Dr. Fife offered the woman his most benign smile. “When those influenza cultures are placed aboard a chartered 727 jet in just a few hours, you may rest assured that all steps have been taken to assure safety, and that absolutely nothing has been left to chance.”
In a state of stunned bewilderment, Liam watched the three-story brownstone on the southeast corner of Clinton and Atlantic — his destination — collapse in a
rolling rumble of brick, plaster, wood, and glass.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph…”
Well over an hour before, Liam had emerged from the Hoyt Street subway station on the heels of the transit cop who’d been summoned to a police action. He watched as the officer hopped into a waiting Transit Police car driven by another cop. They sped down Fulton Street and turned toward Atlantic Avenue, out of sight.
Liam had followed Fulton until he’d reached Boerum Place, a quiet, shady boulevard only a few blocks from downtown Brooklyn. Even from a distance, Liam had been able to see the emergency vehicles rushing down Atlantic Avenue, hear the sirens wailing. He hadn’t thought much about it then, and when he caught the smell of bacon frying, he could no longer ignore his exhausted condition.
He’d been through a lot — the long ride, the mugging, the subway train nearly killing him, then the cop getting suspicious. He felt cold, clammy, shaky all over. He hoped getting some food into him would help him make the final hike to Taj’s store. So he’d sat at the counter of a small neighborhood diner and ordered up a good fry — bacon, sausage, eggs, toast— then washed it all down with a cup of hot tea.
The food had done the trick. He was still bloody fah’ed out, but the hot food and the caffeine in the cha had revived him enough to finish the job for Shamus. By the time he’d made his way over to Atlantic, however, he’d found his way blocked by a police barrier.
The officers had seemed preoccupied with watching the drama unfold, so Liam had followed the line of yellow tape and wooden barricades until he’d found an unguarded spot and slipped through. He’d walked another block, to the corner of Court Street. It had been impossible to go farther than that. Police were everywhere, and emergency vehicles had blocked every street. Fire trucks were scattered about, and fire hoses jutted from hydrants and snaked along the pavement. Finally Liam had joined a group of Middle Eastern men who’d emerged from a greengrocer to watch the action from a fairly close vantage point.
Liam had been stunned to discover that black FBI vans had circled Kahlil’s delicatessen — his destination— and armored assault teams had just entered the store. Sirens had continued to blare, emergency lights flashed as more vehicles moved through the cordon. Police, fire department, and traffic helicopters were circling overhead, the sound of their beating rotors reverberating from the surrounding buildings. Among the air traffic a chopper belonging to Fox Five News dipped low, cameras rolling to provide live coverage to its millions of viewers.
Then the staccato sound of gunfire had shattered the bright blue morning. Shocked outcries had greeted the shots and many had fled the sidewalks, taking shelter in the surrounding stores and shops. A second assault team entered the building to join the first, and Liam had heard another burst of gunfire. Then he’d heard the muffled explosion, saw the flashes inside the brown-brick building, and the brownstone literally folded in on itself, to vanish in a massive cloud of billowing dust and debris that washed over emergency vehicles and law enforcement officials close to the collapse. Almost immediately, a dozen fires sprang up among the rubble.
“Back! Everyone back!”
A fireman was on the sidewalk now, in helmet and full gear. He was waving everyone into the surrounding buildings. As he forced the crowd back, away from the toppled structure, a dozen more firemen hurried forward, toward the conflagration.
Liam knew that the law enforcement officials who had charged into that building had been buried in tons of rubble. As fires began to spread, Liam was amazed by the courage of the firemen who rushed toward the site of the explosion instead of away from it.
“Clear the area!” a fireman’s bullhorn blared.
Liam considered retreating, but didn’t. Instead, he slipped through the crowd and moved forward. He was only half a block away now, and his flesh prickled with the heat of the fire. A thick column of black smoke rose from the rubble, pushed along Atlantic Avenue by a faint breeze off the water. The smoke hit Liam, choking him. He smelled burned wood, smoldering plaster, and something else — gas.
A fire chief in white helmet stood in the middle of the street, yelling into a bullhorn. “Get out! Get away! Clear the area now—”
Inside the rubble, among the trapped and moaning FBI agents, hot flames touched the ruptured gas main. Liam was blinded by an impossibly bright orange flash. Behind him, the plate-glass window of a furniture store shattered. A wave of superheated air washed over him, and Liam was bowled over by the force of the blast. Deafened, scorched, trembling, he curled into a ball around the attaché case while the sidewalk quaked beneath him.
Jack, Taj, and the young Afghani felt the stones under their feet tremble before the thunder of the gas explosion reached their ears. Then they heard it. Dust fell from the ceiling and smoke billowed out of the narrow shaft they’d climbed out of. First a dusty powder, then oily curls of hot smoke. The young man’s gaze found Taj. His lips trembled.
Another sound made itself known — alien, alive, angry. Tiny, tittering squeals merged into a sustained shriek, the chattering click of thousands of tiny claws brushing stone. In the weak light of the electric bulbs, a rippling brown carpet seemed to flow along the floor, the walls, at the far end of the tunnel. Stampeded by the explosion, they rushed toward the men in a snarling mass of teeth and claws.
“Rats!” Jack shouted.
“This way,” Taj called, turning away from the maddened swarm. Jack followed the man for a few steps before he realized the young Afghani was not with them.
“Taj!” Jack cried.
The man turned, saw the young Afghani. “Borak!” he cried. “Follow us.”
But the young man shook his head. “I will stop them.”
“No!”
The Afghani turned his back on them, lowered the muzzle of the Uzi he drew from his sash, naïvely fired. The bullets chewed through the squirming, squealing tide without effect. The brown flow swarmed around the young man even as he emptied the magazine into the panicked horde. The rats nipped at his sandals, clawed at his legs. The young man howled and dropped the useless weapon. Reaching into his loose shirt, he pulled out an old, Soviet-made grenade.
“Not in here!” Taj screamed.
But the boy was too frightened to hear him. As the rats swarmed over him, forcing the boy to the ground, he popped the pin on the grenade.
Without a word, Taj and Jack ran away from the rats, the impending explosion. Jack figured on a ten-second fuse and counted down in his mind.
Eight…seven…six…
“Get ready to hit the ground!” Jack cried.
Five…four…three.
“Down!”
Jack leaped forward, skidded along the hard stone floor. He curled into a ball, covered his ears. As expected, the explosion seemed massive in the enclosed space. The sound reverberated off the walls, bringing down dust and jarring more masonry loose as it rocked the one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old structure.
As the smoke cleared, Jack jumped up. Taj was already on his feet, running forward. Over the startled squeals of the swarming rats, they heard another sound — crashing masonry, crumbling earth, and the roaring rush of water. The grenade or the gas explosion — or perhaps both — had ruptured a water main.