by Toby Tate
“Okay, go ahead. You have two minutes,” Fredrichs said.
But instead of speaking, Hunter turned to his wife.
“Dump everything out of your backpack and split it between Vince and Jason.”
Lisa hesitated, staring at her husband like he had just escaped from the local asylum.
“It’s okay. Do it,” he said, giving her a wink.
While Lisa unshouldered her backpack and began dumping the contents, he turned to Jason.
“I assume you have an extra pistol on a shoulder holster. Let me have it.”
The big spook didn’t move.
Hunter held out a hand. “Please?” he said. “Trust me, Jason. I know Lilith and I know what I’m doing. If I take time to explain, it will be too late.”
After a few seconds of hesitation, Jason reached under his shirt, pulled out the Beretta and handed it to Hunter butt first.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said. “For all our sakes.”
“I need all of you to wait here,” Hunter said, grabbing the pistol. “I have to do this myself. Understand? Don’t come over there until I call you.”
He turned and took the empty backpack from Lisa, who looked him in the eyes and whispered, “I trust you. Be careful.”
Then, Hunter was gone.
CHAPTER 81
The dead feet of Lilith’s victim bounced along the concrete, resembling the carcass of a freshly-killed deer, blood and gore streaking the ground like the trail of an immense slug. Most of the city was still without power, so she was hidden in shadow for nearly the whole route between Riverside and Morningside parks. She held the headless corpse, which had not yet grown stiff from rigor mortis, in her huge maw by one arm, the other arm flopping on the ground like the appendage of a broken doll. It would make a wonderful first meal for her young.
Lilith eyed the buildings that lined both sides of the road as she strode through it, a proud lion returning from the hunt. It looked like a university campus, huge and sprawling. She could see there was no one inside any of the structures and most of the trees had been laid flat, like every other tree in the city, by the storm—her storm. A storm that had probably killed hundreds, maybe thousands.
Lilith found that she enjoyed killing. Even shooting that man on board the Navy ship was exhilarating. It was like a drug, addictive and intoxicating. The smell and the taste of blood reached her on the most primeval level, like a shark in a feeding frenzy. And she still had powers yet to explore; powers that would make her a god. There would be no stopping her.
And soon, the bomb would decimate the city with a blinding ball of white-hot fire, turning it into her radioactive playground.
As she pondered these things, her olfactory senses were suddenly bombarded by the smell of several humans. She recognized them as the people she had seen earlier by the helicopter, just before she had killed one of them.
She stopped in her tracks, trying to decide what to do. Would they ambush her? How could they? She had already sensed their presence. Were they really that stupid?
When she remembered she had left Hunter there to guard her egg, Lilith dropped the corpse in the road and took off at a gallop, her paws thumping the ground with the power of a runaway freight train.
* * *
Hunter sat in the dark against the same sycamore tree where Lilith had given birth and waited. The egg stank like the backside of a camel and it was all he could do to keep from vomiting. He knew that Lilith would probably come from the direction she had gone. He had been praying that his plan would work, that it wasn’t some harebrained scheme that was going to get him and the entire team killed. If he was dead, who would raise his child? He wished he would have gotten one of those wireless Android phones from Jason—he could really use some encouragement right now.
The nine-millimeter Beretta felt good in his hand. He had used one before when he was in the Navy. They were reliable guns that packed a punch, which was exactly what he needed. A grenade launcher would be even better, but that wouldn’t serve his particular purpose.
What the hell was taking Lilith so long? Hunter knew there were still thousands of people in the city, most of them in the emergency center at Madison Square Garden. You could never get everyone out of a place as big as Manhattan. Most of them had probably decided that the sheer size of its skyscrapers alone would protect much of the island from the wind, so they stayed. The flooding had been bad from the storm surges, but nothing like a tsunami, thank God. People who lived in apartment buildings were probably safe from most of the flooding, and nearly everyone in Manhattan owned or rented an apartment or a townhouse.
As Hunter wondered what he should do next, he felt a presence behind him. He sprang from the ground and turned to find Lilith staring him in the face. A rumbling growl came from deep within her massive chest as she watched his movements with red-rimmed, silver eyes.
Hunter held up a green backpack that bulged with the weight of Lilith’s egg and showed her the pistol.
“I think you know what I’m going to do with this, don’t you,” he said, doing his best to keep his tone confident and fearless, pointing the pistol at the backpack. “You’re going to show us where that bomb is, right?”
Lilith was still and silent and Hunter figured she was considering her options. If he harmed the egg, Hunter knew his life would be over with a flash of tooth and claw, but he hoped that she cared more about her offspring than she cared about having the upper hand and wouldn’t call his bluff.
When she didn’t move after several seconds, Hunter knew he had his answer. He glanced toward the area where Lisa and the others waited and whistled loudly.
“Come on out!” he shouted.
From behind the clump of fallen trees stepped Jason, Lisa, Mac and Slater, guns trained on Lilith. She watched them with catlike calm as they slowly approached and stopped beside Hunter.
“You’re going to show us where that bomb is, or your life and the life of your unborn children ends right now. What’s it going to be?”
Lilith breathed another growl, this one sounding like a sigh of resignation, and padded off toward the southeast.
Jason pressed a button on his GPS watch and said on his Bluetooth, “Harrison, get a fix on my position and follow behind us.”
CHAPTER 82
Their shadows crept along the street like wraiths under the light of the moon as the twelve-member team followed behind the beast that was Lilith. Hunter had figured she must weigh at least a ton by now, and she never seemed to stop growing. When would she be full grown? At two tons? Three tons? It was mind-bending. He couldn’t help but wonder how she kept from starving to death.
As they walked quickly along 115th Street, Chin, an Asian man that reminded Hunter of a young Jet Li with somber, intelligent eyes and muscular forearms that looked like they were corded with steel cables, silently indicated he wanted to look in Hunter’s backpack. Hunter glanced ahead at Lilith, then shrugged and handed Chin the bag.
Chin grabbed it and unzipped the top, then peered down inside. The man seemed to study it, nodding his head slowly as he did so.
“Amazing,” Chin whispered.
A slimy, ovoid-shaped mass, translucent and somewhat malleable, the egg was like a giant gummy worm. It was nearly the size of a bowling ball, but light, probably no more than a couple of pounds. Yet it was almost unbelievable that a being the size of Lilith could come from something that small.
“I’m a bio-chemical engineer,” Chin whispered. “I would love to study this thing. I’d be willing to bet no one has ever seen anything like this. There are only five species of monotremes known to exist in the world.”
Hunter raised an eyebrow. “Mono-what?”
“Monotremes. Mammals that lay eggs. The only ones known to exist live in Australia and New Guinea. I’ll bet we could learn a lot from studying this egg.”
Chin zipped the pack and handed it back to Hunter, who slipped a strap over his shoulder.
As they bega
n to make a turn onto Broadway, Hunter thought the only thing they could learn from Lilith and her brood was a quicker way to die.
* * *
The Columbia University main campus came into view on their way down Broadway. Trees lay across its soggy green lawns like broken pencils and windows were shattered in several buildings. The pavement was still wet from the deluge of rain and cars sat in the middle of the street, blown there by the one-hundred and fifty mile-per-hour winds. Everywhere they looked showed signs of damage from Hurricane Alex. After miles of walking, they had seen several emergency vehicles attempting to navigate the impassable streets. The few people they had met along the way quickly turned a different direction once they glimpsed Lilith. Hunter imagined one of them soiling their pants at the sight of her and figured he would probably do the same if he was in their shoes.
Hunter glimpsed Lisa a few feet behind him and she gave him a thumbs-up. He knew she knew that he was worried about her stress level and how it was affecting the baby. If he had his way, Lisa wouldn’t even be here, but the woman was stubborn. Just like him.
He scanned the road ahead and wondered how much longer it would be until they arrived at their destination and whether or not it would even do a bit of good. Could they really diffuse a nuclear bomb? If they couldn’t, then he hoped the end would be quick.
CHAPTER 83
After hours and miles of walking down Broadway, Lisa’s feet felt as if they were on fire. She was so glad she had decided to wear her Nikes today, otherwise she probably wouldn’t have made it. When people talked about the length of a city block, she would definitely remember this as a reference, she thought.
They must have been a sight, a dozen people dressed in dark clothing and carrying enough firepower for a small army, following closely behind a snowy-white beast from hell. Lisa almost laughed at the ridiculousness of it, except that it wasn’t funny. Manhattan was about to get nuked and them along with it if they weren’t fast enough to diffuse this bomb. Lisa had seen plenty of videos of atomic bomb explosions and their effects. The blast would be brighter than the noonday sun and would level everything around it in a perfect circle, blowing a hole in the earth as deep as the Grand Canyon. The mushroom cloud would rise miles into the stratosphere, carrying radioactive particles that would rain down like the plagues of Egypt for years to come. After 9-11, New York certainly didn’t need any more tragedies. It was a mind-numbingly horrific thought. What the hell was it with Lilith and nuclear fission, anyway? First the Ford and now this. She obviously thrived on radiation and wanted as much of it around as possible. She seemed to have an insatiable appetite for destruction and chaos—she certainly had created enough of it.
As she watched Hunter walk in front of her, Lisa thought about how glad she had been to see him again and how things would hopefully be normal once this horror show was over. They could get back to living their dull, ordinary lives and raise the child they had always wanted. Lisa could think of nothing she would rather do.
In the meantime, they had just passed the Lincoln Center and the Metropolitan Opera House and were coming up on the Trump Tower and Columbus Circle, only blocks from where the carrier was moored. Were they almost there? How much farther could it be?
* * *
It was nearly ten p.m. when the team reached Times Square. The scene was desolate—the giant screen overlooking the square had been smashed by debris from the high winds, water stood a foot deep in many places and glass from the shattered windows of hotels and businesses littered the streets like gravel. Signs and pieces of building awnings lay on the tops of cars, pushing them down like crushed aluminum cans. Lisa was sure looters probably had a field day in the once vibrant city. She thought of all the times she had wanted to visit New York, seeing it on TV during the Thanksgiving parades and on New Year’s Eve, now just a shadow of its former self. Lisa saw the outline of the famous ball drop tower in the distance and marveled that it had weathered the storm.
They abruptly stopped under a sign that read Subway carved into an angled silver awning with a Quicksilver sign on one side and a Skechers store on the other. The letters were inset with unlit neon tubes that would normally make the letters glow red. She stood close to Hunter and grabbed his hand in hers as they stood staring up at the sign. They were on 42nd Street at the entrance to the subway station. Lisa did not have a good feeling about this.
“SOG team members,” Jason said, motioning them forward. “Captain Phillips and Commander Crane, keep an eye on our escort.” The SOG team members huddled around their leader as he laid out some sort of plan Lisa couldn’t quite make out.
The huddle broke up and Jason said, “SOG team, break out your Nova Tac flashlights and lanyards. Electrical power hasn’t been restored to this part of the city yet, so it looks like we’re gonna be in the dark for a while.”
All six men broke open their backpacks and pulled out long, black flashlights. Lisa glanced at Hunter, who held his Beretta in hand, ready to put several holes in Lilith’s egg if she so much as flinched.
“Gabe, Blakely, Anderson and Samson, watch our backs while we’re down there,” Jason said. “The rest of you, be alert. Maintain the usual spacing and don’t lose sight of each other. Keep your phones on and the line clear.”
The men hung the flashlight lanyards around their necks and switched on their lights, casting eerie shadows along the floor and walls as they descended into darkness.
CHAPTER 84
The Times Square subway station was huge and the floor still wet from flooding. The air was damp and reeked of mold. Normally the busiest station in New York, it was devoid of people and utterly dark. It was also the perfect place for an ambush. Jason was worried as hell, but didn’t let it show. No use in making everyone more nervous than they already were. The flashlights were bright as automobile headlights and would burn for five hours on high power. They also had a strobe effect that would disorient any would-be attackers long enough for his team to get the upper hand.
As for that big lumbering beast they called Lilith, she was completely unpredictable and Jason didn’t like that. He didn’t trust her at all, which is why he had decided to have an ace in the hole just in case. He had never been in the New York subway and was unfamiliar with the layout, though he had ridden the Metro in D.C. on quite a few occasions. He wanted to assure their chances not only of success but of survival and took some extra precautions without Lilith’s knowledge. The less she knew, the better, he figured.
Their footfalls echoed against the walls as they moved through the station. Without the flashlights, it would have been pitch black.
After a few hundred yards, they stopped next to a large, yellow, rectangular trap door. Lilith stared down at the door as if willing it to open. Jason got the idea and he motioned for Samson and Anderson to help him raise it. Jason managed to get a knife blade under it and realized the hatch was made of steel, at least two-hundred pounds. The men wedged their hands beneath the plate until they got a grip on it and flipped it over backwards. It clanged loudly on the concrete floor, revealing a staircase that led down into more blackness.
“Holy shit,” Anderson said. “It’s a tunnel beneath a tunnel. This must be an old abandoned station. These things run for miles beneath the city, a perfect hiding place for a nuke.”
Jason nodded. “Yeah, you can take out Times Square and Rockefeller Plaza all in one blast. That would create a nice big cloud of radioactive debris.”
Lilith padded down the stairs as if she had no problem seeing in the dark, which Jason was sure was the case. The team followed close behind, the ground swallowing them up like the open maw of a hungry shark.
* * *
Hunter wondered what he had gotten them into. Was Lilith leading them into a trap or to the nuke? They were descending a staircase down to another level of the subway station that had been unused since the 1970s. Hunter had once researched subways years ago to learn about the Metro trains just before taking a trip to D.C. The NYC subway system w
as one of the largest public transportation systems in the world, with nearly eight-hundred-fifty miles of tracks running both above and below ground. Add to that the unused sections of tracks like this and it was a virtual labyrinth, harboring homeless people, gangs, rats and probably the occasional toxic waste. It was a city unto itself.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs hundreds of feet below, they found themselves on a subway platform. Shining his light in either direction, Hunter saw the subway tracks disappear into blackness. Lisa was standing close and Hunter reached over and squeezed her hand. She looked a little on edge, but Hunter could feel his nerves buzzing, as well. Being led by a wild beast down into a dark, subterranean passage that harbored a ten-kiloton nuclear weapon and possibly a gang of crazed militants was enough to make anyone edgy.
“It’s like being in the pit of Hell,” Gabe said as she sidled up next to Lisa and Hunter.
Hunter nodded in agreement, his flashlight playing over some colorful graffiti on one wall of the station.
Lilith began to move off in one direction and Jason indicated the group to follow along. They lined up single file to move down the raised concrete walkway beside the tracks. Hunter saw rats down by the rails several times, but when the light hit them they scurried out of sight. There were two sets of tracks in the subway, one going each direction, and between the tracks I-beams were spaced about every six feet from ceiling to floor. In some places there were four-foot by five-foot cinderblock walls between the I-beams. On the far side were more I-beams and another wall behind that, which Hunter figured could be anything from the ground to another subway tunnel. Ancient light bulbs were screwed into light sockets for about the first hundred yards or so. There was probably no electricity down here even when the power was on, Hunter thought. There were beer cans and liquor bottles that looked fairly new scattered in places along the tracks that indicated someone had been here recently. The smell of vomit mixed with urine permeated the air. Why anyone would want to come to this God-forsaken hole was beyond Hunter, but having been homeless himself once, he knew that the cool shelter of the tunnels could look very inviting to someone on a hot, humid night. He was surprised that there hadn’t been more flooding, but figured the speed of the storm may have prevented that.
