The Inner Circle (55 page)

I twisted the knife.
 

“You’re not gonna feel a thing.”
 

His body bucked, squirming beneath me, but nearly all his strength was drained, his face going pale.
 

“Just a slight discomfort,” I said, “then numbness,” and I twisted the blade in his stomach even more.
 

Clark coughed up blood. “Don’t you ... want to ... know my ... secret?”
 

I pulled the knife out, held the bloody tip to his face.
 

“I’m going to kill you now, Clark.”
 

I rolled the switchblade with my fingers, squeezing onto the handle, the tip of the knife now pointed down.
 

I lifted it up over my head, preparing to bring it straight down on his throat, when suddenly the city went dark.
 

It didn’t happen all at once, but like a line of dominos. First one building went dark, then another building, then another building. The streetlights died just as quick as candles.
 

The only light was from the cars still on the street, the swarm of taxis, but without traffic lights they all now believed they had the right of way.
 

Clark, beneath me, began coughing a laugh, blood dribbling from between his lips.
 

“See how ... powerful ... we are?”
 

Horns blared. Tires screeched. Metal tore against metal.
 

Screaming and shouting filled the night.
 

Clark said, gurgling blood, “You will ... never ... beat us.”
 

A familiar high-pitched whine drifted above the rest of the chaotic city sounds. The Ducati was headed straight toward us. Ho Sook wore her black faceplate helmet again. She skidded to a halt right beside us and, just like back in Miami Beach, held out her gloved hand.
 

I knew I could get up right now. I could take that hand. I could get on the back of the sport bike and Ho Sook would take us through the city toward safety.
 

Before I could even move, though, light flickered in the Square.
 

Despite the rest of the city going dark, the Jumbotron was still on. Instead of an ad for a soda company or an upcoming movie, I was now featured on the gigantic screen. Kneeling on a dying man, a knife raised above my head.
 

And for the first time I really became aware of where I was, what was around me, the honking, the shouting, the screaming. People were all over the place but none appeared to even notice us, there in the heart of the city’s heart. What they noticed instead was the image on the Jumbotron, the camera focused in so tightly that it was impossible to tell where exactly the man with the knife was located.
 

Kneeling there, the knife still held above my head, I did one quick look at all the buildings around the Square. From the angle of the image, the camera was somewhere up high. I was being watched—I
had
been watched this entire time—and now my anger and fury was being broadcasted for everyone to see. A real life murder, a thing Augustus Caesar would say everyone secretly wants to witness, and here they were being given front row seats.
 

I looked back at Ho Sook, who kept her gloved hand extended toward me.
 

I looked down at Clark’s face, at the blood bubbling from between his lips.
 

I knew I could just stop now, stand up, take Ho Sook’s hand. I could leave Clark with what little life he had left, and not give everyone watching what they wanted. I could be better than that. I could prove Caesar wrong.
 

Clark, his lips covered in blood, smiled up at me.
 

“Fuck it,” I said, and shoved the blade straight into his throat.

EPILOGUE

The blackout lasted only six hours, but its effect would last for years.
 

We’re talking about New York City, after all. The greatest city in the world. The mecca for culture and entertainment. Yes, the city was vulnerable—that fateful September day over a decade ago proved it—but something like this was never supposed to happen.
 

Almost half of Manhattan itself went dark. Parts of Brooklyn and Harlem, too.
 

It was this last that suffered the most. Around hour five, looting was beginning to increase throughout the city. In Harlem some kids were taking what they could from an electronic store. One cop happened upon the kids looting the store. He told them to stop. Most of the kids took off running, but one kid wasn’t fast enough. The cop chased him down. The kid reached for something in his pocket—it would be debated what that something was for weeks, as yes, in that pocket he did have a knife, but he also had a cell phone—and the cop, shouting at him to freeze, fired one shot. The bullet struck the kid in the head, killing him instantly. There were several witnesses who saw it happened. Within an hour a small riot began. It would only grow and increase throughout the day and into the week. After all, the cop was white, the kid black.
 

A dozen hospitals lost power. They all had emergency backup, of course, but that didn’t mean there still wasn’t complications. Staff in all the hospitals went into crisis mode. Some patients were on life support. Others were being monitored by machines. As one hospital administrator would say to the press the next day, “Sometimes you take for granted just how much electricity it takes to run a hospital. Our deepest condolences and sympathies go out to those families who lost loved ones during the blackout.”
 

How many deaths occurred throughout the city is impossible to say. There were those at the hospitals, yes, but there were also those from numerous traffic accidents. Cars smashing into cars. Cars smashing into buildings. Cars smashing into pedestrians. Traffic lights keep at least some order on the disordered streets. When those lights go dark, chaos reigns.
 

The police were stretched thin. The mayor had to make one of those agonizing mayoral decisions that would no doubt effect his next election: what areas of the city to try to save first.
 

In the end, the National Guard was called in. By the next afternoon Humvees roared up and down the streets. Soldiers carrying M16s patrolled the sidewalks and subway stations. It was still only the weekend, and they were preparing for the hellish nightmare that would be Monday morning.
 

Later that Sunday, there was still no official word on what caused the blackout. All the power stations had seemed to be in working order. Until, one anonymous technician told the press, all hell broke loose.
 

It wasn’t surprising that within hours the news media was speculating on whether or not al-Qaeda was involved. One side believed this attack was in response to the U.S.’s involvement in Egypt. The other side went so far as to blame global warming. A few even mentioned solar flares as a potential culprit.
 

Traffic in and out of the city was nearly at a standstill. The bridges and tunnels were packed, police and National Guard keeping watch on both ends. The trains in and out of the city went a little bit quicker, but still each car had to be inspected by soldiers with bomb-sniffing dogs.
 

By the end of that first day, no bombs were found.

•
   
•
   
•

I
T
TOOK
US
two days to leave the city. We went in shifts. First the Kid by himself. Then Ronny and Carver, with Maya’s dead body wrapped up in the trunk of their car. Mason left the city with Beverly, Mason’s wife asleep in the backseat. Drew left with Chin, Mason’s dead son in the trunk. Some of them took the tunnel. Others took the bridge. None of them, thankfully, got stopped, despite the fact they were all driving stolen cars and that Caesar’s people were no doubt looking for us.
 

We had anticipated we might have trouble leaving the city, so we had come up with several safe houses. These were places that could be easily accessed from the street, and which would give us optimal cover for a couple hours.
 

I did not end up at one of these safe houses. Ho Sook took me to the place her father was stationed. It was the basement of a deli that had been shut down by the Health Department the day before.
 

There I recuperated the best I could. There weren’t any medical supplies besides those few bandages and Band-Aids found in a dented First Aid kit, so I just lay in the corner and tried not to move my body.
 

“I’m sorry about Seung,” I told Bae.
 

He nodded.
 

“I’m sorry we didn’t get Caesar.”
 

He nodded again. Then, as an afterthought, said, “He may have died in the blast.”
 

This was true. Chin and Seung had managed to secure a half dozen blocks of C-4 around the Fillmore—in the auditorium, the lobby, the banquet room. When they blew, they certainly took out several members of the Inner Circle.
 

“How did your guys infiltrate the Coliseum anyway?”
 

His smile was thin. “It was not very difficult, when all eyes were on you.”

•
   
•
   
•

B
AE
HAD
COMMUNICATION
with Chin, who got me in contact with the Kid, who told me that everyone had made it out okay. He was then quiet for several seconds before he said, “Dude, about Maya ... I’m so fucking sorry.”
 

I lay in the corner, Bae’s phone to my ear, staring up at the ceiling. A single tear ran down my cheek. I didn’t bother wiping it away.
 

“What about Graham?”
 

“He made it out. Grabbed as many weapons and computers as he could, but, well, you know he couldn’t do much with his leg the way it is. Dude, they killed his bees.”
 

“What?”
 

“He left and went a few miles up the hill. He stopped at this lookout and used binoculars to watch the farmhouse. They came in SUVs and two helicopters. Graham said they searched the property, didn’t find anything, so they burned the house. Then, I guess to cover their tracks or to just be complete dickholes, they burned all the hives. Graham ... fuck, dude, Graham said from even where he was he could hear the fucking bees screaming.”

•
   
•
   
•

N
OW
WITH
THE
farmhouse gone—our own special safe house—just where were we supposed to go?
 

This was what the Kid and I discussed next. We were working toward a location—or at least I was working toward a location—but the Kid kept changing the subject.
 

Finally I said, “Kid, we don’t have much choice here.”
 

“Dude, are you fucking crazy? First, there is, like, no room at all. Second, it’s my fucking
house
. My mom lives there. She ... she’s not going to be able to handle all the people.”
 

“We don’t have to stay there for long. In fact, we don’t have to stay there at all. I’m sure there are motels nearby that we can hole up in. But right now, we need some kind of base.”
 

“So my fucking house?” He was silent for a beat. “Fuck, man, I’m going to have to get extra toilet paper and shit.”

•
   
•
   
•

W
E
RESTED
UP
the next day, and began to secure our rides. Vehicles that wouldn’t be missed for a few days. Many people kept cars in the city for the few times of year they needed non-public transportation. That made it easier for us to borrow them.
 

And borrow them we did.
 

After all, we weren’t going straight to the Kid’s place in stolen cars. Again, we had anticipated something like this might happen, though obviously not to this magnitude. Along with the additional safe houses, we secured additional transportation. Only they were parked outside the city.
 

Throughout the day everyone else left the city. Bae and I drove through the Holland Tunnel that evening. Ho Sook tailgated us on her Ducati. Because neither vehicle was stolen, we drove straight to the Kid’s place. It took seven hours. By then the deaths of several politicians and media moguls and celebrities were beginning to be reported.

•
   
•
   
•

N
OT
MUCH
WAS
said, of course. The deaths were small deaths, if there is such a thing. Heart attacks. Strokes. Car accidents. Overdoses. By themselves, they were typical deaths. All together, though, they created a disturbing pattern.
 

But it wasn’t like anyone else noticed this. Everyone’s attention was on the Manhattan Blackout, which was what the media had cleverly named it and which was still unexplained. The Attorney General was getting involved to find out just what went wrong. And the riots in Harlem were still raging. Additional National Guard troops were being sent in to help matters.
 

So all the focus was on the riots and the blackout. The deaths of some celebrities or politicians—deaths which appeared innocuous enough—were mentioned briefly in the news but that was it. No one gave any of the deaths much thought. And, quite honestly, there was no way of knowing whether any of those deaths were simply coincidental or the individuals had in fact been members of the Inner Circle, who had been killed at the Fillmore Theater either by crossfire or explosion.