Adam Baker: Terminus

One of the SWAT guys stood over her. Contemptuous eyes behind the Lexan visor of an M40 respirator. He lifted Lupe’s chin with the barrel of his gun and checked her out.

Mid-twenties, hair woven in tight cornrows. Gang tatts circled her neck. LOS DIABLOS, in gothic script. Two tears inked beneath her right eye made her look cartoon-sad, like a Pagliacci clown.

Knuckle tatts. Right hand: VIDA. Left hand: LOCA.

The cop pulled the lapel of her leather jacket aside. Stencil letters on the breast pocket of her red smock:

‘Gangbanger. Better take her to see the Chief.’

Lupe sat cuffed to a bench seat in the rear of the armoured car.

They drove through forest. They jolted down a rutted track. She could see trees through milky ballistic view slits. A second prisoner chained to the seat beside her. A scrawny guy in a looted suit. Slate grey silk. A couple of sizes too big. He looked like he had been dressed for his coffin.

‘I’m David,’ said the guy. ‘Where did they pick you up?’

‘Brooklyn.’

A guard sat on the opposite seat. SWAT body armour. Respirator. Remington. The name tape on his vest said GALLOWAY.

‘Where are you taking us?’ demanded David.

The guard didn’t respond.

They continued down the forest track. Weak sunlight through bare branches.

They drove through a high chain-link gateway topped with razor wire. A rusted sign draped with creepers thick as jungle vine:

A neglected airfield. A wide airstrip slowly reclaimed by woodland. Civilian planes overwhelmed by thick brush and saplings.

A wrecked Huey gunship sat in tall grass. Rotor blades dripped rain. Paint flaked from rust-striped body panels. Nose art: red eyes and snarling teeth. Hammer Strike. A tree had grown through a hole in the cockpit floor. Branches protruded from vacant canopy windows.

They kept driving.

A Cessna lay in waist-high bracken, fuselage snapped in two like someone broke it over their knee.

The vehicle stopped.

The engine died.

‘So what is this place?’ asked David, craning to look out the windows. He could see hangars and a couple of fuel trucks.

The rear doors were pulled open. SWAT with assault rifles. Galloway flicked open a knife, leaned across the aisle and cut the plastic ties that bound Lupe and David to the bench.

‘Get out.’

They jumped from the truck.

‘Move.’

They walked a few paces.

‘Stop. Hands on your heads.’

They stood beside a battered FDNY fire truck. One of the cops slung his rifle and unwound the hose.

‘What is this shit?’ asked Lupe.

‘Decon shower,’ said the cop. He threw open a nozzle valve and blasted her with a jet of ice water. She was thrown from her feet. She curled foetal, covered her face and waited for the deluge to stop.

The scavenged hulk of a Fairchild Provider. Faded tail code and insignia of 302 Tactical Airlift. The airframe had been stripped for parts. The Pratt & Whitney turboprops were long gone. No flaps, rudder or undercarriage. The alloy wings and tail torn like ragged sail fabric. NO WALK. PROP DANGER. The fuselage was mottled with moss and lichen. The carcass sat in weeds, wing-tilt to the left like it was banking hard.

The cavernous cargo bay was ribbed with reinforcement spars. Frayed cable and hydraulic line hung from the roof. No seats.

Lupe sat cuffed to one of the spars. The rear loading ramp was down. Rain drummed on the skin of the plane, beat down grass and bracken.

David sat nearby, shackled to a floor stanchion. He shivered with cold.

‘What do you think they will do with us?’ he asked.

‘Nothing good.’

She looked towards the front of the plane. The cockpit door was open. Galloway sat in the pilot’s seat, smoking a cigarette. His feet rested on the flight controls. Reclaimed avionics: sheet metal studded with cookie-cutter holes where dials and fuel gauges used to sit.

David tried to saw the plastic tie against the stanchion.

‘Forget it,’ said Lupe. ‘They make this shit out of special nylon. You need a knife or bolt cutters to slice them.’

‘How many cops do you reckon they have here?’

Lupe nodded to the open loading ramp.

‘Couple of trucks by the hangar. They’re burning pallets inside the building, got themselves a campfire. Less than a hundred guys, at a guess. But they’re well armed.’

‘Reckon we could make it over the fence?’

‘Razor wire would cut you to shit, but you could get through it if you wanted freedom bad enough.’

‘Hey,’ shouted David. ‘Hey, you.’

Galloway turned in the pilot seat.

‘What are you guys going to do with us?’

Galloway stood and stretched. He walked the length of the plane. Boots clanked aluminium floor planks. He stood over them. He leaned against a retaining spar and cradled his shotgun. He took a long drag on his cigarette and blew smoke.

‘When do we get to speak to your boss?’ asked David.

‘The Chief ain’t got time for a lowlife like you.’

‘Bring us some food, at least. A blanket.’

Galloway gestured to a porthole in the wall of the plane. David and Lupe peered through dust-fogged Plexiglas. Silhouette against a stormcloud sky: three lynched bodies swinging from a tree.

Galloway blew the smouldering tip of his cigarette until the embers glowed like a hot coal.

‘Don’t worry. You’ll get what’s coming to you.’

Dawn. Ceaseless rain.

David sat sobbing. Lupe tried to chew through her cuffs.

Galloway walked up the aft loading ramp. He carried two lengths of rope. He threw the bundles on the floor. He ruffled rain from his hair and lit a cigarette.

‘Why drag it out?’ said Lupe. ‘Kill us. Get it done.’

‘I’m waiting on the results of your appeal.’

‘You’re kidding me.’

‘There was a trial. Someone spoke in your favour. Someone spoke against. Everything was done right.’

‘Who was the judge?’

‘The Chief.’

‘When do I meet this guy?’

‘You don’t.’

Galloway sat cross-legged on the floor, shotgun in his lap.

Lupe watched him smoke.

‘You’re not SWAT, are you? These other guys. A real takedown crew. Taut. Focused. But you’re just a slob in a vest. What did you do before this? Mall cop? Sit in a tollbooth all day?’

Galloway pulled up his sleeve. Sine Metus. Brotherhood of the Wire.

‘Corrections?’

‘That’s right,’ said Galloway. ‘Don’t expect mercy from me.’

‘Which jail? Some place upriver, I bet. Sing Sing. Attica. You look like a sit-on-your-ass union guy.’

Galloway didn’t reply.

‘Bet you walked out on them, didn’t you?’ said Lupe. ‘All those prisoners. You and your guard buddies. Left them to starve. Poor fuckers. Must have been hell in there. Worse than hell. Tier after tier, hammering the bars, screaming through their tray slots.’

Galloway lit a fresh smoke.

Footsteps. Someone thrashing through tall grass.

A second SWAT climbed the loading ramp into the plane. He handed Galloway two sheets of paper. Galloway read them and smiled.

He handed one of the sheets to David. David held rain-spattered paper with trembling hands and read the terse note.

The State of New York hereby provides notice that the defendant DAVID BLAKE has been found guilty of common assault, attempting to evade arrest and multiple counts of theft, and that upon a finding of guilt at the trial of these matters the State of New York sentences DAVID BLAKE to death on the grounds that the defendant will likely commit further acts of criminality and remain a continuing serious threat to society, pursuant to Martial Code 143.