Your support makes Blue Moon possible (Patreon)
Spake759
Super-Earth
- Joined
- Jun 13, 2009
- Location
- Monroe, NC, USA
0630 Tuesday 08 July 2008
An isolated airstrip somewhere outside of the City of Blüdhaven
A light rain fell upon the tarmac as five US Army Lockheed-Martin UH-101 Tuscarora helicopters were being prepared for their mission of mercy. The US Army ground crews were rushing through all of their pre-flight checklists trying to hurry their tasks⦠Because they knew that out there in the City of Blüdhaven people were dying by the hundreds every minute they took to carry out their assigned tasks.
A US Army Ranger detachment was going through their last minute preparations before their approaching deployment into the hell that the City of Blüdhaven had become in just a few days. Only spotty reports had made it out of the city in the past 48 hours, the only thing that had been confirmed was that the City of Bludhaven had been ground zero of the outbreak of what the United States Government had started calling a bio-terror agent they had started to call the "Ranimate Virus" thanks to the fact it was reanimated dead tissues turning the recently deceased into ravenous flesh eating killing machines.
Already the bio-terror agent had since spread to other major American cities, and was now spreading at an extremely alarming rate across the entire mid-west and eastern seaboard. The three cities where the Bio-Terror Agent had originally been released had already descended into chaos.
All attempts at containment had failed to contain the outbreaks. During the first chaotic 72 hours caused more deaths to occur than could have been realized. For during those first 72 hours no one realized that the Reanimate Virus was spread through the horrible bites that the majority of survivors of Reanimate Life Form attacks would suffer. The overwhelmed medical centres in those three initial outbreaks would send those with non-life threatening injuries such as bites.
To make matters worse, there were already reports that the bio-terror agent had been released overseas.
The first 24 hours after the start of the Outbreak, those infected by the reanimate virus had for the most part been kept in check by the combined efforts of the Clear Water private military contractors that were in the employ of Spenser Bio-Med, the local Army National Guard, and the City of Blüdhaven Police Department. The Spenser Bio-Med stated that their teams of best researchers had attempted to examine the virus and create a vaccine to save the lives of those who had been infected and that they needed more time to find a cure or at the least a vaccine to counter the effects of the virus.
Shortly after the reports that their private bio-medical research center that had started researching the bio-agent after the first incidents had been reported was overrun, both the CDC and USAMRIID elected to send teams of researchers into the hell that the City of Blüdhaven had descended into. Their intended goal had been to recover any of the data that the company had already uncovered.
The CDC team had been escorted by a US Army National Guard Platoon, the last reports that had made it out form 1LT Hirsh was that their position was about to be overrun and that they had to try to make it to a more secure facility. The USAMRIID team had been escorted by a platoon of US Army mechanized infantry detached form the 3rd Infantry Division (Rock of the Marne), the last report received from them had been that they had secured all of the research materials form the overrun bio-medical centre and was looking for a more secure location to conduct their preliminary research.
But both of those reports had been over 24 hours old.
To extract these two separate teams from the hell that the City of Blüdhaven in under 72 hours had become became paramount after the bio-terror agent had proven itself to spread outside the area of containment. To do this an elite US Army Ranger detachment that had just returned to the United States after a joint mission with a small team of British Army Special Air Service personnel in the Democratic Republic of Calstiopa, was tasked with a mission of the utmost importance. Going back into the City of Blüdhaven City to extract the two teams of researchers who had tried to find answers to the bio-agent that had spawned this growing pandemic.
The Ranger Detachment had been on a top-secret mission that went horribly wrong⦠During the course of their mission they had lost a third of the personnel originally assigned to their force, and they were the witnesses to the first known release of the bio-terror agent in a small Central American nation, the Democratic Republic of Calinstopa. To replace these losses, the Detachment absorbed the surviving members of several other units that included a US Navy SEAL team that had been carrying out anti-terrorism training missions in the region, and a US Marine Corps fire team that had been assigned to defend the US Embassy to the Democratic Republic of Calstiopa.
In the end the Democratic Republic of Calstiopa had been quarantined by the international community in an attempt to keep the outbreak form spreading to its neighbors. The only real opposition to the international quarantine had came form Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez and his mentor, the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
All around the periphery of the rain soaked tarmac was two small groups of reporters whom was providing a short up-to-the-minute update to their parent news agencies. And off to one side of the tarmac stood once such a reporter named Brock Allen, who along with his cameraman Benjamin 'Benji' Kord were working to give a live update using a digital video camera and their satellite videophone for the Independent Network News Service.
"This is Brock Allen, reporting form an undisclosed location somewhere outside the City of Blüdhavenâ¦" Brock Allen stated looking directly into the camera. His serious expression was mirrored by the clothing he was wearing. A light blue ballistic vest with the words 'PRESS' In large white letters across his chest and back, combined with the distinctively military cut of a light blue long sleeve shirt, a pair of dark khaki cargo trousers and a rugged pair of brown hiking boots. "The US Army has assembled a detachment of US Army Rangers to go into the city to try and retrieve the two separate teams of medical researchers that had been sent in by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention and the US Army Research Institute of Infectious Diseases to try and work with a local bio-medical company, on finding a vaccine for the bio-terror agent that has been released reportedly by members of al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist cells."
"Brock," Russ Mitchell, the current CBS News anchor said leaning forward to look at the camera intently. "This is Russ Mitchell with the Early Show. Just what exactly can you tell us about what is happening there right now?"
"Well Russ," Brock Allen said smirking. "We are preparing for a major military excursion into the City of Blüdhaven to attempt to extract the CDC team who was trying to isolate the causes of this current bio-terror outbreak. But I have a feeling that they are are also preparing for something else. But I canât be sureâ¦"
"What do you mean Brock?" Russ Mitchell asked. "What do you think they are preparing for except to rescue the research team that has been trapped in Blüdhaven?"
"Well Russ," Brock said grimly. "I have my suspicions about this group of soldiers who have been tasked with this extraction mission."
"They are a United States Army Ranger Detachment who has become known by Iraqi freedom fighters as 'The Death Dealers,' and they have been assigned by the President of the United States to go into the City of Blüdhaven to extract the two separate teams of medical researchers who went into to try and recover all of the data that had been initially collected during the start of this outbreakâ¦" Brock Allen stated matter-of-factly.
"I and several other reporters have volunteered to be embedded with these so-called 'Death Dealers' to make sure that what is happening inside the City of Blüdhaven will be seen by the entire world." Brock Allen said. "We now know that these 'Death Dealers' are aptly named. They are the ones responsible for the orders that saw the Democratic Republic of Calstiopa being bombed back into the stone age by concentrated bombardment carried out by not only the United States Air Force and United States Navy, but also of every military asset operating in the Caribbean."
"My God Brock," Russ Mitchell muttered. "Why would the president sent someone like that into that kind of situation knowing their record?"
"I honestly do not know Russ," Brock Allen said frowning. "All I know is that it took every favor that I had to get assigned to document everything that these people do during this mission. So please stay tuned⦠We will be broadcasting live as much as possible. My cameraman has assured me that the satellite communications hook-ups that he has will be more than enough to allow us to broadcast independently of any US Military intervention."
"Rest assured Brock," Russ Mitchell said seriously. "We will be here watching everything you send us."
"This is Brock Allen reporting for CBS News, signing off." Allen said with a wave of his hand, causing his camera man to close the satellite videophone while he himself looked over at the US Army Ranger detachment that he had used all of his connections to be assigned to.
As much as he despised the men and women of the United States Armed Forces, he knew that covering this group during the current crisis would make him more famous than Anderson Cooper. 'And I don't hide in the closet like that looser,' Allen thought as he trotted over to one of the UH-101 Tuscarora helicopters and looked at the non-commissioned officer who was responsible for Chalk Five, the Overwatch Team. He was a heavyset Asian male named SSG James 'Jim' Chow. The short heavily muscled Asian US Army Ranger had more pistols strapped on him that one would have ever expected.
"How much longer before we head out?" Allen asked.
"Not much longer," SSG Chow said smiling. "We just got informed where are going to be able to find the two research teams. Thankfully the two teams are currently hold-up in a private hospital on the outskirts of the City of Blüdhaven. That is going to make extracting them all the much more easier. The only downside is that we just learned that there is a US Senator now there as well who has declared himself a major priority extraction, and it looks as if we are going to have to wait for an additional bird to take with us to just extract him, his staff and his entourage out of there. And from what they are saying we will need the extra space to get some of the work that the research teams have been doing for the past couple of days."
"Who is it?" Allen asked, he was already looking forward to exposing some fat-cat politician for using undue influence to interfere with the evacuations of those people who would lead to a vaccine that would counter the Reanimate Virus.
"None other than Senator Harold 'Hal' Belington himself Mr. Allen," SSG Chow said shaking his head in disgust. "The same man who has been making campaigning against the military in general and the War in Iraq in particular to get all the anti-war, anti-military and peace activist groups to become his own personal bottomless ATM machine."
Brock frowned and shook his head and did his best not to express his own disgust for just how SSG Chow had reacted. Not only was SEN Belington a personal friend of his, but Brock had always been one of his strongest supporters. Brock had written many of the stories that Belington had needed to discredit both the US military and the war effort.
"How much longer do you think that will take?" Allen asked doing his best to hide how much the sergeants statements and sentiments offended him.
"Not much longer," SSG Chow stated as he watched Allen closely. He knew that he had hit a nerve with the newly embedded journalist that had been forced upon the Detachment against the Master Chiefâs express wishes. "Two Coast Guard helicopters will be joining us enroute to handle the extraction of the Senator and his staff.. Seems he does not trust the US Army to extract him safely. And they are saying that he has been fuming at the mouth that it will not be the Secret Service that escorts him out of harmâs way to one of those nice posh and comfortable Congressional C.O.G. Bunkers. "
"Who knows, if you play your cards right you could end up getting to stay with the Senator and get to provide exclusive reports directly from the bunker that he gets to hold-up in." SSG Chow said grinning.
"No thank you," Allen said shaking his head despite the fact that he really wouldnât mind such a plum assignment after he had made a name for himself. "Iâd rather get my hands dirty and let the world see first hand what is going on."
'That way it won't just get covered up by the fucking Bush Administration like the rest of the shit I KNOW that they have been doing,' Allen mentally added.
"I wonder what the Senator was doing in the City of Blüdhaven?" S/Sgt. Lance Parker asked in his heavy London accent. "This certainly isnât his homestate form what I understand."
"I guess it could have been one of his many Presidential Election Campaign stops," SFC Jonas Cartwright said with a shrug.
"One of his publicly toted camping trips during his run up for reelection?" SSG Chow said with a shrug of his shoulders. "To show he is just another humble man form the mid-west?"
"Who knows, and who the fuck gives a damn," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said forcefully as he and 1SG Theo Freeman walked forcefully up to were SSG Chow and the other chalk leaders had been standing around talking. He looked at each of the men who he had hand selected to be in charge of each element of HIS Ranger Detachment. "Heâs there right now raising enough of a stink that we will have to divert our energies get him out of the shit storm that the bastard has gone and gotten himself into the middle of. At least he is also now been relocated to the same private medical facility just within the city limits of the City of Blüdhaven. The down side is that it cost the lives of nearly half the National Guard and Mechanized Infantry that had been assigned to protect those two research teams. We have both satellite and UAV surveillance pictures of the area now that is showing that the place is starting to become heavily infested with these Renaimated Life Forms. Intelligence thinks that these things have enough intelligence left to follow anything and head in the same direction that they last saw it going in. We have that to go in our favour right now people. We will go in, get the things to follow us and then make a couple of crazy ivans to get them heading BACK to the center of the city. That way a couple of MOABs can be dropped by the Air Force to thin the bastards out."
"This isnât the first time weâve had to deal with these things people," CW3 Spaight said rubbing his head and frowning hard. "Probably wonât be our last either, damnit. But we are going to do this by the numbers. I donât want to lose anyone else to these⦠these⦠things."
"Reports have confirmed what we already knew, that bites are indeed fatal. Official word has come down from the CDC that once bitten, you are infected and are a carrier. Anyone who gets bitten is to be isolated and quarantined. But WE are going to keep fighting until we caint fight anymore, and then⦠And only then will we end it. I aint gonna blame anyone who decides itâd be better to take their own life to keep form turning into one of those⦠thangs. But pass the word around that they arenât to do it until they are certain that their actions will not get any one else killed."
"If anyone wants to end it," CW3 Spaight said softly, almost regretfully. Everyone standing nearby could tell it was killing him to make this statement. "But cant because of religious reasons⦠Tell them to come to me. Iâll take care of it for them. I aint gonna let anyone have to deal with killing a friend if I can help it."
"Also let everyone know that our families have enacted the blue folder emergency plan," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said seriously looking at each of his team leaders. "They are already at the shelter that we all set up for major emergencies. Our Admin staff that keeps us supplied with bullets, and deals with all our craptastic volumes of paperwork and is keeping us in the black are also with them. They might not be frontline soldiers, but they are soldiers. So we know that they are all safe now. Theoâs wife has stated that there wasnât anyone bitten when they arrived. She also said that there has not been any known reports of outbreaks in the area around Forlorn Hope either⦠So thatâs one less thing for everyone to worry about."
"What is this Forlorn Hope?" Allen asked only to end up facing the stern expressions of the Ranger team leaders. "Never mindâ¦"
'Iâll just find out later,' he mentally added as he turned back to Benji Kord and gave him a clandestine nod.
"Master Chief, what about the orphans we have adopted?" SFC Cartwright asked motioning to the Marines, and Navy SEALs that were standing and sitting around the vehicles that they all had arrived in just an hour before.
"We will be incorporating them into the Detachment," CW3 Spaight said smiling. "We just became a combined forces detachment under the direct authority of the Office of the President of the United States. As of now we have become P.O.I. extractors."
"Chief Spaight was does P.O.I. mean?" Kord asked raising his hand.
"P.O.I. means Persons of Importanceâ¦" CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said looking directly at the cameraman. "They can be anyone from a politician, a medical doctor, or even just someone who has the skills that the we need to do something important. Right now we are going in and extracting the scientists who have been researching the Reanimate Virus first hand, and a fucking worthless politician."
"Alright this is just for our new embeds," CW3 Spaight looked around at the four embedded journalists and cameramen and shook his head with distraction. "First off, having you people with us was not my idea. Hell, I had to be ordered to include you on this mission. So remember that. You all have been assigned two soldiers who you are to stick with at all times. If you want to go beat your meat, you take them with you. You are not to go off on your own. If you get separated form your escorts I want you to find a soldier to stay beside, and you stay with them until your escort reclaims you. I don't want to explain to the big brass why anyone of you had ended up becoming RLF chow. Do I make myself clear gentlemen?"
"Yes sir," was the almost hushed response that the four men standing on the periphery of the circle that the chalk leaders and their detachment commander stood in.
"What was that?" CW3 Spaight said cupping his hand over his ear and frowning. "Did you say something? âcause I didn't hear nothing⦠So say it again were I kin hear you this time."
"YES SIR!" was the shouted response.
"Good," CW3 Spaight said looking back at the helicopters and sighed. "I have already briefed the birdies crews on what we are doing, get back to your chalks and get them loaded up. We are out of here in five minutes. And five minutes after that the ground crews are going to make a trip down to the local armory and see what they can find in the means of ground vehicles. Because we got a report that the researchers might not want to leave all the research and equipment that they are using right now. If that is the case I want to be ready for it⦠and use that gear to get them the hell out of that fucking growing necropolis."
"We only have five hour window before the Air Force is going to do a fly-by and blow all of the bridges," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said. "That first pass will let us know that the big bombs are on their way⦠After they blow the bridges, we will have only thirty minutes before they start dropping the MOABS on the center of the city. If those aint enough to eliminate the threat⦠Then they will use tactical nukes."
"Congress will never authorize the use of nukes on American soil!" Brock Allen said incredulously.
"They just authorized it," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said. "It was pretty unanimously passed as well⦠Only two or three people in both houses opposed the move. But to put your head at rest, to use a nuke the city has to be declared not only overrun⦠But a verifiable necropolis⦠A city of the dead."
"The UN will start overseeing the evacuation of New York City," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said. "The bridges and tunnels into Manhattan have already been blown to isolate the city from the mainland. Due to UN concerns, Congress has stated that nukes will not be used to sterilize the city unless the UN Security Council approves itâ¦"
"Do you think they will Chief?" Benji Kord asked.
"Honestly?" CW3 Spaight said with a shrug. "I doubt they will⦠Which is good. We can use New York City to keep an eye on just how far and fast that this thing can spread⦠And hopefully we can use it as a test bed for how to counter this bio-terror agent."
"Oh, before I forget itâ¦" CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said with his hands on his hips, and a firm set to his jaw. "The President of the United States has just used the new war powers that just passed Congress last night to promote Major General Gardner to the rank of Lieutenant General and is putting him in charge of these wonderful extractions that we will be doing. So you all know what that meansâ¦"
"Yeah," SSG Jackson said in an extremely unenthusiastic deadpan tone of voice. "We have to deal with politicians, celebrities and other stuck up son-of-bitchesâ¦"
CW3 Spaight smiled and shook his head. "Nope, luckily that is not what we are going to be doing. We are responsible for getting those scientists out of there, and to a nice safe place to do their research. The only thing that is going to make this hard is the fact that SEN Belington is down there, and we have been ordered to extract his sorry ass to the nearest Congressional Continuality of Government bunker that we can find."
"The only two other politicians that we might have to deal with is two local US Representatives who were in the City of Blüdhaven with visiting their constituents when all of this went to hell. These damn bastards hit us on July the 4th in a hope of catching as many people as possible out in the open. To damn bad the Democrats in Congress didn't take our warnings seriously after the fiasco in Calstiopa last week⦠If they had, we wouldn't be in the middle of this mess."
"What do you mean Chief?" Brock Allen asked as he started to pull out his notebook to take down what he heard next.
"Put that way Mr. Allen," CW3 Spaight said shaking his head. "What we say here right now is off-the-record. We are big-time off the record."
"We just returned from the Democratic Republic of Calstinopa," CW3 Spaight said looking directly towards the CBS News correspondent. "You can ask Ollie over there for the details of that mission. He was there as an embed who went with us to make a record of the rescue of those Peace Corps workers form a local al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist group called 'Trajeto de Righteous,' that means 'The Righteous Path' in Portugese. The Calstinopan government had asked the United States for help dealing with the growing number of terrorist attacks that had been happening over the past six months. Namely the suicide attack on their Ministry of Defense headquarters that killed not only their Minister of Defense, but killed all of their Armed Forces Joint Chiefs-of-Staff."
"The Calstinopan President panicked when his Minister of Justice informed him that there was evidence that the suicide attack had actually been planned by none other than the up-and-coming high ranking senior officers who had been placed in charge of the Calistopan Counter-Terrorist Unit," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said. "The man was none other than Lieutenant Colonel Emmanuel Jimenze. Not only was Lt. Col. Jimenze one of the most highly trained special operations troopers in the Calstinopan Armed Forces, it turns out that he was also one of the most well-connected as well."
"When the CIA had learned that Lieutenant Colonel Jimenze was actually the number two man in 'Trajeto de Righteous'," CW3 Spaight said. "They called me in to act as an advisor for the mission to neutralize the command and control elements of the group."
"Why did they want you to provide advice on taking out 'Trajeto de Righteous'?" Benji Kord asked.
"Because the Chief has been at the spear point of counter-terrorist operations around the world for almost ten years now," 1SG Theo Freeman said seriously. "He is in a word, one of the badest and most vicious bastards we have in uniform. Despite the Clinton's best attempts to force him out, that is. "
"What do you mean by that?" Brock Allen asked.
"I am classified as 80% disabled Mr. Allen," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said softy. "I have suffered enough injuries during my nineteen year career in the United States Army to get enough Purple Hearts that warrant an immediate retirement on medical grounds. There are days that I have to take pain meds just so I can get out of bed that morning. I have had to fight against receiving a medical discharge on more than one occasion, and it took my commanding officers pulling every string they could to help me stay in the Army. But all of our hard would not keep me from being relieved for medical reasons and transferred to the 82nd Airborne Division. Instead of accepting that assignment I chose to change course and became a Warrant Officer by signing up with Counter-Intelligence. After 9/11, I found myself instead fighting terrorists."
"Now I am officially classified as a Special Forces Warrant Officer," CW3 Spaight said as he quickly changed the subject. "But we aren't here to talk about me⦠We are talking about what happened down in the Democratic Republic of Calstinopa."
"As most people who understand what is happening down there know, Dr. Jose Vasquez is the undisputed spiritual leader of 'Trajeto de Righteous.' And that he is very well connected with Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro and about a half a dozen other far left-wing government leaders." CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said. "But we never could figure out who was their Field Commander, the one who was responsible for all of their successful missions. We knew it had to be someone who had intimate knowledge of just how the Calstinopian Ministry of Defense operated. Because 'Trajeto de Righteous' had been able to pull off one of the most devastatingly effective terrorist campaigns in the history of Latin America."
"When the Calstinopian President had learned that Lieutenant Colonel Jimenze had actually been the field commander of 'Trajeto de Righteous' for the past five years, he panicked. He panicked big time." CW3 Spaight said. "So much so that he almost caused his own military forces to fight their own internal civil war⦠Despite having discovered just were they were located, he felt he couldn't trust his own military to carry out the mission that would finally decapitate 'Trajeto de Righteous' once and for all. And hopefully give his country the time and breathing room it needed to get it's affairs in order.
"My Ranger Detachment and I was smuggled into the country under the cover of darkness thanks to the USS Charlotte, a US Navy Los Angeles-class nuclear submarine." CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said. "As you already know Mr. Allen we had been pulled off of a transport taking us back home after our latest tour of duty in Iraq."
"A tour that I might add, that you yourself gleefully reported about in your own unique way." CW3 Spaight said smiling tightly. "We aren't 'Death Dealers' Mr. Allen. We didn't go out there to kill anyone who wasn't trying to kill us first."
"We invaded them first Chief," Brock Allen almost snarled.
"No Mr. Allen," CW3 Spaight said tightly. "They invaded Kuwait first. We kicked them out and told them if they didn't abide by the treaties they signed that any nation with a police force could come in and kick 'So-damn-insanes' sorry ass out of office. Even Bill Clinton stated repeatedly that Regime Change was necessary for dealing with that crazy dictator."
"And his 'non-existent' WMD program is where this damn Bio-Agent came form Mr. Allen." CW3 Spaight said. "While the initial laboratories that spawned this horrible plague might have been Soviet, it was the Iraqi sponsored ones that got the Reanimate Virus to a point that it could be deployed and used as a weapon."
"What?" Benji Kord asked. "What do you mean?"
"During the mission we recovered evidence that told us just were the Reanimate Virus came from," CW3 Spaight said shaking his head sadly. "Unfortunately, knowing just were it came form doesn't help us come up with a counter to it⦠But we are hoping that the information will provide researchers enough of a start to finding a vaccine or counter-agent to neutralize those who have been infected."
"The information that we recovered stated that the Reanimate Virus was initially created in a Soviet bio-chemical weapons lab in the late-1970s," CW3 Spaight said. "The Soviets knew what they had developed could become more dangerous than the Nuclear bomb⦠But the scientists just wouldn't stop working on it. They had almost perfected it⦠But when the Soviet Union collapsed in the early-1990s they needed someone to sponsor their research. Enter Saddam Hussein. Hussein provided the high-tech laboratories and equipment, while someone else helped provide them with additional funding."
"We discovered evidence that after 1998 Hussein needed a better hiding place for his program," CW3 Spaight said. "So he turned to contacts within the al-Qeada organization. They sponsored the construction of a high-tech laboratory in Indonesia and another somewhere in the former Soviet Central Asian Republics."
"In early-2007 they made the breakthrough they had needed," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said. "The scientists who had created the Reanimate Virus started work on the vaccine and counter-agent⦠But that was not something that Osama Bin Laden wanted. He ordered that all of the scientists and researchers be liquidated immediately before they succeeded. He ordered that the only thing that was not to be destroyed was the directions on how to produce more of the stuff."
"We are not sure how al-Qeada was able to get mass quantities of this stuff manufactured," CW3 Spaight said. "But we have some strong suspicions."
"What that information wasn't in the 'evidence' that you recovered?" Brock Allen asked.
"It was," CW3 Spaight said. "I had to leave before they got to that during the information briefing before we were assigned to this mission. And believe me Mr. Allen, if I knew where they got the manufacturing base to make this shit⦠I would have no trouble telling you about it. Even if you didn't believe a word I've said."
Brock Allen blinked. "What do you mean by that?" he stuttered.
"Simple Mr. Allen," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said. "I already have read your blogs stating that all of this is just part of some conspiracy set out by President George W. Bush to stay in office after his term ends."
Brock Allen stood silent for a second and turned away as CW3 Spaight continued in his narrative. "We arrived in country forty-eight hours prior to what intelligence had learned was to be a meeting of the leadership of 'Trajeto de Righteous' and their primary connection with the rest of the al-Qeada terror network. Our plan was to hit them hard and fast. To either kill or capture as many of them as we could."
"While we were enroute to the mission," CW3 Spaight said. "We received word that a group of Peace Corps workers had been kidnapped by 'Trajeto de Righteous' to be used as human shields to keep anyone form getting to close to their little meeting. But what they didn't realize was that it would be the United States carrying out a covert mission to hit them."
"We had already known that Jimenze would have known that the Calstinopian Armed Forces was not going to take any actions against them," CW3 Spaight said. "He just did not know that his cover had already been blown, and that his President had asked ours to come in and carry out this mission."
"We didn't realize that 'Trajeto de Righteous' had been able to acquire some Soviet-made ZSU-24 anti-aircraft guns, they shot down the two leading Blackhawk helicopters," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said. "We lost almost half or the detachment. But we continued our mission. We neutralized four of the ZSU-24s before moving on to the main headquarters. We went in and eliminated all of the 'Trajeto de Righteous' leadership⦠We killed Dr. Vasquez and Lt. Colonel Jimenze, but we had also encountered one of al-Qeada's American-born organizers. A man who was known by the name Halik Mossaâ¦"
"Let me guess," Brock Allen said. "You killed him too?"
"No, we didn't kill him." CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said shaking his head in disbelief. "He killed himself by what looked to be taking some kind of poison. But it wasn't. He ingested a major dose of the Reanimate Virus, and set in motion a timer that cased explosive charges attached to aerosol canisters full of the stuff to go off⦠And turning almost all of the recently deceased in the area into ravenous reanimated life forms. We not only had to fight our way out of there, but we learned that bombs containing the reanimate virus had gone off in the capitol as well."
"Before the day was through," CW3 Spaight said. "Halik Mossa's suicide had triggered the release of the reanimate virus all across the island. Before the end of the next day, the entire country was being overrun. We had no choice but to advise the Presidents of both countries that we had to sterilze the area to keep this⦠'Bio-Agent' from spreading."
"Are you telling me Chief Warrant Officer Spaight," Allen stated dumbfoundedly. "That you are the ones who ordered the use of weapons of mass destruction to destroy the Calisopian Capitol city to contain the riots there?"
"Tell me Mr. Allen," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said in a sarcastic tone. "What did you think is causing all of those reports you have been getting that civil unrest in Calstinopa and surrounding Central American countries that had pushed the State Department to order the complete evacuation of every American citizen in Central America was all about?"
"For fucks sake man," CW3 Spaight said angrily. "The way we pulled out of the British and American embassies made the Fall of Saigon look like one of the best organized sedate fucking picnics in the history of the world. We lost a lot of good men and women holding the embassy grounds while the helicopters flew around the clock evacuating all of the American and British citizens, the Embassy staffs and their families and other P.O.I. that the Ambassador asked us to get the hell out of there as the we prepared to drop some MOABS on those areas that had become overrun in an effort to contain the outbreak."
"Do you really think that the United States Armed Forces would do something like that just for shits and giggles Mr. Allen?" CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight asked seriously.
"SEN Belington and REP Jefferson have both repeatedly stated that there was no reason for Major General Gardner to have authorized the use of those MOABS and then later to order the use of tactical nuclear devices," Allen said defiantly.
"And they are both in the City of Blüdhaven needing to be extracted by the very people they have been accusing of being war criminals Mr. Allen," CW3 Spaight said smiling wolfishly. "It is ironic donât you think⦠that the people they were calling mass murders and war criminals are going to be the ones who get their sorry candy asses out of the jam they have caused. All because they would not listen to a bunch of men they refered to as slopeheaded killing machines. All the people who have died because they decided to use the so-called 'Calistopian incident' for their personal partisan political ideological gain is blood on THEIR hands Mr. Allen. Not ours."
"As for REP Jefferson and his statementsâ¦" CW3 Spaight said shaking his head. "I cannot see why anyone would listen to a man who has been caught in so many lies and scandals in his political career⦠The man was caught accepting bribes Mr. Allen from some of the most horrendous of sources. Just because he disagrees with what conservative political commentators are out there saying, he has become one of the greatest champions the cause to rob American citizens of their free speech rights. All the while he is doing his damnedest to protect those people who are critical of Republican politicians and other publicly known conservatives⦠Even when those critics have been caught making up the shit they are spouting."
"So tell me Mr. Allenâ¦" CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said looking at the reporter. "How can you believe what is coming out of his mouth, especially without any evidence to support it. There are survivors of what happened in Calistopa who have been BEGGING to be put on the air to tell the world what has happened to their homeland. That country will never be the same again. No matter what happens here Mr. Allen, they are now without a homeland. They are stateless because of a terrorist attack."
"Not because we had to bomb their country back to the stone age, in an attempt to contain a variant form the same bio-terror agent that has been released in the City of Bludhaven⦠We are so screwed Mr. Allen, because we have seen what this shit does first hand. One bite and you are dead. Just. One. Fucking. Bite."
"And you are dead." CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said as he snapped his fingers.
"The Democratic Congressional leaders didnât listen to what we were saying," CW3 Spaight said. "They called us lairs and mass murders. Then they ran to the nearest news cameras and started trying to impeach the President in the court of public opinion because they knew they couldnât get the rest of the Democratic Congressional Caucus to support their move⦠Because some of them actually knew people who had gotten out of the Democratic Republic of Calinstopa alive after everything went to hell in a handbasket."
"Hell Mr. Allen," CW3 Spaight said shaking his head. "The Ambassador down there was a Democrat who had been appointed by former President Bill Clinton back in 1999, and the President had asked him to stay on since the Ambassador actually KNEW all of the people and facts that had been going on down there. For fucks sake Mr. Allen, even SEN Hillary Clinton has even came out calling for reason to come into play, and that the people should listen to the survivors of what happened down there. And she is the Democratic Presidential Candidate this year."
"Hell, SEN Hillary Clinton and former-President Bill Clinton actually went down there to see what the hell was going on." CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said shaking his head. "They flew over that country in helicopters watching as we tried to evacuate as many people as we could before it was too late. They have seen first hand the terror in those peoples eyes. Why on Earth do you think both the Republican and Democratic Presidential Candidates had been working together with the President to try and get this news out to the American people before this shit happened here?"
"This is the start of the homestretch for the election cycle Mr. Allen," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said shaking his head. "They could have used this to get elected by just condemning the President. But instead they are supporting what happened. They KNOW what has happened, and is happening and will happen⦠Our world will never be the same Mr. Allen⦠Our world has changed. And it will never be the same again⦠This makes the changes that happened after 9-11 look like a fender-bender in comparisonâ¦"
"The world as we knew it," CW3 Spaight said sadly. "Is over, Mr. Allen."
"We have to leave petty political maneuvering in the past," CW3 Spaight said. "Right now we have to come together and fight to save the Republic. That is all that matters now. Is saving our Great American Republic from falling into the annals of history only to be forgotten."
"The time for blame is not now," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said. "The time for laying the blame at someoneâs feet is not going to happen right now, because both parties have their share of the blame for this fiasco. The time for blame is going to be when ever this shit is finally over. Then, and only then will we be able to have a final reckoning. And even then⦠those who are guilty of this will probably already be dead and buried."
Brock Allen stood in silence, because he couldn't say anything. Because even as much as he despised this military man. He knew that CW3 Spaight was right. And that only made Mr. Brock Allen hate him all the more.
"Letâs mount up people," CW3 Spaight called out. "We have a job to do!"
"Hooah!" was the only response to CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaightâs simple order to the detachment to load up on their transports and to get underway with their mission. They all knew what lay ahead of them. Unlike the many missions they had undertaken before, they did not fear the possibility that many would not be coming back from this mission. They were more afraid of not surviving, but ending up as one of the damned⦠Lifeless monstrosities roaming around feasting on human flesh.
For that was their fear now⦠Becoming one of those horrible reanimated life forms, and possibly killing someone they loved.
And it was a fate that they would not allow themselves or their squad mates to endure. They had already made that known with their silent looks confirming their stance. They wouldnât let anyone of their brothers and sisters in arms end up like that.
CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight, US Army Special Forces Warrant Officer
An isolated airstrip somewhere outside of the City of Blüdhaven
A light rain fell upon the tarmac as five US Army Lockheed-Martin UH-101 Tuscarora helicopters were being prepared for their mission of mercy. The US Army ground crews were rushing through all of their pre-flight checklists trying to hurry their tasks⦠Because they knew that out there in the City of Blüdhaven people were dying by the hundreds every minute they took to carry out their assigned tasks.
A US Army Ranger detachment was going through their last minute preparations before their approaching deployment into the hell that the City of Blüdhaven had become in just a few days. Only spotty reports had made it out of the city in the past 48 hours, the only thing that had been confirmed was that the City of Bludhaven had been ground zero of the outbreak of what the United States Government had started calling a bio-terror agent they had started to call the "Ranimate Virus" thanks to the fact it was reanimated dead tissues turning the recently deceased into ravenous flesh eating killing machines.
Already the bio-terror agent had since spread to other major American cities, and was now spreading at an extremely alarming rate across the entire mid-west and eastern seaboard. The three cities where the Bio-Terror Agent had originally been released had already descended into chaos.
All attempts at containment had failed to contain the outbreaks. During the first chaotic 72 hours caused more deaths to occur than could have been realized. For during those first 72 hours no one realized that the Reanimate Virus was spread through the horrible bites that the majority of survivors of Reanimate Life Form attacks would suffer. The overwhelmed medical centres in those three initial outbreaks would send those with non-life threatening injuries such as bites.
To make matters worse, there were already reports that the bio-terror agent had been released overseas.
The first 24 hours after the start of the Outbreak, those infected by the reanimate virus had for the most part been kept in check by the combined efforts of the Clear Water private military contractors that were in the employ of Spenser Bio-Med, the local Army National Guard, and the City of Blüdhaven Police Department. The Spenser Bio-Med stated that their teams of best researchers had attempted to examine the virus and create a vaccine to save the lives of those who had been infected and that they needed more time to find a cure or at the least a vaccine to counter the effects of the virus.
Shortly after the reports that their private bio-medical research center that had started researching the bio-agent after the first incidents had been reported was overrun, both the CDC and USAMRIID elected to send teams of researchers into the hell that the City of Blüdhaven had descended into. Their intended goal had been to recover any of the data that the company had already uncovered.
The CDC team had been escorted by a US Army National Guard Platoon, the last reports that had made it out form 1LT Hirsh was that their position was about to be overrun and that they had to try to make it to a more secure facility. The USAMRIID team had been escorted by a platoon of US Army mechanized infantry detached form the 3rd Infantry Division (Rock of the Marne), the last report received from them had been that they had secured all of the research materials form the overrun bio-medical centre and was looking for a more secure location to conduct their preliminary research.
But both of those reports had been over 24 hours old.
To extract these two separate teams from the hell that the City of Blüdhaven in under 72 hours had become became paramount after the bio-terror agent had proven itself to spread outside the area of containment. To do this an elite US Army Ranger detachment that had just returned to the United States after a joint mission with a small team of British Army Special Air Service personnel in the Democratic Republic of Calstiopa, was tasked with a mission of the utmost importance. Going back into the City of Blüdhaven City to extract the two teams of researchers who had tried to find answers to the bio-agent that had spawned this growing pandemic.
The Ranger Detachment had been on a top-secret mission that went horribly wrong⦠During the course of their mission they had lost a third of the personnel originally assigned to their force, and they were the witnesses to the first known release of the bio-terror agent in a small Central American nation, the Democratic Republic of Calinstopa. To replace these losses, the Detachment absorbed the surviving members of several other units that included a US Navy SEAL team that had been carrying out anti-terrorism training missions in the region, and a US Marine Corps fire team that had been assigned to defend the US Embassy to the Democratic Republic of Calstiopa.
In the end the Democratic Republic of Calstiopa had been quarantined by the international community in an attempt to keep the outbreak form spreading to its neighbors. The only real opposition to the international quarantine had came form Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez and his mentor, the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
All around the periphery of the rain soaked tarmac was two small groups of reporters whom was providing a short up-to-the-minute update to their parent news agencies. And off to one side of the tarmac stood once such a reporter named Brock Allen, who along with his cameraman Benjamin 'Benji' Kord were working to give a live update using a digital video camera and their satellite videophone for the Independent Network News Service.
"This is Brock Allen, reporting form an undisclosed location somewhere outside the City of Blüdhavenâ¦" Brock Allen stated looking directly into the camera. His serious expression was mirrored by the clothing he was wearing. A light blue ballistic vest with the words 'PRESS' In large white letters across his chest and back, combined with the distinctively military cut of a light blue long sleeve shirt, a pair of dark khaki cargo trousers and a rugged pair of brown hiking boots. "The US Army has assembled a detachment of US Army Rangers to go into the city to try and retrieve the two separate teams of medical researchers that had been sent in by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention and the US Army Research Institute of Infectious Diseases to try and work with a local bio-medical company, on finding a vaccine for the bio-terror agent that has been released reportedly by members of al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist cells."
"Brock," Russ Mitchell, the current CBS News anchor said leaning forward to look at the camera intently. "This is Russ Mitchell with the Early Show. Just what exactly can you tell us about what is happening there right now?"
"Well Russ," Brock Allen said smirking. "We are preparing for a major military excursion into the City of Blüdhaven to attempt to extract the CDC team who was trying to isolate the causes of this current bio-terror outbreak. But I have a feeling that they are are also preparing for something else. But I canât be sureâ¦"
"What do you mean Brock?" Russ Mitchell asked. "What do you think they are preparing for except to rescue the research team that has been trapped in Blüdhaven?"
"Well Russ," Brock said grimly. "I have my suspicions about this group of soldiers who have been tasked with this extraction mission."
"They are a United States Army Ranger Detachment who has become known by Iraqi freedom fighters as 'The Death Dealers,' and they have been assigned by the President of the United States to go into the City of Blüdhaven to extract the two separate teams of medical researchers who went into to try and recover all of the data that had been initially collected during the start of this outbreakâ¦" Brock Allen stated matter-of-factly.
"I and several other reporters have volunteered to be embedded with these so-called 'Death Dealers' to make sure that what is happening inside the City of Blüdhaven will be seen by the entire world." Brock Allen said. "We now know that these 'Death Dealers' are aptly named. They are the ones responsible for the orders that saw the Democratic Republic of Calstiopa being bombed back into the stone age by concentrated bombardment carried out by not only the United States Air Force and United States Navy, but also of every military asset operating in the Caribbean."
"My God Brock," Russ Mitchell muttered. "Why would the president sent someone like that into that kind of situation knowing their record?"
"I honestly do not know Russ," Brock Allen said frowning. "All I know is that it took every favor that I had to get assigned to document everything that these people do during this mission. So please stay tuned⦠We will be broadcasting live as much as possible. My cameraman has assured me that the satellite communications hook-ups that he has will be more than enough to allow us to broadcast independently of any US Military intervention."
"Rest assured Brock," Russ Mitchell said seriously. "We will be here watching everything you send us."
"This is Brock Allen reporting for CBS News, signing off." Allen said with a wave of his hand, causing his camera man to close the satellite videophone while he himself looked over at the US Army Ranger detachment that he had used all of his connections to be assigned to.
As much as he despised the men and women of the United States Armed Forces, he knew that covering this group during the current crisis would make him more famous than Anderson Cooper. 'And I don't hide in the closet like that looser,' Allen thought as he trotted over to one of the UH-101 Tuscarora helicopters and looked at the non-commissioned officer who was responsible for Chalk Five, the Overwatch Team. He was a heavyset Asian male named SSG James 'Jim' Chow. The short heavily muscled Asian US Army Ranger had more pistols strapped on him that one would have ever expected.
"How much longer before we head out?" Allen asked.
"Not much longer," SSG Chow said smiling. "We just got informed where are going to be able to find the two research teams. Thankfully the two teams are currently hold-up in a private hospital on the outskirts of the City of Blüdhaven. That is going to make extracting them all the much more easier. The only downside is that we just learned that there is a US Senator now there as well who has declared himself a major priority extraction, and it looks as if we are going to have to wait for an additional bird to take with us to just extract him, his staff and his entourage out of there. And from what they are saying we will need the extra space to get some of the work that the research teams have been doing for the past couple of days."
"Who is it?" Allen asked, he was already looking forward to exposing some fat-cat politician for using undue influence to interfere with the evacuations of those people who would lead to a vaccine that would counter the Reanimate Virus.
"None other than Senator Harold 'Hal' Belington himself Mr. Allen," SSG Chow said shaking his head in disgust. "The same man who has been making campaigning against the military in general and the War in Iraq in particular to get all the anti-war, anti-military and peace activist groups to become his own personal bottomless ATM machine."
Brock frowned and shook his head and did his best not to express his own disgust for just how SSG Chow had reacted. Not only was SEN Belington a personal friend of his, but Brock had always been one of his strongest supporters. Brock had written many of the stories that Belington had needed to discredit both the US military and the war effort.
"How much longer do you think that will take?" Allen asked doing his best to hide how much the sergeants statements and sentiments offended him.
"Not much longer," SSG Chow stated as he watched Allen closely. He knew that he had hit a nerve with the newly embedded journalist that had been forced upon the Detachment against the Master Chiefâs express wishes. "Two Coast Guard helicopters will be joining us enroute to handle the extraction of the Senator and his staff.. Seems he does not trust the US Army to extract him safely. And they are saying that he has been fuming at the mouth that it will not be the Secret Service that escorts him out of harmâs way to one of those nice posh and comfortable Congressional C.O.G. Bunkers. "
"Who knows, if you play your cards right you could end up getting to stay with the Senator and get to provide exclusive reports directly from the bunker that he gets to hold-up in." SSG Chow said grinning.
"No thank you," Allen said shaking his head despite the fact that he really wouldnât mind such a plum assignment after he had made a name for himself. "Iâd rather get my hands dirty and let the world see first hand what is going on."
'That way it won't just get covered up by the fucking Bush Administration like the rest of the shit I KNOW that they have been doing,' Allen mentally added.
"I wonder what the Senator was doing in the City of Blüdhaven?" S/Sgt. Lance Parker asked in his heavy London accent. "This certainly isnât his homestate form what I understand."
"I guess it could have been one of his many Presidential Election Campaign stops," SFC Jonas Cartwright said with a shrug.
"One of his publicly toted camping trips during his run up for reelection?" SSG Chow said with a shrug of his shoulders. "To show he is just another humble man form the mid-west?"
"Who knows, and who the fuck gives a damn," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said forcefully as he and 1SG Theo Freeman walked forcefully up to were SSG Chow and the other chalk leaders had been standing around talking. He looked at each of the men who he had hand selected to be in charge of each element of HIS Ranger Detachment. "Heâs there right now raising enough of a stink that we will have to divert our energies get him out of the shit storm that the bastard has gone and gotten himself into the middle of. At least he is also now been relocated to the same private medical facility just within the city limits of the City of Blüdhaven. The down side is that it cost the lives of nearly half the National Guard and Mechanized Infantry that had been assigned to protect those two research teams. We have both satellite and UAV surveillance pictures of the area now that is showing that the place is starting to become heavily infested with these Renaimated Life Forms. Intelligence thinks that these things have enough intelligence left to follow anything and head in the same direction that they last saw it going in. We have that to go in our favour right now people. We will go in, get the things to follow us and then make a couple of crazy ivans to get them heading BACK to the center of the city. That way a couple of MOABs can be dropped by the Air Force to thin the bastards out."
"This isnât the first time weâve had to deal with these things people," CW3 Spaight said rubbing his head and frowning hard. "Probably wonât be our last either, damnit. But we are going to do this by the numbers. I donât want to lose anyone else to these⦠these⦠things."
"Reports have confirmed what we already knew, that bites are indeed fatal. Official word has come down from the CDC that once bitten, you are infected and are a carrier. Anyone who gets bitten is to be isolated and quarantined. But WE are going to keep fighting until we caint fight anymore, and then⦠And only then will we end it. I aint gonna blame anyone who decides itâd be better to take their own life to keep form turning into one of those⦠thangs. But pass the word around that they arenât to do it until they are certain that their actions will not get any one else killed."
"If anyone wants to end it," CW3 Spaight said softly, almost regretfully. Everyone standing nearby could tell it was killing him to make this statement. "But cant because of religious reasons⦠Tell them to come to me. Iâll take care of it for them. I aint gonna let anyone have to deal with killing a friend if I can help it."
"Also let everyone know that our families have enacted the blue folder emergency plan," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said seriously looking at each of his team leaders. "They are already at the shelter that we all set up for major emergencies. Our Admin staff that keeps us supplied with bullets, and deals with all our craptastic volumes of paperwork and is keeping us in the black are also with them. They might not be frontline soldiers, but they are soldiers. So we know that they are all safe now. Theoâs wife has stated that there wasnât anyone bitten when they arrived. She also said that there has not been any known reports of outbreaks in the area around Forlorn Hope either⦠So thatâs one less thing for everyone to worry about."
"What is this Forlorn Hope?" Allen asked only to end up facing the stern expressions of the Ranger team leaders. "Never mindâ¦"
'Iâll just find out later,' he mentally added as he turned back to Benji Kord and gave him a clandestine nod.
"Master Chief, what about the orphans we have adopted?" SFC Cartwright asked motioning to the Marines, and Navy SEALs that were standing and sitting around the vehicles that they all had arrived in just an hour before.
"We will be incorporating them into the Detachment," CW3 Spaight said smiling. "We just became a combined forces detachment under the direct authority of the Office of the President of the United States. As of now we have become P.O.I. extractors."
"Chief Spaight was does P.O.I. mean?" Kord asked raising his hand.
"P.O.I. means Persons of Importanceâ¦" CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said looking directly at the cameraman. "They can be anyone from a politician, a medical doctor, or even just someone who has the skills that the we need to do something important. Right now we are going in and extracting the scientists who have been researching the Reanimate Virus first hand, and a fucking worthless politician."
"Alright this is just for our new embeds," CW3 Spaight looked around at the four embedded journalists and cameramen and shook his head with distraction. "First off, having you people with us was not my idea. Hell, I had to be ordered to include you on this mission. So remember that. You all have been assigned two soldiers who you are to stick with at all times. If you want to go beat your meat, you take them with you. You are not to go off on your own. If you get separated form your escorts I want you to find a soldier to stay beside, and you stay with them until your escort reclaims you. I don't want to explain to the big brass why anyone of you had ended up becoming RLF chow. Do I make myself clear gentlemen?"
"Yes sir," was the almost hushed response that the four men standing on the periphery of the circle that the chalk leaders and their detachment commander stood in.
"What was that?" CW3 Spaight said cupping his hand over his ear and frowning. "Did you say something? âcause I didn't hear nothing⦠So say it again were I kin hear you this time."
"YES SIR!" was the shouted response.
"Good," CW3 Spaight said looking back at the helicopters and sighed. "I have already briefed the birdies crews on what we are doing, get back to your chalks and get them loaded up. We are out of here in five minutes. And five minutes after that the ground crews are going to make a trip down to the local armory and see what they can find in the means of ground vehicles. Because we got a report that the researchers might not want to leave all the research and equipment that they are using right now. If that is the case I want to be ready for it⦠and use that gear to get them the hell out of that fucking growing necropolis."
"We only have five hour window before the Air Force is going to do a fly-by and blow all of the bridges," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said. "That first pass will let us know that the big bombs are on their way⦠After they blow the bridges, we will have only thirty minutes before they start dropping the MOABS on the center of the city. If those aint enough to eliminate the threat⦠Then they will use tactical nukes."
"Congress will never authorize the use of nukes on American soil!" Brock Allen said incredulously.
"They just authorized it," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said. "It was pretty unanimously passed as well⦠Only two or three people in both houses opposed the move. But to put your head at rest, to use a nuke the city has to be declared not only overrun⦠But a verifiable necropolis⦠A city of the dead."
"The UN will start overseeing the evacuation of New York City," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said. "The bridges and tunnels into Manhattan have already been blown to isolate the city from the mainland. Due to UN concerns, Congress has stated that nukes will not be used to sterilize the city unless the UN Security Council approves itâ¦"
"Do you think they will Chief?" Benji Kord asked.
"Honestly?" CW3 Spaight said with a shrug. "I doubt they will⦠Which is good. We can use New York City to keep an eye on just how far and fast that this thing can spread⦠And hopefully we can use it as a test bed for how to counter this bio-terror agent."
"Oh, before I forget itâ¦" CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said with his hands on his hips, and a firm set to his jaw. "The President of the United States has just used the new war powers that just passed Congress last night to promote Major General Gardner to the rank of Lieutenant General and is putting him in charge of these wonderful extractions that we will be doing. So you all know what that meansâ¦"
"Yeah," SSG Jackson said in an extremely unenthusiastic deadpan tone of voice. "We have to deal with politicians, celebrities and other stuck up son-of-bitchesâ¦"
CW3 Spaight smiled and shook his head. "Nope, luckily that is not what we are going to be doing. We are responsible for getting those scientists out of there, and to a nice safe place to do their research. The only thing that is going to make this hard is the fact that SEN Belington is down there, and we have been ordered to extract his sorry ass to the nearest Congressional Continuality of Government bunker that we can find."
"The only two other politicians that we might have to deal with is two local US Representatives who were in the City of Blüdhaven with visiting their constituents when all of this went to hell. These damn bastards hit us on July the 4th in a hope of catching as many people as possible out in the open. To damn bad the Democrats in Congress didn't take our warnings seriously after the fiasco in Calstiopa last week⦠If they had, we wouldn't be in the middle of this mess."
"What do you mean Chief?" Brock Allen asked as he started to pull out his notebook to take down what he heard next.
"Put that way Mr. Allen," CW3 Spaight said shaking his head. "What we say here right now is off-the-record. We are big-time off the record."
"We just returned from the Democratic Republic of Calstinopa," CW3 Spaight said looking directly towards the CBS News correspondent. "You can ask Ollie over there for the details of that mission. He was there as an embed who went with us to make a record of the rescue of those Peace Corps workers form a local al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist group called 'Trajeto de Righteous,' that means 'The Righteous Path' in Portugese. The Calstinopan government had asked the United States for help dealing with the growing number of terrorist attacks that had been happening over the past six months. Namely the suicide attack on their Ministry of Defense headquarters that killed not only their Minister of Defense, but killed all of their Armed Forces Joint Chiefs-of-Staff."
"The Calstinopan President panicked when his Minister of Justice informed him that there was evidence that the suicide attack had actually been planned by none other than the up-and-coming high ranking senior officers who had been placed in charge of the Calistopan Counter-Terrorist Unit," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said. "The man was none other than Lieutenant Colonel Emmanuel Jimenze. Not only was Lt. Col. Jimenze one of the most highly trained special operations troopers in the Calstinopan Armed Forces, it turns out that he was also one of the most well-connected as well."
"When the CIA had learned that Lieutenant Colonel Jimenze was actually the number two man in 'Trajeto de Righteous'," CW3 Spaight said. "They called me in to act as an advisor for the mission to neutralize the command and control elements of the group."
"Why did they want you to provide advice on taking out 'Trajeto de Righteous'?" Benji Kord asked.
"Because the Chief has been at the spear point of counter-terrorist operations around the world for almost ten years now," 1SG Theo Freeman said seriously. "He is in a word, one of the badest and most vicious bastards we have in uniform. Despite the Clinton's best attempts to force him out, that is. "
"What do you mean by that?" Brock Allen asked.
"I am classified as 80% disabled Mr. Allen," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said softy. "I have suffered enough injuries during my nineteen year career in the United States Army to get enough Purple Hearts that warrant an immediate retirement on medical grounds. There are days that I have to take pain meds just so I can get out of bed that morning. I have had to fight against receiving a medical discharge on more than one occasion, and it took my commanding officers pulling every string they could to help me stay in the Army. But all of our hard would not keep me from being relieved for medical reasons and transferred to the 82nd Airborne Division. Instead of accepting that assignment I chose to change course and became a Warrant Officer by signing up with Counter-Intelligence. After 9/11, I found myself instead fighting terrorists."
"Now I am officially classified as a Special Forces Warrant Officer," CW3 Spaight said as he quickly changed the subject. "But we aren't here to talk about me⦠We are talking about what happened down in the Democratic Republic of Calstinopa."
"As most people who understand what is happening down there know, Dr. Jose Vasquez is the undisputed spiritual leader of 'Trajeto de Righteous.' And that he is very well connected with Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro and about a half a dozen other far left-wing government leaders." CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said. "But we never could figure out who was their Field Commander, the one who was responsible for all of their successful missions. We knew it had to be someone who had intimate knowledge of just how the Calstinopian Ministry of Defense operated. Because 'Trajeto de Righteous' had been able to pull off one of the most devastatingly effective terrorist campaigns in the history of Latin America."
"When the Calstinopian President had learned that Lieutenant Colonel Jimenze had actually been the field commander of 'Trajeto de Righteous' for the past five years, he panicked. He panicked big time." CW3 Spaight said. "So much so that he almost caused his own military forces to fight their own internal civil war⦠Despite having discovered just were they were located, he felt he couldn't trust his own military to carry out the mission that would finally decapitate 'Trajeto de Righteous' once and for all. And hopefully give his country the time and breathing room it needed to get it's affairs in order.
"My Ranger Detachment and I was smuggled into the country under the cover of darkness thanks to the USS Charlotte, a US Navy Los Angeles-class nuclear submarine." CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said. "As you already know Mr. Allen we had been pulled off of a transport taking us back home after our latest tour of duty in Iraq."
"A tour that I might add, that you yourself gleefully reported about in your own unique way." CW3 Spaight said smiling tightly. "We aren't 'Death Dealers' Mr. Allen. We didn't go out there to kill anyone who wasn't trying to kill us first."
"We invaded them first Chief," Brock Allen almost snarled.
"No Mr. Allen," CW3 Spaight said tightly. "They invaded Kuwait first. We kicked them out and told them if they didn't abide by the treaties they signed that any nation with a police force could come in and kick 'So-damn-insanes' sorry ass out of office. Even Bill Clinton stated repeatedly that Regime Change was necessary for dealing with that crazy dictator."
"And his 'non-existent' WMD program is where this damn Bio-Agent came form Mr. Allen." CW3 Spaight said. "While the initial laboratories that spawned this horrible plague might have been Soviet, it was the Iraqi sponsored ones that got the Reanimate Virus to a point that it could be deployed and used as a weapon."
"What?" Benji Kord asked. "What do you mean?"
"During the mission we recovered evidence that told us just were the Reanimate Virus came from," CW3 Spaight said shaking his head sadly. "Unfortunately, knowing just were it came form doesn't help us come up with a counter to it⦠But we are hoping that the information will provide researchers enough of a start to finding a vaccine or counter-agent to neutralize those who have been infected."
"The information that we recovered stated that the Reanimate Virus was initially created in a Soviet bio-chemical weapons lab in the late-1970s," CW3 Spaight said. "The Soviets knew what they had developed could become more dangerous than the Nuclear bomb⦠But the scientists just wouldn't stop working on it. They had almost perfected it⦠But when the Soviet Union collapsed in the early-1990s they needed someone to sponsor their research. Enter Saddam Hussein. Hussein provided the high-tech laboratories and equipment, while someone else helped provide them with additional funding."
"We discovered evidence that after 1998 Hussein needed a better hiding place for his program," CW3 Spaight said. "So he turned to contacts within the al-Qeada organization. They sponsored the construction of a high-tech laboratory in Indonesia and another somewhere in the former Soviet Central Asian Republics."
"In early-2007 they made the breakthrough they had needed," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said. "The scientists who had created the Reanimate Virus started work on the vaccine and counter-agent⦠But that was not something that Osama Bin Laden wanted. He ordered that all of the scientists and researchers be liquidated immediately before they succeeded. He ordered that the only thing that was not to be destroyed was the directions on how to produce more of the stuff."
"We are not sure how al-Qeada was able to get mass quantities of this stuff manufactured," CW3 Spaight said. "But we have some strong suspicions."
"What that information wasn't in the 'evidence' that you recovered?" Brock Allen asked.
"It was," CW3 Spaight said. "I had to leave before they got to that during the information briefing before we were assigned to this mission. And believe me Mr. Allen, if I knew where they got the manufacturing base to make this shit⦠I would have no trouble telling you about it. Even if you didn't believe a word I've said."
Brock Allen blinked. "What do you mean by that?" he stuttered.
"Simple Mr. Allen," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said. "I already have read your blogs stating that all of this is just part of some conspiracy set out by President George W. Bush to stay in office after his term ends."
Brock Allen stood silent for a second and turned away as CW3 Spaight continued in his narrative. "We arrived in country forty-eight hours prior to what intelligence had learned was to be a meeting of the leadership of 'Trajeto de Righteous' and their primary connection with the rest of the al-Qeada terror network. Our plan was to hit them hard and fast. To either kill or capture as many of them as we could."
"While we were enroute to the mission," CW3 Spaight said. "We received word that a group of Peace Corps workers had been kidnapped by 'Trajeto de Righteous' to be used as human shields to keep anyone form getting to close to their little meeting. But what they didn't realize was that it would be the United States carrying out a covert mission to hit them."
"We had already known that Jimenze would have known that the Calstinopian Armed Forces was not going to take any actions against them," CW3 Spaight said. "He just did not know that his cover had already been blown, and that his President had asked ours to come in and carry out this mission."
"We didn't realize that 'Trajeto de Righteous' had been able to acquire some Soviet-made ZSU-24 anti-aircraft guns, they shot down the two leading Blackhawk helicopters," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said. "We lost almost half or the detachment. But we continued our mission. We neutralized four of the ZSU-24s before moving on to the main headquarters. We went in and eliminated all of the 'Trajeto de Righteous' leadership⦠We killed Dr. Vasquez and Lt. Colonel Jimenze, but we had also encountered one of al-Qeada's American-born organizers. A man who was known by the name Halik Mossaâ¦"
"Let me guess," Brock Allen said. "You killed him too?"
"No, we didn't kill him." CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said shaking his head in disbelief. "He killed himself by what looked to be taking some kind of poison. But it wasn't. He ingested a major dose of the Reanimate Virus, and set in motion a timer that cased explosive charges attached to aerosol canisters full of the stuff to go off⦠And turning almost all of the recently deceased in the area into ravenous reanimated life forms. We not only had to fight our way out of there, but we learned that bombs containing the reanimate virus had gone off in the capitol as well."
"Before the day was through," CW3 Spaight said. "Halik Mossa's suicide had triggered the release of the reanimate virus all across the island. Before the end of the next day, the entire country was being overrun. We had no choice but to advise the Presidents of both countries that we had to sterilze the area to keep this⦠'Bio-Agent' from spreading."
"Are you telling me Chief Warrant Officer Spaight," Allen stated dumbfoundedly. "That you are the ones who ordered the use of weapons of mass destruction to destroy the Calisopian Capitol city to contain the riots there?"
"Tell me Mr. Allen," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said in a sarcastic tone. "What did you think is causing all of those reports you have been getting that civil unrest in Calstinopa and surrounding Central American countries that had pushed the State Department to order the complete evacuation of every American citizen in Central America was all about?"
"For fucks sake man," CW3 Spaight said angrily. "The way we pulled out of the British and American embassies made the Fall of Saigon look like one of the best organized sedate fucking picnics in the history of the world. We lost a lot of good men and women holding the embassy grounds while the helicopters flew around the clock evacuating all of the American and British citizens, the Embassy staffs and their families and other P.O.I. that the Ambassador asked us to get the hell out of there as the we prepared to drop some MOABS on those areas that had become overrun in an effort to contain the outbreak."
"Do you really think that the United States Armed Forces would do something like that just for shits and giggles Mr. Allen?" CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight asked seriously.
"SEN Belington and REP Jefferson have both repeatedly stated that there was no reason for Major General Gardner to have authorized the use of those MOABS and then later to order the use of tactical nuclear devices," Allen said defiantly.
"And they are both in the City of Blüdhaven needing to be extracted by the very people they have been accusing of being war criminals Mr. Allen," CW3 Spaight said smiling wolfishly. "It is ironic donât you think⦠that the people they were calling mass murders and war criminals are going to be the ones who get their sorry candy asses out of the jam they have caused. All because they would not listen to a bunch of men they refered to as slopeheaded killing machines. All the people who have died because they decided to use the so-called 'Calistopian incident' for their personal partisan political ideological gain is blood on THEIR hands Mr. Allen. Not ours."
"As for REP Jefferson and his statementsâ¦" CW3 Spaight said shaking his head. "I cannot see why anyone would listen to a man who has been caught in so many lies and scandals in his political career⦠The man was caught accepting bribes Mr. Allen from some of the most horrendous of sources. Just because he disagrees with what conservative political commentators are out there saying, he has become one of the greatest champions the cause to rob American citizens of their free speech rights. All the while he is doing his damnedest to protect those people who are critical of Republican politicians and other publicly known conservatives⦠Even when those critics have been caught making up the shit they are spouting."
"So tell me Mr. Allenâ¦" CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said looking at the reporter. "How can you believe what is coming out of his mouth, especially without any evidence to support it. There are survivors of what happened in Calistopa who have been BEGGING to be put on the air to tell the world what has happened to their homeland. That country will never be the same again. No matter what happens here Mr. Allen, they are now without a homeland. They are stateless because of a terrorist attack."
"Not because we had to bomb their country back to the stone age, in an attempt to contain a variant form the same bio-terror agent that has been released in the City of Bludhaven⦠We are so screwed Mr. Allen, because we have seen what this shit does first hand. One bite and you are dead. Just. One. Fucking. Bite."
"And you are dead." CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said as he snapped his fingers.
"The Democratic Congressional leaders didnât listen to what we were saying," CW3 Spaight said. "They called us lairs and mass murders. Then they ran to the nearest news cameras and started trying to impeach the President in the court of public opinion because they knew they couldnât get the rest of the Democratic Congressional Caucus to support their move⦠Because some of them actually knew people who had gotten out of the Democratic Republic of Calinstopa alive after everything went to hell in a handbasket."
"Hell Mr. Allen," CW3 Spaight said shaking his head. "The Ambassador down there was a Democrat who had been appointed by former President Bill Clinton back in 1999, and the President had asked him to stay on since the Ambassador actually KNEW all of the people and facts that had been going on down there. For fucks sake Mr. Allen, even SEN Hillary Clinton has even came out calling for reason to come into play, and that the people should listen to the survivors of what happened down there. And she is the Democratic Presidential Candidate this year."
"Hell, SEN Hillary Clinton and former-President Bill Clinton actually went down there to see what the hell was going on." CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said shaking his head. "They flew over that country in helicopters watching as we tried to evacuate as many people as we could before it was too late. They have seen first hand the terror in those peoples eyes. Why on Earth do you think both the Republican and Democratic Presidential Candidates had been working together with the President to try and get this news out to the American people before this shit happened here?"
"This is the start of the homestretch for the election cycle Mr. Allen," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said shaking his head. "They could have used this to get elected by just condemning the President. But instead they are supporting what happened. They KNOW what has happened, and is happening and will happen⦠Our world will never be the same Mr. Allen⦠Our world has changed. And it will never be the same again⦠This makes the changes that happened after 9-11 look like a fender-bender in comparisonâ¦"
"The world as we knew it," CW3 Spaight said sadly. "Is over, Mr. Allen."
"We have to leave petty political maneuvering in the past," CW3 Spaight said. "Right now we have to come together and fight to save the Republic. That is all that matters now. Is saving our Great American Republic from falling into the annals of history only to be forgotten."
"The time for blame is not now," CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight said. "The time for laying the blame at someoneâs feet is not going to happen right now, because both parties have their share of the blame for this fiasco. The time for blame is going to be when ever this shit is finally over. Then, and only then will we be able to have a final reckoning. And even then⦠those who are guilty of this will probably already be dead and buried."
Brock Allen stood in silence, because he couldn't say anything. Because even as much as he despised this military man. He knew that CW3 Spaight was right. And that only made Mr. Brock Allen hate him all the more.
"Letâs mount up people," CW3 Spaight called out. "We have a job to do!"
"Hooah!" was the only response to CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaightâs simple order to the detachment to load up on their transports and to get underway with their mission. They all knew what lay ahead of them. Unlike the many missions they had undertaken before, they did not fear the possibility that many would not be coming back from this mission. They were more afraid of not surviving, but ending up as one of the damned⦠Lifeless monstrosities roaming around feasting on human flesh.
For that was their fear now⦠Becoming one of those horrible reanimated life forms, and possibly killing someone they loved.
And it was a fate that they would not allow themselves or their squad mates to endure. They had already made that known with their silent looks confirming their stance. They wouldnât let anyone of their brothers and sisters in arms end up like that.
CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight, US Army Special Forces Warrant Officer
