Red Hammer: Voodoo Plague Book 4 (14 page)

  Yee’s heart stopped less than a minute after Scott and I
muscled him into the MRAP.  The shrapnel had severed his femoral artery, and
even if we’d gotten to him immediately after the injury, there was nothing we
could have done to save him.  We sat looking at him for a moment, then removed
his weapons and piled them to the side.  Scott dug through a locker and found
the stash of lightweight body bags that are commonly hidden away and we took
the time to get Yee’s body zipped inside. 

Martinez and Scott were just sitting and staring at the body
bag, lost in their own thoughts, but we didn’t have time now for mourning lost
comrades.  There would be time for that later, hopefully.  I snapped at them to
get their shit together and focus on the mission.

While we were sitting there, infected had started arriving,
pounding on the sides of the vehicle.  I looked up at Martinez and she nodded
and turned back to grasp the steering wheel and get us in motion.  She backed
away from the gate that was now solidly packed with infected trying to push
through.  As she backed up numerous infected were crushed, but I noted they
were all males, the females leaping out of the way.  Swinging us around,
Martinez started following the road that skirted the perimeter of the parking
lot.

It didn’t take us long to come to an intersection.  The
MRAP’s headlights reflected off a large sign that pointed to the left for Staff
Parking and the right for Loading Dock.  I had moved into the front passenger
seat and pointed to the right.  Martinez turned, crushing a few more infected
as she drove along the side of the building.  The road was wide, obviously
built for large trucks, but immediately to our right was another fence with the
same warning signs that were posted along the public road.  Behind us I heard
the crump of another land mine detonating, but didn’t bother to turn my head to
look.

Soon we reached the back corner of the building, the road emptying
into a very large parking area.  A large sign warned drivers to stay in their
vehicles until escorted by security.  There were no infected visible in the
lot, but close to a hundred males and females were following us.  At the far
end of the building, nearly half a mile away, what looked like a giant, metal
barn stuck out from the wall, a pair of tall doors blocking access.  It clearly
looked like an addition to an existing structure, and was exactly what I had
expected to see. 

Los Alamos does research and development of all types of
offensive and defensive military projects.  Materials, as well as the completed
prototypes being taken to the field for testing, had to come and go.  The
government didn’t want our enemies, or even our allies for that matter, to be
able to see what was arriving and departing with their spy satellites, so these
types of sheds had been added to any facility that didn’t have drive-in loading
areas.  When either a loaded or empty truck arrived it would pull into the shed
and close the outside doors, hiding its activity from prying eyes. 

“When we get there, swing around so you can back in when we
get the doors open.”  I said to Martinez, pointing at the shed.  She nodded and
accelerated to open some distance from the trailing infected.  Scott had been
paying attention and raised his rifle to look at the doors through his night
vision scope.

“Any idea how hard it’s going to be to open those?”  He
asked, rifle still to his cheek.

“None.  But we’ll figure it out.”  I leaned forward to look
at our followers in the rearview mirror.  “Looks like we’ll have two minutes at
the most before we have company arriving.”

“What do we do if there’s already a truck in there?”  He
asked.  I hadn’t thought about that, and didn’t have an immediate answer for
him.

Martinez steered around a parked 18 wheeler, slowed to make
a sharp turn to line the rear of our vehicle up with the shed and jammed on the
brakes.  Scott and I were already moving, jumping out to the asphalt and
running to the entrance.  We took a moment to scan down the sides of the shed
and around the corner of the building to make sure there weren’t any infected
in close proximity.  Finding none, we turned our attention to the doors.

They were hinged on the outside and appeared to swing out. 
We couldn’t tell if they were electrically or hydraulically operated as that
equipment was on the inside.  To the right of the door a small keypad was set
into the wall, a dim, red LED glowing in the center of the number pad. 

“Power on, or battery?”  Scott asked.  We couldn’t tell. 
None of the parking lot lights were on, but that didn’t really mean anything. 
The building could well have had a generator that was running and we just
couldn’t hear it.  There were no external windows, a security feature, so there
was no way to know.

“You’ve got about 90 seconds.”  Martinez’ voice over the
radio, updating us on the approaching infected.  I resisted the urge to look
over my shoulder, focusing on searching for an emergency release for the big
doors.  I told Scott what I was looking for, hoping some safety manager had
forced the issue when they built the shed, and he started checking to the right
while I looked over the left. 

“60 seconds.”  Martinez said, her voice sounding rock solid
calm.  But then she was sitting inside a 14 ton, armored vehicle.  Why
shouldn’t she be calm?

Seemingly forever later, but before we received our 30
second warning, I found what I was looking for.  A heavy, metal plate, nearly
two feet tall, a couple of inches above the pavement on the left side of the
shed.  It was painted the same color as the building and set flush with the
surrounding metal.  At the bottom, a small finger hole was filled with dirt and
debris.  Jamming my finger into the hole, I cleaned it out enough to hook the
edge of the plate and lifted it up.  The hinges were stiff with age, old paint
and I suspected a complete lack of maintenance. 

“30 seconds.”  Martinez finally sounded a little stressed,
calling out the time as I shouted for Scott to bring his flashlight. 

He skidded to a stop on his knees next to me and aimed the
red light into the opening, revealing a thick lever, hinged at the bottom.  I
grabbed the top with one hand and pulled, but it didn’t budge.  Sitting my ass
on the pavement and bracing my feet against the wall, I grabbed with both hands
and pulled for all I was worth.

“20 seconds.”  Martinez was definitely getting antsy now.

Sweat popped out on my forehead from the exertion and I was
about to stop and have Scott grab on to help when I felt the lever start to
move.  As it moved, there was a loud, metallic squealing sound that started.  My
back and arms were burning, but the lever was still moving, slowly, and I
wasn’t about to stop and give up the progress I’d made.

“Danger close!”  Martinez shouted on the radio and a
heartbeat later Scott started firing at the swiftly approaching females.  The
lever had travelled perhaps a third of the way to full extension, the
squealing/screeching sound from the doors growing louder. 

“Might want to hurry it up there, sir.  They’re coming
faster than I can shoot.”  Scott shouted, never pausing his steady rate of
fire.  With a scream of effort I pulled with my arms and pushed with my legs,
the lever moving faster until it suddenly hit a release point and flopped free
into a horizontal position.

“Doors are open.  Bay’s empty.  Let’s go!”  Martinez shouted
as she goosed the throttle, the big truck roaring back into the shed.  I
rolled, coming up on my knees and raising my rifle to face the infected. 

“Oh, shit!”  I breathed involuntarily, immediately acquiring
and firing on a target.  There must have been close to 100 females sprinting
directly at us, the closest ones inside 50 yards.  A world class athlete could
sprint 40 yards in just a hair over four seconds.  I was willing to bet an
infected female could outrun him. 

“Legs!”  I shouted at Scott, flipping my rifle to burst mode
and aiming for knees.  I knew this wouldn’t kill the infected, but right now I
would be happy to slow them down so we could dash around the corner of the
building and through the open doors.

Each of us pulled our triggers repeatedly, sweeping through
the front ranks of the infected.  The females crashed to the pavement when our
bullets shattered knees, femurs and hips.  They didn’t give up, starting to
crawl towards us, but we were slowing the advance. 

“The doors are closing!”  Martinez screamed at us over the
radio.  Time to go.

Scott and I each fired a final burst, leapt to our feet and
ran.  Rounding the corner I saw the 20 foot tall doors swinging in towards each
other, gaining speed as they closed.  I sprinted, tracing the path in my mind
that I needed to follow to run around the moving door and through the rapidly
shrinking opening.  Screams from very close gave me an extra burst of speed and
I dashed through with inches to spare, trying to stop and sliding on the smooth
concrete floor inside the shed. 

As soon as I cleared the door I looked behind me to check on
Scott.  A step behind, he crashed into the right door as he tried to make the
turn, losing momentum.  He was still trying to get his body moving forward
again when a female slammed into his back, knocking him through the opening and
coming along with him.  Another one slipped through the narrow gap, spotted me
and changed direction to attack.  A third one tried to make it but wedged
herself in the space, reaching through with her arms and screaming for a moment
before the doors completely closed with a solid boom, crushing her between
them.  Blood and other fluids I didn’t care to inspect closely were splattered
across the floor where she died.

I was completely off balance from the slide on the floor and
couldn’t bring my rifle up as the female leapt at me.  Instead of fighting my
own momentum, I let my body skid, pulling the Kukri and preparing for the
fight.  Before I could engage the female, a dagger suddenly appeared in the
side of her head and she fell lifeless to the floor.  Martinez strode forward,
retrieved the blade she had thrown with perfect precision, and turned to help
Scott. 

He was on his back, infected straddling his chest.  He had
both thick hands wrapped around her throat and held her at arm’s length,
choking the life out of her.  Martinez ran up, grabbed the female’s hair from
behind to control her head, and thrust the dagger deep into her brain stem. 
She immediately went limp and Scott tossed the body to the side with a
disgusted grunt.  I was on my feet by now and walked over, extending a hand to
help him up.  Martinez bent to clean her dagger on the infected’s lab coat.

“Captain, if you’re half the pilot that you are fighter, the
Russians are fucked.”  I said, clapping her on the shoulder.  She smiled,
slipping the dagger into a sheath hidden in her clothing.

“Where did you learn to use a blade like that, ma’am?” 
Scott asked her, checking over his equipment.

“I grew up in Juarez.”  She replied with a smile.  “You
think this is dangerous?  You should have tried walking home from school in my
old neighborhood.”

The lights were on inside the shed, which was a relief. 
Without NVGs we would have been severely hampered in our movements in complete
darkness.  There was a constant banging from the doors, the infected we had
escaped pounding their frustration.  What would the Russian pilot think if he
flew back over and saw them clustered around an entrance to the building? 

Hopefully, if he did spot them, he would dismiss it as likely
that a survivor was in the building and the infected were trying to get in for
a snack.  But even if it didn’t immediately raise an alarm with the Russians,
how long would it take him to mention it to someone who would think it was
worth investigating?  Maybe I was worried about nothing, but the faster we got
our hands on the nukes and got the hell out of there, the better.

We each took a moment to check over our gear and for Scott
and I to load fresh magazines into our rifles.  The MRAP had held a cache of
ammunition and we replenished what we'd already expended. Weapons ready, I
pulled out the paper Captain Blanchard had given me on the flight from West
Memphis to Little Rock. 

It was written in a precise hand, detailing the information
from an inventory register that had been read to him over the phone.  The SADMs
were in a sub-basement of the building we were in.  They were stored in vault
W, five levels beneath us.  Great.  I was getting tired of big buildings full
of infected.

The shed was long enough to take an 18 wheeler with plenty
of room to spare.  The inside was nothing more than smooth walls and floor leading
to a huge, roll-up door that accessed the main building.  We walked up to the
door, finding nothing other than a smooth exterior.  To the right of the door a
small electrical box was mounted to the surface of the building’s wall, metal
conduit running straight up and disappearing into the ceiling.  I lifted the
opaque plastic cover, happy to see two large buttons, the lower one red, the
upper green.  Thanking whoever had decided that a keypad on the outside of the
shed was adequate security, I checked to make sure both Martinez and Scott were
ready, then pushed the green button.

A moment later, rotating orange lights set on either side of
the door, high above the floor, started turning and a strident alarm began
buzzing.  I looked around for the alarm siren, spotted it hanging from the
ceiling and shot it into silence.  We had already made too much noise.  The
last thing we needed was a damn ‘door in motion’ alarm to alert all the
infected inside the building to our presence. 

The door moved slowly, Scott got on his knees and bent to
look under it with his rifle aimed at the widening gap.  I watched him closely,
thumb on the red button, ready to send the door back down if he saw more
infected than we could handle.  I didn’t have a plan B if that happened, and
breathed a sigh of relief when he just kneeled there, raising his body up as
the door continued to open.

With six feet of clearance I hit the green button again,
stopping its motion and holding it in place.  We didn’t need more clearance
than that to easily pass through, and if we were being pursued by infected when
we returned to the MRAP, I didn’t want the door all the way up.  The damn thing
moved slowly, and the farther open it was, the longer it would take to close. 

On the other side of the door was a large open area.  The
same smooth concrete floor reflected the overhead lights.  Far off to the side
were several electric forklifts, neatly lined up and plugged into their
charger.  Next to the forklifts were a dozen hand carts, but other than that
the space was empty.  We stepped under the door, spread out in a line, rifles
up and ready.  Scott and I were on each flank and turned to scan our sides, but
there weren’t any infected and there was no place for them to hide.

In the far wall of the room was another large rolling door,
and to its right were four steel doors with narrow windows set into them.  The
windows were reinforced with wire mesh, and were no more than four inches
wide.  On the wall next to the right hand door was a large plaque.  From a
distance it looked like a map of the facility.  When I approached it I was glad
to see it was.  Our current location was marked with a red dot and a “you are
here” note, just like a directory in a shopping mall.  Unfortunately the map
only showed the level we were on, none of the sub-basements, but it did show
the path to a bank of elevators and stairs. 

The sub-basement access was labeled as “Purple”, and I
glanced down at the floor.  Different colored lines were painted on the floor,
several going through each of the four doors.  The purple line disappeared
under the second door from the left and I pointed at the line, making sure my
small team saw it.  Moving to the door, I looked through the narrow window into
a well-lit hallway.  Smooth floor with a three inch wide purple line running
directly down the center of the shiny tile, eventually turning a corner to the
right and going out of sight.  The walls were smooth with no doors or other
features.  Nothing moved.

“OK,” I said in a low voice, turning back to Martinez and
Scott.  “We’re going to follow that purple line and take the stairs down to the
fifth sub-level.  I’m on point.  Scott, you’ve got the rear.  One meter
spacing.  Ready?”

“Why the stairs?”  Martinez asked.

“This place has power, which has to be from a generator.  I
don’t really want to be stuck in an elevator, below ground, if the damn thing
runs out of fuel.”

She nodded, and a moment later I carefully pushed on the
crash bar mounted on the door.  There was a soft, metallic click as the lock
released, the door swinging open as I stepped into the opening.  The hall in
front ran farther than I could see, but the right turn dictated by the purple
line was about 50 yards away.  A yellow, blue and green line continued straight
down the hall.  I hadn’t noticed where they led, and didn’t really care at the
moment.

Stepping fully into the hallway I braced the edge of the
door against my back to hold it open, rifle up and aimed down the corridor as
Martinez and Scott slipped through.  I signed for them to watch our front, and
when they both had their rifles up, turned my attention to the door.  When I’d
pushed on the crash bar I had heard and felt the lock on the door release.  I
didn’t want to let the door close and get locked out of the cargo loading area.

The hallway side of the door only had an elongated, U shaped
handle for pulling the door open.  Next to the door was another of the small,
electronic keypads that would unlock the door if you had the right key card.  I
didn’t, but I did have some duct tape.  Tearing off a strip, I wadded it into a
sticky ball and shoved it into the steel recess on the door frame to prevent
the lock from snapping into place when the door closed.  Satisfied with my
effort, I kept a hand on the door, letting it silently come to rest inside its
frame.  The lock didn’t snap back into place, and when I tested the door it
pulled open easily.

Attention back on the hall, I signed that we were moving and
stepped off with my rifle up tight to my shoulder.  We moved fast but quiet,
quickly reaching the turn.  I stopped us with a hand signal, lowered my rifle
and pressed my shoulder to the wall.  Taking a few moments to listen, I
couldn’t hear anything other than the sigh of air flowing out of air
conditioning vents in the ceiling and the quiet breathing of the two people
behind me.  Not hearing any danger, I carefully poked my head around the
corner, scanned the new corridor with my eyes, then pulled back. 

The new hall was clear.  Nothing but more shiny tile, smooth
walls and a purple line running 20 yards to a bank of elevators.  Stepping
around the corner I moved to the elevators and paused by a steel door that was
marked as stairs.  It was secured with another keypad and there was no way for
us to open it.  Well, we could have broken out the C-4 and blown the door open,
but there was little that could have convinced me it would be a good idea to
make that much noise.  The facility was absolutely quiet.  Too quiet.  The
little part of me that could still get scared watching a really good horror
movie was jumping up and down, telling me nothing good ever happens in big,
seemingly empty buildings.

Resigning myself to trusting that the generator wouldn’t
pick the very moment we were on an elevator to run out of fuel, I reached out
and pressed a button.  There was only one button since there was only one way
to go.  The button lit up and half a second later a large red arrow pointing
down began glowing next to the elevator doors.  When the arrow lit up there
were also two loud ‘dings’ as the metal doors slid open.  In the absolute quiet
of the hallway, the dings sounded eerily like a dinner bell.  From somewhere
deeper in the building screams began echoing down the halls.