No…it is not.Aiden agreed.Perhaps the bot’s programming has altered?
To what? Standing around and staring?
Wolf would have recognized O’Neill’s response because of the sarcasm alone. Plus, thejie'vanhad an uncanny ability to read Wolf’s mind. He’d been wondering the same thing. If Oura’s men had been infected, what was the purpose behind the standing and staring?
Until we know if they’re infected, we can’t afford to take that ship.The text came from Aiden.We have nothing on-hand to prevent our own infection.
Wolf nodded and sent,Agreed.
They needed to determine whether the men were infected, but how were they to do so without risking infection themselves? Confirmation required blood and tissue samples. Even if theysent drones in with sampling technology, they had no way to safely process the samples.
He grimaced. If the bots were loose, theiraggresson Oura’s ship could not happen. They had no protection against the nanobots.
He glanced at his watch. They were two hours from their target. The original plan had called for a water drop to the west of Sausalito. From there, they would deploy the Zodiac. A quarterbreenfrom The Harbinger, theaggressteam would enter the water, swim to the ship, and scale the hull.
But this was no longer an option. Yet they could not leave the ship where it sat either. He frowned and pulled up O’Neill’s texts again, scrolling through them until he reached the picture of the bay. His frown shifted to a grimace as he spotted another complication. Judging by the pictures, the beaches of Sausalito were close...too close. If the men on board were infected, and they jumped ship, they could swim to shore and infect scores of people.
Yet his warriors could not board the vessel and take control of navigation, either. His scalp tightened and tingled. By the gods, this looked bad.
The next hour crept by, with periodic texts from O’Neill. Each text, with its accompanying photo, ripped through Wolf’s gut. More and more men joined the cluster. All of them standing. All of them staring. None of them moving. It was the isolation chamber all over, but on steroids and without the broken skulls and empty eye sockets.
By the time the Chinook skimmed across the bay and settled on top of the water, four dozen men stood in that motionless huddle. Wolf studied the last picture O’Neill had forwarded, looking for Oura’s round face and bowl cut. But none of the shadowy figures looked like the picture pinned to the Stone Ager’s dossier.
The helicopter’s engines shut down and seat belts unbuckled. Mackenzie practically launched himself from his position and stalked over to where Wolf, Aiden, and O’Neill were huddled together, staring at the latest images of the clusterfuck they were facing.
“You want to fill us in on what the motherfucking hell is going on?” Mackenzie growled as soon as he reached them. A scowl worked its way across his hawkish face. “All the texting between you three—” he thrust his index finger at Wolf and then Aiden and finally O’Neill. “—clearlyindicates weallhave something to worry about.”
Cosky’s grunt indicated agreement. “What clusterfuck are we looking at now?”
Aiden scrolled through his phone, pulled up the last picture O’Neill had sent and passed it to his brother by marriage. “There’s a very good chance the bots are loose on board the Harbinger and infected the crew.”
Mackenzie, Rawlings, and Winters crowded around Aiden, staring at the pictures and studying the time stamps.
“What the motherfucking…” Mackenzie fell silent.
“Nah…that don’t look suspicious at all.” Rawlings put a little extra roll on the vowels.
“What the hell are they doing?” Cosky sounded bewildered.
Aiden took it on himself to fill in his former teammates. “As far as we can tell, they’re just standing there and staring…at nothing.”
They all knew about the zombies back at base. They all knew what this type of behavior indicated.
Rawlings crowded in closer and plucked the phone from Aiden’s hand. He brought it closer to his face before enlarging the image. “It’s hard to tell with all the shadows, but their faces look blank. Like nothin’s happening between their ears.”
Wolf nodded. He’d noticed the lack of expression too.
“Fuck, there goes our assault plan,” Cosky said. “We can’t scale the hull and search the ship if those little bastards are loose and those boys are infected.”
“Can’t leave the ship there, either.” O’Neill pointed out. “It’s too close to shore. They could jump and swim for the beach.”
Nods of agreement followed.
“Suggestions?” Wolf asked.
“It needs to be towed out to sea.” O’Neill stated the obvious.
Aiden frowned. “Coronado is five hundred miles away. I could contact Hurley and explain the circumstances. But if his boys take control of the ship, they’ll want to take those men alive and canvass for the bot bomb. SOCOM is no more prepared than we are. Odds are, their involvement would fast track the apocalypse.” He turned to O’Neill. “What about you? You have some powerful assets in your pocket. Can any of them handle this situation?”
