The flight back to Manhattan, in rain and wind, seemed to take just five minutes, as John Wyse and Maria Cabrini excitedly recounted the events of the last few hours. The medical team had stayed behind in Washington to coordinate the new medical response. Wyse was dropped off at the helipad on Pier 6 and a few minutes later he was walking in the front door of the Fifth Precinct station. Maria accepted the pilot’s offer to drop her back to the hospital. As she looked down on the spectacular, illuminated skyline of a Manhattan that had been devastated by sickness, she wondered if she would ever be able to joke about the day she made the commute by police helicopter.
Back in the Oval Office, the President of the United States was standing at the window, very still, and staring blankly across the gardens towards the Lincoln Memorial. The vice president was sitting on a chair, his elbow resting on the President’s desk. Everyone else had left and the room was quiet. Eventually the President spoke, without turning away from the window.
‘The Manhattan Project,’ he said. There was a silence.
The vice president hesitated. ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’
‘The Manhattan Project,’ repeated the President, quietly.
‘Yes, of course, sir. I remember. That was our codename for the secret project to develop the bomb we dropped on Hiroshima.’
The President turned around and looked grimly at his right-hand man. ‘And just look at Manhattan now. I suspect,’ he glanced down at the name he’d scribbled on his notepad, ‘that Mr Tsan Yohoto remembered that too.’
*
8 P.M.
The beauty of the MetLife Stadium is its easy access.
‘Come on, Dad, hurry up, we’ll be late! Come on, Mom.’ Ryan Patel, almost sick with excitement, had practically dragged his parents through the car lot and onto the first of two escalators leading to the back of their seating area. The family stepped off the escalator into the oval-shaped concourse which runs along the back of the stands. All around this area, fast food restaurants, Coca-Cola stalls and bars clamour brightly for business.
Standing to the left of the door into one of the washrooms, Police Officer Earl Finch was having a good time. A shift at the Giants games was always welcome. There was rarely any trouble, apart from the odd drunk or pickpocket, and, by standing on the first couple of steps into the seats, he got to see most of the game. For free.
Officer Finch frowned as he tried to interpret the message crackling through on his radio. He pressed ‘transmit’.
‘Say again please, over.’ He listened again as the message was repeated, more slowly. His frown turned incredulous. He looked to his left where a long line of fans were eagerly waiting for their ninety-nine cent BurgerFantastic. At the top of the line, a man in a blue Giants shirt was paying for his family’s meal. Leaving the counter was a very pretty young girl, wearing a novelty Giants wig. Her dainty hands were dwarfed by the supersized BurgerFantastic, which she was holding in a paper napkin. She started to raise the burger, to take a bite.
‘Hey,’ shouted Officer Finch, striding urgently towards her.
But the girl couldn’t hear him over the noise.
‘Hey, there!’ The burger reached her lips and she began to open her mouth. Officer Finch turned his last few steps into a dive and the punch he threw split Lauren Patel’s lip, as her BurgerFantastic flew into the face of the astonished BurgerFantastic manager.
*
9.07 P.M.
John Wyse sat down wearily at his desk, his head spinning. He was collecting his thoughts ready to brief Connolly when the burly sergeant suddenly appeared beside him.
‘Yo, John, there’s a rumour goin’ around they’ve found the source of this damn food poisoning. You gonna tell me about it anytime soon?’
‘Sure, sergeant. It’s complicated.’
‘Okay, but before you do, there’s a call just come in from a Dr Conrad Jones at the Patrick J. Brock Memorial. Says they’ve got two people over there posing as maintenance crew. Thinks they’re up to no good. You and Cabrini wanna take it?’
‘Yeah, no problem.’
‘Okay, the doc says he’ll be waiting around the back entrance.’
‘I got it,’ said Wyse, standing up and automatically patting his left upper chest to confirm his gun was holstered. He speed dialled Cabrini, but Mike’s phone was off. He ran down the stairs to the first floor and used the radio to try the radio in their car. There was no response. He jogged back up the stairs. ‘Anyone seen Cabrini?’
‘Can’t raise him,’ said Connolly, shaking his head. ‘Haven’t seen him since he took a late lunch. He’s not answering his cell. Smith and Williams are AWOL too. If those fuckers have gone on the beer, just when we need everyone we’ve got –’
‘Maybe they’re sick?’ Wyse interrupted, doubting himself, even as he said it. Jesus, Mike, don’t let me down now. Of all times.
‘Some chance,’ grunted Connolly. ‘Anyway, no time to lose. I’ll sort those clowns later. Take Carroll.’
‘Kevin, come on,’ said Wyse, beckoning the young Irish detective.
*
9.09 P.M.
Conrad Jones had spotted them again, stepping into an elevator at the other end of the corridor, pushing their damn curtain on wheels. They went up, he observed, as the floor numbers lit up, in turn, over the elevator door. Even though they were wearing white coats, hats and facemasks, Conrad Jones was sure they were the same two he had seen twice before. Goddamn, we’ve enough to be doing right now, he thought, taking down all the cephalosporin lines in a hurry, without any more distractions. But he had a feeling there was something strange about these two. The policeman had told him that two detectives were on the way. Conrad had said he would meet them in the service yard at the back.
*
9.12 P.M.
Wyse drove. He killed the siren a block from the hospital and drove quietly into the service yard. Most of the yard was taken up with a dozen or more black hearses, in a line outside the mortuary. There were a few cars parked on the left, and a white Toyota van, with Hospital Maintenance Services displayed on the side.
‘There he is,’ said Kevin Carroll, pointing at Conrad Jones who was wearing a white coat and standing outside a door marked Deliveries.
Wyse pulled in and, a minute later, the doctor was taking them to the service elevator.
‘Two of them,’ he said. ‘Third time I’ve seen them messing around with curtains in the wards. Except I checked and we don’t have an outside maintenance contractor for the curtains.’ He hit the button. ‘They went to the top floor,’ he said.
They stepped out into the lobby of the twenty-second floor and paused to look through the glass doors into the Elms Ward.
‘There they are, look,’ said Conrad Jones in a low voice, opening the door wide and stepping into the long, rectangular ward. They walked slowly between rows of tightly packed beds and trolleys on either side. The maintenance crew closed the curtains around the last bed in the row and started heading for the door at the far end.
‘I think they’ve seen us,’ said Carroll.
‘Police, stop!’ called out Wyse.
The two figures hurried out through the door at the far end, leaving their curtain on wheels behind them.
‘Let’s go,’ said Wyse, breaking into a run. Four seconds later, he was pulling open the door. The two suspects were about twenty paces away, walking fast along a long narrow corridor. Wyse and Carroll began to jog after them.
‘Stop. Police. Stop. Now!’ shouted Wyse. The two figures ahead of them began to run and so did the two detectives. The two white coats disappeared around a corner and Wyse and Carroll drew their guns as Wyse flattened himself against the wall and peered around. The fugitives were halfway along another long corridor, sprinting now. Wyse and Carroll rushed after them.
‘Stop. Armed Police!’
The escapees had reached a door at the end of the corridor. One of them grabbed the handle. It was locked. He spun around with a gun pointing at Wyse and Carroll, who dived for the floor and fired three shots each, in rapid succession. The two figures in white coats crumpled to the ground. The detectives dashed the last five yards and stood over the bodies. Carroll kicked the gun on the floor out of reach, which was unnecessary, given the large hole in the gunman’s forehead. Wyse’s target was lying face down and a bright red bloodstain was soaking through the back of the white coat, between the shoulder blades. The figure convulsed two or three times.
‘Easy now,’ said Wyse, pointing his gun at the fugitive’s head, the face partly covered by a surgical mask which had slipped upwards. He slowly turned the body into the recovery position, on its right side. There was no resistance. ‘Easy now.’ He pulled down the facemask and his heart froze with shock. Staring up at him were the dead eyes of Anna Milani, his fiancée.