F. Paul Wilson: Ground Zero

GROUND ZERO

ALSO BY F. PAUL WILSON

Repairman Jack*

The Tomb

Gateways

Legacies

Crisscross

Conspiracies

Infernal

All the Rage

Harbingers

Hosts

Bloodline

The Haunted Air

By the Sword

Young Adult*

Jack: Secret Histories

The Adversary Cycle*

The Keep

Reborn

The Tomb

Reprisal

The Touch

Nightworld

Other Novels

Healer

Implant

Wheels Within Wheels

Deep as the Marrow

An Enemy of the State

Mirage (with Matthew J. Costello)

Black Wind

Nightkill (with Steven Spruill)

Dydeetown World

Masque (with Matthew J. Costello)

The Tery

The Christmas Thingy

Sibs

Sims

The Select

The Fifth Harmonic

Virgin

Midnight Mass

Short Fiction

Soft and Others

The Barrens and Others

Aftershock & Others

Editor

Freak Show

Diagnosis: Terminal

* See “The Secret History of the World” (page 367)

GROUND ZERO

A Repairman Jack Novel

F. PAUL WILSON

A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK • NEW YORK

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

GROUND ZERO: A REPAIRMAN JACK NOVEL

Copyright © 2009 by F. Paul Wilson

All rights reserved.

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

www.tor-forge.com

Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wilson, F. Paul (Francis Paul)

Ground zero: a Repairman Jack novel / F. Paul Wilson.—1st ed.

p. cm.

“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”

ISBN 978-0-7653-2281-4

1. Repairman Jack (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001—Fiction.

I. Title.

PS3573.I45695G76 2009

813'.54—dc22

2009016465

First Edition: September 2009

Printed in the United States of America

0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

AUTHOR’S NOTE

You hold the pen-penultimate Repairman Jack novel.

That’s right: I’ve decided to end the series with number fifteen (though Jack will make his final appearance in Nightworld ).

I’ve always said this would be a closed-end series, that I would not run Jack into the ground, that I had a big story to tell and would lower the curtain after telling it.

The end of that story draws nigh. (There’s a highfalutin phrase.)

And if you’ve been following along, you’ve noticed that the recent novels do not tie up as neatly as the earlier ones. I’ve always kept longer story arcs running from book to book, but I used to be able to bring each installment to a distinct conclusion. That, I’m afraid, is no longer the case.

As I move people and objects into place and set the stage for the events that will tip all of humanity into Nightworld , the final chapter, this sort of incremental closure has become impossible.

So I ask you to bear with me. You may have noticed that By the Sword began shortly after Bloodline , and Ground Zero picks up a couple of months after that.

Two more Repairman Jack novels remain, the last ending just before Nightworld begins. Along the way we’ll be reprinting the remainder of the Adversary Cycle, synching the releases of The Touch, Reborn , and Reprisal with Jack’s timeline. (See “The Secret History of the World” at the end of this book for the sequence.)

The post- Harbingers installments of Jack’s tale have become what the French call a roman fleuve —literally, a “river novel,” with one story flowing from volume to volume. As a result, each new installment is going to feel richer, deeper, and make more sense if you’ve read the ones before.

Hang in there, folks. It’s been a long ride, and we’ve still got a lot of wonder, terror, and tragedy ahead. I promise you’ll be glad you made the trip.

—F. Paul Wilson

the Jersey shore

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to the usual crew for their efforts: my wife, Mary; my editor, David Hartwell; Elizabeth Monteleone; Steven Spruill; and my agent, Albert Zuckerman. Special thanks to David J. Schow for the guided hajj to hallowed Bronson Canyon and its infamous “caves.”

GROUND ZERO

Surreal, he thought as he watched the twin towers burn.

His rented boat rocked gently on the waters of New York harbor, a thousand feet off the Battery. The morning sun blazed in a flawless cerulean sky. But for the susurrus of the light breeze and the soft lapping of the waves against the hull, the world lay silent about him.

A beautiful, beautiful day . . .

. . . unless you were anywhere near those towers .

He tried to imagine the pandemonium in the streets around them—the Klaxons, the sirens, the shouts, the confusion, the terror. Not a hint of that here. The towers belched black smoke like a couple of chimneys, but all in silence .

He checked his watch: nearly ten o’clock. The plan was to allow an hour or so of chaos after the Arabs completed their mission. By then, though fear and terror would still be running high, the initial panic would have subsided. The situation would be considered horrific and tragic, but manageable. The second jet had hit at 9:03, so the hour mark was almost upon him. Time to initiate the second phase—the real reason for all this .

From a pocket of his Windbreaker he pulled a pair of gray plastic boxes, each the size of a cigarette pack—one marked with an S for the south tower, the other with an N for the north. He put the N away for later. After all, the south tower was the important one, the reason for this enormous undertaking .

He extended an aerial from the S box, then slid up a little safety cover on its front panel, revealing a black button. He took a breath and pressed the button, then watched and waited .

The vast majority would blame the collapse on the crazy Arabs who hijacked the planes and the Islamic extremists who funded them—the obvious choice. A few would notice inconsistencies and point fingers elsewhere, blaming the government or Big Oil or some other powerful but faceless entity .

No one, absolutely no one, would guess—or be allowed to guess—the truth behind the who and the why of this day.

MONDAY

1

Diana stared at herself in the mirror. She did that a lot. Maybe too much. No, definitely too much. But she didn’t have much else to do.

She hated her life. So boring .

Mainly because she was so lonely. Not that she was alone. She shared this big house with three men—grown men, sworn to protect her with their lives—but they weren’t friends. She could talk to them, as in have conversations, but couldn’t really talk to them about things that mattered. She chatted online all the time, but that wasn’t the same as having another flesh-and-blood fourteen-year-old girl in the same room.