Year of the Zombie (Book 1): Killchain Read online

  KILLCHAIN

  by Adam Baker

  Copyright © Adam Baker 2016

  All rights reserved

  The right of Adam Baker to be identified as the author

  of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with

  the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters,

  organisations and events portrayed in this novel are

  either products of the authors’ imaginations

  or are used fictitiously.

  First published in 2016 by Infected Books

  www.infectedbooks.co.uk

  @infectedbks

  Cover design by David Naughton-Shires

  www.theimagedesigns.com

  Adam Baker’s website

  www.facebook.com/adambakerauthor

  @adambakerauthor

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  YEAR OF THE ZOMBIE

  KILLCHAIN

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY ADAM BAKER

  ABOUT THE YEAR OF THE ZOMBIE

  ALSO FROM INFECTED BOOKS

  MONTH ONE

  KILLCHAIN

  Daniel woke. He fixed coffee. He sat at the kitchen table and sipped from a mug. An electric fan washed cool air. Dust-furred blades and a dented wire grille.

  He lived at the top of a twelve-storey apartment building near Mogadishu airport. He was a chef. He worked at a fortified hotel, an air-conditioned oasis for security contractors and aid NGOs. Each day he and his fellow kitchen scuts arrived before dawn and baked the day’s bread. Then, when the buns and loaves were cooling on a rack, the crew would escape the heat and noise of the kitchen and smoke a cigarette on the rear loading dock.

  He often watched plane traffic on the nearby runway. Departing Gulfstreams carrying the nation’s corrupt, absentee government ministers back to their Swiss homes. Incoming 767s carrying petrochemical contractors intent on exploiting the northern oilfields.

  Daniel wanted to be aboard one of those departing planes. Like pretty much everyone else in Somalia, he had spent his life plotting his way out of the battle-razed country.

  He had tacked a postcard to his kitchen wall. A city by a river. WELCOME TO ROCHESTER! By some historical quirk the US ex-pat Somali community was based in Minnesota.

  He heard it snowed in Minnesota. He’d never seen snow.

  Dawn shafted through a dust-matted window. The shitty kitchen was bathed in resinous gold light.

  He listened to traffic noise. The incessant car horns and an intermittent Vespa backfire. He listened to the dripping tap and the low hum of the refrigerator. The Royal Flush of crappy apartment ambience.

  Allāhu akbar. The nearby mosque, PA horns bolted to the bullet-pocked minaret. He reached across the table and switched on a fucked-up transistor, batteries held in by tape.

  ‘...You’re listening to the Radio Africa. We have suspended our normal programming at this time. Please stay tuned for important updates and announcements regarding current quarantine regulations and refuge centres in your area. Remember, it’s your responsibility to stay informed...’

  The world was falling apart. A pandemic had swept through major cities. News showed riots and mass graves. It was a neat reversal: Africans watching footage of starving, displaced white folk on TV. He found it hard to give a shit. For pampered westerners street-battles and aid convoys represented an unimaginable cataclysm. For Daniel, it was just another day in The Mog.

  He turned the dial and cranked a dancehall tune but couldn’t drown the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer.

  A tremor shook the building followed by a muffled thud.

  He leant over the sink and pulled back netting. A column of black smoke rose over the ramshackle skyline. A chain of secondary explosions. Probably artillery shells cooking off.

  He retuned the radio and tried to find local news.

  ‘...broken out from the stadium into surrounding streets. Somali armed forces have fallen back and erected barricades cordoning the western side of the city while troops from AMISOM continue to...’

  The president broadcast a speech a couple of days earlier praising Somalia’s heroic armed services. He promised the residents of Mogadishu troop reinforcements and food drops. Audio only, which suggested the hypocritical fuck had phoned his speech from his palatial hillside residence outside Zurich. His true message: every man for himself.

  Daniel took another look out the window. The filthy smoke plume broadened as fires spread building-to-building. He could lie to himself any longer. He couldn’t pretend the unfolding global cataclysm wouldn’t reach his door. The situation was heading from bad to worse. It was time to hit the road. His cousin owned a repair shop. Maybe they could load a pick-up with a couple of jerry cans full of fuel. Head south to the port at Mombasa. Find a ship.

  He dumped his coffee in the sink and headed for the bedroom. He pulled a holdall from beneath the bed and stuffed it with clothes from the cupboard. A family photo tacked over the bed. He plucked it from the wall and stuffed it the bag.

  The bathroom. He swept toiletries into the holdall.

  The kitchen. He jammed bottled water into a side-pocket.

  He snatched a knife from draining board. He tested the blade for strength, assessed it as a weapon. He tossed it into the holdall and zipped the bag closed.

  A knock at the door.

  ‘Who is it?’

  No reply.

  He picked up the cricket bat he kept propped against the wall. He checked the spyhole. A veiled woman in the hallway. He couldn’t see her face.

  ‘What do you want?’

  Another knock.

  He turned the latch and opened the door.

  A woman in traditional Somali dress, head wrapped in a colourful scarf. He looked close. He could see caucasian skin and bright blue eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. American accent. She fired a Taser. An air cartridge speared two electrode darts through Daniel’s shirt into his chest. Instant neuromuscular spasm. He dropped the cricket bat and toppled backward, growling between clenched teeth.

  The woman stepped over the threshold and kicked the door closed. She gave Daniel another jolt from the Taser. He groaned and arched his back.

  She zip-tied his wrists. She zip-tied his ankles. She sealed his mouth with a strip of silver duct tape.

  She opened the front door and retrieved a Samsonite suitcase propped in the hall.

  She unwound her head scarf and shrugged off the ankle-length dress. She was wearing cargo shorts and a white T-shirt. She balled the discarded clothes and threw them in a corner.

  She gripped Daniel’s ankles. She paused a moment, summoned her strength, then dragged him across the living room floor to the kitchen.

  She pasted a scrap of tape over each of his eyes.

  ‘I’m genuinely sorry,’ she said. ‘I hoped this place was empty.’

  She pressed wadded tissue into each ear and taped each lobe.

  She paced the apartment and regained her breath. She opened the suitcase and retrieved a sat-phone.

  ‘I’m in.’

  ***

  Elize Mahone. CIA field operative. Her first live mission and, the way the world was crumbling, probably her last. She had spent a full year at The Farm studying asset handling and enhanced interrogation techniques. She honed her skills in the gym, the classroom, the gun range. She wanted to be an American samurai. It looked like this would be her sole opportunity to wield the blade.

  She stood facing the apartment door and waited for the pre-established entry code:

  Three knocks, pause, one knock: let me inside.

  Two knocks, pause, one kno
ck: under coercion, shoot through the door.

  Bootfalls climbed the communal stairwell and crossed the hall. Three knocks, pause, one knock.

  She pulled the door wide, hand behind her back gripping the Glock tucked in her waistband.

  A grizzled-looking guy, forties, six-three, carrying a couple of suitcases. He wore a pocket vest and hippie beads that suggested foreign aid NGO, World Vision, Médecins Sans Frontières, Oxfam.

  ‘Ben. I’m your mechanic.’

  He had eighteen inches on her. Roid biceps, probably twice her bodyweight. Tier one contractor. Ex-Special Recon, Saudi-based merc. Off-the-books JSOC asset.

  ‘He’s used up,’ the station chief told her. ‘Volatile. Sloppy. But he’s the best I can do, given our depleted resources.’

  Elize glanced over Ben’s shoulder and checked the hall was empty. He entered the apartment.

  ‘What do I call you?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t call me anything.’

  She relocked the door. He glanced around the apartment.

  ‘Why here?’

  ‘The Sheraton got overrun.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘They’ve lost the east of the city,’ said Elize. ‘Pulled back the barricades half a mile.’

  ‘Sooner we’re on the plane, the better.’

  Ben looked around.

  ‘Highest building in the neighbourhood,’ said Elize. ‘Clear line-of-sight for our comms.’

  ‘Neighbours?’

  ‘Service workers clocking on at the airport hotels. Be gone most of the day. A few dudes on the government payroll. Rarely here. Sit in clubs all day chewing khat.’

  ‘Even with all the crap going down?’

  ‘Armageddon. Why not get shitfaced?’

  Ben stood over Daniel.

  ‘Thought most folks would have cleared out by now.’

  ‘Fatalistic bunch. Place has been a war zone for generations. I doubt they hear the gunshots anymore. Just tune it out, like birdsong.’

  Ben pulled back a square of grubby net curtain and looked out the kitchen window. The half-built/half-bombed skyline of Mogadishu. A warren of shanties and minarets.

  ‘How long we got?’ he asked.

  ‘An hour.’

  ‘Then we better get to work.’

  He augmented the apartment’s weak mortice latch with a couple of brass dead bolts. He scanned each room with a handheld RF/cell detector. He checked plug sockets and light fixtures. He checked the antique cathode ray TV.

  The bathroom. A draw-string activated a fluttering fluorescent tube. He checked the mirror, switched off the light and scanned for hidden optics using a handheld LED scatter beam.

  He returned to the living room, tore tape with his teeth and blacked out the windows with garbage bags.

  The bedroom. Elize took a wad of folded polythene from her suitcase. She flapped it open and draped it over the bed.

  She ripped open a vacuum-sealed pack and scattered appendectomy instruments on a side table. Scalpels. Forceps. Clamps. Couple kidney bowls. She tore open packs of swabs and towels.

  The living room. Ben took out a staple gun and rolls of kitchen foil. He papered the walls with foil, hung long strips and pegged them in place with hits from the staple gun.

  He stood on a chair and papered the ceiling with foil. He was stripped to the waist. He dripped sweat. Years past, baring his tattooed chest would have been a straightforward sexual invitation. War zones: men and women far from home, libidos super-charged by proximity to death. But these days he avoided his own reflection. Sun-damaged skin starting to coarsen and sag. He was old. He was out of the game.

  He looked down on Elize, caught her questioning expression.

  ‘Faraday cage. If I were the opposition, if I got wind there was a kill team in the locale, I’d do regular drive-arounds, scan the neighbourhood for RF anomalies.’

  ‘Hurry it up. We’re on a tight clock. Been chasing the target for months. Elusive bastard. Actionable intel pretty much non-existent. But we got him. Pinned him down, know where he will be at 10am. Fuck it up, and we won’t get a second shot.’

  Ben stood at the kitchen sink and sponged his armpits with a dishcloth. Daniel squirmed at his feet.

  ‘Take it easy,’ said Ben.

  ‘He can’t hear you,’ said Elize.

  ***

  Ben dragged Daniel into the bathroom and dumped him in the bath. Daniel squirmed in the tub. Shouts of protest muffled by tape. Ben flicked open his pocket knife and gently placed the blade against his throat. Daniel immediately froze.

  ‘I don’t want to kill you,’ said Ben, knowing his captive was deafened by earplugs but could read his expression, read his intent. ‘I’m here for the money. Money I can use while a dollar still means something. So you be good, yeah? Couple of hours and we will be on our way.’

  Ben let the blade linger a moment longer then flicked the knife closed, confident his captive got the message. He patted Daniel on the shoulder.

  ***

  The living room. They unboxed satcom gear. A tripod antenna, dish unfolding in petal segments. A router. A laptop interface.

  Most of the window had been papered with foil, but a foot-square section had been left free. Ben put the dish to the aperture facing north-east and sixty degree elevation. He booted the laptop.

  Elize sat on the shitty sofa and faced the Toughbook screen. She typed the ten digit authenticator. The screen hung at AQUIRING SIGNAL for fifteen seconds, the cleared.

  NO COMMS.

  ‘Check the uplink.’

  Ben checked the dish.

  ‘Active.’

  ‘Then the North Africa hub must be down.’

  ‘Want to abort?’ asked Ben. ‘Pack this shit and head for the airport?’

  ‘No. We came here to do a job.’

  ‘This asset you’ve got lined up. This boy. Reckon he’ll come through? Reckon he’ll die for us?’

  Elize nodded confirmation.

  ‘A Jihadi. Picked him up a few months back before the shit kicked off. Local militia put a bullet in him coming over the border from Kenya. We put him back together, turned him around. He’ll dance to our tune.’

  ‘Sounds flakey.’

  ‘He’s committed. But make yourself scarce when he arrives, alright? Don’t crowd him.’

  She sent an SMS to the only number in the sat-phone address book:

  TIME

  ***

  A knock at the door.

  A young man stood in the hallway. Sanjeev. She let him in. He sat at the kitchen table. She poured two cups of sweet tea. He was agitated. He jiggled his right leg. He chewed cuticle. He looked terrified. He took an envelope from his pocket.

  ‘For my mother.’

  ‘I’ll see she gets it.’ She tucked the letter in her pocket. ‘So how are you holding up?’

  ‘Okay,’ said Sanjeev, clearly meaning: I’m desperately frightened. Please tell me everything will be okay.

  ‘Look at me. Hey, look at me. You don’t have to do this. It’s your decision.’ She pointed to the front door. ‘If you want to leave, go live your life, then fine. I’ll understand. I’ll give you money, send you on your way. It’s down to you. It’s your mission. I’m just here to help.’

  She’d spent a couple of months looking after the kid in an abandoned village out in Somali wilderness. Empty, mud-brick homes. Rippling, blistering heat. The kid sat in shade all day and read the Quran while he recuperated from a gunshot wound in the shoulder. Each night, after the kid was asleep, Elize booted her laptop and transmitted a psych report to her handlers back at Langley. She knew him better than anyone.

  He fidgeted in his seat, looked longingly at the door.

  Elize adjusted her watch strap. She wanted to glance down and check the time but knew she couldn’t let her attention wander from Sanjeev’s face. She was trying to delicately prompt him to reach a decision, trying to subtly guide him to choose death.

  He took a deep, shuddering breath and stood up.
/>   ‘Let’s do this.’

  She led him to the bedroom. The bed draped in polythene. Surgical instruments were laid out on a table.

  Elize held open a garbage bag as he stripped out of his clothes. Sneakers, socks, Nike tracksuit, balled and binned. He sat on the end of the bed in his underpants. He breathed fast like he was trying to psych himself for a high-dive. He leant back. Plastic crackled as he lay flat.

  Elize said:

  ‘No. This is wrong.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There has to be another way to hit the target. Maybe we could wait outside his apartment, try to shoot him as he comes out the door.’

  Reverse psychology. Prompt the kid to reinforce his commitment to the mission, allay his own doubts.

  ‘These men are evil,’ said Sanjeev. ‘Russians. Kaffirs. They must be driven from this country.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to cost your life.’

  ‘I want this.’

  She nodded acquiescence.

  Elize loaded a hypodermic. Diacetylmorphine.

  ‘This will help you relax.’

  She pressed the plunger and emptied the reservoir. Sanjeev’s eyes fluttered. The opioid took effect.

  ‘Good?’

  Woozy nod.

  She sank a cannula in his arm and secured it with micropore tape. She removed a picture from the wall and hung Ringer’s Lactate on the nail. She unsnarled translucent feed, plugged it into Sanjeev’s arm and made sure there was a steady drip-flow.

  ‘Just rest there a moment.’

  She opened the bedroom door and beckoned Ben. Ben sat beside Sanjeev and clasped his hand, awkward like he didn’t know what to say in the presence of a man about to kill himself.

  ‘I’m going to give you a series of injections,’ said Elize, pitching her voice low, soothing, maternal. ‘There will be a little pain at first, but then you’ll feel nothing but numbness.’

  Sanjeev nodded.