Overture (Earth Song) (21 page)

Billy Harper had been fighting for his life for almost an hour when he’d glanced down at his watch. “It must be broken,” he mumbled, there was no way it had only been one hour since he’d answered the call. He asked one of the men he fought with, a stranger from another precinct.

“
Yeah, about an hour, detective.”

Harper
shook his head and checked his gun.

They'd
taken up position behind a tumbled concrete barrier while they tried to rally as many NYPD as possible. They were four scared-shitless police officers cut off from all help, alone against an army of terrorists. Terrorists who wore business suits, street clothes, dresses and even one uniformed officer! It was insanity.

Several
bullets bounced off their barricade, and they all tried to get lower. The group had a small pile of guns, magazines and loose ammunition on the ground between them. While one of their number watched for an attack, the other three went through the stash and took inventory.

Harper
had run out of ammo for his Remington, and then his Glock. He’d spent a terrifying few minutes dodging the crazies before he’d grabbed a discarded gun and taken up the fight again. Nothing in the police manual discussed the tactic of using discarded firearms during a pitched gun battle. A dropped gun was supposed to be evidence. The chance to dig through the guns and ammo was a much-needed breather.

“
Fifty rounds of 9mm,” announced one of the men.

“
Thirty rounds of .40 caliber,” said another.

“
A dozen .38 and ten .357 magnum,” Harper said. That accounted for all their sidearms. There was no 12-gauge shotgun ammo so he had stashed the useless gun under the barrier and would retrieve it later. Harper was pleased to see that ten rounds of the .40 caliber were already loaded in a Glock magazine. He took that and began loading the other rounds into his empties. Two of the other cops split up the 9mm ammo and the final man claimed the .38 and .357 magnum ammo for his gun since they were interchangeable. Harper lifted an eyebrow at the old fashioned Colt Python revolver in stainless steel; it had to be twenty years older than the sergeant who was reloading it.

“
It was my father’s gun,” the man said with a grin and a shrug. “It’s still on the authorized list, and I’m comfortable with it.”

“
I’ve seen you shoot, and I’ve got no complaints,” Harper said. He now had both of his original magazines reloaded and an extra to boot. Slapping one in and loading the chamber, he took a deep breath. “Okay men; let’s see if we can work toward the center of the compound. That wounded soldier a few minutes ago said they passed dozens of scientists and other non-combatants in there. I think we can do the most good by trying to avoid this turning into a hostage situation.”

“
You got it, lieutenant,” one of them said. The other two nodded their heads.

“
Basic tactical training,” Harper reminded them, “two on two cover. You and me,” he said nudging the young sergeant who grunted that he understood. “Let’s go!”

They
jumped up and came around the concrete barrier, guns held just below shoulder level in the Weaver stance. The next cover was twenty yards away and they set off at an easy jog. Before they got three steps, a man came from behind a bullet ridden Humvee and raised a shotgun. The sergeant shot the man dead with a single thundering round from his venerable Colt. At the same time a pair of boys who couldn’t have been more than sixteen rushed from a burning office trailer. They both unleashed wild bursts of fire from military M-4 rifles and laughed like kids playing a video game. Harper killed one of them with two shots from his Glock, the Colt took the other one. Harper suppressed the feeling of disgust that filled him at having just shot dead a minor. This was why he had turned down SWAT training again and again. But he decided almost an hour ago that he would deal with the repercussions to his psyche only after this was over.

They
reached cover and turned to watch as the other two men came up. A shot bounced off the ground between the running cops. Both Harper and the sergeant spun and fired in that direction. The shooter had taken cover again and their shots missed. “More and more of them have guns now,” the sergeant said as he covered the spot the shooter had dropped behind. Harper nodded his head. When they had first arrived most of the “terrorists” had been armed with clubs, knives and cheap Saturday night specials. Now they had semi-automatics and assault rifles.

“
They’re picking up the army and police weapons,” Harper said. “There are fewer of them, but they are better armed.”

“
There are fewer of us, and we’re running out of ammo,” the sergeant said, topping off his Python's load. There was no need to agree with that obvious of a statement.

The
group of four continued to work their way toward the huge concrete dome in the near distance. They were about a hundred yards away when a thunderous explosion shook the ground and knocked them all sprawling. Harper regained his feet first, noticing a man fall from the roof of a trailer nearby. As soon as he hit, the man reached for a weapon so Harper shot him without a second thought. In the near distance, a huge fireball was climbing into the sky.

“
What the fuck was that?” asked one of the men.

“
Trouble, I’m sure,” Harper said and got them organized again. Their progress was becoming slower and slower. One of them was injured slightly by a ricochet. Harper was down to his last magazine when the firing suddenly fell off. Then a voice began booming over the compound’s remaining speakers.

“
We have control of the compound; all the scientists are our hostages! Cease fire and pull back or we will begin executing them one at a time!”

“
Like I said, trouble.” The sounds of gunfire had faded away and in the center of the compound they could hear cheers and laughter. “We better fall back until the brass can figure this out,” Harper said and began to lead the others back along the hard won territory they had just crossed.

Near
the edge of the park they began to encounter more uniformed officers. They had clean uniforms and the look of fear and confusion about them. Harper realized he and his three men must have looked like soldiers returning from the front, all filthy and covered in blood.

He
found an aid station set up by FDNY and turned over his wounded man. Some of the wounded being treated were obviously from the other side. They sat on tables or the ground with the wild-eyed stare of the fanatic; handcuffed to anything stationary. One of them had a nasty bullet wound in the shoulder and the EMT was removing his shirt. The man looked familiar so Harper stopped for a moment. As the shirt was removed he gawked in stunned disbelief. The man had a purple scarf wrapped around his neck.

And
just like that, Harper put the pieces together. The realization shook him hard enough that he had to put a hand on a nearby ambulance to keep from falling to his knees. “Oh my God, Victor, what have you done?!”

Mindy was pulled from sleep in her hotel room by the insistent sound of sirens and the smell of smoke through the window she’d left cracked. Sunlight was pouring in through the curtained windows telling her it was late in the morning. “I must have overslept,” she said as she got up and walked naked across the floor to the window. Her flight had arrived late last night and she had collapsed in the hotel room after the half hour cab ride. “I hope the damn hotel isn’t on fire.”

She
pulled the curtain back a few inches and looked outside. There was a distinct smell of smoke in the air and rescue vehicles were racing along the street hundreds of feet below. None of them stopped at her hotel so she went back and sat on the bed. Yawning again she picked up the phone and dialed for an outside line. A constant beeping was her only answer. “Crap,” she said and hung up the phone, only to pick it up again and dial a number from the phone’s plastic display card.

“
Room service,” answered the other end after several rings.

“
Can I get lunch?” she asked after glancing at the glowing digital clock.

“
It’ll be about an hour, ma’am. Half my staff took off when all hell broke loose.”

“
That’ll be fine,” she said and gave her order. The man, obviously busy, hung up the second she had completed her order before she could ask what kind of hell it was that had broken loose. With a shrug she grabbed her bag and headed for the bathroom. Maybe a hot shower would wake her up.

She
had just finished in the bathroom and emerged in clean clothes when there came a knock at the door. “Yes?” she called from the bathroom doorway.

“
Room service, Ma’am,” said the voice on the other side.

She
put down her brush and padded over to unlock the door. The room service attendant nodded as he came in, followed by the smell of roast beef and dilled new potatoes. “Yummy!” she cooed and started looking under metallic covers. The man held out the receipt which she signed and added another ten dollars for the tip. He smiled and left, leaving her to set upon the food.

About
halfway through the feast she snatched up the remote control for the TV and flicked it on. What she saw ended her appetite. The newscaster was flying in a helicopter a few miles from Central Park. Telescopic cameras relayed an image of a smoking battle field. Across the bottom of the screen crawled scant details on the “terrorist attack”.

Mindy
had been much younger when terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center in 2001. The scenes brought those memories back in vivid color. This attack began at 7:30 a.m., lasted for more than an hour. Besides the hundreds of wounded, there were two-dozen dead NYPD officers, several EMTs, firefighters, and an unknown number of civilians.

She
was glued to the news coverage for hours, the rest of her lunch cold and forgotten. More breaking news cut into the channel. The month long standoff in Tiantan Park in central Beijing had come to an end. The Chinese military stormed the park after receiving anonymous information that mass killings were promised. They found thousands of people dead or dying, all having poisoned themselves. When the authorities moved in, they found a statue, a huge oval dais. Mindy sat straight up and almost jumped across the room to get a better look. It was the same as the one she had seen in the pictures from Skinner and on the Followers of the Avatar website; only this one was jet-black instead of glowing white. The steps on both sides were littered with bodies and medics grimly wandered among them looking for any survivors. Early reports said as many as ten thousand may have perished in the mass suicide. Two horrendous events on the same day, half a world apart.

Mindy
turned down the TV volume and picked up the phone. She dialed the number from memory and waited while it rang. “What do you want?” answered the voice on the other end, heavy static and loud mechanical noises cluttered the connection.

“
Leo, is that you?”

“
Mindy? Yes, but I can barely hear you.”

“
Same here. Are you on a rocket being shot into space?”

“
Don’t I wish? No, I’m in a chopper heading for New York as we speak. With this morning’s events, I need to be there ASAP.”

Mindy
only took a second to put the pieces together. “It’s in Central Park, isn’t it? The Portal is in Central Park!”

“
Quiet girl, this line isn’t secure.”

“
Good God, Leo, what the hell is going on? Why are people killing themselves over these things? We can all get out of here, for crying out loud! Hundreds dead here in New York, thousand in Beijing, how many more?”

“
What about Beijing?”

“
Didn’t you see the news?” She quickly gave him the abridged version of what she'd seen on TV. “And their Portal, it was all black, not glowing white like the one you have.”

“
This is all news to me. How do you know what the Portal looks like?”

“
The pictures you sent me. There was a little bit in each one. I just put the pieces together.”

“
Volant is going to have my ass for this. Look, I’m landing in a couple hours. Whatever you do, do not go near Central Park. Do you understand? Do not go near that park! Give me the number where you are.”

After
she gave him the number he hung up without another word. Mindy sat in the little room, her mind whirling. It only took a few minutes for her to decide to do exactly what she'd been told not to do. She went down to the street and flagged a cab. Even with smoke in the air and a terrorist attack mere miles away, she only waited for a minute. “Central Park,” she told the driver.

The sun was just behind the horizon, and the call to Maghrib was singing out over the city, just as it had in Cairo for more than a thousand years. The ancient zoological gardens in the western part of the city had been closed to the public for more than a month. A sign posted on the gate read, “Closed by order of the Cairo Department of Agriculture for Decontamination”. The official story said a plant specimen imported from the East Indies had proved noxious and was being contained. The gardens were popular mostly with tourists, and they found no reason to disbelieve the story even if they happened to notice all the military traffic moving in and out.