Carlie Simmons (Book 1): Until Morning Comes (3 page)

Gerald and Carlie’s teams quickly moved
to the tac-ops center one floor below. This was the heart of their facility
that not only contained sophisticated satellite imagery and computer databases
for providing real-world intel to agents in the field but also housed their considerable
armory.

The room was located in the rear corner
and was designed like a bank vault with a two-foot-thick steel door. A small
war could be waged with the sub-machine guns, tear gas, sniper rifles, LAAWs
rockets, and ballistic shields that were neatly arranged on either side of the
aisle. Crates of ammunition and magazines were laid out alongside each firearm
along with night-vision goggles, gas masks, two-way radios, and trauma kits.

Once inside, Carlie flung open the metal
security grate over the rifle armory to her right and extracted two HK MP7 fully-automatic
submachine guns with 30-round magazines and accompanying leather shoulder
holsters. The MP7 was utilized by all Secret Service agents on protective
details and used a 4.6 x 30mm armor-piercing round.

Placing the rifles on the table beside
her, she strapped on the holsters and then pulled out eight loaded magazines
from the rack. The other agents were alongside her performing the same motions as
the sound of magazines being loaded and chambers being racked echoed off the
steel walls.

Gerald was loading his tactical vest
with canisters of tear gas and magazines, continuing to work without moving his
eyes. “You need a painkiller for the splinter in your ass from that D.C. suit
upstairs?” he said to Carlie.

“And why weren’t you in there? I
could’ve used some back-up,” she said, slinging the rifles in the holsters. “You
should see the guy I’m dealing with—he claims he was one of us a long time ago
though he doesn’t strike me as someone with any stones to even be able to
handle a weapon.” She tucked a mic into her ear and then the radio unit onto
her vest.

“The section chief had already called me
over to discuss this event that was unfolding or I would’ve joined your little party.
Besides, you’ll have no trouble handling him—that putrescent turd was in the
Secret Service about sixteen years ago and got shifted to Department of
Justice.”

“He mentioned that. Why the transfer?”

“He wounded another agent in a live-fire
drill at the shoot-house in Virginia. Because his father was politically
connected, rather than boot his sorry ass, he was given a cushy job working
investigations with DOJ. Otherwise known in government circles as discipline
through promotion. Now he’s one of the stooges responsible for deciphering the
chaos of what unfolds during and after a shootout, if you can believe that.”

“This job is full of never-ending irony,
it seems,” she said, placing six pistol magazines into her tactical vest.

On her jog down the stairs to the
subterranean parking facility, Carlie double-checked the Velcro on her body-armor
vest while the other two teams of four agents were quickly tossing their gear
in the heavily armored black Suburbans. She opened the rear hatch on her
vehicle and tapped in the code on a secure weapons locker that was integrated
into the rear structural layout of the cargo area. Though each agent was
supposed to inspect the vehicle’s tactical kit after each workday, she never
cared to rely on chance.

The spring-assisted lid popped open,
revealing an additional array of weapons similar to what they already carried on
them, along with a satellite phone, pistol suppressors, night-vision goggles, and
two canisters of smoke grenades. She slammed the lid down and walked around
front to climb into the driver’s seat, where she noticed Phillip getting in
from the opposite side.

“This is a security detail. You’re not
authorized to…” Before she could finish she heard the bureau chief’s voice in
her earpiece.

“Carlie, be informed that Phillip Alderman
will be accompanying you and your team as an observer for the campus link-up
with Gemini’s team.”

She clenched her teeth and shot a
piercing gaze upward at the ceiling. “Copy that, sir.” Then she swiftly slid inside
and fired up the engine. She clamped her hands on the steering wheel and forced
herself to exhale without cussing.

Gerald was pulling on his vest while
sliding into an identical Suburban beside her. Carlie began backing out while Gerald
motioned with a whirl of his index finger to do the same.

As they raced along the confines of the
garage and through the retracted security gate, she tried to channel her
frustration to the white lines on the pavement ahead. Upon entering the intense
desert sunlight outside of the parking garage, everyone slid on their
sunglasses.

Besides Phillip next to her, there were three
other agents in the back. One was in his early thirties and had a trim black
mustache, while the other was slightly older and had a neatly shaved head and massive
neck. The third man was the smallest, with a barrel chest and a boxer’s
flattened nose.

The bureau chief’s voice, back at the
command center, came over their mics. “I just got word that the first lady is
secure in Virginia but the VP is missing. His protection detail was savagely
mauled outside of Dallas and he is presumed dead. I know you’ve all been
through countless extraction drills before but exercise extreme caution with
the attackers and don’t hesitate for a minute to drop them, regardless of
whether they look like deranged university students. The CDC is saying this is an
epidemic sweeping across the country right now.”

“Copy that,” said Carlie.
Jesus
—
we’re
really going to be dispatching college kids? What the hell is going on?
She
thrust her mind back to the present.
“Any further communication with
Gemini’s PPD at the university?”

“They are at the same location as before—on
the fourth floor of the Keating bioresearch building where she normally does lab
work in room 48 from 1445 to 1620. They’ve been instructed to head to the roof
for helo extract on my command.”

As the two vehicles sped along Highland
Avenue towards the university, Carlie saw dozens of people frantically running
two blocks to the east.

Jared was adjusting his cuffed hands
behind his back as he shimmied around on the back seat of the prisoner
containment area in the U.S. Marshal’s four-door Crown Victoria.

The thickset, muscular driver was
tapping his fingers on the steering wheel as he listened to an Elvis tune on
the radio. “This is gonna be a good week if it starts out with us bagging our
first shitrag on Monday,” Mr. Rock-and-Roll said.

The marshal in the passenger’s seat had
a coarse crop of short, poorly cut blond hair that caused his head to resemble
an old paintbrush. Jared still felt the sore spot in his spine where Q-Tip had
pinned him down. Mr. Rock-and-Roll had just finished radioing in their position
and turned to peer through the bars at Jared, who was sitting in the right rear
seat. “So, why Tucson, hillbilly? That’s what I want to know. Your MO has you
hitting homes along the Midwest and East Coast for years. Now you wanna crap in
our backyard—what gives, tough guy?”

Jared studied the man’s rugged features—his
square jaw and the squint lines around the eyes. He had seen dozens of guys
like this one before when he had been called into lineups at police stations,
and even in younger days while in juvey. He knew the type well—self-righteous Bible-quoters
who sat at their computers poring over America’s Most Wanted photos while dreaming
of the big fish and that magical call to come in so they could rush out the door
in their shiny tactical vest carrying the assault rifle with the big banana
clip on it.

Jared stared back at the man. “I heard
the dry air here was supposed to be good for my allergies—same reason as Doc
Holliday going to Tombstone, you know, for his bronchial issues.”

“Holliday had TB,” said Q-Tip.

“Yeah, that’s just one of many bronchial
afflictions that you can get, professor,” said Jared, glancing out the window
at several students sprinting across the sidewalks on either side.

The man grabbed the bars and slightly
bared his teeth. “It’s Agent Raines, you shit-nugget. You should mind your
manners—we’re not some beer-swigging country cops like you’re used to dealing
with, you fucking mongrel.”

“Man, I bet the federal government must
have passed up a lot of good applicants to get to you two.”

“Shut your piehole, hillbilly. If you’re
not a good boy, you might accidentally slip going up the stairs to our
processing center,” said Rock-and-Roll.

“Is that where you guys stroke your
shiny rifles while drooling over centerfold pinups, wondering if your neglected
wives back home are doin’ the deed with the neighbor across the street?” said
Jared as he watched two black SUVs race through a red light in the opposite
direction.

“Gimme the two-block warning before we
get to headquarters,” said Q-Tip to the other marshal, “so I can Taser his ass.
We’ll just say he had a seizure from the intense heat.” The marshal unbuckled
and pulled out the Taser from his belt.

“Whoa, there—take it easy…you know, you
guys should really get into an anger-management program. I mean, don’t they
have therapists on staff to help wring out those Neanderthal brains of yours so
you don’t blow a gasket?”

“The only thing I’m gonna blow is…” The
man’s head slammed against the metal bars separating the seats as a pickup
truck crashed into the passenger’s side of the Crown-Vic. The vehicle spun
sideways, reeling into a mailbox and a row of bicycles outside a coffee shop. Jared
looked up and saw the streets filled with panicked people fleeing in every
direction while yellow-faced attackers pursued them.

“Good Lord, what the hell are those
things?” yelped Jared, who sat frozen in his handcuffs.

The marshal in the driver’s seat slowly lifted
his head from the front airbag and checked on his partner, whose neck was
contorted and his face ashen. “Son of a bitch, he ain’t got no pulse.” As he
frantically unbuckled himself, a pock-marked man in his thirties with a jaundiced
face smashed his fists against the driver’s window. The man was gnashing his
jaws wildly as a trickle of fresh blood ran down his lips He kept squeegeeing
his wrinkled face against the window, trying to get inside.

“These goddamned meth-heads think they
can take over my city—not a chance,” yelled the marshal. He slammed the unlock control,
accidentally hitting all the buttons, which caused the rear-door security latch
to open. Jared half-smiled, manipulating his cuffed hands behind him and around
his legs until they were before his chest, then he unbuckled his seatbelt. As
he readied his escape, he saw the marshal forcefully swing open the driver’s doors,
sending the attacker into a serving cart full of coffee carafes. When the man
rose, the marshal removed his pistol and shot the crazed person in the head. Jared
recoiled back into his seat at the sound and then he saw two people fling
themselves over the hood of the mangled Crown-Vic and savagely maul the marshal.
The large figure collapsed with an
ughh
sound to the pavement, dropping
the Glock next to the rear door. A pool of ruby-red blood swirled along the
pavement, mixing with the pitchers of fresh cappuccino from the tipped-over
cart on the sidewalk.

Jared gasped and lowered himself below
the tinted windows as he heard the ghastly sound of crunching bone outside the
vehicle. He felt his heart racing like he had just stolen his first car, and glanced
down at the unusual sight of his trembling hands as a continual wave of
screaming from the unfortunate victims outside rang through his foggy brain.

“Did anyone else see that?” Carlie said
to her team. “A bunch of people sprinting in different directions a few streets
over by that pizza place back there.”

“Looked like they were spooked by
something,” said the bald man in back. “I only caught a glimpse of them.” The
other agents began scanning the city around them. The street they were on bore
the familiar air of another hot day in the desert, with people holed up in the
A/C of shops and bookstores.

Gerald’s adrenaline-soaked voice came
over their ear-mics. Carlie listened intently, glancing over at Phillip, who
had a frostbitten look on his face as he peered around the chaos unfolding on
the streets.

“What do you mean we lost contact with
the PPD?” barked Carlie into the suburban’s encrypted telecom system as she
drove through a red light two blocks from the university.

“The team leader indicated they were
headed to the top floor of the bioresearch building, followed by the sound of gunfire,
and then the mic went dead,” said Gerald, followed by a long pause. “Shit—there’s
a group of people that just attacked a couple of college kids over by the
bookstore. What the hell is happening?” he said in a gravelly voice.

Carlie followed the front vehicle with a
fast right turn, speeding down Vine Street, which ran directly towards the
center of the university. As they swerved to avoid several dozen students
running across the street, Carlie glanced in her rearview mirror. About fifty
yards behind her vehicle, she saw an elderly man with a cane being assaulted by
a throng of disheveled people who were viciously biting him, like fire ants swarming
over an intruder.

“Christ, did you see that?” she said to
her teammates in back, who were opening their suit coats to offer better access
to the two MP-7 automatic sub-machineguns. Phillip was still craning his head
to take in the carnage in the streets to the rear.

As the vehicles closed the distance to
the main campus, people were streaming out of buildings and running between
cars in the two-lane street. They were screaming and sprinting in every
direction like water droplets flung on a hot grill. In pursuit were gray-faced humans
chasing them, jumping on some or dragging others down to the ground in a mad
frenzy.

Gerald’s shaky voice came over the
telecom speaker again. “We are going in hot. I repeat, this will be a hot
extract. We are going right up Mabel Street to the research building where
Gemini is located, do you copy?”

“Roger that,” she said, gripping the
steering wheel and trying to pace her breathing. Months of training in vehicle
evasion and high-speed maneuvering while under fire came to the forefront as
she focused her vision on the vehicle in front of her while intermittently
letting her peripheral vision extend out for any approaching threats. Tunnel
vision was critical at times in shooting and precision work, but she had been
trained to also account for the big picture around her.

“Approaching the four-story building,
eighty meters to the northeast,” Gerald said. Carlie saw his vehicle slam over
the street curb as both Suburbans flew onto the spacious sidewalk that
intersected the nursing and toxicology buildings, near their intended location.

While the Suburbans beelined for the
building, a crowd of a few hundred students was scattering around the courtyard,
heading in their direction. Behind the bewildered group were yellow-faced attackers
whose cheeks were deeply furrowed. They moved like they were jolted by
electricity, their speed and agitated movement cascading over those who were
fleeing.

Carlie saw Gerald’s SUV zig-zag in the
narrow confines beside the buildings while dodging people. Then she saw the
lead vehicle slam into a cement pylon as she veered to the right, just missing
the bumper and crashing through a plate-glass window of the chemistry building.
She slammed the brakes, coming to a halt before the front desk.

Carlie took a deep breath and quickly
performed a mental scan of her body for any injuries. With the thick metal-reinforced
sidewalls and bulletproof glass, the Suburban had absorbed a considerable
amount of punishment but was still intact.

Carlie unslung her weapons and shoved
open the door, jumping out and sweeping the lobby. She could hear the hissing
of the front tire, which was nearly flat, and then caught the hum of automatic
weapons fire to her rear as agents from Gerald’s vehicle sent rounds into
swarms of maniacal attackers coming their way.

She leaned across the black hood and
began delivering short, controlled bursts of gunfire into the oncoming
attackers to her left. What had started out as a few crazed people had now
turned into dozens as the assaulters ran directly into the hail of bullets.

The lifeless eyes of the attackers were
fixated on Gerald’s crew regardless of the bullet-riddled bodies stacking up before
them.

Within seconds several of her colleagues
near the lead vehicle had been savagely mauled, and then she saw Gerald get seized
by three attackers and go down in a twisted mess of biting jowls and clawing hands.
Dropping in her third magazine, Carlie began moving towards Gerald’s location,
and looked on in horror as she saw his head severed and arterial spray
throbbing from his corpse. She felt a wave of nausea spout up insider her and
her vision start to grow hazy, but she instinctively lifted her weapon and
began shooting at the incoming horde of attackers, whose faces were the color
of old cheese. Carlie, Phillip, and another agent began bounding backwards
towards the staircase in the lobby.

“Come with me to extract Gemini,” snapped
Carlie, forcing the words out. She bolted for the stairs with the bald-headed
man from her team and Phillip on her heels. Terrified students were pushing
past her in their frenzy to escape the building.

As they ascended, she briefly glanced
back at the other SUV outside and could see the last two men firing their weapons
into enraged creatures heading for them. Carlie stopped and aimed her rifle at
the incoming rabid attackers heading into the lobby, who moved like a school of
barracudas, hurtling themselves at any students in their way.

Running up the stairs, Carlie lowered
one weapon and reached up to her ear-mic to contact the downtown headquarters.
“Alpha One, do you copy? This is Team Two.”

“Go ahead, Team Two.”

“We are on foot, inbound for the
package. Team Leader and four other agents are KIA. Primary evac route has been
comprised. Request immediate evac on roof, over.”

“Copy that. ETA to your position is ten
minutes, over.”

“Copy, Team Leader Two out.”

As they crested the landing to the third
floor two creatures lept over the stairs. Carlie shot one in mid-air, ripping
into its head with a volley of bullets, while the other slammed into the
bald-headed man behind her, tearing at his face like a feral dog. Carlie deftly
kicked the creature in the head long enough to dispatch it with her MP-7.

“Holy shit, what are these things?” said
Phillip, standing over the mangled body of the former agent. “They look like
people, but how can they move so fast?”

She glanced over at Phillip, whose eyes
were racing along the stairway walls above. Carlie forced herself to swallow
while feeling her dry mouth constrict.

“Looks like we’re it,” bleated Phillip, whose
face was pale and clammy as he looked down at the dead agent. He started to
sway like he was going to faint, then leaned against the wall.

Carlie’s eyebrows were scrunched
together, her gaze focused down below on the lobby.
My God, how can Gerald
and the others be dead? He was the best of us and now our elite group has been
wiped out in minutes.
Gerald can’t be gone.
She had seen dead bodies
before but not one of her closest friends. She felt guilt at not having gone
down fighting alongside her colleagues, but also inside her was an animalistic
rage. She wanted to shuck off the steely exterior that had been drilled into
her and slaughter all of those creatures down below. The civilized part of her
mind winced, and she forced herself to take several deep breaths.

Carlie had trained for such
high-adrenaline moments for years, but nothing of this magnitude. She felt her
stomach tighten up in coils and the blood rush from her face, wondering if her
training was going to be enough. She swung her body away and forced herself past
the dead agent, stepping over the blood-smeared steps. A single line of sweat
rolled down her temple, stinging her eye as she forced away the image of the deceased
agents below.

“What…what do we do now? We should get
out of here before more of those things come,” said Phillip, who was clutching
the metal handrail.

As she peered up the expanse of stairs
above, she could hear the clamor of movement in the lobby below. She removed a
tear-gas canister from her vest, popping the pin with her trembling fingers,
and dropping the device down through the middle opening in the stairs. “We’re
here to extract Gemini. Hopefully this will slow those things down.” She bent over
and grabbed two rifles off the dead agent and thrust them into Phillip’s chest.
“Here—I hope you don’t need a refresher course because I don’t have the time.”

“It’s been a while but the old skills should
still be there,” he said with a gulp.

Emerging on the last step to the fourth
floor, Carlie paused on the landing and peered into the window. She saw two
dismembered bodies lying on the green-tiled floor but didn’t hear any movement
in the corridor.

“This was the last contact we had with Gemini’s
detail. We’ll start with room 48 and work back from there,” she whispered to
Phillip.

 Using hand signals, she motioned to him
to open the door while she swiftly entered the hallway, swinging the MP-7s to
her right while he covered the left.