Quake (26 page)

“Congratulations, counselor. You have found your daughter. I knew that if you had survived our little gift from Allah that you would come to her. And to me.”

Nick followed the sound of the male voice to the left, through the stack cave passage he had missed. There, about thirty feet away in the shadows, was terror mastermind Feroz Saeed Alivi. He sat calmly inside an individual study cubby designed to ensconce a single person for private work, a lifelong student of terror cramming for the ultimate final exam.

“What do you want, Alivi?”

The jihad leader stared at him across the gulf, not only one of space but also of experiences, of philosophy.

“I would like to hear you say that the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, and by extension the leaders and people of the United States of America, were wrong for persecuting me.”

Nick almost laughed in spite of the situation. “You're looking for an
apology
?”

“‘Apology' is perhaps too simple a word, but that will do to start.”

Nick's initial reaction was to tell the man to shove it, but of course he was holding the strings, here, literally, tied to a grenade next to his daughter's head.

Nick parroted the statement in a dry, rapid monotone devoid of emotion: “The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, and by extension the leaders and people of the United States of America, were wrong for persecuting you.”

“You must say it by stating your name and position at the beginning of your statement, and by using my full name, as well. Try again.”

Nick was quickly losing patience but forced himself to comply for Lauren's sake.
Here we go again. Take two:
“I, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nick Dykstra, maintain that the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, and by extension the leaders and people of the United States of America, were wrong for persecuting Feroz Saeed Alivi.” It surprised him how vile it felt to utter those words, even knowing it was to save his daughter.

“Thank you, counselor. Now we will do it again, but this time I will be making a video recording as you speak.”

Alivi produced the smartphone he'd taken from the entrapped woman at the courthouse and pointed its lens at Nick while he emerged from the cubby to walk closer toward him. Nick noticed he had an automatic rifle slung over one shoulder, a pistol in a holster on his waist, and a large knife on the other side of his waist in a sheath. Alivi shined a flashlight at Nick and asked him to lift his shirt.

If I still had my gun I'd have already tried to shoot you with it
, he thought. But he merely complied. Now was not the time to anger this unpredictable man.

“Turn around.”

Nick slowly spun in a circle so Alivi could see that he did not harbor a concealed weapon.

“Pockets inside out.”

Nick revealed his empty pockets.

“Very well. Let us continue with our production, shall we?”

Nick said nothing. Alivi continued to shine his flashlight on Nick while aiming the smartphone's camera lens with his other. “And this time, counselor, you will say it convincingly. Do you understand? The more sarcasm I detect, the more I pull on this little string.” Alivi gently lifted the monofilament that was tied to the belt loop of the dead U.S. marshal's pants he wore.

“Understood. Let's do it.”

Nick wanted to get the sham of a production over with, but he knew all too well that Alivi did not intend to let him live.

“Alivi.”

“What is it?”

“Before we begin, I want to make you an offer.”

“Tell me. What can you offer me?”

“I'll make your statement, with conviction, and then I'll let you kill me. But in return, my daughter lives. She's not part of any of this.”

Alivi smiled his crocodile grin. “Why, counselor, did I not explain that in return for your public service announcement, both you and your lovely daughter will be free to go?”

Nick only returned his stare.

“Are we ready, then?” Alivi prompted.

Nick hadn't yet figured out what he was going to do, what he could do, when the video was over and the moment came when Alivi would either shoot him, or pull the pin on that grenade. He'd probably pull the pin first....

The thought was too gut-wrenching and he momentarily lost his composure, doubling over and dry-heaving.

“Counselor? You aren't too ill to continue, are you?”

Nick stood up. “No. I'm ready.”

“Then let's begin. You know your lines?”

Obviously, Alivi was under no illusion that Nick believed any of the horseshit he was making him say.

“Yes.”

“Then let's begin in three . . . two . . . one . . . Allah willing.”

Nick ran through the statement again, this time with a bogus enthusiasm that he did his best not to make sound too disingenuous. He thought his acting was on the mark, however, because not only did Alivi clap for him when he was done, but again he was taken aback at how disgusting it felt to say the words with such fervor, in spite of the fact it was to save Lauren's life. Or at least prolong it. He couldn't yet see how the “saving” part was going to come into play.

“Can I go now?”

“No, counselor. I would like for you to wait with me.”

“Wait with you for what?”

“For the dawn.” He glanced down at the smartphone, rather than up at the sky. “It won't be long now.”

Nick suppressed a shiver. This was starting to feel like an execution in the making.
The prisoners will be hung at sunup.
Would he do it in front of Lauren—make her watch?

“What happens at dawn?”

Alivi laughed, a bright, clipped barking sound that reminded Nick of a small dog.

“Why, the sun comes up, of course, infidel! Did you not realize this?”

If pressed, Nick could have summoned no words sufficient to express how badly he wanted to kill this man. But he seemed to crave some sort of discourse—he could have killed him already if he so desired—so rather than shut himself off completely, thereby angering his captor and jeopardizing Lauren, he engaged him in conversation.

“You do realize that when I was prosecuting you, I was just doing my job, right? I'm not prosecuting you for your religious beliefs or because of what country you're from or because you wear weird shit on your head and don't allow your women to drive. I'm not prosecuting you for the fact that you come from a nation whose leaders were blessed with the most spectacular natural endowment this planet has ever seen—I'm talking about oil—that made them obscenely wealthy, giving rise to the perversions of lifestyle you've grown accustomed to. I'm prosecuting you for what you
did
. For the mass killing of innocent Americans
.
The same way I would prosecute anyone who was accused of the same federal crime, be they from Iraq or Egypt or England or America or Japan or planet Jupiter. And if the court couldn't get me to do that job, they would get some other attorney to do it, and they'd be lining up down the block for the opportunity. So you shouldn't be targeting me.”

Nick felt like he had just delivered the opening statement in defense of his life—and that of his daughter's. His role with respect to Alivi had done a total 180. He didn't know whether it was good or bad that Alivi had concentrated on capturing his speech on video. What would he do with it? Nick didn't really care, as long as Lauren would be okay.

“You are a part of the system of oppression, infidel.”

“Why do you call me infidel?”

“All Americans are infidels. Without faith. Ones who do not strive in the path of God.”

“That's preposterous. That would be like me saying all people from your country are terrorists. But they're not. There are plenty of good, moral people born and raised in the Middle East who do not feel the need to kill for their religious convictions. Islam is mostly practiced by peaceful people who seek only to better understand their world and their place in it. You are the exception.”

“Only the few are blessed by Allah with the power to enlighten.”

Nick wanted to shout how that was hogwash, that somewhere along the rough and tumble course of his life Alivi had been brainwashed. Nick had seen the videos of young children being indoctrinated by Al Qaeda “schools,” and would have bet a year's salary (before this earthquake when money might still have meant something to him) that Alivi had been one of those students. He certainly helped to produce them nowadays. But he had to temper his hatred, and even his desire to truly make Alivi understand, for angering the deranged fanatic was not an option. He shifted tack.

“You never answered my original question—what happens at dawn?”

“At dawn the rescue crews will begin to search. I will be calling them, as well as the media.” He waved his phone before continuing. “When they find us, I will demand a television interview—live on the scene, as they say in America—during which you will repeat the statement you just made, in addition to others that we will rehearse between now and then.”

“So you're going to let everyone see that you're holding me and my daughter hostage with a grenade?” The thought of his daughter being blown to pieces on national television . . . he couldn't even process it.

“I'm going to let them know of a much worse fate than that,” Alivi said smugly. “You see, the seat of your infidel power—Manhattan—is about to be rendered permanently unlivable.”

“Hasn't that already happened?” Nick said, waving an arm (but not too violently lest it be mistaken for a combative move) at the earthquake's results.

Alivi barked his weird canine laugh again. “No, no, no, infidel! This is only the beginning. What I am talking about has to do with the most unnatural source of energy—the splitting of atoms—used to power the Western Way.”

“The nuclear plant?”

Alivi nodded slowly. “Any moment now it will experience a catastrophic meltdown of the highest order.”

Nick didn't know whether he was bluffing, but he did know that even without the threat of terrorist intervention, the earthquakes alone were bad enough news for the nearby nuclear plant.

“And you think the oil from the Mideast is so natural? The refining process doesn't look so natural to me. The shipping process doesn't look natural.”

“It is Allah's bounty to reward His people for an obedient life. . . .”

And so the conversation went, a circular waste of time as far as Nick was concerned. But it did serve one purpose. Every minute that elapsed was another minute Lauren was still alive.

As he watched the sky begin to lighten in the east, he began to question how many more of those minutes he and Lauren had left.

For a split second Mendoza thought that he had missed the shot with his final round. The terrorist was still in motion toward the grenade that he had dropped after being nailed by Mendoza's first triggered round. But it was the look of horror on the man's face, not any outward indication that he had been shot, that told Mendoza he had found his mark. There was no blood spatter. No scream of surprised anguish, no dramatic death throes. Only an unforgettable expression on the wayward soldier's face—a look that said he'd been pushed by Mendoza's second bullet just out of reach of the live grenade, and one that would haunt Mendoza's darkest thoughts for a long time to come.

The fallen terrorist tried one more sweep with his fingers to push that grenade away from him and over the edge of the spent fuel pool, where no doubt it would cause enough damage to shatter what little structural integrity it still retained following the day's seismic events.

But as Mendoza watched, breath held, he saw the tip of the Islamic extremist's fingers miss the grenade's knobby surface by scant millimeters. Then, with his arms locked in an awkward position, legs interlocked, the man could do nothing more than close his eyes as the explosive detonated inches in front of his flabbergasted face.

A projectile spray of blood and gore was airborne instantly.

Mendoza watched in disbelief as the hellish precipitation rained down over the spent fuel pool, a pinkish mist falling like snowflakes, the heavier chunks of flesh and bone plummeting into the water like hail.

Out of the overabundance of caution that his job called for, Mendoza carefully observed the blasted terrorist for a full minute before moving to him to confirm what he already knew. Mendoza turned away from the gruesome, incomplete cadaver in disgust. Sheets of blood ran over the concrete edge and into the pool, making it look from below like a fancy indoor waterfall with red mood lighting.

Then he heard his dropped radio erupt with excited chatter on the other side of the concrete expanse. He ran back to it and picked it up.

“. . . no damage, showing no damage to the fuel pool so far!”

Mendoza broke into his transmission. “He's dead. There won't be any more damage.”

He was pretty sure he could hear them down there on the operations deck even without the radio, hollering and whooping it up, right through their suits.

 

 

Jasper squinted into the early morning light as he walked out of the power plant. He couldn't believe that he'd been in there for almost a full twenty-four hours. Sam was right behind him, while Mendoza and his convoy team brought up the rear.

They had successfully used the fire ladder to get Jasper and Sam out of the plant, and on Sam's recommendation, they left it behind as potentially contaminated equipment, which was fine with them. After what they had all been through, no one felt like lifting a finger at this point, much less a fifty-foot ladder.

Once the group had reached the parked water tankers, Mendoza and the firefighter began transmitting radio status reports: disaster averted at Indian Point! Security should be maintained. Reinforcements needed. More nuclear technicians and operators needed to assess next steps for the plant.

A National guardsman replied that they were now operational enough to send a unit to the nuclear plant.

With that piece of business done, it hit home for the group that they had done it. Their efforts had saved Indian Point—and the entire surrounding region including New York City—from a horrendous, irreversible catastrophe. The men bear-hugged one another while giving rounds of congratulations.

In the midst of this, Sam walked up to Jasper. The two of them still wore their full hazmat suits. Sam undid the fastenings on his headgear and slowly pulled it over his scalp, letting it drop to the ground. Jasper did the same, and the two men stared at one another unencumbered by the headgear for the first time since their ordeal began.

Jasper was surprised to see that Sam's wavy brown hair—now matted with layers of sweat—was much longer than he remembered it. His brown eyes were bloodshot; his skin a shade paler than usual. Without his radiation suit's mask he seemed to Jasper less of the nuclear wunderkind he had depended on for his life in there, and much more like a man—a very mortal man who had just done his very best and come out lucky on the other side.

Sam smiled wryly as he appraised Jasper in a similar way. The two had gotten through yet another workday.

“Almost Friday,” Jasper said.

Sam laughed as they heard sirens from the National Guard grow louder in the distance.

Frank Mendoza also turned toward the sound of the approaching cavalry. For him it represented some closure, although unknowns still remained. He wondered if Jana's hospital had received the supplies she'd worked so hard to get to them. And he thought about Nick Dykstra. Somehow the celebratory mood was dampened for him without yet knowing his fate.

Had he found his daughter yet, and if so, was she okay?