Cataclysm: V Plague Book 18 Read online

  “Got a plate?”

  Jessica snatched a piece of paper from her pocket and scribbled on it.

  “Can you track it off base?”

  “Already working on it, sir,” she said, not looking up from her keyboard.

  “Colonel,” Captain West said, pulling me aside. “You go off the base, there’s a warrant for your arrest. If that judge gets you into a cell, we won’t be able to get you out.”

  “Don’t care,” I said, turning away. “Gunny. I need a rifle.”

  He didn’t hesitate to shove his weapon into my hands, then quickly shrugged out of a vest stuffed with spare magazines. Nodding my gratitude, I slipped it on, adjusted and cinched it down.

  “Colonel,” West tried again.

  “My family, Captain.”

  He looked at me a beat before nodding. I hurried to the Hummer I’d driven, Rachel and Dog piling in as I started the engine. With shouts and arm waving, the Marines got a couple of vehicles out of the way and raised the gate. As we roared through, the Gunny came to attention and held a salute.

  15

  “Not so much as a goddamn bullet,” Strickland said in answer to Igor’s questioning look.

  He’d just returned from scouting the neighboring homes. They had all been forced to drop their heavy packs when they went into the water and weapons hadn’t fared any better. The only one who made it to shore with a firearm was Igor, and that was only a pistol for which all of the spare magazines had been lost. One pistol with a total of sixteen rounds to defend three people against roaming infected. Neither man liked the odds.

  “America love guns,” Igor said, not understanding why there wasn’t a veritable armory in each house.

  Strickland snorted a sardonic laugh.

  “This is California, dude.”

  He sighed when Igor gave him a blank look.

  “Fuck sticks in charge decided to ban citizens from having guns. Well, they couldn’t outright ban ‘em, but... Well... whatever. Just wish we’d washed up in Texas.”

  Igor stared at him for a moment, clearly not following what Strickland was saying.

  “No guns?”

  “No,” Strickland said. “No guns.”

  “How we fight? No knife. No gun.” He made a fist and held it up in the air. “No good for infected.”

  “No shit, Sherlock.”

  Igor gave him a funny look, then gave up trying to communicate about weapons. Strickland shrugged his shoulders.

  “How’s Irina?” he asked.

  “She wake. Eat and drank. Sleep now.”

  “She okay? No injuries?”

  “She be okay.”

  Strickland nodded again, happy there was at least one bit of good news. And other than the fact that they had shelter and heat, there really wasn’t anything else he could get excited about. They’d lost all their equipment, weapons, spare clothing and food.

  The house Igor had chosen for them had empty cupboards other than a few energy bars he’d found in the exercise room, and those had been reserved for Irina. Both men’s stomachs were complaining loudly, but it wasn’t just about comfort. They had expended a tremendous amount of calories to survive the ocean and food was needed to replenish their bodies. Neither of them carried any excess body fat to tide them over.

  Clothing was another problem. A cold rain was steadily falling and they couldn’t put theirs outside to dry. Strickland didn’t know if Igor had found something for Irina as he’d not seen her without blankets pulled to her chin, but he and the big Russian had been limited to what was in the house. Igor hadn’t gotten the joke when they looked at each other after dressing and Strickland had called him Magnum. Both were wearing obnoxiously colored and patterned Hawaiian shirts.

  “I’m going back out,” Strickland said.

  “Nyet. I turn,” Igor said, shaking his head.

  “My, dumbass. MY turn, not I turn. And you should stay with Irina in case she wakes up. She’d rather see you than me.”

  Igor stared at him for a few moments and Strickland could see the conflict in his eyes. He wanted to be the one to go, to carry his share of the load, but he also didn’t want to leave Irina. Eventually, thoughts of her won the battle and he nodded before looking away. Stepping forward, Strickland clapped him on the shoulder and headed for the door.

  Stepping out into the rain, the SEAL grumbled at the weather. It wasn’t cold by any real measure, coastal Southern California never is, but slogging through a steady downpour, which the wind was driving into his face, wasn’t his idea of a pleasant stroll. Glancing at the roiling surface of the Pacific, he acknowledged how much worse it could be, and almost was.

  Moving quietly, he recognized that the rain was actually good. The steady patter on the ground created a white noise that would mask any small sound he might inadvertently make. But, he reminded himself, it worked both ways. He very well might fail to hear an infected on the hunt until it was too late.

  “Better watch my ass,” he mumbled as he worked his way to the street.

  Moving to the edge of the asphalt, Strickland took his time scanning for threats. The pistol was tightly gripped in his hand, but he hoped he wouldn’t need to use it. There was no suppressor and the report of a shot would alert every female for a good distance that dinner was afoot.

  Finally satisfied that he was alone, Strickland dashed across the open pavement and cut down an alley. Small trees and thick shrubs lined both sides, shielding the houses from view. But they also shielded him and he felt more confident about not being detected. As long as there wasn’t something lurking in the foliage, waiting for some idiot to come sauntering along.

  He followed the alley for several blocks, seeing and hearing nothing that concerned him. There were plenty of homes that hadn’t been destroyed by the wild fire that had ripped through the area, but he didn’t want to continue wasting time searching residences. So far, that tactic had paid zero dividends. He was aware it might be necessary if he couldn’t find any supplies in town, but also acknowledged to himself that going into more homes would be a last-ditch effort.

  Reaching the end of the alley, he looked across a broad, four-lane road. On the other side was a smattering of commercial buildings that sat like a pristine island between the burned-out shells of a pair of strip malls. After a long and patient scan of the area, he sprinted across the asphalt and came to a stop with his back pressed against the wall of a small, local grocer.

  The large windows fronting the parking lot were shattered, thousands of pieces of glass glittering like diamonds on the wet asphalt. Strickland stayed motionless, listening and scanning for anything that could present a danger. Again, he saw nothing to concern him.

  Leading with the pistol, he swiveled around and looked into the gloomy interior of the building, but the weak daylight didn’t penetrate more than twenty feet. What he could see didn’t bode well for scavenging. The store had been ransacked. But as he stepped through the opening where a large plate of glass had once been, he realized it hadn’t been looted. Frowning, he moved forward and knelt to examine something on the floor.

  “Animals,” he breathed to himself, standing and trying to see deeper into the darkness.

  Several large piles of feces were scattered around, and he correctly identified them as belonging to coyotes. He knew the creatures hadn’t broken the windows to gain entry, but they’d most certainly taken advantage of the open pathway to row upon row of food.

  He took a step, freezing when a spilled box of breakfast cereal crunched loudly beneath his foot. For several long seconds he waited, expecting a screaming female to suddenly emerge from the darkness, but the anticipated attack never came. Letting out the breath he’d been holding, he began moving again, only this time he shuffled his feet. This didn’t allow him to move silently, but the gentle sound of debris being pushed aside wasn’t nearly as loud as if it had been stepped on.

  Reaching the back of the store, he glanced at a long, refrigerated case that had once held raw meat.
It was empty, only the remains of the packaging scattered amongst multiple piles of coyote shit confirming what had been there.

  Five more minutes and he’d cleared the building to his satisfaction. No infected or coyotes or Russians lay in wait to pounce when his back was turned. Shoving the weapon into his waistband, he went down an aisle that stocked school supplies and grabbed four, child-sized back packs off a shelf. Working quickly but quietly, he stuffed each of them full of every high carbohydrate or high protein food he could find that the scavengers hadn’t fed on.

  Gripping the packs tightly he moved quickly to the front of the store, pausing to watch and listen. When everything seemed clear, he stepped out into the parking lot. Before reaching the road, he paused at a distant sound. Head swiveling, trying to locate the direction it was coming from, he cursed and ran for the concealment of the store.

  Huddling in the dark interior, he waited with the pistol in his hand, listening to the approach of several heavy vehicles from the direction of Los Angeles. The engines were loud in the stillness of the empty city. Transmissions emitted a faint whine in counter to a deep rumble of heavy tires on asphalt.

  The sound steadily increased until an eight wheeled Russian BTR-90 armored personnel carrier appeared, leading a convoy of heavy trucks. A second BTR was in the middle of the long line, a third bringing up the rear. They were moving slow, no more than twenty miles an hour. Five minutes went by before the final vehicle rumbled past his hiding place.

  “Where the fuck are you going?” he muttered to himself, then the hair on his arms stood on end when a female screamed from right outside.

  The Russian convoy had been anything but quiet, drawing females out from all around the burned-out city. Dozens, then hundreds began streaming past the store in pursuit. With a sigh of irritation, Strickland carefully moved into the deeper recesses of the store. He wasn’t going anywhere as long as the females were in the area.

  16

  Accelerating hard, we bounced over the speed bumps and exited Pearl’s Makalapa gate.

  “Silver Chevy.”

  I handed the scrap of paper with the blonde’s license plate scribbled on it to Rachel. Dialing Jessica’s number on my phone, I jammed it into a slot in the console between us and turned on the speaker.

  “Still looking, sir,” Jessica said when she answered.

  “Need to know which way to go, Chief!”

  “Hold on...” I could hear the sounds of her getting back in the Hummer with Captain West. “Got her! Okay, north on Kamehameha Highway!”

  I’d already gone through the intersection and was on the bridge over the H1 Freeway. Ignoring traffic, I slammed on the brakes and cranked the wheel over. The hard rubber tires on the Humvee screamed and skittered in protest and it only made it halfway through the turn before coming to a stop. Brakes squealed and horns blared as drivers suddenly found the road blocked.

  Jamming the throttle to the floor, I roared through the turn, shoving a compact Hyundai aside with the heavy push bar. More horns and angry shouts, but I ignored them and stayed on the throttle as the Kamehameha approached. Turning at the last moment, I kept the speed up and felt the rear end start to slip sideways. I corrected, but not before there was a glancing impact with another vehicle.

  “Going north,” I shouted at the phone. “Where are they?”

  “Just passing the Aloha Stadium. Traffic’s heavy, so she’s not moving fast.”

  Traffic was heavy, both northbound lanes clogged with stopped cars waiting for the light to change at an intersection. I steered across a narrow median, the heavy vehicle going airborne for a second before crashing back down into oncoming traffic. Panicked drivers swerved out of my way as I came barreling directly at them.

  I didn’t slow for the intersection and had to whip the wheel to the side in a failed effort to miss a small sedan. The push bar clipped its rear fender, sending it spinning away, then we were through and I got us back into the northbound lanes and began swerving through the slower moving traffic.

  “Where’s the target, Chief?”

  “Still going north, but you’re going to have a problem real soon. Cops are coming.”

  I shared a glance with Rachel and she nodded for me to keep the speed on. Ahead, another intersection that I had to push my way through while I held down the switch for the horn. Drivers stared at me with a mix of anger and fear as I pushed their cars aside, then there was a stretch of clear road ahead and I gave the Humvee all the throttle it had.

  “Am I gaining, Chief?” I shouted when I had to slow for the next intersection.

  “Stand by...” I could hear the rustling sound of her hand covering the microphone, then she was back. “Next right! Into the parking lot.”

  “What?”

  Rachel and I both looked at a massive, empty parking lot for Aloha Stadium.

  “Trust me. Do it now!” Jessica shouted.

  Not understanding why, but believing in her, I slammed on the brakes and made a screaming turn onto a smaller road, leaving some paint on a couple of light poles. Ahead I could see an entrance blocked by a chain-link gate. I rammed it open and skidded to a stop near the middle of the lot.

  “What the hell, Chief?”

  “You’re not going to catch her, sir. Especially with the cops coming. There’s a ride on the way.”

  It took a couple of beats for her words to click. I was so focused on catching Mavis’s abductor that all I could think about was driving. Grabbing the phone, I jumped out and looked up. Didn’t see anything, yet.

  “Where is it, Chief?”

  “Four minutes, sir. But you’re going to have company before that.”

  I didn’t need to ask what she meant. Several sirens were fast approaching. I moved to the back of the Hummer, facing the shattered gate. Dog and Rachel joined me and we watched three marked police cars scream down the highway, slowing to make the turn.

  “This isn’t going to be good,” Rachel said. “Probably should have called and asked for their help.”

  “Probably,” I said. “Move away from me.”

  “Unh uh. Staying right here.”

  “If they start shooting...”

  “Don’t give them a reason. All that matters is we find Mavis,” Rachel said.

  “Where’s that ride, Chief?”

  “Two minutes!”

  I sighed as the cruisers swung into the lot and skidded to stops, facing us in a semi-circle. Doors popped open and the cops took cover behind them with their weapons aimed, screaming for us to get on the ground. Dog growled deep in his chest and I silenced him with a quiet word.

  “Hold on,” a louder voice cut through their shouts.

  From behind one of the doors, the sergeant from the morning I’d killed the Russian bounty hunters stood. He held a hand out toward the other officers, making sure they understood his order.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he shouted.

  “Russians took my little girl,” I said. “I’m after them. Going to get her back.”

  He frowned, then slowly holstered his weapon.

  “Sorry to hear that,” he said. “Why’d you stop?”

  “Not gaining on them. Got a ride coming.”

  His eyes flicked toward the sky, then back on me. Moving from behind the door, he walked forward.

  “We can help.”

  I shook my head.

  “Sorry. No offense, but I’ll handle it.”

  His face creased with a frown.

  “Believe it or not, we kind of know what we’re doing. We can get her back.”

  “You willing to do the things that might be necessary to save her?”

  He held my eyes for a long moment, then nodded understanding.

  “I could arrest you. There’s a warrant out, courtesy of the judge.”

  “You could try.”

  “John,” Rachel said softly.

  I nodded. She was right. There was no advantage to escalating things with the cops by having a bigger balls contest.


  “Just want her back,” I said to the cop. “Hope we aren’t going to have a problem.”

  All of us looked up when a Sea Hawk helicopter roared overhead, swirling a thick cloud of dust into the air. It made one fast circle before flaring and slamming down onto the pavement.

  “Go,” I said to Rachel and Dog.

  She hesitated a beat, then took off for the waiting helo with him at her side. I tensed when the cop stepped forward.

  “My brother’s a Marine. Heard a lot about what you’ve done. How many more would be dead if it wasn’t for you. Still, don’t count on walking away from the warrant next time. Especially if I’m not there.”

  He extended his hand and I shook it.

  “I hope you find your little girl safe and sound.”

  I nodded my thanks then sprinted to the idling Sea Hawk. Rachel and Dog were already aboard, and I could see Martinez watching me from the controls. Jumping into the troop compartment, I shouted for her to get us in the air, then nearly fell on my ass when the helo leapt off the ground.

  17

  Getting my balance as Martinez spun the big helo around, I grabbed a headset off a hook and clamped it over my ears.

  “Know what we’re looking for?” I asked.

  “Yep. Got the skinny from the Chief. Hold on to your ass. The bitch just turned into a residential neighborhood and I’m going to come in hot.”

  I pulled the mic away from my face and shouted at Rachel to strap in and grab onto Dog. She’d flown in helicopters enough to not need any further warning.

  We streaked north over the Aloha Stadium, following the Kamehameha Highway for a few miles. I used the time to check over the rifle the Gunny had given me, ensuring it was ready to go.

  “She’s pulled in to a house. Chief’s lost visual,” Martinez said over the intercom. “We’re one minute out. How you want to do this?”

  “Room to set down in the street?”

  “Give me a sec.”

  We suddenly gained altitude, the big rotor pounding loudly as it clawed for altitude. Looking out the open side door I watched the ground fall away as Martinez kept us in a steep climb. I knew she was getting us high enough to not alert the kidnapper and still be able to eyeball a landing site.