This man named Vasko who was talking to him from inside the subway platform Nolan called home, right now.
This isn’t happening.
And then came an even worse thought. He wouldn’t have thought it possible for there to be anything worse than a Mafioso infiltrating his home when he wasn’t there. But as crazy as it sounded, this hunch felt true. And Nolan knew to trust these kinds of feelings.
This feeling was telling him that this entire disaster at Battery Park had been orchestrated by Vasko, as a means of getting him out of the way.
The bursts of static he’d been hearing all night that started as the sound of what he thought was crumpling paper, heard over the line back inside Agnes Ellerbee’s apartment. That static was Vasko, breaking in to the line and tracing it back to the subway platform.
“Yes, I am here inside your ‘lair,’ Mr. Gray,” gloated Vasko. “Couldn’t resist taking a poke around. You have some truly cutting-edge equipment here. Fabulous stuff. I may have to help myself to a few things before my men torch the place.”
Nolan faltered for just a second. “It’s not a ‘lair.’ It’s my home.”
“Please,” Vasko scoffed. “You’ve fashioned this ‘masked crusader’ persona for yourself, steeped in the mythical archetypes of pulp fiction and comic book vigilantes. Of course it’s a lair.”
“Where are my people?” Nolan demanded.
“Where else would they be? The Hand would be nothing without his loyal support staff, yes? The elderly gentleman doesn’t look well at the moment; I’m afraid my men have been rather rough with him. They tried to get him to give up his passwords for your amazing surveillance network and database. You’ll be happy to know he never told them, but from the looks of it, I believe his spleen has been ruptured.”
“You leave them alone!” Nolan shouted, not caring about who might be overhearing his voice where he paced on the edge of the park.
“Now, the young man—he was much more helpful. He tried to be brave, but after losing a few teeth and then one of his fingers, he broke very quickly. Told us all about the wonderful contraptions he’s built for you.”
“Listen to me very carefully. You hurt my people, and this will come back on you and yours,” Nolan seethed, already looking for the easiest way out of the park and back into the heart of Manhattan.
“You do not frighten me, Mr. Gray,” Vasko replied calmly. “After all, I have nothing left to lose. Besides, I am one of the few who has seen the ‘real’ Nolan Gray.”
“You’ve seen what I allowed you to see, what I’ve allowed the whole world to see,” Nolan said, his breaths coming faster and faster now. “You have no concept of what I’m really capable of.”
“What I understand is that people do what they do because of the relationships they have. Love, hate, and the wide spectrum between. The laws of society are out the window when it comes to the people that matter to us. I wonder how far you will go, what laws you will break, to save the people that matter to you.”
“Don’t you dare—”
“Now, I must confess,” Vasko went on, ignoring Nolan, “I have not yet discovered your purpose for keeping the woman here. She is too old to be your lover, and her race would indicate that she is no relative of yours. My people have not had the chance to interrogate her yet. I do not imagine you would save us the trouble?”
“Don’t you touch her!” Nolan screamed, spit flying from his mouth with the words. “When I get my hands around—”
“There’s one other thing I was calling to tell you,” said Vasko, his tone light and conversational. It made Nolan sick to the stomach how much the man was enjoying this. “I have lined this subway platform with dynamite, and attached those explosives to a timer. My family was found dead in a fire, and . . . well, I’m an ‘eye for an eye’ kind of person. Perhaps I should have mentioned it earlier: I started the timer when you and I began this conversation.”
Nolan’s heart jumped into his throat. It was sick, all of this, a demented, elaborate construction that this man had dedicated significant time and resources to. He closed his eyes and prayed a single sentence of silent prayer before asking the obvious question.
“How much time is left?” His body was wasted and all but broken, but he willed his adrenaline to flow so that he could start running. He ran north, out of the park, beyond a horde of onlookers there to see the aftermath of the tragedy, weaving through traffic and then sprinting past anyone and everyone on the sidewalk.
“I am not an evil man, Mr. Gray,” said Vasko. “I had no opportunity to prevent the deaths of my loved ones, but I will give one such chance to you. If you are the glorious hero that everyone in this city believes you to be, then it should prove quite easy for you to get here before the timer stops. If your skills are up to the task, you may even be able to disarm the timer before the dynamite is set off. If not, then this time your loved ones will pay the price for your failure.”
“How much time?!” Nolan repeated, already feeling winded.
“My men and I are leaving now,” he said. “We are already on our way out. Your friends are here, waiting patiently for you to save them. As for the timer, the last time I looked, I believe there were less than thirteen minutes remaining. My memory is not what it used to be, though. Don’t keep your friends waiting, Mr. Gray.”
A high-pitched squeal tore through his earpiece, and he knew that Vasko would be speaking to him no more.
Over fifty blocks in thirteen minutes?!
I’ll never make it!
48
Nolan tore the earpiece out of his ear and threw it down while ripping through the pedestrians gathering on the streets. His training railed against the panic that wanted to take hold of his soul.
He had to go flat-out all the way, pushing himself and his equipment like never before. He didn’t dare stop or even slow down one single time.
Because he wasn’t going to lose them—Branford, Arjay, Alice. They were all he had. And they were not going to die today.
Nolan could think of only one way of beating the deadline, just one option for navigating the city as the sun was moving up away from the horizon and scores of New Yorkers were waking up to the news of last night’s disaster at the Battery. They would be coming out of their homes in droves soon, clogging the streets with their desire to gawk and gape at the remnants of Vasko’s orchestrated carnage. He had to avoid them, he couldn’t let them get in his way.
He checked his watch. Less than twelve minutes now, maybe eleven.
It was his only option.
As he crossed Wall Street, he pulled out the grappler and shot it wildly into the sky, aiming randomly for any rooftop its hooks might find. When it latched onto something, he retracted it immediately and was pulled up to the top of a building. He hadn’t been up here before, he didn’t recognize it. It might have been the New York Stock Exchange building, but he didn’t know for sure and didn’t have time to care.
He wheezed hard as he crossed the rooftop, his lungs not at all clear of the smoke and soot he’d inhaled in the viaduct. He had to force himself not to breathe too fast, or he could pass out.
No, that wouldn’t happen. He wouldn’t allow it.
He focused his mind, his senses, his body. He would take this one problem at a time. Later, there would be time to address his own injuries and see about dismantling Vasko’s bomb, but right now, he had to get to his friends. There was nothing else.
Nearing the far edge of this first building’s roof, he held his breath as he fired the grappler again, only horizontally this time, straight out toward the roof of the tallest building on the next block. He never slowed. He jumped free of the roof just as the hook caught on its next target and began reeling him in.
This landing was much sloppier, as he first slammed against the side of the brick building about a dozen meters below the roof. Nolan ignored the pain and let the grappler reel him up to the building’s ledge. He staggered onto the roof but kept running, determined not to fa
lter, not to fail, not to stop until he was home.
Building after building, block after block, he fired, jumped, swung, and reeled himself in. Some jumps were easier than others, taking him at a better angle to tuck and roll his way to a decent landing, but even these proved a harsh challenge to his spent muscles and fatigued body.
As the minutes ticked away, he slammed into concrete walls, broke windows, crashed through miniature satellite dishes, bounced off of air-conditioning units and old brick chimneys, and stumbled across crumbling roof tiles. Encountering one particularly long, flat rooftop, he used the grappler to propel himself straight across it, trying to run with the retracting line but ultimately being dragged the last hundred meters or so, his skin burning as his clothes slid roughly across the surface.
The pain was searing, but he pushed it down every time. Not once did he allow himself to slow down. He had to keep going, no matter what.
By the time he neared the downtown neighborhood of storefronts underneath which his home and friends were waiting, he was all too aware of the agonizing, swelling pains stabbing throughout his body. His compartmentalized mind estimated he’d suffered at least eight broken bones—a few ribs, some fingers, possibly an arm and a shoulder, and a toe or two—but he pushed on.
His speed had diminished a few blocks back. He couldn’t remember exactly where, but he was limping at a half-run, half-walk now. Propelled forward by a blind, numb momentum, Nolan was a hiker caught in a blizzard, frozen and starving but determined to make it to safety. Only there would be no safety for him or his friends anymore. The sanctity of his home had been violated, his friends traumatized, and his secret was out, all by this evil man Vasko.
At last, after what felt like hours of running and jumping and crashing and being pulled along by Arjay’s blessed invention, Nolan lowered himself quickly to the ground and managed to reach a marginally faster pace one last time for his final push to the subway platform. As he rounded the last corner, wobbling, blood soaking through the black linens of his combat fatigues as well as the white hood, he came into view of the perpetually-under-construction façade that served as his surface entrance to the subway.
And it still stood.
His heart felt a glimmer of hope, and he willed his body to run, to go go go until he reached the tarp covering the scaffolding at the front of the vacant building.
His eyes were bleary, his skin saturated with sweat and blood, as he pulled off a glove so he could place a trembling hand on the metal plate beside the door to trigger the lock.
Nolan’s heart threatened to escape his chest as he descended the stairs at the back of the building, into the dark. Was it the concussion he thought he’d suffered a few minutes ago that was making everything look so dark? Or was it just the absence of light in the stairwell?
He stumbled into the heavy metal door at the bottom of the steps, expecting to spot Vasko’s timer device somewhere in the open empty space at the center of the platform, waiting to be disarmed. His friends would be nearby, probably tied to chairs or posts or something.
But when he flung the door open at last, the soul-shattering sight before him did not resemble anything he expected.
The subway platform he’d come to call home was gone and again he’d entered hell. This was a place of heat and flame and darkness.
The cobwebs in his head prevented him from entirely processing his surroundings. What was this place? Had he gone down the wrong stairs?
“Nolan . . .” someone said, a faint moan.
Nolan was delirious, unable to discern whose voice had called to him, or where. It was so hot down there, and there was stuff everywhere. No, not stuff. Rubble. Debris. Broken bits of everything. It was all over. Gone. Pieces of mortar and brick and stone that had fallen from the ceiling, or been blown free of the walls. Glass and metal and wood from Arjay’s work area, Branford’s Cube, the living spaces, his training area.
Months ago, or maybe years, he and Branford had reinforced the old walls, ceilings, floors, and supports. And it appeared that the supports had helped. There had been no collapse or cave-in above ground. Anyone who felt the blast probably thought it was a rare New York earthquake. But his home was dead. Gutted and destroyed.
He hobbled across the cracked floor, just managing to get clear as a bowling ball–sized piece of cement broke free from the ceiling and shattered on the ground. The sound startled him, and he tripped over a piece of metal railing that had probably come from the Cube. . . .
On the ground, he spun violently as a hand wrapped around his ankle. It was a brown hand, and it was bleeding badly . . . and missing a ring finger.
Arjay. It had to be Arjay. Hadn’t Vasko said he’d cut off one of Arjay’s fingers? His memory was fuzzy, he couldn’t recall the exact details.
Nolan was sure, however, that the heat from the piles of burning wreckage felt good to his cold, clammy skin. He knew he needed to finish what he’d come to do—whatever that was—but the heat beckoned him to sleep and he could resist it no more.
49
Nolan felt as cold as ice when he came to, and he glanced around, wondering where that wonderful heat had gone.
His senses returned to him with a jolt as he realized he was seated on the cold cement floor inside the fake storefront up above the subway platform. Someone had propped him against a side wall and tried to incline his feet atop . . . something. What were his feet resting on?
He looked down at his watch. Only minutes had passed. He’d returned from the Battery to find he was too late. Of course he was too late. Vasko was probably lying about how much time was left on the timer all along. Nolan was never going to make it, because Vasko wanted Nolan to feel exactly what he’d felt that day when he came home to a destroyed house and a dead family.
And it worked. Nolan had never felt so undone, so completely without solid ground to support him. Not even in the prison camps had he felt so destroyed.
He was still in shock, he could tell that much. He was bleeding from several points, including somewhere on top of his head, and his body was broken and battered. Horribly, horribly battered. He’d inflicted considerable damage to himself, and whether it was from the smoke inhalation from the viaduct or the relentless bludgeoning from his frantic race home to save his friends, he was completely trashed.
The pain came from countless points all over his body, but it had melded together and he couldn’t tell one hurt from another. Trying to sort it out required too much effort. He needed to get out of there, to get to a hospital. No, that was wrong. He couldn’t go to a hospital, because he was officially a dead man. He had to get patched up somehow, but he was having a hard enough time merely commanding his muscles to stretch out of this awkward position. What was that beneath his feet down there?
Nolan finally summoned the strength to sit up away from the wall, and his blurred eyes came into focus, resting on the makeshift footstool. He jerked his feet back when he saw it was Arjay, passed out in a heap. A washrag had been wrapped around the stub where his finger had been, and his face was swollen, bleeding, and discolored all over.
How had the two of them made it up here? Did Arjay somehow manage to drag him up the stairs before passing out? Were they the only ones to survive?
“Arjay . . .” he tried to shout, but the word came out in an anemic, breathless monotone.
The stairway door burst open and Branford appeared at the threshold, carrying Alice in his arms.
Nolan tried to shout Branford’s name, but all that came out was a guttural yelp.
He tried to get to his feet to help, but found it impossible to shift his weight. He only succeeded in falling over onto his side, where he remained. Any more movement was impossible; he simply had no strength. Branford shuffled slowly over to where Nolan and Arjay lay, his face bearing very similar marks to Arjay’s from Vasko’s cruel interrogation. He also favored his one side as he hobbled, and Nolan’s thoughts returned to Vasko’s comment about Branford having a ruptured spleen. Was it t
rue?
“Are you okay?” Nolan asked, finally getting words to emerge from his mouth but his voice no more than a whisper. “Is Arjay alive?”
Branford gave no reply beyond a deadened, weary look, and there was a lot more communicated in that look than Nolan was expecting. Branford and Arjay were down but not out. That much was immediately clear. Yet there was sorrow etched into the old man’s features the likes of which Nolan had never known from him, and Nolan’s breath caught in his throat. He knew that it wasn’t himself or Arjay, or even their underground home that Branford was grieving.
Nolan looked up at the woman in Branford’s arms, whom he was lowering slowly to the ground beside Nolan.
“She caught the worst of the blast,” Branford whispered, and as she finally came to rest on the floor, Nolan saw it for the first time. An ugly, shiny piece of metal was sticking out of her side.
“No,” he tried to say, but no sound came out. His throat had constricted in an instant, pools welling up in his exhausted eyes.
Nolan crawled a few inches closer to Alice, and he awkwardly lay sideways next to her.
“Alice?” he said, his voice offensively weak. Two trails of tears carved through the grime and sweat and blood that stained his face. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried, but the tears came effortlessly now. “Alice?”
Her body lay limp on that cold floor, but then in a start, she began to cough.
When the hacking, furious coughing subsided, she took a wheezing, labored breath and opened her eyes. Her frail eyes stared into Nolan’s face. She smiled as much as she was able, but even this brought a faint grimace to her pained features.
“You found it,” she said with a smile, before letting out another brutal cough. “See? There it is.”
“There what is?” Nolan whispered.
She placed a cold, limp hand on his chest. “Your heart. It was always here. Right here. I knew it was. I knew it.”
Vigilante Page 19
