Day One: A Novel (23 page)

A chill came over him as Hawke heard the sounds again: a voice muttering too low for the words to become clear. He realized that he must be clearly outlined in the light from the laundry room as he stood in the doorway. But whoever was talking softly in the storage area didn’t seem to notice. The sound continued.

Hawke saw movement at a stall about two-thirds of the way down the line. He stepped deeper inside, drawn by the strange muttering and a fresh twinge of suspicion. His eyes slowly adjusting to the gloom, he moved cautiously through the piles of discarded furniture, brushing away cobwebs from his face and keeping the bent figure in sight. It was a man; Hawke could tell by the shape of the shoulders.

He came around to the left and approached from behind, wanting a better look before he did anything else. He could see the man’s back as he worked over something, pulling an item loose from the pile and examining it, talking to himself, seemingly oblivious that he was being watched. The man looked familiar, but the shadows kept Hawke from being certain.

As he got closer, his suspicion was confirmed. It was Randall Lowry, and he was in the same storage stall where Hawke had placed their boxes when they moved in.

“What are you doing?” he said. Lowry didn’t appear to hear him. His shoulders moved up and down, as if he was laughing. Hawke stepped closer, the skin prickling on the back of his neck.

When he reached out to touch Lowry’s shoulder, the man leaped to his feet and whirled around, dropping whatever it was he’d been holding. Hawke was disgusted to see he was aroused. Lowry’s eyes were hidden by shadows, but his mouth glistened and he kept working his lips like he had developed some kind of tick. “Call your congressman,” Lowry said. “You think you’re so smart. Just wait.”

“Get the hell out of here,” Hawke said.

Lowry pushed past Hawke with a strange high-pitched peal of laughter, still muttering as he slipped through the piles of junk and ran out the laundry room door. Hawke couldn’t move, just watched him go with a shiver of revulsion, anger and disgust. The man was seriously deranged and a danger to Hawke’s family and the entire building. He had to say something now, before things got worse, call the super, see what could be done.

Still unnerved, he looked down to see what Lowry had been looking at. The lid on one of their boxes had been flipped open, a shoe box within it rifled through. Hawke reached down and picked up a faded, slightly curled photo from the floor, held it to the light.

Robin as a little girl in twin braids, smiling gap-toothed at the camera.

*   *   *

The exit from the subway was an open staircase that rose out of the depths. A tree thrust up through the center of the opening, its leafy branches providing some cover. The three people reached the top of the steps and paused, like wary creatures testing the wind before emerging from their burrow.

Hawke peered over the top of the low wall that surrounded the subway stop where students used to relax on sunny days, across the open courtyard where an abandoned hot-dog truck sat silently, its colorful umbrellas drooping. A shifting wall of dust and soot had descended over the city, turning the air gray and lifeless, obscuring nearby cars and light posts like a foggy early morning at the beach.

Hunter College’s West Building had a wall of glass that fronted the street. A Staples delivery truck had shattered several of the giant panes and spread glittering fragments across the lobby like diamonds.

The dull thump of an explosion shook the ground; somewhere in the distance, they could hear people shouting. A gust of wind blew grit in Hawke’s eyes, and he blinked, resisted the urge to scrub at them. It would only make things worse and wipe away the foul-smelling grease he had found under a bench and spread across his cheeks and chin.

He glanced at Vasco and Young. They had smears on their cheekbones and chins as well. Weller hadn’t needed to remind Hawke; he’d read about the technique himself. Facial recognition software had trouble locking on to asymmetrical human features, inverted blacks and whites. It might disrupt Doe long enough for them to get away, or it might not. They had several blocks to go before they reached their destination, and during that time they’d be like fish in a barrel.

He had decided to get to the Lincoln Tunnel by crossing Central Park. The park held fewer people, fewer cars and trucks, and it gave them a better chance of keeping out of sight. It also had fewer cameras to track them. Down in the subway, the idea had seemed simple enough that it just might work.

He watched the courtyard and the streets just beyond. The idea of crossing any open space made him want to turn back, preferring the silence and closeness of the subway to this. Buildings no longer seemed like harmless, inviting places to seek shelter; now they were dark and threatening death traps. Other humans were dangerous, and what wasn’t human might be far worse. Cars and trucks still smoldered nearby, their collisions igniting fuel tanks after cruise control, brakes and navigation had all gone haywire. These days, most cars had over seventy computer systems in them and some kind of satellite connection. Hawke thought of Sarah’s SUV. Doe had turned cars into weapons, systematically taking out other, older vehicles, their human operators and pedestrians, creating traffic jams and roadblocks and more confusion.

But the streets were abandoned now. Nothing moved, but cops would be coming soon and would surely shoot to kill. They might not get a better chance.

Now or never.

*   *   *

Hawke left the stairwell first, Young and Vasco following him out of the subway and keeping behind him as he darted down Lexington, under the college’s enclosed walkways that spanned the street, their glass panes intact and obscured by the dust and soot that had settled everywhere. He felt totally exposed. The smell of fire permeated everything, getting into Hawke’s clothes, worming its way into his lungs. He choked back a cough, watching the darkness of doorways and alleys, interiors of abandoned cars, looking for movement. A man sat in the passenger seat of a crushed Subaru Legacy, head bloodied and bent backward by construction scaffolding that had hammered through the windshield like a blunt spear.

The Seventh Regiment Armory loomed at 67th Street. It was a national historic building that was built like a castle, complete with rampartlike protrusions like teeth along the tops of the towers that anchored the corners. The Armory was the size of a city block, the length of it nearly unbroken by windows or doors.

The building’s bulk and lack of windows actually made Hawke feel more secure, cocooned by buildings on either side and shaded by trees, as he took 67th toward Park Avenue. Central Park was close. But when they reached the end of the Armory building, a small electronics shop on their right suddenly erupted into life, everything in its windows blinking and blaring with activity: tablets and flat screens, phones and appliances. All the TV screens started showing security camera footage of people across the city who were trapped or dead.

Vasco stopped short and stared at the image of a woman in a dress who was pacing back and forth. The view was from a camera mounted above her. She appeared to be caught in an elevator. “What the hell is this?”

He didn’t see the footage that we were forced to watch in the hospital.
“Don’t pay attention,” Hawke said. “We’re being taunted. She’s trying to break us down, get us to make mistakes.”

He didn’t know how much of his conversation with Weller that Vasco had overheard. But Vasco didn’t respond at all, just crossed the street and approached the shop window like a man hypnotized, watching the screen with the woman in the elevator. She turned to the doors now, pounding on them with both fists. The woman was pretty, dark haired and slim, but her face was ghost-white and terrified. “That’s my wife,” Vasco said, his voice tentative. He slammed his hand against the glass. The sound was like a gunshot. “Sherri!” He looked back at Hawke and Young, his face twisted with a mixture of fear and confusion. “Where is she?” he said. “What are they doing to her?”

Hawke glanced back down the street. He didn’t know whether to leave Vasco where he stood or try to get him to move. Since Hawke had landed the punch Vasco had kept his distance, and Hawke wasn’t sure whether he’d suddenly been granted a grudging respect or the man was biding his time.

“Doe’s found us already,” Young said. She stood in the shadows of the closest tree. “Why else would she show us his wife?”

Vasco slammed the glass again. “You son of a bitch! Let her go!”

Hawke made a quick decision. They were stronger with more numbers, more eyes on the street. He crossed 67th to Vasco’s side. The cacophony from the electronics cranked to full blast was deafening. He leaned in close enough to be heard. “You recognize the location?”

“I don’t know,” Vasco said. He was struggling with his composure, his voice strained, quivering. “Maybe the elevator in our building. I’m not sure—”

The screens flickered and cut out. The sudden silence was overwhelming. Hawke’s ears were ringing.

From somewhere deep inside the shop, muffled and faint, came a woman’s voice: “Jason? Help me!”

The effect on Vasco was swift and profound. A flush spread across his face as he turned back to the window. “Sherri!” He rushed the shop door and was about to go charging in before Hawke spun him around.

“That’s Sherri’s voice. She’s trapped. I gotta get to her—”

“She’s not in there, Jason. Remember Lenox? You go in there, you’ll never come out again. Think—how would your wife get here, to this shop in the middle of New York? It’s a fake, a digital reproduction played through a speaker.”

Vasco was breathing so hard Hawke was afraid he might hyperventilate. “No,” he said, but Hawke could tell he was coming to his senses. “Jesus, no, I heard her; that can’t be—”

“Jason? Please, honey!” The voice grew louder, and when Vasco didn’t move it changed, morphed into something deeper, more menacing, the sound of a synthesizer breaking up in anger. “Jason…”

The screens came back on and switched to the same real-time image of their own group, as seen from a camera mounted somewhere on Park Avenue. Hawke scanned the street and found it mounted on the traffic light pole. They were in full view now. It would only be a few minutes more before the cops arrived, or worse. He had to calm Vasco down, get him away from here.

Vasco had turned to look at the camera, Hawke watching him mirrored on the TV screens, the two of them side by side. “I’m going to track down who did this,” he said, struggling to regain his composure. “If you’re involved, so help me God, I’ll kill you.”

“I’m not involved, dammit. Why would I do this to myself? It’s a machine, code running a program.”

Vasco shook his head. “Weller knows more than he’s saying. I’m going to beat it out of him. If Sherri’s hurt, if she’s … if she doesn’t make it…”

“At least she’s still alive.” Hawke didn’t bring up the possibility that the footage had been recorded hours ago. “Calm down; think for a minute.”

“Hey,
fuck
you. What if that was your wife on-screen, huh? You think you’d be feeling so calm?”

“I saw things, too, back at Lenox. Blood on the wall of my apartment. We can’t accept these images as real. The best way to help Sherri is to get out of New York alive. You won’t be able to do anything if you’re in custody or shot. That’s what this is all about, don’t you get it? They’re trying to get into your head, use your emotions against you, force you to make mistakes.”

Vasco gritted his teeth, shook his head, tears in his eyes. “It’s gone too far,” he said. “Nobody’s safe. Nobody’s sacred.” He looked around, spreading his arms. “Where’s the army?” he said. “National Guard? Where are the goddamn troops?”

Hawke looked at the burnished-steel color of the sky, the plumes of smoke rising up across the city. Vasco was right; the sky should have been swarming with choppers, military aircraft, boots on the streets. But of course they wouldn’t be able to operate those aircraft or personnel carriers. Military machines had been commandeered, too.

And yet Doe had allowed the police who had shot at them to drive their vehicle. She was pulling the authorities’ strings, manipulating them into playing her game. But the rest of it still didn’t make sense.

Missile strikes against the bridges, isolating the city, cutting civilians down at every turn. Why?

She’s conserving her resources.

“It’s about power,” Hawke said quietly. The words came almost without him knowing it. “Energy. That’s the answer.”

Vasco was staring at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Never mind.” His mind was buzzing again, worrying at those puzzle pieces, trying to make them fit. He glanced at the screens, back at the camera, wondering if Doe had cut through their crude attempt to disguise themselves and truly made a features match and knew where they were or if she was fishing. It didn’t matter; their window was closing fast. “We need to move.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

4:19 P.M.

THEY CROSSED PARK AVENUE QUICKLY
, and then Madison Avenue. The windows of the swanky chocolate shop on one corner had been smashed in; a taxi had been driven right through the display window of a Michael Kors store on another, its rear end half on the sidewalk, mannequins draped over its roof like broken bodies. Someone screamed inside one of the buildings, the shriek ending in a slow, chilling gurgle, but Hawke ignored it and kept going, feeling sick that he had been reduced to someone who would turn away from another person in distress. But he remembered how they had been lured into Lenox Hill Hospital by the screams of an infant, and he had no doubt that if Vasco had gone into the electronics shop he wouldn’t have made it back out. Nothing could be trusted anymore; everything was a potential trap.

Central Park loomed in front of them as they hit Fifth Avenue, a thick canopy of green sprouting through the concrete and metal of the city. Now that he saw it, Hawke wasn’t sure which was more threatening, this stretch of strange wilderness or the streets of New York. He’d been in the park many times, skating in the winter, sitting on the grass with Robin, bringing Thomas to the Victorian Gardens Amusement Park. But back then, it had been a welcome refuge. Hawke had never imagined it quite like this: shadowed, unknown and possibly dangerous. He wondered if this was a good idea after all.