People had responded to what must have been a Mayday from the repair crew. Less than an hour after the crew had descended into the sewers, troop-carrying helicopters had landed on the site while tracked carriers made their way in from one of the scrapers. The troops in the choppers had secured a perimeter and the choppers had then gone up again, their door gunners casually annihilating a dozen-strong airborne gang that’d come in for a look.
Then the arkie soldiers or police had donned gas masks, taken hoses from one of their tracked carriers, and started pumping something into the manholes. A month later, it had still been death to go down there.
They can wipe us out whenever they feel like it, and don’t forget that. Their technology is way magnitude ahead of ours.
It would still be possible to negotiate. The violence on the streets was a byproduct of the way the city was built. Arkscrapers were clustered together and surrounded by abandoned high-rise buildings, which were inherently ganger country because tenement soldiers couldn’t easily control them. So the gangs were the ones with more immediate access to the munificent arkscraper trash dumps. They sold it to the tenements, who processed it back into useful products the arkies would pay for. That was how money entered the streets; all the killing just moved it around a bit. Streetgangers fighting for salvage; tenement warlords fighting for turf, peons, and crudely-built industrial facilities.
Stop being so scatterbrained, Hammer told himself. How to start?
Where to start?
By making an alliance with Hoshi, the leader of the biggest streetgang in the building below. The one he’d tried to be friendly with. That would put close to thirty ground fighters under his influence.
He sipped from his old plastic cup. The street alcohol had a newly foul taste to it. It was probably just in his mind.
Success will bring others.
If we have radios, we could operate more efficiently.
He’d wanted radios for a long while. No matter how good you were, high-level accurate bombing simply wasn’t possible. The winds changed between different heights. But if you had two guys with radios… A scout flying at old bomb-pass level, fifty or sixty feet, and a flight leader flying at three hundred, then you’d have two sets of wind data to work from.
That meant you could figure out some kind of average. Not thinking you could do on the fly, but with hard practice you could calculate tables and memorize them.
Accurate bombing from three or four hundred feet.
That kind of thing was drool-worthy. That kind of thing would make you famous.
That kind of thing would have every predator in the sky wanting your mark.
That kind of thing would give you enough money to buy ultralights. Hire snipers. Become counter-predators yourself.
What are you thinking about this for? Go do it!
Maybe he would.
Carve an empire from the tenements. Make a way to control the streets. Direct access to trash dumps – permanent garrisons of disciplined troops, perhaps.
One sector. Then another. Economic and military control.
And eventually, parlay that up into the arkscrapers.
Chapter Two
On the official maps that Hammer had seen, it was called ‘Mount Sinai Hospital (former site)’. The people who lived above the abandoned Upper East Side buildings now, however, called it Airedale City. It was a sprawling complex of fourteen to eighteen story buildings, the top floors of which were interconnected by rope bridges and jerry-built skyways, and home to Manhattan’s airborne community. It had plenty of landing area, easy access and – best of all – the thermal ducts of the Yorkville and Minus-One arkscrapers within two hundred yards, powering you back up into the sky from departure.
Airedale City was guarded like a fortress. Heavy cartridge-firing automatic weapons sat in positions on the roof, intended primarily against air attack but capable of sweeping the streets if necessary. One such gun covered Hammer as he landed. As he stopped, a man with a broad hat and an automatic pistol greeted him.
“I know the routine,” Hammer said, and raised his arms.
A second man, dressed like the first in baggy yellow-white clothing and a broad-brimmed hat, frisked him.
“Welcome back, Mr. Hammer,” the man said. “The usual nine inches?”
“Yeah, Joe. Same knife.”
Joe nodded and put his hand out.
Hammer handed over a five-dollar bill. Entry fee.
Airborne attack was one danger Airedale City faced, although it had never materialized. A well-directed Molotov run could trash a lot of gliders, given the density with which they were parked here.
Ground attack was another risk. This was one of the few places in New York City where you could easily and safely walk up to an airborne-viable roof from the street. The frisking and the ten-inch blade limit was because the people in charge didn’t like trouble. You came here to buy stuff and make deals, not to start fights. No percentage for the management if you stabbed someone.
The only real way airbornes could make money was as mercenaries. Airedale City was that philosophy taken to its logical endpoint.
“Enjoy your visit, sir.”
* * *
On the top floor across a swaying rope bridge from the landing area, there was a bar whose surface was battered gold and tarnished silver. Plastic chairs and bolted-down plastic tables filled the rest of the room and a pair of bouncers with tasers and shotguns stood at the door. On the walls were photos of the city from above, old maps, one or two artistically-done shots of particular arkscrapers. Broad windows gave a view of the landing area and the storage area, where the gliders were parked. The long bar, made of trashed bling, sat against that window. People liked to know their wings were safe.
Right now, there were perhaps fifty people in the place. Mostly airbornes, by their lean looks and close-cut hair. There were a few loners like himself, but mostly the people hung together in twos or threes. With their girls, their whores or their gangmates. Hammer didn’t see anyone he knew, but that didn’t mean a great deal. There were about one and a half thousand airbornes in the city.
He ordered a beer, three bucks, and took a stool at the bar with the view, looking through the scavenged Plexiglas window at the gliders and the massive gold arkscraper towering behind them. The beer was from some Harlem tenement brewery and actually tasted pretty good. He sipped it as he waited, glancing every so-often at the entrance.
He’d come back here yesterday, to get the other half of his pay. Roberto, the agent, had given it to him, saying that he’d done a particularly good job that night. They’d killed the tenement boss’ wife. More work might follow, Roberto had said, but only if we can find you.
A pair of fancy birds landed. Black plastic was stretched tight across their large frames. Double engines under the wings, a couple of yards out from the center. Ultralights. They didn’t have to plot their movements around outtakes and the wind. They could get by with less wingspan and/or more weight. They were also horribly expensive.
For a moment, Hammer found himself seriously contemplating the mechanics of killing a couple of those guards and stealing one of the ultralights. He smacked the notion down: suicidal.
Someday he’d make enough money to buy one. Someday. Right now, he just wanted his damn radios.
Within the week, he’d have enough.
* * *
Roberto came in with a man Hammer didn’t recognize, which should have set off warning bells. The previous man with the agent had been tall and vaguely Italian-looking; much of the upper class on the streets had still kept some ethnicity. This guy was heavily-built and blond, somewhere in his late forties from how the hair was starting to thin. He wore a suit with three gold circles pinned to each epaulet on the jacket, rank insignia imitating some of the arkies you saw on TV.
“Jeff Hammer?” the man said. He carried himself with authority.
Hammer extended a hand.
“This is Dmitri,” said Roberto. Roberto was
a balding man in his forties with a thick moustache, bushy black eyebrows and a greasy vibe; he wore a tieless brown suit. “Dmitri, yeah, this is Hammer. Carlos, uh, couldn’t make it today. Dmitri represents the same precinct.”
A flicker of warning crossed Hammer’s mind – some slight hesitation in Roberto’s body language. But he brushed it off, because the tenement people did have different representatives. Business was business and Roberto had never stiffed him in the past.
Dmitri shook Hammer’s hand, his handshake a bone crusher. Hammer returned the pressure evenly and smiled. After a moment the big man relented.
“Your gang did a fine job Tuesday night,” Dmitri said.
“Thank you.”
“Let’s sit down, gentlemen,” Roberto steered them toward a table.
They sat down and Roberto ordered tequila. When the bartender came, Roberto tipped an ostentatious hundred percent, twenty bucks. The three men slugged down their drinks – Hammer with an inner grimace, because he hated tequila. You were never rude around clients, though.
“You did a fine job taking care of the Don’s wife,” Dmitri repeated. “My Councilor is a happy man. You want to take a shot at the man himself next?”
From a manila folder the man took maps. They showed Hell’s Kitchen, centered on Tenth Avenue and Forty-Fifth Street, with green and red territory lines drawn in with highlighter. Hammer recognized the building he’d hit the other night.
“I’m listening,” said Hammer.
“We want you to go back there. The Don himself is going to be there. Level the building.”
“You understand,” said Hammer, “we’re bombers, not assassins. If we got this woman it’s only because she was on the roof when we hit. We can’t guarantee every bomb is going to hit.”
“Perhaps you can,” said Roberto. He turned to Dmitri. “Like I was telling you, this guy practices with rocks. They come in higher than other airbornes do, hit anyway.”
“We don’t always hit,” Hammer said. You never wanted to hype up client expectations.
“You do more than others,” Dmitri said.
Hammer wanted to boast – this was a client with money, and two jobs running was the start of regular work, the next step being a contract with a retainer. That could lead to things.
So he told the tenement man about how he’d gotten the textbook and figured out acceleration, falling speed, relative velocity and so on. Then gone up and tested them, drilled his people with rocks. How he’d tried making crude bomb sights, but realized that without better gauges for exact speed and altitude, his people could probably do a better job with eye and instinct. And the tables he’d calculated and memorized, for when to drop the bombs at what height and speeds.
Dmitri listened, apparently impressed, and allowed Roberto to order another round of drinks.
“Sounds like you should be able to take out Don Vito easily, then.”
“If you can guarantee that he’ll be outside at a given place and time. If he doesn’t have guards with automatic weapons – then maybe there’s a one in four chance. I’m not downselling my outfit here, but taking out his wife was pure luck.”
Experience had told him that you didn’t hype up your employers’ expectations. If they expected more than they got, they’d be pissed and you wouldn’t get your other half. If they were really pissed, they might take out a job on you.
“Supposing you use thirty-pound nitroglycerin bombs. Those can break through a roof, can’t they?”
“They can. Dangerous fuckers, though.”
Roberto smiled. “I thought that was their intent.”
“I mean dangerous to the people dropping them. Their blast radius isn’t something you mess around with.”
“So use high-level. Same building as before. Four bombs, two passes. Make a hole in the roof and drop Molotovs or something.”
“Maybe. Glick can be unpredictable. Sometimes you get a bigger bang than you expect; sometimes you don’t get any.”
“I’ll take your word that you’ve tried, Hammer, because his building can be seen from our perimeter. See, Forty-Fifth Street is our line, we’re north of them. We can count explosions. If you don’t succeed, head back and make another pass.”
“Dangerous, that. They’ll be expecting us to return.”
“That’s what you’re paid for. Bonus of two grand if we decide the damage is acceptable or if you get the Don.”
Hammer nodded. That was fair. Besides, airbornes generally didn’t return on the same night unless there was active ground combat happening. And if that was the case, the target generally had something else to worry about.
“This a fortified rooftop” he asked Dmitri.
“Highest building on the block. Yes.”
“Think you can blow a hole in the roof and the floor below?”
“Maybe. As I said, it depends on a lot of variables. Your Don Vito might not even be home.”
“If he’s not, you’ve trashed his HQ. You’re not being paid to give a shit.”
“If you really wanted it trashed, a couple of Molotovs wouldn’t hurt. In the hole. Dropping them on the roof won’t cause permanent structural. But if we make a hole – One makes a hole. Two makes a bigger hole. Three drops a rack of Molotovs, twenty pounds of gasoline and thermite. Four drops a bomb into the fire and sends burning debris down to the next floor. That could wreck the entire building.”
Roberto cocked his head.
“I take it that those numbers mean flying order?”
Hammer nodded.
“Tactician, huh. A tactician and a scientist. What the fuck are you doing running a two-bit outfit like yours?”
“Sometimes I wonder. What kind of outfit is it that you run?”
Clients could get cagey about that stuff – generally you didn’t ask. From the way Roberto had named Don Vito and identified his own precinct, Hammer figured this guy wouldn’t be offended.
“I don’t run it – let’s make that quite clear. The City Councilor does. The Don, he runs the Family Cooperative. They’ve been trying to edge into our business, our contracts. Our territory.”
The street economy was powered by three main sources: garbage, because the arkies threw out endless amounts of valuable shit that could be turned into something useful. Subsistence farming with rooftops and mushrooms. And sweatshop raw-materials contracts from arkie firms.
“How big’s your precinct?”
“District, not Precinct,” said Dmitri. “Councilor Farrington’s West Tenth District. Eight blocks” – the man circled them roughly with the pen on his map – “and forty-five hundred people. Maybe close to five K.”
Tenement working slobs, mostly. TV, grunt-work and the Lottery. Huddling in crowded basements at night while their kids and the streeters killed each other over honor and territory. If the new day brought a new boss and a new allegiance – well, the color of the scrip was about the only thing that would change. The work didn’t and neither did the subsistence living.
If a ganger lived past his twenties, that was how he’d wind up. An industrial peasant. Unless he was smart and very lucky – then he’d be something like Dmitri, a lieutenant to one of the petty warlords who ran the precincts. Those appointments were mostly nepotism, but there were exceptions here and there for ability. Much-distrusted exceptions.
“Why?” asked Roberto. “You looking for a full-time job?”
“Perhaps. I’ve been thinking about combined-arms tactics. The stuff that my guys could do if we had radios and people on the ground to work with. We took damage last night, because they saw us. Could easily have been losses. If we’d had some kind of ground-level diversion, it’d have been safer for us. We could have gone in slower with more accuracy.”
Dmitri nodded slowly.
“We could have killed more of them, if they’d bunched up. Maybe even done a second pass. Right now, I’m about five hundred bucks away from safely being able to afford a second radio. That should open up more possibilities.”
/> “And why would you want to do this? You wouldn’t be thinking of horning in on anyone’s territory, would you?”
“Not West Tenth,” said Hammer. “I’m a loyal airborne. I don’t double-cross my clients. Your Councilor, I want to make him a big man. He becomes a big man, perhaps you become a big man under him. You become a big man, perhaps you can make recommendations. I wouldn’t mind being a big man myself.”
A smile flickered across Dmitri’s face.
“You kill the Don’s wife, and now you talk more sense than I’ve ever heard from a ganger. Who you think you are, Sun Tzu?”
“Who?”
“Chink. Never mind. OK, you kill the Don, you know what’s gonna happen?”
“What?” Hammer asked.
“They’ll be headless. Good time to attack. Absorb the whole Family Cooperative, huh? That could use some of your combined-arms talk. To take the territory and keep it. You want to rise in the Councilor standing, you do that. Maybe he’ll give your gang a retainer or something. Perhaps even some rank. Who knows? Just stay loyal to the Councilor, because he’ll skin you alive if you don’t.”
He can’t skin me alive if he and his skinners are shattered corpses, thought Hammer.
He looked Dmitri in the eye.
“Trust me, I’m not stupid. I have absolutely no intention of fucking with your boss, ever. I’ll take what he gives me.”
Which will be everything, posthumously, but we won’t go into that. It probably won’t happen for a long time, anyway. Maybe not even for a year.
Dmitri nodded, and was that an understanding flicker in his eye?
“You have the information. That’s good. You have the new contract. Congratulations. And you already killed the old bastard’s wife. That’s excellent.”
Hammer looked at Roberto.
“Fifteen percent like last time,” the man said.
Hammer gave a slow nod. Fair. And he wouldn’t stiff this guy in turn, because naming too high a sum would make repeat business less likely.
“Five thousand, plus an ordnance surcharge of eight hundred.”
Rage & Fury Page 44
