The Phoenix Variant: The Fifth Column 3 Read online

  ‘I have the eye,’ Aviary said. ‘West on West Eighty-Fifth, heading toward Columbus Avenue. Red jacket. Still carrying the ruck.’

  Sophia consulted her phone, checking that Columbus Avenue was ahead of her. It was.

  Aviary was fixated on the ruck. Sophia was curious too, but with so many operatives around she didn’t want to be seen, let alone involved. Unless I could capture and deprogram this operative … she thought. No, the risk was off the charts. She needed to get off the island. She settled on her plan. Get Aviary and get out. End of story. Forget recruiting operatives—she couldn’t handle those numbers. She could re-evaluate, try to figure out what the Fifth Column was trying to achieve with this attack, and she could do it from a safe location.

  ‘Standby standby!’ Aviary said, hurting Sophia’s ear. ‘The eye is in a cab. Shit.’

  Sophia looked across the road and saw Aviary flag down a cab of her own. It took her a moment but she was quickly inside and moving. Sophia started running, searching for a cab herself.

  ‘Don’t follow!’ Sophia said.

  ‘Follow that cab!’ Aviary said.

  Sophia saw the cab move off, heading west along the one-way street. There were no cabs behind. She thought of hijacking someone but the cabs weren’t moving terribly fast. She decided to just sprint it. The street was mostly empty, the buildings on each side were four-story apartments and they looked expensive as all hell, though after the explosion their value might drop somewhat.

  The two cabs were just in her vision ahead. On her iPhone she confirmed the operative wasn’t too far along, about to hit Columbus Avenue. On her right she spotted a drycleaners and a hotel entrance. The cabs containing the operative and Aviary had stacked up at the intersection.

  ‘Waiting in traffic at Columbus Avenue,’ Aviary said. ‘First cab off the rank, I’m tow-barring.’

  That told Sophia the operative was the first vehicle in the line. Tow-barring meant Aviary had no cover while stationary—she was right behind the operative.

  ‘Get out of the cab, Aviary,’ Sophia said. ‘She must have seen you by now. Walk away.’

  ‘What the fuck?’ Aviary said.

  Sophia slowed when she noticed two gray SUVs stack up behind Aviary’s cab. With particular timing they each disgorged four men, all in black fatigues and helmets, all carrying carbines and wearing protective black masks that looked like hockey masks.

  Sophia checked the chamber of her Glock and moved toward the back of the SUVs.

  The masked men moved past Aviary toward the first cab. One of them smashed the rear cab window while another hurled a grenade inside. Smoke filled the cab. Another grenade went in. This one went bang. They weren’t going for Aviary at all: in fact they didn’t even realize she was following the operative.

  Sophia took cover in a basement courtyard beside some stairs. Through the wrought-iron fence she watched the operative roll out of the cab. The red-jacketed operative stayed low and tangled one of the masked men’s legs, dropping them. She unfurled, attacked another and was caught by CS spray as the third masked man blocked her in. She collapsed, spluttering and groaning.

  The masked men closed on her, cuffed her, then hustled her back into the front SUV. The SUV drove around Aviary’s vehicle, nudging both cabs out of the way and grinding along the parked cars. The second SUV followed suit. They both took a left on Columbus Avenue and disappeared.

  It was over.

  Sophia checked her phone. No operatives in sight except the one who had just been abducted. Sophia checked behind her for any backup teams or surveillance, then rushed to Aviary’s cab. Aviary was unharmed but in shock.

  ‘Hey, you with me?’ Sophia said, snapping her fingers in her friend’s face.

  There was a moment of pause before Aviary focused on her. ‘What …? Fuck.’

  Sophia pulled her out of the cab. ‘Well, that was interesting.’

  Aviary breathed heavily in response. ‘Uh, yeah.’

  Sophia pointed to her phone, to the blinking dot being whisked down Columbus Avenue. ‘Can you tag this operative?’

  Aviary stared blankly at Sophia for a moment and then finally switched on. She looked at Sophia’s iPhone and tapped the dot. A little bubble popped up with the operative’s code number, which Sophia didn’t understand. Aviary pressed the arrow next to it and chose Bookmark. Then she chose Follow. Siri offered turn-by-turn directions.

  ‘Shut up, Siri,’ Aviary said.

  ‘Good,’ Sophia said. ‘Get back in.’

  ‘What? I thought you didn’t want—’

  ‘You heard me,’ Sophia said, helping the driver out of his cab. ‘Are you alright?’

  The driver, hands shaking, nodded. ‘What the goddamn hell just happened?’

  ‘I’m borrowing your cab,’ Sophia said, jumping into his seat. ‘That’s what’s happened.’

  Before he could protest, she closed the door and started the engine. She checked that Aviary was still in the back before taking off down Columbus Avenue, weaving through traffic.

  ‘We’re still following her?’ Aviary shouted from the back seat. ‘I thought you didn’t want to!’

  ‘That was before she was abducted by soldiers in black masks.’

  ‘Oh good, I thought I imagined the masks thing,’ Aviary said. ‘Hey, can we get back to the part where I ask what the hell you’re going to do?’

  ‘Not before I ask what the hell you were thinking going after an operative.’ Sophia glared at her in the rear-vision mirror. ‘Do you have a death wish?’

  ‘No,’ Aviary said. ‘I’m sorry. I just, I just got really excited. I thought we could use another ally. You know, because Nasira isn’t here. Your best buddy.’

  ‘Deprogramming takes time,’ Sophia said. ‘Before they can be an ally. Plus, it’s been a while.’

  She moved her legs together enough to stop her iPhone from slipping off the seat. She glanced down at the screen to track the operative.

  ‘But you can put them in slave mode!’ Aviary said. ‘Place them under your command.’

  Sophia watched her in the mirror again. ‘How do you know that?’

  Aviary looked down. ‘I read your notes on deprogramming.’

  ‘Yeah, well, slave mode isn’t recommended for any length of time,’ Sophia said.

  ‘OK,’ Aviary said. ‘So what now?’

  ‘Whatever’s in that bag, it has something to do with the detonations. If we’re in for a second round, I need to stop it.’

  On her left, the evening sky was thick with black smoke. The devastation had reached quite a distance west of the museum.

  ‘I’m sure they have people to stop that, right?’ Aviary said.

  Sophia looked at her concerned face in the rear view mirror. ‘You mean like operatives?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Sophia took a left onto Broadway, searching the traffic ahead for sign of the gray SUVs. ‘They’re the ones who tend to start it,’ she said. ‘Remember the operative you just tried to track? Remember why I left the Fifth Column in the first place?’

  ‘Oh,’ Aviary said, quickly putting her seatbelt on. ‘Right.’

  ‘I think I see one,’ Sophia said, mostly to herself as she pushed forward.

  She changed lanes to move around the traffic, bouncing from chute one to chute two to chute three and back again. Sirens wailed behind her, but they converged on the museum behind them.

  ‘Don’t you want to be discreet?’ Aviary said. ‘They’ll see us coming.’

  ‘We don’t have time for that,’ Sophia said. ‘And I’m in a cab. I mean, erratic driving should blend me right in.’ She put her foot down and rammed the cab in front of her.

  ‘Is that what you mean by erratic?’ Aviary said.

  It was the only way through. Sophia pushed in beside the cab, scraping along the door panels and tearing off her side mirror. She ignored the enraged driver and pushed past, forcing herself into the center lane. She was behind the second SUV with one cab for cover.

/>   ‘Operative’s not in this one!’ Aviary called from the back seat. She was checking her phone too.

  Sophia risked a glance at her phone. It told her the operative in the first SUV was a block ahead of them. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What are you going to do? Go past this one?’ Aviary said.

  ‘Not yet. Just need to take it out of action for a little while,’ Sophia said, moving carefully into the left lane with her indicators on.

  Her cab was scratched and dented, but anyone inside the SUV looking through the side mirrors wouldn’t notice much out of place. Sophia crept closer, lining her front up diagonally with the rear of the SUV.

  ‘Rubies!’ Aviary yelled.

  Sophia saw the lights shift to red. The cab in front slowed, brake lights on. The SUV pushed faster.

  ‘You’re not getting away,’ Sophia said.

  The SUV punched through the lights, gaining distance between them. They were probably completely unaware of her presence, but they’d pushed through to catch up with the vehicle carrying the kidnapped operative.

  Sophia pulled hard on the wheel and struck the corner of the cab in front of her. She pushed through, hearing metal grind and glass shatter. She didn’t know whether it was the cab’s taillights or her headlights and she didn’t really care.

  She made it into the SUV’s lane. The SUV was already halfway through a busy roundabout and Sophia had a fresh red. She pushed through the red light and realized the roundabout was actually a large, heavily congested traffic circle. She saw the SUV winding around to the right.

  Weaving around the other cabs, Sophia guided her cab straight through the center. Aviary shrieked and clung to her armrest. Sophia drove onto the footpath, through the center of Columbus Circle. She hit the horn to clear people around her, then dodged a monument and made for the other side. The SUV came into her view from the right. She aimed straight for it.

  Aviary screamed from the back seat.

  ‘Hold on,’ Sophia said.

  She kept her arms bent and accelerated, shooting the cab off the footpath and back into the traffic circle. She missed a passing car on the inside lane, clipped another in the second and smashed perfectly into the side of the SUV, just behind the rear wheel. Her body whipped back and then forward, restrained by the seatbelt. Her cab spun, facing the wrong way.

  Sophia checked her rear vision. The SUV she’d struck had spun and collided with a car in the adjacent lane, slowing to a halt. It was about to take off again but another car rammed in behind it. The SUV was pinned into place, at least for the moment.

  ‘That should do it,’ Sophia said under her breath.

  She reached under the steering wheel and snapped it to the left, pulling the cab around to avoid an oncoming vehicle. She went hard over a curb and down 8th Avenue. It wasn’t the street she wanted but it would do.

  She heard Aviary exhale with relief from the back seat. Sophia spotted the leading gray SUV. It was five vehicles ahead. She closed as fast as she could.

  ‘You’re insane,’ Aviary said quietly from the back seat.

  ‘Sorry,’ Sophia said.

  ‘No, it’s awesome,’ Aviary said. ‘Don’t stop.’

  Sophia looked down at her phone but it slipped off her seat.

  ‘First left, here!’ Aviary shouted, excited. ‘Get back on Broadway. The SUV’s about three blocks ahead. On 55th.’

  ‘Got it.’

  Sophia took the left, cutting off a sedan. The driver hit his horn and yelled. She ignored him and weaved around a bus that lumbered in front.

  ‘Is this Broadway?’ Sophia asked. She didn’t have time to check the signs or get her bearings.

  ‘Yes!’ Aviary said. ‘Right! Right! Turn right!’

  Sophia turned and hit gridlocked traffic.

  ‘Oh,’ Aviary said. ‘The hurricane evacuation.’

  ‘And the explosion,’ Sophia said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Aviary said. ‘Maybe I should’ve taken you around here.’

  ‘Yes, maybe you should’ve,’ Sophia said.

  ‘Now what do we do?’ Aviary said. ‘Actually, I’m afraid to ask.’

  ‘I can still get us around,’ Sophia said.

  She hurled the cab onto the wide footpath beside them and accelerated, horn blaring. A man and his five bags of shopping leaped into a printing shop to avoid her. She crossed a small intersection and Broadway was still locked with traffic. Fuck it, she thought. She hit her horn again and continued on the footpath, negotiating pedestrians and smashing through tables and chairs. Maybe she’d just stick to the footpath the whole way.

  She drove past a few banks and dodged a FedEx van before hitting a dead end. The footpath disappeared just beyond a RadioShack: temporary walls were erected to block off a new construction site. So much for that idea, she thought.

  She pulled the cab off the footpath and completely destroyed the front of a parked Mercedes. Aviary cheered from the back seat.

  Sophia was back on the road, driving over a turning lane.

  ‘Straight ahead?’ Sophia yelled. ‘How far?’

  ‘Straight ahead!’ Aviary said. ‘One block!’

  Sophia dodged a small traffic island—grazed between the curb and a stationary car—and nudged through a minor intersection. Tall, ponderous buildings loomed before her. She had no idea what was around the corner or a block ahead.

  ‘You’re my eyes now,’ she said to Aviary.

  ‘Copy that, Ms Super Operative person,’ the redhead said.

  ‘Don’t ever call me that.’

  Pedestrians scattered from the crossing as she tore across it, overtook a brown UPS truck and flattened a neat row of orange traffic cones outside the Late Show with David Letterman. She ground to a halt as pedestrians walked one cab in front of her. There was room to go around on the right but she was blocked off by yet another goddamn UPS truck.

  ‘Fucking UPS trucks!’ Sophia yelled.

  Aviary remained silent in the back seat.

  On the right, a black Cadillac half-merged into the left lane, cutting her off on the left. She was boxed in from pretty much every angle.

  ‘How far off?’ Sophia said.

  ‘Two blocks now, but they’re gaining,’ Aviary said.

  Sophia ground her teeth. She had to make her own way out. She moved her cab in behind the Cadillac, crunching into its right taillight.

  ‘So is this just a case of you’re doing enough damage,’ Aviary said, ‘so you might as well just maintain that level of destruction all the way through?’

  Sophia didn’t reply. She kept going. The Cadillac driver started shouting hysterically. She paid him no attention, kept pushing through. He was stuck between her and the pedestrians walking in front of her. He had no choice but to nudge forward, triggering a heated standoff with pedestrians trying to walk in front of him.’

  And then she had just the gap she needed.

  She roared through, smashing parked bicycles on either side. They rattled and scraped, and were briefly carried along for the ride before being slung onto the concrete like broken toys. People looked on in shock.

  Sophia was on the other side of the road, in a bike lane. It was clear here so she shoved her cab through the pedestrians and accelerated into another intersection. It was chaos around her. Ahead of her the left was clear but the right was almost at a standstill. She didn’t know if she was driving on the wrong side of the road or whether it was a service lane or bike lane, and she didn’t care as long as it got her there. She hit the gas again. She noticed a green sign above that read W 52 St.

  ‘How far?’ she asked.

  ‘Two blocks,’ Aviary said.

  This is taking too long, she thought.

  She slowed as she reached another intersection, just enough to see if anyone was going to collide with her. A Starbucks flashed by on her left. Posters and billboards for musicals were everywhere, lights blinking and neon signs pulsing. They smeared across her vision as she watched for obstacles.

  A bright orange SUV
lurched to a stop ahead of her, preparing to turn left. She weaved around it and took the center of the road over the white lines, through another pedestrian crossing. A bus roared past her and ground to a stop behind a queue of cars. She maneuvered around it, caught herself in another lane of traffic. She slammed her fists on the steering wheel.

  In the rear-vision mirror she saw Aviary point to their right.

  ‘Sidewalk,’ she said.

  Sophia opened her fists and nodded. ‘Sidewalk.’

  She wrenched the steering wheel to the right and took off, over the curb, horn blaring. There were more people on this sidewalk and she had to keep the horn on so everyone could scatter. She took the cab past a pharmacy and farther into the built-up portion of Broadway.

  ‘One block,’ Aviary said. ‘They’re not moving as fast now.’

  The SUV was stuck in traffic too. That was good but she’d have as much trouble trying to reach them. She needed to get there before they made it through.

  She kept the cab on the sidewalk, crashing through garbage bags and newspaper stands. She had to move slower between the corner building and a metal newspaper booth, forcing pedestrians to run back the way they’d come. People screamed like lunatics, which seemed to amuse Aviary.

  Sophia continued through another intersection, saw the bike lane was clear again and found a gap in the traffic. She smashed through. Tail- and headlights shattered in her wake. She kept moving, roared over a traffic island, destroying a small tree in the process, and hit the bike lane. She turned into it, crashing through a trashcan and two more newspaper stands.

  ‘Where are they now?’ Sophia yelled.

  ‘Less than a block. They haven’t moved much,’ Aviary said.

  Sophia felt her hands tighten over the steering wheel. ‘Good.’

  Flooring the accelerator, she punched through the next intersection, W 48th, and made good use of the bike lane.

  Aviary was swearing. She hit her phone a couple of times.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Sophia said.

  ‘GPS is stuck,’ Aviary said. ‘Wait. OK, they’ve moved. They’re one street over, on the left.’

  Sophia hit the next intersection. It was blocked off ahead, foot traffic only. NYPD officers stood before metal barriers. She looked past them and realized traffic was one-way. And it was traveling to the right, not left.