Mike McQuay: Escape From New York

Taylor had been with him that morning in the CO’s office in Helsinki when they first heard of the so-called “Leningrad Ruse.” It was early, bleak fall and the low, rolling gray clouds, distended with gas, were dropping a lethal acid rain onto ground already barren and dead from floating poisons. They were forced to go around for weeks at a time in their gas gear, speaking to one another through mikes in their masks.

So it was on that morning when they stood in a tiny office with a man from Special Projects named Captain Berrigan. At least, that’s what he said his name was. Berrigan never took off his mask, not even in the relative safety of that secured bunker. Plissken had always thought that to be a shame, for he never got to see what the man looked like; and he had thought for a long time that he would certainly have liked to find Captain Berrigan and gut him with his buck knife.

He walked a good pace through the deserted spoke of the terminal. After a time, he began seeing people. There weren’t very many, but there were still enough to make him feel safe and normal.

The spoke terminated in an escalator. He took it down to the main lobby, where most of the arriving and departing passengers were milling about, feeling secure in their sheer numbers. There was some Security around the tv lounges and rows of food and drink machines, but they were there to protect the property, not mess with the karma. Plissken walked easily, just one of the folks.

He caught sight of a sign on a concrete wall. PACIFIC EXPRESS, it said, and pointed down a corridor. He followed the arrow. That’s where he’d find Taylor.

Captain Berrigan had told them that one of the Allies’ top Intelligence officers had been taken prisoner by the Ruskies and was being detained in Leningrad. He said that they had to go in and get him out before the man revealed secrets vital to the entire war effort. Plissken’s squad had been especially picked because of their phenomenal record. It was a great honor.

Neither he nor Taylor thought much of the plan; it sounded too much like suicide. But duty was duty. So early the nest morning, they went low over the Baltic Sea and hit Leningrad with the sun. There were fifty of them in Gulffire gliders screaming in at rooftop level, while air support drew fire on the east side of the city.

Leningrad was the Ruskie supply point, and was consequently the most heavily defended city in western Russia. Plissken and his people flew into the maelstrom, and it was far worse than any human mind could possibly imagine. He remembered it mostly as oranges-burning, sizzling oranges-screaming fire flowers.

Success was impossible. Survival nearly so. When it was clear to Plissken that they couldn’t get the man out, they plastic charged the building that he was being held in and buried him under five hundred tons of rock and plaster.

Sometime during the fighting a frag cracked Plissken’s left goggle, and the nerve gas went to work on his eye. Somehow he ordered the withdrawal and got back to base. It was like his whole head was on fire, bright orange fire. When the gliders touched down again, there were only two of them left. Just two.

He spent a month in the hospital before they even let Taylor come visit. The man was in a leg cast; his knee had been shattered in a crash landing getting back into Helsinki. He was pale like an albino when he came in, and his eyes were just as red.

“It was all a trick,” Taylor said to him there in that sterile hospital room. “A lousy, fuckin’ trick.”

It turned out that the “Intelligence officer” was actually a corporal in masquerade who let himself be captured to give false information. Plissken’s squad had been sent in just to lend the whole thing an air of authenticity. To make matters worse, it didn’t work. The man hadn’t fooled them for a minute.

Snake Plissken’s life began to change at that exact instant.

The PACIFIC EXPRESS spoke was completely deserted. Nobody in his right mind went west. Nobody but crazy men and outlaws. He kept moving until he came to another escalator, then started down to the subway platform.

He hit bottom and moved through semidarkness. He saw Taylor just ahead, crouched down by the wall. Plissken moved silently up to him. The man was small, with darting eyes and a weak face. He wasn’t weak, though, just put upon. He wore a cap and fatigue jacket that still bore the stitch marks on the sleeve to show where the sergeant’s stripes used to be. His hands were lost up to the wrists in the wiring of a terminal box that was set into the wall.

“How are you, Sarge?” Plissken asked when he got up close.

Taylor didn’t even flinch. “Surviving,” he replied, then his eyes drifted up to Plissken’s. They shared a look, then the eyes drifted down to the satchel in Plissken’s hand. Taylor had the bag’s twin beside him on the floor.

“You’re early,” the little man said,

“They’re on my ass.”

Taylor nodded once and turned back to the panel, cursing softly to himself. He worked quickly, expertly. All at once, he sat back with a grunt. “That’s it,” he said.

His words were followed by the clank of a subway train moving down the platform. It got right next to them, then wheezed to a stop.

“Let’s go,” Plissken said, and started for the train. Taylor got to his feet and followed, his bad leg making him limp slightly.

They got inside just as the door was closing. The car was old. The garish neon lit the torn seats and dirty, battered walls to an odd sort of antisepticness.

The train started away, creaking loudly. Plissken and Taylor grabbed seat frames to bolster them against the acceleration. Snake smiled as the speed built. They were off.

“We wired in to Seattle?” he asked.

Taylor twisted up his mouth. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe Seattle, maybe San Francisco, maybe Barstow.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t tell, you know? Those goddamn circuits are so small.”

Plissken tossed his satchel to Taylor and slumped down in a seat, his eyes drifting to the window, exhaustion spreading over his body like a shroud over a corpse. When he looked back around, Taylor was zipping open the bag.

“Congratulations,” Plissken said. “You’re a billionaire.”

Taylor was pulling plastic white credit cards out of the sack. “Jesus, Snake.” He began reading out loud, “Master, US National Bank. Master, US Port Authority. Master, US Tobacco Reserve.” He shoved the open satchel toward Plissken. “Will you look at this?”

Plissken folded his hands and leaned way back in the seat “You look at it I’m tired.”

“Come on, man. We gotta split it up.”

“I trust you.”

He watched as Taylor unzipped the other bag and started shoveling the credit discs into it. Then he closed his eyes and fell asleep. He dreamed about his head being on fire. Orange fire. Just like every night.

He awoke to Taylor shaking him gently on the arm. “Wake up, Snake. We’re there.”

Plissken came awake at once, alert, like an animal. He sat up straight, eye searching, brain clear-except for the pain.

His first word was, “What?”

Taylor had backed away from him. He had been around Plissken long enough to know that sometimes the Snake came awake defensively, violently. It had to do with his eye.

“The train’s slowing down, Lieutenant. We’re there.”

“Where?”

“Wherever.”

Plissken stretched quickly and watched them slowing to the terminal platform. All terminals looked the same. There was no way of telling where they were just from looking.

He stood when the train came to a complete stop. Taylor was already standing by the door. It slid open.

“Welcome to San Francisco,” the computer voice said. “Please step to your right”