There was no electricity. Light filtering in from windows high above provided the only illumination. Even in the poor lighting, she knew that she’d hit the jackpot. There were two Mexican Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters sitting in the hangar. Although Hanna had learned to fly all sorts of different aircraft during her assignment to the 160th, the Blackhawk helicopter had been her primary aircraft when she was in the Army.
Several flies landed on her bare arm and on the exposed skin at her forehead, bringing her back to the reality of the situation and causing her to suppress her elation at the find. The first thing she needed to do was clear the building to ensure there weren’t any of the crazies lurking around. The body nearby, where the damned flies had come from, was not that old, maybe a few weeks at most. That meant it had been alive in here for a long time.
Hannah crept along the wall, careful to avoid the dried, crusted blood that covered the concrete from shoulder height down to the floor. It was a pattern she’d seen elsewhere when the things were trapped. They circled the perimeter, trying to find a way out, leaving their foul excretions behind. She glanced at the floor and then quickly looked away. Dried feces littered the concrete underfoot. The crazies shit themselves as they walked, and it looked like this guy had been pacing the perimeter for a long time, waiting for his opportunity to escape the prison.
As she made her way around the hangar, she kept her eyes moving between her path and the interior of the building. Thankfully, the space was not that large and she was able to clear the perimeter in less than ten minutes, even with being abundantly cautious. When she was done on the outside wall, she made her way toward the helicopters. She would need to check both thoroughly to ensure there were no surprises.
She reached the one on the left first and discovered how the guy by the door had stayed alive so long trapped inside the hangar. Another body lay near the tail boom. It was little more than a pile of bones, stripped of flesh by the other one. He’d systematically eaten his partner. Water bottles lay strewn about the area, holes chewed through their side. That answered a question that Hannah had long wondered: How had the crazies managed to stay alive so long? They still had to have food and water to survive; it looked like they’d become cannibals if there wasn’t any other option.
Lovely, she thought as she pushed on toward clearing the outside of the second bird. Once she was satisfied that it was clear, she moved up to examine the inside of the helicopters. The lead helicopter was empty of any threats, as was the second. That meant she had the entire hangar to herself to work without needing to worry about the crazies.
She was intimately familiar with the Blackhawk. Between the two of them, Hannah was sure she could get one airborne and then…home.
4
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK
MARCH 3RD
The platoon walked cautiously through the trees separating the Brooklyn neighborhood where they’d spent the night before from the freeway. Jake had conferred with Harper and Sergeant Turner regarding their route. Heeding his platoon sergeant’s advice, he’d ensured that the conference took place in plain sight of the men. They decided that the neighborhoods would probably be more dangerous than the highway, which would basically take them all the way to Columbia University, more or less.
It was the “more or less” part that drove Jake insane. At the north end of Brooklyn, they’d have to decide whether to deviate from their course a little further to stay above ground on the Brooklyn Bridge, or if they’d risk going underground through one of the Tunnels. Given what they’d seen so far, it was a no-brainer to him. Going down into an unfamiliar tunnel with only a small flashlight or their NVGs was just stupid. They would stay aboveground and go over the bridge into Manhattan.
As the platoon weaved its way through the rows of cars stuck on the freeway, Jake couldn’t help but feel like it was all too familiar of a scene. He’d grown up watching all the post-apocalyptic movies and had been living and fighting in this world for over a year, but it was still surreal to him. Even here in New York City, which had apparently avoided the outbreak of the infected when they bombed the bridges to the mainland and blocked the tunnels leading out of the city, it was worse than any third world country that he could imagine. They’d probably run out of food quickly without the daily delivery of supplies from the Heartland. Hundreds of thousands of people had probably starved to death within the first couple of weeks. The average American simply did not keep enough food on hand to cover extended periods, and almost no one would have had enough to sustain themselves for this long.
He thought back to the cutthroat thieves who’d attacked them the night before and the women who’d offered their bodies in exchange for food. Was that what America had become? Had our enemies’ plans been so complete and easy to accomplish?
Jake glanced at Taavi, the man who’d been with Grady since they found him in the airport back in Kansas. The Iranian wasn’t all that he appeared to be. He carried himself differently than an average soldier, so what was he? Was he one of the Quds Force—the Iranian special forces—or something different? He claimed to be just a regular Iranian Army officer sent here to secure
