‘It’s a hard landmark to miss,’ said Nina. She returned her gaze to Manhattan, and the unmoving traffic. ‘Maybe we should have stayed in Brooklyn until the roads quieten down. Whatever Oswald might think, I do know the place isn’t entirely uncivilised.’
She looked back at her husband, only to find that he hadn’t heard her joke, instead frowning in puzzlement. ‘What is it?’
‘The guy who tortured me, Irton — he’d been to the Navy Yard, he had a parking receipt or something in his wallet. And when he was talking to Cross… what did he say?’ His forehead scrunched as he dug into his memories. ‘Something about there not being much security on certain days.’
‘What did he mean?’ Nina asked.
‘I dunno. But…’ He stared back at the airship. ‘Cross won’t be able to get near the UN on the ground or by water, at least if that arse from the Secret Service was right about his security. And the air’s covered by the NYPD’ — he indicated a couple of helicopters circling midge-like in the distance — ‘and the National Guard, so anything that tries to get close’ll be shot down. But that airship, I read about it: the whole thing was designed so it can’t be shot down, not easily. It’s massive, and it’s got loads of different compartments for the helium, so even if you blow holes in some of them, it’ll stay in the air. But it can fly at something like sixty miles an hour, so it could reach the UN in a couple of minutes — the National Guard’s planes wouldn’t be able to catch it in time.’
Nina cocked an incredulous eyebrow. ‘You think he might be planning to attack using an airship? Who is he, Count von Zeppelin?’
‘Yeah, I know, it sounds like the ending of A View to a Kill. But if he stole the thing, he could fly right over the UN and drop the angel on it — and nobody would be able to stop him.’
‘The Secret Service did say Paxton could fly practically anything,’ she recalled. ‘Would that include airships?’
‘It’s a big balloon with propellers on it. Can’t be too hard. We should check it out.’
‘Or we could tell the Secret Service to check it.’
‘You think Talsillybugger’d pay any attention to us? It’s just a theory, and a pretty fucking daft one at that. But…’
‘But it’s just insane enough to be true?’ she finished for him. They exchanged looks. ‘Just when I thought it was all over…’
‘We need to hire a fat lady to sing for us,’ Eddie said with a grin. ‘Okay, so how the hell are we going to get off this bridge?’ He checked the road. They were on the upper deck, two narrow Manhattan-bound lanes with concrete barriers hemming them in on both sides, and no sidewalks. Nor was there any easy way to climb down to the walkway on the lower deck. ‘Huh. Might have to rethink this.’
Nina looked ahead. The traffic was still stationary. ‘God knows how long it’ll take us to get across the river. And then we’ve still got to come back the other way.’ She reached for the door handle. ‘We’ll have to do it on foot.’
The driver turned in alarm. ‘Hey, hey! You can’t get out on the bridge.’
‘No, you can’t,’ Eddie added. ‘Seriously! It’s at least a quarter of a mile back to ground level.’
‘It’ll be a lot faster than driving across and then turning around. And you were the one who wanted to check out the airship. If Cross really is planning to use it—’
‘That was just a theory! And like I said, a daft one at that. How often am I right about this stuff?’
‘Way too often. Come on.’ She opened the door and hopped out.
‘No, lady, wait!’ the driver yelled. ‘Get back inside!’
‘Nina— Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ Eddie said in exasperation. He thrust some banknotes through the cab’s pay slot, then slid across the rear seat to follow her.
She had emerged on the roadway’s right, beside one of the barriers. A railing behind it meant that she was in no danger of falling over the edge, but there was very little space between the concrete wall and the oncoming vehicles. ‘Nina, wait!’ he shouted as she hurried towards Brooklyn. She didn’t stop; with a dismayed shake of his head, he ran after her. People in the stationary cars regarded them boggle-eyed as they passed.
He quickly caught up with his limping wife. ‘Are you fucking insane?’
‘I’m pregnant,’ she shot back. ‘If anyone asks, I’ll tell them it’s hormones!’
‘At least let me go in front of you.’ He squeezed past. ‘I’m not having you use the baby as a bumper!’
They crossed the shoreline, descending the bridge’s long ramp until they were finally able to climb over the barrier to a footpath below. ‘You okay?’ asked the Yorkshireman as he helped Nina down.
‘Yeah, just winded,’ she replied.
‘And the baby?’
She gave him a strained grin. ‘She’s survived gunfights, explosions and jumping over cliffs in boats in the past few days. Jogging for a quarter-mile’s the least of what she’s been through.’
‘You’re bloody mad. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Must be why we work so well together.’ Another smile, this time filled with genuine warmth, then she looked eastwards. ‘We’re only a few blocks from the Navy Yard here, aren’t we?’
‘Yeah, but it’s a big place, and the airship’s on the far side,’ Eddie reminded her. ‘We need another cab.’ They followed the path to a road passing beneath the Manhattan Bridge’s lower end, soon spotting a yellow taxi and hailing it. They climbed in and set off for the north gate of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
From the bridge, the airship had appeared huge; from the ground, it was like a mothership from another world. The conjoined helium envelopes of the Airlander dwarfed even the largest passenger airliners. The mere sight of the gargantuan craft caused Nina a moment of cognitive dissonance, her brain’s gears grinding as they tried to process the existence of something that seemed impossible. ‘Damn, that’s… big,’ was all she could say as their cab pulled up at the gate. There were buildings between her and the airship, but its sheer scale made them appear no more than shoeboxes.
A security guard leaned out of a booth. ‘Where ya goin’?’
‘There,’ Nina said, pointing at the behemoth. ‘We’ve got an appointment.’
The guard didn’t seem interested in her cover story. ‘Yeah, yeah. Take the second right on to Gee Avenue, you can’t miss it.’ The gate rose.
‘Has anyone else been to see it today?’ Eddie asked him.
‘Loadsa people wanna see it,’ he replied with a shrug. ‘Some guys went to the company offices maybe a half-hour ago.’
‘How many guys?’
Another shrug. ‘Four, five? I dunno, I wasn’t really payin’ attention.’
‘Keep up the good work,’ the Englishman told him sarcastically as the cab pulled away and made a right turn.
‘You think it could be Cross?’ said Nina, peering anxiously ahead.
‘Maybe. Or maybe not. A lot of people come here; like he said, it’s kind of a tourist attraction.’
The taxi drove past docks on the river’s edge. Ahead was a low building, and rising behind it, moored on an expanse of open ground, was the vast beetle-like airship, its broad stern towards them. Their driver stopped in the parking lot. ‘You want me to wait?’ he asked.
‘No, that’s okay,’ Nina answered. The couple paid him and got out, then regarded the building. A sign reading SKY SCREEN INC. was affixed to the wall, an arrow directing visitors around to the structure’s other side. They followed it. The airship came into full uninterrupted view, an almost comically small gondola mounted under its centreline seeming as if it were about to be squashed flat beneath the elephantine mass. The whole vessel was so large that one of the roads to the piers beyond had been blocked off to give it room to land. Its flanks were covered with a grid of LEDs that in flight turned it into a colossal Blade Runner-style animated billboard, but today they were dark.