The Eighth Day

by Joseph John

  Sam pulled up the Garden’s homepage in his browser. At the top of the page, an American flag served as the backdrop for the announcement about the evening’s featured event—the debate between Senator Allen Goldberg and Thomas Hoyt, the two leading candidates in the Democratic presidential primary.

  Sam checked the time and felt his pulse quicken. “It starts in less than an hour.”

  Francis asked, “You think it’s related?”

  “Let’s go talk to O’Brian.”

  They found her with her elbows on her desk, a cup of herbal tea cradled in the palms of her hands, gaze flicking from screen to screen. Her eyes widened when she saw the expression on Sam’s face.

  Before she could say anything, Sam asked, “Can you pull up the feeds for the cameras in Madison Square Garden?”

  O’Brian shook her head. “No, sorry. The Garden’s on another network. It’s run by a private company, so you need a warrant if you wanna tap in.”

  “No time. How about that facial composite of Jaffe? I need you to send an alert.”

  “Sure. To who?”

  “Everyone in the department. Flag him as a possible armed and dangerous.”

  O’Brian bit her lip. “What’s going on, Harrington?”

  “Forensics found blueprints for the Garden on Jaffe’s phone. They’re holding a presidential debate there. It starts in an hour.”

  “Oh, wow. I’ll push it out posthaste.”

  Sam turned to Francis. “Is Mooney back?”

  “Yeah. He was at his desk when I left.”

  “Grab him and meet me by the cars. I’m gonna talk to the lieutenant.”

  As Sam wove through the rows of cubicles back to Lieutenant Thompson’s office, apprehension descended upon him like the approach of the biblical Wormwood. His smartphone chimed, and he wrenched it out without breaking stride. O’Brian’s facial composite of Shawn Jaffe filled the screen. She’d done a damn good job of it. A red-bannered alert at the bottom described Jaffe as “wanted for questioning” and “possibly armed and dangerous” and included a link to the case file.

  “Good girl.” Sam slid the phone back into his pocket.

  He burst into the lieutenant’s office without knocking, and Thompson glanced up at him in surprise.

  “Bill,” he said. “We need to talk. Now.”

  “I’m listening,” Thompson said.

  “Forensics came back on Jaffe’s phone. That classified I told you about earlier? Jaffe got a text from that number with blueprints for Madison Square Garden attached as an image file.”

  “The Garden? There’s a debate there today.”

  “I know. It starts in less than an hour.” Sam shook his head. “I got a real bad feeling.”

  “Isn’t this the same guy you talked up earlier about saving your ass?”

  “None of it makes sense. Yesterday, everything checked out. Today, he’s got no records on file with anyone. It’s like someone’s wiped his existence off the face of the earth.”

  “Oh, shit. This is big.” Thompson rubbed his eyes. “Okay, I’m gonna make some phone calls.”

  Sam said, “Since we had no photos of Jaffe, O’Brian made a facial composite and sent it out to the department. You should get as many units over to the Garden as we can spare. I’m headed there now with Francis and Mooney.”

  “Good. Get your ass out of here. And Sam? Be careful.”

  With a seating capacity of 18,200, Madison Square Garden was home to the New York Knicks, Rangers, and Liberty and played host to sporting events, concerts, cultural expositions, and numerous other coups de théâtre.

  Tonight, however, it would play host to death.

  Shawn Jaffe opened the electrical box and stared at a tangle of wires and circuit boards. He picked one of the wires and traced its path with his fingertips.

  Behind him, a man in a black suit asked, “Can you fix it?”

  Shawn leaned forward and pretended to inspect the circuitry, tugging at one wire and another as he hummed.

  Heigh-ho, the derry-o. The farmer in the dell.

  Black suit’s sigh of impatience filled the little room.

  Shawn used a screwdriver to tighten the clamp on a wire he’d loosened earlier. Then he took a step back and slapped the screwdriver against the palm of his hand as he stared at his handiwork.

  “Did you fix it?”

  Shawn smiled and continued to hum.

  Heigh-ho, the derry-o.

  “Hello? Are you deaf? I asked if you fixed it.”

  Shawn glanced at his watch.

  The cat takes the mouse, the cat takes the mouse.

  “Screw this,” black suit said and pressed a hand to his ear. “This is Agent Lewis. I’m not—”

  Shawn threw the screwdriver. Black suit staggered backward and crumpled to the ground.

  “What was that? Lewis? Lewis?” The voice came from a tiny wireless earpiece, and Shawn plucked it out of the man’s ear and stuck it in his own.

  “Lewis here,” he said. “Audiovisual should be up and running again.”

  “Good work. Now get back to the arena. The senator is getting ready to go on.”

  “On my way.”

  A dead man lay at his feet, and a screwdriver protruded from one of his eye sockets. Shawn wondered who had killed him. The past crumbled away faster with every passing minute, a sheer drop that disappeared beneath his heels as he sprinted forward, always forward.

  Heigh-ho, the derry-o. The farmer in the dell.

  It didn’t matter. Before the hour ended, he’d dance once more with death. Then it would be over.

  Detectives Ethan Mooney and Nat Francis waited for Sam on the sidewalk outside, tapping at their smartphones.

  “Let’s go,” Sam said without breaking stride.

  They pulled away from the precinct and sped down the road, Sam and Mooney in the lead and Francis close behind. As they turned right onto Broadway, Mooney asked, “Wanna know what I found on Lark Morton?”

  Sam nodded.

  Mooney said, “I talked to the landlord. He said they moved out last night. No explanation or anything. Couple of muscle heads showed up and loaded everything into the back of a cargo truck, like one of them U-Hauls, he said. Desks, chairs, a couch and coffee table, stuff like that. Said it couldn’t have furnished more than an office or two, which he thought was strange since they’d leased the entire floor.”

  “He see these guys?”

  “Yep. I’m gonna have O’Brian get with him when we’re done at the Garden. He gave me an address. Phone number too, but that was disconnected. Probably a burner, but I’ll look into it. The address is for a warehouse in Jersey.” Mooney shook his head. “Goddamn Jersey.”

  Ahead, the holographic traffic signal stretching across the road turned yellow, and Sam accelerated through the intersection. In the rearview mirror, Francis followed with the constancy of a shadow. He sagged in the driver’s seat of his car, one wrist draped over the top of the steering wheel.

  As they sped south down Seventh Avenue and crossed the intersection of Thirty-Ninth Street, Mooney said, “He’s gonna get me files on the lease. I’ll swing by after—”

  And a two-door compact slammed into the passenger side of Sam’s car.

  The window exploded, and the door crumpled inward in a cacophony of shrieking steel and tinkling glass. Noise and color blurred the world. The impact drove them sideways, and they smashed into the car on their left, sending Sam hard against his seat belt, then crashing into his door with bone-rattling force. His head bounced off the window, and a burst of stars flared across his vision. Then they were on top of him, pummeling his chest and his face and pinning him back in his seat. He threw his hands up and beat at his assailants.

  It was his air bag, his goddamn air bag. He cursed, punching at it and pushing it aside as it deflated. It felt as if someone had worked him over with a tire iron, and he panted, wheezing, unable to take more than meager gulps of air.

  Mooney slumped forward against his seat be
lt, eyes closed. A thin stream of blood spilled from his slack mouth and fell into his lap. He moaned but remained motionless. Sam closed his own eyes, his thoughts fogging over as unconsciousness tugged at his sleeve.

  A horn echoed down the street, and several others joined in while traffic stacked up behind the accident like overdue paperwork. Sam reached for the sound, used it to pull himself back toward consciousness, and willed his eyes to open.

  The compact that had T-boned them loomed outside the passenger-side window, its front-end crumpled and steam leaking from beneath its hood with an angry hiss. Through the steam, Sam could see its driver sitting behind the wheel of the mangled vehicle, knuckles white and eyes wide. His gaze fell on Sam, and his eyebrows drew down, his lips pressed into a thin red line. He flung open his door and hauled himself out.

  “The fuck? Are you people colorblind?” the driver screamed.

  To Sam’s left, the car he’d sideswiped had drifted forward and rolled to a stop against the curb. A woman perched in the driver’s seat, palms covering her face. A man next to her had an arm wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her against his chest.

  Running footsteps prefaced Francis’s arrival. He staggered to a halt on the passenger side of Sam’s car and leaned over the compact’s hood to peer in through the shattered window, gasping for breath. “Are you all right?” He saw Mooney. “Oh, kid. Oh, no.”

  Behind him, the driver of the compact took a step forward and swore. “Where’d you learn to drive anyway, huh?”

  Francis turned and flashed his badge. “New York City Police Department. Get your ass back in your car. Sir.”

  Sam reached for his door, but a bolt of pain rocked him back in his seat when he tried to move his left arm. He stretched his right arm across his body instead, threw the door open, and wrenched himself out of the car. His left leg buckled as he stood, nearly spilling him face-first into the road, but he caught himself on the door frame.

  A standstill of bumpers, blaring horns, and angry shouts surrounded them. Drivers clambered from their vehicles, smartphones pressed to their ears or raised in the air to capture the carnage. Passersby crowded the sidewalk and spilled into the street. One industrious soul scrambled onto the roof of his car for a better vantage.

  Sam furrowed his brow in confusion. All four of the holographic traffic signals stretching across the intersection were green. They were also green on all sides of every intersection along Seventh Avenue leading to the Garden, an accident or gridlock of cars fighting for ground in each.

  “Look,” he said to Francis, pointing.

  Francis, who’d leaned in through the passenger window to help Mooney, glanced at him. “What?”

  “The traffic signals. They’re all green.” The van, the shooting at his house, and now this. “They’re trying to kill me, or at least trying to stop me from getting to the Garden.”

  Francis stared at him as if he’d grown a third eye. “Mooney needs a doctor.”

  Whoever was doing this, they had the power to control the city’s traffic signals, and they’d created a gridlock to thwart his progress. There’d be no flashing his badge and hitching a ride. To stop whatever might happen at the Garden, he’d have to make it there on foot.

  Sam surveyed the surrounding chaos, the sun’s light slanting across the city’s skyscrapers and casting the scene in shadow. He set his jaw. “Call it in. Stay with him and make sure he’s all right.”

  “Wait. You need a doctor.”

  “I need to get to the Garden.” He limped south down Seventh Avenue.

  “Harrington,” Francis called after him. “Harrington!”

  “Call it in,” he said through clenched teeth without turning.

  He gripped his left triceps with his right hand to keep it from swinging as he shuffled down the middle of the street. Six blocks. He focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Step, drag. Step, drag.

  Pedestrians lined the sidewalk, staring at Sam with wide eyes and open mouths. No doubt he’d find himself plastered all over the news tomorrow. Goddamn citizen journalism.

  He staggered between the vehicles that clogged the street. His leg throbbed and ached and threatened to buckle. He gritted his teeth and limped forward, gaze fixed on the next intersection. Five blocks now—a marathon away.

  Later, his memories of those blocks were like centuries old relics, the details worn away by agony rather than wind, rain, and time. He remembered a grinding sensation in his left leg, like squeezing a bag of gravel; clutching his left arm against his side to stop its pendulum motion and the feel of it tearing from its socket; a stiffness in his neck, as if the vertebrae had fused together; and a tightness in his chest that left him short of breath and gasping to fill his lungs.

  He hobbled off the street, stumbled over the curb and onto the sidewalk, and the crowd swelled away from him. Sam ignored the stares and limped forward, stopping now and again to lean against a storefront as he waited for the darkness at the edges of his vision to clear. After two blocks, his limp had devolved into a lurching stagger. Still, he refused to quit. He’d get there on his hands and knees if he had to, but he’d get there.

  But his leg held. He stumbled but never fell, and the remaining blocks slipped by like the vestiges of a dream. Consciousness came and went, but somehow he kept his feet moving.

  Twice, some Good Samaritan approached, eyes wide with concern. Twice, they tried to stop him, to get him to sit and wait for help. Twice, Sam warded them off with an angry glare and a stiff arm.

  At last, Madison Square Garden rose before him, framed by dark clouds in an angry sky, like a premonition. The glass doors slid open as he approached, and he pitched forward into the airy entryway, almost fell, but caught himself.

  A man in a black suit glided toward him, his expression dark. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, but his tone told Sam he wasn’t sorry at all.

  Sam flashed his badge. “Detective Harrington, NYPD.”

  The man’s eyes lit up. “Ah. I’m Agent Marks. You’re here because the police found blueprints of this place in that text, right?”

  “There’s a little more to it than just blueprints, but yeah.”

  Marks shook his head. “Security’s tight. Everything’s under control. What happened? You should get yourself to a hospital.”

  Sam gaped at him. “You’re going ahead with the debate?”

  “We told Goldberg and Hoyt, and they both agreed the blueprints were troubling, but no reason to cancel.”

  “I told you, there’s more to it than just some goddamn blueprints. You think I’d drag my ass here in this kind of shape for that?”

  “Well, I—”

  “Tell me you at least got the facial composite we sent.”

  Marks furrowed his brow and stared at him.

  Sam rolled his eyes. “Unbelievable.” He scanned the doors and hallways that led deeper into the Garden.

  “I don’t think you’re in any condition to—hey!”

  Sam gritted his teeth as he limped forward, and Agent Marks hurried to catch up.

  He studied Sam’s face and sighed. “Come with me.”

  A sea of bodies filled the countless rows of padded chairs that stretched the length of the arena floor. They’d also packed themselves shoulder to shoulder in the stadium seating of the Garden, not an empty seat in the house. Secret Service agents dressed in identical black suits roved through the crowd, speaking to one another through the microphones hidden within their ears.

  A massive stage filled one end of the arena floor, framed by royal blue curtains and backed by massive holograms. These depicted each candidate’s campaign platform, summed up in neat bullet points and superimposed over images of joyful Americans who couldn’t seem to stop smiling, working and living in a burgeoning economy and land of plenty—presumably prophesying a future made possible only if the candidate were to be elected president. Before the stage sat a panel of moderators, their backs to the crowd. Center stage, behind a pair of matching podiums, st
ood the candidates.

  Sam Harrington and Agent Marks were at the far side of the arena floor. Sam limped forward, his battered visage attracting more than a few wary glances.

  “I need to get closer,” he said.

  Marks nodded. He cut a swath through the crowd toward the stage, and the detective hobbled after him, listening to the doublespeak of one of the candidates as the words echoed through the arena’s sound system.

  “—represents the greatest existential threat to our way of life, and we’ve made it clear it’s unacceptable for Brazil to remain a nuclear nation. However, further military action is not optimal if we want to avert an all-out nuclear war. First and foremost, we have to build our relationships within the region through diplomatic measures.”

  Sam recognized the speaker as Senator Allen Goldberg, a tall man with gray hair dressed in a dark suit and crimson tie, his handsome face rough and chiseled like the statue of a Roman hero.

  “We want to accomplish our national security objectives and ensure the American people are safe, not destabilize the region. Increasing troop levels and continuing the war in Brazil is counterproductive. We had an opportunity to sell the latest in military hardware to our allies in the region, and this administration chose instead to have our great nation shoulder the burden. That was a mistake.”

  On the far side of the arena, one of the Secret Service agents moved toward the stage, and Sam recognized him at once.

  It was Shawn Jaffe.

  Sam staggered forward and grabbed Agent Marks by the shoulder. “He’s here.” Sam pointed through the crowd at Jaffe, who continued to weave his way toward the stage.

  “Who?” Marks scanned the crowd and pressed a hand to his earpiece. “We might have a problem,” he said.

  With no time to explain, Sam plunged ahead. But something in his left knee gave way with a sickening pop, and he lurched sideways, stumbling into a row of chairs, arms pinwheeling. He careened off them and fell in a tangled mass of bodies.

  On the left side of the stage, Shawn Jaffe mounted the stairs, as implacable as the march of time.

  Sam struggled to his feet, cursing. The crowd backed away from him in alarm. Upon the stage, Hoyt shuffled through a stack of index cards while Goldberg continued his monologue.