by JJ Zep
These were the same two she’d ass whipped and it seemed they still bore a grudge. Neither man was prepared to meet her eye, even when she offered them a cheery, “Morning fellers.”
The idiots didn’t even bother to frisk her or ask to look inside her bag. If she’d been here to assassinate Barlow, it would have been a breeze. She wasn’t though. Barlow still had two important tasks to perform before he departed this mortal coil.
She walked to the end of the corridor, made a left and saw the councilman immediately, standing in the space, arms spread to welcome her like a benevolent uncle.
“Justine!” Barlow said. “So glad to see you.” He gave her a beaming smile and Justine returned it, with bells on.
“Councilman,” she said. “Or should that be, Mr. Deputy Mayor?”
“To you it’s Joe,” Barlow said. He embraced her, planted a kiss on either cheek. “Come in, come in.”
Justine did, and stayed fifteen minutes precisely. By the time she left she’d instructed Barlow in the use of the radio, shown him how to turn it on, told him when to do so, and warned him against tampering with any of the dials. She’d also made it clear that, should he fail to carry out these instructions to the letter, he’d find himself making an unscheduled flight from his penthouse patio to the street twenty-seven floors below.
thirty three
His estimate of two days to reach Manhattan had been weather dependant and for once the weather seemed to be running in their favor. After the vicious storms of the previous two days it was unseasonably warm, with nary a breeze worth mentioning. Chris set a new target, all things being equal they’d be in Manhattan tomorrow morning.
That projection immediately resurrected his other problem. He was going to have to speak to his team soon. He was going to have to warn them of the danger and give them the opportunity to opt out. He thought some might take that option.
“Hey, Buddy. Hey bud, wait up.” Chris turned to see Eddy Montague heading towards him. Eddy had the hood of his snowsuit pushed back, his normally coiffured hair a mess, more Johnny Rotten than Danny Zucco. He was blowing hard and Chris could see why. Chris had been setting an aggressive pace. His team was strung out way behind him. Too widely strung as a matter of fact, he’d have to slow down, bring them closer in.
Eddy jogged the last few paces, stooped into a crouch, hands on thighs, puffing like a two packs a day man after a hundred yard dash.
“Jesus, where’s the fire, mister?” he wheezed.
“Sorry about that, just trying to make up time while we’ve got the weather for it. You okay?”
Eddy held up a hand and nodded then straightened with his hands in the small of his back. He waited a moment longer before he spoke.
“Been thinking,” he said, his voice still unsteady. “The next crossing into Manhattan is the George Washington, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is,” Chris said.
“And the GWB comes out in Washington Heights. Am I right?”
“Out onto the Cross-Bronx, yeah.” He had a good idea where this was going. The conversation he’d been holding back on wasn’t going to wait any longer.
“Now correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t you folks in Manhattan have a barrier wall just north of Central Park?”
Chris looked beyond Eddy towards where the others were closing the gap, some of them breaking into a run now that they saw the informal meeting taking place in the road.
“Chris?”
“The barrier sits along 125th Street.”
“But that means –”
“What’s up?” Julie said as she caught up with them.
“Let’s wait until the others get here,” Chris said. “We need to talk.”
***
“Let’s get this straight, Bobo. I won’t tolerate Marin being shunted aside. He goes, I go.”
“Marin now, is it?” Bobo Benson chuckled. “Okay then, if you insist. I’m sure your old friends back in Pendleton will miss you, but, if you want to walk away I won’t try to stop you.” He plucked at the itchy spot on his arm, saw a look pass between Scolfield and Dr. Payne, a secret smile.
“I think maybe you misunderstand me, Colonel. I’m not going anywhere, and neither is Marin.” She shook a smoke out of her pack and lit up, stood resting up against her desk, her arms folded across her chest. She took a drag from her cigarette and blew a stream of smoke into the air. The expression on her face was smugness personified.
Benson enjoyed that look, and the little act of defiance that accompanied it. It was going to make the next part so much more fun. He reached behind him, got a grip on the door handle and opened the door a crack. “Sergeant Ramirez?” he said, speaking over his shoulder, his eyes never leaving the doctor’s face.
“Sir!”
“Your men standing by to escort Mr. Scolfield back to Hackensack?”
“Yes sir, Colonel Benson, sir!”
Benson turned back towards Dr. Payne, loving – oh God loving – the gape-mouthed expression on her face. “Shall I make that transport for one or for two?”
Dr. Payne glared back at him, any pretense at civility banished now. “You son-of-a-bitch, Bobo. You goddamn son-of-a-bitch.”
“One or two, Doc?”
Dr. Payne opened her mouth to unleash her next barb, but before she could, Scolfield cut in. “Let it go, Alex. I was ready to blow this joint anyway. Too bureaucratic for my liking. And a ride back to Hackensack, that’s very generous of you, Colonel.”
“Consider it a parting gift.”
Now Dr. Payne was glaring at Scolfield, ready to take up her argument with him. Scolfield gave her a resigned grin, a knowing smile, and Dr. Payne’s demeanor changed. A nod passed between them, one that Benson saw but chose to ignore. Later, he’d wish he hadn’t.
thirty four
Chris roughed up the cursory map he’d drawn in the snow, using his boot. He looked across at his team and tried to gauge their mood. He’d expected protests, complaints, counter-arguments. What he saw instead was reflection. He’d just told them that he was about to lead them into the most Z-infested precinct of New York and no one had raised a word in protest.
“Well, what do you think?” he prompted.
Still nobody spoke.
“What was the part about the park again?” Paulie said eventually.
Chris revisited that part of the plan. “There’s an area of parkland running all the way down the riverbank. It get’s pinched here and there by the Henry Hudson but mostly we’ve got parkland all the way from the GWB to the barrier. We stick close to that, hugging the riverbank.”
“So what?” somebody said. “Z’s don’t come in the park?”
“They do, quite obviously. The thing is, we’ll see them coming. If we were moving through a built up area, we’d lose that advantage.”
“So we see them coming, then what?”
“We head out onto the ice, drop a few grenades to break it up behind us, keep heading south.”
“And if the river ain’t frozen?”
“It will be, close into shore anyway.”
“And what if the grenades break the ice up so bad we go through it or get cast adrift.”
Chris didn’t answer that question directly, instead he said. “Look, I’m not going to bullshit any of you and tell you that this is without risk. It isn’t. Some of us likely won’t make it. All I’m saying is that this is the quickest way into Manhattan given our circumstances.”
“Yeah, like we have a whole lot of options.”
“You do have options,” Chris said. “You could head west into Jersey. There’s a community at Hackensack. You could hole up there until the ice breaks, then see if you can get a launch across the river. Or you could cut straight across the expressway and over the Bronx Bridge. That’s still standing, far as I know, and you can work your way from the Bronx to Queens or Brooklyn. Those aren’t risk free either, but they are options.”
They were silent for a while, each contemplating a decision that cou
ld mean life or death.
“I’m with Chris,” Strangler said eventually.
“Yeah me too,” Richie said.
“And me,” said Julie.
“I’m with Ruby,” Chico said, raising a laugh from everyone and a blush from Ruby.
“Yeah, fuck it, what the hell,” Paulie said. “Let’s do this thing. If I’m going to die, I’d rather it wasn’t in Jersey.”
That raised another laugh and more opt-ins.
“Okay,” Chris said when they’d settled down. “If we’re going to do this I suggest we get moving while we’ve got daylight and clear skies.”
He picked up his rifle and slung it over his shoulder, turned towards the road.
“Chris?” Julie said from behind him. Chris turned to face her.
“What about the barricade? How will we get through that?”
He’d thought about this problem himself and offered the solution he’d come to, imperfect though it was.
“We’ll have to try and alert the sentries, get them to let us through.”
“But what if they mistake us for Z’s, what if they open up on us?”
“We’ll have to make sure that they don’t.”
thirty five
Mayor James C. Rosenthal was displeased at being called out on a Sunday evening, especially in such foul weather. Okay, the weather had cleared a bit, but still, the impertinence of Barlow, calling him away from the dinner table, demanding his attendance at City Hall, suggesting darkly that, should he fail to do so, a dossier of photographs would find their way to Mrs. Rosenthal’s door. What did the man think he was playing at!
The mayor had been tempted to tell his deputy to take a hike to Hoboken and back. However, the threat of the photographs had swayed him. He doubted Barlow had any such thing (if he had, he would surely have used them for some petty gain by now). Then again, the photographs might exist. Why risk it?
So he’d made his apologies to Cynthia and, as instructed, had told her not to wait up. Then he’d guided his Audi Q4 down the recently swept expanse of Broadway and pulled into the parking lot at City Hall. Here, a new violation awaited him. Barlow had that monstrosity of his pulled into the parking space marked “Mayor Only”. The cheek of the man!
Rosenthal’s already black mood blackened even further as he climbed the stone steps three at a time, let himself into the building with his key code and hustled along the corridor towards his office. Barlow was here already, the lights in the corridor told him that. And yet the door to the deputy mayor’s office was closed, with no light showing through the pane over the threshold.
Rosenthal turned towards his own office, the key to the door in his hand, but apparently redundant. The door to his office stood ajar, a faint light coming from within. A sudden wave of panic washed over him, stopping his hand in mid-air. He had to fight back the urge to bolt down the passage, get into his car and rush home. What stilled his fear, replaced it with a fresh blush of anger, was Barlow’s voice from within.
“Come on in, Jim. The door’s open.”
This was going too far. Rosenthal pushed the door back so hard that it clattered against the bookcase standing behind. He stepped across the threshold intent on confrontation. And stopped.
Barlow was sitting behind the desk, sitting in his chair. He wasn’t alone though. There was a woman with him. A very attractive woman in black jeans and a black turtleneck stood on the visitor’s side of the desk. She half turned towards Rosenthal and offered a demure smile.
For a moment, Rosenthal was stunned, unable to speak. He was trying to decide which outrage to address first, being called away from his family on a Sunday, the threat of blackmail, the liberties Barlow had taken with his office, with his parking bay, or bringing this woman in here (an expensive call girl by the look of her, such a woman did not hang out with the likes of Joseph Barlow unless there was financial recompense involved).
The best he could manage, when he did eventually find his voice, was addressed to the woman. “Who the hell are you?” he blurted.
“This is Justine,” Barlow said. “Justine’s a friend of mine. A friend of yours too, if you’d care to listen.” The woman watched him, smiling still. She said nothing.
“If I’d care to listen? What’s this about, Joe? Why are you in my office? Why are you in my parking bay? Why the hell have you called me down here on a Sunday?”
If his outburst was intended to gain control of the situation, he saw that it missed its mark. Barlow seemed amused. He waved a hand to a seat. “Sit,” he said, inflecting the word as a command.
“I won’t,” Rosenthal said coldly. He’d had enough of this. “I’m leaving. Sit here in my office and play mayor if you like. Just be sure to leave your resignation on my desk on the way out.”
“Sit!” Barlow said again and to his dismay Rosenthal saw him bring a pistol out from under the desk. “Now!”
The woman hadn’t spoken yet. Now she did. “Put the gun away, Councilman. We’re not here to hurt anyone.”
Rosenthal turned towards the woman. Perhaps he’d get some sense out of her. “Why are you here, then? Would you mind telling me what this is about?”
“Of course,” Justine said matter-of-factly. “The command codes. The codes to pull your men off the barricades and send them to other parts of the city, what are they?”
“What?” Rosenthal said. He was vaguely aware that his jaw was hanging open. “Why would you –?” Half way through he changed the question, and repeated the one he’d asked earlier. “Who the hell are you?”
“Who I am isn’t important. Here’s what is. Manhattan falls tomorrow. Now you have two choices. When it does fall, you and your family can be over in Jersey or in Brooklyn or on your way to Canada for all I care. Or, you can be right here in your office when that wall comes down and half a million Z’s swarm through. What’s it going to be?”
“This is outrageous!”
“What’s it going to be?”
“I won’t do it!”
Justine let out a regret-tinged sigh. She reached into her bag and produced a small leather clutch, unzipped it and opened it on the mayor’s desk. Rosenthal saw a row of neatly arranged, stainless steel implements, most of them with sharp edges.
He gave up the information without Justine having to extract it from him.
thirty six
The George Washington Bridge loomed out of the afternoon twilight, its massive support pillars rising from the semi-frozen Hudson River. The lower deck had collapsed entirely, and the upper deck was slightly canted, courtesy of several snapped suspension cables. Still, it was passable, and he was tempted to push on, to keep going and be done with this, to be back with Kelly and his kids, to be sleeping in his own bed tonight.
With all of those incentives just three miles away, the temptation to go on was nigh on overwhelming. What decided him against, came down to two things. Firstly, his team was bushed. They’d pushed hard to get here, at times slipping and sliding through icy slush, at others, wading through drifts and clamoring over wrecked vehicles. They’d lost a couple of men on route, in a Z attack just outside Guttenberg. Another (Richie) had fractured an arm in a fall.
The other factor to sway his decision, was the barricades. Approaching them in daylight was going to be risky, approaching at night when the sentries were inclined to fire first and evaluate later, would be downright suicidal.
So the crossing would have to wait till daybreak, and when Chris said as much to the team he detected a palpable sense of relief from them. Part of that, he knew, was down to their need to rest, another part was knowing what waited on the other side of the river.
They holed up for the night in an abandoned apartment building in Hudson Palisades. Chris brought them all together into a single, first floor apartment, facing the river. The building had a couple of staircases and a fire escape offering potential escape routes should the need arise. He drew up a watch roster and they prepared to hunker down.
Chris was sitt
ing on a bed in one of the apartment’s three bedrooms, shucking his boots, when Ruby appeared in the doorway.
“Dad?”
Her face, as always, was intense, a frown creasing her brow.
“Hey Rube,” Chris said. “Come on in.” He’d spoken hardly a word to his daughter all day and had hoped to spend some time with her, without Chico in close attendance. The kid followed Ruby around like a shadow. Chris wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
Ruby walked over and sat beside him. “I’ve been thinking,” she said, straight to business as always. Chris gave a little chuckle.
“What?” Ruby said.
“Nothing, go on.”
“I’ve been thinking, maybe I should go in alone.”
“What?” Chris said, all good humor evaporating from him in an instant. “Out of the question Rube. Too dangerous.”
“Think about it,” Ruby persisted. “I can move faster on my own, work my way through the park like you said, get to the barricades. I can get Uncle Joe to organize a launch, come back here and pick you all up.”
“A launch won’t work. The river’s frozen.”
“Okay then, I can warn the sentries that you’re coming, get them ready to open the gate, to give you covering fire as you approach.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Chris answered the question honestly. “Because it’s too dangerous, Rube, because I’m not prepared to risk it, because I couldn’t standing losing you.”
“You don’t think I could make it?”
“It’s not that, Rube. You probably would make it. But if you didn’t, if something when wrong out there, I don’t think I could stand it.”
He felt suddenly overwhelmed, as though he might cry. He drew her towards him, folding her into a hug before she could wriggle away. Ruby didn’t like physical contact, but she gradually relaxed, allowed herself to be held, even hugged back a little bit.