But the air strikes were serving one part of an overall strategy. They were, meant not to destroy the entire SAM wall, but simply to poke a few holes in it…
Chapter Twenty-three
It was the last night of the full moon and the yellow lunar glare threw a freakish light and shadow display across the battle-scarred skyline of Manhattan. About half the island's skyscrapers still had working lights, some were even equipped with large searchlights on the roofs. Many bristled with machineguns, rocket launchers and heavy artillery pieces' on their top floors, where they could be easily positioned to fire at enemies in any direction and any number of blocks away.
Other tall buildings were dark, burnt-out skeletons of twisted metal and dangling concrete. Nearly four years of sustained warfare had turned downtown New York City into a bizarre urban battleground.
It was a war of territory that was being fought not only on the streets but in the skyscrapers. There were as many as a hundred different groups formed after the original combatants — the National Guards of New York and New Jersey — had fought themselves to a standstill a few years before. With the break-up of these two armies, other smaller militias proliferated. Street gangs, organized crime families, religious fanatics, even Nazis operated in the dense urban sprawl. Not a day went by when one faction was not fighting another. And frequently, groups of different factions would join together to battle a common enemy only to fight each other at some point down the line.
What was everyone fighting for?
Gold. There was plenty of it floating around the city. New York had become the ultimate Black Market, its main occupation was trafficking in dangerous and hard-to-get items. With enough money and the right contacts, anyone could buy anything — from a pound of cocaine to a thousand M-16s to a small tactical nuclear weapon — in New York City. But to make it work, ships had to dock, bridges had to work, streets had to be secured, protection had to be provided.
This meant territory had to be conquered — property in midtown and down by the East and West Rivers was at a deadly premium — and the best way to hold an area was to utilize the buildings contained within it.
So the measure of power in New Order Manhattan was how many skyscrapers your groups held, where they were located and how tall they were. Some smaller group held just one or two skyscrapers. ' Others claimed dozens of buildings as their own, fortress-like blocks of territory and power. Most of the fighting was done between one group seeking to take over another's skyscraper.
A key 'scraper on a key block of buildings meant more money into the coffers of the turf masters — payment for passing through. Also, the taller a building, the better line of sight and, therefore, fire one had. The fight for turf was just not concentrated on level areas but had evolved to vertical conquests as well.
The balance of power shifted daily.
One group's attack on another's skyscraper could be compared to the great ocean battles fought in the 17th and 18th centuries between the navies of Great Britain and Spain. First the enemy would maneuver as close as possible to its intended prey, moving guns in and out of the many abandoned downtown sky-scrapers. Then, when their position was right, the attacker would put guns in every floor possible and blast away at the desired prize. The defenders would inevitably fire back, leaving the two buildings to pound each other like two man o' wars.
Once it was determined that the target building was sufficiently softened up, the attacking troops would move in. Some were experienced ground fighters, others earned their keep by scaling the sides of buildings like human flies, leading attacks to the higher floors. The outcome could take days or even weeks to be determined — rarely was a takeover bid successful without many bloody hours of floor-to-floor, room-to-room fighting.
Like magnets to steel, Manhattan attracted every sort of low-life, criminal and soldier-for-hire. It was a place so dangerous, even The Circle had decided to leave the New Yorkers to their own devices, for the time being, at least.
In fact, The Circle found it very convenient to deal with the New York power brokers — many top-shelf combat weapons systems, technologies and ammunition were bought by Viktor's minions sent to Manhattan with bags of gold and promises of more. Not surprisingly, the city was also crawling with leftover Mid-Aks, air pirates, Family members, Russians and other representatives from "eastern" European countries.
And somewhere in the morass lay the fifth black box.
Punk 78 and Iron Man were two soldiers in the Power Systems Sector. Theirs was one of the top five largest groups in Manhattan — its territory stretched from the southeast corner of the obliterated Central Park to Park Avenue and down to the border of 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. Along with the The Wheels, The Corporate Cats, Maximum Army Inc, and The House of David, Power Systems ruled the very profitable center of Manhattan. That there was a perpetual war going on between the five groups had little or no bearing on the huge profits they reaped. Battles or not, each group pulled in hundreds, if not thousands of pounds of gold and real silver each week as a result of their various gun-running, drug-pushing, protection and prostitution enterprises.
On this particular night, Punk 78 and Iron Man were serving as lookouts. They were stationed on top of a 'scraper on Madison Avenue, near East 52nd Street.
Just a few blocks away, a battle royal was raging between the CorpCats and MaxArmy Inc. The two groups, deadly enemies despite their common border along the Avenue of the Americas, were blasting away at each other along adjacent buildings near the old Rockefeller Center. The flash of the artillery and the glare of rocket fire brilliantly lit up the night sky. The PSS soldiers were watching the engagement with glee.
The more these two mortal enemies battered each other, all the better for Power Systems. The job of Punk 78 and Iron Man was to report the outcome of the battle to their superiors, The Chairmen, as soon as it was decided.
Iron Man was about to break open the pair's second bottle of crack juice when something caught his eye high above the 55-story 'scraper where they were stationed.
"What the fuck was that?" he yelled to 78 over the noise of the battle a few blocks away.
Punk looked up from his infra-red NightScope. "What the fuck was what!" he yelled back, grabbing the bottle from Iron Man.
"I don't know," Iron Man replied. "A Hash of light in the sky. Strange looking."
"Yen," Punk '78 spat out, swigging the crude cocaine-derivative liquid.
"You're the only thing that's strange looking around here."
The Punk turned his attention back to the Night-Scope and did a long sweep of the city. There were some heavy duty fireworks up around West 83rd Street — probably The Yankee Machine and the Zebras, two of the smaller militias, punching it out. A section of Central Park up near the lake was blazing like a forest fire. Turning east he spotted a battle between two unknown groups around the Queensboro Bridge. Looking south, the nightly pall of smoke was rising from Times Square, but nothing much was happening toward Wall Street.
No doubt the battle between the CorpCats and MaxArmy Inc. was the best show in town tonight, and Punk 78 turned back to see what he'd missed. "Jesus Christ will you look at that!" he yelled. "Those guys are using incendiary mortars, flamethrowers, 88s, the works on each other! We haven't seen a rumble like this in months…"
He turned to get the crack juice from Iron Man, but found his companion was nowhere to be seen. In his place stood a man, dressed in black, wearing a flight helmet with the visor pulled down. He was pointing an M-16 right at the Punk's nose.
"Hey, who the fuck are…" Punk yelled at the stranger. But before he could spit it all out, he felt the stranger's heavy boot crash into his right cheekbone. Punk 78 went reeling across the tar-and-stone roof of the 'scraper, losing his .357 Magnum in the tumble. The stranger retrieved it, then lifted him up and forced him halfway over the edge of the building.