“How long?”
“Ten minutes, no more.”
Dattar switched off the phone and headed back down the stairs. He worked his way through the darkness to where he had left Khalil and the others.
“And?” Khalil said.
“We’re getting some backup. And my contact at the CIA is coming personally. Any movement?”
“None. But they could be upon us, and I wouldn’t know in this darkness.”
Dattar ran the plan down.
“That’s a bad idea. First, if the NYPD comes, there will be some that may recognize you. That means we have to get out of here now. Second, even if they do secure the station, there’s still not enough time to get our hands on Nolan and get away before the bacteria colonizes.”
“My contact’s going to bring her to me. We’ll leave before the twenty minutes are up and be far enough away to be safe until that happens. Good enough for you?”
“Better.” Khalil’s voice sounded grudging. Dattar heard a man from his crew groan, followed by a thumping noise.
“He’s dead,” Rajiid said.
“Great.” Khalil’s voice sounded disgusted. “Why in hell are you giving these men a suicide pill?”
“Dead men can’t turn on me.”
“They can’t fight, either.”
Dattar didn’t bother to respond. In the distance he heard sirens, growing louder.
“Rajiid, time.”
“Twelve minutes.”
The sound of pounding feet came from the stairwell.
“Dattar, it’s me.”
“Just in time,” Dattar said.
49
WE CAN’T LET UP,” Russell said.
“I agree, but I’m concerned about Howell. I don’t want a stray bullet to hit him.”
“We’ll throw the tear gas first. It’s formulated to create black smoke as well. Once they deploy, we’ll lay down some more fire in the platform’s direction, avoiding the left wall, where he was last.”
Smith slid the pack off his shoulder and took out the bombs. He fished around and removed the masks.
“Put this on.” He shoved one at Russell, donned his own, and removed the remaining pistol. Moving the pack out of his way, he hefted the bomb in his hand. “Howell’s going to hate this,” he said. “He doesn’t have a mask. Ready? One, two, three.” He pulled the pin on the bomb, stepped into the center of the tunnel and threw it as far as he could. There was a clanking sound as it landed on one of the rails, followed by a fizzing. He pulled the pin on the next, tossed that one, and then switched on the flashlight.
Smoked belched upward from the bombs, billowing into a black cloud. Smith jogged forward, his rifle aimed to the right. He began firing and Russell joined in with her Uzi. They were effectively blinded and Smith clenched his teeth on the thought that while they couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see them. One lucky shot and he was a dead man.
They kept moving, foot after foot, getting closer to the beginning of where Nolan said she’d placed the bacteria. Smith kept the outer edge of his left foot against the second rail, using it as a guide to keep him on track. It was all he had. He reached the beginning of where the bacteria should be and was thankful for the mask. He breathed heavily, sucking in air. Russell was near and kept a relentless pace, stalking ahead. Water dripped on his head, and he jumped at the cold contact. A second drop hit his back.
When the return fire came, it felt as though it was from all directions. Smith heard the higher pitched sound of the reports from the rifles and he dropped to the ground, doing his best to keep his weapon high. Water splashed up on his face and he felt it soak through his clothes. He crawled to the first rail and over it, keeping his gun pointed up and firing. A click told him that it was empty. Even on semiauto, he’d fired a lot of rounds. He pressed his back against the platform wall and felt in his waist pack for fresh ammunition.
While he slammed the magazine home he noticed that Russell, too, was out. She’d stopped firing. From somewhere farther down the tunnel he heard the report of a new shooter. Howell was back and firing high, a fact for which Smith was grateful. The smoke bombs caused severe facial pain along the lines of tear gas and the enclosed space would intensify it. Smith’s mask smelled of rubber and stale air, but at least his eyes and throat didn’t burn. He could only imagine what Howell was experiencing. The way the chemical made one’s eyes run, it would be tough to fire on a target with any real accuracy. The best Howell could do would be to blanket the area, just as Smith and Russell were doing. Smith kept low, among the rails. They were right where the bacteria began, and Smith was thankful for the mask for another reason. He wasn’t breathing in the toxin.
He bent around and resumed firing, keeping the shots high. He saw Russell’s muzzle flashes in his peripheral vision and was grateful that she had more ammunition. This was his last magazine.
A fresh onslaught of gunfire from the platform caught him by surprise. It was as though the number of attackers had doubled in the last few minutes. The noise in the tunnel became deafening. Smith’s heart was racing and his ears rang continuously. The smoke was beginning to clear and Smith wished he had another bomb. He focused on the muzzle flashes, firing directly at them in a staccato byplay. He heard Russell give a short yell, and her gun clattered at his feet. She stumbled against him.
“I’m out and hit. Right arm.”
Smith didn’t take his eyes from the target. “Get back in the tunnel. Howell and I will cover here.”
“Not on your life. You have another pistol?”
Smith fired two more rounds. Ten left, he thought.
“Yes. Shoulder holster.”
“That leave you with one?”
“No, that leaves me with none. I gave Nolan the other one.”
“Then I am heading to the tunnel. I’m not going to take your last weapon.”
She was gone before Smith could ask how badly she was injured. He kept shooting and started to count: eight, seven, six. Howell shot as well, but Smith couldn’t help but worry that Howell would also be down to his last few rounds. The attackers, though, with their renewed numbers and zeal seemed to have been given a fresh lease on death, firing round after round. As the smoke cleared, their muzzle flashes became sharper. Smith saw one shooter moving toward the ledge.
Four, three, two, Smith counted. Time to go, he thought. He bolted across the tracks, bent over, keeping between the first and second rail, but this time running in Howell’s direction. He saw a last flash, heard the report, and he knew it was Howell.
Smith fired his final round, slung the AK carrying strap over his shoulder and yanked the pistol out of his holster. The smoke had dissipated enough that he could once again see the blue signal lights glowing halfway into the tunnel. The attackers emerged from the blackness, appearing as darker shadows amid the smoky atmosphere. He ran forward, holding his breath until he cleared the wall and was protected from the shooters. Howell moved up flush with his left shoulder. Smith was inordinately happy to see the man.
“No more ammo?” Smith said.
“Correct,” Howell replied. He wiped the tears that streamed from his eyes. “You?”
“AK’s out, but I have a pistol. How’d you slip past them to get to me?”
“The heavy smoke helped.”
“Any idea how many are on that platform?” Smith kept jogging forward while he spoke. He kept glancing back to see if any additional attackers would crawl onto the tracks and shoot straight down the tunnel. When they did, he wanted to be safely inside an opening. The next alcove couldn’t come soon enough.
“Six at least. It was down to four but I think two joined in the last five minutes. You managed to drive them backward, so that’s a gain.” Howell stumbled and Smith grabbed his arm.
“Watch out, the third rail’s hot.”
“You sure?”
“I have no doubt.”
“Why?” There came a rumbling from in front of them, and a train’s headlights came into view.
r /> “That’s why,” Smith said.
50
RUSSELL FELT WEAK as she worked her way back down the tunnel. She reached the dead man and took a break, breathing heavily in the face mask. Sweat ran down the sides of her face and accumulated near her chin and at the bottom of the mask. Her fever had spiked again. She supposed she should feel regret at pushing herself so hard when she was newly recovered, but she couldn’t muster any.
She listened to the exchange of gunfire with rising dread. The shots from the direction of the platform had increased substantially, which told Russell that some additional muscle had joined the attackers on the platform. She’d seen four men at least. Some more with fresh ammo and renewed purpose would be enough to overcome Smith and Howell. She needed to get to street level fast so that she could ask Klein for reinforcements. She pressed on, leaving the safety of the alcove and keeping low, crawling through the tunnel. Water saturated her shoes, and her shirt was soaked with sweat under the bulletproof vest. The tunnel seemed an endless dark path that would go on forever. The glowing signal stands gave her some minimal illumination, but it failed to show her the small holes and debris that appeared on the tracks. She rose to a crouch, tripped over a small box and gasped when her foot fell into a hole and threw her off balance. Three steps later she kicked something that flashed bits of silver as it jumped into the air and then landed. She reached it and kicked it again. It was inanimate, whatever it was. On the third encounter with it she grabbed it with her hands. She felt the spokes and nylon covering. It was an umbrella. She tossed it out of the way, against the wall.
She heard the rumbling of a train coming from behind her and panic started to rise. She tried to stay rational; she could always step into an alcove and the train would simply sail by, but the idea of being on train tracks when an actual train was in sight made her palms start to sweat. She could hear the rasping of her breath in her ears, the sound magnified in the mask’s close confinement. A quick glance back told her everything she needed to know. A train was headed into the station. The smoke bomb had cleared completely, and the subway car’s headlights and signals were lit. The train was directly in her path. She increased her pace, looking for the next alcove. She found it and jumped inside with a sense of relief.
The rumbling grew louder, and she pressed her back against the wall. The train flew by, illuminating her hiding place in regular bursts of light. The noise was loud, and she winced at the sound. It never had seemed so loud when she was waiting safely on a platform.
The last car passed and she leaned out a little to watch the taillights recede. Soon her ears readjusted and she strained to hear whether the fight continued after the train had gone, but there was no sound that she could identify. She found the silence almost more ominous than the shooting. At least while the two factions were battling it out, she could be assured that Smith and Howell were alive.
Russell pushed that thought aside. In all the years she had known Smith, he had prevailed, sometimes against steep odds. She wouldn’t bet against him now. She heaved herself to a standing position only to have her eyes lose focus; black settled over her, forcing her to lower back down. She used the wall as a support, sliding down along it to avoid falling over. When she was seated, she put her head between her knees.
Exhaustion clawed at her. Her skin was clammy, and she could feel rivulets of sweat pouring along her sides and from her hair. The mask was stuck to her cheek. She would pass out soon. She only hoped it would be after she reached the surface and spoke to Klein, but the way her body was collapsing made her realize that she might not make it out of the tunnel.
She couldn’t imagine living this long only to die of an unknown virus in a subway tunnel, but a part of her recognized the irony. She’d become a CIA officer in order to protect her country in the international arena. She’d always thought that if she died on the job, it would be in some exotic locale and at the hands of an enemy agent. Now she realized that the enemy was a virus so small she hadn’t seen it coming. For a moment she thought about all the men, women, and children who would go about their day unaware that this virus had entered their bodies and was working its way through.
Her sister Sophia had died that way. In her sickened haze Russell felt her heart constrict at the thought of Sophia. She’d been a researcher at USAMRIID and died from a deliberate stick of a deadly bacteria. Russell suspected Smith had never really gotten over the loss of Sophia. They’d been engaged to be married, and he’d never allowed a woman to get that close again. Russell remembered Nolan kissing him in the alcove and wondered if Nolan had managed to break through Smith’s reserve. She hoped so, for his sake.
The mask sputtered, and she no longer could inhale oxygen through it. She pulled it off her face. A bit of the rubber coating stuck to her cheek, and she winced when it yanked her skin before releasing. She took a breath, stood up, and vowed to continue forward. All her speculation was getting her nowhere. She needed to move.
Her legs felt heavy and her head spun as she walked, but she set her teeth together and continued. Deep-seated chills started at the base of her spine and flowed outward, the skin on her arms puckering with it. She felt waves of cold followed by heat. Her teeth started chattering, and she clenched them to stop it. She had counted alcoves during her walk in and now calculated that she had two more to go before she reached the next platform. Her foot hit yet another piece of detritus and she stumbled against the wall. As she did she leaned her cheek against the stone, relishing the chill. She pushed off and staggered ahead. The wall disappeared and the platform was there. Even better, this platform was lit.
She got to the edge, and it took all her strength to lift the Uzi and put it on the platform. When she placed both hands on the yellow treads at the edge, she found she was at least four feet lower. It was going to take some physical strength to haul her body up and over. Physical strength that she wasn’t sure she had after more than two days fighting the virus. Both her hands were in view and for the first time Russell noticed how dry and desiccated they looked in the bad fluorescent lighting. They were the hands of someone beyond dehydrated. Another chill took her, but this time she wasn’t sure if it was from her existing illness or from the mutated version placed on the rail.
A volley of shots came from the tunnel in the direction where Smith and Howell still fought. They echoed through the cavern and galvanized Russell. She took a deep breath and hauled with her arms while using her toes to inch up the wall. She made it over the edge and flopped onto the floor, panting. She rolled onto her stomach, then to a crouch and finally stood. She staggered to the stairs. As she turned a corner, she found Nolan facedown on the ground, her hands tied behind her back. Blood pooled on the ground next to her head, but Russell saw her body move as she breathed. A man stood over her, pointing a gun at the prone woman’s head. He turned around to face Russell and smiled a triumphant smile.
“Hello, Russell. Looks like I’ve managed to round up all the thieves this evening,” Harcourt said.
Russell swayed, but managed to stay upright. “You’re the thief, not me.” She wobbled as the blood once again threatened to leave her brain.
“Lie down, face-first, just like your friend here.”
Russell swayed. She wasn’t going to stay upright much longer, and she had no energy to fight Harcourt. She decided to threaten him with someone who could.
“Smith is headed this way. You’d do best to get the hell out of here before he does.”
“I’m not worried about Smith. The NYPD is on its way and will make quick work of him. Or did you forget that I have influence there?”
“Not with them all.”
“Do as I say or I’ll kill you here. One less traitor to worry about.”
Russell knew that her condition made it impossible to overcome Harcourt. The better plan was to go along and survive to fight later. She lowered to the ground next to Nolan, who didn’t move. Harcourt tied her hands with plastic handcuff strips.
“Now
we go.”
“Where to?” Russell said.
“To a place where I can be rid of you.”
51
SMITH PRESSED HIS BACK against the alcove wall with Howell next to him. The train had passed without stopping at the 191st Street station.
“They’re bypassing,” Howell whispered. “That has to be Klein’s work. An extra precaution because he hasn’t heard from you.”
Smith hoped that Nolan would get his message to Klein soon and the trains would stop altogether. He knew it was only a matter of seconds before the attackers would jump onto the tracks and start firing. Smith glanced back and saw some motion in the blue glow of a signal light.
“They’re in position,” Smith said. He swallowed, but it did little to wet his throat. He checked his watch. They had six minutes before the bacteria would reach twenty feet on each side of the drop location. His mask had shifted, covering one eye, and he moved it back into place. It was then that he got a good look at Howell. The man’s face was swollen and turning red from the combination of the tear gas effects and exertion. In the fitful light thrown by a signal Smith could only make out the sheen of sweat that covered Howell’s face.
“How bad do you feel? Is it from the tear gas?”
Howell shook his head. “I’ve been gassed twice before. This is something more.”
“The virus?”
“I believe so.”
Smith yanked on the ripped portion of his shirtsleeve. He worked the tear until the sleeve fell free. He handed it to Howell. “Wrap this around your nose and mouth. If they toss some more bacteria, it will help.”
“I also found a discarded plastic bag. It’s foul, but I’ll not hesitate to put it over my head if it is required.”
“I’m sorry to tell you this but I’m the one who threw the tear gas.”
“Ah. I see,” Howell said.