‘Good question,’ he replied, having already worried about exactly that. He had checked the festival’s website on his phone during the cab ride, finding that the closed section of Mulberry Street was over half a mile long, and also extended into several side streets. ‘Looks like I’ll be doing a lot of shouting.’
‘I will help you,’ she offered. ‘Does she still have red hair?’
‘Yeah, of course,’ said Eddie, slightly surprised. ‘Why wouldn’t she?’
Natalia’s eyes widened. ‘Oh! I am sorry. Her hair is so bright, I thought it was fake.’ She blushed.
He managed a brief smirk. ‘I’ll tell her you said that.’
Now she looked mortified. ‘No, please do not!’
The taxi pulled up at the intersection of East Houston and Mulberry; the Englishman hurriedly paid the driver and jumped out. The young German grabbed her bag and followed him. ‘Where do we go?’
He pointed across the street, where a banner and innumerable Italian flags marked the festival’s northern entrance. ‘Down there.’ They hurried over the crosswalk, pushing into the crowd. ‘Nina!’ he yelled, drawing annoyed looks from those around him. ‘Nina, are you here?’ He searched for anyone with red hair. There were a few, but none were his wife. It struck him that not only had she been here for some time, but she might not even have entered the festival at this end of Mulberry Street; she had probably come by subway, and there were several stations nearby. ‘God, she could be bloody anywhere!’
‘I cannot see her,’ said Natalia.
‘Me neither.’ Eddie forced his way through the throng. Stallholders shouted from either side of the street as they hawked their wares. He spotted a stand selling gelato, but there was no time to indulge himself — that would have to wait until Nina was safe.
Nina was halfway down the length of the festival, in no hurry as she took in the sights and sounds — and smells — around her. The mouth-watering aromas of numerous cheeses tempted her towards one particular stall, but before she could check out the wares on offer, sounds of excitement rose, people looking up with a collective ooh of wonder. She followed their gaze — as the sun was blotted out.
The airship had arrived, and it was far more impressive in real life than on a television screen.
The craft, an Airlander, was considerably smaller than the goliaths from the days when airships dominated the skies — it was less than half the length of the ill-fated Hindenburg, the largest aircraft ever to fly — but its design meant that it still dwarfed any contemporary airliner. Rather than the traditional cigar shape of a Zeppelin, it had two conjoined gas envelopes sitting side by side, making its hull enormously wider than the fuselage of a Boeing 747, as well as being considerably longer. Despite its bulk, though, it drifted overhead as leisurely as a cloud.
Both flanks of the airship had been turned into giant screens. Nina wasn’t sure exactly how they worked — there seemed to be some kind of netting draped tightly around the hulls, which she guessed held countless coloured LEDs — but the end result was certainly impressive, bright and clear enough to be visible even against the daytime sky. Right now, they were displaying an animated flag, the tricolour of Italy waving over the homeland’s New York namesake. Whoops and cheers came from the crowd’s Italian-American contingent.
Phones and cameras were raised to take pictures of the ambling colossus. Nina at first didn’t plan to follow suit, giant advertising platforms not being her thing, but then she remembered that Eddie had been keen to see it. She took out her phone and thumbed the home button. Nothing happened; she had turned it off. Normally her phone was permanently switched on, but she had been so annoyed with Eddie that she hadn’t even wanted the distraction of the device telling her that he was making a call for her to snub. With a huff, she pushed the power button and waited for it to boot up. She moved to one side of the street to let the gawking throng move past, standing beside a covered stall. At least the airship wouldn’t have flown off before she could take a photo.
The screen lit up. ‘Finally,’ she said, about to open the camera app — only for a long list of notifications to drop down. Multiple missed calls, all from Eddie, and several texts—
EMERGENCY!!!!! CALL ME RIGHT NOW!!!!
That was the most recent, and the others were equally alarming. All manner of horrifying scenarios flashed through her mind. Had he been in an accident? Or had something happened to Natalia? She hurriedly brought up her contacts list to call him back—
Two things happened at once.
The first was that she heard her name being shouted. Even over the festival’s hubbub, she knew that it was Eddie.
The second was someone thrusting a hard metal object against her spine.
A gun.
‘Come with me,’ a voice hissed as her arm was grabbed. ‘If you resist, I will hurt you. Move!’
She looked around in shock, seeing a large blond man right behind her. He jabbed the gun harder against her back and pushed her roughly into the crowd, heading south.
‘Nina!’ Eddie’s voice again. She twisted to look back. Everyone was watching the airship, all eyes turned towards the sky — except her husband’s. He was about fifty feet away, gaze sweeping rapidly from side to side as he scanned the crowd…
And locking on to her.
‘Eddie!’ she cried. Worry filled his face, before being replaced in an instant by angry determination. He broke into a run, shoving through the festival-goers after her.
The blond man reacted with anger to her call. The gun shifted down her back. For a moment she thought he was going to shoot her — then the pistol’s butt cracked painfully against her spine. She gasped. ‘Do not shout again!’ he barked. ‘I will kill you if you do.’ He ducked lower and changed direction, using the tourists for cover as he forced Nina onwards.
Eddie ploughed through the crowd, ignoring the angry yells that followed him. He had lost sight of Nina, but a blond man had been right beside her, and he glimpsed someone with light hair cutting through the sea of people not far ahead. He moved faster, angling to intercept.
His target stopped, looking from side to side as if searching for an escape route. The Englishman barged up behind him, grabbing his arm and raising a fist to strike—
It wasn’t him. ‘Hey! What’re you doing?’ demanded a startled dusty-blond man — in an American accent. Nina was not with him.
‘Thought you were someone else,’ Eddie replied, pushing past and searching the crowd again. There — farther ahead. The kidnapper was moving considerably faster than those nearby. A brief flash of red hair with him. He ran in pursuit, Natalia struggling to keep up. ‘Nina!’
Nina’s captor heard Eddie’s shout and forced her between two stalls, making his way along the shopfronts behind them before hauling her around a corner on to one of the side streets intersecting Mulberry.
There were more stalls here, but the crowd was considerably thinner. The man pushed her on more quickly. Nina looked back, but couldn’t see Eddie. She heard him yell her name once more, though, and opened her mouth to respond—
‘Do not!’ the man snapped, pushing the gun against her side. A new fear, this time for the baby, and she fell silent.
He drove her forward, weaving through the oblivious visitors towards the next intersection. They passed the last stall. A box van was parked ahead. Its rear roller door was half open, crates and boxes stacked inside as its driver made a delivery to a restaurant. ‘Get in,’ the man ordered.
Nina tried to pull away. ‘I’m not—’