Quake (14 page)

Nick Dykstra walked slowly through the carnage at Times Square. Exhaustion threatened to bring him to his knees, while thoughts of Lauren, alive and safe and in his arms, pushed him forward. There were too many obstacles in the square to continue on the bike, so he'd left it behind. Instead, he moved around the fallen like an automaton, trying like all hell to avoid gazing downward into the victims' frozen faces.

So much history here in Times Square, he thought. The area had served as the heart of New York City's theater district since the late nineteenth century. The square got its name from the twenty-five-story
New York Times
Tower not long after the turn of the century. Within a couple decades, the square was lit glowing neon. Billboards advertising new Broadway plays were soon joined by the
New York Times'
bright newswire. Then the sex shows began popping up, replacing the plays at many of the area's grand old theaters. From the 1930s all the way through the 1990s, Times Square had been considered an area in steep decline. Then Broadway came back to life. The city began rooting out places that advertised with the letters XXX, and those places were soon thereafter purchased or leased by the large corporations that epitomized the Western world.

Times Square represented everything Feroz Saeed Alivi hated about the United States of America.

And now, tragically, ironically, Times Square was no more. It had fallen much like the Twin Towers. Not brought down by the hands of men, but by the arbitrary hand of Mother Nature.

As Nick traipsed along Seventh Avenue, he looked left down Forty-second and saw the toppled forty-five-story Westin Hotel. At Forty-fourth, he looked right and tried to determine whether the Belasco Theater had been left standing. The structure was over a hundred years old.

MTV Studios was demolished by the quake. As was the J. P. Stevens Tower. The Celanese Building. The McGraw-Hill Building. All of them, reduced to rubble.

Nick wondered whether Lauren's favorite midtown eatery, Sardi's, was still standing. Whether its walls were still lined with the caricatures of Broadway stars such as Fred Astaire, Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, and Kermit the Frog.

Kermit
.

Nick wondered whether Jansing had survived the quake. More important, what had become of Kermit Jansing's client?

Because of the fallen buildings, Nick found himself turning slightly left onto Broadway. Past Forty-eighth Street. Past Forty-ninth. When he reached Fiftieth Street, he was forced to come to a complete halt.

The Deloitte building was leveled.

He looked left. West along Fiftieth Street had fared no better.

To his right, a jackknifed tractor trailer blocked any chance of heading east.

He couldn't turn back.

He wouldn't.

He needed to keep moving forward.

Less than halfway up the long city block between Fiftieth and Fifty-first on Broadway was a Metro station. It ran along the 1 line, which began all the way at the bottom of Manhattan at South Ferry and ran north with stops at Bowling Green, Rector Street, Chambers Street, Franklin Street, Canal Street, Houston Street, Christopher Street, Fourteenth Street, and Penn Station. It traveled below Times Square, the area Nick had just left, and then curved westerly beneath Broadway, to Fifty-ninth Street, Columbus Circle, where Mendoza was headed to find his wife.

The line then ran parallel to Central Park, past Lincoln Center, along the Upper West Side, past LaGuardia Airport, to 116th Street and beyond.

But Nick needed to go only as far as 116th Street. That was where he'd find Columbia University. That was where he'd find his daughter, Lauren.

He began edging along the fallen Deloitte building toward the Fiftieth Street station. He needed to go belowground again. This time he'd be heading under the city's surface alone, without Frank Mendoza and his Glock.

He thought of their earlier venture into the subway system. The rats. The stench. The fallen pipes and beams of steel. The third rail.

He thought of the trapped train. Of the homeless man he was sure was dead—until the man opened his wild yellowed eyes and grasped his leg, causing him to tumble to the floor. He thought of the vagrant's knife, his reflexive kick to the man's face, and of course, Frank Mendoza's timely rescue.

Nick reached the entrance and hesitated, resting his hand on the green railing. He took several deep breaths, flashing on the fires alighting Chinatown, the falling Flatiron Building, the utter lifelessness of Times Square.

Then he thought of Lauren.

Of the days and weeks and months after she lost her mother.

He thought of her being alone in the world until he couldn't stand the thought any longer.

Silently, he moved around the rail and stepped forward, downward, once again into the darkness.

A dead man lay at the bottom of the concrete steps in the Fiftieth Street station. A dead police officer. An African-American man dressed in full NYPD blue.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nick Dykstra knelt next to the body and ran his hands down the dead man's shirt front and short sleeves. He felt the officer's badge, his embroideries. He reached down to the man's waist and was relieved at the feel of the thick leather belt all officers wore. Attached to that belt was a large flashlight. Nick removed the flashlight and twisted it on. Felt a heavy wave of relief as the light temporarily blinded him.

Quickly, he aimed the light on the officer's face. The dead man had been young, in his mid to late twenties at most. A deep indentation at the man's hairline seemed to indicate blunt force trauma, and when Nick shone the light in the surrounding area he immediately discovered the culprit: a football-sized chunk of concrete lying bloodied a few feet from the officer's head.

Nick heard a noise emanate from deep inside the subway tunnel and swiftly spun the flashlight around but spotted nothing. He then shined the light on the ceiling above him, hoping to find the spot the chunk of concrete had fallen from. But nothing. It could have come from anywhere. Meaning it may not have fallen and struck the officer at all. It looked heavy yet small enough to carry singlehandedly. It was possible some crazed vagrant or junkie had come up on the officer from behind, and struck him dead with the chunk of concrete.

If so, whoever that was might be still be around.

Nick aimed the beam of light on the dead man's belt again. His service weapon remained in his holster. Nick quickly reached for the holster and popped it open, then slowly removed the gun. A SIG nine millimeter. Nick was familiar with guns because of his job as a federal prosecutor. But his knowledge was entirely academic. He'd never shot one. Had never had the desire to shoot at anyone or anything.

Except maybe at Feroz Saeed Alivi when the bastard threatened my daughter.

Nick released the clip, checked that it was full. Made sure there was a live round in the chamber before double-checking that the safety was on.

He thought about snatching the cop's holster, but it looked like too much trouble and he needed to move on. He stuffed the gun into his waistband at the small of his back and stood up, shining the light one last time on the dead officer's face.

So young
.
Almost as young as Lauren
.

He shined the light on the officer's badge and made a mental note of the badge number. This young man was someone's son. If Nick made it through this alive, he'd have information on at least one of the dead. One of New York's Finest.

Nick turned and crossed the subway platform, thinking about the days following September 11, 2001, when there were posters and pictures hanging on every telephone pole and lamppost, in every shop window, on every bar and restaurant door.

The
missing
.

The word itself implied such hope. And in the early days it was possible to find a loved one who could have otherwise been lost in the attack. Hospitals were filled with nameless faces, people who had survived in and around the World Trade Center. Many were in drug-induced comas and couldn't speak. Others suffered amnesia. Some had loved ones they simply couldn't get in touch with for days because of fallen cell towers. Still some seized the opportunity to vanish intentionally.

As he lowered himself from the subway platform onto the rails, Nick remembered the cold process of identifying bodies pulled from the rubble. He wasn't a religious man and couldn't quite understand why it was so important to some that their loved ones' bodies be found. Yet he, too, stood at the fences overlooking Ground Zero. He, too, sat by the phone, waiting for the call to learn that his wife, Sara Baines-Dykstra, had been found and identified.

She never was.

She never would be.

It had upset Lauren, of course. She didn't talk about it any longer, but Nick could sense what she was thinking when she'd suddenly fall quiet during a news report on funerals and memorial services for the fallen.

Nick heard the clicking of tiny feet on the rails and shined his light downward. Watched as a pack of rats scattered and scurried into holes he couldn't see.

He stopped.

Listened.

In the distance he heard the same sound he made as he crunched gravel under his feet. The sound—the
footfalls
—were coming from the direction in which he was headed.

Instinctively, he shut off the flashlight, switched it to his left hand, and removed the SIG from his rear waistband with his right.

He kept the muzzle pointed downward, but bent his elbow, ready to aim at whoever was moving toward him.

It was difficult for him to judge distance by the sound, but whoever it was couldn't have been more than fifty yards away now.

Had he seen the light?

Nick stood stock-still but clicked the safety off.

As soon as he did the footfalls stopped.

All Nick could hear now was the sound of his own breathing.

Then suddenly the sound of feet on gravel filled the stale air again.

And this time they were coming at him in a run.

It took two hours for Feroz Saeed Alivi to run, crawl, walk, and jump his way to the bank of the Hudson River, a taxing journey of less than a mile. The first thing impressed upon him had been the sheer devastation of the quake. Even in darkness—real darkness, not the usual nightscape of city lights—the degree to which the metropolis had been destroyed was apparent. Those buildings still standing showed significant signs of wear, and most of them were dark. It was especially surreal for Alivi, whose recent time in New York until today had been limited to the sterile corridors of various detention centers lit by 24/7 fluorescent lights.

He felt like a phoenix rising from the ashes to be born anew. Looking out over the water from the cover of a fallen tree in a riverfront park, he surveyed his surroundings. The Hudson. It was a hugely substantial river that Alivi judged to be three-quarters of a mile across. He knew that to his left, it led to the Atlantic, which in turn led to Europe, which was connected directly to the Holy Land. This river, ugly and brown as it was, represented nothing less than freedom. And to the right . . . he knew only that it led deep into the homeland of the infidels.

He focused on the details of what he could see from his present location. The far side of the bank was too far away to make out significant features in the dark. On his side of the bank from where he squatted in the grassy park, he could see a small marina to his left, possibly deserted but he did notice a few dim lights aboard some of the boats. There was a ferry terminal to his right with the highest concentration of human activity he'd seen since his escape from the courthouse. The ferries were full of people, although none of the boats seemed to be moving or even preparing to depart. It looked as though they were being used as stationary shelters, probably for the newly homeless. They were some of the largest structures still standing.

The wind was blowing from upriver and Alivi caught the smell of food from the ferryboats. The scent exacerbated his hunger and he briefly entertained the idea of boarding a ferry to mingle with the disaster refugees in order to procure a meal, but of course it wasn't worth the risk. His discipline easily overcame the urge and he stayed put, contenting himself with scooping water from the river and splashing it into his mouth. Like a prey animal on the bank of a watering hole, Alivi scanned the urban waterway while he drank for anything that might pose a threat. But also like a predator, he watched for what he might be able to use to his advantage.

After he drank, Alivi retreated to his tree and observed the river. He was about to make his way to the small marina in order to better evaluate his chances of stealing a boat when a light on the water caught his eye. Not on the bank of the river, he determined, but actually out on the water. A boat. Small boat, but not very small like a dinghy; listening carefully, he could hear its motor rumbling in the distance. It wasn't the first watercraft passing by he'd seen. The river was an excellent transportation corridor and those fortunate enough to have access to a vessel were making use of it, even at this late hour.

But it was the light from this craft that really made it stand out. In contrast to the standard navigation lights common to all vessels, this one was very large, and very bright. Flashing. At first he feared it was the searchlight from a law enforcement craft looking for him. He withdrew deeper into the ground beneath his tree, pulling some leafy branches over his prostrate form that he'd carefully culled for this very purpose. But as he continued to watch, he could tell that this was no searchlight. He shrugged aside his foliage cover and stood up beneath the tree to get a better look.

The boat traveled toward the Atlantic. On its deck was mounted what Alivi recognized as a signal light, and he ballooned with hope.

A device not in widespread use since the 1930s, a nautical signal light was essentially a spotlight on a stand fitted with shutters that could be opened and closed to produce visual Morse code. Long having been interested in nondigital means of communication, Alivi had experimented with using many types of historic communication modes. He'd utilized Morse before. Even semaphore flags, smoke signals, human and animal messengers. Anything that was not electronic and therefore difficult or impossible to trace, record, and decipher. As he stared across the river at the blinking light, he concentrated on the number and length of flashes. It was definitely Morse, he decided. As soon as he identified repetition, Alivi uttered each letter aloud:

H
. . .
O . . . U . . . R . . . I

Praise Allah, peace be with Him!

Although Morse code was rooted in the English language, Alivi had long used it to communicate phonetically in Arabic. The word houri in the Arabic language, which Alivi knew in true form as
, referred to an alluring woman from the Koranic paradise.

Houri! I must go to you.

His people were aboard that vessel.

It was a brazen act, exposing themselves in this way. A lot of people knew Morse code, particularly those in search and rescue or special operations roles. But then again, Alivi reflected, smiling at the passing boat, even if someone was interpreting it, the letters would mean nothing to them. He made a mental note to find out who was responsible for this ingenious decision and reward them well.

But then Alivi panicked momentarily as he wondered how he would reach the boat. It was much too far out to get to by swimming and he had no idea where it was headed. And then he remembered what he had in his pocket. He took out the flashlight courtesy of his dead attorney and switched it on. He pointed it at the boat and then transmitted code of his own, using his hand like the shutters on the nautical signal lamp to pass over the light's lens.

H . . . U . . . R . . . R.

Again, this was a phonetic Arabic word that would make no sense to anyone trying to interpret the message. But those aboard the vessel would understand it perfectly.

Free
.

In response, the boat's signal light went dark, but its course changed abruptly.