Born to Run (24 page)

Finally, Isabel looked up and her eyes were grim, “Our world has hardened, but we must not. However, we must and we will defend our country, our way of life … and our families. I
have confidence that our President, and our next president, will lead us in doing just that.”

She paused for a moment, looked to the side and nodded, then faced the camera and said, “All of us who aren’t in the front line dealing with the emergency, please stay calm. Do what
police or other emergency officials advise you.” She coughed into her fist and continued, “Perhaps the best thing for all of us here on Manhattan would be just to walk quietly on home
and give our families and neighbours a hug. If you’re sitting in a car in a traffic jam, check with the police, park your car and walk home… come back for it tomorrow. Tonight is a
remarkable night. A catastrophe has been averted because we were prepared… Let us all sing songs of peace and thanks in our streets. If you can’t get home, buy a candle and go to
Central Park, to any park, and sing for peace and thanks there. I have every confidence this will be under control quickly. May God bless America.”

THE call for calm that the networks mostly kept replaying that night was Isabel’s, not the official candidates’ nor even President Joe Biden’s, his own beamed
from Air Force One, since he was mid-flight on his way back from a G20 meeting in Bonn when it happened.

Foster, who was until then poised as the clear winner would spend the next three weeks clambering back from his slapstick debacle.

Hank’s performance would largely absolve his involvement in the safety code violations causing the Railcar nightclub fire and more, turn him into a mildly heroic figure.

And Isabel? Once again, she demonstrated her calibre; that she stood high above the others, with the mettle and the stature—though not the legal status—to lead the nation.

DESPITE Isabel’s soothing message, by 10:30 PM Manhattan’s 1.7 million residents, and the million commuters still stuck there were sagging. Not even the news that
President Biden was diverting his flight to New York did much to lift spirits.

Around countless kitchen tables, hands were gratefully clasped. Bars and cafés were full, but hushed. Houses of worship across the nation, of all faiths, were open and overflowed. And
parks and streets and neighbourhoods were alive with voices and restrained singing.

Midnight drew closer. A glittering sea of candles being waved aloft flickered across the city. Hundreds of thousands of citizens spilled out of their apartment buildings and out of Central Park
and filled the grid, washing slowly down Broadway, Sixth Avenue, Park Avenue, as though sucked, toward the Twin Towers memorial. Police helicopters shone their spotlight beams over the crowds, not
in search but respect. Arms locked in arms.

Manhattan’s heart was beating back at the dark, refusing to die.

Behind all this, emergency services were tallying the damage and the casualties. Remarkably, despite the mass panic, and the hundreds of commuters who had been admitted to hospitals suffering
bruises, cuts, shock and, in numerous cases, fractured ribs or limbs, there had still been only four fatalities directly attributable to the panic, apart from the five Muslim men in Strawberry
Mansion and six seniors who suffered heart attacks after hearing the news.

One of the direct fatalities had been crushed to death at the 42nd Street subway station. The brave Maxine Powers.

HANK phoned Isabel, before the press got hold of it, to let her know that Karim Ahmed was one of the dead terrorists. He was surprised that she already knew, but he had bigger
things to worry about, so he rang off.

“Ahmed got his just desserts,” Ed continued, “for what he did to you alone.” But what caught Ed a little short was that for the first time, Isabel agreed with him about
Karim. No more defending him, nor dredging up spurious excuses for his behaviour.

Ed rubbed the stubble on his cheek, wondering what made her change her mind.

N
AKED, DIANA TWISTED around and preened in front of her mirror. Her get-up as a dishevelled Philly drunk in the gutter had been good, but this was
better. Squinting for one last careful inspection, she was satisfied every scrape of body paint was gone; it had been harder to remove than she’d expected. Her new sidekick, Daniel, had done
too good a job applying it in the hard-to-get-to places, but then he seemed to be enjoying it.

“Perfectly executed,” Isis had said. Like Jax had been, finally, though Diana didn’t want to remind herself about that. She crooked her freshly shaved and moisturised leg over
the lip of the bathtub and as she started to repaint her toenails, she mentally walked back through the operation:

Perfect. She brushed a dab of blue on her toenail. Diana had a good life… And now, Isis was trusting her to set up the “what if the unthinkable really does
happen?” scenario.

This secretive band was not the quitting kind and Diana savoured their next moves, in awe at Isis’s fastidious precautions. The terrorist attack on the subway, specifically designed to
fail in the last few seconds, was already working magnificently in stampeding the public to go back to voting “1” for security, and thus for Hank. But as Isis warned, stampedes can
peter out as quickly as they start, and they can shift direction. She dwelt for a moment on the girl who died, as she brushed the final coat of lacquer over her toenails. Every war has collateral
damage, she justified, and she slipped the nailbrush back into the bottle and screwed it tight.

Isis called. Diana had more crucial work to do and it was thousands of miles away.

T
HE NEXT DAY, President Biden’s helicopter Marine One hovered over the Twin Towers memorial where people had stayed in vigil all night. It
was a subdued crowd. After police cleared a space in the midst of the throng, the Sikorsky VH-3D Sea King dropped the President down to address them, and the nation.

Head bowed over heavy shoulders, President Biden waited till the clock struck noon before he stepped up to the microphone. He raised his head and cast his eyes in a wide curve across the crowd.
“Despite what they do, we’re still here,” he said to heartfelt but restrained applause. “We will
always
be here, no matter how hard they try.” The applause
grew. “Once again, a President comes to this city at a tough time. But this is a tough city… and we are a tough nation. We will never cower before terror, nor be defeated by it.”
The applause was tumultuous. “And last night we were not…”

He praised the city’s courage and preparedness, and thanked the emergency and security agencies in New York and Pennsylvania, and continued. “What we unearthed,” he said,
swallowing audibly, “was the unspeakable attempting the unthinkable,” and, his hand unsteady, he sent a shiver through the crowd even though they were already aware of the horror that
might have been.

What he didn’t say was that despite all the last few years’ efforts to upgrade security, including stationing federal and city employees at entrances to New York’s bridges,
tunnels, subways, airports, ports and major monuments, and equipping them with body scanners and radiation and explosive detection devices, these five dead terrorists were armed with none of the
nuclear, biological or chemical weapons the pricey high-tech equipment was designed to detect. The C-4 they used was a new sniffer-proof variety that had only been available to the military.

“The evil plan of these men,” continued the President, “was to wreak true mass destruction on this, the world’s greatest city, by using conventional weapons but in a most
unconventional way… And yet, what stopped them was conventional law enforcement.”

Hardly.

TOPPING off Hank’s brief but impressive performance that night, a susceptible public and media had finally started hailing him as a leader, and more amazingly, a hero. At
last, Hank could crow about something important, and over the next few days it staggered even Isabel to hear him so coherent and passionate—her moments of toe-curling embarrassment were no
more.

Hank’s time had come.

The good guys were back on track.

Within a week, with only two more to Election Day, Hank’s support was ratcheting up. Gregory had withdrawn his resignation on the night of the attack on the subway—“In the
national interest,” he claimed modestly—and was back in full flair directing the reinvigorated Hank & Perry Show. The tracking polls showed them bumping up to a more pleasing 48
percent. Bobby Foster had been dragged down, first as far as the 30s but he had started bouncing back and was now at 41. The “dish-drop drag” as Don Thomas had called it, was wearing
off.

The election outcome was going to be close—very close—so Gregory’s new campaign ads took on a vivid blush. He had his most aggressive fifteen-second spots playing six times a
night in peak time, five nights running, on every network. One started with a quiet female voice over a blank screen with just a nudge of children squabbling in the background:

Trial lawyers sure know how to side with a rapist or a murderer
…
but they never make the tough calls that could’ve protected the victims… us. America needs Hank
Clemens, a man we can trust… with the experience to make those decisions
…