Craig DiLouie - Pandemic

What was the next step? Go still higher up? Call the Pentagon?

The Pentagon had been evacuated. The President and the Joint Chiefs were in their underground bunker at Mount Weather, making their erratic decisions without any knowledge of what was really happening on the ground.

Prince was going to have to make his own decisions. The right course eluded him. He knew the current strategy wasn’t working, but he couldn’t just pull his boys out of Boston and give up. More than six hundred thousand people had lived in the city before the plague. Another four million lived in the Greater Boston area. The survivors were desperate. They needed help.

If his lightfighters couldn’t do anything, what good were they? Why bother?

He’d always thought the world would end suddenly. An asteroid would come, humanity would have a week to get its shit in order, and then BOOM.

He’d never imagined a plague would do the job, and with such horror. A plague in which everybody became an enemy, everything familiar became a threat, every loved one was perverted and defiled.

Like Susan and Frankie. Your own family was shot down in the street like dogs by men wearing uniforms just like yours.

Stars flared in his vision. He groaned.

He needed some creative thinking. Goddammit, he was going to have to get Walker back. But he’d get the man squared away first.

Prince was still rattled from their last encounter. Walker had the logic—and personality—of Mr. Spock and the loyalty of a bloodhound. If he’d lost enough faith to challenge a superior officer the way he had, he had to have a damned good reason. Or maybe he was just cracking under the stress. A lot of men did.

He opened the drawer and looked at the bottle. Forget everything. He closed it again.

Maybe he should appoint Lee as his XO. Lee was a straight shooter, and the man had balls. They’d destroy the rogue artillery unit that was terrorizing the Boston core and put the Governor in his place. They’d find a new strategy to check the spread of infection across the area and stop the violence.

They could do it. They still had a mission.

Somebody knocked on the door.

Prince touched the 9mm at his hip. “Come in.”

The radio/telephone operator entered the room. “Good news, Colonel.”

Prince stared at the man. He hadn’t heard good news in over a month.

The RTO added, “We’ve established contact with regimental HQ.”

“Outstanding, son.” Prince stood and followed the man into the work area. For the first time in weeks, he started to feel like things were going his way. He picked up the headset. “Wizard Six. Over.”

Armstrong roared, “WHAT IS YOUR FUCKING MALFUNCTION, JOE?”

Even though Colonel Armstrong couldn’t see him, Prince stood at attention. He’d gotten such treatment before. Armstrong wasn’t one to mince words; he called it “tough love.” Clearly, the regimental commander knew about Prince’s failures: the destruction of the hospitals, the Governor rejecting his offer of sanctuary, the infected rogue artillery unit bombing downtown, the steady losses of men and materiel…and his utter failure to achieve his mission. What could he say that would change the commander’s opinion? That he was going to appoint a new XO?

He felt his optimism wash away like sand in the surf.

“DID YOU NOT HEAR ME? ARE YOU DEAF?”

“I heard you loud and clear, sir. Over.” After a long silence, he added: “Sir?”

Armstrong exploded into insane laughter.

Prince blanched. “May I speak to your XO?”

“ That might be a little tough, Joe. I ate his tongue. ” Again, that explosive, shrieking laughter came through the headset.

Prince terminated the connection. He went back into his private office and closed the door. He sat at his desk and ran his hands over his crew cut. This is bad. This is really bad. The chain of command was broken. First Battalion was officially off the reservation.

Another knock came at the door.

“Come in,” he said mechanically. His head pounded to the tune of his rapid heartbeat.

Lieutenant Torres entered the room, looking pale. “Sir, I forwarded you a new PowerPoint file we just received from HQ. An advisory.”

Prince shook his head. “Not now.”

He was going to have to organize a mission to Troy to provide aid to HQ and help re-establish the chain of command. With what? We’re stretched to the breaking point.

He’d work with the commanders of the other battalions. A joint mission. Then he frowned. Why the hell was HQ sending PowerPoint presentations? Didn’t they know they had a major crisis on their hands?

“You need to see this, Colonel,” Torres insisted.

Prince looked at the man’s face. Torres was a tough son of a bitch, but he appeared to be on the verge of tears.

“This came from regimental HQ?” Prince asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Prince located the file on his computer and opened it.

T he first slide presented a title promising authorization guidelines for lethal use of force against armed civilians. That was bad enough, as it suggested some people had gotten so angry that they were taking shots at Army units in the field.

The second slide showed a photo of a severed head with a lit cigarette in its mouth. It wore a helmet. The eyes had been carved out and replaced with shiny pennies.

The third depicted a pile of hacked-off body parts and Tenth Mountain patches torn from uniforms.

Others displayed scenes of torture and murder. Laughing soldiers holding down their comrades and butchering them. Sodomy. A screaming head in a vise. A crying man with wires wrapped around his head, the wires leading back to a car battery. Another with a burning tire on his head.

One image showed a large crowd of infected soldiers in the dining facility, laughing and wrestling on the floor. Their uniforms were stained and ragged. Some fired their weapons into the ceiling. The leering cooks slopped chili into bowls in the chow line. A human foot protruded from one of the pots.

Prince closed the file and deleted it. He wished it was paper so he could burn it.

Then he went to call in an airstrike.

Oddly, his headache had disappeared.

Wade explored the building. The other rooms, all of them offices adorned with sports paraphernalia, offered views of Boston. In one, three soldiers had opened a window to let in the air. They stood looking out at the skyline of South Boston.

The northeastern horizon was on fire. He felt the waves of heat, the tremors in the air. A distant roar, mingled with screams and laughter, carried on the wind. Twilight would come in an hour, but the sky was already blackening as a massive wall of ash and smoke roiled over the city.

Wade had missed a few things while he was out cold. The situation was deteriorating rapidly.

Helicopters roared out of the ash fall. Searchlights glared. Then they were gone.

A splash of gunfire sounded outside, somewhere close.

One of the soldiers lowered his binoculars and pointed. “I found him. There he is. See?”

The second responded, “I see him. Man, he’s either infected, or he’s lost it.”

The third turned and noticed Wade. “Who are you?”

He introduced himself. The men were Gray, Fisher and Brown. They nodded in greeting. None appeared to be physically wounded, but Wade knew something inside them had broken.

“How’s your face?” Fisher asked him. “You all right?”

Wade touched the wound. He could feel the fever heat through the bandage. His cheek tingled. As if little worms were inside. He felt as if his entire body had been crumpled up like a piece of aluminum foil and stretched out again.