Escape From New York

II

October 21

10:07 P.M.

Plissken had picked up the name Snake in the service, and it had stuck so hard that now there was nobody left alive on the face of the planet who knew his real first name.

He had been a hot shot college boy when they commissioned him as a lieutenant and sent him to the Russian front. Everyone had been real excited about the war when it first came around. It had been, after all, a long time since the last real confrontation and everyone needed to flex their ego muscles a little.

It had started small and built somewhere in the Middle East. It was the gradual build-up that somehow managed to keep the nukes out of it. There had been a conference in Stockholm early on, where the principal nations agreed to avoid the nuclear exchange to protect the nonaligned nations of the world. That was just a smoke screen, of course. In actuality, nobody wanted their shit blown away finally and completely.

So they decided on something else, something that sounded very harmless and sophisticated. They decided on chemicals. Plissken smiled when he thought about that. He was watching the contact points slide past his window, and trying to ignore the pain in his bad eye.

The chemicals were nasty. He supposed that there was no way of killing that wasn’t nasty underneath it all, but the chemical clouds that continually floated in the atmosphere killed in slow motion. No one was untouched by them. They rolled in quietly, odorlessly and tastelessly, eating away bits of brain cells and nervous systems as they did. The chemicals made people crazy before they killed them. There were crazy people running around all over the place. Lots of them. Millions of them.

“Atlanta Station in five minutes,” the computer voice said.

He pulled his hair back in some semblance of order and checked his watch. A bit ahead of schedule. He looked down at the satchel on his lap.

They called him Snake because he had a knack for slithering out of trouble. He commanded a search and destroy squad that had the best record of success in the entire Russian campaign. No one could figure out why the Snake did so well; but the Snake knew. Some people built things with their hands. Others could compose beautiful music or had a head for figures. Snake Plissken had a talent for making war. It was in his blood.

“Atlanta Station,” chimed the voice. “Thank you for tubing with us.”

The compartment roared around him, and the rush of decel strained him forward against the straps. The thing stopped with a slight jerk, and Plissken was out of his belt and standing before the tube hatched open.

When the wall section slid away, he stepped right out onto the platform, looking back and forth. No one. No blackbellies. No nothing.

He didn’t realize that he had been holding his breath until the air rushed out of him. He smiled and went looking for Taylor.

Taylor had been with him that morning in the CO’s office in Helsinki when they first heard of the so-called “Leningrad Ruse.” It was early, bleak fall and the low, rolling gray clouds, distended with gas, were dropping a lethal acid rain onto ground already barren and dead from floating poisons. They were forced to go around for weeks at a time in their gas gear, speaking to one another through mikes in their masks.

So it was on that morning when they stood in a tiny office with a man from Special Projects named Captain Berrigan. At least, that’s what he said his name was. Berrigan never took off his mask, not even in the relative safety of that secured bunker. Plissken had always thought that to be a shame, for he never got to see what the man looked like; and he had thought for a long time that he would certainly have liked to find Captain Berrigan and gut him with his buck knife.

He walked a good pace through the deserted spoke of the terminal. After a time, he began seeing people. There weren’t very many, but there were still enough to make him feel safe and normal.

The spoke terminated in an escalator. He took it down to the main lobby, where most of the arriving and departing passengers were milling about, feeling secure in their sheer numbers. There was some Security around the tv lounges and rows of food and drink machines, but they were there to protect the property, not mess with the karma. Plissken walked easily, just one of the folks.

He caught sight of a sign on a concrete wall. PACIFIC EXPRESS, it said, and pointed down a corridor. He followed the arrow. That’s where he’d find Taylor.

Captain Berrigan had told them that one of the Allies’ top Intelligence officers had been taken prisoner by the Ruskies and was being detained in Leningrad. He said that they had to go in and get him out before the man revealed secrets vital to the entire war effort. Plissken’s squad had been especially picked because of their phenomenal record. It was a great honor.

Neither he nor Taylor thought much of the plan; it sounded too much like suicide. But duty was duty. So early the nest morning, they went low over the Baltic Sea and hit Leningrad with the sun. There were fifty of them in Gulffire gliders screaming in at rooftop level, while air support drew fire on the east side of the city.

Leningrad was the Ruskie supply point, and was consequently the most heavily defended city in western Russia. Plissken and his people flew into the maelstrom, and it was far worse than any human mind could possibly imagine. He remembered it mostly as oranges-burning, sizzling oranges-screaming fire flowers.

Success was impossible. Survival nearly so. When it was clear to Plissken that they couldn’t get the man out, they plastic charged the building that he was being held in and buried him under five hundred tons of rock and plaster.

Sometime during the fighting a frag cracked Plissken’s left goggle, and the nerve gas went to work on his eye. Somehow he ordered the withdrawal and got back to base. It was like his whole head was on fire, bright orange fire. When the gliders touched down again, there were only two of them left. Just two.

He spent a month in the hospital before they even let Taylor come visit. The man was in a leg cast; his knee had been shattered in a crash landing getting back into Helsinki. He was pale like an albino when he came in, and his eyes were just as red.

“It was all a trick,” Taylor said to him there in that sterile hospital room. “A lousy, fuckin’ trick.”

It turned out that the “Intelligence officer” was actually a corporal in masquerade who let himself be captured to give false information. Plissken’s squad had been sent in just to lend the whole thing an air of authenticity. To make matters worse, it didn’t work. The man hadn’t fooled them for a minute.

Snake Plissken’s life began to change at that exact instant.

The PACIFIC EXPRESS spoke was completely deserted. Nobody in his right mind went west. Nobody but crazy men and outlaws. He kept moving until he came to another escalator, then started down to the subway platform.

He hit bottom and moved through semidarkness. He saw Taylor just ahead, crouched down by the wall. Plissken moved silently up to him. The man was small, with darting eyes and a weak face. He wasn’t weak, though, just put upon. He wore a cap and fatigue jacket that still bore the stitch marks on the sleeve to show where the sergeant’s stripes used to be. His hands were lost up to the wrists in the wiring of a terminal box that was set into the wall.

“How are you, Sarge?” Plissken asked when he got up close.

Taylor didn’t even flinch. “Surviving,” he replied, then his eyes drifted up to Plissken’s. They shared a look, then the eyes drifted down to the satchel in Plissken’s hand. Taylor had the bag’s twin beside him on the floor.

“You’re early,” the little man said,

“They’re on my ass.”

Taylor nodded once and turned back to the panel, cursing softly to himself. He worked quickly, expertly. All at once, he sat back with a grunt. “That’s it,” he said.

His words were followed by the clank of a subway train moving down the platform. It got right next to them, then wheezed to a stop.

“Let’s go,” Plissken said, and started for the train. Taylor got to his feet and followed, his bad leg making him limp slightly.

They got inside just as the door was closing. The car was old. The garish neon lit the torn seats and dirty, battered walls to an odd sort of antisepticness.

The train started away, creaking loudly. Plissken and Taylor grabbed seat frames to bolster them against the acceleration. Snake smiled as the speed built. They were off.

“We wired in to Seattle?” he asked.

Taylor twisted up his mouth. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe Seattle, maybe San Francisco, maybe Barstow.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t tell, you know? Those goddamn circuits are so small.”

Plissken tossed his satchel to Taylor and slumped down in a seat, his eyes drifting to the window, exhaustion spreading over his body like a shroud over a corpse. When he looked back around, Taylor was zipping open the bag.

“Congratulations,” Plissken said. “You’re a billionaire.”

Taylor was pulling plastic white credit cards out of the sack. “Jesus, Snake.” He began reading out loud, “Master, US National Bank. Master, US Port Authority. Master, US Tobacco Reserve.” He shoved the open satchel toward Plissken. “Will you look at this?”

Plissken folded his hands and leaned way back in the seat “You look at it I’m tired.”

“Come on, man. We gotta split it up.”

“I trust you.”

He watched as Taylor unzipped the other bag and started shoveling the credit discs into it. Then he closed his eyes and fell asleep. He dreamed about his head being on fire. Orange fire. Just like every night.

He awoke to Taylor shaking him gently on the arm. “Wake up, Snake. We’re there.”

Plissken came awake at once, alert, like an animal. He sat up straight, eye searching, brain clear-except for the pain.

His first word was, “What?”

Taylor had backed away from him. He had been around Plissken long enough to know that sometimes the Snake came awake defensively, violently. It had to do with his eye.

“The train’s slowing down, Lieutenant. We’re there.”

“Where?”

“Wherever.”

Plissken stretched quickly and watched them slowing to the terminal platform. All terminals looked the same. There was no way of telling where they were just from looking.

He stood when the train came to a complete stop. Taylor was already standing by the door. It slid open.

“Welcome to San Francisco,” the computer voice said. “Please step to your right”

Good citizens, Plissken and Taylor stepped out of the car and walked casually toward the escalators on their right

“Well, it ain’t Seattle,” Taylor frowned. “But it’s close.”

“Close enough for government work,” Plissken said.

Taylor thought about that for a moment, then a big toothy grin consumed his drawn face. “San Francisco ain’t bad,” he said. “I can spend a billion here.”

They got on the escalator and took the ride.

“San Francisco,” Taylor said again, shaking his head. “Sure couldn’t spend it in Barstow.”

“Yeah,” Plissken responded, but he wasn’t really listening. He was feeling the hairs on the back of his neck bristling. It felt bad. It felt all wrong. He began craning his head around as the moving stairs neared the upper lobby, trying to reassure himself.

“What’s wrong?” Taylor asked.

Plissken shook his head, lips tight “Something…” he started, then trailed off.

They got off the escalator. The lobby was totally deserted, not anything like the main lobby in the Atlanta terminal. There wasn’t even any Security here. They started walking across it, Plissken still glancing around.

Taylor slapped him on the shoulder. “Take it easy, Snake,” he said. “It’s four in the morning, man. Stop worrying. We made it.”

Plissken had about a second to appreciate the wisdom of that remark before the air exploded around them. There were sounds of automatic rifle fire, then Taylor spun off screaming, going for the floor which was coming apart in chunks around them.

Plissken went down with him, holding him. The man’s left arm had been chewed to pieces. He lay there, cursing through clenched teeth, his fatigue jacket already dyed red, blood-soaked, dripping in an evergrowing pool on the cement floor.

“God, Snake,” he rasped. “God… DAMN!”

Plissken tried to pull him to his feet. “Come on!” He looked across to the far side escalators. Blackbellies were spread across the escalator bank one floor up and were coming down. Kevlarred killers, crazies with badges. They carried AR-15s, up and ready. Black riot helmets with darkened visors covered their heads. The devil in black times six.

“Come on!”

He got the man onto his feet, but Taylor was already in bad shape. When he looked at Plissken, there was resignation in his face, resignation that hadn’t been there even in Leningrad.

They ran back the way they had come, and the guns started chattering again behind them. Taylor fell behind, blood loss and the bum leg taking their toll.

Plissken bounded down the escalator, and started eating up the platform in great leaping strides. He turned once to make sure that Taylor was all right. The little man was nowhere to be seen.

He slowed, then stopped. He looked back for Taylor, then turned to stare down the long platform that could mean escape.

He turned back. “Taylor!” he called. “Taylor!”

Taylor wasn’t coming, he knew that. He also knew that there was nothing he could do about it. Turning, he looked once more down the length of the platform. His instincts told him to run. But Taylor was all he had left. They were all gone, everyone else who knew Snake Plissken as a real human being. All dead.

He sighed once, then trotted back to the escalators and up. He reached the top. Taylor was on his belly on the floor, crawling, leaving a bloody trail behind him like a snail’s. The blackbellies, rifles ready, moved slowly in on him. They were drawing it out, teasing, giving him that last look at daylight.

Plissken felt his stomach muscles tighten. He hated blackbellies, hated the stench of death that rolled off them like fog off the marshes. He dropped his satchel on the floor and raised his hands.

Rifles came up to cover him. “Drop the bag, Taylor,” he said.

The man looked up, tore into him with pleading eyes. He clutched the now bloody satchel tighter and kept moving, sliding through his own gore. “Go on, Lieutenant,” he rasped, and his voice was like an old man’s. “Go on.”

Plissken’s eyes jumped back and forth between Taylor and the blackbellies. He could see them vibrating, smelling the blood and wanting more. He spoke slowly, nonthreatening, emphasizing each word. “Drop the bag, Taylor.”

The man opened his mouth to speak, but the words never came. One of the gunmen opened fire on the little man, and the others started in right after. Taylor’s body jumped and twitched the death dance as the troopers, one by one, emptied their rifles into him. It was quite a show. They were all very pleased.

Plissken just stared as they moved in to grab him. When Taylor died, he took a good chunk of Snake Plissken with him. He was all alone then, and for once, the grief was enough to push the pain out of his head.

They grabbed him, jerking his arms roughly behind his back to shackle him. He didn’t mind the pain, though. There were worse things.