

This novel is a fantasy of the future, a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Great effort has been made, especially regarding those individuals who have recognizable positions with government, or publicly known organizations, mentioned herein, to insure they are not mistaken for past or present individuals in those positions. What the future holds, what possible outside influences may be brought to bear on future participants in those organizations, no one can say.

Copyright © 2015 & 2020 Miles A. Maxwell FAB LLC  
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First Printing 2015.  
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2015934114

Family

7PM Monday Evening

February 7

Cynthia Reveal held onto her older brother Everon a little longer than usual as they said goodbye. She watched him turn and wave with that ironic smile, then disappear into the terminal where his jet was parked. Why did she have the strange feeling -- she shook it off. He'll be fine _._

Cyn slid into the corner of the back seat as her cab pulled away from the curb at JFK and tried to ignore the radio's annoying squeal beneath the reggae. A streetlight reflected her worried bright-blue eyes in the window. Her palm ran across the briefcase on her lap. I should have told Everon about my report. But he was so excited -- the new jet, then he was on the phone. I wasn't sure I wanted to say anything. Maybe he hasn't left.

Cynthia pulled out her phone -- and hesitated. No, Franklin, that's who I should talk to! If something terrible's going on at the bank and his church is involved -- she dialed her younger brother . . . a fast busy. She tried again. This time the phone didn't ring. She checked the signal. _One bar?_ She had her boss's home number on Long Island --

She stopped and put the phone down. I'm being paranoid. I'll call first thing in the morning.

As the driver turned onto the Belt Parkway, he searched the radio dial but the squeal got worse. Cynthia couldn't take it. "What is wrong with your radio? What's that _sound?"_

The radio cut off.

"Thanks," she said.

She'd be home two hours later than usual tonight and Steve would be waiting. She dialed his number. After half a ring the damn thing disconnected. She tried him again, watching the lighted windows of the Brooklyn high-rises set so close together. On their way to the airport, Everon had again suggested Cynthia, Steve, and Melissa escape "-- this claustrophobic mess!" If only I could talk Steve into us packing up and getting the hell out! The phone disconnected a third try. She gave up.

Unlike Everon, her own work would have to be near a major city. Vegas can't be that much better, can it? The pay would certainly be less. She'd seen those tract homes on top of one another. _The small lots -- _your neighbor's late-night trash-to-the-curb trips waking you up, the same as in New York. Maybe there's room for us in Spring Valley. Maybe I should talk with Grandma Del . . .

She found herself jerked awake in a traffic jam. What the hell? Central Park South? They were blocks off the usual route, what she owed on the cab's meter way up -- going east in front of the New York Plaza. "Hey!" Cynthia said. "How'd we get over here?"

"Sorry, lady. I had to go around. Construction."

Horns honked uselessly. Another taxi driver, head out the window, screamed at the car blocking their path. The response was a hand gesture rude anywhere except New York City.

Cynthia angled her watch to the light. Seven-thirty? I wish we could go somewhere like the little town where Franklin lives -- a quiet place without all the traffic and taxes and rules and frustration --

She sighed and looked up at the flags on the old Plaza Hotel waving in the cold winter air. Big white flakes coming down. Guys in chocolate overcoats escorting blondes and brunettes into town cars, probably going to restaurants or movies or the ballet at Lincoln Center, feeling the excitement of another Monday evening. In less than an hour none of it would matter.

Something passed Penobscot, the Coast Guard cutter assigned to break ice and patrol the harbor waters. The sonarman scored a tiny blip on his scope. Recorded electronically for eight seconds, it suddenly disappeared. It had moved so slowly, the computer-aided sonar had classified the blip as BIOLOGIC -- an aquatic vertebrate -- and removed it from the screen.

Ever since 9/11, one cutter or another was always patrolling New York Harbor. Time heals all wounds -- a scab never as motivating as open flesh -- and the sonarman too erased the blip from his mind. Penobscot continued north.

The fish swam silently past two small private boats, beyond the Statue, following a course between Liberty and Governors Island, swung east of the Hudson River, and northeast into Upper New York Bay. When it reached the center of three transmitter signals -- the fish suddenly swam faster, rising upward. As it crested the surface, a valve opened. From a chamber inside, not unlike a long scuba tank, highly compressed air blasted through a nozzle in the fish's tail. The fish rocketed above the surface. For every foot gained, the device's potential was multiplied.

A little girl in a party hat, on her way to celebrate her eighth birthday, dinner at the South Street Seaport, held her mother's hand as they walked along the pier toward the bay.

"Look, Mommy," she pointed. "A giant fish!"

It was the last thing she ever said; the last thought she ever had; the next-to-last sound she ever heard.

As the fish reached the zenith of its arc, opposing charges in its belly imploded toward each other. Eighteen nanoseconds later it became a ball of pure expanding energy.

On the Upper East Side, a siren like the lone wail of a coyote echoing through a distant canyon slipped through Cynthia Reveal and Steve Montrose's barely open window. Several car horns seemed to blare in answering conversation.

Probably blocks apart, Cyn thought. She left the window open. She liked a little fresh air getting back to the bedroom at night. The horns and siren faded, and from the bedroom came the faint sound of the jazz station she liked. Not clear, though. That same annoying squeal from the cab all but blotted out George Benson's airy guitar.

_"What's wrong with the radio?"_ she called softly.

_"I don't know, hon,"_ Steve's voice drifted back. _"It's been like that all night."_ The radio cut off.

_"Weird night for electronic stuff,"_ she said. _"My phone wouldn't connect. I tried you three times."_

_"I know. I tried you too."_

Cyn slid everything from her briefcase into the mess of an open drawer, second to the bottom of a file cabinet plastered with flower stickers, her idea of sprucing up their office-nursery until they could find something bigger. Out of sight, out of mind. She wasn't going to talk about the bank with Steve tonight.

She turned and leaned over the crib to kiss her sleeping girl goodnight. In the dim light she was surprised to see Melissa's bright-blue eyes looking up at her. _"I'll get that drawer straightened out when you wake up tomorrow,"_ she whispered. "Nighty-night, sweet girl." She stroked Melissa's hair as her eyes closed and kissed her goodnight.

Cyn hopped to the bedroom, kicking off her sneakers. She loved the feeling of getting out of sweaty socks at the end of a long day.

"Oh, I thought for a minute you were going to bring her in with us," Steve said softly. He had just begun his own three months' leave as hers ended.

"I can --"

"No, it's okay."

She slid off her pants, laid them over the arm of the chair, removed her jacket, blouse and underwear, laid them neatly with the pants and slid in next to Steve in bed. She pulled the sheets and bright Aztec blanket up to her chin. Fortunately that sound on the cab's radio wasn't affecting the TV. Cyn rubbed the instep of her right foot against her Stevie's left ankle. Their favorite comedy was just starting.

"How's Everon?" Steve asked. "Did you tell him I said hello?"

"Of course. He said to tell you hi. He seems happy. His solar line's expanding again."

"You okay? You seem kind of down tonight."

"I'm fine," she lied.

He yawned, his foot traveling playfully up her leg. "I was thinking . . . maybe we oughta go shopping for a bigger bed?"

"Oh, I don't know," she laughed, leaned in close, and kissed his neck. "This old double may be small, but there are compensations." She rubbed his left foot. They'd been lazy, putting it off.

Cynthia turned her head. "Do you hear that?"

Time. Slowed. Down.

Off in the distance, what seemed like somewhere south, two sounds blended into one -- one low and growling; one high, like the howling whining wind of a hurricane. They turned, only a confused, beginning fear in each other's eyes.

As the first pre-shock hit the building, Steve and Cynthia were drawn to an amazing thing -- in the nursery, their three-month-old daughter flying into the air, and falling into the open file drawer beside her crib.

The fireball fired the night beyond the brilliance of a sun. To those like Cynthia and Steve and Melissa, far enough away with time to hear, the maelstrom roared then sucked all sound to vacuum. In the first five seconds the shock wave traveled one mile. By the time it reached East Sixtieth Street it was still moving faster than the speed of sound.

Out Penobscot's slanting window, as the sonarman tried desperately to cling to the bulkhead doorway-- to _anything,_ he watched the horizon tilt, the cutter's stern rising like a surfboard on a cliff of water, straight at the George Washington Bridge. The cutter's nose dropped, straight down the face of the cliff.

Of the people in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Jersey City, Long Island City, and especially Manhattan, no one had time to think about getting their car out of a parking lot, across the Brooklyn or Manhattan Bridge, and onto Long Island. Those bridges were disintegrated within moments of that sound. No one had time to consider getting a cab to take them through the Lincoln Tunnel. Giant balls of fire blew through all the tunnels within moments of that sound.

No one had time to take their money out of the bank or convert it to gold or think about what to wear or decide what food to buy. Within moments of that sound, chunks of building from the other side of Sixtieth Street blew through Cynthia and Steve's bedroom to join those of their neighbors on the north side of the alley, dominoing on toward Harlem.

Such was the final destruction of three hundred years of substantial progress, of fighting over an island three-point-five miles wide and fifteen miles long, of racial warfare and welfare, of neighborhood scams, gang war, corruption, and decay; one-hundred-fifty years of tearing down and building back up, of planning, zoning and community boards; one hundred years of social-climbing parties of the inherited rich and famous, of finding-ways-around-their-squabbles land assemblage, and back room politics; and eighty years of building giant structures that reached into the sky, each a living breathing monument to man's greatest achievement. Reason.

Most of said destruction took eight seconds, though the firestorms would burn on for hours. There was worse to come.

Turbulence

"Waaaahoooo!"

"I don't think -- you're supposed to do -- barrel rolls, Everon -- in a _Leeeear!"_ The night sky rolled around the windshield, and the sparkled earth was overhead. The blond man's fingers on the yoke held their assigned altitude perfectly.

"Less than a hundred feet deviation!" he laughed at the end of the corkscrew. You don't think? . . . I'm supposed to do barrel rolls in a Learjet? . . .Wahoooo!" and took them over again. Free of meetings, Everon Student thought. Free of traffic -- free of the earth, blasting at 300 knots across the sky!

But Everon's attempt at getting Andréa Buer into the spirit of things wasn't working. That petulant look was growing more intense, denying the intimate things they'd done only minutes before.

"Come on -- _relax!"_ he tried with her. "The Lear was developed from a Swiss fighter! These babies are certified to three g's but they'll probably take something like six. We're not even pulling a g-and-a-half. How often do you get to let your hair down at thirty thousand feet -- upside __ down?" And over they went again. It's perfect! he thought. Not too big, but not all that small either.

He'd worked very hard to afford the little jet. This was the payoff. He was actually going to own one! He'd flown plenty of jets -- always for _other_ people. This one would be his! He felt -- what was the word? Giddy? He laughed and took it over one more time.

There were actually two things Everon liked about this particular aircraft. The joy of controlling such incredible strength and agility, and, in the seat to his right, the best-looking female pilot he'd ever seen. He took another look at Andréa as they inverted. Deep brown eyes, long red hair that flew out as they went around . . . beautiful!

Okay, she looked better without the greenish tinge. Maybe I should cool it. But this sure beats the hell out of flying commercial. I could get used to this!

The jet belonged, for the moment, to Hunt Williams. Williams Power owned more transmission lines than anyone in east Pennsylvania and west New Jersey, several generating plants too. Six hours ago they'd had lunch, Hunt with hopes of purchasing Everon's two solar power farms -- one, west of Las Vegas; the other, south of Phoenix. Everon said he didn't want to sell, but he'd be happy to trade Hunt all the solar panels he wanted for the jet. The older executive had already replaced the Learjet with a larger model, a Gulfstream. They worked out a deal.

The flight out from Nevada with Andréa had been fun -- a vague, flirtatious sexual tension right from the start while she took him through the jet's systems. Sometime later, she mentioned she'd seen his picture on the cover of Entrepreneur and some other high-tech magazine she couldn't remember the name of. She nearly purred, recalling an old story she'd read in Gliding about him setting a U.S. sailplane distance record out of San Diego. She said she'd been wanting to meet him for a long time, even asked for his autograph, which he thought was pretty funny. That was a new one! He'd obliged, scribbling his signature on a napkin from the jet's tiny galley. Andréa gave him a little kiss on the cheek when he handed it to her. A gorgeous lithe female pilot with flaming red hair? It was only good manners to kiss her back, wasn't it? To Everon, she seemed adventurous and provocative. But that was as far as it went -- until they took off for the trip back home.

Headed west over New York State, he and Andréa had cleared the clouds, looked at each other, and simply started kissing. Things escalated. She turned on the autopilot -- not the only thing that got turned on, her left knee against his right, a hand inside his thigh to let him know what she wanted. He returned the move and felt the moisture building in the crotch of her tightly-knit pants.

The cockpit was close quarters but, instead of going back to use one of the jet's roomier foldout beds, for safety's sake Everon kept his position in the pilot's seat to retake control if he had to. Andréa unzipped his fly, rose from her seat, slid her pants down, and in one deft motion, turned sideways and engaged him, her fingers weaving into his hair, taking him inside at twenty-six thousand feet. Mile High Club? he'd thought. Hell -- five miles!

It was unbearably romantic, so intense, linked together -- stars above -- the feel of her body and her lips on his. _Whew!_ More alone than two people could ever be on the planet's surface. Andréa Buer proved to be a wild, insatiable woman.

Twenty minutes later he was demolished and out of breath. But unlike the man who smokes or watches TV after sex, Everon needed to recover in his own way. Once every muscle in his body had released its tension, he craved something different to cap things off. They were over Pennsylvania when he let loose of Andréa, turned off the autopilot, and retook control of the jet. He decided to take the Lear up to thirty thousand feet and see what the thing would do.

But Andréa's sexual aggression had misled him. Believing she would be more adventurous after what they'd just done, she'd surprised him by becoming a real whiner. Now he was beginning to regret making love with her, even flying with her. He leveled out to the tinkling crash of a glass breaking somewhere back in the cabin.

He frowned. "You okay?"

She nodded and gulped, glaring back, "Please don't do that again -- sir."

"Hey! What's this sir stuff?"

Before she could answer, the right wing dipped -- hard!

Andréa shot him an angry look, thinking, _What_ an ass! for ignoring her discomfort. But she saw the yoke was level. He had a death grip on it and hadn't done a damn thing!

_"What the hell!"_ he shouted as the plane nosed over, bucking violently.

He twisted the yoke, pulling back, trying to bring the nose up. It appeared to be completely out of his control.

Into The Dirt

His hand beat hers by a second pulling the turbines' power back to zero, the airspeed indicator already in the red. Andréa, seeing his reaction, added her strength to his, pulling back on her yoke. But the jet seemed to have its own idea, hurling them vertically toward the ground, already down to twenty-eight thousand feet. It was doubly difficult pulling on the controls face down, hanging from seat straps that cut into her body, only preferable to being thrown against the windshield a foot from her face.

"I think it's coming up!" she gasped.

The plane's nose rose slowly, its violent bucking smoothing out. Five degrees, ten . . . till another wave knocked them right over the falls, the jet's nose continuing past vertical.

Everon thought the wings would be ripped from the fuselage. The blood rushed to his face. He clamped his teeth against the terror flowing into his skull, pushed it away with one word -- "PULL!" -- while the plane raced toward an impact that would spell their deaths in the dirt. Eighteen thousand feet . . . fifteen thousand . . . and the little Lear began to respond . . . slowly, much too slowly to suit Everon, the nose came forward. Air screamed outside the cabin. How much can the wings take? he wondered. Extreme tension in his arms, pushing with his legs, flight angle changing at a snail's pace, they rushed downward past nine thousand feet. Ten degrees, twenty, forty-five . . .

At five thousand two hundred feet they finally regained the horizon.

"Hail Mary, full of grace," Andréa muttered. She took a deep breath, glanced at the flashing console lights, reached up and shut off the high-pitched alarm pinging from their sudden altitude loss. "What was that?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said.

"I hate to say it, Everon," she admitted shakily, massaging her stomach, "it's a good thing you insisted we buckle these seat belts, preceding your aerobatic unruliness."

"I guess that sir stuff went out the window a couple of miles higher," he said.

Andréa smiled weakly, "I guess so."

"See what you can find on the radio, okay?" he asked.

"Okay." She picked up her headset from the floor. "One-Oscar-Mike -- New York Center do you read?"

Static. Andréa repeated the call . . .

"Nothing!" she said. The jet's displays flickered.

"Cleveland?" Everon suggested.

"We're probably too low now." But she switched frequencies. "One-Oscar-Mike -- Cleveland Center, do you read?"

"Oscar-Mike, this is Cleveland Center," a voice responded, weak and broken.

"We were just hit by extreme clear air turbulence, Center," Andréa radioed.

"We're receiving reports from all over the area. Say altitude and position."

"Level at five thousand," she said. "We took a sudden dive from flight level three-zero-zero over middle Pennsylvania."

"No major storms on radar. Wait . . . hold on . . . word is . . . Something in New York . . . stand by --"

New York? Everon worried. While Andréa scanned the instruments, he frowned into the night, exhaling slowly. He turned to his right. "Breathe, Andréa," he reminded her.

She let out a long blast of air. "I wonder what -- ? I've never _felt_ turbulence like that!"

"Once in a hang glider," Everon muttered. "Flying stupid under a thunderstorm in Telluride. Nothing like it in a powered craft --"

"One-Oscar-Mike," the controller radioed. "All flight plans to New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut are being re-routed . . . stand by . . . more information coming in!"

Andréa looked at Everon.

"There are only two possibilities I can think of," he said, "neither of them good. Most likely, the one I'm most afraid of, is a nuclear attack."

"Nuclear? Could there be radiation?" she asked.

"Probably not here," he said. "Predominant winds are west to east, right? On the other hand, EMP and the nuclear shockwave would extend in all directions -- in terms of turbulence much farther. I'm betting that's what we hit -- or should I say -- hit us, but I'm not going to jump to any conclusions."

"We're pretty far from New York!" she said.

"I know. That's what worries me most." Illegal to use in a plane or not, Everon pulled out a cell phone and tried to call his sister . . .

It didn't ring. "Lines must be down to New York," he said softly. No! As long as -- maybe -- Franklin!

He tried another number. No response. The phone's signal flickered between zero bars and one. He glanced at the altimeter. They were still traveling west at five thousand feet across Pennsylvania. "Maybe we can lock onto a ground station somewhere farther out."

Ten minutes later his phone showed to two bars and he tried again. It rang.

"Hello?" his brother's crackling voice responded.

"Franklin?" __ Everon shouted back.

_"Hello? . . . Hello?"_ came his brother's voice.

Franklin couldn't hear him.

On The Edge Of Reason

Minutes earlier, Franklin Reveal's cobalt-blue eyes followed the slender blue thread that held his life. Illuminated only by the beam of his pocket light, it disappeared into the darkness above. He held his hook knife against the thread. One quick cut, Franklin thought. A long fall would be a good way to end your life, wouldn't it? If you had the will, the presence of mind, the clarity -- you might even enjoy the ride down before the splat. Then again, you might not.

The blue thread was dry twill climbing rope. Straps biting into his legs, Franklin hung suspended a hundred feet in the air, off the lip of his favorite rappelling site in southeast Ohio. A mile walk from a quiet road, alone in the dark state park, flouting regulations, Franklin came to Ash Cave whenever he wanted a break from people. When he wanted to silence all the voices.

Trees towered below. His rope was tied off to three larger trees up top. An animal growled. Something hooted. Maybe one of them will just chew through the rope, he thought. A gigantic shadow fluttered across the half-dome walls.

It's not a cave anymore, he'd thought the first time he'd seen Ash Cave _, but it was once, before the dome collapsed to the floor._ Now it was only an overhang before a background of twinkling constellations, like his life.

Above the cliff edge, a thousand points of light glittered, more stars than anywhere in the world -- bold Orion, sword hanging from the three-star belt at his narrow waist. Never afraid, never conflicted about anything, Franklin thought. The Big Dipper . . . primitive man drew an angry bear. Franklin saw a giant ladle. What will it pour into my life next? he wondered. He looked from his knife to the rope, back to the sky. He knew why he felt so drawn to the stars tonight, it was February Seven. Today would have been his mother's birthday.

In the cold still air, a crazed bat fluttered past his head in search of a midnight snack. With a gloved hand, Franklin pushed a lock of dark hair from his forehead, watched the bat dive like a spastic fighter plane, through the lighted circle around his lantern on the ground. Doesn't it know it's too cold to be out here? Weird night.

Franklin rubbed a painful spot on his right shoulder, breath hanging before his face as he glanced at the knife again, hanging loose against his vest. Why do I think of things like that? I do a great job, help a lot of people at the church. He huffed darkly. I ought to use my methods on myself.

Where did it start? The seminary? Before? He couldn't pinpoint it. Tonight's depression was nothing like the fear the guys felt on the air transports, Talking up that death-on-the-shoulder thing, trying to prove how brave they were. This was new, this was gray. Not even the mission that led to his leaving the Rangers had caused him to feel this bad. He'd joined the military to get away from the memory of a girl. He'd entered the seminary to get away from the thing he'd been a part of in the military. Maybe he hadn't pulled the trigger, but he hadn't done anything to stop it.

Now look at me. He looked up the rope again. Thinking about killing myself. The guilt still stung. Thank God for Cynthia. Sometimes family is all you have.

Part of it, Franklin knew, was the warning he'd received this week from the church's senior minister. Franklin rubbed a hand across his jaw. There was a dull ache in his rear teeth. He'd been feeling it more often lately -- always after he'd spent a whole day at the church. It doesn't matter. Maybe nothing will ever matter.

But as he hung there, his neck relaxed, the ache in his teeth began to fade. The bad feeling slowly left him.

"It's _too_ quiet," he sighed aloud and peeled off the headphones velcroed to his fanny pack. They began to slip from his fingers. Without conscious thought, his lanky frame stayed upright while he switched the rope to his right hand, caught the edge of an ear cup with his left, and pushed the headset comfortably over his ears. He searched out a local station.

"Ugh -- talk!" There ought to be jazz or classical somewhere, he thought, rolling the dial. Tonight he needed something mindless . . . _"More talk?_ " But this voice sounded strange, shooting out words rapid-fire: "Bomb . . . New York City . . . All communications out . . ."

"Is this real?" Franklin mouthed, knowing instantly that it was. He froze. "New York? Cynthia?"

". . . this special report. At this point we have only scattered information --

"At 8:01 Eastern Standard Time, apparently an explosion thought to be nuclear in nature was detonated in or near New York City. It is unknown whether this was a terrorist attack or something else. We are unable to communicate with our affiliate in Manhattan. Damage must be extensive. We have attempted contact by phone or Internet, but circuits simply do not respond --

"The communications outage includes all five boroughs of New York City, Long Island, and into parts of Connecticut, New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania --"

Franklin's cellphone warbled.

_"Hello?"_

No response.

_"Hello? Hello!"_ Franklin shouted.

Only static came back. Then, somewhere in the noise, he made out a voice he recognized.

"Everon?"

The connection cleared.

"Yes," Franklin said. . . . on the radio just now. . . . I don't know. Right, the Upper East Side . . . I don't know! . . . Yes, certainly . . . No, I'm in the middle of Ohio, camping . . . Yes . . . Bayne Airport's close . . . It's just a landing strip . . . In the dark? . . . Yes, that's it. I can be there in forty minutes. I can -- okay, but --"

Everon had already disconnected.

Franklin's heart pounded. The skin on his arms grew cold. Strong scent of pine on the air. In his mind's eye he saw a bomb exploding, a fireball expanding, buildings going down . . . Cynthia!

He let the trailing rope pay out through the cam, dropping as fast as he could toward the light below.

Brothers Once Removed

The runway was too short, the jet's speed too great, its nose stayed up long after the snow burst around its tires. It plowed the air, struggling to stop before it hit the snow-covered trees.

From where Franklin's headlights barreled down the runway, chasing the plane in his old jeep, it appeared the jet was already in the trees. The nose dropped and he could hear Everon standing on the brakes as the trees came closer. At the very last moment, the little plane spun, its stubby right wing clipping branches.

Franklin left the jeep parked on slanted ground in the snowy brush, grabbed two duffel bags, threw a coil of rope over his right shoulder, and rushed to the plane's open door.

"Hi, Bro," came Everon's worried voice as Franklin climbed inside. "It's definitely nuclear?"

"That's what the radio said." Franklin tossed his gear on the rear seat and buckled in.

A young woman with long red hair gave her name as Andréa and pulled the door shut, then slid into the pilot's seat next to Everon.

"Did they say anything about more bombs?" Everon called over his shoulder.

"Just speculation that this won't be the last."

"Let's not think about that," Everon said. "Right now, Cynthia, Steve, and Melissa are all that matter." Step-brothers, Franklin and Everon were related to Cynthia by one parent each. Once nearly inseparable, the brothers had seen each other rarely in the last fourteen years.

Ninety seconds later the jet's wheels left the ground. While thousands of people streamed away from New York, trying to escape, Franklin, Everon and Andréa headed east, toward it.

Far ahead, in a slice of windshield between the cockpit seats, Franklin could see a sickening glow. "Is this the beginning of the end?" he wondered softly. A city on fire?

He closed his eyes, his stomach a knot of indefinable dread and recalled a line from Revelation. _And there went out a horse that burned red, and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, that they should kill one another, and there was given unto him a great sword to make war._

"There's no GPS signal," a worried female voice intruded. Andréa.

"Any satellites above the blast zone must have been damaged by the bomb's EMP," Everon answered.

They'd learned little on the jet's radios, other than the explosion in New York was nuclear.

"Did you hear that?" Andréa asked.

"Can't make it out. Too weak," Everon said.

"It's so dark, only the car lights!" she said. "Maybe we can get radar vectors.

"One-Oscar-Mike to Newark Airport --?" she radioed. "Hello, _Newark --?"_

Franklin opened his eyes. Between the cockpit seats he saw Everon glance overhead and flick a switch.

A voice came from a speaker, "Newark Airport is now controlled by military personnel. All private and commercial aircraft are directed to find alternate landing facilities at this time."

Everon turned to Andréa. "La Guardia?"

"That's awfully close to Manhattan. I'd like to get out of the whole area."

"Let's see what they say, huh?"

Andréa radioed.

_"Turn off!"_ La Guardia's controller answered in a voice full of static. "All our runways are obstructed by debris."

Franklin wished he could just throw open the door and rappel right down onto Cynthia's roof. Just to know they're okay!

"JFK?" Andréa asked, already changing frequencies, her jaw muscle bulging.

But a controller told them JFK Airport was being evacuated. It was beneath the bomb's radioactive cloud.

Franklin felt each denial as a physical blow. He couldn't just sit here. He stepped forward, leaned between the cockpit seats, and picked up an aeronautical chart off the floor. He pointed to a spot in New Jersey. "What about this? Is TEB an airport? Looks like it's close to the City, if it's not too close."

Everon glanced at the map, then Andréa. "Teterboro!"

She changed the radio frequency and called the tower. There was no response.

"Look!" She pointed through the windshield. "That highway." She glanced down at the chart. "We're here," she pointed. She twisted her yoke, banking the jet.

"Teterboro area traffic," Everon called, "Learjet One-Oscar-Mike -- anyone know if the runway is useable?"

Nobody answered.

Several minutes later, Andréa began a pass along the runway's right side. "How's it look?" she asked. "I -- I can't see much."

"No active planes on the field," Everon said. "I don't see chunks of debris or anything. The lights are pretty dim. The runway numbers aren't clear. Maybe they're covered with dust."

"There's no beacon on the tower," Andréa breathed. "No strobes, runway lights barely visible, I don't know --"

"They're probably on emergency power," Everon said. "It's the best we've got, let's take it." He radioed: "Teterboro area traffic, Learjet One-Oscar-Mike turning downwind, Runway Two-Four."

Franklin buckled in. _How many other planes are out here wandering around in the dark tonight?_

Andréa took a deep breath, turned, and entered the approach pattern -- ready to pull up at any second. Not being able to talk to the tower was unsettling. If there was something blocking the runway, this could be the last landing she'd ever make.

"Learjet Oscar-Mike, this is Gulfstream Six-One-Six-One-Sierra-Golf, about seven miles out. We'll follow you in."

Another jet, Franklin thought, behind us.

"Okay, Sierra-Golf," Everon radioed.

"Cross your fingers," Andréa muttered. She pulled back the throttles and they descended rapidly.

The runway was wet when they touched down, and looked dirty, but there was nothing major blocking it. Andréa taxied over next to two small jets parked by the airport fence.

Everon had the side door open before the jet stopped moving. "Wait here," he yelled, grabbing a briefcase, and disappeared.

Through the door Franklin watched a larger jet set down on the runway they'd vacated. Two more jets landed, taxied over, and parked wing-to-wing.

A few minutes later a dark-haired man wearing a black leather jacket, and a rail-thin woman whose straight blonde hair hung over the shoulders of her shiny red coat, leaned their faces through the Learjet's door. Both were in their thirties and well-tanned like they'd just spent a week on a Florida beach.

"Anybody know what's going on?" the woman asked nervously.

"An Ohio radio station claimed the device was nuclear," Franklin said.

"We _know_ it's nuclear," a male voice rumbled from the darkness behind the woman.

A sudden bright glare appeared in the distance, a BOOM! reaching them as the glow faded to red.

"What was _that?"_ the woman screeched. "Was that a plane?" Like a series of bombs going off, a dozen small explosions followed. Helicopters zoomed overhead, their spotlights sweeping the landing area. The craziness was beginning.

The woman backed up enough to let Franklin step outside. He edged into cold air that smelled of smoke. There were more people behind her.

Everybody began talking at once. One man, chubby face pink with cold, said in a high voice, "A station we picked up over West Virginia said the Mayor of New York is missing."

"They think he's dead," somebody else said.

"The deputy mayor's in charge."

"Where's the President?"

Everon ran up, out of breath. "Let's go! I got us a helicopter. The latest weather briefing says we've got only a few hours to fly in, find them, and get out before the wind changes and blows the fallout back this way."

"Everyone's subject to military law, even the police," said a dark-skinned man in a blue suit. "It's on the radio."

"We'll see," Everon said.

Franklin grabbed his gear.

"Do you want my help?" Andréa asked, as Franklin stepped from the jet. Everon didn't answer.

"You're going in there?" the woman in red called after them in a jittery voice. But Franklin and Everon were already gone.

Climbing bags and rope slung over his shoulders, Franklin chased his older brother around the end of Runway 24 in the dim airport light. "Any danger of radiation coming this way?" he yelled.

"The wind's blowing it away from us!" Everon shouted. "Toward Long Island. For now!"

On the other side of the airport, a small red helicopter was waiting in front of an aircraft hangar.

"Is that thing big enough?" Franklin asked.

"It'll do."

Franklin took in the black numbers on the tail. Red and black, he thought, 666KI, the Devil's helicopter!

"If we can find them," Everon added, climbing into the right seat. He began to flip various switches. "I had to almost buy this thing. Took most of my cash."

"Have you flown this type before?" Franklin asked, stowing his gear and getting in on the left.

"Not so loud," Everon whispered. "Ten hours or so."

With a high-pitched screech, the helicopter's two long blades began to rotate overhead. Everon handed Franklin a headset.

"Hear me?" Everon asked.

"Yes."

Everon scanned the gauges, adjusted several controls. "All right." He put his right hand on the yoke between his legs. He put his left hand down between the seats and twisted a motorcycle grip on the end of the collective arm. The engine's roar increased. As he began to raise the arm off the floor, a hand and thick blue shirtsleeve appeared in front of him and turned the key. The engine died.

"What the hell are you doing!" Everon yelled.

A bright light shined in their eyes. "All air travel has been suspended," a clipped nasal voice said.

"What?" Everon growled. "Get that light out of my eyes!"

The beam dropped.

Franklin could just make out the short dark-haired man with his right hand on a hip gun. His eyes were tiny. He had a tight authoritative, almost smiling, mouth. TETERBORO AIRPORT SECURITY was embroidered above his pocket. A silver name tag said VANDERSOMMEN.

"The controller's radios are out," Vandersommen said. "They've got hand-delivered military orders. We're under martial law." He bounced on the toes of his shiny black shoes, happy about it.

"SONOFABITCH!" Everon exploded.

Connections

From a minute after eight o'clock, David Niece found he had no heat, no water, no refrigerator, and no internet or telephone. David thought he'd heard the sound of thunder, but when he went outside, the stars twinkled through a sky dark and clear.

Nobody was allowed to build on the hills outside Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania anymore, but David's house had been in the family since 1928 -- his only neighbor out of sight, leaving David isolated by trees and distance. He had three cords of wood stacked up for the winter. Public utilities weren't all that consistent. The house was above the frost line, but his gas generator started on the first pull. He plugged in the three yellow extension cords that ran through a hole drilled in the house's side. He heard the well pump turn on. He'd lost power before and could run whatever he needed. Then he found that all the radio and TV stations his satellite dish pulled in were off the air. That worried him.

From his porch above the Delaware Water Gap, David watched a stream of westbound cars fill Interstate 80. He got into his old El Camino and drove down the hill.

At the mini-mart people jammed the aisles. David kept out of the way, just inside the front doors, watched, and listened. Customer faces were contorted with a desperation he'd never seen before, pulling hot dog buns and candy and soda and water randomly, as fast as they could empty the shelves.

"Goddammit, I had those marshmallows first!" yelled a big walrus.

"You sonofabitch! You can't take those out of my kid's hand!" a little guy screamed back. Fists flew. Nobody, not even the store manager cared.

David pieced it together.

"My brother was just in New York, day before yesterday!"

"Anybody who was downtown is toast!"

"Shut up! My sister lives in Battery Park!"

"Sorry!"

"Anybody know who did it?"

David got back in his car and raced up the hill. Shit, an atom bomb in New York!

At the top of David's house was an attic stairway. At the top of the stairs he threw open a white door that bore a small sign: TOP OF THE WORLD.

David sat behind his desk and plugged in a black power cord that he kept disconnected -- in case of lightning strikes -- to the thick yellow extension cord on the floor. He flipped on a speaker and began transmitting over his ham radio.

Even on weekends, with the exception of three unemployed derelicts who closed down the town's only bar every night, the people of Marysville, Ohio -- population 12,336 -- went to bed early.

"Ben . . . wake up!" Susan Coupe shook her husband. "Ben!"

"Huh?" Ben answered. "What time is it?" Susan had the light on.

"Nine o'clock. Somebody's at the door!" Pounding echoed through the old house.

Ben squinted and blinked to clear his eyes as he reached for and missed a terrycloth robe hanging over the chair. A pain shot down his left arm. A shoulder with bursitis had been bothering him for two years. Ben slid his bare feet to the floor and pulled the robe on.

BOOM-BOOM! BOOM-BOOM! The pounding was louder this time. Ben flipped on the stairway light and headed down. "Hold on, hold on! I'm coming!"

Ben opened the front door to find Susan's sister Cheryl and her live-in boyfriend Matt standing on the porch, wearing winter coats over pajamas and slippers, their eyes wide with terror. "Oh, my God!" Cheryl blurted as she ran past Ben, to hug Susan, "Matt was up listening to that damned CB again --"

"Good thing, too!"

"Shut up, Matt!" Cheryl screamed.

"What is it, Cheryl?" Susan asked.

"Suze!" she yanked the front of her sister's bathrobe, "The power's out! The phones are out! New York City's been bombed!"

"What!" Ben said. "New York? The country's under attack? Who --?"

Susan lifted the phone. A dial tone hummed back. "Ours is working."

At 8:33, Iowa time, the telephone rang at the apartment of Kim Martin and her two daughters. It was Kim's brother Brian, calling from Canadian in north Texas.

_"New York!"_ Kim said. "He called you from Ohio? That's a pretty good friend for an old college buddy. Did he say who did it?"

"Ben knows we do some nuclear warhead work down here," Brian said. "He wanted to find out what I thought. My satellite dish isn't working and I can only get one radio station, that's it. The President hasn't said anything, but look, Kimmie, I'm on my way out the door right now. I've only got a few bucks. I'm gonna hit the cash machine."

Kim ran to the kitchen for a look in her purse.

"Shit," she yelped. "I've only got a twenty, Brian. _Girls!"_ she yelled. _"Get your coats! You can wear your pj's underneath. Come on, g_ irls! _We have to go somewhere in the car for a few minutes right n_ ow!"

By the time Kim reached her usual ATM, there were a dozen people already in line. Kim was one person from the machine when a dark-haired man came walking back toward her counting money. The man directly in front of Kim began swearing out the longest string of cuss words she'd ever heard, even visiting her brother in Texas. He ran after the dark-haired man. A message flashed in the ATM window:

That night, Kim and her daughters drove to three more ATMs. There was no one at any of them. The first two were empty. She ran away nervously from the third. Someone had taken a crowbar to it.

In the middle of ten thousand acres northeast of Burlington, Kansas, the head night engineer at Wolf Creek Nuclear Power Plant studied a series of computer readouts.

The two new rods on the Number Three Bundle look okay now. The reactor was operating near maximum output. Good thing too, he thought, with this New York --

He looked up to see an army colonel and four soldiers file through the main control room door. Colonel Devers Broadmore introduced himself, then said, "By Presidential Order 16-176, all active nuclear plants are to be shut down immediately. It's our job to see these shutdowns are carried out."

"Shutdown? The engineer frowned. What?"

"Correct."

"But I don't understand. Way out here? Some of the East Coast plants maybe, but us? We're near peak load. If we --"

"Immediate shutdown, sir!" Broadmore's face remained impassive. "Right now!"

The chief engineer hesitated. He thought of his home twenty miles away -- his wife and kids. Though none of the soldiers were raising weapons, he saw increasing tension in the hands that held the guns.

The engineer took a deep breath, then stepped to the main console. To the shock of the entire night crew, he entered three commands into the computer. Deep within the concrete containment dome next door, motors whirred. An ear-deafening hissSSSS grew. Control rods pushed downward, absorbing neutrons. The core's temperature dropped. Steam became water, generators slowed.

The sudden gigantic power deficit on the U.S. electric grid forced switching engineers to make urgent choices. Like a pebble tossed in a pond, a wave of blackouts rippled outward beyond Kansas. The lights of twenty -- fifty -- two hundred thousand homes went dark as they were taken off the grid. Refrigerators stopped cooling. Water heaters stopped heating. Furnaces shut down. At the Palo Verde plant west of Phoenix, at River Bend north of New Orleans -- at sixty-three other nuclear plants across the United States -- the procedure was repeated. Eleven million homes went dark. In Ohio, in the middle of Ben's third phone call, the lights at the Coupe's house went out. In Iowa, the display on the fourth cash machine Kim Martin tried simply went dead. The machine didn't return her card.

Frustration

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Everon's fist hammered on a metal door. He leaned back and looked up the wall of Teterboro's control tower, tapering six stories to the observation windows. That little red helicopter is just sitting there, he thought, ready to go. Cyn, Steve and Melissa could slide right in the back and we'd get the hell out of here. But when the military shows up, it'll be too late! I have to get clearance now!

He drew back his fist for another go, when -- CLICK! -- he heard the lock unlatch. The door was opened by a man wearing a blue bow tie and a brown goatee. A metal tag on his white shirt said JOHN COATES.

Everon began, "I need clearance to --"

"I'm sorry," Coates interrupted, "no one is allowed to leave the ground. An FAA director was just here. She grounded all flights. The military's about to take over. And anyway, our radios are out."

Everon studied the man's face. _"All_ flights?"

"Everything except military and EMS."

"My sister is in the City," Everon pointed at the distant glow. "I have a helicopter. You can't expect us to just sit here on the ground!"

"Afraid so," the man told him and began to pull the door closed.

Everon persisted, not realizing he was holding onto the door. "That's it?"

"Absolutely!" Coates said more strongly, "Sorry!" He forced the door out of Everon's hand.

"I-have-a-spare-radio-you-can-have!" Everon spat into the closing crack.

The door hesitated. It opened. "That would be a big help."

Two minutes later Everon was back from the jet with a black hand-held the size of a walkie-talkie.

"Thanks!" the controller said, widening the crack he'd been peering through, taking the radio, "I really appreciate it! At least we'll be able to communicate with emergency flights and talk in pilots trying to land. We've had _six_ crashes tonight, already!" He began to pull the door closed.

Everon quickly considered the dim blue lights along the runway. "How long till your backup batteries fail?" he asked.

The door stopped. "Not long. Our generator didn't come on like it was supposed to."

"Mind if I take a look?" Everon urged. "I know something about power systems. Do you have any tools?"

"Hmm." The door widened. "Well, yeah, I guess. We have an engineer on call but --" his words choked off, eyes turning to the City. "Sorry, I have people in there too." Coates let out a long breath and stepped aside. "None of us know how to fix it."

Coates had a flashlight and led the way down a wide hallway. "It's back here on the ground floor. Watch it there. We cut the lights on the stairs to keep the runway lit as long as possible, and the backup lights didn't come on."

Everon followed Coates past the stairs to where he unlocked a set of double doors. The room was silent, its middle filled by a long diesel generator.

_This thing should have started automatically,_ Everon thought.

Along the far wall, car batteries sat in steel racks three rows high. A digital display flipped from 112 volts to 111.

"When that voltage drops under a hundred," Everon said, "you can forget about starting this thing! Tools?" he urged.

Coates swung open a metal cabinet. Its door had been forced with a crowbar. "Nobody had a key." Inside was a jumble of wrenches, pliers, a hammer.

Everon grabbed a screwdriver and opened the generator's control box. Inside was a mess. The bomb's electromagnetic pulse must have traveled up the wires to the transfer switch. The automatic relays were melted solid. He glanced at the readout. 110 volts. In the dim light he looked more closely at the automatic starting circuit and studied the wiring.

"Can you check on flights trying to land?" Everon asked. "Then come down and let me know how soon I can cut the runway lights? I'll need every bit of power in these batteries to get this thing started, and we don't have much time." 109 volts.

"Okay." Coates went to take the flashlight with him, not thinking.

"Uh -- you have a penlight or something?" Everon asked.

"Oh! Yeah, it won't do much good to -- no, no penlight, but I doubt I'll kill myself; I've run those stairs enough times. If you hear a scream, though," he huffed, "it'll be me falling six flights." 108 volts. Coates ran from the room.

Everon grabbed a pair of wire cutters. He'd have to bypass the melted relays. In the corner of the room was a big spool of heavy wire. He cut off several short pieces. _Dammit,_ Everon thought, _o_ ut of all of us, why Cyn? Married to a smart, loving guy. Their beautiful new baby daughter. He looked over. 107!

Something inside Everon took over. He knew what to do. His hands shoved old wires out of the way, yanked them out, and threw them on the floor -- stripping, bending, forming loops to replace them. _That helicopter's just_ sitting there across the airport! The controllers have my radio. If I can fix this thing they'll have to let us go in!

Ten minutes later he was done. Everon examined his effort, brain turning in a hundred directions. All he had to do was finish bypassing the main power leads. He glanced at the meter. 105 volts! Where is Coates? The runway lights are taking the batteries down! He had to disconnect the master. He checked another gauge on the generator's side. Fuel level looks okay.

Coates ran through the doors out of breath. "Sorry! We had a flight landing."

"I was beginning to wonder. Anybody coming in?"

"Not at the moment. You should have a few minutes."

A few minutes? Everon doubted it. He gripped a big breaker switch with both hands and pulled it down with a sharp _BANG!_ Now the airport was completely dark. He flipped two switches on the generator. While he waited for the diesel's glow plug to heat, he quickly pushed the bare ends of the three wires he'd stripped into the relay lugs and tightened them down.

Out in the hall a door slammed. "This way!" someone yelled. "In here!"

Everon ignored it.

"Okay!" Coates said. "Ready? Knock on wood if you have any." Coates rapped a knuckle against his own head.

The doors crashed open. "Step away from there!" said a commanding voice. Flashlights blazing, four soldiers in dark fatigues ran in bearing machine guns.

Coates jumped back, but Everon turned to the man who had spoken, an officer holding a pistol. Everon recognized the shoulder insignia of an Army colonel. "Are you planning to repair this generator yourself?" Everon asked. "Difficult to do with a gun in your hand."

"By presidential order, all airports in the area are now under military control!"

104 volts.

"Well maybe you can get President Wall in here to fix this generator himself," Everon said with a bitter grin. "Or did you just come for the end-of-the-world tailgate party?"

The officer's face went red. His uniform tag said MARSH. Standing behind Marsh was -- That asshole that stopped us from flying in -- Vandersommen! He glanced over. 103 volts!

"Look," Everon said, "I don't know who you are or what you want, but if you don't get these guns out of my face and let me start this thing, in about thirty seconds there won't be enough juice to start a lawnmower! Then your airport will stay dark."

"He doesn't work here!" said Vandersommen.

Marsh squinted, studied Everon's face a moment, then turned to the man behind him. "Stand down." The soldiers lowered their weapons. He turned back to Everon. "Go ahead."

Everon flipped a switch. The generator turned over, at first rapidly, then slowed as the battery banks wound down. Everon shut off the starter.

"He doesn't know what he's doing!" yelled Vandersommen.

"All right," Marsh said roughly. "Step away."

"Give it a second. The batteries are low."

102 volts.

"Stop him, Colonel!" stormed Vandersommen. "He's damaging the system!"

"I said step away."

Everon pulled a lever, adjusting the mixture, and tried again. Rrr . . . rrr . . . rrr . . . weaker this time -- within three seconds it was barely turning.

101 volts.

Everon frowned, reaching for a switch.

Marsh turned to one of the soldiers. "Take these men out of here right n --"

RRROOM! the giant diesel roared to life. Everon jumped quickly now, adjusting mixture and throttle, listening as it went rougher, then smoother, then steadied out. He stepped to the master breaker and flipped the handle up. "Check the lights!" he shouted.

Vandersommen stood there, lips sucked in, eyes tight, doing a slow burn.

"Go!" Marsh pointed.

Two men rushed outside.

Everon's mouth opened in a chuckle that couldn't be heard over the roar. "You don't need to go that far!" he yelled. He stepped smoothly around Vandersommen and flipped a wall switch. The overhead lights came on.

"Nice job!" Coates shouted in Everon's ear. The generator had been running perfectly for the last ten minutes. "I'm John, by the way, John Coates."

They shook hands. "Everon Student."

"You looking for a job?"

Everon shook his head. "Not at the moment," he yelled back. Now they'll have to -- "Say, John, could I ask a favor?"

Coates studied him, nodded, leaned in close, "Still looking for some way into the City?"

Everon didn't answer.

Coates smiled grimly. "I doubt it'll happen, but c'mon upstairs. You can ask Sue, the supervisor tonight. She's using your radio."

Everon followed Coates into the hall.

"Don't slam the door," Coates added softly, pointing at the outside door. "They've posted guards."

Two steps at a time, Everon followed Coates up six well-lit flights of stairs. An upset female voice drifted into the staircase. "So you're just gonna _leave?"_

Inside the room at the top was a man with his back to Everon. He had a shaved head like a watermelon on end. Colonel Marsh and two of his soldiers stood silently near a short beautiful Asian female.

"We may as well shut down," Melonhead answered, backing toward the door. "You should leave too. All the main radios and phones are shot, what's the difference?"

But Everon saw that the emergency lights were off, and the main lights were on. Two forgotten flashlights glowed atop a main console. He stepped over and turned them off.

"You can't go," the woman said. "FAA regulations --"

"Look," shouted Melonhead," you're single, but some of us have families to consider! No one can force us to stay!" He turned to Everon. "This the guy? _You_ fixed the generator?" He head-pointed toward the radio the woman was holding. "That _your_ radio?"

"That's right," Coates answered for Everon.

"Well, thank YOU!" Melonhead said. "Beats the hell out of throwing stones at planes and shouting Hey up there!" He stared at them, face pinched tight. "Twelve crashes in one night!"

Everon's eyebrows rose. Double the number Coates said a little while ago!

"Possible _crashes!"_ the woman said, turning to Everon, holding up the radio he'd loaned them. "At least we're talking to them now."

"Yeah," said Melonhead, "they start with, _We're_ declaring an emergency! Then, _All_ systems are out, w _e're going_ down! and that's the last we hear of them, until the _boom!"_ He was almost crying.

_There's no time to waste on a useless argument,_ Everon thought. _Cyn could be trapped, maybe dying._ He stepped over to Colonel Marsh.

"Colonel, I'm a pilot. My brother and I have a helicopter. Can I get clearance into the City to rescue our sister's family?"

"I'm afraid not," Marsh replied. "I appreciate what you did with the generator, but I have orders to lock this place down. Only official Medical flights are authorized. The government has to respond definitively to this threat."

"But --"

"Under martial law, a series of restrictions have been put in place for everyone's protection. Tightened control of the highways, shipping ports, bus stations, train stations, and airports. Sundown curfews will be enforced by tomorrow night."

"Jesus Christ!" Everon said, trying to control his voice. "What good will that do? This isn't an invasion! We've been bombed!"

"We don't know that definitively. There could be more bombs coming, or this could be a prelude to a ground or sea attack."

"But you've got millions of desperate people in there just trying to get away from the fallout!"

"I understand, sir, but we've got to keep society as stable as possible while securing our borders."

Everon looked out the window. In the restored airport lighting, he could see military personnel erecting hospital tents. "Aren't you setting up those tents awfully close to the City here? What about the nuclear cloud?"

Marsh shook his head. "Conditions are stable. The wind is scheduled to blow east all night."

"But tomorrow --"

"Let us worry about that."

"Did you bring any engineers or electricians?"

"We're only here to guard things, coordinate military flights, and handle emergency authorizations."

"You see!" Melonhead yelled, hands circling crazily. "They don't _want_ us here!" He spun and ran from the room. The metal door slammed behind him, but the latch failed to catch and the door chattered halfway open. Footsteps echoed from the stairwell. No one moved to close the door.

Marsh glanced at each of them, then followed Melonhead out.

Coates turned to the female controller. "Bob has a point, Sue. There aren't going to be many flights authorized." He head pointed at Everon. "Isn't there something we can do for this guy?"

"I don't know what. The military is in charge now."

Everon didn't know which way to turn. He had to get into Manhattan. He had to find Cyn.

Loss And Desertion

From the Learjet's doorway Franklin listened to his heart pound and watched the distant flames light the sky. A million voices screaming for help. Is Cynthia's still among them? He checked his wristwatch -- _one_ a.m. and we're no closer to _finding them._ He turned to his bag, dug out his portable radio. It took several minutes to tune in a faint and staticky station:

"Pack clothing, blankets, and sleeping bags. Medicines, shaving kits, cosmetics, infant formula and diapers. Remember to bring your checkbook, credit cards, cash, and important papers. A portable radio if you have one. A flashlight and batteries may be useful. Remain calm. You have ample time to leave."

Like Hell they do, Franklin thought. What about Cynthia?

"Ignore rumors. Stay tuned to this Emergency Alert Station for further instructions --"

The voice changed. "-- Then at this moment, President Wall, the Cabinet, and much of the Congress are being transported to an undisclosed location?"

"That's what we understand, Brian. Goal number one is to protect the government."

"All right, Art. Now the question everyone is asking: Who did this?"

"The FBI, CIA, and the NSA are certainly right on top of this thing. A lot of countries out there hate us -- Iran, North Korea, Syria. Certain factions in China and Saudi Arabia could be behind it -- though the U.S. does a lot of business with both countries. India and Pakistan have the bomb, of course, but experts feel their involvement is unlikely. We supply each of them with thousands of tons of food and financial aid every year. If --"

They don't know anything! Franklin thought. They're making it up! He stepped into the cold night air and shivered. He couldn't listen to any more of it. With each passing moment, he could feel his sister's life slipping away. He looked east and watched the unnatural glow while his frustration grew. New York is right there!

He'd never really understood fear. Now he did. _Being_ helpless to deal with the unknown. Then he watched tonight's chance of getting into the City go from bad to a whole lot worse. An old green jeep with white stars on its doors roared through the airport gate, followed by a green cloth-covered transport truck. The military had arrived.

Orders were shouted. Soldiers swung down from the back of the truck and began to erect huge tents. Franklin knew the military mind well. Order and control. Things that will prevent us from looking for Cynthia! But Everon's found a way in! All we need is clearance! His eyes were drawn back to the distant glow. He stretched out a hand. She could be dying! He couldn't think.

Franklin walked behind the jet along the frozen grass by the taxiway, tying back his hair with a spare piece of climbing cord from his pocket. He sat down on the cold ground, lay back, put his hands behind his head, and pulled his legs into a crunch. "One . . . two . . . three . . ." He began to breath harder, he rose faster, down-up, feeling his breath burst from his mouth.

He watched a Red Cross helicopter whomp in overhead toward the City and pictured going in with them . . . _"twenty-four_. . . twenty-five." He began another set, "One . . . two . . ." His hair came loose. Another helicopter came from somewhere behind him. _It's l_ anding? A fuel truck roared up beneath its blades. Minutes later they started the engine and headed into the City. How do they know who has clearance and who doesn't?

He rose, pulling down his leather jacket, his heart speeding. He ran along the chain-link fence in the direction the helicopter had come from. When he reached the corner, he saw a sign inside the fence near the runway's end.

_A hospital! Where?_ A helicopter roared in overhead from the City. He ran after it, past an unmanned security booth at an airport gate. Keeping an eye on the helicopter, he followed the sidewalk. The streets were clogged with abandoned cars. High on a hill, the helicopter slipped over a square red building and disappeared.

Chief Controller Sue Chin felt terrible for the incredible-looking green-eyed man. _What's he looking at_ now, our radio chargers? The little power supplies were blobs of melted plastic. _He gave us his radio and now he's fixed our generator. Despite the circumstances, he's controlling his anger, doing whatever he can -- l_ike if he can just solve enough of our problems, someone will let him go into the City. The glow from the airport lights lit the side of his face, his eyes. Two years ago, Sue and three girlfriends had vacationed in Puerto Rico. The water along the beach had been that exact same shade of startling green. So what if he was a foot taller than her own five-two?

"Hey, electronic genius," Sue smiled at him, "think you can do anything with our radar scopes?" She gazed at his blond hair, the way his body flowed beneath the tan leather jacket. He had a very nice feel to the way he moved. Are his hands shaking? He's very upset, but doesn't know what to do about it. Well, neither do I! She honestly didn't think he should go in there.

He walked rapidly over and offered a quick firm handshake. "Everon Student."

"Sue Chin." She felt an electric tingle up her arm, almost glad he didn't smile. He was so good looking it might have killed her.

His eyes quickly surveyed the dead radar system. Bob had been pulling out those big green circuit boards and left them strewn on the floor. Each was a melted mess of electronic parts. From the way Everon's hands sorted through the spare circuit boards, the frown on his face, they were the wrong parts. He laid down on his back, slid beneath the console, and looked inside the access hatch. "Doubtful, Sue," his voice echoed.

He has to know women think he's beautiful, but there's a rough edge there too -- the blond stubble of a one-day beard, his lightly tanned skin, those shining green-blue eyes. She looked away quickly when she realized she was staring at his crotch. _Dammit!_ I'm acting like a schoolgirl! I'm a supervisor, for fuck's sake, in the middle of the biggest damn disaster in the history of the county!

"Not a chance if these circuit boards are all you have," he said. "The radar must have absorbed a lot of the bomb's EMP."

"How could that happen?"

He slid back and stood up. "I once heard about a bomb test in the Pacific that took out a telephone system in Hawaii over a thousand miles away. Nobody knows how to model the electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear bomb . . ." She tried to listen but almost didn't care what he was saying, as long as he was talking to her. His green-blue eyes locked on hers. With a quick look to see if Marsh was still busy across the room, he asked softly, "Do you think you could do something for me?"

She gulped. "What's that?"

"Think you can get my brother and me authorized as one of those EMS teams? We've got our own helicopter."

"Are you crazy? The things they're finding in there -- fire and radiation, death everywhere you turn. I don't think you should go!"

"Our sister's in there."

"I heard what you said before."

"What if it was your sister?"

She stared at him. _He has a point. What if it_ was _?_

"The bomb went off on the south end of the island," he said.

"That's what that -- that's what Colonel Marsh told us."

"Cynthia and Steve and their daughter live pretty far north, maybe five miles," he replied hopefully.

She nodded grimly, took a deep breath. "I can try. I know a couple of the EMS crews."

While he waited with growing agitation, she spoke into the radio, calling a helicopter just landing. A reply came back right away, "We're full and our personnel's already set. New teams are being set up over at the Med Center."

Sue felt a certain relief that they didn't offer an open seat. They were all reserved for rescue victims.

Everon watched the EMS flight lift off, then said suddenly, _"What the hell? Franklin?" A_ s he watched through the big tower window, his brother ran off the field through an airport gate. "Where's he going?" Things were falling apart. No military clearance, our damn helicopter's just sitting there, and now Franklin runs off?

A voice came over the radio in Sue's hand, "Six-Six-Six-Kilo-India, authorized for military rescue."

Everon's mouth dropped open as the red four-place helicopter he'd rented lifted off for the City with two men in Army fatigues in its front seats. "Goddammit!" Everon's fists closed and opened. "Now they're taking our way in?"

He pressed his knuckles and forehead against the cold observation glass. _I should have slugged that damn security guard and taken off._ He stretched his palms against the glass and watched the distant flames. So close! He didn't know what to do. He felt like screaming!

He frowned, pressing his right cheek against the window. He pointed on an angle down through the glass. "What's that U-shaped building near the end of the runway, with the old aircraft around it?"

"The museum?" Sue asked.

Around one side of the building, wings and tails were sticking out. Everon couldn't have made the place out before, but now, with all the airport lights on -- he could see old fighter jets, a bi-plane, and --

"Is that an old Coast Guard helicopter down there?"

"That thing?" Sue snorted. "That's Sam's pet. I think it was in a movie last year. It's just for display. I don't think it runs."

"How long has it been there?"

"I don't know, a few years, I guess."

"Who's Sam?"

"Sam Gunn. He owns the museum."

"Thanks!" Everon called over his shoulder. He went through the door and took the stairs as fast as he could run.

A Red Cross Man

As Franklin approached the red brick building on the hill, he pictured Cynthia, Steve, and Melissa huddled in a burning apartment, trapped by smoke and flame. _H_ ow long can they survive? Everon has that helicopter. All we need is clearance!

He forced himself away from the nightmare and onto the people around him. The crowd inside Hackensack Medical Center was crazy. They milled about gibbering and shouting. All I need is a certain type of person, he thought, looking around --

Franklin noticed things about people. How they walked and dressed, their posture, even the way they combed their hair, but especially their voices. From these things he could tell how someone thought. He made a rapid survey through the intake windows -- Him? No. Behind the counters -- Her? -- No, not her either. I'm not going to find the person I need out here!

At the rear of the ER, was a gray metal door. He walked over and tried the handle. It was locked. He stood next to the door's edge. _It_ can't be too long --

Somebody pushed it open. Franklin turned to slide through, but the tall gray-haired nurse in whites blocked his way. She glanced at his black leather jacket, looking for a hospital ID.

"Hospitals have rules," she said sternly.

He nodded. The door was closing.

From the chaos behind Franklin someone called out, "Nurse Vandersommen!" She rushed away. That security guard's wife? _His m_ other? Weird. Franklin's fingertips caught the door's edge at half an inch.

Inside was a madhouse of field hospital triage. Doctors and nurses in scrubs ran from patient to patient binding up bloody wounds, treating burns. Franklin considered each of them. Him --? No . . .

But down a side corridor lined with wooden cots was a beer-bellied man, face framed by a pair of bushy red muttonchops tinged with gray. He wore a white lab coat and a harried expression. Is he the one? Maybe. Franklin watched him work, studied his face.

A paper Red Cross tag, safety-pinned to his coat, said CHUCK FARNDIKE, BLOOD COORDINATOR. He carried a clipboard and seemed to be in charge of organizing emergency blood donors among volunteers, including some of the hospital staff. Franklin listened to Farndike answer a nurse's question, quickly, efficiently. _The_ guy must have been a real dynamo once, Franklin thought, _but s_ omething's worn him down. There was a military Medic pin on his shirt. Franklin could tell Farndike's true feelings were buried deep inside and his primary connection with the world was visual. Yes --! Franklin walked over.

"Hello, I'm Franklin Reveal, a minister from Pennsylvania. Could I get a couple minutes of your time, Mr. Farndike?"

"Don't know I have a couple of minutes, Reverend." Farndike rushed past to check a blood bag connected to a middle-aged hospital administrator's arm. Franklin followed. "We can't locate our emergency blood shipments," Farndike said. "The phones are out, our computers are down, and I have two people out knocking on doors trying to find more blood donors. We're gonna be in one _hell_ of a mess around here pretty soon."

A young dark-haired nurse in scrubs hurried over to the big man. "What do you want to do about AB neg, Chuck? We're completely out!"

"Did you check the backups by OR Three?"

"Oh -- right!" The nurse hurried away.

"Mr. Farndike?" Franklin tried.

Chuck rushed on by. The red liquid continued to flow as nurses connected empty bags to arms of volunteers lying on the cots. Each time Franklin tried to get a word in, Chuck was grabbed by somebody else. He couldn't hold the man's attention. It was exasperating. This was a man who could get their helicopter on the clearance list.

The young woman in nurse's scrubs rushed back. "No AB neg over there either, Chuck! And you know how hard it is to find --"

"I'm AB negative," Franklin said, to Chuck's surprise. "Hook me up. We'll talk while you drain." Franklin sat down on a cot, softly adding an embedded command, "but for just a few minutes I WANT US TO BE-NOT-INTERRUPTED."

The nurse looked from one to the other, nodded, and hurried away.

Chuck Farndike frowned at the strange minister with the dark tied-back hair. Whatever he needs is important enough for him to donate his blood? _Okay_. He pulled over a chair, opened a fresh needle, and pinched it into Franklin's arm.

Instead of lying down, Franklin stayed seated on the cot's edge, angled toward the big man at forty-five degrees, and began to speak softly in deep even tones, "You must . . . BE TIRED . . . Were you AHH -- SLEEP when the blast went off?"

"Not quite," Chuck frowned, "I was just getting ready for bed."

"Hmmmmm . . ." Franklin nodded, dropping his vocal pitch half an octave, "easy to IMAGINE . . . A corporal I knew in the Rangers --"

"You were a Ranger?" Chuck asked.

Franklin nodded. "This corporal, you see, was ordered along with the rest of our squad on a deeply classified mission op. I'm not supposed to say exactly where it took place but you can make your own guess -- I can only tell you we were sent to a village deep (Franklin's voice went softer) in a South American jungle." Franklin nodded in sync with Chuck's breathing. Already, he could tell, less of the hospital's sounds were getting through.

"Now this wasn't the kind of vision YOU DREAM OF, unless you were having a nightmare -- this was a very bad situation. You might WONDER what made this mission so particularly bad. Well, the whole village, the entire town, was supposed to be slaughtered -- men, women, old people, and even children were supposed to be wiped out, just murdered, the way some of us saw it."

"What --?"

"I know!" Franklin continued to nod with Chuck's breathing, blinking when Chuck blinked, Franklin's breath shifting in harmony. "I know . . . but YOU SEE, THIS PARTICULAR VILLAGE had been labeled by the-powers-that-be as an enemy of the United States. The coca plant was their number one crop, and they were processing it by hand -- their only industry -- into pure white cocaine. THE ENTIRE VILLAGE made their living on drugs.

"Our Ranger squad was ordered to fly in, infiltrate this area of highly guarded jungle, and burn them out. Burn the crops, the buildings, and, kill every man, woman, and child, leaving the whole place dead to the bone. As if, once the jungle covered it over, nothing had ever been there."

Franklin watched Chuck's eyes water, drift in . . . and out of focus -- saw the changes in posture as he breathed in . . . and out . . . and slowed . . . way . . . down.

Chuck barely noticed the tension fading . . . his shoulders relaxing . . . sinking deeper down into his torso . . . right down into his legs . . . eyes softening, closing . . . breath slowing . . . Chuck Farndike was entering a trance -- when a voice intruded.

"Chuck, what are we doing about AB neg?"

Franklin leaned in close. "Hold on a minute, Chuck."

"Uh -- okay," Chuck mumbled.

Franklin looked up. A man in bloody green scrubs stood there, dark hair, solidly built, face changing from urgent need, to blank wonder, to a frown of concern. A nameplate said Dale Rass MD.

"Give him five minutes," Franklin said in a lighter voice, pointing to the needle in his own arm. "He's pumping a pint of AB neg out of me right now."

The doctor looked from Chuck's closed eyes to Franklin's arm . . . shrugged, "Okay," then hurried up the corridor.

"So . . . we got on the transport and headed south," Franklin continued, voice dropping again. "Once we'd made our last fuel stop, the colonel himself -- yes, a mere squad of thirteen was being led by a lieutenant colonel -- actually opened our mission orders in front of us. He read them in silence, then stared into space. We could see our commander was pretty upset.

"Finally, he turned to us and actually read us those orders. He said, 'LISTEN TO ME CAREFULLY, AND CONSIDER THESE WORDS . . .' We knew how unusual this was that he would share these orders with us, so we said to ourselves, YOU WANT TO LISTEN WITH EVERYTHING YOU HAVE, TO EACH WORD, TO EACH AND EVERY NUANCE.

"When he'd finished reading the mission plan, he told us we had a decision to make. Not him -- us! It was a decision to be made together. 'AS A TEAM,' he said, 'YOU HAVE TO DECIDE WHAT'S BEST FOR THE SQUAD TO DO.'

"Our GETUS TRANSPORT, SIX-SIX-SIX-K-I, set us down in a small CLEARANCE in the jungle, whatever was required. And even though our mission deadline was one of limited opportunity, there we sat on the ground, our guns ready, while we argued it out.

"The colonel made it clear to each and every one of us that absolutely no action of any kind would be taken until a unanimous and unequivocal decision was reached by all of us. We could barely believe what the colonel was offering, so it took us a minute or so before we began to bat it around, throw it back and forth.

"One man, a sergeant named Ben, insisted we follow orders, completing the mission-as-written. The sergeant stated flatly we had a duty to ourselves, to the Rangers, and to our country to follow orders, no matter what.

"But another man, a corporal, well, he hesitantly disagreed. While not as high-ranking as Ben, he was encouraged by the colonel, and the corporal said he thought our orders were in no one's interest, that those orders were invalid and unreasonable. 'Is what those villagers produce worse,' he asked, 'than sugar? Does it justify murder? Is it worth killing all these people? Killing children?'

"'LISTEN TO ME, corporal,' Sergeant Ben said. 'We have to get in there and do what we're supposed to do.'

"The corporal shook his head, 'We have to DO WHAT'S RIGHT.' He asked the sergeant to think back to the feeling he'd had the last time he'd stuck to a questionable order. 'How did that feel?' the corporal asked.

"Ben breathed out reluctantly, 'Not great.'

"The corporal asked Ben to think forward, to 'CONSIDER HOW HE WOULD WANT TO REMEMBER THIS TIME, YEARS FROM NOW.'

"Mostly the two of them went at it, while the rest of us weighed in from time to time. We talked and talked, and with each passing consideration we went DEEPER AND DEEPER into it. We ignored the sound of buzzing flies and whining mosquitoes, of jungle rain -- of every obstacle. There was too much at stake. Nothing could stop us, nothing could interfere with OUR REACHING COMPLETE AND TOTAL AGREEMENT ON THE BEST WAY TO ACT. 'Round and 'round we went, careers and relationships, with the lives of people we would never know at stake, either way.

"Finally, we put it to a vote. Eleven of us nodded to the colonel, raised our hands in agreement."

Chuck's hand, where it lay relaxed in his lap, twitched suddenly, as if an internal fight were raging.

"One of us," Franklin continued, "hadn't raised his hand. _Ben, the_ sergeant, sat there stubbornly resisting. But we waited."

For ten minutes Franklin spoke -- softly urging, encouraging, his smooth solid tone barely more than a whisper . . . "Finally, giving a deep sigh, the sergeant nodded and gave us clearance, SIX-SIX-SIX-K-I, raising his hand, to get that transport out of the thick, obscuring jungle. To do the right thing. To TURN SIX-SIX-SIX-K-I, IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION. Finally -- we all felt really good about ourselves."

Ever so slowly, Chuck's hand rose.

"REMEMBER THIS . . ." and Franklin reached out and put a brief grip on the big man's right collarbone, "That'll be great . . ." Franklin said, voice returning to normal. "When do you _think_ we'll HAVE THOSE PAPERS, OUR CLEARANCE APPROVED."

Chuck shook his head. "Ah, _wha --?"_

"When the CLEARANCE . . ." Franklin trailed off.

Chuck blinking, trying to clear his --

"Chuck, YOU'LL HAVE APPROVED . . ."

"Oh, right," Chuck blinked. "Ah -- shouldn't take more than five, ten minutes -- to get it into the system," answering with more enthusiasm.

The power of permissive suggestion, Franklin thought. The right thing said at the right time, in just the right way. Maybe . . .

"It's full," Franklin said brightly, looking down.

"Uh --" Chuck shook his head rapidly side-to-side, following Franklin's eyes, then saw the fat red bag hanging there. "Oh! Sorry!" He pulled the needle out of Franklin's arm.

The Old Pelican

"Uhhhhh . . ." Everon grimaced. Next to the air museum was a huge beat-up helicopter, its red and white stripes covered with dust, an HH-3F Coast Guard Pelican. How long has it been here? he wondered, frowning at the thin, barren elm that punched into the night sky between two of the helicopter's five rotor blades.

It wasn't all bad news. Visibility would be good around the bulbous nose of the craft -- windows on both sides went to the floor. On either side of the Pelican were two white sponsons, like pontoons, to keep the craft upright during water landings. Rubber tires protruded below the sponsons. Above its side cargo door was a powerful hoist. He slid back the cargo door and dodged a pair of squirrels that shot out.

The interior looked rougher than the outside. There were flakes of crud and half-eaten acorns on the floor. The gray seats were falling apart. _That controller_ Sue was right. It doesn't look like it has much chance of flying.

"Whatchudoin?" a voice called. A saggy-eyed baggy-dressed old man in a pair of blue coveralls appeared at the museum door.

"Do you know anything about this machine?" Everon asked.

"Ah should. Ah'm the owner of this here museum and everything in it, including this here helicopter."

"You must be Mr. Gunn."

"Sam." They shook hands.

Everon studied the big machine. "Will it run?"

"Not sure. Been half a year, Ah guess. Old bird ain't nearly old as me though. A movie studio six months ago had 'er outta here, rented 'er offa me for a few weeks. Put a lot into 'er, gettin' 'er ta fly again. Them General Electric engines is good ones though. Useta use 'em in the President's chopper. Marine One's jus' like this one, ya know?"

Right now, Everon didn't want to know.

The old guy rambled on. Sam and his wife had just arrived at the airport. He'd woken up at eight o'clock that evening when he'd thought the bomb's shock wave was his wife rousting him out of bed.

"Refused ta let me sleep, worrying 'bout everything under the sun 'til ah couldn't take it no more."

Sam said the power had been out and their radio didn't work, but their old car started, so they drove over to the airport to see what was going on. He'd been surprised that none of his wife's guesses had been right. She'd never thought of an atom bomb. Neither had Sam.

"These flyin' boats used to r'cover A-pollo capsules outta the drink. Coast Guard ran 'er 'fore Ah got 'er."

"Can you rent it -- er, her to me?" Everon rushed a word in.

"What you gonna do with 'er?"

"We're making an emergency run into the City."

"Hmmm. Well . . . you take 'er, if you think it'll do anybody any good. Wish I could go with you. My feet don't work so well no more. Ah was in that little police action we had -- you know, Vietnam."

Everon thanked Sam. They shook hands, Sam wandered back to the museum, and Everon began to check _her_ out.

The Pelican's batteries were shot, and the fuel had been sitting so long it had turned to sludge. From the tower locker, John Coates let Everon borrow a portable drill and some other tools. But Everon soon found nobody else at the airport would sell him a thing.

There were four things Everon couldn't take: doing a job over again -- do it right the first time, dammit! Being close to something he could almost touch, but prevented by some kind of barrier -- barriers were meant to be broken! Being right in the middle of a project and having it canceled -- someone reneging on a contract. And being told "No." Trying to fly into the City to find Cyn was turning out to have all four. It was pissing him off. No's were meant to be turned into _yes's._

In the middle of the highway around the airport, he found a stranded trucker whose diesel-tanker wouldn't run and talked him into selling his two spare batteries. It was a start.

Everon needed fuel but the military had taken over the airport gate. He thought about trying to carry it on foot, ten gallons at a time, using two five-gallon jerry cans he found in the back of the Pelican. The pilot's manual under the seat said the Pelican held six hundred gallons. Sixty trips, past the military? Not likely. Sam loaned him the museum's ancient fuel truck.

"Where are you going?" the guards at the gate asked.

"I've got a line on some fuel, if you think the Red Cross or the military can use it," he lied.

They let him through.

Everon talked the trucker he'd gotten the batteries from into selling him six hundred gallons of diesel. He talked another trucker into filling the jerry cans with gasoline. He headed back.

"Did you find any fuel?" the guards asked.

"Unfortunately, no," Everon shook his head.

He was allowed to bring Sam's old tanker back inside.

Everon drained the Pelican's tanks, and used the gasoline to flush out the fuel lines. In a rear cabinet he found an old maintenance manual. He lubricated every point listed. He replaced several bad fuses and reconnected two broken wires. He could feel the clock ticking. He was burning time, Cyn's time!

The transmission looked okay. He'd know better if -- _when, dammit! -- _he got the old bird running. But before he could start the twin turbines, there was a major problem -- that tall elm between the Pelican's rotor blades.

They must have rolled this thing in here with the blades collapsed, he figured. Disassembling the blades and rolling the helicopter out to another suitable launch spot would take hours by himself. _And_ how do I hide that from the military? That damn Vandersommen's probably lurking around somewhere too. He went to Sam.

"Is there any chance I could cut down that elm?"

"Yeah, well, that old tree ain't too healthy -- prob'ly elm disease. Guess you'd be doin' me a favor. It ain't gonna be easy to get 'er out-a there though."

Everon found a guy in a maintenance hangar with a chainsaw. The guy cranked it up and cut a V halfway through the trunk, then started on the other side. But despite Everon hanging on the tree's lowest branch, the elm tilted the wrong way. It picked up speed and crashed right onto the museum's roof. Everon grimaced. _Better than falling on the Pelican._

The crash brought Sam and his wife outside. _Will that be it?_ Everon wondered. _Will Sam call a halt to my insane plan?_

Sam surveyed a crack in the museum's eave, shrugged and said, "No harm done. Get in and give 'er a kick."

Everon scrambled inside. If the Pelican ran, no matter what, this time he was going into the City!

Magic Words

Franklin raced down the hill, concerned he'd gone too far. I've never done anything like that -- not even for people at the church! He slowed to cross Route 46, then sped up, shaking his head. _Not_ without their permission. Even then it had caused him grief.

Using hypnosis to help church members solve personal problems had only gotten him a dressing down by Ralph Maples, his senior minister. He could hear Ralph now, "Prayer, Franklin. It's the only way!" Anyway, Franklin thought, that Red Cross guy'll never come through.

At the gate where he'd left the airport, coiled razor wire now topped the chain-link fence. Soldiers in gray urban camouflage blocked his way, checking IDs.

"No entry without proper military authorization," said a soldier with mottled coal-like skin.

"I came out this gate only an hour ago," Franklin explained.

"Airport access has been restricted. What business do you have at Teterboro?" The man was acting tough, but Franklin saw a friendly warmth underneath.

"I flew in on that jet," Franklin pointed to the WILLIAMS Lear lined up in the middle of a dozen aircraft. Neither Everon nor Andréa was in sight. "I'm a minister. I was up at the hospital organizing a Red Cross mission."

A second soldier, a pink-faced serious young man in black plastic glasses, eyed Franklin's dark tied-back hair, his jeans, his black leather jacket. "Do you have some kind of church ID that says you're a minister -- or something that identifies you with that aircraft?"

Franklin's hand went to his pants pocket. Empty! In all the rush -- Everon's call at Ash Cave, getting to the jet, the aborted Robinson flight -- he'd left his wallet in his fanny pack with his climbing gear.

"Uh -- I left my wallet in the plane."

A massive tough-looking soldier, wearing a slanted beret and sergeant stripes, walked over, his full cheeks and bulging lips ready to explode in anger at the least provocation. The name on his uniform said PAGE.

"No ID, no entry!" Page snapped. "Nobody's allowed to fly outta here." His New York accent held more than anger, it was psychotic.

"Sarge, maybe we ought to let him in," the first soldier said.

"Shut it!" Page leaned in, getting right in Franklin's face. "Go back ta the hospital! Plentya sick and dyin' there for ministers ta take care of!"

The soldiers under Page's command seemed used to his lack of consideration. Franklin felt no irritation, only determination. I have to get through! What if Everon worked something out? He was already studying Page, collecting data -- heart rate, skin tension. Page's accent said he was local. How many friends and _relatives has this man_ lost tonight? His voice is only the sound of a sick soul trying to push away its pain. But he knew the sergeant wasn't going to listen to reason. What can I use to get past him?

Suddenly, doubt crept in. I didn't get anywhere with that hospital guy, did I? Franklin couldn't process. He glanced at the distant glow in the sky. Analyze! Is -- is Page falling back on military training, the same way I would have?

"Move or be put under arrest!" Page shouted in his face.

Franklin knew how it was -- order and control. But his own Army training had been fun, once his drill sergeant had reported his climbing ability. Right out of boot camp the Army had begun using him to teach rappelling to Special Forces troops at Cliffside, Colorado. To Page, _fun_ had a different meaning. The military was an ego trip.

"Okay," Page said, "that's it! Lock him up!"

"But what if he is a minister, Sarge?"

"What if I'm the tooth fairy? You heard me!"

Franklin's hands shot to the chain-link fence. Resist!

Page's men tried to pull him away. They'll have to do better than that! Franklin thought. Independent thought replaced by obedience? Like South America.

The story he'd told Chuck was true, with one fatal exception -- they hadn't just flown away. He never did understand why, out of all the possible cartel operations to go after, they'd been ordered to target a whole village, and nobody would tell him. The same way Sergeant Page has no clear reason for what he's doing now!

Franklin's hands gripped the fence like steel. The two men under Page's command struggled harder, trying to tear him off. One lifted his feet. Page's beret went flying as he jumped in too, twisting Franklin one way, then the other, until Franklin's legs were straight out from the gate post. The hip on Page's pants caught on a wire in the chain-link fence -- RrriiiiP! The gray fabric tore.

"What is going on here!" a clipped, sophisticated voice called out.

The men dropped Franklin's legs.

A colonel walked quickly over and stopped next to Page. The shiny name tag on his field uniform said MARSH. Sturdy, square-bodied, sandy hair going gray, Marsh seemed a by-the-rules officer, but something about the man said FAIR.

Franklin got his feet beneath him -- this time just inside the fence -- while Page explained.

"This man has no ID -- claims he came in on a plane over there!" he scoffed angrily. "Trying to scam his way into the airport with some phony line about a Red Cross mission!"

"We can't have that!" Marsh agreed.

Franklin had really pissed the sergeant off. If there was one thing Army sergeants knew, it was how to handle officers -- something Franklin understood, even if he hadn't liked it. When it came time to re-enlist, Franklin had had enough. From an Army base in Texas he'd called the only person he truly trusted -- Cynthia. His sister's advice had been simple. "Don't let your life's right thing pass you by." Nine years later, Franklin was ordained in the church.

Watching Colonel Marsh, Sergeant Page, and the two men under him, Franklin had a disturbing thought. The religious mind and the military mind, both dependent on top-down orders -- is there some connection? Can this help me get in somehow? He didn't quite see --

"Colonel Marsh!" a new voice roared with the sound of command. "What are you doing?" The approaching bullet-headed officer was a two-star general! The polished metal name tag over the left pocket of his dress greens said ANDERS.

"Dealing with this civilian's attempted airport incursion --"

"Snap it up then, Colonel! I'm due at Newark in twenty minutes. Is there going to be a problem handling this airport, because if there is --"

"No problem, sir," Marsh said. "All right, men!"

They began to peel Franklin's fingers off the fence tubes. He was moments from being hauled off, without reprieve this time. These men and their inane orders! he thought. It's Cynthia's life!

Franklin's mind ran in circles furiously, trying to think of some way to talk himself into the airport, when a familiar voice said, _"What's going on?"_

It was the big man himself, lugging a large green suitcase, a big red plus-sign on one side. Chuck Farndike smiled at Franklin. "Got everything we need right here."

We? Franklin looked at him silently. He was supposed to set up Everon's clearance -- that's all!

But the Linguistic Reprogramming hidden in the words of Franklin's little story was about _more_ choices, not less. Some of the suggestions he'd given Chuck had worn off, but not the things Chuck _really_ wanted. Being a blood coordinator was no doubt a valuable service, but not in sync with Chuck's true desires -- the way he saw himself. To stay there collecting blood, part of Chuck would have died.

"They won't let me back into the airport," Franklin explained.

Chuck looked at General Anders, and taking a deep breath, chest swelling, pulled an ID from his right pocket. With a head point to Franklin he said, "This minister is assisting a registered Red Cross mission to the City," Chuck's voice gathering strength, official sounding.

Franklin almost smiled.

"What aircraft?" Sergeant Page asked.

"Six-Six-Six-Kilo-India."

"Is it on the list?" Marsh asked. The sergeant ran a finger down his clipboard.

With narrowed eyes, Anders looked Chuck up and down -- the heavy muttonchops, the shabby blue jeans -- doubt filling the general's face.

Page's finger stopped halfway down. Frowning, he said, "Here it is, on the new list. Why didn't you say --"

Anders nodded reluctantly. "Okay, let them in. But let's get a move on, Colonel."

"Sir," Marsh said, "I'm concerned we're locating these emergency medical facilities too close to the City," He pointed at a row of newly erected hospital tents. "In case the fallout turns this way."

"I haven't got time to consider that right now, Colonel."

"But if the wind changes --"

"You have your orders!"

"Yes, sir!"

"And get that uniform fixed, Sergeant."

"Uh -- yes, sir."

Anders moved off rapidly toward a green 1960's sedan with a large white star on the door. Marsh looked at the sergeant. "You heard the general. Carry on!"

Page saluted. The colonel rushed off toward the tower.

With a sneer on his face, holding the side of his pants together, Page stepped back from the other soldiers, allowing barely enough room for someone to squeeze through.

Chuck sucked in his gut. He and Franklin pushed between them and hustled for the plane.

Victoria's Rising Water

"Where am I?" Victoria Hill wondered.

A silver pole rose from the floor by her head. There was a dull ache in her left leg, which was bent oddly at the knee around another pole. I was over there, wasn't I? The air felt damp and dusty. Overhead, a long row of lights glowed dimly, highlighting the orange seat where she'd been sitting a moment before. _Or was it longer?_ The last thing she remembered -- I was riding the subway a couple of minutes from the 59th and Lex stop. What time is it?

She brushed the hair from her eyes to read her watch. Its digital readout was blank. She tried to move and screamed, "Ye-aaahhhhhhhhhhhh!" Her vision cleared instantly as pain shot up her leg, snapping her fully awake. Victoria clamped down on the scream through gritted teeth and sucked in breaths of damp air.

_Is_ my knee broken? She held her breath and ran fingers lightly around it, afraid to try straightening it again. The skin was dry. _There's n_ o blood, it's not a compound fracture. Be careful with it! The fear of more tissue damage was reinforced at her slightest movement.

The subway car was at an angle. People were crying faintly. Victoria touched her right forefinger to a warm spot near her temple Wet, slippery -- blood, she thought. The blood shocked her more than scared her. She gripped her upper thigh, trying to choke off another wave of pain. When it receded, she slowed her gasps to a steady in-out and pulled her jacket around her neck. Then, from the car's end, she recognized another sound, the gurgle of water coming in.

"Come on!" Victoria shook the white-haired old man. His eyes opened and he smiled faintly. There was blood in his hair. "Hi, my name's Victoria. We've got to move to the other end of the car. It's filling with water."

"I know who you are, Miss Hill. I've seen you on television."

A dark-skinned man wearing a green baseball cap with StreetNews! on the front and another man who spoke words in a language Victoria didn't recognize helped her up on her good leg. The train engineer, in an orange vest, helped the old man. Arms across their shoulders, she hobbled up the car, the pain rolling through in waves -- calf-knee-thigh-pelvis -- almost more than she could bear. They eased her onto a seat in the upper third of the car.

"I normally wouldn't do this --" the guy in the baseball cap muttered, "I have to buy these, but --" He pulled several newspapers from his a large black bag.

"Ahhhh, thank you," she said as he eased them gently beneath her knee.

"I don't expect I'll have a lot of customers tonight," he said.

She spotted her purse floating in the dark water. "Look in there, will you? There should be a couple of twenties. My phone's in there too."

But he didn't go for her purse. "That's okay, lady," he said. Then she realized the half-submerged lump nearby was a gas-bloated man in a dark suit.

"We can't just sit here waiting for the water to drown us," Victoria told the other passengers. There were six of them. The only woman was shaking her head, pointing at her cellphone, speaking to the man in the strange language.

_"Someone_ will come for us!" said a portly man with a high annoying voice.

"But how soon, man?" the newspaper vendor asked. "Before the water come over our heads?"

"What about opening the front door to the next car?" Victoria pointed, looking at the train engineer. "Maybe we can walk up the tunnel. If you --"

The engineer shook his head. "Cave-in, lady. I think the next car's gone. My flashlight's dead, so I can't tell how much of the tunnel is blocked. We're safer in here."

They looked at the water, inches higher in the minute they'd spent debating.

I wish I could see for myself, Victoria thought. I need something to bind my knee. She looked at the newspapers, her scarf, the lining of her coat. "Does anyone have a knife?"

The newspaper vendor did. Victoria talked him out of a couple more papers which she rolled into tight tubes. Using them like splints, she tied them around her knee with strips of scarf and coat lining. She probably couldn't walk on her own, but it felt a lot better. Something cold licked her heel and she jerked her swollen leg away. The pain shot to her pelvis. She gritted her teeth, clamping hands around her thigh again. Not as bad. The splints were working. She looked to see what had surprised her. Water? Already?

She pulled herself up a train pole and, using the overhead bars, worked her way to the front door. It was locked. She peered through the glass. The engineer's right. You can't see anything. She turned. He was watching her. They were all watching her. "Do you have the key?" she asked the engineer.

"I don't know if we should --"

"I know we _shouldn't!"_ said the high-pitched guy.

She held out her hand insistently till the engineer produced a silver key from his pocket, stepped around her, and pushed it into the lock.

The door slid back with a whooosh, and a breeze followed. Behind them came the sound of water coming in fast. The door had been holding the air in, the pressure holding back the water. Just past the open door was a wall of dirt.

_"Close it! Close it!"_ the portly man screamed.

The engineer locked the door, and the breeze disappeared, but the water had risen six inches.

"We know not to try that again," the engineer said.

"Sorry," Victoria agreed.

"Don't be sorry," the old man said. "It was a good idea."

"Yeah," said the newspaper vendor, "but how the hell they gonna get us out?"

Desperation

At the jet, Franklin introduced Chuck to Andréa and told her about their Red Cross clearance.

She held up a hand, "I have some bad news."

_"What?"_ Franklin's breath caught.

"Everon lost the helicopter."

"The one he rented?"

She nodded. "The Army took it."

"Hard enough to get the military to let us in," Chuck said fiercely, "now they grab our ride? Doesn't sound like our clearance will do us much good, does it?"

Franklin's lips formed a silent swear word he didn't use anymore. He stared at the ground. All he could see was Cynthia, Steve, and Melissa, trapped in their apartment, surrounded by fire.

"At least I was able to get you back to your jet," Chuck said kindly. "I'll leave you some Lugol's iodine drops." He flicked the latches on his case and glanced at Andréa. "You should both take some right away. It protects the thyroid."

"Hey," Andréa pointed over Franklin's shoulder, "look at that."

Far down the street in the control tower lights, a tree tilted, its angle slowly increasing as it picked up speed and fell behind the tower.

"Why would someone cut down a tree today?" Chuck asked.

Franklin and Andréa were taking Chuck's iodine drops when a young guy in a shaggy green coat, carrying a chain saw, ran along the row of jets, checking aircraft numbers. He stopped at the Lear. "Who's Franklin Reveal?"

"I am."

He threw a thumb over his shoulder. "Your brother's looking for you, at the museum just past the tower. He said to grab your stuff and hurry!"

In one swift motion Franklin had the straps of his bags over his shoulders, too rushed to notice the airport security guard Vandersommen watching from beside a nearby plane.

The old Coast Guard bird was as ready as Everon could make her. He gave the starter a try. No less cranky than her owner, the exhaust coughed out blasts of black smoke. He kept at it, turning the big turbine over and over. He could hear the starter grinding down as the batteries ran out of juice. Hopeless, he thought.

He switched to engine number two, which turned over even more slowly -- until it made a rattling sound, belched a cloud of black stuff, and cleared. The big blades began to turn. Their speed increased . . . the old Pelican was running!

With the second turbine to draw on, Everon tried the first one again. This time it spun up quickly. The rotor turned faster now. He pushed up the RPMs until both engines smoothed out. He slid on a gnarled old headset he'd found in the crew compartment and, from the floor between the seats, pulled the collective arm gently upward with his left hand, testing the ability of the blades to grab air. Nothing! He twisted the arm's motorcycle grip, increasing engine speed, then pulled again . . . and felt the old rattletrap lighten until he'd lifted a few inches off the ground. His spirits rose with it.

A crackly voice came over his headset. "Helicopter near the museum, this is Teterboro Tower. We show no clearance granted to any aircraft at this time."

Apparently the old radio was working too. "Engine run-up only," Everon answered as he put the wheels back on the ground. The Pelican was giving the impression she just might take them to the City -- and back. Now the problem was again no clearance. One thought consumed him: _This_ time, I'm going in, whether I have permission or not!

As the sun was about to rise, Franklin, Chuck, and Andréa found Everon at the controls of a big red and white helicopter, its blades turning.

"What is this thing?" Franklin yelled over the roar of the engine.

_"Helicopter, looks like!"_ Everon yelled back.

"This is Chuck Farndike," Franklin shouted. "He's the regional Red Cross blood coordinator."

_"Nothin'_ like a Slick!" Chuck yelled.

_"What?"_ Everon mouthed.

"A troop carrier. We called 'em Slicks in the Army -- Hogs, Frogs, 'n Chunkers all had missiles or heavy weapons. Here!" Chuck untwisted a cap from a bottle and pushed a dropper full of some brown liquid toward Everon's face. "Let me put some of this under your tongue."

Everon eyed the overweight guy in muttonchops. "What is it?" he yelled.

"Lugol's Solution. We're goin' in, aren't we? Hospital's nearly out of iodine pills. This'll have to do -- it'll protect our thyroids!"

Everon let him put the drops under his tongue.

From his bag, Chuck pulled an old gray box the size of a loaf of bread.

"Hey, a radiation counter!" Everon said. "Excellent!"

For Chuck's part, he was actually covering a deep, twisting dread that ran through his gut at the prospect of going into the City, something he hadn't felt in years -- not since he'd last ridden in a combat chopper. He was diverting the fear by thinking about what he should take, _and_ jabbering on like some young weenie about the Lugol's. Then again, _some part of him felt more afraid of_ chickening out. And a part really did want to go, something inside that felt totally unused coordinating blood. He'd left the Med Center feeling good about turning the job over to a particularly efficient nurse. _Not doing what he, Chuck, was capable of_ was what had convinced him to go on this mission -- not that wacko story the minister had told him, whatever it was.

Everon pulled his brother by the jacket into the cockpit. "What's with the bullfrog?"

"Would a Red Cross authorization help us?" Franklin smiled, his first since getting on the jet.

_"He's_ our way in? How'd you convince him?"

"I'll tell you about it later. Can you fly this thing?"

"I haven't logged many helicopter hours lately, Nan usually flies our MD-900 on jobs. But this is just a beat-up version of a personnel transport I flew, taking crews out to oil rigs from Galveston."

"How long's it been?"

"How long's what been?"

"Since you've flown any helicopter?"

"I flew our MD-900 last year."

"And one of these?"

Everon was busy checking gauges when he answered, "Fifteen years."

Franklin shrugged. Better than nothing, I guess. He'd never seen an aircraft his brother couldn't fly.

Franklin took a look through the rear cabinets. Beneath a bench seat he found four thick stainless cables terminated with eyelets, their other ends joined by a large hook. _"There's a cargo hook back here!"_ he called to Everon. _"Do we need it?"_

_"Maybe."_

From his suitcase Chuck pulled out a huge pair of folded Red Cross stickers, then shoved his heavy green suitcase under a bench.

"There's a problem," Franklin said to Chuck. "We have to switch the tail number!"

"Oh!" Chuck said. _"Damn_! _"_

Franklin spoke in Chuck's ear, softly, yet forcefully, gripping Chuck's right collarbone, "Really happy YOU GOTTA be able to GET THAT CLEARANCE!"

"Right!" Chuck answered. "What's the --" He stepped outside, and a moment later stepped back in. "Twenty-Two-Bravo-India," he said, "Twenty-Two-Bravo-India. Man, I got Six-Six-Six-Kilo-India on the brain."

Chuck took the co-pilot seat on the left and Everon handed him an old headset. Everon reached overhead and dialed in the tower frequency.

Franklin shoved his duffel bags under a bench seat in the crew area. He and Andréa went outside to apply Chuck's giant Red Cross stickers to the sides of the Pelican.

When Franklin returned, Chuck dropped his headset on the seat. "I'm going over and talk to those bozos!" He ran off for the tower. Franklin wondered, _Did our original clearance get_ approved because Chuck requested a Red Cross mission, or because somebody knew the Army had already taken Everon's helicopter-from-Hell?

Andréa returned to the blasting Pelican with a case of bottled water and a box of energy bars. She moved forward into the cockpit and pulled the headset away from Everon's left ear. "Do you really think they'll let you go in?" she shouted.

"We'll see. You fly Hunt's helicopters, don't you? Do you know how to fly a Pelican?"

She looked around the ratty gray-metal cockpit dubiously. "Do you?"

"Well enough."

"I've got to stay with Mr. Williams jet and try to contact him."

"I could use a co-pilot."

She tilted her head, listening to the engines. "This old derelict doesn't have much left -- if it even makes it into the City. You've got Franklin and his big Red Cross guy. If I go with you, that's one more survivor you can't bring back."

Everon frowned at her excuse and adjusted the throttle, smoothing out the engines.

"There's a case of water and some snack bars from the Lear in the back," she said. Her eyes studied him. "Be careful, will you?"

Everon nodded. "Yeah."

She kissed his lips hard, then left.

Hunt would want her to stay with the jet? Humph. But if Everon really thought about it, maybe he was better off without her.

Chuck ran back from the control tower and got in, breathing hard. "Fuck it!" he yelled. "Clearance is in the pipeline. I called in the first tail number over the hospital's military radio. Now they're giving me a hard time, trying to reach some guy named Anders who's President Wall's military commander in the area."

Franklin stared at him. "That was General Anders at the gate!"

"Shit!" Chuck yelled. "Well, I'm not sitting around all day watching blood drain like I did when the World Trade Center went down. I'm an Army _medic._ I'm really happy you boys asked me to come. We get hassled on the way in, I'll get on the radio and see what I can do, but waiting for clearance? What stupid bureaucratic bullshit at a time like this!"

Franklin couldn't agree more but rose both eyebrows at Everon.

Everon shouted at Chuck, "So we act like we have all the clearance in the world and hope for the best?"

"Exactly."

"Works for me."

Watching the turbines' temperatures, Everon brought them up to speed. The blades were really whomping.

A female voice came from the tower. "Helicopter at museum. You'll need clearance to lift off. All Teterboro flights are restricted today."

_"Sue?"_

"Yes?" the voice came back.

"This is Everon, the guy whose radio you're using and fixed your generator? We already have Red Cross clearance for our previous helicopter, Six-Six-Six-Kilo-India. Apparently there's been some delay in switching the tail number to this one. They haven't sent it over yet."

"Oh! Okay, let me check on that. I'll see if I can speed it up for you."

Franklin looked at his brother. "She sounded friendly!"

Everon shrugged. "She knows what we're trying to do."

Chuck tapped him on the shoulder. "Screw the clearance. It'll come through on our way in."

Franklin shrugged. _"Go!"_ he mouthed silently.

Clear to fly or not, Everon wasn't going to take a chance on shutting the Pelican's big turbines down. Prepared to ignore the next radio call, he began lifting off.

In the tower Sue glanced at Colonel Marsh, who was busy talking to one of his men. She whispered to John Coates so the military wouldn't hear. _"We_ have _to stop Everon._ Nobody _should go in there!"_

"Especially not him, right?" John looked at her sideways. "For God's sake, Sue, let him go. Hell, he gave us his radio _and_ fixed our power! What if it was your sister?"

Sue turned toward the glow above the City. It's death to go in there, she thought. So maybe his sister is alive in there. She couldn't admit to John or even herself the deeper reason she didn't want Everon to go. She just didn't want something to happen to that beautiful man.

Her eyes shot to the museum. Shit! In the morning twilight, the helicopter's blades were above the corner of the museum's roof -- He's got that damned old red-and-white death trap in the air!

She glanced at John, but he was staring at her, watching her eyes. He knows the helicopter's rising! She hesitated, unsure. She held her breath . . . and decided, giving only the smallest nod of her head. If it was really what Everon wanted, she wouldn't get in his way.

But that airport security guard, Vandersommen, ran in from the stairwell, breathless. "Colonel!" he gasped. That guy who was up here earlier has another helicopter. He's attempting an unlawful flight from the museum!"

Marsh glanced at the two airport controllers with irritation, then hesitated. His innate sense of fairness held him back, along with a growing respect for Everon Student. He'd heard about the four-place helicopter the man had rented, which his men appropriated. Student had fixed the airport's generator, _a_ nd __ let the controllers use his radio to re-establish communications with incoming flights, none of which the Army had managed.

"Sir, what about the fuel they're burning?" Vandersommen urged.

"Mmm." Colonel Marsh took a long breath, then resigned himself to dealing with this annoying little prick. Marsh put his field radio reluctantly to his lips. "Sergeant Page," he transmitted, "take some men to the museum and stop that helicopter."

As Everon dropped the Pelican's nose for forward flight, in the semi-darkness six soldiers ran beneath them. Their sergeant, his uniform bunched oddly at the hip, didn't look happy.

"Coast Guard helicopter Bravo-India!" came over the radio. Everon recognized the voice of Colonel Marsh. "You have no clearance. Land at once!"

"You'll have to shoot us down!" Chuck yelled back.

As if they'd heard Chuck, five rifles turned as one, locking onto the old Pelican.

"Did they hear that?" Franklin asked.

"Nope. Hadn't keyed the mic." Everon spun the tail around, jammed the big bird over, expecting bullets to come ripping through the fuselage any second, and flew.

A mile later the tension suddenly left him. He felt relieved of the night's frustration just to be in motion, doing something -- moving -- even if he didn't know how far they'd get. Just before engine start, he'd noticed a slow oil leak from one of the turbine seals. He'd braced himself with that old dictum, All helicopters leak. He hadn't taken time to fix it. Every minute lost was time stolen from Cynthia, Steve, and Melissa.

The houses below them were dark. A police car, it's light bar flashing, moved down a side street. Those able to leave had left. Everon scanned the early red horizon, wondering how far they'd get before someone else tried to stop them.

Flying Into Death

High in the distance a billion gallons of radioactive water glimmered -- a giant cumulonimbus. Everon figured the cloud's top at more than twenty thousand feet, high enough to be knocked by strong west winds into the familiar anvil head over Long Island. Not twenty miles south in New Jersey, Everon's dad was buried, and his gaze lingered in that direction, picturing a graveyard too far to see.

Franklin looked out a window to the north. It was growing lighter as they crossed the Hudson River, the Pelican's long rotor blades whumping above. The George Washington Bridge surprised him. Cables hung below the huge curved support pipes where they were supposed to be. The blue-gray span appeared to be undamaged.

He pulled a pair of binoculars from his bag. "The GW's okay!" he yelled, the hope in his voice rising over the sound of the engines. "If the bridge is okay, then maybe Cynthia --"

But there were no cars moving on the upper level.

Moisture formed on the surface of Everon's eyes. There was no point in voicing his doubts, and he was too busy fighting the Pelican's unfamiliar feel. He dropped them in low over the Hudson along the leafless black trees of Riverside Park and banked south to follow the Manhattan shore down the West Side Highway.

Franklin watched the signs of destruction grow more apparent with every passing block. Around garbage and frozen vehicles, groups of people moved northward on foot. An abandoned ambulance, its red lights flashing, was locked in a frozen jam of cars and had given up trying to go north. Black smoke poured from an isolated sliver building. Why would someone do this? he wondered, overwhelmed by the horrible image he couldn't block, a burning fifth-floor apartment ten avenues east and sixty streets south.

At 79th Street Everon watched the Boat Basin flow beneath them. Listing sloops, catches, and yachts had been swept into a soupy mess. A mast here and there poked above the water. Among them, thousands of striped bass floated on their sides.

"Must have been a large swell when the bomb went off," Chuck yelled in his ear.

Everon nodded. The sunken boats reminded him of the time Cyn had convinced him to fly out to do some surfing north of San Diego just after an ocean storm.

Cyn was a fish. She had cut through the gigantic waves like they were nothing. But as hard as Everon paddled, one wave after another slammed him back, until an especially huge swell towered above his head ready to smash him down -- and suddenly Cyn was there, laughing, yelling, _"Hang on!"_ as she flipped his board upside _down._

Everon clung to the surfboard underwater, eyes closed, waiting for the turbulence to pass. It was terrifying. Hang on . . . _hang on!_ he told himself.

When he surfaced, sucking in huge gulps of air, he heard Cyn's joyous laughter and saw the beauty of it -- his sister's method worked. Avoid the turbulence completely by staying beneath it! But Everon turned for shore.

He would _never_ be comfortable with water the way Cyn was. His drowning response would always be there, maybe brought through generations by his genes, he didn't know, but water was not for him. He found no single thing more frightening. Never again would he attempt to overcome that fear. He was a man of the air.

As they flew south, rising slowly, fewer people were walking north. In places where the smoke thinned, bodies lay in the street. Franklin peered through his binoculars. Limbs had been frozen in odd positions -- a leg bent to one side, heads at weird angles on necks, some with eyes open, others closed. Faces had papery-looking skin. Who, he wondered, hates us this much? "Dear God," he whispered, "please save our sister. Please bring Cynthia back to us."

Soon they were far enough south that no one was alive at all. When Franklin couldn't look anymore, he passed the binoculars back to Chuck.

Field glasses against his eyes, Chuck muttered, "It has to be some very secretive country that did this, to catch us so off guard. _Somebody's_ got to find the bastards --"

"The bomb won't leave any evidence!" Everon yelled. "It's all blown up!"

"The destruction's only gonna get worse as we get closer to the center," Chuck said.

Franklin watched the side of Everon's face as the same thought hit them both: How far away from that center was Cynthia when this thing went off?

"The water's rising!" Chuck said, handing the binoculars back to Franklin and pointing at the 72nd Street Subway House. A dark wave flowed up through the entrance -- black, flooding the street. "The subways must be full," Chuck said.

"That's not _water!"_ Franklin yelled.

_"No!"_ Everon said.

The black tide differentiated into thousands of dark rodent bodies, running for their lives.

_"They're rats!_ " Everon yelled. _"Thousands of them!"_

"Leaving a sinking ship," Chuck agreed. "More than seventy million are supposed to live in the City, more rats than people!"

There were children dead in the street too. A small boy lay face down in the middle of Broadway, his right hand above his head reaching for a red book with big letters -- Dr. Seuss. Another little girl, maybe ten years old, had died holding her dead mother's hand. All to be eaten by the rats.

The Pelican bobbed. Franklin glanced at Everon. The beat-up machine seemed to be running well enough. It was the idea of being down there in that human sewage, up to their knees in furry bodies, sharp nips cutting through their jeans --

But the rat stampede passed by the dead untouched in their run for the Hudson. The herd joined a second group and flowed up the West Side Highway ramp heading north.

The tips of Franklin's fingers idled around the triangular base of a very old, small gold cross on a chain inside his shirt. People have to be out of their minds to live like this, he thought. It's a loss of reason. In the next moment it occurred to him who one of those people was. _Cynthia._

Everon glanced at his hands on the controls in the fierce unnatural grip of an amateur. Can there be anything left of Cyn's building? he wondered, _or i_ s Franklin right? Can we really find them, or will waves of sadness and pain come crashing down on us full force? At least we're not sitting by a phone waiting for bad news.

A part of him thought he knew what they would find. But to know that truth today, they would have to be the ones to find it. He forced a long deep breath . . . then another . . . until he could feel the Pelican again. Then pushed the stick forward and flew with grim determination, as fast as the old bird would take them.

The Giant's Hand

"We should go east here." Franklin pointed a hand at the left window. "Cynthia's place is straight over. Maybe we can land on the east side of Central Park."

Everon began a shallow bank.

Chuck leaned forward to study the cobalt eyes of the man who had pulled him into this. "I'm getting the idea we're going to look for your sister before we save anyone else."

Franklin turned a hard mouth on Chuck. "That's right. Do you have anyone in the City?"

"Nope, all my relatives moved to Florida five years ago. I was the holdout. I'm just asking -- I'd do the same."

Approaching Columbus Circle, the tops of skyscrapers littered the streets. "Nothing's ever as tall as you remember it," Everon muttered. But the rotor blades were getting too close and he could feel pockets of rising heat. He glanced at the engine instruments. A bit warm, but she should go higher. He wanted to baby the Pelican as much as possible. He cranked the throttle and delicately lifted the collective. The whine of the turbines increased. The Pelican began to climb.

Franklin studied his brother's arms tensing, jaw flexing, keeping the old helicopter in the air. _Despite Everon's sarcasm, there's never anything dark beneath it,_ Franklin thought.

By the way they were crabbing, Everon knew a light tailwind was still following them. He looked through the top of the windshield. Out above the radioactive anvil were high broken clouds. "Wind's gonna change," he mumbled.

_It's th_ e way you and Cynthia live in the _moment,_ Franklin thought, _so unlike me,_ worried over what I'm not making of my life.

"Six hundred feet," Everon called out. "That's high enough to cross the park." He leveled out and glanced at the temperature gauges. The needles were stable below the red zone. "Hanging in there."

A huge BOOM answered him, and Chuck screamed, _"Oh shit!"_ as a yellow fireball expanded to surround them. Everon maxed the throttle and yanked the collective upward, pulling back on the stick, trying to keep them out of it.

Franklin watched his brother struggle to defy the City's desire to kill them. Within his own fear he wondered if they would, all three -- Everon, Cynthia, and Franklin -- die today in Manhattan. The blades whumped louder. He didn't think so. Everon has talents of which I have no understanding -- flying, solar power, business -- everything he touches. The earsplitting whine of the turbines rose higher. I could never do the things Cynthia or Everon are good at, running financial analyses or thinking my way through the air. Those things escaped him. There was some barrier he couldn't get past.

Everon released a huge breath. The craft was backing away. The broken tops of buildings dropped below. He eased off on the engines.

"What _was_ that thing?" Franklin asked as they climbed above it.

"I've seen one before," Everon said. "Having dinner one night with Cyn and Steve at the Marriott Marquis, way down Broadway was this big ball of fire.

"After dinner we took a walk. It was still roaring up out of the street, the buildings along the sides forming a chimney. A cop at the barricades told us a gas main had broken."

_"A_ gas _main?"_ Chuck said, watching the fireball.

"Yeah," Everon nodded. "The whole city's underlain with them. They're still under pressure."

The City flattened out before them. Through the smoke mid-Manhattan was a vision of Hell on Earth. Buildings were cut in half, as if a giant's hand had sliced through them.

"Oh my _God!"_ Chuck gasped. "It's gone!"

Like dozens of skyscrapers around it, the top of what had once been the world's tallest building was missing. The Empire State Building had been cut in two, leaving only the nubs of girders above a ragged concrete shell.

Can we recover from this? Franklin wondered. The United States had weathered all kinds of disasters -- civil war, world war, financial collapse. Some countries rose and fell in a few years, but the U.S. was unique. Of all the places he'd traveled, no other country had been founded for the purpose of protecting the individual. _Something_ this _strong would have to corrode from the inside._

South of 20th Street, not even steel frameworks remained. The giant's hand had swept out, destroying every building, from the bottom of the island northward -- until around 42nd Street, where, at a kind of transition zone, the pattern changed. Times Square was a flaming heap, but only blocks north less than half the buildings were on fire. Buildings close to street corners were gone, but other than missing window glass, those that had been in the blast-shadows of taller buildings were completely untouched.

"Crossing one thousand feet!" Everon said loudly.

"Look at Broadway," Franklin said. "The blast must have been channeled by the open spaces --"

"Like the avenues were rivers of pressure," Chuck said.

Everon nodded. "Overpressure decreases with the square of the distance."

"Maybe there's a chance that Cynthia --" Franklin began.

"Of course there's a _chance!"_ Everon yelled. "But let's not start painting false pictures like you do on Sundays."

Franklin stared at his brother, sucking his lips inward, taking deep breaths. "That way," he pointed. "Straight across the bottom of the park."

Everon's expression softened. "Sorry, Bro."

Bro. He hasn't called me that in a long time, and it's the second time today. He and Everon were step-brothers. Not _bro,_ but _Bro,_ like he's trying to bond more tightly to the family. He's just as upset as I am --

Cynthia's chances were slim, Franklin knew it. The likelihood of anyone alive on the Upper East Side -- he closed his eyes and saw Cynthia's building completely blown away, nothing but rubble. He could smell the burning drywall, hear the flames. The hallucination became stronger as he pictured the corpses of his sister, brother-in-law, and their daughter lying there, their sightless eyes staring up at him.

"At least the smoke blocks the sun!" Chuck yelled over their shoulders.

Everon nodded back. East across the sky, the poisonous dark anvil-headed cloud stretched over Long Island, where snow or rain would likely bring death to thousands.

"Hey! _Another helicopter!"_ Chuck pointed.

A Bell Executive flew into view from behind the broken Empire State Building. Its door bore a large gold crown. In three-foot letters was a single word. KING.

"Nathan King," Everon said. "He bought the Empire State Building last year."

Before Everon could push the stick over to bank for Central Park, an F-18 fighter flashed past their windows. A moment later, a fast-attack Cobra helicopter rose to hover on their right, its machine cannon targeting the old Sea Pelican.

Beneath the ready emotion, Nathan King's coolness twisted his features into a profound sorrow mixed with rage. _"Fuck!"_ he said softly, shoulders slumped, watching _his_ city burn from the side window of his helicopter. "There's nothing left!"

Those who knew him well -- friends and business associates -- might have asked, "How is this different?" King's moods, so calm one day, wild the next -- sadness, joy, whatever, it didn't matter, as long as it entertained and, "O _h, yeah, '_ Get the hell out of my critical path!'"

This was different. "How often did a man lose everyone he cared about, everything his life was built on, in a flash of light?" Even his parents had been killed last night. King had been doing business in London. He'd rushed across the Atlantic to find the eight skyscrapers he'd built, including the one with his parents' penthouse on top, were gone. King straightened. Louder, with a touch of vehemence, he asked, "What do we know, John?"

John Mayhew, his executive assistant, had lost people too.

"Information from the military shows two to three hundred kilotons, Mr. King. The blast --"

"Not that crap, John. What do our CIA contacts say? Goddammit! I want to know who did this, don't you?"

From the gunship's open cargo door, a soldier held up a whiteboard. FREQ 121.5 it said. A clipped military voice over a megaphone said the same thing, "Go to frequency 121.5! Now!"

Chuck leaned forward between the seats, and Everon handed him the microphone. "Looks like you're on," Everon said, setting the frequency.

"This is Chuck Farndike with a Red Cross mission out of Teterboro."

The response was immediate. "You have no authorization to be here, Mr. Farndike. All traffic is restricted. Your tail number is not listed. You'll have to return to New Jersey."

Everon asked over the radio, "What's the King helicopter doing here?"

"That is not your concern!" the military pilot responded. "Follow us back across the Hudson. Now, please." The pilot's tone offered no option.

Franklin held out his hand. "Let me try." Chuck handed over the microphone.

In a calm tone, half an octave lower than he usually spoke, Franklin said, "We have on board iodine and other medical supplies. People down there are waiting for our help. Our mission was subject to a last-minute change in tail numbers when our first helicopter was commandeered by the military. Please check with Teterboro and allow us to continue."

"I'm sorry, you'll have to --"

"Let them do what they can!" a new voice said. "At least call it in!"

"This is an emergency channel. Identify yourself!"

"Nathan King."

The radio went silent. Everon shot Franklin a glance.

The seconds ticked by, two helicopters hovering above 59th Street, fifteen hundred feet in the air. "The tower people have my radio," Everon said. "I fixed their generator."

"Let's hope your friends back us up," Franklin said.

The radio crackled. "Uh -- your flight has been authorized, Mr. Farndike. Non-military personnel are not allowed south of Forty-second Street. Radiation levels are too high -- for your own protection."

"Understood. Thank you."

Everon banked left and began descending northeast over Central Park.

Cheri And Johnny

Cheri Enriquez's fear had finally given way to sleep. The pretty Latina had held her child on the floor until gray light filtered through the window. Now Cheri hoped it was a bad dream, remembering how the lights had gone out and the apartment had _shaken._

"Mommy!" three-year-old Johnny had cried as the roaring pressure pounded them to the floor. "Mommy!" They'd held each other, rocking on the carpet, eyes closed, waiting for the scary hurricane sound to pass. As quickly as it had begun, the howling noise had gone, to be replaced by an eerie silence. For the longest time Cheri had been afraid to move.

Now she looked at the small boy in her arms. He seemed okay. His eyes opened. He stared silently at her. She rose and carried Johnny to the window. The sky over Brooklyn was so dark she could barely make out the tree-lined street. A cloud was blotting out the light.

She tried the television, lifted the phone. Nothing. She played with the dial on their portable radio but found only static.

Cheri had gone along with her husband's wishes. "Better to bring Johnny up away from gangs and drugs!" Jáime had said, and for three years they had saved every spare dollar for a deposit -- until they were able to move to the Jewish section of Brooklyn. Oh, how she wished they still lived in the old neighborhood, where she knew everybody and could go next door to the Gonzalezes or across the street to find out what Francie Lopez knew.

Jáime would know what to do. But Jáime had taken that construction job with his cousin in California. When he called last night, things were going so well. He was sending more money. _Why_ did he have to go? He should be here! Rocking Johnny in her arms, a raw twisting knot in her stomach grew, the feeling she would never see Jáime again.

She bundled Johnny into his winter jacket and hat, and they went outside into the dim light.

"Look, Mommy, snow!" Johnny cried happily. It was cold out, and the ground was covered with a fresh dusting.

Cheri looked around. Something was wrong. Snow? It's so dark. When she touched a glove to the whitish-gray stuff then touched it to her cheek, it wasn't cold. And before she could stop him, her little boy had lifted a finger to his lips. "No!" she shouted, slapping Johnny's hand away, scared, hugging him to her. "You didn't eat any of that, _did yo_ u, Johnny?"

East Side Horror

"How's this?" Franklin asked. "Their apartment's only a few blocks over."

Everon dropped down over the debris-filled remains of Central Park's Ice Rink. _O_ n a normal day, he thought, happy skaters would be filling the ice. At three hundred feet, he hesitated. Water was flooding the rink, making a disgusting soup of dead skaters and chunks of concrete. Never before had so many people been murdered so suddenly.

"When the blast hit," Chuck mumbled, "people were just going out for the evening."

"Cynthia, Steve, and Melissa _can't_ be part of this!" Franklin said.

"I wonder how the pigeons made out," Chuck muttered, looking away, "especially the babies. I've never seen any. They must hide somewhere, in the crannies of buildings, I guess. Even a nuke couldn't kill every pigeon in New York. This is going to affect us all for a very long time."

Franklin felt like telling Chuck to shut up, but he knew it was the big man's way of dealing with something more terrible than anyone had ever seen.

"That spot there doesn't look too bad," Chuck pointed at an area of open ice covered by a few inches of water, mostly clear of debris.

Everon nodded and began his descent.

They were less than a hundred feet up when Chuck said, _"Did you see that?_ Something moved down there!" He pointed at the middle of the ice.

Franklin focused his binoculars on several dark shapes huddled in the rink, heads waving back and forth. "Seals."

"Yeah," Chuck said, "but what are those?"

"No fucking way we're landing here!" Everon said, pulling up.

Two huge polar bears, nearly invisible against the ice and water had killed a pair of seals and were ripping the carcasses apart.

Franklin focused his binoculars on the outside of the rink. A group of spotted leopards padded the edge. Two of the big cats were ripping apart something covered in skin.

Everon gained altitude and crabbed south.

said the gold letters lying in gray dust.

"Looks like the top of the 9 Building was blasted into the Plaza Hotel," Everon said.

"That's four blocks!" Chuck said. "Chunks of the hotel must have hit the zoo cages! Maybe we could we try the Sheep Meadow?" He pointed. "It's over that way."

Franklin shook his head. "Our sister's apartment is on the Upper East Side. The Sheep Meadow is on the west side of the park. That's more than two miles past who knows _what_ animals." He looked at Everon and pointed through the windshield. "Cynthia is straight east."

"I wonder why the damage is so much worse here," Chuck said.

"I don't know, dammit!" Franklin shouted. "Just go east, Everon."

Everon silently complied. He took them higher across an area that looked as if the giant's hand had leaned in selectively, smashing certain buildings and leaving others. Down Fifth Avenue, the upper floors of buildings were missing, but they'd provided protection for the shorter St. Patrick's Cathedral, which was undamaged, except for its missing spires.

"The pattern's different here," Franklin said. "Look how the pressure turned toward the Upper West Side."

Everon gritted his teeth at his brother's unrealistic hopefulness. More bodies lay between chunks of wreckage in Park Avenue and on the sidewalks.

Franklin peered through the smoke ahead. The Roosevelt Tram hung by a single wheel within shouting distance of its station. A breath of air and down it would go. No one looked out its broken windows.

"Cynthia's apartment should be over there."

Franklin was pointing right at another fireball rising from the middle of Lexington Avenue, almost as large as the one at Columbus Circle. As they drew closer, the fireball expanded from hot air balloon size to much larger, completely blocking their view of the buildings behind it. Heat rocked the Pelican.

The balloon shrank back. They tried to see around it.

"Cynthia's place is just off that corner there. It doesn't look as though there's much left," Franklin said dismally. "Waiiit a minute -- hold on!" Franklin focused the binoculars.

"What?" Everon asked, hovering as close as the fireball would let him get to a row of five-story walk-ups.

"That file cabinet at the corner of the building -- it's the one Cynthia decorated. See the big yellow sunflowers?"

"Where?"

"Right there!" Franklin pointed.

There was a lot of smoke. Determined, Everon edged in closer. "Oh, it sure as hell is!" The roof was missing. A few jagged brick walls jutted up here and there.

"They keep that cabinet in Melissa's room!" Franklin said. "Cynthia added those flowers to make it nicer for the nursery."

Part of the remaining brick wall was acting like a shield between the cabinet and the Lexington fireball, which began to expand again. Roiling air buffeted the blades, forcing the Pelican back.

"Maybe they weren't home," Franklin said, peering through the binoculars. The corner of some pink material hung from the cabinet's third drawer down, fluttering in the wind. A bizarre thought went through his mind. He closed his eyes, shaking his head, but the thought wouldn't leave. "Let me rappel down on top!" he said.

"I can't fly over the building with that fireball next to it," Everon yelled back.

Chuck leaned forward between the brothers. "There's an open spot a block over."

"Where?" Everon asked.

"Around the corner of that squat building," Chuck pointed. "Follow that ditch."

"A collapsed subway," Franklin said.

Everon flew east. "What do we show for radiation?"

Chuck held up his gray box. "zero-point-one to zero-point-two. Less than a chest X-ray an hour."

"Good."

A block farther on, Everon hovered over Chuck's spot, a wide fountain. Only the outer rim remained. The marble statue of a trumpeting angel had been blasted into a plate-glass window.

"Clear," Franklin called out, sweeping the binoculars. "Is it wide enough?"

"It'll do," Everon said. He dropped them straight down. Light winds had been following them from New Jersey, but he no longer had to compensate. There was no drift at all. The wind is changing, he thought, picturing the deadly anvil cloud over Long Island coming back this way. Not good.

He put the Pelican gently in the fountain's center, and hesitated. He didn't know if he could restart the old bird. He took a deep breath and pulled the mixture back. The engines' roar fell away to the sounds of a burning city.

Andréa Gets Through To Hunt

"Another light tree, ma'am?" the soldier asked.

"Oh, yes. In that corner near our patients' gurneys would be a big help," the nurse replied. "Thank you."

The soldier extended its legs and plugged in the cord. The fixtures threw a soft warm glow into every corner -- and all the lights went out.

The nurse swore. There were moans inside the tent, and yelling outside.

From the Williams jet, Andréa watched half the lights in the triage tent city go out. Soldiers scrambled back and forth, the tents relighting then going dark again. Finally the lights stayed on. The military's generator could not power another bulb.

"Colonel Marsh?"

Marsh looked up from the map he was examining, to find a beautiful redhead standing in front of the table he was using as a desk.

"Yes ma'am?" he gulped. Someone had let this woman into the command tent. He'd better review his men's understanding of their orders. _I c_ an't have civilians wandering around.

"I don't believe we've been introduced," she said, placing her hand in his, bending at the wrist as if tempting him to kiss it. "I'm Andréa Buer. I fly for Williams Power. Have you a telephone I might use?"

"I'm very sorry, ma'am, our satellite phones are for military use only. It's hit-and-miss now. This is a command --"

"Even if it's to call Hunt Williams? To get you another generator?" Two minutes later, Andréa's call went through.

_"Hello?"_

"It's Andréa, Mr. Williams."

_"Andréa! Where are you?_ Are you all right? How's Everon?"

"We're fine. We took off at JFK an hour before the bomb exploded. We're at Teterboro Airport."

"This is the first call I've been able to -- I didn't think this satellite phone was working."

"I'm on a military phone. They say it's intermittent. Apparently the satellites overhead at the time of detonation have moved on."

"How is it up there?" Hunt asked.

"Pretty bad. No one knows how many were killed. The military's established marshal law. Is everything okay in Pennsylvania?"

"It's horrible down here, Andréa. Put Everon on the phone. I've got four million people with no power. Our whole system is down -- our control center, substations . . ." The connection faded, then came back, ". . . actually melted power lines. Most of our engineers and technicians were at that damned New York conference. I'm very relieved to hear your voice. I need Everon's help."

It sounded almost like her boss was crying.

"He's gone into the City, Mr. Williams."

"What? _Where the bomb went off?"_

"Yes," she grumbled.

"Why the hell did you let him --"

"I don't think anyone can tell Everon Student anything," she said. "He and his brother went to see if they can find their sister. Everon was able to get an old Coast Guard helicopter running and they took off an hour ago. They're planning to search the Upper East Side, five miles from ground zero."

The line went silent.

"Mr. Williams?"

"I'm desperate for crew people, Andréa. I need to talk with Everon the moment he gets back."

"I don't know if I'll have access to this phone then, sir."

"All right, I'm coming up there. Tally can fly me."

"They aren't letting anyone fly near here without special permission from the military. Um, the Army does need generators."

The phone went silent. "Let me speak with someone in charge."

"Hold on."

Andréa turned. "Colonel Marsh?" She handed him the phone. "Hunt Williams."

Hunt finished speaking with Colonel Marsh and stared into the dimly lit Juniata control room. A gasoline generator chugged outside. Every one of the giant Williams generating plants was down, probably damaged by the bomb's EMP. The grid in Hunt's part of Pennsylvania and New Jersey was out, thousands of homes and businesses without power.

Hunt had strong reservations about handing one of their three emergency generators to the military. He needed them to restart the system. Unless Williams Power was able to start one of their big coal-fired units, they were out of business. But the company's biggest problem was personnel. There was only one thing to do.

The Search For Cynthia

Everon switched off the radios and battery, and, jumping from the pilot's seat, blades still winding down, chased after Franklin and Chuck. The air was filled with the bitter smell of death. He dodged around girders, shattered glass, a sea of concrete chunks as big as cars, and dead bodies. The Red Cross man was twenty yards ahead, kneeling on the tilted sidewalk, checking the pulse of a blond child that lay face down, connected by a leash to a black lab puppy. Half the puppy's head was beneath a concrete block. A blood-soaked halo of blonde hair surrounded the head of a woman holding the boy's hand.

Chuck said, "No pulse!" as Everon ran by.

_These people were hit by tremendous force,_ Everon thought. If someone was alive they'd have left already. Franklin was two blocks ahead. They had to find Cyn.

Along the side of Bloomingdale's, Everon slowed, nearly gagging on a putrid stench. It surrounded him. The day had warmed enough to hatch hibernating fly eggs. Black specks dotted the bodies.

"They probably just finished shopping," Everon muttered.

"Ready to have dinner, and being eaten instead," Chuck huffed, catching up. "God, I hate flies."

Dodging around a huge chunk of a building at Lexington, Everon fell back on his butt to keep from sliding into the ditch along 59th Street, the collapsed subway line they'd flown over.

Chuck helped him up. They ran on.

There's no protection anywhere! Franklin thought as he zigged-zagged through the war zone that had been Lexington Avenue. Corpses were strewn among the debris, some burned with hair fried like steel wool, others with an exposed foot bone or hand bone -- degloving, he'd heard it called -- _flesh peeled away_ like the removal of a glove. A two-by-three-foot Day-Glo Jesus painting lay in streaming water, his blood-red heart exposed. How could Cynthia possibly have lived through this? he wondered. But then he saw a single ginkgo, his favorite tree, all its leaves still attached, defiant within the protective loops of its knee-high ironwork. He ran on.

Everon gave a wide berth to the flaming gas fireball in the middle of Lexington. The heat was intense. Many buildings without windows had a dark singed surface. Most of the storefronts were demolished. A nail salon and a place that sold smoothies were untouched. Next door, a deli's mangled awning on the sidewalk and a pile of rubble were all that remained.

Everon and Chuck found Franklin across the street, moving sideways toward them while staring upward at Cyn's building. It's large entrance was filled with brick, steel, and big chunks of blackened concrete, swept into it by the blast.

"Any way in?" Chuck shouted against the sound of the fireball. "Man, it hot!"

"I couldn't get into the alley behind," Franklin said, "and not around the side either. The first-floor windows are barred."

"Dammit! If we had a grinder!" Everon looked up. "Can you scale it, Bro?"

Franklin looked again. He'd been studying the building's face. The broken fascia offered plenty of hand- and toe-holds. The fireball reached out again. He could picture the hot bricks breaking loose in his hands. He wouldn't be able to count on anything.

"Look out!" He pushed Everon and Chuck away. A slab of gray granite the size of a breakfast table shattered in the street where they'd been standing.

Franklin shook his head and looked up. "There's got to be a way to get on top. We didn't really try, did we? How long is the hoist cable?" He measured the gas ball as it shrank. "Maybe when it's like that?" The fireball was hot-air-balloon size, but already expanding.

"There's got to be a few feet on the far corner there, with enough room for Chuck to set me down."

Everon nodded, eyeing the fireball as it thundered into the sky next to Cynthia's building. They turned back for the helicopter.

BOOM! A huge chunk of sandstone facing fell into Lexington. "Stay away from overhangs," Franklin said as they ran the obstacle course back down Lex. "The City is falling apart."

Everon glanced at a smoke trail drifting from the east. Fifteen minutes earlier it had been rising straight up. "The wind's changing too," he muttered.

They rounded the corner of Bloomingdale's back into the narrow entry to 59th Street where the fly-covered corpse of a gray-haired man lay face up on the sidewalk, his head hanging over the edge of the collapsed subway.

Chuck stepped around the body. "Ouch!" he said, his ankle knocking a concrete block into the ditch. It landed with a clang on the exposed metal corner of a subway car.

Franklin stopped and turned his head. "Do you hear something?"

The sound of yelling came from below. "Voices!" Everon said.

Franklin began looking for a place to climb down.

_"What about Cyn?"_ Everon asked.

"What if she's down there?"

"She's not!" Everon said, irritated with Franklin's sudden change in direction.

"We can't just leave them," Chuck shot back. "There could be hundreds of people trapped down there."

Franklin looked toward Cynthia's apartment. "How do we know she's not in the subway?" He pointed to a sign down the street. "The subway stop is only a block from here. So we take a few minutes, find a way to get them out, and see who's there. They can find their own way off the island."

Everon's lips tightened. He looked over the edge. The asphalt was painted with big white block letters: FIRE LANE. "Yeah. No kidding," he mumbled.

Franklin pulled a large coil of blue rope from one of his bags. He walked quickly, examining the ditch.

"What are you looking for?" Chuck asked.

"An entry."

Everon pointed out a V in the side of the ditch. "How about that?"

Franklin nodded. "It's got potential."

"How deep would you say it is?" Everon asked.

"Fifty-five, sixty feet."

Everon picked up a dusty yellow brick, turned, and flung it into a window in the brass-framed door of Bloomingdale's. The glass exploded. The door glass on the right was already missing.

Franklin ran a loop around the door frames, tossing the other end of the rope into the pit. The rope uncoiled, its bulk slamming on the exposed corner of the subway car. The voices grew louder.

Franklin unzipped the other bag and pulled out a second climbing rope. He threw it into the pit, then cut off a ten-foot piece.

"That's to tie off the hoist, if you can get it off the helicopter."

"I can do that," Everon said, and ran.

The pavement's edge was jagged. Bloomingdale's was running a sale on bedding. Franklin grabbed a bunch of lime-green pillows from the display and made a pile on the ditch's edge.

"That should keep your rope from being cut," Chuck said.

Franklin stuffed one more pillow in his jacket.

"What's that for?" Chuck asked.

"You never know. Hold these in place until the rope's set."

"Sure." Chuck knelt down and put a hand on the pillows.

From the canvas bag, Franklin pulled a lightweight harness made of three-inch wide webbing. He pulled out a second one for Everon, then put on a pair of thin leather gloves.

"You always wear gloves when you climb?"

"Only for rappelling."

Franklin clipped himself to the rope, feeding it through the brake -- a lever on the harness. He walked backward over the edge. As he dropped below street level, the rope dug into the pillows.

For the first twenty feet, he was able to walk mostly straight down the wall, kicking away chunks of loose debris so they wouldn't fall on him later. The street had been built up in layers over many years. There were slabs of asphalt on top. Farther down were concrete and rebar. Below those were chunks of ancient mortared stone. With every step, pieces of it tumbled away.

At the Pelican, Everon attached a socket to the drill he'd borrowed and zipped off the bolts that held the hoist to its supports above the cargo door.

Twenty-five feet down, Franklin landed on a wide iron grate, part of the drainage system that protruded from a block of concrete. He knelt on the rusty brown edge and pulled the last pillow from his jacket. He balled it beneath his rope where it hit the grate. He swung his chest over, then hung by one arm, and continued down. The last thirty feet went easily, past brown soil and colored tile.

When his feet hit the dirt, voices echoed up. A banging vibrated into his feet. He could see only one corner of the train. The other end is deeper, he thought, sloping toward the East River. He unhooked the rope and walked to the metal corner, staying clear of his landing point in case any loose rock followed him down.

Everon set the hoist next to Franklin's rope. He ran to an abandoned taxi, popped the hood and used the drill to loosen its battery clamps. He brought the battery over, connected it to the hoist, tied it off, and explained to Chuck how to operate it.

Chuck examined the controls. "Forward and reverse. No problem."

Everon called down to Franklin, _"How's it look?"_

_"It's stable enough. Come on down."_

_"All right."_ Laying his rope over more pillows, Everon walked backwards, following his brother's instructions.

As Everon touched down and unhooked himself, Franklin knocked on the metal roof. _"Hello?"_

"We're here! We're here!" came back faintly.

_"Hold on!"_

"How about there?" Everon pointed below a large boulder on the train's high side.

They struggled to push the big rock off the car. It picked up speed and rolled down the side of the ditch.

"We don't really have time for this, you know," Everon said. "The wind's changing It's going to blow the radiation this way."

"I know."

Franklin unfolded a two-foot army shovel from his belt and quickly cleared a hole until he'd exposed the top of a wide window. A little more digging and they could see its shape. It was one of the long horizontal ones. Only the upper half could be opened. _That'll be impossible_ to squeeze through. He leaned over the edge to see inside, and jerked.

A dark-haired woman with huge eyes stared back. There was a trail of blood down the side of her face. Hit by a sense of recognition, Franklin was certain he didn't know her, but she seemed familiar. Her arms were raised overhead. There was pain in her face.

"We're trying to find a way in!" he yelled. "Can you open this window?"

"It's jammed!"

"How far over is the door?"

"They won't open," she yelled. Franklin heard muffled talking. _"Oh," s_ he glanced left, _"the windows!_ The next one is eight feet from the end of the car!"

He looked along the ditch. A huge asphalt slab covered that end. No way he and Everon could move it. _"Blocked!"_ he said. He pointed in the other direction. _"That way?_ There are doors in the middle, aren't there?"

"There's water over there!"

_"It can't be helped! The other way is blocked up here!"_

She glanced to one side. "The doors are about fifteen feet over!"

The Awful Truth

"Why are we _doing_ this?" Everon asked, his arms straining. Fifteen feet from the first hole, the brothers struggled to push a vertical slab of asphalt the size of a flat screen TV out of the way. "Cyn's not gonna be down there."

"We don't know that!" But Franklin heard only his own desperation.

As the slab began to move, a breath of air fluttered along the ditch, lifting Everon's hair. "That radiation cloud's coming," he grunted. The slab's upper edge went past vertical, rotating as if encased in glue. "Think of a desert storm. Each grain of sand is poison. Once it's inside your body you can't ever get rid of it." The slab accelerated, crashing onto the side of the ditch.

They began a new hole. Dirt flew. Franklin knew Everon was right, they didn't have to do this. "When she left you at the airport," Franklin asked, "was she taking a cab -- or a train?"

"I left her in a cab."

They tossed away bricks and tile. The train was deeper here.

"What was Cynthia planning to do?"

"Go home to her family, watch TV, and go to bed."

They exposed the upper part of a window, then its lower edge. It was another narrow one. They'd overshot. But this window had no horizontal split. _It'll be tight getting through,_ Franklin thought, _but possible._

The face of a white-haired man appeared.

"Get back!" Franklin yelled at him.

The face disappeared.

Franklin pulled a small hammer from his climbing belt and smacked the glass. It didn't break. He hauled back -- and smacked the hell out of it The glass shattered. He felt a faint breeze from the window as he used the hammer's handle to scrape away the shards. It wouldn't do to cut his skin on the way in.

With one hand on the climbing rope, he flipped himself around and slid his legs over, down into the hole. As his chest scraped through the window, hands gripped his ankles and guided him -- moving his feet sideways to where his toes found something hard to stand on, and something cold, too. He slipped inside.

Faces stared back in his flashlight beam. The group was smaller than he expected. He'd made a mistake. Cynthia's face wasn't one of them.

Five men and two women were gathered at the high end of the car, holding onto metal poles as if to anchor themselves. Water was filling his climbing shoes, already an inch above the seat he stood on. The odor was salty with the faint smell of sewage. A swollen male body in a dark business suit floated in the water.

"Are we ever glad to see you, son!" said the old man. There was blood in his hair. He wore an expensive topcoat and suit. "What happened?" he asked. He had a calm look on his face. His eyes held wisdom.

Before Franklin could answer, someone else asked, "Where is everybody?" Another voice asked, "You're it?" and then they let loose. "The next car's -- We've been here -- flooded -- Are you -- for hours -- with the -- Train crash? -- city?"

They _can get_ out now, Franklin thought. Let them find their own way out of Manhattan. We have to get on top of Cynthia's building! But he had to tell them: "The City's been bombed. Down by the seaport."

There were gasps.

"I knew it."

"Bombed!"

"What do you mean bombed?"

"Oh my God!"

"Bomba! Bomba!"

"What kind of bomb?" a man's high voice penetrated. A damp toupee sat askew on his head. He was nearly screaming. _"What kind of bomb could affect us way up here? If --"_ His eyes went wide. "Nuclear?" he screamed.

Franklin nodded. "We think so."

People gasped.

In his flashlight beam Franklin caught the bodies of a man and woman floating at the end of the car, their faces bloated by gas. _The water's about four feet high on that end,_ he guessed. _It must still be c_ oming in.

"What about radiation?" asked a guy with obsidian eyes and very dark skin. He had on a green ball cap, with the words StreetNews! in white painted on the front.

"Our radiation meter isn't showing a problem around here, so far," Franklin said. "My brother is on the roof. We have ropes and a helicopter. We'll get you out of the City."

"I knew it!" said a man with a bushy black mustache, shaking his head. He had light brown skin and an orange vest over a blue shirt. "We were nearly into Fifty-ninth and Lex when we came off the tracks. I wasn't going that fast."

"You're the train engineer?"

"Yes."

"Is this everybody?" Franklin disconnected his harness and stepped out of it. "Is this the first car?" The cold water was rising up his ankles.

The engineer nodded. "I put the train in service less than ten minutes before we went off the rails. It was only an eight car hookup." He pointed to the end of the car, "I -- I couldn't open the door -- I have the key -- the water . . ." his voice trailed off.

"The water reached our car about an hour ago," the old man said.

Franklin stepped from one seat to the next, grabbing metal handles for balance.

_"You_ don't want to LOOK AT THAT!" the engineer shouted as Franklin swung his beam.

Light hit the far window. Franklin jerked. A face stared back from the flooded car on the other side. Everyone in there has to be dead, he thought, lowering the flashlight. Water was leaking through the door seal. He could make out a current. _It's coming in. Fast._

Rising Water

"Let's get everybody out of here," Franklin said, gritting his teeth as the icy water bit into his calves. "Anybody hurt?"

The dark-haired woman from the window had her legs sideways across several seats, just beyond the water's reach. Her coat was pulled around her, and one leg was tied with tubes of rolled-up newspaper. Her knee was swollen.

"How'd you get up to the window?" Franklin asked.

She pointed. "I pulled myself up that pole."

"Can you walk?"

"No, I think my leg's broken."

He sloshed over and examined her knee. "Dislocated, it looks like. There's a man up top who'll know better. I think we can get you out okay."

She stared up at him, blood-matted hair on the side of her face. Franklin thought, She doesn't seem to be bleeding anymore. He frowned at her vague familiarity. _She p_ robably looks a lot better without the blood in her hair. He looked around. "Anybody else?"

"Mr. van Patter," the woman nodded at the old man, "He was unconscious when I woke up."

"Just a bump on the noggin," van Patter said lightly. "I'll be fine."

"Well I'm not fine!" said the screamer with the soggy toupee. "Tyner Kone," he announced importantly. "U.S. Department of Commerce, and I want answers! How bad is it up there?"

"No good deed goes unpunished," a voice echoed down. Everon's head appeared upside-down in the broken window. He winked at the dark-haired woman. "I wonder if he knows his hair is on crooked?"

She barked out a laugh.

Franklin understood his brother's strategy. Keep them out of shock. Everon looked at the rising water, then at Franklin, as if to say, _Let's get moving!_

"Your attempt at humor is not appreciated," Kone fumed. He straightened his toupee and pointed. "This water is probably loaded with radiation." He looked at the narrow slot with Everon in it. "Get us out of here."

"Chuck and I used the winch to break out that grate," Everon said. "We can take everybody straight up." He wiggled backward and disappeared.

"All right then. Pull me up," Kone said. "Let's go!"

"Yeah, let's go, man!" StreetNews Cap's rising voice joined Kone's. "This water coming in fast!"

Franklin considered the small tunnel they'd made, and the bureaucrat's round shape. Despite his and Everon's ability to get through, it would be too tight for some of them, especially Kone. The woman with the bad knee wouldn't make it either.

"If we try to pull you through that hole, you'll get stuck." Franklin looked at the train doors. He knew what he had to do.

"What's your name?" he asked the woman with the bad knee.

"Victoria."

"We have to get everybody to the other side of the train, Victoria."

"Okay."

And they had to avoid the water, not because it was cold, _but because,_ Franklin admitted reluctantly, _Kone is probably right._ The bomb had exploded near the water. _The radiation level will_ depend on which way the East River is flowing.

_"Bomba? Bomba?"_ whispered a man with sandy hair that had an arm around a slim blonde in a fur coat. Both were in their mid-thirties. They'd been silent. Now they whispered frantically. They didn't seem to understand English.

"New York bombili," Franklin said -- the same thing he'd told the others. The couple looked at each other. _"Bomba?"_ the woman asked, staring at him wide-eyed.

Franklin nodded.

The Russian man said, "Bomba! Da! Ya skazal vam!" -- Bomb! Yeah! I told you! Franklin understood.

"What are they speaking?" van Patter asked.

"Russian."

_"What did he say? What did he say?"_ Kone asked. Franklin ignored him.

The guy in the StreetNews! cap said, "I'll give you a hand, name's Clarence."

Franklin and Clarence slid their arms beneath Victoria's legs. The Russian guy carried her feet. Victoria grimaced as they placed her on a seat on the high end of the train, and drew a sharp breath. It was going to be tough getting her out.

_M_ aybe I can help her feel better, Franklin thought, if she's willing to let me. It would be her decision. "If I can reduce your pain, would you try something?" he asked.

"A pill?"

"No, something mental."

"Uh -- I guess so."

Half her pain's internal, Franklin was certain, caused by the fear of what might be wrong with her knee. On top of that, she's wondering if we can get her out of here.

Franklin was already tuned in to everything about her -- a lightning-like appraisal of her vocal tone, body posture, the swelling of her lips, even the pores of her skin. All of it affected him and was processed. Like a musician responding to a melody of mind and body, Franklin gave himself an inner nod and, leaning close, whispered in a low voice, "Victoria . . . DEEP INSIDE YOU CAN FALL ASLEEP, REST, ARRIVE AT A DEEPER . . . PLACE TO RELAX, UNWIND, CALMING . . ."

She frowned, but felt her breathing slow.

"What are you telling her?" Kone asked, voice rising.

Franklin went on,". . . DOWN DEEPER, LOOSENING UP, LIGHTEN UP . . . SETTLE DOWN . . . . . . FEEL AND SENSE AND EXPERIENCE TO UNDERGO CHANGE AND BE ALLOWING YOU, YOURSELF, TO JUST LET GO AS . . . YOU . . . CANCEL . . . PAIN."

Victoria felt a flow of energy all the way to her feet.

Because she had given her conscious consent, Franklin was using an ultra-abbreviated form of what he'd used to convince Chuck to set up their clearance. But where he'd _amplified_ Chuck's uncomfortableness, now he was doing the opposite with Victoria. ". . . RELAXING . . . DEEPER NOW . . ." Dropping his pitch still lower, he began again. The third time he looked away suddenly and gently squeezed her shoulder.

Victoria frowned. What was all that about? Then she realized she didn't feel so frightened . . . and the throbbing in her knee was becoming less severe.

Canceling her pain, Franklin knew, carries its own danger. It's there for a reason: Be careful, it says, something's damaged! But now he could do what he had to. The water was coming in at an alarming rate. Franklin pulled the hammer from his harness and sloshed over to one of the large windows in the doors. He waved the Russian couple back.

"What's going on?" Kone asked.

"You might want to back up," Franklin told the others.

They all moved, except Kone.

_"What do you think you're doing?"_ Kone said, bordering on hysteria.

"Ignore him," van Patter said.

Strangely cowed by the old gentleman, Kone stepped up on the seats where Victoria and van Patter sat.

Franklin hauled back and smacked the glass. A split appeared in the window's lower left corner. He reached back for another swing, but a high rippling sound followed the crack as it snaked diagonally up the window and -- SNAP! -- the glass exploded into the train, followed by tile, dirt, and brick splashing into the water.

The pile rose quickly. Clarence, the Russians, and the engineer pushed it aside to make room, struggling to keep up.

Franklin began to wonder if he'd miscalculated. How much can there be?

Above them light poked through. Van Patter moved several bricks then wobbled back to his seat, about to fall over. Victoria used her sleeve to wipe away the blood that had dribbled down his face. Kone stood on the seat and watched.

"We didn't know how much was above us," Clarence said as they worked. "We should have tried."

And it slowed. But dirt was displacing the water which rose even faster. Chunks of loose rock rolled down. Franklin could hear Everon digging above. A familiar tune floated down, Everon's voice off-key, "I've been diggin' on the railroad, all the livelong day . . ." People smiled.

_Smart,_ Franklin thought. He pushed his hammer claw between the door seals and wedged them apart. The Russian and the engineer grabbed one door, Clarence and Franklin the other. Slowly they forced the doors open, and more debris rolled in. They scooped it back as the pile rose. Now they had a slot up through the dirt large enough that even Kone could make it. They stood on the seats, water to their knees, and coming in fast.

"Normally I'd take ladies and injured out first," Franklin said, rushing now, "But we'll need some muscle up top."

Figuring the Russian guy would want to stay till his lady was out, he looked at Clarence. "We'll take Victoria next. Will you go up and help my brother guide her?"

"Okay, man -- let's go!"

"Tell Everon I'll give three short tugs when we're ready, then take it slow. Tell him to take her straight up to the street. Do you need the winch to pull you?"

Clarence glanced at the opening. "No, man." Like a mole, Clarence guy scrambled up the chute, his feet shooting loose dirt behind him. He disappeared like he'd been grabbed from above.

While Franklin slipped a harness on Victoria, the Russian sloshed through the stomach-high water, helped his woman into the hole, and shoved her up. The woman surprised Franklin, darting upward nearly as fast as Clarence.

When Franklin bent to strap in Victoria's legs, the straps were on already, the buckles tightened down. He looked at her.

She shrugged. "It seemed the right way to do it."

A rope dropped through the hole. Victoria looped an arm around Franklin's neck and he and the engineer carried her around the dirt pile. Franklin hooked her to the rope and gave three sharp pulls. Its slack was taken up and they guided her in.

Just before the train's interior dropped away, Victoria saw what the lack of light had hidden. The dark-haired man's irises, electric cobalt blue.

Water rose above the seat backs, then the lower edge of the train windows, but Kone coughed and scratched his nose. For someone in a hurry to go, now he didn't want to leave the train! He touched opposite shoulders back and forth several times, as if superstitiously trying to even himself out.

The water was halfway up Kone's chest by the time Franklin had him in the harness and gave the rope a tug. Kone's legs were just disappearing up the hole when he suddenly stopped. The engineer looked at Franklin. They shoved against the little bureaucrat's feet.

The engineer grunted, "It feels like the chub's pushing back!" Finally, Kone's weight left their hands and his shoes disappeared.

Van Patter followed quite quickly for someone so old. The Russian went next, and Franklin pushed the engineer up right on his heels.

By the time the engineer was gone, Franklin's chest was completely submerged. He stepped up on the seat back and pushed himself into the chute. The dirt around him was turning to mud. He couldn't get a grip. The mud shifted. He slid backward, clawing against it. There was nothing solid to push or pull against. The hole's sides were loosening. The mud pressed inward on his waist and shoulders. He scrabbled faster, trying to grab onto something, anything, cupping his hands like scoops, but the mud grew softer, washing backward. Water rose to his neck, closing the hole around him, squeezing his legs, rising over his chin. He kicked desperately, trying to dig forward with his knees.

His right knee found a sharp object, something embedded in the muck and he pushed against it, but it sloughed back. He was sliding down. Water closed over his mouth, nose, eyes. He could see nothing but milky white, until even that disappeared in darkness.

Losing Franklin

Everon and the Russian pulled the engineer from the hole. Kone was in the other harness riding to the street, bitching the whole way. The old man would go next, the engineer after him.

Everon watched the hole. "What's taking so long?" he asked. "How many are left?"

"Just the rescue guy," the engineer said.

The hole filled with water.

Down below, Franklin reached up blindly. There was nothing to grab onto. He couldn't breathe. He reached out again and fingers took his right hand, then slipped away. He was sliding, being sucked back into the train.

Something caught the left sleeve of his leather jacket. It was a grip of iron and it shocked him to know who it must be, that the water had to be over Everon's head too, Franklin remembering what Cynthia had told him of his brother's fear.

Franklin grabbed onto the hand that pinched his leather sleeve. Another hand reached down and clamped onto his arm. The suction tried to hold him. Slowly, he moved upward. He was just losing consciousness when he was jerked violently and saw Everon's determined face, eyes big and round, covered with slime.

They both sucked in huge gulps of air. The Russian must have been holding Everon's legs. He scrambled over and helped pull on Franklin's arms. Franklin crawled out of the muck. He rose to one foot, bent over, taking a swipe across his eyes, then hugged his brother. "Thanks -- Bro!"

Everon released a long exhale. "Nothing better to do today."

"Except find Cynthia."

"Right."

Toe-deep in water as it rippled over the train, Franklin and Everon watched the rope take the Russian man to the street. Everybody else was already up.

"Climbing out would have been impossible without the hoist for most of them," Franklin said. "Nice job getting rid of the grate." He turned to Everon. "We can't just ditch them, you know."

"I know." Everon's forehead wrinkled. "That old guy looks familiar."

"Victoria, the dark-haired woman, she called him Mr. van Patter."

"Walter van Patter? What the -- _you're kidding?"_ Everon nodded. "That guy's a billionaire, Bro. They call him the Runner."

"Him?"

"Well, he doesn't actually run anymore, but did you see his gold and white track shoes? He walks all over the City. He's probably the only billionaire who never uses a driver."

The harness was coming down. "How long will it take to get the helicopter started?" Franklin asked.

"Just a few minutes, I hope."

Franklin held the harness out. "Then get going."

Everon got it on, yelled up, and began ascending very slowly. "Looks like the battery's nearly out of juice . . ."

Chuck handed each of them a bottle of water and a snack bar as they came up. He laid out a blanket for Victoria to sit on and examined her knee.

"Dislocated," he said. "Nice job somebody did with the splints." He carefully untied them. "Franklin?"

"I did it."

"Really!"

When he probed her knee with a gentle fingertip, she barely reacted. "Not bothering you as much as I'd think it would," he said, rubbing fingers across his red muttonchops. "I can't reduce it by myself though."

The Russian woman said something and knelt down behind Victoria's back. She slid her arms under Victoria's and said something else to Chuck.

_"Do it!"_ the Russian man said.

"She wants you to put it back in," Victoria agreed.

"Hmm. Okay," Chuck pushed her skirt up a few inches and, massaging her thigh, slowly pulled on her heel, straightening her leg.

_Now_ the pain came back. Her leg was nearly straight when her kneecap _popped_ and her leg straightened. "Ahhhh . . ." Suddenly the world was a better place.

Chuck added a clear plastic blow-up cuff, then wound a bandage around her head.

"You should check out Mr. van Patter," Victoria said, as the white-haired man was pulled from the ditch. "He had a head wound."

Chuck cleaned the blood off van Patter.

The old guy winced. "No big deal."

Chuck applied a large bandage at the scalp line, then checked van Patter's eyes. He might have a concussion, Chuck decided.

"Who are they?" Victoria asked. "The two guys that got us out of there."

"Franklin and Everon?" Chuck smiled. "Just met 'em myself. They're brothers."

"Brothers?" van Patter said. "They don't look much like brothers."

As the hoist slowly walked Everon upward, he wiped the mud from his eyes. The sun was out. _It's getting warm,_ or is it just that fireball?

As soon as he stepped over the edge, he got out of the harness and signaled the engineer to send it back down.

The smell was getting worse. Everon looked along 59th Street. "The military's been here?" he asked Chuck, frowning. "The HAZMAT people?"

Chuck shook his head, "Not yet."

There was a low hum in the air.

"Who brought those body bags," Everon pointed out two, a hundred feet up the sidewalk.

The Russian woman followed his finger and began speaking rapidly, waving her hands. Her agitation spread to the Russian man.

"What are they saying?" Kone asked.

"I don't know. You can ask Franklin when he gets up here," Everon said.

"Those bags look kinda rough," Clarence frowned at the two nearest ones. "Uneven, aren't they?"

"Oh my God!" Victoria said.

"Those aren't plastic," Chuck snarled, "they're flies. Thousands of 'em."

"Shit!" Everon said.

"I hate flies," Chuck said. _"Nothing_ will ever kill all the flies in New York City."

Why can't he just shut up? Everon thought. Rats and pigeons he can live with. Flies, he has a problem --

The engineer flipped the lever to put the hoist in gear. Everon watched it pull Franklin slowly upward. Wind gusted along the street but the buildings blocked any sense of direction. Overhead there was blue sky with a puffy cloud in the middle.

"As soon as my brother is up I'll go start the helicopter."

Franklin had risen only six feet when the hoist rrrrr-ed to a stop. "This is not my day!" he said, as the cable slowly set him back in shin-high water . . .

"Pull him up!" van Patter urged. Everyone but Victoria, van Patter, and Kone grabbed the winch cable, but it was too slick.

"I'll get another battery!" Everon yelled, grabbing the drill and running for the nearest abandoned car. He was disconnecting the terminals when a shout went up. Franklin's head appeared at the top of the rope tied around the Bloomingdale doors. Franklin's shoes had no laces.

"Ahh," Everon laughed, running over. "The old pull yourself up by your shoelaces trick!"

Franklin's laces were wound around the rope, their ends knotted to form loops. Slide one up, stand on the other. He untied the laces and threaded them back in his shoes. He looked at Everon. "Haven't you got a helicopter to fly?"

"Right!" Everon scooped up the hoist and tugged Clarence's jacket. "Come on!" They ran down 59th Street.

Victoria considered the mud on Franklin's pants, jacket, face, and hair. "What happened?"

Franklin was looking into the ditch, rapidly coiling purple rope around an arm. "I didn't pay to get on. The Transit Authority didn't want to let me go."

To The Pelican

"That's one! A little higher, Clarence --"

As the newspaper vendor lifted the hoist a quarter inch, Everon tried to push another bolt through its tubular support above the cargo door. He hated taking the time, not knowing how difficult the helicopter would be to start, but they'd need the hoist to have any chance of getting Franklin on top of Cyn's building. The bolt slid in. " _Two!"_

"Damn!" Clarence said as his cap blew away. His kinky dreads flipped around in the gusts.

The wind's starting to come from the southeast, Everon saw, _and that radioactive cloud'll come with it._ "Wiggle it a little," he urged.

Clarence complied, and bolt Number Three slid in.

"How big was the bomb?" Clarence asked.

"We don't know." _Why is it always the last damn bolt that --? "Rrrrr --" _Everon growled, jiggling it, pushing. Way down the avenue, dark wisps of rain were slanting in their direction. "Got it!" he said, as the bolt slid home. _"Thanks!"_

Using the drill Everon quickly tightened them down. Zzzzt! -- Zzzzt! Zzzzt! -- Zzzzt! He hurried to connect the wiring. He almost wished they hadn't stopped to get these people out.

"All right! _That's it!"_ he said. _"Get in!"_ What if Franklin's right? he wondered. What if Cyn is up there half alive? _This old bird better start!_ He still didn't see how they could set Franklin on top with that fireball in the way.

"My mother lives in Brooklyn," Clarence said, stepping worriedly up into the Pelican. "Do you know what happened to Brooklyn -- ?"

The train survivors were hustling along, dodging chunks of debris and fly-covered corpses when the wind began gusting along 59th Street. Victoria rode on Franklin and the engineer's interlocked hands. The Russians -- Petre and Kat, Franklin had learned -- carried his large bags. The slightly built Walter van Patter carried his small bag. Trailing the others, Tyner Kone refused to carry anything.

"Has the President said anything yet?" van Patter asked.

"Not yet," Chuck huffed, lugging his med case.

"Only one radio station was on the air at Teterboro." Franklin said. "The helicopter's just a little farther --"

"My family's in the Bronx," the engineer rasped out. He was tiring now, his side of Victoria sagging with every step. "Have you heard from anybody up there?"

Franklin shook his head. "We're almost there --"

Halfway up the block the engineer asked, "Can we rest a minute?"

A chunk of concrete slammed into the street behind them, putting an end to that idea. But shortly the subway ditch ended, and they were able to move more easily in the middle of the street.

Victoria watched Franklin urging them on. Her knee felt numb. How did he do that to me? And he speaks Russian? They don't look like brothers. The other one -- Everon? -- with the blond hair certainly dresses well. She'd recognized the quality of his trousers -- gabardine.

But it was Franklin, almost running now, with the gray mud streaked on his leather jacket, mud in his dark tied-back hair -- tall and rangy with those shining cobalt eyes, that seemed to see her as she'd never been seen before. She felt a flutter in her stomach.

"So you're on a Red Cross mission?" she asked.

"Not really," he huffed. "We flew in to find our sister."

"She was on the subway?"

"We don't know where she is."

"Does anyone know who did this?"

He shook his head.

Despite a case of numb-butt, she could feel his fingers below her thighs, long and strong. She'd noticed the dirt caked under his fingernails -- _from_ where he clawed his way out of that hole. His nails were clipped close, barely any white at the ends. Why the hell, she wondered, am I thinking about his nails? She felt her face redden. She knew why. Forget it! It's only a you-saved-my-life attraction. But she remembered reading that more babies were conceived around major disasters than any other time. What is it about a crisis that makes people think about sex?

As the helicopter came into view, Franklin was relieved to see it's blades turning.

"We're there!" he urged. "Come on!" Cynthia's alive! he thought. _She has to be!_ He'd been using the words as a mantra, clinging to them, pushing back his fear. Grief and sadness meant his sister was already dead. Fear was better. As long as he was afraid, Cynthia had to be alive.

Hopeless

As the Pelican rose above ruined streets and broken buildings, the survivors learned what the City had become. Franklin wished he could have distracted them from the shock of it, but there wasn't time.

"Will you handle the hoist, Chuck?" he asked.

"Of course."

Franklin moved into the cargo area and pulled a climbing harness from his bag.

"What are you doing?" Kone asked, voice rising.

"Before we can get you to Teterboro, we have to make a stop," Franklin said.

"Stop? You can kiss my ass!" Kone yelled.

"Our sister, her husband, and child live two blocks from here. Her building entrance was blocked with debris. Dropping down from above is the only way to get to them. We were on our way back to the helicopter when we found you."

"These people have to get to a _hospital!"_ Kone said.

Victoria gave the barrel-bodied little bureaucrat a severe look. "Maybe we should just let these men do what they came to do. If it weren't for them we'd probably be dead."

"I agree," added Mr. van Patter. "This helicopter's half empty and none of us are in worse shape than this young lady. If she can wait, Mr. Kone, I think you can. If we can locate any more survivors, we ought to do it."

"Yeah, man, just shut up," Clarence said.

The Russians said nothing. The engineer gave a small nod.

Kone shut up.

Victoria sat on the bench watching Franklin. Though her knee was nearly twice its normal size, the pain wasn't that bad anymore. If I hadn't gone to the television studio in Queens, I'd be dead now, like David -- the guy she'd had a first date with last night. What if I'd stayed with David like he wanted? David lived in Chelsea. She looked out the window. There was nothing but fire in that direction.

_There's probably still a job here,_ _reporting on what's left,_ she thought _,_ if she wanted it. She didn't. She didn't want to go down to Atlanta either. _So,_ back to Chicago, then _._

The helicopter rocked as Everon crabbed over to the Lexington fireball.

"That building!" Franklin pointed. On the top floor was the flower-covered file cabinet against a bit of brick wall, the splash of pink still fluttering in the wind.

As the fireball expanded, Everon backed up then circled around. "I -- I can't get you over the top and keep the blades out of the heat!" he yelled.

Franklin studied the building. Something -- there has to be a way! We aren't seeing something.

The fireball shrank. Everon edged closer. The fireball expanded, it's heat rocking the helicopter. Everon hovered back. After two more circles, there just wasn't one square foot that would put the winch over any part of the building without leaving the blades in or above the fireball.

Fortunately one person wasn't looking down. "Uh -- I think we better GET OUT OF HERE!" Clarence shouted. "SHIIIIT!"

Franklin's looked upward. Pieces of steel I-beam, furniture, and a statue of some kind fell past the blades. "That tower's coming down!" he yelled.

The helicopter lurched as Everon jerked them away.

_"All right!"_ Kone shrieked, "Now that's _it!"_

Kone was right. The City was falling apart. Through the helicopter's window, Franklin watched the pieces of someone's life, and his own, rain down. Through the smoke there was no movement on the top floor. No one could have survived.

With a terrible reluctance, Everon banked west.

Giving Up

Franklin's harness lay abandoned on the floor.

"It's over. She's gone," Everon said, staring out the windshield. "We tried, Bro." He turned the Pelican away from Manhattan, and the windows were filled by the rusty-green of the Hudson River and the blue-gray of the George Washington Bridge.

The sky was swarming with helicopters of every size and color going into Manhattan to rescue whoever they could find. Franklin left his brother to the controls and took a seat in the back.

"Chopping off body parts would be too good for whoever did this!" Chuck shouted over the helicopter's roar.

Franklin let the big man rant. They'd be back at Teterboro soon enough. Not finding Cynthia left Franklin more depressed than he'd ever felt -- not in the Army, not at his church -- he almost felt like crying. But he just couldn't accept what Everon already had, that Cynthia, Steve, and Melissa were dead. He kept picturing Cynthia's building -- the top floor, the alley behind it. Was it wishful thinking, or in that last glimpse had there been something he could use? _But there isn't any way down there, dammit!_

On the bench next to Franklin, Victoria seemed to be feeling better. Walter van Patter's head bandage had bled through. Chuck was replacing it. The transit engineer was quietly debating Clarence as to where the bomb might have come from.

_"Could it be_ Al Qaeda or ISIS, like the people that brought down the World Trade Center?"

"Maybe it was the Russians, man."

Franklin looked at Petre holding Kat, sitting on the helicopter's other side. They seemed unaware of Clarence's words.

Kone was the loud one, still at it as they crossed the river. "Can't this thing go any faster? How long till we get back?" Chuck looked like he wanted to open the door and throw Kone out.

Who cares! Franklin thought. _Cynthia's dead!_ He ignored them all, staring till his eyes went out of focus. Something that could never be replaced was gone. He thought about the stories he'd heard of the weight of the soul, a body losing as much as a pound when the soul departed. He wondered, Do Cynthia's and Steve's bodies weigh any less now? Does their little daughter Melissa's?

It wasn't weight that was missing. He loved Cynthia, and she loved him. He and Everon had long been isolated from each other, but Cynthia had been the link. Phone calls, texts, passing the latest news. Now that link was gone. He thought of the bomb. What kind of person would do such a hellish thing? Everon was right, no one would figure it out. The bomb destroyed itself. What clues could it possibly leave behind to expose the people who did it?

Franklin's thoughts were jerked away by a glint of reflected sun between two clouds.

_"A fighter jet!"_ said Chuck. "Probably protecting us from more attacks!"

"What good will that do?" the engineer asked.

They watched the jet disappear behind the clouds and emerge on the helicopter's right side, above the GW Bridge.

"What's that?" Victoria pointed.

"What?" Franklin asked, not really paying attention.

_"There! Right there!_ she said. _There it goes again!"_

"Somebody's dumping stuff off the GW," Clarence said.

Franklin's eyes focused. He pulled out his binoculars. "No they're not! Those are people falling off the bridge!"

Death On The Blue-Gray Span

Everon brought the Pelican closer to the bridge's vertical cables. On the lower deck people were able to walk between the stalled cars okay, but on south side of the upper deck a FedEx rig had fallen over, pinning an 18-wheeler against a big commercial dump truck. A Volkswagen with its top hacked off was crammed under the 18-wheeler. In the north lanes, two 18-wheelers had jackknifed end-to-end, on an angle. Noses of cars were crammed under the sides of the 18-wheelers. The entire upper deck -- all eight lanes -- was blocked.

People were struggling to squeeze through the remaining spaces. One woman shot out like from a cannon and fell to the road. Her face was bloody. The next two young men that escaped ran right over her. The disabled trucks were funneling the mob toward the bridge's south side where something had made a big hole in the deck.

"There goes another one!" Chuck cried.

Franklin could almost feel the scream coming from the O-shaped mouth of the falling man, eyes huge with fear, his overcoat cocooning around him, red power-tie flapping in his face. He's going to hit so hard, the water will drive the bones of his neck right through his brain.

"Half of Manhattan tryin' to get out!" Clarence yelled.

_The pressure has to be enormous,_ Franklin thought. _Thousands make it through the dangers of the City, hoping to get across the GW, only to fall to their deaths._ A woman fell through the hole, the blue fabric of her long skirt billowing around her head, exposing long legs and white underwear high up her waist. A fireboat raced to pick up bodies -- people likely dead when they hit. Even if they survive, the water's freezing. The cold would kill them in seconds. "Closer!" Franklin shouted.

Everon hovered next to the bridge.

"There must be two hundred thousand people down there!" Chuck shouted.

"More!" yelled the engineer.

Franklin shouted, "Do you think there's a chance Cynthia and Steve are in that mess?"

Everon shook his head.

"Why not?"

"Remember how her building looked? Think about what time it was when the bomb went off. They weren't out for an evening stroll with Melissa at eight o'clock last night."

But if there's even the slightest chance, Franklin thought.

"They're being crushed to death," Victoria shouted, her face against the window. "Can't we do something?"

"People in back are pushing a little," Everon yelled. "By the time the pressure gets up front, it's enormous." In slow motion, a section of railing bent, creating an even wider gap where the mob launched more bodies into space.

"There's no way to get tow trucks in there," Walter van Patter rasped.

Clarence shook his head. "Those semis ain't going nowhere!"

People began falling off the side in twos and threes.

"Think we could enlarge that opening between the wrecks," Franklin asked. "Use the big hook to drag one of those 18-wheelers back a little?"

_"No! It's too dangerous!"_ Kone screamed. _"Let someone else do it! You've got to get us to a hospital!"_

"What happens if we land back at Teterboro and the Military won't let us take off again?" Everon yelled back. Where the main support pipes curved to the lowest point, he brought the Pelican directly over the bridge, while another dozen people were launched off the side.

"What's are you _doing?"_ Kone yelled at Everon. _"Let the military handle it!"_

"All of us probably know somebody in that mess," the engineer said.

"Can this machine handle the load?" van Patter asked.

"Maybe," Everon yelled.

"We can't just leave them!" Victoria shot back.

_"Da! Da!"_ Petre and Kat pointed frantically as more were ejected from the bridge.

_"They'll have to wait!"_ Kone screamed. "I demand you get us to New Jersey, right now!" While he argued, another dozen fell to their deaths.

Part of Franklin almost felt like agreeing with Kone. Cynthia and her family will never be found. But another voice inside wasn't ready to give up, Maybe they're down there!

Walter van Patter squinted at the chubby little bureaucrat. "You know, Mr. Kone, some of the most powerful people in the world are probably trapped on that bridge."

Kone shut up.

Franklin dragged out the heavy cable hook. It caught one of the seat supports but Petre freed it and, with the engineer's help, they pushed it to the cargo door. Franklin went forward and bent down between the cockpit seats.

"The hook says it's rated for six thousand pounds. Is that enough?"

"Possibly, for one end of an empty trailer, if we can find one. Which one do you want to try?"

"Hold on." Franklin backed out of the cockpit and slid the cargo door open. Cold air poured in. Clearly, there would be no chance of moving a truck cab -- the engine alone would weigh several tons. Of the jack-knifed semis still on their wheels, the orange trailer had no cab. _It must have dropped through the hole in the bridge,_ Franklin thought. __ He moved back to the cockpit.

"Forget the FedEx. It's on its side and probably full. Let's try the orange one without the cab in the inbound lanes. It's only got that VW jammed under it."

"Makes sense. Tell Chuck he can -- WHOA!" Everon's left hand yanked upward on the collective as a gust tried to push them into the bridge cables. He moved the stick with quick jerky movements until the big bird steadied, twenty feet higher. "I'm going to --" He pushed several overhead switches and immediately the helicopter smoothed out.

"It works!" He glanced at Franklin. "Auto-stabilizer. I was afraid to try it." He let out a breath. "That will make things easier. Okay, Bro. Too bad we don't have the communications stuff working. Just signal to Chuck and he can tell me what you want."

"We just have to slide the end of one trailer away from the other, right? But those containers -- are they locked on?" Half the trailers on the roads these days were actually metal boxes sitting on 18-wheel chasses.

"Good point," Everon nodded. "So, once we're hooked on, I won't raise it too high. Otherwise we could pull the box off the chassis."

"I have to get the heavy-lift harness connected under the helicopter."

"Okay," Everon nodded. "I'll hold it as steady as I can."

Franklin went back and stepped into his climbing harness. Chuck lowered the hoist cable a little and Franklin connected it. He pointed out the orange container he wanted to move. But first they had to get the big hook attached to the helicopter while still in the air.

The Screaming Damned

Franklin picked up one of the heavy cables, gripped an overhead hoist tube with his other hand, and swung outside. He hadn't known what to expect. Freezing rotor wind blasted his hair. "Okay!" he yelled.

Chuck laid on his stomach and hit the DOWN button until Franklin was two feet below the Pelican. Water ran from Franklin's eyes. He could barely see. With most of the heavy-lift harness still inside, he grabbed the wheel sponson, and pulled himself under the helicopter. He waved, _"More slack!"_ Chuck lowered him another two feet.

Mounted beneath the Pelican's body were four metal hooks, arranged in a rectangle. Using his legs, Franklin pushed himself horizontal and reached out with a cable eyelet. It snapped into place. Chuck handed him another.

"A little more slack!" Franklin yelled. The hoist cable gave him another foot.

The next two snapped easily onto their hooks. The last eyelet would be a stretch, way out to the helicopter's far corner. Chuck handed it down.

Franklin got himself lined up, strained against the hoist cable, swung his arm, and missed. His feet slipped off the sponson, and his weight fell on the cable, hard.

He grabbed the fourth eyelet again, and scrambled his legs back into position. He pointed his toes. Hand reaching out as he lunged at the wheel sponson, the eyelet scraped the hook and he fell, swinging back and forth in the violent wind. He didn't know if he had the strength to try again. But the cable was gone! It was hanging from the fourth hook!

He wiped the back of a gloved hand across his forehead, gave a wave, and Chuck shoved out the rest of the heavy-lift harness. It untangled, and the big hook squared into position, dangling twenty feet below.

Franklin nodded. Chuck disappeared. The helicopter began moving sideways, halting above the rear of the orange trailer that was blocking the inbound lanes.

Everon yelled to Chuck, "How's that?"

"Go five feet to the rear . . . okay, perfect!"

Chuck's head reappeared outside. Franklin pointed down. A moment later, he began to descend.

Franklin's feet landed on the top of the container with a clang. On the crowded bridge deck, rotor blast was whipping people's hair and clothes. Faces screamed up at him. People shook fists in the air or flipped the middle finger. Franklin couldn't let it bother him. He had a job to do.

More hoist cable came down, giving him room to maneuver. He waved -- Closer! Chuck vanished.

The helicopter descended until Franklin was able to grab the big hook and guide it sideways. Cranes lifted these containers off chasses and moved them onto ships using the eyes welded at each corner. Franklin wanted one of those.

"Lower!" Everon heard Chuck call out. "We're a couple of feet too high."

They were very close to the minimum altitude Everon could risk. Street lights ran along the sides of the bridge. He calculated the bridge's width as a hundred feet. In the operating manual behind the seat, the Pelican's blades were listed as sixty-two. Blade tips to light poles, less than twenty feet to spare. Any lower and he'd be inside them. One bad gust of wind --

More people were being forced over the bridge's rails. Everon's left hand made the tiniest of dips on the collective.

With a CLANG! the hook went into the eye. Franklin clung to one of the heavy cables.

"He's got it!" Chuck yelled.

Okay! Everon thought. Now if we can just --

He twisted the throttle. The whine of the turbines increased, blade noise rising with them. He pulled the collective up all the way. The Pelican strained to rise -- and stopped. _No way!_ Even one corner is too much. We can't lift it!

"It must be full," Chuck yelled.

_"Stop! Stop!"_ Kone screamed. _"You'll kill us all!"_

Down below, Franklin shook his head and waved them back down.

"Okay," Everon admitted, "maybe this was a bad idea. Tell my brother to cut us loose."

The helicopter descended and Franklin pushed the big hook out of the eye.

The helicopter rose and Franklin's hoist cable tightened with it. It seemed people on the bridge were giving up too. Instead of being crushed against the guardrails, they were jumping off the bridge.

The moment Franklin's feet left the trailer's roof, he felt hands gripping his leg. A slim woman with light hair had somehow gotten up on the container's top. From above she looked like -- Cynthia!

But as she struggled to hold on, she looked up. There was only a vague resemblance around the mouth and nose, but not the eyes. Before Franklin could grab her armpit, she slipped, falling backward as onto fans at a rock concert. _Her soul,_ Franklin thought, _into the screaming damned._

Out Of Control

"What are you doing --?" Bonnie Fisk screamed at the man with long dark-hair, but the scream cut off when the air was forced from her lungs. Bonnie was being crushed and pushed toward what seemed to be a hole in the bridge's side. She'd seen people disappear over there. The man was rising toward the helicopter. "Ahhhheee!" Bonnie screamed as a man's elbow pushed into her bladder -- which reacted, unfortunately, by letting loose and wetting her size-fourteen slacks.

Bonnie Fisk and her sister Barbara were the owners of Fiskmart, the sixth largest chain of superstores in the US. The two women were worth billions, but on the top deck of the GW she was no different than anyone being mauled and sliding inexorably toward that goddamned hole!

The dark-haired man was leaving them, giving up. The helicopter couldn't lift the orange trailer. Bonnie had clung to only one possession that day, her keys, and when the dark-haired man glanced her way, she put every bit of her considerable strength into throwing them. They sailed in an arc and hit him right in the neck. She pointed at the silver truck on the other side of the bridge.

Chuck had Franklin halfway up to the Pelican when Franklin waved and pointed. Chuck stopped the hoist. Franklin was pointing across the bridge at a silver 18-wheeler. Chuck ducked inside.

"He doesn't want to come up!" he told Everon. "He's pointing at the silver one!"

"They're all too heavy, and that one's got a cab on it! Reel him in. We'll get someone else to do it, probably the military."

Chuck hesitated. "Okay."

As Chuck went to the hoist controls, he felt a tug on his sleeve. It was Mr. van Patter. He leaned close to the billionaire.

"What color was the first truck?"

"Orange," Chuck said.

"The orange ones are ocean-going. They're made of steel. The silver ones are aluminum, they're lighter."

Chuck told Everon.

Everon doubted they could lift it, but Manhattan, Everon knew, was mostly a consumer. _What if the truck was leaving the City after a delivery --?_

"And there's no refrigeration unit!" Chuck added. "So it's not a meat or fish packer. It could even be empty."

_"You tried!"_ Kone complained. "Let's get out of here!"

"Shut up!" half a dozen voices yelled back.

With Franklin dangling below the helicopter, Everon brought the Pelican over the silver truck, keeping a close eye on his blade-to-streetlight distance.

Franklin realized suddenly, I'm descending. They're putting me back down. As the soles of his shoes landed on the silver 18-wheeler's top, he could feel the crowd pushing against it.

This time Everon knew how long the cables were. The helicopter hovered directly over the big rig's corner, and Franklin slid the hook right into the eye. He held onto one of the heavy-lift cables to steady himself. Far in the eastern sky, the cloud vied for his attention. It's coming!

The mob seemed to sense it too. The truck leaned slightly. People were pushing harder. The force around them must be tremendous, he thought. All along the bridge people were pouring over the sides.

The Pelican began to climb. Everon could feel it in the controls. He tugged at the top of the lift harness. Slowly . . . slowly . . . up the big box came.

"This one's empty!" he muttered. Above his head a fuel light blinked on and power on the right turbine gauge dropped. "NO! NOT NOW!" The main rotor blades were drooping. The Pelican was going down.

Without thinking, he twisted the throttle and yanked the collective upward until it was as far off the floor as he could pull. The other turbine strained to keep up, whining, growling. Its temperature needle snuck into the red. If they lost the Number One engine, here, above these people, it was all over. I've got to restart the other engine in the air!

He'd been running the right engine off the rear fuel tank, the left one off the front tank. He hit the boost switches. _No, it's too_ late for that. _It's already going cold._ The rotor continued to lose RPMs. And then Everon felt the automatic stabilizer drop out too.

The Pelican rocked, her controls suddenly ultra-sensitive. Overhead, a light from the rear crankcase illuminated -- he knew what that meant -- _bits_ of metal in the gearbox! This thing is more of a mess than I realized. We shouldn't even be in the air!

Down below, Franklin watched with fatalistic awe as the helicopter slowly descended on top of him. He didn't even have time to move.

Falling From The Sky

Everon chin-pointed upward. "Hit that switch!"

In the left seat Clarence gulped. "Which one?"

"Right engine boost pump, front tank!"

Clarence flipped it.

Everon glanced at the overhead console. "Twist that black lever, from left tank -- to crossfeed _right engine."_

Clarence moved the lever to the first notch.

"One more!"

Clarence moved the lever all the way over.

"Now this one, here," Everon nosed, "the Speed Selector -- turn it to _SHUTOFF."_

Clarence complied and Everon licked his lips, waiting the longest two seconds of his life. "Now, push the start button on Turbine Two."

"Here?" Clarence asked.

_"HIT IT!" Everon_ roared.

Clarence pushed. Nothing happened.

In back, the transit engineer crossed his fingers. The Russians were making the sign of the cross. Then they felt it. A vibration.

Everon glanced at Turbine Two. The needle jumped. It was restarting. As the rotor's torque increased, the blades felt springier. He felt a power surge.

Franklin's senses were overwhelmed by the screams of people falling, the cries of those whose legs and bodies were being crushed against the truck below him. He was kneeling on top, trying to push the big hook out of the eye, when he realized the helicopter's pitch was changing. He looked up. The Pelican's bottom was inches above his head -- but it wasn't getting any lower.

The Pelican began to rise and the heavy-lift cables tightened suddenly, Franklin's hand barely moving out of the way before it was crushed by the hook when it yanked itself straight up in the eye. The trailer's corner, its entire rear end, slowly rose . . . higher . . . higher . . . nearly six inches. Without pausing, the helicopter moved sideways, pulling the trailer -- a foot . . . two feet, dragging it away from the other 18-wheeler, clearing a path for the fighting struggling mass of people no longer pressed against it -- the now cheering mob!

As if starting the New York City Marathon, like a torrent of water breaking through a dam, thousands burst toward freedom and ran with everything they had.

A Loss Of Reason

As Franklin rose to the Pelican, he studied the way the bridge's girders connected. Something nagged at him. He suddenly saw another structure. His brain had snapped a picture at the last possible moment, an image he didn't know he had. _If it's still like that --? _He wouldn't be able to take much down with him. _Can I actually do that?_

Chuck and Petre swung him through the cargo door. "We have to go back!" he called to Everon.

"About time!" Kone said. "This crappy helicopter ought to just make it to the hospital."

"No," Franklin said, "back to Cynthia's. I know how to get on top!"

"WHAT!" Kone screamed.

"We've tried twice, Bro!" Everon shouted. "Cyn, Steve, and Melissa are gone. Let them go."

"They're not dead. _Trust me,"_ Franklin said fiercely, "I know how to get on top of the building!"

Everon pressed his lips together. "This old helicopter's barely in the air."

"You can fly anything."

Everon studied the pleading intensity in his brother's face.

Franklin shouted over the whining engines, "If we don't go back, it's not that _I_ won't forgive you -- _you'll_ never forgive yourself!"

Everon's hand left the stick for a second to wipe his eyes.

"You've got to get these people to a hospital!" Kone yelled. "Then you can do whatever the hell you want!"

"If we land, they won't let us take off again!" Franklin shouted.

"What about radiation?" Kone pointed out the Pelican's windows. "That cloud doesn't look any farther away."

Franklin didn't answer. It's not. It's closer.

"Let them have one more try," said van Patter.

"You owe your life to these men, Mr. Kone!" Victoria said, pointing a finger at Franklin. "He nearly drowned getting us out of that train, and now you say they can't take any chance, any possibility to find their family?"

Franklin looked at Victoria gratefully. "I didn't know you knew about that."

"The engineer told me." Her voice rose to reach Everon, "Put us down somewhere on the Manhattan side." She pointed at Kone. "Let him walk back!"

Kone yelled, he screamed, he went for the Pelican's controls. Franklin had to stop him from wrestling them out of Everon's hands. Kone had lost his mind. It took Clarence and the Engineer's help to restrain him. But with the support of Victoria and Walter van Patter, Kone refused to get out. Everon turned into Manhattan. They were going back, toward the cloud.

Cheri Enriquez tried to comfort her son Johnny in the back seat of an old white Impala. Bits of ash clung to the car's body.

In the front seat, Cheri's neighbor Edie Goodman gripped her husband Lou's thigh. Lou was balding, and Edith's hair was whiter than last night's snow. The plan had been to take the girl and her kid to the Goodman's son's house in Fort Lee. The grandkids had moved to Vegas and the Goodman's son and daughter-in-law were out there visiting.

But a couple of miles after they'd left Kings highway, Edith whispered, "We better take them _to a_ Hospital, Louie. Something bad is wrong with that kid --" Which would have been a good idea, except Lou found the Belt Parkway was out. Not just closed, but from what Lou could see three blocks away, sections of the elevated highway were missing.

For the next three hours, Lou had zig-zagged through neighborhoods, and little Johnny got sicker. Now Cheri was getting sick. The woman was hyperventilating and the kid was positively green. The kid wouldn't stop crying.

But Mount Sinai hospital in Queens was overwhelmed. It would be hours before someone saw the kid. Edie thought they should go back to the original plan, get over to Jake's place.

Another three hours of traffic channeling them this way and that and they still weren't out of Queens. Lou took a look in the rearview mirror. That kid's pretty sick _and his_ mother isn't much better. _The_ Kid isn't breathing well. He looks sweaty.

At the George Washington Bridge turnoff, no one was going anywhere. There was still no cellphone signal. When a minivan in front of them suddenly took a northbound exit, Lou followed. Maybe we can get across on the Tappan Zee Bridge, then drop down to Fort Lee from there.

Lou turned on the radio. The announcer said something about emergency services at Teterboro Airport. Hmmm . . .

"Lou! Stop!" Edie screamed. "Stop the car!"

Lou mashed the brakes and Cheri flung open the door. Too late. Little Johnny was already puking up his guts on the back seat. The Goodmans helped get the kid outside.

Johnny was into the dry heaves when the clouds overhead began to rain. Within a minute all four of them were drenched by the stinging black stuff, as the cloud grew thicker and pushed toward the City.

Cynthia And Steve

The fireball was still in the way. From the jerky movements of Everon's hands on the controls, the wind was gusting from the east. Down Lexington Avenue a wall of black mist was moving their way. None of it mattered.

"Let me down over there," Franklin pointed. "On that."

Everon took one look. _"No way, Bro! That's suicide!"_

The statue of an angel had fallen into the top of a water tank on the building behind Cynthia's. The angel's feet and flared wingtips had pierced the tank's top. The statue was resting knee high. The two buildings were separated by an alley. One end of a narrow I-beam was nestled between the top of the statue's curved left wing and its ugly head. No -- not an angel, Franklin realized, a gargoyle. The I-beam's other end sat on the edge of Cynthia's floor, four stories in the air.

"Chuck can pay out the cable as I move from under the helicopter. I can stay connected until I'm across. If I fall, the cable will catch me."

Everon shook his head. "How would you even get them out?"

"I'll use a rope to lower them down the side." He knew Everon was right, he didn't have to do this. "I have to know!" he cried. _"We_ have to know!"

"Are you both fucking crazy?" Kone let out a maniacal laugh, peering through the window. He turned and pointed at Franklin. "Is he?"

_"Hey!"_ Clarence shouted. "Do you realize you're talking to a --"

"Never mind," Franklin said.

"I don't care if he's the Queen of Sheba," Kone said. "You can't be serious!"

The roly-poly bureaucrat's words hung in the air, but in his mind, Franklin saw Cynthia, Steve, and Melissa injured somewhere in that mess below. Victoria, Walter van Patter, and the others were watching him. "Am I crazy?" he asked. "Right now, maybe a little."

But Kone's doubt seemed to buck up Everon. His lips pinched. "I'll get you as close to her building as I can, Bro," He brought the Pelican sideways over the middle of the alley.

Franklin slung a coil of rope over one shoulder.

"Isn't that rain radioactive?" Kone pointed through the windows. "That can't be more than a mile away!"

_Closer,_ Franklin thought.

"Ready on the hoist," Chuck said, a determined pressure around the big man's mouth.

"You'll have to give me plenty of slack."

"Okay."

Franklin clipped his harness to the cable and swung through the door. This time he was ready for the freezing blast. Chuck pressed a button and Franklin began to descend.

His toes touched down lightly on the wobbly beam four stories in the air. Franklin centered his mass with his feet sideways. The beam was only nine inches wide. It hadn't come to rest flat, but at a slight upward angle toward Cynthia's building. A foul-smelling wind blew Franklin's hair behind him and pushed at his body. He stood, knees bent, hands out, finding his balance.

As Chuck let out more cable, Franklin slid his right foot forward and waited, testing the beam. He took a left foot step. His balance was off. The cable was tugging on his harness. Chuck was giving him plenty of slack, but the cable was being blown around by the Pelican. It was going to pull him off the beam. It was a long way down to the jagged pile of junk at the bottom. He took a deep breath and disconnected his harness.

"Uht-oh," Chuck said.

_"What?"_ Everon yelled.

"He released the cable."

"Is he across?"

"No."

What the hell am I doing? Franklin thought. Maybe Kone is right, I must be out of my mind. This was the craziest thing he'd ever done. His only safety net would be to fall on his chest and hang onto the beam.

The I-beam wobbled. Or is the statue slipping? He waited. The coil of rope over his shoulder made balance difficult. He moved forward, right foot slide -- left foot step. _A fall wouldn't be any worse than Ash Cave. Both would end the same way._

Years ago heights had bothered Franklin, until he found a way to fool his mind into thinking he was only a few feet off the ground. Now, as long as he was connected to the earth in some way, he could handle it. _Slide-step -- step, slide-step -- step. _He began to catch a rhythm and moved faster. _Slide-step -- step -- h_e -- was -- across! As he stepped off the beam, the statue fell into the water tank. He watched the beam turn end-over-end into the alley below.

There was heat on his back from the fireball. The Pelican's rotor was whipping up a storm of swirling garbage, vibrating the floor. It was like walking on poorly supported plywood. He waved Everon away. The helicopter moved up the block.

The floor steadied but smoke stung his eyes and burned his nostrils as it drifted across what was left of his sister's apartment. Twisted pieces of metal and heaps of broken block were scattered around. _This is definitely_ the right place. Strange that file cabinet wasn't touched. It sat against the lower half of a brick wall. There seemed to be no other sign of Cynthia, Steve, or Melissa.

Jagged walls jutted from the floor, separating rooms, and Cynthia's apartment from her neighbors. Wasn't the bedroom across from the room the cabinet was in? Could the cabinet have been moved by the bomb?

In the apartment next door, Franklin's eye caught on a six foot long roll of burned cloth, three feet in diameter. Some type of garbage, an old rolled-up rug?

But he knew what it was. He felt pulled toward it. Even charred, the pattern was familiar, though its blackened surface let only a little of the bright colors show through -- yellow and orange, green and red and blue. It was a blanket he'd bought in Mexico, the wedding gift he'd given Cynthia and Steve. He could make out the edge of the design, a huge round Aztec calendar that filled its center.

He knelt down. A large stain had spread around its middle. A sucking sound was coming from inside. He carefully peeled back the outer layer. His sister's eyes opened. _"Cynthia!"_

Cynthia

"Franklin," she coughed. "I thought I was . . . I didn't think anyone would --" Tears streamed from her beautiful eyes. She was face-to-face in the cocoon with Steve. Franklin felt Steve's cheek. It was cold. He wasn't breathing.

Cynthia laughed bitterly and began to cry, "He went an hour ago," she coughed, struggling to breath. "My arms . . . I -- _cough -- _couldn't move."

At least I can still save Cynthia, Franklin thought. The two of them were wrapped so tightly, her arms were pinned to her sides. "Here, let me get you out of that --" He began unwrapping the blanket.

_"Ahhhh!"_ Cynthia cried, "No! Don -- _don't!"_

But Franklin had already peeled it back far enough to see. A piece of metal had pierced them both. It had gone through Steve in the center of his chest, Cynthia, on her right side.

_"Ohh -- _I've had better nights-out in New York," Cynthia rasped, smiling weakly. Her humor was betrayed by a ragged gasp. Her lips were blue. Her attempt to ignore the pain hurt Franklin more than anything.

He looked wildly up at the helicopter. The black rain was closing fast. By her breathing, Cynthia's lung was punctured. How do I get her out of here? How can I get her over the building's side and down to the street without killing her? Everon must be able to see us.

He waved frantically, trying to will Everon closer, but the fireball expanded, driving the helicopter back. He could just imagine Kone's response. Everon tried to come around the block, but he couldn't fly above the building.

Cynthia's eyes shot to her left. "The cab . . ." The word died on her lips. Her eyes rolled back. A long gurgling breath came from her mouth.

"No, _Cynthia -- please!" _Franklin lifted his sister's head, but he knew that sound too well. He'd heard it from the throats of too many dying Rangers. A death rattle. His sister was gone.

He held her head in his lap and threw up on the floor. He'd found them too late. _If only -- just thirty _minutes sooner! The hour the subway had cost him, and another hour at the bridge. Would I have been able to save them, or did I kill her by _unwrapping the blanket_ and removing the pressure?

He let out a long agonizing breath. Tears flowed down his face, into his mouth, he gasped for air. Their bodies still held each other tightly. Cynthia's blonde banker's hair against Steve's dark hair matted about his head. He brushed a fly away from Cynthia's face.

Cynthia had always quoted one Proverb. Above all your possessions, value understanding. But what am I supposed to _understand from this,_ God?

Cynthia's humor had helped him understand that everything had a cause, and that every cause was a value. But _values,_ she'd told him, were completely personal. Other than God, Cynthia had been Franklin's highest value and a major reason for living. Now that link was gone.

Franklin's arms knotted. Unbearable agony coursed through his body. He didn't want to think about anything anymore. His gamble had saved a bunch of strangers, but had cost him his sister. There was nothing he could do. No magic formula, no prayer, no take-backs.

I-I have to get them out of here, he thought. He would lower them to the ground, then himself. _Chuck can pick us up._ He looked over the building's edge -- and frowned. The street was flooding.

From the helicopter, Everon saw dark water rushing down Lexington, flooding the side streets around Cynthia's building.

"Aren't there big water tunnels under the City?" Chuck asked Mr. van Patter.

"It's gravity-fed," he said. "It comes down from the Catskills. If the tunnels have cracked, there'll be no stopping it."

"We'll have to leave him!" Kone cried hysterically.

WHOOM! the fireball imploded, rocking the floor beneath Franklin's feet, and the fireball went out.

Franklin squatted there, shocked by the sudden loss of heat and noise, wiping his eyes. What was Everon was going to think. He looked up at the helicopter. There was only one thing he could do for Cynthia and Steve. He tugged the edge of the Aztec blanket back into place, cut a length of rope, and began winding it around their bodies.

The black wall of rain was nearly on them. Everon brought the helicopter over.

Franklin hooked the bundle to the cable and signaled Chuck. The cocoon rose skyward. Franklin looked to see if there was any sign of Melissa, but there was no bassinet, nothing.

Face To Face

Franklin watched Chuck swing their bodies through the cargo door. The storm was closing fast. Gusts rocked the helicopter. As he waited for Chuck to lower the cable back down, he saw a brown football-like mass shaking at the base of the file cabinet. What's that? he wondered.

It turned its head. Huge yellow eyes peered up. The exotic brown and white pattern of its feathers fluttered as it shivered against the wind.

It's a bird, he realized. An owl? He reached out and touched it. _It doesn't_ seem afraid or aggressive. He scooped a hand beneath it, and then he heard something -- a crying sound.

Pivoting his ears back and forth, his eyes locked on the flapping pink material caught in the cabinet's second drawer from the bottom. He tried to pull the drawer open, to force it open. None of the drawers would budge. The oval lock was out in the unlocked position. He lowered his head. Melissa's in here? She's alive! The side of the cabinet was warm. The fireball kept her alive all night!

He shoved his hook knife into the crack along the drawer's side, hoping to bend it out far enough to see. The black edge widened to an eighth of an inch. Snap! The blade broke. He looked for some way to get the drawer open. Dammit! A screwdriver, a pry bar -- there's a whole tool kit in the helicopter! Before he knew what was happening, the building's floor shifted -- his thigh and calf muscles reacting before he knew what was happening. The whole building wobbled like his life, cracking beneath his feet. His first thought was, _Grab the cabinet handles!_ But the floor steadied at a slight angle. A rumble came from below. Damn, this thing could go any second! The dark rain was two blocks away.

As the cable came down, Franklin unbuttoned his shirt and stuffed the owl inside. He used what was left of his hook knife to cut a piece of rope. He looped the rope through the drawer handles and tied the ends. The wind blasted. The hoist hook whacked him on the shoulder.

Franklin clipped it to the rope and pulled on the handles to test them. They would hold. But as he stretched his harness loop to the cable hook, the floor shook violently. The only thing he could do was throw both hands around the cabinet -- as the floor fell away, and the building collapsed below.

His arms were being pulled from their sockets. His body was stretched over the front of the cabinet, the lift cable digging into one hand. He felt a pain beneath his shirt. The owl had latched its talons onto his stomach. He moved his knees against the cabinet to keep pressure off the bird. The pain in his midsection eased off. Overhead, blades whipped his hair. The hoist reeled him skyward.

The handles would have been strong enough to support the cabinet, but now they had to carry him too. He tried to hold onto the cable and carry his own weight. The cable was slick and the bird made it impossible. But he was rising.

Fifteen feet from the cargo door, unable to see what was happening, he felt something sag. With a BANG! the bottom handle ripped out. It felt like the cabinet was going to keep falling, but the next handle held -- and immediately began to bend.

"Oww!" Franklin yelled as the bird dug into his flesh, this time his ribs. The little owl was getting rambunctious in there, rummaging around beneath his shirt. He tried to suck in his stomach, but it was all he could do to just hang on.

From the helicopter door, Chuck saw what was happening, but the hoist had one speed -- slow. He willed it to go faster. Chuck shouted to Everon, "You'd better find a safe place to get this thing on the ground before that cabinet falls off. It's only connected by its handles and they're tearing out!"

"I can't," Everon said, "not the way that thing's swinging! The wind's creating turbulence around these buildings. The rain's already to the fountain, we can't go there. There's no other place the blades can fit. Isn't he almost in?"

As the top of the cabinet reached the helicopter's floor, Clarence tried to swing it in, and slipped. He was halfway out the door when the engineer snagged his shirt and yanked him back.

Petre on the door's other side, reached for Franklin's harness. Franklin tried to swing a foot around to step inside. Plunk! One side of the handle on the drawer Melissa was in chose that moment to rip out. The rope slipped around it. With a scraping jar, the cabinet slid down another foot and a half. Now two handles carried the load.

If I could just get my weight off it! Franklin thought, but he couldn't hold onto the cable with one hand.

Clarence, Petre, Kat, Chuck, and the engineer tried to grab the cabinet's smooth sides. Franklin could feel the next handle bending, the rope slipping beneath his chest. Every time he pulled himself against the cabinet the owl dug deeper into his stomach. He ignored the talons and hung off the cable hook using only his biceps.

The hoist wound more cable. It was high enough! Everyone moved fast. The third handle snapped just as they pulled the cabinet through the door -- BANG! It fell onto the cargo door's edge, teetering, twisting, as five pairs of hands wrestled it in.

"He's in!" Chuck yelled to everyone's cheers -- all but Kone who demanded, "What in hell did you bring that thing up for?"

Everon stabilized the helicopter, and climbed away from the black mist. They were short on fuel. He tapped the oil gauge. The leak wasn't getting any better.

Victoria leaned her head against the cabinet. "I hear crying!"

_"What?"_ Kone yelled.

_"Inside!"_

"From the second drawer!" Clarence said, "She's right!"

"Da!" Kat said, her head next to Victoria's.

Franklin was already tossing tools on the floor -- a hammer, screwdrivers, wrenches. Near the bottom he found a pry bar.

He put an ear against the cabinet's side. To his relief, he could still hear Melissa crying. He crammed the pry bar along the drawer and pushed. The drawer bent, creating a small gap. He pulled on the drawer. It still wouldn't open. He put an eye to the opening. " _I c_ an't see!"

He wedged the pry bar along the drawer's top. The metal strip above it bent in, and with a sudden CLANGGG, the drawer popped open. Chuck, Walter van Patter, Victoria, Clarence, Petre, Kat, the engineer, and even Kone, jockeyed to see, as Franklin screeched out the damaged drawer. Between two buttons on Franklin's shirt, a fluffy brown and white head poked out to join the curious.

And there she was, wrapped in a pink blanket, nestled between hanging file folders, face-to-face with the bird, crying with all the gusto she could manage -- Franklin and Everon's baby niece, Melissa.

Dead Man Crawling

The storm is _moving away,_ Ahmad thought. His cabin was steadier. His stomach was worse. Ahmad rolled his face over the edge of the bunk and vomited into the rusty bucket, then sucked down ragged gasps of air. More red than green this time, he thought. Blood. His stomach, chest, and shoulders were broken out in pustules. He put a hand to his forehead. He was on fire. _I will never do it again! S_ o many brothers and sisters dead! No amount of money is worth this guilt. _I have made a terrible mistake, and Allah has made this vile sickness my price._

Ahmad closed his eyes and lay his blistering neck upon the bunk. _It was m_ y guilt that _caused that foolish criticality accident -- allowing the _halves of the core close to one another while modifying the device -- radiation filling the lab, pouring through the walls. _Anyone within twenty feet would be as I am now._

But Ahmad had been the only one. Except the bird. Ahmad's friend Taliq had taken it. The engineering lab shared a wall with the Evil One's cabin. The bird had been in there. Too bad the Evil One was not, Ahmad thought viciously. Does the infidel even know his bird is gone? Ahmad wasn't going to tell him.

Ahmad's stomach rumbled. He had to remove himself from this ship. If he did not receive medical attention soon he would not last another day. Eighty miles to the coast? Certainly less than a hundred. Allah will guide me. Ahmad would find someone and tell them what was coming.

He slid from the bunk, forcing himself unsteadily to his feet. He struggled into a jacket and put two candy bars and a bottle of water in one pocket. In the other he put the nuclear control cards.

Ahmad staggered to the cabin door slipping on the vile green slop. The doorknob collided painfully with his head, but his hands grasped the knob and he stayed on his feet. At the stairs, he had to crawl, pulling himself up the railing until he reached the main deck.

Four white boats were hanging from their davits. He looked over the side. The surging sea made him want to vomit again. The ship, Norse Wind, was making more than fifteen knots against a five-knot headwind. Even with help it would be dangerous to launch, he thought. He was alone. He had no choice.

Two days ago Ahmad had watched the transmitter techs leave. The outdated lifeboats had no upper shells, only white tarps that looked old enough to have come from the Titanic. When Ahmad had doubted the boats' condition, Taliq had enthusiastically explained, "Nothing to worry about, my friend, the process is automatic. One sets the timer like this, then pushes this button --"

_The swells are slow and eight feet high,_ Ahmad thought dully, a phlegmy snort erupting from his nose. _It_ will be to my advantage, if I live through launch. He removed the rear of the tarp from its hooks. He set the timer, then pressed the button, and crawled into the boat.

The boat descended and slapped the ocean. Ahmad jolted forward, but the tarp caught his knees and kept him from launching into the air. He hurriedly removed the aft winch cable and began pulling himself across the tarp before the next trough would yank him airborne, but the bow cable released itself.

Ahmad watched the huge ship roll away -- then loom back, inches from crushing his vessel. The gap widened. He would leave the tarp's front attached. Better to keep water out, he thought. He hurried the key into the ignition, and was surprised when the motor caught immediately. He turned the wheel west.

A WHOOOSH came from above his head. A long object flew from a round door in the ship's bow, slipped beneath the water, and disappeared.

_"The second_ fish!" Ahmad cried. "Oh, Allah -- no!"

The Bird

Through the Chevy's windshield, Sal Torentino watched his wife navigate the craziness outside Denny's. Neither of their cellphones had a signal, but there was power here. Rita had joined a long line at one of two extremely hard-to-find pay phones. The manager of Denny's was turning people away. Denny's was out of food. So were the Torentinos. The sodas, beer, and sandwiches Rita had brought were long gone. Sal had found some candy bars in a vending machine six hours ago.

Like most of their neighbors, Sal's family had evacuated Westchester at the first siren. Though Sal was Italian, he _never_ yelled at his wife or kids -- until today -- hurrying them to the car while the Emergency Alert Station told him what to do. He'd peeled rubber backing out of the driveway and halfway down the street, alarming Rita. At the highway the Torentinos went nowhere fast, jammed among an endless highway of cars at five and ten miles an hour.

When Sal couldn't drive anymore, Rita had taken over. What should have taken two hours had taken an exhausting twelve.

Now the sun came out, and Sal felt a tremendous sense of relief. Thankfully the kids were curled up against each other in the back seat, their heads touching. He smiled.

On the other side of the freeway, Sal saw people driving the wrong way -- moving a lot faster than he had. No traffic was going toward New York City. Up ahead, somebody laid on a horn.

"Whoa!" Sal said, as two cars halfway up the on ramp smashed into each other. Their screaming reached Sal, and, unfortunately, his kids' ears. "You _asshole!"_

_"It's your fault, shithead!"_

A new voice joined in, _"Clear the goddamned road you sonsabitches!"_

The drivers looked, then turned back to each other. The door of a black Mercedes flew open. The driver ran forward. The name-calling quickly became a three-way fistfight -- until the small man dove sideways, leaving the Mercedes driver and the big man wrestling down the snowy exit ramp.

"Look, Daddy!" Sal's kids screamed with excitement.

Dammit! Now the kids are awake? Sal's left arm flinched as a shiny red horse walked right past his window. It was wearing a very small but expensive-looking saddle and blinders. Sal was no expert but it looked like a racehorse. The black tail swished by. The huge man riding it was certainly no jockey. He urged his animal past the brawlers, up onto the freeway.

"Where we going, Daddy?" Sal's five-year old boy asked.

"Shhhhh," Sal answered. "Go back to sleep."

But the kids didn't want to go back to sleep. "Daaaa-ddy, where are we _going?"_ Sal's six-year-old daughter cooed.

Sal wasn't sure what to say, and he didn't want to scare them. Rita was almost at the front of the line.

"Where are we going, Daddy?" his daughter asked again.

"Where we going? Where we going?" his son joined in.

They aren't going to stop, are they? Sal thought, grinding his teeth. I've got to tell them something, just to quiet them down. "We're going for a little drive." The words were barely out of Sal's mouth before he realized what he'd done.

"We're going for a little drive, going for a little drive, going for a little drive . . ." For the next ten minutes the kids chanted like idiot monks. Soon they were clapping,"Going for a little drive," CLAP!, "going for a little drive!" CLAP!

"Shut -- up back there!" Sal exploded. He rarely lost his temper, _never_ with the kids, but they shut up -- until Sal's daughter suddenly said, _"Feathee!"_ and held up a long brown and white feather.

"Where did that come from -- !" Sal wondered.

_"Gimme!"_ Sal's son yelled.

_"Mine!"_ his daughter pouted, whisking the feather out of his reach. She slipped it carefully back into the yellow toolbox where she'd crammed her dolls. Sal had forgotten about the toolbox. It sat on the floor behind the seat on his daughter's side. She was resting her feet on the lid, making the long ride more comfortable. The feather must have been inside, Sal thought.

He pictured the boat pulling up at the restaurant's dock beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, the Middle-Eastern man opening the toolbox and releasing the bird -- an owl, Sal was pretty sure. The man had left the toolbox under his table when he finished lunch. Sal had brought it home last night.

Rita came back frazzled. "Saly! I couldn't get through to Momma! Oh, I'm so worried!" She frowned at the kids. "Are the kids okay? What's going on?"

Sal swallowed. "Not much. They're fine. I'm sure your mother's fine. We can try again in a little while."

"She's probably worried sick."

Rita turned. "Want to go see Momma Conti, kids?"

They perked right up. "Momma Conti!" _CLAP! "_ Momma Conti!" _CLAP!_

Rita frowned a worry line down her pretty forehead. "I'm sure she'd be happy to have us, Saly! She'd be thrilled to see the kids --"

Sal sighed. "Okay, Rita, Daniella's it is."

The freeway entrance was still blocked, so Sal carefully rolled the Chevy over the rounded left berm, easing up the angled concrete ramp. There was just enough space to squeeze past the Mercedes guy, bumping the other fighter lightly into the bushes.

_"Sal!"_

"I only nudged him --" Sal's big shoulders sagged. He let out a long breath and slid into traffic again.

Return To Jersey

Cradled in Franklin's arms, Melissa wiggled uncomfortably. She would cry for a moment, then, in another, she would smile up at him until it broke his heart. Her fine blonde hair was just like Cynthia's. She seemed to feel she was safe, but Franklin knew she couldn't be the most comfortable baby in the world. How long had she been wearing that outfit? More than sixteen hours, he guessed. He could smell something going on down there, but there wasn't much he could do about it right now. And she hadn't been fed in, what, more than twelve hours? But since he'd gotten her out of the cabinet, the only time she cried uncontrollably was when he tried to have someone else hold her -- he'd need only a minute to get the bird out of his shirt. He felt another scamper of claws against his skin. After investigating Melissa, the bird had ducked back inside and wouldn't come out.

As they flew over the Hudson River cliffs Everon breathed easier. At least I won't have to make a water landing. He could set them down in any open field if he had to, or a parking lot. The Pelican's noise level was increasing, and the left turbine's tach was rising into the red. _Looks like we have a runaway engine,_ he thought. If there isn't smoke trailing us, there will be soon.

He didn't want to shut it down, but it was too big a risk. He pushed the left turbine lever back to MANUAL, hoping to regain control. There was no effect. He took a deep breath. _There's no_ choice, _I can't wait until it self-destructs._ He hesitated, calculating quickly -- thirteen passengers, but we've burned off a lot of fuel. We're nowhere near overloaded and we still have one good engine. He slid the left turbine control to OFF and cut its boost pump.

Immediately the Pelican began to sink. He compensated by increasing pressure on the collective, pushing the right turbine harder, forcing the Pelican to hold altitude.

Ahead, he spotted the eight-story red brick Med Center. He'd seen its rooftop heliport marked on a map. Less than three miles, he figured.

He changed radio frequencies. "Helicopter Pelican Two-Two-Bravo-India, emergency approach for Hackensack Medical Center Heliport." He waited. There was no answer. "Med Center Heliport, do you read?" As the building moved closer he saw there was a helicopter sitting on the roof. Its blades weren't turning!

A voice came back. "Uh -- Bravo-India, we read. We're closed except for high-risk-patient transfers from Teterboro. Please delay several minutes." Everon couldn't delay even one minute. He veered for the airport.

Most of the space around the runways had been taken by tents. _There must be_ an awful lot of casualties coming in, Everon thought. Then he realized he'd been unconsciously raising his left arm and the Pelican's collective with it. "We're losing power?" He glanced at the altimeter. "Only a thousand feet!" They were low and dropping. He glanced at the engine instruments. The right turbine's fuel filter light was on. _Shit! We're going_ down!

He scanned the area. All I need is one little spot! An oblong corner of the airport was open. Three helicopters were parked there. Can we glide that far? And then he heard that harsh, asshole voice -- "Where are you planning to land? I hope you're taking us directly to the hospital!" Kone yelled.

"We're losing altitude, dammit!" Everon snarled. "This thing'd fly a whole lot better with less weight. Care to step outside, Mr. Kone?"

_"You're not helping!"_ Franklin whispered to the little bureaucrat. _"Please, be quiet!"_

Perspiration beaded on Everon's forehead. "Hold on!" he yelled and lowered the collective to the floor. The bottom dropped out, and the Pelican fell -- _fast._ No one said a word.

Falling Down

Houses and more houses rose toward them -- but on the left was -- a baseball diamond! Could I make that? Everon wondered. No, it's too far. They were falling very fast. Everon glanced right. What about that parking lot? No -- p _ower lines on the near side._ Everon fought himself not to white-knuckle the controls. "It's going to be very close," he muttered.

Franklin held tight to Melissa and watched his brother's face. He couldn't recall ever having seen Everon like this, such pure focus with none of his sarcastic humor. Franklin's fingers slid around the triangle base of the cross beneath his shirt and brushed against the feathers of the owl's head.

Then he saw it clearly. It had been a foolhardy altruistic thing to save those people on the bridge. He and Everon had put their own lives at risk out of grief. Thinking we'd failed Cynthia. How could I let strangers become more important than my own sister?

Now that they knew Cynthia was gone, Franklin felt a blind hatred like nothing he'd ever felt before. For who, he didn't know, but he wished he could strike back somehow at the person that had done this.

Clarence's hands clenched the seat beneath him. He watched the ground coming toward them at an alarming rate -- trees, buildings -- Fuck! I knew I should've worn my green shirt last night! Life always better in the green shirt! _It just so hard to sell newspapers when you're smelly._

A power line appeared ahead of Everon, but they were committed. It would be a messy death for everyone if he snagged it. He pushed the yoke forward and they fell faster.

For the first time since the bomb went off, the engineer checked his wristwatch. _Strange,_ he hadn't noticed, _it's frozen at 8:00._ Does that mean anything? Double zero had always been unlucky for him. Always.

Bubbles of perspiration formed on Kone's upper lip. He rushed to make sure he was balanced. His right hand tapped nervously on his left shoulder. His left hand tapped more softly on his right. Too hard! he thought. _I m_ ust be balanced!

Kat was falling from the sky. Even the security of Petre's arm around her didn't change how she knew this day would end. _Those crows in Queens landing on a street pole yesterday, beaks cawing right at me, a_ most evil sign! She hadn't understood -- until now! The bomb, the subway, and finally to die smashed into the dirt!

Everon wondered _, Are we going to make it?_ With no engine, they were almost free-falling, only the small amount of lift from the blades' auto-rotation. _This is it!_

He jerked back hard on the yoke, pulled his head into his shoulders, preparing for the strike. The ground flying at them, his left hand nearly _ripped_ the collective from the floor.

They slammed in hard -- and bounced off the Pelican's balloon tires -- six, ten feet in the air. Then fell, hit again, and settled -- to stillness. Everon's breath shot from his lips, _"FFFFffff . . ."_ like air from the tires. He looked around. "All right back there?"

_"We're okay!"_ Franklin yelled.

"Well I'm not --" Kone began.

The others drowned him out, clapping, cheering. They were on the airport runway, a hundred feet from the nearest tent.

The Press

People in hospital greens were running toward them, some carrying stretchers or pushing wheelchairs. They helped Mr. van Patter into one, Victoria into another.

"Which one of you's a doctor?" Kone whined indignantly. "I'm ready to fall over, after what I've been through!"

The wind was calm in New Jersey, Franklin noticed, just as it had been at the fountain before it changed directions. The black cigar-shaped cloud jutted out. Is it crossing the river already? How much time does that leave us to get out of here?

Several people ran over with video cameras. Photographers and reporters, he guessed. As Franklin stepped to the door with Melissa, the owl poked its head out of his shirt, and a photographer snapped a picture. The flash scared the bird back inside. "You have an owl in there!" he said.

"I found him on top of an apartment building," Franklin muttered.

"We should call him Harry," Victoria said. "In honor of our escape." She pointed to Melissa. "Harry helped find this little girl."

Flashes flashed and video cameras recorded. Vandersommen, the airport security guard who'd nearly stopped them from going into the City, stepped from the crowd. Before he could say anything, Everon held up a hand. "Emergency landing. Lost both engines. No choice."

"You had no authorization to take off in the first place!" Vandersommen wrote the Pelican's tail number in a small book.

An Army major and two of his men ran over. "We're commandeering this helicopter!"

"Take it!" Everon barked, jumping down and pulling a medic's wheeled gurney to the cargo door. He and Chuck wrestled the Aztec cocoon onto it.

A reporter shouted, "Victoria!" He brought a microphone close to her and Clarence nudged a woman in green scrubs out from behind Victoria's wheelchair.

"We better hustle," Everon told Franklin. He head-pointed. "Look!" The front of the dark cloud was definitely across the Hudson. "By the time that gets here, we better be gone! Meet you at the jet, Bro!" Before anyone could thank them, Everon and Chuck pushed through the crowd with the Aztec cocoon.

"You were rescued by these men, Ms. Hill?" a reporter asked Victoria.

"They pulled us out of a collapsed subway. They're amazing."

"And these EMS personnel are from where?" another reporter asked.

"They're brothers," Clarence cut in. "The pilot's Everon Student from Las Vegas." He pointed at Franklin. "and he's a Congregational minister."

"A what?" Victoria looked at Franklin, as surprised as the reporter.

"The big guy told me," Clarence pointed at Chuck's back. "The dark-haired one is Reverend Franklin Reveal. They saved us, and about three hundred thousand other people."

"Three hundred thousand -- ?" the reporter said.

But Franklin followed the others through the crowd with Melissa.

"Expect a lot more survivors in the next hour!" the engineer said. "They set thousands free when they opened the top level of the George Washington Bridge."

Communications must be bad, Franklin realized. Passing a tent, he saw people crammed together on cots. Doctors and nurses were overloaded, deciding who might live, and who could not be helped. Franklin pictured the mob about to arrive. They don't know all those people are coming. He passed soldiers adding to a row of green and white toilets. A woman in line said to the woman behind her, "I just hate these porta-things, don't you?"

Around the tents people were crying out, searching for those they'd lost. It was like the reality in which they'd lived had been torn away, and the world was upside down, where nothing made sense anymore. _"Yea, brother!"_ shouted a man in tattered clothes and cutoff gloves, his voice rising like an old-time revivalist. "The end of days has come!"

An elderly bleached-blonde stepped in Franklin's way. She had a camel-shaped stain across the bottom of her long skirt. She held her right hand just above her head and asked, "Have you seen my husband? He has white-hair. He's about this tall. They said they would bring him here on the next helicopter . . ." her thick Brooklyn accent trailed off.

"No, I'm sorry," Franklin answered.

She wandered away, then screamed suddenly, "WHO HAS DONE THIS TO US!" No one told her to be quiet. It was the question on everybody's mind. There was no list you could check to see if someone you cared about had been found. There were so many here like her, people who seemed not to know where they were or what they were doing, only that something important had been taken from them. "Oh, please God . . ." a voice trailed away nearby. Mania was taking over, a total loss of reason.

"What was it like over there?" a female reporter asked, pushing a microphone into Franklin's face. He stepped around her.

Franklin didn't want to talk about what he'd seen. He didn't hate Vandersommen or this reporter -- he hated only a person he would never find, the one that had caused such incredible pain by setting off the bomb.

Who Did It?

A hundred thousand bridge survivors were halfway to Teterboro when the first drops of black goo fell from the sky. Fifty-one people squeezed onto the raised concrete oval which housed the gas pumps at a Quick-N-Go. Barely protected by the roof over the pumps stood the woman who'd hit Franklin with her keys.

Bonnie Fisk struggled to keep the weight off her bloody right leg as she resisted being pushed off the platform into a growing black puddle. Bonnie's torn pants made her vulnerable. Each cold drop of rain splashed a little bit of fire onto her skin. She quickly wiped it off.

The wind picked up. Goo-splattered skin turned red. Blisters formed. People screamed and packed in tighter. The cloud moved west.

The Pelican's survivors hurried past the medical tents to yellow school buses that were filling with people. They shook Franklin's hand, gave him a pat on the back, a quick "Thank you."

"The pilot leave so fast," Petre said in Russian, "Thank him for us, Da?"

Franklin nodded.

"Do svidaniya. Spaciba." -- _Goodbye. Thank you,_ Kat said.

Kone continued into the lot without a word. He returned in the back of a town car bearing government plates and offered Walter van Patter a lift.

"No thank you, Mr. Kone," van Patter said, as he, Clarence, the engineer, and the Russians got on a bus.

Kone's jaw bulged. He told the driver to move on.

An old white sedan with five people inside pulled up sharply. A young guy in a heavy coat jumped out, and Victoria sighed with relief. As her friend began to push her chair to the door, she reached up, pulled Franklin down, and kissed his cheek. "You did a wonderful thing. Thank your brother for me, will you?" She studied his face, "You're really a minister?"

"First Congregational Church of Erie, Pennsylvania," Franklin replied, feeling warm around the neck.

"You and Everon --" she said. "Your hair's so dark. He's so blond. You don't _look_ like brothers."

"We each share a parent with our sister." A lump formed in his throat. He glanced down at Melissa in his arms. His niece's accusing eyes stared up at him. "We're her uncles," he rasped.

The guy from the car helped Victoria into the back. As they drove away she looked through the rear window.

Harry, as Victoria had named him, was shaking under Franklin's shirt. I have to do something about _this owl,_ he thought.

Somebody had left a Campbell's Chicken Soup box on the ground. Inside was a stack of USA TODAYs. The headline said:

WHO DID IT?

The page was filled by a computer graphic. A red circle, centered around Manhattan's south end, was labeled _Ground Zero: South Street Seaport_.

Franklin pictured the nuclear fireball, bright red and gold, expanding lethally in all its evil glory. Like so many people, he desperately wanted an answer to the headline's question. _Who killed Cynthia?_ He suspected his response to the answer wouldn't be very Godly. But Everon was right _ -- they'll never figure it out. _Franklin could push away his rage, but he would never stop wanting to know the truth.

Balancing Melissa on a hip, he set half the newspapers on the ground and tugged out his shirt. Harry's speckled chest and cape were shaking. The owl's talons clung to the top of Franklin's pants. Harry didn't want to leave.

Franklin pulled in his abs, gently wiggled a finger beneath the talons, and coaxed the owl into letting go. He lowered Harry out of his shirt and set him in the box.

Harry's big yellow eyes watched critically as Franklin picked up his box. But as they hustled for the jet, Harry began a soft contented, "Hup-hup-hup."

The Feather

There's another one! Sal thought -- _and_ there's one! They were seeing more and more cars stranded along the highway. "I think they're running out of gas!" he said softly.

"How are we, Saly?" Rita asked. "Will we make it to Momma's?"

Sal glanced at the gauge. "Eighth of a tank -- I don't know." At least they were up to forty miles an hour. Another hour should do it, he hoped.

Rita found a radio station.

"Evacuees who try to return before their communities are officially open are being blocked by military personnel and ordered to turn around."

"What's an evacee, Daddy?" their son asked.

"Shhh," Rita said. "Listen!"

"Some of the drivers being denied access have refused to move. The Army is arresting these people and using large transport trucks to shove their vehicles off the road. In one instance soldiers were forced to shoot a man carrying a handgun --"

Sal turned it off. "Those poor bastards," he said without even a glare from Rita. "We're lucky we got out when we did."

"When are they going to figure out who set off the bomb, Saly?" Rita asked, echoing the very thing he'd been thinking. She had a way of doing that.

"I don't know."

As they came off the freeway, the engine quit, but restarted. The gas gauge was on E. Sal drove through a red light. When they turned onto Daniella's street the engine stopped completely. Sal coasted into his mother-in-law's driveway.

Their arrival was no surprise. Opening the front door, Daniella said, "Oh, my children!" It was the first time Sal had heard such desperation in her voice, almost as if she included him. _"Darling!"_ she gushed, hugging her daughter. "And you drove all that way in that car!" she glanced at Sal. "I'm so relieved to see you. The news said there were no airlines and no trains east of Buffalo. And my two little pumpkins!" She knelt down and hugged the kids. "I'm so glad we're all together."

"Hello, Daniella," Sal said.

"Hello, Sal." She turned back to Rita.

"There was no way to call you!" Rita said. "When the sirens started and the power went off, we hadn't planned on this! _We didn't bring enough to eat!"_

"Don't worry," Daniella said to her daughter. Eyeing Sal snidely, she turned to the kids, "Momma Conti has no electricity at the moment, but I've been keeping the fridge closed and our food is still cold. There's plenty for everybody."

Rita kissed her mother's cheek. "Thank you, Momma." She turned to the kids. "Time for you two to have a quick bite and go to bed."

The moment the kids were in bed, the power came on. For how long, Sal couldn't guess.

_"They're broadcasting from New York!"_ Daniella called out. She was in the Den. The first thing Sal saw on the television was a man with an owl's head sticking out of his shirt.

"That bird!" Sal said.

He ran from the room like a nutcase -- _Who_ cares! Daniella _already thinks I am one_ -- to the room the kids were using. Quietly, from beneath his daughter's bed, he slid out the yellow toolbox and flipped the lid. There it is! Its narrow brown stripes streaked down the feather's length.

Rita and Daniella stared at him as he ran back in and held the feather to the television.

"It's a match!" Sal said. He could still picture the Middle-Eastern man releasing that owl beneath the Brooklyn Bridge.

The television image was suddenly replaced by snow, and it's sound by static.

Hunt's Desperation

The largest helicopter Franklin had ever seen roared in overhead. The amount of air it moved was like a windstorm. Beneath it on four cables was a semi-truck trailer like the ones blocking the GW Bridge. Both trailer and helicopter bore red WILLIAMS POWER logos.

Franklin hurried to catch up with Everon and Chuck. He found Everon frowning as the helicopter landed at the end of the hospital tents. Soldiers ran over and opened doors on the trailer's front and rear. They pulled out heavy wires and ran them to light trees between the tents. A motor cranked up. More lights came on.

_An e_ mergency generator, Franklin realized. But when the huge helicopter banked away, the air it moved didn't calm. The wind was picking up again.

_"Everon!"_ called out a tall salt-and-pepper-haired man in a dark suit, in front of their jet.

"Hunt?" Everon said. What are you doing here?"

"The Army said I could fly up if I brought them a generator. I came here to see you."

"Me?" Everon and Chuck rolled the stretcher against the Learjet's door.

Hunt threw a questioning glance at the charred cocoon as they pushed it into the passenger area.

"My sister and her husband," Everon said. "We found them on the Upper East Side."

"Oh. I'm very sorry," Hunt said.

Franklin watched Everon unfold a large rubber bag along the bulging Aztec blanket and push its edge underneath. From somewhere, Everon had obtained a body bag. Everon's jaw clamped together as he tugged it's zipper beneath the charred blanket. Chuck moved in to help lift one side of the cocoon, but Everon gently pushed the big man's arm away, as if to say, "I have this."

Chuck stood to one side, watching silently.

Franklin couldn't watch. He turned away and scooted Harry's soup box beneath the jet's table.

Andréa was flipping rapidly through a stack of aeronautical maps. She saw Harry slanting his head at her and blinked. _"What --?"_

Franklin took the seat next to her. Melissa let out a wail.

_"Oh!"_ Andrea said, "Who's this?"

Franklin explained how they'd found Melissa in the City.

"How long has she been in that outfit?" Andréa asked.

"Eighteen hours, maybe."

Andréa put away her maps. Together they peeled off his niece's soiled nightsuit. Andréa wiped Melissa down with some paper towels and wrapped a strip of blue airline blanket between Melissa's legs, then doubled over the rest and wrapped her up in it, cleverly finishing the job with several strips of medical tape.

Who's going to take care of Melissa now? Franklin wondered. Grandma Del, maybe?

Andréa pulled some milk out of the fridge.

"Don't give her that!" Chuck said. "She'll be barfing all over the place!" He opened his big green case and fished out a disposable bottle and a can of baby formula. "Here."

A minute in the microwave and Melissa was greedily sucking it down. Franklin tossed a handful of peanuts from the galley into Harry's soup box.

With Melissa slurping away, and Harry answering with a soft "hup-hup-hup," Franklin let his eyes close. We should get out of here now, he thought. That cloud is coming.

"Andréa says you have time in a Gulfstream?" he heard Hunt ask.

"Mmm-hmm," Everon grunted, like he was trying to force the body bag past something. Probably that damn piece of metal, Franklin thought.

He heard Hunt say, "Nobody could have predicted there'd be so much damage out in New Jersey and Pennsylvania --"

_"What?_ Everon grunted, struggling. _How far?"_ His voice became more ragged, "I remember you buying this blanket for them, Bro. A wedding present, wasn't it?"

Franklin couldn't answer, but he remembered the first time he'd seen the bright colors, hanging on that fence along the road in Baja, waving in the Pacific breeze.

"And now look at it," Everon cried, "ruined."

When Everon had been silent for half a minute, Hunt said, "We don't know exactly how far the damage runs, but at least halfway across the state."

"Did Ted and Stu stick around for the rest of the New York convention?" Everon asked.

"Yes," Hunt said bitterly.

Everon said nothing.

"Now the President has ordered all the nuclear plants shut down," Hunt said.

"Why would he do something so stupid?" Everon asked.

"He's worried about another bomb hitting a reactor."

"This was a sea attack, wasn't it?"

"Looks that way."

"What an idiot."

"I know," Hunt said. "Down where I am, gas stations can't pump gas. Hospitals and prisons are on emergency generators."

"Speaking of hospitals," Chuck said softly. "I better get back."

Franklin heard Everon zipping up the bag. Franklin felt the plane vibrate and heard the wind gust. Something darkened the sun. "That cloud came from the bomb, Hunt," he heard Everon say. "It's almost here." Then, "Chuck, I don't know how we can ever thank you."

Why would someone do this? Franklin wondered. Killing so many with the push of a button. He kept seeing his sister's smile. _Climbing and a love of history were Cynthia's links with me,_ he thought. _Everon must be feeling the loss of Cynthia's humor, popping up at the oddest times. She was the greatest sister that ever lived._

"No problem." Chuck's voice.

Murdering strangers, people the killer _had never known_ , Franklin thought. How could someone think that way? _Chuck's right._ Whoever did this, there's no form of death bad _enough._ Part of Franklin wanted to see the person behind the bomb turning alive on a fire spit, watching their own skin bubble as chunks of flesh burned off their bones, their marrow exploding with that last bit of consciousness.

Franklin opened his eyes, realizing suddenly that Chuck had gone. He jumped from the jet and dodged through the crowd. What is wrong with me? Why the hell am I thinking things like that? I didn't even thank him!

He caught up. "Chuck, wait! Chuck!"

Chuck turned, startled.

"Thanks a lot, my friend," Franklin said, giving the big man a one-armed hug.

"No problem," Chuck said bashfully. "In other circumstances, I might have I enjoyed it. I was glad to do something useful."

The big man walked away.

Franklin turned back. There were so many refugees, he was unable to avoid bumping their shoulders. How is the military going to get all these people out of here before the cloud comes?

At the jet, Hunt was unfolding a large white map. "Take a quick look at our power grid. Everon?"

Everon was looking at the sky. With a scowl, he turned and climbed back in. "We have to get out of here, Hunt. Right now."

"I understand, what I'm trying to say is --"

Franklin turned to Andréa. "Could you watch Melissa for me?" He glanced at the owl. "And keep an eye on Harry? Just for a couple minutes? I have to find some people to fill this plane."

"No problem."

"Six people max!" Everon called after him. "And make it fast, Bro! Two minutes!"

A Dangerous Sample

Franklin hurried along the hospital tents, calling out, "Anyone want an airplane ride to Nevada?" It took less than a minute to find half a dozen people that wanted to go.

He was turning back when his eyes focused on the old Pelican. The files in Cynthia's cabinet -- t _he last bits of her life._ I have to bring them with us!

At the cargo door, Franklin placed a palm over one of the crazy flowers on the cabinet's side. He wished he could take the whole damn thing. It was too big.

Only the second drawer from the bottom was unlocked. He gathered Cynthia's papers.

Behind Franklin grew the sound of whirling blades. Three black helicopters with military markings landed right beside the Pelican. Even before their blades stopped, the pilots were on the ground. There were no passengers. No one had been rescued. _They're r_ unning away?

Chuck's radiation counter was under the Pelican's seat. With Cynthia papers under an arm, Franklin turned on the meter and stepped to the nearest helicopter. The needle swung intermittently. He probed a small amount of dark watery goop along the bottom of the windshield. The needle arced halfway across the dial. Radiation! They've been rained on. It's too hot in the City to risk bringing out more survivors!

Franklin's long hair lifted off his neck. Air drifted across his cheeks like a breath of death. The cloud would be here soon. He swung the probe to a clot of black goo on the helicopter's landing strut. The needle pegged the scale. _This black stuff is deadly!_

Later, Franklin would wonder what had possessed him, but on the ground was an empty water bottle. Holding it from the bottom, he scooped up a sample of the gray goo. The stuff clung to the inside of the bottle's neck. Careful not to shake it down near his fingers, he spun the cap on.

He found an old gray scarf on the ground, and as he wound it around the bottle to protect himself, a voice yelled, "Hey -- y _ou! Get away from there!"_ He'd been seen! Franklin backpedaled away from the helicopters, turned, and ran between two jets. _"Stop!"_ another voice yelled after him.

A Drop Of Rain

Gasping for breath, Franklin fell through the jet's door. "I think the military's after me!"

"The military -- why?" Andréa asked.

"I took a radioactive sample off one of their helicopters."

"Are you nuts?" she shook her head. "The both of you! _We'd better get going."_

"I found some people that want a ride -- where's Everon?" The jet was empty. Everon, Hunt, even the body bag, were gone.

"You're taking Mr. Williams' Gulfstream home," Andréa said, "and a bunch of refugees with you."

Franklin shoved Cynthia's papers into Harry's soup box. Gently pushing Harry aside, he squeezed in the radiation counter. He put the sample on the other side of Cynthia's papers, in the corner farthest from Harry.

Franklin carried Harry. Andréa carried Melissa. When Andréa got more than a couple of feet ahead, Melissa began cry and the bird howled -- it wasn't Franklin, it was the owl! They didn't like being separated.

Andréa led Franklin to a huge jet at the end of the row. He could see Everon through the cockpit window nodding and talking rapidly with a tall thin man in airline whites.

A Latina woman dove out the jet's door after her small son. A pear-shaped old woman with white hair and a bald old man followed. The young woman bent over and vomited. The little boy and his mother went to their knees. The old woman put a hand on the young woman's back and looked up at Franklin. "I'm afraid," she coughed, "you'll have to go without us. They were snowed on."

"When did it snow?"

"It's that gray stuff. They had it all over their shoes. We think the kid ate some --" She gulped as if about to let loose herself. "On the way here we got hit by that stinging black rain." Her teary eyes turned to the short bald man next to her. "Let's get Cheri and Johnny to a hospital tent, Louie."

Franklin shook his head as they staggered away. _"And behold,"_ he whispered, _"a pale green horse. And Hell and pestilence followed with him, and the names of they that sat on them was Death."_ He looked at his niece. _Will she get sick? She was in that cabinet all night._ A hint of wind slipped between the jets. Franklin looked up. The black mist was only a mile away and moving fast.

A man and woman ran over, carrying a little boy and girl, a family he'd found. "Is this the plane to Nevada?" the man asked.

"Yes it is," Franklin said. He followed them aboard.

Everon glanced at Franklin and said to the man in airline whites, "Here's my co-pilot now."

Word had gotten around. The plane was full. People squooshed over to make room for the little family of newcomers. To the stares of several passengers, Franklin set Harry's box on the floor, and hurried past leather seats filled with refugees to the rear. In the cargo area, he stepped around the fat body bag. It was strapped to the floor with some of his climbing rope. Rage welled up in him, unlike anything he'd ever felt. In a small plastic window on top were the words _Certificate Of Death._ He felt that overwhelming urge to strike back. _No!_ he thought. Not anymore! I'm a minister, for Christ's sake!

He found an empty upper cabinet and shoved the bottle inside.

Back up front, he took Melissa from Andréa and leaned into the cockpit between Everon and the man in airline whites.

"We've swapped jets," Everon said. "I've agreed to help Hunt fix --" He frowned. "Where were you?"

"I was getting Cynthia's papers. We've got to get out of here!"

"It's almost too late to leave. We probably shouldn't be in the air when that cloud gets here. If --"

"Its too dangerous to stay! Three Army helicopters just came back from Manhattan radioactive. Did you see those four people who just left us?"

"No."

"They got rained on. They were all sick."

"That's why the military wouldn't let us fly south of --"

"There's another reason we have to leave now." Franklin pointed. Thousands of people were coming down the road, homeless people to Wall Street types and everyone in between.

"We shot ourselves in the foot, Bro," Everon said, "opening that bridge." He looked to the man in airline whites.

The man grabbed his flight bag and stood. "We're all set. Mr. Williams wants a quick word."

Franklin frowned and asked, "This plane's pretty big. It only takes one pilot?"

"Shhhh!" Everon whispered, "Not usually, but standard FAA regs are suspended. All flights are subject to military approval, which means, it depends on whether we get clearance. I can handle this baby myself just fine -- as long as nothing breaks and things don't get too crazy."

Carrying Melissa, Franklin followed Everon off the plane.

Everon looked at his own right shoulder. A dime-sized drop of something dark, thick, and wet had fallen on his jacket. He moved a finger toward the stuff.

_"Don't!"_ Franklin said. The edge of the heavy black cloud was right over their heads.

Franklin leaned into the jet, pulled Chuck's meter out of Harry's box, and waved it over Everon's jacket. "It's radioactive!"

Everon threw his jacket on the ground. "Let's get out of here!"

The light dimmed. The wind gusted violently, then died. "One thing --" Hunt rushed as Everon stepped onto the big jet's stairs.

"What?"

"I spoke with Andréa. _Please, no_ barrel rolls _in the Gulfstream!"_

Colonel Marsh asked, "What search quadrant were you flying?"

"Seventy-second street on the Upper West Side, sir. It's getting pretty damned hot up there."

"Mueller's yellow!" said another pilot through clenched teeth.

"Sir," said the first pilot, "it's raining nuclear fallout over there! If we fly another mission we'll die. We absorbed more radiation on that last flight than all our other missions combined!"

"No reason we can't wear rad suits," the second pilot shot back.

"How are we supposed to fly in one of those suits, sir?"

General Anders roared up in his old staff car and jumped out. "Report, Colonel!"

Marsh detailed the increase in power to the mobile hospital facilities, then reviewed the radiation readings taken by the last three helicopters to return.

"Hmm," Anders said. "Perhaps we should relocate these facilities back some --"

"Colonel!" a third pilot ran up out of breath. "We've got unauthorized personnel snooping around our helicopters!" Before Marsh could respond, the pilot added, "With what looked like a radiation meter!"

"What are civilians doing around our helicopters?" Anders asked.

"Uh, excuse me Colonel Marsh, General." Sergeant Page had been waiting, leaning foot-to-foot like he had to use the bathroom. Anders and Marsh looked at him. "The man you're talkin' about was takin' samples of dirt off the landing gear."

_"What?"_ Anders yelled. "We can't have that! Arrest him!"

"Yes, sir. He's that guy we spoke to early this morning. He said he came on a Williams jet."

"Long dark hair? Leather jacket? Blue eyes?" Anders asked.

"That's him."

"Search every aircraft. Start on this end and work your way down."

"I saw that minister a few minutes ago, Sarge," a soldier said.

"Where?"

"He stepped into that small Learjet at the beginning of the row. The one with Williams on it. I went past a minute ago and the door was closed. I think they're leaving for the runway."

Anders turned to Marsh. "I want three men."

"Sergeant Page," Marsh commanded, "take Bell and Zimmer and follow the general's car!"

Holding Melissa on his lap, Franklin looked back through the cockpit door at the children and adults belted to the white leather seats. He looked at Harry. The owl was shaking. He looks sick, Franklin thought, _like that_ young woman, her little boy, and the two older people with them. I hope Melissa's _okay. Harry was right next to her cabinet._

He watched the jet ahead of them turn onto the runway and leave the ground. Two old green staff cars with large stars on their doors sped down the opposite taxiway.

"What're they doing?" Everon asked.

The cars crossed the runway and stopped at Hunt's small Lear. Soldiers jumped out. One banged on the jet's door.

"That's General Anders," Everon said. "And that security guard Vandersommen's with him! Whoa!" Bushes whipped around outside, then went still.

"I -- I think they might be looking for me," Franklin said.

"You?"

Black globs of goo pelted the Gulfstream's windshield. Franklin leaned forward to see the wings. They were covered with it.

"Will the jet be able to take off with that on it?" he asked. "I remember you saying how a little snow can reduce a plane's lift. That stuff looks a lot heavier than snow."

Everon pressed his lips together. "It increases the takeoff distance and we're fully loaded. But that stuff _should_ slide right off."

Franklin grabbed Chuck's meter and waved it around the cockpit's walls and ceiling. "It's radioactive! The windshield's off the scale! What do we do?"

Without waiting for clearance, Everon turned illegally onto the runway, braked, and keyed his mic. "Gulfstream Five-Five-Six-Six-Sierra-Whiskey to Teterboro tower. Ready to depart Runway Two-Four."

For many miles the second fish had swum patiently. Nowhere near its planned destination, its nose hammered into shore. To the fish's small brain, the impact made one thing clear. It had arrived.

Eight shakes of a second later, it became nothing more than a ball of pure expanding energy.

Escape

Waiting to depart in the Learjet, Hunt Williams watched Everon taxi his big Gulfstream into position. A moment later, as the huge WILLIAMS helicopter roared overhead and turned south, someone pounded on the Learjet's door. Hunt rose from his seat and opened it himself.

_"Mr. Williams?"_ Anders' face was tight, his eyes squinting. "What are you doing here? Who's in your plane?"

"Everon Student. He's going out west to pick up equipment and personnel."

"Out west? Where?"

"Nevada," Hunt replied. "He'll be returning to Pennsylvania to work for me."

"When?"

"Tomorrow."

"Doing what?"

"Restoring my company's power grid."

"Is there a dark-haired man in a black leather jacket with him?"

"Yes. Why?"

Black blobs fell on the general's windshield and the plane's wings. A chunk of it fell on the general's arm.

"What do you call that?" Hunt asked.

The general's eyes went big. "Crap!"

"Exactly." Without another word, Hunt stepped back and pulled the door shut.

Anders tore off his jacket and threw himself into his car. "Give me the mic!"

When Everon got no answer from the tower he began to wonder, will they clear us? "Take that headset, Bro." He pointed to a switch. "Make sure everybody's buckled in tight."

Back in the cabin every seat was full. Children were being held on parents' laps, the same seatbelt over both of them. "Please make certain your seat belts are secure," Franklin announced.

A familiar controller's voice came over the radio. "Teterboro tower to Gulfstream Sierra-Whiskey --"

"Sue!" Everon whispered.

"You're cleared for takeoff on Runway Two-Four. Have a safe flight."

Everon had a hand on the throttle, ready to push up the engines, when a black cat skittered across the runway in front of them.

"How much worse can it get?" Franklin muttered.

"Probably a lot," Everon said, pointing out the right window. A mob of thousands was climbing the airport fence. He gave the big Gulf full throttle and the mob disappeared behind them.

Seconds later, he eased back on the yoke. The jet didn't lift.

"What's going on?" Franklin asked.

"That goo's giving us a problem," Everon said through clenched teeth, easing the yoke back farther.

The runway shrank to nothing.

"That flight never received military authorization!" Anders shouted at the tower. "They've got bodies in there! No one's reviewed the death certificates or checked them for radiation. We can't have people moving radioactive material around the country."

"Your people approved the flight," a female voice came back.

"We thought it was Hunt Williams aboard. This is a violation of Presidential Order 16-176. No unauthorized flights until national radar has been re-established."

"It's too late, sir." Sergeant Page said. The big jet was gaining speed.

"Goddammit!" Anders roared.

"Why isn't he lifting off?" Page asked.

"General! Sir!" Braving the black goo, Colonel Marsh was tapping on the window.

Anders lowered the glass. "What is it?"

"We've lost communications with Washington!"

"Is it the satellites again?"

"I don't think so. The connection never returned. General Thompson was calling for you from the Pentagon and -- they just weren't there anymore. It's like there's _nothing_ there."

With less than two hundred feet to spare, the Gulfstream's nose left the ground. The rear wheels weren't going to clear the airport boundary fence or the trees. They did. Everon felt they'd missed by inches. Immediately, he banked west. Straight into the nearest rain cloud.

Vandersommen stood under an awning, watching the big jet fly away as fat black drops pelted around him. The airport's conical red windsock rotated randomly. North. East. South. It hung limp against the pole. And then the wind blew.

General Anders' call to move the tents had come too late. They flared and billowed. Dark drops left stinging red marks on the skin of half a million refugees. Meters were brought out. Radiation, they said, _a lot of it!_

The black rain poured down. Cold dark water gathered in rivulets and the rivulets became streams that flowed through tents, deadly to the touch.

"Run!" a confusion of voices exploded.

"Where?"

People locked themselves in porta-potties that in minutes floated in the new lake and fell over sideways. Other people stood in the tents on milk crates -- whatever they could find. People stopped worrying about treatment and tried to escape.

Some doctors and nurses stubbornly ignored the cold and burning black stuff as it flowed around their ankles. They continued triaging patients until they couldn't bear the pain, then joined their patients on gurneys and washed their own ankles with bottles of saline solution.

In one tent, holding little Johnny to her in the burning mud, terror gripped Cheri Enriquez. She had pain in her joints, her stomach was getting worse, and she was dizzy. Realization set in. The symptoms were coming on too fast -- this was not like any sickness she'd ever known. _Maybe I deserve this,_ she thought. _I shouldn't have let old Mrs. Goodman talk me into leaving home. Maybe Jáime is looking for us._

Making the sign of the cross, she puked out the last words that would ever leave her lips. "But why, God? Why Johnny?"

In seconds the brothers were hit by extreme turbulence. Bouncing groans twisted the plane. The right wing dropped. Everon struggled to bring it back up, then, BAM! turbulence hammered the wings in the opposite direction.

Franklin could see nothing through the windows. He felt his butt leave the seat, felt the belt tighten across his lap, and nearly lost his hold on Melissa as his head hit the ceiling. "Can the plane take this?" he shouted, pulling his belt tighter.

"It'll take it," Everon grunted, trying to twist the wings level. "It'll have to. We have to get that black goo off."

"All this turbulence is from the rain cloud?"

"I -- I don't know. It doesn't feel like it."

The right wing dropped again. Everon twisted the yoke full left. There was no effect. The cabin continued to roll. "No!" But the air was not to be denied. Over they went.

Franklin heard cries from the plane's rear. It was all he could do to hang onto Melissa. Harry flapped into the air. The engine whined, its pitch rising. BAM! something hit the big jet.

In back, a man snagged his young son from the air by the strap of his jumper. The luggage door flew open. The body bag slammed upward against its rope. The plane was upside down. Twisting metal screeched. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!

_"Fuck it!"_ Everon yelled. Reversing the yoke, he accelerated the roll. Franklin could just make out the words uttered through his brother's clenched teeth. "Hunt's -- just -- going to have to deal with it --" as all the jet's lights went out.

All Franklin could hear as he felt the nose pitch down, hanging from his seat belt, clinging to Melissa, was a slamming sound, and the whine of the big jet's engines winding down.
There Was Another Ending . . .

Read the _original_ _LOSS OF REASON_ ending,  
now the first two chapters of  
 _SEARCH FOR REASON_  
simply by turning the page . . .

No Hope

They were going down. There was no way around it.

Every system on the big jet was out -- the overhead lights, computer screens, the gauges. Under normal circumstances, Franklin might have asked the man in the pilot's seat next to him, "How can all these systems go out at once?" And under normal circumstances, busy as Franklin's older brother was, Everon would have answered -- a grunt perhaps, a shouted mumble. Except for one minor detail. The big plane was totally out of Everon's control, and it was upside down. It was all Franklin could do to hang from his seat belt in the dark and hold onto the infant in his arms, his baby niece Melissa. He was frightened out of his mind.

The engines' pitch was dropping, yet the wind whistling over the fuselage was rising in pitch and volume, the plane's nose dropping straight down.

Franklin clutched Melissa to his chest, acid rising in his throat. He wanted to throw up. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! BAM! Screams came from the passenger compartment. The fuselage felt like it was twisting, about to tear itself into pieces that would, in the next few moments, be scattered all over New York State.

CREEEEK!

In a few seconds it will all be over, Franklin thought. Are we high enough that when the jet's skin ruptures, the sudden lack of oxygen will knock us out? Or once the plane disintegrates, will it be simply the terror of falling through cold space that kills us?

CLUNK! "What was that?" Franklin shouted.

I Always Liked Him

The CLUNK made the fuselage vibrate. "Aux power unit?" Everon grunted, more surprised question than answer.

A moment later scattered lights blinked on across the control panel. Franklin could make out Everon's hands in a death grip, fighting the white yoke. Everon twisted the yoke hard right, and Franklin felt his head roll to his left shoulder, his body sway -- as his brother's hand shot out to punch buttons, flip levers on the panel.

Another soft noise joined the whistling wind. A whining, behind and to the right. Everon flipped more switches. A similar noise grew from the left. "Go . . ." he urged, "GO!"

The whine grew louder and, in the moment Franklin recognized it for what it was, two things happened, more wonderful than he could imagine. Dim lights came on around the cockpit -- and the windshield went from black, to being splattered with bright points of light. Stars. Overhead there were stars!

The wind-sound dropped away. A dim cloud-filled horizon righted below them. The turbulence dissipated. Franklin felt pressure from the seat on the backs of his legs, the weight of Melissa in his arms. They were on top of an ocean of moonlit cotton, flying between mountains of white.

He leaned forward and looked through the right side window. There was no black gunk on the wing, it was gone. The wing was clean. He found the radiation meter wedged behind his seat and moved its probe around the ceiling . . . the walls, the windshield.

"How is it, Bro?" Everon asked.

"A trace. That's all."

"You know what that was?" Everon said, not really a question.

Franklin waited, gently jiggling Melissa to calm her crying.

"There's only one answer, another bomb. It had to be. I wonder where. Close enough to affect us, not close enough to do permanent damage."

Franklin floated between worry, sadness, anger. "How is this happening?" he asked softly. Then louder, "Is the plane okay?"

"I don't know. The few systems I'm using appear functional. We'll find out about the rest when we get to the Valley."

Franklin watched the plane's lights play over Everon's tired face. They'd both gone hours without sleep. Hopefully the autopilot was working and could do most of the flying.

Franklin's eyes dropped to Melissa. He smoothed a hand over her fair hair so much like Cynthia's, soothing her, then checked on Harry shaking softly on the floor and scooped the owl back into his soup box. A feather fell from his right wing.

People were sobbing in the back of the jet. "Okay to go back there?" he asked Everon.

"Go ahead. We should be stable for now, but don't be too long out of your seat."

Franklin released his seat belt and, carrying Melissa, stepped around Harry.

The passengers were pretty shaken up. Several had red seatbelt marks on their necks. Some were rubbing their stomachs. There were no obvious broken bones.

Franklin knelt along the seats, letting his voice drop around each person like a salve, first mirroring their nervous discomfort, then bringing them out of the shock they were feeling.

"YOU -- YOU'RE -- YOU OKAY?" he suggested.

"I -- I think so."

He nodded and moved on.

"Is the plane okay?"

"We think it is. YOU'RE ALL RIGHT? Beginning to . . . FEEL EASIER, NOW?" Tranquilizing the fast-beating heart, soothing the adults, pacifying the children. Some took only a few moments, others, longer before they were calm.

Back past the jet's pantry, in the luggage compartment tied to the floor, was the black bag that held his sister and brother-and-law's bodies. Franklin moved closer and knelt down. He wished he could just unzip it and say, "Cynthia! Wake up!" like she'd done for him on so many birthday and Christmas mornings. He thought of Cynthia and Steve, holding each other in their final moment, wrapped in his wedding gift, the charred Aztec blanket.

He gulped down a swallow of air, holding Melissa a little tighter. He stood and closed the luggage door. He didn't want to say the words he would have to say to Everon. It wasn't going to be a very pleasant ride back to Nevada.

"What was that we went through?" Someone asked as he returned to the front.

"We don't know," Franklin answered softly, moving forward.

"That had to be another bomb," one of the men behind him said.

"Where do you think it went off?" a woman's voice called out, "Boston? Washington? There's no point sending another one to New York."

Her only answer was the engines' whine.

Franklin buckled his seat belt.

"This better not be like all the other damn things the government never figures out," Everon spat. "Then again, how can they, unless someone comes right out and takes credit for it?"

"I hope Chuck's okay," Franklin said, dodging the inevitable.

"At least he's inside the hospital. Higher ground," Everon said, adjusting one of the jet's controls.

Franklin remembered Cynthia's face, her last words. He looked at his brother. "Uh --" He felt the pain rise up in his chest, behind his eyes, flowing through his wrists. "Cynthia was alive when I got to her."

"What!" Everon shouted. "Wasn't there _anything --?"_

_"I tried,"_ Franklin whispered.

"Couldn't you --"

"Jesus Christ!" Franklin said, shocking himself. Never in the last six years had he taken the Lord's name in vain. "Her throat -- there was a death rattle!"

Everon stared miserably out the jet's front window.

"She told me Steve died an hour before I got there." Franklin felt tears welling up. "Her last words were 'I've had better nights out in New York.' Then, 'The cab . . .' She was trying to tell me. That, and spotting Harry next to the file cabinet were how I found Melissa."

He waited for Everon to scream something about the time they'd wasted in the subway, the extra time they'd taken on the bridge. But it didn't come.

For the rest of Franklin's life, today would come back as three days in one -- pulling those people from the subway, freeing the thousands trapped on the upper deck of the GW Bridge, and finally, Cynthia dying in his arms and finding Melissa. It was the kind of day he hoped he would never have to live again. Unfortunately, his desires would not dictate his future. Today, he would come to know, was just the beginning of the pain to be borne by himself and many others. Who, Franklin wondered, could have done this to us?

"Steve --" Everon said. "I always liked him."

Then there was only silence, but for the whisper of the engines as they headed west.

_FRANKLIN AND EVERON CONTINUE IN:_

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_Miles A. Maxwell, out of Cheyenne, Wyoming, is the author of the State Of Reason and Naomi Soul mystery-technothrillers. They all have just one goal: the preservation and enhancement of human life._

An IFR certified private pilot and student of Traditional Chinese Medicine for more than ten years, he speaks bits and pieces of ten languages, surfs, skis, sails, and scuba dives.

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