Free Zombie War: An account of the zombie apocalypse that swept across America by Nicholas Ryan

can’t tell you the ‘why’. They can’t tell you about the on-ground factors. Even the live-feed drones that relayed images back were barely useful because there was nothing vital they could tell us. HUMINT was more precious to me.”
    “HUMINT?” The military has a profound fascination for acronyms.
    “Human intelligence,” the General explained. He looked at me as if it was a term I should have known. “Eyes, ears… men on the ground. It was risky work for those men in the Humvees, but it was essential. And the Black Hawks crews took great risks too, probing deep towards Columbia, Atlanta and Birmingham in the search for survivors.”
    General Horsham looked pointedly down at his wristwatch and then at the closed door of his office, as though he was expecting to be interrupted at any moment. I sensed my time with the man was running short. I started to close my notebook, and then tossed out my last question like it was a hail Mary pass that I hoped he would catch and run with.”
    “Why didn’t we base our response to the zombie outbreak on CONOP 8888?” I asked.
    Silence.
    Not the amiable silence you experience when two old friends have run out of things to talk about and are happy just to sit and reminisce – this was one of those ominous silences that precedes a thunder storm. The atmosphere in the office suddenly became charged.
    “That plan was a load of shit,” Horsham exploded. “A useless piece of marketing trash that made no strategic or tactical sense. Christ, it was supposed to have been a Pentagon document, but I tell you, no one I came across even knew it existed until the media got hold of it.”
    On April 30 th 2011, the US Strategic Command drew up a document that outlined the way the American military should deal with an undead apocalypse, entitled CONOP 8888. The plan was also known as ‘Counter-Zombie Dominance’. The document came to light in 2014 and was featured on hundreds of online blogs, with commentators going to great lengths to point out the glaring inadequacies of the policies outlined.
    “It was a joke,” Horsham's tone was almost offended. “Some hair-brained idiot’s idea of a way to fictionalize preparedness for a raft of real world threats. We looked at that plan for five seconds and threw it in the trash.”
    “Like that promotion the CDC came out with at the same time?” I asked. “That Preparedness 101 for Zombies?”
    “No,” Horsham shook his head. “Not like that at all.” The big man was bristling with frustration and temper. He got up from his chair and leaned across his desk, planting his big hands on the tabletop and thrusting out his jaw. “The CDC plan was actually useful. It alerted people to natural disaster preparedness by using a fictional zombie apocalypse as a way to attract interest from the public. It served a very valuable purpose. CONOP 8888 was the opposite. It was a destructive divisive load of rubbish that should never have been written, and never seen the light of day.”
     
     
     
    BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE, LOUISIANA:
    608 th AIR OPERATIONS CENTER
     
    Lieutenant Colonel Greg Pike wanted to make one thing clear.
    “The Air Force didn’t bomb every bridge along the Mississippi River,” he explained to me patiently as we stood outside the Air Operations Center at Barksdale. “The Air Tasking Order we worked off specified seventy-two bridge structures. They’re the ones we bombed.”
    “How many B-52 aircraft were involved in the mission?” I asked. I had my notebook ready, pen poised.
    “Nine,” Pike said easily. “The 8 th Air Force was tasked with the mission and the job fell to the 2 nd Bomber Wing here at Barksdale, and elements of the 5 th Bomber Wing, stationed at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota. They were responsible for the most northern bridges across the river.”
    “Only nine B-52’s? That doesn’t seem like a lot of aircraft for such an extensive operation?”
    Pike gave me the kind of special look I