Quake (5 page)

Nick Dykstra and Francisco Mendoza walked down the cracked concrete steps of the federal courthouse and turned north toward Centre Street. As they did, Nick glanced over his shoulder. To the south was Park Row, home of the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC), the federal detention facility housing pretrial and holdover inmates. Some of Nick's most recent convictions were still there, awaiting transfer to a medium-security federal correctional institution like Otisville in upstate New York (if they were lucky), or to a high-security U.S. penitentiary such as Lewisburg in Pennsylvania (if they were not).

He wondered how the MCC had held up during the quake. The Federal Bureau of Prisons could anticipate any number of scenarios, but a magnitude six or seven earthquake striking New York City was something only Hollywood could have imagined.

Mendoza looked back, too. “You thinking what I'm thinking?”

Nick nodded. The MCC served as a temporary home to over 800 inmates awaiting trial or transfer. Murderers, rapists, Mafia bosses, drug kingpins, weapons traffickers—and terrorists. Feroz Saeed Alivi was currently housed there, as was Sulaiman Abu Gaith, the son-in-law of Osama bin Laden, and Abu Hamza al-Masri, aka Mostafa Kamel Mostafa, the Egyptian cleric who masterminded the 1998 kidnapping of westerners in Yemen and established a bona fide terrorist training camp in Oregon in 1999.

“On the bright side,” Mendoza said, “the earthquake may have saved the federal government millions in trial costs and prison expenditures.”

Nick said nothing. His thoughts had already turned from the vicious criminals currently behind bars in New York City to the hundreds of thousands who were running loose. Images of the LA riots popped into his mind. Looting and mass hysteria might have already begun in some parts of the city, for all he knew. He thought of Lauren and stepped up his pace.

To his right, the pentagonal structure of 60 Centre Street had collapsed completely. From Nick's vantage point, nothing resembling the state courthouse could be seen. Meanwhile, across the street, the building housing the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit had fallen over, blocking their path to Foley Square.

Mendoza stopped, and said, “How do you plan on getting past that, counselor?”

Nick studied the rubble, searching out handholds and footholds. He opened his mouth to speak but found he had no voice left. He was parched, his mouth filled with dust, his throat on fire. He could barely breathe.

If only he could see more than a few feet in front of him, Nick thought maybe they could backtrack down Pearl Street and cut across Cardinal Hayes Place. That would put them on the other side of the court of the appeals, from where they could either reach Centre Street or search for the Chambers Street subway station.

Nick turned and began his retreat, directing Mendoza with his hands. “This way,” he muttered but he couldn't know if Mendoza heard him.

Nick considered what moving in this direction meant. They'd have to cross directly in front of the Metropolitan Correctional Center. But they had no choice. Whatever the risk, whatever the cost, he needed to reach Lauren.

As they neared Cardinal Hayes Place, Nick could faintly hear shouting. Only then, as he listened, did he realize there was a ringing in his ears. Whether it was from the fire alarms that went off in the courthouse

They had gone off, hadn't they?

or the constant wailing sirens emanating from all around him now, he didn't know. He stretched his jaw in a yawn and tried to clear his ears but the ringing continued.

The voices beneath the ringing grew louder—and angrier—and Nick steeled himself for a confrontation. He felt some small comfort that Mendoza was right on his heels, but as the blurred scene became clearer he could see at least a half dozen bright orange figures standing in a semicircle at the mouth of Cardinal Hayes Place.

Nick flashed on one of the first cases he worked on at the U.S. attorney's office. It was thirteen defendants imprisoned and awaiting trial for plotting to bomb the United Nations, Hudson River tunnels, and other New York City landmarks. At the head of the list of co-conspirators was Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric, whose prosecution grew out of the investigation into the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Behind bars at the MCC, one of the sheik's co-defendants had the audacity to complain about the wait for a pair of prescription reading glasses to replace the ones he lost during his arrest by the FBI. Another complained that he had to work five hours a day swabbing floors or face twenty-three hours a day in solitary confinement. But the most surreal complaint came from a defendant named Ibrahim, who during an interview with a
New York Times
reporter, said that he despised the orange color of his jumpsuit.

Again Nick thought of Feroz Saeed Alivi, wondered whether the madman was dead or alive, and had to tamp down the fury rising uninvited in his chest.

The half circle of inmates tightened around what looked like a large metal box, and soon Nick was able to make out a seventh figure, a skinny man with dark skin and a white T-shirt saturated with blood.

“Please,” the man cried, “just leave me the hell alone.”

One of the inmates stepped forward. “Hand over that fucking cart, Apu, and you can go wherever the hell you please. But if you think you're leaving with our food and drinks, then you're just another dead man standing outside the MCC.”

“Please,” the man cried again in what sounded like an Indian accent, “I will give you a drink—
one
, that is all I can spare. Then you must let me go. I don't want any trouble.”

“Look around, motherfucker. Ain't nothing but trouble still standing down here. Ain't no gods, ain't no guards. And there sure as hell ain't no law.”

Nick squinted through the dense fog of dust and saw the Sabrett hot dog logo centered on the metal cart. Mendoza's voice suddenly emanated loudly and clearly from behind him.

“Better be sure of that,” Mendoza said, stepping forward.

The half circle of inmates loosened and Nick looked over at Mendoza and spotted the Glock 22 at the end of his right arm.

Bad idea
, Nick thought. There were at least six of them. They could rush Mendoza and get the gun. Sure, he might take out two or even three, but ultimately these guys would be able to wrestle the weapon away from him.

Nick moved to a spot between Mendoza and the inmates and placed his arms in front of his chest, palms out.

“No need for this,” he said, eyeing each of the inmates, hoping not to recognize any as defendants he recently prosecuted. “Do you hear those sirens, gentlemen? They're coming closer. The police will be down here to restore order within ten minutes. Right now, you have your freedom. If you want a chance at keeping it, I recommend you follow Park Row east until you hit Kimlau Square. Once you're there, continue walking down East Broadway until you get to the Manhattan Bridge. Turn right onto the bridge, cross the FDR and the East River, and you're in Brooklyn. Find yourselves a change of clothes and vanish. It's your only chance.”

“Who are you?” one of the inmates said as he inched closer. “Why do you want to help us escape?”

“I don't,” Nick said. “I just want to get uptown and find my daughter. And watching you six get yourselves shot and killed over some dirty water dogs and an iced tea isn't going to get me there any faster.”

The aluminum can of Nestlé iced tea was empty but Nick kept it upturned and to his lips to ensure he got every last drop. Then he dropped the can on the ground and flattened it under his foot.

He turned to Mendoza, who had just polished off a can of Sprite. “Ready, Frank?”

“As ready as I'll ever be, I suppose.”

The Sabrett hot dog vendor had given each of them a beverage in gratitude, but he'd had no food that wasn't covered in the thick dust that hung everywhere around them. Nick felt a grumble in his stomach but ignored it. The sun was hanging high in the sky and there was no breeze, but the dense brown fog kept them from feeling the worst of the heat as they crossed the plaza toward Chambers Street station.

As they skirted the edge of the municipal building on Centre Street, Nick realized he no longer heard the sirens. The sirens had been replaced by an eerie silence and he was almost thankful for the incessant ringing in his ears. He couldn't help but wonder what the silence meant. Whether the ambulances and fire and police vehicles had headed uptown or simply given up for the time being trying get through to lower Manhattan.

When they reached Centre Street, they stopped and watched thick black smoke billowing into the sky just a few blocks away.

“That's coming from City Hall,” Nick said.

A few minutes later, they stood directly in front of the municipal building, which had stood up fairly well to the tremors. The same couldn't be said for Chambers Street. Chambers Street was ripped apart as far as the eye could see. Bodies lay scattered, vehicles crushed under rubble.

In the distance Nick could see a pair of people scrambling along the edge of the crevasse in the direction of Church Street. He turned toward the entrance to the Chambers Street subway station and took a few steps toward it before turning around.

Mendoza stood frozen, gazing at the stairwell leading underground. “I'm not so sure this is a good idea,” he said.

“We have no choice, Frank. I'd like nothing more than to take a nice, leisurely stroll north along the Hudson River all the way uptown. But look around. Every street is blocked by fallen buildings.”

When Mendoza spoke again there was a sharp edge to his voice. “And what do you expect us to find down there, counselor? For all we know the subway system is flooded. Below us there may be trains cracked up and on fire. If another quake hits, the street may cave in and bury us alive.”

“If you don't want to come with me,” Nick said, “I understand. But this is a chance I have to take.” He pointed into the darkness. “If this tunnel's clear, we can take it all the way to West 59th to St. Luke's-Roosevelt. You can find your wife and I can continue all the way to 116th Street to find my daughter. Quickest way from point A to point B is a straight line. That's pretty much what's waiting for us down there.”

“That may not be all that's waiting for us down there,” Mendoza said. “Roaches? Rats? Crazy people looking to a take a brick to someone's skull? A gas leak waiting to ignite and turn the tunnel into an inferno.”

Mendoza's last words caught in Nick's mind like a pushpin. But it wasn't a gas leak that suddenly terrified him. The Indian Point Energy Center, a nuclear power plant station, stood on the east bank of the Hudson River, just thirty-eight miles north of New York City. In the decades since it opened, particularly in the years since 9/11, there had been much highly publicized debate over whether to allow the plant to remain open. On the one hand, the positive economic impact the plant had on counties like Westchester, Orange, Rockland, Putnam, and Dutchess, were undeniable. Closing the plant would cost thousands of jobs, cost New York State hundreds of millions of dollars.

On the other hand were the safety concerns. The Indian Point plant had experienced a number of accidents and mishaps since its inception. The plant was once on the federal list of the nation's worst nuclear power plants. In 2000, a small radioactive leak from a steam tube closed Indian Point for eleven months. New York's version of the Environmental Protection Agency had repeatedly declared that Indian Point's spent fuel pools were exposed and unsecured and vulnerable to a terrorist attack. And given New York's varied seismic past, the plant's susceptibility to earthquakes was studied. The company that owned the plant stated that Indian Point was built to withstand a magnitude 6.1 quake. But the tragedy resulting from Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant was still fresh in everyone's memory.

Right now Nick recalled it as vividly as if it were playing out on a television directly in front of him.

“Whoever or whatever is down there,” Nick finally said, “those are bridges I'll have to cross when I get to them.”

“You're not going to do your daughter a whole hell of a lot of good if you're dead, counselor.”

“I'm not doing anyone much good standing around here waiting for something to happen either. Look, this isn't something I'm going to be talked out of. With or without you, Frank, I'm heading into the tunnels.”

Mendoza shook his head even as a smile cracked his lips. “You goddamn lawyers,” he said. Mendoza stepped past Nick and started slowly down the steps into the station. From the pitch blackness, he called out, “Well, counselor? What the hell are you waiting for?”

Nick took a long, deep breath of dust-ridden air, and then tried to hack it out of his lungs, just as he had as he finally moved away from the World Trade Center twelve years ago.

Finally, he stood up straight, took one last look around at the destruction aboveground, and took his first step down, into the darkness.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nick Dykstra and Special Agent Francisco Mendoza of the FBI completely lost track of time during their trek north through the subway tunnel from Chambers Street to Canal. At the point where the J line merged with the R, they could finally see a train stopped cold dead ahead. Nick figured they'd walked no more than half a mile, but it was a half mile along an underground train track littered with fallen pipes and beams of steel, lousy with rats and other vermin. And though neither man knew the intricacies of the New York City subway system, both men had decided to stay well clear of the third rail.

The train up ahead was dark and, as they came closer, Nick could see that its cars were at an odd angle, indicating that the train had gone off the rails. Despite the searing pain in Nick's left leg, he hurried his step and heard Mendoza's footfalls quicken behind him.

“Looks like it just barely made it into Canal Street station,” Nick said. “At least the first half of the train did.”

Nick garnered some momentum and leapt onto the backside of the last car, grabbing hold of the thick chain to pull himself up. Painfully, he lifted his left leg over the chain, followed by his right. Cupping his fingers around his eyes, he put his face to the rear Plexiglas window and peered inside.

There was what looked like the body of an elderly homeless man lying lengthwise across the floor, his head propped up against a subway pole in the center of the car. Nick immediately went to work on the door and it unlatched and glided open surprisingly easily. As soon as the door slid open, an awful stench smacked Nick squarely in the face. But it wasn't the stench of the dead; it was the peculiarly pungent odor of a vagrant who hadn't gained access to a shower in months.

The dead don't smell yet
, he thought.
It's only been a few hours at most.

He instinctively glanced at his watch but it was useless. Even if it weren't too dark to read the watch, the old Rolex he'd inherited from his father six years ago wouldn't have done him any good. At some point during the quake, the protective glass had cracked, dust had gotten inside, and the large and small hands were forever frozen in place.

Breathing through his mouth, Nick stepped into the car. He walked slowly, balancing himself with the overhead bar on the right so as not to slide to the left, giving into gravity and the train's odd angle. As he stepped past the old man, he looked down for signs of life, but the man's chest didn't appear to be moving and there was no sound emanating from the vagrant's nose and mouth, not so much as a quiet snore.

Once he cleared the body, he focused on the car ahead. The train wouldn't have been crowded at the time the first tremor struck, but if the cars were relatively empty, Nick was sure there would be survivors. And if there
were
survivors—

Something suddenly gripped Nick's left ankle and he yelped in pain as it twisted and he lost his balance and fell to the floor. Startled, he looked back and stared into the vagrant's wild bloodshot eyes as the man attempted to drag himself forward, using Nick's left leg as a rope.

“Gonna kill you for this, mothafucka,” the old man muttered as he tucked one hand into his filthy overcoat and withdrew a blade.

Nick didn't hesitate. He kicked out with his right foot and connected with the man's face. The knife clattered as it struck the floor. The grip on Nick's left leg loosened and the vagrant suddenly seemed to be vanishing backwards into the darkness like the victim in a supernatural horror movie. The old man screamed as he was swept backwards by an unseen force.

“You all right, counselor?”

Mendoza's voice emanated from the blackness and then his face appeared in shadow.

“I'm fine, thanks,” Nick said, scrambling to his feet.

“Good.” Mendoza stepped past him toward the next car. “Let's get the hell off this train as quickly as possible.”

They walked forward purposefully, pausing only to slide each door open so that they could exit one car and enter the next.

Finally, roughly midway through the train, they saw a glimmer of light.

“That's got to be the station,” Mendoza said.

As soon as they could read the words
CANAL STREET
on one of the pillars, Mendoza turned toward a set of doors, placed his fingers between them and spread the doors apart using both arms.

Nick wiped the sweat dripping from beneath the necktie tied around his head and took the short leap from the toppled subway car to the platform. Mendoza followed.

Once they were clear of the car, Nick saw that the train had been stopped in its tracks by fallen debris. The front car was smashed in and it seemed clear that the conductor had attempted an emergency stop just a fraction of a second too late. But the lack of bodies was telling: The people aboard this train had ultimately escaped.

The subway platform was fairly clear of debris, but there were abandoned handbags and briefcases scattered from the train all the way past the turnstiles, even on the steps leading up to the surface. Nick and Mendoza stepped over and around the dropped items and headed up the stairs toward the light.

On the way up the steps Nick sniffed the air; it smelled sulfuric, like a box of burned matches. He slowed as he approached the top, his mind escorting him back twelve years to the day Sara died at the World Trade Center.

“Nick, we can't—

“We're too high up. We can't evacuate.

“Oh, God, Nick, the office is filling with black smoke. There's a fire. . . .”

The odor grew stronger as Nick breached the surface and his watering eyes immediately caught on a flickering brightness all around him, an illumination that transformed the city dusk into a ferocious hellscape.

“Christ,” Mendoza mumbled over Nick's shoulder as he, too, reached the top. “All of Chinatown's on fire.”