Jim DeFelice - Threat Level Black

“Yes, sir, but-”

“But?”

“It’s almost five.”

“We’ll pay you overtime,” snapped Howe.

“I meant you better let me call over to Andrews right away,” said the secretary. “Because otherwise the ground people may go home before you get to them.”

Madison Square Garden was neither near Madison Avenue nor appreciably square, and the last time anything approaching a garden had been on the spot, the local Indians were unloading swampland on the Dutch.

Which made it the quintessential New York landmark, if not the essence of New York itself.

“You’re being kind of hard on the place, Andy,” said Macklin as they walked across Eighth Avenue. Ordinarily that would have been suicidal, but the area had been blocked off for the game. Traffic snarled through the rest of the city, but the streets around Madison Square Garden were a veritable island of peace and tranquillity.

Except, of course, for the troop trucks, Humvees, Stinger antiaircraft missile batteries, two tanks, and upward of five thousand National Guardsmen, soldiers, and police officers.

“You’d think they’d’ve let a pretzel guy inside the barricades,” said Fisher.

“Well, well, Cassandra showed up in person,” said a voice from behind a phalanx of approaching soldiers.

“Kowalski, it’s about time you got here,” said Fisher. “Did you find the UAV yet?”

“I have half the damn Air Force flying overhead, Fisher. You sure as hell better be right.”

“Only half, Kowalski? I thought you had pull.”

“Yeah, yeah, wiseass. Real funny. How are they getting the gas into the place, anyway? Did you think about that?”

“I thought about it, but I couldn’t figure it out,” admitted Fisher.

“We have the ventilation system guarded,” said Macklin. “And the backup generators. Everything’s been checked and rechecked. Power goes off, we’ll have it back on in a jiff.”

“Unless they blow up the bomb overhead, right?” said Fisher.

“Well, yeah.”

“Or within five miles.”

“Or more, depending on how good the bomb is,” said Macklin. “But if they don’t, we’re fine.”

“That’s what I like about you, Michael: You’re always looking on the brighter side of things.”

“Maybe I should get more batteries,” said Macklin.

“Nothing’s going to happen,” said Kowalski. “I think this is all just the product of Fisher’s wild imagination. Even the maestro of conspiracy falters once in a while.”

“Don’t lie, Kowalski,” said Fisher, taking out his cigarettes. “I get it wrong all the time. Want one?”

“I wish I did smoke,” said Kowalski, shaking his head. “What a fuckin’ nightmare. I don’t know whether to hope you’re right or wrong.”

“Wrong’s better,” said Fisher. “What’s the latest on the florist trucks?”

“NYPD’s got a good handle on it,” said Macklin. “They have an exclusion area and they’ve already searched beyond it. There are no vans within ten blocks.”

“Oh,” said Fisher.

“Oh?”

“Stop the trains.”

“Which trains?”

“Anything that goes anywhere near Penn Station.” He threw his cigarette away and began running toward the nearest police command post. “Amtrak, LIRR, New Jersey, subways-everything.”

“Andy?” yelled Macklin.

“Just do it!”

Faud huddled near the end of the passage, sipping the last of his bottles of water. He did not know exactly when the time would be. He knew only that he was to wait until the lights blinked off.

The journey across the tracks had been an ordeal-a train had come just as he opened the panel-but it was past. The rest now was easy.

When the lights went off, he would put on the heavy coat and the hat, pull up the two tanks that looked like an oxygen pack. He would need the goggles to see. He had a light, but it was better to use the goggles: The light would give him away.

Faud would carry the pistol in his hand.

Several times he had thought of dressing and being ready, but the weight of the gear dissuaded him. He also had been instructed to keep the tanks in their insulated case for as long as possible.

The air tube where he could insert the gas was only a few feet from the shaft he had to climb. He had a small drill to make the hole. Once the nozzle was inserted, he would set the unit down and turn the wheel at the base of the tanks, activating the pressure feed. The gas itself was under very high pressure and would probably fill the ventilation system itself so long as it remained hot, but there was no way of knowing whether the loss of power would permanently disrupt the forced-air system, and the mechanism was designed to cover that contingency. The room above the insertion point had steam pipes that would make the system considerably hotter than the seventy degrees necessary for the sarin to remain a gas. If the auxiliary power came on, the gas would be forcefully pulled into the building, killing everyone within seconds; but even if it didn’t, the flow of air through the system and the difference in pressure would bring the gas up into the building.

As long as Faud managed to find the right duct line. There were three; he had to tap the one farthest to his right as he climbed from the shaft.

That was what he had been told. He knew a great deal about the gas, but nothing about the shafts.

If all else failed, he had already decided on an alternate plan: He would pass the ventilation shaft and walk to the end of the room, where the stairs led to a hallway behind a concession area. He would simply turn on the gas and walk through the stuffy building. Those who did not die of the gas would die from the panic as they tried to escape.

His place in Paradise would be guaranteed no matter what else happened.

The imam had insisted on giving him a plan to escape after he placed the gas, and told him it was his duty to follow it.

Was it, though? The imam had been wrong on many things; perhaps he was wrong on this as well.

Was it sacrilegious to ask such a question?

Faud finished the water. He should not think of it anymore. His path now was clear. He had only to wait for the dim light at the far end of the shaft fifty feet away to go out.

The lights on the coast shone like the diamonds of a woman’s necklace, glittering against the blackness of the nearby water. A yellow string of jewels circled the shore, the lights of cars on the Belt Parkway.

A 747 had just taken off from Kennedy Airport; Howe could see it climbing off to his right. Air traffic in the region had been strictly curtailed, and the few flights allowed into the New York metropolitan area had to follow instructions to the millimeter. Two Air National Guard F-16s circled over Manhattan, ready to pounce. Another pair was standing by on the ground in nearby New Jersey.

Howe’s aircraft, the Iron Hawk, was not equipped with offensive weapons, but its AMV radar provided a finer detection net than the F-16s’ APG-68. So far all he’d spotted were a few birds. The radar popped them on the screen momentarily, briefly tracking them before its program decided for sure that they were birds, not a cleverly designed aircraft whose radar profile mimicked a seagull.

If Fisher was wrong, Howe would look like a fool. He could already hear Nelson’s voice and see Blitz’s disapproving stare. But he had decided he didn’t care. He had to do what he thought was right, which meant risking looking like a fool.

No, it meant he would look like a fool sometimes. But it was worse to feel like a fool.

Howe checked his fuel and the rest of his instruments, then began a turn as he banked over New Jersey. Patrolling like this was surprisingly difficult; it was so boring that the natural temptation was to wish something would happen. That he didn’t want: Among the eight million people down there in the city was his friend Jimmy, who’d scalped tickets to the basketball game Fisher thought was the target. Howe had tried calling him but gotten only his machine.