by Mack Maloney
With the majority of the targets destroyed, the strike leader ordered his airplanes to return to their Denver, Colorado base.
Later that morning, F-105 Thunderchiefs from the Aerodrome squadron led by Mike Fitzgerald himself and flying out of a secret base in Manitoba, destroyed six missile sites near the Black Hills in South Dakota. Two squadrons of mixed Texas Air Force F-4s and exiled Football City F-20s bombarded 10 more Soviet sites around Oklahoma City and Tulsa. However, this time, the Russian missiles were waiting for the attackers. In a swirl of laser-guided bombs and flying SA-3 missiles, three F-4s and a valuable F-20 were downed.
By noontime, 15 separate attacks were launched against the Russian SAM installations. More than 50 SAM launch sites were destroyed or heavily damaged at the cost of 14 attacking aircraft. But the grim total was just the tip of the iceberg. The commanders of the Western Forces estimated there were still as many as 2000 to 3000 more operational missile sites scattered throughout the Badlands. And there would be no more “sneak” attacks—the Russians would be waiting for the attackers from now on.
But the air strikes were serving one part of an overall strategy. They were meant not to destroy the entire SAM wall, but simply to poke a few holes in it …
Chapter Twenty-three
IT WAS THE LAST night of the full moon and the yellow lunar glare threw a freakish light and shadow display across the battle-scarred skyline of Manhattan. About half the island’s skyscrapers still had working lights, some were even equipped with large searchlights on the roofs. Many bristled with machineguns, rocket launchers and heavy artillery pieces on their top floors, where they could be easily positioned to fire at enemies in any direction and any number of blocks away.
Other tall buildings were dark, burnt-out skeletons of twisted metal and dangling concrete. Nearly four years of sustained warfare had turned downtown New York City into a bizarre urban battleground.
It was a war of territory that was being fought not only on the streets but in the skyscrapers. There were as many as a hundred different groups formed after the original combatants—the National Guards of New York and New Jersey—had fought themselves to a standstill a few years before. With the break-up of these two armies, other smaller militias proliferated. Street gangs, organized crime families, religious fanatics, even Nazis operated in the dense urban sprawl. Not a day went by when one faction was not fighting another. And frequently, groups of different factions would join together to battle a common enemy only to fight each other at some point down the line.
What was everyone fighting for?
Gold. There was plenty of it floating around the city. New York had become the ultimate Black Market, its main occupation was trafficking in dangerous and hard-to-get items. With enough money and the right contacts, anyone could buy anything—from a pound of cocaine to a thousand M-16s to a small tactical nuclear weapon—in New York City. But to make it work, ships had to dock, bridges had to work, streets had to be secured, protection had to be provided. This meant territory had to be conquered—property in midtown and down by the East and West Rivers was at a deadly premium—and the best way to hold an area was to utilize the buildings contained within it.
So the measure of power in New Order Manhattan was how many skyscrapers your groups held, where they were located and how tall they were. Some smaller group held just one or two skyscrapers. Others claimed dozens of buildings as their own, fortress-like blocks of territory and power. Most of the fighting was done between one group seeking to take over another’s skyscraper. A key ’scraper on a key block of buildings meant more money into the coffers of the turf masters—payment for passing through. Also, the taller a building, the better line of sight and, therefore, fire one had. The fight for turf was just not concentrated on level areas but had evolved to vertical conquests as well.
The balance of power shifted daily.
One group’s attack on another’s skyscraper could be compared to the great ocean battles fought in the 17th and 18th centuries between the navies of Great Britain and Spain. First the enemy would maneuver as close as possible to its intended prey, moving guns in and out of the many abandoned downtown skyscrapers. Then, when their position was right, the attacker would put guns in every floor possible and blast away at the desired prize. The defenders would inevitably fire back, leaving the two buildings to pound each other like two man o’ wars.
Once it was determined that the target building was sufficiently softened up, the attacking troops would move in. Some were experienced ground fighters, others earned their keep by scaling the sides of buildings like human flies, leading attacks to the higher floors. The outcome could take days or even weeks to be determined—rarely was a takeover bid successful without many bloody hours of floor-to-floor, room-to-room fighting.
Like magnets to steel, Manhattan attracted every sort of low-life, criminal and soldier-for-hire. It was a place so dangerous, even The Circle had decided to leave the New Yorkers to their own devices, for the time being, at least. In fact, The Circle found it very convenient to deal with the New York power brokers—many top-shelf combat weapons systems, technologies and ammunition were bought by Viktor’s minions sent to Manhattan with bags of gold and promises of more. Not surprisingly, the city was also crawling with leftover Mid-Aks, air pirates, Family members, Russians and other representatives from “eastern” European countries.
And somewhere in the morass lay the fifth black box.
Punk 78 and Iron Man were two soldiers in the Power Systems Sector. Theirs was one of the top five largest groups in Manhattan—its territory stretched from the southeast corner of the obliterated Central Park to Park Avenue and down to the border of 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. Along with the The Wheels, The Corporate Cats, Maximum Army Inc, and The House of David, Power Systems ruled the very profitable center of Manhattan. That there was a perpetual war going on between the five groups had little or no bearing on the huge profits they reaped. Battles or not, each group pulled in hundreds, if not thousands of pounds of gold and real silver each week as a result of their various gun-running, drug-pushing, protection and prostitution enterprises.
On this particular night, Punk 78 and Iron Man were serving as lookouts. They were stationed on top of a ’scraper on Madison Avenue, near East 52nd Street. Just a few blocks away, a battle royal was raging between the CorpCats and MaxArmy Inc. The two groups, deadly enemies despite their common border along the Avenue of the Americas, were blasting away at each other along adjacent buildings near the old Rockefeller Center. The flash of the artillery and the glare of rocket fire brilliantly lit up the night sky. The PSS soldiers were watching the engagement with glee. The more these two mortal enemies battered each other, all the better for Power Systems. The job of Punk 78 and Iron Man was to report the outcome of the battle to their superiors, The Chairmen, as soon as it was decided.
Iron Man was about to break open the pair’s second bottle of crack juice when something caught his eye high above the 55-story ’scraper where they were stationed.
“What the fuck was that?” he yelled to 78 over the noise of the battle a few blocks away.
Punk looked up from his infra-red NightScope. “What the fuck was what?” he yelled back, grabbing the bottle from Iron Man.
“I don’t know,” Iron Man replied. “A flash of light in the sky. Strange looking.”
“Yeh,” Punk ’78 spat out, swigging the crude cocaine-derivative liquid. “You’re the only thing that’s strange looking around here.”
The Punk turned his attention back to the Night-Scope and did a long sweep of the city. There were some heavy duty fireworks up around West 83rd Street—probably The Yankee Machine and the Zebras, two of the smaller militias, punching it out. A section of Central Park up near the lake was blazing like a forest fire. Turning east he spotted a battle between two unknown groups around the Queensboro Bridge. Looking south, the nightly pall of smoke was rising from Times Square, but nothing much was happening toward Wall Street.
No doubt the battle between the CorpCats and MaxArmy Inc. was the best show in town tonight, and Punk 78 turned back to see what he’d missed. “Jesus Christ will you look at that!” he yelled. “Those guys are using incendiary mortars, flamethrowers, .88s, the works on each other! We haven’t seen a rumble like this in months …”
He turned to get the crack juice from Iron Man, but found his companion was nowhere to be seen. In his place stood a man, dressed in black, wearing a flight helmet with the visor pulled down. He was pointing an M-16 right at the Punk’s nose.
“Hey, who the fuck are …” Punk yelled at the stranger. But before he could spit it all out, he felt the stranger’s heavy boot crash into his right cheekbone. Punk 78 went reeling across the tar-and-stone roof of the ’scraper, losing his .357 Magnum in the tumble. The stranger retrieved it, then lifted him up and forced him halfway over the edge of the building.
“Jesus! Jesus!” the Punk screamed, terrified at dropping 55 stories to the concrete pavement below.
“Listen you fucker,” the stranger said, his helmet’s closed-tight visor weirdly muffling his voice. “I ain’t got the time to fuck around with a little scum like you. Where’s this guy Calypso?”
“I don’t know no Calypso!” the Punk yelled, only to have the stranger push him even far over the edge.
“Don’t bullshit me,” the man said. “I’ll drop you so hard they’ll hear the splat all the way over in New Jerk.”
“He’ll kill me if I tell you!” Punk screamed.
“I’ll kill you if you don’t,” the stranger said, his hands tightening around the Punk’s throat.
“Okay! Okay!” Punk 78 gurgled. “I’ll tell you!”
The stranger released his grip only slightly. “Where?” he asked.
“Down at the Twins,” Punk said, tasting blood from the cracked vessels in his throat. “The WTC. The old World Trade Center. He lives down there. But you can’t get at him.”
“Why?” the stranger asked angrily.
“Because he’s high up, man,” Punk answered. “He’s higher than anyone. He sees everything. And he’s got enough firepower to knock out anything up to 14th Street. He’s got big stuff on every floor and soldiers everywhere. Don’t you understand? He’s King of Lower Manhattan. We don’t even go down there …”
The stranger let go of Punk’s throat, then knocked him sideways with a slap aside the head. The Punk hit the roof hard only to see the unconscious body of Iron Man lying 20 feet away. Somehow the stranger had taken out his partner without Punk hearing a sound.
Punk sat up and watched as the man stuffed his pockets with .357 ammunition. He took a good look at the man. “How the fuck did you get up here, man?” he asked.
The man quickly grabbed the soldier’s throat again, brought his helmet visor to within an inch of the Punk’s face and said: “I flew …”
The man they called Calypso sat on a leather couch in front of the huge window on the 110th floor of what once was the World Trade Center’s easternmost building. Before him stretched the island of Manhattan. From Wall Street to 14th Street was his. A buffer zone of allies—the Combat Lawyers, the Asbadah Holy Militia and the Laser Razors—held parcels of territory right up to Madison Square Garden and the Empire State Building. The further away from those assholes uptown, the better, Calypso always said.
He was the most powerful man in New York City. So powerful that when the Mid-Aks came to Manhattan to shop for everything from small arms to .88 artillery pieces, they came to Calypso. When the air pirates wanted to buy a couple of tons of smack, they came to Calypso. Even the Russians brought him a present every time they passed through.
And now, The Circle had asked to pay their respects, at a party Calypso would host later that night. They wanted something from him—something they knew he had. Good, he thought, watching a battle off in the distance up near Rockefeller Plaza. Because The Circle had something Calypso wanted, too.
He clapped his hands and two young girls appeared. One carried a martini pitcher filled fresh to the brim with the champagne-cocaine mix that Calypso enjoyed so much, the other an extra large NEW YORK GIANTS glass, also one of Calypso’s favorites. The shitty little wine glasses others used couldn’t quench his thirst. He wondered if these girls could. They were barely sixteen and seventeen—a present of a Soviet general who stopped by a few months ago.
He motioned one to pour him a drink and the other to stand in front of him. He was getting old, he thought as he looked at the young girl. She was blonde, small, shy, dressed per his orders as a cheerleader. He was bald, graying on the sides and fat. And perverted.
“Strip …” he said to the cheerleader, taking an enormous swig of the drug-soaked bubbly. The girl immediately obeyed, lifting off her sweater, tugging at her socks, pulling down her skirt and revealing her pert, little breasts.
He turned the other girl and said: “You, too.” The second girl, a brunette, was dressed as a schoolgirl. She slowly removed her nylon stockings and her dress and slip, then had her companion undo the snap on her bra.
“Come, sit with me,” he said, taking the two naked girls on to the couch with him. “Drink, drink up, girls and get me in a good mood. I have a party to do tonight.”
He was getting old, he thought, as he casually fondled the young girls’ bodies. He was getting sick of this kid’s stuff. His friends and “business associates,” knowing his taste in “developing” women, were always dropping off two or three young ones, just to keep in his good graces. But although it was tough to admit it, he now realized he needed maturity in his playthings. He wanted something unattainable.
That’s why he was especially looking forward to meeting Viktor …
The submarine surfaced just off Coney Island. From here, it would ride quietly on the dark surface of the water right through Lower Bay off Brooklyn, up The Narrows and into the Upper Bay off the southern tip of Manhattan. The trip would take less than a half hour; there would still be a good four hours of night left when it arrived at its destination near Liberty Island.
The five men crowded in the sub’s conning tower all wore black combat fatigues. Their faces had been charcoaled, as were their hands. Each man carried a silencer-equipped M-14 rifle. The sub’s captain managed to squeeze his way up through them and quickly went over their coordinates one last time. Their pickup point would be Ellis Island, the rendezvous time exactly three hours and 10 minutes after the time they left the boat. Miss the time or the location, same thing 24 hours later. Miss it again, and they would be on their own.
The submarine was from Free Canada; four of the charcoaled soldiers were Free Canadian commandos. The other was an American—an intelligence agent from Mike Fitzgerald’s Syracuse Aerodrome. The tiny group had planned and trained extensively for this mission for the past two weeks. Now that D-Day had come and the tides were finally running right for them, they were anxious to get on with it.
The sub slowed to a halt just off Liberty Island. The captain called down a warning to his steering crew that the massive severed head of the Liberty Statue sat in ten feet of dirty water right off the sub’s bow. The sub obediently backed-up for 20 feet then steered around toward deeper water.
The captain wished the men good luck as they scrambled down the tower’s ladder and into a large rubber raft they had inflated. The captain looked up at the full moon. Smoke from a fire way uptown was drifting in front of it, giving everything struck by moonbeams a dark orange tinge. It took five brave men to go into that city alone, the captain thought as the men paddled away. He hoped they were being well-paid.
The Lincoln Continental gun wagon roared through the abandoned intersection of West 41st Street and Broadway. The noise of the relentless explosions coming from the CorpCats and MaxArmy Inc. battle six blocks back, drowned out the car’s own, muffler-free racket. Inside the car sat five soldiers plus a tail gunner. The powerful beams of the six modified headlights provided a path of light through the darkened streets. The gunmen we
re from The House of David; every man wore gray camouflage fatigues, long shoulder-length hair and a beard. Their squad commander—a former Israeli Army lieutenant—sat behind the wheel, careening the big car through a routine patrol of the southern edge of their territory.
If there was a moderate force in New York City, it was the House of David. They were into diamonds—buying them, selling them. Most of their members were former Israeli soldiers who headed for America after parts of the Middle East were obliterated during the war. Through their leadership, the House Army was tough, well-trained and very dangerous in a fight. Although the smallest of the big league groups, no one on the island wanted to tangle with the House if they could at all avoid it.
The Lincoln screamed around the corner of West 38th Street and turned onto Eighth Avenue. That’s when they saw the bodies. The squad commander—a young man called Zack Wack—stood on the brakes as his troopers readied their weapons. The car screeched to a halt and the five soldiers leaped out and assumed defensive positions. The rear gunner, working a M60 heavy machinegun out of a small turret placed where the car’s trunk used to be, covered their tails. The men watched and waited.
Slowly, Wack moved forward. The heavily-littered avenue was completely deserted except for the eight bodies that were lying in the middle of the block. Wack didn’t like the looks of it. It appeared the men had been ambushed. But if that was the case, it must have been a quick fight. All eight men went quickly, even before they were able to get to cover. Either that or someone had lured them out into the open.
He reached the first body and pulled the man over. Wack thought it might have been a soldier from Adzubah—the House of David’s mortal enemy—but he knew right away this was not the case. This man was Nordic and new in town; his uniform was still creased and his hands were clean. He carried no papers but Wack knew right away what the man’s nationality was. He could tell by his boots. Only one army in the world issued black leather ankle-boots as standard equipment. The man was a Russian soldier.
