Quake (17 page)

Nick raised the gun, his finger resting on the trigger. Should he fire blind?
Could
he?

As the footfalls neared, he dodged to his left and rolled across the tracks. In the darkness he heard the figure trip and fall, releasing a painful grunt.

Nick scrambled to his feet and twisted the flashlight on. Aimed the beam at the sounds.

“
Don't shoot
,” the man cried, shielding his eyes with a bloodied arm.

Nick said nothing as he studied the man's face.

“Please,” the man said. “I have children. Two girls and a boy.”

But the man appeared to be much older than a father of school-aged kids would usually be. Late fifties, early sixties, at least. It was possible, but the improbability of it set Nick on edge.

“Why the hell did you charge at me?” Nick yelled.

“I couldn't
see
. I just wanted to get past you, I swear.”

Nick kept the weapon leveled at the man's chest, the flashlight aimed at his face.

“Where are you heading?” Nick said.

“Heading? Who the hell knows? I'm just trying to ride this shitstorm out like everyone else. I'm just trying to keep myself alive.”

The man looked as though he'd been dressed well when he left for work (or wherever) that morning.

“What's your name?” Nick said.

“Charles. Charles Leighton. I'm a broker downtown. I left the office at eleven this morning because I had a dentist appointment on the Upper West Side. Fucking root canal.” He smirked. “Not something I was looking forward to. Just before the first tremor I thought how could this day get any worse?”

Nick lowered the gun but kept the flashlight trained on him.

The man squinted, tilted his head as though trying to make out Nick's face in the shadows.

“You look familiar,” the man finally said. “Hey, do I know you?”

“Not likely,” Nick grumbled. The adrenaline was wearing off and the exhaustion was setting back in.

The man took a step forward. “You were on the news this morning. Yeah, you were on the news, I saw you. You were prosecuting that scum who attacked us on nine-eleven. You had that great line about already having your suit picked out for the bastard's execution.”

“That's me,” Nick said quietly. “Assistant U.S. Attorney Dykstra. You can call me Nick.”

The man folded his arms across his chest and stepped forward. “My friends call me Chuck.” He motioned to the tunnel. “Hey, where are you heading to, Nick?”

“Hundred Sixteenth Street. Columbia University. My daughter Lauren's there, visiting the campus.”

“Have you heard anything about a potential rescue operation, Nick?”

“Nothing,” Nick said. “As far as I know, there's been no contact at all with anyone not on the island.”

“Christ,” Chuck said. “I haven't eaten a thing all day. I'm starving. I nursed a bottle of Poland Spring, but that's long gone now, too.”

“Wish I could help you,” Nick said, turning his back. “But I've got to keep moving.”

“Nick, there's nothing up that way, believe me. The train I was on crashed and there's no way past it.”

“Which stop?”

“The train went off its rails somewhere between Columbus Circle and Lincoln Center.”

Nick bowed his head. “Then I'll surface at Columbus Circle. A friend of mine was heading there to find his wife. She's a nurse at St. Luke's-Roosevelt.”

“I heard that place is nothing more than a smoldering pile of rubble.”

“Heard it from whom?”

“A couple of survivors on the train. Two young ladies and a young man. College students visiting from Italy, I think. The young man was injured; they couldn't move him. So they went to the surface for help. When they came back, they said the hospital was leveled. Didn't matter much by then. By the time they got back their friend was dead.”

The words
college students
bounced off the walls of Nick's fogged mind.

Nick said, “I'll take a trail along Central Park, then. Good wishes, Chuck.”

“Hey, man. Don't . . . ya know, don't leave me.”

Nick turned back and looked at the man's face. His eyes were wide, his lower lip trembling. “You can come with me if you'd like.”

“I just told you, Nick. There's nothing up that way. I just came from there. What you and I need to do, pal, is . . . We need to find food. Something to drink, ya know?”

When Nick spoke again he did more forcefully. “My way is north. I'm going to Columbia to find my daughter.”

“All right.” Chuck threw his hands in the air, exasperated. “All right. Do what you must, counselor. But . . . You've got to . . . I mean, please. Please, give me the flashlight.” He held out his hand and took another step forward.

Nick stepped back. “Easy, Chuck. The flashlight's mine.”

“The hell it is, Nick. Come on now, hand it over.”

“It's
mine
, Chuck, and I'm taking it to find my daughter.”

“It not
yours
, Nick. It's the nigger cop's.”

“What did you just say?”

“The dead cop up on the platform. It's his fucking gun, not yours. Now hand it over.”

“You were coming from the north end of the tunnel. How do you know about the cop?”

Chuck gave an uneasy smile. In the beam of the flashlight he began to look like a rabid dog. “Look, none of that matters, all right? I mean, we're here in the subway, you and I, during the fucking apocalypse. Just hand me the flashlight, and I'll let you go on your way.”

Nick raised the gun. “I don't think you've thought this entire situation through, Chuck. Now, listen. I don't want to hurt you. But if you take one step closer to me, I'll put a bullet right between your beady eyes. Understand?”

Chuck nodded his head theatrically. “Oh, yeah, I understand, Nick. Sure, sure. But tell me, did you check the nigger cop for any other weapons?”

Before Nick could respond, Chuck extended his right arm and a thick stream of liquid shot into Nick's eyes.

He staggered backwards, blindly raising his weapon in Chuck's direction. But he tripped and fell, hitting his head against the rail. His eyes felt as though they were on fire and as he rubbed at them with his forearm, he could hear Chuck Leighton approaching.

Nick was blind.

Shoot?

Or toss the weapon and hope that Chuck doesn't get it?

But there was a third option.
Fight.

Quickly, Nick clicked off the flashlight, got to his feet, and swung it in a wide arc in Chuck's direction. He felt a tinge of satisfaction at the sound of the heavy flashlight connecting with Chuck's head. Nick tried to follow through, but his next move was a swing and a miss.

Then he felt a hard, quick kick to his groin and dropped to his knees, pain firing up both legs. He still couldn't see and he couldn't allow Chuck to gain the advantage, so he flung the flashlight as far as he could up the north end of the tunnel.

Nick turned and raised the gun, but before he could get his finger around the trigger, he took another kick to the face. Then Chuck tackled him, pinned his arms to the ground.

Nick used the only part of his body that was free and slammed his forehead into Chuck's face.

Chuck screamed.

Nick took the opportunity to throw his attacker off of him. Then he picked up the gun, still unable to see. He listened as Chuck got to his feet.

“Sorry, Nick,” the guy said, “but I'm afraid that today, it's survival of the fittest.”

He heard the man charge him again, and Nick raised his weapon.

And fired. Once. Twice. Three times in rapid succession.

Nick heard Chuck Leighton's body drop onto the tracks and he took a deep breath, before plugging him again, just to be sure the bastard was dead.

“I said, do as we say and you will live. What is your location?” The Arabic male repeated himself over the radio link.

Jasper looked over at Peterson, who held a finger up to his faceplate in front of his lips. Jasper stifled the overwhelming urge to speak. He didn't see how long that was going to be an option since he and Peterson had no way to talk to each other except over the radio transmitters inside their face masks, the channel now shared with whomever had appropriated it. Shouldn't they ask if Jeffries was all right? Surely the intruders—or
intruder
—
he said “we” but so far there was only one voice
—knew that if Jeffries was speaking to someone that they were down here?

But then he saw the logic of Peterson's command. He was a security expert, after all, so this incident was firmly within his domain. If Jeffries had been . . . shot? Was that the sound he'd heard? If he'd been shot, then it was most likely a terrorist act
(that's what Peterson's been on alert for down here all this time)
, so what good could come from providing their location? On the other hand, Jasper thought as he watched Peterson slide under the rail, presumably to retrieve his flashlight, even if they did know where they were, they couldn't get to them, so what difference did it make? Furthermore, if he and Peterson couldn't solve this cooling issue, it was all going to be a moot point, and they needed to communicate in order to do that.

Screw it.
He was about to disregard Peterson's silence command and give in to his overwhelming urge to make sense of this situation
right now
, when he spotted something dangling from the cooling control station. He wouldn't have recognized it in the faint light but for the fact that Peterson's beam had passed over it earlier.

A metal logbook of some type hung from the instrument console on a metal umbilical. If he was lucky (and he obviously wasn't since here he was, but Jasper told himself he'd have to mull that one over later), there'd be a writing utensil attached. He needed more light to see what the hell he was doing, though.

He looked over at Peterson clambering back onto the platform, light clenched in hand. Jasper pantomimed that he needed to see something over at the cooling station. Peterson looked as though he about snapped his neck, he turned his head so fast to look, and Jasper realized that he must have scared him into thinking there was someone over there.

He shook his head and pushed his hands down toward the floor.
Calm down, Peterson.

Then they heard the radio wave interloper from Jeffries's end again.

“Very well. If you do not wish to cooperate, then we will just have to start pushing random buttons up here. Let me see, what does this one do . . . ?”

Jasper looked over at Peterson who waved his hand in a dismissive gesture.
Ignore that.
Made sense to Jasper. They may be terrorists, and if they were of the Islamic ilk, then they most certainly weren't afraid of all the virgins waiting in the afterlife. But then again, they didn't come all the way here to press some random buttons, many of which no longer worked, anyhow. They wanted mass destruction. They wanted a way into the containment buildings. And for that they needed assistance.

In reply, Jasper waved to gain Peterson's attention. He led him back to the cooling station where he wordlessly pointed out the hanging logbook. Peterson immediately gave him a thumbs-up sign and handed Jasper the light while he picked up the book. Flipping it open, he plucked the pen from a clip on the inside and flipped about halfway through the book until he found a sufficiently clear page. It was still a form titled “Service Log,” but it contained enough white space to work with. As Peterson began to write, they heard the hostile transmission intrude into their headsets once more.

“We can hear you breathing. There are three hazmat suits missing from the rack in here. Do you think us to be stupid?”

Jasper forced himself to slow his breathing rate as he shone the light on the page while Peterson scribbled.

Jasper nodded and gave him a thumbs-up, although he wanted to write,
Don't know how many they are
—
disadvantage!

Peterson scratched out another message.

Jasper nodded his agreement once more and grabbed the pen from Peterson. He handed Peterson the light back and wrote.

Peterson nodded vigorously. He pointed to the pen and Jasper gave it to him. He held up his firearm before jotting:

Jasper gave a terse nod. He sure didn't like to think about trying to get back to Jeffries's control room to join a terrorist gunfight. Nor did the notion of Peterson leaving him down here alone sit well at all. He coaxed the pen from his unlikely cohort and put it to paper again.

He saw Peterson go still while he contemplated this. Jasper added another line to his note.

Peterson shone the light over the rail to the primary cooling loop out on the work floor he'd just come back from, then back to the switchgear panels in front of them. Jasper's heart dropped as he shook his head. Peterson indicated he wanted to write and Jasper took the light while the security man penned his longest note yet.

Peterson held the pen poised in the air and looked Jasper in the eyes, or at least where he would have made eye contact if not for the flashlight glare. He pointed back down to the paper and kept writing.

Jasper's blood ran colder than the water temperate they needed the spent fuel pool to be lowered to.
Only shot!
But he didn't interrupt as Peterson kept writing.

He paused to look up at Jasper to see if he was following. Jasper gave a slow, ponderous nod, and Peterson continued.

This elicited a quick and decisive nod from Jasper. Peterson bent to the logbook once again.

Peterson looked up at Jasper and threw his hands up as if to say,
that's all, folks
!

“We will find a way down to you, and when we do, you will wish that you had been inside the spent fuel pool when the water boils off of it, compared to what your fate will be at our hands.” Jasper jumped at the disembodied voice in his head, so lost in concentration had he been. The actual content of the message disturbed him as well. The invisible enemy had specifically referred to the spent fuel pool water, as opposed to the reactor core, which indicated they were aware of the more accessible peril.

Peterson seemed to ignore the threat and pointed off to their left before he wrote another line.

Jasper didn't see as he had much of a choice. He motioned for Peterson to give him the logbook and proceeded to yank on it, separating the book from its metal cord. Peterson drew his pistol and pointed with his light beam to their left along the wall walkway. Jasper tucked their low-tech communications system under one arm and together they charged off toward the reactor.