Day One: A Novel

by Nate Kenyon

  “Where’s Price?” Hawke asked.

  Young shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said.

  Hawke left Hanscomb with them, took the hallway branching to the right and followed it to another set of exterior doors, the ones Vasco had checked before they entered the loading dock. Price was on the floor, motionless. Hawke turned the man over and checked his chest; he was still breathing.

  The reinforced glass doors were still locked. He peered out at the street, just steps away. But the locking mechanism was electronic and he could find no way to release it.

  He rattled the handles, slammed his fist into the upper panel of glass. Nothing; he might as well have been punching stone. He took a step back, wound up with the oxygen tank like a batter and swung it with all his strength, low from the knees and up in an arc, connecting with the lower panel with a shuddering thud.

  The tank rebounded hard, ripping the mask from his face and spinning him halfway around. When he turned back, the glass was webbed with cracks. He kicked at it, managing to separate the top part from the frame, kicked again until the entire sheet fell out onto the sidewalk.

  Air wafted through the hole, bringing with it the scent of oil and asphalt and smoke. After the sour, dead air of Lenox, it might have been the best thing he had ever smelled. The others had heard the noise and joined him, and they all crouched and slipped through the opening, Vasco pulling Price’s unconscious body with him.

  * * *

  Hawke stood on the sidewalk, blinking in the sunlight. Hanscomb crouched beside Price, sharing her oxygen with him. He moaned and began to stir. Sirens shrieked in the distance, along with what sounded like the chatter of automatic weapons that raised the gooseflesh on Hawke’s arms.

  “I heard the radio,” Vasco said. He breathed in and handed the mask to Young. “What the fuck did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything. I don’t know what that was all about.”

  “The hell you don’t,” Vasco said. He took another breath of oxygen. “Weller was right, we are on the most wanted list, and there’s gotta be a good reason for it. So tell me: what did you do?”

  Hawke got the feeling that if the man hadn’t been so weak from the gas, he might have taken a swing at him. Hawke’s heart was hammering in his chest. Hanscomb was staring at him like she might at a spider that had crawled out of her shower drain. “I knew some people years ago,” he said. “They were involved with the hacker group Anonymous. We did a few things I regret. But I haven’t been a part of that since my son was born.”

  Hawke didn’t know why he had said that, or felt the need to explain himself at all. But the truth was, he was still a hacker. There was the professor’s e-mail account, for one, and plenty of other questionable examples as well, if he was honest with himself. It was part of his job, part of his life, as natural as breathing. But what he had done lately wasn’t associated with Anonymous and wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near this level of scrutiny. Maybe the authorities were going after anyone with a connection to the group? But then why single him out by name? There had to be hundreds of people in New York with closer ties and far worse records.

  No, this had something to do with Eclipse, and Jane Doe. Admiral Doe. Jesus. Was he really buying into this? That some kind of intelligent program was trying to get him killed?

  “I’m being set up,” Hawke said. “We all are. Jim was right about that, too.” He glanced at Young. “But the bottom line is, the entire NYPD is going to be looking for us.”

  “The hell with that,” Vasco said. His face was red with anger. “I’m gonna give myself up to the first cop I see and point them your way—”

  “Bad idea,” Hawke said. “If I’m right and you go to them now, they’re going to shoot you on sight. I saw them do it.”

  “How do I know what you saw? I’m supposed to take your word for it?”

  “It’s true,” Young said. “We’re all implicated. And we’re all at risk. It doesn’t matter whether we’re innocent or not.” Her nostrils flared slightly as she breathed oxygen in, handed the mask back. Hawke thought of the woman on the screen, how Young had reached out to touch the image with a shaky hand, the only thing that revealed any kind of emotional connection. A porcelain shell. Young had her own secrets; he just wasn’t sure what they were yet.

  “We sure as hell can’t stay here,” Vasco said. “Where’s the next checkpoint?”

  “Checkpoints aren’t exactly working out for us,” Hawke said. “Let’s think for a second—”

  “Yeah? You were the one who suggested this place,” Vasco said. “How do we know you didn’t just make it up? Sarah? You remember them saying ‘Lenox Hospital’ on the radio?”

  “I…” Hanscomb shook her head. “I can’t think; I don’t know. I heard ‘Grand Central’; I remember that.”

  “So we go to Grand Central—”

  “It’ll be crawling with cops,” Hawke said.

  “Like I said before, they can’t just kill us in front of everyone like dogs. We’ll get the chance to turn ourselves in, to explain. Those of us who are innocent.” Vasco looked at them all in turn, his hostile gaze lingering on Hawke’s face. “We stick to the goddamn plan.”

  Hawke rubbed at the headache that had worked its way like an ice pick into his skull. “It’s too dangerous to go that far on the streets.”

  “You can protect us,” Hanscomb said, looking at Vasco, hope lightening her voice. “We can find a weapon … I don’t know, a gun?”

  Price had gotten to his feet, still sharing Hanscomb’s oxygen. “A gun’s going to be tough to find,” he said.

  Vasco was pacing now, short strides back and forth. “Then we go underground,” he said. “We take the subway tunnels. The trains aren’t running; it’s a direct route and keeps us under cover. There’s a station entrance on the other side of the building on Lexington. We could follow that line right to Grand Central.”

  Or to the tunnel, and New Jersey. It wasn’t a bad idea. Hawke thought about the ride into the city, the PATH train rumbling through the dark under millions of tons of black water. There were fewer cameras in the tunnels, more places to hide. It would be harder to track them.

  According to Hanscomb, the bridges were all out. So this was his only straight shot home.

  The chirp of a siren came from Park Avenue. An NYPD squad car screeched hard around the corner, less than a hundred feet away. Hawke looked up, saw a security camera pointed right at them from a nearby light post. He put down the oxygen tank as the car came to a shuddering stop behind a jam of cars, tires squealing. The doors flew open and two cops jumped out, pointing guns at them.

  Vasco took off running with Young, tossing their oxygen tank aside. Hanscomb ditched her tank, too, but she was slower, weaker, and she stumbled before Hawke turned back and helped her to her feet. Price kept behind them as Hawke stayed with her, keeping her up as they dodged through three more cars and around a construction Dumpster. Someone shouted out to stop before a soft clap and a chunk of bark from the tree about three feet to Hawke’s left exploded, a puff of concrete drifting from the building nearby as the twang of the bullet reached him a second later. Another shot rang out; this time, it was accompanied by a grunt and the sound of a body falling.

  Hanscomb swerved hard right, breaking Hawke’s grasp and catching her thigh on the bumper of a Nissan, spinning wildly before regaining her balance. Hawke turned to see Price lying in a twisted heap on the ground halfway between them and the hospital. Blood was bubbling from a wound in his back.

  Hanscomb screamed as another bullet hit Price in the lower back and his body jerked. The cop who had fired on Price pointed his gun at Hawke. He was less than one hundred feet away. Hawke grabbed Hanscomb’s hand and turned to run again.

  The sound of pounding feet came behind them. The length of time to reach the corner seemed interminable. It was hard to breathe. Hawke used to have a repeating dream of facing a man with a knife, knowing the man was going to stab him, unable to move, unable to avo
id the killing blow. This was like that. The seconds ticked on forever. They were being shot at. Price had been killed. It was impossible to believe. There was nowhere to hide, no place to go.

  A bullet shattered the rear window of the Nissan as Hawke yanked Hanscomb around the corner just in time to see Young disappearing around 77th Street. There was no cover here, but the block was thankfully short. As he ran, he kept waiting for the shot that would hit him between his shoulder blades like Price and send him spinning to the pavement in a gore-streaked heap, breathing his last, shuddering breath.

  It didn’t come. As they reached 77th and the subway entrance loomed dark and silent at their feet, he heard another shout and risked a look back. Their pursuers hadn’t yet come around the corner of Lexington Avenue; the street was empty. With luck, the cops would think Hawke and Hanscomb had kept going and they could disappear belowground like Vasco had hoped. Unless they follow us down, and we’re trapped in the dark.

  But Hawke didn’t have time for second guesses, because Hanscomb was pulling him to the steps and into the tunnels, away from the light and into the shadows.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  2:50 P.M.

  THEY HESITATED AT THE FOOT of the steps for a few precious seconds, out of sight from above, catching their breath as the familiar hot, metallic and oily smell of the subway wafted over them. The power was out. There were a few emergency lights active, but the gloom and relative silence were unsettling.

  A distant, low moan that sounded half-mechanical and half-human drifted up to them from somewhere below. Hawke imagined a hybrid being birthed down there in the dark, an offspring of the day’s events, fleshy limbs from piles of the dead weaved into the solid steel underpinnings of a machine. He thought of the people he had seen on the screens in the morgue, pacing in their cages. The absence of other human beings around them was beyond all comprehension. Millions of people lived in this city, and even more swelled the ranks during the day, commuters and protestors and contract workers and emergency responders. Where had they all gone?

  Hanscomb was in shock. She clutched Hawke’s hand, breathing fast and shallow, panting. “I need to wake up,” she whispered, and he got the feeling she was talking more to herself than to him. “They killed him! Oh my God. This is a nightmare, isn’t it? It can’t be real.”

  “It’s real. I’m sorry.”

  “Are you really a part of this thing? Is that why the police are shooting at us?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m not. But Jim was right. Someone wants them to think so.”

  “But you said you were involved with those hackers before—”

  “I was just a stupid kid,” he said. “I made some mistakes. But they were for good reasons. I would never be involved in something like this, Sarah. I promise you. I have a son, a three-year-old boy. I have a wife; she’s pregnant.”

  “You tell me the truth,” Sarah said. She looked at him in the shadows. Her eyes looked wet. “You tell me one more time you had nothing to do with this, and I’ll believe you.”

  He thought about telling her about the documents he’d seen and everything Young had said back in the morgue, but he didn’t think Sarah could handle it. Even the thought of giving voice to the idea seemed crazy. “It’s true. I swear. I’m a journalist. I was working on a story in the city. Wrong place, wrong time. That’s all.”

  She sighed, and it seemed to take more years out of her. “I’ve never been in trouble with the law,” she said. “I … I wouldn’t have made it back there if…”

  Hawke felt the bones of her fingers, light as a bird and just as fragile, an old woman’s grip. He shook his head. She was wheezing softly, her face haggard in the dark.

  They waited, pressed tight against the grimy, tiled wall, but no one came after them and they took the hallway deeper inside. A clinking sound drew Hawke’s attention. Vasco was rummaging through the attendant’s booth. A moment later, Vasco straightened and a light flicked on, a flashlight beam playing over a deserted entryway, arrow-shaped graffiti sprayed in a corner, the familiar turnstile access to the platform below the entry sign and symbols for each line, a dented periodical box half-tilted and empty, its plastic cover dangling from one hinge like a loose tooth.

  The light washed over Anne Young, who was standing absolutely still, arms folded across her chest like a petulant child. Tears were streaming down her face, but she didn’t make a sound, didn’t even blink before the light left her in darkness once again.

  Abruptly the beam’s glare found Hawke’s face and remained there. He put up an arm, blinking against the light. “Knock it off,” he said.

  Vasco kept the beam on him. “The fugitive,” he said. “After what happened up there, I guess we’ve got the answer to whether they’ll shoot first and ask questions later. Did you bring them right to us?”

  “At least he stayed back to help me,” Hanscomb said, the words spat from her mouth as if she’d tasted something rotten. “Which is more than I can say for you.”

  “Touchy,” Vasco said. “Maybe he was using you as a human shield.” He let the beam play down Hawke’s body to his feet, then flicked it to Hanscomb’s face. “Where’s Price?”

  “He’s dead,” Hanscomb said. “They shot him.”

  “And you got away,” Vasco said, flicking the light at Hawke again. “How convenient.”

  Hawke felt blood rush to his face. “You son of a bitch—”

  “Take it easy, hero,” Vasco said. “Just pointing out the obvious. The two of you should find your own way out of here, maybe. Safer for me.”

  “I don’t think so,” Hawke said. “You’ve got the flashlight. Besides, you’ve got so much experience in dangerous situations, right? Maybe you should tell us what the best strategy is for a war like this.”

  “Look,” Vasco said, taking a step closer in a vaguely threatening way that Hawke didn’t like. “I don’t give a shit whether they know the truth or not.” He took another step, keeping the beam on them. “I wasn’t in the army,” he said. “Okay? Shocker. They didn’t like my attitude. I told you what you wanted to hear back there at the temple. Who cares? You were hysterical and about to go off the rails.”

  Hanscomb didn’t seem to react at first. The flashlight showed a tightening around the eyes, a firming of the mouth. “I don’t like being lied to.”

  “Sue me. I got you this far, and we’re alive. You think he hasn’t lied to you, too? He’s lied to all of us.”

  “I haven’t lied about a damn thing. You ran off and left one of us to get shot in the back. Some leader.”

  Vasco waved the light toward the stairs up to the street, muscles in his arm standing out like ropes. “Fuck you. Anytime you don’t like my plan, there’s the door. But if you want to stay with me, just do what I say. Now we better keep moving, don’t you think? Before V for Vendetta here brings the heat down on our heads.”

  He turned and vaulted one of the turnstiles, the light bobbing and flashing in the shadows beyond. “You coming or not?”

  Hawke went over to Young, who hadn’t moved. Her wet face glistened in the dark like something polished. “We have to keep going,” he said, and maybe it came out harsher than he’d intended. “One of us is dead. There’s nothing more for us up there. Or maybe it’s something else you’re frightened of. You want to tell me exactly what they want with us? Why they trapped us in that hospital?”

  Young shook her head. He could barely see her at all now as the flashlight retreated. When he tried to touch her arm, she jerked away. “Don’t,” she said. But she followed him over the turnstiles and after the light that bobbed and swayed beyond like a beacon flashing a warning.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  3:05 P.M.

  A SECOND FLIGHT OF WIDE STEPS brought them to the next level, uptown and downtown tracks side by side beyond a long, narrow platform spaced with support columns and holding old benches. A few more emergency lights dotted the ceiling, but the glow barely cut through the gloom. Normally this stop was well lit
, but now it was dark and silent, the vast warren of tunnels sensed rather than seen. Hawke had been here just a few short hours before and it had been bustling with activity, hundreds of people streaming in and out and going about their daily lives, but that seemed like a lifetime ago, all that had come since like a nightmare he couldn’t escape.

  Price was dead. It could have been any of them. And Vasco didn’t even seem to care.

  The group stayed close to one another as they approached the tunnel. Vasco played the flashlight around the platform and peered over the edge of the drop to the tracks. A noise like a bird’s wings made him swing the flashlight beam quickly back to find a scrap of newspaper that fluttered against a bench. The draft brought the scent of more hot grease and ozone and what might have been another moan, but Hawke couldn’t be sure. Fear prickled his skin. It was like the faint call of a whale in the deep.

  “It’s a straight shot,” Vasco said, pointing the light along the tunnel toward downtown. His voice echoed through the emptiness of the platform. “Trains aren’t running, so there’s no danger. Might not be the most pleasant way to go, but it’ll bring us right to Grand Central.”

  “And the Financial District?” Hanscomb said. “My husband’s building is at Two Hundred West Street.”

  “You could follow the number four tracks to Bowling Green,” Vasco said. “Then go to the water. It’s a much longer walk, though.” The flashlight made it hard to see his face. “He’s dead, you know that, right? Even if he’s not, how are you going to find him? And what are you gonna do even if you actually make it down there?”

  “Don’t you say that,” Hanscomb said. She was trembling. “Don’t you dare.”

  “What’s your husband’s name, Sarah?” Hawke said.

  “Harold,” she said. “They called him Harry, but I never did. It was always Harold.”