Second Activation (The Activation Series Book 2)

by Darren Wearmouth

  “Are you sure about Martina?” I said. “She’s been an important part of the operation for years and obviously knows Anthony and Jerry.”

  “I’ve been with her every day since I split with you guys. I know her; she’s serious about it.”

  “What about HQ?” Jack said. “Are we just doing their job for them? Do we need to really do this?”

  “You know there’s nothing guaranteed in this world.”

  “If your HQ doesn’t show up,” I said, “we’ll end the local team tonight.”

  The final words stirred something inside of me. From a hopeless situation a few hours ago, we had been handed a new lease on life.

  Lea smiled. “Thanks, guys. I knew if I reached out, you’d be able to help.”

  “What about afterward?” Jack asked.

  “We’re planning to move south, down to Florida.”

  “Living in fear?” I said. “Lea, I want to survive too, but we’ve seen enough shit recently to give us another purpose. If we want any kind of a society, we need to take the fight to GA on a grander scale.”

  “Do you think it’s possible to get away from these people?” Jack added.

  She checked her gun and started to walk away. “We can talk about this if we pull it off tonight. I need to get back. See you at ten?”

  “We’ll be at City Island dock,” Jack said. “Make sure you are.”

  “One last thing, Lea,” I asked. “Why are some people acting so weird? I mean, way beyond the weirdness of killers?”

  She looked over her shoulder. “There are all kinds of aftereffects, apparently. One of the techs said there’s been a high error ratio in the software. Don’t ask me to explain.”

  With that, she jogged away and disappeared from view, back toward the factory entrance.

  “I’m looking forward to this,” Jack said. “We’ve got a chance to settle a few scores here.”

  “Can’t say I’m that convinced,” I said. “We can go with it for now, but something tells me this isn’t as straightforward as she’s telling us.”

  “What about Morgan?” Jack asked. “I knew we couldn’t trust him, but I didn’t expect him to go running to GA.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me. Let’s hold off the celebrations until we get this thing done.”

  I could understand Jack’s excitement, but Lea seemed hesitant, and her association with Genesis Alliance over the last few days deeply concerned me. From what she’d said, they were also in disarray, and desperate people do desperate things. I remembered the picture of Martina with Anthony from his house in Hermitage, and that she had the launch codes. What did we really know about her motives?

  We moved away from the factory. I slipped into the Ravel Hotel back on Queens Boulevard and took a local map from the reception desk. A man and woman lay next to a pair of suitcases in the lobby, surrounded by shattered glass.

  The most sensible route to Flushing Meadows, avoiding Elmhurst, was cutting through Astoria, past La Guardia airport, straight to the stadium. The main routes were mostly cluttered with vehicles, giving us plenty of cover and places to hide if we noticed anything unusual.

  An elevated steel structure ran above us on 31st Street, supporting a railway track. We walked under it, and I noticed it needed maintenance and repainting. Without protection, the steel would corrode and fail. I wondered how long the city had left before it started to collapse. Bursts of automatic gunfire rattled in the distance for around a minute.

  “Do you think that’s GA at Bernie’s?” Jack asked.

  “Could be any number of things. We’ll have to be careful at the stadium. I wouldn’t be surprised if they decided to go back to find out what happened to their guys.”

  We reached Tribora Plaza and headed in an easterly direction, soon joining the Grand Central Parkway. On our right, we passed St. Michael’s Cemetery; loving headstones formed neat rows. On the road outside, the dead lay scattered around in random formations. The juxtaposition changed from death and life to respectful and profane.

  A short distance along the parkway we passed La Guardia Airport. Two planes were parked at angles on the runway; both had their slides deployed. Lea had arrived on one of them from Detroit. The terminal building windows glinted in the midday sun. We left JFK burning to the ground.

  “Down,” Jack said.

  He crisply indicated to our front. I crouched and looked under and around the vehicles to see if I could spot any hidden killers. In the Army, we were taught not to point, but to use a flat hand when indicating direction. I had slipped out of the habit long ago, but Jack often did it.

  A cat hopped onto a car’s hood around fifty yards ahead of us and licked its paw. I lowered my rifle and continued forward, swept around a bend to the right, then crossed back on to Shea Road and stopped short of Flushing Meadows.

  I leaned against a tree, took a package of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups out of my backpack, and tossed one to Jack. Its black paper tray fluttered to the grass, but he caught the important part and stuffed it in his mouth.

  “Straight in and out of here,” I said. “I hate the idea that GA have been all over this place in the last couple of days.”

  “If they came by boat and they’re now in Elmhurst, maybe we can ambush them. Take half of the crew out early.”

  “Let’s follow Lea’s plan. We want them sweating about their Headquarters. Let’s not give them a sniff that we’re planning to strike Hart Island.”

  Due to Morgan’s cleanup operation around the stadium, there were limited hiding places for killers and goons. Most corpses from the second activation were recognizable. As much as his death had stirred little emotion inside me, I still had grudging respect for his work here. We followed the same route we had before: through the fire door, up the stairs, and straight to the storeroom.

  I grabbed the grenades and stuffed half of them into the top of my pack. Jack cleared some space in his, putting in chocolate and water, and placed more grenades into his bag. They looked like the British fragmentation type, with a pin and a timer.

  I grabbed a pair of binoculars and two fully loaded Glocks, and dropped the cattle prod.

  “A couple of those goons on the court looked roughly our size,” Jack said. “Saves us a shopping trip. I’d rather get to our pickup point early.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said.

  After observing the arena from our corporate suite, we headed down to the playing area. The three GA corpses still lay in the positions where they’d fallen, among members of the company. I judged the corpse by the net as the closest fit to me. Rigor mortis had set in, and I couldn’t maneuver the clothes from his stiff body. Using my knee as a brace on his chest, I snapped his arms over his head and freed the sweater. The cargo pants came off more easily, and I swapped my clothes. I grimaced when I pulled the sweater over my head. This man had a serious body odor problem. I rubbed my fingers across a light-blue embroidered GA logo across my left breast. I couldn’t understand the point of branding their uniforms if they were the only formal group left on Earth.

  Jack squeezed his finger through a small bullet hole in his sweater. “These should do the trick.”

  “I’d put on a Newcastle United shirt if it meant a chance to kill Anthony,” I said.

  Jack smiled. “Come on, Harry. Don’t exaggerate.”

  Newcastle United were the rivals of our football team, Sunderland, and such an action would previously have been seen as sacrilege. I would never get to feel the pure adrenalin rush of the ball smashing in the back of Newcastle’s net again. Too bad; it was better than any commercially available drug.

  Getting to City Island unseen in broad daylight looked impossible by car. The island had a single road leading to it, which posed obvious problems. We’d easily be seen if anyone watched the route or indeed used it at the same time we approached. City Island shielded Eastchester Ba
y from Hart Island; the obvious solution was to take a small boat across Eastchester Bay under the cover of darkness, but we’d have to move quickly to make our meeting time. The plan was to head just north of Throgs Neck Bridge and find a suitable vessel. We’d land on the west side of City Island and make the short journey across the place on foot to the boatyard next to the cemetery.

  Confident we had a workable solution and time to implement it, we took a pair of mountain bikes from the locker room and headed off.

  Robert F. Kennedy Bridge ended up being an impassable mangled mess. The railway crossing to our right still stood, so we crossed through a park, carried the bikes along the tracks, and rejoined our planned route on the Bruckner Expressway, which led very close to an ideal coastal launch point. I needn’t explain the state of the roads. The carnage was standard fare.

  As we passed through Soundview, two explosions boomed in the distance, followed slowly by a rising cloud of thin black smoke from the Queens area.

  “I hope that’s GA,” Jack said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because it means they’re miles away from us.”

  Jack’s conduct and general mood had continually improved since we’d left Monroe. I think something clicked inside of him after spending hours in the pit. It focused rather than disturbed him, and he had that old look of steely resolve in his eye. Determination had overridden his worrisome temper. I shared his optimism.

  I recalled the importance of the Allied victory at the Battle of El Alamein, when Sir Winston Churchill said, “Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat.”

  I was hoping we’d be able to say the same thing about Hart Island and Genesis Alliance. The war would be far from over, but it could be a crucial first victory and a turning point. Without the threat of GA locally, we could gather an army and continue fighting. I believed Headquarters was only here to deal with the Monroe goons’ incompetence. They wouldn’t stay forever.

  A lone voice repeatedly shouted from a park on our left as we passed Schuylerville. I couldn’t see anyone in the long swaying grass and didn’t feel the need to investigate. We knew from Lea that other areas had had a different kind of second activation. New York would be a poor recruiting ground in the future, but we’d have our revenge for that tonight.

  We exited the parkway, past a tired old sports field on our right, and headed down Ampere Avenue. An Italian restaurant had a smashed front window, and a moldy flap of pizza hung from a jagged shard. A red brick church had “Save Our Souls” painted on its open green door, and six of the houses were burnt to blackened block shells.

  A sparkling bay greeted us at the end of the road. Water lapped the hulls of twenty boats, secured to moorings in the marina. I felt confident we’d get one working and gazed over the water to the houses dotting the coastline of City Island.

  I peddled to the marina entrance and propped the bike against a car. My thighs felt stiff from the exertion, but in a good way. Exercise has a positive effect on me. I’d heard it had to do with endorphins being released in the body. They sounded like sea creatures to me.

  Jack made his way to a sleek white Sunseeker with a corpse slumped over the stern. I scanned five ubiquitous wood-clapboard houses overlooking the boats. Satisfied there were no signs of immediate danger inland, I fished out the binoculars and surveyed the bay.

  The boat’s engine rumbled into life, and water bubbled from the back of it.

  “We’re in business,” Jack called.

  I hopped onto the wooden decking at the back. “Clear out here. So far, so good.”

  Inside, the Sunseeker felt luxurious. It had a small recreational area with white leather seats and polished chestnut tables and cupboards. We avoided the temptation of a stocked mini bar, although I slipped two whiskey miniatures into my pocket for a post-operation drink. A small internal staircase led to a raised cockpit. From here, through slightly pink-tinted windows, we had a good view of our evening route.

  During the last hours of daylight, only a single vehicle flicked in and out of vision along the route, heading onto the island.

  At eight in the evening, when darkness enveloped the bay, Jack fired up the engine, and we drifted away from the marina. I’d taken a compass bearing that would lead us to the center of the western shoreline, which looked to be a mixture of pontoons that lined a long beach. We planned to ground on the sand.

  Jack increased the throttle as we broke into the free water, and the Sunseeker cut through dark shadows of vessels at anchor. He kept a steady course and headed for the black silhouette of City Island. After ten minutes, with the island looming large, our hull crunched against land and slid to an abrupt halt several yards short of the shore. Without hesitating, we left the cockpit, jumped from the side of the boat into waist-deep water, and waded to dry land, with our rifles above our heads.

  I led us straight to Bay Street, past the dark shapes of previously expensive large properties.

  A figure moved to our front.

  “Cover,” I whispered.

  We ducked into a front garden and hid behind two large tropical trees.

  A woman stumbled between two houses in a nightgown.

  She shuffled stiffly in our direction, holding her arms rigidly by her side, palms open and fingers spread. She closed in on our position. Moonlight reflected off her pale face, staring vacantly ahead.

  A dark stain splashed across the front of her nightgown, which stuck to her stomach. Probably blood. She moaned and wailed in low tones.

  We edged around the trees as she made her way past us. When she reached the end of the road, she turned around and started making her way back up the street. I checked my watch. We still had twenty minutes.

  “Cut across to another street,” I whispered. “It’s like a grid system here, so we won’t get lost in the dark.”

  “Looks like she’s on another planet.”

  “Just another one of GA’s victims.”

  The woman shuffled past us again, up the street and back between the two houses from where she’d first appeared.

  “It’s like she’s walking a circuit,” Jack said.

  “Perhaps it’s all she knows. I’m not waiting for her to come back.”

  He nodded and we moved purposefully down William Avenue and turned right on Tier Street in the direction of the boatyard. Within five minutes, we arrived. Adrenalin pulsed through my veins at the thought of our imminent attack and facing Anthony and Jerry again.

  “Last chance for a weapons check,” Jack said.

  I quietly tested the working parts of my rifle, took the Glocks out of my pack, and handed one to Jack. “Hopefully, we won’t be needing these.”

  The moment had finally arrived.

  10

  We had two hundred and forty rifle rounds between us and planned to take single aimed shots unless things got out of hand. The Army had taught us to make every shot count, to only spray if you could afford to or if the situation was desperate at close quarters and there was no other way. I felt confident in our ability to fire under pressure and calculated that we had more than enough ammo, if Lea’s numbers were correct.

  “We’ll rendezvous at the pontoon on Hart Island if we get split. Our secondary RV will be the boat we arrived on, okay?”

  “Got that. What if one of us . . .” Jack trailed off.

  “If one of us gets wasted, I’ve got a feeling we’re both screwed.”

  “I’d hunt GA until my final breath.”

  I admired his sentiment and would probably do the same thing, but we didn’t need our minds clouded by depressing thoughts. I preferred to think of our mission as the starting gun for the destruction of Genesis Alliance.

  “Let’s not think about it just yet. Anthony seemed capable. We take him first if we can.”

  “He’s my number-one target. Don’t worry
about that.”

  I looked over to Hart Island and noticed a dim light.

  “Still no sign of their HQ,” I said. “Reckon it was a scare story to keep them in line?”

  “I think it’s way more than that,” Jack said.

  We waited between two dry-docked vessels. Jack rapidly tapped his right boot on the ground, a sign of his nerves and excitement. After fifteen minutes, the buzzing noise of an engine drifted over the water.

  “Here we go,” I said.

  A small boat split the moonlit waters, coming from the direction of Hart Island, leaving a disappearing white trail behind it. Its engines whined in reverse, and it stopped at the end of a long wooden pontoon.

  A single figure jumped off the boat, quickly secured it with a thick rope, and walked toward the yard.

  “It’s her,” Jack said as Lea got closer.

  I stepped from between the boats. She flinched and reached toward her hip holster.

  “Weren’t expecting to see us?” I said.

  “I didn’t expect you to be waving flags,” she said. “You can’t be too careful.”

  “Are we good to go?” Jack asked.

  “We’re good to go, but we need to hurry. There’s only one guard on the island. Jerry, Anthony, and Martina are in the control room. They’re preparing a presentation for Headquarters.”

  “A presentation?” Jack repeated.

  “They’re coming up with ways to justify the delayed activation and the Manhattan device configuration. Anthony’s made up quite a back-story for you two. HQ got in touch with them this afternoon. They’re heading this way and might be here in a couple of hours.”

  “No time to hang around then—straight in and out,” I said. “Where’s the guard?”

  “He’s outside the control room. We’ll be able to walk right up.”

  “Are you sure? You left on your own but return with two people?” Jack said.

  “Who will they expect it to be? You casually walk right up, in the dark. Before they realize”—she made a two-fingered pistol gesture with her right hand—“Paw!”