Fear Mercy Read online

  Fear Mercy

  The Survival Chronicles V

  by Fergal F. Nally

  Copyright © Fergal F. Nally 2019

  “Mortui vivos docent”

  [The dead teach the living: Latin expression]

  “The days of man are like grass. He grows like a flower of the field. When the wind blows over it, it is gone. Its place will remember it no more.” [Psalm 103:15-17]

  “The human race has a staggering capacity for stupidity, just look at the twenty-first century—” President Mitchell, Commander-in-Chief, New State Army.

  The moral right of Fergal F. Nally to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act, 1988.

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Cover design: Beetiful Book Covers

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1—USS Abraham Lincoln

  Chapter 2—Briefing

  Chapter 3—Cold Storm

  Chapter 4—Demons

  Chapter 5—Crossroads

  Chapter 6—Plaza

  Chapter 7—Back Door

  Chapter 8—Water Fight

  Chapter 9—Fay

  Chapter 10—Stilts

  Chapter 11—Chained Death

  Chapter 12—Force Majeure

  Chapter 13—Aftermath

  Chapter 14—Lake House

  Chapter 15—Kitty Hawk Bay

  Chapter 16—Flash of Red

  Chapter 17—Collateral

  Chapter 18—Locked In

  Chapter 19—Savage

  Chapter 20—Wish

  Chapter 21—Soft Launch

  Chapter 22—Silent Killing

  Chapter 23—Red Light

  Chapter 24—Great Bridge

  Chapter 25—Stadium

  Chapter 26—The Deal

  Chapter 27—The Compound

  Chapter 28—Gates of Hell

  Chapter 29—Underground

  Chapter 30—Falling Down

  Chapter 31—High Stakes

  Chapter 32—Quartermaster

  Chapter 33—Tunnel Madness

  Chapter 34—Gated Community

  Chapter 35—Go Fast

  Chapter 36—Extrication

  Chapter 37—Intel

  Chapter 38—Perdition

  Chapter 39—Cold Shock

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  USS Abraham Lincoln

  Mercy leaned against the MH-47 Special Operations Chinook and glanced around the hangar deck.

  She shook her head, “How did so many military personnel survive the pandemic?”

  Lieutenant Cronin pressed against the Chinook stretching his calf muscles, “The military has always got personnel on active service, it’s got protocols and equipment for all kinds of warfare, including chemical and biological. CBRN: chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defence specialists. The CDC and CBRN people were all over the pandemic in the early days.” He paused, a frown furrowed his brow.

  Cronin turned back to face the open hangar. “The military followed biological warfare protocols and kept Navy assets operational at sea, essentially in quarantine mode. They used air filters, HAZMAT suits, base shutdowns, sealed command bunkers. Island territories like the Aleutians, Guam and Guantanamo; these bases went into lockdown long enough for the Navy to evacuate personnel onto quarantine ships. Many didn’t make it, what you’re looking at now; the Abraham Lincoln and her escort, is all that remains. Constantine’s got six thousand people on this carrier and she’s got five destroyers, each with around three hundred crew. Her base was Texas, her fall-back Galveston, with enough food, fuel and supplies for her campaign but as you know the NSA routed her land forces at Fort Worth and Dallas—”

  Mercy rubbed her aching shoulder, her body had not recovered from the battering it had received on Grand Cayman and Cuba. “Yeah, I was in Fort Worth. It was something else—”

  “Fucking insane is what your friend Tawny said at the debrief,” Cronin said.

  The hangar deck was busy with crew attending to the aircraft and military vehicles stored there.

  Twelve days since Cuba. Was it really necessary to keep us in quarantine for ten days? Guess they were being careful. I still can’t get used to this. Hot food and water… a bed, and these people… so many uninfected people. It’s unbelievable—

  Mercy pushed against the MH-47’s fuselage and stretched her legs.

  Still can’t believe we can do a five kilometre run without being attacked by tropes. This ship, the fact we made it here, it’s a miracle—

  Mercy stared Lieutenant Cronin in the eye, “Do you think Constantine will win? Have I backed the winning side?”

  Cronin looked along the hangar deck. “I don’t know. We’ve got one shot. These ships have taken on the last military stores; food, water, medicine, ammunition. Constantine can keep this show on the road for the next few months. After that, all this kit, these planes, these people… it’s back to the stone age if we don’t smash President Mitchell and his New State Army.”

  Mercy pulled a face, “I want to see him die. I’d like to see him shredded by tropes. All this shit is down to him and his Cobalt Biotech cronies. Forget about genocide… what’s the word for murdering a whole planet?”

  “Extinction, I think you’d call it,” Cronin replied.

  “No shit, mass extinction I’d call it. Six, seven billion people? Who knows how many?” Mercy replied.

  Cronin checked his watch, “Come on, time to finish this run. We’ve got breakfast and a briefing with Constantine at 09:00 hours. I’ve got a feeling we’ll find out more then.”

  Mercy followed Flynn, Rose and Tawny and the rest of the Navy SEAL team into Constantine’s office. A large stars and stripes hung on the wall behind a mahogany desk. Mercy sat beside Flynn on a leather sofa. The others filled every available chair, a few were left standing.

  Constantine… those facial scars, nasty. Guess there’s no plastic surgeon in this fleet. She said the NSA experimented on her… like me, Tawny and Rose… and Flynn.

  Mercy squeezed Flynn’s arm, he looked at her, his eyes serious.

  “Thank you for coming,” Constantine’s voice was low, clear. “Welcome to our new guests,” she looked at Mercy, Flynn, Rose and Tawny. “It was good to talk to you, albeit behind glass. I’m sorry but quarantine precautions were necessary. Even though you weren’t bitten, the tropes have been mutating and… who knows? The virus is... resourceful.”

  Constantine paused and closed her eyes. The office was silent apart from the low hum of the air-conditioning system. Constantine blinked then looked around the room. “I’m sorry but the time has come to put you back in the field. We’re off North Carolina, the Outer Banks. Washington D.C. is three hundred miles away, that’s where Mitchell and his NSA are holed up.”

  “Bastards—” Rose interjected.

  Mercy smiled.

  I love that you’ve no filter Rose—

  The tension in the room eased. The SEALs exchanged looks. Constantine ran her fingers through her hair.

  “I concur with Rose,” Constantine smiled, the scarr
ed half of her face twisted into a disturbing grimace. “Our main attack will be airborne, on the coast of Delaware, we’ll soften up NSA positions and hopefully land a ground force. You all know that in the early days, Atlantic City, further north was nuked. Lieutenant, over to you—”

  Lieutenant Cronin sighed, “Yeah, things were pretty fast-moving back then. The virus hit the east coast hard. Washington sanctioned the use of Tactical Nuclear Weapons; short range, low-yield nukes. The tropes had overrun Atlantic City, the military detonated five mini-nukes on the worst affected areas. They used the mothballed W48 artillery shells left over from the Cold War; 155mm shells, 0.072 kiloton, equivalent to 72 tons of TNT each. Seemed to work at first, but the virus got out, all attempts at containment failed after that.”

  “Yes, I remember the government hawks and doves arguing at the time,” Constantine replied. “Those W48s were supposedly decommissioned but some had been kept operational, just in case. Now, there’s a thirty mile exclusion zone around Atlantic City due to radiation. So we’re giving New Jersey a wide berth. We’ve had some intelligence; there’s been some atypical trope sightings around Philadelphia—”

  “Atypical? What’s that mean?” Tawny asked.

  Constantine frowned, puckering the burns on the right side of her face. “Well, our sources report unusual trope behaviour; an exodus from the surrounding towns and cities, like a migration. They’re communicating with each other. Mercy, you mentioned the super tropes you’d encountered—”

  Mercy nodded, “Yeah, intelligent tropes, almost impossible to defeat single handed. At least with the biotech the NSA implanted in me, Tawny and Rose, we’re invisible to the regular tropes. But the super tropes, they can see us, they attack every time—”

  “You said migration?” Flynn asked. “Where are they migrating to?”

  Constantine walked over to the window and looked out to sea. “They’re moving to Washington D.C., clogging the roads and fields, it’s as if they’re being drawn to the capital. We sent in two, eight-man special ops teams in the last fortnight. One team infiltrated through the Outer Banks, the other team landed near Ocean City. Sixteen men total. Only one got through. Commander Barnes made it to Annapolis, he’s in position, gathering intel. He’s our eyes and ears near Washington.”

  “Barnes is a good officer, I served with him in Afghanistan,” one of the Navy SEALs said.

  “Well, the tropes are converging on the capital. We know the main Cobalt Biotech lab is based there. We’re wondering if the NSA are experimenting on the super tropes, trying to understand their evolution—”

  “Maybe they’re weaponizing them,” Mercy suggested.

  All eyes turned to her.

  “Mitchell has to be stopped; him and his people are insane,” Mercy’s voice was clear, determined.

  Constantine looked at the room, “This is where you and your friends come in, Mercy. This offensive will be our one real chance, the fleet is going to attack NSA positions along the coast, meanwhile we want to drop you and your friends on the Outer Banks. Your job is to penetrate the NSA’s defences and make it to Annapolis and Commander Barnes. Hopefully he’ll be able to assist you in infiltrating the capital to get close enough to Mitchell to kill him.”

  The room fell silent.

  Mercy counted three heartbeats then spoke, “I’m in.”

  Chapter 2

  Briefing

  Constantine nodded, “I was hoping you’d say that. I know you said you were in, when we spoke in Galveston, but it’s good to hear it again.”

  The rest of the room waited.

  “Your advantage is your biotech, you can slip through the tropes without being noticed. Hopefully, you can avoid those super tropes you mentioned. The NSA have the advantage of numbers, they have a militia running their outposts but the closer you get to D.C. the more likely it is you’ll run into their elite troops. If you use your advantage to hide in among the tropes, blend in, then maybe you can infiltrate the capital. You’ll have to wing it after that, there has to be a way to reach Mitchell and finish him. If we can cut the head from the beast the rest of the organisation will falter, he has always had a charismatic presence and with the NSA’s quasi-religious ideology he has a fanatical following. But with him dead they’ll be weak and we can fill the vacuum, start rebuilding—”

  “If we can capture the Cobalt labs intact, maybe even find the NSA research on a cure to the virus, humanity may get a second chance,” Flynn interjected. “And your people could remove the NSA biotech from Mercy, Tawny and Rose. Give them their bodies back, once the war is over—” Flynn flushed as he spoke, his eyes shining.

  “Yes, if we can get the labs intact that would be a bonus. But you’re right Flynn, this is total war, we have to destroy the NSA, there is no room for leniency, otherwise they’ll destroy us. It’s kill or be killed. We have no choice.”

  Constantine paused and gazed out the window. She pulled a cheroot from her shirt pocket and lit it, inhaling deeply. She exhaled a cloud of fragrant smoke. “There is a problem however...”

  Lieutenant Cronin’s eyes darted to his men.

  Constantine continued. “There’s a category three hurricane tracking up Florida’s east coast, heading in our direction. Air pressure’s continuing to drop, it may even hit category four or five. Trouble is, I can’t delay the fleet’s mission; we’re running on finite supplies so the mission is time critical, the clock is ticking.”

  “So, what are you saying?” Rose spoke. “You’re gonna dump us on the coast in the middle of a hurricane?”

  Constantine winced, “Not in the middle of, more like at the edge of a hurricane. They are unpredictable beasts, wind speed is expected to exceed a hundred miles an hour, a hundred and fifty is possible, we don’t know. If it pulls out to sea, you may just get storm force winds. The plan is to get you to shore, then you can find a place to shelter until the worst is over.”

  Tawny pulled a face, “On the flip side, the NSA militia will have their heads down too, they won’t expect us to land in a storm.”

  Cronin flashed Tawny a look, “Never underestimate your enemy. These guys are experienced, they’re holed up in groups of three or four, in easily defendable positions like light houses and water towers. If they’ve wiped out two SEAL teams they’re on the ball, we’ll need to be extra vigilant.”

  Constantine nodded at Cronin, “I’ll let you iron out the operational details Lieutenant, you’ll be kind enough to brief our guests on the details of the plan.”

  Cronin nodded.

  “There is one other thing,” Constantine returned to her desk. “You are to maintain radio silence at all times, you’ll get one satellite phone for the mission, held by Lieutenant Cronin, only to be used when you reach Annapolis. The NSA have denied us access to US satellites for coms and GPS navigation, but our tech teams have been able to hack some North Korean and Chinese satellites, so we still have global comms. All our transmissions are kept to a minimum and our signals are encrypted. When you reach Annapolis you can contact us via the satellite phone, let us know you’re in position and we can put you in touch with Commander Barnes. He’s… still operational—”

  Mercy looked at the flag on the wall. Atlantic City, Delaware, New Jersey… Christ, I’ve nearly come full circle around the country. New York City’s not that far away. I wonder who’s in control of downtown now, there’ll not be much left, they’ll be fighting over the scraps. It’ll be carnage—

  Constantine raised her head, “Any questions?”

  Tawny sat up, “What’s our extraction plan? After the mission?”

  Constantine stared at Tawny, “I’ll be honest, there is no extraction plan, not at the moment. This is a one shot operation… for all of us. All or nothing. If things work out with the air and land assault, if we can get assets close to D.C. then yes, extraction will be on the table, otherwise—”

  “Yeah, YO-YO-MF—” Rose interjected.

  The SEALs smiled. The atmosphere in the room lightened.r />
  No filter Rose, as usual. Mercy raised her eyebrows. You’re on your own motherfucker… YO-YO-MF, yeah, that’ll be us alright—

  Constantine’s lips eased into a smile. “I’ll leave you to it then. Train hard… eat, sleep, rest. You’ve got twenty four hours, your mission’s a go. We’ll do our best to get you in ahead of the hurricane. Good hunting and good luck—”

  Everyone stood up and began filing out of the room.

  Constantine approached Mercy and Cronin, “Can you stay for a minute? I’d like a quick word in private—”

  The room emptied. Cronin closed the door. Constantine indicated the two chairs in front of the desk. Mercy and Cronin sat down. Constantine pulled open a drawer in the side of the desk and produced a small satellite phone.

  “Mercy, this sat phone is for you, and you only. It’s pre-set to run through a North Korean satellite, the channel is set and encrypted so you can message me directly. Once you reach Annapolis and make contact with Barnes you can keep me updated. It may also be useful for extraction. Don’t tell the others, think of it as a back-up. If any of the others are captured and interrogated they’ll only know about Lieutenant Cronin’s satellite phone, not yours—”

  “Need-to-know only, yeah, makes sense,” Mercy nodded.

  “If anyone asks why I kept you back tell them I was giving you information on Mitchell, which is true,” Constantine handed Mercy a folder with the Presidential Seal emblazoned across the front. “Some light reading, knowledge is power, know your enemy—”

  Mercy took the folder.

  “Cronin will show you how to use your sat phone. Any questions?” Constantine sat down, strain showing on her face.

  Mercy shrugged, “No questions.”

  Sometimes the less you know the better—

  “How does that line go again?” Mercy asked Ramirez later.

  “Never shoot a large calibre man with a small calibre bullet. Moderation is for cowards, anything in life worth doing is worth overdoing. I’m a lover, I’m a fighter, I’m a UDT Navy SEAL diver—” Ramirez recited the lines.