Sarah Bowcut knelt by the side of her SWAT team’s van, aiming her M4 Commando at the empty Jersey City station. They had been swapping intelligence with the local New Jersey police teams when the call came in, and this was the nearest entrance to the Pavilion. Messages through her tactical headset confirmed operations command in Manhattan had lost contact with the special forces team that had entered the Broad Street station and a mound of rubble now blocked the route.
“They can’t keep us here twiddling our thumbs,” Captain Larry Dumont said. “What next?”
“If they want to secure the Pavilion first, I’m guessing we’ll go in from here next, regardless of the gas leak.”
“What’s the wait? It might get worse and we’ve got missing passengers down there,” he said, jabbing his muzzle toward the tunnel entrance. “Homeland Security is keeping us in the dark about something.”
“I’m sure they’ll tell us when the time’s right,” Christiansen, another team member, responded over the radio.
I’m not so sure, Bowcut thought. She peered across the river to Manhattan’s skyline, sparkling in the bright sunshine. Her family had a deep history of law enforcement spanning a century in New York City, and the view served as a constant reminder that her brother and father had raced to the scene after the planes struck the World Trade Center. Both perished when the South Tower collapsed. She had vowed to honor them by carrying out her duties with equal bravery in the face of depravity and knew that next unwanted day had arrived after the Z Train footage hit the airwaves.
Not only that, David North was in the Pavilion. Some said opposites attract, but he proved equally as useless with women as she was with men during their first four dates. They bonded by theorizing about unsolved cases and through a mutual love of pastrami sandwiches at Katz’s Deli. A clumsy kiss on the cheek had ended each meeting, along with stuttered promises to do the same again the following week. Somewhere along the way, they fell in love, and those awkward kisses had turned into something that took her breath away.
She didn’t want to lose that feeling today.
“Captain Dumont, Officer Carl Bradshaw just reemerged from the tunnel,” Dalton said through her earpiece.
“Let’s go,” Dumont said. He sprinted from the SWAT van, Bowcut following suit. They ran to the entrance of the Jersey City tunnel.
Bradshaw staggered forward, clearly traumatized. He clutched a gas mask in his left hand, and his face had the complexion of a wax figure.
Dumont ran up to the officer and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Are you all right? Carl, what happened?”
“I . . . we came across a breach in the tunnel, at marker 119,” Bradshaw replied. “A massive deep hole. There was blood . . . there was . . .”
“Easy. Tell us slowly. Where’s your partner?”
“He . . . we heard a voice so he climbed down into the breach, and . . .”
“And what?”
“It was a trap. He’s gone.”
Bowcut stared intently at the police officer and knew instinctively he was telling the horrible truth. “Carl, did you make it to the Pavilion?” she asked.
“No, but I got a message from the command center on the walkie. The mayor gave a direct order for your team to head to the Pavilion and lead them out.”
“What else?” Dumont asked.
“The tunnel’s filling with methane. It’s highly explosive. You cannot fire weapons of any kind. The people are holed up in the Pavilion without any power and the president’s heading to the DSRV.”
“Thank God,” Bowcut said. “Carl, we need you to tell us everything you know about the terrorists. How many are they? What kinds of weapons did they have? What did you see?”
“Nothing,” Bradshaw replied. “I saw nothing.”
“What do you mean?”
“They were ghosts, invisible. I saw nothing but carnage.”
Bowcut’s skin crawled at Bradshaw’s words. It wasn’t so much what he was saying, which really didn’t make a lot of sense to her, but the way he was saying it. There were so many unanswered questions in the officer’s story, but she knew he was telling them everything he knew . . . and what he knew was scaring the crap out of her.
“All right, Carl, head to the DHS coordinator for a full debrief,” Dumont said.
“Yes, sir.”
Bradshaw let out a deep breath and headed between them. A group of cops escorted him from the line to the back of a tactical response truck.
Dumont turned to Bowcut, concerned. “Sounds like we don’t have much time,” he said. “What do you think?”
“If a hundred of us go down and somebody fires a shot, we all die.” Bowcut scanned the weapons bristling behind the line and the hundreds of cops staring in her direction. “I think we follow the mayor’s order and move in with a small team. We load up with batons, knives, and whatever else we can find, and we move fast.”
“Agreed. I’ll brief the coordinator and deal with Bradshaw; you ready the guys.”
They returned to the SWAT team van and Bowcut conveyed the captain’s order. “All right, guys, we’re a go. Let’s gear up and move out.”
Dumont headed for the driver’s door of their van to call the details in to HQ.
Bowcut looked over weaponry with the stocky Christiansen and another SWAT team member, the tall Dalton. They grabbed their gas masks and borrowed some personal fighting knives from soldiers to go along with their nightsticks.
Dumont headed over to the DHS coordinator after confirming his plans with the boss. They grilled Bradshaw for a few minutes before he returned to the van.
“Homeland Security agreed to let us go in to establish their location, but we only have a small window,” Captain Dumont explained. “Operations command is preparing more teams, so let’s get down there fast and get them the information they need.”
“Do we engage?” Bowcut asked.
“Only if necessary, and if we reach the Pavilion, we’re bringing everyone straight out. It’s going to be dark so use your rifles’ hybrid sights, but whatever you do, don’t fire a shot. We still haven’t established if the first escape teams triggered an explosion in the Manhattan tunnel by opening fire. Any questions?” Nobody replied. “Okay, Bowcut, you take point. Let’s do this quickly.”
Bowcut led the team to the station. Some of the cops on the line stared at her impressive rifle. They didn’t even know the team was piloting a new sight with night vision and thermal imagining that fit comfortably on the eyepiece, meaning they didn’t need to bring goggles. The rifle could also double as a club and had a powerful beam of light mounted on top.
A weapon even when it wasn’t exactly the weapon it was supposed to be.
Adrenaline coursed through her body as she neared the glass entrance to the Jersey City subway station. Her team had served together for the last four years, arresting or killing some of the smartest and stupidest criminals in New York. They worked like a well-oiled machine. Most encounters ended peacefully, probably because the sight of laser-guided submachine guns pointed at a criminal’s chest tended to quell even the most violent assholes. Today, though, they didn’t have that option.
We’re still the best, Bowcut thought, and we’re going to get this done.
They entered the station, moving past the snipers on the mezzanine level and the soldiers tucked inside store entrances with their weapons pointing toward the track. A banner stretched over the stores, announcing the inaugural Z Train run. Shafts of sunlight shone through the vaulted glass ceiling, creating a checkered pattern on the ground. A paper cup lay on its side, next to a pool of black coffee.
Bowcut headed toward a signpost for the Z Train, descended a set of marble steps, and reached the confetti-covered platform. She jumped onto the track and faced the mouth of the tunnel.
Dalton crept to her left, Dumont and Christiansen behind in their typical overwatch formation, and the team pushed into the darkness.
“Gas masks now,” Bowcut instructed the rest of the team. She slid hers over her face. “No flashlights to give our position away. And remember what the captain said, only use your sights for identifying targets. Keep your weapons locked. Nobody pulls their trigger or we’ll all be kissing our asses good-bye.”
A quick series of nods confirmed they heard, and she moved forward, knowing they followed tightly behind. The emergency lighting in the subway had failed and the tunnel changed to pitch black the farther in they went. Bowcut switched her scope to night vision. She proceeded past the markers at a quick pace, closing on 119 faster than she was comfortable with, but the clock was ticking for the survivors in the Pavilion.
“Keep it tight,” Dumont said through her headset. “We’re close.”
“Scan the tracks,” she replied. “Look out for anything suspicious.”
“Roger,” Dalton said.
Bowcut searched for wires crossing their path, stray packages—basically anything that appeared out of place. Anyone who had infiltrated the subway system, taken out an entire train, and eliminated a special forces team was smart enough to booby-trap the tunnel.
Marker 118. They were close now.
Around a shallow bend, close to the breach, a whole section of the tunnel glowed bright green. Bowcut dropped to one knee and the team took up defensive positions.
“What the hell are we looking at?” Christiansen asked.
She had no idea. “Wait here,” she said.
Bowcut edged toward the 119 marker. On the left wall, an MTA safety box door hung open.
Her boot squashed against something. She cupped her hand over the front of her weapon-mounted light system, switched it on, and thin rays burst between her fingers.
Red spatter stained the wall. On either side of the track, maroon lumps of unrecognizable body parts lay in shallow pools of blood. A sense of gratuitous violence hung in the air.
Her heart hammered against her chest. She aimed the beam down and her boot rested on top of what looked like a length of intestine.
Bowcut staggered back.
“What have you got?” Dumont asked.
“We found where they attacked the train, Captain. It’s . . . it’s bad.”
The rest of the team crept forward. She focused her streams of light on the pools of blood.
Dumont gasped. “My God . . .”
Christiansen silently shook his head.
Dalton ripped up his gas mask and heaved.
A few feet ahead, a rope ran from the track and disappeared inside the hole. An NYPD vest lay next to it on a pile of rubble.
“This must be the breach Bradshaw mentioned,” Captain Dumont said.
“Something’s not right,” Christiansen said. “We need backup.”
“We don’t,” Bowcut replied. “If the terrorists want to live, they can’t fire, either.”
“Or they do and kill us in a suicide attack,” Christiansen retorted. “Who takes a knife to an explosive gunfight?”
“Listen up,” Dumont said. “Whoever did this might reach the Pavilion at any minute. We’re those people’s only defense, so stay sharp. Nobody else is getting butchered today. Christiansen, you and Dalton take point.”
Dalton cleared his throat, spat on the ground, and replaced his gas mask.
Bowcut stayed in her crouching position, waiting for her team to ready themselves and continue with their mission.
Nobody else is getting butchered today.
Sarah Bowcut prayed he was right, especially in David North’s case.