CHAPTER 2

A flyby had been done of the route just hours before, just before dusk. The parkway was clear up to the George Washington Bridge. But from that point on, the way north was going to be rough: abandoned cars and trucks littered the parkway from the bridge all the way up to the Henry Hudson Bridge, that vital link between Manhattan and Bronx County. Two big

Abramses rolled as point, one a tank’s length behind the other; it would be their job to shove the rusted hulks of vehicles out of the way, clearing a path for the column.

The column had not been away from the staging area more than a minute before they were in bogie country, and the Night People were instantly aware that something very big was going down.

The Rebels came under fire almost immediately.

Cooper pulled over into the left lane and a Duster clanked up beside the Blazer, in the right lane, shielding the Blazer from hostile fire.

Ben opened his mouth to protest, then closed it. If he ordered the tank away, another would just take its place. And when he had gone through the tanks, deuce-and-a-halfs would fill the gap. Once again, his Rebels had worked out a plan to protect their general.

“We’re waiting for you to start bitching, General”

Beth spoke from the backseat.

“Would it do any good?”

“No, sir.”

All three of them had a laugh at the expression on Ben’s face. Ben finally smiled with them. It helped to ease the tension while the hostile fire cracked all around the column.

From the center of the column, Big Thumpers in the beds of trucks started hurling 40mm grenades.

With a range of 2400 yards (max effective range of 1650 yards) the 40mm Thumpers thumped the hell out of the buildings that housed the creepies.

Fifty-caliber machine guns (with a range of 2000 yards) began raking enemy-held buildings as the column sped up the parkway at max speed.

“It’s going to really get interesting once we’re past the bridge,” Ben said.

Beth glanced at a map, using a tiny flashlight to see. They still had a long way to go before reaching the bridge. And running this gauntlet was interesting enough for her.

They had just passed West 23rd.

Ben lifted his mike. “Thirtieth Street Terminal is full of creepies,” he alerted his people. “And so is the Javits Convention Center. That’s where the convoys take the heaviest fire. Heads up.”

“How far is that?” Jersey asked Beth.

“We’re there.”

The creepies opened up with everything they had available to them and kept up the barrage until the column crossed over the Lincoln Tunnel and the parkway changed to the West Side Highway.

“Four trucks disabled, General,” Beth told him. “Tires shot out. Orders?”

“Have the people double up. We can’t afford the time it would take to change the tires. We’ve got vehicles running out the kazoo.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Assign two Dusters as protection and slow the column speed down to thirty.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll take the mike from here, Beth.”

Ben lifted his mike. “All right, gunners.

We’re slowing our speed. Pick your targets and let “em bang.”

The just-graying morning erupted in a roaring of death and destruction from machine guns, mortars, cannon, and 40mm grenades from the Big Thumpers.

Ben could barely hear the words coming out of the speaker.

“Trucks offloaded and rolling, sir. We’re coming up on the column’s donkey.”

“Hammer down, people,” Ben ordered. “Let’s get out of this area. These folks don’t like us at all!”

The column picked up speed and rolled on.

Gray and silver were beginning to streak the sky.

“Central Park right over there,” Ben said. “A few more blocks and we’ll be pretty much clear until we parallel Riverside Drive. Then it’ll start picking up again.”

“I can use the rest,” Beth said dryly.

“How about some coffee?” Ben said, holding up a big thermos. They all wanted coffee. “Tell you what, Cooper,” Ben offered, keeping his face bland as they

angled off, taking a detour for a few blocks.

I’ll take the wheel and you can sit back and drink your coffee. Come on, just slide over here. There you go.”

“Good God, people!” Jersey blurted. “We’re goin” fifty miles an hour and you two start playing musical chairs.”

“Relax, Jersey,” Ben turned his head, grinning at her. “Just sit back and drink your coffee.

Everybody got coffee? Good.” He picked up his mike. “Get out of the way, truck. I’m coming around.”

Ben kicked the Blazer in the butt and stayed in the left lane, passing everything on the road.

“I knew it!” Beth moaned. “I knew there was a catch to it. I just knew it!”

Jersey just cussed.

Cooper was holding his coffee mug with both hands and wondering if the general was going to attempt to pass the lead tanks.

But two more Abrams pulled over,

effectively blocking the highway, running in a staggered pattern, two up and two back.

Ben laughed at the move. “Henry Hudson Parkway,” he announced. “You kids enjoying the ride?”

“What happens if we gotta go to the bathroom?”

Beth asked.

“That depends entirely upon how modest you are and whether or not you have a helmet.”

Her reply would have stricken every member of a censor board dead on the spot.

“You ever give him the wheel again, Cooper,”

Jersey warned, “and I’ll shoot you!”

“How the hell do you tell a general he can’t drive?”

Cooper protested.

“You tell him no!”

Ben just grinned and changed lanes, crowding the ass end of a tank.

“You see, Cooper?” Jersey yelled. “That’s why General Ike told you to be his driver. General Ike said he was a madman behind the wheel.”

“Madman?” Ben said. “Ike said that about me?”

“And Doctor Chase said he was the worst driver in the entire Rebel Army.”

“What!”

“And General Jefferys said he couldn’t be trusted.

He said Ben Raines will tell you he’s going one way and then go the other just to throw off his bodyguards.”

Ben couldn’t rebut the truth.

“Awright, awready!” Cooper growled.

“Pay no attention to them, Cooper,” Ben told him. “They’re just jealous because they have to sit in the backseat. Women’s lib and all that.”

Beth and Jersey groaned.

“Yes, sir.” Since Cooper had been just a young boy when the Great War scoured the earth, he didn’t have the foggiest what women’s lib meant. He guessed it might have something to do with a brassiere.

Ben changed lanes again, trying to figure out how to get through the tank blockade. But the commanders had him in a box and weren’t about to let him through.

“Having trouble, sir?” one of them asked politely.

“Not a bit, thank you,” Ben radioed his reply.

“Just checking, sir.”

“Thank you for your concern.”

“You’re welcome, sir.”

Ben settled back and eased off the tank’s donkey-much to the relief of his passengers.

“Columbia University will be coming into range in a couple of minutes, General.” The speakers spewed the words. “You want us to shell it?”

“No,” Ben radioed. “We don’t know if or how many prisoners they’re holding in there. Do not shell.”

“Ten-four, sir.”

“Get set for some more hostile fire, people” Ben told his troops. “Well be running close to Riverside Drive from here on in. All troops not manning weapons keep your heads down.”

His orders were acknowledged up and down the rolling line.

“Thanks, swivel turrets for machine-gun fire. Halftracks and APC gunners, prepare for returning unfriendly fire.”

Those orders were acknowledged.

As Riverside Park ended, just past Grant’s Tomb, and the parkway ran in close proximity to Riverside Drive, the bogies began firing on the column. The returning fire from the Rebels was blistering and deadly. Another Rebel truck had tires knocked flat, disabling the vehicle.

Once more, the column was forced to slow, several Dusters falling back to protect the

troops and equipment as they were offloaded onto other vehicles. A mass of black-robed creepies made the mistake of climbing onto the parkway. The Duster’s 40mm cannons, hurling their “red golf balls,” and machine-gun fire turned the crawlers into chunks

of chopped meat. In under two minutes, the column was once more rolling at max speed.

“West One Hundred Fifty-fifth Street coming up,” Beth announced from the backseat.

“Not far now,” Ben said. He lifted his mike.

“We’ve got a traffic maze coming up soon, people.

Be very careful that you don’t get separated. There’ll be creepies on the overpasses, throwing everything they’ve got at us; Ike said that’s SOP for them.

Heads up and watch out for firebombs.”

“I see cocktails already lighted, General,” a tank commander radioed.

“Do not use cannon,” Ben ordered. “We’ve got to keep this place intact. Open up with Fifties as soon as you’re in range. Which should be now.”

Fifty-caliber and 7.62 machine guns began rattling and yammering and blowing out chunks of death at the bogies gathered on the overpasses and hidden along the roadway. Rebels were standing up in the trucks, giving the Night People ten rounds for every one round the creepies fired.

The besieged column, miraculously, stayed together through the traffic circles and maze of interchanges and heavy bogie fire, with Molotov cocktails bouncing off the vehicles and hostile fire clanking and whining off of metal and concrete, and stayed on Riverside, driving right into unknown territory.

It was full light, and the Rebels in Ben’s personal battalion were looking at sights that no outsider had seen since the Great War-at least none that Ben knew of.

They roared past 181st Street, receiving no enemy fire.

When they reached the point where Fort Tryon Park lay to their right, Jersey summed it all up.

“It’s eerie. I mean … the silence. It’s like, well, nobody is out there.”

“I’m afraid you may be right in that, Jersey,”

Ben replied. He picked up the mike.

“Column halt. Easy does it, people. Let’s don’t ass-end each other.”

The column slowed, then stopped. To their right, on a hill, looking like a fortified monastery, was the Cloisters.

“Dan?”

“Here, sir.”

“Scouts out. Two Abrams point the Scouts.

Stay on Riverside and then cut back on Dyckman and rejoin us. Stay in radio contact at all times.”

“Yes, sir.”

Two IFV’S filled with Dan’s Scouts, and two Abrams pulled out of the column and moved into the silence. The Infantry Fighting Vehicles, each with a ten-personnel seating capacity, were armed fighting machines: a 25mm cannon, TOW missile launcher, and 7.62 machine gun. In addition, the six Scouts inside could fire ball-mounted 5.56mm port weapons.

Before anyone could object, Ben opened the door and got out of the Blazer, stretching his legs. He was immediately surrounded by a squad of Rebels, Jersey, Beth, and Cooper bailing out of the Blazer right behind him.

“Get Ike on the horn, Beth.” Ben

hand-rolled a cigarette and lit up. “And don’t anybody say anything about my smoking.”

No one did.

“And get me a casualty report.”

Beth handed him the handset. “General Ike, sir.”

“So I’m a madman behind the wheel, huh, fatso?” Ben asked the ex-Seal, a smile on his lips.

“Did I say that, Ben?” Ike said with a laugh.

“No! You know I wouldn’t say anything like that about you.”

“We made it, Ike. I’m getting a casualty report now. But I think we came through intact.

Lost a few trucks, that’s about it. It’s very quiet up here, Ike. Nothing, and I mean nothing

is moving.”

“You’ll recall the flybys we took when we first got here showed very little life up that way, Ben.”

They were not using translators. No point. The bogies knew they were here. Only for important communiqu`es would the translators be used.

“I’ve got Scouts out now, Ike. They should be reporting back in about twenty-thirty minutes; but there have been no shots fired since our arrival.”

Cecil came on the horn, listening in from his sector. “Ben. We’re meeting a solid line of resistance on all fronts. The

creepies have really dug in.”

“Switch to translators. Feed through Katzman.”

Ben waited until the translators were all in place. The radio transmissions were being scrambled on both ends, then fed to the translators in whatever language: Apache, Sac, Fox, Yiddish.

Ben took it. “We noticed and commented on how slow our advance has been over the past few days. It could well mean that you’re getting close to a breeding farm or a feeding farm. Check those first flybys with heat-seekers. We know where the Central Park survivors are, so we can eliminate them. The printouts might tell you something. Let me know.”

“Ten-four, Ben. Good hunting.”

Ben rehooked the phone. “Let’s take a walk, gang.”

Dan appeared at his side. “Where are we going, General?”

“I don’t know where you’re going. I’m going over there and check out the Cloisters.”

Before anyone could stop him, Ben had started walking toward the off-ramp that led into Fort Tryon Park.

“General!” Dan called. Ben turned around.

“Would you mind terribly if we rode over into that as yet

unchecked-out-area?

Preferably in this armor-plated and

bulletproof-glass Blazer?”

“Just as long as Cooper drives!” Jersey yelled.

“Oh, all right.” Ben returned to the Blazer and got in. Dan had taken that time to send a couple of squads of Scouts running into the 62-acre park.

He was in a Jeep, leading the way.

“How old is this place, General?” Jersey asked. “And what is it? Is it something religious?”

Ben handed her a tourist guide. “Read that, and you’ll know as much about it as I do. I think it’s some repository for medieval art.”

“What kind of art, sir?” Cooper asked.

“Old.”

The Scouts’ first reply back was short, and exactly what Ben had been dreading. “Place is a mess. Looks like it was looted and vandalized.”

“According to this thing,” Jersey said, “it’s got several levels.”

“Yeah. I think so.” Ben pointed to a sign.

“Pull around to the main entrance, Cooper. We’ll check it out.”

Ben grunted in anger as he walked through the once magnificently appointed main and ground floors.

The place looked as though a horde of naughty, malicious-minded, undisciplined children had set upon it with cans of spray paint and machetes. The beautiful tapestries, some dating back to the fourteenth century, had been slashed and torn; rats and field mice now made their homes amid the torn beauty. Once-priceless and

irreplaceable statues had deliberately been tumbled to the floor, smashed for no reason. Stained glass panels, some centuries old, were shattered beyond repair. Antique chairs and tables and benches had initials and gang slogans carved into the wood.

In the Campin Room, the painted Spanish ceiling had been repainted with cans of spray paint, ugly and obscene slogans defaming the beauty.

Ben muttered an oath that equaled the words on the walls and ceilings and walked on.

Nothing had been spared from the mindless, senseless destruction.

“Why?” Jersey asked.

“Who knows why punks do what they do,” Ben told her. “Liberal shrinks used to say it was because the coach wouldn’t let them play, or the homecoming queen wouldn’t date them, or they had pimples, or some other equally idiotic froth from the mouth.”

Ben had seen all that he cared to see. The destruction of such beauty was offensive to him, offensive to

anybody with more than an ounce of sensitivity in his soul. And it was depressing.

Ben stepped outside and looked for Dan. The Englishman was sitting on the steps. He turned around at the sound of Ben’s boots.

“Barbaric! I could not linger in there a moment longer.

The destruction of such beauty is beyond my level of comprehension.” He spat on the ground, summing up his contempt for those responsible for wreaking such havoc upon priceless souvenirs of centuries past.

“Come on, Dan.” Ben motioned him to his boots.

“This is a good time for us to inspect a part of New York we’ve been ignoring.”

Dan rose and looked at him, a puzzled look on his face. “What?”

Ben pointed. “It’s right out there, Dan. The 190th Street subway station.”

Dan pointed a finger at a group of his Scouts.

They took off running for a Hummer and sped off in the direction of the subway station.

“Naturally, you will insist upon inspecting the underground passages personally?” Dan asked, just a touch of hope against hope in his voice.

“Naturally” Ben told him. He looked at Jersey and Beth. “We’re looking forward to it, aren’t we, ladies.”

Jersey blinked and stared at him. “Oh, yes, sir, General!” It would have taken an idiot to miss the sarcasm in her voice.

“I gotta go to the bathroom!” Beth said.