It landed with a clank that sounded terribly loud. Ellie waited, motionless. A minute later, with no further noise from inside the wall, she reeled in the hose inch by inch, rake scraping against the other side. Without warning, it snagged tight. She tugged and it held firm. She took a deep breath and swung free from the ladder.
She hit the wall with a soft thump. Heart thudding, she climbed hand after hand, shoes scrabbling the concrete face. She looked down and shouldn't have. Dee's upturned face looked very far away.
Ellie steeled herself and reached for the top of the roof. She'd taken off her gloves for better traction and her fingers scraped painfully over the gritty stone. She found a hold, hauled herself up, and straddled the lip. Seats lined the stands five feet below her.
She beckoned to Dee, who climbed the ladder, grabbed hold of the hose, and monkeyed her way up the wall. They lowered themselves to the seats below.
Crop-stubble poked from the snow carpeting the field. Ellie laughed soundlessly. They'd converted it into a farm. The bleachers had been ripped out and terraced with soil. Thin smoke trickled from each dugout, which had been closed in. Starlight glittered on the snowy grandstands that rose from the park like the Rockies.
Muffled footsteps moved above them. Ellie pulled Dee down beside her. In the tower overlooking the gap they'd climbed through, a silhouette moved to the fifth-story window and stared out at the silent grounds.
Ellie waited, motionless, until the figure left the window.
"It's too cold out here," she whispered. "They'll have them inside. You ready?"
Dee checked her pistol. "Let's go get our boys."
They rose together and descended into the darkness of Yankee Stadium.
29
Lucy learned that when you kill a president, just about everyone gets mad.
His guards yelped and went for their guns. The Kono went for theirs. A man in sunglasses pulled his pistol on her. Lucy blasted him with the umbrella's second round, then flung herself under the dead president's table. There, Ash's hand scrabbled for the gun on his hip. The president slumped over the padded booth, blood dribbling down the seat.
Guns went off, one after another. Men screamed. Bullets tore into her table, showering her with splinters. Ash's legs thrashed to get him away from the killing. He fired his pistol empty. The thunder in the room was so loud Lucy thought her ears would jerk themselves inside her head like a groundhog that's seen its shadow.
The gunshots stopped cold. A hairy arm reached under the table and grabbed her ankle. She tried to yank free, but it clamped harder, dragging her out. She curled toward it and bit down. The man swore, baritone, and rolled her out into the open. The president's bodyguards sprawled across the bar floor, blood soaking their sharp black suits.
Ash breathed hard, hair askew. "What the fuck was that?"
Lucy's shirt had twisted as the Kono goon hauled her from under the table. She tugged the hem into place. "I was negotiating."
"By murdering the President of Manhattan? Do you know how many federal soldiers are about to swarm this place?"
"None."
Ash ejected his magazine onto the floor with a thump. He slammed a new one home and whipped the pistol's slide closed. "Know what, I think you're right. Bill! Get me a platter. A silver one."
Hesitantly, a man rose from behind the bar. "Is this for real?"
"If we send the Feds this girl's head, there's a small chance they won't burn us out of the city."
"If that's how you want to play it," Lucy shrugged. "Or you could convince them to burn out Distro instead."
The violence in Ash's eyes went guarded. "You got three seconds to convince me you're not crazy. Then I take a very close and violent look at the exact shape of the madness in your head."
"That old dead bastard told us he was going to see Distro next. Seems to me he ought to complete his itinerary."
"We bring him downtown." Ash started slow, then the words piled out of him. "Dump him in their territory and set them up to take the fall."
"The Feds will be hot for blood," Lucy said. "Maybe you'd just brokered a deal with the prez there. You're just as outraged by his death as they are. Seems to you the Kono would offer your services to participate in a joint raid."
He swept his hair back from his forehead. "I've got a mole in City Hall. He'll feed them the right story."
"You'll need to move fast. Get the bodies in place and your story in the Fed's ear before Distro knows what's happening. I can tell you where they put their rooftop scouts. You could kill them and scatter the bodies around the Feds' to make it more convincing."
"You're crazy." Ash shook his head and laughed long and loud. "Completely out of control. And you know what? I like that a lot more than the President's bullshit deal." He gestured to the man with Lucy's toothprints in his forearm. "Lock her up."
"Huh?" Lucy said. "I thought we had a deal!"
"And until this little dream of ours comes true, I'm keeping you around as a last-ditch bargaining chip." Ash clapped his hands. "Let's move!"
The big man who'd grabbed Lucy motioned to the stairs. She sighed and climbed up to her room. Inside, the man set a chair six feet from hers and held his pistol in his lap. A woman came up to get the location of Distro's scouts from Lucy. She complied agreeably.
The woman left. Downstairs, people thumped around like the proverbial elephants. Minutes later, the limo engine gunned to life and grumbled down the street.
"What's your name?" Lucy said.
The big man had kept his eyes on her the whole time. "Why?"
"First off, I'm sorry I bit you. That's playground stuff. Second, if you wind up executing me, I want to know how to find you in Hell."
The man chuckled low. "Roger White. Do you really expect this to work?"
"The frame job?" Lucy scrunched up her nose. "I dunno. But I bet the federal crimelab is just a guy and some rubber gloves. If they find their commander-in-chief shot to shit surrounded by dead Distro, you think they're gonna wait to build a DNA tester before they get their vengeance?"
Roger shrugged. "Guess we'll see."
She guessed they would. She sat around a while, then stood. Quick as a jumping spider, Roger pointed his pistol at her head.
"Is it a capital crime to want something to read?" she said.
"I'm guessing this isn't in your nature, but try asking first." He set down his gun.
She grabbed the book about the man who got betrayed by his buddies and imprisoned but came back to stomp all over their asses. She probably ought to be worried, or scheming what to do if Ash failed the frame-up and came for her head, but she couldn't muster up the concern. The dice were thrown.
A couple hours later, a crowd of people thumped around the bar some more. Lucy continued reading. Hours later, with the overcast sky going dark, a tremendous cheer erupted from downstairs.
Lucy grinned. "Sounds like I've been pardoned."
Rhythmic steps climbed the stairs. The door cracked open. A delicate hand emerged and crooked a finger.
"Come on out," Ash said. "I owe you a drink."
Downstairs, Ash explained over his trademark shots of tequila. They'd driven the limo down to 34th, exterminated the nearby Distro lookouts, and tossed the bodies around the car, planting a shotgun on one. After dragging the President and one of his guards out to the pavement, they'd torched the limo, just to confuse things further, installed a couple soldiers in nearby apartments to keep an eye out for unwanted witnesses, and ran off.
According to Ash's mole, word of gunfire had gotten to the Feds within minutes of the frame job. The Feds didn't normally bother to check up on every single instance of gunplay, but given the time and the President's route, they'd dispatched soldiers on the spot.
"I meet with the Veep tomorrow," Ash grinned. "I think our mutual friends are about to get an eviction notice."
"I want in on the fight."
"You've really got it in for Nerve, don't you? If I ever shoot you, remind me to put
two in your head."
Before retiring to bed, she asked Bill the bartender for a snack of bread and butter. Upstairs, she wrapped the bread and stuck the butter in some Tupperware and packed it into her bag.
In the morning, Ash had already left to meet with the Feds. Lucy hung around downstairs, ears sharp for news. Plenty of Kono had witnessed the truth—hell, they'd participated in it—but Ash had sworn them to secrecy on pain of death. Those who hadn't been there largely seemed to believe the circulating story: Distro, under the belief the Feds were behind the raids on their coastal supply depot, had ambushed and assassinated the President. Now, they holed up in their tower, confident the government would be as impotent as it always was.
Ash rolled in that afternoon. He kept mum about the meeting, but ordered Bill to collect fresh ice from the courtyard. He drank his margarita with a smile.
Some news must have gotten out. As the afternoon transmuted into evening, Sicily got fuller than Lucy had ever seen it. Men and women packed shoulder to shoulder, drinking and chatting with a hivelike energy. At seven sharp, Ash strode behind the bar and lifted his hands. The crowd went silent.
"Last call's in one hour," he said. "Tomorrow, we go to war."
Inebriated cheers exploded from one end of the room to the other. Lucy grinned fit to split her face.
"Come early and come armed," Ash continued. "In twelve hours, we march. In 24, Distro will be done. And the city will be ours."
He bowed. As his troops hooted and hollered, he took a shot in each hand and downed them one after another. For the next hour, liquor flowed furiously to all corners of the room. At eight, as promised, Ash ordered everyone home. When some of them laughed, he drew his pistol and fired it into the ceiling. Lucy couldn't tell if that was Ash being Ash, or if he was more than average drunk.
Either way, the bar cleared out. Lucy had paced herself well and felt no compunction against chugging the last half of her beer. She waited for the crowd to thin, then climbed up the stairs.
"Hey," Ash said. "You."
She paused, hand on the wooden railing. "What's up, boss?"
He sauntered forward. "What's your deal?"
"How you mean?"
"Are you just in this for revenge? Or because you believe in something?"
She cocked her head. "Both."
He nodded, climbing the stairs until he stood just below her. He wasn't any taller than her and he had to look up. "So I get to have you around for a while."
"Think you're that lucky?"
"I make luck like a cobbler makes shoes." He moved onto her step, standing nose to nose. She was dead certain he was about to put the moves on her—and right after she'd concluded, for the fifth time, that he was gay—and she decided on the spot to go with it. He reached up and patted her on the cheek. "See you at the war."
He turned and jounced down the steps. Lucy wasn't sure if she should feel relieved or frustrated, but she had some fun dreams that night.
She slept patchily. Each time she woke, the window was the same amount of dark and quiet. A knock woke her for the last time. Still dark out, but she could hear people shuffling around in the snowy street. She swung her feet out of bed, went to the bathroom, and put together a light travel pack. She only needed enough food, water, and first aid gear to get her and Tilly to the Knickerbocker Country Club and the car she'd parked there. Felt like a lifetime had passed since she'd taken the camo Charger, but in reality, it had been right around two months.
In the bar, troopers ate breakfast and drank what Bill claimed to be genuine coffee. Some fortified themselves with stronger fluids. Ash didn't show up until the grandfather clock ticking behind the bar read 6:58. His people mustered outside to meet him. He didn't say a word, just took them in with a sweeping and bloodshot gaze, nodded, and headed south.
He'd put together a nice little army. Hard to get a good count while she walked in the middle of the irregular mass, but Lucy figured he had at least a hundred troopers, maybe half again that much. Must have pulled all his people from the park. Made a lot of promises. Distro wasn't long for the world.
Two hours into their relentless march down Broadway, they entered Times Square, and faced a uniformed federal force Lucy was surprised to see was just half as large.
Ash lifted his arm, halting his people, and crossed the broad street alone. From the other side, a man with short white hair and the craggy face of a Roman emperor detached from his soldiers. They met in the middle and shook hands.
Ash turned to his people. "This is General Dalton. He's got a few words. Respect them."
"Let me make this very clear." The general's voice boomed between a movie theater and a glitzy sports pub whose lights had long ago gone dark. "You are a militia operating under government purview. That means you are to follow orders. We will offer Distribution the chance to surrender. If they set down their arms and exit the building willingly, there will be no shots fired. Do you understand?"
The lines of Kono troops looked to Ash, who nodded. They followed suit.
"In the event they do not surrender," Dalton continued, "we will execute the plan. Have your people been briefed?"
"Of course." Ash glanced over his shoulder, mugged a comic whoops-face, and winked at the Kono.
"Very good. Let's move!"
The general jogged back to his men, who jogged in place, then fell in step around him. The Kono circled around Ash. He beckoned his division leaders closer, spoke quickly, and sent them back to the rank and file. The plan dispersed through the troops: the Feds would assemble on the entrances on 34th and 33rd. The Kono would cover the doors on Fifth Avenue and, once the Feds had achieved penetration, would provide the main thrust of the invasion, supported by the professional soldiers. With Distro's defense of the Empire State Building a "black box situation," that was as far as the strategy extended.
Lucy doubted Nerve and whoever else had taken over would surrender. Too arrogant by half. But if it came to it, she'd take the first shot herself.
The tiered tower threw its shadow over lesser edifices. A couple blocks away, the combined force split into three groups, with most of the Feds circling around to keep a block of buildings between them and the target until the final approach. Joined by General Dalton and a third of his troops, the Kono jogged to Fifth Avenue and slowed to a walk. There had been little chatter after Times Square, but it went dead now.
The Kono split into their divisions; they'd added a sixth to account for the new conscripts. South of 35th, they advanced in parts, with three divisions taking cover behind old cars while the others jogged down the street, took up position for themselves, and trained their rifles on the building while the others caught up. They cycled this way a quarter of a block at a time. The tower reached higher and higher until it seemed to be all that Lucy could see.
They crossed 34th and took up final position behind the cars lodged against the opposite curb. Fed soldiers moved into place along 34th. Powdered snow gusted down the vacant streets. Lucy got down behind a Jetta, swiped the snow from its trunk, and braced her rifle.
Soldiers set up with the shuffle of boots and the sneaky rustle of weapons. Somewhere, a bird twittered. Dalton left his men and walked to the middle of the street.
"I am General Dalton, commander of the Federal Army of Manhattan," he announced to the waiting tower. "We have arrived to accept the complete and unconditional surrender of the organization known as the Distribution, AKA Distro. Emerge at once, unarmed, and by law of the island—"
A single shot cracked from above. The general went silent, tipped back his head, and smacked to the ground like a dropped plank.
The street went so quiet you could hear the snow hissing over itself. Then every gun there ever was opened up on the tower. Feds and Konos hammered the building. Windows burst. Pebbled glass hailed into the streets. Smoke poured from the guns and the tower's walls. A squad of government soldiers broke from the safety of the cars and sprinted toward the brassy front doors. A few shots answered,
tufting the snow, knocking one trooper to the ground. The others pulled up along the building's face. Two soldiers swung around the doorframe, lobbed something through the shattered windows, and retreated tight against the walls. A pair of explosions crashed through the ground floor, gouting smoke into the street. Dust stained the snow gray.
Before it cleared, the soldiers flung a second round of grenades inside the lobby. They banged like a string of firecrackers. The Feds charged into the clouded lobby. Ash stood, shrieked like a castrati barbarian, and led the Kono in after them.
Bullets whined past Lucy, whacking into the pavement. She ducked her head and stumbled through the broken doors. Fed rifles flashed in the smoke.
"Clear!" one shouted. Others replied in kind.
Dust sifted to the marble floors. A handful of dead men lay in various states of blown-uppedness, but far fewer than had attacked Central Park. Across the lobby, a uniformed soldier jogged around the corner and beelined toward Ash.
"They've cut the elevators," the man said. "Everything's dead."
"Son of a god damn bitch," Ash said. "The stairs? What do you want to bet they're holed up at the very top of the building like complete assholes?"
"Could be bad. Doesn't take much to defend a staircase."
"We could siege the place. Starve them out." Ash wiped dust from his eyebrows. "But I don't want to have to walk all the way down here again. Let's start climbing and see what they've got."
The soldier nodded and returned down the hall. The mass of troops followed. They set up around the staircase door, rifles trained on it. The soldier moved to it, counted down, then flung it open and leapt to the side.
The door banged against the wall. Soldiers rushed inside. "Clear!"
Their feet rang on the steps. The Kono snaked inside in a thin line. Dozens entered before Lucy stepped through the door. Dark metal stairs zigzagged up beige brick walls. Electric bulbs shed dim light. Footsteps echoed above her. It smelled like sweat and must. Something racketed above them.
Reapers (Breakers, Book 4) Page 36
