by Mark Wandrey
The fleeing man staggered but continued to run, if somewhat slower. Volant fired twice more; the first shot to the upper back and the second caught him in the pelvis and sent him to the ground. “He’s down,” Volant said and got to his feet, the SIG still held at the ready. “Go secure him,” Volant ordered. He could see the man was still alive and reaching into his coat pocket. Volant brought his weapon back up, thinking it was a gun, then he recognized it. “Oh fuck!” he yelled and spun. “Get down!” He dove behind the closest concrete barricade just as the bus exploded.
The shock wave picked up the portly agent and tossed him twenty yards where he landed in the well-worn Central Park grass. The shock wave stunned him, and the impact knocked the wind from him as debris from the bus rained down all around.
Volant groaned and rolled to his knees. His vision was swimming and he couldn’t hear a thing. With shaky hands he took inventory. There didn’t appear to be any missing parts. He moved to stand and searing pain made him stoop back over. Looking down he could see a piece of curved steel protruding from his stomach, blood dripping from its length. “Sloppy,” he admonished himself even though he couldn’t hear a word, “after all the terrorist training camps you’ve been through, you make a rookie mistake like that?”
He placed a hand on the metal object and gave it a tentative tug. He screamed. The pain was like nothing he'd ever felt, and it dissuaded him from any further attempt to remove it. This was one for the medics. From his knees he looked around and found his weapon, and just in time too. From around the crater of what had once been a city bus, poured dozens of poorly dressed commandos.
Many were empty-handed, but others carried rifles, pistols, or shotguns. One man even had a samurai sword. “I think we’ve lost containment,” he said to himself and managed with eye-popping effort to get back to his feet.
One of the invaders noticed Volant. The man pointed and shouted. Volant put him down with two rounds to the chest and began staggering toward the nearest trailer. A hail of shotgun pellets tore up the ground to one side and a bullet whizzed through his jacket on the other side. The compact Sig found the shotgun-wielding man, a huge guy that required three shots to put down. Then he dropped a wild-eyed woman who had shaved herself bald and was racing at him with a pair of vicious-looking daggers. She tried to get up and Volant put one more into her face, blowing the top off her bald head.
He was drawing attention now and rounds bounced all around him. Volant fired in rapid order, hitting someone with each shot. Basic agent’s training drilled in the skill to count rounds as you fired. As the last round went out, and the slide locked closed, he was ready.
With no time for finesse, he swapped the gun to his left hand, thumb tripping the ambidextrous magazine release. The stainless steel mag dropped away as Volant’s other hand reached around the back of his belt and snagged one of the two full ones carried in a holder there. With a move practiced a thousand times over the years, the magazine found the opening in the gun’s butt as if it had a mind of its own. With one smooth motion it slid home and the slide release was tripped to fly forward, stripping the first round to load the chamber. He fired point-blank, killing a guy coming at him with a double-headed ax.
The same hand that had supplied the new magazine reached into his pocket and produced his holdout gun, a Smith & Wesson model 640-3 .357 magnum. The gun was made for police backup and was hammerless.
It took only two seconds to finish reloading and he did it as he surveyed the flowing crowd, looking for the best targets. The Smith & Wesson held only six rounds, and he had no reloads for it. He still had one more thirteen round magazine for the Sig. Thirty-two shots, he thought, as part of the crowd split off and headed toward him. “I’m dead,” he said and raised both guns.
Running was not an option, not with several inches of steel embedded in his stomach. It was sheer agony just to stand fully upright. His only chance was to hold his ground until reinforcements arrived.
His armed resistance had already left six dead on the ground. The nearest group was hesitating, unsure how to handle their first obstacle. Volant had already spotted one man who held an expensive and probably new MP-5 machine gun. He fired his Sig and shot the man dead with one shot, then started marching in that direction. “Kill the pig!” a man screamed from somewhere, and suddenly there was gunfire everywhere.
Volant held both weapons at arm’s length, firing one then the other. A guy with a baseball bat had half his face blown away by the booming Smith & Wesson while the Sig dropped first a housewife wielding a machete then a sailor still in his smart white uniform who held a single-shot rifle as if he had no idea how to use it. Four men dressed in gang colors rushed him fast and low, all firing handguns. Volant felt the warmth of a bullet pass his cheek just as another bit into his leg. The pain was nothing compared to his stomach. He leveled his guns and put the four ’bangers down with three more rounds from the Sig Sauer and two from the Smith & Wesson.
One man had come in from the side while he was occupied with the gang members and made a diving leap at his waist. Volant brought the heavy Smith & Wesson down on the man’s face, ripping flesh and breaking bones. When he cried out in pain and stabbed at Volant with a bayonet, the Smith & Wesson finished the job. He continued to move forward and used the last round from the Smith & Wesson on a man so obese Volant was surprised he could walk. The gun went into his waistband and he swapped the Sig back to a two-handed grip.
Infuriated by the casualties they were taking, the crowd began to turn on him in mass, at least twenty strong. Volant marched right into them firing steadily. “One shot, one kill”, he vowed. The count reached thirteen and he had a magazine ready for the Sig, this time reloading in less than a second. Shoot, step, shoot, step, he moved at them with single-minded intensity. By the time the crowd reached him, he had killed eleven of them and broken their will to fight. The other nine turned and fled. He shot three of them in the back before the Sig locked empty a final time. He had no more reloads for the handgun, but now he'd reached his objective.
Volant cried in searing agony as he bent over and snatched up the MP-5 machine gun and the bag the dead man had been carrying over his shoulder. The crowd poured into the camp and he became the center of attention. They knew he wasn’t one of them. Another group charged in screaming.
In his career he’d handled just about every type of firearm made and knew them by feel. Volant searched the weapon’s receiver with his hands and found what he had hoped for. The previous owner was a fine connoisseur of firearms and had paid top dollar for an illegal weapon. Volant flipped the lever he’d found and racked the bolt back. A loaded bullet flew by his peripheral vision telling him it had already been loaded. He didn’t bother aiming, just held it against his hip and opened up.
He needed space to work, so he swept the gun back and forth like a fire hose. The machine gun spoke in one long, ragged burst, spending what Volant guessed to be half of the thirty-round magazine and sending a half-dozen of the screaming attackers spinning. A dozen or more were only steps away from him. Volant cut loose again but with more discipline. He fired one after another three-round bursts into groups of the charging men and women. They came closer and closer to him, their faces twisted into a terrifying twisted image of fanatic rage. His off hand had already found a fresh magazine from the shoulder bag and as the current one ran empty he swapped them. “This is how it ends,” he thought as they rushed him. He flipped the bolt release to load the new magazine and held the trigger down.
Volant screamed a visceral battle cry as all thirty rounds burned from the weapon in a long, horrendous burst. The gun jumping against his hip sent jolts of agony through his wounded stomach. As the MP-5 ran empty, he rammed the smoking barrel of the gun into the face of the first man who reached him, and then the world exploded.
An invisible force picked him up and tossed him through the air. He had a single upside down glimpse of the hydrogen fuel cell power trailer turned into a miniature mushroom
cloud before the ground came up and slapped him.
The whole of central Manhattan was alive with the wail of sirens. September 11th 2001 lay more than a decade in the past, but hearing explosions and thick smoke in the sky brought it all back with stark clarity for many New Yorkers.
Lt. Harper had been a teenager in New Jersey the day the towers came down, and like millions across the nation, he watched on TV as they fell. Then, with his fellow New Yorkers, he drove to the East River and stared at the smoking hole in the NY skyline in numb horror.
Eight years with the NYPD and he had never heard a general call on the radio. Over the last five years the radio had become increasingly silent as much of the police traffic was handled over cell phones and the police data network. He and about a thousand other officers had all looked up in shock a few minutes ago when the radio suddenly broadcast a general call; "Calling all units in or around the Central Manhattan district. Shots fired, officers down, automatic weapons and explosives are in use. U.S. Army units on the scene in Central Park, North Meadow are under assault by a force of unknown terrorists. All available units are ordered to respond!"
He had been only ten blocks away, questioning a Korean shopkeeper, victim of a recent robbery. Harper had stared at the radio in his pocket for a second before turning and running for his car. The shopkeeper yelled something in Korean, but Harper was already sliding behind the wheel of his cruiser and pealing away with a squeal of tires.
As he wove in and out of the traffic, his siren screeching, he responded to the call on his car computer. Although he was still more than five blocks away he could hear the carnage even over his roaring engine and siren. The rattle of gunfire, the intermittent boom of explosions, the screams and cries of panicked people pouring down the streets in the other direction all waited for him. He was forced to slow below twenty miles per hour to avoid the crowd. Soon more sirens joined his, mostly fire trucks and ambulances falling in line toward Central Park. Two blocks from the park the aid vehicles stopped. They would go no farther until the gunfire ceased.
Harper fell in with two other police cars, and they picked their way around abandoned cars and taxis. Just before they reached Central Park West, a pair of soldiers moved into the street and blocked their way. The three police cruisers emptied onto the street and confronted the soldiers. Harper was the senior officer so he went forward to talk to the men. “Halt,” he was warned, “this is a combat zone.” As if to punctuate the statement, a bullet winged off a car nearby. All five cops instantly crouched down but the soldiers took almost no notice. Gunfire was steady and rapid from inside the park only a block away.
“It sounds like you need all the help you can get. Let us through, corporal.”
“No sir, I have my orders.”
“And we have ours. I’m a police lieutenant and you are a corporal. I outrank you. They need help in there and you are standing in the way.”
“You’re not an army lieutenant.”
“And that matters how? Your own lieutenant, how many years’ service does he have?”
“He’s fresh out of West Point, about a year older than I am.”
“Well, I’ve been fighting the good fight on these streets for over eight years. Now get the hell out of the way!” The soldier thought about it for a second. Then a group of three soldiers came staggering down the road from the park. All of them had multiple gunshot wounds and could barely walk. “Ambulances are one block back that way,” Harper told them and sent the youngest of the five patrolmen to help the injured back to the aid crews.
The corporal looked at Harper again and said, “Sorry I delayed you, sir. Go right ahead.”
“Good call. Keep your eyes open.” Harper took just enough time to pop his trunk and grab his shotgun, flack vest, and ammo bag while the others cops did the same. He wished one of them had been part of a tactical unit. It would have been nice to have an automatic weapon. He abandoned any thought of relieving the soldiers of their M-4 rifles. He wasn’t qualified to use one and didn’t want to leave the young men unarmed anyway. They left their cars in the street, no cars would be coming any farther, and set off at a jog toward the park. As they crossed the last street, they found a war zone.
The small town of temporary buildings was under siege from all directions. Gunfire roared from street level, from moving and parked vehicles, and even from the buildings overlooking the park. The soldiers fought from behind concrete barricades, pouring out withering fire. But it was the dozens of individual snipers far up the surrounding skyscrapers or hidden in the park foliage that were doing the real damage. In the few seconds they took to get the feel of the situation Harper saw two men go down. “This is fucking insane!” he yelled over the weapons fire.
“Where did all these terrorists come from?” asked one of the other cops. An instant later a bullet caught him in the shoulder and sent him spinning to the ground.
“Take cover!” Harper ordered, dragging the wounded man behind an abandoned FedEx delivery truck pockmarked with dozens of bullet holes.
“Surrender and you may leave,” yelled a voice behind them. Harper turned to see three men of different ages, all wearing street clothes. If you saw them together in a crowd you wouldn't look twice, but these three were all pointing guns.
“NYPD! Place your guns on the ground! You’re under arrest!” demanded one of the men with Harper, a sergeant with nearly as many years as he had. The sergeant already had his sidearm out and was raising it to cover the suspects when one of them shot him through the head at point-blank range. There was no warning, no justification, no hesitation. One second the sergeant was kneeling there, and the next he was dead.
“Freeze, drop the gu-” another of the men went down as Harper and the last man made their move.
These people weren’t going to play by the rules. They had just murdered two police officers in cold blood. Harper brought up his shotgun and fired from the hip. The Remington 870P 12-gauge unleashed its double 00 buckshot, nearly cutting the first man in two. The patrolman next to him fired his Glock at least five times into one of the other murderers, killing him instantly. The last attacker tried to shoot Harper and missed him by a wide margin. Harper racked the shotgun’s pump and shot the man in the stomach, doubling him up and dropping him to the ground. Harper stepped forward and covered the groaning man with the shotgun, his mind spinning in shock from the brutal exchange. “Don’t move!”
“We will take it back!” the man gurgled and spit blood.
“Take what back?” Harper gestured and the patrolman stepped forward to cuff the man.
“The Portal of the Avatar! You cannot keep it from the faithful! You will all die!” The patrolman moved in to secure him, kicking the man’s pistol away. But he didn't think to search the assailant. He was lying there in agony, his intestines spilling out on the sidewalk and blood everywhere. As the patrolman bent to cuff him, the man produced a butcher knife and stabbed him in the neck. The patrolman staggered back, blood spraying from his neck and the perp struggled to his feet. He had to use a hand to hold his intestines in. He stumbled for another target for his fanatical rage, Harper shook his head in disbelief and stepped back to avoid the clumsy lunge.
“You must die so that the Avatars may return; it is written in the Bible!” He stumbled toward Harper, narrowly missing him. Harper swallowed and pulled the trigger, blowing the man’s head into bloody pieces.
“God damn you!” Harper cried, dropping to his knees to help the stabbed patrolman. What could he do? Harper tried to stem the flow of blood, but it was already beginning to slow. The sidewalk looked like a butcher shop. He smashed his fist against the blood-splattered concrete in rage. Then he shouldered the shotgun and headed into the park. The only thing that kept him going was his duty.
Osgood had just stepped from the lunch wagon when the first shots were fired. He ignored it. This was New York City; gunfire was not an unusual occurrence. Then there were even more shots, followed by automatic weapons fire. With a gr
owing sense of dread he knew something was deathly wrong. The alarm sounded and the soldiers who until now had been nearly invisible began appearing out of the woodwork.
“Someone is attacking the compound. Get into a secure area!” Mark Volant had snarled as he raced by, his portly frame running toward the violence like a moth to a flame. Osgood didn’t need any more encouragement and did as he was told. He ran toward one of four squat, concrete domes that had been built to protect against a catastrophe during testing of the alien Portal. As he ran, an occasional bullet bounced off the structures around him, urging him to a pace he didn’t know he was capable of.
He was relieved to see almost all of his scientific staff crowded into the armored building, but less thrilled to see that many of them still carried clipboards and instruments. “What were you doing when it started?” he asked the most senior technician present.
“We had a particle emitter up and running to see what kind of bounce we would get.”
“Did you get it shut down?”
“No, a couple grunts came through and chased us out.”
Osgood scowled. That particle emitter was a dangerous piece of equipment with few safeties. It was designed to be closely monitored while in operation. Left unattended it could overheat, increase its power output dramatically or even explode. Who could say how the Portal would react to an uncontrolled particle bombardment?
“We need to get over there and shut that thing down,” he told the assembled scientists and technicians. “Who’s coming with me?” He was underwhelmed by the response. “None of you?” They looked at the ground, the walls, each other, anything but Dr. Osgood. “Okay, we’ll do it the hard way. You, you, and you,” he said, pointing out three able-bodied men at random. They all looked shocked, though none of them complained out loud. They had been taking orders from him for weeks now. A bullet bounced off the reinforced concrete bunker making the huddled people cry out in fear.
