Kipper sat between Jed and Colonel Mike Ralls, who had changed out of his dress greens and into the standard fatigues of the U.S. Army. He looked a lot more comfortable than Kipper felt as the aide used a smartboard to provide a running commentary on the engagement.
"The Second Marine Expeditionary Brigade has established their blocking positions to east of Rockefeller," Ralls said. "The One hundred first is inbound."
Kipper rubbed his forehead, which was aching a little. He was dreading what the day would bring. There was no ignoring the fact that he'd ordered the destruction of a huge part of the city, something he'd once promised himself he would not do. Homes, businesses, streets, churches, memories. All would be gone. He built such things, helped provide water, power, and other service to homes just like that. New York City wasn't his town by any means, but the destruction still offended him.
The shattered, faceless female soldier in the hospital offended him more, however.
"Mister President?" Another aide stepped through the door. Their numbers had suddenly metastasized like the dancing brooms in that old Mickey Mouse film.
"Yes?"
"Colonel Kinninmore reports that the last of the resistance at the old library has been neutralized and he's transferred the bulk of his forces there to reinforce the cordon around Rockefeller Center. G2 is estimating the bulk of the enemy have dug themselves in there now."
"Good," Kip said. "Copy that," Lieutenant Colonel Alois Kinninmore replied, handing the phone back to an aide. It had been a long time since anything had surprised the cavalry commander, but his new orders did. Finally, he thought. The end is coming.
He walked over to the map of Manhattan that covered half a wall inside 1/7 Cav's latest tactical operations center in the small, ravaged wasteland of the park behind the New York Public Library. Thick columns of smoke poured from the upper floor of the building, and the last time he'd stepped outside his command Bradley, he could even see flames through one or two windows. A small and miserable-looking band of prisoners from that fight were still sitting on the muddy ground in the rain at the rear of the library, being guarded by a squad of resentful militia.
Kinninmore was flanked right and left by liaison officers from the 101st and the Marine RCTs who were tasked with backstopping his push toward the enemy.
"Gentlemen," he said. "That was General Murphy at Fort Lewis. The president has authorized us to proceed."
"About goddamn time," the marine growled.
Major Holt, Kinninmore's XO, pulled a printout from the fax. "Do you want me to execute this fire mission Colonel?"
"Affirmative," Kinninmore said. "Forward that to fire support for immediate action."
"All the bridges, sir?" Major Holt asked. "Won't we need them to press into Brooklyn and Queens?"
"Rules have changed, Major. We're fighting to win now. That's the extent of our new rules of engagement."
Realization dawned on Holt's face. "Sergeant Cathey, send this fire mission ASAP."
Kinninmore picked up his helmet and retrieved his personal weapon. He turned to his colleagues from the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Airborne Division. "Gentlemen, I'm going forward. Care to join me?" Governors Island had reverted to a natural prehuman state in the four years since the Wave had swept over it. After the pollution storms, only the hardiest trees had flourished, their roots and trunks shrouded by the rapid growth of underbrush and weeds-until the U.S. Army arrived and began returning the island to its earlier role: a fort. The gun bunnies of 1/5 Field Artillery and the Sixth Field Artillery dug themselves into the fields around Fort Jay, establishing Firebase Euler, home to the long guns, heavy mortars, and rocket batteries that had chopped down wave after wave of pirates, insurgents, and freebooters inside the city. The island also housed the core of the local civilian administration, run by the appointed governor, Elliott Schimmel, and protected by a battalion of troops from Schimmel's irregulars-now reduced to a mere company by the need to reinforce the army on the main island.
Governor Schimmel was a New York native, an historian who had been guest lecturing in Japan back in March 2003. From the battlements of Fort Jay he watched the skyline of his city shrouded in dark oily smoke, an ungovernable rage churning in his innards.
"Governor Schimmel?" one of his officers called over to him. "I just got word from the firebase commander."
"Any news of resupply?"
"Yes, sir," the officer replied. "It is coming now. ETA twenty minutes. But what I wanted to tell you, sir, is that they're going to blow the bridges."
"What?" Schimmel roared, turning on his underling.
Before he could say another word, the 155-mm howitzers barked into the dawn. The metal-on-metal crash of the guns spit their ordnance out toward Long Island. Metal boxes on tank tracks swiveled until they, too, were facing Brooklyn and Queens. Stacks of fresh ammunition for the multiple rocket launch system sat a safe distance away, ready for use.
No, Schimmel thought. Not the bridges. The president had promised him they would not do this. Not to his city.
He jumped a few inches when the first missile shrieked into the sky, ripping at the very fabric of the morning. Others followed immediately, filling the firebase with white acrid smoke.
In the distance he heard the first rumble of thunder as the high-explosive shells began to pound his precious bridges into scrap.
Manhattan was being cut off, and all who stood on it without the say-so of the American people would soon have no choice but to surrender their liberty or their lives. Having gathered another thirty troops along the way, Colonel Alois Kinninmore arrived at Fifth Avenue and West 48th Street, where the sharp end of the U.S. Army's Seventh Cavalry Regimental Combat Team was located. To say the cavalry was assembled at the intersection would be to gloss over the reality. The wounded streamed south down Fifth Avenue toward aid stations set up in the shells of once-fashionable shops. A murderous stream of tracers poured into the cross streets from the 1930s Depression era concrete skyscrapers that made up Rockefeller Center. Kinninmore and his scratch team of marines, militia, and soldiers kept their heads down and their weapons up and edged along the walls, mindful that there was no safe place to be found.
"Colonel!" someone shouted from a cluster of troops right at the edge of the fighting. "Have you lost your fucking mind?"
Kinninmore grinned. "No, but I lost my sense of humor around Forty-second Street."
The soldier ran over to Kinninmore, mindful of the tracer fire hosing down the intersection. Captain Frankowski didn't bother to salute his commanding officer. No one needed a sniper to know that he was around.
"Pretty fucking sporty up here, sir," Frankowski said. "If you don't mind my saying."
"I don't," Kinninmore replied. "Status?"
Frankowski turned and gestured toward Rockefeller Center. "We're hung up on these fucking scrapers. Depression-era shit built with old-fashioned concrete, rebar, and probably more than a few bodies courtesy of the mob. No good estimate on effective combatants, but they've set it up as a strongpoint with good intersecting fields of fire. I think we're gonna find almost all of them in there, Colonel. It's a great defensive position."