Roos slipped out of his black sport jacket as he approached the gathering, revealing both a white dress shirt and a nine millimeter handgun. He casually hooked the jacket with one finger and carried it over his shoulder.
"How you boys doin’? You must be Chief Hobbs. Yes, I’ll bet you are."
Roos extended a hand and cocked his head in a cheesy grin.
"That’s right…uh…Mister Director," Hobbs’ hand felt slippery and sticky all at once. "This here’s K’Beel and M’Pwitt, they’re my liaison officers down here." Roos eyed the two aliens. Their pupils glowed yellow. "Hmm…okay. That my ride?" Roos referred to a white and gold Bell LongRanger helicopter in front of the hangar. Hobbs nodded.
Roos walked toward the chopper. The two aliens and Hobbs followed. Roos stopped. He wagged his finger first at Hobbs then the two Witiko. He spoke in a voice that sounded one part friendly, one part friendly warning.
"I’m in charge down here, just so there’s no misunderstandings, see?" He focused on the Witiko. "Besides, you guys do things too subtle-like. Yes you do."
The Witiko glanced at one another. Roos started toward the chopper again, still talking. The Witiko hovered behind, unsure what to do. "I’m gunna show you my idea of subtle. Yessir." Roos held one finger up and moved it in a circle. "Okay now, let’s get this whirlybird in the air, we got work to do." The sun set over Miami. — Gordon finished the top button on a blue silk shirt, thought better, and unclasped it again in deference to June in Miami; despite nightfall the heat showed no sign of abating.
He found a snub-nose. 38 revolver in the top drawer of a white oak dresser, thumbed open the chamber, confirmed a round in every hole, and flipped it into place again with a flick of his wrist. The. 38 slipped nicely into a small holder at the base of his back.
Gordon stroked his mustache and checked for gray. Nothing but black there.
Satisfied with his appearance, Gordon walked from his master bedroom to the wide and bright white living room. Along the way he wrapped two knuckles on the guest room door.
On the other side of that door Nina finished preparations of her own. As Gordon had suggested, she stowed her combat fatigues to better blend with the night crowd on South Beach. So she traded her combat gear for a basic white sun dress with spaghetti straps.
Nina placed one short-heeled shoe on the bed, grabbed a. 380 automatic from atop the mattress, pulled the dress high on her leg revealing a thigh band holster, and eased the pistol into place…
…Gordon’s black BMW 540i sedan made its way through Coral Gables and turned north on Route 1. Nina fidgeted pensively in the passenger’s seat as Gordon pushed hard on the gas pedal, rocketing along the boulevard, switching and swerving between lanes as if purposely adding to her discomfort.
Scattered lights bounced off the windshield, mainly from isolated street lamps, some burning electricity, others from oil. Periodic splashes of pink, yellow, or blue came from neon lights outside trading posts and gathering spots. Of all the cities reborn after Armageddon, Miami felt the most unchanged yet it still seemed strange to her. Yes, mainly empty streets but pockets bursting with color and energy. She wondered, would the old Miami have been even more alien to her?
Prior to the end-of-the-world, the gold coast hosted an eclectic collection of ethnic groups, religions, traditions, and races. The invading aliens turned Miami into a fortress city, in which all those different groups came together for the common defense, joined in that defense by boatloads of Cuban refugees as well as a sizable portion of the Cuban coast guard. The sheer determination of the city’s well-armed residents held the invaders at bay for years until The Empire relieved the pressure.
The gallant fighters of Miami not only embraced The Empire with open arms, they turned their city into one of the largest and most productive in the nation.
Much to her chagrin, Miami also had the distinction of being one of the few metropolitan areas with lots of traffic, a fact emphasized as Gordon swerved along Route 1 at a rapid clip. Not nearly at pre-war levels, of course, but after all the emptiness she had seen around the country, it seemed surreal to pass seven cars in a row.
Truth was, Nina did not like sitting in a car's passenger seat. She could jump out of airplanes, ride in choppers, and fight monsters yet Nina Forest never felt comfortable in a ground vehicle, at least not as a passenger.
The 540i left behind Coral Gables and headed toward Miami proper. As had been the case before Armageddon, the Miami skyline glowed with color; its remaining skyscrapers shined like beacons of steel and light but instead of calling out to tourists and immigrants those lights called out in defiance. This city would not only survive; it refused to lose its identity. But the reminders of battles fought remained.
Nina spied the remains of what a partly shattered sign identified as the "American Airlines Center". While palm trees still lined the sidewalk in front of the modern arena, the circular structure had been torn in two, the front half peeled away like a child’s doll house. The debris from whatever calamity had shredded the facility had long since been hauled away, but squatters lived inside, probably figuring half a house better than none.
Gordon navigated the sedan through a concrete maze of ramps and merges, leaving behind the mainland and rocketing out across Biscayne Bay via the MacArthur Causeway. The lights from downtown shimmied off the water revealing silhouettes of cigarette boats, yachts, and military patrol craft cruising the calm seas.
The causeway ran parallel to the Port of Miami. Most of the port glowed with activity as ships both large and small either arrived from points north or departed from the port to trace the inter-coastal waterway up and down the eastern seaboard.
However, the part of the port that had once been the heart of the cruise industry lay dormant, like a graveyard. The stern of the Norwegian Sun stood in the waters there, its silent turbines pointing toward the stars. The rest of its 78,000 tonnage had long ago splintered and jammed into the harbor depths. The even-larger Royal Caribbean Navigator of the Seas listed to port further long, its windows and hull burnt black.
Nina gaped at the massive ships, once mighty symbols of man’s power to sail the seas, now sitting idle as symbols of the limits to that power.
The 540i followed the causeway as it swooped into Miami Beach…
…High above downtown, a white and gold LongRanger police helicopter flew amidst the skyscrapers unaware of the sedan below.
Ray Roos sat alongside the pilot holding a pen light. He lifted his eyes from a clipboard to survey the city. It felt good to be out on the streets. He had spent too much of his post-Armageddon time listening, snooping, playacting, and waiting. He wanted to be doing; getting things done more directly. And now he had the power to do things how he saw fit.
Being his first visit to Miami, Roos intended to get a feel of the city from above. It did not take him long to dislike the place. Too many people-more so than even post-Armageddon New York or Boston-and they were too laid back. Roos did not like laid back. Laid back people were harder to motivate, even with threats.
Too many lights, too. What were these people thinking? Why not put a big sign out front that said, "Come squash us!"
Roos shook his head disapprovingly.
This city needs an attitude adjustment. "Uh, Chopper 1 this is downtown, you copy?" Ray clicked the button on his transmitter. "Yeah, Hobbs, what you got for me?"
The helicopter banked right and headed east, following the same circle pattern for the last half hour. The entire bird vibrated with the running of the rotors. "I’ve got Ernie Cordera." Roos’ discomfort with the city surfaced as agitation in his voice. "Yeah? So what? What’s his connection to Forest?" "No connection to Forest." Ray shook his head in even greater agitation and tapped his thumb impatiently on his leg. "You know I don’t like to waste time. Yes, you know that." "The connection is to Gordon Knox. Cordera is an I.S. officer supervising a tambourine monitoring station down here."