Dead Man Switch

by Matthew Quirk

As the towers of Lower Manhattan snapped by in front of him, Hayes spoke into his radio headset to the operations center.

  “Do we have a fix on the truck yet?”

  “Northbound turnpike. Coming through Newark. We can shut the road down.”

  “How big is it?”

  “Tractor-trailer.”

  Hayes cursed under his breath. That meant almost a one-mile blast radius. He surveyed the New Jersey Turnpike, the chemical plants and petroleum tanks clustered on both sides of the road. Hayes could see the cities running south along the pulsing red and white veins of the turnpike: Newark and Elizabeth, dense with people. If they stopped the truck and it blew, thousands would die.

  He traced the turnpike north, to where it ran on a long bridge over the twists of the Hackensack River and the surrounding grasslands and landfills. That was where he needed the truck. It was the only chance. If he wasn’t able to stop that bomb, he could at least isolate it, and the bridge was the one place where that could work.

  “Tell the state troopers not to approach it,” Hayes said. “We need them to cut off the southbound traffic at the north end of the bridge, and then be ready to cut off the northbound traffic behind the truck. Is that doable?”

  Hayes heard cross talk in the ops center, then Morgan came back. “It’s doable. But how are you going to stop it from blowing?”

  He wasn’t. “Just wait for my word.”

  They crossed over Jersey City, and the low-rise urban grit gave way to warehouses and heavy industry and, beyond them, the Meadowlands.

  “Cut off the southbound lanes,” Hayes said. “Don’t let the civilians anywhere near that bridge. Go.”

  He watched the turnpike north of the bridge. A minute later, police flashers lit up and Hayes watched the lights cut across the lanes. The police cars slowed, one in each lane, as the traffic stacked up behind them and the cars ahead cruised over the bridge, leaving those lanes empty. Just past the northern terminus of the bridge, there was a chlorine plant. He couldn’t let the truck get that far. That span of elevated roadway was his one shot.

  “Where’s the truck?” Hayes asked.

  “Half mile from the bridge.”

  “Cut off the traffic behind him.”

  Hayes saw more flashers move out in a chevron along the northbound lanes, light up, and block the road behind the truck.

  Chapter 65

  THE LAST NORTHBOUND cars that the police had let through sped past in a column over the bridge. And at the tail, Hayes saw the truck, heavy and slow on the uphill grade at the southern end of the bridge. It fell behind the others. It was isolated.

  They raced toward it in the helicopter. “Do you want me to circle around to pace the truck?” the pilot asked. The easiest shot would be to reach it, turn, and take it out while running at the same speed alongside.

  Hayes eyed the distance. They didn’t have time. It would take a while for that truck to stop, and he couldn’t let it get to the other end of the bridge, where the southbound traffic was stalled.

  “No time. We need to cut him off. Can you put us in a hover over the roadway ahead of him?”

  “Yes.” They came in fast over the turnpike. The pilot rotated the helicopter ninety degrees, flying sideways, so Hayes’s open door faced the semi.

  “Closer,” Hayes said as the last northbound car shot underneath them. The bridge was now empty except for the truck.

  “There,” he said, and they stopped, hovering a quarter of the way across the span. He rested the rifle’s hand guard on the webbing, looked through the optic, and watched the truck speed at him, growing in the lens. He was too far for headshots. The 7.62-millimeter round might be able to kill the engine, but it wasn’t a sure stop by any means.

  He eased the trigger back, and the gun kicked into his shoulder. The noise was deafening inside the cabin, and his hot brass bounced off the ceiling.

  He steadied the gun and saw the blown truck grille, steam billowing out. He fired again, and saw a flash of red from inside the engine. The truck was still moving fast, coming at them.

  “You’re too close” came a voice over the radio from the op center. “Pull out. I say again, pull out.”

  “Don’t,” Hayes said to the pilot. Behind them, stacked up in those cars, there were families like his. He and this helicopter were the end of the line; he didn’t care what it cost.

  But the pilot hadn’t moved anyway. He kept them locked twenty feet above the road. The cabin stank of the heavy cartridges’ fumes, and Hayes raised the rifle slightly and centered it on the driver’s-side windshield. The glass flashed like a signal mirror as it came under each streetlight, but he could see the driver’s shape now, bouncing in his sight as the wind buffeted the helicopter.

  Time seemed to slow even as the truck careered toward them. Hayes fired again and then saw the hole in the shattered truck windshield. He could make out the head now, a glimpse of the driver gritting his teeth in determination or pain. He centered the reticle on his face. The crosshairs moved in a figure-eight pattern while he kept the gun as steady as he could and eased back the trigger.

  The gun shoved him again but he held it close and looked through the scope. The driver, his head mostly gone, slumped to the side, and the truck moved left as a cloud of black smoke belched out from under the hood. It slowed, but it was still coming way too fast. The second man reached for the wheel and Hayes put the crosshairs on his ear and fired once, then again as the man ducked down, and then a third time. Before he could check for a hit, the cab was twisting sideways in his scope.

  Hayes lifted his head and saw the cab strike the guardrail, sending off a torrent of sparks. The heavy trailer shoved it from behind, and the truck jackknifed, the cab grinding against the rail as the trailer swept sideways across the roadway and began to tilt.

  “It’s down,” Hayes said.

  The pilot was already pulling back, and as Hayes looked at him he saw that his face was white as porcelain. He felt suddenly heavy on the deck as the helicopter turned and rocketed north as if it had been jerked on a fishing line.

  The voice came in his ear. It was Morgan from the op center. “Was that it? Is it over?”

  Not yet, Hayes thought. Not yet. He could see a last glimpse of the truck through the window as the helicopter turned to the north. In an instant, the semi was gone, like someone had changed a slide, and all he could see was a black cloud with red at its heart, growing silently for an instant. The air wavered around it in an expanding sphere, and Hayes went to brace himself, but the shock wave took him, blasted in his ears and tore at his lungs. For a moment he floated weightless inside the cabin, then he smashed into the deck as fire filled the aircraft and the explosion swallowed the bridge.

  Chapter 66

  IT WAS INDEPENDENCE Day, twenty-six hours after the truck had blown, and the Macy’s fireworks had just finished. In a hospital room in NYU Medical Center, Claire Rhodes stood at a window with a view of the East River.

  The bandages pulled tight across her brow. All that was left of the pyrotechnics were barges and starburst trails of smoke. The crowds filing away from the water looked like moving shadows from this height. The NYPD had found the last of the attackers and in the end the city decided not to cancel the display. She had watched it in silence, and now wiped the tears from her cheeks.

  Behind her, Hayes lay on a hospital bed, his eyes closed.

  A man in a rumpled suit stepped into the room and instinctively Claire put herself between him and Hayes. She moved awkwardly, though, babying the stitches in her back as the pain from her cut arced through her torso.

  The new arrival had bright blue eyes and there was something precise about his movements. “It’s Cox, right?” she asked.

  “Yes. Long time. How are you holding up?”

  Claire didn’t answer for a moment. She waved her hand toward the bandage. “Fine. This is the least painful part of it. I let him inside. Those deaths are on me. You want to lock me up, go ahead.”

  Police
guarded every entrance to this floor.

  “Your husband?” Cox asked.

  The words still stung her.

  “Your story checks out, Claire. We have the body. We’re going through his old records. We think he was an illegal. His cover was almost perfect.”

  “Did you find out who he was working for?”

  “Not yet.”

  “His name?”

  “No.”

  She looked down.

  “I should have known.”

  Cox put his hand on her shoulder.

  “You weren’t the only one who missed it. How’s Hayes doing?”

  “Partially collapsed lung. They may have given him something for the pain.” She looked at Hayes, laid out behind her, bandages over the burns on his neck and shoulder from where the blast had entered the NYPD helicopter.

  “Why don’t you let him go?” she asked Cox.

  “Go?”

  “Clear his name. After everything he’s done. Isn’t that the deal? You can’t afford to lose him. If he works for you, you’ll finally fully exonerate him. What does the poor bastard have to do? Just let him walk.”

  Cox nodded along until she was done. “It was his idea, Claire.”

  “What?”

  “After he stopped the Washington attack. He offered himself up. He told us to pin the whole thing on him. To confirm the worst rumors about him.”

  “Bullshit. Why?”

  “You think he cares what anyone at the Pentagon thinks? The people who know him know him. The last thing he wanted was attention. He’d built up the perfect cover, because it was true, because we screwed up and hunted him for two years, believing the accusations against him.

  “If he kept that cover, he could go out among the enemy. They murdered the closest thing to a father Hayes ever had. They nearly got his wife and daughter killed. He was a man on fire, Claire, and he’d do anything to hunt down the people who came for him. It was his call.”

  “Jesus.”

  “I shouldn’t have let him. I told him…”

  “What?”

  “He’s on the kill list now. They’ll never stop hunting him. I warned him, but—”

  He broke off. Claire had heard it too, a change in Hayes’s breathing. He was awake.

  Hayes kept his eyes closed and spread his hands on the sheets. They felt cool and clean. His body was still on fire, pain tearing at the skin of his neck and shoulder, but he could breathe now. He took a long breath in, and something cut at him inside his chest.

  “Hayes?”

  He opened his eyes, and a man stood over him. It was Cox.

  “You missed the fireworks, John,” Cox said.

  Hayes waved his hand, dismissed it. “I’m good on fireworks for a while, thanks.”

  He pushed himself up in the bed and looked to Claire.

  “You make it out all right, Rhodes?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.

  “I’m okay, but you shouldn’t be talking.”

  “I’ve had pneumos before. It’s not too bad. You did a good job getting us up on that truck. How are Drake and the pilots?”

  “They survived. Those NYPD boys saved you. Most would have panicked and pulled up, but they kept the helicopter ten feet off the road and put you at the edge of the lethal range.”

  “Helicopters,” Hayes said, and he shook his head. “Always a helicopter.”

  “You can add the Bell 429 to your list of confirmed kills, and the Hackensack River Bridge.”

  “Oh shit.”

  “I wouldn’t go back to New Jersey anytime soon.”

  “Not a problem. You see Drake?”

  “Broke his left leg, but he looked okay overall. He had some nurse in there chatting him up.”

  “That’s my boy,” Hayes said. He examined Cox’s face for a bit. The older man’s lips were cracked and chapped and he had dark rings under his eyes, like he’d been out on a two-week patrol. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “South China Sea. Off the grid. Don’t even ask. They’ll declassify in fifty years and that’ll be too soon. I’m sorry I couldn’t be here for you.”

  “We sorted it out.”

  “You need another handler.”

  “Like Morgan? No, thanks.”

  Cox put his hand on Hayes’s good shoulder. There was a lot to work out, but that could wait.

  Hayes looked back and forth between Claire and Cox, then raised his eyebrows.

  “So what were you saying about me?” Hayes asked.

  Cox’s and Claire’s eyes met.

  “For God’s sake. You both look guilty as Judas. I thought you knew how to lie.”

  “Is it true?” Claire asked.

  “What?”

  “You kept your name dirty.”

  Hayes laid his head back.

  “It was the best way to get at the people who did this. It’s how I found out they were hunting down Cold Harvest in the U.S.”

  A phone buzzed in the pocket of Cox’s suit. He reached for it. “I have to answer this, get you taken care of,” he said. “You all need anything?”

  Hayes and Claire shook their heads, and he stepped into the hallway.

  Hayes looked at her, the skin beside the bandages still stained with Betadine.

  “You’ll be all right, Claire. You’ve been through worse. They’ll clear you.”

  “You think so?”

  “A hundred percent. They’ll probably offer you a job.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and looked out the window. “And you?”

  All he could think of was his wife and daughter, of how close the killers might have come and what that meant for his home. Would Lauren and Maggie have to move again? To run with him?

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “I should have known about Paul.”

  “You can help me go after the people he was working for. There’s someone above him.”

  She turned back to him. “I’m done, Hayes. I’ve been done for years. I thought I could use the anger, make some good of it, but you were right. It ended up controlling me. I tried to quit before, but it was disappearing into a lie, you know?”

  He nodded.

  “You can stop,” she said. “You’ve given them more than anyone could ask.”

  But he knew the truth. He’d made his choice. And even if he’d wanted to walk away, he couldn’t. This had gone too far.

  Chapter 67

  IT WAS AUGUST, six weeks after the chaos at Rockefeller Plaza. Tucker looked out the window at the parking spot on the corner of Q Street that the Secret Service had occupied for the past six months. They were gone, but the media had arrived, dozens of reporters. They weren’t asking about his campaign anymore, angling for access to the future president. Now they were working the scandal: How had the national security adviser fallen so far? When did he suspect that Americans were being killed and what had he done about it? Who was culpable for that blast in the Meadowlands?

  The normally tidy condo was a mess of takeout containers, and Tucker’s skin felt like it was covered in a thin layer of oil.

  He couldn’t leave the house. He had a target on his back because of Cold Harvest, and now there was no one left to protect him.

  The lawyers cost thirty thousand dollars a month, and the real investigations into what he had done hadn’t even begun. There was no money left to pay for private security. After all those years writing out the kill list, Tucker now felt what it was like to be hunted.

  “Tucker,” Morgan said. She was standing behind him as he gazed out the window. She tried to draw his attention, get him to focus. He turned, and she pressed the papers to his chest.

  It was a statement of reason revoking Tucker’s security clearance. “Sign this,” Morgan said, and she gave him the pen.

  He scrawled a line along the bottom without looking.

  “What are you doing?” he asked Morgan.

  “About what?”

  “Security. How do you sleep at night knowing they’re out the
re?”

  “I don’t, really. I have the dog. But if they want me, they’ll get me.” She shrugged. “It’s okay. They’re pros. We won’t even see it coming.”

  “But who is going to look out for us?”

  “That’s the promise, you know—you look out for the guy next to you and he looks out for you. That’s why everyone wants to be in the elite units. It’s not just pride. It’s basic common sense. You want the best men and women watching your back.”

  “Good,” Tucker said, nodding, then he stared out the window again, feeling for the first time like he could take a full breath. “So what do we do?”

  “Nothing. We broke that trust. We’re on our own.”

  “When do we get to stop looking over our shoulders?”

  “Never,” she said. “I have to go.” She picked up the form he had signed and turned.

  “Morgan,” Tucker said as she walked down the hall. But the only reply was the front door closing.

  He stood for a moment, looking through the window at a clear Georgetown morning, then he pulled the shades and sat alone in the dark.

  Chapter 68

  HYND’S EYES STARED blindly at the ceiling. Claire looked into them and tried to recognize the man she knew as Paul.

  The corpse lay in a cardboard cremation box on top of a metal gurney. All the evidence had been taken, and his index fingers had been neatly clipped off to be held for future reference and DNA testing.

  This was no funeral-home wake, no churchyard burial. This was the body of a ghost with no family and no nation—the less said about it, the better.

  “Hynd,” she said out loud. “Niko Hynd.” It had taken him so long to learn her real name, and now it chilled her to call him by his.

  They’d waited a decent interval to ask her for a final identification of the cadaver, after weeks of subjecting her to endless hours of debriefings and polygraphs.

  She’d seen plenty of bodies in her day, but this one was different. Standing here, she was ready to be overwhelmed, prepared for anything to come at her. But she was surprised to feel little more than the lingering anger, sadness, and guilt over those who had died. She felt that every day. She suspected it might never go away.