Michael Walsh: Early Warning

There would be cops crawling all around the reservoir, so Devlin went in the same way the city’s rats headed wherever they wished to go, via the New York City sewer system.

People who were dazzled by Manhattan and who never ventured belowground, got only half the picture. True, the city’s skyscrapers, from the Woolworth Building to the late World Trade Center, had long been objects of wonder and envy. But underground, where the water tunnels, the subway tunnels, the steam tunnels, the electrical tunnels, the service tunnels and everything else all jostled for position, was a miracle of subterranean organization. Animals lived down there, and people too-the cops called them the “skells,” either in colonies or as lonely, wayward, and usually crazed souls, who had nothing to connect them to the world above.

He knew exactly how they felt.

Which was why he was chasing this boy now. From his observations of the scene with the woman buried behind the Met, he had already developed a profile in his mind. This boy had kept her, not killed her, which meant either he had other plans for her, or had felt a stab of something-love? compassion?-that prevented him from acting on his natural impulses, which had otherwise been given free rein.

The shooter was not a Muslim, of that he was certain. Muslim fighters may kill women, but it is an unmanly thing to do. There was no glory in killing women, even infidel women, and however poor their combat skills were otherwise-and aside from the occasional rush of crazy bravery, they were very poor indeed-their reverent contempt for women in general had no place for their murder, unless on moral grounds. So most likely he was an American, one of these poor lost skells who had not yet found the way to his place below and beneath the earth. But now, if Devlin had guessed right, he was about to embrace his destiny.

The Angel had left most of his tools behind him. He knew enough never to underestimate any adversary, but this job did not require the LMT, or the Glocks. Instead, he brought the Judge and a KA-BAR knife. That would be enough.

When Byrne got the message, he acted on it immediately. Luckily, there were no department channels to screw around with; in his world, he was the absolute boss, and what he said, went. If necessary, he could call Matt White directly and that would be that, but he needed to have a long conversation with the Chief later, when this thing was settled, and until then he had to play out the hand and win at all costs. His invisible ally, whoever he was, was on his side, and when he said he needed the best police chopper in the fleet on standby, on the roof of the old Pan Am building, fully loaded with a Barrett, Byrne didn’t hesitate.

There was just one detail that puzzled him: there was no need to bother about a pilot, because one was on his way…

Danny Impellatieri stood on the roof of the MetLife Building and looked around. He’d been to New York plenty of times, of course, but he’d never seen it like this, in several senses of the word. Not from the roof of this centrally located building, right around Grand Central Terminal, for one. And certainly not with a blown-out hollow just a few long blocks to the west, the old Times Square. The fires had been quenched, but the rubble was still smoldering; it was awe-inspiring to think of the damage a few determined gunners and a powerful plastic explosive could do. God forbid that these maniacs ever get their hands on something more lethal…

But all that had had to wait until he made the phone call. He got her on the first ring.

“Danny? Danny? Is that you?” Hope had said, even before he spoke, and he could tell by the tone of her voice that those were not simply questions, but profound expressions.

He tried to stay calm. “It’s me, Hope. All you all right? Are the kids all right?”

“Oh, Danny, it was-it was horrible. We were up on the roof and then you found the way down and then…”

“And we found that cop,” he could hear Rory saying in the background.

“And then we got down just before the whole building collapsed and there was this wounded cop, just about as dazed and fucked up-pardon my French-as we were and he helped us and they got us over to the hospital to make sure everything was okay and it was, and we’re all fine and when can you get-”

“Hope,” said Danny, “wherever you are right now, I want you to stay there. If it’s safe, don’t move. I’ll come for you.”

He could feel the disappointment over the line. “But why can’t you-”

“There’s something I have to do first. Something really important.”

She got it. Good Girl. She got it. “Is it dangerous?”

He decided to laugh. “If it wasn’t dangerous, why would they ask me to do it? Any schmuck could do it.”

“Schmuck,” she repeated. “Is this a word I’m going to have to know and use?”

“Three times in a sentence, and then it’s yours,” he replied. He liked a woman with a sense of humor. No, check that, he needed a woman with a sense of humor. After that, everything else was negotiable. And from what he could tell of Hope Gardner, there wasn’t going to be much else to negotiate. Just the date of the wedding. Which he’d do right after he got back from this job.

“See ya in a few. Kiss the kids for me.”

Flying a helicopter over the East River was not as easy as it looked, but that was the gig. Unknown whether there would be incoming. Unknown at what altitude. There would be buildings to thread and bridges to dodge, no matter what.

He knew what it was before he heard it. Not one of the old Bells, the kind they used to use, or even one of the new 412 EPs, but an Augusta A-119 Koala-not just any old off-the-shelf model, either, but a souped-up jalopy that could fly at night with no lights.

He smiled. Okay, maybe this was going to be fun after all.

Devlin passed around, over and through things he didn’t want to think about. He couldn’t wait to take a bath after all this was over. He needed to take out his man and then get aboveground as quickly as possible, for after he dispatched this boy, Mr. Kohanloo was next. And then make contact with Maryam. That he hadn’t heard from her for a while was not worrying in itself, because op-sec was everything, but…He had to admit it: for the first time in his life, he cared.

There, up ahead: the connecting tunnel. Plenty of visitors, runners mostly, used the bathrooms provided above, and that effluent had to be flushed somewhere. If he’d read the plans correctly, he could go up via that passageway, break through to a utility closet, and be right where he needed to be.

If he couldn’t kill his man, he could stink him to death.

There-he was out of the sewer and into the utility room, which was larger than he had expected. At some point it must have been expanded a bit, probably during one of the Park’s many renovations and upgrades. There was a wash-basin and a toilet even down here, and he permitted himself a small chuckle as the thought occurred to him that this wasn’t much different from his office back at The Building, its entry-way, anyway.

The chuckle was on his lips and the thought on his mind when suddenly he was struck from behind by a tremendous blow to the head.

Arash Kohanloo set the Red Cross boat into the waters, heading south. Occasionally, furtively, he scanned the skies above for the drone, half-convinced it would come back after him. That Malak al-Maut knew his every move. But the skies were clear.

The waterways, too. A few boats moved on them, but the lockdown had affected all aspects of traffic in and around Manhattan. There would be cops about, of course, but to his relief he saw that there were other emergency craft churning the waters. He would glide in among them and use them for cover. His papers were all in good order. The thought had crossed his mind that perhaps they should have disguised the boat with Red Crescent markings instead-the politically correct authorities would be overjoyed to see America’s Muslim brothers helping out, and should anyone raise a fuss, the New York Times would be there to take their side-but it was too late for that now. Besides, many Middle Easterners were Christians, not just in Lebanon, but across ancient Assyria and into Iran itself, so he could certainly fake it and hope the cops had other and better things to do.