by Steve Alten
“Thank you, Mr. Jinping. Is the gentle lady from Great Britain with us?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“The gentleman from the United States?”
“Present.”
“Then let us begin with the gentleman from the United States. We have been repeatedly promised that an evacuation is imminent. Why does it seem we are purposely being left here to die?”
“My apologies if it feels that way. This situation is very serious. Our goal is to commence the airlift at dawn.”
A flurry of Russian shot back at President Kogelo, the translated text coming up on his screen in spurts. “This is a disgrace. Entire delegations have been wiped out. You cannot keep us quarantined, it is in direct violation of the United Nations charter.”
Kogelo took a deep breath, refusing to lose his cool. “President Medvedev’s concerns are shared by all of us, my own staff included. But let us be clear. We are facing an outbreak that could easily turn into a global pandemic if the quarantine is not 100 percent secured. The death toll in Manhattan has now exceeded half a million people. All of us have lost colleagues, allies, loved ones, and friends. The last thing any of us wants is to rush the evacuation without proper precautions and end up being the carrier who unleashes the plague in your own countries, and across the globe.”
“We have heard reports that this plague originated in your CIA-run bio labs.”
“Again, a half million people have died, more are suffering, and the vast majority are Americans. There will be a proper time to investigate and assign blame. For now, our priority is to safely transport United Nation diplomats and heads of state to a secure medical facility on Governor’s Island. To accomplish this requires each evacuee to wear a self-contained environmental suit, which will prevent any infected individuals from passing the plague on to others. The environmental suits are en route as we speak, they will be brought to your suites as soon as they arrive. I am also being told that a vaccine has been located that can not only inoculate but reverse the effects of the plague.”
Kogelo waited for the delayed murmurs as his words were translated. “While this is good news, there is another issue that must be discussed. Mr. Kaushik?”
The acting Security Council President took over. “President Kogelo has strong reason to believe Iran’s new Supreme Leader, upon his return to Tehran, will provide Iranian insurgents in Iraq, Israel, and possibly the United States with nuclear suitcase bombs. The transmission you are about to hear comes from a private conversation between Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati and a general who oversees the Qods training centers, which have been linked to insurgent activities.”
Everyone listened intently, their eyes scanning the text as it appeared in their own languages on the monitor.
The senior Standing Committee member from China was first to speak. “I do not hear a threat. I hear only Mr. Jannati’s intention to declare himself Mahdi.”
“With all due respect, Mr. Jinping, our intelligence agencies have provided us with a far more lethal interpretation of his intentions. We are requesting the Security Council to issue stern public warnings to Mr. Jannati, the foreign minister, and Iran’s hard-line clerics that any nation providing enriched uranium to terrorist organizations shall, in the event of an attack, suffer the same fate as the perpetrators.”
“And how are we to know, in the event of such an attack, whether the Iranians were responsible?” the Russian president retorted. “There are factions within your own government, Mr. President, that have been pushing for an invasion of Iran since Vice President Cheney was running the White House. How can we know if a nuclear explosion was not intentionally detonated by the CIA or Mossad in order to instigate war?”
“My administration seeks peaceful solutions to the conflicts in the Middle East.”
“If this is so, why are your troops still occupying Iraq and Afghanistan? When will your military bases in the region be closed? Your new secretary of defense continues to ally himself with Georgian officials, pushing them to challenge our own nonaggression pacts with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. These actions send quite a different message.”
“Secretary DeBorn was chastised for his actions. Our plan is to continue to reduce our troops in Iraq, reaching our targeted goal of fifty thousand by next August. An act of war by Mr. Jannati would undermine these efforts, fuel a neoconservative agenda in both Washington and Tel Aviv, and force us to respond in kind.”
“And what of this plague that has killed off so many, including most of the Iranian delegation. Would this not be considered an act of war in Tehran?”
Eric Kogelo fought to maintain his focus through the headache and fever. “A half million Americans have died. Our largest city has been rendered unlivable. If this were an act of war, then America was the target. Let me again assure you, we shall investigate and bring to justice all those responsible for the plague. What we cannot do is allow these radical factions to succeed in pushing our nations into nuclear war. That is why all of us agreed to come to New York this week — to prevent another war.”
But the Russian was far from done. “Mr. President, in August of 2001, President Putin sent a Russian delegation to Washington, DC, to brief President Bush about an al-Qaeda plot to hijack commercial airliners and fly them into the World Trade Center. We were not the only nation issuing warnings. There were at least a dozen other intelligence agencies that sent warnings, including the Germans, who provided the dates of the attacks. Why were those warnings ignored? The reason became obvious to all — the Bush administration wanted the attacks to succeed so they could justify a second invasion of Iraq. Now here we are, a decade later, only this time the desired target is Iran. Mr. President, if you really want to avert a nuclear holocaust, do not ask us to issue threats against the Iranians. Instead, show the world you mean business by policing the radical elements within your own country that continue to undermine your efforts to bring about peace.”
Minos Pizzeria
Amsterdam Avenue
2:19 A.M.
Rubber bullets and tear gas had dispersed the homeless, a grenade tearing the steel security gate from its tracks. Major Downey stepped over broken glass and debris, entering the dark storefront. “They’re in here somewhere. Find them.”
The Rangers in black moved through the deserted pizzeria, tossing aside checkerboard-clothed tables and ransacking closets and cabinets, searching every square foot of space that could conceivably hide two grown men.
“Sir, someone was in the kitchen making sandwiches. Looks like they’re gone.”
“The homeless weren’t guarding sandwiches. Search the apartments upstairs.”
Two Rangers exited the walk-in refrigerator, pushing gruffly past David Kantor. The medic entered the warm enclave, the beam of his flashlight revealing containers of pizza dough and grated cheese. He sat down on a crate of tomatoes, his body weary, his nerves on edge. Got to find a way to separate myself from the group and get to Gavi’s school.
He heard the cat meowing somewhere in the darkness, but could not locate it. Saw the crate-shaped wet stain. Tapped on the floorboards with the butt end of his assault rifle. The sound was hollow. He checked the kitchen. Heard the Rangers in the apartment upstairs.
Returning to the wet mark, David stomped on the floorboards with his boot—
— caving in the trapdoor.
Subway Passage
2:35 A.M.
Three stories beneath a dying city, through a maintenance shaft bored fifty years ago, the fluttering illumination of Paolo’s lantern was all that kept the claustrophobia at bay. Light danced on concrete walls riddled with pipes and graffiti. Shoes scuffed cement against a backdrop of dripping water that nourished unseen puddles cloaked in perpetual darkness. Francesca squeezed her husband’s free hand, her mind burdened with fear, her lower back and shoulders by the unborn child that might never be.
After ten minutes, the shaft intersected the Eighth Avenue subway line. Rails cold and traffic-free made for new obstacles in the shifting
light, along with the dead rats. The vermin were everywhere, black clumps of wet fur. Sharp teeth beneath pink noses lathered in blood.
Francesca crossed herself. “Paolo, maybe you should give me the vaccine.”
Paolo turned to Virgil, uncertain. “What do you think?”
“It’s your decision, son. Perhaps you should pray on it.”
Patrick scoffed. “After the story you told me about Auschwitz, how can you possibly suggest prayer?”
“I simply said prayer might help Paolo find the answer. It’s their child. They need to decide, not you.”
“And if God ignores them, like he ignored you? Like He ignored six million of your people during the Holocaust?”
“I never said the Creator ignored our prayers. I said His answer was no.”
“Apparently, He’s still saying no. Think any of those families stranded in their cars on the parkway were praying tonight when the plague took them? Or those people dying on the street?”
“God is not a verb, Patrick. We must be the action. Prayer was never intended to be a request or plea. It is a technology that allows communication into the higher spiritual dimensions, helping to transform the human ego into a more selfless vessel to accept the Light. The Light is the—”
“We don’t have time for the whole Light dissertation. Francesca, take the damn vaccine.”
“Not yet.” Paolo turned, the lantern’s light swimming in Patrick’s eyes. “I think Virgil’s right. In times like these, we must have faith.”
“You know what faith is, Paolo? Faith is nothing more than belief without evidence, a waste of time. The vaccine’s real.”
“Faith is also real,” Virgil retorted. “Or perhaps we are wasting our time trying to find your wife and daughter.”
A sickening rush of anxiety dropped Shep’s blood pressure. “That’s different. You said you spoke with her.”
“Yes, but that was long before so many people got sick. For all we know, she may be dead. Maybe we should head straight for the boat.”
“Bea is not dead.”
“And you know this how?”
Patrick struggled in his skin to remain calm. “Pray your damn prayer, Paolo.”
“O Lord, You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You…”
The sensation felt like ice water running down his spine. Shep turned around slowly, his eyes focused on the maintenance shaft. Peering at him from the darkness was the Grim Reaper. Arms raised, scythe frozen in mid-swing. Hooded skull and empty eye sockets aimed at Paolo, the devout man’s words were clearly agitating the supernal being.
“—grant us the grace to desire You with our whole heart, that so desiring You, we may seek and find You, and so finding You, we may love You and share equitably with our neighbors—”
The Reaper screamed in silence, melting back into the shadows of the underground passage.
“—through Christ Jesus we pray this. Amen.”
Shep wiped beads of cold sweat from his forehead, his right hand shaking. “Amen.”
Chinatown
2:47 A.M.
She was dragged from her nightmare by her hair, the pain forcing Gavi Kantor from her drug-induced stupor and onto her feet. Using her hair as a leash, a wiry man drenched in aftershave pulled her through a basement maze lit by candles. Past doorless bathrooms and into a hallway bordered by a dozen curtained stalls. The sour air reeked like old onions, the grunting sounds coming from these recesses more animal than human. In her delirium, she caught glimpses of male predators forcing naked girls to perform acts that caused her to scream.
The silhouetted man punched her in the back of the head, the glancing blow felling her to her knees.
“Enough!”
The Mexican madam’s rotund mass outweighed the silhouette’s by a good sixty pounds. “Give her to me, she is mine. Come here, Chuleta. Did Ali Chino hurt you?”
Good cop — bad cop. The thirteen-year-old crawled into the woman’s embrace, bawling her eyes out. The madam winked to her associate.
* * *
Human trafficking was not prostitution. Human trafficking was the multibillion-dollar global business of kidnapping and purchasing children and young adults to be used as sex slaves. It was the third-most-profitable criminal enterprise in the world. Controlled by organized crime. Dominated by the Russians, Albanians, and Ukrainians, who trafficked women into Western Europe and the Middle East.
America remained a major consumer. Thirty thousand foreign women and children were trafficked into the United States each year. Smuggled across the Mexican border, they were sold to sex rings and transported to stash houses and apartments, some in major cities like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, others in smaller suburban towns, where they hid in plain sight.
But the highway that ran slavery into the United States was far from a one-way street. American children and teenagers were in high demand overseas. A six- to thirteen-year-old could be sold at a six-figure premium. Many end buyers included Saudi princes, “allies” the State Department was loath to crack down upon. When it came to human trafficking, corruption remained the lifeblood of immorality, the public’s indifference its pulse.
* * *
The chamber was windowless. A dozen bare mattresses covered the concrete floor. Shared by twenty-two girls, ages ten to nineteen. Working in shifts. Business was rampant at the End of Days.
The “harvest” was mostly Russian and Hispanic. Halter tops and cheap makeup covered emaciated flesh. Bare arms sported track marks and bruises. The victims’ eyes were vacant, as if the light of their souls had been sealed in amber — a result of having been gang-raped and beaten, forced to service twenty to thirty men a day.
The madam kicked a Romanian girl off a mattress, shoving the American teen down in her place. As “surrogate mother,” the matriarch’s job was to psychologically torture her charges before passing them off to male trainers who would repeatedly rape and beat each new recruit into submission. After two weeks, the American merchandise would be drugged and exported to Eastern Europe for sale to the highest bidder. For this, the madam would receive $3,000.00.
“Please let me go! I just wanted to buy a watch—”
The obese woman backhanded Gavi across her face, drawing blood. “You will wait here until I come for you. If you try to escape, the other girls will tell me, and Ali Chino will return. Ali Chino kills many girls. Do you wish to be killed?”
Gavi Kantor’s body shook uncontrollably, her eyes blind with tears. “No.”
“Then do as I say. I am here to take care of you, but you must listen.” She scanned the room, pointing to a Russian girl. “You. Teach her how to use the penicillin.”
With that, the Hispanic overlord left, locking the door behind her.
Central Park West
2:45 A.M.
Central Park West defined the western border of Central Park, running from 110th Street south to 59th Street.
Dousing the lantern, Paolo exited the deserted subway station, leading Francesca, Virgil, and Patrick across Frederick Douglass Circle to Central Park West, darting between abandoned cars.
The moon was cloaked behind endless clouds, its veiled light revealing the high-rise buildings bordering Central Park. Home to some of New York’s wealthiest, the structures had been rendered dark and foreboding. But far from silent. The cries of the destitute and suffering pierced the night, joined by the occasional sickening thud of a body as it plunged from an open window, striking the snow-covered sidewalk below.
Reaching 106th Street, Paolo led his entourage to the Stranger’s Gate, a modest park entrance composed of a black slate stairway that deposited them in a wooded area. Moving beneath a canopy of American Elms laid bare by winter, they headed east across a hilltop meadow until they came to the tarmac path that was West Drive.
Closet psychotics and sexual deviants roamed the periphery — wolves wearing human flesh whose whispered cravings added another layer of terror to the night.
Francesca pulled her husband closer. “We’re too exposed out here. Take us along the ravine.”
Two hundred feet overhead, the Reaper drone hovered, silently tracking its quarry.
* * *
The information was relayed over Major Downey’s communicator, the target’s coordinates visible in his right eyepiece. “They’re in Central Park. Let’s move!”
“Sir, we’re missing a man… the National Guardsman.”
Downey cursed under his breath as he switched radio frequencies in his headpiece. “Control, I need a track on Delta-8.”
“Delta-8 is four meters south of your present position.”
Downey looked around, confused. He entered the walk-in refrigerator—
— locating David Kantor’s communicator lying in an open container of mayonnaise.
* * *
Paolo’s eyes scanned the dark field, searching for the blotch of shadow. “This way.”
Spanning ninety acres of Central Park's northern quadrant, the North Woods was a dense woodland so thick, it obliterated any trace of the surrounding metropolis. Running through the forest was the Ravine, a stream valley encompassing the Loch, a narrow lake that cascaded into five waterfalls before flowing into a brook that paralleled a southbound trail.
Moving quickly across the snow-covered lawn, they reached the forest edge. A frigid wind whipped at their backs, setting the trees to dance. Paolo knelt in the damp grass, shielding his lighter as he attempted to ignite the lantern. The flame would not catch. He tried again and again until his frozen fingers burned. “The wick’s gone. The lantern’s useless. Francesca, try your flashlight.”
Francesca aimed the beam, but it was too faint to penetrate the trees. “Now what?”
“Shh.” Paolo listened, his ears homing in on the rushing sound of water. “Hold hands. I can get us to the trail.” Taking Francesca’s hand, he stepped over brush and entered the woods.
The darkness was so encompassing, he could not see his groping hand in front of him. Through leaves and stumbling over logs, past unseen branches slicing their coats and cheeks, they continued on until the forest floor yielded to a narrow tarmac trail. Somewhere in the pitch ahead was Huddlestone Arch, a natural underpass consisting of huge schist boulders held in place by gravity. Inching forward, ducking their heads, they felt their way through the arch, carefully progressing along the steadily descending path.
