The Eternity Project

by Dean Crawford

  ‘It’s off , ’ Glen agreed. ‘They can’t hit them now.’

  Karina was about to reply when a screaming engine howled past them down Broadway. She turned her head as a huge, battered old Kenworth truck thundered through the traffic and across the intersection, black smoke pouring from its exhaust stacks.

  Karina’s jaw dropped in disbelief as she realized what was about to happen.

  ‘They’re not hitting the store!’ she yelled. ‘They’re hitting the truck!’

  ‘Get out of the car!’ Donovan bellowed. ‘It’s on!’

  In a moment of time frozen in Karina’s mind, the Kenworth roared through a red light across the intersection and, with a deafening crash of rending metal and shattering glass, it crashed into the parked armoured truck like a missile through an eggshell.

  5

  Karina grabbed her door handle and leaped from the car as the Freightliner was hurled across the sidewalk amid a shower of splintering plastic and glass that sparkled in the bright morning sunshine. The immense mass of the charging Kenworth lifted the Freightliner momentarily off its tires before smashing it aside.

  ‘Cover the left!’ Donovan shouted. ‘I’ll block the right!’

  Karina, Glen and Tom all ran down Broadway as vehicles screeched to a halt and pedestrians hurled themselves clear of the two massive vehicles.

  The Freightliner’s tires hit the sidewalk and squealed as it was smashed to the right and spun out of control. It plunged through a fire hydrant and came to rest alongside the intersection amid a fountain of high-pressure water that sprayed down across the street. The chassis was twisted beneath the vehicle where the Kenworth had struck it, the axles warped, and the metal body of the truck had been ripped open like sharp metal leaves. From the split side of the vehicle spilled a dozen or so aluminum cases, the cage within ripped apart by the tremendous force of the impact.

  The Kenworth plowed onward and smashed into the Pay-Go store, the broad windows shattering as half the vehicle plunged into the building to a crescendo of screams from within. As the Kenworth came to rest with white smoke billowing from the cab and the hood buried inside the store, Karina saw the flailing body of the guard spin through the air and land on the hood of a Mercury that screeched to a halt outside the Pay-Go. The body slid down the hood and landed with a dull thump on the asphalt below.

  Donovan screamed into his radio as they ran. ‘All units, robbery in progress, corner of Broadway and Pike, request back-up immediately!’

  Karina dropped one hand instinctively to her sidearm as the four officers sprinted toward the Pay-Go. Karina dodged past pedestrians who had stopped to stare at the terrific impact, her pistol held low and her thumb fingering the safety catch as she ran.

  ‘Take the store!’ Donovan shouted at her. ‘Glen, Tom, the Kenworth. I’ll cover the cash truck!’

  Karina dashed out across the intersection, the traffic frozen as though immobile as a fountain of white foamy water sprayed up into the air near the cash truck and thick, oily smoke smouldered from within the Pay-Go store.

  She switched the safety catch off on her pistol but kept the weapon low as she slowed, the Kenworth’s rear wheels pinned a few inches off the sidewalk and spinning slowly. The smell of gasoline and burning rubber tainted the air as she saw figures in the smoke hurrying out of the Pay-Go and covering their faces with their hands.

  ‘Weapon!’

  Karina heard the cry, Tom Ross’s voice, just as the clattering of an automatic rifle crashed out from the far side of the crashed Kenworth. Karina changed direction to see a man in a latex mask firing three-round bursts at her colleagues as they dove for cover behind the vehicles crowding the intersection.

  Karina aimed without conscious thought and fired at the man, the bullets puncturing the fractured windows of the Pay-Go as around her she heard the screams of pedestrians dashing for cover into shops and behind vehicles.

  The man ducked down, turned and fired back in one smooth motion. Karina hurled herself down onto the asphalt and rolled behind the ruined Kenworth as rounds crunched into the chassis and sprayed sparks onto the cold air. The vehicles on the intersection began reversing wildly away from the sudden and unexpected gunfight as panicked civilians struggled to escape the crossfire, their engines wailing above the cacophony. Karina covered her head as another salvo of shots battered the Kenworth, rounds zipping past her head toward pedestrians cowering in a nearby service alley. Chunks of brickwork sprayed onto the sidewalk as the shots ricocheted away into the distance. Karina rolled back out and aimed again at the gunman, firing double-handed at the largest target she could find, his torso.

  The gunman’s rifle spun from his grasp as Karina’s second shot hit the vehicle beside him and he whirled aside in surprise, slamming into the rear of the crashed Kenworth with an audible clang of bone against metal. Karina saw him go down, and then ducked as a fresh wave of bullets smashed across the Pay-Go beside her.

  A pale gray Ford F-150 pickup screamed toward her as it skidded in alongside the Freightliner, and a hail of bullets sprayed across the front of the Pay-Go as two men lying in the back of the vehicle opened up with assault rifles.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Glen yelled from nearby. ‘We need back-up!’

  Karina remained flat on the sidewalk, unwilling to take on two assault weapons with her meager 9mm pistol. She heard shouts and the metallic clang of what she assumed were aluminum cases being hurled into the pickup, and then suddenly the vehicle screeched past her in a cloud of burning rubber as it accelerated away down Broadway toward the southeast.

  Karina scrambled out of sight as the two men in the back fired randomly, spraying the intersection with gunfire as the truck swerved between stranded vehicles and accelerated away.

  She scrambled to her feet as the shooting stopped and sprinted instinctively for their car as the sound of approaching sirens howled through the streets. Donovan shouted at them from where he stood beside the ruined Freightliner.

  ‘Corner them on the bridge! I’ll direct units in from across the river!’

  Karina reached her vehicle and yanked the door open, Tom and Glen close by as they piled into the rear of the car. Karina hit the gas and swerved out across the intersection and back east.

  ‘Vehicle in pursuit,’ Glen snapped with military efficiency into the radio. ‘Suspects heading east on Delancey for the river.’

  Karina looked up ahead and saw the truck swerving between slower moving vehicles all heading for the Williamsburg Bridge.

  ‘They’re taking the lane for Brooklyn,’ Karina said.

  The truck was heading for the outside, southernmost lane of the bridge that excited into Brooklyn and turned south.

  ‘Christ, are they insane?’ Glen said. ‘They’ll never get across before we close the bridge off.’

  Karina knew that the police in Williamsburg and Brooklyn would already have been alerted by Donovan to the truck’s location, and squad cars would converge on the four lanes of traffic exiting east off the bridge. She glanced down at the cold gray water of the East River as they approached.

  The bridge was mostly encased in steel girders and mesh, protecting the six central lanes of traffic and the metro. But the outside lanes were exposed, just a low concrete wall with a steel rail between the traffic and the plunge into the bitter East River far below.

  ‘They’re going for the water,’ she said with clairvoyant certainty.

  ‘No way,’ Tom argued, ‘it’s too far to drop. They won’t make it.’

  The pickup accelerated past the traffic slowly climbing up onto the bridge, barging past a family car as it fought its way forward. Karina slipped past the same vehicle a few moments later as the city beside them dropped away and vanished as they drove out across the churning waves below.

  ‘No boats beneath us,’ Glen yelled, peering down through the rear window. ‘That’s not their play.’

  Karina frowned in confusion as she steered the vehicle in pursuit of the flatbed. ‘This isn’t righ
t. They haven’t planned their escape.’

  Glen didn’t reply as Karina fought to pass a lumbering four-by-four blocking the lane ahead. Karina hit the switch for the lights and sirens and instantly the vehicle swerved aside to let them through.

  In the same instant, a crackle of gunfire clattered across the steel girders and beams of the bridge around them as their quarry opened fire again.

  ‘Shit!’ Karina yelled as she flinched.

  Karina slammed her foot down on the gas and swerved the car protectively in front of the four-by-four that they had just passed. The car accelerated wildly, and she heard both Glen and Tom shout in alarm as the car bore down on the pickup. A salvo of shots zipped off the bodywork as she struggled to maintain control, and a round shattered the windshield into a frenzied web of splintered glass.

  Karina, her boot slammed against the throttle, saw in a brief moment the rear of the flatbed and the two men lying in it, and then they vanished as the splintered windshield buckled.

  With a crash of metal and crumpling plastic, her car slammed into the rear of the pickup. The pickup swerved violently to one side and crashed into the concrete barrier before the wheels locked up in a cloud of blue smoke as the front axle collapsed under the impact. The pickup skidded sideways and then its wheels gripped again and it flipped up and over, rolling through the air as the two men in the rear were hurled clear.

  Karina instinctively hit the brakes and swerved to one side to avoid hitting the outside wall of the bridge. Her fenders smashed into the inner wall and scraped along it in a shower of bright sparks as, through the opposite window, she glimpsed the truck slam down and roll over, spilling aluminum cases out over the railings and down toward the river below. The car shuddered as it skidded to a halt sideways across the lane, the truck barely fifteen yards away as it landed hard on its wheels with smoke pouring from its hood.

  ‘Incoming!’ Glen shouted in horror as tires began screeching behind them.

  Behind them a line of startled traffic began screeching to a halt in a chaotic frenzy. Karina winced as she heard a terrible crash of vehicle after vehicle plunging into each other, and saw countless shards of glass sparkling in the sunlight as windows and windshields imploded.

  Horror knifed into her heart as she saw dozens of people scrambling from their vehicles as a huge articulated tanker’s wheels locked up and it jack-knifed behind the wreck. The huge vehicle hit the barrier wall amid a shower of sparks as its tires screeched along the asphalt and it plowed into the stationary vehicles. A cloud of metal panels and glass were blasted into the air as the entire train of trapped vehicles shuddered. The tanker smashed its way through them as its cargo ruptured and a flood of inflammable liquids burst in a torrent that spilled across smouldering engines and burst batteries.

  ‘Fire!’

  Glen leaped from the car, his pistol in his hand, and rushed toward the smouldering wreckage of the flatbed, as Karina got out and sprinted in the opposite direction toward the cries and shouts from panicked civilians trapped in their vehicles.

  ‘Fire!’

  As she rounded the back of the four-by-four behind them, she saw that its rear had been crushed by a smaller vehicle that was itself pinned in place by a Lincoln. Behind that, four more cars were crushed in by the tanker. Karina’s pounding heart seemed to stop in her chest as she saw the bodies in the trapped, crushed vehicles. Bloodied. Still. Slumped across steering wheels behind splintered windshields.

  A sinister blanket of flame burst from the vehicle nearest the tanker and snaked its way across the wreck.

  ‘Forget them!’ she yelled back at Glen and Tom. ‘Get over here!’

  Even as her brain fired neurons ordering her to call for ambulances and fire trucks, so she saw the final vehicle down the line, crunched into a barely recognisable pulp of twisted metal by the huge tanker. Dark blue Prius. Two occupants. A woman and a child in a baby-seat. Both motionless. Karina felt a terrible fear as she scrambled up across the hoods of mangled cars, but she wasn’t even close before the Prius was engulfed in a sheet of writhing flames that spat a boiling pillar of black smoke into the pale blue sky.

  As Glen and the others raced to join her, so she saw Tom Ross lay eyes on the burning vehicle.

  ‘No!’

  Tom hurled himself onto the mountain of twisted metal and plastic. Karina threw herself into him and they slammed down onto a Lincoln’s warped hood. Tom fought her with the strength of a fallen angel, screaming as he hurled her aside and scrambled to his feet.

  Glen and Jackson tackled him down before he could enter the writhing flames that seethed around the Prius.

  Karina knew it was already too late, even through the tears that stung like acid in the corners of her eyes.

  6

  WILLIAMSBURG, QUEENS

  ‘We’ve got them. Two males heading north, just passing us now.’

  The voice came through a radio transmitter fitted to the vehicle’s dashboard, designed to look like a cellphone. The agent in the front seat glanced out of the tinted glass of his window and spotted the two figures strolling down Union Avenue. Both wore clothes that looked normal enough but could also be used to conceal their identities and physiques; one wore a hoodie while the other wore a baseball cap, shielding their faces.

  ‘They look like the same ones from the CCTV footage in Grand Central,’ said the driver. ‘You sure one of ’em’s a woman?’

  The two men sitting in the front of the vehicle watched as the two suspects ambled along, pointing at shops and chatting.

  ‘Like they haven’t got a care in the goddamned world,’ said the man in the passenger seat.

  ‘Don’t be deceived,’ came a voice from the back seat of the vehicle. ‘They’re professionals. We need to disarm them quickly or this will all go very wrong.’

  The agents in the front both looked over their shoulders at the old man behind them. A senior intelligence officer, his word was highly respected, but even so . . .

  ‘There’s only two of them,’ the driver replied.

  The old man nodded. ‘That’s all they need.’

  ‘What’s the plan then?’ asked the other. ‘Call in the Marines?’

  The old man grinned bitterly but shook his head.

  ‘We let them get to wherever they’re going, circle them to prevent an escape, and then we close them down.’

  ‘They’re onto us.’

  Lopez’s voice betrayed no concern as she walked alongside Ethan down Union toward the motel they had booked.

  ‘Where?’ Ethan asked.

  ‘Ten o’clock, corner of South 2nd.’

  Ethan didn’t look up immediately as he walked with a bag of groceries tucked under his left arm. He feigned a chuckle and nodded as though Lopez had muttered a gag, kept looking the way they were walking. But his focus switched immediately to an SUV parked near the sidewalk, maybe thirty yards away on the opposite side of the street.

  ‘Looks like government,’ Lopez said as they walked, pointing randomly at a furniture store on their side of the street. ‘Too damned clean.’

  Ethan did not reply but he agreed. The vehicle’s windows were tinted with a film that concealed enough of the occupants’ features to make it suspicious.

  ‘Check our tail,’ he said, and stopped on the sidewalk to examine the interior of his bag of groceries.

  Lopez stopped alongside him, reaching into the bag as though searching for something within but scanning the sidewalk behind them. As they started walking again, she spoke quietly.

  ‘Another one about a hundred yards behind,’ she confirmed. ‘It’s not crawling, just sitting there.’

  ‘Anybody on foot?’ Ethan asked.

  ‘Not close enough to be a threat.’

  Ethan felt certain that anybody wanting to take them down would not be foolish enough to open fire in broad daylight in New York. Even a drive-by shooting from the relative cover of a vehicle would present numerous risks if those responsible were identified in any way. No. If the
y were going to make a hit, it would be at the motel and probably through more covert means than a shooting disguised as a drug or gangland dispute.

  ‘How the hell did they find us?’ Lopez asked. ‘We’ve barely stayed still for six months.’

  ‘Maybe a lucky break,’ Ethan hazarded. ‘Or somebody anticipated our next move.’

  Lopez shook her head. ‘I doubt that. What are we going to do about it?’

  Ethan didn’t look at the SUV as they passed by, instead thinking about angles and distances. ‘We have to assume they already know where we’re staying,’ he said, ‘and that we haven’t just spotted them.’

  ‘Could be a team waiting,’ Lopez cautioned him.

  ‘Yeah, but if we don’t keep going, they’ll know we’re onto them.’

  ‘You want to fight it out?’ Lopez asked, looking up at him.

  Ethan shook his head. ‘No, but let’s see if we can’t vanish again.’

  They walked across the lot of the motel and passed the foyer. Ethan glanced inside the small waiting room as they passed and saw nobody waiting for them. As he looked up he saw a cleaning lady wheeling her trolley of laundry down along the rows of apartment doors just past their own.

  Lopez led the way to their motel-room door, fumbling for the keys as she did so.

  ‘We’re virtually inviting them in for coffee,’ she said.

  ‘I think they’re hoping to corner us,’ Ethan replied. ‘But they didn’t have anybody out on foot, so that means they were in vehicles when they spotted us. But if they’d pulled in ahead of us now they’d have risked being spotted by us. So my guess is they’ll let us get inside, quietly surround the motel, and move in.’

  ‘Which helps us how?’ Lopez asked as she opened the door.

  ‘Because we won’t be here.’

  ‘They’re inside, room 27.’

  The old man in the rear seat of the SUV reached up to one ear and pressed a tiny button on the microphone that he wore.