Des poked a finger under his cap and scratched his forehead. He swore to God, if he lived to be a hundred, he’d never get these white dudes, didn’t matter if they came from the Bronx or had some kind of foreign accent like this one. Man has himself some prime turf, southeast corner of Forty-second Street, right under the building with the big screen, right where the ball gonna come drop-pin’ from the roof any minute now, and what’s he do but stand there concentrating on his watch like he had someplace better to be, telling people he’s out of this, that and the other thing.
Des leaned forward and read the name on his vender’s license.
“Julius, m’man, maybe you oughtta try tellin’ us what you do have. ”
The vender nodded vaguely toward the sparse row of plain and powdered donuts on the upper shelf of his cart.
Des blew air through his compressed lips, making a small sound of disgust. Not only did the donuts look stale, but he was positive they had come out of a box.
“Eats like that, you know, we coulda bought at the deli,” he said. “Sign on your stand be sayin’ fresh donuts. I mean, how you be cleaned out when it ain’t even midnight yet?”
The vender looked at Des, his blue eyes holding on him, seeming to stare right through him. Then he reached under the counter.
Des looked at Jamal again, puzzled, wondering if he’d gone too far razzing the guy, if this was some kind of crazy mutha had a problem with black people, maybe kept a piece tucked away under his apron just in case somebody mouthed off to him. Jamal was asking himself the same thing, and was about to suggest that they move on when the vender’s hand reappeared holding a brown paper bag.
“Here,” he said, stuffing the handful of donuts on display into the bag, then crunching the bag shut and holding it out to Des. “No charge.”
Des looked at him tentatively.
“You sure, man?”
The vender nodded and stretched his hand farther out over the counter, shoving the bag against Des’s chest.
“Take them,” he said. “Last chance.”
Des grabbed the donuts. He had a feeling that if he hadn’t, the dude would have just opened his hand and let the bag drop to the sidewalk.
“Uh, thanks,” he said, and glanced up at the Astrovision Screen. It showed a closeup of the mayor, who was giving his rap from that stand in the middle of the street, working up to his countdown, talking all kinds of shit about New York City being an example to the world, millions of people in Times Square, everybody having a good time, everybody getting along, peace, brotherhood, togetherness, and please don’t drink and drive. Not a word in his speech about donut guys that didn’t have any donuts, but what the hell, this was a party. Below his face, the time was being displayed in bright red numbers, 11:50 now, ten minutes and counting to the Big 21.
Des had to admit, he felt pumped.
“C’mon, let’s move back some. I wanna get a good look at the ball when it come down,” he said, turning to Jamal.
Jamal nodded. He looked at the vender, acknowledged the freebie he’d given them with a halfhearted little dip of his chin, then started walking off with his friend.
The vender watched them brush against a woman in a black leather coat and beret who was approaching the stand, pause to apologize while eyeing her up and down, then vanish into the crowd.
“Enjoy yourselves,” he muttered.
Shouldering past the two black kids, Gilea moved up to the donut stand and looked across the counter at Akhad.
“Are you sold out?” she asked.
He nodded. “I was just closing.”
“Too bad,” she said.
“There should be other venders,” he said. “They also sell donuts.”
“I’ve seen them around.”
“Good,” he said. “Then you shouldn’t have any problems.”
“No, I shouldn’t.”
She stuffed her hands into her coat. In her left pocket was a radio transmitter roughly the size and shape of a lipstick tube — and identical to one Akhad was carrying as a fail-safe. One clockwise twist would send a coded-frequency signal to a receiver/initiator inside the donut stand, detonating the sheets of C-4 explosive sandwiched between thin aluminum panels along its front, back, and sides. Separate blocks of plastique totaling over a hundred pounds in weight had been packed behind the doors of its storage compartments. In addition to the C-4, the compartments contained thousands of tiny nails and ball bearings. Dispersed in every direction by the blast, the shrapnel would buffet the area for hundreds of yards, exponentially compounding the destructive force of the explosion, chewing through human flesh like buckshot through tissue paper. While an independent electronic blasting cap had been wired to each compartment, all of the wires threaded into the same firing system, so that the ignition of the charges — and the release of their deadly projectiles — would be simultaneous.
And that would only be the beginning.
Gilea checked the watch on her right hand, her opposite hand still in her pocket, the transmitter still nestled within it.
“Almost midnight, I’d better be on my way, ” she said, her eyes meeting Akhad’s. “Thank you for your help.”
“Sure,” he said. “Good night.”
She smiled, turned, and strode toward the south side of the block.
Akhad took a deep breath and checked his own watch. He himself would be leaving the booth in exactly two minutes — and that was none too soon.
He wanted to be as far away as possible when the area turned into a shrieking, flaming pit out of deepest hell.
“… take our viewers live to Times Square, where Fox TV’s own Taylor Sands has been in the thick of things all night. Taylor, what’s it like out there?”
“Jessica, the temperature might be dropping fast, but that hasn’t kept the number of people in the square from going up — and to quote the Buster Poindexter song, they are feeling hot, hot, hot. A few moments ago, a representative from the NYPD told me the crowd has exceeded all predictions, and may well top three million in the final count… and let me tell you, from where I stand, it is virtually impossible to see an inch of pavement that isn’t occupied. Yet everybody seems to be having fun, and so far there have been only a few minor incidents requiring police attention.”
“Taylor, the mayor really seems to be—”
“I’m sorry, Jessica, could you repeat that? As you can probably hear, people already have their noisemakers out, and it’s getting a little hard to hear you…”
“I was just saying that the mayor appears to be playing the part of master of ceremonies to the hilt.”
“That’s right. He’s been saying a few words to the crowd before leading them in the final New Year’s countdown of the century, and just moments ago put on a red-and-gold foil top hat with crepe paper streamers. The word is, incidentally, that he’s going to be joined onstage by the legendary musician and songwriter Rob Zyman, whose song ‘The World’s A’ Gonna Change’ became the anthem of an entire generation, and who, as you may know, rose to stardom in the streets of New York’s own Greenwich Village. Also expected is a reunion between Zyman and his occasional collaborator Joleen Reese. This promises to be amazing!”
“It sure does, Taylor. Thanks for your report. We’re going to cut away for a brief commercial break, but will be back to resume our live coverage of New Year’s 2000 in just sixty seconds…”
Sadov reached the end of the tiled corridor in the IND station at Fiftieth Street and Rockefeller Center, then climbed the stairs leading up to the sidewalk, taking his time, in no rush to arrive at his destination. He had gotten off an uptown B train fifteen minutes earlier and lingered on a bench on the subway platform, pretending to wait for a connecting train until he felt it was time to move. If he had chosen to, he could have come by one of the lines that ran closer to Times Square — but Gilea had pointed out that security would be tighter in and around those stations, and there was no sense taking unnecessary chances.