by Jake Packard
# # #
“John Kennedy Storm.”
“Here I am.”
* * * * *
War Vehicle
The war vehicle moved slowly through the deserted streets toward Shantypark. Ibrahim stared out the windshield, serene, as if absent of thought. Not so Herbie, whose brain was churning, trying to absorb the inexplicable events of this morning that he was too late to record. He shifted Jamal, the essence of acceptance, over in his lap so he could put the headbandcam in his pocket.
From deep within his stunned reasoning he realized how distracted he was from all these amazing changes. If squirrel killers were coming out of the building with Jamal in custody, there must be others inside the apartment with Maria. Duh! His heart leapt with fear, just as Salem climbed into the cab from the back of the truck.
“This is a good place to let me out.”
Before Herbie could utter a word, Ibrahim applied the brakes and the heavy machine slowed to a halt in the middle of the block. Salem opened the side door and jumped out. Herbie handed Jamal off to Ibrahim and tried to follow. Salem turned him back. “Herbie, you must stay and watch over Jamal.”
“Ibrahim can watch him. I can’t sit here doing nothing when Maria is back there.”
“Herbie, don’t worry. The universe doesn’t answer worry. Have faith. I will always be with you.”
They watched him through the windshield as he disappeared around the corner. When Ibrahim pulled the truck up to the intersection, he was nowhere in sight.
* * * * *
Slaughter
Rodney Pellet could never cope with the emotion brought upon by failure. Once perceived, it drove him crazy to the heights of the same criminal insanity that he deplored in the enemies of his world that he hunted night and day. Standing outside Maria’s apartment building he felt the beginning tremors of that exact fury right now as he stared in disbelief at his once-proud recruits cringing in fear. They were crouching, disarmed, against the wall of Maria’s building.
“So, what I understand is that you all say Salem Jones, North America’s most wanted, Salem Jones, was right here, a few minutes ago. And you just put down your guns and watched as you let him drive away in your truck.” None of the soldiers could answer; it sounded so absurd.
A jeep pulled up to the curb armed with machine guns turreted on its roof and pointing out the side windows. Pellet looked away from his once-proud recruits and signaled the gunners. They opened fire and in seconds the men were shattered, blown apart into tortured and disemboweled positions, pieces of torsos in pools of blood, body parts and fluids scattered on the sidewalk and splattered on the wall.
A second lieutenant was taking pictures from the passenger window. Pellet gave him an order. “Email these photos to every soldier and every officer in this army. Show them the slaughter Salem perpetrated on their fellow soldiers. I want them to see what they are up against. We cannot miss another opportunity like this.” He grabbed the throat of the lieutenant squirrel killer assigned to his personal command and whispered with a great threatening chill into his earpiece. “New standing orders. If anyone approaches within fifty feet of this vehicle on your way to the prison, and I don’t care if they look like your mother, you are to consider them the enemy and shoot to kill immediately and without question.”
He turned to a shocked, handcuffed Maria as two soldier goons pushed her into the back seat. He leaned over her through the open door, “I am through with the niceties, my dear. I am keeping you alive for one reason. My boys are going to take you to a state prison where they are going to closely guard you until tonight, when at prime time for a Christmas special, you are going back on the air. You are going to apologize to this city and the entire world for your part in the evil you perpetrated. With a prepared statement that is being composed at this very moment, you are going to extol my leadership and the bravery of my men. If you don’t follow my every order and command, your parents will die very slowly and painfully with the methods of torture I have learned first-hand while fighting to keep pathetic bleeding hearts like you free. When you do exactly as I say, then I will let them continue to live.”
As the jeep with Maria roared off down the street, the general’s armored BMW sedan pulled alongside the curb to pick him up. He sat down and transmitted an all-points alarm. Seek out and destroy the armored truck on the Upper East Side that was hijacked by the gangs from Shantypark and reported to contain the terrorist Salem Jones.
* * * * *
Tunnel
Ibrahim pulled the vehicle up to the median on Park Avenue and was able to see the barriers that were hastily set up on the corner ahead, blocking his entry. Pythons stationed by the barricade immediately took notice. Glancing into the rear-view mirror he could see a squad of SKs on the move, approaching from behind, several loading their shoulder-mounted rocket launchers as they scrambled towards him.
The loyal men of Shantypark riding in the back immediately helped themselves to some AK-87s stockpiled in this mobile armory and began firing at the oncoming targets to their rear. Instantly, some squirrel killers went down and others took cover. They began to fire back. Hard sharp sounds of lead projectiles pounded into the armor protecting the truck. On the barricade in front of them a howitzer was raised into position to fire. Ibrahim shouted at Herbie and they threw open their doors and flung themselves out with Herbie pulling Jamal in tow as the missile hit the truck and blew it up and backwards into the air in an eardrum-crushing explosion.
Herbie was on the ground next to Jamal. In that sharp crack, the truck and the men in it were destroyed, left in a blaze of fire and smoke. In the turmoil, he could see soldiers advancing from both the front and the rear, firing bookoo lead into the debris. Through the smoke he heard Ibrahim yelling for him and he grabbed Jamal and ran through the smoke and devastation towards the shouts. Bullets thudding all around, the absurd thought actually crossed his mind that he was getting pretty good at this.
Ibrahim gestured to a spot close by in the street on Park Avenue that had erupted with men carrying automatic weapons of their own. They sprouted up through a manhole, firing on the squirrel killers advancing on them, taking several of them out. As Herbie dropped Jamal into the tunnel, splatters of blood from these brave dudes, who were now being killed, splashed onto his face and neck. He let himself fall into the hole after Jamal, and then Ibrahim landed on top of him with a bone thumping. In the little tunnel more men from Shantypark pushed them out of the way and clamored out onto the street firing their weapons at indiscriminate targets as they emerged. What Herbie couldn’t see at that time was how quickly they were terminated by the posse of SKs that descended on them from all sides. They were anonymous and cruel and nobody liked them, but these Marines were good at killing people.
The tunnel branched off into several directions. Ibrahim shouted at Herbie to follow, so he grabbed Jamal and did. As he ran away from the battle, Herbie turned to look back for an instant. He saw squirrel killers descending through the hole, firing into the murky light. Men on both sides were pierced and screaming and dying around the bottom of that hole. The fight had been taken from the street into the tunnel and even in his panic Herbie knew what this meant.
Herbie pulled Jamal out of the other end of the tunnel just south of where the old Model Boat House would have been in ancient Central Park days, where aficionados of this simple pastime spent leisurely afternoons with their grandchildren playing with remote control ships in sculptured renaissance fountains. Today a terrific explosion from back where they had just come ripped through the narrow passageway and spewed forth a volcanic rush of dust and smoke that blew out all over them. Gagging, they fell to the ground. Herbie rolled over to see Jamal. He was covered with dirt, but smiling. Merry Christmas, Herbie thought.
Ibrahim wasted no time rousing them. “That explosion killed many men but it will buy us some time. It’ll take some time for the SKs to bring in heavy machinery and clear the tunnel, but there are many other places from wh
ere they can come. We have to hurry. This thing has started.”
In the last couple of days Shantypark went from insane diabolic paranoia, to born again and saved, and now suddenly thrown back into a declaration of full-scale war with an outside enemy. Chaos. People were running in all directions in panic, others were huddled together lamenting. Where to go, where to hide? If the tunnels were breached where could they go to survive aerial assaults?
Most of the hobbled and sick couldn’t do much but opt for whatever ridiculous sense of security their tents and shacks had to offer. But those healthy enough and able to keep their heads, moved toward the one place that could give them some strength. Herbie, along with Ibrahim and Jamal, kept a desperate pace with them towards Reginald Square, where they knew the Council would convene. But where was Salem? What would he do?
* * * * *
Command Car
Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims and proselytes clamored together in No Man’s Land just outside the walls of Shantypark. Their collective sounds bordered on braying, driving the overly paranoid squirrel killer’s crazy.
News of the firefight spread in an instant through the First Army and tensions ran high; no one knew when the next outbreak would come. Pellet’s orders, shuttled through the personal communications gear inside their helmets, were clear. The pictures of their slaughtered comrades butchered by Salem Jones and the terrorists from Shantypark were even clearer.
Pellet wanted to end this thing once and for all. That was his message to the Alliance members who were coordinated into neat little windows on the large monitor in his command car.
“You don’t get it, Chancellor,” said Pellet. “This latest violation of the non-aggression agreements clearly indicates that these are not isolated instances from some renegade gang. This is already the beginning of a well-coordinated plan by the terrorists to take over this city. Salem must have been in communication with them from jail, the same way he wrested control over large portions of the population with this subverted form of born-again mind control. In my estimation Shantypark is ready and poised for a major outbreak. Obviously, Salem is in command.”
An extreme and delicate pause. The Sony Korean stared from behind his leaden scopes out into the virtual cyber conference, while the middlesex man from Microsoft seemed to be fidgeting with something in its pocket. The rulers in The Hague clinked the ice in their brandy around in their tumblers while the tree snake from Singapore played with the hair on her eyebrows. The only sounds came from the princes in Abu Dhabi hiding all expression behind dark mirrored sunglasses, clueless in their opulence, grunting something in Arabic, which might have been nothing but exhortations to some well-imprinted deity from decades gone by. Pellet was irritated.
“I am closing in on my threshold of patience with all this. I have soldiers dead and dying. Right at this moment I am clearing the area around the park to try and avoid unnecessary casualties, but I need you to know that is not my main consideration. I want you to understand that my objective is one hundred percent clear. I am going to get to this Salem Jones in whatever way I can, and terminate him. Then and only then can I subdue this revolt from Shantypark and gain control back to the city government.
The man from Sony finally said something from behind his dark cyberglasses. “General, I assume the mayor has been consulted about this intended course of action?”
“Chancellor, the mayor has been incapacitated. I’m afraid we won’t be privileged with any of his esteemed counsel anymore.”
Deep, long-distance silence. “General,” finally it was the tree monkey Queen of Singapore, “my sympathies are for the mayor, but we are unanimous in support for you in all things, you know that.”
“Of course, I know that. You need me in many ways.”
“Yes, of course, but you still need us as well. This tiny world keeps us too well connected I am afraid. Since we have no other choice now but to put our full trust in you, all I can do is implore you to keep the body count down as much as possible. Once this is over, world opinion will still matter. We cannot have reports of massacre. We cannot have reports again of armies bombing their own cities. You know what kind of panic that will start worldwide. We can’t afford outbreaks of violence like this in other places. Besides you have the girl and she will cooperate. She will read our statement and, when this is through, she will have put a somewhat palatable spin on this unfortunate turn of events. That is what we want. So keep it swift; keep it quiet, and keep it on the ground. Unfortunately, you must take no quarter, for at the end of the day we can only have one point of view.”
* * * * *
57
At that instant, as New York prepared for battle once more, Maria was thrown into a dark prison cell, banging her head against the cinderblock wall. She crumpled into a corner as her head rescinded consciousness.
In the ensuing vision she saw her mother, who looked very self-assured and at ease. She was sipping raspberry iced tea through a long green straw. Surrounded by squirrel killers she seemed in her element, secure, composed. The barracks she was confined to for her own safekeeping wasn’t quite her choice in interior decoration, but she was confident that the general was doing the right thing; this would only be a temporary staging spot before he moved her to a different more tolerable location for her and her husband. He was in a different room, and she supposed he was answering the same questions about Maria that they just asked her. Stuff about her childhood, her career. The questions about her sex life were nasty, but easy to answer, because, as far as she knew, Maria didn’t have any. She agreed that this generation had a strong price to pay, but it was better than the alternatives. Besides she told them that she had enough sex in her life for all of her family.These guys did look cute in their combat gear.
When Maria opened her eyes, charcoal shadows were moving about in her cell, some exchanging grunts and metallic snickers in her direction. The SKs who brought her in were stationed in the prison corridor; even more were in position inside her cell. They were going to take no chances. There would be no terrorist action, real or supernatural. These soldiers were ready, tightly wound, primo killers. They knew this mission was of paramount importance to the general. In this man’s Marine Corps nothing else mattered.
The squirrel killer guards hunkered down for what they thought should only be a couple of hours. Besides, after she did her thing at the TV station, the general wouldn’t care if they had a little fun . . .
* * * * *
A Boy
Grandma sat in the twilight zone of her living room and gazed at Sonia who drifted off to sleep after Grandma gave her the Ambien. Pranan and Lorraine put the kids to bed upstairs. The children wanted to know what happened and why weren’t they old enough to understand. It was hard for Pranan who always liked to be frank and forthwith with his kids, but he knew nobody could ever be old enough to understand this. So, he just hushed them to sleep with a stern but loving not-right-now. He sat in the tiny green Perry Street kitchen with Lorraine, nursing a cold cup of green tea and honey, waiting, not knowing what to do.
It was hours before the telephone rang, shocking the awful stillness. Nobody dared to move. Pranan lifted the receiver from its base on the kitchen wall. At first Grandma could only make out a few inaudible mumbles but then she heard him try to hold back a gasp.
He hung the phone up and, with Lorraine’s help, they guided Sonia off the couch. The four of them climbed into Grandma’s Volkswagen minivan, the very same in which her son was conceived, and Pranan drove them to Mass General.
Bullmoose had seen it all. He had walked all the way to Kendall Square to try and set these things gone haywire with his overwrought children somewhat straight. Not unexpectedly, he couldn’t. Dolores couldn’t stop crying and Henry screamed and yelled and actually punched him hard in the face. Bullmoose took the blow, and his eye was swollen and black when they met up with him in the hospital’s emergency waiting room.
When he had gotten off the floor in Henry’s apartme
nt, head pounding and vision blurry, he stumbled down the stairs and watched them get into their double-parked Hyundai in a state of emotional turmoil. With his good eye he watched Henry kick the little car into gear and screech off into traffic to get slammed by that passing bus on its route towards Government Center.
The paramedics and police arrived as soon as possible. They worked with blowtorches to pry them from the twisted wreckage and then rushed them both by ambulance to the hospital. For poor Henry, it really wasn’t necessary.
The five old friends were huddled in a state of grief and shock when the doctor stepped out from the operating room. He looked at them with a long mystical, quizzical stare. I’m sorry he said, tears misting in his eyes; we did all we could for her. But, miraculously, we managed to save the baby. Congratulations everyone; it’s a boy.
As the tears flowed and the grief howled, Pranan slid the magic ring off his finger and placed it on the pinkie of Bullmoose’s picking hand. “You’re going to need this now more than me, buddy.”
* * * * *
Bandshell
By the time Herbie reached the outside edges of the mall, all of Shantypark was a raging tempest. Angry waves of people heaved and swelled upon the bandshell, like a hurricane surge foreshadowing an oncoming deluge. Off in the distance from all directions were heard large, muffled explosions, and people could feel the ground shaking beneath them. Up above they heard the blades of the Apache choppers hovering off and away, just out of eyesight. Their deadly discharge could be upon them at any moment. The precarious prisoners in Shantypark were in full-blown panic.