Awakened

by James S. Murray

  Cafferty assumed that by now President Reynolds had likely seen the plan falling into action, though it didn’t matter. He was safely behind a wall of steel with a submarine on the way. Perhaps more important, Cafferty didn’t care: these people were sick and in danger, and if the president was just going to sit by and do nothing, it was up to someone to act.

  A sea of nervous faces remained in the food court. They had every right to feel this way, though Cafferty had no other option but to move fast and keep the information brief. At least he had given it to them straight, unlike a certain person in the command center.

  He could only hope that actually mattered.

  Chapter Ten

  Sal Kirsch surveyed the scene outside the MTA maintenance shed through the cab window of a diesel locomotive, used for hauling subway trains. Bright early-afternoon sunshine reflected off the Z Train Exhibition Center’s glass pyramid. Beyond it, police and firefighters packed a line surrounding the three-story Jersey City station, blocking the press, who had steadily gathered on Marin Boulevard.

  “Over there,” Sal said to Mike Esposito, his fellow operator, who sat next to him paying more attention to his ham sandwich. “Two Blackhawks and an Apache over the Hudson. Shit’s escalating real fast.”

  Four army trucks roared down the boulevard, crashed over the speed bumps leading to the newly christened Krumgold Avenue, and screeched to a halt outside the station. Soldiers armed with M4 carbines jumped out of the back and spread themselves inside the line.

  “Mike, you listening to me? People are dead and you’re stuffing your face. What gives?”

  “You heard the boss. We go as soon as we get the all clear from the command center.” He sounded almost bored.

  “I don’t get it. How are you not the least bit interested?”

  “I’m interested enough, but what are we supposed to do?”

  And that summed up exactly what was bothering Sal. He shook his head. “Sixty-five people up and vanish, some reported dead in the Pavilion, and God knows how many injured, and we’re sitting here jerking off.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, you’re a train driver, not Jason Bourne.”

  Sal grunted. “Betcha it was really an accident. The mayor is down there shitting his pants, trying to figure out how to break it to the press without losing face.”

  “You know what?” Mike popped the remnants of his sandwich into his mouth. “You’re a real dick, Sal.”

  “Why, ’cause I tell it like it is and don’t talk with my mouth full? You got a better explanation?”

  “Yeah. Terrorism, you dumbass. The news says it’s an attack. You think the army shows up for train accidents? Check out the pictures on your cell phone.”

  Sal sighed and slipped his phone out of his pocket. Mike had never taken a chance in his life. The two men had grown up in Bay Ridge together, both going to Fort Hamilton High School and, later, taking five different MTA exams, and they now operated one of the seventy-two service diesel engines in the subway system. Through all the thirty years of knowing him, he had always played it safe. Mr. I’m Not Risking My Butt for Anyone or Anything. Steady Eddie. Usually it was a good trait. Made Mike someone Sal could rely on.

  Sometimes—like today—it drove him fucking nuts.

  Four sturdy SWAT vans arrived outside. Police, dressed in green with black body armor, disembarked and pushed the press back toward the staff parking lot. In the sky, the three helicopters banked over the shimmering towers that lined the Jersey City waterfront and thumped back over the station.

  Sal selected the CNN news app.

  The headlines confirmed Mike’s words. He scrolled to “Photos of the Attack” and swept through the images. Mayor Cafferty giving a speech. A confused-looking crowd. The bloodstained front car. Diego Munoz, an old drinking buddy, with his mouth hanging open and a tool kit by his feet. A member of the Secret Service dragging President Reynolds by his lapel. The command center blast door closing with a line of agents, guns raised at a crowd of desperate faces, standing outside them.

  A chill ran down his spine.

  “See what I mean?” Mike asked.

  “It’s insane. I’ve got three pals down there. You?”

  “Same. Jess wanted a selfie with the president.”

  “She likes Reynolds?”

  “Nah, she does duck-face photos with anyone famous.”

  Sal shook his head, swept back to the shot of the train, and scrutinized the image. “Mike, take a look. The train isn’t derailed. It’s still mobile.”

  “Yeah, but the power’s out. The train’s dark.”

  “So what? We barrel in there with the diesel engine, we could hitch that train up and drag everyone out, including the president.”

  “Including the president? We’re not Train Force One, buddy. Those are terrorists down there.”

  “That’s my point. Our friends are trapped in that Pavilion. I’m not leaving them to get picked off by those assholes.”

  “Look at all those soldiers and cops. Nobody is leaving anyone. Not to mention that no one is going to let us go.”

  “Who said anything about ‘let’ us?”

  “You’re an idiot, Sal,” Mike said, opening a bag of chips.

  And you’re a pussy, Mike. Sal opened a video embedded in the news article.

  The footage showed the powerless train gliding into the Pavilion. A moment later, the crowd on the platform charged in all directions, shouting and screaming. A couple of people fell and disappeared under the hail of shoes. The recording ended, frozen on the face of a panic-stricken woman who had darted in front of the camera.

  His hand tightened around the phone. The mayhem reminded him of 9/11, when he hid behind an ambulance on Fulton Street as clouds of debris and smoke belched between the buildings toward him.

  “We’re going in,” Sal said. “Right now.”

  “Yeah right.”

  “I’m serious. We have to do something!”

  “Calm down. Besides, don’t you think teams are already on their way?”

  “Have you seen anyone entering?”

  “This isn’t the only entrance, Einstein.”

  “Don’t patronize me, Mike.”

  “Did you stop and think why no one is going in? Something’s not right here.”

  “Exactly!”

  “No—I mean something more than even the news is telling us, idiot.”

  He hated to admit it, but Mike had a point. He hated to admit it so much that he decided to ignore it and focus on what was important: the diesel engine they were sitting in was only a railroad switch away from being able to charge into the sunshine and through the tunnel. The line of tape outside stretched across the tracks, and two cops chatted with a soldier in front of the shed, but they were no match for more than two hundred tons of accelerating steel . . .

  As if reading his thoughts, Mike said, “We’re not doing it, Sal.”

  “I’m not waiting until it’s too late.”

  “You’ll get us both fired.”

  “I can live with that. Could you sleep at night knowing we had the chance to save lives and just sat here and did nothing?”

  “Can you live with getting us killed? There are terrorists down there. Can you sleep at night knowing you’re fucking dead?”

  Sal groaned—not just at the faulty logic but at what it implied. “If it’s terrorists—and I still say it’s a big if—fuck ’em. Let’s see how they deal with American steel riding down their throats. We have a chance to save these people.”

  “Give it some time, Sal. Let the cops do their job.”

  Sal battered his fist against the dashboard. That was the problem—the cops weren’t doing their job from what he could see, not unless their job was to stand around and do dick all. And having grown up with some guys who became cops, that might actually be the case . . .

  Give it some time. He asked himself if those trapped people had any time left. With the clock ticking and the means to aid in the rescue at
his disposal, Sal made himself a promise. If nothing happened in the next forty-five minutes, this diesel engine was heading for the Pavilion to rescue his friends, whether Mike liked it or not.

  As Mike crunched away on some chips, Sal quietly set an alarm on his watch.

  Chapter Eleven

  All eyes in the command center were fixed on the live news broadcast. Special forces teams, wearing black helmets, gas masks, and tactical clothing, pounded along the deserted road and streamed down the steps of the Broad Street station. The image switched to a stern-faced reporter outside Federal Hall, who glared into the camera and announced the operation to free the people in the subway system was under way.

  If the terrorists were stupid enough to be in the Manhattan tunnel, they were about to meet America’s most elite and deadly fighting team.

  Reynolds sat with a handset planted against his ear, his face rigid with concentration while he received live updates from the secretaries of defense and homeland security.

  Samuels focused on the monitor displaying the DSRV’s GPS coordinates as it powered to a depth of two hundred feet, heading directly for the docking station.

  Munoz kept half an eye on the slowly rising methane levels and figured they had roughly twenty-five minutes until the Pavilion reach the LEL.

  Anna leaned across to him. “Not long now.”

  “I’m sure we’ll be all right. It’s the passengers I’m worried about. And Jim and Carl.”

  “You did what you thought was best. And those two might be okay.”

  “Don’t kid yourself. They aren’t and it’s my fault.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “It was a bad call. I fucked up and now two officers may be dead.”

  Every few minutes since his failed idea, Munoz had glanced across to Samuels. The big agent remained focused on the screens, frowning at the flurry of activity around the train, and he regularly checked his watch. A petty man would have stomped over to Munoz’s chair and said “I told you so” with a shit-eating grin plastered across his face. But not Samuels. He remained a cold and hard hallmark of professionalism.

  For some reason that bothered Munoz more.

  On the Pavilion video feed, a line of people carried metal panels and oxygen tanks toward the train. North organized them at the rear car. Cafferty stood behind somebody holding a blowtorch toward an internal vent, and sparks fizzed against a window.

  Munoz winced. “I need to keep Mayor Cafferty updated with the methane levels. They’ve got minutes until those torches ignite the whole place.”

  “Mr. President,” Samuels said, shooting a nasty look at Munoz, “it appears we’ve discovered the source of our internal leak.”

  “Not right now,” Reynolds said. “Special forces are a quarter of a mile through the Manhattan tunnel with no problems encountered.”

  Silence filled the air, broken only by a regular electronic pulse from the ventilation management system, reporting the Jersey City tunnel’s critical methane level. The sound, coupled with the array of controls in the command center, made the place feel like a huge submarine. And just like in a submarine, they were trapped inside . . . and in incredibly dangerous waters.

  Munoz reached for the console’s keyboard to mute the alarm—and two electronic pulses reported in quick succession. Glancing over to the monitor, he saw that the methane level in the midsection of the Manhattan tunnel had jumped to 4 percent, meaning another larger breach must have opened up suddenly, right where the special forces were.

  Distant gunfire crackled through a speaker in the command center, and Munoz’s eyes flew to a video monitor. More beeps drew his attention back to the methane monitor: the measurement bars surged upward to 6 percent and transformed from green to red, marking most of the Manhattan tunnel as highly explosive.

  “Oh shit,” Anna said.

  Munoz twisted in his chair. “Mr. President, tell the rescue teams to stop firing! There must be another breach.”

  “What?” Reynolds lowered the handset. “Are you serious?”

  “Dead serious! The leak. It’s rocketed—”

  A distant thunderous explosion boomed. The ground shook. A thin layer of dust dropped from the ceiling.

  Munoz tensed, hoping the lower methane levels toward the Pavilion meant it wouldn’t ignite and the blast wave would be snuffed out before incinerating everyone outside the command center. He rated the chances at fifty-fifty, though that was pure guesswork at this point. Some of the team members bolted from their seats, as if they’d be able to see something from this closed-off bunker. Others instinctively ducked. Still others were frozen in place.

  Alarms blared through the console and the control panel lit up like a Christmas tree.

  On the overhead video feed, Cafferty and his group dove inside the train. Cops rushed away from the mouth of the Manhattan tunnel. Seconds later, flames briefly licked out before dense smoke billowed into the Pavilion, shrouding it from view and almost certainly doing nothing for the air quality outside.

  “What was that, Blake?” Reynolds shouted at the phone to the secretary of defense. He listened to a quiet, tinny voice reply and color drained from his face. “It did what?”

  The news channel cut out to solid blue.

  The DSRV tracking monitor cut out.

  A link to the AV room cut out.

  The ventilation management system reported fan failure in every tunnel . . . then cut out.

  “Blake?” Reynolds said. “Blake, can you hear me?”

  The ceiling lights flickered in the command center before returning to their consistent glare. Munoz knew that meant the backup generators had kicked in, which further meant external power was lost. Judging by the sound of the president, communication with the outside world was lost as well.

  Only the view of the Pavilion remained live. The IMAX projector’s blue beams stabbed through the gray haze, highlighting figures moving around the train. Munoz switched the console screen to a system-wide view, and every external source reported as disconnected.

  “Blake!”

  “It’s no use, Mr. President,” Munoz said. “The explosion destroyed our physical connectivity. We’re on our own, running on localized backup power.”

  Reynolds slowly replaced the handset.

  “Mr. President,” Samuels said, “it’s time to head for the sub while we still have some form of power. If that goes, we won’t be able to get through the emergency passage doors.”

  Nobody said a word and all eyed the president. Reynolds leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples.

  “We need to move,” Samuels said. “They might come here next.”

  “Let me think, goddammit,” Reynolds barked.

  Samuels backed away and turned toward Munoz. “What did I tell you about not taking unilateral action?”

  “Back off me,” Munoz countered aggressively. “With the fans now out, every tunnel and the Pavilion might be at an explosive limit in minutes. At least they have a better fighting chance.”

  “Listen very carefully.” Samuels stepped closer. “When the president gives a goddamned order, you follow that goddamned order.”

  Willfully keeping people in the dark put their very existence at risk, especially with the welding work continuing outside. More than that, Samuels’ attitude was so callously . . . inhuman that something snapped inside Munoz. He sprung from his chair, wrestled off his jacket, and pushed up the sleeves of his blue shirt.

  “You wouldn’t last five seconds,” Samuels said, holding the ground between Munoz and the president. “Be a professional and get back to your position.”

  “Diego,” Anna said, grabbing his arm, “this is not the fight to have right now.”

  “Stop!” Reynolds yelled at the same time. “We’re not fighting in here. I need information. Now.”

  Munoz took a few deep breaths to calm himself while scanning his team’s anxious faces. The more time he spent locked inside the command center, the more he fel
t selfish and frustrated about not keeping Cafferty fully in the loop. He mentally kicked himself for not staying strong and letting the pressure of the situation get to him. Samuels had done nothing wrong; they simply had competing priorities.

  “The methane in the Manhattan tunnel sharply spiked moments before we felt that explosion,” Munoz said in a calmer voice.

  “The special forces team must have come under attack,” Reynolds commented. “What’s the status of the Manhattan tunnel?”

  “The status? Sir, it’s gone. It’s all gone,” Munoz replied.

  Silence overtook the command center as the gravity of the situation sunk in.

  “We need another plan,” Reynolds said.

  “Mr. President,” Samuels interjected, “your plan is simple. The sub was twenty-two minutes away last time I checked. We need to leave.”

  Reynolds swallowed hard. “I meant for the others. Cafferty needs all available information before I step foot out on that sub. Deactivate lockdown and we’ll bring everyone inside in case the terrorists come here next.”

  “Mr. President, we’re under attack. We can’t rule out anyone being a terrorist. Don’t think because they haven’t yet shown themselves that there isn’t one still in the Pavilion, waiting for an opportunity like this. That blast door needs to stay closed. Once we’ve left on the sub, they can deactivate lockdown, but only then.”

  “Can we get Cafferty on the phone then?” Reynolds asked.

  “The internal phone in the AV room,” Anna said. “But he won’t hear it from the train.”

  “How have you been in contact with him?” Samuels asked Munoz.

  Munoz moved to his workstation and flipped open his laptop. Thankfully, the connection to Cafferty remained live on the local area network, and a new message popped up.

  TC: Diego, what the fuck?

  “Mr. President,” Munoz said, “you can message Mayor Cafferty here.”

  Reynolds moved to his side, hunched down, and squinted at the screen. “How much does he know?”