Adam Baker: Terminus

‘…The virus. We have a solution. We have an antidote. Hello? Anyone? If you can hear me, if you can hear my voice, please respond…’

Nariko shut off the recording.

‘We tried to reply to their Mayday. We got no response.’

‘Like I said. The bomb dropped. They’re all dead.’

‘A few months ago there were ten billion people on this planet, give or take. Now there are a handful of us left. If Ekks and his boys achieved some kind of breakthrough, some kind of antidote or vaccine to this virus, then we have to retrieve it. Yes, the Bellevue team were probably killed by the bomb. If they survived the blast, they are fatally irradiated. But they might live long enough to tell us what they know. And if not we can, at the very least, secure their research.’

‘Only a fool would make the journey.’

‘We have our orders,’ said Jefferson.

‘So what do you want from me?’

‘Like I said. You were down there, in the tunnels, with Ekks and his team. The only surviving witness. You know the layout, the environment.’

‘Are you coming along on this joyride?’

‘Nariko and her rescue squad will escort you to Fenwick Street Station. My men will provide fire support.’

‘And why should I help?’

‘Freedom.’

‘I get to join your happy band?’

‘No. You’re a liability. In fact, you make me want to puke. We use a rope because scum like you aren’t worth a bullet. Only silver lining to this situation: we get to start the world over, wipe it clean, make it fit for decent folk. But help us, and we’ll spare your life. We’ll put you out the front gate. Give you a little food and water, send you on your way. My advice? Go out of state. If our paths cross again, there will be no second chance.’

‘Do I have a choice?’

‘No. No, you don’t.’

Grey dawn light. Rain dripped through holes in the corrugated hangar roof and formed splash-pools on the floor.

Two Bell JetRangers. One brown, one blue. SWAT loaded weapons and ammo. Nariko and her crew loaded rescue gear.

Lieutenant Cloke flipped open a couple of equipment trunks. NBC gear and respirators.

They stepped into overboots and squirmed into canary yellow C-BURN radiological suits. Heavy fabric. Nylon ripstop over a layer of Demron gamma shield.

‘Hold out your hands,’ said Nariko. Lupe held out hands sheathed in heavy gauntlets. Nariko wrapped sealer tape round each wrist.

Lupe checked her out. ‘Fire department, huh?’ said Lupe.

‘Yeah.’

‘A captain.’

‘Yeah.’

‘You don’t look the type.’

‘Rescue Four. Extraction crew.’

‘Three man team. Seems pretty light.’

‘There used to be six of us.’

‘This is messed up,’ said Lupe. ‘The whole thing.’

‘We’re packing plenty of firepower. You’ll be okay.’

‘Think I’m worried about prowlers? Least of my problems.’

‘I’ll make sure the Chief keeps his word. Help us find Ekks, and I’ll get you out of here in one piece.’

Cloke taped a map of Manhattan to the hangar wall. He uncapped a Sharpie and drew concentric rings. Each pen squeak delineated pond ripples of destruction.

He clapped hands for attention and began the mission brief.

‘Airburst over the refugee camp in Central Park. A five kiloton Sandman dropped from a B2 at dawn. Detonated at fifteen hundred feet.

The entire Red Cross tent city vaporised in the blink of an eye. The park itself is gone. Trees, topsoil and ornamental lakes seared down to bedrock. No one has surveyed the centre of the blast, no one has performed an overflight, but I guarantee Uptown Manhattan is now a crater a quarter of a mile wide throwing out lethal gamma radiation.

Surrounding buildings will have been crushed flat. MetLife, Citicorp, UN Secretariat. Everything in a two-mile radius of Central Park scythed by the blast wave. Nothing left but burning rubble.’

Cloke pointed at the tip of the island.

‘Our objective: the subway terminus at Fenwick Street. The station has been mothballed for decades. It is situated beneath the old Federal Building; headquarters of the Federal Union Bank. Built in the nineteenth century, six storeys high, limestone, steel frame. The site is about five miles from the detonation point. The structure will have suffered major damage, almost certainly burned out, but I’m hopeful it will be sufficiently intact to allow us to access the sub-level station.’

‘Where do we set down?’ asked Nariko.

‘The junction of Lafayette and Canal. Closer, if we can. The choppers won’t be able to hang around. They will both be operating at the limits of their weight capacity. Full cabins and a sling load of equipment. They’ll be flying on fumes by the time they get back to Ridgeway.’

‘We’ll be wading ankle-deep in fallout.’

‘Exactly. We will have to get below ground as quick as we can.’ He looked around. ‘Any more questions?’ None. ‘All right. Wheels up in five.’

Nariko made a final inspection of Lupe’s wrist seals. Galloway took the opportunity to slap steel cuffs in place and bind her hands.

‘What the hell?’

‘I see through you like an X-ray, bitch. You’re planning to bolt on touchdown. Well, you can forget that shit. Put it from your mind. I’m going to be riding you for the duration.’ He prodded her in the belly with the Remington. ‘Give me any crap, I’ll knee-cap your sorry ass and feed you to the prowlers. Itching to do it. So go ahead. Give me an excuse.’

Chopper roar. Rain lashed the cockpit glass. The pilot flew by instruments.

Lupe looked out the window.

The adjacent chopper suspended in grey nothing.

Fleeting glimpse of a highway, two hundred feet below. The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway jammed with incinerated cars.

She looked around the cabin.

Galloway sat beside her, shotgun laid across his lap, barrel pointing at her belly.

Nariko sat on the opposite bench seat, flanked by the remaining members of her FDNY rescue squad. Donahue: blonde, thirties. Tombes: heavyset, forties.

Lieutenant Cloke sat up front with the pilot.

Galloway unzipped the side pocket of his backpack and pulled out a Glock. He offered the pistol to Nariko. She shook her head.

‘Take it,’ he shouted. ‘Seriously. Take it.’

She took the weapon. She turned it in her hand, inspected the safety switch and magazine eject.

‘Headshot. Don’t waste bullets on the torso.’

She nodded.

Galloway kept talking, bellowing over the rotor roar, anxious to demonstrate some hard-ass wisdom.

‘Saw a couple of prowlers cut down by an M16. Took a full clip to the chest, kicked clean off their feet. Jumped right back up and kept coming, tripping over their own entrails. Relentless motherfuckers. They don’t get tired, don’t feel pain. Once they catch your scent, they’ll chase you down, night and day. They never quit.’

Byrne, the pilot, turned in his seat.

‘Check it out,’ he shouted.

They craned to look out of the starboard window.

‘Holy shit,’ said Tombes.

A gargantuan ghost-shape glimpsed through a curtain of rain.

The Brooklyn Bridge. A cyclopean ruin. The central span collapsed and sunk to the silted darkness of the tidal strait. Six lanes of fissured asphalt terminated just beyond the granite caissons of the east-side cable tower. A stump of snarled girders and splintered stone jutting into space. Catenary suspension wires hung limp and swayed in the wind.

Lupe looked across the river. An ebb tide. Refuse heading for the bay. A steady stream of detritus that would, in time, form garbage archipelagos off the Florida shoreline.

The ruins of Manhattan were hidden behind a veil of rain.