“Jack, guard the internal entrance, Rick, keep watch on the court.” I turned to Morgan. “What do you mean our fault?”
“They asked for you specifically. We were targeted because you were here. If I’d only listened to my conscience when you showed up. I knew you were trouble.”
“What did you tell them?” I said.
“That you were here, but they already knew that.”
“How did they know?” Jack said.
“They said they’d been watching us since yesterday and caught one of our scavenging teams this morning. What’s the difference? They knew.”
He bitterly emphasized the last two words. Whether they knew our location or not, I doubted it would have made a difference to the overall plan. He glared at me like he’d found a piece of shit on the bottom of his brown tassel shoes.
“Anything else?” I asked, resisting the urge to slam my rifle in his face.
“Some came on boats. I heard them mention a rendezvous back at the marina.”
Jack bolted over and grabbed Morgan’s collar. “Which marina? Where?”
“How should I know? Get your hands off me, you asshole.”
I ignored his unoriginal insult. I never went for this whole north–south divide. A lot of my friends in the Army lived in the south of England, and I loved vesting London. Greatest city on Earth in my opinion—or it had been.
“You’re coming with us, Morgan—grab a rifle,” I said and cut loose the bonds behind his back.
He caressed the red marks around his wrist. “Where are we going?”
“The marina at Flushing Bay.”
“You’ve got to be joking!”
“I’m struggling to find anything funny.”
Morgan guided us to his personal arms store, a formal office like Harris’s orientation room. He took a rifle and pistol from a locked cabinet. The rest of us topped up our mags and grabbed a Glock each. I found a small collection of tasers and slipped one into my back pocket.
For the second time, we headed back toward the marina, this time moving between the trees that lined Shea Road, keeping Citi Field to our right. Our pace quickened after an extended rattle of gunfire to our front. I ran under Northern Boulevard, stopping a hundred yards short of the launch point, and scanned the secured boats.
“We can’t just go running in there,” Morgan said.
“They didn’t all come on boats,” I said. “We saw a black Range Rover earlier.”
Footsteps thumped along the ground. Two men dressed in black jogged along the Flushing Promenade toward the marina.
Both checked their stride to a slow walk within fifty yards of the marina and shouldered their rifles.
Rick dropped to the prone firing position and adjusted his sights. “I can take them from this range.”
I dropped next to him and remembered the marksmanship principles taught to me in the Army: No snatching. Relax. Make every shot count.
The goons collapsed after being hit by our collective broadside. One must have instinctively pulled his trigger as he went down and wildly sprayed bullets into the clear blue sky.
I felt we were making progress. Five of them dead in the space of an hour. I checked my watch to see how much natural light we had left. Quarter past three in the afternoon. A good few hours. After receiving a knock to my confidence earlier today, I felt it building again.
“Everybody down!” Jack shouted.
I spun around. Thirty yards away, a man with a pistol ducked behind a tree.
“Drop your weapon and come out with your hands up,” I said.
“I’m here to help you. I heard the gunshots,” a voice called back.
“Who are you?” Jack asked.
He thrust out a spread hand. “I was at Flushing Meadows with you. Saw what you did back there.”
“Do you know me?” Morgan asked.
He peered around the tree and focused on Morgan. “’Course I do.”
“Come out where I can see you,” Morgan said. “I interviewed every member of the company. I never forget a face.”
“Wait,” I said and turned to him. “You’re not calling the shots anymore.”
“You seem to be forgetting that I got off the same plane as you and led a group to a supermarket before taking over an entire stadium. What have you done besides fuck things up?”
I was about to reply when the man edged from behind the tree. He held his pistol in the air. Something about him didn’t look right. He looked like he hadn’t washed for days, and his neutral expression unnerved me.
“Whatever’s going down,” he said. “I think you could use an extra pair of hands.”
Jack circled around his side. “Drop your gun.”
“Not sure I recognize you,” Morgan said. “Did you work in logistics?”
The man continued toward Morgan and passed Rick, who leaned against a tree. He quickly lowered his gun and fired into the side of Rick’s head. A thin spray of blood speckled my face. I instinctively raised my rifle and pulled the trigger. Jack fired too and the man toppled backward by the force of the impacts.
Rick slumped against the tree trunk. The man lay a few yards away, with small chunks of blood, brain, and skull sprayed beyond him. Morgan clutched his rifle to his chest and looked back and forth from me to Jack.
“You fucking idiot!” Jack said.
I pulled Rick over. His bloodshot eyes stared vacantly to the sky.
“How was I to know?” Morgan asked.
“Because you got off the same plane as us,” Jack said.
Jack lunged toward Morgan. I grabbed his arm. “There’s nothing we can do here. Let’s get to the marina, but it’s our way now. Morgan, you got that?”
Jack shook his head toward the marina.
I made a visual sweep of the area before deciding to head for a boat. “We need to stay mobile. After all that shooting, everyone in the area knows exactly where we are.”
We moved with stealth toward the marina. Jack led the way, followed by Morgan, who thankfully kept quiet. He did have experience leading groups after the first activation. I’d never doubted his organizational skills or fondness for giving orders. The success at Flushing Meadows in such a relatively short period of time was impressive. I would still trade a hundred Morgans for one Rick, who’d had a heart of gold. I felt his loss deeply.
Jack quickened his pace as we reached the deserted marina, and headed for a small silver powerboat. I could understand his concern and hoped Harris would be capable of dealing with any GA threat.
“What if the hostiles find us?” Morgan said.
“What do you think?” I said. “Shoot the buggers.”
We couldn’t find a key after searching the boat, so we continued along the marina. Jack had an air of panic about him. His head darted in all directions as he ransacked his way through a white cruiser, throwing around any loose object he could get his hands on.
Morgan discovered a six-berth cruiser, with a pair of maggot-infested corpses entangled in a strange embrace on the back decking. Holding my breath, I fumbled through their pockets, searching for any keys.
Morgan burst through the cabin doors and rattled a bunch. “On the table inside.”
Jack and I rolled the corpses overboard and released the ropes from the mooring. Morgan sat in the elevated driver’s seat and inserted the key. The engine spluttered a few times and rumbled into life.
“I had one of these for a week on Lake Geneva,” Morgan said.
“Shut the fuck up and head for the river,” Jack said. “Keep an eye out for Harris’s boat.”
Morgan shook his head and pushed the throttle. Our boat cut through the glinting dark water, away from the jetty. He steered between a couple of stray pleasure boats toward the entrance. I turned to watch how quickly our wake vanished.