purpose. We had no cover except the shattered debris of our redoubt, but even as we raised our heads the air was rent by the heavy chatter of automatic gunfire. We scrambled farther back against the walls and covered our ears and eyes as a hail of bullets tore the crowd of walkers to pieces. Ricochets slapped the walls over our heads and dusted us with plaster.
I caught Top’s eye and he looked at me, looked up, rolled his eyes and shook his head. Despite the absolute insanity of the moment, he mouthed the words “Hooray for the cavalry.” Then he cracked up.
With bullets whipping past us and death all around, I felt a hitch in my chest and thought with horror that I was about to cry, but I burst out laughing instead. Grace looked at us like we’d lost our minds. Bunny joined us and we howled like madmen.
“Bloody Yanks,” Grace said, and then was laughing, too, though tears coursed down her cheeks. I pulled her to me and held her as her laughter melted into sobs.
I was still holding her when Gus Dietrich came down through a window on a fast-rope, firing an automatic weapon as he dropped into the room.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
SS Albert Schweitzer / Wednesday, July 1
MEN IN BANDAGES walked the decks, or slumped onto chaise longues, or sat in wheelchairs with the brakes locked against the slow pitch and yaw of the freighter. The SS Albert Schweitzer had been on semipermanent loan to the International Red Cross for over sixteen years now, and for more than half a decade it had assisted the British and American navies with the transport of wounded and convalescing service personnel from theaters of war to their homelands, or to nations where the right kind of medical treatment was available. Experimental surgery in Switzerland and Holland, reconstructive surgery in Brazil, microsurgery in Canada, thoracic and neurosurgery in the United States. Funding for the ship’s staff and enormous operating costs were underwritten by five governments, but in real dollars and cents the government donations barely kept coal in the furnaces. The crew and staff salaries, the medical equipment, the drugs and surgical supplies, and even the food and drink were provided via generous grants from three different multinational corporations: Hamish Dunwoody of Scotland, Ingersol-Spungen Pharmaceuticals of Holland, and an America-based vaccine company called Synthetic Solutions. The companies shared no known connection, but all three were owned in part, and by several clever removes, by Gen2000. And Gen2000 was Sebastian Gault.
The big man standing by the railing only knew that Gault was involved, though the level and scope of that involvement was unknown to him. Not that it mattered. To El Mujahid the only crucial information was that while aboard this ship he was believed to be Sonny Bertucci, a second-generation Italian American from the tough streets around Coney Island in Brooklyn. In his wallet was a snapshot of Sonny and his wife, Gina, and their two young sons Vincent and Danny. A search of his fingerprints would show that he had worked as a civilian security guard at a Coast Guard base and that he had served for three years with Global Security, a private company licensed to operate in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even the most scrupulous computer search would only come up with information verifying this identify because all documents, from the New York State driver’s license to the frequent blood donor’s card he carried in his wallet to the credentials locked in the ship’s safe, were issued by the actual organizations. Gault was wired in everywhere.
The fighter rested his muscular forearms on the cool metal rail and looked out over the waters to the far horizon. The swollen summer sun was setting in the west and its dying light was a fierce red that seemed to set each wave top ablaze. Everything was painted with the hellish glow, and the skyline far across the waters was as black as charred stumps against the fiery sky. Closer to the ship, standing all alone in the burning waters, the Statue of Liberty seemed to melt in the inferno of the sun’s immolation and in El Mujahid’s fierce stare.
Part Four – Killers
Wild, dark times are rumbling toward us, and the prophet who wishes to write a new apocalypse will have to invent entirely new beasts, and beasts so terrible that the ancient animal symbols of St. John will seem like cooing doves and cupids in comparison.
–HEINRICH HEINE,
“LUTETIA; OR, PARIS,” AUGSBURG GAZETTE, 1842
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Crisfield, Maryland / Wednesday, July 1; 5:01 A.M.
CHURCH DIDN’T ASK me if I was okay. He leaned against the fender of a DMS Humvee and listened as I described everything that had happened in the plant. Around us the DMS operatives and their colleagues from half the civil and federal agencies in the phone book were in full swing. Stadium floodlights had been erected and it was bright as day even though dawn was an hour off. Except for military choppers the airspace above us was designated a no-fly zone; all business and residential properties had been emptied and the whole population of the area moved to a safe distance. The press was not invited in and the scene was officially designated as the target of a “possible” terrorist attack. According to Homeland’s complicated playbook this meant that it was considered a war zone and that in turn meant the military could call all the shots.
When I was finished he stared at me, lips pursed judiciously, and then nodded. “Has everyone been thoroughly checked and cleared by the doctors?”
“Yes. Lots of scratches and cuts, but no bites. My guys are suffering from exhaustion and everyone’s in some level of shock.”
“You as well?” His gaze was penetrating.
“Absolutely. Physically and mentally. Who wouldn’t be? I got the shakes and every muscle I own feels like it’s been run through a Cuisinart. Hu shot me up with some kind of vitamin cocktail, and I’ve had hot coffee, food, and a protein shake that tasted like a horse pissed in it. I feel like crap, but I’ll live.”
He gave a small nod. Mr. Warmth.
“What’s your assessment of what happened in there this morning?” he asked.
A dozen smartass replies came to mind but I kept a leash on my tongue. I said, “It was a trap and we walked into it.”
“You got out of it.”
“We were getting our asses handed to us in there. I got lucky.”
“Not counting your two encounters with Javad, this is your third combat situation with the walkers with zero casualties from your own team. In this kind of fight, ‘lucky’ can be enough.”
“Not for Grace’s people. Alpha Team got chopped. That’s hard, man.”
“It’s very hard,” he agreed.
“They had the whole place booby-trapped and as soon as we broke into the lab they remote-detonated the computer room. The holding pens for the walkers were rigged to open all at once, which means we tripped some kind of alarm, something we didn’t see. None of that was an accident. Those bastards knew we were coming.”
“Knew that it was today, or knew that it was inevitable?”
It was a crucial question and one that I’d been mulling for the last few hours. Our entire assessment of the enemy and his potential hung on that answer. “I don’t know. They were ready, but not completely. Only two of their bombs went off. The walkers didn’t come after us fast enough or in the right place. It should have been an all-you- can-eat affair, but we survived. And none of the walkers got out. None of that adds up.”
“No,” he said, and I think he was as troubled by these facts as I was.
“Y’know, I don’t know if we’re looking at this thing the right way.”
“I’m pretty certain we’re not.”
“We were expecting to find what, a bunch of guys sitting around a table plotting the downfall of Western civilization? Instead we find what looks to me like a testing facility. These guys were studying the walkers. More so
