Banquo's Ghosts (43 page)

Nobody claimed to be in charge; nobody directed affairs from Captain America’s City Command Post. And nobody called the president of the United States. Yes, the city had some sort of Crisis Center in the
Homeland Security office on Third Avenue, but the place was the loneliest office in New York, as the last one had been in the late World Trade Center. Still a gaping seven-acre hole at the bottom of the city. And yes, there
was
some sort of “secret” Command Center off Wall Street with proposed link-ups reaching into every corner of officialdom—with any luck it would cover the city sometime before the end of the century.

Later, the authorities could tell the press all about their superbly coordinated response, but right now the only thing they could do was talk on cell phones or on speaker phones in conference rooms. No real-time video links or real-time web cams. Not in a dozen different city offices, not in the Mayor’s limo, or the Medical Examiner’s Office—so they relied on the city’s cell coverage, and you might just understand some of what they said if they talked slowly, didn’t mumble, and didn’t all speak at once from a secure lead-lined subbasement.

The city had a hierarchy of responses. In the best-case scenario: a prank call over public payphones claiming some sort of attack, anything from a trash fire in a rubbish barrel to the threat of an Ebola outbreak at Carnegie Hall. These calls were usually ignored. At most, the institutional security at the museum, theater, or sports arena informed. You couldn’t shut the city down for every jerk who dialed the phone for cheap thrills.

In the worst-case scenario: warning of imminent mass destruction from
reliable
intel—a bomb detonation, a mustard gas attack, the dispersal of smallpox/anthrax/botox—there’d be nothing to do, just hope you were out of town. Hope they didn’t nuke Jersey too, and pray the bomb squad or the hazmat team didn’t get stuck in traffic.

And then there was the in-between.
Rumors
of a dirty bomb, galloping plague, the loss of electricity or water to the city, a random sniper—and whatever this
shit
was in the morgue and down in the Christopher Street subway station. The time arrived to misinform. Sit on the story. Run it down. Shut it up.

Did you think they had a plan? Federally Managed Mass Evacuation?

No,
sorry.

No evacuation plan for the city of New York existed, never would. How could it? The place is an island of millions with a dozen 1920s-era
jammed choke points: six vehicular bridges, one railroad bridge, a couple of underground railways, three traffic tunnels—maybe a grand total of fourteen outbound lanes. While the whole fortress of Manhattan blocked off a very populated Long Island with millions more trapped. Three ways traversing that spit of land: the Northern State Parkway, the Long Island Expressway, the Southern State Parkway, all three roads jammed most of the day—and
no way out.
The whole mess ending at Montauk Point.

Sure, you could go west, young man. Steal a rowboat from the lake in Central Park; lug it to the Hudson River, and row to New Jersey. Whoops sorry, the currents in the Hudson would drag you out to sea, and the East River was worse.

Back in the real world, the initial phone calls were about three things. The first: to make sure somebody was going to sit on Han Lee. Second: that all the moving mouths of government knew what to say, saying the same thing for the press. And third: to find a convenient location, like a hotel, where all the principals could meet for an hour. Unnoticed, by ABCCBSNBCMSNBC et al. That was the hard part in a city of nine million people: somebody was always paying attention.

The receptionist had led Wallets through the glass doors and across the noisy bullpen toward the floor-to-ceiling glass partition of the editor’s office. On a couch, Wallets could see an Asian kid playing a Game Boy. But it was O’Hanlon—already there with Bryce—who really captured his attention. The tough Irish DOJ lawyer looked like his face had been cast in black iron—angry at the world, certainly, but angrier at himself.

The editor in chief didn’t mind the temporary gag order when O’Hanlon coldly explained, using the magic words, “unknown number of casualties at the city’s bridges and tunnels,” but did insist the
Post
have a man inside the VIP meeting.

“Nice try,” Wallets told him. The boss of the paper smiled and shrugged. Then to the geology major playing Game Boy
Final Fantasy V
on the couch, Wallets asked, “Han, how would you like to earn some extra credit?”

The VIPs decided on the Waldorf-Astoria, hotel of presidents. A massive single city block all to itself with four entrances—north, east, south, west, facilitating inconspicuous entrance and egress. The place sported the most nimble private security in the city, prepared to deal with a president’s staff or a potentate’s retinue.

O’Hanlon represented the Department of Justice at the table, while Bryce looked on from a metal folding chair along the wall. Wallets stayed out on the street. For what it was worth, O’Hanlon put on his best penny-loafer smile to disarm the political brutes of New York City’s top governing echelon.

“Don’t you think the Fire Commissioner should be here?”

Faces looked to faces; nobody had thought to call. Yes. Certainly. Right away. A chastised assistant to the Mayor’s press secretary got on the phone.

“We’ll wait.”

A short ten minutes later they began; unfortunately there were more questions than answers.

“Whaddaya mean you don’t know what this stuff is? Don’t you have a sample? What are we calling this shit,
the Grunge?
They told me you found evidence twenty-six hours ago in a Queens junkyard.” This from the Fire Commissioner, already bent sideways at being the last informed and by some flunky to boot.

“No material, just traces,” O’Hanlon explained; his voice got harder. “And just by freakin’
accident
, as our goddamn operation was cancelled not thirty minutes earlier.” He slid the inter-agency memo across the table. “We were shut down by some bureaucrat at Langley. I’m sure you all know him.” The memo made its way around the table, the name
Andover murmured. Shoulders shrugged, heads shook. Faces looked to faces once more; nobody recognized the name. And nobody wanted to be caught knowing this loser in any event.

They returned to the matter at hand, attempting to grasp the magnitude of their problem, groping its extremities. From the head of the city’s Transit Department:

“You mean they coulda dumped a teaspoonful in
every
other train car? We have
miles
of rolling stock! We’re going to have to uncouple every friggin’ car and swab it down. I don’t even think the union will allow their men inside. There’s nothing in their contract about that.”

From the representative of the Centers for Disease Control:

“We don’t even know what the cleaning agent should be. We need a representative sample.”

From the Medical Examiner:

“We’re doing the autopsy now, but my preliminary finding is that the kid’s brain burned up after he cleaned his ear with his pinky or touched his fingers to his mouth after touching his shoes—maybe when he retied a loose lace. In his case, there was massive capillary shrinkage in a matter of hours. That might be the nature of the particles; we just can’t tell right now.”

From the Chief of Police:

“Once it becomes generally known in the department, I expect a 35 percent sick out rate. Falling buildings with asbestos dust is one thing; sure, they’ll go in. But asking men to patrol radioactive streets?” He wagged his head. “If it becomes common knowledge at One Police Plaza, nobody in Long Island, Westchester, or Jersey will leave their home tomorrow.”

From the Chief of the Metropolitan Transit Police, his sister agency, regarding the subway cops:

“If word spreads, the Transit Authority can expect a 90 percent sick out.”

Somebody asked incredulously, “You mean 10 percent will actually come in to work?”

The Transit Police Chief shrugged. “I guess the ones that just want to escape the ol’ ball and chain. Radiation better than Wife. Go figure.”

The Deputy Mayor was scribbling on a yellow pad. “I keep coming back to our press statement. I’m leaning toward the words ‘limited exposure. ’ That seems safest. But those words are predicated on the idea we know what the limits are. When the hell will we know that?”

Everyone looked around the table at one another.

And O’Hanlon shined his penny-loafer smile on them, saying, “That’s what we’re trying to find out. A sample of the material and a general roll-up of the dispersal units. We’re going to need official authorization for a general sweep. And right now we don’t know how many people are involved.”

“And so when the hell will we know
that
? ”

Peter Johnson’s cell phone rang. The woman’s voice sounded familiar, though distant. “Turn on your laptop.”

“Who is this?”

“Look at your cell phone.”

A photo appeared on his cell, sent to him by text: A postage stamp-sized image, terribly clear, of a person sitting in a chair, hooded. Not like the photo taped to the back of Dr. Yahdzi’s Kodak Moments back in Iran, but horribly familiar. Johnson’s heart stopped.

“Will you turn on your laptop now?”

It took a moment to boot up. A window blinked for Instant Message Vid-Cam link access. Johnson hit “Allow access.” The same picture again. Person in a hood. The hood came off. And this time Johnson’s heart leapt into his throat and nearly came out his mouth. Giselle sat in the chair. Her eyes taped shut, her mouth taped shut. Her face looked red and bloated, tears glistened on her cheeks. The hood went back on.

Then the voice came again, and this time Johnson recognized the voice. Yasmine. The vid-cam panned, leaving Giselle in the chair and coming to Yasmine, who sat behind a table, much as she had back in Mahabad, at the interrogation.

“I’m not going to tell you twice. If I have to repeat anything, no matter how simple, we cut something off her. Understand?”