Reapers (47 page)

Ash rolled in that afternoon. He kept mum about the meeting, but ordered Bill to collect fresh ice from the courtyard. He drank his margarita with a smile.

Some
news must have gotten out. As the afternoon transmuted into evening, Sicily got fuller than Lucy had ever seen it. Men and women packed shoulder to shoulder, drinking and chatting with a hivelike energy. At seven sharp, Ash strode behind the bar and lifted his hands. The crowd went silent.

"Last call's in one hour," he said. "Tomorrow, we go to war."

Inebriated cheers exploded from one end of the room to the other. Lucy grinned fit to split her face.

"Come early and come armed," Ash continued. "In twelve hours, we march. In 24, Distro will be done. And the city will be ours."

He bowed. As his troops hooted and hollered, he took a shot in each hand and downed them one after another. For the next hour, liquor flowed furiously to all corners of the room. At eight, as promised, Ash ordered everyone home. When some of them laughed, he drew his pistol and fired it into the ceiling. Lucy couldn't tell if that was Ash being Ash, or if he was more than average drunk.

Either way, the bar cleared out. Lucy had paced herself well and felt no compunction against chugging the last half of her beer. She waited for the crowd to thin, then climbed up the stairs.

"Hey," Ash said. "You."

She paused, hand on the wooden railing. "What's up, boss?"

He sauntered forward. "What's your deal?"

"How you mean?"

"Are you just in this for revenge? Or because you believe in something?"

She cocked her head. "Both."

He nodded, climbing the stairs until he stood just below her. He wasn't any taller than her and he had to look up. "So I get to have you around for a while."

"Think you're that lucky?"

"I make luck like a cobbler makes shoes." He moved onto her step, standing nose to nose. She was dead certain he was about to put the moves on her—and right after she'd concluded, for the fifth time, that he was gay—and she decided on the spot to go with it. He reached up and patted her on the cheek. "See you at the war."

He turned and jounced down the steps. Lucy wasn't sure if she should feel relieved or frustrated, but she had some fun dreams that night.

She slept patchily. Each time she woke, the window was the same amount of dark and quiet. A knock woke her for the last time. Still dark out, but she could hear people shuffling around in the snowy street. She swung her feet out of bed, went to the bathroom, and put together a light travel pack. She only needed enough food, water, and first aid gear to get her and Tilly to the Knickerbocker Country Club and the car she'd parked there. Felt like a lifetime had passed since she'd taken the camo Charger, but in reality, it had been right around two months.

In the bar, troopers ate breakfast and drank what Bill claimed to be genuine coffee. Some fortified themselves with stronger fluids. Ash didn't show up until the grandfather clock ticking behind the bar read 6:58. His people mustered outside to meet him. He didn't say a word, just took them in with a sweeping and bloodshot gaze, nodded, and headed south.

He'd put together a nice little army. Hard to get a good count while she walked in the middle of the irregular mass, but Lucy figured he had at least a hundred troopers, maybe half again that much. Must have pulled all his people from the park. Made a lot of promises. Distro wasn't long for the world.

Two hours into their relentless march down Broadway, they entered Times Square, and faced a uniformed federal force Lucy was surprised to see was just half as large.

Ash lifted his arm, halting his people, and crossed the broad street alone. From the other side, a man with short white hair and the craggy face of a Roman emperor detached from his soldiers. They met in the middle and shook hands.

Ash turned to his people. "This is General Dalton. He's got a few words. Respect them."

"Let me make this very clear." The general's voice boomed between a movie theater and a glitzy sports pub whose lights had long ago gone dark. "You are a militia operating under government purview. That means you are to follow
orders
. We will offer Distribution the chance to surrender. If they set down their arms and exit the building willingly, there
will be
no shots fired. Do you understand?"

The lines of Kono troops looked to Ash, who nodded. They followed suit.

"In the event they do not surrender," Dalton continued, "we will execute the plan. Have your people been briefed?"

"Of course." Ash glanced over his shoulder, mugged a comic whoops-face, and winked at the Kono.

"Very good. Let's
move
!"

The general jogged back to his men, who jogged in place, then fell in step around him. The Kono circled around Ash. He beckoned his division leaders closer, spoke quickly, and sent them back to the rank and file. The plan dispersed through the troops: the Feds would assemble on the entrances on 34th and 33rd. The Kono would cover the doors on Fifth Avenue and, once the Feds had achieved penetration, would provide the main thrust of the invasion, supported by the professional soldiers. With Distro's defense of the Empire State Building a "black box situation," that was as far as the strategy extended.

Lucy doubted Nerve and whoever else had taken over would surrender. Too arrogant by half. But if it came to it, she'd take the first shot herself.

The tiered tower threw its shadow over lesser edifices. A couple blocks away, the combined force split into three groups, with most of the Feds circling around to keep a block of buildings between them and the target until the final approach. Joined by General Dalton and a third of his troops, the Kono jogged to Fifth Avenue and slowed to a walk. There had been little chatter after Times Square, but it went dead now.

The Kono split into their divisions; they'd added a sixth to account for the new conscripts. South of 35th, they advanced in parts, with three divisions taking cover behind old cars while the others jogged down the street, took up position for themselves, and trained their rifles on the building while the others caught up. They cycled this way a quarter of a block at a time. The tower reached higher and higher until it seemed to be all that Lucy could see.

They crossed 34th and took up final position behind the cars lodged against the opposite curb. Fed soldiers moved into place along 34th. Powdered snow gusted down the vacant streets. Lucy got down behind a Jetta, swiped the snow from its trunk, and braced her rifle.

Soldiers set up with the shuffle of boots and the sneaky rustle of weapons. Somewhere, a bird twittered. Dalton left his men and walked to the middle of the street.

"I am General Dalton, commander of the Federal Army of Manhattan," he announced to the waiting tower. "We have arrived to accept the complete and unconditional surrender of the organization known as the Distribution, AKA Distro. Emerge at once, unarmed, and by law of the island—"

A single shot cracked from above. The general went silent, tipped back his head, and smacked to the ground like a dropped plank.

The street went so quiet you could hear the snow hissing over itself. Then every gun there ever was opened up on the tower. Feds and Konos hammered the building. Windows burst. Pebbled glass hailed into the streets. Smoke poured from the guns and the tower's walls. A squad of government soldiers broke from the safety of the cars and sprinted toward the brassy front doors. A few shots answered, tufting the snow, knocking one trooper to the ground. The others pulled up along the building's face. Two soldiers swung around the doorframe, lobbed something through the shattered windows, and retreated tight against the walls. A pair of explosions crashed through the ground floor, gouting smoke into the street. Dust stained the snow gray.

Before it cleared, the soldiers flung a second round of grenades inside the lobby. They banged like a string of firecrackers. The Feds charged into the clouded lobby. Ash stood, shrieked like a castrati barbarian, and led the Kono in after them.

Bullets whined past Lucy, whacking into the pavement. She ducked her head and stumbled through the broken doors. Fed rifles flashed in the smoke.

"Clear!" one shouted. Others replied in kind.

Dust sifted to the marble floors. A handful of dead men lay in various states of blown-uppedness, but far fewer than had attacked Central Park. Across the lobby, a uniformed soldier jogged around the corner and beelined toward Ash.

"They've cut the elevators," the man said. "Everything's dead."

"Son of a god damn bitch," Ash said. "The
stairs
? What do you want to bet they're holed up at the very top of the building like complete assholes?"

"Could be bad. Doesn't take much to defend a staircase."

"We could siege the place. Starve them out." Ash wiped dust from his eyebrows. "But I don't want to have to walk all the way down here again. Let's start climbing and see what they've got."

The soldier nodded and returned down the hall. The mass of troops followed. They set up around the staircase door, rifles trained on it. The soldier moved to it, counted down, then flung it open and leapt to the side.

The door banged against the wall. Soldiers rushed inside. "Clear!"

Their feet rang on the steps. The Kono snaked inside in a thin line. Dozens entered before Lucy stepped through the door. Dark metal stairs zigzagged up beige brick walls. Electric bulbs shed dim light. Footsteps echoed above her. It smelled like sweat and must. Something racketed above them.

"Incoming!"

A fax machine tumbled past Lucy, deflected from a railing, and smashed into the stairs directly below her. People screamed. A tail of debris clattered after it, peppering the troops, who leaned over the railing and shot up at the unseen assailants. In the tight space, the gunfire was so loud it hurt. Coffee mugs sailed from above, exploding in ceramic shards. Keyboards clattered down, spraying plastic keys. Lucy pressed herself against the walls and covered her head.

Feet pounded up the steps above her. Shots crashed back and forth. The gunplay ended quickly. A man's moan drifted down the stairs. The troops climbed on. Three landings later, Lucy walked past a tangle of bodies. A man and a woman pressed bloody cloth to the chest of a Fed soldier whose white-gray camo was stained red.

A few floors up, and a telephone fell from above, the receiver swinging wildly from its wire tether. Binders fluttered from the darkness and landed with heavy whacks. A whole tray of dishes descended in an icy shatter of porcelain. Half a plate sliced past Lucy's cheek, drawing blood. She pressed her palm to the wound. Above, the frontline soldiers charged up the steps but were forced down by gunfire. The defenders retreated a few floors, then resumed throwing debris. The rattle of kipple was too loud to hear the orders Ash shouted from above. At one landing, Lucy stepped over a body, its head mashed beneath a busted TV. The wounded sat against walls and put pressure on the flow of their blood.

A frenzy of shots battered down from the stairwell and ceased abruptly. The climb continued. A couple floors up, six Kono lay dead across from just three defenders. Lucy hadn't fired her assault rifle since the salvo they'd let loose after the general's death. There had been no targets. The stairwell was a grade-A chokepoint. She began to doubt.

But things got quiet for a while, relatively speaking. Feet smacked steps. Hard breathing whooshed from all sides. Spent brass clinked underfoot. Lucy climbed and climbed, thighs burning. Each level was identical to the last, a monotony of white walls and gray steps.

Above, runners sprinted ahead, returning minutes later to report in to Ash and the acting Fed commander, both of whom were too far ahead for Lucy to hear. That was all right by her. She didn't need to know the ins and outs. She just needed to find the civilians—and she had a pretty good idea they'd be hiding behind the defenders. If she turned out wrong, and she had to search the building floor by floor, office by office, she'd probably take a flying leap from the top deck.

Sixty floors up, Ash called a rest. According to the soldiers beside her, the scouts had met no resistance on the staircase ahead, but had heard men shouting behind the door to the 86th floor.

"Top of the main structure," the trooper said. "Observation deck. Suppose Distro's plan is to let us climb ourselves to death?"

Too soon, Ash called down from above, ordering them on. They took the remaining floors in under ten minutes and bunched up on the flights leading to the 86th, Lucy's face pointed at the ass of the man ahead of her. The troops fell quiet. Men whispered above. Hinges creaked. And then the world exploded.

Grenades banged outside the stairwell. Machine guns opened fire with crashing drumbeats. Men yelled in shock and pain.

"The burner!" Ash hollered, his knifelike voice slicing through the ruckus. "Bring up the burner!"

Yellow light flared above. The whoomp of flame was followed by rising screams. Feet thumped away. The gunfire faded, muffled by the walls. The troops above her jogged up the stairs. She followed.

Blood slicked the 86th floor landing. Past the doorway, the ground was snarled by a makeshift, torn-down fence of the extendable, seatbelt-like tape they used to shape lines of people at airport counters and had most likely used to corral the lines to the observation platforms. Bodies sprawled in the toppled poles, belts of fabric tangled around their limbs. The room was a yawning lobby enclosed with windows on all sides. The floor was scorched. Blackened bodies lay twisted on the marble, hands crisped into claws. It smelled like burnt fuel and charred hair and skin.

Lucy swung to the right of the door and scanned the grounds. The main fight was shaping up around the south side of the tower. The enemy had retreated to the observation deck, firing through doorways and windows on the advancing Feds and Kono, turning the lobby into a killing field. Fed soldiers took cover behind a ticket counter and pounded the windows with fire, allowing Kono to rush through the doors on the east side of the lobby to circle around on the Distro resistance.