Adam Baker: Terminus

Nariko put on a headset.

‘Give me an open channel.’

The pilot adjusted radio frequency.

‘This is Fire Department Rescue Four, can anyone hear me, over?’

No response.

‘This is Rescue Four calling Manhattan on maritime one-two-one, anyone out there, over?’

No response.

‘Rescue Four calling Manhattan, is anyone alive?’

She took off the headset.

Cloke turned in his seat.

‘Time to mask up.’

Lower Manhattan.

They looked out the cabin window. Glimpses of the shattered metropolis beneath them. Rubble-clogged avenues. Flame-seared ruins. Exposed rooms and stairwells.

Byrne had a night vision monocular clipped to the rim of his helmet. Nariko tapped him on the shoulder.

‘What can you see?’

‘I can see the whole damned city.’

He gestured to a storage niche beneath Nariko’s seat. She found night vision goggles. She powered up and held them to her visor.

Mile after mile of luminescent ruins.

She looked north to the detonation site. A beam of ionised radiation projecting into the night sky. A pale column of light.

‘Jesus. It’s beyond words.’

Galloway nudged Lupe with the shotgun.

‘GPS is out. Find the Fed. Do your damned job.’

Nariko passed the night vision headset to Lupe.

Lupe looked out the side window and scanned the ruins.

Wrecked automobiles. Bomb-shattered office buildings.

‘Wall Street, right? Head for the Broadway intersection, then head north towards City Hall.’

‘Yeah?’

‘The Fed is on east Liberty.’

Lupe adjusted magnification. Streets lit ghost-green by UV. Grotesque, shambling figures turned and looked towards the sky.

‘Prowlers,’ she said. ‘They can hear us. They can hear the chopper.’

‘Hoped radiation would have sterilised the whole damn island,’ said Nariko.

‘They’re in bad shape, as far as I can tell. But alive.’

Lupe lowered the night vision goggles and sat back. She glanced round the cabin. She suddenly tore her mask off with cuffed hands.

‘Watch it,’ she yelled, pointing out the starboard window. ‘Watch out.’

The two helicopters were drifting together.

The pilot wrenched the joystick. Too late. Rotor strike. A blade struck the canopy. The cockpit window shattered. The cabin filled with typhoon wind and broken glass.

The chopper banked hard left. The pilot fought to keep control.

Lupe fought G-force and pulled the mask back over her head.

The chopper levelled out.

Nariko grabbed Byrne by the shoulder and shouted to be heard over wind roar and motor howl.

‘Are we going down?’

He checked instrumentation. Green lights.

‘We’re still Go.’

‘Get us to the drop site.’

‘Where’s the other chopper?’ shouted Lupe.

The pilot pointed down.

Lupe leaned forwards and looked down. She adjusted the ENVG focus.

A baleful glow in the mist below. A raging fuel fire.

‘Can we get close?’ demanded Nariko. ‘Ditch our gear, bring them aboard?’

‘The street is too tight,’ said Lupe. ‘Nowhere to land.’

A couple of crew pulled themselves from the burning wreckage. Shuffling figures converged from doorways and alleys. The crew were quickly overwhelmed and torn apart.

‘Survivors?’ asked Nariko.

‘No. None.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yeah, I’m sure.’

‘Then guide us in, dammit. Do your job. Find the damned Fed.’

The storm-lashed roof of the Federal Building. Cracked bitumen. Pooled rainwater. Rotary air con vents. A shattered water tower.

Hurricane down-wash. The chopper nose light projected a shaft of brilliant white light through spray as the chopper began its descent.

The sling-load: rescue gear and trauma bags suspended in a rope net. Byrne tripped the hook release. The load dropped four feet and hit the roof, sending up a geyser plume of rainwater.

The chopper jinked left. Skids settled on the roof.

‘Sure you want to do this?’ shouted Byrne.

Nariko threw open the side-door and jumped clear. Donahue and Tombes followed her lead.

Lieutenant Cloke climbed from the co-pilot seat. He sprinted across the roof to the stairwell door.

Padlock and chain.

‘Fetch bolt cutters.’

Galloway pulled Lupe from the chopper cabin. Her feet were bound by ankle shackles. She slid from the bench and fell to her knees on the roof surface.

Escalating rotor roar. The helicopter rose, banked, and was lost behind a curtain of rain. They watched the nose light head east and dwindle to nothing.

Dancing flashlights near the equipment sling. Nariko and her crew retrieved rescue gear.

Galloway pulled Lupe to her feet.

‘Come on. Let’s get under cover.’

A sixth floor hallway. Shadows and dereliction.

Nariko kicked open the stairwell door. She dumped a heavy backpack on the floor.

Tombes and Donahue wrestled an equipment trunk down the stairs and set it down. They ran back up the stairs to fetch more gear.

Lupe descended the stairs. Tight ankle shackles forced her to bunny-hop each step. She reached the hall. Galloway kicked her legs. She dropped to her knees.

‘Stay down. Don’t move.’

‘Could you see much from the roof?’ asked Nariko.

‘Fire to the south,’ said Cloke. ‘Miles of it. Must be the petrochemical terminal on Staten Island. The storage tanks, separators and fractioning towers. The entire installation up in flames. Probably burn for months.’

‘We ought to call Ridgeway. Tell them we lost a chopper.’

‘Byrne will check in, tell them what they need to know.’

‘We just lost fire support. And if that second bird drops out the sky, we’re marooned.’

‘Nothing I can do about it,’ said Cloke. He turned to Lupe. ‘So how do we reach the subway station?’

‘How should I know?’ said Lupe. ‘We went below ground at 23rd Street. We reached Fenwick by tunnel.’

Cloke surveyed the hallway. Elevator doors. He pushed his flashlight through an inch gap and looked down. The brick shaft descended into deep darkness.

‘There’s an elevator. But no power.’

A door marked:

Cloke shouldered the door and leaned over the balustrade. He trained his flashlight. Jumbled rubble six flights below.

Nariko joined him.

‘You got three flights of stairs. After that, thin air.’

‘Let me see how far I can get.’

She pulled on a backpack and shouldered a coil of kernmantle rope.

‘Watch yourself.’

She descended the stairs. Three flights of concrete steps and an iron balustrade. The steps led nowhere. The stairs ended abruptly. A black chasm. She leaned over the edge and shone her flashlight downwards into darkness. The lower prefabricated sections of stairwell had detached from the wall and lay in a jumble of rubble far below.

Nariko tested the balustrade railing beside her. Firm. Anchored.

She buckled a harness and clipped a carabiner to the balustrade. She walked to the edge of the chasm and rappelled into black nothing.

She passed numbered doors in the wall.

3… 2… 1…

She switched on the flashlight hanging from her belt. The beam lit the pile of masonry beneath her.

She touched down, booted feet coming to rest on splintered concrete. She unclipped the harness.

She wiped condensation from the visor of her respirator. She blinked sweat from her eyes.

She scanned the walls of the wrecked shaft.

She unhooked her radio.

‘I’m at the sub-level.’