“Two!”
“One!”
A wild cheer went up, and a fraction of a second later it was silenced by the biggest explosion yet.
Nick and Drake fell to the ground on top of the constable as a cloud of dust and smoke rolled over them. Twisting onto his side, Nick could see the seventy-five-foot column settle back down into the square and tip over. The concrete mask fell away and the huge rusted standpipe beneath it let out an angry groan and slammed into the face of the Exchange.
Nick struggled to his feet and started toward the wreckage, but a heavy hand grabbed him by the shoulder and swung him around. “Where do you think you’re going?” asked the man from SO15.
“Uncuff me! People are in there. I can help.”
The constable took Nick by the front of his shirt with one hand and flicked open a telescoping baton with the other, hauling it back. “I don’t think so, mate.”
CHAPTER 38
Nick woke up facedown on a polished concrete floor, staring at the distorted reflection of four cinderblock walls and a cold fluorescent light. His vision was fuzzy and he had a splitting headache, made worse by Scott’s voice in his ear, repeatedly insisting that he respond.
“I’m awake,” he mumbled, just to get the engineer to shut up. His coat, shirt, and bulletproof vest were gone, leaving him nothing above the belt but his black Lycra undershirt. His hands, originally bound in front with steel cuffs, had been released and re-secured at his back with flex-cuffs, cinched so tight his fingers were numb. He supposed stealing the constable’s gun and threatening civilians with it had something to do with that.
The position of Nick’s hands and shoulders made getting up an awkward process. He pulled his knees to his chest and then rolled up onto them. From there, he took his time standing up. Waves of nausea threatened to knock him back down. He found it hard to focus his mind.
“Where am I?”
“Scotland Yard,” the engineer replied, his voice tight, his words quick. “The headquarters building on Victoria Street. I’m glad you’re awake. What’s the plan?”
The cell was small, maybe six by ten. Nick saw a camera staring down from the corner above the door, but he didn’t see an audio receiver of any kind. Someone was watching, but they weren’t listening. He staggered over to the opposite corner and leaned his shoulder against the wall, turning his face away from the camera. “Is Nightmare Two up on comms?”
Drake chimed in, as chipper as always. “I’ve had the rubber ducky song stuck in my head since the column fell. Do you think that’s a side effect of a concussion?”
Scott sighed. “Yes. He’s up.”
“I’m serious. Why am I remembering songs from Sesame Street? I don’t even have kids.”
“How long, Nightmare Four?” asked Nick, ignoring Drake’s antics.
“It’s been sixty-one minutes since I last heard your voice. The colonel has been pinging me every five to find out if you’re dead or alive. You have no idea the kind of stress you’re putting me through.”
“My sympathies. What about the virus at Paternoster Square?”
“Only the cyber kind.”
“Are you sure?” argued Drake. “We don’t know that the explosions weren’t the delivery method. This is how zombie apocalypses get started. You don’t know you’re infected until it’s too late. One minute you’re remembering Bert and Ernie. The next you’re an undead freak. Maybe that’s what’s going through every zombie’s head. On the outside they’re all gore and brain-munching rage but on the inside it’s ‘Rubber ducky you’re the one—’”
“Do you see what I’ve had to put up with?” interrupted Scott.
“You’re fine, Two. The target is DC, remember? Besides, the bioweapon isn’t the second sign. It’s the third.” Nick closed his eyes and visualized the translated verses from the catacombs. “The Hashashin listed four signs before the return of the Mahdi. The messenger on the plain of the great empire was the suicide bomber on the DC Mall. The marketplace in turmoil is this cyberattack. It was the third verse that talked about pestilence and disease. That has to be the bioweapon, and that’s what’s coming next. They’re getting progressively worse.”
“There were four signs,” said Drake. “So there’s one more after the bio-attack. What’s worse than that?”
“Only one thing.” Drake’s point worried Nick. They had no leads beyond the third sign. “Four, have CJ go back over the evidence and look for links to the fourth sign, the sky of molten brass and the black smoke.”
“Will do.”
As the fogginess wore off, Nick became aware of a distinctive pain in his left arm. “Sixty-one minutes. That’s way too long to be knocked out from a simple blow to the head.”
Drake confirmed his suspicions. “You were drugged. That plainclothes bobby hijacked an EMT on our way to the paddy wagon. He had the kid inject a sedative into your arm, citing some regulation about ‘excited delirium.’”
“I’m going to kill him.”
“We have to get out of here first.”
“Right. Four, where is Romeo Seven on securing our release?”
“About that,” said Scott, dragging out the words. “Getting you out is proving more difficult than we thought.”
CHAPTER 39
No one summoned Colonel Richard T. Walker. Usually he informed the Joint Chiefs of an impending threat and went straight to the Pentagon. Occasionally the chairman or the White House notified him of a potential situation and scheduled a meeting. But no one had ever summoned Walker. Not until today.
The colonel sat fuming on a leather chair in a dim anteroom paneled with dark oak, waiting to see Senator Cartwright like a Virginia cadet waiting to see the commandant. He sat with his back rigid, refusing to relax because the chair’s tightly stuffed cushion made an unfortunate sound every time he shifted his weight. He would not give the senator the satisfaction of making him look awkward.
Walker did not have time for this idiocy. A biological weapon was adrift in the terrorist nethersphere, and the team he sent to find it had been locked up by some two-bit Cockney cop. Now his team’s Interpol covers had suddenly evaporated from the system. He should be running down the glitch and securing their release instead of running up to the Hill like an errand boy. The senator’s office had not even given him the courtesy of a reason, but he had a pretty good idea.
The first explosions of the London attack had occurred at 0910 hours Eastern Standard Time. Thanks to Dr. Scott Stone’s frantic SATCOM report, Walker knew about it within thirty seconds. The network news stations knew almost as quickly.
Molly’s team of intelligence techs could barely keep up with the incoming reports as an unprecedented video timeline developed. Smartphones and tablets captured the events from the first quakes within Fishman Zeller to the moment the great column heaved up out of the square and crashed down onto the London Stock Exchange. Sky News released a dramatic tablet video in which the impromptu cameraman was thrown from one of the atrium bridges by the quaking. The tablet captured the young accountant’s terrified face as he tumbled four stories to the granite floor, surrounded in the eerie freefall by shards of broken glass. A less-disturbing video showed an unknown hero carrying a woman out of the building through a billowing dust cloud. It was a miracle that his face remained hidden.
The TV hanging in one corner of the anteroom showed a live feed of emergency crews pulling bodies out of the rubble while a talking head babbled on in morbid appreciation of this new terrorist art — blending the physical destruction with the virtual.