10:20 A.M.
UNITED STATES FEDERAL RESERVE
1135 SIXTH AVENUE
NEW YORK CITY
Tacoma waited outside the elevators, leaning against the wall. He stared at the four screens and the tunnel. The wall of light, the iodine sheet field, hummed.
After several minutes, silence in which Tacoma listened as Igor typed, Igor finally stopped typing and spoke.
“Rob, I can create a window for you to get through the sheet field,” said Igor. “It’s fifty feet. How fast can you run fifty feet?”
It took him a little over ten seconds to run the hundred-yard dash. During a race, the runner goes different speeds at different parts of the hundred yards. A good runner was fastest in the last section.
“I need four seconds. I might be able to do it in four,” said Tacoma, standing before the elevator banks.
Igor was silent for a few moments.
“Unfortunately, I believe I can only get you two point six or seven seconds, Rob,” said Igor in a soft Russian accent.
Tacoma stared blankly at the tunnel in the distance.
“Not even three?”
“No,” said Igor. “It’s two point six, maybe seven. If you can’t do it, don’t try.”
In his head, Tacoma counted out the distance between the wall at the far end of the elevator banks and the tunnel. He guessed it was approximately twice the distance. A hundred feet.
He understood he would have two and a half seconds to run through the tunnel, and that’s if he and Igor timed it perfectly. He wasn’t sure he’d ever run fifty feet that fast.
If any part of the sheet field came into contact with him, he understood the result: he would be burned alive. He would disintegrate like a matchstick tossed into an inferno.
He walked to his right, away from the tunnel, to the end of the hallway. Tacoma estimated the distance from the wall to the beginning of the sheet field. He guessed it was a hundred and twenty feet.
He had to hit the apex of his human capability at one hundred feet and accelerate. He had to hit the screens and be still accelerating when he reached the iodine sheet field. He had to run as fast as he’d ever run, and if Igor somehow fucked up and couldn’t turn off the sheet field he would die.
“Let’s do it,” said Tacoma. “I’ll start running from the elevators.”
“How long until you reach the sheet field?” said Igor. “I need to know precisely how long.”
“Exactly four seconds,” said Tacoma.
Tacoma walked to the back wall. He paced out the path all the way back to the screens, examining the carpet, looking for any ridges or anything else that might trip him up.
“On your go,” said Igor.
“Okay. Give me a minute.”
Tacoma removed his loafers, socks, pants, and shirt, dropping them in a pile on the ground. He had on a pair of red-and-gray close-fitting athletic boxers and he kept them on. The only other thing Tacoma had on was a silver necklace with a cross. He kept hold of his P226. He unscrewed the suppressor and tossed it on top of his shirt, then swung it slowly up and down, thinking about how to run with it.
Tacoma bobbed up and down on the balls of his feet, pistol in his hand. He passed it to his left, then back to his right as he jumped up and down, twisting his head, breathing quickly, getting his heart rate up, kicking his legs out. He looked like a prizefighter before a fight, raring to go, though then he took his warm-up further. He swung his arms left right and right left, then slashed a 270-degree kick to the air, pivoting in the air as his foot struck an imaginary object, eight feet above the ground.
“I’m almost ready,” said Tacoma, huffing and puffing. He held the gun in one hand, and put his right hand against the wall as he squatted into a starting position.
“You sure?” said Igor.
“Yeah,” said Tacoma.
“On my go,” said Igor. “I’ll count down and shut it off at exactly four seconds after I say the word ‘go.’ So you know, and this is not the countdown, that means five, four, three, two, one, go. At ‘go’ you start running. Not before, not after.”
“Got it,” said Rob.
“Here comes the countdown, Rob. Good luck.”
There was a long silence. Then, Igor spoke:
“On my mark,” said Igor. “Five, four, three, two, one—”
Tacoma kicked off the wall before Igor said the word “go.”
His first step hit the floor just as the word came out.
He started into a hard sprint, pistol in his hand in stride as his arms stroked furiously through the air. His legs reached for the right balance of distance and torque, and, as he approached the security screens he felt his head adjust slightly backward, as if watching as his body performed.
He was moving fast as he passed between two of the screens. He hit the tunnel at precisely 3.9 seconds after the word “go,” and fortunately Igor had anticipated it.
Tacoma entered the tunnel galloping as he kicked into the most important piece of the run. The tunnel abruptly shot dark. Tacoma hadn’t thought about the fact that the lights would go out, but he found a distant light above the far door and he pushed even harder, knowing that any loss of even a fraction of a second would kill him. He accelerated a second after he passed the screens, pushing himself as hard as he could, finding a pattern between his legs and his arms that meshed together in a continuum. He felt sharp pain in his feet, abdomen, and lungs, but he also felt the warmth of the pursuit. Tacoma closed out the last few feet and charged across the end of the tunnel, arms pumping, not thinking about stopping, just as the corridor shot bright yellow right behind him, in a laser-like tapestry of blue and orange light.
There were no windows. A column of numbers streamed up in dazzling colors at the center of the room. It looked like nothing he’d ever seen before. A round chute of vivid digits scrolling up, ascending in a tunnel fueled from within by light, a grid that climbed into the ceiling and disappeared. He searched for the hacker, but the table was empty. Tacoma turned just as a man—hidden at the entrance—swung at him, striking Tacoma in the stomach, following with a knee to Tacoma’s chin, then pivoting in a roundhouse 270-degree kick that met Tacoma’s mouth with brutal force.
As Tacoma fell, he fired. The sound of unmuted gunfire was followed by a dank thud as the bullet ripped a hole in the terrorist’s shoulder, but the man charged at Tacoma and dived to his arm, wresting the pistol from Tacoma. The hacker stood up, despite the blood coursing down his shoulder, and stepped back, giving himself room in case Tacoma went after him again. He stood at the entrance to the room. He aimed the P226 at Tacoma.
Tacoma stared into the muzzle of the pistol, then looked past the gunman, his eyes widening, as if he saw something or someone just behind the Iranian. The hacker turned and as he did his arm and part of his face were suddenly incinerated by the iodine sheet field. He dropped to the floor and blood and pieces of his internal organs spilled out.
Tacoma stood, rubbing his jaw, and kicked the dead terrorist into the sheet field. He sat down at the keyboard. He tapped his ear.
“Igor, I’m here,” said Tacoma, looking down at the keyboard, and then the lights in front of him.
“Where are you?” said Igor.
“I’m in front of a keyboard,” said Tacoma. “What’s next? Is it like a video game?”
“Whatever you do, don’t fuck with the keyboard!” shouted Igor. “I want you to type the following, all caps.”
“Go ahead.” said Tacoma.
“JACK314,” said Igor.
Tacoma typed in the letters and numbers.
“Okay,” said Tacoma.
“Hit Enter,” said Igor.
Tacoma hit Enter. In front of him, the chute of light disappeared.
“Okay, now what?” said Tacoma.
“Now what?” yelled Igor. “Now you’re a fucking hero. You just saved the Fed. No, you just saved the world!”
Tacoma turned, looking down the hallway at the iodine sheet field that surrounded him.
“That’s great,” said Tacoma. “One question. How do I get out of here?”