United States of Z

  Book 5

  Olin Lester

  Copyright © 2025 by Olin Lester

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The United States of Z series is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locations are entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Coversbychristian.com

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  Contents

  Free Book

  Prologue

  1. A New Day

  2. Intel

  3. The Vibe

  4. Temporary Peace

  5. The Call

  6. Taking Off

  7. Bad Luck

  8. One Way Out

  9. Closing In

  10. On Target

  11. A Last Hope

  12. Evil Still Exists

  13. Doomsday

  14. In or Out

  15. A Dark Friend

  16. Another Dark Friend

  17. Run!

  18. Flight Time

  19. Briefings

  20. Trial and Error

  21. Nice to Wake Up

  22. No Rest

  23. The War Room

  24. Airborne

  25. A Vial and A Cure

  26. Flight or Fight

  27. Refueling Nightmares

  28. No Hope in the End

  29. To the Sky

  30. On Target

  31. Bloody Mess

  32. Tick Tock

  33. Action/Reaction

  34. Burn the Boats

  35. Hope is Fleeting

  36. Exit

  37. Daybreak

  Next in Series

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  Prologue

  When the wind blows and the sickness imbeds tentacles deep in your soul, will the turning be painful? Will it be fast and agonizing, or subtle, like a nicked artery, bleeding out slowly until you fall asleep, never to wake again? Will you have lived such a life that your name lives upon the wind of time or rests at the bottom of the lightless ocean, never be remembered again?

  Agent Mark Moon

  Underground Building 15

  Level-6

  Center for Disease Control and Prevention Campus

  Atlanta, GA

  Moon held Doctor Carter in his arms as he leaned against the interior laboratory wall. A tear slipped down his cheek, collecting around the rubber rim of his mask. He wanted so badly to rip that mask off and kiss his friend goodbye. Both physical and emotional pain had been a staple in his career, but it had never been easy for him to accept. Whether it was the death of brothers in arms, or loved ones, it had all been the same horrific suffering.

  “Mark, we have to keep moving,” Director Will Yorgey explained. His eyes remained focused on the door, hoping and praying no one would even try to enter. In his mind, they were at the end of their proverbial rope, and without jumping to a new tree, they would slide off the metaphorical rope and die. Their only saving grace was that the lab they found themselves in could only be accessed using a retinal scanner, and just maybe that would buy them enough time to find the sample Doctor Carter had spoken of and led them there for.

  Moon glanced up to Yorgey and nodded. “It shouldn’t take me long, but once I have the vial…the sample, we need to be ready to move.”

  Yorgey smirked. “Well, on the bright side,” he said as he glanced over to Doctor Carter’s dead body, “at least she didn’t turn. She died by the hands of man and not a monster. I guess that should be something to take solace in.”

  “You’re not wrong, but at the end of the world, does it really matter? I look back and see what we’ve lost, and then it dawns on me that everyone has lost so much. Family, friends, loved ones, even their most cherished pets have all come and gone. There’s not much left.”

  “Mark, we still have time⁠—”

  “I know, and don’t take me wrong, I’m not throwing in the towel. It’s just different now. In the past, we would hit an objective and then exfil. Take a sweet chopper ride back to the normal world—so to speak. But now? There is no normal. There is no world left. We only have what we make of it, and that’s a hard pill to swallow. I know I’m acting melancholy, but that doesn’t mean I give up.”

  Yorgey half smiled. “There is no quit in you, my friend. I know she meant something to you, and we won’t let her sacrifice be for nothing. Let’s get that sample and get the fuck out this nightmare. The good news is the elevators are just outside the doors and all we have to do is step inside one of the cabs and move the metal bar wedged under the door that has each one stalled on Level-6.”

  Moon nodded. A shimmering spark of fire had erupted deep in his soul as he suddenly understood that he did not have to traverse the same route they used to get to Level-6.

  “Thank God we don’t have to go back through that mess!” Moon slipped his way from under Ava’s body, his Tyvek suit crumpling and poking him as he moved, and gently laid her on the floor, moving her feet toward the wall. Moon crossed her arms over her chest, giving her the only thing he had left to give: a small token of dignity in death.

  Moon handed his rifle to Yorgey, allowing himself to stretch and walk closer to a glass door. Once it sensed his presence, it automatically slid open, and he paused to look inside.

  Overhead, recessed white lights turned on, illuminating a wall of positive pressure suits. Moon glanced them over, then looked up to the air hoses coiled and descending from the ceiling. Not far from the suits was another glass door, but he could tell the keypad on the wall kept the room on the other side secure. That was the entrance to the lab—the real laboratory where the world’s deadliest viruses were housed.

  Moon understood that this was where he and Will would part ways, but only momentarily so. “Will,” he said as he cracked the breather from around his face and then pulled it off. He stepped back toward his friend and again found himself standing next to Ava’s body. “I thought about just typing in the code and going in without the pressure suit, but I simply can’t risk contracting any other viruses while I’m inside and taking them out into what’s left of the world. But I also realize this place is pretty sanitized, so I’ll be right back.”

  Yorgey didn’t say a word. He already knew what Moon was about to do. He simply looked on as his friend knelt next to Ava’s body. He smiled as he watched Moon bend down and gently kiss the doctor’s forehead. It was the last piece of human decency Doctor Carter would ever receive. It was poetic and beautiful. Moon’s kindness would send her off into the afterlife knowing she was loved.

  Moon walked back into the prep room, and a tear slipped from his eye as he smiled at Yorgey. “It only makes sense for one of us to go. So I’ll put on the pressure suit and go inside. You hold security. Then we can blow the joint.”

  “I sure as hell won’t fight you on that,” Yorgey replied with a wink behind his face shield that was hard to see. He stepped back toward the sliding glass doors, and they opened, allowing Moon to finally walk into the prep room. “Just don’t take all day.”

  Moon took a seat on the aluminum bench in the center of the room as he quickly stripped off his gear. His helmet was already sitting on the bench next to him as he dropped his leg holster to the ground and then pulled off his chest rig—the armor inside had always made it a chore to carry the weight, and while feather light for ballistic plates, it became cumbersome over time. Finally, he pulled off the Tyvek suit, ripping it in the process, but all he could do was laugh. He had been fed up with that burdensome and ridged piece of protective gear ever since jump street.

  Standing, he reached out and lifted a positive-protective suit off the wall. Within no time, he had stepped into the legs and pulled it up over his waist, slid his arms in place, and then lifted the hood over his head and zipped it up. After taking a few slow breaths, he connected an air hose to his now-sealed suit. The suit bubbled out like a Halloween costume but remained sealed, the air stale but palatable. In his mind, it had taken him forever to get to that point, but in actuality it had only been a couple of minutes. Four-four-three-four, he said over and over in his head. The code is four-four-three-four.

  He disconnected his air hose and let it retract above him. Stepping to the door, he flexed his fingers within the gloves and then typed the code into the now-illuminated black keypad.

  The doors slid apart with a swoosh of air but different than before. The air in the room was under pressure, meaning the room he had just stepped from actually pushed air through
the open door and into the new area. This was a purposeful failsafe, to keep any airborne viruses from escaping.

  The doors slid shut behind him, and overhead, he could hear the faint sound of the ventilation system that constantly scrubbed the air, collecting any unseen particles to be incinerated at the end of a work week.

  At this point, Moon wasn’t sure where to go or exactly what he was looking for. Based on Doctor Carter’s history, he assumed the sample would be found locked away, contained within a vial like his own vaccine had been inside of.

  Moon found himself standing in a strange hallway, giving him the feeling as if he were on a boat. He connected a fresh air hose to his suit and walked. To his left and right, he noted stainless-steel doors that were much like bulkhead doors on a boat. He turned to look through the small six-by-six glass view port, at eye level, center of the door to his right.

  Viewing the inside of the room, the lights showed him the same red coiling air hoses hanging from the ceiling and a variety of areas to work with ventilating hoods above the shielded workstations. Center of the room was an emergency decontamination station, but nothing that would suggest an area the sample would be contained in.

  Moon moved on, crossing the hallway, breathing that fresh oxygen pumping into his suit, as he stared into the room to his left. More of the same. Ventilated workstations, areas to walk, and an emergency decon station.

  “That’s not it,” Moon spoke to himself as he turned to continue down the narrow hallway. His eyes glanced to the next set of doors on his left, which were marked with a biohazard symbol and were stacked side by side with a retinal scanner to access each room. He peeked through the window and could see rows of cryogenic tanks he assumed held the bad things he didn’t want to touch.

  Shaking his head, Moon kept moving until he came to another door on his right. This one was different than the others, more of an office-type door, but still gave him the same feeling as the other doors had, as if he were on a ship, but maybe this one led to the captain’s quarters—or at least, in his mind he had hoped he had found what he was looking for.

  Next to the door was a black keypad, the same as the one that got him into the suit room. He reached down and typed in 4-4-3-4. The door cracked open as a green LED light lit the edge of the pad.

  He pushed the door open as air slipped from inside the room and noticed a small desk in the corner, holding a laptop, with a bookshelf of books and a singular stainless-steel tank resting on top of a vented workstation, but not like the others. The other workstation was beefier, with thick shields that had integrated gloves. This one was simpler and, in his mind, not for viral use. But what was it for, then?

  Moon detached from his air hose and let it coil back above him as he stepped inside. After closing the door tight, he took a fresh air hose from the ceiling and plugged it into his suit. The air flowed once again and calmed his nerves.

  He stepped to the desk and flipped open the laptop. Its screen lit up with a username and a password prompt, but the username was pre-filled with: Ava Carter. He smiled, knowing he was in the right place.

  Now where to find the sample?

  He glanced around. There was a small refrigerator on the far-left countertop and the stainless-steel tank to the far right. He wanted to pop open the tank and see what was inside, but he was wary of it. After all, the tank was just a smaller version of what held the world’s deadliest viruses, just down the hall. What if he opened it to discover a slide labeled Ebola?

  Moon opted to look in the fridge first. Opening the doors, he was disappointed to find it completely empty. Not even as much as a single test tube or vial was located inside.

  He shifted his attention where he knew he should have looked first: the small tank. Taking a deep breath, he shuffled over to that side of the countertop and moved his hands around the tank as if he were confused on how to access it. As he stared at it, he realized it was the size of a Yeti water bottle, and he found himself wondering how beefy it seemed and questioned how cumbersome it would be if he had to take it.

  Son of a bitch! he thought as his hands shook. Then he saw the handle. It was inverted along the right side of the cylinder. He just had to pull it back and the door would hinge open, so he believed. And with a deep breath, that was exactly what he did.

  Moon pulled the handle back, and the sealed door hinged open. A white mist slipped from inside, and Moon found himself holding his breath. Just a reflex, really; instinctively his body was trying to survive in an auspicious environment, even though he were sealed inside of a pressure suit.

  Breathing again, he leaned down to see a vial inside that shimmered a similar blue hue as the experimental vaccine he had taken. He slipped his gloved hand inside, and as soon as he withdrew the vial, he noticed the label read: VX-e sample 13. Slowly he replaced the vial and sealed the tank. There was no doubt Agent Mark Moon had found what he had come for!

  The door whooshed open and then quickly closed behind Moon. Eyeing his gear still sitting neatly on the bench seat, he took a few breaths of what oxygen was left in the pressure suit before he cracked it open.

  Setting down a newly acquired black backpack, Moon unzipped his suit and let it fall to the ground by his feet after pulling his hands free from the gloved sleeves. Sweat slipped from his brow, rolling down his neck as he sat on the bench next to his gear. His mind reeled with what to do next. He had the sample and had even collected the doctor’s laptop, both nicely secured within the bag.

  Moon was fully aware he was running short on time, that the facility above him had been compromised, but he needed a moment to think and reflect before he headed out to see Ava’s body for the last time.

  On the floor by his feet, his torn Tyvek suit lay like a pile of dirty laundry that he wanted nothing to do with. So he didn’t. Moon slipped his chest rig on and strapped his leg holster on as he collected his helmet and finally donned the backpack, pulling the shoulder straps down tight.

  Eyeing the wall, he found a new breather, one with a single left-hand filter, that would allow him to fire his rifle more effectively. He grabbed the mask and ripped the sealed plastic from around it, dropping it to the floor with his used suits.

  After donning his new breather, Moon checked the seal, then stepped to the double glass doors, activating the motion sensor so they slid apart.

  “About damn time,” Yorgey said as Moon walked in. “I see you changed your clothes. How nice.”

  “I got what we came for, and a bonus laptop to boot, so let’s blow this joint,” Moon replied as he collected his M4 from where Yorgey had set it next to the door.

  “You ready? I’ll lead us out,” Yorgey asked.

  Moon looked back over to Ava’s body and wished he could take her with them. In his decades of war, he had never left a fallen soldier on a battlefield, but the stakes had never been so high. Did he risk the total extinction of mankind, just to recover her body? He wanted to, that was for sure. But that was his heart talking. Logic told him not only no, but hell no, that she gave her life in the pursuit of a cure, that if he wasted that gift just so she could have a proper burial, she would have been pissed.

  With a half smile and a nod, Moon said, “I’ll see you on the other side,” and then turned back to Yorgey. “Let’s get the fuck out of here, Will.”

  Yorgey wasted no time. He opened the door to the main hallway and prepared to fight. But there was no one there. Scanning left and right, with his rifle at the ready, Yorgey led them to the right and pushed open the doors leading to the elevators.

  Still nothing. The waiting area was all clear. Not even a sign of a Carrier.

  Yorgey and Moon stepped closer to the elevators, and Yorgey immediately knelt down and pulled the metal wedge that had been holding the elevator doors open. Above him, he raised his M4 to cover the still-open emergency hatch they had used to enter the cab from before. It was all clear, and he could see daylight coming from the adjacent shaft, from the still-open doors at the top floor, where they initially had entered the shaft.