The Ebola Wall Read Free Page B

give the new man another five minutes of fresh air before returning to his normal post.
    “Movement,” came Clark’s distant voice, barely audible up on the deck. “I have activity at 178 degrees, source unknown.”
    The binoculars came to the captain’s eyes in a rush, his mind calculating the point on the compass where his crewman had spotted activity. He couldn’t see a damn thing.
    “Okay, Crenshaw, make a hole,” Norse ordered, moving for the hatch. Snipers were the officer’s primary concern, since some of Houston’s upstanding residents occasionally took potshots at the men manning the wall. Exposed and standing upright on top of the tank, he was a prime target.
    As he made for the narrow portal, the irony wasn’t lost on Norse. All of a sudden, the open spaces and fresh breeze weren’t so attractive, his body longing for the confines and comfortable surroundings of ceramic armor and steel plates.
    He was just lowering his torso into the commander’s hatch when Clark’s voice sounded again. “This is bizarre, sir. Starlight shows something out there is moving… and it’s big. Thermal isn’t showing me anything.”
    Given that report, Norse decided to man the .50 caliber machine gun mounted next to his hatch. The unit was equipped with a night vision optic and might provide a better angle.
    A few moments later he was swinging the heavy weapon around, his eye seeking the small optic’s green and black view of the world.
    It took a bit before he saw what Crenshaw was talking about. There was a slab of some sort, a rectangle of distortion… almost as if someone were pushing a wall or rolling a huge log directly at their position. “What the hell,” he muttered.
    “I’ve got a thermal signature,” Clark announced. “No idea what it is. Really weird.”
    Norse dropped down to the commander’s station where he could view a small, flat-screen monitor of the FLIR image. He could discern the rectangle, its dark grey hue matching the temperature of most of the surrounding vegetation and soil. Around one edge he could also see the brighter glow of something hotter, yet couldn’t identify the source. “What in God’s name,” he whispered.
    Like so many tank commanders, the captain trusted his own eyes and ears as much as any of the technology within his machine. Returning to the open hatch, he tried his binoculars again, this time knowing what he was looking for. It didn’t help clarify the situation at all.
    “It’s coming closer, whatever the hell it is,” came Clark’s concerned voice. “Loader – 28,” the gunner continued, ordering Crenshaw to insert an anti-personnel canister round into Havoc’s main gun.
    Norse agreed with the move. The M1028 cartridge contained hundreds of steel balls, that when fired, turned Havoc ’s huge cannon into an oversized shotgun. The selected round was very effective at stopping people… permanently.
    “Up,” shouted the gunner a few seconds later, the response updating everyone that the artillery-like shell was securely in the breech and ready to fire.
    “It looks like we have a bunch of people using something as a shield,” Clark continued. “I can see wisps of hot air coming from behind whatever they’re pushing. It looks like an advancing cloud of heavy breathers.”
    “Range?” the captain asked.
    “Five hundred meters and closing.”
    Norse mentally reviewed his options. Technically, he couldn’t fire on the approaching object until it crossed the 100-meter line of demarcation. Standard procedure stated he should issue the verbal warning at 200 meters if intent was demonstrated. The colonel’s recent briefing rushed back into his mind.
    “Scan the perimeter,” he ordered. “Let’s make sure we’re not focused on the rabbit while the turtle sneaks past.”
    He then switched his radio to the command frequency. “Traffic, this is six, over.”
    “Go ahead, six,” came the response.
    “Six reporting movement, 178 degrees our position,