CyberStorm (13 page)

“Happy holidays, yes,” she replied, nodding, but neither she nor Aleksandr extended a hand to shake.

Maybe it’s because they’re Jewish?
It wasn’t often I saw them being grumpy, but the stress was getting to everyone.

Paul dropped his hand, still smiling, and pointed to a spot next to them on their couch. Irena shrugged and shifted slightly. He squeezed himself in next to them, cupping the hot toddy Susie gave him. He blew on it and took a sip.

“You guys look pretty organized. Any idea what’s going on?”

I shook my head. “We know as much as anyone else.”

“But everyone has an opinion,” said Chuck, raising his drink, “so how about a straw poll?”

He looked at Paul.

“You start.”

“Easy, gotta be the Chinese. We’ve been squaring off for a fight with them for years.” He looked toward the Asian corner. “No offense.”

The Chinese family smiled back, perhaps not understanding, but Hiro, the husband of the Japanese couple, shook his head.

“We’re Japanese.”

Chuck laughed loudly. “Probably not you guys this time, but what’s
your
vote?”

Hiro looked at his wife, gripping her hand.

“China?”

“Amen to that, brother,” agreed Paul, raising his drink. “I hope they’re bombing those bastards back to the Stone Age right now.”

This time he didn’t bother apologizing to the Chinese family.

“India and China are in the middle of that huge fight over dams in the Himalayas,” pointed out Chuck. “How do we know the Indians didn’t cause that dam failure?”

“It’s possible the Indians were involved,” said Rory, “but the Chinese wrecking America would be like burning down your own house to get rid of the tenants. They own half of it.”

“Political leaders do stupid things all the time,” I pointed out.

“Not the Chinese,” observed Chuck. “They got that thousand-year planning.”

“Don’t be too impressed,” said Rory. “Their politicians are as bad as ours. But my bet is the Iranians. Did you see their ayatollah on TV just before the blackout?”

Tony liked that suggestion. “If we’ve been spoiling for a fight with anyone, it’s those towel-head Arabs. Had a chip on their shoulder ever since they took our embassy hostage in ‘79.”

“We did overthrow their democratically elected government and install a dictator that terrorized them,” pointed out Rory. “And they’re not Arabs, they’re Persian.”

Tony looked confused. “I thought you thought they did this?”

“Maybe,” Rory sighed. “It’s hard to say.”

“Russians,” said Richard, “it’s the Russians. Who else could have invaded our airspace?”

“Ah, yes,” laughed Chuck. “A commie under every cover.”

“Do you know they just restarted strategic bomber flights over the Arctic?” said Richard to Chuck. “Same flight patterns as the Cold War?”

“I did not know that,” admitted Chuck.

“Yeah, they did,” confirmed Rory.

“Ruskies ran out of money for a few years in the nineties,” continued Richard, “but you can bet they don’t like playing second fiddle to America and China. Probably taking us both down at the same time.”

A quiet pause.

“I bet half of America is a smoking crater already. That’s why no military has shown up. We’re fucked.”

“You don’t need to scare everyone,” said a tiny voice. “I think this is all just an accident of some kind.”

It was Richard’s wife, Sarah, and he turned to her angrily.

“As if you know anything,” he growled. “The aircraft carriers, that destroyed village in China, DEFCON 3, train crashes, over a hundred million without power. This is no accident.”

Everyone stared at them, and she shrank away.

I turned to Irena and Aleksandr, trying to divert attention away from Sarah. “So do you think it was your Russian cousins who attacked us?”

“This,” said Irena, waving her hands toward the ceiling and sniffing, “is not an attack. An attack is when someone has a gun pointed at your head. Dis is criminals, crawling in the dark.”

“You think criminals could wipe out the entire United States and invade our airspace?”

Irena shrugged, unimpressed. “Many criminals, criminals even in the government.”

“Finally, we get to the conspiracy theories,” I said, turning to Chuck. “So is all this just an inside job?”

“One way or the other, we probably did do this to ourselves.”

“I thought you liked the Canadian theory?”

“Snow as a strategic weapon does have Canada written all over it,” agreed Chuck with a smile. “But I’d agree with Irena—the only way this makes sense is some criminal element.”

“Anyone else with an opinion?”

Nobody said anything, so I stood up to recap.

“We have the Russians and an accident with one vote each, Iran and criminals with two votes.” I held my fingers up in front of me to indicate the tally. “And the winner, and our duly elected attacker, China, with three votes!”

The door to Chuck’s apartment opened, and Lauren appeared, looking terrified.

What happened?

I stood up to hold her. “Are you okay? Is the baby okay?”

It was the first thing that came to mind.

“Baby?” I could hear Susie saying. “What baby?”

Chuck shook his head, holding up a hand to quiet her.

Lauren held her cell phone up to me. “It’s my parents.”

“They’re on the phone?”

“No, they left a message, and my phone must have picked it up before the networks went dead.”

“Was there an accident?”

“No accident, but their flight to Hawaii was cancelled at the last minute when the bird flu thing started. They were in Newark, and called to see if we could get them.”

A moment passed while I processed this.

“They’re
still
at Newark?”

“They’re
trapped
at Newark.”

Day
4 –December 26

7:35 a
.
m
.

“WAKE UP.”

I opened my eyes to blackness.

“You awake?” asked Chuck quietly but urgently.

“I am now,” I groaned, propping myself up in the bed on my elbows.

Lauren was asleep beside me, curled up away from me, holding Luke. It was still dark out. In the grayness I could just make out Chuck kneeling beside me. We’d slept in his spare bedroom.

“Is everything okay?”

“No, everything is
not
okay.”

Fear sharpened my senses, and I swung out of bed, still fully clothed.

“What happened?”

“Someone stole our stuff.”

I pulled my sneakers on. “From in here?”

He shook his head. “Downstairs.”

I took a deep breath, and my pulse began to slow.
At least someone didn’t come in when we were sleeping.

With a nod Chuck led me out into the living room. The low whine of the generator filtered its way back into my senses. Tony was asleep on the couch. Chuck nudged him awake.

“Everything okay?” said Tony, startled.

“No,” replied Chuck, kneeling to pick up some jackets and a bag. He threw the jackets at us. “Put these on, and change into some boots.”

He picked up his hunting rifle.

“We’re going outside.”

§

“Goddamn it!”

Chuck was holding a broken lock and staring into his now mostly empty storage locker. All the lockers had been broken into, but where most of the others were stuffed with bicycles and boxes of old clothing and books, Chuck’s had still been half-full of emergency gear and food.

“I guess that stuff was too heavy,” said Tony, pointing to the water containers that were still there. We wore headlamps, so as Tony looked at me, I was blinded. I looked away and inspected the locker again.

“I am so stupid,” said Chuck, swearing under his breath.

We’d checked the lobby level, and the front entrance was locked and secure, but the back door was open. Chuck had been the one with the keys, probably the only other person in the apartment block with them apart from Tony. We must have forgotten to lock it when we came in yesterday.

I’d been so cold and exhausted that I hadn’t thought of it.

“It’s my fault as well,” I said softly. “At least we dragged a lot of it upstairs already.”

“Mostly just the gadgets,” sighed Chuck.

On the way down we’d stopped on the fifth floor to knock on 514, the apartment Paul had said he was from. There’d been no answer.

In a rage Chuck had kicked the door in. The place was empty. Whoever lived there had gone away for the holidays. We’d searched through the kitchen drawers for old bills, and found only the names of Nathan and Belinda Demarco. No Paul.

After that we’d gone and knocked on all the doors on the fifth floor.

Most had been empty.

Only two apartments had answered. One of them refused to open their door no matter how we tried to explain who we were. In the other one was a scared-looking young couple, dressed in full winter gear, hoping we were emergency workers or the police.

The young couple had explained that most people on their floor had gone away for the holidays, or left when they heard of the snowstorm. The couple was leaving for the emergency shelters that morning to find transportation out of the city.

Most of the building was empty already. Our floor was the only one that was full of people, probably because of all the gear Chuck had. Nobody we talked to had ever heard of a Paul.

Chuck went and looked in a locker a few doors down.

“They must have used the Rutherfords’ kids’ sleds, and they took the snowshoes from Mike and Christine. At least they left some skis.”

There were a dozen storage lockers, and he knew everyone that used them.

“We need to go soon if we’re going to track them.”

We saw tracks leading out the back door from the lobby, a trail where they’d dragged everything out across the pristine snow that was still falling. The trail would be gone soon.

“Track them?” I asked, amazed. “We’re going to chase them into a blizzard and, assuming we find them struggling with our stuff, ask for it back?”

“You bet your ass.”

He reached into a bag he had slung around one shoulder and produced a handgun. He gave one to Tony and offered me one as well.

“Are you nuts?” I held up my hands, refusing to take it. “I don’t even know how to use one of those.”

I hadn’t said anything about the hunting rifle, but Chuck suddenly producing handguns shocked me. While criminals might be able to “easily” own firearms in New York, it was almost impossible for a regular citizen to legally own a gun. I didn’t bother asking if he had permits.

“Time to learn,” Chuck replied grimly. “Tony, you know how to use that?”

“Yes, sir. Served in Iraq.”

I looked at him. “Really?”

It suddenly struck me how little I had asked about Tony’s life. He was always the jovial presence at the door, a solid set of shoulders ever ready to help, but I’d never really gone much deeper. He was the only one of the building staff to stay, and I had a feeling he only stayed because we had, because Luke was here.

“Really.”

“Mike, why don’t you stay upstairs with the girls while Tony and I go outside?”

Taking a deep breath, I slowed things down.

I can’t hide upstairs—I want to know what’s going on out there.
Maybe I could find out what had happened at Newark, if they’d shipped people into the city, something to raise Lauren’s spirits.

I felt like I had to do something.

“You know what? I’d feel safer having Tony stay with the girls and kids.”

“You sure, Mr. Mitchell? With Lauren pregnant and all?”

Everyone knew already.

“I’m sure.”

I knew he’d take care of them like his own family, and to be honest, if they actually needed physical protection, he was a better bet than me anyway.

“I doubt we’re going to find them, and I want to visit one of the emergency shelters.”

I didn’t leave any room for discussion, so he shrugged.

We moved upstairs into the lobby, and Chuck and I began putting on the snow pants we’d brought down. Tony began explaining the firing mechanism on the handguns. He slipped a few cartridges into the pockets of the parka I was wearing.

A sense of unreality set in.

“Ready to go?” asked Chuck, pulling on heavy gloves.

I nodded and put my gloves on, noticing that they hadn’t quite dried out from yesterday.

They reeked of gas.

Tony opened the lock on the back door and threw his shoulder into it, shoving back the snow that had piled up against it again. Cold air and snow blasted into the lobby hallway. Chuck nodded at me and disappeared through the opening, and taking a deep breath, I followed him out into the swirling gray.

9:45 a
.
m
.

STRUGGLING THROUGH THE deep snow along Twenty-Fourth, we followed the tracks of the sleds until they met the steep edges of the snowbanks lining Ninth Avenue. Chuck was intent on finding the thieves, hurrying me along, but I was sincerely hoping we wouldn’t find them, scared of what might happen if we did.

My fears proved unfounded when we got to Ninth. The footprints and drag marks became hopelessly muddled with other foot traffic. Any hope of following further evaporated into the swirling snow.

Chuck stood fuming, looking up and down the street.

Dark shadows materialized out of the white to trudge past us, walking along the ravine formed by the edge of the buildings where the snowbanks ended.
Like ships passing in the night.
I nodded to one of them but got no response.

“Up to Penn Station?” I asked, knocking my boots together and shivering. I wanted to bring some news home to Lauren. I felt guilty.

Giving up on his chase, Chuck nodded, and we began climbing, hand over foot, up the steep slope of the snowbank edging Ninth Avenue. I followed him to the top, and we slid down the other side into barely ankle-deep snow.