City Under the Moon (40 page)

But Manhattan was choking in glowing smoke. Could he have left the island after all?

No. Still, she was sure. Logic be damned, she could
feel
his closeness, just as she could feel the others surrounding her in the forest. Maybe it wasn’t she that could feel him; maybe it was the wolf. But it was palpable, and it was real.

“November Zero Zero One,” their radios blared, “this is Mongoose Zero Three, coming in for pickup, ETA two minutes.”

The console, the ID card, the monitor—what was on that monitor?

Hazy lettering on the screen, white over black.

She closed her eyes, shutting out the wolves and their beckoning howls.

The digits coalesced like a memory rediscovered.

KAM0062 UNGAXXINT 010211 18:12:10

She’d seen that code before.

U. N. G. A.

“United Nations,” she blurted. “General Assembly.” As her mind caught up to her mouth, she turned to the others. “United Nations. He’s at the United Nations.”

Of course!
That’s why he took out the VPN! Killing the network interrupted their eyes on the plaza, giving him a chance to enter the UN without being seen.

“What? Are you sure?” asked Jaguar.

“Oh yeah,” she muttered. The pieces rushed together. “I’m sure.”

The doomsday shelter. She should have known—
should have known!

The UN Plaza always drove her bonkers. Major real estate right on the edge of Manhattan that isn’t held accountable to the laws or the eyes of the United States government? And it plays home to strangers from all parts of the world, allowing them to go unmonitored because of this ridiculous concept of diplomatic immunity? Who in the World Trade Center had immunity? It infuriated her that the UN was an acceptable liability to the FBI.

A little research made it far scarier.

An architect named Wallace Harrison had spearheaded the plaza’s design team. He got the job because he was the personal draftsman of Nelson Rockefeller, whose family donated the lot for the United Nations Headquarters.

The Rockefellers were descendants of the richest man who ever lived. Their influential tendrils reached into oil, industry, banking, and politics—they were the first true global empire. They were also notoriously secretive.

The family was rumored to be involved in any number of secret societies and clandestine activities. More than one legitimate historian believed the Rockefellers were in control of the Illuminati, a secret society that had allegedly manipulated society, politics, and economics for centuries. Some kooks claimed the Rockefellers were in cahoots with the devil.

Whatever nuggets of truth were in those rumors, architect Wallace Harrison was the man who hid them. He came to the Rockefellers’ attention in the 1930s when, as a young upstart on the Rockefeller Center design team, he masterminded the underground network throughout the complex. Next he created private homes for the family, sleight-of-hand designs with hidden rooms and secret entrances.

It was clear that Harrison had a talent for hiding things, and the Rockefellers needed things hidden.

It was just after World War II, when the concept of weapons of mass destruction first entered the zeitgeist. The Rockefeller family wouldn’t be beholden to the whims of any government that might be stupid enough to get into a cataclysmic barfight. They pulled strings to bring the UN to them, even donated their own real estate for the complex. Once the land became international territory, no longer a part of the United States of America, they were free from the prying eyes of New York’s zoning commissions, fire codes, and safety inspectors. Free for Harrison to go wild, conducting his own underground construction as an international team of architects collaborated on the General Assembly, Conference, and Secretariat buildings.

According to legend, what Harrison created was more than just a long-term disaster shelter. It was a massive underground habitat, some kind of self-contained ecosystem that could serve as a new world for the Rockefellers (and maybe the UN’s VIPs).

It’s a rich madman’s secret haven, with no accountability to our government or society, and it’s right beneath our feet.

My dearest Baron Dracula Valenkov… if you were in New York and you knew the place was going to be decimated, where else would you go?

Tildascow smiled to herself and kicked snow into the abyss. From the south terrace of the Chrysler Building, she looked out over 42nd Street. The United Nations Plaza was at cusp of the East River, less than half a mile away.

“Makes sense,” said Mantle. “Fuck, makes perfect sense.”

“Let’s go get that motherfucker,” said Jaguar.

“All command units this net!” Tildascow called into her radio. “This is November Zero Zero One. HPT is in United Nations Plaza. I repeat, HPT is in United Nations Plaza. He’ll be in a bomb shelter underneath the complex. It should be accessible from near the General Assembly Hall. Divert all forces—send everyone!”

She couldn’t discern any of the static-filled radio chatter, but at least some of it sounded affirmative. They could only hope there was still someone in charge of this show.

“Here we go!” Jaguar yelled.

Distant lights cut through the sky. Blue on the left, red on the right, with blinkers alternating between the fuselage and tail. Their Crash Hawk was here.

She stepped back onto the terrace proper and dialed her BlackBerry, waiting through the irregular beeps indicating patching connections. Somewhere at the end of it would be the Attorney General and, hopefully, the president.

Slowly, the soothing whup of the Black Hawk rose above the radio chatter.

“Donut Hut!” said a cheerful voice answering the phone.

“This is Special Agent Brianna Tildascow, patch me through to the Attorney General.”

No response came, just more beeps. More waiting.

“What the fuck?” Mantle mumbled.

She looked up to find the Black Hawk’s lights shaking. At least, it
seemed
like they were shaking—it could’ve easily been the shifting smoke.

She squinted into the darkness, trying to purge the thought playing the drums in her mind:
Crash Hawk.

“What’s happening?” Lon asked.

The lights stabilized. A moment later, everyone exhaled.

“Call over to them,” she ordered, still listening to beeps on her phone.

“Mongoose Zero Three,” Mantle radioed, “this is November Zero Zero One, what’s your situation, over?”

No response.

“Mongoose—“ Mantle went silent as the lights wobbled again.

No question that the helicopter was teetering. Now it was drifting right.

Tildascow’s phone went dead. She cursed and redialed.

The Black Hawk veered further and began to sink. The Shadows, Lon, and Ilecko leaned on their hips, like bowlers trying to keep it out of the gutter. It was just a block away now.

But it wasn’t going to make it. Tildascow stepped away from the others so she could hear the phone.

“Oh no… no, man… pull up. Pull up…” Jaguar yelled.

“Come on, come on…” Mantle cried. “Mongoose, can you hear me?”

“Donut Hut!”

“This is Tildascow, patch me through to the AG!”

“I did—“

“Do it again!”

More clicks and connections.

The Black Hawk went muffled as it dipped below the terrace. A sickening moment later, the heat and fury of the crash roared upward.

“The fuck is going on?” Mantle screamed.

And her BlackBerry went dead again.
Fuck!

“Silver Bullet,”
she radioed, “This is November. Our limo went down, Beethoven, we need you here
now
.”

“Say again, November. What happened?”

“I don’t know. ‘Crash Hawk’ happened. It took a nose dive somewhere on 42
nd
Street. Lines are down and I can’t get through to anybody. I know where he is, man, you’ve got to come get us.”

“He can’t pick five of us up in an Apache,” Mantle said. Jaguar shook his head to quiet Mantle.

A minute felt like an hour as they watched her radio for a response.

“We are en route, November,” Beethoven radioed. “ETA three minutes.“

“Roger that. November out.”

Tildascow went to dial her shitsucking BlackBerry again.

But the phone faded away, and the ground and the building darkened, and she was in the forest again.

The wolves weren’t alongside her anymore.

Now they had her surrounded.

From somewhere in the thicket, Ilecko called out in Romanian.

They’d stopped beckoning.

Now they were growling.

And then she heard Lon. “Tildascow!”

Now she was their enemy.

She felt a tug on her arm, and then Lon was in front of her, pulling her through onrushing snowflakes. They crossed the terrace toward the ledge, where the others were looking down and yelling about something. She reached the rail and looked over the side.

The werewolves were climbing the side of the building, digging their claws into metal and masonry.

Hundreds of them. No—

Thousands.

PART SEVEN

One

Situation Room

6:02 p.m.

The werewolves could have overrun the central command post in Columbus Circle whenever they wanted; that much was clear when they finally did. Their strikes were coordinated from odd directions, giving the soldiers whiplash as their own ranks were thinned.

The final, decisive push came from all sides, laying waste to the men and their machines. If the soldiers had any chance, the shaky CNN footage missed it.

“Reports!” Truesdale yelled over the din.

Everyone was on the phone, but nobody knew anything. They hadn’t heard from any of the command posts, and after the assault they’d just witnessed, Weston didn’t expect that they would.

“Helicopters are down everywhere,” said Shinick, the AG.

“How are they taking out helicopters?” yelled Leslie.

“We lost the MetLife landing zone,” an aide called.

“Northeast command is down!” yelled another. And the hits kept coming, on top of one another, as news filtered in from the Watch Center.

“Have all units fall back. Lock down the exits,” Truesdale ordered, and his men sent out word. “Get on the line with Andrews, get them in the air.”

The jittery CNN camera panned down to Broadway, where countless werewolves ran on all fours, marching with an eerie single-mindedness toward Columbus Circle, like an army in extreme fast-forward.

When the shot panned over, the command post was just a memory. In fact, the werewolf marathon trampled right over the remains and continued southeast down Broadway.

“Looks like they’ve got somewhere to be,” Weston thought out loud.

Two

Chrysler Building 61st Floor Terrace

6:03 p.m.

“Back back back!”

Tildascow grabbed Lon by the collar and dragged him back to a safe distance. As the others fell in beside them, she fished out that silver-loaded Glock and closed his fingers around its handle. “Both hands, elbows locked.”

His eyes were fear-struck, but he nodded and firmly grasped the weapon.

She flicked her Colt 9mm SMG’s switch from SAFE to SEMI. Ilecko drew his Anelace in reverse grip. Jaguar and Mantle steadied themselves.

“Beethoven, we need you down here right now!” she radioed. “Enemy targets on the side of the building! I repeat—enemy targets on the side of the building!”

The first werewolf caught their spotlights like a rock star. Its human features were completely lost behind its canine snout, swept-back ears, and thick grey fur. It even moved like a wolf, creeping over the ledge and skulking on all fours, head below its hunched shoulders.

Mantle put two shots into its forehead. Three more sets of claws poked up.

“We gotta fall back!” Jaguar yelled.

“They’ll trap us in the building,” Tildascow said. “Stick to coverage zones.” She directionally assigned Mantle, herself, and Jaguar. “Conserve ammo; one silver shot puts them down.”

The
put-put-put
of their rifles staggered as they dropped the wolves, but they only came quicker and thicker.

Tildascow emptied her twenty-round magazine in less than a minute. “Reloading!” she yelled, and the others picked up her slack as she slapped in a fresh 32-rounder.

Faster and faster the werewolves came, up to eight across, fearlessly rushing into the firing squad. Mantle’s rifle went silent as he reloaded. Lon squeezed off intermittent
bangs
on top of their
put-puts.

Ilecko crouched with his sword arm at his side, pre-empting the creatures’ ability to attack low. Tildascow hoped it wouldn’t come to hand-to-hand, but—

“Behind!”

Mantle swung and shot a pair of werewolves rushing through the open door. They tumbled into the snow, screeching from the silver infection. Gunfire lit up the hallway inside; the Green Berets were making a stand against the creatures coming up the stairs.

Tildascow clicked empty and patted herself down for another magazine.

“I need a magazine!” she called, but Mantle and Jaguar were too busy sweeping side-to-side, firing single shots.

And the wolves kept coming, scrambling over their fallen pack mates, reaching ever closer. Tildascow could feel their singular hunger. Valenkov was in their minds; every one of them sensed a pentagram on her palm.

A werewolf soared over the others, hurtling toward Tildascow, claws outstretched—

Ilecko swept upward with his Anelace, rising under the creature and meeting its chest with his blade. He carried its momentum into a backward toss and the werewolf landed in the snow, rolling in a death shriek and reverse transformation. Then Ilecko returned to his crouch, silently waiting for his next victim.

“I’m out!” Jaguar yelled. As he replaced his cartridge, Mantle emptied his own even faster. The pile of bodies at the balcony had grown higher than the guardrail and there was no end in sight.

Mantle’s rifle emptied and Lon’s last shot went wild. And then there was silence. The emerging wolves padded onto the terrace, stepping over their fallen brethren and spreading out to flank, always watching and snarling.

Jaguar reloaded—“Last mag!”—and sprayed the wolves with quick, precise shots. But each one only delayed the inevitable. One, two, three—

“Silver Bullet, we need you right now!” she yelled into her radio.

—four, five, six—

Another werewolf came galloping from the building behind them. As it cleared the sliding glass door, Ilecko threw his Anelace. The wolf tried to leap out of the way, but it caught him nearly flush with his chest, sending him rolling head over tail to stop right at their feet. Ilecko wiped his sword on the creature’s retreating fur.

Jaguar’s shots kept coming. Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve—

—thirteen, fourteen, fifteen—

She could taste their hunger on her own tongue, so strong that she could easily have bitten into her own flesh.

“That a 32?” Mantle asked.

Jaguar shook his head, his smoky breaths firing from his nose.

Twenty shots. Five more and they were hand-to-hand.

Tildascow dropped her empty rifle and entered fighting stance: left leg back supporting her weight, up on the toes, knees bent, elbows in, arms up, and an icepick-gripped dagger in each hand. She didn’t have a cute name for her style, which she’d cobbled together with help from DARPA’s combat scientists, the FBI’s martial arts experts, and her Modern Army Combatives training. She’d assimilated large chunks of Krav Maga and semper fu, but her primary concern was weight distribution, observant countermoves and appropriated momentum. She didn’t beat people up, she kept them moving until they exposed a weak spot in their skeletal or muscular structure. The rest was up to her.

Still, with so many swinging claws, it’d only take one hit to a major artery to end her fight.

—sixteen, seventeen—

Saliva rushed across her tongue. It was so tempting to drop to all fours, to fight with her jaw.

—eighteen, nineteen—

“Last shot!” Jaguar yelled, scanning the ledge, choosing among three targets as they slinked onto the balcony, leading with their bulging forearms.

“Save it!” she yelled. “We go hand-to-hand!”

Jaguar strapped his rifle and drew his own knife. Mantle had already done the same. Ilecko was in his crouched position.

Still more reinforcements cresting the balcony.

They held their breath.

Time stood still.

And then the
Silver Bullet
roared around the Chrysler’s crown, yawing into an airborne skid, unleashing hellfire from the 30mm chain gun mounted beneath its nose.
Rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat
, ten rounds per second plinking as the armor-piercing rounds tore through the balcony, shattering the werewolves’ bones.

As the werewolves that had already reached the balcony turned in surprise, Jaguar and Mantle pounced with their knives.

Beethoven saluted from his rear, higher seat in the Apache’s cockpit.

“Let’s make this quick, November,” Beethoven radioed. “They look hungry.” The gunner in the lower front seat shifted the cannon toward the face of the building and opened fire again, picking off climbing werewolves while punching through masonry and glass.

“Be advised, you are going to sit on the EFABs and attach yourselves to the fuselage. I’ve jettisoned the wing stores to compensate for your weight.”

“Five to fly bitch?” Mantle yelled. “Gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“What does that mean?” Lon asked, flinching as the chain gun let loose another barrage.

“The outside,” Tildascow said. “It’s okay.”

“The outside? The outside you mean the
outside?
”

“Drop your backpacks,” yelled Jaguar. “Any extra weight’s gotta go.”

“How do you ride on the
outside?
”

Jaguar yanked Lon free of his backpack and pushed him into Tildascow’s back. Using straps from his stores, he linked them together via D-rings in their vests. As he crossed Tildascow’s front, he gravely looked into her eyes. “This is going to be a rough ride.”

Mantle took over with Ilecko, wrapping buckles around his chest in preparation for attachment to the left side of the bird. Ilecko muttered in Romanian and Mantle hopelessly shook his head.

“Hang in there,” Tildascow whispered to Lon.

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

The
Silver Bullet
inched forward and rotated. Beethoven eyed the blades as they crept dangerously close to the tower’s edge. The gunner opened his cockpit window and handed fresh rifles to the Shadows, and Mantle immediately opened fire on the next wave of werewolves, now coming at an equal rate from the building and the ledge.

Jaguar directed the linked pair of Tildascow and Lon to sit on the Extended Forward Avionics Bay, a tight jutting panel beneath the right side of the
Silver Bullet’s
cockpit. They only had a few inches of perch for their left ass cheeks.

“Are you kidding me?” Lon cried.

Jaguar fastened Tildascow against the fuselage and interlocked her bindings with Lon’s. Her right foot could reach the wing for support, but the left would dangle.

Dangle.

“No, no,” Lon said as Jaguar strapped him in. “We can’t do this.”

Jaguar waved an “okay” signal at the pair and threw a circular motion at the cockpit. Tildascow tightened her hold on Lon.

“Close your eyes,” she whispered.

And her guts swung free as the helicopter rotated to allow Mantle and Ilecko access to the other side. She and Lon were suspended over infinity, looking up into the sky as Beethoven compensated for their extra weight.

They could feel the chopper buck as Mantle and Ilecko put their weight on the fuselage, as if they’d climbed onto the other end of a seesaw.

She felt a pat on her shoulder and looked up into the wind shear. Beethoven leaned through the side door of the cockpit, passing her a SIG 226 semiauto loaded with silver. She took the weapon with her one free hand. Beethoven gave her a “thumbs up” and closed the door on the cockpit.

Lon screamed as they abruptly swung again, back to where they’d started. Jaguar was the last man on the balcony, and he was still picking off incoming werewolves. When they came to a stop, he dropped his rifle and hastily secured himself in front of Lon, banging on the cockpit just as the last ring locked.

They lurched backward and dropped harshly as the helicopter protested their weight. Tildascow looked down—
far down
—on East 42
nd
Street, where toppled military lights illuminated Lexington. A fire burned further east, probably from the second Black Hawk.

“Incoming!” Jaguar shouted.

A werewolf loped across the terrace, fearlessly barreling toward them. Tildascow fought to slide the rack on her pistol with only one free hand.

The wolf raced onto the eagle gargoyle and took a kamikaze leap, hurtling itself across the 60-story chasm. Tildascow and Jaguar both shot at the beast—no way to tell if their aim was true—but there was no stopping the living missile’s momentum. Tildascow shielded Lon’s body as the monster crashed into them. Her head cracked against the fuselage, but the brunt of the impact missed them.

The Apache bucked hard. Its main and tail rotors battled for control as the bird seesawed on every axis, skidding lopsided through the air. Tildascow clenched Lon tight as their insides were thrown about. The dark monoliths on either side of 42
nd
shot upward as if they were freefalling. Snow and wind attacked from every direction.

Finally Beethoven regained control of the chopper. Tildascow felt her internal organs settle back into place, and she dared to open her eyes.

Jaguar hung limply from his bindings, his shattered body swaying in a rag-doll fashion. Lon’s head popped up from behind his shoulder. His nose was bleeding and he might’ve thrown up, but he managed to nod that he was okay. He turned to Jaguar, but she squeezed him back to her:
Don’t look.

Scanning for a landmark, she recognized the intersection at Third Avenue. Good news was that they were moving toward the UN Plaza. Bad news was that they were losing altitude.

Not quite dropping… but not quite
not
dropping.

At Third, a vehicle fire illuminated the face of the Mitsubishi Building. Thick packs of werewolves were scaling the tower comprised of irregularly stacked blocks. Many were already perched on the roofs, ready to leap. She could feel their hunger.

She banged on the gunner’s window, alerting him to the ambush. The Apache’s cannon roared to life, punishing them with heat and volume. Arcing bolts sprayed the Mitsubishi Building, pulverizing werewolves or knocking them loose.

Still dropping, the Apache pitched forward and took up speed, traveling east on 42
nd
toward the river. Beyond Third, the street was pitch black until it terminated at the United Nations Plaza. They crossed Second Avenue, which Tildascow marked only by the gap between the buildings.

The iconic “Tudor City” sign sat atop the last skyscraper on their left, marking the finish line at First Avenue. A Shithook passed above it, en route to the UN Plaza and carrying some kind of—