by JJ Zep
He gave Kelly’s hand a faint squeeze. Her eyes fluttered open. “Chris?”
“No Kel, it’s me, Joe.”
“Is Chris here?” Kelly whispered, her voice hoarse.
For the briefest of moments Joe considered lying to her. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. “No Kel, he isn’t.”
A tear spilled from Kelly’s eye, ran down the side of her face. Joe blotted it away with his fingers. Kelly’s skin felt hot to the touch, as though she’d spent too much time in the sun.
“Where is he, Joe?”
“He’s alive Kel, the Corporation took him, but as far as we know, he’s –”
“Find him Joe. Bring him back to me.”
“Kel, I need to get you a doctor.”
“Find him,” Kelly insisted squeezing his hand, her grip surprisingly strong.
Joe was about to argue his point that right now the doctor was more important when he realized that the two objectives were not mutually exclusive. Chris was likely being held wherever the Corporation had set up their HQ. If they had a doctor, he’d probably be at the same location.
“I’ll find him for you, Kelly,” Joe said, but Kelly had slipped back into sleep.
He eased her hand out of his, laid it gently on the bed and stood up, turned towards Janet. “I’m going to get Kelly a doctor,” he said. “You just hang in there, keep her as comfortable as you can.”
Janet nodded. “And Chris? You told Kelly you were going to –”
“I’ll get Chris, too,” Joe said, and he knew that he could. He knew also that it was going to cost him his life. “Hooley!” he called out, turning away. “Where the hell are you? We need to talk.”
twenty nine
Something was going on. Something big, if the shouts and curses and boots pounding along the corridor outside were anything to go by. Chris shifted in the chair and worked at the cuffs again. No good, they were tight. He wasn’t getting out. “What’s going on?” he said to the soldier sitting in the chair opposite from him in the narrow room. “Some kind of an emergency?”
The man gave him a sour look and said nothing. Chris had been locked in the narrow room for over an hour, no doubt while Benson and Justine figured out what to do with him next. Ship him back to Pendleton, he figured. At least that’s what they were threatening if he didn’t give Joe up, and that wasn’t going to happen. Of course, he wasn’t going back to Pendleton either, not with Kelly and the kids left behind. Which meant he’d have to escape. How though? Even if he was able to get out of his bounds, past the guards and onto the street, even if they didn’t shoot him in the back as he fled, he’d still have to make his way back to the apartment building. There’d likely be soldiers on the streets, not to mention the Z’s.
The door suddenly swung open, giving him a brief view of soldiers rushing down the corridor, before Justine stepped through. “Take a break,” she said to the guard, “Go get yourself a crème soda.” She stood aside so that he could slip past her, then dropped into the chair and looked across at Chris, a vaguely amused expression on her face.
“How you doing, Chris?” she said.
Chris ignored the question. “How about you let me go, Justine, so I can look for Kelly and my kids?”
“Sure thing, soon as you tell us what we want to know.”
“Not that I’d tell you if I did know, but the truth is, I don’t know where Joe is.”
“Come now, Chris,” Justine said nonchalantly. “No ways a boy scout like Joe Thursday didn’t have an escape plan lined up just in case something like this went down. Which means he’s holed up somewhere. My guess is you know where that somewhere is.”
Chris did know, of course. He and Joe had had long discussions on the subject. Plan A had been to get out of the city via the closest bridge, the Triboro. Plan B, in case things moved too fast and they didn’t have time to flee, was to hole up on the maintenance level, the 16th floor. His guess, based on how quickly this whole thing had gone down, was that Joe and the others were hiding out there. Of course, he wasn’t going to tell Justine that.
“Knowing Joe, he’s probably over the river in Jersey by now, heading east.”
“I doubt that,” Justine said. “Joe Thursday strikes me as one of those ‘no one left behind’ types. He won’t leave without you.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that,” Chris said, and he genuinely hoped that was true, hoped Joe was far away from here, hoped he’d gotten everyone to safety.
Justine didn’t answer this time. Instead, she unzipped one of the pockets from her combat suit, retrieved a small black wallet and opened it. She held up its contents for Chris to see – an ampoule of clear liquid, a syringe, several needles, some of them alarmingly thick.
“You know what this is, Chris?”
“Gee Justine, I didn’t figure you for a junkie.”
Justine chuckled, withdrew the ampoule, held it up to the light. “This is a relic Chris. A crude truth serum that was popular in the days when Corporation agents still went around dressed like the Blues Brothers.”
“Aah,” Chris said. He was remembering an encounter back in Kentucky with a couple of those guys.
“Thing is,” Justine said, deathly serious now. “It doesn’t work worth shit. Not as a way of getting the prisoner to talk anyway. You want to know what it is good for?”
“Mouthwash?”
This time Justine didn’t laugh. “It’s good for inflicting pain, Chris. Believe me, 5-mils of this shit and you’ll be screaming for me to water board you instead.” She pushed the needle into the ampoule, held it there without withdrawing the plunger. “I’m going to ask you one last time, Chris. Where’s Joe Thursday?”
“I don’t know, Justine. And even if I did, no amount of your torture serum would make me tell you.”
Justine looked back at him, the attractive friendly woman of a few minutes ago replaced now by a hard-faced assassin. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Chris. I really like you and Kelly.” She withdrew the plunger, filling the syringe to the 5-mil mark then pausing, as if to contemplate. “Tell you what,” she said. “Seen as you’re such a tough guy. I’m going to throw in a bonus. It’ll probably kill you, but with this stuff, believe me, that’s a good thing.”
She drew more fluid from the ampoule, 10-mil, 15-mil, 20. Eventually, she withdrew the needle, held the syringe up to the light and admired it. “Last chance,” she said. “Sure you won’t change your –?”
There was a sharp rap cutting Justine off in mid sentence. She half turned as the door flew open and a young lieutenant stepped through.
“Begging your pardon ma’am,” the lieutenant said. “Colonel Benson needs to see you pronto.”
“Now?” Justine said. “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of an interrogation?”
“Sorry, ma’am. He said to tell you to come right away. No excuses.”
“What’s happened?” Justine demanded.
“Can’t rightly say, ma’am. Looks like we’ve got some kind of a problem with the Z’s.”
thirty
“Quit clucking and listen,” Joe said.
“I ain’t clucking,” Hooley said. “Just sayin’, in all the time I been acquainted with you, this is the most half-assed scheme you’ve ever come up with. And let’s face it, there’s been a few. What y’all talking about is suicide, pure and simple.”
“Maybe you’re right. But I don’t have time for finesse right now. We’re playing the odds and I figure this is the best shot we have. You in or you out?”
“Hell, I’m in,” Hooley said, not even pausing to consider his reply. “For Kelly, hell yeah, for Chris. Just saying there’s got to be another way. How about we all put our heads together and think this through.”
“We don’t have time,” Joe said. “Kelly either gets a doctor or she dies. That’s the equation. We’ve got something to trade for that doctor, and I say we trade it. My call.”
Hooley stood looking back at him, fingers rubbing at his chin, brow furrowed in con
centration. “What if they don’t go for it? What if they just decide to shoot me right there without so much as a howdy.”
“They won’t,” Joe said impatiently.
“But what if?” Hooley insisted.
“They won’t, simple as,” Joe said. “I know this Colonel Benson from back when he was a major. He’s a real soldier, unlike most of the clowns at the Corporation. He’ll take the deal if it benefits him, which it does. And then there’s Justine, whatever else she may be, she likes Kelly. She’ll want to help.”
“And Chris?”
“They may be holding Chris, but it’s me they want for their show trial. You make sure they understand. I’ll give myself up if they let Chris go and if they provide a doctor for Kelly. Those are my terms. Now, you ready? Cause time’s wasting.”
“I’m ready.”
“Good. Then I want you to think about something. Think hard. When you were up on the roof, looking through those binoculars. What direction were the Humvees headed in?”
“What direction? Hell, they was goin’ every which way but up. Pulling them Z’s this way and that. No rhyme nor reason to it far as I could tell.”
“Think Hooley. This is important.”
Hooley closed his eyes, his brow furrowed with concentration. “Well, there was a couple of vehicles headed east towards the Triboro, pulling a mess of Z’s with them, another couple headed west towards the Henry Hudson.”
“Uh huh.”
“But the main body, including all the supply trucks was headed on south, straight down Broadway, straight as piss.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yeah,” Hooley said, opening his eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure. Remember seeing them cutting across the intersection, moving at a fair clip.”
“They knew where they were going in other words,” Joe said. “City Hall, has to be. It’s the only building downtown that’s been maintained in any kind of workable order.”
thirty one
Marin Scolfield looked across the expanse of Battery Park and gave a contented smile. The vista before him was indeed beautiful. But it wasn’t the greenery, the frigid expanse of the bay or the orange-tinged twilight sky that impressed him. It wasn’t even the majestic Statue of Liberty, still rising defiantly from Liberty Island across the bay, still standing tall after all these years. No, what held Scolfield in thrall was the gathering of Z’s, more than he’d ever seen together in one place. They stood silently, shoulder to shoulder, unmoving, a hundred thousand of the things easily, covering every inch of parkland, clustered around that weird piece of spherical sculpture in the park. Their number stretched all the way back past Castle Clinton, back towards the shoreline, where the ferry that used to carry tourists to Liberty Island back in the day, lay canted on its side. A fair old breeze was whipping up over the bay, ruffling the rags clinging to the emaciated frames of the Z’s, giving them the appearance of a living tapestry.
“Is this it?” Alex said from the driver’s seat of the Humvee. “I thought there’d be more?”
“There are,” Scolfield said, making no attempt to keep the irritation out of his voice. Trust this bitch to put a negative spin on things. “Below.”
“Below?”
Scolfield nodded. “Bobo probably doesn’t even know it, but he chose a very space-efficient holding area. Battery Park sits on top of three major tunnels. Most of the Z’s have likely spilled over into the underground systems. I’d say there are three, four times this number.”
“So what are we waiting for?” Alex said. “Let’s get them moving.”
Scolfield said nothing, allowed himself a little self-satisfied grin that he knew would irritate her. It didn’t take long to raise a reaction.
“What?” Alex said. “What the hell’s so funny?”
“Well,” Marin said. “Remember you told me that Bobo is expecting a guest, some big shot from Pendleton?”
“Avery Grant?”
“Yeah, that’s him,” Scolfield said. “I figure we wait until the guest of honor arrives before we start our little party. In fact, ah yes, I think here he comes now. Listen.”
From the distance, faintly, then gradually going louder, came the sound of helicopter rotors slapping at the air.
***
By the time they got down to street level it was all but full dark. Joe looked along the frigid expanse of Columbus both left and right and saw no one, not a Z nor a human. Manhattan was a ghost town. The wind had picked up, slewing at a decent clip down the valley created by the buildings, cutting even through the parka he was wearing. He hurried along the sidewalk making his way towards Hooley’s old Ford.
“Son of a bitch!” Hooley said as they approached. “Son of a bitching Z’s ripped off both my side views.”
“Yeah well, you never used them much any way,” Joe said, coaxing a snigger from Ruby.
“Took me weeks to find the right ones too,” Hooley said, now standing with hands on hips, surveying the damage. “Sum bitches.”
“Tell you what,” Joe said. “When this is all over, I’ll get Otis Janks to take a look at it. Now can we get rolling? Time’s wasting.”
He turned towards Ruby. “Whenever you’re ready kiddo,” he said. But Ruby wasn’t paying attention. She was looking north along the road, her posture tense.
“Rube?”
“You smell that?” she said.
Joe scented the air and smelled nothing unusual.
“Y’all ready?” Hooley called from the cab as the engine roared into life. Joe raised a hand, stilling him.
“What is it, Rube?”
“Fire,” Ruby said.
Joe sniffed again and couldn’t pick up what Ruby smelled. He saw something though, an orange tinge to the darkness beyond Morningside Park. Something was burning back there, burning out of control.
thirty two
The helicopter hovered twenty feet from the ground and gently lowered itself to the tarmac of the mayoral parking lot, its massive rotors slapping at the air and stirring up a miniature snowstorm. Bobo Benson stood on the steps and took the blast of frigid air without flinching. He had bigger problems to worry about. This asshole Grant for one thing, coming down here before they were ready for him. And for another (perhaps even more serious) Dr. Payne missing in action when he needed her to administer his BH-17 shot. He was already a couple of hours overdue.
The helicopter settled on its wheels, the rotors gradually slowing, the door sliding open, Grant’s personal bodyguard spilling out to secure a perimeter. Then the man himself stepped out like a Messiah, a full-length mink coat over his black uniform. Grant did a sweep of the head that took in his surroundings. He seemed displeased with what he saw, reserving his most scathing look for Bobo. Then he started across the lot and up the stairs.
“Director,” Bobo said as Grant approached.
“I think you’ll find,” Grant said, ignoring Bobo’s outstretched hand. “That when I’m in New York, the correct title is governor.”
“Right,” Bobo said, turning on his heel without bothering to correct himself. “Let’s go through to my office.”
He entered the city hall building through the French doors, holding them slightly ajar to allow Grant to follow.
“I don’t mind telling you, Colonel,” Grant said from behind. “I’m none too pleased with how things have gone so far. I expected to see the Z’s shipped back north by now and work begun on repairing the barricades. I expected to see a census of the civilian population under way. Instead, I find a ghost town, the barricades down, plus an additional breach at the Lincoln Tunnel. I’m a less than happy camper, Colonel, less than happy.”
Bobo said nothing, didn’t bother telling Grant that, in terms of the mission plan, he still had 40 hours to carry out the tasks Grant was bitching about. An image suddenly flashed across Bobo’s mind, Grant lying on the ground with his belly ripped open, Bobo kneeling over him, his arm thrust into Grant’s abdominal cavity up to the elbow. He felt his fist close on Grant’s s
till beating heart, felt himself squeezing, the pulsing organ being ripped free, now withdrawn.
“Colonel!”
“Sir?” Bobo’s focus snapped back to the corridor, where he’d stopped outside the mayoral office. He felt dazed, confused. What the hell had just happened?
“I asked whether you’ve made any progress in tracking down Joe Thursday.”
“Not yet,” Bobo said, the second word disguised behind a dry hacking cough.
thirty three
Hooley piloted the Ford along the darkened expanse of Columbus Avenue until he reached the intersection with Broadway. Then he switched to that thoroughfare and continued south. He kept the truck to no more than fifteen miles an hour, partly because the roads were slushy and the Ford’s tires in less than pristine condition, partly because he expected a Humvee to pull out from one of the side roads and cut him off at any moment. Joe had told him to head south, to wait until they hit a roadblock and then to ask to be taken to see Colonel Benson. He was to tell them that he had information on the whereabouts of Joe Thursday. Hooley still thought this whole idea was crazy. He didn’t know a whole lot about these Corporation types but he trusted them about as much as he’d trust a coyote to watch over a chicken coop.
He was passing through Times Square now, the high-rise buildings towering on either side of the road like brooding sentinels, the streets eerily quiet, the swish of the pickup’s tires audible over the low thrum of its engines. Hooley stretched his hand behind him and slid open the panel in the back window. “Joe? You doin’ alright back there?”
