As they flew out of the city they failed to notice the two Blackhawk helicopters sitting atop a high-rise apartment building nearby, or the two camouflage clad figures watching them through binoculars. "What do you think Sarge," asked one.
"I think they must be part of the group hiding out at that mall that Davis told us about,
and from the looks of their course, I'd say they're heading towards our fuel depot. Go get the others, we've got some work to do."
PFC Walker watched for a moment as she walked away. Only the eight of them had made it out of Ft. Pastor alive as far as they knew. Besides himself and Sergeant First Class Briggs, there were two Warrant Officers, Davis and Masters, two Sergeants by the names of Ramirez and Randall, Specialist Steele and the mysterious civilian named Henry who rounded out the group. Briggs and Masters had arrived at Ft. Pastor only two days before the first reports of infection broke through, back when they were still calling the attacks "random civil disobedience."
Although assigned to different units who were supposed to be performing the search and rescue operations, somehow Briggs and Masters had been able to secure two Blackhawks, plus get them loaded with supplies. He still wasn't sure how he and the others ended up on the helicopters that day when the post fell to those zombies, but he was alive and right now that was all that mattered. Their little fuel depot was another puzzle altogether. It was large enough for both Blackhawks to land and refuel at the same time, the fuel pumps surrounded by a ring of shatterproof glass. Outside of that appeared to be high tensile electric fencing. It definitely kept the zombies at bay, not that Briggs would allow them to test it by staying there any longer than necessary.
Since Ft. Pastor had fallen they'd been combing the area, ostensibly for possible survivors,
sleeping on rooftops that they'd secured. Yet they hadn't even discussed the survivors that had been sighted at a mall by Davis himself the just before Ft. Pastor had fallen, not even mentioned them in passing. Sooner or later there would have to be some answers, but right now, the Sarge seemed to be calling the shots and the rest of them obeyed without question. Walker reached the others and called out, "Hey, Briggs wants us all by the choppers ASAP."
"Walker man, you have a wonderful ability to ruin a girl's beauty sleep," groaned Randall. The others ignored her as they stowed their gear, Masters and Henry heading to the helicopters together. Randall gestured towards their departing backs, "So am I the only one who gets a strange feeling about those two and the Sarge?"
"Nah girl, something is definitely not right with that bunch. I think they know a lot more than they're saying, but as long as they keep my ass alive, I guess they can keep their secrets." Ramirez replied as he packed up the last of his gear.
"What about you Davis, got any ideas about them," she continued to press.
The pilot just looked at her for a moment, almost as if he was considering saying something, but then turned on his heel to follow Ramirez leaving Randall alone with the remaining woman in their group, Specialist Steele.
Steele spoke as soon as the others were out of ear shot, "I'd find a new topic of conversation if you want to stay alive."
"You threatening me?"
"Nope, just giving you a friendly piece of advice, those guys are not people you want to cross," she said while stowing the last of her gear. "And they have eyes and ears everywhere so you should be very careful what you say and to who it is you say it," she finished before she too began hurrying towards the others.
Randall sat in shock for a moment. She'd thought there was just three of them to worry about, now she wasn't sure if there was anyone in their little group that could be trusted. She hurried to answer Briggs' bidding, not wanting end up any further on that one's shit list.
The soldiers were all assembled around the Blackhawks, waiting for Briggs to finish talking with the pilots. At last she looked their way. "I'm sure you're all aware that earlier search and rescue teams spotted survivors at the Crossroads Mall approximately 2 weeks ago, give or take. We've been under orders from command to leave them while we searched for more survivors, which as you know has been a bust. Command now wants us to evacuate those survivors and return to operations HQ." She paused, waiting for the questions to start. Randall did not disappoint her.
"Wait a minute Sarge, what the hell do you mean Command giving us orders and returning to operations headquarters?"
"Our entire mission has been under the directive of Brigadier General Timmons who is running operations from HQ located on Gull Island."
"When was this HQ set up?" Walker cut in, "I've been assigned to Ft. Pastor for the last 6 months, ever since I got out of AIT, and I've never heard about a post located on Gull Island."
"HQ was set up at a research facility normally run by the Department of Agriculture to combat the spread of diseases in domestic livestock.," Briggs replied.
"You didn't answer his question. When was this headquarters established?" Randall called out, not even bothering to keep the hostility from her voice.
This time it was Henry who answered. "Three weeks ago. It had been hoped that the contagion would be able to be contained before it spread this far, but obviously it didn't work out."
"That would mean there was prior knowledge that this was going to happen," Walker said in a near whisper, "Why didn't we warn people? We could have stopped this from happening!"
"Bureaucratic red tape, the White House didn't want to create a panic. They were mislead that this thing was going to be easily contained, but human nature being what it is, instead of being able to stop it, we helped it to spread like wildfire," Henry finished.
"So I take it you're not just some lucky ass civilian who managed to hop a chopper out of Ft. Pastor then are you?" Randall asked Henry.
"Who I am remains classified soldier, but no, I'm not a civilian."
"We need to get airborne, collect those civilians, and return to post. Any more questions will have to wait until then," Briggs declared, "Davis, you take Walker, Ramirez and Randall. The rest of you are with me." With that, she turned to climb aboard one of the Blackhawks, the rest of her crew moving to join her. Davis also hastened to his Blackhawk, the remaining group slowly following.
"I can't believe that that bitch drops a bomb like that and doesn't give us anymore information." Randall exploded to no one in particular.