Dark Days (Apocalypse Z) (30 page)

We were stopped in front of the main entrance to the Prado Museum. Through the trees, I’d gotten a glimpse of the cupola on top of that enormous building. Sitting on the roof, directly in front of that cupola, something with a Plexiglas windshield glinted in the sunlight. If the clouds hadn’t parted just then, we’d have driven right past it.

“Whadda you think it is?” I asked trying to control the emotion in my voice.

“I’d bet my life it’s the cockpit of a helicopter,” the Ukrainian said, after a few seconds. “It’s small, just a bubble cockpit, but hell, who cares? It’s a helicopter.”

My heart was beating so hard I thought it would fly out of my chest. If we could get that bird in the air, we’d have a chance to escape this hellhole.

“Perched up there, she seems to be in one piece,” said Prit, peering into the lens. “But until we go up there, we won’t know if she’ll fly.”

“Let’s get in the building. We can knock the door down with the Centaur and then find the stairs to the roof.”

Prit thought it over and said, “We’ll barely fit between the columns on the portico, but I don’t see any another option. Okay. Buckle up and hold on tight to Sarge. This is gonna shake a lot!”

Prit gunned the engine, steered the Centaur up the sidewalk with a bounce, and drove toward the door of the Prado at full speed. When we were just a couple of feet away, I realized that the space between the columns was way too narrow, but it was too late to change course. The tank’s sides scraped against the columns with a horrible screech. The window on the right collapsed with an unearthly crash. When we rammed the door of the Prado Museum, chunks of granite the size of a washing machine had glanced off the shield on the turret, smashing it to bits.

For a few seconds, all you could hear was the patter of stones falling on the Centaur’s roof. I felt like someone had yanked my guts out my mouth and then crammed them back in. My safety harness had held me against the seat, but under my wetsuit, I had one helluva bruise on my left shoulder.

“You okay?” Pritchenko’s reassuringly calm voice came from down at my feet. The Ukrainian had unbuckled his safety harness and crawled toward the control panel.

“Just great. You?”

“I’m in one piece. Let’s get outta here before any Undead figure out we’re here.”

I raised the hatch very carefully and stuck my head out. The front half of the tank was wedged inside the museum lobby. The back half was outside, buried under a huge pile of rubble and the toppled columns.
A chunk of the portico, the size of a small car, was lying next to the Centaur. If that piece of granite had fallen on us, the tank’s armor wouldn’t have saved us. We’d have been crushed to death.

The museum was cool, dark, and, most importantly, empty. There was no sign of survivors and not a fucking Undead in sight. That didn’t mean there weren’t any wandering around inside the building, but I’d bet my last cigarette no one—human or nonhuman—was in the Prado. The palatial building, with its thick stone walls and barred doors, was like a fortress. Prit and I were probably its first visitors since the quarantine was imposed.

I was relieved to see that the debris and the Centaur’s chassis blocked the front door and would keep the Undead from getting in. I threw an arm around Sergeant Fernández’s shoulders and lifted him up.

“Come on, Sergeant, hold on just a little longer. There’s a helicopter on the roof and we’re getting out of here.”

“Save your breath,” Prit said quietly, as he opened one of the sergeant’s eyelids and looked at his pupil. “He’s dead.”

I gently settled the sergeant’s body into the driver’s seat. I remembered how he’d praised the Centaur in such glowing terms just minutes before Marcelo shot him. I had to admit that that tank was as superb as he’d said—and it had saved our lives. Now, that Centaur would be his coffin. I buttoned the collar of his blood-soaked jacket and wiped the dirt off his face. Sergeant Jonás Fernández had been very brave and he deserved a more dignified send-off.

I took one last look at the sergeant’s body, then dragged one of the heavy backpacks out of the Centaur. Holding the other pack, Prit stood in front of the tank, a few feet from deserted ticket windows and piles of dust-covered brochures and museum guides, taking stock of the building.

“It’s a shame about this place,” Prit said pensively. “One day a fire’ll burn half the city to the ground and no one’ll be around to put it out. Everything in here will turn to ashes. It’s a damn shame.”

I stood there, silent for a moment. Then, on a whim, I sprinted into the building. Prit followed on my heels, confused.

“Where’re you going? The stairs to the roof are the other way!”

“Just a second. Hand me your knife.”

“My knife? Sure. But why?”

“I’ll only be a minute, I promise.” I grabbed Prit’s knife.

My thoughts were racing. We could never save all those paintings, but at least we could take a couple. Out of that museum’s vast collection, which ones should I take?

We came to the seventeenth-century galleries. The figures in Diego Velázquez’s masterpiece,
Las Meninas
, looked down on us sadly from the wall as if they’d guessed that, someday soon, they’d be engulfed in flames. My heart fell when it occurred to me that those paintings were too big to carry, even if I took them out of their frames. Then, my eyes fell on a small painting in one corner.

It depicted a garden filled with cypresses. The plaque read
MEDICI GARDENS IN ROME
and below that, the artist’s name, Diego Velázquez. In the background was an elegant white marble bridge with an arch in the middle, which had been carelessly boarded up. In a niche to the right, the statue of a Greek god pensively looked out at the viewer. In the foreground, some well-dressed men carried on a relaxed conversation. In his genius, the painter had captured a calm, quiet moment on a hot summer afternoon. Surrounded by majestic portraits of kings and queens who died centuries ago, that little painting stood out. It had more strength and life than the rest of the paintings in that room.

I grabbed the painting off the wall and laid it face down on a bench. Normally, that would’ve instantly triggered an alarm; a half-dozen armed guards would’ve surrounded me before I could draw a breath. Now, there was only silence as I used Prit’s knife to pop out the staples that held the canvas in the frame. I carefully rolled the painting into a tube about forty inches long and only as wide as my index finger and stuck it into the empty sheath strapped to my thigh. Then I handed Prit his knife.

“Why’d you do that?” Ukrainian asked.

“I had to. Those drugs in our backpacks are important, but this”—I helplessly pointed to the paintings around us—“this is just as important. It’s our heritage, our legacy, the sum of who we are. When this is gone, in a few months or years, a part of us will be lost forever. Civilization won’t shine quite as bright. We can’t take all of those paintings, Prit, but we can save one.”

“Okay,” sighed the Ukrainian, dragging me by the arm toward the stairs. “But if we don’t hurry, we’ll share the fate of those paintings.”

I gazed at the famous paintings one last time. Astride his rearing horse, Charles V bid us farewell with a cynical look on his face, as if he knew we were the last to walk through that room.

47

MADRID

We headed up the stairs tucked behind the guard booth. It was a narrow, very dark space; the only light filtered through a dirt-covered skylight. We eased up those stairs with Prit in the lead, knife in hand.

It took both of us to push open the bulletproof glass and steel door at the top. When we walked out onto the roof, we got a real shock. As far the eye could see, tens of thousands of Undead surrounded the museum. I took a step back, my head spinning.

“My God… look at all of ‘em!”

A chorus of groans rose when the crowd saw us head for the helicopter. We knew they couldn’t reach us up there, but that sound set our teeth on edge.

We rushed around checking out the helicopter. It was painted white with no markings except for the registration number on its tail. That told us nothing about its owner or why or when he landed there, but there was no time to investigate. If he was dead, he didn’t need it. If he was alive, well…he shouldn’t have left the keys in the ignition.

Prit gave the bird a thorough going-over. “The battery’s charged up. And it has about a quarter of a tank of fuel. That pilot was a really careful guy. Cross your fingers, amigo. If the engine starts, we’ll be out of here in a couple of minutes.”

The engine let out a yowl and the helicopter’s blades slowly came to life. Compared to the Sokol or the SuperPuma, it looked very fragile, but Prit seemed satisfied with it. As he pushed the throttle, the blades picked up speed and we rose into the air.

“You did it, Prit! You did it! We’re flying again! Where’s your damn fatalism now?”

“Gone for good, I hope,” was all the Ukrainian said, but a big smile showed under his mustache. “Gone for good. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got a helicopter to fly.”

With a gentle flick of my friend’s wrist, the helicopter lifted into the air. We were finally on our way to Cuatro Vientos Airport.

The ruined city grew smaller and smaller behind us, until it finally disappeared. And then, there was silence again.

48

MADRID

The Airbus was resting at one end of the runway, its burnished metal glowing in the setting. We flew the helicopter over the plane a couple of times, but no one stuck his head out. If it weren’t for the shiny fuselage, you’d have thought it’d been abandoned like all the other vehicles scattered across that runway.

“Look over there.” Prit banked so I could see where he was pointing.

At the end of the runway was a pile of twisted metal that was still smoldering.

“It’s one of the Buchones! Think the Froilists shot it down?” I shouted.

“Don’t think so. The pilot probably crashed as he tried to land. Those birds weren’t easy to handle, even in their heyday. Imagine all the things that could’ve failed after they’d sat in a museum for fifty years.”

“I don’t think the pilot survived,” I muttered, grimly, staring at the burning pyre.

“Me, neither. But the important thing is not who’s
dead
but who’s
alive
down there.”

With a final turn the helicopter started to descend. When we landed, Prit powered the engine down, but he didn’t turn it off. If we had to make a break for it, it’d be better if the engine were running.

I got out and walked cautiously up to the Airbus. The interior lights were on and the giant airliner engines were running, as if they might take off any moment.

The door flew open and a nervous soldier pointed a rifle at us. “Halt! Who goes there?”

“Friends!” I shouted.

“Friends!” thundered the soldier. “Whose friends?”

From the sound of the guy’s voice, I guessed he was really on edge, not a good thing when someone’s pointing a gun at you. Throughout history, thousands of people have been killed by someone with a jumpy trigger finger, so I gave my answer some careful thought. There were two options—only one was correct.

“The republic!” I shouted, betting it all. “Friends of the republic!”

I held my breath, waiting to see if my bet paid off. If the Froilists had infiltrated the team in the plane, I expected a hail of bullets and death in the middle of the Cuatro Vientos runway. If Republicans were on board, we had a chance.

I saw the soldier relax and lower his gun. I nearly collapsed in the middle of the runway from the adrenaline rush. Heads or tails—and it came up heads. Again.

“Where’s the rest of the team? Where’s the commander!” the soldier shouted.

I could see the guy better now. He was very young, little more than a teenager. “We’ve got a group of Froilist infiltrators in here!”

“We know,” I said wearily, as I picked up one of the bags Prit had dragged out of the helicopter. “We’re the only ones left. Everybody else is dead, including Tank.”

“They’re all dead?” The boy nearly choked in fear. “Tank, too?”

“That’s right,” Pritchenko added. “Three heavily armed Froilists are headed this way in a tank with a really big gun. It’s not a good idea to hang around.”