George Magnum Read online

  Through the eyes of the video camera, Peterson watched pedestrians run frantically in the streets. A small fire burned from the second story of a grocery store, its black smoke darkening the sky. A mob of people appeared and someone smashed the front window of the grocery store with a brick. The crowd yelled and charged inside.

  “As you can see, panic has overtaken this town. There is wide-spread looting of food and water. Also, an out of control fire burns, with no firefighters in sight.”

  Behind the anchor woman, a police officer appeared. He drew his pistol and opened fire, shooting at something outside of the camera’s view. The image shook as gunshots rang out. Then the camera swung and focused on a man, covered with blood, limping towards the cop. The cop fired three rounds, hitting the man in the chest.

  The bloodied man was halted for only a brief moment, though, and then continued to walk toward the cop.

  The anchor woman spun around to watch: “As you are seeing….we are seeing….there is an infected man in our vicinity,” she said, her tone filled with fear and naïve excitement.

  The cop pulled his trigger again, but his gun was empty. The camera zoomed in on the infected man. He was mauled, part of his face torn, exposing cheek bone and muscle tissue. Peterson stared in amazement: it was seemingly impossible that this man was on his feet and walking after taking three bullets to the chest. His skin was the color of a corpse, and eyes almost black, soulless.

  The cop snapped a new round of ammo into his police-issued 9mm pistol and opened fire with only feet to spare before the infected man reached him. He fired a spray of bullets, and they tore through the infected man’s neck, spraying blood. Then, one hit the head. The back of the infected man’s head blew open, sending out chunks of brain.

  Betty Baretta screamed at the site. Out of the camera’s view, Peterson heard more shrieks, and then a yell: “There’s too many of them—too many!”

  The camera spun and showed a frightening image: closing in on Betty Baretta were three infected.

  Suddenly, the iPad screen went blank: “Internet connection lost. Unable to connect to a server.”

  Peterson immediately wished he hadn’t watched. Somewhere in the back of his mind there had been a voice telling him that everything would be all right, that what he experienced really couldn’t be happening everywhere. In the far reaches of his mind he had hoped beyond hope that this phenomenon was simply not real.

  But CNN brought the situation home, and, finally, Peterson realized: we were at war.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Peterson held on as the Blackhawk rose over the horizon, banked a turn, and descended rapidly. It swept over what appeared to be a bunker. Only a cement roof was visible. He looked down and saw soldiers with assault rifles guarding the perimeter.

  The chopper drew close to a landing pad, its blades thumping, the sound of its powerful turbines overwhelming. It lurched forward, kicking up a tornado of dust.

  Peterson looked out and saw, waiting for them, a squadron of soldiers standing on the rooftop, with a single figure standing out before them. General Moore. Fifty years old, with austere, cropped graying hair, his rigid uniform and rows of stars classified him as a man not to mess with—and Peterson knew that was the case. Wind from the chopper whipped his Moore’s face, but he seemed to barely notice. Moore’s squadron of armed soldiers bore assault machine guns and stood in formation around the landing zone. Someone shouted commands, absorbed by the thumping blades of the chopper.

  Peterson felt more under-dressed than ever as he jumped out of the chopper in his civilian clothes. He briskly approached Moore, giving him a smart salute. Moore gave a hard stare back, and saluted.

  *

  Peterson, Moore and several soldiers stood in a large, steely elevator as it descended quickly, Sub Level 2…Sub Level 3…Sub Level 4. They stood silent, Peterson was uneasy by Moore’s side. He respected Moore, but knew him to be an unforgiving bastard who only saw things one way: his. He knew it better not to initiate small talk, unless he wanted to be chewed out.

  Finally, the elevator came to a halt and the two of them stepped out.

  A controlled chaos greeted them. Glass-plated partitions separated super computers, and a display of strategic images flashed on immense glass screens. It was like the whole world was electronically dancing around them. Military personnel moved urgently, typing frantically, working the phones, yelling to each other.

  Peterson was in his element, instinctively connected to these high-tech military surroundings.

  Peterson followed Moore as they strutted through the war-room, down a long corridor, and past an armed guard, who snapped to attention and saluted.

  They reached a door which read “Authorized Personnel Only,” and Moore placed his hand on the wall and a light scanned his palm. The door slid open, revealing a modern, white hallway which seemed to stretch forever.

  As they entered, the door swooshed closed behind them.

  “In God’s name, what’s happening?” Peterson finally asked.

  “God has nothing to do with it.” If Peterson didn’t know General Moore better, he’d almost sound as if he were frightened. “We are doing our best to understand the situation.”

  They reached the end of the hallway and another door slid open, and there, leaning with his back against the wall and rotating a pencil in his hand, stood Dr. Washington, an African American male, around thirty five years old. Maybe it was his eyeglasses, or maybe it was his dated suit, but to Peterson he had the look of a liberal, 1960’s equal rights activist. Peterson disliked him already.

  Moore provided a quick introduction: “Commander Peterson, meet Doctor Jamal Washington.”

  Doctor? thought Peterson. What the hell was he doing here?

  Neither stepped forward to extend a hand.

  Moore, wasting no time, turned and marched down a hallway, Peterson and Washington quick on his heels.

  “What has the Pentagon reported?” Peterson asked.

  “The infection is spreading,” Moore answered, the scratchy sound in his voice signaling fatigue.

  Peterson struggled to stay respectful. “Infection? General, I saw a dead little girl get up and bite her mother’s face off. What type of infection can do this?”

  “You seem shaken,” General Moore stated, sounding disappointed

  In a too-calm voice, Dr. Washington spoke up: “Permission to speak very frankly General.”

  “Go ahead,” Moore snapped, clearly in no mood for formalities.

  “Why should we trust you, Commander Peterson, as shaken as you are?” Dr. Washington was overly self-assured.

  Peterson swallowed his ego and took a deep breath. “I’m not shaken, Doctor. I’m simply trying to put the pieces together.” He was lying. Shaken was exactly what Peterson was. What was strange is that Washington wasn’t.

  Washington’s eyes drilled a hole in Peterson. “What do you think is happening?”

  Peterson was stumped, and didn’t know how to respond. “I’m not certain, Dr. Washington.”

  “I understand how you’re feeling,” said Washington, speaking to Peterson as if he were a fifth grader, “scared, confused, as is the rest of the U.S. public. But you have to look at this with logic. There truly is no other rational explanation for this event, this phenomena, except that it is some sort of viral infection which has simply been unseen before. Therefore, we crack the biological nature of this infection, we find answers, and we find an inoculation. Situation over.”

  “We have a mission,” Moore interrupted, as he stopped walking. He inched closer to Peterson. “Once you commit, there are only two ways out of this. Do you understand what I am saying?”

  Peterson had been cautioned this way only once before in his career. The mission he’d accepted then was unlike any other before or since. He’d operated outside of constitutional law, beyond levels of national security classifications.

  The only two ways out were success or death.

  “You can bow out r
ight now, Commander, and I will not hold it against you.”

  “I am ready to move forward,” Peterson said sternly, as if insulted that Moore would question his courage.

  “No matter what it might entail, Commander Peterson?” Washington chimed in, twirling his pencil.

  Peterson never took shit from a non-commissioned officer, or from a Doctor for that matter; but he never turned down a mission in his life and was never passed up. It was a record he was proud of, and he wasn’t about to change it. It was embarrassing to have to answer to Washington, but with tight lips, he said, “No matter what it involves, Dr. Washington.”

  Moore tensed up, and Peterson could sense that he was pissed that Washington overstepped his boundaries.

  “Listen up Peterson,” Moore said. “I’ve already been briefed by the NSA, the CDC, and the Pentagon. I’ve put together a good team for you—actually, the best. They are preparing now. At zero one hundred you will all be briefed.”

  “Sir,” Peterson said, about to ask a question.

  “That is it, Commander,” the General cut him off. “Prep your team ASAP.”

  Peterson knew the routine, but he had so many burning questions he’d wanted to ask, as Moore and Washington marched off down a different corridor, leaving him standing there alone.

  You either give orders, or you take them.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Peterson entered an underground bunker, walking past an endless cache of military equipment. It was like a supermarket for the latest military hardware: racks upon racks of assault rifles, handguns, flame throwers, C-4 explosives, hand-grenades….It was a soldier’s wet dream.

  But Peterson had other things on his mind. Now clean-shaven, sharp, dressed in full black combat gear, an MP5 assault rifle in hand, he was focused. He didn’t look like the same man. His expression, the look in his eyes: he had his war face on.

  He wanted to survey his team, to see for himself whose hands he’d be putting his life into, and whose lives he would be responsible for. And he wanted to come upon them by surprise, and to observe them unannounced.

  His first stop was the men’s locker room. He opened the door quietly and spotted Corporal Sharon Berman, toweling off, naked. Her body was tight, Amazonian in stature, more muscular than many men, and she wore a sheering crew cut. There was a tattoo on her ass—a mean black skull, with a caption: hell on earth.

  Next to her, naked and toweling off as well, was Corporal Tag Winston. Peterson remembered him: he was an adrenaline seeker, a damn good chopper pilot, and Peterson observed, with approval, that he had more scars than could be counted: shrapnel, bullet holes, knife wounds.

  “Did I ever tell you that you have a nice ass?” Tag said to Sharon, as he looked her up and down.

  Sharon turned and looked between Tag’s legs: “Did I ever tell you that you have a small dick?”

  Tag opened his locker, and pulled out his black combat fatigues. He grew serious: “What do you think is going on out there?”

  “People without heartbeats are walking around. Must be a bird flu. Who cares? Line em up and I’ll shoot em down.”

  Tag put on his shirt. “Amen to that.”

  Peterson ducked out, and proceeded down the corridor, to the main prep room. As he went, he noticed an inscription, scratched on the wall in handwriting. It was a mantra that was all too familiar to him. The first time he saw it was during his induction into the elite unit of which he is now led:

  “Locked and loaded, ready to kill,

  always have and always will.

  Squeeze the trigger and let it fly,

  hit the bastards between the eyes.

  Before they died I heard them yell:

  this shadow team is bad as hell.”

  As Peterson entered the vast, cavernous room, an ammunition banana clip was snapped into the chamber of a CAR 15 assault rifle. Holding the rifle was Corporal Cash, mid-thirties, a 260 pound, muscle bound, mustached veteran of every war they never told us about. A deep scar ran from his cheekbone to his chin. He bolted opens the breach on his rifle’s under-mount grenade launcher and chambered a round, lovingly inspecting the bore. Peterson had mixed feelings upon seeing him there: he was a good soldier, but reckless, a danger junkie. And hard to control.

  Sitting beside him, on an ammo crate, was Sergeant Armstrong. Muscular, bald, and proud to be black, Armstrong was no slouch either, at six three and over 250. He sat there and ignited a flame thrower, fire shot from its insidious barrel. But Peterson knew him to be as warm-hearted as he was war-hearted. He flashed a great smile, wide and sparkling, as he stared at his weapon. Peterson and he had gone way back, and he was probably the one person he could most trust on this mission.

  Peterson knew Armstrong’s life well: all Armstrong ever needed was a male figure to give him a bit of guidance, to tell him he was a good person. A judge finally gave him a choice of six months in the slammer, or a tour in the military. His military experience gave him a new life.

  Not only did Armstrong ace basic training, but went on to become a career soldier. He was so good that he was recruited into an elite, classified combat unit, a secret fighting force trained for very particular scenarios.

  Upon his arrival in this well hidden operation, Peterson first met him. He was fifteen years Armstrong’s elder, and he became Armstrong’s trainer and mentor, picked him up when he fell down, gave him encouragement and, most of all showed him how to be amongst the deadliest fighting and killing machines in the world. Unlike others, they were expected to be independent “thinking” soldiers, and were trained to sharpen their brains as well as their knives.

  The father-figure Armstrong never had appeared in the most unlikely of bonds, with a white man, and a superior officer—Peterson.

  “What the hell is going on out there, Sergeant?” Cash asked Armstrong. “I just can’t believe what I’m hearing.”

  “We’ll know soon enough.”

  Cash was about to say something, but then looked at a some man standing nearby, staring at him, “Who the hell is that guy?”

  “Intelligence,” Armstrong responded matter-of-factly.

  Peterson looked over. There stood Spooky. He was a talented jack of all trades. Peterson never much cared for him. He was a CIA spook who didn’t have a rank—or a name for that matter. His face was pockmarked, his eyes darting. He finished rolling a cigarette and lit up. Then he went back to his package of C-4 explosives, attached to which was a keypad. Spooky entered three numbers, and the digital read-out beeped.

  “Make nice, Spooky,” Armstrong said, an edgy tone to his voice. “This mission is the last of it for me.”

  Spooky didn’t look up. “Not to worry, soldier. If she blows up, the last thing that will go through your mind is your ass.”

  Sharon entered the room, now dressed in bad-ass full combat gear. She walked up to Armstrong and grabbed his cheeks. He was like an overgrown baby in her hands.

  “Retirement, my ass,” she jested, “What are you gonna do, get a job as a ballet dancer? Two minutes in the real world and you’ll be climbing the fucking walls. You need us, man.”

  “Like shit on my shoe,” smiled Armstrong as he took out a picture.

  “Well, I’ll be… Daddy?” Berman said, surprised, snatching the picture. “I didn’t even know you got married.”

  “I’m not. But I will be after this is through. Her name is Annabell.”

  Cash took the picture and looked at it inquisitively, confused, “A baby?”

  Berman spit her words “Yeah, you know, one of those things that come out of a woman?”

  Tag entered, too, his hair still wet from showering, “Cash wasn’t born. It took his mother nine months to take a shit.”

  Cash was tongue tied. Murder flashed in his eyes.

  Armstrong took the picture back and stared, lost in fatherly love, “My baby, a girl.”

  Peterson surveyed the room. He saw, kneeling on a small rug, Ali Ishmael, who was bowing down and muttering prayers. A Muslim an
d a holy warrior, he looked like a statue, at peace with his existence, with dark skin and severe blue eyes.

  Then, checking his gun, was Angelo, early twenties. Peterson knew that he was proud Puerto Rican first, and American second. He also knew him to be hard-skinned, growing up in the ghetto. His extraordinary, unequalled talent as a sniper brought him quickly to be a member of the nation’s most deadly unit. He slipped a shiny bullet into his sniper rifle.

  And lastly was Johnny-Boy. He was a red-blooded all-American, and the fucking new guy. Peterson knew very little about him except that the new guys are always too eager to please. That’s why they are usually the first to die.

  Ishmael rose from his prayers and joined the team.

  “Allah is our compass,” he began. “It is his direction that leads one to know that there is no greater honor than to fight and die as a warrior.”

  “Not on my watch,” Peterson said, his voice resonating throughout the room like any great leader’s would. He’d had enough observing: it was time to make his presence known.

  The group turned, silenced by his presence.

  “Commander on deck!” Armstrong yelled, snapping to attention. The team snapped to attention, too, rigid as boards, eyes forward.

  “From here on in, I’m your compass,” Peterson said as he paced, inspecting them, letting them know who was boss. “There are plenty of other missions out there if you want to die. On this mission everyone gets back home safely. Understood?”

  The team pronounced in unison: “YES, SIR!”

  Peterson stood in front of Armstrong, who remained at attention.

  “Commander Peterson,” Armstrong acknowledged with a smile.

  “Sergeant,” Peterson replied in a formal voice.

  “I heard you landed in the loony bin, sir,” said Armstrong, surprisingly out of order.

  “You’re right, and I arrived this morning,” Peterson responded, and his composure broke, with a smile swept across his face.

  He grabbed Armstrong’s shoulder, and they embraced as old friends.