“Ma’am, if we do flag them down, I’m worried they won’t be able to defend you. I have no idea why an unarmed helicopter is flying around the city, but we can’t forget about the drones and men on the ground still searching for us. He might be trapped here, like we are.”
“You’re suggesting we keep ourselves hidden,” she said matter-of-factly.
“It’s an option… Though I’ll be honest with you, your safety is in jeopardy either way.” He tugged at the rifle sling on his shoulder, as if to remind them both they were still armed, but once in the air, their little weapons would be nearly useless.
The Seahawk helicopter made its turnaround at the far end of the park and the whump-whump bark of the rotors got closer again.
Emily sighed. “It’s a risk, but if this is with the carrier, or any of our ships out in the Atlantic, it might be the lead scout coming back to America. We have to signal them that we’re here, even if we decide not to board.”
“Talk to them?” he said with surprise.
She nodded, still watching the helicopter getting closer. “If we climb aboard and don’t like it, we still have our rifles to order them to let us back out.”
“I can board first to check it out. Yeah, that might work.” Ted ran to the front edge of the high-rise building. The helicopter approached along the left border of the park and was about to turn around.
He pulled the pin from the fire extinguisher and gripped the handle. She came up next to him and together they watched the Seahawk approach. It was two hundred feet in the air, about the same altitude as them. He figured they couldn’t have asked for a more perfect signal scenario.
“Now!” he said to himself. He aimed down so it would stand out against the windows below him. As the helo passed within a couple of hundred feet, he unloaded the whole five pounds in one long blast. The smoke-like retardant billowed into a large white cloud below them.
They waited for a few seconds as the pilot finished his turn and started for the far side again. At first, it looked like they’d been missed, but the aircraft turned left again, cutting its loop short.
“That did it,” Ted breathed out with relief. “I’m gonna—” He cut himself off when he saw another airframe in the distance. A Predator had come into the city and was now at the far end of Central Park. The helicopter might have been staying low inside the confinement of the urban nature preserve, but it wasn’t invisible. Someone had found his hiding spot. “A Predator is coming.”
He pulled her back from the edge, tossing the spent canister on the ground.
“You said those weren’t built for air-to-air, right?”
“That might be true, but we just gave ourselves away.” Adrenaline dumped into his bloodstream as the pieces of the battlefield lined up. The helicopter was only a distraction now, it could never get to them in time, though it was still on the way. The drone was the big threat to them. “Run!”
By the time they’d made it to the stairwell door, the Seahawk driver maneuvered his aircraft to about twenty feet above the edge of the building. Ted had a clear view of the man even as he waved him off.
Over the park, the Predator let its last Hellfire missile go. The puff of smoke and orange flare of exhaust signaled their fate.
He pushed Emily into the stairwell, with only enough time left to observe how she’d forgotten to put her mask back on.
St. Louis, MO
Vinny surprised everyone by attacking Gus, throwing his arms around him, bear-hug style. Unfortunately, that shook the old man and he pulled the trigger of his shotgun.
Tabby experienced a warm gush of air as it went by, then she recoiled at the incredibly loud boom.
“Oh, God!” she shrieked.
“Holy shit!” Peter screamed at the same time.
“Run!” Vinny yelled.
She gathered her wits and considered shooting Gus in self-defense, but he was tangled up with his partner. Tabby hoped the younger man got the better of the situation, but she couldn’t afford to stick around to see how it went.
“Get out!” Vinny ordered.
Tabby stuffed the gun behind her back, then grabbed at Peter to get him moving. The acrid fumes had already filled the lobby, adding to the immediacy of how close they’d come to getting killed. Not surprisingly, the thick-boned boy appeared frozen by his brush with death, so she had to yank his shirt.
“Peter, go!”
She followed him out the door to the lobby but found Audrey and Donovan stuck in molasses too. Gus’s shot went between them all and accidentally hit the hovering white machine. Now it was junk on the tiled floor, but the two kids couldn’t take their eyes from it.
“Go!” She ushered them across the lobby and made it most of the way to the front door before she saw a new threat. Tabby had to grab Audrey by the collar to get her to stop. “Change of plans!”
Peter ran into her backside, then bounced off like a lost boy. “What’s happening?”
She didn’t expect to see a larger mechanical beast walking down the street outside. It was one of the horse-like robots from the lines of them down under the Arch. It ambled on hinged legs exactly like a big cat, a dog, or horse might do, and it was right outside the door. “This way!” she barked.
The kids didn’t move, so she had to pull each one until they did so.
Tabby led them down the hallway to where the elevators were located, but she didn’t stop to use them. The EXIT sign beckoned her into the stairwell, so she slammed into the crossbar to open it, then waited.
“Run!” She held the door until all three kids had made it through.
From her vantage point, she saw the small horse use the automatic door and come into the lobby. The four feet clopped on the tiled floor, creating an almost alien contrast—the strange animal didn’t belong indoors. Its low-profile head seemed to remain focused straight ahead, where the smaller drone had been destroyed and where Gus and Vinny presumably still struggled over the shotgun.
A long hatch opened along the horse’s back. From inside, a thick black tube rose up on a wire frame until it projected several inches above the head.
She shut the door most of the way but couldn’t take her eyes off the intruder.
Get out of there, guys, she thought.
“Tabby, let’s go!” Audrey whispered from the stairwell. “The exit is right here.”
The four-legged beast braced itself by planting its feet on the floor. The tube started spinning with a howl, then bangs exploded from the horse’s rotating gun.
“No!” She fell back through the door and landed on her butt.
The machine gun let out a constant stream of bullets, and the concussion rattled the heavy metallic door between her and the robotic horse. She had to imagine what those many shots were doing to the studio and the two men inside.
Tabby scooted across the landing and stumbled down the first few steps before getting proper footing. She imagined the horse crashing through the doorway to chase them. It was less than thirty feet away…
“Go!” she panted.
She and the kids practically fell out the emergency exit door into another alleyway. There were no robots in view, which was a plus, but she was turned around and had no idea where to go.
“Anywhere but here,” she said to herself.
“What?” Peter yelled. When she glanced over to him, he had a finger in his ear as if he couldn’t hear, either. Tabby had been close to the shotgun when it went off, but Peter was a few feet closer.
Donovan was in tears; she could have easily joined him. The military-grade gun still chattered inside the building. Two fire doors and a stairwell didn’t block it all out.
“We have to run back to the car. Does anyone recognize anything?”
To her shock, Donavon pointed the way.
“You sure?” she said while holding his shoulder to try to offer a small crumb of sympathy.
He nodded and sniffled at the same time. “I remember those dumpsters.”
They’d co
me out closer to their return path than she thought.
“Good job,” she said.
Together, they ran for their lives.
CHAPTER 22
New York City, NY
“I’ve never had running cramps like this before.” Kyla leaned against the stone column, thankful Meechum had called for a five-minute pause. She wasn’t going to admit it to the other woman, but her stomach was putting in a stern request to jettison breakfast.
They’d run from Battery Park, on the south end of Manhattan, and they’d stopped at Grand Central Station. As planned, they ran through the dense parts of the city, including the tall buildings of the financial district in Lower Manhattan, the apartment buildings of the East Village, and now they were back among the tall skyscrapers of Midtown.
“Welcome to the Marines,” Meechum replied, chest heaving. “I gave you the shirt top because I knew you could handle it.”
Kyla didn’t feel that tough, despite having grown up in the rough outskirts of New York City. “Thanks. It isn’t as glamorous as I’d hoped.”
She reflected on how her mom still lived in that tough outskirt. A place called Pelham Bay. She used to live there. Kyla had no doubt Mom was dead, especially after seeing the last four miles of the city she loved. That fact didn’t make her feel tough, at all. She was weakened by the realization.
“Come on, let’s check this place out.” The blonde Marine strode away from the entrance to look around inside, unconcerned with whether Kyla believed she was tough or not.
Grand Central Station was always busy. It was a tourist destination for those coming to New York City to see the sights, but it was also the daily transit point for tens of thousands of locals coming to Midtown to work.
“Do you see anyone?” Meechum asked a short time later as she trotted down the giant staircase. Her breathing was almost back to normal.
The lights were on like any other day, but the high vaulted ceiling and soccer-field-sized promenade underneath made the place seem like a morgue. Evidence of those travelers and tourists were still there, but only their clothing remained. Hundreds of pairs of shoes, every color of slacks and dresses, and numerous suitcases had fallen to the floor.
Other than the two of them, there was no one left alive in the entire place. They’d seen the same thing along their run.
“I can’t believe this is real.” Kyla had seen evidence of the attack back on the carrier, and knew the captain had trouble contacting anyone back on shore, but she didn’t believe civilians had been killed until now. “And this is why my Uncle Ted called me. He knew it was this bad.”
“Cool dude?” the Marine asked as she pulled a water out of her backpack.
“Yeah. He and my mom were close, but she was the space cadet and he was the Air Force cadet. They couldn’t have been more different.” She chuckled, thinking of any number of the good times they’d all shared when he came to visit.
She sucked in as much oxygen as possible, then released it. Her breathing still refused to level off.
“Do you know where he is now?” Meechum asked.
Kyla thought about it. He said he was coming for her, but that was yesterday, and her ship had moved. It was unlikely he’d even be able to find her. Plus, with strange aircraft flying around, and the entire population of the city wiped out, she figured he’d have more important things to do.
“He’s probably in London. They’d have to get the vice president to safety. I’m sure of it.” She’d left a short message when she tried to call him this morning, but the lines hadn’t been working ever since. If they got back to the ship, she would try him again. She’d have to tell him about Mom…
Meechum gulped down a little water, then handed it to her. “It isn’t how it should be, but if we lost President Tanager, it would be nice to have a female president, don’t you think?”
“Do you believe the president is dead, too?” For some reason, she continued to think the attack was confined to the world she saw with her own eyes, though she knew that was unreasonable. If everyone in New York City was dead, it stood to reason all the people in Washington D.C. were gone, too.
“Wait—” Meechum said in answer.
The rumble of a helicopter rotor carried on the air, and they heard it resonate inside the giant echo chamber. It went away a few seconds later, perhaps because it flew around other buildings.
Meechum grabbed the water bottle from Kyla and stuffed it in her pack. “We’ve got to move out. It sounds like our ride is already at Central Park.”
Kyla the chair-jockey programmer was almost in tears by the time they’d made it to the park ten minutes later. Her side was going to split open because of the pain. The water hadn’t helped at all. But most of her suffering was the grief of knowing Mom was gone. She wanted to stop and cry several times, but that didn’t fly in Meechum’s Marine Corps extension program.
The combat Marine dragged her civilian butt beyond the Sherman statue at the southeast corner of the park, which gave them a broad view of the whole place. The Seahawk helicopter was there, but it behaved erratically over the near end of the park. She watched as it banked left, then made an evasive maneuver by dipping lower over the trees. Above, a fast-moving rocket came out of nowhere and slammed into the top of an apartment building.
“What the hell did we walk into?” Meechum deadpanned.
New York City, NY
Chunks of concrete, plaster, and rebar fell through the stairwell while Ted and Emily ran down flight after flight. The explosion did a lot of damage to the roof exit, but the Hellfire wasn’t powerful enough to destroy the entire top level, which gave them enough room to run.
“We have to get out of here. I think they saw us without our masks.” Ted wasn’t mad at her for leaving her mask when she changed clothes, but he was angry at himself for dropping the ball on security again. The drone operator would have taken their picture as it targeted them for destruction.
And they probably watched us come in. He didn’t tell her that, however, because it seemed obvious in retrospect. If Emily was an important enemy of the invaders, they’d naturally keep tabs on where she might show up. In the fog of war, maybe the bad guys didn’t get the news Air Force Two had been brought down. He’d been thinking in terms of helping her get over the loss of her husband, but that compassion might now get her killed.
His leg muscles burned by the time he reached floor three, and if he kept running, they could be out on the road in sixty seconds, but he had to be smart about their departure. “Hold up.”
“Holy cow,” she blurted as she slammed up against the wall to celebrate stopping. “My legs are twitching.” Almost forty flights of stairs had wrecked them both.
“We have to see what’s outside before we go out there. I’m going to find a window if I can.” He pulled open the fire door and went to the first apartment. After a brief knock, he tried the door handle.
“Locked. Try the next one. Hurry!” He didn’t want to shoot the door handle, though that would be the fastest way in. If they were heard, the escape would be ruined.
They ran down the tiled hallway trying doors until he found one that was open. He waved her over, then they ran inside and went to the windows. Briefly, he scanned the living area: wooden floors, modern furniture, giant flat panel television. If he had to guess, it was owned by a well-to-do single man.
Ted pulled back the drapes only enough to see the streets thirty feet below. There was no action directly outside, but if he craned his neck to the left, he managed to see the edge of Central Park. It appeared as if several black panel vans were unloading men.
“Crap,” he let slip.
“What is it?”
“Men. Lots of them. We’ve got to get down the stairs and out the door before they surround us.”
To her credit, she didn’t ask him to explain every detail. She ran over to the front door and waited for him to catch up.
“Are you ready for this, ma’am?” he asked, serious for a change.
She grinned. “Ted, if you call me ma’am again, I’m going to kill you myself.”
She took off into the hallway.
He chuckled, but also double-checked his AR.
“Don’t fail me, buddy,” he whispered to the rifle.
San Francisco, CA
“Play dumb? I don’t have to play dumb, Poppy, because I don’t know anything. Like where we are right now.”
Dwight followed the man to a warehouse with all its shipping doors open. It was designed to allow semi-trucks to back up and load cargo, but now it appeared as if a hundred people were having a party in there.
The man stopped him before going in. “So, you look like one of the guys whose container fell in the water. Is that right? We’ve had several people come in looking like they’d been beat up.”
Dwight wanted ownership of that metal box. The guy apparently was going to help confirm it was his. “Sure, that sounds like what happened.”
“Let’s get you cleaned up. You can grab a uniform over there, then come to the food table and get your lunch. We’re leaving soon, so you made it back just in time.”
He heard the words and tried to act like he understood them, but he was still buzzed. “My wine bottle!” he blurted, suddenly remembering it wasn’t in his hands.
The man turned around. “I think that tip-over affected your memories. We don’t drink, remember?”
“Am I in Hell?” It would explain where all the people went. Normals would go up to the angels—guys like him wouldn’t.
The man in the jumpsuit lost some of his smile. “Get dressed. Hurry, please.”
Dwight was shoved into a large room with racks of the black uniforms, boots, and hats. His own clothing left a lot to be desired in terms of quality, so it didn’t take a cattle prod to get him to strip them off and put on the new ones. When he finally got in front of one of the dressing mirrors, he thought he looked presentable.
“I could apply for a job,” he said proudly.
Poppy pointed out how his ratty hair wouldn’t do him any favors at the interview, but all he could do was run his fingers through it to try to improve his appearance. When he finally emerged from the room, Dwight was going to make a run for it, but the man waited for him.
Minus America Box Set | Books 1-5 Page 38
