He sighed as he slumped back into the uncomfortable seat. Vickers held the phone to his ear and craned his neck around to watch the ultrasound device be loaded into the back of the transport truck. A handful of his Ghost Team members had come back to replenish their supplies and load the GPS positions of dropped tangos for the regulars to pick up and dispose of. He decided this would be a good time to reassign them to positioning the attractant device.
He was a bit perturbed by some of his men referring to the infected as zombies, but at this point, he didn’t really care. Yellowstone was about to have a goodly portion of its acreage laid waste to. They could call them mole people for all he cared.
Vickers heard the phone come alive and he snapped to, “Yes, general,” he yelled into the phone. “This is Vickers.” He paused and nodded. “Yes, sir. Clean up efforts are underway, but we’ve run into a few issues, sir.” He nodded and smiled. “Well, sir, it would seem that the infected have taken to the woods and scattered. Even the ghosts are having extreme difficulties in tracking them, sir.” He waited and shook his head. “Negative, sir. Even with air support, they’re too scattered. It takes far too long to cover the amount of territory they’ve…” He trailed off as the general from the Pentagon continued to throw armchair options at him. “Negative, sir. We tried that as well. Ineffective, sir.” Now was the time. “I do have an idea, sir. It is a bit…unorthodox. And it would take a bit of media spinning, but I believe it is workable and will be effective.” He waited as the general took the bait. “A series of MOAB runs, sir.”
Bingo. Then comes the shit storm, the rants, and ravings of blowing up a pristine national landmark, blah-blah-blah, yadda-yadda-yadda…
“Sir!” Vickers interrupted. “The infected are beginning to extend beyond the perimeters. We can break protocol in such circumstances, and when you consider that Yellowstone is volcanically active, we have plausible deniability. Sir, we can claim that it blew up on its own, killing civilians that were here on an overnight concert that was to benefit the park and attempt to preserve it. The military just came in to try to save the civilians.” He allowed his option to sink for a moment. “Truly, in the end, the only difference is that we flatten a few trees and possibly start a few fires. Fires that will hide any evidence…”
Silence.
“Sir, it truly is a win-win for us,” Vickers offered.
The general came back with a line of questions and Vickers happily answered them. In the end, he was more than content with the answers he got.
“Yes, sir. We got what we really wanted, anyway. We just need to contain the outbreak before it gets out into the civilian population here in our own country.” Vickers continued to nod, continued to kiss the general’s ass, and continued to bow and scrape as long as he had to. He got what he wanted.
Yellowstone was about to be flattened. Burned to the ground in a brilliant flash of non-nuclear firepower that had never been used on American soil except for testing in the badlands. He couldn’t help but smile.
Chapter 9
Bob pushed the Jetta up the hill as hard as it would go. The little German made car belched and farted, backfiring as it lurched and jerked, missing and sputtering, choking on its own fuel as it climbed the steep hill. Bob could see the sunlight glinting off the chrome of the chopper just ahead. So many thoughts ran through his mind as it came into view. Should he just ram the bike and try to knock it over, driving the car through while it was still running, or should he risk stopping the little car and hoping it stayed running while he tried to push the bike out of the way and making a hole large enough for the Jetta to get through? And if the Jetta got through, was the shoulder solid enough for him to drive the car the rest of the way to the ranger station?
As Bob approached the bike, he realized, the chopper was far too large for him to even consider knocking over with the car. Even if he could, he couldn’t actually drive over it! He pulled the Jetta up to the bike and put it into PARK. Why the car began running like crap, he didn’t know. Maybe somehow the car formed a Vulcan mind-meld with him and decided since he was half a step from death, the car needed to be, too. Who knew?
As Bob opened the door to step out, the Jetta farted real loud, backfired, and then died. So did his hopes of ever starting it again as steam began shooting from the radiator. Bob fell back into the seat and turned the key, looking for a temperature gauge. Nope. He looked for an idiot light. He saw where one was supposed to be, but…even when he turned the key and all the other lights came on, the TEMP light didn’t glow. Great! he thought. I just burned up the only transportation I had, plus I just backtracked probably three-quarters of a mile. Bob stepped from the car and approached the bike. Maybe…nope. No keys. He wasn’t that lucky. And since Bob hadn’t been trained in the fine art of grand theft auto or horse thievery, he was sort of fucked.
For shits and giggles, he pushed the bike out of the way and got back in the Jetta. “Please start,” he mumbled. He turned the key and heard a grinding noise. “Well, farfegnugen!” he yelled. “Ya little piece of shit.” He pounded the dash and wished he hadn’t. The dash was much more solid
