Laura and the Shadow King: Laura and the Shadow King, #1

By Bruno Martins Soares

Humanity is dying. Much of the population is living in the wild like psychotic animals ravaged by a seemingly incurable disease. ,J .J. Berger and his Shadow Team are the defenders of the last remnants of Democracy, threatened by the sick and by the totalitarian forces in the East, wondering if theirs is a lost cause. On the Iberian southern plains, a flicker of hope sparks up, as a little girl and her mother flee their brutal captors towards the dim beacon of civilization still burning in the West.

While trying to stop an invading army of the East, Berger and his Special Forces operatives will battle organized gangs, hordes of the sick and mysterious suicidal terrorists. But maybe little Laura and her mother bring the answers and hope they have been longing for.

With this new series, award-winning author Bruno Martins Soares ventures into a post-apocalyptic world, where his action-filled breathtaking militaristic style rises to a different level, on the southern plains of Spain and Portugal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bruno Martins Soares
• Release date: May 25, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224541638

Book preview

GLOSSARY

40-mike-mike – 40mm Grenade Launcher

AA – Anti-aircraft gun

ACOG – Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight; rifle tactical sights.

AG – Anti-ground ordinance

AGS – Grenade launcher system

AIS – Aggressive Infected Subjects; a.k.a. subs

AO – Area of Operations

AOR – Area Of Responsability

AR – Automatic Rifleman; carries machine-gun

AWT – Air Weapons Team; team in the air, aircraft.

BOG  - Boots On the Ground. Number of soldiers available.

BTR – Bronetransportyor; Russian Armored Personnel Carrier

BPM – Russian Armored Personnel Carrier

Camelback - Water bladder usually carried on the back, holds up to 3 liters.

Charlie Foxtrot - A more polite way of saying Cluster Fuck; messed up situation.

Charlie Mike – Continue Mission

CLS – Combat Life Saver; medic

CO – Commanding Officer

COP – Combat Out Post

Demo – Demolition Charges; explosives.

EW – Early Warning

EZ – Extraction Zone

FOB – Forward Operating Base

Frag – Fragmentation Grenade

Airport, Madeira Island; currently FNC.

HAZMAT – Hazardous Materials et al.; also: suits and procedures used in hazardous materials situations

IDF – Indirect Fire; fire without relying on a direct line of sight between the gun and its target

ISR – Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance

LPC – Leather Personnel Carrier, i.e. on foot.

LT – Lieutenant

LZ – Landing Zone

Kevlar – Helmet.

Mass-Cas – Mass Casualties; many casualties.

MBT – Main Battle Tank

MIA – Missing In Action

Mikes – Minutes

MLRS – Multiple Launch Rocket System

MSR – Main Supply Road

NOD – Night Observation Device; night vision goggles.

N6 – Air Base Number Six, in Lisbon

PS – Porto Santo Island

SAR – Search And Rescue

SAW – Squad Automatic Weapon; machine-gun

SG – Smoke Grenade

Sit-Rep – Situation Report

SOCOM – Special Operations Command

SSR – Secondary Supply Road

Oscar Mike – On My way; On Mission; On the Move

OTV - (Outer Tactical Vest)/ Vest- body armor. Usually consists of a Kevlar vest and ceramic plates. Combined, rated to a threat level IV, meaning it can stop a 7.62mm round.

Tango - Target

Technical – Car or Truck with an improvised mounted heavy machine-gun

TOC – Tactical Operations Center

UAV – Unmanned Aerial Vehicle; drone.

Wilco – Will Comply

Wiley-X – Shooting/Ballistic glasses

ZSU – 23mm Russian Anti-aircraft automatic twin-guns

Volume 1

The Pink Glove

0

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Major-General Hemal Rajani opened his eyes as soon as the knuckles of Captain O’Brien’s hand reached the wood of the cabin’s door. His nap was over. Two seconds later he was sitting on the edge of his bunk. ‘Come in.’

O’Brien entered quickly, saluted and passed a piece of paper to his boss. ‘It happened.’

‘The airport?’ Rajani opened the folded paper. ‘Did they stop it?’

‘That’s a negative, sir. It’s a cluster-fuck.’

The general sighed as he read the message. ‘Shit. Davis?’

‘We think he didn’t make it, sir. We’re still figuring out the bodies. It’s a mass-cas situation.’

‘Dammit!’ The general crushed the paper in his fist, his forehead wrinkled as his mind raced. ‘Who was it?’

‘We don’t know yet.’

Rajani nodded. ‘Very well. Assemble everybody. This changes everything.’

*

There had been a world before this one. In that world, Pablo had a house. A home. He had a family, a wife, two daughters. Now he was here, somewhere he had never been before, in a crowd of people he didn’t know. And how? And why?

The song in his ears. He had earphones in. He didn’t remember putting them there. Someone had given them to him. Someone had asked him to hear it. Over and over. The same song. Someone he didn’t like. Yesterday. Maybe before that. He didn’t really remember. Pablo was a confused man.

The crowd moved forward a bit, and Pablo moved with it. They were all waiting. Waiting to move through the door. For them to let them move through the door.

Pablo didn’t remember much. He remembered the girl and her mother. He remembered them. He liked them. He liked them a lot. They reminded him of before, when he had a house, a home, and a wife and two daughters. Pilar and Marina. He remembered their names. He was pleased with himself. He finally remembered their names. And his wife? His wife’s name was what? He could almost reach it. Almost.

There was a loud noise. Behind him. There was a loud noise. Pablo looked. He turned around and looked. It was a plane. A small loud jet plane taking off. Breathe, keep breathing, a voice told him.

Someone shouted an order, and the crowd moved forward again. Pablo had never been here before, but he remembered similar crowds. Once . . . back in the past, he had taken his daughters, Pilar and Marina, taken them to . . . somewhere. Somewhere they had been happy. Somewhere like this. A place where people came out of an airplane and gathered in a crowd and were corralled through glass gates.

But that had been in the past. A past he could hardly remember. He was confused. He had something to do. He had a task. He remembered the little girl. The little girl and the woman. He liked them. They were nice. But now he had a task. There was something he had to do.

There was a strange hollow gate up there. A gate the crowd was put through. Just an empty frame in the middle of nowhere. And there were guards. Policemen, but not exactly policemen. Policemen, but with military uniforms. And a few others with rifles. People with rifles. There was something he had to do. A task. Something to do with those people with rifles. Something to do with this crowd.

When he had traveled with his family, the guards used to have police uniforms. It was different then. Before. He had lost them. He had lost them.

The crowd moved forward. Pablo moved forward.

He put a hand inside his jacket pocket. There was a task. He put his hand inside his pocket and felt the plastic thing. It felt wrong, but he had to do it. He was supposed to do it. He didn’t really know why, but he had to. When? What? Why did he have to do it?

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. There was someone looking at him. A man with a rifle. A big man, broad shoulders, brown hair, sunglasses. He was looking at Pablo. He was talking to someone else—not directly—on a radio. That was a radio. Pablo knew it. The man was talking on a radio and warning somebody. Warning them about him. About Pablo. And other guards looked at him.

Before. Before all this . . . Pablo was happy. He had been happy. He had a house, a home, a wife, Lucia, two daughters, Pilar and Marina. They travelled. They had gone through crowds together, laughing, singing, joking. They loved each other. But that was before. It was before.

The guards gave orders to the crowd. They shouted at them. They shouted things Pablo couldn’t understand. His hand closed inside his pocket. Closed around the plastic thing inside his pocket. And he listened to the song. Always the song. We hope that you choke. That you choke? Why?

Then the men pointed their guns at him. Rifles and pistols. Pointed at him. And the crowd left him alone. The crowd parted and abandoned Pablo in the middle of the hall, with his earphones in his ears, and his hand in his pocket. And they were shouting at him. Things he couldn’t understand. Things he couldn’t hear.

And the man with broad shoulders was getting closer, pointing a rifle at him. Why? But there was a task. A task. And the song in his ears. And the man shouting.

‘SHOW ME YOUR HANDS! SHOW ME YOUR HANDS!’

Pablo was listening to the song. And then it stopped. It stopped. And now he could hear the shouts. And see the men with the guns and feel the plastic thing in his pocket. There was a button on that thing. And the song had stopped. And he had a task. He used to be happy. He knew that. He used to be happy. Before . . .

‘NOW!’

Now . . . Pablo thought. Now he had nothing.

His last thought was to the little girl. The little girl whose name he didn’t remember. And the woman. The nice, good-looking woman. He didn’t know why, but he thought of them.

And then he pushed the button.

1

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For a second it felt like paradise. Maybe more than a second. I could feel the sun burning against my skin and the breeze taking away the heat, and the sea chanting nearby. I’d taken a swim in the Atlantic Ocean a few minutes before and felt the salt drying on me. The fresh Coke in my hand took care of the thirst. I looked around. The island was like a mountain in the middle of the sea. It was green and lush. The city crouched against the amphitheater-like geography, culminating on the harbor down where all the vessels rested in safety. The sky was clear and the sea was calm. The island didn’t have many beaches, but the pontoons around the bay allowed us to dive and swim in the open sea.

Madeira Island used to be Portuguese. It surged out of the Atlantic Ocean at about the same latitude as Casablanca, eight hundred miles southwest of Lisbon. Its remoteness had spared her three hundred thousand peaceful inhabitants, but now another two hundred thousand or so not-so-gentle folk were squeezed in with them.

‘LT?’

I looked over my sunglasses at the orderly in fatigues.

‘LT, you’re called to Major Dalton, sir.’

I sighed. I was supposed to have the whole week to myself. It hadn’t lasted two whole days.

‘ASAP, sir,’ continued the young man.

‘Has a nuclear bomb fallen somewhere?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Maybe a carrier sank or something?’

‘Not to my knowledge, sir.’

‘Then don’t ASAP me, Coulter. I was promised absolute R&R for a week. Major Dalton can fucking wait.’

‘Just doing my job, sir.’

‘Okay. Dismissed.’

‘I’m supposed to impress upon you the urgency, sir. Exact quote, sir.’

‘Coulter, seriously, fuck off. I’ll be there in a few minutes.’

‘Yes, sir.’ He saluted and went away.

I sighed and laid down my head on the chair once more. Just for thirty seconds. I looked around, gathering the energy to get up. All around the pool of what used to be, and still felt like, a five-star hotel, the servicemen and women of the Coalition were relaxing as they could, drinking strange cocktails and laughing at each other’s jokes.

I noticed Paige Drexler in a corner. She was showing that perfect body of hers on a lounge chair with her back toward the sun, her bikini lines branding her beautiful skin. She seemed relaxed, but I could tell the rest of the story just looking at her. Beneath her sunglasses, she was passed out. Probably drunk as well.

I called the waiter, signaling for the check. He came around with the piece of paper and a pen.

‘What room, please?’

‘212.’ I didn’t have to pay the bill, but I picked a couple of notes from my wallet and gave them to him. ‘Listen, see that woman over there?’

‘Miss Drexler, sir?’

‘Yes. She’ll be sick if she stays like that in the sun. Would you please take her to her room?’

The waiter took the currency. ‘Yes, sir. Of course, sir.’

‘Don’t take too long.’

‘Of course, sir.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Anytime, sir.’

I got up and put on my shirt and slippers. As I passed by Paige’s chair, I noticed she had a new tattoo. On her shoulder blade. A Navy SEAL trident inside a heart. Of course . . .

*

I went to my room and put on the uniform before I went to find Dalton.

The hotel had been designed by a legendary architect, the same that designed the capital of Brazil, as it turned out. It rested near the ocean, up the cliff. Next to it, designed by the same architect, was a strange-looking cuneiform building that used to be the casino. Now it was the Coalition’s HQ, filled with offices, desks, desk jockeys and the like. They made a heliport on the top for Little Birds, and another on the gardens for heavier helicopters. Blackhawks and Ospreys were always coming and going from there, as well as black Escalades, brown Humvies and other cars coming and going from the parking lots. Other hotels were bases for all kinds of officials, lab rats and other military personnel, so the activity was constant.

Who would have known a few years prior that the island would look like this now?

*

The first outbreak happened six and a half years before, somewhere in Africa. It had spread fast and been deadly, killing about 38% of the world’s population. It lasted for almost a year before a vaccine was found, and that was enough to collapse the fabric of our civilization. Energy faltered, then water, then everything else. The climate changes going on, including the drought in the south and the rising seas everywhere, didn’t make anything any easier. Still, the disease had been defeated and mostly eradicated.

It wasn’t finished though. A second strain surged out of Asia almost immediately. It wasn’t airborne as the first, so it was less deadly, but it spread through bodily fluids and infected wounds, and didn’t kill the subjects but made them psychotic and extremely aggressive. The real damage had been done by the first strain, and chaos was the norm by then, but this strain made reconstruction basically impossible. Those infected wandered around in the wilderness. They were called zombies at first, but actually they behaved more like apes, violent apes. Still, they wandered around almost everywhere, eating almost anything and competing with other wild animals.

Civilization survived. It fled to the colder places, where the virus didn’t spread well. People survived around Canada, Alaska, Siberia, Scandinavia, Scotland, Greenland, etc. But that’s mostly it. The US collapsed, as well as Europe, Africa, Central and South Asia, Central and South America, Australia . . . Most of the world.

At first, the countries tried to take care of themselves, but soon it became obvious that only an international effort could help the situation. Then the main defense was assured by the UN, but soon NATO had to take over, using its strength and military organization to protect and evacuate huge numbers of people. After that, other countries asked for help and the organization expanded to Australia, Japan, Korea, and India. China and Russia tried to fend for themselves, and we didn’t know much of what happened to them. Most other countries, however, joined what became known as The Coalition.

We hadn’t given up. Several Forward Operating Bases had been set up all over Europe, supported by more than thirty bases in isolated islands on the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. Little by little we had been cleaning up territory and reclaiming sovereignty. Still, we all knew the score: we were no closer to finding a cure for the disease and, without one, the only real alternative was containment.

*

I identified myself at the entrance and went up to the last floor of HQ, where I had to identify myself again before they let me into Dalton’s office. He was the SOCOM C.O. on the island, and so, my C.O. We had a multitude of teams that went into the wilderness for a multitude of objectives. My team’s specialty was contact with local militias, and I expected this mission to be no different.

After being announced, I knocked on the door.

‘Come in.’  

I went in and saluted him. He pointed to the chair and I sat.

‘How are you, JJ?’

‘Pissed.’

‘Sorry I took you off the pool.’

‘Yeah, right.’

‘I