The two Black Hawks of the 160th SOAR crossed the Potomac River and slowed to 60 knots. The Night Stalkers piloted their helicopter’s NOE (nap-of-the-earth), hugging the ground’s contour while running dark the three hundred twenty-five miles from Fort Bragg. As they neared the target the two Apache gunships gained altitude and started a racetrack pattern. Reaper Three and Four would provide over watch for the hovering Black Hawks as the Delta Teams were inserted.
Mike Desantos had never asked his men to accept a mission he wasn’t willing to undertake himself, especially with this much at stake. He looked at his men and then looked at the darkened city through the port side window. There were no streetlights. All of the buildings looked cold and uninviting. Multiple fires reflected a red orange glow off of the river, making it look like misplaced lava. Mike saw the masses of undead lurching about the city streets, illuminated by the firelight cast from the burning buildings.
The pilot gave a thumbs up and then held his hand open, fingers spread. The silent signal let Mike know they were five minutes from the target.
Captain Mike Desantos was the 18a detachment Commander and his 180a Warrant Officer, number two man, was Deke Clifton. Mike would be leading his Delta team, call sign Zulu-One. The six operators would fast rope from the helicopter onto the west roof of the target. Deke’s team of six Delta operators, Zulu-Two, would insert on the east rooftop.
The Special-Ops pilot held the bird in a perfect, steady hover as the six operators, led by Mike, fast roped two at a time from the helo’s open doors onto the roof. The night vision goggles adorning their faces rendered the scene in a green glow. Litter and bodies were strewn across the expansive lawn. A large helicopter sat quiet in the grass; next to it zombies were feeding on the body of a Marine in full dress blues, his white and black brimmed hat lying by his eviscerated body. The ghouls paused briefly and stared intently at the insertion taking place.
All of the men were safely on the roof. The pair of Black Hawks, having deposited their human cargo, accelerated quickly out of sight. The undead, having lost interest, resumed consuming the fallen Marine’s body.
Mike had been inside this building before as a guest. This time he would be breaking and entering.
Sergeant Darwin Maddox anchored a thick nylon rope onto the sturdy steel bracket that secured the rooftop air scrubbers servicing the building. Silenced H&K MP7A1 at the ready, he pushed off with his back to the open air and smoothly rappelled over the edge, landing on the portico below. He went to one knee and scanned the area with his NVGs, carbine moving as one with his eyes.
Speaking in a whisper, Maddox called “Clear,” his throat mic amplifying the words and transmitting them through all of the team’s earpieces. Brent, Haskell and Calvin joined Maddox on the terrace. A moment later Desantos and Clark formed up; all six men were together in the alcove a mere ten feet above where the zombies roamed.
Maddox expertly applied the DET cord around the secure door frame and prepared the charge. The men turned their heads away when the cord detonated so their NV goggles wouldn’t wash out, momentarily blinding them. The explosion wasn’t spectacular. A low rumble and a puff of smoke later the door fell inward and landed with a muffled thud on the thick navy blue carpet. The smell of death wafting from within didn’t surprise Mike.
The six men stacked up hand on shoulder, weapons at the ready and entered the glowing green room, barrels covering their zone. The room was uninhabited, but the scene was surreal. A wide mahogany antique desk, made with wood sourced from the HMS Resolute, sat facing their breach point. A secure phone and a computer with two large LCD screens shared space with family photos on the expansive desktop. The American flag was prominently displayed on the left side of the desk. On the opposite was a flag bearing the presidential seal. They were in the Oval Office of the White House without an invitation.
They stood still and listened for sound or movement. They were greeted with silence.
Mike turned the knob and slowly eased the solid walnut door open, his carbine sweeping left to right. An empty hall was revealed in the green glow of his NVGs. He communicated with his men using only hand signals. Each operator had a flashing IR strobe affixed to the back of his tactical helmet, only visible through night vision optics.
Once again the men stacked up to enter the hall. Their silenced weapons emitted green IR beams that danced in the air. It was like being at a laser light show without the blaring Pink Floyd. The hallway was clear. The men moved in single file, spaced a few feet apart. Sergeant Clark watched their six while a stern looking portrait of George Washington watched them all as they padded down the hall, weapons and beams sweeping the corridor.
The White House was very secure with blast and bullet proof windows and doors. It lent for a very quiet interior. They detected scratchy moans coming from somewhere in the West Wing. Captain Desantos was on point; he was the one that noticed the bloody hand prints first. He feared the worst. POTUS had two little daughters and these happened to be too small to be left by an adult. A blood trail meandered down the hallway through a set of closed, ornately carved double doors. Mike’s earpiece came alive with the voice of Zulu-Two’s team leader, Deke Clifton.
“This is Rainman, how copy?”
“Cowboy here, sit rep?”
“We made contact with multiple infected, Sergeant Wholford is WIA (wounded in action). He has been infected.”
“Copy that. Secure your casualty and proceed to objective.”
In the East Wing of the White House, the infected Sergeant agreed to take his life before he could turn and jeopardize the mission. Deke handed the man a blister packet containing one gel caplet. Sergeant Wholford opened the package and promptly swallowed the pill. He sat down and was relieved of his weapons. His eyes closed and his body convulsed; he was dead seconds later. As commanding Officer, it was Deke’s responsibility to make sure the man stayed dead. Two rounds from his silenced MP7 assured Wholford would not reanimate.
The entire Zulu-One Delta Team stood in front of the doors while their leader received a situation report from the other team. Mike had committed the floor plan to memory. They were nearing the president’s Chief of Staff Emanuel Jones’ personal office.
Mike’s team made their first contact near the end of the blood-tracked hallway. The two zombies staggered out of the Chief of Staff’s office. Undead didn’t have good night vision; the Chief of Staff caromed off of an elaborately carved table and fumbled his way towards the Delta Team. An IR beam painted the walker’s face; in the eerie green glow of Mike’s NV goggles he concluded it was in fact the President’s right hand man, Emanuel Jones. The guttural sound that escaped from its mouth confirmed the worst: high ranking members had indeed returned with the President as intelligence had suggested. Unfortunately the infection had spread inside the most secure residence in the free world.
Mike took careful aim. The silenced H&K MP7 coughed twice; the two bullets entered the zombie’s forehead high and opened the top of its head spraying flecks of bone and brain all over the beautiful oil paintings adorning the walls. Another ghoul ambled out of the office; the woman had bite wounds all over her torso. The young intern had seen better days. She was minus all of her internal organs and both arms had been partially consumed. It was apparent she had lost a lot of blood before she died; her entire lower body was crimson red.
Mike sidestepped Emanuel Jones’ body and calmly put a bullet into the intern’s temple just behind the left eye. The projectile scrambled her brains and she dropped instantly.
Mike entered the office and called out “Clear” a moment later. Once he was back in the hallway he produced a small digital camera from his thigh pocket and recorded the faces of the undead for later confirmation.
“Cowboy, this is Rainman, we are outside of POTUS’s master bedroom, preparing for entry.”
“Copy that. Proceed at will,” Mike answered.
The remaining five shooters led by Warrant Officer Deke Clifton breached the door with DET cord. The room was in shambles and the walls were blood streaked. Broken furniture lay strewn about.
Suddenly two small figures emerged from the dark grand master bathroom. Deke had been briefed before the mission and had studied and memorized the faces of all of the VIPs in the White House. Even tinted green he recognized the President’s young daughters rushing at him, so he held his fire. When he realized that the children were zombies he engaged them with his silenced weapon. The girls were faster than any other undead that he had encountered. Carly, the youngest, leapt at him like a feral cat. He shot from the hip, and the un-aimed bullets went left and high. His fate was sealed when she latched her teeth onto his forearm and held on. Her body weight caused him to swing around towards his team while inadvertently discharging his weapon. Sergeant Dean Matthews caught two through the neck a millisecond before Sergeant Lowery was gut shot below his body armor. The next two operators in the stack, Rooks and Dooley, were unscathed; they promptly rushed forward to help. Sergeant First Class Lopez who was bringing up the rear was saved by his bulletproof vest; the two errant bullets still had enough punch to knock him down. The other child zombie latched onto Sergeant Lowery’s neck near his jugular. The little creature shook her head and came away with a prize.
Lopez, still on the floor, aimed through the holographic sight on his MP7; the feeding zombie looked up and hissed at him. A three round burst from his weapon rendered her face unrecognizable.
Deke couldn’t believe it. He was fatally injured by the smallest superficial bite; tiny teeth marks were visible on the exposed flesh between his gloved hand and his ACU sleeve. He let his weapon hang from its sling and checked Matthews’ pulse. It was too late for him. The young operator had bled out already and was starting to turn a pallid gray. The carpet was slick with blood and the gut shot Lowery was fighting to breathe, bloody air bubbles frothing from his mouth. Acrid cordite, comingling with the metallic smell of blood, filled the Presidential Suite.
Deke tended to the rapidly fading Lowery. Lopez was smarting from the bullets his vest had absorbed. He gingerly moved forward to assist Deke just as Lowery reanimated and rolled over onto his stomach. Deke stood erect, backpedaled and put a plush chair between him and the corpse. The creature that was once Lowery managed to rise, allowing the entire contents of his bowels to spill through the gaping entry wounds. Fecal odor now permeated the room. Lopez gagged as he double-tapped his undead teammate with his silenced carbine.
A dry rattling moan originated from the next room. Lopez entered the adjoining marble tiled bathroom, in a combat crouch, with his carbine at the ready. The sound was coming from the white clawfoot tub. He approached cautiously and looked over the edge at what remained of the First Lady’s body. She was naked and twitching in the bottom of the empty vessel. It appeared she had been attacked and eaten by her undead children. The bite marks were small, but so much of her had been consumed the only thing she could do was track movement with her eyes and click her jaws open and closed.
Lopez, Rooks and Dooley finished clearing the President’s private residence. Lopez called out, “Clear.”
Deke hailed Mike.
“This is Rainman, I’ve been infected. Wholford, Matthews and Lowery are all KIA, Lopez is assuming command of Zulu-Two, how copy?”
On the other side of the White House Mike halted in his tracks, let his weapon hang on its sling, and rubbed his temples before answering.
“Cowboy, copy that. What the hell happened?”
Deke recounted how he had paused briefly before engaging the First children. “Shit went FUBAR on me. I take full responsibility. FLOTUS is dead. I repeat the First Lady is down.”
Lopez took command of Zulu-Two and ordered his men to digitally document the scene and retrieve DNA swabs from all of the dead. Rooks took the camera from Deke and captured images of the dead girls and the First Lady, who was still hungrily eyeing the soldiers.
Deke confirmed his pistol was loaded by pulling the slide back far enough to see brass in the chamber; he then stepped to the undead Mrs. Odero and fired one bullet into her brain. He started to shake, not only from what he had just done, but also from the viral process taking place throughout his entire body. Deke’s limbs were going numb. The last time he felt this miserable was during the cold water survival course at Fort Benning so many years ago. He had survived that day but he knew he wasn’t finishing this one. The weary soldier closed the door behind him and pulled the photo of his wife and little boy from his breast pocket and gave them each one last kiss. Tears formed in his eyes as he put the pistol into his mouth. It tasted of gun oil and metal. His infected limbs shook more forcefully. He had to bite down on the barrel to keep it in his mouth. Willing his finger muscles to contract, he left this world. The bang reverberated in the tiled bathroom.
In the West Wing of the White House, Mike and his team slowly made their way down the marble spiral staircase. He and his men located the dark wooden door to the White House Situation room. Aside from Mr. Jones and his intern there had been no other infected in the West Wing. The bloody handprints and blood trail in the upstairs hall outside of the Oval Office were the only indication things may have gone sideways on the President and his protection detail. Mike had a sinking feeling there would be no one left alive to tell that story.
The men formed up in front of the wood-paneled titanium blast door. Mike rapped on it with a gloved hand. A series of bumps and bangs answered him back.
In his ear he heard a new report from the other team.
“This is Lowrider, we are enroute to the West Wing. My team is at half strength,” Sergeant First Class Lopez said.
“Copy that Lowrider, Cowboy out.”
Mike got the attention of Warrant Officer Clark and warned him to be ready to receive the three remaining team members, lest they have another friendly fire incident.
Clark nodded in recognition.
During the mission briefing hours ago, Speaker of the House Valerie Clay provided the last known entry code for the situation room. She was the only known surviving member of the U.S. government still communicating with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Barring the retrieval of a living breathing POTUS or VPOTUS she was the next in order of succession.
Mike touched the keypad and entered the digits he had memorized. The green light on the keypad blinked momentarily before the door slid into the wall, revealing the interior of the situation room and the carnage inside. The smell was noxious and Mike had all he could do to keep his gag reflex in check.
President Odero’s hubris kept him from accepting his protective detail’s recommendation that he be moved to a safer location. The men and women staffers pleaded with him and the First Lady to allow them to be moved to Iron Mountain as protocol dictated. Instead he recalled all of his cabinet and the Joint Chiefs of Staff back to the White House just hours after declaring martial law. Only a handful of the cabinet members had made it back and none of the Joint Chiefs of Staff returned to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Of the staffers that did return, President Odero’s National Security Advisor Daniel Guzman was already infected, thus dooming everyone in the White House.
The source of the banging came forward, a Secret Service Agent, most of his face hanging in strips over the collar of his blood-caked white cotton oxford shirt. His empty leather shoulder holster bounced with his lurching steps, the flesh colored earpiece dangling where his ear used to be swishing to and fro like a bloody pendulum. Jaundiced eyes stared at the soldiers entering the inner sanctum. Somewhere in the recesses of its hippocampus the thing remembered it had something to protect. Mike became its target.
With the precision honed from hours of practicing live fire shooting, the team swept the medium-sized room, each instinctively taking the proper firing zone.
Mike punched out the Secret Service zombie’s right eye with a three round burst, crouched low, and crab walked to the right around the massive table flanked by enormous darkened LCD panel televisions.
Seconds elapsed and the rest of the room was cleared of undead. There were six in total: three more agents, the Vice President and his younger trophy wife, last place in death for sure. Mike sensed the movement beyond the next open door before making contact. It was the President. He was now undead. There were defensive bite wounds on his hands and his pants legs were tattered and torn exposing his monogrammed boxer shorts. Handcuffed to his right arm was an aluminum attaché case.
“Calvin, you rolling digital?” Mike bellowed.
“Affirmative sir.”
“Tighten on the face then.”
“Copy that.”
The image that the camera digitally captured didn’t resemble the president. His cheeks were sunken; his usual commanding steely stare was replaced by dead, glazed over eyes peering from a waxy alabaster mask.
“Odero is beyond recovery, preparing to terminate POTUS.”
Captain Mike Desantos had the President in his sights and thought, This shouldn’t be happening. His MP7 silently spit lead and the zombie that used to be the most powerful man in the free world crumpled to the thick carpet spilling blood and brain matter from his bullet-riddled skull.
Mike drew his Hard Steel Tanto blade and put his combat boot on the dead President’s upturned hand. With three rapid sawing motions of his knife he removed the appendage. The blood slickened handcuff slid from the stump easily. For the first time since the helos dropped the men at the White House, Mike hailed Fort Bragg so they could inform the former Speaker of the House Valerie Clay she was the new POTUS.
“This is Zulu-One, we have recovered the fumble. How copy?”
“Copy that, RTB (return to base) with the football. Reaper-One and Two are refueling, exfil in ten mikes.”
“Roger that. Zulu-One.”
Two miles away the helicopters that had inserted the team loitered after their last aerial refueling. Arrangements were made to top off their tanks before rendezvousing with the Delta Teams at the White House for the exfil.
Lastly, out of curiosity, Captain Desantos took the expensive white gold Breitling chronograph from the dead President’s other wrist. He turned it over and read the engraved inscription, “For your unending service and dedication-Welcome into the Guild-The Marzenberg Group.”
The watch went into his pocket but the disbelief at the words he had just read wouldn’t go away.