Survivors (45 page)

Inside the Fac, Sherman, Stiles, and the others were taking off their Chemturion suits. The Doctor was still in the lab, as she had other tests to run and a plan to lay out. The last thing she’d said to Sherman as they left was “We don’t need volunteers for human trials just yet, but see if we can find out some blood types all the same.”

The words and responsibilities echoed in Frank Sherman’s head as he stripped out of the containment suit. He ignored the excited chatter from around him, focusing on the serum instead.

Thomas, who had been in a good mood all evening, was smiling. He even managed a chuckle now and again, which was for him the equivalent of bouncing off the walls without a shirt and screaming.

“I can’t believe she did it,” Stiles was saying as they headed out into the hallway. “It’s like something in a dream, you know? After all this time—”

“Wait,” Rebecca said.

“Huh? Wait, what?”

She drew closer to the safety checkpoint at the other end of the hallway. Stiffening, she turned back. “The coded entryway, it’s blinking red.”

Thomas’s head twitched just a hair.

“So what does that mean?” Stiles asked.

The sergeant major spoke. “It means someone’s been trying to get in.”

Rebecca nodded her head. “Yeah. And they didn’t know the code, or . . .”

“Or they’d be in,” Thomas finished for her. “What do you think, sir? Sherman?”

Sherman caught up to the group and took in the worried looks on their faces. “What?”

“There’s been an infiltration attempt, sir,” Thomas said, instantly snapping out of his earlier mood. “We don’t know who, but if it’s the NSA people that Mason warned us about, it could be trouble.”

“Or it could be Brewster on another bender, trying to show BL4 off for Allen,” Sherman said. “Still, if it was insurgents, and they made it past everyone upstairs, we’d be better served to operate as if it is the NSA. Ideas, Thomas?”

Thomas cocked his head toward the BL2 lab. “In there, sir. That’s where I keep Plan B.”

He turned that way and the small group followed.

“When Mitsui killed the first checkpoint box and changed the codes for the others, I had him open up this lab for me,” Thomas said as he worked the door controls. “I know that everyone gets tired of the old sergeant major and his paranoia, so I didn’t say anything about this, but . . .”

The door opened on a miniature survivalist hidey-hole. Along one wall were several stacked footlockers, the one on the end and topmost open to reveal water purification tablets and distilling equipment. The footlocker next to it was lined with road flares and tools. On the opposite side of the room, sitting on nails that had been driven into the wall, were several spots for firearms. Two Kalashnikovs were on either end, facing in and bracketing a mishmash of automatic pistols and revolvers of several different makes.

Sherman turned to Thomas, a look of surprise on his face.

“Before you ask, scavenging runs,” Thomas said. “Every place we went into almost, there was a handgun somewhere on the premises. There are more out there, too. Odd calibers that I didn’t think I’d find ammo for. But the stuff that was common, I brought back.”

He walked to the wall and pulled down a pair of Browning Hi-Power 9mm pistols. Handing one to Sherman, Thomas gave him a small smile.

“Thirteen in the clip, one in the chamber. Locked and loaded, sir.”

Sherman looked at the pistol. “Don’t call me that. I’m retired, remember?”

“And I’m going to keep calling you sir, sir.”

Thomas also took from the wall one AK-74 and a spare banana clip.

“Hey,” Stiles said. “You got something for me?”

Stone sat with Hal and kept his M-16 on Lutz and Jenkins.

“Lutz,” Hal said. “Now, why does that name sound familiar?”

Herman Lutz stuck his chin out. “Lots of my kinfolk around these parts.” He shrugged his shoulders, trying to get more comfortable. Stone had tied his and Jenkins’s hands behind them with many turns of copper wire, from wrist to above the elbow. “This sure is a good cinch you got on me, boy.”

Stone spit between Lutz’s feet. “Lots of practice with the crew I used to run with.”

“Yeah?” Herman asked. “What happened to them?”

With a shadow of a grin, Stone nodded his head out to the street. “This group you done went and pissed off? They killed them. Shot a bunch of them up and let a whole mess of deadasses into their compound.”

Jenkins swallowed audibly.

“Don’t you say a fuckin’ word,” Lutz spat at him. “You hear me? They don’t know nothin’.”

Hal shook his head. “You shot the right one, Stone,” he said. “That one’s gonna tell us everything, but only because the stupid one told us there’s stuff to tell us. Amazing who makes it through the end of the world.”

Standing with a hard set to his face, Stone grunted. “You said it. Come with me, Blubber Boy. We’re going to have a question-and-answer session.”

With a sob, Jenkins got to his feet and followed Stone deeper into the radio shack.

Hal turned back to the radio. “Denton, come in, over.”

Blocks away, Denton raised the handheld to his face. “This is Denton, over.”

“We got somebody. Stone is asking him questions. Any luck on your end? Over.”

“Pity that fucker,” Allen said.

“Brewster is ah, questioning a medic. It doesn’t look good, Hal. Over.”

Krueger’s voice broke in. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense, you fuckers. Over.”

“Right, sorry. Sawyer is in the Fac, along with anywhere from eight to twenty-four men. The medic isn’t sure about troop deployment. Over.”

“Maybe he’s lying. Over,” said Krueger.

Denton paled a little, thinking about Brewster’s deftness with the baton. “No, he’s telling the truth. Trust me.” He patted his pockets and cursed. “No fucking cigarettes. Anyway,” he keyed the radio again. “There’s a detachment coming from Offutt AFB, but the medic didn’t know what they were bringing. Over.”

There was a moment of silence, and they all heard it at once. A low thrumming, a quick pulse of chopping air.

“I bet I can guess,” Krueger said. “Out.”

Camouflaged bodies moved closer to the Fac. The units moved well, acting as teams, tested in the field and unified. Twelve men moved in concert, headed for the area the medics were last seen jogging through in response to a call from their leader.

A moment of respite while they paused behind cover.

“What do you think got ’em?” asked one grunt, the name Summers stitched over his pocket. His squad leader (Winter, proving that the armed forces still had a sense of humor) turned back and grimaced.

“Better hope it was shamblers. Or something.”

The third man, Reed, pursed his lips and blew. “What? You afraid of these guys playing army?”

Winter stared at Reed until the cocky look left his face.

“Not afraid, but if what half of RumInt says is true, these boys are part of a group that fought all the way from Suez to here. You think about that, if you’re equipped for it.”

The fourth squaddie, Page, nodded. “I heard that. And they got an ex-NSA guy with them, too. Bad dude; he cut up one of Sawyer’s men pretty bad a couple months back.”

“Right,” Summers said. “Hoping for shamblers, roger, wilco.”

“Whatever,” Reed said. He double-checked his weapon again, though.

The squad moved out, its movements mirrored by two others, separated by a block in either direction.

Winter held up a fist and the squad stopped. He pointed at a Dump-ster blocking most of an alleyway entrance and signaled for his men to approach with caution.

They moved in, quietly. Directing each other with subtle motions that an outsider might miss, they arranged themselves around the entrance to the alley.

His back to the Dumpster, Winter held up four fingers. One at a time, he started bring them down.

Three.

Two.

One.

His head lurched as his throat spurted blood from both sides at once, the splat against the green metal of the Dumpster followed immediately by a flat
crack
of a rifle report.

Brewster and Jack popped up from the Dumpster as if they were on springs, guns out and firing. The squad went down with hardly a defensive move.

“Thanks for that, Krueger,” Brewster said into his radio. “Hard to believe that went down so easy. Over.”

The monster roar of an SAW interrupted Krueger’s reply, and Jack the Welder went down, his torso a mess of red jelly and white bone flecks. Brewster dove into the Dumpster with him, yelling.

“Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit,” he breathed. “Come on, already!”

Jack, realizing how bad his wounds were, began a soft and breathy laugh.

“What?” Brewster said. “What’s fucking funny about this?”

Jack spat, trying to clear the blood from his mouth so he could talk. “If you get out of here, Brewster, you tell ’em; my name is Welder.”

The situation momentarily forgotten, Brewster blinked. “What?”

“I’m not Jack the Welder. ’S my name. My ex told me . . . it’d help me out. Save on business card costs.” He laughed, blood gurgling up through a wound in his neck and from his lips. Abruptly, the laughter stopped.

So did Jack.

Brewster looked at him for a moment longer. “I’ll be damned,” he said.

On the other end of the alley, Denton and Allen were running at a crouch toward the Dumpster. “Brewster, what the fuck was that? Over.”

“Keep back,” Brewster said. “That, photog, was a Squad Automatic Weapon, and they nailed Jack pretty good. They might think I’m dead, so stay back. They come to investigate, our eye in the sky will let us know. Krueger? Over.”

“Loud and clear,” Krueger said. “Keep an eye on your six, Denton. There might be another squad coming from that way. Over.”