When the Stars Fell From the Sky Page 2

  Scotty had moved to the incline bench press and was about to lift three hundred and fifteen pounds. He watched his friend pounding on the heavy bag, the noise of his punches and kicks exploding throughout the room. It just sounds different when that man hits the bag, Scotty thought.

  He remembered back to when he had asked to spar with him a few months earlier. Chuck had tried to dissuade him. Smith knew that McCain had been a part-time professional mixed martial arts fighter but he also knew that he had the size, weight, and age advantage. Scotty was two inches taller, thirty pounds heavier, and eleven years younger.

  While Smith had never been an MMA fighter, he had wrestled in high school and played football. He had learned to box in the army and had never lost a fight. He still lived in the gym and knew he was the strongest of his CDC teammates. Scotty had never lacked for confidence and he thought he would be able to hold his own against his boss. He had never been so wrong.

  Chuck eventually agreed to spar with him and told him to wear a cup and bring a mouth guard. McCain brought in some MMA practice gloves. These weigh seven ounces, as opposed to the four ounce competition gloves.

  Somehow, word had gotten around about the sparring match and the CDC weight room was full. Chuck asked Luis García to serve as the referee. Luis was a former bouncer, Miami Police Officer, Secret Service Agent, bodyguard, and current CDC Enforcement Officer assigned to Chuck's team. He also held a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and had taught martial arts for years.

  In one corner of the CDC fitness center there were mats that were used for core and defensive tactics training. Scotty, Chuck, and Luis met on the mats. Smith looked relaxed as McCain handed him a pair of MMA gloves.

  As he put his own gloves on, Chuck said, "So, what do you want to do, Scotty? Full MMA rules or just boxing?"

  "Let's do MMA. I'll try not to hurt you," Smith said, smiling broadly.

  Chuck nodded and looked at García. "One five minute round, Luis. It shouldn't take that long," he said slipping in his mouth guard.

  "Amigos, this is just a friendly sparring match," said Luis, a concerned look on his face. He looked at McCain. "We need him, Chuck, so please don't break anything."

  Scotty just laughed at this. "I'll try not to hurt him, Luis."

  The assistant Team Two leader, Jimmy Jones, was standing next to his team leader, Eddie Marshall. The other team members were gathered around.

  "What do you think, Eddie?"

  "I think Scotty is about to get educated," the Team Two leader said.

  "I don't know, man. Scotty's a big boy. I wouldn't want him punching on me."

  Eddie shook his head. "I'll be surprised if Scotty even lands a punch and from what I've heard, not many people punch as hard as Chuck."

  The two fighters touched gloves and García motioned for them to fight. Smith came out in a traditional stance, leading with his left leg and left hand. His fists were held high in a tight guard. McCain started in his normal southpaw stance with his right leg and right hand forward. His hands were high but more relaxed.

  Scotty threw a left jab that Chuck easily avoided. McCain had already seen something that he could use. He stepped back into the range of Smith's jab. When Scotty threw it again with a straight right behind it, the southpaw ducked under it and fired a hard straight left into the bigger man's body. The breath left him and he grunted in pain.

  Always aggressive, though, Scotty launched another right cross at Chuck's head. McCain stepped to the right, slipping the punch, and landed a thudding thigh kick to the bearded man's front leg. It knocked him off balance and Chuck moved in with a quick right jab, left cross combination to Smith's head. These weren't heavy punches. Chuck purposefully held back because he didn't want to hurt his friend, but they were still strong enough to snap Scotty's head back.

  Instead of pressing his advantage, McCain took a step back to let Smith recover. Chuck shifted into an orthodox stance, now leading with his left. Early in his martial arts training, he had learned to work both sides. Changing stances in a fight would often confuse his opponents and give him an advantage.

  As the sage Mike Tyson once said, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." Chuck's strikes had not hurt him badly but they had stirred up Smith's naturally aggressive personality. He rushed McCain, throwing hard, wild punches at his head.

  Scotty was told later, and smart phone video confirmed, that Chuck had side-stepped the rush and hit him with a left hook to the point of his chin that dropped him unconscious on his face. The total time of the sparring match was twenty-nine seconds.

  After a shower, Chuck stopped by Scotty's cubicle. The big man was watching the video of the fight that someone had sent him on his computer. He looked up at his boss with a sheepish grin and shook his head.

  "You ok?" McCain asked.

  He laughed. "My ego is shattered beyond repair. Everything else will heal."

  Smith held out his hand. McCain shook it. "You're a tough guy, Scotty. I'm glad you're on my team."

  "Thanks for not killing me."

  "Remember, I've trained my whole life and I used to do this for money. Not much money, but I did get paid for it. It was always awkward after a tough fight to put on my police uniform the next day and go back to work with my face cut, swollen, and bruised."

  "Did you ever get knocked out?"

  "No, I lost a few times by decision but I never got submitted or knocked out."

  "Well, today was my first time getting KOed."

  "If you ever want to train together, punch the pads and work on your technique, I'd love to help you."

  Smith had taken advantage of McCain's offer. Chuck helped him to sharpen his technique and hone his skills. Scotty felt he was punching cleaner and harder than he ever had in his life after working with McCain for a few months.

  The downside of it was when he held the punching pads for Chuck. Smith would never admit it but his shoulders would be sore for two or three days afterwards. He could not imagine what it would feel like in a real fight, with four ounce gloves, to have that man hitting you as hard as he could for fifteen minutes.

  #

  CDC HQ, Wednesday, 0900 hours

  Chuck carried the cardboard box into the office and sat down behind his new desk. Her scent still hung in the air. The emotion hit him in the chest and he closed his eyes.

  He did not want to move into her office but Admiral Jonathan Williams, retired, the Assistant Director for Operations for the CIA, had insisted that McCain take Rebecca's office. Up until this past Saturday, Rebecca Johnson had been the Officer in Charge of the Atlanta Office for the CDC Enforcement. She and Chuck had recently begun dating and had been spending the day with Chuck's daughter, Melanie, and her boyfriend, Brian, on the University of Georgia campus when the bio-terror virus was unleashed in the packed football stadium and in the Tate Student Center.

  McCain and Johnson had gotten into a shootout with the Iranian terrorist, Amir al-Razi. Chuck had killed him, but not before he had managed to squeeze off two shots from his pistol. One of those 9mm rounds had struck and mortally wounded Rebecca.

  There was nothing that Chuck or anyone else could have done. She had died within a minute. McCain had almost lost his life as well, due to the fact that the terrorist had been infected by the same zombie virus that he had been spreading. Even though Chuck was able to finish off al-Razi for good, the damage had been done and the infection had been set in motion at the university.

  Chuck, Melanie, and Brian were able to escape but many thousands of students, parents, faculty, police officers, and others were not so fortunate. McCain returned later with the rest of the CDC officers, rescuing a number of survivors and killing hundreds of infected people.

  Rebecca had been the CIA agent to uncover the Iranian plot to use the zombie virus on American soil. She had also been the first agent to follow up on reports of the virus being tested in remote Afghanistan, near the Iranian border. Johnson and her army special forces escorts had witne
ssed an entire village that had been infected. They had had to fight for their lives against over sixty zombies intent on killing and eating them.

  Rebecca was sent back to the United States to recruit both federal and local police officers and military personnel to come to work for the CDC. Most had SWAT or Special Operations experience. Chuck, for example, had been a police officer in the metro-Atlanta area for twenty years, much of that time serving on the SWAT team. After taking an early retirement, he had two one year contracts as a police liaison officer with an army special forces unit in Afghanistan.

  All new personnel for the CDC Enforcement Unit had been screened by the CIA's proprietary software that evaluated potential agents for their intelligence and how well they processed traumatic incidents and dealt with stress. Their training had been heavy on shooting and tactics. The CDC teams quickly became the tip of the spear throughout the country in this new war on terrorism.

  The Central Intelligence Agency was forbidden by law from operating on American soil but none of the other federal agencies had taken the threat of the zombie virus seriously. The CIA director was able to convince the President to sign an executive order creating an enforcement branch of the Centers for Disease Control. It was funded by the CIA and they provided all the intelligence. This arrangement allowed the CIA to stay at the front of war against the bio-terror virus.

  Chuck had been the only officer to put the pieces of the puzzle together and correctly guess about the involvement of the CIA with the new law enforcement branch of the CDC. Rebecca had sworn him to secrecy but that was about to change. He had gotten approval from Admiral Williams to brief his two team leaders so they would be able to function if something happened to McCain.

  "Close the door, Andy," said Chuck.

  Andy Fleming and Eddie Marshall sat across from McCain. Andy had replaced Chuck as the Team One leader after Rebecca's death and Chuck's subsequent promotion to Supervisory Agent in Charge. Fleming had been a staff sergeant in the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command. MARSOC is the Marine Corps' answer to the Army Special Forces. Andy had been an operator in MARSOC until family problems forced him to take an honorable discharge. Rebecca had to work hard to persuade Andy to come work for the CDC but now he could not imagine doing anything else.

  Eddie was built like a football player and had, in fact, played linebacker at Notre Dame before graduating and getting hired by the Chicago Police Department. He had attained the rank of sergeant but eventually decided to go federal and had gotten a job as s United States Marshal. He had tracked down bank robbers, murderers, mobsters, cartel leaders, and many other fugitives before Rebecca had convinced him to come work for the CDC. Like Andy, he was glad he had made the switch. The zombie bio-terror virus was the biggest threat that America had ever faced and he was right in the middle of the fight.

  "How ya doin', Chuck?" Eddie asked.

  McCain sighed. "I'll be ok. I spent Monday with Rebecca's mom and step-father. Good people. Danny, her step-dad, is a retired SF guy."

  "That explains a lot," smiled Andy. "She was one of the toughest women I ever met. I'm a Marine. We're known for taking young men and women and turning them into warriors. But Rebecca was like a Marine, a SEAL, and a SF soldier all rolled into one."

  "Don't forget the Rangers," said Eddie, smiling. "Scotty would take offense."

  "And a Ranger," agreed Andy.

  In spite of himself, Chuck smiled with his friends. "When I was in Afghanistan, I overheard one of the SF guys talking. He was telling some of the other guys on the team, 'She looks like a model but is as tough as nails and pretty good in a firefight.' I didn't know who he was talking about at the time, but I found out later that he was talking about Rebecca. I'm going to tell you guys some things that are classified. They're for your ears only and I need you to sign these disclosure agreements."

  He slid a form over to each man. They both glanced at the forms, signed them, and slid them back.

  "Rebecca was not all that she appeared to be," Chuck said. "Not only was she the officer in charge of us, she was actually a CIA field agent. She was serving in Afghanistan when reports of a new chemical terror weapon started coming in. None of the other agents took the reports seriously but she began following up on them and got some of the special forces soldiers in the area to help her.

  "She convinced six of the SF guys I was embedded with to take her to a remote village near the Iranian border where the zombie virus was supposedly being tested. As it turned out, the entire village had been infected and the good guys barely got out alive. Sound familiar?"

  Eddie and Andy both nodded grimly. They had all been in similar situations over the last few months.

  "They killed over sixty zombies but, more importantly, this was the first tangible evidence of the virus. Rebecca got some video and some DNA samples. Of course, we're talking about the government here and the former President didn't seem to be too concerned. 'Just keep watching and gathering intelligence,' was what the CIA was told to do.

  "After the last election, the Director of the CIA went to the new President and showed him the intelligence that Rebecca had gathered. At this point, there were already reports of Iranian agents slipping into the US through Mexico. The new President asked the CIA Director what he would needed and here we are. The President signed an executive order calling for the CDC to have an enforcement branch. We're legit but in a real sense, we're a front for the CIA. The Agency provides most of our funding and intelligence."

  "So, when did you find all this out, Chuck?" Eddie asked.

  "After the first attacks here in Atlanta, I confronted her about it. I'd had my suspicions. I'd even talked to Andy about it."

  Fleming nodded. "I had my suspicions as well but I kept them to myself. The intelligence we received was better than anything the FBI would have given us and they're paying us more than is normal for federal cops. I figured the money was coming from some place like the CIA."

  "But why the secrecy?" Marshall wondered.

  "We all know the CIA can't work inside the US. This gives them a legitimate way to stay in the fight. And if the media ever got hold of this, we'd be shut down immediately. Then who's going to do what we do? The local cops? The FBI? No, we're leading the way.

  "I'm telling you guys this so if something were to happen to me, you'd know where to turn. Because Rebecca had cleared me, I was able to get that helicopter to help us this past weekend. What would we have done without that Blackhawk and the door gunner's mini-gun covering us?"

  Andy grunted. "We wouldn't have lasted ten minutes on that campus without that air support."

  "Definitely," said McCain. "Now, nothing changes in how we're doing business. I was able to get Admiral Williams, the Assistant Director of Operations for the CIA, to assign that helicopter to us. We also get priority use of that small Department of Homeland Security jet. And, he authorized me to make decisions on hiring and recruiting like Rebecca did. In other words, we have the freedom, in certain cases, to bring guys on without making them go through the whole training process that we went through.

  "I'll give you guys some contact info about who to turn to if you ever can't reach me. Any questions on that? Remember, you can't talk about this. I trust our guys completely but they don't need to know.

  "Next thing. Eddie, I understand that you were pretty good at tracking down fugitives when you were with the Marshal's Service?"

  "I did ok."

  McCain slid a manila folder across the desk to the Team Two Leader. Eddie flipped it open and pulled out the eight by ten photos of a slim black man with long dreadlocks. There were several photos, including some from the Department of Corrections.

  "I want you and your team to find this guy."

  "Terrell Hill," Eddie read off one of the pages in the folder. "Wanted for multiple counts of Murder, Armed Robbery, Motor Vehicle Theft, and violation of the Bio-Terror Act. So, this is a bad dude. Where does he fit into all of this?"

  "It's all in the f
older. He was inside Sanford Stadium Saturday and is believed to have been the guy who somehow spread the virus in there. He's an ex-con. Armed Robbery and Agg Assault. He works at one of the concession stands on game days. Maybe he put the virus in some food or drinks that he sold. We don't know.

  "But once the infection started spreading, he shot his boss in the head, stole his car, and took off. It looks like he's heading north, up I-85. He was still using stolen credit cards up until yesterday in southern Virginia. The way he's going, he might be heading for DC to cause some more damage.

  "That's everything we have on him. Read it, make a plan, tell me what you need, and then go get him. If you can take him alive, great. If not, oh well," Chuck shrugged. "He's responsible for thousands of people's deaths. I actually hope he wants to go out in a blaze of glory."

  Eddie and Andy glanced at each other. Chuck was a straight shooter and a good cop. They were not soldiers, though. They were federal police officers and had to follow the law. While not actually telling Eddie to track down and kill Terrell Hill, it was easy to read between the lines.

  "No problem, Chuck. We'll get him, one way or the other," Marshall said.

  "We get first crack at trying to find him," said McCain. "This information will be released to the FBI and made public in two weeks. I was told that there's the possibility of a mole in the Justice Department, which probably means the leak is in the FBI. Use your best judgment on what you tell to whom."

  "What about us? What do you want us working on?" asked Andy.

  "How's Luis?"

  Luis García had twisted his ankle and severely sprained it on Saturday during the fighting at UGA.

  "The doctor said it'll take a few weeks to heal completely. He's a tough little guy, though. They gave him a crutch to use and he'll come back to work Monday. We'll have to find some things for him to do in the office. Any chance of us getting another guy to fill the team out? With you taking this position, we're one guy down now. And with Luis hurt, it's just me and Scotty that are active."