“Hey Lin,” Taggy introduced herself first, naming Luc and Walter for them as well as she spoke. “Welcome to the team.”
“Thanks,” Lin replied, forcing a smile onto her face. It was obvious from her demeanor that she wasn’t overjoyed by the union of the two groups either. They were going to be in for an interesting night, but every group was doing this, so they had to make it work too.
“Might as well get going,” Walter said, before turning to Lin and offering her a smile, doing his best to alleviate the tension. “Good to have you with us, umm, what did you do before all this?”
“Firefighter,” Lin replied simply. “You?”
“Oh, really?” Walter couldn’t hide his surprise, finding yet another member of the emergency services joining their little group. The police force and the firefighters had a jokey rivalry between them dating back many years, but Walter still respected every one of them for what they did. Immediately he looked at Lin differently, seeing past the leather she had arrived in and looking at the woman behind the uniform.
“Yeah,” Lin spoke again. “Why?”
She was a woman of few words, but that didn’t bother Walter. He had been the newest recruit not that long ago and he could imagine how she was feeling, just like starting a new job, it took some time to find your feet within the group.
“I was NYPD,” Walter explained, “Luc too.”
“Oh,” Lin didn’t react in half the same way that Walter had, absorbing the information and storing it away simply like Walter had just told her he preferred ham and cheese to PB & J. “And you?” She looked up at Taggy as they walked away from the cave, rounding off the group’s former professions.
“Nothing fancy like that for me,” Taggy shook her head and grinned. “I just lived the simple life.”
Walter still didn’t know what Taggy had done before the collapse, it had never come up in conversation before just then and surprisingly, it mattered very little now. They were never going to go back to their former jobs or live their former lives. Some things would eventually return to the way they were, but nothing would ever be exactly the same. The collapse had changed humanity, in one way or another, forever. There would be things people could never forget or move on from, no matter how hard they tried.
“Just about sums you up, doesn’t it, Taggy,” Luc joked. “Simple.”
“Ha ha,” she rolled her eyes, “very funny.”
Walter smiled, enjoying the banter and thinking how it compared to the stale and serious atmosphere he’d been stuck in back at the precinct. Captain Banes rarely cracked a smile and McManaman was always too focused on the bigger picture to have a laugh and a joke. Even Samantha, who Walter had previously thought fondly of when he remembered his time at the seventy-ninth, he now couldn’t picture without her mouth set in a firm line, her hands dirty from the evil work she was doing across the city[MP21].
That was something Walter still couldn’t wrap his head around. For the days immediately after crossing paths with Samantha Rice again, he had tried to come up with some explanation in his head as to why she seemed so different. He convinced himself she was being blackmailed or bribed in some way, but it was all just wishful thinking. When it came down to it, she was just like the rest of them – selfish, and only looking after her own interests. He couldn’t believe he had once admired her, the thought of her now repulsive.
“This way,” Luc beckoned him as Walter almost missed the turn the rest of his group had taken. “Come on, Walt.”
“Sorry,” Walter jogged a few paces to catch up with the rest of them. “Where are we headed tonight?”
“College Point,” Luc answered as he led his group north through the city. “There’s a ton of kids gathered there apparently.”
“Really?” Walter asked, raising his eyebrows. “Why would they want to be all the way out there? Isn’t it a bit close to Rikers?”
Luc shrugged. “That’s just what the boss said. I wouldn’t worry though, everyone from Rikers went up into the Bronx, we shouldn’t run into any of them.”
“Yeah, the Rikers stay up there,” Lin spoke, surprising everyone else as she got involved in the conversation. “They’ve fenced off the whole area for themselves. Surprised the err, what do you call them?” She paused, before recalling the nickname. “The Gov – I don’t know if they’ll even be able to get in themselves.”
Walter let out a low whistle, interested in how Lin knew so much about the Rikers and what they’d done since the collapse. As the name suggested, it was the group from Rikers Island – the prison population. Rikers was made up of some of the hardest and deadliest criminals New York had to offer. There had been everyone from murderers to drug dealers imprisoned there, only when the collapse happened and failsafe electrical door system went down with the power, they suddenly weren’t prisoners any longer.
The inmates from the prison had escaped northwards to the Bronx, many of them hailing from that poorer region of the city. The rumors had spread around the city since then about the gang they’d set up, already furious at the system for locking them away and now taking every chance they had to fight back. Walter had no intention of crossing paths with any of them, though he was interested in whether Lin’s group ever had.
“Have you seen them?” He asked her, pressing for more information as Luc and Taggy walked on ahead of them. “The Rikers?”
“Yeah,” Lin replied, a long pause following the word and leaving Walter wondering if she was going to continue any further. “They’re something else.”
“Do you really think they could’ve fought off the Gov?”
Lin nodded. “I think they can fight off whoever they want to fight off. They’re not like the rest of us – they’re not trying to rebuild the city or return things to how they were before. They want the change.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Now that she was opening up, the woman spoke with a note of intelligence in her voice and Walter saw her in an entirely different light to how he had an hour ago. He’d judged her because of the leather jacket she was wearing when she arrived in the cave, but as they spoke now, he could hardly even picture her wearing it. People did what they needed to do in order to survive after the collapse, why should he judge Lin for doing the same as him, only with a different group?
“They’re criminals,” Lin shrugged. “You get it surely; you were with the force. Going back to normal for them is getting locked up again. They’re willing to do anything to stop that from happening and I don’t think they care which side they fight for.”
Walter considered the words as they continued north through the city, heading for College Point and the East River where Rikers Island sat. If what Lin was saying was true – and she had no reason to lie – then the Bronx was possibly the most dangerous area of the city. Walter had spent all his time worrying about the Gov and the explosives they were planting, that he’d forgotten all the other dangers plaguing the city.
Captain Banes & McManaman weren’t the only force they needed to work against, nor was it even just human foes in the form of the Gov or the Rikers. The few resources that New York City still had were rapidly dwindling, people were going days without food or clean water and sickness was starting to spread through the streets. If they weren’t careful, famine and disease would pick them off well before a bomb exploded or a gun was fired. Walter was realizing it, he only hoped that it wasn’t a realization coming to fruition all too late.
Chapter 22
“Is that everyone? Where’s Kitch?”
“I’m here, I’m here,” Kitch announced, entering through the door and making sure it was locked behind him. “Sorry,” he apologized as he grabbed a chair and dragged it into the circle in the middle of the room. “I had some difficulty getting away from my guard.”
“What happened? Are you sure they didn’t follow you?”
“Yeah, don’t worry,” Kitch reassured the group. “I just had to wait a bit longer, but they all think I’m back at my place. The co
ast is clear, we’re all good.”[MP22]
“Okay, good,” Art nodded and smiled, pausing for a minute and looking around the room. Over the last few days, he, Jessie, Kitch and Jason had been recruiting like mad. They needed to find a group of people large enough to stand a chance at winning their island back, but not too large so that the word got out and filtered down to the wrong people. It had been a fine line to walk, but as Art looked around the room, he was pleased with the turnout.
Two weeks ago, you would’ve never put these people together. It was funny what a common enemy could do to unite otherwise opposed sides. Members of the long-ago formed leadership council sat around the room, Kitch and Martha included among them. But there were also guys from Dennis’ group that had abandoned the rest of Kauai, Jason and even Dennis himself agreeing that they needed to come together in order to achieve their one shared goal. Completing the group were Art and Jessie, along with a few others who they all agreed they could trust.
It made twenty-two people in total – not a huge number by any means but healthy enough that they all had faith in their potential success. They’d met several times in the last few days and were all in agreement that they had to strike soon.
“Where are we with the watch schedule, is everyone happy with it?”
“I am,” Martha nodded firmly, responsible for spearheading this part of their rebel movement. “The ships are still going out at the same time every morning, 2am,” she reminded anyone that had forgotten. “And then coming back soon after. If this is going to work, we need to act just after the boats leave shore. We don’t have very long, but that window is our best bet.”
“Agreed,” Kitch nodded. “I’ve been keeping track of the comings and goings too and unless there are people on the main boat that have never come to the island – which I think there might be, but I doubt they’re soldiers – then we’re dealing with a maximum of sixty.”
“But potentially more on the boat?”
“Yeah,” Kitch replied. “But sixty soldiers, call it seventy at most. And then it’ll be civilians – people they need to cook the food, clean their clothes and so on.”
“Okay so a round number,” Art interjected, “let’s call it a hundred?”
“I think that might be a bit too generous,” Kitch said. “But if it makes life easier.”
“We still won’t need to tackle that whole number head on though,” Dennis reminded the group. “We’ve got the three points of contact: remember?”
Everyone listened as Dennis laid out the plan, going over each point carefully and stressing the risk areas. They’d all heard it nearly ten times by now, but were all in agreement that there was no harm repeating the words and making sure every step had properly sunk in. If anyone messed up or anything didn’t happen at precisely the right time then the whole operation could fail and this was their one and only chance.
Dennis would be leading the strike team. Their task was to ambush the soldiers as they left the island at two in the morning. The smaller vessels carried eight soldiers each and two of them left each night to give the men a few days rest away from the island. Martha had worked out their rotation schedules to the letter so she knew exactly how many left and from which posts across the island, to then be replaced three hours later.
The job for Dennis and his team was straightforward enough, but far from simple. They needed to overpower the sixteen soldiers who were leaving the island, lock them away somewhere so they wouldn’t raise suspicion and still get the two ships across the harbor to the main boat on schedule so those waiting out at sea didn’t get suspicious. [MP23]It meant they needed to act fast and they needed to act correctly, any tiny mistake could put their lives in serious jeopardy.
Meanwhile, Art and Kitch would be leading the assault on the island. With the reduced numbers, they should be able to move from one post to the next and disable the remaining Chinese soldiers on Kauai. On paper, it was a very direct and no-nonsense plan and each one of them had every faith it could work. But they had to be aware of the risks too.
Art looked across the room at Jessie, the words they had spoken to each other earlier that night ringing out in his head. They both bought into this rebel plan and both convinced they needed to rid the Chinese from their island. But, they were also both parents. As such, they had agreed earlier that night that no matter what happened, no matter what changed in the next hours or days, their children would come first. If that meant abandoning the plan and everyone they were working with to protect their two boys, then they would do it. They had to. They didn’t have a choice.
It did make Art worry though. If he and Jessie had a secret agenda, then there was a chance some of the others did too. They weren’t the only parents among them and, while everyone outwardly showed their enthusiasm, there was no way of knowing what was happening inside the others’ heads. It made it impossible to trust completely, a downside of a plan which relied so heavily on everyone playing their part.
“All good?” Dennis looked around the room and at the faces staring back at him, each one processing that the planning was over and now it was time to act. “Look, I know this isn’t going to be easy,” Dennis continued, doing his best to give the group a pep talk. It was difficult considering he’d abandoned half of them only a matter of weeks ago, but one thing about Dennis was that he went after whatever cause he was fighting for with a full heart and without holding back. It was the attribute which made it possible for him to hold his head up high in a room of people who might not trust him and speak to them as if he was speaking to his closest friends. It was almost like the man had no shame, like he didn’t care what people thought of him so long as he got the job done.
“We all know it needs to be done and if we don’t do it now, things are only going to get worse. It’s one night and then we have the rest of our lives ahead of us. One night of pain, for a lifetime of pleasure. We can do this; we just have to believe in ourselves.”
“Yeah, come on guys,” Art encouraged, clapping his hands together. “We’ve got this. For Kauai, remember? For the island!”
A low cheer rippled throughout the room as people banded together and prepared for the night ahead of them. There were still several hours before the ships left with the soldiers, but there was a lot to do in that time and they couldn’t waste it just sitting around discussing. The sound of chairs scraping on the wooden floorboards filled the air as people stood up and went off into their little teams, exiting one by one with a smile and a nod of the head and each hoping that when they were all together again, it would be in victory.
Jessie and Art were among the last to leave, sticking around a few extra minutes to help Martha return the classroom to its original set up. The schoolhouse had been a great meeting place for them, the Chinese stopping all lessons for their children and effectively putting the building into disuse. As a result, they didn’t keep watch there, an oversight that may have cost them the island by morning.
“I can’t really believe we’re doing this,” Martha sighed as she tucked the last chair under its allocated desk. “I mean I can, it needs to be done. I just can’t believe it’s finally happening.”
“I know,” Jessie agreed with her. “It almost feels like someone else should be doing this part, not us.”
“Exactly! I just hope it works out.”
“It will,” Art said confidently, reassuring both women at the same time. “It will.”
A few minutes later, when Art and Jessie were making their way back home from the schoolhouse, he figured that both of them couldn’t help but feel guilty about their secret agenda. Jessie in particular was struggling with it, she said she felt like she was betraying Martha and her friends, but on the other hand knew that nothing was as important as the boys. Zayn and Axel weren’t at home when they got there, both staying the night at a friend’s house in what had been disguised as a harmless sleepover.
“I wish they were here,” Jessie sighed, looking into Axel’s bedroom while Art packe
d the last of their supplies for the night in individual backpacks. “I’m worried about them, Art.”
Art walked over to his wife and put the bags down, taking Jessie’s face in her hands. “I know, babe, but this is for the best. We have to go into tonight believing it’ll be a success – we have to focus on that. We’ll pull this off, take back our island and spend the rest of our lives here with our boys. We’ll do it, we have to believe that.”
Art watched as Jessie inhaled a deep breath and closed her eyes, letting his words wash over her. She had to know he was right, if they were going to stand a chance at winning tonight, then she had to believe they could do it. A positive mental attitude was the first step to success, that was something she’d always lived by and that she would need to hold in her mind tonight – believe you can succeed and that’s the first step to doing so.
“Alright,” she leaned forward slightly, resting her forehead against Art’s. “I love you.”
“I love you too, babe,” Art whispered, “and I’ll see you again real soon. Be careful, okay?”
“Of course,” Jessie nodded. “You too.”
With those final words, Art picked up one of the bags he had packed and made his way downstairs, exiting their house and making his way in secret to his rendezvous point with Kitch[MP24]. Jessie wasn’t on the same team as her husband, nor was she on the strike team with Dennis. Instead she had a different job to do. Shouldering the bag that Art had prepared for her, she looked at herself in the mirror and squared her jaw, preparing for what was to come.
Flashes of everything she and her family had been through since the collapse circled through her mind. She remembered the day the news broke and the confusion everyone had felt, the rush to get onto the last departing cruise liner and the devastation that one exit had brought to the island. She recalled the short conversation she’d had with her parents and brother back in New York and wondered what had happened to Samuel since then, his face plastered all over the news as the scapegoat for this disaster. It sounded so mundane in her head, just one company going bankrupt and yet, off the back of that, so much had changed.
Wipeout | Book 5 | Foul Play Page 16