Under a Graveyard Sky

CHAPTER 23

“PO Kuzma, this is the U.S. Navy,” the radio squawked five minutes later.

Kuzma had started to wonder if it was all hoax and looked at the radio as if it was radioactive.

“Kuzma to calling station, who is this?”

“A submarine, obviously. Answer these questions without thinking. Mother’s maiden name?”

“Thomas,” Kuzma said.

“Birthplace.”

“Mine? Burlington, Kansas. Hers? Peoria.”

“First college attended.”

“University of Kansas,” Kuzma said.

“Verified. Stand by…”

“Petty Officer, it’s good to hear that some of you survived,” a new voice said. “This circuit isn’t secure, so there are some things you’re not going to be told. To give you two other answers, so you know I’m looking at your service record, you enlisted on April twenty-second and you hold the USCG rescue medal with two stars. What I’m going to tell you is that this is the highest level commander you’re going to talk to for…well, until someone finds a higher level one.”

“Yes, sir,” Kuzma said. “So… It’s really all gone?”

“More or less,” the voice said. “But you, or rather, and I quote, Commodore Wolf, called us, not the other way around.”

“Yes, sir,” Kuzma said. “The…commodore, and he really doesn’t like to be called that, sir, he’s asking for materials from the Campbell for his…mission. Specifically, they’re low on shotgun rounds. And he’d like to off-load fuel and supplies and generally, well, strip her, sir. I’m not… I can’t authorize that. I can see his reasoning. We can’t man her as is. But…. I can’t go with that, sir. I’m not even sure I can go with a voice on a radio even if you are looking at my service report.”

“How about if I can tell an attack sub what to do?” the voice said. “Is that sufficient authority? I’d rather not surface the sub just to show off, but if I order it, it will.”

“So do I turn over the stuff?” Kuzma asked.

“What do you think of Commodore Wolf?” the voice asked. “Is that even his real name?”

“No, sir,” Kuzma asked. “It’s his handle. He’s a former Aussie para or so he says.”

“Who are Seawolf and Shewolf?” the voice asked.

“His daughters, sir,” Kuzma said. “And that’s part of the screwy part. Sir, none of these people really know what they’re doing. I mean, Seawolf is fifteen for God’s sake and she’s up for her own boat. Shewolf is one of the people who cleared the boat. She’s thirteen. I mean she’s big for her age and she knows how to handle guns but… Honestly, sir, I… I helped clear the boat with Shewolf and… She’s scary. But the boats? None of these people have so much as a captain’s license, sir. And…I can see what they’re doing. I think we should help. I’m not so sure about… I’m not sure about anything, sir. And, sir, I just got out from clearing the boat and it was… Christ, sir, it was really bad. It’s just…I don’t even know if I’m coherent, sir…”

“Petty Officer,” the voice said, sharply. “Calm down. You’re doing great. You’re a God damned credit to the Coast Guard that you can be this coherent after what you’ve been through. Okay? Calm down. You’re doing fine.”

“Yes, sir,” Kuzma said. “Sir… There really isn’t anything on land?”

“Family?” the voice asked, softly.

“Yes, sir,” Kuzma said. “My… I have kids, sir.”

“So do I,” the voice said. “They were in DC. I was…not. Petty Officer Kuzma, go get Wolf, then stand by. It appears I need to talk to the commodore.”

“Yes, sir,” Kuzma said. “He seems like a good guy, sir. But…I mean they really don’t know nothing about the sea. I’m surprised any of them have survived at all. These are the kind of people that we usually rescue. Not the other way around.”

“We are living in strange times, Petty Officer,” the voice said. “Get the commodore.”

* * *

“Wolf.”

“So you’re a commodore?”

“I’m in command of six small boats,” Steve said, calmly. “And a support vessel. In the World War Two British Navy I’d be a Reserve, Hostilities Only, Lieutenant Commander or so. I was given the moniker by my next senior captain and it was voted upon, against my wishes, by the captain’s board. Feel free to call me Mr. Wolf or Captain Wolf. May I have a name?”

“Mister… Blount? My mother’s name. It’s not a huge security issue. We are in contact with all the rest of the remaining headquarters, such as they are and they know who I am.”

“God,” Steve said, his eyes closing. “You’re the NCCC.”

“You’re well versed in security issues.”

“I was a history teacher,” Steve said. “Including twentieth century. My masters in history was on the defense of Malta during World War Two. I thought that was bad. If the NCCC is talking to me… That’s even worse than my worst nightmares. That means this little flotilla really is it, doesn’t it?”

“You’re…unfortunately perceptive. There are other forces, but…”

“The subs aren’t infected but they also don’t have vaccine,” Steve said. “I’ve had time to think about this, sir.”

“You’re Australian?”

“I’m a naturalized American citizen, sir,” Steve said. “But at this point, I think borders are a bit passe. Be that as it may, I’m an American. Passport and everything. Two children who are quite American.”

“From what I’ve heard, the best of America,” the NCCC said.

“Fought their way out of the last concert in New York,” Steve said. “A tale I’d be more than happy to tell as soon as we can get you out of whatever fortress you’re in.”

“Come again?”

“My plan had been to just survive,” Steve said. “Keep hiding. Find a place my family and I could survive. Let someone like, well, you, sir, handle this. But… You save one person and it gets addictive. And this situation…annoys me, sir. I…shortly after we took the Toy I told my wife we were not going to bow to the zombies, sir.

“So, yes, my goal, not plan, goal, is a zombie free world. I’ll start with the U.S. So that wasn’t a joke. Say the goal is to get to the point where a lightly armed convoy can pull up with busses and deliver vaccine to your people and then you can take over and I can go fishing. Don’t ask me what the plan is, though. I didn’t know I was going to find a coast guard cutter. I don’t know what disaster or success is going to occur next. All I can do is work the goal. Sir.”

“Ambitious. Do you think you can do it?”

“I’ve only got a few boats, sir,” Steve said. “But if I have the CG personnel behind me, officially, it will help. I’ve got one active duty special forces sergeant but I’m going to need more help from surviving military. The sub personnel, especially, as soon as we can produce vaccine. I’m going to need their technical expertise if this is going to work.”

“About that,” the NCCC said. “We picked up the snippet where some was mentioned. Might I inquire where you secured it?”

“I don’t know,” Steve said. “Can I get a written pardon?”

There was a long pause.

“Were you…active in producing it?”

“I was not someone who…acquired the materials,” Steve said, cautiously. “I knew someone who was. And I know someone who was involved in production of vaccine.”

“Attenuated virus vaccine? Successfully?”

Steve thought about that for a long time.

“Yes.”

“Know someone? As in they know how to produce it? Have done so? And are available?”

“Yes, although absent that pardon you’re going to have to break out thumbscrews to get me to say who. And thumbscrews won’t work.”

“Stand by.”

* * *

“That is better than we could have hoped for,” Dr. Dobson said. He had been brought in on the conversation early on.

“I still don’t think some drug dealer…” Commander Freeman started to say.

“Wolf, despite his grandiose name, does not sound like a drug dealer,” Galloway said, holding up a hand.

* * *

“Captain Wolf? Blount, over.”

“Wolf.”

“First of all, since I didn’t cover it. No, there will be no charges. Can I absolutely guarantee that someday in the fullness of stupidity, some group will not bring charges of crimes against humanity for production of attenuated vaccine from human spinal cords? No. We are human and such things happen. What I can guarantee, and I’ll get someone to send you a facsimile of a document to the effect, is that to the extent I have the legal power to do so, I will retroactively permit the production as well as authorizing future production for the good of the United States and humanity. That way if there is ever an ICC again we can both hang. But right now, without vaccine we are truly stuck. I won’t ask you to reveal much about it but we need to get some issues straight. Doctor?”

“This is Dr. James Dobson. I’m the Acting Director of the CDC. Can you detail, at all, the nature of the person you have who is familiar with production of attenuated vaccine? What are his or her qualifications?”

“None, essentially,” Steve said, carefully. “They were recruited by a clandestine, but highly professional, lab to assist in the production. They were the primary laboratory technician for the production of the vaccine my family used and currently has. We only have a few remaining doses, which I’m using for clearance personnel since they are more likely to get blood contamination. It works. None of us have contracted the disease and my daughter, handle Shewolf, contracted the virus after only the primer but survived. It was touch and go but she made it.”

* * *

“Sounds like his wife was the lab-tech,” Brice said, grimacing. “That had to be cold.”

“Can you define ‘highly qualified’?” Dr. Dobson said. “In a way that…”

“Fully prepared lab including Scanning Electron Microscope and all that sort of stuff,” Wolf replied. “Run by a PhD in microbiology. I hope you won’t mind if I avoid the name. But he used to work for you, Doctor. He was a consultant for a…well heeled group.”

“Corporate lab,” Dobson said, grimacing. “The FBI was aware they were around. New York, L.A. and San Francisco were particularly rife with them. They produced the vaccine for senior corporate officers and support. But they were professionals. But a lab tech… That’s not the same as the doctor…”

* * *

“Could he or she do it again?”

“The problem is, as you probably know, doctor, quality control,” Steve said. “The doctor running the lab did the quality assurance. I was not directly involved. But I understand that getting the strands just right is critical. Not too much radiation, not too little, no contamination. And we sure as hell can’t do it with what we’ve got. We’ll need something resembling a lab and a good x-ray machine for sure. I don’t suppose any of the subs have one?”

* * *

Galloway looked at the Navy liaison who shook his head.

* * *

“They have an x-ray machine but insufficient lab equipment and materials to do production much less quality control.”

Steve looked at the deck and wanted to throw the radio as far as he could.

“Stand by, please.”

“Roger.”

* * *

“Dallas,” Galloway said. “Can you observe the subject?”

* * *

“Roger,” Bradburn said, looking at his screen. He’d popped the periscope up for the chat. “Transferring…”

* * *

“That is a man in deep thought,” Galloway said, looking at the video. The presumed “Commodore Wolf” was just standing there, looking at the deck. Then he straightened up and keyed the radio.

“Blount, Wolf, over.”

“Go ahead.”

“The way this was going to go was that I was just going to do one thing after another and hope that nobody big enough to stop me would get in the way. Not that those things were going to be as bad as, say, a zombie apocalypse. But they were going to get right up some people’s nose. And they were going to be to my plan and intentions. Example. I can go loot that Coastie vessel. I really do need the ammo. The Coasties might get it in their noses, but they don’t have any guns. And from what my daughter has told me and I saw, they’re not going to be much use clearing any time soon. If ever. I suppose you could torpedo my boats, but that wouldn’t get you anywhere.

“But at a certain point I’m for sure going to need military personnel. A lot of military personnel. I’m probably going to need a working helo carrier. I’m going to need Marines. The problem, and I’m laying it on you since I’m thinking you’re not really busy and I am, is how to do that. Because I said that I’ve got a goal. I don’t know when I’ll secure that goal but it sure as a billabong is dry isn’t going to be tomorrow. And I won’t secure it, ever, without your support. But you don’t know me from a wallaby. Somebody else might muckle this out, I suppose. I can find a boat for these coasties and they can muckle it, maybe. Right now, I don’t care. I’m tired. Myself, a green beanie sergeant and my thirteen-year-old bloody daughter just cleared a bloody cutter and rescued your bloody coasties and we used a bunch of priceless ammo doing it. I’m tired. I’ve been doing this for weeks with no bloody support and no real reason for anybody to do it but me asking them nicelike.

“I’m going to seed the cutter, mark it, and when you decide if the coasties are going to work with me or not, get back to me. If not, I’ll find them a boat, hell, I have a spare I can’t use, and they can do whatever they’d like with it. Rescue, clear or go bloody pirate. But I’m not going to try to read the mind of some bloke I’ve never met on the radio. I’m going to stop doing that today and I’m not going to do it tomorrow. Or a year from now. So when you figure out how we’re going to work together, or if we’re going to work together, have your bloody sub come by and say hello. That’s not being impolite but I really don’t have the time for this. And I’m tired. We usually give people a few days to get their wits back. If you don’t want to work with us, I’ll give the coasties the Large in three days and you can do whatever you’d like. Wolf, out.”

* * *

“That is a man on the ragged edge,” Brice said, quietly.

“A paladin in hell,” Ellington said.

“Excuse me?” Galloway said. “I understand the words…”

“Oh, my God,” Brice said, shaking her head. “Congratulations. You get the geek win for the week, Colonel Ellington.”

“Some context?” Galloway asked, tightly.

“Colonel?” Brice asked. “Would you care to explain?”

Ellington twitched and looked at her helplessly.

“General?” the NCCC asked.

“It’s from Dungeons and Dragons, sir,” Brice said, smiling tightly.

“Seriously?” Freeman said, snorting. Then he paused. “General, how did you…?”

“Air Force Academy, Commander,” Brice said, smiling at him coquettishly. They’d learned by now that when when the acting CJCS went “cute” that they were about to have their heads handed to them. “Is that a problem?”

“No, ma’am,” the commander said, holding his hand up to his mouth to hide the grin.

“There is a picture in one of the D &D books, sir,” Brice said, turning back to the NCCC. “A knight in armor standing on a precipice wielding a sword against a horde of demons. The caption is ‘A Paladin In Hell.’”

“Thinking about it, that does sound rather apropos of Commodore Wolf,” Galloway said, nodding at Ellington.

“Every material, every person, has a breaking point,” Ellington said, hauntedly. He was staring into the distance. “Fighting the darkness forces one to either be the light or embrace the dark. Every paladin finds his precipice.”

“Colonel?” Brice said, carefully as the silence dragged out. “Marine!”

“Ma’am!” Ellington said, snapping upright.

“Colonel, I’m not sure where you just went,” Brice said. “But we need you present in this reality. Or do I need to call the medics?”

“No, ma’am,” the colonel said, sharply. “Present and accounted for, General. My recommendation is a Naval Captaincy, sir.”

“Excuse me?” Galloway said.

“You’re joking, right?” Commander Freeman said, tightly.

“Granting the Commodore a Naval Captaincy would allow him to command military personnel as well as direct civilian technical experts, sir, thereby reducing his overall difficulty load. Furthermore, absent finding and rescuing a higher ranking military officer, which would require in all probability the clearance of a Nimitz class aircraft carrier or better or more likely the clearance of a major ground base, he would outrank any of the current submarine commanders. The Captaincy would be contingent upon allowance of communications by professional officers to assure some semblance of reasonable command responsibilities. Absent that choice, he could outline his plans such as they are to the submarine commanders and upon developing some method of vaccine production turn it over to them. Sir.”

“A captaincy?” Commander Freeman snapped. “A Captaincy? Are you insane? To some unknown Australian pirate wannabe? For that matter, Under Secretary Galloway does not have the authority to grant a Captaincy!”

“As a matter of fact…” Brice said.

“I do, in fact, Commander,” Galloway said, tightly. “It’s in the fine print. I can even give a brevet to flag rank. Obviously, it has to be approved by the Senate in time. But for that we’d have to have a Senate.”

“I…” Freeman said, his face tight. “I was not aware and meant no disrespect… Sir.”

“Colonel Ellington, thank you for that novel suggestion,” Galloway said. “That language is not to suggest I am dismissing it. It is, however, I feel premature. Right now we have a virtual unknown whose only claim to fame is rescuing a few people including some coast guard personnel and possibly knowing how to produce vaccine. I would say that we need more CV than that before making such a significant decision. That is all.”

“Yes, sir,” Ellington said, then twitched.

“As for Commander Freeman,” Galloway said. “I can understand your distaste for the very idea. You are a professional naval officer who has spent many years honing his expertise and the idea of just handing a commission, much less a captaincy to, as you put it, a pirate wannabe, is obviously distasteful. I’ll remind you that various persons were given ranks to which they were not ‘entitled’ during World War Two, a much less serious catastrophe than the one in which we are currently engaged.”

“I recall the story of your grandfather, sir,” Freeman said. “But with due respect they weren’t given commands, sir.”

“As I said, it is premature,” Galloway said. “And this discussion has been contentious and, yes, tiring. We have time to consider even the subject of the Coast Guard personnel and the cutter. Let us use it.”

* * *

“Bureaucrats,” Steve said, tossing Kuzma the radio. “They’re trying to figure out what to do. I said I’d give them three days.”

“Okay,” the PO said. “What are we going to do in the meantime?”

“I’d run you back to Bermuda and put you on the Large,” Steve said. “But it’s a six hour steam both ways and there are EPIRBs. So just chill and we’ll go rescue people.”

“We can help, sir,” Fore said. “That’s the best part of our job.”

“Just rest,” Steve said, tightly. “You’re all knackered out. Which is normal. You’ll recover. I was wrong to use you to clear when you’d just been rescued. Besides, usually there’s nobody to rescue. It’d just be nice to have somebody I could trust at my back. But until the Powers-That-Be speak I can’t even trust that.”

“Da,” Sophia said. “While you were on the horn we got a call. There’s another yacht. Sixty footer.”

“Joy,” Steve said. “How far?”

“About two hours.”

“Make for it,” Steve said.

“It’s…getting dark, sir,” Kuzma pointed out.

“Odd thing at sea with no clouds,” Steve said. “You can really tell when the sun’s going down, PO.” Steve winced. “Sorry, I’m still bloody furious at that bugger on the radio.”

“I understand, sir,” Kuzma said. “What I was pointing out is that it’s getting dark as in ‘are you going to do a boarding in the dark?’”

“Why not?” Steve asked. “These things tend to be bloody dark below-decks, anyway. Really, it’s easier in the dark cause you don’t have to let your eyes adjust.”

“Oh,” Kuzma said, blinking rapidly. “How many boardings have you done, sir?”

“I don’t know,” Steve said. “I’d have to check the log. Probably not as many as you. But probably a few more that had zombies on them. No worries: usually these sixty footers are fairly straightforward. It’s the doing them by myself that’s getting tiresome…”

* * *

Kuzma moved up to the flying bridge to observe the evolution.

“If you want to tell me anything, go ahead,” the “commodore’s” daughter said, a touch nervously.

“You’ve done this a few times before?” Kuzma asked.

“Yes, sir,” Sophia replied. “This is my seventeenth approach to a yacht this side. For larger than this we usually use the dinghy.”

“You come directly alongside?” Kuzma said.

“Yes, sir,” Sophia said. “If you’ll hold on a second. I don’t see any on the deck, Da!” She picked up the intercom. “Horn, horn, horn…” she called, then hit the foghorn in three short blasts. She waited a moment, then hit two more. “That usually brings them out of there are any that can get on the deck.”

“Come alongside!” Steve yelled.

“Roger, Da!”

She moved up to the yacht and let the wind carry her in the last few feet as the crew put balloon fenders over the side and hurled grapnels to bring the two yachts together.

“We had problems getting those right at first,” Sophia said. “The balloons. You’ve got to get them at just the right height.”

“Yes,” Kuzma said. He didn’t mention that he’d have actively advised against tying two boats together in six foot swells.

“Tied down!” Paula called.

“Is that your mate?” Kuzma asked.

“Well, technically Da’s the captain, Mom’s the first mate and I’m the second. Paula’s sort of my mate if you will.”

“Was she a boater? Before?” Kuzma asked.

“Ran a t-shirt shop,” Sophia said. “Pardon, this is a bit tricky.”

She engaged power to the engines, carefully, reversing to port and forward to starboard.

“It’s easier to hold them together if they’re into the swells,” Sophia said. “And the ropes don’t snap as much. Well, except when I’m doing this.”

Kuzma tried not to flinch as he saw the strains being put on the three quarter inch lines that were used on the grapnels.

“Lines part often?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Sophia said. “All the time. If we don’t use a boat we salvage all the ropes.”

When the two boats were arrayed, “Wolf” leapt from one boat to the other. He was wearing body armor with a standard Class III PFD on top. His only weapon appeared to be a pistol. He dropped the PFD on the aft deck and entered the interior of the captured yacht.

“Worry about him when he’s in there?” Kuzma asked.

“Not as much these days,” Sophia said. “But, yeah. It’s worse with the big ones.”

“Top deck is clear. Evidence of zombies but none found. Going below.”

“Not ‘infecteds,’” Kuzma asked.

“They’re humans,” Sophia said, shrugging. “Not walking dead. More like evil, weaker, insane chimps. But it’s easier to think of them as zombies.”

“Ever killed one yourself?” Kuzma asked.

“We made the mistake of going to the last concert in New York City,” Sophia said. “They had their first real power outage during it. The concert was using generators. And lights. The zombies closed in. So…yeah. Don’t ask how many. I stopped counting after three or four. The next day, they blew the bridges, my uncle took off for his secure point and we sailed out.”

“Sailed?” Kuzma asked.

“We were on a sailboat Da bought when we got the word,” Sophia said. “We loaded it up with stores and we were careful with them but we ran finally out. So we found the Toy. Tina was still alive and Da just…changed. We started doing this.”

“You weren’t afraid of the flu?” Kuzma asked.

“We got vaccinated in New York,” Sophia said, carefully. “Since you’re still sort of a cop, you’ll allow me to take the Fifth on any more discussion of that, okay?”

“Okay,” Kuzma said. “But some of that stuff…”

“It was for real,” Sophia said, tonelessly. “Let’s just say my uncle had some connections. And, yes, it was the kind made from people’s spines. And, yes, we knew it. Now can we change the subject or are you going to arrest us?”

“No,” Kuzma said, shaking his head. “I wish I had some. I wish we’d had some.”

“Yeah,” Sophia said, shrugging. “Put it this way, NYPD was vaccinated up. Take my word for that. They and their families. Which took, by my count, about six thousand spinal cords.”

“Holy crap,” Kuzma said, his eyes wide. “Seriously?”

“Really should drop the subject,” Sophia said. “But, yeah, I’m sure. You could only get about ten units per infected. The count I got was thirty thousand vaccinated. And you needed primer and booster. Sixty thousand units. I don’t know where they were doing it, but they had to have had an assembly line that made Auschwitz look like Central Park.”

“One zombie, already dead, in the engine room. I don’t think this one is operable. Boat’s clear. Call your Mom…”

“Wolf, Kuzma,” Kuzma said. “Mind if I accompany?”

“Up to you,” Wolf replied.

“Grab a respirator,” Seawolf said.

“Respirator?” Kuzma asked.

“For the smell.”

“You get used to it.”