'When Blackstone makes a mistake,' he said, 'I promise you it'll be a large one. In my judgment, Jack Blackstone is a man who can be led all too easily to foolish and intemperate action, which, by the way, just happens to be one of the many services I provide.'
21
New York 'Man, this is the way to fight pirates,' said Wilson.
'This is the way to fight everyone,' Milosz said, as he watched sheets of rain drift down past the ninth-floor window of the apartment building on Astor Place. A contrary gust of wind would sometimes blow a few drops in on his face, but compared with the poor bastards doing their fighting down on the streets below, he was warm and dry and relatively safe. This was much more pleasant than flying into a nest of vipers such as the ones they had encountered on Ellis Island.
He sat on a very comfortable leather armchair that was perched on top of a huge oak desk some distance back from the window, providing him with an elevated view of the street without exposing him too much. Wilson, sitting next to Milosz in another chair they'd hauled up on top of a dining-room table, scanned their field of fire for any more hostiles while the Polish commando resisted the urge for another Winston from his growing stash of New York City plunder. He sucked down a little more of the stale Folgers coffee instead and continued his own scan. The weapon, a fifty-caliber M107 sniper rifle, was heavier than he was used to, but he'd traded up because the M107 was a big serious weapon for big serious work, and he wanted to be able to neutralize any threat short of a T-90. With Wilson's help he had stabilized it by screwing the base into a wooden file cabinet that they'd also lifted up onto the makeshift firing platform. The whole arrangement gave the impression of two overgrown boys who'd decided to build a fort in their rich uncle's apartment.
For the moment, there was no movement at all. Using a thermal sight on his rifle, Milosz was able to watch the body heat leaking out of the eight men he had already killed around the Brinks armored truck they had been using to get around the city. He had put two rounds of armor-piercing incendiary into the engine block to stop the truck before sending another round through the skull of the driver. He and Wilson had picked off the rest, before any of them made it to cover. One of them, he noted with interest, was wearing a scarf of the type sported by the pirate… how would you describe them? Commanders? Captains? That seemed too formal. Whatever his role, the dead man's body, like the others, had glowed a fierce cherry red when Milosz had shot him, but now they all registered as dim, wistful ghost images in the AN/PAS-13 scope. Soon, with the cold rain draining all the heat from their corpses, the last trace of their lives would vanish, at least to him. The bodies would stay where they'd fallen until it was safe to dispose of them.
If there was danger in all this, it was that he was so comfortable in the expensive lounger that he might fall asleep. As his eyelids began to droop, he decided on another square of chocolate and a fresh coffee.
'I am getting drowsy, Wilson. I shall make some more shitty Folgers if you would like.'
'What I'd like,' said the wiry black man, 'is three days in bed with some smoking, cocksuckin' hottie. The first two days, just to sleep.'
'Ah, that way lies madness, Wilson, believe me. I had a wife once. Am much better now in city of the dead being shot at by pirate bitches and fools.'
'Who said anything about a wife?' Wilson asked with real umbrage. It was almost as though Milosz had let slip another nig nog or two. 'I'm talking poo-saay, my friend.'
'Is all the same in end,' said Milosz. 'All the women, they hold out promise of this mythical poo-say, but what you get is nagging and frustration and not so much of the penis gobbling. Being shot at is much more exciting, believe me.'
Wilson eased back from the spotter scope for a moment, looking wistful. 'I hear Texas is the place for a man to live these days. Frontier country again. Your money can buy anything there. New toys, booze, real hotties,' he added significantly.
Milosz squirmed, uncomfortable with the direction of this conversation. 'Are you thinking about going there? My brother and his family, they farm in Texas on the federal program. They do not so much like this Blackstone.'
Wilson pulled back from the scope and shook his head. 'Nah, I hear Mad Jack down there, he's cool with the black man, as long as you served, but he has a god-awful number of redneck cracker assholes gathering to his flag who aren't. I'm looking further ahead, no matter how shitty the short run may be.'
Milosz patted Wilson on the back. 'Good man. Like your famous Gatsby, no? I, too, believe in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. I read your famous books to understand this country, yes? But orgastic? This word I do not know. Explain, please.'
'I think it's a sex thing, maybe,' Wilson said, uncertainly.
He was not much of a reader as far as Milosz had observed.
'Oh, well, then. I am going to get some of that stale and unacceptable coffee now,' Milosz said.
Wilson nodded, taking up the long fifty from Milosz's grip after he had set his own carbine aside. 'Take ten. Get a smoke in while you're at it. No one will smell your nasty Winstons up here.'
Milosz eased himself out of the lounger and stretched, cracking the bones in his back into place. He peered down into the streets leading back toward the East Village, but without the long fifty's thermal scope, there was not much to be seen. Low clouds blocked any natural light, and the rain had doused many of the fires set burning by the day's combat. A few buildings were still aflame here and there, but no fighters moved anywhere near them. They stood out too starkly on the darkened stage of an empty city. Gunships and A-10 Warthogs circled continuously, waiting for just such targets of opportunity.
The Polish commando, so far from his birth home, walked carefully through the apartment, navigating partly by memory, partly by dint of the fact that he and Wilson had pushed most of the furniture up against the walls while they still had daylight. It gave him a clear path back into the kitchen, where he'd set up a little Coleman stove in the sink. He could use it safely back here without fear of the tiny blue flame giving away their position. Milosz brewed two cups of strong coffee and contemplated adding a slug of brandy-the apartment had been furnished with an excellent bar-but it was an idle thought. He had also salvaged a bottle of vodka, which he would enjoy when they came off the line, but for now, he was so sleep-deprived and physically exhausted that a mouthful of alcohol might be the end of him.
The fighting had not ceased completely with the fall of darkness. Both sides enjoyed the advantage of night vision equipment, and a small battle appeared to be raging in the foul weather some ten or fifteen blocks to the north. But the rain had flooded huge tracts of Lower Manhattan, making tactical movement difficult, if not impossible, and the huge brigade-level encounters of the morning had died down as conditions had deteriorated. At first the Americans had been choppering in, right on top of the pirates-or looters, as Milosz insisted on calling them. To him the word 'pirates' sounded a bit too glamorous for the lowest forms of criminal scum, scavengers raking over the junk heap of a dead city. But so many men and helicopters were lost to shoulder-fired rockets that all movement was now either on foot or by armored fighting vehicle, and even they could fall prey to giant bombs hidden at the roadside or in piles of refuse and wreckage. All in all, Milosz was more than happy to sit up here in his well-furnished eyrie, picking off random targets as they presented themselves. A troop of cavalry had his back, securing the lower levels of the building against infiltrators, and the Apaches circling beneath the cloud cover would swoop down on any large group attempting to rush their position. Forward observers even coordinated concentrated bursts of accurate cannon fire from the army and the naval vessels on the East River now. It was such an agreeable setup, all things considered, that it could not possibly last.
He returned with the coffees and a Mars Bar chopped in two with his Gerber knife, a prize from a game of poker with Wilson two weeks back.
Happier times.
The master sergeant leaned forward in his own luxury armchair, pressing his fingers up against the single earpiece of their radio. Milosz, without a headset on, could not hear the exchange.
'This is Gopher one-three,' Wilson said, using the latest in an ever-changing series of call signs. 'Go with your traffic.'
Milosz waited for Wilson to finish his conversation.
'Gopher copies,' Wilson said. 'Out.'
