“So you have more hoops for us to jump through?”
“That wasn’t me. That was Julian Marsh. The man’s freaky, to say the least, so I tied him to your Agent Jaye.”
Drake winced, snapping a glance at Dahl. “She’s okay?”
“For now. Though looking a little bound and achy. She’s trying oh so hard to remain perfectly still.”
Foreboding crawled through Drake’s stomach. “And why’s that?”
“So she doesn’t upset the motion sensor of course.”
My God, Drake thought. “You bastard. You tied her to the bomb?”
“She is the bomb, my friend.”
“Where is it?”
“We’ll get to that. But since you and your friends enjoy a good run, and since you’re already warmed up, I decided why not give you a chance? I hope you like riddles.”
“This is crazy. You are crazy, toying with so many lives. Riddles? Riddle me this, asshole. Who’s gonna piss on your body when I set it on fire?”
Ramses was silent for a moment, reflecting it seemed. “So the gloves are well and truly off. That is good. I do have places to go, meetings to attend, nations to sway. So listen—”
“I really hope you’re there waiting,” Drake interrupted, fishing quickly “When we get there.”
“Sadly, no. This is where we say goodbye. As you probably know I am using you to make my escape. So, as you people say — thanks for that.”
“Fu—”
“Yes, yes. Fuck me, my parents and all of my brothers. But it is you and this city that will end up fucked. And I who will continue. So time is now becoming an issue. Are you ready to beg for your chance, little Englishman?”
Drake found his professionalism, knowing this was their single option. “Tell me.”
“My antiseptic will cleanse the world of the infection in the West. From rainforest to rainforest, it is part of the floor under the canopy. That is all.”
Drake made a face. “That’s it?”
“Yes, and since everything you do in the so-called civilized world is measured by the minute, the hour, I will set the timer at sixty minutes. A good, famous round number for you.”
“How do we disarm it?” Drake hoped Marsh hadn’t mentioned the deactivation codes.
“Oh shit, you don’t know? Just remember this then — a nuclear bomb, particularly a suitcase nuke, is a precise, accurate and perfectly balanced mechanism. Everything is miniaturized and more accurate, as I am sure you appreciate. It will take… finesse.”
“Finesse?”
“Finesse. Look it up.”
With that Ramses killed the call, leaving the line dead. Drake bolted back to the office and shouted for the entire station to stop. His words, his tone of voice, sent heads and eyes and bodies swiveling towards him. Phones were replaced in cradles, calls ignored and conversations stopped.
Moore gauged Drakes’ face, then said, “Turn off the phones.”
“I have it,” Drake shouted. “But we have to make some sense…” He reeled off the riddle word for word. “Be quick,” he said. “Ramses gave us sixty minutes.”
Moore leaned over the unsteady balcony, joined by Kinimaka and Yorgi. Everyone else faced him. As his words began to sink in people started to yell.
“Well, the antiseptic is the bomb. That’s obvious.”
“And he intends to detonate it,” someone whispered. “This is no bluff.”
“Rainforest to rainforest?” Mai said. “I do not understand.”
Drake wound it around his head. “It’s a message to us,” he said. “All this began in the Amazon rainforest. We first saw him at the bazaar. But I don’t see how it works for New York.”
“And the rest?” Smyth said. “Part of the floor under the canopy? I don’t—”
“It’s another rainforest reference,” Moore shouted down. “Isn’t the canopy what they call the unbroken tree cover? The floor is undergrowth.”
Drake was already there. “It is. But if you accept that then he’s telling us that the bomb is hidden inside a rainforest. In New York,” He grimaced. “Doesn’t make sense.”
Silence fell over the station, the kind of silence that can petrify a person to helplessness or electrify them to brilliance.
Drake had never been more aware of the passing time, each second a doom-filled toll of the Judgment Day bell.
“But New York does have a rainforest,” Moore finally said. “At the Central Park Zoo. It’s small, called the Tropical Zone, but it’s a mini version of the real thing.”
“Under the canopy?” Dahl pushed.
“Yeah, there’re trees in there.”
Drake hesitated one more second, painfully aware that even that might cost them many lives. “Anything else? Any other suggestions?”
Only silence and blank looks greeted his question.
“Then we’re all in,” he said. “No compromise. No larking about. Time to take this mythical motherfucker down. Just like we did the last one.”
Kinimaka and Yorgi sprinted for the stairs.
Drake led the entire team into the fear-filled streets of New York.
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
Following Moore’s instructions the ten strong team wasted even more precious minutes diverting down a side street to commandeer a pair of police cars. The call was made by the time they got there and the cops were waiting, their efforts at clearing the streets starting to show reward. Smyth climbed behind one wheel, Dahl another, and the vehicles flicked on their sirens and flashers and tore around the corner of 3rd Avenue, burning rubber straight toward the zoo. Buildings and scared faces flashed past at forty, then fifty, miles an hour. Smyth smashed an abandoned cab aside by slamming its front end, shunting it straight. Only one police cordon stood in their way and they had already received orders to let them pass. They shot through the hastily cleared intersection approaching sixty.
Drake almost ignored a new call on his cell, thinking it might be Ramses ringing back to gloat. But then he thought: even that could give us some clues.
“What?” he barked tersely.
“Drake? This is President Coburn. Do you have a moment?”
The Yorkshireman started in surprise, then checked the GPS. “Four minutes, sir.”
“Then listen. I know I don’t have to tell you how bad this will be if that bomb is allowed to go off. Retaliations are inevitable. And we don’t even know the true nationality or political penchants of this Ramses character. One of the larger emerging problems is that this other character — Gator — has visited Russia four times this year.”
Drake’s mouth turned to sand. “Russia?”
“Yes. It’s not decisive, but…”
Drake knew exactly what the pause meant. Nothing needed to be decisive in a world manipulated by news channels and social media. “If this information gets out—”
“Yes. We’re looking at a high-level event.”
Drake certainly didn’t want to know what that meant. He did know that, presently, there were men out in the wider world, vastly powerful men, who had the means to survive a nuclear war and often imagined what it would be like if they could live in a brand new, barely populated world. Some of these men were already leaders.
“Disarm the bomb if you have to, Drake. I’m told NEST are en route but will arrive after you. And so is everyone else. Everyone. This is our new darkest hour.”
“We will stop it, sir. This city will survive to see tomorrow.”
As Drake ended the call, Alicia put a hand on his shoulder. “So,” she said. “When Moore said this was the Tropical Zone and a mini rainforest, did he mean there would be snakes too?”
Drake covered her hand with his own. “There are always snakes, Alicia.”