Killswitch

by Cliff Hedley

  “We can try but it’ll be like looking for a needle in a haystack. A country this big, selling hundreds of these things a day and who knows how long ago this attack was planned?”

  Chase nodded, dejected, realising it would be impossible. He scanned the street, confirming his other suspicion. There was debris everywhere — wood, bent metal poles and pieces of robot. Across the street, however, there were no holes punched into any of the buildings or abandoned cars. There was the odd shattered window from the explosion but nothing that told Chase a projectile had punched a hole, let alone three of them.

  Probably not an actual EFP. Just dressed as one to suck us in.

  Grange was barking orders into the radio, relaying what had just happened. Across the rooftops there was no sign of the drone. Chase waited for a pause before he cut in. “I don’t think that was an EFP. Just dressed like one. They set it up to lure in the bot, and they expected us to react that way. Tell the team at the High Line that whatever device they think they are looking at is most likely a remote controlled explosive of some kind, designed to take out them or the bot and dressed to fool them.”

  Grange nodded. “They’ve got what they think is an IED. Planted in the gardens up top, just to make it harder for us to get to and easier for them to fly over.”

  “Damn.”

  Grange clicked the radio button. “Pull the bot back. They’re just waiting for you to get near and they’ll detonate to take it out. Wait for my orders.”

  Copy that, sir.

  “What do you suggest?”

  Chase wasn’t listening. He was looking back along the street, past the blockade of police cars towards the throng of people at Times Square. It was a couple of blocks down but it was obvious from where he was standing that the crowd down there was growing. More people shuffling in and a lot of them were looking down at their phones. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” he said.

  Grange followed Chase’s line of sight and thought it looked wrong too. There was a growing group of people in the Square, while the rest of the streets around the city had been slightly quieter than usual. A bunch of them — if not most of them — were looking down at the their phones.

  “What in the hell?” Grange furrowed his brow.

  “We need to get down there.”

  Chase ran to the passenger side of the van as Grange hurriedly pushed the ramp away and closed the back. He jumped into the driver’s seat moments later and fired it up.

  “Move!” He bellowed at the officers, who backed up their patrol cars to let the van turn down Broadway.

  Grange flicked the lights and sirens on and tore down the street, as the cars at the other end started to back up. Behind him, the two nearest patrol cars were turning down after him.

  “What would you do about these remote-detonated devices in Afghan?”

  “Fifty-cals. Mounted on the Humvees. We’d blow the shit out of any suspect device from a safe distance.”

  “We don’t have fifty-cals but we do have SWAT.” The gritty, determined look was back Grange’s face as he scooped up the radio, again without looking. “This is Grange. New plan. Pull back the bots and stay the hell out. Get a SWAT team in and see if they can shoot the device. Do not go near it under any circumstances! If you see a drone, shoot it if it’s safe to do so.”

  Understood, sir.

  “Dispatch? Get me a SWAT team to Times Square as well. We’re heading there now. I want uniforms to start clearing the area.”

  Copy that, Lieutenant.

  Grange raced two blocks down and lurched the big van to a stop at the edge of the square. The patrol cars began to pull up behind him, lights flashing. The radio squawked again.

  Sir, the blood test came back from the sample collected by Chase.

  Chase grimaced. It was the blood that came off his arm after the fight in the alley. Duke and Brannigan had yet to leave hospital since that night.

  “And?” Grange snapped impatiently.

  It belongs to one of ours, sir. Kelvin Miller, United States Army. He’s an EOD who went missing in action in Afghanistan, seven years ago, presumed KIA. I just sent you his profile.

  “Fuck me,” Chase gasped under his breath. A chill ran up his spine. How could one of my own be tied to this? Was he captured and turned? Tortured?

  “Lieutenant?” One of the officers was calling to Grange.

  “What is it?” Grange answered, still slightly shocked.

  “These people are refusing to move. They said there’s been some kind of announcement. A publicity stunt with a big money drop. Free cash falling from the sky and a dozen IOUs for a million dollars. Apparently it’s all over social media.”

  Grange scrambled for his phone, leaning over to Chase so he could see the screen too. There was the money-drop article on Grange’s newsfeed and the phone pinged as the profile of Kelvin Miller — Explosive Ordinance Disposal specialist, US Army, KIA — came on screen. His picture roughly matched Chase’s brief glimpses in the alleyway during their fight. So there he was, their prime suspect, clear as day. Could this all really be one man? His profile said he was a loner but an excellent bomb tech and electronics expert. His call sign had been Killswitch.

  “You don’t think—” Grange began.

  “No,” Chase answered. “I know. He’s kept us distracted, pulled us away from the right places, giving him the time to set this up. He wanted us close enough to see this without being able to stop it. It was all misdirection. These people are his real target. We need to clear the Square now!”

  Grange turned to the officer who was still standing by the open driver’s door of the van. “Spread the word. Clear Times Square now!”

  Chase hated that he was right. This all fitted the profile. Same person, same tactics. When he saw the first drone fly overhead, he knew they were already too late.

  “Grange! He must be close to be able to fly these things. The remotes have a range of a mile or so but all the buildings would interfere with the signal. He must be closer — maybe a few hundred feet. Start clearing the buildings looking for him and tell SWAT to start shooting them down!”

  Grange barked more orders as Chase swung out of the passenger door of the van. As he swung around the front he saw the drone hover above the crowd. For a moment it just hung there, swaying gently from side to side in the breeze. People were already looking up expecting the money drop to start and a bunch of them were pushing towards it. Then its rotors cut out and it dropped like a stone.

  As it fell to the ground, the hands of the crowd reached up towards it. As it landed on them, Chase watched in horror as it exploded with a brief flash, sending shrapnel showering down on everybody near it. There were screams but the crowd on the edges was still pushing in. They couldn’t see what had just happened and only the crowd nearest the drone were trying — in vain — to push back against them. It was chaos. Another drone appeared, then another. As each one fell, it exploded, showering the crowd nearby. As the survivors tried to run, their way out was blocked by more people pushing in. The explosions were so localised that anyone still running in couldn’t see from the outside what was happening.

  Chase was standing up on the hood now of the nearest patrol car and he could see perfectly. Drone after drone moved into the square, each seeming to come from a different direction, each dropping onto the crowd: tearing flesh, breaking bone and killing.

  The momentum of the crowd began to shift. They were starting to realise. More people now were trying to push their way out. Some were running for the exits, heading for the ends of the blocks, for the safety of the nearby shops. They were running scared.

  He’s herding them exactly where he wants them.

  The next explosion came from Chase’s left, near the corner of Forty-seventh Street and Seventh Avenue. Unlike the drones, it was designed to be big. It was there to be seen. The crowd running towards that c
orner fell over each other, desperate to change direction as a billow of thick black smoke belched from one of the shop fronts. The chaos grew. Chase knew there was probably something near him and at the other corners of the square as well. The people were being corralled.

  The sea of civilians in front of him churned, desperately pushing in each direction, struggling to see a way out. The last of the drones fell from the sky towards them, again taking a dozen or more casualties to the ground as others fell over the top of the dead and wounded in their hurry to escape.

  The herd was thinning. Some were running back towards the first explosion, through the black smoke to relative safety. Another massive explosion rocked the far end of the square as it took down more people, belching more thick black smoke into the air. Still the survivors ran. Some dashed again towards the smoke, thinking that they would be OK once they got past it. The crowd was beginning to thin. They were falling or running. Those were their choices.

  That’s when Chase ran in. He had seen a girl standing in the middle of the Square. As the public ran screaming in every direction past her, she stood perfectly still. She hadn’t moved once. She had flinched but she stayed rooted to the spot. Chase already knew why. She was wearing a vest.

  He had a pair of pliers in his hand that he had grabbed from the van. No chance to put a suit on — he had to time this perfectly, use the distraction to his advantage. If he waited any longer and the crowd got too thin, Miller would see what he was doing. He’s watching. He can’t be far away.

  It was as if he wasn’t present in his own body but felt the pull towards the girl. He was aware of the crowd around him and the sense of dread that was washing over him. Without a suit, if he got it wrong he was dead. Soon enough he reached the girl. He froze for a moment as he reached her and her eyes locked onto his. She was blonde, with green eyes, but the fear and uncertainty that he had seen take hold of the girl in Afghanistan was exactly the same. Her life was in his hands, as was his own. He wasn’t going to leave her. He was determined not to fail her.

  Chase felt himself be present again. He had almost floated through the crowd towards her, as if viewing his actions but not in control of them. Now he was back and he was focused on the girl. He shuddered for a moment as he wondered what had become of her parents but he pushed the thought aside. The pliers were in his hand. A quick look at his forearm told him that he would have enough power left in his arms. The battery indicators were about to blink from amber to red but soon it wouldn’t matter either way.

  “I’ve got you, OK?” He squeezed her hand and she nodded a response. Tears welled up in her eyes.

  “Do you think you can keep nice and still for me while I get rid of this for you?” She nodded again and a tear fell down her cheek.

  There was no time to move her. He would try to disarm her right here under the cover of the crowd.

  The vest was slightly different from the one he had seen in Afghanistan but the wiring seemed to be rigged the same. He carefully eased open the flap of the pouch on the front and felt an immediate knot in his stomach form, like receiving a punch. It was white phosphorus.

  An LED light was glowing. He must have already tripped the proximity sensor to arm the device, just by touching her or the vest. The next stage was the trigger for detonation. He clipped the detonator that he could see in the front and exhaled after a second or two when it didn’t go off. Next, he traced his hands on the inside of the vest and cursed that he couldn’t feel anything. He didn’t know what wiring was there that he couldn’t see. He was going to have to take a chance that Miller hadn’t changed the setup.

  He moved to the side of the vest, checking for wires under the clips that held it in place. They were there, as he expected. Next, he ducked down and turned up the edge of the vest just enough so that he could see the inside of the straps. More wiring. Not touching her but exposed so that anyone feeling around inside would change the capacitance the moment their fingers came across it. Chase was grateful that his prosthetics let him make contact and move the wires a little, without affecting the circuit. The rubberised tips of his artificial fingers were keeping them both alive for now. If the Bomb Squad had tried to do with bare hands what he was doing right now, they’d both be dead already.

  Not this time, Miller.

  “Now,” he said in the most soothing voice he could muster, “I’m going to take this off you. I need you to breathe out so you get as skinny as possible and I’m going to lift this up. I want you to hold your arms straight up over your head.”

  “OK,” came the timid response. He barely heard it over the crowd but he still tried to shut out the noise around them.

  Slowly, an inch at a time, Chase started shuffling the vest up. He didn’t want to unclip it to help ease it off — that would be something Miller had thought of. What he didn’t seem to have counted on was Chase, who thanks to him, had zero capacitance in his fingers.

  He watched for any new lights to activate, or any circuits to trigger. He had been holding his breath and let it out as he lifted the vest clear of the girl’s arms.

  “All right. You’re safe now. Just wait for me here while I get rid of this.”

  She nodded again and somewhere behind Chase he thought he heard his name being yelled. It was Grange, pushing a trailer through the crowd. On it was a bright yellow container that looked like as if it could serve as a large barbecue. It was a containment unit.

  Chase wasn’t sure if he was happy to see it or not. He just had to get the vest inside and close the door. It would help contain the blast if it went off. The downside was that it was a big yellow beacon cutting a swathe through the crowd. It stuck out like a sore thumb. Depending on where he was, Miller would see it any second. If there was a remote trigger on board, as Chase suspected, Miller would set it off. He wondered for a moment if there was a second proximity trigger as well, able to detonate automatically if the vest moved off its spot, where the girl had kept so still. He decided that the time factor was more important. Miller was going to see them at any moment. He started running.

  Grange was roaring with effort and three uniformed officers joined in to help him. Two were pushing and one was in front, yelling for the crowd to get out of the way. Chase sprinted towards them. Grange had planned ahead, expecting it to be a close call. The containment door was already open. Chase just needed to get the vest in the open goal. He pushed his way towards it, moving as fast as he could against the throng of human traffic. They were starting to thin out, making their way out of the square and he knew he would be seen. With a desperate lunge he burst towards the trailer, clambering aboard as he threw the vest inside the containment unit with his right hand, as he grasped for the hatch door with his left.

  His foot slipped as the trailer went over a bump and he dropped from his perch, flailing with his now-free right hand for any kind of grip. He was perched on the front of the trailer as it rolled forward, in front of the containment hatch opening. With the vest inside, it would just make the blast directional, saving most of the crowd but obliterating Chase as he desperately hung on.

  He finally found his grip, pulling himself back upright with his right hand. He pulled the hatch closed with his left, then pushed it all the way shut with his right. This time, he managed to keep his balance and get the door locked in place.

  “Got it!” he yelled.

  Grange and the officers let the trailer coast to a stop, as they began herding the crowd away. Chase, still on the front of the trailer, noticed another figure not moving. He jumped down and yelled over his shoulder to Grange and the officers, “The girl’s just over there,” he pointed. “Get — ”

  He didn’t have time to finish. The bomb went off inside the containment unit, rocking the trailer, as he, Grange and the officers all dived to the ground. It was instinct that made him take cover but he realised moments later that it hadn’t been powerful enough to rupture the container. It
was designed first and foremost to burn.

  Right, you sick fuck. Payback time.

  Chase was on his feet a second or two later. Adrenalin coursed through his body as he burst through the waves of panicking civilians around him. He wouldn’t be herded. He would go for the out-of-place. A figure, standing on the edge of the square. Not moving. Wearing a dark hoody. Looking down at something in his hands.

  Miller.

  Chapter 22

  Miller was pleased that his deception and technology had served him so well. He had eyes everywhere thanks to the drones and didn’t need to be so close to the action that he risked being hit himself. He did, however, want to be close enough to bear witness to his efforts.

  The one thing that had bothered him after releasing the videos of his work was that he suspected the same man appeared in three of them. He hadn’t believed it at first but he watched the original high-resolution footage over and over, pausing and running through it in slow motion. He suspected it was also the same man who had interrupted his work after he was forced to shoot the police officers. That man had fought well, as if he was combat trained. At the time, he had dismissed the idea as highly improbable. He did not need to see any more familiar faces today. The first had been a close enough call.

  He flexed his aching wrist, which he was using to pilot the drones via his remote control. No matter, he was almost done. He hadn’t seen the weapon that had fractured it but then his mind flashed back to the slow-motion shot at the hospital. The arm on that man had flown off in the blast. At first he thought it was a part of the carnage, the sheer power of the EFP tearing through flesh.

  Then he looked up. Standing on a brightly coloured Bomb Squad trailer, visible above the crowd, was the same man. He was pointing at something. The girl, without her vest. The glint of metal made it clear that his arm was not human.

  Miller’s own distraction had been neutralised. It was time to leave. No matter, he could automate the rest of his work with the flick of a switch. As usual, he had layers of planning around his exit strategy.