Second Horseman Out of Eden

by George C. Chesbro

  13.

  Then I woke up again—and I knew it wasn’t a dream. Thick mucus was clogging my nostrils, running down my chin, dripping down the back of my throat and choking me. I was sucking in meager amounts of air in great, labored breaths. The muscles in my arms and legs were rapidly twitching in spasms, and felt like they were on fire. All of me felt on fire, and I knew it was fever raging in me. I was very conscious of my heart, which felt like a small, hard thing about the size of a golf ball pumping and burning in the center of my chest.

  Something had woken me up.

  I turned my head to look at Garth. He was very pale, his face knotted in pain, but he was conscious. He licked his dry lips, swallowed hard. “There’s someone downstairs,” he croaked. “Hang in there, Mongo. Don’t die on me.”

  Garth had certainly piqued my interest enough to make me straighten up and take notice, at least in my head. But I didn’t hear anything but the pounding of my own heart in my ears. I decided that Garth was delirious, and I was about to let myself slip back into the merciful oblivion of unconsciousness when the door across the room slammed open and Patrolman Frank Palorino, in full riot gear, burst through at an angle to his right, dropped to one knee, and swept his semiautomatic rifle around the room as another patrolman, similarly outfitted, darted in and dropped to a similar stance at Palorino’s left flank. Seeing that Garth and I were the only occupants in the room, Palorino abruptly stood, shouted something that I couldn’t understand into his walkie-talkie, then hurried across the room to me as the second patrolman went to Garth.

  “You have another little accident, Mongo?” the stubble-faced policeman said wryly as, supporting me with his left arm around my waist, he proceeded to undo the buckles on the straps binding my wrists. I collapsed over his shoulder, and he went to work freeing my ankles. “Shit, buddy, you’re burning up with fever. But you’re going to be all right. We’ll get you to a hospital just as soon as this fucking blizzard lets up.”

  Palorino gently laid me down on the floor, next to my brother, just as a team of three paramedics rushed into the room, knelt down beside us, and began unpacking their leather bags. Everything above me was a blur of hands and faces. I felt my feet being raised and propped up, and, mercifully, my pounding heartbeat began to slow. I kept wanting to close my eyes and go to sleep, but knew that I couldn’t until either Garth or I had told the police what we knew. Malachy McCloskey, dressed in a blue parka over a bulletproof vest, drifted in and out of focus as he hovered over us. His pockmarked face was gray, his brows knitted in concern. Somebody raised my head, and I gulped greedily at a cup of tepid water that tasted slightly salty. This was followed by another liquid that also tasted salty, but was more substantial, like chicken noodle soup with a kick. One of the paramedics rolled up my sleeve and started to slide a needle into a vein. I winced and tried to pull away, but the woman held me tightly. Then a hand which I recognized as my brother’s came into my field of vision, gripped the woman’s wrist, and pulled the needle away. Then Garth was on his knees beside me, talking to the startled paramedic.

  “Don’t give either of us anything that will put us to sleep,” Garth said in a weak but clear voice. “Get me to a phone. I have to call somebody in Washington right away. It’s very important.”

  “You can’t call next door, much less Washington,” Frank Palorino said, shaking his head. “The phones went out three hours ago, and New York Telephone has no idea when they’re going to be working again. But don’t you worry about—”

  “You don’t understand,” Garth said curtly, his voice already growing stronger.

  My brother held out his hand to me. I gripped it and pulled myself up to a sitting position. From there we both got to our feet, and I was vaguely surprised when I managed to stay up on mine. I wasn’t quite ready to run any marathons, but I was feeling better, despite the fever in me. The paramedic who’d tried to give me a needle held out another cup. I took it and drank; more of the chicken noodle soup with a kick. I cleared my throat, managed a weak, “Thank you.”

  McCloskey stepped up to us. Now that we were up and about, the furrow in his brow was gone, and there was just the trace of a smirk on his face. “Well, well, well,” he said in the tone of voice of a man who was savoring a triumph. “It looks like the famous Fredericksons needed a little help to get out of this scrape, doesn’t it? We found what was left of those two cars down by the river. When Frank told me what had happened, and when we couldn’t find the two of you, I figured it was time to exert a little individual initiative. When I found out Nuvironment’s phone had been disconnected, I figured that was sufficient reason to go up there; when we found Patton’s body, I figured that was sufficient reason, despite the weather, to hustle up here and take a look around. To tell you the truth, it really surprised me how much I was worried about you two.” He paused, and his smirk became full blown. “That was kind of lucky for the famous Fredericksons, huh?”

  “You misread the situation, Lieutenant,” I wheezed. “We were just getting ready to escape when you all came in and spoiled it.” I paused to drink some more chicken soup, continued, “Thanks, McCloskey. Now, we’ve got us a big prob—”

  “What the hell is that?” McCloskey interrupted, pointing to the apparatus up on the platform behind us.

  “A hydrogen bomb,” Garth said. “What’s the day and time?”

  “A what?”

  “A hydrogen bomb,” Garth repeated evenly. “You’ll need specialists to deactivate it, probably federal people. Make damn sure they know what they’re doing, because if they don’t, and they make a mistake, Manhattan and most of the other boroughs are going to end up nothing more than one very large hole in the ground.”

  Palorino, the other policeman, and the three paramedics took a step backward, but McCloskey seemed rooted to the ground, staring up at the steel frame and enclosed cylinder with eyes wide and mouth open.

  “Lieutenant,” I said, looking around in vain for some sign of my sneakers, “what’s the day and time?”

  “Holy shit,” McCloskey said. “Are you kidding me?”

  “No, Lieutenant,” I replied, and wearily sank back down on the floor.

  Garth stepped up to the police detective, gently shook his shoulder. “What’s the day and time, McCloskey?”

  McCloskey, face pale and eyes even wider, turned to look at Garth. “That really is a—?”

  “Yes, damn it! What’s the—?!”

  “It’s Thursday, about three in the morning,” McCloskey said in a hollow voice.

  Less than twenty-four hours. That got me back up on my feet. Frank Palorino reached for my arm, but I shook him off. “We can’t wait on the telephone company,” I said, looking at Garth, who nodded in agreement. “And you can’t wait for the feds to deactivate that thing. Have your best people get up here to look at it; it may be just a radio receiving antenna that has to be disconnected.”

  “We have people who can do that,” Palorino said tightly. “When is it set to go off, Mongo?”

  “Midnight—tonight. None of you guys saw or picked up a pair of sneakers on your way up here, did you?”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. Lieutenant, if the phones aren’t working, then we have to start right now thinking of how we’re going to get to the outskirts of Boise, Idaho. That’s where the radio transmitter is located. Unless we can destroy that transmitter, at midnight tonight a signal is going to be relayed from a satellite and at least two other bombs like this one, and maybe more, are going to go off.”

  McCloskey, recovered from his initial shock but somehow looking even more stricken, strode stiffly to the end of the room. He grabbed a section of the heavy gray drapes with both hands and yanked. The material tore loose from its fastenings and billowed like a parachute as it fell to the floor. In the faint light spilling from the room out into the night it was possible to see huge flakes of snow swirling in a maelstrom of wind, which could now clearly be heard through the section of thick glass where the d
rapes had been torn away. The lights in the triplex, I realized, had to be powered by an emergency generator which had automatically kicked in when city power had gone off, for out in the night there was nothing, not a single light to be seen.

  “This started yesterday, around six in the evening,” McCloskey said in a tortured voice. “It’s a freak storm that none of the meteorologists predicted; it’s only been getting worse, and nobody is really sure when it’s going to let up. The last I heard, some of the experts were predicting that it could last another day. People are saying it’s the worst blizzard in a century—maybe the worst blizzard we’ve ever had. It’s blanketed the whole east coast. We’re under four feet of snow so far, and Washington has five. Nothing’s moving, and all communications are out.”

  “And yet you came up here looking for us,” Garth said quietly.

  McCloskey shrugged, and seemed slightly embarrassed. “We came over on snowmobiles. I had a notion. I’d tried to call Nuvironment before the storm hit, so you might say that I had the two of you on my mind.” He paused, looked hard at me, continued, “You’re not the only one who was haunted by what was done to Kenecky, Frederickson. I admit I dragged my feet at the beginning; I was afraid of what could happen to me. But then I realized that what I was doing to myself was worse; I was letting you guys do my job for me, and I found I couldn’t live with that. I was ashamed—and I wasn’t about to keep being ashamed. After all the things you’d said to me, there was no way I was going to pass into retirement with the deaths of the Fredericksons on my conscience. I had to try to make up for lost time. Frank and the others volunteered to come with me.”

  “You came up here on your own hook?”

  Again, McCloskey shrugged. “Kind of.”

  “Well, Lieutenant, now there’s even more to be afraid of. We have to get to the airport—JFK, not La Guardia.”

  McCloskey stared at me in disbelief. “That’s impossible,” he said at last. “Even if there was enough gas in the snowmobiles to get us there—”

  Garth said, “We’ll siphon the gas we need from stalled cars along the way.”

  “Jesus Christ, Frederickson. Even if we could get out there, what good do you think it would do? Nothing—nothing—can fly out of there. I heard what you said about the transmitter and the other bombs, but making some insane gesture is no answer.” He paused, shook his head in consternation, then pointed to me. “Your brother could die out there, Frederickson. Look at him; he hasn’t even got any fucking shoes!”

  Garth moved closer to me and draped an arm across my shoulders. “I know I can’t stop him, McCloskey,” he said evenly, “and I’m not going to waste my time trying.”

  “My brother’s right, Lieutenant,” I said, drawing myself up straight. I was glad Garth was next to me, because I felt very faint. “I’m not going to die of a cold, but a whole lot of people are going to die in nuclear blasts if somebody doesn’t shut down that transmitter.”

  “But you can’t go anywhere, Frederickson. Don’t you understand? Nothing can fly in this blizzard. We have no choice but to wait until communications are restored. Then you can make your call to Washington.”

  One of the paramedics handed each of us a blanket. Garth draped his over his arm. My teeth had begun to chatter, and I wrapped my blanket around me. I had the distinct impression from the look on Garth’s face that he was about to walk out, commandeer a snowmobile, and be on his way. But I felt we needed McCloskey, needed the official power he represented.

  “You’re the one who doesn’t understand, Lieutenant,” I said, deciding that it was up to me to explain Garth’s perfectly correct point. “Do you know when the phones are going to come back on line? You said you didn’t. We have about twenty hours to work at getting that transmitter deactivated. It’s essential that we keep moving, at all costs, toward that goal; when there’s nothing else to be done, that movement has to be physical. We can keep checking on our way. If and when communications are restored in the city, and between here and Washington, then either Garth or I will make two calls. We can make direct contact with the president of the United States, probably, or with the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, for sure. Okay? You’ll agree that nobody can get things moving faster than either one of those two gentlemen. As much force as is needed will be immediately directed at that site in Idaho, and the transmitter is long gone. But we need a second option in case the storm doesn’t let up and we can’t make those calls. If we can make it to the airport, and there’s a break in the storm, it just might be possible to get into the air. Then somebody, at least, will be on the way to Idaho. The bombs are going off at midnight, Lieutenant. If there’s even a chance that we—and maybe only we—can get to the transmitter, can you refuse to try? We’ve got to be on the move. Time is all-important. Would you like to be five seconds late? One second?”

  “Mongo and Garth are right, sir,” Frank Palorino said quietly. “We’ve got to go for it, even if it does seem impossible. You coordinate the bomb deactivation here, and Harry and I will take off with these two guys to JFK. Mongo’s right about JFK too; if we can get off the ground, we’ll need the biggest, fastest plane we can find.”

  “I’m going,” McCloskey said tersely.

  “You’re needed here, Lieutenant,” Garth said. “If this thing behind us isn’t defused properly, New York City and all the people in it, as well as most of the people in the surrounding counties, are gone. Your badge and rank may be needed to get people listening and moving.”

  “You’ll need my badge and rank at the airport, Frederickson—that is, unless you think you can commandeer and fly an airplane out of there on your own.” He paused, turned to the second patrolman, a very young man who had been listening to our conversation intently with a pale face but firmly set jaw. “Harry, can you take care of business here?”

  The young patrolman named Harry swallowed hard, then took his walkie-talkie from his belt and gripped it so hard that his knuckles turned white. “I certainly can, sir,” he said in a strong voice. “I guarantee you I’ll get people listening and moving. I’ve got a wife and two kids living here.”

  “Then get to it.”

  As the patrolman hurried out of the room, I turned to the female paramedic. “I need something that will keep me on my feet, maybe for as long as twenty hours. After that, it doesn’t matter how hard I crash; I can spend as much time as I need to in a hospital. But now I need to keep moving. Do you understand?”

  “Me, too,” Garth said.

  The paramedic looked at McCloskey, who nodded. The woman reached into her satchel, removed a hypodermic needle and a transparent plastic bottle filled with large green pills. “This will reduce your fever for a time,” she said to me, indicating the needle. “The pills are for both of you.”

  “Amphetamines?” I asked.

  The woman nodded. “I’ll give you the bottle—but you really have to be careful with them. We use them with some heart attack and shock victims; they’re fast-acting, and very potent. The usual dosage is one—not to be followed by another for four to six hours. They’ll keep you on your feet, all right—but you’re going to pay a heavy price if you take too much of this stuff, or use it for too long.”

  “Got it,” I said, taking the bottle from her. I popped open the cap, shook out one of the green pills, and swallowed it as the paramedic rolled up my sleeve, daubed my shoulder with alcohol, then gave me an injection of what I assumed was some antibiotic.

  “I’m all right for now,” Garth said, shaking his head when I offered him the bottle. “I’ll take one later if I need it.”

  I put the bottle of pills in the pocket of my jeans. Another paramedic had removed two packets from his valise; he gave one to Garth, one to me. I ripped open the plastic and found myself holding what I recognized as one of the silver-colored heat wraps developed by NASA—it was very lightweight, but would have astounding insulating properties.

  “These should help keep you warm,” the man said. “Just wrap them arou
nd yourselves, and keep them closed as much as possible.”

  Garth and I nodded our thanks, then hurried out the door after McCloskey and Frank Palorino. The amphetamine was already starting to kick in; it was putting strength in my legs, but I felt giddy, with a strong metallic taste in the back of my mouth.

  “How are you feeling?” Garth asked as we followed the two policemen down a corridor I hadn’t had time to explore.

  “Don’t ask—but the answer is probably no worse than you.”

  Garth grunted. “I didn’t take a dunking through the ice in the Hudson,” he said in a low voice. “Maybe you should take a pass on this, brother. It’s not going to do anybody any good if you fall off a snowmobile in our travels. You know I’m not going to leave you behind; but if you agree to stay here, you’d be in a position to get right through to Kevin Shannon or Mr. Lippitt as soon as the telephones come back on line.”

  “No. You had it right the first time. Either of us can call Shannon or Mr. Lippitt anywhere along the line. I won’t fall off any snowmobile—and I won’t slow us down; if I do think I’m slowing us down, then I’ll bail out the first chance I get. There must be emergency shelters all over the place. In the meantime, all I have to do is keep truckin’ along for a few hours. After that, it won’t make much difference, will it? At least not for millions of other people.”

  “Okay,” Garth replied simply.

  I’d hoped to have time to look for my sneakers and my Seecamp, but we were going out another way and, as I myself had pointed out, at the end seconds could count. I, at least, was wearing heavy wool socks, and I knew I was just going to have to make do.

  There was another elevator at the end of the corridor, and it took us express all the way down to street level. It opened into a wood-paneled vestibule; three doors—smashed in by McCloskey on his way to our rescue—later, we were out on Fifth Avenue, which I barely recognized.