Page 20 of Breaking Danger (Ghost Ops #3)

“Yes,” she said slowly, turning the idea over in her mind. “That could work.” She shook her head. “Do you know, that would never have occurred to me.”

“No.” His jaws snapped together with an audible click. “That’s not the way your mind thinks. You are looking to understand their behavior. I just want to find ways to kill the fuckers.” He slanted a look at her out of those ice blue eyes without turning his head. “Sorry.”

Sophie closed her eyes, tried a smile. It was shaky and felt fake. “That’s okay. Monsters are roaming the streets, Jon. Ripping each other to pieces. I’m not going to faint at the f-bomb.”

The hologram suddenly switched from the peninsula to some kind of war room. “Jon.”

It was Mac. He was sitting in a room with Catherine Young, Elle and her guy, the scarred man, Lucius Ward, and another man.

He was a fireplug of a man, short—certainly next to Mac and Elle’s guy and Ward—but very broad shouldered.

He had on a fleece, plaid shirt underneath and jeans but his short haircut, so extreme she could see scalp, and squared back shoulders spelled military, or at least former military, to her.

“Boss,” Jon answered. “You don’t need to tell us—trouble’s on the way. We can see it for ourselves.”

“Yeah.” Mac aimed a big thumb at Catherine and Elle. “The geek squad has come up with some facts they think you should know.”

Sophie felt like she was looking directly into Elle’s eyes, the hologram was so lifelike. “They’re swarming,” she said before Elle could speak.

Elle dipped her head. “Yes, they are. Catherine and I have been observing them, with time lapses backward and forward. There’s good news and bad news. Which one do you want first?”

Jon answered. “Bad news first. I can’t imagine there’s much good news.”

“Okay.” Elle hesitated. She was pale, stressed.

“Soph…” Her voice broke and her Nick put a big arm around her.

For the very first time, Sophie understood down to the bone what having a strong man at your side meant, the support it could give.

She leaned back, just a little and there Jon was.

Tall, broad, solid. A pillar of strength.

She’d never believed in that whole man-woman thing.

She’d always dated men who were basically her—cerebral and detached—but with a cylinder of flesh dangling between their legs that came in useful now and again.

Her men had been narrow-shouldered, with pale undeveloped muscles, not too good with the physical, outside world.

Bad drivers, hopeless at repairs—one boyfriend back in Chicago used to call her over to change lightbulbs, though he thanked her with food. He was a fabulous cook.

Not at any stage of her life had Sophie thought to lean on a man as a source of strength.

She’d never had to. But now the tables were turned and Jon and everything he represented—the iron and steel world of battle, the world of sheer male physical strength—was as necessary to her as breathing.

As a matter of fact, if she wanted to keep breathing, if she wanted to make it out of the trap of her flat and to safety, she was going to need Jon’s qualities.

“The swarm grew through the night. It seems to be a universal phenomenon with the virus. We’re seeing swarms forming in Oakland, in Sacramento. And, God, Soph. Los Angeles…”

Sophie gasped. The Los Angeles basin was one large catchment area, a geographical trap, with mountains to the north, east and south and the ocean to the west.

“Los Angeles is a nightmare.” Elle’s voice was shaky.

“San Diego’s a little better,” Nick picked up. “But not much. So here’s what the San Francisco swarm looks like.”

The hologram flickered and then there was a bird’s eye view of the Bay Area, much higher than the drones’ eye view.

For a moment it looked like there had been a mudslide or a lava flow, oozing down the streets.

Then the focus sharpened and it was clear that the streets were dark with infected, swarming their way to the waterfront.

There was complete silence as they watched scenes that no human had ever seen before.

Elle cleared her throat. “Catherine and I have done some calculations, Soph. There’s a definite tropism at work so the swarm attracts outliers.

It’s growing by the hour. But that also means that when the swarm has passed you, there will be a window of opportunity of, say, fifteen minutes with no infected nearby because they will all be caught up in the swarm.

You can make your getaway then. We estimate that the swarm will pass by you completely by 3 pm.

Here—” The images tilted, the earth moving swiftly below.

It followed the swarm to its edges, which could almost have been drawn.

As the swarm moved, the edges were clear-cut, with no infected coming after the stragglers.

“You’ll have a clear shot after it passes. ”

Oh God, going out in broad daylight…Sophie looked up at Jon, whose face had tightened. Jon answered for her. “Sophie thinks their eyesight is diminished in the dark. Wouldn’t it be better to wait until after sundown?”

Mac was shaking his head. “Negative. There are apparently mini swarms forming all over the city. There’s no guarantee that other swarms might not appear after dark.

And you have only one set of NVGs. So make preparations to exfil around 3 pm.

With luck, you’ll be back in Haven before twilight.

And we can start manufacturing the vaccine. ”

Nick looked to his left, to the stocky ex-military man. “And so now for some good news…”

The man’s voice was low, gruff. He dipped his head. “Jon. This is Snyder. Former General Snyder.”

Sophie looked with surprise at Jon’s jolt. Had that been a growl? His eyes shot blue ice, his entire body language that of hostility.

“Hold on, son.” Snyder held up a hand with short thick fingers and a broad palm. “Before you go off the deep end, I fought the Pentagon tooth and nail over the court martial. And I was invited to an early retirement for my pains. So don’t you go growling at me, you hear me?”

“Yeah? That’s what Mac said. Well, it doesn’t make much difference now. And what the fuck is the Pentagon doing for us now, huh?”

Snyder’s mouth firmed, a flush appeared on his tanned cheeks. “We don’t know. None of us can get in touch with anyone at the Pentagon. Anyone in Washington, actually.”

Oh, God. “Do you think—” It sounded so horrible Sophie had trouble articulating it. “Do you think they have cut California off? Can they do that?”

“They can.” Snyder’s jaw muscles jumped.

“Or rather they can not answer any emails with a California IP. There are 25 military bases in the state. I’ve got friends in most of them.

After the infection spread, I was able to contact people only at McClellan and Fort Hunter.

No one else answered. At McClellan and Hunter they were almost overrun.

And they couldn’t contact anyone at the Pentagon either. ”

“We’re on our own,” Jon said, voice grim. “They abandoned us.”

“We’re on our own, son,” Snyder confirmed.

“But we’re fighting back. Because the good news is that a lot of people have managed to circle the wagons.

We can’t communicate outside California but we’ve got a call out 24/7 to survivors and they are calling in.

Unfortunately there’s not much we can do for individuals caught up on the roofs of their homes.

But we’ve got whole communities that are bunkered down.

We’ve managed 15 air drops of weapons, explosives and food and water so they can hold out until we can get the vaccine to them.

We’re ferrying supplies, evacuating the wounded.

Not infected wounded, just people who’ve been injured getting themselves to safety. ”

Sophie leaned forward. “Are you following Q and I protocols?” she asked urgently.

“Absolutely, we’re following quarantine and isolation protocols.” Catherine stepped into the monitor. “We’re following CDC protocols, though isolation doesn’t really apply here because we don’t have any infected to isolate. It was deemed too dangerous.”

“Yes, of course.” Sophie ran through what she knew of CDC protocols.

“We’re looking at an engineered virus. And I am 100% certain it was engineered so that humans are the natural reservoir.

” Sophie kept her voice steady even though the thought of a scientist—a person dedicated to human knowledge—had knowingly engineered this viral plague made her heartsick.

“I don’t have any hard data on the incubation period but I suspect it is very short.

It’s important that we observe quarantine protocols. ”

Catherine and Elle had their heads bent over their tablets, entering data. “Got it,” Catherine said, raising her head. “Anything else?”

Sophie hesitated. This didn’t rise to the level of science, but they were operating in such darkness anything might be of help.

“This is completely anecdotal, but in my observations, I noted the infected go from shadow to sunlight with no noticeable contraction of the pupils. I observed at least fifty cases of this through binoculars but of course I couldn’t conduct tests in controlled circumstances.

Nonetheless, I feel that I can say that there is a statistically high probability that the virus fixes the pupils so that accommodation is impossible.

Which, of course, would explain why they might have reduced vision at night.

Their pupils are locked. So you might want to shine a bright light into everyone who comes into the quarantine sector and everyone you release into the general population. See if the pupils accommodate.”

“We can broadcast that,” said Snyder. “That would be really helpful if you can’t distinguish between a normal injury and a bite. Because a lot of people are having problems putting down loved ones, even ones they know are infected.”

“Particularly children,” Elle added, face sad.

Oh yeah.