Nate Kenyon - Day One

Thomas had learned something then, too. His body could betray him, and he could lose control of it. The memory of his son burned Hawke like fire. It was too much. He was bone tired, so utterly exhausted he could just lie down right there on the floor and go to sleep.

But he had to get those tanks.

Wading through his own dream, Hawke began to walk across the room. The walls receded, stretching out to a distant point. His stomach clenched, unclenched, and he stumbled, bringing himself up short when he touched a tank. He struggled to twist the valve on top until he heard the hiss of air, then managed to grab the plastic tube and bring the mask to his mouth.

He inhaled deeply, took another long breath, then another. The spinning settled back a step as the visions faded and his thoughts began to clear.

Hawke picked up the second tank and brought it to Young, wiped the vomit off her mouth before forcing her head forward and clamping the mask to her face. His legs still trembled and his head had begun to pound, the nausea churning beneath the surface, but he could move without toppling over. He secured the mask to Young’s face with the elastic band and watched her breathe in deeply.

Hawke slumped against the wall, closing his eyes for a minute. Just a little rest. He wasn’t sure how long it lasted. When he turned around, Young was looking at him, more alert now, recognition in her eyes. She knew; he could almost hear her voice. Carbon monoxide is being pumped through the air circulation system. They had been poisoned. Someone had cut off the venting of the boilers in the basement or found some other way to bring in the deadly gas. The building was a giant gas chamber.

He tried to remember what he knew of carbon monoxide, but it wouldn’t come; he could recall only that it bound to hemoglobin in the blood. But he was feeling better already, and they had been breathing it for less than an hour, which had to give them a fighting chance.

Young had already gotten to her feet and moved unsteadily to where Vasco had slumped against the doors. She gave him a few breaths from her mask and held his mouth and nose closed while she took a hit off the cylinder. When Vasco opened his eyes and began to struggle, she gave the mask to him again and said something too faint for Hawke to make out.

Vasco was getting up with Young’s help, leaning against the wall as Hawke rushed to the loading dock. Hanscomb was there; she had stopped hammering at the steel door, and the silence settled over everything like a thick blanket, broken only by Hawke’s own wheezing through the plastic mask and the soft hiss of oxygen. The light from the hall touched the shapes of the packing skids and the ambulance as he descended the short stairs to where Hanscomb had fallen.

Hawke didn’t see Price anywhere.

Hanscomb’s hand was still skittering up and down the metal like a dying spider, her nails making quiet scratching sounds. When he touched her, she jerked away, mumbling, but he got her arm around his shoulders while clutching the tank to his side and managed to lift her up by the waist, sharing the mask as he dragged her back with him toward the light of the hallway.

Get her to the others, find more oxygen and get out.

As he neared the steps, the ambulance’s engine growled to life.

Hanscomb let out a groan of fear. Hawke turned them both around; maybe it was Price. The machine idled, lights off, its interior filled with shadows. The passenger window was halfway open, and he couldn’t remember if it had been that way before. Was someone sitting there, motionless? For a moment he thought so, but when he approached slowly, holding the tank up like a weapon, Hanscomb leaning against him for support, he found the twin captain’s chairs empty.

There were no keys in the ignition.

Abruptly the engine switched off again. They were left with the tick of hot metal as Hanscomb’s head lolled sideways against his own.

2:34 P.M.

ALTHOUGH HE HAD HIS SUSPICIONS, Hawke had little time to question the ambulance starting up by itself. There were five of them and two oxygen tanks, and time was running out. But ambulances might carry portable emergency oxygen tanks like the ones he had found in the morgue. It was worth a look.

He went around to the back and opened the door. The interior light came on, illuminating a space cluttered with medical equipment, EMT bags, drawers, a padded bench and a stretcher. Nobody inside; he wasn’t sure what he had expected. He left the tank with Hanscomb and climbed up, holding his breath. There was a mask hanging on the wall, the line snaking down through a hole in the cabinet. He opened the door and saw it connected to a larger machine to help people breathe. No way to remove it.

His body was beginning to protest the lack of air. He turned on the machine but couldn’t get it to run. He rummaged through the rest of the drawers and turned to the bench. Beneath it, he found a storage cavity with a portable tank inside.

His chest had begun to ache again. When he was finally able to get the mask fixed to his face, breathing was like heaven. The oxygen spread through him like warm fire, prickling his skin, sharpening his senses.

As he climbed back out of the ambulance, a voice crackled to life from the front. A radio in the driver’s cabin, the kind used to call in emergencies, was turned up loud enough to echo through the loading dock. Some kind of police dispatcher was putting out an all-points bulletin. The dispatcher described a suspect wanted in connection with the day’s terrorist attacks: five ten and 180 pounds, dirty blond hair, blue eyes. The suspect might be traveling with three companions, the dispatcher said, two women and another man. The woman’s voice was flat and oddly familiar. Hawke knew who she was describing long before she said his name.

“Jonathan Hawke is wanted in connection with the terrorist group Anonymous… bombing at Seventy-eighth Street and Second Avenue this morning… armed and extremely dangerous….”

Jesus Christ. Weller had been right; the entire New York City police force would be looking for them. Don’t think about that. Keep your mind away from it. Focus on getting out. He pulled Hanscomb up the steps to the wide hallway, pausing to let her take in some more deep gulps of air, and found Vasco and Young at the doors to the morgue. Vasco was cursing through the mask as Young shared her tank with him.

“Where’s Price?” Hawke asked.

Young shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said.

Hawke left Hanscomb with them, took the hallway branching to the right and followed it to another set of exterior doors, the ones Vasco had checked before they entered the loading dock. Price was on the floor, motionless. Hawke turned the man over and checked his chest; he was still breathing.

The reinforced glass doors were still locked. He peered out at the street, just steps away. But the locking mechanism was electronic and he could find no way to release it.

He rattled the handles, slammed his fist into the upper panel of glass. Nothing; he might as well have been punching stone. He took a step back, wound up with the oxygen tank like a batter and swung it with all his strength, low from the knees and up in an arc, connecting with the lower panel with a shuddering thud.

The tank rebounded hard, ripping the mask from his face and spinning him halfway around. When he turned back, the glass was webbed with cracks. He kicked at it, managing to separate the top part from the frame, kicked again until the entire sheet fell out onto the sidewalk.

Air wafted through the hole, bringing with it the scent of oil and asphalt and smoke. After the sour, dead air of Lenox, it might have been the best thing he had ever smelled. The others had heard the noise and joined him, and they all crouched and slipped through the opening, Vasco pulling Price’s unconscious body with him.