The Edge of Armageddon

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Hayden stood before a bank of TV monitors, Kinimaka at her side. Their thoughts about breaking Ramses had temporarily been put on hold by the chase across Central Park and then the madness at Grand Central. As they watched, Moore approached them and began to comment on each monitor, the camera views labelled and able to zoom in to pick out a human hair on a freckled arm. The coverage wasn’t as blanket as it should have been, but improved as Drake and his team approached the famous train station. Another monitor showed Ramses and Price in their cells, the first pacing impatiently as if he had places to be, the second sitting despondently as if all he really wanted was the offer of a noose.

Moore’s team worked hard around them, calling in sightings, hunches and asking cops and agents on the street to attend certain areas. Attacks were foiled even as Hayden watched, even as Drake and Beau defused the Grand Central bombs. Moore’s only way of making absolutely sure that midtown was being taken care of was to practically empty out the entire precinct.

“I don’t care if it’s a deaf old granny who’s just lost her cat,” he said. “At the very least reassure them.”

“How could the cells get bombs through the metal detectors at Grand Central?” Kinimaka asked.

“Plastic explosive?” Moore ventured.

“Don’t you have other measures in place for that?” Hayden asked.

“Of course, but look around you. Ninety percent of our people are looking for the goddamn nuke. I’ve never seen this precinct so empty.”

Hayden wondered how long Marsh had been planning this. And Ramses? The terrorist prince had about five cells in New York, perhaps more, and some of those were sleeper cells. Explosives of any kind could be smuggled in at any time and just buried, concealed in the woods or in a basement for years if necessary. Look at the Russians and the verified story of their missing suitcase nukes — it was an American who hypothesized the number missing was the exact amount required to annihilate the United States. It was a Russian defector who verified they were already in America.

She took a step back, trying to encompass the whole picture. Hayden had been a law enforcement figure for most of her adult life; she felt she had witnessed every situation imaginable. But now… this was unprecedented. Drake had already raced from Times Square to Grand Central, saving lives by the minute and then losing two. Dahl was taking apart Ramses’ cells at every turn. But it was the utter, terrifying scope of this thing that astounded her.

And the world was getting worse. She knew people who didn’t bother watching the news anymore, people who had deleted the apps from their phones, because everything they saw was sickening and they felt there was nothing they could do. Decisions that were clear and obvious from the beginning, particularly with the emergence of IS, never happened, clouded by politics, gain and greed, and discounting the depth of human suffering. What the public now wanted was honesty, a figure they could trust, someone who came with as much transparency as was safely manageable.

Hayden took it all in. Her feeling of helplessness was akin to the emotions she’d been subjected to by Tyler Webb of late. The sense of being so cleverly stalked and powerless to do anything about it. She experienced the same emotions now as she watched Drake and Dahl try to bring New York and the rest of the world back from the edge.

“I will kill Ramses for this,” she said.

Kinimaka laid an enormous paw on her shoulders. “Let me. I’m much less pretty than you and would fare better in prison.”

Moore gestured at a particular screen. “Look there, guys. They’ve disarmed the bomb.”

Elation shot through Hayden as she watched Matt Drake emerge from the café with a relieved and victorious look on his face. The assembled team cheered and then suddenly paused as events began to spiral out of control.

On many monitors, Hayden saw bins exploding, cars swerving to avoid erupting manhole covers. She saw motorcyclists veering through traffic and throwing brick shaped objects at buildings and windows. Seconds later another explosion occurred. She saw a car raise several feet off the floor as a bomb detonated underneath, smoke and flames billowing out from the sides. All around Grand Central, amid the fleeing commuters, trashcans burst into flame. The purpose was terror, not casualties. Fires burned on two bridges, causing tailbacks so profuse even motorcycles couldn’t thread a path through.

Moore stared, face slackening for just a second before he began to bark out orders. Hayden fought to keep her tough perspective and felt Mano’s shoulder brushing against her own.

We will go on.

Activity continued in the ops center, emergency services dispatched and law enforcement rerouted to the worst hit areas. The Fire Department and Bomb Squad were stretched beyond all limits. Moore ordered the use of choppers to help patrol the streets. When the Macy’s department store was hit by another small device Hayden could watch no more.

She turned away, searching through all her experience for any kind of clue as to what to do next, remembering Hawaii and Washington DC in recent years, focusing… but then a terrible sound, a horrendous drawn-out noise, drew her attention back to the screens.

“No!”