6th Horseman, Extremist Edge Series: Part 1 (5 page)

I look at Denton. He’s flushed and sweating heavily.
He coughs again.

“You okay?” I yell.

He’s tall, really bald, and tough. “I’m fine. Get
your head in the game.”

The man in the do-rag continues yelling, but I have
to tune him out. More and more people are massing. We’re going to
need more troops on the bridge soon or they’ll overrun us. I listen
to the radio chatter from my earpiece, which I linked to the ham
radio. Crowds are growing. Fires have been started. Car accidents
are everywhere. Lethal force is ordered. The marinas are being
attacked! Boats are overloaded with people and some are speeding
across the Hudson River trying to get to New Jersey. One yacht
doesn’t turn back and it is shot up and sunk by an Apache
Helicopter.

Five o’clock comes fast. More and more people pack
the Queensboro Bridge onramp. They are mad as hell and are starting
to cohesively get pushier. This is expected. They’re pushing up to
the razor-sharp barbed wire.

The crowd facing me surges forward. People yell and
cry out as they move the wire and the posts. Some are cut. There
are cries for help and then I see blood. I flip the safety off my
M-4.

#

I think about what Zilla said last night. I passed by
a market and got some food. As I was leaving I was stopped by a
woman. She was nicely dressed but had a scar down her cheek. She
gave me a cell phone. She said someone wanted to talk with me. I
took the phone and she walked off.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Hana Scottfield?”

“Yes?”

“I have some information about a terrorist attack
that will happen tomorrow,” the voice said.

“Who is this?”

“My name is Zilla. And I’ve left a package for you at
your building. It has evidence of a plot by Homeland Security to
attack New York. This is real. Tomorrow, the U.S. government will
try to lock the city down in the most comprehensive quarantine in
history. The panic will result in thousands of deaths. They are
trying to start another war.”

“Talk to the President,” I said and almost hung
up.

“He is aware of this plot.”

“Then what the hell can I do?”

“Break the quarantine.”

“What makes you think I’ll believe you?”

“You know how to take down the powerful. You can do
what’s right. You know how corrupt men can get. Break the
quarantine tomorrow and by next week we’ll have the President
behind bars.”

“Good bye,” I snapped and hung up the phone. I
slipped the phone into my pocket, planning to file a report and
offer the phone up as evidence.

When I got home my superintendent handed me the
package from Zilla. I took it upstairs and set it on the counter. I
took a beer from the refrigerator and popped the top. I didn’t even
drink it. I stood at my counter, staring at the package. Is this
for real? I had some enemies in high places already. This could be
a bomb. Retribution had been promised by Richardson. I pulled a
knife from a drawer and carefully cut the tape. I flipped open the
cardboard flaps while carefully inspecting it for wires. I half
expected something to jump out at me.

Under some packing beans was a disk and a stack of
documents labeled classified. I looked through them all. Just a
bunch of official documents with black marks over names and other
classified filing numbers and names. I inserted the disk into my
DVD player. It was a surveillance tape of the Secretary of Defense
talking with the President at the Pentagon. The film was grainy and
the camera angle was from a high point, possibly the vent. The two
men were discussing an attack that was supposed to happen
tomorrow.

The Secretary of Defense was sitting on a plush couch
somewhere in a large windowless office. Photos of important people
hung on the wall, and there was an ornate desk in a corner backed
by a huge wall of books and binders. The Secretary said plainly,
“The watershed that feeds New York will be contaminated next week.
We’ve uncovered a terrorist cell looking to make a lot of people
sick. So far as we can tell, it’s non-lethal, but still dangerous.
If we can sell it to the public as a foreign terrorist attack, we
can set ourselves up to go into Sudan.”

The President paced back and forth. “You know what
you’re asking me to do?”

“Yes,” said the Secretary. “But, like any covert
action, the end justifies the means. We will be able to test
quarantine efforts in case of a lethal biological attack as well as
set up the Sudanese government as the guilty party. We know the
Sudanese are planning to attack Ethiopia, and they regularly kill
innocent people. They’re extremely oppressive and corrupt. This
will, in effect, save millions of lives in the long run, and the
public will support you. Since the oil pockets were discovered, the
Sudanese have more money flowing into their system than Saudi
Arabia. In ten years we’ll have a monster on our hands.”

The President nodded. “Then do what you need. I will
deny this entire conversation,” he replied. The video ended.

My blood began to boil. I grabbed some of the
documents and read through them. One was a release of duty for five
cops and two security guards, which would leave the water
contamination and surrounding neighborhoods completely void of
police authority. Another was an equipment purchase order for the
NYPD. Indeed, last year, all patrols, including myself, had been
issued barbed barricades, M-4 assault rifles, ham radios, and
biological attack training. Since 9/11 our forces were increasingly
getting set up with more crowd control tools. I sat at the edge of
my couch feeling a sinking sensation pull me down into the abyss of
cyclical thought, confusion, and despair.

I flipped through more paperwork. Some were attack
plans on the Sudanese government—the details of a premeditated war.
Others were transcripts of the communication between the terrorists
and their leaders. It would seem that the real culprits were
domestic environmentalists. The last document I saw was an
organized global alliance, grouped into three sides: allies,
enemies, and neutral. I gasped at the neutral list and how it
included France, Britain, and Italy! Our government was planning on
going to war without our European allies. This was madness.

I was sold.

Panic gripped my chest. I finally drank my beer, but
that didn’t help my anxiety. I stood on my bed, unscrewed the
ventilation faceplate, and hid the documents inside the duct. My
mind raced as I got back in bed. I mulled over my options all
night, until I got that three o’clock call. By that time, I’d come
to the conclusion that if the CDC confirmed the bug wouldn’t kill
anyone then I would break the quarantine and do everything I could
to stop these lies before the real damage was done.

#

The sun peeks over the tall buildings. By now there
are so many people crowding the onramp to the Queensboro Bridge
that I feel the time is at hand. Everything has happened exactly as
Zilla had predicted. The reports even say the attackers are
possibly Sudanese terrorists. I look at Officer Getty. He looks
sick. All my guys are getting sick, but not me.

Then I finally get the confirmation I’m looking for.
The radio announces that the Center for Disease Control has just
issued a report. There’s a simple bacteria group in the city’s
water supply. No one is going to die from it. It’s making people
ill, but it is non-lethal.

Officer Denton shrugs and yells. “What the hell are
we doing if the thing isn’t deadly? This is fucked!”

“Pull the plug!” I yell back. No one hears me. My
voice is weak. I repeat loud enough to squelch my tears. “Open the
gates!”

“What?” Denton shrieks. “We’re ordered to keep this
locked up!”

“I take full responsibility here. Open the bridge.
Let everyone that can get out, get out!” I lower my weapon. The
other officers follow my lead. I’m their senior and have never led
them astray. Denton pulls the barbed wire away and the crowd spills
past us like an overflowing river after a heavy rain.

I push my way back to my cruiser to see if I can get
it off the road. The crowd continues flooding the bridge, thousands
of very scared people, none having heard that the bug is
harmless.

I fire up the engine and pull off the road to let
traffic through. People start driving across the bridge recklessly.
After a few hectic minutes, the crowd finally thins. I relax.
That’s when I see it.

Thick white smoke arcs into the sky. It must have
been a rocket fired from a rooftop nearby. I watch it burn deeper
and deeper into the atmosphere and disappear. A cold sensation
erupts up my spine. This is about to get worse.

Suddenly, my cruiser goes dead. It just shuts off. I
try the ignition, nothing. The remaining cars around me stop. The
traffic lights blink out as well. I pull out my cell phone, dead.
The rocket must have been an EMP attack. All electronics within a
certain radius are fried or useless. I try my radio. It too is
dead. Shit, Zilla never said anything about an EMP. Why would the
government do that? Another thing to blame on Sudanese rebels?

Movement to my right catches my attention. An old
Chevy truck is unaffected by the death of the electronics and is
heading right for me! It hits the onramp going over forty miles an
hour. The old truck is aiming for the gap between my cruiser and a
red Honda. I grab by seatbelt and clip it just as the truck slams
into my passenger side. It’s just the right force to knock me off
the onramp and tip me over the rail. I hit hard, nose first. The
front of the cruiser crumples. My airbag fails to deploy but my
seat belt cinches tight. My car continues to topple over on its
roof. When I hit, windows shatter and the roof caves in. I cover my
face and wait for the cruiser to stop moving.

I’m hurt, but not too badly. I unclip my seatbelt and
fall onto the ceiling of the cruiser. I’ve landed on two other
vehicles that had been stopped before entering the lower level of
the bridge. Both sides of my cruiser are smashed in and the doors
won’t budge. I can’t squeeze out the front windshield, and the
steel cage prevents me from crawling out the back. I’m trapped.

I feel a surge of anxiety so I scream. It makes my
head feel dizzy. I get so dizzy that I start gasping for breath.
I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die just like my mother.

#

My mother had driven herself off a bridge and into
the river when I was young. We all thought it was an accident until
they dragged the car off the river bottom and found her body. They
found a note in her pocket. She had drug problems, serious ones.
She had a lot to say about herself and her problems, but didn’t
write one word to me.

That first night away from home was the worst for me.
I was abandoned and alone. I was discarded trash. I tried to
picture what it was like for her in that car. I wanted to be in
there with her, to die with her.

I was sent to a boarding house where I would spend
the next few years bouncing around from foster home to foster home.
It was absolute hell.

Finally, after I failed my freshman year of high
school, I was adopted by Beth and Ricky. Beth was my mom’s cousin
and Ricky was a cop. They were my salvation, the best mom and dad
in the universe. I went back to high school, graduated with honors,
and with Rick’s help, became one of the best cops in New York. As
far as foster kids go, I was one of the lucky ones.

#

I grunt. My ten years on the force prepared me for
all kinds of situations, but tight spaces have always unnerved me.
I pull my necklace out of my uniform vest. It’s a half dollar sized
wooden circle with engraved Japanese kanji writing,
peace and
love through truth and strength
. Ricky and Beth had given it to
me for graduation from the academy. I rub the necklace between
finger and thumb to feed off its calming effect.

My mind still needs to work out this problem. I’m
trapped in my cruiser as it sits upside down on two or more
vehicles. I try to kick the door with controlled leg thrusts, but
it’s crumpled, making it inoperable. I will need the Jaws of Life.
With my boot, I test the metal frame that is bent over the smashed
windshield. It won’t budge. I can’t squeeze through any opening or
force any of the metal to budge. I sweep out the glass on the
ceiling so I can get more comfortable.

I hear a moan from a car below me. I turn and listen.
“Hello! I’m here!” I yell.

“I. . .I’m hurt,” sobs a woman. She’s in the car
under me. Her voice is weak.

“You’re gonna be okay,” I say. “Stay awake. Keep
talking. What’s your name?”

“Jan. . .ice,” the woman says through her crying. She
screams, “I’m bleeding! Oh God, what is happening to me!”

“Stay with me Janice! Help is on the way,” I lie.

There is no reply.

“Janice!” She is gone. I kick the ceiling. Tears
flood out of me. I’m so scared right now. I try not to think about
how long it will take for help to show up. It might take days. I’m
locked in a prison of smashed and useless cars. People all around
me are yelling and screaming and no one is checking on the
overturned police car on the Queensboro Bridge onramp.