Indestructible: V Plague Book 7 Page 10

  The Admiral returned the salute and smiled. “As you were, Petty Officer. Didn’t mean to disturb you. Was just looking for some fresh air.”

  “No problem, sir.” Jessica said, her eyes flicking across the uniform and noting the man’s name was Packard. “I’ll be on my way.”

  “Nonsense, young lady. Sit down and enjoy your cigarette. In fact, could I impose on you for one of them? I quit more years ago than you’ve been alive, but I don’t think dying of lung cancer is something I need to worry about any more.” He smiled again and Jessica picked the pack up, fumbled it open and held it out in his direction.

  Glancing around she noticed half a dozen heavily armed Marines in full body armor spaced out in a protective bubble around the Admiral. She handed him a disposable lighter after he’d selected a cigarette and he surprised her by holding the flame out for her to light up first. Every now and then she encountered older, male officers and always appreciated their manners.

  Not that her generation of male officers weren’t properly courteous, but there was just something about the way the men of the older generations treated women. There was a degree of chivalry, for lack of a better word, that was missing in the younger generations. But then she supposed women had just as much to do with eroding that as men had.

  “Thank you, sir.” She said after her cigarette was lit. The Admiral lit his and extended a hand to offer her a seat on the bench. Once she was seated he sat next to her, making sure there was a large amount of open space between them.

  “Thank you,” he said, inhaling deeply. “I’d forgotten just how much I liked cigarettes. I guess that’s the point, though. If you didn’t like them you wouldn’t keep buying them and the tobacco companies would be out of business. Well, I guess they are out of business now. Maybe it’s not a good idea to start smoking again when the supply is going to run out soon.” He chuckled at his own musings.

  Jessica sat there, smoking, too nervous in the presence of such a senior officer to relax and enjoy herself. The man was pleasant and charming, but it was never a good idea to lower your guard around an Admiral. She had no doubt he would remember any little thing she did that he didn’t like.

  “Cyber warfare?” He asked after a few moments of silence.

  “Sir?” She asked, surprised. There was nothing on her uniform to give away what she did for the Navy.

  “Not a difficult deduction,” he smiled. “I saw the building you came out of. And I recognize your name, Ms. Simmons. Just read a report from Lieutenant Hunt on your progress. He seems to think quite highly of your abilities.”

  Jessica didn’t know what to say. She had thought this was just a random encounter, but now wasn’t so sure. She took a drag on her cigarette but didn’t say anything.

  “Any recent progress?” Admiral Packard asked, drawing a sideways look from her.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I couldn’t discuss this out here, even if I was aware of what you were talking about.” She replied.

  The Admiral raised his eyebrows in surprise before laughing. “So right you are, Petty Officer. My apologies. I wasn’t trying to place you in a compromising position.”

  Compromising position. The two words triggered a thought in Jessica’s head that quickly headed down a path she hadn’t tried.

  “Sir, you’re a genius!” She cried in excitement, field stripping the cigarette and shoving the butt into her pocket as she jumped to her feet. “If you’ll excuse me…”

  “By all means, young lady.” Packard smiled as he watched Jessica race across the grass and through the doors into the cyber warfare building. Finishing his smoke he took his time stripping it of the cherry before depositing the butt in his pocket. Standing, he looked at the giant warship sitting in the blue harbor.

  “The two-faced son of a bitch,” he thought to himself, referring to the Commanding Officer of the Washington, Captain James. The man had decided to throw his lot in with the traitorous President and had gotten a message out that SEALs were on the way to arrest her.

  That little act had resulted in the death of thirteen SEALs plus the flight crew of the plane they were on when it was shot down by order of the President. Captain James was now in the Pearl Harbor brig, waiting for Packard to decide what best to do with him. Dismissing thoughts of the traitor, the Admiral turned and followed Jessica.

  He left his security detail in the lobby, passing through each checkpoint slowly. He wasn’t normally a patient man, but he understood the need to thoroughly scan each person entering the building for any electronics. It wasn’t only possible; it was a reality that foreign agents had successfully placed micro-electronic devices on the person of people accessing secure facilities in the past.

  The people had been unaware they were carrying devices into extremely sensitive installations. US counter-intelligence had identified three such breaches in the recent past, two of them simply listening devices, but the third had been a data scavenger that was able to read and record everything that was displayed on monitors within a ten foot radius of its location. As a result, new security protocols had been enacted and the Admiral wasn’t about to use his rank to hurry or bypass them.

  “Right there, sir! They just changed positions between layers. All I need to do is…” Jessica was staring intently at her monitor, fingers flying across a keyboard as Lieutenant Hunt watched over her shoulder when the Admiral walked into the room.

  Jessica typed another line of code, paused to read it, then hit enter hard enough to cause the keyboard to jump. The monitor went blank for a moment, then two lines of text appeared with a blinking cursor beneath them.

  “We’re in!” She cried, banging out commands faster than Packard could follow.

  Less than a minute later a giant, high-resolution screen on the wall at the front of the room blinked to life. An incredibly crisp, wide-angle image of North America filled the screen. Jessica looked up and her face was beaming when she spotted the Admiral. Calling the room to attention she started to stand, but Packard quickly told everyone to continue what they were doing.

  “I guess you answered my earlier question, Petty Officer.” The Admiral said, moving to stand next to her terminal.

  “You gave me the idea, sir.” Jessica was grinning from ear to ear.

  “Outstanding work! Can you get me a look at the Oklahoma City area?”

  “Yes, sir.” Jessica began typing commands, moments later the screen zooming smoothly into the middle of the continent.

  “Wow!” She breathed as the image remained perfectly sharp. “Those NSA guys have some nice toys.”

  Soon they were looking at Oklahoma City, the scale marks superimposed on the display indicating they could also see a three hundred mile radius around the city. At multiple locations scattered around the area were massive dust plumes. Packard didn’t need the orbiting camera zoomed any tighter to know what they were.

  “Lieutenant,” he said to Hunt without taking his eyes off the screen. “Get me through to Colonel Crawford at Tinker Air Force Base. Now.”

  21

  The sun beat on my back as I urged Horse to a gallop. She was a strong, fast horse and we were probably moving at 25 miles an hour. The trail in the grass was easy enough to follow, but I wanted to cover as much distance as possible before the sun went down. The marks of the group’s passage would still be visible at night, but would require a lot more concentration to make sure I didn’t wander off course. More focus on the ground meant less speed, and slowing down was the last thing I wanted to do right now.

  Dog had tried to follow when Horse and I had departed. I’d had to stop and send him back. I would have loved to have him along, but he wasn’t in shape to keep up. He had nearly died in his determination to stay at Rachel’s side and needed more rest and hydration. Besides, there was probably only about an hour of daylight left, and I had little doubt that Rachel would be on my trail as soon as it got dark.

  We covered ground quickly, me keeping Horse in the middle of the path of trampled grass
. I had briefly considered just moving in a straight line and not following all of the twists and turns the infected had made, but dismissed that thought when I realized I would have missed Rachel and Dog if I hadn’t seen her tracks when she escaped.

  As we kept pushing east the terrain was slowly changing. What had been nearly flat grasslands with occasional low hills was becoming rolling countryside with larger and larger hills. There were more trees as well as I moved into a part of the state that obviously received more rainfall. At sunset we came across a deeper depression in the ground that held a few inches of water.

  The water was clear, rocks and sand forming the basin. I brought Horse to a stop and held her back for a few minutes before letting her drink. She stepped close to the water and began to dip her head, then shied away. What the hell?

  My first thought was there was a snake in the area, but I couldn’t spot anything. Curiosity piqued, I swung down off her back for a better look. First I checked the tracks we were following, frowning when I noted they veered towards the water, but cut away without reaching it. Moving to the edge I looked all around but couldn’t see anything that would spook a horse, let alone a group of infected.

  Kneeling at the edge of the pool I scooped up a handful of water and held it up to sniff. There was an odor I couldn’t identify. At first it was sharp, almost metallic, but then it changed to something I knew I had encountered before but couldn’t place. It wasn’t necessarily unpleasant, especially if you’re really thirsty, but after seeing Horse’s reaction I didn’t doubt there was something in the water that would ruin my day.

  Shaking my hand, I dried it on my pants and drank from the supply I’d brought with me. I shared with my mount, watching the sun completely drop below the horizon. I had just resumed my perch on her back when a pack of coyotes began yipping. They sounded close, no more than a few hundred yards away. Horse’s head came up and her ears swiveled to the same direction I was looking.

  Having grown up in the American southwest, coyotes are something I’m very familiar with. They’re a nuisance. A pain in the ass. Both predator and scavenger, they will eat just about anything. Singly, they’re not a threat unless rabid. In packs, they’ve been known to take dogs and even children. They are brazen and cunning, but not a threat to a grown man on horseback. Unless they’re infected.

  That thought sent a surge of adrenaline through my system and I sat quietly for a moment listening. The pack was still singing, but it didn’t sound like they were moving any closer. Dismissing my fears over infected animals, I pushed Horse forward to a slow trot along the path left by the females. As we moved through the hills I kept a sharp ear out, happy to hear the coyotes continuing their serenade to our rear.

  It didn’t take long to move out of earshot of the pack. We had entered an area with larger hills that soared more than a hundred feet over our heads into the night sky. The trail wound around each one, sticking to the lowest ground. At times it was hard to follow as the grass had all but disappeared, replaced with hard, rocky soil.

  We reached the largest hill yet, probably close to two hundred feet tall even though it was softly rounded with gentle sides. At the base of the hill the low ground forked and was so dry and rocky I couldn’t see a mark in the darkness. Which way?

  Swinging down, I went to one knee at the junction, head bent to look at the ground. Nothing but hard packed soil and an occasional rock. The earth was too hard to take a print or even a scuff from a passing shoe unless the person walking was trying to leave a trail. Then I saw a faint mark on the path to the right. Katie’s handiwork?

  Kneeling over it I looked down at the freshly made gouge in the dirt. It was no more than a quarter of an inch deep and two inches long, but it was there and it hadn’t been there long. The soil that had been dug up was still loosely scattered on the path. There was enough wind in the area to erase the evidence in a relatively short period of time.

  Sitting back on my haunches, I thought about the timelines. The group had left the crash sight at approximately sunrise yesterday. They had been walking at what Rachel described as a fast pace, so between four and four and half miles an hour. Say four for easier math. Thirty-six hours with a few stops for water and rest. So maybe thirty hours of travel time. That meant they would have covered 120 miles by now.

  How far had I come? I tried to remember as I squatted there in the dark. I’d covered several miles before meeting Joe, then we’d run for hours before finding the horses. Our speed had increased greatly once we had mounts. In the last hour and a half I’d covered at least thirty-five miles. I had to be close. Within a few miles? Maybe. Probably, I decided, standing up and looking around.

  I froze when I saw the two figures silhouetted on top of the hill to my right. This one appeared to be slightly higher than the one I stood next to, and a perfect place to get a view back to the west. I stayed quiet, hoping Horse wouldn’t pick this moment to make some sound. The figures were unmoving, and only visible as outlines against the starry night sky. Had they seen me?

  I was below them and it was dark where I was. Darker than where they stood, but did that help me? Were these infected with enhanced senses? Or for that matter, were they even looking in my direction? I couldn’t tell, unable to see anything other than human forms blotting out the slightly lighter horizon.

  After several minutes of no movement or indication they were aware of my presence, I slowly lifted the rifle to my shoulder. My movements were slow and smooth for concern over alerting them in case they weren’t already watching me. Movement in darkness is what will typically give away your position to an enemy. The human eye will overlook static objects that blend with the night, but instantly pick up on motion.

  Looking through the night vision scope on the rifle I had a clear view. Two females. The image wasn’t good enough for me to tell if their eyes were red or not, but I didn’t think there’d be two women just hanging around in the middle of nowhere unless they were infected. The good news was their attention was to the southwest, ninety degrees away from where I was standing.

  I watched for a few more minutes, my suspicion confirmed when one of them twitched her shoulder up slightly and her head to the side. Definitely infected. But what were they watching? Shouldn’t be Rachel, Joe and Dog. I didn’t think they’d be close enough yet to be visible, plus the females were looking in the wrong direction.

  Five minutes later they were still standing there, the only movement from either of them limited to the occasional tick that gave away what they really were. Muttering a curse I decided it was time to take some action. I had no way of knowing if they were about to leave, or were going to remain standing on top of the damn hill all night.

  If I’d had the M4 rifle with the much more powerful cartridges, I’d have probably shot them both from my current location. But I’d given it to Rachel and all I had was a 9 mm, short-barreled rifle that was fantastic for CQB. But the same properties that made it so good for fighting in enclosed spaces worked against it out in the open.

  A short barrel has a pretty significant impact on accuracy at more than fifty yards, even more so when you’re firing a pistol round. There’s not a lot of powder to push the bullet down the pipe. If you’re fifteen feet from an enemy inside a building, the lower powered 9 mm rounds are actually preferable as a military rifle caliber will be travelling so fast it will probably just punch a tiny hole right through their body without killing them.

  Yes, they’ll eventually probably die from the wound, but the idea is to put your enemy down quickly, not shoot them and leave them with an opportunity to start shooting back. Not that the females were going to shoot back, but when I fired I needed to put them down instantly. No chance for a warning scream that could bring more down on my head, or even for one of them to escape and bring all of her sisters back to ruin my evening.

  Grumbling in my head, I began moving forward, silently starting up the side of the hill. I moved slowly, careful with each step to ensure I had solid footing an
d wasn’t about to send an avalanche of scree tumbling down the hill and give away my presence. It took close to ten minutes for me to approach to a point where I was comfortable with the Sig’s stopping power.

  Lowering to one knee, I stabilized my body and sighted on the female closest to me. Mentally practicing the motions necessary to fire, shift to the second female and fire again, I took a slow, deep breath. Letting it out I squeezed the trigger as my lungs emptied, the Sig not making much more noise than a soft pop.

  I was already swinging the barrel onto my second target when the bullet impacted the female’s head, her body dropping silently. The second one heard the suppressed shot and snapped her focus in my direction just in time for me to put a round through her left eye. She fell dead across the first one I’d killed without uttering a sound.

  Staying on my knee, I kept the rifle trained on the females, watching through the scope. I was sure I’d made two good head shots, but I gave it a few moments to make sure neither was moving before I took my attention off of them. Swinging around I scanned the area below me.

  Nothing was moving. Horse was standing quietly, appearing to be asleep. Failing to spot anything or anyone else, I worked my way to the top of the hill. The females were as dead as I’d believed and I didn’t waste any more time worrying about them. First I checked the southwest, the quadrant they’d been watching so intently. Nothing. Looking to the east, the prevailing direction the infected had been travelling, I didn’t like what I saw.

  The hilly terrain changed again. Spread out as far as I could see was a series of small canyons. From my vantage point I could tell some of them were box canyons, while others narrowed down before opening back up and connecting with an adjacent one. It was a fucking maze and exactly where the females had taken Katie.

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