Nate Kenyon - Day One

“Gas explosion.” Weller appeared as if from nowhere, nodding toward the hole in the street. He spoke loudly to cut through the din, but he appeared eerily calm within the madness around them. “That’s what took out our windows on the seventh floor. Easy enough to do, if you overload the systems and force a rupture.”

The sound of Weller’s voice brought Hawke back to himself. Weller had Young and Vasco with him, and he was carrying the hard-shelled security case from his office in both arms, hugging it like it was a child. Was that why he had lingered in the office suite? Hawke thought of Young, ready to charge back upstairs to rescue Weller without a second thought. Anger flared, white-hot at Hawke’s core. Suddenly he wanted to get his hands around Weller’s throat, and the urge was so strong he balled his fists to keep from leaping at him.

“What the hell happened to you?”

“Got disoriented up there for a few minutes, with the smoke,” he said, “but I found my way down.”

Gas explosion. He was right about the hole on Second Avenue; Hawke could smell it in the air. But it didn’t explain the other plumes of smoke rising up across New York, or the number of cars run off the street and crumpled into one another. It didn’t explain the traffic lights cycling randomly down 79th Street as he watched, or the way Bradbury had danced a jig across the office floor with the office lamp, hair standing on end.

Something else Weller had said finally registered. “What do you mean, it’s easy enough to do?” Hawke said. “You think this was deliberate?”

“We need to get somewhere safe,” Weller said. “Things have changed.”

“What’s changed? And where is safe? People are dead. Don’t you give a damn about Susan Kessler? She bled out in the lobby. And Price over there needs to be treated for shock. What the hell is going on?”

Weller turned toward Hawke, who realized that the man’s calm was an illusion; his eyes held that same glittering light they’d had earlier in his office, pure energy pouring off him like some kind of gospel preacher at the pulpit as another distant explosion shook the ground. “They’re not just coming after me now. I think she’s involved. This is going to get worse.”

11:23 A.M.

WHO WAS INVOLVED? Did he mean Kessler? Before Hawke could say a word, Weller took a step into the street, still clutching his laptop case. Young shouted a warning as a brand-new Cadillac Escalade, careening on and off the sidewalk around the choked traffic, suddenly swerved violently to the left through an opening and accelerated toward him, its engine screaming.

The huge machine missed Price by less than three feet. Hawke shoved Weller out of the way and dove to the ground, getting a split-second glimpse of the terrified face of the driver, her hands completely up and off the wheel as the vehicle slid past and slammed into a light post.

The post toppled over, crashing into the face of the office building, bouncing off and sending sparks flying as the SUV hung on the light-post base, engine still growling. Hawke lay still for a moment, stunned, the fresh surge of adrenaline making his stomach lurch.

He tasted grit, spat on the concrete and grimaced. His palms were scraped raw. The pain was like a stinging slap to the face, enough to rouse him again, and he sat up as Young tried to get Weller to a sitting position. The man’s head lolled loosely on his shoulders. He was out cold after cracking his head in the fall. Young spoke into his face, “Come on, Jim, wake up ….”

Hawke got to his feet and went to the Cadillac, where Vasco was yanking at the driver’s door. He could hear the woman screaming inside, battering at the window with her fists. “Unlock it,” Vasco said, cupping his hands to the glass. He repeated it slowly, as if to a stubborn child. “Unlock… the… fucking… door!”

“She okay?”

Vasco turned to glance at Hawke, breathing hard, and shook his head as the engine continued to race out of control, nearly drowning him out. “It’s in neutral, but if she hits that shifter it’s gonna go like a bat out of hell…. I can’t get through to her; she’s out of her frigging mind here….”

Hawke looked around for more speeding vehicles. Most drivers seemed to have given up amid the traffic and left their cars where they stood. People were still running away from the fire on 78th.

Another low, deep rumble shook the street, something far away or underground. He found a fist-sized chunk of concrete torn loose from the light post’s fall, hefted it and went to the SUV, shattering the window as the driver cowered away from him. He reached in to unlock the door and the woman tumbled out into the street, sobbing and scrambling on all fours away from the vehicle.

She got to her feet a few yards away and turned back to them, holding a small leopard-print clutch, swaying like a drunk and shivering, her mascara running down her face in two black lines. She wiped snot from her nose with a sleeve. “That… fucking thing… it tried to kill me….”

“Easy,” Hawke said. He took a step toward her with his hand out, but she screamed and shrank back, and he stopped dead, not wanting to spook her further. “It kinda looked like you tried to kill us .”

“I… I didn’t !” she screamed, the words torn from her raw throat. She was probably in her early fifties, but with work done around her eyes and neck, a well-kept woman who was going to pieces. “The wheel jumped right out of my fucking hands; I didn’t even touch the accelerator….” She looked wildly from one man to the other, then at the SUV, slowly backing away.

A thud came from the hole on East 78th, and more smoke rushed skyward. Three people coming up Second Avenue ran in between them, a woman in a full business suit with two men dressed like couriers, darting hard and fast, not even bothering to look at Hawke and the others. The woman from the SUV shrank away like an abused dog as they went by, going into a half crouch, hands up around her head. Other people were screaming, and a man kept shouting over and over again from somewhere inside one of the nearby buildings, his voice ragged.

Hawke reached in through the open door and shut off the engine. He got in and switched the radio on, his heart thudding so loud he could barely hear. An automated message blared through the high-end audio system: “This is the emergency broadcast system…. This is not a test…. Mayor Weber has declared a state of emergency…. Please go immediately to your nearest safety checkpoint….”

Hawke found himself breathing too fast and shallow again, getting light-headed. The radio broadcast was listing the checkpoints now. He listened until the message began to repeat, and pressed the OnStar button, praying that the network wasn’t down.

“OnStar. How may I help you?”

Thank God . “I’d like to report an accident,” he said, words tumbling out . Just slow down.

“Name and location?”

“We need an ambulance at the corner of Seventy-ninth and Second; a woman is bleeding to death!” Hawke couldn’t bring himself to say that Kessler was already dead. Maybe we made a mistake. Maybe they can still save her life. He thought of asking for assistance with a possible B and E and giving the operator his apartment address. But something bothered him about the voice; he couldn’t put his finger on what.

“Vocal patterns suggest extreme stress,” the voice said. “Emotional reaction analysis. Recognition algorithms processing.” There was a long pause, and the voice recited his name and his Social Security number. “Please remain in the vehicle. Help is on the way.”