Empire

Ground Zero

When Cole got to Aunt Margaret’s house, with Cessy guiding him in on his cellphone like an instrument landing in the fog, it was after nine o’clock and all the news channels were full of stories of rumors of a coup, or stories of rumors that the rumors of a coup were a smokescreen to justify a right-wing—or, depending on the station, left-wing—takeover.

“I think,” said Aunt Margaret to Cole, “that you managed to upstage the funerals of the President and Vice President. And the Secretary of Defense might as well not have bothered dying, for all the attention they’re paying to him.”

Cole was eating leftover pasta salad—Aunt Margaret specialized in main-dish salads in which she substituted fresh mozzarella cheese for whatever meat the salad called for. Cole was eating it like he had just discovered food. Still, he took a moment to swallow and then answer. “I’m sure if he’d had it to do over, he’d have skipped that White House meeting.”

Mark and Nick were still up, sitting at the entrance of the hall, where they probably hoped not to be noticed by the adults in the kitchen, because if they were noticed they would doubtless be sent to bed. But Mark couldn’t help laughing, as much because of the way Cole said it right after swallowing and with a forkful of salad still in midair.

Cessy turned on them. “Bed,” she said.

“I didn’t laugh,” said Nick.

“I’m not sending you to bed for laughing,” said Cessy.

“She’s sending you to bed because you’re young,” said Cole. “Being young is an eighteen-year prison sentence for a crime your parents committed. But you do get time off for good behavior.”

Nick did laugh at that—Mark just looked at him like he was weird. But they obeyed and left the room.

“Thanks for subverting our parental discipline,” said Reuben to Cole.

“They’re just going to listen from the door of their room,” said Cole.

“They’re obedient children,” said Cessy.

“Big and terrible things are happening in the world,” said Cole. “If you were a kid, would you really be so obedient you wouldn’t sneak a way to listen to what the grownups are trying to protect you from knowing about?”

“No,” said Cessy. “But I’m not a kid, I’m a mother, and I don’t want them to know.”

“You don’t think it’ll scare them worse not to know what’s going on?” asked Cole.

“People without children always know how to raise them better than their parents do,” said Aunt Margaret. “I speak from experience. I never had kids of my own.”

“None of my business,” said Cole. “Really good salad.”

Reuben looked at Cessy. “We trust Mark not to tell his friends I’m here, and that’s the only secret that has bad consequences if they tell it.”

“I don’t want them to be frightened,” said Cessy.

“I don’t want them to be frightened either,” said Reuben. “So let’s let them come back in.”

“You’re not the one who wakes up with their nightmares.”

“Is that a no?”

“That’s a vote. You have the other vote.”

“Is that permission?” asked Reuben.

“Grudging permission, full of possible I-told-you-sos.”

“Good enough for me.” Then, without raising his voice even a bit, he said, “All right, boys, you can come back.”

The scampering of feet began instantly.

Cole grinned, with flecks of basil on his teeth and lips. Cessy handed him a napkin.

“See,” said Cole, “when I go home, my parents still send me out of the room when they discuss things.”

“You’re the baby of the family?”

“Yep,” said Cole. “They still call me Barty.” And before Reuben could call him by that name, Cole raised a hand. “They’re the only people alive who call me that.”

With the boys back in the hallway and Aunt Margaret stirring fresh raspberries into the soft homemade ice cream she had in the freezer, they got down to business.

It seemed perfectly natural for Cessy to take charge, because she was the one who had more experience inside the Washington bureaucracy. Not that Reuben and Cole hadn’t dealt with bureaucracy for years in the military, but that was on the Pentagon side, where people actually did what they were told, more or less.

Cessy laid it out on paper. A chart showing:

The terrorists, the unknown person who gave Reuben’s plans to them, the unknown White House staffer who told them when the President would be in that room, the unknown person or persons who suppressed cellphones and cut landlines at Hain’s Point and who fired at Reuben and Cole from the trees.

General Alton and his coup conspiracy—represented by a dotted line, because it might exist and it might not, and if it did exist it might be connected with the assassination and it might not.

President Nielson, who might or might not be connected in some way to Alton and his perhaps nonexistent conspiracy.

And, of course, Reuben, Cole, and Reuben’s jeesh.

“Who benefits?” asked Cessy.

“Define ‘benefit,’ ” said Reuben. “I mean, usually you think money or power or sex or vengeance. Plenty of people hated the President. The media aren’t covering it, but the Internet is full of blogs and pictures talking about people openly celebrating the assassination—like fireworks and signs and riding around honking horns.”

“Yes, but those idiots didn’t have access,” said Cessy.

“But there might be people who feel the way they feel who did have access.”

“Working in a Republican White House?” asked Cessy.

“A housekeeper. A clerk. It didn’t have to be somebody who agreed with the President’s politics. There’s no ideological test for White House custodial staff. Or the Secret Service, for that matter.”

“It was Clinton the Secret Service guys hated,” said Cole.

“Some Secret Service guys,” said Reuben.

“You’re not seriously suggesting this, are you?” asked Cessy.

“I just think there are too many people who think a dead President is, in this case, a good idea. They might be people who think they just saved America from the death of freedom. I mean, think of the rhetoric that’s been flying around Washington for the past years. Hate hate hate. Most dangerous President ever. Constitution crumbling. All our sacred rights and values being thrown away.”

“Or being restored,” said Cole.

“Exactly,” said Reuben. “I think we have to look at this in the context of the run-up to a civil war. There are two sides that see the world so radically differently that they truly believe that anyone who disagrees with them is evil or stupid or both. In that context, you really do find people who are willing to kill. Or help those who want to kill. I can imagine somebody telling himself—or herself, because we’re keeping an open mind here—telling herself that yes, she’s helping terrorists, but this time it won’t be innocent office workers and firemen and cops in the twin towers, this time it’ll be the one who’s causing all the trouble, it’ll be the source of evil himself.”

“So what you’re saying is that we can’t look at motive,” said Cessy.

“There are too many motives. Too many reasons why someone would want to help kill the President.”

“Then how do we find them?” asked Cessy. “The conspiracy is real enough.”

Cole raised his hand off the table. Just a little wave, since he felt like something of an interloper, interrupting these two. After all, he’d only just met them yesterday. Though it had been a pretty full thirty-six hours. “Um,” said Cole, “why is this our job? I mean, isn’t the FBI working on this?”

“Are you sure the FBI has no elements within it that were part of the conspiracy?” asked Cessy. “Nothing to conceal?”

“Hey, I’m just saying,” said Cole, “this isn’t what we know how to do. There are hundreds of people, thousands of them, who are all trained at this.”

“We have an extra motive,” said Reuben. “All those people are being fed a lot of evidence that points at me. And after your performance on TV tonight, I’m betting there’s a lot of evidence pointing at you, now, too.”

“If General Alton is for real,” said Cessy.

“So if we leave it up to those investigators, who are under enormous pressure to come up with answers now,” said Reuben, “then the answer they’re going to come up with is me. And maybe us.”

“And don’t forget,” said Aunt Margaret cheerfully, “that your wife was once a well-beloved member of the new President’s team.”

“She’s right,” said Cessy. “People who are looking for conspiracy seize on every single coincidence and make something of it.”

“Yeah,” said Cole, “but isn’t that exactly what we’re doing?”

“Sure,” said Reuben, “with the difference being that we don’t consider ourselves possible suspects.”

“So our guesses will be better than theirs,” said Cessy.

“So why are you letting people interrupt you?” said Cole. “Go on. Go ahead.”

Cessy patted his hand. “It was a good question,” she said. Then she turned back to Reuben across the table from her. “If we can’t use motive to narrow the list of suspects, then what do we use?”

“Means,” said Reuben. “Opportunity. Connections.”

“A whole lot of people in the White House could have known where the President was.”

“But they would have to have been alone, out of earshot of anybody else for at least a few minutes during the time between the decision to hold the meeting in that particular room and the time the rockets hit.”

“The decision?” asked Cole. “Do they issue a go order right then? What about timing it so you’re on Hain’s Point? Was that part of the choice?”

“Meeting rooms change unpredictably,” said Cessy. “I think that’s standard policy in the Secret Service. Ever since they tried to kill the first President Bush in Kuwait back in… whenever.”

“But the meeting was expected to be a long one, right?” said Cole. “I mean, you don’t bring that group together for a meeting and then adjourn in fifteen minutes. You have a long agenda.”

“So the terrorists could have gotten the go from their White House contact when the meeting actually started,” said Cessy.

“How far from the point where the scuba tanks went into the water till they got to the Tidal Basin?” asked Reuben.

“We don’t know where that point was,” said Cole.

“Couldn’t have been in the channel. That’s right in front of Fort McNair and Anacostia Naval Base and Boiling Air Force Base, for pete’s sake,” said Reuben.

“So we need to find out the capacity of those scuba tanks and how much air was left in them,” said Cessy, “in order to find out how much time elapsed between their going into the water and reaching the Tidal Basin.”

“And that tells us the timeframe in which the White House contact had to be alone to make his call,” said Reuben.

Again Cole raised his hand a little. “I don’t mean to cause trouble here.”

“Which means ‘I don’t want you to be mad at me for causing trouble,’ ” said Aunt Margaret. But her smile was encouraging. It seemed she had taken it upon herself to encourage Cole to contribute and stop apologizing for it.

“Somebody’s already figuring this out and we don’t have the resources to do it ourselves,” said Cole. “Who do we have inside the White House?”

“Yesterday, we had nobody,” said Cessy. “Today we have… oh, nobody much… only the President.”

Mark laughed at that. Reuben almost said something sharp to him, but he saw that Nick had already clapped a hand over Mark’s mouth and Mark was letting him, which meant Mark agreed that Nick was right that he should shut up, and anyway, it was Reuben who had insisted the boys should be able to listen.

“More to the point,” said Cessy, “we have Sandy Woodruff.”

“Whose role is completely undefined,” said Reuben. “Which means that the existing White House staff is going to circle the wagons to freeze her out.”

“Or suck up to her outrageously because she has the President’s ear and can help them stay,” said Cessy.

“Oh. That’s right. Different rules from the Pentagon.”

“And then the other question—who had opportunity to get your plans,” said Cessy.

“It all depends on finding out which version was planted—which DeeNee is working on—and then she’ll know who had their hands on it and can start finding out where it got before it vanished,” said Reuben.

Cessy smiled at him very, very sweetly. “Unless it was DeeNee who handed it over to them.”

“Not a chance.”

“Not to them directly,” said Cessy. “But to the person who gave it to the person who gave it to the person.”

“You don’t know DeeNee,” said Reuben.

“Like you don’t know LaMonte?” asked Cessy, still smiling.

“Exactly like that,” said Reuben. He was not smiling. “We have to trust somebody or we might as well get out of the country and try to hide somewhere.”

Then he remembered the boys sitting there listening. “I was making a point by exaggeration,” he said to them. “We’re not leaving the country.”

“If we do,” said Mark, “I want to go to Disney World.”

“I want to go to Xanth,” said Nick.

“Xanth is imaginary,” said Cessy. “And Disney World is in the United States.”

“I didn’t know that either,” Cole said to Mark.

“Shut up, boys,” said Reuben. “I mean that in the nicest possible way.” He turned back to the table. Cole had his hand over his mouth. What a time for him to be sucking up to the boys. But then, maybe that was precisely what was needed. Some reassuring humor. An adult ally. Maybe Cole was helping.

“May I interject a comment from the cook and landlady?” asked Aunt Margaret as she set out dishes of raspberry ice cream. There were two extras. She snapped her fingers at the boys and they took seats at the table.

“You may,” said Cessy, “since everybody else’s mouth is going to be full.”

“Mine already is,” mumbled Cole, barely intelligible with his spoon held between his teeth.

Mark started to hold his spoon between his teeth. Nick pulled it out and put it into Mark’s ice cream. Again Mark peacefully accepted an action that would normally have caused a fight.

“My observation is,” said Aunt Margaret, “that you can’t figure out a single thing from this point on until you hear from Sandy and DeeNee, whoever they are, and they can’t find anything out until the start of the business day tomorrow. Reuben has had only a short nap since the night before the assassination, and Cole has just given a speech to twenty million people.”

“In O’Reilly’s dreams,” said Cessy.

“Go to bed,” said Aunt Margaret. “Go to sleep. I’ll tuck you in. Things will be just as bleak and hopeless in the morning. Isn’t this good ice cream? My secret is lots of hydrogenated fat. I buy it in large lots from doctors who do liposuction.”

“Delicious,” said Nick.

“Gross!” said Mark.

Five in the morning, still dark, Reuben woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. Quietly, so he wouldn’t waken Cessy, he got up and looked for whatever Cessy had thrown into a suitcase for him to wear. There wasn’t a lot of choice. Fatigues or civvies. It was Sunday. He should wear a suit and go to Mass with Cessy and the kids. But that would entail a lot more noise. He could change clothes later. For now, he put on fatigues.

Downstairs in the kitchen, he found that Cole had made the same choice. “I see you decided you wanted to be in uniform today.”

“A choice I made years ago,” said Cole. “You caught me. I was prowling for leftover ice cream.”

“There’s never leftover ice cream in Aunt Margaret’s house,” said Reuben. “Can’t sleep?”

“I woke up thinking I heard something. I had visions of a team of ninjas surrounding the house and climbing up the walls onto the roof like in Crouching Tiger.”

“Were there any?”

“I did a circuit of the house. No alarm system—I checked before I opened the door.”

“Any ninja footprints on the walls?”

“Nothing. But there was a newspaper wrapped in plastic sitting in your driveway. And there I was in my jockeys, holding the paper, wondering if the door had locked automatically behind me.”

“Had it?”

“Yes, but it was incredibly easy to pick,” said Cole.

“I shudder to ask, but with what?”

“It was still partly open,” said Cole. “I was joking.”

“Not much to do in West Windsor, New Jersey, at 0515 on a Sunday.”

“You know what I want?” said Cole.

“For Christmas?”

“For this moment. I want to get in a car and drive to the city and look at Ground Zero. It’s Sunday, it’s five in the morning, there won’t be traffic. We can be there and back before church, right?”

“Easily,” said Reuben. “But I don’t think you’ll see what you want to see. It’s not a rubble heap or even an excavation anymore. They’re building something appalling on the site, aren’t they?”

“I don’t know how far they’ve gotten,” said Cole. “But even if it’s a Starbucks now, I want to tread that ground. Or at least look at it. Imagine the towers. Remember them. The media has forbidden us to remember the falling towers—they don’t allow us to see the footage. It’s like their slogan is, Forget the Alamo. I’m tired of being obedient to their decision to keep us blind.”

“Let me get the keys to Mingo’s SUV.”

“Not my trophy car?” asked Cole. “Oh, wait—Mingo’s has been mod-oh-fied.”

“Mingo’s isn’t registered to you or me,” said Reuben. “For all we know, there’s an APB out on our vehicles.”

“It has nothing to do with his arsenal?”

“If we hadn’t had to scrounge up weapons at Hain’s Point,” said Reuben, “the President would still be alive. So maybe yeah, maybe I want to have the weapons with me. But if somebody does try to arrest us, I’m not fighting. I didn’t train as a soldier so I could kill Americans.”

The Holland Tunnel took them into the city not far north of where the World Trade Center used to be. The traffic was heavier than Cole had expected, and the city was already full of life.

“How does anybody sleep here?” asked Cole.

“Air-conditioning,” said Rube. “It lets them close their windows and it makes white noise to help them not to hear the street. Plus, you get used to it.”

“So you’ve lived in the big city?” asked Cole.

“Not this big city, but I’ve spent a lot of time here, and a lot of other big cities, too.”

“In your real life, or on that secret assignment from the White House?”

“Which I now doubt had anything to do with the White House,” said Rube. “I think they’ve been playing me all along. I don’t know why I set off their use-this-guy alarms, but I think they marked me years ago.”

“And probably had a GPS on your car already, eh? So they didn’t have to tail you to find out if you went to Hain’s Point?”

“I’m more paranoid than that,” said Rube. “You think I didn’t scan my car regularly? I was doing weird stuff. Weapons systems. Parts delivery. Working out financial transactions in remote locations.”

“Laundering money?”

“I didn’t think of it that way, but probably, yes.”

“But you’re not going to tell me anything specific.”

“There’s still a chance I was working for the good guys, and this stuff is so classified it can’t be classified.”

“They trusted you.”

“To be a world-class fool,” said Rube. “But it’s nice to be trusted.”

There was actually on-street parking here and there. Rube took a spot and parallel-parked forward. “NASCAR trained,” said Cole.

“NASCAR drivers always double park. For quick getaways.” He locked the car using the remote. But Cole noticed that Rube still checked the locks visually. “I figured maybe there are closer parking places, but maybe not, and we’re extremely physically fit so walking won’t hurt us.”

“We do have government-issue shoes,” said Cole. “So we’re using up taxpayer money.”

“They pay for your shoes?” asked Rube.

“At Defense Department rates. So the left shoe is two hundred bucks, and the right shoe, which has to be separately requisitioned, is five hundred.”

Cole appreciated the fact that Rube chuckled. Cole knew it wasn’t really a good time to be making stupid jokes, but they also couldn’t brood about the assassination and the worries ahead of them—they had to keep their minds clear. Concentration was important, but so was distance. Maybe if they could laugh a little, they’d see more clearly.

And maybe Cole was so nervous himself that he couldn’t keep from cracking wise even when it was completely inappropriate. Especially then.

They didn’t make it to Ground Zero. They were still walking on Barclay Street when they heard an explosion. Then a siren. Then small-arms fire. Single shots. Then automatic weapons fire. Not a set of sounds you’d expect from ordinary criminal activity. The cops didn’t carry automatic weapons. And this sounded big. Cole knew that this was something too big for a couple of off-duty off-assignment Special Ops veterans to take on when the only weapons on them were pens and keys.

“I want to go back to Mingo’s car now,” said Rube.

They started back up the street. Broke into a jog at the same moment.

And then heard a loudspeaker behind them.

“We are not your enemies. We are fellow Americans here to protect your city from the unconstitutional government in Washington. Stay off the streets and you will not be hurt.”

They turned around to see what kind of vehicle was playing the recorded announcement. To see just what kind of evasive action they needed to take.

It was not a vehicle. Or maybe it was—there could be a human inside it. But it looked like a robot, about fourteen feet high, like a ball on two legs. It gave no sign of noticing them. Until they started to move. Then it zeroed in on them, started striding purposefully toward them, though it was still a hundred yards away.

Cole stopped. So did Rube. “Motion detectors?” asked Rube.

“Or a guy inside who just spotted us on his screen.”

“Or both.”

The loudspeaker sounded again. “Go inside. The streets are not safe.”

“So the message can change,” said Rube.

“I don’t want to go inside,” said Cole. “I want to get a really big gun and see what it takes to destroy that wonderful machine that’s here to protect me from the unconstitutional government in Washington.”

“I think that thing looks awkward and slow. Let’s see if we can outrun it.”

No further discussion was needed. They turned and ran.

“Stop and you will not be hurt. Stop and you will not be hurt.”

They did not stop.

“Stop now or you will be fired on.”

Cole glanced back over his shoulder. The machine had just kicked up into a higher gear.

“It’s faster than we are,” said Cole.

“It’s faster than we were,” said Rube, and he nearly doubled his speed.

So the major hadn’t gotten out of shape during his desk-jockey days. Cole had a hard time catching up to him.

Gunfire began. The warning repeated.

“Blanks so far,” said Cole.

“Those weren’t blanks,” said Rube. “It was a recording of gunshots.”

“You know what that thing reminds me of?” said Cole.

“The Empire Strikes Back” said Rube.

“I was thinking War of the Worlds.”

“Yeah, but those were computer-graphics bullshit. Why do they think two legs will make a thing like that work better than tracks?”

“If we’re still talking,” said Cole, “we’re not really running fast enough.”

They sped up again as the live bullets began striking around them. The corner of Greenwich Street was on their left, a couple of steps away.

“Not a recording now,” said Cole.

“So do we try for Murray Street or settle for Park Place?”

“You pick now to play Air Monopoly?”

The thing turned the corner behind them sooner than they had expected. It fired immediately.

“The warning message apparently ran out,” said Rube.

They dived between parked cars, then kept low as they moved along the sidewalk.

A car just behind them blew up. The blast knocked them off their feet.

Cole was up at once. Rube was maybe a little bit slower. It might have had to do with him being blown into a fireplug.

“You okay?” Cole asked.

“That is the ugliest girl I ever kissed,” said Rube. He was okay enough to keep running.

They made the corner of Park Place just as the tank-on-legs lined up with the sidewalk so it could shoot them without having to go through cars to do it. The bullets tore up the concrete of the sidewalk and Cole felt little bits of concrete spatter the back of his head. It would be hell getting them out by himself. He hated to pay the deductible to have an emergency room do it. It’s times like this, he thought, when it would be really nice to have a wife. Cecily will pull all the concrete bits out of Rube’s head.

The things that run through your head when the fear of death comes on you, thought Cole.

They were nearly at the corner of Broadway when the thing rounded the corner and started shooting at them again.

“What kind of threat… do we pose?” said Cole between breaths.

“Plenty of civilians… would act like this,” said Rube, also panting. “Shoot anything… that runs… bad order… collateral… damage.”

“Maybe it’s… cause we… run too… damn fast,” suggested Cole.

“Maybe it’s… our uniforms,” said Rube.

Cole had forgotten they were wearing uniforms.

He saw a deeply recessed doorway and dodged into it.

Rube joined him but didn’t like it. “We’ll just be… pinned here,” he said. “When it comes… up the street.”

“If it’s just a machine,” said Cole, “it won’t see us… and it might retarget.”

“That would be a really… stupid program, too,” said Rube.

“So maybe the guys who… built this are really stupid.”

They heard the thudding of steps on concrete, coming closer, echoing off the buildings of this street.

“Okay, so they’re not that stupid,” said Cole. “Sorry.”

“It’s on the sidewalk,” said Rube.

The door behind them opened. A terrified Chinese woman looked at them.

Rube didn’t hesitate. He shoved the door open wider, picked up the woman, and carried her farther inside as she shouted in Chinese. Cole followed and slammed the door behind them. They were inside a narrow Chinese restaurant.

“Does this place have a back door?” Rube demanded.

The woman only continued screeching in Chinese. A terrified old Chinese man came through a curtain, carrying a shotgun. Rube, who still had hold of the woman, dragged her down as Cole also hit the floor. The shotgun went off, blasting right where they—and the Chinese woman—had been standing.

“This guy is crazy,” said Rube.

“He also just called that walking tank.” Cole was up and running around and over the tables. The Chinese man tried to aim the shotgun at him. Just before he fired, Cole leapt high and the shot passed under and between his legs. Then Cole was on the guy and came up with the gun. Rube was already running after him, dragging the woman.

An explosion blew the door open. They dragged the Chinese couple deeper into the restaurant.

“How much ordnance does that thing carry?” asked Rube.

“I don’t want to find out just now,” said Cole. “I want to find out later, in a nice safe lab.”

“Is there a back door?” Rube asked the Chinese man, who wasn’t screaming like the woman was. But the Chinese man only pointed to the safe and said, “No money, no money!”

Cole shouted at the woman in Cantonese. He had guessed right. She was from China proper, or at least Hong Kong—not Taiwan. “Back door?”

She pointed.

“Big gun coming!” he shouted in what could only be terrible Cantonese. He had only been two months into the language course when he got the assignment to work with Rube. “Get upstairs! Hold still! Don’t talk! Shut up!”

That had to be enough. They had to get out. And he thought he saw them out of the corner of his eye, fleeing up the stairs to a higher story.

The mechanical outside was firing a virtual sheet of bullets through the windows. They went through the kitchen wall like it was paper. Which it probably was. Cole and Rube were already at the back door. Which had a crash bar and a big red alarm will sound sign on it.

“Gee, we might wake up the neighbors,” said Rube. Then he pushed on it.

The door opened. The alarm went off. They went out on their bellies as bullets continued to slap against the door and the bricks of the back wall of the kitchen.

Then the door closed behind them. The shooting continued but at least now they could hear themselves think.

They were not in an alley. New York City didn’t believe in alleys. That’s why they had to put their garbage right out on the street. Like a weird kind of window display—come, look what we throw away from this store. Don’t we have attractive garbage? Don’t we use an incredibly cheap grade of plastic bag?

“There’s no way out of here,” said Rube.

“Yet,” said Cole. He was already trying doors. Rube checked around the other way. They met in the middle of the opposite side of the courtyard. All were locked.

“These people are so paranoid,’ ” said Cole. He headed for the lowest window. It was barred, of course, but there were loose bricks in the courtyard from somebody’s unfinished remodeling job. Cole started slamming a brick into the bars. They weren’t all that strong. They could probably be pried out of the wall. Rube had found a two-by-four and was prying on the other side.

A shotgun blast tore through the window. Fortunately, it missed both Cole and Reuben.

“I thought privately owned guns were illegal in this city!” shouted Cole.

“They had one hell of a shotgun salesman come through here, I guess.”

Cole shouted into the window. “The city is being attacked. We’re United States Army! Look at our uniforms!”

A woman’s face appeared in the shattered window. They both stood out from the wall, showing ID and letting her look at their uniforms.

“Who’s attacking!” She had some kind of foreign accent, maybe Spanish, but her English was nice and clear.

No time to explain. “Aliens!” shouted Cole.

The door swung open so fast it rebounded off the wall and almost shut again. Cole and Rube pushed through it. “We need to get out onto Murray Street,” said Rube. “We need to get to our weapons.”

She ran ahead of them, praying in Spanish as she went.

“Stay indoors,” said Cole.

“No vafuera,” said Reuben. “No entra la rua! No mira la rua!”

The woman nodded as she fumbled with the keys and finally got the front door open.

Cole started looking for Mingo’s SUV. Only when Rube pushed the button on the remote did Cole realize that the SUV was directly in front of him.

“I planned it this way when I chose our parking place,” said Rube.

“It’s a miracle from God and you want to take credit?” said Cole.

By now they were both inside the SUV with the doors closed.

“Want to try to run for it in the car?” said Rube.

“Did you see what it did to that parked car back there?” said Cole. “I want to see Mingo’s arsenal!”

“He won’t have a grenade launcher, more’s the pity,” said Rube.

“I’d be happy with a World War II bazooka.”

Rube pulled out an M-16A2 rifle. “You want this? Or there’s an M-4.”

“How the hell did Mingo get an M-4 for private use?” said Cole.

“You want it or not?” said Rube.

“Duh,” said Cole, reaching for the weapon he knew best, the M-4.

“And maybe I’ll take the Minimi.”

“You didn’t tell me there was a machine gun when you offered me my choice.”

“Too late, no takebacks. Here’s an M-9 for you and an M-9 for me.”

Cole took the offered pistol and then they started sharing out ammunition.

“When did you learn Chinese?”

“They were starting to train me for the next possible war.”

“They guessed wrong,” said Rube. “This is the next possible war.”

“Now you tell me. When did you learn Spanish? Special Ops is planning for a war with Colombia?”

“That was high school Spanish. And some college Spanish. And look. An M-240. Forget the Minimi. I want the heavier bullets.”

“Against tanks?”

“I’m betting the mechs aren’t armored like a tank,” said Rube. “Too heavy for those legs to hold up.”

“They’re big and new and maybe the people who made them have a new way to repel bullets, too.”

“Here’s a belt of grenades for you,” said Rube, “and a belt for me. You take the Minimi if you want it so much. Just don’t load yourself down with too much weaponry.”

“Yes sir,” said Cole. “Look who’s talking, sir. Yours is ten pounds heavier than mine.”

“Where’s our friend?” asked Rube.

“From the sound, still shooting at the Chinese restaurant.”

“Or at something,” said Rube. “Us again in a minute.”

“What’s our objective, sir?” asked Cole.

Rube laughed. “Good point, Captain. No, we will not seek con-rontation. Our objective is to get the hell out of New York City befoore the tunnels are sealed off.”

“My guess is that unless these guys are complete idiots, the tunnels were sealed off and emptied first thing.”

“They’d seal off the bridges, too,” said Rube. “And the tunnels are closer.”

“But there are buckets and buckets of water above them,” said Cole.

“And just as much water way, way, way below the bridges. And most of the bridges lead to Long Island.”

“On 24, Jack would find a helicopter he could commandeer.”

“On Smallville, Clark would take a mighty leap and jump over the Hudson River.” Rube clicked a clip into place on his pistol. Ready to go?”

“Holland Tunnel, sir?” asked Cole.

“And we do stop and help local defense forces wherever it looks we we could make a difference,” said Rube. “My guess is that it’ll lostly be cops, and these things are going to tear them apart, igainst this, New York isn’t prepared to defend itself.”

“Do you think it really is Americans attacking the city?”

“Yes,” said Rube. “Because I can’t think of any foreign country lat would be dumb enough to try to attack the U.S. like this.”

“So Mingo’s weapons—we’re going to be shooting at Americans.”

“They’re shooting at uniforms,” said Rube. “That means they’re trying to destroy legal authority. And we’re sworn to defend it.”

“Plus, they shot at us first,” said Cole.

“So when you know you can’t win, you save your army,” said Rube. “Our proper course is to get as many fighters as possible out of this city to a place where they can fight again.”

“I think we can do this and still get to church, don’t you?” said lole.

They put their hands on opposite door handles. “Ready?” said Rube.

“Mingo is going to be so pissed we left so much of his arsenal behind,” said Cole.

“Mingo’s going to be happy he had what we needed. If this is what we needed.”

“Let’s find out,” said Cole.

They opened their doors and dashed for the buildings on the other side of the street. Even though no mech was in sight, they kept low as they moved along the sidewalk.

Cole was surprised to realize that he was more excited than scared. He knew what to do. He’d done it before. So much better than trying to figure out politics. Even though mistakes in a street battle did kill you faster. At least you knew at the end of the day whether you were alive or not.