Chapter Fifteen

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"Give me a ride!" I plea with the soldiers who busily pack up their gear. Most of them ignore me. "Even a couple blocks, please!"

"Sorry sir." Private Hartt says. "We can't take a civilian with us. Besides we only have room for four."

"But if you are heading to the tunnel, that is halfway to my destination, I gotta get back to my wife."

Hartt just shakes his head as he stows more items in the back of the G-Wagen.

George's radio crackles to life, the reception is very poor, but even I can make out a few of the panic-stricken words from the static-filled broadcast. "Contact -- tunnel -- fucking tank!"

A clearer reply comes back on the net from someone at a command post somewhere. "Two-Six-Alpha, this is Red Column, maintain radio procedure and repeat your last."

More static and garbled, broken comms follow.

"Break Red Column, this is two-five delta, moving on two-six alpha. Observed convoy including one tank heading toward three-two-five-lima, over."

"Copy two-six, advise ETA, over."

"Seven mikes, breaking down and loading up. Over."

"Roger two-six. Red Column out."

The team now move with an increased sense of urgency. There was no way I was getting a ride now. I take off at a run.

"Stay away from the tunnel." Private Hartt calls after me. As if I had any intent of going anywhere near it.

I zigzag, up one street, through an alley, across an avenue. Eventually, my dash slows to a jog, which becomes a brisk walk up to the point where I stop and lean against a storefront window. I am panting heavily, I try to listen, barely able to hear anything over my own heavy breathing. Off in the distance I hear the unmistakable cacophony of a firefight. Something very bad is unfolding somewhere to my east. I've steered clear of the tunnel by a couple blocks, but my desire for self-preservation is at odds with my desire to get to my wife.

I fish my phone out of my pocket, no bars, no service. I try to remember when the last time was that I had seen a payphone. It dawns on me - the bus depot used to have a bank of old school pay phones, I reckon it still does. I check my pockets for change and I turn up a small handful of shiny currency. If I can get word to Kate, she can evacuate and I can meet her someplace safe. Problem is, the bus depot is only half-a-block from the tunnel.

Despite all my better judgment. I move toward the noise that I should be moving away from. I walk, then jog, then run all out. My heart pounds heavily in my chest, I pant like a sled dog and my legs protest, feeling like they are on fire. Still, I run onward. When I can carry on no farther, when my leaden legs refuse my every order to keep moving, I stumble to a halt just one street over from the depot. I plop down on a bench wishing I had pushed myself harder in training.

There is a thin alley, barely a shoulder width wide, between two buildings - a convenience store and a bar. Goddamn I could use a drink. The gunfire is sporadic, but heavy at times and it's spread out now, coming from different directions. I have counted at least three large booms, that I assume are explosions of some kind. I find myself concerned for the safety of young private Hartt and his team as well as my own. I enter the alley and work my way slowly along. Once I am in there, it becomes increasingly difficult to tell which direction the noise is coming from.

I edge along slower. If I am caught in here, I am dead, there is no cover and it is so tight I could not run. I'm so scared I think I might piss my own pants. Twenty meters from the end, I hear squealing tires, shouts and the world erupts in a hellish din of automatic gunfire, screams and untold horrors. I fall on the ground, I stay there frozen for what feels like an hour, while the unseen drama on the street a stone's throw away plays out. The air become thick with the acrid smell of burning rubber and what I assume is gunpowder.

Then there is silence, followed by the unmistakable sound of something large and powerful driving away. I wait and listen, and inch forward on my belly. I'm oblivious to the disgusting filth I'm crawling through. I approach the junction between the alley and the sidewalk, I don't even draw a breath. I wish it was dark, I wish I was with Kate, I wish we were safe at home.

I move another half meter and look out upon street. It's a vision of destruction, like something from an evening newscast, something from a foreign war-torn land of incessant unrest where this sort of thing happens. It seems so surreal, so out of place here. There is a police cruiser on fire in the middle of the street. Another is up on the far sidewalk, it looks like it has crashed into the bus depot. At first I don't notice the bodies, or my mind refuses to recognize them for what they are - bloody, mangled dead humans. I must be in shock. I focus on the bus depot, my need to make a phone call. I get to my feet, look up and down the street and then bolt for the doorway on the far side.

I yank the door open and it stops abruptly. I look down at the bullet-riddled, uniformed body face down on the sidewalk. I suppress a wave of nausea that washes over me. I yank the door again, but there is ninety kilos of dead cop blocking my advance. I decide to try an alternate entrance. The police car is wedged in a gaping hole in the front of the building, I think I can make use of that.

I climb up on the hood and dismount less than gracefully into the bus depot. I pick myself up off the floor and shake the glass off. There's more horror inside, and this time it's not police - these are just people. People caught in the crossfire. I try not to look, there is at least half-a-dozen and one of the bodies is so small, I try to convince myself I didn't see it. I re-focus my efforts on the phones, I spot them near the unbroken windows on the far side of the room. I move hastily over the debris, as I approach the phones, three figures appear on the other side of the window. I freeze.

They are armed, that is the first thing I notice. They are not police and not wearing CADPAT. The cold that falls over me precedes the cognition that I know exactly who they are. They are the last people I want to run into. For a second, I think the dark tinted window has concealed me and as long as I remain still... they stop and all three turn there attention to the frozen form inside the building. One of them says something and the other two raise their weapons. This is what doom feels like.

The window is spattered with blood as one of their heads comes apart like a firecracker went off in his brain. In turn, each is cut down by gunfire coming from an unseen source. One of them squeezes off a burst as he falls, shattering the window that stands between us. I remain frozen. I look down expecting to find bullet holes in my clothing, but there are none. Outside there is yelling, but I can't make it out. I can't will myself to move.

A gun barrel appears in the window, another figure appears and again I have a gun pointed at me.

"Jesus Christ! Connor, sir - for fuck's sake, what the hell are you doing?" Private Hartt yells at me.

I've never been so relieved to see pimples. I nearly faint. "I needed to make a phone call." Which suddenly sounds as ridiculous to me as it appears to to him.

He turns back to someone and yells, "Clear!" Then turning back to me. "Get your ass out here, sir. No time for phone calls." He dashes away, out of sight. I climb through the shot-out window onto the sidewalk. I'm standing in a large, glistening pool of blood.

"Over here!" Hartt yells, it sounds like an order to me. For the lanky kid I see on the outside hides the man beneath and it looks like he's doing a lot of maturing today. I watch him help another soldier up who was collapsed on the curb. It's Ella, and she doesn't look too good. "Give me a hand." He says, his tac vest is covered in blood, could be from Ella, I don't know, she appears bloody all over.

"What happened?" I ask automatically as I wrap one of Ella's arms over my soldier.

"By the time we got to the tunnel our guys had already engaged the insurgents. One of the buses was disabled and partially blocked the lanes, they tried to displace but an APC moved around the bus and lit up our guys with machine gun fire. That's when we arrived. The other G-Wagen was shot to shit and we started to draw fire immediately. Their troops were pouring out of the buses. Ella tried to lead us forward to the fortified position, but she was hit. I dragged her back to cover behind the Wagon, while Mathieu and Joe moved forward. They made it to the C6 and started giving them hell. George started throwing every grenade he could get his hands on before he was hit. Mathieu laid down smoke and yelled for us to evac. I loaded up Ella and got the hell out of there. Last thing I saw was Mathieu manning that gun.

The Wagen died before we even left the tunnel. We've been on foot since."

"We shouldn't have left him." Ella groans.

"I didn't know what else to do." Hartt says to me, his eyes are watery.

"You did the right thing. You would all be dead if you stayed." I assure him, but really, what the hell do I know?

"Let's move out." Hartt says. "We need to get the Corporal some medical attention. Pick up that weapon." He orders, indicating a shotgun laying in the debris near a fallen peace officer. I do as bidden. Then we start moving up the street, away from the bloody combat zone.

It is only now that I notice the chaos. Unmitigated pandemonium has beset the city as office buildings disgorge workers onto the streets in absolute panic. Civilians are running and screaming every which way. Cars pour out of parking lots and underground garages and quickly clog the streets. Gunfire still echoes here and there. People abandon cars and run for their lives. We plod onward with the flow of the frightened masses who are all trying to escape the imminent danger. We are practically dragging Ella along.

"The hospital is about six blocks that way." I point south. "I don't think we can carry her that far." We start down that way regardless.

"In here." Hartt pulls us toward a small head shop. We nearly fall through the door and I do my best not to land on top of Ella who hits the ground with a yelp.

The store is empty, hookahs, pipes and bongs surround us. Tie-dye shirts with peace symbols hang on racks. It's the most absurd thing. Hartt hastily checks the Corporal's dressings, they seem to have staunched the flow to a degree, but the young woman is still in dire condition. I stand over her, unsure what I should do.

"Put pressure on this." Hartt says, and I do what he asks. He goes behind the counter and finds the phone. "Dammit! No service."

I pull my phone out with my free hand. "No cell either."

"Need to radio command." Ella says weakly.

"We lost the radios in the tunnel." Hartt says. "Land lines down, cell is down. We're fucked for comms."

"Maybe not. This morning I hit a guy with a phone... well, wait, let me finish." I say as Hartt looks at me like I'm crazy. "The guy was about to make a phone call. In fact, I remember seeing other people in the office on phones. So they were working, or at least they were earlier."

"Where was this?"

"Maybe a block south of here." I crane my neck to see if I can see out the window down the street far enough. "It's that big United Credit building."

"Let's do it! Get her up."

Back out to the street. The panicked crowds are thinning. We cross an intersection full of abandon cars, still running. We slog our way up the remaining portion of the block until we are standing in front of that revolving door.

All the sudden I hear the crunching of metal and the loud groan of a diesel engine being pushed hard. I turn to see a bus coming down the side street, it mounts the curb, knocking cars sideways as it plows through.

"Inside now!" Hartt yells. We rush in, across the foyer and up to the elevators. I hit the button rapidly hoping to expedite the lift. Ella gets heavier as Hartt unloads her on me. "You got her? I'll cover." With that he moves to the reception desk and changes magazines.

The elevator seems to be taking forever, I watch the digital floor counter. In my head, I repeat to myself, "this is not where you die, this is not where you die..." the whole time willing the elevator doors to open.

5...4...3...

I hear a chime and the doors part. "Our ride is here!" I yell as I hobble into the empty lift. That music is still playing. Hartt gets up from his position and double times it for the lift. Armed men appear outside the revolving door. "Get down!" I yell.

Ella snaps out of her stupor and draws her sidearm, she gets off six rounds before I feel the bullets slam into her body. We both collapse into the lift. Hartt scrambles in as bullets fly around us. He punches the door close button and I drag Ella further into the blood-spattered metal box. Bullets rip through the door.

"Hit thirty!" I yell.

We rise slowly out of the danger zone. The sound of automatic gunfire grows more distant as I stare into the dead eyes of Master Corporal Ella Spears. An instrumental version of Bridge Over Troubled Water plays from the speaker in the ceiling. Once, in now what seems a past life, I adored that song - but now, I don't think there is any melody that I could hate more. I turn my attention to the floor counter on the wall, still tightly holding Ella's limp hand in my own.

11..12..13...


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