The Swing Voter of Staten Island (28 page)

“If I show it to you, and promise you that we’ll have you out of here before this day is done, will you release Mallory?”

He stared at her furiously.

“It’s in a bag in my glove compartment,” Karen said to one of the two Crapper gangcops, who jogged back to the car.

The other vehicles in their convoy were finally speeding over toward them. As the first gangcop raced back to Karen with the bag from her glove compartment, the second went to hold off the rest of the team so as not to exacerbate the situation.

Karen removed a shattered plastic box from the bag. To Uli’s surprise, he recognized it as one of the items he had found in Dianne Colder’s hotel room.

“Where’s the Charon oxygen tank?” the kidnapper demanded.

“What’s going on?” Uli asked.

“If I let her go,” the kidnapper said, “you’ll—”

“We’ll take you to the hole in the pipe and slip you down there right now.”

“And I’ll—”

“You’ll be in stasis for however long it takes you to be flushed out to the Colorado River, or the Pacific, or wherever the hell that tube drains. You’ll be a free man.”

“And how do I know you won’t kill me?”

Karen moved as close to the man as she could before he started flinching and said, “I’m in charge of all this. You just have to trust me.”

He put his gun down and let Mallory walk away. Karen held out her hand and he gave her his pistol. Then together they walked back toward the rest of the group. Mallory hugged Karen.

“You better hurry up, cause there are two other gangs around here somewhere,” the Pigger kidnapper said.

“Where exactly?” Karen asked.

“They were going to meet us on the other side of the dunes, so they’re probably looking for us now.”

Karen signaled everyone back to the cars. After frisking the Pigger to make sure he wasn’t hiding another gun or a knife, she had him sit in the second car of the convoy and kept Mallory in her own car, which was now sixth in the line. Sergeant Schuman, whose vehicle had been the last to pull up, said they had spotted a group of cars behind them as they entered the lacuna.

“We better get the hell out of here
now!
” Karen announced.

The convoy turned around and started driving back in the direction of Manhattan. Getting Mallory—the new mayor—back to safety was the first order of business.

“What did they do to you?” Uli asked Mallory.

“They were going to do some kind of brain surgery on me,” she said groggily. “Try to turn me into a zombie.”

“How do you know?” Karen asked.

“I woke up in some operating room in St. Vincent’s and found that they had cut off all my hair. They were about to operate, but then they discovered they didn’t have the right tools or equipment.” Mallory bent forward, revealing some strange markings on her scalp. “They had those fucking CIA guys come and inspect me.”

Suddenly, renewed gunfire erupted in front of them.

“Everyone’s okay,” a voice informed over the radio, “but there’s a gang up ahead, so we’re going back down to the bottom of the hill.”

All vehicles switched direction again and returned to the sandy lacuna. The front car had a line of bullet holes running from its hood to its right fender.

“We were lucky,” said the lead driver. “What could’ve been an effective ambush was ruined when we almost crashed into them. Three cars. They got out and started shooting. We were able to turn around quickly.”

“How many men did you see?” Karen asked.

“Maybe twelve or so.”

“If we continue up the other road,” chimed in the former sanitation worker, “there used to be a route to the drain, but it was more of a footpath.”

“I was just at the Verdant League headquarters, so I might be able to remember the way there,” Uli said.

“That sounds like our best bet,” Karen said.

No sooner had the new lead car proceeded twenty feet up the far hill than a volley of gunfire shattered the windshields of the first two vehicles. The driver in the second car was immediately killed. The cop riding shotgun managed to grab the wheel, throw the car in reverse, and steer it backwards down to the bottom of the dusty lacuna.

“We’re boxed in,” the driver reported to Karen.

When one of the cars tried bypassing the ambushers by driving off the road, the tires quickly sunk into the soft sand, spinning pointlessly. They simply couldn’t circumnavigate around the two blocked roadways.

Multiple attempts to call for additional help failed since their cheap radios couldn’t transmit beyond two miles. The terrain in the area was barren, without so much as a bush or tree, and the sergeant pointed out that if they tried storming up the hill, they would be picked off before they made it anywhere near the summit.

“There seems to be less fire power from the south,” the sergeant observed. “Let’s try to bust out that way.”

One veteran gangcop suggested sending two of the armored cars up the hill side by side. When they approached the Piggers, the cops could bail out and try to secure a forward position amid a cluster of rocks at the top. From there they could provide cover for subsequent teams joining them.

“The longer we wait, the more tired we’ll get,” Karen responded. “Unless anyone has any better ideas, let’s get a move on.”

The sergeant asked for volunteers. Eight men boarded two armored cars; each one was given a handgun and a dozen bullets. As the two vehicles climbed up the slope toward the southern pass, heavy gunfire from both sides of the road burst through the reinforced windshields. The car on the left drew more fire, and when the driver was killed, the shotgun cop steered the wheel, trying to at least provide protection for the car on the right. From the backseat of the left vehicle, the two gangcops shot back until they too were picked off.

When the two vehicles got within thirty feet of the enemy line, Molotov cocktails were tossed onto their hoods. Fiery gasoline spread through the broken windshields and into the cars. The tires of the car on the right were shot out, and when the driver took a hit, the three remaining cops bailed out. They rolled for cover, under a hail of bullets.

Meanwhile, the shotgun driver of the car on the left—the only surviving passenger—managed to keep his burning vehicle straight and slammed into the rock formation fifty feet above the other vehicle. It looked like a solid position for cover.

A third car zoomed up the hill, driven by the former sanitation worker. The vehicle drew fire, allowing the surviving cop in the first car to get a better position. All watched as he was able to shoot two Piggers, whose bodies came rolling part of the way down the hill. The Piggers seemed to pull back, and for an instant there was a wave of optimism among those below.

Before more cars could join in the attack, a flurry of gunfire erupted behind them. Eight Pigger gangcops were racing down another hill behind them into the sandy lacuna with guns blazing. Three Crappers were killed and two more were wounded before a defensive line was formed to repel the attack.

Meanwhile, the beleaguered first group of Piggers seized the opportunity by attacking and shooting the sole cop perched at the top of the rocks. Then they lobbed down more Molotov cocktails, creating a blinding wall of flame around the second Crapper position below. Three Pigger gunmen rushed forward and shot freely into the group.

One Crapper gangcop managed to race through the flames, but he was immediately beaten, doused with gasoline, and set on fire. A marksman from below who tried shooting his burning comrade to put him out of his misery was ordered to cease. At that range it was a waste of valuable bullets.

“Shub himself has to be behind this,” deduced a Crapper gangcop. The amount of bullets being fired at them was simply too costly for it to be a splinter gang.

“What now?” asked another.

“Wait until dark,” suggested a senior guard of Mallory’s security staff. “Then half of us can hold out here while the mayor and the other group head into the desert. They can loop around and hopefully reach Brooklyn by tomorrow afternoon.”

“These fuckers aren’t stupid,” Karen said. “And there’s no place to hide. We go into the desert, and even at night they’ll pursue us. Only we’ll be half as strong and have no cover at all. We’re either going to break out or die trying.”

At 4 o’clock Karen instructed the sergeant to move the vehicles to an isolated clearing to avoid sabotage. Everyone was divided into two groups to guard the perimeter. The sergeant ordered two trenches to be dug in case of a night attack coming from either direction.

Just before 5 p.m., while most of the entourage were still making preparations, scooping out packed sand with their bare hands, a barrage of gunfire sounded on the northern peak before them. Screams and cries could be heard over the hill.

“This is it!” one of the Crapper gangcops yelled. All the men jumped into the unfinished trenches.

“They’re coming!”

“But it doesn’t make sense,” Uli said to the cop next to him, pointing out the long rays of the setting sun over the surrounding hills. “Why would they give up their advantage and attack us in daylight?”

Everyone waited, but no Piggers came. More yells and gunshots were heard, but nothing was visible beyond the sandy bluffs.

“They’re screwing with our heads,” one cop hypothesized.

“No, bullets are way too expensive to use as distractions,” an older cop replied.

A few minutes later, another exchange of gunshots and cries echoed in their little valley. This time, however, it was coming from the road back to the city, behind them.

“What the fuck is going on?” a terrified gangcop shouted.

In the distance, two fat Piggers in broad-rimmed hats came dashing madly down the hill, holding their arms in the air in apparent surrender. Uli watched as some naked man jumped up behind them and stretched out a long bow. An arrow tip popped out through the front of one of the Piggers’ chests along with a widening circle of blood. Another man wearing little more than a loincloth sprinted down, knocking the second Pigger to the ground. Unsure of whether or not it was some strange trap, the Crapper gangcops held their ground and witnessed as the nearly naked man pulled out a knife and slit the Pigger’s fat throat, then calmly proceeded to scalp him.

“Holy crap,” Uli said, realizing what was up. “Those are Tim’s people!”

From both the north and south sides of the road, roughly thirty men—members of the acid-head tribe bivouacked behind the Staten Island terminal—strolled down the hill toward Mallory as her guards cheered them on. Uli looked for Bea, but there was no sign of her. In a moment, Adolphus Rafique himself appeared at the rear of the pack.

“Welcome to Greater Staten Island,” he called out to Mallory. “I heard you died.”

“If you came here an hour or so later, that probably would’ve been the case,” she grinned. “How many Piggers were up there?”

“About twenty or so. Five of them had rifles. Unfortunately, none of the Piggers on our side survived,” Rafique said, then called out to the leader of his second force coming down the far hill: “How many on your end?”

“Fifteen,” the white-faced chieftain answered. It was Tim, the former Harvard professor. He was wearing a white and green football helmet—the colors of the New York Jets. “Lucky we brought our bows and arrows. Most of those damn bullets that the lobbyist gave you were duds.”

“I’ll be glad to reimburse whatever bullets this cost you,” Mallory said.

“Call it Staten Island courtesy,” Adolphus Rafique said with a smile. “It’s our city too—and Shub just made his concession speech. Congratulations.”

“It’s been a long time since we were screaming at each other in City Council meetings,” she reminisced.

“What are you doing down here anyway?”

“They kidnapped me from St. Vincent’s Hospital after I got pulled from the bombed headquarters.”

Another volley of shots hailed down on the parked vehicles, but the only victim was the surviving kidnapper being held in the backseat of one of them.

Turning around, Uli spotted Bea emerging behind the commotion. When she smiled at him, he instantly recognized the tableau from the vision he’d had in the basement of Rikers Island. In that dream, she’d had her skull blown open. Now, he tackled her instinctively, to prevent the premonition from becoming reality. A bullet screamed over their heads and slammed into Rafique’s chest.

One of the gangcops dashed forward to protect Mallory, the mayor-elect, but he fell backwards when another bullet blasted into his face. Bea shoved Uli off of her, grabbed Mallory by the elbow, and swung her behind the nearest car. Half a dozen Crapper gangcops and VL tribe members ran up the hill looking for the shooter. A freshly fired pistol was found, but other than a badger scurrying away, there was nothing else around.

“I was supposed to be guarding him!” Bea screamed, racing over to the fallen VL head.

Mallory stayed by Rafique’s side as Tim and his tribe attempted to save him.

Karen offered to drive Rafique back to VL headquarters.

“He’s not going to last that long,” Tim’s second-in-command replied.

“Is there something I can do?” Mallory asked.

“More than anything,” Tim said, “he wanted you to see the blocked sewer. Fixing it was his greatest wish.”

“How far is it to the sewer?”

“Only about thirty minutes further. I’ll take you,” Tim volunteered.

“It’s too dangerous,” Karen replied.

“No, I’m never coming back here again,” Mallory said. “Let’s do this now.”

Uli was off to the side waiting for Bea, who was standing over Rafique’s unconscious body.

“Hey, this is your big chance if you still want out,” Mallory called over to Uli. “Come on, let’s get moving!”

“What?”

“We made a deal, remember? You get out of here in exchange for speaking to Rafique.”

“What deal?” asked Bea upon overhearing the exchange. “You were supposed to help
us!
It’s part of the vision and—”

“Can you give me a moment?” Uli said to Mallory, then turning to Bea, he explained, “You asked me to trust my instincts. Well, they tell me that I can’t do any more here than what I’ve already done.”