by Mick Farren
Winters got a good grip of his Mossberg. Thomas had handed out the heaviest weapons in the armory; he seemed to be taking the strange behavior of the electronics and the unusual prowling of the PD very seriously. Winters was not quite as convinced. What could the PD do to them? Without calling out to Gresler, he moved almost cockily toward the door, sure that there could be nothing life-threatening beyond it. It was probably another symptom of the electronic chaos that seemed to be breaking out all over. Raising the Mossberg to the ready position was little more than bravado.
He turned into the open doorway. To his surprise, he saw that there was a woman sitting in the control seat of the room's single terminal. She suddenly turned and faced him, as if she had sensed him standing there. His eyebrows lifted in surprise. It was Cynthia Kline, the whore who had been sleeping with the traitor Carlisle. Something unpleasant uncurled in his mind. He had a fleeting vision of Kline and himself, alone in one of the chambers in the sub-basement. She was naked and strapped down to a vaulting horse frame. Her expression was one of pure, silent-scream terror. As the vision faded, his own face twisted into an unpleasant grin.
"So what do you think you're doing in here?"
Kline
She fired without thinking. The plastic Browning was in front of her on the terminal. She scooped it up in one smooth movement and aimed by instinct. The Browning made a series of quiet pops. The flat, lozenge-shaped slugs were tiny when they left the gun's rectangular barrel, but on impact they sprang open to form ripping, tearing stars of hardened plastic. The first took Winters in the chest. The second hit him in the throat. The third and fourth were close together in his forehead. Her instructors would have been proud of her. For a few seconds Winters stood absolutely still, blood flowing down his face and neck and staining his shirt. He looked surprised. Then his eyes rolled up, and he toppled and fell. His blood spread in a widening pool, across the white tiles of the floor. Cynthia let out a harsh bark of grim laughter.
"That'll teach you to go up against a professional. Think you were taking on a bimbo, did you?"
There was a shout from somewhere nearby.
"Winters? What's happening?"
Cynthia screamed loudly and knelt down by Winters' body. The Browning was concealed in her palm. She heard the sound of running feet. A second deacon, also carrying a Mossberg, swung through the open doorway to C70. He took in the scene in one stony glance and formed the understandable conclusion that Cynthia was nothing more than an innocent bystander.
"What happened?"
Cynthia had no trouble with sounding choked by terror. "PDs – they shot him."
"Where did they go?"
"Down the corridor."
As he turned his back on her to look out of the door, she calmly shot him. He staggered, and she fired again. Some spasm caused his fingers to close around the trigger of his weapon. The gun went off with a deafening roar, the blast chewing a large bite out of the door frame. Cynthia knew that she had to get out of there right away, before anyone else showed up. She could not turn the same trick twice. She was on her feet and moving. She stepped over the body of the second deacon, ran through the door, and hurried down the corridor, making for the elevators. Just as she turned the corner that led to the elevator banks, the doors were opening. She was in luck. She was about to step into the car when figures suddenly appeared around a corner on the opposite side of the elevator banks. They were running men in windbreakers and blue jeans. From the way that they brandished machine pistols and riot guns, they had to be plainclothes PD.
"Hold it right there, lady!"
There were too many of them, and they had too much firepower. If she simply jumped into the elevator, they could easily blast through the doors. She let the Browning drop into her shoulder bag, hoping that they were too far away to notice the move. They would not expect a woman to be armed. She raised her hands.
"Don't shoot!"
They were all around her barking questions. There were five of them, young and tightly wrapped.
"We heard shots."
Cynthia nodded. "There are two deacons back in C70. They're dead. They've been shot."
One of the five detached himself; a second followed.
"We'll go take a look."
They hurried back the way Cynthia had come.
"Did you see who shot them?"
"It was me. I shot them."
The remaining three looked at her disbelievingly as she took the Browning from her bag and held it out to them.
"You shot them?"
"What did you do that for?"
Cynthia had always had the gift of instant tears on demand. She began to cry. "They were going to kill me. It was some kind of revenge on Harry."
"Harry?"
One of the others looked at the speaker impatiently. "Don't you recognize her, dummy? It's Kline. It's the lieutenant's girlfriend."
"Of course it is."
The other two were coming back. The one who had recognized her first called out to them. "We got Carlisle's girl, and she says she shot them."
"We definitely got two stiffs back there, with expander slugs in them, bleeding all over the place. One of them is that little prick Winters."
Cynthia made her play before they could ask too many more questions. "Can you take me to Harry? Do you know where he is?"
The PDs looked at each other.
"So what do you think? Do we take her down to the lieutenant or what?"
The agreement was fast.
"Yeah, take her to him. Then it's out of our hands."
Carlisle
The clatter of gunfire was amplified over the communications center audio system. The audio override on their tracys was the only contact they could trust. Everything else was going crazy as the multiple and constantly mutating viruses took over.
"They've got us pinned down in the entrance to the roof." Donahue sounded desperate. "There's a bunch of them. All got Mossbergs. We're safe in the stairwell for the moment but we need help up here."
Carlisle spoke in the bead mike of his headset. "I'll get more people up there."
"We need a grenade launcher or a couple of small AP missiles."
Carlisle looked around. "Can we get anything like that?"
"Not while the deacons are holding the arsenal."
A detective called Murphy spoke up. "There's a Cucaracha locked up in evidence. We took it off those greasers, the ones that were calling themselves the Screaming Fist. It hasn't gone to weapons disposal yet."
"Get it and go."
Another man pushed his way through to the front. "I got a Parsons and a clip of grenades in my locker."
Carlisle looked at him in amazement. "You keep a grenade launcher in your locker?"
The man shrugged. "You never know when it might come in handy. I got it back when – "
Carlisle cut off the explanation. "I don't give a damn right now. Just get it and get up there. I want the helipad secured."
He spoke into the bead mike. "Donahue, did you hear all that?"
"I heard it. Just tell them to hurry."
Taking the communications center had been easy. Running it was a great deal more difficult. When Carlisle and his men had stormed in there, the deacon operators had already been confused by the increasingly erratic behavior of their equipment. Only two had tried to put up a fight, and they had been shot out of hand. At the sight of the bodies bleeding on the floor, the others had become immediately cooperative – not that there was much with which they could cooperate. The communications center was the brain of the CCC complex, and that brain seemed to be going into some electronic grand mal seizure as the final wave of Dreisler's viruses took hold. In normal times the com center was, for all practical purposes, the Astor Place war room, the mission control for all law enforcement in the city of New York. Banks of monitors displayed the ongoing status of various operations and investigations; they showed manpower figures and deployment reports. The computers answered, channeled, filed, and r
ecorded the thousands of calls that came into the complex during each twenty-four-hour period. They coordinated vehicle dispatch and all the mobile message systems available to the officers. They oversaw the massive electronic eavesdropping network, maintained the links with Virginia Beach, and even integrated the internal surveillance system.
The centerpiece of the large, circular, and dimly lit room was the complex situation board that gave visual breakdowns of what was happening in various parts of the area. On any other day its cold electronic glow, moving lights, and the mathematical tracery of its grids were the products of a cold logic. A signal was sent, a car was dispatched, and every detail appeared on the situation board. A visitor could easily be convinced that it was the graphic representation of the implacable majesty of the law in action.
On that day, however, it would have been hard to convince a visitor that the entire communications center was anything but an extension of some insane pinball machine that was about to hit tilt. Some monitors simply rolled and strobed, while others exploded into riots of color. Whole banks remained stubbornly down, their screens blank, like dead, catatonic eyes. Every now and then, a cartoon vulture would appear at random on a monitor and flap its wings. Carlisle knew that the vulture had to be a product of Dreisler's warped sense of humor. The situation board itself danced with lights like a hyperkinetic Christmas tree. Even the sections that appeared to be responding normally could not be trusted. Much of the displayed data that, at first glance seemed plausible and organized, turned out, on closer examination, to be total nonsense. Even when logic was theoretically holding up, there was no guarantee that the information bore any relationship to reality. The deacon operators, under the watchful eyes of armed PD officers, sat and stared dumbly at the induced lunacy. They had the look of men in the grip of a nightmare.
Even amid the chaos, there was hard data still coming in. The TV satellite feeds still came through, apparently intact, and it was clear from the pictures that large crowds were massing all along the Hudson from Fourteenth Street on down. It was also obvious that the computers themselves were still running the operations on the street according to some diseased, corrupted master plan. The deacon in charge of operations in the Times Square area had suddenly appeared on what had previously been a blank screen and requested permission to shuttle a party of prisoners down to the Astor Place lockups. A synthivoice calmly diverted him to an uptown precinct. Nothing, though, was telling Carlisle what he really wanted to know. He had no idea what was going on on Liberty Island. Had Faithful been arrested, or had the plot collapsed? He half expected deacon reinforcements to come through the door shooting, bent on retaking the com center. Each time the door opened he had to stop himself from twitching for the Uzi that was slung over his shoulder.
There was so much to do that Cynthia Kline was the very last person on his mind. When the group of detectives brought her into the center, his heart sank. Not now. He did not need it. He had enough to worry about. Ever since he had found out that she was a Canadian agent, he had tried to blank out all thoughts of the woman. Unfortunately she seemed bent on talking to him.
"Harry, I need to talk to you."
He tried to duck her. "I'm really busy."
"I've shot two deacons. What's going to happened to me?"
Harry Carlisle groaned inwardly. He looked at the detectives who had brought her in. "Is this true?"
"There's two stiffs up in C section."
"Christ." He faced Cynthia. He could hardly believe that only a couple of weeks ago they had laughed in each other's arms. "I don't have time for this right now."
"But…"
"I don't know what you've been up to, but I know what you are. By some weird set of circumstances, we're on the same side for the moment. You can stay down here, but keep quiet and don't get in the way. Okay?"
"Listen, Harry…"
"Either you keep quiet, or I have one of my men take you out and shoot you. Things are that bad, so you better make up your mind fast. Okay?"
Cynthia was very pale, but she went silently to a empty seat and sat down. Carlisle glanced at one of the men who had brought her in. "Keep an eye on her."
Donahue's voice was on the audio again. "We've secured the roof."
"Casualties?"
"It was rough, but it's done."
"So hold on to it until you hear from me."
Kline
How in hell did he know what she was, and what did he mean they were on the same side? Questions rampaged through her brain, fueled by the adrenaline of fear, but she knew she was not going to get any answers. She did her best to remain calm and sit quietly, but it was not easy. The communications center seemed to have gone crazy. She could only suppose that the program she had loaded was partly responsible. The only consolation was that everybody else seemed to be waiting for something, too. She had never seen Harry look so tense. Part of her wanted to go and do something to comfort him, but another, much colder part told her to sit where she was and shut up. When he had said that he would have her shot, she had known instantly that it was no empty threat. She had seen the bodies covered by plastic sheets and the guns pointed at the heads of the deacon operators. Carlisle had apparently hijacked the communications center, and she wished she knew why. A war had obviously broken out between the deacons and the police department. Things were coming to a head.
The clock, if the clock could be trusted, crawled toward six. The bank of satellite feed monitors, the only ones that consistently did the same thing, was showing the opening credits of the presidential special; a tattered Old Glory, with the superimposed cross of the Christian United States, fluttered bravely against a storm-cloud sky, and then an aerial shot zoomed across the sunset city and closed on the Statue of Liberty. They were not getting the audio in the com center, but she guessed that the show was being accompanied by suitably patriotic music. The credits gave way to a pause where the affiliates could jack in their own commercials. On the screens, the choir was moving into position in preparation to going on the air with the opening. They were arranged on a huge apron stage at the base of the statue, in front of giant twin pictures of Larry Faithful and Jesus Christ. As far as Cynthia was concerned, it was the same old predictable – but still dangerous – hokum, and it was a mercy that no one had to listen to the audio. A digital countdown was displayed in the corners of the screens. The moment it hit zero, the choir's heavenly smiles glowed and their mouths started moving.
One monitor showed a different scene: a corridor and the door of what had to be Faithful's dressing room. Deacons and soldiers stood around, and technicians in nylon crew jackets walked back and forth. The camera, probably a robot, was feeding but not in use. It was there to catch a fast cutaway of Faithful coming out of his dressing room. Suddenly something weird happened over at the side of the screen. Two deacons seemed to be scuffling. Guns were out. Technicians also seemed to be involved. It was hard to see exactly what was happening. The robot, without programming, did not pan to the action. Rushing bodies obscured its field of vision. The fact that there was no sound did not help. A machine pistol silently spurted smoke and muzzle flash. Every eye in the com center was fixed on the one small screen. The confusion continued for some thirty seconds. Then a yellow censor blanket washed over it.
"Can you get rid of that thing?" Carlisle snapped at the deacon operator.
"In theory. The way things are, who knows?"
"Will you try?"
The PD man behind that particular operator leaned forward with his machine pistol. The operator shrugged.
"That's all I can do."
"So do it."
The operator entered a ten-figure code. The yellow rolled back, but it was too late. The corridor was empty. The camera had been moved to show a different angle, straight up the corridor, where three bodies were sprawled on the ground. At the same moment, all the other TV pictures were suddenly blocked by a feed interrupt sign.
"What in hell is going on out there?" someone asked.<
br />
Some of the PD men were on their feet as if expecting a physical attack. What came next was almost as bad. A talking head of Matthew Dreisler appeared on all the TV feed monitors.
"This is to all units," Dreisler announced. "The vulture has been caged."
Kline looked around in bewilderment. Everyone in the room was equally confused – all except Harry Carlisle. He simply looked bleakly alone. He held up his hands for quiet.
"I think it's time that I explained what's really going on here. The signal that was just received indicates that the president has been arrested and forces favorable to restoration of democracy have taken over key government installations all across the country."
Cynthia Kline could not believe her ears. Was that really Harry Carlisle she was hearing? While she had been kept in the dark, a mere cog loading programs and keeping her questions to herself, he had been right at the heart of the conspiracy?
"I haven't been able to give you the real picture up until now in case everything went wrong, but it looks as if the Faithful administration is at an end, and maybe this country has a chance to get back its national sanity. If anyone has a problem with this, I suggest that he speak now."
His words left a stunned silence. Carlisle gave them very little time to digest what they had heard before he went on.
"The situation as it applies to us is that we of the police department are currently in control of this complex. The president is being brought here by helicopter."
Reeves was one of the first to recover. "Who arrested him? Who's bringing him here?"
"Deacon Dreisler and some of his IA people."
Reeves face was a picture of contempt. "Dreisler. Dreisler and his headhunters."
Carlisle looked really unhappy. "There are some strange alliances in this business."
"So it would seem."
It took Murphy to voice the question that was in every PD man's mind. "Why couldn't we be told about this from the start, Carlisle?"