“Enough with the pep talks,” yapped the president. “Tick-goddamn-tock.”
I gave Torres’ arm a squeeze, nodded to Bunny, and then opened the door.
The truck was still rolling. I drew my Beretta and shot four infected in the head. Dropped all four.
“Go!”
Bunny was out first, firing his shotgun before he even landed on the ground. He blasted six rounds and then reached up, took hold of Torres and pulled her down like she weighed nothing. He brought his gun up and fired. I crouched in the doorway and fired. Top rolled to within inches of the door, stopped, then opened his window and fired.
Chang was behind us, killing anything that tried to crawl in through the shattered windows. Thunder deafened us all. I took my last fragmentation grenade, leaned out the door and threw it in as high an arc as I could over the crowd. It dropped to about chin level before it exploded, killing at least a dozen of the monsters and drawing every single dead eye.
Torres stuck the blaster-plaster around the lock and then they began running toward the door. They were both shooting; Top and I gave them cover, but something went wrong almost at once. I don’t know if Torres accidentally pulled the detonator cord or if maybe somehow it malfunctioned, but the plaster exploded too soon.
Torres and Bunny were plucked off the ground and flung like ragdolls. The blast blew out the windshield, but Top threw an arm across his face in time. When I looked, I saw the gate swing inward, but no sign of Torres or Bunny.
Through the ringing in my ears I heard Bunny bellow out her name and then everything was drowned in continuous gunfire from his shotgun. Three seconds later Torres came flying in through the door. She was alive, but badly hurt. Bleeding. Screaming. I dragged her inside and then gave Bunny cover fire as he scrambled up. His body armor glistened with red.
The gate stood ajar. Top stomped on the gas and the bus slammed into the barrier, knocking it all the way open. He rolled inside and before he stopped the bus, I was out, down on the ground, running to grab the gate. Bunny, dazed and bleeding, knelt in the doorway and offered cover fire. Even so, I had to slam the gate on a half dozen infected. Their sheer weight stopped me there, and more of the dead were coming. Then I heard the beep-beep-beep as Top backed the Mystery Bus toward me. I threw myself sideways just in time. The gate opened inward two feet and then it hit the bumper. Top kept backing up until the gate was closed.
I staggered to the doorway. “Get out!” I screeched.
Top and Chang helped the president down through the front passenger door. Bunny handed Torres down to me, and then he climbed down. Half his body armor was gone, torn away by the force of the blast, and there were burns on his chest, left shoulder and face. Half his hair had been melted away. Still, he fired the big shotgun one-handed, which would have put most people on their asses. With his other hand he supported Torres, who was barely able to walk. Sh
e was flash-burned, too, but her right hand was mangled. Two fingers were missing and the wound did not look like it had been caused by shrapnel. Bunny briefly met my eyes.
“It happened while she was setting the charge,” he said loud enough for only me to hear. “She reached through to wrap it around one of the bars. There was one of those things inside.”
Already I could see that beneath the soot and burns Torres was going pale. Her eyes danced with pain and fear. Bloody tears leaked from her eyes. She knew.
We ran.
The door to the plane was open and a flight officer and two Secret Service agents were there. The agents spotted us and ran down the stairs, MP5 machine guns in their hands. They raced over to meet Chang and the president. In a tight cluster, we fought our way to the plane.
As we ran, I saw that on the other side of the burning factory were two National Guard UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. One was burning, one wasn’t, and its propellers were turning slowly, engine on.
Maybe the soldiers on the roof could use it to get out. Not my immediate problem.
Ten feet from the stairs Torres fell. She took a last staggering step and then went down. I waved Chang and the other agents on. Top and Bunny stood guard while I knelt by the wounded cop.
Except she wasn’t a cop anymore. Everything that had been Officer Torres was gone. Her eyes stared up at nothing and her last breath rattled out between slack lips.
“Cap’n . . . ” said Top. “We have to leave her.”
It hurt to do it, but that’s what we did.
We ran up the stairs and into Air Force One. I found the president hunkered down at a small desk in his private office, and an aide was helping him open a small leather case and he was speaking on a tan-yellow satellite phone. He had Chang and the two other agents with him, all of them armed.
“Sir,” I said urgently, “do you have the response protocol? Can you stop the plague?”
He looked up at me with a triumphant smile as he lowered the phone. “I just did.”
“What is it? A counter-agent or . . . ”
My words trailed off as I realized what that leather case was. My mouth went totally dry.
“I just spoke with the Secretary of Defense,” he said in a weirdly calm voice. “I confirmed the gold codes, Captain.”
The gold codes.