Monster Island

Kreutzer lead us through a tiny development of yellow clapboard houses and down tree-lined avenues - the old officers' quarters back when Governors Island was a military base. The Coast Guard logo was everywhere, on monuments and plaques and chain link fences, even on the street signs.

The DHS Agent swore the houses were empty and that he'd checked them out himself. "Honest, there's not even a stick of furniture in there and no goddamned food at all."

Unconvinced I sent squads of girls into every building we passed. "There must have been other people here," I said. "Nobody posts a field agent to a place like this if there's nothing for him to do."

"There were more," Kreutzer said, clutching at his bandaged hand. "There was a garrison. When the Epidemic broke out we needed a hardened location for emergency management ops. We reactivated the base here and staffed it with Operations Directorate irregulars. People used to flying in and out of air fields with little or no notice. Some useless fucking moron in the Pentagon thought you could fight dead fucks with helicopters and law enforcement aircraft."

I looked around at the trees rattling in the wind, at the yellow houses. "That would take some pretty serious infrastructure."

Kreutzer tilted his head toward the western part of the island. "Over that way. This is all touristy crap. When the city took over in 2003 they spruced up here and started letting visitors in. They kept the real stuff out of sight."

I nodded and signaled for the girls to regroup. We headed across a lush green lawn past the star-shaped stone edifice of Fort Jay.

"So like I was saying - me and Morrison, my partner, we got detailed here to run sigint and systems while the Guard guys ran their flyovers. We were Systems Directorate before we got rolled up into Homeland Security. At first I was pissed to get stuck in this latrine while guys I outranked were doing a real man's job in the city. Then the choppers started turning up missing - whole crews never came back - and I figured maybe I had it okay after all. Finally we got a call from Washington, they needed all our units for a tactical event along the Potomac. Morrison and me stayed behind to keep the site maintained for when they came back."

Kreutzer had brought us to the side of Liggett Hall, an enormous brick dormitory building that cut the island in half. A line of trees behind the structure hid a chainlink fence topped with barbed wire. A gate stood open, revealing a dirt pathway to the other side. "I'm guessing they never did," I said.

"Well two points for you, shithead. They got slaughtered, from what we could hear on the blower. They were useless up in the air and when they put down they got fucked, royally fucked." Kreutzer stopped before entering the gate. "I don't know about this. This is a restricted area."

I pushed past him and entered the real base. A broad central lawn ran most of the way to the far shore, dotted here and there with baseball diamonds. A concrete airstrip had been laid down across this lawn, which was flanked with dilapidated prefab buildings of the kind I associated with American military bases. Time and rust had been unkind to most of the structures but I could see a few hangars that still looked operational as well as an air traffic control tower.

"We held on the best we could. Occasionally one of those dead assholes would climb out of the ventilation tower but we took 'em down by the numbers. We managed to close off the louvers eventually so that's not a problem anymore."

I nodded absently, too busy cataloging the island's assets. The hangars were full of unarmed cargo helicopters. There were a few Coast Guard cutters bobbing in the water but they were useless to us. Gary wasn't about to just come down to the water and let us blow his head off with a .50 caliber machine gun. I spotted a few things that might come in handy, including a fully equipped armory replete with M4s and small arms and made a mental checklist to go over with Jack when he arrived. If he arrived.

We made camp on the lawn. At first I was tempted to sleep in one of the yellow officer's houses or even in one of the barracks buildings but when night fell they became infinitely creepy. There's something about being inside a windowless room with no electricity that truly bugs my modern soul. The girls didn't mind camping rough at all - it was what they were used to back home. They kept Kreutzer under guard all night but mostly left him alone. We made a big campfire and ate bread and thin porridge - our staple foods.

"There's not a bean or a fucking carrot left on this dunghill," Kreutzer informed us as he tore into the flat loaves of canjeero the girls grudgingly offered him. "That's what happened to Morrison."

"I was wondering when we'd get to that," I said.

Kreutzer nodded. "Morrison got hungry faster than I did. He was a big guy, liked to lift weights when he was off duty and he needed more calories I guess. He took a Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat and headed over to Staten Island to resupply. That was two weeks ago. I don't expect to see him again."

"And what about you? You were just going to starve here?"

Kreutzer scooped a fingerful of porridge out of a pot and stuffed it in his mouth. "I'd rather not eat than get eaten. I could have left any time I wanted but where would I go? Until I saw you over at the ferry slip I thought I was going to fucking die here." He handed the pot back to Fathia. "Thanks," he said.

I woke to the sound of water slapping the side of a cutter and a fresh breeze that lifted my eyelashes and played with them. I was grinning, stupidly grinning because I felt so good. Then I sat up and remembered everything. Pulling my pants on I started looking around for a latrine when I heard a buzzing sound coming from the water.

It was Jack.

I don't know where he got a jet-ski in New York but he was wave-running hard for the coast. I ran down to the water and waved my arms and whistled and finally he saw me and cut in to meet me. I held a hand down and helped him climb up onto the boardwalk. He took off his life vest and unzipped the tote bag he'd used to keep his weapons and gear dry and then finally he said hello. "He took them to Central Park. I couldn't get very close - the wind was blowing toward them and they would have smelled me, but I saw them enter the Park. There's something going on there, something huge and I have no idea what it is. I can't just go in there guns blazing and hope to rescue anybody. That's what I'm going to do, though."

I nodded sagely. I badly needed to urinate but I also wanted to show him something, something that just might solve his problem. I lead him around the back of a hangar and let him see the thirty-foot trailer crowned with radar dishes and the four coffins - slang for the storage crates of the UAVs.

"Good," he said, and started prying open the coffins.

"Jack," I asked, because the question had been bothering me, "why did you send us here? How did you know Governors Island was deserted?"

He stared at me. "I didn't. For all I knew this place was crawling with the dead. I just knew you could handle yourself regardless."

"We could have been headed into a trap!" I cried.

Jack looked to one side and then the other. "Looks like you did fine. Now help me with this crate."