Chapter Thirty-Seven

All the trains were rushing to the same place.

Pre–Big War, its official name was Cortlandt Street 1 stop, Level 2, New York Transit Authority. But most people had called it the One and the Two. The subway station below the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers.

As Hunter had told the Allies at the Nantucket war council: “Just because the New York City subway system hasn’t run since the Big War doesn’t mean it’s broken. If we can turn the power back on, we can commute to the battle underground. Avoid all opposition topside.” And that’s exactly what was happening.

“Hawk is scary sometimes,” Kurjan said to Dozer as their train rushed headlong down the tunnel. “He always hits a home run when it comes to stuff like this.”

Dozer checked his watch as they sped through one of many dark, long-abandoned stations. Time was an important element here.

“I hear you, Lazz,” he replied. “And he’s done it enough times to prove it ain’t no fluke.”

They could see the final station coming up. Though the power was back on, the station’s lightbulbs had burned out long ago, so the platform was lit by thousands of candles of all different shapes and sizes brought in by the first troop train to reach the station. They gave off an otherworldly glow.

There were eighty members of 7CAV on the train, plus Dozer. They were already up and waiting at the doors, ready for a fight. All that time awaiting word from their fellow warriors in the haunted forest, and they lose thirteen of their guys in just a few hours? There was no question who would lead the impending assault.

The train squealed to a halt and 7CAV piled out. The platform was already crowded with more than two thousand raiders. Gathered under the direction of Geraci’s NJ104, they’d been brought by boat to North Harlem from New Jersey to take the long train ride downtown. Different uniforms, different weapons, different kinds of soldiers, everyone wending his way through the sea of candles, but they all had one thing in common: the small American-flag patches on their left shoulders. That was the reason they were here.

More trains would be coming later, carrying reinforcements and ammo and returning to North Harlem with the wounded and dead. But for now, this was it. Two thousand against almost ten thousand—and possibly sixty-five thousand more.

“Another war,” Dozer said to Kurjan as they were disembarking. “Does it ever end?”

“I don’t know,” Kurjan replied. “But either way, history is going to be made here today.”

Suddenly, a loud, mechanical roar filled the station. Not the squealing and screeching of a train. This was a big, high-speed motor with no noise suppression gear. Something moving very fast and without a muffler.

It exploded from the tunnel a moment later. It wasn’t running on the tracks, it was flying above them. Lots of smoke, flames coming from its exhaust pipes, big wheels, covered with duct tape, it was the clown plane with Hunter at the controls.

He roared over the platform, banking the small plane slightly to fit above the idling trains. Without warning, he did an incredible roll right inside the station, a way of acknowledging the Allies’ presence. The soldiers let out a cheer. He straightened out and was gone in a flash, down the other end of the tunnel.

Then all was quiet. The only noise was the flickering of thousands of candles. It became like a church. Many of the fighters went down on one knee to await the next command.

Hanging above them, on a billboard over the tracks, was a faded tourist ad encouraging the use of rapid transit, reminding people, “Take the subway. It’s faster.”