Pandemic Page 146

The short SEAL looked at Bogdana.

“Frank, keep the package right here until I call for you,” Ramierez said.

Then Klimas moved silently past. Ramierez slid around the front of the overturned car and followed his commander into the shadows.

KNOW YOUR ENEMY

Paulius and Ramierez approached a small firehouse. The building looked medieval — two stories of grayish-tan granite with small, faux turrets on the second-story corners. Its red roll-up door looked just large enough for one fire engine to enter or exit, but nothing was going in or out thanks to the long, white public transit bus that had smashed into it at an angle.

At the bus’s rear end, almost to the sidewalk, stood two cops — one black, one white — both dressed in heavy blue coats, their fingers laced behind their heads. Their breath billowed out in expanding clouds that glowed thanks to a nearby streetlight. The men looked both hopeful and afraid. A black XDM automatic pistol lay on the snow in front of each of them.

They had their hands on their heads because two SEALs — Bosh and Roth — had M4s at their shoulders, barrels aimed at the cops’ chests.

Paulius slung his own M4. He drew his sidearm, a 9-millimeter Sig Sauer P226 already fitted with a suppressor. He aimed it at the two cops as he came up on Bosh’s right.

“Bosh, report.”

“I saw these two exit the bus’s rear door,” Bosh said. “Thing is, advance recon looked through the bus to make sure there weren’t any bad guys hiding there that could fire on the column. When they checked it, the bus was empty. Five minutes later, Rangers march through, these guys come out of it.”

Paulius glanced at the bus. “There a hole in the front of it that leads into the firehouse?”

“I checked,” Bosh said. “Didn’t see any openings. I also did a walk around the firehouse, couldn’t find a way in or out. The place is locked up tight, Commander.”

Paulius glanced at the building’s red-framed windows. In every one, behind broken glass he saw the dull glint of metal. The cops had fortified the place. Paulius had to keep his men moving — every second they spent here was a second wasted.

He looked at the cops. “What do you two want?”

The cops looked at each other, then back at Paulius.

The black cop spoke. “We want you to get us the fuck out of here. We’ve been in there” — he tilted his head toward the firehouse behind him — “for two freakin’ days.”

They looked normal, but the mission was here to rescue one man and one man only.

“We haven’t seen anyone but you,” Paulius said. “Why didn’t you come out sooner?”

The white cop answered. “Right after Paris burned, we were ordered to protect the engine. We were inside the firehouse when things really went to hell. There were psychos everywhere, hundreds of them — they were eating people. We called for backup, for someone to come and get us, but no one’s answering anymore. We didn’t think we’d make it on the streets, so we kept quiet, boarded the place up.”

“Then we saw you guys, you soldiers,” the black cop said. “You came to rescue us, right? So how about you stop aiming that goddamn gun at my face and get us out of here?”

Paulius could imagine what it had been like to hide in that building, cut off from communication, while cannibals roamed the street. These guys were cops, public servants. Probably as brave as any soldier.

But he couldn’t let them go. They had seen his entire force. If they were captured, they might talk. And, of course, they might already be infected. He could test them, but what was the point? The stakes were too high to take even the smallest of chances.

Paulius knew what he had to do.

God forgive me.

He pulled the trigger four times in just over a second. The suppressor made each shot sound like a snapping mousetrap. The first two shots hit the white cop in the face. The black cop had barely enough time to raise his eyebrows in shock and surprise before the next two rounds tore through his skull.

Both men dropped instantly. Blood mist hung in the air, slowly drifted down on top of them.

Paulius switched his mic to the “all units” frequency.

“Commander Klimas to detachment. No more delays. If anyone approaches the detachment, assume they are hostiles and put them down at a distance. Quietly. Make as little noise as possible. Repeat, as little noise as possible.”

He turned to Bosh. “Let’s move out.”

THE PARK TOWER

I am going to kill you all, every one of you, I will wipe you off the face of the earth.

Margaret ran through the dark streets, doing her best to stay close to the nasty little soldier in front of her. Ramierez, his name was. What a fool — if she got the chance she’d slit his throat from ear to ear and bathe in his blood while he tried to draw air. And yet here he was, guarding her, clearly ready to risk his own life to protect hers.

The CBRN gear made it hard to move, but it would protect her from Cooper Mitchell’s disease. Hopefully. The crawlers had found a way through her BSL-4 suit. The hydras might have that same ability. She would stay as far away from Mitchell as possible. She didn’t know how she would kill him, not yet, but as a last resort she had the holstered Sig Sauer P226 strapped to her right thigh. She would just have to watch for her chance. Take out Mitchell, then slip away into the city.

She heard a short bark of gunfire, then another. She and Ramierez followed Clarence and Bogdana. They jogged past a car where CBRN-suited Rangers were setting up a tripod-supported machine gun, pointed back the way they had come. Other Rangers were manually pushing cars into a loose line. They were setting up a perimeter. She saw two soldiers running wires to small, green boxes that were labeled FRONT TOWARD ENEMY.

Chapter end