The Sixth Level (8 page)

The first thing I noticed when we broke through the clouds was just how red everything was. A dusty, deep, burgundy red. The color of blood.

We landed as the sun was setting on what appeared to be an abandoned road in the middle of nowhere. As we came to a stop at the end of the makeshift runway and turned around I saw a large helicopter with two massive rotor blades take off in a mini-tornado of red dust.

"What's that?" I asked Daniel.

"That's our supply drop. It drops in fuel, food, ammo. But it's heading back to the Dark Crystal."

"The Dark Crystal?"

"Yeah, that’s the name of our ship. It’s a bit dramatic, I know."

"Where's the ship?"

"Off the coast."

"Won't the navy blockade see it?"

"No. like I said, this area isn't as heavily patrolled as the rest of the country and the ship itself has stealth capabilities."

"Wow, you guys are all about stealth, huh?"

"Being invisible is the only thing that matters in our line of work."

Daniel began to turn the jet around so we were pointed back towards the camp. I looked out the front window of the cockpit and saw a desert camouflaged Humvee driving along side us. The huge vehicle reminded me of my first close encounter with the Oz Virus at the North Sydney police station and our high speed escape. I remembered Kim’s amazing and expert driving in the thunder storm. I remembered Kenji being all cool, calm and collected. And basically saving our lives. I remembered throwing grenades and blowing up the interrogation room. I remembered poor old Officer Dennis and the huge shard of glass stuck in his leg, his blue uniform, covered in blood turning it a weird purple color.

The memory seems surreal, like a strange dream. Or nightmare. It’s amazing to think that at the time we thought we were being attacked by drugged out psycho’s. We were so blind to what was happening. So in denial.

A car horn snapped my attention back to the present. There was one guy driving the Humvee and one guy on the back standing up, manning a massive gun that was mounted on the roof. His eyes were scanning the hazy, dusty horizon; back and forth like a robot guardian. He was on high alert. The guy driving made eye contact with me and gave me a little salute and then he sped off back towards the camp.

I couldn’t see the camp clearly because of the dust but it appeared to be more than just a tent like I was expecting. There seemed to be a perimeter fence which was basically made up of six thin wires that ran right around the camp. I guess maybe it was more than just a fence. It was probably electrified because otherwise it wasn’t very sturdy. It certainly didn't look very secure. It was about twelve feet high with each wire spaced a couple of feet apart.

I could also see a few machine guns on tripods. I counted eight. They were spaced evenly apart around the perimeter. Inside the fence there was a huge metal, rectangular storage container and a domed shape tent the size of a camper van. It kind of looked like an igloo.

Next to the tent and storage container were two huge black air craft that looked like a cross between a plane and a helicopter. And next to those was another Humvee.

There was a guy standing on top of the storage container. He was keeping a look out as well. He was a tall guy, huge actually. He raised his rifle up to his shoulder and looked through the scope. His movements reminded me of Kenji.

These guys were definitely spooked. And yet we were supposedly in the middle of nowhere.

Daniel parked the X-wing next to the camp and shut the engines off. We exited the jet. The guy driving the Humvee met us at the foot of the doorway steps. He was a big, solid guy with a thick neck. He was wearing sunglasses and a bandana over his mouth so I couldn't really see him properly. But he had wide, broad shoulders and everything about him was rough and rugged.

He shook hands with Daniel. "Welcome to hell."

"Hell? Looks more like Mars."

"Yeah or the end of the world. You better lock her up," he said referring to the jet. "And get in the Humvee. We need to get back inside the perimeter ASAP."

Even this guy’s voice was rough, I thought.

"Thanks for the VIP escort, Griffin. But I don't think that's really necessary. And I think you're scaring Rebecca."

"Trust me, Hudson. It's necessary."

Daniel’s eyes narrowed. "Why? What's wrong?"

"There's been some issues."

"Issues?"

"A pack of wild dogs have been roaming this area. We think they're infected. They're big suckers too. They look something like a cross between a wolf and a dingo. On steroids. They almost overwhelmed us when we first landed; they took us completely by surprise. Came outta nowhere. We had to take off pretty quick. We used the minigun on the Osprey to clear them out. The aftermath is just over there."

Over to my right, about thirty yards away I could just make out a pile of carcasses scattered on the dusty, red ground.

"Wait a second, do we even know if the infection can be carried by animals?" Daniel asked.

"Heck if I know," Griffin answered. "But we ain’t takin any chances. We've set up a perimeter. It’s electrified. Doesn't look like much but the charge is enough to put an elephant down for good. So it should be enough to deal with the dogs. We've also set up sentinel turrets."

"Jesus. You've set up sentinels?"

"Yeah. They’re offline at the moment. So we should probably get inside the perimeter so we can turn them back on."

As big as this guy was and as tough as he was, he looked visibly worried. Both soldiers did, especially the guy on the gun.

"I thought this area was supposed to be clear?" Daniel said.

"Yeah, so did we. Imagine our surprise when we get ambushed by a pack of wild dogs, or wolves or dingoes or whatever the hell they are. Ferocious mutts, let me tell you."

"Come on fellas, let's go," The guy manning the gun said. "We better get inside the perimeter."

"Are you sure it’s a good idea to leave the jet outside?" I asked Daniel.

"Well, it’s not ideal but I doubt there’s anyone out here who could hotwire or even fly this bad boy."

"What about the dust? Won't that clog the engines or something?"

"No. It was designed for heavy use in the desert. It’s designed to handle the dust."

"All right, that’s enough bragging about your baby," Griffin said. "Let’s go."

He was trying to sound light hearted but I could clearly make out the fear in his voice. There was an urgency and seriousness to what he was saying. He did not want to be out in the open like this. And I gotta say, neither did I. Not with the mass grave of wild dogs only thirty yards away.

So we jumped inside the Humvee and Griffin drove the short distance to the camp. A section of the fence became slack and was lowered to the ground and we drove over it. Once inside, it was raised back up and presumably re-electrified.

Griffin parked the car next to the weird looking aircraft. As we walked passed them and made our way towards the igloo shaped tent, I asked Daniel what the hell they were. They each had two massive propellers but they were pointing up so they were more like twin rotor blades, like on a helicopter.

"They’re called Osprey's," he answered. "The propellers are rotatable. So it can hover like a helicopter or fly like a plane. They’re ideal for this kind of mission."

"So they’re like a two in one."

"Yeah. It's basically a Transformer," he joked. "More than meets the eye."

I guess we’d be taking one of those into Sydney.

We continued our way towards the igloo shaped tent. The dust wasn’t as bad as we’d seen in the stolen military footage but it was still pretty bad. We had to shield our eyes and I had to cover my nose and mouth.

But just before we stepped inside, the wind intensified and I had to bury my face into my shoulder. And off in the distance we heard what sounded like the cry of a lone wolf.

Chapter 7

The whiteboard seemed to have what looked like a flat screen computer monitor built into it. And there were three expensive looking laptop computers set up on the table. It was pretty sophisticated for a makeshift camp in the middle of the Australian outback. It was almost as luxurious as my penthouse suite back in LA. Well, maybe not.

I took a closer look at the whiteboard monitor. It currently showed a satellite image of Australia. It was then I could clearly see the extent of the dust storm. It basically looked like a huge red cloud. It covered the entire east coast of Australia and spread out right into the middle of the country. Our camp appeared to be on the western edge of the storm.

The tall soldier who had been standing watch on top of the metal storage container had made his way inside and was now talking to a woman. He was leaning over a laptop, punching in some commands. They were gathered around the small table in front of the whiteboard.

The tall man turned to greet us. "Hudson, glad you could make it on time. Mind introducing the lady?"

"Sir. Everyone. This is Rebecca Robinson. She’ll be our guide for the mission."

He said ‘guide’ with a touch of irony. I knew I wasn’t a guide, more like a bargaining chip, or an insurance policy. Something to prove to my friends that these guys were the right guys to trust.

"As I’m sure you all know," Daniel continued. "She’s the only one who made it out."

I scanned the faces of the soldiers. Three men and the one woman. In all my life I've never seen a rougher, meaner looking group of people. Even the woman had a constant scowl on her face, like she wanted to punch me in the nose just for looking in her general direction.

They all nodded their heads in what I hoped was approval.

Daniel motioned to the tall man. "This is Major Charles Ethan. He's our team leader."

"Hello, Sir." I said and suddenly realized how childish and girlish my voice sounded. I coughed and cleared my throat. "Nice to meet you," I said in a deeper tone that was least an octave lower.

"You've already sort of met Griffin and Rifleman Ben Smith or Smitty as we call him. And this is Josephine Ramirez. Our other 'full time' pilot."

The woman picked up a pen and threw it at Daniel. "Don’t call me Josephine."

"Sorry," Daniel apologized. "Jo Ramirez. Best and friendliest pilot in the world."

Ethan moved over to the whiteboard so he was standing in front of everyone. He was a giant man. He stood taller than the white board. He looked like he should’ve been a professional basketball player or a football player. I’m not sure if it was his height or the steely look in his eyes but this guy commanded respect and it appeared that these soldiers gave it to him. One hundred percent.

"All right. Now that we're all here and we're all best friends, let’s get on with the mission brief," Ethan said. "Apologies for the last minute change of plans. But as soon as we got word of the outbreak in New Zealand we couldn’t afford to stay there a second longer. It was too risky. We had to make a move."

I wanted to ask him about the details of what he had heard and how bad it was or if the quarantine facility had been affected but I held my tongue. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to talk or even allowed to ask questions.

"Sir?" Smitty asked as he raised his hand. "Who screwed up with the intel? Who gave us the all clear for this section?"

"Came from the top," Ethan answered.

"Typical." Smitty said. "Freakin suits are a bunch of goddamn idiots."

Ramirez leant over and slapped him on the arm. "Watch your mouth. We got a girl here."

"Freakin is not a swear word." Smitty pointed out.

"No, but you took the Lord’s name in vain."

Ethan ignored them and continued to explain our course of action. "Our primary objective is to locate civilian, Maria Marsh. Last reports indicate that she's hiding out in the middle of the Sydney Central Business District. To avoid being detected by the military we'll fly in over the western plains, through the snowy mountains and all the way to the eastern coastline about three hundred clicks south of Sydney. According to intelligence reports, there are US and Australian forces on the south western outskirts of Sydney. So we’ll need to circumnavigate that. Hence the reason for following the coastline. Intelligence is about a week old but it's all we've got."

"What about the navy blockade off the east coast?" Griffin asked. "Won’t they see us?"

"The blockade is situated about a hundred clicks off the coast. We stay low, they won’t see us."

Griffin wasn’t convinced. "What about Sydney airport? What if they’ve set up operations there?"

"Intelligence reports indicate the airport has been quiet for some time now."

"Same intelligence report that said this area was clear?" Griffin asked.

"Yeah," Ethan answered. "You don’t like it; you know where the door is."

"No, I love it. I just need to know when to have the safety on my rifle switched off."