Empire (22 page)

The things that run through your head when the fear of death comes on you, thought Cole.

They were nearly at the corner of Broadway when the thing rounded the corner and started shooting at them again.

“What kind of threat . . . do we pose?” said Cole between breaths.

“Plenty of civilians . . . would act like this,” said Rube, also panting. “Shoot anything . . . that runs . . . bad order . . . collateral . . . damage.”

“Maybe it's . . . cause we . . . run too . . . damn fast,” suggested Cole.

“Maybe it's . . . our uniforms,” said Rube.

Cole had forgotten they were wearing uniforms.

He saw a deeply recessed doorway and dodged into it.

Rube joined him but didn't like it. “We'll just be . . . pinned here,” he said. “When it comes . . . up the street.”

“If it's just a machine,” said Cole, “it won't see us . . . and it might retarget.”

“That would be a really . . . stupid program, too,” said Rube.

“So maybe the guys who . . . built this are really stupid.”

They heard the thudding of steps on concrete, coming closer, echoing off the buildings of this street.

“Okay, so they're not that stupid,” said Cole. “Sorry.”

“It's on the sidewalk,” said Rube.

The door behind them opened. A terrified Chinese woman looked at them.

Rube didn't hesitate. He shoved the door open wider, picked up the woman, and carried her farther inside as she shouted in Chinese. Cole followed and slammed the door behind them. They were inside a narrow Chinese restaurant.

“Does this place have a back door?” Rube demanded.

The woman only continued screeching in Chinese. A terrified old Chinese man came through a curtain, carrying a shotgun. Rube, who still had hold of the woman, dragged her down as Cole also hit the floor. The shotgun went off, blasting right where they—and the Chinese woman—had been standing.

“This guy is crazy,” said Rube.

“He also just called that walking tank.” Cole was up and running around and over the tables. The Chinese man tried to aim the shotgun at him. Just before he fired, Cole leapt high and the shot passed under and between his legs. Then Cole was on the guy and came up with the gun. Rube was already running after him, dragging the woman.

An explosion blew the door open. They dragged the Chinese couple deeper into the restaurant.

“How much ordnance does that thing carry?” asked Rube.

“I don't want to find out just now,” said Cole. “I want to find out later, in a nice safe lab.”

“Is there a back door?” Rube asked the Chinese man, who wasn't screaming like the woman was. But the Chinese man only pointed to the safe and said, “No money, no money!”

Cole shouted at the woman in Cantonese. He had guessed right.
She was from China proper, or at least Hong Kong—not Taiwan. “Back door?”

She pointed.

“Big gun coming!” he shouted in what could only be terrible Cantonese. He had only been two months into the language course when he got the assignment to work with Rube. “Get upstairs! Hold still! Don't talk! Shut up!”

That had to be enough. They had to get out. And he thought he saw them out of the corner of his eye, fleeing up the stairs to a higher story.

The mechanical outside was firing a virtual sheet of bullets through the windows. They went through the kitchen wall like it was paper. Which it probably was. Cole and Rube were already at the back door. Which had a crash bar and a big red
ALARM WILL SOUND
sign on it.

“Gee, we might wake up the neighbors,” said Rube. Then he pushed on it.

The door opened. The alarm went off. They went out on their bellies as bullets continued to slap against the door and the bricks of the back wall of the kitchen.

Then the door closed behind them. The shooting continued but at least now they could hear themselves think.

They were not in an alley. New York City didn't believe in alleys. That's why they had to put their garbage right out on the street. Like a weird kind of window display—come, look what we throw away from this store. Don't we have attractive garbage? Don't we use an incredibly cheap grade of plastic bag?

“There's no way out of here,” said Rube.

“Yet,” said Cole. He was already trying doors. Rube checked around the other way. They met in the middle of the opposite side of the courtyard. All were locked.

“These people are so
paranoid,”
said Cole. He headed for the lowest window. It was barred, of course, but there were loose bricks in the courtyard from somebody's unfinished remodeling job. Cole
started slamming a brick into the bars. They weren't all that strong. They could probably be pried out of the wall. Rube had found a two-by-four and was prying on the other side.

A shotgun blast tore through the window. Fortunately, it missed both Cole and Reuben.

“I thought privately owned guns were illegal in this city!” shouted Cole.

“They had one hell of a shotgun salesman come through here, I guess.”

Cole shouted into the window. “The city is being attacked. We're United States Army! Look at our uniforms!”

A woman's face appeared in the shattered window. They both stood out from the wall, showing ID and letting her look at their uniforms.

“Who's attacking!” She had some kind of foreign accent, maybe Spanish, but her English was nice and clear.

No time to explain. “Aliens!” shouted Cole.

The door swung open so fast it rebounded off the wall and almost shut again. Cole and Rube pushed through it. “We need to get out onto Murray Street,” said Rube. “We need to get to our weapons.”

She ran ahead of them, praying in Spanish as she went.

“Stay indoors,” said Cole.

“No va fuera,”
said Reuben. “
No entra la rua! No mira la rua!
”

The woman nodded as she fumbled with the keys and finally got the front door open.

Cole started looking for Mingo's SUV. Only when Rube pushed the button on the remote did Cole realize that the SUV was directly in front of him.

“I planned it this way when I chose our parking place,” said Rube.

“It's a miracle from God and
you
want to take credit?” said Cole.

By now they were both inside the SUV with the doors closed.

“Want to try to run for it in the car?” said Rube.

“Did you see what it did to that parked car back there?” said Cole. “I want to see Mingo's arsenal!”

“He won't have a grenade launcher, more's the pity,” said Rube.

“I'd be happy with a World War II bazooka.”

Rube pulled out an M-16A2 rifle. “You want this? Or there's an M-4.”

“How the hell did Mingo get an M-4 for private use?” said Cole.

“You want it or not?” said Rube.

“Duh,” said Cole, reaching for the weapon he knew best, the M-4.

“And maybe I'll take the Minimi.”

“You didn't tell me there was a machine gun when you offered me my choice.”

“Too late, no takebacks. Here's an M-9 for you and an M-9 for me.

Cole took the offered pistol and then they started sharing out ammunition.

“When did you learn Chinese?”

“They were starting to train me for the
next
possible war.”

“They guessed wrong,” said Rube. “
This
is the next possible war.”

“Now
you tell me. When did you learn Spanish? Special Ops is planning for a war with Colombia?”

“That was high school Spanish. And some college Spanish. And look. An M-240. Forget the Minimi. I want the heavier bullets.”

“Against tanks?”

“I'm betting the mechs aren't armored like a tank,” said Rube. “Too heavy for those legs to hold up.”

“They're big and new and maybe the people who made them have a new way to repel bullets, too.”

“Here's a belt of grenades for you,” said Rube, “and a belt for me. You take the Minimi if you want it so much. Just don't load yourself down with too much weaponry.”

“Yes sir,” said Cole. “Look who's talking, sir. Yours is ten pounds heavier than mine.”

“Where's our friend?” asked Rube.

“From the sound, still shooting at the Chinese restaurant.”

“Or at something,” said Rube. “Us again in a minute.”

“What's our objective, sir?” asked Cole.

Rube laughed. “Good point, Captain. No, we will not seek confrontation. Our objective is to get the hell out of New York City before the tunnels are sealed off.”

“My guess is that unless these guys are complete idiots, the tunnels were sealed off and emptied first thing.”

“They'd seal off the bridges, too,” said Rube. “And the tunnels are closer.”

“But there are buckets and buckets of water above them,” said Cole.

“And just as much water way, way, way below the bridges. And most of the bridges lead to Long Island.”

“On
24
, Jack would find a helicopter he could commandeer.”

“On
Smallville
, Clark would take a mighty leap and jump over the Hudson River.” Rube clicked a clip into place on his pistol. “Ready to go?”

“Holland Tunnel, sir?” asked Cole.

“And we
do
stop and help local defense forces wherever it looks like we could make a difference,” said Rube. “My guess is that it'll mostly be cops, and these things are going to tear them apart. Against this, New York isn't prepared to defend itself.”

“Do you think it really is Americans attacking the city?”

“Yes,” said Rube. “Because I can't think of any foreign country that would be dumb enough to try to attack the U.S. like this.”

“So Mingo's weapons—we're going to be shooting at Americans.”

“They're
shooting at uniforms,” said Rube. “That means they're trying to destroy legal authority. And we're sworn to defend it.”

“Plus, they shot at us first,” said Cole.

“So when you know you can't win, you save your army,” said Rube. “Our proper course is to get as many fighters as possible out of this city to a place where they can fight again.”

“I think we can do this and still get to church, don't you?” said Cole.

They put their hands on opposite door handles. “Ready?” said Rube.

“Mingo is going to be so pissed we left so much of his arsenal behind,” said Cole.

“Mingo's going to be happy he had what we needed. If this
is
what we needed.”

“Let's find out,” said Cole.

They opened their doors and dashed for the buildings on the other side of the street. Even though no mech was in sight, they kept low as they moved along the sidewalk.

Cole was surprised to realize that he was more excited than scared. He knew what to do. He'd done it before. So much better than trying to figure out politics. Even though mistakes in a street battle did kill you faster. At least you knew at the end of the day whether you were alive or not.

There are hard wars and easy wars. It's easy to conquer a country whose people hate their own government more than they hate the invaders. It's hard to fight a war when your army knows that back home, their families are rooting for the other side.

It made sense to dodge the mechs wherever possible. But the sound of shooting and explosions drew Reuben. It was a part of who he was. It's not that he felt no fear of danger—quite the contrary. When he knew of danger, he had to approach it in order to weigh it, to see how much of a threat there was. And it was more than that—he had to eliminate it if he could. He knew what he could do, when it came to combat. He knew that few other people could do it. With Cole beside him, they might be able to do what any number of men with police training could not do.

And there were the bodies. Riddled with bullets, they lay half in, half out of squad cars, all wearing uniforms. Most of them New York's finest, but one was simply a doorman to an apartment building, lying out in the street because, apparently, he had not obeyed an order to stop.

“Not one civilian,” said Cole.

“Except the doorman.”

“In uniform. Nobody in civilian clothes.”

“It's summer,” said Reuben. “We could do this in our underwear.”

“They're trying not to kill civilians,” said Cole. “Same rules of engagement as we use. They really are Americans.”

“Using weapons that aren't in the American arsenal. In
anybody's
arsenal,” said Reuben.

“You think these were developed by Iran? North Korea?”

No need to answer. They both knew that Iran and North Korea might have nukes, but that they were copied from existing devices. These things required original work. “Russia?” asked Reuben. “China?”

“Possible, but not practical. What could they hope to accomplish?”

“But who could afford to develop this?” asked Reuben. “How many of them are there? Are other cities getting hit right now? And again, how do you occupy New York City? How do you defend this island against the Marines when the counterstrike comes?”

“Best we can hope to find out right now,” said Cole, “is just what these things are and how they work.”

“Bring one down,” said Reuben, agreeing with him.

“Open it up and drag out the guy.”

“Or the computer chips.”

“Or the trained squirrels,” said Cole.

“That means we've got to go toward the noise,” said Reuben.

“Weren't we already?” asked Cole.

They rounded a corner and found, not a mech, but three squad cars and about two dozen cops along with a couple of plainclothes guys who were clearly in charge. One of them spotted Reuben and Cole and at first signed for them to get off the street. Then, as Reuben and Cole began to jog toward them, the police officer realized that they were U.S. Army, not civilians.