Trapping Zero

by Jack Mars

  I was wrong. He blew the horn to clear pedestrians from his path. He had just focused every asset in New York on the two tunnels on the opposite side of the island. And while those were cleared out, the Queens-Midtown Tunnel was clogged, two lanes in each direction and more than a mile long. He tried to do some quick math in his head; they could be talking about casualties up to four or five thousand people.

  “Call everyone you can, tell them the target has changed and the attack is imminent,” Reid told his team. “If that crashed truck was them, it means they’re starting now. Trying to trap as many people down there as they can. Watson, call the agency. We need to let them know what’s happening. Tell them we’re on our way there now.”

  And hopefully not too late.

  *

  Awad bin Saddam leaned close to the radio, intently waiting for the signal to begin.

  He sat in the wheelhouse of the small freighter as they chugged slowly up the East River. A few feet from him, their Armenian helmsman silently piloted the boat. The Armenian spoke very little English and no Arabic, but he knew his role—he was to cruise up the river until Awad gave him the signal, and then idle until their task was accomplished.

  After that, Awad planned to shoot him.

  Below deck, Hassan and Ahmed were ready. The three silver cases that housed the remote guidance system were online and connected to the drones. Anil and Dilshad had done well so far; they had gotten the submarine drones in the water at precisely the directed position, two and a half kilometers from the freighter’s location. The signal was weaker than Awad would have liked, but it would have to suffice.

  They had only one thing yet to do, the very thing that Awad was impatiently waiting for beside the radio.

  Then it came. A woman announced over the airwaves that the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels were being closed. They know, Awad thought. No matter; their attention was diverted. The reporter continued, announcing that the Queens-Midtown Tunnel’s westbound traffic had been blockaded by an overturned truck.

  The signal.

  Awad rose quickly and gestured to the Armenian with a raised fist, signaling him to stop the boat. The helmsman nodded and cut the engine as Awad hurried out of the wheelhouse.

  He wondered, briefly, if Anil and Dilshad were still alive. Not that it mattered. They had served their purpose, and soon, so would he.

  The plan was simple. They had three drones; there would be three strikes. The first would hit at the eastern end of the tunnel, near Anil and Dilshad’s intentional crash, in case it was cleared quickly enough for traffic to flow again. As the panicked masses trampled each other to escape the water, the second drone would strike at the western side, blocking off any chance of escape.

  The third and final strike would be dead center, and at Awad’s own hand. He wanted more than just loss of life; he wanted destruction. He wanted to cause panic and fear and doubt. He did not want the bodies to be recoverable under cement and steel and water.

  His initial impression had been that with three drones, he could attack three tunnels. But the Libyan had advised against it. The tunnel walls were thick and well designed; a single strike could not guarantee the sort of annihilation he was hoping for. In fact, it was the arms dealer that had suggested the Midtown Tunnel in the first place. It was the unlikeliest of the major underwater causeways should anyone discover their plan to attack a tunnel of New York.

  His two brothers were waiting below deck, the silver cases open in front of them. Awad nodded to Ahmed, who would be the first to strike.

  “Let us begin,” he said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

  Reid screeched to a halt at the congested mess of traffic on the sloping causeway leading down towards the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. He threw the taxi into park and clambered out as Talia, Maria, and Watson followed. None of them needed to exchange words as they sprinted between lanes of stopped cars towards the entrance. Reid led the way towards the dim mouth of the right tube, where a few MTA employees and two NYPD officers were attempting to simultaneously assuage the tense gridlocked situation and direct traffic away from the entrance, but there was nowhere for anyone to go. Traffic was bumper to bumper. Behind them, at the tunnel’s origin, was the overturned white utility truck that had caused the congestion, lying on its side and still smoldering.

  One of the officers saw the three agents approaching and he sharply held up a hand. “Please stay with your vehicles!” he said sternly. “We’re doing everything we can to clear the tunnel, but you have to stay with your—”

  “Officer,” Reid said breathlessly, “it’s this tunnel. The Midtown Tunnel is the target. We have to get these people out of here.”

  The cop frowned. “No,” he said in disbelief. “They told us it was the Holland Tunnel. They’re evacuating now—”

  “Right,” said Reid, “and while everyone is distracted there, no one is watching here. Trust me. Please.”

  The officer’s throat flexed. He glanced quickly over his shoulder. “Jesus,” he murmured. “There are thousands in there. This tunnel is more than a mile long…”

  “We need to get as many out by whatever means necessary,” Reid said forcefully. “Leave the cars. Just get the people out.”

  The cop nodded tightly. He pointed at his fellow officer. “Call this in. Get whoever you can down here.” To the MTA crew he said, “Radio the other end and have them start evacuation right now. Then take the other tube and start getting people out.” The officers and transit authority scattered immediately into the tunnels, waving their arms and shouting the order to evacuate.

  “Watson, help them with the evac,” Reid said. “If you see anything suspicious, call the sat phone and activate the jammer.”

  “Kent!” Maria called to him as Watson jogged into the tunnel. She had gone over to inspect behind the overturned truck. “Come look at this!”

  He and Talia rushed over to her side. “What is it?” The rear doors of the utility truck had burst open when the vehicle flipped, and the contents had spilled out into the road, what appeared to be complex machine parts. Reid knelt and picked up one of the pieces. It looked like some sort of small motor, attached to a durable propeller by a rubber, waterproof gasket. “What are we looking at here?”

  “I know what this is,” said Mendel quietly. “I’ve seen similar machines before, when Hamas tried to smuggle them over our border.” She looked Reid in the eye. “These are drone parts.”

  Underwater tunnels. The Queens-Midtown Tunnel ran beneath the East River. Nafaq. Tunnel. The attack on the USS New York wasn’t just an attack, he realized. It was a testing ground. Because if the submarine drone was powerful enough to sink a battleship, it was certainly enough to destroy a four-lane tunnel of concrete and steel.

  There’s another drone. The Brotherhood was there somewhere, with another remote guidance system—and at a potential range of two or three kilometers, they could be anywhere.

  “It’s a drone, just like in Israel,” he told them. “The USS New York was their instigation attack, and this is their masterstroke. They didn’t blow their primary weapon on the battleship—they were testing it.”

  “Kent, if this truck was crashed on purpose to trap people down there, then a drone could be on its way right now,” Maria said anxiously.

  She was right. They could be mere moments away from detonation. “Call Bixby, see if we have any assets we have on the East River,” he said quickly. “Alert the Coast Guard and tell them we’re looking for a submersible drone packing a lot of punch. They need to keep an eye on their radar, far as they’re able to see—”

  Maria shook her head. “Won’t work. The drone in Israel had stealth capability.”

  “But it’ll still show up on infrared,” Mendel offered. “The bigger problem is what the hell we can do about it if they spot it. There’s nothing on the river that fast…”

  “There might be something,” Maria murmured. She pulled the RF jammer out of her bag and pushed it into Reid’s hands. “Take
this. You two place them in the tunnel, one at each entrance. That’s the most likely place for a strike.” She hefted the black bag over her shoulder and started away from the mouth of the tube.

  “Wait, where are you going?” Reid called after her.

  “I’ve got a backup plan,” she shouted back. “Go!”

  He didn’t have to be told twice. He and Talia sprinted for the tunnel entrance, his bag slung over one shoulder and the RF jammer under one arm.

  “How are we going to get to the other side?” Talia asked. “We don’t have time to travel on foot.”

  Reid looked around frantically at the mess of traffic. He spotted a motorcyclist in a black helmet on a sports bike, trying to edge his way between two stopped cars as the driver shouted at him.

  “Sir,” Reid said as he hurried over towards the bike and its rider. “We’re going to need your motorcycle.”

  “What?” said the confused male voice from behind the helmet’s visor.

  “No time,” Talia muttered. She pulled Strickland’s Glock from the waist of her pants. “Off the bike, now.”

  “Jeez, take it!” The motorcyclist leapt off the bike and scrambled away backwards, his hands in the air at the sight of the gun.

  “We need to evacuate this tunnel,” Reid told the cyclist as he mounted the motorcycle. “You want to help save some lives? Tell everyone you can.” Talia jumped on behind him, her hands tight around his waist. He opened the throttle carefully as he guided the sports bike between the rows of stopped cars and into the tunnels. The din of honking horns and shouting voices echoed in the tube, twice as loud as in the open streets of the city.

  “Maria’s right,” Reid shouted over his shoulder. “If I was the Brotherhood, I’d aim for an entrance. And I don’t think it’s any coincidence that a truck overturned at the Manhattan side of the tunnel. We should drop an active jammer on this end.” He slowed the bike and stopped about two hundred yards inside the tunnel, where there was a break in the metal railing that separated the elevated concrete causeway from the two lanes of traffic. He carefully navigated the bike up onto the narrow walkway, and then took the RF jammer from Talia.

  She looked dubious. “If we turn that on, we’re knocking out any cell phone and radio reception in a five-hundred yard radius.”

  “I know.” They had no choice; it was either cripple communications or risk the drone strike. Reid held his breath for a moment, and then he flicked the switch and set the jammer down on the elevated causeway, out of the way of tires and people.

  His throat felt tight as he stared down the straight concrete walkway. It was meant as an access for maintenance workers and was less than three feet across, boxed in by the curved wall of the tube on one side and a steel banister on the other.

  “You can’t be serious,” Talia said in his ear.

  “We have to get to the other side somehow, and this is the fastest way. Just… hang on.” Reid gritted his teeth and twisted the throttle. The sports bike started forward, barely more than a few inches on either side of the handlebars. Not much margin for error, Reid thought grimly.

  He kept the bike as steady as possible as he increased his speed to twenty, then thirty. You got this, he told himself, holding his breath as he kept his focus on the restricted thoroughfare.

  Hard as he tried to concentrate, he could see in his periphery the mass of stopped cars in both lanes. As he picked up speed it looked like a river of vehicles rushing by, though not a single one was moving but them. He saw people getting out of their cars, heading towards one end of the tunnel or another; he heard the blaring honks, sounding distant behind the whine of the bike’s engine, from drivers too stubborn to leave their cars behind.

  He felt Talia adjust slightly behind him to peer over his shoulder. “Careful,” she warned. She was looking at the speedometer; they were going nearly sixty. “I’d very much like to not die today.”

  “If that drone hits, we’re dying anyway,” Reid said too softly for her to hear.

  After about a half mile he slowed the bike and came to a halt. The line of cars was seemingly endless, the slight curve of the tunnel obscuring either possible exit. The people down here were, quite literally, sitting targets. Many of the cars were in park or even turned off altogether, and several people had exited their vehicles and were attempting, in vain, to get a signal on their cell phones.

  “Why are we stopped?” Talia asked.

  “Watson and the NYPD will never get down this far in time,” Reid told her. He waved to a man in a business suit that was holding his cell phone over his head, as if it would help him gain a bar or two of reception. “Hey! Sir! We need to evacuate the tunnel! Leave your car, leave your belongings, and spread the word!”

  The man stared at Reid for a brief moment, his mouth agape—then he took off running down the tunnel, edging his way between cars.

  Talia scoffed. “So much for the welfare of your fellow man.”

  “Evacuate?” A young woman standing idly nearby called out to them. Reid winced; she was gripping the hand of a small girl with brown hair, no more than six or seven years old.

  “Yes,” Reid confirmed. “And quickly. Please, tell everyone you can along the way.”

  The woman nodded. She knocked twice on the window of the car beside hers. “We need to evacuate the tunnel! Come on!” Then she hurried on to the next, her daughter trailing quickly.

  Reid swallowed the lump in his throat. He wished he could warn every soul down there, one by one, but there was no time for that. He opened the throttle again, gaining speed as they hurtled towards the opposite end of the Midtown Tunnel. He stayed focused on the concrete rushing by below and alongside him, though he struggled to resist the urge to glance back and make sure that the young mother and little girl were making their way out safely. But the tight knot of panic in his stomach told him that if the drone was already on its way, they would never make it out in time.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Just outside the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, Maria reached into her black bag and pulled out two silver cases. She used the closed trunk of a nearby police cruiser as a tabletop and unclasped the first case. The remote guidance system opened like a laptop computer, with a small silver control stick in the center.

  The second case contained a very small, ultra lightweight triangular object, the appearance of which was remarkably similar to the F-117 Blackbirds capable of stealthily delivering warheads over hostile zones.

  Maria lifted it carefully—the drone felt as if it was made of plastic and might break if she dropped it—and set it atop the roof of the car. She took a deep breath as she examined the control module and tried to summon the brief instructions Bixby had given her.

  “Okay,” she told herself. “I can do this.” She punched the initiation sequence in on the keyboard and the small drone whirred to life, lifting off a few inches from the car’s roof. Maria took the control stick in her hand and pulled back gently.

  The Parasite drone shot up about twenty-five feet in an instant; the controls were incredibly delicate. She toggled slightly to the left and then to the right, feeling out the sensitivity and responsiveness. The drone flitted back and forth like a hummingbird.

  “Alright. Now the camera…” She flipped a switch on the control panel and the screen before her flickered to life, showing the drone’s view of the street and traffic jam below. With one hand holding the stick steady, she adjusted the camera’s view to be roughly a forty-five degree from the drone’s position. I think I got this. She pushed forward on the stick and sent the Parasite zooming out over the East River.

  Through the drone’s camera-lens eye she could see a handful of boats on the river—sailing vessels, a passenger ferry chugging parallel to Manhattan, a few motorboats. They’re out there, right now. But the purpose of the Parasite wasn’t to find the one controlling the drone.

  Maria slid into the passenger seat of the unlocked cruiser with the guidance system open on her lap as she made a call on the satellite p
hone and put it on speaker.

  “This is Bixby.”

  “Is the Parasite submersible?” she blurted anxiously as she piloted the drone perpendicular away from the Midtown Tunnel.

  “Huh?”

  Maria grunted irritably. “It’s Johansson. Is the Parasite drone submersible?”

  He blew out a breath. “Theoretically? Yes. Actually? I couldn’t say…”

  She stifled the urge to scream a curse through the phone and instead asked, through gritted teeth, “What does that mean?”

  “The Parasite was designed to take control of ground and air drones,” Bixby explained quickly. “It may seem fragile, but it can withstand heavy rain and wind resistance. It is, for all intents and purposes, waterproof. But I’ve never tested it underwater. I didn’t see a need.”

  “There’s a need now. I just want to know if it’ll work.”

  “Yes,” Bixby confirmed. “It’ll work… but it wasn’t designed to navigate underwater. You’re going to lose significant speed and almost all maneuverability. The only chance you’ll have to stop a submersible drone is to get ahead of it in the air and then submerge in its trajectory. Remember, the Parasite needs a proximity of about fifteen yards to effectively disable a host drone long enough to port with it.”

  “Okay.” Maria toggled a switch to turn on the Parasite’s infrared. It would be her best bet to see the submarine drone approaching. “Stay on the line. I’m going to need you to walk me through this.”

  “Alright.” Bixby hesitated a moment before adding, “Johansson, you know they’ll be able to trace this call to your location, right?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I know.” She piloted the Parasite drone over the East River, scoping downward via the infrared camera. She ignored any heat signatures that appeared sedentary or slow-moving—the boats on the water—and searched for anything fast moving, specifically heading towards the Queens-Midtown Tunnel.

  The trouble was she didn’t know if the drone would approach from the north or the south.