"When are the rest of our friends supposed to arrive, again?" he asked.
"Two more days, Brother Malcolm," said Samir, perusing a report.
Malcolm turned back to the window and gazed out over the rooftops, just starting to catch the first rays of the dawn. Somewhere out there to the west, the Man—the one who had killed Tahru and destroyed Chicago—gathered his forces.
This time, Malcolm told himself, there will be no running away. I will stand and fight. To the death if necessary. New York will be an example to the world of what the Brotherhood can do. He glanced over his shoulder at his Russian liaison officers. This time, I have help. And more is coming. Soon.
"Brother Malcolm, we are receiving word from one of our scouts that there is a concentration of the Man’s soldiers at the Holland Tunnel."
“Tanks?”
“No.”
Malcolm turned around and put his coffee cup on the closest desk. He walked over to a large desk that displayed a map of New York. He looked down and traced the line of the Holland Tunnel with his finger. “They want their pilot back.”
“They will never get her. I made sure that our best men are watching her.” Samir puffed his chest out with pride. “The Russians are mad, but I told them she was our prisoner.”
Malcolm looked up at Samir and said, "Are we ready?"
His lieutenant nodded. "Yes—I made sure of it myself."
Malcolm looked back down at the choke-point the Holland Tunnel interchange provided for the Man. This General Stapleton, he thought, thinks he will be able to roll over us, force his way into Manhattan and use this as his entryway.
"We have many new recruits." he said. “Are they ready and in position?”
Samir nodded again and adjusted his glasses. "We do," he said, “and they are. It is strange, though. They only decided to join when they found out that they would get a chance to fight real soldiers. During the rioting and demonstrating, when everything was about trying to gain the attention of the world, very few outside the Brotherhood spoke up."
Malcolm smiled. "It means," he said, “that our brothers and sisters are ready for a fight!"
"Well," said Samir, "the Man appears to be spoiling for a fight as well. I think it will start at the Holland Tunnel. Our friends,” he said, glancing at the Russians, “have already broken through the barricades to the north and are pouring across the river."
Malcolm glanced out the window when he saw sunlight reflecting off something in the air. He pointed. "You see? The Man sends his helicopters and drones to spy on us when he discovers his jets are useless. You are right, Brother Samir. I believe this is it."
Malcolm stood and raised himself to his full height. The men and women of his support staff stopped their tasks and watched. When Malcolm had complete silence, he stretched out his arms, and proclaimed in a loud voice: "Are you ready for a war?"
The cheers of his people were cut short by the muffled sounds of explosions. Malcolm looked out the window and saw puffs of smoke along the Hudson. He grabbed a pair of binoculars and peered through the smoky haze outside.
“Artillery fire,” said one of the Russians in a thick accent. He moved up next to Malcolm.
Malcolm frowned at the Russian. I know you are a spy for Kristanoff. Gotta keep the natives in line, right?
“Where did they get artillery?” he asked.
The Russian shrugged. “Could be pulled behind Jeep. Could be self-propelled. Could be missiles. Could be many things.” He grinned. “Be glad we are here and not there,” he said with a nod toward the line of smoky mushrooms sprouting along the western shore of the Hudson. Buildings shook and trembled, facades crumbled, windows shattered and still the barrage continued.
“I don’t see any guns on the shore over there…” Malcolm muttered.
The Russian chuckled. Malcolm gritted his teeth and gripped the binoculars so tight he half-worried they’d break. He thinks I’m some ignorant civilian.
“If they use proper artillery—or even tanks—they could be mile or more away. We will never know where they shoot from. Better to know where they shoot at—and be somewhere else, dah?”
Malcolm swallowed his anger as a building crumbled and collapsed into the river. Even as far away as the other side of the island, he could feel the floor tremble with the massive structure’s death.
“Dah,” he replied.
MR. PRESIDENT, WE’VE GOT the uplink from the SAR team now, sir,” said the soldier’s image on the computer screen.
Hank Suthby felt himself grin at the confirmation of his office. President Suthby. Damn if he didn’t like the sound of that. He was beyond happy that the Joint Chiefs accepted the Congressional Resolution to name him President pro tem. When the Press acknowledged the truth, he would be home free.
The President rolled up his sleeves and sat down in the large swivel chair at the head of the massive conference table. Others began to move toward chairs around the table, bringing papers and coffee cups with them. They were finally going to see what things looked like on the ground in New York and no one wanted to miss the show.
President Suthby’s NORAD War Room was up and running at full capacity. It was an exact duplicate of the room deep under the White House, deep under Cheyenne Mountain. Even a direct hit by a Soviet-era nuke wouldn’t penetrate to this room.
“What are we looking at here, Colonel Vinsen?” asked President Suthby. He looked at the monitor on the wall, showing the view from a recon soldier’s helmet-mounted video camera. The picture was slightly out of focus. He tried to hide his anger that General Stapleton himself wasn’t conducting the video briefing. The man was infuriating—he had claimed some urgent need for his presence elsewhere and sent this colonel to do his job instead.
“This is the helmet cam of…” the colonel’s image shifted a little as he read a piece of paper. “Major Michael Hughes. He’s part of my advance recon group. Major Hughes will be leading the rescue attempt.” The officer’s image turned off-screen. “Winters, ask him to get things a little better focused for us…”
A few seconds later, the image from Major Hughes’ camera blurred to the right and suddenly came into focus. “Is that better, sir?” asked a booming voice.
“This isn’t two-way?” asked President Suthby, leaning back in his chair and signaling to have the volume dropped a little. “I thought this was the Digital Division?” A few nervous titters echoed around the room. The constant whump-whump-whump of a nearby helicopter caused glasses of water to vibrate on the conference table.
“Sorry sir. This is all we could scrape together on the fly. Most of our best gear is still in-bound from Fort Hood. That blur there is Manhattan. Hughes’ team is in a Black Hawk being dropped in on our side of the Lincoln Tunnel.”
“Our side?” asked the President. “Wait, the Lincoln Tunnel? I thought General Stapleton was set up at the Holland Tunnel?”
“Yessir,” said Colonel Vinsen’s stark image on the small monitor. The grizzled commander appeared embarrassed. “The other side of the tunnel is considered occupied territory, sir. No one goes in. No one comes out. When the Russians made their assault, the Holland was pretty much destroyed. We’ve moved our teams north to the Lincoln. We lost an entire company in there before the General arrived and issued orders to hold the line. Governor Watkins insisted the National Guard be deployed and they were never heard from again…”
The camera panned to a man standing next to Major Hughes dressed in gray-black uniform and fully-loaded for combat. Pouches full of ammo were strapped to his tactical vest and he carried a small pack for supplies, but was not overly burdened. They were there to rescue Lt. Col. Edwards and get out. The soldiers on the screen stared in disbelief at what they saw across the Hudson.
Black smoke hung like a cloak over the lower-half of Manhattan Island. Even from this distance, it was easy to point out the conflagration that raged in the heart of the city. Fires were everywhere. Midtown was hidden completely by smoke. Brooklyn, Queens…everyw
here in the vast metropolis, it seemed to President Suthby, fire and smoke poured into the sky. Towers of smoke rose into the atmosphere.
President Suthby cringed as he thought about all the anger and hate that must have fueled those fires. It hurt his soul to know that Americans were causing the damage down there. “My God, it’s worse than 9-11.”
He made a mental note to follow-up with the Chief of Staff of the Navy. They needed to get a few ships up to New York to put on a show of force, ASAP. He didn’t need to complicate his position with the U.N. any further—they needed New York, not a pile of ashes. It was the price for international recognition as legitimate leader of America. At the same time, he had to show he was doing something or the American people would never forgive him for allowing…this.
At the terminals of the Lincoln Tunnel, police cars were easy to discern as a thin line of multi-colored strobe lights holding back the apparent anarchy that gripped Manhattan.
MAJOR HUGHES’ SAR TEAM had gathered just inside the shadow of the tunnel’s entrance. There were ten soldiers, including himself. They all knew the mission, they knew the risks. They were willing and ready to go get that pilot back. Everyone was locked, loaded, and ready to rumble. He keyed his throat mic and turned to look toward the command tent in the distance. “We’re good to go, Colonel.” He hoped on a sour note that the President—whoever the hell he was—enjoyed the show. It would be difficult enough to retrieve the pilot without worrying about being a cameraman.
“Roger that, Seeker 1, Actual. Good hunting.”
“Let’s load ‘em up,” Hughes ordered. His XO, Captain Jonas Summers turned and shouted over the noise of an approaching Black Hawk. The team to climbed up into the waiting Stryker Infantry Fighting Vehicles, ten feet inside the tunnel. The massive, eight-wheeled diesel rigs were too wide to fight side by side, so one, equipped as a reconnaissance vehicle, was farther down the tunnel. The headlights of the two rumbling behemoths lit up the tunnel like daylight.
As his men filed up the rear ramp, Maj. Hughes sighed and looked around the American encampment. A veteran of two tours in the Sandbox, he’d never expected to see anything like this on U.S. soil. It looked more like a scene out of Tikrit than New York.
“Seeker 1, Actual, Seeker 2-1. We’re all set,” reported Summers. Hughes had to cover his earpiece with a gloved hand to block the noise of the Black Hawk as it landed. He stood there in the downdraft, squinting as dust and pebbles stung his face. The side door opened and a medic waved to the waiting crowd of orderlies and injured. A few soldiers rushed forward carrying stretchers loaded with wounded.
Maj. Hughes hoped the President got an eyeful. A pair of medics rushed past him with a bloody soldier on a stretcher, shouting for the helo to wait. He shook his head and joined his men in the rear of the second Stryker.
PRESIDENT SUTHBY MARVELED AT the image on the wall-sized screen. It was beyond odd to see a military helicopter loading wounded soldiers in the middle of the toll-booth area at the Lincoln Tunnel. He watched, hypnotized, as the Black Hawk clawed its way into the sky and turned west, heading for its next stop. Hughes’ camera swiveled back to show the open interior of an APC packed with soldiers. The camera tilted to the right as Hughes leaned around the side of the vehicle and the President could see there was another of the huge machines further down the tunnel. A red light illuminated the vehicle’s interior, casting an eerie glow on the soldiers’ grim faces.
A loud klaxon sounded as Maj. Hughes entered the armored vehicle and took a seat along the right hand wall. The camera angle made it hard to see, but it looked to the President like the Major was peering at some sort of computer screen.
“Roger that 2-1, let’s roll,” said the major’s voice in response to some unheard radio transmission. The video feed shimmered with motion-induced feedback. “Gonna be kinda rough in here, Mr. President,” he said. “Hope you’re still with me…”
“Oh, don’t worry, son,” said President Suthby as he leaned back in his chair. An aide handed him a glass of Scotch on the rocks. He took a sip and watched the screen. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
AT THE LOW POINT of the tunnel, the lead Stryker began the long, bumpy climb back up toward New York. Major Hughes watched it on the screens in his vehicle. The small monitors served as windows, depicting the dark world outside the armored Stryker. Hughes frowned at the abandoned cars which choked the tunnel. Even over the rumbling of the big diesel engine, he could hear the sound of the first Stryker smashing cars and trucks out of its way. Broken glass and plastic glittered in the lights of their armored transports as the soldiers drove uphill toward the tunnel exit.
“Cars getting thick up here, sir. Gonna have to slow down some,” advised the driver.
So many people were trapped down here when the shit had hit the fan back in the summer…they just got up and left their cars. He peered through the camera into the gloom around them as the Stryker rumbled forward. He decided that if his car had been stuck down in the belly of this dark tunnel, he sure as hell would have left it, too.
“2-1, Actual. Tell your driver to keep the hammer down. That pilot is counting on us.”
“Roger that.”
Hughes turned and looked over the troops in his vehicle. To a man, they were busy checking and rechecking weapons. A few casual nods and hand motions were all the talking they needed.
“Starting to detect light up ahead. I think we’re almost there,” said the voice of the driver.
“2-1, Actual. Watch for movement at the exit. Keep it scoped.”
Soon enough, the darkness ahead of even the rear Stryker began to give way to the light of day as they climbed higher up the exit ramp. As the mouth of the tunnel widened, the lead Stryker pulled off to the left and Maj. Hughes’ driver parked on the right.
“Right here’s, good,” Hughes called out over the vehicle command frequency.
“Yes, sir,” replied the driver, hidden in the cockpit forward of the vehicle commander in his turret. He brought the vehicle to a stop behind a crude barrier made of abandoned civilian cars. The camera showed swirling smoke so thick it appeared to be an overcast day. Just behind them on the other side of the tunnel the sun was shining in afternoon glory.
“Any contacts?” asked Hughes as he manipulated the camera control to pan around the tunnel exit. He zoomed past a sign pointing toward New York 495 and peered into enemy territory.
The streets on the other side of the barricade were deserted, but trash, debris and a few bodies were in plain sight. Ash fluttered about in the air and the ever present smoke created patches of fog that drifted through their field of view. Abandoned cars on sidewalks and in the middle of the road made the scene before him surreal.
Hughes glanced down at the map on his forearm digital display. The blinking blue dot—the last known location of the pilot—glowed over a park to the south of their location. He pinched-zoomed and saw it was Washington Square Park. That was where he’d start the search.
“Driver, can you get us through this barricade?” he asked. “We need to get moving south.”
“Hooah, sir.” The Stryker shuddered as the driver shifted into gear. “Hold on to your butts, ladies.”
IT WAS CLEAR TO the President that the people of New York had mostly fled on foot when the rioting began and spread with the fires. The initial violence had apparently erupted from Midtown Manhattan. The worst damage seemed to be concentrated just outside the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel.
Major Hughes swung his head back around to look at the soldiers inside the Stryker and the image on the screen in the War Room blurred for a moment, then focused once more.
“We’ve had reports of runners in this area, so everyone stay sharp when we disembark,” Hughes said. He pointed at one of the grim-faced men. “That means you, Compos. No heroics today. I ain’t telling Maria you got your ass killed over this, you get me?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the man with a barely perceptible nod of his head.
&nb
sp; “Eyes in the sky say the road’s clear all the way to our target area,” said a voice off-camera.
The camera panned left as Hughes turned around to see the speaker. Then it tilted down as another soldier unfolded a map by flashlight. Hughes reached out to help steady one side as the paper crinkled, the noise loud even over the rumble of the Stryker’s engine.
“God damn, this town is big…” the soldier muttered quietly, examining the map. The camera got a good shot of Hughes’ hand on the edge of the map.
Suthby frowned. “Can we get him to move? I can’t see anything…” He looked around the room but only saw shrugs.
After a discussion over fields of fire and small unit tactics that the President found completely uninteresting, the soldier finally folded up the map and tucked it away. Hughes turned to look at his wrist-mounted map. The screen showed some unintelligible symbols and a blinking blue dot.
“All right, people—we’re approaching the target. Get your shit wired.”
The screen jerked as their vehicle came to a stop and the engine cut off. After the constant droning of the Stryker’s engines for the past 30 minutes, the silence was deafening. None of the soldiers moved. It was as if they were holding their collective breath. President Suthby heard a barely audible, low, constant rumble.
“What’s that?” he asked to an aide. The younger man shrugged and walked over to a control panel to ask a technician.
“What’s all that noise?” echoed Major Hughes’ voice on the main screen as he checked his M-4.
“I got nothing up here!” called out a voice from in the semi-darkness.
“That’s the driver, sir,” offered the Chief of Staff of the Army.
“I gathered that,” said Suthby with a sour note.
Sic Semper Tyrannis Page 32