
place.
While securing her makeshift harness,
she saw a creature in a tattered red tank top bolt past the others and rush
forward over the mangled deck with its eyes glaring ahead. The others started
to follow as if being guided by a pack leader. She finished tying off the rope
and then raised her rifle scope back up, sighting in the creature’s bobbing
head. Her finger hesitated on the trigger as she stared at its determined face.
It didn’t have the usual sagging facial features of the others though its smooth,
waxy face bore a yellow complexion. The creature tightened its fists and hissed
through its clenched teeth then bounded in the air between storage crates,
closing the twenty feet of distance between them. Carlie redirected her weapon as
the oncoming beast filled the eyepiece of her scope. She fired off a single round,
splitting its head open.
What was that?
It moved
like a fucking cheetah just like the other one at White Sands.
Seeing the other creatures coming, she
slung her rifle and climbed over the guardrail. Pausing, she pulled a grenade
off her vest and removed the pin, tossing it into the oncoming mass of twenty
creatures, then sped down the rope. She slowed her descent only once to bounce
her feet off the hull. With her leather gloves nearly burned through from the rope,
she plunged into the chilly water while the deck of the ship exploded in an
orange haze. Pulverized limbs and heads rained down in the river beside her. She
unfurled the rope and swam into the espresso-colored current while the
approaching sunrise backlit the smoking leviathan behind her.