Douglas Preston - Gideon’s Sword

The taxi accelerated in an attempt to outrun the Navigator. The two vehicles shot eastward on 116th, weaving in and out of traffic, provoking a furious blaring of horns, screeching tires, and yells. Gideon followed as best he could, sweaty hands slick on the wheel.

They tore past Lexington and approached the bright cluster of lights where 116th crossed Third Avenue. As they drew near at over seventy miles an hour, the light turned orange. Gideon braked the limo hard; there was no way they were going to make it. Suddenly the Navigator swung out and accelerated down the wrong side of the street, coming up alongside the taxi. Just before the intersection it swerved and gave the taxi a brutal sideswipe. With a billow of smoke the taxi slewed sideways through the intersection, clipped an oncoming car, flipped into the air, and went flying into a crowd outside a Puerto Rican lechonera. There was a dreadful sound, like the smack of sheet metal into meat. Bodies rag-dolled through the air, tumbling about the intersection. With a final shuddering crash the cab shattered the glass façade of the restaurant and came to rest with a death rattle and a burst of steam. Cooked meat came cascading out from racks and trays that had been on display in the window: roasted sides of pork, trays of cracklings, and spits of suckling pigs, all tumbling over the smashed taxicab and rolling about on the sidewalk.

There was a split second of terrible silence. And then the intersection exploded into an eruption of screams and shrieks as the crowd fled. To Gideon, looking on in horror, they resembled ants on a burning log.

He had pulled the limo over just before the intersection, and now he leapt out and ran toward the accident — just as a northbound city bus came roaring up Third Avenue, going at least fifteen miles over the speed limit. Halting at the crosswalk, Gideon watched helplessly as the bus blew on through; the driver, suddenly seeing bodies in the intersection, jammed on the brakes, but it was too late and he was unable to stop. The massive wheels thudded over several of the prostrate bodies, smearing them on the asphalt, and then the driver lost control. The bus skidded with a great shriek of burning rubber. Gideon watched helplessly as the careening bus T-boned a car on the far side of the intersection and came to rest on its side, the engine bursting into flame. Windows and the rear door of the bus were bashed open by screaming people and they spilled out, falling to the pavement, clawing and treading over one another in an attempt to get away.

Gideon looked around wildly for the Navigator. Then he spotted it, stopped partway down the next block. But the vehicle paused only for a moment: with a roar it tore off down 116th and swung south on Second Avenue, disappearing.

He sprinted across the intersection to the taxi. It lay upside down, its front partly inside the restaurant. Bodies were everywhere, some moving, some still. Gasoline ran over the sidewalk in a dark stream, moving down the gutter toward the burning bus — which exploded with a terrific roar, the force jumping the bus into the air. The flames mounted up, two, three, four stories, casting a hot lurid glow over the hellish scene. Hundreds of people from surrounding buildings were opening windows, craning necks, pointing. The air seemed to be alive with noise: screams and shrieks, pleas for help, agonized wails, the endless horn of the bus, the crackle of flame. It was all Gideon could do to keep a clear head.

Dropping to his hands and knees, he peered into the wrecked taxi. The driver’s side was totally mangled and he could get a glimpse of the cabbie, his body literally merged into the twisted metal and glass of the car. He scrambled around to the passenger rear side and there was Wu. The man was alive; his eyes were wide open, and his mouth was working. When he saw Gideon, he reached a bloody hand out to him.

Gideon grabbed the door handle, tried to open it. But the door was far too mangled to budge. He got down on his belly and reached inside the broken window, grasping the scientist by both arms. He hauled him out and onto the sidewalk as gently as he could. The man’s legs were horribly mangled and bleeding. Half dragging, half carrying Wu away from the spreading fire, he found a safe place around the corner and laid him carefully down. He took out his cell phone to call 911, but already he could hear, over the cacophony, sirens converging from every direction.

He vaguely became aware of a huge crowd of people behind him, rubberneckers keeping at a safe distance, watching the unfolding scene with prurient fascination.

The scientist suddenly grasped Gideon with a bloody hand, balling up the fabric of his chauffeur’s uniform in his fist. He had an expression in his eyes that was lost, puzzled, as if he didn’t know what had happened to him. He gasped out a word.

“What?” Gideon leaned closer, ear almost pressed to the scientist’s lips.

“Roger?” the man whispered in heavily accented English. “Roger?”

“Yes,” said Gideon, thinking fast. “That’s me. Roger.”

Wu said something in Chinese, then switched back to English. “Write these down. Quickly. Eight seven one zero five zero—”

“Wait.” Gideon fumbled in his pockets, extracted a pencil and a scrap of paper. “Start again.”

Wu began gasping out a list of numbers as Gideon wrote them down. Despite the heavy accent, his voice was thin, precise, punctilious: the voice of a scientist.

87105003302201401047836415600221120519715013

51010017502503362992421140099170520090080070

04003500278100065057616384370325300005844092

060001001001001

He halted.

“Is that it?” Gideon asked.

A nod. Wu closed his eyes. “You know…what to do with those,” he rasped.

“No. I don’t. Tell me—?”

But Wu had lapsed into unconsciousness.

Gideon stood up. He felt dazed and stupid. Blood from the scientist had stained his chest and arms. Fire trucks and police were arriving now, blocking the avenue. The bus was still afire, clouds of acrid black smoke roiling up into the night air.

“Oh my God!” a woman beside him said, crying openly, staring at the restaurant. “What a tragedy. What an awful tragedy.”

Gideon looked at her. Then — as police and paramedics and firemen rushed past him, sirens filling the air — he stood up and, abandoning his borrowed limo, now hemmed in by emergency vehicles, walked slowly and inconspicuously toward the subway entrance two blocks away.

Henriette Yveline lowered her clipboard, took down her reading glasses, and gazed at the young, bedraggled man in the dark suit who had come stumbling up to the emergency room admissions station. He was a fine-looking fellow, lanky, jet-black hair askew and flopping over his brilliant blue eyes. But my goodness, what a state he was in — hands, arms, and shirt caked with blood, eyes wild, stinking of gasoline and burned rubber. He was trembling all over.

“May I help you?” she said, firmly but not unkindly. She liked to keep an orderly ER waiting area — not an easy task at Mount Sinai Hospital on a hot Saturday night in June.

“God, yes, yes,” the man said all in a rush. “My — my friend, he just came in. A horrible car accident. Name’s Wu Longwei, but he calls himself Mark Wu.”

“And you are?”

The fellow swallowed, trying to get himself under control. “A close friend. Gideon Crew.”

“Thank you, Mr. Crew. May I ask if you’re all right yourself? No injuries, bleeding?”

“No, no, nothing,” he said distractedly. “It’s…it’s not my blood.”

“I understand. Just a moment, please.” She replaced her reading glasses and picked up the admissions clipboard, perused it. “Mr. Wu was admitted fifteen minutes ago. The doctors are with him now. Would you care to take a seat and wait?” She gestured toward the large, spare waiting room, half-filled with people, some crying softly, others with the long stare. A large family huddled in one corner, comforting a sobbing three-hundred-pound woman.