TWENTY-ONE

Plan B

During the short minutes Starr spent inside the livery, the writhing mob completely lost its mooring. Unruffled, Willy used his mass as a buffer. Finding fissures and weaknesses, he reared and leapt his way through the crowd. But the effort consumed too much time and energy.

With each passing minute Starr feared Oleg and Daisy would grow more difficult to find. He had to get to the Deep Eddy. According to Oleg’s schematic, the natural spring that swirled into the river concealed the opening of the underwater tunnel. Starr gritted his teeth. What if Oleg had already reached the river? And how could he stop a submersible?

First he had to lose the crowd. Turning west on Tenth Street, his brain sparked. “Plan B, old boy.” He tossed the reins to his right, directing Willy toward a parked Model T. With nothing more than flared nostrils, the horse steadied himself on hind legs and leapt onto the trunk. Ripping off the bumper with his hind legs, Willy crushed the metal roof of the T before jumping onto a dumpster and finally skidding to a stop on the flat roof of the livery. Invigorated by the brief taste of the impossible, Starr and Willy watched the squat, brick buildings of the sprawling commercial district open up in front of them like a highway in the wilderness. With a whip of the reins, horse and rider were off.

Dodging around exhaust pipes and furnace flues, Willy gathered momentum as his shoes dug into layers of tar. After a quick half-dozen strides they reached the first gap—ten feet from lip to lip. Snarling in the face of gravity, Willy’s front hooves pawed across the void as his final hoof pushed off. And they flew.

Gap after gap, the pair cleared the entire block. Without time to think, they reached the cusp—below them the remains of a wrecked market. Aiming toward a cart of pumpkins and winter squash, Willy plunged feet first. Crushing melons beneath him, he sat as the cart skidded into the street and shattered under his full weight. With a final leap they cleared the fleshy mess and banked onto a sparsely populated Guadalupe Street heading south.

Starr patted the horse and laughed while speeding toward the river. “That was something different.” But the celebration ended as a familiar iron framework loomed over the corner of Ninth and Guadalupe, bristling the hair on his neck. Dusk was already upon them.

A subtle popping sound focused Starr’s awareness. The familiar sound indicated the sparking of the carbon arc light atop the 165 ft. tower. A tower that had not been shut down. A tower primed and ready. As he and Willy passed directly beneath it, a rumbling below the street confirmed the nightmare to be real. He dug his heels into the horse’s side. For a split second nothing happened save a perceivable quiver in the tower and its guy wires. One galloping stride at a time they fled the shadow of the tower. Then, as oil surged up a steel pipe, it exploded from the top. Shattering the light, it burst into a plume of flame before cresting at the behest of gravity.

A small shockwave from the ignition rustled Starr’s hair, whipping the tattered tails of his suit. He clutched tighter to Willy’s mane. “Gotta go, boy.” Craning his neck a final time, he witnessed the crown of smoke and fire rushing down to the city of Austin, and anything and everything found scurrying about its surface. Which at the moment, included him.

~~~

A swirling, hot wind knocked Lickter from his feet, blasting his hat another several yards. Air like sandpaper licked his eyes until he closed them tight. Rolling blindly across the marble floor, he rebounded off a couch and lay there gasping for breath. Cooked, twice warmed over and brittle, he struggled with the urge to surrender. How much abuse could his body take? But Daisy was still out there.

Before he could move, a metal canister collided with his shin. Shooting open his eyes he recognized the cylinder of a fire extinguisher. Beyond that, a contrite expression on Gwendolyn’s face. Clutching the canister, he willed himself upright to combat the flames.

From all over the lobby people joined in doing the same until the last flame flickered out. It served as a small victory, a tangible goal uniting people against a common and perceptible foe. It inspired Lickter. Maybe Starr’s bleeding heart hadn’t been totally misplaced. Maybe he could do something to help the city without putting Daisy at further risk.

He stood atop a desk. Putting his fingers to his lips, he blared a sharp whistle throughout the lobby of the Grandview. “Hell has come to Austin today. And trust me when I say it’s gonna get worse before it gets better.” He reached down, accepting his hat from Ms. Lloyd, the small gesture also lending him her authority. “But together we’re gonna teach hell not to mess with Texas.” He slammed his fist into his palm as others filled the shattered lobby with resounding cheers.

“Get out there and let people know the Grandview is a safe haven, not a rampart. And for God’s sake tell people to stay away from the towers!” As he spoke, a secondary wave of panic slammed against the first floor of the building, his gut twisting with the realization it was too late. Darkness enshrouded the street, followed by a roiling black smoke that swallowed the screams of man, woman and child like a hungry lion.

Rallying his men to him, Lickter jumped down and barked machine-gun orders to anyone willing to take them. Handful after handful, the obedient girded their loins and charged the teeth of fate with bare fist until only Lickter and Gwendolyn remained. Smoke curled through broken windows while distant explosions shook the chandeliers dangling from the ceiling. “I’m getting my daughter back.”

“I know.”

With a tip of his hat, he bolted toward the basement.

~~~

The air in front of the surging fire tasted like a tractor fender encrusted with diesel-laden grease. Everything else sizzled. Starr tugged his collar over his neck to defend against the flaming darts dotting every surface. A ragged glob seared the skin below his shoulder blade, and Willy clutched his hindquarters, nearly stumbling due to the burning pitch. As Starr turned to blot the oil from his horse’s rump with the sleeve of his suit coat, the totality of the horror sank in.

The farthest flung shrapnel of flame were mere smoldering specks compared to the sheets of liquid fire falling several feet behind them. Without discrimination the flames clung to every surface: stone, brick, glass, metal, flesh. And it consumed them. With a final lunge they cleared the danger. The street beneath this tower had been nearly empty of human life, but what about the others?

Darkness fell as a billowing blanket of smoke blocked out the sun, creeping ever lower until it enshrouded the streets. Without bearings, Willy slowed to a trot. At first Starr urged him on until the horse refused. Coming to a complete stop, the two remained motionless for several seconds, listening to the muffled sounds of chaos blocks away.

The actuality of the flame-throwing towers trumped his darkest imaginings, calling his character into doubt. Fear and urgency blistered his consciousness. Across the smoke-choked city of Austin tongues of flame spewed from the blackness like the breath of dragons waking beneath the city.

He yearned to continue toward the river, to save Daisy, to defeat Oleg, yet… he could help. He had to. But Daisy. He stopped his panicking mind long enough to rest on the thought of her—her sneering toughness in the face of adversity. He swore. Only a man she deserved could save her. He swore again, drowning in confusion and indecision. She’d figured him from the start, seen his shortcomings, including his need to protect others out of ego rather than selflessness. He swore a final time.

She and Willy had been right. He wasn’t a special agent, despite the suit and gun. He was Jim Starr, jackass. Maybe Daisy needed saving, maybe she didn’t. Truth be told, he had no chance of stopping a submersible on horseback. But he could at least help a few of the people he’d sworn to serve. With spent coal in his heart he surrendered his rights to Daisy, or to himself for that matter. He instead offered his loyalty solely to the urgent demands of the situation.

“Come on, boy. You were right.”

Willy snorted and turned onto Sixth, heading toward the Grandview. At a lope they covered the span of three blocks in seconds, nothing but shadows and ghosts skirting their peripheral vision. A block from the pulsing madness at Austin’s center, Willy pulled up at a sight that struck Starr as disturbingly all too familiar.

The edges of a murky, fifty-foot-long hole in Sixth Street bristled with armed men. A creaking lift disguised as the road itself raised an Austin City streetcar coated liberally with gunmetal to the surface. A dozen other cars lined the rails around the bend onto Congress Avenue. Hands raised in surrender, Starr goaded Willy forward for a better look. Before the lift came to a stop Lickter jumped down from the cabin, a cruel smile slashed across his face. “Glad to have ‘ya, Senator.” He waved off his men, who quickly let Starr through.

Starr jumped down to greet the sheriff with a hand shake. “There was no one to listen. Hobby’s gone. Martial law’s coming.” He rubbed his scar. “Anything on Daisy?”

Lickter waved him off. “Change of plans. We’ll get her back, but first.” Both men knew what came next, but Starr couldn’t suppress a one-sided smirk. “What?” Lickter frowned.

“Nothing.” Starr hadn’t expected Lickter to care about the city when all the ugly got up close and personal.

Lickter ground a toothpick in his molars. “Just ‘cause I’m a pawn don’t mean I can’t change the rules.”

Starr wondered why anyone pretended there were rules to begin with. It seemed like Lickter’s playbook read something like, “Do unto others whatever the hell you can get away with.” Starr’s personal code told him rules mattered up until the gate opened—for the eight seconds after that only instinct and survival remained. The problem was that riding out the storm in politics took a hell of a lot longer than eight seconds.

A huddle of men closed in around them, each dressed in uniform and smudged with soot. Clearing his throat, Lickter addressed them. “There’s thirteen of these mad-fangled streetcars, twenty six of us and thirty-one towers. First priority, get ‘em put out. I don’t care if you gotta run people over to do it.” He growled. “Second priority, go back and pick up the people you done run down. Suppress fire, riots and general tomfoolery wherever you find it until we get this town back under control. Go.”

As the men dispersed toward the fleet of fire-suppressing, armored streetcars Starr caught Lickter by the shoulder. “Sheriff.”

“Don’t worry, Senator. I got other plans for you and your horse.” Starr wanted to like Lickter. He was a leader, even if a liar. “The Congress Avenue Bridge.” He backed Starr away from the others. “That’s where we’ll get him.”

“How are we going to stop a submersible from the bridge without hurting Daisy?” Starr had been over this already.

“All we have to do is get his attention. If he’s planning on making a secret get away via river, the fact it ain’t secret will make him reconsider. There’ll be no escape.”

“You said if.” Starr couldn’t trust the man. “What else would Oleg be planning?”

“Who knows with this guy. Maybe mechanical ants next.” Lickter grunted at his uncharacteristic attempt at humor. “I got something for you first.” The sheriff retreated toward the streetcar. The only thing Starr knew for sure was Lickter wouldn’t risk his daughter’s safety. There was no time to argue now. Starr would go along until Daisy was safe. Then he’d force the truth.

 Lickter returned carrying a burlap sack slung over his shoulder. “Extra fire grenades. You’ll have to lob ‘em by hand, but the results will be the same. No oxygen, no fire. For God’s sake don’t crack ‘em. They ain’t eggs, and they ain’t in a carton.”

Starr accepted the gift along with Lickter’s parting words, “Take whatever route you can and help where you see fit, but I know they could use help as far as Red River Street. I’m heading straight down Congress Avenue. It’s blocked with riffraff, so I’ll have to clear it. See you at the bridge, son.” He took Starr by both shoulders. “We’ll get her, and about what I said before. She could do worse than a senator.”

Starr crested his saddle after lashing the fire grenades to the back. Lickter was right. They’d get her, and she could easily do worse. But the question that burned inside was whether she could do better. He had to prove the only possible answer to be no.