That evened things up a little both soldiers and gang bangers had targets now. Big, fast-moving, armored targets, but targets.
Rasche, lying in the store window with Philips standing by his feet, heard a rhythmic beating somewhere overhead; at first he thought it was some new attack, then that it was the blood pounding in his head.
Then the first chopper came into view over the rooftops, and Philips began shouting, "Clear the streets! Clear the streets, goddammit!"
Rasche forced himself to sit up, to watch what was happening. Everything seemed darker than it should have been-the dawn seemed almost to have faded back into night.
Rasche hoped his eyes were okay. He blinked and looked out at an expanse of twisted metal, burning wreckage, and bloody corpses. Human fighters were dodging and hiding, fading away, while the aliens stood proudly in the street, moving in sudden quick zigzags whenever they sensed a threat or a target.
One was closing in on Schaefer, cutting off each attempt at retreat the big man made, cornering him against the building on the opposite side of the street from Rasche's perch.
"Schaefer!" Rasche shouted, but his shout was lost in a sudden new, louder rumble from overhead.
He looked up, past the spaceship, past the rooftops, past the V formation of a half-dozen gunships, at the black clouds above.
Lightning flashed, and thunder rumbled again, and the first fat drops of rain spattered down. A cool wind blew in from the side streets, rustling clothing, sending litter skittering in the gutters, twisting the flames from the wrecked vehicles into spirals.
The heat wave had finally broken.
The predatory creature pursuing Schaefer stopped, and like Rasche, it looked upward.
All around, the aliens stopped.
Rasche watched them, watched them considering the weather, the choppers, the city. He wondered if they were communicating with each other somehow-they weren't speaking, but maybe they were telepathic, maybe they could read each other's scents, or heat patterns.
"Is that it?" one of them bellowed abruptly, in McComb's voice.
The one that had cornered Schaefer turned back toward the detective for a moment. Its right hand, the one with the two jagged blades, slashed out, drawing two red lines across Schaefer's chest-not to kill, but simply to mark, to let Schaefer know he was beaten.
Then the thing's other claw lashed out, but in a far subtler and more complex motion, as it picked the homing device from Schaefer's neck.
Schaefer screamed, fell to his knees, and clutched at a bleeding wound-but the blood was seeping, not spouting; the carotid had not been cut.
He knelt, his hand on his neck, and watched as the alien hunters marched back to their ship. One by one, they leaped lightly up into the open hatch, casually jumping a height no human could possibly manage unassisted.
Three of the things had been taken down in the fighting, one way or another; the survivors gathered these three up as they returned to the ship. The humans watched as the monsters withdrew, taking their dead with them.
When the last of the aliens was aboard and the hatchway closed, the humans emerged slowly from cover, moving warily out into the open.
Unearthly engines screamed, and the spaceship began to move, to push south down Third Avenue, then to rise, quickly gathering speed and altitude; its belly fin sliced a yard-wide twenty-foot path through the asphalt before coming clear.
The ship vanished from sight before it had cleared the buildings on either side, and the sound cut off abruptly, as well-the invisibility screen was back in place.
"Maybe . . . maybe we scared them off," Philips said. "They're too smart to start a fight they can't finish."
"Can't finish?" Schaefer stared at Philips in disbelief. "Shit, they could have scragged the entire city without breaking a sweat if that was what they wanted."
"So why didn't they?" Carr asked.
"Because that's not what they were here for," Schaefer said, looking upward to where the ship was faintly visible as a hole in the intensifying rain. "They weren't here to wreck the city, they were here to have a good time. It got out of hand, though-it wasn't sport anymore. It's wet, it's cold-it's just no more fun." He turned away. "That's what they wanted, General-no invasions, no treaties, just some good of boys out on a tear. And when it isn't fun anymore, you pack up and go home. You go look at your fancy radar, General, I'll bet the whole fleet's leaving." He grimaced. "And, Carr, I'd suggest you get lost," he said.
"Lunchtime today, I'm coming after you, but right now you're still clear as far as I'm concerned."
Carr grinned. "See you then, Schaefer," he said. He turned away and began swaggering west on Thirty-seventh, a machine gun on his shoulder, and Schaefer and the soldiers just watched him go.
The other surviving outlaws also began to fade away into the side streets, some taking their weapons, others dropping them here and there along the avenue.
Schaefer turned back to Philips. "General, call off your choppers-hunting season's over, and the hunters are going home." He grimaced. "See you next year."
* * *
35
As Rasche's stretcher was loaded into the ambulance, he raised his head, straining against the straps, and took a final look around at the scene of the battle. "Jesus, what a mess," he said.
Schaefer looked around as well and saw half-demolished buildings on either side, wreckage strewn along a dozen blocks of pavement, abandoned weapons and dead bodies lying about, not yet collected or covered. Fires were still burning in several places, despite the steady rain; the water running in the gutters was dark with blood and ash.
"Yeah, looks like they'll be rewriting the tourist guides for this neighborhood," Schaefer said. "Come on, partner, let's get you out of here."
"Partner, my ass," Rasche said. "Only until I have a chance to resign-to hell with making pension. Soon as they let me out, I'm taking Shari and the kids and going somewhere safe you know, Beirut, South Central LA, Sarajevo, anywhere but New York."
Schaefer smiled down at him-the warmest smile Rasche had ever seen on that stony face. "Suit yourself," Schaefer said. "You done good here."
The attendants slid Rasche's stretcher in and slammed the doors, and Schaefer stood and watched as the ambulance pulled away.
Then he turned to Philips, who had been directing the military side of the mopping up.
"Starting the cover-up?" he asked.
"Best as we can," Philips said. "After all, you think we can tell anyone what happened here? We've got no evidence-those things didn't leave any of their fancy hats behind, not so much as a pocketknife. No one's gonna believe it unless they saw it."
"Seems to me you have enough witnesses on this one. You could convince people if you tried."
Philips shook his head. "We don't want to convince anyone. What good would it do? We chased the bastards away"
"They'll be back," Schaefer said.
"You seem mighty damn sure of that. You seem to think you understand these critters."
Schaefer looked up at the clouds. "I think I do understand them, General. They're hunters. If a few hunters run up against the wrong prey and get themselves killed, you don't shut down the game preserve-you just issue a few warnings, make sure the next group's got the best equipment and some common sense. And the other hunters aren't scared off, you must know that. They take it as a challenge. We've made Earth more fun than ever, do you realize that? Sure, they lost a few, but that just adds excitement. The cities have the jungles beat all to hell for excitement. I figure they tried New York as an experiment, and believe me, from their point of view it was a rip-roaring success. So you bet on it, General, they'll be back, all right, and in a city. Maybe not here in New York, but somewhere-and the next batch may be tougher."
"And we're gonna try like hell to be ready for 'em," Philips said.
"But you're keeping it hushed up?" Schaefer asked. "You aren't going to warn anyone?"
Philips shook his head. "Nope. We issue warnings, trigge
r-happy farmers will start shooting their neighbors every time it gets warm. We'll leave it to the professionals to handle this." He sighed. "It'd be easier if we understood something about that, technology of theirs."
"Maybe next time you can get your hands on some samples," Schaefer said. He looked around. "So how are you going to explain this?"
"Plane crash," Philips said immediately. "Fighter came down, blew up, threw a bunch of ammunition around. Terrorist sabotage suspected. Think it'll play?"
Schaefer stared at him for a moment, then back at the wreckage.
"Yeah, that'll play," he said. He shook his head. "Good luck with your lies, General."
Then he started walking away, heading uptown toward the nearest subway entrance.
"Hey," Philips called angrily, "wait a minute, where the hell do you think you're going? We've got some questions for you, Schaefer!"
"Stuff it, General," Schaefer called back.
"Goddammit, Schaefer," the old man shouted, "Manhattan's a disaster area, a dozen blocks of midtown have been leveled, and you just walk away? New York will never be the same!"
Schaefer paused and turned back. He smiled at Philips, not the warm smile he'd given Rasche, but an expression that might as well have been carved from ice.
"You say that as if it were a bad thing," he said.
Then he turned and walked away, into the canyons of the city
Watt-Evans, Lawrence - Predator 01 Page 22