Mike McQuay - Escape From New York

Hauk walked up to the opposite side of the table, resting his hands on its top. “The President went down in the prison,” he said, then moved away from the table, over to the big map.

He pointed to Battery Park. “He went down around here. We sent a task force in immediately, but it was too late. They already had him.”

The Secretary exhaled a lungful of smoke. “They?”

“The prisoners,” Hauk answered.

Prather shrugged broadly. “Well surely, Commissioner, you must just go in and take him out.”

Hauk walked back to the table again. “It’s not that simple,” he said quietly.

“Why not?”

“These people are very dangerous, I…”

“Come on, Hauk,” Prather said, and his tone was condescending. “This is your prison. Don’t you have any control over your own prison?”

Hauk felt the anger rise up his throat. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the cloth-wrapped finger and tossed it onto the table. The wrapping came loose as he did so.

“No, sir,” he said. “I don’t”

Prather’s mouth fell open when he saw the finger. His body convulsed slightly and he turned his head. “Hauk,” he choked. “Put it away. Please.”

Hauk stuck the finger back into his pocket “Those people rule themselves in there, Mister Secretary. All we do here is keep them from getting out.”

The man turned back around, breathing deeply. The false bravado was gone completely; all that was exposed now was the frightened shell of a petty bureaucrat who was in over his head. “How could such a situation…”

Hauk put up a hand to silence him. “Listen,” he said. “I didn’t invent the fucking system, you people did.”

“I don’t think I like your tone of voice.”

Hauk drew himself up full. “Fine,” he said, and turned to the door. “You handle things then. I’m going to go home and get some sleep.”

He started for the door, wishing, really wishing, that Prather would let him go. He knew that he wouldn’t, though.

“No,” the man said, before Hauk even got halfway across the room.

He turned back around.

“P-please,” Prather stammered. “I need your help. I can’t handle anything like this.”

“Yeah,” Hauk said, and returned to the table. He sat down in the chair opposite the Secretary.

Prather took short, nervous pulls on his cigarette. He didn’t offer one to the Commissioner, so Hauk just reached across the table and took one.

“What have we got?” Prather asked.

Hauk lit up and took a deep drag. It tasted stale, metallic. “We’ve got two choices,” he replied. “We can either try to go in and get him out, or we can wait on the prisoners. They’re holding him for something, some kind of ransom. As soon as they figure out what they want, they’ll try to deal for him.”

He sat back, watching the glowing, dead ash build up on the end of the smoker, “It’s a big city,” he said, “in case you haven’t noticed. I seriously doubt that we could even find him if we went in, much less rescue him alive. So, I strongly suggest that we wait for the ransom demands.”

“We can’t,” Prather said softly.

“What do you mean, we can’t?”

Prather pursed his lips, his eyes once again drifting to the city map. “John Harker is on a very delicate mission right now. He was on his way to a summit meeting in Hartford that will, most likely, determine the final outcome of the war.”

Hauk closed his eyes and leaned back. He didn’t want to hear this. “What sort of mission?”

Prather looked around, as if somebody might be eavesdropping. He lowered his nervous voice. “There is a briefcase cuffed to his arm that holds a cassette. The cassette talks about a powerful new bomb, a fusion bomb that…”

“Never mind,” Hauk snapped. “I don’t need to know. How much time have you got to get him there?”

“Just about twenty-four hours,” Prather answered. “After that, the Russians and Chinese go back home and things get crazy again. We’ve worked for years to set up this meeting. I doubt that we could ever get another chance.”

Hauk stood up and began pacing. “Who’s making the top end decisions right now?” he asked after a minute.

“The Vice President,” Prather answered, and rested his hand on the red phone. “He’s waiting on the other end of this line to hear from us.”

“Will he be cooperative?”

“What have you got in mind?”

Hauk stopped pacing and stood, staring at the map, his hands at parade rest behind him. “We could never get in there with troops,” he said over his shoulder. “We’d never even find enough of him to bury.”

“Then, what?”

“One person could get in,” he said. “One person could move around unnoticed.”

“Have you got someone in mind?”

Hauk turned around, pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and threw it on the floor. “Maybe,” he said, and crushed the smoldering butt with the heel of his shoe.

He moved across the room to a phone by the map. He picked it up and spoke as soon as the operator came on. “Cronenberg,” was all he said.

He waited while the receiver buzzed in his ear. After several rings, a craggy voice came through the line. “Medical,” it said.

“Cronenberg, this is Hauk.”

“Hello, Commissioner, I haven’t heard from you in…”

“Do you have a prisoner down there named Plissken?”

“Why, yes, he’s a…”

“I’ve got no time, Doctor. Just listen to me: detain Plissken in processing. I may have something for him. Can you do that?”

“Well, yes. I…”

“No time, Doctor. Are you still working on that Stinger Project?”

“On and off.”

“Does it work?”

“Theoretically.”

“Get it ready. We may be testing it out.”

“You mean… on a human?”

“Yeah. I’m up in conference. Get your directives going and get your ass up here.”

He hung up the phone without waiting for a reply, then turned back to Prather. “Here it is: we’ve got a prisoner here, name of Plissken. He’s one of the world’s all-time slippery bastards. I say we offer him amnesty, and give him twenty-four hours to get the President out to earn it. He’s smart and he’s one of them. He could do things that we can’t.”

“Do you really think it will work?”

Hauk walked over and leaned on the table, staring Prather down. “Probably not,” he replied. “But it’s the only game in town.”

“How do you know he’ll even keep his part of the bargain?”

Hauk smiled slightly, more a grimace. “I’ve got an ace in the hole.” He sat back down. “I would suggest that you get your Vice President on the phone right now.”

Prather picked up the receiver and waited for the connections. Hauk thought a minute and realized that he didn’t even know the Vice President’s name. Was he that far out of touch?

He moved away from the table, back over to the map. Prather began talking over the phone, but his voice was just outside the range of Hauk’s hearing.

It was an old map, pre-war. The Battery Park area was shaded a pale green. If they did the map now, they’d have to make it dull brown. He traced the streets with his eyes. Many of them he had walked at length, looking for Jerry.

He listened to the drone of Prather’s voice for a minute, then turned and walked near the Secretary to catch what was being said.

The man was nodding his head. “I’m convinced there’s no connection, sir. The prisoners aren’t aware of the hijacking. As far as they’re concerned, it was an accident… yes sir. He’s right here.”

Prather made a face. “This is Bob Hauk,” he said and handed the red receiver across the table. It was warm to the touch.