He tried not to dwell on it. Phil had told him that giving the speech out in the middle of Clark would look fantastic on TV. He didn’t need the banner. “It’s a hell of an image,” Phil had said. “You in the middle of the goddamn street, with City Hall all lit up behind you. Now’s that’s a fucking shot.”
Phil had only written a ten-minute speech. They’d been planning on plenty of government officials wanting to share the spotlight, lined up to lap at the trough of success and show their face to the media. But nobody else had the balls to show up. Those assholes in the CDC. And the rest of the feds, shit, they’d pulled out at least half, maybe more, of the soldiers. And good riddance, as far as Lee was concerned. Every time you turned on the TV, all you got were those endless shots of the hazmat suits going underground, the soldiers standing around behind the sandbags, with blank expressions as they rode around on the top of those tank things.
In a way, Lee was glad nobody else had showed up to give any other speeches. He didn’t have to share the spotlight with anyone. It made the whole thing that much more fucking dramatic. Like it was just him, the only politician who cared about his city, his people. His face would be on the front of newspapers. He had been building to this moment his whole life, practicing in front of the mirror, answering all those shouted questions amidst the dazzling flashes.
And let’s face it, the only people who mattered at a press conference were the media. Especially the TV folks. Nobody read newspapers anymore. So when Lee decided it was time to get to the questions, he would start calling on them by name. He’d gotten to the end of Phil’s speech a while ago, but since the spotlight was on Lee and Lee alone, he had simply kept going. The spirit of the situation had moved him, and he was giving the people what they wanted. His words would inspire the citizens of Chicago. His words would give them hope.
Phil, the asshole, had been walking behind the cameras, making increasingly violent gestures to wrap it up.
It figured. Here was Lee’s chance to seize the moment, to spin the entire pandemic in his favor, and Phil wanted him to quit. Sometimes Lee wondered if Phil was a little jealous of his looks, of his success.
Kimmy was still standing next to Lee at the podium, still smiling, still keeping her brat under control, but he could tell she was getting tired of his speech. Bitch.
He was right in the middle of telling an utterly bullshit story about when he was a young boy on the family farm, and his grandfather was gently explaining the realities about the circle of life, when a deep BOOM reverberated through the streets and a sudden wind kicked up the dust and smoke almost as bad as all the choppers.
Lee stopped talking for a moment and wiped at his eyes, trying to dig the grit out of them. He couldn’t help himself and patted his hair, just to make sure it hadn’t been affected. Then, to camouflage the gesture, he touched his ear, as if he had a hidden receiver. “Ladies and gentlemen, please remain calm. It is unclear at this time what we have just experienced, but I am being told that it is nothing to worry about.”
Phil was making angry slashing motions across his throat, but Lee ignored him and plunged ahead with his story. “As I was saying, my grandfather was a wise, wise man. He—”
Someone’s phone rang. One of the reporters answered it. Her hand went to the round oval of her mouth. She looked to her fellow reporters and said, “Soldier Field just exploded.”
Lee said into the microphone, “We have no confirmed reports at this time. I think we should all stay put until we receive some kind of confirmation or something. . . .”
But the media people weren’t listening. Everyone was packing up, hoping to get to Grant Park and get a shot of the devastation.
The Apache pilots asked no questions. No matter how they felt about the explosion at Soldier Field, they had orders. Both of them regrouped in the turbulent skies above Chicago, then dove back down, using their FLIR systems to zero in on the ambulance. One of the gunners had everything lined up, both he and the pilot watching a bobbing, bright white vehicle in a high-res sea of green of the forward-looking infrared system. The images were projected directly into a monocular lens attached the pilots’ helmets. Aiming was achieved by simply moving their heads as they followed the target. The crosshairs smoothly tracked the ambulance, bouncing a laser off the target to guide the Hellfire missiles.
The gunners wanted to simply unleash hell on Tommy Krazinsky, whoever the hell he was, carpet-bombing the streets with everything they had, but the pilots had been given strict instructions to merely locate the target, and nothing else. And nobody wanted to defy Dr. Reischtal’s orders.
So they roared back down into the concrete and steel valleys, following the ninety-degree grid pattern of the streets and blocks, until they spotted the ambulance, and gave his location to the Strykers. “Target is fleeing up South Plymouth Court, on the east side of the library. Disable vehicle. Keep damage to target to an absolute minimum.”
The Strykers responded, “Affirmative. Six, two, out.”
As the Strykers rammed their way down parallel streets to cut Tommy off, both choppers noticed activity in the FLIR systems. A flailing mass of bodies spewed out of some of the buildings. The sea green screens flared with spastic, violent movement.
“That . . . that ain’t our guys,” one of the gunners said.
The pilots pulled back, and the rotors slapped against the humid, smoky air, dragging the choppers above the buildings to get a better view. All along the path of the ambulance, the streets were coming alive with lurching, running figures, as if Tommy was some kind of Pied Piper, calling to the infected.
“Strykers, six, two, be advised that we’re catching a lot of civilian, ah . . . activity down there. Movement right now is confined to target’s path.”
The lead Stryker’s reply was brief. “Fuck ’em. Estimate contact with target in less than ten seconds.”
Tommy didn’t see the Stryker come up on his passenger side out of the darkness of East Van Buren until it was too late to stop. He hit the gas instead, trying to outleap the Stryker the way a gazelle would strain in slow motion against the outstretched fury of a lioness’s leap.
They had decided to ram the vehicle, instead of trying to shoot out the tires. If they missed and hit the driver, there was no telling how Dr. Reischtal might retaliate. He might even order one of the Apaches to take out the Strykers.
The ambulance almost made it through the trap unscathed. The edge of the Stryker’s front wedge kissed the ambulance’s back bumper, sending the lighter vehicle sideways across the intersection. The ambulance skidded into a line of parked cars, bounced a little, and came to rest backwards against the northwest traffic light.
The Stryker smashed through the El station stairs and crunched through hundred-year-old bricks in the dark building across the street. After a moment, the tires began to spin in reverse, as the driver tried to back out of the rubble.
That gave Tommy an idea and he jerked the gearshift into reverse and hit the gas.
He backed up until he hit Jackson, then spun around and took off. The searchlights followed. He took a left down Dearborn, bouncing over sandbags and taking off once he was clear. The ambulance’s engine strained and whined like an old man trying to pass a kidney stone as Tommy pushed his foot to the floor.
Headlights flashed behind him, coming fast. Another goddamn Stryker.
Tommy was so busy watching the Stryker behind him that he missed the second one popping out of LaSalle to his right. The front wedge smashed into the passenger door and the center of gravity shifted inside the ambulance. He had one moment of clarity when he realized he was glad he was wearing his seat belt. The road spun and the air was suddenly full of crap from the floor and his seat threw him at the steering wheel. The ambulance jolted under him, around him, and whipped around like an unlicensed carnival roller coaster.