Any Means Necessary. Jack Mars

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СКАЧАТЬ tourists, the ferries jammed with even more people, like refugee boats from Haiti.

      Then he saw the subway platforms of Grand Central Terminal at 7:30 a.m., so crowded with commuters that there was nowhere to stand. A hundred people would be lined up on the stairs, waiting for a train to come in and the platform to clear so the next group of people could descend. He pictured a bomb going off amongst that crowd.

      And then the lights going out.

      A wave of revulsion passed through him. More people would die in the panic, in the crush of bodies, than in the initial explosion.

      Trudy went on. “The problem we face is there are too many attractive targets to watch them all, and the attack doesn’t have to take place in New York. If the theft happened as long as three hours ago, then we’re already looking at a possible operations radius of at least a hundred fifty miles. That includes all of New York City and its suburbs, Philadelphia, and major cities in New Jersey like Newark, Jersey City, and Trenton. If the thieves remain at large for another hour, you can expand that radius to include Boston and Baltimore. The whole region is a population center. In a radius that large, we could be looking at as many as ten thousand possible soft targets. Even if they stick with high-profile, big-name targets, we’re still talking about hundreds of places.”

      “Okay, Trudy,” Luke said. “You gave us the facts. Now what’s your gut?”

      Trudy shrugged. “I think we can assume this is a dirty bomb attack, and that it’s sponsored by a foreign country, or possibly an independent terrorist group like ISIS or Al-Qaeda. There may be Americans or Canadians involved, but operational control is elsewhere. It’s definitely not a homegrown domestic group, like environmentalists or white supremacists.”

      “Why? Why not domestic?” Luke said. He already knew why, but it was important to air it, to take things one step at a time, to not overlook anything.

      “The leftists burn down Hummer dealerships in the middle of the night. They spike logging forests, and then paint the spiked trees so no one gets hurt. They have zero history of attacking populated areas or murdering anyone, and they hate radioactivity. The right-wingers are more violent, and Oklahoma City demonstrated they will attack civilian populations as well as symbols of government. But neither group likely has the training for this. And there’s another good reason why it probably isn’t them.”

      “Which is?” Luke said.

      “Iridium has a very short half-life,” Trudy said. “It’ll be mostly useless in a couple of days. Also, whoever stole these chemicals needs to act fast before they get radiation sickness themselves. The Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins tonight at sunset. So I think we have an attack designed to coincide with the start of Ramadan.”

      Luke nearly breathed a sigh of relief. He had known and worked with Trudy for a few years. Her intel was always good, and her ability to spin scenarios was exceptional. She was right far more often than she was wrong.

      He looked at his watch. It was 3:15. Sunset was probably around eight o’clock tonight. He did a quick calculation in his head. “So you think we have more than sixteen hours to track these people down?”

      Sixteen hours. Looking for a needle in a haystack was one thing. But having sixteen hours to do it, with the most advanced technology and the very best people, was quite another. It was almost too much to hope for.

      Trudy shook her head. “No. The problem with Ramadan is it starts at sunset, but whose sunset? In Tehran, sunset tonight will be at 8:24 p.m., which is 10:54 a.m. here. But what if they pick the start of Ramadan worldwide, for example in Malaysia or Indonesia? We could be looking at something as early as 7:24 a.m., which makes some sense because that’s the start of the morning rush hour.”

      Luke grunted. He stared out the window at the vast lighted megalopolis below him. He glanced at his watch again. 3:20. Up ahead, on the horizon, he could see the tall buildings of Lower Manhattan, and the twin blue lights cutting high into the sky where the World Trade Center once stood. In three hours, the subways and train stations would begin filling up with commuters.

      And out there, somewhere, were people planning to make those commuters die.

      Chapter 3

      3:35 a.m.

      East Side of Manhattan

      “It looks just like rats,” Ed Newsam said.

      The chopper came in low over the East River. The dark water was beneath them, flowing fast, tiny swells rising and falling. Luke could see what Ed meant. The water looked like a thousand rats running under a black shimmering blanket.

      They dropped slowly down to the 34^th Street heliport. Luke watched the lights of the buildings to his left, a million twinkling jewels in the night. Now that they were here, a sense of urgency surged through him. His heart skipped a beat. He had stayed calm during the long flight because what else was he going to do? But the clock was ticking, and they needed to move. He could almost jump out of the helicopter before it landed.

      It touched down with a bump and a shudder, and instantly everyone in the cabin unbuckled. Don wrenched the door open. “Let’s go,” he said.

      The blast gate to the street was twenty yards from the pad. Three SUVs waited just outside the concrete barriers. A squad of New York SRT guys ran to the helicopter and off-loaded the equipment bags. A man took Luke’s garment bag and his bug-out bag.

      “Careful with those,” Luke said. “The last time I came up here, you guys lost my bags. I’m not going to have time for a shopping trip.”

      Luke and Don climbed into the lead SUV, Trudy sliding in with them. The SUV was stretched to create a passenger cabin with facing seats. Luke and Don faced forward while Trudy faced backward. The SUV rolled out almost before they sat down. Within a minute they were inside the narrow canyon of FDR Drive, racing north. Yellow taxis zoomed all around them, like a swarm of bees.

      No one spoke. The SUV raced along, hugging the concrete curves, passing through tunnels beneath crumbling buildings, banging hard over potholes. Luke could feel his heart beat in his chest. The driving wasn’t what made his pulse race. It was the anticipation.

      “It would have been nice to come up here for a little fun,” Don said. “Stay in a fancy hotel, maybe see a Broadway show.”

      “Next time,” Luke said.

      Outside his window, the SUV was already exiting the highway. It was the 96^th Street exit. The driver barely paused at a red light, then turned left and floored it down the empty boulevard.

      Luke watched as the SUV roared into the circular driveway of the hospital. It was a quiet time of night. They pulled directly in front of the bright lights of the emergency room. A man in a three-piece suit stood waiting for them.

      “Sharp dresser,” Luke said.

      Don poked Luke with a thick finger. “Say, Luke. We got a little treat for you tonight. When was the last time you put on a hazmat suit?”

      Chapter 4

      4:11 a.m.

      Beneath Center Medical Center, Upper East Side

      “Not too tight,” Luke said around a mouthful of plastic thermometer.

      Trudy СКАЧАТЬ