Devon Ford - The Fall

“Get this goddamned gate open, now, and clear the area!” he yelled, climbing back into the Humvee. The gate slid open, and Anderson’s vehicle led the way inside at speed leaving a stunned guard totally unsure what to do next. He decided that the best course of action was to hit the alarm button, and evacuate the area immediately, just as he was told to.

By the time Anderson’s convoy had arrived at the main plant, people were already starting to file out of the entrance in confusion. He had to maintain his momentum, not allow time or opportunity for anyone to question his presence there or that of thirty heavily armed National Guardsmen. Yelling at the workers to evacuate, he pushed inside. His troops followed, repeating his orders for people to get the fuck out of there and ad-libbing with pushes and curses as the confused workers sped up for the exits.

An audible alarm was sounding now, adding to the panic and making it easier to get everyone out. Their intelligence said that less than a hundred civilians would be on site, and that seemed consistent with the exodus Anderson was witnessing.

Halting, taking a knee and pulling out a schematic drawing, he glanced around and pointed toward a tall structure. No orders were necessary; the four-man team carrying a heavy load between them trotted toward it. The device had been collected in secret that morning, a tired courier giving the instruction face-to-face from memory, and to his eyes was more than big enough to perform the task. His two trained EOD—explosive ordnance disposal—guys set it up and gave him a thumbs-up sign.

“Two-minute warning, clear out,” he yelled, seeing his troops scurrying for the exit. Last man out, Anderson stole a last glance at the device from the threshold and saw a man in the uniform of the plant leaning over it and pulling a call phone from his pocket.

Anderson dropped to one knee again and raised his rifle. The man filled the optic, meaning that he couldn’t miss from that distance, and he didn’t hesitate. Firing two short bursts, Anderson reacquired the target to see the man slumped lifelessly over the device. He sensed two of his soldiers returning to offer him fire support, knowing that both would be scanning for a target which had caused their officer to fire his weapon.

“Move out,” he said, climbing back to his feet, and setting off for the Humvee at a run.

His troops were bawling at the crowd of workers to get back, to clear the area, as some had returned to find out the source of the obvious gunfire. Bypassing the vehicles, he ran to the front and pushed through the line of soldiers. Without hesitation once more, he flicked the safety off his weapon and emptied the remainder of the magazine into the air.

“Get the fuck back!” he screamed at them. “The plant is going to blow!”

This got their attention, and they turned and ran. The speed at which they were running in obvious desperation made Anderson worry about the blast radius. He climbed back into the vehicle and led the convoy back to Washington Avenue, his driver weaving around the fleeing workers expertly before he was forced to slow at the gate. Anderson was watching in the side mirror as the sudden crunch of tires jolted him forwards. Turning to his driver he saw the young man’s eyes locked ahead, just as he turned his head to see three Metro police cruisers slew to block the road. Five cops got out of the three cars and took cover behind the engine blocks, all aiming their sidearms at the lead Humvee.

Anderson was no coward. He regretted having to kill the man in the plant but his use of a cell phone next to an armed explosive device was a risk he couldn’t allow, as a premature detonation could endanger the lives of his men. Still, engaging local police in a one-sided gunfight was not a prospect he relished; these cops were like him, just troops doing their jobs.

The decision to engage was taken out of his hands.

Taylor’s QRF had been on approach when the cruisers pulled up. Without hesitation, and perhaps more bloodthirsty than Anderson, he ordered his driver to take them out. Their Humvee hit the first cruiser side-on, crushing it into the second car and the two cops taking cover between the cars with it. The two wrecks piled into the third, ramming it up the curb and flipping it onto its side where it landed on another cop and killed him instantly.

With the road clear, Anderson’s convoy fell in line behind Taylor’s as they headed for Capitol Hill. Behind them, the air turned bright red and then went black as the huge explosion ripped the power plant to pieces, shutting down the power grid to the whole city.

Cal regained his feet from the horror of the explosion at the subway after the backpack’s contents had incinerated the stairwell. His confusion and fear were running at previously unknown levels, but he needed the safety and security of somewhere away from this place of fire and screams. Something in his subconscious told him to start running, to get back to the hotel, and be safe. He had run almost an entire block north, at least he hoped it was north, before it dawned on him that Louise was out there somewhere. He hadn’t even asked which part of the city she was visiting, eager not to cramp her free-spirited style with such mundane questions.

He fled, breathing heavily as the deafness became a painful screeching in his skull as muted sounds returned to him. He could make out screams, and even more sirens than normal. Everywhere people ran, desperate to find safety but not knowing where to get it.

Twice more he was knocked to the ground by panicked people running and not looking where they were going as the mass of bodies sought refuge off the streets. Buildings were being assaulted by crowds trying to get under cover but still Cal ran as best he could to get back to his hotel, to find Louise, and to get the hell out of there.

Traffic was at a total standstill, and when Cal got out to the bigger streets he saw vehicles being abandoned where they sat in the traffic jams with people leaving their doors open and running. A woman was trying to get the seatbelt off her terrified daughter and almost dragged the girl from the car to sweep her up into her arms. She paused, the child screaming and crying next to her ear, to lock her car with the key fob and zip her purse closed before she hefted the girl higher and ran with her left hand protectively over the back of the child’s head. Everywhere Cal looked, he saw people in need of help. People surged in and out of the subway entrances, not knowing what he knew about the explosion which could have killed him, but his shouts of warning went unheard.

Prioritize, he thought sternly, look after yourself.

Even in his current state of physical fitness, five miles would have been an easy distance to cover. Five miles over broken ground without the added incentive of staying alive would have been easier than what he faced, as five miles across a packed city where panic and chaos spread like tear gas was almost impossible. He ran so hard that he even escaped some of the terror for a time, until the news of what had happened spread further up the island.

Cal didn’t know, but the island of Manhattan was effectively cut off and things were only going to get worse.

Colonel Butler stood at the front of his assembled command center staff with Suzanne at his side. He watched the bank of screens, scanning the ticker-tape text scrolling from right to left for information and occasionally calling out to an aide to record something.

One screen showed an image of black smoke pouring from a tunnel entrance, and a reporter holding a microphone, scanning her eyes left and right as she nervously gave the report, obviously wanted to get out of there.