GRAVES
Graves was no slouch when it came to undercover work for Mr. DiMarco, but he had to admit; traveling in an actual military convoy was a first for him. He looked out the back window of their lead Humvee at the rows of troop carriers following behind them. They had trucks full of armed soldiers, a few APCs, and even a couple of tanks. If he had this much firepower at his disposal, he would've wiped Manconi's compound in Needham off the map.
From his place across the center divider, Sergeant Roy – now clad in jeans and a padded jacket over his flak vest - narrowed his eyes at him. "Something wrong?" he inquired.
Graves shook his head and turned around in his seat, catching Denise's curious stare in the mirror. "Nah," he replied. "I'm just not used to bringing a marching band along when I go on a stealth mission."
"Real fucking comedian, this one," Corporal Martinez muttered from the shotgun seat.
"This op goes sideways, you'll be glad that marching band is around to haul your ass out," Denise rumbled.
"From the size of the army behind us, I'd say your colonel doesn't have much faith in his negotiating skills," he said. "How's that sitting with you, Saint Denise? You ready to wash your hands in the blood of civilians?"
"Keep talking, asshole, and you'll find out the hard way."
Graves chuckled and turned his gaze out the window. Below them, the water under the Revere Beach Parkway Bridge was scummy with thick, green algae. A graffiti-covered, cement gatehouse flew by, obscuring his view. Then, he saw it. Over the tops of the multicolored trees lining the east bank, beyond the curved face of the Encore Boston Harbor hotel, a tall smokestack stood out against the skyline. That was their destination. The Mystic Generating Station.
"Why does he keep calling you Saint Denise?" Martinez wondered.
Since the sergeant couldn't answer through the scowl on her face, Carl responded for her. "Because she's under the impression that her kills are more righteous than mine."
"I don't gun down innocents," Denise snarled.
"Neither do I. Usually," Graves retorted. He twisted his features in a taunting leer and added, "The day's still young. Maybe we'll both get our chance."
She silently glared at him in the mirror. Her dark expression was priceless. Graves snickered. Had he known his ride would prove so entertaining, he would have thanked Officer Mike for "volunteering" him.
To avoid any potential lookouts posted in the commercial district next door to the industrial park, Denise led the convoy off the southern lane skirting the neighborhood. She turned at the first set of lights, cutting across the road to follow a more roundabout approach along the northern trail, behind the cover of trees.
They skirted past Everett's residential community. The only traffic on the neighborhoods' otherwise empty streets now came from scores of undead wandering aimlessly. Most of them perked up at the noise of the passing trucks and started their languid march south to investigate.
The procession circled around Broadway and headed on a direct course for their target. It wasn't hard to tell when they were getting close. The zombie barricade Mystic erected was a dead giveaway.
A ten-foot high wall of scrap metal and abandoned cars ran across all four lanes of Broadway's divided highway. Its builders angled the barricade so it would shunt the dead down adjoining Bow Street.
Running next door to this one-way street was a chain link fence bordering an expanse of oil tanks. Graves figured the refinery stood at the northernmost tip of the land acquired by Emerson's crew. Manconi's operation was big, but not so spread out that his men couldn't keep watch on all sides. Mystic's vast, unguarded territory almost seemed like a deserted wasteland in comparison.
Denise cut over to Bow Street, skirting two separate islands erected to shape the flow of traffic moving in the opposite direction. They drove the wrong way down the one-way street, past mounds of cars, fencing, and the wreckage of demolished homes. Mystic had thoroughly walled in both sides of this trail with anything they could find. With the noise from the plant driving them on, they all but made certain that zombies would follow the route they laid out exactly.
A little further down, the trail branched east along Beacham Street. A few white vans sat in a fenced-in parking lot directly ahead of them. A mess of overturned trucks and wire fencing blocked the west and south exits of the four-way intersection.
A zombie with a half-eaten leg limped down the road ahead of them. It turned to snarl at the approaching vehicles. Denise ran it down without even tapping the brakes.
She cut the wheel left and led the convoy a little ways further into the compound, before smashing through a locked gate on their right. The Humvee pulled into a dirt-packed parking lot across the street from the hollowed-out shell of an abandoned, brick building. The rest of the convoy followed her inside.
"We should be far enough north of the populated compound here to avoid detection," Sergeant Roy said.
"Assuming nobody heard us arrive," Martinez added.
"Between the noise from the plant and the loud music they keep running on a loop in the zombie pens, I can practically guarantee you, nobody heard us."
Denise picked up the radio handset from the center console. "Pilgrim Actual, this is Pilgrim 2-1. We're in position. Awaiting your signal. Over."
The colonel's response came through a moment later. "Copy that, Pilgrim 2-1. Moving into position now. They're evacuating civilians at the waterfront, so eyes sharp. Charlie Mike."
"Wilco. 2-1, out." She returned the handset to its hook and turned to take in the backseat occupants. "You heard the man. Let's move out. Martinez, the squad's all yours."
"You guys stay safe," she replied. "If somebody looks at you sideways, you just give the signal and we'll come in, guns blazing."
Graves stepped out of the vehicle with the others. He breathed in the smoky, crematorium-smelling air and double-checked the ammo in his Colt. It surprised him that the army would be receptive to returning his favorite gun. Then he discovered that his six-shooter and knife were the only weapons they'd trust him with. Sergeant Lowe probably had orders to pop him in the back of the skull if he as much as looked at a high-caliber rifle.
Denise fastened on an earpiece. To the untrained eye, it looked like nothing more than an oversized hearing aid. "Comm check," she called out, listening for the echo of her voice over the Humvee's radio. "Testing one... two."
Satisfied that it was working properly, she closed her door and patted out the suspicious bulge of her Beretta and flak vest under the padding of her scruffy winter jacket. "Okay, Sergeant. You lead the way. Let's go find our man."
Sergeant Roy led them towards the power plant at a brisk pace, following the barbed-wire fence along Robin Street. The east and west ends of Beacham Street's barricades converged on a spacious area to their left. A few zombies wandered through the empty parking lots and disused refinery on the other side of the chain-link. With their clothes splashed in Z-Off, the group wasn't in any danger of distracting them from their steady march south, towards the siren call of a Keith Richards guitar solo blasting from the prison speakers.
They hurried past a few unoccupied businesses. An abandoned car dealership. An empty office building. A cleared-out produce warehouse with its garage doors hanging open. Sergeant Roy looked each one over carefully as they trotted by.
"Is something wrong?" Denise asked.
"It seems strange to find these places empty," he replied.
"The colonel did say everyone was at the waterfront."
"I know," he said. "I guess I'm not used to seeing this area deserted, that's all."
"Not that I haven't been enjoying our little jog down memory lane..." Graves' voice was husky from the exertion of trying to keep up with his younger, fitter companions. "...but do either of you actually have a plan for finding this guy, or are we just going to keep running around until we stumble across him?"
"Where do they keep prisoners around here?" Denise asked.
"There's only one place I can think of," Sergeant Roy replied, turning his gaze towards the concert of music and moans in the center of the compound.
"Hold on," Graves cried, stopping in his tracks. "Nobody said anything about going near a prison full of man-eating zombies."
"What are you, scared?" Denise smirked.
The hitman scowled at her, but said nothing.
"Don't worry. Mueller's spray will keep us safe," Sergeant Roy said.
"Right," Graves uttered. "And I'm fucking Santa Claus."
"You could stand to lose some weight," Denise said with a grin. "We don't have time for this. You can either follow us or stay here. If you're hoping for a ride back to Harvard, I suggest you suck it up and go with the first choice."
Graves eyed her. "Careful, Denise. You keep busting my balls and your pals might start thinking we're an item."
She shook her head with a disgusted frown and turned away. "Sergeant, that gate over there, is that our way in?"
"That's it," Sergeant Roy answered. "They keep it closed in case any dead strays manage to get off track, but it's not locked."
She crossed the road, heading straight for the gate leading to the power plant and other nearby structures. Graves and Roy passed through it to the other side, and then waited for her to close it again behind them.
"Now, which way do we—?" she started to ask.
The side door of a nearby building slammed shut behind a mousy, balding figure running with a handful of papers pressed to his chest and a stuffed black satchel dangling from his fingers. As he set foot on the road to the docks, he finally noticed the trio staring at him. His eyes bulged.
"Mr. Davis," he cried. "I thought you left. What are you doing back here?"
"Hello, Doctor Kline. We're looking for our friend."
"You mean Sergeant Crispin?"
Graves caught the two soldiers swapping glances and knew what that look meant. If Mystic discovered the identity of their captive, then chances were they didn't come by that information by asking nicely.
"That's right. Do you know where they're keeping him?"
"I do, but..." Kline gazed in the direction of the waterfront, where his boat was waiting to sail him out of here. It took him a moment to decide. "Oh, what the hell. There's been enough blood spilled between our people already. Maybe this'll do some good."
He dropped his stack of papers to the ground, letting the wind blow his medical reports where it may. Clutching his bag with both hands, he struck Graves as looking more like a lost tourist than they did.
"Follow me."
The doctor led them across the yard to the fenced-in enclosure of the zombie pens. The prison stank of dampness and rot. The blare of music from the speakers fastened to a pole high above the inmates' heads was nothing more than a deafening screech at this close range. Carl could hardly hear himself think over the racket.
He examined the high walls surrounding the pen in the shape of a horseshoe. Only a handful of armed guards manned the perimeter. The rest of the security team was probably floating away to Mystic's Promised Land by now.
Thin, red wires dangled between metal boxes fastened at the tops of several fence posts. He thought to inquire about them to the others, but since they were too small and in the wrong place to be explosive in nature, he figured they weren't worth worrying about. Whatever they were, they weren't as worrisome as the things Mystic kept on the other side of the perimeter.
As they walked around the prison, several zombies growled and tried to pursue them, taking a particular interest in their tour guide. Carl sniffed himself and wondered if the army wasn't telling the truth about the merits of their foul-smelling body spray.
"You see that?" Kline pointed at a shipping container protruding into the yard. "That's where they're keeping your friend. We need to go around this way to get in."
They followed him around to an open passage leading under the south ramparts. Footsteps tapped over their heads from patrolling guards. The doors to the metal container came up on their left. Kline hung back and clutched the bag to his chest.
"In here," he said.
Denise and Sergeant Roy threw open the container doors. Inside, all they found was an empty chair bolted to the floor and the dried bloodstains from its former occupant's interrogation.
Sergeant Roy looked to Kline for an explanation. "Where is he?"
"I don't know..." Kline breathed. "He was in there."
"Maybe Emerson brought him along to the meeting?" Graves offered.
"The colonel would've informed us over the radio," Roy said.
"Not if Emerson was holding off on revealing him until the time was right. He's probably keeping him nearby this whole time."
"Well, he's not here." Denise directed a gaze at Kline. "So unless you can think of somewhere else they might be keeping him..?"
The doctor shook his head.
"We should get back. I'll update the colonel en route. Doctor..." She held out her hand to Kline. He gaped for a moment, before shaking it. "Thank you for your help."
"I'm only sorry that you couldn't find your friend. I hope he's all right, wherever he is."
"You should get going," Denise replied. "I don't know how the negotiations are going to play out, but you still have a boat to catch."
While they said their goodbyes, Sergeant Roy closed the right half of the cell door, revealing three guards approaching them with their weapons drawn.
"This is a restricted area. What are you people doing here?" the one in the lead barked.
Doctor Kline gripped his bag tighter and froze in fear. Graves and Sergeant Roy looked to Denise for confirmation on how to proceed. She shook her head at them, hopeful that the doctor's presence might buy them a chance to talk their way out of this.
"Put your guns away," Kline grumbled. "You know who I am, Adams. It wasn't a week ago that I stitched up your leg."
"Of course I know you, doc. It's your friends here that I've never seen before." Figuring him for the leader, he trained his gaze on Carl. "Who are you and why are you here instead of at the docks with the others?"
Graves scowled and opened his mouth to reply. Before he could decide if his response should come from his mouth or his fist, Kline answered for him.
"They're new. They just arrived yesterday," Kline said. "I was giving them a quick tour of the facilities on our way to the boats."
Adams eyed the prisoner cell. "You were giving them a tour of the holding cell? I don't think so, doc."
"I had a question about where your prisoners were kept," Denise said, improvising on the fly. "Since we're going to be part of the security team, I didn't see any harm in asking."
Instead of calming the situation, her statement inflamed it. Adams and his two companions tightened both their stances and their fingers on the triggers. "If you were brought in to work with security, then you should know better than to poke your nose around without clearance. Now turn around and keep your hands where I can see them. You too, Doctor Kline. I'm taking you to Stillson's office. He can sort this out."
"Stillson's busy with Emerson at the meeting," Kline reminded him.
"Then we're going to have a bit of a wait," Adams replied. "Move it."
He nudged Kline into a march. Denise and the others also turned and walked towards the power plant, though it was clear from their expressions that they were looking for any way out of this situation.
Graves eyed their captors. The guards weren't professionals. Not one of them had thought to check them for concealed weapons. On any other day, he could deal with them without breaking a sweat. Trying to keep a low profile complicated matters. He figured he could take one, maybe two men with his knife, but the third would require a bullet. Regardless, Saint Denise would probably shit kittens if he killed these men in cold blood. Working with people crippled by morals was always a royal pain in the ass.
The sight of the second opened hatch to the shipping container gave him an idea. He blew a soft whistle through his teeth, enough to attract Denise's attention, and flicked his eyes to the door. She nodded tersely, her lips tight, and turned to fill Sergeant Roy in on the plan with silent head gestures.
Graves grunted and fell back, allowing Kline to pass him while he rubbed a pretend ache in his calf muscle. The doctor was too fixated on worrying about his own skin to notice him. As expected, Adams zeroed in on the straggler with the intention of prodding him into motion again. Graves clasped a hand to the opened door, seemingly to support his frail old body, and waited for the gunman to get close.
"You, don't stop," Adams said. "Keep mov—"
Graves swung the metal door closed with all his might. It slammed into Adams, knocking him off his feet. A second later, Carl's Anaconda was out of its holster. A glance over his shoulder told him that Denise and Sergeant Roy had also taken advantage of the situation to draw their sidearms. In no time flat, their would-be captors found themselves staring down gun barrels themselves.
The outcome was never in doubt. Outmatched, Adams and his men tossed their weapons without waiting for Denise to voice the order. She ushered them inside the container and fastened the doors shut on them.
He would have preferred to knock them out or leave them bound and gagged, but Carl figured their incarceration should buy them some time to get away. Since the army held his ticket out of here, he had no choice but to follow their decisions, no matter how impractical they seemed.
They hurried away before anyone could hear the angry pounding coming from the cell and decided to investigate. Doctor Kline looked rattled by the encounter, though probably not as worked up as he would've been if they were leaving three dead bodies behind.
"You might have a time convincing your friends that you didn't help us willingly," Denise said to him upon their return to the fence. "If you like, you can come with us."
"That's okay. My place is here," Kline said. "I can always say you forced me at gunpoint."
"If that's the story you want to go with, I can probably help you sell it," Graves offered.
"What do you mean?"
"Graves?" Denise intoned, perhaps suspecting his intentions.
Kline didn't catch on in time. The blow from Carl's revolver butt knocked him unconscious before he even knew what hit him.
"Damn it, Graves. Really?" Denise whined.
"What? You think they were going to take him at his word? At least now, he can point to a bruise and swear that we roughed him up. You're welcome."
"You're unbelievable," Denise murmured, shaking her head.
"We should go," Sergeant Roy reminded them.
He started to head back the way they came. He only made it three steps, barely enough for Denise and Carl to follow his tracks in the dirt, when the loud report of a sniper rifle echoed from somewhere behind them. Roy went down, groaning, with a bullet in his leg.
Graves spun around with his Anaconda searching for the shooter. He spotted a figure standing on the elevated platform over the shipping container. The guard must have heard everything that transpired below this whole time. He was probably just waiting for them to step out into the open so he could take his shot.
It would be the last one he ever took. Graves fired before he could line up another target, blasting a baseball-sized hole through the sniper's head.
As the echo of the gunshots died down, other noises took their place. The roars of the dead and the cries of the living put the rock concert blaring over the speakers to shame.
"Fuck!" Denise shouted. She grabbed Sergeant Roy by the arm, trying to help lift him back to his feet. "Graves, help me. We need to get out of here."
He ran over to give her a hand. As soon as they hefted the wounded soldier to his feet again, the ripples of their failed mission had already begun to impact events happening elsewhere.
While carrying her wounded companion to safety, Denise pressed the transmitter to respond to the unheard voice in her ear. "Pilgrim 2-1," she replied. "The op's blown. The package is missing and Roy's been hit. Heading back now. We could use a ride. Over."
The dead moaned and lumbered after them on the other side of the fence. Graves couldn't tell if their perspiration had washed away the effects of the Z-Off, or if they were detecting the scent of fresh blood from Sergeant Roy's leg wound. Either way, he was glad they were stuck on that side of the pen. Escaping the other armed gunmen racing across the wall for a clear shot at their backsides was troubling enough.
"Roger, Actual. 2-1, out," Denise said, finishing her one-sided talk with the colonel. "Hang in there, Paul. Hayes is sending in Martinez. She should be—"
One of the oil refineries to the north suddenly went up in a deafening ball of smoke and flames. The attack from one of the corporal's tanks helped distract Mystic's frenzied legion of zombies away from the absconding trio.
"So much for stealth," Graves muttered.
"We need to hurry," Denise said. "The army's about to hit this place hard."
They left the undead prison behind, and with it any other snipers hoping to get off a parting shot. Civilians from the power plant ran past them for the waiting boats at the dock. After the oil refinery went up in smoke, Carl figured the remaining security forces at the prison probably had the same idea to get out of Dodge. It explained why nobody was chasing after them.
Martinez appeared in a blare of horns. Her Humvee raced down Robin Street, not letting up on the gas until she slammed through the closed gate and screeched to a stop nearby.
A few evacuees from the power plant eyed the military transport while Denise and Graves loaded Sergeant Roy inside. Nobody attempted to stop them. Escape was the only thought on everyone's mind, military and civilian alike.
Denise and Graves climbed into their seats. Martinez put the armored vehicle in reverse and with a cry of, "Hang on," she floored it back out to the road. As she swung them around and drove off for their rendezvous with the rest of the squad, a second explosion resounded from nearby. This time, it came from the bridge.
An icy, detached voice spoke over the radio. Hearing it caught Carl with a strange feeling of deja vu. For a moment, he thought Carmine DiMarco had risen from the dead and reclaimed his mantle of authority.
"All teams, this is Pilgrim Actual. Move in. Allow any non-combatants to evacuate, but raze everything else to the ground," Colonel Hayes ordered. "I want the next occupying force passing through here to keep going without even giving this place a second look."
Carl scowled out the window. "And here all this time, I thought my last boss was ruthless."