“On my way. Out,” replied Taylor. His intention was not to upset or injure the president in any way, and his orders were specific; the president was to be treated with the respect due his office. They needed him to legitimize their coup and to be the face of the new direction their country was heading in, whether he liked it or not. Demonstrating that they could reduce one of the biggest cities in on the continent, in the world in fact, to chaos, was a sharp axe to hold over a man’s neck.
Taylor stalked into the luxurious suite of rooms which had been turned into an isolation cell, nodded to Johnson and the other soldier, dismissing them.
“Sir,” he said, saluting, “you wanted to see me?” The man in front of him, red-faced as though the anger he was holding in would not stay shuttered up for long, regarded him.
“Taylor,” he said acidly, not so much remembering the man as reading his name from the uniform shirt, “just how long do you think this little charade will go on?” he asked him, taking the same approach as when they had first spoken.
“Sir, we need to keep you safe until morning. Then you can talk to my commanding officer—” Taylor said before being savagely cut off.
“I am your goddamned commanding officer, you son of a bitch,” the president snarled at him through bared teeth. “You’ve heard the term ‘Commander in Chief,’ have you not?”
“Yes, sir, I have,” Taylor said, still stood to attention and showing the respect the man’s position demanded, even if he had no respect for the man himself. He said nothing more, but turned and left the room offering another nod to the soldiers outside the door.
“This is treason, goddammit!” erupted the resident at his retreating back.
“Nobody in or out, and you have my permission to restrain him if he gets outta line,” he told Johnson. “Just don’t leave any visible injuries,” he added as he walked away, thinking of the press conference the president would be holding the following day.
Friday 9:38 p.m. - 17th Precinct, NYC
Jake closed his eyes, knowing he was about to die. The gunshot he heard didn’t sound right, nor did he feel any pain or impact from the bullet. A second and third shot rang out, interspersed with the rapid coughing sound of the weapon aimed at him. Only with the absence of his painful death did it occur to Jake that the unsuppressed shots could not have come from the silenced assault rifle which had promised his death only a second before. His brain eventually registered that the shots sounded just like those from his own gun, and he only opened an eye when the sound of a body slumping to the street made him jolt.
The shooter, slightly bigger than the first but dressed in dark clothing carrying a similar backpack, lay dead in front of him. Clearly dead, unlike the one he had shot, because he hadn’t shot his suspect in the face and left a gruesome hole where the nose had been. Just as he reached out an instinctive hand to check for a pulse, an autonomous reaction he made in shock as missing a part of your brain to a bullet nearly always resulted in death, another sound grabbed his attention.
“Motherf-uuuugh …” came a hissing grunt from in the street.
Rising back into action, Jake scanned the street and laid eyes on his worst nightmare. He threw himself down next to a man dressed as he was, of roughly the same age, and in obvious agony.
“Where are you hit?” Jake asked as he tried to roll the cop onto his back to see the wound.
“Groin,” the man growled through gritted teeth and eyes screwed tightly shut, “and in the vest.”
Jake pulled up his uniform shirt to see that the shooter’s burst had raked across at gut level and the rounds had caught the bottom of his vest, but one lucky round had dropped and impacted low on his hip.
“Keep pressure on it,” Jake told him, as the man opened one eye to look at him.
“One-Three?” he gasped, seeing the metal badges on Jake’s uniform collar. “The hell are you doing up here?” he asked, meaning that he wouldn’t often see a member of the 13th precinct in his native One-Seven.
“Chased the shooters,” he told him, adding, “one killed, one unconscious.”
“Good,” gasped the wounded cop.
“Look, we need to get you inside and get a bus,” Jake told him, not knowing how he would do that when there was no cell coverage, no phone lines, and no radio to use to call for an ambulance. “Secure them,” the cop said, fluttering a weak hand toward the shooters. Jake glanced in that direction, and only saw one.
“Fuck!” he cursed aloud, releasing the pressure on the bullet wound and drawing his gun again. He stalked three paces forwards, seeing the one he had bashed in the face crawling on the sidewalk. No warnings, no verbal commands to comply, Jake stepped over and kicked the shooter full in the ribs before dropping a knee into his back and hauling hands to his back where he applied the cuffs far tighter than he would with any normal suspect. The gasp which came from under the ski mask gave him pause, and he pulled it off to see the angry, defiant, and bloodied face of a woman. Before he could say anything, she spat at him, and tried to flip on her back to use her feet as weapons. Jake stepped quickly back and raised his gun at her.
She didn’t seem to care, pulling back her foot and spinning on her back to deliver a brutal stamp at his knees intent on crippling him. He stepped aside, drew back his own boot, and kicked her in the chest like he was sending up a field goal.
He had gained the desired effect, and her attempts to fight back stopped. He dragged her back toward his wounded colleague, thinking that treating a suspect like he just had and brutalizing them in cuffs, would probably cost him his badge and his life’s ambition on any other day.
He found the cop weak and pale, his lips fluttering as he tried to speak. Looking up and around for the nearest refuge, Jake saw the lights of the Waldorf up ahead.
~
Sebastian had regained his composure and got all the guests upstairs or back to their rooms, amidst ridiculous questions of such ludicrous natures as to warrant an unkind response.
“No sir, I don’t know if the cable TV is working. No madam, I do not think the kitchens will be providing room service at this time,” he said calmly, even though he wanted to yell at them all to stop being so self-centered and entitled for five minutes and do as they were goddamned told. He doubted if many of them fully understood the neck-deep level of shit they were in now, and how surviving the night was not a guaranteed prospect at this time.
He turned to find Cal and Louise still with him. “You two need to get upstairs too, please.” Cal opened his mouth to protest but Sebastian cut him off. “Cal, you’re pretty beat up. You need to rest, hell you probably need to spend at least a night in hospital, but something tells me that’s not going to happen.”
Cal went to speak again but another sound cut him off.
“NYPD!” came the familiar but unexpected shout. All eyes turned to the street to see Jake, sweating, and breathing hard, outside the glass front with another cop over one shoulder in a fireman’s carry and a dark shape dragging on the ground in his right hand.
“Jake?” Cal said as Sebastian moved forwards to open the bolts and let him in.
“Help Tromans,” he gasped, short of breath. He knew only three things about the now-unconscious brother he carried; he knew he was a cop from the 17th precinct as dictated by the numbers on his collar, he knew he was called Tromans thanks to the name badge on his chest, and he was badly hurt—probably dying.
Sebastian lifted the burden off Jake, carrying the man further inside the lobby and laying him down as he called out the names of staff to help him. Cal helped Jake drag his other burden inside, his shock registering with a single curse word.
“What the hell happened?” Louise asked.
Jake dropped to his knees, exhausted at having carried the dead weight of two people the short distance. “Shooters. Terrorists probably. One is dead and this one’s unconscious. The other one got Tromans just as he got him. I need to get back out there …” he said, climbing to his feet and reapplying the ha
ndcuffs to the unconscious woman to lock her arms around a pillar.
“Are you joking?” Cal said, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“The other one. I need to bring him in. His equipment …” Jake gasped in between deep breaths as he sucked in oxygen.
“I’m coming with you,” Cal told him, forgetting his own physical state in worry that Jake would go back out alone.
“Okay,” Jake said surprising Cal by not arguing. “Stay close and do as I say. It’s not far.”
As they left, Louise picked up the large pistol from where Sebastian had left it while tending to Tromans. She stood guard by the door with the nervous remaining members of the paid security staff.
Three minutes later, Jake appeared at the door with his gun in both hands and eyes darting everywhere. Screams and shouts erupted in the street outside and the flickering orange light told Louise there was a fire nearby. Cal dragged in a body dressed in dark clothing and streaking blood from where the head scraped along the ground. The lobby was locked up, and the lights dimmed to leave the security guards watching the glass front. Jake’s first priority was Tromans, and he walked over to see that his uniform had been cut away and gauze was being packed onto the hole in his hip. His skin looked gray.
Sebastian looked up at Jake and shook his head slightly before returning his attention to the wound. Jake swallowed, and walked back to his two suspects; one dead and one unconscious.
“Tromans is likely …” he told Cal and Louise, confusing them. Neither knew what he meant, and it pained him to explain it. “Likely to die from his injuries,” he told them. He pushed past the devastating news and knelt by the dead suspect. He peeled off the face mask, showing the gore of where the bullet had made his features seem less human. Stripping off his backpack he emptied the contents and sat back on his boots with his mouth wide open.
The backpack contained a stack of spare magazines which he laid out next to the gun, a bullpup design none of them had ever seen anything like before. Its fat, oversized barrel had a built-in suppressor, and a red-tinted holographic sight sat above the carry handle.
He found knives and a pistol on the body, as well as a dozen grenades in the bag, but no comms devices, no orders, and nothing to say who they were. There was a map of the city which Jake unfolded and smoothed down, wiping blood across it as he did. There were targets marked, and writing pointing to the targets in lettering he couldn’t read.
“Is that, Chinese?” Louise asked.
“I don’t know. Could be,” Jake answered. “Or Korean?”
“What the fuck is going on?” Cal asked openmouthed, thinking that the world had just gotten even weirder.
“I don’t know,” Jake said again, “but these assholes killed at least one man and put a bullet in a cop. These sure as shit aren’t your regular gun thugs,” he added.
That much was obvious. The weapons bore no trademarks, no manufacturer’s details, and didn’t register in Jake’s mind even though he had been trained and had studied to learn the caliber, capacity, and capabilities of weapons. He popped a round out of one of the magazines and studied the bullet with a furrowed brow, not having seen a round of that size and makeup before.
That certainly isn’t American-made, he told himself. Looking at the metallic tubes with the obvious trappings of a grenade, he studied the cylinders to see if he could make out any legend. Nothing. He had never seen a grenade without warnings or markings showing what it was; the thing in his hand could be smoke or an incendiary. He put it down carefully, then replaced the contents of the bag before zipping it all up tightly. A shout from behind followed by the sound of a woman crying made the three of them turn.
Tromans had gone.
Jake rose uncertainly, walked slowly toward the blood-soaked scene, and looked down on his fellow police officer. His blue-blooded brother. The two had never met before that day, and would be unlikely to have ever met in their entire careers, but he was dead now. Jake, uncertain of what to do, carefully removed his NYPD shield and the precinct badges from the collar of his shirt, as well as his duty belt and equipment, draped the sheet which one of the hotel staff had brought over his body, and laid the badges on top. He rested his duty belt over one shoulder and turned.
He froze, eyes wide, looking past Cal and Louise. The two slowly turned their heads to look in the direction he was staring, and found themselves looking into the murderous eyes of the handcuffed and broken-nosed woman, now awake and pulling one bloody hand free of the restraints.
Cal, as useless as he had felt when the gang had robbed the hotel, acted on instinct. He was the closest person to the now escaped prisoner, and he threw himself at her with an animalistic bellow of rage, but without any regard for his safety or thought for his next move. He was vaguely aware of screams behind him, unsure if it was Louise or someone else, but he was sure it wasn’t the lithe assassin he tried to rush. She was cold, collected, and much faster than him.
She let his bull-rush come, turned her body slightly to divert the force of his attack and rolled him over her hip. As he felt himself losing the control and initiative of his attack, he was stuck once again by feeling useless and incompetent. She had grabbed one of his wrists as he rolled past her, which was now pulled tight as she painfully dragged his arm up straight. Cal’s eyes went wide as he saw her raise her right foot to smash down on his arm and he knew it was going to get horribly broken. He thought about closing his eyes, but couldn’t tear his gaze away from the look of bloodthirsty glee on her face.
A flash and an echoing bang reverberated around the lobby, making his damaged and sensitive ears ring again. At the same time his attacker’s upper body convulsed; her left shoulder pitched backwards with the momentum of the round which had struck her vest. Before she regained her composure and finished him, another flash and bang erupted from a different direction.
Cal blinked and gasped as blood fountained on his face, misty at first but coming thicker quickly. It was hot, and tasted metallic in his mouth. Between blinks of his eyes, he could see her face. Could see it had changed from ruthless anger to unregistered shock, but no pain.
She didn’t waver on her feet or fall to her knees dramatically like in the movies, but was carried forwards by the momentum of the bullet to land face down heavily on Cal like a felled tree. Blood gushed out of the wound on the side of her skull to pulse in great gouts onto Cal’s chest. Scrabbling to get free of the butcher’s scene on top of him, he managed to wriggle out from underneath her body and wipe at his face.
Looking up through a gulp of fresh air, he first saw Jake still holding his weapon aimed at where she had been stood. Glancing to his right, he saw Louise. Her eyes were wide with terror, but the thin trails of smoke lingering and creeping lazily upwards from the barrel of the pistol she held told him the rest. He couldn’t have explained it then, but he knew from his subconscious where the shots had come from. Both had fired shots at the woman about to snap Cal’s arm in half, but being the trained man of the two, Jake had fired first and hit her high in the vest, just left of center-mass. As she spun with the momentum of that first hit, the fateful trajectory of Louise’s shot had resulted in the removal of part of the right side of her skull just above the ear.
Silence reigned in the lobby, as everyone exchanged looks which conveyed any number of questions. None of these questions had the chance to be put into words, as a muted flash and a rolling grumble of thunder vibrated the whole island.
BRINGER OF DEATH
Friday 11:18 p.m. - Atlantic Ocean, off South America
The dull red light inside the command section of the Virginia class fast attack submarine lit the faces of the concerned Navy Commander. His entire crew had been on full alert for over three hours now, as a quick glance at the mission clock running next to him said. Their task, as it had been for weeks, was to patrol the waters and provide advanced warning of vessels moving in unexpected patterns outside of the South American and Caribbean shipping lanes. They were the eyes, or more
appropriately the ears, which gave the US Navy and Coastguard forces the much-appreciated heads up.
This elusive radar contact, the one which had disturbed his meal and now made him unable to shake off a sense of dread, had evaded his boat for far too long. His XO, executive officer, tried again to reassure the commander of the sub that it was nothing to worry over.
“Sir, I still believe this was a ghost,” he said for the third time, a hint of annoyance creeping into his voice.
“This wasn’t a ghost,” the commander said, meaning that the ping they had detected and been searching for these last hours was not a malfunction in their sensor equipment. The signal he had seen before it disappeared was big, too big to be a pod of whales or some sonar echo to be ignored. He had an impending sense of dread that his crew had accidentally detected something malevolent and dangerous. His mind wandered from the displays to imagine a hidden killer sensing that they had been detected. If he were that imaginary shrouded hunter, he would have slowed to a dead crawl and dropped low to sneak past the American boat above, pinging sonar like a game of Marco Polo played in the pitch-black depths. Eventually he had to accept that his paranoia was putting the crew on edge.
“Stand down,” he called to the command section suddenly, reassuring himself that no submarine in the known world could have avoided their sensor array for that long and only be glimpsed partially once.
Saturday 10:13 a.m. Local Time, Beijing
A change of shift happened effectively in phases as first the supervision then the operators were replaced in small groups. Only the two people in their anonymous dark suits remained from the collective which had first watched events unfold in New York.
Burning Skies (Book 1): The Fall Page 11