The Perseid Collapse (The Perseid Collapse Series 1)

by Konkoly, Steven

  Perfect silence enveloped him for the next thirty seconds as he drifted downriver. Nothing. He swam forward and came up for air. The silence continued as he lengthened his sidestroke and angled for the shallow outcropping of land identified by the marines. Landing there would give him a buffer from Storrow Drive and some natural concealment from sharpshooters.

  He switched to a frog kick and slowed, taking time to observe the riverbank. Even with a full moon, his vision was borderline useless without night vision goggles. The marine snipers would have to be his eyes for now. A few more strokes brought him in line with the shallow land projection that would give him some room to transition into his combat gear. He could drift the remaining fifty feet and save his energy.

  Three heads surfaced near the river’s edge, moving slowly into deeper water. He stayed mostly submerged and drifted motionless—eyes pinned to the three men. Did the marines see them? A red dot appeared on the lead man’s forehead and disappeared. The red dot reappeared on the second man’s head and vanished. The spotter was telling him something. A plume of water exploded in front of the group, causing a gurgled scream.

  Alex pulled furiously on the towline, dragging the watertight bag closer. The swimmers reacted, splashing toward him. He kicked in the opposite direction, bringing the bag into his hands. He fumbled with the holster attached to the bag’s external webbing, drawing his suppressed pistol just as one of the swimmers reached him. A sharp burning creased his upper left arm, and Alex kicked out hard, turning onto his back. He caught the faint reflection of a knife just above the surface of the water.

  The figure lunged forward, and Alex pressed the trigger, snapping his head back. The second attacker swam for the shoreline. Alex took a deep breath, floating on his back, and lined up the glowing tritium sights on the splashing. He fired twice, and the frantic swimming stopped. Alex drifted with the three bodies toward the esplanade, hoping that this had been the extent of his welcoming party. He doubted it.

  His feet sank into the soft river bottom, and he pushed off toward the riverbank, clawing up the steep muddy slope. He pulled the black bag through the mud, exhausted, but not daring to pause. Alex opened the zipper and pulled his rifle clear, chambering a round. His night vision goggles came out next, pulled tightly over his head. He swept the esplanade with the goggles, verifying no immediate threats. He dragged the bag to a small park bench, searching the contents for his first aid pouch.

  Alex washed his arm with the CamelBak hose and removed a small packet of the same powder the corpsman had used on him in Harvard Yard. He tore it open and dumped it on his upper arm, hastily rubbing it into the deep cut and grimacing. He’d properly bandage later. Right now, he needed to gear up and get as far from the esplanade as possible. He was on the move within sixty seconds, sprinting from tree to tree on his way toward Storrow Drive.

  A bullet snapped overhead, and he dropped to the mud. It was impossible to determine who had fired the bullet, and there was nothing to gain by assuming it had been the marine sniper. He scanned forward and saw a figure slump against the side of the pedestrian walkway over Storrow Drive. Alex raised his rifle and ran through the mud, eager to get off the esplanade.

  A green laser appeared to his left, marking the base of a tree fifty feet away. A snap passed through the branches above, hitting the metal fence behind the illuminated tree trunk. Alex knelt in the soft mud and thumbed his IR laser, placing the green line at the edge of the trunk. He rested the rifle magazine on his raised knee and eased the laser an inch past the edge of the tree. A dark blob peered around the trunk, and Alex fired, striking the figure in the head. Time to put some distance between himself and the river.

  He jogged toward the waist-high, metal picket fence separating the esplanade from Storrow Drive, clearing it with little difficulty. Across the road, he jumped onto the raised concrete wall beyond Storrow Drive, and grabbed the bottom of the chain-link fence above it. He hung there for a moment before pulling himself to the top of the concrete and scaling the fence. His drop holster snagged on the top of the fence, knocking him off balance and pitching him prostrate into the mud. He lay immobile for several seconds, breathing heavily—his eyes heavy.

  I could fall asleep here, he thought for a few more hazy moments. The distant sound of a vehicle engine jarred him back into action.

  He pulled himself up by the chain-link fence and jogged to the nearest street corner, leaning against a brick wall. An engine roared nearby, somewhere deeper in the city. He glanced around the intersection for a street sign, wasting precious time. Street signs were a rare sighting on side streets in Boston. He considered the GPS, but with the pedestrian walkway behind him, he was pretty sure the street in front of him was Silber Way. The Warren Towers were less than two city blocks away.

  A raised pickup truck careened onto Silber Way from Commonwealth Avenue, tearing through the mud. A figure with a rifle swayed behind the cabin, holding onto the truck’s utility rack. The truck raced in his direction without headlights, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the road ended before Storrow Drive. Alex triggered the IR laser and aimed at the truck, placing several tightly spaced shots through the front windshield.

  The truck swerved into a line of parked cars and rebounded into the street, turning sideways and flipping. Alex pulled back from the wall just as the truck careened past, tumbling over the pedestrian walkway and crashing down onto Storrow Drive.

  This was insane.

  Chapter 43

  EVENT +46:19 Hours

  Boston University

  Boston, Massachusetts

  Alex crouched between two cars in the parking lot across from the Warren Towers, waiting for the slow-moving SUV to pass Granby Street. Beams of light randomly stabbed through the darkness above him, gradually moving left through the parking lot and disappearing. He risked a look, catching the taillights turning off Commonwealth Avenue.

  Gunfire erupted in the distance—the familiar thunder of a marine fifty cal. What he wouldn’t give for some heavy-machine-gun support. Nothing said “everything’s going to be all right” like the sound of a fifty. He eased onto Granby Street and approached Commonwealth, pausing behind a low hedge at the corner to visually sweep the wide road.

  The four-lane road looked still. He craned his head back and stared at the Warren Towers, noticing that the rightmost tower was crooked, leaning several degrees to the left. Maybe that was just his angle of view. His son’s tower, to the left, looked straight, but he couldn’t shake the marine’s description of the towers. Dominos. He had to get Ryan out of there.

  Glimpses of flickering green light played across dozens of windows, advertising occupants. Ryan would know better than to give his position away like that. They’d talked about these things. He counted six floors up on Ryan’s building and scanned across. Two of the windows shimmered. He had no idea which room was Ryan’s. Room 622 didn’t mean anything to him from the outside. They’d only visited his room once, and he’d been too busy hauling boxes to pay close attention to the room’s location. He couldn’t wait any longer.

  Alex raced across the street, passing underneath the “T” wires that cut a path down the middle of the wide street. He reached the other side and ducked into a vestibule, checking the street. Nothing moved, though he doubted that his trip across Commonwealth had gone unnoticed. The vestibule contained a door with a keycard reader. He pulled on the handle, which failed to budge the door. No surprise there. All of the external doors would be equipped with the same electronic system, all designed to prevent unauthorized access in the event of a power failure.

  He was familiar with two ways into Warren Towers. The parking garage, which he had used to offload most of Ryan’s college possessions, required a housing card to access the stairwell or elevator. That left the front door. Not the stealthiest entry point, but the large floor-to-ceiling windowpanes next to the double doors would have undoubtedly shattered, allowing easy access to the lobby. “Easy,” of course, being a relative term on
this side of the river.

  Keeping his rifle pointed forward, he shuffled along the front of the building, his damp, mud-lined pants grinding away at his inner thighs. He arrived at the entrance, scanning the street for any onlookers, then stepped through one of the missing windowpanes. The lobby was empty. The couches and tables he remembered were gone, replaced by a mud-streaked tile hall. He activated the IR designator and probed the room with the green laser, walking steadily toward the escalator bank.

  He moved slowly and deliberately up the escalator, watching for signs of an ambush. A head peeking around a corner. A carelessly exposed rifle barrel. The slow movement and concentration triggered a cascade of fatigue. His legs felt heavy and sluggish, barely clearing the lip of each metal stair. He reached the top and crouched in the escalator, contemplating the P-STIM tablets given to him by the corpsman. Eventually, he’d have to pop these. He was approaching forty-eight hours with minimal sleep, which he knew from experience was the “hazy point.” He’d start making poor decisions, unaware of the consequences. Without anyone to second-guess him, one of those decisions would kill him.

  Alex caught himself staring blankly at the grooved metal stair in front of his face. He rubbed his eyes and peered around the metal balustrade, surprised to find the student union area completely abandoned. Once again, the furniture had been stripped, leaving nothing but scattered papers and broken glass strewn across dirty tile. Maybe the students had barricaded themselves on the upper levels, using the furniture to block the entrances. He hoped not. He was too tired to fuck around with obstacles.

  He jogged across the empty student lounge, searching for the central hallway spanning all three towers. He’d made this trip once before, but the monochromatic image cast by his night vision goggles looked alien, giving him no recognizable visual cues. He knew the hallway was located beyond the student union, so he kept moving until he approached the far wall and found several sets of doors leading into the long, empty passage to Fairfield Tower.

  The green image darkened as he reached the end of the corridor, indicating a complete lack of light in the area. He flipped his goggles up and triggered the rifle-mounted flashlight, bathing the hallway in light. Small piles of concrete fragments lined the corridor at scattered intervals, the walls above them deeply cracked. He shifted the light to the ceiling, exposing a twisted puzzle of metal gridwork and warped ceiling panels. All bad news for the long-term survival of the building.

  Thick streaks of mud swerved out of the hallway into the empty elevator lobby, ending at a door marked “stairs.” He switched back to night vision and entered the stairwell, which felt ten degrees cooler. He paused for a moment to examine the long fissures in the cinderblock-wall enclosure. The concrete landing and stairs leading to the next floor appeared undamaged. He took the stairs cautiously, clearing blind corners and paying close attention to the doors leading to each floor.

  By the time Alex read the sign “Sixth Floor,” he couldn’t hear his own thoughts over his heartbeat. Fighting every instinct to yank the door open and run to room 622, he put his back against the wall next to the door and tried to steady his breathing. Once his breathing hit a slow, rhythmic pattern, Alex pushed down on the door handle and tried to nudge the door inward. It didn’t move.

  He leaned into the metal door with his left shoulder and gave it a hard push, shifting the fire door a few inches.

  “Someone’s trying to get in,” a voice hissed.

  “Stab him in the face!” yelled a woman.

  “Just shut the fucking door!”

  Alex pulled a rifle magazine out of his vest and wedged it through the opening at the bottom.

  “I’m trying! It’s jammed. Can you see who it is?”

  “I don’t see anyone.”

  “I’m here to find my son!” yelled Alex.

  “What did he say?” said the female.

  “I don’t fucking care! Shine a light, and see what’s blocking the door!” said the male.

  “My son is in room six twenty-two. Ryan Fletcher. I’m here to bring him home!” added Alex, flipping up his NVGs to avoid being blinded.

  “Does anyone know Ryan Fletcher?” said the female.

  More voices joined them in the hallway, and several flashlights shined through the crack in the door.

  “He’s got it jammed at the bottom with—fuck, get away from the door! It’s a machine-gun mag,” said someone.

  “Isn’t there a roster or something? Ryan Fletcher lives in room six twenty-two. He’s my son. Doesn’t anyone know him?” said Alex.

  A hand fumbled with the rifle magazine at the bottom of the door, and Alex stuck his foot against it, pinning it in place.

  “Someone stab his foot!”

  Alex backed up in the tight stairwell and front-kicked the handle side of the door, driving it back several inches. Screams erupted inside the hallway. He hit the door again, opening a two-foot gap.

  “He has a gun!”

  Alex triggered his rifle flashlight, scattering the students. One of the large couches from the downstairs lobby sat against the wall, several feet down, covered by a sleeping bag and pillow. He squeezed through and pulled the door shut, directing the light into a tangle of wooden chairs pushed against the wall. A male student in jeans and a mud-stained yellow polo shirt lay curled up under the chairs, shielding his eyes with one hand. The other arm was trapped under the chairs and looked hyperextended at the elbow. Possibly broken.

  “Dude. Is this a rescue?” said the kid, lowering his hand slightly. “Are you, like, Special Forces or something?”

  “I’m not Special Forces or the military. Where’s room six twenty-two?”

  “Six twenty-two is locked,” he said. “It’s the only one we couldn’t get into.”

  “Where is it?” he said.

  “Around the corner. At the end of the hallway. You’re not with the military?” he said.

  “How many times do I have to tell you? My son lives on this floor,” he said, stepping over him.

  Alex flashed his light around the corner, seeing the door to six twenty-two directly ahead. Everything was starting to look familiar again. He knocked first, calling out his son’s name and trying the handle. Nothing stirred beyond the door. More students wandered into the hallway, muttering about the military.

  “Does anyone have a spare key?” said Alex.

  “The RAs took off when the bomb hit. We searched their rooms, but didn’t find any,” said a boy from the dark.

  “He kind of disappeared,” said another kid.

  “What do you mean?” Alex asked.

  Someone muttered, “I wouldn’t say any more.”

  “You want to see my driver’s license?”

  “That would be a start,” said one of the girls.

  “Shouldn’t all of you be hiding in your rooms? I am still holding a rifle, right?”

  “Nobody’s come up here with a specific name before. You might be legit.”

  “Might be legit?” said Alex. “Strong SAT scores apparently don’t translate into strong survival instinct.”

  Alex removed a red chemlight from his vest and snapped it, throwing it to the floor. A crimson glow illuminated the weary students. He shook his head and opened a small pouch on his vest, tossing his identification at the young woman who appeared to be in charge.

  “He’s totally military. Look at the gear,” uttered a voice.

  “Ex-military,” said Alex.

  “He could be a merc. Paid to rescue whoever that kid is.”

  “You guys play way too much Call of Duty,” said Alex, pounding on the door while several students examined his license with flashlights.

  “He checks out—for now,” said the girl, handing his license back.

  “Thanks for the endorsement. So where’s my son if he isn’t here? Can I get the young man who spoke up earlier?” said Alex, knocking on the door again.

  “I remember seeing him here late Sunday night. Around eleven maybe? A bunch of us were ha
nging out in the hall, and he came by. Said something about a girlfriend at Boston College. He was gone after the blast.”

  “I saw him heading for the far stairwell right after the shockwave hit. He had a backpack and some kind of bucket,” volunteered another student.

  Alex knew exactly where to find his son.

  “Is there a second lock on these doors, maybe above the handle?” said Alex.

  “No. Just the handle” said someone.

  Alex kicked the door, causing everyone to back away a few steps. The door didn’t budge.

  “You should shoot the door,” stated one of the kids.

  “Good idea. Clear the hallway!” he yelled, pointing the rifle at the door and activating the visible red laser.

  While the students broke into pandemonium, tripping over each other to get clear, Alex steadied the laser and fired three bullets into the space between the handle and the doorjamb. The hallway fell deathly silent after the last shot, everyone frozen in place.

  “Holy shit. Did he really just shoot the door?” said a kid on the ground to his left.

  “He totally shot the door! Dude, your silencer doesn’t work for shit!” yelled a student hidden in one of the rooms.

  Alex kicked the door, knocking it against the interior wall. He took a step and stopped. The room smelled like Ryan. Like their home. Alex deactivated the Surefire light and stood there, remembering everything the way it had been—before. He felt like a distorted time-traveller. The past forty-eight hours expanding over eternity.

  “You need this?” said a young woman, holding out his red chemlight.

  “Thanks,” he mumbled.

  “Is everything okay? You don’t look…the same,” she said.

  “I’m fine,” said Alex, walking forward.

  He swept the Spartan interior with his rifle light. A crumpled blue comforter hung off Ryan’s bed, draping the tile floor. An empty plastic bin lay tipped over on the bed. Most of the cardboard boxes stacked on the floor were unopened, his priorities upon arrival clearly focused on a young lady at Boston College. A few books and pictures covered his desk. One picture of the Fletchers and—Ed was going to love this—several pictures of Chloe. He couldn’t believe how badly they had underestimated that relationship. He threw the chemlight next to the bin on Ryan’s bed and deactivated the rifle light.