Designated (Book 2): Designated Quarantined (27 page)

22

Broadhead Barracks

Central Operations Centre

Colinson watched, one eyebrow quirked slightly as Derek barrelled into the room, his sawdust-tinged skin shimmering under the strip lights above him.
 

'Catch you at a bad time, did we?'
 

Derek flipped his raised middle finger in Colinson's direction as he stepped towards the front of the room. 'What have we got?' Colinson turned back to the monitor mounted on the main wall, the glowing panels flickering as images shuffled past their eyes.
 

'Fucked if I know. This was an outside trigger; someone is calling, we just haven't got a clue who.'
 

Baker scratched at his chin, the thick briar of curled hair making his jaw ache with an irrepressible need to scratch. 'Damn it all to hell.'

Colinson cast a sidelong glance at Derek as he dragged his chipped and dirty nails across his chin, a white flaking powder drifting down the front of his already dust-laden vest.
 

'First off, go get changed and shaved, mate. We can finish off the thousand and one questions in a bit. Shaw and his mob are dropping in on the source of the signal now; all we are doing is playing information footsie with whoever we have out there.'

Paddington Station

Central London

The centre and right rails hummed with the flow of electricity. Cocking his head to one side, Shaw listened intently, his chocolate-brown eyes squinting as he watched the dull yellow glow slowly fill the tunnel's mouth. A high-pitched squeal and gout of warm air boiled forth as the royal blue and yellow carriage rolled to a stop, the driver's cab whipping past in a flurry of flashing windows and chattering wheels.

The driver leapt from the door, scrambling past Shaw, his eyes wide with fear and a look seen all too often on the faces of those who bore witness to the heinous crimes of others. Shaw shivered as he watched the man. The memory filled his head of men, women, and children with the exact same look in their eyes, fleeing their homes and villages as they were butchered in their thousands for simply being Muslim.
 

He turned, motioning to the men around him as the memory continued to dance behind his eyes. The man's clattering feet drew his gaze as he watched him flee into the arms of another squad member; the driver's scurrying body a sight he remembered all too clearly watching on the television in his mother's house as he started his homework. 

He watched the footage of a mother carrying the body of her dead daughter past a UN checkpoint. The chattering, feral faces of Bosnian Serbs filled the screen as they chased the mother and daughter through it. It was at that point that he made up his mind to become a soldier—so no mother, not his or any other, had to go through what that woman on the television had.
 

A movement out the corner of his eye drew his attention. Snapping his weapon to his shoulder, he turned as the figure lurched from the rear of the train; soot streaked and bloody, there was no denying what was slowly clawing its way to its feet and beginning to lurch across the platform.
 

'Steps, Stoors, move to suppress… fire only when certain. Westing, be a babe and call this through to Colinson for me. Rest of you, three-sixty arc of containment. Nothing is getting out of here that isn't hale and hearty.'
 

Westing winked as she opened a channel, cupping her hand over her ear as she spoke.
 

'Vatican, this is Four, say again, Vatican this is Four. Infection confirmed at location. Containment of localised area implemented, please advise.'

Colinson stared at the wall monitors, the bouncing images of SAU Four's helmet-mounted cameras making him slightly nauseated. Reaching forwards, he flicked the raised switch, opening a channel through to the members already in play.
 

'Push inwards, we're cleared to execute.'
 

Westing's lilting West Country accent poured from the speakers as she replied.
'Acknowledged. ETA on One and Three?'
 

Colinson snapped the switch back once more as he scanned the monitor at his elbow.
 

'Three ETA 34 mins, traffic is being cleared to the main street side entrance. One is six from your local, coming in on a maintenance tram.'
 

'Acknowledged. Four out.'
 

The speaker hissed and fizzed as silence engulfed the room, the bobbing images edging closer to the tunnel entrance.

'Transport Police are sealing stations along the lines connecting with Paddington, and we have scattered reports of contacts in other stations on the Central and Northern lines. We've had minor skirmishes on other lines that feed from stations yet to be closed along the Hammersmith and City line and Circle line, but containment seems to be holding.
 

'The SCO19 teams on the over ground paths have deployed multiple sniper units with added three-man teams on platforms and stairways. Although this has stretched them very thin on the ground, leaving little to cover other areas of the network, as a precaution I have arranged for teams eight through eleven to be dispatched to key jump points along the three rail lines in greatest danger.'
 

Baker nodded as Kirkland finished talking, her hands danced over the touch screen monitor as she flicked her fingers, sending the data feed through the wireless connection to the wall monitors. The images showed grainy, slightly blurred feeds of all the above ground stations manned by the Special Officers of Section 19.
 

The staggered flashes of silent gunfire flickered across the screen as three of the black-clad officers slowly advanced, their weapons blazing tongues of monotone light as the Infected ran, their mouths hanging in silent screams towards the three men. All the while, the cameras silently recorded it all.
 

****

Wheels clacked off polished rails as they found themselves drawn through the twisting hash of interconnecting tunnels. The chain link and concrete fencing around them zipped past as the driver opened the throttle completely. Distorted flashes of rifle fire glittered in the dwindling daylight all around them as they rolled through the crypt-like stations on their way to their final destination.
 

The harsh rattle of MP5s over lay the rough chattering of assault rifles as it echoed through the air, rippling through the heavy rumble of the diesel engine that was dragging them along in its wake. Sharp watched the stations flutter by as the tram car rocked beneath his feet; the driver's door thumped against his booted foot, the rhythmic beat sending a lulling vibration up through him as he watched the throbbing lights of men fighting for their lives flash past in a burst of light so bright his eyes watered.
 

The driver's monotone voice punctured his thoughts like a pin through a balloon as they neared the station. Clapping the man on the shoulder, Sharp turned to face the open side of the cart. He dragged his night vision goggles into position on his forehead as he edged closer, the toes of his boots bumping into the raised lip surrounding the decking.
 

Sharp's hands shook in his gloves, the armoured knuckles heavy as he fought the cold shiver of adrenaline-laced fear that wormed its way through his spine. A heavy, electric
thunk
echoed through the halls and platforms as, one by one, the breakers snapped open and blackness crept from the corners like rabid wolves, consuming light with a ferocity that left the unprepared reeling and lost as it blanketed all in its path.
 

Store fronts and corridors fell dark in a matter of seconds; Sharp watched the Marauder APC trundle forwards, driving the heavy steel grate down the entryway, sealing the entrance like the portcullis of a medieval castle as it came to rest millimetres of the Victorian, iron-shod buttresses that surrounded the archway.
 

The hot stench of diesel smoke filled his nostrils as Sharp hopped down onto the platform. The heavy thump of his boots was drowned out by the echoing clunk of the breakers as they continued to drain the light from the world.

Sharp eased his feet forwards, the dry crust of vomit crackling beneath his boots, the passing homage from some drunken foray into the swirling dervish that was Central London. A dark grin teased at his lips as he wondered if the alcohol-soaked sot had made their way out into the bustling metropolis or if they were now playing aperitif to someone far less sober.
 

He slowly scanned the area ahead of him, the dark swatches of blood staining the dirt-streaked, polished concrete. Deep patches of black slowly drained the colour from the world around him as it dripped with a staccato pattering from the signs overhead, hitting the floor with an echoing splat.
 

'Four, this is One. We have landed at the lower platform and are moving up to your location.'
 

Static-filled cracks filled his ears as he listened to the play of gunfire shiver through his headset, the rolling echoing noise falling over them as they moved through the tunnels, the twisting half tubes fracturing the sounds until they were little more than shattered ghosts of their former selves.
 

'One, Four. Multiple contacts, topside snipers report dozens of contacts at all street-level exits, Marauder APCs in place at main entrance and the taxi rank.'
 

'Bridgewater, Kane, left flank. Plug that fucking hole.'
 

'We have them contained to the platform and train car, but I don't think we are going to be able to hold them here.'
 

Sharp stifled a curse as he stared at the trains around him, the long stretch of dead ground between them making his skin itch as he pressed his fingers against the call key strapped to his rifle's fore grip.
 

'Acknowledged. Hold position until we make contact.'
 

Sharp flicked his hand to his right and left, sensing more than watching, his men move, their rifles up. The muted
fut
of silenced shots echoed through the cavernous station. Pigeons fluttered overhead, loose feathers and excrement dropping around them as they flew for cover, scared from their perches by the rampant violence acted out beneath them.
 

Sharp snatched his aim to the left, a squeeze of his trigger creating a fist-sized hole through the chest of a woman as she launched herself from a carriage door. Her hands clawed through the air as she reached out in desperation for the man before her. She hit the floor with a gut-churning crunch, her limbs twisting against her joints as she collided with the polished floor of the terminal concourse.
 

Light danced, casting spectral shadows across the walls of the trains around them. Sharp squinted slightly as a blast of orange light shimmered through his vision, his eyes watering. Dragging his eye back to the Leupold Prismatic Tactical Scope mounted on his rifle, he centred the dark red cross on the fourth button his target's shirt. He squeezed the trigger again, sending the hot, pointed projectile of copper-coated lead slicing through the air, shattering bone and cartilage as it cleaved the man's chest in two. Sharp watched his chest fold inwards, collapsing back on itself as everything behind it was reduced to a thick paste.
 

Screams of fear and pain echoed from the carriages as they pushed forwards. The Infected streamed from the trains either side of them as one passenger after another succumbed to the plague and set upon their fellow man like locust upon a farmer's field. The high-pitched wails of children made him shiver as he caught sight of a woman sinking her teeth into the nubile flesh of a girl's cheek, a crimson flood bathing her lips as she pulled. The child's flesh twisted and stretched as she writhed in the vice-like clutch of the woman atop her.
 

The skin snapped like over-taut elastic, the girl's head slamming into the floor of the train as the woman's jaw churned, pulping skin and flesh into a thick, creamy paste before she swallowed. The girl's movements slowed as shock and pain dulled her mind. The innate need to flee gave way to the dull numbness of shock and fear as it mingled into one all-consuming anaesthesia of the mind and soul.
 

Sharp grimaced as he dragged a phosphorous grenade from his vest, sending it crashing through the glass of the train's window and into the child's lap. Her dull lifeless eyes locked onto the cylinder that sat in her blue, cotton-covered lap, her dress stained a deep brown by her own blood and stool as the plague began to ravage her body.
 

The grenade detonated, filling the interior of the carriage with a radiant light, heat rippling the air as glass cascaded over the men and the floor around them. Sharp winced as his cheek was torn by the flying squares of shatterproof glass. He watched for a second as the child slowly melted, her form vanishing as it was consumed by the rolling wall of white fire. With eyes scorched with the images of a thousand deaths, he moved, watching for anything and everything. Sharp's shadow danced and wavered as the orange cones of rifle fire flickered all around him, the glass wall of the metro shopping district shimmering with the incandescent light as men and women fought for their existence.

****

Shaw felt a quivering in his chest as the smoke and glass poured from the shattered train windows. The glittering rain of squared glass bounced past his feet as it hit the floor around him. He felt the slithering crunch of spent brass beneath his boots as he turned; the teeth-jarring squeal of metal over concrete made his teeth itch as he spun on the balls of his feet to face a new foe.
 

The rifle bucked and bounced against his shoulder, the comforting rhythm of his own beating heart setting the pace as he ejected a magazine and drove another into the well, slapping it home. He kicked away his would be assailant, the man's business suit torn and ragged as he slid head first into the grill covering the entranceway. A dull, gong-like ring rolled through the terminal as the sliding office worker connected with his final resting place.
 

Shaw shivered as he watched the man's head open like a stuck egg, his skin sloughing off his skull as it split, morphing round the tubing like a melon on the pavement. Blood and brain matter sprayed forth, the gelatinous mass covering the floor like wet rug.