The dead punched and slapped a stateroom door across the pa.s.sageway. There was no way of knowing how many were outside the door.

They said prayers, thanking the Almighty that the creatures were bludgeoning the other doors and not theirs. They all knew that this could change with a sneeze or the shifting winds of chance.

They'd been trapped now for twelve hours, awaiting rescue. How far could this have spread in twelve hours?

Laura sat in Tara's arms, halfway in shock. "Why don't we open the door and just shoot them?" she asked.

"We don't know how many there are, honey. We're going to have to wait it out."

They all knew that the ship was still under military control. They had felt it turn numerous times in the past few hours, turns too systematic and incremental to be random.

At least the navy still held the bridge and the reactor s.p.a.ces, Dean thought.

Somewhere inside the ma.s.sive ship's superstructure, Admiral Goettleman keyed the 1MC announcement system: "This is Admiral Goettleman speaking, infection has broken out onboard, and we are currently mobilizing teams to neutralize the threat. If you can hear this, remain quiet and a team will work its way to you shortly. That is all." The sound blared throughout the ship, ironically causing marked undead frenzy.

They all heard the announcement clearly, and so did the undead outside in the pa.s.sageway.

The door began to bend, straining in protest to the noise intrusion in the creature's new territory. Danny squinted in the low light, watching the middle of the door flex inward slightly. He sat next to Laura, telling her that everything would be fine. The boy in him believed his words were honest, but a competing voice said he'd no doubt be dead soon-the two of them reduced to small appetizers.

The door bulged inward still, nearly to failure, and death began to wrap its dark wings around the survivors. They all closed their eyes just before five small holes appeared in the door above the handle in nearly a straight line. Bodies fell with an audible thump.

"Back away from the door and get down!" a familiar voice screamed from the other side.

More suppressed 9mm rounds penetrated the door and surrounding bulkheads, causing ricochet injuries to Danny's shoulder. He cried out, and more bodies fell.

"Open up, it's me, Ramirez!"

Dean shot up and readied her pistol before unlocking the door and twisting the handle. The door flew open, revealing Ramirez and John standing there with automatic weapons, covered in dirt and sweat.

"Let's move; the whole deck is overrun!"

"Tara, I owed Kil one. Make sure you tell him we're square when you see him," Ramirez said.

Tara hugged him briefly, sobbing with happiness to still be alive as they bolted from the stateroom.

They all moved quietly in single file, protecting the children in the middle. John held Annabelle in his backpack, the white dog zipped up to her neck. She didn't like it very much, but she didn't try to escape.

Annabelle was invaluable in confirming the presence of undead onboard. Just as planned, John took her back to the area where Danny thought he had heard the creatures. When the large steel door opened and the military men walked through, he didn't hide; he feigned ignorance. He scooped Annabelle into his arms as the guards confronted him. Annabelle gave a terrible howl, urinating down John's shirt. Her raised hackles further confirmed that the creatures were among them. John played dumb and the guards escorted him and his dog out of the area.

"Hurry, only two more knee-knockers to the flight deck hatch!" John said to everyone.

The adults watched Danny and Laura like hawks as they moved. The pa.s.sageways could erupt with undead at any moment.

Annabelle's hackles stood once again, and she tensed in John's pack, growling.

"Get ready, Ramirez!" John warned.

The undead didn't appear from the front-they were making ground on them from the rear, where Tara and Ramirez guarded the children. Ramirez turned and opened up on them, walking backward. He was changing mags, slapping the full one home, when he fell flat on his back over a knee-knocker. His gun discharged as he fell, sawing a diagonal pattern across two of the creatures that closed on him. Chunks of flesh, muscle, and bone peppered the steel bulkheads and other undead in the rear of the ma.s.s.

The creatures still advanced.

"Duck down, kids, hold your ears!" John screamed as he opened up on the rotting monsters that were set to dog-pile the marine.

Ramirez went full auto from his back, flesh and bone flying around the pa.s.sageway and littering the blue tile deck.

With his lower body covered in brains and other parts, Ramirez quickly jumped to his feet, firing more rounds down the pa.s.sageway at the advancing creatures. "Move, John, get out!"

John reached the flight deck access hatch and threw the hatch lever violently. He kicked the door open, and sunlight beamed inside. The smell of oil, salt, and machinery filled the pa.s.sageway.

"Move!" John said.

The survivors sprinted out the access hatch and up the ladder to the relative safety of the flight deck.

Ramirez kept backing up and firing until John tapped his shoulder.

"Your turn, Ramirez. I'll secure the hatch."

Ramirez ran up the ladder to the catwalk, tripping on the way up. John took one last potshot and closed the hatch. He reached into his pocket, pulling out a bit of rope, and tied the hatch closed from the outside. Should hold for a bit, he thought.

Stepping up to the catwalk, John had full view of the carrier deck. Most of the aircraft were stored below in the hangar deck. John could see hundreds of people milling about. He was forward near the bow of the ship, near catapult one. Climbing up to the flight deck he could hear a bridge announcement.

"Onboard George Washington, this is the officer of the deck with an update. The admiral has informed me that we are to begin clearing operations soon and are now setting course for the Florida Keys. We remain in control of the reactor and bridge. Remain calm, that is all."

After the announcement, John could hear the creatures beating on the steel hatch below. Calm, my a.s.s, he thought. John briefly admired the ocean view around him and was surprised to see a handful of destroyers cruising in formation on both sides of the carrier with a supply ship off the port quarter.

"John, I need help," Jan said, tapping his shoulder.

"What is it? Are you okay?"

"Dr. Bricker and I have set up triage farther aft near the bridge island. I can't find William and I think he may be-"

"Don't think like that. I'll keep an eye out for him-there are a lot of people up here," John said in what he hoped was a comforting voice. "Go back to the medical tent and I'll come by in a bit, okay?"

"Thanks, John."

He could hear Laura crying as her mother walked back to the group of Hotel 23 survivors.

50.

USS George Washington-Post-Outbreak "Admiral, the creatures control many of the living s.p.a.ces as well as the supply hold areas. The crew set Condition Zebra on all main hatches early on in the outbreak per the OOD's instruction, so many of them should be compartmentalized below."

"How many do you estimate are down there now?"

"By my figures, there are likely at least two hundred, and that number would be much higher if not for the mandatory firearms regulation. I think the number of undead belowdecks will remain flat. As the survivors below neutralize more creatures, more will likely become infected in the process. The only number that will fall is that of the remaining living."

Admiral Goettleman peered out at his panoramic view of the flight deck below. A large refugee camp formed, sprawling throughout the four and a half acres of steel and nonskid. As a contingency plan formed in his head, the admiral began to plan the how of his next move. First priority would be to retake the communications rooms; second, they would need to find a suitable port. He couldn't risk losing control of the reactor areas to the undead while at sea. It would render the carrier nothing short of drifting hurricane bait. He grabbed the phone and dialed the pilot house above.

"Slight course adjustment, OOD. Make your course for Key West specifically and mind your draft."

"Very good, Admiral," the OOD replied on the other end.

After hearing the orders given to the bridge, Joe asked, "Would you care to walk me through your thought process, sir? I don't follow."

"I intend to make port at Key West and prepare for a worst-case scenario. If we lose too many personnel, we can't keep this ship running. If that happens, I'd like to be tied up to an island, a place we can clear out and defend. Key West has a naval air station. We can blow the bridges and isolate. Any word on Phoenix and the recovered black box?"

"Our programmers were attempting to compile the software to pull the GPS coordinates from the box when they lost control of our network. They say that someone attempted to gain access and alter the software. The intrusion only lasted four minutes. The strange thing is, the program was already complete when our people rebooted the ship's servers and tried to compile it. They didn't have time to go line by line to verify the code, so they transmitted the software to Hotel 23. Task Force Phoenix is not due back off mission for a few hours and we won't know of their success until we reestablish comms."

"That's a priority, Joe. I want the first teams retaking the radio areas. We can worry about who tried to hack us at another time. h.e.l.l, it could be the Chinese version of our CYBERCOM. Virginia should be in the Bohai soon-if not now. Hourgla.s.s will be feet dry in what was communist China shortly. La.r.s.en and his folks are likely very interested in what is happening here."

"Yes, sir, the marines will attempt to secure the communications room up forward first. After secured we'll get the comms back up with Phoenix and hopefully Hourgla.s.s."

"What of the outpost?"

"They have not responded to our comm checks in a few cycles. Probably atmospherics."

"Probably." Goettleman again looked out over the camps forming below. "Dammit. We'll need to post snipers up here on Vulture's Row, overlooking the camps. Any sign of outbreak and we take the shot."

"Yes, sir." Joe paused for a moment, ensuring that no one would overhear him. "Sir, we're not going to make it."

"No, probably not. But I've never given up on a d.a.m.n thing in my life. I won't stop fighting until I'm one of them, or I'm rotting in the ground with a hole in my head. You graduated the farm, and know better. We'll fight from lifeboats with our bare hands if need be."

51.

Chinese Waters "Chief of the Boat, periscope depth," La.r.s.en commanded.

"Aye, aye, Captain."

After the order was relayed to the helmsman, the boat began its journey to an area just below the surface of the Bohai waters. The periscope was raised, cutting above and through the blue-green waters of the surface. Virginia's advanced sensors had shown no evidence of any surviving Chinese military power. If remnants of the Sino military remained, they would likely be in the same condition as the U.S. military-spread thin, nearly extinct. Commie monitored the RF spectrum; the only Chinese transmission he intercepted was Beijing International's Automated Terminal Information Service. Commie determined that parts of the airport must have been on sustainable power for the transmission to remain active. He kept tuning frequencies-"spinning and grinning" the RF spectrum, self-protecting the submarine, and attempting to gather any shred of intelligence that might a.s.sist the mission.

Peering through the closed-circuit advanced periscope optic, the captain made an a.s.sessment of the mainland.

"Looks like a lot of undead Chinese, COB," he said, an unlit cigar hanging from the corner of his mouth.

"I could have told you that without looking, sir."

"Yeah, I'll bet you could've. Kil, you in here?"

"Yes, sir," Kil said, stepping out of the shadows near a bank of equipment.

"Might want to ready the UAV crews. We'll need airborne reconnaissance of the area and the Chinese airfield."

"I'll inform the crew to preflight the birds for launch. Is that all?"

"No, Commander, actually it's not. I was wondering if you had given any thought to our previous conversations?"

"Yes, sir, I have, and I'm afraid my answer hasn't changed."

La.r.s.en leaned closer to Kil. "It's a shame that Rex and Rico will be working alone, especially so soon after losing Griff and Huck. This'll be a very difficult undertaking. You want me to inform them or would you like to? I'd like to remind you that our armory is quite extensive, and Beijing was not a target of nuclear weapons. Virginia was a special-operations support ship before everything went to h.e.l.l, and she still is."

"I'll tell them myself, Captain."

"Very well. Oh, one more thing-we'll have a little more overhead support for Hourgla.s.s than has been previously briefed."

"How do you mean?"

"Shall we?" La.r.s.en gestured for Kil to follow him to the SCIF.

They walked through the door and were now securely insulated from the rest of the boat. Commie sat at his terminal with Commander Monday over his shoulder, examining the haul of information extracted from the Kunia mission.

Commie sanitized his screen as Kil and La.r.s.en entered the room.

"We'll have overhead support, SR-71 on steroids. The optics on the bird are much more sensitive and cover exponentially more land ma.s.s. The team will know what's coming before it's a factor," La.r.s.en said.

"What air base?" Kil asked skeptically. "We're a long way from home."

"I can't say, mostly because I don't know."

"What a.s.set then?"

"Lockheed's Aurora. She's actually called something else, but Aurora has been the code name for all of Lockheed's hypersonic programs dating from the 1960s to now. She's fast, with a full IMINT and Ground Moving Target Indicator suite. She'll be supporting at an alt.i.tude of angels ninety plus, for a period of six hours."

"If this thing is flying in from the states, it must have needed some sort of tanker support. When will it be overhead?" Kil asked.

"The COG relayed five days ago that Aurora would be overhead at one thousand GMT tomorrow. Of course, that's before the carrier went dark, but somehow I don't think that will be a factor for this a.s.set. As far as tanker support, Aurora doesn't use JP-5. Maybe when you go talk to Rex to tell him that you won't be part of the team, you can brief him on it."

"Thanks for the information, sir."

"You're welcome, Kil."

Kil felt La.r.s.en's stare as he left the SCIF. The old man was manipulating him, and dammit it was working.