The Chrysler Building
75th Floor
5:59 p.m.
There were windows on the 75th floor. It was open like a bell tower, a needle’s eye in the wild winds almost a thousand feet off the ground.
Thirty degrees below zero smothered Brianna Tildascow as she stepped into the deafening gyre. Her eyes fought to close, her skin went numb.
It was empty.
Frozen blood nearly covered the floor. Probably gallons of it, no doubt intended to misdirect Ilecko’s test. He’d used it to paint his message on beams and crossbar. “Find a cure.” Written in his own blood.
“He knows I track him.” Ilecko arrived behind her, followed by the Shadows. They took turns peeking into the tower and then retreating to the relative warmth of the brick stairwell.
She stood in the center, the winds pounding her from every side. She tracked the blood streaks, retracing his steps, following his ghost around the room. And even as she did, she could feel his eyes, watching from closer than over her shoulder. Watching her watch him.
“So what now, we’re screwed?” Jaguar asked.
“Two more hours ‘fore sunset.” Mantle said.
Jaguar asked Ilecko: “You got any other ways to track him?”
Ilecko had no reply.
“We can’t be done,” Lon said. “Right? Tildascow?”
“We’re not done.”
The last message he wrote was the largest. It was scrawled across the crossbeam facing the door. The blood had frozen almost as quickly as he’d smeared it on the metal. And then he’d poured his containers onto the floor—he’d had three of them. One he poured in the center, another along the edges, and the last down the stairs.
Down the stairs he went.
And she chased him.
“Where ya goin’?”
“After him,” she said.
“Hooah,” Mantle shouted, falling in line behind her.
“We’re going back down?” Lon whined.
She yanked out her radio, resisting the urge to smash it into the wall. “Silver Bullet, this is November Zero Zero One, we need ten-minute evac from the observation terrace of the Chrysler Building at the 61st floor, over.”
“This is Silver Bullet, November, roger on your evac. Proceed to the south terrace. Out.”
“Where do you go?” she muttered to herself, pounding down the stairs. Her footfalls rattled like a drumroll.
You go all the way down, onto the street. You stand in front of the Chrysler Building, looking up with satisfaction, knowing that’s where you’d trap us. And then where do you go?
Manhattan is going to be annihilated. You have to know that.
Where do you go?
You leave, dummy.
“Hold up!” called one of the Shadows.
“I’ll meet you there!” she yelled, unable to slow down, uninterested in trying. She navigated the turns through the eccentric upper floors of the crown, watching Valenkov do the same, and returned to the primary stairs.
The Green Berets were hollering on their radios, sending back word that Valenkov wasn’t here. She felt their eyes as she passed them, looking like she was on the heels of someone they couldn’t see.
And there were the other eyes, glowing in the forest, beckoning her to join them in the hunt. The pressure on her neck returned, pushing her down to all fours. She lifted her head and straightened her back, refusing to succumb.
The wolves were everywhere, empowering her to go faster, to lope and leap. The Green Berets and the walls and the stairs jockeyed against the forest and the call of flesh.
She found herself repeatedly snapping awake in mid-stride, each time groggier, further from her body and the material world.
No. She bit into her hand. Her skin tore easily to her sharpened teeth. Fight to stay here. Focus on the numbers.
67. 65.
61.
She blasted from the stairwell and followed the breeze through the hallway, passing through the darkening forest to reach the balcony.
The wind on the 61st floor terrace was downright balmy compared to the observation tower. Her boots crunched in trampled snow, a reminder that she was on concrete, not soil.
She stood at the very edge of the building, atop the southeast eagle gargoyle. Southern Manhattan was sprawled beneath her, jumbled dominoes in uneven stacks. Countless spotlights were playing hide-and-seek between the monolithic buildings and the thick plumes of smoke. The Hyatt Tower still shimmered orange from the flames below, but the ground was lost in blackout.
Tildascow felt a buzz in her palm, her post-hypnotic reminder to take her pills. That meant it was just after six, an hour until moonrise. The government was running out of time. Their last-resort scenario had to be underway.
She took her pills—a speedloader of six unmarked capsules in a gel pack—and shook her head clear. Even if she couldn’t see the ground she knew it was there, and she knew Valenkov had stood there, looking up.
And then where do you go?
The wolves were at her side, calling her. Everything in her body and soul screamed to join them on four legs. He was there too, her would-be master.
She pulled off her glove, wincing as it stuck to where she’d just bitten into her flesh. She took a deep breath, steeling herself to bite again, to inflict enough pain to force him from her mind. And then—
—then she realized that if he was inside her mind, she could capture him.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, purging her thoughts and abandoning the physical. She reached deep into her subconscious, where she kept her inner truth, and she searched for the intruder.
What she found was sound.
A rushing waterfall of harmony crashed into her, cloaking her in sudden warmth and muting the residual noise in her mind, the buzz she’d never been able to escape. It was glorious music, a concordance of strings, and in the middle of it she found the first true silence she’d ever felt in her life.
So many hours meditating, such rigorous training to align her body and mind, and she’d never even imagined such harmony. And yet it was so breathtakingly simple.
Within the harmony, all concepts were one.
She could feel her own awareness: Wind. Smoke. Sirens.
And she could feel his awareness: Love. Rage. Howling.
The sound changed. It was ever so slight, but anything in comparison was harrowing discordance. The noise returned, the failure and the fear and the pain and the rage. Her heart cried abandonment.
Let me back in. Please. I’ll do anything you want.
A hand reached from within. A perfect, powerful hand she knew to be Demetrius Valenkov’s.
Come with me, he said. Come to salvation.
She took his hand and she wrenched him out.
Come fight me in hell.
The wolf attacked and she fled, naked and defenseless, suddenly unable to navigate the chaos in her own mind. Each refuge was more dangerous than the last. The FBI, the Army, the halfway houses and juvie halls and detention centers, the nights on the streets, the fights and the rapes. The wolf had turned her against herself, and their horrible noise smashed down every door until finally even the walls crumbled. There was no place left to go but home.
But why was the front door open?
Not here. Please. Not here.
All of her conviction failed in a heartbeat. She wouldn’t go in, no matter if it cost her everything. She turned and waited for the wolf, standing on the gravel driveway where the limo had dropped her off, naked and dirty and bloody, and she prepared for an unconditional surrender.
But he didn’t come. In fact, as her dread subsided, she could hear the harmony again. It was emanating from within the house.
She ran toward the open door—there was Chester, the best dog ever! And the cement path was clean; she couldn’t remember them ever not covered in bloody footprints. There were their names!
Mom + Dad + Brianna ‘82
She barreled through the door. Mom!
Mom!
And there was Mom. The harmony was her soft lips, her glowing eyes, and her golden curls; so safe and warm. She smiled low and her eyes scrunched, and Brianna knew that meant she was going to tell her she loved her.
But the wolf was with them.
He ripped open her mother’s neck and the blood sprayed all the way to the ceiling. The harmony was silenced again.
The agony pushed at the transformation.
Leave the pain behind. Run with us.
No. I won’t give up the fight.
Find a cure. It is the only way.
There isn’t enough time.
You will not find me.
We don’t have to—
They will fail.
No, we—
I know.
She reached out and found his throat.
Clench and she forced him to his knees, crushing his windpipe within her claw. His yellow eyes squinted as he groped, pulling her arms, swiping at her face. But she had him.
She lifted him away from her mother’s corpse. The blood dripped from the dining room ceiling, but it fell from vacuum-sealed metal.
She slammed him against the wall, knocking down their family portraits. He kicked off and they stumbled backward, tripping over her father’s body and onto the orange couch where she used to hide her extra Oreos.
The wolf crashed into a desk—no, it was a metal console. An ID card and a key ring sat on top of it. They were next to a hazy square of light, maybe a monitor.
She sprang from the couch, hitting hard at the top of his throat, trying to break his neck. His head plowed into clear glass, landing with a solid thunk that said his skull sloshed but didn’t break. The glass was a window, smeared by confusion, looking out over a clear, star-filled sky.
Suddenly there was a figure floating above them, a young and beautiful dark-haired woman in a dress of creamy silk. The harmony whispered from within her, as if she breathed it in and out. But she wasn’t breathing. Her head rested on her shoulder, her eyes were closed. And she wasn’t floating.
It was Ecaterina, his wife. And she was impaled upon a stake.
And then Tildascow was back on the Chrysler Building’s gargoyle, back to the freezing, smoky wind, looking out over the city, and not at the starry sky in Valenkov’s mind.
“Tildascow?” Lon asked. The others had arrived behind her. “You’re not gonna jump, are you?“
“No, I’m just—“ Rather than explaining, she reached for her radio. “Silver Bullet, this is November Zero Zero One, we are ready for pickup. What’s your ETA?”
“Roger that, November,” responded Beethoven. “Be advised, a Black Hawk is en route.”
Weak cheers came from the team, and then weaker laughs at the weakness of their cheers.
“Roger that, Bullet,” Mantle responded over his own radio. “Thank you kindly, my brother. November Out.”
“See you in the red zone, guys. Bullet out.”
Tildascow went back into her mind, re-examining everything she’d just seen. The vacuum-sealed metal on the ceiling, the console with the keys and the ID ring, and Ecaterina—they came from his mind. There were glowing monitors on the console, and he was near a window looking out on a clear night sky.
But Manhattan was choking in glowing smoke. Could he have left the island after all?
No. Still, she was sure. Logic be damned, she could feel his closeness, just as she could feel the others surrounding her in the forest. Maybe it wasn’t she that could feel him; maybe it was the wolf. But it was palpable, and it was real.
“November Zero Zero One,” their radios blared, “this is Mongoose Zero Three, coming in for pickup, ETA two minutes.”
The console, the ID card, the monitor—what was on that monitor?
Hazy lettering on the screen, white over black.
She closed her eyes, shutting out the wolves and their beckoning howls.
The digits coalesced like a memory rediscovered.
KAM0062 UNGAXXINT 010211 18:12:10
She’d seen that code before.
U. N. G. A.
“United Nations,” she blurted. “General Assembly.” As her mind caught up to her mouth, she turned to the others. “United Nations. He’s at the United Nations.”
Of course! That’s why he took out the VPN! Killing the network interrupted their eyes on the plaza, giving him a chance to enter the UN without being seen.
“What? Are you sure?” asked Jaguar.
“Oh yeah,” she muttered. The pieces rushed together. “I’m sure.”
The doomsday shelter. She should have known—should have known!
The UN Plaza always drove her bonkers. Major real estate right on the edge of Manhattan that isn’t held accountable to the laws or the eyes of the United States government? And it plays home to strangers from all parts of the world, allowing them to go unmonitored because of this ridiculous concept of diplomatic immunity? Who in the World Trade Center had immunity? It infuriated her that the UN was an acceptable liability to the FBI.
A little research made it far scarier.
An architect named Wallace Harrison had spearheaded the plaza’s design team. He got the job because he was the personal draftsman of Nelson Rockefeller, whose family donated the lot for the United Nations Headquarters.
The Rockefellers were descendants of the richest man who ever lived. Their influential tendrils reached into oil, industry, banking, and politics—they were the first true global empire. They were also notoriously secretive.
The family was rumored to be involved in any number of secret societies and clandestine activities. More than one legitimate historian believed the Rockefellers were in control of the Illuminati, a secret society that had allegedly manipulated society, politics, and economics for centuries. Some kooks claimed the Rockefellers were in cahoots with the devil.
Whatever nuggets of truth were in those rumors, architect Wallace Harrison was the man who hid them. He came to the Rockefellers’ attention in the 1930s when, as a young upstart on the Rockefeller Center design team, he masterminded the underground network throughout the complex. Next he created private homes for the family, sleight-of-hand designs with hidden rooms and secret entrances.
It was clear that Harrison had a talent for hiding things, and the Rockefellers needed things hidden.
It was just after World War II, when the concept of weapons of mass destruction first entered the zeitgeist. The Rockefeller family wouldn’t be beholden to the whims of any government that might be stupid enough to get into a cataclysmic barfight. They pulled strings to bring the UN to them, even donated their own real estate for the complex. Once the land became international territory, no longer a part of the United States of America, they were free from the prying eyes of New York’s zoning commissions, fire codes, and safety inspectors. Free for Harrison to go wild, conducting his own underground construction as an international team of architects collaborated on the General Assembly, Conference, and Secretariat buildings.
According to legend, what Harrison created was more than just a long-term disaster shelter. It was a massive underground habitat, some kind of self-contained ecosystem that could serve as a new world for the Rockefellers (and maybe the UN’s VIPs).
It’s a rich madman’s secret haven, with no accountability to our government or society, and it’s right beneath our feet.
My dearest Baron Dracula Valenkov… if you were in New York and you knew the place was going to be decimated, where else would you go?
Tildascow smiled to herself and kicked snow into the abyss. From the south terrace of the Chrysler Building, she looked out over 42nd Street. The United Nations Plaza was at cusp of the East River, less than half a mile away.
“Makes sense,” said Mantle. “Fuck, makes perfect sense.”
“Let’s go get that motherfucker,” said Jaguar.
“All command units this net!” Tildascow called into her radio. “This is November Zero Zero One. HPT is in United Nations Plaza. I repeat
, HPT is in United Nations Plaza. He’ll be in a bomb shelter underneath the complex. It should be accessible from near the General Assembly Hall. Divert all forces—send everyone!”
She couldn’t discern any of the static-filled radio chatter, but at least some of it sounded affirmative. They could only hope there was still someone in charge of this show.
“Here we go!” Jaguar yelled.
Distant lights cut through the sky. Blue on the left, red on the right, with blinkers alternating between the fuselage and tail. Their Crash Hawk was here.
She stepped back onto the terrace proper and dialed her BlackBerry, waiting through the irregular beeps indicating patching connections. Somewhere at the end of it would be the Attorney General and, hopefully, the president.
Slowly, the soothing whup of the Black Hawk rose above the radio chatter.
“Donut Hut!” said a cheerful voice answering the phone.
“This is Special Agent Brianna Tildascow, patch me through to the Attorney General.”
No response came, just more beeps. More waiting.
“What the fuck?” Mantle mumbled.
She looked up to find the Black Hawk’s lights shaking. At least, it seemed like they were shaking—it could’ve easily been the shifting smoke.
She squinted into the darkness, trying to purge the thought playing the drums in her mind: Crash Hawk.
“What’s happening?” Lon asked.
The lights stabilized. A moment later, everyone exhaled.
“Call over to them,” she ordered, still listening to beeps on her phone.
“Mongoose Zero Three,” Mantle radioed, “this is November Zero Zero One, what’s your situation, over?”
No response.
“Mongoose—“ Mantle went silent as the lights wobbled again.
No question that the helicopter was teetering. Now it was drifting right.
Tildascow’s phone went dead. She cursed and redialed.
The Black Hawk veered further and began to sink. The Shadows, Lon, and Ilecko leaned on their hips, like bowlers trying to keep it out of the gutter. It was just a block away now.
But it wasn’t going to make it. Tildascow stepped away from the others so she could hear the phone.
“Oh no… no, man… pull up. Pull up…” Jaguar yelled.
City Under the Moon Page 33