The Valley of Shadows - eARC

by John Ringo

  Bateman listened carefully, his hands steepled in front of him. He looked out the window too, and noted the same fire that Smith had highlighted.

  “Point,” Bateman said with a sigh. Even from a distance of several miles, the fire was bright enough to leave a mirage on his eyes when he looked away. “It would be stupid to have invested in all the risk controls and then fail to use them. I’ll notify the board members tonight and recommend immediate and total withdrawal from Manhattan. We’ll maintain operations from the recovery sites and be ready to move back right away if things improve. We leave tomorrow morning. What’s the term you use? ‘Pull the handle’?”

  He looked back to Smith, who seemed perceptibly more relaxed with the decision made.

  “What are your plans for your last night in New York?” Bateman added.

  “Faith, my niece, is out of the woods.” Tom actually smiled. “I plan to send her family back tonight. They’re evacuating independently.”

  “The staff call her the ‘zombie killer.’” Rich grinned broadly, his mood mirroring his subordinates’. “The picture of the dead basement zombies would have been hilarious if they weren’t our own staff. Anything you want, give them a sendoff on us.”

  “Thanks Rich,” Tom said, heading to the exit. He paused at the door. “She’s been saying that she feels recovered enough to want to eat something. I thought that the bank could stand to buy her family a nice dinner. I know a good restaurant that’s still open. Hell, there’s even a regular concert in Washington Square Park…”

  * * *

  The dark bedroom smelled of cigar smoke, even though Matricardi had quit lighting up in his private rooms months ago, after she complained about the smell permeating her clothes and hair. He liked to read, so bookshelves lined the wall. Biographies and history mostly. Initially, Oldryskya had been surprised to see that the head of the Cosa Nova was a bibliophile. She was horrified to learn that he routinely annotated his volumes and worse, the better or more important the book, the more he scribbled in the margins. She learned that he regarded the books as tools, nothing more.

  “They’re just books, not the Grail,” he answered when early in their relationship she mustered the courage to ask him to stop defacing them. “I don’t keep them because they are special—I keep them because the knowledge in them is something I can use.”

  Still, the wide variety of books provided a riot of color on the wall and a nice contrast to the usual gangster furnishings.

  Somewhat like Oldryskya herself, who was watching her boss and sometime lover. He was alternating between a book and glancing over at his computer, occasionally clicking on his browser.

  She broke a long silence.

  “You don’t seem as worried now as you were at the meeting.”

  He looked up at her from under his brow, then back to his computer.

  “Well, it would be a lot harder for Overture or his new friends in Manhattan to hit me now, wouldn’t it?”

  “If Overture has control and we can’t stop the disease, we should be talking about getting out, no?” That seemed the logical question to Oldryskya.

  “Look, missy,” Matricardi said tightly. “I told you to leave the thinking to me.” He looked up again and smiled to take the sting out of the mild rebuke. “You did all right with the bank guys. Not your fault that Overture was smarter and luckier than our guys on the force. I figure Dominguez is gonna get hit tonight, and Kohn with him. Smith will be all right for now, but Overture will get around to making an example of someone, maybe Smith, maybe someone else. But I think he’s right. This disease? We can beat it. What’s pretty handy is how it’s really screwing the big boys. We can still use that.”

  They hadn’t slept together in months so she wasn’t in his bedroom as often as she used to be. Still, he genuinely seemed to like her company. That extended to indulging her questions as long as she didn’t make him lose face, or his temper.

  “So, what’s our play?”

  He didn’t look up this time, but talked while he clicked.

  “We are going to have the ports, the medical companies, a bit of manufacturing and lot of the food here in Jersey,” Matricardi said. “Tradittore has been a great help with that—college kids have their uses. Once the city government is completely broken, Overture’s boys still can’t push across the river. They will have to deal with us. Manhattan ain’t got nothing for production or food. Everything has to come in, capisce? Which means coming from us. Meanwhile, I’ll keep consolidating south. Atlantic City, anyone?”

  “You seem pretty confident that we can brush everything else out of the way,” Risky said, ticking off the list of other players. “What about governor, military…?”

  “You see them around anywhere?” he said with a chuckle. “They have their own problems, starting with not getting vaccine in time. Oh, there will be a military, but they are going to work with us, and Port Elizabeth, and Newark PD and whoever else they have to. But we’ll win. Boy scouts aren’t going to make it through this plague, and the ones that do, they’ll either deal or lose.”

  “I don’t think Smith can give up,” Risky pointed out carefully. “He has good people and preparation. Is more prepared than a boy scout.”

  Matricardi sat up so he could look her straight in the face.

  “Oldryskya, you and me, we’re not so different,” Matricardi said, lowering the lid of his notebook a few inches. “I had to scratch and claw to get this far. You wouldn’t have made it to the point where that asshole tried to sell you to me unless you were a survivor too. Smith? He is a college boy in a bank. And if he ain’t? He works for a college boy. And you know what? Most college kids from good homes will lose their first real fight against anyone who isn’t another college kid. They’re still thinking in terms of limits, what’s going to get them in trouble, worrying about getting a good GPA and avoiding a criminal record.”

  Matricardi chopped the air, gesturing decisively.

  “The first ex-con that they swing on has already given all that up. He could kill them in two shakes, if he wants. Overture, he’s the con. He’s already playing beneath street rules, let alone banker rules. Smith’s still thinking about honoring deals with the cops on the losing side even though he knows that the situation is dicey. Mark my words, Overture’s gonna move against everyone in Manhattan who he hasn’t already recruited, and soon. He will gobble up all the college kids who ain’t directly useful. At least my college kids are out. They decided to set themselves up down south. Smart kids.”

  He held her gaze and then his inbox chimed, catching his attention.

  Oldryskya got off the bed and walked over to his desk, her long nightgown swaying. A year ago, Matricardi would have paused and watched her. Now, he was preoccupied or indifferent.

  Or both.

  She laid a hand on his desk.

  “How would you do it?”

  “Ah, lotsa ways you could do it,” he said, waving a hand idly, side to side, as though he were painting a wall. “You need an excuse to really drop the hammer, and you need to give the people who don’t particularly like you something else to fear, which they have—zombies, you know? And you gotta give them something to hate. All I’d do is find a way to give them someone to hate more than me. Turn them against each other.”

  “So why don’t you do it, then?” Oldryskya said, a touch angry. “You can be the strong one, can rebuild the city or help defend it. I’ve scratched in the dirt to live and this”—she gestured around the room—“is a lot better!”

  He paused and sighed, setting down the book and taking off his glasses.

  “I’m one to talk about boy scouts,” he said, maybe a touch rueful. “I got limits too. There’s a reason why I killed that prick what was selling you girls. Life is cheap, but everyone has a bottom and I know what mine is. I deal in a lot of merchandise, an’ I ain’t no angel—but Frank Matricardi don’t sell people. Kill ’em? Sure. But selling women and kids, hurting them? Nah. I ain’t a fucking animal. Thi
s crew ain’t gonna touch that shit, long as I am breathing.

  “Just chopping people up gives me the stomach, you know?” he continued, looking off into the distance. “Overture’s going to move. When he moves, a lot of the boy scouts are going to die. Maybe I’ve still got limits there, too. Just killing the boy scouts won’t be enough to take control. You gotta target families, too.

  “Smith, he’s got family. His brother, his nieces. He cares about them. You don’t threaten Smith, you threaten that family. And if threats don’t work, they gotta be offed, and offed messy and public, so the next guy knows your serious. All you been through, Risky, you won’t want to be one of those girls when Overture gets aholt of them.

  “It ain’t actually moral or nothin’ but I’ll let Overture do that work. That guy, he’s got no limits. Then we make a place for ourselves. Keep things mostly running while the disease burns out. By the time Overture realizes we’ve got the real cards, the bio-corporations, the food, the water, hell, the fuel, he needs, we’ll be in a position to take him if he can’t deal. And my boys won’t have to be the ones killing the families. That’ll already be done for us.”

  His smile gleamed, contrasting with the shadow of blue-black stubble.

  “Now do you mind? I got shit to do. Read or do something, willya?”

  Oldryskya watched him work for a few moments longer. She knew a little more than she let on. As a young girl, she had watched what happened to the states of the old Soviet Union when central control failed. Allegiances could switch overnight. Some who kept the faith overlong stood to lose all the money they thought they had saved. Some lost even more.

  Like her foster father.

  While she worked at Bank of the Americas, Smith’s staff had been gently probed by Overture’s agents, ready to offer a bigger and better deal to anyone who might waver. The subtle inquiries had all been rejected and reported, as far as she knew.

  But.

  The meeting at the Elevated Acre was a setup. Overture knew too much. Someone in City Hall, someone among Dominguez’s cops or someone in the cartel had taken the deal. Maybe all three?

  Risky continued to watch her boss scroll and click. Tabbing between reports, e-mail and pay ledgers.

  Big Mac Overture paid well. He could afford to recruit anyone with a price. The deputy assistant mayor and the deputy chief didn’t think of it that way of course. They were still thinking about his supply of vaccine, the number of BERTs he operated, the security he had claimed to have brought to Queens and eastern Brooklyn. Lastly, they were favorably impressed by the surprisingly informed professional proposal to operate from hospitals and mass produce vaccine.

  Presented in familiar terms by an erudite MBA with experience on Wall Street, it connected them to the “old” way of business.

  This was not an accident.

  Sure, working openly with a criminal who had sold drugs was unusual. Weren’t these unusual times? Confident that they could control the terms, they seriously considered working with Overture, on some introductory basis. Their lack of understanding of what Overture really wanted and their desperation to hold onto some familiar framework made them suggestible. Their perception of reality hadn’t shifted yet.

  However, their ignorance didn’t change the reality.

  Oldryskya knew better.

  She agreed with her boss’s summation. She appreciated that he had limits; after all, those limits had kept her alive and unsold. Instead of working in a worsening series of cribs until she was discarded or disappeared, she had only had to service Matricardi, which rapidly became light work. She didn’t love the man, but she respected what he offered, and understood how much further she could have fallen.

  Her boss and Smith’s man agreed: life is cheap.

  She was pretty sure that Overture hadn’t limited his outreach to just the cops and the banks. If they didn’t take Smith’s plan, would they be able to keep their organization together, here? Was it already too late?

  Oldryskya pulled her gown a little tighter. The pistol under it suddenly seemed to weigh a great deal and behind her, Matricardi’s mouse clicked occasionally.

  * * *

  The two cops waved their badges to the gate guard, a younger man who had joined the force only months before the crisis began.

  The unmarked gray police sedan was the right model and correct color. The rookie could see a glowing NYPD mobile data terminal screen between the driver and passenger.

  The car didn’t stir suspicion; it was a real police car, after all. The rookie diligently looked at the credentials and matched the accompanying photo IDs to the men’s faces. The badges were perfectly genuine, having previously belonged to two of New York’s finest, now deceased. The IDs were genuine as well, or near as no matter, and the photos matched the car occupants perfectly.

  There was no reason why they shouldn’t, since the images were only a day old.

  The men parked in the secure car lot and styled a relaxed saunter as they stepped across the lot and into reception. The desk sergeant barely looked up from the YouTube channel on his PC as the men ran their access cards through a magnetic reader, which chirped and obediently lit a green LED. His glance took in the suits, haircuts, creds, the issue pistol visible under one man’s jacket. The other man flipped a hand in a casual wave.

  Everything was normal.

  The men walked past the lobby area and made as if to go into the first floor bullpen and temporary briefing rooms. As soon as they lost the interest of the desk officer, they stepped around the corridor and into the stairwell. After ascending four floors they exited into the corridor adjoining that floor’s elevator.

  The laser-printed sign opposite the elevator doors had an arrow pointing left and the legend Dependent Housing. The men headed left and opened a door marked Caregivers.

  As they stepped inside a well-lit room whose walls were liberally covered in amateur macaroni art and rainbows, the four women inside watching TV looked up. The youngest and closest stood and smiled.

  “Hello gentlemen? Are you dads? Isn’t it a little late for a visit? The children are all down for the night.”

  The first man, obviously younger than the other, waved both hands at shoulder level in an “I surrender” pose and smiled in return.

  “Not me, miss!” His grin revealed a very white and attractive smile. “I’m not even married! I am just giving my friend a ride. He wanted to look in on little Juan.” The nannies in the room smiled back. What a good friend to come with his friend, the single dad. Attractive, too.

  The older man looked a little bleary. He handed over his ID to the woman.

  “No need to disturb the kids. I just wanted to make sure that my boy is okay. Did he do well at school today, that kind of thing. The last name is Gutierrez, and his first name is Juan. I haven’t seen him for a week.”

  The nanny still standing replied.

  “Well, let me check the summaries.” She walked over to a desk whose backboard was hung about in clipboards as the others settled back down, returning to their TV program. The one holding a clipboard looked back up when she simultaneously heard a quiet fut and felt a sharp poke on the side of her neck.

  Her mouth made a little O of surprise as the tranquilizer dart took her between the ear and shoulder. She stood stock-still for a moment and by the time she crumbled to the floor, all three remaining women were darted, the report of the compressed air pistol lost in the sound from the big screen TV.

  “All right, work quick but for chrissake don’t poke yourself.” The older man reminded his partner. “The tranq is good for two hours. We gotta hit at least two more rooms.”

  Suiting actions to words, he loaded a new magazine in his tranquilizer pistol. The pneumatic system operated the weapon without recoil, but still required fresh ammunition.

  “Yeah, yeah—sharps precautions, I get it.” The younger man wasn’t smiling anymore, but his hands were steady as he rapidly donned puncture-resistant gloves and then removed a hinged, flat b
lack plastic case from one suit pocket. He reoriented the textured surface to maintain a better grip and then operated three small combination wheels with exquisite care. The case cracked open along the edge with an audible pop, and the man withdrew an ordinary syringe that appeared to be filled with deep red blood.

  He knelt and injected the first woman’s neck, neglecting to first swab it with an antiseptic. Working swiftly, he visited the other still bodies, depositing five ccs of the payload into each before replacing the empty syringe in the case next to its four full brothers.

  “Let’s put this one on the couch, like she is sleeping. We’ll drag the others inside once we are done. And don’t forget the special.”

  He turned to the next door, labeled Children’s Dormitory.

  Perfect.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “This is a bad idea, Tom,” Paul said. He rarely mustered the will to flat out oppose one of Smith’s decisions, but this one was easy. “I strongly recommend that you not go out for dinner. Let me order in, you can treat Faith and your family to all the trimmings up on Forty-Five.”

  The uppermost floor of Bank of the Americas’ New York City office housed the C-suite. Named for the chief executive officer, chief operating officer and all other positions starting with the letter C, it also commanded the best views and featured an opulent dining room.

  “I promised Faith a nice dinner,” Tom said. “I called ahead to Matricardi’s place. Fattore himself will serve and you know that everyone there is going to be armed. As are we. Durante has security and we’ll take the two armored Mercedes or the cleanest truck that we have.”

  His teeth flashed as he smiled a little paternally at the shorter man.