Zombie Killers: HEAT by John F Holmes Read Free Book Online

off my shoulder, and started to weep. Only Team Five, led by Scott Ball, was still in contact, and Brit was missing, assumed captured by the enemy. I had let her down, and I had never felt so alone in my life.
 
    End, Part I

Part II
 
    Chapter 244
    “Dad,” said my son Nate, “when are you going to get mom?”
    “Soon, buddy, soon. I’m waiting for someone.”
    He sat down next to me on the porch. I hadn’t really told him what had happened to Brit, just that she was off somewhere on a mission. He had accepted that until she showed up on TV, in front a news camera. The kid had freaked out, even if he hadn’t understood the context of why she was on the news. 
    She looked battered, but defiant. A line of prisoners stood in a compound, rounded Appalachian Mountains in the background. The only one I recognized besides Brit was Ryan Szimanski, and he was sporting a bloody bandage on his leg.
    The interview was conducted with “Captain” Strasser, who now wore the green BDU uniform of the Mountain Republic and sported the rank of Major, and crossed arrows of a Special Forces officer. Apparently he and Harlan, his Team Sergeant, had spent the last two years infiltrating the Federal Army. Both had been US Army soldiers before the Apocalypse, but they had decided their loyalties lay with their home states, not with the Federal Government. There was a witch hunt on for more traitors, and the battle for Washington had ground to a standstill over the last week.
    “We are perfectly willing to let the Red Cross visit Enemy Prisoners of War. Those caught fighting in uniform will be duly exchanged. Those caught in civvies will be hanged as spies, just like the Geneva Convention states.”
    “But Major,” said the pretty blonde reporter, “the government of the United States is denying the legitimacy of your country all together. How can you talk about the Geneva Convention when, by some accounts, you don’t even represent a sovereign government?”
    He looked like he wanted to choke her, but bit back his anger and answered. “Legitimacy is conferred by the people. Where was the Federal Government when we were all starving and fighting the undead? They didn’t do BLEEP for us and our people.”
    “I think that’s a question for politicians, Major. So you are going to hang people?” Her blonde head shook in disapproval. “Do you mind if I talk to some of the prisoners?”
    He made a ‘be my guest’ motion, and the reporter walked over to the line of prisoners. She stopped, of course, at Brit, first.
    “You look very familiar. Do I know you, Miss?” Her only answer was a stony glare from Brit’s eye. She was zip tied with her hands behind her back, and her bad right eye had no patch anymore. It moved, but was milky and dead. 
    “Anything you want to say to the people back home?” asked the reporter, shoving the mike in Brit’s face.
    “I got one thing to say.” She turned to face Major Strasser and said, “When my husband comes for you, you BLEEPING piece of  BLEEP, I’m going to hang YOU from the nearest telephone pole, you BLEEPing traitor piece of BLEEP.”
    He laughed and slapped her across the face. Ryan tried to jump him, but Harlan, who had been standing behind him, hit Ski on the back of the head with his rifle, and he went down on his face. The cameraman cut it off, and they switched to the studio.
    “This is video from our reporter at the Salem, Virginia, Prisoner of War Camp. The actual camp is located somewhere in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Sporadic fighting continues amid the ruins of Washington as Federal forces advance in house to house fighting.”
    The first time I had seen the video on TV, I was pissed. Someone sent it to me in an e-mail, and I had watched it over and over, looking for details in the setup. Although the camp was located in the vicinity of Salem, Virginia, it had taken our satellite guys a few days to find it. Scarletti had wanted to immediately launch a raid to recover