The Valley of Shadows - eARC

by John Ringo

  “We got three dead guys with serious guns,” he replied. “Looks like they belonged to Overture.”

  “Infected?”

  “Don’t think so,” Durante said. “Oldryskya: Go check the other guys. Covering.”

  Oldryskya moved forward in the gliding step that she had learned during their practices. It did work to reduce the amount of motion imparted to her gun, improving aiming.

  She studied the two bodies, then looked at Durante with one raised eyebrow.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  “They’re dead?” she answered, deadpan.

  “Ha-fucking-ha Khabayeva. What else?”

  “Definitely not a scuba-diving accident.”

  She knew that the dirt diving thing would come in useful at some point.

  “I swear to Christ that you are worse than the asshole back at the truck. How about answering my question, newbie?” Durante’s voice didn’t sound any more tense, but Oldryskya decided that she had pushed it far enough.

  “First—bullet holes,” Risky said, pointing at a visible entrance wound. “They died first, then the zombie fed. Two, no bullet casings near the bodies. They never got a shot off, didn’t expect a fight. Last, look at this.” She picked up a stiff card from the second corpse’s chest, glad for her Kevlar biteproof gloves. The edge of a purple surgical glove peeked above her wrist. Holding the card so it was illuminated by the headlights, she tried to avoid smearing the blood further.

  “It’s a tarot card,” she explained to Durante. “Sort of a fortune-telling device. This one is the Emperor.”

  “What does it mean?” Durante asked.

  “Means different things,” Oldryskya said, trying to remember. She hadn’t studied tarot in years. “My foster mother used these to tell the future. Emperor can mean ‘unyielding strength.’ Depends on context.”

  Durante panned his light around.

  “Are there more?”

  They found a card near each body.

  “Let’s load this guy and clear the location,” Kaplan said. “I don’t like being stopped for too long. Someone is gonna come looking for those guys. Not to mention police response to an active crime scene and, oh yeah, zombies.”

  Oldryskya nodded to Durante and tucked all three tarot cards into her tacvest.

  “Any day now.” Kaplan didn’t sound nervous, but suddenly Oldryskya felt a little tingle of apprehension.

  If both of these former “special” soldiers felt that it was time to move, she fervently agreed.

  “This shit ain’t right,” Durante said as they drove away.

  * * *

  “That can’t be right.”

  Kendra frowned at the summary across the top of the page. Thirty-seven zombies in a single incident? Except for the scene with her boss’s niece in BotA’s own basement a few weeks ago, no one had seen more than two or three zombies at once, and usually one of those had just been turned by direct blood contact from a bite. The second page of the report dispelled all doubt; there was a high-definition image of a literal stack of dead infected, messily arranged between the stairhead and the intersection of Lexington and East 96th. She printed the e-mail from her contact at MetBank and looked around the bullpen.

  She spotted her boss, who had just exited a conference room with Smith and Durante. As Paul Rune walked over she thought that she noted a slight pallor under his normally dark skin.

  She handed the him the report and gave him a verbal rundown.

  “That’s a lot of zombies in one place,” he said. “MetBank had one man shot, and the Overture guys lost two or three, right? This is going to impact the cartel operations. What about other groups of infected?”

  Kendra shook her head. She had begun tying her shoulder-length hair in a ponytail, and the flippy motion caught Paul’s eye.

  “So far, this is the only group of multiples,” she said. “At least known. The infected were emerging from the Four-Five-Six subway station near Lexington, just a block from Credit Suisse.”

  “Okay, that’s not good,” Rune replied. “Show me.”

  They walked a few steps to the wall maps, stopping in front of the one offering a top-down view of Manhattan.

  Kendra placed her finger on the intersection representing the incident.

  “Here’s where they came out. Nobody is sure where they came from.”

  Both intel professionals looked more closely at the different colors of subway lines on the map. The green line representing the Four-Five-Six subway ran south all the way downtown, directly past the bank. One stop was only a few blocks away, literally named “Wall Street.”

  “Yeah, not good at all.” Rune repeated.

  He looked back over at Jones, who was still staring at the little subway symbol next to the map icon for Bank of the Americas.

  * * *

  “You have reached the personal voicemail of Captain Dominguez, commanding Precinct One of the New York Police Department. Please leave a com—”

  Smith grimaced, disconnected and hit another speed dial number.

  “Office of Emergency Management for New York City, how many I direct your call?” a nasal voice singsonged in answer on the second ring.

  “Commissioner Kohn please, this is Tom Smith from Bank of the Americas.”

  “Iyamvereesorrysir,” singsonged the admin. “Is the commissioner expecting your call?”

  Smith almost snarled an answer, but constrained himself to a simple, “Yes.”

  Several heartbeats later Kohn came on.

  “Mr. Smith.”

  “Ms. Kohn,” Tom said without preamble, “we have a situation. Are you aware of the bank and contractor involved shooting, with casualties, during an encounter with a very large group of infected earlier today?”

  “I am aware,” Kohn said.

  “I’d like to call a short notice meeting for all of the cartel players in two hours,” Tom said. “I would prefer it be at the Elevated Acre. Given tensions and the implications of the zombie count on Lexington I prefer a bit more space to see threats coming.”

  Smith really didn’t want to be a conference room unarmed, again, when someone turned.

  “Understood,” Kohn replied after a moment’s thought.

  “Reaching to Matricardi next,” Smith continued, his staccato delivery betraying both his haste and shift to “operational” mode. “Haven’t been able to connect to Captain Dominguez. Are you in communication with him at this time?”

  “I am not in communication with Captain Dominguez.” Tom could make out tapping in the background as Kohn continued. “I believe that he is now unacceptably unreliable. The acting deputy mayor has informed me that he will be at the meeting that you referenced. I have intelligence that the shooting may have been part of a botched attempt to build a stronger set of ties to Overture. A plan already in motion.”

  Tom stopped dead in his mental tracks. While the original four cartel members had edged around the topic of police control being diluted by additional relationships, Kohn was clearly signaling the possibility of something more dire.

  “Joanna, I need a plain answer,” Tom said, slowing down. The answer to this question could signal the end and his knuckles whitened on the phone handset. “Is the NYPD still supporting the cartel agreement?”

  “The answer to that question is provably up in the air, Tom,” Joanna said calmly. If she was nervous, it wasn’t apparent from her voice. “Were you aware of another infected related contractor shooting on the West Side?”

  “If you mean the three dead Overture goons, then yes, I was aware,” Tom replied. “Unless there was another on top of that. Some of my people found the bodies. We recovered items. Specifically, tarot cards. Ring a bell, Joanna?”

  There was silence on the line for several long moments. Tom let her have them.

  “I see the connection,” Kohn said. Apparently, her assessment matched his. “If we lose Dominguez and the leadership of the core Manhattan precincts, I will neither control the vaccine pr
oduction nor protection for some critical city services. This becomes end game. Find Dominguez or his second.”

  “I have Tangarelli,” Tom said, working to stay as calm as Kohn sounded. “He’s trying to reach his boss. The problem is that Overture is not going accept the murder of his teams. He’s got to respond in order to keep his own organization under control. Expect something to pop at the meeting. I gotta go. Find Dominguez.”

  “Tom. If I can not keep the police onside, we either complete the evacuation procedures, or we are likely to lose the ability to leave the island,” Kohn responded. “I kept our bargain. Will you?”

  Smith didn’t like her. But he had made the deal.

  “Yes.”

  * * *

  The BERT prep room was full of banter, some music and a generally relaxed feeling. Smith’s security team relaxed when they felt in control, and the operations had been proceeding well, although there had been a strange drop off in collections given the increase in reported infected.

  Oldryskya’s phone rang. She looked at the caller ID and walked outside the BERT team room where the crews were performing maintenance on personal gear and generally waiting around for the evening mission brief.

  In the hallway, she picked up.

  “Khabayeva.”

  “Boss says to come back to the office.” The Cosa Nova lieutenant didn’t waste time. “Shit’s going down.”

  “Define?” Oldryskya said.

  “There is a big powwow happening this afternoon between the banks, the cops and the businessmen.” Tradittore sounded a little excited, his words coming fast. “One of the banks shot up an Overture team, or some shit. Something next to fifty zombies came out of the subway. Overture is pissed, the banks are pissed and everyone is freaking out about the zombies.”

  “I heard,” Risky replied. “But it wasn’t fifty, was maybe three dozen, and it was the Overture team that shot first.”

  “Are you listening?” the gangster said, irritated. “Does it matter? The boss said to shake your ass and get the fuck back to the office. Period. Go ahead and argue, be late. I’d like to see what he does to you.”

  The connection broke, and she looked at her phone for a moment. Could she stay here? Would they even have her? She could hear the laughter coming from the team room.

  Oldryskya took off the loaner plate carrier, leaned it against the hallway wall, and headed for the elevators.

  * * *

  Paul stood with Kaplan and Durante while Tom sat on the edge of his desk, facing his remaining department heads. Between the implications of a large zombie cluster, the fall off in reliable intel and the knowledge that things seemed to be coming to a head—Paul didn’t feel too guilty about being on edge. Kaplan and Durante were relaxed, as usual.

  “I set up the cartel meet at the Elevated Acre,” Smith began. “We can see for miles there. Things are delicate right now. There is a power play happening in the PD, and I don’t know if our cops are going to come out on top. Those tarot cards you found point to some of Dominguez’s crew, or Dominguez personally, killing Overture’s team. Overture isn’t going to overlook that and I expect him to make a play—take the bigger and better deal that he has offered on the other side of the East River and pitch it to the current interim assistant deputy mayor.”

  “What is the play, Boss?” Rune asked as Tom’s pause lingered.

  Smith shook his head, lost in thought for a moment.

  “Bateman isn’t ready to pull the handle,” Tom said, gesturing at a wall covered in status reports. “The Fed, the NYSE etc.—they are still functioning, after a fashion. We have reports that the city is supposed to get an additional large National Guard contingent. Maybe we can hold another week. Maybe that’s enough. Maybe.”

  He faced the window.

  “Doesn’t matter. We don’t pull yet. So, we’re going to have to ride out the meeting, regardless.”

  “Overture’s guys are loaded for bear, Tom,” Paul objected. “We’ve got credible firsthand reports that they are running belt-feds in addition to rifles. They also have a lot more teams that we do, at least a dozen, maybe more. If they want to focus us down at the meeting, they can.”

  The tall Australian kept looking out the window while Paul asked the question.

  “I don’t really expect Overture to initiate open hostilities against us, yet,” Tom said. “I think that he knows it wasn’t the banks that killed his team. But.”

  He turned to face them again.

  “Gravy, remember that Marine general in Iraq…Morris, Mattingly, something like that. You said he was the only Marine you met you could see working with. Recall what he used to say?”

  “‘Be polite, be professional and have a plan to kill everyone you meet,’” Durante quoted. “Wasn’t the first guy to say that, but that the one?”

  “That’s the one,” Tom said, turning back to the window. “Set it up.”

  * * *

  “This feels like a setup, Boss,” Copley said, looking at the depressing scenery in Manhattan. “It’s a lot worse than I expected.”

  The city traffic was slow, even though the number of vehicles was down, even compared to suburban Newburgh, where Battery A was located. Despite reduced overall volume compared to before the Plague, the number of roadblocks and checkpoints made up for it. Accidents had been bulldozed onto the sidewalk to keep traffic lanes clear, and the soldiers could see entire blocks cordoned off by concertina wire and gas-mask-equipped cops armed with rifles.

  Pozzo had waited in vain for the rest of the battery to show, and eventually decided to push into the City. Copley drove, but the XO kept Astroga in his HMMWV to help navigate the still congested city. They also had a NYPD cop,

  “What’s with all the VCPs, Private?” he asked Astroga.

  “Mostly to show the flag, let the civilians see that we’re here, you know sir,” replied the private. “Sometimes they see someone about to turn and they help restrain them till the cops or one of the contractors show up to take them off our hands.”

  “Contractors?” Copley asked, sniffing. The windows were permanently up on this model of HMMWV but the smell of smoke drifted in through the firing cupola.

  “Left at da next block,” the ride-along cop said in a thick Brooklyn accent, before answering Copley’s question himself. “Army AR-OH-EE iz still less than lethal. The depahtment and some contractors we high-yed are da actual baggehs and taggehs. The contractahs call demselves Bialahgical Emergency Response Units—BUHRTS—an’ dey take any zombies offa aw hands and transport dem to da Handling Fahcility, see.”

  “Baggas and taggas?” Copley followed up, struggling to understand the cop’s speech. “Baggers and taggers? Oh.”

  “What do they do with them?” asked Pozzo, drawn into the conversation. “The zombies, that is.”

  “Yeah, dat’s wuhna da questions youse learn not t’ask,” replied the cop. “Right on Tird Av, we’re goin’ north.”

  “So how bad is it, really?” asked Copley, as they were waved by another VCP manned by two soldiers, backed by another uniformed policeman. The trio managed to look simultaneously grim and bored.

  “’Feecially, da toin around iz raht around da corner,” replied the cop. “Un-offeecially, da numbah cops not comin’ back to work every week iz going up. Da city has some vaccine, but it’s unofficial. Stickin’ ’round to gettit iza big reason dat we got cops left, at all.”

  “Vaccine? You get vaccine?” Copley said, sniffing some more and looking at a scorched low-rise building. “Man, there sure are a lot of burned-up buildings.”

  “Yeah, well, the firefighters don’t have the same deal as the cops,” Astroga spoke up. “And we don’t either. TOC is up here a couple more blocks.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Paul didn’t have a military background. Intelligence analysts, however skilled, have a lot more in common with the average financial services broker than with line troops, or even military cooks. Intellectually, he understood that his skills were be
st suited to what was actually an important part of the overall success of the bank’s crisis response to date: gathering information, placing it into context for decision makers and more recently, managing the Security Operations Center, or SOC.

  That didn’t keep him from wishing that he could contribute a little more directly.

  Inside the darkened SOC he could see the meeting on the Acre taking shape on the various video feeds shared by the city. Known to him but not readily visible were three teams placed by Durante. They had taken the really large equipment cases from the ad hoc armory and most of the picked security staff and set up in a few different places, including at least one rooftop overlooking the meeting location. A skeleton crew of security staff remained at the bank proper.

  His job was to keep his watch standers alert for obvious signs that Overture was going to “go kinetic” at the meeting. Kinetic was popularly used by the military brass during the Second Gulf War to refer to operations that made loud noises, blew up buildings and shredded people. It preserved a false sense of precision and neatness, by design, falling into the same category of labels such as “surgical strike” and “smart bomb.”

  Kinetic events tended to end up pretty damn messy.

  Paul agreed with Tom, though. If the remaining city bureaucrats and cops showed, the Jamaican should be disinclined to start a shootout. Overture seemed to be playing a long game whose timeline was even more protracted than that of the banks.

  Named for the largest privately owned public space in the City, the Elevated Acre was originally a scheme between the builder and the city to allow the consolidation of four adjoining city blocks in downtown Manhattan. More acreage equaled more profit. Who couldn’t get behind that? The resulting building, though only some fifty stories tall, was one of the largest office buildings in the world, with as many square feet as the much newer Liberty Tower. The large outdoor space was set forty feet above street level and featured low landscaping and generous views along the perimeter streets and across the Hudson River, which was just across FDR Drive.

  On screen, Paul watched the various delegations congregate on the upper deck. Noting the police caravan, he keyed the desk microphone and spoke directly to the on-site personnel equipped with earpieces.