“A well-oiled machine,” Pete Mack commented.
“Slow is smooth; smooth is fast,” Markle said.
“How long till we go?” Pete Mack asked.
“Ninety seconds,” Markle said. “We?”
“I’m coming.”
“Hell you are, sir.”
“There’s no debate, Markle,” Pete Mack said, pulling a bulletproof vest over his head.
It only took a few more moments for the first SUV, with Markle sitting shotgun and Pete Mack in the back, to rip out of the large exit bay of One Police Plaza. Their car was quickly followed by the second SWAT SUV and finally the armored personnel carrier. Lights spun and sirens blared as SWAT raced towards Times Square.
▪
Jake finally reached Manhattan and piloted the Ducati south on Second Avenue.
“You get it yet?” Rivett barked into the microphone at Tony.
“Nothing yet, Jake. Where are you?”
“Close. I’m gonna be there first because I got the bike. Nothin’? Not even from RTCC?”
“We’re on video conference with them now, too. There’s a bunch of white vans. Analysts are working hard. No dry-cleaning logo. No Steinway . . . Are you sure—”
“Of what?”
“Sure the kid’s story checks out? They lost him.”
“How’d you lose the fuckin’ kid?”
“Guys came two minutes later but he was already gone.”
“Fucking track my Twitter,” Jake yelled.
“That’s going to take a few hours, bare minimum. Think. Are you sure? You don’t think this kid sold you some bullshit?”
“I . . .”
Jake thought about Tony’s question as he took a right turn on Forty-Seventh Street. There was a traffic jam ahead, but that didn’t stop Rivett. He abruptly swerved the Ducati onto the sidewalk and bounced down the pavement. As he sped along, he caught sight of a white van out of the corner of his eye. His head whipped back to make sure he’d seen what he thought he had. He twisted forward again. A young couple approached on the sidewalk, pushing a stroller. At the last moment before collision, Jake pivoted the bike back onto the street. There was a large parked truck ahead. He jacked the brake on the bike and rapidly decelerated, his back wheel drifting to the side. The Ducati began to slide under him. Jake was losing control. Instead of resisting, he allowed the bike to pull him down onto the pavement. His body somewhat protected by rudimentary side bars, the bike sparked against the street and slammed into the back of the truck ahead. Once he had stopped, Jake rotated, smacked both of his palms down onto the asphalt, and pulled his body out from underneath the bike. He remained crouched behind the truck.
“Tony. You there?” Jake whispered into his radio.
“Yes?”
“I got them.”
Jake hid behind the truck, waiting for the light ahead to turn green. Once it did, the pile of vehicles—in which he had previously been stuck—began to move again. He slowly stood and nonchalantly held his cell phone out as if he were checking an email. Thirty seconds later, the white van approached and slowly passed by the truck Jake was positioned behind. Jake stuck his phone past the rear bumper of the truck and snapped a few pictures of the van. He stared at the photos on his cell for a brief moment before forwarding them to Tony. As he had expected, the side of the white van read “Steinway Cleaners.”
▪
In Times Square, an impromptu and massive evacuation effort was taking place. There were about twenty policemen assigned to Times Square at any given time of the day, and they were doing their best to clear everyone out. It was chaotic and haphazard, but more squad cars arrived with each passing moment to make the job easier.
▪
On Forty-Seventh Street, just a few blocks away, Jake reached for the Ducati. With three heaving pulls, he dragged his bike out from underneath the truck. He rotated the Ducati upright and checked it out. The bike looked fine—superficial damage only, just like him. Jake hopped on, started the bike up, and navigated back into traffic. He was ten cars behind the white van and following surreptitiously. Traffic was moving slowly, so he drove on the line to close in. He could finally see what the problem was. An avenue ahead, two cop cars had stopped the flow of traffic, and the police were directing all vehicles to choose south or north.
“Tony, why do you have the po-po blocking the street down here?” Jake yelled at Tony through his helmet mic.
“I made the call, Rivett.” It wasn’t Tony on the line. It was Susan. “Last thing I’ll allow is more innocents going down like before,” she said.
“Well, Susan, did you ever consider the fact that we’re on a city street full of innocent people?”
“It’s not Times Square,” Susan replied back to Jake. “But you aren’t wrong. So what’re you gonna do about it, cowboy?”
“What I do best.”
“Thatta boy,” Susan replied.
Jake revved his engine and proceeded forward until he was just behind the Steinway Cleaners van. As he reached into his shoulder holster for his gun, the van suddenly swerved right and stopped. Jake followed, inches from the van’s bumper. The back of the van didn’t have windows. He hoped he was still invisible. He could hear the right side door of the van sliding open—towards the sidewalk. Jake jumped off the Ducati and peered around the van. The first person he saw was none other than Maximilian Borin, followed by a man he didn’t recognize. Dr. Borin stared directly at Jake. They locked eyes.
Then the pandemonium began.
Jake lifted his gun towards Dr. Borin while the doctor and his companion sprinted past the front of their van and back into traffic.
Bang. Bang. Jake fired two shots, missing with both. Now the men were in the middle of the street, so Jake couldn’t shoot without risking collateral damage. He rotated towards the van door. He was able to glance inside and spotted three more terrorists, their faces a mix of fear and menace, before the door slammed shut in Jake’s face. The vehicle pulled away.
The van careened down the street, ramming into a pickup truck and sideswiping a Prius.
Rivett scanned across stopped traffic for Dr. Borin and the other suspect. He spotted the doctor’s distinctive head of hair turning down Sixth Avenue. Jake was about to give chase when he remembered the Ducati. The bomb in the van was more important than the doctor. Jake jumped back on his bike and followed.
“Got two runners on foot, heading south on Sixth! One’s the doctor!” Jake screamed into his headset.
“Got a SWAT unit on it,” Susan replied.
Just as Rivett passed over Sixth Avenue, a large black SUV carrying SWAT operators came flying southbound with fury, lights whirling as it pursued the two runners.
“Where’s Markle?” Jake yelled.
“He and Mack are already in Times Square with the rest of SWAT.”
Ahead, Jake saw the Steinway Cleaners van accelerating towards the police barricade at Times Square.
▪
There was only supposed to be one of them left in the van, but now there were three. Hanafi, Ataullah, and Darab stared through the front windshield of their vehicle at the two squad cars that were blocking the end of the street.
“Alim, how are you getting out?” Darab asked Hanafi from the back. His sweaty fingers were trembling on a small detonator remote in his hands, which was connected by a wire to the chemical-explosive payload.
“I don’t think I am, dear one,” Hanafi said. “Pedal to the metal, Ataullah.”
“Yes, sir,” Ataullah—driving—complied.
Hanafi gazed back at Darab. It was a damn shame, really. He could tell that Darab was one hundred percent ready. The machine had made sure of that. And yet, if the alim was going to go down with them, there was no way he wasn’t going to be the one to press the button.
“Give me the remote,” he instructed Darab.
Darab didn’t move. He looked down at the remote, unwilling to meet Hanafi’s gaze. “No, Alim. I know my mission. I will reach the center o
f Times Square. Say it with me. I will reach the center of Times Square—”
“Say it with me,” Hanafi interrupted. “Your mission is to give me the remote.”
When Darab looked up again, he saw a pistol staring at him in the face.
“We don’t have an individual purpose, dear one,” Hanafi said, aiming the pistol at Darab.
But instead of handing over the remote, Darab took a swing at Hanafi with his fist, only partially connecting. Just as Hanafi was about to start grappling with Darab over the remote, his attention was directed towards the front of the van.
Ping. Ping. A spiderweb constellation appeared on the front windshield as the police ahead of them began to open fire.
“Duck!” Hanafi yelled.
Ataullah was already doing just that. He was unscathed, driving the van with barely an eye on the road, most of his body crammed down onto the driver’s side floor with his leg jackknifed against the accelerator. The two patrol cars ahead were close. The van accelerated. There was no time to brace for the collision, but Ataullah did his best to navigate the van into the dead center of the two-foot gap between the squad cars. The cops fired their last shots before diving out of the way as the van made contact. With a catastrophic roar, the metal animals did battle in the middle of the street. While the cop cars were reinforced, the van was much heavier. It tossed one of the vehicles to the side and scraped past the other, emerging through the gauntlet with a massive gouge along its left flank. The side door of the van swung open wildly, giving Hanafi and Darab a clear view of Times Square.
“Turn, turn!” Hanafi screamed, noticing their target was in sight.
Ataullah ripped the steering wheel to the side, but he was losing control of the van’s wheels—the front axle had taken major damage. The van rocked back and forth, creaking from the strain of the previous altercation, as it bumped up and onto the central island of Times Square. Ahead, packs of civilians were still sprinting away to safety.
“Forward, forward!” Hanafi yelled, instructing Ataullah to hit the pedestrians ahead.
Ataullah slammed his foot down on the accelerator, juicing the van with everything it had left. The van surged forward.
Smmaaashhhhhh.
With no warning at all, a large black SUV T-boned the van directly into the center of Times Square. The van flipped onto its side, boxed between the red stairs of the tourist amphitheater and the SUV itself. Although Hanafi was dazed, he found himself perched above the van. He was hanging out the side, which was now the top, and he watched as multiple heavily armed men in black surged out of the SUV with semiautomatic rifles raised.
▪
Rivett witnessed the collision from a hundred yards away. He didn’t slow down. He saw Markle emerge from the shotgun side of the black SUV, gun high and ready, hurling commands at the terrorists in the van. Three other SWAT operators and Pete Mack flanked either side of the SUV, hidden as well as they could be behind the open doors. Rivett reduced the throttle on the Ducati and began to slow as he finally covered the distance.
When he was about twenty feet from the van, one of the men inside made a break for it. The man held his arms high up in the air—as if surrendering—with no weapon. SWAT did not shoot. But he was running directly towards Jake, their paths about to intersect. For a brief second, Jake was able to concentrate on the man’s face. It was definitely Hanafi. But Jake didn’t have much time, because once Hanafi was just a few feet away, someone started shooting.
Markle jumped back behind the protective bulletproof glass of the SWAT SUV as the van’s driver opened fire with a pistol from the inside of the van. The shooter was aiming through the van’s front windshield, attempting to pick off the officers standing in front of him. Without hesitation, SWAT opened up on the driver. Their metal piercing bullets made quick work of whoever was targeting them.
Hanafi saw Jake ahead and pivoted, sprinting to the side. Jake course corrected with Hanafi, leaning his bike into an arcing path in pursuit of the running terrorist. Jake didn’t worry about colliding with Hanafi. Instead, he drove right into him. The spinning wheels of the Ducati made contact with Hanafi’s feet, flinging him down onto the pavement. Jake maintained control. The Ducati sheared the side of Hanafi’s leg as it slowed to a stop. Jake jumped off and pounced on Hanafi, who was moaning on the ground.
“It goes without saying,” Jake said as he pulled out a pair of handcuffs and pinned Hanafi’s arms roughly behind his back with his knee. “You’re under arrest, Hanafi.” Jake latched the handcuffs on to Hanafi’s wrists, securing him.
Even though he was about to see the long arm of the law up close, Hanafi was laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Jake asked.
Hanafi smiled at Jake. “The machine,” he muttered.
“What about it?”
“It’s perfect. Darab was prepared to die.”
“Who’s Darab? The driver?”
“No,” Hanafi said. “In the back.”
Jake followed Hanafi’s gaze back towards the van, which was surrounded by the SWAT operators.
“Oh, n—”
Jake Rivett didn’t even have time to scream before the explosion erupted in the center of Times Square.
The blast was absolutely gargantuan. The molten fire from the chemical explosives inside the van reached as far as Jake and Hanafi on the ground. The firestorm was like a rekindling phoenix. It never seemed to end, multiplying on itself and snatching any and all pieces of debris, trash cans, car parts, city signs, and the like in its massive wake. The explosion was a tsunami of pure force, and the shockwave traveled well past them. And then, as quickly as it all began, it started to dissipate—leaving only an expanding cloud of pitch-black dust masking the entirety of Times Square.
Blown flat to the ground, Jake couldn’t hear a thing and could barely breathe. But he opened his eyes and knew he was still alive. Hanafi lay on the ground next to him, mumbling quietly to himself. Jake tried to pull himself up into a sitting position. It was excruciatingly difficult, but eventually he did it. He shook his head, trying to clear the concussion that swirled through his brain.
Jake gazed into the center of Times Square. There was nothing there.
No van. No Pete Mack. No Markle. No SWAT.
There was nothing, except for a massive bomb crater.
Rivett couldn’t control himself. The tears began to stream down his face, and he let out a primal scream. “AAHHYYAAAAAAAA!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
MURAD AND DR. BORIN SPRINTED through throngs of tourists in midtown Manhattan. A few blocks from Times Square, they had heard the explosion like everyone else. The noise and vibration from the huge blast was impossible to miss. After the boom, the black SUV with the flashers pursuing them was forced to stop, because hundreds of civilians were sprinting across the street in panic. Murad glanced back to see multiple SWAT operators disembark from the vehicle. The assault team spread out across the street—guns out—slowly filtering through the crowd in pursuit of them.
“What’s the plan?” Dr. Borin asked Murad.
Murad glanced down at his cell phone. “The plan is . . . keep running!” Murad exclaimed.
Murad and the doctor turned another corner and raced down a side street. They were now out of sight from every member of the SWAT team and would be for another fifteen or twenty seconds.
“You’re telling me Hanafi was going to just leave us for dead?” Dr. Borin asked.
“Hanafi’s not in charge.”
“Well, I don’t know what to do . . .” Dr. Borin panted.
Murad managed a laugh. “You aren’t either, doctor.”
A few paces ahead of them, an anonymous grey metal door with no handle opened. With only a lock visible to the street, this was a building maintenance door—one of dozens along the street—to one of the giant glass-and-steel skyscrapers that populated the area. A man in his forties with a rough complexion, in all black and wearing a chest bag, held the door open and stared at them. The man
’s face wasn’t welcoming, but he didn’t seem shocked to see them, either.
Dr. Borin pivoted to avoid the open door. He was surprised when Murad sprinted right in. Without a second thought, Dr. Borin followed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
OMER DEFTLY NAVIGATED THE SHADOWS. One could not grow up brown in America without this skill, but it was especially important for Omer tonight. He traversed back and forth across Queens, trying to decide what to do next. He’d ducked out of sight from twelve police cars in the neighborhood within the last hour. That was about twelve more than he’d seen in the month prior. The cops were not just passing through. They were looking for someone and he knew that person was him. Even though he’d connected to Twitter through an anonymizer called Tor, Omer had turned off his phone and thrown the device in the trash. That being said, he knew he wasn’t in the clear—far from it. He was sure the police would quickly figure out who he was. He really wanted to go home, but he didn’t know if he should. He didn’t want to bring any more trouble to his family than he had to.
As Omer padded down the sidewalk in the middle of the night, the bright lights of an electronics store beckoned. Although the establishment was security-gated, the store kept its televisions on all night long, casting an eerie and fluctuating glow over the street. Omer almost passed by until a chyron running on the bottom of CNN caught his eye: “TERROR ATTACK IN TIMES SQUARE; MULTIPLE FATALITIES.”
Omer stopped. He fully rotated towards the bank of televisions.
The van was the first thing he saw. It was impossible to miss. Well, half of it. Right on CNN was a live image of his dad’s van—complete with a charred but identifiable logo reading “Steinway Cleaners”—smoldering in the middle of Times Square. So much for not bringing trouble to his family. The televisions weren’t playing any sound, but Omer didn’t need to see or hear any more. He was looking for a sign, and this was it. He kicked off down the street. He was twelve blocks from home, and he needed to get there before the rest of the world did.
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