Matt Reilly Stories (7 page)

‘Damn
it,
shit!
’ Little John yelled. ‘They got here too fast! What do we do
now?’

‘We
improvise,’ Robin Hood said. ‘Where can we pick up the trail again?’

‘If
you can get us to Grand Central, we’ll be back on the escape route.’

‘Grand
Central it is then.’

They
came to the second floor of the building—a bare twenty feet off the ground—and
headed east, toward Madison Avenue, hurrying through an empty office area.

They
came to the eastern side of the building, to the line of windows overlooking the
north-south-running Madison.

A
flat steel awning lay directly outside the windows, cover for the pedestrians
on the street below.

Hood
stole a glance behind him—no SEALs.
Yet
. They’d be here any second, though.

And
so he just drew his Sig-Sauer and loosed two crisp shots, shattering one of the
windows, and leapt outside.

The
sounds of New York met him—honking horns, the clatter of shop shutters, human
murmurs—all of it bouncing off the glass walls of the deep Manhattan canyons.

It
was close on 7 a.m. and the morning rush was just kicking in.

Buses
streamed northward along Madison like migrating cockroaches, taking up all four
of its lanes. Yellow cabs filled in the gaps.

And
then Hood heard another sound—from somewhere above and behind them—a familiar
thump-thump-thump-thump-thump—
It burst around the corner to the south a
phenomenal speed, banking hard and fast—a Navy Seahawk.

Coming
right for
him and Little John.

‘
There!
Now!’ Hood yelled, indicating a bus that was about to pull to a halt
alongside their awning.

The
chopper powered up, leapt forward in the air.

Hood
and Little John ran out onto the awning, toward the bus’s moving roof.

There
came a sudden bang as they ran—the sound of a door being kicked open.

Then,
suddenly,
every
window looking out onto the awning behind them started exploding,
sending glass showering outward.

The
SEALs were inside the office and firing hard.

‘
Go!
Go! Go!
’ Hood yelled, running hard, ducking forward.

He
and Little John ran step-for-step along the awning, windows shattering behind them,
the chopper roaring above them, before they leapt—together—onto the roof of the
bus, just as the long white vehicle lurched forward and continued on its
northward journey up Madison.

But
it wasn’t over yet.

The
chopper above them wanted in on the action. Since it didn’t have room to turn on
its side, it swooped in low above them, trying to the get to the next
intersection—Madison and 41st—where it would have room to pivot in mid-air and
give the men in its side doors a shot at Hood and Little John.

But
the bus—picking up speed now—hit the intersection first and slipped through it,
so the chopper had to power up again and head for the next one up at 42nd Street.

Meanwhile,
Hood and Little John were busy crossing Madison Avenue itself—
by hopping
from one moving bus to another!

A
bare twelve feet off the ground, they jumped from bus to bus, slowly making
their way across the four lanes of traffic—two tiny figures moving
above
the morning rush, using full-sized buses as stepping stones.

But
they had to move fast, for as they crossed the wide avenue laterally, the
forward movement of the traffic was bringing them closer and closer to 42nd
Street and the big chopper now hovering in the intersection there, swinging
slowly around in the open space…

With
one final jump, Hood and Little John landed on the steel pedestrian awning on the
eastern side of Madison Avenue, fifteen yards short of the 42nd St
intersection.

No
sooner had they landed, however, than the chopper swung fully around in the air
above the intersection, showing them its side door: a door packed with
machineguntoting Navy SEALs.

The
SEALs opened fire, just as Hood raised his own pistol and blasted another window,
causing it to spiderweb with cracks, and with Little John rushing along behind
him, dived through its cracked glass shards into the safety of yet another New York
City building.

UPHILL

Up
the stairs they ran.

Hearts
pumping. Legs pounding.

It
was tough going, but Hood and Little John were fit, ve ry fit. After all, they
were their country’s finest.

They
had to keep pushing eastward, paralleling 42nd Street. They were close to Grand
Central Station now, separated from it by only two streets—Park Avenue to the east
and 42nd Street itself to the north.

‘Damn
it,’ Little John said as they ran. ‘I didn’t plan on us coming so far north so soon.
Any ideas how we get across Park?’

‘Not
yet,’ Hood said.

They
hurried up the stairwell, arrived at the roof, threw open the door, burst out
into the early morning sunlight.

Hood
hurried over to the parapet overlooking Park Avenue. The building directly across
from him was the same height as this one, its walls made of sheer glass; the gap
between the two structures maybe sixty feet.

‘We
got any flying foxes left?’ he asked Little John.

‘All
out, I’m afraid.’

Just
then, Hood saw one of the Navy helicopters swoosh by beneath him into Park Avenue.
The chopper began to hover in front of Hood’s building, only a few floors
below
the rooftop.

It
rose slightly in the air. It looked as if the chopper was trying to peer
inside
the windows of the building, trying to get a glimpse of Hood and
Little John inside.

As
he watched it check out each floor, Hood saw that this chopper’s side doors
were open but empty—this Seahawk must have already unloaded its troops.

And
then Hood got an idea.

He
spun, he’d need a—and he saw it:
the building’s window washer platform
.

Within
a minute, Hood and Little John had opened the guard-gates on the window washer’s
platform and positioned it on the edge of the rooftop in such a way that it was
jutting out perpendicularly from the roof, extending about twenty feet out from
the edge, kind of like a springboard.

The
chopper beneath them kept rising, searching, searching…

Hood
pulled out his suction cups, held one in each hand. Little John did the same.

‘You
see what I’m thinking?’ Hood asked.

‘Uh-huh,’
Little John said. ‘You know you’re crazy, don’t you?’

‘Just
take a good run up and stay with me. It’s the only way we’re going to get across
Park.’

The
chopper beneath them rose quickly, checking each floor, until at last, it came
to roof level.

The
Seahawk came level with the extended window washer’s platform, rotating laterally
as its pilots scanned the area—in the process showing Hood and Little John its
open side flank.

Which
was just what they wanted.

‘
Now!
’ Hood yelled.

He
and Little John ran, close together, out onto the window washer’s platform.

They
hit the platform at a run, shot out along its length, their feet clanging on
its metal flooring.

And
then they jumped…

…out
into the clear open sky…

…and
landed…

…
inside the hovering Navy helicopter!

But
they didn’t stop.

In
fact, they didn’t miss a single step.

The
chopper’s two pilots spun around in astonishment—but all they saw were two rushing
blurs enter their helicopter’s rear troop hold from the left, dash across its width,
and then dive out through its open
right
-hand doorway!

Hood
and Little John blasted out the right-hand doorway of the Seahawk and threw themselves
out into the air like skydivers, arms outstretched, suction cups gripped in their
hands.

They
both flew through the air…soaring, flying, falling…before—
whack-whack!
—they hit the glass windows of the building on the other side of Park Avenue
and engaged their suction cups.

The
cups held, and suddenly they were hanging against the outside of this new building!

Two
quick gunshots later and they were inside it.

And
although, in the past the United States has preferred to remain isolated from conflicts
such as the present one, there comes a time when a country must make a decision
that will ensure its future, and as such choose its allies based not on past allegiances,
but on what is best for the nation in the cold hard light of reality.

INSIDE
RUNNING – GRAND CENTRAL STATION

Downhill.

To
the second level—because this building possessed a glassed-in pedestrian bridge
that spanned 42nd Street and opened onto Grand Central.

They
reached the second floor, and cut through a small shopping centre and for the first
time that day, encountered people—the earlybirds buying breakfast, donuts, coffee.

They
hit the glass-walled pedestrian bridge, raced across it, just as, without
warning, the windows on both sides of the bridge shattered violently under the
weight of an incoming team of Navy SEALs.

It
was as if someone had set off a chain of fireworks on either side of Hood and Little
John.

But
they just kept on running as the twin lines of windows on their flanks just blasted
inwards—
crash!-crash!-crash!
—the star-shaped explosions of glass
closely followed by the bodies of black-clad SEALs swinging into the interior
of the bridge on drop-ropes.

Robin
Hood and Little John swept out of the bridge a split second before the bullets started
flying, and entered Grand Central Station.

They
charged into the concourse—careful to stay high, up on the mezzanine level—and
skirted the main lobby, dodging people, running hard and fast, heading east
now.

‘This
way!’ Little John called, back on the plan now.

They
hit a ‘Staff-Only’ door and burst into a utility stairwell, stormed up it—at
the same time as the SEALs hustled across the concourse behind them.

More
stairs.

More
running.

7:06
became 7:07.

They
had until 7:15 am.

They
came to the roof, stepped out onto it, and once again found themselves looking at
the New York skyline.

Dominating
the immediate area was the colossal Chrysler Building. It loomed above them to
the east, 77 storeys high, across the wide chasm of Lexington Avenue.

Hood
gazed at the top of the Chrysler Building.

That
was where they wanted to go,
he thought.
It was
the only building in this area that was high enough to allow for the final leg
of their journey
…

‘All
right, LJ, we don’t have much time,’ he said, breathing hard. ‘You said you had
the route figured out from here.’

‘This
way,’ Little John said.

Behind
Grand Central, a new tower was under construction. It was basically just the shell
of a building—all scaffolding, gantry elevators and unfinished concrete floors.
It didn’t even have windows yet, so you could see all the way through.

It
also—Hood saw—had a crane mounted all the way up on its roof, from which hung
an extra-long cable and hook.

Little
John, he saw, had already been here. The crane’s cable was stretched out to the
west at a steep angle, tied to one of the middle floors of the structure.

They
raced for the nearest gantry elevator, stepped inside it and whistled up toward
the floor with the crane’s hook tied to it.

The
SEALs chasing them must have radioed their companions, because no sooner was
the elevator moving than the three Seahawk helicopters arrived on the scene and
the whole construction site was pummelled with gunfire.

The
elevator came to the 10th floor and Little John flung open its metal grill and
led Hood across the exposed concrete floor to the tied-down hook at its edge.
No sooner were they off the elevator, than it headed straight back down to the
SEALs down below.

They
were coming.

Through
the exposed sides of the open-air level, Hood and Little John saw the Navy choppers
circling the building, searching for them like bloodhounds. They’d have them in
ten seconds…

They
came to the crane’s hook. The way Little John had secured it, it was ready for a
big swing—a long pendulum-like arc that would carry them eastward, alongside their
unfinished building’s southern side, then
over
Lexington, right up to
the steeland-glass superstructure of the Chrysler Building’s tenth or eleventh
floor.