Z-Day (Book 3): A Place For War Read online

  A Place for War

  Z-Day: Book Three

  Daniel Humphreys

  Contents

  Also by Daniel Humphreys

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Untitled

  Untitled

  Untitled

  Copyright © 2018 Daniel Humphreys

  Twitter: @NerdKing52

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/DanielHumphreysAuthor/

  Blog: www.daniel-humphreys.net

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  ISBN: 9781729466674

  Cover art by Covers By Christian

  First Printing November 2018

  V1.0

  Created with Vellum

  As always—for Tara.

  Also by Daniel Humphreys

  Z-Day

  A Place Outside the Wild

  A Place Called Hope

  A Place for War

  Paxton Locke

  Fade

  Night’s Black Agents

  Come, Seeling Night (forthcoming)

  Chapter One

  May 17, 2017

  Ironton, Missouri

  Z-Day - 154

  The bell mounted over the door of Desi’s Diner tinkled as Molly Einhorn shrugged her away inside. She paused in the entry to shuck her windbreaker. Grey clouds had loomed overhead all morning, threatening rain. They finally broke open a few minutes after she’d left Arcadia Valley High behind for the summer.

  What a way to start summer vacation. She sighed and hung the sodden jacket on the row of hooks beside a cork board decorated with hand-drawn fliers and aging business cards.

  It was too early for the dinner crowd—even the elderly types who preferred to eat two hours before sundown—but the restaurant was still half-full. She didn’t recognize most of the patrons and pegged them for tourists bound for Taum Sauk State Park. More than a few had that woodsy, LL Bean look to them.

  Ignoring curious glances and murmurs, she slicked back her wet hair and headed for the counter. There was an open zone of space around the sheriff’s deputy sitting there, but that was fine by her.

  Mike Wischmeier took a sip of coffee and raised an eyebrow at her bedraggled condition. “Bad day not to bring an umbrella, eh, Molly?”

  She shook her head and grinned. She’d been best friends with Mike’s sister Claire for as long as she could remember. She still had trouble matching the imposing figure the deputy cut with the gawky teenager he’d been the first time she spent the night in second grade.

  Now I’m the awkward one. Not Claire, though, which figures. Where Molly was tall and beanpole-thin, Claire was petite and curvy. There’d been more than a few times that Deputy Mike had needed to explain to out-of-towners that no, his kid sister was not eighteen, thank you very much.

  “Girl would forget her head if it wasn’t strapped on,” Gram grumped. She deposited a glass of sweet tea on the counter in front of Molly as she headed to take an order from a well-fed hiker. He wore a surly expression that said he’d die if he didn’t get some food in him.

  “Thanks, Gram,” Molly said, taking a sip. If her grandmother heard her, she didn’t react. She stood at the ready as the hiker perused the menu. That is the sort of thing that would make me scream. Why flag the waitress down if you’re not ready? She realized Deputy Mike was talking, and she swiveled to face him.

  “… plans for the summer?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing concrete. I have a job lined up at the pool as a lifeguard if I want it. Gram said I could hostess here, but—eh.”

  “Not your cup of tea? A couple of the deputies are looking for dependable sitters for the summer.”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Molly shrugged. “I don’t mind working. But if I get a choice in the matter, I’ll take the job that pays me to work on my tan.” She grinned. “The only bad thing about being a lifeguard is dealing with the kids, so I don’t look at babysitting as an option, either.”

  He grinned back. “You going to basketball camp first? That’s all Claire would talk about at dinner Sunday night. Made me glad I moved out before she hit her teenage years.”

  She wanted to scream, pound her fist on the counter, or maybe even throw something. Basketball camps were the sort of things that Claire’s family could manage without putting much thought into it. Gram’s waitress pay supplemented Molly’s Social Security parental death benefits and kept them on the bleeding edge of living in one of the trailer parks with delusions of grandeur to dub itself a ‘motor court.’ She shrugged again and tried to keep her voice even. “Couldn’t work it out. Oh, well.”

  “That’s too bad. Coach Portnoy says you’ve got real potential, you keep working on your game—” Mike fell silent and twisted in his own seat, looking out the front windows of the diner. A stream of semis, led by a smaller truck with flashers warning of the over-sized loads, passed by. The constant, low-frequency hum brought most of the conversations in the diner to a halt. After the first half-dozen trucks Molly lost count, and they kept coming.

  “What’s all that?” She nodded toward the line of trucks. As though punctuating her question, one final rig, followed by a second flasher truck, went by, and normal conversation resumed.

  Deputy Mike turned back to his coffee and shook his head. “It’s the weirdest thing. The sheriff got a call from Jefferson City, couple days ago. National Weather Service wants to set up some kind of early warning tornado radar, up on Taum Sauk. I’m surprised the boots-and-granola crowd isn’t up in arms about it, but I guess their contractor is breaking ground today. They’re going to be up there for three or four months. Lots of truck traffic.”

  Gram came back behind the counter and refilled Deputy Mike’s coffee. “Lots of traffic is good. Maybe those drivers will stop in and grab a meal or two.”

  Mike laughed and said something about Gram running off with a trucker, but Molly didn’t hear the rest of the conversation. She stared out into the rain, frowning.

  How big a radar station are they going to build up there?

  May 15, 2026

  Forward Operating Base Hope—Southwestern Indiana

  Z-Day + 3,131

  Until they found a surviving member of the Federal government or secured enough territory to hold elections, General Dennis Vincent was the de facto President of the United States, Secretary of Defense, and pretty much everything else.

  He needed one of those ‘The buck stops here’ signs for his desk.

  At the moment, he was trying to balance his elation at the successful completion of a mission with the accounting of the butcher’s bill. The human race was an endangered sp
ecies, and the subset of that group able to claim the title of Marine was smaller and receding.

  “You’ll be happy to know that we were able to recover and repair the Lucas, Major. Captain Wilhite and her crew are heading back to Guam as we speak for a more complete assessment.” The experimental Arleigh Burke-class destroyer had suffered a catastrophic power systems failure during a mission to provide fire support to Pete’s team of Recon Marines. The mission had pulled off what could be best described as the most daring mission into zulu territory since the outbreak began. The company had made a cross-country trek to a top-secret facility. Once there, they’d recovered a trio of heavy-lift dirigibles in the face of tens if not hundreds of thousands of infected.

  In that context, casualties were acceptable if not understandable. The haunted expression on the major’s face told General Vincent that the man had not taken the losses well.

  “The refugees?” Matthews asked, finally.

  “Sounds like they elected to tag along. From the way you described their living situation, it sounds like a tropical island will be this side of paradise for them.” In terms of uninfected survivors, the California mission had found one small group—just shy of two dozen men and women who’d managed to block off Ventura Pier and subsist on fish and produce from small gardens. General Vincent wasn’t surprised they’d elected to tag along. Life wasn’t simple at any of the island bases the military had secured, but it was safe. These days, that counted for a lot.

  “Glad to hear it,” Pete said. “There were quite a few little kids on the pier.”

  Vincent nodded and scanned the notes he’d made in the margins of Matthews’ original report. “After that, you flew overland to the Gulf using one of the recovered cargo dirigibles and hooked up with the USS Gettysburg, then proceeded to FOB Galveston.” The original plan had been to shuttle them down to Panama and cross the Canal Zone to load them up, but with the delay from Lucas’ engineering failure, he’d elected to kill two birds with one stone—conduct a shakedown flight of the newly-acquired vehicles while surveying a good portion of the southwestern United States.

  “Correct.” Matthews’ team had originally taken the northern route under the polar ice cap via the submarine Georgia, linking up with the Lucas at a semi-secured dock in Alaska. On Kodiak Island, the infected were no longer a concern, but the flourishing grizzly population that wiped them out most certainly was.

  “You’re rather noncommittal about any overhead recon you conducted while en route, Major.” He flipped the papers over. “Anything you care to add?”

  Matthews frowned. “Whole lot of nothing, General. Knowing that Hope and the pier folk held out for eight years, I thought there might be other survivors. Los Angeles, Phoenix, El Paso, San Antonio…” He shook his head. “They belong to the dead, now, General.”

  He wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Matthews wasn’t one of his original cadre of men. He’d been medically retired when Z-Day hit, running a surplus store. After the outbreak, he’d helped to build one of the more successful communities the Marines had seen in the years since. Having an officer with prior combat experience on top of eight years of survival on the post-apocalyptic ground was a boon, but Vincent still didn’t have the full measure of the man’s personality. For now, he decided to drop it. “So—after you dropped off the crated spares, you refueled and headed north along the Mississippi.”

  “And found the community along the river—Viebey, they called it?”

  “Correct. We landed to make contact. Shortly after, some of my Marines pointed out that one of the survivors seemed to be one of the ‘most wanted’ suspects.”

  Vincent shook his head. One hell of a coincidence. To find one of the scientists they sought, years later and hundreds of miles away from the facility in Cincinnati where a group of true believers had developed the nano-plague resulting in Z-Day. The odds were worse than the PowerBall had been, back in the day. All things considered, I’d rather have won the lottery. “Your report is a bit oblique here, as well, Major.”

  “There were some—issues recovering the scientist,” Pete admitted.

  The man looks almost embarrassed, Vincent mused. “Off the record—what happened?”

  Matthews hesitated for the barest of moments. “Being honest, General, we came damn close to shooting him out of hand. Things escalated rather quickly—”

  May 13, 2026

  Southwestern Illinois

  Z-Day + 3,129

  There was a strange undercurrent of tension in the air—more than Pete would have expected, at least. The first time Marines had come upon Hope, he’d been on the receiving end. But a LAV was a darn sight more intimidating than a fluffy balloon. Why is everyone so—

  Corporal Robb jumped in front of Pete and slammed an arm into Sandy’s neck. The spokesperson for the settlement tumbled to the ground. At the same time, LoPresto swung his SCAR-H off his shoulder and trained the barrel on Scopulis’ head.

  “What the hell, LoPresto?” Pete barked.

  “Major! It’s him, sir, sure as the world. Jack of Hearts.”

  Jack of Hearts? Pete moved closer to LoPresto. The other survivors whispered under their breath and traded worried looks. On the bright side, the situation was only half of a Mexican standoff. None of the civvies brandished any weapons.

  On the ground, Sandy swallowed and called out, “Everybody relax. It’s going to be all right.”

  Big brass ones on you, boy.

  Robb didn’t seem to appreciate the comment. “Give me an excuse, asshole. I’ll blow your head off and feed zulu the rest.”

  LoPresto handed over a ratty playing card. Pete turned it over in his fingers and studied it for a moment. He’d seen something similar in Iraq, with mugshots of high-value targets replacing the normal figures. Rather than a mugshot, this card had what looked like the picture from a GenPharm ID badge. He’d seen his nephew Miles’, more than once, though that one bore a red ‘IT’ logo.

  The man in the picture had a little more hair and fuller cheeks, but there was no doubt that he was the survivor on the ground. Doctor Alexandros Scopulis, Pete read. Research and Development. He clenched his jaw. Motherfucker. He lowered his gaze to stare at the man on the ground. “You a doctor before the end, Mr. Scopulis?”

  It grew strangely quiet, and the man on the ground closed his eyes. “That’s right.”

  “What kind of doctor? You work in a hospital, back in the day?” There was always the chance of mistaken identity, but the chances seemed to be nil. This was one of the architects of an event that decimated civilization and left billions dead.

  “No,” he whispered.

  Pete leaned closer. He flipped the playing card over for Sandy to see. “Every bill comes due sooner or later, boy. And it’s time to pay the piper.”

  A woman screamed from among the crowd of survivors. “No!”

  Even in the face of death, at the furious mercy of foreign invaders, Sandy’s face seemed to harden. When the doctor made eye contact with Pete, he found that he couldn’t look away to see who’d cried out.

  “Do whatever you want,” Sandy said. Exhaustion filtered through his voice, but there was steel there, as well. “I deserve it. At least do me the courtesy of not blowing my head off in front of my wife and son.”

  Robb jammed the muzzle of his rifle into Sandy’s cheek. “You want to talk about courtesy, you son of a bitch? How about—”

  “Corporal,” Pete barked. “That’s enough.” He surveyed the hardening faces of the civilians and turned back to his men. “Weapons on safe and slung, Marines.” The tension peaked, and for a moment he thought he’d broken one of the cardinal rules of being an officer—never give an order that can’t be obeyed—but the Marines brandishing weapons moved to follow. There were some looks exchanged, but he could deal with that later. He met Sandy’s eyes. “What did you mean when you said you deserved it?”

  Now the man on the ground looked confused. “What do you want me to say, exactly? It’s not all m
y fault, but I helped. Are you fishing for a confession, or what?”

  Pete stuck a hand out. Sandy hesitated, but he took it, and he hauled the doctor to his feet. “Agent Guglik,” he called out.

  If the situation discomfited the petite blonde CIA agent at all, he couldn’t tell. She moved out of the crowd of Marines and stood at Pete’s side. “What’s up, Major?”

  He indicated Sandy with a nod. “You get much in the way of remorse out of the other GenPharm people, Anne?”

  Sandy’s jaw dropped in surprise as Guglik cocked her head to one side, a thoughtful look on her face. “No, as a matter of fact. There’s usually much more spitting and name-calling. They really liked ‘jackbooted fascist thug’ until I water-boarded it out of them.”

  “Other GenPharm people—” Sandy started, but Pete raised a finger to cut him off.

  “Agent Guglik, when command printed these cards up, why did they choose Jack of Hearts for Dr. Scopulis?”

  She smiled, then looked at Sandy with what seemed to Pete to be new eyes. “Because he was in a relationship with one of the other researchers.”

  “She a true believer?” Pete asked. “She one of your spitters?”

  “One of the worst,” Guglik replied.

  Sandy snorted. “That sounds like Melanie, all right.”