ARISEN, Book Fourteen - ENDGAME Read online

  “Looks like a team,” Homer said.

  “It had better look like two teams,” Fick grunted.

  “Two teams for what?” Pred grumbled.

  Miller looked up from the station before answering. There were at least a dozen other ops personnel working in the JOC, including a couple of USOC guys, the Colonel’s people. But Miller was ranking – except for Jameson – and, moreover, was confident and looked like he knew what he was doing. So the others just kept on working and kind of ignored the big knot of eleven people, from a wide variety of service branches and two different militaries, gathered at one end.

  Miller said, “The bad news is: I can’t task a drone. The broadband EMI is still way too bad. Every ISR asset we’ve got left over the Greater London area is either not responding to control signals – or responding so intermittently that we’re better off not trying, and just leaving them to loiter.”

  “And the good news?” Ali asked.

  “I can still task satellites – using broadband landline data-links to control stations outside London. Or, at any rate, there’s at least one I can still task.” He pointed down to a video window. “The other bad news is the imagery isn’t nearly as sharp. And the totally shit news is: you’re really not going to like what you see down there.”

  Everyone who could lean in around Ali did so. And what they saw was a video window, with two different urban settings, Miller flipping between the two. Both were night scenes, enhanced with night vision and thermal.

  Miller pointed to the first one. “St. Thomas’s Hospital.” This was a complex of three or four big buildings with tan or white roofs – directly across the river from the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. It was also just south of the foot of Westminster Bridge – which they could now see had collapsed into the river. But, rather more alarmingly, the entire area surrounding it was swarming with running figures. It was impossible to tell at this granularity whether they were living or dead.

  But it didn’t much matter. Either way, it was chaos.

  Nobody seemed too surprised – that was pretty typical for hospitals in any zombie apocalypse. And this was one of the biggest and most famous hospitals in London.

  Miller flipped to the second video window. “Armoury House, on Moorgate, in the City of London.”

  That scene was even worse, perhaps because it was much farther north. The main building itself, along with the attached buildings of the military barracks, made up the north side of a large green rectangle, in the middle of a big block of buildings. Remarkably, the square still looked empty and peaceful. But everywhere around it, in all directions, as far as the video showed, was also chaos – running figures, overturned cars, fires burning.

  Jones interrupted the grim silence from the next station down, a phone handset against her ear. “Can’t raise either the hospital or the reserve regiment, on either phone or radio.”

  Ali straightened up. “Okay. We’ve all done this kind of mission a hundred times – insert into overrun territory and retrieve something important. This time is no different.”

  Implicit but unsaid was: This is just the last time.

  She looked over at Pred and Juice, who hadn’t been briefed on any of this. “Can you two insert into that second target site, and retrieve a couple cases of simunitions for us?”

  “Sims?” Juice asked. “What for?”

  “New weaponization strategy. Homer’s idea.”

  Pred looked at Homer with an annoyed expression. “Why the hell didn’t you suggest that before – I mean before we got sent out on that dumb-ass paintball mission?”

  “I wasn’t here.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Pred relaxed. “Fine. Just as long as there are no more goddamned zombie cut-outs on this one.”

  “Unlikely,” Ali said. “Real zombies only.”

  Juice didn’t look so relaxed. “But there will be a whole lot more panicked civilians.” He looked across at Pred.

  “I’ll take the hospital,” Homer said.

  “Okay,” Fick said. “Who’s your dive buddy?”

  “Not you, buddy,” Homer said. “You’re needed here.”

  “It’s me,” Ali said – with total finality.

  Everything about her tone of voice and body language said this was a done deal. Homer looked across at her, but didn’t say a word. He got it. For one thing, she wasn’t commander in chief anymore. But, mainly, Ali simply wasn’t leaving him on his own to do this – or, in fact, leaving him alone to do anything, ever again. She was going to be by his side, there to protect him, however things played out.

  And there would be no discussion.

  * * *

  Elliot said, “Let me come on the mission to Armoury House. I’ve been inside, and know the area a little.”

  “No,” Ali said. “Even if Homer and I don’t come back with the HRIG, somebody’s going to have to deploy the MZ, using the simunitions. Which means someone who can make headshots on Foxtrots. And that’s you, kiddo.”

  Elliot didn’t look like he thought that was him. But he didn’t protest – at least not about that. “You’re coming back.”

  Ali gave him a look: You, of all people, should know better.

  “It’s fine,” Juice said. “He can draw us a map. We’ll strongpoint the building and find it on our own.”

  Pred said, “What’s the air mission plan?”

  Charlotte spoke up now. “We’ve got two rotary-wing aircraft on deck with passenger and lift capacity – a Chinook and a Puma.”

  Jameson shook his head. “If you’re going to strongpoint a building in the middle of all that civil disorder, I strongly suggest you don’t let civilian survivors see you go in there. And helicopters are kind of noisy and visible. I can guarantee they’ll just follow you in – and, unlike the dead, the living can open doors, and smash out windows.” He paused and scanned faces in the group, his own expression serious. “And the dead’ll be right behind them.”

  “Yeah,” Pred grunted. “I can kind of vouch for all that.”

  “He had to fight a hundred Agent Smiths,” Juice added.

  Obviously, no one had the least idea what that could even mean – and everyone was in fact too baffled to ask.

  Jameson exhaled. “Oh, yeah – and definitely don’t let them see the helicopter. Because they will all try to get on the bloody thing. Disbelieve that at your peril.” His tone said he was speaking from hard experience.

  Pred said, “Okay, crazy but – combat jump?” This was what every nail looked like to the hammer of an Airborne Ranger – and Pred, like all Rangers, had never stopped being one.

  Ali looked across to Hailey. She said, “It’s not inconceivable. There’s probably enough fuel in the Dash 8 to take off and then land again. They’ll have to bail out fast.”

  Pred smiled. “I fucking love combat jumps.”

  Ali said, “We could use that fuel to airdrop vaccination kits.”

  “Yeah, about five of them,” Hailey said. “Too few to matter.”

  Miller said, “There’s fuel coming.” No one looked convinced. “I am assured of this.”

  “When?” Hailey asked.

  “I don’t know,” Miller admitted.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Ali said. “It’s not here now.”

  “And anyway, fuck it,” Fick said. “We’ve got bigger problems. Like staying alive long enough to manufacture the damned vaccine in the first place.”

  “Okay,” Homer said. “Insertion plan for the hospital team?”

  Ali shrugged. “There’s only one fixed-wing aircraft. Pred and Juice’s AO looks worse than ours, plus they like jumping out of planes – and we’ve at least got a viable rooftop, with a helipad.” St. Thomas’s, like many big hospitals, had a rooftop helipad for air ambulances. “We’ll touch down on top, patrol down inside, then get ourselves out again. If civvies try to hitch a ride, we’ll just deal with it.”

  She straightened up. “Okay. Divide up to rapid mission-plan in detail: Pred and Juice, take Miller f
or support, Hailey for the air mission, and Elliot, who knows the target structure. Also Jameson, who’s been out in the thick of it.”

  “No worries,” Jameson said, moving to join the other five.

  “Homer and I are with Fick, Charlotte for air, and Jones for JOC-side support. And Park and Aliyev, since the HRIG was their bright idea.”

  “Break,” Juice said, clapping his hands.

  Nobody laughed.

  * * *

  “What can we expect at this target site?” Juice asked, in the sims-mission breakout session.

  Elliot nodded. “It’s basically a huge stately home, with an attached barracks – all of it surrounding a big training ground.”

  Miller chimed in. “One that would be worth billions if they sold it to property developers in the City. But they’ve privately owned it, for hundreds of years.”

  “Who have?”

  “HIC,” Miller said. “The Honourable Infantry Company.”

  “You know this unit?” Juice asked.

  “Everyone in the British Army does. Oldest regiment in the army, regular or reserve. But a bunch of posh twats – bankers and millionaires playing soldier. Dilettantes.”

  “That’s not true,” Elliot said. “That’s definitely their reputation. But we had two deploy with us once, to Bosnia. We were pretty slow to give them a chance to win us over. But they did – they’re smart, fit, and know their jobs. On top of that, they’re humble and take pains to fit in. Because they know exactly the reputation they’ve got.”

  “Okay, whatever,” Pred said. “There are no comms with that unit anyway, so we assume they’re dead or decamped. If any turn up, I’m sure they’re very nice guys. Now about our insertion and infil plan.”

  Miller said, “That huge parade ground inside. No-brainer.”

  “Yeah,” Juice said. “That’s the problem with no-brainers. No brains.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “There are still lights on all over that area. Two big canopies coming down right on the X will be visible for blocks. And the last thing we want is hundreds of desperate civilians seeing it, thinking their military saviors have arrived, and swarming the building.”

  “Yeah, just as we’re going into it,” Pred added.

  Juice concluded, “No, you always land offset from the X – and then patrol in on foot.”

  Pred grunted. “Though I’m not sure I want to do a whole hell of a lot of patrolling through that.” He nodded at the chaos on the screen before them.

  Miller looked in at the screen as well. “How about Finsbury Square, diagonal to it – down and just across the street?”

  Pred nodded. “Big open space, safer landing zone than everywhere else in a city. And close but not actually the target.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Juice said. “Good compromise.”

  * * *

  “Okay,” Ali said, in their own breakout session. “Do we know where in the hospital the mission objective is going to be?”

  “Pharmacy,” Park answered.

  “And do we know where that is?”

  “I’m trying to find out for sure,” Jones answered, clicking a mouse and squinting at her screen. “No joy so far. But hospital pharmacies are often in the basement.”

  “Great,” Ali said. “Farthest from the roof. We’ll get to find out what every level of the interior is like now.”

  Homer smiled, not seeming worried.

  But then Fick spoke up, looking across the dim JOC at the other group. “Hey, wait – how are Pred and Juice extracting? Last time I checked, parachutes only work in one direction.”

  “Ground exfil?” Jones suggested.

  Charlotte looked at the aerial imagery on the screen next door to theirs. “I don’t think that would be very clever.”

  “And it definitely wouldn’t be fast,” Ali said. She looked up at Charlotte. “You’re in the other meeting. I can fly this mission.”

  Charlotte nodded. “There’s a flyable Puma on the deck, left over from the Dusseldorf mission. It’ll have some fuel in it. That leaves me the Chinook to extract the other team.”

  Ali squinted. “Wait – didn’t I see an Apache out there?”

  Charlotte started to square up to her, but quickly backed down, sighing. “Two, actually. Try to bring yours back.”

  She left for the other side of the room.

  * * *

  As Juice scrutinized the rough map Elliot was trying to draw from memory, Charlotte appeared.

  “Heard you two might actually want to come back again.”

  “Good point,” Pred said – then squinted and said, “Wait—”

  “Yeah,” Miller said. “With radio commo almost totally closed out, certainly at that range, how are we going to know when to extract you?”

  Pred grunted. “Kind of a problem if we can’t pop smoke.” He was using the Vietnam-era expression for calling for extraction.

  Juice looked up. “Hey, that’s it exactly. They’ve got aerial imagery, right? We’ll just do it old school.”

  “What?” Charlotte said. “Totally lost.”

  Juice quickly explained.

  After that, Pred looked over to Miller and said, “Just one tiny little other thing. I often like to have a parachute when I jump out of airplanes. When they’re up in the air and everything.”

  “That’s not a problem,” Miller said. “We’ve got a shedload of parachutes.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yes. They’re for the vaccination-kit air-drops. The original idea was to have medical personnel jump in with them to assist and set up field clinics to vaccinate people. That’s probably out now. But we’ve still got the individual chutes in the Bio warehouse, though that’s not most of them.”

  “And the others?” Juice asked.

  “Cargo chutes, of course. For the palletized vax kits.”

  Juice’s eyes lit up and the beard smiled real big.

  Pred glared across at him. “Oh, no, dude…”

  * * *

  Forty minutes later, everyone on both mission teams, and most of those who had been in the planning, were back outside in the dark of the Common – gathered around the de Havilland Dash 8 on the airstrip, or else the helicopters parked nearby.

  Hailey had once again climbed back into the cockpit of the battered old prop plane, grateful she’d never taken her flight suit off – she had nothing else to wear – and was now blazing through her pre-flight checks. Fick had summoned the two sappers to quickly throw up a wooden ramp to the rear hatch.

  Now Pred and Juice were walking up that ramp, all tooled up with their usual combat load – plus parachutes, and assault packs on their fronts, weapons strapped to their sides, looking badly overloaded like paratroopers since the very first airborne operation, the invasion of Sicily in World War Two. Just behind them rolled two big, tracked, heavily armed robots, following the two Alpha men like baby ducks. Watching this from the base of the ramp, one of the sappers said to the other, “Wait – who the hell is controlling those things?”

  “I don’t think anyone is, mate.”

  “Wait – what?”

  Ignoring this, Juice reached the hatch, looked back – then pulled the little shoulder cam off his rig and tossed it to the sappers. Pred turned and raised his eyebrows. Juice said, “With the EMI, there’s no data relay in place. We’re on our own on this one.”

  “Yeah,” Pred said, seeing the logic. “May as well save the weight.”

  Both of them made way for the robots – neither remarking on the irony of shedding a 4-ounce Go-Pro cam while taking two 350-pound killer robots along. As they watched them trundle into the cabin, Juice shook his head. “Man, how many more take-offs than landings you think we have at this point?”

  Pred spat brown tobacco juice out into the dark. “This might be the last one, if we don’t pull it off.”

  “Hey, at least we’re immune from infection now. That’s pretty ninja.”

  Pred checked his watch. “Maybe, maybe not. Still h
asn’t been eight hours. Anyway, it doesn’t mean a pack of runners can’t knock you down and gnaw your face off.”

  “True. True.” Juice started to pull the hatch shut.

  “Hey,” Fick yelled up at them at the last second. “You two knuckleheads are call sign Rabid One.”

  “Got it,” Juice said, throwing up a lazy salute. “See you when we see you, Master Guns.” Then he pointed at Fick’s lower half. “Hey, glad to see you got a change of pants after fucking that dead chick.” He grinned real big – revenge for Fick’s comment about his total absence of pants, back when he came home from Saldanha Bay almost bled out.

  The hatch slammed shut. And the engines wound up.

  “It was a dead lesbian,” Fick muttered, sounding hurt. “She wouldn’t have me…”

  “Who wouldn’t have you?” Fick looked up to see Wesley stepping up to join him on the small hill in the dark. “Heard the engines,” he explained.

  Before Fick could answer, Homer trotted up, with his rifle cradled, NVGs flipped up on his helmet. He was coming from the Apache, which was parked nearby – engines roaring, and rotors turning, as Ali ran through her own checks. Nobody had to explain to anybody why she’d picked that aircraft over the Puma – she had thousands of hours in Apaches. It was like a second womb for her.

  “We’re launching,” Homer said.

  “Good for you,” Fick said. “Try to come back. You’re call sign Rabid Two.”

  “Check,” Homer said. “Oh – and Ali says good luck with the Colonel.”

  “Ha. Well, tell her I said the clock hasn’t stopped – and it’s not going to suck itself.”

  Homer shook his head and trotted off again.

  “Suck itself?” Wesley asked, baffled.

  “Don’t even worry about it.”

  So then Fick and Wesley just watched from the hillock together as the Dash 8 taxied to the end of the airstrip – and then accelerated, really fast, toward take-off – at the same time as the Apache lifted smoothly, powerfully, and very noisily off the ground and into the darkness above.