New York

*This is a little longer than the usual, but it's a new year and all so go big or go home, right? And it's not that long. Sorry about the formatting, something zigged when it should have zagged. So glad I spent all that time making it pretty for nothing.

"Right," said Colonel Blackwell, Special Air Service, slapping his palm on the table. The New York state statistician who had been droning through an endless and numbing list of numbers jumped visibly at the interruption.
"Don't mean to be rude and we certainly enjoyed all the introductions, but how's about we skip the dancing and grab this by the balls." Twenty faces representing most City, State and Federal agencies that operated in the city stared back blank faced from around the giant board room table. Behind them, lining the walls three deep were the blue collars who actually kept the metropolis running. There were more than a few smirks from that quarter.
"Excuse me, Colonel-" began Governor Stewart.
"Our apologies, Governor," responded Commander Christopher Brown, Scotland Yard raising a hand. "We appreciate the welcome you've given us and the fine assortment of brass you've rolled out, but if you want to shut this spread down we've got to start working now. The facts and figures are all well and good, but I've yet to hear one that'll help us here." Incredulous faces stared back at the two Englishmen.
"Look, I'm sure the Home Office would've preferred sending out some suits to do this, but quite frankly, if they're not already dead then they're probably responsible for the original cock-up we had," explained Blackwell. "We're here to help you lock this down because it's what we do. It's not pretty, but it's effective. If you're looking for long lunches and coffee breaks and smoke blown up your arse I'm afraid you called the wrong people." Glances were traded around the room before the Mayor finally cleared his throat and asked, "And where would you have us start?"
Brown nodded and turned in his chair towards the large map of Manhattan. He had studied the city in detail on the flight over, but he had one last look before speaking.
"Cut off all exits from the island. Bridges, tunnels, ferries, whatever. Leave three bridges open. Triborough to the north, and the Brooklyn and Williamsburg to the south. No cars. If they leave, they leave on foot. Cars take too long to inspect and you don’t have that kind of time. Anyone with any sort of illness is held back, anyone showing signs of the sickness should be shot on sight and dropped over the side. Give them three days then cut the bridges. Commandeer any helicopters and float planes you can and destroy those you can't. Blockade the entire island immediately and sink any vessel that attempts to leave. Sink anything that floats that stays behind. Mine the river bottom all the way around."
"Evacuate Manhattan in three days? By foot?" sputtered the mayor. "Do you have any idea how many people live here?"
"I know exactly how many people live here which is why I gave you an extra day."
"Commander, I know the primary concern here is containing the spread of the disease, but the overwhelming majority aren’t sick," said the Deputy Director of Homeland Security. "I realize that, Director, and that makes it all the more difficult at this stage, but the bowels of your city are contaminated and every second we waste now is a second closer to the flash point. Hell, we could already be there."
"Flash point?" asked the Governor.
"The moment all those infected rummies down in your subway system realize there's food above them," answered Brown. "Then it all goes to hell, regardless of your plans and preparations. There's no stopping it once it starts."
"Once the exits are cut is when it gets bad. Then they start trying to escape and you can't let them. Best you can do is try airlifting them off buildings, but who you take off has to be harsher than at the bridges. Mob rule will weed out a lot of infected before they get to the helipads, but a lot of those'll show up armed and dangerous." "Lots'll be draggin' loved ones along who're infected but they'll swear it's just a cold or an allergy. Them's the ones to worry about cause they'll try anything. They'll bribe, they'll threaten, the pretty ones'll offer some ass. You'll need extra soldiers just to watch the ones who may consider it. You need hard men. Men who won't blink at putting a bullet into anyone, because it will come to that quickly. They need to be prepared to drop another soldier so it's best to set up two teams, one to herd and one to watch," said Blackwell.
"Whose got subways?" asked Brown to the crowd of engineers. Two heavy set men stepped forward.
"Right. You need to hook up with the Army engineers. Any tunnels leaving the island need to be walled up and the inner wall needs to be mined for when you come back. Protect the engineers."
"Excuse me?" interrupted the FBI representative. "What are the mines in the water for if we've sunk all the boats?"
"Two things. First off, the zombies'll walk the river bottom and escape. Second, survivors will start building rafts. They'll loot kayaks or canoes from sporting goods stores and the truly desperate will try and swim. You can try processing them on the water if you like, but lock it down at night." Faces were quickly turning pale around the table as they realized their worst case scenarios were merely starting points for the horrors that lay ahead.
"Then what?" asked the mayor.
"Once you've pulled out as many as you can it turns to cleanup. Round up as many snipers as you can find and camp them around the island, they'll be busy for years. You'll probably need to hire out to civilians as well."
"Put teams on secure roof tops. Not the high towers mind you, but the medium sized buildings. Secure the rooftop and set up a self sufficient base for a sniper team and establish a secondary building they can zip line to if they're overwhelmed."
"You can also make excellent use of Central Park as a killing zone," added Blackwell.
"How so?"
"Eventually they'll begin running out of fresh meat as the number of uninfected drops. They'll feed on each other if they have too, but you can draw the bastards out easy enough with some live bait. Animals will work, but nothing beats a human screaming their lungs out, drives 'em nuts."
"Bait?" asked the horrified mayor.
"You set up a tower that they can't climb but that you can drop a man on from a chopper. Once you've gathered in a good number you evac your man and drop some anti-personnel explosives or some napalm."
"Luckily they're stupid and you can keep doing it over and over again," said Brown.
The anger and incredulity on the faces of the men and women around the table had now been replaced with shock and horror. None of their training or management skills had prepared them for this. Around them, notes were being scribbled at a furious pace and department heads had already begun whispering plans to one another.
"You're lucky geographically. If you move fast enough you can contain the worst of it to the island and won't have to take the drastic measures that others have had to," said Brown.
"Needless to say, this has to be kept quiet. There's a reason no one was allowed to bring a cell in here. You need your assets in place before even a whisper of this gets out, otherwise you may as well just Shanghai the city now," said Blackwell.
"They said that was an accident," said the governor. General Smythe, of the Air National Guard cleared his throat, his first contribution to the meeting.
"It wasn't an accident, Governor, the Chinese dropped two tactical nukes on the city. They shot any survivor that tried to escape." There was silence around the room.
"Did it work?" someone asked from the back. Brown shrugged.
"There's no zombies in Shanghai anymore, but the city was bleeding evacuees for days before they cooked it. One thing China's not short of is zombie food." The Englishmen allowed their words to sink in for a moment or two.
"You need to start moving your troops now. And you need to get as much work out of your city guys before they start to run so you'll also need extra troops for that too. Protect them and and keep them working.”
"Why can't we use army engineers for that?" asked a heavy set Teamster.
"Because there aren't enough of them and they don't know the city like your people. Let's make one thing clear here in case you've missed something. You're going to be sacrificing a lot of people here, probably millions so this isn't the time to get all sentimental or worry about your union ties or bullshit like that. You can give up the city and contain this or you can fuck around like a lot of other cities and lose it all. I know you've probably got a bag full of contingency plans you're already planning to throw at us but I can tell you right now they won't work. You want to try them first, that's up to you, but in the end you'll wind up like Bombay or New Delhi or Hong Kong. Your city is simply too big." Blackwell took a look around the room. "So, are we staying or are you taking us back to the airport?" The room went silent, but before anyone could respond, the representative from the State Department spoke up.
"On behalf of the United States government I wish to extend you our deepest thanks for taking this trip and formally request that you help lead our efforts at containing this outbreak."
"Wait a minute," started the Mayor. The man from State pulled an envelope marked with the Presidential Seal and slid it across the table.
"The state of New York is hereby under direct control of the federal government. Colonel Blackwell, ___ Brown, the full resources of this state, at all levels, along with whatever support you require from the United States government is at your disposal." Across the table, the Governor was turning purple while the Mayor's face had gone white. "You're handing over my state to a bunch of foreigners? And we're supposed to just roll over?"
"John," said the Mayor, holding out the letter with a shaky hand, "You should read this before you say anything else." The Governor waved dismissively towards his aide, his eyes not leaving the man from State.
“John, it’s signed by the President. He can have you removed from office or shot if he wants to,” said the mayor quietly and slid the letter towards him.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” State smiled before turning back to the two Englishmen. “Where do we start?”