Charges (12 page)

“Blackie spilled gas on the mower,” Roth said, picking up a rag and wiping off the tank. “He’s a stupid fuck. This is what I get for asking him to do something for once.”

“Hey, I was just tryin’ to help, man!” Blackie said, sounding genuinely hurt.

“Stop fucking around and get to work,” the guard snapped. His uniform had dark sweat patches under the arms.

“On it,” Roth said. When the guard turned back around, Roth asked Blackie, “Where does Rollo expect me to meet him?”

“Yard time,” Blackie said. “Wants you to keep it cool and on the down low. Also wants you to tell the rest of the guys that this is business, nothing else.”

“Yeah, we’ll see about that.”

“Roth, move your ass!” the guard yelled. He stepped inside the shed, frowning behind his sunglasses and mustache. “What are you guys talking about in here?”

Blackie looked at Roth with disgust. “He’s just telling me what a stupid fuck I am, like usual,” the younger man said. “All I did was spill a little gas, trying to help him out!”

“Then stop trying to help, and get your ass out here!” the guard ordered. “Roth, move it! Now!”

“Sure thing,” Roth said, keeping his expression as vacant as possible though it was almost impossible for him to overcome the urge to take the guard out, right then and there. He knew how to do it, even though the man was armed. Roth could gain control of the weapon and drill the second guard in the right eye before she could do anything. But he didn’t know exactly where the tower snipers were positioned or who they were covering, and that meant he could be popped the second he stepped out of the shed. He vented some frustration by savagely yanking on the Bobcat’s pull starter. It took three hard tugs, but the green piece of shit’s engine finally sputtered to life.

Soon enough,
he thought, glancing up at the guard as he grabbed the big mower’s handles and engaged the drive gear.

###

Roth, along with Harley and a huge white con named Chester, approached the gang of black prisoners hanging out in their corner of the yard. They came to a halt several feet away, acting as if they were having a conversation amongst themselves. It wasn’t much of a ruse, but it was the best they could come up with; Roth definitely wasn’t going to meet with Rollo alone. It wasn’t that Roth didn’t think he couldn’t handle his fellow inmate in a fight, but he knew Rollo would never try him
mano a mano
anyway. He’d show up with friends, just as Roth had brought a couple of his own.

After a few minutes, Rollo detached himself from the group and sauntered over to where Roth stood a few feet from his two guys. He asked Roth for a cigarette, a remarkable breach of etiquette. Roth had one last crinkled pack of Winstons, which he never smoked but used to barter with. A single cigarette could get a man a lot of things in the big house. Roth shook one out and handed it over, keeping his face blank and expressionless.

Rollo took it and eyed Harley and Chester for a long moment. “Maybe we can do this without an audience.”

“You don’t want an audience, send someone else,” Roth said.

Rollo considered that. “Heh. Okay.” He turned and looked through the fence behind him. The work camp crew had already finished their work, who were staring back at them. “We gonna make a break,” Rollo said. “World’s gone to shit. No power anywhere. Heard the sun did that shit, man.”

Roth didn’t say anything. He’d heard the same, and he understood the ramifications of a gigantic EMP burst that could have fried the entire world’s power grids.

“Guards, they be leavin’. Staff, they be leavin’. Soon, they’ll just lock us up in our cells, and that be it. We’ll starve. Or die from the goddam heat. They ain’t gonna let us go, and they can’t take care o’ us. So we need to break outta here before they put us in our cages and leave us to rot.”

“So what do you want from me, Rollo?”

“Brothers can’t do it alone. Need some help. You’re a smart fuck; you do the math.”

“So what’s in it for me?” Roth asked.

“You get to kill as many o’ the guards as you want. And after that, we go our own ways. I got people to see on the outside. Not gonna waste a second of it messin’ with you.”

Roth didn’t believe that for a second. But it didn’t matter, not right now. If Rollo and his band were able to get enough action started to make it outside, then the risk was worth it. Besides, while Rollo might make promises he wouldn’t keep, Roth would do no such thing. He’d kill Rollo the second he had a chance.

“So what’s your plan?” Roth asked.

“You good with a gun, right? I hear you’re like some kinda superman with a gun.”

“Yes,” Roth said. “I’m good with firearms.”

“You military or somethin’?”

Roth shook his head. He didn’t see the need to give the guy any more information.

Rollo shrugged his shoulders. “’Kay. Don’t matter. What if I get you a pistol? You any good with that?”

Roth slightly inclined his head toward one of the guard towers. “See that guy up there?”

“Yeah.”

“With a nine-millimeter, I can hit him twice in the right eye from where we’re standing right now, and do it on the move. Then I can turn and take out the second tower. Less than two seconds. But the ground needs to be clear. I can’t work like that with guards coming at me on the ground. Give me enough time to clear the towers, then I can clear the ground. But the towers have to go first.”

“You serious?” Rollo asked. “You’re really
that
good?”

“I did the same thing in Colorado, with two cops standing above me on high ground. They had me in sight, and were drawing down on me. I took them both out. Less than two seconds,” Roth emphasized. “If I couldn’t do it, I wouldn’t put myself in the position where I’d have to try.”

Rollo nodded. “’Kay, man. I feel you. You let us take care of the ground work. You hit the towers. It’s gonna happen out here, obviously. Maybe not tomorrow. But soon. You need to keep up with things. Get your boys lined up. We gotta work together to get control of the yard then the rest of the prison long enough for us to get out of here.”

“We gonna spring everyone?”

“You want to take time to do that?”

“No. I don’t.”

“There’s your answer, then. Stay sharp.” Rollo looked down at the cigarette for a moment then flicked it at Roth. “Here. I don’t want your cancer stick.”

“Might as well keep it, Rollo. I’m not going to touch it after you did.”

Rollo’s thick lips curled up into a feral smile. “You got nerve, boy. That’s why I come to you.” He turned away and headed back to his group.

From the corner of his eye, Roth had seen one of the guards in the towers watching the entire exchange, but he and Rollo had kept their faces angled downward as they talked. No lip reading was likely to have occurred, and without power, they didn’t have to worry about electronic surveillance.

“So what was that all about?” Harley asked as Roth sauntered back to them.

“We might be getting out of here,” Roth said.

“No shit?”

“Well, either that, or a lot of us are just going to get killed.”

10

A nice breeze blew through the lower levels of the George Washington Bridge, and Vincenzo was thankful for that. Not only did it help to dry the sweat on his body, it also kept the noxious stench of urine and feces at bay as he and thousands of others threaded their way through the unmoving traffic that had died during the CME event. Garbage was everywhere, a disgusting mix of plastic bags, food containers, plastic bottles, vomit, and human excrement. There were also corpses, many of them stiffening into full-on rigor mortis.

From the expended cartridges that his boots kicked up, he could tell that the violence he had witnessed on the upper deck wasn’t the first the bridge had seen over the past forty-eight hours. He kept his right hand near the butt of his Berretta. He wasn’t going to make any mistakes next time. When trouble came looking for him again, he was going to shoot it right between the eyes, between the testicles, wherever he could. That he had survived two violent altercations in one day was exhilarating in a way. He had never been much of a fighter, even though he had learned the required skills as a younger man. But he hadn’t been tested in such a way in more than twenty years. To find that he could still take some punishment and come out on top—especially while others were trying to kill him—didn’t leave him feeling sickened and shaken as he’d thought it would. It made him feel fortunate and oddly thrilled.

At the same time, he was developing a healthy respect for just how dangerous the new world was. In only a few days, the thin veneer of civilization wasn’t just cracking—it was about to shatter. Fighting his way across the country would eventually become a losing proposition, and his previous tussles had already left him feeling twice his age. Bruises, cuts, scraped knuckles, and a nagging pain in his lower back told him that he had been more lucky than skillful so far.

In other words,
paisan
, don’t push it.

Taking his own warning to heart, Vincenzo pulled his cap a bit lower and tried to keep from making eye contact with anyone, while at the same time staying mindful of just who was in his immediate vicinity. He saw hipsters from Greenwich Village, gays from Chelsea, stodgy business types from midtown, and foreigners caught in New York on holiday. There were bangers from Harlem, housewives from the Upper East Side towing kids after them, and construction-worker types from one of the outer boroughs. He distinctly heard a Canarsie accent from one group wending their way through the halted river of metal and fiberglass and garbage.

Vincenzo thought that Everett had been wrong. The lower deck of the George Washington Bridge wasn’t any more likely to become a miasma of violence and looting, at least not during the daylight hours. There were too many people who only wanted to get across the river. Anyone who tried anything with less than an automatic weapon was going to get trapped and taken down pretty quickly. From the determined expressions of those around him, he was pretty sure that, on the whole, the evacuees weren’t exactly a chi-chi bunch. There were some definite ass-kickers and skull-crushers in the ranks, and even an organized gang would have to pick its targets carefully. However, he had to step over two corpses, one of them a small child who had obviously been molested in the most violent of ways. There was nothing that could be done. He just gritted his teeth and kept walking.

From what he could see of it, the Hudson River looked beautiful, blue and inviting, despite the occasional powerless vessel that drifted southward on the current. He’d always been told the Hudson was one of the most polluted rivers in the United States, and he had never really considered it at all picturesque. Like any native New Yorker, he thought the Hudson served only one purpose: as a moat, to protect Manhattan from New Jersey. But looking at it through different eyes—eyes which also coveted the shoreline of New Jersey as a safer place than the vast metropolis behind him—Vincenzo could detect a hint of splendor in the great tributary. Two or three centuries ago, when it was younger, cleaner, and perhaps more vital, he had no doubt that it had been a magnificent sight.

As he neared the end of the span, a dark tunnel loomed. Flashlights came on in an attempt to dispel the murk, and Vincenzo felt a thrill of fear. If Everett’s prophecy of violence was to come true, it would be in the tunnel, several hundred feet of subway-tiled walls that were mostly blank and featureless without the illumination provided by the long line of fluorescent lamps that would likely never shine again. That part of the bridge was sloped, as the rightmost northbound lanes of Interstate 95 fed into it, forming a ramp into the dark maw. Because of that, there was less dead traffic inside the tunnel, as those vehicles inside had either been temporarily spared from the effects of the sun’s discharge, or their drivers had elected to coast down its length to the GWB’s lower span.

The crowd slowed as it picked its way up the ramp like some amorphous, multi-celled beast. The darkness in the center of the tunnel was absolute, and Vincenzo could feel the unease roiling through the people around him like spokes radiating from the center of a bicycle wheel. No one wanted to be in the pitch-black belly of the tunnel, and even those with flashlights had to carefully work around the few stalled vehicles. And there were more corpses, as well, already ripening in the summer heat. Flies buzzed, and Vincenzo glimpsed feral shapes skulking about in the gloom. He heard the deep growl of a dog, and he realized that man’s best friend was already feeding on the dead. He pulled his Berretta from its holster and held the weapon at his side. Just in case.

Finally, his thighs and calves burning, he neared the tunnel exit. The light on the other side was harsh and bright, and he missed his sunglasses terribly as he blinked against the glaring brilliance of the sun, which was in its descent toward the western horizon. He pulled the bill of his cap lower until his eyes adjusted. Reluctantly, he holstered his pistol and pulled his shirt down over it. Reaching around, he felt the slightly cool metal of his Hydro Flask. It was a little dented, probably from his fall on the New York side of the GWB, but the metal was still dry.

Vincenzo started to sweat almost immediately upon leaving the tunnel. He and the rest of the people with him were being pushed into a channel choked with stalled traffic. The walls on either side were thirty feet high, and overpasses towered over them. Groups of people had pulled off to the sides, resting from the long transit across the bridge. Some of them weren’t outfitted for the journey, and they regarded those who were with covetous eyes. On one of the bridges that crossed the lower lanes of I-95, New Jersey State Police troopers were watching. As they were silhouetted against the sun, Vincenzo couldn’t read their expressions, but he could see that they had binoculars and rifles. Also, the cement guardrails of the bridge gave them great cover. After what had happened back on the approach to the George Washington, Vincenzo hoped no one was going to start shooting. When the troopers responded, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Farther on, he crossed under another overpass. Acrid smoke wafted through the air, and when he emerged on the other side of the bridge, he saw a large glass tower fully involved in fire. The building wasn’t nearby, and the breeze drove most of the billowing black clouds of smoke away from the highway, but it was close enough to be a disturbing sight.

What, did you think everything was going to be normal in Fort Lee?
Actually, he
had
hoped that things would be better in Jersey. He’d hoped that once people were in a place where they weren’t right on top of one another that they’d be able to band together and work through problems as opposed to trying to dominate one another. The flaming building laid that faint hope to rest. Jersey was going to be as much of a nut-buster as Manhattan had been, and with nightfall only a few hours away, it might even be worse.

Vincenzo slogged along, feeling the heat rising off the asphalt of I-95. He suddenly found it odd to be walking down what had been one of the busiest interstates in the nation. Only days before, had he been there on foot, he would have been dead, smeared across the lanes by a speeding semi-truck or BMW. But those same vehicles that could have meant his death were no more than curiosities from a bygone era.

He made a mental list of all the items that would have helped him out over the coming days and weeks. Night vision goggles would have been useful, so he could travel at night instead of in the heat of the day, if such devices might have survived the EMP burst. A CamelBak hydration system could have been attached to his backpack so he could drink water without having to stop. An AR-style rifle would have been nice. Not only could such a weapon be used to hold bad guys at bay, it would have been more than suitable for hunting. He could use a couple of knives. And with night closing in, he wished for a lightweight shelter instead of the simple tarp in his bag. A dirt bike would have been handy, even though he had never had much of a love affair with motorcycles. He’d tried to ride three times in the past, and all three times had ended with him on the ground. Then he remembered what had happened to the riders on the ramp to the upper deck of the George, and he figured that maybe a pair of boots were a safer bet.

At any rate, the coulda/woulda/shoulda list was too long to contemplate. Plus, the heat, the various aches and pains, and the budding headache forming inside his skull were enough to convince him to put such thoughts aside. He had a job to do for the next several months, and that job was for him to keep putting one foot in front of the other. And first, he needed to get out of Fort Lee, preferably before sundown. Though not terribly familiar with the area, he knew there was a large park in the city, near a wide creek that he would eventually need to cross, but he wasn’t entirely sure of its location. Or even what it was called. Overpeck? Overbrook?

In the distance, he heard staccato reports of gunfire. The troopers and Fort Lee police officers on the next overpass looked northward for a moment then turned back to their surveillance of the New Yorkers rolling into town. Vincenzo tried to determine if the cops were more nervous than they should have been, but he figured if they were still up there and still attempting to do their jobs, then he probably shouldn’t worry about it.

But
are
they doing their jobs?
he wondered when he recalled the NYPD just standing around and mostly watching while bad shit went down less than an hour ago on the approach to the George Washington Bridge.
If things go sideways, are they going to take care of it?

There was no way to know unless something happened, and he had already been through enough for one day. He decided to focus on what was achievable each day. He would get to the park whose name he couldn’t recall, which meant continuing west until he hit the creek or river that ran through Fort Lee. After that, he would find a place with lots of cover to bed down then eat, sleep, and try to make it through the night. Tomorrow would be another day with its own challenges to overcome.

###

He was able to depart the highway by scaling a small retaining wall near the toll booths that separated I-95 from the Columbia University Medical Center. As he followed several people over the wall, he passed a group of young men who were stripping down a stalled Bentley convertible the color of rich emerald. Vincenzo had no idea what they thought they were going to do with their loot. Luxury automotive goods were unlikely to be high on anyone’s shopping list. As soon as the thought had crossed his mind, he figured it maybe wasn’t such a bad thing. If those predisposed to crime were still keeping an eye out for material wealth, then one guy and his packs wouldn’t be high on their priority register. While the world had ended, the ratio of stupid people to smart was most likely in his favor.
Yeah, because I’m such a fucking rocket scientist …

On the other side of the retaining wall, he trudged through some brush and emerged into a parking lot that belonged to the Oak Tree Shopping Mall, which was in full loot mode. Things were frantic but not particularly violent. Lots of people scurried in and out of stores, carrying whatever they thought they needed. Vincenzo kept his hand near the butt of his Berretta and took great pains to avoid interacting with anyone. He recognized several folks from the highway, and they acted the same.

Down the block, the hospital seemed to be a busy place, which was not unexpected. Vincenzo crossed the parking lot at a fast pace and came out on Main Street. Like everywhere else, there were dead cars and trucks in the street, but the sidewalks had lots of pedestrian traffic. Many people were moving; many more were hovering in tight groups on the street corners. Vincenzo did a quick three-sixty, surveying the neighborhood. While the mall was under attack, things on the street, only a few hundred feet away, seemed stable. He was in a middle-class neighborhood, not some inner-city ghetto. If nothing else, it at least felt safe for the moment.