Countdown, page 31
She gives me a thumbs-up and I tear off the headset, unbuckle the seat belt, get the door open, and leap to the ground.
Oof.
It’s stone, gravel, edges of wooden railroad ties, and I lower my head from the constant thrumming of the helicopter blades overhead, pebbles whipped up by the turbulence hitting my back like a sideways hailstorm. I start running as best I can toward the diesel electric behemoth approaching me, its big lit headlight looking like some evil cyclops traveling here to cause death and destruction. The colors are red and green, with HUDSON VALLEY written in a happy-looking white font on the side, and it’s slowing, it’s slowing, thank God it’s slowing down.
Someone pops out from the right side and jumps to the ground, and seconds later I see him running across the other set of tracks.
I’m close enough that the rumbling of the diesel is louder than the helicopter behind me, and I bring up my pistol, wave it back and forth, back and forth, along with my other hand.
I know there are usually two people running a train, and yes, another one comes out on the left catwalk, looks down at me. He cups his hands around his mouth and yells down, “What’s wrong?”
I take three more steps.
God, I think we’re going to make it.
I yell back, “Contact the local police, your train supervisors! There are bombs on that train, set to go off at eleven-oh-nine! Do it!”
I turn and start running back to the helicopter, my forearm across my face to shield my eyes from the debris churned up by the helicopter. Lisa’s copilot sees me approaching and gives me a wave. Up on the far embankment, curious local residents gape at us over their sagging wooden or chain-link fences.
Quick glance at my watch.
It’s 10:55 a.m.—fourteen minutes left.
Knowing the speed of the helicopter and Lisa’s skill as a pilot, it won’t take us long at all to get to the other train.
We’re going to make it, I think.
We’re going to make it.
Chapter 113
EVEN AT this height and distance—and with the winds from the west getting stronger—Rashad Hussain can make out the faint sweet sounds of sirens coming this way from One World Trade Center.
Lovely.
He stoops to look through the twin eyepieces and yes, the blinking flare of the infrared signal from his northbound train is moving right along.
Rashad stands up, hears the thump-thump of helicopters in the distance. With the smoke bombs going off and Patel shooting in the streets, he can imagine what’s going on.
Panic.
Pure, lovely panic.
If the point of terrorism is to terrorize, such is the point of panic.
There are tens of thousands of people now around that part of Manhattan, scared out of their wits as to what’s happening. The smoke, the gunshots, the resulting crush of people, the stampedes, the car accidents, the fights, even the looters or other criminals taking advantage of the situation…they are all possessed by fear.
And others are feeding upon that fear, responding to that fear.
At this moment hundreds of phone calls are being made:
I hear there’s an attack on One World Trade Center…
Repeat, repeat, repeat.
Now the major cable news networks have broken in with the news, and now millions of people are watching the confusion in southern Manhattan.
The police, the fire department, the EMTs are all bravely responding, crowding the situation even more. News reporters and photographers are racing there. Friends and relatives of those working at One World Trade Center are also rushing to the scene. And there will be the hundreds upon hundreds of sightseers and curious folks moving there as well, wanting to witness history.
He checks his watch. Almost 11 a.m.
And with that area choked with people, with millions upon millions watching live as to what’s going on, then—oh yes, then—a cloud of toxic gas like nothing else made in this world will drift over the tens of thousands clustered there.
Rashad goes back to the eyepieces.
But not over him, of course. One of those thump-thumps out there is a helicopter carrying highly paid and dedicated Serbian mercenaries, ready to pluck him off this hotel rooftop and fly him to safety at the right time, no matter what.
Wait.
He stands up, then looks again through the eyepieces.
The northbound train…
It’s stopped.
It’s not moving.
Rashad stands up, spine straight with concern and fury.
What has just happened?
Jeremy Windsor thinks of a phrase he picked up while deployed with a squad of American Special Forces in Pakistan: maximum effort, or getting the mission done even when you’re exhausted and bleeding, and bullets are zipping over your head.
He runs into the wide and modern-looking lobby of the Nansen Arms Hotel, across the tile floor, and past the small fountain with its circular settees and chairs. People are lined up with suitcases at their feet, patiently waiting to go to one of three stations at the check-in counter. Jeremy pushes his way through them and demands of the nearest clerk, “Quick! Where’s lift four?”
The Asian woman looks at him in confusion. “The what?”
“Lift four, where is—”
Bugger, he thinks.
“The fourth elevator bank, please—where is it?”
There are disgruntled murmurs behind him, but the woman points to his left and says, “Right down that foyer and to the left, sir.”
He breaks away.
Resumes running.
Past a news shop and a small café.
There.
To the left.
A small side corridor.
Elevator bank at the end.
With the blessed number 4 in bronze overhead.
A knot of people and a hotel employee with a luggage cart are expectantly waiting, and Jeremy looks up at the indicator light.
The red numeral says 14.
A second later.
It still says 14.
One of the hotel guests mutters, “Jesus, will that frigging thing ever get down here?”
Jeremy checks his watch.
It’s 11 a.m. on the dot.
Chapter 114
BRIAN LAMOTT checks the time and finds they are right on schedule—just south of Fort Lee, New Jersey—so he says to Alvi, “Hey, get ready to drop drawers in a few minutes! We’ll be passing the northbound fellows pretty soon.”
Alvi grins from his fireman’s seat and says something, but Brian can’t make out a single word for the roar of engines passing close overhead. Then a giant shadow, and sweet Jesus, look at that!
A blue-and-white helicopter is flying right in front of them. When it spins to one side, Brian makes out the badge and logo of the New York Police Department.
“NYPD?” he calls out. “Sure as hell are out of their jurisdiction. Maybe they’re helping the New Jersey State Police find someone.”
Brian holds on to that thought for only a few seconds before the helicopter lifts up and accelerates, heading down their line of track between Fort Lee’s pleasant, tree-covered suburban neighborhoods.
The helicopter stops, blocking their way, slowly rotating back and forth.
Brian looks over to Alvi, who’s staring at the hovering police helicopter.
“Shit, Alvi,” he says. “I think they want us to stop. I’m gonna check with Dispatch.”
He’s leaning over to the center console to pick up the phone connecting them to Hudson Valley Dispatch when Alvi calls out, “No! Brian, don’t pick up that phone.”
Brian says, “For Christ’s sake, are you nuts?”
The helicopter skips again down the track and pauses once more, rotating even more than before, back and forth, back and forth, demanding that attention be paid.
Brian’s hand is on the phone, but Alvi says, “Brian, you pick up that phone, I’m going to shoot you.”
He looks with disbelief at his conductor, who is standing away from his fireman’s seat and pointing a pistol at him.
Brian swallows hard.
“Alvi…what’s going on?”
His conductor, his coworker—his friend!—seems upset, and his Russian accent comes out as he quickly speaks. “Brian, I don’t want to hurt you. But you’re not calling Dispatch.”
Brian says, “Alvi, please…”
He motions with the pistol. “I don’t have time for explanations, or to tell you why, or how. You’re going to get up from your chair and step outside on the catwalk. There…you will have a chance if you jump. And start running away.”
Brian stares and says, “I’m stopping the train. Something’s going on. And I know you won’t shoot me.”
His hands go to the control handles before him and there are two loud explosions. Then a tearing, hammering pain in his chest, and Brian falls back.
Before the blackness comes over him, he hears Alvi saying, “Stupid old man, I warned you…”
Chapter 115
LISA BAILEY of NYPD Aviation 19’s hands are getting tired from gripping the collective lever and cyclic stick, and a sick feeling is growing in her stomach: this train isn’t slowing down, isn’t stopping, is still roaring its way south. She’s pulled in front of it three times now, and unlike its northbound brother, whoever’s operating the damn thing isn’t responding at all.
“Shit,” she mutters, and she heads down the track one more time.
Next to her Joe Woods says, “Lisa, lots of chatter from back home. Something’s going on at One World Trade Center. Center wants to know where the hell we are.”
“Shut up, Joe,” she says. “They’ll figure it out soon enough. Amy?”
“Yeah, Lisa,” comes her old Army friend’s voice through the earphones.
“It’s not stopping.”
“I see.”
“Gonna try something else,” Lisa says, staring at the train barreling down on her. “Joe, I’m going south another hundred yards. Then I want you to fire up the TrakkaBeam searchlight. Maybe we can blind the sons of bitches running that train, melt their goddamn eyeballs.”
From the rear Amy says, “Then what?”
Lisa says, “Had a cousin once who worked as a train engineer. There’s some sort of dead-man switch built into trains, called an alerter. If it senses someone isn’t actually driving the train, it’ll automatically shut ’er down.”
Joe says, “Lisa, let’s do it.”
“Okay.”
She turns around her best girl and this time flies her head-on. The searchlight is built on a gyro-enabled gimbal, and Joe says, “Locked on to the front windows.”
“Burn ’em,” Lisa says. Even at this late-morning hour, Lisa sees the front of the train light up from the 22,500 lumens she’s glaring at them—enough power to signal the goddamn space station at night—and she waits.
Waits.
Waits.
Joe says, “Ah, Lisa…”
The train grows larger and larger in view, a storming and threatening colossus of a machine, and she swears and tugs fiercely at the controls, the Bell 429 pulling up, the twin engines whining, roaring, as their craft tilts back.
Thud, thud, as the landing skids scrape the roof of the train speeding beneath them.
“Shit,” someone whispers, and she can’t tell if it’s Joe or Amy.
She gains some altitude, flies south.
Lisa can make out the shapes and spires of Manhattan, quickly growing closer.
“Amy,” she says.
“Yeah.”
“Out of options,” Lisa says.
“I figured as much.”
Lisa shakes her head, amazed at how quickly everything has changed from just a few minutes ago. Then: safely and quietly and happily flying in civilian airspace. Now: thrust back into a war zone, only one hard choice left before her.
She swallows hard. “Joe, Amy, I’m going to jump ahead about half a mile and let you off. Then I’m going to fly back, get as close as I dare, and land on the tracks. I’ll jump out right before the train hits. Hopefully we’ll derail the son of a bitch.”
“Won’t work,” comes Amy’s voice through the earphones. “No. You’ve got a twenty-ton locomotive hauling about twenty thousand tons of freight behind it. At this speed it’ll crush your chopper and just keep on going.”
Lisa snaps back, “You got a better idea?”
Amy sighs. “I do. You’re going to land on top of that locomotive, let me off, and I’m going to stop the damn thing.”
Chapter 116
HIS DAUGHTER Denise is crying, and never has Tom Cornwall felt so helpless, so goddamn foolish.
If only he had listened to Amy! Then he and Denise would be safe at Uncle John’s home on Staten Island, instead of being swept up and nearly crushed in this surging mob of people crowding Fulton Street.
Tom’s been in panic situations before—once in Sudan when a trampling crowd of starving refugees swarmed over an unexpected UN airdrop of food and trampled him, spraining an ankle and breaking a rib—but that was in Africa, not here!
“Daddy!”
“Hold on to me, Hon;—don’t let go, don’t let go!”
If he was alone, he would have options for escaping the madness: to punch and break his way free, even to climb one of the park trees. But no, not with Denise depending on him, huddled up close.
Tom knows he can’t fight against the crowd, wasting energy and perhaps being pushed down. So he does his best to move with the jerky, violent flow, holding one arm against his chest to give him breathing room and using his free hand to keep hold of Denise’s shirt collar.
They’re getting closer to West Street, and he’s hoping that—
A woman screams, falls to the ground.
More screams.
Shouts.
The far-off sound of sirens.
A deep thump, and another, as a truck or car runs someone over.
“Daddy…”
“Right here, Hon—right here.”
An elbow smashes into his left eye, blinding him there. Denise is crying. He won’t let go.
He won’t let go.
It must open up on West Street—it has to open up.
Just get to West Street.
He moves with the crowd.
“Hey!”
Who was that?
Even with the crowds shoving, pushing, poking, he sees a taller, bulkier man just yards away.
It’s one of his watchers.
Tom turns in panic, goes the other way, dragging Denise with him.
Mike Patel is honking the horn, driving slow, the crowds he’s caused flowing around him, some banging on the van’s sides.
He’s breathing hard, the bullet-resistant vest constricting him, overheating him. This isn’t the plan—this wasn’t supposed to happen!
More sirens.
Who was that Brit back there? How did he know he would be here?
The streaming and running crowds seem thinner on Greenwich Street. He makes a left, surges forward.
Flashing lights.
Up ahead, two NYPD police cruisers are blocking his way forward at the intersection of Greenwich and Vesey Street.
Cops are running this way.
Shit!
Mike shifts the van into Reverse, hits the gas pedal, goes back down Greenwich Street. More pounding and thumping on the sides of his van.
He’s got to get out of here.
Got to.
He manages to turn so he’s heading back up Fulton Street toward West Street, which is a larger avenue.
There has to be a way out of here.
Has to be.
He hits the accelerator, going faster through the well-dressed men and well-groomed women—the same kind of people who called him Paki, Paki, Paki back in Birmingham.
A thump.
The front end of the van bounces over something.
Mike grips the steering wheel tighter, sees a narrow opening in front of him—a man running toward a girl—and mashes the accelerator down as hard as he can.
The crowd surges and moves and—
Tom loses his grip on Denise.
“Denise!”
He hears her screaming and crying, he can’t see her, he’s lost her, he can’t see her.
There she is!
A brief opening in the crowd, like a dark cloud suddenly opening up and a shaft of light blessedly descending.
He runs forward and scoops her up, then hears the racing of an engine, turns, and sees a flash of white.
Pain and black.
Freddie races up Fulton Street, pushing his way through the panicked crowds, chasing Mike Patel in his van—having tracked him through his supposed last day in America. He whispers an agonized Damn, damn, damn as he sees Freddie mow down a woman, another woman, a man holding a child, and two more men. The crowd moves in front of Freddie and he can’t see the van for a few seconds, but then the son of a bitch is on West Street, heading north, and the crowds are thinner.
But even then—
Bam!
Another female pedestrian is struck and seemingly killed by Mike Patel. Nope, he’s getting away, Freddie thinks. We’re going to lose him.
Mike runs a red light on West just as a bright-red NYFD truck comes barreling down Vesey Street, lights flashing, sirens screaming, horns blaring. The fire truck slams right into the side of the accelerating van.
Bits of metal and glass fly into the air as the van spins in two complete circles and then hits a dark-green utility pole, nearly knocking it over. The fire truck’s sirens wail out as the truck skids, bounces, and then recovers, finally coming to a halt, with smoke rising from its wide tires.
Freddie runs up to the van.
The windshield is gone, and the driver’s door has popped open.
The steering wheel is right into Mike Patel’s chest.
Blood is streaming from his mouth and nose.
He slowly turns his head, looks over at Freddie.
“Help me, please,” he gurgles out.
