The updraft from the buildings was creating turbulence. The stick began vibrating in his grasp, wanting to jerk to one side or the other. He got a tight grip on it with his right hand, then with both hands. The plane began rattling, the instrument panels jiggling out of focus. He could feel it in his legs right through the floor, then his whole body.
Then the whole plane was buffeting, shaking madly like it wanted to come apart. His insides were jangling and the pain shot through his head like orange fire.
The blip was coming closer, growing large on the vibrating screens.
Hauk’s voice. “Plissken…”
The glider was creaking loudly, banging, threatening to come apart all around him. And still the blip grew.
“Plissken…”
He was one with the vibrations. He was the beating heart of the living glider. The blip was filling the screens, overfilling, spilling blue lined light onto his body.
“Plissken, what are you doing?”
He could barely talk through his chattering teeth. “Playing with myself, you bastard. I’m going in!”
A buzzer sounded his proximity to the target. He pushed the stick violently forward, nosing down fast. He hit, bouncing, bashing the immutability of the building. The wide roof spread out before him on the screens.
He was moving fast, much too fast. He jammed his feet to the floor, locking the wheels, hearing the whining screech as they tried to grab hold of the pavement. He punched the flap button and they sprang up, more resistance.
He lost control with the flaps. He was spinning. Whirling through the vortex. The stick was useless. He let it go and punched up the anchor.
It wasn’t much, but it was the only shot he had left. The glider shuddered as a section came out of the tail. He braced himself, clamping his teeth tightly closed.
The anchor grabbed the cement and held. Then the violent jerk as its line pulled taut on the careening machine. The plane screamed all around Plissken and he was thrown forward, despite his preparations. His mind keyed to a crash. It never came.
There was deadly quiet all around him. He didn’t move. He just listened to the pounding of his own heart.
“Plissken…”
Something was wrong, though. He was resting at an angle, nose pointed up. Every time he moved, the glider wobbled. He decided to move very carefully.
“Plissken…”
Reaching out gingerly, he flipped off the switches one by one. The screens went black. Then slowly, oh so slowly, he unbuckled.
“Plissken?”
He unlatched the canopy and slid it slowly back. He was looking up into the rain/gas clouds. He stood and looked out The whole tail section and one wing were overhanging the edge of the building. The only thing keeping the glider where it was, was the nylon rope attached to the anchor.
“Plissken, come in.”
Climbing out was done by inches. The Gulffire shuddered with every movement. He got a foot out on the wing, nearly slipping on its wet surface. Then his other leg. He reached back and closed the canopy, shutting out Hauk-for once, having the last word.
He slowly slid down on his hands and knees and edged himself along the slippery wing. The glider moved as he did, tilting up slightly with his weight. When he was safely above the roof, he rolled off the wing to the cement, the Gulffire creaking back to overhang the edge again.
The wind was high up there; it was enough to cause the whole building to sway. He got up and, leaning into the howling beast, made his way toward the outside door.
Spread out all around him was the City of Death: dark towers, many ruins, pockets of light trailing wispy gray white smoke into the crying sky. And sounds. Not the sounds that he usually associated with cities. These were animal sounds, banshee screams and low-down growls and jungle drums beating maddening rhythms. Plissken’s hand automatically went to his holster, reassuring.
He passed the carcass of an old heliport control shack, viewport window gone, inside charred and gutted. The door housing was set about fifty feet past the heliport. He moved to it quickly.
The door was battered, hanging on one hinge. Stepping back a pace, he kicked at it. The force tore it off the remaining hinge, and it fell back inside, sliding noisily down the stairwell to rest against the bottom door.
Plissken followed it down… into Bedlam.
XI
19:22:45, 44, 43…
The hallway was long and dark. He raked its length with the flashlight before proceeding. There was no sound, except the moan of the wind blowing through the dark tower’s glassless windows.
He felt relatively safe up there. At well over a hundred stories, very few people, even crazy people, would be willing to spend the hours it would take to walk that many stairs. It was a nice view, but not that nice.
It was probably time to get in touch with Hauk so that the man wouldn’t get his bowels in an uproar. A doorway was to his right; he looked in, playing the light around the shadowed corners before entering.
It was an old office that looked like the scene of a riot. The windows were gone, large frags of glass scattered over everything. What furniture there was, had been overturned and ripped to shreds in ways that rational human beings would never think of. The wind whistled in three octaves through the windows.
A large desk was overturned in the center of the room. He got it back upright and sat on its edge, swinging his legs. Lying the flashlight down to spotlight the wall, he got into the holster. Bringing out the small pocket radio, he telescoped the antenna.
Frowning once, he flipped the switch. “I’m inside the World Trade Center,” he said. “Just like Leningrad, Hauk.”
Hauk’s voice came back through the thing, loud and screeching. It blared, forcing Plissken to hold it at arm’s length.
“IS THE GLIDER INTACT?”
He pulled it back to himself, trying to adjust the volume knob. But it seemed to wheel freely, not attached to anything. “It’s okay, I guess,” he said into the thing, still turning the knob. “But taking off is for shit. I’ll work it out.”
The voice blared back, probably filling the whole floor. “YOU HAVE TO USE THE STAIRWELL. IT’LL TAKE YOU AWHILE TO GET DOWN TO STREET LEVEL. CALL ME WHEN YOU’RE OUTSIDE…”
Plissken shut off the radio just to get away from the sound. Nothing like a quiet entrance. He could almost think that Hauk gave him that radio purposely. He shook it off and climbed off the desk. He’d deal with Hauk later. After.
He put back the radio and routed through the pouch for a minute. He came up with a foil-wrapped package the size of a golf ball. Unwrapping it, he removed the contents-a block of crystal meth, looking like a chunk of rock candy.
Knocking it on the desk, he broke it into several chunks, the largest of which he picked up and tossed into his mouth, swallowing it dry. The poison bitter taste slicked a gully along his tongue and trailed in stringers down his throat.
He wasn’t tired yet, but he’d be needing his share of go-fast just to get down those stairs. Putting the rest of the meth back into the pouch, he moved cautiously into the hall.
He played the light down the hallway until he saw the exit sign at its end. The stairwell. As he moved toward
