Dawn began streaking the eastern sky as Khamsin’s troops began firing at the Rebel-held lines.
“Fall back,” Ben ordered. “Down to Ninety-sixth Street. Let’s go, people. Fall back as if you’re running in fear from the Hot Fart.”
The Rebels pulled back, giving the Libyan troops twelve more blocks of the city.
“Throw up a line here,” Ben ordered. “We’ve got to hold until noon.”
The Rebels stopped the fast advance of the Libyan troops and held firm. There were few casualties on either side that morning. The snow already on the ground and more coming down made visibility poor and any type of movement very dangerous.
“Get any vehicles that we don’t need out of here,” Ben instructed Dan. “Get them across the bridges. Have the drivers of the vehicles that are staying with us turn them around and keep them ready to go.”
Dan was back at Ben’s side in a moment.
“The bridges wired and ready to blow, Dan?”
“All set, General.”
Ben checked his watch then opened a map case. “When we bug out, Dan, we’ll take Amsterdam all the way down until it intersects with Broadway. We’ll follow Broadway down to Fourteenth Street and then I’ll angle off to Fourth. We’ll head down to the two lower bridges, then across to Brooklyn. As soon as we’re on the bridges, blow the Williamsburg Bridge.”
“Ten-four, General.”
“All the Tall Eyes down and clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All recon patrols back to our lines?”
“All back home, sir.”
“What am I forgetting, Dan?”
“I can’t think of a thing, sir. I believe we are ready to put the stopper in the bottle.”
“Just a few more hours,” Ben muttered, his voice barely audible over the crash of combat.
“Rebet and Danjou are across,” Chuck relayed the message to Ben.
Emil walked up, looking like the original Sad Sack.
“Did my sweet poopsie arrive in Brooklyn safely?” he asked.
“Yes, Emil,” Ben replied, fighting to hide his smile. “Your rose of no-man’s-land is safe.”
“I feel like the sun has gone forever out of my life,” Emil moaned, looking as if he might tune up and start bawling any second. Or singing, and one was just as bad as the other.
“Hang on, Emil,” Ben told him. “You’ll be together again.” He silently groaned as soon as the words left his mouth, for he knew Emil was old enough to remember that song.
Emil burst out in song.
Dan looked on and listened, his face a study in emotions as Emil bellowed out the words, his voice carrying over the rattle of gunfire.
Ben turned to a Rebel. “Go find Thermopolis. Tell him to get his people—and Emil and his group—across the river. As quickly as possible.” He grabbed Emil by the shoulders. “Emil! Get ready to head for Brooklyn. Your sweet baboo is waiting.”
“Oh, thank you from the bottom of my heart!” Emil shouted. He ran off, slipping and sliding in the snow, to join his group.
“Thermopolis is not going to be happy about this,” Dan said.
“Would you like to escort Emil across the bridge?”
“God forbid!”
“Let’s go to work.”
The men and women walked toward the sounds of battle.
Ben was leaning up against a truck when Thermopolis and his group drove past in their VWs. Emil was sitting in the backseat of Thermopolis’s Bug. He looked very happy, and he was singing.
Thermopolis looked long at Ben, an extremely disgusted expression on his face, then raised his hand and gave Ben the finger.
Ben was still laughing and Dan was losing the struggle to maintain a straight face as the short column faded out of sight, the chains on the tires clanking and clicking and rattling as they gripped the snowy street.
“We can’t have any amateurs on this last run, Dan. Get the Underground People out. Tell them to move out now.”
Within minutes, the trucks carrying the strange and pale men and women and children of the underground moved past.
“Gettin’ down to the nut-cuttin’ now,” Jersey commented.
Dan glanced at her. “What a quaint expression. You certainly have a way with words.”
“Thanks,” Jersey said with a straight face.
“Wind is beginning to shift around,” Coop said. “Another hour or so and it’ll be coming straight out of the east.”
“That’s when we’ll make our move, people. Blazer all packed, Coop?”
“Ten-four, General. Sittin’ on go.”
Ben stuck out his hand and Dan shook it. “Return to your unit, Dan. Get ready to bug out. I’ll advise General Striganov and his people they’ll be leaving within the hour.”
“I shall see you on Broadway, General. Naturally, you will be leading the parade?”
“Wrong. My team will be the last ones off this island, Dan.”
“I had to try.”
“I was waiting for it.”
“Good luck, sir.”
“Same to you, Dan.”
The Englishman wheeled around and began the short walk back to his unit of Scouts.
Ben stood in the cold winds and blowing snow and rolled a cigarette, his mind racing back and forth like a restless panther in a cage. He began to pace up and down the sidewalk.
Had he remembered everything?
He thought so.
His personal team stood around him in silence, watching him pace the snow.
Ben sighed and stopped his restless walking. He looked at his team. “Take a look around you, gang. Take a look at the Big Apple. We’re about to tear the core out of it. It’s a good thing Hizzoner isn’t around to see this.”
“Who, sir?” Coop asked.
“The mayor. He would have been very unhappy with me.” Ben lifted the map and for the tenth time in an hour studied the route to freedom. “Miles to go,” he muttered. “And we’re leaving so many treasures behind us.”
“Sir,” Jersey said. “We got a hundred tons of books and paintings and stuff being loaded over in Brooklyn. More than I ever dreamed we’d manage to salvage. If history hangs a lot of blame on you, then the historians can just go kiss ass!”
Ben was startled for a moment; then he burst out laughing. “You’re right, Jersey. Thanks for taking a load off me.”
“You’re welcome,” the little lady said.
“Let’s go cross some bridges, gang. Chuck, tell General Striganov to bug out!”
ELEVEN
As soon as Khamsin’s troops realized what was happening, they radioed the news back to his CP.
“Pursue them!” Khamsin screamed. “Don’t let them reach the bridges. Cut them off.”
Easy to say. But Ben had prepared for that move, as well.
What Khamsin did not know, but was about to discover, was that East 65th Street, from the park all the way over to the East River, was blocked by as many junked vehicles as the Rebels had been able to drag in from all over that part of the city.
Khamsin split his forces, one group pushing down from the recently abandoned battle lines on the east side of the park, the other group chasing after Ben on the west side of the park.
Some of Gene Savie’s group, seeing what was taking place, ran out of their apartments and tried to wave down the troops of the Hot Wind.
“We’re friends!” they screamed at the trucks. “We’re on your side. We’re glad to see you.”
“Please stop!” Gene shouted. “Please. We’re your friends.”
The Libyans laughed at them.
“Leave them be,” a field commander ordered. “When we get back we’ll shoot the men and have our way with the women.”
The race went on through the slick snowy streets of the city.
In the Blazer, Ben took a page from Emil’s book and began humming “Homeward Bound.”
With chains on all four wheels, Cooper could maneuver the four-wheel-drive vehicle almost as well as
if he were driving on dry pavement. Since they were the last vehicle in the column, Ben decided to have some fun by tossing grenades out of his open window.
That action kept Khamsin’s men back a good two blocks, for the Rebel grenades were almost twice as powerful as the old conventional type.
Ben picked up his mike and keyed it. “Dan? When we reach Columbus Circle, spread a couple hundred pounds of HE around the area and put a two-minute timer on it. That ought to catch Khamsin’s column just right. Keep the east lane, east side clear.”
“Ten-four, sir.”
Cooper glanced at a battered old sign. West 72nd Street. It was going to be close. He picked up his mike. “You guys up front wanna kick it in the ass some? I sure would appreciate it.”
The column picked up speed.
“What’s the matter, Coop?” Ben said with a smile. “You getting nervous?”
“Oh, no! Not me, sir.”
“He doesn’t lie any better than he drives,” Jersey remarked.
Coop slid through Columbus Circle, his face shiny with sweat. “Shit!” he yelled, relief very evident in his voice as they cleared the hidden explosives.
The high explosives blew just as the third truck in Khamsin’s column passed over it. The truck and its occupants were splattered all over the area. The huge explosion blew the gas tanks on several more trucks and created a massive, burning traffic jam. The twisted and mangled and bloody bodies of the Hot Wind’s soldiers littered the snow.
The Rebel column sped past 57th Street and continued south, toward Times Square.
“We’re blocked!” Akim screamed into his mike. “Completely blocked at Sixty-fifth Street.”
“Backtrack!” Khamsin squalled into his mike. “Backtrack and cut over through the park.” He was frantically eyeing an old city map. “Just past the zoo there is a road that cuts south, it will bring you out on Central Park South. Move, Akim, move!”
“Times Square.” Ben pointed it out, much like a tour director. “I almost got mugged in this area one night.”
They passed the Times Building.
“Macy’s is just a few blocks down, ladies. I wish we had the time to stop and browse, but I’m afraid our schedule just won’t permit it. Pressing business and all that, you know?”
“Comedian,” Jersey muttered. “A grenade-tossing comedian.”
“Yeah, you could say he bombed out,” Beth said.
Ben groaned as the others laughed.
They were through Herald Square and then passing the Flatiron Building on 23rd Street.
Ben keyed his mike. “Dan, everything is still Go. You cross on the Brooklyn Bridge. I’ll take the Manhattan Bridge.”
“Ten-four, General.”
“Lead Scout,” Ben radioed, “when you get down here to Union Square Park, just past it, hang a left and you’ll pick up Fourth Avenue, turn right on Fourth. That changes to Bowery later on. Stay with it. We might even see a bum or two.”
“Sir?”
“Never mind. We’ll pick up the bridge just off Confucius Plaza.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where the hell did our pursuit go?” Beth asked, twisting around in the backseat.
“They probably got all tangled up,” Ben said with a smile as the others groaned.
Coop followed the column as they turned onto Fourth.
“Cooper Square right down there a few blocks,” Ben told him.
“All right! Probably named after one of my famous relatives.”
“Probably where they hung one of your relatives,” Jersey fired back.
“Speaking of being hung . . .” Cooper laughed as he was booed and hissed quiet from Beth and Jersey.
“General Striganov is across,” the speaker spewed the words. “What is your twenty, General?” Dan asked.
“Coming up on Houston.”
“I’m crossing Canal. I’ll wait for you, General.”
“Ten-fifty on that, Dan. You get across the bridge.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Khamsin’s people in sight, General,” Beth told him.
Ben rolled down his window and began tossing grenades out as fast as his people could hand them to him and he could pull the pins.
Khamsin’s column fell back several blocks. Bullets began slamming into the back of the Blazer.
“That’s very annoying,” Ben remarked, as they sped past Delancey Street. He read the old street sign. “Just a couple of minutes more, gang.” He picked up his mike.
“Eagle to Shark?”
“Go, Eagle.”
“I think we just might have a few vehicles on our tail when we cross. Have some reception waiting for them, please.”
“Ten-four, Eagle.”
Ben flipped the radio to scramble. “To all units crossing over. Do not go to the docks. Repeat, do not go to the docks. You will rendezvous with me just off the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway on Navy Street. Shark, shove off.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.” Ike’s voice contained a lot of high humor.
“What the hell . . . ?” Cooper muttered. They were on the bridge and staying in the ruts made by previous vehicles.
The sound of a ship’s horn drifted to them.
Jersey looked at Beth and Beth looked at Chuck.
“Don’t ask me,” he said. “I just work here.”
“Eagle to West.”
“Go, Eagle.”
“You may have the honors, sir.”
“That’s a big ten-four, General. But it is with a mixture of sadness and satisfaction.”
“I understand the emotions, West. Peel the Apple.”
Behind them, in several hundred spots throughout the city, massive charges blew, bringing buildings down and sending deadly gas wafting through the cold air. Electronically opened valves sent gasoline flooding into the subway system and the sewer tunnels under the city. The fumes ignited and exploded. Entire sections of streets were lifted high into the air. The methane was ignited and flames leaped hundreds of feet into the air as the methane mixed with gasoline.
And the poisonous chemicals reached human lungs and flesh.
“You across, Dan?” Ben radioed.
“Ten-four, sir.”
“So are we. Blow the bridges.”
Those who had chased Ben and his columns through the city were caught on the bridge as sections of both spans were blown. The fast-moving trucks could not stop in time. They plunged off the bridge, falling through the blown sections to the icy waters below, carrying their screaming human cargo to a watery death.
Ben did not immediately look back on the death of a city. Had he looked, he would have seen huge columns of smoke rising into the snowy air, flames dancing and twisting from the gasoline and methane as they touched and torched dusty old buildings.
On both sides of Central Park, and from 86th Street down to Battery Park, a fiery maelstrom had enveloped the city, one fire feeding another as the flames spread unchecked.
Only one battalion of Khamsin’s troops was above the deadly line of fire and poison chemicals. Khamsin ordered them into protective gear and began moving them back toward the north, the taste of defeat bitter in his mouth.
Gene and Kay Savie and their collaborators made it away from the chemicals and flames with the clothes on their backs, their weapons, and damn little else. They got into their once-expensive cars and station wagons and raced toward the north.
John Savie sat in the backseat of his son’s car and muttered, “I always knew that Ben Raines was a no-good, no-talent son of a bitch!”
He looked back at the city and cursed.
Flames were rapidly moving up the dusty interiors of the tall towers of the city, building with a hideous fury as the tons of papers within the offices exploded in flames, the force blowing out windows and pocking the snow-covered streets with shards of glass.
As the water in the sewers and tunnels began to boil, steam began to build, producing pressure with no adequate release valve. The working energy finally reached the explod
ing point and blew, the collected masses blowing great holes in the streets of lower Manhattan and in the basements and lower levels of buildings. That action proved too much for structures already weakened by age and neglect. Steel twisted and concrete buckled, bringing hundreds of thousands of tons of ragged debris down into the streets.
Khamsin looked back at the holocaust and cursed Ben Raines, damning him forever to the pits of Hell and the demons therein.
In the department stores of the city, mannequins melted as the fires reached near-impossible temperatures; silk and satin and cotton burst into flames; expensive jewelry melted; and five-hundred-dollar bottles of perfume and cologne exploded, one last and very brief touch of extravagance splashing an aroma-salute to a dying city.
Those troops of the Hot Wind who had been caught in lower Manhattan now lay choking on the snow, the deadly gases ending their lives just as the flames touched them, or they lay buried and forever forgotten beneath tons of rubble as buildings collapsed.
Those Night People who dared challenge Ben Raines and his Rebels, those who remained in the city, went up in a puff of fire and smoke, for they had no place left to run.
Ben ordered the Blazer stopped on an overpass of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. He stood by the railing, facing west, a hard wind blowing at his back. Lower Manhattan was completely enveloped in smoke and fire and explosions. Below him, on the streets under the overpass, Rebels waited in silence, all of them looking at the destruction across the cold and silent river.
One Rebel in the crowd of men and women standing in the cold and snow turned to face Ben, standing above him. He raised his M16 high in the air and let a Rebel yell rip the air. Ben cut his eyes and looked at the man.
Others in the crowd turned, raised their weapons and cut the cold winds with wild Rebel yells of victory. Behind them, the black smoke roiled angrily and darkly into the air.
Soon all the Rebels on the streets and expressway were yelling, pumping their weapons up and down in a victory salute.
Ben let them work off weeks of collected steam, their cries of victory filling the snowy air.
Then he lifted his M14 into the air and joined in the celebration.
Far in the distance, the sounds of ships’ horns joined the victory yells as Ike led the three-ship, nearly empty convoy out into Lower New York Bay, past Fort Hancock, and then assumed a southerly heading.
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