Escape From New York (21 page)

“Beat it.”

They were coming near the hallway’s end. Those damnable stairs again. Brain was still there, whining like a baby.

“You gotta take us with you.”

“Shouldn’t have double-crossed me again, Brain ” he said, and somewhere, way back in his mind, a flash of realization hit him like a dose of tear gas in the face. He held up the President’s wrist to look at the dangling handcuff. The briefcase was gone.

He stared wordlessly at Harker.

“He shot it off,” the man said meekly.

“The tape?”

Harker shook his little cue ball head. “Gone,” he simpered. “I don’t know where.”

“I do,” Maggie said quietly.

Plissken turned to stare at her. “You’re lying,” he spat.

Brain jumped right in, laying his hands on Plissken’s forearm. “No lie, Snake. No lie! Take you right to it”

Plissken jerked away from Hellman’s grasp. “You’d better be on the level this time,” was all he said, then started down the stairs.

Snake Plissken didn’t even remember the walk down. He had pushed way beyond his physical limitations and was simply moving on automatic. It seemed to him that his mind and his body had made a deal using the countdown watch on his arm. The deal was: if you let us forget about the pain, we’ll keep you moving for another hour or so. It seemed fair enough to the Snake, especially when he considered the alternatives.

When they came out in the lobby, nearly everyone else seemed to be in worse shape than him. Hellman was puffing wildly, unable to get his breath.

“Shit,” he said. “Oh shit . . .”

“Don’t talk,” Maggie said, helping him support his weight. “Breathe.”

Plissken looked at his watch. It read: 1:00:20. His body reminded his brain that there was still some time left.

“I’m tryin’,” Hellman said, but he was still gasping.

The President wasn’t tired. He understood the value of saving his bacon. “Come on,” he said. “We’re wasting time.”

Plissken was already at the car. He hurried inside and put the key in the ignition. Nothing. Not even a cough.

“It’s dead,” he told them when they came up to his window.

He got out of the car. Brain rushed to the hood and threw it open. A Gypsy with a crossbow popped out like a jack-in-the-box. The whole motor was gone out of the thing.

“Car trouble?” came a voice.

They turned to the darkness, and torches came up bright. The Duke was there, smiling at them. He was sitting on top of the steam engine that had been under the hood. Reaching down, he patted the thing, his fingers dancing obscenely on the steam release valve before coming back up to the rifle on his lap.

“Can’t trust these steam engines,” the man said. “They always let you down. Isn’t that right, Brain.”

Hellman took a step toward him, and Plissken slipped his hand onto the pistol in his pocket. Almost as if Brain sensed that, he stopped walking, midway between the rock and the hard place. “This ain’t my idea, Duke,” he said.

The Duke looked sympathetic. “I know, Brain. I understand.” He turned his attention to Plissken, shaking his head. “I saw your glider in the street. All these airplanes falling around here, it’s not safe to walk anymore.”

Climbing off the engine, the Duke stood upright and settled the rifle onto his shoulder. “This whole deal of yours is over now. Snake,” he said casually. “You and Brain just say goodbye to each other. Mister President and the lovely lady, just step out of the way.”

He squinted his eye to aim and Plissken moved. Ripping the automatic out of his pocket, he fired twice, quickly, from the hip. The bullets exploded on the engine block next to the Duke. One hit the steam valve, a hot geyser spraying up in the Duke’s face.

He screamed, dropping the rifle to cover his face. The steam billowed quickly, engulfing all the Gypsies. Maggie turned and slammed the hood down on the man beneath it. He groaned and fell, and the four of them took off running.

They were out the door, Gypsies regrouping quickly behind them. They hit the night-shrouded streets, and turned to run. Then Plissken heard the sounds, the familiar twang:

“Got the time for . . .

gettin’ even . . .”

Cabbie screeched around a corner, headlights on high beam, face grinning crazily. He jerked to a quick stop right beside them. The Gypsies were out the door, the Duke’s face burned and bloody from the hot steam.

They hurried into the cab, the Snake shoving Cabbie over to take the wheel himself. Hellman also got in the front. Plissken took off, tires spinning on the concrete before grabbing and pulling.

Plissken checked the rear view. Behind them, in the distance, four sets of headlights were in pursuit.

Hellman fumbled the diagram out of Plissken’s pocket. Opening it up, he turned on the inside light. Leaning across Cabbie, he shoved it in Plissken’s face.

“Got the time for . . .

gettin’ even . . .”

“Couldn’t let you down. Snake,” Cabbie was saying, shaking his head. “I just had to come back. Had to come back.”

“They’re gaining on us,” Maggie said from the back seat.

Hellman kept talking, shoving that damned paper in the Snake’s face, while he tried to see over the top of the thing to drive.

“You got three mines right here. And then a few yards, and then three more . . .”

Plissken slapped his hand away, then grabbed the cassette out of the tape deck. He threw it down.

“Hey,” Cabbie said. “That’s valuable.”

“They come in waves of three,” Brain said.

Plissken looked angrily at him. “Where’s the tape, Brain?”

Hellman smiled weakly. “The . . . tape. Oh, yeah.”

“Where is it?”

“What tape?” Cabbie asked.

Maggie leaned forward and put a hand on Cabbie’s shoulder. “The tape that you traded Romero your hat for,” she said.

“From the briefcase,” the President called.

Cabbie’s eyes lit up, and the corners of his mouth tried to touch his earlobes. “Oh,” he said like some East Indian guru.
“That
tape.” He reached down into his stack and handed it to the Snake. “Here you go. I thought that I had gotten ripped off when I tried to . . .”

Plissken stuffed the tape into the deck and listened. A man’s voice began talking.

“The discovery that tritium creates only 1/1,000,000 of the biological damage of the Iodine 131, now makes it possible to begin thermonuclear fusion . . .”

The Snake snatched the tape back out of the machine and stuck it in his pocket. That’s all they needed—radioactivity on top of all their other problems. The President leaned forward from the back.

“I’ll take that now,” he said, holding out his hand.

Plissken looked at his watch. He had another half-hour left on Earth. “Not just yet,” he said. “Not quite.”

THE BRIDGE

0:23:24, :23. :22 . . .

They came up on the bridge from underneath. It crossed above the East River Drive in a beehive of girders and pilings before taking on the river. They eased off the road and Plissken turned into the center of the web of girders, stopping on the other side of some big ones. He cut the lights.

“Come on,” the President said. “Come on!”

“Take it easy, Mister President,” Plissken said without looking at the man. “You in a hurry or something?”

They saw the headlights of the pursuit, then heard the roar of the engines. They were coming through the girder forest, too. The Snake waited until the lead car, the Duke’s Cadillac, got right up on them. Then he pulled on the lights and leaned heavily on the horn.

The car slammed on the brakes, and the one behind plowed right into it. The third car smashed into the second with the cry of rending metal. The fourth car fishtailed, backending a girder in a shower of sparks.

Plissken hit the gas and the gears at the same time and took off. Cat and mouse in the girders seemed like the thing to do. He decided to play some more.

He checked the rear view. The Duke’s car and the last car had manged to get themselves going again and were back chasing them. The other two were done for.

Pulling around another set of girders, Plissken did the same thing. The Duke’s car was coming, moving cautiously this time. The other car was right behind. Plissken let the Duke pass, then took off again, smashing into the front end of the other car, spinning it away into the pilings.

The Duke was not to be denied. That’s what made him Duke. He wheeled around and was behind them again, billowing dust drifting foglike in his headlights.

Plissken gave it all. Wheeling a corner, he smashed through several barricades, showering wood and splinters back at the windshield. He was on the underpass, rolling up to the bridge.

The Duke came on him, tracing his path, and when Plissken reached the bridge above, he could see the other’s headlights speeding up the ramp.

Plissken stopped and looked across the span of steel and concrete. It was partially lit by searchlights set into the wall that rose up from it on the other side. The light was stark white, bleached. The bridge was a battlefield, charted and blackened from previous escape attempts. It was littered with large concrete chunks and the burned-out shells of cars that didn’t make it through the mine field. Large metal spikes were set in rows and spaced along the length of the bridge, the steelpointy teeth in the mouth of destruction. A large mound of dirt, all that remained of the first barricade, sat directly in front of them.

Plissken took a breath. He heard the sound of the Duke’s engine whining up behind them. Locking his hands on the steering wheel, he gunned the motor.

“Easy!” Cabbie yelled. “My cab!”

The car moved, winding out, and they hit the barricade at full speed, flopping over the top to slam down hard on the other side. Everyone grunted with the jolt; Cabbie began moaning softly.

Plissken was off. The bridge was a nightmare of twists and turns. He went as fast as he dared, steering around the obstacles that blocked him off. It was easy at first, the mine fields being defined by the dead cars that found them the quick way. The farther along, the more difficult it became. There was a noise behind them. The Duke had jumped the barricade and was hurrying to catch up.

Hellman held the diagram out in front of him, desperately scanning its face with a moving finger.

“You gotta slow down, Snake,” Cabbie kept saying. “Don’t hurt my baby.”

Hellman was pointing frantically at the paper. “I think there’s three mines ahead . . .”

“You
think?
” Maggie said from the back seat.

Brain waved her off. “Just stay to the left, then jog right”

There was very little room anywhere. Abutments and latticed railings defined the outer edges, much of that already blown away. He skimmed the left, barely scraping the cement limits, knocking loosened bridge pieces over the edge.

Cabbie was reaching for the wheel, trying to take control of the car. “You’re pushin’ her too hard!” he yelled.

Plissken shoved him aside and looked quickly at his watch. He had ten and a half minutes left until his appointment with Death.

The car barricades had thinned to nothing, virgin territory. There were fewer holes in the bridge fabric, but more spikes. Hellman tried to hold back the cabbie and read the map at the same time.

“Okay,” he said quickly. “Here they come.”

The headlights reflected rows of spikes and an overturned pole coming right at them. Plissken hit the brakes and swerved around them. Cabbie was screaming.

Suddenly—a roar. The cab was lifted from behind with the force of a mine explosion. They skidded, out of control, into the side of the bridge, then bounced back, turning in circles. Finally, they shuddered to a stop. The cab was done for.

“Out of the car!” Plissken yelled, and they were piling out the doors.

“I said jog
right,”
Hellman kept saying.

Cabbie wasn’t getting out of the car. Plissken leaned in to him. The man sat there, huge grin on his face, dead in the seat. Not a mark on him. His car was all he had. When it died, he must have decided to go with it. The Snake tousled the dead man’s hair, then let him slump against the dashboard. It was the best coffin that Cabbie could ask for.

Plissken turned to look down the bridge. The Duke’s headlights were coming at them, steady, unrelenting. Plissken was running again, ignoring the agony in his leg.

“Here!” Rehme shouted. “Over here.”

Hauk and the Secretary rushed across the bunker to stand beside him. He was looking at the gridded wall map with the flashing light. Rehme was holding a headset up to his ear without putting it on. “It’s wall station nineteen,” he said. “They spotted two cars on the Fifty Ninth Street Bridge.”

Hauk looked at the map light that marked the station. “Is it Plissken?” he asked.

Rehme shrugged with his tired eyes. “Taxicab and a Cadillac,” he returned, trying to keep the catch out of his voice. “The taxi hit a mine. Four people on foot.”

Hauk looked at Prather just to read the man’s face. “Ten minutes,” the man said, and Hauk couldn’t figure exactly whether that was supposed to be good or bad.

He turned back to Rehme. “Get a jeep with a winch over there, fast.”

Running back to his previous station, he picked up the two-way and barked into it: “Cronenberg. Get over to wall station nineteen. They’re coming across the bridge.”

He put down the radio, and he felt his insides jump. Maybe he had something left in there after all. Without thought, he was out the door and running for the heli-pads.

They used the only resource left to them. They ran. They ran from the Duke, from his whining engine that wanted to eat them up. They ran from the City of Death.

There was a sound behind Plissken, a roar. He turned in time to see Brain Hellman flying through the air, tossed away by the unfeeling force of instantaneous combustion beneath his feet. No sound issued from him. He was a dead thing and would be left behind with the rest of the dead and dying.

Plissken stopped and turned. Hellman’s body hit the ground ten feet from where he started. Maggie had been knocked down by the blast, and she was moving along the ground, crawling toward Brain’s body. In the distance, he could still see what was left of the yellow cab with the grinning man inside. Leningrad. It was Leningrad all over again, and he was saving a man who nobody cared about for purposes that made no rational sense.