by Jack Womack
Several possibilities flipped through my mind as I picked my way along, skipping broken steps and wet heaps of litter. It had to be Mister Dryden's people, I felt sure, and that assured me that he was still alive. The Old Man's bunch obviously had been the ones tracking us the day before; his gang were purest amateurs, I'd always felt, lacking in style and nuance. Mister Dryden had a few working for him in various situations-Jake being their overseer-who could have, with ease, come in, taken Avalon, and left me none the wiser. That was a common gambit in readying business deals.
Why hadn't they taken us both? I wondered as I reached the lobby. There was one explanation, as I saw it. The Old Man, also surviving, undoubtedly, had suspected that we were behind the blast-suspected his son as well, perhaps, but for the nonce choosing not to dwell on it overlong. And so, to show his concern so well as to send new word to me, Mister Dryden had involved his boys. By taking Avalon they could lure me out.
You're next.
That disconcerted. If they wanted to contact us both, they would have taken us both . . . unless they wished to take one of us in the other way. If he suspected Avalon was behind the retiming of the blast, as she'd been, in this way he could remove her while getting word to me that I was needed, or in danger. But if he wanted to remove me for fouling the job, he'd know no better bait could be used than Avalon.
Whatever was going on, she was in trouble. When that thought entered, no other broached my head. Stepping outside, the cool drizzle sprinkling over my face, I pushed through the scrub and emerged onto the street. No one was in sight.
There was no choice. Hoping that at least she was yet alive, I pulled my phone from my coat and punched in the code. The phone-an owner's phone, and so always reliable-hooked directly into Mister Dryden's office.
The phone buzzed twice before anyone answered.
"Dryden," he said.
"It's me."
He was silent; I listened carefully, to hear if he whispered to others in the room.
"O'Malley," he said. "Where?"
"Downtown."
"Safe?"
"AO. "
"Danger prowls. Careful yourself."
"Where's Avalon?"
Again, he paused. "Up yourself to Dryco. Now. Essent."
"AO."
"Move incog," he said. "To Bridge HQ. My word sends. Use."
"Who?"
"Colonel Willis. He'll up you secondsfast."
"Is Avalon safe?" I asked. "Is she?"
"We'll see," he said. "I'll wait. Speed."
"AO."
He clicked off, leaving me even more afraid. Using my remaining shards of optimism, I concluded, by his final phrase, that he'd wait until I'd reached his office before doing anything to her. I'd decided, without hesitation, that were she to be blamed for what had occurred, she wouldn't be blamed alone; that, if separated, now as we were, at the end we might at least be reunited. Walking, I could reach Bridge HQ in twenty minutes, traveling Henry Street; so much as it hurt, I ran, pausing only to retrieve my breath. As I drew closer to the old Manhattan bridge, strung with searchlights left perpetually aglow as if for a holiday, I saw copters buzzing in, transporting the living and the dead in from Brooklyn, and Long Island, some whipping through the arch of the nearest tower on approach.
Bridge HQ-situated on land cleared by government order in the last year of the Ebb, in the Goblin Year-covered the terrain between the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges southeast of Park Row and the Bowery below Canal; it was next to the Downtown Control Zone, but not of it. The soldiers barracked in the old Governor Smith Houses, old brick towers not in such bad shape as the one in which we'd spent the night before. The HQ had an airfield, a field hospital-located in the old city police headquarters, since transferred to Midtown-and the traditional facilities common to Army HQs: stockades, addiction rehab clinics, disease treatment centers, and a crematorium.
To New York new arrivals, fresh and green from southern boot camps, came each month, prepped to put in their year of domestic service before becoming eligible for transferral overseas. Upon landing, each month's group was divided: one-fourth was placed in the Manhattan Central Command unit; three-quarters found themselves in the units parceled out into Long Island. Army sources put the average casualty rate for Long Island units at 60 percent; unofficial sources ran higher. The government's theory was that those surviving a Long Island campaign should have no difficulty on any foreign battlefield; that once Americans grew used to killing Americans, they'd qualm not over killing anyone else.
The northern entrance post was situated in the center of Henry Street, beneath the bridge. Four Army boys there lifted their rifles as I strolled up, aiming at my head. Raising my hands so high as I could, I slowly advanced, flashing my Drydencard.
"Halt!'' one screeched, after I'd halted. "State biz. Pronto."
"Dryco," I replied. A different one ambled over, snatching the card from my hand. He was old for a private; seventeen or so, and I was sure he'd awaited his draft notice rather than taking the bull's horns sooner. Nowadays-it'd been looser in my younger days-one was eligible for the draft upon turning fifteen; if one wanted, surely, one could join the Army at age thirteen so long as the necessary height and weight requirements were met.
"AO?" I asked; he'd held it for a long time, examining it closely, as if it had been printed in Sanskrit.
"Shut up," said the Army boy. He held my card against such sunlight as there was, and the Dryco corporate logogram visualized on the card. He grinned, recognizing it. Handing it back to me deferentially, he affixed a visitor's pin to my lapel.
"Can I go?" I asked.
"Don't lose it, now," he drawled, sounding as if he hoped I would.
An enormous stencilled sign, pocked and channeled by bullet holes, rose high on the right, beyond the entrance post, just behind a truck that appeared to have been stripped for barterable parts.
INFORMATION PERTANING TO BOMINGS/TERROR/ ANDOR/MURDER
RECIEVED HERE. CONFIDINTALLY ASURRRED. REWARDS GIVEN
ONLY IN EVENT OF EXECUETION.
CALL: 6333512-797-3600 EXT.297753 DEPT.3131 CODE: 7BAKER
That the sign stood inside the base I found most intriguing.
You could pick the Manhattan guard from the Long Island guard at a second's viz. The Manhattan guard Army boys were rural, starch-loaded whiteys with drug-wet eyes, and a stance suggesting that they'd sought trouble since first vaulting from the crib to strangle the family dog. The Long Island units were, to a man, black and Hispanic and Amerasian, urban, with eyes equally sodden, but containing a gaze found only in those who, at age six, had hidden beneath the bed, watching silently as their families were slaughtered by strangers. The Army thought it best that its members should be introduced into situations most unfamiliar, so as to sustain the most vehement and lasting reaction.
"Where's Command Central?" I asked a fellow reclining upon a pile of what appeared at first a stack of Hefties-only after I noticed that the crematorium stood behind him did I grasp that he lounged upon bags stuffed with former members of his, or someone's, platoon.
"Who wants to know?" He lifted the pipe from his mouth to speak, expelling gusts of heavy blue smoke. Once more I flashed my Drydencard as he leaned forward, nearly falling off. "Third building on the right," he said, refitting his pipe into the corner of his mouth.
As I walked away, I slowly became aware of an increasing roar and windrush nearby. Between the buildings I saw the tarmac; copters lifted and landed like pigeons in the street, refilling and dumping. On their noses were emblazoned the group insignias of the Nurfs and the Surfs-the Nassau Unit Recon Forces and the Suffolk Unit Recon Forces. Rotors spinning, motors humming, they wafted out Army boys set to firestorm Ronkonkoma and Wantagh, swept out the victims of tactical regressions suffered on the dunes of Wainscott and Amagansett. Each copter carried its own music system, stereo or lasereo, drowning the screams. Medivacs swarmed over the field, marking a purple A on the foreheads of those deemed fit for triag
e.
I suspected the next building down as being the psyop headquarters, as there were no windows throughout the structure. The base's bulletin board stood out front, near the drive. A directive, running along the top, read:
UNAUTHERIZED PICTURES FORBIDEN FOR DISPLAY PURPUSES.
Along the bottom of the board were pinned eight-inch glossies; authorized or unauthorized, I wasn't sure. They showed, in all colors, the debris of a recent operation near Riverhead-Army boys propped up, for camera's benefit, mashed and mangled bur- bies, which was what Long Islanders were generally pegged by the Army. In the last picture, an Army boy, his mustache sparse above his smile, stood between two cast-iron lawn gnomes, his heel pressed against the chest of a naked woman. She lay on her back, her legs splayed; most of his company, it appeared, had inserted their rifle barrels into her. Below the picture was a note attached, reading Clean your pece daily.
The next building I supposed to be Command Central; there were lace curtains in the windows. Two MPs stepped up to me as I entered, each putting the tip of their rifles at my jawline. Waving my card once more, letting them viz it over, I relaxed. So did they.
"Colonel Willis in'?" I asked.
"Yes, sir," one of them said. "He's officed. See the recep."
"AO," I said.
"Sorry," the other apologized, "can't be too careful, sir."
A dead body, primed, blasts so loud as a live one, but I saw no need to teach the Army tricks, and walked over to the desk. The receptionist, a young lieutenant, was watching TV in the company of several noncoms and another lieutenant.
"Colonel Willis, please," I said, raising my voice over the TV's vol. Why the entire Army wasn't deaf was beyond me.
"Sshh!!" one of them hissed. "Who's wanting?"
"Seamus O'Malley," I said, "For Thatcher Dryden."
The receptionist immediately buzzed the colonel's office.
"Dryco, sir."
It was hard to hear anything through the interom's static. The receptionist hit it with the palm of her hand.
"Go right in, sir," she said to me. As I walked past, I glanced to see what held their attention so intently. The news was on; the screen was barely visible through the overlay of soot. Footage of an execution ran-I didn't catch in which state. The guilty party, said the reporter, was convicted of rape and murder one; a middle-aged man, he sat strapped into a chair atop a low platform. The victim's husband approached, stepping onto the dais; he carried a blowtorch. Under the Retribution Act, the victim's family was required to carry out the sentence as they wished. With his tool he painted the fire on smooth. The reporter, bubbling, explained how, under prolonged application, the eyes would burst within the head. I went inside the colonel's office, closing the door behind me.
The colonel's inner office was no less busy than had been the outer. A large map of Long Island was spread out across his desk; hovering over it were the colonel and several aides of various rank. With pointers and pens they marked the trails of insurgents down Route 25 and the Sunrise Highway, circled supposed fortifications shielding Cutchogue and Massapequa.
"Excuse me," I said. They were talking among themselves.
"-patrol unit waved in at 0800 that they were interrogating a party of insurgents picked up near Mineola-"
"Where the hell are they now?" asked the colonel.
"Surrounded. "
"How?"
"They'd engaged with said insurgents in reconstructive personnel selection-"
Meaning, they'd killed all but the younger women-
"-when under mortar fire they sustained a heavy loss ratio refiguration."
"How many?"
"Fourteen."
"I'm to see Colonel Willis-''
"What'd they do then? Sit there? Yes? Who're you?" he asked me, looking at me as if I were a troublesome child.
"Speaking. About what?" He shifted his attention once again to one of his aides. "Air support readied?"
"Sent. "
"So where are they?"
"Forced to halt. Heavy ground to air interaction."
"Thatcher Dryden told me you'd be able to get me uptown incog," I said. "To his offices."
All paused long enough to stare. After a second they returned their look to the map, and to the reports and wires clutched in their hands. I looked around his office as I waited for him to respond. In one corner of the room an American flag drooped low, limp against its pole. Behind his desk hung the president's official portrait. The eyes were drawn so that their stare would follow your progress across the room. The colonel's medals- someone's medals-rested in a small display case atop his desk. A doll rested to the right of his terminal, collapsed against it as if resting following a long march. Filled with choice ingredients, such dolls were on occasion left in appropriate Island areas by recon units.
"Did he," said the colonel, not sounding as if he meant it as a question.
"Unit twelve has sustained a twenty-three-day confrontation. They need supplies lifted as well."
"They'll have to go down kicking," said the colonel. "We haven't support capability. Won't until next week."
"Begging pardon, sir, but two squadrons in from Jersey are set and ready, sir. Just this morning, sir."
"Not anymore," said the colonel, turning to look at me; his eyes were much more disturbing than those of the president's portrait. "At 1100 1 received a directive from Group HG that they'll be needed for transferral to Hunts Point."
"Bronx duty, sir?"
"Why, sir?"
"To perform demolition on structures liable to sustain flood damage-" he paused, lowering his voice, staring my way. One of his cheek muscles throbbed as if something within prepared to burst loose. "-sometime before the end of this century."
"But, sir-"
"Tell him," he nodded to me, raising his arms, clasping his hands before his chest. He drew back his lips as if sucking blood into his gums. I estimated that his choppers fit not so well as did Avalon's. I noticed that he wore a revolver in a hip holster.
"Colonel Willis," I said, "I was told-"
"To do as you're told," he said, rising from his chair. "That's what you'll do while you're here. Your boss let me know that he wished me to certify you'd make it up to Midtown incog."
"Yes, sir-"
"Snap it, he told me, before he hung up."
A burst of static sounded on the shortwave, popping like firecrackers at Chinese New Year. The colonel turned and picked up the speaker.
"77A257. Over."
"Report in from Mount Misery, sir," the voice rumbled; background fizz made it difficult to hear. "Recon op prime zero down. Tactical regression sustained. Over."
"Losses? Over."
"Heavy," said the voice; it reconsidered. "Total. Over."
"Any need for pickup? Over."
"None. Over."
The colonel sighed as if allowed to breathe once more, as if the pain of inhalation wearied. "AO. 22991. Over."
He motioned toward a chair facing his desk, wishing me to sit down. I did, uncertain of his mood, impatient to move, fearful for Avalon.
"I don't know why it's so essential that I use my time to get you to Midtown," he said. His aides and advisers looked quietly on, as if hoping by their silence they might somehow disappear. "But there's a lot I don't know."
I 'Sir-''
"You're shit in the street to me. But when he calls, I jump. Have to. Guess you must be fairly useful to him to get an override like this."
"He wanted me at his office so soon as possible, colonel," I reminded him. He stood up, strolling around his desk. Though I was sitting, I could tell that he was several inches shorter than me, toting the sort of bulk that made him appear to have been recompressed for best use of space.
"You'll get there," he said. "You may be important to him but you're not him. You probably don't have any more say about anything than I do. I really don't give a fuck."
"Colonel, I'm not sure I understand-"
"It doesn't matter," he said
, "Whether you understand that or not. There's something else I do want you to understand, so long as you're giving us this little visit. Something to tell the folks at home. "
He brought his hand down closer to his revolver, as if expecting that I was fool enough to attempt action.
"I've been assigned here three years," he said. "Every month I watch new men arrive. Good men. Primed for double duty anywhere else. Brave men. Strong men. They'd serve their country well, if they could. They can't. You know why?"
"Why?" I asked, suspecting that it would be safer to inquire than to argue.
"In business," he said. "I know how to play it. Get somebody. Use them for all they are. When they're empty, turn them in. That doesn't work so well in the Army. There's a lot of wasted potential here. Spend two months intensifying trainees. Get them booted. Make them top, all. Then send them to this pit so they can be flown out and dropped into the lawn mower over there. Does that make sense? Breaks my fucking heart. Nothing I can do. Just watch them go in big and come out little. And for what?"
"I'm not quite sure, sir-"
"Me neither. Years ago you could have just blasted the whole island and solved things right off. Can't do that now. Better, maybe, to just take the men out and let it be. Can't do that, either. Leave Long Island alone and they all might swim over here. Put a crimp in your boss's big plans. Hurt the value of his real estate. "
"I don't-"
"Oh, no. Have to keep this fucking place safe till they build the new one up there. Like the old one's worth more than just blasting down to the fucking ground. Even after the new city's built, we'll have to guard it, too. Can't argue with Dryco. My orders are don't piss them off and do as they say. Anything they say. Old King Shit tell me to line my men up at the edge of the Battery and march them into the bay in rows of four. I'd have to do it."
