Last Stand (The Survivalist Book 7) (9 page)

He smiled, which in turn brought one to her lips. An instant later she was racing across the walkway, eventually disappearing behind a pump station designed to look like a small medieval castle—undoubtedly, an architect’s clever idea to spruce up an otherwise dull water storage facility.

“That was an abomination to God,” declared Riley.

Tanner turned to face him. Riley’s two sons and their family concubine stood beside him in the waist-deep water.

“Your God, maybe. Mine just stood up and saluted.” Tanner took one last look in Issa’s direction before turning and marching back the way he had come.

Samantha was so excited that she was nearly hyperventilating.

“You kissed her? You actually kissed her?”

“I didn’t kiss her. She kissed
me
. Besides, it wasn’t like we made out.”

“Was it, you know, gross?”

“No, it wasn’t gross,” he said, leading them back down the embankment. “She’s a woman, isn’t she?”

“Still, I never thought I’d see you kiss one of
them
. Not ever.”

“What can I say? I’m an equal opportunity kisser.”

“Did you…” She wrinkled her nose. “…like it?”

Tanner thought about the question. “Yes, I believe I did.”

She shook her head in utter disbelief.

“Wow.”

He chuckled. “It wasn’t
that
weird.”

“Believe me, it was.”

“Truth is, I thought about asking her out on a date. Maybe take her to one of those little Italian joints where they play violins and serve fancy bottles of wine that no one can pronounce.”

“Right,” she said, patting him on the back. “And after that, you two could get married and have little baby zombies.”

“Yeah, maybe.” For some reason, her words brought a small stab of pain that Tanner couldn’t begin to explain. Perhaps it was because he knew that Issa would likely never know that kind of companionship, or maybe it wasn’t about her at all. “Come on,” he said, stepping out onto Canal Road. “It’s still a good three miles to the hospital, and the day isn’t getting any younger.”

Chapter 6  

Two CH-47F Chinooks flew in tight formation, flanked on either side by X-49 SpeedHawks. Pintle-mounted M134 miniguns protruded from the open cargo doors of the SpeedHawks, soldiers standing ready to unleash death from above. The helicopters approached from the southeast, traversing up Dry Creek to pass over the small towns of Allegheny and Tuckahoe. As they drew closer to White Sulphur Springs, they slowed and proceeded with more caution, their crews scanning the ground for anything that might pose a threat.

The co-pilot of the lead Chinook leaned back and hollered for Morant and Hood to look out the starboard side of the aircraft. Both men stood and hurried to the circular windows. The helicopter had just passed over I-64, and a small train station lay to the northeast. Colorful trim and striped candy-cane pillars made it look more like a gingerbread house than a functional transportation hub. Four sand-colored, extended-capacity HMMWVs sat parked at odd angles in the station’s parking lot. Two of the vehicles towed trailers, one equipped with a portable generator and the other a large pneumatic catapult used for launching unmanned aerial vehicles.

Hood pointed out the window. “Who the hell are they?”

“It’s an RQ-7 Shadow team.”

“Are we in danger?” He searched the sky for the 375-pound aircraft. He didn’t see it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. UAVs were capable of monitoring and destroying targets at ranges that prevented their being seen or heard. They had become modern warfare’s stealthiest spies, as well as its deadliest assassins.

Morant shook his head. “The Shadow’s a reconnaissance aircraft, no weapons.”

“Even so, that means someone with access to military resources is watching the bunker.”

“You sure it’s not Pike?”

“He’d have told me. This is someone else’s doing.”

“We don’t want eyes on what we’re about to do, General.”

“Agreed. Can you get rid of them without a lot of fuss?”

“I’m sure we can manage.” Morant stepped away from the window and made his way up to the cockpit.

The co-pilot turned to face him.

“Sir?”

“Have Blackbird 1 take ’em out.”

“Yes, sir.”

The co-pilot spoke into his microphone, and seconds later, one of the SpeedHawks broke from formation. Morant returned to the window just in time to see two AGM-114R Hellfire Romeo missiles separate from the SpeedHawk’s external wing assembly. Traveling at nearly a thousand miles an hour, the 110-pound missiles took mere seconds to reach their target. Two thunderous fireballs erupted in unison.

General Hood grabbed the back of one of the seats as shock waves rocked the helicopter.

A few surviving soldiers stumbled out of the billowing cloud of black smoke, only to be ripped apart by the miniguns. The SpeedHawk hovered in place for a few moments longer, a steady stream of shell casings raining down as the minigun sprayed thousands of rounds at the target. When it finally stopped firing, charred and bloody bodies lay strewn across the train station’s parking lot.

“I thought I said without a lot of fuss,” growled Hood.

“Perhaps our definitions differ, General. For me, that
was
without a lot of fuss.”

“How so?”

“No one shot back.”

Hood eyed the man uneasily, once again reminded that professional killers were just that, professional killers.

He nodded and cleared his throat.

“Right.”

The Chinook banked left, and both of them turned back to the window and watched as The Greenbrier slowly came into view. The white Victorian manor was roughly in the shape of a giant sideways L, behind which lay a lush green golf course.

Morant immediately turned to Buckey. The man was sitting in a nearby jump seat with his eyes closed and mouth dangling open.

 “Wake up, sunshine,” he said, kicking Buckey’s feet. “You’re up.”

General Kent Carr approached the far end of the four-hundred-foot-long West Tunnel, listening to the sound of his boot heels thudding on the dull gray cement. The air in the tunnel was stale and somewhat humid from the lack of circulation. Despite clearly seeing that the twenty-five-ton blast door remained closed, he felt the need to once again lay his hand on its heavy metal wheel, like a person suffering from an obsessive compulsive disorder.

The safety of all those in the bunker depended on the blast doors. If Hood and his commandos managed to find a way in, President Glass and her small untrained group of supporters would be systematically eliminated. Thankfully, even with modern munitions, Carr didn’t believe that it would be possible for them to breach the doors, certainly not without making a real mess of things outside. And a mess was exactly what they would be trying to avoid.

Nevertheless, firmly believing that paranoia was the bedrock of safety, he had established around-the-clock foot patrols. Duties included walking the enormous bunker, as well as inspecting each of the four doors at least once per shift. With General Carr, Bill Baker, Tom Pinker, Jack Fry, and Dr. Tran now passing the baton of guard duty every hour, it meant that there would never be more than sixty minutes between inspections of the doors.

Carr placed his hand on the cold metal wheel and double-checked that the pistons were fully recessed into the wall. They were. He turned around and spotted a lone figure standing at the other end of the long tunnel. Even at a distance, he could see that it was Bill Baker, the nation’s Secretary of Energy, if such a post still existed. Baker was a big colorful chap, full of life, not to mention inflated stories of his many worldly exploits.

They approached one another, each adopting his own pace.

When they finally met, Carr glanced at his watch.

“You’re five minutes early.”

Baker shrugged. “It’s not like I can sleep in the middle of the day.” His voice was permanently hoarse from a bayonet wound he had suffered to his throat many years earlier.

“Suit yourself.” Carr looked down at his belt. “Where’s your sidearm?”

Baker reached around and pulled the Sig Sauer .22 Mosquito from the back of his waistband.

“You’ve got me damn near sleeping with this pea shooter.”

“Good. It might just save your life.” Carr glanced at his watch again. “Dr. Tran is on after you. If he gives you any trouble, wake me immediately.”

Baker patted him on the shoulder.

“Go to bed, General. We’re all in this together.”

Carr nodded and continued down the long corridor. Baker was right, of course. There was no reason for him to be in a continuous state of worry. In roughly twenty-four hours, President Glass and her entourage would emerge to face their fates, whether it was the onslaught of enemy fire or the glare of reporters’ cameras. All they had to do was keep it together until then.

Congresswoman Lemay sat on a blood-red leather sofa with her legs crossed, admiring President Lincoln Pike’s full head of salt-and-pepper hair. There was only one small window in the office, which she usually counted as one of the many drawbacks of living at the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center. Today, however, the dim lighting cast a cozy, almost intimate, feeling to their meeting.

“Well, how did it go?” Pike coaxed, sliding a little closer to her.

“To be honest, Mr. President, it was all quite dull.”

“Did Dr. Green at least say what time the team will be leaving tomorrow?”

“She wants everyone to gather at the airfield at six-thirty in the morning.”

“Six-thirty? Why so early?”

“Who knows? She strikes me as a woman who has trouble sleeping.”

“I can ask her to wait until a little later to leave, if you like.”

She feigned a little yawn, waving her hand in front of her mouth.

“No, no. It’s no bother.”

He smiled and offered a friendly nod.

“I do appreciate you keeping me in the loop on this. I want to make sure that things are done right and that no one is mistreated. You understand?”

“Of course, Mr. President. I’m here to serve.” She batted her eyes, the lashes so thick with mascara that they looked like baby tarantulas.

“I’m sure you are, you little whore.” The voice was that of Yumi Tanaka, an apparition of Pike’s dead lover that only he could see.

Pike glanced over and saw that she was sitting on the edge of his desk with her skirt hiked up to the middle of her thighs. Yumi liked teasing him nearly as much as she liked confrontation.

He gently mouthed, “Let it go.”

“Sir?” said Lemay.

He shook his head. “Nothing. I was just saying that I’ll be glad when you and the rest of the team have had a chance to inspect the bunker. We need to put this matter behind us.”

“I couldn’t agree more. The sooner this is all put to bed, as it were,” she said with a wink, “the sooner we can get back to focusing on what’s really important.”

Seeing Yumi slide off the desk was Pike’s cue to get rid of Lemay. While Yumi couldn’t harm the congresswoman directly, she could, and most certainly would, turn her jealous fury on him.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, quickly standing and helping the congresswoman to her feet. “I just remembered there’s a matter that I need to attend to.”