Most government buildings adopted Greco-romanesque architecture. The New York State Capitol, however, was like a royal palace. It stood five stories high, ornate with many visible arches, towers flanking each side with pyramidal-coned roofs painted red, and a massive plaza that led up to the grand staircase and then to the baroque-style entrance doors of the building itself.

It was the most heavily guarded building in the entire city.

We studied the building's perimeter, which took half the afternoon. The soldiers were thorough on every entryway. There were K9 dogs to smell trouble, X-ray conveyors to check on the employees' bags, full-body scanners to sniff out weapons, rotational snipers from the rooftops, ID scanners, and the IDs themselves required a photograph. Each employee had their own unique barcode on their IDs.

There were heavy traffic barriers and barrels filled with water strategically placed around the perimeter. The plaza was a sufficient open space to expedite early visual detection of suspicious activities, and if I started approaching, they would notice me right away. CCTV cameras covered all vantage points (and I did not see a blind spot), and these were the type that would record 24/7, the files archived for at least twenty-eight days. I made sure to keep everyone out of sight, just across the street around the Fallen Firefighters Memorial Park.

"So, you're saying there's no way in?" Logan asked me.

I shook my head. "They thought Troy was impenetrable, or Alcatraz inescapable, and looked what happened to those places. No one found out a way in yet."

"We can break the windows, and every building has a backdoor," Luke suggested.

"But not this one. Look around. It's specifically built around wide main roads—Washington Avenue and State Street—no alleys and no secret side doors. No building is connected to it, so we can't just hop over the rooftops. Both the north and the south side face their own plazas, large open grounds without any cover. If we try to break in, everyone will see us. If we try to attack, we'll have no cover. Impressive design, really."

"The windows—"

"Bulletproof, or at least reinforced, and probably polycarbonate. The doors might look like wood, but it's not. It's designed to resist bullets, blasts, or forced entry, maybe with a heavy gauge or steel frames built-in or a ribbed core of plate armor. I wouldn't be surprised if it's multi-point locked with an SAT device." Luke's mouth hung open, and I shrugged. "My father works at a security firm after he retired from the navy. He analyzes weak points of entry."

"And did you find one?" Logan asked.

"No. I mean, it's the freaking State Capitol building. What do you expect? That's where the state senate, members of Congress, the attorney general, the governor, and basically everyone in New York who sat in Uncle Sam's office congregate there. Their security insurance better be that freaking amazing, or what's the point on paying them taxes?"

"So, how are we going to get in? Should we wait for them, follow Clemons to his apartment or wherever he's staying at?"

"I thought about that. Then, we have another problem. Curfew's in four hours."

Logan looked at his watch and groaned. "Well, shit."

"Four hours. I think we can do that," Luke said optimistically.

"Clemons might be in there for that long. We'll be caught out in the open here without anywhere to hide."

Luke frowned. "Oh."

"And if he goes to another neighborhood, we'll lose him again, and we can't pass our weapons through the gates."

Logan muttered, "This keeps getting better and better."

I lowered my head. "There is a way in, though."

They both blinked at me. "But you said there are no weak points," Logan said.

"That's right. I didn't say we can't get in."

Luke heaved a sigh. "Please tell me we're not going to do some distraction shit or shoot our way inside."

"Well, not that drastic. There are many things we can use as our horse."

"A horse?" Luke asked.

"Troy, Luke. How do you think the Greeks made it past the city?"

——

I can't say that I was shocked I had to resort to Plan C to Z that day, but then again, most of the things I do ends up being on the fly anyway, and I don't think that is ever going to change in the future, even now as I am writing this.

I had to assume that half of the guards surrounding the perimeter had to be veteran soldiers, men who had served at least a couple of years and knew how to use a weapon and assess a threat. I bet someone in there forced the top brass to prioritize protecting the leaders of this city, which would probably keep them comfortable enough to run the state without worrying about what was coming from the outside, which was being torn apart by the pandemic. Standing high up on the government ladder had its perks.

For that fact alone, I kept Luke and Logan out of my plan. Obviously, both men protested, wanting to be by my side, but I didn't want an anchor stringing me down. I did not dare say that to their faces. I must admit that Luke and Logan could handle themselves in a fight to a certain degree, and it usually involved all of us together fighting as one. But we were not facing a full-on assault; this was a stealth game, baby, and sneaking into the building would be a one-person job if we wanted to pull this off.

And this brought me to my mark.

Most importantly, a mark with a large enough bag to conceal a weapon, our horse, The kind of weapon that would set the alarm and bring all the guards into one location...and in this case, to one person.

The woman was the tenth person I observed for the past hour. That meant I had three more hours to get inside (and Clemons still hadn't come out). I saw her walk out of the entrance doors: blonde hair, big glasses, black pantsuit that hadn't been washed possibly for a couple of days, dried coffee stains tucked behind the lapels, and heavy makeup hid the bags under her eyes. She was carrying her navy blue leather tote bag along with a folder tucked under her armpit. Either she was going home or taking her break, and I crossed my fingers that it was the latter.

She walked toward the Morning Sunshine café a block away.

Finally! I cheered in my head. It was three in the afternoon, prime time for some employees to venture out looking for food during their break. I feared that buildings like these would have their own cafeterias or break rooms, but there was always a handful of people who didn't like going to those places, preferring the cafes, restaurants, and bistros surrounding the State Capitol and there were plenty of them. I lucked out with one who carried a bag.

I let the others know through the CB radio that I found my mark. Luke and Logan uttered "copy" at the same time.

"Be careful, Bren," Logan said. "We found our mark, too."

I nodded, but they couldn't see that. "It better be big."

I heard him chuckle. "She's a beauty, alright."

I rolled my eyes. "Right. Be careful as well. Over and out."

I tucked the radio in my pocket and followed the woman inside. I counted at least a dozen people in the cafe; the woman was second to the last in line. I grabbed a newspaper on the stand next to the door and sat on the table with a half-empty bagel, pretending I belonged there. I glanced at the woman's bag, saw the zipper still closed. Too soon to slip the gun in, but I hoped she would stay in the cafe for her break.

She ordered a hot latte and a croissant heated up. The barista whispered something I couldn't hear, but the woman suddenly raised her voice, seemingly annoyed that the croissants were gone, so she settled for banana bread. The barista told her they were also out of those, so she opted for toast instead, to her disappointment. She didn't leave a tip on the jar, which probably sat empty on the counter for a very long time.

She walked toward me, my heart beating faster with every step she took, but she didn't catch my nervousness or my poor attempt to avoid her gaze. She found the empty seat next to my table, gave me a wary eye before she sat down until our backs were two inches away. She dropped her bag on the seat next to hers. I feigned reading the newspaper, which was two weeks old, reporting on the developing chaos in New York City. Chills ran down my spine, knowing that it was probably written when the city was still standing.

A few minutes later, the barista called for her (her name was Charity), and she huffed out of her seat, dropped the file she was reading on the table, and walked toward the counter.

I turned around. The bag was open.

Four people sat by the window overlooking the sidewalk; their backs turned to me. A couple sat a few tables down, too busy in an argument to notice. Two waited for their cups by the counter, eyes glued to their phones. One man went to the bathroom at the corner of the cafe.

No one was looking. I quickly slipped my pistol out of the holster and placed the gun inside the bag. I wanted to grab it back, thinking it was a big mistake to sacrifice the only weapon I had on this side of town, aside from my knife. But there was no other way for my plan to work. I had to sacrifice my gun, and I prayed that Charity wouldn't find it.

I caught a peek on the open folder. It was some kind of list, and I realized they were names, possibly people that had been let into the walls. Each one had a series of numbers, and I recognized occupations written below their names. The woman had crossed out about half the page with a red pen; some crossed out in blue, while the rest had a star next to their names and their respective occupation circled. I had no idea what they meant. I wondered what the hell they were planning.

Never mind that now. I had to focus on my own problems.

Charity came back to her table and gave me another stink eye. I tried to smile, but she grabbed her bag and moved to another seat away from me, and I buried my face in the newspaper, intently reading two-week-old news as if they were new. I tried to smell my armpit with a split-second sniff discreetly. Maybe I smelled terrible since I hadn't showered in days and thought she found it revolting. Then again, perhaps she saw me dropped the gun on her tote bag, but she did not even check what was inside. I crossed my fingers she wouldn't, hoping she'll make it to the X-ray scanners and deliver the "surprise" I had in store for the guards.

Fifteen minutes later, Charity finished her coffee and a few pages of her folder. She didn't bother busing her table and left without checking her bag.

Bingo.

I waited, counting up to twenty before I got up and followed her back to the building, throwing the newspaper into the bin.

"My mark is moving in," I said over the radio.

"Shall I do it now?" Logan asked.

"Not yet. Wait for the signal."

"What signal?"

"Don't worry. You'll know it."

"Okay. We'll wait for the signal." Logan didn't sound sure, but I let it drop. "Over and out."

I tried to channel Logan. The boy could make himself comfortable anywhere without a single sweat. I decided to copy his demeanor, telling myself that I belonged here, that everyone and their mother knew me that I worked in the building for a very long time. But you couldn't learn that kind of confidence overnight, and I am not Logan Hardy. The best I could muster was a poor man's excuse to relax, and I might have ended up looking like the guilty party in an episode of Law & Order. Eazy Peezy, or some bullshit like that.

Still, I made a show of finding my ID in my pocket, found it in my jacket, and then held it on my right hand as I stood in line. It was visible enough for the soldiers to see but not too close to read that it wasn't a government ID. The woman stood three people ahead of me. I crossed my arms, hips to one side, pretending to be mildly impatient as I watched the people up front thoroughly getting their IDs and bags checked, going into the body scanner machine, and then getting patted by the guards on the other side of the barricade. From the corner of my eye, none of the soldiers reacted to my presence.

Charity was up next.

I eyed the soldiers up and down, reading their moves as Charity placed her tote bag on the conveyor. She also took out her shoes, placed them inside a plastic container, put any of her jewelry there, and stepped onto the pedestal on the full-body scanner. I watched the tote bag went past the lead curtains and into the x-ray scanner.

I noticed the soldier's eyes behind the screen went wide, mouth slightly parted, looking back and forth at the woman and then to the screen. The second was the full-body scanner lighting up, the circular light up top turned from green to red, and an alarm blew off, shrieking like a banshee across the plaza. It made everyone jumped, parting away from the line like the Red Sea. The two soldiers flanking the body scanner raised their rifles and shouted at Charity to put her arms up, face down. The K-9s began barking like a rabid pack smelling fresh meat.

Charity panicked, raising her hands immediately, and started begging the soldiers to stop, mumbling something incoherent between bursts of sobs. I felt sorry for her, but I had to do what I had to, reminding myself that I had a slim timeframe to slip inside.

The people in line backed away, cowering in fear, and I pretended to do the same. I saw more soldiers converging on the full-body scanner where Charity was still inside, surrounding the poor woman who was already on her knees, sobbing. A couple of soldiers plucked her tote bag out of the conveyor and shook the contents loose. The gun clattered to the ground first, and a slew of shouts and more hacking sobs echoed across the plaza.

"That's not mine! That's not mine!" Charity screamed, but the soldiers didn't listen.

Soldiers started scanning the area, flicking their rifle's safety off, and I was tempted to fish my radio out to scream at Logan that the fucking signal just lit up, the body scanner alarm still blaring. Where the hell were they? I looked around, but there was no sign of their mark. I moved closer to the barricade, the one with a narrow gap between the drum barrels, but not too close that the soldiers up on the roof would notice me.

A car alarm went off, then a multitude of them, followed by a truck barreling through Washington Avenue without a driver. It ran over the parked cars, taking out the side mirrors and blowing off windows, the screaming pedestrians jumping out of its way before the truck clipped a Toyota at the far end of the plaza, delivering enough force that tipped it over to its side with a throttled roar.

I smiled. The truck's wheels were still spinning, the gas pedal pinned down by whatever Luke and Logan propped it with.

I heard the soldiers started radioing it in with baffled breaths, a squad now moving to that location, taking positions behind what little cover the plaza had to offer. On the roof, the snipers' scopes found their way on the overturned truck, followed by barks of order for whoever was inside to get out (no one was in there). I gave Luke and Logan a silent thank you before I slipped through the narrow gap between the drum barrels with everyone's eyes now glued to the wreck.

A dozen or so employees who had been standing on the grand staircase a minute ago ran for the doors, hoping the building would cover whatever threat was out on their front door. I caught their confused, terrified looks as they clamored their way in. I blended into the crowd, also pushing my way into the foyer.

A hand clasped my shoulder, spinning me around until I came face to face with a soldier. My heart stopped, my ears ringing, and I almost grabbed my knife when the soldier asked, "What the fuck is going on?"

"I—Uhm, I don't know..." I stammered, looking for words. I swallowed, looking around for an exit.

He must've interpreted my terrified look for shock, heaving a sigh, and took his hands off my shoulder.

I found my voice. "Someone out there got a gun," I said, putting enough quiver into my voice, which wasn't hard to do as I was pissing scared what the soldier might do to me if he figured me out.

The soldier looked at me, and without a second thought, ordered the three other soldiers guarding the main foyer to guard the entrance.

"Go with the others. Tell them to close the doors at the Dodge Murals and stay in there. This building is under lockdown." The soldier took out his radio and delivered the same commands to someone on the other line.

I nodded, but I had no idea where and what he was talking about. I followed the crowd up to the placard on the wall that said: SENATE STAIRCASE. Hundreds of people were already there, gathering at the base of the steps. The majority questioned some of the panicked crowd, and I caught a bundle of stories from a crazy woman with a gun, a car wreck with many dead, and a full-front assault by a heavily-armed terrorist group. Everyone ended up rattled, especially when one man swore he saw a dozen infected outside the building and that the soldiers were fighting them off.

"I swear! People are attacking each other like the one you see on the internet!" The man exclaimed.

Audible gasps echoed across the crowd, and a few ran off to the deeper halls of the building, hoping to find a place to hide. Though, many more stayed behind.

I shook my head. A lot of things could happen in a panicked crowd, too unpredictable that could find someone dead.

I found a man I considered old and important to likely know of Clemons's whereabouts. He was in an impeccable gray suit, salt-and-pepper hair, probably in his mid-fifties, surrounding himself with half-a-dozen "entourage" that seemed to give his voice importance.

I tapped on his shoulder, and he turned around, giving me an irritated glance, then said, "Excuse me, but have you seen Lieutenant General Dean Clemons?"

"Who are you?" He asked, his voice strained with annoyance.

I swallowed. "I'm his nephew," I said.

"He's in the assembly chamber. Now, scram."

I was about to say thank you, but he turned back to address the crowd around him and said something about he has full confidence that the soldiers would resolve the situation quickly.

I quietly walked away from them. Thank you very much, asshole.

I walked over to the map displayed on the wall. I spotted the YOU ARE HERE on the first floor next to a drawing of the senate staircase. The assembly chamber was on the third floor.

I started heading for the elevator, but before I could push the button, all the lights went out, the startled yelps of the crowd soon followed. A second later, the emergency lights came back up; the building was now in lockdown. I stared at the elevator and sighed. What the hell. My day had been pretty crappy from the start anyway.

"Well. I guess it's the stairs, then," I muttered.

——

I reached the third-floor landing, following the signs posted on the wall, pointing me to the assembly chamber. But before I could get that far, I could already hear voices echoing from the other hall. I turned the corner, saw the assembly doors already opened, and a hundred or so people dressed in suits were standing around the hall, surrounded by dozens of soldiers.

Shit.