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  I’m already thinking like a politician, he thought as he turned onto North Weber and pulled up in front of the entrance to the school. The other Hummer parked behind them on the street.

  “Nice school,” Ruben said as they got out and stood on the sidewalk. The entrance was a grid of glass protected from the sun by a ramada held up by four brick pillars. “Far cry from the ones I went to in South Central.”

  “You mean the ones you skipped out from in South Central,” Jax said.

  Ruben flipped him the bird as they approached the door. “Doesn’t look like there’s anyone here, students or teachers.”

  Cruz reported in to Cheyenne on her walkie. As she did, Price, Skolnik and Grant joined them in the foyer.

  “Home of the Terrors,” said Grant, pointing to a banner of an eagle talon hanging on a wall. “Anybody else see that as oddly prophetic?”

  “This was my school,” Skolnik said absently. “Good old brown and white. Lance Armstrong was here when I was here. The Olympic Training Center, anyway. I didn’t know him personally, though.” He paused. “I wonder if he’s dead now.”

  “Let’s focus on the task at hand,” said Jax.

  Price nodded. “He’s telling you to shut up, Skolnik. You’re not bringing anything to this party; just stay out of the way.”

  “I don’t recall asking for an interpreter, Major,” Jax said evenly. It was a calculated shot: The marine outranked him, but Archer had put Jax in charge of this team, and he knew if he gave Price free rein, he would try to take over. The man was a jarhead right down to his DNA.

  Price’s eyes flashed for a moment and Jax prepared for a confrontation. He knew he’d win a physical fight, especially with Ruben and Val to back him up, but he hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  After a few tense beats, Price gave a curt nod. The rest of the crew relaxed noticeably.

  Crisis One averted, Jax thought. Only a few million more to go.

  They followed the halls to the main gymnasium. As they entered, they could see the bleachers had been pulled out and a pair of tables set side-by-side on a dais. In front of the tables was a lectern with a microphone.

  “Hello!” a female voice called. Jax saw a compact, middle-aged woman in a pink sweatsuit emerge from the doorway to the hall on the other side of the room.

  “Ma’am,” he said. “I’m Capt. Jackson Booth. We’re here from Cheyenne Mountain.”

  The woman hurried across the gym floor with her arm outstretched.

  “Yes, yes, yes,” she burbled, pumping his hand. “Carol Firth. I’m with the PTA. The treasurer. Maggie said you were coming. Thank God you’re here. Thank God, thank God, thank God.” She finished up with a wild-eyed giggle.

  Jax nodded. “I’m sorry, Maggie is…?”

  “Maggie Stubbs.” She blinked. “The new sheriff.”

  “I’m sorry, I was told we were to meet Police Chief Monroe.”

  The woman’s face tightened into a manic mask. “Yeah, about that,” she said, shaking her head. “He’s sick. Yup, under the weather. Lot of people getting sick these days! Not good. Not good, not good, not good.” A comical sigh.

  The team exchanged glances with Jax.

  “It’s all right, Carol,” said a voice from behind them.

  Jax turned to see a woman about his age, tall, with chestnut hair pulled back in a serious bun. Her uniform was made up of a light gray shirt and dark gray pants, with black flaps on the shirt pockets. Even without the pistol on her hip, Jax could tell who she was.

  “Sheriff Stubbs,” he said. “Capt. Jackson Booth.”

  “I assumed as much.” The clicking of her boot heels echoed through the gym as she walked toward them.

  “Thank you for getting the word out about this meeting. These are my colleagues—”

  “Pardon my French, Captain, but I don’t give a shit about your colleagues.” She turned to them. “No offense, but If you’re not here to work for me, I don’t need to know who you are.”

  Carol Firth cleared her throat loudly. “I’m just going to go make coffee,” she declared, scurrying out the way she’d come in.

  Great, Jax thought. Amateur hour.

  “Look, Sheriff, I understand you’ve been under stress—”

  “Stress?” she barked. “Captain, while you’ve been sitting under that fucking mountain, this city has been going to hell. Despite what Carol seems to have told herself, as of last night, Ted Monroe is dead. So is the mayor. And Kenny Clayton, the man who was my sheriff up until a couple of days ago. I was appointed by the last El Paso County Commissioner who wasn’t confined to a bed at Fort Carson. She was sick then; I don’t know what her condition is now. I would’ve thought you’d know all of this.”

  “Unfortunately, we’re not getting regular updates from the city—”

  “Is that right? Well, pardon all of us for not taking time out of our day to send you our itineraries. Oh wait, we have no means of doing that. Silly me.”

  “Sheriff,” Jax said firmly. “We’re here to help.”

  Her icy glare told him those weren’t the words Maggie Stubbs wanted to hear.

  “How do you plan to do that, exactly?” she asked. “The last thing the president said on the TV was that the National Guard was in charge, which around here means the army and air force. They did help, for a few days. They were getting people out to the makeshift hospitals, clearing the roads, but no one seemed to know who was in charge. And every day, there’ve been fewer and fewer of them showing up.”

  Jax nodded. Archer had managed to get a more comprehensive report on the state of the Springs and the surrounding bases earlier that morning. The area was home to one of the largest military populations in the country, but fewer than eight percent of them had been vaccinated against Eko, and that had been with an experimental earlier version, X-54, which had proved less than 50 percent effective. Those numbers boiled down to an ugly picture: By the time the pandemic was over (assuming it would end; there was no guarantee of that), there would be approximately 1,200 healthy soldiers and airmen left out of more than 45,000 a month earlier.

  Fort Carson was essentially a hospice for the dying: Every bed full, every floor surface covered with whatever soft material could be found, trying to make them comfortable. One of the biggest drains on the remaining manpower would soon be digging mass graves.

  Jax now had the task of figuring out how much of that he should tell the civilian public. He and his own soldiers had a hard enough time processing the information themselves.

  “You’re right; it’s a shit show,” he admitted. “I’m not going to stand here and pretend that everything’s okay, Sheriff. We’re in the mother of all emergency situations, and that’s not going to change anytime soon. I understand how hard it’s been on you first responders.”

  “Do you?” she asked. “Paramedics and nurses are working round the clock. I have two deputies left on active duty; I think there are a dozen city cops who aren’t too sick to work yet. Banks have been closed for days now, people are abandoning their businesses, the government has shut down, all the public buildings are empty. I’m amazed we haven’t seen wide-scale looting yet.”

  “It’s coming,” said Jax. “That’s why we’re having this meeting. To let people know how things are going to proceed from this point.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “So how are they going to proceed, Capt. Booth? I’m dying to know.”

  Jax glanced around at his team. Price met his gaze with raised eyebrows: This is your show, buddy.

  “Maybe you should sit down,” Jax said.

  “I haven’t sat down in a week,” she said. “Just talk.”

  He took a deep breath, let it out. “All right, then, here’s the Coles Notes version: President Fletcher is dead. Air Force One was shot down en route to Cheyenne by a drone piloted by someone working for the Chinese government, who then went on to murder Defense Secretary Chase before I took him out.”

  He still winced inwardly at the lie as
the sheriff’s eyes widened.

  “Colton Raines is now president, and he’s here in Colorado Springs, along with as many surviving military leaders as could be rounded up, outside of the navy. We can’t get them here, for obvious reasons, so they’ve been left out of the equation.”

  Stubbs’s eyes widened. “So it’s true? There’s no air travel? Not even military?”

  “If I may, sir?” Lt. Grant said, raising a hand. Jax nodded. “Sheriff, I’m with the air force. The cyber attack that shut down most computers in the country has had an effect on almost all electronics. We might be able to get planes in the air, but there’s no way to pilot them properly without a cohesive support system on the ground. There’s a possibility we might be able to mobilize some decommissioned aircraft in the future, but that’s a long way off.”

  “Jesus,” Stubbs breathed. “We thought—hoped, I guess—that the electronics problem was localized somehow. You’re saying it’s nationwide?”

  “Our best intel suggests it’s worldwide,” said Jax. “A targeted cyber weapon from China that went rogue and infected everything it came in contact with. Just like Eko, courtesy of North Korea.”

  She ran a hand down her face. “It’s a perfect storm.”

  He nodded. “A storm we have to weather, and soon we’ll have to clean up the aftermath. Now, I hope it’s something we can all do together. But part of the reason I’m here is to make it clear to the civilian public that the army is in charge from this point on, and that we’ll need their help.”

  At that moment, Jax registered movement from the main entrance as a dozen or more men marched into the gymnasium, ranging in age from early twenties to late middle age. Each was carrying at least one rifle; several had bandoliers strapped across their chests and holstered pistols on each hip.

  “That’s good to hear,” said one of them, a white-haired man in camouflage hunting gear. “Cause we were looking to talk about that particular subject ourselves.”

  Chapter 11

  “Gentlemen,” Jax said. “Welcome. It’s good to see you.”

  He could feel Ruben tensing beside him, and assumed the same from Cruz and Price. They were fighters, and they’d just registered a threat. Jax casually flexed a hand behind his back, hoping the three would take it as a signal to stand down.

  “You got a permit for those?” the sheriff asked.

  Jax forced himself to chuckle. “That’s a good one, Maggie. Come on in, fellas, have a seat. Coffee should be ready in a minute.”

  The men looked at each other before following the suggestion and sitting down on the first row of the bleachers. As they talked in hushed tones, Jax gathered his people around him.

  “I don’t like—” Maggie began before Jax cut her off.

  “Stow it,” he said with quiet force. “I’m in charge here. Lambert, Cruz, take the three and nine position. Be ready to draw on my signal. Major Price, stick by the door. Same orders.”

  He turned to Skolnik and Grant. “Get back to the Hummer. You know what to do. Three hits on the radio. If you don’t hear that, you don’t do a thing.”

  Grant nodded while Skolnik turned green. They walked toward the exit, making an effort to look casual.

  “Laugh,” Jax said to Maggie.

  “What?”

  “I said laugh, like I just made a joke. We’re all friends here. And if they want to carry their guns, that’s what we’re going to let them do. We’re not going to make an issue of it—yet.”

  She blinked at him several times before letting out a strained chuckle. Val and Ruben ambled toward opposite sides of the bleachers as Jax placed a hand on Maggie’s back and led her along with him to the dais.

  A larger crowd started streaming into the gym as Price headed to take his position at the door. Many of them had hunting rifles slung over their shoulders, including some of the women. A couple of older gentlemen were drinking beer from cans they’d pulled from the six-packs dangling from their other hands.

  “I should have realized they’d come armed,” Maggie said as they stood next to the lectern. “We haven’t seen much resistance to authority up till now; I should have known it wouldn’t be long.”

  “That’s what we’re here to try and prevent,” said Jax.

  “Good luck with that.”

  He gave her a half smile. “Keep hope alive, Sheriff.”

  They waited for the new arrivals to settle in. Carol Firth had reappeared and was scurrying around setting up a folding table under the basketball net with two large metal coffee urns. She placed boxes of sugar cubes next to large shakers of off-white powder, the kind that left a skein of ivory scum on the surface. People lined up on both ends to get their Styrofoam cups of sludge. Jax wondered absently how long they could expect the power to stay on—hot coffee might be a luxury sooner than any of them realized.

  He nodded to Ruben and Val in their positions, then to Price at the door. Time to get this show on the road.

  “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” he said into the microphone. It let out a whine of feedback, prompting a manic giggle from Carol Firth.

  “Who the hell are you?” a man yelled from one of the middle rows. A susurrus of agreement ran through the crowd; apparently, they all wanted to know who the hell he was.

  “My name is Jackson Booth, Captain, United States Army Special Forces. With me here is Maggie Stubbs, the newly appointed sheriff of El Paso County.”

  “Good for you,” said another voice, female this time. “What the fuck is going on?”

  More agreement, louder this time. Jax couldn’t blame them—what else would you expect from people who had been through what they had?

  “I’m going to do my best to answer your questions,” he said. “And I have a few for you, as well. I think we can all agree that we’re going to have to work together to get through the days ahead.”

  “My wife is dying in a cot up at Fort Carson!” the first man said. The angry red circles around his eyes hinted that he hadn’t slept in days. “How’s she gonna get through?”

  “I’m very sorry, sir. The government is doing all it can to deal with the situation, but it’s been far worse than we first realized. As much as I’d like to not be the one to bring you this news, I’m afraid we no longer have the luxury to be anything other than brutally frank. It pains me to say this, sir, but the vast majority of people now sick with the virus will not recover.”

  Another susurrus, louder this time. Jax doubted he was telling anyone in the room anything they hadn’t already suspected deep down, but it would still be jarring. He’d felt the same way when Archer had first brought him up to speed.

  “Our first responders have been doing an admirable job helping the public and maintaining order,” he said, motioning to Maggie. “They’ve been working night and day alongside our military personnel. No doubt you’ve seen them throughout the city.”

  “I seen ‘em drive by people who needed help!” an older man shouted. “Like they wasn’t even there!”

  Jax nodded. “We’ve had to prioritize due to dwindling numbers. Only a fraction of first responders and soldiers are available for duty; we’re losing our people to the virus, too.”

  “When is the vaccine coming?” This was followed by a number of people crossing their arms over their chests. A few clutched their hands in front of them, as if in prayer.

  “As I said, this is a time to be brutally frank,” Jax said somberly. “The truth is that the virus—it was named Eko by the Center for Disease Control—struck too quickly for the CDC to catch it. By the time they had developed the X-57 vaccine, the virus had already spread globally. It was already impossible to get ahead of it.”

  A number of people asked a version of the same question at the same time: “Where did it come from?”

  “Fucking Africa!” one long-haired man hollered. “I seen it online before the Internet crapped out!”

  “Shut up!” a woman yelled back. “Let the man talk!”

  Jax gripped the sid
es of the lectern. “You have a right to know everything,” he said.

  He spent the next few minutes bringing the crowd up to speed with the events of the past several days, including the legend of Jax Booth, saboteur killer, and the evil Chinese empire. And the fact that supplies of X-57 had run out.

  “President Raines was adamant that we keep the public informed of the threat that our nation faces,” he said. “It’s imperative that America makes it through this situation, and to do that, we must band together.”

  Jax noticed a number of people turning to glare at a young Asian man in the audience. He returned their looks, wide-eyed.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” the man cried. “I grew up here! I went to this school with some of you!”

  “The enemy isn’t here,” Jax said sternly. “They struck from a distance, and they themselves are now dealing with the effects of their own attacks. All of our intelligence says that there’s no place in the developed world that hasn’t been equally affected. This… collapse is worldwide.”

  “Is that supposed to make us feel better?” a man asked bleakly.

  “No. Nothing will do that at this stage, and things are only going to get worse.”

  “Then what are you here to say?” Maggie asked from beside him. It was genuine curiosity he heard in her voice now, not sarcasm.

  Nods and agreement from the crowd. Jax checked his three guards again before reaching a hand casually down to his belt to turn on his walkie.

  “Some 65 years ago,” he said, “John F. Kennedy told the American people to ask not what their country could do for them, but what they could do for their country. At the time, it was meant to encourage citizens to get involved in their community.”

  He plucked the microphone from the stand and stepped down from the dais. He saw Ruben and Val tense as he did, but he doubted anyone else would notice. In a few steps, he was standing only a few yards from the bleachers.

  “Today, President Raines is challenging you to make that same commitment: to do whatever you can to help America survive this horrible attack. These darkest, most challenging of days. It’s more than just rhetoric now—it’s absolutely imperative to the survival of our republic.”