Across the top of the screen, scrolling like a newsbar, were the words, “New York, New York.” In the centre, the numbers were already down to 76…
If he wasn’t tense enough already, what really did it for him were the inset frames that had popped up below the countdown: two side-by-side video frames, each one flashing up separate CCTV scans of subway stations, changing location every two seconds. The station names and platforms were superimposed over each picture, as well as the time, which was—he checked—current… these were live feeds direct from subway CCTV security cameras. In two sets of the paired shots so far Jefferson observed a striking coincidence: a loner in a courier uniform, agitated, glancing at his or her watch and hefting a large white box secured with black duct tape. Why the hell hadn’t any of the turkeys watching monitors at MTA subway control picked up on this? What were they doing? Scratching their balls? Hell!
66…
With the rest of the team scattered elsewhere in the house, Fredericks and Smith searched the front room. Smith found a print-out of the first two pages of a typed document written by a certain Jax Mason. He scanned it quickly.
Jefferson noticed the pages were shaking as he took them from Smith. Like Smith, he only had to read the first two paragraphs.
“Penguin,” he said, reporting to HQ. “You got to evacuate the entire subway…”
“But which…?”
Jefferson looked up to see Smith shaking his head and waving. He jabbed a paragraph below where his boss had stopped reading.
“Holy… this is impossible,” said Jefferson taking a precious second to collect his thoughts.
He had to explain this carefully. And precisely. Millions of lives were depending on him.
“This laptop is programmed to detonate a pre-determined series of explosions only split-seconds apart, across over two hundred Manhattan subway locations. The explosions are timed to begin in, er, 52 seconds,” he said, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. “They will start at stations… I’m reading here… around the island perimeter and work inwards, methodically, each ring of explosions timed to build on the passing shockwave and accelerate the force tearing through the tunnels so that when the shockwaves in the various tunnels meet at the centre of the island… here I’m guessing… maybe at 42nd Street… it will generate a massive explosion… nuclear scale, sir… which will radiate back out again with enough force to obliterate the entire island of Manhattan. Sir, if we can’t stop this thing right here, in the next, ah, 50 seconds to be precise, we are totally…”
“I hear you. 50 seconds, you say?”
“49, sir.”
“Can you do it…?” Penguin asked. “Pull the plug…?”
“I think there’s something. Hold…” Jefferson clicked the mouse over the “New York” banner and dragged it lower down the screen. “There’s a ‘Stop’ button. It was hidden. Could be a hoaxer… a booby-trap… could be real… no way to know unless…” Jefferson lifted his arm again to wipe his face with his sleeve.
“Do it,” Penguin ordered unnecessarily.
43…
Jefferson’s tongue licked dry at the corner of his mouth, and his entire body drained.
Smith closed his eyes.
Jefferson inhaled.
40…
He clicked on “Stop” and a shower of static hazed over the two inset video frames. They faded to black. The subway station camera links had been cut.
But the countdown ticked on … 37… 36...
36
IT WAS THE nightshift changeover at St Barts Hospital in London. The male nurse, a weasely man, locked the door of Room 603 behind him before slipping the patient’s chart out of its slot at the foot of the bed. He checked the heart monitor: steady but weak. The chart graphed like this for weeks, apart from three valiant spikes that sustained themselves at close to normal levels for only a few hours each. The day-nurse, Jeni Crompton, had made a note next to the last one, “Encouraging.”
“Touching,” the night-nurse smirked, letting the chart drop to the floor.
There was nothing particularly remarkable about this man, or so the six other staff who’d seen him on duty would later testify to police, apart from some strange marks, tattoos maybe, on his knuckles.
“What were they?”
“No idea, sorry. Didn’t want to look too close… It would’ve been bad manners.”
“Had you seen him before?” Implicit in the question was “why’d you let him hang around if you hadn’t.”
“No, but with all the cutbacks, things have been a bit topsy turvy round ’ere.”
THE “nurse” took the foil-covered cylinder from his pocket, ripped back the wrapping to reveal a cone-shaped dose release pellet at the end of a spike, and pressed it hard into Jax’s heel, holding it there for a few seconds before pulling it away and slipping it back into his pocket.
The slightly hunched man stepped back and waited, an arched eyebrow impatient over the heart monitor. Finally, it flat-lined and he unlocked the door and strode out humming Should auld acquaintance be forgot…
37