ask that of me. Geoff is the military expert. He can handle it.”
“And that’s it? That’s all you have to offer?” Jeremy shook his head. “Don’t you care about anyone?”
“Yes,” Ian answered, “I care about me, and either way, I am dying. Now good day.”
Ian picked up a book and opened it to the chapter marked with a piece of ribbon. Jeremy didn’t argue. He got to his feet and went in search of Geoff.
Something had to be done, and it looked like it was up to them to do it. His life and the world he knew had been taken from him once; he wasn’t going to give up this place too—not without a fight.
18
“It can’t be done,” Geoff slurred, dropping the empty jug to the garage floor. “This base was never designed to be a defensible position out here. It’s a damn bomb shelter, kid, a really high-tech one, but still just a shelter.”
Jeremy grabbed Geoff by the front of his uniform and tried to yank him to his feet. As drunk as Geoff was, he pulled Jeremy’s arm behind his back with incredible ease as he stood. “Kid, it’s all open space and fields up here. The fence is the only real obstacle to anyone who wants onto the grounds. If these things show up with welding torches and burn through the perimeter and the outer seal in the shed, then maybe they deserve to have us for dinner.” Geoff released his hold on Jeremy and staggered out into the sunlight. “Jesus, kid, I just roasted a mob of people alive to save your ass. What more do you want from me?”
“Where are Troy and Wade? Maybe they’ll listen to reason.”
“Reason!” Geoff spun around to face Jeremy. “There ain’t no reason left anymore, kid. Just death, death and the dying.”
Jeremy drew the .45 from the holster on his belt and leveled it at Geoff. “Do you want to die so badly, Geoff?” He shook the gun. “I can make it happen, right here, right now.”
Geoff’s eyes narrowed, and he finally nodded. “Okay. We’ll play it your way, Jeremy. We might as well go out fighting.” He stumbled over and threw an arm around Jeremy’s shoulders. “I just hope to God you or Wade can come up with a way to make a stand up here. I’m shit out of ideas.”
Outside the fence, three new infected knelt, gnawing on the charred remains of their less fortunate brethren.
Nathanial Richards sat alone in the control room. He looked at his watch; two hours until the next message from the Freedom was due. It was far more than enough time for what he had in mind. His fingers danced over the keys of his computer and the complex was his.
He was not a man given to worry. Born to the CEO of one of America’s leading pharmaceutical corporations and to a mother whose life revolved around him due to the constant absence of his father, he considered himself blessed. Nathanial never wanted for anything. Even in college, when the police had raided his dorm room and found his stash of narcotics, his father had swept in and made it all go away. What was a petty possession charge to a man who carried senators, bought and paid for, in his pocket? His parents had always been there to save him, and he had never doubted that they would come. But they were gone now. No more bailouts. Political power and money meant nothing these days.
Outside of his family, the only true friends Nathanial had ever known were computers. From the time he could type, machines were a part of his life. They gave him his own power and control, but the wave had taken even them from him. Oh sure, there were computers all over Def Con, but the web and cyberspace no longer existed. He’d lost everything. Nathanial was alone, and death was coming for him. The transmission from the Freedom II had fired his hopes that the old world would return, but now he knew deep in his heart that the people on the other end of the transmission were evil incarnate, and he wasn’t going to let them take the last thing he had left: his soul.
Weeks ago, he had been forced to disable the base’s self-destruct system to save himself and everyone trapped with him. The codes had been easy to break for someone like him, and they were even easier to manipulate now. Def Con itself would be his shield when the darkness came, a shield of fire and retribution.
His soul would remain his own.
Wade finished covering the last mine as yet another one of the infected emerged from the trees. He didn’t waste the time or the ammo to dispose of it. Instead he broke into a run for the gates. As he passed through, Troy and Jeremy slammed them shut behind him. The psycho threw itself against the barbed wire, clawing at the fence and foaming pink at the mouth.
“That does it.” Wade collapsed to the earth, out of breath. “We’re as ready as we’re going to be.”
They had spent the last few hours littering the area outside of the fence with mines and barricading the doors of the garage. “As long as those things out there don’t trip all the mines before our company shows, we should at least have a chance,” Geoff said. He had drunk cup after cup of black coffee, trying to sober up while supervising the others.
“Don’t worry,” Troy said, patting his .30-.06, which was equipped with a sniper scope. “Me and my friend here won’t let them.”
“Guess all we can do is wait,” Jeremy said. “It’s almost time for the Freedom II to make contact again.”
“You go on and be there with the rest of them when it happens,” Geoff urged as Troy climbed to his position atop the garage. “Us three pretty much got things covered up here.”
Jeremy nodded. He took one last glance at their work and then headed for the shed and the outer seal leading into the complex.
19
Toni was the first to join Nathanial in the control room. He looked haggard, as if he’d never left his station since the Freedom’s first transmission. Jeremy and Sheena came in minutes later. No one asked where Ian was and Jeremy was thankful for it. He hadn’t decided what to do about the former CIA agent’s condition and didn’t see any reason at this point to add the worry to the rest of their collective woes. “Everything ready?” he asked.
“We’re set up to trace them the second they make contact,” Nathanial assured him. They all watched the communications console as the figures on the time display flashed and changed to the appointed hour.
“Come in, Def Con. This is Freedom II. Do you copy us? Over.”
“Go!” Jeremy shouted at Nathanial, and the computer engineer began the trace.
Toni hesitantly opened a response channel. “This is Def Con. We copy you, Freedom II.”
Seconds ticked by in silence. No reply. Nathanial indicated that he’d managed to get a fix on the origins of the transmission. All the color had bled from his face. “It’s coming from a point just two miles south of here and closing slowly… Sweet Jesus. They really are coming for us.”
Troy saw the convoy first from his spot atop the garage. A line of pickups, four-wheel drives and jeeps bounced up the winding gravel road, growing ever closer. Troy counted thirteen vehicles in all, and numerous men and women on foot jogged along at their sides. The thing that bothered him, though, was the infected’s lack of interest in the convoy. He knew for a fact that there were packs of the creatures still out there in the woods, but for whatever reason they were not attacking. It could only mean one of two things: either these people knew a way to control or ward off the creatures, or they themselves were so poisoned by the radiation in the atmosphere that the infected didn’t recognize them as human.
Using hand signs, Troy gestured what he saw to Geoff and Wade, who were concealed in the remaining bushes just inside the fence. Then he said a prayer for them all and checked the chamber of his rifle to make sure it was ready.
