Resurrection Express

by Stephen Romano

  I get the gas mask on my face as Heather steps into the lobby, firing again at the cop on the floor. Another two-foot white flash kicks its high-velocity load right in the guy’s face. The cop doesn’t even get one shot off before his head turns into superheated jelly, and then the jelly is consumed by the rolling, stinging mist. The load keeps on shredding the lobby after it’s done with the cop, finally exploding somewhere in the next hall, twenty feet away. Two other cops are dead on the ground, gaping holes where their badges used to be. Gigantic chunks of the room carved out in the bargain.

  Heather moves like a robot, her men right behind her.

  Morales grabs my chair and rolls me out alongside Heather and Pizzaface, who spin quickly and step in front of me as the second elevator dings and the doors open. I don’t even notice the three of them are wearing gas masks until they fill the elevator car with thunder, annihilating everything inside there. It’s like a series of bombs going off and I can’t even see who they are shooting at, arms and legs and faces consumed in a quick-time maelstrom of bright strobing and dark red splashes, like the flickering fangs of some greedy invisible monster devouring it all to hell. Whoever was in there had no idea what hit them.

  The thunder recedes as the smoke thickens and Heather gets a beep on her hand screen. She motions to Pizzaface:

  “Stairwell! Now!”

  Morales hustles me into the covered concrete cul-de-sac, which is just outside the main ER entrance doors. Heather right behind us. Back in the lobby, I hear the shotgun roar again and the sounds of more cops screaming as they blast apart. It doesn’t take long to chop them all to ribbons. I steel myself and let it all happen—like some kind of nightmare where you just sit there and watch the world explode on all sides of you. I’ve never seen guys who move this fast, and I’ve certainly never had a seat this comfortable in the middle of a firefight.

  I find myself laughing at it.

  Right out loud.

  • • •

  An EMS vehicle shrieks to a halt, tires peeling up smoke just outside the door as I come rolling up to the curb, pushed along by sure hands. The doors are already open and two guys whose faces I can’t see behind black masks are leaping out to grab me and my wheelchair . . . and it’s all a quick blur as they get me inside, chair and all. Heather is right behind us, leaping in. An unmarked car that looks fast and sleek, like a photon torpedo, pulls up behind us and I see Morales and Pizzaface calmly getting in the passenger’s side, pulling off their gas masks. I leave mine on, for no reason that matters.

  The ambulance doors slam, and we blow out of there, with the photon torpedo right behind us.

  Heather checks her screen, smiles quickly. “We’re almost clear,” she says into her Bluetooth. “Take the alternate route and stand on it. This area is hot.”

  The siren on the hood of the ambulance comes on at full blast. Subterfuge. They had this whole run plotted out to the last shell casing.

  And Heather?

  Is anything about her real—anything at all?

  The muscle car runs blocker for us the whole time we’re on the road, lagging just a quarter mile behind. My new friends all keep their guns up and ready. Heather watches her hand screen. We show up there as a glowing green target blip. The traffic parts on all sides of us and we punch through red lights all the way. No cops on our tail. Nothing looking for us in the air, either, not yet.

  But that won’t last long.

  I think I can hear sirens somewhere out there—just below the obnoxious scream of the ambulance.

  She holds my chair steady as we shift sharply to the right and I feel the open road tilt under our tires. For the first time, I notice that there’s a small spot of blood seeping from under her white coat sleeve. Where they shot her at the club. She doesn’t flinch at all, if she even feels it.

  I look up at her and laugh, pulling off the gas mask. “So . . . do I get kissed on the second date, too?”

  “Is that a joke?”

  “Maybe. Depends who the hell you really are.”

  “He told you, we’re friendlies. You can relax.”

  “Thanks.”

  Her stone expression almost goes soft for just a second. “I’m sorry, Elroy. I can explain everything.”

  “I’m sure you can.”

  “I was working under deep cover where you found me.”

  “Dirty tricks for Uncle Sam, huh? Figures.”

  “Don’t get all self-righteous with me, Elroy. We all do what we have to do.”

  “Yeah, and you do it so well, don’t you?”

  That stings her. Just a little. I’m almost surprised.

  “I just saved your ass,” she says. “You should be a little more polite.”

  “So they put you on the street to get Hartman?”

  “Something like that.”

  “And you look like my wife because . . . ?”

  “Just shut up a minute. There’s no time for that now. I have a question, Elroy. It’s really important.”

  I nod to her because I know what the question is.

  But then she doesn’t get to ask it.

  • • •

  The first RPG hits like a lightning bolt.

  I see it outside through the tiny window of the ambulance, screaming from the sky in a swooping whiplash crackle, then someone screams—I think it’s Heather—and I see the photon torpedo following us turn into a flash of flame and debris, and the world shudders and my heart stops for three whole seconds, and the ambulance skews across the median, out of control, and I’m upside down, right side up, and everything is suddenly spinning and tumbling, my head smashing against something hard and metal, and Heather screams again, and the world spins again and something slams into us like the hand of Murphy, and he’s really pissed off tonight . . . and as I go under . . . I hear the pavement scraping under us and the sound of roaring shotguns . . .

  • • •

  Sirens.

  Angry voices.

  Explosions.

  I come to for just one second, and see that I’m outside now, on the blacktop. Faceless shapes standing silhouetted against the flames.

  Muzzleflashes on all sides of us.

  Blood in my face.

  Street war, I think. I’m in the middle of a goddamn street war . . .

  I go under again as the gauntlet closes around us.

  • • •

  I hear the shooting, even in the dream.

  I hear them all killing each other, my own heartbeat pounding through it.

  Then the deep-bass chug of a helicopter, cancelling out everything.

  Someone screaming right in my ear to wake the fuck up.

  I go down deeper when I hear the voice.

  Down and down.

  • • •

  Floating now.

  It’s peaceful.

  I made it out of there and now I’m floating.

  I see the face of the girl.

  Heather’s face.

  Toni’s funhouse-mirror image, distorted and not quite perfect, but perfect enough to fool a man with demons. Enough to fool a man obsessed.

  I have to find her.

  I want to know why she looks like my one true love.

  She was going to tell me.

  I was so close to the truth.

  I’m flying now.

  • • •

  The helicopters blare at me.

  I wake up on a stretcher, an oxygen mask over my face.

  We’re moving fast, across a flat concrete surface, and I can tell we’re outside, the sun shining on my face, and Heather is still alive, yelling at the people pushing my stretcher, but I can’t hear her . . . because all around me, metal beasts drown her out, shredding the air and shaking the earth.

  Apache AH attack choppers.

  A sea of state-of-the-art bang bang.

  This is not a dream.

  It’s real.

  You see these machines in movies sometimes. Super fast, super sleek, all armed to the teeth. Sidewind
er missiles, 70-millimeter rockets, 20-millimeter cannons. They usually carry something called Hellfire anti-tank bombs, too. Two of those bad boys have enough sheer heart attack in them to erase a bad Middle Eastern neighborhood without breaking a sweat.

  Looks like World Wars III and IV are about to go down.

  I only see the armada for a few seconds.

  They push me away from the chugging beasts, towards a central complex that reminds me of prison. It’s a five-story concrete monolith with no windows and a flat roof that has a landing pad. A gunship up there, gassed and ready, spinning its giant blades and rotors—like the king of the monsters. We move into the complex through a thick steel door, opened by a thick steel jarhead.

  Heather leads us down a security corridor. Five doors with ancient locks, opened by sentry statues who know we’re coming. No laser sensors or motion detectors, just marines in every corner, every six feet. The sounds of heavy combat boots in front of me and behind me. The hall smells like cigarettes and sweat and stale aftershave. Everything is old and rusted, typical military operation. Uncle Sam spends money on guns, not barracks. I’ve heard tell that some of these places are little more than tent cities in the desert. Almost makes me laugh, the irony is so overwhelming. I can’t laugh because it hurts too much. The wound in my side, the throbbing in my head.

  I try to think of Toni, but she taunts me, just out of reach.

  Have to focus on the moment.

  I notice for the first time that I’m still in my blue hospital smock, the urine tube no longer attached to my lower region. I am half naked in this place of corroded steel, even more helpless than I was in prison.

  Great.

  We stop at a door guarded by two guys in desert brown battle-dress uniforms. They salute Heather and open up. It isn’t even locked, but that doesn’t matter. Only the Terminator could get through the manpower in this building. I counted fifty grunts on the way up the hall, all armed to the teeth, all on combat-ready alert and itching for an excuse to kill someone. I get all the details in stark relief. Wide awake now.

  My legs twitch on their own as they move me through the door.

  21

  00000-21

  THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD

  My legs.

  They’re moving.

  No, this is really not a dream.

  I’m sitting upright now in the stretcher, cool air tingling the bare skin of my back and legs, electricity seething through my bloodstream, surrounded in a wide metal chamber by more hard-carved men with guns, my shocked breath forced out in quick, bad spasms. I recognize Morales from the hospital—I could never forget that guy’s face, stone cold and dark. He’s wearing a military uniform now, sidearms bristling on his hips. The other men are backlit shapes against a wall-sized flat-screen monitor, which flashes a video strobe across the room.

  “Take it easy,” Heather says, calmly.

  I look at her, getting my breath back.

  “My legs . . .”

  It’s all I can force out.

  “Your legs are fine,” she says. “That bullshit about you being paralyzed, it’s not true. They had you on some kind of spinal block drug while you were in there. You’re having hell coming down off it, but you aren’t paralyzed.”

  I feel the tingle in my legs again.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I saw your charts, the real ones.”

  “What are—”

  “No time. Save it.”

  She motions to a big man in a high-ranking military uniform, who stands in front of a desk. He’s even scarier than Morales. His face is stitched with age and scars. Looks like he could kick Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ass. The huge screen behind the desk is filled with a computerized topographical map of the southwestern United States. A workstation there, where a tech manages computer interface, backlit like a faceless sentinel staring into a world of artificial dreamlight. A timer at the top of the screen reads three hours and counting backwards—in hours, in minutes, in seconds.

  It’s scary, but I’m not sure why.

  “Good work, soldiers,” the scarred man says to Heather and Morales. They half salute him in return, nodding their heads. His voice sounds like rough wood. Then he looks right at me. “Elroy Coffin.”

  I nod, like he was asking me a question, but he wasn’t. He takes two steps toward me, motions to the wall of monitors.

  And says:

  “Welcome to the end of the world, Elroy.”

  • • •

  He explains that his men were watching the hospital for days after I went in. They had people in the building, but those people had orders not to move on me until the bad guys did.

  It was a whole new scam. Of course.

  Surround me with lies about how I’ll never walk again. Get me so far down in the zero that I have no choice but to believe it. How many of those doctors were actors? How much of it was really bullshit? Some of them had to be on the level—like the nurse, who had no idea who Richard Sergio was. But they had her number. Fooled us all. They knew torturing me with drugs wouldn’t work—they had to be more original. And these guys were keeping watch the whole time. Disguised as cops, waiting to see what Jenison’s people would do to me, how far they would go. Bastards, all of them.

  I flex my legs.

  Tingling there.

  Just fine, after all.

  Holy shit.

  The scarred man sees the weight of his words slam into me as he explains the situation, sees my face contort and reshape itself in disgust, my shock at still being whole like a gut punch from hell. He steps closer and says:

  “We’re the good guys. Believe me.”

  I manage to find my voice again, and it’s rough. “How do I know that? How do I trust anything now?”

  “You saw our fleet on the front lawn, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, I guess I did.”

  “That’s half the air force and all the marines we could find. They’re standing by to attack a fortified position. My men have been given carte blanche to deal with our current situation.”

  “Okay . . . so who the hell are you?”

  My voice seems to sting him slightly. He narrows his eyes.

  “That’s strictly need-to-know, Mister Coffin.”

  Ah, so now it’s Mister Coffin again.

  Jerks.

  I give him the evil eye. “Then let’s say I need to know.”

  “Let’s say you need to shut your mouth and count your blessings.”

  “Colonel, we don’t have time for this macho crap,” Heather says. “He’s in really rough shape and has no idea what’s going on. We’re lucky he’s even still alive. You can at least tell him your name.”

  The scarred man snorts. “It’s a security risk. We still don’t have all the facts about this man.”

  She’s not impressed. “The facts are we’re running out of time, Colonel. Now do you want to fill him in or should I?”

  The big man keeps his big game on his face, nods slightly, like he’s humoring her. She has to have a high rank in this room—a lieutenant maybe? Only people with thick stripes get away with mouthing off like that to a colonel. And she was definitely in charge back at the hospital.

  She steps closer and lays it down calmly.

  “The men in this room and myself are all part of a special team. It’s kind of a mixed litter. Special Forces, Delta, Navy SEALs, Army Rangers—all members of the United States Special Operation Command, the best of the best.”

  “You’re the best of the best? I don’t doubt it.”

  She looks at me and her face is cold. I can almost hear her speak the words: I did what I had to do. You don’t have to like it.

  Then she says, out loud:

  “We don’t have time for this.”

  She motions to the big screen behind her.

  02:56:00

  “That’s how much time we have,” she says. “Do you understand what’s happening?”

  “Not everything . . . but I can make an e
ducated guess.”

  “Don’t ask questions and don’t make guesses,” the colonel says. “We don’t have time for that, either. We’re in the middle of a war and I need your help, son.”

  “I’ll do what I can, but—”

  “I said keep your questions to yourself.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now, first . . . how are you feeling? You’re not gonna pass out on us again, are you?”

  “I’m groggy. Took a pretty hard hit back there.”

  The colonel laughs. “No shit, son. Right in the noodle. Those were maximal bad guys we pulled you away from last night. A major firefight. Almost didn’t get you out.”

  Last night?

  He sees the question stab my face.

  “You’re in Wyoming now. The Francis E. Warren Air Force Base. My men brought you here by chopper.”

  “Wyoming . . .”

  The words float off into space, consumed by his.

  “Normally my bedside manner would be a little more sensitive, but we can’t stand on ceremony. Do you know what Resurrection is?”

  I shake my head slightly. I don’t know, not really. I’ve only been making educated guesses. He takes a step forward and pulls a great gulp of air before he lays it on me.

  And everything changes.

  Forever.

  • • •

  “Resurrection is a code name for an operation that’s been floating under the radar of the U.S. government for over forty years. They’re like ghosts. Have people everywhere. From street guys like you to places as high as Capitol Hill.”

  He lets the weight of his words roll across me.

  Then keeps on hammering.

  “Part of the objective of this operation was to subvert the tactical defense system grids currently in place across America—it’s all under the umbrella of something we call the Black Box. You know what that means, son?”

  “I know a little. I know it’s not about nukes, whatever they had planned.”

  “Correct. It’s about something a lot cleaner, but also a lot worse. Have you ever heard of the W79 Initiative?”