Awakened

by James S. Murray

  Not any day in the future.

  Everyone in the command center wanted the same thing but had different roles to play. His team still hadn’t gone through all data relating to the attack, and anything they found could prove vital in the current shit-storm. So for now he’d focus on that, but he would find a way to get in touch with the mayor.

  You can count on that, Samuels.

  Another critical alarm pinged through the wall-mounted speakers, breaking the silence. Munoz rose to his feet, skirted around the agent, and joined Anna at the console. On the overhead screen, a bar representing the methane level in the central section of the Jersey tunnel had reached the 5 percent lower explosive limit. The Manhattan tunnel fluctuated at a steady 2.5 percent. That was worrying, but more alarming was the fact that the methane in the Pavilion had risen to a similar level.

  Munoz spun to face Reynolds. “Mr. President, I don’t get why you’re not telling Mayor Cafferty about the gas leak.”

  “My job requires tough decisions. I know you’re all under tremendous pressure, and I’m grateful for your help in this crisis. Have faith in what we’re doing. Our special forces are coming and I truly believe it’s wisest if we keep the danger under wraps. The moment we think informing the mayor will save more lives, I’ll speak with him personally.”

  “How is not telling him saving more lives?” Anna asked.

  “You saw what happened earlier. If we spread more panic, it might send innocent lives straight into the hands of terrorists. We don’t want to create a nightmare scenario of people fleeing when our teams are trying to identify the enemy. I’ll tell the mayor once we know there’s not another attack imminent. You have my word.”

  The response made partial sense, but it still lacked an internal logic the more Munoz thought about it. It just didn’t make sense to not let Cafferty know the potential danger his group faced. If worst came to worst, and everyone outside the command center had to attempt their own escape, at least it gave the mayor time to devise a strategy. Still, he bit his lip rather than continuing to question the president. The man had made a decision, and knowing what he did—or thought he did—about the president, Munoz knew there was no changing his mind.

  So Reynolds was a nonstarter. But it didn’t mean Cafferty had to be kept in the dark. In fact, having worked with the mayor on a few projects, Munoz knew he wasn’t the type of man to create hysteria; his actions in the Pavilion showed that. The moment Samuels stopped being Munoz’s unwanted shadow when he neared his laptop was the moment he intended to reply to the mayor’s private message.

  The desk phone rang.

  Anna hit the loudspeaker button. “Command center.”

  “Hello. Mr. President, it’s Mansfield again.”

  “How are things proceeding?” Reynolds asked the secretary of defense, Blake Mansfield.

  “Extraction teams are minutes away from the Broad Street station in Manhattan and we’re working alongside Homeland Security. We’re clearing the Jersey City station and setting up a perimeter. We can’t risk some dumb hero cop or fireman triggering an explo—”

  Reynolds ripped up the handset. “Great work, Blake. I’ll let you know if the situation changes in the Pavilion.” He paused, listening and murmuring in agreement, and looked directly at Munoz. “Don’t worry, nobody is straying into the tunnels. Send my best to our brave men and women. Thanks for the update and keep me posted.”

  Anna tugged on Munoz’s arm and gestured her head toward the ventilation management system measurements. The methane level in the Pavilion had crawled up to 3.25 percent in the time taken for the brief call.

  “Mr. President,” Anna said, “how long until the teams arrive?”

  “Agent Samuels?” the president replied.

  “Realistically,” Samuels said, “special forces will take twenty minutes to coordinate a response and another twenty minutes to clear the tunnel of any hostiles. My best guess is forty in all.”

  “We don’t have forty minutes,” Anna said. “We have to reverse the ventilation fans. Like now.”

  “But it’s risky,” Munoz added.

  “Explain,” Samuels said.

  Munoz brought up an electronic map of the Z Train systems on the console’s central display. Tiny blue arrows rushed along the Jersey tunnel toward the Pavilion. “What you’re seeing is the ventilation flow, drawing fresh air from the Jersey City entrance and pumping it through the system. As it is right now, methane is being blown directly our way.”

  “And reversing the fans solves our problem?” Reynolds asked.

  Anna said, “But it probably makes most of the Jersey tunnel highly explosive, and it increases the likelihood of suffocation for any passenger that might still be in there. On the flip side, it buys time for the people in the Pavilion to escape through the Manhattan tunnel.”

  “With the Manhattan level rising,” Munoz said, “we’re fighting a losing battle, but it’s our only option of improving the situation. All tunnels are reporting leaks, but we’ll at least be blowing one a little clearer.”

  “Let’s get it done,” Reynolds said. “This might sound harsh, but our priority is saving those who we know are alive. And judging by the state of the train, most, if not all, of the passengers are already dead.”

  Munoz hated to admit it, but he agreed with the president.

  Chapter Six

  First came a pounding headache, the same kind as waking in the morning after too many gin and tonics, but without the parched throat and a comforter stretched over her entire body. The cold rocky ground sent a chill through her torn trouser suit, and she had lost a sandal. She gulped and forced her eyelids open.

  Total blackness cocooned her. She patted the loose stones to her sides while attempting to focus on anything that might give a clue to her location and fate.

  A crackle echoed in the distance, like the static sound an old vinyl makes before spinning to the first track.

  A metallic stench filled the air.

  Her ribs ached from where somebody had grabbed her.

  Memories crystalized in her mind.

  It had all happened so fast. Boarding the train to the strains of classical music, champagne corks popping in the car, and the high spirits of the passengers on the inaugural run. Then the savage halt, throwing everyone out of their seats. The power cut. Total darkness. Glass shattering. So many screams. So much . . .

  Strong hands had ripped her into the dark tunnel and carried her at speed. She thrashed her body, attempting to break free from the powerful grip, until the final memory of turning her head as the tunnel wall raced toward her face.

  The vivid recollections sent a chill down her spine. Whoever attacked the train had used overwhelming speed and force. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious or if help was coming. Survival for her and the ten-week-old fetus in her womb was the only immediate goal.

  Footsteps crunched over the stones toward her.

  She bolted up stiffly and her heart rate spiked.

  “Stay away from me,” she shouted into the darkness. “What the hell do you want?”

  Nobody replied.

  She shuffled away on her backside, but a muscly arm rushed out of the gloom and pinned her shins against the ground. She kicked out. Her remaining wedge-heeled sandal connected with something solid and unmoving. The arm slid up her legs and applied excruciating downward force on her thighs.

  An acrid breeze invaded her nostrils.

  “Get the fuck off me!” she screamed as she leaned up and swung a fist at her attacker. It was like punching solid rock, and clearly it didn’t faze this person in the slightest. She struggled harder, but hands grabbed her shoulders and forced them against the stones.

  A hulking figure towered over her in the darkness.

  Hot saliva dripped onto her neck.

  She had to think of something. Anything to get away. Anything at all . . .

  She had nothing.

  A single finger, with a long dirty nail, prodded against
her shirt.

  The pressure increased against her shoulders and thighs, driving her against the hard ground. She didn’t have the strength to match this power.

  Tears streamed down the sides of her face and her chest heaved.

  The dirty fingernail sliced off her shirt buttons one by one and parted the material.

  She gasped, reached back, and grabbed a thick pair of forearms. No amount of trying moved them an inch.

  “Wh-what do you want from me?”

  The fingernail jabbed into her stomach and spiraled around her belly button like a corkscrew, scraping off a layer of skin. The pain was so sharp, so intense, she was shocked to the point of muteness. But while her voice wouldn’t work, her body still responded, and she struggled again to free herself, twisting sideways enough that her cell phone dug into her hip.

  The fingernail tapped her stomach three times and circled again, peeling away another layer of flesh, as if it were strip-mining into her body.

  As if it were digging right for her unborn child . . .

  She reached into her pants pocket, fished out her phone, and hit the unlock button.

  A faint glow brightened the immediate space and the massive figure rushed away.

  “What the hell do you want?” she cried, as a trickle of blood dripped down her belly. She got no answer.

  Closing up her shirt as much as she could, she pressed the material against her wound, hoping to stanch the bleeding. Not wanting to turn the light away from the tunnel, lest her attacker come back, she nevertheless risked flipping her phone over only to see “No Service.” She quickly angled its face upward with her trembling hand, casting light outward once more, this time at the ceiling of a cave.

  To her right, the shadow of a figure moved beyond a dark circular entrance.

  A smaller hole to her left had enough space for her to squeeze through, though not enough for her much larger captor to give chase. She didn’t hesitate and rolled onto her front and started crawling on her hands and knees. Using every ounce of strength—and ignoring the phantom sensation of those strong hands grabbing her calves and dragging her back—she made it inside the cave.

  Her moment of safety was quickly destroyed when footsteps crunched toward her again and stopped at the mouth of the hole. She struggled to move deeper, the pain in her stomach amplified by it being scraped across the ground, when something razor sharp reached in and sliced through her sandal’s heel. With a shriek she wriggled her foot free and pushed deeper inside, grabbing the outcrops and hauling herself forward.

  The walls widened into a tunnel and the crackling grew louder. She rose to a crouch, extended her arm, and angled the phone to illuminate her path.

  Debris littered the ground: A clay pipe. Musket balls. A crumpled stovepipe hat. Shards of pottery. Rust-speckled tin toys. A faded family photograph. It was like a museum had exploded down here, and her brain whirled, trying to figure out what was going on. The only things that made sense were her inner dread, the gruesome cut on her belly, and the burning desire to escape from wherever her attacker had taken her.

  The space opened out into another cave, and she edged back, not wanting to enter an area where she could be grabbed for another round of torture. She strained to hear anything above the crackle, and while she waited, the events finally sunk in. No signs of any other passengers. The probable mayhem in the city and the Pavilion when it dawned that they were under attack. The reactions of her family and friends.

  Total chaos.

  A scraping sound came from behind, growing louder by the second.

  Somebody small enough had followed her inside the tunnel, which is when it dawned on her.

  Nowhere was safe.

  She scrambled to her feet and advanced deeper into the cave. She was running blindly now, the faint light on her phone enough to see just barely ahead of her, but she had no choice. Ahead of her was darkness, but behind her was a nightmare. She just had to keep moving for—

  A heavy weight battered her right shoulder, and she dropped to her knees. Her phone cartwheeled across the ground and landed facedown, plunging her back into total darkness.

  Hot breath brushed her ear.

  Arms clamped around her chest and flipped her over forcefully, and the dirty fingernail corkscrewed into her flesh once again.

  She knew nobody would hear her scream.

  But she screamed anyway, until her lungs emptied, until her throat was raw.

  She screamed, and screamed, and screamed.

  Chapter Seven

  The smooth, collective hum of the Pavilion’s ventilation fans wound to a halt. Seconds later, they whirred back to life. Cafferty stared at the wall-mounted grilles and wondered why somebody had restarted the system. Munoz knew the answer, of course, but he hadn’t replied to the message yet.

  “What do you reckon?” North asked.

  “I’m not sure. Reynolds wants us to inspect the train, though, so let’s worry about that. We’ll check on the injured along the way.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  Cafferty tucked the laptop under his arm and they headed past the stage toward triage.

  “You don’t have to do it,” North said.

  “Do what?”

  “Check the cars for evidence. I’ll handle it. You—”

  “What? David, just say it.”

  “Well, aren’t you going out of your mind right now?”

  “We all knew passengers aboard that train, David. All we can do is gather any useful information and pray the rescue teams find them.”

  But even to his friend, he gave a politician’s answer. The truth was Cafferty couldn’t stop thinking about Ellen. Many in the Pavilion were in the same position, having a missing relative or friend, and likely shared his sense of helplessness. There was nothing to be done for it, though, and for the moment at least, he had to focus on things within his control. Not doing something would truly drive him crazy.

  A dozen people lay on blankets and couch pillows inside the café. He approached the closest: a stocky bearded man wearing a bloodstained white T-shirt and holding a towel packed with ice over his left shoulder.

  “You look like you’ve seen better days,” Cafferty said.

  “What’s up, Mr. Mayor? Have we caught the terrorists yet?”

  “They won’t be leaving the tunnels alive. But that’s not something you need to worry about—between the NYPD and whatever the president can call in, we’ve got it covered. What happened to you?”

  “I was caught in a crush at the Starbucks door and forced against the broken window. Any word on when we’re getting out of here?”

  “Soon. Try to relax.”

  The man winced a smile. “Easier said than done.”

  Cafferty moved among the injured and NYPD, repeating the assurances from President Reynolds. He also instructed Lieutenant Arnolds to pass on the message to those in the food court and to tell his squad at the mouth of the Manhattan tunnel that help was coming from that direction.

  And while all this was just Cafferty being a good politician—and a generally good person—he had also used these interactions to help mentally prepare himself for facing the macabre scene of the subway car. Finally feeling he was as ready as he would ever be, he tapped North on the shoulder and motioned his head toward the platform. They left the store and made their way to the track, where a makeshift barrier had been set up around the train. He gave two cops an authoritative nod and ducked under the tape.

  North wrenched open a set of doors on the front car and slithered through the gap.

  If one person in the Pavilion could figure this out fast, Cafferty knew it was his trusted head of security, David North. In law enforcement circles, they had nicknamed him “X-Ray Man” because of his uncanny ability to spot critical forensic evidence whole teams of detectives had missed. Quite simply, he could imagine the execution of a crime, just like the criminal had done, while efficiently going about his work without any fanfare.

  Cafferty follo
wed him inside the car with a sense of optimism that they’d get to the bottom of it in short order . . . and froze.

  Everywhere spelled violence. Seats ripped from the walls. A gray slip-on shoe lying on its side. A deep scratch across the ceiling. A tablet with a smashed screen. Torn commemorative flyers on the floor. A Gucci purse by his feet with a snapped strap.

  All caked in blood.

  “There’s no glass,” North said.

  Cafferty glanced up sharply at North’s tone. The normally staid man’s voice was just a touch strained, clearly affected by the brutality of the crime scene. If he’s nervous, what the hell should I be? But he had chosen to check out the train, and he wasn’t about to back down now.

  “Meaning what?” he asked, forcing the words out.

  “The windows were shattered outward.”

  “You think the terrorists set off an explosion inside the car?”

  “I’d say yes, but that’s the weird thing—I don’t see signs of any shrapnel damage. Or burn marks. The blood spatter isn’t typical of a blast zone, either. It’s random.”

  The flash from a camera popped on the platform.

  Lucien Flament, the French reporter, lowered his camera. He looked every inch the Continental European, with a pink sweater tied around his shoulders, circular framed glasses, and a large leather satchel that hung by his side.

  “Get back to the food court,” Cafferty snapped at him.

  “I witnessed the immediate aftermath of the Paris Métro attack. Do you want me to check for similarities?”

  “I want you to do as you’re told.”

  “Mr. Mayor, I’m here to help. And it looks like you need it.”

  “You came over to take photos. This is the wrong time to test my patience, Mr. Flament.”

  The two cops guarding the line stepped in front of Flament. He shifted to the left and raised his camera.

  “Escort this pain in the ass back to the food court,” Cafferty said. “And stop anyone else from leaving.”

  One of the cops grabbed Flament’s elbow and led him away. The Frenchman shrugged free of the grip, glared at the cop like he’d just found him on the bottom of his loafer, and headed across the Pavilion.