Michael Ledwidge - Alert

Not just with any lawyers, either. Two seven-hundred-dollar-an-hour mouthpieces from a white-shoe Wall Street firm had actually shown up at the precinct house raising hell until the precinct captain relented. The fact was we didn’t have enough on them to charge them with anything. Not yet, anyway. Like it or not, they’d been released, and our best leads just walked out the door.

To add insult to injury, we’d put surveillance on them, but they seemed to have shaken it. We’d also just received a forensics report from the FBI on the Russians’ credit cards and cell phones and Internet searches. There was nothing. They had no electronic trail of any kind. The two computer experts were Luddites, apparently.

I groaned as I looked out the window at the Hudson and Jersey on the other side. Then I looked south at the Statue of Liberty in the harbor and imagined a wave coming over her.

In the silence, Arturo got up and made himself another coffee.

“Look on the bright side, guys. They’ve got free K-Cups up here. Yummy. I love K-Cups,” he said sarcastically.

“Yeah. Nothing like a smooth, soothing K-Cup to while away the afternoon before the destruction of your city,” said Doyle, flicking a coffee stirrer at him.

I stared out the window down to the courtyard, where soldiers were setting up cots.

Were the cots for the soldiers? Were they expecting refugees? What the hell were cots going to do when the water came? Become flotation devices?

I only knew that we had to keep our heads about us in this whirling dervish of a mess. I sat up.

“Okay, let’s do this again. Theories,” I said to Emily.

“I almost can’t believe it’s a ransom,” she said as she swirled her coffee. “I was really leaning toward a Unabomber-style suspect. One man on a mad mission, like you said. This now? Three billion? This is a real curveball.”

“It’s the Russkies. Has to be,” said Doyle as he rolled out of his chair onto the floor and started doing push-ups. “Think about it. The fed forensic report shows they have no credit cards or computer records, yet they’re computer experts? They have stuff. They just know how to hide it. They’re in on this.”

Then the real chaos began.

Chief Fabretti came into the cafeteria talking on his phone.

“You’re kidding. Jeez. Wow, just like that. Okay, thanks.”

“What’s up, Chief?” said Doyle as he hopped to his feet.

“Turn on the TV,” Fabretti said, pointing to the set in the cafeteria’s corner. “This is unbelievable.”

Doyle ran over and clicked on the set. I stood up as I saw something there I hadn’t seen since I was a kid.

There was a blue screen with two words in yellow.

STAND BY.

Doyle changed the channel. It was on every one. A long and bright beep sounded out, followed by a squawk of radio feedback. Then it did it again.

“This is not a test,” said a calm, feminine voice. “I repeat, this is not a test of the Emergency Alert System. Please stand by. Please stand by.”

“What is this?”

“The mayor just came out of another meeting with the scientists. She’s doing it. She’s pulling the trigger.”

I listened to the beep repeat.

“This is not a test,” said the voice. “I repeat, this is not a test of the Emergency Alert System.”

“Pulling what trigger?” said Lopez. “You mean she’s going to give them the money?”

“No. She’s going to evacuate, right?” I said as I stared at the stand by on the screen.

Fabretti nodded.

“That’s right. God help us all,” said Fabretti. “The mayor is going to call for the complete evacuation of New York City.”

Chief Fabretti received a text from the deputy mayor, and we followed him up the four flights of too-warm stairs and then through a corridor crowded with cops and suits into the main war room again.

In a fishbowl office in the corner, beyond a row of printers, stood the mayor, along with the glaring lights of the small camera crew that was filming her live for the emergency broadcast.

I watched as the blue screen on the wall was replaced by an image of the mayor.

“Fellow New Yorkers, hello. I am sorry to tell you this, but we have received word that an undersea earthquake in the Atlantic may be imminent within the next six to eight hours. It is believed by experts that this quake may cause an Atlantic Ocean tsunami large enough to be a serious threat to people throughout the city. We are not one hundred percent sure that this is the case, but for the sake of caution and the preservation of life, I have signed an order to evacuate the entire city.”

“Why is she lying and talking about an earthquake?” said Arturo. “Like people have been sleeping through the bombings and assassination?”

“Who knows?” Doyle said. “Maybe she—”

“Shut the fuck up, both of you!” said Fabretti, standing behind them.

“This evacuation is a legal order not a recommendation. All the people of the city — in Manhattan and Brooklyn and Queens and Staten Island and the Bronx — must leave their homes as soon as possible and head inland. If you have a car parked in Manhattan, we are asking you to leave it where it is, as roads will soon become impassable with traffic. Please use public transport.

“The MTA and Port Authority have already been ordered to mobilize the mass transit system. All buses, trains, subways, and ferries will be open to the public at no charge in order to move people inland. Shelters in New Jersey and northern Westchester have already been set up, and we are working on opening more shelters farther north and inland as the number of people increases.

“We urge any and all of you to stay with family, but remember to stay away from all coastal areas within thirty miles of the shore. Please do not panic. We need to have as orderly an evacuation as possible. You have time to pack, and everyone will be given transportation and shelter. Stay tuned to local media. If you have not done so already, prepare a go bag.”

The mayor was saying that the fire department had been mobilized to help the hospitals when I stepped over into a corner and called Martin.

“Mike, how goes it?”

“I guess you’re not watching TV.”

“No. What is it?”

“Listen to me carefully, Martin. This isn’t a joke. They think an Atlantic Ocean tsunami is coming, so they’re evacuating the city. Do you have a driver’s license?”

“Not a New York one,” he said. “I can drive, though.”

You had to hand it to the kid. I thought he sounded alert yet calm. I just told him the world was ending, and he was immediately ready to deal.

“Good,” I said. “In the front hall closet is our seventy-two-hour kit — a big knapsack containing food and water, first aid, maps, flashlights, glow sticks, a crank radio, and five hundred bucks in cash. There’s also an extra set of van keys in it. The van’s in the lot at Ninety-Eighth, just off West End. I want you to go get it and pick up the kids and Seamus at Holy Name.

“When you get everybody, don’t get on the highway. Go north up Broadway and over the Broadway Bridge into the Bronx. Keep going north until Broadway becomes Route 9A up in Westchester. Just keep going then, okay? Call me when you have the kids.”

“How far do you want me to go?” said Martin.

I thought about what the geophysical experts had said about the 170-story wave.

“I have a cousin in the Catskills. You should head there.”

“The Catskills! That’s, like, a hundred miles. What the hell is coming? A meteor? Is Ireland going to be hit, too?”

“Don’t panic, Martin. It may be nothing, honestly, but better safe than sorry. Now hop to it. Grab the kids and call me back.”