The Phoenix Variant: The Fifth Column 3 Read online

  More than one train. That wasn’t good.

  Which one was Sophia in?

  He sprang off the partition, landed in the center of the track. Ahead of him, he saw two figures running through the train on the far wall. It was Sophia, and someone he didn’t recognize. Sophia carried her pistol and a sword—DC’s sword by the looks of it. Her companion wasn’t DC though—it was another woman.

  That meant the train behind him had some bad news.

  Damien climbed onto the next island platform. Sophia’s companion followed her through the carriages, carbine in hand. Damien noticed how she stood, elbows tucked in, carbine aimed. Unlike most soldiers, she wasn’t in a weaver or isosceles stance. He recognized the modified isosceles stance as one he’d learned in the later stages of Project GATE. Aggressive, knees slightly bent, well balanced and solid. The stance was specific to operatives and lent itself to both speed and movement. Sophia had recruited a new operative.

  Sophia forced a door open and called out to him. Another train surged past, right behind Damien. What the hell was going on? Who was in these trains?

  ‘Aviary?’ he yelled over the train’s screeching. ‘Can you hear me?’

  Nothing.

  He ran to the end of the island platform, shedding his ruck. Sophia was about to drop into the empty track between them, but the sound of another train deterred her. Damien looked over to see headlights flood his vision. The train was barreling between them.

  He had to do this quick.

  He grabbed his ruck and tossed it across the track to Sophia. She caught it. An instant later, the train whipped between them. Damien caught glimpses of masked Blue Berets.

  He ran for the nearest stairs. Climbed to the mezzanine. His hearing picked up boots on the platform below. But the mezzanine was clear. Everyone was on the platforms searching the trains. He couldn’t get back to his now. His best chance was the hurricane.

  Unarmed, he sprinted through the mezzanine. He found full-height turnstiles at the end so he dived through the emergency exit door, triggering an ear-piercing alarm. He didn’t care: it was his only option right now.

  Something struck him in his side. He dropped.

  It wasn’t a round. It wasn’t a fist or a baton.

  He hit the ground with his limbs taut, trembling with the voltage that rolled through him. He looked up to see two operatives. One drew a needle, the other held a can of CS gas to his face.

  His vision was gone.

  Chapter 39

  ‘What the hell just happened?’ Aviary said.

  ‘They got ambushed, that’s what,’ Nasira said.

  Nasira had watched the whole thing in Union Square go down. She’d seen Sophia and her new buddy pull away in their train before anyone could stop them. She’d also seen Damien make for the exit, through the mezzanine. He moved out of camera range but when she checked her phone she noticed three operatives surrounding Damien.

  ‘They got Damien,’ she said.

  ‘Shit,’ Aviary said, reaching for the iPhone she’d given Nasira.

  ‘What?’ Nasira watched her type a message to Sophia on her behalf.

  Turn off your loc.

  Aviary didn’t send it. She stared at the screen for a moment.

  ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘No.’

  ‘What?’ Nasira’s question was more of a growl.

  Aviary just stared the screen. ‘They have Jay’s phone now so they could follow Damien by his location.’ She looked up at Nasira. ‘I’m so sorry, I should’ve put a passcode or fingerprint on them.’

  Nasira shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter, they’d just make him unlock it.’

  Aviary sent the message to Sophia, and then again to Damien—but Nasira gripped her wrist.

  ‘Too late,’ Nasira said. ‘You should never have turned them on.’

  ‘But it’s a beacon!’ she said. ‘We know where Jay is! And Damien!’

  ‘Give me that,’ Nasira said, taking the phone back.

  Jay’s dot was now much closer, on Lexington Avenue, right next to Grand Central terminal. And Damien’s dot was moving in this direction, accompanied by operatives.

  ‘What are they doing here?’ Aviary said.

  ‘Denton has them now,’ Nasira said.

  She heard boots in the distance. They sounded close.

  ‘Did you turn our location off?’ Nasira said.

  The color left Aviary’s face. ‘Oh.’

  ‘Oh?’ Nasira said. She shoved the phone in Aviary’s face. ‘Turn the damned thing off!’

  The door to the Operations Control Center was sealed shut, but a modest amount of explosives or detcord could change that.

  ‘OK, it’s off! It’s off!’ Aviary said.

  ‘Like I said, too late.’

  Nasira scanned the room. There had to be another way out.

  She didn’t know whether it was her newly upgraded sense of magnetic fields, but the shape of the room seemed wrong. She walked along one of the walls, lifting a copy machine out of the way. There was some sort of aberration in the fields along the wall. She peered closer and noticed a carefully concealed door. The handle was hidden behind the copy machine. Possibly left over from before the renovations and the new control center.

  ‘What’s behind this door?’ Nasira said.

  Aviary leaned over her computer, fingers punching keys. ‘Clock tower.’

  ‘Works for me,’ Nasira said. She turned the stiff, metal handle on the door and pulled it open. It took a short, explosive pull to pry it from the frame. It was dark inside and Nasira splashed it with red light from her torch. There was an X-shaped concrete foundation before her. At the rear of the space she could see a thin ladder leading upward.

  ‘On me,’ Nasira said. ‘Move!’

  Aviary had packed all her computer gear back into her ruck and locked the desktop computers, and now scurried to Nasira. The military boots were outside the control center door. She could hear them preparing something and knew they were planning to pry or ram it, or blow it.

  Nasira closed the door behind her, making sure it was shut firmly. She didn’t have anything to booby trap it with, and she didn’t want to waste the time. She went for the ladder. It was thin and squeaked as she climbed. She moved through the ceiling. It was decorated with a fat white pipe and a bunch of cabling. Aviary was in tow.

  Nasira found herself in another room. There were no other exits. Just another ladder that took them higher. She kept going, pausing only to make sure her Glock was still in her waistband. It was her only weapon and she wasn’t about to lose it.

  She reached the final ladder and climbed to the top. Aviary was just reaching it now. The level was floored with wooden planks, covered in dust and grime. The walls were bare brick, occasionally sprouting a concrete frame. Nasira moved under the concrete, torch in hand, ducking some hot pipes.

  They were in the clock tower. A wooden landing fed her out onto a narrow metal walkway under the clock mechanism—a cumbersome cannon-like device that connected via a sort of needle to the center of the thirteen-foot-wide Tiffany glass clock.

  The stained glass was ornately designed, with a gold and blue center edged with gold, and white Roman numerals on dark crimson.

  Nasira could feel Aviary’s quick breaths on her shoulder.

  ‘Now where?’ Aviary said.

  Nasira needed something to smash through the clock face, but she stopped when she noticed the Roman number VI was actually a window she could open.

  ‘Through the clock,’ Nasira said.

  ‘What?’ Aviary said.

  Nasira pushed the window open. Wind and rain roared through and howled down the ladders. She suppressed a shiver. Aviary stumbled and regained her footing.

  Nasira peered down over the hand-carved stone and didn’t like what she saw. Directly below, the Park Avenue Viaduct, a raised two-way overpass that overshadowed the super-wide Park Avenue South. It was the first time she’d seen it devoid of traffic. In the distance she could see a dark
storm front moving towards them.

  Hurricane Isaias.

  Even though it was elevated from the ground, the viaduct was still too far to survive any sort of jump—the drop to the viaduct alone was probably a six-story fall. Nasira craned her head and looked up. She could see the carvings of Mercury, Hercules and Minerva staring down on her, asking her what the fuck she was doing up here. She couldn’t fly, so get down, bitch.

  The roof was just above the carvings. That was possible, she thought, so roof it was. She lifted herself up to sit on the ledge, holding the window frame around her. Aviary was watching from inside, frozen. Over the wind Nasira could hear the Blue Berets breach the door downstairs.

  ‘You can either come with me,’ Nasira said, ‘or you can face them.’

  ‘I can’t go out there,’ Aviary said.

  ‘And I can’t guarantee they’ll keep you alive,’ Nasira said.

  Nasira shifted into a crouch and gradually rose, feeling her way along the glass clock, her hands finding grooves and protrusions in the design to hold onto. It was wet and she had to talk her legs out of trembling. She wouldn’t admit it to Aviary but she was very fucking unsure about this.

  Nasira climbed over a ledge onto the side of the clock, reaching the bent knee of a god. She didn’t know whether it was Mercury or Hercules, and she didn’t much give a fuck as long as the god kept her from falling. She pulled herself up over his bent knee, landing in his crotch.

  Stable and not at risk of falling, she turned and looked back down at the clock. Aviary’s red hair tangled in the wind. She was staring down at the viaduct, dissolving her will to climb.

  ‘Don’t look there!’ Nasira called over the wind. ‘Look up here! Look at me!’ She maneuvered herself back over the bent knee and offered her hand across the ledge. ‘Climb to my hand and you’re safe! Can you do that for me?’

  Aviary nodded—not really convincing but it was something. Aviary sat on the mouth of the window and her shaky hands reached out to grip the frame around the numerals V and VII. She started on one knee and one foot, then slowly stood upright, her body pressed against the glass clock. She wrapped both arms around the minute hand. She trembled when the hand moved slightly.

  ‘Take it slow, it’s OK!’ Nasira yelled.

  It wasn’t OK. But she had to say it. She needed to get Aviary away from the clock. Aviary reached out with her left hand, clawing for the edge of the clock. There were protrusions at every hour, carved into the stone. Aviary’s hand clamped over one. She transferred her weight across, stepped along the carved stone and out of the window.

  Come on, Aviary. Come the fuck on.

  Aviary moved too quickly, her hand slipping on the wet stone. She scrambled, her hand reaching for the ledge. She missed Nasira’s hand. She dangled underneath. Nasira wasn’t sure what from, but under the ledge there were more engraved things—not gods or whatever but something Aviary had managed to hold onto with one hand to keep from plummeting to her death.

  Nasira hooked her boot under the bent knee of the god. Anchored, she shuffled further until she could hang half off the ledge. She reached face-down, blood rushing to her head. She was inches from Aviary.

  ‘Reach for my hand!’ Nasira yelled.

  But she knew it was no good. Aviary had nothing else for leverage. Her strength and endurance weren’t going to last long.

  ‘Shit,’ Aviary said.

  ‘Hold on!’ Nasira yelled. ‘Grab my leg!’

  Nasira retreated to the bent knee, unhooked her foot. There was only one way to get closer to Aviary and it meant going feet-first. She lowered herself over the edge. She only had her elbows keeping her from slipping off the ledge completely. The god’s bent knee was too high up to grip now. She lowered her legs, tried to find something to stand on. There was nothing.

  Nasira’s legs hung in the air. She looked over her shoulder, located Aviary at her four o’clock. Aviary was hanging on the very bottom of the stone carvings, under the clock.

  A gust of wind pinned Nasira against the wall. She looked up and didn’t like what she saw. Farther south the edge of the hurricane was moving through Park Avenue. It swelled and curled between the buildings, dark and agitated. It was coming right for them.

  Shit.

  Nasira shuffled to the end of the ledge, reached her leg out. Her boot made it to Aviary’s head.

  ‘Grab my ankle!’ Nasira yelled.

  Aviary was looking at it, terrified. Nasira’s foot was right beside her head. Aviary lifted her free arm up and clamped it over Nasira’s lower leg. Nasira felt the weight bear on her. She transferred all her strength to her elbows and shoulders, keeping her on the ledge.

  ‘Both hands!’ Nasira yelled.

  Nasira couldn’t look down anymore. She needed to stay on the ledge. She felt Aviary transfer over. Her weight almost pried Nasira from the rain-slicked stone. Her fingers were spread wide, clawing. She couldn’t reach out to the bent god’s knee; it was too far on her left. She shifted her elbows further onto the ledge but Aviary was pulling her back faster than she could move.

  Instead of moving her elbows in, she started edging along, moving left. Aviary was swinging helplessly underneath. With each movement, Nasira lost an inch from the ledge and another inch of Aviary’s grip.

  Nasira didn’t know if she’d make it but she was sure as hell going to try. She shifted one elbow at a time. Behind her, the hurricane loomed closer. The wind strengthened, threatening to tear them from the ledge. Move by move, she shifted away from the clock and toward the god with the bent knee.

  Finally she reached the knee. But she soon realized it was too high to reach. Her elbows were almost off the ledge. It felt like Aviary was hanging by almost nothing. If Nasira risked moving farther she’d lose her leverage and be hanging by just her fingers. But with Aviary’s body weight she wasn’t going to last long.

  She kept moving. Past the knee. To the god’s lower leg. To his ankle. The ankle was low, planted firmly on the ledge. Her elbow slipped. The other elbow slipped. Aviary screamed. Nasira clawed at the lip with both hands.

  Every muscle felt like it was about to tear from her. Her fingers, pressed white against the stone, were all she had left. She released one hand and lunged upward, wrapped her fingers around the god’s ankle. She found purchase, adjusted, got more of a hold. Wrapped her entire hand over the ankle.

  ‘Motherfucker,’ she gasped.

  ‘Nasira!’ Aviary called from below.

  She looked down, saw Aviary looking over at the clock beside them. An unmasked Blue Beret peered out the open window. Nasira took her other hand and tried to draw the NYPD Glock. She aimed it at the Blue Beret.

  The Beret scanned the viaduct below, shielded his face from the hurricane wind, and then withdrew.

  Nasira placed her Glock on the ledge and brought her elbow up. Once she did that, she was able to pull her chin over the ledge and reach up to grab the god’s knee. Using his entire leg, she pulled herself up and over, back into his crotch. Aviary found purchase on his leg and was able to drag herself up.

  Nasira reached under his leg, retrieved her Glock and stuffed it deep into her waistband.

  Aviary was shaking. The hurricane was almost on them. They couldn’t slow now.

  Nasira held her shoulders. ‘You did good!’ she shouted. ‘Nearly there. Look, the easy part!’

  Aviary looked up. She wasn’t convinced.

  They had to climb over the god’s shoulder and onto the other side—the rooftop.

  ‘OK, you first!’ Nasira said.

  Aviary seemed reassured by that and crawled over Nasira, her hands clamping over the god’s stone bicep so tightly Nasira had to push her over. She made it over the other side of the arm, checked her footing behind the god, then slowly released her grip. She disappeared from view, landing on the roof of Grand Central terminal. Nasira barely heard her feet hit the ground.

  There was enough room for Nasira to follow her over. She scaled the god’s shoulder relatively qui
ckly. The roof was almost square. There was a giant rectangular gap before her, cluttered with fans and circulation units and a drop down to skylights below. There were arched windows that let light into the main concourse. Wind whipped over the roof and Nasira crouched to stop from falling over. They needed to get off the roof. Low and careful, she led a gradually panicking Aviary around the edge of the roof, past another row of skylights and circulation units.

  They eventually reached the MetLife skyscraper, which was connected directly to the roof. Nasira knew this was going to be the only realistic way out, as any other way would involve a six-level drop or venturing back into Grand Central. She found an access door and started picking the lock.

  ‘Hurry up!’ Aviary screamed.

  Nasira barely heard her over the wind. Her hands were wet and the lockpicks slippery. Her fingertips went white as she held onto them. She raked the lock a few times, hoping for an easy cylinder. But it wasn’t that easy. She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw the darkness reach Grand Central. The edge of the hurricane looked paler than the night’s sky. It whipped towards them with rivulets of orange and purple. Skylight panels shattered. A wrought-iron barrier tore free and smashed through one of the arched windows into the main concourse below.

  Aviary clung to Nasira’s back. Nasira couldn’t hold onto the door: she needed both hands to pick the lock. The force of the wind kept smashing her into the door. She pressed herself against the door to keep herself steady.

  A circulation unit tore free, sending fans tumbling across the roof. One of them was spinning towards Aviary. Her ears were filled with Aviary’s screaming.

  The last pin seated.

  Nasira opened the door, pulled Aviary inside. Away from the doorway. The fan smashed into the doorway, too wide to make it through. Bits of metal sprinkled down the stairwell. Nasira held Aviary in the corner. She could feel her heartbeat racing in time with her own. She reached over and slammed the door shut.

  ‘Stay close,’ Nasira said.

  Aviary nodded, gulping air. She said nothing.