Mike McQuay - Escape From New York

“There was an accident about an hour ago,” Hauk said. “A small jet went down inside New York City. The President was on board.”

“President of what?” Plissken asked, ready to jump on Hauk if the opportunity presented itself.

“It isn’t funny, Plissken. You go in, find the President, bring him out in twenty-four hours, and you’re a free man.”

Plissken watched Hauk carefully, waiting for the punch line. It didn’t seem to be coming. “This a joke?” he finally asked.

“I’m making you an offer.”

“Bullshit.”

“Straight. Just like I said.”

Plissken sat back. He wasn’t anybody’s sucker bait. “I’ll think about it,” he answered.

Hauk took a breath, but his expression remained deadly earnest. “No time,” he said. “Give me an answer.”

“Okay,” Plissken replied. “Get a new President”

He watched Hauk’s jaw muscles tighten, but the man remained in control. He may even have been sane. “We’re still at war, Plissken. We need him alive.”

“I don’t care about your war,” the Snake answered. “Or your President.”

“Is that your answer?”

Plissken threw up his hands. “I’m thinking it over,” he snapped. He looked at Hauk again. He was really beginning to believe the man was on the level. He thought about Duggan and the steri-chamber. “Why me?” he asked.

“You flew the Gulffire over Leningrad,” the man answered quickly. “You know how to get in quiet.” He turned and walked a few paces across the room; when he turned back around his features were softer. “You’re all I’ve got,” he said quietly.

Just on the surface, it seemed to Plissken that the deal had more holes in it than a metric ton of Swiss cheese, but what the hell. He shrugged. “Well… I go in there one way or the other. It don’t mean shit to me. Give me the papers.” He reached for them.

Hauk shook his head, snatching back the papers. “When you come out,” he said, and this time he was smiling.

“Before”

“I said I wasn’t a fool, Plissken.”

Plissken fixed him with his cool, reptilian eye. “Snake,” he said, smooth as syrup. “Call me Snake.”

10:14 P.M.

Plissken walked between Hauk and Rehme. It was obvious that they were uneasy in his company since they had taken the cuffs off him; it was just as obvious that he hated being in that particular corner of the universe at that particular time.

He hated Hauk, hated him just like he hated any blackbelly. Oh, the man wore a suit and talked about prerogatives, but he was still the head killer in a society of killers-Witchfinder General. He couldn’t forgive the man that. Forgiveness was nowhere to be found within the countless reflecting shards of the broken mirror that was Plissken’s spirit.

“In here,” Rehme said.

They turned into a door marked MATERIAL DISBURSEMENT. The room was painted battleship gray. It had a counter that slashed its width. On the other side of the counter, a cage, floor to ceiling. Within the cage were neatly stacked shelves of supplies that stretched far back into darkness.

Hauk flicked a switch beside the door, and several banks of neon lit sequentially down the length of the storeroom. It went way back.

Rehme dug down into his pocket and pulled out a chain of keys. He moved around the counter and started trying them in the cage lock. He’d try one, shake the lock until it rattled the whole cage, curse softly, then try another.

“You know I haven’t had anything to eat,” Plissken said.

“For how long?” Hauk asked. Then to Rehme: “We haven’t got all night.”

“The motherfuckers aren’t marked,” Rehme said, his voice edged with frustration.

“Just take it easy.”

“Since yesterday,” Plissken said.

“Goddamn son of a bitch,” Rehme muttered.

“You look well-fed to me,” Hauk said.

“It’s your game,” the Snake shrugged. “But if it was me, I’d want every advantage I could get. I sure wouldn’t send some half-starved..”

“You made your point,” Hauk interrupted. “We’ll take care of it.”

“Ha!” Rehme yelled. “Wouldn’t you know it’d be the last goddamn one.”

He creaked open the cage door, and hurried back down the rows of equipment. He got a leather survival holster, and started sticking various items into it.

Hauk looked at Plissken, then stared down the aisle to see where Rehme was. “Look,” he said, voice low, “I know I’m not in any position to ask you for favors… but I’ve got a… relative inside.” His voice was hoarse. “You’ve got priorities here, I know, but if you could just… keep an eye out for him.”

“What the hell am I supposed to do, Hauk. Ask three million crazy people for their names and addresses?”

The man waved it off. “No, damnit. I don’t need to know anything except if he’s there.” He held up a clenched fist. “He’s got a tattoo.” He pointed to his four fingers just below the knuckles. “The letters H-A-U-K, one on each finger.”

Plissken frowned. It’d be a cold day in Miami Beach before he did a favor for Hauk, “Well, if I see him, I’ll tell him to drop you a line.”

Hauk’s eyes flashed for a second, but he didn’t say anything.

“Here we go,” Rehme’s voice said. He came back through the cage and locked the door. Standing on the business end of the counter, he dumped the contents of the holster onto its top. It was a large, wraparound holster, compartmentalized, like an electrician’s. It could hold a lot.

The guns were the first thing that caught the Snake’s attention. There were two automatics, a handgun and a break-down rifle. Plissken hadn’t held a gun since Leningrad. He reached out and gingerly ran a palm over each weapon. They were smooth and cold. Deadly. Snake Plissken with a gun was like Samson with shoulder length hair.

“The bullets carry a charge,” Hauk said, thrusting his hands away from each other. “Explodes on impact. You don’t have to be a crack shot, just hit what you’re aiming at.”

“I will,” Plissken answered.

He glanced at the other items: a flare pistol, K-rations, a big crystal chunk that he assumed was amphetamine, infrared goggles and a small two-way radio. There was also a large, four-pointed metal spur that looked sharp and lethal at close range. His eyes skipped over the tactical gear, always returning to gaze at the guns.

“Double his rations, would you?” Hauk said. “He’s a growing boy and he’s hungry.”

Rehme went back into the cage, this time remembering which key was which.

“I’ll need extra ammo clips,” Plissken said, unable to get his eyes off those guns.

Hauk noticed his interest. “Know how to use them?”

“Do rabbits have a sex life?”

Rehme came back in and threw some greenish brown tins on the counter. “Extra rations,” he said.

“And a few more ammo clips,” Plissken added, tabbing open a can of pound cake.

Rehme winked and reached into his jacket pocket. He dropped several loaded clips onto the counter.

Plissken nodded and stuffed the whole piece of cake into his mouth.

“It’s a whole different world in there,” Rehme said. “It’s very tribal, very survival oriented.” He leaned against the counter and looked at Plissken, deadly serious. The Snake smiled at him through his mouthful of cake.

“They split along race and ethnic lines. White, Black, Chicano, Indian, Oriental, European.” He took a breath. “It even breaks down farther: women, homosexuals, religious, old people… and the crazies. Some of them have cars. They took junkers left behind and converted them to steam. We think that they may also have a gasoline source in there. And power. They have it selectively, although God knows how they do it.”