Max stood and crossed his arms in a defensive stance. He stared at the blank screen in silence, deep in thought. “How do we know that the rumor is true?” He knew the answer to his question before he spoke. It was the most basic of Maxims.
It’s not reality. It’s the appearance of reality. If people believe that plague is spreading throughout Manhattan, they will do anything to get away.
“One woman said that as soon as she saw a big rat attack the family dog, she and her husband packed up the kids and what canned goods they could find, and headed for the docks. She said that there was a line of people streaming out of the city by foot, and the bridges were packed. The Lincoln and Holland tunnels are flooded, and mass transit is disabled, so it looks like their options are limited. Fires are spreading with no way of putting them out, and soon we will have a ghost town bigger than your imagination can conceive. They did a lot of damage with two EMPs, and we have no way of knowing if there are more.”
“There are more,” said General Robert Bradbury, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. He had entered the situation room quietly, and stood listening to Sinclair’s report. “I have ordered our National Guard to begin searching every tall building in major cities, focusing on private residential high-rises in strategic locations that can do the most damage. We found one in Copley Place in Boston, and another in Chicago at the Trump Tower. Minutes ago, they found one in Seattle at the Columbia Center. Funny thing, though. The devices in Seattle and Boston were found in plain sight, and both were dummies. From the outside, they looked like they were rigged to explode, but when we finally got them out in the open and got inside the guts of these things, they were hollow. No tritium, no trigger, just enough uranium to set off our detectors.”
He paused to allow time for them to absorb the newly discovered situation and went on. “The one in Chicago, though, was a live one. It could have shut down the city. We traced its place of origin to the Ukraine, and my people are looking into how they got into the country. It looks like Homeland Security intercepted about a dozen of these babies a few years back, and then they disappeared.”
“So we had them in our custody and now we don’t. Splendid,” said Max with a sarcastic tone.
Bradbury went on. “This could become a national disaster if we don’t do something soon. I feel helpless. We are good at blowing up our enemies, but terrible at eliminating a threat that lives inside our borders. The combined might of our armed forces can’t rid the country of this cancer, Mr. President.”
“Not for long. Send in the drones and find out what’s happening in there, and get my vice president off that island . . . now,” Max said matter-of-factly. “Do you have any way of rigging a drone with AV equipment, so I can talk to people from here? Right now, they are totally cut off from the rest of the world. We need to get mass transit moving soon, or a lot of people are going to start killing each other for food.” Max paced in silence, deep in thought, his hands clasped tightly behind his back.
“Sir, how do we get those people off Manhattan? I’m not concerned about Long Island, they can handle it, at least for a while. But the city? There are millions of people who can’t get through the day without their coffee and a prune Danish, and they’re stranded, sir . . .”
Andrew Fox had come from the Midwest, and had learned how to live off the land. His only trip to New York City was his high school graduation trip at the end of his senior year. He was intimidated by the speed at which the people moved in herds, intent on their individual purpose. He had remembered wondering what they all did for a living, until the enormity of the question overwhelmed his mind. It was too big to think about, and his limited experience shut it out of his brain. He had gone back to gazing up at the size of the buildings until his neck hurt, and then it was time to go home.
“How many people are we talking about? I know that there are a lot of commuters, but the detonation was at 7 p.m. . . . Didn’t a lot of the commuters already leave for home?” Andrew was quickly becoming overwhelmed by the logistics. To think I only had to look out for myself a few months ago, and now I have to figure out a way to transport millions of people.
“I already checked on that. There are about two million permanent residents who were probably on Manhattan Island at the time, and who rely almost totally on the subways and buses and taxis to get around. I’m guessing that there are close to eight million commuters each day, and that most of them had already left the city for home, but you can bet that some of them were just wrapping up happy hour when that thing went off. Let’s assume there are about three million people who need to evacuate,” explained Roger Sinclair.
“How about trains? Doesn’t Grand Central Station have some old locomotives they can hook up to a bunch of passenger cars? Every old movie I ever saw has some guy kissing a girl at the train station before he goes off in one of those passenger cars . . .” Andrew was feeling the enormity of the task.
“I want Andrew to look into running passenger trains in there to get them out of the city, and we need to set up a supply line for food and water. Better yet, don’t feed them until we get them out of there, or they might hunker down and refuse to leave.” Max paced, his lips pursed in deep concentration.
“ Don’t we have any old locomotives mothballed in a warehouse somewhere? We’ll need to run trains from . . . where, Grand Central? Union Station? Someone check into that. Let’s move on this. The longer we wait, the worse it will get. People who don’t have anywhere to go can be kept in temporary housing, and I want the National Guard to set that up walking distance from the most accessible rail line outside of the dark zone. Let’s do it.” Max slipped seamlessly into the role of Commander in Chief. He had been trained since childhood to be president, and it felt natural.
“Sir, don’t you want our military to move supplies into the city?” responded Vincent Bowles. The undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security was a holdover from the previous administration under then-president Warren Blythe. In the scramble to fill high government positions in the Masterson administration, Bowles had filled the gap left by the previous director, Adam Pryor, as efficiently as plugging a dike.
“Mr. Bowles, I don’t know what planet you’re from, but I want you to consider this: We have a dead city that is cold, and people are going to be lighting fires to keep warm. When people play with fire, they tend to burn things, like buildings. When one goes up in flames, they call the fire department. Only now, the phones don’t work, and even if they did, the fire trucks can’t get there to put out the fire. Even if they could, if the high-rises start to burn, there isn’t an extension ladder long enough to get to the top floors. I expect that it’s only a matter of time before we have the biggest conflagration in history since Hiroshima, and I’m determined to save as many people as possible. We have to get them out of the city.”
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CHAPTER 69
H
e had walked in silence along with the rest, unaware of his destination. He was wearing the work clothes of the whitecollar world, a gray pinstripe suit covered by an equally gray topcoat, designed to keep its occupant warm long enough to
step from a cab into his office building in downtown Manhattan and return to a waiting cab at the end of his work day. He wore Florsheim patent-leather shoes, standard footwear for businessmen of his type. The only barrier between his feet and the thin leather shoes were silk socks. He had walked in the midst of the crowd, headed west to somewhere else, and had traveled ten blocks before the blisters began to form. Now his feet were swelling and his wool topcoat was letting the February winds in. He was hungry just like the rest, and cursed himself for staying behind at happy hour instead of taking the commuter train back to the comfort of his Connecticut home.
In the three days since the detonation, the shelves in the stores had been stripped of everything edible, and those who had chosen to remain in the dark and silent city had begun to kill each other for food. Even the rats were coming out of their hiding places,
some as big as cats, and aggressive. When word-of-mouth rumors began to spread that bubonic plague had been diagnosed in a neighborhood in the lower east side, he decided that it was time to get out. To the east was Long Island, and then the Atlantic. A dead end.
West was the only practical way to go, and the bridges over the Hudson were already full of foot traffic. Those lucky enough to own a bicycle had already evacuated ahead of the crowd of city dwellers, wary of those who would attempt to knock them down and steal their ride. At this point, walking was the only option.
It was the families who began the exodus. The fathers sensed the danger, the mothers gathered up what they would need to survive, and the children asked questions about the unanswerable unknowns that festered inside of all of them. Many wore three layers of clothing, but others tried to lug suitcases. Some toted their essentials and children in shopping carts pilfered from the supermarket.
The bridges were full of pedestrians, all leaving the burning city for the promise of something better. Some had a destination in mind; relatives in other parts of the country who would take them in, no matter how tense it could be. They were absorbed back into their extended families for the duration of the “event.” They were the lucky ones. They got out when they could, before the harsh realities of their situation threatened their survival, falling into the comfort that family could provide. Years later, people would recount the “event” as a life changer. In some ways, the survivors were made better for it. Getting out of the city was the difference between life and death for them, and they were spared the horrors that remained behind in the darkened shell of Manhattan, illuminated at night only by the tall buildings that burned out of control.
The Lincoln Tunnel and the Holland Tunnel were both flooded. The powerful pumps that maintained them under the Hudson River failed when the grid fell, and the river was slowly reclaiming its territory. His only option to escape the city was the George Washington Bridge, and from his office on the upper west side, it was the closest.
The wind came out of the Northeast, cold and gusty. He could feel it cut through his topcoat, and his shivering increased in intensity until his bottom lip quivered uncontrollably. He wasn’t alone. He walked in step with numerous other evacuees, bundled the best they could.
“Where ya from, man?” A stocky, square-jawed man with a prodigious growth of stubble on his face peered at the businessman from a snorkel jacket that had seen better days. Without pausing for a reply, he said, “Managed ta get this one from the Goodwill store before they stripped it clean. Yer gonna freeze yer ass off in that getup,” he said, displaying his keen sense of the obvious. “First chance ya get, find yourself one ’a these. Toasty in here. Yessir!” He picked up his pace as the businessman slowed near the center span of the bridge.
He paused to rest, and looked south. From this vantage point, he could see the length of the Hudson down to the Jersey side, where the Statue of Liberty stood like a green speck in the distance. It was many miles off, but it was unmistakable. Between gusts of wind, he could hear the thrup-thrup of the rotors of helicopters. Two black specks moved into view, traveling low and moving fast. It was the first mechanical sound he had heard since before the blast, and for a moment, he had an adrenaline rush of hope. Then there was a bright flash, and the green speck on the horizon wilted in a glow and then collapsed. He stared at Lady Liberty until the glow subsided, and turned toward his destiny. There has to be a workable commuter line somewhere, and I intend to find it. Anything heading north. I won’t be picky. Once I get home, I won’t be coming back.
u
CHAPTER 70
H
ave you noticed anything about Glenda’s broadcast that isn’t right?” Bill Staffman was monitoring broadcasts on the major networks as Andrew Fox worked on the leftover pizza from lunchtime the day before. With a little salt
and some red pepper, it would make great breakfast food, he thought, remembering his college days and all-nighter munchies. It wasn’t time for breakfast, but he hadn’t had much to eat since the latest incident in New York, and they hadn’t left the building for a day and a half.
“No, she looks the same, everything looks the same,” replied
Andrew.
“That’s just the point. That studio is in New York.”
“Holy shit . . .”
“And another thing. She used to have a lot more personality, you
know what I mean? She used to cut up a lot more, and she used to be a whole lot easier on Max. Now she just reads the news and gets off.” “Now that you mention it . . . yeah, there’s something mega-weird going on there,” Andrew surmised. “Run up her last broadcast. I want to look at it with new eyes.” He dropped the crust into the pizza box and walked toward the wall that served as the broadcast screen. “Make it big.” Glenda Reasoner came up, her image as large as the wall.
“In the latest disaster of the Masterson administration, now less than two months old, Max Masterson’s popularity rating has plummeted from an all-time high of eighty-three percent to seventy percent, and I predict a big fall after the events of the past twentyfour hours. New York is burning and people are dying, underscoring the failure of our president to lead.” The image of people screaming and running had been inserted, and then the camera brought the image of Glenda at her desk into focus.
“Focus on her hands,” said Andrew.
Staffman manipulated the image, and as Glenda spoke, they watched in high-definition.
“She was doing something with her hands. My memory works that way. When I remember an image that doesn’t look right, it comes back to me in virtual detail. It’s a blessing and a curse,” Andrew revealed.
“Are you sure it isn’t just the stale pizza?” Staffman was skeptical. He didn’t appreciate that some kid from the Midwest had taken a position of high importance over him, a long-time loyal trooper. He appreciated how far he had gone, but in the Washington environment, the pecking order was everything.
“No . . . Look.”
Glenda was tracing letters with her left hand.
“H,” she traced, casually, but clear.
“E” came next, so subtle, but unmistakable.
“The Masterson administration has failed the American people. At a time when we as a nation would support our president, he has slipped to mediocrity.”
They weren’t listening to the words. It was her hands.
“L,” she traced.
“America should run this charlatan, this nonpolitician, from our highest office, and bring in someone who can bring us back to our essence. We need to support the way things are, our status quo.”
“P,” she traced before the clip had finished.
“Kid, you are amazing,” said Staffman. He reclined in his chair, and contemplated the next action. “You can inform the president, and I will inform everyone else that we are being played.”
u
CHAPTER 71
T
hey began burning the Chippendale furniture when the small supply of firewood ran out. It wouldn’t matter soon, anyway. The city was burning, and the smoke hung in the air as a constant reminder. Before long, fire would indiscriminately
consume the building and everything in it. “I want an evacuation plan, and I want it now,” Scarlett announced to the room.
“Madam Vice President, it is protocol to remain in place and secure and wait for extraction,” Agent Jones said.
“Well, Jones, what is protocol for extracting the vice president from a burning building in a city without any shred of hope? They can’t put out a fire without water or power, and I have no intention of being a casualty, is that clear?” She seethed at the thought that rescue efforts had not taken her away from her misery, and she was not one to give up and wait for something to happen. She would lead.
“Bailey, find yourself a bike or something, and go over to the Hudson and scout our situation, and report back to me. I need to know what’s happening out there.”
Bailey ne
arly flew out the door in search of transportation. Five minutes later, he returned with a mountain bike in his meaty hands. It was a woman’s model, with a frame much too small for his large size, but the tires were full.
The smallest agent, Manley, stepped forward. He was the obvious choice, and the only one who spent his weekends grinding out the miles on his racing bike. Scarlett wasted no time. “Fill your water bottle and go find a way to get us out of this city, now!” She pushed him toward the door as Bailey scrambled to fill the water bottle with Perrier that was stocked in the pantry. Manley adjusted the seat to the top setting and in less than a minute, he was expertly tooling down the road toward Central Park.
His first objective was to cycle across Central Park away from the advancing flames, and if he didn’t encounter the rescue crew, to head west to the river and see what he could see. There has to be a huge effort to recover the vice president, but without a point of reference, they are either back at her hotel, or they are scratching their heads trying to figure out where we are right now. I’m betting that they are narrowing down our options to Central Park, anywhere but in the path of the fire. That’s where I’d go, and that’s where anyone with any sense would be headed.
There was a large group of people milling around in the park. At the Delacorte Amphitheater there was a man on the podium, talking loudly into an old-fashioned megaphone. He was too far away to hear, but Manley could clearly discern that he was an emergency management official of some sort, instructing them of their options and urging them to leave New York. He rounded the curve of trees and saw it at the East Meadow; a black helicopter, definitely part of the rescue operation, its blades stationary and surrounded by a cordon of individuals holding weapons. He increased his pace until his legs burned. He continued pedaling down the hill, where the helo bearing the American flag sat like a large insect.
No Corner to Hide (The Max Masterson Series Book 2) Page 22
