by Nate Kenyon
What he had taken for life-threatening internal injuries turned out to be more superficial than he thought. Vasco shook his head like a dog, tried to smile through red-stained teeth. “M’all right,” he said, his eyes a little vague, unfocused. “Bit my goddamn tongue. It’ll take more than that.”
Hawke looked up. Anne was hanging from the seat belt she had managed to fasten before the crash, dangling directly over him. Her eyes were open, and she blinked, fumbling at the release. Hawke reached up in time to catch her as she tumbled down into his arms.
The three of them were now jammed together around the steering wheel. “Who hit us?” Vasco said, his mouth sounding full of cotton. He spat another stream of bright red blood, tried to shift against shards of glass, groaned. “We need to get out of here—”
A grind of metal made Hawke peer out through shattered glass. He watched over Vasco’s shoulder as a black car reversed into view, engine growling as it struggled to pull away from a metal mailbox that it had run down after crashing into them and spinning away. The car’s right front end had been pushed in, and the edge of its bumper dragged and shot sparks across the ground. Hawke could see lights hidden behind the remains of the grill, the kind that undercover vehicles used.
The car swung around to face the truck. Afraid it was going to come at them again, Hawke frantically tried to work himself free from around the wheel, pushing Young away. But the black car didn’t move.
Doors slammed. A moment later, large hands reached in and yanked Vasco through the hole where the windshield had been; a voice rang out.
“Exit the vehicle now!” a man shouted. “Keep your hands out and visible! Make any moves and you’re dead.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
5:08 P.M.
HAWKE LOOKED AT YOUNG. “Don’t go out there,” he said, but she wriggled out through the windshield onto the pavement and disappeared from view. He heard scuffling movement as if she was being dragged, heard her cry out and a double click; then silence.
Hawke closed his eyes, slammed a palm on the steering wheel. There was nothing he could do, nothing he could say, to set things right. The tunnel was blocked, and there was no way out of this. The memory of the man who had been shot outside the temple came back to him: the man’s hands coming up as he backed away in a futile effort to ward off the bullets, the back of his head spattering across the ground.
He was going to die before he could make it home. He would never know whether his family had survived, never see them again. His last interaction with his wife, their fight last night, would be left unanswered and unresolved forever. I’m sorry, Robin. I’m so sorry.
When he opened his eyes again, the barrel of a gun was pointed through the missing windshield at him. “Out,” the voice said. A man’s voice, deep and rough. “Now. Slowly.”
The gun swung away slightly, motioned for Hawke to move. He followed Young, working his way around the steering wheel and through the hole, wincing at sharp pains in his hip and leg. When he was out of the truck, he glanced up from the pavement, still on hands and knees, glass grinding into his palms. The drone was hovering in the air behind the black car, the bulbous camera eye focused on them.
“Do not fucking move,” the man with the gun said. He was standing five feet away, Young on her stomach beside him, hands cuffed behind her. He looked like he could be a cop, but he was in a black plainclothes suit, some kind of radio receiver in one ear with a coiled wire that ran down to a unit clipped to his belt. Federal agents, Hawke thought, FBI, CIA or DHS. Hawke had seen these types before, when they had come to his father-in-law’s house after Rick had been arrested.
But these men didn’t identify themselves, didn’t offer any explanation.
Hawke risked a glance right. Vasco was against the black car, another tall man in plainclothes wrenching Vasco’s arm up behind his back with a gun to his temple as he bellowed in pain. The man cuffed Vasco’s hands and shoved him to a sitting position on the pavement with his back against the driver’s side door.
The man watching Hawke was jumpy, his gun focused on Hawke’s chest as he took a step forward. Hawke wasn’t sure whether the man was going to cuff him or shoot him.
“Terror suspects in custody,” the man said into the receiver.
“I’m not a terrorist,” Hawke said. “I—”
The man whipped his gun across Hawke’s temple, the crack of impact stunning him and dropping him to his stomach. His ears ringing louder, he looked up as the other one kicked Vasco viciously in the midsection, doubling him over. Vasco slipped to his side on the ground, groaning, as the man took a couple of steps toward Hawke and leveled his weapon at him.
“Where is it?” the other man said, standing over Hawke, his voice muffled through the ringing like he was talking through water. “Tell me right now, goddamn it, or I’ll blow your brains out.”
Hawke tried to make his mouth work but found it difficult. “I … I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
The man tucked his gun into a holster under his jacket, leaned over, shoved Hawke’s face into the glittering glass fragments on the pavement. He grabbed Hawke’s shoulder and flipped him onto his back, patting him down, his hands going roughly through Hawke’s pockets and pulling out keys and his wallet, checking under his arms, cupping his groin, patting his ankles.
They were looking for something important. It’s the only reason you’re not dead yet.
Hawke heard banging from inside the black car. He craned his neck to look; it was difficult to see, but someone was in the backseat. He squinted, the car coming into focus.
Weller was at the window.
Oh my God. He’s alive. Hawke thought of the video Doe had shown them of Weller being gunned down. A complete fake. Weller was shouting at them and smashing his fists into metal mesh between the backseat and the front of the car. There was blood on Weller’s face and hands, a lot of it. His nose was crooked and his glasses were gone, his eyes swollen pockets of flesh. He looked like a madman.
Young saw him, too. She rolled and got to her knees, hands still cuffed behind her. “Don’t move!” the man near the car shouted. The barrel of the gun swung her way as Young got to her feet. Weller banged on the window, shouted something as she stumbled forward toward the black car and the man with the gun opened fire.
CHAPTER THIRTY
5:12 P.M.
THE FIRST BULLET hit Anne Young in the chest. She staggered and kept going, focused on Weller as the second shot hit her shoulder, spun her slightly away.
The third bullet hit Young in the face and exited just under her left ear. It took a portion of her brain with it, spattering red rain across the pavement as Young fell.
Weller screamed from the back of the car, a wordless cry of anguish. He slammed himself against the door, again and again. Young’s body was jerking against the ground, the reflexive muscle movements of something already dead. Weller battered at the car window, smashing it with both fists, cracking the glass and smearing it with blood.
The men with guns were distracted. The one who had shot Young swung the barrel Weller’s way. The man standing over Hawke had pulled his own piece from his jacket holster and looked away from him, watching the car. It gave Hawke a fraction of a second to act.
He rolled to a crouch and drove up from his haunches with all his strength, ramming his head into the man’s stomach and wrapping his arms around him like a linebacker. They went to the ground hard, the gun flying from the man’s grip. Hawke heard a grunt and felt the air hiss from the man’s lungs. He drove his forearm into the agent’s face, felt his nose crunch and the back of his head rebound off the pavement.
Hawke rolled off and to his left as Weller bashed at the glass again, screaming. He waited to get shot, wondered if he would hear the report before he felt the impact, but nothing happened; someone shouted as he grabbed the man’s gun from the ground and scrambled behind the truck.
When Hawke glanced around the front end, he saw the man he had tackle
d still lying motionless, blood bubbling from his broken nose.
Vasco was grappling with the other man at the car. The man had lost his weapon, but he had Vasco by the throat now, Vasco’s hands still cuffed behind him, with little leverage.
Hawke stood up and pointed his gun at the agent, trying to keep his hands from shaking. The gun was heavier than he had expected. He’d never fired one in his life, never even held one before.
“Let go of him,” he said. “Now.”
The man froze and looked up, shook his head. “Fuck you,” he said.
Vasco’s face was red and he was wheezing, the man’s hands still tight around his throat, lifting him onto his toes. Hawke pointed the gun a few inches to his right and pulled the trigger. The gun barked and the recoil made the weapon jump like it was alive in his hand. The bullet ticked off pavement next to the agent’s leg.
“Do it,” Hawke said. “Step away from the car. Slowly.”
“Motherfucker,” the man said, letting go of Vasco’s throat and putting his hands in the air. He took one step back. “You’re gonna pay for what you’ve done.”
“We didn’t do anything,” Hawke said. “You’ve got the wrong people.”
“We know all about you. Leaking CIA documents wasn’t enough, was it? Getting our men killed overseas wasn’t a big enough statement for you fucking anarchists. You want to take down the entire country. Now you’re mass murderers.”
“They’re lying to you,” Hawke said. “It’s all a big setup.”
The man stifled a short laugh. “Sure it is,” he said. “And your father wasn’t a fucking commie bastard, right? Hey, it wasn’t your fault, him putting those thoughts into your head at such a young age.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
The man glanced at his partner on the ground. “We know everything about you, your upbringing, political views, your hacker friends. We’ve been fully briefed. You really think you’re gonna get away from here? The entire world is after you sick fucks, understand? Put the gun down, give up, end it now, and maybe you’ll make it to trial.”
Hawke’s head was spinning. He looked at Weller, who had his bloody face pressed against the glass, trying to get an angle to see where Young fell. Hawke saw the other gun lying next to Young’s body. Vasco must have knocked it away.
Hawke’s stomach churned; he kept his gaze away from Young’s body. In his mind, he saw the bullet hit her, the shower of blood. Don’t think about that, not now. He picked up the second gun, stuck it in the waistband of his pants, pointed his own gun again at the man near the car and thought of firing, emotions welling up inside him, an animalistic reaction to adrenaline and fear. What they did to her. Hawke’s body was burning, nearly consumed by rage; his finger clenched the trigger, a hairbreadth away from squeezing it. Could he really execute someone like this? What was happening to him?
“Uncuff him,” he said, motioning to Vasco, who had slumped against the car, still wheezing.
“This place is going to be swarming with cops in two minutes,” the man in the suit said. He went to his pocket slowly as Hawke jerked the gun up to point at his head. “Easy,” the man said. He pulled a set of keys out, dangled them in the air and went to unlock Vasco’s cuffs.
Vasco rubbed his wrists and looked at the man who had cuffed him. He nodded. Then he slammed his fist into the man’s face, putting all his weight into the blow. The man crumpled soundlessly.
“Thanks,” Vasco said. “I needed that.”
Hawke gave him the other gun. The rage subsided enough for Hawke to breathe. “Didn’t know if you’d be with me or not,” he said. “What they’re saying is bullshit, Jason. It’s not me; you know that. It’s her. It’s Doe.”
“You must be getting tired of denying it,” Vasco said. His voice sounded choked with cotton with his bitten tongue. Blood still dripped slowly from his chin. “Doesn’t really matter much. They killed Anne. They were going to shoot me along with you, either way.”
Hawke looked at the man he’d elbowed, still out cold, and the one Vasco had hit, who was groggy, trying to sit up. Vasco kicked him in the face and he went down hard and didn’t move.
Weller slammed himself against the door again, shouted something. He gestured behind him, waving, shouting again. It sounded like “hard ending.” Hawke opened the car’s front door, hit the locks, and Weller tumbled out, leaping to his feet like a madman, his eyes two crescent moons behind a bloody mask. He was gesturing at the sky. The drone hovered there just thirty feet beyond the black car, the breeze from its four propellers hitting them.
“It’s targeting us!” Weller screamed. “Get away from here! Now!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
5:21 P.M.
HAWKE LOOKED INTO THE DRONE’S bulbous camera, like a huge, unblinking eye staring at them. His body went cold. He imagined the video being fed through satellites to machines running silently thousands of miles away, processing, digesting, deciding on a course of action that would be both coldly calculating and strangely human. Was he worth more to Doe dead or alive? What was his threat level? Decisions that had no simple yes or no answer, no easy solution. They could not be solved with ones and zeroes. They required judgment, nuances of thought that had to do with experience and prediction.
To beat a machine at this game, he would have to act unpredictably.
Hawke brought the gun up and fired, the first shot going wide as he pulled the release. He steadied his hand. The next shot clipped the right front rotor and sent the drone wheeling backward, smoke drifting from its housing as it flew erratically across the sky.
He looked at Weller, who had climbed back in the front of the car and was digging around on the floor of the passenger seat. Weller pulled out a familiar black case and went to where Young lay on the pavement, a bloody pool around her ravaged skull. He made a sound like a choked sob and glanced up at the drone, which was still fluttering and ducking, dropping toward the ground like a dragonfly with a bad wing. He seemed to be trying to make a decision.
Vasco was already halfway across the intersection, running toward a line of stopped cars under the overpass. He turned back, shouted at them to hurry.
“She’s dead,” Hawke said. “There’s nothing you can do for her.”
Weller shook his head, tears leaking from his bruised, swollen eyes. He looked at the two men in suits, who were starting to come around. “We need to go,” he said, his voice quivering. “She’ll use satellites to confirm our location if the drone’s disabled.” He looked again at Young on the ground. “I’m sorry, Anne.”
Then he ran after Vasco in a half crouch toward the cars, clutching the case.
Hawke looked at the Croatian church on the corner, the Silver Towers pointing like twin fingers at the sky. He started to run after Weller. He heard a dull boom from somewhere far beyond the city buildings, and a whistling noise grew louder, like a jet plane approaching. Doe had made her decision; they were no longer valuable enough to keep alive. There would be no hesitation and no mercy from now on.
Hawke broke into a full sprint as something hit behind him with a dull whump and the world exploded.
* * *
Hawke’s vision went gray and then white as a tremendous shock wave erupted, sending him flying into the nearest vehicle. He tumbled senselessly against hot metal and snapped awake a moment later as debris rained down from the sky. Hawke clutched his hands to his head, looked up through dust and smoke to see the overpass still mostly intact above him, the shock wave not enough to send it tumbling down on their heads.
Pebbles of concrete twanged off roofs, cascaded down car hoods and over the ground. As the rain of debris subsided, he looked back through a murky cloud.
There was a huge crater where the black car used to be. The crater spanned most of the intersection. Broken water and sewer pipes stuck up like severed veins, leaking fluid. Young’s body was gone, along with the men in suits, all of them vaporized by the blast.
Hawke’s ears wer
e still ringing, and everything sounded like he was underwater. Weller and Vasco had gotten behind the cars a few feet away. Hawke worked his way through the rubble and in between a pickup and a Mazda minivan, wincing with fresh pain in his right hip, small, stinging cuts everywhere.
The dust swirled around him, making it difficult to see. Vasco was behind Weller, who crouched with the black case on the ground. He pressed numbers on the security lock and cracked it open with a hiss.
Something beeped, began to hum.
“A battleship fired on our position,” Weller said, moving quickly as Hawke crouched beside him. “Probably stationed right off Manhattan. I saw reports of them moving in before those two picked me up. Doe did it, commandeered the ship’s systems, made it look like it was us. They still have no idea what’s going on. Can’t fly helicopters or fighter jets, can’t control their own resources. She’s doing that. She must have taken out strategic military locations all over the country. But they’ll be putting men on the ground right now, the old-fashioned way. This city will be crawling with troops in a few minutes. And they’ll have orders to use deadly force.”
He didn’t look up from the case, working over something inside that was making noises like a dangerous animal, as if it might leap out at any moment. It was a computer and modem of some kind, Hawke thought, bristling with appendages, antennae and wiring.
Weller glanced beyond the cars in the direction of the fresh crater. He caught his breath, keened softly and squeezed his puffy eyes shut, cut himself off abruptly. Hawke thought of saying something about Young but decided it was better to stay quiet.
“How did you…” Hawke motioned to the case.
“I had a tracking device installed, used that to find the cops who had taken it. But DHS must have been tracking me, too—they pulled into the parking garage where I’d bunkered down, threw me in the back of the car. She probably used the device to pinpoint my location and sent an alert for them to pick me up. Homeland Security, our tax dollars at work.” He gestured out at the crater, shook his head. “Thought I’d blocked her.… She’s getting too good, too fast. In another few days, she’ll be so far ahead of us, it’ll be like stirring ants with a stick.”