Fabretti nodded.
“That’s right. God help us all,” said Fabretti. “The mayor is going to call for the complete evacuation of New York City.”
Chapter 79
Chief Fabretti received a text from the deputy mayor, and we followed him up the four flights of too-warm stairs and then through a corridor crowded with cops and suits into the main war room again.
In a fishbowl office in the corner, beyond a row of printers, stood the mayor, along with the glaring lights of the small camera crew that was filming her live for the emergency broadcast.
I watched as the blue screen on the wall was replaced by an image of the mayor.
“Fellow New Yorkers, hello. I am sorry to tell you this, but we have received word that an undersea earthquake in the Atlantic may be imminent within the next six to eight hours. It is believed by experts that this quake may cause an Atlantic Ocean tsunami large enough to be a serious threat to people throughout the city. We are not one hundred percent sure that this is the case, but for the sake of caution and the preservation of life, I have signed an order to evacuate the entire city.”
“Why is she lying and talking about an earthquake?” said Arturo. “Like people have been sleeping through the bombings and assassination?”
“Who knows?” Doyle said. “Maybe she—”
“Shut the fuck up, both of you!” said Fabretti, standing behind them.
“This evacuation is a legal order not a recommendation. All the people of the city — in Manhattan and Brooklyn and Queens and Staten Island and the Bronx — must leave their homes as soon as possible and head inland. If you have a car parked in Manhattan, we are asking you to leave it where it is, as roads will soon become impassable with traffic. Please use public transport.
“The MTA and Port Authority have already been ordered to mobilize the mass transit system. All buses, trains, subways, and ferries will be open to the public at no charge in order to move people inland. Shelters in New Jersey and northern Westchester have already been set up, and we are working on opening more shelters farther north and inland as the number of people increases.
“We urge any and all of you to stay with family, but remember to stay away from all coastal areas within thirty miles of the shore. Please do not panic. We need to have as orderly an evacuation as possible. You have time to pack, and everyone will be given transportation and shelter. Stay tuned to local media. If you have not done so already, prepare a go bag.”
The mayor was saying that the fire department had been mobilized to help the hospitals when I stepped over into a corner and called Martin.
“Mike, how goes it?”
“I guess you’re not watching TV.”
“No. What is it?”
“Listen to me carefully, Martin. This isn’t a joke. They think an Atlantic Ocean tsunami is coming, so they’re evacuating the city. Do you have a driver’s license?”
“Not a New York one,” he said. “I can drive, though.”
You had to hand it to the kid. I thought he sounded alert yet calm. I just told him the world was ending, and he was immediately ready to deal.
“Good,” I said. “In the front hall closet is our seventy-two-hour kit — a big knapsack containing food and water, first aid, maps, flashlights, glow sticks, a crank radio, and five hundred bucks in cash. There’s also an extra set of van keys in it. The van’s in the lot at Ninety-Eighth, just off West End. I want you to go get it and pick up the kids and Seamus at Holy Name.
“When you get everybody, don’t get on the highway. Go north up Broadway and over the Broadway Bridge into the Bronx. Keep going north until Broadway becomes Route 9A up in Westchester. Just keep going then, okay? Call me when you have the kids.”
“How far do you want me to go?” said Martin.
I thought about what the geophysical experts had said about the 170-story wave.
“I have a cousin in the Catskills. You should head there.”
“The Catskills! That’s, like, a hundred miles. What the hell is coming? A meteor? Is Ireland going to be hit, too?”
“Don’t panic, Martin. It may be nothing, honestly, but better safe than sorry. Now hop to it. Grab the kids and call me back.”
Chapter 80
Half an hour later, I sat at a desk in the OEM war room quietly watching the big screen. It was divided up into a grid of nine screens, just like it was at the beginning of The Brady Bunch, but instead of seeing Carol and Mike and the gang smiling, various parts of the city were visible. The center was losing hold, and things were falling apart.
What looked like war footage was being beamed in from the traffic-light cameras. In SoHo, Times Square, Central Park, Harlem, and everywhere else, the streets were packed with cars and the sidewalks were filled with people carrying things. Knapsacks, rolling suitcases, paintings, dogs. On the screen that showed Broadway and 72nd Street, I watched as a short black guy in a gray business suit pushed a shopping cart up the middle of Broadway with an old black woman, probably his mother, lying in it.
I’d never seen so many people in Grand Central Terminal. They were packed in like sardines, a lot of them pushing and shoving. As I watched, a tall, curly-haired old lady by the information booth went to the floor as her cane was kicked out from under her by a group of stupid kids pushing past her. She was trampled by three or four other thoughtless jerks before some nice Asian teen boy stepped in. I was almost heartened as he dragged her back to her feet, but then as I watched, blood began gushing from her nose.
Then there was the eighteen-wheeler on fire in the middle of the Verrazano Bridge. The whole thing — the cab and the trailer — just blazing along. It would continue to do so, I knew, until it burned out, because a fire truck had as much chance of getting through the stalled traffic as I had of becoming the starting power forward for the Knicks this season.
No one was listening about not panicking, and who could blame them? It was every man for himself now, as hard as that was to believe.
From time to time, I looked away from the sickening screens to just stare at the items on the desk I was sitting at. I blinked at a bottle of hand sanitizer, a LEGO Movie mouse pad, a tube of ChapStick. All of it was going to be underwater in a few hours?
Beside the computer was a framed picture I couldn’t stop staring at. Two coltish girls and a tall blond mom smiling as they waded among the rocks of a river.
It looked like it was taken in New England somewhere, with autumn-yellow leaves on the trees. The girls were adorable, with braces, and the smile on the mom’s face was room-brightening. It looked like an old Coca-Cola ad or something. Americans being happy. It was time to say sayonara to that now?
Squinting angrily at the photo, I suddenly didn’t want to just catch the sons of bitches responsible anymore. I wanted to hunt them down and kill them with my bare hands.
When I called Martin for the twentieth time in the last twenty minutes, it kicked into voice mail. Martin was on the road now. Everyone was with him except Brian. They were in northern Manhattan, trying to get across the Harlem River to meet up with Brian at Fordham Prep. The problem was that Brian wasn’t picking up his phone, which meant he had forgotten to charge it. But Martin had called the school and left word to have Brian stay there for pickup, so maybe all was still good.
I balled my hands into fists as they started to shake.
Who was I kidding? I felt completely helpless.
I looked up as Emily came in.
“Did you get your kids out?” she said.
“Almost. How about you? Are you near the coast in Virginia?”