Devon Ford - The Fall

Cal didn’t see this, he was advancing himself toward the TV screen, reading the text scrolling across the bottom.

Los Angeles, San Francisco. Seattle. Vegas. Portland. North Carolina. Florida, and now Boston.

“How far away is Boston from here?” he asked nobody in particular.

“Couple hundred miles, straight line. Maybe less,” Sebastian said behind his shoulder.

“Prevailing wind?” Cal shot back.

“This way, more or less,” Sebastian answered, grasping the point immediately. “We need to move west or north. Fast.”

They turned, and Cal squatted down in front of Louise. He held her hand, seeing that she was coming out of the other end of whatever shock she had fallen into. Cal told her the country was under attack, and that they had to go. Now.

“My bag,” she said. “I need my bag.”

Cal glanced between her and the mob yelling at Jake. He saw that the young cop had taken a step backwards, then bladed his stance and placed a hand on his right hip; the classic stance for facing a threat and gently reminding everyone there that he had a gun. He had three actually, given that he still had Troman’s duty belt over one shoulder and his off-duty weapon in the rig under his left arm, but his instinctive stance to rely on his service weapon was ingrained. Cal heard him shouting at the others to stay back. He knew just by looking that the situation would not end well. Wordlessly he took the chrome semi-automatic from the waist of his jeans after he had retrieved it from Louise’s grasp, and went to stand beside the beleaguered NYPD officer.

The change in odds served to quiet some, whilst the others were snapped from the moment by Cal’s interruption and recognized that their own behavior was simply not acceptable.

“Enough! Everybody, listen to me!” came an authoritative shout from behind the group. Almost as one, heads turned to see Sebastian stood on a polished mahogany table with his arms out wide. “The United States is under attack.” He paused for the rising noise level to react to his repetition of the obvious.

“It’s the fucking Al-Qaeda,” a voice shouted, the owner of which pointed a finger at the terrified businessman.

“Don’t be so bloody ignorant,” snapped Cal loudly. “For one, Al-Qaeda barely even exists anymore and you’re just being bigoted, and two, why would he have anything to do with it?”

“Enough!” said Sebastian again, raising his voice but still not quite lowering himself to shout. “We all need to evacuate the city and head west. We have probably a day before the fallout reaches New York so again, I urge you to leave.”

“How do you know?” shouted a man in a suit.

“I don’t,” Sebastian answered equably, “but I doubt staying in the city is the right thing to do, so I think we should try and leave. How you do this is up to you. Thank you.”

With that he skipped down from the table and undid his tie, symbolically taking himself away from his duty to ensure everyone visiting the hotel was thoroughly cared for. People milled around, uncertain of what to do without instruction. Sebastian strode through the crowd, ignoring all the shouts and pleas to help them. Glancing back, he caught Cal’s eye, then Jake’s. Cal involuntarily stepped forward to follow before he remembered Louise and turned back for her. She was already on her feet, walking toward him with some sparkle back in her eyes.

“It’s all on the coast,” she said, “we need to go inland.”

“What?” Cal said, slightly behind her logic.

“I saw it on the news,” she said looking straight at him. “All those bombs dropped on the coast, so we need to head inland away from them. I need to go home.”

That was a concept Cal understood perfectly, only he knew now with utter certainty that he would probably never go home, even if he found an airport with something capable of crossing the Atlantic that would take him. He misunderstood her point in its entirety, however, because her need to get home wasn’t for need of a feeling of safety, but because she knew they would be far safer there than anywhere else.

Louise went to activate the elevator to retrieve her bag, but as she was waiting a noise erupted in the lobby. A series of bangs and flashes echoed throughout the ground floor, followed by strange coughing noises.

And then screams.

She ran back in, Jake and Cal appearing at her side with guns in hand.

“There a back way out?” Jake asked over his shoulder as they retreated from the noise ahead.

“Yes. Through the kitchen. The delivery entrance,” Sebastian said, walking with them and snatching up the plain black backpacks that Jake was pointing at. He handed one to Cal, which Louise took from him and strapped on.

“Go,” Jake said, hanging back slightly to cover them as the last man out.

Sebastian led the way through the kitchens, turning left and right as the head of the snake escaping the fire.

“I’m assuming a car is out of the question?” Sebastian shouted back.

“It’ll be gridlock,” replied Jake confidently. “We need to go on foot, head through Central Park and cross the Hudson somehow.”

“Shit!” cursed Sebastian, surprising them all and stopping in his tracks.

“What?” Louise asked before any of the others could.

“The keys to my boat,” he said. “They’re on the bunch in my coat pocket,” he said, looking forlornly back the way they had come. As if on cue, a door behind them banged open and shouts in Mandarin could be heard echoing toward them.

“I need my bag,” Louise said, her eyes suddenly wide and her voice distant and desperate.

“You’ll have to leave it—” Cal began to say before she cut him off.

“I need my bag !” she said more loudly, on the verge of tears as the shouts grew louder behind them.

“No time, go, go, go,” Jake whispered, urging them all onwards.

The lobby was secured with ease, and three of the team held positions of cover until the lead agent walked in. He was dressed and equipped similarly to the others: plain black equipment without labels to indicate their point of origin. He glanced down at the bodies of two of his team, a quarter of his fighting strength dead already. Chen, one of his favorites who he also knew had a sister high up in the Ministry at home, lay dead with most of the right side of her skull blown away. That was unfortunate, operationally, politically, and personally as he found himself drawn to her. He barked short orders and two of his remaining team members began to secure the bodies. Making eye contact with his partner, he nodded and the two moved off into the hotel to kill the people who did this.

Sebastian, now stripped of his beautifully tailored jacket and wearing a military backpack strapped on tight over his fitted shirt, led the way. He paused at the door and looked at Jake, then at the spare duty belt he carried, then back to his eyes.

“You know how to use it?” Jake asked him, receiving a curt nod in return. He handed it over and watched as the concierge strapped it on and drew the Glock, chambering a round with a smooth and practiced action after dropping the magazine to check for brass.

He silently counted down on his fingers, three, two, one, then pushed open the door and stepped clear quickly to clear the immediate area. The others pushed out behind him. Jake and Sebastian clearly knew how to handle weapons, a point which Jake made sure to ask about soon, and Cal was holding the liberated hand cannon with some form of familiarity. Only Louise was unarmed, and Jake considered giving her his Glock 26, but decided that the last thing she probably needed right then was another gun in her hand.

Sebastian led the way, checking angles, and sticking to cover like a professional. Jake put Cal and Louise in the middle—Cal because he was injured and slow, and Louise because she was, well because she was a young woman and in a semi state of shock, leaving him to secure the rear of their foot convoy. Dropping to one knee at the north end of the block, Sebastian turned to the others.