The Gatekeeper

Thirty-Six

Something intruded on her consciousness, an annoying repetitive noise that took a few seconds to identify. Car alarm, it was a car alarm. Jesus, why wasn’t anyone turning it off? She could really use more sleep…

Syd groaned and opened her eyes, prepared to pull on her robe, run outside, track down the car’s owner, and kill them. Or at least make them understand how socially unacceptable it was to own a car with an alarm that didn’t shut off automatically. Especially since they weren’t an effective deterrent anyway.

But she wasn’t in her bed. It was hard to see, the air was thick with dust and smoke. She was in an unfamiliar car, stuck in the well behind the front seat. The roof had been crushed nearly down to her head. Syd scrambled to process it. Tel Aviv? Karachi? She coughed reflexively, trying to get her bearings. Suddenly, it all came back. Phoenix. The bomb. The shock wave had sent the SUV tumbling end over end. There had been fire and searing heat and…

Oh shit, she thought. Not just a bomb, a dirty bomb. Which meant she had to get the hell out of here. She knew the risks of contamination, and the longer she spent in the affected area, the greater the exposure.

And where the hell was Maltz? Syd raised her head a few inches, didn’t see him. Okay, first things first. She shifted, working her right arm free from where it was pinned beneath the front seat. She wiggled the fingers, then bent the elbow-a little sore, but nothing appeared broken. Same with the left arm. Taking a deep breath, she eased her right knee up to her chest. It felt like her toes were wiggling, but it was hard to be sure. She pushed off the foot and winced-definitely bruised, but she didn’t see any protruding bones.

It took nearly five minutes to complete the personal inventory. Scrapes from the broken glass, a gash on her right shin, and her ears were ringing. Other than that she seemed fine. Nothing she hadn’t gone through before. As long as she didn’t tear herself open trying to get out of the car, she should be able to hike out of the blast zone.

She pulled herself to sitting, knees against her chest, in the small space where the roof pressed down to meet the floor. A few more inches, and a jagged piece of metal would have eviscerated her. Looked like she was still lucky.

Unfortunately, the same didn’t appear true for Maltz. Syd shifted slowly, contorting until she was on her knees, and squinted into the front seat. Empty. The front of the car had been completely crushed, like some giant monster had chewed it to a messy metal pulp. On the side of the car she was on, the roof had only been compressed halfway down the window. A few shards of glass clung to the frame. Syd yanked free a piece of shredded leather seat cover, wrapped it around her hand, and knocked the rest of the glass free. The opening was about six inches high-tight, but she should be able to make it. The only danger was a section of the roof that had been punched downward, creating a nasty-looking spike. Syd took a deep breath. As long as she stayed to the right side she should be okay. It was either risk it, or allow more radioactive particles to infiltrate her as she waited for help. And she was never good at waiting.

Syd took a deep breath before starting through the window. Her head cleared easily, the trouble came as she arched, trying to pull her upper body free. The cloud outside the car was thicker, hanging like a dust storm that was awaiting approval to proceed. Something caught her hip and Syd sucked in her breath at the flash of pain. Shit. She’d hit the spike. She tried to ease forward, but the sharp steel sliced deeper. She couldn’t crawl free without impaling herself. Carefully, she lowered herself back into the car and checked her side. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but the scrape didn’t look too bad. She pressed the piece of seat cover against it and frowned. What next? Night was falling, and the thought of sitting alone in the dark was almost unbearable. She would get through it, she’d been trained to handle anything, but still. It felt like she was the last person on earth.

Worse yet, that fucking car alarm was still going off.

No emergency crews yet, which wasn’t surprising. First responders had probably been ordered to wait until radiation levels were measured. It was odd, though, that she couldn’t hear anyone else. How long had she been knocked out?

“Hello?” she called out tentatively, before yelling, “Anyone there?”

Syd thought she heard grunting nearby, but her hearing was still out of whack from the explosion. She wrapped her free arm around her knees and hugged them to her chest, surprised by an overwhelming urge to cry. She couldn’t remember the last time she cried, maybe when her mother died. It had been at least a decade.

“Get a grip, Sydney,” she chastised herself.

A sound outside sent her hand to her hip before she remembered taking her holster off to look like a newspaper reporter. Syd hated being unarmed. She scoured the interior, groping under the seats before giving up. She’d have to trust that looters would be dissuaded by fear of contamination. And that she wasn’t too messed up to fight if she had to.

A light shone through the window, and she squinted, turning her face away.

“Boss?” a voice asked.

“Fribush?” She could barely believe it. “How the hell did you find me?”

He held up a small device. “GPS. Sorry it took a while, we had to find alternate transportation.”

Syd could have cried from relief. This was precisely why she’d put Maltz in charge: he could assemble a team so blindly loyal they’d march into a radioactive haze to find him. “I’m stuck in here. Can you get the door open?”

Fribush examined it, probing the frame with his flashlight before stepping back. She heard low voices, then he reappeared. “Hold tight, boss. We got something back in the truck.”

A few minutes passed. She heard the sound of jogging feet. A section of the door eased away, protesting the treatment with a groan. After a minute, the lower panel popped out. Fribush extended a hand to help her. Syd carefully extricated herself, feet first, watchful of the jagged edges. Once free, she stretched her arms above her head. “Can’t remember the last time I was this happy to be upright,” she commented. “Thanks.”

Fribush pointed toward the front seat with his crowbar. “Maltz in there, too?”

“No. Let’s do a quick search of the area.” Syd didn’t state the obvious, that since he’d been ejected they would probably be collecting parts of Maltz to take with them.

Fribush got a look in his eye. He nodded and handed her a spare flashlight.

Syd pulled her shirt over her mouth to filter out the silt. It was impossible to see more than a foot in any direction. The flashlight beam was refracted by the sand in the air, which almost made the cloud more impenetrable. They’d landed well off the highway-thank God Maltz had gotten away from the bridge before the explosion, otherwise they would have hurtled down a forty-foot drop. The area they’d landed in was flat. Her beam picked out a saguaro rising like a ghostly sentinel, spikes collecting grimy flakes of dust. Brush dotted the landscape, grasping at her feet as she shuffled through it. Pieces of metal were scattered across the ground, some from their car, some from others. She came across another twisted metal frame, bent almost beyond recognition. Syd panned her light inside, but it was too late for the driver.

She heard a yell and hurried toward it. Kane was kneeling on the ground next to the highway blacktop. In front of him lay the mangled body of Michael Maltz.

“Is he…” Syd suddenly realized this was going to affect her more than she’d anticipated. She had initially met Maltz in Syria, and they had worked together a few times since then. The sad truth was that more than anyone else in the world, including Jake, he had probably been her best friend.

His leg was bent at a strange angle and his face was a mass of road burn.

“He’s breathing,” Kane said, checking his pulse. “But we need to get him in. Now.”

She nodded. “Where’s the car?”

Kane didn’t answer. He and Fribush had already lifted Maltz. They moved at a full trot, Maltz bouncing slightly as Syd struggled to keep up. A green SUV was parked in the lot of a deserted office park. The steely facade was startlingly incongruous in the haze.

They drove fast, weaving around mangled cars that lay on their sides and roofs as if tossed by a giant tide that had receded. People stood at the side of the road looking bewildered. One raised an arm to flag them down, but they sped past.

“Jesus,” Syd said, taking in the destruction. “How far does this go?”

“About a click,” Fribush answered. “They’re setting up a perimeter now. Probably take them a few hours to help these folks. They care more about containing the damage.”

“How did you get through?”

Fribush didn’t answer, but for the first time since he’d found her managed a small smile.

The haze was starting to dissipate and Syd gulped deep drafts of air, trying to clear her lungs.

“We heard on the scanner that they’re setting up a decontam center at the state hospital. It’s not far. We’ll head there, get you checked out, too.” Fribush shook his head. “All that talk after 9/11 about preparedness. They didn’t prepare jack-shit.”

“They never really thought it could happen here. Not like this,” Syd said quietly. “They never understand what people are capable of.”

Jake, George and Rodriguez sat transfixed by the TV monitor: aerial views of Phoenix from choppers; an enormous cloud shrouding the southern part of the city; interviews with people who had stumbled out of the haze. Survivors were dazed, clearly in shock, all dusted with a fine layer of silt, lending them an oddly uniform appearance. Reporters shouted questions at them as they were bundled in survival blankets and trundled into waiting ambulances. Emergency workers in the background wore grim expressions. Cops held out their arms, shepherding the reporters back. An excited babble of contradictory information. Depending on which channel you tuned to it was a terrorist act by al Qaeda, a gas tanker explosion, a chemical plant accident. Shots of the northern part of the city, a sheer wall of cars with personal items strapped to roofs and spilling out windows as people grabbed what they could and fled. Cell phone networks were overwhelmed by calls and servers were failing. The governor urged everyone to stay calm, claiming they had the situation under control. No one believed him.

“Jesus,” George commented. “If it’s already like this, imagine what’ll happen when someone mentions radiation.”

“They’re probably waiting for the National Guard to arrive before announcing that,” Rodriguez said.

Jake didn’t say anything. He flipped from channel to channel, pausing whenever the camera zoomed in on one of the survivors. Rodriguez and George exchanged a glance.

“Riley, I’m sure Syd’s fine,” George said, not sounding sure at all.

“She was in the immediate kill radius,” Jake said flatly. Which meant her chances for surviving the blast were slim to none. It was almost inconceivable that Syd, who seemed impervious to danger, could be taken out by anything. Even a dirty bomb.

“We don’t know that. They were driving away when it happened,” Rodriguez said weakly.

“We should go there. See if we can help,” Jake said.

George shook his head. “No way. Airports are closed, they’re not letting anyone in or out. Not even us.”

“I can’t just sit here,” Jake said, running a hand through his hair. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so impotent. Syd was in Phoenix, dead or dying. He hadn’t heard from Kelly. The airport was only a few miles from ground zero, she might have been on the ground when it detonated. And he was sitting on his ass in a goddamn trailer in Houston.

“Nothing we can do, bro,” George said sympathetically.

The door opened, and they all swiveled toward it. An agent from the Houston field office stood there. “Where’s ASAC Leonard?” he asked.

“Not here,” George said. “Why?”

“Dallas found something, they’re asking for backup.”

“Great. Tell them we’re on our way,” George said authoritatively, grabbing his windbreaker off the back of his chair.

“I thought Leonard had to clear…”

“It’s fine. Get us transportation there, we’ll take along anyone you can spare.”

“I guess.” The agent looked dubious. “But maybe I should run this past my ASAC.”

“Go ahead. I’m willing to bet right now he’d say the more the merrier.” George raised an eyebrow. “All on the same team, right?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“So let’s get to Dallas.”