The Exodus Towers (10 page)

Russell’s mouth snapped shut with a click.

“We no longer live in a world where Neil Platz can shoulder the burden of scapegoat.”

The aircraft banked, circled, and began to descend.

“Scapegoat,” Russell said. “I suppose that’s my job now?”

Grillo tilted his head to one side and back, so that he could
study Russell through his narrow glasses. “The line between scapegoat and savior is a thin one, Mr. Blackfield.”

Whatever you’ve got to show me
, Russell thought,
it better be fucking incredible after this sermon
. “Wise words,” he said.

The aircraft set down in the center of the playing field. The vast space that once held green grass and painted boundaries had long ago been stripped down to bare concrete. Makeshift houses and tents covered the stands where roaring fans once cheered. Despite their ramshackle materials, Russell couldn’t help but notice the orderly layout. Laundry hung from wires between the gaps, and wisps of smoke rose through ductwork chimneys.

Only two other aircraft were parked on the improvised airfield. Seven had been destroyed in Africa thanks to Tania’s lie. Russell knew the loss had depleted Grillo’s fleet, yet somehow the sight of two lonely planes made the impact a tangible thing.

A fleet of trucks and vans waited for them, parked in a perfect line at the edge of the landing zone. Men and women in plainclothes sat on the bumpers or atop the roofs, weapons resting across their knees or strapped across their chest. They watched as Russell and the others stepped down from the idling aircraft.

Through some silent order, the foot soldiers sprang into action. Drivers jumped into their seats, sparking up their electronics to warm the vehicle’s ultracaps. Others moved to stand in the truck’s empty beds, leaning over the driver’s cabs, rifles at the ready.

Russell couldn’t help but harbor some envy. If only his men reacted with such efficiency at the simple flick of a hand.

Grillo led them to a nondescript truck near the center of the line. If the vehicle held any special feature—armor plating, or some hidden weapon—Russell couldn’t see it. The crime boss might have chosen it at random, for all Russell knew. It fit his personality, at least.

“Old McMillan’s, in Coconut Grove,” Grillo said to the driver.

With only a second to spare, Russell managed to find a handhold. The truck’s motors whined as it surged forward, spearheading the group as the others fell in behind.

The driver took them out a huge gate at the far end of the field, and in less than a minute the line of vehicles snaked through the slums Grillo owned. Men, women, and children alike came out to watch the caravan roll by. Their complacent faces filled the windows above the narrow streets, too.

Russell kept quiet. Coconut Grove was near Nightcliff. Why Grillo hadn’t gone straight there from the fortress confused him, until he realized the obvious difference: Grillo didn’t have a small army with him when he met Russell at Nightcliff.

Yet he could have lined all these vehicles up outside the fortress gate. Rolling through the Maze, Russell thought he understood. Grillo wanted him to see this. Calm streets, faces filled not with fear or dismay but with quiet respect.

In Coconut Grove, a portion of Darwin that butted against Nightcliff’s southern edge, the buildings were much taller. Offices and luxury apartments before the disease came, the once-gleaming structures were called home by many multinational aerospace and tech companies that had flocked to Darwin during the heyday of the space elevator. Some had been abandoned before completion, their upper floors just framing and scaffolds. These made the best gardens, with potted plants and trees stretching all the way up the open grid of steel beams.

One, Russell saw, had a few spot fires burning near the lowest floors of the garden.

If Russell’s intelligence was up to date, Grillo had little sway in this area. Barreling down the center of the street, at the tip of a fleet of vehicles carrying armed civilians, Russell didn’t need any more hints to guess the purpose of Grillo’s theatrics.

He played along, regardless. “What are we doing here?”

“Attempting to impress you,” Grillo said.

Russell grinned, despite himself. “I’ve been to orbit. Fought
in orbit, shagged in orbit. Saw the Builders’ turd of a spacecraft.”

“There’s fondness in your voice,” Grillo said. “I’ve heard you spend most of your time up there now.”

True enough
, Russell thought. He shrugged.

“Hold your judgment,” Grillo added. He leaned around the truck’s cab and spoke to the driver again. “Proceed,” he simply said.

Russell heard a noise above. He glanced up, fighting the noon sun, and saw two aircraft swooping in over the skyscrapers. They were in formation, side by side. As Russell watched, one banked and separated while the other matched the same direction the ground vehicles were on.

The truck slowed and turned. Russell glanced down in time to see other vehicles in the line surge forward on either side. They approached the same building the aircraft had and surrounded it.

Grillo’s people leapt from the backs of their vehicles before they even stopped. They took down two lackwit guards at the barricaded entrance and swarmed inside before the bodies even hit the ground.

Russell took a quick glance backward, expecting to see the remaining portion of Grillo’s force moving in behind. His eyebrows shot up when he saw the truth: They were moving on a building across the street, using the same tactics.

Grillo hadn’t budged. He stood firm, on the bed of the truck, both hands resting on top of the cab. Five minutes passed, marked by sporadic gunfire from within the building. The aircraft above circled the two buildings. Twice Russell thought he heard machine-gun fire from them, but they were too high up for him to be sure.

“I would have gone in with them,” Russell said, hoping to sound casual.

Grillo frowned. “We all have our specialties. Yours is fighting.”

“What’s yours?”

“I make friends.”

Russell snorted a laugh. He doubted many residents in these buildings would be friendly now.

Grillo turned and stepped lightly from the back of the truck bed. His bodyguards stayed behind. Russell followed, ordering his two men to wait in the truck as well. He fell in next to Grillo, expecting they would enter one of the buildings. Instead Grillo moved with calm confidence to the center of the street, placed his hands behind his back, and waited. Unsure what to do, Russell stood next to him. He shifted from foot to foot, feeling exposed in the middle of the wide avenue, out in the squalor and anarchy of Darwin.

“In hindsight,” Grillo said, “I should have had you wear a disguise of some sort. Your presence adds some complexity.”

“Give me a gun and I’ll go inside where the action is.”

“The real action is out here, Mr. Blackfield. Ah, as you now will see.”

A group of Grillo’s people came out of the building to their right. They prodded an Asian man ahead. Three other prisoners were shuffled off to the side and held there. All four of the captives shared the same bewildered expression.

The man, an elder, was ushered toward the center of the street. His eyes grew even wider when he recognized Russell.

Before anyone could speak, another group came out from the building to the left. Two burly men were led forward. One held a hand to his forehead, and Russell could see a trickle of blood coming down his wrist and forearm.

These two scowled when they saw Russell, and their expressions turned to raw hatred when they saw the Asian man held across from them.

Grillo moved to stand between the two parties. He held out a hand toward each, motioning downward, willing them to be calm.

“You are Shane Killen and Ben Paston,” the crime lord said to the two men on his left. “You claim ownership and control of the building called Phoenix, and its inhabitants.”

“Who the hell are you?” one asked in a thick New Zealander accent.

“I go by Grillo in most circles,” the short man said.

The two men exchanged a glance, faces flushed. Their eyes both darted to Russell, then back.

Grillo ignored them for the moment and turned to the
Asian on his right. He spoke to the man in accented Chinese. The man’s anger melted away as Grillo spoke. “May I continue in English?” Grillo asked, and received a nod.

The fighting had stopped, and a strange serenity fell over the wide street. Russell saw faces in the shadows, people gathering in the alleyways, watching.

“If you’re going to kill us, get it over with,” the one called Shane Killen said.

“On the contrary, Mr. Killen, I’m here to hire you.”

The word tripped everyone present, including Russell.

Shane’s eyes narrowed as he recovered his composure. “Meaning what?”

“I’ve a job for you,” Grillo said. “For all of you. It’s a simple one, one you’re already extremely good at: growing food.”

“We do this already,” the Chinese man said.

“Not lately. Not enough,” Grillo said. Russell marveled at how he kept his voice calm, even when calling someone a liar. “You see, gentlemen, rumors have spread like SUBS through this city of a problem with the farms above. Such chatter has brought panic to certain districts—”

Except yours
, Russell added mentally.

“—and has led to a situation humanity cannot afford right now. You fight each other. You fend off the poor who live on these streets, forcing them to fight among themselves. The problem cascades across the entire city. Worst of all, you hoard your food even as you burn the other’s.”

The Chinese man cast his eyes down to the cracked pavement, shamed. The two Kiwis remained steadfast, if not defiant.

“Unity is required,” Grillo said in a new tone of unmistakable authority, without raising his voice.

“You want us to work with
him
?” Shane said.

“No,” Grillo said. “You’re going to work for Darwin. You’re going to set aside your petty squabbles, your outdated sense of ownership and entitlement. You’re going to grow food, more of it than you thought possible, and you’re going to share it.”

“Or what?”

Grillo tilted his head, the same way he had with Russell
when they stood atop Nightcliff. “Or nothing,” he said. “I’ll leave you to your vertical kingdom, and devote all of my energy, resources, and
friends
to the buildings that surround yours.”

Another group came out of the Phoenix building. Shane and Ben both turned to watch as a gaggle of women and children were ushered outside.

“Ah,” Grillo said. “Your wives and families. I’ve invited them to visit my home over in Lyons.” With a simple gesture, Grillo’s people prodded the terrified group toward a pair of waiting vans.

Shane stepped toward Grillo. “You lay a damn finger on them—”

“Please,” the slumlord said. “They’re to be my guests until our new business arrangement is fully up and running.”

For a span of ten seconds Shane stared down Grillo, his nostrils flaring. His partner, Ben, reached out and gripped the man on his shoulder. “Give us a minute, Grillo,” he said.

They stepped away and began a quiet, animated chat.

“All right,” Russell said. “I’m impressed. But this is two buildings out of a thousand.”

“Dominoes,” Grillo said.

“Even you don’t have enough people to enforce such deals across the city.”

Grillo offered a quizzical look. “No? Mr. Li, how many people reside in your commune?”

The Chinese man had been watching his own family, who still stood near the entrance of his building. “Four thousand.”

“A similar count across the street, I’d guess.” Grillo looked at Russell with total sincerity. “You see? I’ve just added eight thousand people to my sphere of influence, and it’s not even lunchtime.”

Russell bristled. “Li, give us a moment,” he said. When the man moved out of earshot, Russell stepped close to Grillo, using his height advantage to full effect. “I’m not going to let you take over my city.”

Grillo shook his head. “Let’s not pretend you exercise any
authority out here. You’ve left these people to their own devices for years.” He raised a hand to quell Russell’s objection. “Who can blame you? You have enough problems to deal with.”

“Get to the damn point, Grillo.”

“Under centralized, coordinated leadership, this city can flourish. I can make that happen, with your … blessing.”

“Or without, it seems.”

Grillo shook his head. “You still don’t understand.”

“Stop talking like a Platz, then, and get to the point.”

The man nodded. “Under the flag of Nightcliff, I can bring order and prosperity to this city. They will
sing
our names.”

“Or?”

“Or,” Grillo said, “I could fan a shit storm beyond anything you can imagine.”

Russell clenched his fists.

“Raise a hand against me,” Grillo said, “and no less than six snipers will compete to put the first bullet through your brain.”

“I don’t like being threatened,” Russell growled.

“No one does. This is an excellent deal for you, Blackfield. I’m offering to take over the headache this city gives you and allow you to focus on bigger issues.”

“And all I have to do is, what, turn a blind eye to your conquest of the roofers?”

“A bit more than that,” Grillo said. “Without your explicit mandate, this won’t work.”

“Mandate.”

“Make me your prefect of Nightcliff, with full confidence to do whatever is required to bring the city under control. I’ll give you regular reports, and you’ll still have full authority, while being able to spend your time in orbit, settling matters there.”

The words percolated through Russell’s mind. He craved a healthy gulp of vodka.

“Six months,” Grillo said. “If you give me that, I’ll give you Darwin on a silver platter.”

“Starting when?”

Grillo extended a hand. “About an hour ago.”